Car Guy Coffee Podcast Presents #5Liner feat. Kelly Strausser

Hello and welcome to the CarGuyCoffee podcast. This brew has been brought to you by Certified

Solutionaries and if you want to consume more brews or want more information about how to

build your brand on our podcast and want to see how you can sponsor the brew, go to CarGuyCoffee.com.

Let's brew! What's going on everyone? Hello Solutionaries, all you out there who are enjoying

maybe their second or third, maybe even your fourth cup of coffee of the day. I'm excited

to be here today. As you can see it's a little bit different. I'm running solo today folks.

This is just me, Frelin Arts, the subprime hero having some fun today but today it's not just me,

we have somebody great inside the cafe. Somebody that we're super excited to be able to introduce

to our network, be able to learn more about them, what made them tick, what brought them through

this industry we call automotive that we all call home at the end of the day. I'm excited about that.

I know you are but before we go any further, I need you to do me a favor y'all. I need you to tag

a CarGuy and tag share, share. Let's get this out there.

Let's make sure that people know that we have a Solutionary in the building today and we're

going to have a lot of fun to make it happen. Captain, right? And I'm excited about it. But

shout out to Lou. Y'all know Lou Ramirez, the other half of the CarGuy Coffee podcast. He's

at a wedding right now y'all and he's DJing in it. He's out there. You guys know how he is.

He loves to keep the party hype whether he's in a store doing training, whether he's at an event

on stage getting everybody hype. That's my guy. And that's why he's my business partner and my

co-host of the CarGuy Coffee podcast. Been doing it for a long time with that guy. Shout out to him.

And I know that today is special to him also because his granddaughter, his oldest granddaughter,

I know hard to believe he has three granddaughters now. His oldest granddaughter is going to be the

flower girl. Heartbreak, melt, all that kind of stuff. Just I know he's going through it.

Let's all cheer him on. Let's pray for him. Make sure that he's having the best time. I know he's

making sure they're having a great time. I'm excited. I know he's going to miss not being here

for this one, but I know he's sending his love, making sure that everybody knows that he wants

you all to know to forgive, focus, fly and keep growing all the time folks. And we're going to

make sure of it. But before we go any further, let's go ahead and get them on the screen.

Man, this person does some big things out there in automotive. We had a quick little conversation

before. So first time I've really had a chance to just dig in a little bit, but I wanted to save

most of it for this show. These five questions, the five liner y'all. So today we have somebody

special for you all. Get ready to cheer him on. We have the one, the only Kelly Strauss.

How are you doing? So welcome to the building. Welcome to the cafe.

Thank you so much. I've never been introduced like that. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

No, it's definitely, it's our pleasure. It's our honor to have you on there. I really was excited

about this episode. It's special to be able to talk to somebody out there who's really digging in

and making things happen. Automotive is a special place. It's brought a lot to, I know, to your life.

I'm sure you've seen it happen to so many people that you work with lives, how this industry has

changed them, helped them, elevated them in life, man. And it's what we want to share. We want to

share elevation in what automotive, how it does it for people, right? And it's a special thing.

So tell everybody a little bit about who you are, where you live, and what brought you to the show

today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for your service. Very respectful

of that. And I appreciate that. My name is Kelly Strausser. And I'm the COO of DNM Leasing in Dallas

Fort Worth. And I'm the owner of the Four Stars Auto Group. My wife and I, my wife, Melissa,

and I live in the Mansfield, Texas. And I've been in the car business for about 30 years.

Okay. So you're still a rookie. I definitely have a lot to learn. No, we all do. And that's why

you're in the seat you're in now. There's something about understanding that the biggest room in the

world is the room for improvement. And we all have a lot to learn all the time. But that's

something that's amazing. And that's one of the reasons why I love doing the show, because I

always want to learn so much. And learning from people really does matter. You're in the beautiful

state of Texas, great state. I'm blessed. I get to, I have a few clients that way. And I get to go

there all the time. And I get to eat the great food, meet the great people of the state, really a

great car business state too. I really love how dealers really participate in the communities.

There's so much involved there. And it's a beautiful thing to be part of it. What really,

I got to get into it. I'm going to go ahead and hit you with the first question, Kelly. All right,

let's go with the first one. And it's your why. What drives you to want to do this in this market?

This isn't a job or an industry for everyone, right? What's your why? What makes you do what you do?

Thank you for asking me that. It's probably changed over the years. When I got in the car

business, my why was I wanted to do well financially. I wanted to make something myself.

