Recap a Fun Week At Sema. Huge Business Lesson From SEMA! Episode #928
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Recap a Fun Week At Sema. Huge Business Lesson From SEMA! Episode #928
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Concept
off-road section
The off-road section is a part of car shows where you can see vehicles made for driving on rough surfaces like dirt and rocks. It includes special parts and accessories for these types of cars.
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a large SUV that can handle rough terrain and is built to last. It's often used for off-roading and is known for its reliability.
Part
bumper
A bumper is the part of a car that helps protect it in case of a crash. It's found at the front and back of the vehicle.
Company
PPF company
A PPF company installs a special clear film on cars to keep the paint safe from scratches and damage. This helps the car look new for a longer time.
Car
Ferrari
Ferrari is a famous car brand from Italy that makes fast and luxurious sports cars. The term 'Safari' might refer to a special version or event involving Ferrari cars.
Concept
SEMA
SEMA is a group that helps businesses that sell parts and accessories for cars. They work to make sure the laws support car enthusiasts and the companies that modify cars.
Concept
Right to Repair Bill
The Right to Repair Bill is a law that helps people and repair shops fix cars. It makes sure they can get the tools and information they need, instead of only the car makers having access to that information.
Brand
Ford
Ford is a well-known car company that makes many types of vehicles, from trucks to sports cars. They are also involved in racing and car culture.
Brand
Hoonigan
Hoonigan is a company that creates fun videos about cars, racing, and car culture. They often feature exciting car stunts and builds.
LIVE
Welcome to the pints and polishing podcast, the most
influential and listen to podcast in auto detailing.
Welcome to the community.
Make I spent a long weekend watching all kinds of videos.
It was a lot of fun seeing everybody's different
perspectives on SEMA. And then randomly got thrown into this.
What a seven foot nine freshman. Did you see that out of
Kentucky?
Freshman basketball player seven foot nine inches tall.
And I go, huh, I wonder what the chances are me blocking his
shot or Nick going back for round two of SEMA this week.
Man, what do you think you're going to seem a round two this
week or me blocking that guy's shot?
Yeah, I'm not. I was toast by the end of the week. So probably
you're blocking his shot. I was I was pretty pretty toasty. SEMA
week, you know, got to thank everybody. A lot of you reached
out, we met up, we talked, talked shop, talk chemicals, how
your life is family, all that kind of stuff. You and I know a
lot of people that we set up meetings with make sure we talk
to and that's always the fun part, right? You know, SEMA now at
this point in my career, your career is just business meetings
and, you know, looking around seeing what's going on. And,
you know, I spent very little time in the detailing spot unless
I had a meeting set up, you know, mainly I was in all the other
halls making things happen for, for, you know, car builds and
different things we want to do.
Yeah. Alright, so between the videos I watched, you know, and
that's just my perspective on what I saw people putting out.
So they put out a video on social, I just watched right then
you were there in person, walking around. Alright, so these
are the perspectives and these are what we got out of it. We
got out of basically what I call two points of collision, two
collision points that we want to talk about. First, all right,
well, let's just just get it out there. There's this thing that
happened called tariffs. And so we wondered, what would the
international, you know, just call it world, you know,
whatever, everybody else, how will that affect SEMA? What will
SEMA look like with the internationals, right? And now
there's a whole international hall. Yeah, interesting playing
on SEMA, right? We're just everybody can take their own
opinions. We're not voiced in opinion. We're just telling you
what is right like the international hall was there.
And what I saw what other people talked about was was very
minor, right? Not a whole lot of action going on there.
Difference of, you know, the people that were there, some
right, just to just just saying, not very many people spoke
English is what I heard. Right? Just just what I heard. So
there was definitely a communication barrier. You know,
if you're there at an expo, you can't really talk to the
people that creates that creates some friction, right? It
creates an interesting moment for people, right? So we got to
say, first off, there was a collision that we didn't see
come at least I didn't. I think a lot of people didn't with the
tariffs. We thought maybe we'd start keeping internationals
away. But no, it's actually more of an onslaught of a whole
hall. And they've actually sent a whole lot of people now.
Yeah, I mean, essentially, I would say those booths are up
several hundred percent throughout the whole show, as
well as the international pavilions that they've set up.
It's surprising on a lot of levels, you know, I, you know,
when you're trying to get things done for an older car, and
people have certain parts, and you stop by their booth, and you
go, Hey, I'm looking at part for this specific car, and they
can't answer you. I mean, and again, I want everybody to kind
of understand that if you talk about SEMA, you're talking about
a lot of different industries. You're talking about the tool
industry and the body shop industry and attire industry and
the wheel industry and all these different things. We're not
really talking directly about our world, although it was
affected, you know, scattered throughout every hall, as well as
these two designated international pavilions. I mean, I
never thought in a million years we would see it. But again, I
want people to understand what SEMA is. It's it's a parking
garage, and they have a certain amount of spaces to fill. So
think about all the companies that that swore up and down five
years ago, when we started to ring the bell that there was
problems in these shows, I'll always go to the show. Well, I
mean, a lot of those people didn't go this year, magically,
we're not going to have a booth. I mean, there's there's there's
some big names that said that we were wrong about the situation
at SEMA. They just magically didn't have a booth. Well, if
that booth comes free, SEMA just cares about putting something
somebody in that parking space. And there's less and less
companies, I would say, American, Canadian, you know, North
America as a whole willing to take that on. And so they're
going to fill the space with somebody internationally. And
that's exactly what we saw happen, I think.
