179. Broncos, OEM Insights, Importance of Trade Shows, Private Equity w/ Dr. Jamie Meyer

This episode is brought to you by 6XD Gearbox. More on them later. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast for day two of PRI. I am your host, Harris, a.k.a. Minnoxide, and I'm here with my Ford loving co-host, Dan. Yep, that's me. This is Gunna Garage. And I think you may be the first doctor on the show. Oh, I think so. I'm like 99% sure, but I also got to see an AP stats. So 99% she's a hit or miss.

Well, you still passed. That's a good news.

Still passed, right?

I learned a lot. I'm just saying, that was the most valuable class I've taken in my life, even though I got a C. But anyways, nonetheless, we're here with Dr. Jamie Meyer. So go ahead, tell us a little bit about some of your recent projects, and then we'll kind of just go into your history after that.

Yeah, look, thank you for having me. This is exciting to meet you guys and hang out a little bit. I've done car stuff my whole life. Probably folks know me for 15 years at Chevrolet Performance and Cadillac and all the stuff at General Motors with Performance Parts. I left that. I was the first president of PRI. I ran the PRI show and the PRI organization for three years. I did a short stint with Private Equity, the Aeromotive Group, help with the acquisition of the Roadster shop. Then I've been a consultant for a couple of years and I've got some awesome clients. The one I have the most fun with is a little Bronco shop in Texas called B***** Broncos. Woody Fairby that owns it. Woody is a retired Army Ranger, just truly a b***** human being. We had a great run at SEMA with him this year. I'm a consultant. I live in Detroit, so I still have good connections at all the OEMs and I help Fox Factory. They built some cool vehicles. I am working on a pet project, which is a new trade show for this industry called the High Performance Expo. Then I also have a client that's a large firearms retailer in Michigan and one of my hobbies is firearms, so I'm having a lot of fun with that.

And that's why car guys and gun guys, we all just hate money.

And so there's a huge overlap in it. So it's not it's an easy transition, right? You know, surprise, surprise. The owner of not just guns is a massive car guy used to street race diesel trucks and stuff like that. So you're right. It just runs together for sure. So that's what I got going on. But I'm glad to be here.

So you mentioned street racing diesel trucks. Is that your past or no?

No, no street racing, maybe. Sure. When I grew up in the late 80s, there was this crazy little car magazine called Cars Illustrated.

Yeah.

And Cars Illustrated was based out of New York City. Their claim to fame was they would take new vehicles and they would go street race it in New York. They would get absolute best ETs at English Town or AtGo. And they did a total of like 12 issues and then maybe another 12 offshoots. But I'm such a nut for that. I bought Cars Illustrated a little over 10 years ago. And one of my five nephews maintains the Cars Illustrated group on Facebook. And we talk about 80s and 90s cars and maybe a touch of street racing every once in a while.

Okay.

I might have to check that out.

Yeah.

Well, obviously we talked to everybody yesterday that we talked to was a GM person. So obviously I think you should talk a little bit about this V8 Broncos swap. Do you want to touch on that as well and how you got into that?

Yeah. I had a friend who had shown up at B***** Broncos in New Brunfells, Texas and suggested that Woody Farabee reach out to me. This is a couple of years ago. And, you know, I do business development. I do marketing. I do product development, which is, you know, probably a tougher part of things I've done in the past. But Woody had a couple barriers to market. One, he couldn't get Gen 1 Bronco chassis fast enough. The wait time at big chassis shops was six months to 12 months to 18 months. And he's between San Antonio and Austin. There's a lot of wealth in the country moving in that direction. So there's a lot of people that have no problem spending $250,000 to $450,000 on a Gen 1 Bronco, which even at the time, even today, I was just shocked at the size of that market. But Woody came to me and said, look, I got 50 Broncos in the queue at any given time. And my rate-limiting step is I just can't get chassis fast enough. So over the course, we launched his chassis in March. It took us about six to 10 months to get it through the pipeline. We had the guys at Black Lake, Seth and Joe, awesome engineers who have a GM pedigree, have an OEM pedigree, which is more important, but they designed what we believe is the best Gen 1 Bronco chassis in the world. That's a b***** Bronco. That's a Gen 1 project. The V8 swap came along because that Gen 1 Bronco market's on fire because of the new Gen 6 Bronco that Ford put out a couple years ago. That Bronco's unbelievable, great product. It doesn't come with a V8. There's no V8 option. We are in America. We like V8s and big horsepower here. That's kind of one of those things that you can set the compass to that, and you'll still get true north. But Woody wanted a V8 swap, Gen 6 Bronco. Then it took us a year. We worked at Livernois Motorsports, my good friend Dan Millen there, Andy Ricketts. That team was able to develop a Coyote swap for new Broncos. So, naturally aspirated, it's 450 horsepower. As soon as he got it back to Texas, everybody was like, where's the blower, Woody, right? And Whipple, huge partner to them, helped out with kind of some prototype stuff, but a Coyote swap, Whipple Supercharged, Gen 6 Bronco that makes 800 horsepower, somehow was able to hold him back till after SEMA. But if you watched B***** Bronco's content, it's nothing but Woody doing burnouts and pulls in a Gen 6 Bronco and telling me how much trouble he's getting into with that thing. So, yeah, fun project, and away we go with Broncos.

No, it didn't have, he didn't have a Whipple on it when we, I saw him at Woodward Dream Cruise.

It didn't, it didn't.

Yeah, so in between then and SEMA, because I did, I saw it at SEMA then too, and it had one on it.

Yeah, so let's say we debuted it in Bronco Alley, Ford had that cool area with all the Broncos.

I think it gave him a business card, so.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we had it there in naturally aspirated form. What he got, the fun got out of that in about five minutes when he got back home, and he's like, we gotta put a blower on this thing, like. That's what, that's what we do here. That's why this industry is so awesome.

Well, I was talking to him, I want a kit. I'm gonna do it myself for kind of guy, so.

Yeah, I think, this is cool, and I think people ask for that strategically when we throw, when we worked through the product line, it was, let's do it, let's do the swap first, just to control quality, and not kidding around, right? The software is extremely complicated, and we don't want do it yourselfers to have a bad experience. I would say, two years from now, you'll be able to buy a kit and do it at home if you want to do it. But the early adopters are the folks that want to turn key. And it's $50,000 to $75,000 to do it. So it's doubling the cost of a Bronco. But will the price come down? Geez, we hope so. But that's just what it takes to do it.

So when you talk about what you say what people want with Gen 1s, right? The six figure price tag on those. The fact that the newer one, you get all the creature comforts, and it still has that styling. Huge misstep by Ford, because it came originally with a 302 or 50 in it. It could have probably give that as an option, would have been great, but.

Yeah, we look, I love everything about the new Bronco. This is just an opportunity. I don't. You know, we've driven the turbocharged V6s. They're they're pretty robust, especially the Raptor. I don't know if you've been in one of those things. A Raptor with a tune up is probably a high 12 second car. Like it's fast. But America, Texas, we're going to put supercharged V8s in that sucker, you know. So yeah. Yeah, well, we'll get you one. You let me know when.

He was very ready to sell me one when I talked to him.

He better be.

He better be. So, yeah, I just not. I said, I like to build stuff, so it's we'll get there. Yeah, I have a couple of Broncos already. I have a couple of OJ style Broncos.

So I have those might be my favorite.

Yeah, I agree. I'm an OBS truck guy, so I have a 95 and a 96.

Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah, have the small block in them. So you're ready to go. Yeah, not the greatest suspension, but nobody cares.

Yeah, exactly. It catches a lot of looks. Actually, that's what I took the Woodward dream cruise. I have like a Bimini top on the back. I had the kids in. We were riding up and down Woodward. It was a very good time.

Was that your first Woodward? Yes, it's hard to describe.

