What Manufacturer's Reps Actually Do & Why Your Shop Needs One | SEMA Hall of Famer Les Rudd | EP034

One thing that always amazes me and I spoke on it at the HPX show last year was how the shops

they don't utilize their reps at the shop level like they should.

Some don't even know who it may be, I'd hate to say, but that's the case sometimes. But

they can find out who it is and those people, the reps, can help those small regional shops more

than they know. Welcome to the Automotive Advantage.

Grow your business and get smarter in just one hour.

All right, hey, Les Rudd is here. It took us a while to get this guy on the podcast,

but man, we're thrilled to have you, Les. Thanks for traveling to Detroit and coming

to the Automotive Advantage. We appreciate you being here, Pal.

Thanks for the opportunity. You know, I know we tried a couple of times. Thanks for all through,

you know, travel, family, business, life. Hey, it's part of what I do. You know,

if you're not nimble as a manufacturer's rep, you're not going to be successful,

probably, but no, I've been looking forward to it. You know, maybe want to embarrass myself

or either one of y'all before we're done. To be fair, it's our podcast and we miss it sometimes,

so we can't blame the guests really, you know. Yeah, the first catch up one we're going to have

talking about how easy it is to split a podcast out regularly, right, Justin?

All right, Les is here with, for me, a real clear job. He has to represent all

manufacturers reps in the automotive aftermarket industry today, so Les, are you up for that task?

Absolutely. I'm sure that I'll offend half of them and make half of them happy,

so that'll be all good. Yeah. Well, now we're podcasting. Yeah.

Les, let's go basics. What's a manufacturer's rep and then how did you get into this position

and then, you know, what does a manufacturer's rep even do in this industry?

That's a great question because a lot of people don't even know. I'll use a couple of different

examples that most people can grasp. You know, when you go to the doctor and you always go around

lunchtime and they tell you it's going to be an hour later because the drug rep showed up to

feed them lunch. Well, a lot of people relate to the pharmaceutical rep. They kind of get that

and a lot of people can relate to an independent insurance agent that might have multiple brands

of insurance and not just one headliner. Well, we're kind of that in the aftermarket automotive

industry, so we represent several different manufacturers, you know, to a wide range of

customer base. You know, sometimes I put it, it's like two cities living across a big river

and they don't have a bridge yet or we're the bridge builder. You know, we try to put the two

opposed and not necessarily opposing, but put parties together. And I'll use Jeff Bates,

who is one of the partners of Bob Cook Cells for a long time. He always said it this way. He said,

we're simply in the people pleasing business and when things go right, we sell parts too.

So, a lot of it, you know, we have no assets. We don't have a manufacturing building. We don't

have CNC machines. We have a couple of computers, a customer list and just short of 50 years of

relationships in the Southeast and that's what we build our life on. You know, but manufacturers

agents or brokers have been around and they're in a lot of industries. And there's an ebb and flow

of when it works. MANA, which is the Manufacturers Agents National Association, which is an association

of reps around the world. You know, they do have a lot of detail about, you know, where it works,

but you know, when there's companies that have used them and then think they become large enough

and they don't want them anymore, which is fine. You know, the sweet spot is companies that are doing,

you know, less than $40 million in business is normally where they say that's hard to have a

national sales force when you're doing, you know, below that, you know, companies as they get larger

past that $100 million, $200 million, that's a little easier found actually to have your own

sales force, but we're fortunate to have to represent companies that are that big because

we started with them when they were little. We built part of the foundation, fortunately with some

were looked at as part of the family. But if you look at the sweet spot of SEMA and PRI of where

that the average is of the business on the floor, you know, not everybody in this industry is doing

$100 million, especially in, you know, a lot of people think that the brands, they think they,

yeah, there's got to be these huge companies. They're huge brands, but because they're niche

and that's where we kind of come into play. So give me the breakdown from, I'm a shop owner,

I manufacture a widget that goes on a bunch of different cars. I have a 10 by 10 or 10 by 20

at your trade show of choice. I go there, my dream is to get picked up by one of the big guys.

They order $100 million worth of these widgets and I'm done, right? That's the dream. But the

reality is we know it's not that, right? So do you start with a guy in a 10 by 10? Does he come

up to you? Do you come up to him? Like, we know we have a ton of listeners who are like, I want a

manufacturer's rep, but I've never met one before. So like, what's step one for someone?

Well, all of the above. One of the first things I do when I go to any industry show is I find out,

you know, I want to look at the list of new first-time exhibitors. I like to meet them just

to see if I can help them. Because at the end of the day, you know, I've been in the industry

a long time. I like to see these people succeed. I like it when it relates to me. I like it when

it just helps the industry as well. You know, I am a firm believer if you do the right things,

the right things happen to you. So I always try to do that. So yes, we do go and when we're looking,

it's what do we have in a group, but we're missing a segment, you know? And yes, 10 by 10 is 10 by

20s. Go by, talk to them, see what's going on. I mean, I can remember when Comp Cams had their

first booth at SEMA and it was a small booth and they were a division of racing head service at the

time. So, you know, now obviously it's gone through a long generation of life and we represented them

for about 37 years. So from early on, you know, through the last owners until they

came to the conglomerate with Uddlebrock. So yes, we do that. Fortunately, you know,

the manufacturers obviously sometimes often talk a lot between themselves and they'll say,

hey, are you using a rep? So the majority of our customers that we end in, I'll call them customers

which are actually our clients because hopefully my redneck analogies won't drive people crazy.

But you know, the customer is real simple in business school. It's a really short example.

He's the one that gives you the money. And so our customer is our manufacturer client.

But we get a lot of calls and just, you know, we meet and see what their expectations are,

see what they're trying to do, see where they feel like there's holes at.

I'm not going to say that a manufacturer's rep is always the answer for all.

I believe that everyone in a niche-oriented business needs help building the brand,

especially in this era. A little easier 25 years ago to build brand and a lot of people

used to think that's not the case. But if you were the manufacturer, one of the first things I

would ask you is, do you want to ship a million boxes at a time, one piece at a time? Do you want

to ship boxes with 20 of those items in there or do you want to ship pallets and truckloads?

Because whatever the vision of the entrepreneurial owner is, then there's a different pathway depending

on how you want to get there. One challenge we often have is someone comes up with a great

widget. They know if I can get it on Amazon, I can get real good cash flow, which makes perfect

sense. Not anti-Amazon by any means. They take that path, but then they forgot to talk to someone

that explained that you need a lot of margin if you're going to go upstream and do it. And then

a lot of times we're kind of fighting the battle to get the margin built back in because if you want

the big, depending on what you are, the big may be different, right? The big may be Keystone or

Meyer or Term 14 from a national distribution level. Or it may be you're thinking mass retail.

Do you want AutoZone in vans? Do you try to supply O'Reilly depending on where that falls into? Or

are you just trying to get some of the best engine builders? And we're blessed to be in the southeast,

southwestern. We've got some pretty good ones down there. So that's another avenue that we

look at. But I guess that would be the starting point. Okay. So they meet with you. You're like,

I love this widget. What do you expect from them right away? Is it like, because we talk about

kind of being ready for these moments? Like, do I need a one pager? Do I need a website? Do I need

distribution? Do I need all these things? Or can I work with you to learn about these things?

What are you expecting from a brand? We have started with some that literally have just invented

the product and they need everything. And we can build all those things. Now, we don't do websites,

but we have contacts that do. We're not a marketing company for as far as doing advertising,

but we have relationships with several. And knowing the ones that I work with, depending on

what the personality of the manufacturer is, and if it's is it truck, is it performance,

is it hardcore race, then there's different ones that, you know, through our history seem to do

a better play than others. And we'll refer them. We won't make that choice, but we'll say, hey,

I think this was a good fit for you, et cetera. You know, we're really at the

sales education and just driving top line sales. I mean, that's the key. Now,

each one of those steps, you got to have a program. So you got to have terms and policies,

you know, where are you going to try to sell it for? Are you going to pay freight? And we can

walk through all those and we do. I mean, I've written how to read that numerous terms and

policies and do you want to control your pricing? Do you want map? Do you want unilateral? We can

try to work through all that. And the main thing is just to see where somebody's wanting to go.

They may not want to be a front line brand. They may just like manufacturing and say, hey,

I don't private label it. We have some of those type clients. But yeah,

the product, you know, when we look at it, we look at you have a, you have a program

and you have a product. If you have a great product and you have no product issues,

then that's really good for a manufacturer's rep because then you're just selling something

that's works and you're not chasing issues. A bad program can be worse than a defective product.

If you have problems with a part, you can work on that. You can get them a replacement. You can

get them credit. You can work on designing or changing. That's not the end all. But if a new

company gets entrenched in a program that is not workable, it's hard to outwork a bad program.

