One year ago TODAY, we just hit the record button and decided to start this podcast.
The Automotive Troublemaker was cited in NADA’s official submission to the FTC regarding proposed regulations surrounding pricing transparency.
Hurricane Ian is closing in on the Florida coast and Dealers are in full execution of precautionary measures. Asbury and Carmax had already closed over 20 stores yesterday.
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SPEAKERS
Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly, Brian Kramer
Paul Daly 00:21
Oh, snap. We've been doing this podcast for one full year as of today. And I don't know if you've heard, but there's a little bit of a little storm isn't me see the contrast seats repeat. Yay. Yay. Do you remember when we started playing this song? Was this in the beginning?
Kyle Mountsier 00:52
No, I think I think with that, I think it was day one. Well, day two
Paul Daly 00:57
on that day one. All right.
Kyle Mountsier 00:59
I'm pretty sure.
Paul Daly 01:01
We have a little bit of a celebration. And we have some news. We have a little walk down memory lane. Today marks one day of this podcast. If you are an OG, you know that this podcast was not called the automotive troublemaker. Just give us some applause. I just this was celebrate ourselves the day. It feels like a good day. You know, in my mind, yes. It's awesome that we've been doing this and just have had our hands in the dirt every single day for 266 episodes. I don't know did have we missed a day? I don't think we've missed a week day. Like we even did it. I think Christmas Eve or Christmas was on a we made sure we recorded some I recorded something I don't think we've missed the day. We can fact check that. But I actually think we've got a whole year without missing a single day. And and I literally think been close. Very close. Like the end of the day we're like, yeah, right. Because we're traveling or doing something, we always figured out a way to make it work. And if we can figure it out this week, I think this year, first year, I think we can figure it out any year. And it really is a testament to the fact that the community that has grown around what automotive State of the Union stands for is just straight up inspiring. They keep us going every single day, they give us reason to show up and suit up the comments, the emails, the DMS, the social love that we see all the time. By the way, if you're not following us on LinkedIn, there's a lot of action going on around the account on LinkedIn these days. So just search a so too on LinkedIn. And that really like you don't show up every day for something that you you don't stay engaged or passionate or charged up about.
Kyle Mountsier 02:41
Yeah, there's a there's a few things that this allows us one, it's like we kind of the reason why we started this podcast was we're like, so I think we start the day every day with about 15 to 20 minutes of you know, chitter chatter about the whole automotive industry. Why don't we just let that conversation live for everyone to hear. And then it started becoming this like amalgamation of all of the thoughts. And we've had, you know, other leaders in the space and dealers and like ag bring input into it. And then we've had to re clarify like how we're how we're contextualizing the news for retail auto. And so it's been it's really been like, a work in progress personally, for me, and I think for us, that has given us the tools to like have more conversations across our industry and for more kind of like, you know, figure out how to have these similar conversations. It's broadened in its scope of like, this is just a podcast where you get the news, right? It actually like a cure
Paul Daly 03:40
radio stations. Yeah, plenty of those that like that. It curates conversation. So we're going to do a couple of fun things this morning, we have a little walk down memory lane, a couple of best moments, we're also going to go live with our man on the ground in the middle of the hurricane or where it's about to land in Florida, Brian Cramer. He's posted up, he's ready to come on the show live. So we're gonna get to that in just a minute. But first, we're gonna go through a couple a couple little milestones. I do want to mention, we have gone from Episode 00. What's actually let's play the very beginning of this podcast,
Kyle Mountsier 04:16
a little taste.
