Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 05/15/2024 Ask the Expert with Larry Dawson

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05/15/2024 Ask the Expert with Larry Dawson · WCHS Network Podcasts

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Unlock your dream property with Meek's Realty Group, where Rich the realtor makes real
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Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us. The views and opinions expressed on
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this program do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS it's
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employees or WVRC Media. Hey, and Eric, was a good morning to
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you. You're listening to as the expert WHS the Voice of Charleston. It
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is Wednesday. It is the third Wednesday of the month. That means that
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we're welcoming in into our studio. It's Larry Dawson from Larry Dawson's Auto Sales.
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Staved or I'm sorry, my goodness, gracious, I just went back
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in the math. Yeah, yeah, right, I only do these twice
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a month, right, uh, Steven's audit. Well, look, Larry
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Dawson was from Larrydawson's Auto Sales for a generation in the canall and Larry is
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now an unofficial advisor spokesperson for Stevens Auto which is at the same location for
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eighteen First Avenue South in Nitro, West Virginia, and the phone number is
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the same seven two seven zero four six four three zero four seven two seven
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zero four six four. We'll be talking about all kinds of things, including
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Stevens Auto as the show goes along today. But as always, you're welcome
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to Wayne and talk to Larry a lot of folks out there that just like
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to talk to Larry about business and life and Nitro and also, you know,
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if you have questions about cars or the automotive industry, Larry can help
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with that as well. You and give us a call this morning. Three
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zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three four five fifty eight fiftyeight.
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How you doing man, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I
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have the opportunity Monday. I was telling you and Sean that I played in
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the Will Washbourne Memorial torment Monday this past month, which was a beautiful day,
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sleep yallow young man unfortunately passed and he'd been a senior this year.
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It was a good crowd, good calls, good everything excellent, excellent.
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I admire his parents, As I said, it just would be very dificult.
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You know, I've lost a child to stand up there and do this
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and and and be able to to promote and and not have those breakdowns.
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And they just do an excellent job that they washboorn and the community just shows
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their their their the strength of that community down in the Putnam County area.
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But it was a very very beautiful day for a cause that you know the
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reason behind it is isn't good. But the opportunity for us to advance and
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pull our resources together. It's it was just a really really nice uh activity
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that was going on down to Sleepy. But on all it's good. You
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know, it's you. It's you get stuck on old habits and and yes,
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Larry Dawson's audit els. But the Stevens Auto Group is alive and doing
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well. You know my former spot. I still get up every morning and
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drive next door to them because I maintain little office, but I say hi
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to them. I want I just they could not find a better advocate for
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because I want them to do well. I see them doing well. I
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see the cars going in and out, I see the activity. I see
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my former staff which is their staff, and everything seems to be firing on
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all eight cylinders. I talked to Jody, and I really, Jody's the
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one I knew. I didn't even know Joe. Jody Johnson is a wonderful
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fellow. He's the sales manager over there, and you could start ask for
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a nicer fella. He come up. He come over Monday and he said,
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Larry, he said, did a bundle of paper towels fault, you
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know, get dropped off here? And I said, no, Jody,
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way looking for you so well that they were going to deliver our supplies and
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we're out of paper towels. I said, come on back here, man,
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I got some paper. That's what you want. That's what you wanted,
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and I wouldn't want it any other way. And I tell you,
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Richard Stevens and Chase and just a whole group, and you know, you
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just go out there and it's something you did and you just got. On
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January fifteenth, when we all signed the papers, I walked out. I
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said, you know, it's it's not my back in Baltimore, but I'm
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one to cheer for them, and I'm go on sheer as loud as I
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can because I don't want anything to fail. Kim and I was talking coming
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up the road and she said, you know, Larry, she said,
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there could pee people and I could understand you walk away from something to go
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well, they're not doing it. He said, you have been optimistic from
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the day you walked out there, promoting and wanting and speaking very highly.
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And that's just me. I mean, it's I had my turn at bat,
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I swung, I had some strikes, I had some home runs and
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five balls and I struck out, walked a few times, got hit by
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a few balls. But I never gave up the game. And when it
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was time for me that, you know, I thought, how many more
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bats do you have? You know, how many more times do you have
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the opportunity? And even if you scored, how's it really going to adjust
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your life anymore? And that was analysis that my brother called me about.
