Ken Lucci 0:26

Hey, podcast land. Welcome, uh, to another exciting episode of the Crown Transportation Podcast. Uh, my name is Ken Lucci. From driving transactions we knew we do profit analysis, financial performance reviews, business valuations, and I am as always joined by my very, uh, capable, uh, co-host James Blame from PAX training, the best, uh, customer service and chauffeur training in the industry and driver training in the industry. And, uh, we are joined today. Uh, a little emotional for me because the, the, the guy in the lower right hand box, the, the, uh, the older gentleman, uh, on the call was one of the first people that embraced me when I was an operator. Back in 2006 and, um, he reached out to me when he came down to Florida. We, we met up, um, and he referred me to a lot of people. Arthur Messina from Create A Card is joining us today, and his, uh, very capable, uh, son, drew Messina, who is taking over the reigns of Create a card, uh, is with us today. if you have not been exposed to create a card as a brand, even know that you can call yourself being in the chauffeur industry

James Blain 1:42

You are under a rock at that point.

Ken Lucci 1:44

you're under a rock because these guys are legendary. The brand is extraordinarily well known as far, every time I go into an office, I'm seeing boxes with create a card, collateral material by create a card because nobody knows this industry like. a card. They, they know what works. And that's what we're gonna be talking about today. We're gonna be talking about marketing your chauffeur business. So Arthur, we're gonna start off with you. Give us a, a, a, a history of create a card and how did you get into the crazy, uh, chauffeur? Transportation, transportation industry?

Arthur Messina 2:18

First off, thank you, Ken, and to James for having both myself and Drew on this podcast. It's a pleasure. I'm not sure we, we weren't the first one, but I'm, we're here guys. Thank you.

James Blain 2:29

We were waiting on the new marketing material. We order from you guys to come in.

Ken Lucci 2:32

Well, we wanted, to wait on the A list players. So you are here now.

Arthur Messina 2:36

There you go.

James Blain 2:37

Oh.

Ken Lucci 2:38

you.

Arthur Messina 2:38

for those that have been under a rock, um, yes. My name is Arthur Messina. I am the founder and president. Started back in 1986. Um, we've been helping the luxury ground transportation market that businesses since 1986 were, so we're almost about four and a half decades, um, close to it, of working with the ground in industry. Um, we started with the basic of a business card, Ken. It was just real simple. Back in 1986, we started with picture business cards and it wasn't something that was out there. Um, back in the day when my dad had a business, he was in the, uh, ground sanitation business. Would you believe that? With the last name of Cena? Go figure. Um, but

Ken Lucci 3:25

Stereotype stereotype.

Arthur Messina 3:27

I didn't even realize until after the fact that when I went back and one of the. So our very first step into the ground transportation industry was working with a company called Richard James Limousine that had a couple of Cadillacs parked at a gas station back in 86. There were no really big operators, there was no big facilities that you're looking at as you do to today. Uh, I stopped by and Jim Ferra was the owner of the gas station and the, uh, transportation business, and I said, Hey, I'd love to take a picture of your, of your vehicle and put it on a business card. And the guy looked at me like I was three way sideways. I mean, it just, it just didn't make sense. What do you mean you got put a picture of my limousine on a car? This is a calling. When you pass out your business card, people will know exactly what it that you do, and that was the concept for starting create card. We wanted to take an item that people needed to see or didn't understand, put the picture on it with the rest of the business card information. that their calling card. And that was the start of Create a Card back in 1980s. This was even before Drew, drew was even born. Um, here we are. We, we come into the nineties. We started doing business cards. We were doing postcards, we were doing brochures. We're doing, um, different forms of marketing. We come into 2000. We're getting bigger into trade shows, trade show, marketing, trade show booth. Um, fortunately both of you guys are clients as well. We've done everything for a driving transaction. We've done stuff for, for PACS as well. From

James Blain 5:05

The original logo, right. Designed by create a card.

Arthur Messina 5:09

pins,

James Blain 5:09

Yep.

Arthur Messina 5:10

the trade show boots

Ken Lucci 5:11

You did my logos.

James Blain 5:13

Yep.

Ken Lucci 5:13

percent.

Arthur Messina 5:14

so we. I guess we're a marketing company, but we're really a service company. We are a relationship company that our product is marketing tools. We understand from 19 80, 19 90 2000, 2010, 2020 right now, of what the trends are. We stay on top of that every day. When I'm out and I'm looking, I'm looking, you know, it's, it's hard being in the marketing business and looking at what everyone else does because you don't go on vacation and just enjoy. You look at the rack cards, you look at the, the signage, you look at everything. What's good, what's bad? How come they put a bullet point there? How come they didn't put the bullet point there? Where's the QR code? Where's the phone number?

Ken Lucci 5:59

Oh, it's occupational

James Blain 6:01

Ah. Yeah,

Ken Lucci 6:02

hazard. You have to, You have that eye.

Arthur Messina 6:05

and going forward, so sometimes people feel like, Hey, you're not at work. You're always at work. I mean,

James Blain 6:10

right.

Arthur Messina 6:10

market, in the marketing business. we come to the year 2000, 2020, um, you know, my predecessor or my, my go-to guy has been Drew, drew. Um, it's, it is funny when you have children and those that have children will understand this. You talk and you rant and you tell stories day after day, year after year, and you think your kids never listen until finally comes back to at you and says, Hey, art, you're right. I heard what you said. I didn't acknowledge it. Now I'm repeating it on a daily basis, 3, 4, 5, 6 times a day of things that you told me, things that I heard. So it, it does work. It just comes around at maybe at, at a later time.

James Blain 6:53

Yeah.

Ken Lucci 6:53

Well, and you're being humble though. You're being humble because the chances that a business will transition to the next generation are slim.

James Blain 7:02

Okay.

Ken Lucci 7:03

So you've taught 'em, you've taught 'em extremely well.

Arthur Messina 7:06

Well, I, I'll, I'll take a little credit for that, but that's really our vice president, Kathy Messina. Uh, my wife. My wife, his mom.

James Blain 7:14

The real boss,

Ken Lucci 7:15

we have to acknowledge the fact that the real brains of the operation couldn't make it today on the podcast.

Arthur Messina 7:21

Yes. But she was the one that's, she was the one that spoke to Drew. Drew had a background as a teacher in the school system. He was educating and the school system would push him down that he was doing too well, and it's making the other teachers look bad. And he got frustrated and at a point he took some time away from the school and mom said, Hey, we could use your help. Why don't you just come in and help out for a little bit? It's not a job. We're not asking to come and run the business. Just come and help out. Drew, how many years has that been?

Andrew Messina 7:55

enough.

Arthur Messina 7:58

So now, so now what, as Ken will tell you, with every business, you need an exit plan.

James Blain 8:04

Yeah.

Arthur Messina 8:04

And as I look to Drew, drew is our exit plan. We're in the process of that now. Uh, Kathy and I still work on a regular basis. We're still here. You see us at the trade shows. Uh, but we are transitioning. Um, and probably we will look at handing over the res, our anniversary, which is, that's our. When you create a business and you run a successful business and you, and you have a, a enjoyable run at it, you also need to be able to enjoy the things outside of business.

James Blain 8:36

Right.

Arthur Messina 8:37

don't live just to run our businesses. That is the vehicle till we get to our next point. And when you get to that point, you wanna be able to enjoy life and you gotta enjoy life while you still can, while things work, while you can walk, while you can think, while you can talk, while you can enjoy the things and the money you made, you wanna spend back and put back into the economy.

Ken Lucci 8:55

So tell me something, Arthur, how did you avoid getting burnt outta the business? You, when I see you and Kathy, you're always smiling. You bring it, you, you guys, the three of you at, at, at, at the NLA cd, NLA, that you are a fixture there. How, how did you stay so motivated over the 40 years? And then we'll go to Drew on what's going on now?

