[00:00:00] Ken Lucci: So welcome to another exciting edition of the , ground transportation podcast. Uh, we are really super excited to see the subscriber growth of the past few weeks. We know that you enjoyed the, uh, discussion with Matt Dawes. I think you're going to enjoy the discussion today. I am unbelievably pleased to have two of my favorite people in the transportation business on with me today.

Tammy Rudder and Dawson Rudder from Commonwealth Worldwide. Um, Commonwealth is based in Boston, but they're in their happy place in Arizona.

[00:00:58] Tami Rutter: Arizona!

Yay! so, I asked you to come on the podcast because I wanted you, I really wanted your update and feedback on the side of the business. Um, it seems to me that the small operators are exploding in the, into the industry, and I really wanted your take on that.

[00:01:17] Ken Lucci: but first I'd like to, we always ask, how did you get into this crazy business? And I would love to hear from both of you.

[00:01:24] Tami Rutter: Well, I was a client back in, let's see, 2001. I was running the travel office at Genzyme and, Commonwealth was our car service.

[00:01:37] Ken Lucci: Genzyme is a biotech company in

[00:01:40] Tami Rutter: yeah, it's a biotech. It's Sanofi now. So, Sanofi bought them out. So, I worked for them running their travel office for a few years and I was in Corporate travel for 13 years before this and Dawson approached me asked me to come work for Commonwealth and I had a long two hour interview with him.

[00:02:03] Ken Lucci: Okay.

[00:02:03] Tami Rutter: was great and then I signed on and then I cried for about the first six months of the job.

[00:02:10] Ken Lucci: Why?

[00:02:12] Tami Rutter: Cause it was not, I came from a corporate background, everything was corporate, I mean, there was no time off forms, it was mayhem, people were fighting, it was insane, it was not what I signed on for,

[00:02:28] Ken Lucci: The limousine industry is a little bit less than the corporate. Yes. Yes. We should we do a great job serving corporate, but behind the scenes. Yeah,

[00:02:36] Tami Rutter: behind the scenes,

[00:02:37] Ken Lucci: it's isn't it kind of like being inside the kitchen of a fantastic restaurant? The meal looks fantastic at the end. Yep. What year was this? What year did you start?

[00:02:47] Tami Rutter: I started in May of 2004, so I've been, just, it'll be 21 years,

[00:02:53] Ken Lucci: Years. And so, so tell us about commonwealth. I mean, in my mind, commonwealth is absolutely without question one of the best quality. Okay. Boutique global networks in the industry, but give us a background, give us a background on Commonwealth, um, what, how it started, um, and then give us a background on, um, you know, what you specialize in.

[00:03:20] Tami Rutter: Well, why don't you talk about how it started? Okay. 

[00:03:25] Dawson Rutter: So, uh, I had been a cab driver in Boston in the 1970s and for about 10 years off and on and a friend of mine in the cab business got a job as a chauffeur with a Company in Boston and I went he taught me to go into work for them. I went to work for them for A little less than a year And didn't like the management and love the business, but I really didn't like the management very much So I decided to buy a car and see what I could do.

So I bought one car in 1982 Uh our first year in business, we did 20 000 in revenue. So I was driving a cab That's all during that first year and then we got a good break. I met, uh, the first week I was in business, I got a job that was driving the new senior editor from Boston magazine, and he was moving to Boston from Cleveland, or from Cincinnati.

[00:04:21] Ken Lucci: Mm hmm.

[00:04:22] Dawson Rutter: He worked for Scripps, uh, he was moving to Boston and his wife loved Cincinnati and didn't want to move to Boston.

So he hired me to show them around Boston and the, and the areas and where they could, where they could, uh, find a place to live. And, and, uh, so I took them out for the whole day, did a sightseeing tour of Boston, Cambridge,

Lexington and Concord, Marblehead, and the last stop was in Concord, and they were both writers, and so, the last stop of the day, I took them to, uh, uh, Authors Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, where Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau,

[00:05:07] Ken Lucci: Yep. Yep. Yep.

[00:05:08] Dawson Rutter: And, um, Louisa May Alcott are all buried side by side on top of Authors Ridge. And I told them to go up, check it out, you know, and they came back down and they were speechless. I mean, they couldn't, they had, um, it seemed like an epiphany going to see these four, famous writers all buried right next to each other in, in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. So I got back, dropped them off.

He said, thanks very much. I got a nice letter from a couple of days later. And that December, I was driving a cab, and it was a little snowy and bad weather, and I'd gotten the worst cab in the fleet. And, uh, the fleet was Boston Cab, which was Brett Barinholtz's parents

company. 

[00:05:52] Ken Lucci: yes, I heard that story.

[00:05:54] Dawson Rutter: And, so, I get this call for Brady in the South End, 55 Warren Street in the South End.

So I pull up in front, and out walks the senior editor of Boston Magazine. He gets in the back of the car, and he's going to Cambridge. And he said, what's wrong with this car? It stinks of fumes and it's terrible. I go, well, Mr. Brady, I don't get the choice of cars that I can drive. This is what they give me and I have to take what they give me.

And he said, do you know me? I said, well, yeah, it's Dawson. I drove you, with your wife last, June. Dawson, hey, how are you? How you doing? How's everything? How's your company going? I said, well, you know, it's slow, but, I'm still driving a cab for my living. And we talked on the way over to Cambridge, and he was going to visit his fiancée.

His wife had decided to stay in Cincinnati.

[00:06:45] Ken Lucci: Oh my gosh.

[00:06:46] Dawson Rutter: Yeah, and so, uh, he goes, good luck, you know, nice to see you. hope everything goes well for you. So the following April, I was, um, hired by Scott Solombrino. This is before Dave L. He was Fifth Avenue Limo. And he was, he, he was doing the second annual Kiss 108 

[00:07:05] Tami Rutter: annual party at 

[00:07:07] Dawson Rutter: Boston, Boston, Oregon.

[00:07:10] Ken Lucci: FM radio station in Boston. Huge.

[00:07:13] Tami Rutter: Yup. Oh my God. I used to go to that party every year. It was so fun. 

[00:07:17] Dawson Rutter: And, uh, so he had a bunch of cars for this party, just shuttling people around. So I'm sitting at the front, I'm in the top of the line. of about 20 limousines and I look up and out walks John Brady again.

[00:07:31] Ken Lucci: Sure.

[00:07:32] Dawson Rutter: And Scott goes, Mr. Brady, would you like a car?

And he goes, yeah. And, and Brady goes, I'll take Dawson. And Scott's going, no, no, no. So, uh, he gets in the car and he's with his girlfriend and we drive. It was just a short hop over to the Copley Plaza. He goes, how you doing? Everything good, you know? I said, well, I'm, you know, I still have one. I just bought my second car And I said, you know, it's picking up a little bit, but you know, we have a long way to go So I dropped him at the copley and he said, you know, well good good to see you and you know, you know godspeed And a couple months later. I always had a little average a little uh classified ad in boston magazine And I I knew the girls there and I called them up.

