Randy Buller, CEO of The Parts Authority

Join host Behzad Rassuli as he sits down with Randy Buller, founding partner and CEO of The Parts Authority, who has steered the company from its humble beginnings in Queens to a nationwide powerhouse with over 300 locations. Revisit his entrepreneurial journey that began in his teenage years, nurturing a vision that emphasizes professional installers, extensive inventory, and a competitive edge against retail giants. Randy's insights reveal how a unification under The Parts Authority brand bolstered market presence and acquisition strategies, creating a unique niche in the auto parts industry.

Hear Randy describe how embracing technology transformed The Parts Authority's growth trajectory, not only streamlining operations but also opened doors to the burgeoning world of e-commerce. Learn how strategic expansions across states like Washington, Arizona, and California unfolded, despite initial absences of a long-term plan, showcasing the power of adaptability and seizing opportunities as they arise.

Finally, discover how Randy's leadership, marked by communication and passion, has maintained a strong company culture and adaptability even during trials like the COVID-19 pandemic. Uncover how gratitude and understanding workforce dynamics have been key to sustaining success, alongside the lighthearted camaraderie with his business partners that reflects a blend of humor and practicality in their collaboration. This episode promises a rich tapestry of personal anecdotes, strategic insights, and a peek into the lighter side of business relationships. 

To learn more about the Auto Care Association visit autocare.org.

To learn more about our show and suggest future topics and guests, visit autocare.org/podcast

Transcript

The Evolution of Parts Authority

Randy Buller 0:00

you know , probably in order of you know , importance in my life , yeah Right up there with the top three .

Behzad 0:09

I'm happy to be on that list . Birth of your daughter , birth of your son podcast , with Behzad right in the middle there Sitting in the driver's seat Cool , I do . I do want to tell you , though , before I start this , that when I was uh , that when I was uh , when I was talking , uh , when we started the podcast , I asked you know what kind of guests I should have on , and the idea is that , you know , I get to speak to some pretty high level executives all around the industry , and your name was just . It repeatedly came up , came up from customers , it came from employees , it came from vendors .

Behzad 0:48

There seems to be kind of a unanimous affection for you . You know , good to work with , good to work for , business is good , and so , on the personal side , as I looked into your story , I I was really excited to talk to you , because it's not common it's common to find an entrepreneur , it's common to find a CEO , it's common to find somebody who's running a 40 , 50-year-old business , but it's not common to find that person who is all three . The person who started the business has been running it for 40 years , uh , and has seen everything that comes and goes with that business . So , um , I'm really looking forward to hearing your story , learning about you , and I'm certain that everybody who listens to this will as well .

Randy Buller 1:45

Oh , thank you for the kind words .

Behzad 1:47

So , uh , I gave the outline of , you know , the skeleton of maybe , uh , your career , but can you tell me , just for everyone , a little bit about parts authority .

Randy Buller 2:01

Sure Um well , parts Authority actually started in 1973 . My brother-in-law started the company . Actually , Yaron Rosenthal opened a store in Queens our first store in 1973 . In 1976 , I think it was he opened a foreign auto parts store a block away . So he had two stores , one foreign and one domestic . And then in about 1980 , myself and another brother-in-law , dave Wapman , joined the company . I was still going to college at the time and the two stores were Clearway and Clearway Foreign Auto Parts .

Randy Buller 2:53

In 1984 , I became a partner in the business and opened up the third store in the chain and we call that one Pro Parts . And the fourth store was a couple years after that and another partner came into the business . His name is Steve Yanovsky and the name of that store was Cap Auto Parts and Cap was an acronym for Clearway Auto Parts . So four stores , four different names .

Randy Buller 3:28

So we were going for the record and finally , by the time the fifth store came around , we decided we better come up with a common name to go forward with and we decided on Parts Authority and we decided on parts authority . And the reason was it was a great name to go forward with but we could also go back and kind of make it retroactive . So Clearway Auto Parts your parts authority , pro Parts your parts authority , and then going forward when we did acquisitions which at the time we really didn't contemplate , but when we went forward , when we made acquisitions , we also said powered by the parts authority or your parts authority . So , uh , it ended up working out to be a great name for us so sitting here today .

Behzad 4:15

Parts authority is over 300 stores um yeah , over 300 locations right now and employees .

Randy Buller 4:24

Several thousand employees .

Behzad 4:25

Several thousand . So when you go , take yourself back to Randy Bowler in 1980 , opening his first parts store . Were you picturing 300 plus stores and several thousand employees and being CEO of this giant organization , or was it just a business owner selling parts ?

Randy Buller 4:42

Great question . So my first store was 1984 . That's when I became a partner . I was 24 years old . So in those days I was definitely not contemplating having anywhere near the size . I was definitely maybe at a store here , at a store there , but we definitely weren't contemplating anything . You know this big yeah , you're just you .

Behzad 5:09

So in the 80 , when you were growing up , I mean , part stores were much more predominant , right , they're just kind of .

Randy Buller 5:17

There were obviously four or five in a neighborhood that you and your family I don't know if they're more predominant , because the retailers kind of came in and opened thousands and thousands of stores . So there's actually , I think , more auto parts stores than there ever were . But the mom and pop , the family-owned stores , the jobber stores , kind of went by the wayside because they really couldn't compete with the power of the retail stores , the financing and just the economies of scale . So if you had a Bazant's auto parts store in whatever town and all of a sudden AutoZone opened up and O'Reilly's opened up , they had big , beautiful , fresh stores , they did marketing . It was very difficult to compete on a retail level . I think they definitely won the battle of attrition there on the retail front .

Behzad 6:17

Well , you're obviously still around and very successful . You found a niche in the market .

Randy Buller 6:22

Yeah Well , our niche is really selling to the professional installers and providing that extended inventory , both domestic parts , foreign parts , and forging that partnership with the installer customer . That's really our business , is really getting the cars off the lifts at the repair shop level and that's always been our secret sauce from the very beginning and I think you know still we have a pretty big advantage over the retailers when it comes to that .

Behzad 6:55

So you said when you were 24 , that was when you first became a partner and I think you alluded to the idea that you'd always owned some kind of business . And I think you alluded to the idea that you'd always own some kind of business . Why , like ? Why did what in your upbringing made you think , or had made others think , that you would , you'd ultimately own a business ?

Randy Buller 7:28

Just when I was a kid , from when I was a young teenager , I always had , you know , some kind of side business . Whether it was mowing lawns or snow shoveling in the winter , or selling jeans at the flea market or five or six other things , I was always doing something to make some extra money . And in those days it was really just . We didn't have Nintendo or Xbox in those days , so we had pinball machines . If you like to play pinball , you could spend a few bucks a week just doing that , a few bucks on an evening . So just to have some spending money , just everything , waxing cars , just hustling to make some extra bucks . So I always had that kind of gene in me and it continued throughout business . So once I got the opportunity at the auto parts store , that was a really fast-moving environment for me and I was lucky enough to get the opportunity and took advantage of it .

Technology Transformation Drives Business Growth

Behzad 8:24

What did you study ? Did you go to college ?

Randy Buller 8:28

Yeah , I went to college and just a quick story on that .

Randy Buller 8:33

My father passed away when I was 17 , very suddenly , and I really hadn't given too , you know , thought at that time and I had three sisters and you know , for a minute I thought maybe I shouldn't even go to college , maybe I should just start working and , you know , help out my mom and everything .

Randy Buller 8:59

And one day I went to visit a friend of mine's father who was a very successful guy and he said look , I know you your whole life , randy , you're going to end up in business , in your own business . So the best thing you could do is go to college , get an accounting degree and never be an accountant . Take six months off after college , go look around , travel , take a camera with you , take pictures of signs and look at marketing and then take that knowledge with you when you open a business . But you're going to be in business and accounting is the best background and that was like the best advice I ever got , because that's been a big help for me in running my business and still to this day it's been a very big help . All the skills you learn as an accountant are very transferable to a business like mine .

Behzad 9:53

So that's , I mean , incredible advice to get .

Randy Buller 9:56

Very lucky I got that advice .

