EP26: ShopSoup Goes Into Overdryve With Mike DelaCruz

0:00Hey, Greg here. Another edition of Shop Soup Podcast, and I'm with a dear, dear friend and great industry brother of mine, Mr. Mike De La Cruz from Overdrive. I'm so happy you said yes to come on. You know, we saw each other out in Tectonic. We had a great dinner together. Just— we were just real talking in real time, real guy-to-guy stuff.

0:23So, Mike, man, so glad you made it. How you been, brother? I mean, first and foremost, I'm honored to be here because I feel like it's overdue. Number one. Number two. Yeah. I just, I've been following this and just going like, man, I'm just been a big fan. Um, so thank you, Greg, for the opportunity. I know we caught up at Tectonic and we talked about doing this, so I'm glad we finally made it happen.

0:45So it's great to be here. Appreciate the invite. How have I been? I've been, you know, burning the candle at both ends, man. You know, like it's, uh, But I'm enjoying every second of it. And it's one of the things about 3 and a half years ago, I really had to do some self-reflection. I'm like, you know, what motivates me? What gets me up in the morning?

1:04Those kinds of things. And we all know family and stuff. That's, that's always going to be there. But like career-wise, you know, what kind of impact can I have where it just fuels me? And I feel like I found it. So life is great. It's busy, but I'm enjoying every part of this journey. I would not change it for anything. Yeah, I know.

1:24I mean, I remember the times with everything that was going on from your prior engagements and stuff like that. And you know, how long we've known each other. I mean, it's been a while since all the Demand Force days. I'll never forget. Yeah. It's gotta be close to 14, 15, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, I, I, I had the— Todd Westerland is the OG.

1:47I think he's up to 20 years that we go back from the original Demand Force, the original team, and then getting know you guys and being part of the build a little bit there. You, Tolkien, Westerlund, you know, all you became such dear friends of mine. And, and, you know, even Maurice Stern, um, uh, I haven't heard that name in a long time.

2:08Yeah, he'll chime in on some Led Zeppelin stuff when I start talking about that because he's a big Zep fan, you know. And, uh, so we get talking about that. But, um, it seems like everybody went through some gyrations after that big split, or, you know, the buyout. The— what was it, the, the 425 Group or something like that. Yeah. We had gotten acquired.

2:31Demandforce had gotten acquired, uh, I wanna say it was like '13 or '14, but yeah. Um, Intuit acquired Demandforce and people kind of, some people stayed, some people went their separate ways. I saw Todd was gone at Kukui and, um, him and I were talking and ultimately decided to follow his path. He's always been somebody I admired greatly and, and respected a lot.

2:52Um, so I trusted that part of the journey and I spent almost 6 years at Kukui. You did. Yeah, it was a lot of you. Uh, Mike, Mike is still there along with Connor and, um, a few others, I think. But yeah, that was a bit— it was a big, um, a big jump for everybody. But you guys all— I mean, especially you, you, you had that— well, you had that drive to make sure that you— yeah, pun intended, absolutely.

3:16You know, to, uh, to keep going. And now that you got OverDrive and, and you're really rocking and rolling, what do you— is OverDrive— how are you making a difference not just for shop owners but Really, you know, you've taken a passion and you've, you've made it yours, and now it's your team, your baby, you're rolling with it. How do you feel about everything that you're doing with that?

3:38I'm feeling really good, really positive, and it's only going to get better as we start to really look at what shop owners need and help them fill those needs. Um, you know, from obviously from a, from a, uh, from a development perspective, build something great for them so that they could help, help them reach their goals. So what is OverDrive? So, you know, about 3 and a 5 years ago, as I mentioned a minute ago, I had to do some self-reflection.

4:03I'm like, after the Kukui days, I really didn't— I spent time in a couple different companies and I didn't feel like I sort of found my place. I worked at great companies, but it just, it wasn't filling me intrinsically. So, I paused, I took a step back, I kind of reassessed my life and without getting super deep, ultimately, I just decided after watching the Steve Jobs commencement speech in Stanford, if your audience hasn't listened to that, please listen.

4:29It's a 13-minute video, but it's life-changing. At least it was for me. But, you know, he goes on about all these really great things and gives great advice. But one of the things that he said, it really resonated with me as I entered the shift into starting my own thing. He says when he was 17, he read a quote that said, "If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you're most certainly going to be right."

4:53And he said after he read that quote, he said for 33 years, he looked himself in the mirror every day and he said, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do today?" And when the the answer has been no for too many days in a row, you know, you need to change something.

5:07That was eye-opening for me because I got to a point where I did not want to waste my days. So I kind of pivoted. I said, you know, Mike, what's your interest? What do you love doing? And, you know, all these different things. I'm like, I love this industry. This is where my heart's at. I mean, 15 years in this industry, like, this is what I love.

5:25I love marketing and I'm really good at it. So a combination of those two, I said, well, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and resign from my former company, which I did it gracefully. I, I put in my resignation and the next day after they accepted my resignation, I was on the phone calling my network. The intent back then, Greg, was I'm gonna manage marketing for 2 or 3 shops, right?

5:46That's what I'm gonna do. But here's what's interesting. It quickly snowballed. And I say quickly because I had my first client in 2 days, my second client 3 days after that. And I'm like thinking to myself, maybe this, there's such a bigger need than what I anticipated. And then Overdrive had evolved since then. 3.5 years in business, we have 11 employees, team members, part of our team, part of our growth.

6:12And I'm very proud of what we've been able to build. Fast forward, I don't know, 2.5 years after I started Overdrive, I started jumping on this AI train. About a year ago, we started development on our, on our new software. It's a marketing operating system. So if you take what traditional marketing directors do on a day-to-day basis, from pulling census data, identifying demographics, understanding their total addressable market within each shop.

6:40So an opportunity's ahead. What types of strategies should we build based on the demographics, right? Execution, right? Let's, let's launch the most successful campaigns. It's going to help shops get the most traction in terms of MQLs, marketing qualified leads, and fill their calendar up. And then The work's not done because we've got to keep a pulse on all this stuff. We got to like monitor all these lead sources, everything that we're doing.

7:06How's it doing? Is it underperforming? Is it overperforming? Are we on pace to hit our goals? This is a human tied to this. So about a year ago, what I've done is I've shifted it in a way where about 95% of what a traditional marketing director does, we've, we've developed an operating system to do that. Predictive analytics, being able to say I'm forecasted to hit $180,000 $180,000 this month, but you know what?

7:33My goal was $200,000, so I'm going to be $20,000 shy. They don't have to log in. We send our clients push notifications saying, hey, Joe, based on where we're at, you're only expected to hit $180,000. Your goal's $200,000. We can do X, Y, or Z. And because we utilize artificial intelligence, it's going to recommend the most optimal campaign to help that client bounce back and get back on track.

