UTS

UTS Interview – October 16

VIEW RECORDING – 104 mins (No highlights)

@7:00 – EspinozaD

Okay, what about this way, right, so when we talk about, you know, what department and reflect on who is who of what here at TCI, well, we think you use treks that both things came up with was Keith and Martha, and you guys got nominated.

They’re like, we were to have two individuals represent for these treks sales department. We would like to interview both Keith and Martha and really talk about what we are and what you guys can for it to do.

So if I give it off, I just want to say thank you to both of you guys. It has been amazing, amazing.

I feel like this year, every year I think we get better and better and better and so I know change sometimes.

It’s crazy, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and sometimes it really is needed. So I mean, the fact is that, you know, we have new faces, new positions, you guys are doing an amazing job, so we couldn’t do it without you guys.

thank you, Mika and Jim are going to ask questions and they’re going to kind of give you a Go from it.

I tell you guys have fun with it. Do you all I get? Stary in the mouth and I get stuttering Stanley and I get frozen Don’t worry about it guys have fun with the interview.

It is a lot of fun, but in case I will talk to my camera That way you guys take lead on it, and then I do have to jump off I’m in 30, you guys handle your scandal as long as you do it.

BOOKMARK: Diana Intro – WATCH

Thank you.

@8:23 – Jameca Lyttle

Thank you you like I love your intro Right, it feels amazing right, but I think you said yes Well, I think you guys well keep I know we’ve met a couple of times now, but let’s see Martin and Jim and I we go way back It’s been so good to see you again Martha I think like you were throwing it with us when we first came on with like marketing in general and you know You helped us build out like our used truck sale site You know we got into like our email cadence and everything and we’ve just been kind of side by side

But we’ve never had like a conversation to get a little bit more background about, you know, who you are and your journey with TCI.

So I’m actually very excited to like circle back around with you as I’m sure Jim is so we can talk a little bit about about your journey as well as introduce ourselves to you, Keith, and learn more about your position and what you do with the company.

How this typically works is we just ask you some questions, we send them over to you, no need for you to have anything like drawn out or anything, but it was just to really give you an idea of the type of questions in the context of like the stuff that we’ll be asking.

Coming out of the interview, we usually take about seven to ten days to kind of like listen, we’re recording it right out our notes and things like that.

And then Jim will go in and work with our writers to figure out if we want to do like a Q&A style, if we want to do it like, you know, first person, third person, if we want to break it up into one or two articles, it’s depending on the information that we have.

And they usually come out all very individual like, all very different, but Also all very like insightful. So if you haven’t taken a look at some of the other articles that we’ve done in the past, which I believe, Martha, did we interview you before?

@10:10 – Martha Servin : >

Never an interview. I did one of the insights and I believe they did something on the military, but never an actual interview.

@10:20 – Jameca Lyttle

Okay, okay.

@10:21 – Martha Servin : >

And do you know LinkedIn or where do we post these?

@10:24 – Jameca Lyttle

So we post them on, we encourage everyone to post them when they’re LinkedIn, we do it in our social media, we have them on our email, and then we also have them on the website.

Yeah, so it lives in multiple places. But either way, you know, it’s just really a great opportunity. you haven’t looked at some of the past articles, there’s some really good ones.

I feel like all of them are very individual to the various roles. We have really focused more on like services, like safety and leasing and rental and, you know, a lot with the EV.

So it was great that they suggest that use truck sale, right? because it’s kind of always been there for us, but we haven’t really dialed into it too deep.

So I’m really excited to get to know a little bit more about your day-to-day roles. So I’m going to kick things off.

BOOKMARK: Start – WATCH

Gem will usually come in, we’ll kind of tag team it. Gem, of course, if there’s anything that you want to know before I go on, just let me know, and I will give you the floor.

But if it’s all good, I will just jump right in.

@11:22 – Martha Servin : >

That’s a good Keith and I are going to tag team it.

@11:25 – keith pillow

Yeah, no, because with my experience, I’m still new and I’m still learning a lot about these truck sales myself, because I have done a little bit quite a few backgrounds within the company.

But by far, Martha is going to be the sold hard veteran.

@11:40 – Jameca Lyttle

She’s got the war medals and everything else. She’s got the strikes underneath her belt.

@11:45 – keith pillow

Me, I’m still earning them. I’m like, if I prepare myself to Martha, I’m probably like a baby recruit, yeah?

@11:53 – Martha Servin : >

she’s the full bull better. You’re there, like, and you’re getting there.

@11:57 – Jameca Lyttle

And all it just actually, the perfect said will answer my first question. So we can start with you, Piki.

So can you just share a little bit about your professional journey, and a little bit about your background, and how you became a part of the TCI news truck sales department?

@12:12 – keith pillow

Yeah, of course. So originally, my sister works for this company, and I actually was looking for a job and opportunity, and my sister was like, hey, there’s a position open within my company you should apply for it.

So what I ended up doing was I ended up applying for it. I did the interview, and I ended up getting hired.

When I started working for the company, I started off at the very bottom. I was over there washing trucks, moving trucks, moving trailers, essentially what they call the porter, which is the guy that’s basically feeling up the trucks, moving the trucks, the trucks ready for the customers.

From that point, from starting off at that point, you know, within a couple months, I started catching the eye of a lot of people where they’re like, you know, not to tune my own horn or anything like that, but I was just generally a hard worker.

When I put something into it, and I put… If I put my mind to it, I put my full passion into it.

So I grabbed the attention of lot of people. Next thing you know, my name started getting tossed around. And, you know, it’s a good feeling.

And next thing you know, I went from a porter to the basically essentially a lead porter, which was in charge of all the porters for all locations.

From there, I went to the rental department, rental department. was basically a rental agent assistant, and I was kind of a floater.

was doing a lot of traveling, traveling up to almost all the TCI locations.

@13:30 – Jameca Lyttle

I drove a lot of trucks.

@13:31 – keith pillow

I did a lot of oddball jobs within the company, which is good because it puts experience starting to my belt.

And it gives me, you know, it a learning experience because before I joined TCI, I didn’t know anything about trucks.

know, but within the two years of working with TCI, I learned a whole lot and I was still learning today.

Eventually my career path, you know, I ended up meeting Andrew. We started working a little bit closer together and he took compassion into me and saw something.

something good within me. it’s actually funny because I applied for a safety position within the company. And Danica really liked me.

And then when Danica brought up my name to Andrew, Andrew was like, no, you can’t have him, you know, I want him.

So it was a funny, it’s always a funny story that they kind of thought. But eventually it ended up happening, I started working with Andrew a lot more when I was on the rental department side.

And he saw something, you know, something within me. next, know, he offered me a position with the used truck sales.

I started off as a, you know, learning everything and going. And eventually I came to over to oversee the truck sales department.

And even to this day, I’m still learning and I’m still working with Andrew and he’s a great mentor, Martha’s a great mentor.

So that’s pretty much my career path. You know, I started from the bottom and I had to say this, but I kind of worked my way up to what it is today.

@14:57 – Jameca Lyttle

And it’s definitely a good feeling. So I got a question for you. Where did you start at the quarter?

@15:02 – keith pillow

location? So I started in Fontana, California. So I started at DCI, Fontana, like I said, was essentially a floater.

I did all the jobs and nobody wanted to do. So if somebody said, hey, do you want to go to Pomona?

Yeah, sure. Sign me up. I’ll go to Pomona, wash trucks over there. They said, hey, do you want to go to commerce to go wash trucks?

guy called up. said, you know, sign me up. I’ll go down there. And eventually it started getting to, you know, started getting that process started getting more and more involved to where, you know, I drove trucks, know, box trucks and everything for the roundly part.

they say, hey, we got a customer in Texas that needs a truck. And nobody wants to do it. You want to do it?

Sign me up. You know, I was the first one in line. I was the first one in the truck and I was driving out there.

So I’ve been to all of the TCI locations. There’s a couple that are on my bucket list. I like knocked off, but I’ve been around, I’ve been around the block.

So it’s always good. So it’s always funny because everybody’s kind of seen my career path, you know, from me, washing trucks, moving.

trucks and parking trucks. now they say like, man, you’re, what happened? know, you’re, you know, you’re running a department.

You grow big, you know, I see you in Phoenix. The next, you know, I see you here in the polo, you know, you weren’t knee on strikes and a button up.

And next thing you know, you’re in a polo with a slick back here. What happened?

@16:16 – Jameca Lyttle

What would you, you know?

@16:18 – keith pillow

I love that.

@16:19 – Jameca Lyttle

So, and it’s been, did you say two years?

@16:21 – keith pillow

Yes, it’s been about two years of some change.

@16:25 – Jameca Lyttle

Awesome. Awesome. No, I love that. That is like, those are the type of stories that like mean the most actually, you know, it just shows a lot about your character, your tenacity, your dedication, you know.

@16:36 – keith pillow

And it’s funny too, because my sister, when, when I first got the job here, my sister was just working in the cubicle.

And it was, our career path started taking off at the same time, you know, she started moving up at the same time I was moving up.

So, it was good accomplishments for us because it was brother and sister. Plus, this is what motivated me the most.

When you’re working, you got family working within the same company. You got to always prove to people like yeah my you know I work hard like my sister or my sister’s like I work hard like my brother You know cuz if you do anything bad you make the other person with bad, too So my goal is to always go past the standards go above and beyond cuz at the end day I’m a representation myself, but I’m also a representation of my other family member that’s working within the company.

@17:23 – Martha Servin : >

So Love that and Miss Martha tell us a little bit about your journey See So this year it’s declining because it marks 22 years with the TCI family, which is a big milestone a lot of time I started actually in this industry When I was about 20 I came back from the military and I decided to go to nursing school So I worked at the international dealership on the admin site putting myself through school the whole bit And I would work with the skills people on the use truck side and the new truck side One of the gals in the offices that did fine

finance, F&I finance and insurance, she took a liking to me, she kind of took me under her wing and she showed me everything to do with financing insurance.

I have a strong background in my F&I, which really helped me out within the industry. I worked with her for a couple of years and an opportunity arrived for me to sell trucks.