They called me up one day. They go Congratulations your best of boston 1983 It was unbelievable. my business tripled in one month and I bought my third car, my fourth car, my fifth car in a span of about two months

and 

[00:08:33] Ken Lucci: just, let's just, let's unpack this for a second. First of all, you had an unbelievably good rapport with a, customer in your car. The first time you showed them around the area, you created the relationship. You, you started to advertise your business and then you got an award

[00:08:51] Dawson Rutter: yeah,

[00:08:51] Ken Lucci: and people started doing business with you because of the credibility of that award.

[00:08:56] Dawson Rutter: yes.

[00:08:57] Ken Lucci: I mean, that absolutely says, One bride can 

[00:09:01] Tami Rutter: Amazing. 

[00:09:02] Ken Lucci: can change the trajectory of your business. No

[00:09:05] Dawson Rutter: yeah, yeah. And, and when we had our 25th anniversary, I invite, I, I, well. my, uh, 

[00:09:13] Tami Rutter: human, 

[00:09:14] Dawson Rutter: resources, uh, employee had worked for an advertising agency, but she went out and she found, John Brady and invited him to come to our 25th anniversary, which we had at, uh, Boston Symphony, Boston Symphony 

Orchestra. 

Cause we were, a big donor and supporter of the BSO. 

And, uh, so he came and he had no idea what had happened over the past 25 years. And I said, my whole life I owe to you, you know, for giving me that one dump start.

[00:09:47] Ken Lucci: about it. If you didn't make the impression and you didn't go to the extra mile. First of all, I don't know how you knew that all of those authors were buried in that cemetery. That's number one.

[00:09:56] Dawson Rutter: I'm a reader. 

[00:09:57] Tami Rutter: He's a historian. I'm a historian and a reader. To an extreme,

[00:10:02] Ken Lucci: Exactly. I, I kind of, I think I knew that. Now, we won't go into the fact that Scott Celebrino had hired you as an affiliate and this guy knew you, right?

[00:10:13] Tami Rutter: did he pay you? 

[00:10:15] Dawson Rutter: Actually, it took him like a year to pay me. So I was one of the first ones on the slow pay plate, slow pay plan.

[00:10:22] Ken Lucci: that you were, you were on the, you were on the program. No question

[00:10:25] Dawson Rutter: he did pay me. Yeah? Yeah.

[00:10:27] Ken Lucci: so the award, I mean, the awards matter and the reputation in the community absolutely mattered because I mean, to get that award best of Boston. I mean, we did in Tampa and it absolutely became a badge of honor.

So what year was that 19?

[00:10:46] Dawson Rutter: The Best of Boston Award was 1983, and I got it again in 84, and I've had 6 or 7 since.

[00:10:52] Ken Lucci: Wow. And so you've gone from 20, 000 a year to let's just say between 25 and 35 million. Yeah. Is that 

[00:11:03] Dawson Rutter: Yep. Yep. Yep.

[00:11:05] Ken Lucci: It's an incredible ride. And you went from the front seat of the car into being the president of Commonwealth. So there's no reason that can't happen to the next, the next generation of operator.

[00:11:18] Dawson Rutter: it's all about hard work and, and putting in the hours and, and putting in the time. That's right. I mean, you have to really dedicate yourself, and I think that's true of, of any business that when, when people start into business. They absolutely have to dedicate themselves to the business and, and, you know, there's no time, you know, it's not a nine to five thing.

It's, it's every day, all day, seven days a week in the beginning. I mean, we've, I started in 1982 with one car, and in 1998 we hit two, uh, 1.7 million 

[00:11:52] Ken Lucci: wow. 

[00:11:53] Dawson Rutter: 16 years later,

[00:11:55] Ken Lucci: But think 

[00:11:56] Dawson Rutter: and then in 

[00:11:57] Ken Lucci: at some point, I'm going to graph that for you because that's a meteor. Think about that. 98, it took you 16 years to get to 1. 7 million.

[00:12:05] Dawson Rutter: Right.

[00:12:06] Ken Lucci: Wow. So tell me something. What role or when did you start doing the global work and how did you start the network that

[00:12:16] Dawson Rutter: Well, you know, um,

there used to be a guy, Superior Limo in, uh, in L. A. Ray, I can't remember his last name. 

[00:12:26] Ken Lucci: Yeah, he

left the business a while ago. Yep.

[00:12:29] Dawson Rutter: yeah, and he did farm out. encouraged me. To do farm out and, uh, you know, he said, it's easy. You know, it's easy to do. You make you make money on it. It's really a good way to grow your business.

And I kind of said, I'm not going to do that. I just, you know, I got my own niche here. I'm fine with what I've got, but it kind of got in the back of my mind.

And then, I hired Ralph Duncan 

who had worked for, Dave L had worked for Carrie I brought him in and he sort of, you know, he had accounts that were nationwide accounts and I hired a couple of salespeople at the same time because in 1998, Carrie approached me to buy me and it wasn't a lot of money and I said, if I'm ever going to be able to retire in this business, I'm going to have to grow this business and make it worth something.

So I hired Ralph, I hired a couple of other salespeople and we really started to grow. We're, we're growing millions of dollars a year. 

[00:13:22] Tami Rutter: God, it 

[00:13:22] Ken Lucci: But where, where would you be if you didn't take the leap to do national and global work? As a regional, how big do you think you could have gotten?

[00:13:32] Dawson Rutter: I don't know, you know, 30, 30, 40 cars,

[00:13:35] Ken Lucci: Right. That's the number. It's five million. Exactly. 

[00:13:39] Tami Rutter: I would easily say five.

[00:13:41] Ken Lucci: so look, you've been involved on the NLA. You both go to all the conferences. I've been gone down the hallway with you guys. You can't walk down past three people who don't stop and pay homage. How did, How?

[00:13:56] Dawson Rutter: Just stop and say hello. Slow 

[00:13:58] Tami Rutter: down. Well, we know you've been in this business for so long that a lot of these people are our friends,

[00:14:05] Ken Lucci: You know what? I said that I said that last night I had, I had dinner with a, with a, with a great guy, with a great operator. And I've been in, I've been in the security business. I've been in other businesses and I've never seen the camaraderie of this business. 

[00:14:18] Tami Rutter: Yeah, right. 

[00:14:19] Ken Lucci: I have is how, how, how important was it for you to become instrumental in the NLA and go to these national conferences?

How, how

[00:14:29] Dawson Rutter: know, I didn't start even going to the, uh, and I wasn't even a member of the NLA until the mid 90s. 

