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Car Guy Coffee Early Brew #5 Liner ft. John Labate Part 1
Car Guy Coffee Early Brew #5 Liner ft. John Labate Part 1
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About this episode
John Labate joins the Car Guy Coffee Podcast to share his inspiring journey from a challenging past to becoming a successful car salesman. He discusses the importance of having fun in the automotive industry and how he uses social media to connect with customers and showcase his personality. Labate emphasizes the significance of family as his driving force and reflects on his early entrepreneurial spirit. The conversation is filled with humor, motivation, and insights into the car business, making it a compelling listen for anyone interested in automotive sales and personal growth.
Topics:
personal journey
social media marketing
family motivation
entrepreneurial spirit
automotive sales
having fun at work
overcoming challenges
building a personal brand
Cars:
Dodge Challenger
Car Guy Coffee Podcast #5Liner Edition feat. John Labate Part 1
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast #5Liner Edition, where we interview Dealers, Vendors, Sales Guys and Gals as well as incredible Voices in our industry that are committed to seeing the Upshift and Uplift of our culture. Featured in this episode is John Labate, Sales Manager at Daytona Kia. Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought to you By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.vincue.com
www.fixedopsdigital.com
www.teammxs.com
www.m1-data.com
www.321ignition.com
www.purecars.com
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast #5Liner Edition, where we interview Dealers, Vendors, Sales Guys and Gals as well as incredible Voices in our industry that are committed to seeing the Upshift and Uplift of our culture. Featured in this episode is John Labate, Sales Manager at Daytona Kia. Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought to you By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.vincue.com
www.fixedopsdigital.com
www.teammxs.com
www.m1-data.com
www.321ignition.com
www.purecars.com
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Dodge Challenger
"... of Oh man, what are you doing? I'm looking for a challenger for my son. Okay, I got you, man, bla bay. I had ..."
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Hello, and welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. This inner brew at
Drive Centrics DC twenty has been brought to you by our friends and partners at and Excess Solutions, Fixed Tops, Digital and one Data and Analytics, three two to one Ignitions, Shop Smart Autos and Big Cube. If you want
more bruised or you want to find out how to partner with the Carguy Coffee Podcast, go to Carguy Cooffee dot com. Let's brew. What's going on,
car Guys in car Guys. It's Lubramirez, the car Guy, and
it's Fredonnard's subprime Hero, and we are brewing solutions on the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. And we are so excited that you are with us tonight because we
got a very special brew for you. Uh some of that good right,
I'm not gonna forget about it. We're obviously not in the studio, we're
not at the cafe. We actually had to do a lot of changes to
make the show work tonight, just today, actually starting last night. We
never got to where we can grab all our equipment. But we're making it
work right now, and we're excited because we did not want to switch the show up. We wanted the show to be tonight. We wanted to do
this thing. We wanted to get to know this guy because this is somebody
that need our network needs to learn more about. This is somebody that inspires
people. This is somebody that makes you laugh. This is somebody that if
I walked into a dealership, I would one hundred percent do business with him.
He's the kind of personality that makes me just want to laugh and it just makes you But at the same time, you know that he knows what he's talking about, right, and that's what makes him special. Man.
Dude's got a heart of soul. I can't wait for a heart of gold.
I should say heart of soul. That's right. He's got all kinds
of flavors that are all mixed up, and he's brewing something consistently for the industry for you to keep enjoying this incredible business that we get the chance to be a part of. He is making sure to make light of some of
the hard moments but also have fun doing what it is that we do.
If you're not having fun, you ain't doing it right. Everybody, and
we're trying to make sure that everybody knows who's up inside of this room today.
But help us out get some more. First things first, tag a
car guy, hag a car goal and share share, share, share, share share. Let's get him in here, Let's have some fun. Let's
get some comments going. Listen, we got somebody that, like I said,
is phenomenal if you have seen If you haven't seen him on social media, you haven't really been looking. I'm gonna tell you his content. Not
only does he speak to automotive, but it speaks to the world. Man.
People can see this and just know that this is the kind of person, like I said, I would do business with. Right, absolutely awesome.
We got a lot of amazing people in here. We got Robin wels
and saying hello, I am all about the fun, that's right. We
got Josh Bagley, my man, what's up? Josh Baglu Hello, Fama,
the baby is coming sooner. Man, I'm so excited for you both.