I had to learn how to stack a truck from brand new axles, ratios, payloads, the whole bit. And I took a course with maybe an eight month course that was really, really tough.

But they said, if you pass this course, we’ll give you the opportunity and you’ll be able to sell trucks, which was interesting because at that time, there wasn’t many females in the industry.

There wasn’t any Latin women in the industry. it was a little tough for me to actually get started. once I passed that course, I learned how to spec up trucks, I hit the floor running and success came.

I was able to sell 10, 15 trucks on my first couple of months, which is just outrageous to me.

build a really good book of business, have a long-standing customer base, which I still have today, have a customer that I’ve known for 25 years that send me their kids, they send me their colleagues, and you know, they’re loyal to me, they buy trucks from me, and I’ve built a really good business for myself.

And then Marie Alley, which was running the department prior to him retiring a couple of weeks ago, sought me out for about three years, know, offered me a job every six months in the whole bit.

And on one of those occasions, I came in and he snuckered me into taking the position, I worked side by side with him for the last 22 years, along with Jerry.

Great mentors, I learned a lot from these two guys, you know, I love the industry and I love the family because these guys treated me like family, they taught me everything that they knew.

It didn’t matter that I was a woman, it didn’t matter that I was Latina, they embraced me, they helped me out with every struggle that I had and every challenge that you had.

you’re coming into a mill-dominated field. Now 22 years later, I’m doing sales again and I’m in a good position where I’m able to provide for my family.

I’m able to help my colleagues. I’ve got a new set of salespeople that we just hired.

@20:16 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

growing the company and it’s nice to be able to help everybody achieve their goals. Martha, I got a quick question for you.

Yes, sir. Go all the way back to the start. When you left the military, first of all, can you talk a quick little overview of your military experience?

then I’m curious as far as how you found it as a bet, getting into the workforce and how TCI kind of embraced you, or how you felt TCI handled it.

@20:49 – Martha Servin : >

So initially, when I first came out of the military, I started working in the industry, which is a transportation industry.

My path was to be in the nursing field, so I just needed a job to get myself through the nursing.

the nursing school. So I started in the industry at an international dealership. I came on board TCI about six years later, and that’s when I started selling trucks.

They helped me out in the sense that being in the military, it’s a little difficult for you to readjust into the civilian life and the whole bit.

It’s a whole different life once you’re out on the barracks, you’re living the military life. Coming in here was different because I had the support of my muscle, which I called Dan.

Whenever I had any issues, I would always drag Dan in and he would actually help me out or Jerry the same thing token in mind.

So I’m hoping that answers your question? I think so, yeah.

@21:43 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Especially with Veterans Day coming up and it’s just always interesting and nice to hear a perspective of vets as far as how your experience has been.

@21:53 – Martha Servin : >

I know it was a long time ago.

@21:55 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

think they’re changing a little bit as far as how companies are trying to be more are embracing veterans, and there seems to be a lot of more, I don’t know, more out there, and people are talking about it more probably than they used to.

@22:10 – Martha Servin : >

But, you know, again, that’s just my take on. So, I’m just interested to hear your side. Oh, yes, and TCI does really, really well with the Veterans Program.

We have contests, have veteran, veteran decals units, always strive to make it an easy transition for anybody coming off the military.

In late October, we’re working with Camp Pendleton. What is it? What is it called?

@22:37 – EspinozaD

It’s working wardrobe, Martha, actually is one of our go-tos for working wardrobe because she is our woman veteran here in Spokane, and they request her because they’re like, we not only TCI got chosen for a period of choice, this is now our second event that we TCI provides at to Camp Pendleton through

working in wardrobes, but Martha is a very big part of it because she understands how logistics and military work together.

So she has always been in the face actually to that specific branch and program. So I feel so bad.

Thank you, Martha. Every time this comes up, I’m like, absolutely, Martha will be there, then I have too much.

You’re like, oh, I forgot to tell you, I told them you’re gonna be there.

@23:21 – Martha Servin : >

So Martha is really a brand killer when it comes to our veterans program.

@23:27 – EspinozaD

She was actually spotlight. I think you could put the spotlight up for us on Martha. yeah, when it comes to veteran’s program, we couldn’t have asked for better person.

@23:36 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So we’ve got this, we can take this a whole conversation. In fact, something down the road down and we might want to consider is doing this focus on the veterans program.

you get a whole team of vets come. So my bad, I swung this. No, no, no, it’s okay. I apologize.

@23:54 – Martha Servin : >

I’ll throw it back to me. Those are one of the things that I love about TCI. were involved in a lot of

@24:00 – Jameca Lyttle

from charities that, you know, are dear to, dear to. So I kind of want to go into a little bit of like the culture because that kind of like leads us into that.

So when we first were talking, keep you mentioned how you came in and like, you know, your sister was there.

So you have that family component. And then there was Andrew and there was safety and like, there’s just like a sense of like being taken in and being acknowledged for your strengths, right?

And understanding like where you would best fit and where you would actually glow and like, really just be your best self within the culture there.

Martha, you mentioned as well, having Dan and Jeremy and like having a supportive team there. So I just want to know like, and in every interview we have, we can’t always go back to the culture of the company.

So just for you guys, how does the culture influence the way you approach your customer service and your daily operations there for TCI when it comes to just use chucks there?

@24:56 – keith pillow

So the way that I always treat a potential customer that comes in, I don’t You know, most other dealerships and other companies, they treat a customer like a number, you know, like a price tag.

When somebody comes in, I don’t necessarily treat them like that. treat them almost like family or friends, you know, I’m very open with them.

Very because the thing is what people is when they make a big giant financial decision, they want to be calm.

They want to be peaceful. They want to feel like they’re at home, you know, if they’re uneasy, that’s when they’re looking around.

They’re like, I don’t know if I want to make this decision, you know, it’s like essentially like me buying a house, you know, at the same time, know, I always try to comfort the customer, let them know, like, you know, if this is something that you don’t want to do, it’s perfectly fine.

This is a big purchase. It’s like you purchasing a house. I want to make sure that everything makes sense to you.

And that’s my job to make you feel comfortable and just be out right and honest. Because a lot of people in the industry with us, you know, that’s one of the main things.

They don’t treat their customers like, you know, they treat them like customers. They don’t treat them like friends or family.

Another thing is too, they’re not very honest. know, that’s one of my main things is just be honest with the customers.

Because honesty gets you a whole lot farther than telling a lie or anything like that. Because what ends up eventually happening is that light comes up to the surface.

So just be open with them. And that’s what a lot of people don’t understand a lot of customers that I come in and I deal with.

They come in and they’re like, I want to do business with you guys because I never had another dealership or a company treat me the way that you guys treat us.

Because I’ve had that, a lot of people say that because a lot of people, like I said, you walk through the door and they’re, you know, everybody’s quick to just try to sell you a truck or just to make some money off of you.

But over here, you know, when it comes to our customers, it’s all about making relationships with them. Because at the end day, I want you to come back.

I don’t want you to buy a truck and leave. I want to keep seeing your face come around and be like, hey, you know, or just that call or, and so that’s the only thing too that we do.

You know, when it comes to the culture, I take the time to actually call some of my customers. We dealt with, you know, say, hey, how’s the truck doing?

How are you guys doing? They’re like, man, we haven’t had that happen. know, normally we buy a truck and, you know, gives a call, courtesy call or anything like that.

The main thing is, like I said, building that relationship, you know, with the arms wide open. And that’s the way that I see it because when it comes to the culture effect, when I started working with TCI, I was just, I was 21 years old when I started working with the company and I thought everybody was going to kind of hold me back and, you know, not necessarily have arms wide open, but everybody has their arms wide open.

So with that instinct and everything else, that’s how I cheat the customers, you know.

@27:38 – Martha Servin : >

I’ll piggy butt back on that, definitely. Honesty goes a long way. When we have a customer that comes in here, a lot of you have a lot of first time buyers.

You’ve got a lot of companies that don’t know necessarily what type of equipment they need. So understanding the product line, every product line that we sell, which is going to be Freight, the line or international, you know, understanding the customer needs.

we’re selling the publication or union, Standing the type of horsepower the type of engine the type of ratios if you’re selling a reefer Bob Tell understanding or explaining to the customer the compliance issues that come with that not just selling them a truck that they think They’re gonna need that goes a long way in regards to you sell a customer a truck that’s gonna be a perfect fit for them They’re gonna remember that they’re gonna refer their buddies.

@28:20 – Jameca Lyttle

They’re gonna come back And you’ll have a longtime customer Yeah, so you guys and so you both have mentioned that so you guys usually have or it’s always great to have like repeat Customers or you know, not just like one off as far as they buy one piece of equipment or one one truck Like you have customers that come back year after year sometimes month after month you guys I do I have a really maybe 40% of my business is gonna be repeat and referral So nice Awesome.

That says a lot And What about some of the challenges that are happening now within the the industry so in recent years like is there anything that’s impacted?

the use truck sales environment, as far as like, you know, anything in the California market or on the broader scale, just nationally, something that I’ve just really shifted the industry for you guys.

@29:12 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Yeah, Martha, you remember, I remember the article that you wrote that we wrote with you two years ago, probably at this stage.

That really focused on the, you know, coming out of COVID, right? And it was this rollercoaster ride of what the use truck sales market was doing.

So, you know, can you talk a little bit about that? You know, go back to how the industry got rocked and rolled through COVID out of COVID, how everything just took crazy turns and ultimately, where are we today?

@29:51 – Martha Servin : >

So after COVID, so during COVID, what we saw is we saw that a lot of the new truck manufacturers didn’t have the components to finish building the units, which affected the

the use truck market, truck pricing skyrocket and we were getting double what the units were worth. CCI was in a very good position because we have a well-rounded inventory.

We run over 4,000 power units and our use truck department at any given time will have about 150 to 300 power units.

So we did really well in that aspect. The rest of the nation, the rest of the world was struggling because they didn’t have Now after COVID, the prices have softened.

You have a couple of companies which have gone bankrupt and they inundated the use truck industry with a lot of equipment which has therefore brought the pricing down.

