Transcript
Speaker: Don't say that again.
Speaker: There isn't shit in the news.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: It's quite boring out there.
Speaker: Like trying to find an icebreaker and I'm like, what the fuck?
Speaker: People are not doing anything.
Speaker: We can just skip that part.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We actually have a lot of meat and potatoes that I would like to talk about today.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Who needs an icebreaker when you just start railing off swear words at the beginning of the podcast?
Speaker: I got to get that explicit tag right away.
Speaker: Right away.
Speaker: Check the box.
Speaker: Good morning.
Speaker: Welcome to the We Are Driven podcast where cars meet motivation.
Speaker: This is episode 132.
Speaker: My name is Arun Kumar and I am the driver and I am here with my co-host, Dan LaRue.
Speaker: How are you, Dan?
Speaker: Good morning.
Speaker: I am good.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: It's a good day.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: So what is the We Are Driven podcast?
Speaker: Well, we're here to build a community of driven people around the world.
Speaker: And this podcast is one of the ways in which we are accomplishing that.
Speaker: So this podcast combines automotive banter with meat and potatoes subjects on the
Speaker: various entertaining car topics as well as business, fitness, motivation, mindset, the things that make us driven and combining our automotive passion with success and motivation in life is what we're here for.
Speaker: So if you think that's a good place for you to listen, then please subscribe to the podcast and
Speaker: and share it with anybody else who you think would benefit from these topics.
Speaker: We also have a YouTube channel called Driven Diary.
Speaker: And on there, you will find weekly vlogs that basically are capturing a day in the life of myself as I'm working to build a billion-dollar automotive service empire.
Speaker: The final way in which we're building this community is through our Discord server.
Speaker: This is where driven people from around the world are congregating in a series of chat rooms on mobile apps to discuss the pursuit of excellence in business, fitness, and cars, hold each other accountable, and work through the iterative goal-setting framework.
Speaker: And
Speaker: If you would like to get involved or get directions to any of those areas of the Driven community, you can find us on social media.
Speaker: I'm at Arun D. Kumar on Instagram, and Dan is going to tell us what his Instagram is.
Speaker: Yeah, I am Dan underscore LaRue on Instagram.
Speaker: And we believe that driven people are the next leaders of our society.
Speaker: So that's really why we want to build this community is to really help build the future leaders of our society and unite in the way in which we go about it to make the world a better place.
Speaker: Now, as Dan just said, we're not going to do an icebreaker segment.
Speaker: Yeah, there's some pretty lame news out there.
Speaker: Car and driver trying to pull fast ones on people.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: All right, so we will skip... Wait, what?
Speaker: Now I'm curious.
Speaker: Oh, you didn't see the back page of the...
Speaker: Most recent issue of car driver.
Speaker: No, what happened?
Speaker: They I don't know if it was them or if it was somebody else.
Speaker: They put a fake ad for the Pontiac Firebird to return.
Speaker: And of course, it drove the Internet nuts like, oh, yeah, because they didn't read the fine print at the bottom.
Speaker: Like, hey, for all intents and purposes, this is a fucking joke.
Speaker: Of course, people want it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the sad part.
Speaker: Just a teaser.
Speaker: Yeah, and then I saw something else about the Camaro might come back and Chevy's trying to figure out how to make muscle cars cool again but not have V8s, which is just... They're not reading the room.
Speaker: People want V8s.
Speaker: Yeah, they want sports cars with power and make noises.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: What do I know?
Speaker: I'm not car executive, but... Or are you?
Speaker: Maybe I should be.
Speaker: You're some sort of car executive.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: We'll go down that road.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, so then we will skip to the appraisal segment now that we just did an icebreaker.
Speaker: And this is where Dan and I will give each other an auction off Bring a Trailer.
Speaker: And we each have to guess what the hammer price is going to be.
Speaker: And whoever is the higher or the lower percentage off wins bragging rights.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Last week, both of us are back on form after an abysmal month and a half where neither of us did particularly well.
Speaker: We both had a very good week.
Speaker: So Dan gave me a Nova 2 that had gone on Bring a Trailer in November of 2023.
Speaker: And here it was running again after a failed sale, failing to meet reserve in 2023.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it failed to meet reserve at $32,000.
Speaker: And I thought it would not do as well as it had done.
Speaker: So I guessed $30,000.
Speaker: And I was actually pretty close, though it did do better than it had done before.
Speaker: And it went for $34,000, making me off by 11.8%.
Speaker: I was right, though.
Speaker: I was right.