It's just that the program process can kill someone before they ever get off the ground.

Yeah. I think a lot of people make that mistake, especially if you're just like,

oh, I make it for X and then I'm going to sell it for Y and then you don't realize that like,

well, people along the way have to have margin or, you know, any number of those things. So

once I'm set up and, you know, you've got what you need from me, then you go out and what happens

next. You're talking all these big boxes. You're talking the moving product or what are the next

steps someone can anticipate here? You know, I'll just act as if you are a manufacturer. We do the

legal side. We got to make sure we, you know, my dad was an attorney and he always said contracts

are only as good as the last two names on the last page. But you need a contract in case one of

them don't exist anymore. So once we get that legal side in and we're real simple, I mean,

our contract is big font two pages. It's pretty cut and dry. You know,

we're independent. We don't work for you. We cover our own expenses. You pay us off net receipts.

And if it doesn't work, we can still like each other and we'll each go our separate ways. I mean,

it's a, you know, you often don't know where that's going to take you. But once that's done,

we like to get our team trained. You know, we want faces with names and try the best to train. Our

guys are good. We've represented a lot of different lines. We like technical stuff because if it's

technical features and benefits are pretty easy. If it's gray matter, a little bit tougher to sell.

We kind of like hard stuff that we can point at and say this does this and this is really good.

But we like the training and then we just hit the ground depending again on what the expectations

and the channel that that manufacturer may want.

Some want to sell dealer direct, which is one avenue. If you want distribution, which you've

got to get that demand in play a little bit. So sometimes we've got to do a, we got to sell

something to somebody because the demand is a word that gets dropped more often today than

say years ago. But we get out there and we just, you know, we start calling

phone, email and face to face. We put a lot of miles on and we start touching those people and

then we report back. You know, one of the things that, you know, we were probably one of the first,

if not the first rep agency that carried laptops. And yeah, you would plug into the

telephone between the beds at the hotel and you dial it up and when it started ding ding and you'd

go down to the restaurant or the bar and come back and you'd have three emails and you'd be like,

yes, this thing works. But we did that early on and we try to stay on front. So we've been,

you know, we've been running a CRM for, gosh, I don't know, probably 20 years in the rep side

of the world. So we have a lot of backside data, a lot of backside contacts, but we report.

That's one of the things the manufacturers, you know, like we report. We don't wait to report.

You know, if something's happening, we're calling text in whatever it takes to get a response,

but we do report. So it's trackable for us and it's also trackable for the manufacturers. And

then we just start facing the, you know, the challenges and trying to see how to make things

work. We always tell manufacturers, it's your money and we work for you and we know your

terms and policies and we're going to let you say no, because sometimes the program may be

out of place. So we'll write our own deal with a potential client and go back and say, here's

what the person wants to do. And we'll just try to make that work. And that's, I guess,

what we do from, they like to dark every day. That's cool. I've been in this industry a long

time. Manufacturer rep was always kind of a murky area for me. So I think, yeah, I think it's great.

I want to go down this path with you. Yeah. Help establish

the size of manufacturers reps in the automotive aftermarket industry. So what percentage of

automotive aftermarket part sales are touched by a manufacturer's rep? You or other folks like you?

Oh gosh, that's a, you know, that's, you know, there's a lot, right? I mean, and it's changed a lot.

20 years ago, Bob Cook sells, and there were several agencies coast to coast that were in the

same boat that we were. All of your leading brands, your top one, two, or three in every category

were independently owned. The founders still owned them. And in that, in the performance sector,

I would have said in that era, probably 90% of the performance parts were being handled by

passing through a manufacturer's reps and hope licensing that get me, you know, but

automotive racing products, at all broad, you know, Mike thermos at NOS, automator, MSD,

headman, headers, trans that, Mr. Gasket, you know, Hooker, all those, Holly, all those key brands

were independence and all of them used reps. And, you know, we did all the shows, we did all the

races and then a lot of conglomerations came into play and some of those companies used reps in

sectors. Some still fully use reps overall, you know, you know, automotive racing products,

ARP, you know, the family, we're part of the family, you know, we obviously went through a hard

deal last year with Chris, but, you know, we represented them right at 40 years and they

use a lot of reps coast to coast. And I would say that they're the pinnacle company that realizes

in that specialty performance engine side, you have got to be visiting those engine builders,

you have got to be going in and seeing those guys and seeing the shops they're installing on race

cars or on trucks or whatever the category may be, as well as monitoring and working with the

distribution side, you know, they, they are in all markets and all play and they really understand

where that feed on the ground gets you that instant feedback when something's not working,

gets you the, you know, the good pull through when things are and you have all the personnel

to work all the events. If you, you know, when you often at a racetrack event, you'll see people

wearing a branded shirt and I would say 40% of them are manufacturers reps and 60% of them are

from the companies. But that's some of the things that now today, I don't know what the guess is,

still a lot of rep agencies, there's a couple that are, you know, in our side of the specialty

that are national reps. And we have kind of stuck with the southeast, southwest is just kind of where

we've been, we have national accounts in different areas there again, because the marketplace has

changed. But I wouldn't, I don't really have a good, you know, a good number. But I would say

of new manufacturers coming up, it's a struggle obviously for them to break in. And that's where

manufacturers rep can be the key. And one thing that always amazes me and I spoke on it at the

HPX show last year was how the shops do, they don't utilize their reps at the shop level like they

should. Some don't even know who it may be. I'd hate to say, but that's the case sometimes. But,

you know, they can find out who it is and those people, the reps can help those small regional

shops more than they know. Go through that a little bit more, like how I'm a shop owner,

tell me you come in and my shop, how do you help me get? Well, first, you know, I mean, I come in

to you, let's just say you're a performance shop, we talk about some performance lines and we talk

about what you're doing. And you may be buying it all through distribution, which is perfectly fine.

You know, I'm getting compensated by the manufacturer, you're not having to physically pay me anything

because the manufacturer's paying me. But you may not have the latest catalogs, you might not have

the latest pricing, you might not even know some of the new parts that have came out, that's one.

But the other is, hey, you might have been thinking about wanting to do a Friday night cruise in,

in your parking lot, but the last time we did it, nobody showed up. Well, we do these things,

you know, all the time. So, you know, we can get you the banners, we can get you some advertising,

you know, we can get you some free giveaways, we can get you, we can, we will show up, we will,

you know, maybe if you do it near a race that's going on around, we might even get some race

cars to pull in or we can get some, you know, we can help you put that foundation to, you know,

put a little bit of mapping on, on what you're doing at your shop. I've spent a lot of time

in shops and I know just shop culture in general, very suspicious of anyone who walks through the

door trying to sell them anything at all. So, it is just an immediate like, I already know these

guys, I don't need your help, you're scamming me somehow, but I mean, you're not, right? And it's

like, at least the next time someone comes in, explore, just be like, what can you do for me?

Who do you wrap, blah, blah, you know, and I'm sure you also come in with intel of like, hey,

other people are doing X, do you sell that? We're seeing a lot of sales for that, right? Like,

tell me about, because you have all this info, a shop is just a single data point, right?

Your team has a huge data set to be like, hey, you know what's really hot in the market right now

is X, you know? Yeah, we, that's, you know, and trends, trends could catch up really a lot

quicker today than they can. Obviously, social media, you know, has a huge play and, you know,

between all the different avenues of, you know, whether it's, you know, Instagram or YouTube

or, you know, TikTok, whatever it may be, things are instantaneous in a lot of ways.

But sometimes the egos of our world and our industry, we don't like to ask questions.

So we don't want anyone to know that we don't know the answer, sorry. So sometimes it's kind

of helping, because we could come in and it's almost autonomous that, you know, it's not,

you know, not self-proclaimed and we can help them. And we like to, you know, and I always,

you know, say, you know, telling ain't selling, asking is. So you have to ask the questions to

find out where the holes are. And so you go in and you, you see a XYZ's part that's partially

assembled in the floor on the box and you say, hey, Mr. Engine Builder, are you having some problems

with that? And they're like, yeah, I said, well, yeah, you're not the only one. This is what's

going on with that. And we've seen that. And it may be a competitor, it may be ours. And they may

think that they're on an island and can't get any resolution. And the answer may be real simple,

or it may be real complex. I mean, we don't know. But that upstream information, we're also able to

feed up to our manufacturers because of what is happening on the street. We're in a shop, we're

seeing them doing something outlandish on a car at a dyno shop and like, what the heck is that?

Because there's always any, you know, we're always pushing the limits, especially on that

performance side. You're always trying new stuff, blowing up new things, breaking more parts,

you know, chasing what's, what broke last time and you fix that and now if something else breaks.

And, and by reporting both upstream and downstream, we can, you know, confirm that conduit.

