I think we do it to many jobs supporting our community. But the growth, I think, has come from reinvesting into business. I don't have hobbies outside the business. I don't have a second home. It's all invested because 27 dealerships and six collision centers and a couple other little car business ideas like the parts warehouse have all come from first generation. Unless you inherit it, it's not quite so easy.
A big thank you to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. Open Lane, car dealership, Guy News, and Uber for Business. And now let's get into the show. Fred Beans on the CDG podcast. Fred, welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here this morning.
非常感谢我们的赞助商,让今天的节目得以顺利进行。感谢Open Lane、汽车经销商、Guy News和Uber for Business。现在让我们开始节目吧。这是CDG播客的Fred Beans。Fred,欢迎你。
谢谢,早上好,很高兴能来这里。
I posted about you this morning. I actually asked the audience, you know, I've over 550,000 followers across all platforms. And I just said, Hey, does anyone have any questions for Fred Beans? He's been in the business for 65 years. Over 27 dealerships, the largest dealer owned parts operation in the country, which is I find fascinating and we'll dig into that. How do you do it all? How'd you get into this? What's going on?
Well, I was very lucky. I was raised on a farm during World War II, where it wasn't in an abundant society. It was a work society. And I guess in that age group, it was cars and airplanes. And, you know, there wasn't all the other side things. So I got very interested in cars being raised on the farm because I wasn't in the cattle and I really was into the tractors and driving a tractor and getting to use that. That probably would ease your work on a farm.
So the background came from the farm and then the interesting cars and my dad worked part time in the winters for a farm equipment deodorant. I used to spend a lot of time with my dad on Saturdays. I go to work with him on Saturday and I got real interested. Then I went to Ryder College and I worked in a service station.
And the guy decided that he didn't want the business and I got the opportunity to buy it. And, of course, I was 20 years old. I applied to BPUL company. They didn't ever investigate my age and I never told them. I needed $5,500. I had 124 hours to my name. And a car. And my dad didn't want to cosign a note because he didn't want to look bad for him. But he said, your mother will go with you all Monday. And my mother cosigned a note and I started in a service station with $5,500 a capital.
And I worked very, very hard. I built it up to about 12 people. I had I had it for 12 years. I had a rental car business, a national rental car franchise. And then I got up to about 37 cars and a national had a rental car leasing program. And I got up to 75 cars that I leased to customers around a vicinity of my service station. And so I learned a lot and I was lucky enough to know a small deal or a new town has passed away, Bill Marsh. And Bill Marsh was a very smart guy at what the Yale Law School times were tough for his parents and he had to quit.
He had to quit law school and come home. And I used to go to his dealership and hang around with him at night. And he kept talking to me and talking to me. And finally one day he offered me a 25% partnership. And within six months, I was running a small store, did a great job. And I was with him for three years. And then I thought with his Yale brains and my work ethic, we'd find other places and grow. And it was a guy named John. We question. So so that that was your foray into the dealership business. Is that right? Like before that, you were in service business separately.
And other question before you keep going is what was it? Because I don't want to just talk cars here. I think you have such a wealth of knowledge that you can bring to the table. So I'm going to ask you some questions that are not necessarily just related to automotive. But what was it like in that era of late 60s, early 70s, like getting into the car business, was it was it taboo? Was it considered like progressive, like, call it like the tech frontier today or finance of the 80s and 90s? Like what was it like getting into the car business at that time?
It was it was very difficult when I decided that I wanted to be a dealer. I went to General Motors, Chevrolet, and I went to Ford. And I went to Osmobile because that was like the car choice, the Osmobile Cadillac. And I got it was very difficult because if you didn't get past the zone rep, that's as far as you got, you were sort of doomed. So it seemed to me that the entry into the car business was either sons or daughters.
And I started to look around for I get lucky enough to the assistant zone managers, Osmobile like me. He gave me a list of all the horses didn't have any children or going to enter the business and I started to go talk to him. So it wasn't easy for an outsider with no money. And now probably virtually damn near impossible. And by the way, that that is true because I was going to say it seems like there had to have been so many open points back then or potential for open points. Right. We're going back 40, 50, 60 years. So as you just stated, I feel like this is how lots of people feel nowadays or up in commerce where they say, you know, you kind of you kind of said the quiet part out loud, which is it's it's almost near impossible to get an open point. You know, there's some programs or so many factors and whatnot. But if you want to just become a new car dealer or franchise dealer, it is very, very difficult to break into that space. It seems that what I see is the most you know, prevalent strategy nowadays for the best performers is they get in with an existing dealership and an existing dealer group. You know, they prove their worth and then they get a minority partnership opportunity on a future point, right? As an operating partner, that seems to be the most, you know, the surest path nowadays from what I'm seeing. Are you seeing that? Are you seeing anything differently or do you?
Why? I think you're absolutely correct because when I first became a dealer, you could known a contiguous dealership or another dealership. And now we have three Ford stores that are contiguous. OK. So I think it's more difficult now because there's more wealth out there. There's blue sky that didn't exist in those days. And it took very little money to to enter the automobile business. It just took the opportunity. Now I think it's pretty hard.