8:00Wow. So very, very excited about how far we've come as, as, as a company. There's still a lot more work to do, but I'm very proud of our success, man. I would be too. That's fantastic news, dude. I mean, seriously, if you can predict, if you can help, um, resolve an issue of, say, $20,000 or whatever by just simply knowing and, and hitting that target, my goodness, man, that, that's like crazy good.

8:26How did you, how long did it come up, did it take you to actually formulate that and, and then have, uh, AI kind of constructed, like, because it's based on AI will use your experience, of course, but you know, you gotta do really good prompts to make that thing sing. Yeah. So, um, like I said, about a year ago, we started getting curious about it.

8:47I wasn't prematurely create a product and just launch it. Right. I wanted to make sure number one, most important over anything is, um, shops need it. They could use it and it's going to help them. That was the number one thing. And you know me many years, I've been personally have visited over 2,000 shops between the US and Canada. I've actually been in those environments many, many times and talked to shop owners.

9:10You know, how do you like using this? What type of strategy? How do you handle this situation? Right? So about a year ago, I started getting curious about it. Maybe about 2 months later, I started talking to my development team and saying, here's my vision. Here's what I want to do based on talking to shops and seeing what they need. And then we started development on it.

9:28And then probably about 4 months ago, we launched our, our minimum viable product and we took it to market, but we were only a selective group a group of clients that we use, and we use all of our OverDrive clients who operate off TechMetric and said, hey, you know, here's what we've got. You want to use it? Many of them raised their hand and said, we need this.

9:47So we kind of ran this test environment for about 3, a little over 3 months, I think. And then got a lot of positive feedback. There were some things that we had to go back to the drawing board, which is very, very typical in software. But ultimately we went to market. Right around the Tectonic conference. And, you know, it's, it's, we're just scratching the surface.

10:08We've, we've got about 22 locations that are on it right now. But, uh, we're very proud of what we're able to, not only what we've built, but we're able to help shops. Man, that's great. I didn't know you launched it. I mean, you and I were talking and you were like, Greg, I gotta show you this. I gotta show you this. And I don't think we ever got around to talking about your seeing your demo.

10:25Cause we were just out reminiscing about— That was so much fun that night. Yeah. And we got into a little bit of life talk, which was real healthy. That was, that was real healthy. Healthy. Because, you know, I mean, everything that we do focuses on, you know, value and quality. And of course, we have our legacy to worry about, and according, you know, our kids and grandkids and stuff like that.

10:48So whenever we get together, we have such great wholesome conversations. It's, it's something that is a shame we're not like closer physically together. Or maybe it's better we are separate because we— and, you know, Greg, I always enjoy it too because You know, I mean, look, I, I love talking to people. You see me, I mean, you came even my breakout, right?

11:06Like, this is my passion. I like to teach. I like to show shops what I've learned over the years. But I think with you, it's like, it's cool because we get to separate kind of the business part for a little bit. Yeah. Focus on, and by the way, I just, I don't know if I told you, I just got back from a nice date weekend with my wife.

11:22And a lot of that was triggered based on our conversation. Yeah. Just talking about like the importance of, you know, taking advantage of your days and just making sure that, you know, the people that you care about while they're still here, because we've experienced loss. Yes, we have. You know, while they're still here. And it inspired me to take my wife out down to Southern California over the weekend.

11:42And I did that. That's why you look so good, man. Thank you. You got the tan going. You're all smiling. You got the nice white tees. Dude, you're GQ, man. You know, I'm here in this wintertime, smoke out here in Delaware. I'm white as a ghost. I'm wearing a white shirt. So, white people don't want me. Hey, come out to the left coast, man.

11:59Come out to the left coast anytime, man. I will, but hey, you know, that brings a good point because, you know, a lot of people are afraid of AI, and yet we just gave two examples of why it probably is important that we integrate portions of AI. One, because it's making our job easier, it's more exact, we're getting— we're executing better. And what does that do?

12:23That gives us time to go to the beach, to take our wife out and take our kids out and do it right. So do you experience that with people coming in and go, oh, Mike, man, I'm afraid of AI, I You know, I don't know about this, Mike. I do a lot. And I, and I think back to really this, um, this period that I've had over 15 years in the industry.

12:4315 years ago, Greg, when you and I met, I was teaching social media to shops. You'd have to convince a shop owner back then to open up a Facebook page because their response would be, well, you know, my grandkids are on Facebook. We don't want to deal with it. But now those same, that same group, you can't pry them off of it, right?

13:01Because they understand at the time when it was introduced to the world, it was like, this is new. It's a little intimidating. This is out of my comfort zone. But once they used it and they were starting to have a basic understanding of it, they don't have to be experts at it. Just a basic understanding. Then they embrace it. Same thing with SEO, Google Ads.

13:21Think about how we've evolved, evolved as from a marketing perspective, not only in life, but a marketing perspective. How many tools that we have, right? I mean, I remember, you know, email addresses, you know, I used to joke and say like people would rather give up their credit card and social security number than give up an email address. Exactly. Because it was like a big thing, right?

13:43So we've come so far. Now AI, I think what Sam Altman, if I'm not mistaken, I wanna say it was November of 2023, he announced OpenAI. Mm-hmm. GPT was one of the first ones. And then obviously now you got Groq, Claude, you know, perplexity, like all these different platforms. So now what I'm seeing today, Greg, is people are more curious. They are embracing it a lot faster than what they've done historically with social media and different things like that.

14:11It is an extremely useful tool. I feel like as service providers, we are underutilizing it. I feel like there's so much more to go. I've got 9 certifications on marketing and AI, and I'm in a building, it's called Plug and Play here in Silicon Valley. And Plug and Play is a, it's an accelerator program, but also they offer office space. This is the global headquarters right here in the Silicon Valley.

14:34100 start— I'm surrounded by 200+ startups in my building. And I'm not kidding, Greg, we've got robotics. There's a company right over here outside of this conference room named Shield that has AI detecting diseases in operating rooms. And they have a cool demo on that. On that. So, so there's so many things that we can do with AI. Here's my, here's my opinion.

14:59Number one, we have a long, a lot of things to learn about this. We're still learning this, right? And we haven't even got into real deep challenges yet. So I think we're gonna learn a lot through this process. Number two, there, there is always going to be a, some type of QC or human element tied to what we do. That's why, like how I, you know, we focus on the traditional marketing director or fractional marketing.

15:21That's not gonna go anywhere. We still want to interact with humans. Humans— AI is not able to do a podcast like this, right? Mike Dela Cruz and Greg Buckley are here, right? So that's something AI is not going to be able to replace. So our model is not going to go anywhere at OverDrive. And frankly, any AI is always going to be a human behind it providing some type of QC.