What we’re seeing now is we’re seeing a soft market on the use truck side with the exception of vocational units, which California is really big on vocational units.

That’s where we make a real big dent on the UTS side. California shifted in the sense now, effective January 1st of this year, with all the California regulations.

California wanting to electrify by 2035 has really impacted the whole industry as a whole. You have a lot of individuals, companies that have to be California compliant, have to have a percentage of their fleet which is compliant in order to avoid any big fines.

The real good thing that we’re, she said has an impact on is the Cal Mart product. They’re one of the leading industries, one of the leading manufacturers for the Cal Mart product and we have our own EV yard tractor.

So we’ve done a fantastic job rolling out that EV product. The class four to class eight units, our class six units, we’ve done a really good job of electrifying a portion of our fleet and being able to provide that product line to our customers.

So customers right now are really feeling the impact of having to switch their fleets from diesel units to electric units and on the reefer side, they have to comply with the reefer compliance.

So for example, you have a a reefer will tell that the chassis may be compliant, but the reefer unit is not compliant.

California will not register that unit unless you have a compliant reefer. So there’s a lot of challenges that the consumer is seeing right now in 2025 trying to navigate the waters in regards to being compliant with running any type of fleet in California.

@32:19 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So that’s California primarily, right? mean, that’s the EV sensitivity is all the California world. Yeah, percentage of sales are you guys doing in California, just in general versus the rest of the country.

@32:36 – Martha Servin : >

Gosh, I really don’t know how much what percentage would be. Keith, any any idea?

@32:42 – keith pillow

I would like to say, because luckily what TCI, the good advantage that we have is we have a bunch of locations scarred across the US.

We have a bunch of locations in California. have a bunch of, we have a location in Phoenix. We have a bunch of locations in Texas.

So we actually have the advantage because we’re kind of spread out across the board when it comes to the US.

Primarily as of right now, a lot of our trucks are being sold in California. I would like to say maybe about 40-50%.

A lot of the other trucks that we have, it’s about a good another 20-25. So about another 50% outside state.

So whether it be in Texas or whether it be in Phoenix. But primarily, a lot of our trucks are being sold in California.

Now, unfortunately, with the regulations and the laws and everything else like that, and like Martha said, all these companies going bankrupt will end up happening as they end up flooding the market.

When it floods the market, that’s when prices start to go up and down. So with California, luckily, been fortunate enough to sell a lot trucks because the things that make our trucks stand out from other companies is our trucks are one owner vehicles.

We’ve had them since the day of birth from the minute they rolled off the Freeliner dealership line or international line or Volvo line.

@33:53 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

We’ve the first ones to touch in. We’re the first ones to have it.

@33:57 – keith pillow

You are the one owner, TCI. We are the one owner. So, luckily with us, that’s a big advantage that we have in California, because as all these big giant corporations like Yellow and these other, you know, lot of JB Hunt and all these other corporations, they start to be on the verge of bankrupts.

They’ve merged the market, but a lot of these companies, they buy trucks from a bunch of dealers, right? And they kind of make them their own.

And then after a while, one truck will transition to a new owner and then a owner and then a owner.

And all the maintenance records disappear to where you’re buying a truck and you’re just hoping that, you know, it’s a good truck.

Luckily with us in California, we have the advantage of saying, no, these are one owner trucks. We can sell to you.

We have the maintenance records stating back, you know, if you buy a 2014 truck, we have the maintenance records stating back all the 2014.

@34:44 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

2014. How rare is that?

@34:46 – keith pillow

How common is that? You know what? As of today, I get a lot of people that ask about the maintenance records, like it’s team.

maintenance maintenance maintenance great team. records

@35:00 – Martha Servin : >

The trucks because that’s that’s I said, it’s a big advantage that we have 30% of the dealers out there have least maintained in units that are able to provide the maintenance record So it is a good advantage to us educated guests on what how much equipment we run out of California I had to make an educated guess I’d say maybe 40% 60% would still be out of state.

@35:23 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Yeah, is there any out-of-state interest in eevee?

@35:28 – keith pillow

At On sale site I’d say bendable. Yeah, so at the moment right now Since I do with all the you know, I deal with all the sales reps and everything like that at the moment We haven’t had seen a big spike in eevee where they’re in other states because California is kind of like one of those oddball states where we have all these regulations and all these laws and then you have what we call the other states Which we call a renegades right that don’t abide obeyed to the law.

So like We got Phoenix, which is you could run a truck out there without a death system, perfectly fine.

You have Texas, which are even more ruthless, what are like, you know, as long as it’s got motor and wheels, you can drive it on the freeway, right?

So, when it comes to those states, you know, including like Nevada and everything else like that, Nevada is trying to kind of match with the laws of California, but they’re not just there yet.

So, when it comes to your question of like, eight, is there a big EV demand? They have that saying in other states, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

So, we haven’t seen a huge spike. We’re trying to bring that EV, know, bring the EV vehicles and everything else like that to other states, but they don’t have the laws where you get special benefits and everything else like that.

Yeah, not yet. We’re hoping to see a change coming up, but as of right now, other states are not offering like the special benefits that California has to offer.

Like California has the, the, the, benefits the EV or if you buy an EV unit, California will actually grant you money, and then you get an EV unit for way cheaper than what you would get from out of state.

know, out of state, they pay full asking price, you know. But California, they have those laws where it’s like you, like Martha said, if you certify a percentage of your fleet, you don’t get fined, but plus what California will also give you, essentially, what they like to call free money, you know.

It’s not free money, but you’re, there’s, there’s something in the line where it’s on the borderline of free money, where it makes you feel like you’re, you feel good about yourself, but it’s not, it’s not free in the sense.

@37:37 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

But clearly, that’s, that’s got to be one of the main reasons why the EV market outside of California just isn’t, isn’t happening yet, because they’re going to pay the premium price.

And there’s no law telling them that they have to do it yet, they may want to. But is there infrastructure in place?

Is there, I mean, you guys have to have to deal with this on the front line. And you’ve got a fleet of Cal Mars that, you know, that you’re trying to kind of push for in the whole EV world, right?

How do you, I mean, are you actively out there pitching companies outside of California for EVs? Or do you really just, if they come to you, so be it.

@38:18 – Martha Servin : >

So right now, the mean focus is all California because California didn’t incentivize specific communities where they’re giving them vouchers for the infrastructure, for the actual unit.

So it makes more sense for California. We get calls of companies that want to go green and they want to be green and sustainable.

But once they see the pricing, it’s kind of a culture shock.

@38:41 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So they won’t move forward with it. So the main focus now is going to be all California. Do you have any programs in place or anything?

If somebody does come and they want to go, you know, do EV acquisition programs or something, is there a way that the TCI can work with them?

Or is that just not, you’re not able to just because the price tags of these.

@39:00 – Martha Servin : >

units are so high. If a customer is willing to pay the price, we are definitely able to provide the information plus the information on the infrastructure.

They’re not going to get it at a reduced cost, but if a company outside of California did want to go green, yes, we’re able to provide all that information for them.

@39:17 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So I know that the most logical place for companies to start their green program, if you will, is in the yard, right?

Because there’s a contained environment, the vehicles aren’t going very far. It’s really easy to recharge them. You don’t have to worry about this kind of like, you know, how far I’ve got a couple hundred miles to go, am I going to get there or not?

It seems like when you start talking about the vocational trucks, it seems like dump trucks and local vocational trucks would be next in line.

What do you feel like the evolution of the EV vehicle is going to go?

@40:00 – keith pillow

At the moment right now, I, I, we’re still trying to figure everything out. Um, I don’t think we’re just quite there just yet as of right now.

I think they’re still trying to figure out, you know, where they finally got the EV yard goats under control.

So that’s, they got that underneath their belt. You know, those are flying off the shelf like with flying colors and everything stars and stripes.

Now, when it comes to the other vehicles, the other vehicles are a little bit harder, but there’s, you know, they’re, as these companies grow and as the demand for EV products start to grow with in California, the product line starts to become better and better each year.

you know, their box trucks, they’re still trying to figure out the box truck and the mileage range and everything else like that.

When it comes to vocational units, like dump trucks and everything else like that, those guys, they get paid by the load, how much they can carry and how far they can take the load until they figure out a best effective way with the mileage range and the low capacity and everything else.

I was like that, maybe it’ll become a big thing when it’s like Eevee and vocational units combined together where the you know, they’re Eevee vocational units, but as of right now, I just don’t think we’re just there yet.

@41:12 – Martha Servin : >

Yeah, to piggyback on Keith, definitely have it nailed on the yard spotters. We’ve got the medium duty market. Right now, they have a range of about 100 120 miles radius in order for you to be able to do any city, any city work.

Location of units, they require a heavy air torque. require a heavy engine. that’s going to be, it’s going to take some time for somebody to engineer an engine that’s going to be electric to be able to to meet the qualifications for vocational units.

So that will be a little bit tougher.

@41:45 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

And so, and TCI is an authorized dealer of Cal Mart in Phoenix.

@41:50 – Martha Servin : >

And Phoenix and California, now that we’re selling the Eevee product. So, so Arizona, and so you’re now authorized in California as well for just the Eevee or for all of

just the EVs, yes. So we’re the only dealership in Arizona for the Ottawa Product Line. For California, since we acquired the TK product rights, we’re able to sell the easy product line in California.

@42:13 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Well, that’s interesting. That’s great. I didn’t realize you were an authorized dealer in California as well. That’s awesome. So how in touch with CalMar are you guys?

As a dealer, how much did they include you in what’s happening in their company, new products that they’re going to be putting out.

Do they help you turn around with some of the used vehicles? What’s the relationship like with TCI and CalMar?

@42:44 – keith pillow

Mark, you want to piggyback up to that one?

@42:48 – Martha Servin : >

We’ve partnered up with CalMar. We’ve been a dealer with CalMar for over 10 years. They’ve given us courses in regards to be able to educate us on the EV product line, the CalMar product line.

So we’re well versed on that in regards to customer base, we’ve got our specific regions where we target, and that’s pretty much how we sell the product line.