Speaker: that it would do better it did do better yeah but not by much yeah uh meanwhile dan i gave him an e46 m3 race car this thing was dumb ridiculous and yes it probably was 150 000 build and
Speaker: And yes, it probably was worth exactly what it went for, which was $30,001.
Speaker: And Dan guessed $32,000.
Speaker: So Dan was only off by 6.7%, which is fantastic.
Speaker: Back on form for both of us.
Speaker: Yeah, thanks for the assist on that one.
Speaker: So you're welcome.
Speaker: The averages right now from almost a year, we are nine weeks away from one year of having done this.
Speaker: And at that point, maybe we should try to think of a different, a little variable that can help us reset the scoreboards a little bit.
Speaker: Just wipe it clean.
Speaker: Or just wipe it clean.
Speaker: This was season one.
Speaker: We'll go straight into season two.
Speaker: Okay, so the averages, I'm at 22.8%.
Speaker: Dan's at 24.65%.
Speaker: So if we do wrap this up in nine weeks and we are at least somewhat close on each other's scores, then this is going to be...
Speaker: in the bag for me now knowing this information i want to go back and choose a different car well so my car for you for this week dan i'm punishing you it better not be a wagon it's not a wagon perfect it's it's worse
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It is... Oh, I should bid on this right now.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I just saw something as I was going to search of whatever you're about to say.
Speaker: It's a four-speed convertible all-terrain vehicle.
Speaker: It's a Volkswagen.
Speaker: What kind of Volkswagen?
Speaker: I don't think I can pronounce it.
Speaker: Then it's not the right one because this is a very commonly used word.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm giving you a Volkswagen thing.
Speaker: EV conversion.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Because I'm punishing you because you said you wanted a Tesla yesterday.
Speaker: Oh, so I'm giving you something with a Tesla powertrain in it because that's what you get to bid on because you want a Tesla all of a sudden.
Speaker: So I'm giving you a white over red vinyl, nicely restored 1974 Volkswagen thing that has been converted to a Hyper 9 electric motor with Tesla batteries.
Speaker: I'm confused.
Speaker: Why, how is it a manual?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I have not figured that out.
Speaker: I'm confused.
Speaker: Black convertible top, side curtains, cool trim, cool wheels, reupholstered seats.
Speaker: This thing is pretty nice, to be honest.
Speaker: I'm a big fan of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, when you were saying or describing this vehicle, I was thinking of the listing for the 1944 military version thing of this.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Because I saw it and thought about giving it to you.
Speaker: Oh, you mean the German?
Speaker: The super German one.
Speaker: Yeah, that would have been fun.
Speaker: Yeah, which would have been absolutely comical had I picked that, but I didn't do it.
Speaker: But so current bid is $21,000, and there are
Speaker: Three days left in this auction.
Speaker: Fuck, I don't know.
Speaker: This is what you get for saying you wanted a Tesla.
Speaker: I don't think... We're going to talk about th at a bit later.
Speaker: I don't think the punishment meets the crime here.
Speaker: Well, this is about as inconsequential as your words.
Speaker: Your texted words that will be immortalized forever.
Speaker: I was intrigued.
Speaker: I'm very intrigued now this thing is a manual, but
Speaker: Well, I'm guessing there are zero comps for an EV version of these.
Speaker: I'm just going to venture out there.
Speaker: Let's see here.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: EV.
Speaker: I'm just going to put in EV as an option here.
Speaker: Yeah, there's no results.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Yep, 32.
Speaker: Sounds like the right number.
Speaker: $32,000.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I like how you just blurt out a number.
Speaker: Because it's wrong.
Speaker: No matter what I put, it's going to be wrong.
Speaker: You say that a lot, and it is true 100% of the time, because how likely is it that you're going to guess the exact number?
Speaker: This is so fucking niche, Arun.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: This thing could go for like $100,000, or it could not move from where it's at.
Speaker: I don't think it's a $100,000 car, but I'm just being dramatic.
Speaker: Yeah, so I gave it to you because you want a Tesla.
Speaker: I didn't say I wanted a Tesla.
Speaker: I just said I built one.
Speaker: It was tickling my curiosity at the roll races over the weekend.
Speaker: It wasn't a three.
Speaker: It was a...
Speaker: I think it was an S, but it wasn't a plaid.
Speaker: Just a base model S. Yeah, and then there was a X performance that was there, which was kind of cool.
Speaker: I was interested.
Speaker: It was interesting to see them try and roll race Lamborghinis.
Speaker: I mean, they probably lost.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Because top speed is not an EV strong suit.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: What am I getting?
Speaker: What am I getting here?
Speaker: It's a wagon.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I couldn't have guessed that one.
