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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.

James Blain: 0:30

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the ground transportation podcast. I am extremely excited about this episode. I have my good friend, Sam from special one media. You've got an incredible story, right? You've got an awesome background. So I'm super excited to talk with you today. I am joined by my co host Ken Lucci from driving transactions.

Ken Lucci: 0:49

excited to talk to Sam today. Equally excited.

James Blain: 0:53

And then of course, I am James Blaine from PAX training. So I think I'd be remiss if I didn't start by saying that You know, when it comes to growing up in an industry and being raised in an industry, you are probably one of the few people that literally gets to say you grew up here, right? I mean, this is your stomping ground. Tell us about that

Sam Emam: 1:12

Yeah, I would say I did grow up in it. I was pretty young coming into the affiliate side of like, networking and stuff. my dad and my mom moved here in 1988. I came with them when I was five years old and my dad worked at a deli on the Upper West Side. And, uh, limo drivers would come in and car transportation guys would come in getting cigarettes and coffee. And he ended up getting hooked up with somebody. Who was leasing out cars. So they used to lease out the cars to the drivers. And he worked for a New York like car company. And he just learned the ropes. And after about two years and uh, moving into New Jersey, he decided that he was going to start his own company. Honestly, I think it was from those clients that he was picking up in New York. A lot of them were coming into New Jersey. So, uh, You know, like any other, you know, hustling guy, he started picking up a group or a department from one of these wall street offices. And then they just kind of grew. And because those guys end up kind of moving around, they just took them with them. So he ended up growing through like a really big referral program. So he had his company for about, I would say 30 something years. Um, I got into it because he was asking me to do envelopes. And then when I was in college, when I was in college, uh, during high school, I worked at Starbucks. I was always having like these customers, like I worked at coffee shops all the time and then I was just like free spirited kid and, uh, my parents, like my second year of college, I was going locally here at Kean university, New Jersey, and, uh, my mom and dad were like, you should start working for the company, or you could work at the bank. And I said, I didn't want to work at the bank and be a talent. And I'm like, that's,

James Blain: 2:58

family business or bank.

Sam Emam: 2:59

Family business or bank. And when I, after like a year of doing the family business, I was like, you know what, I should have picked the bank. I should have worked at the bank.

Ken Lucci: 3:08

completely different dynamic. Completely different, Completely different pressure, right? Working with

Sam Emam: 3:13

Well, listen, so when my dad started his company, it was like very guerrilla marketing and referral. Right. He was trying to grow between these like. Wall Street guys and what he was doing was just promising to be there, you know, like and and just following the basics He would always repeat the basics have a clean car have your insurance Answer your phone, you know, like yeah, so like that's what he lived by so like growing up. Fed me a lot of that stuff like

Ken Lucci: 3:42

You mean Sam, he didn't spend$2,500 a month on PPC and then

Sam Emam: 3:47

no, no, no. Oh my god. Yeah marketing Billboards. And it was funny because when I went to college, I went to school for marketing. So when I was going there, he was, he didn't understand that marketing led to sales. He was always like, Oh, you do sales and marketing. I said, listen, you know, it's, it's different by that, by that time. And he, by the time I was in my twenties and really getting into it and going into my thirties, That's where we started bumping because not only was marketing changing, it wasn't like the yellow books anymore. You know, like he had a, he had another, you know, it's funny, I think in the early nineties he had another company name, but it was A&A you know, so he could have his phone number at the very beginning

Ken Lucci: 4:28

at the beginning.

Sam Emam: 4:28

called his company chauffeur. So he's like, Oh, I'm also in the sea. You know, like, I'm like, Oh great. You know, so that their marketing was different and. Me playing around in the office, I remember him saying this, me playing around in the office and playing on Facebook and eventually him actually pushing me to go to Lange to network at one point was, was really kind of, I think, pushed the envelope of like, hey, you know, this is just, you're not, it's not, you're not, stop bullshitting around. You could really like grow a company. Um, but we ran into a lot of like little problems because him and I were father and son, you know, and he was. You know, he came back from like an Arab background. Like you weren't like talking back to your dad, you know, honestly, no one was supposed to be talking back to their dad, but our generation, as these kids, you know, as we go on, we were free spirited and talking. And honestly, I always, he would always joke around that I played too much on Facebook and I turned around and told him, I said, I think we can make money. Out of Facebook and mind you, like I was into marketing and, and doing all stuff, but I hadn't had no idea about anything about cameras or anything like that until I started actually networking and saw that the affiliates were giving jobs to each other. And that's, I think when I was like, how can I get their attention? We, we, we are all on Facebook. How do I still get attention? I post on Facebook, like it's mostly my limo network. So what I did was. I watched one of the Gretsch videos and, um, I found the kid who did the Gretsch videos and asked him a bunch of questions. I'm still friends with him, Andy, uh, from California and, uh, he gave me all this information and then I just started making videos for the company. And then, uh, you know, my first client in the limo industry was Barry, Barry Trapp. Shout out to, uh, Complete Fleet. He actually was like, hey, can you make me videos like this? And then that's when like I think a fork in the road between me being an operator and learning this new generation of uh, I don't know how to call it like freelancer gig economy kind of like Small video production for small business was like really I was getting really

Ken Lucci: 6:46

What year did you start that?