People have been telling me for years to go to this. We have a big roll race event in Minnesota that we normally go to. And I was like, you know what, Harris, let's skip it this year. I think it would be really good for us to go to Michigan. We'll rent a house. And we were like three or four blocks off Woodward. And it was an absolute blast.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's more than an event, too, right? I think you were there the whole week leading up. Yeah, so you know, like probably the Wednesday, Thursday before Woodward, that's the best cruising night of the year because it's kind of all the classic, it's all the cruisers and not the daily driver. Yeah, so awesome. Glad you guys went. Tell your friends. It's a good time.

So obviously, you're doing some of that Ford stuff, but do you come from a GM pedigree then? Because you're a GM for 15 years, correct?

Yeah, yeah.

So what did that consist of? I guess, how did you land in that position?

Yeah, I grew up in a Ford family.

Okay, sure.

My grandfather was a big Ford guy.

Okay.

You know, when I graduated high school in 1987, my mom went out and ordered a black notch back, five liter stick shift, 308 gear, no radio, no air conditioning, race car. It was going to be late for my high school graduation. So they paid more money for a used 86 GT. So, you know, that's what the impression for me as a kid was, there's nothing better than a five liter Mustang, except these stupid Grand Nationals that seem to be faster somehow, which sucks. But that's what I grew up with and went really hard in FunFord Weekend, helped with NMRA, the early days of the NMRA. I announced for them, I was the voice of Ford drag racing for over a decade and did hundreds and hundreds of events announcing that. What you have to understand at the time, in the early 90s, there was no LS movement. There were only Camaros up to 1970, nothing else mattered after that. I mean, I'm being a little facetious, but the street race scene, the heads up drag racing scene was based around the Fox Body Mustang. And you had an entire industry grow up around that. Now, I probably just insulted all of your listeners or 90% of them, but that's just the facts. There were a couple of Grand National shootouts. There were never, there were super Chevy events, but there were never things for LS events till later.

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I left my postdoc at the medical school in Cincinnati and I went full time at GM in 2006. And then I was in a perfect position for me. I could work with media. I was a product placement manager. So it was different times. I got handed a budget of $3 million and was told go make media for performance parts and create engines at GM. And I was there right before the rise of the LS engine right as the LS1s and the 7s, 6s were coming online. Stayed there for 15 years. I think my coolest projects, all of the LSX stuff that Tom Bates and all the great engineers developed there at GM. Copo Camaro was my baby. There was about four or five of us that made Copo Camaro happen at GM. And then I worked on vehicle specific parts for the last maybe four or five years that I was there. So I got to understand new models before they would even come out. What does the industry want? Well, everybody wants an intake, an exhaust, some brakes, some suspension on a vehicle platform. So there's still things that I pushed that are coming out on vehicles to today, even though I've been gone since 2020. So there's my lead up.

What's the... So you're talking about like bringing back the Copo, right?

Yeah.

OK, so I've always wondered this because, you know, people get a lot of suggestions. I see people like people say they want to bring back the Torino, right? Things like that. I mean, there's some things that I'm kind of disappointed. The fact that the Maverick is a small mini truck, but, you know, that's besides the point. What does that take? And what's it like convincing an OEM to bring something? Because you kind of want to keep some of it. If you're doing it super often, it doesn't have the same mystique. What is that like when you're trying to go to an OEM and ask them to relaunch something like that?

I mean, it's Dan. It's it's more complicated than any enthusiast could possibly imagine.

Really?

It's the hardest work you will ever do in the auto industry is to be deep inside OEM and have a great idea that you know will sell and try to convince eight, ten layers of management that we're going to invest in this thing and go in this direction.

Right.

On the vehicle side, I think if you, you know, and I'm taking your listeners into consideration. If you think about the vehicles that are in production for your favorite manufacturer and you think about a special edition or you think about some little offshoot, it's so complicated for every part. Everything is engineering hours. Everything is dealership complications at the ordering process. So whenever you see any of these special editions come out, I mean, it's a group of very hardcore true believers within that have just pushed and pushed and pushed and tried to find a path. And remember, every vehicle has to have a warranty. Every vehicle has to be emissions compliant. Every vehicle has to go down a factory and be assembled within a reasonable amount of time. It's a complication that most automotive aftermarket folks can never even imagine. So when you see something break out, like for me, what Tony Roma and the Corvette team have done with the ZR1 and the ZR1X, it's an act of divine intervention and a group of people that just, we were talking about Tom Peters and Adrian Peters before we turned on the record button, I think. But it takes that level of people, that passion to just push these projects through. And what a lot of folks don't realize is what you see that comes out at the dealership, was somebody's idea five or seven years ago. It takes that long to develop these vehicles. So you have to imagine, you're a finance expert or you're a program planner for GM, Ford, Atlantis, and you've got a forecast where the market's going to be in five years for a new vehicle, three years for a special edition of some significance. And you've got to convince all the management that you're going to spend seven, eight, nine figures on a great idea to go do some. So that's when you see the Tim Kniuskas come in and re, put the paddles to SRT and have all these visions about the demon and where we're going with trucks. You got to understand this is an incredible effort and incredible risky environment. I mean, I'll give you one more context, and I don't want you guys keep talking, but we are at the end of electric vehicles. And I don't think people realize, I don't think we've taken that into consideration. Five years ago, everything in Detroit, everything at the OEMs was about electric vehicles. It killed all the cool stuff that we love because they couldn't afford to build it. We couldn't build Copo Camaros. I'm using this as an example, General Temp, because we were putting too much money in plants and factories and battery technology. Now, current administration takes away that 7,500 tax credit, EV prices go up. It's even more financially insane to buy an electric vehicle. It's over, baby, for at least three years. Now, it's gonna swing back wildly when it goes back to the left. But right now, these could be the golden age for what we've got going on. And you see four-figure horsepower vehicles coming out of Detroit. It's unbelievable. And I have a pretty idea there's gonna be more coming out on different platforms. But it will swing back. Could be seven-year run, depending on who gets in the White House in three years. But that's the context of your question. Those things you have to take into consideration. Am I gonna do something crazy with a truck or a car?

Right, yeah, I have a good friend, Tim DeCesaro, he says, the Camaro car's so great, they killed it twice.

It's painful, and I think that's fair. And being on the Camaro team, I watched the decision to, look, there's only a minimum amount of budget that you have for these vehicles. Camaro team had to make a tough decision to focus on new markets and had to assume they were gonna get a large percentage of legacy Camaro buyers. And it just, for my take, looking backwards, it didn't last long enough, right? That momentum didn't last long enough for the vehicle. And look, I was in the, look, I'll throw a little stones at my former self, which is I probably didn't fight hard enough to help develop Camaro where the Camaro buyer really wants to be, which is street racing, Hellcats on Woodward Avenue, let's be honest, right? There were four or five iterations of road racing Camaros. That wasn't my decision. I knew where the market was. In this whole event, 80% of what's walking around is street performance and drag racing. 80% of this market is going fast in a straight line. That's not me. I just happened to fall in that bucket. That's a fact of this industry right now.

Yeah. Well, in the grand scheme of things, this isn't, when it comes to car sales, like we're actually a very small community. It seems big, but it's not. How important do you think it is for an OEM to have a program like that? Because they're not, Camaro or Corvette is not setting them up like they, but how important is it to sell Silverados and Equinoxes and things like that, Traverses, stuff like that? Do you think having these programs is still important for them to have other stuff?

I mean, that's the profound question of the auto industry, right? What pays the bills and how do we have a little fun to still do brand building to keep people coming through my showrooms? So, the fact is nobody wants to buy a car, and they haven't wanted to buy a car for the past five to ten years. It's all about SUVs, big trucks and SUVs, pay the bills in the auto industry. I think everybody knows that. It has been that way for years, and that frankly is probably why Camaro went away. Now, there's rumors Camaro is going to come back. You know, cars may come back. Yeah, we have a we have a hyper affordability problem in the automotive industry right now. Average price for a new vehicle is over fifty thousand dollars.

Yep.

Average age of a new car buyer is sixty one.