Arthur Messina 9:17

So I think Ken with that is we look at it as every year we go to the trade show, it's a cousin family reunion. not going to talk to my clients or pick up new clients. I'm going to talk to our friends, our cousins. And if I start a list, I mean, you could just go through the affiliate pages in the back of the magazine, you could go through. Everyone advertises. I mean, it's the A one A in the worlds. It's the Urbans, it's the Carolina Limousines. It's everybody. It's it's Dave l. It's Limo Anywhere. These are all clients of ours. Every name that you can pick up, whether it's a Leros, it's a Park Avenue, and so on and so on. These are clients of ours. So when we go to the shows, we get to see our friends, we get to see our clients. We don't push, we don't hard sell. In 40 years, you've never seen us push or hard sell or deadline Today.

Ken Lucci 10:10

No. Listen, you've had competition. Come in, try to infiltrate the market and literally fail miserably because they don't have the secret sauce that you have, which is the cultivation of relationships, the networking. You've always network, you've always referred me, you've always networked with the your customers. Okay? And these other guys don't get that. And that's a lesson for the operators out there, right? It is main, it is creating, maintaining the relationships and networking. And how many times have you called me and said, Hey Kent, so and so is thinking of, of exiting. Or they may need your help,

Arthur Messina 10:47

Give him call.

Ken Lucci 10:47

you,

Arthur Messina 10:48

It happens.

Ken Lucci 10:49

of net. The out of networking, you perfected it.

Arthur Messina 10:52

It happens all the time. Um, my dad, Drew's grandfather always said, you have two ears and one mouth. Listen more than you talk. And you know, you don't realize these things when people say stuff until it really clicks. And, and it's true. We listen to our clients, we listen to the other vendors that we do work with, and we try to help them the best way that we can. That is our goal. Again, when we, when somebody sells, and Ken, you understand this, you, you've been selling a lot of businesses over the last, you know, two years, three years. But we lose clients because our other clients are buying our clients. So we end up with less clients, but our client became bigger. You know, but you, you, you still work with that. And our goal is to maintain that, maintain the relationship, maintain the networking, try to be out there. And that means whether it's in person or online, we try to do both the best we can.

James Blain 11:46

think the other thing here that that often gets overlooked is going back to where you said you started originally, business cards. You get a lot of companies like, I'm gonna go on Vistaprint, I'm gonna make a card and I'm gonna print and it's gonna be awesome. Um, Go ahead. Do you make business cards for a living? Is that someone that can advise you on it? Is that someone that can say, Hey, while you're at the Yeah. What works in the industry when you're at a trade show? Can you write on that card? Can you, you know, I have, uh, having the pleasure of having worked with you guys throughout the 10 years that. Past has existed. I could tell you right now, I've driven both Arthur and Drew nuts because you guys are our partners, right? Yeah. No, not me. Not not picky James. No, but, but to that point, you guys really operate more as a partnership of, hey, you need to consider this, Hey, this is what's gonna work. There's a lot of expertise and there's a lot of knowledge that they're gaining from working with someone like you. And there's a lot of things that you don't think about in that space. I think one of the things that I'd love to kind of hear about is how that's kind of evolved over the years. 'cause obviously, you know, I won't, I won't date myself, but 86 is pretty early on in, in my existence. Right. If at all. And so what, what is that look like kind of growing through as you've partnered and worked with all these companies? What's been the through line and changed? Obviously you guys have evolved so much.

Arthur Messina 14:14

Well, I guess the comment is myself, Kathy, um, bringing Drew in, we have a consistency. Um, I'm a phone call away. I'm an email away. I'm a cell phone away. thing that Drew's learned over the last five to seven years is how come your phone rings at Saturday night at eight o'clock when the operator thinks about, Hey, I need something to get done. And we, we answer the

James Blain 14:39

Yeah.

Arthur Messina 14:40

do. If, if, Hey, I'm busy. I'm out to dinner. I'll get back to you tomorrow. I'll get back to you later. Um, again, I guess the best way to look at it's, we're strategic advisors. We're just not a

James Blain 14:51

No.

Arthur Messina 14:51

We're there,

James Blain 14:53

No.

Arthur Messina 14:53

there for our clients, but not in a selling process and a helping process. And.

Andrew Messina 14:59

conci, more of a more of a concierge marketing firm versus just a standard marketing

James Blain 15:04

Ah.

Ken Lucci 15:04

a hundred. Absolutely. How many times have you said to me, Ken, three words instead of 12, and this is how you can say this. You've edited my stuff down to perfection. Don't be laughing at me anyway. I only kidding. So,

Andrew Messina 15:17

facts.

Ken Lucci 15:18

true.

James Blain 15:18

Eh,

Ken Lucci 15:19

gonna get that from Vistaprint. And you've

James Blain 15:21

no.

Ken Lucci 15:21

me it's, it's literally what works in the industry. But you're being modest because you pivoted to electronic brochures and you've got unbelievable graphics people, right? So you're not gonna get that with Vistaprint. You're not gonna get that with the online person, even if you're local. Minuteman printer doesn't know what the industry doesn't know what works. So when I say to operators opera, I, I recommend rack cards, I recommend use cases. I recommend electronic and paper, and I recommend marketing materials. So, drew, is working now? pandemic. What is working? Now I'm gonna tell you my pet peeve to tee this up over the past 90 days. Look, the first quarter was a little slow for 2025. Okay? So what I'm seeing now that I've not, that I've not seen before, I'm seeing a ton of people doing massive PPC that they didn't do before. I'm seeing people doing tons of paid social media, and I'm getting email blasts now. Okay? So what that says to me is you are reacting. You don't have a sales and marketing machine in place that is constantly rolling. You're reacting to down, you're not building your brand every day. And that's kind of the reason we asked you on, I believe there is a, there is a tremendous need for a holistic, a pie approach to marketing and advertising and promoting. I. And I think people are ignoring some of the tried and true traditionals of regional block and tackle marketing. So what works, what's working, and what are you seeing for trends?

Andrew Messina 17:05

Well, first off, thank you guys for having me. Um, it's definitely something that you'd say it is a holistic. You don't wanna wait till that last minute because then at that point, then by the time something starts and you get that ball rolling, it's already too late. And then you have a gap in your sales, which is, could be catastrophic at best. At worst, do have the option. What does work is a return to traditional marketing. Things that never fail. You wanna go ahead. You wanna go out and get your postcards out there. You wanna get

James Blain 17:33

Huh?

Andrew Messina 17:33

cards out there. You wanna do thank you cards. The things I see all the time, the people go, oh, we're in a digital world. I don't need a business card. Who needs a business card? I go, that's great. Your name's John. Your name's Ken. Your name's this one. How many John, Ken, Sallys, Nicoles do you have in your

James Blain 17:48

Huh?

Andrew Messina 17:49

And then you go, oh, I met them. And then you go home and you don't even remember what you ha what you said you were supposed to

James Blain 17:55

You've lost the relationship.

Andrew Messina 17:57

I. Who you were talking to and then

James Blain 17:59

I.

Andrew Messina 17:59

trying to go through your phone and trying to find someone and say, oh, I, I tapped their phone and I, I lost it. Forget it. If you have, you keep your card on your desk, you give it to someone. Even if you won't go so far as put your picture on it. It goes so that people know who you are. They know how to

James Blain 18:15

Right.

Andrew Messina 18:15

put a face to the name. That's just something that's always key, especially even in a digital world. 'cause then they can take that, they could scan the QR code on there, go to your website, they could scan it, input them into your phone so you become that, uh, that person that they can just pick up and dial easily. going back to those simple basic things that work, the tried and true methods of marketing, you want to go out and you want it, send out something in the mail. I know personally when I get mail, I actually open it. I don't, my email is a 50 50, whether I just sit there and I scroll all the way down at Lightspeed, like it's a Star Wars movie and I'm sitting there going just delete, delete, delete, delete junk spam. I don't care. And sometimes, you know, I'll see someone's name, I know I'll click on it. But if you send me something in the mail, you drop something at my office, you bring something to me, hand it to me in person. You have exponentially better opportunities for me to look at what you're looking at or what you want me to look at and how to even address it, maybe even content and absorb it. And then you have your ROI right then and there.