I wanted to really grow. I just 30 years ago, I just got out of college and I was looking for,

I was looking for work. And my mother-in-law actually had a few job offers in corporate

America and none of the jobs really paid what I was looking to make. And my mother-in-law was

running a successful business at the time and recommended that I start getting into the car

business. So I got into it and fell in love immediately. My why at the time was just to

make something of myself, to take care of my family, to do well financially,

and to grind it out and to have a successful career. I think over the years, over the years

that my why's changed. When I got into the business, I started selling and started doing

really well and breaking a lot of records. And there were so many parallels to athletics where

I came from and the car business. I love the competition. I loved taking care of customers,

just the thrill of coming to work every day and competing for business, for clients business,

and doing things the right way. I love that. But as I progressed into leadership,

I realized that my why really became more about helping other people. And right now,

our company employs hundreds of people. And it's just so important that as leaders,

we understand that it's not about us. It's not about me. our company.

It's not about how much we sell or what we do. It's about the people that that we work with.

And we understand, I understand that those people don't come to work for the same reasons that I

come to work for. And I think Zig Ziglar said, when you help people get what they want, you end

up getting what you want. And our company's all about that. Our company's all about leadership

and helping people get the most out of their God given ability. And whether that be people or people

come to our company, they come for to pay off credit card debt, they come for their own dreams,

goals and ambitions, they come for to buy a new house, they come to put their kids through college.

And as I progressed throughout my career, and I started to realize that it was more about sales

or more about what I wanted out of it, that I was truly responsible. And not only for the results

are given, I was responsible for these people and helping them accomplish their goals has really

become my wife. It's what I really take out of it, whether it's somebody has a kid that

plays travel hockey, they're coming to work every day to make those commissions to take

care of their families and take care of those children. It's like they become your responsibility

in a way. And I absolutely love that. Also, we've been fortunate enough to grow our business.

And we have communities that are absolutely amazing. And at the end of the day, like last year,

we leased and sold over 23,000 automobiles. And so if we did 24,000, that's great. But that doesn't

mean as much to me really, the fact that we're going to do that, we're going to win. I tell our

people, that's just a given, we're going to do our numbers, we're going to win, do

whatever it takes to win outside of compromising our ethics. But we're a winning, we're a winning

organization. But at the same time, what does that really mean? When we have one dealership that

sponsors the local hospitals, Necube Wing. And just things like that in the community,

taking care of the communities that support us all throughout the year is so important. We actually

call it a quiet giants program. We try to be quiet giants in our communities. We want to be known,

we want our communities to be proud of us, not ashamed of us. And that's something that's very

dear to my heart. And I'm also proud. What drives me is how we take care of our customers.

Last year, our Toyota store in Altus, Oklahoma, four stars Toyota won dealerator, cars.com

dealerator dealer of the year in Oklahoma for Toyota dealers for the six year in a row. And cars.com

ranked our store the number three Toyota store in the country for client experience and customer

service. We have a Chevrolet store in Henrietta, Texas, four stars Chevrolet, and they won the

Chevrolet cars.com dealer of the year for Chevrolet for the fourth year in a row out of hundreds of

Chevrolet stores in Texas. Customers drive from hundreds of miles to do business with these

operations. Our Ford stores in Jacksonboro, Texas, four stars Ford, and they won cars.com dealerator

dealer of the year for the second year in a row. And in our Nissan store where I'm at today,

we've only had it for two and a half years. And last year, cars.com ranked our store number

four in the country and number two in Texas for customer service. And on the other side,

our leasing company, who really is the engine for the entire company, DNM leasing has been named by

cars.com, the number one leasing company in the country for 11 years in a row. And cars.com also

has a regional award. This is their most prestigious award, according to them. They take the United

States, break it up into eight regions, and take every operation, new, used, luxury, mainstream,

and they rank DNM leasing the number one in the entire Southwest region of the United States.

And we have a used car operation where we liquidate all of our lease returns and trade-ins

called Dallas lease returns. And they've had a 20 or 30,000 used car operations, cars.com ranked them

number one in the country for the third year in a row. We market it as Dallas lease returns.

And so we don't sell those things to brag. To me, giving customers an unbelievable experience,

making them feel special, and rolling out the red carpet for them and doing whatever it takes

for our customers every single day is what our company is all about. And that trust

that our customers have in us is so important. So much of what we do at the leasing company,

70 to 75 percent of our deals are repeat and referral. They're the same people we've grown

with. The lease company is 50 years. This is our 50th anniversary. And 70 percent of what we do

is repeat referrals. And the three dealerships that we've had over for 10 years, they're 50 to

