U-R-G On the Go
An informative podcast for the United Recyclers Group. Each week we will feature an entertaining guest that will share their knowledge and information with you, providing you with tips and tools to help you become a more profitable business.
U-R-G On the Go
Revolutionizing Auto Recycling: Davyd Silkovskyy's Journey from Michigan to Social Media Success
Discover how Davyd Silkovskky from A Plus Auto, along with his brothers, is redefining automotive recycling with a revolutionary approach. We explore their innovative business model at A Plus Auto, which specializes in dismantling newer vehicles, targeting models from 2019 and selectively going back to 2017 for certain German makes. This episode highlights their journey from Michigan to Kentucky, where they transformed their operations by stripping vehicles down to the bare shell, maximizing parts inventory and enhancing efficiency beyond traditional methods.
Dive into the realm of social media with Davyd, who turned from a social media novice into a strategic powerhouse. Learn how his dedication to posting engaging content and employing strategic hashtags led to remarkable organic growth, amassing over 32,000 followers. This episode sheds light on the challenges of handling negative feedback and the importance of networking at industry events like SEMA and URG. Davyd’s insights into forming collaborative communities, including a new Telegram group for Slavic yard owners, are invaluable for those looking to foster growth and knowledge sharing in the automotive sector.
Our conversation also covers the significance of customer service and sales training in the industry. From initially selling on eBay to developing a dedicated website and partnering with body shops, A Plus Auto's journey is a testament to the power of external expertise and training programs such as Cardone University. As we celebrate Thanksgiving, we extend our gratitude to all listeners and guests like Davyd, who contribute to enriching our discussions. Join us in this episode as we explore these transformative insights and prepare for more engaging conversations in future episodes of the URG On the Go podcast.
Welcome one and all to the URG Podcast. You are there, we are here. This is the URG Podcast, the true voice of the automotive recycling industry. It was created for the pros that have a need to know that are on the go. I'm DJ Harrington, the co-host, better known as the cardiologist, but the real host of this program is the talented Amanda Morrison, the Director of Member and Vendor Relations for URG. Amanda, how are you this beautiful day?
Speaker 3:I'm doing fabulous. Weather's great here in Texas. How are you doing today? Dj?
Speaker 1:It is nippy here in Georgia. We have about 50 degrees. And I talked to Marty from North Lake and he said to me well, it's 30 degrees, it's about to snow, it's going to rain and freeze over tonight.
Speaker 3:Can't believe winter's already here, thanksgiving's next week. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:We wish everybody Happy Thanksgiving in advance. So I'll turn it over to you because we got a great guest that I met down at ARA with you in Reno. We ate a meal together and I was so impressed with them that I am so glad you got David to be on the program, so our listeners will really get a good insight today. This will be a good one.
Speaker 3:I completely agree, dj. I think it's going to be awesome. We have dave from a plus auto in nicholasville, kentucky with us today and and they're just making waves in the industry and and getting known out there and and showing up on social media. So thank you so much, david, for for coming on today thank you here.
Speaker 4:You guys all have some a warm weather. It's 35 here and snowing in Kentucky.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's already snowing, huh.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's been snowing for a couple hours. Good thing I'm flying out to Miami today, so I'll run away from this one.
Speaker 3:I love it. What are you going to Miami for? Just vacation?
Speaker 4:Just getting away from kids you know, I love it. That's awesome. Thank you for the invite. Happy to be here.
Speaker 3:Yes, we're so glad to have you on, so I just wanted to dive in a little bit about the history of your facility and how you guys got started and when you guys got started. When did you guys start? A-plus.
Speaker 4:Well, there's three brothers that run and there was four of us when we started. It was three brothers and one brother-in-law. Then, a few years ago, he left the company, but we all started in 2017. I believe it was February 2017.
Speaker 4:We all moved to the United States in 2005. I mean, our parents moved us here and we lived for 12 years in northern Michigan, our city, beautiful city in the summertime Just, you know, amazing city. In the winter it's a ghost city. But, you know, lived there for 12 years, worked on salvage cars, from the number, from the day we came into states. You know, it's like I I don't think I've ever, anybody from my family ever drove a clean title car. It was all salvage, all, all the time. You know saving money, rebuilding those cars and you know shopping on a on a salvage yards and every time, you know you come in and see all this mess and you're like man, come on. Well, why does it have to be like this? You know, why is all those cars sitting outside? You know, being destroyed by weather, by rain, by sun? It's like why can they cover them at least?
