Latest / Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers / Ep. 74 - 80 Years in Business: Past, Present & Future of Lewis Automotive

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Ep. 74 - 80 Years in Business: Past, Present & Future of Lewis Automotive · Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Let me help you be creative and things that we can get done.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_04: So in two weeks, when your house payments due, your car payment's due, and the 9,000 other things that people are asking for money, because guess what never changes?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: Any of those things collectively.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: The bill still comes.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_04: They still come.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so we try to help them responsibly.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like, okay, well, let's call all the construction companies that the ground is frozen and say, hey, could we get your vehicles in right now when they're not generating you any revenue and get those tuned up?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_04: We've got a bunch of recalls, we can come to you and perform those.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_04: And then salespeople, we get to do tons of training to make sure that they're up to date with all the training with the manufacturer.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_04: We do walk-around competitions.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_04: It's time to stop cutting with a chainsaw and stop and sharpen the chain so when it's ready for action, because they'll forget one side of the sword and then hit you with the other side.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Hey everyone, welcome to Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers, where we aim to share real stories about running a successful family business while working through adversity and pouring back into our community that keeps our doors open every single day.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: We're your hosts, Shelby, Matt, and Taylor, and we'll be bringing you real relevant local business advice, maybe some automotive insights that are sure to change the way you look at running a business or buying a car.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe even throw on a plug for you to do business with us here locally.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome back to Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: We're your hosts, Matt, Shelby, and Taylor, bringing you what we think is relevant, what's going on in the industry, what we're trudging through, and uh what's going on.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_04: So episode 74, we're talking about 80 years in the business, past, present, future, and what we're dealing with today.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the good, bad, and the ugly, uh, and unpacking whatever we can to find to say, hey, here's what here's behind the curtain, you know, what's going on.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: So we're gonna fully break that down.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_04: This episode, we'll talk about where Lewis Automotive started, how it's lasted this long, the bumps and the hurdles along the way, and what the heck with this snow, right?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_04: Is Arkansas equipped to handle snow?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: And what do you do as a business when weather comes and how do you handle that, right?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's gonna be fun to unpack.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's just one of the great examples of you know, you don't get to choose what comes at you.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: You get to choose how you respond to it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll unpack that and many more.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of those circumstances have happened over the past eighty years.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, but before we do that, let's talk about last week.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we had a special guest in the studio last week, Mr.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Rush of Rush Running, uh local business entrepreneur here.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's got locations here in Fayeville and then up in Bentonville.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't hear that episode, go back and check it out.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mike brings a lot of high energy.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about some business practices.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: We also talk about goals and how making people a better version of themselves and how that bleeds over into your family and to leading your business as well.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's in the garage today?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I love this because it's the best value of the off-road segment that you can possibly get into.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: If somebody you're looking at TRX luxury, you're looking at a Bronchoraptor, you're looking at a uh Tundra TRD Pro, you're looking at the Tacoma TRD Pro, whatever it would be in the segment.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: This beats them all for value perceived.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about the Ranger Raptor.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it has the three-liter turbo motor, it is over 400 horsepower, and it is Baja ready from the get-go, sub-60,000.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Has Fox suspension, BFG tires, B lock wheels, and all the things that people have come to love about Raptor over the years, but it's saving you$25,000 off the next closest Raptor vehicle.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: So huge value of that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I have five on the ground to choose from right now.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the ultimate different colors, but big value in the range of Raptor.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_04: No doubt.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_04: That's a fun one.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, they gets all the off-road stuff.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's maybe, I don't know that it's entry.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: Entry is not the proper way, but it's how you get into the off-road segment.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so that's something that we've loved that they just they get to take all the the millions or billions that they've spent in their industry research and then put it in that package.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so full-size, mid-size truck, five passenger, four hundred horsepower.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: So check it out.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_04: All right, so unpacking this, how Lewis Automotive Group became 80, right?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: So unpacking uh since 1946.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you look at it, and if if we had our great grandfather in the room here with us and we were talking to him about that, he was naturally a banker.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But before our our family got into banking and into investments, they were entrepreneurs.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh right off the square there where the Bank of Fayetteville is right now, that was Lewis Brothers Hardware.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that was back in the 1880s.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that was back when you went to your hardware store, not just for nuts and bolts and a specialty tool, but you know, when they came out with a washer and dryer, they had it there and they had furniture and you did your Christmas shopping.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was the all-in-one place back then.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_04: I love a good hardware store.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you know it like it uh shout out local Ace Hardware, right?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_04: Whether that be the local Ace Hardware in Prairie Grove or the one in Fayeville, I don't know.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like it's tangible stuff.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_04: You're just walking around looking for something you need, you know.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: What what I like about that is as you say it, is they were solution-based of like finding whatever you needed to fix your issue.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about that still today in our business.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So before the automotive, we were entrepreneurs still in this area since the 1880s.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Then our great-grandfather, uh, who is known as Buck, he he bought into the Ford dealership right there on the square as an investment because he was a banker.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Had a successful career in banking, uh, but bought into the Ford business.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what did they say?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: We could we could fit seven, eight, nine cars on a good day there.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_04: Seven cars, it was a couple stories.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_04: The basement was a service department, the roof is what the break room.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it was Amsterdam Bryant Ford back then.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: Uh he bought in uh 50%.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think bought the uh Bryant portion of that.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then a few years later bought out the remaining portion.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: But pretty small operation, just off the square.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_04: I it was trying to be as close to um the action as possible, right?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: So I was just kind of on the east side of the square, headed towards 71 business, uh, and just saw an opportunity.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all have heard this before, but in in real estate, it comes down, what do they say?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Location, location, location.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when you think about that, it was on the square because of location.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was around there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: When when our grandfather and his brother, Tom and Herb, moved it to 71 back in 69, it was because of location.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh 71 had been built.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was a high, that was the traveled road.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you could get more traffic, more eyeballs on a daily basis.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was location.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: When you go back a couple years ago when we moved, you know, to our new campus that we're at right now, that's on 49, that's because of location.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, over a long time, it's it's still based upon location and how do you position your business to not only be successful today, but to be successful for the future.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_04: So thinking about this, like what business looked like decades ago, like there's 80 years and we we didn't get to experience a lot of those, right?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: We've heard stories about some of them.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_04: Probably there's some that we'll never hear about.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, the early 2000s is really as just like understanding what was going on, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_04: Like you can see like cars are for sale and dah, dah, dah.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_04: But to get uh behind the scenes, uh what kind of challenges do you think that they face long ago that maybe are still the same challenges?