Ken Lucci 19:15

it look, it, it points to the tried and true method of cold calling, okay? And, and I don't care whether you're at the airport. I don't care whether you're out and about a business card to me, the best ROI, you get 500 or a thousand cards, right? Every card you pass out is a, is a basically a, A, a Penny's created impression. Most importantly, you give a business card, you get one back, or you give the business card. Here's my contact information. What's your email address? Gimme your business card. I don't have one. What's your email address? I'm gonna send you follow up of everything that we do. You know, there's a reason why it's called the calling card from back in the day. Okay. And I do, I think people have made a massive mistake in cutting down on their paper business cards for the exact reason that you said at the a hundred percent.

Andrew Messina 20:09

But it, but it, but it it goes, it goes to the point too, that people go ahead and say, all right, I can get them cheap or I can go get 'em online. I can go on Vistaprint or

James Blain 20:17

yeah.

Andrew Messina 20:17

have them done. But that's great. And then, you know how many business cards I get that don't have an email on them, that don't have something spelled correctly on them?

Arthur Messina 20:25

A location.

Andrew Messina 20:26

my favorite, favorite business card I ever got, it had the file, it had the printed on the front on the backside of the business card. It said backside on other file.

Ken Lucci 20:35

Oh

Andrew Messina 20:36

Like, who puts that into production?

Ken Lucci 20:38

Right

Andrew Messina 20:38

Like when we sit there, we look at everything before it goes into production. We try to work with you. You see it, make sure you see it, we see it. And that's the difference. Versus you going online, you're probably doing it at 11 o'clock at night.

James Blain 20:49

Yeah.

Andrew Messina 20:50

half awake, your kids are screaming, you're like, submit, and then you get what you put into something. It's same way you don't drive, you don't drive an old hoopty, um, to pick up your clients. You put, you bring out a nice, clean vehicle that's modern and up to date. You wanna make sure your marketing materials represent your company if you're running these luxurious

Ken Lucci 21:10

it, it, it re it recommends it's the, it, it's a direct reflection of your brand. And when it has the little Vistaprint logo on it, to me, it's like a guy that, that his business email address is Gmail or Yahoo. Oh, my favorite one. We're not gonna say who it is, aol.com. So the business card, what's most importantly to me is, you know what works because you've been doing this in the same industry and your graphics, people catch stuff all of the time. So your experience is worth the delta, whatever it is. Hey, look guys out there and gals out there, you anybody, you can get an illegal operator to take you to the airport and you can also do an Uber X, but you use chauffeur transportation. Your clients use chauffeur transportation because they know the, they are early morning experts. The vehicle's gonna be safe, it's

James Blain 22:00

Yeah,

Ken Lucci 22:01

insured. The same with these guys. They know what works. They know the trends. There's 40 years of knowledge in that's transferring in this business. It's critically important.

James Blain 22:10

well, there's, there's something else there, Ken. And I think the, the thing that has really kind of risen to the top in our industry is that our industry right now, we are having to differentiate ourselves. Like you said, you, you're not gonna show up in a hoopty. How many times do you have someone that has a beautiful vehicle, a beautiful experience, and they hand you that card? What we so often forget is that when someone hands you a business card, your first experience with it isn't actually gonna be your eyes looking at it. It's how it feels in your hand. Uh, and Drew is laughing, right? Because I, I all but tortured drew on this, right? And, and, and Arthur was involved in this because, you know, we spent what, like a month or more talking about, I. How does my business card feel in someone's hand? What is the cut? Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. The truth is coming out six months later,

Andrew Messina 23:02

That was the last round of revisions.

James Blain 23:04

yeah, but how does it feel in the hand? How does it, you know, go with that. And so a lot of time and effort went into that. And I can tell you, for me, there was that moment of, that's a waste of time until the first time I handed someone a card and they, oh wow, this is nice. Because the second, yeah, they felt it the second their hand touched the card. We talk about this in PAX training all the time. It's very hard to put a definition on what customer services define customer service define luxury to me. But if I tell you. What does it feel like? Oh, well, we all know what it feels like. And so I think it's really important to note that one of the key takeaways here is knowing that you have to do that when you go in, when you don't spend the time it's there. So I guess my question would be, knowing that that's an issue, knowing that that's something that operators aren't focusing on, what do you guys see right now as the opportunity for someone that's listening to this and going, holy crap, I've never thought about that. Is that a phone call to you guys? Is that, you know, Hey, I rethink my mark. What? What do they do to fix that? And what are the things you want them to have in mind that are gonna help them get there?

Ken Lucci 24:16

What are the basic elements that they can't be without? Period.

James Blain 24:19

Absolutely.

Andrew Messina 24:20

So looking at your business card, I always first say, when you look at a stack, go look at the stack sitting on your desk. So when you go through that, you, they're sitting on your desk for a reason. First off. And that, so this way, if you need to reach them, even though they may be in your phone, even though you may know them, you still have their cards. But as you start going through that stack in that pile, does anything make it stand out? There's a reason that on your table at home you have, you have magazines. Let's go back to.

James Blain 24:45

So,

Andrew Messina 24:45

advertising with a stack of magazines, who ends up on top? Does it have the right, is it a special size? Is it a special thickness? Is it a special coloring scheme? Is what makes you stand out, because everyone can have a business card and that's great. Everyone should have a business card. But if you need to differentiate yourself from the rest of the mainstream that's out there so that your company can differentiate itself, key things that you definitely wanna make sure you wanna be very, very clear. Who you are and what you do. I can't tell you how many people I've seen give me a card and I'm, and I'm looking and I'm upside down trying to peel it in the middle to figure out what do they do.

James Blain 25:23

yeah.

Andrew Messina 25:23

sit there and I'm like, oh, you're a B, C 1, 2, 3. Are you a company? Are you a transportation company? Do you, what do you, what do

James Blain 25:31

Yeah.

Andrew Messina 25:32

I need, I need It needs to be clear. Yeah. And that's always the thing I say, it needs to be clear. If it's not in your logo, it needs to be a, a subheader. It needs to be somewhere that is very visible and very easy to read because you don't want people to think, they let, they think the easier it is for people to want to communicate with you. And that's something that's a big trend that we're noticing that I constantly will get people just like Ken, who will love to go ahead and give you an entire encyclopedia and put it on a two by three, three and a half inch little piece of paper. And that's great. You have a lot to say. That's awesome, but let's make sure that we use the correct mediums.

Ken Lucci 26:08

are free. Words are free.

Andrew Messina 26:10

Yeah, but the edits aren't.

Ken Lucci 26:12

That's why I come to you. That's why I come to you guys. And Arthur was literally the first guy that said to me when I had him look at my PowerPoint. She's like, Ken, too many words.

Arthur Messina 26:22

No one's.

Ken Lucci 26:23

is worth a thousand words. Listen, the other piece of this puzzle is, if you are going after the corporate trade and you really, that's a big part of it. I'm a big believer in having a wedding business card and

James Blain 26:36

Yeah.

Ken Lucci 26:36

an airport corporate business card because they're special. Exactly

Andrew Messina 27:46

Mm-hmm.

James Blain 27:47

Yep.

Ken Lucci 27:47

addition to the business cards. I think that, that, that postcards have returned in vogue. You know why I'm not, I'm not getting a hundred of them in the mail anymore. I think mail, direct mail is back in vogue. And I also believe that rifle shot direct mail mean we send out a gift card style that you guys designed the envelope and I don't send out a hundred of 'em. I send out maybe it's regimentation 10

James Blain 28:21

Oh.

Ken Lucci 28:21

a week. You know, I I, I think that, look, we all have overhead hanging around. Okay. Especially operators with reservation and dispatch staff. I, you, you telling me that dispatcher on third shift or that reservationist at 11 o'clock in the morning is busy? No, they're on Facebook. So how about they send out some collateral material? What is, what is essential collateral material if you wanna grow your business?