Sam Emam: 6:48

So it kind of gets a little bumpy because I worked for my dad for a good 13 years. And as I went through, like, you know, I, I always joke around and say like, guys don't really grow up until they get married, have kids or get out of their twenties pretty much. So I, I BS a lot with, with my dad. And I think that eventually when the video thing came in and I was just trying to like, take over, we were having a lot of like conflict. So I ended up leaving his company around 2017. And I got an opportunity with, uh, DBZ with Jason messenger. Shout out to Jason. Yeah. And, uh, he was, he was buying his company. We were both transition, you know, we were both in a transition state and like he needed a right hand man, which was kind of funny because I was like, not well, that experience in that kind of bigger company, but we took a chance on it, which I give them, you know, like shout outs to him. I, I love Jason and, uh, but he also,

Ken Lucci: 7:42

company.

Sam Emam: 7:42

yeah, but he also, because he had so much, and we were doing weddings. He also gave me the room to be like, Hey, take pictures, like, take over the Instagram, like, do some videos. So we were doing like internal stuff, not to the scale where he's doing it now, but uh, but it was still kind of alive and kicking. And then unfortunately during COVID, you know, we had to downsize and I told him, I walked into his office and I said, Hey, listen, I think it's time to downsize and you know, I've been in these situations before with my dad and my dad would joke around and call it going on vacation. So I said we need to put everybody on vacation and honestly that at that point in my head I said, you know what I could probably switch to doing this content and video stuff

Ken Lucci: 8:26

Full-time

Sam Emam: 8:27

It yeah, it's full time and then by that was march and by august I was already down. with fernando at Mundi limo doing content because he was You know, a lot of guys have operators had time and they also had the resources and money to spend on marketing

Ken Lucci: 8:43

So explain specifically what you do when you take on a new client who's an operator.

Sam Emam: 8:49

So, so my whole point was because I saw that by making videos for my company, that I could get your attention. So Ken, if you were down in Delaware, you knew all the big operators around me. Right. And like, they are some big guys around me. How am I going to get your attention? How are you going to even come visit me? And I was like, you know what? They don't have to come visit me. I could just put this video up for free on Facebook and he's gonna be like, oh wow, there's his office. There's his, there's his car. So like to me, when I think about operators and what they need, I always go in and say, well, you need the basics to start off with like your cars and your story and stuff like that. But like, You need to give more information. And that's always like, like you guys, you guys are content Kings, right? You've shoved down so much information to everyone's head that it, I swear to God, both of you, it can explode. And you know this because I have to stand there and listen to you guys and take pictures of it. So, um,

James Blain: 9:47

Played the fifth?

Sam Emam: 9:48

well, that's why it's valuable. So when it comes to, uh,

Ken Lucci: 9:52

do you think anybody is going to promote us if we don't promote ourselves? I

Sam Emam: 9:56

No, no, no but you, but you have, but like, that's the, that's the highlight of it. Because. I see a lot of operators and I, and I understand that I've gotten to a point where I do higher quality stuff with my camera. it's just because when I got into it, that's what I wanted. And to make it a sustainable business, I had to, you know, turn into this, right? Because I, I do a lot of talking heads and the camera and the lights and that like fascinated me. Now in this day and age, people can do everything with their phones, and like. For me, what I offer is a higher end for small business, but at the same time, like, it's not like you're, you know, the kid off the street, which, which is honestly to me is nothing wrong with that. But

James Blain: 10:43

But it's time and place,

Ken Lucci: 10:44

Well, It's all in there. It's all in the image that you want to portray. And to your, to your point, you had a decision to make. You could either sell on price. and be a starving artist, or you could say, listen, I know my worth and this is what I'm going to charge and stick with it.

Sam Emam: 11:07

yeah. And the funny thing is it's in the limo industry. We look at it and say, what is our return and how is it going to look and stuff like that. And I completely agree with people when, when I give a price out and they don't, they're like, Sam, it's just way over my head. I said, guys, The whole reason why I got into this was my dad didn't want to pay for other camera and video. I went and bought a camera myself and did it myself. So I get it. Um, my pricing for limo is different than my other corporate, uh, other stuff I do for other industries because it's, it's, it is a little different. And at the same time, some guys are like, you know, they have a office, but their office looks like a hole in the wall. Right. And the nicest thing they have, the nicest thing they have are their video. Yes. And, and hopefully their chauffeur, right? Like hopefully chauffeur looks nice and he's well groomed.

James Blain: 11:55

If not, call me. I gotcha.