Right. So to unpack that a little bit further, or to, you
know, dig into the problem that you hear from the squeaky
brakes and what really, you know, really you find it is
interesting to where I think some people even talked about, you
know, you get to the off road section, there's you can see a
lot of the same stuff. Oh, yeah, I mean, again, this is this is
where we're at, you know, you know, the detailing part of this
is attendance wise pretty bad. Okay, not every part of the show
has an attendance problem. It's down, but it's there's still
tons of people in the central hall as an example. That's
wheels, tires, tools, multiple levels of the convention center.
You know, you have Toyota stuff in there and all you know, in
the North Hall and all that kind. I mean, there's halls that
you go there's still a ton of people attending SEMA. What's
affecting the West Hall where detailing is and PPF intent is
an attendance problem, right? When you look at why this is
happening, if you look at the off road section, which is in the
West Hall, which I spent pretty much all you know, I spent my
time in the off road section because of the the Land Cruiser
build we're doing, you'd walk into someone's booth, they'd have
a bumper and some accessories, whatever. And then the next
booth over was a company that seemingly made all of those
products for that company and the five other companies you
just visited. And none of them were making anything in the US.
And I understand why that's the way the economy has been set up.
If anybody wants to go listen to clutch culture from today, I
laid this out in like a 30 minute rock in a hard place
situation that we find ourselves in is that
everybody has been doing a business a certain way for
somewhere around 30 plus years. And that was we're not going to
manufacture anything. We're going to outsource our manufacturing
and we're going to bring it in. Well, when everybody keeps
their mouth shut, doesn't tell you where it's made, it all
works. Now, it seems they're like, no, we're going to tell you
where it's made. It's made by us. Here we are. Do you want to buy
your MOQ allotment of what you want? And that's just a big
change and in very a very short period of time I've seen that.
Well, and obviously, like I'll say it again, I really thought
that the tariffs and I thought some of the stuff because years
ago, you'd see the small companies that were just just
saying the Asian companies, okay, they'd have 7000 words on the
side, right? Yeah, you'd be like, by the way, that's still how
it is today. That was happening a decade ago. It's still how it
is today. I just thought it'd be less is my 100% you know, I
just I really did. I thought I think you're right. Yeah, I
think I think everybody is right in assuming that somehow the
political environment was going to tamp all this down. And it
did nothing but put rocket fuel behind it. That's all that it
really did. And I think what's happening if I had to take a
guess is they're saying, we're going to cut the middlemen out.
You're not going to shut our factories down, we'll just bring
the stuff on shore ourselves. Now, how that all transpires and
works with such bad communication and bad marketing and bad
understanding of the American consumer. That's where we saw
the rubber meet the road is that essentially, they couldn't
talk to anybody. And I heard that throughout the show.
The problem, why aren't they bringing in manufacturing back
into the US? You know, why are their pockets not deep enough?
Have they just no way? No way. I mean, you got you got, you got
to realize something, man, all these people that have been
skimming off the top is middlemen. They don't make enough money to
build a factory here. I mean, that's 10s of millions of
dollars just to build the building, just to get the
equipment, then you have to hire people that know what they're
doing, what you don't have. So, you know,
started five years ago, they should have started they should
have started 30 years ago. I mean, this isn't going to change
overnight. I'm not saying it can't change in certain pockets
of manufacturing and certain things and all of that. But you
know, is anybody going to put up a towel manufacturer in the
United States? Is anybody going to put up a bumper manufacturing
facility in the United States? Have they all been making
enough money to do that? I doubt it. Right? It's pretty slim
margins as it exists today. So you're going to go get a bank
to let you dump 50 million into a facility. That's not going to
really happen on that because they're going to say, well, can
you get it made somewhere else? Yeah, okay, denied. I mean, you
don't have the pockets to do this. Now, if money comes in
from somewhere, which I've said before, private equity or
Wall Street, and they want to start investing in companies. And
they got the pockets to do it and the credit to do it. Yeah, it
could happen. But we still have a people problem. You know,
where's the expertise going to come from the manufacturing
expertise, all that kind of stuff of people knowing how to do
things, even if you go fully automated, people still need to
know how to set up the machines, they still need to know how to
work on them. Largely, that's not something we have in this
country. And it's it's a rock in a hard place moment because
you know, now if they start telling on you and saying, we
are building everything and they get their marketing together
even 10% better than what it is now, you're going to have a
real hard time of some of these companies staying in business
that could be off road that could be tools. I mean, I'm sure
many of you bought things from Harbor Freight. They've
perfected it. You know, we're going to take all the stuff from
American brands, we're going to go over to, you know, an Asian
country and we're going to build it. And we're going to work
with the top end manufacturers over there and they're going to
be loyal to us because we move so much. And is there a stomach to
bring things back? I don't know. But I know one thing, the rise
in those booths was so noticeable that it was that
there's two things that were the Takasima, especially in the
West Hall for detailing PPF intent, attendance was non
existent, you know, used to be elbow to elbow that those days
are gone. And they're wildly gone. And the rise in all of these
overseas booths that basically took over large swaths of the
show.
