Building Excellence: How Successful Transportation Leaders Shape Culture and Brand

In this special episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast, we take a journey through some moments from past episodes about the impact of proper driver training. Host James Blain from PAX Training reflects on key elements that have shaped their discussions on training, customer service, and building a strong brand in the transportation industry. Featuring clips and insights from industry leaders like Bruce Heinrich, Tom Halsnik, Tiffany Hinton, Michelle Petelicki, and Athena Grimm. This episode dives deep into the importance of quality training, emotional intelligence, brand consistency, and internal culture. 

Chapters
0:00 Welcome
2:27 Bruce Heinrich
12:43 Tom Halsnik
23:42 Charlie Horky
33:07 Tiffany Hinton
39:31 Michelle Petilicki
46:41 Athena Grimm
52:17 Closing Thoughts

Listen the full episodes from our guests:

The Customer Experience: From the First Phone Call to the Final Thank You, with Bruce Heinrich: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2400189/episodes/16247937

Mastering Customer Service in Chauffeured Transportation: Insights from Tom Halsnik: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2400189/episodes/16432125

Rock N’ Roll Pioneer: Charlie Horky’s Epic Journey in Ground Transportation: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2400189/episodes/16977323

Driving Sustainability: Tiffany Hinton's Influence on the Future of Ground Transportation: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2400189/episodes/16553236

Charting a New Course: Exploring the Future of Motorcoach with Michelle Petelicki: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2400189/episodes/17228621

The RAISE UP Mindset: Athena Grimm’s Blueprint for Business and Personal Growth: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2400189/episodes/16553158

At Driving Transactions, Ken Lucci and his team offer financial analysis, KPI reviews,  for specific purposes like improving profitability, enhancing the value of the enterprise business planning and buying and selling companies. So if you have any of those needs, please give us a call or check us out at www.drivingtransactions.com.

Pax Training is your  all in one solution designed to elevate your team's skills, boost passenger satisfaction, and keep your business ahead of the curve. Learn more at www.paxtraining.com/gtp

Connect with Kenneth Lucci, Principle Analyst at Driving Transactions:
https://www.drivingtransactions.com/

Connect with James Blain, President at PAX Training:
https://paxtraining.com/

Transcript

James Blain: 0:25

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the Ground Transformation Podcast. We have had all kinds of amazing guests, we've had all kinds of episodes, and one of the things I wanted to do, and I'm gonna try and take you guys through today, is a little bit of a journey back through what I thought were some of the most key elements that we've had so far when it comes to training, customer service, and your brand. That's where I live, right? At PAX Training. That's kind of my whole focus is getting people the right training so they can do exactly what they need to do to create that amazing experience to build the company, right? Making sure owners, drivers. Passengers, everybody gets peace of mind. So one of the things that I have in one of my favorite books by a guy named Guy Snodgrass, who is a former Top Gun Naval pilot, is his top guns top 10. And one of the things he talks about is going back and doing a review, a mission debrief, kind of looking at what you have and trying to figure out what do we do right? What can we do better? What's the room for improvement? So I sat down recently and I decided to do that with a podcast. And so in this episode. We're going to listen to some of the clips that I thought were the most valuable, and we're gonna build that up. These are really not in a top 10 order, but more so in an order that I thought made sense just in having the conversation to get us kicked off. I thought it would be absolutely fitting to go back to one of our very first episodes with my business partner here at Pax Training Bruce Heinrich. Bruce started at the Risk Carlton. Part of what he learned there was that he had a passion for customer service. He came back to Leader Limousine in Kansas City and literally started his company with a borrowed car and a cell phone. And one of the neat things about that is he was able to bring that Ritz Carlton experience into his brand. And so I want to kind of start with that clip and have us kind of go back to that moment and look a little bit at what you can learn there. Let's, let's jump to that clip.