[00:14:35] Tami Rutter: And you never went to any of the conferences. So 

[00:14:37] Dawson Rutter: I got to meet people and, I took some of the seminar, went to some of the seminars and stuff like that, which were helpful along the 

[00:14:44] Ken Lucci: Yep. Yep. 

[00:14:45] Tami Rutter: You were in a 20 group? 

[00:14:46] Dawson Rutter: I was in a 20 group. The original 20 group? Yeah, with Tom Nazist, uh, starting in, uh, 2001. Highly recommend 20 groups. I really do.

[00:14:58] Ken Lucci: I was, I, I spoke yesterday in a Wednesday in Delray at a 20 group and it was all about financial metrics and KPIs. It was extremely good. But to see everybody in that room talking, they go around the room and they say, okay, this is what I'm struggling with. What do you guys think? And it becomes almost like you board of directors.

[00:15:18] Tami Rutter: Right.

[00:15:19] Ken Lucci: you would definitely do it again. You would definitely become if you were starting out, you would join the 20 group. You'd go to the conferences. How important were the conferences in building your network and meeting these people face to face?

[00:15:32] Dawson Rutter: Well, you know, it was, it was the most important for me. Um, you know, especially trying to build the network. And when I started, we were doing a little bit of work in 2004. And then by 2006, it was just, it was getting, it was booming. know, you had your major cities in place, but you, you know, I'd have to go to the shows to find somebody in China and London and.

[00:15:56] Ken Lucci: Right.

[00:15:57] Tami Rutter: Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan. I mean, we had to go to the shows in order to eat meat, the international operators at least.

[00:16:04] Ken Lucci: Right. And when did, when did it, when did your revenue pass 50, more than 50 percent is global work.

[00:16:11] Tami Rutter: more than probably 60, I would say 60 now.

[00:16:14] Ken Lucci: incredible. That's incredible. That's incredible. So.

[00:16:18] Tami Rutter: It's a great, and it's a great network.

[00:16:20] Ken Lucci: But how would you have built that network if you didn't go to the conferences?

[00:16:25] Tami Rutter: You can't, there's no way you can. And building a network is about loyalty. It's about trust. It's about relationships. And it's very hard to have a relationship with somebody when you have not met them.

[00:16:39] Ken Lucci: Right?

[00:16:39] Tami Rutter: And then you meet them and you find that, you know, their company reach meets the goals of Commonwealth.

And, you know, they have the same vision and the same vision of what we expect, you know, to deliver to our clients. So you have to go to the shows and you do learn a lot of things in the seminars. You really do. I mean, I've gotten so much information just doing site visits

[00:17:03] Ken Lucci: yep.

[00:17:04] Tami Rutter: and going to other people's companies and finding out what they do.

You know, we don't, do everything the best. There's a lot of things we should be doing. You learn that from other people and other operators.

[00:17:14] Ken Lucci: So from, I'm not gonna ask you who your clients are, I know you've got some unbelievable on the finance side of the world, and you've got some pretty high touch clients. So what do you, what do you expect from your affiliates in relationship to taking care of your customers? What do you look for from an affiliate rather than, Hey, listen, there's a guy with a car and a chauffeur.

What, what do you expect them to do as far as your high touch clients are

[00:17:43] Dawson Rutter: let me tell you one of the big things that we, have always, appreciated from our affiliates, and that's, people who speak to us properly, uh, on the telephone and aren't arrogant. Um, this industry used to be filled with operators who used to, if you gave them a job, they acted like they were, they were doing you a favor. That was rampant, rampant in this industry. And, and luckily over the last 30 years or so, people have smartened up about that. But, you know, they used to treat us like, you know, we were, we were shitheads or

[00:18:18] Ken Lucci: Yep. Why do I want your work?

[00:18:20] Tami Rutter: Well, what I would look for in an affiliate is what I would look for from my own staff.

[00:18:26] Dawson Rutter: Right. So that's exactly, I mean, that's basically what it comes down to is I'm looking at, ABC limousine and San Francisco as Commonwealth

[00:18:37] Ken Lucci: Right. And they have, 

[00:18:39] Tami Rutter: how we would do things

[00:18:42] Ken Lucci: so do you find that cause you, I've used your chauffeurs in and out of Boston. Do you find it difficult to get the same level of in car service around the globe? And do you have to work with the affiliates or do you find that the ones that you choose, they get it?

[00:18:59] Tami Rutter: It's both it's both there's there's people that just get it right away and you know We're we're a different niche in the industry. So most of our work We do a lot of roadshow work and that's not something You can just hand over to somebody without you're setting them up for failure. And why would you want to do that?

[00:19:20] Ken Lucci: tell the audience what the roadshow is for those operators that are younger and don't know it.

[00:19:26] Tami Rutter: It's an investment bank taking management teams from top, you know, 500 fortune, 500 companies. Around the country to raise money to raise money with institutional investors. And what they do is they take the management teams ceo cfo cio, I mean They take them to Investors, they have a book that they take with them that shows What the company's doing what the matrix are the company what it's worth and uh, they do IPOs, they do non deal roadshows, they 

do fixed 

[00:19:59] Dawson Rutter: income roadshows, so on.

The 

[00:20:02] Tami Rutter: deal roadshows are probably the most important, but they're all important. So, if, the chauffeur is late, even ten minutes late, you just threw off their entire day.

[00:20:15] Ken Lucci: Because they're visiting multiple investor, possible investors in the

[00:20:19] Tami Rutter: this much of a window to get from place to place to place.

[00:20:23] Ken Lucci: Pretty

[00:20:23] Dawson Rutter: So I'll tell you a funny story. when, uh, Steve Wynn was raising money to build the Encore back in the 90s.

Or no, I guess it was in the early 2000s. And, uh, the Baltimore Sniper was active at that time. Remember the guy who was

shooting people out of the trunk of his car? Yeah. And, uh, we had Steve Wynn and his team. on a, on a road show that day in Baltimore, and at 630 in the morning, the Baltimore sniper struck, and they shut down every road within 50 miles of Washington, D.

C. and Baltimore to try and catch this guy. Luckily, we already had one car at the hotel in, Baltimore, or he was close by and was able to get to the hotel. And there were like four, three or four cars or five cars or something for that group that day. And we got two cars to Steve Wynn and got him to all of his appointments that day.

But he was pissed that he didn't have the other three cars, you know, in spite of the fact that the roads were all closed for virtually the entire day. But that's the importance of these road trips. I don't know how many millions of dollars he was raising, but each stop can be. Multiple millions of 

[00:21:45] Tami Rutter: dollars.