15:43But again, I think we have a long way to go. Well, I tell you, you know, I think you're right. I think that there's still a little fear in the marketplace regarding— and I don't think it's very much from owners as I do it's from staff members. Who, I mean, even the resistance that I get introducing new administration processes that can be handled by AI or customer relation situations, it's like, well, when are you getting rid of me?

16:06And I said, that's not the case. I said, never. I mean, it's to enhance your job. It's to make you more time available to build the relationship of you and the client instead of having worry about the minutia, you know, and all the other stuff. AI can handle that. Very, very well. And these are tools that we all have to get used to using.

16:27I mean, that's what it's there for. So I, I can see— I mean, I feel it from that end. A lot of owners I talk to really aren't super afraid of it. They get the thing, well, uh, you know, I never want to lose my personality and stuff like that. But yet it's proven time and time again that, you know, even your calls, uh, they don't want to be— call waiting is out, where let me talk to an AI assistant and, and let me make the schedule and let me complete everything.

16:52So even older people are gaining confidence and they prefer that if I have to deal with an agent, if it's an agent built well and it can understand me and produce the results that I need, like an after-hours appointment or anything of that nature or a question, they're fine with it. It would, it would be a better, a better use of time, I suppose.

17:17I look forward to all of this stuff that, you know, AI is going to be able to do for us. You're at, gosh, 200 startups around you. Are you kidding me? I mean, the influence and the, just the curiosity and, and what I wanna say is like the peekaboo effect. What are you doing today? Door number 2, what are you doing today?

17:35Yeah, it throws me a curveball anytime I see a robot go by my cubicle. So yeah. Yeah, it's, it's pretty wild. I was just talking with, uh, Andy Bizub and, um, you know, down in Texas and he's going, hey, I'm trying to get a, a, uh, a tour of the Gigafactory where they're making the robots at. And he says, I really see a robot assistant for technicians.

17:59They can lift a car up, they can do this, they can do that while the technician just focuses on making a repair or, you know, doing that, like getting their toolbox and doing all this stuff. And I go, if you get an appointment, will you tell me? I'll fly down and go with you. Can you get me a seat on that bus?

18:15Will you, Andy? But it's, I think it's gonna be amazing. What we're able to do with AI. If you are a good, like you said, you're a service provider of solutions and those solutions include not only the traditional, but the, you know, the advanced and the technology side of things. And you cover, OverDrive covers, you know, when you say it's a, you're a marketing, I want to say, what did you call it?

18:40Not a marketing agent, but a marketing manager or manager. Yeah. And you review the processes, you review what's been going on, and then you make corrections based on results or by what you see in the database of that shop? Yeah. I mean, it's, and that's a good question, Greg. I mean, you know, we all know that there's no one size fits all with this stuff.

19:00And that's why when I look at forums and stuff, they're like, use XYZ, use 123 company. I'm like, you know, my biggest takeaway out of personally walking into over 2,000 shops is that every shop has its own uniqueness. Every shop is different. Every shop has a different goal. They have a different total addressable market. There's, it's just different. So first and foremost, we have to understand what's in front.

19:24So when a client comes on board with our program, and this is just the Fractional Marketing side, the first thing that we have to do is learn about them. So we do an onboarding call. We learn about their goals, learn about what they're doing for marketing historically, what they've done for marketing, learn about the operational stuff, because a big thing that's often underutilized is the support on the counter because sales and marketing go hand in hand.

19:45As a marketer, my primary responsibility is to drive quality leads to your shop and fill your appointment, your calendar up with appointments. But I'm not the one picking up the phone. So I make it crystal clear that there is an expectation that we have for advisors to identify opportunities and convert them into visits. Otherwise, you're wasting your money with us because I could drive you 1,000 quality leads every month.

20:09If you're broken at the counter, it's not going to work and it's not going to work because, number one, you don't only miss one opportunity. There's what's called LTV, lifetime value. If you miss one opportunity, that equates to tens of thousands of dollars in added revenue. In addition to that, here's what's really interesting. And I actually mentioned this in my, uh, Tectonic class.

20:3071% of people say they will not return back to a business if they were dissatisfied with their first experience. That means you only have a 29% chance of getting them back into your shop. Right? So we cannot miss the mark that on that first at-bat, we've gotta swing for the fences. Because otherwise our chances of recapturing them, it's gonna be slim. So that's kind of the first thing.

20:54Then we get access to the reports. I like to pull historical data because I look at seasonality. This same time last year, what did we do? Trending data. So over 6 months, but also be prepared for those unexpected dips in car count. We have clients along, not far from where you're at, Baltimore, DC, the doge thing was introduced and all of a sudden it's like phones are not ringing.

21:14I'm like, what is going on? So you have to be prepared for that. You know, instead of going from like a work from home hybrid model, now people are required to go back to the office. 75% of people along that Baltimore, DC area are government employees, right? So they were of course affected by doge tariffs. So in other words, prepare your marketing, plan it out, out based on historical data and trends, but also be ready for any unexpected dips in car count.

21:41And always, always, always keep a pulse on your performance. You cannot let it fall by the wayside. And that's why shops hire us, because, you know, they have a great strategy, they launch their strategy, but then Monday morning comes, the phone rings, and then they're on the phone, and then Monday turns into Tuesday, Tuesday turns into next week, next week turns into next month, and all of a sudden they're What's going on?

22:06What happened with the strategy? Right? They're pulled in all these different directions. Whereas this is us, our specialty. That's why we don't take on a lot of clients, Greg. I did that for two reasons. Number one, we are not physically in the shop. So we have very, very big shoes to fill, very big shoes to fill. We want our clients to feel like we're within arm's distance.

22:26So we reply in record time. Our response time is extremely fast, as if you tapped us on the shoulder and said, hey, the phone's not ringing, or hey, we need to post something. Something. So number one, we have big shoes to fill, so we're not going to take on a lot of clients. Number two is I want happy employees. I want a happy and healthy environment for my team.

22:45It is our responsibility as the owners of the company to make sure that we've built an environment internally where people love coming to work. People know that they have a purpose. People get text messages from their clients saying, hey, I was once at this and now I'm at this and we credit you. Kind of that intrinsic reward that fills— I want a happy team.

23:07That's great. Well, I wouldn't expect anything less from you, you know, so because you, you've, uh, you've experienced all of that your own self in your own employment and stuff like that. So for you to come out with a statement like that just shows what kind of a, you know, CEO that you actually are and, and the kind of company that you're running.

23:24I can attest to the fact that it's really important to have your staffing understand what you're doing from a, from a shop owner's perspective, and then hiring someone like yourself to make the phone ring and the phone does ring, but yet you don't close. And, you know, that is a result of poor phone skills. You know, getting them over the curb is absolutely critical.