Bruce Heinrich: 2:26

You really need to have somebody that is, I'm relational, so it's really easy for me to hire'cause I hire like-minded people is people that have a heart for service, that love taking care of people that are, that bring positive energy. Yeah. And you know, if you want to get down to the basics, people are either bringing energy or they're taking it right? They're either makers or takers. And so I'm looking for makers. I'm looking for people that I want to be around, that I enjoy working with, that are gonna be fun to be in the office that, you know, I'd even, wouldn't be bad to hang out with after the office stuff. And, uh, you know, just good people, really good character people. And so you gotta start with that and in the office as well, because they are, they're your direct communication, right? Especially. You know, with phone calls. So for high end, we still do a lot of phone calls. You know, really you wanna make it easy for a customer to book. We know the commercial back a few years ago with the easy button. You want to give'em the easy button. So whether it's a phone call, whether it's booking online, you just wanna make it easy and convenient. So for our uh, CSRs, we call'em client Solutions representatives. I've created a, a program called Eight Steps to Closing the Sale, and, uh, but really the first thing is a warm greeting. Yeah. And I know you've done a lot on this because I know you've also looked at the value of how much a chauffeur touches a year. Right. I've, I've been obviously being partners, I get to see a lot more of that, but I've also seen you do that, so I know that's something important to you. Yeah. Here's just getting back to the chauffeurs, because again, and you know, of course with the CSR, but with the chauffeurs, it all, I mean, that's, that's the final delivery. They're the ones who are gonna determine whether that passenger or that client comes back. So I did a little research and I found that my top chauffeur generated$274,000 in one year. Yeah, that's how much he drove and generated for my company. Now, if you had a client that was bringing you 274,000 bucks, oh God. Yeah. How would you treat that client? Yeah. You'd be taking'em out for dinner, you'd, right? Yeah. And, and so I just want everybody to be aware that man, take care of that guy. Yep. I mean, he's serving a lot of clients as well, so if I had to lose that guy. Or that client man, it'd kind of be a toss up, right? You know, neither one are gonna be easy to replace, man. If you really look at how much your people are generating for you, I think you'd have a lot more respect for them, treat them well, and take care of them, as as well as an external client. Yeah, and really back to your question, it's just a little form. You do a little math. How many calls are you getting? How many quotes are you getting? What do they turn into? And then I look at it as like an annual spend. Yeah, and so some calls may not book. And again, one call, one trip, and again, this is the key again, of having a brand, of having a culture of quality, of giving them an experience that makes them go, wow, that was really different. I thought I knew car service. I thought that when I used Joe's limo down the street, that was car. But this is a whole different thing. Wow. It really is a sign of where our industry needs to focus. Right. If in the conversation of what that looks like, we keep bringing that focus back to that pastor experience. It's'cause that's where it needs to be. And so we've kind of fast forwarded a bit. But I'd like to kind of bring back, you know, we've jumped into that. What is the, what does the rest of that look like in terms of getting there? Because I think we're already, you know, naturally talking about how you knock it outta the park, and really that's the Cs R's job, right? Yeah. Hopefully. And, and, and you're, I'm sure you'll, you'll mention this, hopefully that CSR is able to kind of tee them up for that, right? Yeah, and that's exactly it. And there's, there's some specific, and again, it's back to the details, the little things. So you answer the phone call, hey, uh, I'm interested in, you know, limo service. How much is a limo? That's usually the first que, Hey, I need a ride to the airport. How much is it? Yep. They don't know to ask anything else, right? Right. Yeah. Yep. So their only supposition is price. Okay. It's all the same. Yep. Right. It's a black card going to the airport. That's what I need. How much is it? It's our job to let them know that. It's not all the same. Right. And the first thing you do that is by building rapport on the phone. So one is how you answer it, we talked about that. Number two is affirm their call. And so as soon as they say that, Hey, I need a ride to the airport. Hey, great, we will take great care of you. What's your name? Build. Oh wow. Nobody asked my name. Okay. Well, it's, it's Jim. Okay. Hey Jim. Thanks for calling us, man. I guarantee you know, all our chauffeur are professionally packed, certified, and trained, and we have a great fleet of new vehicles. Our team will take great care of you. Okay. Tell me what you're, uh, when you're gonna be going, something like that, but affirm their call. Step two. You called the right place. Oh. Okay. I haven't heard that before. Okay. Well, let me build some trust here. Well, and you're hitting sales 1 0 1, right? If you go back to anyone that teaches fundamental sales, one of the very first things that you will learn from someone that's very good at what they do is that you have to ask questions. There's, there are so many people out there, there are so many companies out there that once that comes in of, I'm going to the airport, how much will it be? If they're not even gonna bother asking where that person is, right? Ah, run about a hundred bucks. Run about 150 bucks, run about whatever that number they're gonna throw out there is, but, at that point, there's no personalization. There's no rapport, there's no nothing built. Well, and so I think you're pointing to what you know is sales 1 0 1, but for so many people. Is so easily overlooked.

James Blain: 8:46

So for me as Bruce's partner, that always hits home. That's kinda where we live. That's kind of where I live. Obviously, I don't have the Ritz-Carlton background. I have it from a different level of customer service, but we've always kinda lined up and I think the big thing that for me always drives home is that$275,000 number. Your chauffeur. You know, if you're in the motor coach space, think of it as your, your motor coach driver, whoever that might be. Think of that number. Think of how much of your business that person is touching. Think of the value that they bring to their customers. Think of all of those things because the value they bring to their customers, their passengers, is the value they're bringing to your. Passengers, and so I think it's really important to kind of sit down and really understand that these are internal customers. The way that you are treating your staff, the way that you're setting them up for success, the way that you're building things out. Everything that you're doing on that aspect is purely related to what they're gonna give back in terms of the experience that pastor's gonna get. And so I think taking that back, another one of the clips that I really enjoyed was when I talked to my good friend Tom Snick out in Florida. This is someone who starts as a chauffeur. This is someone who's on the private chauffeuring side. This is someone who understands what it's like to be in that part of the business. And so Tom really kinda walks us through how do you get from being that one car operator that chauffeur into owning the business. But most importantly, what he's gonna walk us through in this clip is how do you connect with people? How do you read people? How do you take difficult people? How do you make them into a client? I always tell people, read the room. It's something that I use over and over and over. I even tell my children, read the room. In our world it's really just as applicable. Now, obviously our room is the vehicle. Doesn't matter what kind of vehicle it is, you still have to read the room. You've gotta be able to tell the energy level of your passengers. You've gotta be able to tell what kind of day they're having. You've gotta be able to tell when you should engage, when you should let them enjoy the moment and let'em have that privacy. And so a lot of what you do there, I. Is really gonna come down to your emotional intelligence. When we talk about this in the world of PAX training, we talk about it as the sixth sense. We talk about its intuition. And your intuition is not something that you're necessarily born with. It's something that, you know, we kind of develop over time. And depending on how you grew up, depending on what you do, depending on how much you've honed that spill, some people are gonna have a better intuition. Some people are gonna have a worse intuition. I can tell you kind of in my world, the person that has the highest emotional IQ around me is my wife. And so if I'm ever in a situation where, hey, I'd love to get a read on someone, I'm gonna ask her her opinion. Now, does that mean that if I was to go be a chauffeur tomorrow or drive a motor coach tomorrow, I'm gonna have her right there? No. So it's something that I've gotta personally work on, I've gotta personally develop. And what's really neat about this clip is Tom talks a little bit about how he was able to develop that. How he was able to turn that skill into a bit of a superpower that really gave him a huge ability. And so he kind of walks us through how does he go from starting to developing the intuition to kind of building it through. So let's, let's jump to Tom and let him tell us in his own words what that looks like.