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I think of last October and he was getting ready to retire. Matter of
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fact, he may have retired, and he said, let me ask you
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a question. He said, two O two four. Let's say you have
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an average game, average year. I'm trying to put it in parallel of
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a ball game, but you have an average year, not to worst,
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not to best. You just got to work real hard. He said,
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how's that really going to enhance the rest of your life? And I thought
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about it. I thought, you know, he's right. So that's when
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it was time that I realized we're going to let a different group come in
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and chase as you've met here as much younger than me. He's very oriented
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and goal oriented, and he's instructing along with his partner Richard, and they're
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going to do quite well whatever spot they're in. They have the Ford Crosser
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store there in Danville Madison area, which I drove by. I went down
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to Pikeville watched Oliver Anthy concerts. I went by I hadn't been down in
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that area and went by Richard's store, and they have one over in Somersville.
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They have a superstore over there, and they have one down in Beckley,
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and they bought the old King colech Chevrolet, which was a great spot
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O'khill. And they have a Minsubishi store in Princeton, and now they have
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a new superstore in Kanol Valley, which formerly was mine. But you put
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that all together, they've got the basis coverage. You know, they're not
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beside each other, but they're in designate areas, and I think I don't
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know, and I'm gonna speculate, and Jason Richard, you can text me
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and tell me. I think that that Oak Hill spot's kind of on fire.
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I think it's doing really well. I mean I kind of see things
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and hear things. But they've went into areas and they've done a very good
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job. And we'll continue and I'll continue to promote until maybe one day that
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Bat and ball Ley's movement. We were talking before we walked on, and
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it seems like the theme or the term everybody talks about to sese interest rates.
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And I believe I've said this a few shows ago. I think if
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you're setting wait for those interest rates to go down, you got really long
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wait. You may have it wait forever. I think these interest rates where
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they're setting at it allows comfortability in your investments to where you can get the
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safe money because, like you said, when it was zero for the consumer,
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it was a zero for the retiree. And so we've moved it up
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there to the spot somewhere. It starts with a five five point something that,
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yeah, if you borrow you you're going to get seven percent. You're
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gonna have to pay but you're getting five something on your money. It's safe
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money, you know, treasure bl CD or something like that. So the
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spread is relatively good. You know, you can borro against your money and
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and just pay that spread. It might be one point, something might be
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two and sore. That will create your two percent interest. You know,
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if you've got let's just say you got a five percent CD and you borrow
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at two percent over you're barred at two percent. Well, when you could
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borrow at two percent, your money was getting nothing. So I think we're
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kind of in a good sweet spot. I mean, if you look at
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the graph that you and I pulled up and I got it here on my
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phone, I mean, if you go back, well, let's go back
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to eighty seven. That's the year that I opened a store up and well,
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these graphs small and I got a small screw. We'll get her down
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here. And eighty four was goett It was around twelve and a half.
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Yeah, twelve and a half percent interest. See, we had came out
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in nineteen seventy EIGHTI ish when I first went in business, interest rates climbed
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clear to eighteen percent. And we were selling cars, and we sold cars
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that we sell as many not, but made you appreciate what you got because
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you were really paid some interest to it. Then things got cheaper or less
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expensive. In the interest rate world. I think the trading cycle got advanced
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up because people are trading, you know, like you you explained to me
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in the green room that when you had these mortgages and rates was following,
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you could refie, pull money out and do it more often. You can
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literally save money, save terms and make cash basically out of your equity.
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It was an easy time to do mortgages, so there's always a bottom.
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So when we hit bottom and not using the word bottoms of the back thing,
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but the bottom of the interest rates and started climbing up. I watched
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over the life of my business experience that I think when we were doing the
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best is when we had interest rates. So when I say we, i'm
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including in the consumer, the business person in the world in general, is
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when those interest rates were five six seven, because that's really what the colony
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was built on, and when when it when you go down to zero,
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there's a small segment will prosper by that, but there's gonna be a large
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segment we'll pay for that and getting a text from Judge Daglis. Yes,
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but it's it's it's over my area. That's what I think. I mean,
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just as a guy that sold independent you know, an independent car dealer
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in Nitro. Now, mind you, I started in eighty seven. I
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did a ten years prior for a couple of dealers, so I saw some
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pretty tough times. I watched christ for a get on a brink of bankruptcy
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a couple times and get sold. And then when we had the I called
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the nuclear winter in UH seven eighth nine era, you know, Crosstro went
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out, General Motors, fould and four hawked it all up and they were
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able to survive. But you know, we were in tough ways and then
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all of a sudden we started printing this money and UH enters got very low.