Arthur Messina 28:49

So, Ken, uh, something, I wrote an article back in probably early 1990s, was called Five a Day. Five a day. Day means that you can create a postcard and mail out five cards per day. This was for a small operator. Somebody's got one to two cards. Can't handle doing the mailing of a thousand pieces, 5,000 pieces, but if you've got your postcards, you personally address them five per day. That's say you work a five day work week, that's 25 a week. Four weeks of the month, it's a hundred a month. It's a great way and an easy way just to get your message out there. In this particular case, this client said 50% off your, your round trip or $50 off your round trip. So there's times right now in the corporate market where you're losing your airport community, you're losing your night on the town, you, you're losing the accounts of the corporate account. But if you can make them an offer to get them into your vehicle, because the client needs to be in the vehicle, the client needs to see it. It's no different. That why we come to trade shows. And we're just not online. There's, people need to touch. James said he wouldn't have known the difference if he didn't touch that soft touch finish of that postcard, which all of a sudden became Wow. And it's not about the information on the business card, it was the fielding. I caught his attention. Second, he looked at it to see what the business card says. So it's very important to get the people back in. So postcards is very simple. Five a day. If you're a largest size company, you can do 25 a day, and, and the numbers just equal up. But if you mail out 5,000 or 10,000 cards in one day, you're gonna kill your, your reservationist with the calls coming in and not being able to get each client or potential client the time and answers that they need. So you spread it out over time. So postcards.

Ken Lucci 30:34

question.

Arthur Messina 30:35

Are correct. The envelope is key. So you can do a holiday card, you can do a Thanksgiving card, happy New Year card. You can do a birthday card or you can even just do a gift certificate. But when a card comes in, in an envelope and hand addressed, not running it off the computer because we're running 5,000, we don't wanna write 5,000, but hand address, you guys know what it's like. I used to get a, a, a check from my grandmother for my birthday. And whether it was $5, $10 that week of your birthday mail came in and envelope, you opened it up right away. Now we're getting less real mail in, in our mailboxes, so when you get something, it gets your attention more. So, like Drew said, your Ebox gets inundated with a hundred to 300 emails. And how many of those do you actually look at?

James Blain 31:21

Well, and something else there, Arthur, is, we haven't talked about this. You know, I was always taught when I was growing up in small business that it was touchpoints. And something that we haven't touched on is you are typically not going to have one touchpoint, one contact, and there's a magic sale. Um, now, guys, correct me, I'm not the expert on this, I was always taught, right? Seven's a holy number in marketing and in church, right? So you have to have se well, yeah. Yeah. And the casino. Don't forget the boat. Don't forget the boat. You really need God to help you at the boat. Um, but you know, your seven there is, you have to have seven touch points. And this is something in the past 10 years of Pax, at least internally, that's the number we've lived and died by, is we knew that no matter who it was, if we meet 'em once, right? If I meet you and I hand you a card, like Arthur said, I'm gonna write a thank you or I'm gonna write you something. I've, I've got seven touch points that I have to make. Before my chances go up of actually getting you as a customer. Is that still true today? And how does that kind of play into the concepts that we've talked about so far?

Andrew Messina 32:29

That, that's still definitely true. That, and that goes back to the idea of what Kim was saying before. You know, you can't just go one idea. You have to go the entire route of marketing. Marketing is a broad term, and if you go ahead and you say, I'm just going to email someone, and you email them and email them and email them and they don't answer, they don't pick up. You have to pick up the phone. You

James Blain 32:49

Yeah.

Andrew Messina 32:49

another way to get involved in. One of Arthur's favorite line is just pick up the phone. Just pick up the phone. Millennials, gen Z. You see there's a, there's a lot of things I heard. I didn't realize that I sound just like Arthur now. It's kind of wild. Pray for me,

Ken Lucci 33:04

Listen,

Andrew Messina 33:05

it works.

Ken Lucci 33:05

call. Cold calling. Cold calling works. Especially when you, when you, when you legitimately, I, I'm gonna give you an example. We, we had a major transaction that took place. We weren't involved in it, but we called and congratulated the new owners. And guess what? We are doing a complete review of the business that they just bought because they're from outside the industry. Right. And that was a massive, it's a massive contract for us and it was cold calling. Okay. Congratulations for buying the business. My name is Ken. We do profit reviews, financial reviews, et cetera, et cetera. If you're looking for any other acquisitions, that was it. It was a 32nd phone call. I left a voicemail. The guy calls me and I sent a, a follow up email and I sent a card. Okay, congratulations. And those were the three touch points. The guy calls back. So cold calling to me. You don't have to be gregarious. It helps when you have something in your hand, so you have that business card. You need your 32nd commercial. drew, it was great to meet you today. Okay. Tell me something. Do you do, do you travel a lot? We do a lot of airport business. We do a lot of out night out business. If you ever need anything, let me know. Right? So I, I, I think that that's a, there's a lost art, but if you do it without a business card, right? Even if you, even if you do text them or something to me, you've lost it. It's not, it's not tangible. And

Andrew Messina 34:30

Do you need something to hold on?

James Blain 34:32

Now

Ken Lucci 34:33

The ROI of the business card and the postcard and, and I, it's funny talking to a small operator the other day, uh, he bought our financials course and he's like, look, I'm finally outta the seat. finally outta the seat. I'm finally, literally at five

James Blain 34:49

try to,

Ken Lucci 34:49

driving anymore. I said, okay, guess what? Congratulations. Now, you're, you're taking off your chauffeur hat. Now you're in the b the BD hat. What's BD Business development every single day. What is your personal sales agenda? Right?

James Blain 35:04

yep.

Ken Lucci 35:04

don't, I don't really have time to do. Yes, you do. You,

James Blain 35:07

You gotta make time. You better make time

Ken Lucci 35:10

So, so if you're, if you're a small operator, sending out those 25 business postcards, right? Do it when you're downtime at the airport. Don't have 'em all over the car. Bring a little leather valise with you and handwritten notes always make a huge difference. The business card, if you have them and you've got 500 that you bought for the show, 'cause you want all that affiliate business, Jesus Christ, please now

James Blain 35:35

and, and put your city on there for God's sake. I can't tell you how many affiliate, how many affiliates go to the show with the same card that says Worldwide, right? They're going to a show. They're trying to get affiliate business worldwide. So you have locations in every city on the planet, for god's sake. Make a separate set that says your city. Where are we sending you the affiliate work to?

Andrew Messina 35:54

where do you have boots on the ground?

Ken Lucci 35:56

Rudder. Dawson Rudder said that, remember that He said that, uh, from Commonwealth, he

James Blain 36:00

Yep.

Ken Lucci 36:01

want my business and I'm leaving with business cards. They have literally, what am I supposed to know?

James Blain 36:05

Why do I send this?

Ken Lucci 36:07

do I,

James Blain 36:07

Yeah,

Ken Lucci 36:08

So

James Blain 36:08

and it's.

Ken Lucci 36:09

a big. Look, I'm a big believer in, I mean it, it's good for an extra set of business cards, same branding message, which you guys are always on me on about logo, the same colors, the same branding, the same. But I think special purpose business cards are important. I, I'm not gonna hire a corporate driver who's got all over business card that we're wedding specialists. At the same time, if I'm going to a wedding show, which by the way, love the wedding shows the biggest, if you ask me what I miss about the industry, it's the Rolls Royce at the bus, at the wedding shows, right? Always miss that. But the business cars have to say, wedding specialist, we know how to take care of you on your special day. Less words, I know, but you're a wedding specialist. You're not gonna use a corporate business card for that. It's the same thing with the postcards. Arthur Breezed over something that again. He always drives home to me is what's the offer, Ken? What's the

James Blain 37:06

Oh,

Ken Lucci 37:06

Cut

Arthur Messina 37:07

Call.

Ken Lucci 37:08

and what's the offer?

James Blain 37:09

tailor it to them and have the offer. Yep.

Arthur Messina 37:12

It could be, it could be a call to action of a percentage off, a dollar amount off. It could be that you're just looking to get a phone number and email address. You need to for them to be able to respond. So this way, you know, it's working for you. Uh, James, to get back to your point, you were saying what are the different things that you can do, uh, in-person? Networking is very

James Blain 37:33

Yep.