Humped up. Thank y'all for being here. Those are some great people,
folks, check reaching them out. The bag Leis are just some amazing
people doing some big things right now. So anyhow, we have a guest
that I'm excited to announce. Lou. I'm excited to get on here.
I'm excited to just talk to hear his story, get the five liner in, but really to do more things with so folks, I was gonna just announce this look out for some stuff coming soon. You're gonna probably start seeing
this guy on our show a little bit more often. I have a great
feeling about it. Let's get this thing going. Let's do it. Yes,
you beans feeling. We got some thunder he's got to bring to this
show right now. He gave you just a little bit, just a little
bit of what's brewing in the cafe. Car guys, Cargales, help us
to make welcome. That's right, Eric, you are correct, sir.
It is the one, the only Joe Love. But welcome to the show.
Tough guys. What's up guys. That was a great introduction. Thank
you very much. Man. We appreciate you. Excited people just you got
be the bean yet, that's right, it's right be to be bean.
We got oh man. People are loving on you. Man. It is
is a straight class dude, wonderful representation of a career car guy and an inspirational culture move. That's wonderful, dude, and definitely about every single thing
he does I couldn't agree more my friends, and that's why I had a spill of being I'm excited. I'm a little bit more excited than you think,
folks. I'm telling you I'm over here, just ready to go with
the show. Bro. I really am so thanks for being here, man.
I know that you're all the way down in sunny Florida. Right Oh,
yes, yes, Orlando, Florida. That's right, enjoying that life.
I'm down there all the time. Next time I'm down we got to
connect, go out to dinner or something. But you work at a store
that's just doing some amazing things. You guys have a great staff. I've
seen you really push yourself staff to do some really cool things. I've seen
guys as young men just killing an extra store, having fun while they're doing it. All the way to the veteran guys have been doing it forever,
being part of the fun the culture of what's going on. Man. So
congratulations to you on that. We appreciate you for being here on that.
But Dulu, before we go anywhere to do it, we got Eric Oria shouting out for the Eagles. Okay, right now, he was gonna say
it, Hey, you gotta forgive focus fly, so he is he is partially right, that's right. Sorry. We're gonna forgive focus and fly tonight
on the show. That's the way that we get our five liner kicked off.
We wipe off the weight of unforgiveness. We focus on what we're doing,
who we can help, and what we need to do, and we stretch out in faith and we fly and we keep growing. We keep growing,
we keep growing, and that's what we're gonna do. So excited to
finally get some footage of you forgive, focusing and flying. Let's have a
good time to do that. Car guys, car guys watching, or if
you're driving, if you're listening to this on the replay, go ahead and hit the forgive focus fly with us on three. Go ahead, hands on
the shoulders one time. Forgive focused fly on three one two three, forgive
focus, Keeping Growing Man, I wish I had say Hey Dealers, Car Guy, Coffee Podcast and Certified Solutionaries are honored to be part of team Bank You. The solutions they've been ruined for you to acquire more vehicles, advertised
merchandise, and manage those vehicles has made them one of the most sought after dealer partners in the marketing. They are one hundred percent CG see it proved
and when you visit them at vink dot com you'll see a whole hill of beans worth of reasons. Why t bank, let's prouse and you're talking about
he is awesome? Best I agree once again, and then nothing but fires
from Terrence. Richie Bello. Richie Bello says, I love John, Love
you Richie, Richie. What's going on? Bro, appreciate you Richie from
Shop Smart Auto, one of our great spots. Out what you're going on?
Coming from them down into the show. Keep watching, everybody, but
we have an incredible guest, John. Seriously, we've been watching, We've
been seeing so many people in the industry have been seeing that. You keep
creative on a daily You also push the envelope of how it could look to be in this car business and have a great time doing it. Everything from
the wigs to the shoes to every piece of it. You together to have
a good time. And that's what we want to make sure people recognize is
you can fully be you in this business and have a great time doing it.
And brother, you are the epitome of a car guy. Coffee one
hundred percent CGC approved solutionary. And we love seeing you do that. But
you have fun, which is a key component. Man, it's a key
component. You are having the time of your life or is that just show
no? No, oh no, it's all for fun, man, I
can't believe that you picked up on that loop. It's I try to set
the example of having fun. I try to show my salespeople what's possible.