You made the mention, you know, you know, it's always key with us is, is fortunately we have,

you know, some key brands. And if you walk into an Engine Builder performance shop,

you know, our, and the fortune that, you know, we have the long relationship with ARP, you know,

if you're the ARP rep, normally someone's going to, you know, give you that time no

different than when we represented Albuquerque for years when Vic was still alive. It was the same

thing. You had certain brands that they were going, you were going to get their attention

by mentioning, you know, who you're with. And we also tell them, we're not going, you know,

we want your email address. We're not going to bombard you. We're not, you know, we're,

it's just not what we do, but we're here to help and we do our best to do that.

I want to jump into how less sees the world. You've done this, you know, we're established,

you know, you've done this for decades. You've seen the ebb and flow and how the industry has

grown and contracted over time. Walk me through, say post COVID, what do you see on the streets

and then tell me where we are today? And then what do you, what do you use them to measure,

measure all that? What do you see that other people don't see?

You know, we all know that, you know, COVID was like Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail,

you know, for everybody in our industry, you know, it was one of the challenges I had. We all

had post COVID is to remind people how good 2014 was. You know, you can't look at this last window.

This window was an anomaly. And of course, it hit us. It was really good. It was also really bad

for a lot of companies. If some companies gotten such dire straits and so far behind, they, you

know, those companies aren't with us today. If they are, they're not very strong because they

made some bad decisions there. But you know, COVID settled in, but you know, performance continues

to be key. We were, we started as up when Bob Cook started our company in 79. He started with

Edelbrock and Hedman. And we were a performance company. And that's what we did. You know,

you also have to remember in the early 80s, the truck accessory was the chrome wagon wheel.

It wasn't what it is today when you look at all the truck accessories, but we blended in and we

represented DZ for over 40 years and that, you know, and started with them in the mid 80s. So,

you know, we've been in that sector a long time too. But I'll say over the last,

the last three years, performance has really carried things and it's always been a key part

of our business. You know, we've seen the trends of sport compact. You know, we saw the heavy

trends of diesel and all of them came in hard and they've stayed, you know, at different levels.

You know, diesel is still a big huge category for us. But you know, you've seen, you know,

the Jeep thing kind of settled in. The Bronco came in as a good competitor to it.

You can debate on who, you know, which one's better and depends on which shop you're in at the

time. But you know, what's kind of happened a little bit in that is right now, you know,

the economy, if you haven't heard the news, the economy's a little tight and has been for, you

know, a couple of years. You talk to a dealership, at least in our region, and they'll tell you

there's two trucks that have no issue selling. They can sell a work truck all day long because,

you know, in the South, we've got a lot of construction going on, a lot of highways being

built, a lot of population relocating to the Southeast or Southwest. So we're, we're fortunate

about that. So work trucks, upfitting, you know, transfer tanks, that's, that's pretty easy sell

for a dealer. And the most expensive vehicle on the lot is easy to sell. You know, Denali,

a high country, a TRX, a Raptor, they're not having a problem. King Ranch is,

they're not having any problems selling those. But everything in the middle is a little bit

of the struggle. And that's really where our core customer is, is that guy that wants to make it

their truck or their Jeep or their Bronco, and they're still selling. But it's just a little

tougher right now. And, you know, I guess the most current thing, you know, I've always said the

gas pump is the poor man's stock market. And when, when that diesel crosses $4,

how's the market today, Aless? It's a little soft right now. Now, I think the stock market's

recovering over some recent things that are happening. But, you know, when that diesel crosses

$5 of the gallon in the South, you instantly see fields at the racetrack dropping half,

cars and coffee pick up because they're not going very far. So they, you actually see the

local little rod runs pick up, but your big events drop off. I fish a lot as a hobby. You'll see,

you know, we're seeing at the tournament entries, you know, they're off about 25%. I mean, it's,

you know, fuel and gas goes up. It's a direct hit. And, you know, you're going to Chick-fil-A

Friday night, not going to Ruth Chris, you know, because it's just what it is. And so right now,

it's a little tight. You know, I think I've got a lot of optimism personally about where, you know,

I think that we're going to do better. Our industry's always rebounded well. We've got a

core part of our industry that is, you know, always whether it's there, it's affluent enough to spend

in it, or they spend it even when they shouldn't be. You know, which one you want to be. Fortunately

or unfortunately, we have that which gives us some, you know, some fairly good bottom. We don't, you

know, in my opinion, a leading indicator. We lag a little bit. So for slow dumb country boys like

me, it gives me a little time to prepare, you know, because I know what's coming, because some other

things have already reacted. One of the things, I guess, one of my mentors shared this with me,

gosh, probably close to 20 years ago. And I've found it to be the best thing that has nothing

to do with our industry directly to watch. And that's the consumer confidence index.

That number is, to me, is the telltale of really, and of course, that's taking everything in the

world from eggs to dresses to whatever else, you know, black shoes for ladies. And, but it just

really soft, and it's a pretty good indicator of where we're sitting most of the time of where

that confidence index is. So fuel prices, A, consumer confidence, B, I can normally get a

feel of what things you're looking like. Your point about the dealership though is

spot on. We talk about the barbell economy a lot, right? And it's like the cheapest thing and the

most expensive thing, and there's almost nothing in the middle anymore. What practical advice could

you give to a manufacturer or shop? Like if I'm in between like, okay, should I make a cheap thing

that a lot of people could buy or a really expensive thing that has a tiny little market

or something in the middle? It seems like everyone's saying, don't be in the middle,

because that's kind of a tough spot to be in. Where do you lean? Is it better to go

upmarket or downmarket right now? Gosh, that's a good one. And it's going to depend a lot on

category. If you have a little bit of personal brand in your shop, I would bank on the brand,

you know, here again, not rocket science marketing. Protect the brand, protect your people. Normally,

if you can do those two things, you're going to maintain, take care of your customer.

And if your customer seems to be that little higher in, then I would shift a little more to there.

Not turning away the guy that's willing to, you know, and try to be flexible. I mean, I always

try to tell my team and my manufacturers that in a time like today, you cannot be hardcore

written in stone on your terms and policies. You have to be nimble. You have to,

you know, you have to see what will work. If it doesn't work, if the math doesn't work,

you know, it doesn't work. I mean, no, it's not a bad thing. We just got to figure out how to make

things work to get to the yes. You know, is it, but depending on where your positioning is,

there are some guys for, and I'll say in the truck accessory business, there are some shops that

have done well that they can still do that broad stroke. And that's where it kind of comes into

play more than performance where a person can come in and get a bed cover and, you know, it's a,

it's a seven or $800 sale and it can be installed in five minutes and out the door, they go and

it's a real quick thing while they're doing a lift kit on a King Ranch with 44s and it's $15,000,

you know, add on thing with lighting and wheels and tires and the whole package. So a lot of

truck accessory guys are able to do that. Performance is a little bit different. You can't

quite, you know, have your race engine builder who's building a top mod motor and he's going to put

a manifold on a, on a streetcar on the same day, you know, but a lot of your customer or your

based has a lot to do with it too. It's funny. I've never thought about that. But yeah, it like

any truck shop I go to, there's like a $500,000 crazy 2000 horsepower diesel thing. And then

there's just like a guy getting wheels put on or a guy getting a tonneau cover put on like they're

better at that, it seems like, or their customer base is more willing to do that. When you go to

these super high performance shops, it's either like all premium or not. And there's like not great

at blending in the middle. Yeah, that's it. You know, and I think it's because of the mix of

products. And fortunately for them, they have the, you have an array of product, you know, that

can go and so there's, if someone pulls up in front of a truck, a truck accessory store with a truck

that doesn't have anything on it, if he wants to spend $60 that got something to sell them,

if he wants to spend $606,000 or $60,000, all the above, you know, they can do that. And, and,

and, and of course, you know, to digress quickly. And you mentioned, if you were a manufacturer,

if you're in the truck business, my first question I'm going to ask you, I'm going to say Texas is

your number one state, right? And if they say no, well, then I'm smiling because that's an opportunity

because if you're in the truck business, Texas, Texas better be number one, Florida or California

number two, depending on what the product may be. And if whichever one's not number two,

better be number three. And that's going to be your key areas. And then, of course, fortunate

here again, a lot of trucks everywhere, but you know, I think there's a lot more in the southeast,

southwest who were based. So we're fortunate to have that side and on the truck side. But yeah,

it's, it's unique. Now, you know, you talk about focusing, went into a shop recently and they

are in the truck accessory business, decided to go away from any of the simple add-ons.

They now do one truck at a time. Really neat concept. You bring your truck in,

they write up the big build, and it's almost like it's on the TV show. You can't come check on your

truck. But when you come to pick up your truck, it is sitting in the center of their showroom.

