SPEAKER_09 0:00

So the podcast has really gone from something like, who are these these two idiots are talking too much? Then it becomes I don't know that that part's changed.

SPEAKER_06 0:08

They just like what everybody else is saying.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

You're listening to the Ground Transportation Podcast with Ken Lucci of Driving Transactions and James Blaine of PAX Training. Learn how you can build a thriving transportation business with real profits, three peak clients, and enterprise value. And now for your hosts, Ken and James. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the 100th episode special of the Ground Transportation Podcast. My name is John Tyron. I am the producer of the show, and I am very happy to be here with the lovely, the talented Ken Lucci and James Blaine. Gentlemen, how are you doing? We're good. We're good.

SPEAKER_08 0:59

Tired. A little bit tired.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I think we're both just surprised we're here a hundred episodes later. 100 episodes later. Yeah. I was looking up Buzz Sprout, which is a um a podcast syndication platform that we use. They put out a report on a monthly basis that looks at benchmarks. And I was looking at the data and I was curious, and I and I noticed that only 7.5% of podcasts ever reach 100 episodes. So congratulations, gentlemen, for making it this far. This is a big milestone.

SPEAKER_09 1:34

It feels like only yesterday that we started this.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Here's the old married couple craft coming. Here we go. Here we go. So on today's episode, what we've done is you each had some homework to go back and pick out some of the best moments from the podcast. Ken and James, you guys will reminisce about some of your favorite moments, some of your key takeaways, maybe some behind-the-scenes stories, and then we'll splice in some clips from those past episodes, and we'll link to all of those episodes in the show notes. So if you missed it, you can go back and relive those wonderful moments.

SPEAKER_09 2:07

So as usual, I just want to point this out. Oh boy. I've been on the road all week, and I found out last weekend that I call both Cole and I had to go to California on a transaction, and we it was an emergency, and we were traveling Tuesday, you know, lots of airplane outages, worked all day, Tuesday on the planes, worked with clients Tuesday night, all day, Tuesday client meetings, all day, up until 10 o'clock at night. We were working on financial modeling, flew back on Thursday, but yet I had time to do my homework. Okay. I had time to go back and look at all of the episodes. First, a couple things. Number one, I'm confused as to what season we're on. I mean, how many episodes constitutes a season? That's number one.

SPEAKER_06 3:03

We can't break the fourth walk in. There is no season to us, right? It's just ongoing. Fourth walk.

SPEAKER_09 3:07

Well, John started. I've noticed on the podcast some things have morphed out a little bit. The older episodes just have our logo, the newer episodes have the pictures of the people. So we've come a long way. We've kind of like gone from MASH season one to mash season eight.

SPEAKER_06 3:23

What's mash? I'm too young for that.

SPEAKER_09 3:25

See, again, again.

SPEAKER_06 3:27

Don't take my don't get stoked. Don't take my fun, John. Don't take my fun. I know damn well what match is.

SPEAKER_09 3:34

You know, let first of all, though, seriously, I I need to say it. James, this was your idea.

SPEAKER_06 3:41

Uh only in part, right? By the time by the time you and I discussed this, you already had John. This this was a labor of love together.

SPEAKER_09 3:48

We brought John in to produce, and I I will tell you, I ideas are fantastic. Implementation and execution is all about it. I don't think we could have done it without John Tyrman. So and I do want to say that I'm wearing the the Christmas present that John Tyrman gave me, uh, which is a t-shirt, and also the Christmas present that John gave me, which is the coffee mug. I'm sorry, do you you don't have your t-shirt on and you don't have your coffee mode?

SPEAKER_06 4:19

Yeah, I don't I don't I don't drink coffee. I'm young enough, I still have the energy, and uh I got this great hat and the coffee mug my wife used.

SPEAKER_09 4:27

Covering a great head of hair. He I mean um so the the other thing, the the other thing I noticed when I went back to the to look at the episodes is we've had some unbelievable people on this.

SPEAKER_06 4:40

It was hard to pick. Like all joking aside, when when I went and looked, it was really difficult. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. And I will say, at least one of mine, I think a lot of my favorite part is the behind the scenes that people might not know or have heard about, just beyond that.

SPEAKER_09 4:59

So we're gonna do a couple things. We're gonna talk about our favorites, but then we're also gonna mention, and it's not that the ones we're talking about, you know, receive an Oscar or anything, um, and the ones we mentioned, you know, aren't just as worthy of watching and listening to. It's just we don't have that much time. So, John, do you want me to start with one of my favorites?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Go ahead, Ken.

SPEAKER_09 5:21

This was a tough one, but but I I will share with you it's uh the dynamic duo of Tammy and Dawson Rutter from Commonwealth Worldwide. Well, why don't you talk about how it started? Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:38