I even try to show my Facebook friends, other business owners, you know what I mean. I like doing stuff to just say, hey, look
at this. You're in real estate, you're in pavers. Do something funny,
get some attention, make some noise. I love it. Look I
of course, look at hey boss. I got right. I got from
social media and what he does. Right. But that's something that's in your
blood. This is what you did when you were new in the business and
probably all the way to the day you stopped moving metal as on the floor, right. So what I love about that is that you passed that down
to your guys and they're starting to understand that feeling that just strikes up a nerve. But what fun is that? And when you put that onto your
social media posts, you make it even more fun. And there's somebody people
just don't love at you. Man, you are a love guy. Thank
you guys. All right, I appreciate it, Doctor Lebate some of my
If some of my nicknames start coming up here, man, I'm gonna have to warn you. Got there's Rebate Lebate, There's there's low gross Johnny,
there's give them away Johnny, there's they definitely missed a Rebate Lebay. It
was a popular The name didn't come from me, but always rebate. I
used every rebate man, every rebate on the man that you could possibly if you had a business and a military And I did actually a TikTok one time where this is a guy comes in and he comes in for the ten thousand dollars or the ten thousand off on the ram and he's, yeah, all right, well we're in the military. Guess were you high school track?
Start guess American? Indian? And they're staring at each other and I'm like,
no, you don't qualify, But I love I used to use rebates.
Now there hasn't been rebates in years now. You know, I don't
think I brought it. Oh, come back, you can make a comeback.
We're going to make a comeback coming with that. Heck yeah, heck
yeah. Let's go ahead and get this show underway. We have this five
lineup that you that are out there supporting John right now and seeing this go down, know that there's so much that's awesome about him. But we're gonna
go ahead and extract some of the the key components of this. We are
incredible solutionary's journey. So Fred, let's go ahead and kick the monde off
man. My first question, the first question is a great question. It's
about you, and it's about what drives you. A lot of times we
see the fun that you do, the work that you've been doing, but why do you do it? I see your family. I know how beautiful
your family is and how much they mean to you too, and you make that a big part of your life also, so I love that you do that. But deep down, what really pushes you, what makes John Lebate
do what he needs to do every single day? You certainly hit it on
the head. First off, I do everything I do is for my family,
my kids. I have three kids now, John, Gianni and Sophia.
I was just recently married last year. But we've been together for seven
years now in Michelle, and so what I do, why I do what I do, is to build trying to build an empire for my family, for the lifestyle that I want to live. I've always felt like I was
destined to do big things. My ultimate dream, really, and I'll still
I'll never give it up, is to be in the movies. And I'm
a movie star. Man, I'm famous, but they just don't know about
me yet. But I've just always been into I love movies, acting,
writing. You wouldn't know it when you're more into the car business. The
last twenty two years, I've been grinding it out in the car lot.
But my dream started long, long time ago, probably seventh grade, when I did my first play. I was a gust Dupalm, the greatest detective
in all of France. I was an actor and the Murders of the Room
Morgue and I had some parts before that in middle school, but that was my first real part and I just never really I loved it. I loved
movies and creating and acting, and so part of my big part of my why not only is I do this to support my family and make the best life for myself, but I do. I literally put stuff on. I've
always used social media as an entertainment vessel, partly to sell cars, but also literally maybe somebody'll notice me. Somedays, somebody will say, Man,
this guy'll be good in the movie. He'd be good in the commercial.
Technically, when Facebook started, I said to myself, I'm going to do one hundred videos two thousand and nine, twenty ten. When I got on
Facebook for the for two thousand and eight, I said, I'm gonna do one hundred videos and then I'm gonna I'm gonna convince my owner to put me on TV. That's the plan. Hey dealers, franchise and independent, we
have some great news for you and your number one sales pro your website partner with Teammxcess. We have the ability to pull you out of that cookie cutter
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you connect better to the ever changing part you chief you and your team to at least let us do it quick and free check up on your website.
We can't wait to hear from you go to team ms dot com back to the show. Okay, soon as I have one hundred videos, well,
I've hit thousands of videos now. And what I realized a lesson I learned
very early in the business is most owners aren't wanting to put your face on their Commercially. It's not as as sure if I own the dealership, I
can do all the commercials I want. When you're when it's somebody else,
you go to Facebook And at the time, when like I say, do you go back to eight oh nine, what you had Jackass, you had MTV, you had like these people coming up? What was a Jersey Shore?