Speaker 4:you know, but we did not understand them, but you know, a few years passed and we're like you know, so it's time to do something on your own. And we're like why wouldn't we do this but different way? And so we started in Michigan, All three of us separately. It was more like a hobby than a business.
Speaker 4:And then I believe it was the end of 2016. I was trucking then and I had an offer to move to Kentucky to drive for an amazing trucking company here and our older brother, oleg, he, got us together. He was, like you know, here in Michigan we're not getting anywhere.
Speaker 4:We gotta move we gotta move somewhere and we had an option in Ohio because we had a big Ukrainian community in Columbus, ohio. So we were thinking Ohio and then we were thinking Kentucky, but since I got the offer and Kentucky was a pretty chill state with all the car laws and all that stuff, so we got up and moved to kentucky and then, you know, in 2017 we opened the dealership and opened the business register and start going basically everything from the scratch, from from the bottom okay, awesome.
Speaker 3:And and you guys have quite a different business model, correct? You know you're saying that you'd gone to other, you know recycling facilities and not necessarily agreed with how they set up. So how do you guys do things differently with the way you guys inventory and dismantle the vehicles?
Speaker 4:new vehicles, like at this point, we work only with 2019 and up. There is barely few, like mercedes's, that we would go to 2017. But, um, if we're talking korean cars, american cars is 21 and up, nothing older than 21. If we're talking about the german cars, we would go like to 2017. Um, but basically we're staying with the new cars and, uh, when we get a car to our lodge, we don't have those cars sitting in the yard for years, we just part them out completely like to the empty shell and you know we're getting on all this conference.
Speaker 4:When I hear the people saying you know you get 20, 50 parts out of car. That's all you get, I was like what do you mean? What about the other 200 that we? Get so, in general, we have like the biggest car. I was just making one video for it for the instagram like how many was the the most parts the car have? We have one 750 series bmw that we pulled 520 parts out of it.
Speaker 3:Holy moly.
Speaker 4:That was the biggest one. The smallest one was like 80 parts, but it was burned burned Ram 4500. So we part them out completely. You know we have whoever been to our shop, you know, or whoever is on Instagram see all our videos. We store everything like inside the warehouse. Everything's being washed, cleaned, inspected for any damages. When you buy it you have 12 pictures of the part that you can see exactly what you're getting.
Speaker 4:Even today I had a really bad experience. Somebody called me about a meter for all the truck. I was like I don't have it, but I can get it for you. So I called this one yard. They're like yeah, we have it, you can come and pick it up. So it's all in good condition. So I sent the guy there and he calls me back. He's like well, the mirror is cracked and broken. And the guy's like we remove it. I guess it was broken. But I was like okay, sign up for my instagram and see how we do it and learn it. Come on, we gotta keep this industry much, a little bit better than it is, you know yeah I completely agree so that that's, that's how we do it.
Speaker 4:A lot of people don't understand why we do it, but I I don't see other way to do it, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a very unique business model and your facility is immaculate. We were able to come visit on our yard tours and just the different way that you guys have the setup, it does seem. You know everything's super clean, everything's put away where it's supposed to be. You have the parts. Uh, you know everything's super clean, everything's put away where it's supposed to be. You have the parts. You know exactly where they're going to be. Um, so it's very cool and you guys have a lot of family that works at the facilities right as well, correct?
Speaker 4:I mean, if you start looking, they're basically all family, because there's three brothers. Dad works with us there's three brothers Dad works with us. There's three brothers-in-law, and I mean we came out of a big family. My dad had 10 kids, so there would be a lot of brothers-in-law.
Speaker 3:I love it. That's awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but they all, I mean all Ukrainians they like a family to each other, just like all Americans.
Speaker 3:That's perfect. I love it Awesome. Well, DJ, I think is it time for a quick break.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with a great guest. Hang tight, folks.