Arthur Messina 37:34

Online presence is important. The website, it's the social media presence, it's the trade show. It's attending the, uh, the local meetings. It's attending the association meetings and again. When we come to trade shows where there in person you can touch and feel industry wise, it's important to go to associations because you're not working against the other guy, even though they're in your city. You are working together

James Blain 37:57

Right.

Arthur Messina 37:57

for 30 years plus, I've been telling if you got five cars, James and Ken has 10 and Drew has six. How about we're a company of 20 plus vehicles. I'm not worried about compet against you. You'll get your business. I'll get my business. But together now I can handle larger groups 'cause I got 20 vehicles because I'm next to me instead against.

James Blain 38:17

You are out of the scarcity mindset. You're getting into that mindset of the size of the industry.

Arthur Messina 38:21

important to understand that

James Blain 38:23

Yep.

Arthur Messina 38:23

what we do. There's, yes, there's a lot of comparison in ground transportation as there is in marketing. There's the Vista point, uh, Vista Print. There's the four imprint. But the reason you go to a creative cart, and Ken, you hit this right on this, we know this, I've been doing this 40 years. I could have spread myself dead into 17 other industries as a lot of vendors that you see. They go to all these different industries. We focus on luxury, ground transportation. We understand. I sat on the board as a vendor director for three years. I speak with all the people that are on the board. They're clients of ours. We attend the, the, the trade shows. We attend the, the meetings. We attend local associates. We understand ground transportation. So when you go to a Vista print, and it's no different than luxury ground transportation versus Uber. There's

James Blain 39:09

Right.

Arthur Messina 39:10

for everybody. The Uber client is not the client for the luxury ground Transportation and Vistaprint is not our client either. If you're looking to do something better with your company market and brand your company, then you choose us. Go back and look at how Gem Li Gem Limo changed their brand and change their look. Go look at Mike Rose from my limo. Change the brand, change his look and what they're doing moving forward. Look at the association from LANJ of how they change the brand, how they change their look. That's what Create a Card does. That's how we help you with.

James Blain 39:42

Yeah.

Ken Lucci 39:43

right. So when Mike and, and. Mike's a client and, and, and he basically said, look, we need to, we need to evolve the brand. So he didn't go to Vistaprint and, and to his credit, he didn't go to a generic marketing or advertising company. You've seen other people their brand to be able to do larger equipment and, and, and so, you know, I want talk a little bit about the electronic capability brochure and the capability sheet, or the, or, or the capability rack card, why it's so important.

Andrew Messina 40:18

So, so those are great because rack cards are a very simple thing. For those that don't know what a rack card is. It's a four by nine postcard. Real simple. It gets the size of a brochure, uh, fits right into a standard envelope, fits right into your sport Jacket, fits into most women's pocket books. It's easy, it's movable. It's a great opportunity. It gets you what you're trying to do. It communicates, hey, who you are. What services you offer and gives you an opportunity to even show what fleet you have or different things that you're trying to feature. The best part about this is then you could then take this and turn it into a digital medium as well. You can then take a version of this. We can create you a digital PDF so that you can attach this. So you're sending out an email, you're trying to get a quote, you're trying to do, um, some sort of, uh, acquisition of, uh, an account or something. You have that opportunity to then say, Hey, here's the physical thing I gave you. Let me reattach in case it somehow it got lost in the mail. Your dog ate it, whatever the situation was, because it happens as an adult too, you know, so you, you have that opportunity. You can then go ahead and attach that to have marketing materials that build across your, your system. So you don't just have a, here's a business card, here's a rack card, and here's a umbrella and nothing coordinates. The whole point of working with a

James Blain 41:33

line.

Andrew Messina 41:33

is to coordinate everything. Same way you don't go out in a purple shirt and some other color pants, and you, you wanna make sure everything matches and corresponds to each other so that when you send out a booklet, when you send out your, your mailing, everyone starts to know and get your brand, get your brand identity out there. And it's not just your logo. Your logo is, is your logo, but you want to build your brand and build the whole picture that's out there. And that's the most important thing. And that's why when you have these opportunities to make a card. Followed up with a coordinated e-blast. Say, Hey, you know, so it looks similar. It shows similar fields, shows how to reach you. Um, and it's a great thing. Brochures say a lot of information and people love to read them. People need information, but maybe not all the time. They don't have all the time in the world. That's where I call, it's the cliff notes version of, of a brochure. That's what a rack card's perfect for. So it gets you that opportunity to go ahead and get people to see and get a quick overview, and then you can turn it and grow it into a brochure. Take that brochure, turn it into a digital PDF, so that as you're submitting, uh, in for these contracts, you can attach that information and that people can look more. And then if they wanna know more, then they can go to your website. Going back to that entire picture of what you're

James Blain 42:49

If you're setting up your seven

Andrew Messina 42:50

pigeonhole something. You

James Blain 42:52

Yep.

Andrew Messina 42:52

that entire thing and grow your brand like you would grow a family.

Ken Lucci 42:56

and you've always asked me this question, Ken, who's the audience for this, right? So after I give you like 15 minutes of what it is you say, okay, so what you want to do is people who are buying, great. speak to the buyers, right? It's not the co to me, the full capability brochure or, or e electronic or the rack card, it should give. Like you said, a cliff note I CliffNotes version of of and, but speak to your audiences if you are a corporate specialist. A hundred percent. I'm a big believer in, in use cases, right? I'm a big ca especially I weddings group and meeting the same thing. The, the attributes of a group and meeting what the most important thing is on time flawless performance. people we're going to, you worry about your group and meeting, we're gonna worry about getting them there. I, I need to tell kind of what we talked about and the reason we invited you on this podcast is I have several pet peeves fucking list. One of them is long list. Um, one of them is, look, did I say this is the highlight of my day? 'cause I've been dealing with trans of my

James Blain 44:09

Doesn't get any better than this.

Ken Lucci 44:11

Look, uh, is, is, is hearing is is on Facebook. Okay? Who are we using for PPC or who are we using for SEO? Okay, great. Terrific, wonderful. True story. I was visiting a client, um, that time ago when I was doing strategic consulting in 16 or 17, and they wanted me to come out and do a full financial review and really a full review of the business. So I get in there the brother's talking about, oh, we do SEO Oh, we spend 3000 a month in PPC. Okay? We do this. Nothing traditional, just it was all about electronic because, and I was an old man still at that time. He, he was a young kid and was pissing me off. So I said, okay, you literally are in a commercial office park and I'm looking at 8, 2 8 story towers, right? And then I'm looking at all of these A buildings, B buildings, C buildings, who are in those tower. Who are the businesses in those towers? Well, well, what do you mean? Who's next to you? Left to the right. Well, what do you mean? So this is the whole point. It's great. I, I love that we're in the electronic age, but if you are doing solely PPC or you are slamming money into just SEO, you are missing the biggest piece of territory marketing, which is the people that you see and you meet every day. And you, if you, you have to have something compelling to give them. And to me, I think we've lost that. I think we lost that as businesses. I know this for a fact. If all you're doing is PPC 100%, you are attracting someone who's doing low price for low price. You are also, it's very difficult to distinguish yourself among five sponsored ads. So ISEO is critical. Websites are critical. We all know that. you guys, you cannot, to me, have a full. Pie of marketing and, and advertising, unless you have collateral. Talk about some of the other collateral materials that work. You know where I'm going with this. The

James Blain 46:19

Well,

Ken Lucci 46:19

cubes

James Blain 46:20

yep.

Ken Lucci 46:21

coffee mugs. What, what, what, what works and how do people use them?

James Blain 46:25

And while we're going down this direction, right. This is something that Drew and I have talked about a lot, Arthur and I have talked about a lot. Tell us a little bit about how you initiate conversations, right? That relational marketing. That conversational marketing, because I feel like there's so many people that think just because they buy this marketing item and give it away, they're magically gonna get business. How do they take that and turn it into a conversation? Uh, Arthur, you're, you're an absolute genius at this, right? Arthur could show up with a pen, hand it to you, and he's your new best friend. But how do you, how do you take that and turn it into a relationship in a conversation?