Oh, I didn't know that's that. Wow.

So we are not in a young person market. No, we don't have ten thousand dollar five liter mustangs that you go buy as a foundation for a fun car. There's nothing like that in the industry right now.

Do you know what that?

Oh, wait, there's one exception.

I'll go for it.

The regular cab F-150. I'm sorry. That's my favorite platform of all times right now.

OK.

So go ahead. Sorry.

No, it's a great interruption.

We talked to a Ford engineer and he called it the F-150 company, not not Ford Motor Company.

Well, for sure, that pays the bills. Yeah, no question. Trucks are number one in Detroit, in America. Absolutely. I mean, you guys know this. I mean, yeah. But if you can sell enough trucks, you can sneak out some fun stuff.

Yeah, that kind of seems to be the general conversation with folks we've talked to in our... We did four trips to Detroit in the past year, so we talked to quite a few people. As long as you do enough of the important stuff, you can get away with some fun stuff. But no, what I was going to ask you is, do you know what that new car age figure might have been like 10 years ago, or would that just be a guess?

I'm guessing, but I know. I mean, I know it's lower, right? And we got to remember pre-COVID, the average transaction price was in the high $30,000 range.

Correct, yeah.

So in five years, we've gone up.

Almost double.

Yeah, almost 40%.

Yeah.

Quick public math, which no one is supposed to do, but I tried, so.

Well, that's actually what I was going to ask you earlier. So I always use Stellantis as an example, because I grew up Mopar, right? So that whole deal. Do you think they just kind of like gambled wrong with some of the platforms, right? Because obviously we see Ford, for the most part, crushing it. We see GM for the most part crushing it. Do you think cars as a whole are just more expensive because they invested so much in these EV programs? Or is that just kind of me trying to justify why cars are expensive?

I think the price of vehicles is reflective of the market. That's a true economic statement, meaning people will spill, still have no problem spending 100 grand on a new SUV or a truck. Okay. What happened in COVID was, you remember the chip shortage? So you were limited with how many vehicles you could produce. So manufacturers did what worked for them, but it was logical. They built the most expensive, most profitable vehicles they could with the chips they had so that they could stay afloat and pay the bills.

And they were still making them. I remember I toured the River Rouge plant during the chip shortage, and they were still building trucks, but they couldn't send them out. There was like a sea of F-150s.

Yeah, that's right.

They were in like Starbucks parking lots and everything like throughout the whole plant. They were everywhere.

No, it changed the auto industry, and I think that's still the legacy we have in the market right now, is that the expensive stuff still sold, you're still making big margin on an SUV, and it's paying the bills. So, right, we've got record profits at GM. Ford is doing way better. The battery stuff was very expensive. Billions, right? They lost billions.

Yeah, I think Ford was like 10 billion or something, is what they invested in their EV program.

Yeah, but you asked the question, did they make a mistake? Right, and I think in retrospect, you could say yes, but you've got to understand when you're in the boardroom and you're making multi-billion dollar decisions, thankfully, I have never had to make these decisions, but you're trying to guess where global politics is gonna take the auto industry.

Correct.

Especially coming out of COVID, it was all about sustainability, all about electric, electric's better than ice, right? All of that comes into play, and it really depends on who's in power politically, of if your car company is gonna stay afloat. So I don't think anybody made a mistake. I just think as we look backward, it's like, wow, we should have kept developing electric vehicles, but maybe not gone all in and mandated them and everybody, but communities that really want that, communities that want electric vehicles and it makes sense for it.

Well, he's got a marquee now.

He broke. Right there before the end of the tax credit, they were basically giving them away. And I'm like, you know what, why not? It works great for my wife's commute. I never put gas in it. I don't change the oil.

Look, I'm a big horsepower ice guy, but I'm also open minded enough to know there are people like your wife that can use an electric vehicle in short trip. Here's who it doesn't work for. We all grew up in northern states. I use this example all the time. My dad was a carpenter. He drove 100 miles to Rochester, New York every day and then 100 miles back. And there's about four or five months a year in the winter when an electric vehicle isn't viable for what my dad did. Haulin all that weight in cold temperatures. So for my dad, that would never work or it will work in 20 years when we figure this out. But there are communities where electric vehicles are great, I hope they enjoy them, and I hope we keep developing it, and away we go.

She still has a pro-charge busting, so we're still offsetting our carbon footprint.

Smart, smart.

Yes, absolutely.

I bet she loves you dearly. That's good, you're a good guy.

Yeah. It's just an excuse for me to buy another car is all it is, yeah.

Well, the other way I see it, right, is like, it's not exactly a mistake, but also that pendulum is gonna swing back the other way eventually. So do you wanna be stuck holding the bag and being behind on development too, right? I think realistically with how much money Ford's invested in all that, I think we're gonna be ready to party if that pendulum swings back.

It's a really good point. I think if you look at the winners, Toyota was really cautious. They even had their scientists come out and say, we're not sure in a nice way that electric is packed, but we're gonna look at hybrid.

And if you look at kind of where they're at in the market, which is they're dabbling with their new LFE or whatever, nobody would have suspected that they were gonna drop that as an electric prototype or whatever. It's like, I almost wonder if they're just kind of feeling the waters for that next wave almost, but who knows?

They're just exploring. I think, you know, look, we're at a racing trade show, right? Like, I think this is, we're getting to the space where racing is a great test bed. It's a great way to push the science and the technology of the auto industry. And I think it falls into that bucket. So you see hybrid powertrains in top forms of racing. And I think that's good for everybody.

So, I want to change gears here a little bit here. I want to talk about HPX. What made you go one start? I really did not get enough sleep. No more drinking tonight.

I fumbled earlier.

You guys drinking last night?

Just a couple. He had a couple doubles.

Who drinks more? Dan?

Dan drinks like a fish.

I don't know, like a fish. I'm older, more seasoned. It takes me a minute.

Yeah, you're a little jacked up today.

It looks like you're just a little slower than usual. No. So to ask that question again for the third time. So what made you want to start HPX?

Yeah, so High Performance Expo was a new trade show. It's in Charlotte. It's in June. You know, look, I had a great opportunity here at PRI. I ran the show. I'm super proud of the show. This is a great year. I think I've heard maybe this is biggest numbers in 20 years for PRI, which is great. That's good to hear. SEMA's on the West Coast. Indy's in the middle. There's nothing on the East Coast. It's as simple as that. But what happened was I left. I was working private equity and I just, I ran into this lady that runs trade shows. Her name's Jennifer Hoff. When I say runs trade shows, she owns multiple companies that produce dozens of trade shows a year. Not exaggerating, she's run hundreds of trade shows. And she just started talking to me about other industries and things that they were doing in crypto and things they were doing in cannabis. She runs a huge construction show. She's got a big plumber show, Plumbers Union show she runs. And she's telling me about these techniques. She's telling me things that other industries are doing. She's telling me about ways to measure this and bring people together. And I had, I just had never been exposed to that in the trade shows that I'm used to in the auto industry and the auto shows. That was also another big driver for me because new auto shows are going away. Like it sucks. Like we can't go downtown Convention Center, USA City, and take in a trade show where we're looking at new cars. Anyways, Jen talked to me about what it would take to do another automotive aftermarket trade show. We you have to have a community. You know, Indianapolis is a great example. Huge motorsport community in Indianapolis. There's another one in the United States and in Charlotte, in North Carolina, and it's not just NASCAR. That's now where it looks like F1 is going to get set up in that area as well.