Speaker 2:URG can help you streamline your business for maximum efficiency and increased profits. Access powerful software and unique tools. Receive top-level training with industry experts. Network with hundreds of recyclers. Employ e-commerce solutions to boost business. Receive support, resources and discounts Starting at just $150 a month. It's the smartest investment you will make for your business this year. Go to u-r-gcom and click on Become a Member. Your path to a profitable future is just a click away. That's u-r-gcom.
Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. You know you're listening to the number one podcast in the recycling industry URG On the Go podcast with DJ Harrington, amanda Morrison and David from A-Plus Auto out of Kentucky, who has been a fantastic guest. I want to remind all of our listeners we're available on Spotify, itunes, pandora, stitcher, amazon, iheartmedia or wherever you get your podcasts. So by all means, download and give us a good review. Remember it's URG that helps you and I want to tell all of you you know your business, but with URG we help you grow your business. So, amanda, I'll flip it back over to you and our great guest, david.
Speaker 3:Thank you, DJ. Yes, he's been a great guest. David, thank you so much again for coming on. I wanted to kind of pinpoint a little bit more. You guys have been blowing up on social media. How have you guys gotten so much traction and what are your ideas? How have you guys gotten so much traction and what are your ideas? You guys have such great ideas and content. How do you come up with those ideas and how are you getting such good traction on social media?
Speaker 4:Well, see, I don't want to say new generation or younger generation, but I would say younger generation. We always understood that it's. You know, all the advertisement and everything. It's all on social media these days. And I started once like on and off, you know, but it did not go far. And then one day, oleg I mean's he's the older brother, so he's in control of everything, you know he basically said it's time for you to become famous. I was like what are you talking about? He's like get on, uh, get on the social media and put yourself over there and put the business over there and make sure everybody knows about us. And I was like, uh, easy to say, I'm shy. And then I feel like, well, I don't care. And here's the, here's the link free. There was um one. He was he's ukrainian guy, but he's basically giving a class how to start all the social media. You know what to do, how to post this and that.
Speaker 4:Basically a small class how to how to do it. So, um, I went through there, I watched it and I was like and it was my brother-in-law who did it too. At the same time, I was like, I think I can do that, you know well, like if you watch my first videos from uh, because I started in february- um when you look at my first videos, it was like I had to make sure there's nobody around me.
Speaker 4:Nobody's watching, you know because, this and that and right now I just I don't care who's around there. So we start making videos. You know, it's like the first month it was like why it's not getting more than 200 views? Like what the heck, why is people not watching us? It was like stressful, you know. But my wife I just mentioned to me the other day I was sitting, I was like man, this video only got like 9 000 views. Like what the heck why is not going up? She started laughing. She's like only half a year ago you were complaining about 200 views. So, yeah, we started, we started recording, basically I mean everything and about our business, how we do, what cars we receive this and that. And then, um, we had a one guy who started with us as a photographer like a year ago.
Speaker 4:Then he left, but he is um. He went to college with back in ukraine, like for the social media, for from he was basically learned how to make movies and all this stuff. So we made him an offer that he could not resist and he came and you know he has a lot of good ideas. He's correcting me, I'm correcting him and basically there's three of us right now. Who's behind all the scenes and all those videos?
Speaker 3:I love it. That's awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, it helped a lot. Like the first and the first thousand followers I got, I was like, oh, my goodness, I'm so happy I was, I was ready to give, give to the biggest giveaway and but uh, yeah, and now you've got 20 000 and counting right even more the. The business page is 32 000 and my page is 9100 there you go it's, it's mostly content driven, then do you think it's, it's um?
Speaker 3:are you guys doing like paid advertising? How do you guys get um? Or is it? Are you doing hashtags? What? What do you think drives? You know the?
Speaker 4:yeah, the funnest thing is like all the paid, all the paid videos, they, they get the the least views ever interesting we will start paying them like we. We start with like small amount, but then we're like paid the. I think the last video we paid like $50 a day and it still got like 8,000 views from you know, until now. So we're just trying to find what they call hooks or whatever, like how to start the video. What would catch the attention?
Speaker 4:you know, we would sit on instagram not just for fun, but we would like go scroll through the videos and see like what people use, like to hook it up or go through the videos that has a lot of views and see, like, what hooks they use just to catch the fish. So, and that's how we do. I mean we do use hashtags. Um, learn that from somebody. Some people say they they don't need and that doesn't help you. But I figure in our videos that if you don't put hashtags it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3:I completely agree.