This is a bit of a personal question. So, you know, kind of feel free to respond or not. But how have you reinvested your wealth or throughout this entire time? Has it all gone back into the car business or not all but the majority? Have you really just said, hey, I'm going to grow my my dealership footprint? Like, how have you thought about finances, wealth and growing, you know, your legacy and stuff like that? Well, I think I've been lucky to have a few good mentors, but it's been a and the other thing I think Warren Buffett said, if you I'm lucky that I'm not a really young guy, although I'd like to be young, I think there's certain things that come through compounding and a certain advantage to a guy that that guy that dies at 60 or a guy that dies at 40. That 60 year old should accomplish a lot more because I think real wealth unless you're get lucky is probably created after you're 60 years old, not before that, they call it the law compounding.
And so for you, has that mostly been within automotive or have you had other interests, anything that, you know, Britain particular that is, you know, not automotive where you've, you know, been active in, I mean, you know, who comes to mind, right? Let's just talk Reed Mintol, who's not far from you. You know, they obviously huge in real estate as, you know, builders, developers has for you has anything been on the sidelines or has it been really focused on automotive kind of stick into what you're great at? I've focused on on reinvesting as much as I can in our business and each month, whatever profit we make, we take out the we take the profit and we take out the tax money, which is a pretty hefty burden today and let's say we made a hundred thousand and we're going to put away 30 for taxes and we'd have 70 leftover. We'd add back depreciation and divide it by two. And we've saved basically every month, 50 percent of earnings. So we have only reinvest. I've been a believer that the automobile business has been an opportunity to take a guy with very little and grow and support his community. I think we do a tremendous job supporting our community, but the growth, I think has come from reinvesting in the business. I don't have hobbies outside the business. I don't have a second home. It's all invested because that 27 dealerships and six collision centers and a couple other little car business ideas like the parts warehouse of all of all come from first generation and that's a little unless you inherit it. It's not quite so easy.
So have there been inflection points in your learning curve throughout your time in a business, meaning has it been like a consistent kind of, you know, small steps, slow and steady, learning a little bit more, a little bit more, getting a little bit wiser, a little bit smarter, or have there been like very meaningful inflection points in that knowledge where you said, like, oh, I met this mentor that took me to the next level. Like, what has that growth been for you? Well, my personal philosophy about life is that we need mentors all the time and there's a great book called the station and it's about a train and the people that get on the train with you. But I think we need to seek out mentors, whether it's in history, whatever we need to always constantly look for someone to mentor us. If it's a parts business, I think I had a mentor. I went to somebody who was doing a good job and he asked them to help me duplicate what they did and they helped me. And I paid them monthly to come visit with me and work with me and we developed a very, very good business of 370 employees in our parts business. Give us an overview of your entire business. What's the top line, sales, service, parts? Can you just give us a quick overview? Well, because I had a service background, I think I always thought that I wanted to be known when I got a Ford dealership. I wanted to be known as the Ford garage because that was so important to people then, but it's still important now. And I think if we take good care of our customers in service and they service with us maybe three or four years, that bills loyalty is the word of going to buy their car. They may not even know that, but it's happening automatically. They built a confidence level on us. And I've always wanted to be when somebody asked what's it like to do business with Fred beans or what was it like to work for Fred beans? I'd like them to say it was like friends doing business with friends. This episode was brought to you by Open Lane, the leading online dealer marketplace for use cars. Open Lane brings you exclusive inventory, simple transactions and better outcomes, all with the lowest fees in the industry. Dealers love Open Lane because they can find a vast selection of all these exclusive vehicles, rental, dealer trades and more, all combined with a truly transparent process, best in class inspections and easy to read condition reports, allowing buyers to bid with confidence. If you're new to Open Lane, you can sign up now and receive a $350 buy fee credit. Learn more at openlane.com or click the link in the show notes below.
I want you to dig in a little bit into growing the business, right? And you've focused on a plethora of brands. You built a pretty diverse portfolio. What thought process has gone into that? Has it been opportunistic? The deals that popped up in your local region? Has it been, you know, with the times and the cycles? I want specific brands. How have you even thought about growth? Well, I thought about growth in a couple of ways, but one of the things that I, to me, is very important that I work diligently to build our brand and a brand has to be a brand promise. So I've tried to when we've expanded, we've tried to buy dealerships that are local because I would like to have the feeling that when somebody comes into our place of business, that the the business says who I am. I always I have this thought process that you don't have to know a man. All you have to do is visit his home and you'll know everything you need to know about him, what books are on a shelf. What's the house look like?
And I want I want people to know and it's not an easy job today with competition to differentiate yourself. And the level of service provide is very difficult. But if we could differentiate ourselves to be like a hotel chain, maybe to four seasons, maybe the risk Carlton, but who tells that it's had a tremendous effect on me. I never got to talk to the people to run it is the breakers in Palm Beach, Florida. It's the people are well dressed, neat, clean, facility always always exceeds my expectations for the opportunity to go there. So I want to exceed the customer's expectations. I want to build a band. I want I want my name to be a brand, a brand promise. And my home phone number or my cell rather sits on every every salesman's desk.
