0:06

You're listening to the ground transportation podcast with Ken Lucci of driving transactions and James Blaine of PAX training. Learn how you can build a thriving transportation business with real profits, repeat clients, and enterprise value. And now for your hosts, Ken and James.

Ken Lucci: 0:30

Welcome back to another episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast with my co host, James Blaine from PAX Training.

James Blain: 0:39

Hey everybody.

Ken Lucci: 0:40

I'm, of course, Ken Lucci from Driving Transaction, and I'm honored to introduce a fellow Bostonian, Mr. Brett Barinholtz, who is president of Above All, uh, president of Maine Limo. Thank you. You're welcome for that, Brett. And, and, um, I think critically important president of the N. L. A. And I apologize, Brett. What is your what's your? You're an officer of Nila as well.

Brett Barenholtz: 1:10

President.

Ken Lucci: 1:12

Dual presidencies.

James Blain: 1:14

Cross the board.

Ken Lucci: 1:15

question. And we asked you on because we first of all, we really want you to tell us your background, how you get into the industry. We're gonna ask you about your perspectives on the business. But we wanted to focus today on the importance of associations. I think James sees operators who kind of operate in a vacuum. I certainly see the results of operators that are, you know, they are their own ecosystem, right? They're their own echo chamber, if you will, and they're not exposing themselves to The current events, the current opportunities, et cetera. So first give us an idea of your background in the business. I know it's a colorful background, but, and a longterm, but tell us about above all and, and what Brett Barinholtz is like.

Brett Barenholtz: 2:04

Well, thank you. Thank you, James. And thank you, Ken. I really appreciate being on your podcast. I, uh, I've been in transportation my whole life. My father drove a cab for a living when I was a kid, when I was very young. I think I have a picture of me sitting on a cab when I was like one or two. But I grew up, he was in the cab industry. And I went to college. I was an accounting major. I got out. I sold securities. And it was back in the day in the eighties when you were dialing for dollars. And I really mean dialing before push button. I had tape on every one of my fingers cause I would make 500 calls a day. And I was good at that. And I would go over to my father's taxi company and they just sold their cabs and had an association that had like a hundred cabs in it. And I would go over there. And do their books once a week, because I was an accounting major, so it made sense. And every week I would go there for two to three years. My cousin, who worked there, would always look at me and go, You're never going to own Merrill Lynch. So, uh, after about two or three years of selling securities, which I really enjoyed, and learned sales from a, Standpoint of volume.

Ken Lucci: 3:25

But that's hardcore That's, that's hardcore sales.

Brett Barenholtz: 3:28

Well, it's it, it was hardcore sales and it was volume, and if someone hung up on you, it was just on to the next number.

James Blain: 3:36

Yup.

Brett Barenholtz: 3:36

And just boom, boom, boom. And I went in with this opportunity with him and we had about 100 cabs and about 400 charge accounts. And I spent the next two years building that company up. And then we bought it and we went to about 500 cabs. Out of the 1, 800 in Boston, and we went up to about 3, 000 accounts. So, I spent two years getting thrown out of every building in Boston for solicitation. And back then you could get into buildings and walk up to floors and things. It was before 9 11 and all the security.

Ken Lucci: 4:13

years, what year was

Brett Barenholtz: 4:14

This was in the mid to late 80s. Like, 86, 87. At the end of 87, I had an opportunity and I bought the company and we expanded it and we increased our, it was like a break even company, but we were able to, we saw the value in what we were charging people should have been much higher. So we increased it and we made a good run and I ran that. and own that for a 10 year period, 11 years. I sold that in 97 and in conjunction with the person that bought me out, I started the car service, Boston car service. We had one vehicle and the first day we put on a town car and we did a different car service. We did an I. O. model and then we, within a month or so, we had about six vehicles and we charged like a franchise fee at

Ken Lucci: 5:11

That was really innovative back then.

Brett Barenholtz: 5:13

it was sort of like the black car model out of New York where they had different associations. So, we did that except luxury transportation wasn't doing that. So, it was modeled after the black car with a franchise and everybody that bought one. had their car and their company were in a corporate name. It wasn't like you just had your personal car. All the, all the vehicles had livery plates. And I went over to my friend Dawson Rutter's place. Dawson used to drive a cab for my father when I was 12 years

Ken Lucci: 5:48

Wait a minute, this is industry breaking. Dobbs, Dawson Rudder, the president of Commonwealth Global. We used to drive a taxi.

Brett Barenholtz: 5:57

would drive a cab for my father. So I knew him as a guy that was Fixing tires and changing oils. And then when I got into this day one, I drove over to his place and I said, well, what do I do now? And, uh, he's been a great friend and mentor and he's always taken my calls. We, we hang out quite a bit and he's just a wonderful person and shared. his information with me and helped me along. So we, we, we grew the company and, um, about 10, 15 years in, I decided to buy out the person that had the majority share of it. And I bought the company, Boston Car Service, and I merged it with Kevin Cronin at Above All about nine years ago. And we decided we had certain goals that we wanted to set. And we've been after that and we, we went hard. During my years, I, I wasn't as serious about the Boston car brand initially because I was still running this large association for taxis. So being all in on this one piece of business was something that, uh, I hadn't done because half my time was with it. Taxi half was with this taxi top company that I started half with, you know, in part was with the associate with the car service and then I totally jumped in, um, about nine, 10 years ago when both my kids were out of high school. It's like I had more time and it was like, All right, let's, uh, let's see what we can do. When I got together, we, uh, merged with Above All and then we bought a few more companies. One was called ETS, uh, Bristol Coach, Above the Clouds. There's a, there's a few more. And then Main Limo, which was just recently, and Ken actually was the guy that we had to deal with on the Main Limo side. And he's just