Speaker 4:I just copy and paste them all. Basically about parts salvage, save money. I mean, if you go on our page, you can see what hashtags we use. I would always use the hashtag of the car that we're working on, but yeah, if you go on our page, you can see what we, what hashtags we use.
Speaker 3:I would always use the hashtag of the car that we're working on, but yeah I'm I'm more than sure that they need to be in, and especially with all the wrecked cars, you know they people like to see them, I guess yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think you you kind of are more educational with your videos, you know, explaining how many, how much each part is technically worth whenever you guys do take it off, and I think that's that's also cool for the industry to see and also your customers to see, you know kind of gets them to come back to your page and learn more.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I like that we do the price breakdown videos on the cars and the very first one, first one we did.
Speaker 4:I didn't really check the prices, I just did them out of my head and I remember it was a toyota forerunner and that video it was just like. That's the video that pushed us through. You know, because they had is the first video that got like 400 000 views. Wow, people were hating, hating and they I mean they still like, I still get comments right now. You know like this is like hate. After I hate, I was like yeah, I understand, I understand I messed it up, but okay, you're helping for the video to grow the views and for the page to go up.
Speaker 4:So yeah, but social media I mean the, the very the few first videos. Like you know, um well, what this guy was teaching that like you have to be prepared to to hit this hate wall that people are gonna hate on you. You know and like, especially reading the comments, you know the the first few videos you read in the hate comments and you're like, ah, maybe I should not do it, you know. But then, after I went through the class, I was like okay, haters here.
Speaker 4:Okay, so the video is going to go up and more haters coming in.
Speaker 3:The more they hate on you.
Speaker 4:The more they put comments on it, the more the video goes up.
Speaker 3:Right yeah, Even those comments will get you some traction. So you know it's, it's publicity regardless, so that's great.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:So what else do you guys kind of do? Obviously, you guys, we've seen you at a lot of the shows. You guys went to SEMA as well. You guys just kind of go to a lot of those shows. What do you guys take out of those? And and getting to know, you know, and networking with, with all the other people that you see at you know urg and ara as well well, see the the the first year I think it was your g right in st louis.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was your g. I mean we we met the greatest guy. I don't know if I can say his name, but rob rainwater yeah, of course we have him on all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that guy is, he helped us a lot. He finally break the wall in us to do the warranty and we do one year warranty on every single part you buy from us. Um, I don't think anybody does that in the industry. The biggest I heard is six year. I mean six months and it's like my dry training, but I mean we decided to do warranty on everything. Since we're parting out everything, we're going to do warranty on everything. Then this in Reno I mean we met DJ. It's like where else I would find him or met him, you know. But it's like finding all this, all these people you know that putting in a puzzle. You know they write it there and especially dj, his. He don't mind sharing his knowledge and, uh, you know, it's always good to know a wise man like that.
Speaker 3:Sometimes when you need advice from a wise man, you know who to ask yep, yep I always joke with dj that he, he knows everyone in the united states by someone else somehow but at reno we did the.
Speaker 4:There was a lot of, um, like you know, slavic people, ukrainian, russians, and at the last dinner we were sitting we were why wouldn't we at least create a group on Telegram, you know, to get us all together? And there's a lot of, like, slavic people that owns yards and a lot of them never come to this conference because, you know, I mean for unknown reason. But I was like, why don't we just create a group at least here and start communicating? So we created a chat and we have about 10 yards already there. Um, so that's a positive thing came out out of this reno um.
Speaker 4:And then, yes, sima was good, but with sima we made it. Since it was the first time we did it, we did not know the apex and sima is two different buildings, so I would say we wasted, uh, three days at the sima. Yeah, of course we, we bought a few stuff there. You know, we saw a lot of good equipment, but everything that we needed the most it was at apex and we had only one day. So it doesn't matter how fast you run, you cannot see everything. So next year we're going just for Apex.
