Ken Lucci 0:23

Well, good afternoon podcast world. Uh, welcome to another exciting episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast with my sidekick James Blaine from PAX Training.

James Blain 0:35

Hey there, everybody.

Ken Lucci 0:36

I am Cam Luci from Driving Transactions. This is the 100% the highlight of every single week. Uh, but today's very special to me. Um, I started getting phone calls from a guy named Charlie Horkey, and I knew the name was Legendary and he and I would spend a lot of time after hours talking about the business. And when I got to meet him, uh, at a conference a few years ago, it was literally like meeting one of your heroes and legends in the business because you've done it all. So we are so blessed to have Charlie Horkey, who owns a company today called Slade Services, but Charlie's been in the business since 19 80. To give you some context, I was a freshman in in, in private ca in Catholic high school, all boys high school that, that's another story. We'll talk about that. Right? But I was a freshman in high school when this man was in the limousine, started his limousine business. So, Charlie, welcome. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this and give us a little bit of what Slate services all about today. And then we're gonna delve into the lemons, your history and the business.

Charlie Horky 1:42

Y Slate services that, um, no. First of all, it's, it's nice to be here guys. Thanks for

James Blain 1:48

Absolutely.

Charlie Horky 1:48

having me on. Um, at least you went to your freshman year of high school, I think. I think when I was like,

James Blain 1:55

Sorry.

Charlie Horky 1:56

this is what I wanna do. And anyway, never too fond of that. Um, slave Services is a, uh, ground transportation reservation management company. So, um, I guess you'd call us a virtual limousine company. Um, but at the level that, um, I work at historically, which is seems to be kind of, um, just more upper 1% of the 1%, um, I, I'm more of a specialist so I can get better service out of a limousine company than my clients can. So, um, they come to me and, and, uh, ask me to do their tours and, and press junkets and, and, um, you know, difficult situations that, you know, I still gotta work. I ma I, I didn't make a lot of great choices along the way, but, but, but I'm grateful that I can make a, a, um, make a business with my, uh, unique knowledge of the industry. And I'm fortunate that the clients that use me feel the same way.

Ken Lucci 2:53

So you manage all the logistics. It's not just the reservation, it's the total logistics of the trip from start to finish and all of the high touch elements, you know, all of the special requests, et cetera.

Charlie Horky 3:05

Yeah, I, you know, I, I've been fighting the word concierge for a long time. Um, I, I, I, I, I really don't think that's what I do. Um, you know, I'm not really the guy you're gonna call for hotel reservations in Las

Ken Lucci 3:16

No. No.

Charlie Horky 3:17

um, I mean, along the way, sure, if someone comes into Las Vegas and, you know, needs me to, you know, take care of them, you know, because say, because they want access to a club or they want access to a re, to a, you know, a reservation. I've been living here a long time. I know a lot of people, so certainly we can enhance their stay. But as far as logistically, I'm responsible for moving them from one location to another location, and I'm answering to tour managers of. Rock bands. I'm answering to publicity people at studios and, and it's all high touch stuff and they, you know, there's a lot of fabulous limousine companies in the country and I use a lot of 'em, and these guys are super good. Um, but people wanna deal with the same person every day. They want to deal with the same team of people. They give 'em a fast response on email, they give 'em a fast response on text messaging, you know, where they feel that we're an asset that's behind them. And I'm really big on response time. And, um, yeah, that's what people use us for. We're, we're not a, we're not the people you're gonna call for your daughter's quinceanera. I mean, I'll take care of you. Cut. Call 'em please. But, um, but it isn't what I do. I mean, you know, people want me to handle their ground transportation in a lot of, um, d different places and points and places all over the world. I mean, on any given day, Slade's doing business on five different continents, um, we're not, we're not, we're not dependent on, I just live in Las Vegas, but Las Vegas isn't really even a, a big time market for us

Ken Lucci 4:39

but you, but, but see, you are the, you are the person who says yes. You work it all out seamlessly behind the scenes, right? Because you are dealing, you are dealing with people that don't wanna know how you get it done. They don't want to be involved in step B, C, D, E, F, and G. They want flawless from A to Z. And you make it seem flawless regardless of the number of phone calls and emails and everything else you need to do behind the scenes. You are that logistics expert.

Charlie Horky 5:07

yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, the best way to describe it is, you know, I'm a specialist. My, my, my clients, I, I don't have, I'm not saying this with, with any amount of swagger, but they pay me to make decisions for them. And a lot of 'em, um, have to do with how to get things done. And it's expensive. And, you know, I don't need to go back every time and say, well, I could do this, or I could do that. And the reason why I did this is 'cause of that they just tell me to get it done.

Ken Lucci 5:32

They pay you. Yes, I'll handle it. Done. That's, that's it. And that's the, that's the beauty of what you built. And you hit the nail on the head when you said, to serve the top 1% of the 1% that you can't, you can't say no, and they don't want to hear about the logistics. You just would Charlie handle it. And they, they have ultimate trust. That's an incredible place to be.

Charlie Horky 5:54

yeah. You know, there's, everyone's got stories and stuff. Yeah. You, you, you, you bet. I mean, um, yeah. It's, I'm glad I can do it, you know, I'm glad I can do it,

James Blain 6:03

you mentioned you're fighting the word concierge, so you know, for, for someone that hasn't worked with you before, when you're trying to explain to someone, what do you, what do you try to shift them to from concierge? How do you describe that or, you know what I mean? In my world, I, I've, I'm married into an Italian family, a bunch of people on the east coast, you would be the guy, right? He's the, he's the get you where you need to go, guy. But how do you, how do you explain that or, or when you're fighting that word concierge, what do you try to get them to understand is what you kind of do and how you do it?

Charlie Horky 6:32

Well, you know, just for clarification, I fight it in my head. I mean, it, it, it's not, it's not, it's not really what I, what I, what I wanna be doing, um, by definition of that word. And when I say I fight it, because in this day and age, based on, you know, certainly what Ken just said makes a lot of sense is that you're just pushed into it. You know it, you're, if you're capable and you're good at what you do, you know, I had a client use call me the other day and she said, you know how we use you, we use you. 'cause you understand complicated.

Ken Lucci 7:00

You, You, you, you actually make complicated, looks simple to them because the outcome.

Charlie Horky 7:05

my wife says to me, she goes, she says, I know. She goes, you know, honey, you work your ass off. She goes, albeit you do make it look easy, but you know, she goes, I know you work your ass off. Um, but everybody, you know, everybody makes mistakes. Um, anyway, so that's what I do. Um, and, and to, for people to go a little more downstream is that we don't own any equipment. Um, we, we're a management company and we're a logistics company, so we use the best players we can that are certified, um, you know, like in Nevada, Nevada Transportation Authority or you know, the Taxi Limousine Commission in New York. You know, places where they gotta be, where, where they have to have licenses, which is most places, um, you know, in la use all those guys and make sure they're properly insured and, you know, just use, use. Good team. We try to develop, we, it's our job at Slade to develop the limousine companies that we use around the country. And there's a lot of good guys out there, but I guarantee you, and I am tooting my horn just a little bit here. They're better off for us working with us. And some people might mf me and say, you know, that guy can be tough, but I, you talk to guys that I've done business with, that I do a lot of business with, and they'll tell you that they're better off from having done, they're, they're better operators after we get done with them. If, if they, if they can, if they can do business with me, they're pretty damn good at what they do.

James Blain 8:17

Well, and not to sidetrack you, but there was a point when you did have equipment, you were on that other side of the fence, right? I mean, this is, this is right. Yeah. I don't, I don't wanna sidetrack the conversation, but I think it's worth pointing out that there was a time that you had your own equipment, so you're able to give them that real world feedback.

Charlie Horky 8:33

Yeah. I started as a driver, you know, I started in 1980 as a driver. I washed cars, that budget, ran a car, and, uh, met this guy. I was nine, I was 20, maybe 19 or 20, and the owners had a buddy that was, you know, this. Nice young, you know, business person. And he was getting out there and he said, Hey, do, what do you think you could do? We should be in business together. And I mean, like, you know, with the washrag in one hand and the hose in the other, I said, I think I could run a limo company. And, and, and he goes, really? He goes, why do you think that? And I said, well, you know, it can't be that difficult. You just pick people up and take 'em where they gotta go. And I know, I know Los Angeles pretty well and you know, I, I watched Cars for a limousine company before I had this job and I hung out with those guys, you know, quite a bit. And I think we could do that. And that was my business plan. And he said, well if you, if you can, if you can make it work, you can have half. And I go, okay. So he bought me the car and, um, I went in and told the people that budget rent a car that I, I was, you know, leaving that I was gonna start my own company. And I put 20 bucks of gas in the tank and went on my way.