Speaker: It's a wagon because Dan really likes wagons.
Speaker: It's a 1993 model Volvo 240 wagon five-speed.
Speaker: I think I saw this one.
Speaker: I don't know what it is about these things.
Speaker: I think I saw...
Speaker: Some years ago, and I know the car still exists.
Speaker: It was on Drag Week, and it was a bunch of Swedish guys that had built this monster of a Volvo wagon 240 just like this.
Speaker: But theirs was like gold.
Speaker: Fast as shit.
Speaker: Like overall number one contender fast.
Speaker: But it's just, you know, it's a boxy boat of a wagon.
Speaker: And it's definitely straight out of the 90s with the crazy multi-spoke wheels.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: It's a five-speed.
Speaker: It's a 2.3 liter inline four, so not a lot of power.
Speaker: Black on gray. 133.
Speaker: 1,000 kilometers, so about 83,000 miles, and it is in Ontario, Canada.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: Okay, so there was an... These things are all over the map.
Speaker: Yeah, they're special in their own way.
Speaker: But they're anywhere from 7,000 to 17,000.
Speaker: Yeah, and this one's sitting at 10 with two days to go.
Speaker: There was one that went in March.
Speaker: A 91 five-speed wagon.
Speaker: This is the closest comp I've come across so far.
Speaker: But it had 249,000 miles and it went for $17,500.
Speaker: Oh, so this is low miles.
Speaker: Real low miles.
Speaker: Relatively speaking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then, okay, here's an 88 wagon automatic with 250,000 miles that went for five grand.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: There's another automatic wagon with 132,000 miles that went for 14 and a half miles.
Speaker: There's a 1990 240 wagon five speed.
Speaker: Honestly.
Speaker: With 233,000 miles that went for 7,200.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What the shit?
Speaker: This 92 that sold in April for 17,750 is not as nice as the one I just gave you.
Speaker: And that one's not even a manual, is it?
Speaker: No, that's an automatic with 120,000 miles.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: This one is super clean.
Speaker: This one could go bad.
Speaker: I thought it was kind of a layup at first, and now I'm not thinking about how to do this.
Speaker: So if we just scroll back here a little bit, there was a 1978 wagon that went for $41,000 in April.
Speaker: Jesus, that's so much.
Speaker: That's ridiculous.
Speaker: So am I any closer to being able to come up with an answer?
Speaker: Probably not.
Speaker: That one that went for $41,000 had 9,000 miles on it.
Speaker: I feel a little bit more safe.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Still, this one only has 83,000 miles and it's a five speed.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: That one that went for 17,750 is green on tan.
Speaker: Gross.
Speaker: The, the only other thing about this one is it's in Canada.
Speaker: I don't know if that really matters to North Americans though, because it should be pretty easy to import.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it is something that people may think about, you know.
Speaker: It's not like the Mercedes from the Netherlands or wherever the heck that one was.
Speaker: Don't remind me.
Speaker: Like, actually, don't put that kind of energy into the fucking world right now.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well...
Speaker: I'm going to be a little, I'm going to play it.
Speaker: I mean, this sounds weird that I'm going to play it safe with this because if it doesn't move from right now, the number I'm about to say would be a 100% delta, which is 20,000.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It could go for 30, but if it goes for 30, then I'm only off by like 38% or something like that.
Speaker: So I'll take 38%.
Speaker: And I, you know, I gave you a difficult one.
Speaker: So competition wise, I'm feeling okay with my 20.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: You think it goes for 40?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Uh-uh.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: What would your guess be?
Speaker: I think you are in the ballpark.
Speaker: Minus a couple or add a couple grand.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: This one's kind of tough now that I'm looking at it, too.
Speaker: Would I pay $20,000 for that?
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: I think it's cool.
Speaker: Bid it right now.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Yeah, please.
Speaker: Because then I automatically am in better shape.
Speaker: No, the only thing that would have been on would have been the thing with a minute and a half on it when we first started.
Speaker: And it's gone now.
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: It was a 70s Ranchero.
Speaker: You don't need that.
Speaker: It was at $4,000.
Speaker: Every car deserves a truck bid.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love cars with truck beds, dude.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So shall we get to the meat and potatoes?
Speaker: Yeah, let's eat.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Let's eat.
Speaker: You're eating today.
Speaker: So Dan is about to get promoted.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Effective.
Speaker: June 3rd.
Speaker: It would be my first day.
Speaker: Even though I'm technically already doing about 80% of the work now.
Speaker: So this episode is actually going to come out after you get promoted.