So if a customer is not completely satisfied and I get I get these calls all the time. And I'm thankful because if I get a call from a customer that's not happy, I have a chance to rectify and make a customer for life. I always said you can't trust somebody until you test them. OK, somebody say I give great service. I stand behind my product, but we don't do the right thing for a customer. And they call me and we correct it. I think that there's a trust level that's built. So I've been very close to my customers, very accessible, even at our size. Is that a byproduct of just a culture you're trying to, you know, and still within your business or is that indicative of like a leadership challenge with your team? Right. Like, why do you why do you do that? That's pretty much what I'm trying to ask you. When when somebody does something wrong here, sometimes I blame it on parenting. OK, so if I you don't mind me joking around, I hope a little bit. Have fun, have all the fun of the world. I'd like to think if you bring your son or daughter here and drop them off to work, I'm going to complete the process. OK, and so I called up my private school and we're going to educate the whole man or the whole person physically, mentally and morally. So we have healthy living committee. We do a lot of things for lunch and learn. We do nutrition, weight loss. So at the end of the day, I want somebody to say, have a work for Fred Beings. I'm a better person today. And why do you want that?
I think that's, you know, I've been a pretty lucky guy. I started with nothing except good parenting in a in the form, which was a tremendous lesson. I think the thing is that we want to leave some type of legacy, some kind of what people have made their their mark on you or me or what kind of obituary do you want to have. And I want to do everything I can not to tarnish the name, my name. What's your daily regimen? Like, do you read a lot? I have a reading list. I share with people as a company. We read books together. So I would say I'm an avid reader and an avid, audible guy. I don't listen to listen to many podcasts, but I think it's the three things that make somebody successful. And we deal with so many young people that come from broken homes today. And that that's probably 50% of American population. So I think that we have to be good mentors and we have to provide the leadership and the mentoring that they may not have had to chance. I don't think anybody brings a son or daughter home from the hospital and said, he's going to work in a gas station or he's going to be a car salesman or she is.
And we have to help them build this. It's a big job today. It's a lot bigger than it ever was before. We used to get higher people out of the military. They still were able to hear and hear the discipline and rules. And now it's a different society. You mentioned the status of just the percentage of broken families, which it's tough to even think about, right? Because I feel you said this right, that so many of society's problems, which impacts everyone, whether not just automotive, but impacts everyone and everything is starts and ends with parenting. And I feel like there's so many distractions nowadays that you can really numb.
Like back then, you know, way before I was born, I want to believe that there weren't many options in life, which, you know, in a way was there again, there was positives and negatives. Negative to that, you could you would just go on this path and, you know, have a family pick of like from like five to 10 careers, right? It was life was much more simple. Feels like today. Things are way more complicated. And from what I think is lots of the issues would just stem from that. The fact that we don't have that kind of predictability. Everyone is, you know, numb by all these 50 different things that they can do to distract themselves on a daily basis, so many options with everything. Is that something you're privy to on interest environment you work in and you see your teams and your employees? How does that impact you?
Well, I think it's it's definitely we have to worry about it because it's the outside influence and what you want to do is what I want to do is when somebody comes here to work, I want to build a respect level in our company and the trust level. And in case they didn't have the mentoring that they should have, and I'm not here to prejudge, but I think that we should be that mentor about putting things back and the chair goes here and we should have something to look up to. All of us need to look at and we you mentioned mentors a minute ago. You may we need to find mentors if it's learning how to work at computer. You just mentored me on something I didn't know about my computer. OK, I think we need to look for these people. I would ask you a different question. You know, Ray Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, he always says says that the things in his life that he finds most shocking or surprising are things that he hasn't experienced yet during his lifetime and that happened before he was born. Let's say, right?
And so for me, I asked myself like the car business today and what we're going through, are things really changing or are we just so kind of hyper focused on every little thing, you know, due to social media and whatnot? From your perspective, right? Is the car business is what we're going through? Is this the same? Is it just the same cycles? Right. And I'm putting technology aside, like technology is is always going to change our processes, but the human nature, like human nature and the way we interact is always going to remain the same behind the scenes. It's really the same. The same type of levers are being pulled. The tech makes it a little slicker, quicker, faster, great. But is the car business throughout your last 30, 40, 50 or like has the car business meaningfully changed or is it really still the same car business just through different cycles? How do you view that?
Well, I think if you don't mind me speaking about the Internet's go. The we we think we sell about 70 percent of the cars. We sell a result of the Internet either through a phone call or or an Internet lead. And consequently, we sell the same amount of cars, maybe that we were selling 20 years ago, but we sell them a lot further away geographically. And it always worries me because we do their job right. And they're delighted when they leave here, but they have to drive two hours back home will they buy their next car here. So I think I really worry about the loyalty factor because in the old days, cars were so poorly built that they relied so much on the service, the garage component of it, the repair shop component, then now it's become a little bit more of a commodity. I don't worry about it. I just get in and drive home and never let's be down. And so I sell the same amount of cars, but I don't sell them in my market as well as I should. Well, as I'd like to sell them.
So I think that we have to work harder when you got to get it lives two hours away or three hours away, and he sold them a car three years ago or four years ago. I think you have to work. You have to have some. How do you bring them back and the other way you can bring them back is the treatment he got here. He remembers because I always say nothing good or bad in life is good or bad until it's compared, right? And then we have to hope that that person appreciated the treatment, which might be because of our society changes a little less today and they should say to act with it, I'll go say to target rather than my local store or where, you know, I think you understand what I mean. Well, these whether it's in a car business or in a grocery business or a dry cleaner, it's an important, it's an important part of a fiber of our life.