So if they miss that meeting That's going to throw off the whole day or they may not even They're probably not even going to be able to get another appointment again another

[00:21:54] Ken Lucci: And that is, that's, that's definitely high stakes. I mean, that, that and board, board meetings. That's why I 

[00:22:01] Tami Rutter: meetings we do a lot of board meetings.

[00:22:03] Ken Lucci: high touch, high touch corporate. People think, well, it's just an airport transfer. That's, that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

So, how do you deal with complaints from the road from your partner

[00:22:16] Dawson Rutter: well That's an important that's an important topic right there. And that's one that's an area where we excel And, and other companies are very poor at follow up with their customers.

[00:22:29] Ken Lucci: Do

[00:22:30] Dawson Rutter: we'll let a customer know if there's a problem with his car before he, before he even knows it. And the bookers, you know, the bookers are important.

They need to be kept in the loop. And so we have a, a series of, actually everybody in the company is empowered to handle an incident the minute it starts. And it goes from, a call center agent. directly to the salesperson in charge of the account, to the management team. And one of the biggest things that we've done is we satisfy our customers about the way we handle our incidents.

I can't tell you how many times we've heard that our biggest competitors don't get back to people when they, when, even when they call and try and get a resolution, they don't get a call back happens all the time.

[00:23:24] Ken Lucci: you think service aspect has gotten worse after the pandemic?

[00:23:28] Tami Rutter: Yes, and I'm not going to say across the board, because I would never say that, but. I think just this world in general,

[00:23:37] Ken Lucci: Yes.

[00:23:38] Tami Rutter: the service levels have gone way down since cobit.

[00:23:41] Ken Lucci: Yes. And I think a lot has to do with with sometimes people are just happy when employees show up. But the reality is the reality in our space is that the uber black mentality is still like 180 degrees behind. The chauffeur, the high touch corporate chauffeured mentality. And I think that that's why I wanted you on this podcast because you, you take care of the best of the best.

So do you find that, that you've had more of a challenge after the pandemic or does, is it really become muscle memory with your affiliates? Do they know what you expect

[00:24:23] Dawson Rutter: Yeah, they, they know, you know, 

[00:24:26] Tami Rutter: it pretty much runs itself. Now, once you get a good affiliate network in place, I do have to say it was much harder after COVID?

[00:24:35] Ken Lucci: right after COVID? 

[00:24:37] Tami Rutter: right after COVID. And I would say for the first year after COVID was really tough because a lot of companies that you were working with went out of business.

A lot of the small companies didn't survive. You know, now there's less availability in everybody's fleet because everybody had to sell off their fleet to stay alive. So now you're working with limited availability with your affiliates. So now you're trying to add on companies to, you know, to, we still have the work, you know, it might not be as much, but you know, companies that were 30, 40 cars went down to 10, 15, maybe

[00:25:19] Ken Lucci: you have multiples in each city. So before COVID, you might have had a 40 car operator that did 85 percent of your work. Now you have to have three or four.

[00:25:28] Tami Rutter: In some markets, yeah, in

[00:25:30] Ken Lucci: So tell me something. If I'm a young operator, and I just I have five cars, I do a good job. How am I going to get your attention? And what are you going to look for from me?

Make the assumption I've got good looking brand new cars. What what do you want to see

[00:25:45] Dawson Rutter: Well, the first thing is we're very loyal 

[00:25:47] Tami Rutter: to 

[00:25:48] Dawson Rutter: our affiliates. So it's hard to get into our system. 

[00:25:53] Tami Rutter: No, I wouldn't say it's it. 

[00:25:56] Dawson Rutter: But people do get into our system. Yeah, they 

[00:25:58] Tami Rutter: do. And it's, it's all about relationships.

[00:26:02] Ken Lucci: Yep.

[00:26:03] Tami Rutter: And it's all about, you know, what I'm looking for. And I'll be straight up honest. You know, try to get an appointment with me in Vegas or any of the shows that we go to,

I'm going to suit, not sneakers, jeans, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to put my high end clients in the back of one of your cars, you're not representing your company very well.

[00:26:26] Dawson Rutter: And by the way, When you give us your business card, have what city you operate in on it. I can't tell you how many people hand us business cards, and it doesn't tell us. We have to look up the area code to see what city they're in. 

[00:26:43] Tami Rutter: That goes up one side of me and down the other.

I don't know! It's hard, you know, you have to have and I love when I love when people have their face on their business cards

[00:26:54] Ken Lucci: Well, so what you're telling me is you're not afraid of a small operator. If you have a need, if somebody goes out of business or somebody retires and sells, and you know, you, 

[00:27:04] Tami Rutter: been happening like 

[00:27:06] Ken Lucci: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Sorry.

[00:27:08] Tami Rutter: I know

[00:27:12] Ken Lucci: 24 was a good year for that. So, uh, you've already told me attire is critically important at the shows. come dressed as if you're going to a job interview. Extremely good advice. 

how important is price for you?

[00:27:27] Tami Rutter: you know, it's important. and I work with everybody. So it's depending on where they're priced at I'll work with everybody, you know I'm not going to pound, you know, really pound you in rates. 

[00:27:40] Dawson Rutter: We're not looking for the lowest rate. 

[00:27:42] Tami Rutter: I'm just not.

[00:27:43] Dawson Rutter: We're looking for the best service and a reasonable rate.

[00:27:46] Ken Lucci: And do you are you some other people have told me they're frustrated because every time they call it's a different price Ideally How do you want to handle the price increases or how do you want to handle the price book? Do you do it once a year?

[00:28:00] Tami Rutter: So, we're constantly loading rates. Constantly. Because there's new point to points every day. And once we get a point to point, it gets in our system. You know, once we have a new, a new rate come across or. You know, say we're going to a brand new country, 

you know, we'll, we'll make the rate, you know, depending on the negotiated price with the affiliate.

And when we add that into the system, 

[00:28:26] Dawson Rutter: and that's a lot of work, but it's a lot of

work, but we understand that the, um, 

[00:28:31] Tami Rutter: it's annoying calling an affiliate and asking for rates. First of all, I don't want my staff to have to take the time to do that. I want them to service the clients. And I don't want to piss off the affiliates either

because that's annoying when you're a small operator And you're trying to do everything yourself or with just a couple other people and you have affiliates calling you off the wall That's what technology is for

[00:28:53] Ken Lucci: You know, I was just going to say that, Tammy, that's the, that's the Tam, the technology limitations, the technology limitations we have in this industry make a hard job, sometimes excruciating. Because there is no universal. I can't go someplace and load my rates by zip code. It's, it's not a repository.

It's still quite a bit of manual work. And the reason why I picked you guys is because you're high touch. You absolutely are tracking that you're tracking the trip. You're tracking the driver. You're not leaving things to chance. Some people, you know, some networks I know don't know when the customer's in the car, they don't know the vehicles on the way, but that's why you have the clients that you have.