Because Cadillac has a facility over there, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it's GMPP is the internal code name just for you and your listeners. But Russell Blenis, who I worked with at GM, he runs that great guy, incredible work ethic, smart, smart guy. But Charlotte is the second biggest financial hub in the United States. You've got all the financial institutes located there. You've got the infrastructure around NASCAR. Scout just set up their headquarters in Charlotte. So you've got this community of people. They also have one other thing that no other state has, which is the North Carolina Motorsports Association, which is the only state run organization to ensure the economic future for motorsports activities and companies and people. It was founded by Richard Petty and Rick Hendrick over 20 years ago. So they've got a long runway. They had wanted to do a trade show in Charlotte for many years. They maybe coveted a little bit what they saw in Indianapolis and other areas. So we pitched them on the idea of their own trade show in Charlotte, and it really stuck. They really got behind it. I just had breakfast with Chad Willis, who's the new executive director at North Carolina Motor Sports Association. David Miller did a great job running it for years. Great pillar of our industry. Chad's going to be amazing. Modern marketer, little bigger vision on where it can go. So we're off and running. We ran our first one in June. Great show. Super focused on B2B, super focused on putting you with manufacturers that want to do business with you, distributors that want to sell parts, inventors that want to bring new things to market. The show still, it's hard for me to say what is it going to be like, but it serves the entire automotive aftermarket and the motorsports industry as well. It's going to have a really heavy motorsport vibe for years because it's in Charlotte and the convention center is attached to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. That's awesome. But what a rich pocket of engine builders. What an incredible group of suspension experts that live in that area. Tire companies are there, BMWs within our drive.

Yeah, right.

So one other aspect of the High Performance Expo is just this educational program that we've put together that's so good at answering where do we need to go? How do we get the world's best content creators on stage to help each other? One of the programs we're super proud of, Chen is the CEO of Taffy. It's a women run company. We ran a women empowerment program. We had female executives from all across the auto industry come out just to talk about what ladies need in the auto industry, how to better their career, how to move forward. So it's often running. We're already three times bigger than we were in June for space sold and we got six months to go. So we're going to have a very significant trade show in Charlotte in June 234. And I think it's something that will be one more expansion. It's not a competition to this or SEMA. It's incremental. It's just like you guys have another speed shop to go to when it opens up in your hometown.

So to clarify, was that a Friday, Saturday, Sunday event?

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Because in June you got everybody racing and everybody's at our show, so we don't want to interrupt with anybody's circle track race or drag race on the weekends. Well, you can hit a trade show in Charlotte and you can do a lot of business. You can expand your network. And I think the most exciting part for me is I've got companies that have never been to a trade show coming to the High Performance Expo because it's located on the East Coast.

That's a huge thing. I saw Dan this. I was like, if this is still in Florida, I think it was in Orlando before, correct?

It was in Orlando from 02 to 2012. Scooter Brothers was the board of directors at SEMA. He very wisely bought PRI as a SEMA entity and moved it back to Indianapolis in 2012, just to give you some history of the show.

Oh, so it was in Indianapolis beforehand?

It was. Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, like we would have probably never discovered it or went down to Florida, just too far for us because we're Minnesota boys.

I get it.

Yeah. But yeah, that whole locality thing is huge.

Well, Charlotte is, so we've been, Detroit was like our automotive mecca before that, right? And it's a different vibe. Like there's a lot of racing in Charlotte, but you can't go to Detroit without throwing a rock and hitting somebody who's involved in automotive industry. It's great, right? We love it there, but then we went to Charlotte and we're like, this is a whole nother vibe. But again, they're comparable in the fact that we've never been somewhere that's so involved in automotive industry.

It's insane.

It's crazy.

No, thank you. I mean, that's why. And I think when we explain it to someone that is considering the trade show, they have that moment. They're like, oh, that makes total sense. And I like, you know, why didn't I think of that? You know, that kind of a moment. It's like, yeah, well, those are the great ideas that really fit the takeoff. If people feel like it's an obvious solution, obvious opportunity. So yeah, we're off and running. Do you guys get our email? vhpx.com. Are you on our mailing list?

I might be. I checked it out earlier. I think I was actually looking at booth pricing after I was doing this. I was like, I was exploring the idea. So I'm not sure if I am. I'll have to check.

Yeah. Well, we want to get you down there. So let's figure out what you got to do to be at HPX. We will have a podcast area set up where you guys could, you know, you can just come in and sit down. You have to worry about fighting to move everything. And although the chairs are very nice, I want to compliment you on that. So thank you. Very comfortable.

Yeah. Yeah. We drove these all the way down eight and a half hours.

Did you really?

Yeah.

I believe it. Right. You got to have the right chair. Right.

Right. Yes.

We didn't know the lounge was right there. We could just stole chairs from there. Yeah.

Man, that would be the racer way to do it.

Yeah.

You know, we'll for next year, we'll get it.

Well, we almost brought a potted plant from the Airbnb here, too. Just for a little bit.

Spruce it up a little bit. It's still not too late. Let's just pause the show, run it back. And here's our plant. So obviously, you're not trying to be a competitor by any means. But is there anything that you're trying to do differently or improve upon that PRI has already established?

It's tough. I mean, this remember this show for me was my life for three years. Right. I ran this baby and into and out of covid. So I want this to be bigger and better and be sustained forever. I think I think the difference will be cultural differences. Right. It's like Rick, Rick Hendrick has a personal initiative to make the High Performance Expo a great trade show.

That's a good backing to have.

Yeah. So so Hendrick Motorsports was out in force. Jeff Andrews was there. We had JB. Brown on stage. He's the gentleman that runs the one hundred and thirty two dealerships that Rick owns. We had Jeff Gordon on stage to kick things off. And it it's a very focused business trade show. So when you have Jeff Gordon talking about the business of motorsports, when you have JB. Brown talking about the business of running one hundred and thirty two dealerships, man, I mean, I've done this for a long time, but you have to pay attention when people like that are giving you inside secrets. I mean, one of the little things I remember from the opening session was Jeff Gordon talked about how they've been using AI for four years at Hendrick Motorsports for race strategy. I've never heard that. I know that's in wild use now, but they were probably pilots for programs that are AI strategy guides for race teams that we don't even know that the teams have it. But those little things, and that's why trade shows are so important, right? That's why I'll come back to supporting CMA, support PRI, go to these things. That's why it's so important you guys are here. You know, being here, that you run into people and you have, sounds like you had a lot of meetings after hours last night, but those meetings after hours, right, they're gold. You can't get that on Twitter. You can't get that on Instagram. There's something that happens when you're at a trade show, and that's how these industries grow. And that's what we want to do better for the industry, the high performance expo.

GM and JZ guys, Haltech just unveiled some new products for you guys last month and pre-order starts soon. Whether you want an ECU and Harness package for your JZ or an expansion module for your 6L80 or 90, you can go to toonbyshawnshawn.com to get going on your pre-order. And of course, you can always use code MINNOXIDE for 5% off when it's game time. Let's get back to the show. Gotcha. So I want to touch on something, because you hit, you really emphasize business there a handful of times. I got to be careful how to word this. But are these, like Seaman PR, I'm just going to use them as an example here. Are they open to the public? Do you think it's straight away? Are you trying to make it even more business focused? Just got to help me get an understanding here. Hopefully understand the question I'm asking.

Seaman PR are great. I'm going to say that as my blanket statement for High Performance Expo. Not a car show vibe, not a come out to watch the burnout pit vibe.

Sure.

But more of, I'm in the business, I want to walk the floor. I want to run into Chris Johnson from JMS Chips and I want him to explain how he can take my tuner shop to another level. I want to run into Skog and Dickie and get a break. I want to get 1% better pricing on the crate engines that I'm putting in at my shop. Those opportunities, those little incremental changes in your business or maybe gigantic ones, right? Like Ron Moen from Vengeance runs into American Racing Headers. They just had a problem they hadn't been working through or hadn't been able to have the face-to-face meeting. They have the half hour together at a trade show and now they're doing millions of dollars of business together. Like those are the business moments that we want to bring together. And again, incremental growth for an industry that I love.

That's, when you were talking about the whole like face-to-face thing, it is, you're not just another email or message in an inbox. It makes, you get a hold of somebody's personality and you're like, okay, this is somebody I could definitely do business with. It's way different than, you know, a text or an email or something like that. So I think that it's very important that we get out and do stuff like this.