Ken Lucci: 8:04

wasn't that, I was not that difficult. I know, it was, I

Brett Barenholtz: 8:08

Ken, Ken is, uh, I feel one of the smartest people in the industry. And I don't say that lightly because I hate him. So, uh,

Ken Lucci: 8:18

He tolerates me. It's

Brett Barenholtz: 8:20

but, but Ken is, he knows numbers and my accounting background is numbers are everything

Ken Lucci: 8:26

everything.

Brett Barenholtz: 8:27

people in this industry don't understand. They, they will tell you my company's worth X and it might be worth more. Normally not, but most of the time it's worth a lot less. And we've had maybe nine or 10 acquisitions, mostly small with above all Boston car. And every time it happens, a lot of times, if I'm friendly with the person that wants to sell the company, I say, do me a favor, go out and talk to other people first, because You're going to think I'm a terrible person if I tell you what it's worth and what we would pay for it. And I don't want to be a bad guy on that behalf, but you really need to educate yourself and see what the market is. And then Ken comes along and really has been doing driving transactions all these years and he's crushing it. And he lets people know what's going on with their company, what it's really worth. They, they don't understand that. I'm not going to buy their company and be the person dispatching, driving and taking reservations. There's a cost associated to that. So, but we, we've gone on quite a run in the last nine years. We love the business. I love the business. I mean, can you imagine? I was in a business where we ran 500 cabs and had 2, 000 cab drivers. I was suicidal on a daily basis. The people in our industry, they're, you know, I, I kiss everyone's butt now because I'm so happy that they can do the basics. Um, so it was, uh, It was really great for us to, uh, move along and my partner's wonderful. Kevin's great. And we are nothing alike, which is awesome because

Ken Lucci: 10:20

So tell us how that works. Because, Brett, you know this. A lot of partnerships just don't work

Brett Barenholtz: 10:25

well, you might have partnerships where you have two partners that are both really good at the sales side of it and the marketing and the networking, and that they're not really good at the, um, systems and the vehicles and the maintenance and Kevin is awesome at that.

Ken Lucci: 10:43

Oh, he's an operational maniac. He's really solid.

Brett Barenholtz: 10:47

And you know, at any time when I go to the shows, I will look at a vehicle and I'll go, Oh, this is so cool. Kevin, come over and see this vehicle. He'll walk over. He will rip it apart.

Ken Lucci: 10:58

Right. Yep.

Brett Barenholtz: 10:59

He'll be like, these wires are going to fall out here. This is the dumbest thing. They don't have a latch in the roof. He crawls under the vehicle in his suit and he goes, Oh, they don't have this kind of braking system. And this is, and you know, the sales guy is sitting there looking at me going, well, you get this guy out of here. He's killing sales now. Um, or he'll go over to something and he'll go, yeah, this is really good. This is what we need.

Ken Lucci: 11:21

And the key is he knows his stuff like nobody in the

Brett Barenholtz: 11:24

well, and it's funny when, when we get into systems, he, he digs in whether it's some Sarah, whether it's Santa Cruz, but every company that we bought along the way has a different operating system. We just bought main limo and they are on livery coach

Ken Lucci: 11:43

Fast track.

Brett Barenholtz: 11:44

and. And we and I was operating off of livery. I was a livery coach. And what did I say? Maine was,

Ken Lucci: 11:51

Main was fast track.

Brett Barenholtz: 11:53

fast track. Maine's fast track. Boston car was livery coach. We had ULS. We've had we've had many that we've looked at and he digs in. He finds things. And as we expand, I love just, you know, I just move it over to him. And he asked the questions. And in most cases, when we jump on to different systems, they're creating new things that we need for ourselves that just are not cut and dry, you know, plug and play stuff. And what normally happens is whoever that system is offers it to all of their clients. Cause they realize, wow, this is something that people in our industry can use. And from a maintenance standpoint. He's awesome. He, he was a bus mechanic for the MBTA, which is the,

Ken Lucci: 12:47

Transit, transit authority up

Brett Barenholtz: 12:49

transit authority in Massachusetts. And so he knows buses inside out. He knows, everything. So just to have him here seeing this stuff, he knows what's wrong when there's an issue. And it, and there are some companies, some of the biggest companies in the industry and smaller ones, their maintenance and their PM work and everything they're doing is it's costing them some of them over seven figures a year

Ken Lucci: 13:19

Oh yeah.

Brett Barenholtz: 13:20

they, they are not on top of it the way I feel, you know, from what my partner brings to the table. So I love having Kevin and, uh, and it's worked out well. And we, um, every time there's something from a networking or sales perspective, we discuss it, but he sides with me on what my, you know, thought is. And when it comes to what, even what type of vehicles we should buy, I will always give him the say on it and I'll like, Oh, let's try one of those. So he might. But it's, we're not changing our fleet around until we test things out.