I want to talk a bit more about the tactics of the business. So first things first, we just spoke about the parts department. What led you to build up and here I want to two separate directions. They're like, was it more of a emotional decision like, Hey, I came from this world, I know it well, and I'm going to stick to it. Or was it like a very economic decision like, Hey, this is a great business line of business. You know, it's an opportunity in the market. Let me jump into it. What was it more for you? Well, I think when you become a car dealer or a retail or it will be a dealer, you have so many opportunities that you don't have to develop the given to you the service business, the used car business, the new car business. OK, the detail business. The we have a separate auto express. It's sort of like a pet voice that we do a great job with. OK, where customers don't want to do business with a car. So we had an opportunity. A car dealer has so many opportunities in life. He has local real estate opportunities, which we've done some of it. I wish we could have done more because what we did was years ago, we helped develop with a few other guys, the shopping center. But it's all because of being in a car business.
So if you want to talk about the parts business for a minute. OK, so I I wouldn't say that the parts business is for everybody. We have about a about a 30 million dollar inventory and about a 35 million dollar receivable. So a good day. I never thought that I'd talk about this as a car dealer, but a good day is collecting two million dollars. So I'm interested not just in what we sold yesterday. How should we collect? But what here's what I like about the parts business. We were able to detail sort of build a business plan and adhere to it. It's hard to build a business plan. Let's say this Saturday you want to sell 20 new cars in our Ford dealership, or there are 20 cars. We used to do that by the way, but it's not the same today. 15 would be pretty good. What is that specific to Ford? You're saying? Yeah, because Ford has less of the market. Chevrolet has only seven percent of the market in Duels town. So it's not it's the competition rate. A lot of a lot of competition when I came here, there was no Hyundai dealer, no Nissan, no Subaru, no Hyundai, no Kia. Now they're all here to force and that that's diluted our market.
I think the parts business, if you want me to expand upon it, the parts the parts business gave us an opportunity to look at the product we sell and look at the market and say we want to go to another market and we went back and we did mind maps and we might name it like a project overhaul. So we pick a market that we were weak in and we would define that market and then put a marketing plan to go there. So the parts department is much more measurable. We can decide what we're going to do tomorrow. We can visit where we need customers to visit us in a retail car business. So the way I think about this is it's like, again, I'm just going to compare it to real estate as an example, but it's sort of like like property management as property management is to like developing or something, right? It's consistent, it's predictable, it's lower margin, but it's kind of always humming. Would you say that's sort of correct? Yes. And because because we're a product, they're inventory and business planning and being able to be, I don't know in the retail car business and I'm sure that people out there are lots of water than I am. That can be more strategic about what they're doing. But in our parts business, because the 370 employees were pretty strategic, we can put a business plan together, get excited about it. Really, I get excited about it and I can see it develop.
I can't sit in a and our Ford dealership or my office is at and say, we're going to sell on it and we're going to work on it next month. But we can identify the customers and because we have the inventory now on that investment, it's not a good investment for somebody. It's not truly committed to it because it's a very difficult business. It's a 24 hour a day operation. We're not open on Sunday, but it's a 24 hour operation. This episode is brought to you by Uber. Courtesy transportation is no longer a nice to have. It's a need to have. That's why 80% of dealership respondents agree that providing on-demand courtesy rides with Uber has helped retain customers based on Uber survey of 79 organizations in 2023. With Central, you can request a ride on behalf of your customers, even if they don't have the Uber app. Card dealerships are loving Uber for business because it's a headache free solution for offering white glove service and seamlessly handling tasks like pickup and delivery of auto parts and replacing shuttles and loaner cars. Dealers can request one way or round trip rides, add multiple riders and locations and even monitor trips in real time. Plus, you'll get monthly reports to keep track of everything. If you're ready to reduce the costs associated with maintaining shuttles and limit the liability of loaner vehicles, it's time to partner with Uber. Visit t.uber.com slash CDG Auto today to learn more or visit the link in the show notes below.
How do you think about the future of just dealerships in general? Very kind of open end question, but do you think that we're going to a future where the manufacturers will want to be more direct to consumer agency model on the new car side at least? Do you think that's not going to happen? What's your take on that? You know, I mixed emotions. I don't really think it's going to happen because in a maybe it's been a while ago, but Ford started out by acquiring dealerships and a dealer, a local dealer that's good, puts a lot of money back in his community. He has more influence in Washington, DC with politicians than the manufacturer does because he's a root of the market or a root of a congressman's district. And I feel real good, though. We are our dealerships tied to a charitable foundation of ours. So we we each dealerships sends a check in every month to our foundation. And we try to put that money back to use in our community. So I think a dealer has a much more effect on a community of people. And you think that will promote longevity for the traditional dealer? I think the longevity thing and I don't offer to society thing, I think it's our easiest days, maybe behind us. It's certainly not as easy as when I came and business. I think it was relatively easy because all he had to do was be nice to a customer and sell them a car. I can't tell you how many houses I went to. If we didn't sell a car 30 years ago, we'd go right to the customer's house at night with a car. And we don't do that. That ethic is not out there. If you didn't buy a car and you were here at 20 afternoon, we go to your house and I go with my salesman. It was kind of fun. We made a good customer doing that. Times have changed.
