Service Drive Revolution - What Have You Done For Me Lately with Guests Mark & Dave Waco

Foreign.

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution. We have an exciting show for you today. An icon of our industry and his partner in crime and son Mark and Dave Waco. How are you guys doing?

Very good, thanks.

So I want to talk today about business and about the kind of what you guys see as the future of the automotive industry. What you see is working and isn't working. You know, you're in a lot of dealers, so you know the habits and behaviors of the ones that are performing and the ones that. That aren't. So hopefully we can go deep into that and give our listeners some real tools that they can take away. Does that sound good?

Yeah.

So, Mark, let's start. Tell. Tell me kind of how you got started in this great industry of ours.

Actually, it was through racing. I used to race cars for a living. In fact, I used to work for Carroll Shelby and built some of the original cobras back in 1966. 67, because I was 8 years old at the time, but not really.

Anyway, when I was racing, one of my sponsors was actually a chemical company, and they had asked me, when I wasn't driving or racing, if I would go out and get into sales with them. And I never sold really anything in my life except for a short stint for a car dealer.

You sold cars for a little while?

Six months. And I sold a total of three cars in six months.

So that's half a car a month.

Yeah. One was to my brother, one was to a cousin, and then one was to a little kid that walked in with a bag full of cash.

That surprises me, because you're a pretty good. You're a pretty good salesperson.

It was a Lincoln Mercury store, and I never sold a thing in my life. And I was only doing it because the car owner that I was driving for owned a number of stores, and this was the Lincoln Mercury store.

So he was a sponsor of your racing?

That's correct. And he wanted me to do something within the organization, so he stuck me there, the general manager. I did not get along, obviously, because he gave me a guaranteed salary plus a small commission where it's supposed to be the other way around. So I was making a living, but barely. But I wasn't selling any cars. So that came to a head after about six months.

But you got to race in the meantime, right?

That's correct.

How old were you when you got the racing bug?

Probably pretty early on. My father actually bought me a go kart, if you can call it a go kart, when I was about 14. And this was Not a go kart like you see today. This had a plywood floor about a half inch thick. The steering wheel was a pulley. The brake system was a little rod that came up, you pulled back and it rubbed against the rear tire, push it forward and made the belt tight. But it was a go kart.

Way more fun than the go karts today.

Yeah. The only mistake I made when he asked me what I wanted, if I wanted a two cycle or four cycle engine and the guy that was selling it to us said if you buy a two stroke, you're going to have to mix it with oil. If you buy a four stroke, you just put gas. And I said, well, I don't want to hassle that. So I got the four stroke and I don't know if you know or not, two stroke is a much better engine. I didn't know at the time and much faster, but I learned.

That's funny. So you were. You were working with a chemical company as a sponsor on your race team.

That's correct.

And what did you think about their business at the time or their business model?

It seemed very solid because they were dealing directly with car dealers. They had been in the business with another company prior to this for many years and they decided to come out with their own label. And this is. And they moved from Florida to California and decide this was their. Their opportunity we'll call for their family was a family business.

And so you start selling for them.

I did. They actually put me on a route. It was a truck, little truck fort a car line. And it was the west end of the San Fernando Valley, which was about, we'll say, five miles by six miles. That was my entire territory.

The. There's a lot of comedy in all this, obviously, and some of it's good and some of it's bad. But the first day I went out there, they gave me a list of customers. They had very limited list. I think it was about six of them. And the very first one I drove in, I'll never forget this was on Reseda Boulevard. It was called Reseda Dodge. And I drove in there and they had their name. The name was on the truck I was driving. I drove in and I didn't even get out of the truck. And this guy jumped in front of the truck and told me to get the you know what off the facility. And I didn't even know what happened. I was in shock. I later on found that the previous guy that they had here did a little bit of drinking. So when he would come in he would stir a lot of things up. And anybody associated with this company was not good. But I got past that. I went by a couple times. One of the being that I wasn't a salesman and a true sense of the word. What I think really helped me is when I was racing at the time, and many people in the car business are race enthusiasts. So when I go introduce myself, they say something like, your name sounds familiar. Well, it's certainly not for the business, but I say, yeah, I do a little racing. And then we start talking. And we could talk for an hour, an hour and a half, and not even know why I was there. But I built relate. I learned early on real quick that in this type of business, which is really wholesale, not retail, you're dealing with relationships. And if you don't have a relationship, I don't care if you give. It doesn't matter if the product's good or bad, the pricing necessarily. It's just everybody wants to help each other out and that type of thing. And that was really an advantageous thing to me. Didn't know it at first because I like talking about race cars. So it was easy for me and that's how I got it. Kind of got into the business.

Yeah. And that's kind of something that stuck with you through the years because it's about relationships, right?

Totally. Totally, yes.

So do you remember the dollar amounts back then of how much it would cost you to race? Because I'm sure it had to stress you out back then.

Well, at first I had sponsors. I got very lucky because when I was working for Carroll Shelby, I'll tell a story about it. Every Friday we used to take customer cars, load them up on car carriers and drive out from lax, that's where the facility was located, along Imperial Imperial highway and drive out to Willow Springs, which out in their Lancaster. And usually me and someone else would drive them out on a Friday morning and we'd have three or four cars and we got out there. Normally a test driver would meet us out there. We'd unload them, warm them up. He'd come up, take them around a few laps, load them back up and just see how to make sure, because they were sold to customers. And we did that for quite a while. And then was one time we went up there, had him unloaded. We got there about 9, 30, 10 o', clock, whatever it was. Normally he would show up right away because we want to miss the traffic going back. And it was about 11 o' clock and nobody showed up. And we look at each other, what do we do?

You didn't have cell phones back then?

No, I don't even think we had pagers.