Yeah, I had a friend yesterday said, look, I've housed the show great. You know, and he's like, I've got I got a month worth of follow ups just from here. And then, you know, after the follow up, I've got I've got more. He's like, I've got a year's worth of work from one trade show. Yeah, like that's what you're talking about. And those are the opportunities that look at the concentration just around us, like the people that have walked by in the last half hour. Right.

Oh, I couldn't believe how many people took stickers yesterday. I was like, oh, I still got these in my backpack. I think I had a couple like 150 stickers. They were gone within like three hours. I'm like, I'm getting a thousand more next year.

Yeah. Yeah. But those are, you know, those little things, right? That kid might put it on his laptop and the kid might get in trouble with those. I know. Oh, are they dirty?

I mean, not really. I mean, it depends on the teacher. They were. I identify as a streetcar stickers.

Oh, OK.

Right. So it's a little fun, a little fun.

Right.

But I feel like depending on what school you go to, you may get in trouble for that one.

OK. Well, we don't endorse that here.

Sure.

Sure. Whatever. Kids have fun out there. Just be safe.

Yeah. I will say this is my first time having a booth here. This is just kind of a swing for defense to see what happens sort of moment. We're riding on Capital One and chase freedom right now. But that said, it's incredible. The people that come by the booth and the conversations we had, even like quick five minute conversations, it's like we're figuring out where to travel next year and all that. But here's what I'm excited about HPX. And again, before we even got linked up to have this sort of thing, I was looking at having a booth there because we went to Charlotte twice within a month this year. And again, was it your first time as well or no?

I've been all over the place.

Yeah, fair. But it was my first time in Charlotte. I was like, this is phenomenal out there. Like the energy because we visited 6XD who's playing in the background over here. So I'm excited that your motive here is not just to be a competitor, but to grow the industry as a whole. That's awesome to hear. That's reassuring.

No, it makes no sense. I mean, these are pillars of the industry. Look, I was on the SEMA board. I ran PRI. Like I want no damage to these. Correct. And I've been to SEMA. I've been to both shows over 20 years. Like this is just what we do. They're never going away. They're never getting smaller. They're always going to be awesome for the industry. There is an opportunity on the East Coast to expand this industry, and that's what the High Performance Expo is going to do. Now, it'll draw globally, because the trip to Charlotte from Europe is very short.

Yeah, it's like a six, seven-hour flight.

Yeah, and that's a lot of NASCAR, a lot of F1. That's why they're there. A lot of the infrastructure of motorsports, that's why they're in Charlotte, so it can be a global touch. Also, in Charlotte is a huge US defense presence. So we've got a lot of defense contractors are there. So we're working on angles of military folks, and they need the fabrication small part run that this industry is very much set up to do. We had contingents here at PRI when I ran it from the military.

Yeah, I think there's been at least three or four of these big performance shops that manufacture parts that have multiple CNC machines. It's been more than two or three times where they also usually have some sort of government contract where they're producing another part for.

Yeah, first happened at PRI under my watch, David Miller from NCMA. Actually Joe Gibbs had a need for suppliers for a US military contract, and they asked if they could do a seminar.

Let me pause real quick. Sorry. Back from a brief interruption.

No problem. Good job. Good recovery. Yeah, so when we were talking about military and the opportunities there, so I think those types of expansions, those associated segments are other opportunities for our industry.

Yeah. I mean, it goes back to war times and everything, too. I mean, people shut down production and everything to help. You know, that's you got the OEMs that, hey, we're not making cars. We're making tanks and jeeps.

And yeah, hopefully we don't have to do that.

No, I don't think so.

We still do, but yeah.

Yeah.

Good.

God, hopefully we don't get a hybrid 4XE or something. We're in trouble then, fellas.

Well, I have a going back to you. You had said something that kind of sparked a question for me. You ran PRI in and out of COVID. That is such a weird time. So even when we talk about car pricing, things like that, what COVID did for the car market is kind of crazy. I mean, we have things that doubled, tripled, and then the enthusiast stuff just took off. Other than throwing together a trade show where you put people in a large area together, that was probably a nightmare. But did you see anything intense happen in the aftermarket industry from that?

Yeah, I think it's well documented, but March, April of 2020, we get locked down. Everybody freaks out. And then as Americans do, we recover really quickly. And large portions of the population decided we're going to build that project car that's sitting in the garage since I'm stuck here anyways. And families came together. Those are cool stories about moms and daughters and dads and sons working together. So the automotive aftermarket takes off. It explodes, right? And niche race products are up three, four, five fold. Established companies, the pillars that are out here on the floor were up 50% for two years straight. That's impossible. There's no product. There's no marketing. There's nothing that goes up 50% for an established brand without some sort of outside act of God type of thing, like pandemic lockdown. What's happened in the after market or in the aftermath, right, 2023 was a rough year toward the end. 24 has been maybe a flat year, maybe down. 25 is going to end flat as well. You know, if, if somebody goes, oof, you know, we're crushing, we're way up more than that. I mean, good for them. That also means somebody's down 20%.

Right, right.

So, you know, as an industry, this thing's going to be flat. I think people should be happy with that. There's been so much uncertainty over the last 12 months. Right, we had a presidential election alone is enough, but we've had tariffs, and we've had global threats, right? So there's all sorts of stuff going on. But I think 26, most people I'm talking to have a good feel about it.

The optimism is kind of back is kind of what I'm feeling.

Yeah, I had really good vibes coming out of the SEMA show when I did my normal visits. I have a very, very small podcast called The Automotive Advantage. We're tied in with Brian Lounsbury from midwayplus.com. That's the short version is that's a portal for B2B sales for this industry. Dozens of manufacturers, 12,000 rooftops of speed shops, just to give your listeners a scale. His number is, we're going to be flat. We were flat going into Black Friday. He thinks the market would have had like a 5% jump over those big retail days. Remember, we reported nationally the largest Black Friday in the history of the United States. So Americans are still spending crazy amounts of money. Some of that went toward car parts. That's kind of cool, but...

That's where most of mine went for Black Friday.

Yeah, good. Yeah, well, everybody here... Yeah, yeah. You're not the only one running on credit cards here, buddy.

So...

But yeah, I think 26 looks good. I mean, put a number on it. From 1975 to 2020, this industry was up 5% to 7% annually.

Sure.

So if somebody said we're going to be up 5% in 26, I'd say that's probably a good guess. And I'd say most companies should be really happy to be up 5%. Sure. 12 months from now. Is that good?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we know a lot of companies.

Do you want to scoot over this way real quick?

We know a lot of companies that started in like 18, 19, and they were like, hey, we're just trying to get this launch. And then 2020 happened.

Took off.

They just like, oh, awesome. It just catapulted them into.

And now, maybe it's a little tougher.

It probably is. We'll bounce back. What are your thoughts on some of these? It seems like they're starting to maybe relax. And this all changes with each administration, but sounds like they're trying to relax a little bit on some of these EPA rules. Is that?

Yeah, it's a huge development. Yeah. I think that's Trump trying to free up room for small companies to operate in the United States. But look, there are some people around here that don't care about the environment, but I think most of us would say we'd like clean water and a clean environment.

I don't think it's not an insane thing to say.

Yeah, it's not nuts. And then I think I think it's a really interesting thing to watch. I'm already seeing some diesel shops do, you know, maybe some not smart things, draw attention to themselves and draw attention to us. I love diesel. It's not a knock against anybody. Just like, well, let's be a little more careful. Let's follow the rules. We had really good behavior as an industry collectively. But also these regulatory bodies can't lock us down. CARB can't take 12 months to make a decision on an exhaust system. Like we've got to find a way to work together, keep everybody safe, keep our environment safe. We don't want to be the bad guys. We don't want moms to hate us because their kids are seeing dirty polluting cars again. That's not what we're about. But also, the OEMs are driving us a lot. We have way more efficient powertrains than we had 40 years ago. Look at, pick your favorite, Hemi, Coyote, LS. They are extremely efficient ICE vehicles. So a lot of that works in our favor too. But yeah, watch for that to be a real big factor in 26. And if I was one of those companies that made exhaust systems, cold air intakes, man, I would be on the move right now. Let's do some cool stuff without getting in trouble.