Paul Daly 04:17
We'll give it we'll give you 30 seconds or so of how the podcast actually started. If you haven't been around that long, which most of the audience haven't really. Back then it was called contagious conversations. No contagious five podcast, the contagious five, right? Yep, contagious five. And the reason we call it that is because Kyle and I initially went into business together to build a marketing consulting and training company. We still do some consulting as contagious, but quickly realized that automotive State of the Union was where the real impact and the real conversations could be had. So one day we're like, we just have to start making regular content and we literally would say the phrase, the more content we make, the more successful we will be. And we also that is our advice to You the more content you make, the more successful you'll be at the very least, it helps you work
Kyle Mountsier 05:03
38 on a Tuesday, we were like, you know, roll it,
Paul Daly 05:08
Paul. Just hit record. And here's what happened. Not that I've got a story about that, too. I do have a story about the Segway, but but here it as, okay, I just hit record. And Kyle and I came up with this idea that we were going to do a regular everyday podcast Monday through Friday, that's going to be short, sweet, to the point top of mine. Follow our journey as entrepreneurs in the startup and automotive and marketing and culture and all these things. And I just hit record so that we can have episode 00 to upload the app. No joke.
Kyle Mountsier 05:40
No joke, Paul.
Paul Daly 05:42
For for those,
Kyle Mountsier 05:43
we literally came up with this idea, like 18 minutes ago, maybe 19. With Paul just doing that intro. Yeah.
Paul Daly 05:51
And so yeah, but the biggest thing for us is we have a zillion ideas. And ideas don't mean anything if you don't execute on it. So we're kind of so that is the first 45 seconds. The
Kyle Mountsier 06:04
theme of a so do for the last year has actually for since the beginning is like you can have ideas, but they're just ideas if you don't execute on it. And like in the we've continued that theme with a soda con, we were telling someone yesterday, like a soda can literally didn't exist 120 days pre event go time, you know, like, and they were like, Wait a second. So you're telling
Paul Daly 06:28
me really cause like we launched tickets, 57 days before the event. And 121 days before the event. It was like, hey, remember when we said we were going to try to maybe do a standalone event this year? Are we going to do that or not? That's literally how the conversation started. And then it was like, Well, let's look at the calendar. I guess the only place you can really fit it in is like the beginning of September. Hey, Danielle, could you see if that venue in Philly is available? She calls back? Yeah, they're available these two weekends. And then I guess we're gonna do this event. What are we gonna call it? That's how that works. But But I think that that is indicative of what it takes to actually be an entrepreneur in 2022 2023 world and we consider dealers and industry partners, very entrepreneurial, and I'm gonna call it this I have, that's what it takes. That's what it takes to be in business and 20 it's not even just being
Kyle Mountsier 07:21
an entrepreneur, it's what it takes to stay in business, like Dave Meltzer, calls us and tells us all the time first rule in business to stay in business. And like the constant iteration, that constant move from idea to action every single day, is what's necessary to make the changes and implement things that will keep you in business today and tomorrow. And that's what we've been, we've been rolling with
Paul Daly 07:43
will say, though, rolling that the velocity, right, you have to be willing to make mistakes, you have to be willing to get it wrong before you get it fully right. But know that in those iterations, you're going to get 70 to 80% of it right? A lot of the time for swing, right? And so you have to be okay, you have to be secure enough. You have to know your relationships with your partners and stuff are understanding like, Hey, we're breaking new ground. We don't know what's going to happen when we crack this thing open. But we know that we need to go in this direction. We have a couple other fun clips to play for you as well. What do we got? What do we got? Well,
Kyle Mountsier 08:16
we're a little little walk down memory lane, our very first like full length episode, the first, the first story that we ran was actually when Asbury acquired Larry H. Miller, which was a huge deal monetarily. And also for the Asbury group. We also in late October put out this call, we're like, you know, we kind of say segway all the time we move from story to story. We'd love it if there was some sort of segue sound. And Brian Ortega shout out put us up like four or five options. And this sound, which you may hear every day is the one that came out of that way. Which I love, like little MC Hammer.
Paul Daly 08:59
makes me smile a
Kyle Mountsier 09:00
robot voice. It was perfect. You know, we have kind of like, two first video episodes. Our first official video was we were in Chicago for the dealer inspire and Joe tours, refuel event and Miles was was along for the ride and we thought we were in what was it a JW Marriott outside of
Paul Daly 09:24
the Sheraton. I think it's the Sheraton. It's right outside. You know, it's the airport that is kind of a part of O'Hare International Airport. So you walk out the front door and then walk into the hotel.