All the lighting is on it like out of dealership. They've already made a bunch of custom pictures

for you, et cetera. And it's like an unveiling of your, you know, $20,000 package that you did on

your truck. And they are booked out about three and a half months. I love a little, it's not really

theatrics, but you know, you don't want to see how the magic gets made all the time. And I feel

like sometimes you show up to the shop at the wrong time and it's like, oh, that's what the inside

of my engine looks like. Like, oh, no, the magic's gone. Yeah. Les, what's the number on the trucks?

We talk about all the time. Trucks are huge in this market, but what percentage does truck carry in

the automotive aftermarket space? Oh, gosh. You know, when as far, I guess you're talking about

revenue wise, I would say on that truck accessory side, it's probably 65%.

That's wild. Yeah. And here again, it's always been an ebb and flow.

Performances, the challenge, I would say the challenge, you know, and I think we're seeing the

curve. I'm going to jump around, but there's a lot of cool things happening right now in the

performance business. You know, I mean, there's just a lot of stuff. It is, and I, you know,

hate to sound nostalgic, but there is seems to be this return of a lot of good regional,

you know, kick-ass events. And it doesn't matter whether it's drifting or drag racing or, you know,

I mean, you have just all these events that are going on. I mean, and tons of big daughter,

you know, bracket races and heads up race and stuff that's going on. And it really is energized,

even though the economy is where it is, you're seeing not only the car show up there, you're

seeing the crowd show up there. And this isn't my news. I mean, you know, as a manufacturer's rep,

we're pretty good at just repeating what we've seen. But you know, Bristol didn't have a great

fanfare of a huge attendance number, made a lot of headlines over the last couple of days about

NASCAR's attendance being a little down. But man, you go to some of these small events and you've

got the fire marshal turning your way at the gate, you know, because they just won't let anybody else

in. So that is really exciting. And then, and you guys know, you know, about every five or six years,

it's always performance dying. You have that and you hear that always performance. There's no way

they can continue. There's, you know, and I think we almost say that we didn't say how that did,

but we didn't have nothing exciting for probably. But golly, I mean, you know,

PRI show this past year, you could not get to the IHRA booth. And, you know, and don't know where

any of that's going to fall. We're not, you know, hired or licensed by any of them. We do all the

events, whether it's, you know, diesel drags or mud bugging or tractor pulls. But it's good to see

in the performance sector what's going on with a lot of the street race stuff, the street car stuff,

to run what you brung, drive in and race. A lot of exciting things going on in performance for that.

We talk a lot about events. I think we're kind of trying to get people to go to more events,

because a lot of shops used to, that was their only marketing, was going to all these events. And

then the internet and getting busy and whatever, they kind of slowed down a little bit. Is it helpful

for you guys, if someone that you're repping is out at events, is setting records, is making cool

content? Like, does that make your job easier when you go into other places? Or is it really just

terms and product? You know, that brand building and reinforcement is key. I mean, and again,

what's being done with, you know, content creators or, you know, any of the Instagram videos or the

guy that's, you know, he's got the sticker on the back quarter panel of a dirt track car that won

the feature. All those things add in to make everybody's section of the business a little easier.

And it reinforces what we're doing. You know, again, it's building that brand and building

that concept. If you're the engine builder, I mean, my guys, we challenge them to go to

two or three events that they're not working a month, because it's the same old thing.

There's some guy building an engine today in his garage for his buddy for the first time. And if

that guy wins, everybody's going to want what he's doing. And the way you're going to see it, it's

going to be on the guy's car. And it may sometimes be somebody we've never heard of, because, you

know, it's a little better is there's always this rebranding, regrowing, spinning off, you know,

young guy used to, you know, clean engines. Now he don't, he no longer walks when it works

through that machine shop. He goes on and does his own gig of building or something. We always

continue to see that rebirthing and performance. And so anything doing to build the brand and push

it is all helpful. I've been doing this a long time, too long. You know, one of the, you know,

skipped over, I've been a manufacturer's rep for 35 years. I've been in the industry since I was 15.

I'm a very unique deal in my, in one side, if you look at as far as companies that I received

revenue on the last payment to put in the bank, I've only ever worked for seven companies since

I was 16 years old. On the flip side is 35 years of manufacturer's rep. I've worked for probably 150

companies. So it depends on which way you want to look at it. But that's how I got into this.

And some things, you know, continue to be played. You know, in the beginning it was mail orders going

to put manufacturers out of business and speed shops and engine builders. It's going to be mail

order. Yes, this was Midwest Auto Specialties and PAW. This is when Summit was the number three guy.

Okay. And I love Summit. They're great people. But that's how old I am. And literally it was,

you wrote the order on a piece of paper that you tore out of the catalog. You put your money order

in there with it and you mailed it off and you waited for your stuff to show up. And that was

going to put us out. And everything that came along, internet, eBay, Amazon, AI, which is the

great subject, one of my favorites. And it actually all it does is always make us better.

We were not created to not have conversations like we're having right now. I've had these debates

with the smartest people in the industry and a lot of people that I maybe would say we're not too

smart. And I always ask something, you know, real simple questions. Fortune and Jamie, this is a

question for you. Fortune 500 companies. I'd say you're tied to more of those than maybe me and

you are. Yeah. Right? Will you agree with that? Yeah. And how many of those Fortune 500 companies

have their board meetings on teams meetings? I'll guess 90% of them. No, the opposite.

10%. Okay. They still meet in person. And that's the reason is because they know that, you know,

you still have these think tank of these big companies that bring people together.

As long as we're, you know, having communication, my relationship at a shop or a manufacturer comes

from them beginning to trust me because when I come in and try to represent a new brand to you,

and let's say you're already doing business with me, I'm betting my other eight, nine, 10,

12 lines that you're buying from me, I'm kind of like Texas hold them. I'm putting them on the

table for them because I've done well here. I think you'll do good here too. You knowing that

if I'm wrong, I'll fix this to make sure I say these, right? So, but the communication thing

and the personality relationship is just so key. It's never going to go away.

I think a lot of people in this industry, especially younger, just think I can do it

all with a website, man. I can do it all digitally. I can just do it on Instagram.

I remember the first trade show I ever went to was PRI in Orlando. And at the time,

we were running a tiny little speed shop. We didn't know anybody. We didn't know what a rep was.

We didn't know how to buy direct. We were just trying to figure out and we thought, oh, we'll

just make a website and we'll get product somehow and we'll mark it up and then riches will happen.

And I remember going to PRI and walking through the door and realizing like,

oh, shit, this whole industry is people. These are people. They're not just brands,

they're people. And those guys know each other really well. They're going to do more deals than

me because I don't know a single person here, right? So, there's always been this temptation

to be like, I can just do it remotely from my bedroom and I don't need to talk to anybody.

And there are successful companies that do that for sure. But yeah, how much of this is just like,

I don't know about those bolts, man. And you're like, dude, try them. Everything else you buy

for me is good. I've been reliable. Give them a shot. And to your point, if something goes wrong,

I'm going to take care of it because I got all this other thing going on.

But yeah, the customer service side is still big. It's never going to go away.

Here again, and where I was going to go while it goes, 30 years ago,

it worked. The foundation is that you had basically the manufacturer, you had the distributor,

you had the rep, and you had the customer. And that was kind of the four cornerstones of your

building of the industry. And at that point in time, like I said, the world was a little different.

We didn't have a lot of the social media. We didn't have AI. We just didn't have any of that.

We had magazines and some TV shows. So, to build that brand, the manufacturer teamed up with the

distributor and the rep. And we put a plan together and the distributor put the product

in first before anybody ever knew about it. And then the manufacturer did some advertising and

the reps hit the streets. And that's how we built the brand. It's flipped because of things that

come so instantaneously now, that now the brand has to be built up a little bit before the distributor

even wants to play with it. Because they're getting the margins aren't what they were 30 years ago.

So they've got to have a little quicker turn. They can't sit on it. I mean, it all makes sense.

But that's where a lot of the dealer direct programs are things that go on at that dealer level

to grow a brand coming to play. And more so, you've got to have the newspaper delivery guy.

You've got to have the person screaming on the corner, you know, just like you see in the black

and white movies of downtown Detroit. And they got, you know, here's what the headline reads.

And that's what we do because when the internet growth came in and e-com and all that, yes,

and some people made it easy and made it big easy and figured out some problems that they weren't

making a lot of money in the beginning and they're making lots of money now. There was a lot of ease

in there. But then the information flow at the shop level changed. And it went from getting a

good amount of information that was really good from the distributor, the manufacturer,

and the rep, if you were using them, to now I'm inundated with more than I can digest.

So what does the grand entrepreneur in the automotive industry do when that happens?