Alright, so there's friction point number one like collision
point that that we saw our collision point number two, we
kind of started to call this is definitely something we've had
our eye on. And this is the the moment that the people get off
of social media and come meet to other people face to face. Right
so the the keyboard people that then come in and meet the old
school people, right, you can even say that way. Yeah, depending
on which side you want to fall on right the the new way versus
the old has been. Okay, you can you can throw stones back and
forth to either side. But it's a collision point of the old ways
and what the new people are kind of trying to say the new ways
right the social media the YouTubers you know that what's
always interesting about collision points is the trickle
out effect. What trickles out after SEMA, right from these
collision moments, we already have some brand some people
starting to make explanations of things that happened at SEMA and
trickled out right like the moment YouTubers and everybody
get together and go to meet real people face to face in the
real world creates a moment of, well, beauty. Yeah, I mean,
on times to watch one of the things that I don't think we
really ever talk about but is a business topic. So I think it
will interest business people out there. You know, when you
guys listen to Marty and I, we're in pretty rare territory
because we're the only owners and investors in hyperclaim. You
know, that's that's we're the ones that own everything. There's
no one else. There's no secret person. There's no this,
there's no that and there's nothing wrong with investors,
right? I mean, you've had several several brands bought over
the years.
We both said, Hey, the right money comes knocking. Yeah,
anybody looking at you. I mean, guys, if somebody walked up to
you and said, Here's $10 million. You know, there's a
conversation in your household. Let's be honest here. So I
don't have an issue with investors. Look, you've been
involved in brands and known people that have owned brands in
the past. They've been purchased. I know people that have been
purchased. We have several brands that have been purchased
that are now, you know, under one umbrella now, all that kind of
stuff has always happened. Except there was always an
explanation. I was purchased, you know, we now have a new owner
this and that there's a new wave now, where there's all these
silent investors and all this stuff going on. And, you know,
social media is is the tube is out of the bottle on social
media and influencers and YouTube detailers. And we're
never getting rid of that stuff. I heard a lot of frustration
at the show. Once again, guys, I was over that stuff seven years
ago. YouTube and TikTok and Instagram, it's not going
anywhere. The thing that you notice, though, is that those
things don't move the needle at a show like SEMA. Because
largely, if if all you're doing is gathering views on the
internet, that doesn't make people come and view you at SEMA,
right? And largely people that purchase off social media don't
have lots of money to come out and stay at the win and drop
five grand, seven grand on a week. And it's just an individual
buying some product from you. And so now you the real meeting of
all of this, the collision, like you're saying of all of this
is really simple. Everybody's looking around and going where
are the guys and gals with money? And the YouTube detailer,
the TikTok detailer, the Instagram detailer, they're not
their crowd isn't full with money. So they're not going to come
to events like this. You can even go to cart to the car world
with the Tavaarishes and the Demuros and all the Hoonigans.
They don't bring people out. They're just people getting
views on the internet. People aren't coming out to see those
guys. People aren't even coming out to see chip foos anymore. He
did an unveiling. He got like four claps. That used to be
thousands of claps, right? It's not driving traffic. And so
you're seeing this fall. This could be an I told you so
moment, especially from me, where I told everybody starting
five years ago, there was a severe problem. And there's a
business lesson for all of us in SEMA. And that's what I want
to concentrate on is that's what I walk away from last week and
say, let's take the business lesson from it. And before we get
to the lesson, there's one more part of this collision of the
YouTubers and all this coming into. And it's not just on them, I
don't think I watched a ton of let's call them the old school
of people ride the traditional companies, still buying begging,
figuring out a way slaming their fist against their head,
still can't figure out how to then take a moment at an expo
and bring it out to those of us trying to watch on social.
No, it's it's it's completely discombined. I mean, look, for
those of you that have never been to SEMA, there used to be a
rule about trade shows. I was just talking to somebody who
works for a manufacturer on the phone before I got on here. Do
you remember the rule that brands and people at booths
wouldn't even put chairs in their booth? Because they didn't
want people sitting down that there was never there was never
chairs. Okay. You now have people on video that's going to end
up having millions of impressions where guys walking up
with a camera into somebody in detailing and going, Hey, walk
me through what's new for your show. Oh, do you want me to get
up? Like you got to you got to you got to put that in perspective
guys of how low energy that is. Now put that across the whole
hall. And people sitting down and scrolling on their phone and
not looking up and not enter engaging with people at the
booth that they're there to get educated. That is something that
you can't blame the YouTuber and you can't blame the tiktoker
and you can't blame the Instagram guy. That's something
to your point. That level of low energy makes people
uncomfortable. I heard the word and I didn't come up with this.
People kept using the word weird. There's a weird energy in
this hall.
I want to think I'm gonna throw my towel in on what I think or
whatever that thing is you throw in your thing to figure
right? I bet you with the wave of the new groups coming in,
there's plenty of people in the old school going, Oh man, we
got to figure out right instead of attacking instead of
thinking for their own selves. They're almost now taking a
defensive posture and trying to figure out how to do what
they're doing to make it look good on social video of a guy
walking around this is you know this group. I wanted to send it
out and go let's do a drinking game of how many times this guy
told people he was live on Facebook. Like dude, what the
hell? Why are you making it so weird? Right? It's so weird to
walk around to people and go, Hey, we're live on Facebook.