Speaker: Oh, perfect.
Speaker: Then we're good.
Speaker: Then we're good.
Speaker: That'll do.
Speaker: So, congrats.
Speaker: Heck yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I wanted to use some time today to talk about
Speaker: your career at Chrome Enhancements thus far and some of what you've learned, some cool stories maybe from what you've done there and just understand a bit better what you do for work.
Speaker: And so this episode is just called Dan's Car Business and I may get a little bit further into your car business than just Chrome Enhancements.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: We'll see how this goes.
Speaker: Just to clarify...
Speaker: I was sales operations before the promotion.
Speaker: The promotion is now the director of operations and logistics, which I don't really think that's the title, but that's just what we're rolling with for now.
Speaker: I think it could be clarified into something different because there are just certain responsibilities that I'll be doing that don't fit either of those.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Just assume that that might change.
Speaker: Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker: But basically, we can kind of start there with how did you start with Chrome Enhancements and how has your role evolved over time into what it is about to start being?
Speaker: Yeah, so I've been in the Chrome Enhancements universe for 11 years this August, I believe.
Speaker: Sometime this summer is 11 years.
Speaker: I didn't keep track of when I moved and when I started in the universe.
Speaker: So I didn't work directly for Chrome Enhancements.
Speaker: It was the company Ballyhoo Autowear, which Chrome Enhancements was a customer of, but owned by the same guys.
Speaker: So my role was content creation and developing before and after photos for Chrome products for the Chrome enhancement sales reps.
Speaker: So I was working in Photoshop every day, making, you know, nice flashy images.
Speaker: like they were evox images like stock images like car white background.
Speaker: Then we would Photoshop Chrome on a handle on a grill on the wheel on the mirror.
Speaker: It was very tedious and you could never really Photoshop Chrome right.
Speaker: And it was yeah.
Speaker: It was an interesting time.
Speaker: That sounds interesting.
Speaker: You could probably do it better today.
Speaker: You know, 11 years.
Speaker: AI technology.
Speaker: Yeah, right?
Speaker: It would look better.
Speaker: But it was a process of learning how to use Photoshop as someone who had never used it before.
Speaker: And the Chrome Enhancement Strips really didn't use it that much, I don't think, at that time.
Speaker: I also did a week of route sales with one of the Chrome Enhancement reps at that time.
Speaker: You did actually hit the road.
Speaker: That was the first thing that I was told I had to do was I had to go run a local route here in the Nebraska area with one of the reps.
Speaker: It was an interesting time.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that's how it started.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the origin of how I got involved with them.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: Well, Ballyhoo AutoWear sold, and Reynolds & Reynolds was the company who purchased Ballyhoo AutoWear.
Speaker: They didn't want to keep all the employees, so they cut me and a few others, and that's when the owner of Ballyhoo AutoWear, who also was the GM of Chrome Enhancements,
Speaker: So, hey, you're coming to work over here to be like an office admin while I was in school.
Speaker: And that's where I learned to be a jack of all trades.
Speaker: And funny enough, the guy who trained me is used to sit in the office I'm sitting in now.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: I was working on the back side of the the desk on a laptop, like a hand me down laptop from them.
Speaker: learning from him and how to do it all until they finally got me my own desk.
Speaker: So now he's moved out.
Speaker: He's next door because he took over somebody else's office and now it's my office.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: Which I kind of want to cut a hole in the wall behind me so I h ave a window, but it's a work in progress.
Speaker: You have a nice backlight.
Speaker: You know, some natural lighting would be nice every now and then instead of having to get up and go stand by the door for 10 minutes.
Speaker: So you started off with Photoshop.
Speaker: You ran a local route around Omaha, and then you started getting trained up.
Speaker: So what all did that entail, encompass?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the initial training was on ordering.
Speaker: And back then Chrome Enhancements was owned by Keystone Automotive Industries.
Speaker: And
Speaker: The company that we primarily bought from was Coast to Coast International, and they were also owned by Keystone Automotive Industries.
Speaker: They stocked all of their product in two locations, one out of Quincy, Illinois, and one out of Stockton, Washington,
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Stockton, Washington.
Speaker: I've never heard of Stockton, Washington.
Speaker: Stockton, California.
Speaker: It might have been California.
Speaker: Somewhere on the west coast.
Speaker: I don't remember the state.
Speaker: I just remember the city name.
Speaker: How they did it was you put in your order in... Well, it wasn't an order.
Speaker: It was a transfer because it was a warehouse transfer into this really old 1980s system called Prelude.
Speaker: And you send it off and whatever warehouse you picked would send it via UPS to our guys.