He changes his email address. And that one that's getting all those emails, he doesn't even look at

it anymore because he doesn't have time. Well, now he's put himself on a little bit of an island

and then here again, where we come into play because we're never going to take away from

itself. I come up in your parking lots empty. I know, hey, I'm going to probably get 30 good

minutes with you. If you're parking lots full, it may be, hey, here's some information. You know

how to call me and look at page seven. I got a dog ear on there, special going on. And then I'm not

going to bog you down because I know how important those things are. But with that relationship of

being able to get the ear, to being able to get, there's some kingpin engine shops that

when all the employees get inside, they lock the door and they don't come to the door.

And you're not going to, they don't answer the phone. And fortunately, we have relationships

with those that we can get. And it takes a while even for us sometimes. I mean, some of these

the grand ones that have a lot of business, but that information feeding up and down comes into

play. But that brand building is key. And, but the good thing is we keep reinventing. You know,

there was a lots of times sitting on, when I was on the SEMA board, you're sitting there and you're,

is like, is next year of the year the show shrinks? Is it two years out? And then all of a sudden,

and I don't know what the numbers have been off the board now for, I guess, three years or so.

But it was always between six and 700 first time exhibitors every year at SEMA. And you keep waiting

for that number to drop. Now, you know, the, the, the second time attendee, second year,

it drops off. It's only a 50% drop, but that's just what our industry's always been. That's not

a new number, but we keep coming out with new widgets. We keep coming out with new stuff. We

keep having new people bring new ideas. And, and, and, you know, there's this, you know, AI's going

to replace everything. I've already, you know, had numerous calls that like less is AI going to replace,

you know, the manufacturers rep. And here again, I said, I just ask, you do know what AI stands for,

right? And, and so I said, just be real, real aware of the first word. Realize it's, it's,

it's invented to give you an answer. It will not tell you it does not know, which is key. I said,

but I look at AI no different than getting a new band saw for the shop. It's a great tool. It's going

to help you make more money. And if you use it the wrong way, it'll cut your hand off. And that's

the way I look at AI, you know, so we're using it, you know, in certain pockets of things that,

you know, that already that's, that's helping us, you know, but my guys and what we do is I always

said, make sure that if you're doing something with AI, and I don't, and I'd recommend this that

anyone that listens to this and I, you know, I'm, if someone knows you, like people know me,

I probably hadn't said one word a day that has more like, more than like 19 letters,

right? Or three syllables. They know that's me. If all of a sudden I have intellectuality as a

word in the presentation, they're going to go, that's not less, you know, so make sure that you're

using it as a really good tool, but it's not replacing you because then our industry is pretty

good at picking up on the BS, you know, so. Yeah, I've seen emails that I've been emailing with

someone for years. It's two sentences and a misspelled word. Now suddenly there are paragraphs

and formatted and bullets. I'm like, wow, let's just get a, just graduate from college or something

or, oh no, it must be a tool. Yeah, that's weird. So, yeah. Last time, I'm a lot going

through that conversation, but maybe I want to know how you judge people that you hire. Like,

what does it take to be a good salesman? That general question. And then, you know, what do

you do to train staff in this space? Like, what, what are your foundational skill sets?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a great question because I'll tell you, you know, we actually have a couple

of empty territories right now. And it is hard. Nobody's told you that. It's hard to hire people

right now. And it's even. Breaking news. Here's a great I word, more harder,

because we all work remotely. So, Les can't call you every morning to make sure you left the house.

We're all 100% commissioned base too. So, if you're not working, it doesn't take long for it to

show up. You know, I can do all the self-starter, self-motivated, all those things come into play.

I do like the positive A personality. I do know a couple of introverts that were very

successful reps. So, it's not that you can't be an introvert. But for the most part, I would say,

you know, extrovert personality, willing to just get out there and do it. I mean,

you, you know, it's, we get slapped in the face about 15 times in a week and you have one success

story. And then you're like, man, you have to be a little bit of a addicted to the sale.

The really good rep, he does, if he sells a bottle of water for $2, he gets the same highs he did

if he sold a truckload full of cylinder heads. I mean, because it's that wind of the sale,

then he can, and then he's good and he knows he's got to go get another one.

But, you know, we need the basic skills. You know, you got to, you know, spreadsheet,

PowerPoint, email, be good with CRM. You got to be, you know, good with a laptop,

good with a cell phone. You got to know kind of what's going on from a social media aspect and

be on Facebook, LinkedIn to kind of know those things. And we've tried different avenues. We've,

we've, we've tried a lot of different things. And I, if I've got a go-getter that's never been

the automotive industry and they go to SEMA after one trip, you'll know if they're going to make it

or not. Because, and I'll tell you, Russell Freeman, he covers West Texas and Oklahoma.

And Russell was not a car guy. He is a country music artist, rodeo guy is his background. Okay.

But he got in the automotive industry and he caught on to it and he, he's just, he's a killer sales

guy. But I would say he's a little of the anomaly. It helps if you've got a little bit of love for

the automobile. There again, I'm not going to say you can't because Russell is, but to be successful,

you got to, you got to enjoy what you're talking about and what we're doing. You have to realize

we are not selling replacement hearts and most of what we sell absolutely no one needs.

And if you'll keep those two things in reference that it burns deep in the people that love this

industry and you can fan that flame on your product with them, then chances are you can,

you know, have a pretty good living. Where are we, give me a number. We're through first quarter

of 26 as the industry up or down and how we're going to finish 26 knowing we got a whole bunch

of stuff going on all globally that impacts us. But we came out of the gate like a, like a fast

race horse. I really, you know, post the shows were really good. And when I'm talking about SEMA

and PRI and a couple of things right around the end of the year, I mean, was ripped up. You know,

the enthusiasm was in the room. I mean, you could just, you know, it was good. And, and we came out

of the gate strong. I really was like, man, I, and I had thought 26 is going to be better than 25.

And then we had a few things that pop up here lately, this kind of, you know, through the parachute

out and, and I was, you know, I was looking for not a dramatic year, but a good solid up year for

both sides. You know, we have some companies that are up 25, 30%. We've got some companies that are

down 25 or 30%. You know, I ended 25 saying flats the new up. I hate to say it, but I think that's

kind of where we're going to be. You know, when you average all things in a lot of dynamic stuff

going on in the industry, you know, and you have some stuff we can't never forget. And I was referred

to as a cross town because the reference of SEMA to the auto care apex side of the world.

But they're very important to what we're doing as well. And, you know, gosh, I'm not trying to hurt

anybody's feelings in, in, in our industry. Because I love, you know, the aftermarket

performance business truck, a set your side as a side I've always been on. And we have way more fun

and glitz and glamour, but they have all the money across town. You know, it's boring over there,

but that's where I mean, we have, you know, there might be a couple of shining stars in the SEMA

PRI world that might be scratching on the billion. They have companies that are doing hundreds of

billions of dollars over there. So you have to watch them. And you've seen some debacles come

down here lately between the first brands biggest driven brands hit the news yesterday on some stuff.

And when those things happen, if that's all of us, you know, that downflow of the automotive

industry, I, I think there's a chance we could end the year up if some of the things we're going

on now settle out before, you know, still out mid summer. So I think that has a lot to play in it.

I'm very optimistic that fuel is going to come back down. I think magically post July the 4th,

once everybody gets their week, their last holiday of the summer, kind of, you know,

big bankroll of this expensive fuel is going to drop because there's some important things

that go on around November other than the SEMA show this year that I think is going to have

some embedded on the short term future and long term future of the United States. And I kind of

feeling that things will be a lot better come about September. I may be totally wrong. But now,

right now, certain sectors are really doing good and your performance is doing strong. There's

some holes out there that need to be filled where Ford said to have some newer manufacturers and some

of those things like blocks and cylinder heads and rods that got really hit last year with some

economic things. So we're actually seeing some really good ticks on some stuff like that. They're

really doing pretty good, which obviously helps our ARP bolts and stuff sell out more of those.

But right now I'd say flats, flats a good number, single digit up or down is kind of where we're

at. You know, we're not good at math in our industry sometimes. But we, you know, you had price

increases so your number looks up. But if you had a 5% price increase last year and you're at 5%

this year, you're not selling any more parts. So, but now I think, you know, you can't beat what we

do as far as an industry. I mean, we always, we never hit rock bottom in bad economies and we

never skyrocket through the top when things go super crazy. We're pretty good about staying in the,

as my dad used to teach me in driving between the mayonnaise and the mustard. You know, we're

pretty good about staying there in the middle and not crashing too hard. So I think there's a lot

of good things going on in the industry that's going to keep driving it. But right now it's,

there's some tough spots out there right now. Where do you see opportunity? Like,

is there anything in your mind you're like, man, if someone comes out with X and I can sell it,

we're going to both make a ton of money, right? Yeah. Like, is there anything that you're seeing

right now where you're like, man, I do see a hole in cylinder heads or air intakes or something.