Hey, tell me about such and such, right?
I'll tell you a weird one for me. So whenever I would have a
meeting in the West Hall, I'd go back to the West Hall to meet
with that person. There was a booth that was right in the
center from a PPF company. I mean, it was dead center of the
West Hall. Basically, it was the center point. So you could
always meet up around there because no matter where somebody
was in the West Hall, you could say, Hey, I'll meet you. I'm at
this part of the West Hall. You're at that part. This is the
middle. Big booth cars, beautiful car. Actually, one of the
best cars of the show. I thought they did a Ferrari like Safari
built really cool. They had to have 75 people working there.
I'm not kidding. You never saw two customers in the booth.
By Tuesday afternoon, 75% of those guys would have been gone if
I owned the company. I've been like, Hey, we we misjudged it.
Go back home. We're going to change. Yeah, yeah, no, not fire.
Let's cut our losses. Yeah, yeah, like, Hey, man, I don't want
you to waste your time. Go back to your family. Who wants to
stay? Who wants to go? No harm no foul. We brought too many
people. It was an uncomfortable amount of people. So if you
guys were watching on social and a lot of people sent me stuff,
I don't think people have been watching attendance drop. So
they're bringing the same people amount of people from 10
years ago. Except now you go actually one of our friends, I
remember walking into his booth, I go, How many people you got
working here? And he started laughing. He goes, boy, way too
many. And this is Thursday, I go, you know, they change flights
every day. Like, you guys have to he goes, Yeah, it's really
uncomfortable in here. And I go, it's almost like, and then in
the off road one, they had the same problem in the off road
section, but you'd walk in and nobody would approach you. And
by the way, I tested this with other people. It wasn't just
me. I said, Hey, I'm gonna walk away from the booth. Why don't
you walk in there and see how long it takes for somebody to
talk to you. 10 minutes. 75 people in the booth that work for
the company took him 10 minutes for somebody to walk up to
you. It's not like, by the way, if you have never been to
Seema, it's not like the booth is four miles long. It's, you
know, 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, you're within two or three
feet of somebody at all times. It's just odd. And the weird
word was said so much to me that I can't not repeat it on
here. There's a weird vibe. There's a weird energy. Why is it
weird in here? What is going on? Why is it so weird? Is it
weird? Is it weird? And I'm going, I mean, by the by Wednesday
morning, I had heard the word weird more times than I had
ever heard it in my life. And a trade show is not supposed to
be quiet. So I want you guys to take all of this weird energy
and no noise. No record, no shoot videos, right? You know, no
emotion. No, you know, everybody that's ever been around
PDR to show no slamming of the no, no, no, I mean, I mean,
machines are so quiet now, if you're not a booth over, you
can't hear the machines gone. Machines aren't going to have
that much. It's it. I did not say the word weird. That's what
was said to me. But I also said, is this a time for me to
tell you I told you so and I had several CEOs of film
companies who I know very well, some of them are owners of
those film companies go, you called this when we talked
privately three and a half years ago. So yep, I said, and
this is this is where we get into there's the recap guys, but
there's a business lesson that we all as business owners can
learn from SEMA. And that's what I want to take as the
positive that I learned that can help hyper clean, that can
help VR, that can help everybody listening to this is when
you pay attention, you're almost always going to be ahead of
the curve. But nobody wants to pay attention. But then when
you pay attention, you got to not lie to yourself that what
you paid attention to didn't happen. Because remember, when
we started to say there's a problem at SEMA in our hall, you
and I would get text messages and people be like, you don't
know what all we had a great show, you even saw it now. Guys,
nobody had a great show. There wasn't enough tendons to have a
great show. That doesn't mean they didn't make some connections
I'm not saying anything like that. The amount you spend on SEMA,
there wasn't enough population to have a great show. So if you
go on the internet and you go, another great show, you're not
going to solve the problem. And that's basically what you and
I have seen for five years is an unwillingness to be to be
honest about a business problem. And there's where we can get
into the business conversation. You're right. And let's just
talk business. And if weird was the moment of trying to
understand being face to face and how do we do all that? You're
right. Weird was all over the place. It didn't matter whose
videos you watched. It just seemed just seemed kind of odd,
right? Like just seemed off. Okay. So weird was that word. I
think the word for you know, people that might go, well,
yeah, I mean, it wasn't about business so much this year.
You know, it wasn't so much about, you know, all the
financials and all that because we believe that now, you know,
as Corey said, you've set it spot on for over the years. You
know, there's a post inside the specialist group where Corey
talks about it. Thank you, Corey. Very well done. Yeah.
Now using this clay towel and you know, just talking. Very
natural. Love that love that type of stuff. Yeah, me too.