Ken Lucci 9:37

And the rest is literally an epic history. Charlie, not to get on metal, but what was that vehicle in 1980? What was the vehicle that moved?

Charlie Horky 9:45

Oh, that was a 1979 Cadillac formal, and it was silver and it had about 11,000 miles on it. I don't know why I can remember all this, but those were cool cars. They were really cool. It was a car that Cadillac made that wasn't a stretch. It was, that was the idea of a stretch. Before they had stretch limousines, Cadillac made an extended version called the Cadillac Formal.

Ken Lucci 10:05

for the kids of the audience that don't know this, okay, that was called this Cadillac Series 75, and there were two of those vehicles. The 75 was stretched cell, what? 10 inches, 12 inches maybe. They used the rear end clip of a coop. Okay. But, but they extended

Charlie Horky 10:23

Yeah. Right, right. They extended it and they put in a section where they had these two pull out jump seats so you could sit. It was huge. It was, you could put four people in the back sitting comfortably. You know, if you look at any of the old rockstar photos of like, led Zeppelin, um, when they're all running, or Elvis Presley, when they're all running into those formals, they didn't have multiple cars. They put six in the back of a formal, you know, they all got in with the stars, smashed against the window, you know, with his, with his buddies and, and yeah. So, yeah, that, that's a cat. Any of those old pictures, 19 72, 74, um, you know, you know Butch, uh, Butch, hanky. You know Butch? Yeah. Butch. But butch, Butch was in this game probably 10 years or 20 years before me, and he had a lot of Cadillac formals. He, he drove, he drove Zeppelin. He, he met Elvis. He, he met all those guys.

Ken Lucci 11:09

And so Commonwealth started the same way. Dawson Rudder was telling us, you know, on, and Dawson had the Cadillac formal, but the series 75, they would take a Fleetwood off the line and they would take it down the street to a special, a special garage. It was filled with just the craftsman and they, Cadillac would stretch it

Charlie Horky 11:28

That's why they called Maloney. Right?

Ken Lucci 11:29

Ex. Exactly. And the formal had, if, if I'm not mistaken, the formal had the partition with the sliding glass door. Right. And then you could get the, you could,

Charlie Horky 11:40

I, I was, I was driving, um, I was driving this guy, I was driving this guy the night that John Lennon was murdered. And uh, and I remember tapping on the glass and, and, and the guy said, what's up? And I said, John Lennon had just been murdered, you know, and, uh, it was 1980 in December.

Ken Lucci 11:59

Okay. So how did you scale from 1980 to one card? Give us the chronology of that.

Charlie Horky 12:04

Yeah. I hate that word scale, you know, what's the scalability? I had to call someone? What are they talking about? Um. So what, how did that scale from what, one

Ken Lucci 12:15

How did you grow to one, from one car to being one of the biggest, if not the biggest operator in California at a time?

Charlie Horky 12:22

That's 20 years in the making. You know, by the time, you know, when I started CLS in 19, in, in, uh, 1980, I grew that company to in nine, by 2004, 2005, when David Sealer, um, put a group together and, uh, and bought the company basically. Um,

Ken Lucci 12:44

How big were you when the year that you ended up selling, how big was the business from a revenue perspective? Do you remember?

Charlie Horky 12:50

yeah, it's 65, 70 million.

James Blain 12:53

Wow.

Ken Lucci 12:54

Phenomenal. So what was the secret? To go from fricking one car, you know, which would be two maybe back in the day would be a hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue. How do you go from 100,000 a year in revenue to 65 million?

Charlie Horky 13:07

you're gonna have to read the book.

James Blain 13:09

If you're, if you're on YouTube, we'll pop it up on the screen or, or we'll drop it in the, show notes,

Ken Lucci 13:13

Okay, so you gotta look at this Unbreakable path. Charlie Horkey. A story of loss, resilience, and the pursuit of greatness.

James Blain 13:23

so give us the teaser for it, Charlie. Right. Because, 'cause now that Ken has done that, I know I, I'm hanging on the edge of my seat

Charlie Horky 13:29

I thought I had a story to tell and, and, um, and, and so I wrote it when I was away. And, uh, in the last seven years since I've been out, um, I, uh, I've learned that good stories are a dime a dozen. And that, uh, it's a one in a million shot to make a movie. And, um, you know, and, and the hung it was horrifying to me was that it's somebody else's version of your life. Like, you know, it's a screenwriter and we did pay for a screenwriter to write this, and he did now, like, it was spooky. It was, it was scary. I, I just, you know, and a, a, a really important client of mine said to me, you know, Charlie, these things last forever. Like, you know, is this, is, is this really how you wanna be represented, you know, Legacy. Yeah. Whatever that

Ken Lucci 14:10

got, you've got an incredible story in the industry, and I don't think people realize because based on who's in the industry now. A lot of your contemporaries are long gone.

Charlie Horky 15:29

yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, what it converted to, I don't want to, you know, take off all your time about that book, but, um, was that I. I'd spent all this time doing it, and someone turned me on to Game Changer Publishing. And what I liked about them was that I thought I needed to tell the story better. And the way they do it is they record your book, so you speak it. So it took me like a week of like two hours a day to like be recorded. And then it's been a amount of editing. But what they do is, is what they did with what they did with this book, and it's not a bad idea, was that I was looking for a side hustle. The only reason I was interested in this book was a side hustle to maybe get us to become a speaker. I mean, I'm pretty sure I could get a gig,

Ken Lucci 16:06

A hundred percent. 100%.

Charlie Horky 16:08

you know, so the book was wrote more as a motivational piece, you know, get too close to the sun, you're gonna get burned. You know? Um, it, it, it is certainly the, the story from the time I was born until probably right about the time when I got out, you know? Um, but it's not in gory detail. It's not salacious, you know, I'm not saying, I mean, I mentioned people that are famous, but, but, but only because I. I was around them. Not, not because I was in any intimate settings with any of them,

James Blain 16:36

They're, they're part of the story, right? They're part of the life. They're part of understanding it.

Charlie Horky 16:40

right. Yeah, exactly.

Ken Lucci 16:42

so let's back up a

Charlie Horky 16:44

You, you might like him. I mean, you know.

Ken Lucci 16:46

Trust me, I'm gonna love it.

James Blain 16:47

Yeah. I'm definitely getting a copy of

Ken Lucci 16:49

look, I, I, I honestly don't read nonfiction. I read business books and I read biographies because I believe that you can get, there's so much message with people's life's experiences. I frankly think that there's all the messages you need to live your life in the world. And it's, I, I don't know that the word to me, I don't believe that there's mistakes. You and I have had that conversation privately about things that change you, and frankly, that's gonna be our next podcast together because I wanna read the book first. But, you know, there's few things that we, you and I could, we could divulge

Charlie Horky 17:24

Yeah. It, it, I think that, you know, I, I don't really know how to tell. That, that, that personal story. I mean, it comes to me more and more and, you know, I, I think I'm living it, you know, I'm, I'm in a better place, uh,

Ken Lucci 17:37

No question. You're a phoenix. You're in, wait a minute, you're in Vegas, but you're a phoenix. You've literally risen. There's not too many people who have a successful second act the way you have no question about it. And it's because people be, because people believe the most important people from that period believed in you, believed in you. So tell me something. How do you take a one car company in 1980? Granted, we're, we're, we're in the heyday of limo, but, but there are many people that started a one car company in 1980 that, that have 10 cars today. How did you, how did you grow it to a monumental scale?

Charlie Horky 18:15

I listened to your podcast with, um, Tammy and Dawson, and, and, and you know, it, it's the same story. I mean, it's the, it it's the same. It, it, these are the same things. I mean, you know. I was 27 years old and I'd been in business for like seven years. And you know, my parents, you know, were like, you know, okay, he'll figure it out sooner or later and he'll go back to school and um, you know, so to speak, like no one really bought off on it. And, um, I looked in the mirror when I was 27 years old and I opened up the paper and I saw the entry level lawyers were making as much money as I was making at the time. You know, they were looking for guys offering 'em 60, $70,000 a year. And, um, that was like 1987 and I'd had a fair amount of success by then. And, um, but interesting, it was from, took me from 1980 to 1990 to make $1 million a year.

Ken Lucci 19:08

10 years to scale it, to grow it from

Charlie Horky 19:11

didn't think, like, you know, you're saying like you didn't really think like that back then, and I didn't think like back, we didn't have the internet. You didn't have any of that, you know, any instantaneous

Ken Lucci 19:18

No way.

James Blain 19:20

But, but is that you learning, Charlie? Is that you figuring out how to do it? Or is that because you had to build the base? Because like when I started my first business, God almighty, it was a disaster. Right? I always say it was the most expensive education I ever got was screwing it all up and then one day it clicks and you're like, all right, I know what to do. I ha, I understand now it's kinda like going to school.