Yeah, I got someone told on my show my age. I guess one of the, if there's the depressing time

of the last couple of years of when I go to the new product section of a show,

and it's actually not a new product, it's a new application of a product that's already existed.

There are some new things. You know, there are some new stuff, things coming out there. And,

but just really what, you know, I just, you know,

for everybody out there that's the young guy in the shop that, you know,

is wondering if we can make it. He can make it. Just keep doing what you're doing.

You know, don't give up on what you want to do. Let your passion be, you know,

be what drives you because the passion is what made this industry. I mean,

and if you, you know, don't forget the history of, because history Tennessee continues to repeat

itself, you know, and we will be better. As far as holes, I don't see, you know,

big holes. I will say reinventing something that's already out there is not a bad case.

One of our newer manufacturers has really done a heck of a job. And it's, and believe it or not,

it's, you know, if you think about a black item that covers the bed of your truck,

it's hard to get excited about sometimes. But we were fortunate enough to team up with

WorkSport bed covers about three years ago when they first were kind of doing the early

design of their pieces. And man, they have done everything the right way, working with,

they're controlling their growth, really good product, really good price. And, you know,

there again, it's a bed cover that's hard to draw a lot of attention in that category, but

and not doing a commercial, but at a recent show, we released a brand new cover. And if you're

familiar with a four roll cover that has the support rods, which is just what the design has been,

they came with one that is no rod. You roll it, when you fold the last fold, it automatically

lost up into place. And it was just really cool. And it was, you know, and they just continued

to have some real good engineers working. So at this, what, and one reason I pointed that out

is that's a product that's been on the market for years. And I would say, well, golly, it's

just another application. Well, this one actually has some new features. So if you're a, you know,

if you're at a truck shop or a performance shop or a dyno shop, and you say, you know what, that

widget's good, but I can make it better, make it better. That's the thing. There's always improvement.

I mean, there's really great things out there in the market that did really, really well until

someone decided, I'll change it a little bit. You know, I mean, we forget that one, at the beginning,

every manifold was dual plane. And somebody said, you know, what would happen if I just made them

all single plane? You know, that's 600 carburetors. But what happens if I make a 1500 CFL carburetor?

You know, there's always bigger is always better, right? But don't, and I mean, Mr.

Dunn, I mean, that's the greatest thing. I mean, I graduated high school in 1982.

The IROC Z Camaro, I think it was 235 horsepower was the highest thing rolling off the show. It was

higher than because the Corvette had that Crossfire, you know, POS engine in it. That was absolutely

terrible. And so the IROC, then imagine that was the was like the hot ticket. And now golly,

we got thousands of horsepower and 30 miles to the gallon. And that's the thing our industry keeps

doing is we keep getting better about the time somebody says we can't. So I just tell them,

man, just keep coming out there and and utilize everything that's available to you.

You know, distributors aren't going to go away. You know, they move boxes quicker than anybody

else can. And A, and that's A and B, those people understand what your needs are. And they know

how to tell you yes or no. If you're getting the right one, there's just so much there. You know,

use the manufacturers. And obviously, you know, if you don't know who, if you don't have a rep

that's visiting your store from something, find out who one is. And I say find one. And when he

comes in, ask him who is competent. We're not, we, we can, we compete, I guess. But we normally don't

have the same lines. We, we, you know, we don't represent competing lines internally. So somebody

else has got to have those others. You know, what I mean? And I don't know what the booth count

it was at SEMA this past year, 6,700 brands. Well, I'm telling you, they're in a single,

but it's got 6,700 brands. But find out who those people are, because

they can help you with your little mistakes. They can help you with your trends. A lot, you know,

sometimes trends start in the big city. And sometimes they start, you know, in a little,

you know, a little country back road place. But if you're seeing all those people and you've got

somebody, which is, you know, the rep is the one key, you know, the rep, the post office and UPS man

are probably the only place people that go to all those different places. And reps can be an asset

at every part of the industry, you know, and so use them.

Lest you've been very generous with your time over the years. And people may not realize you

have spent years volunteering to help improve the industry in many ways. We overlapped on the SEMA

Board of Directors and your latest venture. I'm very grateful for this. You're on the High

I think the only out of state rep on the North Carolina Motorsports Association.

Talk a little bit about why you think that's important and why you're so committed to these

organizations. It is an incredible amount of time away from your family and your business.

But you have consistently been there for decades. Why do you continue to do this?

Well, you know, one of our customers has a sign on the outside of their building and it says

going broke, making friends. Because these association volunteers, it doesn't pay very

well at all. Trust me. But no, I'm just, whether it was my father and then my business, you know,

the men that, you know, took me out of their wing in the industry, they always tell me,

you know, you got to give back to what gave you, you know, so I got a lot of help, a lot of assistance

along the way. I learned a lot from these people and I realized that a lot of the pinnacles

give away their free time, especially the ones that last over the long haul. And I could, you know,

I could throw names. I've just been very blessed of, you know, mentors and friends that are on the

SEMA, you know, in the SEMA Hall of Fame and been on the SEMA Board and volunteer and you see these

people and you're like, well, golly, that must be a, it's definitely a good way to interact and

you gather a lot of information. If there's one good thing in those pause moments at meetings,

whether it's at dinner or lunch or just a break, you have that moment to have a conversation with

someone you might not ever be able to stand in front of and they're going to give you their time

because you realize they're volunteering for free just like you are. And so that's a key point.

I think if you don't put back, you know, it's no different than, you know, anybody can be an

Orange Air quarterback, right? We can all tell, but if you want to make a change, get in the game.

You know, if you want to sit at your engine shop and talk about PRI doing this or whatever or

something, you know, then that's fine. If you want to change it, and I'm not going to guarantee you

that you can change it, but at least you can put forth the effort to get in there and have your

voice heard and step up and get in and volunteer. NCMA, the North Carolina Motorsports Association,

I was the only board member, the first board member not out of North Carolina, but that was

kind of a hidden wall. And I questioned it with Dave Miller, who was the executive leadership at

the time. And he's like, well, no, you don't have to be, and I said, well, there's just a misnomer.

So one of the things, if you do business in North Carolina, they want you to be part of the North

NCMA. And that's where they have that partnership with HPX. And then you have people like, oh,

we don't need another show. The last thing we need is another show. Well, you know,

we'll say the last thing we need is another show, and then we see a racetrack got closed,

and we get upset because another racetrack went away. Well, what do mean we needed another racetrack?

So to me, that's like a double-edged sword that you're using. So if something's good

for the industry, it can be good for the industry. And HPX, I believe, is filling a void.

And I think that they're going to be, they're doing it the right way.

They are taking slow steps, steady growth, got some dynamic new companies in this year

that weren't in first year, shows the momentum. And there's a lot of stuff to do and see and

get involved in in motorsports in the Charlotte area. And so, I mean, you can come to the HPX

show, you can see some races, the Hall of Fame. There's a lot of things you can do if you're a

car guy. And we're really blessed again in the Southeast to have a lot of cities that are that

way. We're really, you know, we're really fortunate. I mean, Detroit's a great city for

performance and automotive as well, but I'm not trying to take anything away from where we're at.

But, you know, we're pretty fortunate to have some really good racetracks and some really good

cities that have a lot of history. And Charlotte's got a lot of history. You can spend two weeks,

you know, of seeing just museums and visiting shops and there. But I give back just because

it gave to me, you know, I guess the first, the Amy Falk and a lot of people knew Amy,

but Amy, I met when I was 20 years old at a Division II bracket race. And I was fortunate

enough to go to work with her at TCI, the Racing Transmission People. She hired me there. And

year and a half in, she says, you need to get involved with SEMA. You need to volunteer. And

so I did. And Bob was in, she was on the board. Bob Cook was on the board. A lot of people around

was on the board. And they just made, you know, Charlie Van Cleave was another great mentor of

mine. And she pushed me to volunteer, really pushed me to some new levels. And so yeah,

it's very, it's personally rewarding, but it doesn't pay well.

What's HPX for clicking five years for you?

I think they've got to fill up to Charlotte Convention Center in five years. And it continues

to get a little bit of attention. You know, I mean, it's kind of crawling, I guess, which in,

and I'm all about, I mean, there again, that's a lot of my clients. I'm okay with the

crawl, walk, run mentality. And HPX is really building momentum. I think this year is going to,

you know, last year was a tough year for a lot of things. And a lot of people didn't show up at

HPX because the budget had already been set. It was kind of mid-year and late,

as far as to announcements and things are going. But I really, I really see the professionalism

of how they're putting the event on, you're doing those things right. The engagement on the floor

where you're going to have the, this year, the opposing stages. So there's, I mean, you can have,

I mean, you can get educated, you can hear, you can see great product, you're going to hear face

to face for some great drivers and engine builders, but also business people. I mean, you've got some

self-made guys that are going to be up there sharing, you know, some of their history and what

they do. And, you know, one of my favorite books is how the mighty fall. A lot of people can tell

you how they did things good. I like to hear from the, from the entrepreneurs of where they failed,

you know, and those guys will tell you because they went through it and they'll be honest with you.