Sam Emam: 11:56

and that is like the lower end fruit. And then it kind of builds up to then from content, because what you want to do, honestly, is you want to play the two games. You want to play the SEO game of having stuff for your website, definitely. And then you want to play the long game of having it on social. But social, you don't have, it doesn't have to be quality all the time. I always tell people, I said, listen, I'm making you stuff that you're going to put on your website. And yes, you can use for social, but don't forget to like, use your phone. Like Sterling limo, Johnny and Ron, they have a competition with their chauffeurs to take photos.

Ken Lucci: 12:33

Well, think about that. Think about what, yeah.

Sam Emam: 12:35

these amazing shots and they're they're there at like. Six o'clock, seven o'clock when there's sunsets, you know, and they park the car in front and they're like almost challenging Within the office.

James Blain: 12:46

But that goes back to time and place, right? Because when you're trying to show on social media, when you're posting, people like seeing behind the scenes, right? They like saying, Hey! You know, here's the office party where we're having the birthday or here's, you know, the chauffeur's coming in and going out. That's totally different than when you're putting on, you know, your game face, your professional appearance of here's a video of us absolutely creating the dream wedding, right? Or here's the video of us showing how we take care of our VIP clients. And I think that's what a lot of people don't understand is a lot of what you do, Sam, is you're doing that. Higher end, let me show you that high end cinematic. Not, hey, let me show you my office. If all you, if all they ever see is through the lens of a phone, you don't really get to put your best foot forward.

Ken Lucci: 13:33

Well, and to your point, I mean, when I look at, I look at companies from a different perspective, when, when someone wants to work for, with us to do like a financial health review. I'll look at their website and I'll, and I'll look at it and it'll say on the bottom of the 2016 and it'll have equipment that's, you know, pre pandemic age, or they'll have stock photos, you know, versus when I see companies that Sam works with their vehicles, brand spanking new vehicles, vehicles with a background that can be recognized in the market. Obviously it's a, it's a real company. And a lot of what he does is evergreen, meaning you can use it for the, at least 36 months or 48 months that you're going to have the sedan or SUV. You could use it for 10 years. If you're going to have a, for a motor coach, I mean, you know, I mean, think about it, Johnny from Sterling, uh, is, is, is, uh, launching a motor coach. We helped him get it financed. We helped him design his pricing as such. He can take pictures and video of that. It may cost a little money to do it right. But. That he's going to have that piece of equipment for seven years.

Sam Emam: 14:46

in the long run it's how you use the how do you use it right so like It's funny because I get like Requests for hey, I need a highlight video or I need like hey We're having this event and I and I tell them I said listen, do you really need a video? You Or do you just need pictures or do you need anything at all? like can't you just take it on your phone because It is you are like when you come to that point You are spending a good significant amount with a couple of thousand dollars, maybe five maybe six, you know like you're going up there and You need to like use it like so like when I do car videos or when I do speaking videos I always ask, you know at the end of the day we're going to use this for this but can we cut it down into like little shorter videos because You wanna make, it last as much as you can because you are paying the product.

James Blain: 15:37

And let me ask you something, Sam, because this is something that I see all the time. One of the things that I see all the time with people is it's just empty vehicles. If I watch your videos, if I see the work you do, I rarely ever see an empty vehicle. Can you tell us why that matter? What, why is, you know, what's the difference? Operators will go out there and they'll say, Hey, well, I got an SUV. I'm just gonna take a picture of my SUV parked there, right? Help us understand kind of the psychology of why it's so important to have people involved and be able to see them in the videos and the photos.

Sam Emam: 16:14

no, no, you have to have, and it's funny, James, I do have a lot more car, empty cars than I do have of actual people, and honestly, the ones that I have, The people in them, in the shots, getting into the car, using their cell phone, or on their laptop, or just like, looking at the chauffeur, chauffeur's looking at them, or anything, stepping in, even their foot coming out. It gives like this subliminal message to all of us, and any ad is that, when you're making an ad, you want to kind of speak to the person that the ad is being shown to. So like, I'm not gonna make, I was gonna make fun of Captain. Um. What, what,

Ken Lucci: 16:53

I was, I was waiting for it.

Sam Emam: 16:56

no, say, say we, you know, they're looking for anybody from the ages of 25 to 55 male, right? If you show a male in there like getting into the car, his briefcase and stuff like that, it speaks a lot more to them than it would if it was shown to a 25 to 55 year old woman, businesswoman looking at it, right?