Right.

Well, so do you follow Corey from PPEI by any chance?

A little bit. I don't want to act like I'm hanging on every word. I love the guy.

Sure. I see some stuff. He's one of the things he posted is like there was a big ruling or whatever a couple months ago, and he's like, hold on, guys. This doesn't mean like we won. This means like be smart. Sort of. It seems like anybody that's experienced difficulties, especially in the diesel space, is like, hey, we might have a chance to survive here. Let's not f this up. That seems to be the general trend.

Well, good luck depending on the human race to not f something up. But yeah.

I think it's getting better though. Like some of these influencer types too. Like I can't remember. I'm gonna use January 6th as an educational thing. A lot of people realized after that, like, hey, I should be careful how I phrase things so it's not misinterpreted. Like I've been seeing a lot of influencers being careful. Like, hey, let's be respectful about things. And I think that's been a big pivoting point too, is because a lot of people are approaching that carefully, I hope. So it's kind of exciting to see for our industry right now, I think.

I think Corey has a platform that's way more, way more leveraged than even advocates for the industry because he was threatened to go to prison. He was threatened with huge fines that will straighten someone right out, right? So when he tells you to be cautious, you know, that voice of experience should really reign through the whole industry. So I like the self-policing. I think that's super smart. So I want to talk more to that guy, by the way, if he listens to you. I don't know. Are you guys tight? You got to connect?

No, no, no, no. I just I started following him. He I asked him to be on the show and he's like not quite yet.

Yeah, good.

Yeah, because he wants to. But yeah, no, I also want to go down because I think that what he's based out of Louisiana or something. I want to go to that part of country. Haven't been there yet.

But I got good friends in Louisiana, man. Really?

I'm learning there's more down in like Missouri and Louisiana like those states like I'm again, the more I do this, man, it's like the more it's crazy. What's out there? What is your full time job up until this coming Wednesday?

Oh, what are you doing Wednesday?

I'm taking on a position as a marketing manager for a company.

Are you going to tell us who it is?

Not at the moment. Let's say off air.

Is it in the automotive industry?

Yeah.

Is it in racing?

Subaru.

Yeah, for the most part. Yeah.

Subaru racing?

Not racing. No, no.

No. Fixing Subaru. In the aftermarket?

Yeah. So I'll just release it.

All right.

We got it. No, I'll just break.

He just kept poking at you.

It's not that big of a deal. I mentioned I was going to announce it. But basically, it's technically two companies under like one umbrella. They make parts for like Subarus, like kind of like shifters and various like exhaust hangers. And whatever, all these various things. And the other half of the company is primarily tools. I think their catalog is like 220 some tools or whatever. So basically, they've seen a marketing manager come on. And it just fit well enough to where it doesn't affect this. But I've been doing this full time for about two and a half years.

Wow.

I had a really good stride, but taking on this job opportunity allows me to focus on these conversations, which takes up way less of my time than the other stuff that requires the podcast requires me to do a lot of those highlights because that's just how I fund the most of the stuff, the sponsors and highlights of each episode. But if I could dial that back and do more episodes, which is what I really like to do, and just be on the road more on the weekends flying, that enables me to do that. And that was really hard to convey in a podcast or an interview. I mean, it's like, what happens if you get 10 million followers? I'm like, first of all, I get a Powerball ticket. But secondly, it's like this is going to enable me to do what I care about more rather than just doing the grunt work. So that's the quick two-minute spiel on my future, which by the time this episode releases, I'll be working there for a month and a half. So we'll see how it goes.

Yeah. Well, congratulations. Congratulations.

I've been fired. No. But anyways, back to you. This is your podcast. It's your day.

This is us. This is a team effort.

Yeah. Let's go. Well, I do love that you do yours. I saw you had a handful of good guests. None of them are all of them are escaping me at the moment. But when I was doing some research in preparation for this, it looks like you enjoy doing it. How often do you do your podcast? Once a week or something?

Once a week. This week, we won't do it because for me, this is a huge news cycle. We don't need to add to that. So we're super heavy business focus. I want to know margins. I want to know where people are spending their marketing money. Nikki Fowler came on and shared 50 years of experience selling automotive aftermarket and racing parts. It's just that type of a show.

Sure. One of the questions I had earlier as well is, is it difficult to run a trade show? That's a loaded question, I know. One, how long was HPX an idea for? And two, how long did it take to execute?

HPX, probably a year and a half to two years is a formative idea with multiple iterations. Again, I'm leveraging Jen Hoff and a great team, Dana Teagues, our general manager there. It's a great mix, the staff is a great mix of trade show experts and then automotive aftermarket experts. And we come together and we have great conversations, great team effort. But, with the right people, man, it came together in a year, which probably sounds like a lot, but probably a year and a half to develop it and a year and a half to really logistically put it together.

As someone who used to run events, that is a, not a long, no, that is a short time. Yeah, I am gonna take a nap after this one.

Can I dial it back right here? Can we talk some business stuff then? So if, so we're here at a show, people are in this industry. For some of these companies, manufacturers, parts, stuff like that, what is important in marketing? Are you seeing all of this influencer stuff has seemed to be kind of a key factor in a lot of this now is, where would somebody be smartest spending their money in marketing?

Yeah, Dan, I mean, that is the profound question of our time right now, not to be philosophical about it, but I don't think anybody has a good answer for that question right now. And if you're a CMO or you're running your own company and you have an agency that just comes in with a deck that has all the answers, that little spidey sense should go off in your head. Like, I'm not sure I'm getting told the truth here. I'm actively exploring that. I'm actively in a hunt to try to figure out. What I talk about is attention. Where's the attention in this industry? Not about what's the right marketing player, but like where are people paying attention? I mean, I think you're old enough that you know like 10 or 15 years ago, if you wanted to make a lot of money in this industry, you would take out an ad in Hot Rod magazine or one of the 50 other titles that were at EMAP or Source Center Link or Peterson, right? That's changed hands.

You would feature one of your products on a Motor Trend show of some sort. I would see you on something on there maybe.

Part of my budget at GM Performance Parts was I worked with RTM on Saturdays. Remember, they had the four car TV shows. I can't remember the network. I think it's gone away, but speed eventually. I would do product placement and those guys would put a crate engine in in a Camaro and they'd have a half-hour TV show and we would sell a bunch of crate engines. Product placement, television, the print advertising. I think they still have a place, but that's not where I would focus right now. I think what you guys do from a content creators is hugely powerful. And I think, right, if you watch Gary Vee and you watch the people that really watch the algorithms, what they'll tell you now is about 12 months ago, everything changed. It used to be you had to have a big channel to be heard because your listeners or your viewers got to see your content and then they might share it or you would incrementally grow. Now, if we put out breaking news that we're going to go run a Subaru shop and all the Subaru favoring algorithms and people get served up that content, it takes off. It doesn't matter if they listen to us or not. So my answer is you got to do great content, right? It used to be when this all started, content is king. That's not true at all. Great content is king right now.

So insanely true. I work with some clients here and there, and I tell them, like, you have to make a mountain of content, first of all, because you need to spend volume.

Yeah, good point.

You need to get good at it, too, though. It's like I'm not sure. You're probably familiar, like, you know, like five, ten years ago, SEO was the most important thing ever. Well, now, for example, I recently developed a Wix website for a buddy of mine, and one of the things in there is like, when's the last time to chat GBT, Claude and all these guys, when's the last time that they scraped your website? So that's going to be the next iteration of SEO.

Yeah, super smart. Where do I now? What is it called? A-I-E-O, something like that.

Yeah, whatever. I just said something stupid there, but anyway.