Ken Lucci 19:42

what, just 19 $80. Okay. Even 19 $90 to get to a million bucks, you were three five. That, that'd be like a $5 million up today. A three to $5 million up

Charlie Horky 19:53

Oh yeah, maybe. Yeah. If you looked at it like that,

Ken Lucci 19:56

look at it that way. So, so what was your breakthrough moment, would you say to to, to get it to that million dollar mark?

Charlie Horky 20:02

well, You know, I found my way into the music business solely because the people that the Renta car company took care of predominantly were rock and roll music industry. So when I quit, I took my car and my suit and my business card, and I went over to Frontline Management and I seen this lady named Nina Vermes, who's passed away since then. She's wonderful person. And she, and, and they managed, she worked at Frontline Management and they worked for, uh, Irving Azoff. And so the Beatle, not The Beatles, he would've had the Beatles, he'd been around. But, um, between the Eagles and the Gogos and Dan Fogelberg and, you know, buffet and Fogelberg, and I mean all these people, um, she said to me, oh. She goes, you know, Dan Fogelberg, he hates his limousine company. She goes, here's a, she gave me an album. She goes, here's what he looks like. And he's coming in on Thursday at American. And uh, let's see how you go. And I swear to God, that's how. And, and so I went off to the airport and I picked up Dan and I was probably 20 and Dan was 21 and I was, sorry, 27. And I used, excuse me. And I started driving, um, him to the studio very late at night. And that's how I met. Like, you know, I'd pick him up at four in the morning. You gotta realize I'm 20 years old who gets picked up at four o'clock in the morning. Logically, what trains you for that? I mean, who is calling you at four o'clock in the morning? Why are they calling you at four o'clock in the morning? Oh, well, you know, hey, Dan doesn't wanna drive, you know, drink and drive. So, you know, and that wasn't a big thing back then. Back then you could drink and drive, but, um, but, well, I mean, it was always illegal, but you know what I

Ken Lucci 21:30

Yeah, is about, listen, before cell phones may, you know,

Charlie Horky 21:33

right.

Ken Lucci 21:34

you, you weren't big enough to have two-way radio system, but you're literally at the phone waiting for these people to

Charlie Horky 21:39

It's just me. You know, you get a phone call and you know, you, you know, grab, grab your, grab your socks, they say, and, uh, you know, I'd run out there and when I'd get there, um, he'd be in the studio. And in the studio they'd be jamming and it would be him, Melinda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffett, and Henley and Ser and they're all just playing. And like, you know, prince was down the hall and he'd come by. And, and so one by one during the course of the evening, I would take them home,

James Blain 22:03

Wow.

Charlie Horky 22:04

I'd pick up a guy and they all lived close by. It was, you know, sunset sound, and I'd take him here. It was just simple. You could be up and back in 20, 30, 40 minutes. And that's how I got to meet all of them back then. And I started, and then I was dating a travel agent, and she turned me on, like you asked me how I scaled this thing. I was dating a travel agent, and she turned me on to a band called The Police. And so they were coming to town. In, uh, 1981, and that's when I met the band, the police, and I started driving them and I had Dan Fogelberg and I was driving Quincy Jones and I had this, so, and, and, uh, the, the tour manager from the police told me about a guy named Rex King that was handling, um, Robert Plant. He was doing a solo thing at that time. And so it started building that way. And then, you know, you, I guess you're reading the book, um, I had an opportunity to get, um, what would be considered Live Nation Los Angeles today, but it was Avalon attractions. It's what Live Nation became Avalon attractions was, was the company back in the day in the Los Angeles area. So you're at 1985, you got couple, three, four cars and you get the biggest concert promoter in all the land. And you know, if you know Los Angeles or look at it this way, every single place. So it was the forum and the sports arena in Irvine Meadows and Universal Amphitheater. Every goddamn piece of business that these guys promoted was given to you on a silver platter. I mean, everything including the ice Capades and the circus.

Ken Lucci 23:22

But But you call, you got that 'cause you cold called. You cold called, meaning that you put on a suit, you got your business cards and you cold called.

Charlie Horky 23:32

yeah, she was the catalyst. I mean,

James Blain 23:34

Yeah.

Charlie Horky 23:35

you know, I mean, I, I had some, it, it, you know, we talk about like, how do you scale me? Like, you know, I was driving, um, I was driving Dan Fogelberg back then. He was a huge star, as you might remember, Ken, um, his manager Irving, said, we do you wanna handle sticks? And that was another big

James Blain 23:50

Oh geez.

Charlie Horky 23:51

And I, And I, and I, said, sure. So, uh, I called the tour manager and he goes, you know, hey, piss off. He goes, you know, we, we already have somebody, we've already made those arrangements. And I go, oh, oh, okay. Sorry sir. You know, you don't wanna hang up. So I called Irving back 'cause I would call Irving back and I go, Hey, thanks for the referral. But he, he said he already had somebody. And he goes, he did. He goes, well stay by your phone. I go, okay, so I'm not telling you. Not a minute went by. My phone rang and it was that dude and he had a different attitude and he said, my God. He goes, I'm sorry. I didn't know the relationship. He said, can you, can you, can you, can you write, can you write this down? And, and that was a powerful, I mean, I, you know, that was, uh, in a huge moment for me at a really young age. And, um, and I've, and I learned at that moment that it's all top-down stuff

Ken Lucci 24:36

It is all relationships.

James Blain 24:38

like and trust.

Ken Lucci 24:39

It's all it

Charlie Horky 24:40

it was all, all for me. I found top-down works better. I wasn't good along the way with the, the, you know, going in low and you had to deal with too many people that were too subjective and made up their own ideas about your service that they couldn't afford to begin with. And, and so you needed to work with the top. So I learned that if you dealt with the celebrity, it was all gonna be top down shit. You know, when I was having Michael Jackson, my company exploded, um, to a certain degree in the 1980s because everywhere I went, I was driving Michael and who was I, who was hanging out with Elizabeth Taylor? Gregory Peck, know.

Ken Lucci 25:13

But, but, but how do you duplicate yourself? How did you, and I know it's a while, but how did you go from. I'm going because I've been there, right? I've been there. Uh, I was Hank Steinbrenner's body man, 24 hours a day. I was taking care of him, and then I had to grow my business. I had to replace myself, right? I had to replace myself. I'm still getting calls, but I have to replace myself as the primary driver.

Charlie Horky 25:38

I did Oh, oh, oh, that's a primary driver. Um, that wasn't hard to do. you know, you, there's only so much you can do sitting in Elizabeth Taylor's driveway with this new thing called a cell phone that was like, you know, this big and, um, and you're trying to make phone calls and handle stuff. And I just, I wasn't, I, I realized that I wasn't as effective and, um, you know, I was like 22, 23, 24. So, I mean, I had all my friends from high school,

James Blain 26:03

in.

Charlie Horky 26:04

Yeah, these guys that didn't go to college, you know, other rejects and I mean, you know, we, and, and, and we, um, and we, and I forgot what happened. Well, I know what it was. We read this book, you know, 'cause we're so smart. Um, read we, there's two things that happened. You talk about growing your company. Um, one was that our competitor was Harold Berkman at Music Express. And, and he would kick our asses like all the time. I mean, I mean, he just would, he'd get the contracts. He was bigger, more formidable. I mean, he was Music Express and there was Starlight. I mean, I was this little guy doing little rock and roll stuff, you know, like a little bee kind of pestering these guys. Um,

Ken Lucci 26:40

But you, said you had a book. What did you read?

Charlie Horky 26:43

oh right, right, right. We read, we read Rogue Warrior. He was the guy that showed the world about Seal Team six.

James Blain 26:49

Ah,

Charlie Horky 26:50

he goes chapter and verse about what training was like in for the seals. No one had ever knew anything about it before. So this book was like this huge bestseller. Well, we all read that book and we figured that CLS training needed to be just like that book.

Ken Lucci 28:09

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's the bombshell. That's the bombshell of the podcast right

James Blain 28:15

So you're approaching training, treating it like a SEAL team. Right. We're gonna be the most elite. We're gonna train the most intense, by the way, Charlie, you've just made my lifetime with that because we've been, we've been saying that at Pack since day one, but, but how do you, how do you translate that from a SEAL team to chauffeurs?

Charlie Horky 28:33

on a second. You're p chauffer training, right?

James Blain 28:36

Yeah.

Charlie Horky 28:37

Yeah. That was that dude, Bruce, right? Well, Bruce worked for me and, and what you're teaching is only what I.

James Blain 28:45

and, and there, there it is. Right. Bruce? Bruce,

Charlie Horky 28:49

I am not minimizing, I'm not minimizing the guy at all. I love that dude. he worked at Ritz Carlton when my wife worked at Ritz Carlton. So we all learned at the same time that not only did we wanna be seal team, CLS, we, we wanted to be ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and

Ken Lucci 29:05

That's the motto of the Ritz Carlton. You just listen. You just freaking nailed it. For anybody listening in this podcast, those two things.