Ken Lucci: 13:59

So it's a yin and yang and it, and that works. How did the partnership come about? Because, you know, I'm seeing a lot of people talk about it because of the insurance issue, they don't want to be by themselves anymore. Let's put two companies together. So how did your partnership with Kevin come about?

Brett Barenholtz: 14:17

Well, we did business together. I sent him our bus work, party work, um, stretch limo work. We didn't have that. We were all corporate. When Kevin and I got together, I was only running BMWs and escalades. And he had party buses. He had a couple of shuttle buses. You know, just one or two, but he had like 15 party buses and 15 different stretches. So that was part of the market that, uh, he was in at the time. It's funny because since we got together, we might have two body buses left

Ken Lucci: 14:51

But the, the whole industry has gone

Brett Barenholtz: 14:53

three stretches and they make up 1 percent of our

Ken Lucci: 14:56

Right. But you know, you,

Brett Barenholtz: 14:58

have many shuttles.

Ken Lucci: 14:59

you hit upon something that. You know, when I was an operator, I was not this way. And I think it was a huge mist was one of the biggest mistakes I made. And I made a lot. You became friends with him and you you did business with him on a basis of I'm going to trust this man with my clients and I'm going to depend on him. And it wasn't a competitor. It wasn't. He's a competitor. It was a rising tide is going to lift all boats. I think you need somebody like that. A few people like that in your market today is an operator. And so many operators I see, they fight with each other terribly. I'll go to like different associations and, and they don't even want to be in the same room together. So the fact that you were able to do that, I mean, one of the benefits of that way of doing business is you found a partner.

James Blain: 15:51

And, and you found it on someone that, you know, is an area that you said you weren't in, right? So you, you found someone to fill those gaps for you, which is huge.

Ken Lucci: 16:00

Well, the Ying and Yang partnerships are the best in the world. And, and they really, they really are. And the key there is, I know for a fact it's a dividing line. Kevin's on one side, you're on the other. And, and there's the key with the line is total trust in each other. It's trust in each

Brett Barenholtz: 16:15

do have that. And, uh, you know, I trusted him back then with our clients. I trusted that he's not trying to steal my clients. But that, that's where the associations, I'll get into that in a little bit. That's where you have to be part of your local association and work. You know, you have to play nice in your sandbox now. You don't have to work with everyone in your space, you gotta work. But we all got a lot smarter during COVID.

Ken Lucci: 16:40

absolutely.

Brett Barenholtz: 16:41

were all built, as my buddy Dawson would say, for, you know, the church was built for Christmas Day so everyone could be there. We, we had fleets the size of what we needed for two, three months a year when our biggest, uh, peak seasons were. And then we just looked at those cars for the rest of the year. We don't do that anymore. No, one does that anymore. Or you shouldn't be doing that

Ken Lucci: 17:06

no,

James Blain: 17:06

It's not, it's not a smart business move.

Ken Lucci: 17:08

but the, the right, the right, I would say 80 percent of the companies we deal with have right sized their overhead. their fleets. 20 percent are still in a different mindset where they have to own it all. You know, I just tell you one quick story. You remember Julie Herring that owned Julie's limousine down in Tampa. When I first started, Julie was the only operator to call me and say, can I just gonna give you a word of advice? You can't own everything. If you need a piece of equipment, you call me. Here's my cell number. And she said, I'm here to help you. And I didn't understand the ecosystem of the transportation industry that way. I didn't understand it that way. I was brought up by a guy where competition was everything, and you didn't talk to your competition. But, but, you know, to me it's been a secret of your success is, is cultivating Kevin long before you thought of him as a business partner. You were friends. You were, you were, you were in this, you were literally in the same lifeboat on certain days.

Brett Barenholtz: 18:08

Yeah, that, that's true. It's, it's very similar with what's going on with your network around the country and the world too. It's, you don't need to have an office. in Singapore, L. A. and in New York City, but once you get to a certain level, you do want an office there and everyone has to determine what that number is where you want to have a satellite office. Um, the other thing is just to talk a little bit about the NLA and the board stuff. I was working closely with NILA initially, and then I got asked to run for a board position nationally,

Ken Lucci: 18:54

was this? What year was this?

Brett Barenholtz: 18:56

This was seven years ago.

Ken Lucci: 18:58

Yep.

Brett Barenholtz: 18:58

So I ran seven years ago and I won and I served for three years and it takes a good year to get your feet wet on the board. And I think I stepped on some toes at the very first meeting, but, um, it was something that I sort of saw where the areas that I really wanted to be part of, and that was legislative, um,

Ken Lucci: 19:27

Fundraising.

Brett Barenholtz: 19:29

part of the fundraising, but also the nominating and the charity committees. Yes, and all and the P. R. Committee. So I was able to get onto those committees. And then I ran again a few years later, and I think even my last year of my first three year term, I I was definitely for a couple of years co chairs of some of those committees, and I've been able to focus after the first three years. I was heavily into the legislative. piece of it. And I just felt that this meant so much to our industry. And this is right when COVID hit us too. So it was paramount that we figure out what to do in DC, how we, you know, our industry, how do we get PPP money? How do we get SBA loans? How do we get, um, ELD, ERC, you know, all of a sudden. And it was unbelievable being able to deal with Cornerstone at that time because they cut their price in half to us.

