Kevin Hourigan: CEO, 2 percenter, Influential people, healthy fear, what he wishes you knew, Gil Nickel Cannonball Run story

PART 2 - KEVIN THE CEO

Mon, 4/26 9:30PM • 31:15

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

business, company, sold, people, months, bayshore, jeff, car, called, gave, pretty, knew, day, growing, kevin, story, wine, talking, nickel, golfer

SPEAKERS

Jeff Sterns

00:00

We were a.com darlings guys like us. So we're in our early 30s, late 20s, early 30s. You know, going from being worth, you know, what's in our wallet to being worth $150 million

00:10

each

00:10

is only the majority of the company or take my 30 day resignation as much as growing calm darling company was like you said everybody knew hydrogen media was on the way up. It's one story on the way on down it's a completely different story. On the way down is whether they going out of business or whether they filing bankruptcy. The

Jeff Sterns  00:29

guy that's already a great golfer is hitting a lot of balls.

00:32

That's correct. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yep. So he's already there. You're never not polishing, right? You're always you're always polishing you're not. You're not resting on your laurels is I might listen to a little bit of Howard Stern's in the morning on my way in for a little bit of entertainment. And here's a guy who's you know, makes $110 million a year consistently preached, there's not a day, he doesn't think about he's gonna lose it all. I had a company of 225 employees go down to 11.

Jeff Sterns  00:59

But the other Gil nickel story is around the time that I sold in the car or after I think I was looking for another one for him. And I think we sold it to his Montana Corporation. As a matter of fact, I'm reading a book by Brock Yates called Cannonball. And I'm feeding my son Jackson a bottle on the couch. And I'm reading this cannibal book. And whatever chapter I'm at, it says and Gil Nicole came in second or third place in the 450 Sal.

01:35

Jeff Sterns connected through cars, if they're bigwigs, we'll have him on the show. And yes, we'll talk about cars and everything else. Here he is now, Jeff Sterns.

Jeff Sterns  01:53

So the reason I want to bring up hydrogen media is I don't want to make this the losing venture our Yeah. You first of all, it was a very gutsy and goal oriented thing that you took on that. I don't want to say you were under prepared for because I don't really know what happened. Yeah, that didn't go the way you wanted. But yeah, there's got to be a couple lessons to take. Yeah,

02:17

yeah, absolutely. So I think you know, I'm the predecessor of my company today. Yeah, it was a company called hydrogen media. And we were a.com. Darling. Right. So we started the company in 1996, as a as a website, design and development company charging $500 for a website. Fast forward to three years later, 1999, we've got one for three employees to 30. We're charging 70 $500 for a website. And I had a couple partners and in all of a sudden, we got started getting approached about do we want to take our company public, we raised $14 million open five offices for in the US one abroad, and we're writing the times of the.com bubble. I don't know if we are good in our industry, but we were in our industry. And anybody who was in the industry was on an incoming tide. And it was going into hard and fast. It was a big tide, right? So we're just riding the wave riding the wave growing like crazy went from 30 employees to 225 employees in less than 18 months, filed the next one, hire Deutsche Bank to take us public what we waltzing down Wall Street reading the Wall Street Journal every day, and watching companies just like ours go public, watching these guys like us. So we're in our early 30s, late 20s, early 30s, you know, going from being worth, you know, what's in our wallet to being worth $150 million each and all kinds of stuff. And we're like, man, like, are we like, Are we almost there, and you know, we we were almost there, right? Then the.com bubble explodes, just you know, it bursts. And then when that burst, the tide went out faster, and we could get back you know, faster, and we know how to and and, you know, when we were growing so quickly, we were also growing with other companies who were commerce who had great ideas, but had no money and they were leveraging private private capital to to grow, when the.com bubble burst, all those investors wallets closed. And so all these people are stuck with an idea and no money. And so in a very short period of time, we had to, we had to ask our clients to either pay their balances and prove they could continue to do so or we needed to cut them off from services and in about a two month period of time we lost 90% of our client base. So you know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I was the CEO of the company when we were going up but close to the end of the journey of the investors that asked me to take over as the CEO of the company and wanted to shift the leadership team around and in wanted to change the direction of the company from this company that thought it was going to go public and be worth bazillions and and in a culture of people who were expecting still for a pay day when that when that day didn't exist anytime in the near future and and try to turn this company I was losing a significant amount of money into a profitable business and so I accepted their challenge and it was difficult journey and at the end of the day, they We are one of 2% 2% of the agencies in the United States to survive the.com bubble, only 2% of the companies in the internet service space before your 2000 are still in business today. So again, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger those experiences certainly taught me about how I look at raising capital, again, how I'd look at using debt to grow a business, how it looked to see about the sources of where new business were coming in, and how not to be riding a tide that I couldn't own the propulsion of it if the tide decided to shift it sometime down the road. Unfortunately, a lot of that worked out real well, you know, we've grown up to be you know, you've got to be an amazing agency. And you just recently merged with another agency to be one of the largest, if not the largest, privately held digital agencies here in the United States today, and continuing to grow well and continue to use those experiences from my early days selling Hyundai's to the most recent mistake I probably made last week to continue to try to run a great business.

