From Good to Great: Breaking Barriers with Adam Arens

 “Tim Talks: Leadership and Beyond” sits down with Adam Arens, owner of Patriot Auto Group. Adam shares his incredible journey to becoming the region’s most successful Subaru dealer. 

They explore actionable leadership strategies, the importance of mentorship, and how to build a winning culture. Adam opens up about overcoming challenges, embracing ambitious goals, and developing teams that thrive under any circumstances. 

Whether you run a rural dealership, a major auto group, or aspire to lead at any level, this conversation is packed with insights to inspire growth, resilience, and success. 

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:34 Adam’s Story
• 2:00 Becoming a Top Dealer
• 4:41 Overcoming Limitations
• 6:13 Lessons from Mentors
• 9:00 Setting Ambitious Goals
• 13:00 Culture and Teamwork
• 18:40 Recruiting and Retaining Talent
• 24:00 A Mission Statement’s Power
• 27:00 Learning from Challenges
• 29:18 Encouragement for All Dealerships
• 33:00 Practical Tools for Success
• 35:00 Appreciation
• 36:37 Closing Thoughts

Transcript

00;00;00;25 - 00;00;33;26
Speaker 1
In over three decades, I've learned that truly great car dealerships are only great because of one thing leadership. So I'm sitting down with the great men and women. Inspiring Automotive on Tim Talks automotive Leadership and beyond. Welcome everyone for yet another episode of Tim Talks Leadership and Beyond. We are super excited about today's episode as, you know, again, as I travel the country, get to meet some incredible leaders.

00;00;34;13 - 00;00;56;20
Speaker 1
And there's something, you know, most incredible leaders are incredible humans. And I have one of those species today. I have, my dear friend, Adam Arens from, up in the New England area. But he is the owner of the Patriot Auto Group, and, just can't wait until he can share a little bit of his story with you.

00;00;56;20 - 00;01;09;11
Speaker 1
And, Adam, brother, welcome. And thank you so much. I know your schedule's crazy. You're getting ready to go 11 time zones away, but you made time to stop in and and hang out with us a little bit on Tim Talks. Thank you, brother.

00;01;09;14 - 00;01;29;25
Speaker 2
Well, it's an honor to be here. And I love what you're doing. And and I will tell you this, I take more away from, these and the other sessions that you've had. Leadership is is an underserved, topic out there in the world. There's people that talk about it, but there's a group of people out there that really have helped all of us deliver.

00;01;29;25 - 00;01;33;25
Speaker 2
And, I'm glad to be able to give back if I'm doing any of it right.

00;01;33;27 - 00;02;09;13
Speaker 1
You know, you know, Adam, you I mean, we'll we'll dive right into it. I want to get a little bit of your backstory in the story. What brought you to here. But, since you threw that up there, I'll just extend on that. There's a lot of. And not be. I'm not trying to be ugly, but there's a lot of people that whether it's social media or local advertisement or OTT ads or whatever, proclaim X, but, you know, not necessarily the, the truth or it's not necessarily, you know, when you talk to people that work for them or, you know, it's not the case where I think that the biggest difference is, you

00;02;09;13 - 00;02;28;18
Speaker 1
know, eating what you kill, practicing what you preach, you know? So I think that, that's absolutely the big difference in staying, staying, staying to your process, in fact, you just recently told me, I don't know how, long this has happened, but you are the largest Subaru dude dealer in New England, correct?

00;02;28;20 - 00;02;50;27
Speaker 2
We have been, four of the last five years, and we don't have an excuse for the reason we weren't the other year, but, but there was actually a reason. And, while I wish we would have been five years in a row, I think the biggest part of the story is, we started out in one of the smallest AORs, or 64 active AORs in New England.

00;02;50;27 - 00;03;13;09
Speaker 2
We started in the number 59. Immediately we started punching above our grade there, but, you know, in the top 20, and it took us, oh, 5 or 6 years to get into the top ten. But it took us. And this is a unique story, 199 months to be the number one dealer in one month. And in that month.

00;03;13;11 - 00;03;34;11
Speaker 2
So from the day we started to till we got to number one for a month was 199 months. And then that month we became number one. And that year we finished number one. And that was in 2020. So in 2020 we were number one, 2021, we were number one, 2022, we were number one 2023. We were number two.