So uh I had been a cab driver in Boston in the 1970s and uh for about 10 years, off and on. And uh a friend of mine in the cab business got a job as a chauffeur with a company in Boston. And I went, I he taught me into going to work for them. I went to work for them for uh a little less than a year and didn't like the management and loved the business, but I really didn't like the management very much. So I decided to buy a car and see what I could do. So I bought one car in 1982. Uh our first year in business, we did 20,000 in revenue. So I was driving a cab, but that's all during that first year. And then we got a good break. I met uh the first week I was in business, I got a job uh that was driving the new senior editor from Boston magazine. And he was moving to Boston from Cleveland, or from Cincinnati. He worked for Scripps. Uh he was moving to Boston, and his wife loved Cincinnati and didn't want to move to Boston, so he hired me to show them around Boston and the and the areas and where they could where they could uh find a place to live. And and uh so I took them out for the whole day, did a uh sightseeing tour of Boston, Cambridge, sure, Lexington and Concord, Marblehead, and the last stop was in Concord, and they were both writers. And so the last stop of the day, I took them to uh uh Arthur's Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, where Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, and um Louisa May Alcott are all buried side by side on top of Arthur's Ridge. And I told him to go up, check it out, you know, and they came back down and they were speechless. I mean, they couldn't, they'd had um it seemed like an epiphany going to see these four famous writers all buried right next to each other in in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. So I get back, dropped him off. He said, Thanks very much. I got a nice letter from him a couple days later. And that December, I was driving a cab and it was a little snowy and bad weather, and I'd gotten the worst cab in the fleet. And it uh the fleet was Boston Cab, which was Brett Barenholz's parents' company. Yes, I heard that story, yes. And so I get this call for Brady in the South End, 55 Warren Street in the South End. So I pull up in front and out walks the senior editor of Boston Magazine. He gets in the back of the car and he's going to Cambridge, and he said, What's wrong with this car? It stinks of fumes and it's terrible. I go, Well, Mr. Brady, I don't get the choice of cars that I can drive. This is what they give me, and I have to take what they give me. And he said, Do you know me? I said, Well, yeah, it's Dawson. I drove you with your wife last June. Dawson, hey, how are you? How are you doing? How's everything? How's your company going? I said, Well, you know, it's slow, but we're still driving a cab for my living. And we talked on the way over to Cambridge, and he was going to visit his fiancee. His wife had decided to stay in Cincinnati.

SPEAKER_09 8:58

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 8:59

Yeah. And so uh he got out. He goes, Good luck, you know, nice to see you. Hope everything goes well for you. So the following April, I was um hired by Scott Salombrino, sure, which is before Dave L. He was Fifth Avenue Limo. Sure. And he was he he was doing the second annual KISS 108 annual party at Boston, Boston.

SPEAKER_09 9:22

Huge huge FM radio station in Boston, huge.

SPEAKER_05 9:27

Oh my god, you still have a party every year. So fun. Yep. And uh so he had a bunch of cars for this party just shuttling people around. So I'm sitting at the front, I'm at the top of the line of about 20 limousines, and I look up and out walks John Brady again. Sure. And Scott goes, Mr. Brady, would you like a car? And he goes, Yeah. And and Brady goes, I'll take Dawson. And Scott's going, No, no, no. So uh he gets to the car and he's with his girlfriend, and we would drive, it was just a short hop over to the Copley Plaza. He goes, How you doing? Everything good, you know? I said, Bum, you know, I still have one, you know, I just bought my second car. And I said, You know, it's picking up a little bit, but you know, we have a long way to go. So I dropped him at the Copley and he said, You know, well, good, good to see you, and you know, you know, Godspeed. And uh a couple months later, I always had a little average, a little uh classified ad in Boston Magazine, and I knew I knew the girls there, and I called them up. They called me up one day and they go, Congratulations, you're best in Boston, 1983. It was unbelievable. My business tripled in one month, and I bought my third car, my fourth car, my fifth car in a span of about two months.

SPEAKER_09 10:45

I think they were one of my favorites because number one, I'm from Boston, and they are a huge Boston success story. Number two, they're not only a couple in business and and they've just built that business together, but you know, they are Mr. and Mrs. And more than anything, it was literally the Rags to Riches story of Dawson Rudder, you know, being a taxicab driver when he started. When you meet Dawson Rudder, you'll notice several things. You know, first of all, strikingly tall and handsome guy. No question why Tammy married him. Very articulate, very learned and red. And his vocabulary is not that of a taxi driver. When you get past the Boston accent, he's got the the the vocabulary of someone in finance. The Ragster Rich's story, one that I didn't know about. In that episode, I was at a hotel and and a little bit out of my element, and Tammy was originally going to get on to talk about affiliate work, and and then the two of them surprised me and and he spent you know so much time talking about his origin story. So he's a taxi driver in Boston, and famously, you know, connecting the dots, he worked for Brett Barnholtz, who's the president of NLA's father as a taxi driver. Then he starts Commonwealth as a one-car limousine, and he meets a guy that owns a magazine. I know I'll mess up the story, so I want you guys to read the episode. And it was proof positive to me. Two two things. Number one, any operator today, starting from those humble means, can build a fantastic business the way they have. Second of all, if if you got the right partner in life, the sky's the limit because those two are such great bookends together. But it also talked to me about you never know who can change your life. So Dawson tells the story on that episode of being at an event and driving uh the publisher of a big magazine in Boston, who liked Dawson so much based on being a chauffeur that he introduced him to some of the creme de la creme in Boston. So for those people that want to look at the episode, you know, John's gonna put some clips in, but it's episode number 22. I think it's extraordinarily worthwhile because from a taxi driver, rags to riches, fulfillment of the American Dream, built probably one of the most successful boutique worldwide chauffeur networks, and you know, along the way, just found his life's partner who has been with him every step of the way. So I think that that was the most memorable for me. So, James, what else? What which ones do you have?

SPEAKER_06 13:48

Oh, so I'm gonna I'm gonna go in reverse, right? So I'm gonna I'm gonna save what's most memorable for me for last, just so I can be a little different. But I think the process with Charlie Horky when we had him on was huge for me because the first time we had him on, you know, he talks about SEAL team CLS. And, you know, one of the first things I did was I I went and I bought Rogue Warrior. I've literally got all that entire series of books now, and I started reading it. But when we started talking to Charlie about his book, afterwards I reached out and I said, Hey, you know, send me the book. I want to read your book. I want to go through it. And going back and forth and getting to know Charlie better, getting to read the book, getting to see his story, getting to kind of give insight. I think for me that was a really big deal because and I don't think Charlie would mind me sharing this. You know, at one point, I think he was deciding what to do with the book, whether to release it, whether to work on it. And I can tell you, as someone who's put a lot of work into something and then been unsure of whether or not it's ready for the world, that can be a really tough process.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