Behzad 9:58

Yeah , so when you have the four stores between kind of family members and a business partner and you changed the brand , what made you ? When did it start accelerating from there ? What happened after ? From four stores to maybe I don't know , ten stores or something ?

Randy Buller 10:17

Well , each one of our stores were extremely successful . Were , you know , extremely successful From the very beginning ? Clearway and Clearway Foreign were , you know , two killer stores . They were great and I learned the auto parts business from those two locations and those two stores . So when I opened my store we had both foreign parts and domestic parts . My store we had both foreign parts and domestic parts and in 1984 , that was really at the beginning of the Japanese parts invasion , so that was having foreign parts . I remember being on the road calling our customers and said oh , you got foreign parts .

Randy Buller 10:59

Okay , you know , we could buy foreign parts from you like that we could give you right away . So that was a great door opener for me in my store and continued to be so . We grew slowly , remember I told you our mindset was , you know , open a store here , open a store here . That's what we did , and so really up until probably 2005 , maybe we had only 10 , 11 stores at that point .

Behzad 11:27

Oh , wow , we did so like 20 years and it's still just like a few stores , Pretty big stores , and you know a company grew and Parts Authority was still a force to be reckoned with . But you know just nowhere near the size , but in a specific market . Where was the market ?

Randy Buller 11:47

It's all in New York , okay , all of New York , yeah , and all Long Island and Queens and I think the catalyst , if you want to look at a catalyst event . Our industry was always kind of far behind in in technology . We , we first computerized our stores in 1981 , which was pretty early . We had a great computer conversion . I remember I wasn't involved in it , but I was working there and it went as smooth as silk , which is very unusual considering the nightmare that most computer changeovers are . So we went from paper to computer and it was incredibly smooth . That was a testament to how well Cleo A Autoparts and Yaron was running his business . He had a process for everything and there was a spot for it on the computer . And you know the expression , you know blank in , blank out , and in this case it was good in , good out and so .

Randy Buller 12:52

But the problem with the computer system that we had and everybody in the auto parts business had at that time was the computers weren't like they are today . They're not really open . You can't do what they wanted and really the businessmen didn't really know how to use a computer . We could punch a few keys but we didn't know how to program . We didn't have any of that acumen . It was all new to us . It was a big deal for us just to do a backup tape at the end of the day . So that was really pretty much the limit of our skill set when it came to computers by the year 2000, .

Randy Buller 13:27

It was apparent to me that we were kind of slaves to our computer company . When we wanted to do an acquisition , we'd say okay , we want to buy this company , when can we change it over ? And they'd say June . I'm like June , that's great , it's only May . They're like no , june six years from now . So we'd get on this long line of things we want to do and it was really holding up our progress .

Randy Buller 13:52

Remember , 2000 was the tech bubble and all the stuff was happening all around us the internet and our company wasn't going to make it . So I kind of decided we needed to change computer systems to get out from under the thumb of our existing computer provider technology provider . I got some great advice from this guy , howard Cohen , who still works with us . He's an unbelievable guy and he suggested the AS400 IBM because it had a relational database . We would be able to get all our reporting and be able to have a lot more flexibility and there was a little consternation among our partners to make a computer change like that .

Randy Buller 14:37

But we did it . And from the moment we did it and got it converted , which wasn't that easy , but it went smoothly we did it and got it converted , which wasn't that easy , but it went smoothly . From that moment that put us on a completely different trajectory and we were able to do our own computer conversions in-house . We were able to start doing e-commerce business , which we would have never been able to do before In the early 2000s , I would say 2005 , 2006 . Yeah , so we were able to do things and say yes to them . You know , very early .

Behzad 15:12

Was there I mean did at any point in this process ? Did you think that ? Were you steered by , maybe , the valuations of internet companies at the time , thinking , hey , you know , were you still just parts distribution , or was it that ?

Randy Buller 15:28

There was no , we weren't looking at internet valuations or anything like that . We just I just you know when you're not getting out of a relationship what you need to be getting out of the relationship it was clear that the computer , the way that our technology , our technology , was holding us back and there was no way to get out from under that thumb , and so we needed to make that change . It was very clear to me , and sometimes those I could tell you . The first , the first computer company that we made the decision , was not able to to get us live . So , uh , so that took a year of trying to get onto another computer system and we weren't able to do it . So we kind of sat there in a conference room with our hands folded waiting for this computer to come on and we tested it , tested it , tested it and we wouldn't sign off on it . So we had to switch again . But the second time , you know , they were able to handle us and it ended up working out great .

Behzad 16:31

Did you see an immediate growth change in the business when you enabled the e-commerce side ?

Randy Buller 16:36

It wasn't just e-commerce , it was everything In those days and still today we get all kinds of requests from fleets , e-commerce companies , even some of the retailers we do business with . They want to do business . They have certain technology requirements , and one of our catchphrases in our company is the answer is yes . And the reason I say the answer is yes is we're going to do it if we can physically do it , unless it's something absolutely crazy . But basically , with the technology upgrade that we had , we were able to say yes to things we couldn't say yes to before . So basically we could say yes to a lot of things that we couldn't . So it wasn't just e-commerce , it was dozens of other things that we could say yes to , a lot of things that we couldn't . So it wasn't just e-commerce , it was dozens of other things that we could say yes

Business Expansion and Acquisitions Strategy

Randy Buller 17:28

to .

Behzad 17:28

Can I ask you , as we sit here , we're in Scottsdale , Arizona . Can I ask you how you ended up in Scottsdale as the CEO of a business that's in New York ?

Randy Buller 17:39

Well , there's a lot of people who have opinions of that . So when we first got the computer system in 2005 , we converted our system and shortly thereafter we bought a company in Queens and we were able to put their four locations onto our system almost overnight and get them live on our own system , which was a great feat for us . We were extremely proud of that . Our team was able to train everybody and get their purchasing and able to use all of the things that we had at Parts Authority . We were able to have all visibility for this new company on our system , which gave us a big advantage in running the new company on our system , which gave us a big advantage in running the new company and , as I said , we were able to start doing e-commerce and things like that . We continued to expand . We expanded down to Washington DC and how I got to Washington DC was a fellow Procter member , who was getting quite old , really wanted me to buy his business and he kept asking me to come down there and I thought that's a big stretch from New York to Washington DC . But I went down there with my partner and he liked the building and he liked the other place and we ended up making that deal and a lot of people said , oh , I know what Randy's doing , he's going to , he went down to Washington and now he's going to fill back in through New Jersey . And I was like I'm glad you know that , because we had absolutely no plans for that and we did it . We stayed in Washington and we opened up several more places in Washington , maryland . You know probably seven or eight more places , you know , through 2009 and 2010 .

Randy Buller 19:28

And then we were doing a lot of e-commerce and I wanted to , you know , have the ability to ship from the West Coast . So we looked out in California and California has some pretty tough laws to do business in and it was a little scary and we didn't really find the right situation until one day another pronto member called and said would you be interested in buying our business in arizona ? And that's what we ended up doing . That's how I ended up in arizona , uh , but again people said I know what randy's doing . He's gonna open up in arizona and he's gonna . And I'm like we had absolutely no plan . So a lot of people , people just kind of decide what we're doing , but we just take advantage of situations that are in front of us . We didn't have any kind of . I'd be lying to you if I said I had any kind of 10-year plan , or there's enough to do with a one or two-year plan , and that's the kind of the way I've approached it all these years .

Randy Buller 20:28

So from Arizona we ended up expanding it to California . We had some great opportunities . And from Washington we expanded it to , you know , virginia , georgia , and then eventually , when we , when we bought a large distributor in New York , we ended up expanding it to New Jersey . So finally , many years later , somebody said oh , you see , I told you you'd end up in New Jersey , but that's really , that wasn't the plan .

Behzad 20:56

So I guess I mean it's not totally unreasonable to say that Randy's going to fill in . So I understand that , because the conventional wisdom would say something like you know , you have your resources here , they can go to X distance , and so , you know , start expanding from there . How did you , who did you hire a team to go to Washington or Arizona ? Did you physically go yourself , and and how ?