60 percent repeat referrals. I always tell our people, we have unbelievable OEMs that we were

fortunate enough to have an agreement with and do business with. And we're proud of that. And we

tell our, but I tell our people, the PMAs that we have, I don't really believe in that. I don't

believe that we own our PMA. I don't believe we own anything. I think we have to come to work every

single day to provide unbelievable customer service to customers. Cause I think they can go

anywhere and they do, that many of them drive hundreds of miles or do business with us well

out of here. Because, and honestly, Kelly, they don't even have to go anywhere. They can literally

do it from their house. And that's crucial that people want a good experience in knowing that

they have that. I don't mean to interrupt. I just, you got me excited because you remind me of

listening to my buddy Lou and talking about his grandkids, how proud he is. And it's like you said

for a moment ago, it's not a bragging session right now, y'all. He's just, for one, I know how

busy you are. And that's an incredible lineup of just things that you're doing on a daily basis

that you're, they're your grand, they're your babies at the end of the day. And you care about them

that much. You love them. You want to nurture, and there's so many people, I can't even, I'm sure

you may even know this number. How many employees are in that group of people?

We have almost 400 employees throughout our companies. Yeah. And you're right. I am proud of

it because we put so much into it. We put so much into our business. And like I said, we come to work

every day with the intention of providing amazing service to our customers. And when we talk about

the awards that we win, that's not really important. It's important to us and we're proud of it.

But what's really important is the personal relationships we have with our customers.

And that is, that is near and dear to my heart. We want customers to feel amazing about doing

business with our, with us. And we have to earn that every single day, every day. And that's crucial.

And understanding that, and it's, it all starts with the top, the owner, the Presidente, right?

It all starts with you because the fish rots from the head down and understanding that,

hey, this is the culture. This is where we're going. 400 people and cascading that down to all

of them is massive. That's a great undertaking, but also such a fulfilling and such a great

feeling to be able to have to see that culture is resonating all the way through and through.

Like you said a moment ago, people will drive hundreds of miles, if not thousands,

if you can give them the service that they're requesting, because too many of us out there

are not doing that, right? And I'm speaking of automotive for all of us because we all live

in this world. And it's, and I don't think it's necessarily because they don't want to,

I think it's because they just don't know how to, and they were never shown how to,

or they don't have people in seats that matter that actually care about that. They're more

about the bottom line. The end of the day, and I'm sure you agree, Kelly, that it, the bottom line,

just like you talked about Mr. Ziggler himself, right? Ziggler, Mr. I love, you gotta go with

double Z. He said it best back in the day is when you give people what they want,

you will get back what you want to. And it's just the way it works. And it's a special thing.

And I believe in that. God, Matt. I understand that. I, and I fully commit to that

where I want to give back so much. This show, literally Car Guy Coffee is a giving back this

episode, this show right here, five liner. This show was designed for the automotive industry.

It's not about Lou and I. It's about who's right in front of us right now. And I'm excited about

this. I love your heart. I really do. And I love where you're going with your why. I see what drives

you and that's an amazing thing. There's so many things and you found it. You found it in different

levels. The evolution of the why, right? When you first started to where it became, when you became

a leader in that flip, that switch that hit you, I can't be selfish anymore. It's not about how many

units I just sold. It's about, Hey, what's going on in their life? Hey, how can I make their life

better? Because at the end of the day, as their lives grow, my life grows out, rising tide lifts

all ships at the end of the day. I love that powerful brother. I love that you have so many

reasons, 400 people. There's reasons they're alone. That's family. And I absolutely think that's a

great thing to be able to do. This industry automotive is a tough one. And not everybody

chooses automotive, right? For you, what made you choose automotive? What made, what brought you

into automotive? Because not everybody choose. Maybe you fell into it too. You kind of mentioned

it earlier, but let's dig a little deeper on that for a second. To get back to something you just

said, if I could, if it's okay, please do this open forum. Let's go. We talked about customer

service in your ride. Everything starts with the leader. And I don't mean me. We have an unbelievable

executive team and general managers that all share that vision. If you really want to provide that

level of service, the general manager, the leader at the operation has to believe in it. I think

it's so important. And then the other thing that we believe in is the key to taking care of your

customers is taking care of your people. That is the most important thing. Hiring the right people,

the best people that have the most character, that have the most talent, that want to make a career

out of working at your company. And then I think you have to onboard them. You have to train them.

You have to invest in them, believe in them, lead them, hold them accountable every single day.

And the thing that doesn't get talked about a lot is honestly, you have to pay them. You have to

have a strong pay plan because if they can go someplace else and make more money for their

family, they're going to. And so you have to, we not only have to earn the business of our customers,

we have to earn, we could fire, I could fire those 400 people tomorrow and they could leave

tomorrow. We all have to be here for a choice. And when people realize that this is the best gig

in town, that hey, I can grow something for my family, they're going to take better care of

our customers. And so we, the way we look at it is we want to win with our people and beside them,

not necessarily on top of them or in spite of them, if that makes sense. Amen to that. That's the

best vision. I love your heart on that, my friend. Seriously. And that's the reason why we were excited

about having our show. Your reputation proceeds itself, right? People who speak of you highly.