Corey, thank you. Well, if that's the word for that moment,
we're gonna move over into the business. There's a there's
another word that we use that it seemed like I definitely saw
in almost every video where people were talking about what
had been going on. They use the word energy as if to
compensate other reasons and to just go, you know, what? We
get it. There wasn't a lot of people. There wasn't a lot of
financial stuff. And by the way, I heard the word, you know,
oh, it was, you know, and by the way, none of this affects us,
right? Sure. Yeah, we invest our money differently and I
still will say it till I'm blue in the face. I'm glad people
invest in SEMA because I like going. I like seeing people. I
like to see new business opportunities we could have. So,
you know, SEMA is never a negative for us. Actually, we get
to leverage SEMA really easily because I'm two miles down the
road. So I got no reason and this is what I said five years
ago that made everybody not listening to me seem even more
strange. No one can do SEMA at the cost that hyper clean can
do SEMA. I mean, I don't even go through a tank of gas, you
know, in a week driving to SEMA. So, and I don't really pay
for that much parking because I mean, like at the end of the
day, guys, like this SEMA is such a positive for us. It's
almost like laughable. It was from our original foundation
moving out into the national scene. That was the original
moment we tried to do a big event. Yeah, yeah. We love SEMA.
Absolutely. So what can we all learn? And I mean, our community
here and our people here, what can I share that I learned last
week? And what I keep coming back to is ignoring problems has
a consequence. And I want to explain because if you're in
business long enough, you make a lot of mistakes. Just it's
just human nature. You make the wrong call. You don't make the
call fast enough. You wait too long. You wait to do it too
soon, whatever. One of the things I learned last week and I
want to share with everybody is there's something in your
business that's not going well. There's something in your
business you're not doing well. We know the vast majority of
small businesses do two things really poorly consistently,
marketing and sales, marketing and sales. And so let's say that
we take those two problems and I'm not saying you listening,
that's the exact problems you have today but I'm assuming on
some level it is because that's the biggest problems in small
business. When you ignore the problem and you keep glazing
over the problem, which by the way, we all have done and we
all do. Okay. The problem just bubbles under the surface and
it keeps bubbling and it keeps bubbling and it keeps
about this. Maybe some people think I got a team member I
tell them no phones but they take their phone to the bathroom
or I got a team member I tell them this but they do this or
I can't hire and I keep blaming the same things and it's just
bubbling and bubbling and bubbling. The more days, months
and years something bubbles and goes unfixed, the volcano is
going to erupt. Okay. The problem is by the time the
eruption of the volcano happens, you probably can't fix it.
So, now, you are put on your heels in a lot of cases in
small business, you go out of business. If the volcano erupts
and it's a big enough volcano, you just go away. Right? What we
see at SEMA that we can learn from is we know all of these
brands, all of these people around the industry at some
point in time, listen to our SEMA recap because we get all
the text messages, we get all the emails, we get all the phone
calls, whatever. Nobody was picking on anybody and I said
it repeatedly. I'll help you. You guys want to run parties at
more let's call it upscale establishments. I'll get you
with my friends. We'll get you a good deal. We'll make sure you
do things a certain way. I'm happy to help. Whether I like
somebody or not was never the conversation. It was let's come
together. Let's fix this. Win a problem and that volcano
erupts which I think is what we saw last week. I don't know
that this is fixable anymore and there's the second business
lesson. The second business lesson is sometimes you just
have to say things are what they are and make the best of it
or you got to cut bait and say I'm not going to be a part of
this anymore and I got to move on and do something different
and all of that starts with the main problem of when you have
a problem in your business. It's okay to say it's a problem.
Here's where I'm at. I got to try to fix it and I got to try to
fix it now. At least if you try to fix it in that moment,
it's not bubbling under the surface uncontrollably and
you are you're taking the air out of the balloon of that
problem popping on you and having a real problem and
something you can't fix and I think that's what I take away
from last week is and I'm not just picking on tint and
window and PPF and detailing. I think there's a lot of parts
of the show that have let things bubble under the surface
and the volcanoes erupted now and it may not be fixable.
As business people, we can learn from that. You can take a
positive watching and paying attention to that and go on.
Hey, let me go write what I'm struggling with in my business
and I'm not going to let the volcano erupt. I'm going to go
about fixing it. So let's let's show that from the SEMA side.
Okay, so people can kind of understand. We try to give the
analogies of like how you can see it maybe like with your
team members or something you see it there. But to kind of
show you and we'll walk them through how we've begun to kind
of see this at SEMA, right? First of all, we got to explain
what SEMA as an organization is. You mentioned they have to
fill spaces. Absolutely, right? From that point, first off,
they've paid for the convention center. So it's going to be,
listen guys, we're putting on an expo. We're not putting on a
right and wrong. They're not doing a lot of decisions
except for do you have a company and will you pay for the
booth? Bingo, right? So first, we've got to start there and
then we're going to move into, you know, they're really here
to be litigators or not. Yeah, so the reason that many of
you should care about SEMA, the organization is SEMA is
basically a lobbying group on behalf of like the aftermarket
of cars. So like there's a big bill right now that people
are trying to push through, you know, basically called
something along the lines of the right to repair bill, right?