But, you know, it's, I'm not sure is my answer, but it's going to be, here's the foundations of great marketing, right? Like, what is your product? And I'm not kidding. If you walk this floor, you'll be horrified at the amount of people that can't describe what their product is. I know. The second half is, who is my customer?

Yeah.

You would be horrified at how many people can't describe the customer that they're selling their product to. Once you have those two things answered, you can figure out where is the best place to connect them.

Yeah.

I'm going to give you an insane example that's just on my mind that happened the last week. This is back to my Not Just Guns client, and why it's important to look at other industries. Local marketing, he has a Smith & Wesson Day special event. He's like, you won't believe what we did, but we did this, and they were 40 people deep for the entire eight hours buying new guns. My shop was overrun. Wow, like, Mike, what did you tell me the magic formula to sell $500,000 of guns in one day, whatever the number was?

Yeah.

He's like, we did local radio advertising.

Oh, really?

You're probably going to need to ship your car soon or know somebody that will. And as someone who used to work in freight logistics, I understand the difficulties of finding reliable transport, especially when trying to make it to rallies, racetracks or the warehouse to hydro Corvette, because you're going through a messy divorce and when she says everything, she means everything. Anywho, Nick Shearer is the proud owner of SureThing Logistics. Having traveled much of the country with every type of vehicle you can imagine, he's got the experience and reliability that you want to ensure a safe journey for your pride and joy. If you want to find out what it takes to ship your vehicle, go to surethinglogistics.net, fill out the intake form, and be sure to let him know I sent you. Let's get back to the show.

I have not had anybody say I did a radio ad around me in 20 years. I'm not b*********** you. My mind is still obsessed with how did that happen? Because we immediately think, okay, we gotta get an influencer in here immediately. So I say that not to poo poo influence. I just want people to be really focused on, what is my product? What am I selling?

Where's the audience?

And who is my audience? Who is the customer that comes through the door or gets on my website? Where do I find them? And the other thing I'll say, this could be extremely true for you guys, would you rather have an Instagram channel with a million followers that no one buys your product or a thousand followers and every one of them is your customer?

A thousand all day long.

Yeah, nobody thinks like that. Nobody realizes the value of a qualified follower, of a consumer that's following what you're talking about.

I think that's changed also in the last few years. People have started realizing that subscriber numbers and follower numbers just aren't as important as they used. For example, just because I love dropping this figure, it's the funnest thing ever. This YouTube channel, and I actually just do everything, I combine following of a quarter million between all my platforms. If you had to guess how many views am I at year to date, I just love asking this question.

Oh my God, 10 million.

About a month. So 144 million years. Isn't that crazy?

Good for you.

It's awesome, but again, it comes down to the follower figure just does not matter as much as it used to.

Then it's the next phase, like what do we do to monetize that, right?

And that's if you ever figure that out, you let me know. I haven't figured out the monetization part yet.

Yeah, good. And you specifically should talk about that more because so many you'll be in an agency pitch. We've got CEOs out on this floor that'll be in an agency pitch today or the next 30 days, and someone will pitch them on content and someone will talk about how they'll drive traffic to their website.

Sure.

And then someone will say, well, then you just monetize it. You should stop the meeting. Give me one slide that details how I monetize this traffic.

Sure.

That makes sense.

Does that help? I don't know. Am I close to where you're thinking?

Harris has been bootstrapping this thing off of the monetization, but the amount of Capital One had something to do with it, too. You eventually crack it down in our slow times.

Wait, wait. I do have friends at Fifth Third. If you want to go see David Morton. See what? David Morton at Fifth Third Bank.

Oh, do you need any help, credit?

Okay, go ahead.

I'm sorry. But what we've learned is there's definitely, yeah, these platforms, they pay, but they don't pay well at all. So the monetization of it is not great. Well, I think you more so mean, when you were talking about marketing on behalf of businesses, though, like all the businesses here, you're not going to, the monetization of the platform itself is not where you're going to get.

Oh, it's worthless. Yeah, we've talked to people, for example, one of the guys we've had on the show, he used to run marketing for MA Performance, which was, I don't know, it's called an eight-figure company, roughly. He's like, yeah, we don't care about the monetization of YouTube, it's pennies. But is that kind of what you're going for? Yeah, yeah, that doesn't really apply to too much to those guys. Actually, I do want to touch on this as well, because we had a conversation with Brian Tooley yesterday, who, as you're familiar with, just sold a private equity to expand his operations and all that stuff. I'm not familiar with your background on private equity. Can you kind of touch on that real quick?

Yeah, I was recruited to go work for a private equity group called Charger to be the chief product officer for the Aeromotive Group, Petronix, and then ultimately help them purchase the Roadster shop in 23. So I think private equity can be amazing for the industry. It's a great financial tool to expand. I wish Brian the best. I can't wait to watch your interview with him. Unfortunately, there are examples of private equity that's really struggled. I won't say, you know, there are critics of private equity in the space that are just crapping all over. I don't think it's that bad. I just don't think they've hit their stride. I will say for all the private equity groups that watch your podcast, you have got to do a better job of picking people that run these companies that actually care about your customers, your consumers. Yeah, it's really easy to... They're trained to look at a spreadsheet and think that it tells you how to run the business. I think that's true to a certain point and a very important financial side. But as far as the heart and soul and the passion and why there's 50,000 people walking around this convention center today, I think there can be a miss for some private equity groups about what drives this industry.

Well, they run it off of that spread sheet, and usually that doesn't end well. So I don't know why they can't look at some examples and go, okay, that's obviously not going to work.

So the answer and what will help you understand the motivation of private equity is the reason they have management of those funds is they have to beat the market.

Right.

Private equity has to give a higher return than the market. That's often over 20 percent. So if you walk this floor and you had truth serum and you asked everybody on this floor, what are your margins over your entire product line? They will struggle to say they're over 20 percent.

Right, yeah.

So I know the downside, the campaign, the smear campaign, if you will, against private equity is, oh, they get in and they cut marketing and they cut innovation and they take all the passion out of the company. I would say they largely have to, for exactly what you're saying, because it's measured on a financial spreadsheet. They have to. That's just the nature of the business.

So what Brian told us yesterday, so the particular firm that he partnered with or however their deal was structured, is it was an all cash situation, right? Whereas opposed to typical private equity, from my understanding, is they're structured on a 2 percent interest or whatever. Basically, that worked well before interest rates just shot way up, right? So then that's when they started chopping all these other ways trying to recoup their costs. Am I off base on how I'm explaining that?

I don't know the performance or I don't know the percentage specifically. And I'm glad Brian got cash. That's a good deal. What usually happens is there's a performance payout. So there'll be some number half of the agreed price upfront. And then there's a 12 month performance.

Oh, interesting.

Where the ownership has to stay on.

OK.

And if they meet certain numbers, they get that other payout.

Sure.

And it's incremental. OK.

And I will have to listen back to see if there's any of that caveat in there in his explanation. But yeah, from my understanding, just sound like this company is way more liquid on hand rather than, you know, working with a bank or whatever.

Well, it hasn't been an active year for private equity. And I don't know how close you guys watch this thing, but there hasn't been a lot of acquisitions this year. Okay. And there, this is 24 data, but there were trillions of dollars sitting on the sideline and private equity hands.

Oh wow, okay.

Waiting to invest in different industries.

Interesting.

You know, and it may be that we're just not attractive as a growth industry for the last 24 months.

Well, he just said the whole 20% margin thing. It's like, why take a risk on that when you just go, again, invest in a market and try to beat the market there.

Or another industry, you know.

Or another industry. Crypto is a big one.

Coffee Beans or whatever it is.

Coffee Beans.

With your experience with private equity stuff, was there any, all those brands you mentioned, Pertronix being one that I've used for years as a guy who likes to classic cars and stuff to get rid of those points and put a nice updated. They're great. I bought it for everything I've ever had. And they still seem to be going well and strong. Have you seen any missteps where things didn't go well in your short stint doing that or?