Jeff Sterns  05:57

So when you accepted the challenge to step in the CEO role of this sinking ship, I think what you probably did was you just started at what's the next right step in front of me, and just went a and then B, because I think you were learning something and learning something because I understand that you have natural entrepreneurship, and you have, you know, your IQ, etc. But it wasn't all wheelhouse.

06:23

Yeah, no, I think, you know, when they asked me to step into a Jeff, my first answer was, I'm not sure. Because to your sinking ship analogy. I really did you have a discussion about are we the Titanic, have we already hit the iceberg, it is my job just to arrange the ejector deck chairs to make it look prettier as it goes down. Because I didn't want to sign up for that. And I surely didn't believe I really knew what their thoughts were to the investors who were asking me to do this. But But as I thought about it, you know, we had 225 employees who deserved a paycheck that Friday, and we had clients who made some commitments to us and gave us the vote of confidence that we were going to deliver for them and they were entitled to get those types of things. And so I told the investors I would do it for six months until they found someone to replace me as if I had to hire gun and so that's what I agreed to do. At the six month mark I called them and say listen guys, I'm kind of surprised I haven't interviewed anybody for my replacement yet. I'm you know, I'm just checking in to see where you're at and all of that and they said, Oh my gosh, you're doing such a great job. We didn't think you wanted to leave the post I'm like Oh, please don't don't misinterpret what my expectations are. I'm have no intention of running this business for a very long period of time either. I'm much more time do you need and they'd asked me for six more months and so I given them that and same thing happened at six months later, Marcus guys, you know, I know what happened last time. Where are you on this? They said, you're doing such a great job. And the more we know you we know, Kevin Oregon's not a quitter. I said what was that isn't Kevin work is not a quitter, Mike, I got to write that down. Because that may be the best line I've learned in my business career so far. But I gave him an ultimatum sell me the majority of the company or take my 30 day resignation. And it wasn't a threat, it was real. But if we were turning the company around, it just nobody wanted to take over a losing calm company six months or 12 months into the turnaround, it was gonna be a difficult sell to somebody, it was gonna cost them a lot of money. And, and again, the co workers didn't deserve that the clients who who chose to continue to stay really deserve it. And I could get excited about being the owner of the business, but not their hired gun. And so we were able to work out some terms and I was able to buy 60% of the business from them at that time. And then a few years later was able to buy 100% of the business from them at a later time. And it worked out well. It was good transaction. They didn't get all their money back. But they were very happy with the growth that they could get out of it. And it was a good transaction for them. It's good transaction for me. It gave me the control to be able to navigate the company through the trials and tribulations of the ever changing digital space. And and you know, here we are talking to that in is that the original company and you change the name to Bayshore, right? Yep, yep. So at the end of the day, Jeff, you know, it's as much as growing calm, darling company was like you said everybody knew hydrogen media was on the way up. It's one story on the way down. It's a completely different story. And you can't imagine what it was like to try to recruit new clients and recruit new co workers who months earlier, everything being published is this Tampa's next Tech Data, which is one of our big publicly traded companies here. On the way up, that's what we're being referred to, on the way down is When are they going out of business or when are they filing bankruptcy. And if you haven't had that kind of press mentioned about your company before, it isn't easy to recruit new clients and recruit new co workers when the press is publishing that there's a risk of you going out of business or risk of you filing bankruptcy. I'm proud to say we didn't go out of business and I'm proud to say we never filed bankruptcy. We're able to work our way through all of that stuff. But I felt like the brand that had so much love and attention to it on the way up they had so much tarnish on the way down that it was time to change the brand because wasn't only it was time to change but it wasn't who we were either we weren't these commerce were false beliefs that were all become bazillion errors and ride this tide. That wasn't who we are. We were dedicated digital marketers, we're going to help companies by our commitment Delton design and develop the right website and design to develop the right, the right advertising campaigns. And I needed a team of people who are committed to that, and not waiting for their stock options to cash in. And I needed clients to know that we had changed too. So it wasn't just changing to get the name away. It was changed to just get the whole who we were is no longer who we are. And the name change was a big way of making that reality. Okay,