No, you know, the book is 109 pages, and um, I I could have, you know, what I learned in this whole thing is is that like my story in first person might be interesting. There's a million interesting stories it in to in in making a story and doing a film and doing a TV show and writing some kind of a book. You know, you gotta have lots of characters and character development and you know what was going on. Like I had somebody read this book recently, and they said, Well, you know, you said that you grew up with, you know, you're a divorce in a divorced family with your mom raising you in the 60s. Um, how do you think your mom felt about this? And the story was about me. And so I I read the story, I wrote the story in first person, and I I don't I don't know, you know, it um what I learned about doing this is you have to be awfully careful. I mean, when you talk about including stories, yeah, I'm only it's only interesting because I was in the limousine industry in Hollywood in in celebrity. Had I been in Des Moines, Iowa, I don't think it would have been so interesting. I mean, I might have done some interesting stuff, but the fact that I was only an arm's length away from people like Michael Jackson or, you know, the people that I was driving at the time and and who I was dealing with, because it was Hollywood and the story, I didn't want to tell a story about them because that isn't what I do. I I wanted to tell my story. They just happened, I I just happened to be next to these people. You know what I mean? I mean, I didn't need to write a story about, well, one night I was with Michael Jackson and we did such and such, or one night I was with so and so and they were in a compromising situation. That was nothing that I wanted to do at all. I thought my story was good enough based on the fact that I started with literally nothing. I grew the company to, you know, a pretty successful level. The company's still in business today under another name that shares the original name Empire CLS. And to tell you the truth, the real reason I wanted to write this, not because I wanted to take anything away from Empire CLS, but Empire CLS, they've always looked at their history as being that they started in 1981, which isn't true. They started in 2005. I was the one that started in 1981 and brought the company to 2005. So the funny thing, I just wanted to tell my story because I felt it's my legacy. I mean, I've got you know three kids, and um, I'm happily married, and I'm proud of the things that I've done in this industry, and I'm proud of the associations that I've made. When I talk to people today, they know who Empire CLS is, and they're amazed to find that I'm the C in CLS, and that means something to me. I mean, they would never be anything without my having done what I did. And so, did I write the story for them? No. Did I write the story to, you know, to set the record straight? Yeah, for sure. I mean, but not with a vengeance, just because it was mine to tell.

SPEAKER_06 18:27

That was something new and different, is that I was almost getting to watch the creative process play out with him. He had this book that was put together, you know, he had kind of his ideas on how to publish it. And then when we brought him back on and finally released the book with him and he got to publish that, what most people don't know is on the podcast, what everybody saw was he came on once and then he talked about a book and he kind of teased it a little bit, and then he came back and released it. You know, we went out to dinner in Vegas in there, right? We were talking about the book and we were talking about his experiences. And one of the neat things about that is a lot of times if you go read a book, you're never gonna go to the author and say, Hey, tell me about this story, tell me about that. And they're gonna go, all right. So let me tell you, let me tell you what I didn't put in the book, right? And that's what for me was super exciting is I get to have those conversations of, oh man, that's in the book. But let me tell you the parts that I kind of left out, and let me give you kind of the background, let me tell you about and one of the things that I kind of found out along the way, and this is something really special about Charlie, and it came up in that second episode when we released the book. Every single one of those pivotal moments for Charlie, every single one of those pivotal things didn't start with, hey, I made this decision, or hey, I decided to, or hey, I was gonna do this. It's oh, so I'm with so and so, or I got connected to so and so. They're all people-centric stories. And I think for me, in going through this and kind of looking back and trying to decide, you know, I was driving back from Ohio on a family trip, because of course, travel for work, travel for fun. So I'm driving back from Ohio on a family trip with my wife uh up last weekend, and we were talking about it. And as much as I love providing business advice and I love you know talking about how to grow your business and do all those things of the podcast. For me, my favorite part of this podcast is the stories. Getting people's stories. Absolutely, absolutely it's that was the biggest thing that came as I was going back through. That was the biggest thing that came up for me was just how much I've been blessed in being able to do this and tell people stories and kind of share. So I think for me, as I kind of went on this journey of my top three, I think Charlie sits there as awesome as Charlie is. I think the experience and getting to know Charlie better and getting to see that process is why it was one of my absolute favorites.

SPEAKER_09 20:55

Well, and and let's just let's just one of the realizations I've had from this podcast is you first of all, we've had fantastic operators. There's not an operator that we've asked that has not come on. Some of the biggest network operators, let's not let's just honorable mention the the thorn between two roses episode, which is one of my personal favorites as well. Where you have chemeros and micros. It was a great episode. But we've had so many operators, and what gets me about business is human, you know, history doesn't repeat, but human nature does, and we learn as much from this podcast and people sharing their successes, their failures, their triumphs, their tragedies. And I do think that Charlie's episode was a lot about that. Meaning it was the episodes were not a barrel, but the book was pretty, pretty damn close. But he's lived a hell of a life, man. He's he's lived a hell of a life. So, you know, speaking of, top of my list also was Maurice Brewster from Mosaic Global. And uh, you know, recently Maurice and I have been texting back and forth a little bit. He's got he's you know asked me for a little bit of advice, but he I I always ask Maurice House Business, and he runs down the stats. He's absolutely killing it. He's just doing extraordinarily well. When I went back and looked at that episode, what got me the most about it is first and foremost, he came up in the business when I was an operator. And I know that because we have the same consultant, Tommy Mazza was my consultant, his consultant. And Maury started as running a Rolls-Royce, antique Rolls-Royce, vintage Rolls-Royce hobby limousine company. And now he's arguably probably one of the biggest privately owned in California, one of Disney's biggest transportation providers now. And what got me about that episode was how we talked about recognizing when to pivot the business. And also the fact that he built the culture from scratch, he is the culture of that company.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Yeah, because that's that was my pivot, my fourth pivot. It was uh 2014. Okay. 2014. And we went to them, and when they asked us that, we told them no. Oh, you didn't you didn't take it. We did not take it. Surprised they were surprised too.