Charlie Horky 29:12

we, before we got the Ritz Carlton account, which was in 19 90, 91, 92, I married 1990, we had all this, you know, vigor from, you know. Rock and roll rock limousine company, and I got that Ritz Carlton Hotel, and when I got them, Ritz Carlton, marina del Rey, and we had like 10 cars, they made us go through their orientation and it was a mind blower for me, you know, ladies and gentlemen serving, ladies and gentlemen learning how to own, own the complaint, learning about lateral service, learning about all these things that, that they spent millions of dollars, you know, becoming to Ritz Carlton. So all we did was rip off their orientation and put and put CLS everywhere. That was Ritz Carlton. I mean, listen, they, they, they were only too happy that we were doing this.

James Blain 29:53

Well, that's what they want. They want you to match. They want you to play at their level. I mean, that's the same Ritz Carlton that Bruce

Ken Lucci 29:58

but wait a minute. Do you see the pattern here, James? Do you see the pattern? Bruce went through Ritz Carlton training. Charlie went through it. Right? And then I went through it as ambassador after the 12, 2012 presidential conventions. That's the basis for the, for the chauffeur book that, but I, I, I'm a a hundred percent, that is the origin of success in this business to me.

Charlie Horky 30:23

I had this dude named Jim Green that worked for me, and he was a, uh, TaeKwonDo, uh, black belt. And, uh, he's a good looking guy. And you know, Madonna loved Madonna, loved him. I mean, he was just a, a wonder, a wonderful, a wonderful driver, a good guy. But he was in charge of our training. He read the book. He was a knucklehead. And, um, we would, we'd bring the guys to the, for interviews, if you wanted a job with us. First you had to know somebody, and the guy had, and the guy had to vouch for you. And then we'd, you know, they had come in a suit and before we'd let you fill out the application, we'd play a game of red light, green light in the, in the garage. And, and, you know, red light, green light is, you know, everybody lines up and you say, you know, red, you know, green light. And, and we see if they can pay attention. And then we'd play, Simon says, with 'em. And if they could get past these two things, then we'd let 'em fill out the application, and then we would see how physically, you know, how good they were. So, back in the old days, in LAX, they used to have a tunnel. It is still there, but they had a tunnel between the terminals. So we take it to terminal six and we'd say, Hey, your plane just came into terminal seven. You can see it going, there's a gate change. You gotta get your ass over there. So we'd make 'em run down the stairs through the tunnels, like quarter mile to to the other one. And we get to the, the, get 'em to the gate and then hand 'em a book and make 'em read a paragraph of it and see if they were gassed, see if they could still talk to the client.

James Blain 31:39

You wanted the best of the best. You really took the seal team stuff seriously. I love it.

Charlie Horky 31:43

we would do that. It was just crazy. And then, and then the last one on the last day, we take 'em to the Santa Monica Pier and we get 'em to, we get 'em to, we get 'em to the end of that in their suits. And, and Jim just like, you know, and Jive would, would throw a life preserver into the water and say, Joe. He'd say, jump gonna do, whatcha gonna do, you know, and I only had, I only had one or two guys jump, but mo most of, most of them didn't. But, you know, we were serious about it. You know, we, we, we wanted to be the best and Music Express was the target. And you know, I knew how much, if Harold was nice to me, he, he'd tell me, he'd say, how much money are you doing a month? And I'd be like, oh, I'm doing like, you know, a hundred thousand and he'd be doing like 500,000. And I remember when I got to 500,000 how good I felt about the whole thing. But um, yeah, he was our target. And so all through the eighties and the nineties, we get to the nineties, we get the hotel and, um, you know, Ken, I'm trying to answer your question in that there just wasn't a plan as much as that we wanted to keep growing and keep doing and see more. Success to me was more cars, so more business mean. We had to have more cars. So more cars, more success, the bigger, you know, kind of this vicious cycle. And next thing you know, you've got 20 cars in la um, and uh, I got an opportunity in the 1990s. To do some business with NetJets and with the Four Seasons hotels. And, um, and it just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. Um, uh, when, you know, we talked about some numbers. I can remember this. In 1990 was a million dollars a year. By 1995, I was doing $10 million a year, and by 20, by the year, 20, by the year 2000, I was doing over 50.

James Blain 33:20

But there's, there's something really important there though, Charlie, that I think the little guys need to hear. And my, my father-in-law has a similar story, right? Started in his basement, working in, his favorite saying is he has an overnight success, 20 years in the making. It sounds like those first 10 years, are you laying the foundation, figuring it out, and then you get to the nineties and all of a sudden you now know how to put the rocket fuel in and take off. I mean, is that kind of how it was?

Charlie Horky 33:45

we, you know, you're just, yeah, yeah. Kind of. I mean, like I say, I, I, I feel silly. I wish that I could tell you that there was a plan. I mean, if you talk to a guy like Bruce from Pac. His limousine company. I think he probably might've had a, a slight plan. Um, you know, think about it, not that I'm really proud of it, but I mean, like, I grew up without a dad in my house, you know, and I'm not complaining, but like, I didn't really have any formal training in that area. So by the time I got to be 20 years old and I'm driving the likes of, you know, sting and Michael Jackson, I mean, those are my formidable years in my twenties. And like, who were my teachers? I mean, you know, I mean rock stars, I mean, so, you know, who were you trying to emulate? What were you trying to build? I mean, if anything, we were trying, we thought success, success, success. You know, I mean, you know, we, the, the, the bigger, the more the, I mean, listen, there was a time when David Selinger met me in New York City after I'd had a, ton of his success. And he said, man, I, I, I love what you're doing. He goes, he goes, when, when, when do you think, you know, at the time I was rodeoing, I was team roping. And, um, he said, when are you gonna retire? And just go and start team roping,

Ken Lucci 34:51

You were, wait a minute, back up. You were literally team roping on a horse.

Charlie Horky 34:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, I've had, I've had my pro rodeo card for, you know, gosh, 25 years

James Blain 35:01

Okay, so how does that happen? Right?

Charlie Horky 35:03

You read, you read the book. I, I, I, I was, I, well, you might, I was reading, I was, uh, I grew up riding horses, you know, in West la I mean, sucked at baseball and team sports and shit, you know, and, uh, just horrible. I'd be in center field, they crack that ball. You'd think, oh, I fly out to center field and just drop right next to me every time. Just an idiot. But, um, but horses I could handle and I enjoyed it. And, um, and I grew up in, you know, in LA working at. You know, stables and places mucking 'em out so I could go ride stuff and learned how to acrobat a trick ride when I was 15 years old with a guy named Rudy Eckstein, who rode for Monte Montana while I was Wild West Show in the seventies. And, um, it wasn't until I got a fair amount of success, and it was in the late nineties that I started going after my friends and people that were like my heroes of the, of the moment Time Murray, tough, Heman, Jim Sharp, um, Cody o and uh, and now I had the money and I had the success, and I had the drive. So I wanted to be a rodeo cowboy, and they were all too happy to take me with them. 'cause I had a golf stream and we'd fly all over the United States. I mean, you know, and so David, you know, he, he sees this and he is like, this guy, this guy is gonna check out. I, I, I wanna, and, and, and you know, in hindsight I don't say this things went the way they went. And I, you know, I left and that was that. But he's done a marvelous job with that deal. I mean, you know, if you think about it. I just, I know we're kind of jumping around here, but if you think about it, you know, when I, when I got outta jail, you know, I'm 22 months in federal prison, as, you know, everyone in the limousine industry seems to know. Um, and, uh, I was grateful that, that he was in business. You know, I mean, empire CLS, um, is, is, uh, is my legacy. Um, the CLS portion is anyway, and, um, and I met him recently at, uh. I met him recently at the limo show, and I hadn't seen him in a long time, and, and I sincerely thanked him. I said, you know, th thank you for being in business. You, you legitimized me, you, you helped me every day. Um, get past a lot of barriers. C if people don't know me, I mean, I'm 65 years old. I'm working for people that are in their twenties and their thirties. They don't know who the fuck I am. Um, but they do know what Empire CLS is and, and, uh, they absolutely know what it is, and they, and they revere it and they honor it, and they do that because he's done such a fabulous job of doing just what he does. You know, take him or leave him as a person. I don't really know him that well. I mean, you know, I know him for sure, but, um, I thanked him. I mean, I was grateful,

Ken Lucci 37:25

you know, You you, got a hell of a parallel When we interviewed Dawson and Tammy. I did not realize, first of all, that Dawson was a taxi driver. But, but you remember that podcast where Dawson said what was his pivotal moment, was a relationship where he, he created a relationship with a, a magazine publisher, if I'm not mistaken, that one key relationship introduced him to many, many people. So when you talk about the relationship, first of all, you know, you, you give your, you're really humble because you, you, you were detailing washing cars at a rental car place. You decide you're gonna get into business. The first thing you do is you go and you meet the wo this woman who's renting vehicles for people in the music industry, okay? First of all, every Yahoo and their grandmother walked through that door trying to get business, but she trusted you. And that, see, it's, it's a similar story to what Dawson said, because. Dawson was competing with, with not competing, but yes, he was working for Dave d he was doing sub jobs for Dave l dl. Right. And he was on a sub job for DL when this guy came out and basically chose him as the chauffeur. In your case, it was music. So a couple things. Number one, you gotta, you gotta build relationships with people that believe in you and trust you. You can't just walk in the door and say, Hey, this is what I am, this is who I am, what can you do for me? It's, they've gotta trust you. Second of all, you both had someone that was in your sights and, and Dawson's case it was Dave L in your case it was Music Express. So tell me how that, tell me how that drove you from a, to be a better perspective. Tell me how that drove you.