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But as far as economy far, the automobile business, I think we're
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in a good, good, good segment of the economy. Now cars has
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went up, what hasn't but those wages. You know you probably occasionally look
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at Facebook. I'll look at it. There's some job opportunities out there at
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numbers that stagger may as a young man. I mean, you know,
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when I grew up, you had an opportunity maybe into some plants in the
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valley where you go to college and get educated and you know, becoming a
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you know, attorney or something. But look at what new course paying starting
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pay. We got a call, Yeah, we do, Judge Douglas,
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I believe it's called in this morning. He has a question of comment for
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Larry. Good morning. How are you doing this morning? Good morning,
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Joel. Solicitations, gentlemen, solicitations. Glad to hear your voice, Larry,
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Thank you, sir. I'll be quick. My significant other and I've
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been talking about hybrids. We know that evs are running up and down.
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They get a little bit more expensive than there's gasoline. And I've been interested
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in hybrids for some time, but I wanted your take on it because it
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seems like they're electric range thirty or forty miles doesn't justify the investment. I
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just wanted your thoughts about hybrid cars. I if I had to pick one
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of the three. You know, let's say this is where we're going to
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go, we stay fuel gasoline or do we you go all electric hybrid?
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See it? I mean, I think Jim, they've got that down.
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Some of the manufacturers, I probably have it down a little bit better,
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just as a personal experience of my neighbor just bought a Sequoia and I walked
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over Brian Stover, he's retired dept to Sheriff. I went over and said,
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man, that's pretty Can I look at and we start talking about it,
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and it's a hybrid. It's you know, gasoline fire with the hybrid.
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And he was to explain to me, I think, and this is
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my personal car man experience, that's where we should go. That's where we
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should concentrate. Pull a plug on that electric forget about that. Now.
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There might be areas. I noticed that Amazon has got to flee these electric
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cargo vehicles. That probably works, but forced American people to go all electric.
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I just don't see it, especially because not everything is flat and the
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right humidity, and you have places that you can do, you know,
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put the stations, you know, West Virginia. Could you imagine me making
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a trip to Snowshoe and rely on a battery only car. It's just anxiety,
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judge. We're not gonna make it. I mean, you and I
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would just have to get a room somewhere just to plug in. Man,
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it's just nothing to do it. So I don't know, you know,
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I I'm just not smart enough to understand all this. But I am a
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common sense person and I do believe, and Prius was the first one of
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the first ones to come out. The Priest was a hybrid, and you
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know, it's been out you can google about twenty years, and that technology
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has only advanced. I kind of fear that there was such a pushback in
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some areas against the prea more of a cultural pushback than anything else against the
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Prius. I feel like that was a little unfair, because, like you're
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talking about, that would have been a nice area to land in to develop
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a more robust because there wasn't really all that many hybrids that got rolled out
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after the Prius, although it was fairly successful and also culturally was not really
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overly accepted broadly in the US. But that I drove a Prius a lot.
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I didn't really love the car, but the technology was pretty decent,
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I thought, And I was a little surprised that we didn't go farther down
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the hybrid route before we went to electricity. Well, I've wondered too since
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the seventies and we had the era but oil in Bargo, everybody was talking
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about hydrogen powered cars, and I guess that technologies either have been caught up
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by the oil companies. I'm sounding paranoid, of course. Yeah, if
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you, if you follow the manufacturer that I think is the lead dog,
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and listen, the lead dog changes in the automobile world. But right now,
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just my humble opinion as far as the hybrid technology, follow Toyota.
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Follow who I'm trying. I mean, I think Toyota right now is in
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first place with their technology, is hybrid or crossover, whatever the words you
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want to use. I'm not promoting there a better car. I'm just saying
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I think that their technology right now is first place. Well, I saw
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a little ad about I mean just fleeting, and I didn't catch all the
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details of Mercedes is trying to come out with the hybrid, and I didn't
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know whether y'all knew anything about that or not. No, I do not.