Tom Halsnik: 12:26

I grew up in Orlando. Okay. Moved to Tampa in 93. Went to University of South Florida, which is located here in Tampa. And didn't really get into limos until about, back until about 95 when I started with a company here in Tampa called Julie's Limousine, which was one of the more popular ones because Julie was on the the radio with Ron and Ron Radio Show, and they did a ton of work and they were pretty well known and. So over the years, I kind of rose up the ranks and after, uh, not long, probably four or five years I was one of their top chauffeurs. I would, you know, train people and, uh, she would give me all the celebrity work, all the difficult clients. And that's kind of really where I started.'cause I, if you know me, my, my demeanor is pretty, pretty calm. Yeah. It's not a whole lot that, gets me going or, flaps me or anything like that. So I would get the clients that nobody else liked. And I did great with'em.'cause you know, I kind of figured out when to talk, when not to talk. You just, you were like, just straight professional and, you know, and it was funny because over time, and it became a challenge for me, is to turn those difficult clients into really good clients that, you know, they would, they were. Difficult with other drivers, they never tipped. And I would turn'em into these nice people tipped all the time. Just make all the other drivers jealous. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that was kind of my, my claim to, to fame, you know? And, and, and I enjoyed it. And so, so that's where I started. And then I'd worked for several different companies. And finally in 2008, uh, you know, during the recession, which is probably not the best time to start, um. I actually went into as working as a private chauffeur for the founders of Outback Steakhouse. Okay. And that, and that lasted for about, oh, about seven years. But in the meantime, that's when I started my business because you know, I just was like, well, I'll start my own business. And really how I, I ended my career with them is'cause they didn't really like me having my own business. They felt like it was a conflict of interest. And I'm like, no. It's not, I've never once told you, no, I can't do it. Can't drive for you. So I left them and that's kind of when my business took off. And uh, you know, it was originally called Black Pearl in Aine'cause of the history of pirates in the Tampa Bay area. And I thought it was something that was unique. Come to find out, 19 other companies have that same name. So in fact, there's one in South Florida that. I occasionally get their parking tickets. I've gotten sometimes, oh geez, their 10 90 nines. It's too close. And so that's when I, one of the companies that I had purchased,'cause I had purchased a couple companies. One of'em was, uh, Walsh Airport Service. Okay. And it had been around since 95. Started as an airport taxi service. Had a lot of really good clients. Citigroup, JP Morgan. Bausch and Lam. So it came with a lot of really good clients, and that's primarily what I was known with in the corporate stuff. So that's kind of where I went with it. And over time, because it was Walsh airport service, we kind of got pigeonholed into just doing airports. So when I started buying limos and that kind of stuff, people thought that all we did was just airport stuff. And I'm like, no, we do more. So that's during COVID. As I was operating three different websites, had three different marketing plans. I'm like, geez, now's my chance. Everything's going into one. We're doing Walsh Chauffeur transportation, one website, one phone number, streamline the whole thing. I know guys are still using like multiple sites. I'm like it's a waste. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money, effort. So that's when everything got you know, put together. But yeah, so that's how I ended up where I'm at now. Another good story. Along that same line,'cause I worked for the founders of Outback Steakhouse, right? Yeah. You want to know how they got the term Outback Steakhouse? How they didn't know what to call it and the movie crocodile Dundee was big that year, so they said, well just call it Outback. Yeah, no. And it really meant nothing. And then once they started, they're like, oh, I guess we gotta pick out some decor. I, I guess we'll go with Australian decor. That's awesome. Yeah,

James Blain: 16:40

I, I didn't know that one. And it's funny because, you know, you've made a great point. A lot of this is understanding that your brand is about more than just a name, right? It's the experience you give your clients. It's the things you do for them. It's the way you make'em feel. Which makes me come back to something that I, you mentioned, and I, I'm fairly sure every single one of our listeners wants to know how you did it. Right. You said you were taking those difficult clients. Turning them into the best ones. What I wanna know is were you actually changing them or is that something where you were able to figure out their needs? How, what were you doing? What was your magic there? What, what does everybody here need to know to make this work? I think part of it is just recognizing what people's needs are.

