Colt

What's going on? Scared me there a little bit.

Yo, what's up, man?

No, North Carolina. I got my whole family in the car. We're going to see the new Lilo and Stitch movie.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, I got you in my ear, bud, because you never know, you know, what can happen on one of these.

Well, if you don't mind, like, I'd like to maybe give you a little synopsis of, like, my family's business and my situation, and then read the questions so you got a little understanding. So, we've been in business for 15 years. We've got a

car dealership right outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, that my dad started with like a motorcycle and a tractor out of his garage, sold those, bought his first car, sold that car, bought two more. Now we've got two locations with 150 units. Um, over the last 15 years, I think he's built a pretty, pretty successful business in our area, um, that our community trusts.

And, uh, you know, we do, we do things the right way as you should. Um, The question that I've got relates to the culture of our business. So I'll just read it to you. So my question was, how can I shift the culture of a small family business when the majority of the employees are old, established hires, are not only lazy, but can be active dancers within the company?

Um, my dad has made all of these hires and now it's kind of stepped away from the day to day as more hands off in the company.

So I run, um, so we have two, three locations. I run one of the car lots. Um, and I have, I've like kind of revamped all of my employees and established like my own culture within my store. Um, the other two locations are all hires that have really been with them since day one.

And the majority of them are great, but there are a couple that I think, you know, he obviously wants to see the good in his people that he hired and kind of, and doesn't see how they behave on the day to day. Right. So we've got some, you know, just some, some bad apples in the group that know that, since they were hired by him, almost have like the hidden immunity idol.

And there's nothing that I can really do to manage those employees because they know that he hired them and I can't fire them.

No, no. I don't have any of the old employees at my location. So we have like an auto shop that all of our cars go through and a detail shop at the other store. So we work closely with all locations. But my store independently does not have any of the old established hires.

Great. I mean, they have about three to four times the inventory that I do. And I mean, I hang right with them every month in terms of sales. So they have four times the product, three to four times the product. And I typically, you know... maybe a small percentage behind what they sell with maybe more than half less than happy inventory.

That's where it's weird. It's like he, every week, like he's gone four or five days a week. Um, when he stops into the store, it's only for maybe 10 or 15 minutes.

Um, but he's very adamant about keeping his, his people.

Well, yeah. So he's got a very good heart.

Um, and, and his people are loyal to him. Um, and, but I've heard you say time and time again that, you know, just because you show up for work, you may be loyal in terms of like being on time and doing what you, but they're just, they just do what they're supposed to do. Um, as an employee. Um, but they are loyal, right? They've been with him for 10 or 12 years.

Um, but since he stepped away from the company, like, I don't think that.

Um, probably like, Late 40s, early 50s.

Yeah, so right now, we're just kind of coasting with what we've got. We've got a lot of room to grow. We could probably double our inventory between the two stores, the current locations, but I think... the 10-year plan would be, you know, open a second or third or fourth retail location and grow outwards in that manner.

Yeah, yeah. We've got some like bonus programs.

It just depends on the position, but yeah, typically it's based off sales, yeah.

yes and that's not we've got i mean in the community we've got i mean on google we've got a 4.9 star i mean we probably over 50 percent of our business is from word of mouth yeah um do you mind if i ask a quick follow-up yeah so because i'm not let's say you have two options to deal with the cancer right you can if you can cut it out immediately which is not an option for me i'm kind of left as acting as almost like a chemo right and so these people have been left

kind of put on my plate where I have to deal with them, but throwing them out, cutting them out is not an option. So how, how can I deal with these people? And, and almost like, how can I make these people more effective when they're not my hires? They don't listen to what I say. And they know that they've found like an immunity where there's nothing I can do per se. Right.

Just like, there's no respect for me. You want to know the truth?

This has been a discussion for, who knows, probably the last couple of years. And I've been sending the episodes to show them, hey, look what he said, the cancer, you got to get rid of it. And so my sharing the show and not being a hoe has been really sending these episodes to him to say, look, man, this guy's built astronomical things.

He's not just making it up and there's no example where the cancer stays in the business.

Right, yeah, probably need to sit down as a company, right, and address the issues with all of us together in the room.

After we discuss in private, get on the same page.

Right, right.

Right. That's real. Yeah. Well, that's what I'll do first thing tomorrow morning. All right, brother. I wasn't at a movie with my family right now. I'll do it now, but I'll have to do it tomorrow morning. No, I get it.

Right.

Sounds good, man. Well, thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

All right, yeah. Have a good one. Bye.