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Okay, all right, thanks, I appreciate it very much. Thank
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you. S just thank you very much. That leads up the mine open
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for you three zero four three four five fifty eight fifteen if you'd like to
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get in three zero four three fifty eight When you when I said that you
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know, there's always here. Here's an example of the first or the lead
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dog. And I think still is they quit making it, and that they
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have the PACIFICA Chrysler, to me has always been in first place with many
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fams. My goodness, that is the truth. Barnunt. I can remember
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when I was working for Ce down here at the Dodge store. We did
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a dealer trade with running music up at Brown and they were a Chrysler dealer,
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and we went we took something up and the first one that came in
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what Dodge was a standard Shift and I piled guys in and we went up
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there and I knew then, I said, this is a winner. Now
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I'm driving a standard shift. Many I don't know if I've ever seen one
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of the Gooes. Well they first come out, you know, that was
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eighty two is or so. But Barnunt has always had. Then you have
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a manufacturer called Jeep, they have something. Now Ford's chasing it with a
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Bronco. But in the automobile world, everybody's chasing somebody. If not,
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they just all lay down. And so I'm not taking away from any manufacturer.
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There's there's some that's superior, and we can argue trucks. We can
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do whatever. But right now I think the hybrid technology is leaning toward TUA.
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Now that that doesn't mean it is not gonna change. You know,
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we might have lenses up and you just don't know. It's once again back
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that minivan. In my career of selling automobiles, previously owned automobiles at Nitro
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West Virginia, I sold my share of minivans number one. I believed in
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them. I tell you what, if you gave me a like a two
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thousand and four tricked out caravan, I would never need another car. My
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wife shop thought she would get me. The other day. She's like,
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she said, I think our next car should be a minivan, and she
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kind of sneered. I was like, oh, yes, it should.
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She's like, you want one? I'm like, I love manyvans. Are
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you kidding me? Well? I ran into a friend of mine who just
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retired, so he was an intimate dealer just like myself, and we were
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we were walking the Center hardware and he bought a christ pacificate to kind of
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retire. He's driving in an old, old, what's called a beater caravan.
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And I've known ed for a long time and that's normally what he drove,
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and you know I go along with it. Those we Yeah, the
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years that we are chasing automobiles, we always had to have that car to
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run the DMV, running it apart, Run get this, run that,
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and we still do. And it's a caravan. It's an older caravan.
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You can slide those doors open and lay those seats down and run the SAMs,
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get all your supplies. I mean, it's just something that they seem
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like they were the premiere van. There's other cars that are so much more
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room than these SUVs and stuff that they have on now that families. I
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mean those caravans. You could put anything in those things and plus a lot
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of kids. Yeah, ex likely. Man, it amazes me that all
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these SUVs that take up so much room on the road now they're giant when
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you look at like the comparison over thirty years on how big these things have
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gotten. The xterior are so much bigger, but interior you don't really necessarily
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have any more room. Well, Jenny is in nursing school at Bridge Valley
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and she had the three grandkids or thirteen, eleven and nine, and there
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in every activity course, everything you could do and she's a single mother,
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and Kim's the grandmother, and and they her old Seaena van was just it
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was this wore out, long story short. In October, she Kim says,
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you know, I've got to get Genny something to get her through college.
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She's closed, she'll be five. So I said, Kim, and
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my humble opinion, let's go get a pacifica. I called her friend of
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mine. I said, drive a Pacific go out bike. I said,
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get me a white one loaded up, all will drive. And we drove
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out bike and we bought it. And now Jenny's an attractive thirty seven year
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old girl. And was that we got your you know, new vehicle.
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I think maybe her mind drifted like Tahoe or something like that, and it
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was a van. But she loves it, yes, And let me tell
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you the things she loves the most people. It's got a vacuum cleaner in
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it. Oh wow, yeah that's nice. And you got three children.