Where we want to, you want your mechanics to be able, your
body shops to be able to repair cars, but manufacturers are
fighting the other way. They don't want to give all the new
technology or access to the technology to fix cars to those
mechanic shops, to those body shops, to those people, they
want to obviously keep it to themselves. So you have to come
to the dealership, you have to go to their body shops that
they approve, that play their game, that do things that they
quote unquote approve. And so an entity like SEMA is important
to all of us, right? Again, doesn't mean I agree with
anything they're doing because I don't know everything they're
doing. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, but they do take
money and go lobby Washington DC and say, protect the
mechanics, protect the body shops, protect the detailers,
protect this, protect that, you know, protect the wheel
industry. And so whether they do that the way we all want them
to do it, that's not the argument. It is an organization
that fights on behalf of us. Again, whether you say they
don't do enough or you have complaints or you didn't even
know existed. So to sit here and just say, why would anyone
care about SEMA? Well, if you want to work on cars in the
aftermarket, SEMA is like the only organization on a high
level that has the money to go do all of these government
lobbying type of things. And they're really too big to
police in a sense. Yeah, what we would say, right? We would
give the analogy like, listen, we police things in our
business, right? We police our Facebook for certain reasons.
We we'd police things for the next week and list out there and
you go, okay, got it. They're a bit big. Yeah, there's always
going to be some things that come under the rug. And if
they're just looking to fill a spot, they're not really
questioning somebody's, you know, disagreement with the
company next to them, right? They're actually not going to
do that. They don't, they don't really and people get
offended when you say this, but this is the the company line
for SEMA and the expo, they're going to collect their money.
They're not there to lose money. They've spent a lot of
their money, right? They've spent like, for those of you
don't know, when you're a SEMA member, I was talking to a
PPF company, when you're a SEMA member, you know, SEMA has
shop space, you can come use for like 500 bucks a day to
like film content, hold trainings that all has to be
paid for, right? Just because you don't know it exists
doesn't mean they're not doing it. And you know, they're
going to hold PPF trainings at the SEMA center and all this
kind of stuff from one of the companies I talked to. And
they were talking about what a great deal it is while they
were also bashing SEMA, which kind of shows you that
there's being mad about things I don't think is this just
like in your own businesses out there guys, being mad, you
can't hire is not getting you closer to hiring, right? Being
mad that the attendance was low when you've been told by
somebody like myself for five years, there was a problem yet
you denied it. The times of being mad is over with. You
got to get to the solution. And that's the business lesson
for me. And I'm just telling you guys what I took from the
show. I actually came in, wrote some things down for
hyper clean internally and some things for VR. And it's like,
hey, man, I've let some things bubble under the surface. I
got to start, I got to start fixing some of the issues that
I have in my business because guys, as 15 years in business,
you're always going to have something you can fix, right?
The way you fix it is number one, don't lie to yourself.
You want to know what happened in the West Hall person after
person owner after owner that lied to themselves starting
five years ago that the world was the same. No harm, no foul.
That's what they did. And we heard it. Oh, you don't know.
It was a great show. You don't get it. Okay, man, I can tell
you the last time I attended the show before that time. Let's
call it 2021 when we came back or 2022. We came back and
you're no longer elbow to elbow. That's a problem. That
isn't an opinion. I was there when it was elbow to elbow. You
were there when that show, it would take you an hour to
walk a just a straight line through all the vendors. You
can walk from the beginning of the West Hall to the end of
the West Hall one row of thing, five and a half minutes if
you walk briskly. It's just because of how big it is. I
mean, like 30 seconds. If you had a scooter 10 years ago, it
would have taken you an hour because there was nowhere to
go. Got some elbows people been pissed off. I mean, again,
this wasn't me judging people. This is me saying paying
attention and saying, hmm, something's changed. And so
that's what you have to realize as a business person when you
identify something. It's okay to identify it and just go, yep,
this is an issue. I gotta get to fixing it. So we could see
not only just from SEMA, right? Some of the things we've
talked about that are under the rug, right? It really is not
really for them to go in police like we talked about the
stuff that we talked about. But we're gonna have issues,
right? And and when do you as an organization deal with
those issues? How far do they go? Right? Does it eventually
we tell them they shouldn't but eventually could that let's
just I'm not just using a weird word, right? Could the could
the cell membrane that dies that turns to cancer begin to
completely overtake the whole body, right? Like that is
ultimately another lesson. Like are they responsible for
this? Or you know, well, yeah, I mean, from a minuscule level,
you could say yes, right? Like some people could say they are
responsible for the West Hall being so horrible, right? Or is
it the people that that bought the booths? Well, you know, who's
to cast the blame? Who are we gonna? Well, I mean, look, I
think I think I think energy is booth dependent. And if there
was enough booths with high energy, I think you changed the
West Hall overnight. I mean, I've said it, like walking into
a booth that doesn't have like any music going in 2025 seems
like that's an easy fix. You go to the audio hall. People just
go in the I mean, nobody none of you guys really buy a bunch
of aftermarket audio. I mean, I'm very lucky that one of the
biggest manufacturers in the world, which I told you, these
guys flagged me down. I was walking the CEO of the company,
their head design guys like hey, hey, hey, came over showed me
I mean, it was loud, it was jumping. And you guys go, well,
that's the audio hall. Guys, aftermarket, our audio has been
on a downward spiral my an entire adult life. PPF tent
detailing has been on nothing but an upward trajectory. How is
one hall energetic in the other hall has no energy? When I can
tell you that we all know that energy is about what you put
into the show. So I tell people this at the beginning of the
West Hall, you walk in, there's 3m. Okay, 3m hasn't cared
about aftermarket PPF and I mean, since 2005. If 3m ever
got something up their butt and said, we're going to start to
heavily invest, it's a wrap in the West Hall. Because even when
they're not invested, they got speakers on the top of their
booth, they're running competitions, they got a guy on a
microphone, they're screaming, hey, you know, we got, they
don't even care about the aftermarket in the West Hall. They
just don't. Not the way they did 20 years ago. You and I were
there. I'm here to tell you, how do they have it? Then you go
to the next big film company that's publicly traded, their
booth is, I would not be involved with that company
after seeing that booth. That's how bad it was. Then
another publicly traded company right behind that one, that
booth is low energy. And you go, it's an energy thing. Okay,
you can fix the energy of that hall right now. It could have
been fixed by Wednesday morning. Grab some Bluetooth
speakers from Best Buy down the street and put somebody's
phone on them. At least we're better off. We were saying this
four years ago, three years ago, have some energy, stop
sitting down, be welcoming. But again, guys, you don't have to
take my word for it. There's videos out there, people sitting
down with a big YouTuber walking in wanting to learn about
your products. And you go, oh, do you need me to stand up?