Randy Buller 21:20

well , the for the first one was Washington .

Randy Buller 21:22

That we , we did out of market and I absolutely went down to Washington and I actually stayed down in Washington for quite some time because it blew up so quickly and it happened so fast . The business that we bought was a real sleeper . They were a three-stepper . I'm not sure if you know what a three-stepper is . Three-stepper means traditional warehouse distributor to sell to auto parts stores , and they really didn't sell to repair shops . And when we bought it we converted it to selling to repair shops and we got extremely busy extremely fast and we had to make a lot of changes . So I spent about six months down there straight and so that was interesting . And I did the same thing in Arizona when we expanded out there . So we do take a really strong hands-on presence when we do these things .

Randy Buller 22:20

As we've expanded in the last few years . Certainly with COVID I stopped being as much of a presence on these conversions as I used to be . You know , during COVID , you know everybody was kind of on lockdown but we did manage to have a few expansions during that period of time . But we have an amazing team expansions during that period of time , but we have an amazing team . And , interestingly enough , conversions are really tough when we buy a company or merge with a company putting them on our computer system .

Randy Buller 22:55

Everyone talks about the nightmare of doing that . We do it so quickly . That's really our special sauce . We'll close on a deal on a Friday night 10 locations and Saturday morning we're up and running on our system and to get that done so quickly and efficiently , so much work and planning goes into that . It's an unbelievable thing and our team is so great at it . The people that are doing it and it's amazingly enough the people that are doing it are a lot of . The people are the people we just recently got from acquisitions that were like fighting it for the first couple of weeks and then after a while they're like , ah , and now an opportunity comes six months later to do another acquisition , or a year later , and they're the first people with their hands up raising you know , because it's a great testament . They just I went through this last year and you know first week's going to be tough , but you'll love the way this ends up .

Behzad 23:58

Usually the tech side of the implementation is the hard part . But which one , in your opinion or in your experience , has been harder the culture side or the tech implementation , implementation side ? I don't know how you roll up so many businesses . How many acquisitions have you made ?

Randy Buller 24:10

in time , dozens , literally . So , uh , it's all hard , okay , um , the technology is certainly hard and you know the people who do that on our side . They have it down to a science and it's unbelievable what they do for that . There's so much preparation but they do a great job .

Cultural Impact and Employee Loyalty

Randy Buller 24:40

And you know we have people in the IT department that work on all the connectivity and all the data , the data conversion , the data loading , and then we have the people in our pricing department . You know , making sure that customers , you know the day of , are being billed for parts the same price they were the week before when they were owned by somebody else . That's a whole other thing and the culture is even .

Randy Buller 25:00

You know , that's really , really important because people get upset with any type of change . You know , in my experience , I remember one of my first experiences with that was when we only had like four stores and we had one warehouse , and the fourth store was a warehouse in Rockwell Center and I remember we combined the offices and one of the people that worked at the office was really upset one day and I was like you know , why are you so upset ? What's up ? And she was like you know , at the other store we keep the envelopes in the left drawer and now we keep them in the right drawer but I like them in the left jaw because I'm left-handed and it was something so meaningless like that or , uh , something so small like that , but was having such a big impact , so I learned never to take it for granted . The slightest thing really throws off people's routine and it really does . So we have to be really conscious of the cultural impact .

Randy Buller 26:07

One of the things that's really tough , I think , for the folks are sometimes we go in and you know we're going to change our lines , the products that we sell a lot of times , to the products that Parts Authority sells , and we have relationships with a lot of suppliers that have been there and that have supported us all along and we want to continue to support them because they work for us . But the customers and some of the workers , they're like hey , we really love this brand , can we keep this brand ? Can we keep that brand ? And sometimes we have to make that decision and sometimes you know , if you ask what do you think , should we keep this or should we keep that ?

Randy Buller 26:55

And if you ask too many questions , people get invested . And then when you . When you make the change , they get upset . So sometimes we just have to rip the bandaid off and make some changes , and so that could be a little harsh for some people . But the culture is a tough thing . One thing I'm really fortunate is the culture at our company is , I believe , the best in the industry . We have great folks working there . They really care about the company , they care about each other , they police it themselves and if they see somebody treating people the wrong way they jump in .

Behzad 27:52

And those kind of people really I work with in your company is so good and so friendly and helpful the culture of the initial four or five stores you know , because they were kind of close family and and friends and uh , I mean the that dynamic . Obviously when you're , when you have a tight crew that you see outside of work also because you're related to them and you , you get to see them at holidays and in non-business related events , you build kind of a there's a familial bond there , there's a culture , there is a culture there . Is that what you've kept through the whole ?

Randy Buller 28:34

time . I mean , look , in life you have to do the right things . I don't think a company stays in business for 50 or probably 52 or 53 years . If you're not doing the right things all the time , you're not going to stick around in business . One of the things I like to say I don't want to beat it to death , but you have to treat your team members right . You have to treat your customers right . You have to treat your suppliers right . If you do those three things , you have to treat your team members right , you have to treat your customers right , you have to treat your suppliers right , and if you do those three things , you have a chance . You've got to be lucky . A lot of things have to happen , but you have to do those three . So we always try to take the high road . We always try to under-promise and over-deliver , but I think , just in general , we do the right thing in our company and that's that goes a long way .

Behzad 29:27

Did I and I . That's the feedback that I got , or the input that I got from you , even from the your partners , is that you know we love doing business with parts authority .

Randy Buller 29:38

Well , it's before Las Vegas . You know , we haven't beat them up yet .

Behzad 29:53

We haven't beat the partners up , you know , in Las Vegas for extra discounts yet . So you talk to them in November , they might not say the same thing . Yeah , I was super curious as to why your company and your employees and your partners have such , it seems , like loyalty and affection for the management team of Parts Authority and also for you , and I found a video of you did you like maybe just conceding your salary during COVID to your employees or to people need during that time ? I mean , is that , was that a one-off ? Is that ? Can you tell me a little bit about that story ?

Randy Buller 30:34

Well , you know not that big a story . You know , covid was like a crazy thing . I remember being out here in Arizona it was kind of like at the end of March or the third week of March and the stock market kept falling . I think the stock market went down like 3,000 points in one day and , and you know , we were just we weren't sure where it was going to go . I remember our projections for April were we said , boy , if we could do 50% of what we did the last April we would be happy . And but we ended up doing much better than that .

Randy Buller 31:10

May was better , but you know we were cutting back hours and right-sizing of the staff and we had a lot of concentration in New York and California , which were pretty hard hit by COVID . And there was a lot of laws and even though it was a what do they call it ? A necessary business or whatever they deemed auto parts it was , the laws were pretty strict and pretty tough . A lot of people were closed , a lot of people were sick . So I just , for the rest of the year , gave up my salary and I want to say that my partners did it also and we kicked that into a bonus for our team members At the end of the year . It got split equally among our team .

Behzad 32:04

Maybe you think that a lot of people do that , but there are not many instances of that that I've heard of .

Randy Buller 32:11

People do what they do .

Behzad 32:14

Can we tack this conversation in a different direction ? Because the sense of the conversation that I'm getting right now is that , you know , very positive growth , culture , technology , implementation , business has been successful . In my perspective , it can't all be like rainbows and butterflies and you can't always be kind of the conceding , pleasant , nice guy to be successful in such a competitive industry , and so I want to ask you actually a really specific question . And so I want to ask you actually a really specific question

Communication, Passion, and Business Success

Behzad 32:59

. But the first time I saw you on stage , the first time I saw you actually was on stage on a panel and I was standing next to somebody and said oh , it's Randy the Bull . Where did that name come from ? Have you heard that ?

Randy Buller 33:11

My last name is Buller , so some people call me Bull or whatever . But my email address forever was Randy the B and the reason it was Randy the B is like when I first joined AOL , you know , 100 years ago , I went for Randy B and it was taken . So they would recommend a password . They said , well , Randy B's taken , but Randy the B isn't . So I picked Randy the B pretty much like that the b isn't . So I picked randy the b pretty pretty much like that I was I . I didn't want to give up randy the b , I loved it and a lot of people just call me randy the b . Some people thought it stood for randy the bull or whatever , but it's just randy the b , okay so it's not from like a heart .