So what are turnoffs to you? This let's start with when you're talking to the affiliate. And then we'll go to in the vehicle. what's a red flag for you when you call the affiliates or you deal with the affiliates and what makes your job more 

[00:29:55] Dawson Rutter: if they can't get us driver information 

[00:29:58] Tami Rutter: huge

[00:29:59] Ken Lucci: Again, 

technology, right? 

Technology.

[00:30:03] Tami Rutter: and but the problem is it's our clients demand So our road only have roadshow clients roadshow clients demand chauffeur information 24 hours prior Reason being they put it on a schedule for the bankers

they need that schedule done by the end of the day To give that to them tomorrow and that has to have the chauffeur's name and cell phone

There's so many reasons but profession being professional I can't tell you how many calls i've had Where the, limo, they answer the phone, limo, okay.

[00:30:36] Ken Lucci: oh, oh, Dispatch. dispatch, 

[00:30:40] Tami Rutter: No. I mean, I get it, but you don't have to give the whole spiel, just Commonwealth limousine. 

How may I help you?

[00:30:49] Ken Lucci: How may I assist you? And 

the difference between calling a delicatessen and calling a five star restaurant. Okay. And it's also, it's the same way when you walk into the five star restaurant, you expect eyes to be met by the person who is at that front desk.

When you walk into a deli, you're lucky if they look up from the sandwich they're making. But we are the five star restaurant of the transportation industry. So, so then talk about the car. Talk about the in-car experience because you are trusting that that chauffeur in the car Is going to be on par with the level you deliver in boston your people in boston look like they could be the bankers Your drivers look like they are the bankers.

They the last car I took him the guy had a better rain coat on than I did

[00:31:33] Tami Rutter: Oh, I hope so. Sometimes 

not 

[00:31:37] Ken Lucci: talk talk about the in car experience.

[00:31:40] Tami Rutter: So the clean car.

[00:31:42] Ken Lucci: Yep. That's number one,

[00:31:44] Tami Rutter: Number one, just clean and new. it can even be three years old. 

[00:31:49] Dawson Rutter: No smoking. 

[00:31:50] Tami Rutter: No smoking, obviously. No 

[00:31:52] Dawson Rutter: eating warm food, hot food.

[00:31:55] Ken Lucci: Yep.

[00:31:56] Dawson Rutter: cologne.

[00:31:57] Ken Lucci: Big one. Big one. Big one. And you know, I'm going to be very careful, but we, we have a lot of one or two car operators that for some reason love to wear a lot of cologne. I don't know what, I don't know 

why. No smoking, no heavy colognes. What about etiquette when the passenger is in the car?

[00:32:18] Tami Rutter: How's the temperature? Would you like the station? 

[00:32:21] Dawson Rutter: Speak when spoken 

[00:32:22] Tami Rutter: to. Don't 

[00:32:23] Dawson Rutter: talk about divorce or sports. 

[00:32:26] Tami Rutter: Or religion.

Or politics. Politics please. And I think, One of the biggest ones is, right when you get in the car, confirm the destination.

[00:32:38] Ken Lucci: A hundred percent.

[00:32:39] Tami Rutter: Because I can't tell you how many times the chauffeurs have dropped the clients off at the wrong location.

Whether it be their broker's fault on the client's side or the driver's fault. Just confirm the destination because you don't know if that's going to change. 

[00:32:56] Dawson Rutter: Or it's not our passenger. SO'S walked up to the car thinking it's their car. They jump in, the driver takes off, and halfway there, the guy goes, no, no, I'm not gonna LaGuardia, I'm going to JFK.

Well wait a second. I'm supposed to be gonna LaGuardia. It's too late to find out. Now

[00:33:11] Ken Lucci: Yeah. Yeah. It could have been as simple as Mr. Lucci. I I just want to confirm, Mr. Lucci, I'm taking you to LaGuardia . No, I'm not Mr. Lucia. No, I'm not going to LaGuardia. It's, it's simple stuff. Uh, agreed. 

[00:33:24] Dawson Rutter: be, it's better to say, can I confirm your destination? ' cause you might have two guys going to LaGuardia

[00:33:31] Ken Lucci: There you go. Good point. Good

point. 

[00:33:33] Dawson Rutter: your name. 

[00:33:34] Tami Rutter: Yeah.

[00:33:35] Ken Lucci: So. You had a good year in 24. We all agree. 23 was a really good year. 24. Everybody seemed to be happy. If we could just keep up with those numbers. How optimistic are you about 2025? 

[00:33:48] Tami Rutter: I'm really optimistic now that, you know, the election's over. 

Things are much more steady than they have been in the past year. I think, you know, we're going to have a good economy this year.

you know, let's hope.

so I'm looking forward to 2025 being a good year.

[00:34:06] Ken Lucci: So you're going to come to Las Vegas. Are you going to be at the affiliate central or no?

[00:34:11] Tami Rutter: Probably.

[00:34:12] Ken Lucci: So give me some advice. If I'm again, I'm I already have number one. I'm going to look the part. I'm going to be in my suit as if I'm going to be literally show from you. What else? do you want to hear from me?

do? 

[00:34:27] Dawson Rutter: yet.

[00:34:29] Ken Lucci: There is a, you know, there is a little bit. I get the sense from some people that there's a sense of entitlement. Well, why didn't you give me the work? And I and my it just doesn't. It doesn't resonate

[00:34:42] Tami Rutter: Again, it's about relationships. It doesn't resonate. It certainly doesn't resonate because you're not going to be on our list if you say that to us. If you start yelling at us about not giving you work. We've had it happen. It happens all the time.

[00:34:54] Ken Lucci: Yep. Well, at the end of the day, that's a good point. What else can get me off your list? Or what would make it so that? 

Yeah, what if? Yeah, if I'm off the list, when do you basically scratch me off?

[00:35:08] Tami Rutter: So. Here's my biggest, biggest pet peeve. And I know I've talked to a lot of people that do affiliate work, social media, shut it down. You know, I, there's a lot of people who ask for our work, but we'll bash affiliate work all over the place on social media and don't do affiliate work and this and that.

And all I can say is if. Affiliate work can be great because they're going to be your salespeople. And you could, you know, all, all of our affiliates, we've become very close friends with.

[00:35:48] Tami Rutter: So yeah, I understand companies don't pay. We pay, do your due diligence. Don't just generalize it to the affiliate, you know, the affiliate world is

terrible. You know, do your due diligence on the companies that you're taking work from.

[00:36:04] Ken Lucci: 100%. And, and, you know, you, in this, in this episode to me, you know, first of all, about how you get started to, I've seen it myself. One trip can change the trajectory of your business. Okay. But obviously you had, you had an eye towards quality to begin with. As far as the affiliate piece, I think relationships is the key to everything because if someone's going to look you in the eye, right.