00;03;34;25 - 00;03;53;26
Speaker 2
The people that were the number two dealer before beat us that year because they sold more cars, but they also earned 500 more cars because they built a new facility. That's when I guess that's the asterisk that I will that I will give to our team in that specific store. And then 2024, we won again, setting an all time record for our store.

00;03;53;26 - 00;04;02;21
Speaker 2
And this year we're after the all time record for what's ever been done in any store in New England. But we're still in AOR number 59.

00;04;02;23 - 00;04;41;06
Speaker 1
That's that that's amazing. You know, in my travels and again, why I want to have you on, I want to bring, you know, the 1%. I want to bring the people, and maybe something that you say or others say on this podcast. That was the whole dream of this podcast was, you know, even me in Atlanta, you know, sitting at my desk worried about CPO cars and everything else, you know, didn't get out to Digital Dealer only once, I think went to NADA, you know, and these other things don't get to have these conversations with, you know, titans in the space that are going to small PMAs because I think it's really and

00;04;41;06 - 00;04;59;14
Speaker 1
I want you to expand on that a little bit. You know, I, I always tell people, you know, don't get a case of the yeah buts and the yeah buts to me are exactly what you say instead of using that to drive you people use the. Yeah but you don't understand my mark. You know we would call them projected market areas, here in Atlanta with Lexus.

00;04;59;14 - 00;05;20;25
Speaker 1
But you know, my PMA is is smaller than everybody else. We can't do that. Yeah, but you don't understand my staff, Mike. My staff can never do that. So so let's let's, you know, unpack that a little bit for us, you know, smaller, market area, you know, how did you start? It was 199 months before the number one month.

00;05;20;25 - 00;05;36;17
Speaker 1
But, you know, how do you give us a taste, a little bit of your leadership style of putting people in the right place to believe and not fall for the. Yeah, but even though they're in a small market area and now, not only are you doing well, the largest Subaru dealer in in New England.

00;05;36;19 - 00;06;13;13
Speaker 2
So I would say that this is all based on the people that I got to work with. And, and specifically, I think there's a lot of us out there who are mentoring in a non-formal way. And that is, that we don't have a mentoring meeting on a weekly basis, etc.. But I worked with some exceptional people, both in retail, in sports and, and in the wholesale side of the car business and specifically, you know, the greatest mentor in the world.

00;06;13;24 - 00;06;18;07
Speaker 2
And I would say that I owe all of my skill sets to Jim Moran.

00;06;18;09 - 00;06;18;29
Speaker 1
That's right.

00;06;19;02 - 00;06;45;27
Speaker 2
I've heard this story. Yep. If he ever, you know, if I had ever asked him to be my mentor, he probably would have. But he didn't. I didn't have to ask because he demonstrated that we are all responsible for creating an environment where people can flourish. That doesn't mean everybody has to shoot the final shot in the game. That doesn't mean everybody has to produce insane results.

00;06;45;27 - 00;07;23;28
Speaker 2
It means that everybody has to produce at a level that they care about the what the company produces. Plus they have pride in what they produce as part of that company. And so, I think in working for Jim Moran and absolutely, I was while he didn't own the stores per se, and operate the stores, when I first got in the car business, I worked for Bart Starr, and I have never met a kinder, smarter, well prepared human being because he was, at that point of his life, 100% concerned with the development of the people.

00;07;23;28 - 00;07;46;00
Speaker 2
On his team and letting them flourish. And then I got to work for at the second piece with Jim Moran, and he had the same exact thing. And so that's what I've tried to emulate, is to say, okay, if I help you get better, if I help you flourish, then the company will flourish and all of that. Go back to the story about the 199 months.

00;07;46;03 - 00;08;05;13
Speaker 2
I've done some mentoring for some other dealers, and they've asked me to come in and talk to their group. And, and when I when I walk in, I say, okay on the following metrics. Tell me where you are for the year. As we sit today, where are you ranked in the country for the year in your new car sales?

00;08;05;16 - 00;08;23;25
Speaker 2
Where are you ranked in your state for the year? In new car sales? Where are you ranked in your district for the year in new car sales? And then I say, and the next thing is tell me where you are. The same thing in service. Where is your service volume nationally? Where is your service volume in your state?