Reality shows were coming So just my why the reason that I that I work as hard as I do is definitely to set my family up for the future. For the lifestyle. I want to live a one percent one percent
or lifestyle. Man, if I could get a plane, someday, I'll
pick you guys up and we'll go on a plane, take the plane, take the jet to California. I'm trying to sometimes really do this thing.
And I've been in the business twenty two years and that's part of I think it's really cool to talk about some of these things because part of my journey is I started out in my first ten years in the business, I was like I was going I started two thousand and one, so yeah, to two thousand and nine twenty ten, I was just sales manager, general sales manager, up and up and up. And then life hit me right in
the face and I went started going through a divorce and that type of stuff.
So I had some middle Some of my middle years here were a little bit of a struggle, but I the one thing I came back to was selling cars. And now all the last five years boom, especially the last
three years since the pandemic, it's been just a whole different ballgame. And
then when a lot of my social media started really popping off too, I had a video go viral and I got a bunch of followers from that.
I got a lot of just I just saw the our immense power of some organic reach. Dude organic, And that's what's so beautiful about it. It's
all organic us too. We're the same way. We go out. We
push it, we push it, we push it. We don't spend any
money except for in ourselves. We do our own editing, we do all
that kind of stuff. There's a feeling that you just say, hey,
I could do this, but then you could also teach people how to do this, and then you can share in your post man. They do a
lot of things and it was great. They When I first started catching you
was during that time too, and I started going, oh, who is this guy? And then broke yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
hilarious. Right, So we would watch it, but we absolutely thought they
were great. But then it was about a year or so ago I had
reached out to you, and I meant in my fault, watch dude, it was almost three years ago. A year or so ago, Man is
Tomorrow is actually our three years when we first started the podcast, So it's okay. It was literally three years ago. Fred, you were literally you
helped me through the pandemic. Man, I was home. Wow. I
was unemployed from my of twenty twenty until August of twenty twenty, and because I had gotten laid off right when COVID started, and I've been with Daytona Kia ever since August of twenty twenty, but I was laid off twenty years in the compass. You have no idea the things that were going through my
head. I'm like Okay, so this is what the car business has gotten
me my twenty This is what my twenty years that I put in has gotten me. Broke and an unemployed at the most stressful, weirdest, craziest,
nastiest time. Right, what sales manager, what high profile sales manager,
is going to get a job in the middle of the pandemic. It was
like it was no one was hiring, no one and luckily and they didn't know it yet. That's why I got clipped from the I was in with
the Morgan Group and it was a corporation and they just they didn't even know that Florida was going to stay open and continue to sell cars. They were
looking at their places up north in Pennsylvania and New York shut down eighty percent.
So they're like, listen, man, you're the newest manager here.
You and this other guy you guys, I can offer you a sales position, but you're going to have to go. And I was like wow.
When I started, I just was tough. It was a tough time.
For literally a couple of weeks. It was ugly. Man. I was
praying, and I should be praying more. I tend to pray when I
but I remember we would talk because I had nothing but time on my hands.
Fred, I'm here all day in my house, you know what I mean. I was applying for unemployment and trying to do all that, and
in the meantime, I was selling cars. I was after the initial shock,
I started promoting in my Facebook that I could help people buy cars.
And one of my things that I actually put on my bio I'm pretty proud of is that I was the number one salesperson for West Herd, Dodge, CHRYSLERGE. You can ask them, you can call them up right now.
For April of twenty twenty, they were shut down eighty percent. And I'm
in my I'm in my boxers and T shirt in my in Orlando, setting up test drives, having them pickup drop off a car here at testdra go over the numbers, what kind of car did you want? And it was
all from organic Facebook, basically Facebook posts saying and one thing I learned from over the years. And I also mentioned that I've been through so many trainings
and stuff like I was thinking on the way home to then the way and thinking about the show tonight. I'm like, you want to know, I'll
show you my age. I was at the first Digital Dealer conference man I
was Jim Ziggler was the keynote speaker. I was at the first one in
two thousand and three. I think it was two thousand and three. I'm
at my dealership Don't Dodge christ er Gee, Rochester, New York. I'm
at my dealership. This company comes in. They said, hey, we're
going to start selling cars online. We're going to do a pilot program.