And so, and they're there in a moment in time where you have an opportunity to grab them and

talk to them and, and a little bit of a, what I would just, you know, a little, gosh, maybe a

more intimate setting, I guess, because, you know, hey, I remember when Seema, my first Seema show was

half of central hall was the entire building and we parked out front and walked in. Okay,

that's how long this is. This will be my 30, you know, this will be my 40th Seema show this year.

So long time, but it's still at that timing where you're going to get, you can get some

FaceTime with some real important people, real core in our industry there. And it's just at the

right time, but it's, it's going to continue to grow. They're doing their, and, you know,

sometimes I think people feel sorry for me when they put me on these councils, but there's a lot

of advisory guys on there that have been through a lot of shows and seen a lot of things.

They're listening to what everybody's saying about what's good. They're reacting to it.

They're modifying. They're improving. They're listening to what the customer is trying to say.

And with that, I think it's going to continue to grow, grow a minimum and grow size. And,

and I believe we'll, we'll fill up the, the Charlotte Convention Center in five years.

This is a car guy, pet peeve that I talked about a lot.

Why do you want to wait until it's too big? Like why, why not get into events early? Why not meet

people early? Why not go when you can spend 30 minutes instead of one and a half seconds being

like, Hey, good to see you. I'm, you know, it's like, there's just this thing where it's like,

okay, I'll wait till it's bigger and better. And then I'll go in year 10. It's like,

doesn't make any sense. Go in year one, go in year two, meet people, spend time with them,

grow it together. It's way better that way. Well, you know, we always have this balance.

And I always say, okay, do you want the best quality or the best quantity?

You know, do you buy that? Do you always buy the cheapest thing?

Or do you always buy the most expensive thing? Or the one is it really,

your sweet spot is the best value. I would say most people end up at the best value

proposition. Normally it's where they're going to settle where they feel it is an emotional

decision where they feel they're getting the most for their money. There's a very key person

in the performance aftermarket automotive industry that was at HPX last year.

And his comment was, I spent more face to face with important people in the industry

in those three days than I have in the last two years. Now, and he will proclaim that the quality

of people last year on the floor was, it was, you know, amazing. There were some people that,

there were a couple of companies, it was their first time they ever done a show. Those people

were blown, they were blown away not by the number of people that was filling the aisle or how long

the line was to get into the men's room, but the quality of people that stopped and had a conversation

with them. That's such, you know, it's what I do for a living. I stop and have conversations with

people. I'm fortunate and we're, you know, our company, and I think most reps do, you know,

I would say we're all kind of the same. We do things to help a company when it doesn't monetarily

affect us directly. Indirectly, it does affect us. But in our industry, if we continue to put

people together to solve problems, then the whole industry gets better. I mean, you know,

it's really rocket science stuff. You know, we're really out there on this cutting edge,

but that's where that information's hearing. And that's, you know, have you ever noticed,

I mean, the OE side, which is the one that kills me here in Detroit, talking about OE real quick,

you know, they'll be like, oh, there's all these secret new designs are coming out in 20, it's

27, whatever. And they unveil seven new cars and some of the lines on the cars are identical and

you're like, now, how did that happen? You know, how did, how did that happen? Why is it one of them

scoring one of them a triangle? No, they're all kind of, you know, if you notice, there's just

certain things you're like, oh, okay. But that sharing of information is not a bad thing. It helps

us all. And HPX is in a real good position, real good place in the year, in the marketplace,

in their size. And my question to someone will be, why wouldn't you want to be there?

Instead of me trying to tell you why you need to be there, tell me why you, why you think you

don't want to be there. I mean, you can't go to every event. I get that. And, you know, but

bank for your buck, it's a great show. They should be there. I'm going to say,

saw Fox got on board right away, saw that Jags is coming in. I mean, that's, you know, like I

say, there's some, and there's, there's a whole list. I mean, but they're doing really good, but

manufacturers need to get on board. And if you, you know, if you've, gosh, if you're in the industries

and you're, you know, within like, you know, whatever, five, six, seven hour drive, you need

to be there. Obviously, you know, they fly there. Shaw has got a real nice airport, so you're easy

to get there. A lot of stuff through downtown, great downtown area too. So it's good to, you know,

our industry also has a tendency to know how to entertain ourselves. So, you know, Shaw,

downtown is good for that, but it's, it's up and coming, but it is a good thing. And there,

again, I think if you get in there early, you're going to be able to get, if you're a young kid,

and you're looking for some enthusiasm, you're looking at a touch base and, you know, I say,

kid, everybody's a kid to me, but, but you're, you know, you got to, you know, get there,

talk to some people. You'll, you'll get FaceTime with people at that show that you're just not

going to get at the big shows because they're just so, it's just so high demand. So you need to be

there. It is easy to get to Charlotte from anywhere. And there's a lot of flights there.

But why is the airport so big? What are they doing over there? The Delta terminal to the

thing is like 5,000 mile walk. It's bigger than Denver somehow. From the outside,

it doesn't look that big. But when you're in that thing, it's like, what are they doing?

Can we get a train or something? No, actually, I think it's, I think, because, uh,

where was I, I flew through there. Oh, I was, I was, uh, I was going to a little resource show

that was in, uh, gosh, what was the little city it was in? Weston Salem. And so I had to fly

and then I took a commuter over and I landed it like, whatever, C13. I didn't know you could have,

it was E 51. I mean, so I'm at like A and like, well, let's see, E is there F? No, there's no F.

E is the last one. And I didn't know you could have a terminal that had 50 gates, but there is one in

Charlotte. Yeah. When you get off the one, if you're at that last gate, it literally says like,

48 minute walk to baggage claim. It's like, oh my God, dude. It's like, it's like being at Disney.

Or, uh, uh, what is it, uh, uh, hard eight barbecue. It's your, your 31 minutes before you get to the

meat pit there. Yeah. So, uh, but no, both worthwhile though, the line at heart eight and the walk

through the Charlotte airport. So, West, we haven't talked on, you know, a bigger picture of the

industry and where private equity has come in. And it looks like there's some transition there.

You know, what, what team are you on? You're on team private equity or you're on team,

just let people buy it up and build their own empires. What, what have you seen that works?

Well, I mentioned earlier that I fish and, uh, there's three industries I watched real closely

because I enjoy all three of them, but they're very aligned in their own ways. And that's fishing,

golf, and performance off to market automotive industry and all its discretionary income.

Number one, I always tell my team, be real worried if you drive by a golf course and it

says close, nobody wanted to play golf today. Okay. But the fishing industry seen a lot of the same

things from the business sector that our industry seen. A lot of entrepreneurs made a little bait,

grew it up, third generation, you know, crayon kids all making a lot of money and the great grandchildren

decide to sell it. And then, you know, one of the number one historical brand companies started in

the late 1800s sold a few, you know, about seven or eight years ago. And of course, the great,

great grandson of the grandson, whichever it was that sold it, regretted selling it. And once his

non-compete went out, he comes back in the industry and they're interviewing me. And it was, to me,

it's an earth shattering statement that relates to our industry. So I'm not going to be anti-private

equity or pro-private equity. Everybody needs money to grow. Sometimes that's the better way

to get it in the conglomerate. But this is what this, this person said, because they had somewhat

destroyed his great grandfather's company. And it is not what it was. And I think we have some

brands today in our industry that aren't what they were. And we have some key brands that no

longer exist that have gone away. And he said this, it's real hard to sell fish and stuff if you

don't know how to fish. And that's what I see that can be a concern. You know,

when investors come in and they let the company do what they've done to be good and they help

them get better, it's really good. And it can be really good. But our industry has a tendency

to go against what a spreadsheet says. We follow general economic theory to a point,

but it's not exactly what you were taught in E101 when you were a freshman in college.

That's a, we're a little bit of a head scratching mentality thing in our industry.