Behzad 33:53

You're heart charging , or I ?

Randy Buller 33:55

happen to be heart charging . You know , uh , to answer your question about being a nice guy , I probably have . I am sure I have some nice guy qualities but you know , working with me on a daily basis , the guys who work uh closely probably would say I'm a pain in the ass . I follow up on a lot of things . I definitely don't take no for an answer . Very persistent person . I'm sure my vendors feel the same way . So from that standpoint I wouldn't call myself a nice guy at all . Uh , but I think uh probably like when you have a , I think probably my teammates that I worked that closely with respected probably in a way , like you know you might remember a teacher or two from high school or or a coach or two . That was pretty rough but yeah , but made you better .

Behzad 34:56

Yeah , and I think that's probably .

Randy Buller 35:01

I like to think of it that way .

Behzad 35:03

Yeah , I mean , to me it just makes total sense because this is your business , that you and your partners started and you're in charge of it . And quote that Kevin Plank , who is what's CEO of Under Armour , is known for saying , is that you have to grab your business by the throat and drive it . There's no other way . And so I don't . I mean , it's totally reasonable that you , that somebody would need to be , you know , a little bit , a little bit tough about their business , because it's it's yours and you built it and you're growing it and the success that the business has seen is specifically because of the mentality and the business practices and the discipline of you and your co-founders . Is that that's fair to say ?

Randy Buller 35:49

That is true , you know . Just , I just don't want to . First of all , it's definitely not all about Randy . This company , my partners , you know , are still working today and have been incredibly instrumental throughout all these years and still today I get a lot of the limelight because my partners did a lot of the stuff that you know was not in the limelight . One of my partners , dave , handled all the insurance , all the accounting , all that stuff and it's kind of the back office stuff . Yaron , as I said , you know who started the business , you know , handles all the real estate and for many years you know a million other things in the business . But I was always kind of the front guy who took , you know , worked with the vendors and the sales force or the technology team , so I kind of got the visible job . So , but beyond those partners , there's also literally an army of people , and when you talk about the culture today and the people driving the business today , it's those people .

Randy Buller 37:02

And that's what I'm really excited about is the culture will live , because there's not just four of us , there's hundreds of us with that culture that are in the management team teams . So you know , that is really just what I just want to say . This company is really a team effort . It's a big company and there's a lot of people involved . So this is just not a Randy accomplishment at all . As far as like pushing , you know , the initiatives , yeah , you know it's my vision , a lot of it's my vision , and what I find is the difficult part , the most difficult part , is keeping everybody on the same page , and when something goes wrong , it's generally a drop in communication . That's the hardest thing . There's all kinds of quotes . If you look up communication quotes on Google , you'll see all these things . But the biggest part of our the biggest , they say the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it took place , that it happened in the first place . Right , and that's the part when we try to crystallize what went wrong with something . It's usually somebody thought someone else was doing it , somebody explained it incorrectly or the person received the message wrong . So a lot of what I do believe it or not is tracking down where that communication broke down and we have three things that we really tell somebody who starts with our company today and really for the last 20 years we've been telling them the same thing If you want to be successful at Parts Authority and really in life , you know these are three in business .

Randy Buller 38:54

These are three qualities you need . You need passion . We call fire in the belly . If you don't have passion , you can still do well , but you're not going to jump ahead to the top of the class . If you're in sports or in academics or in business , you have to have passion . If you want to climb to the top , you have to have great technology skills . And it was important 20 years ago but it's even more important now . People , kids today are doing Python and SQL with AI coming up . If you're not doing that stuff , you're going to be left behind .

Randy Buller 39:34

And the other thing is communication skills , and that hasn't changed one bit . Communication skills are so important that some of our people are great at it and some people are not so great at it . And I have to kind of figure out my job . Or our COO is Eric Schwartz . He has to figure out in his job how to communicate with each leader . It's different for each people . It's almost like in the United Nations everybody speaks a different language of communication . You have to make sure you're communicating effectively with each person to get message received . Message acknowledged .

Behzad 40:14

Of those three . So passion , computer skills and communication . I think , like you said , to solve a problem it's usually a communication gap and you can go physically chase it down and figure out what the communication breakdown was . So that feels like a teachable skill . The computer skills , obviously people can learn , your system can focus on it . But how do you teach the fire in the belly ?

Randy Buller 40:40

You can't . You can't teach the fire in the belly .

Randy Buller 40:44

You either have it or you don't have it . So I can tell you that today , you know , in my own business it's 1984 . So that's 40 years , probably 35 years as CEO . I can count on one hand . Still less than five people have come to me and said hey , randy , you got me doing this .

Randy Buller 41:10

But I want you to know I can do so much more . If you give me a chance , I can do this , I can do this . I work hard . I got it , I'll learn , I'll do it . Trust me with more . I can do this , I can do this . I'll work hard . I got it , I'll learn , I'll do it . You trust me with more , I can do more .

Randy Buller 41:22

One hand I have I can still count it on , and I've been saying that for 20 years . So I tell everybody that's a challenge . So I'm not sure if people don't have that kind of passion , or they don't want to work as hard , or they don't want to achieve it , or they really don't like working with me and they're like you know , maybe that's what it is . But if they do , you know I look at it . I could tell you , speaking with other people in my position , they kind of say the same thing .

Randy Buller 41:53

Not a lot of people are putting themselves up for it , and I think that's one piece of advice I would give to youngsters out there is , you know , let your boss know you can do more , you want more . And that's a big first step , because the first time a project comes up and I think to myself , okay , who would be good for this ? You know , if I have somebody top of mind , I know who I want to pick . But if I have somebody top of mind that said they could do it , I'm going to , I'm going to give that .

Behzad 42:23

That's actually really good . That's a really good structure to work with in terms of teaching somebody fire in the belly , because I think it's not exactly synonymous with work hard . You know , fire in the belly , um , and ? And passion could be interpreted as okay , I will just do my job with more . You know , focus or effort , um , but it's not that . It's actually more about commitment to . It sounds like it's more . It's more like commitment to your own career and to the business and to just wanting to produce more of an output for the organization and for yourself . Is that like ?

Randy Buller 43:10

It's a tough one , bizad . You know it's a tough question . You know things have changed through the years , through the generations , right ? So there's a lot of work-life balance talk these last 10 , 15 years . People talk a lot more today about work-life balance and that's really important . Work-life balance is extremely important . You hear a lot of people that worked their whole life got burnt out , died at their desk that type really important Work-life balance is extremely important . But you know you hear a lot of people that worked their whole life got burnt out , you know , died at their desk , that type of stuff or never got to see their children or didn't get a chance to go to Little League games . And there's , you know . So things have changed , right , you can still , in my opinion for sure I have people on my team that have been doing this for 25 years you can still be a great father and go to coach Little League and still have passionate business .

Randy Buller 44:11

You know it's not easy to be well-balanced but , like I said , people you know I have people that work for me that say they want to do these things . But if you want , you know , if you want to get to the top of the class , if you want to get ahead . If you want to make the most money in the company and you want to be the most successful financially or title-wise or whatever you have to be willing to outperform the rest of the people in the company . It is a competition and sometimes you know there's people that are naturally better at certain things . Some people are better salesmen , some people are better technologists , some people are better negotiators , some people are better with a lot of different skills . It doesn't have to be . Our company has a lot of different departments that you could be skillful at and rise to the top , but the commitment and the effort has to be there all the time and there's a big difference from 1980 to 2025 . There's a big difference . And one to 2025 . There's a big difference .