And certainly there was no phone booth as well. So I decided, how hard can this be? So I figured I'll just go in there, drive around a lap or two, come in and make sure everything's stuck, still stuck together. So I did that. Went for I think, about three laps. I come in my luck, lo and behold, sitting on his car. The test driver arrived and he's sitting on the hood. I'll just never forget this, leaning against the hood and I pull in. And I was 21 at the time, newly married, and I figured I'm done, I screwed up really bad. And so he never said anything. He just got in the car, did his thing with the cars and see you later. I said that was cool. Well, now we're about 1 o', clock, 1:30 in the afternoon, heading back, which was about an hour and 45 minute ride, two hour ride, depending on traffic. And I didn't want to get back by five. I wanted to get everybody gone. This is a Friday afternoon. So what Norm would take that took us about four hours because we just took our time getting back, got back, downloaded everything, went home. And all weekend I was stressed out because I figured first thing Monday morning, something's going to happen here, you know, it's got to happen. So I figured I'd show up at 6:30 instead of 7:30. Why? I don't know. It didn't matter, right? I just got there early, just started doing my thing. And all through our first break and all the way up to about 11, whatever it was, it's just killing. I said, wow, that guy was cool. Never said a word. And I was just going away. And about, I don't know, 10 minutes later over the loudspeaker, Shelby American Mark Waco, please come to the general manager's office. Oh no, here we go. And which was normally about a four or five minute walk, took me about 15 minutes. I didn't know I didn't want to go there. I was zigzagging, conveniently lost. Anyway, I eventually ended up there. And as I walk in, the secretary, she saw my name. So Mark, his name was Chuck, Gerald Madger. Chuck's waiting for you. So I walk in his office and I, and I knew the guy because I work with him and I couldn't look him in the eye. I could not look him in the eye. I was looking down. So he said, sit down. I'm sitting down and he starts saying, how's everything? What's going on? I said, fine. And not looking at him and then his little pause, he said, I understand you were hot lamping one of our cars last week. What seemed like an eternity was probably about four or five seconds. And one thing, I guess I can't lie, you know. So I said, yep. Just looking down. Yep. And he said again, I'm not the exact words, but the words came as that. Have you ever done anything like that before? No, no, never done it. And there was another pause and he said, would you be interested if we sponsored you in a car and you could build some? And we were always looking for up and coming drivers. Now all this transpired in a very short period of time and I'm thinking I'm getting fired, let go and they're sponsoring me on a race car. I mean go put the two together. It's you know, total opposites.

Yeah. It's funny you, you were agreeing to be sponsored in a race car to keep your job.

Well, it wasn't quite like that, but it was certainly going along with it. It's certainly interesting. So that's. So I got it. They did it and. And the first year I won a regional championship and that was off and going. However, luck be it had. In 1968, Shelby American was closed down at LAX and they shifted all the cars, all the Mustangs to be converted over to a company in Detroit, A.O. smith. A.O. smith. And they actually built gas station pumps. I don't know what the relationship is, but that's what it was. And then I went out on my own. That's why, actually that's why I found that sponsor, the Lincoln Mercury guy at the time.

So how much were you charging sponsors back then? Do you remember?

Room and board? There wasn't much to go around because the racing I did initially was club racing, maybe a professional race once in a while, but there was no money in club racing except for trophies. So. Because my family helped me a lot too, quite frankly, both my mother and mother in law helped me. And thanks for that. That was really. There wasn't much. In fact, my mother in law loaned me a motorhome. That's why I towed the car around on a trailer.

So at what age do you have, Dave?

I was 25 at the time.

So were you still racing?

Yeah. Oh yes.

Do you remember racing?

Yes. You know, I was a little guy, my. But I remember go from track to track and then you know, we would have these huge. Back then like Today you couldn't do it like, you know, have Long beach here to get just a stretch of the track. It would be a little fortune. You know, back then as a kid we used, because he had connections, we used to be able to rent out a good part of the track. And so that actually helped our business. I didn't know that at the time. I was just a kid picking up aluminum cans and trying to collect those. Um, but he was able to get parts of the track when he, you know, he was out there racing or whatever. And then he would invite people to come and they would pull their motorhomes in and I mean it became actually it helped, he can probably tell you our business quite a bit. But so I remember, you know, just traveling around in the motorhome and you know, I was very little, but I have, you know, still memories of that.

Did you, did you ever get the race bug?

The irony of it all is he kept me away from racing. I mean, literally.

Was that strategic?

Yeah, I was. It's. It's a very tough business and even more so today because it's all about money. Most of drivers good portion of them have to bring spot. Without sponsors, you can't drive. And it was really no different back there. And you know how you get a small fortune racing? You start with a large one. That's where you end up with small. And it's just. And it's really a sport unlike many others. You can be really good, but if you don't have that car and that team, it's almost a waste. You're going to kill yourself somehow some way. It's not like other sports. You could stand out. Even team sports like football, you could have stand out, but your abilities, that doesn't happen in racing. I mean, yes, you see lap times, but if you don't have a good car, you're not going to get a good lap time.

So could you tell when you were younger than he was steering you away from it because you had to bend around it?

I was around. I like it's bright. But I got into sports when I was very young, so anything had a ball in it. He was advocating that. And I just actually became really into baseball, basketball, soccer when I was real little. So we were so busy doing that that it didn't. Even though I knew that I liked racing, but yeah, I didn't really.

And you liked the sports side of it because of the discipline and the commitment and all the other things that it would teach him?

Absolutely. And it was more also of socializing seeing so other types of people. Because kids today, or even now, if you're in high school or whatever school level, you're just going to play teams in that area. I like the traveling aspect where you can meet and see other people from all over the country, quite frankly, at an early age.

It's interesting today that the kids are all introverts because they don't interact that much. Are your kids like that?

We try to, again, I try to advocate the sports. I've been, you know, fortunately, my kids have enjoyed sports and we got them out there. But it's. There's definitely an influence for the kids get stuck behind and they communicate like this all day on their computer, you know, and the irony is, I say, you know, hey, let's go. You got to go see your friends, whatever. Because I am with my friends. Right. And even if they go visit a friend today, they're literally. They can interact less because they got to share remotes. It's a different world.

Yeah. So where you. Where you and I had to get. You know, we were dreaming of the day we could drive so we were free and, you know, maybe we could get a girl or something.

Yeah.

Where today they don't even think that way. It's all on.

Yeah.

All on the Internet.

Yeah.

So they don't. Their relationship to cars is different totally, in a lot of ways, which is why everybody predicts that the car industry will lose a million units or something, because they just don't. They don't have that thing where we had a poster of a car on our wall or you. You had a favorite car, right?

Yes.

What was it? What was it?

Corvette.

Corvette, yeah. They don't have that. Like, what did you. What? Like, what did a Corvette mean to you? When did you buy your first one?

Because kids today don't think that way.

No, that's totally correct. I had a fascination for Corvette most of my life that I can remember. And in 1963, I was just graduating high school, actually 62. I'm sorry. And I decided I wanted one, and I found one, used one. And it took me. It was somebody I knew had it. They didn't want to sell it, but I wanted to get it somehow. So it took me a little over a year of daily peppering my parents. Daily. I mean, that was terrible. I really overdid it. But I finally came up with a solution with them, and I signed an agreement that for the rest of my life, I would never get another birthday Hanukkah Christmas anniversary gift. Never again. No Salaries. Yeah, no, I didn't do that. And they got it for me. It was amazing. And that car.