Charlie Horky 39:13

Well, you didn't know, you didn't know how to do anything. I mean, I mean, if you think about it, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, it was a little more than just picking people up and taking 'em where they had to go. Right? Uh, and so they were the, when I say they were the target, I mean, they were, they, they were, they had systems. They had, listen, Harold Harold's 20 years older than I'm, I mean, you know. Yeah, totally. He was in the best, he was in the record business to begin with, and then he opened up a messenger service and he was getting so much work to Starlight Limousine that one day he said, I should just own my own card. So he bought one and he was glued in. I mean, every, the reason why I was able to succeed, quite frankly, is because he stayed in the record business. He was getting so much business from the record companies. He didn't need, he didn't give a shit about the concert business. You know, I mean, he might've gave a shit about it if, if his client gave a shit enough to take him with, to use him at concerts. But that's where I, I would, if I could get to the, if I could get to the client and endear myself to them and do the rock and roll business, then he didn't have, he, he was out because then the artists would tell the record company if they were big enough to artists we're using Charlie, so,

James Blain 40:24

That's your opening.

Ken Lucci 40:25

Yep.

Charlie Horky 40:25

And that, and that and that. Listen, lemme tell you something that didn't hurt him at all. I mean, it, it really didn't it, but it was, but it was an avenue that I had that worked for me and, and, and it just worked. I mean, it just, uh,

Ken Lucci 40:37

that. That you were at that. Yep. You were a boutique. You were a boutique, but you understood what it took to, to, to service, to serve

Charlie Horky 40:46

sure.

Ken Lucci 40:46

1%.

Charlie Horky 40:48

Well, I was learning, I I was learning. Believe me, it's not from not getting your ass kicked once in a while

Ken Lucci 40:52

Oh, that, those, those are the life's experiences we're gonna read about in the book. Uh, look, it, I, I, I think that the other thing, you tell me what you think about this statement. I, I think that, that the op, the one or two, or one to 10 car operators today. They get about 80 to 85% of the mix correctly. Okay. But what the Ritz Carlton taught us both was radar up, antenna up radar on. You have to be to do what you've done. You have to be in tune with that person, right? So that they trust you to make the decisions that they don't want to be bothered. So Michael Jackson is thinking about his business, his his career, and he's like, Charlie, take me here and take care of this. How do you serve the top 1% of the 1%? How do you serve them? What makes you different?

Charlie Horky 41:46

Me, um, what makes me different?

Ken Lucci 41:50

How do you get to that level where you can serve that many people?

Charlie Horky 41:54

You mean today

Ken Lucci 41:55

No, back then, how did you, how did you get so many of those guys to trust you? I.

Charlie Horky 42:00

Oh, you know, you just, you, you, it was just the way it was. I said like, you don't, you didn't have the internet to compete with, you know, I mean, you, I mean, think about it. You really didn't have the internet to compete with until what, 2007 with Zuckerberg and,

Ken Lucci 42:13

Well, even then when we had, when we, yeah, when we started, it was nothing. It,

Charlie Horky 42:18

it was, it was different. You, society was different. We were different as a people. I mean, you know, you carried quarters and made phone calls or you had a cell phone or whatever. But a lot of it was it, you didn't know the world was not as big. The Internet's changed at all. So you had to depend. You have to depend on people that are gonna keep delivering for you. And that's the same way it is today. You know, this lady, this lady said the other day, I use you 'cause you understand Complicated. You know, paramount Pictures uses me at the highest levels because. They trust me and they say to me, we'll, we, we will give you this premier, you know, top gun Maverick. But will you, um, will you be there in person? Yes. I'll be there in person. Okay. You got the job.

James Blain 42:57

So that brings up a really good point because one of the things that you've talked about, and it keeps coming up over and over is. These guys trust me, they know me. I'll take care of 'em. I'm there for 'em. What, I mean, how do you handle when something goes wrong? Right? Because everybody, everybody's great. You can trust me, I'll take care of you. But I found that one of the big differentiators is when stuff goes wrong, when it hits the fan, as they like to say, you know what, how do you find ways to shine? Even in those moments? How do you what? What's kind of your process,

Charlie Horky 43:26

that goes back to what you, you know, you're, what you're doing today, you know, at Pax is, and, and. A case in point this morning, I had a super important client, they called me last night and they said, Hey, you know, he is getting picked up at the house, right? And I said, yeah, yeah, for sure. Thank you so much. And this guy's super important, like big time guy. And uh, the computer said he was getting picked up at the hotel and she told me he was getting picked up at the house. And I assumed it was the, and I assumed it was always the house 'cause I glanced at the computer and thought it was there. And I was so tired after dealing with these people yesterday. I just, there was nothing, there was nothing about it that said, you need to double check this. And I didn't double check it, but thanks to the training that we drill in these guys, he didn't make every damn minute his own before he got to the pickup. He got there at six 15 for a 6 45 and announced himself and said that he was at the hotel. And the client said, oh my gosh, I'm at home. And he had the 35, the 32 extra. To get to his house. So he got there at 6 47 and the guy made him wait for 30 minutes anyway, but how so? So what was the saving thing? I, I take accountability. I, I screwed that up. There's the human error part that happens and I could blame my staff and go, how come you didn't dispatch 'em? Well, they did dispatch 'em and the information was wrong. The guy was at home. There was a change, and they told me about the change the night before. Usually in that system of the studio, it would come down through the studio, but it didn't, it came more directly to me. But this chauffeur, Terrell, he um,

Ken Lucci 44:50

Did the right thing.

Charlie Horky 44:51

he did the right thing because another guy, most of these guys would sit there till 6 45 and, and then go, where are you? I'm here. Well, no, you're not here. I'm looking out my window. I don't see you. Oh, I'm at the hotel. I'm here. Well, now, now that, that, well, that now you're toast. And trust me, there's been, once in a while, shit happens where, you know, you gotta get on your app and get Uber out there and you gotta. You gotta, and you gotta tell that Uber driver, Hey, you're gonna do this for me and here's the situation we got. You're gonna gimme your Zelle and I'm gonna send you a hundred dollars right now. And you know, and you, and you 'cause, 'cause it's how you handle the service can be great. But how do you handle bad shit? You know? How do you, how do you, how do you recover? Most guys have no recovery plan, but, or they don't even think about it. They go, oh well, nothing we can do now.

Ken Lucci 45:35

No, no. The other thing is, the other thing is you just hit upon something when you said the chauffeur. The chauffeur, when he was on site, he's like, well, you know, I'm here 45 minutes early, 30 minutes early this time is mine. No, he announced himself and he was able, that was the muscle memory that he had.

Charlie Horky 45:54

Well, what I meant was is that most guys, you know, good, the good guys will show up early because they anticipate it because they've embraced this industry. The guys that are successful are the guys that have chauffeurs that embrace the idea of what they're doing as a job. They're not driving for you, they're operating the car for you. They're going to work because they want to be involved in whatever your client wants. Who am I gonna be today? I'm gonna be with this person. How am I gonna be helpful? What can I do for them during the course of this journey to make their stay wonderful? Because I need them to call me back. So, I mean, so those aren't the guys that look at their watch and go, I got nine minutes and they're still doing something, and they know they can make it to the spot in nine minutes, and they get there at 6 45 and hell breaks loose because they thought every minute before the pickup was theirs. The guys that get there early. Can adjust for shit. And it didn't have to be the fact that I took the, I gave him the wrong information. It could have just been, God, would you mind stopping at Starbucks and getting me a coffee on the way? I mean, you know, it, it, it just lends itself to other things that make sense. And, and I tell the people that I work with on a regular basis that, you know, you're part of a, you're, you're part of a story every time. And, and what, what are we doing? And what, what's your responsibility in this? Like, you know, I, when I first got in, when I first got back and was doing slate services, I was using a mentality that I knew more than they did, and I did. And I needed to get to their drivers because I, I discarded their offices and I discarded the relationships I had. I just needed to deal with the drivers. And what I found after Covid was that that became a lot more challenging and that, um. Now everybody, what the first thing it used to be back in the eighties where you could say, listen, get your ass in that car and, and, and, and get, get going now you motherfucker. And that, and that was a term of endearment. And they would go, okay, boss now. And they'd go and you could, you know, cuss and scream and do whatever you needed to do. Not today, today.