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Oh man, I know all about that. So those are that. I
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mean, we wouldn't have this conversation. I think twenty years ago that we
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might had one in the little Dustbusters. This thing's got vacuum because it's nice
19:10
So there's so many things out ter in technology, and we're talking about hybrids
19:14
and all that, but there's other things that just come to the forefront that
19:17
is amazing. You know, whether you're air conditioned seats or heat hot seeds,
19:21
you're nav And here's the thing that was leaving me, or maybe I
19:26
was leaving it. And I've said this before, there was twenty different reasons.
19:32
I just so I decided to choose retirement or semi retirement or twilight in
19:37
my career, whatever the heck you want to call it. But technology.
19:41
I'm not a savvy technology gap, and we had to bring in somebody young
19:47
that understood because it's coming. You know, if it's built right now twenty
19:51
twenty four on an independent blot, you're going to see it in four or
19:53
five years. Well that technologists is the same. If you haven't learned,
19:57
then you're surely not going to learn in four or five years. Well I
20:02
was falling behind. I mean, could I I guess if I spent every
20:04
daying moment trying to learn it, I'm coachable, but I had other things
20:10
of my up late. I'm probably more Actually, I think I'm a little
20:12
more savvy now because I don't have any more time to mess with it,
20:15
right, Yeah, should I actually figure it out? I started reading a
20:18
book yesterday and I got into it, and I haven't read in years now.
20:22
I started reading again last year and it changed my life again. Well
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there you go. But we needed and you know that. I meet a
20:29
guy who is thirty four or five sixty seven years old and his name's Chase.
20:33
Well, you know, I don't know where Chase went to school.
20:36
I think down Rowley County, but I know he's so computer savvy. I
20:40
mean I watched these these I call him youngsters. They're not youngsters, you
20:42
know, they're men. They're youngsters of my age. But that's what has
20:47
got to be brought into the automobile world. US sells people older. That's
20:52
more seasoned. That's a good word, seasoned. That it's forced us.
20:59
You know, if you go in a new car store, you've got to
21:00
get certified. Well you're gonna get certified not with a pen and paper,
21:03
by the computer. And there's a lot of entries you have to make now
21:07
when you do a excel to let the manufacturer know, you know, who
21:12
sold to I've got a truck sitting after in a lot, and I have
21:17
a smartphone in front of me. I do some a lot of things to
21:21
that truck by sitting here. Oh yeah, right now that they were slow
21:26
explaining to me. It took me a little bit, you know, to
21:30
wrap my arms around it. But it's pretty nice on a cold winter day.
21:33
Sure, sitting here talking to you by pushing a button and know those
21:37
doors locked a car stock, Yeah, you're the one to turn into a
21:38
mix's mo overdrive situation where it gets a life of its own or something right
21:41
exactly. I pulled into the wheel wash moren tournament and it said something about
21:47
updating on the screen that looks like a big screen TV. I walked over
21:52
and Mike Maddox was there. I bought to f one fifty for Mike.
21:55
I said, Mike, that thing's out there, tell me it's going to
21:57
update, or just say. You bring up such a good point there.
22:03
And I think a lot of folks that we've talked about this before, and
22:04
I've brought it up kind of. I think even just the last show I
22:07
brought it up. But I really think there's a market to make a really
22:10
well made modern car, but make it as analog as possible. I agree.
22:15
I think that there would be like if a major manufacturer like a Ford
22:18
or a Chevy or something came out with something like that, I think there
22:19
would be people lining up to buy that thing that had like maybe not knobs,
22:23
but buttons for your radio, you know, not touchscreen, but buttons,
22:26
you know, like you know, take something like from like nineteen ninety
22:30
nine or two thousand. Maybe you have Bluetooth connectivity and stuff like modern convenience,
22:33
but other than that, you don't have a ton of stuff integrated into
22:37
that car. I think that car would do well. And the reason I
22:38
bring that up you said about how technology was kind of lea. I was
22:41
the guy I was when I first got in on here full time. It
22:45
was as part of my job was to be it. That's how it was
22:48
like kind of my entrance to get back into radio is I was it when
22:51
radio and I did it. This was back in twenty ten, and so
22:53
I helped at it around here and for years after we we never no longer
22:59
had an official it here. I was sort of the de facto if nobody
23:02
else was available in the corporation, they came to me for these things.