Interesting enough.

Affected my life entirely. The whole future of my life was around that car. And I didn't know it at the time, obviously.

How, how did it affect.

Well, it actually got me a bit into racing because I did drag racing with it. I had a lot of friends in my neighborhood, but most of them were two or three years older than me. And so we started to work on a car. That's what we did. I mean any downtime we'd be working on cars. And I decided to change motors. Car. One year old Brett changing motor. And they put 15 different motors in this car. And I started drag racing. When there used to be drag race tracks around here. Lions, Irwindale, that Lions was down in Long beach and several others. And it was just a lot of fun. And you could just drive your car down there, tape off the headlights and go race and go home. And then on top of that, one of my older friends decided that he was to be my manager. So on Friday and Saturday nights he would arrange race street races. And there was a lot of places around here at the time you could do that down by the airport, down by lax, along Imperial Highway. But the best one, the best place, when they were building the 405 freeway, most people don't remember this. They built it in two or three mile sections. They didn't connect it until the whole thing was done. So you could get on an on ramp and have a two or three mile straight. Nobody there. In fact, the best on ramp, you know where Randy's Donut is in England, that on ramp, that's Manchester going south on the 405. You ever get on it? It's about three quarters of a mile long or almost a mile long. And kind of straight and kind of straight at the end it kind of veers off. But we actually had lights set up there. It's really a professional playground right on my play. And we used to race for $5 a gear or something like that. And I went almost a year and a half before I lost. And where I ended up losing, we were going out and cruising because Friday, Saturday nights and went out to Whittier. There was supposed to be a hot place out there is AW Whittier on Tweedy Boulevard of all names. And one evening I ran into a guy, he had a. I think it was like a 34, four blown Oldsmobile and a high dramatic transmission. And it was fast, but I was a little cocky. At the time. So, okay, we did it. And he just. He just blew me away and just blew me doors off. This car was really a race car on the streets, where mine was more of a streetcar that I go race. But it was. It was. It was humbling, but it was good.

So you have a manager because you. Because you're monetizing it like you're racing for money.

Yeah, we were racing $5 a gear.

What does a gear mean?

That means every shift, most transmissions back there were sticks that you raced. And almost 99 of them were four speeds.

So it'd be 20 bucks.

20 bucks whoever's ahead. So you could go out and start out and you might be able to hit. But if he catches the second, you lost that one third and fourth. Oh.

That'S interesting. So do you remember what you're paying your manager?

It was a percentage, I'm sure. I don't remember. He was pretty. Yeah.

So how was the company that you were working for mock early on, or was it a different chemical company?

It was another chemical company and I used. Mark was actually one of my competitors and I used to run into the. It was just a mom pop come. It was a husband and wife thing. And once in a while I would run into different stores. And one day we ran into each other. Is on Van Nuys Boulevard. It was Century Oldsmobile. And we were just talking and chatting. He said, you know, Mark, I'm retiring. I'm done. I'm getting out. I'm moving to. I think it was Nevada somewhere or whatever it was. And I didn't think much of it. I said, well, enjoy yourself, whatever. And when I got home, I kind of told my wife. He said, well, why don't we buy the company? I said, what do you mean by what are we going to buy it with? I called him, I met him. I actually met him at a Pontiac store on Van Nuys Boulevard because I thought it was kind of strange. But it turned out that he had two partners and they were Poland, Whitman, Rob. They owned a group of store, I think five stores, and two of them were on Van Nuys Boulevard. And being that this guy was retiring, they wanted nothing to do with it. They said.

However you want to create this, we need to get out because we don't want to be involved.

But they weren't looking for money.

Oh, they were looking for money, but I didn't have any. So it was interesting. They let me pay off a profit. So it took about two years. It wasn't all that much money, but it still took time to do it that way. And ironic going back, ironic. The first vehicle I ever had was that motorhome that my mother in law loaned me and it was a Ford, a Conline Motorhome when they cut the back end off and put a cab in the back. So I had stuff in the showers and the closets. That's all my stuff. That was your delivery livery truck.

How many chemicals was he making at the time?

They weren't making anything. It was a private label. I think there was five products. Five products and that was it.

And what year was that?

That would be in 1975. Early 75.

So I'm three. How old were you then?

I don't think I was born. Was I born?

Yeah, 69.

Three years older than me.

Yeah, yeah.

So you're five, five or six.

Yeah.

And so you make a deal with them, you don't put any money down, you just. You're gonna pay them out of profit?

When I could. When I could. When it was available.

Flexible.

Yeah, they were very flexible.

And so you leave the other company you were working for?

Yes.

How does that conversation go?

They not too earlier than this date. I used to go to sales meetings with them and I remember one sales meeting they introduced me to a guy and I was interesting. I turned out after I was with them about almost two years that I was their number one salesman in Southern California. Again, all back to this relationship. I built all this network of people that love to go races and as David said, we used to take, we used to take up the 1500, 2000 customers, customers out to Riverside. I, I was friends with Les Richter out there. So he would give me a whole area as David said, cost me being.

It was an event, event. People wanted to be there.

Of course they were great racing kind.

Of like those playboy parties you used to.

He TALKS not quite.

There might be a story there that.

He took a level, he took a level above that. But anyway, so they told me, they introduced me to a guy and they said, you're going to be. This guy's going to be in your area with you. I said great, because we'd get an override would help me. And I wanted a little bigger area anyway. Said no, no, we're going to cut you. You're making too much money. I said what am I making too? I was making, I think fourteen, fifteen hundred dollars a month, just bought a home, I think it was $106 mortgage, you know.

And just make an NZ and they wanted to take half of it away. And the reason they were going to do that, they said I was making the other guys feel bad, which did not compute. I would think any company would want to point to people are doing successful because you can do it. If I can, he can do it, you can do it. That wasn't their thought process.

It was more like communism. Well, they wanted to level the playing field.

Well, what I found out later, a lot of things you're finding later on is that the reason they went, they left it, they left another company to make their own company. They got so big, they were in Florida originally, got so big that they decided to make their own. I think in the back of their minds that they didn't want to create anybody else to do the same thing. How ironic is they end by doing that. They ended up creating me anyway. That's how ironic things are.

It's funny. So what do you think your. Well, I kind of know because we've had a relationship for a long time that kind of the basic fundamentals of Mach is the relationships. Because chemicals, although you do have some chemicals that are better than other companies chemicals, the chemicals are kind of a commodity at the end of the day. But it's the relationships and the service and the people you hire, the culture that is your advantage in the marketplace, I think. Is that something consciously you've done?