Tom Halsnik: 17:24

You know, you kind of, you see how they, how they operate, what their expectations are, and it's a matter of figuring'em out. The reason why most drivers couldn't do that is because they couldn't figure'em out. But over time I saw their tendencies. I saw what they liked, I saw what they didn't like, and so I was able to just kind of dial that in to where every time I saw'em, I already knew what they liked. I knew what they didn't like, and so. Once they got to a point where they were comfortable and they knew that I knew what I, what they liked, we kind of hit it off. And it's funny because that's something we talk about a lot, right? You don't, obviously we're not in a room, but reading the room, figuring out exactly what that passenger wants, exactly what they need and, and how to meet those needs. And that's the hard part about this industry. And you know, we have a lot of people in and out of this business, but you know, it is an art form. It takes a. Certain type of people to person to be successful in this. And it's just being able to recognize those kind of things. It's just the customer service, understanding what people want and being able to read people, you know, I've seen a lot of guys that think that, you know, because you pick'em up at just gigantic mansion, that they should tip you an ungodly amount of money. And I'm like, that's not how that works. If you tailor your service, depending on what size of house that you know they live in, you're gonna be sadly mistaken. You have to give everybody the same level, the same great level of service, I should say. Oh yeah.'cause nine times outta 10, it's the people, because the guy that lives in the house, he's used to that service. So you're basically meeting his expectations. Okay. Yep. The people that don't do it very often, the birthday parties, the. The weddings, those are the ones that don't get treated the way we treat people. Taking their luggage, rolling out a red carpet, you know, how we handle'em, how we talk to'em, how we make'em feel special. Those are the ones that when they get done, you know, they're like, hold on. Yeah. And you know, you gotta be able to, to read'em, but also understand that it's not the people that you would think that tip you the most money. So I think for me, one of the big takeaways here is when he talks about the difficult passengers, he talks about the difficult customers. He talks about the ones that people are like, oh, I don't wanna drive that guy. Oh, I don't want to deal with that. Oh, I don't wanna deal with this client. And he talks about how he was able to turn that around. I saw an incredible story the other day from a motor cruise driver and she was on Facebook and she was talking about how she always tries to figure out how to make people feel heard and valued. You know, they had, she had someone on her bus once and you could tell this was kind of the cranky person and she had something to say about everything, and she talks about how by the end of that trip. And I believe they were on a tour hopefully I'm not misquoting that, but by the end of that trip, they were best friends because she was willing to hear her out. She was willing to listen. She was willing to be there. She was willing to try and solve anything that kind of came up. A lot of what we deal with when it comes to training is, you know, the literal, how do we create a space around the vehicle? How do we drive safely? How do we apply the rules of the road? How do we make sure we've always got an out? But there's that emotional piece that is what makes everything you do at your company unique. If you truly wanna provide a unique experience, if you truly want to give them something that will have them coming back time and time again. Your brand is defined by the way you make them feel. The way that they feel when they get outta the vehicle. The experience that they have with your company is what's ultimately going to define whether or not they leave feeling positive or negative about your company. And so having a. Your entire team develop and build that emotional intelligence is just as important a skill as actually going in and teaching them the fundamentals of safety and customer service. Now, ironically enough, we had Charlie Horkey on, and one of the neat things about Charlie. Bruce was working at the Ritz Carlton at the same time as Charlie's wifes, and he talks about this a little bit on this. And then where Bruce actually got his start was at CLS out in California. And so he had worked with CLS before coming back to Kansas City and borrowing that cell phone, starting his company. And what's neat is Charlie has that realization moment. It's one of my favorite parts of the clips. He has that realization moment that Bruce is my partner and that we're kind of talking about the same thing there. But he talks about. The level of training that comes from the Lips Carlton, and I think one of my absolute favorite things that came outta this clip is Seal Team CLS, which we'll talk about in a moment. But the way that Charlie kind of approaches training, I. Is completely and totally unique. For those of you that aren't familiar with Charlie's story, you should absolutely go back and listen to that episode. And as soon as that book drops, we will let you know because Charlie mentions that he is working on a book. I don't want to give any spoilers, but I can tell you it is an absolutely incredible book and it's a must read when it does get released. But what's cool is Charlie talks about how they, you know, they were building a company, he's young, they're trying to figure things out, and he's not really sure how he's gonna approach it. So he comes up with his SEAL team, CLS idea and it revolutionize everything. So I'm not gonna spoil the clip. But let's jump to that real quick and then I'll kind of talk a bit more about why it's so important and what I like about it. Let, let me have Charlie tell you in his own words.

Charlie Horky: 23:03

We read this book,'cause we're so smart. But we, there's two things that happened. You talk about growing your company. One was that our competitor was Harold Berkman at Music Express. Sure. And he would kick our, like all the time. I mean he just would, he'd get the contracts. He was bigger, more formidable. I mean, he was Music Express and there was Starlight. Him, I was this little guy doing little rock and roll stuff, you know, like a little bee kind of pestering these guys. But you said you had a book. What did you read? Do you remember? Oh, right, right, right. We read Rogue Royer. He was the guy that showed the world about Seal Team six. Ah. He goes chapter and verse about what training was like in for the seals. No one had ever knew anything about it before. So this book is like this huge bestseller. Well, we all read that book and we figured that CLS training needed to be just like that book. So whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I love this. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's the bombshell. That's the bombshell of the podcast right there. Yeah. So you're approaching training. Treating it like a SEAL team, right? We're gonna be the most elite. We're gonna train the most intense. By the way, Charlie, you've just made my lifetime with that because we've been saying that at PACS since day one, but, but how do you, how do you translate that from a SEAL team to chauffeurs? But hold on a second. Your pacs tra chauffeur training, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That was that dude, Bruce, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Bruce worked for me and what you're teaching is only morphed to what I. Or what I should, what I taught him. I mean, and, and there it is. Right. Bruce? Bruce, I'm not with you. Yeah. I'm not minimizing the guy at all. I love that dude. He worked at Ritz Carlton when my wife worked at Ritz Carlton. So we all learned at the same time that not only did we wanna be SEAL teams, CLS, we went, we wanted to be ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen. That's the motto of Ritz Carlton. Absolutely. You just absolutely listen, you just freaking nailed it. For anybody listening in this podcast, those two things. Before we got the Ritz Carlton account, which was in 19 90, 91, 92. It married 1990. We had all this, you know, vigor from, you know. Rock and roll rock limousine company and I got that Ritz Carlton Hotel and when I got them, Ritz Carlton Marina del Rey and we had like 10 cars, they made us go through their orientation and it was a mindblower for me. Ladies and gentlemen serving, ladies and gentlemen learning how to own the complaint, learning about lateral service, learning about all these things that, that they spent millions of dollars, you know, becoming a Ritz Carlton. So all we did was rip off their orientation and put CLS everywhere. That was Ritz Carlton. I mean, listen they were only too happy that we were doing this. Well, that's what they want. They want you to match. That's exactly what they, they want you to play at their level. That's exactly, I mean, that's the same Ritz Carlton that Bruce was at. But wait a minute. Do you see the pattern here? James do? Absolute. Do you see the pattern? Absolutely. Bruce went through Ritz Carlton training. Charlie went through it. Right, right. Yeah. And then I went through it as ambassador after the 12, 2012 presidential conventions. Right. That's the basis for the chauffeur book that, but I'm a a hundred percent, that is the origin of success in this business to me. I. I had this dude named Jim Green that worked for me, and he was a, uh, TaeKwonDo, uh, black belt. And, uh, he's a good looking guy. And you know, Madonna loved Madonna, loved him. I mean, he was just a, a wonder, a wonderful driver. Good guy. He was in charge of our training. He read the book. He was a knucklehead. And, um, I. We would, we'd bring the guys to the, for interviews if you wanted a job with us. First you had to know somebody, and the guy had, and the guy had to vouch for you. And then we'd, you know, they had to come in a suit. And before we'd let you fill out the application, we'd play a game of red light, green light in the garage. And, you know, red light, green light is you know, where everybody lines up and you say, you know, red light, green light, and, and we see if they can pay attention. And then we'd play, Simon says with'em. And if they could get past these two things, then we'd let'em fill out the application and then we would see how physically, how good they were. So back in the old days, in LAX, they used to have a tunnel. It's still there, but they had a tunnel between the terminals. So we'd take it to terminal six and we'd say, Hey, your plane just came into terminal seven. You can see it going, there's a gate change. You gotta get your over there. So we'd make'em run down the stairs through the tunnels, like quarter mile to the other one, and we'd get to the, the, get'em to the gate and then hand'em a book and make'em read a paragraph of it and see if they were gassed, see if they could still talk to the client. You wanted the best of the best. You really took the seal team stuff seriously. I love it. We would do that. It was just crazy. And then, and then the last one, on the last day, we take'em to the Santa Monica Pier and we go, we get'em. Yeah. We get'em to the end of that in our suits. And, and Jim just like, chuckling and J would would throw, I. A life preserver into the water as Hey, no way. Yeah. He'd say Jump work. Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do? You know, and I only had, I only had one or two guys jump, but mo most of them didn't. But, you know, we were serious about it. You know, we, we wanted to be the best and Music Express was the target. And, you know, I knew how much Harold was nice to me. He, he'd tell me, he'd say, how much money are you doing a month? And I'd be like, oh, I'm doing like, you know, a hundred thousand. And he'd be doing like 500,000. Wow. And I remember when I got to 500,000 how good I felt about the whole thing. But yeah, he was our target. And so all through the eighties and the nineties, we get to the nineties, we get the hotel and Ken, I'm trying to answer your question in that I. There just wasn't a plan as much as that we wanted to keep growing and keep doing and see more. Success to me was more cars, so more business mean. We had to have more cars. So more cars, more success, the bigger, you know, kind of this vicious cycle. And next thing you know, you've got 20 cars in la and uh, I got an opportunity in the 1990s to do some business with NetJets and with the Four Seasons hotels and and it just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. Uh, when, you know, we talked about some numbers. I can remember this. In 1990 was a million dollars a year. By 1995, I was doing$10 million a year, and by 20 by the year, 20, by the year 2000, I was doing over 50.