@43:09 – keith pillow

Yeah, and the only reason why I said for her to piggyback off of this, because she has more experience on dealing with the cow more dealer, I’m just getting into things with dealing with our rep at cow more.

So far, great guy, he’s sending over bunch of videos and everything else like that. so I’m still learning the cow more so as I go, when it comes to the EV, cow more units, I actually do the demos.

So when we actually sell a unit, or when we lease a unit out, I go out there to the yard and I physically show them how to use the unit and everything else like that.

So that’s where my experience comes from. And I’m still learning everything on the backbone when it comes to how our dealers treat us and everything else like that.

@43:50 – Martha Servin : >

So Martha, I appreciate you stepping in there. Absolutely. And it’s a great partnership that we’ve got with cow more.

@43:54 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So Martha, you talked about vocational right now being the hotter part of the inventory. or in demand part of the why.

@44:02 – Martha Servin : >

I believe California has a lot of grants and a lot of funding for construction. So that’s where we’re seeing a lot of roll-off units for super tendom trucks for water tankers.

So I think that the funding is there for California just to provide the counties, the states with the opportunity to reserve the streets or do any type of construction.

So that’s why we’re seeing a lot of a lot of movement on our vocational units.

@44:32 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Do you feel that there are certain industries or certain things that affect what you guys do directly? Like for example, if there was an infrastructure bill that all of a sudden California decided to pave all the roads in Southern California, would you guys feel that directly?

Are there other industries that you look at when you’re reading the trades?

@44:54 – Martha Servin : >

Oh, that’s a good sign for us. We would definitely feel it if they actually put something in place like that because we’re

One of the few dealerships that has that high volume of vocational units that are available for sale. We’ve got a well-rounded inventory.

So we always have a good pipeline of vocational units. So we would definitely benefit from something like that.

@45:15 – keith pillow

Yeah. And then when it when it comes to our vocational units and everything else, like the beneficials, you know, or having our vocational units is normally one of the US government because, you know, the US government and the counties have endless funding, you know.

So when they have like a project going on like Caltrans, like we’ve been selling a lot of trucks to a company in Las Vegas, where they’re actually building, they got the contract bid to build the Caltrans train from Los Angeles Las Vegas.

So when you see things like that, where you see construction companies, where they’re having a bidding war on saying, know, who can win this bid, who can do it cheaper, who can do it better for a better price.

Once they get that bid from LA County or from the state or from the city or whoever it may be,

now they have what they call essentially what I like to call blank paycheck. So when that ends up happening is of course now they got this big project right and they got this the funding to go behind it.

These construction companies may not have the equipment to do so. A lot of these construction companies are small mom and pop businesses who put the bid out there and you know they won the bid their numbers look right and everything else like that and then they got the bid to do the job.

Now that they have the funding and everything they need the equipment to get the job done. So when it comes to that I’m always paying attention to like any little projects going on.

Most of the time like different states have a lot of things going on like Texas they have a lot of like oil rigs and everything else out there where they’re digging up holes in their building you know any type of infrastructure you know whether it be building condos or be you know building warehouses or anything of that nature.

City improvements on streets you know digging tunnels, training, or anything like that. It does make a big impact what the vocational use because as the demand goes up for, you know, the jobs, jobs start opening up and everything else with these big projects.

So it does need demand for equipment.

@47:14 – Jameca Lyttle

contract key like do you go out there and you make the introduction or like, how does that work?

@47:21 – keith pillow

So normally when it comes to that, a lot of these corporations, you know, when it comes to like them winning these big contracts since there’s so much in the rush of trying to get the equipment, they’re making phone calls, they’re calling everybody.

Every once in a while, we’ll make a call like we essentially call a cold call. You know, we see a dump truck.

What I always like to do is when I see a dump truck or a roll off unit drive by, I always like to take pictures of the actual name on the side of the truck.

Because it never hurts to give them a call and say, Hey, I saw this really nice truck rolling down the street.

And I wanted to know if you guys are in need of anymore trucks because I got some trucks in mandatory that just looks like just like yours, right?

So essentially you can do cold calling, but a lot of these times when it comes to these companies, they have been since, you know, if once these companies get these big bids and anything, they’re making the phone calls to almost every dealership trying to get a truck, right?

Luckily, we’ve been fortunate enough to where we’re marketing our trucks correctly, like, for example, water trucks, right? We have a lot of water trucks roll offs and dump trucks.

When it comes to marketing them correctly, like, let’s say, for example, fire season was, we just got over fire season, right?

We put California compliant or not, California fire specs, fire trucks, and basically what that is, is those are fire trucks that are built exactly to spec to California firefighters, right?

So we post those in a lot of these companies, you know, different states, for example, that we sold a truck to the Nebraska Fire Department.

They bought it because it said California spec, so they can use it out there. So it just really all depends on how we market it, know, the wording and everything else.

It does play a major. factor within our vocation units of selling them again and moving around and everything else like that.

Luckily, we’ve been fortunate enough to where we’ve been dealing with big companies that want large bids to do big construction jobs.

So we’re the point where they’re buying them back to back, but not only are they buying the equipment because we have them in demand, but because we also build them to spec.

So that’s another good thing that we do. Now that we have the inventory behind us, not only thing we say, hey, so one on the truck, we have all the maintenance records and anything else, we can build this truck to however you like it.

If you want a pink truck, we’ll make it a pink truck, it doesn’t matter. So we have the advantage compared to a lot of other dealerships and everything else like that.

And luckily with us, we’ve grown a great relationship with our vendors as well, where they’re able to not necessarily just treat us like a customer, but treat us essentially like family.

And it’s like an endless circle, the circulation of money is always moving, you know, one project open, up another door of opportunity opens and then it’s getting on another door opens up another door opens up and then eventually it gets to the door door yeah so that’s that’s the good thing about our vocation means.

@50:11 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Martha you’ve been there for a while how do you see how has the the used truck department at TCI evolved since you first came in what was it like when you first came in how much inventory was there what type of inventory was it how hard or easy was it for you to move vehicles compared to today.

@50:31 – Martha Servin : >

So it definitely has changed back when I started we didn’t have any of the California regulations so everything was pre T.P.F.

filters pre diesel exhaust fluid the units were we would run the unit five years and we would cap them out and maybe lower miles so we would definitely see equipment with a lot lower miles the turnaround was maybe every five years every seven seven years we had the two locations which were Commerce and Fontana since then we’ve grown we’ve had

We location in Phoenix, we have sales location in Stockton, we’ve got location in Puyallup and Texas, so we’ve grown in the sense that we’ve added different sales locations.

became the auto-wood dealer, so we started picking out our new what it was and selling that product line. Now we’re seeing the equipment that’s, we’re running it a little bit longer.

We’re running it seven years to 10 years. It’s coming up with higher miles, so that’s challenging. The pricing of the equipment has definitely skyrocketed in the sense that it’s added another $15,000 to $20,000 on the Valley Wubbit due to the California compliance issues.

So the equipment is a little bit pricier than it would have been 10, 15 years ago. We’ve shifted from a lot of the manual transmissions to the automatics.

We’ve seen a different change in the industry where most of the majority of the customers are purchasing automatic transmissions versus 10 speeds within the last 10 years.

So, more than anything, it’s just the changes in the locations, the changes in availability. Now, we have a larger inventory, still well-rounded inventory, class four to class eight unit.

The challenging part on our end is going to be that the pricing are a little bit higher because of the components that we had to add within the last eight to ten years.

@52:21 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So, how do you compensate for that challenge, for the price being higher? When you’re out there trying to move this and to pitch these vehicles to customers, what are you using as your superiority claims, things like, for example, one owner, maintenance records, that type of stuff.

What are you throwing in or how do you set TCI apart from the competition so that somebody doesn’t say, Hey, I like your truck, but I can get it over in Michigan for $20,000 less.

@52:59 – Martha Servin : >

So, one is going to be that a lot The point that we run is still going to be West Coast trucks.

So you’re not going to, rust is not going to be a factor. That’s a major selling point on any type of, you know, class four to class eight unit.

Mileage is always going to be an issue, but a way to get around that is offering a third party warranty, whether it’s a 90 day warranty or whether it’s a 100,000 mile warranty.

The main, the main inch records play a big factor in it. Irregardless of it having the higher miles, you have a least maintain unit that even though it’s a little bit higher mileage, it’s in good condition.

Prior to delivery, we do bid inspections. units are pretty much ready to go. They’re frontline ready. So those things help us with the selling process.

If we’re comparing it to a like unit within the same geographic area with less miles.

@53:46 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

What are the warranties that you guys offer?

@53:49 – Martha Servin : >

Third party warranties, we can either offer the 90 day warranty or we can offer one year, two year, 100, 200,000 mile warranty, depending on the mileage and the year of the appointment.

@53:59 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Got it. Okay, that’s really interesting. So I find it interesting, Keith, when you’re earlier part of your tale had you meeting with Andrew, right, hanging out with Andrew, that was the, it was Andrew, yes?

Yeah, how you feel about that as far as, I mean, he’s about as high up as you can get in the company, right?

So this is when, and at that time, I suspect you weren’t that high up in the company. So how did that make you feel having someone in such a leadership role, giving you his time and taking kind of interest and, you know, at a part ownership of you?

@54:44 – keith pillow

You know what? was very fortunate. was a good feeling because when I first started working with the company, I was 21.

And then as I started growing over the years, you know, it progressed and everything. And I got started working with Andrew when I was in the reality department.

Basically, essentially, what I was doing, I was sending him Excels files, know, essentially just keeping track of stuff from and everything else like that.

And I was in charge of what they called the outside rental report, right? So when I was part of the rental department, when a truck would break down, we might not have a sub to give them.

So these rental agents, they’ll get an outside rental vehicle, right? What ends up happening is we have to pay extremely more for the outside rental vehicle.

And it was funny because I used to get upset at the rental agents, like, hey, why are we going outside?

Why aren’t you looking for this truck? We have this truck located in commerce and you’re a farmer, know, we can bring this truck down.

And it was funny because, you know, likes to pay extra, right? So I was sending out these reports to Andrew, let them know what’s going on, they’re very detailed.

the way that he always said, was like, well, do things, you think like I would do it. You know, why aren’t they going out?