Ken Lucci: 20:37

That's your lobbyist. The NLA's lobbyist

Brett Barenholtz: 20:40

they're great. They were great and they were super during COVID and they did quadruple the work during COVID than they were doing before that. And the amazing part about it is we always say you need to have friends before you have the problem. You can't just say, Oh geez, uh, Uber is here now. We, we have a problem with Uber. Who do I see? We have people that we see every year.

Ken Lucci: 21:06

Yep.

Brett Barenholtz: 21:07

And the, the thing is, we would have an issue in the industry. We're looking at a PPP application or an, or an SBA or an EIDL. And I would call cornerstone based on someone calling me saying, What does this mean? And I'm like, I don't know. I called Cornerstone. Cornerstone would call the person that wrote the bill,

Ken Lucci: 21:31

Yep.

Brett Barenholtz: 21:31

who wrote the, the senator that wrote the bill, and get an answer. What does that mean? It was amazing. And we would relay this right back to our membership. So, the value of having that, and that's what the NLA does. And the value of having that is, it's invaluable. It's invaluable.

Ken Lucci: 21:53

And Cornerstone is not just one of a thousand. They're in the top 20, as far as I know, of lobbying firms in the country.

Brett Barenholtz: 22:01

yeah. They're, they're wonderful. And you know what? And they, they've passed up work for some other companies that we always thought competed with us or other industries that competed with us. They've taken a pass on it. And these companies spend a lot more than we ever do, so they, they've been a great partner. So I love that. So I was, I was on that for a few years and then, uh, about four years ago, I got elected to the executive committee. There's five executive committee members and you're elected by the 18 members of the NLA board. So that's an honor because I respect everyone that's on that board. Immensely. So just having them, uh, put me in that position on the board was, was great. And this past year I ran for president and I threw my hat in and, and I got elected. I didn't, I knew it was gonna be more work. I already put a lot of work in, and it's really a lot more work.

Ken Lucci: 23:03

So what, what is your biggest surprise? Well, no, seriously, what is your biggest surprise having taken over as president?

Brett Barenholtz: 23:10

you know what I, what I do is I, when I do something, I'm, I'm, all in. I'm all in. I'm not doing anything Half-assed. I'm doing everything all in, so I thought the first thing I needed to do was get on every committee call. And fortunately, there were only 16 committees when I started. And then we created another one, so there's 17, and our board meeting yesterday, I just created another one. But,

James Blain: 23:41

Making more work for yourself.

Brett Barenholtz: 23:43

so at this point, now that it's been about seven or eight months, I'd probably sat in on over 200 committee calls

Ken Lucci: 23:50

Sure.

Brett Barenholtz: 23:51

and I needed to know that these committees are functioning properly. The people on our board are awesome. They're awesome. So I will get on, I got on a few calls. I, I don't even know the committee, but Tracy Ramers on the call, Doug Schwartz, Rob Alexander, they're Jason Kaplan. You know, people that they, they forgot more than I might even know. And I'm like, well, I sat in on a few of those for a few months and I'm like, I'm useless here. I'm not helping them at all. I'm listening. So I feel I don't have to be on those. I'm not a micromanager. I want people at our board meetings to make the committee's recommendations. If there's something that is coming up that could be critical or, um, um, There could be conflicts or consequences. I want to be looped back in. So I have to go. And there are a few committees, maybe one or two that I want to see them functioning a little better. So we're beefing up who is on those committees right now, where we're getting a little bit more experience and more people on to help out. So I'm very comfortable where all of the committees are now and how they're operating. And. It's just the people that have been elected. They have great leadership. They know what they're doing. The only thing that I ask, and I want them, I want every committee to have goals. They don't have to be that they're going to improve membership by a hundred percent this year. But I want goals. I want expectations. I want to know where we're going to be in a year, three years and five years, and what your goals are. And it can be modest goals. It can be, we're just hoping to maintain what we were doing. We're hoping we don't lose money. We're hoping it could be, we want to see a 7 percent increase in membership.

Ken Lucci: 25:48

So what do you say? And listen, when I was an operator, I joined the NLA. Diane Forgey was my president, which she took my calls when I knew nothing, still know nothing. And it was an honor for me to help her transition and exit. But she was my president when I started. And some of the operators that were up my size said, why are you joining the NLA? And what do you say to somebody who's that myopic? And I do believe it's myopic thinking.

James Blain: 26:21

It's 100 percent myopic.

Brett Barenholtz: 26:23

First of all, I never dreamt in a million years that my network would actually mean everything to me. Not just something, it means everything.

Ken Lucci: 26:35

a, you're a global affiliate network.