23:46And unfortunately, I really screwed up a few years ago with taking on a company that was doing what it could, but I didn't realize how poor my phone skills, that my team was failing on the phone skills. And, you know, it was just not a good situation. So I wasted a lot of money. I really did. You know, when I really went back and reviewed the results, if there was one error that I made critically, and I can only blame myself because I wasn't really paying attention, but we were bringing— we weren't bringing people in, not because of the service didn't work right.

24:17More or less, it was us not answering the phone and closing that deal and that first impression and all that. So it's a lesson learned and we've turned the corner on that, of course. But, you know, you got to be prepared for, you know, the shop owner's got to be prepared and the team. Absolutely has to be prepared. Do you help coach those type of scenarios to bring the staff up to say, hey, listen, we're gonna bring the, we're gonna make the phone ring.

24:43How are you prepared to answer that? What are your skill sets? Do you have scripts? Do you have anything like that to offer a shop? 100%, we do. Yeah. We wanna be able to provide our clients with all the tools and resources to make the program successful. Because at the end of the day, in 3 months, 6 months down the road, we want We want our clients to look back and go, this was the best decision I could have made for our business.

25:04Trust is something we have to earn every single day. And we understand that. We understand we have a very deep responsibility, not only to our client, but to their team, right? Technicians, we gotta keep them busy, right? Um, the community, we gotta make a splash in the community and have a positive impact on their community. So scripts, absolutely. Coaching, yes, to some degree.

25:24Now, I wouldn't consider myself, I guess technically I'd be like a marketing coach, right? But there's no bona fide like programs that we have where certainly not trying to replace a lot of those great coaching programs that are out there today. But I think that from a coaching perspective, you know, Greg, it's important that we, because we have a responsibility to help them reach their goal, we have to coach the front counter on identifying opportunities.

25:47I'll give you an example. You get pushback on, for example, you talk to an advisor, most advisors say, well, all I get is price shoppers. And then you start to listen to calls and then you listen to calls and you're like, okay, these are price shoppers. And then immediately, most, more often than not, there's sort of this defensive barrier that happens with the advisor, meaning they know that they're not going to diagnose or quote a price over the phone, but immediately they shut it down, Greg.

26:16They say, well, we're not supposed to quote pricing over the phone, or I'm not going to diagnose. You got to come in so we could diagnose. It's almost confrontational. And it's like, why be confrontational with the client? Let's take a step back and be a consultant, right? So you shift it from that defensive barrier to empathy. Oh my goodness. I'm sorry, your car's making that noise.

26:37Tell me a little bit more about that. Now, when you, when you ask an open-ended question like that to a price shopper, first of all, think of, put yourself in their shoes. They're calling because they have a problem. They don't know how to fix it and they know it's gonna be really expensive. So calling you, there's already a form of anxiety. Anxiety.

26:56So when they're trying to get a, have you quote a price and you put that, put up this defensive barrier, then there's just too much friction over that, right? So you start with empathy. Sorry, you're in that situation. Tell me a little bit more about that. The perception is, oh my goodness, this guy or gal is trying to help me here. Well, you know, I was driving down the 101 and it was pulling to the left.

27:19It was making this weird noise. My goodness. Well, I'm glad you're safe first and foremost. Was it making an X sound or was it making a Y sound? No, it wasn't really doing this, but it was doing this. So you approach in a very consultative way and then you close that with, well, you know what, Joe, that sounds like it could potentially be a deeper issue and I don't feel comfortable diagnosing that over the phone.

27:41The good news is we have an opening tomorrow at 10 o'clock and another one at 1 o'clock and we offer pickup and drop-off. Do any of those slots work well for you so that we can diagnose that vehicle properly? There you go. If there's those two different scenarios, you almost double the conversion rate when you, when you come across a consultant. So those are just, that's an example of how we coach the front counter because our job is monumentally, I mean, maybe not in whole, but in large part of what the counter does.

28:14Because you said yourself, you experienced it. You thought it was a service advisor, or I'm sorry, a service provider issue, but it ended up being a service counter issue. Issue. And that's more common than what you think. So I think being transparent, being upfront from the very beginning, setting the right expectation in our role, it sets us up for a very successful relationship.

28:37That's, that's great to know. I mean, it's a lot of work getting a counter to function in rhythm with the, the marketing campaign to begin with, to understand it, to have that habit of saying yes, we're providing that solution to that person who is broken down and they're looking for relief because that's what they are actually looking for. Time might be the third thing on their list, you know, price being the last thing on their list.

29:02But the goal that what they want to do is, hey, I need help, can you help me? Yes, let's get it done. You know, the question is, where do you feel your focus is more towards acquisition or retention, or do you, do you balance it out based upon the results of one or the other? Yeah, good, good. Another good question, Greg. So yeah, it's always going to be balanced out.

29:24Now, as a marketer, we always like to look at a 75/25 shift, meaning if you pull your data every month and you look at your total number of customers that came in, total number of customers, 75% of them should have been in there at least one time before, right? So two times or more. And then 25 is a good ratio to tell us that internet marketing's We're getting enough leads.

29:47The biggest problem that we face in our industry is a lack of consistency, right? One minute our bays are full, next minute they're slow. The most successful shops that I have seen, they've not only been busy year round, but they've had more of like an 80/20 or even at times a 90/10, because what they've done is they've created the Starbucks environment. And I don't know if you've ever heard, and maybe in one of my classes or something like that, but maybe for your audience that haven't heard it.

30:11Back in 2007, I was going to open up a coffee shop. It was going to be called Hollywood Bean. It was going to be old school Hollywood Rat Pack, Marilyn Monroe, right? Like checkered floors, jukeboxes, just kind of old school. Well, I would sit at Starbucks pretty much daily. I would count customers. I would look at their average ticket prices. You know, Starbucks at the time, it was 2007, Jim Donald was the CEO.

30:36And he kind of took the baton from Howard Schultz for a little while. And Jim Donald was responsible for growing Starbucks from 5,000 stores to 30,000 stores worldwide. And he did it in record time. So I wanted to know, why would people spend $3, $4, $5 on a premium cup of coffee? And then there'd be a gourmet coffee cart or just a small mom-and-pop shop selling coffee across the street for $0.99.

31:01Not a single person was in that line. There was a lot of variables around it, but the one that resonated with me the most, Greg, was they had this process of learning your customer. It was even in the employee handbook. I think it was called forming a complete customer connection, I believe, and where you'd walk in and you'd say, I'm Greg and I want the triple grande nonfat white mocha.

31:249 times out of 10, if you went to that same Starbucks, they would not only remember your name, but your drink of choice. They'd say, Greg, you gonna have that triple grande nonfat white mocha? What would happen? We were instantly connected. You were not known as number 27, your order's ready. You were known as Greg, the guy that drinks a triple grande, right?

31:42So they created this environment where it's predictably okay. I know this barista. They know me. They're calling me by name as if they're my friend. I want to be here. And that's why they were so successful. Why should we be any different in our industry? We shouldn't. Why should we not call our customers by first name? Learn 3 things. And I challenge you guys, learn 3 things about every single new customer.