00;08;23;28 - 00;08;48;19
Speaker 2
Where is your service volume in your district? And then last I do that in parts. So we've got nine things that we're ranking. And then I ask them is anybody not know the answer. And 80 to 90% or raise their hand. Then we go to the next level. Now I want to know why you don't know. And then they go around the room and have a discussion.

00;08;48;19 - 00;09;09;26
Speaker 2
And then they say, I want you to have a personal breakout session for two minutes and write down why you're not number one. And the answer that I get back from them, Jim, is what you just talked about. I'm not in an AOR I'm not. That's not fair for me to compete against people in Florida, in New York, Texas, California, where they have so many more people.

00;09;09;28 - 00;09;31;03
Speaker 2
And I said, okay, let me ask a question. Does anybody have anything in their compensation plan that says, I get a bonus if I'm number one in the country? They said, no. I said, that's why. Because you're not even trying to be. I'd rather fall short of something that I'm trying to be than never attain what I could be.

00;09;31;05 - 00;09;32;04
Speaker 2
Wow. That's good.

00;09;32;06 - 00;09;32;25
Speaker 1
I'm going to make it.

00;09;32;26 - 00;09;34;22
Speaker 2
And so at least.

00;09;34;23 - 00;09;36;10
Speaker 1
That one more time. Will you say that one more time?

00;09;36;14 - 00;09;44;00
Speaker 2
I'd rather fall short of what I'm trying to be than never reach the potential of what I could be.

00;09;44;02 - 00;09;45;01
Speaker 1
That's good.

00;09;45;04 - 00;10;15;21
Speaker 2
And so, as you know, it doesn't matter. The zip code. You sell cars and it doesn't matter the size of your air. There are certainly some restrictions that you can put up there, but are you going to let those restrictions be permanent, or are you going to let them be temporary? Right. So, you know, we're we opened a Subaru store 21 years ago, the one that we were talking about, in an area of 90,000 people.

00;10;15;21 - 00;10;34;04
Speaker 2
And it hasn't grown yet. We sell, I think I'm more proud of these next statistics. More cars, more new cars than any dealer in the state. And have done that for 4 or 5 consecutive years. That means we're bigger than every Toyota store.

00;10;34;04 - 00;10;36;25
Speaker 1
And yeah, that's that. That's all brands. All makes.

00;10;36;25 - 00;10;55;26
Speaker 2
Correct. Bigger than every Ford store, every Chevy store, every Toyota store, every Honda store. And some somebody says, well, how does that happen? Well, the biggest Toyota store is next to us. All I have to do is if it's important to me to sell more cars than them, sell more cars than them, it's really that simple.

00;10;55;26 - 00;11;19;04
Speaker 2
Right. And and so, so when we just went through our planning meetings, as we did for 2025 with each of our stores, we had to I actually had to cut them back because of availability of cars, because if you say I could sell 3000 new cars, but the manufacturers, you only get to give you 2500, then you have to make a decision to try to buy 500 of them from other dealers or not

00;11;19;04 - 00;11;40;23
Speaker 2
get them. In our case, I'm not going to buy 500 cars from other dealers, but if the manufacturer can only give me 20, that and I and I had them in the meeting to make a commitment of the most cars that you could possibly ship to me this year, if I have 4% of your total share, what's 4% of 60,000 cars?

00;11;40;23 - 00;12;03;29
Speaker 2
Well, that's the most you have to give me. I understand that that number is 2400 cars. So when we forecast 2500, I said to the to the GM and the GSM, I said, do you want to go out and buy cars from other dealers? Is that what you're going to focus on, or are we just going to focus on retail and hopefully they'll be able to supply us at maximum 2400 cars.

00;12;04;01 - 00;12;37;18
Speaker 2
So we cut it back to 2400. Now the onus is on the manufacturer and us and the distributor to provide us 2400 cars. So we have to play games to do that as well. I mean, and that means, we fell 20 cars short of our audacious level goal this year, and we didn't fall short in January. In December, without a doubt, we fell short in January, in February and March, and picking up two cars a month that we missed along the way.