Speaker: And then once they said it was in transit, then I had to go in and receive it.
Speaker: And the system doesn't let you use mice.
Speaker: It's all via arrow keys and F keys.
Speaker: And it's super dumb.
Speaker: Inventory was never right because it did this thing called voodoo prelude math where it would go from 2 to 25 for whatever reason.
Speaker: Like just in counting?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It was bad.
Speaker: And then it would go to four?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Just magically, yeah.
Speaker: It was a 1980 system with no support made by IBM.
Speaker: Yikes.
Speaker: So, yeah, just one of those things.
Speaker: So that's where I really got my start.
Speaker: We did purchase orders out of that same system to some other vendors out there.
Speaker: And Coast to Coast is still our...
Speaker: number one vendor that we use today.
Speaker: And we both ended up transferring over to Keystone Automotive Operations, which is where we actually had to do purchase orders and do intercompany buying.
Speaker: And it,
Speaker: That's where it started to become a mess.
Speaker: Just with the accounting and the back end.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's really where I started to also get my feet wet a little bit as far as management goes.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: About that time, I was presented an offer, and it was continue school or...
Speaker: manage a team of sales reps with a team lead manager, but not go to school.
Speaker: And I was like, and I know I've told this story before.
Speaker: So I looked at the money and I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to take the manager.
Speaker: I'm going to leave.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's school like, bye.
Speaker: I see this money off to spend.
Speaker: And at the time, I also had a really good mentor, Colvin McLaughlin.
Speaker: He's fantastic.
Speaker: Still a great friend of mine today.
Speaker: He texted me earlier.
Speaker: So we're talking daily basis, even though he's a trader and left for another company.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Love you, Colby.
Speaker: So yeah, he really helped me get my feet wet and get into management and help me understand business and how to excite sales reps, you know, come up with incentive plans to try and have me do more than just be a data entry team.
Speaker: slave and just stared at the screen all day and have no interaction with anybody so he really pushed for that and when he left when he left Chrome of Handsmith I was like no you're the only one here that does this
Speaker: Now you're the only one there that does this.
Speaker: Yeah, when he made that phone call, I know exactly where I was.
Speaker: Where I was driving to, what road I was on.
Speaker: It's like, man, that was a hurtful day.
Speaker: But he's grown a way crazier amount than I have since he's left, and he's done very well.
Speaker: I'm glad that he's still a part of my life.
Speaker: Okay, so you got from...
Speaker: basically being a buyer of inventory to managing the sales team.
Speaker: So it was a bit of shifting from the upper parts of the supply chain to the lower parts of the supply chain, which gave you a good breadth of all the understanding of how the business really works.
Speaker: You're taking product from one place and then you're moving it somewhere else and getting paid more than you spent.
Speaker: Yeah, and it wasn't necessarily managing their routes on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker: That was the team leads job.
Speaker: Mine was sales operations and making sure they had the tools they had to sell effectively and to make sure their inventories levels are right and they were doing the proper things of checking in their inventories, warranty products, making sure that they were staying organized was my key responsibility.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then, so that, to my understanding at least, was most of your job for the last few years.
Speaker: Yeah, with the exception of like a year and a half, two years, I said adios.
Speaker: I'm going to work at the restyling shop here in town, which was a whole different level of
Speaker: of eyesight into the industry.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Now you're in my world.
Speaker: Right, yeah.
Speaker: And that's where I was like the on-site Keystone sales rep.
Speaker: So I was...
Speaker: Making sure that they were buying the majority of their product from Keystone.
Speaker: Probably not.
Speaker: It's not difficult to do that.
Speaker: No, not when I'm the one ordering the product.
Speaker: Heck no, it's not.
Speaker: So, you know, I'm getting a commission on that.
Speaker: And then I'm also working for the companies they're selling for them, getting a commission on the sales I'm making on the floor.
Speaker: Ordering product from Keystone, getting commission.
Speaker: It was a good double dip.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a good double dip.
Speaker: Fun part of my life.
Speaker: We did a lot of really cool things.
Speaker: I threw I threw my first car show there at the grand opening.
Speaker: Like nice me.
Speaker: I organized it and we did awards a whole nine and it was really freaking awesome.
Speaker: We had one of those pull up.
Speaker: money machines like the money flies around you have to catch it and stuff oh yeah we went we went all out all out we made a we made a throne out of cases of beer in the warehouse and took pictures with it it was it was quite comical so like we had leftover beer
Speaker: Nobody drank Miller Lite.
Speaker: Every time the Keystone drivers would stop by on Friday, we'd leave one out for them and say, hey, take this back with you.