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um you know, from crazy recessions, yeah, you know, uh of all the things of the wars and you know, the stock availability and like what what's something from back then that probably something we still face?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you started to hit on it there, and I think a hundred percent is inventory.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Inventory.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: They still dealt with commodity restraints, so they couldn't build certain vehicles.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: They still dealt with a factory shutdown, whether it be because of union or because of a fire or because of a tooling issue.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so they still dealt with inventory.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: They still dealt with transportation logistics.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, now there were some of that looks a little bit different, but not a whole lot different.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you think about it, they still use trains and trucks.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And there's still some time that you have to figure out how to get the last mile, they call it in transportation.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So inventory, transportation, um, I I think financing is still there, you know, where you're trying to get the funds either to run the business, you know, from business capital, operational, or from a consumer on how do they get the money to buy the vehicle.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, now all of those communications with software and tracking and uh lean production, all of that has progressed.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the basics of those three, I I still feel like are we still deal with those today.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_04: I think the majority of them, yes, right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_04: Like and and one that you would agree but didn't point out there is people, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_04: People of employees, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_04: Uh having the right people continue to keep them motivated, pointing the right direction, you know, farming in the correct area, uh, and and how to have the right amount of people and the right people.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't think that it's changed a whole lot in the base core.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's kind of just the channels that it delivers and communicates through is what's changed.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: But, you know, um, you know, think 2007-2008, you know, when there was a lot, a lot of businesses that folded up.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um and that surely wasn't the first time Lewis Automotive had been through something like that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_04: I remember dad talking about when they were back on the square, he was super young back then, um, talked about inventory shortages.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_04: Think if you could hold six or seven cars and you had a good weekend, then you didn't have many cars at all to sell, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_04: So how does it look like you're in business uh if you sold two or three or four, right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and he said, you know, when things got tough, like back then I'm sure things got super tough, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_04: It was just you didn't have as many facets to pour in, you know, to say, hey, this isn't going well, but these are going well, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_04: To help that sustainability.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_04: He said, I don't care if we have to work on lawnmowers or sell lawnmowers.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_04: And there was a time when they were, they were servicing lawnmowers at the original dealership because they had people that knew how to work on engines, right?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_04: And they had relationships with customers in the community, and they said, Hey, we'll fix and repair your lawnmowers, because they knew people had lawnmowers and there was a need to keep those running.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's a sustainability of there's a need, we have the ability, and let's solve that problem.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think and and we see that it really makes you think about that during a storm, you know, like we're talking about the snow, and because some things snow shuts completely down.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, outdoor construction.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and as strong-willed and minded as we are, we've we've been there before where you try to do something and you end up making more damage.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when the ground's covered in snow, you get out there and start trying to dig dirt, you're just gonna make a mess.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so let's break that down.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: Like we just had Snow Mageddon, it was not near the 99 feet of snow that they predicted, right?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and some days I wish I could have the uh forgiveness of a weatherman, right?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_04: And right, they're bringing attention to it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: I don't blame them for a second, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_04: They got a captive audience.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_04: I think people say that they're connected to grocery stores somehow, that they get a kickback of uh milk and bread.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: But so snowstorm's coming.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you know that you're not gonna have all the people driving in to buy your cars or naturally driving in to service your vehicle.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_04: But in our business, we have a monthly goal or a forecast.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_04: We break that down per day, per person.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_04: And oftentimes in business, I'm gonna give you a little behind the scenes, it's different per each department, but generally it's not until you get to about 90% of a month where you start generating positive revenue.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_04: The cost of people, the cost of rent, and the cost of all your technology, it's until you get to that 90%.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: Like you have to put up 90% revenue to start generating positive income.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: So each day that's taken away, it makes it difficult to be able to continue to have all your people, but you already have those people.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_04: You've already guaranteed some pay in those things.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_04: So what what does a snow day look like and what's what do you do with that?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm sitting there calculating my mind right now, you're 90 percent, and and I do agree with that.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about that from a month, if you just think about four weeks in a month, well then we get into the last week of the month, that's 75 percent.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're not even still there, and then all of a sudden a snowstorm works to shut you down, and you're not even in the positive yet.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_04: So you have to think about that.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_04: Like when we do that forecast, we break down selling days.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_04: So generally you're gonna get 26-ish selling days, and then working days, that's our parts in service.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_04: We're not counting a Saturday.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: We have a uh a crew on Saturday, but it's not that heavy generating.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_04: So generally you're gonna have 20 to 22 working days.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_04: So you take that forecast, huge number, because like our service teams have anywhere from 75 to 100 employees, huge costs there, uh and huge like over the top of like we have a responsibility to help them to be able to provide for the family.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_04: Without work and without customers, that's hard to do.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_04: So if you take 22 in the month of January working days, and then you have a snow day on a Friday, and the problem is the built-up anticipation, like people couldn't get anything done last week anyways.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_04: So then you say, okay, Friday, everyone's super concerned, wanted to leave, not focused, and then a Saturday, and then a Monday, and then a Tuesday.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_04: And you can't control any of that, like if school's canceled or if people are without power.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_04: So now you've just gone to 19 days or 18, so that your divider gets smaller and smaller.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that we've adapted to, and since we're talking about the snow and it's fresh on everybody's mind, um, if you rewind the tape a few years ago, we just said go back to work, go back to work, go back to work.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things we did this year is we actually acknowledged what was on everybody's mind.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Which that's not us naturally.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, I don't care what you hit me with today, I'm gonna be good and I'm gonna devote the energy needed towards that when it happens.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_04: You have to realize that's you, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: It is.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_04: When's this cancer?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things we did start in talking Thursday, and then Friday is in all in all of our meetings, we just hit it on the head.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: We said, we realize this is coming.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: We realize that everybody's in a little bit of like, what do I do?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: When is it coming?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we we tried to instill as much as possible confidence in them of if the storm moved in earlier Friday, we would make adjustments to get everybody home safe.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it's our job to try to help you also make a paycheck.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to have confidence and faith in us as a management team that if we see that something changes and it's earlier, we'll make the call and we'll shut down in time for you to get home safe with your family.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's super tricky because it's a dual-edged sword.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: So if you don't address it like you just talked about, they say you're you're selfish and you're making us stay here.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, people go in one far spectrum, and it's okay, because they're totally fear-mongling across the news and everything.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like, please just turn that stuff off, right?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_04: You'll know when something is needed.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: But let's say you watch the news and you listen to everything, they're like, this is so stupid.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: Why are you making us be here?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's unsafe, you know, like and not everyone has the ability to drive or has the lack of you know, fear.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so you have to keep that in mind.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: But what will happen is they will completely forget that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_04: So when their commission or their draw check happens, a week or two later, they'll look at you directly and say, What happened to all my money?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's where you say, I want to keep you super safe.