Arthur Messina 47:05

So this is a great, this is a great segue into the branding and swag. Um, we're swag, we're marketing gurus. Ken is right.

James Blain 47:16

Yeah.

Arthur Messina 47:16

used to be that you could drop somebody off at a corporate building, knock on 25 doors and drop things off, but that doesn't work in today's society anymore. So you need to own real estate on your client's desk or home

James Blain 47:30

Oh,

Arthur Messina 47:30

And what I mean by that

James Blain 47:32

yep.

Arthur Messina 47:32

you need to be able to get, which is the mouse pad that you're currently using. And you guys laugh, but this goes back to LAN's Mouse pad that we did over 10 years ago, and I'm still using it because it, it was real estate on my desk. It's so important. What's even better is real estate at home. Where can you get

James Blain 47:51

Oh,

Arthur Messina 47:51

a oven mi with an imprint on it that you use on a regular basis? Where can you get that pizza cutter? People order the pizza once a week and they cut their pizza. This is a great item to use. So the goal in the conversation is, how can I help you brand your business? And I'm gonna tell 'em, I can help brand your business through the means of marketing, such as swag items, where gonna find what we call a life item. A life

James Blain 48:16

oh.

Arthur Messina 48:16

is something that you want to take with you on a regular basis when you travel. How great is this little cord here that has a USB, A-U-S-B-C and a apple cord with your imprinted logo? There we go. Imprinted logo right on it. Then Ken has a carry kit. This is something that goes in my, in my backpack when I travel all the time. So when I pull out that cord, I act accidentally or on purposely. I see that logo of that company. It reminds me who they are, but I'm using something that they gave me, which is great. of you have seen this from Titus Leasing for years? They've been passing that this out at trade shows. It's a highlight that sits on your desk. So when you can, from a branding standpoint, and this is something I really instilled into Drew for him to understand, is you want to own real estate on the CEO's desk, on the secretary's desk, on the person who's buying all the transportation from you. So the goal in the conversation is, how can I help you brand your business? And I'm gonna tell 'em, I can help brand your business through the means of marketing, such as swag items, where gonna find what we call a life item. A life

James Blain 49:25

oh.

Arthur Messina 49:25

is something that you want to take with you on a regular basis Mark, there you go.

Andrew Messina 49:30

down to notepads,

Arthur Messina 49:32

there you go.

Andrew Messina 49:33

all the time.

James Blain 49:34

help.

Arthur Messina 49:34

know, so the items and, and James, if you look around your desk in the area, there's probably four or five items that you said, these are important to me. And I kept them and they probably have a logo on them. That's something you didn't go into Office Max or to buy or Staples,

James Blain 49:47

Absolutely.

Arthur Messina 49:47

someone gave it to you as a gift. Going back to this, this is something that we put together, which has the business card, as Ken spoke about, it has custom socks, it has their literature. It's also a cup and some sanitizer. This is a great leave behind. Yes, it's a little bit more expensive than most people might wanna use, but if you get the opportunity to get to the gatekeeper, you get the opportunity to get to the person doing the buying and you drop that off and you have a five minute conversation. So James, that's really what it is. It's us telling the clients or us.

Andrew Messina 50:19

directing.

James Blain 50:20

Oh.

Arthur Messina 50:20

to understand the conversations that have to have this cannot go through the email. This cannot be a digital PDF. That cannot be something that simple, but that's a face-to-face. And boy, the art of face-to-face lost. It's just not the way it was when Ken started his business and when I started my business.

Ken Lucci 50:42

I need to tell the story about the paper cubes because when, and I owned Ambassador, I, I was, what I, I would tell you flat out I was the best top line operator in the world. I just thought, wish I had a little maniac like me on the shoulder that said, why the fuck are you buying another mini bus? That other mini bus hasn't moved in four days, but I digress. The paper cube, the paper cube to me, I look at anything that he just, uh, explained. To me, you are looking for how much is this gonna cost compared to the life value or the life's, the life use, or the annual revenue of the

James Blain 51:21

Yep.

Ken Lucci 51:22

So gotta tell you, I I used to be, I used to do office. Uh, if I went to my doctor's office, I would, if I'm in the building, I'm literally dropping that stuff off. It, it, it's gotta be a little bit more tangible than a business card and it to own real estate on that desk. The paper cubes, we had a paper cube. I remember the cases coming in and the chauffeurs having to bring 'em in. What we did on the paper cubes is the last sheet. literally put the name, put a sticker that said for refills, call this number. Okay, call, call the number on the, on the, on the cube. I had sold the company in 2013, 14. My assistant down there still works there. Like Ken, they're still calling in about the paper cubes. They want more paper cubes and, and we got a lot of corporate accounts, a lot of law firms that way, lot of doctor's offices that way. We use them at networking mixers. You, you can't give them to everybody. When he, to me, what he just handed out, that's to the most important person that comes up to

James Blain 52:27

Oh

Ken Lucci 52:27

at the Chamber of Commerce meeting. That comes up to me at the, the networking happy hour, et cetera. And again, if you just go in a, the best way to work a room is somebody leaves with something tangible of yours.

James Blain 52:41

well, and

Andrew Messina 52:42

it just goes to the idea that you just need to know your audience the same way. If you're going up to, if you're going to a wedding show, you wanna start marketing wedding materials to them, you wouldn't start putting your corporate materials out to them. Same thing too, you know, COVID happened. We all were here. What's the number one thing we wanted? Hand

James Blain 52:59

sanitizer.

Andrew Messina 53:00

throw your logo on it. Still, the Ira COEs before Covid, there were COEs after Covid. They're all a real thing. You people are still gross. People are still out there. We're in the industry of shaking hands and kissing babies and making in physical interactions and, and talking to people and getting out there. And when you do that, hand sanitizer will never lose its place. Something simple too. Oh, if I happen to throw my logo, my phone number, my website on there, and you happen to keep this, put this in your pocket and now you have it every single time you go through it. There's an opportunity for repeat marketing, subliminal marketing, the same way that you still see Coca-Cola commercials. You still see McDonald's commercials. They're billions and billions of dollars in revenue, these companies. But why do they advertise? Because they want to keep your brand, their brands in your hand. The same thing you need to do for your clients. You need to keep your brand in their hand. They don't see you, they forget about you. Half the world now has a DHD, so if it's not there right away, you forget about it. It's gone. too. If you keep something in front of you and you go back to what Arthur said, those life items, things that you actually use, there's a lot of stuff out there and, and you can buy whatever you want and great, we'll put your logo on it and that's wonderful. But at the end of the day, we're gonna tell you, Hey, there's a thing that you want to get this Tumblr. Yeah, it's $2. Great, okay, you saved a million dollars, but where is that gonna end up? Even in the kid's toy box? And you're never gonna get any opportunities to get a relationship and build the client base outta that, versus if you hand them, maybe it doesn't have to be a full blown Yeti, it could just be something nice, something

James Blain 54:31

Drew, drew is specifically talking to me here, by the way, for anybody that is, that is using

Andrew Messina 54:36

conversation.

James Blain 54:37

and it, but it, it brings up a really great point and, and I am lucky enough that, that I, I get to call Arthur and Drew among my actual friends, right? Just beyond working with them, just beyond vendors. I, I truly consider them both friends, and so I, I probably get away with a little more than I should, as a, as a matter of that. But the other side of that is that we have a lot of conversations of. Does this feel like Pax? Does this feel like something Pax would give away? Is this something they'd have on their desk? Because to that point he just made about the Tumblr. If, if we as Pax are giving one of our members or, or a potential member, a Tumblr. I don't want it to go through the wash and my logo to fall off and to fall apart. It's the exact same reason that you hear about, man, they dug a giant hole and they buried all these Louis Vuitton purses. Why? Because they never want you to see that brand devalued, right? They never want you to see that brand got put in the trash or thrown away. They would rather destroy that merchandise and hide it. You know, I think of things the same way. I, I'm never right? It doesn't matter if there's a defect on a business card, I'm gonna put that in my back pocket. If I'm at a show and I see, oh, this business card's got a, a nick on the corner, I always put it in my back pocket because I never, in my wildest worst nightmare want someone to see my card in a trash. So you really have to think about as well, what is your brand image? What do you look like? How do you hold, you know, that brand?