Speaker: And they loved us.
Speaker: They were just top notch after that.
Speaker: Case of beer.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like wink.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that job was cool just because I got the retail customer interaction.
Speaker: I got some wholesale dealer interaction with it.
Speaker: And just seeing the possibilities of everything you could do with a vehicle became clear.
Speaker: And that's where I was able to jump into SEMA and start volunteering my time with them.
Speaker: So it just brought me into a new light of the industry, which I'm so thankful for that opportunity to step away from traditional chrome enhancement stuff.
Speaker: So the restyling shop is what got you into SEMA at first?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because we did.
Speaker: I had gone the year prior to this just as like a first time.
Speaker: Like I was able to convince Rod, which was the GM at the time, like, hey, I want to go to SEMA.
Speaker: I want to see it.
Speaker: You know, he's like, yeah, sure.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: You can go for a couple of days.
Speaker: And then following year, we actually did a SEMA build out of the restyling shop.
Speaker: So we did a, let's see, it had to be like a 2019, 2020,
Speaker: Gladiator?
Speaker: Whenever those first came out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We got one of the first Rubicons in town.
Speaker: We did a four and a half inch Evo lift on it.
Speaker: We put 40s on it at first, but dropped them down to 35s because they were ridiculous.
Speaker: We climbed some cars in the parking lot, put some bumpers on, winch.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: And we took it to SEMA for the Pro Cup Challenge, which is SEMA Pro Council.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we were part of their inaugural class.
Speaker: And I drove it out there on a trailer and drove it back.
Speaker: So I had to be there the whole freaking week.
Speaker: Got my ass chewed by, I want to say it was, it might have been the cat skin booth.
Speaker: or one close to it, I accidentally drove on their wood floor, which didn't go over well.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Did it break?
Speaker: Oh, it, yeah, because it was the tire that caught just the lip of the flooring, and it just smushed it.
Speaker: And I'm following the lead of the guys who run the teardown of SEMA,
Speaker: And I can't see out of the passenger side fucking window of this thing.
Speaker: And the wheels stick out a foot and a half.
Speaker: I can't see this shit.
Speaker: You got to become a better driver, as they say.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: And then if it climbs a little two-inch lip of a wood floor, I won't feel that.
Speaker: We climbed cars with this thing and didn't feel it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, hey now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so, and, you know, just for people who don't, who haven't heard about what Chrome Enhancements is before this, let's just go into that for a second.
Speaker: Like, what actually are we selling here?
Speaker: What are we talking about?
Speaker: Yeah, so the original inception of Chrome Enhancements, they sold chrome plastic overlays, sometimes metal, depending on the product, of wheel skins, mirrors, handles, grills, window sill trim, body side molding,
Speaker: Essentially anything that you can think of that you could put on a stick on product on the outside of your vehicle would do it.
Speaker: Now we're really selling more gloss black stuff than we are Chrome.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But we can't rename to the other way because that would sound really bad.
Speaker: That's the ongoing joke here is we can't change your name.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: So, yeah, it would sound pretty bad.
Speaker: What if you call it gloss?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it sounds even goofier.
Speaker: What if you call it the darkening?
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds like 2000s cringe right there.
Speaker: But yeah, so we have about 45 salespeople all across the U.S. We go as far west as Phoenix and Boise.
Speaker: And then from there, it's all the way east.
Speaker: And your customers are?
Speaker: 99% dealerships.
Speaker: We do some wholesale a little bit here and there where we sell to other restylers and then they go sell to dealerships.
Speaker: But that's pretty far in between right now.
Speaker: So this was one of the things I wanted to hear about because I haven't.
Speaker: And it is, and I know you may not be able to give a name, but what has been your best customer success story?
Speaker: That's a tough one.
Speaker: And I think I would have to go with one that was fairly recent just because it sticks in my brain.
Speaker: We had, for some reason, we had a sale come through the Chrome Enhancements retail website, which we really don't do anything with.
Speaker: We don't throw it on SEO or anything like that.
Speaker: So the fact that someone got to it and bought from it is pretty impeccable.
Speaker: So I get this email from the guy who runs the website and says, hey, can you send this out?
Speaker: I'm looking at it and I'm like, that's a dealership email on there.
Speaker: Let me just check the old customer database.
Speaker: And it happened to be that it was a dealership that bought from one of my guys a year ago and he hadn't been back.
Speaker: So I was like, hold on a second.
Speaker: I'm not going to send this out.
Speaker: I'm going to just hold off for a second.
Speaker: So I called the sales rep and said, Hey, just want to give you a heads up.