James Blain: 17:18

They can see themselves in the person's

Sam Emam: 17:20

Yeah, so that, that is like, so like, even having anybody in there, holding their coffee, like, oh yeah, my morning coffee, like, kind of to relate is, has been proven to show that it, it, it gives a better engagement. It shows

Ken Lucci: 17:36

you, you're painting, you're painting a true picture of what the experience is to me. The, the empty vessel is one thing. Okay. Um, but no offense. I don't pick a restaurant because of the table setting. I pick a restaurant because of the pictures of the food and the pictures of the person or video of the person smiling as they're eating the food. So it's kind of the same thing. And I've noticed that you do some work for some of the, the larger networks and it, it adds a completely different dimension to the service. When you see them getting out of the vehicle at an airport, getting out of a vehicle, going out to a theater at night, or a group of people in the vehicle, having a lot of fun, it paints the picture as to the multitude of experiences that you can have.

Sam Emam: 18:26

No, no, definitely. And, I'll tell you the truth, all limo companies are different in their marketing, where I've seen smaller guys put customers, and I've seen bigger guys like, oh, we don't have anybody, and I think it's just because sometimes people are overthinking that, like, from my perspective, no matter who I put on camera, it's going to come out nice, because I know that the scene and my camera and equipment is, it's going to be polished, Right. I think sometimes people are shy because like smaller operators can't go out and You know buy like or purchase services like mine and then Get the same product so they have to use their phones or they have to use somebody in the office to be the customer or and I I think like It's it's okay to have that, you know, like I think it's okay as long as you are building a story or you know and and like I don't know how to how to Make it any easier for people to use their phones really, you know, like it's possible. It's really Yeah

James Blain: 19:32

Um, I will share that if you go through all the PAX training videos, the ones that you've worked with us, hidden in those training videos is my dad, because that day we needed someone that looked like an executive. And my dad's a former executive. So we said, hey, we were short a person. Called him, brought him in. Guess what? To this day, no one has come up to me and been like, Oh man, was that your dad? Like, that, so, so it, Pete, you, you, it's kind of the magic of television. You know, you think of when you're watching the TV show, you only see what's behind the camera. And I think to your point, Sam, a lot of times you are better off getting over it and doing it than, and then worried about polishing. Now, like I said, time and place. There's a time where you're going to need someone that does what you do. That's going to do the high end, high polish version of it. But kind of talking to the smaller guys that I think you're talking about, I think part of the battle is putting yourself and putting your company out there. Letting people see and get to know you.

Ken Lucci: 20:32

Well, so what would you recommend for a smaller operator if you had a limited budget? Or, or what would you say is important for them to make a professional impression? Both pictures and video on their website and on social media.

Sam Emam: 20:48

If you were to do it yourself and you don't want to go buy a camera All right.

James Blain: 20:53

Or just have Sam do it. But if they do it themselves

Sam Emam: 20:55

no, no, you can't because like that's how I ended up is I said, oh, how can I? Because I had all these admins right they all work for citigroup I was like, I can't send Citi group like an iPhone video and say, Hey guys in my office. I'm like, how does everyone, like, how do I make like this? Right? Like I'm on, on this call right now. I have the lights. It's not crazy or anything like that. But I wanted to make it look like it's quality, right? So when I'm talking to them about LaGuardia, they're not, and I'll tell you the truth, they all watch the video.'cause I did it on uh, MailChimp. And they all called me and laughed at me and said, wow, that was a great, that was a fun video, Sam. Like it's, you have to break that. Like when I posted my first video of me talking online on Facebook, I was terrified. I was like, oh my God, my company's like, my dad's company is less than 1 million. You know, like we've only hit like a million dollars ever. Like we're not a big company. How am I going to make this like look good? You know, and I did go buy a camera, but now like these iPhones are good enough. So like, You can go and take a, take a picture of the outside of your car, take a picture of the inside of your car with a bottle of water in it, you know, with a charger, if there's any details in the cars and like at least line it up. So somebody visits, they can actually see pictures. The only problem with the iPhone is when you, you know, James, when you blow it up, it becomes a little bit more pixelated. So it comes to like, how big are you going to put that picture on there? But like most of the time it's better than having nothing or old cars, right. Or stock photos

Ken Lucci: 22:24

but think about this. If you're a small operator, And what you, I'm not going to hold you to something, but let's just say it was a 5, 000 engagement. Okay. At the end of the day, when you look at the return on investment on that, that's going to be measured in months and years. Okay. If you do it right, it's measured in years. And

Sam Emam: 22:45

Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Ken Lucci: 22:46

especially if you're a small operator and you're sharp and you say, okay, You know, I just bought a piece of equipment that's gonna be in the it's that model is gonna look the same for three years Now's the time to do it

Sam Emam: 22:58

yeah.

Ken Lucci: 22:58

But what but what when I see websites With stock pictures that are I mean I can find ten websites in the same city with the same pictures on them I say to myself, you know what you're missing you're missing the ability to to show people that you provide a personalized service. So

James Blain: 23:19

no differentiation.