So that kind of opened up the path. way where it kind of brought, you know, a problem, you know, insight.

And then I started, like I said, I did a little bit of everything. So every time when somebody will talk about me and be like, you know, that guy is a good guy, he knows what he’s talking about.

So it’s just the, if you have a good work ethic and everything else, it gets you very far.

@56:18 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Yeah, we’ve seen that we’ve seen a lot of people talk about that again, it goes back to the TCI culture.

@56:23 – keith pillow

Yeah, it goes down to the top. And the one thing too, and the way that I see it, and, you know, I started from the bottom, and I’m still learning, and I’m still growing and trying to develop, you know, develop on who I am and everything else like that.

And I’m very fortunate to have Andrew as a mentor to train me, get me everything else. The other greatest mentor I had was my father.

Before I started working for TCI, actually helped my father run his business. And essentially what he was doing was tea with the classic vehicles, classic cars.

That’s my background. built a lot of classic cars, know, hot rock. as low writers and everything else. So I get my business aspect from my father, but also working with TCI.

I’ve grown a lot, you know, my father was an owner operator, but now that we’re coming into working with TCI, now I’m working with an owner of a company that’s, say, a million dollar corporation or more.

So it’s good to have the small aspect, but now I’m learning a lot about what really makes a corporation go.

does it take, you know, and everything else like that? So I’ve been very fortunate to learn a lot of that stuff and have them as my mentor.

Not only him, but I’m also surrounded by a lot of great people that I’ve met and, you know, learned a lot from.

I’m learning a lot from Martha. Before, you know, Martha that I had a gentleman named Dan Morale, he recently retired, I green gained a lot of inspiration from him as well.

Other people lease sales reps. I learned a lot from them too, because everybody, you know, everybody has their own personality and their own way of doing it.

So I’m, it’s almost like a sponge, know, the more stuff you can soak up, the better because in any given situation, you have a little bit of piece of everything to where, you know, where you’re going and how you’re going to handle it.

So I’ve been very fortunate enough and I’m very happy to where I’m at today. And you know, I’m excited for my career and everything else and given the great opportunity to work for such a great company and also to have such a great mentor because not a lot of of other companies or anything else have that great opportunity.

So great.

@58:36 – Jameca Lyttle

Awesome. guys, we are at time, but before we drop, we usually like to just ask one final question, like a round table question is what I like to call it, I will let you go ahead and just drop that in and following that, guys, I wanted you to say really quickly, thank you so much.

Learn a lot, actually. Learn a lot, Martha. Like, I mean, it’s a lot of things that go into this and it was really interesting.

I think this article will be very insightful and we will send over a version for you guys to review within like the next week or so.

Once you take a look at it, make sure you feel good about it. If there’s any updates or edits you want us to make, just let us know and we will do that and then we will go ahead and hopefully aim to get this published on this site.

I would say probably mid-November. We encourage you, as I mentioned, you will share via email. It will be on the website, social.

encourage you guys to share your LinkedIn as well. It just will be really insightful into the used truck sales department, which again, has always been there.

We’ve always known about it but to really dive into the intricacies of it. I think it’s going to be insightful and educational for so many.

So, Jim, if you want to just go ahead and wrap up our final question with the roundtable question. I may have to fall off in like two minutes, but it was my pleasure.

@59:57 – Martha Servin : >

Martha, it was so great seeing you again.

@59:58 – Jameca Lyttle

great seeing you, my friend. I miss you.

@1:00:00 – Martha Servin : >

hope all is well.

@1:00:02 – Jameca Lyttle

I will probably see you on the next L10 at some point. So Kristen, I’m going to email you shortly after this call.

@1:00:10 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

But I will let you take it, Jim.

@1:00:12 – Jameca Lyttle

hopefully I keep listening to the last bit of it.

@1:00:14 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Yeah, so you guys don’t feel any need to rush your answers here. We’ll drop if she has to. So typically what, you know, what we try to get out of these talks, if you want to call it that is, we try to look for something that is, for lack of a better term, inside information, knowledge to share with industry peers, right?

This is not for people who don’t know anything about used trucks. This is not for even potential clients. Well, yeah, we want them to read it, and this will be really good for them to read it.

It’s really more to create some bot leadership stuff, similar to what we did with you, Martha, with your article.

It was insight into the industry for people in your chairs, doing the things that you’re doing, trying to solve some of the problems that you guys are dealing with, and that you have solved, or that are maybe still struggling to solve.

You have spent enough time now in this industry to know, to kind of start to see things that are coming, to start to anticipate, to be able to roll with the punches a little bit more.

A lot of times new things are going to come along, that nobody saw coming, and yet you’re kind of seasoned enough to be able to figure it out on the fly, or if not, to be able to kind of sit down, strategize, come up with an attack plan.

I may have asked you this exact question, Martha, our back in the day, but one of the things we like to kind of put into your head, as far as I thought, is if you’re sitting at an industry event, you’re out of, it could be a conference, could be maybe an awards ceremony, or something, and you’re sitting at a big round.

table, eight chairs, with people that do what you do. They work for companies like TCI. They are in this industry, in the use truck sales industry, working and trying to do the same things you guys do.

And they turn to you guys and say, you guys are rocking it over there. What are you doing and how can you tell me in order to help me do my job better?

What advice would you give to a peer, not to a client or to someone who is trying to get into the business, but someone who’s a peer of yours.

What advice would you give to them about the industry right now?

@1:02:38 – Martha Servin : >

The biggest advice that I would give them would be knowledge, especially now that we’re meeting with the EV product lines, whether it’s the yard tractors, the medium duty yard tract or the medium duty bobtails.

It’s going to be us knowing the product line as being able to understand it, like the back of your hand, basically, in order for us to be able to explain it to the customer.

California has implemented the new regulations and 80% of the customers do not understand it. I’d say maybe at least 60% of the salespeople that are selling the product line don’t understand it.

So it’s a lot of education, educate yourself on the product line, the way that the infrastructure works, the way that it’ll affect specific companies, it’s 3PL companies, it’s manufacturing companies, whether it’s anybody that has a large warehouse over 100,000 square feet, education is going to be key as a salesperson and that’s the best advice that I would give a college, educate yourself a colleague, educate yourself on the product line, know it inside out in order for you to be able to explain it to the customers so that it flows better.

@1:03:47 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Keith, do you any thoughts?

@1:03:49 – keith pillow

I would have to agree with Martha, I would have to say the knowledge of the equipment. If you don’t know what you’re selling and how are you going to sell it, that’s one of those things where you have to know the backbone, you have to know the possibility.

That’s what question is, and you have to have the answer because sometimes if you’re dealing with the customer, they might throw a little curveball at you, but you got to be able to know how to swing and hit that curveball and turn it to the home run.

You have to have those answers and you have to be prepared mentally on what kind of vehicle it is, what kind of motor with the specs and everything, especially with like, with Martha said, with the EV market, there are so many grants, many different opportunities, so there’s a lot.

And if you don’t read the paper with a magnifying glass, you might miss a detail. That detail might cost a sale because it’s happened before.

And, you know, that’s why you have to be very knowledgeable because although, you know, because at the end day, when it comes to the EV market anything else, California wants to give you grants, but at the same time, they don’t.

You have to have somebody that knows how to do the paperwork, right? Because if you don’t say, hey, you got to give us 200,000 or 100,000.

@1:05:00 – Martha Servin : >

They’re not going to say, Hey, we owe you that never never works that way, but it’s also the fine print, the way that the grants work, the way that the where program works, the qualifications, the guidelines in order for you to be able to get specific incentives, or you have to understand not only the product line, you have to understand the verbiage that California is giving you in order for you to be able to accept certain grants, whether a lot of them aren’t for street purchases, they’re for leasing or full service finance fields, understanding the ins and outs of that for you to be able to explain it to the customer.

@1:05:36 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Okay, so I’m going to keep going here because there’s some rich stuff going on. So first of all, how do you how do you do that?

Where are you getting your information? How are you staying up to speed? And how do you know when things change and something new comes along that you have to be get on top of?

@1:05:55 – Martha Servin : >

So the neat thing is that we recently hired a compliance manager that is very familiar earlier with the California guidelines to compliance.

So we understand the product line. We have our courses where we’re able to spec on a unit. We can see the components.

We can see what operation it would be a good fit for. Once we do that research, we will go with the compliance manager.

We’ll see what areas they’re looking to place those units on. We can see what grants they qualify for. We can see whether they meet the criteria.

We can see what options are beneficial for them. So we have somebody within the company that can guide us, which is a huge help.

@1:06:31 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Got it. So when T.C. and I get involved in, I don’t know what they’re called, bids or proposals or projects, they get something over in Savannah, comes along, they have to put together some type of a package.

use trucks sometimes often always never involved in those? Because I know that if they’re doing a dedicated package or something, they’ll propose the fleet that they recommend or whatever.

Are they always? Is leases or rentals or sometimes to use trucks get thrown into that?

@1:07:05 – Martha Servin : >

The only time you struck with a thrown into that is if you’re coming to a company that is has their own equipment and they’re looking to convert their company from lease from only ownership to leasing, they would bring the use truck department to evaluate the full fleet and purchase that equipment whether they’re going to use it in the dedicated model or whether we’re just going to right purchase it for our UTS department.

@1:07:28 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

And have you ever, is that ever happened with you with TCI? Yes. So can you talk a little bit about that?

@1:07:33 – Martha Servin : >

Sure, say for example, we have a customer that owns DC logistics, but we would, I don’t know whether we’ll throw the name out there once we do their equipment.

So we’ve got a customer that has ownership, a fleet of maybe 50 trackers and they want to convert from ownership to leasing.

In order for them to convert from ownership to leasing, we have to sell off their equipment. So at that point, we do a market valuation of the equipment that they have on hand.

And we either buy it for them for our use truck department so that we can resell it or we purchase it, put it in place for them, run it for X amount of time until we get their new leasing equipment on board.

@1:08:11 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

And how long is that?