Brett Barenholtz: 26:37

Just my network, from friends, business, everywhere, it means so much. It means everything. And, uh, I had certain stuff going on, um, where my biggest client needed service in Idaho. They needed service in Grand Rapids. They needed service in California, Wyoming, Wisconsin. I needed to have people that I personally vetted. Cause I'm putting my biggest client in there. So the selfishness of trying to help out NILA and NLA wasn't to be on the board and say, Oh yeah, puff my chest out. I learned this from my great friend Dawson. I would go with Dawson. We didn't even work together. We were just friends. The first 10 years I was in the industry, we weren't sending each other work even cause we just did our own thing. And, uh, and I'd go to dinner with him. I was the only person that he wasn't sending work to at the table. And we'd go to work, he'd take 20 people out. And he's picking up the check. And then I'd go to other things where someone's sending me, you know, tens of thousands of dollars or a hundred thousand dollars and I'm Picking up the check, taking them out. And I'm like, Dawson, all these people want to kiss your butt and take you out. And he said something that stuck with me forever. He said, they make me look good. I need to take them out. I don't care that, you know, I'm sending them a million dollars or more or whatever. It's, I need them. So, I, I, I understood that. And it paid incredible dividends for me. For the last five, six years we are, we have sent out 50 times more work than we ever taken. And, and I, and I'll see people that I'm sending seven figures and they're like, Oh, let me get you this. I'm like, absolutely not. I need to take you clubbing. I need to take you out today. It's, I appreciate you not screwing up my accounts.

Ken Lucci: 28:57

Well, it gets back to what you said, which is monumental to me, which is have the solution in place before you have the problem, or in your case, have the network in place. So that if you need help, or when the opportunity comes up, you, you, you have an answer, you have somebody servicing you. I do, I do, think that we are an industry of an ecosystem. And the ecosystem is only as good as the weakest link, your network, that you have nurtured, and you're being very modest. Because you're extremely well respected, even before you were involved on the NLA, before your real involvement in the NLA. What you did was you created a network of knowledge, and it was a network that you could call on. I mean, Dawson Rudder probably has forgotten more about most subjects in the industry than I will. I'll just say finance, you know, I've got that knocked. But, what you've built is a knowledge base that in my mind is force multiplying. That's applying. It allows you, if you've got, if you've got specific goals for your business and something new comes up because you have this network, you instantly, it's a force multiplier for you. And I don't know that a lot of people get that in the chauffeured space. You cannot exist as an island for very long.

Brett Barenholtz: 30:25

Well, you know what? It's, it's all about good people too. And many years ago, even before we were doing the Boston car service, uh, I met Mike Basso from Leros.

Ken Lucci: 30:41

Oh, sure.

Brett Barenholtz: 30:41

literally out of college. And then Jeff and I have become great friends. Over the years and Jeff, who was a much bigger company than me, just took me under his wing at the shows when I would go to the shows him and John Epstein, you

Ken Lucci: 30:59

Coachman, ROS, Jeff from Ros and, and Epstein From, from Royal

Brett Barenholtz: 31:04

And they would introduce me to all of their friends and Jay Ehrlich, who is a young guy from Europe limo. I call him young. He's not so young now, but, but you know, everybody introducing networking and you know, it's one of those things where I totally live my life now by the no asshole rule. And I do have. today of I don't need anyone's business. I don't need to do anyone's business. I don't need to get any more accounts. I don't need anything. I want them, but I'm not going to deal with a holes

Ken Lucci: 31:45

No, I, I did, I I agree a hundred

Brett Barenholtz: 31:47

whether, whether they're sending me business, I have turned away people that want to send me a lot of business because I don't want to deal with them. And I have. You know, not done business with certain people because it's just not worth it. But, you know, through NILA and what I recommend with NILA. associations, local associations. Occasionally I'll talk to people, especially at the mentoring stuff. And they're like, well, we don't get along with anyone in our market. And I'm like, you better.

Ken Lucci: 32:18

You better because you're all in the, you, you're all in the same boat. And when the, the, the shit hits the fan, who are you gonna talk to? A stranger.

Brett Barenholtz: 32:25

Do you want, do you want to have 20 pieces of metal when you normally only need 10, except sometimes you need 15 or 16, a handful of weeks of the year. Stop it. Stop it. But, you know, it goes both ways. There are certain expectations. Clean, great cars, um, professional chauffeurs, on time, knowing where you're going. These are givens. You know, someone will send me stuff and they will say, well, I have this car and I have this and we have the best rate. It's so funny. I used to care about rates. I don't care about rates. Don't eff up. Don't eff up.

Ken Lucci: 33:07

Yeah, that's actually, I don't care how, what your rate is, but if you make me look bad, I don't care how low

Brett Barenholtz: 33:12

It does nothing for me if I'm paying, you know, 10 percent less and you can't do the job right. And there are a lot of companies out there, they sell on rates. And I don't want to find out that I'm paying top of the market every time I'm doing something. But if that market I have to, I will. I don't need to make money on every call. But there, you know, certain markets that you send more and more work to, people have to be flexible with to get your rates. But, but listen, there, there are certain places in Wisconsin. Where what they charge me to do a shuttle in an SUV is what I pay for motor coach in other places. You know what? They're the only game in town. All right, we'll pay it.

Ken Lucci: 33:58

Yep.

Brett Barenholtz: 34:00

don't screw it up. We'll pay it.

Ken Lucci: 34:01

Yep. Yep. Well, it, it is an ecosystem and you've built it, you've built it right. Um, NELA, I think NELA is probably one of the, in my view, it's at least one of the top three in the country as far as the associations. I think it would rival. New

Brett Barenholtz: 34:19

I think it it's a great association and the board now is great. I I do want to add a couple things So sorry to cut you off, Ken. I do want to add, NLA, it's not just the networking, though. It's the education. The next show, there's 19 hours of education. I have never, ever gone to a show in 20 plus years where I didn't walk out of there meeting someone that is great that I now know them or picking up something from insurance or vehicles or maintenance or something. If you go to a show. And you don't walk out of there with more knowledge that is going to help you make more money or save more money. You didn't put yourself out there.