And it's a great thing to be able to have that type of reputation, a reputation. That's not

something that we say and it becomes, it starts there, but it's something that we have to do

and it becomes. So you've done it and you've done a great job, but I know you're not resting on that

man. And I can appreciate that too. You can't rest on laurels, right? Or you will never get to that

level where you're talking right now or where you're going and where you've been. And that's what

I love about growth is growth shows you other growth and it's powerful. And automotive is that

way. What did bring you to automotive brother? Yeah, I may have gotten the questions out of order.

I graduated school and I didn't really have a pot to, you know, what in? And I had some job

offers and I was looking at these job offers and I was getting married to my wife now and looking

at budgets and I'm thinking, I can't support myself on what I'm being offered. And I fell into

automotive sales. I actually, I wanted to make a lot of money because of the industry. I wanted to

make a lot of money. And so I didn't know how to do that, but I knew if I sold some expensive cars,

I thought I could make some money. So I looked up the local Porsche store and I went to interview

with the Porsche place and the truth of the fact of the matter is I sat in the showroom for about

an hour and a half waiting on the guy. There was nobody in the showroom except the receptionist,

the manager and me. And I sat there for an hour and a half and he never came to get me and just

disrespecting me. And so I felt this isn't going to work. And so I jumped back in my car all mad

and I drove home by a Toyota store and I was in a Toyota Celica. That's what I drove

for my college car. And so I saw the sign and I pulled off and walked in and asked if they were

hiring and that's how that was how I got into the business. I didn't really have a plan,

but they told me I could make double what I was offered in corporate America. And if that was

true, I was definitely in on that and I sure did. And so I made a career of it.

I love that. And that's such a familiar sounding story for so many amazing people in this industry

on an in a crossroads in life a little bit in a sense. Hey, I can do this. I could do that.

I'm hearing that there's some opportunity here. Let me try it.

The blessings they come and that's and that leads us to the next question, honestly,

very easily. And along the way, right now, you're a huge mentor to many, right? And I know that

currently you have mentors yourself along the way you've had mentors that showed you the light.

I know my first mentor. I just no doubt Matt Deimos walked in the store. He's the one who

showed me the way of the Jedi in automotive, right? And to this day is somebody I still lean on.

Good friend of mine. I feel like we've leveled up together in so many ways,

like a brother in arms, right? But at the end of the day, we have mentors that mean a lot to us.

Sometimes it is our father. Sometimes it's our with somebody like that. And that's a blessing

to have that for you coming up in life or in automotive, whichever way you want to go with it

or both who have been or who has been some mentors or a mentor that matters to you.

I heard Lou Holt say that when you help people, the people that do the helping

get more out of it than the people that get helped. And I think that's probably how you

feel about your mentor. And I certainly feel the same way about people that I mentor and help

along the way. I've been at DNM leasing for 24 years. And my business partner, Mike Hernandez,

has been a mentor and a friend and now a business partner. And the thing about him is

he had done so much by the time I got to the company. And the thing about mentors is you're

going through something as the mentee. And the likelihood is the mentor has already been through

that exact situation. And it feels different when you're in it, because you're on the line of

scrimmage, you're getting your teeth kicked in, and you can't see the forest for the trees.

But somebody else is sitting in that press box and they've seen this play a million times.

And experience is just the best teacher. And there are times where Mike

has told me things and he said, Hey, I've been there. You need to do this. And I'll think,

I don't know if it's maybe it's different back in your day type of thing. And you've already made

you've made it in life. And if it's easy for you to say and come to find out, he's always right.

The advice is always right. And as it turns out, the more things change, the more they stay the

same. And he in so he's helped me along the way, see, develop and learn. And it's pointed me in

the right direction from time to time. And I'm extremely grateful for that. And when we got

into a partnership, he wanted to make sure that I was willing to mentor people along the way,

because he had been mentored in his time. And he's a believer in that. And I am too. And at the end

of the day, like I said, if we sold an extra least and least and sold an extra 500 cars this year,

that's great. But when I'm 80 years old, I probably won't remember that. But I will remember

the people that I had something to do with changing their lives. And I think that's really what

it's all about. And that's what I'm most proud of. I love that there's a saying when you teach,

you learn twice. And it's a powerful thing to be able to do that with people. So I love that I

develop dealerships, I get to go in stores and blessed to be able to teach because it keeps my

game up. I have to sharpen my blades all the time, but iron sharpens iron, I go walk into a store so

many times, coming in as a trainer, but I left as a student, because I learned so much while I'm

there too, right? It's a powerful thing to be able to understand that the mentor sometimes is going

to be the mentor, right? You're going to be the one receiving it from the person that you're teaching

so much. And that sometimes could be a tough pill to swallow. But when you learn to understand

that it's actually the it's the best medicine for you, and you should take it from somebody you

trust like that, that it's powerful. And then you gave them something back that it's a big thing.