Absolutely. I mean again, learning that coming up about the relationship thing, I knew the name of the company that's on the can or the product was not insignificant, but not a big deal. The price insignificant. No, but not a big deal if it was depending on price. But it did come out the relationships and of course, what have you done for me lately? And to see the training that we do, the, the programs we put together, the menus we create, all this stuff is all part of what we bring to these customers. The average dealership or service director is not a well educated guy. Doesn't make him a bad manager. But he.

But the industries let him down.

Correct.

He's learned from the manager before him and it's handed down, but they don't ever invest in training for them.

Couldn't have said any better. That's exactly correct.

I mean I get guys here, Mark, for boot camps, right? And they've been managers for 20 years. The first time they've seen a financial statement and literally I've had them in tears and they're like, I didn't know that I was losing money. The dealer just tells me to chase gross. And so they chase gross, they chase gross. They come to Work every day. They have the best intentions and they don't even know their department's losing money. They're never taught to read. A guy Running a 711 knows how to read a financial better than we teach the managers that touch hundreds of customers a day sometimes.

Again, everything you said is totally correct. I've learned, I've seen it, learned it over the years. Is that the industry or the dealerships really do not invest properly. The training of their managers, you know a lot of service manager ex technicians or service advisors, they're nice guys, no cars, but doesn't make them a good manager. They need to be trained on what to do. And you're right, they don't know how to reach statement, never seen statements which goes back, you go to ownership of the dealership, most of them. Where'd they come from? Used car department, new car department. They don't even come from, they don't come from fixed. So they don't even know that themselves.

I mean we have mutual clients that have told me if they could give the service department away, they would, but.

It should be, that's what's creating.

Well, the industry's going that way, don't you think?

That's right.

I mean what do you. Well first let's talk about everything that you guys kind of do because you have more solutions than chemicals. So you're in the, in the tablet software side too, right Dave, kind of give everybody an idea of all the solutions, menus, everything that you have a.

Little bit to add to. What my dad said, you know, I think what separated us is our ability to work with dealers, understand what they're trying to do and then be a strategic partner to them. So what we learned, you know, when I got into this, just a little background, he pushed me away from cars. You know, I was in sports, I played baseball, did other things. So what I, when I started, you know, in getting involved the company, I said well how do I help the advisors sell? How do I help educate them? And that's when we develop marketing materials, understanding menus, how to you know, work with the servicemen, understand what effective labor it is. What's parts Mark? You know, what is, what is margin on parts need to be. So by understanding that back end and working with the shop foreman parts, working with the service advisor, service manager team and being that kind of glue to help bring together that vision and help that service manager. Because it's overwhelming to be a service manager. I mean it is the toughest job because you're trying to do a lot of things and taking care of customers so we can strategically partner with them and help them to drive more business. CSI it didn't necessarily mean that the product but that was an opportunity to generate more revenue, but also getting customers back in the store and the customers. So what we developed was software as well as visual tools, schedule maintenance, understanding what the factory is requiring. So if you're at a Ford store or if you're a total store, a lot of times you're dealing with a little bit different factory recommendations, but also clientele. And you know, when, when I started this, you know, really getting into this over 20 years ago and helping, you know, the company, that was my strength is because I could really understand what this service manager wanted. And I said, you know what, I got your back. Let's get this done. And so I'd help them and build the opcodes and develop a system in place to really sell and help the advisors understand, you know, and kind of what you do. Right. I mean, that's what grows a lot of this. So I think that separated us and you know, with working with a lot of larger dealer groups and helping them, you know, globally and create reporting so then you can hold folks accountable and give them reporting back. So the advisors, you know, see what success is. The manager sees himself moving in the right direction. And I think that's kind of what propelled our business, you know, across the country.

It's funny how many times have we gone into a store together where the manager was working on many menus for a year and we go in and in two weeks the menus are done every, you know, Right.

And I think that that's a huge. And then, you know, who's the first.

Person to make Calvary's coming?

Yeah, they go to happen to go to new store. The first person calls, hey, I need your help to get this thing going. Do you have any, you know, good Toyota, you know, schedule maintenance, presentations? What do I do to get my team up and going? I said, look, got it. We come in, you know, work with the parts, you know, get it done. And so that's what got me back in, you know, 2000s, as we were rolling out, you know, large dealer groups, I had a chance to work with all the automation stores. Sonic Group 1, Asbury was our first initially and really helping those stores, you know, understand how can I grow our business and the importance of service because that's how dealers are making, you know, starting we weren't selling as many cars. The profit on the cars, the margin shrunk. How Do I generate revenue for the dealership? You know, you've got to sell, you got to be, you know, you got to be able to take care of customer pay. So that's what's propelled our business and that's kind of our.

That'S the back end. What allows our business to continue to grow even in a market where you're not seeing the service vehicle as frequently is the fact that we can help and be a part of the business and spread out and do anything for a dealership. So we manufacture car care products, we manufacture all the aerosols, we provide seat protect. I mean anything that a dealership needs. Car care.

Do you mean all the detail stuff? Detail, yeah.

So on both the front and the back ends, anything that makes a car run better, look better, lock products, pretty much manufacture it. Now I helped develop, I developed a software that allows the Advisor to be able to communicate this thing on a consistent basis starting with service menus. So when a car rolls in you could just put in the make model year and the right menu comes up. It makes a presentation and also makes it more valuable to customer because it's not trying to articulate that you need a rotation, an oil change and an air filter. What it does is say hey you know what, you want me to get you caught up? Here's what's you need for your car. And they could show it and then when the tablet came out actually being able to move around and use your computer Mobile this was back in 2004 developed the integration with the DMS CDK Reynolds and be able to go out to the car and then present scheduled maintenance Mobile be able to present a multi point inspection at the right time the customer so they understand what they're going to need today and maybe in the future and then communicate updates through you know, text message. And so my company I sold in 2000 created called Mach 1 Solutions. So I merged that software which is you know tablets write up, texting inspection online bill pay, follow up, decline service, all that stuff. So I merged my company and now part of also of ownership in Affinitive which is. Which is a new company that.

I didn't know that.

Yeah. So I did that in July of.

What does Infinitive do? Affinitiv is a sign to have a cool name.

Yeah, it's cool, it's cool. It's a great deal. So it's a full service marketing. So it does OEM programs, reminder letters and stuff. It does that. So it's a merger. I don't know if You've heard of peak performance, One command, higher gear, dps. We formed a team, basically merged the company. So then we can work with Lexus and their Engage program, be able to pull together a full solution BMW and be able to really bring together for a dealer, they can make one phone call and have a whole back end solution for service, but also all the way. The front end recently acquired CK advertising handles.