Ken Lucci 47:46

way.

James Blain 47:47

Society's changed,

Charlie Horky 47:49

Right. Well, today, today everybody, you have to be concerned on how everybody feels first. So no matter how fast the bullets are flying, you call this guy up, you gotta go, oh Bob, how are you? You know, that's nice to, thanks for driving with me today. I I I appreciate that. Yeah. Really, how long have you been working for this company? And I mean, like, you know, hell's coming down on your back, but you gotta get this guy, you gotta get 'em in conversational relationship first and then,

Ken Lucci 48:11

on your side.

Charlie Horky 48:12

then you can convert 'em and go, look man, I need your help. I need you to help me. And. But, so what I learned is that not only did I not have time to do that with every single guy was I learned that a lot of these operators are actually really good at what they do. And if you just, so if you're gonna use a company, you might as well have the relationship with the owner who's going to give you what I call the hack. Um, I have a hack at most of these big companies. I use Robert, um, Alexander at RMA in a couple of cities because he puts me in a position with his guy that can let me treat his company like it's my own or a small boutique company. Now that doesn't mean I'm doing anything different than the normal, other than that the demand for my attention from the client is so instantaneous. I can't deal with the normal waking hours of what you make up about what? Five star services that you open up at nine, that you're end at five. You say you're a 24 hour service, but can you get me a car at two o'clock in the morning? I need the, I need RMAs guy. I need the hack. And so I

James Blain 49:10

You need to plug in. You need to be connected

Ken Lucci 49:13

You need to short circuit when the

Charlie Horky 49:15

and.

Ken Lucci 49:15

the fan,

Charlie Horky 49:16

When the shit is hitting the fan, or even when it's not hitting the fan, these drivers won't take phone calls. You know, they'll be driving and they'll go, I didn't wanna disturb the client. Go, I am the client. I go, he's the variable in the back and the information that I need to give you is important. Well, that's too much conversation. Better just to go to a guy like Dave Elle and say, do me a favor. I need to get a hold of this guy right now and tell him this. Or go talk to his girl, Marlene, or talk to Olga at Glide or whoever you're doing business with, you know? Um, they have a better relationship with the drivers and can get them on. The driver is gonna answer the phone call from the company every time. So you gotta have the guy that you can deal with, that you can get the best performance out of the driver from his own company. That's the art. That's what you need done. So I say, are there good companies out there? Yeah. You know, there, there's fabulous guys out there and I've noticed in the last seven years that they're just getting better. Um, there's a whole, there's a whole group of younger players. Nah, I'm not a racist or nothing like that. But I mean, there's a lot of Indians out there that, you know, are finding that maybe, maybe they're all doctors and lawyers from wherever they come from, but when they get here, this country doesn't honor that ship. So they gotta do something else. And they become limo operators. And you know what? They're damn good limo operators and they care and they do a good business. And pricing is, you know, is good. But they're, you know, they're insured and, and we develop them as, we work with a guy like Robert at RMA, I mean, his guys are fabulous. You know, there's a lot of good people out there. I use Windy City in Chicago, and I'm not just trying to pitch 'em. They're good at what they do. They good, what they do and, and, and they allow me to. Work at a level where I need them to pay much more attention. Listen, I got clients where they get picked up at the airport and the drivers have to know where the nearest hospitals are at different places in case there's some draconian event. We don't get outta the cars. The cars stay lit the whole time. There's always somebody in the car during a show in case of an evac. No one thinks like that. I mean, we're, we ha we need these guys to work with us and be part of our team. And gratefully, most people do wanna work with us and, and they, and they enjoy the work and they think, listen. I had a guy the other day, he drove Sting for me and he said, he is a nice guy. And he said to me, um, he goes, I'm so grateful to get to drive this guy. He said, now he'll be the most, he'll be the most famous person I've ever driven. Instead of Joan Rivers and, and.

Ken Lucci 51:37

right, right.

James Blain 51:38

But, but there's this awesome through line that you've created for us, right? Because you talk about, you read this book, right? You read the Rogue Warrior book, you say, Hey, I need to do seal team training. Then you get super intense on who you're gonna hire. I gotta make sure he is the right guy. I, I'm, we're not gonna hire any Joe Blow. I'm not gonna take the bottom of the barrel. And, and you had fun with it too, right? You're younger, you're having fun with it. You really get serious about who you're hiring. You really get serious about who you're training, what's awesome, right? And you kind of said you have your first and second act. You do that in that first act. Now in the second act at Slave Services, you figured out that process works and now you're applying that same idea of vetting and making sure the best and making sure the training's there, that same formula that worked. Then you've reconfigured it to continue using it in the second act. And it sounds like it's a big, I mean, as a training guy, I love this because this really speaks to where I live of if you take the time to do the training to learn to be the best, to continually push, it's there. But it really seems like for you, that's been part of the success then, and it's still a key part of the success now.

Charlie Horky 52:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Man. A hundred percent. It, it, you know, I tell people all the time, it's training, training, training, training, training. I mean, you know, you can be a cab driver in Las Vegas and teach those guys how to drive better than they do. You know? I mean, you know, you can be, you can be, training's a big thing. I I'm, people ask me, you know, what's the most important thing I always say to 'em, and I push Pax quite a bit. I'm like, you know, I go, you guys, I go, we, we definitely need to budget for that if we're gonna buy a company, if we're gonna do something like that. And, you know, I've, I've tried to buy a bunch of things and I can't seem to get it done. They're, they're, they're hard to do.

Ken Lucci 53:24

will at some point, Charlie, if that's what you want.

Charlie Horky 53:26

yeah. Right.

Ken Lucci 53:27

But listen, you know, it, it's a, the parallels I see of the really successful operators is 100% creating the most important relationships you can in your market. I don't care what your market is. Okay? I mean, listen, we have Morgan, and Morgan is a client I cold called John Morgan. I cold called the Yankees. I called, called Steiner, you know, way back in the day. So, and at the, and, and. People think, okay, well I'm just gonna spend $3,500 a month on PPC and man is gonna reign from heaven. It doesn't work that way. You have, you have to create those relationships. And to me, the relationships are not about what those people can do for me. It's what I'm gonna do for them. And they all trust you because you know the funny thing about the 1%? The 1% of the 1%, they can spot a charlatan faster than anybody.

Charlie Horky 54:22

You know, I, I dunno if you got time for this, but I'll tell you a story that'll make you guys laugh. It's actually pretty funny if you wanna hear it.

Ken Lucci 54:28

Yes, please.

James Blain 54:29

time for

Ken Lucci 54:30

We

Charlie Horky 54:30

I I get mo Most recently I got a, uh, last, not the Super Bowl, but the one before I got, I got an opportunity to drive the Chairman of Live Nation to the Super Bowl in, um, Las Vegas. And, uh, you know, wow. Hey, live Nation, right? You know, this is, and it was referred by a close friend of his, and you know, I'm gonna do this. So I pick him up and I get to the stadium and, uh, you know, I got a simple rule and the rule I've always had is that the chauffeur should never leave the car. I. That, that, that, that's, that's, that's my rule. I, I don't care if you're friends with him. I don't care if he invite you in. You know, you shouldn't go anyway. I mean, like, you know, you should just stay with the car, stay with the car no matter what, you know, and it might put you in a weird situation to have to say to the client, gosh, I'm really sorry. I really, I hate to turn down this, you know, for whatever 1200 dinner you're gonna gimme. Um, but I need to stay with the car. So he gets outta the car and I stay with the car until his guy walks back by the car and says, Hey Charlie. He goes, I have an extra pass here, the Super Bowl to our event. He goes, maybe it would be a good idea if you came with us. 'cause there's gonna be like 50,000 people trying to get outta here. And he's with his wife and his family, and his children and his father. So I make a fatal mistake and I decided, I said, I'm, I'm gonna go because I now's some nobility in it. I, I can't, I walk through a lot of crowds. I've been doing this a long time. I know how to get people from place to place. 'cause that's what we do.

Ken Lucci 55:50

Sure.

Charlie Horky 55:50

I go and I see the game and it's fun, super cool, and it breaks. And I got his family and we're going like Sam, like, you know, salmon against the stream or whatever, trying to get, get to the car. And we get to the car and the car's dead.