Speaker 3:There you go, yep, make it a yearly thing, that way you don't miss out on any of it. It's crazy how big those things are, and it does. It takes days to be able to walk through it, doesn't it?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:But see all these events. I mean, if you want to grow, I don't see how you can grow without going to them. I mean you have to learn, you have to know all the rules you have to. I mean, if you want to be out there so people know about you, the first people that have to know about you is the other yards, not like outside customers, but the yards have to know about you and you know you can only grow together through urg and ira and all those. And we're signing out, signing out right now with the team prp oh beautiful finally yeah, yeah yeah
Speaker 3:those being able to network with all of them and and being able to cheer. Since you know you guys are doing a lot of the URG programs, that's a huge thing to be able to join PRP and being able to network with all of them as well. And I completely agree. You know, whenever you're starting out, you almost need to get to know all the recyclers so that they can and that's what's cool about the industry is that they are willing to share. You know we've got people like and that's what's cool about the industry is that they are willing to share. You know we got people like dj, that's been in it forever and also know, knows the tow industry and everyone. You know that he's been facilitated with and and the rainwaters of the groups. And yeah, I completely agree with you and I'm so glad that you guys ended up starting to come. It's been, it's been great having you guys and you guys are a blast to hang out with as well. It's always a good time, right? Yeah?
Speaker 4:and I, like Yesterday, we visited the grade A yard in Louisville.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:And I was like, see, that's a cultural shock. I mean I was a little kid when I came in. But you know, in Ukraine when you start your business you're like trying to hide from everybody, so nobody see how you do, how you operate. And when I start posting those videos, like especially with prices, all the Ukrainians are telling me like what the heck are you doing? Why would you show people? Why would you tell people? I?
Speaker 2:was like so they know.
Speaker 4:So did they copy me? What do you mean? Why would you want somebody to copy you? I was like because if everybody's going to do like we do, everybody would want to buy parts from pre-owned auto parts, not new. It's like no, yeah, but you're still showing your business. And we went to the grade A yesterday. You would think we're comparatives right, but they got us on their van. They drove through every single lot, they went through all the hiding spots. They showed us everything. You're sitting there like wait, what Is this how we have to do it?
Speaker 4:So it was kind of a cultural shock. But I mean, yeah, so that's what shocks? Without all this conference or all this yards, they're ready to share, they're ready to talk to you Like the Larry from Phoenix. We spoke with him at the IRA. All these yards, they, they, they're ready to share, they're ready to talk to you like the larry from phoenix.
Speaker 4:We spoke with him at the ira yeah, like yeah, once, once you guys set up to broker our parts, I'll fly to you, I'll teach your guys how to do it. And we were like what's here? What really you're gonna do this? Yeah, that's what we're here. We want to broker your part, so we're going to teach you and then you know, you can choose the other yard once they grow and ready to move.
Speaker 3:So Yep, the more parts you guys sell, the more parts they sell and it's it's all in the family, right? It's awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so see, you cannot process all the cars out there know you can sell the parts by sharing them. So, that's what's so great about all this conference. That's the context, the people that you met. That's the most important.
Speaker 3:Completely agree. I love that. All right, dj. I think we're ready for another break.
Speaker 1:You got it, amanda. This has been a great one. He is a wonderful guy and his brothers are wonderful people also. All right, folks, hang tight. We'll be right back after this short brief message.
Speaker 2:The URG Scholarship Foundation was founded in 2014 in honor of individuals who give their talent, time and, very often, their own finances to ensure the growth and success of the automotive recycling industry. We understand college is not for everyone, so each year the Foundation offers substantial financial scholarships to auto recycling employees and the children of employees that are attending four-year and technical or trade schools, to assist with their education. Don't leave money on the table. If you have a child or if you're interested in attending continuing education, this money is available to you. Go to u-r-gcom and click on the Scholarship Foundation tab. Urg keeping our industry strong through education. Welcome back listeners.
Speaker 1:You know, this is a real show the.
Speaker 1:URG Podcast on the go with Amanda Morrison, dj Harrington, david from A-Plus Auto out of Kentucky. It has been excellent and I want to remind all of us if you want to see or hear another pro like David, remember to like, review and share everywhere. Tell your friends about the podcast. If there's an industry expert that you would like to hear, like Rainwater or Mike Conkle or one of those experts that we could bring on, just like David today. He has been so informative that it really is a plus and I hope you took some notes of what he's doing and go to look at his videos and his website. It's worth going to. All right, Amanda, I'll turn it over to you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, DJ. Yes, he's got an incredible presence on Instagram and Facebook, as well as the website that he has, and you guys are utilizing the search function right on your website. I believe so yeah yeah, yeah, how's that going and how and how do you see kind of the future of the industry? Obviously we're kind of all going online. How do you see that kind of evolving in the next few years for your business?