SPEAKER_06 23:34

Did they study the numbers and convince you like happened in the other pivot or?

SPEAKER_03 23:38

Nope. Nope. Nope. What um uh we told them honestly that we didn't have what we needed in order to be able to do all the things that we anticipated that we needed to do in order to run a bus business for them.

SPEAKER_09 25:06

You didn't want to bite off more than you could chew at that time. Right.

SPEAKER_06 25:10

It sounds like you're protecting all of the business instead of trying to gain more and risking losing it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_09 25:16

Yeah, and sadly, and sadly, not not not a lot of people have that introspection to so once you said no to them, what happened?

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Glad you asked that question, Kathy. Six months later, they came to us and they said, we have another opportunity. Would you be interested in taking on our campus transportation services in Mercedes-Benz sprinters and uh and and and vans? And we said, we could do that. And we submitted our response to the RFP. We ended up winning and we walked away with uh, I think we have 44 vehicles uh at at Apple's campus doing commuter work. Don't forget, they have over a hundred buildings in the Bay Area, so uh we were able to do that.

SPEAKER_06 26:14

Was this similar to what they wanted you to do originally, and it was just the delivery mechanism was changed? Or how how different was this from their first ask six months ago?

SPEAKER_03 26:25

Well, the first ask, we had to buy motor coaches. Yeah, which you know, uh we hadn't been in that business and didn't know that business. And also, to be candid, we didn't have that good of a relationship to be able to buy, you know, 10 or 15 or 20 motor coaches, brand new motor coaches that were going at a pop of what eight, nine hundred thousand dollars back then. Oh, yeah. Every bit of that. But the the reality of of it really was uh because we I I believe we could have found the money. Um we just didn't feel comfortable taking on that responsibility.

SPEAKER_09 27:03

Now, from an organizational perspective, and I I've again I've got to give you props for, you know, basically saying looking at your internal operation, looking at the financial aspects, looking at the operation aspect, and saying, you know, guys, we're not ready for this. Because that could have sunk your company in the wrong if you did it at the wrong time.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

But here's what happened after we said no to them, and then they came back six months and asked us, would we be interested in the smaller vehicles? Which we did, and which we ended up winning. Guess what? Google came to us and said, Would you be willing to do what you're doing for Apple for us? And we said, sure. I mean, and and but they said no, but we want you to do it with motor coaches. That's it. I don't think we can afford to buy motor coaches.

SPEAKER_06 27:53

How many did they want you to buy? What was the investment this time?

SPEAKER_03 27:56

We our portion was going to be somewhere around 15, we would we would have needed to buy 15 million. That is correct. Google said, How about we buy the units and you just operate?

SPEAKER_09 28:10

By the way, let us buy the units and take the depreciation, which shows public company, public company loves depreciation more than we do.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Yeah, yeah. So uh that's how we got our foot into Google.

SPEAKER_09 28:27

Another guy whose wife is instrumental in his business, and Rhonda and Maurice are just like the killer couple. Um, so that was a that was another interesting episode to me. What I liked about that story most is he when he figured out how to pivot and the story about why he pivoted, and some other operators that would have gone right over their head. They were like, no, no, no, no, I'm making money, I'm just gonna stay. He looked at the opportunities and he really decided I have to do this. Now he's he's he's now emphasizing what's the future, emphasizing EVs and sustainability. You know, he he's without question that operation is light years ahead of his peers that started in that same time frame. Very much a motivational guy when you meet him, um, extremely good motivational speaker. He's always had a great uh kind of promotions, kind of uh more a personality mentality, but his his sales and marketing and how much he's done to scale the business. So that was episode, uh great episode um that I really enjoyed. But again, uh not too, you know, there were a lot of operators that we had uh on on the podcast that I loved as well. But I was struck by the pivoting that he put his business through, that he recognized those opportunities.

SPEAKER_06 29:59

I saw that as well. And I will tell you, I've been give Maurice every time I see him. I'm like, hey, what's that pivot? What's that pivot you teased? I know you're working on it. Are we able to talk about it yet? Oh, he's got some keeps going, man. He's got some stuff. Yeah, he's very business-minded. And and when you said the the dynamic duo, you know, I I don't have him on my top three because I'm lucky enough to call her a personal friend. I I get to you know, pick their brains wherever I want. But I think of Athena Grimm and Charlie Grimm up in Alaska, Athena was on the podcast, that was a great episode, and they talk a lot about how they've had to find their work-life balance, they've had to figure out who's good at what. And there's there's a lot of that, I think, that people underestimate in that how much of that work life and personal life bleeds together, and you've got to find a way to balance it. And those power couples always do.

SPEAKER_09 30:47

And you know, it's so funny that you said those words, power couples, because again, Tammy Dawson, um Maurice and Rhonda. I mean, unbelievable. D Galeno, Dean Galino, and Joe Galino from Jen Limousine, we have to have them on as well. But but Charlie and Athena, the same way. I mean, and I I come from parents that work together every single day for every year of their marriage until my mother says I'm gonna retire. She was the first one. But I admire that, I admire how how they can do that together. So yeah, I I I agree. That was um that was a that was a great episode as well.

SPEAKER_06 31:27

So speaking of pivots, well, we're gonna pivot away from power couples for a second, because for me, I think in my number two spot it's gotta be Derek Barr, right? For those that missed the episode, he is the administrator of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. And I think that was really big because it signaled a couple things. One, I thought it was absolutely a huge signal to the industry that he was willing to come onto the podcast to speak directly with the industry, to share what he's doing. I thought that was huge because you know, there's a lot of times in this industry where we think of regulators as the enemy. Now, you should never think of regulators as the enemy.