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_04: You're like, you gotta know when to say when.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_04: But then you get to help them of, hey, I know there's not people just crawling across the parking lot to buy cars.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_04: I know there's not tons of people coming into the service drive.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_04: Let me help you be creative and things that we can get done.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_04: So in two weeks, when your house payments due, your car payment's due, and the 9,000 other things that people are asking for money, because guess what?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: Never changes any of those things collectable.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_04: Bill still comes.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_04: They still come.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: And so we try to help them responsibly.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like, okay, well, let's call all the construction companies that the ground is frozen and say, hey, could we get your vehicles in right now when they're not generating you any revenue and get those tuned up?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_04: We've got a bunch of recalls, we can come to you and perform those.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_04: And then salespeople, we get to do tons of training to make sure that you know they're up to date with all the training with the manufacturer.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_04: We do walk-around competitions.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's time to stop cutting with a chainsaw and stop and sharpen the chain so when it's ready for action, because they'll forget one side of the sword and then hit you with the other side.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_04: And you're like, Well, I tried to help you here.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: So that's that is so tough as a business owner to say when when do you say when?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: And if you say, uh the time is now that we are still gonna be here, how do you help you can't just say go to work, sell cars, or go to work, go work on cars.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_04: When that you have to help be creative of let's make something out of something here.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: A good leader will help walk an employee through that.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the first time you go to the gym and you go work on bench press or push-ups or whatever, air squats, and then you go look in the mirror afterwards, and you're like, I really can't see a difference.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe day two, maybe even month two.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But six months down the road, a year down the road, the definition changes, your body composition changes.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't change from the day before.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It changed from all that work.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_04: And someone didn't just say, hey, go to the gym and go work out.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_04: You can't just tell your team, hey, go to work.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_04: You have to define, say, hey, I need you to do three sets of 12 at this percentage of your max.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_04: And do this and this and this.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_04: So you have to be so surgical in that direction to say, hey, team, today I need you to work on this, this, and this, because I realize this.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and then also you're putting it in their mind of like, and you have to do this consistently day after day after day before so you have to recalibrate their expectations.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So how does that transfer over to the snow when nobody's on the lot?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're still making phone calls.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because people are home.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, d because they're easy to connect.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we're making phone calls, our connection rates up, we're sending thank you emails, we're just touching base with people, we're getting up to date on certification.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know what will happen?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're all procrastinators.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what'll happen is we'll look up and there's two days left in the month, and we wouldn't have hit manufacturer certifications for training in sales or parts or this or that, and everybody's like, oh crap.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: We got to do that.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's connected to all these incentives, or they're spent melting, and we need to sell stuff.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to sell stuff at work.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then the employee is like, what do you want me to do?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: You want me to sell the car or you want me to do this?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: So a good leader explains that and puts it in their mind because naturally they're thinking about exactly what you're talking about, Shelby, of why am I here?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not safe.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's buying a car, nobody's bringing their car into work.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is always something productive to be done so it doesn't steal from your opportunity in the future.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and you that's the same thing as your gym analogy.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_04: So when you're not in the gym, when the ability is not to be here in your business working on it, work on the other portion is say, hey, maybe we should work on uh your eating.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: And so we're not maybe you're not working on selling because the people aren't there, but let's work on your connection and let's work on your training.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: So when it is time and the sun is shining and everyone is out, then you were your chain is sharpened, your laser focused, all your to-dos are caught up with.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: And then here's the the philosophy that we always say, because we're generally the minority in being open.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like, man, you guys are so irresponsible.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, no, we we take responsibility for as much as we can.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_04: Because we have this responsibility.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_04: We're not gonna lay people off because of a recession, because of a COVID.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna help them try to provide because that's a commitment we gave to them, and hopefully they gave to us.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: But it's like if we can have those, like yesterday, there was over 1,600 completed tasks and phone calls by the team.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_04: So then when Wednesday or Thursday, when it thalls out, everyone else is just gonna be showing up to work and they'll be sixteen hundred per day behind.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've already been in the gym and done 50 reps a day.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_04: So think about that.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_04: They're not showing up like, okay, let's get warmed up, let's get some phone calls, and we're gonna do that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_04: We're already in the second half.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: We're already moving, right?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: And so, and then that's our responsibility, not to say, hey, we're the best, to say, Matt, I hired you and I told you I would fully commit to make sure you could provide for your family, you could pay your bills, and you could be able to do what you need to do with little Johnny and your entire family.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm gonna do my best, come hell or high water, to take care of that, right?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: So But I think you you got to show too, and and and a couple of the things we did, call it Saturday and Monday, is people listen to you when you say that in the meeting, but then they want proof that you got their back.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: So on Saturday, we didn't open till 10.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: We closed at four.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we had enough time for the sun to come out.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the sun wasn't out Saturday, but then to safely to make it, and then before the sun went down.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Monday, even though a bunch of it had been cleared, we said, let's give a couple hours.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: We know you're juggling around where your kids are going to go for the day and this and that.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that that couple hours shows proof of you're not just saying, hey, it stays rigid as it is, we're making some adjustments.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_04: So to wrap this into Snow Mageddon or whatever they call it, versus our 80 years in business, is being solution-based in what's going on.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_04: So years and years and years ago, and we've told this story before, but lemons to lemonade.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: Lemons to lemonade.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_04: So long ago when we had the boat store, this was probably late uh 90s, early 2001 or two, uh, we boats in January, for whatever dang reason, that maybe because people aren't doing what they're doing, and when it's boating season, they want you to be in water, we went to a Missouri boat show and hauled all of our inventory.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_04: Like, think about that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_04: You have to have a truck and a trailer for each boat set up at this entire convention center, 20 or 30 plus boats, had the whole sales team up there, you know, everything ready to go.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, come to find out somewhere along the way, the license for us to be able to sell in Missouri versus Arkansas, they said you can't be here, and you can be here, but you can't sell a thing.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_04: So the expense was all there, and this was when Dad too was still heavily involved.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so then we had to haul them all back, right?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: We did, we did.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that was our grandfather, Tom, and and I can just remember.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had gotten hotel rooms for all the salespeople, all the sales managers, and I can remember because it was it was either 98 or 99, because I was just barely 16, uh, hauling boats back and forth.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: So then we haul them back.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we haul them back.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_04: So haul them back and say everybody go home?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: He rallied up.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: We had a sales meeting on the showroom, and I can remember these brown paper bags.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's cold outside.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're inside, and he says, take one and pass it around.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then this whole jar of these sugar cubes, then he passes around.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody has uh has a lemon in their hand and they got a couple cubes of sugar in their hand.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's talking about.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, we've been dealt with lemons here.