Ken Lucci: 23:20

None. none. So if I'm in Boston, I'm going to take a picture in front of Boston Garden. I'm going to create action shots of my chauffeur, you know, getting out, uh, uh, uh, alighting someone from the vehicle in front of the theater, et cetera, et cetera. And, and it's doesn't have to be hugely expensive. The other thing I think what gets me also about operators in our industry on social media is they're posting about. nonsense, not about what they do for a living. Um, and I, I know that Johnny does that with Sterling. He, he, he really challenges his chauffeurs to take pictures of themselves, take pictures around Philadelphia and, and he uses them. So it's not as though the operator can't figure it out. They just have to think a little bit more out of the box and, and care about what they're putting out on their website.

Sam Emam: 24:12

Well, that's for, that's, that's for a social and like, it's two different things because now social is, and, and you know, both of you guys do it. Even, can I watch you, you post on the weekends, I, I, I see that you post content on the

Ken Lucci: 24:26

Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. I don't have time during the week.

Sam Emam: 24:29

And it's free like it's it's free, but it's keeping you relevant. It's keeping you there I I don't know how many times people have like text me and they're like, oh man, you're everywhere I'm, like i'm sitting at home because I have so much content from like a shoot for miami, you know, like um it's just to stay relevant and it's come to that point where it for me it used to be hard to sell and now it's like They're like where's my ori? I'm like you actually posting something that Something from this year,

James Blain: 24:58

But you're being strategic about it, right? You're being strategic and you're being smart about it. And I think, you know, I keep coming back to time and place. That's where you have to be slick. And to Ken's point, right? Let's say you have a smaller engagement. You spend 5, 000. You come out and you do some video. You don't want to, you know, shoot your shot, as you would say, and just put it all out there. What you want to do is you want to leverage that right time and place on your website, not the place that you want to go do iPhone shots of your vehicles and worry about it being pixelated. You want pictures of your vehicles in prominent places in your city with happy people that meet your target criteria getting in or out, because then that prospect or that lead is going to see him and say, Hey, Hey, That could be me, you know, and and you have to be relevant Then when you go to social media when you're doing those things You save a little bit of that content just like you were talking about sam and you have it there And then you're able to put in and augment that with the lower end iphone stuff And now even if you're a small company, even if you're on a tiny budget, you're gonna look super high end super professional And To the point, use that for a year or two without having to really go out there and spend a ton of money while still giving that appearance,

Ken Lucci: 26:18

And, and I think you have to humanize it and put so that you're putting people into that picture. So if you have a lady executive and you show the chauffeur taking her, taking her luggage and carrying her luggage or taking her shopping bags and opening the door, you know, the corporation is thinking, okay, they're going to take care of my female executives that way. So you, you have to paint the, you have to paint the picture. talk about it constantly on here. The metal is the same. I mean, the biggest disruptor in our industry, the metal is exactly the same. it's

James Blain: 26:55

it's gonna be the

Ken Lucci: 26:56

it's going to be the same. So you have to more and

Sam Emam: 26:59

It changes every two years.

Ken Lucci: 27:01

right. But, but, but, but Uber now, the latest stats that I have is they have 188, 000 Uber black drivers. We just got that number this week. 188, 000. It is literally. If you look at our industry, all told it's 18, 000, 18, 000. And some of them, you know, a bleed over, right. But there are about 18, 000, 18, 000 single car operators in our industry that do under 250. There are 188 K in Uber black. And most of them have the Uber black drivers that most of them have the black, black SUV. So if all you're doing is showing a picture of a Chevy Suburban, Right. Versus the chauffeur is opening up the back door. He's taking the luggage. He's helping the lady in and out. It does make it. It makes a huge difference. A big impression. So,

James Blain: 27:52

and that ties back into what I was saying, right? If you want to differentiate yourself, I could And, Literally run out of numbers to count the amount of companies that are using the same Chevy Suburban photo that they've gotten off of Google, or they've literally gotten off a Chevy's website, and they're putting it on their website.

Ken Lucci: 28:10

right,

James Blain: 28:11

Have someone right if you don't have Sam have a professional come out and say, Hey, these are my vehicles. Every time you buy a new vehicle, go to a prominent part of the city and take a picture of that vehicle there. And then guess what? If another website uses it. You get to see some of the system because now that's your photo. That's your feeling. That's your look. That's your vehicle. Do it after you get it branded. And now that's going to show them exactly what it's going to look like. They're waiting for them.

Ken Lucci: 28:38

I have a I

Sam Emam: 28:39

no operators that do that.

Ken Lucci: 28:40

Oh, they do that. Of course. In this in this business, Sam, come on. Um, I have

Sam Emam: 28:44

don't want to steal any photos I've taken. I've been, I've shot for a bunch of people and I'm waiting for something to pop out somewhere, but

Ken Lucci: 28:52

I have a client that has a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud and he Does a great job with it. But two weeks ago, he, one of the chauffeurs took, or somebody took pictures of video of the bride and groom getting in and then coming out of the vehicle. And he had it on social media and he's getting, he's gotten quite a few phone calls. He was smart enough to also put it in some of the communities, the Facebook communities and the bride to be communities. And he got a lot of, he got a lot of inquiry about it. It's so much more than just the picture of the roles with no interaction. The bride can see herself getting in and out of that and, you know, how gorgeous the photo was.