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I'm at the point now where I'm in the middle of this chain. I'm
23:07
not the guy that's near the top where the question terminates with me. I'm
23:11
the guy that's like, Okay, in my limited knowledge, can I answer
23:15
your question? Because if not, I'm going to have to go to one
23:15
of these younger guys that's in the company that knows how to do this stuff
23:18
better than me. I was that guy before. You know, I had
23:22
a computer in nineteen eighty three when nobody else even had one. You know,
23:26
I was on the cutting edge of technology for most of my life,
23:29
and it is passing me by, and there's no question about it. Stay
23:33
close to younger people, Stay close to your grandchildren because we are going I'm
23:40
going to need them. And you're right. I mean, I consider you're
23:44
an extremely smart fella. I've sat here for many years and watch you work
23:48
with this in the systems, and I can see where it can pass.
23:52
I think one time I might have been right there at the top of my
23:55
car game. Well, I think I'm still pretty good. But there's a
23:59
lot of things that how you analyze automobiles and how you analyze the sale system
24:04
of it, and the communication with the lenders and the communication with your advertising
24:10
would just pick. However you're gonna do it. It's gonna be digital.
24:12
It's going to be digital. You know when you're the old guy that sits
24:17
there in the old ways that you saw Randy Daniels come in, you sit
24:21
and talked about aversement and Sean's doing a wonderful job. But it's not how
24:26
I came up doing it. Sure, yeah, it's just different. Let's
24:30
go ahead and do this. So we've been chatting for a long time here,
24:32
we're going to take a break and get some commercials in and if you
24:34
want to get in and talk to Larry before we have to leave the airwaves
24:37
this morning, you can do that during the break. Threes are four three
24:40
four five fifty to fifty eight three four five fifty to fifty. You can
24:41
also text over any comments or questions you have if you would like that.
24:45
Numbers three zero four none, three five five zero zero eight three zero four
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non three five five zero zero eight. You're listening to Ask the Expert with
24:52
Larry Dawson representing Steven's Auto Group of Nature this morning. You can find Steven's
24:55
Auto at four eighteen First Avenue South in Nitro West Virginia three zero four seven
24:59
two Evans zero four six four. We'll take a break and be back right
25:02
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as the export see hs the Voice of Charles and closing it when the end
26:27
of the program this morning it is eight forty eight. You're listening to Larry
26:32
Dawson from Steven's Auto Group in Nitro, West Virginia. Give us called this
26:34
morning three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three zero four,
26:37
three four five to fifty fifty eight. That's what Jerry did this morning as
26:40
question or comment for Larry Jerry, Good morning, how you doing, Good
26:41
morning fellows, Good morning day. There was a show on TV last week
26:47
on how technology is making life miserable for many many people, especially older people.
26:53
Oh yeah, and we all know that the kinds of options and new
27:00
cars today are enough to drive you crazy. There are so many buttons and
27:06
options on your steering wheel alone that you get lost in trying to figure out
27:12
how do I get my speedometer to show? And when I bought my new
27:17
car, I had gone about fifteen blocks and I couldn't keep my car out
27:26
of the lane. In other words, when I wanted to switch lanes,
27:27
the car wanted me to stay in my lane. I had to go back
27:32
to the dealer to show me how to turn that off when I go through
27:38
Oh, let's say it's a sunny day and you drive through a shady area.
27:45
I'm hearing a ding. What is that? What is that ding?
27:48
It's telling me my headlights are off? What's broad daylight? And the windows,
27:56
here's a simple one. When I want to put my window where I
28:00
want it, I push the button. The window goes all the way up
28:04
or all the way down. I don't want that. I want the window
28:07
where I want it. And this is just a small part of the idiotic
28:15
options that are on cars today that these geniuses dream up just to say we
28:22
have more options than the next guy. Well, especially us older people,
28:26
we don't care about any of that. All we want our car to do
28:30
is drive. And you know, today it seems like, especially the younger
28:37
set, they're worried more about the options than they are the reliability of the
28:47
car itself, about the engine, about the transmission. They don't even look
28:52
at that. What are my options? Can I charge my cell phone,
28:59
you know, and Wi Fi and Bluetooth. It's just nonsense, and I
29:03
think most people would agree. And that's all I have to say. Thank
29:07
you, thanks Jerry. When my mother's last car I got for her.