00;12;37;20 - 00;13;02;09
Speaker 2
So we had an insanely good December. Everybody was focused on that big number. We fell 20 cars short of it, still finished number one, by a lot, by the way. But but we want to start January 3rd in our case, having a great year and we think now and everybody understands in service in parts and in sales, both new and used that these are our goals.

00;13;02;15 - 00;13;22;04
Speaker 2
We're going to start running. And by the way, everything affects everything is one of the philosophies we have in the store. Right. So if we don't sell new cars we don't earn used cars from from and we don't earn more new cars and we affect the service department based on the number of cars we sell, we affect the parts department, we affect our vehicle buying center.

00;13;22;04 - 00;13;46;09
Speaker 2
So if we want to be 1 to 1 and we're not going to buy cars at the auction, how many cars do I have to buy through our vehicle buying center to make that happen? So that's kind of the thought process. But I will say this as a GM, dealer owner, if you sorry about that. Okay. As a GM, hold on, I'll start it again as a GM, dealer or owner.

00;13;46;11 - 00;14;17;05
Speaker 2
Put something in your pay plan for your people that declares what your possibility is, what your goal is, right? So the day we opened in Saco, Maine, there was something in their pay plan to be number one in the district, number one in the region, in our case, and number one in the country. And they were big numbers, but it was there from day one, and it took 199 months to do it.

00;14;17;05 - 00;14;37;05
Speaker 2
Because, by the way, being number one is not only what you do, it's what they do. And we can't affect what they do. Right? So I couldn't the fact that they got 500 extra cars, they built a facility, I was not going to go build a facility to get 500 more cars to maintain our number one status. Nor was I going to go by and pay dealers profit to buy 500 new cars.

00;14;37;07 - 00;15;08;10
Speaker 2
But we all understand that in the entirety of our company from a porter on and the phone operator, what our goals are in each department, they can see what they are every day. They have access to the financial statements. They have access to anything they want. But in case they don't even want to pay attention, we still have a meeting every month where we talk about what we accomplished, pat people on the back and talk about the role that every individual plays in every one of those results.

00;15;08;12 - 00;15;38;09
Speaker 2
The phone operator has effect on your parts sales. The concierge in service has an effect on your new car sales. Your porter, your your reconditioning people have effect on everything. And everybody knows that everybody affects everything. And that's what the I think I got that from it being the truth and being exposed to the truth between the other leaders that I worked for.

00;15;38;11 - 00;16;13;06
Speaker 2
I certainly worked for bad leaders along the way. I was a victim of, sales meeting when I first got in the business where somebody got yelled at for being late. I was certainly in sales meetings where they told us to bring them every deal. It doesn't it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. By the way, we have to whole gross the confusion of of a meeting, as opposed to what we try to do, is every day pour into our people, hold them accountable, and realize that not everybody's going to be everybody's best.

00;16;13;08 - 00;16;30;02
Speaker 2
But all we can do is help them progress. And we have to tolerate some people who are not going to. And that's up to us whether we choose to do that. But we think people who have done the same thing for a long time naturally get better. If they don't, it's probably us. It's not helping them get better.

00;16;30;04 - 00;16;51;08
Speaker 1
So so let's talk about let's talk about, you know, you've got a lot of you've got a lot of your your leadership's been with you a long time. But hiring those people, you said something and, I never work for Southeast Toyota and and but I was a Southeast Toyota dealer as a salesperson and as a as a sales manager.

00;16;51;10 - 00;17;19;02
Speaker 1
And just, you know, the the reputation of Jim Moran got had the privilege just to meet him in passing at his golf tournament a couple of years because of Don Moffitt and and you know, that whole crew. But my yes, my question is, you know, and all of them were just I mean, even even Don Moffitt, like he came in at our store when he, when he purchased Toyota South and, you know, he was he was, we would play this game because I always wanted to beat him there.

00;17;19;02 - 00;17;38;26
Speaker 1
And I could never beat the guy to work, like, I could never freaking. And then I think, I and I don't want to exaggerate this, I think I can, I think I might have done it once, but at the same time, when it was time to have a lot party, you know, he he was moving cars, he was arm wrestling technicians and I mean, he was that guy is that guy.