Kyle Mountsier 09:34
So that's the first time we set up video cameras he miles chopped up and edit in a car on the way to lunch. And then we dropped this off the podcast it was so cool like just to watch him do his do his thing and and then our first like live stream video the way that in a similar format to that what we're doing it now was January 3 of this year. So that was fun. Our actually speaking of Brian Kramer We
Paul Daly 10:02
can't say speaking of Isaac, can you get me the stream yard link or Kyle Do you have it? We need to get it to Brian Kramer because he just messaged us that he is on the beach in Florida. So I think we're gonna get a little weather channel action here in a second where we we see the gale force winds trying to blow Brian Kramer over. So I don't know if you can get that link to us so that we can zip it out to Brian Kramer and pull him in. I'm sorry. What were you gonna get him?
Kyle Mountsier 10:26
I got him got it. Great. Okay, awesome. Got we got this, we got this.
Paul Daly 10:32
We also have a fun photo to share with you. And Isaac, can you put the photo up? This is a photo of the 100th episode. When we just randomly set the link. We have Tim Cox sitting in his office, we have Bob Lanham, in his basement on his peloton, Brian Kramer is just looking fly like always just walking to work, I guess. And David Long is in the upper right hand corner and looking all witness protection program, because it's dark in his house, because you know, we did this probably 8:30am. Eastern, so it's 5:30am for him. And that's Episode 100, when we just randomly sent out the link, and some people showed up to talk about it. And I think this is indicative of the family mentality around automotive State of the Union. We are not fans of drawing that real defined line between home life and work life like we think that line actually doesn't really exist. It's just a perception of existing and the more substantiated you try to make that line, the actual harder both of those get, but when you try to merge them together and say, hey, look, it's all one life, we're all working towards a unified goal so that we can provide for our families, our families are a part of what empowers our professional life, our professional life as a part of what empowers our family life, and finding ways to bring those together even as through the nature and the tone of the content. You know, if you've been to our event, you know that Kyle and I aren't shy about bringing our families, you know, we would add more people do that as well. And so I think you know, that that is part of like, why our heart is with a soda and to be a media company is typically real buttoned up and polished. But we're saying like, Man, I think this day and age, it's like making it more real world real life. And getting that getting that in, you know, ingrained in the culture is something that a lot of people actually want,
Kyle Mountsier 12:16
which I think is so native to, to automotive, like I've spent 12 years worship world, it's like, I mean, every single day, some family member of some employee was coming by the dealership, right whether to drop off lunch, or the kids were coming and saying hi, and effort after school. Like it's just a familial atmosphere. And I think that that's, that's a desire of ours to like, exert into this media kind of community and, and so the fact that people sometimes just show up on a whim at, you know, what, whether it's like 678 or nine on their timezone, and just pop in and and, and lean into the conversation has been absolutely fun now. Now, Paul, recently, we've, we've, we've had, like, not our crowning achievement, but a pretty proud moment.