We really think this is going to work. Here's a cell phone that you
can share with this other sales person. And we picked you because you seem
to be blah blah blah. It was Auto Trader. We were a pilot
dealership for Auto Trader before they even started. And that was literally that shows
you, like the day's three right, not everybody had a cell phone, so it was like, we'll give you your own cell phone, a new cell phone. Whoa. It was a flip too. It was a flip
that was about the razor times right around their Nokias and razors. And we
know you were building the show so far. We just wanted to quickly remind
you about our partners at Fixed Ops digit and how they are automotives premier service marketing and technology company not only proud sponsors of the Car Guy Coffee podcast, but they also served as your dedicated point of contact for all your online service marketing related needs servicing dealerships throughout the US and Canada. The mission is to
create a better online experience for your service customers while using data intelligence to drive more fixed operations revenue. If you want to take your service marketing efforts to
the next level, go to fix off Digital dot Com. Back to the
show, Let's go. And that's another thing I always say. I had
a head start on selling cars online, a huge head start, like digital retailing. I was doing eBay. I was doing eBay and three and O
four and five and six. I was setting up eBay departments in my dealerships.
When I got my first sales manager job in two thousand and six, I went and I helped them set up their whole internet department in eBay.
But I don't know if you've sold any kind of substantial amount of cars on eBay or even any but it was it was all over the over emails and over the phone. There was no It was so cool to me that I'd
be like, Hey, yeah, how you doing. Oh you're in Maryland,
man. I had some clans in Maryland one time I got almost they
looked like they had like appendages coming out of Oh man, what are you doing? I'm looking for a challenger for my son. Okay, I got
you, man, bla bay. I had some word tracks and things that
like, like today would sound funny, but most trainers are Yeah, Like I had a line. Listen, man, I know I'm in Roches.
I know I'm in Rochester, New York, and you're in New Zealand.
But I'm gonna make it like it's just you're just next door. There's nothing,
no different anybody's gonna be able to do. You could be down the
street from me or fifteen hundred miles away, you're gonna get the same service.
And I used to promote my service and it's just I love this business.
That's why I get passionate about it, man. And because the thing
about this business is that if you're a real person, if you're a genuine person, really care about people and want to serve people, you write your own ticket. Write ticket. This is so many faith For years, for
generations, there's been so many fakes and liars and come back for lack of a better term. So when you come, and that's why I love it,
man, so I can you to be a real person. But and
then sometimes in sales, you got to explain to the customer, even if it seems I'm trying to tell my salespeople all the time, even if it seems redundant, and even if it's yeah, okay, he's gonna give me the best. Yes, yes, I'm gonna give you the best experience when
you call him and answer the phone. And if you have a problem,
I'm gonna go to the highest person. I got to take care of it.
And if there's a switch and a switch and you, nobody's gonna take care of you better than me. Nobody. I believe that, man,
And that's the that's because you truly know that. And I try to I
tell that the self staff all time. I look at him, like,
who do you think is the person in the showroom right now that has the best opportunity that will actually help somebody, that wants to help somebody? And
everyone's always gets me, So then act like it's right, get out there and get after it. Be mad when someone else is working in deal,
Be mad when you don't have customer in front of you because you know that they should be with you. You're the one that's gonna help them the most,
right, So feel that way. But Bro, everything you just said,
they're phenomenal. Yet I'm trying to give it till Man, I already
had them like twice. I can tell you that you've had You've had a
great time, man. And and really the thing you why your purpose,
the things that you see in automotive, the things you've been through being part of the pilot dealership for Auto Trader, going out and doing eBay stuff before people were thinking it was hip and and now it's so crazy now it's getting to the super norm now. But the cool thing is is that we still
haven't heard the next question. I can't wait because it feeds into, it
flows through. And you've given us a little bit of backstory. You've showed
us a little bit of the tools that you brought in there and how you were breaking the mold before, even before anybody ever recognized that there was a mold, you were already creating something that some people were I didn't know was going to come. We only were familiar with what we were familiar with just
like our friends over at Shop Smart Autos, We're gonna get to the second question right after this video. So now that we're car guys, car guys
and dealers out there, if you do want twenty five free leads that are then specific to your inventory, you might want to jump out there and go to shop Smart Autos for Dealers dot com slash car Guy Coffee to get you twenty five vin specific leads each and every month just for putting your inventory in the directory. You get the leads twenty five every month of them out leads.