32:02And I'm not talking about just the city that they're in. I'm talking about, do they have a family? Do you have kids? Do they have a hobby? Do they go to church? What do they do? Learn 3 things about them so that when they come in, you could use that as conversational talking points. Yeah. Very, very important. Why are we not forward scheduling like a dental office?

32:22Right? Like what, you know, That is so important. And yet I'll tell you that I can tell you that we're fairly successful in getting to write notes down about the client, you know, and I always said, because for myself, the way that I grew up in the industry and I go back to my service station days when I was at the island and I would meet and greet you and I would know everything about your car and then yourself and then your kids and then all of that.

32:49And we would have that kind of relationship. Like you said, I would remember you if you needed a white chocolate mocha, whatever, whatever cup of coffee you would want. And today, CRMs and our, excuse me, our SMSs, they all carry note fields. And that note field is a great resource because we can put these little notes in so that the next time they come in, they can say, you, hey, listen, how was the wedding?

33:15How was your daughter's wedding? Or how was the baptism? Or how was this? You know, just a life event that takes them out of the work or the fear of the car repair at that date or that time and bring them down to the personality and the relationship. And that is so critical. You know, we, we tend to forget how important those little things are.

33:36I know that we have a hesitation in going out to the car and walking around. Some people, I mean, their buildings just aren't configured to do that. And we have to have some kind of mechanism to make that relationship grow. You know, so very good points, man. I mean, it's, it's really exceptional. The relationship is critical. And you know why that's important, Greg, is think about it like this.

34:00As a consumer, we have the luxury of having endless options, right? So if we wanted to look at the nearest Mexican restaurant or sushi restaurant, what do we do? We go to Google or ChatGPT, whatever. And we say, what's the top rated Mexican restaurant near me? It's going to give us options. And if we're not satisfied with those options, what do we do?

34:20More places, please. Or we just click the more businesses button and it collapses a dozen other options. People do that with auto repair shops, right? But on the flip side, as a shop owner, as an operator, we don't have that same luxury. Every lead, every quality lead that comes into our shop, every client that comes to our shop, we have one opportunity to let them know why we're different, why this is gonna be a white glove experience.

34:46We care about customer experience, right? Because they have options. They can go to XYZ Auto Repair down the street, right? But we've gotta give them every reason to come back to us when they're due for their next service and not our competitors. Did we really earn that or did we miss the mark? We've gotta ask ourself that. Yeah, that's true. I mean, everything counts when it comes to a first-time customer.

35:09There's no question. So what else What else besides business does Mike Dela Cruz get into? Oh, well, Monday night's date night with my wife. I gotta do that every Monday. You know where I learned that from, Greg, is, uh, Marc Randolph, the founder of Netflix or the co-founder of Netflix. I listened to an interview one time, a long time ago actually, and for 30 years he said, set in stone, and his was on a Tuesday at 5:30, 5:30 on a Tuesday, set in stone date night with my wife.

35:38And if somebody was gonna, he's like, I'm sticking to it. I'm— if somebody wanted to meet with me, they better meet with me on the way to the parking lot because I'm going, right? So, so I really mirrored that. Now, granted, there's probably like 2 to 3 different Mondays a year. So I do pretty good where I'm like, if I'm traveling to the East Coast, I have to be there on a Tuesday.

35:59Obviously you lose the 3 hours. So honey, I got to travel on a Monday. I'll try to get a red-eye, but sometimes red-eyes aren't available, but I really try hard to stick to it. And it's just one-on-one time that gives me balance in the morning. The minute I opened my eyes, I used to do this where I grab my phone, I check my email, what's going on?

36:17What did I miss? Check my voicemail. Those days are over. I'm giving myself 10 to 15 minutes by myself. I wake up before my wife. So it's quiet in my house. I open my eyes and I just look at my ceiling or I look out the window. I lay in bed. I do not rush. I think adopting that in my mornings and making it a routine has given me a sense of calmness and a sense of peace.

36:42It may not sound like that because I'm always animated, but it— because truthfully, Greg, I love life. I love what I do. And it's given me that sense of peace. I think it's perfect. Outside of that, you know me. I mean, I'm an MMA guy. Yeah, you are an MMA guy, right? And a Raiders fan. Believe it, at this ripe— and I'll tell your audience members here, but at this ripe old age of 45, I know I'm going to get crapped on by it, but you know what?

37:07All respect to you all, but 45, I realize I'm young, but I'm at that point where things are starting to hurt a little bit. Yeah. It's not easy. Right. Especially these young bucks I train with at the gym, these future UFC guys. I'm like, after 2 minutes, I'm like winded. Yeah. So that keeps me balanced. I love martial arts. I've been doing, you know, jiu-jitsu for 13 years.

37:32I've been doing Muay Thai and sparring for 6 years. It's really created You know, obviously self-defense, right? But also self-confidence. I don't get pissed off in traffic and stuff anymore. I just, you know, go about my day. People get upset, they'll throw the finger and things like that. For me, I'm like, let you look, I'm just gonna ignore and just go on my way.

37:53You have in the back of your mind, you have that confidence. What's that? This is all on the 101, right? Yeah. All on the 101. You know about the 101. Well, you know, as soon as you said that, I kept, I go right back to the SNL skit of the Californians. You know, that's all they talk about. About. Well, you go on the 101, man, you know?

38:11Yeah. Oh, that one, that, hey, that 101 could be brutal, man. Oh, I hear you. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I don't have to prove anything. It gives you that confidence to know, like, you know, look, if hopefully nothing ever comes to blows, but man, I mean, it, you could protect yourself, you protect your family. And I do everything I can to avoid all of it.

38:29Again, it's just given me that good balance. Um, and I train probably 2 to 3 days a week depending on my travel schedule, but I, I do it cuz I love it. I'm not gonna, be in the UFC at all. But, uh, if I can help somebody and just fulfill my interest, then that's what I do. Um, it keeps you healthy and gives you a little bit of a break.

38:47You know, I've got a local, a local friend here, a good friend of mine. He's actually a— he, he was an international, uh, boxer, champion boxer, Dave Tiberi. And he opened up his boxing club right down the street. And he goes, come on, it's Tuesday morning at 6:30 AM. And he's got a bunch of executives from around Delaware here to come in.

39:06And, you know, he goes, come on down, come on down, man. We gotta, you know, I gotta get you suited up and get, you know, we'll, we'll start sparring and stuff like that. And I'm going, you know, I'm really curious enough about it, you know, to see if I can do it right and get involved. And he says, man, we're really changing people's lives.

39:20The executives like it for the same reason that you're doing it, because it's a relief. You're keeping physically fit, and you have all of those endorphins coming in, and you feel relaxed, and you can take your you can not only challenge your day, you can win the day, right? Just by being calm and stuff like that. So physical activity is really important.