Ken Lucci: 35:03

You didn't, you didn't do the work.

Brett Barenholtz: 35:06

You didn't do the work. You thought you were going to walk around, hand the guy from, uh, Boston coach your card and he's going to go, Oh, geez, you're from Boston. Oh, I'm going to drop the guys I've been using for the last 20 years and use you. That's not how it works.

James Blain: 35:22

and there's something here that's really important to because I go to a lot of shows and I see people that don't know how to interact. It's their first show. It's their first time out. It's their first time putting them up there. And I have people all the time where I'll be in the middle of a conversation and they'll come interrupt the conversation just to give us business cards. So,

Ken Lucci: 35:40

And tell you about their 118, 000 Escalade.

James Blain: 35:44

And, and I think a lot of people kind of miss what they need to do. So, I, I would ask you, Brett, as someone that's been involved in associations your entire life, if you're going and putting yourself out there, if you're going to that first show, if you're trying to get the most out of it, What are the top three things you need to do with the show? How do you approach that and how do you go through

Brett Barenholtz: 36:05

here's what I will tell you, James. First thing you should do is join NLA because you will get a discount on your stuff. Second thing is we realize this and we have a broadcast in the next week or so that is going to tell people what to do at your first show, how to interact, what to do. The other thing that the NLA has been great at in the last few years is we give out scholarships to the fall show, the spring show and day on the hill. Um, and we're bringing people in that way to let them understand. And then they have mentors when they're at the show. But Doug Schwartz and I think the membership committee, and I think that's with Sean and Kareem Machi are running a webinar. In the next week, that is, what do you do at your first show? How do you do this? We see this. We know a lot of our members. Uh, at the last time I looked at the pie chart, I think, 565 of our members, or 700 of our members, are 1 to 5 cars. And it's intimidating going to a show. You see people. And you want to do that. And what I will say on your podcast is if you go to a show and you see someone and they say, NLA board member, feel free to bother them. Feel free to ask them to help you out, to introduce you, make introductions or just say hello to them. That's what the board is here for. They are here to help you be successful. And we need. Everyone in the industry to be successful so we can do our networking and not own metal in every city in the country. One of the other things I just want to say is. We also have, the number that I quote is probably going to be wrong, but approximately 25 affinity programs. One of them is health insurance.

Ken Lucci: 38:21

Health insurance is huge.

Brett Barenholtz: 38:23

And there are other ones, I think PACS, where you are James,

James Blain: 38:26

are absolutely part of the affinity

Brett Barenholtz: 38:28

I think driving transactions might be an affinity program, where they can save on what you guys are doing, and that alone pays for their membership. You have to be crazy not to be a member of NLA if you're in this industry. So those programs are something else that it's, it's very important. And just get involved, get involved, you know, volunteer to be on the charity committee. Maybe you can't give anything. Maybe, you know, someone that has a pair of baseball tickets to a good team, unlike the Red Sox that someone might want to bid on and see. Um, but get involved. It's funny, there, there's a gentleman that just flew in for the NELA golf tournament. I met him three years ago. He's been in business for three years. He

Ken Lucci: 39:23

Dimitri, Dimitri from Mexico. He's a client.

Brett Barenholtz: 39:27

He is from Albuquerque. You know, unfortunately for him and I are football teams because he's a Broncos fan and I'm a Patriot fan. We are in the toilet right now. But besides that, he flew in. I met him because he won a scholarship today on the hill. All he had to do was pay for his flight. He came and he's a great guy. Started three years ago. He has 16 vehicles, including some bigger equipment now. I think vans, maybe even a small bus. He's crushing it. He loves the industry. Great guy. And I'm happy to shout him out and perfect example of what you can do in this industry. And he's friends with the other people in his markets. So he helps them and he doesn't poach their customers. And it's one thing for me to help you. But when there's an RFP, everybody can bid on it. You know, it doesn't mean you're poaching someone's client. You're just bidding on an RFP.

Ken Lucci: 40:22

You know, he's an example of you get out of the association what you put into it. He's a perfect example of

Brett Barenholtz: 40:30

he's put himself out there. He literally flew in for Nila, not because his golf game or not because of any of that, just so he could network with more people at Nila and get his market himself out there. And, and he does. And, um, but there's an example and it doesn't happen day one. It doesn't happen day one. And you're not going to walk into a room and hand out. At Affiliate Central, you're not going to hand out 60 business cards, and now you're their top choice because you had a

Ken Lucci: 41:04

Low price.

Brett Barenholtz: 41:05

you were polite. It's, uh, you know, you got to get FaceTime. And in a lot of cases, people might like you and say, listen, I'll put you on our list. You're my, between the fifth and the seventh person on our list. And guess what? Sometime during the year, it could be October in Boston or June in Boston or May. We're going to call affiliates and they're going to be flat out. And then the second affiliate and the third and the fourth, and they're going to work their way down the list. And I know the bigger companies have 10 affiliates in each

Ken Lucci: 41:41

Yes.

James Blain: 41:41

Oh Yeah.