That was the show, guys. That was the show. Like that, that
right there was exactly why people go, why is it so weird
in here? I had probably close to 10 really big shop owners
in different parts of the country that I was meeting up
with there. Eight of them left by Wednesday. Eight of them. Yeah,
I'm not, I saw what I need to see. I was going to stay all
week. I'm gonna go back to my shop. So I didn't leave. I went
multiple days. I enjoyed myself. But the business lesson here
is, if you keep ignoring the problems in your business, the
volcano is going to erupt. It's going to be uncontrollable. And
now, to use another analogy, as the Titanic sunk to the level
that you never get it back above water. And I don't know
that. I mean, I hope I'm wrong. I hope it doesn't happen. This
felt like a watershed moment where you go, oh man, I don't
think business is going to be any, I don't think business is
going to be like 2023 or cash was flowing in 2026. So 2026
Seema, you got to assume probably isn't highly attended. I'll
still go on record. If you haven't been guys, if something
were to happen and this went away, which I don't think it
will. But let's say it went away and you never had a chance to
go to one. I think you'd really regret that. So I still say all
of you should go there at least one time. And Seema's still a
special thing to me. But you got to make the show fun because
there's a lot of people in a lot of halls, by the way, not just
detailing, not just film. You better go make it a good time
because I got news for you, man. It's not what it used to be.
And that's okay that things change. But I think it's not
changing. It's literally just watching the Titanic sink into
the water and not changing anything about anything. And
that's the scary part. Well, and that's why this like go
before it changes completely from what it used to be. I mean,
even Seema themselves, how much do they put out on social now?
Right? It was Seema TV, which they used to have, right? And then
it's, I don't even know if they have Seema TV anymore. They
might. Yeah, they put out what I would call not very, they do
social media. I don't think they do it well. I think there's
also a thing that we all have to say out loud. Seema is still
clinging to a very old attendee, which I think is a huge
issue.
Glad you brought that up. So what do they do that changes it?
There's a lot of smart people there. Like you mentioned, if
they're, if they're, you know, doing stuff with the government,
there's people there that are going to make it somebody's
going to start to see the numbers somebody and so to your
point, will it happen this next year? We don't know. Should
you go then? Yes, you should go because something will
eventually change, right? Is it the amount of social media and
is it all? We're not sure, right? We don't know, but it's
going to change. So you better get there before it morphs
into whatever it needs to morph into as the economy goes
down and up and hopefully eventually turns back up, right?
That's a great point. And I think one of the things that
they fight with and like you said, I'm assuming because I'm
not an ego maniac, there's a lot of smart people at Seema. I
think they're going to struggle with and I see their
struggle is essentially when Ken Block used to come who who
is real deep into Hoonigan and partnered with Ford, that was
really the last human being that could drive internet traffic
to the Seema show. Largely now, all these car
influencers who get millions if not billions of views, they
don't draw people to the show. I was there. I've been there
the last three, four years where I can tell you those
internet personalities are not the cultish personality Ken
Block was. Rest in peace, by the way. But that stuff now, I
mean, Hoonigan was there. Yeah, man, people would go out and
watch it and there'd be a crowd, but it was already the
crowd at Seema. It wasn't this crowd of professionals that
were like, I got to go see Ken Block. I got to go see
Chip Foos. I got to go see, you know, Jesse James back in
the that shit is gone. Nobody's coming to see anybody. Like
that's not happening and they are more popular than ever.
There's more billions of views and eyeballs on these people
than ever before. They're just not driving traffic to
things like this. And so to your point, it's going to
transform on social media. But what they need is cult
personalities that pick up another hundred thousand
attendees a clip that wouldn't have come to the show
except for so and so is going to be there. You remember this
when you're at the Seema show for everybody that wasn't
there, there used to be these long lines all the time for
somebody signing at a booth. I saw two of those this year.