James Blain: 29:25

All right. So by the way, yes. Rogue warrior still working on the book. The whole thing that I really loved about this conversation, and I think the thing that made the most sense to me about what Charlie was saying is that yes, he had fun with it, right? The idea of having a chauffeur sprinting through the tunnels under LAX, just absolutely cr and then having'em read something is the absolute extreme. I have no customers right now. We work with people all over the industry from Motor Coach to EMT, to chauffeur. I have nobody that is making them run through a tunnel and then read at the end. But I think there's two really valuable things here. First is it's about structure. It's about making it elite. It's about making it good. It's about setting a barrier to entry. Okay? You have this barrier to entry that you have to get through to work with them. You have this standard that you have to meet. They are trying to create this repeatable, reliable system. Now, of course, you've got this influence from the seals, but if you look at it. You look at the seals, you look at Top Gun, who I registered engine earlier. You look at, you know, the Army Rangers, you look at any of these elite level teams, and one of the big things they're all focused on is having a level of trust between each other, making sure they're able to get the job done, making sure they're training over and over until it's muscle memory. And so one of the things that works just as effectively here is that he's trying to create an elite team. And he succeeds in it, right? He manages to pull it off. You know, at one point there was CLS Las Vegas, there was CLS, New York, there was CLS, Los Angeles. You know, obviously there's more to that story, but you have someone that is decided that they want to have an elite level team. I. So he builds up to that. And so I think one of the biggest things there is understanding that it doesn't really matter as much how you're going to approach and how you're going to get there. It's having that vision of I want to have the best in the business. I want to have people that are willing to go above and beyond. I want to make sure that I'm bringing the right people in that are willing to be here so we can get exactly what we're looking for. Now that said, training alone isn't gonna be enough. You know, if you have staff that are trained on the vehicles that can do absolutely everything they know every single button, every single feature, it's not enough. And in the next clip we're gonna talk about Tiffany Hinton for Motive Talks about that a little bit. And one of the big things that I think is really important here, and we'll kind of start shifting this episode towards is that idea that you've gotta have a whole entire picture. Look, you've gotta have the experience. But if I don't have absolute safety in the vehicle, if I don't feel safe, if I don't feel taken care of, if I don't feel that I can trust that driver, I'm not gonna have that customer experience that shines through when Tiffany starts talking about what things look like when she was brought on to motive and kind of the world that she entered when she stepped in. So I'll let her kind of tell that story. Let's jump real quick to that clip.