Randy Buller 45:20

And one of the differences is 1980 , when I was thinking of going into business back in 1980 , there was a lot more mom and pop businesses . You could have a stationery store , you could have a shoe store . You could own a restaurant . You could own an auto parts store , you could go into the clothing business . There was literally hundreds of things people could do , entrepreneurial things . But if you look around the landscape today , you have Home Depot and Lowe's . You're not going to be very successful with a little hardware store Auto parts you have these giant , massive retails . It's really hard to just open up an auto parts store and buy as well and have the economy scale of marketing and all the things that a retailer would have . But pick the industry restaurants . But pick the industry restaurants . There's just chain after chain after restaurants and just about every single business is like that or every single vertical is like that . So the people that are successful are yesterday's entrepreneurs that own single businesses .

Randy Buller 46:38

No-transcript . If you wanted to stay in business , if you had a clothing store , you had to be better than the other clothing stores . You couldn't mail it in . You maybe got lucky for a couple of years , but if you wanted to be in business for 30 years , you had to be very good and you had to work hard and you had to have a great system . And today that translates to the people you know at these chains , like Mike's , my locations or some of the other guys in our business , like a Fisher or factory , motor parts or auto wares or auto zone or any of these chains . The people that are leaders of those companies are yesterday's entrepreneurs and they have to have the same dedication and passion and drive to be successful at those jobs , and some of them have it .

Behzad 47:32

So you said you could name like five people who you think had that drive in your company who have come to you and said you know I can do more , people who you think had that drive in your company have come to you and said you know I can do more . Were any of those in the past , uh , 10 years ? Were any of those people in the past like 10 years , you know ? Then we said , like you've had like free on one hand oh , yeah , yeah , they're all still .

Randy Buller 47:51

Yeah , they're still working .

Behzad 47:52

I guess I mean like it is there , uh , you mentioned , in the last 10 years there's this concept of like work , work , life balance has really kind of come in a little bit a lot more as a demand of employees .

Randy Buller 48:08

It's not a demand of employees . I call them team members . There are teammates , you know they're our teammates , you know , and I , you know I don't

Adapting to Changing Workforce Dynamics

Randy Buller 48:22

. Work-life balance is a real thing and it's a good thing , but there's a way to do it , especially , you know , with COVID . You know everybody started working at home and that became a thing in our country and around the world .

Randy Buller 48:38

A lot of people love to work from home , but not everybody's cut out to work from home . Some people , especially younger people , really need to learn in an office environment . It's really tough . Or they need to learn in a store environment . That's where you pick up a lot of vital information about face-to-face interaction , sales , dealing with people . It's a completely different setup today than it was 20 or 30 years , but achieving work-life balance is so much easier today . I had a long drive yesterday . I was on the phone the entire time on the long drive . I was driving for five hours , but I was able to do business calls the entire five hours . It was practically working . If I take a plane today , I log in and I'm at my laptop the entire time . So that wasn't available 30 years ago . So work-life balance is definitely achievable .

Behzad 49:44

So do you think technology , the ability to kind of be on the road and you know , balance your work and your life , meaning you can kind of do if you're let's just assume you're a hardworking and successful employee , but you know your job is kind of do if you're let's just assume you're you're a hard-working and successful employee , but you know your , your job is kind of wherever you are . Technology enables that . Does everybody ? Do you think everyone perceives it that way ? Or sometimes is the perception that technology enables me to do my job faster , so I need to , I can shut down earlier and I can go get my work life balance I will tell you a story .

Randy Buller 50:16

Um , there was a guy I spoke at a Yang conference like 10 years ago , and a guy , a guy , they asked me to speak at a Yang conference . You know Yang Young Automotive Networking group .

Behzad 50:34

Networking group right .

Randy Buller 50:36

It's always a great group and I love working with those guys and girls . And this guy says to me you know , I took this job at a place and after , you know , after about a month , some guy quit and they gave me his job to do too . I'm like okay , and he goes , so I'm doing two jobs . I'm like okay , and he goes , but I'm done by 11 o'clock in the morning . I'm like okay . So he says well , I feel like I should be able to leave at least by 12 . Like I'm doing two jobs , why should I leave at 12 ? I'm like I don't think that's how it works .

Randy Buller 51:12

He goes well , I'm good at computers and I'm able to do those jobs . So I'm able to do those jobs , you know . So , like why wouldn't ? I was able to automate this and do that , so why would it be tough ? So I couldn't . I still was never able to get through the guy and I said , look . Eventually I was like look , guys like me who are 30 years older than you , we also have computers and I don't look to go home at 11 o'clock . I look to . I look to work till 11 o'clock because now I can stay along . Even you know I could stay around later .

Randy Buller 51:41

Maybe I would have had to retire 15 years ago if I didn't have computers . But now I have all this power in front of me to work faster and work better . And you might not have competition in that one office you're working for in California , but you've got plenty of competition in the world . People are out there , you know , busting their butt to get it done and they're using everything in the world , including artificial intelligence . So you're not going to get it's not going to get any easier out there .

Randy Buller 52:09

It might appear to you , but my advice to everybody is it's still a competition out there and I , you know personally maybe it's my age , like you know I know it's important to have a positive attitude and positive reinforcements for everything . But in business you really don't get trophies for coming in fourth place in business and fifth place in business . You really have to do a better job if you want to stay in business and you want to pay your bills and pay your teammates good wages and provide the level of service that you need to to your customers and all that stuff . You have to win . You know you can't come in third or fourth and expect those things to happen , and that's one of the tough things that I have . I might not be saying it right , but on one hand you have to win . On the other hand , you have to respect the differences in generations and people's needs .

Behzad 53:16

If I can kind of replay . What I think you just said is that I confused myself . No , no , no , I think I thought it was actually really , really eloquent and and thoughtful .

Behzad 53:26

I think that the you were kind of juxtaposing the dynamic between technology enabling us to do more , but that doesn't mean work less . It actually means you can be more efficient and get more done . And you need to constantly involve in technology because you always have to keep track of the objective to win and you have to out-compete on the technology . You have to get every edge and every advantage you can because you can't lose sight of the fact that you have competition abroad and also in your you know , in your in the workforce . So you can't lose sight of the objective to win . Is that a fair ?

Behzad 54:07

That's , that's exactly what I'm saying and do you find that the there is a there's a kind of community going back to communication gaps , a communication gap on that critical component there being the win part that you have to ? It's not like there are no trophies for everybody kind of thing .

Randy Buller 54:26

My experience in business is there's a limit to how much profit you can make . We're not trying to break the bank , but there's a limit . Your customers won't let you charge a certain amount . You have to provide a certain amount of service , pricing competent people , and if you don't do that you're not going to get the business . So you have to do it to a certain level , but there's nothing stopping on the downside , if you're selling too cheap , nobody's going to say hey , I can buy it for more somewhere else .

Randy Buller 55:08

People will continue , so there's no stopgap on losses . It's very easy to lose money , so I wish I could just put a plug in and say okay , I'm automatically setting my margins to this amount , my payroll to this amount and everything's going to stay the same . But conditions today are so dynamic that it's constantly changing and we have to be so on our game just to make sure everything's working .

Behzad 55:45

And I think I was addressing more the question about is there a generation gap ?

Behzad 55:47

You know , is there a generational gap between there's this knock ? I think that in the new generations everyone gets a trophy and or the younger generation , or the younger generation of the new generation , but , uh , that everyone gets a trophy and um , that we kind of need to be sensitive to employees , um , needs and um , you know various sensitivities and I , I just you know , I acknowledge that on one hand , but I also am just curious how you have adapted to that , because it's a reality of the workforce in a way . But you clearly , just through your energy and through your history , it's clear that since 1984 , when you were running your business , to now , you've seen a ton of change . Um , you've seen a ton of change . You've had to hire , you know , people in different age groups and different generations who have different experiences to different walks of life in different geographies . But , um , now you are , you know , 40 years into it and you're hiring people in their twenties . So , um is , is that gap hard to bridge sometimes , because is it very different than it used to be ?

Randy Buller 57:02

Well , it helps being a parent , right ? So I have two children in their 30s right , they work at your company , right ?

Behzad 57:12

Yeah , they work for the company .