SPEAKER_09 32:10

It also speaks to your credibility of being able to get him. Where did you meet him, by the way?

SPEAKER_06 32:15

So I was lucky enough. So go all credit where credit is due. This episode was brought to you by Scott Michaels of UMA. So I was at the UMA event in Alabama. Um, Scott had brought him around and said, Hey, we were talking about safety, we're talking about you know, training, all those things. I'd like to introduce you to the administrator of FMCSA. Uh, we got to chatting, and I got to tell you, Derek is the kind of guy that I would go play around and go all with. He's just, he's one of those guys that gets it. He's got that background in law enforcement. At one point, you know, he talks about how, you know, hey, I was on the school board, all these different things that he's done. He's got a family, he's got people there that he cares about. And so every time that he goes on the road, he sees his own family, he sees his friends, he sees his neighbors out there with him. And so he's genuinely someone that gets it and is looking to do the right thing. And so I was lucky enough that when we got introduced at UMA, we we hit it off. I mean, we're very like-minded in that sense. And then it was just a matter of trying to find time because unlike a lot of people that want to sit in Washington, Derek's out there. He's hopefully he'll be coming and speaking at BISC as well. So I think that really to me spoke a lot of a couple things. One, uh, thank you for the credibility comment. I think it spoke to the credibility of the podcast and our reach and being able to talk to the industry. But two, I think it gave a new way for him to be able to casually talk to the motor coach industry, to everyone that's regulated by FMCSA, and really share what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

The passenger carrier and the bus industry is very important to me. Um, we our mission is very clear. We're to reduce crashes and fatalities in large trucks and what else, buses. Buses. Um, and so that's to me is an equal playing field. And I understand that there's more, of course, on the the property carrying side and so forth compared to the motor coach. And I get that, but my point is that it's important to me. Uh, our uh director of enforcement and compliance, uh Tom Liberatory, and then we have Bill Mahoney is our the chief over that division and is helping to coordinate uh and some of the vacancies that we have. And we do have vacancy. We don't we don't just have some vacancies in in Motor Coach, I have some in Hazmat. I've got some and just ri uh other divisions across the the country. Um but we are in the process now of getting these job notifications out so we can begin hiring, we can looking to get folks into these positions so we can actually do more work. We've done a lot of work, but I think about all the things that we will be able to do once we get these new individuals on board and they will have that strategic direction in hazmat, in motor coach, in uh special investigative unit right now. I'm just using some of the specialty stuff that we have. Um, but also just doing the everyday work. And one of the things we have to do is we have to not just be thinking like this. We can't be so narrow-focused, like, oh my gosh, this is the only job that I do. Well, no, it's not the only job that you do. Um and we we have CDL problems, as we know. We've got this problem, that problem. Um so my my point is that everyone has to come together, and we've taken an approach of borderless FMCSA. And kind of what I mean by that is if I got an issue that's going on in the Midwest, and but I need resources that can help me from the South, then we're gonna pull resources from the South to go help the Midwest or the West or vice versa. When it comes to certain investigations or operations that we have going on to be able to get a handle on this. And I don't know that that's necessarily been done in the past, but we have to break down these arbitrary lines that we put into place that this is one region or this region or this specialty unit. We all have to work together.

SPEAKER_06 36:18

And for those that missed the episode, this is a really huge deal because when I first started moving towards motor coach, they had a motor coach division, right? They had a pastor carrying division there. So their pastor carrying division had a good amount of staff. And slowly we saw that kind of dwindle down and dwindle down and dwindle down. And as hard as it is to believe, at one point there was no passenger carrying division at all at FMCSA. So for our world, there was zero representation. Now, Derek coming in, trying to fix that, letting our industry know, hey, we see you, we're we're going in, we're going to try and rectify this, we're bringing the knowledge back, we're trying to regain the institutional knowledge. I thought that was absolutely huge. And for me, as someone that spends, you know, almost half of my time now on the motor coach space, I thought that was something that was really needed. And so I was really excited that we got to be part of that messaging and have him on.

SPEAKER_09 37:16

You are right that it it it did give a lot of credibility to the podcast. I think that I think we should stop here and say when we first started this thing, there were those in the industry, there were those in the industry that said that we might be overplayed a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 37:34

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_09 37:36

But then, but that wait a minute, but and that we spoke too much.

SPEAKER_06 37:39

Maybe that was just me. And that we spoke too much. Maybe I'm the one that speaks too much. I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 37:43

Trust me, I I get accused of that quite a bit. But then it became, I noticed something that it became, hey, when are you gonna have me on the podcast?

SPEAKER_06 37:53

That is the number one question I get asked.

SPEAKER_09 37:56

Okay, so and what I've loved about it is I've got to I've literally gotten to to meet some great people on the podcast and have some of some real mentors in the industry and clients come on. You know, you know I always brag about Doug Schwartz. I've been bragging about Doug since before I even knew him. He was the first guy. It was a terrific episode, by the way. That is episode number episode 76. So the podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:30

I love it.

SPEAKER_09 38:31

The podcast to me, you know, I was able to really talk about granularly with Dougie how he's so successful with his kids. And I just joke with him today that he's approaching 2,500 five-star reviews. And I said to him, I'm waiting with Beta Breath for the number 2500 because I, you know, I want to send you something. So that was a great episode. The other is to be able to kind of do a little bit of a post-mortem with Randy Allen because I had sold his company. Okay, he's still involved in in James Limousine, but he's also doing some consulting in the industry, operational consulting. He was just down with us at uh full steam in Atlanta. So the podcast has really gone from something like, who are these these two idiots are talking too much? Then it becomes I don't know that that part's changed.

SPEAKER_06 39:23

They just like what everybody else is saying.