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we've been dealt with an issue that's that's out of our control.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: We took all the energy, took them up there, brought them back.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have these lemons.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And lemons by themselves are very sour.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody really, I mean, my kids every once in a while to do it, but nobody just eats lemons.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, when you take a situation and you add these sugar cubes to it, it becomes a world-renowned drink lemonade that everybody enjoys.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: He said, So in this situation, we have to take these sugar cubes, add them to the current lemons that we're already dealt with.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: We can't change that.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: We can only change how we react to it.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we have lemonade, we made our own sell, we shifted all the advertising and marketing internally, and ended up with a productive sellout of it in-house.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_04: So that that's that's taking a tough situation and making something.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_04: Instead of just folding up like, hey, we lost, we missed, we completely messed up or whatever it may be, yeah.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_04: And just said, we'll try again on Monday.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_04: Like that was opportunity.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_04: So that's, you know, they say, hey, must be nice, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_04: 80 years in the business, must be nice.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_04: Like it is really nice that we've had this opportunity to work extremely hard in each situation, right?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so you don't get to see in the trenches that often.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_04: That's why we're fully breaking this down of like, okay, like that's so stupid.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_04: Why are you guys working?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, because like there's so much expense and there's so many people you're counting on this, and in that scenario, and in a million other scenarios, it's like, okay, I'm gonna sit in my office, I'm gonna come up with a game plan, we're gonna talk about it, and then we're gonna help them surgically dive in to explode this thing and to create opportunity.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_04: And because there's always something.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_04: They'll sit around scrolling TikTok all day if you let them.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like if you're up there just worried about something, but you gotta get out there and there's so much that can be done.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: So who plowed the snow?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_04: We did.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and that that's that's our stupid hard knocks.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like, let me show you how to do it.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_04: But this started long ago.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's your fault.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_04: Probably.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_04: We moved to Michigan uh and hadn't seen much snow and hadn't been able to plow, so in our plowing gear.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember what it started with?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, our side-by-side tractor.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_04: No, it started with dad's tooth.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: I remember that because we spent more money than we would have spent if we had hired somebody on repairing that tractor before we took it back home.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think what could go ahead.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, somebody said yesterday to laugh about this, and they're like, God, I mean, it makes it nice with y'all having all of the all of the equipment.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all have got it already, and I said, it's been a long time.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_04: Must be nice.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: Once again, they say, must be nice, right, to have this.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: Must be nice to have this.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: Like, no, we started with like 12 beanies on and gloves and a two-wheel drive tractor.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's why everything was bent, because you had to get going so fast to push the snow.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: The box split backwards and the box split.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the only the only way you could turn would use you disconnect so you could use cutting brakes on any side.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, you had to make the call if you were open or closed, because it was and it's like, I'm not going to call and be like, hey, it's pretty cold, let's stay home.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_04: And so everyone gets shovels.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_04: So we've then prepared to go north to get good shovels.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm talking about go to Dollar General or Walmart.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_04: No, we have to get the good shovels.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then we we've gone through at least this weekend 12,000 pounds of salt.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_04: Now we've used salt for animals.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_04: We've used uh salt for your water purification system.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_04: Pretty salty.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_04: Very salty.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_04: We use rock salt.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_04: I haven't found the beet juice yet, but uh and it's one of those, it's one of those hard knock things of lead by example.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_04: So when Matt was like, hey, let's open at 10, that didn't change the time to start plowing.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like, let's meet at five, let's meet at six.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and so you bring about three changes of clothes because you're still gonna need to go to the gym.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's not an excuse not to go to the gym.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: You're just gonna have to move that a little bit.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: You got to work.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, then you're gonna have to plow, and then you have to change into your work clothes uh to be able to plow the lot.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it's funny because a guy texted me this morning who showed up to work today, it was his first day back, and I get it, right?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and he said, Um, hey, does your parking lot look like this?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_04: And it was an ice skating rink.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I sent him a picture, said, No, mine's dry as can be.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_04: You could lay a sheet of paper on the ground and it wouldn't get wet and it wouldn't be cold because that's 12,000 pounds of salt and all the plowing.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but it's gotten so strategic of where we put our snow to where it melts so that it doesn't melt across the parking lot.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_04: But that's evolved of years and years and years just so that okay, if we could control it, we couldn't control the snow, but we can control what we did with it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I I gotta unpack some stuff right there.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because there's there's so many business things, and you're like mad, okay, come on, it's snow.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right, there's so many business things there.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is one, we figured out a solution.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're a little stubborn, but just so everybody knows, a car dealership is the last on the priority list if you try to hire to get it plowed.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because they want to do open parking lots, banks, grocery stores, low.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: They're easier to plow.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're easier.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very difficult place to plow because if a machine hits one of the vehicles, the machine's winning.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and you got to go in and out.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: So because of our non-patience to wait until the end of the day for somebody else to plow.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_04: And even if they did, because when we first came in, there were people that did it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: Remember the one-armed cowboy that Joe had?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_04: They would they had 25 other places to do it.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, boom, boom, and it's a big thing.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_04: And so then you're like, oh my gosh, I waited this long and I got this quality of job?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we we feel like as as responsibility to provide that.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and we know that we might not, even though we sold cars yesterday, we sold cars Saturday, we worked on cars yesterday and Saturday, that it will equal a bigger close.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: You watch this weekend, you know, if we could see everybody's number.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that part there.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: The second part is what Shelby talks about.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you step off into an area that you don't have expertise in, we did not have expertise in in removing snow.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: We just didn't.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: We bought our snow shovels, no joke.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't come locally.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: We spent time calling every snow, not everyone, but the major snow removal people in Chicago, in Michigan, in New England, and ask them, what do you use?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you use metal shovels, do you use plastic shovels?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who do you use them from?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you salt before, do you salt after?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of snow?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the point in that?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: In business, if you're getting into an area that you don't have expertise, you reach out to some mentors.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: People will share.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about removing snow, and I cold called these people and they told me.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: They told me, I wouldn't competitors are there.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: That that's what you do in business as a true entrepreneur is you find people better than you and learn from them.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it catapulted our ability there.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: I got to circle back around because I want to give a shout out, and you guys will resonate with this when I say it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give a shout out to every truck with a trailer and a skid steer or a tractor behind it that I saw over the past three or four days that were not snow removal companies.