39:40I, I do my best to do what I can with, uh, with the body type that I have and everything else that goes with it. I see you going on your walks, Craig. Oh yeah, that's my walk. It's like total therapy, man. I mean, it really is, you know. I mean, you motivate me. I mean, I see your walks and stuff in the morning, and walks— I mean, you don't have to— the cool thing about exercise and things like that, you don't have to have these high endurance workouts.

40:05Simple walks and things like that are enough. I mean, you know, another inspiration is a guy, you know, Keith Katz. I mean, okay, yeah, yeah. On the weekend he does the— I think it's called Iron or Mountain Man or something like that with his group, and he's like pushing tires up and stuff. And I'm like, dude, good for you. So he inspires me.

40:23Yeah, him and Jody were at Hershey with his newest Advisor to Rockstar Julie, I think, or something. I think I can't remember her name. Anyway, we caught up and had been a while since him and I actually shared some conversations because he'll call me up or text me and, you know, bust my stones a little bit here and there. And, you know, his sweetheart, wife Jodi.

40:45Sounds like Keith, all right. Yeah. I love that guy to death, man. Yeah. You work with him a little bit, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's been part of our program for, I think, a couple of years. Now. And, uh, been out to his shop. I've personally gone out there. Beautiful, beautiful shop. I don't know if you've ever been to York, PA, but it's a, it's a close-knit community.

41:06And what I, what I really like is his, his garden. I mean, he has a beautiful lawn and garden and it's just such a pretty shop. So, but yeah, Keith has been working with us for a couple years and I just, he's somebody who I've always admired. And then when he stepped up and started doing this, uh, I think it's called Ironman or Mountain Man, something like that on a weekend.

41:24I mean, like it's got a spiritual bed to it. I mean, yeah, yeah. And he's really into it. He's really taken to it. He's— is now the— I think he's the leader, if I'm not mistaken. He's been, you know, positioned upward for all of that. So he's a, he's a really good, wholesome man. He really is. And you got, you got some other, uh, people that you work around.

41:47I know Doug Grylls, and down there in Maryland there, Um, yeah, clients of yours. Doug, same thing. I've, I've watched him for 10+ years, admired him, and then David as well. And, you know, they came on board with our program actually early and, you know, they started out, uh, with us at 9 shops. They're up to 11 and they'll be probably 14, 12 here soon, up to 14 within the next maybe year, 2 years, 3 years or so like that.

42:16But it's been cool to be part of their growth. Starting off with 9, now that they're 11, they're at 11 and, you know, they'll be at 12 here soon and eventually up to 14. So yeah, they work— Do you take territories or, or, or do you restrict yourself from operating like from one to the other or certain zones and stuff like that?

42:34Okay. All right. You talking about with multiple locations? Um, no, but listen— A single client with multiple locations or just, uh, yeah. Or someone in the same area within like, you know, like say 10 miles from one another, like a, you know, they're not competitors. I don't really think there's competitors in it. In the marketplace myself, but, um, let's say you got a shop owner who's 5 miles away or 10 miles away or stuff like that.

42:57Do you restrict yourself to that or is this more like, well, let me customize your solution, Shop X, and then I can take this person over here, Shop Y, that might be 5 miles away and stuff like that and you'll work with them as well? Yeah. So, so I do. So a couple of things on that point, and that's actually a really good topic.

43:17Topic. As marketing directors, our goal is to maximize their performance, right? Utilize our resources, maximize their performance, help them fulfill their goal. So there's no particular radius because it's always going to depend on the market, right? So rural areas, I mean, we can go out 20, 30 miles or more sometimes, right? But usually the metropolitan areas, it could be a couple. Now there's a very deep analysis that goes into our strategy.

43:41And if we feel that it could kind of interfere, then we won't, we won't take on. Believe it or not, Greg, I mean, I I have dear friends in this industry where I've been flattered and said, you know, we're working with Joe's Garage or XYZ Auto Repair. They have a location right next to you. I think morally the right thing to do is just stick to your loyalty.

44:03And we've had to pass up 7, 8 locations, but I'm able to sleep at night knowing that somebody that's trusting me with their marketing, I owe that to to them. I, you know, I, I wouldn't even get them involved. I just owe it to them. So yeah, there have been times where I've had to turn away and, but, but they are, it is well thought out.

44:21It's not like a knee-jerk reaction. It's like, okay, is there gonna be overlap here? And then if I decide that, you know, it could take away, then I, then I, the right thing to do, I believe, is to, to say no. With auto, you mentioned Autostream, right? So their locations, there's some locations that are 2.5 miles away from each other. And you have to be very methodical when it comes to strategy.

44:42That because you don't have, in the industry we call it cannibalization. You know, hey, you know, XYZ shop is taking some of our clients, right? We don't want that. So when I say methodical, we have to look at the radius and we have to look at direction. So if they're 2.5 miles away from that southeast corner, we focus for that shop in the southeast corner, we got to focus on this area.

45:07And then the shop over here in that northwest and everything else, we got to focus on this area. And we have to look look at each of those individual carrier routes, not just the zip code, not just the neighborhood, the carrier routes. I mean, how many rooftops? What do these rooftops look like? What's the median household income? What's the median age? What's the net worth?

45:26What's the percentage of household with children? All of that and say, okay, based on this strategy, both of these shops are going to maximize performance, hit their goals, and not overlap with one another. Another. So there are situations that we have to do that. Okay, that makes sense, you know. So let me get this straight. If you have— let's say that we take, um, you know, uh, Doug's 11 locations and 2 of them are only 2.5 miles apart.

45:57Do you find that each location may have a different need and a different client base that you can actually target without cannibalizing from the location? Correct. Yeah. So, so, and I'll give you an example. So they've got a location, um, Pikesville, and it is primarily a Jewish community. And in that area, we're going to team up with synagogues and just different things like that, because again, we are a community business.

46:25Then they have Randallstown, which is, say, 82.5% African American. So there's things, initiatives and marketing campaigns that we have to to participate, right? To show the community. You have to mirror your audience. And it's not a fact of saying, hey, let's go out there and try to be the most successful shop. Let's try to dominate and, you know, operate with bad morals or anything like that.

46:46It's a matter of understanding your community. And that is the most important thing. Understanding your community. Who is in front of us? What type of service can we offer or do we offer that, you know, can, can be tailored around each individual community member. What types of things do we have to participate in? Juneteenth. This community is 90% veterans. Hey, we're going to participate in the Veterans Day parade, right?

47:12Because as marketers, it'd be nice to do everything, but we've got a budget, right? We've got a budget to keep in play. So it's like, how can we maximize— not maximize, excuse me— how can we make the most out of our budget while getting out there and making a splash within the community and building a brand awareness? Awareness, doing good, doing things like autism 5K walks or Alzheimer's awareness, breast cancer awareness, Humane Society, mental health, those types of things where we're actually going out there.