@1:08:12 – Martha Servin : >

You said they had 50? 50, so an example on that. That one took about six to eight months to actually from start to finish, to finalize it.

@1:08:22 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So that’s got to be a pretty big, big So when that happens, because you obviously have the rest of the TCIs fleet that you’re dealing with inventory.

Do you do anything different with that inventory to try to move it faster? Do you put like marketing behind it or do you just kind of put everything into the pile of inventory and it goes when it goes?

@1:08:49 – Martha Servin : >

So typically what we’ll do is we’ll do the market valuation to make sure that we’re buying the equipment at a reasonable price.

We do our due diligence, you know, center mechanics out there to inspect the unit or whatnot. We determine at that point whether those pieces of equipment will be sold as the specific unit that it started off as a detractor, or whether we’re actually going to do conversions to those.

advertise them the same that we would advertise the different pieces of equipment, and we also let the sales team know that these units are available so they can resell them.

@1:09:19 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Got it. Okay, a couple of more quick things here. I hate to keep going back to the. No, no, you’re good.

When, when did EV show up on your radar? And suddenly, like, when, how long ago, how many years ago was it that the first EV vehicle came to you to be like, uh oh, this is beginning?

@1:09:42 – Martha Servin : >

I thought EV, the EV yard tract is up at the port of Long Beach. Gosh, I’d want to say about four or five years ago.

It wasn’t a manufacturer like capacity or Kalmar goes off brand. at that point, um, the port at that point, they were about $400,000.

The port of LA was. doing a demo on those to see how they would work within their facility. So at that point you kind of knew a report was going to implement something like that California was right behind it.

@1:10:10 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So but TCI got its first taste of this not too long ago.

@1:10:16 – Martha Servin : >

Not too long ago, yes. So we have the EVR tracker was orange EV and they started their production of those units educated guess maybe three years ago then Kalamar followed suit.

They ruled out the EV product line I believe it was last year in 2023.

@1:10:36 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So loan it was Lone Star first right it was the it was orange EV first. But then Lone Star came in the car.

@1:10:43 – Martha Servin : >

Lone Star came out and then Kalamar bought the product line from Lone Star.

@1:10:47 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Got it. So when do you think and I know we talked I actually want to chat a little bit about these regulations.

when do you when is your instinct as far as when EV vehicles. are going to crack the 50% mark.

Like at some point, it’s going to become more likely than not that people are going to come looking for EVs, probably because they have to.

@1:11:12 – Martha Servin : >

Educated, yes, I’d say by Q1, Q2 of 2025, there’s going to be no other option. California has the diesel combustible engine that they were manufacturing through Calmark.

Commissed, manufacturing, the DOT, California compliant engine in March of 2024. So whatever’s out there on the market is what’s going to be sold off.

They are not manufacturing any DLT diesel engines as of March. So anybody that’s looking to run a DLT yard tractor whether it’s a four by two or a six by four is going to have to go a lecture.

@1:11:48 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Yeah, so the yard vehicles are pretty much on track to be, that’s going to be EV all the way.

@1:12:00 – Martha Servin : >

That’s going to be the first step for class four to class six. We California is barely getting their feet wet with that.

We’ve got the product lines on the ground with the 16, 24, 26 foot bobtails. The radius on those is about 100, So that will only that only serve its purpose for certain type of companies.

So that I think will probably be another couple of years. Class six, class eight, they don’t have a sleeper that has the radius.

@1:12:30 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So that’s awesome. No way. Not to mention the fact there’s no infrastructure.

@1:12:35 – Martha Servin : >

can’t go across.

@1:12:36 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

There’s no place to recharge. Like, what am I going to have to drive all the way up to Minnesota from the south to find a charging station?

@1:12:45 – keith pillow

It’s always funny, and it’s not funny, but it’s always funny when these companies come down and explain the EV box trucks to me and everything else like that.

I ask questions, too, because I’m trying become more knowledgeable. And one of the main things is like, where do you find a charger, you know, for these little small issues?

like, they’re everywhere. And I’m like, well, let’s say, for example, I’m running from LA to, to let’s say LA to the inlet empire, you know, where where can I charge?

@1:13:14 – Martha Servin : >

Because I said that there’s no truck stops. Yeah.

@1:13:18 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

If I’m going to go to to a charging station, parking and Target, and I’m taking up two spots to charge the charge my truck.

And you gotta wait, these things take a long time to charge.

@1:13:27 – keith pillow

So yeah, and like that. So yeah, so it’s always that’s why I say we’re not just quite there yet.

So those trucks, because all these, you know, these manufacturers, they come out and they’re like, yeah, you get 250 miles on a full charge.

And I says that on paper or is that statistically tested? They’re like, well, it’s on a flat surface. So what if you’re going on a hill?

What if you have your lights on? What if you have the air conditioning on? Well, that plays a major factor.

Well, you’re not telling me that, you know, I got it. I have to know the product in order for me to sell it.

Even though it says this on paper, I need the real, I need the realistic notes.

@1:14:05 – Martha Servin : >

What you find to do electrification by 2035. That’s about nine and a half years away. I don’t see how it would happen.

I think they’re testing the waters with the E.B. yard tractors to see how that goes. I think within the next, in my opinion, within the next two to three years, you’ll see how well the E.B.

product line on a smaller scale world work and that’ll determine how class four, class eight. I think classes are going to be way further down the line.

That’ll determine how fast they can actually put anything into production to electrify California. But 2035 seems like a reach.

@1:14:43 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

That’s one I felt that the, and this is me not being even at one percentage knowledgeable as you guys are, but it seems to me like the next logical place are local, short distance companies like garbage trucks.

know, garbage trucks. go, they’ve set limit, they have a set route, they you could easily put a recharger, a charger in their place where they come back to to dump their stuff or whatever.

It’s a totally make sense to me. I also wonder if a company like, you know, they always say like it’s the private sector that changes the game, right?

If the government’s trying to get something done, it takes way too long, too much red tape and way too expensive.

The heart’s often in the right place, but it just doesn’t get done properly. But if you have a company like Amazon, decide they’re going to go all electric, they will build the infrastructure and then they’ll sell it or rent it to the government or to whoever needs it and make Amazon would be perfect because they do the same thing, right?

all local, they’re all driving around post offices, all those types of smaller trucks. feel like if they can get their act together, we could actually make some serious headway on the infrastructure.

But we have another client who says, who’s in California, who tears his hair out at this whole concept of what California is trying to force down the throat without having the infrastructure built yet.

He’s like, there are only a California company, he said, I’m going to be forced, I can’t bring trucks from out of state anymore.

Like I’m not going to be able to do that. He’s like, we’re literally talking about opening up an office in Nevada or Arizona so that I can source my vehicles from there because I’m not going to be able to do it here anymore.

So the way that things are happening seems a lot, I’m sure like to most people in the industry are backwards, gets parts in the right place, it’s great when it eventually happens, it’ll be great, but boy, getting there seems difficult.

@1:16:36 – Martha Servin : >

It’s like pulling teeth, you need to have everything in place prior to setting these rules and regulations that are doing it, you know, half as backwards.

@1:16:43 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So can you quickly talk about the regulations a little bit because I know we kind of know what the EV are, but what’s the deal with the reefer regulations?

@1:16:53 – Martha Servin : >

You want me to take that, Keith?

@1:16:55 – keith pillow

Yeah, so the reefer regulations, they’ve gone pretty far. All the way down to where they’re requiring you to run depth tanks on the actual reefer units to make up a california flying As far as the EV comes to when it comes to like the the EV refers and anything They’re still trying to figure it out because of course when you have a reefer was required Requires power.

Okay, where are you going to get the power from? There’s only one power source on the vehicle That’s that’s the battery pack.

if you go if you dip into that power There goes the power of the mileage right the other thing that comes in the play when it comes to that is well Let’s add a second back second battery pack.

Well, you have a second battery pack, what does that add and that is weight? So the more weight you’re carrying around less you can haul So that’s when it comes to the EV side as far as the diesel side when it comes to the reefer trailers and everything they’re Really hard on the on the diesel Reefer trailers at the moment right now in order to there’s a couple situations where they’re permanently

California compliant, but those are rare situations where they’d be the model year of the motor and everything else like that But on certain types of motors in order for you to actually run in California You have to upgrade it and the upgrade on the trailer is far More expensive than it would it is to just buy a brand new trailer it equals out to the same price to add a death system on a trailer It’s like 15,000.

That’s almost the same price of where you can just buy a brand new one or sell that one and get that one Buy a new one that’s California compliant.

So that’s where it’s kind of hard Especially with our inventory a lot of our trailer reefer trailers. They’re no longer California compliant So we have to sell them out of state And then right now the market is so flooded right now Because everybody’s trying to have all these trailers that are California so they’re selling the ones that they have in order to buy new ones So it’s like a indecipherable, you know The way that the regulation worked on the reefer unit itself is that the reefers were good for seven years

@1:19:00 – Martha Servin : >

from the purchase date on a diesel reefer unit, whether that reefer unit went on a trailer or whether that reefer unit went on a bobtail.

So effective this year, if I’m not mistaken, California implemented a new regulation where they no longer have reefer diesel units.

Everything has to be electric reefer units. There are some locations, some units that are grandfathered in that had a specific DP filter installed, which makes it always compliant for California.

So as of now, you’re not able to purchase a reefer diesel unit. Everything’s got to be electric number one or it’s got to be a self contained unit order for you to be compliant for California.

@1:19:39 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Now that’s California, but that’s California.

@1:19:41 – Martha Servin : >

But what about Arizona and about they’re all there are anything that you have that’s a reefer unit they don’t fall under any regulations.

So the majority of our fleet say for example, we have 50 reefer units that are non-California compliant. The only way that we can sell those into California is by modifying.

the rereading it or our best bet is to sell them out of state and you said it cost about $15,000 to modify them.

@1:20:06 – keith pillow

That’s what we’ll be about. Yeah, $25.30. Yeah, on some occasions it’s 15 if we’re lucky but they made it to where it’s almost not California has made it to not necessarily where it’s almost impossible but they made it to the point where it’s almost unattainable as far as like all the upgrades and everything else because it’s essentially retrofitting your it’s retrofitting your whole trailer.