Have you ever thought about have you ever thought about divesting? Like, you know, you've obviously done this for a while, to say the least. Is it crossed your mind at any point? I think you got it but was raised in my generation. I think I had really good parents with a good work ethic. But I think it was always brought up to believe if we'd been given the opportunity, we should take advantage of it. We've had numerous opportunities to sell. But I always say to my daughter, when you sell something, you don't own it anymore. And you're not going to grow anymore. Now, you know, retirement is not part of my makeup. I wouldn't really want to sell. I'd want to grow. I think it's my obligation to give back. If you received a lot of you, been blessed, which I think I have, I think it's my obligation to give back. I think it's my obligation to be a good example.
Speaking of you mentioned your daughter, can you share a little bit about your succession planning or anything like that that could possibly help other people in your position? We have a leadership advisory board that we put together. And we have some of our key people are service. Service director, my youth card director, my son-in-law who's very active. So we put a pretty good plan together for successorship. OK, I think that we may not we the only beat that I can see it will miss is a guy that wants to pick up papers on the floor, put chairs back where they belong. I think some of that discipline will disappear because that's a different generation, but I think I think we have a solid plan. And it could even grow because I think sometimes founders of stymie things.
I hope I'm not one of those. I don't think I've been, but I think that my family's in a good position. I just had a grandson entered a business. And I'm very excited about that. And he went to college and during COVID he was a very good salesperson, but he went to New York for three years and worked somewhere else. So we have a leadership advisory committee for him. So my son-in-law and my daughter and myself aren't involved. We have a controller, a service director and a general manager in his progression. So it's not I've seen why the deal was annoying to their children. It's just not an anointment.
This is a I guess maybe you want to call it right a passage. I hope for for an up and comer that has no family ties into the business and wants to grow within the business. What's your advice? Like what would you recommend someone like that in any position in deals? Well, first of all, if I was an up and comer, I try to find a deal where it had to structure and the character to help me with my learning process. So when they ask him that, but does he have the character? Does he want to grow? Does he want to help you grow and reach your your dreams? OK, find find a place, find a home that has the structure for growth. Right. And that may not be it might be easier today. It was 20 years ago because all these dealerships were owned by one person. And I think that most people have a life cycle of what they want to do. They want to be successful and buy a second home and spend time in Florida. That's never been my MO. But I think that's where maybe the difference is.
OK, if you do the same thing over and over again with discipline, I think it helps you succeed. What brands do you believe in? Right. If you could acquire any brand right now or generally speaking, I mean, what interests you the most? What do you think brand is going to be? It's going to keep rising here over this next decade. We just acquired our first Honda store. And I'm pretty excited about that. We have two small Toyota store and we have eight four dealerships. I think I'm pretty excited about that. I don't have I don't have Mercedes Benz or BMW. I have what I call the working man's franchise. I feel pretty excited about a Honda because of the loyalty factor. And I think that companies focused, I think over the years at Ford, we've had different leadership, OK, have a lot of involvement from the Ford family, but maybe less today.
So I worry a lot about Ford because when I came to the Duels town, Ford was the number two franchise. And Ford almost got knocked out a second place by Osmobile and his market because it was cars. You know, Ford is not the number one nameplate. We outsell Ford with Hyundai on my salvation, frankly, as commercial trucks. And we are good. So we've been really when you joke around a little bit in this player, we made niches with a parts department found the niche and worked at it. And I guess it's like a deal where it finds its niche with used cars and does this guy's out there to sell two to one. I wish we were. We're not one of them.
And usually because he has that background. When was life better? Was it better 50 years ago with less technology? But arguably, you know, well, I wouldn't even say a little quality of life because maybe it was better, but when was life better? Was it better 50 years ago or today? And even from your perspective, you could define better, however you'd like. Well, I'm not sure about better, but I feel like there's less the structure in the home because I think everything comes. If you said, what is my success? I'm glad you asked, by the way, I say it's my mother and my father in the form, the form, the form because on a formula, lessons of life, right? I'm not sure you learn all those lessons of life without a mentor if you have a self-um. So I think as the work ethic has it's disappeared. It's not the automobile benefit changing.
It's the society's changing. The society is instant gratification today, I think, is less respect for other people's property. And I might be wrong about that just where I feel. Man, I don't think you're wrong. It's why I keep asking you about it because I'm very curious. You have so much more knowledge and wisdom than me. You've been on earth so much longer. So it's just interesting to hear it from someone in your shoes, right? I'm in my 30s. So I haven't seen a smidge of what you've seen. You mentioned growing up at the farm. Do you still get out to nature a lot? Is that something you do? No, I don't. But a form is a seven day a week job. OK, and a form. Yeah.
And a form is a return. The results are a return on your efforts. And he's coming said the best, the best fertilizers, the footsteps of a farmer. So that exists right here in our car business. OK, walking around, looking at things, correcting them and talking to your people other than staying in your office all day, which is not helpful. I don't think what are some of the biggest customer pain points nowadays that you and your team are focused on? Like, how is your business evolving today? What are you focusing on? My personal pain points are the internet. The internet lead, the internet phone call that doesn't result in an appointment. Because in order to sell cars today, we have to appoint. And then what happens when they get here? And if they come from a distance and the guy says, I want to go home and think about it, they have a distance to drive now.