Jeff Sterns  10:39

so we're a little stigma, we get the name. Yes. Good idea. Any idea? Can you tell us what Bayshore media came out of

10:50

Fisher solutions so as to face your specialty. So, you know, it's a funny story. So I wouldn't call it a branding expert story by any stretch of the imagination, but I had a short window which I could rename the company and so Bayshore, we're here in the Tampa market, we're on the corner of Gandy and in Bayshore Boulevard. Bayshore is one of the best known pretty streets in Tampa, everybody knew who Bayshore was was very limited thinking because I was sitting there and Bayshore, such a monumental name for a street in Tampa Bay here that everybody knows Bay Shore and thinks up of it, and wasn't thinking about this company who was going to be global or national. Because I'll tell you a funny story about doing business in Denver, Colorado was Bayshore solutions. And then solutions is, quite frankly, this was I don't want to call it genius. But at this time, the.com bubble is still it's still it's still exploding. It's still fragmented. It's still everywhere. We could have been Bayshore web design, we could have been Bayshore web development, we could have been Bayshore SEO, we could have been Bayshore web hosting. But I didn't want to, I didn't want to tattoo the name of our company to a service. They didn't know if it was going to survive in this breakout of the whole.com bubble burst. And solutions was very agnostic. And so not knowing where this ball would shake out, Bayshore solutions Bayshore from basis Boulevard solutions to be very agnostic. So I wasn't limited in where I needed to position the company when we figured out where the opportunities were in the shakeout of the.com bubble burst. Kevin excluding me,

Jeff Sterns  12:16

can you name the three most influential people

12:19

influential as far as

Jeff Sterns  12:20

his influential inspirational

12:24

cheese? Jeff is hard to find who number two and three would be good. But it could be someone famous or someone close to you. Yeah, so I'll tell you this in my industry I do. I do pay pretty close attention to three quote unquote industry experts that primarily teaching about how to run a better agency. So I'm, I pay pretty close attention to a guy named drew McLellan, a guy named Michael gas, and another guy whose name is escaping me at the moment, but I do follow some industry experts to pretty pretty, pretty strongly. I also belong to a couple peer groups who, like leadership, CEO, peer groups who I get together with on a monthly basis, very similar to a 20 group would be an auto business where 20 automobile, principals spend time together on a monthly or quarterly basis to help share best practices and feel it's not a good competitive threat against them. But I do that with two different organizations in my better digital agency based ones in a group called YPO. Young presidents organization. I know somebody you know, I know probably Jeff, you've sold quite a few cars, probably guys who are members of YPO. I know that the guy Nicole that as the winery out in California was a YPO guy that's just to have a dinner in his house one time. That's one another groups called Digital mastermind. So um, there's some definitely some, some influence inside those communities, not just one particular person, but just the groups in themselves create a lot of influence and a lot of education through their experiences. Okay, so