Ken Lucci 56:08

And a lot of people, a lot of operators have lost it. They've not, they don't dedicate time to brand image. What's the brand stand for, et

James Blain 56:17

Who are we?

Ken Lucci 56:18

who are we? And they,

Andrew Messina 56:20

Yeah, but, but look, look at what they're doing right now with China. So they're saying like, all, all the handbags, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, all these fancy handbags are, we make them in China. They're actually $3 and you don't even have to worry about them. Don't spend $20,000, they're $3.

James Blain 56:34

But then I don't.

Andrew Messina 56:35

and that's what they're saying. But you know what Hermes did? Hermes says, boom, they turned on the camera. They showed their factory and said, here, we don't have, we're not in China. We have French women sitting there showing we don't do. They protected their brand. They said, Hey, we have a luxury item. Just like you guys have luxury items that you're selling here, and you want it to say, we're not your mom and pop random Joe Schmo here. We are a nice brand. We are a luxury brand. We want you to work with us. The same way that they turned around and said, Hey, you, they could say whatever they want about us, but this is the actual situation. This is our brand. We have an identity to protect. So when they go ahead and you show

James Blain 57:11

Yep.

Andrew Messina 57:11

out there, that's what you wanna do as your company. You're not, you're not running an Uber, a black car company. You're running a chauffeur transportation service.

Ken Lucci 57:18

and that's right. The, the brand is the only thing that separates you from what I call the also rans in the low price leaders anywhere, in any, any industry whatsoever. And I can tell you this, top three brands in every market always sell. They always sell. Those companies always sell. It's the ones that are not anywhere. They can't be found anywhere in the

James Blain 57:44

oh,

Ken Lucci 57:44

25 wealthiest zip codes. They don't have the largest corporations in their region, et cetera. And I think we've lost in, I don't know why in this industry is a lot of operators are like, oh, look at my $120,000 Escalade. Great. Who sees it?

James Blain 57:59

now,

Ken Lucci 58:00

What? Where's your logo?

Andrew Messina 58:02

Put, put a little, put your little logo on the back corner. When someone's at a red light, if you put a little dome call

James Blain 58:07

huh?

Andrew Messina 58:08

of your car and then someone's at a red light there, everyone stops. We all break. We all hit red light. Stop signs. If they can see your logo, that's a little chance to go ahead even with that subliminal marketing again.

Ken Lucci 58:18

a, this

James Blain 58:18

Oh

Ken Lucci 58:19

funny story. I would, I did not play well with others when I was an operator.

James Blain 58:23

no.

Ken Lucci 58:24

Go figure. Uh, all of my, I had Cadillacs 'cause I was always a Cadillac guy and like Arthur designed the, the Ambassador Crest. Back in the day, that was on the, the sail panel of ev Back in the day in the sedans, we had sail panels, but it was always, always the on the trunk. Right. and we didn't do phone numbers or anything like that. Then he put mul, we had license plates with the phone number on the front and the back. I can't tell you it, it, to me it was a force multiplier. People thought I had 20 vehicles on the road when I had three because it was branded.

James Blain 58:57

Yeah,

Andrew Messina 58:58

The same way you could buy a billboard, but you don't need to buy a billboard. You own moving

James Blain 59:02

around the city for you.

Andrew Messina 59:04

have a fleet of moving billboards that you already pay. Why pay for a billboard?

Ken Lucci 59:08

that's another perfect example is you're out on the road, you pass office parks, small office parks, and small all over the place. Small businesses. best thing that you've got going for you is that gorgeous piece of equipment. And your business card and a swag. I'll tell you something I learned way back in the medical business, medical arm business when I was in another Works, right? So when I owned and sweets,

James Blain 59:35

it does. Yes it does.

Ken Lucci 59:37

I mean coffee mugs. I remember literally the boxes of coffee mugs coming in. And we would, the reservations would fill 'em with, uh, jelly beans and then put Saran wrap on them.

James Blain 59:50

Yep.

Ken Lucci 59:50

we would do Hershey kisses for Valentine's Day. And I would say to the chauffeurs, here's the deal. Give out five of these. Bring me back five business cards. Okay? And that's how we built the database. We had a huge data base. We, we would send offers all of the time, but it was from the business cards where, yeah, you can't get into the high rises some no question. But you certainly can get into professional offices, especially by the way. you are getting your teeth cleaned, when you are

James Blain 1:00:21

Oh,

Ken Lucci 1:00:21

eyeglasses, why aren't you telling people that, that you already give money to? Hey, you know, this is I, this is what I do for a living. If you know anybody that's interested, please let me know, but

Andrew Messina 1:00:33

Ken, that Ken that goes to, that goes to one of Arthur's great lines. He puts it in the email signature. The, the lifeline of my industry is a referral. The blood, everything that

James Blain 1:00:42

oh.

Andrew Messina 1:00:43

is a referral. You, you can save my life, you can help my life, I can help your life. If we go ahead, you tell me what you do, I'm out of someone. You go back and you build your network. That life, that lifeline of, of sharing your referral, it goes so far because you don't even realize who, everyone has a partner. Everyone has a dog, everyone has something else. They know, have a friend, they know someone who needs something and then, oh, gimme that guy's number. Oh, gimme that girl's number. And then you just keep going ahead and you build your little circle

Ken Lucci 1:01:11

networking is all about give to get. Okay? And that's what I think we've lost. There's a generation that thinks it's all about the frigging smartphone, and it's all about social media. It's all about don't, I'm, I'm 60, I can say

Andrew Messina 1:01:23

I was gonna say.

Ken Lucci 1:01:25

Look, you, you net your network, your network has a direct correlation to your net worth. Okay? When I, when I met that guy that bought the big company, and I said to him, what else do you need? He said, well, you know, we're looking for such and such. And I said, I know a guy. I will connect the two of you. Um, know, we're looking, we really would like a legal counsel that understands the industry. I connect him to Matt Dawes, like Matt Dawes has been in the industry for a thousand years. He, he calls me the next day, Jesus, thanks for the referral. I'm like, I. You've referred me. I mean, you guys do but you don't do financial reviews or values. You refer me all the time. Your network, the network you create has a direct correlation with your net worth. And I don't think you can get that on PPC. Uh, you can't, you can certainly say thank you on social media, but there's a lost art there of the traditional marketing that dovetails into what you do. And I think we've gone full circle,

James Blain 1:02:31

I agree.

Ken Lucci 1:02:32

you did a, you went into you, Arthur, you pivoted to the electronic brochures and capability brochures, et cetera, landing pages. But now I think we're going full circle because we are all inundated with all of these electronic messages. It's, it is definitely, to me, back to the basics. Create your, your marketing agenda. Create, I don't care, like you said, five postcards a day, five direct mails a day. Five thank you notes a day. You know what's a lost art? Every single business journal. Every business journal has the promotions people on the move. How about you send 'em a thank you note now that they got promoted to executive vice president. If you ever need a ride to the airport, I'm your guy. Well, what do you think the odds are that maybe they may have that as a perk. Okay, but what have you, you've created an impression that probably cost you, what the hell is a forever stamp cost today? Right? I

James Blain 1:03:26

50 cents.

Andrew Messina 1:03:27

73.

Ken Lucci 1:03:29

right? And

James Blain 1:03:29

what?

Andrew Messina 1:03:30

73

James Blain 1:03:31

73. Okay. Well now I'm feeling old 'cause I remember buying 'em for cheap.

Andrew Messina 1:03:36

That's a different conversation.