James Blain 56:03

Oh no.

Charlie Horky 56:04

And the reason why the car's dead is because somehow inadvertently when I was getting outta the car, my elbow hit the button on the Cadillac on the center there and it turned on. And you know, it's not like the old days where everybody knew who I was or they knew who the car was or anything. And uh, they sat there and watched it go, you know, Hong Kong honk, honk until it's anymore and it was dead. So what do you do man? Makes me, makes me sweaty just thinking about that moment. And, uh, so I'm sitting there with, you know, the chairman of Live Nation. That's my only opportunity to try to make this guy a client. And I'm locked outta my car at the Super Bowl. What do you think the chances of getting another car is at the Super Bowl? So, you know, while we're kind of taking it in that were hosed. I call another driver that, fortunately had told me that he had just dropped off that fellow that ran Google, um, I forgot what his name was. Um, anyway, and he dropped him off. He didn't want to go to the game. He gets on his jet, he leaves, and I go, man, where are you? And he goes, I'm what turns out to be about maybe a quarter of a mile away, and it's pandemonium in people. So I get myself resigned to myself that in the worst case scenario, I'm gonna walk these people to that car. I'm gonna, I, I'm gonna figure out how

James Blain 57:13

you gotta figure out how to fix

Charlie Horky 57:14

I'm, I'm gonna figure out how to fix it. Well, one of the ways I figured out how to fix it was I looked over there and there was a rock right near there. And so I thought, I'll just put this brick through the window and I'll open up the car and at least he'll be able to get his luggage outta the car, which is what he wanted. Well, I'm about to break the window and he says, wait a minute, wait a minute. He goes. Um, and I, 'cause I had the key fob in my hand and he goes, no, no, no. And it didn't seem to work Well, apparently Cadillac didn't make it that easy. You gotta turn it one way, then another way in a different way. Well, instead of becoming more the part of the problem and having this guy beat me to death in front of his family, he becomes part of the solution, the chairman of Live Nation, and he's googling it for me and we're like, tick to tick to, and we get the door open,

James Blain 57:57

Okay.

Charlie Horky 57:57

the hood, try to get a jump from those guys waiting on somebody else.

Ken Lucci 58:02

Yeah.

Charlie Horky 58:03

Didn't happen. And, and, and this is, and this whole story I'm telling you all happened within a time, the completion of the story takes 14 minutes. The whole thing I.

James Blain 58:13

Probably felt like years, didn't it?

Charlie Horky 58:16

Can't get it started. I got the guy in foot, I got his bags and I gotta get him outta there. And I look up and I see a car leaving a normal car, a small issue guy leaving the parking lot. And I go, hang on. And I run over to this random person and it's this nice lady and she's driving the car and I go, I really need your help. I'm really in a bad way. I need you to help me take these people with their children off this driveway and I need you to take us just over to that hotel right over there. And she goes, of course. Thank you so much. Of course cop in. So we get everybody in the car. And of course the client says, any reason why she can't just take us back to the wind. You know, I mean, we're all in the car. And I, and I looked at him and I said, and I go, no, sir, that wouldn't be safe. I go, we're, we're, we're going to, we're gonna go right over here and there's another car behind this building waiting for us.

James Blain 59:04

Okay.

Ken Lucci 59:05

Right.

Charlie Horky 59:05

so we get there, people getting scared now, and we're over there by Russell and the, and it's crazy. Lots of people. And now that we go from the safe car, I go, okay, we need to get outta the car. And they're like, I go now, now, sir. We need to get outta the car. And we get him outta the car and I'm walking his people through this parking lot into the street, praying and hoping that Barett is there. And he is. And I put him in the car and they, and, and thanks Charlie. And they drive away. And, um, I worry about getting in my car and I call his assistant and I tell her what happened and I'm thinking I'm dead. And she goes, oh, you know, nobody called me. She goes, okay, so is he in the morning? And I go, yeah, sure. So I, I get there in the morning and he gets in the car with his family and he goes, Charlie, he goes, is this the same car? And I go, yeah. And he goes, how'd you get it? And I told him that my wife came, you know, with a jumper box and we got it. We got it fixed up. And he says, you know, I heard an interesting story about you. He says, and, and his wife goes, yo, he is friends with Jonathan. And she, and he says, no, tell me your story. So now I gotta tell him the story in the ride, like, you know, to the airport. And we get to the plane, everyone's waiting, the jet's all fired up, it's net jets, right? And they're just about to open the door and he grabs the door and he goes, no, no, don't stop. Tell me the rest of your story. I tell him the rest of the story and he goes, that's amazing. You're my guy. I'll see you next time. And he saw the car and he gets in the jet and that was the

James Blain 1:00:20

And, and he is holding up the jet because he wants the rest of the story. Right. I mean, that's the type of, when, when you're dealing with people that are at that level, I mean they, everybody has to wait for him.

Ken Lucci 1:00:29

Listen, you know?

Charlie Horky 1:00:30

I gotta wear the donkey hat for, for a while.

Ken Lucci 1:00:32

Yeah. But think about that. Think about that. That could have gone completely the other way on you. But you Unbelievable resourceful. Unbelievably resourceful.

Charlie Horky 1:00:41

with me, it was never gonna go any worse than, than I envisioned in my, and the only thing I envisioned was that now we were on a catastrophic failure and I needed to get this guy and his family safely back to the hotel expeditiously at any means, at any means possible. That's not what you're gonna get. If you call, I don't know, another limousine company, bless his, I love Tony down there at North Point. I've been using him for 40 years, but I mean, I don't, he might, you know, no

Ken Lucci 1:01:07

the resourcefulness that you've learned

Charlie Horky 1:01:10

He would've had another car there probably, right? He would've, he would've, he figured it out because he's that old school mentality. But in the heat of Battle, man, I made the decisions I had to make.

Ken Lucci 1:01:20

it's true.

James Blain 1:01:21

Gonna get it done or die trying.

Charlie Horky 1:01:22

I was, I was, I was grateful to keep the business

Ken Lucci 1:01:26

Look, you know, and I, the message I would have for every operator is everybody wants the person right, that they can call that they know it's going to get taken care of. And I do think that that's missing with some operators. They don't understand it. They don't understand

Charlie Horky 1:01:42

you know,

Ken Lucci 1:01:42

an anticipation. Right. Resilience totally there with a servitude mentality. And, and I will say this about certain generation. Look, I went to private school, I went to private college. I come from a relatively well to do background. The servitude mentality was taught to me by George Steinbrenner and his son Hank. Okay? And it was not, it was nobility. It was the service of nobility. It wasn't. There. This is my butler Ken, or my chauffeur Ken. This is my guy. He takes care of everything. That's what it came down to. You could do that with lawyers, you could do that with doctors. The key is to be with pre people that appreciate you doing that, that appreciate the servitude mentality. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a s There's nothing wrong with having a servitude mentality. The Ritz Carlton taught me that. I mean, the Ritz Carlton, I tell this story last time, the Ritz Carlton, Pentagon City. The absolute best experience I ever, ever had in my life was at the back of the day when I was 31 years old. I was going out with the 21-year-old girl and she was a his that had nothing to Yes. Um, she was a history buff. So long story short, we stay at the, we stay at the pit Ritz Carlton, Pentagon City. Okay. And this guy, the concierge surge surged. The concierge treated us like kings. What happens? I go back there about six weeks ago. Surge is still there. I said, Serge, you're not gonna remember this. I looked, I was a different man back in the day, but I, I mean, I, I, I mean 29 years ago, Serge, you took care of us when I was there. And he co didn't remember me back then, but I filled, but I filled in the gap and I said, you don't understand something. I've met a, a, I've met 50 concierge or during, over the, over that period, and I don't know who any of them are. Okay. But this guy made such an impression on me. And that's what you do every day. And I think people in our industry, especially because we're trying quote, to compete with the TNCs, no we're not. Right? 'cause they can't logistically do what you do. They're missing the fact that, that what people want when they hire our service is to know that they are being served. They are have a servant mentality. When, when, when somebody's in the back seat and they're looking like this and you, and you hand them a pen, okay? They know that you anticipated the move when you go into a car and, and you are looking at your, your phone. Okay. And they're like, Mr. Lucci, would you like a charger? I mean, that's just literally anticipating the service, but also what you just said is anticipating the next steps and holy shit, what happens if something goes wrong? You'd have just called the base and say, ah, the car's died. Right. You, you, you, you've got it taken care of. So Charlie, when is, when is the book coming out, by the way?