• 32:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because those were the hustlers out there.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_04: They saw opportunity.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_04: Uh they're a construction company and they had a skid steer and they said, I can do that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: They did.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's other people in construction that sat home working on their delays and the reduce of revenue while the rear entrepreneur goes, Okay, yeah, this over here I can't do, but I got the equipment and I can run that equipment.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_04: I saw a guy uh, and we've done business with him, that drove to Wisconsin with a big flatbed trailer because he has some big land equipment, some big dirt removal equipment, and he got like five or six big boys.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_04: Now it's expensive, but big blades, big boxes.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_04: Because it's just like tomato tomato.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, okay, we can't be doing a whole lot of landscaping, can't do a whole lot of dirt work, but guess what?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna have snow and people need that.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_04: That's kind of like a hustle I saw on social media.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_04: These guys rented a U-Haul truck, drove somewhere, and got bags and bags and bags, a whole U-Haul truck, probably way over the payload of salt.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_04: And set up in a Home Depot selling salt.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: And Home Depot Lowe's like, you have to think they have to predict the amount of salt that they need, but they don't need to be over because what are they gonna do with it?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_04: Sunscreen in the winter is not a great thing, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_04: So what happened is these guys were sitting in the parking lot.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_04: Lowe's probably didn't start out liking it, but then they needed a solution and they were out of salt.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: And they're saying, well, those guys out there in the parking lot are selling salt.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, genius, my kids are going up north next year and they're gonna sell bags of salt.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just like I want to root and like roll down the window and holler when I see those guys because they're just real deal.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Get it done, entrepreneurs.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I have no capacity, no sympathy.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I won't even listen to you if you start complaining to me about business and how the weather shuts you down.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Show me what you were doing on Tuesday.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Put on your pants and go to work.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Put on your pants and find the opportunity to go to work.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and Shelby, I think uh we're let's go back to our 80 years.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: So at point in times that our inventory is low, or it's hard to get used vehicles, or there's back order of parts, one of the things our business does is we have multiple areas that we can shift to.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: No different than dad saying, hey, we'll work on mowers if that's what we need to do.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: We will find a solution.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: We we we have the infrastructure to do it.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll lead our employees to opportunity and to show them that.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and I'll have to tell you this because it is not all ice cream and rainbows.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yesterday we were going through training and said, hey, let's do this and this, and there was there was an employee, and this happens all the time, right?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you don't want it to, but they said, you know, at some point in time, they're like, heck with this.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_04: They don't they don't have the skin in the game.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_04: Realize they don't, right?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_04: They don't.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and everyone was outside shoveling.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_04: There's plenty of places to say, no, we can't do that, and this, this, and this.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_04: But this was just going over a software, and he's like, that's not my job.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_04: And nothing makes your blood boil, I don't care who you are.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_04: Then somebody that says that, I'm like, well, we've screwed up and we didn't properly define that.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: This is an all hands-on-deck business of everyone's involved, everyone's providing a solution, and everyone's happy to help.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like, well, my job doesn't pay me for that.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_04: Like, well, my job's never paid me a dollar for clearing the snow and being here eight hours before the rest of the team was.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_04: But I know that that's important for me, for my family, and most importantly, the team and the customers that show up.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_04: So it's like, oh shoot.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_04: So it's just a reflection, like, I'm we're not gonna judo chop that person, but it's like, okay, where do we mess up to not clearly say, hey, this is opportunity that I can still have you here, that you get the eight to ten hours today that you're able to punch in and to be able to provide.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_04: And it's gonna your job's gonna look a little different.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: So if no one's knocking at your door saying, hey, I need you to do this, this, and this today, because that's what you do, then you should probably find a solution to say, hey, we can offer this, right?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_04: Well today we're a lemonade shop.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, because we lost our license for this or because of that, and it's it's a way in 80 years you're gonna face plenty of those.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what helps in those situations where you know we didn't put on somebody's job description to clear the snow off the cars or to help with this or that?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you have a great culture and they see the finance manager coming out, they see the service manager coming out, or the guys from parts shoveling up front, or it's not by the parts department, that creates a culture where the other people are sitting there going, Oh crud, I better go do something.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_04: It does, and it covers ninety-eight percent of people.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_04: The other two percent are on the toilet doom scrolling.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta you gotta realize too, whenever you do that, we ran across it yesterday of it's okay to slow down just a second and say, hey.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because some people, it doesn't matter if you're out there scraping it, doing bear bear crawls, pushing the thing across, and you're like, my hard work's gonna get this.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: 80 years is what taught us to do this.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we do it every single time.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's people that will still stare at you like they need to work.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you doing that?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't get aggravated at them.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: They can't help themselves.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_04: They've never been taught or experienced it or been a part of it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So walk in there and say, because you're aggravated, you get in the day say, I went through this, I labored through all of this.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: You never ask them because the minute you go and ask them, they're like, okay, yeah, I'll help.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because they just have to be turned on that way.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_04: They would rather you not be open until the other side of the sword shows up and it's a paycheck Friday, or it's like, I didn't have any opportunity, you shut the store.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: And they're all they will always, you'll be on this side of the ship, they'll be on that side of the ship.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_04: And you'll be on that side of the ship and they'll run to this side of the ship.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_04: But it's best if you just communicate that, hey, here's our opportunity, here's what we want to do, here's what we can do to help you.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_04: And that just like that is So right here, fun fact quiz.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_04: What percentage of businesses make it to 50 years?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_04: 25%, 10%, or 5%?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_04: Or D, less than 1%.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, just a 50 years.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: I probably would have said I mean we've studied this a lot, but I would have said if I hadn't studied it, C.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: Which would be five.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_04: Five percent.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that's not right.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: The answer is D, less than one percent.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_04: So what if you're saying, golly, what you guys are saying is unorthodox, it's unsafe.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like you might be the Karen or or whatever, right?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not calling you Karen.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: That's my opinion, and I'm entitled to it, and I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um But it's just like one percent of businesses of all the businesses will make it past 50 percent, and it's gonna take that grind and that creative mentality every single day.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_04: Like you can never put it on cruise control and you can never say I got it figured out.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because they have to do the uncomfortable and hard things that people don't want to do that's not hard to do.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think that so like if you i i if this was a Q ⁇ A right now and somebody said, Well, okay, y'all have been in business for 80 years, how did y'all beat out 99 percent of everybody else?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say, well, the first thing, I hope you listen to the first part of the podcast, that entire time we were and I know we were talking about snow, but we were talking about being solution-based.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: What does solution-based mean?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: It means find an opportunity.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: You you cannot determine the cards you're gonna be dealt.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: You only determine how you're gonna react to them.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so you you go, okay, this happened.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: The snow, the ice, the inventory went down, financing went away, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all right, here's what we're dealt with.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's our solution?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Powell That is so important that you say that.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm glad that you know people probably have already clicked off this, but if not, like dial in.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_04: The number one thing that you could do in life, and if you make if you do a Benjamin Franklin close, the left side supports one side, the right side supports the other side.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_04: And the if I could give you any advice would say control the controllable.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_04: So you say, why do you guys plow snow?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_04: Because people always like, oh, that looks like so much fun.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_04: Do you do you have fun waking up early?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I told Taylor yesterday.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had to get on the treadmill, one, because I needed to work out.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: But two, because I was in the skid stare, and you don't realize that after I've been in that thing for 20 hours, it's so rigid.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I had been in one of those paint shakers.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: My body was so discombust.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: When I woke up this morning, I was sore, like, what in the heck?