Speaker 4:I really hope that everybody is going to at least try to switch to do it with you. What I'm talking about is to have the parts available the moment that people call you about it don't say like you'll be ready in two or three days. We have to go in the yards, have the part ready right now.
Speaker 4:My honest opinion, I think it's you know it's only going to get better, because I mean what we'll learn from this last arp conference. I know that, like they started doing this credit for for yards or for the body shops who's using pre-owned auto parts. So I think with cars in America the business is always going to go up because everybody drives here.
Speaker 3:You have more cars than people everywhere. So I hope and I believe it's going to be good yeah, I'm just going to continue to kind of increase and and try to get the correct parts out there. Do you guys? Um, so you guys primarily, I know you guys kind of started primarily on ebay. Is that correct?
Speaker 4:yeah, we started from ebay. Um, I mean, we were, we were on carpartcom, listing there as well, but uh, it was mainly, mainly through ebay.
Speaker 4:Um, I mean, we were, we were on carpartcom listing there as well, but, uh, it was mainly, mainly, through ebay, and then about, I would say, the last year, year and a half. That's when we, you know, put all the forces you know to go through body shops with you, set up our website. Finally, and you know, we decided that we have to push the name out there to let the people know about us.
Speaker 4:And I mean we finally decided to broker our parts and you know broker from somebody else that was the biggest one that we had to break the wall in Oleg and thanks to Rainwater it actually helped to break the wall.
Speaker 3:Perfect. I love it.
Speaker 4:I would say he made him do it. He might say differently, but he broke the wall and I think he's happy that he finally decided to do it.
Speaker 3:Good, good. Yeah, sometimes I think you know we as business owners too, you know you get this idea in your head that you don't want to do it a certain way. But you know there's other contexts that you haven't taken into account. And having some experts like Arav Rainwater to kind of come in and take a look at on the outside of things and how it can potentially benefit y'all, it's good to be able to kind of prove that. I'm glad you guys would be able to figure that out through Rob. So do you guys start? You guys started working with Rob at URG. Is that correct? The last URG?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we met him there and we basically sent out for him to train our sales guys because uh I mean we also bought another course from uh cardone university for the sales people because you know.
Speaker 4:Like when you started from the scratch, you think you know everything, you know like you, you think you're the genius here. But then when you, when you start buying all these classes, you know and listening to people how it's actually done, and you're like like, oh my goodness, I was so dumb, how could I? The genius idea in my head was so genius. But then you look from the other side you're like, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:There are other ways, right.
Speaker 4:I mean better ways, not just other ways. There's always other ways, but there's good ways, not just other way. There's always other way, but there's a good ways that you have to do it. So, and you know, rainwater basically teaches us how to sell in this industry's particular. You know how to act, what to say and what not to say. You know, um, he always say that we're we're, that we're um pushing too much with all these cleaning parts. He's like it doesn't matter what you call yourself, you're still a junkyard.
Speaker 4:And we're like no, we're not. Yes, you are, no matter how you call yourself, you're still a junkyard. But we're like yeah, one thing we're not ready to change is we like our parts to be the way they are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and I think that does, you know, set you apart a little bit too and setting a standard with your customers too. So there's, you know, there's some give and take there and deciding on what you guys want to do and is best for you all and what's worked right. So it's always good to have kind of an outside source to take a look at it. But that's great that you guys are training your salespeople. Are you going to be bringing in some salespeople to URG this coming April in Orlando?
Speaker 4:We didn't really talk about who's from sales guys is going to come, but I'm pretty sure we're going to bring somebody. The sales manager is definitely going to go there. We probably will be there and, uh, I'm pretty sure we will have to bring you know probably tough sales guys um, so they can, they can learn and they can see you know they can people and see that there's, there's there's outside world, outside of their office. You know that there's. There's a lot of us like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and it's good to kind of get them out of the four walls and and to see and also talk to other salespeople, you know, and get tips from them, and we're we're doing kind of a salesman training day on Saturday. So that's something that we're trying to really hone in on is making sure that you know they have an opportunity to kind of learn and network with other salespeople too, because you know that's that's a great gateway for for brokering too. You know, making sure that they've got connections with other yards. 100% Love it, love it. So, um, what else have you kind of learned as, as gone through? Obviously, you started in 2017. What are some tips for people that might be starting out that we haven't kind of already talked about?