And I think I think the chance of coming back or next to nil. So it's earning a business that a customer when they come here. Do I think we're prepared when they come? I'm disappointed. I think the car should be lined up with a hang tag in it. And we have a hard job, you know, typical salesman and say he'd rather walk around because they don't always know what they want to buy. But when you had a recently a Christmas time in December, a customer applied a request on the internet to buy a car here at our Ford store. And we had the car parked in a certain spot. He said he was coming from Williamsburg, Virginia, with his wife. And his wife told me that night it was seven thirty at night in the dark and cold. She said, my husband said we're at the right place when we drove in. And then she said, you know that you want to know how? And I said, yes. She said, because the car was parked out front with a bow on it. Now to get that kind of attention to detail, joking, there's a great book that people should be called One Word. And I had a dog and my one word one year was detail. And my so my dog's name was detail. So that the devil, you know, the devil lies in the detail.
Then one year I had the word this year, it's discipline. You don't discipline your neighbor's children or your neighbor's pet. You discipline your own children because you care about them, right? Your own pet because they want to get run over by a car. So I think that the reading of the books helps us grow. And when once if you were an employer, you want people to say they have a work there, I'm a better person today. I was going to say, for all your employees that you know, have kids, have children and even for anyone else's listening, how do you how would you think about parenting like young kids today? Right.
And I'd like to if you could also relate this to, you know, when you when you raise your kids, did you bring them to the dealership? Did you right away, you know, put them to work to build that discipline? How do you think about parenting in general? I think with my daughter, I was lucky because I came to work on Sundays. And when I had my service station, I used to plow snow at night and I had a jeep and that was hard work. And she I think I did a lot of mentoring to my with my daughter. And she's she's done a marvelous job. She's very involved in the image of her company, how we appear to the customer. She does a great job networking with women. But I think it was all again, I think it goes back to the parenting. I think it goes back to time spent and mentoring.
OK, so I think that's that's important. Yeah, I have two daughters, you know, super young, like toddlers. But I think about, you know, the future for them and you've obviously your your daughters in an exceptional operator in the business, at least from what I could tell from the outside. So you've obviously was that now when she was when she was growing in the business and there were much less women in the business was Alec taboo. Was that a bit, you know, was that a rougher transition? I think I think it was pretty early on. I wish there were more women in the in the business because I think they have a different kinder.
Carter Myers, his daughter, Liza, I think she's I don't know if you've found her at all. I'm familiar. I don't personally know her, but I've seen her name. And so maybe we've got to get on the podcast. That's real good. They heard their companies at ESOP and believe it or not, believe it or not. When I had my service station, I used to go to visit the Ford Dior in Doyle's town, which I told you about when Ford had a Ford Dior magazine and there was a Pontiac Dior. I used to visit with and he gave me the General Motors business builders book.
And through that, I read an article about Carter Myers the second. So I made sure that I got to know Carter Myers. And Carter Myers is a true mentor. And he's done that with his daughter. She worked for America, Honda. I don't know how many years before she came home. And now she's grown. Her father has been as tremendous late. And it's an ESOP company. Just just to describe that to anyone listening to your referring to like employees, stock option for people, the employees actually have shares in the company. Yes.
What do you think about that model? Do you think that we should see more than? You know, you know, it's it's intrigued me. Now it would be fairly, I think, impossible for us because of our size. But if we just started, I think it's I sort of like the I sort of like the ESOP. But it has some negativities from where I gather. And I've read a lot about it. I visited with a bank, a book pretty hard about it. And I think the funds have to be there when we have a 401k, I'm pretty proud of our 401k. I should be able to tell you the total. I think it's about 21 million. But I do want to tell you something.
We have an employee investment account and employees can invest money with us. And that that investment is not investment. it's a paid out of our floor plan and we paid them 7.5 percent. And this is a very proud thing for me. Ask me how much our employees have invested. How much are your employees invested? I'm glad you asked the question. There's nine million dollars yesterday. And that nine million dollars is 300 investors at 30. That's roughly 30,000 a piece. That has to say something about the confidence people have in us. And so I'm proud of the fact that we have healthy living, employee investment account, months and learns. We put out a healthy newsletter to our employees and we work hard to control our health care costs. These are our obligation to our fellow man.
You mentioned floor plan. So if you're if you're leveraging a floor plan at your scale, how long you've been in business, I have to imagine that you're getting a better return on that capital elsewhere. Well, when I see I'm trying to read if I'm paying Ford Motor Credit 8 percent, let's say, or they're giving me that on a floor plan offset and I give my boy 7 percent. It's pretty hard to go get a bank that will give you in and out with a hundred dollars at 7 percent or 3,000. So an employee gets money out. So we use that money to reduce our floor plan and then pay the employee. So I think it's kind of unique. In other words, I think you'd want somebody to be able to tell that story about work here. So at least there's 300 people have enough faith to put put that money back. Doesn't it say something to you? Says something to me. My prior company was an ESOP. So we had to get a get a card or people had 200 employees.