47:40But the first thing we have to do is understand who's in front of us. Wow. So you really have eliminated the shotgun. We tried extremely hard to do that. I'm telling you, it's all intentional, Greg. It has to be. Oh, without a doubt. But I, Mike, I gotta tell you, man, I've never heard of an approach from from many, many other people like the one that you're presenting, and it's very attractive.

48:03Thank you. I really like how you have segmented because, you know, all of us like to participate in a community. That's, I mean, let's face it, small businesses, we live within our community, we support the community because they support us. And there are times when, yes, we are asked to do more for certain groups. We all get approached and, you know, can you help me with the baseball uniforms?

48:26Can you help me with the, you know, the diaper drive? Or the give a car away or fix a car, whatever the case might be. And most of the time we're very willing to do that, but it's always the surprises that get me. Like, um, you know, hey, you get the knock on the door, I got this golf tournament coming up and, you know, I don't know you, you really don't know me, but it's a great event, can you help me out?

48:48And of course you want to go, yeah, sure, no problem. But you know, you gotta, gotta like be prepared, or I should say you got to respect your budget and who you've already committed to and where the best value is. And of course it has to align with your heart too. You know, you can't just go, well, for the sake of marketing, I'm going to support you when you might be totally opposite of what I believe in, but it's just not my bag.

49:15And so, but your approach is, I mean, to get to know the community like you are doing, That's exceptional, dude. That's exceptional. Thank you, man. Thank you. Part of the onboarding call I mentioned earlier, one of the questions is if there's any nonprofits or orgs that are near and dear to you. I ask every client that question. And the reason why is because we are going to have a community budget.

49:39We have to, right? Whatever that number is, we got to allocate some resources to a community. And what happens, and I actually get chills talking about this. It's a little emotional too, because all of us are part of something, whether a parent has had Alzheimer's, a spouse has had cancer. St. Jude, we have clients, actually one of my clients at kind of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, daughter was at St.

50:02Jude and he credits St. Jude for saving her life. I get emotional with that stuff. So I always ask that question because one, when we develop our strategy, we want to do something that's near and dear to them. Because what happens is when you build a strategy, it's one thing. But when you execute against that strategy and the event is done and they say, we're able to raise $150,000 from this 5K autism walk, and you're like, wow, it's emotional because that's a, that's a, that's a, um, a cause that's, that, that, that tugs at you.

50:40Um, and I see it all the time and from schools and like I said, suicide prevention, different things. I get text messaged all the time from stuff like that from clients. And for me, Greg, that's stuff money can't buy, man. No, you can't. I mean, it, it is an intrinsic reward. And it, it's such a feel-good situation too. And, and like you said, you can't put a price on that kind of stuff.

51:04And, you know, yeah, you say budget and, and all this other stuff and you, you, you gotta respect all of that. But gosh darn, it's so hard to say no sometimes, even though— That's why companies hire us. We're the ones that say no. But in all seriousness, we have to carefully, and I'm very transparent with, because like if you said yes to everything, you would be broke.

51:24I mean, let's just face it, right? Yeah. Because there's so many people knocking down your door trying to pitch you something, right? So it has to be carefully calibrated. For example, community stuff. Recently, it was like a Music in the Park. Okay, well, tell me a little bit about sponsorship program. Okay, well, you know, you get a logo this big on a banner with 500 other companies and it's gonna cost you $2,000.

51:46Yeah. I'm gonna say no to that all day long. Right. But it's like, if you say, hey, this is $750, the MC's gonna shout out Buckley's Auto Care, um, you know, 3 times, you're gonna be on the social media, then I'm like, that makes sense. Right? So it has to be carefully evaluated, carefully calibrated, carefully executed. So you save me money, right?

52:07Yeah. I am, you know, I'm a sucker. I am. I tell you, you know, I get me to an auction like we went to, we had our Paul Kares and, you know, and I support Paul Kares very much down in Sussex County because I like it. It's music and culinary arts. So, you know, I get the video, I do the videos for this, for the, for the venues, and I get to see great bands do all this, meet great people and, you know, be part of this really dynamic nonprofit.

52:41And that's just one of them, you know. We get to the auction at the last event, and, and some person I know goes, hey, do you want to go in on this, uh, boat ride? You buy, uh, you auction off— they're auctioning off a 4-hour dinner cruise on a boat, right? And she comes and she goes, well, we'll make it for— we'll top off at $4,500, and that's split between two.

53:05I'm thinking $2,200. I'm going through the numbers in my head. I'm going, all right, all right. And then I go, well, wait Man, I just committed this much over here. So she comes up and the number gets up to 45. I go, she didn't win. And then she goes, no, well, we'll double it up if you want to pay this. And she, she raised her hand, yeah, I'm in.

53:24I'm like, oh, I thought I escaped, you know, a $2,400, uh, uh, tab, but I didn't. But it's all good. I mean, 20 friends that, you know, clients that go out with us and all this stuff. It's not a losing proposition, but it's just how easy you can lose control of all of that budget by not having someone be the guardian of that stuff, you know?

53:49Dude, I'm guilty of that too. If I told you how many trade shows I committed to and— Yeah, I'll see. You know, that's right. That's right. You know, it's hilarious how it's easy. It's so easy to give your money away. It really is. Because, you know, you're thinking, oh, I'll just make it up tomorrow. Or I got it. No problem. It's, I got this in the book and all this.

54:10And then you forget, you know, You're like, wait a minute, you are so right. You're so right. You're so right. So, uh, overall though, man, you, you look great. You sound great. You're doing good. Uh, family's healthy. Um, your daughter was just doing something. What was she, she just got an award for something. Was your daughter? First and foremost, I, I have to shout out my oldest daughter, Michaela.

54:32Today's her birthday. Yeah. She turned 18, so I have to give her some love and I'm gonna show her this recording when it's done. Okay. Um, today's her birthday. May the 4th be with you. Um, right, the whole play on that. But yeah, um, you know, she won. Um, so both my kids are at a really unique age, right? So one is graduating, uh, high school, on her way to college next year.

54:55Um, and she's heavily into discus and shot put, which, um, I wasn't really big into track and field. I always pictured track as like running. Um, but I guess the field part is the shot put and the disc, right? She's doing really— she found her passion. She absolutely loves it. She was into volleyball, stuff like that. Now, the younger one is probably what you're talking about.

55:15She got graduated from D.A.R.E., Drug Abuse Resistance Education. It's a program. Do they have that on the East Coast, by the way? Okay, so good. It's a national program. It's— I found it started in 1983 in Los Angeles. I just found that out. So, um, but it's a program that I graduated from and very, very proud. I don't know if you saw my post on social media, but I wore my D.A.R.E.