00;17;38;28 - 00;18;05;25
Speaker 1
But you know that those type of humans don't fall off the truck. The Adams and the Don Moffitt and and others don't fall off the truck. How do you, can you help? It's great when you got those great people and you said early on, and I've also written that down, you, like Jim Moran, create an environment for for your people to grow for them just to, do what they need to do.

00;18;05;25 - 00;18;32;13
Speaker 1
As Bill Belichick says, just do your job right. But they do it with passion. So is there any insight to that general manager, sales man, whoever, trying to fix a broken store, getting the right people in. How do you obviously you've done it successfully over and over because you've got multiple stores. Can you let us peek under the curtain there because you've been successful time and time and again, I'm sure that every single person that you've hired, you've had people that have not worked out for for the most part, your leadership.

00;18;32;13 - 00;18;40;04
Speaker 1
You've put the right people in the right places, you know, is there some key, traits that you look for? You know, help us out there?

00;18;40;06 - 00;19;15;14
Speaker 2
Well, I think, you know, you said this when we started this, leadership can be made from good people, from people who are just genuinely good people. If they're not, they should not qualified to lead organizations. So in, in, in we failed that at times with people who just can't get things going in the right direction. But I think what you saw from SET and you probably would say that 90% of the people that you met with SET were excellent and.

00;19;15;14 - 00;19;16;04
Speaker 1
Incredible, great.

00;19;16;05 - 00;19;43;20
Speaker 2
Mayors to your company. Yes. And that was something that that is 100% on Jim Moran. That is, to hire people who know that success is made by helping other people. And I think we know that. And I'm not saying that you learned that in church, or you learned that in school, or you learn that at home, but you better learn it somewhere, and that is that you can't be me for everything.

00;19;43;20 - 00;20;05;26
Speaker 2
There are some salespeople out there who sell 40, 50, 60 cars a month who are not cooperative. I don't know them because the ones that I meet are willing to share their skill set and how they do it. And and I think that's why they sell 40, 50, 60, 70 cars month when you deal with a Frank Grinity who was, I think, one of the most amazing leaders in the world, hundred.

00;20;06;02 - 00;20;28;00
Speaker 2
Everybody could doubt what they say. But I can tell you this. If I text Frank Grinity from your cell phone, somebody he may not know, his answer is, how can I be of service? I apologize for the delay. And he means it. It doesn't. It doesn't have to come from Adam Arens because we know each other and we're happy to help each other.

00;20;28;05 - 00;20;53;14
Speaker 2
But that's how he cell sold 1400 cars last year. And somebody says, yeah, well, he has assistance. Yeah, well, if you sell 1400 cars, you would have a lot order and you would certainly have, somebody to help you with your paperwork and your own finance manager. 1400 cars is 120 cars a month. That qualifies in my stores for two finance managers and two borders.

00;20;53;16 - 00;21;17;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, right. So he makes a team to do that. But but the question is you have to have that service and service mindset that's out there. And I know there's a lot of books about that. But I think you start with good clay and don't ruin it. Maybe the easiest part of this. And so as we hire people in, in our organization, we try not to hire people with experience.

00;21;17;21 - 00;21;54;26
Speaker 2
There's only one thing in our company that requires a specific skill set and years of doing it, and that's a technician's job to get to an attack. Well, we don't even hire a techs. We've we've gone through the process of we flood the place with interns and tax and we develop our own a tax from there. And we lose some people along the way because they're not team players or they, you know, they they, they don't like being the 12th most productive technician or the 15th most productive technician because they their ego won't let that happen.

00;21;54;29 - 00;22;21;00
Speaker 2
And they don't want to work as hard as some other people do. So. So the worst thing you can do is not invest in your people because you fear you're going to lose them. Be happy for them if they choose that you're not the right place for them. And I think that's that that goes back to some of this stuff with with working for the Moran family, that was the people from the people at Lexus.

00;22;21;02 - 00;22;42;10
Speaker 2
The Lexus didn't exist when I started there, but the people at city and JM and a all I know is that they were something that I wanted to be. And if you want to talk about the best recruiting there could ever be, the best recruiting is to create an environment where people will do anything they can to come to work.