SPEAKER_09 39:30

If we have if we both had you know some episode of Larren Jettis for 30 days, I think the industry would go quiet. Um but but so I think I think when I look back at the 100 episodes, I did without looking back on them and going into the website, because I'm not there obviously all the time, right? But it we've really accomplished a hell of a lot. And I again, John, we would not be able to do it without you. At least I wouldn't. Um, you know, James is a techno nerd. We've discovered that about James.

SPEAKER_06 40:03

Oh, jeez.

SPEAKER_09 40:03

Um, so let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_06 40:05

You didn't know that going in.

SPEAKER_09 40:07

So let's talk about some other things we've we've learned about James. He's from he's allegedly from Spain. We learned that on the podcast.

SPEAKER_06 40:15

I love how it's allegedly this is I feel like I feel like this is Barack Obama, and they're like, you weren't born. Like, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna be up here with like a a passport, a birth certificate, and all that, like Ken's gonna start questioning citizenship.

SPEAKER_09 40:28

Like I've learned a lot about you since the podcast. I've become a great admirer of your wife and how she can put up with you, to be honest with you. And I think the audience had figured out in the podcast why I have no wife and why no one will put up with me.

SPEAKER_06 40:44

Jeez, brutal. But but I think you you bring up a good point in that I will tell you one of my things that's happened through this podcast is our relationship is strengthened. You know, as much as we rib each other, as much as we give each other a hard time, I think our relationship is strengthened. And I will tell you, I've had people that have come on as guests that I've known for years and years. And there's stories and there's things that come up, and you learn, you don't, because it's not, you don't typically sit down with someone and go, all right, let's go back to the very beginning. Let's start with the out of the end. I mean, maybe I know, but but it's not not in the same way, and so you get to kind of share stories and learn things about each other, and you know, and and like for example, you already brought up one of the neat ones, and that Brett Baronholtz's dad had Dawson Rutter working for you know, these little gems throughout the industry that kind of come out. And, you know, speaking of how I'm weird, one of my favorite things to do has always been to sit with my grandmother and listen to the stories and the history of my family and where do we come from and how do we get here? And tell me about like I said in the beginning, the stories. And I feel like, you know, obviously, I'm not I'm not saying that we're sitting with grandma on the podcast, but we are preserving the history of the ground transportation industry. And we're preserving and we're sharing the stories that make up our industry. Now, we're talking about how to make more money and run a better business, train better, manage your financials better, do all those things along the way. But to a certain part, I almost feel like we're preserving that history as historians of the industry and getting stories that might not ever make it to everyone else out there.

SPEAKER_09 42:25

Well, think about it. Where's the alternative? The alternative is we're on stages in Vegas that and there's only so much granular, you can't get too granular there. Obviously, when you're sitting in a small group, you're telling stories, etc. But every one of these episodes has golden nuggets in them. That there is not one episode. Well, we didn't we didn't air one or two, John. We're not gonna bring up those. But everyone the lost episodes. The lost episodes, everyone has granular strategies that operators can put to good use of what to do, what not to do. Uh, we've also had some of the authors, John DeJulius will look, we we could have every other opera author out there, maybe the only guy that would be topping him would be the guy that wrote the Ritz-Carl Gold Standard.

SPEAKER_07 43:21

I think the number one KPI for any business like the ones you know your your audience owns is earned sales growth. And earned sales growth is so last week, last month, let's say we did a million dollars in sales. That million dollars comes from two places bought and earned. Bought, Ken, how'd you hear about us? I SEO'd you, I saw your billboard, I saw your commercial, wherever I'm spending my advertising. Earned is you've done business with me before, or your friend told you you have to use them. Now, you have to be obsessed with growing earned sales growth. We're not only obsessed as a company, but individually, I could tell you in the salons the earned sales growth of every service provider we have. In the consulting business, I can tell you the earned sales growth of every consultant I have. We're able to pay people better if they have a higher earned sales growth because we don't have to advertise. Like our advertising budgets and the sales cycle. Let's say you're calling the Julius group about hired us for consulting and say, hey, you know, Ken, where'd you hear of us from? Well, I typed in customer service consulting. Well, that's mean you're calling five other companies too, and you're looking for the best deal. But if you call and say, John, I've done business with you five years ago and we need you again, or my buddy, yeah, Scott Gundrup. Scott told me I had to meet you. Then you're not you're not calling anyone else, you know, and the sales cycle is gonna be smaller. The pricing is, you know, is is is necessarily irrelevant. So yeah, how do you create more earned sales growth? A phenomenal, consistent experience and asking and rewarding for referrals, right? And rewarding the employee who gets the most, rewarding the client. I can't tell you how many times I have referred someone to a business and it might have been a six-figure contract that they got. And I'm so shocked that they never reach out to thank me. But this is the funny thing. I'll call them up and say, hey, Ken, out of curiosity, aren't you working with ABC? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're a good client of mine. I recommend. No, I didn't know that. People don't even ask. They don't even ask. They don't guess what? I don't want to send you more clients. I'm not looking for anything other than John. That meant the world to me. The confidence that you displayed in recommending someone to me. Now I want to go out and I'm I'm asking other people if they need what you do.