Sam Emam: 29:36

Yep.

Ken Lucci: 29:36

So Sam, what's the, what would you say without, well you can mention names if you want, but what would you say was the most interesting photo shoot 12 months?

Sam Emam: 29:47

Oh man. Limo wise?

Ken Lucci: 29:51

Yeah,

Sam Emam: 29:52

No, I mean, nothing's been out of the ordinary. I would say. Because I've shot, but I'll say when I first, when I first started getting into it, and shout out to Fernando, I love Fernando, we had this crazy idea in Miami to shoot, um, this, like, dream sequence where there's like, girls in baiting suits and stuff like

Ken Lucci: 30:15

leave it to Fernando in Miami though.

Sam Emam: 30:17

We were, we were cracking up because after the edit, I like, I watched it, you know, cause I was the first to finish it and look at it and I'm like, man, I gotta make a corporate one. We need to cut out all these girls and bikinis and stuff like

Ken Lucci: 30:31

But that is Miami. I mean,

Sam Emam: 30:33

yeah, no shout out to Fernando for, for like pushing the envelope on being one of the first guys to hire like more high end because It's coming more and more, like, I just saw a video with, um, Anthony Zaro. He just put out a video from Desert Rose, and he has, like, you can tell it's somebody who's doing it. And it just looks good, like, you're gonna put that on the back of that, that website. Like, so, I mean, I've had, listen, I came and shot with James at Kansas City. And to me, it was crazy because they were able to drive into any stadium and all these like places where if it was New York city, people would be cursing and throwing stuff at you. And like, yeah, go ahead and just shoot right away. And I'm like, okay,

James Blain: 31:15

but, but it's knowing your market, right?

Ken Lucci: 31:17

is. It is knowing your people,

James Blain: 31:19

And, we know where and what we can get away with, right? And part of that is, you know, you're coming to a Midwestern city right now. Chief Stadium, we keep winning. We probably couldn't get away with that today like we did then, right? We'd have to actually get prior

Sam Emam: 31:32

to just apologize. And they're like, oh, okay. He

James Blain: 31:35

well, that's that's the Midwest. That's that's just how we are out here. As long as you say you're sorry, and you weren't meaning to be awful about it. We're okay with it,

Ken Lucci: 31:43

So, uh, Sam, talk to, talk to me about the use of drones, because I know that in some cases it's very difficult. Like look at my limo. We talked to my Mike from my limo. He's got a fleet of a hundred and something cars So, how do you possibly get a photo of that? But the a drone a

Sam Emam: 32:03

on a building or you got a drone and you shoot

Ken Lucci: 32:05

Instead right you have to be up two stories high, but are you doing more and more drone work or

Sam Emam: 32:10

no? no, I think the drone work comes in very limited, where it's like, if I was to do a drone, because I do a lot of like, for the videos and talking heads, I call them video business cards or brand message videos, drone is like very, you know, entertaining, establishing shots,

Ken Lucci: 32:26

Yes. Yeah

Sam Emam: 32:27

Now, with like, the FPV drones, I don't know if you've seen the smaller drones that can fly through indoors and stuff like that. That tells a crazy type of story, you just have to mix it into your edit really well. I drew a line at a certain point when I got into this industry was, I didn't want to drive all the time, like, like a limo, you know, like, getting to, you can't drive all the time because if you're driving all the time, you're not working in your business and not working on your business. So the drone is just stopped at like I shoot it up in the air. I get five seconds of it. That's it Anything more complicated I'm getting a like a professional driver. I'm sorry drone pilot to do that kind of stuff

Ken Lucci: 33:06

Don't hire him from the Secret Service because apparently they don't know how to use theirs

James Blain: 33:12

and I think,

Sam Emam: 33:14

They're no joke like I mean can I remember I remember you asked me about like a lot of people buy drones And shoot them up in the air and then get like A couple of seconds and then they never fly it again. Cause it's, it's kind of nerve wracking because you're flying over people like,

Ken Lucci: 33:29

Sam, yesterday at my coming home, there was a drone above my house and I was trying, I called my neighbor and he came over with a, with a rifle. I swear

Sam Emam: 33:36

Oh yeah, people, that's another thing. People get really paranoid about drones. Like, are they spying on me? Like they look at me like, and people don't want that. And, uh, so there's, so when I first got a drone, I was like, I'm going to obey the rules. I'm just going to just fly it for a couple of seconds, not over people and just get whatever footage. And like, um, For some of, I'm trying to remember, I've flown in for a couple industries just to get some stuff, but I just use it for establishing shots.

Ken Lucci: 34:03

And tell us about the other industries that you work in.