55:36shirt. That's hard for me to ask about your water. I wore my DARE shirt, so I wanted to support her. But she graduated from DARE. She won a spelling bee. She won second place in a spelling bee. I was very proud of her. And she's doing the talent show. About 3 months ago, she asked me if she could do guitar lessons, and I said sure.

55:54So we found this place, Guitar Center, not far. Every Friday, 2:30, I bring her in. Clark is her guitar coach, and he's very candid. Hey, she needs to work on this. She needs to do more practice. But she's going to be playing a song by Hans Williams and it's called Skin. And she's gonna play it May, I believe it's May 7th. So it's coming up here.

56:14But yeah, I'm very, very proud of both of my girls. Very blessed man. Of course you are. You know that. And it's good for her. Now, I've never heard that song before. Is it something that, it's called Skin? It's called Skin by Hans Williams. I've never heard about it before either. Yeah, but it's, uh, it's a cool, she's not gonna sing along to it, but, Um, you know, she's gonna do the guitar and she's come a long way.

56:36She's doing fantastic. That's great, man. Well, you got it going on, brother. You really do. Thank you, man. Thank you. I'm proud of you from knowing you, knowing you way back when to what you're getting into now. I mean, I always knew you had it in you. Thank you. Thank you. Means, means so much, man. And, and just, I really enjoy talking to you.

56:56Like I said, I, it's never just business with us. It's never like, hey, how's business going? It's always like, you know, how's Patty? You know, like it's always those kinds of things. And then all of a sudden it evolves into more deeper discussions. And I just, I don't, it's never, it's not like that with everybody. So I just want to tell you, I appreciate that, Greg.

57:18Well, thank you. I mean, that's, that's the thing I think we all need to learn and understand is that we're human first and everything else comes second, you know, and, And you and I, we, I, I tell you, man, that conversation we had at the Tectonic, it was just, it was perfect. It really was. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And not many times that you can get together and share, uh, thoughts and, uh, reflect on what our paths have been and why they have been and the blessings that we have had within our life that have, you know, whether they have been timely in the sense it's been good things that have happened, or even the

57:56things that have been off-kilter a little bit, there's still lessons that we've learned from. And I always say to myself, hey, go back and reflect a little bit and you'll find out that, hey, everything's like a blessing. You know what I mean? The good and the bad and what you gotta go through. And we're fortunate because this industry has given us so many good things and we've met— how many great people do we meet on a daily basis as an industry?

58:24Heartened, you know, with salt of the earth, you know, men and women who, um, we, we give it our all. And, you know, it's, uh, it's great to be part of it. And I think that, you know, guys like yourself— people like yourself, I should say— and people like, you know, just want to be able to give back. That's the exciting part.

58:44All I, all I ask is to be a voice and to give a channel and hopefully have these conversations with Everybody, because it's not all about business, you know, it's about people getting to know you, getting to know how your family is, because everything else is related to, to that. So, but, and I, um, raise a good point, Greg, because I, um, I think about that a lot and I think about how much I feel I owe this industry because this industry has been so welcoming to me.

59:15Opportunity to speak at events and different things like that. And like you said, like the people you meet along this journey, I'm very, very grateful for. Which is why I feel like, and stuff we haven't got into, but I'm on the board of ASC Educational Foundation. Great. Where we give scholarships to young technicians looking to get into our trade. I'm a Yang Mentor through the Auto Care Association.

59:36Yeah. Great. Well, right. So I meet with my, my mentees every, every quarter. I was, I finished my term, but I was on the ASCCA Government Affairs Committee. I was a Chapter 42 representative here in San Jose, Silicon Valley. So it's these things that I do voluntarily that I feel like because the industry has been so good to me, what can I do to pass on to this next kind of generation or just what information that I learned along my journey that I want to be able to pass away.

1:00:07When you came to my breakout in Tectonic, I mean, I always start off by saying how passionate I am and the fact that attendees are there, it allows me to fulfill my passion. So what I'm able to show them or teach them that the things that I've learned along way, it's inspiring to me because the fact that they're there is inspiring because I'm able to do what I love to do.

1:00:29And like I said, I owe this industry a lot and God willing, I'm around for several more decades. I'm able to do it. I think you will be, not, not no question there. And I, and I will be joining you in some degree, I think come this October as I just taken on a position. I was invited and I took, I said yes to a position on the AutoCare board.

1:00:50Board, or, uh, yeah, what is it? The, uh, yeah, the Auto Care Board, Auto Care Association. I got it right up there on the screen. So I took the call today and it's my first step back into getting back out and helping, doing what you just said, being part of things, best of my ability in the time that we have. But yeah, this industry has done well for, for me as well, of course.

1:01:12And I love every bit of it. Love everybody there. So, you know, we'll see where we go, but, uh, hopefully we, we get things changed and we, um, we, we continue to meet good people every day. I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you this before we cut off here. I, I talked to Frank Lutz earlier today and earlier today I talked to Frank and it was so good.

1:01:33It's always good to catch up with him. But of course I have to, I have to remind your audience, not remind them, I have to let the audience know. But there was a conference that we went to in Chicago and it was me, you, Frank Lutz, and then I thought there was one more person, but we ended up going, uh, it was, uh, Gary, uh, former owner of Airport Automotive, Colorado Springs, Gary Olson.

1:01:52Oh yeah. Yeah. So the audience, listen, we ended up like diverting off this path into this brush. And then we walk out, mosquito bites filled our bodies. Do you remember that, Greg? I actually remember it because Gary and I took a different path and there was, it was a wolf sighting, a pack of, well, two wolves were sighted in the Minnesota park.

1:02:15It was in Minnesota, in the park. And Gary and I are walking around and And we're lost. We actually got lost on that one. You brought that back. That's fantastic, man. Because we stumbled in, everybody looks at us, we're coming in, we've got mud on our shoes, we've got the mosquito bites, and everybody's eating breakfast. So we walk into the breakfast hallway there and it's like, where the hell have you guys been?

1:02:40Well, we did get lost. We, I think we went around that lake about 3 times trying to find our way back to the hotel. No campus. We had no phones, the phones died, we had no, no way of getting anything. So we were just making sure that there was no wolf that was going to come out and grab us, man. I was glad I didn't get lost with you guys.

1:03:01You and Frank were solid. You, I think you took the right path. I don't know why we didn't follow you, but who knows, man. Good times, man. Good times. Good times, brother. That's where it was. So hey, man, I thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Uh, you know, we'll We'll definitely have to keep doing this more and more, and I'll be having this on the radio and the podcast.

1:03:22We'll get it up there. But Mike, I tell you, I'm not only glad to see what you're doing and your success, I'm just really damn straight proud of you, brother. I really am. You know, great stuff, great stuff. I am, I am absolutely intrigued and I'll probably be calling you.