Paul Daly 13:05
No, I would say it's a notable notable notice, it's a notable achievement. I think it dropped right at the right time, we went from hitting the record button a year ago to nada, literally citing the automotive troublemaker podcast in their official submission to the FTC about why to advocate for dealers. And I kind of found this, I don't know how you found it. But basically, they cited our episode with Jimmy ottershaw from DealerRater talking about the 8 million comments and reviews that they have left on that they've been left on their platform with 94% of them have been overwhelmingly positive experiences at dealerships. And you know, Kyle, you're the one that kind of like bird dog like, hey, let's have him on the show to talk about this came on the show, we talked to had this meaningful conversation. And then nada, picked it up somehow. And really, like, I think we're represented, even though it's just the site like, we'll see if, you know, the government gets back to our podcast, but I'm so proud that that is the episode that made it. Yeah,
Kyle Mountsier 14:08
I know. It's a great episode because we talk about how, like the dealer community is seen as a good community. And I think that that narrative is something that the government, the culture need to hear more often. You know, we ran a story yesterday that was like, the antithesis to that. But, but the wide swath of what what this industry is, is a positively seen industry, especially in the one to one relationships, you know, customer to dealer, especially service departments, even sales departments. You know, a lot of people say like, my salesperson, my dealership, like they take ownership of it. And so, for that to be the place where like, potentially a larger range of people get introduced to that type of conversation. It's, it's a great moment for us. It really
Paul Daly 14:57
is. Alright, if you're watching on the livestream, Right now hit the little thumbs up button and like button tag mentioned somebody in the comments that you think should either be a part of this community or see Brian Kramer live on the beach in Florida. We're gonna give you a few details about the hurricane then we're going to live on the beach in Florida with Brian Kramer. So everybody knows hurricane Ian is closing in on the Florida coast dealers are in full execution of precautionary measures. Fortunately, from the inventory standpoint, that means they have to move like one vehicle inside the garage in their their new car inventory is safe. Right? So Asbury Carmax have already close 20 stores yesterday, probably more as of this morning. Most other dealers heeding warnings, you know, preparing for power outages, getting generators in place to open stores, clearing drains, all of that stuff. This is the first major hurricane in the area since 1912. At that point, the Tampa Bay area had a population of 130,000 people, which is now the population of probably a single neighborhood, as there's now 3.2 million people in that area. Obviously the hurricane affects a much larger area than just that. Over 2 million people on evacuation orders. Tampa airport fully closed, Disney is closed. And Brian Kramer
Kyle Mountsier 16:09
is an author and Brian Kramer is on the beach now everything's closed and Brian Kramer is on the bridge, bring him in as agreement and bring him in.
Paul Daly 16:18
What's up? What did you say? No,
Brian Kramer 16:22
always finding solutions. So you can camp tours like, I don't know. 10 miles north, but you'll see it's kind of like the calm walking down here right now. But
Kyle Mountsier 16:33
it's the calm before the storm. Well,
16:36
it's been going in and out like early on flying around and
Paul Daly 16:41
you send us some footage from your drive and it looks pretty dicey.
Brian Kramer 16:44
Right at the booster tails, but as you can see, it's been knocking everything down.
Kyle Mountsier 16:50
Wow, are all the generators
Brian Kramer 16:51
running? Most people would like town. I'm just heading out to the to the beach right now just to see what it looks like down there.
Paul Daly 17:00
Where are you? So you're in Tampa. Now I'm in Naples. Over so it's supposed to hit just north of here. So you're just hunkering down you're hunkered down you're on your way How far are you from the beach?
Brian Kramer 17:17
Three miles I live three miles on the beach I'm 100 Actually about 30 yards
Paul Daly 17:27
so what what do
17:28
you see as waves out there?
Paul Daly 17:30
Are there any crazy surfers out
Brian Kramer 17:32
one just one like at the end of point break you know like that massive wave dude came out and he had like a shell shocked look on his face
Paul Daly 17:41
he's like made it even like oh yeah oh yeah, we know what's going on. So what what as far as all your friends in the area that have stores what is the general vibe like what are the dealers doing? What are you know, what are they doing for their people? You know what's going on?
Brian Kramer 18:03
So most of them closed yesterday turned 11 and one o'clock down here you put all the inventory up hopefully you put all your inventory up on the top of the parking garage that way if the storm surge comes in which is probably going to happen based on what I'm seeing if you're coming in high tide so Irma, we were lucky because it came in at low tide so 170 mile an hour winds but the damage wasn't oh yeah this is all the beaches gone 57 174 Miles Oh wow. That's the beach the Gulf this is
Kyle Mountsier 18:50
yeah, so you can't even get out to the beach water's already up.