Speaker: We had one of your dealers from a year ago, buy something on the website.
Speaker: And I was like, that's a little weird.
Speaker: I don't want to do that.
Speaker: And he tells me the story of like he, they lost one of their employees and they weren't buying.
Speaker: It's like, all right, what if I sent you this wheel skin instead, instead of them and you go drop it off.
Speaker: And while you're there,
Speaker: do a proposal for a bunch of vehicles on the lot and say, hey, I saw that you bought this wheel of skin online.
Speaker: I'm back in the area.
Speaker: Here are some other things I noticed that you could up, up fit so you can upsell on your lot.
Speaker: And he went and did it and ended up getting four vehicles out of it, which for me is huge.
Speaker: Cause that's four vehicles.
Speaker: We would have never had if I didn't, if I had just sent that wheel skin to that customer.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Versus sending it to my rep who's now on site and can see and explain it to him.
Speaker: And I told him to, I'm like, install that for them.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Like, make sure they don't touch it at all.
Speaker: Full service.
Speaker: Do you typically quantify your sales opportunities in terms of vehicles?
Speaker: Or how does that look for you?
Speaker: Yeah, it's huge for us.
Speaker: We'd like to quantify it by vehicle packages over vehicles themselves because some guys will only sell like wheel skins where we want to quantify it on three and four piece packages.
Speaker: So they're doing the wheels, handles, mirrors, grill all at the same time.
Speaker: It's just better margins, better revenue for us doing it that way.
Speaker: I understand the quickness of just doing wheels because you just do a little donkey kick on them and they're on.
Speaker: What's a typical package retail price or wholesale or if you shouldn't say that, what do you make on a typical package?
Speaker: I know it varies a lot depending on the vehicle.
Speaker: It can vary.
Speaker: Depending on the sales rep and where they're at, they'll make
Speaker: either $4.95 to $5.95 on four-piece packages.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Somewhere in that ballpark.
Speaker: And then just subtract $100 down from there per piece, realistically.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: So that's really where we are.
Speaker: Now, some other companies out there may be higher.
Speaker: We have pretty aggressive pricing from our vendors just because we do so much.
Speaker: And our margins are roughly...
Speaker: In the 60s and 70%.
Speaker: So it's pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially at high volume.
Speaker: That's what I was going to... It may not be high revenue right off the rip, but when you have 45 guys doing it, it's pretty high volume.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you have 45 guys doing, what, 10 vehicles a day or something like that?
Speaker: Shoot, some are more than that.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, some will do 10 vehicles a stop, and then they'll go to the next place, same day.
Speaker: So 20.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean... That's good money, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, they could be doing... It just depends on what they're doing for packages and how they are selling.
Speaker: I'm trying to see if I have a good example here, but I don't.
Speaker: Oh, here we go.
Speaker: Here's a good one.
Speaker: Yeah, this one's got one, two, three...
Speaker: four, five, six on one invoice.
Speaker: And this specific guy will probably have probably double that still to go for the day.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So we have some guys that are doing $100,000 a month in revenue.
Speaker: It's insane.
Speaker: It's absolutely good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right, that was a story I wanted to hear about.
Speaker: Now, this next one is dicey.
Speaker: It's going to be, what is the biggest mistake you ever made at Chrome Enhancements, and what did you learn from it?
Speaker: Yeah, I did this one recently, too.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Yeah, this one I got chewed for pretty good, and this is, of course, right after I found out
Speaker: I was going to be promoted.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I stepped over my bounds just a little bit.
Speaker: And there was an email that went out about somebody's work schedule.
Speaker: And I wasn't happy about it.
Speaker: Like, I was very like, what the fuck kind of scenario.
Speaker: And I hit reply all.
Speaker: So it went back to the entire company and I had asked about what are we going to do to make up the hours that you aren't here?
Speaker: We have X, X and X. We still need to get done.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: That was the second paragraph of the email.
Speaker: I got okayed and very, very well done on the first paragraph.
Speaker: The second one is where I got my fucking ass ripped.
Speaker: Bad.
Speaker: So wait, what was in the first paragraph?
Speaker: It was essentially saying, hey, you know, while you're out, can you give us a list of processes of things that need to be covered?
Speaker: And can I also have instructions on XX and XX?
Speaker: So like it was appropriate.
Speaker: And I get emailed back say for first paragraph.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Second paragraph.
Speaker: Not cool.
Speaker: And I hit back.
Speaker: I said, my apologies won't happen again.
Speaker: And that's when I got a long list of options for me.
Speaker: Things options.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: I took option.