Tiffany Hilton: 32:46

When I got here, the only thing that had happened was they had been trained. Okay. So they knew how to operate the vehicles and they understood the functionality basically of the Teslas, because at that time, in 2016, this is a whole new thing. Brand new, brand new, brand new this. This tech is brand new, right? Yeah. Our CEO did an excellent job of teaching them to trust the tool. Yeah. So they knew how far those cars could go. They knew how to use every gadget. Who's it? What's it widget? They knew everything ins and outs of that car completely. And so that definitely gave them a leg up.'cause they were confident. Yeah. Right. And they had a great presentation because they had spent money, um, hiring a, a designer. They had custom suits, custom three piece suits that were custom tailored. And, you know, we had all the bells and whistles of what it should look like. Right, but it was not, there was no brand, no one knew what motive was. No one had a clue what it was, what it was supposed to do, or how it was gonna work. So that was really where, that was me, where I came in. But no, they, they hadn't, all they had was training when I got here. I respect that. By the way, I have to put out there, if all you got is training I'm with you. I mean, just absolutely sure you've got the plan, you know where you're going. But you know, I think getting there, once you've got it, once you've got the training, once you've got the confidence in it, you still gotta figure out where you're going. Well, you could be all Dr. You could be all dressed up with no place to go. So tell me something. Absolutely. How. How important was the superior customer service experience in the training when you started? Extremely important and I mean, and I, and again, I credit that completely to Robert because Robert is a teamster. He's worked in the, he's worked in the movie industry his entire life since he was 19 years old. Uh, I think he's now 52 or 53. So he's been in this industry forever. I don't wanna tell his stories, but before he drove Morgan, he was, Brad Pitt's driver Morgan actually stole him from Brad Pitt. I didn't know that. That's a leg, by the way. That's a leg up. That's a step up. There you go. Yeah. Morgan's coming from Brad, but he had been driving, a OS celebrities forever, and so he understood the nuance. And that's what I think is so different about him is that he very much understands the nuances. We train our chauffeurs that they are concierge on wheels. A hundred percent. This is not about driving the car. This is about catching the things that everyone else is missing. That's what this is about. Yeah. This is about those little pieces of conversation that you hear, where you get to tell the client, you know what? We have enough time to stop at CVS and you'll still make your flight. Yeah. Or I can pull on you and we can take care of that. Or if you need us to double back, we can. Or if you just give me a minute, I'll call my office and they'll have someone take care of that while we're in route and they'll meet us. Yeah. If making those adjustments in real time, they set us apart. And I credit Robert with that because he really understood how to get our staff to understand that nuance and really tap into it and really tune their ear and their behaviors towards those nuances.

James Blain: 36:50

All right, so one of the things that makes Motive super unique is that this is a company that was built around electric vehicles. Now, Robert, big shout out. I love you buddy. Robert, who runs that company I. Is an absolute personality. Robert is great. He's had a relationship with Morgan Freeman where, they're very close and so he was able to kind of branch off and start and kind of do hi his own business in addition to what he was doing with Robert. But he did it in an absolutely unique, absolutely new, absolutely different way. And that motive was one of the first early adopters of Tesla and had this fully electric fleet. So it makes complete and total sense that you're gonna have people that are trained on the vehicle, you're gonna make sure they know all the features. You gotta make sure everything's there. And so what happens is that becomes this incredible foundation that you build on. And I see this all the time, especially when it comes to companies that run lots of different vehicles. If you lose that foundation, you know, let's say you've just gotten into the motor coach world, or you've just started buying cutaways or larger vehicles, or you know, you've just moved into having luxury vehicles in your fleet. If you send people out for the first time in those vehicles and they don't have that foundation of truly trusting the vehicle, truly knowing the vehicle, it's gonna show through. That lack of confidence is going to cast a long shadow onto their ability to provide an amazing experience for their customers. So they absolutely nail it here and that they make sure that if this new technology with these new vehicles they've got, they're building that solid foundation. They're making sure that their staff knows the features they're making sure they know how they drive, they're making sure they know everything they need there to now start layering on and say, how do we build that? Into an experience, how do we start building it up to where passengers are coming back again and again, and so that kind of mentality. Really starts building within your organization. Now, one of the cool things about with I conversation with Michelle from Panorama Tours, which is gonna be our next clip, is that Michelle takes that and starts layering in ownership. Now, I don't mean that she's, you know, slicing out and giving out percentage ownership of the company, but Michelle talks about it with her. Actual team in the office on how they're able to take ownership of a situation, how they're actually able to grab hold of that and take care of that even without her being involved. And this is something that won't come up in, in any of our clips today, but I'll never forget one of my mentors, uh, Athena, who will have a clip from later. You know, she told me once. You know, if you can't step away from your company, if you can't take a day off, if you can't not be in your inbox, if you can't put your phone down, if you can't step away for a little bit and know that it's gonna run and know it's gonna be there. You probably don't quite have a company yet. And not only that, if you have a team in place, you have people there. You don't have the trust for them. So Michelle does a great job of really embodying for me that quote that I'd already heard in that lesson that I'd already been taught from one of my mentors. And so she does this incredible job of laying it out. So let's, let's take a look at that clip and kind of break out what happens there. You mentioned this in your form of leadership, you've gotta let people have ownership over what they're doing. You've gotta let people grow professionally and personally, and letting them grow professionally and personally helps you grow and ultimately lets you build a business.