So you took Mach 1 solutions and rolled it in and you got equity in that. And then how does that work with Mach?

It's separate company, totally separate.

So how do you spend your day?

So I work a lot on the software side of the business, you know, advocating.

And you like that, right?

I do because I, you know, I've developed good relationships with, you know, OEMs and been able to move on to, you know, consolidators, helping them, you know, understand what some of their pain points are. And then, you know, my dad and you know, the rest of the business has continued to grow and educate folks on, you know, how they can help on the back end.

So how much time do you spend at the, at the mock office?

Not as much. Very, very little actually. So pretty much, you know, helping just kind of advocate.

So you're not in that office anymore.

I pop in and they said, oh, nice to see you again. So yeah, I come in every so often to say hi. And what's nice is it's a great complement to the software. So the folks, you know, mocks, you know, in every city, pretty much in the United States and abroad. So the folks that are in there, if a service advisor has a question about software, mark, you know, the mock reps are able to pop their head in and say, hey, you know what, did you try this? You do this here, I can make a phone call to help you. So it's a good compliment to have a group out there that also understands the importance of driving retention sales. So it's worked out pretty well.

So on a real level, without pulling any punches or trying to say the politically correct thing, what do you see in the managers that are performing and the managers that aren't?

For me, it's just, you know, buying, you know, attitude. Yeah, it's buying. I mean it's, it's the most consistent thing that I see as far as success. When I see success, it rolls out all the way down. So because whether it's software or whether it's service chemicals, we're just enabling what they want to accomplish. So for example, if you just say, hey, I got this great Fuel product. Right. And say let me know what you think. Right. It's not going to be as successful as it lets you put a marketing plan together. You understand when it's most commonly recommended. Put together marketing materials, make sure the opcodes are in, make sure the parts are pricing, make sure the parts departments make enough money. Service advisors making enough money having the collateral material to introduce it and then educating the advisors on the benefits of it. Right. You can't just say that you could have the best product in the world, but if the service manager doesn't put that in place, those pieces, then it's not going to be successful. If you have a mobile write up solution in software and it's the greatest thing in the world. But if the service manager doesn't help, you know, really get behind, you know, the scheduled maintenance, are they doing a single factory only good, better, best. Do I want to check tires during every write up? Do I want to make sure I'm collecting email? You know, all the little things that are, you know, we do and we teach on, you know, effective walk around. If he's not behind that and he just says, hey guys, let me know what you guys think of this write up solution. He gives it to the advisors, it's likely going to not be as successful. So getting a manager that digs this, puts his time and effort in there across all these things is what generates that level of success that I think we're all looking for.

Yeah. One thing that I hear over and over again is that won't work here. My market's different. Whenever a manager starts with that and ask questions that really are statements, they're not questions, you kind of know that you got less of a performer there. Instead of like how do I do it? How does it work? And asking questions before they judge. What are your thoughts on that, Mark? The performers versus the non performers, their characteristics.

Well, if I had a dollar for every time I said this doesn't work in this area or geographically or we'd.

Have a lot of money.

Yeah, yeah, right. It's really, as David said, the buy in and it's taking the time with each individual fixed guy, service manager, parts matter, whatever. Taking the time and explaining what it's going to do for him, not just saying this is what we do and maybe even give references and references are good to a point, but seeing is believing. You know, pictures worth a thousand words. You have to take the time with explaining all this stuff and it becomes very profitable for the stores. And of course David also provides and we Provide a lot of reporting scenarios or you can show where the difference.

Is even down, which is the accountability that they're missing. Right.

Would you? Yeah.

Is that how you define it?

Yes.

You know, and you can't blame, I mean, serviceman, like I said earlier, it's, there's so much that's thrown on top of them. I mean, some service managers, I mean, it's, it's crazy the things that they're asked to do at a dealership. I mean, they're literally open up doors, they're, you know, fixing cars in the back. I mean it's, it's, it can get overwhelming.

So.

Oh, the toilet in the showrooms backing up, they call the service.

That's right.

That's right. You know, and there's always that. And so it's, it's overwhelming. So it's really. And I think that, you know, being able to be there as a strategic partner to help them, you know, and get there, that's what has made this, you know, mock, in this case mock products extremely successful because they're, you know, they're always there to help. That doesn't matter what it is. I mean, when I was on a truck, that's what I learned. It didn't matter. On a Saturday, you call me, you need help, you need a little screw that you can't find your parts, you know, all run down and figured out how to do it. And so I think that that attitude is just whatever it takes, we're here to help you grow your business is, I think, helped quite a bit.

Where do you.

Guys see the manufacturers going? Like, I've gotten in a lot of trouble with manufacturers because of our relationship and you know, I was labeled for a long time, the chemical guy, because I'd come in and chemicals would start selling, selling, which was one piece of what I did. But, you know, we were good at that and it drove profit. And it always seemed like a weird thing, but I've been called into, you know, factory headquarters and told that they're going to change the dealer agreement and all kinds of stuff because they wanted the chemical business basically. But they don't know how to sell it like we do and they're not providing the training or, you know, whatever we were doing to do it. But it seems like we're at a weird time where the manufacturers don't feel like they need the dealers in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I mean, I've, I can because I'm, I'm in meetings a lot with manufacturers and I totally understand their Perspective so I can, I can see what's going on, that, you know, they just want to make sure things aren't being confused. And that's, you know, it's a good point to that because you can oversell and recommend things that may not be needed at certain time and mileage. And so it's a collaboration. And you know, I work with, you know, various manufacturers and they, and they advocate for their, you know, parts, I mean, let's just say fuel system. I mean, you know, Toyota, there's many manufacturers, they're helping bottle General Motors top engine for so many years and they're, they're asking their dealers to also purchase those type of products. And so there's a right time and a right mileage and there's a right recommendation I think at the heart. But they also realize the importance of, you know, they've got to sell parts as well.

Yeah, but we've, maybe you have, but I've never sat at a table with a manufacturer and they said, well, teach us how you're selling so much. Yeah, they just throw rocks, I mean, because their stuff is sitting on the shelf, but it's growing dust. We're coming in, redoing menus, we're playing games with the advisors, we're training the advisors and we're making things move. But don't you kind of see or get a feeling that the manufacturers want to deal with less dealers? And then you have a dealer body that there are third generation dealers that aren't investing in the dealership, they're not really running them, they're not participating in what the manufacturers want and they have their own ideas. And so it creates this weird tension between the two that I see a lot.

Yeah, I think you've seen for the last number of years there's been a real.