Jeff Sterns  13:49

here's what I find interesting about your answer. And of course, I relate everything to the car dealership, a bit of a one trick pony, right? So you'd mentioned that there were people at the dealership that worked there a long time that were crushing it with people at the dealership a long time that were not doing very well at all? Yes, this relates the best basketball player in the world throws the most practice free throws, and the best golfers hit the most buckets of balls and etc, etc. And the people that are lower on the board, so to speak, don't practice as much. Now though, it's an effort thing. So I think that it would be safe to say that you're okay. You're not worrying about where your next meals coming from you got a successful business. I think that you're doing as well as you ever hoped that you would do when you were a kid like I hit I hope I can. I hope I can get a McLaren is one of my cars. Sure. Even even if it's a short term inventory still yet here you are talking about when I say Who are these influential people. You're talking about trainers, teachers, coaches, right mentors And then when you're talking about your, your peer group, you're talking about a support group to help you move the ball when you're, you're at the point where a lot of people would say, if I could ever get there, then I've arrived, you know, blah, blah, blah. So here you are certainly notable. I mean, we've already talked about your credentials at the beginning of the show, you've been recognized by the kind of business you run by the kind of guy you are, but the kind of CEO you are, and you're talking about how you're still looking for the support to improve, improve, improve. It's the same thing is the guy that's been at the Hyundai store a long time, that's doing a phenomenal job, because he keeps trying to keep sharpening his saw, he keeps taking his training. You keep working. So you've got all my admiration there.

15:41

I appreciate that. Yep. Really, I think, yeah, but I think you're right, the guy hits most balls, you know, it's pretty one of the best golfers. But I think like, you know, the appetite to continue to learn just still is in my body every day. And you I just love being around really bright, smart people. And I love learning. It doesn't have to be in in my industry, I just love to be around an area where I can be learning from others. It could be learning business stuff, it could be learning personal things. I think, you know, your appetite to learn and your desire to continue to take in new things to be able to improve. It's a good it's a good habit, or it's a good it's a good appetite to have, right.

Jeff Sterns  16:16

It's a great appetite to have but I want to change around something you just said, the guy who hits a lot of balls is a great golfer. I'm reversing it, the guy that's already a great golfer is hitting a lot of balls.

16:29

That's correct. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yep. So these are already there, you're never not polishing, right? You're always you're always polishing, you're not, you're not resting on your laurels. And you know, you're talking about, you know, I'm sure you're not worried about your next meal, and all those types of things. I'm sure a lot of those are true. But something I'll confess on this podcast today is one of my sources of entertainment. One or two mornings a week on my 20 mile commute from Clearwater Beach to Tampa, Florida every day, is I might listen to a little bit of Howard Stern's in the morning on my way in for a little bit of entertainment. And here's a guy who's you know, makes $110 million a year consistently preached, there's not a day, he doesn't think about, he's gonna lose it all. And he runs his life in fear one day that he's gonna lose it all. And he views that as an unhealthy but yet healthy fear. And, you know, I think, Jeff, I never ever take for granted anything that's happened so far. And I never want to overestimate how those things could disappear. I had a company of 225 employees go down to 11 in a matter of months, right? I've seen what can happen, right? And I don't ever want to relive that experience. So you're continually try to grow, learn improve, so that my risk factors diminished as best as possible and, and it's a healthy appetite or a healthy habit to try to form because the consequences the other side, you know, are pretty significant.