Michelle Petilicki: 40:28

A hundred percent. James, I'm so glad that you brought that up. Um, I am so proud of my tea. So April for me, if anybody follows my LinkedIn, it's been a wild ride for sure. Well, you've been lots of events. Lots of, I mean, oh my gosh. I think I was physically in the office seven days all month. It was insane. But in the month of April, we also had a compliance review. Oh geez. The, the feds called and said, we're coming next week. And I said, I'm not around, but sure, why not? Really trusting the team. We, I got my letter, uh, last week of satisfactory rating. Everything's done. Not a single violation. I mean, if that's not a true testament to the people that I have on my team, I don't know what is. They're just amazing. And it's because of that, that. I continue to, obviously you could tell that I love what I do. I, it's, it's not a surprise. But I continue to love it every day because I come back and I'm doing it with people that have that same passion and have that same drive and wanna do it and continuously want to grow and get better and, and, you know, it just, just makes it all work. so for anyone that is not familiar with the federal compliance side, right? Maybe you're not in the bigger vehicle side, or maybe you're just not familiar with it. Uh. When you are running the larger federal government regulated vehicles, F-M-C-S-A is going to have a lot of regs for you to follow. There's a lot of things that you have to do. There's a lot of things that have to be kept in place. You've gotta have your driver files, you've gotta have vehicle information. You've gotta have everything there. And so when you have an audit, an audit is a huge deal for you. They're gonna come in and they're gonna be looking at your drivers. They're gonna be looking at your vehicles, they're gonna be looking at. All of these different elements of your business. Now this can go really well, and you can have them come in and look at everything and say, Hey, you're doing a great job. This can also go really bad. This is one of those areas where, kind of the self-regulation environment that we live in can be a double-edged sword because you are not going to have that audit every single day. You're gonna get notified, they're gonna come in, they're gonna look. And so if you don't have every single I dotted, every single T crossed. You can be looking at steep fines, you can potentially get put outta service. There's all kinds of things that can happen. For anyone that is at the ownership level, this is something that can be extraordinarily nerve wracking because even if you have everything in place, sometimes they find stuff you didn't know about or there's things you didn't realize. There's always those little surprises in business. It's just part of what you do. And so Michelle talks about in this clip how she's got. Full trust in her team. We're talking about something that is a huge, pivotal moment. Anytime it happens and she's able to be confident that they have the ownership in it, that they're taking care of it, that she doesn't have to worry about it. Now, one of the really important things, and I, I talk about this a lot in my world and my role at PAX training is when people truly have ownership. They know that they're able to get something taken care of. This is my space. This is what I worry about. This is my role. There's two sides to that. The first is they have that as their own. You don't wanna micromanage it. You don't wanna over pressure them. You don't wanna be over their shoulder. They need to own that. Another great quote that a another person I actually kind of think of as a mentor gave me was, you've gotta be willing to let your people make mistakes. And when it comes to something like an audit, it can be a huge mistake. But as Michelle talks about, she's built this incredible team. She's put the time, she's put the effort, she's put the energy, she's put the trust, all of this into her team so that she knows when something like that comes up that it's taken care of. I would say this is something that extends even further when it comes to your driving team, when it comes to your office staff, when it comes to everyone in your business. I see this tendency with owners and with people that are high level management to want to really only be squeaky wheel people. And what I mean by a squeaky wheel person is I see a lot of situations where the only feedback that someone is getting is when something has gone wrong. Something negative's happening or the outcome isn't what they wanted. We got a negative review. We had someone that was late. We had some kind of issue. You did this wrong. It is just as important to give your team the positive feedback. Hey, we had someone leave us a five star review. Hey, I heard you did a great job here. Hey, I just wanted to check in and see how you're doing. See how things are going, right? You wanna build this communication and trust with your entire team, and it can be especially difficult with your driving staff because they're on the road. But having that communication, having that set up is what ultimately allows you to kind of get to this point and goes back to that quote I mentioned a little bit earlier of being able to step away because you know that they've got the ownership, you know that they've got it taken care of, you know they're gonna work through it. Now, does that mean there's not gonna be mistakes? Absolutely not. Look, I've been a part of helping companies become a well oiled machine, and I've been to companies that run like Swiss watches. I will tell you, it doesn't matter what type of operation it is, there's always gonna be some kind of mistake. There's always gonna be some kind of issue. There's always gonna be some kind of curve ball that comes up. And the way that you handle that with your staff, the way that you prepare your staff for it, and the way that you work through it with them, is ultimately what's gonna make the biggest difference there. Now. That is probably as good of a lead in as I can potentially give us to, again, someone that for me is one of my personal mentors, Athena Graham from BAC in Alaska. One of the things that she talks about in the conversation that we have when she came onto our podcast was those guiding light principles. Your values if you're looking for another podcast or if you're looking to just have better perspective. I cannot emphasize enough that Athena does have her own podcast with Charlie, her husband and her co-owner up there at BAC. They also have Alaska Medical Transport. They are some of the best people all around and some of the sharpest entrepreneurs I've ever met. So if you haven't already subscribed to it, you need to go out. You need to subscribe right now to the Raise Up podcast. But when I had her on and we had our episode, we talked a lot about raise up. What raise up is, is raise up are the initials that she's come together to represent her core values. And so rather than kind of trying to take some of that thunder away, I'm gonna cut to the clip real quick so she can kind of explain it in her own words and then I'll kind of give you guys how that can work in your business and how you can take what she's giving you there and apply it.

James Blain: 47:16

What exactly is raise up and where did that come from?

Athena Grimm: 47:20

So raise up is my core values. They're Charlie's core values and it's responsibility, accountability, integrity, service engagement, understanding and perseverance. And it's basically the filter that we run. Most of the decisions through, like of course we don't run the lunch decision through the raise up core values, but majority of the decisions that we make here, that's what we're running it through and. I, I tell the team like, accountability is how we love each other because we're keeping each other in this space of checking up and follow through. And the engagement. You can't do anything unless you're like fully engaged in what's happening. If you're got one foot in the door and one foot out the door, how can you really show and show up and like bring your full potential? Right? And the understanding piece is, it's like. Jump, jumping to conclusions can be like our worst enemy. And so it's like coming with this heart of like seeking to understand what's happening, like really from this, this curiosity place and not this place of what the f were you thinking? Right. And then the perseverance piece is about sometimes it can get challenging and we have to understand what those gifts are that we're being, that are being presented to us within this challenge. It's not about, oh, this is a crappy season. This is a crappy time and we're just gonna white knuckle it through. That's not what this is a, about putting up with like people treating you bad or, uh, anything like that. It's more like being able to. I, I think a good analogy would be doing a cold plunge. Like it's not s it's not fun. You've gotta persevere to stay in that cold plunge for like three minutes or more. That is the most Alaska thing you could have picked, by the way. I love it, but it's true. Like absolutely. If you are willing to persevere through that little bit of discomfort, then it can be wonderful results from your body. And for, for your wellbeing. And so that's really more what the perseverance piece is about. And ultimately when you think of the words raise up, it's like, it is a play on words because yes, the core values spell all of those things, but raising people up is really what we're doing. We're raising ourselves, we're raising the community and the collective of the world just by being here with this mindset. As soon as you can get clear about what you wanna be about and really put some in intentionality around that, you will start to set the trajectory to that space. And so if you think you don't have time to like get clear about what you wanna be about or you don't have time to understand what values resonate with you, like you don't have time not to do that because. Just like with any circumstance as you start to build your organization, if you don't, if you don't have it clear, then the environment around you will make the decision for you. Absolutely, and I, I think you've hit on something really important, although you've done it indirectly, and I think that what a lot of people don't realize is the tone is really set top down. If you were to come in, right? Going back to the example from your kids, think about it. Obviously we've got lots of business owners that listen to this, but hopefully a lot of'em have had that chance to work from someone else. Imagine what happens if your boss comes in, how's your morning? It's god awful. I'm having a horrible day. Everything's gone wrong. I am hiding under my desk if I work for you. You know, and my thing is. It's interesting how much, you know, I, I grew up in call centers and smile and dial wasn't just a joke. It was, you could literally change the way you interact, the way you feel by how you're outwardly presenting it. So if you come in in that bad mood and you let that bad mood out, it's gonna affect how you act. It's gonna affect everyone around you. And so I think that integrity piece is such a wonderful way to think about it. Most people think about integrity, it's, well, if I found a wallet, would I return it? And I think you've really taken it to an aspect that brings it into the realm of leadership and growth in a way that I don't think a lot of people think about it. Well, you know, you have to, if you're standing integrity and you're being your authentic self in that moment, maybe your authentic self is a thief. I don't know, I can tell you that mine is not Mine comes from a place of love and respect and and helping, right, and being part of a community. And I think that truly when we all face inward. We all have this space uh, this like loving place. And you have to decide, uh, in this moment, am I gonna be am I gonna be that person or not? That's it. Yeah. And that's what the integrity piece is about, is it's like, am I gonna show up as my authentic self or am I gonna show up as what so and so thinks I should be doing right now? I.