Sam Emam: 34:07

they're so random. Like the last couple of videos I did, I did one for a guy, a mortgage guy.

Ken Lucci: 34:13

Yep.

Sam Emam: 34:14

I just did one for a girl who owns like an eye, it's called Brow Eye Girl, where they do like eye and fake makeup

Ken Lucci: 34:20

No kidding.

Sam Emam: 34:21

I did a 15 minute trailer show for a contractor and an organizer. They wanted like a HDTV kind of look.

Ken Lucci: 34:31

How do people find you? We, we all know you in the limo business, but how do people

Sam Emam: 34:35

you know what it is? It's honestly because I and, and I talk about marketing and I do and I don't step into the world of ads because I do so much like referral business. It's, it's Facebook. It's Facebook and then I go out and I pass my card around and luckily I have a lot of different, um, Content, you know, and it's because of COVID when COVID happened, like nobody had any money to do anything. So I'm like, oh, I should do some other industries. So, and, uh, and now I'm trying to get into like, you know, I've done some trucking, uh, I'm definitely looking at the motor coach guys. Cause I think they're, they're in the same boat as the limo guys where they don't have updated content. That's amazing. Like,

Ken Lucci: 35:14

No. No.

Sam Emam: 35:15

take it to another level. Yeah. Cause when you think, when I think about video, you have to think about this as. Yeah, you can make sexy videos and you could have all that stuff. But like, look what James does. Look like what Ken you're doing. Like you're delivering content and information. And that I think always will dominate the most, right? So like when I go out And I'm making videos, I'm always like, Hey, listen, I can make you a sexy video. You could use it. But like, is it going to inform your clients? Is it going to help them? 10 questions you get a day. The same question and your office, you know, like about your business that could be like shown on your website and stuff like that.

James Blain: 35:54

but but that goes back to the drone, right? Because you mentioned the drone, and one of the things that I think you kind of glazed over and went through real quick is we're talking about human stories here. When you're using that drone, when you're doing that, It's it's kind of, you know, my partner Bruce loves to say it's it's the sizzle, not the steak, right? You know the drone the establishing shot the cinematic look the opening, you know all that all that's great But you know what you really have to be able to do with these videos if you want to truly connect with someone Is to be able to tell a story and in our world. It's always a human story. And so I think it's really important there that people understand and content marketing, no matter what it is, it's, it's not to go out and do this pointlessly. And I love that for you, it's full circle because you talked about when you were sitting in that office with your dad and you're like, Hey, I got this Facebook thing. I think I can make money on it. And now, as we've come to kind of the later part of the episode when Ken's asking you about, you know, how do you find it? It's. And so I think finding those through lines and finding those stories is just such a big theme in this conversation.

Ken Lucci: 37:06

it's all about standing out and differentiating. Um, I have a small, a couple of small operators as clients and one of the, he has a very heavy accent and I, and I said to him, listen, all you need to have is a rack card and then on your website and, and on social media, beautiful photos, if you're afraid to speak, that's, that's okay, I get it. I think I think you're wrong because people love to help people, you know, the good customers will, but just action photos of people getting in and out of the vehicles, action photos of, you know, you preparing your vehicle in the morning because he tells me about his 20 minute ritual to make sure everything is perfect. So it is, it is about telling the story. It's not about the stock photos. I, I can't, that drives me out of my mind when I see, like you just said, Sam, a motor coach, right? We just helped Johnny at Sterling with his motor coach project, and I know he's going to do a video, and I know he's going to go crazy with it, but think about it. That's an over a half a million dollar investment, right? So, and, and, and show people getting in and out, show the gorgeous interior, because what do you think when you think bus or motor coach? You think Greyhound, or you think? Right. So I think, I think you, you, you, you hit the nail on the head. That's a good industry. Um, and the larger equipment in our industry is a good backdrop for what you do as well.

Sam Emam: 38:35

Oh yeah, I mean, listen, I used to make a lot of, uh, a lot of money subcontracting, uh, motor coaches you know, cause we didn't have one at BBC. We only had mini and, uh, you know, I would try to sell it. And I realized that the prices I was getting the motor coaches were less than what we charge for the minis. So I had to mark up those motor coaches, like obnoxiously amount. Shout out to Mike Rose and all them.

Ken Lucci: 38:59

Yep.

Sam Emam: 39:00

Before he was there, I used to work with Jay, and I would make a lot of money off those motorcoaches. So, uh, I get it.

Ken Lucci: 39:08

You've been around for, you've been around for a while. You've seen it full circle. You, you worked with your dad in a smaller operation and now you shoot video and pictures for some of the biggest.