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_04: So to answer your question, people are like, oh, that looks like so much fun.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_04: They're looking for a reason to lolligate.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_04: And I won't get on that tangent, but it's not because it's fun, but it is controlling the controllable.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_04: So like, why do you plow?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_04: We don't have to wait on a guy to show up.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_04: You don't have to wonder about the quality, because I'm gonna be like, Matt, your blade's not touching the ground.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_04: Go adjust it or you're wasting your time.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_04: You're like, Taylor, your salt's not spreading, or Shelby, your salt blew out in three minutes because I have a super spreader going.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_04: Need button and ice one.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_04: We we can control that.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_04: So it's one of those things like, okay, can you control if it snows or not?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_04: Nope.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_04: Can you control if someone shows up or not to work?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_04: No, not really.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_04: Can you control if a customer shows up?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_04: Well, there's some aspects.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_04: So what you can control, you need to triple, quadruple, 5x, 10x down if you're gonna make it past one year, two year, or three year, focus on those.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_04: That's why I say turn off the news.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, turn off the social media aspect of it, because you cannot control any of that.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_04: And you go to work at what you can control and what you can make a difference in.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: The best out there in construction, I know I keep saying construction, but Northwest Arkansas is full of construction.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: The best I can say about construction is you have your crew in there in the morning, ready to go, and the delivery doesn't come of materials.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: You must, as an entrepreneur, already know if that happens, what do I do?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell What's next?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: What do most people do?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Complain about it, sit around, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then they send everybody home.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why not just have an alternative, go, okay, let's switch over to this part of the project or this part of the project, or let's jump over to this other job where they do have the materials, and we'll all double up on that job today, and then we'll bring them back over and double up here to catch back up.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you just got to get thinking like that.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_04: And that's such a rarity.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: Because you're gonna get so much like hate.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_04: Those workers are gonna be like, and we get it constantly, and be like, why don't they have work lined up?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_04: And why didn't they have the materials figured out?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_04: Little do they know you work super hard to make sure the materials were here, and they're gonna give you yada yada yada anyways, and you just like let that water off a duck's back, but say, hey, actually, we're gonna go to the Greenland project, and we're gonna do a catch up right there, and then you're gonna work in the background to make sure the Fayetteville project has it, and then you say, Hey, we're moving back over.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_04: And by the way, I stopped and got everybody drinks and everybody lunch.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_04: Here we go.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and let's rock and roll.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_04: Here's an energy drink.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_04: And they're gonna be like, Golly, these people are so unorganized.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_04: But then when it comes to cash their check, there's gonna be money in there and they're gonna be able to provide for their family.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_04: And Karen's gonna be Karen.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the rest of their buddies are gonna be like, Well, yeah, my check was 1,500 short because of blah, blah, blah.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Get around somebody that wants to be successful.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that somebody that wants to hustle, they're gonna be like, oh, I got Thursday, Friday off.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, okay, good.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_04: Did they pay you for that?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_04: Like, nope.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I was so proud about this year, and this is evolving.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is a testament to you because obviously you're the one that likes to really be involved with everything.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was the easiest year of close uh of clearing snow.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it was the most effective it's ever been.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because guess what we did?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've always talked about this.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yourself, no matter how hard us three work.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: We can work, start at midnight when it starts snowing, you keep plowing the ground, and if snow covers and you're aggravating, I'm gonna keep plowing, it's okay, and it doesn't work as good as whenever you implement in your team.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, they're not at the same level that we are, but we created a policy that our whole team went out, and it was like clockwork.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, it's the best around the building it's ever been.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, sure, we were having to walk around and say, hey, do this, do that.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: You still had to put them in line.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_04: Policy, but then you had to check expectations and you did.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: You had to manage it.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just like your processes in your business.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was just okay, putting all this together.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right, this was the first year of having policy actually written, handed out to the managers in meetings.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a huge part of growth of seeing, hey, we have all these good things, but remember, put them on paper so that you can share them with your team.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Couple things I want to get to, guys, before we run out of time here is one, I want to get back into 80 years, but I want to talk about generations.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then don't go into this part until we get get there, but just so the listeners will stay on is then what do our ideas look like that for future?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: So let's first talk about generations.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I there here's some secret sauce.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Here's some secret sauce.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about being solution-based, uh, entrepreneur, figuring out opportunities, being a leader, communicating, but let's talk about generations.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because 80 years doesn't happen in one generation.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: The majority of the reason, the why 99 percent, those 99 percent, they didn't all go out of business because of lack of capital.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say, I don't know, 50 percent of them sold to somebody.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that percentage is, and then the other 50 percent just, you know, dissolved.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the 50 percent that sold to somebody else, why did they sell to somebody else?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the next generation either wasn't interested, or here's the bigger thing I want to talk about.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: The next generation came in there and did nothing with it.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, especially if you're a type A personality, you've got to have some self-worth.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to have something, and I don't mean bank account, you've got to have something to look at to go, I built that, and you're not always just in your dad's shadow.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or the founder's shadow.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, they got me to hear.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, in our case scenario, we didn't have to start with a business from ground zero.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we started with a business that was at a level four or a level five, and we've now moved that to a level seven, however you want to define that.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you could do it by units or gross or employees.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'll just I'll give an example here, and this is probably the easiest one for people to relate to.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: When when we got back involved in the business, so after college, so in 2005, when I came back, uh, and then Shelby and Taylor followed, our employee count at that point in time hovered between 110 and 115 employees.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that was our baseline.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're 270, we'll be at 300 by the end of this year when our other two buildings open.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at it just from that stat, now that's 20 years.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's 20 years.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: We could have just stayed at 110, 115 and said, hey, let's just maintain the business here.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: We could have more work-life balance, we could do this.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, you could do that, but how much self-worth would you have to know, yeah, I'm just maintaining dad's business?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I guess it depends who you are, right?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_04: And that's why it's 99% that don't make it that far.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_04: And it has to be who you are.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_04: Like you have to have that mentality.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, don't do it.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's who you are and where you came from that that what Matt's talking about stemmed from I was talking to somebody, and they were talking about three businesses that were local, and we had seen the chain of multi-generation of grandfather owned it.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, son got into it, and there were three that were pretty close together, and now we're fourth generation, they were third generation, looking around and he's like, Why are none of their kids involved in their business?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: One of them's sold, the other one is dwindling down that he's not really doing a whole lot with it.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, But y'all are still involved.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, it's a testament to dad and the way that he taught us to go through this, but then as us brothers working together to want to do more, to not just, hey, I'm taking this and I'm gonna keep it on cruise control like Matt's talking about.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have a vision of we want it to go to X of what we've talked about.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's one of those things of realizing that we've talked about this before.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_04: There, and we say 65, it's probably well more by now.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_04: But Lewis is within the Northwest Arkansas or Fayville region, there's three of us now.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, that everyone had the opportunity to go through the the two-year program of figuring out what they like to do, what fits best.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and it was important that everyone went through that that wanted to be a part of it.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_04: So then you could have that, because every day you will need to wake up and do it again.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_04: And hustle again and find that next.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_04: Because here's the thing, when we grew from 110 to 270 employees, has revenue grown?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_04: Has expenses grown?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_04: Even more than the revenue.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's one of those things of what is your vision?