James Blain: 52:38

So one of the biggest things that comes out when she starts talking about raise up, and this is something that I'm very, very big on, is that when it comes to training, when it comes to setting things up, when it comes to operations, when it comes to your company, a lot of people get caught up in the actual training, how you do the thing. The one thing that I've learned, and I was lucky enough to experience this in my last ever corporate job, was that the owners and the management and the individuals that are truly focused on developing people, on making their people the best version of themselves they can be on making them better overall, are the ones that tend to get the best results. Because here's the thing, there's this beautiful quote, right? And it, it's from Jim Rohn and he talks about how we all kind of think about, uh, you know, I'll take care of you, you take care of me, right? That's probably not the right way to think about it. It's how about I take care of me for you? You take care of you for me, because think about it. If you can be a better father, a better brother, a better sister, a better mother, a better person, isn't that gonna make you also a better coworker, a better boss, a better employee, a better whatever role you're in, you know, if you are working on yourself. You're working on trying to become the best you can be. Isn't that gonna be the best way to do it? And then if you're able to work on yourself and make yourself better, and you make it a focus on trying to help everyone around you work on themselves and be better with themselves, isn't that gonna make everyone better? In turn? So what I love that Athena talks about is you're kind of using your values, you're using your mission, you're using kind of your core principles that you set here. As a filter that you're running decisions through? Absolutely would be remiss if I didn't say that. I love the fact she calls out. You might not run lunch through that, but she brings up this key point because we see this happen a lot. And I see it happen at a more granular level. I see people that will take and put company policies in place, and the company policy becomes this piece of paper that we have so that when someone does something that doesn't line up with what they're supposed to be doing, we can be like, oh, well we had a policy against that. When you should be setting things up by saying, these are our core values, these are who we are, this is our culture. This is the tone. This is who we want to be. We're then gonna come back and we're gonna put policies in place that reflect that. We're gonna create policies we can live with, policies that make sense with who we want to be as a company, what we wanna do as a company. We then let that filter down. We're then gonna train, we're then gonna teach, we're then gonna develop people to be the types of people that we want there. And so you end up creating this culture fit that allows you to develop and build out your dream company. So I think all of these pieces that we've talked about that have come up over and over have to fall into place. You have to have every single one of these, but I don't think there's a one size fits all. So I think if there's anything that can be learned from the guests so far, I think there's a couple things. One, mentorship, uh, we didn't talk about that in any of the clips, but I can tell you right now, it comes up. Over and over again on this show. The second is developing yourself and developing your people. That's why I wanted to end with Athena's clip here, because ultimately from Bruce to Charlie, to Tom, to Michelle, to Tiffany, to every single clip that we've looked at here, all of these have one thing in common and that they're all trying to develop. They're all trying to put it together. Because ultimately the brand of your company, who your company actually is, is gonna come down to how do I develop people? How do those people go out and serve my passengers and my customers, and how do they feel? What experience do they have? How do they feel about me as a company? Your ability to then be able to have them have that same type of consistent. Great experience every single time is what's going to actually be your brand. You don't want them to think about your brand as a set of colors. You don't want'em to think about your brand as a logo. You want them to think about your brand is the feeling they get when they get out of the vehicle the way they feel about you. And you wanna make sure that every time they have an interaction with your brand, whether it's through your website. Whether it's through a vehicle, whether it's through interacting with someone from your country, it doesn't matter. All of that needs to be through that lens of giving them that same consistent feeling, that same consistent experience every single time. And so when I try to look at training, when I try to explain this to people, I tell'em, your training has to start at that higher level. You have to be intentional about what you do. Because I can give you the step by step. I can walk you through exactly how you're going to drive safely. I can walk you through exactly what are the steps of customer service. But what I can't do is I can't tell you what your company culture is. I can't tell you the exact way you want your pastors to feel, or how you're trying to be different and unique and what makes you you. You have to figure that out so that we can then apply that through your company. Then allow that to ultimately shine through. So again, I'm hoping that you guys have found this kind of neat recap and found it useful. As always, if you will like, subscribe, comment, share, anything you can do to let us know how we're doing in the feedback is more than appreciated. And most importantly, I. Tell us what you want to learn more about, what you want to hear about. Tell us the struggles that you're having, what are the things that are important to you and your company? And I will look forward to hopefully seeing you guys again on another episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast. Thanks. Bye-bye.

59:02

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.