Sam Emam: 39:19

I'll give you, uh, give credit, credit to my dad. My dad was, uh, you know, we bumped heads a lot and, uh, it kind of pushed me to He saw that, like, I was good, you know, he could see that I was good on, like, the phone. Like, he never put me in the car. He's like, stay on the phone and just talk to people. I'm like, you're good at selling this stuff. And when I started doing the affiliate, like outbound, outside of the States, like he never wanted to do it. I actually did it when he traveled to Egypt, like he was going away. And I sent my first couple to, uh, to American executives, to Zulfi and Aslan. And those are my first. And when he came back, he realized I could, you can make money doing this. And I said, it's no different than when you give that crazy IO That job at JFK and he has to bring them back to New Jersey. It's just really far away. Like we can't do anything the same thing. So, um, so the affiliate game is kind of like what attracted me to start doing, because I needed to attract someone like you, Ken, who had a business. And I wanted you to give it to me over giving it to Jason Chernow or Empire's or like any of the big guys around, you know, there's a bunch of big guys around. So it was like, how can I get an attention?

Ken Lucci: 40:31

but you, you, you were the equalizer because, um, and I know Jason, he's got some great people on the phone and so does Empire, but you treated your people very special and you were a much smaller company competing in the arena of the big guys.

Sam Emam: 40:47

My old man did, he liked to buy the newest cars, he liked to keep it. And at one point I remember I was like, dad, I want to go up to like 50 cars. And we were at like, I think he dropped from 20 to like 11. I said, I want 50. He goes, why, why would you want so much metal? And, uh, at that point, I wish I had figured out, like, I could just farm everything out. There's so many IOs around. I could farm it and like, really like

Ken Lucci: 41:12

Hey, I can, I can show you companies that have got 50 pieces of equipment that are less profitable than people that have 10.

Sam Emam: 41:19

I, I, I totally get it. And, uh, and, uh, I think in the end of the day, like, uh, you know, the right before he, like a couple of years before he passed, he was like, Hey, do you want the limo company? And, uh, I had, he had given me an office. I was moving out of my house and he'd given me like a desk to work out. So I got a couple of years, I got like two years with my dad in the office, but not working with him. It was very interesting. And it was like. It was during the COVID years, which he joked around, was like, he's like, it's COVID, nobody's working, but I'm still in the office working. Like, so,

James Blain: 41:54

Were those the two best years working with your dad?

Sam Emam: 41:57

Yeah, I think it was because we weren't arguing about, like, who should be doing what, and what should be doing this, and we should fire so and so because he's acting up, you know? Like, we weren't going back and forth, it was more

James Blain: 42:06

pressure was off.

Sam Emam: 42:07

Yeah, and the phone wasn't ringing like crazy, and it was just like, it was good to like, just kind of catch up with him. Yeah. Um, but he did ask me to get that company. And I just said, you know what? I want to run with the, with this company. And I don't think I could give the same service that you're giving. If I want to run also my media company. So it came out, but he, we, we sold it to the two employees that it worked for them.

Ken Lucci: 42:30

Yep. I remember that.

Sam Emam: 42:31

yep. So Vanessa and Mel, they, they run the company now and I've seen Vanessa at the, at a land meeting. So. They're still going ahead and, you know, they have the experience and it's just, it's good to see it. And after my dad sold it, you could see he went through a whole entire, like, you know, he was just like, Oh, that company was good to us. It paid a lot of my bills. And I was like, dad, like, because you could see like a business owner going through

Ken Lucci: 42:57

yeah, it's, it's, it's sellers remorse. They, they all go through it.

Sam Emam: 43:01

Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 43:01

They all go through it. I see, I see them all the time. Sometimes I see sellers remorse going through the process and I stop them and say, I think you ought to keep this company, you're not ready to let it go.

James Blain: 43:13

but, but as a business owner, right. And I think, I think everybody on this call is going to relate to this as a business owner, your business is a part of you. And in many cases, it becomes a big part of who you are. And so, especially myself seeing owners that have stepped away, they almost feel like there's a, like they've left something behind, you know,

Ken Lucci: 43:36

could have an hour, we could have an hour long conversation, the three of us about this, because I, I, I grew up with a guy that, that his business was his life. We called it the sixth child. And at the end of the day, I think you have to have a real balance. And in what you do, I mean, that's completely different subject. Um, but anyway, so Sam, it is absolutely fantastic to have you on. I really want you to, uh, promote your company special one media. I love the, I love the brand. Love what you do on Facebook. I think you're, I think your blooper reels that you do are fantastic. The one you did, the one you did with Jason from BBC was, was incredible. I always

Sam Emam: 44:28

go into, like, be, it could blow up in March, and then it went dormant, and now I'm getting,

Ken Lucci: 44:37

telling, so your, your stuff is just, it's what, it's fun watching you evolve and grow up. Um, you're still a young punk as far as I'm concerned, but it's, it's great to see your work. You know, your work is just great. It's just, you do good stuff. And when I look at some of the companies you're working with, they're obviously taking you very seriously.

James Blain: 44:57

And by the way, my blooper reel protection payment's a little behind this week, but I promise it's coming to you. Don't release mine.

45:08

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.