Crossroads, we'll call it, with the relationship between the dealer and the OEMs. If I remember about 15 years ago, both General Motors and Ford tried to go direct. They bought their own stores, they're running them and they failed miserably. And I think they forgot what the entrepreneurish relationship that it takes to run a store like this because there's so many businesses within the business, each department is a business in itself.

Five or six businesses in a business.

Right. And to find people just to hire somebody as a job to go run these things, it doesn't work. You have to have a vested interest, be it financially, stock, whatever it might be, you need to have, invest. That's why so many dealers today, the big groups, the the, the ownership has put their general manager with some type of stock. Stock price. When they have stock invest.

Have the little kiss.

Exactly. Perceive they, they're buying into. Bought into. Yeah. And that's very, that's very common right now where it's all heading. You know, I wish I had a crystal ball but there's going to be at some point in time, I don't see it a major shake up in 10 years or something. But with subscription, with all the car sharing things they're talking about, who knows.

Where it's all going and massive consolidation.

Massive. And it's going to continue. But that's in any industry. Think about the world today. Try to find an industry of any significance that it hasn't started or it been consolidating for many years. I mean all the big box stores, they're consolidating. Even Steers and Kmart. Kmart tried to do it. Obviously it was too late, too little, too late for them to do anything. But it's all about consolidation. It's economy of scale. It's everything you want to put to it. They need each other. Look at all your OEMs. Who do they name? Me. One manufacturer doesn't partner with a, with a, with another manufacturer that four or five years ago they wouldn't be cutting in the same room together yet alone doing business together. It's all that way.

No, it's even crazy that Tesla is making all those cars in a Toyota GM factory that Toyota gave them money.

Right.

I mean it is kind of crazy. It is kind of. To something you said earlier, Mark, about.

The dealers come up through the front end. And so I feel like there's a shift in the industry where service is becoming more and more important because the car is a commodity. With the Internet and buying on the Internet, their margins are shrinking. But I don't know a dealer that if I call a friend that's a dealer and I say how many alignments did you sell Friday? They don't know. But if I say how many cars did you sell Friday? They're like, well, we had an 11 car day. They measure their ego and their success by how many cars they sell. But the industry is changing and it's really about how you service those cars and how you retain, retain those customers. And it seems like a lot of dealers, instead of buying into that are just selling and getting out. And it's interesting because there's a lot of great dealers that are just walking away.

Yeah, well, there goes the generational gap again because many dealers Sometimes are fortunate that their siblings or their kids actually enjoy the business. But the vast majority don't want anything to do with the business. And that's a shame because we've all seen you and I and Dave have seen over the last 15, 20 years the downfall of some of these stores when they change ownership within the family and they go right down the drain because they just are not equipped to do it. And it's interesting, when I got into this business and watched all this for many years, I noticed that the ones that were more successful then they put their kids really starting out sweeping the floors, working a detail department, working a body shop, whatever. Learn each department separately. And then when you get put in a position to manage, you know what you're managing for. Some of them made so many big mistakes and put them ahead of a department, they don't even know how to go to the bathroom, where the bathrooms are, or whatever it might be.

There's a big difference between the kids that worked every department and the ones that came back from Stanford and went right to general manager. Absolutely, there's a big difference.

And with my son, when he finished playing base, we hurt himself and now he had to get a real job. I decided I didn't want to put him here, so I actually had to move to San Francisco to work for our.

Our distributor.

Yeah, well, actually, we own it up there. Our warehouse up there. It's a distribution outlet and get on a truck and make deliveries. That was the only way I knew to have him learn all fast.

How long did you have to do that?

I've enjoyed it.

Oh, no, I'm sure.

Yeah, it was. It was three years.

Three years, yeah.

Yeah. Did he.

Did you have to sell, too? Open new accounts?

Oh, yeah.

That's all. Yeah, that's all I did.

Yeah.

I was getting phone calls by the guys up there. What have you done? Because he is so inquisitive and just constantly nagging and asking questions anywhere from three to five times a day. And they've never. But interesting. This is, you know, it's amazing how things are ironic. I use that word a lot. What they did up there when he moved up there shortly thereafter, about a year and a half, two years after they started developing the menu program that we never had or didn't do. And it's that.

There was three other guys up there that plus David developed all this because of necessity, what they saw. And I didn't know I was seeing all these bills coming through for There were printed menus back there. Why are we spending all this money, they just throwing them out anyway. Then I was. They said, look at your sales. Oh, okay, keep buying, keep selling those things or get rid of them. But that's, that's really what all the. Just for me, sending them up there, working with these guys and putting.

What he wanted. I wanted to learn the business, but not with me. I wanted more for somebody else.

So how do you, how do you see mock changing in the next five years, 10 years?

Oh, that's an interesting question. I get asked that at least every other day. Oh, you do? Well, yeah. People, you know, people at the company, people when you're at shows like nada. Competitors walk by, you know, what, what you, what are you guys doing? And it's really just about re reinventing yourself. That's really what we have to. You have to find other opportunities within the store that would match or mesh what you're doing, be it chemicals, be it hard parts, whatever it might be, or trade back to training again or any kind of any other thing. Because we have to make sure that they do their job properly. Because that customer coming in that door, driving in, is our customer as well. Because if they don't come back. That retention tool you mentioned a little earlier, that's very important too, because the dealers again become their own worst enemy because they don't keep the customer that bought the car. They should have the first shot at keeping that customer because they bought a car there. But yet it doesn't seem to happen that way. It's just too much turnover, too much not taking care of business type of thing. So that's the things that we look at as far as the direction with the electricity, electrical cars and everything else.

There's no fluids on those electrical cars.

A lot of batteries.

A lot of batteries. Yeah.

Into the battery.

Actually, it's interesting enough there is fluids because there is a coolant that keeps the battery, the temperature going up.

Can that change?

Yes.

It's not going to be enough, though.

No, no. But it's something.

I think, just being diversified, just reinventing the company and looking other thing, other opportunities.

Yeah. It's interesting. I remember seeing the Nissan Leaf come in and there was nothing you can do to it. And now a lot of the manufacturers, they want half their cars to be electric, like Volkswagen.

Well, the necessity, because of the mileage situation, they have to do that, stay under the government mileage average.

Yeah. So it's definitely forced that way to change. Why do you think there's so much turnover in dealerships?

It's always Been that way. I think it's just people just move around and.

For. Sometimes for no reason. You'll see a guy doing really well at a store, a service director will say, or parts, and all of a sudden he's gone. Now, why did that happen so. Well, they wanted to renegotiate my deal. Back to making too much money. What happened to me. And I can get a guy coming in there at half the price. Third the price, whatever it is. You've already got the thing running good for me. Well, just. We'll just hand it over, Hand the keys over somebody else as it goes back down. And it goes gradually, sometimes, sometimes fast, but eventually go back in a year. It's. It's sad. It's a sad situation.