And you know their face and you know who they are and how to reach them. I think they have a tougher time not paying you but when you're taking random jobs from people, you don't know Okay, think shame on 

[00:36:43] Tami Rutter: That's, 

that's wrong. You shouldn't, you shouldn't, unless you're doing due diligence and calling some people, you know, I wouldn't just do a one off with somebody unless you're getting all the information that you need

and getting a credit card and making sure you pre authorize the credit card.

And unfortunately, there are some people in this business that don't pay. And that's 

always been a pet peeve of mine.

[00:37:11] Ken Lucci: and and you know what sometimes the names have changed but it obviously it's it seems to be Always one, two or three that don't pay. And my question, when I talk to clients at the time of sale, I say, why do you keep doing their business if they're 120 days back and they never really pay you down to zero, do you think that it's changed for the better since after the pandemic, as far as people paying?

[00:37:38] Dawson Rutter: no, 

[00:37:40] Tami Rutter: that's just, it's, I can, I think it's just going to be, it's a lifelong issue in this, in this business and it shouldn't be, it's terrible.

[00:37:49] Dawson Rutter: Look, it, you know, it seems to me that the large operators in this business are the ones that Have long payment. Times. 

[00:37:57] Tami Rutter: Or, 

[00:37:58] Dawson Rutter: or short pay or things like that.

[00:38:00] Tami Rutter: it gives people talk about it online about not doing work for big companies. Well, there's big companies that pay regularly and are very responsible to their affiliates like Commonwealth.

[00:38:16] Ken Lucci: 100%. I've never, honestly, never heard a bad thing about commonwealth in

[00:38:20] Dawson Rutter: Well, we had a thing, we had a thing on, uh, uh, deadbeat companies. Some idiot writes in that we're, we're a dead, that Commonwealth is a deadbeat company that he, that we owe him money. It turns out that it was a charge for 145 where we didn't get his invoice and, and it hadn't gotten paid. 

[00:38:41] Tami Rutter: and it was only like, do you know, like a month, 

[00:38:44] Dawson Rutter: do you know that, uh, on December 31st. We pay everybody up to date, 

to date, every invoice that we've received from them, even in the month of December gets paid on December 31st. And we owe people, most of our affiliates, we owe zero going into the new year. Now, we have a 60 day, payment plan. 60 days from the day we get your invoice 

[00:39:11] Tami Rutter: not but that's because a 

[00:39:12] Dawson Rutter: lot of our Especially our banks can be slow paying and we do have slow payers and we want to be able to You know at least be able to harvest Some of our accounts receivable so that we can pay you within 60 days, so we're religious about it 

[00:39:29] Tami Rutter: We pay the 15th of the 30th.

So but that's for our large volume affiliates that we've had this contract with for 15, 20 years, 10 years. A lot of the newer affiliates and the smaller ones that we don't do a lot of work with or we just do minimal or Whatever it may be I work with you on that and then you'll you can you use our credit card

So it just depends we work together on

[00:39:57] Ken Lucci: it's all about the relationship and, and what I don't understand it when I see online, well, don't do business with so and so. He just gave, he called me last week and just gave me a job and, you know, and I've stopped responding or I've stopped querying. But my question is, well, did you ask anybody if they do business with them?

Did you say, who else do you do business with that? I may know. And what there's 

also this, right. And there's also a lot of scams out there. And to me, I think it comes down 

to, I think it comes down to knowing the people that you do business with. You know, when I was an operator. could tell you I've learned, more from my failures than my successes in life.

Uh, thankfully there've been a few less failures than successes, but anyway, bought a company and I had a large network that I did business with and I. Opened up to the guy and I said, listen, I'm, I'm going to the NLA or whatever it was show in, um, New Jersey and I'm buying a mini coach.

And I said, you know, you, you owe me a substantial amount of money and I need at least half that. And he said, absolutely. I'll get you that money. And he didn't do it. And I had to personally write a check and I called him the week before the show. And I couldn't reach him. I couldn't reach him and I couldn't reach him.

And I, I. I came back from the show and I said, I'm done. I'm done with all affiliates. Okay. So what did I do? I just took my insurance policy that was now that was spread among. Affiliate work and my own work. And now it's all on my back, right? I took my, my best silent salespeople, right. And I threw them out the door because one guy was a bad pay and it wasn't the bad pay that got me.

It was the fact that I couldn't get them on the phone. Okay. And I remember, you know, talking to Tommy Mazza was my consultant back in the day. And I said, Tommy. I can't believe this. I can't even 

get this 

[00:41:54] Tami Rutter: when he took over julie 

[00:41:56] Ken Lucci: right.

right. 

[00:41:57] Tami Rutter: is me when we took over

[00:41:58] Ken Lucci: This is when I took over Julie's and I, I literally took 180 degree turn.

I said, no more affiliate work. And it was because one network, 

[00:42:08] Tami Rutter: I was one of them. 

[00:42:09] Ken Lucci: Sorry. Sorry. Hey,

[00:42:11] Tami Rutter: Just letting you know, in case you forgot, that was 

me. 

[00:42:14] Ken Lucci: but what now when I look back on it, I said, I mean, I've made some short sighted business decisions in my life, but that one was, it hurt me. It didn't hurt them. Okay. Because now what I tell people is if you've got four jobs on your own and you've got to have that guy on duty or three jobs, and you've got to have on, on duty for eight hours, that affiliate work that you just took in the middle, that absolutely boosted your profitability.

So it was literally only after I became a mature operator that I understood that. The other piece of that puzzle is an operator who's good size. that says to me, I don't want to do farm out work because I don't know if I can trust somebody in L. A. To take care of my client. But we hit that. We hit the nail on the head when we said Dawson, if you didn't do this with your network and you didn't bring Tammy on, you'd be the biggest 30 car operator in Boston.

You probably would cap out at 5 million. So the understanding the ecosystem in this industry is critically important. So it's all about the relationships you create. It's knowing the people that are on the other end of the phone. It's treating them with respect. It's appreciating their business and 

[00:43:38] Tami Rutter: And also appreciating them. I mean, we wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for them. And there's, you know, relationships that we've had for 20 plus years. relationships that we've had You know all along the way

[00:43:52] Ken Lucci: So where do you see the chauffeured? Where do you see the chauffeured industry five years from now? What are your concerns? 

[00:43:58] Dawson Rutter: Well, I think it's going to be About the same as it is now except, you know with better software. I don't think it's going anywhere because you know, Autonomous cars are going to have their place as did uber and lyft But you know quite honestly uber and lyft never affected us in any way Except that it took some of our airport work away, which we didn't want anyway

[00:44:23] Ken Lucci: Right.