The biggest difference is that we were venture backed. So we didn't have employees didn't have liquidity, right? Liquidity and venture backed companies, you know, when you sell or you go IPO. So that was and I can tell you candidly that because there was no liquidity at our scale, we're still small. It was very tough to get you know, anyone besides like executive level or call it even even kind of senior managers to really value the equity, right? It was it didn't it didn't have the effect that it intended. And you know, you saw the super common in venture backed companies. That's not anything novel.
Yes. And you know, our own governor of Pennsylvania, Wolf, whose new longer governor had a company and turn it into an ESOP and then wound up buying it back and we looked at becoming an ESOP, the debt to get the tax benefits of it. We're so great that I don't think we could service the debt. I guess if you start out with it and then the other thing, I think what you what you just said or what I think I heard is you didn't have that. What did he be able to 401k? It's your money and you're going to get it regardless of what happens to us.
So if I was saving my money as an individual and working man, I I I wanted to be in my own account on my own name on it. How do you approach business opportunities at your size and scale? Meaning do you still get approached for all these different types of opportunities? Like what what does it take for you to say yes to an opportunity?
How do you think about this? Well, we have a thing called a buy box. And the buy box says we want something that we can where we can go and if we do a good job making effect on the community, people know we are. And one of the things I I dislike about our expansion is we don't affect some of the communities where we're at because we live here. We when we choose to go to church, we go to church here. We eat here and I think that as a tremendous effect on our business, just like if you hire somebody that lives in an hour from home, eventually they're going to get tired of driving two hours a day. And when they get their check, we're going to do what anybody else does. If they're married, I say they're going to run home to mama. They're going to go home because all met when we turn home at night.
And that money goes to another town an hour away and we don't build the influence of a sphere of influence that we can. So we want to be in communities where we can get to try to get to know people, get some kind of a footprint, give back to and also not just be investors. I don't want to be an investor. I want to build for some quirky reason and maybe that's my background of coming from nothing, but I want to build a brand. And we just went through the landscaping in Duels town. And when you drive up in that street, we have one business in a row that's not ours. It's not a car dealership. It's a Italian food market. I'd like to identify the street with a landscaping. So this street our footprint of landscaping speaks to the customer. There are people that care about need this cleanliness and respect for property.
So we want to we'd like to know that guys remembers us by our cleanliness, our attention to detail. Do you travel ever often? 90% of my travel is to factory meetings. Oh, I thought you were going to tell me West Palm because you mentioned earlier in the conversation. I've only been to the breakers three times, but all result of a 20 group meeting or winning a award and go into the breakers. So if I go to the 20 group meetings, there's no and a factory meetings. There's no time left to work and like to be around work as much as I can.
Yeah, do you go to any other industry conventions, any D.A. anything like that? Go to any D.A. Didn't go this year. My daughter spoke a couple of years ago to an A.D.A. So I certainly went to that. But yes, yes, we do. And we're a member of the 20 group. We're a member of a multi D or 20 group. And that's been beneficial to my growth. Are there any questions you want to ask me? You what prompted you to do this show? I mean, I mentioned it earlier to you that there was good or bad until it's compared and I wonder what I could have done better for you. So to answer your first question, I mean, failure, right? Because I had you have to think about me. I was on the dealership track for over a decade.
And I went from a traditional dealership and then I built an online auto retailer. And I went much bigger, much quicker. And when you go big, you can go really, really big or you can fall really, really big. And we weren't able to really we weren't able to differentiate enough in the marketplace at our peak. We had already raised close to $60 million of capital. So we had to pivot and I just I spent two years really trying to pivot to private equity and figure out a way to profitability. But it didn't work out. And for the first time in my life, after sunsetting that business, I was faced in a position.
I said, look, I took a big swing. It didn't work out, but I said, I can actually explore my curiosity. And I never actually had that opportunity. If you think about it, I started working on the car lot when I was 14, right? 15, just like helping out lot guy and all that stuff. So it was the first time in life where I could finally explore my curiosity. And I've always been interested in the marketing side of the business, right? So you mentioned, right, you love going and paying attention to that detail with the customer.
For me, when I got onto that car lot, I would gravitate to the computer and I'd want to go to like do some marketing thing, whether it was run a new Facebook ad or put a new post online. That was what I gravitated towards. I just doubled down on that and said, let's just start talking about the industry, try to solve a problem, which I believe is a lack of transparency in our industry. And so I just did that and it grew, grew, grew. And here we are today, you know, have a very large influential audience with an automotive, but it wasn't, I could tell you one thing for sure. It wasn't like very intentional. I didn't plan it out for years. It kind of just happened and it was compounded.
To the point where I said, there' s a real business opportunity here. I' m going to, you know, evolve this into an actual media company. Interesting. I think sometimes ask me how we get. You didn't ask me this, but I want you to ask me this question. How did how do we get so big? And I don't think we' re so big. We're small compared to others. We've just we're a first generation, but ask me that question. How did you get so big? I' m glad you asked. OK. And these are these are lessons from the form.
I think we I think we grew by staying small by focusing on the details. Yeah, so I always say, I' ll local the locals. OK, and growth comes from by staying small. Everything is details. I mean, that every aviation accident you ever read about, you tube those a lot because very interested. And it' s usually a detail. It' s usually a lack of doing something the right way. Speaking of details is a perfect segue.