And I love that you see that and you see the light with that having a business partner in mind Lou,

one of my greatest mentors in so many ways, but I know I get to mentor him in a lot of ways too,

because I have to, he's wild, I have to reel him in all the time, right? And but he does it so much

for me, he helps me get more brave in the things that I do. We've been doing that in the automotive

industry for 25 years together almost. And it's a powerful thing to see that and still be friends.

We were told, you're going to probably start together, but many times you won't retire together.

I disagree with that. I know we're going to. So that being said, if we ever retire,

but that being said, mentors are big deal. Literally, we're going to be speaking on this at

Women in Automotive, the conference that's coming up in Austin, Texas, coming up soon in

in July, 17th through the 20th, shout out to them, women, ladies, all them great people,

powerful, doing big stuff. Thank you for allowing us to be part of a breakout session and moderate it

and talk about how to find the right mentor and really what's the signs of knowing what's not

a good mentor for you, right? It's not about man or woman in that situation. It's about the right

fit for you. And when you find the right fit, it works really great. So anyway, I'm excited about

that. And I'm glad that we're talking about this mentor. It's a big deal. But mentors also along

the way, they've seen it with you. You've done it with them. We've had some lessons to learn.

We've had some stuff that's happened to us. What has been like the hardest lesson for you

up to this point that you had to learn like the pill that you had to swallow as part of your growth?

I'm glad that you're doing the Women in Automotive session. I can tell you that females have

historically been some of the top sales people in our business dating back to the 20, the 24 years

that I've been at the company. And early in those years, this was definitely a male dominated

industry. I think that's changing. But the females historically led our company. So I think that's

wonderful. And the automotive industry is a wonderful opportunity for anyone and females,

females certainly. So I think that's, I think that's great that you're getting the word out.

That's fantastic. The hardest lesson that I've learned, you know, I think experience is the

best teacher. And I think the problem is many times people take the wrong lesson away from

the experience itself. I was coaching kids when I came to DNM. My hours were a little bit different.

And I had a nephew that was playing soccer and he needed to coach. And my wife asked me to coach

him. And so I did. And they were six or seven and they were like the bad news bears. They couldn't

do anything. They lost like their first 20 games, something like that. But I told the parents,

I told the kids, hey, I want to teach y'all how to do it. I want to teach all the game. We have a

lot of fun. But we'll also learn some life lessons. And there's some things that you'll learn with me.

We're always going to hustle. We're always going to out hustle the other team. We're always going

to work harder. We're going to play by the rules. And we're going to be aggressive. But we're never

going to cheat. And we're going to work together and communicate and do great things together.

And so when they were nine or 10, they've gotten much better than the bad news bears. And I took

them to a select tournament. And they went all the way to the championship game. And we get in

the final and I'd watched the other team warm up. So I knew we were going to get cooked. I knew

it. They didn't know it. I knew it. And so we scored the first goal and everyone was excited.

And then the rest of the game was keep away. And they basically be as 10 to one and our kids never

touched the ball. And so afterwards you're passing these your passing these trophies out to the kids

and the parent or the coach gets to say a couple words. And so the losing coach talks first and I

did. And I told the team, I told our team, I said, this group of boys that we just played,

this is the level that I'm trying to get you at. And this is the goal. And I hope you guys enjoyed

that and watching that because that's what we aspire to be. And a couple of the dads in the

back, because there was such a disparity in the kids and look like our kids couldn't tie their

shoes. And the other kids look like they were pros. A couple of the dads laughed at me. And of

course, I didn't take kindly to that. I don't like being laughed at. And I said, Hey, I saw that.

I know what you what you're doing and what you mean by snickering. And so let me

tell you something. You people have lost in life. And you've learned the wrong lessons from those

from those from those losses. You haven't taken the right things away from them quite frankly.