[00:44:24] Dawson Rutter: You know that, you know, uh, And you, you mentioned that earlier that, uh, BlackLane is doing all the, uh, Emirates work.

It's unprofitable. Well, for them, it's not because they're just, letting it out there and giving, giving it to, to independent operators that

will 

[00:44:40] Ken Lucci: or two car operators,

[00:44:42] Tami Rutter: That are going to charge you next to nothing for it. But we, we took on the, uh, Virgin Atlantic account in Boston and, uh, you know, it was a, marquee account we thought, but it turned out it was not a marquee account at all.

[00:44:55] Dawson Rutter: I mean, everybody wanted it, but prices were not, were not there. And we had one flight that came in at 515 in the afternoon. At the height of rush hour, the height of our busiest period, and we'd have to have 15 or 20 cars for them, and they wouldn't let us farm out.

[00:45:12] Ken Lucci: Right. And the margins were not there. Then they wanted high end service. You know, I agree with you as far as, as far as the financial services companies, pharmaceutical companies, 

Fortune 500 companies. I believe the only thing they really want from us is better technology. I think that they want a better technology experience.

[00:45:33] Tami Rutter: Our customers have actually come to us and asked us for better technology, and we have great technology in the industry, but 

they want more.

[00:45:43] Ken Lucci: They want, 

[00:45:44] Dawson Rutter: We were at like 60 percent on our GPS network wide,

[00:45:48] Ken Lucci: Yep.

[00:45:49] Dawson Rutter: and we had customers coming to us. This is unacceptable. We need a hundred percent. So now we're like 90, but we're still not at a hundred.

That's a difficult thing to provide 

[00:45:59] Tami Rutter: a hundred 

[00:45:59] Dawson Rutter: percent GPS location 

across our network of hundreds of operators, 

[00:46:07] Ken Lucci: Yep. 

[00:46:07] Dawson Rutter: operators, as well as big operators. But we're 

[00:46:09] Ken Lucci: And just managing, just managing the churn of operators, but connectivity capacity, connectivity is going to be a big issue. do you see autonomous hurting Commonwealth?

[00:46:22] Tami Rutter: No, absolutely not our clients call us and scream if the chauffeur didn't even like pick up the bag properly, 

[00:46:30] Dawson Rutter: right? why they won't use it They didn't open my 

[00:46:34] Tami Rutter: door and who 

[00:46:35] Dawson Rutter: knows what autonomous is going to be because it's so expensive for an autonomous car now

[00:46:41] Ken Lucci: Yep.

[00:46:43] Dawson Rutter: And, you know, I think that all these autonomous programs that are going on here in Phoenix and San Francisco, they're all heavily subsidized, 

[00:46:52] Tami Rutter: right?

[00:46:52] Dawson Rutter: It's like Uber and Lyft in the early days when they were spending billions a year to compete against taxi. And that's what that's what all Thomas is going to have.

I don't think I don't think urban areas are going to appreciate. Thousands of. Autonomous cars floating around their city. 

[00:47:13] Tami Rutter: No.

[00:47:15] Ken Lucci: I'm a little concerned that the reason why Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump are friendly is because Mr. Musk wants federal autonomous regulations and they don't want to allow it just to go state by state. But for the, for you, you made a good point. Can you see those vehicles around the back bay of 

Boston? I mean, in, in streets that haven't really changed since the 1700s, I 

[00:47:42] Dawson Rutter: you talking about clogging up about traffic and clogging up the streets. That's going to be a disaster.

[00:47:48] Ken Lucci: Yep. The 

[00:47:49] Dawson Rutter: It already is a disaster places like New York with Uber and Lyft. They have a hundred thousand cars running in New York City. I'd something something like that.

[00:47:58] Ken Lucci: And, and just, just because it's topical, have people reached out to you or are they concerned with this whole congested congestion pricing or congestion surcharging in New York?

[00:48:10] Dawson Rutter: Too soon. 

[00:48:11] Tami Rutter: It just came out, so it basically comes out to like 75 cents a trip. Yeah, we're on the 

[00:48:17] Dawson Rutter: 75 cent a trip congestion fee. 

[00:48:20] Tami Rutter: And we're going to have to 75 

[00:48:23] Dawson Rutter: percent. Uh, 75 cents.

[00:48:25] Ken Lucci: No, if they lose you, if you, if they leave you over 75 cents, you didn't have them in the first

[00:48:30] Tami Rutter: We didn't have a good client. 

[00:48:32] Ken Lucci: So, so from an entrepreneurial perspective. This is a, this is a from a bootstrap up story and Brett Barinholtz is the one that spilled the beans that you were taxi cab driver and he spilled it on this podcast.

I will tell you.

So he did? He did. You have to go back and listen to Brett Barinholtz. He spilled it. So you were a cab driver. You literally started from one car. you made incredibly good impressions on your clients. One specific client was Boston magazine. You, focus so much in quality. You got best of Boston, which to me, those rewards are fantastic because if you're looking to make a big decision on any type of service that matters, you're going to look at those awards.

that's an unbelievable way to build a brand. Then you, you hired this lovely lady because she knew new corporate travel and you got into global network. If you didn't, you'd probably be the biggest Boston operator, 30 to 40 cars, and you would have stopped from there. But You wouldn't have 65 percent or 70 percent of the revenue you have today.

[00:49:42] Dawson Rutter: No, no,

[00:49:43] Tami Rutter: And how about revenue is great because you're just sending it out 90%, you know, you're taking the reservation now and then you're sending it out and you know, the affiliate on the other side is doing all the work.

[00:49:56] Ken Lucci: but you are really a master at transportation management logistics, your people, because you, your touch points and how often you touch the affiliate and touch the client, you're managing every aspect. And if we have better tech, hopefully it will be less labor. But that's the secret to your success is you have high touch clients, but you also touch each, each part of the transaction several times to make sure it's right.

[00:50:26] Tami Rutter: Yeah, at least.

[00:50:28] Dawson Rutter: it can be, 2030 times. 

[00:50:31] Tami Rutter: Depends on the trip and depends on how high touch it is. 

[00:50:34] Dawson Rutter: With the changes, with the rerouting, with the redistribute, redispatching, I mean, it can be a lot of touches.

[00:50:42] Ken Lucci: so there is hope for the small operator to grow his business into, into a network. And it just takes, it takes tremendous hard work and a lot more than just Google pay per click ads and a low price. 

[00:50:56] Dawson Rutter: Right. It 

[00:50:57] Tami Rutter: takes a lot of work 24 seven. I mean, you give up your life

[00:51:01] Ken Lucci: I think it's close to the restaurant business. It's a seven day a week commitment. 

[00:51:06] Tami Rutter: absolutely good salespeople and good management, people, just good people across the board.