So Brett Morgan CEO of Morgan Auto Group, which I have to imagine you' re familiar with, he posted a tweet the other day. He wrote card dealers, you parachute into an underperforming store. What are the first four pieces of information that you will ask before you dig into the operation? I want to ask you that question. What are those first four pieces that you would ask if this were if you were in a situation? I' d want to know about the leadership and the and the dealership, the longevity, the turnover.
所以 Morgan Auto Group 的首席执行官 Brett Morgan,我想你应该听说过,他前几天在推特上发了一条推文。他写道:汽车经销商们,当你空降到一家表现不佳的店时,你会先问什么四个信息,然后再深入研究店里的运营情况?我想向你提这个问题。如果你在这种情况下,你会问的前四个信息是什么?我要了解领导层和经销店的情况,包括他们的任职时间和员工的流动率。
OK, I' d want to know about the market and the sales penetration, the sales CSI because some of those things are very difficult and turnover and reputation is a span. We bought a Toyota store. I think there' s 1244 Toyota dealers or 1244, I think. And this was 1242 and 1241 sales. And that was not easy to overcome. Today, unfortunately, one at a time, OK, but today we' re in the top 10 percent and we' ve won the Toyota President' s Award several times. But I think I' d look at the market.
I' d want to know about the leadership team. And I think the leadership team is to we I can' t give it a cold right now. I should have it, but we look at all the time at our turnover in sales and parts and service. And we have turnover in sales hired in another universe stores. Right away, it goes down to I called parenting. It goes down to leadership, OK, people people on quit jobs, people quit people. I believe in that.
And I don' t know how we get that across. I mean, this is not for the listening audience. This is a philosophical thing. But how do we get how do we understand that and understand our obligation to people? I mean, being I guess some people don't give a hoot if you're a bad example. But I'd like somebody to say having worked for Fred bees, I'm a better person. That would be because you want a legacy and a legacy is not become how much you accumulate life. It's what you leave behind. It's the mark you leave on other people, right? And what's that mark that you want to leave is just for people to really become better? I you know, better, but you know, when people come in our dealership, let's say that we joked around and we said 50% of the people are going through domestic reorganization. That's a fair statement. And that's a lot of anxiety. And then you've got aging parents. People have a lot more of a struggle today, I think, than my generation earlier had because households were, you know, was not that divorce wasn't that common. Reorganization wasn't that common. So he says whether you're a boy or a girl weren't that common, maybe they maybe I maybe I just didn't know about it. OK, when I was 18 years old, I his like the California from Philadelphia, San Francisco. And that was a hell of an experience, but it was actually a good experience. That I don't think it won a hitchhike. Yeah, times have changed.
Before we wrap up, is there any message, you know, we have thousands of listeners across the industry dealers, industry partners, vendors, Wall Street, consumers, enthusiasts, any message you want to leave everyone listening with? The my message to me is an older guy that wants to leave a legacy is to be sure that we are and I haven't been as active, but active in our beliefs and active in helping our country be the place we want it to be and the place we believe in it. I believe that America provided it to a tremendous opportunity for a lot of people, my generation, my parents, my grandparents. I think we're fortunate to be here and I think we should work hard. I call it. I call it today when I come to work. I want to polish the blue oval every day, but I don't want to lower the American flag. I want to raise the American flag and I want to speak out when I to my local politicians and let them know how I feel if they're not doing what I think they should do such an untrust today in the news. I heard my wife say last night when I was having dinner, there's an untrusting news. There's an untrusting that our political candidates, both sides are news, right, which is correct and which is photoshopped.
Let's say, where do you consume your news? Like what platforms TV channels or what are you consuming news? Well, I read the Wall Street Journal because I like the Wall Street Journal a lot because I call it the Good News paper. It's not about somebody less than their next door neighbor, child or shooting a neighbor. There used to be there used to be things in the new and the journal that aren't there today. I miss and that was by the way, if you Google Fred Bean's Wall Street Journal, you'll see a good little article. It'll at least make you smile. OK, just Google Wall Street Journal Fred Bean's. Oh, wow. Look at that push up in the dealership. God bless you. Do you work out? So I worked out. I'm joking because I wouldn't work out because I'm basically a workaholic and lazy, but I have a trainer that comes to the house twice a week. If he knew the house, I wouldn't do it. I love it. Fred Bean, thanks for coming on. My pleasure. Thank you.
我们来聊聊,你一般是通过什么渠道获取新闻的?比如哪些平台或者电视台呢?嗯,我看《华尔街日报》,因为我非常喜欢这份报纸,我称它为“好新闻”报。它不像其他报纸那样,总是报道邻居的小事或者枪击案之类的。以前《华尔街日报》上有些内容,现在已经没有了,我还挺怀念的。顺便说一句,如果你在网上搜索“Fred Bean's Wall Street Journal”,会找到一篇不错的小文章,它至少会让你微笑一下。好的,就搜“华尔街日报 Fred Bean's”。哇,看这推销力度。上帝保佑你。你健身吗?其实我健身,不过开玩笑啦,因为我是个工作狂,而且有点懒,不过我每周有两次私人教练来家里。如果不是他来了,我是不会练的。太好了。Fred Bean,感谢你的到来。我的荣幸。谢谢。
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