Speaker 4:From my personal opinion, what I think like, if we're talking about yards, the customer services really suck in a lot of yards. Customer services really suck in a lot of yards. I would say the customer service has to be on top notch, like the actual American customer service that everybody talks about and lately we don't see it anywhere. So when we started on eBay back in 2017, the feedback was your number one priority. So we would lose money, like we would lose the sale. We would pay the customers but they would have to leave the good review. You know, and that's how we learned. I mean, you know, customer is always right. The sale goes a little bit different in their opinion, but I mean we decided to go with the customer's right. The customer service has to be on top. That's why we're buying all these sales classes for our sales guys, so that the customer service has to be on top.
Speaker 4:Also, provide quality parts, inspect them before you sell them. I always remember that. Basically, that's what Rainwater teaches us. This guy he's already having trouble because his car broke down. He's ordering the part from you. He's waiting for two, three days to get it and then he gets the wrong part because you left and did not check the part. Good enough, you know, you send him the wrong part and he's basically down another week because you have to send it back to. You have to send him a new one. So I would always say you know, take care of your customers, like make sure that whatever you're selling is good and that it's in working condition. The first thing. And yeah, let's continue what we're doing and make people happy with quality pre-owned auto parts. I don't even call them used, I call them pre-owned.
Speaker 3:I love that. I love that. I was noticing that, as you were saying that, I like that better. It makes it sound a little bit more of a step up and and I completely agree with you and I'm making sure that we're creating a good name for all other recyclers, you know, by providing the quality part and the right part at the correct time, you know, and and talking to our customers with respect and and not making them wait on on um. You know hold times that are crazy. So I completely agree with you and it sounds like you guys are doing all the right things and we're excited to see you at the next conference here coming up and you'll also be speaking. Right, we got you speaking on a panel.
Speaker 4:They say and I will, yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, we want to hear from you so, and I know I've introduced you to a few other yards and they've been talking to you about media and you've been so helpful for a lot of the recyclers in this industry. So we really appreciate you guys' involvement and we're looking forward to seeing you at URG and we want to thank you again for coming on today. Dj, did you have anything you wanted to follow up with?
Speaker 1:Yes, I want to thank David, but I told David he wanted to know about Tunnel to Towers at the next show. Oh yes, remind all our listeners. April 10th through the 12th in beautiful Orlando, florida, will be the next URG Team PRP conference and this is where we all get together. And this is where we all get together and we're planning on 1,500 to 2,000 recyclers all in one event. And Tunnel to Towers is receiving two vans on April the 11th at noontime. And I told David, I said now you do social media, when you see all the TV stations there at 12 o'clock on April 11th, you'll know who was in charge of the event. Because I told David, I said when you start doing work for Tunnel to Towers this, is a great group.
Speaker 1:They're eradicating homelessness, so the veteran that's been homeless is now going to be in a center and we, urg PRP, are providing vans that are all you know with disabled persons, ramps in them and all. So it'll be a great event and I can't thank David enough. I just hope all of our listeners. Amanda, he talks about customer service and quality part and it's pre-owned part and it's not a junkyard, and the whole emphasis on his website is every place is clean, everything and you said it, the place was beautiful when you were there on the property.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even the floors. I probably would have just sat right there on the floor and eat my lunch.
Speaker 1:That's the reason why it's the image that we cast, and David has really shown by example. He doesn't tell you what to do, he shows you by example. That's why A-plus Auto up in Kentucky has such a great reputation and I can't thank him enough and I hope he and his family have a fantastic Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4:And Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.
Speaker 1:You got that right, David.
Speaker 4:We have two holidays, thanksgiving and Thanksgiving right.
Speaker 3:Love it, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:All right, amanda, you can end it. Amanda, you're probably the right person to end it Awesome.
Speaker 3:All right guys. Thank you so much for listening today and thank you again, David, for hopping on and talking to us, and we'll catch you again on URG On the Go podcast.
Speaker 4:Awesome Looking forward, thank you.