And so when I tell these boys, they can be great. They don't know that they don't know that's not

true. You might, but they don't because they haven't experienced the same type of loss and the world's

wide open to them. And they do believe that we can be a great team. And and of course,

they put it off. And a couple years later, we played that same team in the state championship

and hammered them for nothing. And then when the kids were 14, they finished number three in the

nation. And the lesson to that is the lesson to that is we're all going to experience setbacks

and failures. That's normal. And when you experience a setback, your spirit experience failure, it

doesn't mean you are a failure. You might need to get better at what you do. You might need to work

harder. There may be new techniques that you need to learn. There may be a new strategy that we have

to we have to employ. But it doesn't mean that you're a loser. It means that we just

need to get better next time and we'll win down the road. And so I think if you take if you lose,

or you have a bad month in sales or whatever the case is, as long as you can look yourself

from the mirror and understand why why you failed or why it didn't work out that way and try to get

better, it's all about evolving. It's all about that constant evolution. And that's what I was

trying to teach the boys. And I think that's what we try to do at our company. Always tell our we

have a monthly managers meeting, the leaders get together. And I always tell them that we are trying

to be elite. We're trying to be elite. But even when we sell a lot of vehicles, lease a lot of

vehicles, we always have holes. And there's always opportunities to get better. And our job is yes,

to recognize the things that are doing well, but to also admit that we're not perfect. And we do

make mistakes. And we've got a long way to go. And to really focus on those things. And I think

that's what that's what winners do. You're able to look yourself in the

mirror and understand, Hey, this is where I need to get better. And it's difficult to do because

God gave us all defense mechanisms that prevent you from being very honest with yourself.

I just got to say, I absolutely agree with everything you said there. And that is such a

great lesson for everyone to understand that in Thomas Edison, how many times you think he failed,

I think there's a stat on that. It's out there. This isn't like I'm on time all the

once, twice, 1020, I'm talking about thousands of times that he failed before he actually created

what he created. Right. And we all go through that in life. The ones that you see the Kobe

Bryant's Michael Jordan's, you think that they didn't fail? No, they failed a lot too. They had

to go through so much to get to where they were at. They had to take their losses. Michael Jordan

didn't lose in the finals, but he lost plenty in the playoffs before he got to the finals plenty

of times. He lost plenty of times before he got to the playoffs. He lost so much. He didn't even

make his freshman basketball team. Y'all remember that you guys heard the story. It's the truth.

And these are just examples of some really big names. And there's more. There's so much more

out there that if they would have quit, never, ever realized their greatness.

In a lot of them, if you go talk to them now, they'll say that they could have probably done more,

that they actually quit on themselves on little things that they wish they wouldn't have done.

Because the things that we regret at the end of the day is not the things that we did. It's the

things that we didn't try. And that's so powerful. So try and keep trying, folks. It's okay to fail.

Learn. I love that. That was a great story. And I love how it evolved to be

third in the nation. Let's go. Come on. Right? Pretty big deal. But that just shows you what

that loss taught them. If they didn't have that loss at that age, who knows if they could have

went that far. They needed that loss. It's absolutely. And that's a powerful thing. Very

powerful. I tell a story. I read a book called Thinking Grow Rich. And there's a story of a

gentleman by the name of R. U. Darby. And he had big dreams, goals, and aspirations.

And he was part of the Gold Rush. And so he went to, he did a lot of research and went to

everybody in his township and his family. And he borrowed enough money to get to buy this

excavation equipment because he knew, based on what he had studied, he knew where the gold was.

And he was going to get rich and get wealthy. And he went out to the site and spent, I don't

remember exactly how long, weeks at the site until he realized that the gold wasn't there. And

he had spent all this money and borrowed money that he didn't have. And so he put his tail

between his legs and he went and sold the excavation equipment to a junk dealer and went home without

a plan to pay back everyone in the town and all of his family members that he had borrowed the

money from. But the thing was, the junk dealer wasn't a dummy. The junk dealer was very smart.

So he took the excavation equipment that he bought for pennies on the dollar. He took it back

out to the gold site and two feet below where Darby stopped, he hit one of the highest gold,

one of the highest gold findings in the Gold Rush and made a ton of money. And that's not

where the story stops though. So Darby hears this and he understands that he gave up just two feet

before he struck it rich. And so he went on to become an insurance salesman back in their day

and became one of the first insurance salesmen that life insurance salespeople that reached

a million dollar, he became a million dollar life insurance. And he made, in those days, a

ton of money. He made a lot of money. He paid everyone back. And he always said that he never

took no for an answer because he always remembered falling two feet short of the gold. And so the

lesson that Darby took away from the failure and the financial loss, what made him millions of dollars

because he took, he extracted the right lesson away from his own failure and he turned his failure

into an amazing success. That's huge. And I love that story. I've, I share that story quite a bit

and I'm glad you shared that with our audience. I don't know if we've ever talked about that on

the show before. And great book, great story. That that is the truth. We speak on that inches

from, I always say inches from gold when I'm talking to myself, people make your inches from

gold, guys. Don't let somebody else take your gold from you. Go after it. But at the same time,

I loved how he took that because that's a double success there, right? It was like two people who

won from the situation because it could have just been one, right? But, but instead he used that as

fired to understand that, Hey, I learned something from that. I can't do that again. He could have

been like, Oh man, that's a double whammy. First of all, I go there. I couldn't get it done. And

then they take it and they do it. Oh man. So instead was like, No, wow. Wow. I can't let this

ever happen in my life again. And he lived and he honored that. And what a story. Thank you for

sharing that so much. And that's big. Please folks, if you understand that, share that to people,

this is a great cut. I can't wait to cut this one up and be able to share this out to the network.