29:12
I don't mother would be ninety six, probably ten to twelve years ago,
29:18
maybe just a touch longer. But I bought the last column shift automatic up
29:26
here, you know where you take your right hand he dropped down. But
29:29
anyway, the last column shift was Afford Tars and that was her concern.
29:34
She said, I don't want to sit in a bucket seat and have that
29:38
shift lever. I understood that in yes, and those are things that you
29:45
know, if we stay around, it seems like how everything goes full circle.
29:48
But you were bringing back an entry level car that has just a convenient
29:53
package, not all these other things as Jerry was speaking of. And I
29:57
believe that Derry is room in the market for a column shift. You know,
30:03
there is people that aren't blessed with maybe being relatively average size for whatever
30:10
reason, you know, they take up a little bit more space. That
30:12
column shift does help, you know, and normally it will give you some
30:15
type of an arm rest, a storage capacity area. And I'm you know,
30:22
I'm fine with that, and I think there was a lot of people
30:23
fine with that. It seems like to me, and I've noticed this.
30:27
I bought a vehicle here, I don't know. I've bought a new Explorer
30:32
bout three years ago and it had a turn nob on it. You know,
30:36
the Explorer is a wonderful vehicle. I never really got my arms right
30:38
here. I just wasn't comfortable with I hear you and could I be?
30:42
I don't know, man, I can't help, but just to wonder if
30:45
a manufacturer got together it took all that we've learned over these years and said,
30:51
okay, I just want to create a great running vehicle, and like
30:55
Jerry said, not worry about the option so much. It's just create a
30:56
good car using all the knowledge that we now have. Kind of a car
31:00
that you actually come up with called a top ten in other words, just
31:03
safe. What's the ten best? Yeah, well, probably kind of forgetting
31:07
in it. But you do not need all those as set. The issue
31:10
is, of course, is the functional obsolescence that comes with everything that you
31:12
buy today. You're expected to buy it again in five years. So I
31:17
mean, if you can make something too well, you're not going to get
31:18
somewhere to buy again in five years. We're seeing things that's happening that I
31:22
guess if you live long, if you're going to see it you know,
31:25
in most small areas, small town, small community, USA, you always
31:30
have the independent car dealer. You probably have near the interstate, the new
31:36
car dealer. You'll have a service garage non franchise, and you have a
31:40
service garage franchise that is affiliated with the new car stores such as Nitro,
31:45
Walker's Chevrolet New Car, Steven's Auto Independent, and they're affiliated with a new
31:52
car, but you know they are operating as an independent or a used car
31:56
facility. But where I'm going with this our grocery store, I read last
32:01
night where we're going to lose our grocery. Well, in my coming to
32:07
Nitro four decades ago eighty five working for Scott Runyon, we had Andre Heikel,
32:15
and Andre Heikel occupied that store until his passing a couple of years ago.
32:21
And uh, a lady that has it, she's made it about a
32:24
year. But what I noticed, and I said this to Kim coming up
32:28
the road, Andre passed away. Good family, the Haikeel family. We
32:32
in the LRA's bought a lot of property from the Henkel family, but the
32:37
customers didn't pass away. What happened, What happened in a three year that
32:42
Andre passed and that the but I mean there might have been a few customers
32:49
passed, but there was some born also. I mean that becomes into the
32:52
age. Something happened, somebody broke the chain of of how andre did it.
32:59
And that's what you have to be careful of. Is when you go
33:01
in in a small town and you do acquire a business, if someone has
33:07
been there a long time and was working for them, you might want to
33:12
leave it alone. You might want to let it stay that way. Now
33:15
if you want to make changes, let's make real subtle changes. If you
33:20
go in there and change it completely, whether the operation, the inventory,
33:23
or whatever it may be, you know what was wrong with that? And
33:27
I think that I'm seeing this in small towns. And somebody said, Larry
33:31
Dawson's grocery not true. Business is about as easy as the restaurant business.