But when the DNA of a company gets lost, you can't keep replacing it with someone that doesn't

know. And I was, you know, there's some, some of these people, they get in and they get addicted,

you know, they end up, they go and, you know, they go and buy them a, you know, a C8 or they go and,

you know, buy the, you know, a Roushmustang or a Raptor or a TRX or they get, you know,

they get somebody to build them a $200,000 street run. And that's cool. But there's a reason that

these companies get to where they are. And when you, like I say, I guess that, you know,

you got to have a little bit of enthusiasm. That's what I said. Well, we've tried to find really

good business-oriented people to be reps. And it's hard because if you go into some of the shops,

it's hard to talk to people in our industry if you don't understand a passion, you know, it's,

it's, it's, it's, it's a little unique, but it's, but I do, well, I will say

if you get around a bunch of golfers that are sitting in their posts around,

they're talking about flecks of shafts and weights of heads and length of spikes and

all the, and material of all that stuff, just like we're talking about, you know,

cc's of heads and size of turbos and tire sizes and, you know, tread compounds and

shock recoil, you know, we're, we're doing all that. And the same thing in fishing, they're

talking about, but, and that makes it unique. But that, when that DNA is removed from a company,

and what I mean by that is whatever that, you know, that founding mentality of basis,

it, it can hurt anyone. And there is nothing more painful to me in the industry to see

brands that weren't what they used to be. And it doesn't, you know, yes, some, maybe,

some, maybe I was a part of it at some point in time, but when you see that shrinkage of,

it, it just takes away, you know, I had a debate in the SEMA boardroom one time about the show

growing or shrinking and the square footage number was growing. And then I brought up a

list of manufacturers that all that one point in time had their own booths that were either 20 by

20s or 40 by 40s. And now they were conglomerate. And I said, now tell me how that's growth.

So it can, it's just got to be watched, you know, I mean, we're here in Detroit, there's a few

brands that no longer exist that were strong brands that got, you know, got built into the

conglomerates and then they went away, you know, so, but now it's the industry needs money. We all

need money and money is good to help. I would just challenge if you're, you know, the private equity

people are just to be aware of what made the company what it was, the money is important for

the money is not everything. Because in the end, in my opinion, the industry is going to survive

off of passion and desire and money will come where it will. But we're always going to be a

little bit of, of against the norm from an economic standpoint of what makes sense.

That was a very eloquent way to say how I feel about private equity as well. I use, I only use

one extra word in front of private equity to get there, but yeah.

I almost suggested you added that out of the last one we did, but you didn't. So you must have felt

pretty good about it. Well, I left it and I feel like anytime people talk about private equity,

they have to couch it in some weird way because they think, well, one day I might need them and I

don't want them to look up this podcast from 15 years ago where I said, fuck private equity, but

I do think net, they're bad for our industry. And maybe sometimes it works out pretty good,

but for the most part, this thing is built on wild people doing wild things and against the

economic theory of econ 101 for sure. You can't manage life by spreadsheet.

You know, if you're, you know, if you're married, your most key relationship is with your wife.

If you sat down at night and you rolled out a spreadsheet and you were going to talk about

things that probably isn't going to make the rest of the evening very exciting.

And that's the kind of the problem with, you know, with our, you know,

I'll, you know, Vic Edelbrock, you know, did some dynamic things. And I just remember some of the,

you know, him banging his hand on his desk with that big gold bracelet and it would

rattle the room and he would remind us that it's my name on that manifold.

You know, it's, you know, and that drove the engineers and, you know, I'm not gonna,

you're not gonna, I'm not gonna have my name on that manifold because it only makes 18 horsepower.

If you can't get it at 25 horsepower, we're not gonna do it. Sometimes that might have been a

mistake, but that was Vic. And he made us realize that, you know, you're going out there, you're

working for me, but it's my name. You know, and it just reminded me regularly when I was a kid,

my dad did not have a list of things not to do or to do when I left the house. There was one simple

thing that I was told when I left the house, don't embarrass the family name.

Let's think. I can't do that. I can't do that. You know, I mean, it just, and to me, that's that

DNA thing. That's that what made so many companies that did the wrong things, that spent the wrong

money in the wrong places, but they turned out the right way. That's what made our industry.

You know, you can't do that. Well, hold my beer, you know. And you're right. It's scary.

And it's scary to watch brands that, I mean, I remember joining Bobcook sales and we represented

Earl's plumbing. You know, and at that era, there was pretty much two. There was the

Eric whip and there was Earl's and there was the youth stuff from the airport. And that was pretty

much it. You know, there's tons of them. There's a lot of good stuff out there and there's a lot

of brands, but I'm just saying Earl's was a cemented brand and we sold a lot of it, you know,

back in that era. But yeah, it's just a little challenging at this thing.

Less folks are going to watch this. They're going to come to HPX and they're going to want

business advice on how a manufacturer's rep can help them.

Coach them a little bit on what they need to bring to you to get that conversation really moving.

It's going to depend on the segment, obviously, you know. If you're a distributor, then it's

probably pretty easy. They should already know. But I'm going to go to the other end,

which is what I'm thinking. You're probably from that shop level.

I need to know where you're at, your IE location, what business you're in and what you want to do.

It's really that simple. Fortunately, we've done this for a while.

Also, fortunately, it's not rocket science sometimes, you know. But there's always,

you know, it's always improvement. It's not everything when you go to a restaurant,

and you're like, man, if it was me, I would have done this this way.

Well, we see a lot of shops make a lot of mistakes. We see a lot of shops be very successful.

But the key thing is, you know, where's your market? What do you want to accomplish?

You know, what's your expectations? Where do you want to go? And if you can tell me where you're

trying to get to, if I can help you, I'll help you. And if it's with some of my brands, great.

And if I'm grabbing you by the arm and I'm walking you to another booth, then it shows

that this is the guy you need to talk to, because he can get you there, then I'll do that too.

And there again, I think everybody in our industry would do that too, at least. I think

it's what makes it well. We are really in the people-pleasing business trying to touch

as many people as we can. We make about 200 give or take job or dealer calls a month, you know.

Now, in one sector, you say, well, that's a pretty good number. It's not a terrible number.

We also have the distributors who have a deal with the manufacturers. But our CRM is about 10,000

of job or dealer shop oriented places in the Southeast, Southwest. And

SEMA says there's 17,000 in the country. I'll debate that because I think, because I know there's

got to be more than 7,000 outside my territory. But it's a lot of that has to do with membership

numbers. And there's an array of shops. But I can tell you at Bobcook sales, we want to help the

manufacturers sell more. We want to help distributors be successful in distributing. We want to help

shops be successful, making more money, getting their brand out there, and having more fun.

And we enjoy all of the above. And we would just love to help people. I mean, that's really Jeff

Bates. There was a mentor, a partner, a friend, but he always summed it up with that statement.

You know, we're in the people-pleasing business. So what's your problems? We'll try to help.

And if we do things right, we sell parts too.

I love it. If they can't wait till June, how do they get a hold of you in the meantime?

We have a terrible website. And I say that because we are not in the business of really

self-proclaiming us. But you can go to BobcookSales.com and it has a little bit of history on Bobcook

sales. It has my email address and all there. It's real simple. My email address is just my

name, Lester Rudd, at BobcookSales.com. So you can go there and be more than happy to help you

need it when we can. You know, just, yeah, reach out there or I mean, hack my cell phone number

615-969-1464 and I'll answer it or text me or, you know, we'll do what we can.

I love it. Don't text me.

Don't text you.

General rule, yeah.

That will not get a response.

A good sales guy.

I am not a good sales guy.

Probably will respond to the text message.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

Less, thanks for coming on me.

Awesome.

No, it was an honor. I appreciate it. Sorry, it took me a little bit. But,

you know, you're doing a good thing here and there's, I listened to your cast and,

you know, I haven't, I want to say I've listened to all of them, but, you know,

one thing I'll challenge, one thing I guess, you know, thing is there's always nuggets to

pick up from somebody. I mean, you might be talking to a new car guy and there's an engine

builder. I don't need to listen. You might want to listen, you know, because, you know,

there's a lot of these conventions and speeches and all these things and, you know, like,

you know, golly, unless you're going there, that thing's $625 for a day.

And I'm like, yeah, and it's stupid, but I'm going to go.

And if I can walk away with one and miraculously maybe two key comments, then that was cheap

money in my opinion. So, and you know, you got some, I mean, you guys had some really good

thinkers, some really hardcore guys, some guys that really own cutting edges in their own little

marketplaces. And there's not a single one I've listened to that I haven't picked up a nugget

and made a comment of, and that's what, you know, how much is, you know, you have it,

you can sit on your phone or you can maybe learn something. It's not new. It's always been this way.

You know what I learned, Justin? We might be in the people, please, in business also.

All right. That's the pod.

What Manufacturer's Reps Actually Do & Why Your Shop Needs One | SEMA Hall of Famer Les Rudd | EP034

About this episode

HPX show

Uddlebrock

Keystone

Meyer

Term 14

mass retail

unilateral pricing

net receipts

demand generation

mapping on, on what you're doing at your shop

trends catching up

performance side

performance company

DZ

custom pictures

ebb and flow

mud bugging

second-year attendee

AI's going

AI

replacement hearts

auto care apex side of the world

aftermarket performance business

no-rod roll-up design

North Carolina Motorsports Association

advisory guys

face-to-face with important people

FaceTime

Charlotte airport / Delta terminal

Ford Raptor

shock recoil

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