Charlie Horky 1:04:46

That's a good question. Um, I, I just went in there and changed the names. Um, you know, the famous people, I didn't change their names 'cause it, it didn't matter. Um, a lot of 'em were dead. Um, uh, well, it just wouldn't matter. I didn't say anything about 'em, but like, just, just points in my life, you know, when I got divorced and, you know, and I hooked up with someone else, I, I didn't need to drag those people through through this deal name, you know? I mean, there's no, you know, I, I, I got more respect than that for all of them. Um. Yeah, it should come out. Um, I don't know. It could come out, I, I don't know how long it takes. We're right at the point now where like, we're just finishing the editing, got the book cover and they gotta put it together and then, and then, and

Ken Lucci 1:05:29

But you're settled. You are settled on the name being Unbreakable Path.

Charlie Horky 1:05:33

you know, I'm not settled on the name. We're trying to think of a bunch of names to that

James Blain 1:05:37

That's a pretty solid

Ken Lucci 1:05:38

I like that. Look, look, don't lose the tagline. The tagline of of the story of loss, resilience and the pursuit of greatness is pretty, that's a pretty, it's, it's a pretty

Charlie Horky 1:05:48

Well, I think, I think, you know, I think, I think I do that, you know, in, in, in my day-to-day stuff, I think the clientele that I serve speaks for itself. I mean, you know, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, everybody has a billionaire 'cause there's, there's lots of billionaires and, you know, people have celebrity. And my, my story would not be near as, near as interesting if I had, uh, had the same story. But I, I had a limousine company in Iowa or Kansas. Um.

Ken Lucci 1:06:13

Right, Right,

James Blain 1:06:14

hey. Hey. Nothing wrong with Kansas.

Charlie Horky 1:06:16

nothing wrong with, you know,

Ken Lucci 1:06:18

But your continued pursuit of excellence

Charlie Horky 1:06:20

those guys are, those guys are awesome operators, you know, um, and, and they're successful and I'm sure they, in their area, they have their, their excitement, but there's nothing quite like rock and roll or, or celebrity. Um, and, you know, and I, I'm, I'm grateful to work in this industry. I'm, I, I'm happy to, and like I say, I, I, I, you know, the problem with my business is that it's probably not scalable only because it's so damn Charlie centric. Um, what, what, you know, to teach some, like if God forbid I drop dead, you know, I hope that, you know, my son with, you know, Megan, Andrew can pick up my cell phone and figure it out, you know? But, but I mean, but, but I'm doing other stuff now, you know, and I meant to clarify for you, uh, my wife phone's, um.

Ken Lucci 1:07:03

Sure.

Charlie Horky 1:07:04

IT services. Um, you know, when, when you get convicted of crimes against banks and financial institutions, it's hard to get anything done. You know, I mean, and, and I've had everything there is to have and I've had my name on everything. And you know, when, when you got your name on a document that says United States of America versus Charles Joseph. Four I. Third, you figure you've had your name on enough shit. You know what I mean? I mean, you know, I, I, I know how I live a nice life and I'm, I'm, I'm blessed and, and a wonderful family, and I get to work in something, a business every day that I enjoy, that I really, really enjoy. And the people like that. I participate with them. So like what I like more do I wish I had, you know, do I wish I was Chris Huntley, you know, who recently sold his company and is retiring or bought, or, or Dawson? I mean, you know, Dawson doesn't have to work. I mean, he says that he, you know, he likes to run his company. That's nonsense. Dawson's a big man.

Ken Lucci 1:07:52

Well, we all know that Tammy runs the company, so

Charlie Horky 1:07:55

God, God bless him. You know? Right. Exactly. But, um, you know, a lot of these guys have done well over the years and I admire them and, and I'm in awe of the success that every one of them has done. But I, I'm very grateful to, to have the life I have today because none of it has to do with money. It, it all has to do with just my personal wellness and, and where I am in the world. I'm quite happy. I'm very blessed. My wife is, is wonderful to me.

James Blain 1:08:17

Well, and as we kind of close out the episode and kind of bring things all back together. You know what would be the one thing, right? We've got operators of all kinds of sizes, right? Everybody in the business listening. What's the one piece that you'd wanna leave them with as we close out? What was the one big lesson or takeaway

Charlie Horky 1:08:35

You mean from this conversation?

Ken Lucci 1:08:36

no

James Blain 1:08:37

or from life? I mean, obviously don't, obviously by the book is one of the biggest lessons, and as soon as that's released, we'll we'll have you back on and talk about it, but, but what would be the big thing that you would tell them, or even if you got to go back and talk to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell him?

Charlie Horky 1:08:54

you know, there's lots of ways to do business. I just wanna do it the right way. You know, it's, um, you know, I, I find that each and every day that if I just deal with what's right in front of me and not try to go over it or under it, or around it, or think I can do better or will it through a different way. Sure, we all know lots of people to get it done, but, um, if I just deal with what's right in front of me, everything seems to work out just fine. You know, it's just, uh, you know, and, and, uh, you know, you just try, try to be the best you can be. You know? I mean, ha ha have a open, uh. You, you gotta, you gotta keep your, when I was riding horses, when I was a kid, they used to say, you know, the best riders kept their eyes open and their mouth shut. And, and it's the same thing today, you know, it is, you just gotta work hard. Keep your mouth, keep your mouth shut, and your eyes open, your ears open and just go to work every day. And, and, and I like what you do. I, I, I love what I do. I mean, I, I, I have a great time doing it. I'm, I'm thrilled by it every day, you know, it's a.

Ken Lucci 1:09:47

I don't know how you can be in this business and not love it and not have a passion for it. I don't believe I, I don't believe you can fake this business because I've seen people with absolutely gorgeous pieces of beautiful fleets, gorgeous, gorgeous vehicles. They, they absolutely have no clue about how to take care of people. And they're like, why am I not successful? Okay. They think it's too good for them to go out and cold call, or they think it's too good for them. They're at a certain stage where they won't go out and run a group or meeting. To me, this business every single day is about the blocking the tackling. And tha you know, I've, the commonalities to me are the Ritz Carlton, the relationships that you've created and this Seal Team six thing, you are onto something with that regimentation.

Charlie Horky 1:10:37

Yeah, it was pretty funny. But Joe, you gotta, you gotta have a good team and you build a team along the way, you know? And like, I got a great team now. You know, I, my, uh, my, my guys are, uh, a group of people that are, that have been with me for about five years outta Pakistan. And, uh, I, you know, econom economies of scale. Yeah, it, it, I, it would be difficult to duplicate what I have in those guys in the United States, wages here in the United States, but I've got a great team. They're really, really good at what they do, and the clients trust them. I mean, I shouldn't look at them as being, you know, any different than the rest of us. I've got a good team that my clients trust and, and we deliver day in and day out and, and it's oversight, you know, it's oversight and management and tweaking and doing and this and that. And, you know, some days aren't boring and some days are, some days things get screwed up. But if you have a zero tolerance for failure, well then that's a pretty high place to, to achieve a zero tolerance for failure. Some people say, well, the hot dogs are cold once in a while, you know, it's a service business, but

James Blain 1:11:34

but it's what you do. What I, I think the lesson there, and you've, you've already talked about it. We've hit on it. You know, the mentality of, well, we're gonna screw up sometimes, or the hot dog's gonna be cold. I would, I would challenge that with, it's not about whether or not you're gonna mess

Ken Lucci 1:11:50

It is the

James Blain 1:11:50

human. It's the recovery. You're on it, Ken. I mean, and, and you talked about that you were, you were gonna get him outta the Super Bowl, or you're gonna die trying you. There are so many times that I hear operators that, you know, Hey, the, there's nothing we can do. We can't get anybody there. You should call an Uber. You should do this. Well, no, I shouldn't do shit. Right? And, you know, we'll bleep that ass the first time I've ever said that. But look, I'm trying to make a point here of your whole goal is to take care of this person. Your whole goal, like you said, is to create this experience. And one of the favorite quotes we have at PAX is, you know, Maya Angelou said, they'll forget what you said. They'll forget what you did. They're never gonna forget how you made

Ken Lucci 1:12:34

them feel. Yep. And the zero tolerance for failure is absolutely Charlie's mantra. Guys, that's a great spot to leave it out. I can't think of a better one other than you need to text me when you have a publishing date because we're going to rock this book again. And I think the next conversation, the, it's totally, we're gonna have to, we're gonna read the book and we're to talk about life stories because one of the most thing important things to me about you. Is the private conversations you and I have had and how you've rose back from what would've killed most people, and we share a commonality in that. You know what I'm talking about, and it would've killed most people, and you really did a great job.

Charlie Horky 1:13:20

eh, you know, I. You know, when they had their foot on my neck, they figured I wasn't that bad. So they let me back up. You know, I mean, it, you know, some people they just keep the pressure up 'cause they're dirty people, but

Ken Lucci 1:13:32

Absolutely.

Charlie Horky 1:13:33

they're rotten. But no, I, I, I've been, I think I've been a pretty good guy,

James Blain 1:13:37

Thanks again, Charlie.

1:13:39

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.