00;22;42;10 - 00;23;05;24
Speaker 2
There. And that's what happened at SET for me. And that was I had to quit my job and go to another place to work for six months before they would ever interview me. At the same time, our first baby was on the way, and I will tell you this that I would have done anything and as a matter of fact, I went there and took a 50% pay cut, to do it.

00;23;06;09 - 00;23;23;26
Speaker 2
But it was that important to me, and I had no idea what my job was going to be. And my job was to say, yes, how can I help? And I ended up in the Atlanta market. I think six months after I joined the company. And I stayed there for 17 years, and now I've been a dealer for 21 years.

00;23;23;26 - 00;23;28;19
Speaker 2
So therefore I am 65 years old and I love it.

00;23;28;20 - 00;23;47;22
Speaker 1
I love it, you know, it's unless, you know, I might get a little weird here and everybody thinks I'm weird anyway. Maybe so. So it's okay. But there was, you know, it was something about those Southeast Toyota, the forests and the, you know, those guys walking into your store. It was like there was, man, they were just great humans.

00;23;47;22 - 00;24;10;05
Speaker 1
And you wanted to be, around them like that, right? There was this incredible what Mr. Moran created. It's it's that, you know, it's the Maxwell 21 irrefutable Laws of leadership. You know, the two my two favorite are the law of attraction. Something's going on there. I want to be part of that. You know, it's funny, I did literally the same thing just to work for the Hennessy Group.

00;24;10;05 - 00;24;32;10
Speaker 1
I took a step down as a as a GM of a store to go to, as a sales manager, and I figured I, I believed in myself, you know, I think today, maybe there is a little more of, you know, title, you know, people not looking at the big picture. Well, I was a GM for this long or a GSM or whatever.

00;24;32;10 - 00;24;51;03
Speaker 1
I'm, I'm gonna I'm going to pay X. I'm going to do this. If you really want to know what you have, you know, make, make their the tail end of their com you know, on, on, sales. Right. You know, do people believe in themselves. And I think that, maybe, maybe, hopefully there's a lot of people that say, you know what?

00;24;51;03 - 00;24;55;11
Speaker 1
I'm going to believe in myself and maybe I have to take a step down to get up. But I think.

00;24;55;11 - 00;24;55;26
Speaker 2
That's pretty.

00;24;55;26 - 00;24;56;13
Speaker 1
Ironic.

00;24;56;21 - 00;25;16;10
Speaker 2
Let me give you let me give you a tangible for the people that are paying attention. And they can do this in short order, regardless of your position in the company. Write out what you think the best culture would be for you. As a leader, if you're the owner and you have the ability to have tremendous amount of input into that, do it for your company.

00;25;16;10 - 00;25;35;01
Speaker 2
But the worst case scenario is do it for you. What do you want your life to look like? Right. So so I we want it to be number one. So we did everything around being number one. But we also said we're going to penalize the management team for turnover. So therefore you have to be a little bit more careful when you're hiring.

00;25;35;01 - 00;25;55;20
Speaker 2
Right. And when I work for for a jam family, you know, I went up to, to somebody one day and I said, so what do you plan? What are your plans are when you leave here? And he looked at me. I'm never he looked at me and said, I'm never going to leave here. I said, I won't say that, but I appreciate the fact that that's this is where you want to be.

00;25;55;22 - 00;26;15;07
Speaker 2
And that was awesome. You know? And so, so if you can have an organization, what do you want your culture to, to look like? And for us, you you mentioned our charitable thing. So we have a mission statement. And anybody who's ever heard me or anybody from our organization, anybody who is in it, knows it's a two word mission statement.

00;26;15;14 - 00;26;41;23
Speaker 2
It's "To Serve." And then underneath that, it's that customer, the community, our families and each other, and that is it. And there's nobody in our company that doesn't know. It is our people in the company that don't believe it. I don't know about that, but there are some people who don't live it. And that doesn't happen overnight when they join our company.

00;26;41;23 - 00;27;00;04
Speaker 2
They do have a hard drive, which is the experience they had from the day they were born to where they went to school, where they went to church, what what ball teams they played on, what choir they sang and what what teams they cheer for. That's all part of their hard drive. In some cases, we have to erase some of the bad stuff and it takes some time and some tolerance.