Ken Lucci 1:03:37

a Trump did that. They damn eggs and stamped, no. Anyway, but you've created that. You've said thank you every thank you. Listen. Good luck. Congratulations on your move, your promotion. Here's one thing that I've learned. Corporate travel managers never leave corporate travel. They just move to another BU business. Okay. Procurement officers, they move to another business. A, a, a vice president of sales same way. So if you are following the who's who in your area and they know who you are, that was the big key to our success. There were 700 limo companies when I started in Tampa and we became the biggest, thankfully after the presidential conventions, somebody walked up to me and asked me, Hey, I'd like to buy your company like piece of cake. No problem.

James Blain 1:04:25

Uh

Ken Lucci 1:04:25

but the key was networking and the key was everything. We just talked about it. I don't think we are, we could have built that brand without the logo that they designed, the paper cube. I mean, I we're talking about that worked.

James Blain 1:04:40

huh.

Ken Lucci 1:04:40

mean, I'm not talking about the things that, the wacky ideas I went to him with. That's the other piece. Vistaprint won't

Arthur Messina 1:04:47

Some things on a shelf. Still don't worry.

James Blain 1:04:49

Yeah. Vista Print's now gonna tell you that's

Ken Lucci 1:04:52

This?

James Blain 1:04:52

stupid. Right. I've, I've had that conversation of, I have this idea and it was. Dammit, James. No, no, no, no, no, no,

Ken Lucci 1:05:01

Ken.

James Blain 1:05:01

But you need someone that'll, yeah, you need someone that'll push back. You need someone that is gonna be an honest partner,

Arthur Messina 1:05:08

So as Drew would say, this one, a thousand condoms with your logo on it isn't really the best promotion. But for a strip club, it's a great promotion. All right. So again, knowing your target audience, knowing who's gonna receive it, what message you're going to get. But Ken, it's true what you said. A lot of things recycle. I have a leisure suit I'm waiting to wear again. It's gonna come back. You know, I have bell bottoms. be in, man. I know. I'm just.

Ken Lucci 1:05:36

Hey, look, wait a minute. Some things are obsolete.

James Blain 1:05:39

Yeah.

Ken Lucci 1:05:40

Networking is networking, and I think we miss it. And what bothers me when I go to conferences is all of these small operators, they're spending all of their time and effort trying to get affiliate work, which is good, but it's filler work.

James Blain 1:05:53

Right.

Ken Lucci 1:05:53

need to create, you need to create relations. Every, you know, there's common threads to this podcast. Every single successful operator, a successful business that we interview, you can take it. Maurice Brewster from Mosaic, all about the relationships he created, Dawson Rudder and Tammy Rudder from Commonwealth, the pivotal relationships he created back in the day when he was a driver and, and the relationship I created with Arthur. Uh, honestly, Arthur, I can't remember whether Ma Tom Mazda referred you or you referred Ma Tom Mazda to me, but it was, look, is the guy that knows everything, marketing and advertising in this space. How many printing shops are there in Tampa? But I went

James Blain 1:06:37

Oh

Ken Lucci 1:06:37

and, and he told me what worked and said, don't waste your time with that matches, don't work anymore, Ken, because smoking has gone down. Uh, the condom idea never came from me, Arthur. But anyway,

Arthur Messina 1:06:50

Ken, you,

Ken Lucci 1:06:50

I,

James Blain 1:06:51

yeah.

Arthur Messina 1:06:51

at this, but one of those visits to Tampa. When we came to see you, we were on family vacation. I think Kathy drew his brother, were at a park when I said, Hey, I need to take an hour and go visit this gentleman while I'm here. And that's, that's how that came in is we were, I think on a bus gardens, maybe a Disney vacation happened to be in your area. And I made sure, and I think I probably called you two or three times that week, and we finally got that one hour together, which started everything.

Ken Lucci 1:07:18

he collected a business card. So the IRS was listening. He could write off that whole trip

James Blain 1:07:22

Uh,

Ken Lucci 1:07:23

he did visit me. He did visit a customer,

James Blain 1:07:26

so,

Ken Lucci 1:07:27

listen was about networking.

James Blain 1:07:28

ah,

Arthur Messina 1:07:29

I.

James Blain 1:07:31

no, and we're, we're coming to a close, so, so if you wanna leave us with your closing thoughts. This is perfect, Arthur.

Arthur Messina 1:07:36

new, new and forward thinking. Um, AI is gonna play a lot in what you do. Take it for advice. Don't take it for the the rule. Use it and figure out how to adapt to it in your marketing. It will not replace your face-to-face. Some of the new things that we're doing to help people brand on a small basis is our company stores. create company stores where you, you, your logo's on? There's probably a couple hundred items now that are available in apparel. So the shirt that you are wearing, um, James. And the

James Blain 1:08:11

Oh.

Arthur Messina 1:08:12

for Ken. The, the, the stuff. So there's, there's shirts. If somebody in the office had a baby and you need a onesie with that company logo on, you can do it. We set them up for free. You just write to us, send us your logo. We can get that created within 48 hours. You'd be up and live and you can see your company store. That's great for staff and or clients to promote your brand. Um, the other thing also is we spoke high a lot about the business card. We have a digital white paper available for a business cards. So James and Ken, if you leave our name, Drew's email address and they request that, we'd be very happy to send that out to them. It talks about the making of a business card, how to use the logo, what information to put on it to touch the field. It's a short five page digital with less words. Lot more pictures, Ken, less wording, uh, but we have that available as well. And again.

Andrew Messina 1:09:01

It is right on our website too.

Arthur Messina 1:09:03

plus years. 40, 40 years. It's great having vendors and friends like, like you both, um, Ken, we, we go back so many years, James. I, I feel like you're still, you've been around a long time, even though it's been a short time. It's been 25% of my career.

James Blain 1:09:17

Ah.

Arthur Messina 1:09:17

Um, but it's, it's great to see everybody and it's, it's also sad to see we're losing a lot of people that are retiring and or passing away. Um, but this industry has been wonderful to the Messina family. And we thank you guys and we thank the industry for that. And the honest thing I could say is is networking. I said that before, but tell the truth. Stop the lies. Stop the bs. Tell the truth. You don't have to worry about what you said because what you said was the truth. And that's what we do. We run a business. I'm family morals. Uh, we are a, a small business with large thoughts. We help a lot of the people in this industry, but we do it because we care. And that's why we're here.

James Blain 1:09:59

Well, and we, we appreciate you guys coming on and, and we're gonna drop links in the show notes, phone number if they wanna get ahold of you, drew, or they wanna get ahold of you. Arthur, what is the best way for someone to get in touch with you?

Andrew Messina 1:10:12

Best way to

James Blain 1:10:13

Call true?

Andrew Messina 1:10:14

us. Yeah, call me because if you call Arthur, he'll forward it over anyway, so it's good. So just gimme a call. Call it, call us at the office.

Ken Lucci 1:10:22

He's at that stage of his life.

James Blain 1:10:24

Uh,

Ken Lucci 1:10:25

How do

Andrew Messina 1:10:25

Yeah, you,

James Blain 1:10:26

yeah.

Andrew Messina 1:10:26

always give us a call at the office, (631) 584-2273 or just shoot us an email. Um, drew at create a card, inc.com real

James Blain 1:10:36

So that's create a card inc.com for the website for everybody listening. If you're driving, when you pull over, all you have to remember is create a card inc.com. Right.

Andrew Messina 1:10:45

even easier for you, it's CAC swag.com.

James Blain 1:10:49

A c swag.

Andrew Messina 1:10:50

swag less characters. Make it easier while you're driving.

James Blain 1:10:53

All right. Awesome. We appreciate you guys coming on. Thank you for everything you do, and thank you everyone for listening to the Ground Transportation Podcast. Uh, Ken has said it at least 10 times. We'll say it 10 times more. This is the highlight of Ken and I's Week. We love getting to share these guests with you, getting to share what we do with you, and we really hope you'll tune in, drop us a comment, drop us a like, or subscribe. Let us know the topics that you guys want to hear, and we look forward to hearing you, seeing you being with you on the next podcast. Thanks.

Ken Lucci 1:11:21

this is the best continuing education in the industry and it doesn't cost you a hotel room.

1:11:27

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