Speaker: Apologize publicly via response to my to my own email.
Speaker: So wait, all you did was ask, how are we going to make up your hours?
Speaker: Yeah, and I was very vague on problems that needed to be solved, and it was found to be disrespectful.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So I said, okay, I will apologize publicly and show some humility and move on from it.
Speaker: So my lesson learned from this is don't hit reply all.
Speaker: If you have a problem with somebody, just go to their face and just be like, hey, I'm ETF, bro.
Speaker: And everything's been kosher since.
Speaker: It's just, yeah, it was one of those things.
Speaker: I should have not been as frustrated in my wording as I should have been.
Speaker: And it probably wasn't appropriate to be written.
Speaker: Because, you know, everything written is perceived, read, and written.
Speaker: So you made a mean tweet when you got caught.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I shouldn't, no, ultimately you're talking about what you learned from this and I shouldn't be minimizing it.
Speaker: No, yeah, and I never got a response from the individual.
Speaker: It is what it is.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And it didn't diminish, you know, my role being changed, which is great.
Speaker: And I'm here for it.
Speaker: And hopefully I can make some constructive change going forward to where that things like that don't happen again.
Speaker: And we don't have emails going out that frustrate the shit out of people.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker: There was a lot to unpack from that day.
Speaker: I was very ready to just like walk out the door.
Speaker: I was mad at the person calling me out.
Speaker: I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker: And then I came to my sense.
Speaker: I'm like, all right, you know, I'm just going to concede and move on.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I have one more question.
Speaker: This is a bit, this is probably going to come from the res styling shop.
Speaker: And you may have, if you've already answered this with the gladiator, let me know.
Speaker: What's the best build that you were ever a part of?
Speaker: Oh, say gladiators definitely one of them just because of, I mean, it was so fresh at the time.
Speaker: I think the favorite thing I ever did for a bill was for a Wrangler JL.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: We dealt with a lot of Wranglers for some reason.
Speaker: Don't know what's up with that.
Speaker: And I somehow made a really crazy powder coat color on accident.
Speaker: So this orthopedic surgeon was coming in with his daughter's JL, high school girl, of course, and just decking this thing out.
Speaker: So we did a little lift on it, did some, let's see, there were fuel.
Speaker: Man, I can't remember which ones they were.
Speaker: There's some fuel multi-spoke wheel 20s.
Speaker: They put like the DV8 rocker guards on it.
Speaker: The ones you have to rivet into the paint, which was terrifying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But the doc wanted or the doc's daughter wanted pink wheels, which is not an option.
Speaker: You made a crazy powder coat.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Made a crazy powder coat.
Speaker: And they're,
Speaker: So what we were doing, we bought the gloss black and milled version of this wheel, and we did a racing raspberry translucent over it, right?
Speaker: This sounds cool.
Speaker: I'll send you a photo of it.
Speaker: So what happened was that this powder was high sparkle,
Speaker: And it took the black and essentially made it like this lavendery color.
Speaker: Like, just like light purple, pinkish edge kind of there.
Speaker: And then the milled surface was hot fucking pink.
Speaker: And it looked so good on a black Jeep.
Speaker: I was like, this is the coolest fucking thing ever.
Speaker: Like, I would rock this.
Speaker: Like, no shame.
Speaker: Would rock it.
Speaker: Because, like, this thing is awesome.
Speaker: Just as like one cool customer build that was an absolute accident that came out so cool that we did it on a different one, different color.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Good deal.
Speaker: One of those things.
Speaker: It's like an accidental oops.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I have one hot seat question, but then I'm afraid we're out of time for today.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Hot seat.
Speaker: Hot seat question.
Speaker: Would you rather have one $100,000 car or five $20,000 cars?
Speaker: Five $20,000 cars.
Speaker: There's not... Basically, what I get out of that is there's not a single $100,000 car that can really make it.
Speaker: Yeah, I think... I think that they exist out there for me.
Speaker: There is an R8 on Bring a Trailer right now.
Speaker: I'm sure... Yeah, I'm sure there is.
Speaker: It's just...
Speaker: This is my problem now.
Speaker: I have one car and I want more than one car.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: That's actually what it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I want that ability to have an option and you're talking about the R8.
Speaker: I'm sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Would it be nice to have an early V10 R8 just to have one?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But I would like to have other things to drive.
Speaker: It's just who I am.
Speaker: I like having the ability to have a choice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, so that is all the time that we have for today.
Speaker: So thank you very much for listening.
Speaker: This has been Arun and Dan.
Speaker: And until next week, stay driven.