00;27;00;06 - 00;27;28;11
Speaker 2
But when somebody says, you know, I, I, I'm not doing that, I there's no benefit for me, then that means that they're not ready to be a leader in our team. So again, we've had some people who have done extremely well in our organization. They leave, they get hired easily if they do leave. Sometimes jealousy causes people to leave because somebody else gets promoted and and things like that.

00;27;28;11 - 00;27;50;29
Speaker 2
But for the most part, they don't leave. But when they do leave, they tend to want to come back. And the reason they leave is a leader in between. And I don't want to bear my soul, but I will. The reason I left and became a car dealer was because there was somebody between me and the boss who shouldn't have been there.

00;27;51;01 - 00;28;10;13
Speaker 2
There could have been somebody there, but that person was the wrong person. And I packed up my stuff. I went to the boss and said, boss, I'm not sure where I'm going, but I can promise you, the reason I'm capable of going there is because of you. And that's our parting words. And he said, I believe in you.

00;28;11;07 - 00;28;36;01
Speaker 2
And I wish you weren't going, but you have to believe that when the decision makers put somebody in management that they know what they're doing. And unfortunately, sometimes you get too big to know that everybody in a leadership position is the right person. Yeah. And so that person didn't last very much longer. And as a matter of fact, somebody you mentioned replaced them so far as to replace that person.

00;28;36;04 - 00;28;49;09
Speaker 2
It's just but you know, when somebody comes up to you and says, don't tell the truth to the boss. Yeah. You have two choices. Get out of the way or shoot them.

00;28;49;11 - 00;29;18;16
Speaker 1
That's good, that's good. Brother, we're going to land the plane Adam, give us. You know, there's a lot of people listening, and completely different. There's people that are in sitting in stores that, you know, sell 500 a month. There's there's people that, you know, are in rural stores that are selling 50 a month. What are some words of encouragement to create that culture, to create that, to get rid of what I've kind of tagged as the.

00;29;18;17 - 00;29;26;17
Speaker 1
Yeah Buts. Take just a few minutes as we land the plane and speaking into those people, right now.

00;29;26;20 - 00;29;51;25
Speaker 2
Well, I think the first thing you have to do is decide the type of place you wanted to do your work. You're very capable of supplying that for your own personal behaviors when you're not at work. So let's start working on okay, what do I want? The place that I look like that I, that I work in to, to look like and that's not, you know, the hierarchy etc..

00;29;51;25 - 00;30;04;01
Speaker 2
It's like I want to work in a place where I can grow. I want to work in a place where I can get an education. I want to work in a place that gives me benefits. I want to work in a place that that pays me well. I want to work in a place that gives me time off.

00;30;04;01 - 00;30;23;10
Speaker 2
I want to work in a place where the people say, I love you. At the end of the day, that's the piece that we've gotten to. Yeah, that that and I probably said it to the wrong people at times because it freaks them out. But that's how we end our phone calls with each other. That's how we end our conversations with each other.

00;30;23;10 - 00;30;47;29
Speaker 2
That's how we end our disciplinary actions with each other. And so that's what we wanted to do. And I can tell you it feels really good, but it's not good for everybody. So from that standpoint, you're you're never going to be at your potential. And the last and the last piece of this is for the last time in your life, you should never you should ever hear this.

00;30;48;02 - 00;31;23;15
Speaker 2
I tried my best. I tried my best is not a real thing. It has to be finished with. But I didn't get the job done. Now the question is, am I the right person to do that job? So I tried my best is always an excuse. And for you as an individual, if you're five foot seven and you try all day for a month with a coach and everything else, and you're 60 years old, you will not dunk a basketball.

00;31;23;17 - 00;32;03;04
Speaker 2
You're not the right person for that job. So let's do our best by getting better every day. Don't try your best, do the best and, by the way, if you want to know who promotes people in our organization, it's not me. It's the people they work with. Leaders become naturally promoted into those positions, and they fail at the beginning because they don't have some of the skills, but they have that inherent piece of leadership because people like them.

00;32;03;06 - 00;32;38;05
Speaker 2
If you want to be disliked and a leader, I don't know how that works. However, your parents are capable of delivering discipline to you. Your parents were capable of correcting you and still loving you. That's what a real leader becomes. And so be a team player. Get the job done. Don't do your best, make your best better every day, and understand that your potential to do one more hour or a day of production to make one more hour in your day more productive, to do some of the simple things.