SPEAKER_09 45:55

What got me about John was and I'm gonna share something personal. And I think at 61, or actually I think over the past five to seven years, I've come to the conclusion that the best leaders in life and in business are constantly learning. And the business can only succeed as far as the leader continues to learn. It can only scale if the owner can change with the times and go from being a limo operator to a business owner to a corporate leader. And what Julius kind of emphasized to me was you can learn something new any minute of any day if you're paying attention. When I read his book on customer service, customer service revolution, and when we when I interviewed him, he brought up a concept that I'm enamored with. And it's the concept of bot business, bot sales versus earned sales. And I think this will go down in though. What is the difference? It's the difference is bot sales is when you write checks for Google Ads, you write checks for SEO, which are all important, both are very important. That's bot sales, right? Bot leads. Earned leads is basically creating a flywheel of fantastic service experiences and capturing the fine details so that you get earned sales, earned referrals that cost you nothing, but building that fantastic flywheel. So ever since that episode, I've been using that and I've been crediting him with you have to have a mixture of bought business and earned business to grow. And most operators in our space are looking for the easy way out. Most operators are saying, I'm spending three to five thousand on Google Ads, I can't figure out while I'm not growing, because you're not building the earned business. So, you know, that episode has kind of prompted me to put that into some upcoming content that we're working on. But DeJulius has it nailed in that if you instill in every facet of your business delivering exceptional service, exceptional experiences, you cannot help but grow. Incistency is what kills service. So yeah, that was a great one. So looking back at the website to do my homework for the show, you know, which I typically do a few days in advance, when John gives me the assignment, I do it.

SPEAKER_06 49:05

So still help me out and understanding where this homework is because there's these arbitrary deadlines James is not aware of, right? Because last week my wife and I are discussing this over an eight-hour drive, like six hours in that drive, we're discussing this. So I'm not I'm not sure if there was a test I missed or a quiz like somewhere along the line.

SPEAKER_09 49:26

Uh maybe it's the fact that I take some notes. Maybe that's what it is. Anyway, but it it I didn't even realize the body.

SPEAKER_06 49:33

I employ my own note takers, I just I'm modern. I use AI for it.

SPEAKER_09 49:38

Which actually leads us to another question. But I believe we've created an exceptional body of work here. And the question becomes what's in the future? Do you think we'll make it to 200 episodes? Jesus Christ. By the way, this should be. I wish it was I everybody knows I don't drink anymore. Everybody knows that, but boy, I wish it was Jack Daniels having this conversation.

SPEAKER_06 50:02

Yeah. I was I was gonna say, did you did you put some Baileys in it today? Where did we go from here?

SPEAKER_09 50:09

We've already made it to the top 7% as far as getting to 100 episodes, but what's our ultimate goal? Where do we go from here? How do we serve this public more?

SPEAKER_06 50:20

I think we kind of let them tell us how we do that. I know that a lot of a lot of what influences my episodes and kind of how I think about it comes from the interactions of people that come up to me and tell me about listening to the podcast. Or, you know, I think for me, one of the big watershed moments was Mike Rose sent a photo and he's in his backyard and he's got us on his TV. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, like at first I was like, this is staged, this is AI, but no, I mean, knowing that people are finding value in what we do and we're enjoying doing it, I think we keep going as long as we can. I think it really just becomes a matter of, you know, you guys, and and I and we say it all the time, you know, comments, like, subscribe. But I think really if if you guys know where you want it to go, where you guys have what you like and don't like, dropping those comments, telling us in person, sharing it with us, and it tells us where to go a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_09 51:22

And subscribing, hit subscribing, hit subscribe, hit follow, share all of our stuff. You know, the the funny thing is we're at a uh pretty pretty critical crossroads um in the industry. We've got further disruption and opportunities coming as it relates to AVs. The funny part about it is, you know, studying the TNCs, they're at an inflection point, and their inflection point is uh gonna be pretty scary because they are facing a reality that they have they're entering a growth mode where they're going to have to pay commercial fleets of AVs and commercial fleets of drivers and and not deal with let's just face it, uh, drivers that don't know their costs. So at the same time, the chauffeur industry will be faced with great opportunity in the autonomous space. And I'd I'd like to be here for that. I've already announced my date of retirement, which is 322 um March 22nd.

SPEAKER_06 52:34

I'm writing this down. It's 322 from the first time.

SPEAKER_09 52:36

March 22nd. No, March 22nd, six years from now. It's because I'll turn 67 again. Oh man. So yeah. But the you know, the other thing that calendars. Absolutely. Um the the other thing that influences the podcast that I think you're leaving out is all your travel and interactions with people. Uh I agree. Because I make mental notes when I'm talking to you. You know, this has got to be something that we handle on the podcast. You know, like the bus accidents with Tom Holden, when that came up, we wanted to grab him on the web on the podcast. And so I think that, and you know, like your guy with the the secretary from the FMCSA saying.

SPEAKER_06 53:16

Yeah, the admin the FMCSA administrator was, you know, like I said, that was all because of Scott Michaels making an introduction. I I think the big thing that I've seen happen is you talked about growth and learning. You know, I my friend Athena talks about how you know your business grows with you, and sometimes you're the limiting factor, your business you have to grow.

SPEAKER_09 53:38

More times than not, you're the limiting factor.

SPEAKER_06 53:41

I have people tell me how much they've gotten from the podcast, and I I think I'm being completely honest when I say I always feel like I might have personally have gotten more, not financially or any way like that, but just in terms of yeah, let's just clarify this thing. It's still a losing proposition. Yeah, so for those that don't know, uh the hundred episodes were personally financed by canon myself, right? Of course, when I say personally through the businesses, but but this has been a labor of love and a bill of love. Um, but I think labor of love. Yeah, the growth I think I've been able to experience personally, like you said, from being at the shows, from the conversations I've had, you know, there are so many times that we have these incredible conversations leading into a podcast and we haven't hit record yet. And those moments for me are huge because I get to keep those, right? I get to keep those moments, and sometimes we get to come back to that in the episode. Um, most of the time with with our guests, we can have them on for a whole day and not hit everything. And so I think a lot of that for me is that it has been this absolutely great thing where all of these conversations, all these things have come out of it, and I absolutely love that I get to share it with the listeners and with everybody that comes up and talks to me. And I'm on open book, I'll talk to a brick wall. So I love it when people want to talk. You? Yeah, me, me, me, us, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 55:13

Look, the other piece of this puzzle I I want to is I think we in the beginning, I think the view was, what are these two idiots doing?