Brian Kramer 18:53
No, it's already but this is I've never seen the Gulf look like this. Oh,
Paul Daly 18:59
that's the Gaza right this is the Gulf
Kyle Mountsier 19:02
that's like full Atlantic Yeah, the wonder that
Brian Kramer 19:09
yeah, that's a horrible idea to do that. I mean beyond you can see all the carnage back here. Whatever been going on but so they put all their inventory up on up on a roof you try to get as much gas as possible because every is gonna run out of fuel and then you the power goes out with the power has already gone down here. So we all there's no electricity so you set up like a text waterfall group actually, I got I got a call earlier from John Jermaine. Just checking on the work over there more still going through the process and and checking on everybody, which was very cool. But that's what it's all about massive communication.
Paul Daly 19:51
What is the what is the current time estimate for when it's going to make landfall and things are going to get the worst
Brian Kramer 19:58
it should be I'm building now, one o'clock until 8pm is going to be like the height of it. But they said it can keep going past that. It's up to a category five now. Wow. Wow. So that's gonna bring all the wind all the damage and ship. Sorry about that. So
Paul Daly 20:19
what what is your plan? You're gonna grab it, you're gonna grab a boat. What are you doing right now? We're having some connection issues it
20:29
looks like I don't have my paddleboard with me
Kyle Mountsier 20:35
my paddleboard
Brian Kramer 20:39
gonna start buffering just because there's not there's not much cell service. Good news as most people were smart. Yeah, you don't have to deal with all this stuff.
Kyle Mountsier 20:47
Brian, you're not most people.
Brian Kramer 20:52
But you'll see that something like this. Actually, I was telling John Jermaine earlier that the 17, Hurricane Irma really was the best thing that ever happened to us. And that for that brought the whole team together, we had to communicate, we had no power afterwards, we had to find solutions. We were calling customers it was kind of like during the beginning of COVID, right? We were taking cars to customers picking them up, we had the Red Cross coming through, we're bringing them water, we were letting anybody use the facility. It was it was like really, it brought the team together. There was no electricity for 10 days, right. But people were still voluntarily coming to work. So you got people that couldn't shower. We're down here showering on like these, these, these beach. Showers, right? So you take swim trunks. And you'd come down here and there'll be everybody you see Range Rovers and McLarens. And it was just this, you know, every same at that point. Yeah, yeah. Everybody come down here that he's gotten into makeup that women can't do their hair. And people just we came in and we got it done and got people that were down here out of town, getting their cars service, getting it fixed. And that's really like what you guys were just talking about the last segment. That's really what it's all about. Those are the stories that don't ever get told to somebody trying to make it back to Ohio. Somebody's trying to make back to yours, that stranded down here with all this stuff, because they don't realize what's going on, you know, and the dealerships, get them back up and running and get them on the west.
Paul Daly 22:14
Wow, never hear those stories. Honestly, it's really strange. Well, we know that they're going to be a lot of those stories generated. So if you hear any of them point us in the right direction, if you listening or watching know any of those stories, also just send them through crew at a sotu.com and we'll make sure that we can talk about them and help out however we can. Brian, we're going to continue to check in with you throughout throughout the storm. So you are now our official on scene correspondent. Maybe if you get a little more dramatic and pretend like you're falling over you might even have a chance to be a weather channel correspondent at some point.
22:53
Right like from Ground Zero, maybe?
Paul Daly 22:55
Yeah, just just act like act like you're falling over then you see like the mom pushing the baby stroller behind.
Kyle Mountsier 23:03
That's great. Thanks for Thanks for coming on Brian and given us the beside behind the scenes look. Yeah, stay safe out there.
Paul Daly 23:10
Yeah, we'll talk to you soon, my friend. Oh, he goes. He was
Kyle Mountsier 23:15
already gone. The buffering stopped. Well, look, dealerships consistently consistently lean in when crisises. And when communities need help. And that the end of that story was like it would turn from weather to what dealerships he knows they're going to do in the area. And so hey, look, no crisis can win. I couldn't think of a better way to end our one year anniversary episode. Hey, if you're out there, and you're in Tampa, take care yourself, stay safe. Also, if there's a way for you to lean into that, and then sure that no crisis can win in Tampa and in that surrounding areas to do that.