00;32;38;05 - 00;33;00;10
Speaker 2
And by the way, I'll leave you with this because we are landing the plane the most important thing in an organized life. To become a leader and to accomplish things is a right. Yes, you can't see it on. Here is an eight and a half by 11 pad and a calendar. Next to it. And once you commit to doing that, you will get a lot more done and that will free you up.

00;33;00;10 - 00;33;19;13
Speaker 2
Time to get better. And by that I mean if your kids get on the bus at 8:30 in the morning, you're sure they get there, but you're not sure what you're doing at 9:30 in the morning when you're at work, there's only three things you should be doing when you're at work. You should be serving a customer or serving others.

00;33;19;19 - 00;33;44;27
Speaker 2
So that's depending on your job. The second is finding more people to interact with, which I think some of this podcast world has been very good at doing that for a lot of people in our car, in the car business. And the third thing is to have disciplined time to get better at your work. That's to work on your yourself or work on your job or work on betterment.

00;33;45;01 - 00;34;07;12
Speaker 2
So if you can do all of those three things every day, I promise you you'll get better. Your serve, more people and more people will like what you do, so that will get you promoted into leadership. And, I invite anybody at any time to come to our stores. We have small, medium and large stores. We have people, we have a store that's 21 years old.

00;34;07;12 - 00;34;25;06
Speaker 2
We have a store that's ten years old. We have a store that's five years old, and we have a store that's two months old. So you can see any and all of them. And the only reason we would ever have another stores, because we have more people who deserve the opportunity for advancement, and we just don't have the place to put them.

00;34;25;24 - 00;34;30;20
Speaker 2
So that's the only reason we would get another franchise at this point.

00;34;30;22 - 00;34;43;14
Speaker 1
Well, Adam, thank you so much for for taking time out of your schedule to, to hang out with us here on Tim Talks, truly one of my favorite people. Did we we met in Clubhouse like, four years ago. Right? Right.

00;34;43;14 - 00;34;50;20
Speaker 2
As you and we met, we I think we met in one of, in the first business bourbon. No. And the first Pinnacle, maybe.

00;34;50;23 - 00;34;53;17
Speaker 1
That's right. That's right.

00;34;54;02 - 00;35;17;02
Speaker 2
We we certainly have done Business, Bourbon and Cigars, and we've done some business together. I have the utmost respect for what you're doing and what you're trying to do. To help retailers, dealers, be more productive. I think, you know, as none of us is ever prepared. And this is important. None of us is ever prepared for the next job.

00;35;17;05 - 00;35;38;08
Speaker 2
We think we're ready, but we're we're not. And then we kind of have to fake it. And that's the bandwidth gets bigger and bigger and bigger. The learning continues. And the day that, the day that I'll stop doing this is the day that I stop learning and I, somebody says, when are you going to stop? And I said, I don't think I ever will because I love I love meeting people like you.

00;35;38;08 - 00;36;04;29
Speaker 2
I love, having people tell me that, that they're they're doing something that's different, that's really working. And, and I am so thrilled that I have a group of people in the next generation who have begun to take over our stores. I mean, I have a, a gentleman's been with us for 17 years who was made the GM of one store, last year and now is GM of two stores, and he's 41 years old.

00;36;05;27 - 00;36;18;22
Speaker 2
And, and he speaks the language and, and gets the job done and, and he never points a finger at any of his people. He just looks in the mirror.

00;36;18;25 - 00;36;37;24
Speaker 1
That's amazing. Thank you. Adam. I love you, brother. Thank you for your time. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for for listening to yet another, episode of Leadership and Beyond. TimTalks, as we always say. In fact, I wrote, I can't write. I just stopped writing, notes. I'm just going to listen to the tape.

00;36;37;29 - 00;36;56;03
Speaker 1
So many incredible, whether they were one liners or just thoughts that we can get out of this, I always say it. No one is smarter than everyone. Until next time, guys. Let's just continue to get better together. We'll see you soon.

00;36;56;21 - 00;37;03;18
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00;37;03;20 - 00;37;04;04
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