So it’s like buying a truck and then you have to retrofit it. You get to that point and unfortunately these dealers and the only people that can actually do it too are actual authorized dealers.

So let’s say for example I have a carrier trailer or a thermal king trailer. I can’t take it to Bob’s Reefer Service down the street to actually modify and retrofit it.

I have to take it to carrier or I have to take the thermal king because they’re the only ones that are authorized to do so and when it comes to dealers let’s say for example

for your mom and pop operation, right? And you have one carrier reefer trailer and like, you know what? I got a retrofit this.

With TCI and with us, since we’re dealers and we buy so much product, we get at this kind of rate.

But when for the average mom and pop operation, they’re paying full labor price, full price on parts. It makes it almost to where you can’t even do it, where you’re kind of forced to do EV, right?

And that’s when they come up where they back it up with all the benefits and everything else to make you feel more comfortable about your purchasing decision, you know?

But like I said, when it comes to retrofitting, it’s become super expensive.

@1:21:43 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So as you said, it’s better to just just sell them out of state.

@1:21:48 – keith pillow

Yeah, and to sell them out of state. But again, since so many people are selling equipment, right? So we market gets flooded with that type of equipment.

And when the market gets flooded with that If equipment, the market starts to go down because there’s not a super high demand.

So the price, it all comes down to the basic, simple fact, the supply and demand. If the supply is low, there’s high demand.

If the supply is huge, the demand is very low, because, you know, when it comes to scarcity, everybody wants to buy something that’s rare.

When there’s no longer becomes rare, there’s, you know, it’s you treated like any other or it’s like, oh, I can buy that trailer from down the street for that same price or for a cheaper price.

And they got five of them, you know, they’re giving me discount.

@1:22:35 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So where’s the compliance? Can you get a compliant trailer yet? they ready?

@1:22:41 – keith pillow

Are they available? So as of right now, we have trailers within our dedicated and lease fleet. Those are basically carrier trailers.

And basically what we have to do is the customer is not ready to buy new trailers or convert to EV.

So basically what we’re doing for this. customers are retrofitting the trailers. Our cost is $15k. That’s to retrofit it with the death system and then modify the motor and essentially what it is what the carrier dealers are doing is they’re putting the death system in but then they’re also you’re paying for this sticker that says certified and they put it on the motor and that’s it right there and that’s what you’re paying for and a lot of times when it comes to retrofitting that’s what you’re paying for to run in California.

So like I said in California I like to say we’re special. We have special roles yeah.

@1:23:39 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Well you know it just makes me wonder because again as you say if it’s rare it’s more expensive so if it’s is there a if you had a retrofitted trailer for trailer that you can put your 15 grand into or whatever could you then turn around and sell it for so

substantially more because it’s rare. It’s harder to find those.

@1:24:05 – keith pillow

Yeah, so when it comes to something like that, we could possibly sell it for a higher price. Unfortunately, like I said, the market’s kind of flooded, so it’s always the opposite.

@1:24:17 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

You’re telling me it’s flooded with regular reefers, reefer trails, not with the retrofitted compliant ones.

@1:24:27 – keith pillow

Is that correct? Yeah, so when it comes to the retrofit trailers, the parts are very limiting to actually do so.

if we had, let’s say for example, I had 10 trainers that aren’t California compliant, I can make the request and say, hey, I want to retrofit these, but I’m put on a waiting list.

So luckily with this dedicated account that we’re retrofitting, they put their request in a year ago. So now they’re barely starting to get to it.

As of right now, If I put the request in, I probably won’t be able to get to it until next year.

@1:25:03 – Martha Servin : >

I’ll put it on the back of the trailer, say, for example, we’ve got some older trailers, 2010s that have been always compliant in California, and they’ve been sitting for a couple of years now.

So you wouldn’t necessarily sell because they’re always compliant because these specific trailers, they’re 15 years old, they’ve got higher hours, they’re California compliant, but they’re not really desirable.

@1:25:27 – keith pillow

Yeah, there’s a lot of factors that come into it, like Martha said, they’re rare, but at the same time, it’s like, they’re beat up, not necessarily beat up, but they got some, they were road hard and then put away wet, if that makes sense.

@1:25:41 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

It’s like an early edition comic book that’s all torn, but it’s not a really good shape.

@1:25:49 – keith pillow

It’s all ripped and everything, and that’s essentially how it is, so that’s what we have to face when it comes to the used truck market, you know, there’s always a lot of factors that

play into it. And it’s, you know, essentially, we have to do the research of our own to try to figure out where the market is, what are people willing to buy, what are people willing to spend, what’s going to happen is we’re going to change next year, because what people end up doing, especially even this time right here, our sales are doing pretty good.

Our inventory is very, very good. We have even mixed inventory. But the main problem that we’re facing right now, as of today, in our market right now, is the elections.

Okay, that plays a huge factor whether not that plays a huge factor, whether or not somebody wants to buy or not.

Okay, because right now the interest rates are high when it comes to bank loans and financing and everything else like that.

People are thinking after the elections, whoever might be in the office, that the final, the interest rates are going to go down, laws are going to start changing.

So once laws are starting to go changing, It might not be a high demand to where, you know, I’m forced to do this.

I can wait it out and see if I can keep the stuff that I have without having to buy it or retrofit it or go easy or anything like that.

So right now that’s what we’re having because we have a lot of people that are stepping away. They don’t want to, you know, especially when we’re coming to the holidays right now.

We’re going to be seeing a big pickup and pace because as the, the good start moving around for Christmas and Thanksgiving and everything, the man, the man for equipment is going to go up.

But right now with the elections going on, people are kind of scary. And then especially with the holidays coming up, people are still buying equipment because at the end of the day, it’s still, you know, the world’s going to keep turning.

Business is business, it’s not going to change. But people are getting scared because of the elections. They’re worried about what’s going to happen, especially with the holidays.

@1:27:49 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Money starts to become a little scary. people are on the tendency of not buying.

@1:27:53 – keith pillow

I think we go up during peak season or does it go up after?

@1:28:00 – Martha Servin : >

peak season already everything that was coming in for the holidays typically the porch um we’ll see we’ll see the high demand in uh what may june july august September that’s your peak season and we really didn’t see it this year huh and and why do you think that is i think of the um the labor unions this year um the ILWU had negotiations on the east coast so i know that they kind of divert couple of their ships to different ports so they didn’t have the cargo that they expected down in this area so all that factored in yeah well the events really affect this industry yeah a lot a lot you’d be surprised a lot of things affect industry like for example florida there was a bunch of hurricanes out there everything got flooded out so winds are happening that people have trucks out there they get destroyed so we’ve been getting a lot of calls from people that are living in florida saying hey do you have a truck that we can buy our truck was destroyed and then the other thing too it you know although it’s a natural disaster

@1:29:00 – keith pillow

through everything else like that. It also generates money as well. So whatever disaster generates money, and the reason why I say that is because everybody has insurance, right?

It’s like having insurance on your house. You have flood insurance. If your house, it’s almost worth more dead than alive.

hate to say that, you know, let’s say, for example, you got a brand new car and you’re like, man, I wish somebody would just T-bone the back of my car because then I don’t have to pay for it, then I get paid for it.

@1:29:25 – Martha Servin : >

They say if California has an earthquake, the earthquake insurance fund will be broke within 72 hours.

@1:29:31 – keith pillow

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we have a lot like, yeah, it’s crazy how, it’s crazy to think about how everything is always in full circulation.

know, one little thing can really change and impact the market. As of right now, like I said, we’ve had a lot of, you know, unfortunate events that happen in Florida, but it’s also benefiting the used truck sales market because now people are in Florida are buying a bunch of trucks to replace all the trucks that were destroyed during the hurricane.

@1:30:00 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

There was the dock strike that dock strike, so this is good, but yeah, that’s another thing, too.

@1:30:08 – keith pillow

though the dock strike happened, we also sold a couple of charts because couple of people were like saying, hey, my truck’s at the shop right now, but the part that they need is on back order, and so they’re sitting on the east coast and I don’t know what I’m going get the part and I got to do one set now.

They never want to wait. They only want it always once and now. So we’ve had a lot of people when that dark strike happened, we had a couple of people actually say, hey, do you have a truck right now?

@1:30:40 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Because my truck’s in the shop. So have you guys been thinking about or considered expanding? I know there are four used truck locations right now for you guys, right?

Commerce, Stockton, Phoenix, and is it Montana? can’t remember. But that’s all over here on the west coast. you have you thought about?

Like, somewhere in Montana. Texas, one of the Texas locations, or maybe even going over to Savannah and and having an east coast.

@1:31:05 – keith pillow

And as of right now, me and Andrew are going over plans for our Texas because we just open up a new Texas location out there and we have a lot of units.

A lot of our inventory is also is on the west coast, but we also have a lot of inventory on the east coast and on the south, where Francis, you know, Texas and everything else like that.

So yeah, Savannah, Georgia, have a lot of trucks sitting in Lakeland, Florida, in that area over there. So essentially what we’re doing is we’re trying to, as we grow as a company and as we grow as a team, we’re looking to expand.

So the main, we are planning on hiring a sales rep in Texas. That’s going to be selling equipment out there.

And depending on if we open up a location in Florida or Savannah, Georgia, we might look at opportunities there too, but it also really did take us on the market, know, on

how the market is, how strong is it, know, because in California, we have our own special market, you know, in California.

But if you go to Texas, their market might be a little different. It’s like buying, I always refer to like buying a truck like buying a classic car, right?

I can buy a, let’s say a car from the 60s in Texas and everything else, you know, for dirt cheap, because they’re not really desirable.

But I bring that car to California and I can sell it when it comes to truck brands and everything else.

So it really just depends on how the market is. We’re always open to grow and we are growing every single day.

But it really dictates on what, how the world’s turning and everything else was going on right now, you know, how’s the market and everything else, how steady is it?

Because that plays a major factor. Which is the new location. You know, that’s going to be better with me here, Jim, right now.

It’s in Texas.