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you look at your forecast and you look at this year versus last year versus the past five years, and not all the numbers have green arrows next to them.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_04: Oh no.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_04: Plenty of them have red arrows next to them.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, no, this is visionary for long-term growth.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_04: To be able to continue to build units in operation, to continue to look at generational, and to be able to build that tomorrow sustainability, and tomorrow sustainability, and next month sustainability.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_04: And so looking at those things, it has to be a bigger vision, but it will never be on cruise control, no matter what programs or systems.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_04: We've been doing this operation of looking at all of our services that we pay for.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and it's well over$150,000 per month of outside companies.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_04: That we're paying, you think of inventory tools and service write-up tools and customer communic communication tools, of all those things, and we have to every day reevaluate is that the best company to help us with this?
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_04: Is that a necessary expense?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_04: And every single day to it last eighty years, and then what does the future look like?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_04: Uh because it is wild.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about those green arrows, and it just it got my mind thinking, you know, we look at weekly reports, and if you just take 20 years, let's call it 20 years, we've been back in the store, um, and each week we look at the report of green arrows.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's a thousand forty reports we've looked at.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you it's less than I can count on one hand.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's less than five times when all the arrows have been green.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's all and what's what's and what why am I saying that?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's always an area of opportunity.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't take the time to look at it, the growth doesn't happen.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what if you're listening right now, and I hope we still have people listening, if you're listening right now and you're at that retirement age and you know that you have got uh your kids that are in it, and you're like, I want it to be able to last.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you're you're passing it down, letting them buy in whatever versus going to the market, the best thing you could do is sit down and challenge that next generation of where do you see your vision of this company going?
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to accomplish?
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to grow it to?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: What new sec sectors do you want to get into?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And how can I help you do that?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't give them something that they can point onto the wall or that, or the building or the success, and they can't put their stamp on it, they'll lose their fire.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's so important.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_04: There was a couple things that like have to unpack of realizing one, some people exit and sell the business because they feel like, hey, the market's high, I'm ready to retire, I got junior, or these people that want to come into it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_04: But I've worked hard and my business was worth money and I want to sell it.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let me tell you this newsflash with a red ticker underneath.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_04: No one in this family has ever been given this business.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_04: We had to buy this business.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_04: And so if you are uh an entrepreneur and you're wanting your next generation to have it, it's okay to charge them the money for it.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_04: Make it fair and give them an opportunity to buy into it, but you don't have to throw your business evaluation out the window and say, here you go, junior.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_04: That could be the worst thing that you ever could do because they will have no buy-in.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_04: And you're selling yourself short.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_04: And you just took all that you've built and said, Here you go, junior, and hopefully you built retirement in another angle because you just threw away that.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_04: So maybe that's why a lot of people sell because they're like, no, I built a$10 million company,$20 million company, a half a million dollar company, a hundred million dollar company.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_04: I want my$100 million paycheck.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_04: You know?
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_04: And so you can have both, right?
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_04: And just realize that.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_04: And it is so important to have that conversation you talked about.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_04: And that starts as a young conversation at a coloring book level.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_04: And you hope that they all want to be into it, but you don't want to force anyone into it.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_04: But just realizing that have that conversation, show them what it looks like, allow them to plug into all the areas to see what they like, and then continue to have that working conversation so you can see, hey, this is going to be a good fit.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_04: This is where this person's good at.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_04: And so you're not just, hey, here you go, here's the keys to the castle, hope the best way you call me if you have any questions, but don't really, because I'm retired.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like, please don't do that because you'll be part of the 99%.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_04: And say we did hand it over, it imploded, and then some people come back and fix it.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and some people say, Well, we tried.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't do what you're talking about on the buy sell, on the accountability, and on the on the vision casting, what will happen is frustration and animosity within your family.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: Either from the buyer seller or the people around.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then within the family, then it ends up breaking up the family.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Which is even worse.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you didn't want to have that conversation or you didn't want to charge the next generation for buying into the business, what ends up happening is it divides your family.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because of animosity and this and that.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of you guys have heard us talk about this before, but Shelby hit you with a news flash of nobody's ever been given the business.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing is we don't have anybody on the payroll that doesn't work in the business.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because we're not giving people, it's not because we don't care about people.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is because we've lasted 80 years.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you're gonna last 80 years, you gotta do things other people don't do.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_04: So Yeah, it's just one of those things.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_04: It's not always easy and it's not always fun, and it's not always doesn't feel like it's worth it, but in the end it is, right?
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_04: If you've got that willingness to get up and grind and look for the next opportunity, the next area of growth, because you'd be like, ah, we're good today.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like, well, hang on, there's a hole in the boat over there, I gotta fix that.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_04: Or hey, here's a big opportunity.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_04: What if we put a sail and a motor on the boat?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like, hey, what if we, when we take the boat out, we teflon coated the bottom, or just all these things that you think of as a leader that you're like, ooh, opportunity.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_04: Ooh, opportunity.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_04: What if we got a second salt spread?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_04: What if we got a new plow instead of using the old plow?
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_04: What if we pre-treated it before it came down?
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_04: Or what if we moved all the cars and so you weren't super aggravated about all the cars?
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_04: Just thinking of these things as a leader.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_04: Because there's a whole lot that you can prevent and predict if you just will think future speaking.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'll already have a plan B and a plan C and all of them don't say refer to plan A.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hear those people.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you already have that, I love studying quarterbacks, not because I'm a football nut, but there's such an entrepreneur in the quarterback that they're not rattled when they get up there and they'd called the play in the huddle and the defense shifts, you know, that they're not rattled.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: They call the audible.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_04: Well, think about this in the uh college national championship.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like you call the play and you control what you can control.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_04: That you can control what everyone in the offense is doing.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_04: You cannot control what the defense is doing, or what the timer's doing, or what the stadium is doing, right?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_04: And so then the quarterback has this gameplay, but the Indiana quarterback says, hey, here's the game plan.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_04: No receivers are open, tight end not open, running back already went, and he says, if it is to be, it's up to me.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_04: And he hammers down and busts a tackle and cracks a guy and dives and just gets smacked.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_04: Because he's like, if it is to be, it's up to me.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_04: At this point, my plan B or C is get in the end zone.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hit one other football analogy here because everybody needs to hear this.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not the quarterback and you're on defense, you're like, What do I do then?
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: I listened to Ray Lewis talk about this the other day, and he said the toughest team for him to play against, the quarterback that would disrupt his defense the most, was Peyton Manning with the Colts.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: He said, so I couldn't change how well he read a defense and call in the correct audible play to disrupt it and make positive yardage.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, but what I could change is to delay and wait to tell my defense on what formation to get into.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I would wait till the last seven seconds.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: So he didn't have time to call an audible.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, yep.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just love that.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just like, okay, here's the cards I'm dealt with.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do I figure that out?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just it it it's everywhere.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Mythbuster.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: Long-lasting companies succeed because they don't change.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's crap.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_04: They last sorry.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_04: They last because they do adapt.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's not like, hey, we do this because we always have.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_04: Like that could be the silliest thing ever.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_04: Like, no, this is how we do it.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like, okay, well, what what if we did it this way?