Our pred ello is making big things happen for the industry, just like John. And inside of that, there's a lot of backstory folks, and
a lot of us have a very similar one. But John, we need
to know what is it that brought you to automotive. I hope you're ready
for this one man, and I two am I lowed? How's my volume?
It's all right. My sales career began a long time ago, but
I guess pretty much everything began for me in about seventh grade. But back
in seventh grade, I was I started selling blow pops with a friend of mine that we found out we could get them for five or six cents from the grocery store and sell them for a quarter. I was like, you
gotta be kidding me. This is like four, three, four or five
times our money. And we would sell blow pops. I would walk around
the school with a big wad of cash on me and like singles and stuff, and like there was some competition. Sometimes they we borrowed. We get
blow pops from them on loan for the next day. And just yeah,
I was starting businesses. Just when I was in eighth grade, we started
making necklaces. Were so I'm going back to night. I was graduating ninety
three, so it was eighty nine, ninth eighty eight. So we started
making these beaded necklaces. You could take fishing wire and put beads on them,
and like late eighties, early nineties, they were cool to have a blue and right, you like the Dallas Cowboys and blue and white, and then you had African colors were cool. So we started making necklaces. Well
boom, so I'm now I'm selling necklaces. Then we got into clay beads
and I was making bacon clay in the oven. I had three or four
of my friends I had businesses like multi multiple businesses. Quick question. Do
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them out at m one hipein data dot com. Let's brew. Come on
now back to the show. Played sports and stuff too, And I actually
won a scholarship for Junior Achievement in eleventh grade. I was in this group
called Junior Achievement where you start a business, and they couldn't decide what business to start. And I was like, we're going to sell something for sure,
right, yeah, okay, I've been selling these necklaces for years, you know what I mean. We could start our own. So they were
like, tell us more and next month there was like thirty kids in the class. I was the president of the company. The company was called beat
It Beat like a bad beat It and we decide. Everybody put in a
dollar I think for their share, and we bought supplies, We made the necklaces, we went to trade shows, we sold them whatever. It was
like a month or two month long. Program wasn't very long, probably six
or eight different classes. And at the end of it, they're like,
you got two dollars back per share. Everybody got a dollar, here's two
dollars back. And I was like so mad, Like I was like,
I wanted these guys to make like fifty dollars per share. Well, little
did I know that was like the best results that they had in like the last eight years with the program, you know what I mean. They were
like, you doubled their money, are you kidding me? And everybody had
fun. And so they gave me like twenty five hundred dollars scholarship and I
never used. But I've always been into sales. I've always been a leader.
And this is where it gets. We're gonna get a little raw here,
okay, Because after high school I went to college, tried out community college. Wasn't that great. My twenty first birthday, I packed my car
up and I moved down to guess where, Orlando, Florida. I forget
what year. It would have been, ninety six, nineteen ninety six.
I moved down to here, and I'm I discovered the rave scene and already in Yeah, I loved it. And when you got a real good salesman
and you're out in this new scene where there's these these new all this new stuff coming around. So I came a major drug dealer in six months time.
I had no idea, didn't see it coming. But I just went
from one. It just every single week and weekend. It got bigger and
bigger, and then I just I got busted. I had to do some
time. It was federal time. That was my first offense. I'm not
a criminal or anything career person, but I was shocked. I was like,
I gotta due time whatever, whatever, long story, we'll fast forward through that whole part. But I was a major. It was ecstasy was
the big thing back. That's what I was picking up what you were putting
down, right, So here we go. How did I get an automotive?
March twenty fifth of two thousand and one, I got out of prison.
I went, I had to go to I was sentenced for forty months.