Brett Barenholtz: 41:43

you got to perform, but when you're called, make it happen, do it right. Make sure your billing's right. Make sure your systems are right. Make sure your system integrates at least through grid. on their system. There's a lot you can do, but the NLA not only is worth every penny, so are your local associations. Cause your local associations work on things like curb space at your airports. You don't want to lose that. It'll just be all Uber and Lyft. You know, you need to have a say in that. Your local associations do a lot of dirty work locally and NLA, when it looks like it's something that could affect you nationally, we will step in. Fortunately, last year we were able to give GCLA a 20, 000 grant towards something they were fighting.

Ken Lucci: 42:31

Los Angeles Airport. Yeah.

Brett Barenholtz: 42:33

we just approved something for Florida, tort reform stuff that they're fighting, another 20 grand for them. So we're there to step up. The NLA has been on a good run financially. I give a lot of credit to. Our partner chauffeur driven and a ton of credit to Robert Alexander, who was the president through COVID. He took over and within two weeks, not only did he have a huge acquisition on his hands, personally, he, uh, he, he ran an incredible ship and was amazing

Ken Lucci: 43:07

and your treasurer, Rick Versace.

Brett Barenholtz: 43:09

And Rick is great

Ken Lucci: 43:11

During the COVID, those two, I think

Brett Barenholtz: 43:13

whole, the whole board was great. We, everything got cut, but you know, kudos to him for bringing everybody together like that. He was a great example for me and he's been extremely helpful for my presidency. And, uh, there's nothing I can't call him on that he will not tell me what he thinks. And,

Ken Lucci: 43:33

So that's important now.

Brett Barenholtz: 43:35

great person.

Ken Lucci: 43:36

Unlike Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Who never called any of the prior presidents. You, you're telling us you, you, you called the prior president and several prior presidents for, for advice.

Brett Barenholtz: 43:49

Yeah. Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 43:50

Okay. That's newsworthy. That's newsworthy. That's newsworthy.

Brett Barenholtz: 43:53

it's, it's not really newsworthy. It's,

Ken Lucci: 43:56

He's very, Robert's very, very, very

Brett Barenholtz: 43:59

he's sure there isn't anyone that knows this industry better than him. And, uh, I, I will not, you can't put that on the podcast because if he hears that

Ken Lucci: 44:09

uh, he'll want to be on the, he'll want to be on the podcast.

James Blain: 44:12

but I'll tell you what, it makes sense though, because you've had one common theme throughout our entire conversation, Brett, and that's mentorship for yourself and understanding that you didn't hold all the answers and being able to go and find the right people, right? It's something, right? If we, if we go back and we listen to this podcast, we're gonna hear all the different names, all the different people that have helped. And I think that's something that a lot of operators could really learn from, because Understanding how to get mentorship right now. I'll let you talk about the NLA mentorship in a minute, but you know, one of the big things there is. It can be really hard sometimes as a business owner to admit you don't know all the answers and have to go ask someone else and it can be humbling at times, too. So I think that's a really important part of this theme is that throughout your career and even throughout, you know, getting into the industry, you've made it really clear that that's been a huge part of your success.

Brett Barenholtz: 45:05

yeah, well it's, you know, I'm, I'm really good at knowing what I'm good at and I, I know what I'm bad at. And I don't try to pretend the tech piece of our business. I'm a beginner, you know, the systems piece. I'm a, I don't even know if I can put a reservation in, but it's, uh, but

Ken Lucci: 45:27

Might be better used to be your time in other

Brett Barenholtz: 45:29

know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at, but I, you know, and these people along the way have become incredible friends and, you know, and the only thing that I hate about the industry. is when Ken takes them and sells their business like he sold John's business and he sold and another friend of mine, a great friend, Alan can do, you know, I can't, you know, the, the good guys, I don't want them leaving the business. You know, I'm still in for the long

Ken Lucci: 45:58

What if they want to go, Brad? I cannot say

Brett Barenholtz: 46:01

yeah, no, no, no. It's you can go find people I can buy, but make sure they're not the good people. Uh,

Ken Lucci: 46:07

I know. But you know, it's uh, I don't think, I think I underestimated when I was an operator, the importance in critical, uh, Critical nature, your success cannot be on your own. Your success is only as good. You are only as good as the ability for you to pick up the phone and get things done around the country. Get answers, get answers done. And you know, I don't know about you and I will say this in the podcast, the most backwards companies that I run into are the ones that don't go to their local associations. They don't go to the conferences, and they're really backwards companies. When I say backwards, I mean they could be using a reservation system and not realize that, you know, nine new functions just were announced at the conference or at the show, etc. So, you know, the value The investment is, to me, the investment is 10x for an operator. You come in and you're an NLA member, you can get 10x your investment out of it. The same with NELA, the same with all of the state associations.

James Blain: 47:20

Easily.