I think the good, it's tough. There's a human element to this. And I want to be real cautious when I talk about this because one of the jobs was Pertronix was going to be moved from California to Kansas City area where Aeromotive was.

Okay.

So that meant that whole facility and decades of products had to be moved from one facility to another. It also meant a lot of people didn't have jobs at the end of that deal. So I mean, that's just you could say that's business. You know, is that private equities fault? Maybe private equity makes a move like that happen quicker because of the financial requirements. I only think I'm in a position to tell you what's right or wrong, but just know that that's kind of the way this when you know, we're at a business trade show, right? We these are the realities of business. For me, I think one of the big things I saw was, you know, we had some exhaust products. Remember, I came from General Motors with maybe the highest quality scrutiny in this entire industry. And I just I just saw products that weren't up to my standards. And my standards were, I'm a guy, again, back to the, do you know your customer? I'm a guy or a gal who just saved up two months worth of side hustle money, so I could afford to buy a new set of headers for my Mustang. And it showed up in a box with no padding, beat to s***. Half the headers are sticking out of the box. Everything scratched up. Well, that's OK. But I got all of my buddies over on a Friday night and together, we're going to put headers on my Mustang, and then it doesn't fit. That's not good enough for me. And for me, that was one of those, OK, that's what I got handed. And we worked for a year to try to fix that and made some inroads. But my concern would be some of the quality could get lost in some of these acquisitions. I'm not going to say private equity. There are individuals buying companies too. But those are the things you got to keep in mind as you're moving big chunks of business around. Sure.

Well, if somebody told me they were moving a business out of California or another state, I would have just assumed that it would be very costly to run a business in the state of California and that would be my only, you know.

Yeah. And the other thing you guys have to consider is what's the time period of the payoff. You might be long-term investors. You might be investing in this company right now long-term. You're going to be doing this for 25 years, right?

Right.

Yeah. Well, that's the goal. Private equity doesn't have management for that money for 25 years. So their timeline, two, three years is really, really long.

Right.

So they need monthly P&L wins monthly. Is there pressure on the staff to perform monthly? You bet your a** there is.

Yeah. All right. When are we selling out?

Oh, don't worry. I got I got a whole game plan on that. I'll give you a holler on that one.

You should, though. You know what? That's not a bad question to ask you guys. Like at some point, do you do you sell this every every company, every entrepreneur? You should have that in the back of your mind. Like what would it take for me to sell this?

Oh, absolutely.

And maybe more importantly, what does it make? What does it take to make my company attractive for purchase?

Sure.

Because that'll help you win, too. Right.

Well, there's only two ways out. Either you get sold or running in the dirt, right? Because like either.

Or it sucks for a long time. Well, it's a long death, right?

It's correct. Even if it goes down in the family or something, like eventually, whether it's 10 years from now or 100 years from now, something's going to it's going to have to move on one way or another. That's how I see it, at least.

Well, a lot of industries are facing this, guys, right? We are at the at the cycle where you've got folks that started these companies. They're now in their 60s, 70s, 80s. They never had a succession plan, and their kids don't want to build oil separators.

We've talked to a few people on the show even where it's like, yeah, their kids are not interested in taking over their business in the next 10, 20 years.

So who takes over the business? Private equity.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So we got to get real about this. We've got to be adults about it and not just, you know, it's a financial tool that can be great for the industry.

Sure. It is kind of different to think about it for a media company, I guess, because, I mean, look what happened to Donut. I don't know, I'm sure, I don't think that was great for them. They sold. You got things like Hoonigan, you know, that was, not that they're solely media, but.

Yeah, and then moving stuff around, spreadsheets and all that. Yeah. I mean, that'll remain, I mean, it's still technically around. We'll see how it plays out.

Right.

But yeah, who knows on that front. Was there any, as we start to wrap up here, was there anything else that you kind of wanted to touch on? Anything exciting in the works for you besides HPX?

Well, you know, I'm a hired gun right now. I'm a consultant to the industry. So I will just say if people watch this and they want to do some business, I'd be happy to talk to them. Or if they need some help or advice, I'm available for you guys too. You know, I'd love to get you connected to some people in my network and keep moving the ball. I do a bunch of stuff for Fox Factory right now. You probably ought to talk to some big bailment companies and talk about what they do for OEMs and how they build special vehicles. But yeah, I'm most interested in getting you guys to the High Performance Expo in June of 26 in Charlotte, and we'll build some businesses together. How about that?

Yeah, absolutely.

I'll request my PTO.

Yeah. Well, I have a quick one here. We got on this whole business tangent, which I think is interesting. People might think it's boring, I guess. I don't know. Are you still a Ford guy?

I don't have a Ford in the house. I've got a 2019 Corvette Z06.

OK.

I bought a Trackhawk. I live in Detroit.

I like this guy.

I can't drive it anywhere in Detroit. It'll get stolen instantaneously.

Oh, yeah.

I think you drive it anywhere. It's half the appeal.

Makes you feel alive.

It's fat. I mean, I've taken to the track. It runs 1140s. It's a fast truck, not modified, but that's got 600 miles on it. And then I always have some Fox factory vehicles around. I have a Fox factory super truck Silverado, which is crazy in the driveway. I did have an F-150, the one they just announced, that 810 horsepower regular cab, Black Widow RS. Unbelievable what Fox is doing right now. So pay attention to those guys.

OK, awesome. Let it rip.

All right, cool. So now we're talking cars again. At the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. I need a track car, a show car and a daily driver. You have an unlimited budget. You can do a swap. You can build whatever you want. What are you going to pick?

A race car. I'd probably do like a Miata, just go road racing since I'm no good at that. So I'd want to go road racing with a spec Miata. Is that what they say?

Yep, yep.

Show car, I would just give my unlimited budget to Tom Peters and I would tell him to design a show car for me. I have no idea where he would go. I would just let him do it.

Yeah.

And my daily driver, is that the third one?

Yep, yep.

One of the cars in my driveway is a Black Widow Tahoe. It's a supercharged 6.2 Whipple Blower, 700 horsepower RideTech suspension on Voss and wheels with a Borla exhaust. That's a great daily driver.

Takes all the boxes, huh?

Oh, yeah.

You can take all your friends, whatever.

Yeah.

There you go. How's that?

Can you fit four chairs in there, too?

Yeah, let's go. Where do you want to go? Where are we taking this?

Take it down to HPX from here. Well, Sweet, on that note, where can everybody find you?

Yeah, probably LinkedIn is the best. I'm Jamie Meyer on LinkedIn. Sure. You can find me on vhpx.com if you want to check out a trade show. I'm on there's staff. I think I'm industry consultant in the staff page. And then yeah, check out my podcast, Automotive Advantage. I talk a little bit of business.

The production value is very good, by the way.

That's all Justin. That's Justin Sessler from DriveLine Studios. I just show up in his studios in Pontiac, Michigan.

Sure.

And he turns the lights on and he just says, let's start talking.

I was wondering what that was all about. OK, I feel like I've heard that name before.

I was going to say, why have I heard that name?

I feel like we might have heard it from fancy yet or regular. I mean, I don't know. We'll see.

But our connections in Detroit have just been growing and growing. And I'm telling you, he's he's been looking for houses out there. I think it's my wife's looking for jobs out there.

I mean, I'd be close to North Carolina. I was looking at Zillow down there when we were down there, too. We'll see where this journey takes us. It takes me in the next five, ten years. Who knows?

And thanks for having me on. And I was awesome. The best. Yeah. Grats on the new job.

Thank you. Yeah.

Don't spend too much time at that. Pete, we need you here on the podcast studio.

I don't think people think under people don't understand how much that's going to supercharge this aspect.

I get it. Yeah, I get it.

Because this has all been bootstrap. You think I'm acting like a fool now. I got a paycheck again or more sponsors. But anyways, nonetheless, thank you very much for coming on. This is a blast. We'll connect again. Absolutely. Dan, thanks for existing and we'll see you next time.