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're always adapting, they're always involved in in the middle of it there.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: I got a question for y'all to both think about of moving forward there.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: But what is the biggest leadership lesson you've learned from being a part of an 80-year business?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what does it kind of look for for future-wise?
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it looks like you got a great foundation and you've got great resources, but it's a challenge of what's next.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: What areas of opportunities?
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm going to give you an example there.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and there's a lot of examples, but I want to talk about future, like right now, what we're in.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we've got a a lot of people we sell and we service cars to.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: So so two buildings we're working on.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the buildings we're working on is our reconditioning building.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we look at what was our total RO count?
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: It got in the 30,000 this past year.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: Said how many people of those 30,000 would pay to have their car detailed.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_04: Well, if you surveyed them and asked them how many car wash subscription, you'd be well over 60 percent.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well over sixty percent.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, but we didn't have the capacity to do that.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we we current currently recon, we call it, or detail, about three hundred, two hundred and fifty to three hundred.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're building a facility where we can real deal detail, and we think we can do a thousand plus a month.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: The second opportunity is we look at we sell a bunch of trucks.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: We sell a bunch of trucks.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: The average truck owner, and I hadn't looked at stats in the past couple years, but I but I know this to at least to be true, and y'all might have a better number.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: The average truck owner spends a minimum of$1,500 to$2,000 in accessory after they buy their trucks at least.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_04: And why that's important is because we're in truck country.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_04: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_04: We are.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_04: The number one selling vehicle in the United States is a truck, and it happens to be an F-150.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so everyone drives trucks.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_04: Not everyone, but majority of people drive trucks, and they spend$1,500 to$2,000 in accessories per truck.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: So knowing that, that's an opportunity.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: They already know us like us and trust us, we're in the middle of building an entire accessory facility.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus Where we can capture that.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to do SEMA builds, but where we can capture that w for our customer.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: So even with an 80-year-old business, those are two additional opportunities that we feel like we can capture the market on.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_04: You just have to think about that as your angle of business.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_04: If if you build pools, couldn't you also work on pools to close and open pools?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_04: And couldn't you also because this is a tricky thing, like do I have to have a storefront or not?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_04: No, is the answer.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_04: But couldn't you also sell the chemicals?
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_04: Because they already know you like you and trust you because you built their pool.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like, hey, well, how should I open and close this?
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_04: Actually, I offer that.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_04: I'll do it for you.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_04: I can do that for you.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_04: Let me go ahead and set you up on a yearly.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_04: Let me go ahead and set you up on a subscription-based service.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_04: Well, where do I get the chemicals?
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_04: Because say, well, you need to add pH.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_04: You need to add like, well, actually, we sell chemicals.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_04: And we actually have a monthly based on the size of your pool, a monthly subscription where we can just drop these off at your house.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_04: Would that work good for you?
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_04: And they're like, huh.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I've been thinking about getting a hot tub.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_04: Actually, we offer those.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_04: And so you find your bandwidth and your limit, but there are businesses within your businesses that will help you grow.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what helps you identify those is you get around like-minded people.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have to be the same industry.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: And your mind just starts thinking.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: It just starts thinking of, oh man, I've been in the middle of the forest, absolutely killing it, trying to make my business work, and I didn't even think about those add-on services.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_04: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: That's the theory of the hardware store.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_04: You go in the hardware store and they're like, you know, I think hardware stores have been really good and adaptable, the ones that are still around to say, what else could we sell that people might need?
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_04: I know you get a grill, you can go get a 5/8 bolt, super blue, get a hammock, I mean get the latest and greatest Yeti cup, get a shotgun.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully a Mother's Day card.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, no doubt you're gonna get the card, then you're gonna get you something to drink.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_04: And then I always needed a closet rod.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_04: That one's been broken for a while.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's just the most random, and then let me drop my weed eater off to be tuned up.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like that that was a business within a business.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_04: So when it's snowing, they got the salt and they got the shovels, and when it's so I love that.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_05: I got it all.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_04: Uh my biggest leadership lesson, or one of them, there there's a bunch is just because it worked yesterday or just because it was relevant yesterday, doesn't mean it will work today or is relevant today.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_04: I think you have to constantly do a temperature test.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like just because you've cooked a steak so many times, you generally know how long it takes.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_04: You still either need to test it with a temperature probe or cut it open to see how, you know, because was the stake a little bit smaller, were there more stakes on the grill?
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_04: So just because it worked, whatever it is, a theory or how you handle a customer or a software of$150,000 and software expenses per month, is it still relevant and does it still work today?
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_04: That's one of those things you have to constantly be looking at.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_04: And it can't be the, you know, there there's a couple people in our business who's like, well, that's always how, that's how Stone did it.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like that was 33 years ago.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_04: Like, what?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_04: Who told you that?
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_04: My bad.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_04: Uh let's reevaluate that quickly.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_04: Because we are not doing it because that's how we've always done it.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_04: We're doing it because it's best for our customers, best for our employees, most efficient, and most cost effective.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's like that's so good.
• 1:04:28
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_04: There's there's a lot of people in your industry, maybe in your business, that are doing it just because that's how they've always done it.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that starts at the top, and that starts with you because you're you know you're humble enough and the ego is at the door.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: And just because this process or this software got me to where I am today doesn't mean it's gonna get me to where I need to go in the future.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's one of those things when you're we all have kids and those kids say, why, why, why?
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_04: Just be careful that it's not always just because I said so.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_04: And that's generally the theory.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_04: If you're not teaching your kids, who are you gonna let your teach your kids?
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's so you're gonna get off on a whole different thing.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you just have to think about that.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_04: But just like instead of saying just because I said so, yeah, break it down and say, hey, let's that's a great idea.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_04: You know, let's schedule something this afternoon and walk through why we do this this way, and is there a better way?
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: What's yours?
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: My best has to be a combination of both of those, but I I really like just evolving and realizing um there is a whole lot of culture that's been poured into our business, but there's always different ways to be able to teach that into our next generation of people who are coming.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: I always love studying and looking at, hey, how can we where you hear everybody nowadays that says that younger generation is very hard to teach, they're very hard to coach up and everything else.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: I look at it and I'm like, there's opportunity there.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's figure out how we make that tick.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: So evolving in the way that we teach, um, really seeing opportunity there.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been really good today.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: Really dove into continuing, and you'll continue hearing about our 80-year history, what we've learned, what we would change, what we're still changing, and all the fun things that come into that.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: Always check us out at LewisSuperstore.com and Crossroads Conversation Podcast.com for up to 74 episodes so far.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like, share it with your friends and family, and visit our website to send us questions about what you would like to know about the automotive industry or family business in general.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: Who do you want to hear from?
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: Send it them our way, and we'll do our best to answer any questions that you have.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you again, and we'll see you in future shows.