Randy Buller 57:18

They're great . But it helps that I have a relationship with them and a relationship with their friends , so I kind of know what that generation , how they think . But we've also done plenty of training on the different generations and what a baby boomer like myself you know values and what you know . Each generation values there's been three or four different ones what each one's value , how they rate the different things in their life . But I will tell you that one of the things that it's not a pet peeve , but it's another piece of advice Today and for years now they've been telling kids at school hey , you're going to change jobs , you're probably going to have 10 different jobs in your life , et cetera , et cetera .

Randy Buller 58:04

I don't want a company like ours and I've seen it firsthand with lawyers and things like that . There's a lot of value in sticking out in your job . Someone might switch a job after two years and go to another company and switch for three years and go to a headhunter . And there's plenty of those companies around . Monster and all those types of companies tell you in a company like ours , if people and many other companies , if you stick around and you do your thing and you have that desire and you have put that effort in , you're going to end up at the top of the class .

Randy Buller 58:50

If that's what you want , if you're trying to make your way to the top , a lot of people are in the right spot . They just don't know it . But the timing might not be right . I mean the timing they might want to earn that much in three months from now or next week , but there might be somebody in that job . But if they stay through and do the right things , they have to have confidence in their own ability . Their time will come and I know in our company we have a lot of those opportunities are coming every day and some people have done a great job taking advantage of those spots that opened up .

Behzad 59:30

And how do you ? Personally , it sounds like you had to just navigate a ton of change on your side of the equation . Just being Randy Buller , I mean , how do you think about change ? You know , how do you think about evolving and changing .

Randy Buller 59:45

I personally think , you know I am a change ready person , like to the extreme . I personally think that there are times when you know I'd be called stubborn . But I think I'm a change ready person and you know part of it has to do with all these conversions that we do and maybe a little bit immune to it . But I've been through so many changes in this business that if you're not changing a little bit every day with the times , then one day you wake up and your compass is pointed in the opposite direction and you'll never be able to turn fast enough .

Randy Buller 1:00:26

So I really do believe you have to make small , incremental changes every day . And again , a lot of them are communication based . Is everybody even on the same page of where we're going ? You know change is an important . Look at our society . Look at , like , what's going on just today with artificial intelligence . They're predicting massive change . So like if you're not ready to make some changes , you know what's going to happen . You're going to be left behind .

Behzad 1:00:53

Yeah , so change is hard , but positioning yourself to be ready to change is probably the takeaway from that .

Decision-Making and Business Risks

Behzad 1:01:01

Moving from change to kind of like decision making . I saw a LinkedIn post that you wrote and the conclusion of it was so was so helpful for me . Sometimes I , uh , I I tend to look for the perfect answer or the right answer . I call it threading the needle , and it comes with , obviously , you know , a lot of brain power and sometimes more time than needed . Um , and reading your post kind of helped and the conclusion of it . I'd like for you to talk about that a little bit , but the conclusion of it was something along the lines of you know , you either make the right decision or you make the decision right . You , you know it's the follow-up of the decision . That is the most important part of it , can you ? So that was helpful for me . Can you just touch on that a little bit ?

Randy Buller 1:01:51

Sure , like well . First of all , if there's a hundred decisions to be made , 80 of them are easy , right , you have all the information and if you ask 10 competent people , they'll make the same decision . So it's an easy decision , right ? The tough decisions are the ones that are like 50-50 or 55-45 or 45-55 or 60-40 . Should we do this or should we do this ? And you know , if you ask 10 people , four people say this and six people say that . Those are the tough decisions .

Randy Buller 1:02:26

But sometimes you have to make those decisions . For instance , you're dealing with a fuel pump company that goes out of business . Well , you have to pick competitor A or competitor B . And you know , four people say pick competitor A and six people say pick competitor B . Well , what do you choose ? Well , there's obviously good reasons for both , right ? This is just a silly example , but there's good reasons for both , right . So you're going to pick one .

Randy Buller 1:02:57

But then you have to stack the deck in your favor . Right , you have to . You said you pick one , so what are you going to do to influence it ? You have to do a lot of work . You got to make people know your brand . You have to make sure your price is competitive . You have to make sure you get buy-in to the customers that did prefer the other brand and you have to explain your reasons why . And then you have to monitor it and you have to make sure that you're selling more fuel pumps three months later than you were three months earlier . You want to make sure that this change exceeded expectations .

Randy Buller 1:03:30

And if they didn't , what happened ? What went wrong ? And then it goes back to the communication oh , we never followed up . Oh , wow , we didn't realize we lost that account . So what went wrong ? So the follow-up and dogging it until you get it right , that's the real key to good decision-making there . And my friend Robbie , who's in the business , robbie Reifberg , is the guy who says either make the right decision or make the decision right . He's the one who says that and I agree with him .

Behzad 1:04:07

I love that line , so I'm going to ask Robbie .

Randy Buller 1:04:10

This is only good lines , yeah .

Behzad 1:04:11

I'm going to ask him for permission to borrow it too , and I'm going to tell him .

Randy Buller 1:04:15

He'll rent it to you . He's a rep . He charges 3% .

Behzad 1:04:19

That's a pretty fair rate for that wisdom . But when you're making decisions , a lot of them come with risk . Can you just talk about how you think about taking risks for your business ? Is it along the same lines of we just got to follow through and make it , you know , like mitigate the risk downside as much as possible , or is it that you calculate a bunch up front ?

Randy Buller 1:04:46

Well , I'm not a risk averse person . You know , I think we're really good at auto parts and so , like , a lot of our acquisitions have been risky . You know , we've expanded to different areas but we were very successful in Washington DC and Maryland . We were very successful in Arizona , so we kind of replicated what we were doing in New York . So when I expanded to a new region now we kind of expect that we're going to do pretty well , we have a good formula and so it's not as risky as we thought we thought . We know we can do a good , solid computer conversion . We know that our people are great and you know we're going to take . We know we have confidence and trust in ourselves and we know that the acquisitions we made and the team members we have are going to speak well on our behalf because they've had positive experiences and so like those types of things aren't that risky . You know I don't think I do any crazy stuff and I always check myself Is this crazy ? But we'll do some cutting-edge things .

Behzad 1:06:04

If you're comfortable sharing . Can you tell me about a time when you took a risk ? I mean , you have 40-plus years of experience here , so it might be tough to recall , although you seemingly have just an impeccable memory Uh , when you took a risk and it was just an absolute home run and or just made a decision , and when you the outcome was like catastrophic . You know , the way I think of these things , just from like a human level , is that there are some moments in our lives that stand out to us and they're just burning our memories . We know the exact location setting time . You know how we felt in that moment . You know there's some kind of societal events that that happen and we're we're all kind of like subject to them . We all can place ourselves exactly in 40 years of business because basically it's , it's been , uh , you know , parallel to your life the entire time . Do you have those kinds of memories where you just when you think of like something that went wrong , there's just this one thing , or something that went amazingly right , there's this one thing ?

Randy Buller 1:07:14

Well , first of all it's it's important to separate personal from business , right ? So you know , thank God , our business has been , you know , very successful knocking on wood over the years and I can't think of anything that we did catastrophic at all , nothing even close . Catastrophic at all , nothing even close . But you know , on a personal level , you know , there's been around and seen firsthand , you know many terrible , terrible things . One thing I always ask , and I advise and talk about it with you know , close people . You know , and it's a good piece of advice for anybody when something's bothering you , you know , on a scale of one to 10 , what is this really ? And you know , you know the dog's leash . You know not being that great is not a 10 , you know it's a , it's a one , you know . But somebody you know who's sick , that's a 10 , you know . Or somebody who died , or that's a 10 , right ? So nothing in business has ever been , you know , other than the personal tragedies that happen . You know there's been stuff like that , but we haven't had any kind of you know business thing that's even on that chart . So let's set that thing . Yeah , thanks , that chart . So let's set that thing , yeah , thanks .