Yeah.

I think I can attribute a lot of my success to putting a pay plan for the advisors and the managers in place where it's fair and they can make what they want. And protecting them from the dealer in a weird way. Because when I would go in, I would ask, like, I would make sure, like, if you're making this much, do you care how much the service manager makes? Because they do. They think that the next guy coming in can do it. And all the turnover and the drive kills you. You lose customers. When a customer sees a different face every time they come in, it's terrible for sales. And so keeping the same people, keeping the same manager is a huge priority.

Yeah. I learned that too, at a real early age, watching that with our company. I think in the 45 years I've owned it, I've only had, like, maybe three managers leave that didn't retire or pass away. So we hang on to our people. We try to.

Yeah. It's important.

Very important. That common denominator is the same person going out there doing the same thing with that same face. Yes.

Yeah.

But we know mutually. We know a lot of managers that jump around a lot because of that, the pay thing. They come in, they have a pay plan, then they blow it up and they're making a bunch of money. And then the dealer's like, nope, manager isn't worth more than 12 grand a month. This guy's making 16. He's gone.

Yeah.

And you're like, look at how much you made. It's not. It's an odd thing. Right. You would never think that in sports. Right. Like, if a guy's hitting 45 home runs and whatever. RBIs.

What would.

What would good RBIs be these days?

You know, 100 would still be great. Yeah.

So. Yeah. You wouldn't. Like. You wouldn't say, oh, well, the guy can't make whatever the number is. Right. Because it's production. But the dealers lose sight of the production. It's just. They don't want to sign that check. It's a weird industry with that. It's always fascinating me because I'm always like, hey, if you can make it for me, I'll pay you. Right. That's called a good deal.

Or you get a changeover in ownership, be it a sibling or somebody else. Chain all of a sudden takes over, over. And he didn't have that same relationship.

Not my guy.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Not my guy.

Well, goes to sports, then we can start. The Clippers deals have been pretty crazy.

Lately, but, yeah, the trades.

Oh, man. Yeah. So we'll see. I'm gonna have to wait to see what happens. It's tough to root for the Clippers to win when you got to give up a lottery pick.

So the thing I don't understand about the Clippers is I don't think Doc's a very good coach.

Everybody's got a separate opinion, that's for sure.

Well, I've sat there and watched it. Like, I remember years ago that I think. I think I saw you there. But when they were playing the Houston Rockets and they just collapsed, and they had the team, like, they had better players, and they just collapsed.

That was a tough one to see.

But that's the coach. Like, I feel like. And afterwards, just watching his press conference, he's like, well, we did our best. It's like, you did your best. What are you talking about? Just lost.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know. There's something about him that's just. Just too. Too entitled or that time he was.

Also doing the GM job, and I think that was a mistake person.

And I think they've usually always is. Right. The only guy that can pull that off is Belichick. And even him, he has a gm. He's just okaying everything or whatever.

They're running it by him.

Yeah, he's getting a one sheet every day. Yes or no.

Yeah, I remember that game. They were ahead by 30 some points going to the last quarter.

Yeah. And it just collapsed.

Remember that?

And I was heckling the Rockets or whatever the whole time, too. I was sitting right behind him.

Yeah.

Heckling them. It was working.

I try and do my part as.

Well, but, yeah, it seems like they strategically place people behind them to heckle, and I was just lucky to be in it. But there were A couple that were just, I mean, literally, the players were, you know, they were affected for sure.

They must have thought you were a cousin or a relationship to harden it.

Yeah.

He wanted to touch my beard for sure. I could tell. He had super beard.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

What about, what do you guys think about Brady and Belichick? Like, is there, is there anybody at this table that would say Montana is the greatest quarterback of all time?

I mean, I don't think you can anymore, right?

Yeah, I don't think so either, I think, but people still say it.

It's odd to me because people grew up in different eras and that's who they watched, you know, grow through, go. Go through this. But it's. It's hard to match eras with people. I mean, it's. Things change. But in this case, maybe for the worst because with, with free agency and the way the salary caps, it's really hard to hang on to the same team for any length of time. Big turnover in team. So you, you have to admire, I mean, you have to admire what they've accomplished there for the period of time that they've done it.

Yeah.

Probably never happen again.

No, Brady's a leader. Like, he gets. You don't know anybody on that team except for Edelman and somebody else, and he gets them run routes and he, you know, puts it in their hands.

Yeah.

And they, you know, he's. He's just quite a leader.

You know, it's interesting. I didn't have a lot of opinion for him Brady, because you never, never saw him really interview much, but he was actually on Saturday Night Live last Saturday. He was a co host and it shocked me how well he did and how outgoing and a nice guy he comes across. He really, you know, so, yeah, he's well spoken and holds himself high. So I imagine he would be a really good leader. Yes.

You know, when I saw it was. I saw one of those episodes where he's mic'd up and him like coaching and yelling and like the perfection and just relentless. Like even yelling at Gronk and just like, I don't know, it made me stop for a second and like pay attention to how he was the one driving everybody to be better.

Yeah, I think it rolls over to like, even the car business just process. I mean, that organization systems. If you talked about craft and what he's done and you talk about, you know, it rolls uphill. I mean, you know, he took a chance with Belichick early on. You know, I think Belichick was in Cleveland. He did some other stuff and fired Pete Carroll. Yeah, yeah. And he brought him in. And, you know, the thing is that that system, it didn't matter whether he went through Randy Moss or if you, you know, who you brought in. They, you know, they found a way to put him into their program. And, you know, at a dealership, too. I mean, some of these dealer groups are just, you know, fine old machines. I mean, they have a process. It's. It's similar. That's success is, you know, dialing in what. What the expectation is, and it comes from the top. And then after that point, people just. They feel their role and they feel good about being part of a team because they. They know that they got the ownership has their back, and then they have something in place that's going to be successful. And so, you know, that. That organization has been probably, you know, at least in the last, you know, 15 years, has been probably the number one organization of all sports. It's just consistency.

Yeah. I feel like our. Our industry's gotten away from performance in a lot of ways. Like, we used to be big sports fans, and we used to have a leaderboard, and now it's like, you know, dealers or managers are scared to have the technicians on the leaderboard. Talk about how many, you know, it's a production facility, and they don't want to have a hierarchy of performance for advisors even. Like, they just kind of like, we'll just take care of the customer and everything will take care of itself. And it's like, well, that's a good starting point. But there is. There is a level of performance and being a winner and a loser that our industry had, you know, that. I don't know, the kind of money that we could make at such a young age was crazy because of performance and dedication. And it seems like that that's going away in a lot of. A lot of ways.