@1:32:59 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

have four locations.

@1:33:00 – keith pillow

and Texas now so yeah is it on did we do Martha do we have it on the website is it probably not no so it’s a new location location what do they add this one Keith I I’m not sure I’m trying to figure out right now um so we just Texas we have Dallas Houston Midland and San Antonio so you’re saying it’s a new it’s a fifth one yeah so we open up a new Texas location it’s uh right now it started off as a little small pop-up building but they’re re-reventimating the property and everything else like that so um we’re looking to like I said as we’re as we grow in Texas we’re also you know more location for inventory to sit and everything else that’s why we want to kind of expand over there in that territory.

@1:33:49 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Do you find that there’s a lot of pushback or that’s not the right term resistance to purchasing a vehicle if someone’s let’s say in Texas

And they know the trucks in Phoenix or in California. Do they care because it just gets driven it trucks drive so cares, right?

@1:34:07 – Martha Servin : >

I’ve we’ve done a lot of it the last maybe since I’ve been here at TCI. I’ve sold a lot of equipment sight unseen to a lot of different states, so I don’t get a lot of resistance from it.

@1:34:18 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

And when when it’s sight unseen what type of Assurances do you give to the customer as far as? Do they have a certain amount of time to return it if they don’t like it?

If there are things that aren’t that they were surprised about or something or is it really like, no, you buy it, you break it about it?

@1:34:38 – Martha Servin : >

No, so I’ll do the 30-day warranty, which is internet transmission, anything that’s not caused by driver error. I go the extra mile prior to actual delivery, I’ll do my bid inspection, my service, I’ll send them a video of the unit, I’ll send them pictures of the unit, the maintenance records.

So they do know that it’s a one-owner vehicle and ten times out of ten, whatever I say I’m gonna sell

them, I come through 100%. And I’ve had repeat customers that have bought units from each site and seen 10, 15 at a time.

So as long as you do, you say, you do what you say you’re going to do, customers will always come back and we won’t get any resistance from selling to customers all over the country.

@1:35:16 – keith pillow

And that really goes back to is making the customer feel comfortable, you know, just being honest, you know, because a lot of people, like I said, a lot of people just want to sell the truck to just get out of their inventory.

But we’re very thorough on how we do things. Let’s say, for example, like I’m in California, but I’ve also we just recently just sold a truck truck to a guy in Michigan.

And he didn’t come down here, he didn’t expect the unit, he took our word for it because we sent him very detailed pictures, very detailed videos.

We were very honest when it came to our videos and everything else. We were very honest when it comes to the customer.

addressed the issues that we saw and our technicians saw. If we’re going to fix it, we’re going to make sure that when the unit goes out there, it’s 100% ready to rock and roll.

And then also to back that up too, like Martha, we give a warranty on the unit. A lot of people, they don’t necessarily do the warranties because, you know, when you sell a truck and it comes back, the profit margin starts to go down dramatically.

So a lot of people have tried to refrain from giving out a warranty, especially on dealers, other dealers, they buy trucks like wholesale equipment from other dealers.

So there’s no records on the truck. It’s a blank state. So they’re real iffy when it comes to giving out a warranty because they don’t want to put that risk out there as well.

Luckily with us, when we say 90 day warranty, they’re like, huh, three months, you know, and that’s a lot because when these trucks leave, you know, they’re sitting on our lot for a couple months or whatever and they’re just getting driven around the property.

Once these trucks are sold, these guys can drive the truck from Texas all the way out to Phoenix. So when that 90 day warranty comes into play and they hear that, it’s like,

Wow. So if I do all these lows, anything happens, you guys are going to take care of it within those nine days.

@1:37:05 – Martha Servin : >

But not everything.

@1:37:07 – keith pillow

Not everything. Not of course. As long as it’s not driver error.

@1:37:13 – Martha Servin : >

Yeah, when I meet my driver, I think we built a really good record of dealership in the last 45 years.

So when it all comes down to it, I always tell my customer, look at the dealership. not going in and we’ve been around for 45 years.

It’s a family owned business. We’re reputable. At the end of the day, that’s what actually sells the equipment. We don’t have a lot of bad reviews.

We don’t have, I think we’ve seen one bad review in last 30 years, you know, for the news truck department.

So we come through to the customer and they get a sense of comfort when they’re buying from us.

@1:37:47 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Yeah, you guys have a pretty solid, even the email list that we have, know, the emails we send out to the used truck group is continues to be the best performing emails that we send.

They’re very obviously they’re interested. because they want to see what the inventory is and they’re out, know, so you have an active audience but they’re clearly, you’ve clearly built a good group there and it shows, it pays off in dividends.

One odd question completely unrelated to this topic but related to what you were just talking about. I’ve always wanted to know if you sell a truck to someone in Michigan, how does it get there and how does the driver get back?

@1:38:30 – keith pillow

So normally what we do when it comes to transport equipment that especially that far, I wish that we have a dedicated driver that can do it because it’d be a lot cheaper but normally what we have to do is we have to outsource to a vendor and normally these are vendors that you know that we’ve been dealing with over years and years and years where we’ve grown a great relationship and we have different type of vendors where we have vendors that have a driver that’s willing to drive that miracle mile and then we have other vendors that are willing to put the truck on the trailer and it’s just dry the truck and trailer out there.

there. It really depends, like, let’s say, for example, if it’s like a vocational unit, because that’s what we just sold in Michigan.

It’s a vocational unit. It’s a high top dollar unit. I wouldn’t want a stranger. Even though we’ve done business with them, I wouldn’t want to take the risk of sending $100,000 a piece of equipment across the country being driven because anything can happen.

So in that situation, we would hire another vendor that would just put it on the trailer and drive out there.

So there’s different methods of doing it. I think at one point, I think we even put a truck on a cargo container to get it to Alaska or something like that.

@1:39:38 – Martha Servin : >

And on Keith’s note, I prefer to have the truck driven. That way it gets a good test drive, and you know there’s anything wrong with that truck prior to it arriving there.

That’s what I prefer.

@1:39:49 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

But Martha, if you do have a truck driven there, what is the driver given flight money back, or do they hop on with another truck somewhere, or how do they get back?

@1:39:59 – Martha Servin : >

So the company that we- outsourcing what they give us the quote we just they worry about they pick up the truck from point A delivered to point B then it’s their responsibility to either get him another load from there or flying back home.

@1:40:11 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Okay, got it. Just grand question was always curious about.

@1:40:14 – keith pillow

Yeah so they figure out the logistics we just you know tell we just tell this is the pickup address.

This what we drop off. There it goes. There it out.

@1:40:22 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

All right you two I kept you here way longer than anticipated. there anything else you want to add that you feel that we didn’t talk about that you guys deal with that are issues that are always coming up or things that you’ve discovered about you know the use truck world.

Anything you want to close out just last thoughts says no you don’t have to.

@1:40:42 – Martha Servin : >

For me that has always been a rule of thumb knowledge is power. Learn as much as you can possibly learn and hard work always pays off.

I’ve been blessed that my numbers have always been good because if you work hard you may not see it today or tomorrow but you will eventually see it.

@1:40:56 – keith pillow

My thing my mind is always planning ahead. There’s what quote that I like to use and I like saying it a lot is you’re putting paint where it ain’t and your next move is your best move.

And the reason why I say that is you always got to be one step ahead. Okay. You might be doing something as of right now, but something might change to where you have to readjust yourself and everything else to that certain environment or to what’s going on in the world today or the market.

So that’s my thought is always staying one step ahead doing your research, staying knowledgeable of everything you got going on because you never know when that the best thing in life is your own experience and knowledge is really key.

That’s really what it comes down to.

@1:41:40 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

Clearly with the way the world events down the street or around the corner across the country can have such a dramatic effect on your day-to-day business.

It’s staying on top of that and keeping an eye on what’s coming is obviously super important.

@1:41:54 – Martha Servin : >

Absolutely. always say transportation business is the first one to see it whether it’s going to be a recession or whether it’s going to be a rebound.

@1:42:00 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

And I do believe that to be true Okay, so my last note to you guys if you feel like it you go home tonight and you’re hanging out And you’re like, wish I would have talked about blah blah blah or here’s a thought that I had or hey I have a really good quote I didn’t get to say and I’d like it to be in the article just kick a quick email I thought you know it’s something if you and just send it at any time to us As as Mika said, this will take us a little time to kind of go through this whole transcript Get it all organized and try to put something cohesive together.

@1:42:31 – keith pillow

That’s that’s of interest So you have time to add or to kind of to color commentary on anything that you feel like it Yeah, and if I think of anything almost definitely send it out to you I’m gonna give it little bit of a funny personality with the with Andrew because this is what I think With me, it’s funny because he said a couple times where he’s like kind of remind me of me because when Andrew started working here He was he started from the very bottom.

He was washing trucks and everything else like that. So I think maybe I mean, that’s why he kind of saw a little bit of him within me and the plus of my knowledge and everything else.

So I’m very grateful that’s what it is, but very little funny thing, because it’s funny because Dan Morale was a real quick story here.

Andrew or Dan used to work for Dan, okay. And then Dan said at his retirement party, somewhere along the line, somewhere I got flipped, right?

And Dan said the same thing about me, because Dan was like, and then he was like in that key, I used to tell Keith to wash my trucks.

And then somewhere along the line, it got flipped again, and he was like, how many times it’s going to happen, right?

That’s a little funny story there, right?

@1:43:45 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

So again, if you think of those little things, feel free to write them down in the sentiment. You know, Fred, we interviewed Fred a month or a couple months ago.

The questions that we sent you, he actually ended up going back and answering them all. He took some time to write like an answer to those words.

questions. I’m not saying you need to do that, but that’s you can if you want to.

@1:44:04 – Martha Servin : >

So you have more information to work with. I think it’s always good.

@1:44:08 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)

We’ve got tons as it is right now. It’s just an opportunity. If you think of something, you want to add something to the this this wonderful potpourri we have here.

This by all means you have time to do it. Perfect. All right. Thanks you too. I really appreciate it.

@1:44:22 – keith pillow

go on and have an awesome rest of