[00:51:13] Ken Lucci: so, last question, last question. I, I walked into an operator the other day and I heard some pretty loud shouting. and the The owner said to me, well, that's my dispatcher. And I said, who is he talking to? And he says, oh, he's definitely talking to one of my chauffeurs. and I get, I get, I kind of walked out the door with a feeling in my head that this company had a cultural problem.

And by the way, nobody down here, it just, it was somebody that I, I had stopped in to see. Tell me how important it is. The culture of the business, the culture that you created. Within commonwealth. You said you just had a 25 year anniversary party. What would you do? How would you describe?

[00:51:55] Tami Rutter: a long time ago. 

[00:51:56] Dawson Rutter: this 

is our 43rd year.

[00:51:58] Ken Lucci: Oh, 40.

I apologize.

[00:51:59] Dawson Rutter: we're, we're coming up on our 50th

[00:52:02] Ken Lucci: That's right. I apologize. Tell me about the culture inside

[00:52:05] Tami Rutter: so the culture is, it treat people with respect and it, whether it be an affiliate, obviously a client, whether it be, you know, a coworker. We used to have so many issues with Dispatch and our chauffeurs, I can't tell you. And you just had to squash that real quick because you're representing the company. We don't act like that. Dawson doesn't act like that. Nobody should act like that. You have to treat people with respect. You want to treat people the way you want to be treated.

So we don't allow any of that. And we've gotten rid of people for that. 

[00:52:43] Ken Lucci: that to me is more of a taxi mentality or a black car mentality left over. Leftover from when you, you know, when everybody needed a job, so to speak. Now they, now I think the work ethic is a little bit different. do you have a, do you have a tough time attracting chauffeurs?

[00:53:03] Tami Rutter: Oh, doesn't everybody? 

[00:53:05] Dawson Rutter: Well, you know, we use a lot of independent contractors in New York City now, and we have, people waiting in the wings to come to work for us down there, which is terrific. And, and they're all very experienced 20 year veterans, 30 year veterans that are coming to work for us. So, 

[00:53:20] Tami Rutter: yeah, 

[00:53:20] Dawson Rutter: New York City, we don't have a problem at all.

And in Boston, our fleet's much smaller than it used to be. You know, when we were a 95 car fleet in Boston, you know, we are always short chauffeurs. Now we have 20 cars and we farm more out to other operators in our own market, which we never did. We would never farm out a job in our own market, but there's a new reality.

You know, we had to. re engineer our company after the pandemic. And this is what we did. We smaller fleets in both cities, lot fewer employees. I mean, we, we were, we were, had at 1. 425 employees. Now we barely break a hundred. Making

[00:54:01] Ken Lucci: And, and, and, and profit wise, we're still in, you're doing well. So it.

[00:54:07] Tami Rutter: did before the pandemic.

[00:54:08] Ken Lucci: Well, and that's really and that's a message for the bigger operators because there's a lot of them. Listen to this is if you're not, if you've not permanently reengineered your business, I don't see how you can be profitable anymore.

I mean, you cannot have 200 car fleets for it. 30 days a year. So you have to have depend on local operators, local IOs, local affiliates, et cetera. And I think it's, and I do think that the ones that have re engineered their business, do believe and I see it there, they are a lot more profitable than they were before the pandemic and people are doing less revenue, but they're more satisfied.

They are able to pay their people a little bit better or a lot better because they're more profitable. They don't have a huge overhead. 

[00:54:56] Tami Rutter: and who 

wants a huge head anymore? Does anybody

[00:55:00] Ken Lucci: uh, there's some, there's, there's some, 

[00:55:02] Dawson Rutter: I used, I used to pay 125, 000 a month in Boston, New York for rent. A month. 

It's 

[00:55:09] Ken Lucci: can't do it, and that's one of the silver linings of, of the pandemic, not that there were many, but we've all embraced remote workers, can you imagine where we would be if we all had to go back to the big office buildings? And I think that's one of the things that people had to get comfortable with.

They had no choice during the pandemic, but to allow their workers to work remote.

[00:55:33] Tami Rutter: you had to, and I'll tell you, it's the best decision we've ever done because we had so many people leave Boston because it was way too expensive and moved to Kentucky and you know, all around the world, we have call center agents all over the U. S. and it's perfect and when you need them, they'll jump on the phone if it's busy, you know, over time, hey, can you just jump on the phones?

It's really busy. No one calls out sick anymore. 

know, everybody's happy. They're not late for work. They're not late calling in sick. We don't have, we don't have personnel problems. Personnel issues. Who don't get along well with their, with Their Everybody's got personnel issues. I don't care if you're a small operator or a large operator.

Everybody's got personnel issues. So, this kind of wipes a lot of that

[00:56:20] Ken Lucci: Well, you guys have seen to master the reengineering. I mean, I know it wasn't a long, it wasn't an easy road, but you've emerged from the pandemic a lot leaner, and it seems to me you're still extremely well oiled machine, even though your business is completely different. Remote workers, you've embraced IOs, they appreciate your business.

So it's a Commonwealth is, as I said, it's a, it's a tremendous boutique. success story. So when we if someone wants your bus up in a pair of flip flops she's not going to take yo sure you have on your busi that you serve the city t and and professionali And that's key. And if you are lucky enough to become a commonwealth company, an affiliate of commonwealth, the relationship is really what matters.

And I can tell you that I talked to everybody and everybody has an immense amount of respect for the company and an immense amount of respect for the two of you. 

[00:57:32] Tami Rutter: Well, thank 

[00:57:33] Ken Lucci: that's it. That says a lot in the limousine

industry. 

[00:57:38] Tami Rutter: So much.

[00:57:39] Ken Lucci: Yep. We, we, we brush, we brush past a couple of names in this podcast that we might bleep out that don't 

[00:57:45] Tami Rutter: Oh, there's a few if you

[00:57:47] Ken Lucci: There's a few, there's a few. 

So listen, Tammy Dawson from Commonwealth Worldwide. I really appreciate you coming on to the podcast. I will tell you the episode is going to live live. on, uh, Spotify and on YouTube, groundtransportationpodcast. com, and we will let you both know when the episode, when the episode drops, as the kids say.

And I want to also congratulate you, Tammy, because neither, neither one of us dropped the F bomb on this, uh, on this 

[00:58:19] Tami Rutter: Can you believe it? I was trying, I'm being professional and you didn't, I wasn't upset about anything, so you're

good. 

[00:58:25] Ken Lucci: well, you, you don't want to listen to the one that I talk about M& A and finance because I kind of do drop the F bomb out of frustration sometimes with my,

with a few, with a few, of my clients, but I'm with you. I think 2025 is going to be a good year and I look 

forward to seeing you, seeing you both.

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.