33:40
Well that's and that's that's probably the toughest business because we're our headlines are full
33:45
of closings of of stores. I saw where I think red lobsters getting ready
33:52
file bankruptcy. You know, we are losing what we had around and we
33:58
just took for granted this small town community. We need to honor, we
34:02
need to patronize. We need to go to these small stores, whether it
34:07
be your independent, your grocery store. I went to Center Hardware yesterday,
34:12
didn't need to buy much. Guess who was there, JD. Guess who
34:15
I said hi to? JD. J D. Anderson owns it, his
34:19
father owned it. And honestly, I've been going in that store as far
34:22
back as I can remember, and not much has changed. It works,
34:28
and I just am a big believer. If it's working, don't try to
34:32
fix it because there's nothing to fix now. Can you tweak it? Absolutely?
34:37
I was tweaking for thirty seven years. I tweaked every day, so
34:40
subtle that somebody might not even change it. It might have been the difference
34:44
in the bottled water pot, you know, but it was. You have
34:47
to stay on top. What you had the advantage of it for all the
34:50
years that you were in business is you are your own test lab. So
34:52
you take best practices, and a best practice that might work in Cumberland,
34:57
Maryland or somewhere like that may not necessary work the exact same way in Nitro,
35:01
West Virginia. But what you are, you were a test lab of
35:05
your own. You took information that you learned and that you knew about the
35:07
industry and over trial and area a period of time, just like you had
35:10
a hypothesis and you need a scientific process to prove out your hypothesis. What
35:16
remained was what worked for you. It may not have been what worked in
35:20
Cumberland, or in Detroit or anywhere else. And just because they work there
35:23
doesn't mean that they're better or worse than what you do. You found what
35:27
works in Nitro, West Virginia. And the mistake that people make is they
35:30
worked somewhere else where, they had a formula work. They come in and
35:32
they're like, oh, well this worked over in Cumberland, So I'm just
35:36
gonna redo everything in Nitro to match what I did there. The person that
35:38
was there before you already did that. So what you need to do is
35:42
find a way to heighten what they did and not necessarily try to rewrite the
35:45
book, because that's where you get into trouble. I remember when Steve moses
35:47
about Harvey Streve, which Harvey Streve probably had as good as a name as
35:52
anybody in the automobile business. I started at Harvey Streeve. He was a
35:54
fine jumpleman, and that name brings back memories just from listening to the radio
35:59
grown up honestly, and to Moses was smart enough. It was Moses harvest
36:01
reef. I mean they kept a name, right, you keep that day
36:06
kid legacy. And I know the sales manager, I mean I was.
36:08
I did a eulogy one of the sales managers and David hoodyke he might be
36:13
listening to me I And it was just so many things there is. There's
36:15
subtle change. There were a lot of changes now, but that happened three
36:19
decades ago. So hate I hope. And I think the passing the torch
36:24
over to Richard Chase, in my opinion, has worked very well. I
36:29
did a lot of homework for them, and if they can take the ball,
36:32
and I think they'll do an excellent job. If you have a chance,
36:36
stop by Nitro, stoping well, ask go and ask for Jodi Johnson.
36:39
I'm telling you you won't find a nicer fellow than Jody Johnson. He's
36:44
a sales manager. I'm telling my age because I kind of knew his dad
36:49
when we got talking. You know, in West Virginia, you don't have
36:52
to talk very long. They're all twisted around and know each other. Find
36:55
somebody from somewhere, that's for sure. That's Larry Dawson for Learydows's also auto
37:00
sales. Great conversation this morning. If you missed any portion of it you
37:01
want to follow up on that. Larry's podcast is always one of a more
37:05
popular one, so that will be up in the next hour, so WCTS
37:07
network dot com slash podcast you can find it over there. Thanks a lot
37:10
for Larry for coming back, and you're going to have another show this this
37:13
month if I'm second two weeks, that's right, So Larry will be back
37:15
in two weeks for a bonus episode in Macy you can tune in for that.
37:19
Thanks so much for listening today. Coming up next is gonna be five
37:22
eighty Live with Dave Allen day after the election. You think it might be
37:23
a busy show, you might want to tune into the Dave Allen Show coming
37:27
up at after this program and then Hotpy Churchible will be back at ten oh
37:30
six and same thing on a state wide basis, and then Dave Weekly and
37:35
I will be back this afternoon at the three oh six for Metro News.
37:37
Huma. Have a great day everyone, Thanks for listening to ask the expert.
37:39
Thanks Larry once again for your time. You're listening to the voice of
37:43
Charles and five eight WHS w A W two four three d RFM Charles Stand
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