I had to do about two years and I was getting released, going into a half way house. And for years leading up to that, I
was in the restaurant business. My father had a restaurant. I was in
a hotel business, and I was a waiter. I was a waiter sales
and the sales background. And I remember so I was putting an application in
the basement of the Hyatt Hotel to be room service or a waiter, and my dad looks over me. And my dad sold cars. My dad's a
promoter and he sold cars for many years, twenty something years, so I grew up in that business. And he looks over. He's got his phone
in his hand, and he looks over his job. Hey, he said,
what about selling cars? I got the I'm like at the Hyatt with
the clipboard of my application in my hands. I just got out of jail
and I wasn't planning on ever going back there, so it wasn't like I just got out of jail and I'm trying to do illegal things again. And
I was like, let's go. I'm ready to put my heart and soul
into anything legal from here on in. And he says, he goes,
well, it's two birds with one stone, right, you need a car and you need a job. And at the time, the dealership that he
used to work at gave via demo. So he's you need a car and
you need a job. And that's literally literally the last thing I ever remember
hearing before I got in this profession was you need a car and you need a job. Let's go. So two thousand and one, now, March
twenty fifth was the day I got out. April first, April Fool's Day
of two thousand and one, So within five days was my first day selling cars. Wow, April first of two thousand and one. My dad was
like, I say, there's we have some legends in the car business in Rochester, New York. A lot of people don't realize, but my dad
worked for a place called Jay Scutty Ear. He worked for Scutty Pontiac and
the guy that owned it, his name was Jay Scutty. This guy,
like, if he was around today, he would probably be like, oh, man, I don't know sub in somebody that owns a lot of dealerships, you know what I mean. Like he was just like Billy Fusillo.
Okay, he was probably like a bill if you said, but rest in peace. And he invented. This guy is single handedly invented. Maybe some
people don't like to hear this, but selling cars on Sundays they never used to. He was the pioneer of selling cars on Sundays. He also had
a restaurant. Yeah, he also had a restaurant in his dealership that they
would serve eggs and stuff like that. He was a car guy pioneer at
times a million. He was awesome, and he knew a lot of big
celebrities too. Almost like I say, if you had if they had the
cameras back then, he would have been a reality show problem. But that's
where my dad came from. So that's awesome for me too. Yeah.
I grew up with that, and then I applied for that and as soon as I started to realize put two and two together. My dad knew a
lot of people, and so there was a trait that I took after him.
My dad is one of those guys like you will inevitably say when you're around him, or if you were to go around Robes, man, this guy that knows a lot of people, right, he's that guy, and so I esteemed to be that guy. So here I am starting an automotive,
and I'm like, I'm gonna just sell cars to everybody I know.
And I'm just gonna start boo boom boom sell cars to everybody I know.
And I really took to it amazingly. And here's the funny thing. Not
that funny. It's actually the opposite of funny. It's totally the opposite of
funny. So I really have to have a different word. But what other
event happened in two thousand and one? So I started in April of two
thousand and one. Oh wait, I know what happened. Yeah, the
third probably the second or third biggest event that's happened to us since the pandemic and in our business to affect our business right nine to eleven. And so
I'm in the business four or five months. That's why I felt like,
that's why I was so mad during COVID that I was out of a job, not being able to help salespeople through this stressful time. You know what
I mean? Like I was so pissed because I'm like I was shaped the
song could come on from TikTok. What's that? Some people afraid of the
dog? I was born in it? You know what? I mean,
like my first four or five months of selling cars was boom. That thing
happened and it affected us hugely. Like the next day Hyundai came out was
zero percent for seventy two months for the first time ever, and remember that.
But I started on that, I went through the eight manaster, and I've been through this COVID thing. But yeah, So that's what brought me
to automotive was at the time, it was just to get a job, but I knew very very very very soon that it was something that I wanted to do. Oh That's what I was also going to say is that not
only I'm a friendly guy, I know a lot of people, I'm a salesman at heart. So I'm like, wow, what a perfect business for
me to be in. And then on top of that, I was I
loved I played a lot of sports in high school. It wasn't the star
the star of anyone, but I'm six four, three hundred pounds. I
played everything from football, basketball, baseball, golf, wrestling. I just
I didn't care. I tried. I was on the golf team. I
love sports. And then I get in this business and I'm like, wait
a minute, because you get out of high school, you get out of college, you're like, man, I'm not going to compete no more, you know what I mean? What am I? And Dude, I'm like,
dude, you can compete in this. I could be the star quarterback
back, you know what I mean? I could be anybody I want to
be. And I was just like hell bent on being successful and just just
running so far away from the person that I left that he did the illegal thing and embarrassed himself and his family and whatever else. Dude, I just
got to say, that's a hell of a story and that that right there, that was a big why for you when you got out. I'm not
going back to that. And I've literally worked with a lot of guys that
are phenomenal at this job, a great careers in this business, and they had a little checker pass with something similar, not quite like that, but definitely something like that. Because of that, they didn't ever want to go
back to that.
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