Randy Buller 1:08:40

So a lot of the things that happen in business . Look , I don't like when we hate to lose a customer . That's happened over the years . It's happened a couple times where a customer got really bad at us or vice versa . We hate that . We try to do the right thing for our customers all the time . We hate to part ways with a team member . You know it's both ways . If we have to part ways with that team member or a team member quits us , and you know that's very personal , we hate that . But I guess you know some of the things is , occasionally we butt heads with a supplier and they're trying to stay in business and we're trying to stay in business and even though we can do great things together , sometimes our interests are diametrically opposed because we're , you know it comes down to we need to buy it for less and they need to sell it for more . Sometimes that creates a little bit of stress . But I can't think of a single thing Now .

Randy Buller 1:09:49

I can tell you that when we do acquisitions , especially the bigger ones and we've done a few of those , starting with I guess the first real , you know , major , major one that was well , I guess Washington DC caused me a little stress in the beginning , I was down there for six months , but then when we bought Woodbury in the Bronx , it was a big distributor . By the time we got it up and running and we got things going , but by the time all the noise went away and my life got back to normal . That probably was a year when we bought , when we expanded in Atlanta , it was another year that kind of , before things got all calm again . When we bought Metro in California , that was a real year of turmoil before things got all calm again . When we bought Metro in California , that was a real year of turmoil .

Randy Buller 1:10:44

And when we bought IMC from AutoZone back in 2018 , another year of my life and a lot of our team was in turmoil . But I guess one of the things I would say during those times was if you want diamonds , you know one of the things that you're going to have , one of the ingredients is pressure . Yeah , and there's a lot of pressure that goes into those things , but you don't get from point a to point b without without that , and so when we take on an opportunity like that , we know we're signing up for some pressure . And so those I wouldn't say they were catastrophic , but I would say they were .

Behzad 1:11:26

They're challenging and they put the business under pressure , put you personally under pressure , the team under pressure , and does that stop you from does it ? You know , is there kind of like a reflection period and you're like I can't go through that again anytime soon ?

Randy Buller 1:11:41

You know actually all four of those that I mentioned . I've worked out beautifully , like unbelievably well , but like what you discussed earlier , like the cultural changes , you know the line changes , you know putting up with it .

Behzad 1:11:58

You know what carries me through it , you know putting up with it .

Randy Buller 1:11:59

Actually you know what carries me through it . Though , bazant , tell me I'm doing this really since 1980 . I'm in the auto parts business and you know from the very beginning . You know Yaron took me in and from the very beginning you know like we are a family business . So from the very beginning , even before I had an ownership stake in the business , we were always trying to improve this business . And so now it's from 1980 to it's what is that ? 45 years . Okay , that I've been in the business .

Randy Buller 1:12:32

Okay , every single one of those days , every single one of those days , we have tried to make our company better , right ? So no matter what happens , good or bad , if something bad goes on , I can get on with that customer , myself or supplier or teammate , and say we have tried to make this thing better every single day for 45 years and before me , the 10 years that was around before me were seven years before I came on Every single day , this company has tried to get better and do the right thing , and if something happens to go wrong , I can trace it back to what went wrong , why it went wrong and what we did about it , and I will never feel bad or make an apology . I'll make an apology if someone got a wrong delivery or late delivery or somebody did something wrong , but I never have to apologize for the effort that goes into this company . Nobody works harder than our company at doing the right thing for all of our constituents that are involved here , including the industry in general .

Randy Buller 1:13:36

So I know that I have something to sell and the one thing I learned is that somebody in sales if you believe in what you're selling it's the easiest thing to sell . And the easiest thing in the world for me to sell to anybody is parts authority . It's the easiest thing because I know what I put into it . It's a lot of days , it's a lot of hours . That's the easiest thing for me to sell .

Behzad 1:14:00

That's awesome . So you mentioned your competitors . You know the competitive dynamics are only getting harder . You're finding some of them move into your market a little bit and you know we spent a lot of time in the last , on the last 45 years . But as you think about the future , the future turning the lens the other way , the next maybe 10 years , five years how do you see the market kind of shaping up ?

Randy Buller 1:14:27

Well , it's a great question . So I'll answer your question in terms of competition , right ? So they say if you're running from a bear , you don't have to be faster than the bear , you have to be faster than your friends . Okay , because the bear is going to catch somebody and the bear is not going to catch parts authority ,

Navigating Business Challenges and Gratitude

Randy Buller 1:14:46

right ? So when I look at our competitors , like , yes , it's competitive , there's more challenges . There's technology challenges , cultural challenges , there's workforce challenges , there's tariffs , there's inflation . There's all these incredible challenges in our business , and some of them weren't there 10 years ago . Some of them were .

Randy Buller 1:15:09

But the fact remains everybody is playing under the same circumstances . Everybody , same circumstances , everybody . So whether the retailers want to be more like a traditional aftermarket distributor and do more deliveries to repair shops , they have to put a lot more into their service than they ever did . They have to put a lot more inventory on their shelf . It's going to really drive up their expenses really really high . It's going to really drive up their expenses really really high . And , as far as you know , very comfortable with , you know , competing against the retailers , I'm very comfortable comparing , competing against the biggest of our competitors . And look , you know we do try to come in first place . We try to be first call , we try to be the best of the group and so you know , for the foreseeable future , I think we're doing all the right things to you know to do that . I feel very good . I feel very good about the auto parts business . I think EV will play a small part in it but , you know , not for a very long time . And if ever in the United States and this the aftermarket has always been able to change and been able to answer the call .

Randy Buller 1:16:26

We deal with the best suppliers in the world and I have parts authority remains a very , very large percentage of branded parts . Our suppliers are mostly the top brands in the industry . It's still a good 85% 90% of our business . Some of our competitors have gone to all private brand and outsourcing and while there's a place for it , there's also a place for the branded parts . I think technicians know exactly what they're getting when they open the box . It's not like a retail customer who buys parts once or twice a year . A technician is buying parts 10 times a day and they know exactly what's in the box and they know exactly what they're getting . These guys are craftsmen and they're really good at it , and so I love to stick with the brands and what the brands represent , and we try to have a symbiotic relationship with them , so it's beneficial to both of us .

Behzad 1:17:31

That's great . So you , in all of this conversation I've picked up notions of you know , thankfulness for your success and gratitude . Is that a practice of yours , or am I just like kind of reading into it a little ?

Randy Buller 1:17:51

bit . Gratitude is a practice and it's a good healthy . And it's a good healthy . You asked earlier about , like , have you had any catastrophes ? Like you got to ask yourself is this a one or is this a 10 , right , and on the grand scale of life , most business things are not a 10 . But in the grand scale of business , things can be a 10 , right . So , but I was lucky enough to run into a gentleman many years ago at Canyon Ranch and he actually was like a life coach or gratitude coach and he makes a big deal and I still get an email from him . His name is Jerry Poster . I still get a thing Every Tuesday it's Gratitude's Day and I'd never , ever go without opening his email every Tuesday .

Randy Buller 1:18:52

I will not open that email . I open it and read it and it's just to be grateful for the small things . I mean he's grateful for coffee , a laptop , you know his dog , and I have my own gratitude list that I have . It's maybe seven or eight things that if I'm feeling down on myself a little bit , I'll open that thing up and just say , yeah , so gratitude is a real thing . In fact , I hired that guy and he spoke to probably 200 or 300 of our people . We flew around the country it was in California , georgia , many different regions and we had him in there for a couple days and our team thought it was a nice little touch .

Behzad 1:19:42

So that's why your team , I think , is there's so much camaraderie it sounds like in your organization , at least from what I pick up Because when you discover something that helps you , you share it with your team . I hope so .

Randy Buller 1:19:57

Again , this is my opinion . My opinion is I'm also . I have a good sense of humor . My friend Rob Feinerman tells me it's only because it's only my suppliers and my team members that laugh at me .

Behzad 1:20:09

But I have my jokes . Yeah , I've heard you have jokes and you haven't shared any yet , but maybe we get an opportunity to share one . Jokes and you haven't shared any yet , but maybe maybe we get an opportunity to share one . Um , when you so you share , you share things with uh , you know the with your company , and I think that that's probably part of your success in terms of keeping it a team together . Do you have like special communication practices that you that you think are fairly unique , that you've discovered that maybe I could , I could take back to my team ?