And as we do our little shorts and reels, folks, this is gonna be a good one. I'm gonna mark it

right now. This is gonna be one of those ones that you are gonna love. Thank you for sharing that

so much. Now we're gonna get to the last question, man. This stuff always goes by faster than I

that feels like it's been five minutes. So we got the last question. And this is about

all the work that you've done. We've talked about your why and we got and I loved it. We got it was

there were so many levels and it showed the evolution of what the why does for people.

We have to evolve as people. So does our why. And sometimes it just has to be something small,

but it usually there's a bigger purpose. You talked about your people and seeing what they do

and where they get to go because of what they've been able to accomplish. It's so huge.

Being able to see businesses seriously, I wrote this down last year, 23,000 leases.

I'm going to say that congratulations. He could do 24 this year. And that's great.

And that's all good. But it's not that's not even the most important thing to him at all.

Right. Coming in automotive, we're so lucky that you got into this industry. Thank you.

Because I know whatever industry you would have got a brother, you would have done extremely well.

But coming in automotive, you made it better. And that's literally what I call a legacy. And

we've been talking about your legacy this whole time. Right. The legacy you're leaving and the

legacy around you. It's massive. Congratulations on that. We talked about your mentors around

along the way, business partner. Absolutely love that story. I love how you talked about

how it turns both ways. And that's the truth. Folks, understand that find you a mentor if

you don't have one now. And if you're not, if you are somebody who's doing something,

all you have to do is be a week ahead of your mentor. If you're a week ahead of them,

you can mentor them. You can show them how to get to the week that you're in now.

It seems like you have to be so far ahead of them. No, sometimes it's just having a conversation,

be a mentor folks. We talked about this lessons, hitting walls and getting back up and realizing,

you know what, I can actually climb around this way. Oh, I didn't see this door over here.

Right. We got to find out by hitting the wall. It matters. It's okay, especially for us go-getters.

We go, we put our heads down and we go. We sometimes we put too much of our blinders up.

Sometimes we got to take a blinder down every once while to see it, but take those blinders

down. Don't give up on yourself. Believe in yourself. If you believe you can achieve, no doubt

about it. And all this stuff just comes down to this last question. What has been your greatest

reward for everything that you've done up to this point in your career? I think my greatest reward

is we've talked about it throughout the conversation is giving back to others and really

watching others walk around and maybe somebody closed a deal with something that I taught them

years ago, or now I'm seeing people teaching people and it's like they're teaching these things

like they came up with them. And I remember when I was in a room writing these things down,

making these things up, and coming up with these sales techniques. And it's like these things live

beyond you. And that's amazing to think that the guys and gals are teaching each other how to get

better and how to sell with maybe some techniques and the word tracks that I came up with. And maybe

I borrowed a few and put them all together in a sales program. That's amazing. But also,

I think that the passing on information to people and I always say that the key to success is mental

toughness. I don't know anyone that's successful that isn't mentally tough. And we're all going to

get kicked in the knee on a daily basis. And it seems like the more you take on, the more success

you have, the more problems that you inherit. And I think it's so important to never let that

mental weakness come in. It's okay to have a reaction to something that's happening that's

bad. But our jobs as leaders are to solve problems, not to mully grub or feel bad for ourselves.

And I think that's something that our company as leaders, we try to pass that on is mental

toughness. Mental toughness is everything. You have to be mentally tough. And no one's going to

save you. No one's going to come save you. And I know from my career, people have doubted me

my entire life. People have always doubted me. I've always been, I've always been doubted.

And I've never believed it. I've always believed in myself. And I would encourage anyone, if you

want something bad enough, you can make it happen. Believe in yourself. God gave us all

talents and abilities. And don't try to be somebody else. Be yourself. Your yourself is absolutely

good enough. And if you really do want it bad enough, it might, it may take much longer than

you think it's going to take. But you absolutely, you absolutely have it in you to be great. I

think we all do. It says it. I know somewhere in the scripture says that we are love for who we are.

Right. Not what we could become. Not what we did in the past. And we were loved then.

But we are love for who we are. And it's be you truly. And I love that and be inspired by others

folks. But understand that being the best version yourself, you're the only competition that you

have truly. Just look for ways to be a 1% every single day grit folks. I loved you talked about

that. Having that grit inside you being able to just understand that you got to have determination

and to work in this business without determination, it will be a very short lived business for you.