I think the gamification, the making it fun, and we're all kids at heart, right?

Little boys.

And you know what? At the end of the day, it's, you know, who's in the playground, who. How are they going to rank them in the playground? How are they going to rank them at the dealership? How. You know, that's that personal pride. It's a. No one wants to be at the bottom. So if you put goals out there, you know, leaderboards, technician productivity boards, advisors, contests, I mean, that's what's made you very successful, is you've been able to bring to life that kind of energy in a dealership. And it comes back to kids. I mean, whether we're rolling dice on the table, whether we're flipping cards or whether we're, you know, doing a side bet, who's going to, you know, step up today, the best. It's, you know, it's driving that level excitement and making it fun. I mean, even kids today, how are we going to have to adapt to this type of generation? You got to make the program fun. Whether it's software, they got to want to use it. You know, if you're talking about mobile. Right. How what's making that fun for an advisor, you know, make it fun, make it. And have that productivity as a goal. So, yeah, I mean, that's something that we should, you know, I think most successful businesses will create that atmosphere of, you know, setting goals, setting priorities, setting standards and having winners and, you know, and really provide the accolades. I mean, you saw the Grammys, you know, yesterday you got people crying all these, you know, these guys have more money than God, right. But a lot of them, but they roll out there and they get to be acknowledged. You know, they want that acknowledgment.

And so in Napoleon quote, he said, my life changed the day I realized a man would die for a blue ribbon. I mean, it's the prize, right? Like you would die for the blue.

Ribbon just to get there.

Man, it is funny, but don't you feel like a little bit we're losing that?

Well, yeah, I mean, it's again, it comes from that leadership. If that leader can create that atmosphere of fun accountability, he's going to be, it's going to make his team's going to make him look good. You got a reward, you got to come through. And when you say you're going to do something, you got to come through with that reward. And then that's how you earn people's respect. Because you're going to bust your butt for somebody if you're at battle. But if you let them down, they're not going to have that same, you know, you're never going to be the same in their eyes.

Yeah. Some of that is also has to do with.

Generational situation. Again, the millenniums and that, if you want to call them that, that they're not motivated and when they get to where they have to work and some of them don't even want to work, but when they have to work, they're not really productive.

But it's a different language. If you, you know, I got an 11 year old, right. If you Ask him how many, you know, guns he's got in Fortnite. And what, you know, it's a, it's a. He's gamifying, right? It's a contest.

Their world is gamified.

That's right. So that's what you have to do here. You have to adapt to that. You can say it's not a hard working, just a dip in the house. I mean, we in software, we, a lot of our people work out of the house. If I had mentioned that to my dad, you know, 10 years ago, look, you got, you know, working from home, how do you, how do you know what he's doing? Right? How can you. There's ways to know what you're doing. It's. Look at the scorecard at the end of the month, you know, I'm saying, so just because you can't stand over their head and beat them and say, look, you got to show up at this time. But I mean, you know, we have basically a virtual company, but if you look at the numbers at the end of the day, you know, and people work different hours too. If you, you know, learn that, you know, with developers, you know, they're going to have different time, but these guys gonna be up 11, 12 o' clock at night working on stuff. You get, you're not gonna, you know, give them a hard time for doing that. But it's just a different world. You gotta adapt. It just the whole thing is adapting and being prepared for how things are changing. And as a leader, you got to accept that. You can't say, I used to do this way and this is how the kind of result. Well, it's not the same way anymore. You know, look at the sidelines of Belichick. You probably, he probably never did videos and stuff like that. But man, I'll tell you what, how much does video have to do with the end of the game? What they're looking at? I mean, every time you hear, you hear, you know, one of these guys after the game, whether it's NBA or NFL, I got to go look at the footage. I got to go review the video. I got to see, you know, it's all, it's all changed. We didn't have.

Some are doing right in the games.

Yeah, they're on the sidelines right there looking at that play. That guy was open.

Talk about baseball. Angels Stadium. They're down there watching like they got software that tells you every pitch that pitcher's ever thrown. They're down there taking batting practice.

Oh, it's great.

Behind the bull, you know, the dugout. Right.

Yeah. I mean, I coach kids now in Los Angeles, different programs and stuff. And if you watch even on the it at major league, you know, Dodger Stadium, they're showing you bat angle. They're showing you, you know, bat speed coming off the bat, right? Projection, all these things. It's all the analytics. They're looking, looking at all this stuff. And a lot of these guys, honestly, these. The scouts that I know that are recruiting kids out of high school, they're just saying, give me. Give me a tape and give me his, his. His statistics on not. Not his batting average. But what's the bat speed? What's the angle of the bat coming off? They're looking at all this stuff now, and it's crazy. But you can't just say, I'm not going to do it. Right. Because people, again, are looking at things different ways.

One of my favorite lines in a movie is Moneyball, when the guy's like, he's got an ugly girlfriend.

What does Brad Pitt say in the beginning of that? He's like.

What is the problem? Or something like that, right in that scene. It's great dialogue by Sorkin, but, yeah, he's like, yeah, he's got an ugly girlfriend. Yeah, he's not going to be any good. Yeah, it's pretty. That's how they used to think back then.

Well, that was a great movie. I mean, to be. But there's. There's a piece of that, like, you know, the really successful people are able to look at, you know, analytics, analytics. But also, you got to look at what's in the heart. You got to. You got to be able to find out and see what that's all about. Was it Clint Eastwood? That movie was where he was looking. His daughter ended up helping him at the end, and they went out to go look at that guy. But the guy was tremendous statistically, but he had no heart. And so they said, don't sign that guy. He went with a different guy.

Trouble with a curve.

Yeah, yeah, he couldn't hit a curve. Right. But yeah, so that's what a good leader can identify, is look at some things, but also get to know the person, what it's about, and that's going to be even more important.

So wrapping it up, what are your thoughts on training as it applies to the auto industry? Where do you think the biggest gaps are?

I just think the consistency of it, that people do it for a period of time and then they stop and they expect it to stay that way. They have too much turnover to be and plus people, the average person will just eventually gravitate back to what they did before, some sooner, some later. So it has to be an ongoing program that systematically keeps it refreshed and that's it. And because they don't do it, we have to do some form of it. We're forced into it because again, their production is our production, because we need to work hand in hand on that.

Consistency systems, right? Yep, yep. I mean a lot of the dealer groups that have consistent follow up training, new hire process, I mean, things that just absolutely.