SPEAKER_06 55:23

That's still the view.

SPEAKER_09 55:24

That's still the view. But then you get I get text messages in the morning because, like the president of one of the largest global networks listens while he's on his way into the office and he will text me. Great episode about this. Obviously, Mike Rose, Tim Rose, same way. The people that listen and the text messages I've got that would be, I mean, you'd be surprised who they are. Keep up the good work. The partnership we have with chauffeur-driven, meaning, I think the way Chris has embraced the podcast as another means of method of communication. One of the things we all said in the beginning is we don't want to offend the NLA. We don't want to offend chauffeur-driven because we want to work with we want to work with them, they're doing a great job. We don't want to leave out the UMA and the ABA, etc. So, you know, James, your idea seems to be paying good dividends for the industry. So kudos somebody's making money off it.

SPEAKER_06 56:21

Yeah, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_09 56:22

Um kudos and and John again, shout out for all your great people comment about your editing, people comment about the videos and how professional they are. That's all you. So very much appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06 56:35

I I think I think we've definitely got a lot of credit to give there to John. And I can tell you, you know, you talked about the people reaching out. One of the things that I think you've done a really great job on, John, and that I get a lot of feedback about is people that aren't able to listen to the whole episode are able to say, hey, I was going through LinkedIn or I was going through Facebook, and I caught this really great part of the episode, this really valuable part. And to Ken's point, we've been really lucky in that, you know, in the Motor Coach world, you've got ABA, you've got UMA, you know, you've got all these different groups out there. And I think part of what I love is we're able to work with all these groups to get everything on there, right? We've had Fred on, we've had Scott Michaels on, you know, we've had Ken Presley on, you know, we've had um IMG, you know, we've had them come on. We've had all of these different stakeholders in the industry that have all found a way to go ahead and use us as a conduit to reach out. And I don't think that could have happened without you, John.

SPEAKER_09 57:34

No, and let's let's let's also not minimize the Waymo's behaving badly episodes.

SPEAKER_06 57:41

Yeah, without Waymo's behaving badly.

SPEAKER_09 57:44

And what about all of the research on the limousines getting stuck on railroad? I mean, those are some of the comedy cornfields limos in a cornfield.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

The train hitting the stretch limo and the train tacks. That was my favorite. And there has been comments that say, no, this is AI. This is AI. I said, look at the timestamp. That was from 2015.

SPEAKER_09 58:04

No, it's not. It's right. And look, we have future.

SPEAKER_06 58:09

He was making a statement. It had to be a Chrysler 300.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

So much so that it's in the intro montage.

SPEAKER_09 58:15

We we we have some unfulfilled things going on, though. That you know, we've got to we've talked about all the celebratory stuff, but we have a few things weird that have stuck in my crawl a little bit. Elon has not responded to me. Um Tesla has not come on the ground transportation podcast. I don't know. At least we didn't get doged. Right. We didn't get doged, thank God. Well, we we don't get any government funding. Um, but I do think Tesla's too soon. Tesla's too soon. We'll be other episodes. Um, you know, there'll be more coming on the on Autonomous as as that all evolves.

SPEAKER_10 58:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 58:51

Uh and AI. So um well done, gentlemen. Um, John, again, couldn't happen with you, without you. And James, thank you for the idea. You know, 40 or 50 or 60,000 later. Don't worry about it. It's a piece of cake.

SPEAKER_06 59:06

Ken, Ken, you're the money guy. Just make it go away. Make it go away.

SPEAKER_09 59:09

Yeah. Well, I have to answer to if you think I'm the money guy, it's actually Cole. So, and he's tight, man. He's tight, he he's real tight. We had hamburgers in California, and he wants to put them on the client's bill. I'm like, we would have eaten elsewhere. Well, that's not the point where you know, we're on oh god, all money anyway.

SPEAKER_06 59:29

I I gotta tell you, California's pretty pricey. Those probably weren't cheap hamburgers.

SPEAKER_09 59:33

Nothing was cheap in California this week. This week. So um, we can't forget Bruce. Bruce was that was a fantastic episode.

SPEAKER_06 59:42

Bruce was a great episode. No, and and I think I think to me, you know, I we could go on and on about the guests. I'll just I'll just fast forward to the end for me. My number one favorite. I went back and I looked at every episode that you and I did together, Ken, and I can't pick one that is my favorite. I think one of my absolute favorites, my number one for me, is episodes like this when you and I can come back together, take what we've learned from the guests, take what we've got on the roads, and it's just you and me having fun doing the podcast. That is probably one of my favorite parts about everything we do.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:22

I agree with you, and I think you and I have an upcoming episode about technology because we were both asked to go to the NLA's first technology meeting. I came out of it very positive. Um, I think we've got a long way to go, but I think all of the stakeholders in that room believe it it's totally everything that we talked about is necessary to move the industry forward. So, John, you brought us in. Do you want to bring us out?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

Sure. I'll I'll bring I'll bring us out. But I think it I do want to just mention that a couple of my favorite episodes, real quick. So you you brought a Waymo is behaving badly. And I think that those episodes where we have those dash cam videos and you two react to them, but it's in a way where James, I think you take it in through like a training lens, which works really, really well. Um, but I think another one was uh the like after you guys are out on the road and then you come back and then you share notes on what you hear out there like boots on the ground. I think those are some of the most valuable, at least from my perspective. Um so yeah, it's been a pleasure to uh produce this show. It's definitely one of the leading shows in my portfolio. I use it constantly as an example. Um so it's it's been a real honor and a pleasure to do this with you guys. Go ahead and those are all ours. 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 PaxTraining.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, go to driving transsactions.com. We'll see you next time on the Ground Transportation Podcast.