Two. But you saw how many thousands of giveaways. Yeah, I
mean, same like giveaways were big this year. Yeah, you saw
two of those real long. I'm sure there was more but I ran
into two of them. Mm hmm. You couldn't get into a hall without
one of those things going on all the time no matter when you
went into the hall. Mm hmm. True. I saw two the entire week
and those were pretty weak considering what you and I know
people would be lined up outside the hall back in the day.
So and again, both of the ones I saw are cult personalities
on the internet millions upon millions of views and they
don't get what those old TV Motor Trend TV guys used to have,
you know, when they went to Miller, you know, fabrication
booth, they went to the paint booth, they went to the and the
whole place would shut down because you couldn't walk around
that whole area because that doesn't happen anymore. That's
out of the show and so we've never had more eyeballs. We've
never had less eyeballs that you get turn into people
attending something like SEMA. Right and so I didn't mean to
say will it more for transform differently on social. I was
meaning do the social personalities, do they persuade
SEMA to go, listen, it's okay. We don't have as many people
here. Look how many views we're getting online. Yeah, yeah,
you're right. You're right. 100%. Yeah, and that's where I go.
Listen, could it eventually evolve into a smaller SEMA but an
explosion online where everybody just watches and if
somebody eventually does something with VR, we're not
gonna have to go in person. We'll just watch it all in our
goggles, right? Yeah. I don't know when that happens, but I'll
say here's one of the deep dark secrets of views that you and
I talked of bunches of brands and bunches of big people. You
may get millions of views every month. 0.001% of those views
turn into anything financial and that's the deep dark secret
of the internet is that largely you guys can see it. I mean,
you know, think about how cleaning your house TikTok took
off, you know, and got billions of views or, you know,
detailing TikTok took off and those don't translate to
dollars and there's the rubber meets the road rocking a
hard place thing that SEMA, you and me, everybody that owns a
brand, everybody that does business is there's the deep
dark secret that you're watching play out at SEMA because
like Freddie Tavaresh was there. I mean, I know he was there
and I like his content. I think he does fun stuff. I think
he's a cool dude. I think I got to meet him what two years ago
and talk to him for a little bit. Very, very respectable guy,
very an all time guy. Nobody comes out because Freddie's
there. That's not his fault. He's getting millions if not
billions of views on YouTube. He's not going to bring 100,000
people to come see Freddie Tavaresh. Okay, he's just not
going to do that and and I'm not saying that's his job, right?
I'm just saying that the reality is what you realize out of his
billions of views, 0.00001% of those people are going to be
needle movers that go to things like SEMA that go to things
and purchase stuff that go. So there's a deep dark secret of
the web right now that nobody wants to talk about which is
everybody's getting rich off the views because Google's paying
you for the views but largely you're not responsible for a
lot of commerce happening because you're getting the views
and SEMA is all about commerce. It's all about money. Who's
going to spend money? Who's going to spend large amounts of
it? Guys, think about this. You know, if you go to SEMA and
you have a booth, you're looking for people that are
going to spend $150,000 next year with your company, 200,000,
a million, million and a half. A guy that spends a thousand
isn't the reason to get the SEMA booth. That's just the facts
of how the math works out. There probably were 100 of those
in the West Hall that could move $100,000 in a year.
Oh, that's wild. And by the way, I heard that from multiple
companies. That's not just my opinion. There's not that.
People can get Nick's take also on the Clutch Culture
podcast which he talked about and please come visit us over
at hypercleanstore.com. That's where you can check out all
the stuff. Now the SEMA is over. Coming soon. Here we go. Let's
get ready. It's time for one of our favorite days of the year
and that is Black Friday. So we'll see you all at
hypercleanstore.com. Start getting ready for Black Friday.
All right, guys.
About this episode
A recap of the recent SEMA show reveals significant shifts in the automotive industry, particularly in the detailing sector. The hosts discuss the impact of tariffs and the influx of international exhibitors, highlighting communication barriers and attendance issues. They explore the collision of traditional and social media influences, noting a decline in high-energy interactions at booths. The episode emphasizes the importance of addressing business problems proactively, using SEMA as a case study for the consequences of ignoring issues. Insights into the changing landscape of automotive events and marketing strategies are shared.
Original notes
In this conversation, Marshall and Nick discuss their experiences and observations from the recent SEMA show, focusing on the impact of tariffs, attendance trends, and the collision of traditional and modern marketing methods.
They explore the challenges faced by the detailing industry, the energy dynamics at trade shows, and the lessons that can be learned for future business strategies. The discussion highlights the need for businesses to address underlying issues before they escalate and the importance of adapting to changing market conditions.
Chapters
00:00 SEMA Reflections and Perspectives
03:04 Impact of Tariffs on SEMA
06:06 Attendance Challenges and Industry Dynamics
08:47 Collision of Old and New: Social Media vs. Traditional
12:02 The Weird Energy at SEMA
14:49 Business Lessons from SEMA
24:25 The Positive Impact of SEMA
25:58 Ignoring Problems: Consequences in Business
29:44 Lessons from SEMA: Addressing Issues Head-On
36:00 The State of SEMA: Observations and Concerns
41:32 The Future of SEMA: Adapting to Change
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Nick Walters and Marshall Hill
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50:54