Randy Buller 1:20:39

Well , well before COVID , our company was doing the video chat thing . I think the first one we used was , you know , skype . And you know , as we expanded to Washington and Arizona and Georgia you know , we're all over the country you know , sometimes our teammates would say , okay , I've got to go down to Georgia . I'm like what , are you going there ? Oh , I got a meeting . I'm like you're not going to Georgia for a meeting . Like what , that's crazy . The airport is , you know , takes an hour and a half just to get to the airport . Like why can't you just , you know , have a phone call or do a Skype ? So we got everybody on Skype and then after a while , skype wasn't really very secure . So we went to , I think it was , google Chats , and so , probably three or four years before COVID , our whole company was on Google Chats so we could reach anybody anytime and , like I said , there's certain people in the company that are great with communication . So you need somebody who you know it's like back then it was like the Jetsons , right , it was almost futuristic , but you can have meetings , you can talk to people face-to-face .

Randy Buller 1:21:51

And what I really enjoyed is working with the younger folks in my company . My son who's at Daughter is one of them . My son and a bunch of other guys you know in their like late 20s and 30s and when I was like kind of working , showing in the business , teaching the business , and a couple other guys you know by age were working with them . We would drop these cultural references , like from a movie or something , and people would be like you know , they wouldn't know what we're talking about . And fortunately there was YouTube . So they're like , okay , you don't get that . So I put on a film clip from the movie Stripes or a film clip from the Exorcist or a film clip from you know a hundred different movies and I'd say this is what I was referring to .

Behzad 1:22:42

That's such a good move .

Randy Buller 1:22:44

And so not only do we have now we can share those cultural references , but that's a big deal , right ? You know all these , you know we saw . You know , back then we didn't have video games and all that stuff , we had movies and TV shows . We didn't have video games and all that stuff , we had movies and TV shows . So that was one great way to bridge the generation gap yeah , the generation gap you could still call it that and we have a lot of fun with it and make jokes about it . Same thing with music . Some of the guys are really into music , so we share music back and forth and lyrics and things like that . I have a couple of guys that are really into that , so you find a common ground . But I find that's a great way to relate to different people and they relate back that way .

Behzad 1:23:36

I'm happy to hear I'm not alone on the movie clips . I had a co-worker once kind of critique means . You know . I was talking to a guy that I worked with and we just all day were going back and forth on movie quotes and she said I don't get it , why is it that you can remember a quote from the most obscure movie you've seen , once , like 20 years ago , but you cannot remember my birthday , which is the same day every single year ? And I just said I don't know . But it's really helpful that you know there's a message that we can convey to each other through this thing and just like a quote of a movie . So I'm glad I'm not alone on that .

Randy Buller 1:24:08

Yeah , well , that's a whole . You know . You should ask her if it's on a one to 10 , how big is that ?

Behzad 1:24:19

It came off as a 10 , so I didn't really dig in . So , thinking about the whole everything to date , you know your career , all the acquisitions , starting when you started with the . You know the business the way it was and you know the talent the way it was and having to navigate it all the way through .

Randy Buller 1:24:43

Now , if you had to start over , today and you know , just you were 24 again or 23, . Could you do it all over again ? I would say yes , you know , I know I have somebody starting in a company who's 40 . And he's , you know , having a kid . He's recently married and I'm starting him as a , you know , at the bottom , knowing he's going to have a fast rise , but it's the way . Have a fast rise but it's the way to learn the business . You know , if you want to be in the auto parts business , learn the auto parts .

Randy Buller 1:25:26

Everybody I know in the auto parts business started as a driver or a stockman . Went to work . However , they got there and when there was a family business and they just took a job and they started learning and then there was another job to do and successful people , like I said , took the initiative into their own hand . They didn't have to wait . If they were a stock man and there was a line of people at the counter , they started helping customers . The next time it was busy , someone said , hey , jimmy , get up here and help , and that's how people get ahead . That's what you do in any business .

Randy Buller 1:26:05

So the answer is whatever I would do would kind of be this Whether it's sports or anything else , playing an instrument in business , you have to do those things . You've got to put the hours in to be good at it .

Behzad 1:26:19

Well , I can't thank you enough for this conversation . I want to ask I have this kind of final question . It's oriented around you know you have influenced so many people in your role . You've worked with so many people have worked with you . You've had vendors that work with you , partners that work with you , business partners , employees , and you've had an impression on all of them . And if you think about your own life , you know there are people that your dad's friend who led you , steered you towards account and gave you that advice . You know , obviously that has never left you . Obviously that has never left you . If I talk to somebody who worked with Randy Bowler five , ten years from now , what do you want them to say about you ? What do you want them to say the impression that you had on them was , or the lesson that you left them with ?

Randy Buller 1:27:13

I guess I pride myself . I like to think of myself as always taking the high road , always doing the right thing , but , you know , as a hard worker and not taking no for an answer , and having the courage of my convictions and being , you know , a good teacher and a good mentor . You know , my partner , yaron , was like the best teacher I ever met . He was such a great teacher to so many of us . So , you know , as a role model , I thought of that Like the last .

Randy Buller 1:27:47

You know , 10 or 15 years , the last 10 years or so I've worked so hard on , you know , bringing in the next generation of talent to Port St George , but not only bringing in younger people , but spending so much time with them . You know , teaching them the job and the nuances of the job , and you know how to make those decisions themselves . And it's almost like our meetings on Google chat are frequently like game shows , like okay , here's the question , okay , what's your answer ? And this might be five or six of us , and I make them write it down on a piece of paper , including us , including myself , and we'll all hold up our answer . Who's the closest ? Because it's always , you know , it always depends on the situation . But we have people in pricing and negotiating and replenishment and IT and HR and operations that are like I have a guy , my operations , I can't even say each one of those apartments is like really deep and really deep with young people .

Randy Buller 1:28:59

When I say young , young , you know like ready to go another 20 years easy , you know , at a very , very high level . They're very , very highly trained . So I feel really great about that . I would look back and say that's what I would want people to say and say , wow , we really built a really strong organization , because it's not the same as running one store . It's like it evolved into this 300 location plus business and how could we you know what were the needs of that 300 plus business to go forward ? So I think that that's what I'm proud of and that's what I think the legacy of our company would be . That's amazing .

Behzad 1:29:49

Not that I'm going anywhere . No , no , clearly not . You seem to you still have a ton of energy , obviously . You said you're a joke teller . You want to send us out with a couple of jokes .

Randy Buller 1:30:01

I'd love to send you out with a couple of jokes , but my HR department has discouraged me from telling jokes over the years and it'd be very hard for me to tell a joke without offending somebody . So I want to take the high road on the joke telling .

Anecdotes and Practical Jokes

Behzad 1:30:17

All right , you mentioned your business partner , Yaron a lot . What do you think he would say about you if I asked him about you ?

Randy Buller 1:30:25

What kind ?

Behzad 1:30:25

of funny thing . Would he leave me with ?

Randy Buller 1:30:28

He's got a lot of funny stories about me and vice versa . He's a great joke teller too , but probably a great teacher . But the funniest thing I could—one of the things that always makes me laugh about Yaron is like over the years he's given me advice and frequently I put that advice into play and I'll go back to him like a couple years later and I'll go like you know , I did that thing . He's like what thing ? You know , remember , you told me , when this happens and this happens , do this . And I'll go like you know , I did that thing . He's like what thing ? He's like you know , remember , you told me , when this happens and this happens , do this . And I'm like yeah , and I'm like , oh , I did that and it worked like a charm . And he goes . You did that . I'm like yeah , it worked like a charm . And he's like I was only kidding , like I can't believe you did that . I'm like , yeah , what do you mean ? You were only kidding , and so he's done that . He goes . I don't even remember telling you that Some high-stakes practical jokes .

Randy Buller 1:31:23

Yeah , so sometimes stuff like that happens .

Behzad 1:31:26

That's funny , Randy , this was amazing . I really appreciate you sitting down and spending the time with me and I think people are going to love this . Thanks so much .

Randy Buller 1:31:33

Okay , thank you .