You could be very successful, but you'll if you don't have that little grit inside you,

I'm telling you, you're getting it's a couple years and you're going to be burnt out.

You got to find ways to keep that moving. You got to find ways to keep growing.

Keep pushing yourself folks. Stay uncomfortable in this business and I promise you you'll find

all the joys of everything you want. The one thing that Lou and I always like,

Hey, I want to just tell everybody, thank you so much. If you guys love this show,

make sure you throw some comments in here. Make sure you send Kelly some love today or

whenever you do watch this, if you're watching this live or if you're watching this on the

replay or if you're listening to this on the podcast, send them some love. He deserves it,

man. Go check out his auto group. Go check out his leasing company. I know that if you're looking

for ways to have an edge, I guarantee he knows how to do it. If anybody wants to talk to you

about your business, about anything, what's the best way to reach out to you in your company?

I'm easy to find and I'm on LinkedIn and so probably reach out to me via LinkedIn and I'm

very easy to find. And I sure hope your ratings don't get, don't go down since, since I was on

the show, but I really had a good time and I appreciate that you give me the opportunity

to talk to you and talk about our company. Oh, I guarantee my ratings are definitely not going

to go down. They're going to go up and this is going to be a great show. You brought fire today,

my friend. And this is probably not the first, this is probably not going to be the last time

you all are going to hear from him on our show. We do a lot of different episodes. This one's

our great way to introduce somebody into our network and I'm so glad we got to introduce you

today because I'm going to tell you something. You bring some stuff. I'm going to ask something

really quick before we get out of here. Just not necessarily, I don't want to elevate a pitch,

not like that. You can, if you want to throw it in there, it's up to you. What I'm going to ask of

you is just where do you see you in your company going in the next five years and where are you

trying to take it? That's a great question. We're just trying to grow. We see we're up this year

and we see ourselves continuing to grow throughout the state and then potentially,

potentially regionally. And it's really, we're so blessed to be in the position that we are.

And I actually find myself really wanting to work harder because the more new and younger people

that come into our company that want to grow, I feel like it's our responsibilities to show

opportunity, to communicate opportunity, and to show them what our culture is all about.

And so in five years, I would think that our customer service, our customer service slash

reputation, the customer base itself and our people are remote. And so I don't worry about

what's going on in the market. I don't worry about what's going on in the nation and things

like that. As it pertains to our business, what I worry about is us. And Warren Buffett talks about

the cash in your bank and your competitive advantage being your mode. And I believe that our mode is

that reputation and our relationship with those customers, our people, our people, that's our

competitive advantage. And as long as we focus on that, we'll continue to grow in an up market or

down market. I would just look for us to keep growing, hopefully 10 or 15% every year.

And I see that happening very well. And there's opportunity for no matter what,

we should not be market driven. We should be management driven. We should be

exploring every opportunity that's available to us with today's world. There's so many ways to

communicate with our customers. We need to be communicating in all those ways. So don't rest

on your laurels, my friends. Keep growing like this gentleman just said he's going to keep doing.

I guarantee he's going to because he has intentionality. And with intentionality,

you get intensity and intensity is a big thing that we all need to be having. So I appreciate

you so much for being on the show today. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you for

your time. And man, I can't wait. Again, I can't wait for you all to hear this on the podcast too.

If you guys like it, please let us know. We, if you want to see him on another show, let me know.

I get, I got some shows coming up future that we could bring him in to be an expert analyst or

something. Let's have some fun with it. I hope you would love to do that. If you would, I can't

wait to talk to you again. Thank you for your time again. We're going to get out of here. But

before we go, we believe in order to keep growing, you do have to drop F bombs. We drop F bombs all

the time. This is a car business, but the F bombs I'm talking about are the ones that don't offend

the moms and it's the forgive focus fly. They come with dance moves. I need you to help me out.

You're going to go wipe off the weight of unforgiveness. You're going to get focused. You're

going to stretch out and fly and keep growing all the time. So join me and we'll get done with

the show real quick and simple. Hands on your shoulders. Let's go. All right, count of three.

123 forgive. Yeah. Focus fly and keep growing, keep growing. Thank you so much.

It was a great show. I'm Fred Lynn arts, a subprime hero. And I was here with my friend, my friend,

Kelly, and this guy is bringing fire. If you guys are looking for an edge, if you're looking for a

job, you might want to try to reach out for it. I'm telling you, they're got, he's got the right

companies, the right guy. But if you're looking for somewhere to buy a good vehicle to go check

out his businesses out there, he's got a bunch of them and they all are doing the right thing and

it's taking care of the customer. We'll see y'all soon. We'll see on the backside.

Toyota Celica

Matt Deimos

About this episode

Original notes