Brett Barenholtz: 47:21

of, one of the things that people have to do is one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in the industry is John Epstein begged me to come into a 20 group and they would meet three times a year all around the country and I'm like, John, I'm too busy. I got this cab thing going on. I have this. I got this taxi. I said, I'm too busy. And it would have been it. At the time, I would have met 20 guys from around the country and fortunately for the person that did do it, it was great. But at that time I would have met 20 incredible operators. I might not have liked every one of them, but I would have met them. And I highly recommend for smaller operators to get into a 20

Ken Lucci: 48:07

Get into a

Brett Barenholtz: 48:08

know Becky Laramie runs 20 groups. I know there's some other people that have them, but if you have an opportunity to get onto a 20 group, do it. And what it is a 20 group, if you don't know, it's normally people from 20 different markets. They get together once a year, twice a year, and probably monthly on Zoom, but in person, and you share ideas. There's certain things going on in Minnesota that might be going on in Texas. You share ideas, and you're not alone. And I found that during COVID, a lot of people felt alone. So the other thing is, if you can't get on a 20 group, participate on your local boards. You don't have to be on the board, but you can participate in committees. And get on committees. It helps you. You get on calls weekly, monthly, you're with other people. Sometimes we get on a call. We're talking about, you know, the show committee. And then at the end of the call, someone says, Hey, how's everyone's business been this month? Oh, I'm up. I'm down. You're not alone. You don't have to wait six months to go to the show to find out if things are going well for everyone, or it's just you in a vacuum. So these are the kinds of things you can use the associations as your local 20 group. and things of that nature and you make friends. And I love, I love when I see people go on Facebook in a group and go, Hey, who do we got in Chicago? It's like, if you're asking on Facebook who you got in Chicago, you didn't do your homework. You're going to blow your accounts. You're going to blow your business because that is the dumbest thing to

Ken Lucci: 49:47

Yeah. Who do I, who do we have in Chicago tomorrow morning at 6 a. m. Those are my favorite ones. Yeah. A

Brett Barenholtz: 49:54

you don't know if the company you're sending your work to has insurance. If they have a COI with your company name in it, it is asinine. Now, what you should do is if you don't really know someone in Chicago, but you know, you're a board member from the NLA that represents your region. And they're from Florida also. Like, if you're from Florida, you call Rick Versace, you call Tim Rosen, you go, Hey, Tim, who do you use in Chicago? Cause you know, those guys definitely vetted him properly. All you really need is a COI initially. Um, but at least you're getting it from people that know the industry. You're not getting it from You know, the Facebook, uh, group of

Ken Lucci: 50:37

It's hit or miss. It's hit or it's hit. It's hit or miss. And I don't know how you can take your business seriously and putting an important client that trusts you not only in your local market, but they're trusting you to put them in a car in another city. And I don't know how you, that, that to me is almost malpractice.

Brett Barenholtz: 50:53

So it's, when you have people that you know, in the industry, the, there people are happy to share who their contact is in different states. You're not asking them for a loan. You're not asking them to even do your work. You just say, can you tell me who you use? You know, and, uh, and, and that's how that goes. But. Um, you know, we have very high expectations of the people we use. And, you know, when things were going crazy during COVID, I just had a certain rule with a bunch of people around the country. I'm like, if I'm calling you, I don't care what time it is. Just answer your phone. It'll be good stuff.

Ken Lucci: 51:33

Sure.

Brett Barenholtz: 51:34

mean I need six buses tomorrow morning somewhere. Just answer your phone, please answer. And the owners would answer their phones.

Ken Lucci: 51:43

Well, we, we, we definitely want to have you back again because we are going to have an episode on mastering the affiliate network, the affiliate relationship, and we really want to hear from a large network, a large operator, what they expect of, of their affiliate on a local basis. So we'll have to have you come back on that. Uh, that, that, that's not the only subject

Brett Barenholtz: 52:10

Well, it's a simple one answer, one word answer, alcohol.

Ken Lucci: 52:15

Alcohol. No, that's not true, not true. But, but the revelation, the revolution of, well, let's, let's just recap because we're going to wrap up. I, I firmly believe that you cannot exist in a vacuum in this industry. You have to create a network. You're living proof that creating a large network for a variety of reasons is why you're successful. Getting involved in your association. You know, bite your tongue if you're not, if you don't like somebody, stay on the opposite side of the room. But there's so much, so much more you can learn. Um, definitely the conferences, you, you get out of them what you put into them. Um, and overall, we're happy, we are, we're happy you've settled into, uh, your presidency and we're glad that you had the opportunity to, to sit with us and we appreciate it. Um, certainly you're, you've been a gracious, interviewee, unlike perhaps a couple of presidential candidates that, that are, that are running. But the revelation, I think of the, this episode has been Dawson runner, Dawson rudder, who is one of the most operates. One of the most prestigious chauffeur networks was a taxi driver, mentorship,

Brett Barenholtz: 53:35

yeah.

James Blain: 53:35

we'll footnote, we'll footnote mentorship right below that.

Brett Barenholtz: 53:38

we're still great friends, but yeah. Well, you, you have to build a trust factor and you can't

Ken Lucci: 53:43

and the industry's filled with a lot of those people. And I kind of feel bad for operators that don't have the benefit of that camaraderie. because they don't extend themselves.

Brett Barenholtz: 53:55

poach people's clients either. But, um, really appreciate you guys and you both run great companies and you can tell your buddy Bruce in Kansas City that, uh, we all hope Kansas City loses every game,

James Blain: 54:14

We, we, we have our, we have our good luck charm. Long as Taylor's there, we'll be fine.

Brett Barenholtz: 54:18

Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 54:19

Uh huh.

Brett Barenholtz: 54:19

So

Ken Lucci: 54:20

Well, thank you very much, Brett. It's been fantastic, and we'll see you in DC.

54:27

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.