Jeff Sterns  17:53

Well, in the car business, I'd always said even when running a couple of the largest stores or franchise in the country is my insecurity is my security.

18:01

That's exactly right. And, you know, my father preaches you know, the car business is a 30 day business, right? You're only you're only as good as your last month, right? And it's still 21 units one month and you're feeling good about yourself and then all of a sudden works first creeps up and you're back to ground zero again,

Jeff Sterns  18:16

and no attract 30 days and no contract.

18:19

Yeah, I think my father told me that one of his old stores that the rule was is that you pretty much could have a job selling for the dealer and this is in this in Erie, Pennsylvania, different climate different community. But back in the day, I think he used to tell me something along the lines like salespeople were pretty secure in their job, as long as they do anything wrong criminally or anything that violated any you know, codes or anything like that. Or they weren't bottom man on the totem pole two months in a row. And aside of that, you pretty were safe, David, and they may have I turned over to sales people because they The last thing they wanted to do is be the bottom person two months in a row, they made a dance to the number one person a few months, but they never, never let happen two months in a row. And it's probably not the best system to have. But it was something I remember growing up. My dad used to say that they were pretty secure in their job

Jeff Sterns  19:03

as long as I mean, there's certainly a lot more more secure than management. That's true. If the salesperson does their job every month, management can turn over 50 times in their career.

19:15

Yes, your ownership

Jeff Sterns  19:15

can turn over they're never getting rid of a salesperson that's doing a consistent job. Never.

19:21

Yeah, that's true.

Jeff Sterns  19:22

That's just what business doesn't need. Somebody bringing in business consistently. ethically not getting in trouble, you know exactly right. None of us are ever getting rid of that guy. No, no or gal or Yeah. So Gil nickel.

19:33

Yes.

Jeff Sterns  19:34

I'm so glad that you brought up Gil nickel. Yes. Because we talked about that the other day, and I honestly forgot. So yeah. Can I can I share that story?

19:44

Yeah.

Jeff Sterns  19:46

No. If he would have said no right then folks, I would have just edited it out and then I would have just kept going. So I'd sold Gil nickel a couple of cars the way I met Gil nickel was referred by a good friend and customer at Sarasota wine fest. So he was there as a vintner or an owner, right. So at the wine fest you, we had cars on display and people would be at like in a giant tent and like wedding banquet kind of tables, and there'd be a vintner from whatever winery there, right? Somebody who one of my customers who's a wine nut down in Sarasota says, Hey, Jeff, I want to introduce you to Gill nickel. I don't drink anything. So I didn't know a nickel from a chemical. You know, I'm just at wine fest trying to hopefully bump into someone a little tipsy. Let's be honest with their wallet hanging out, like in the corner sitting on the putting green, you know, what can I die? So completely, you know, I would still give him their three day right of rescission. But that's why I'm there. So I meet Gil and my his interest in me and my interest in him is he wants a continental, not a Bentley Continental GT, but the prior continental our continental tea platform car. That's what Yeah,

20:54

yeah. Coop,

Jeff Sterns  20:56

you wanted a T right? Yep. So terrific. I take his information, you know, etc, etc. And I'm looking for cars and from time to time I get one and call them or someone offers me one and I call them and eventually I sell them a car. And the sweet sweet guy you had dinner with him. So I mean, you can't he's just nice. I mean, that's all there is to it. soft spoken still. When I'm when we're done with the deal. There's two stories in this he sends me a case of wine half red, half white, of Barney anti Fernando. I don't drink. So it's holiday or holiday time comes up. I probably had the case sitting there untouched other than company. Come on. I took one out for like three months. So it's Christmas. I'm giving one to the lawn guy. I'm giving one to the garbage guy. Give him one to my handyman. I got a buddy who's a wine snob over he's a dermatologist. He's over for dinner, him and his wife. And he's like, What's that over there? And I'm like, I sold a guy. I guess he has a winery. I sold a guy a car and he sent me this case a wine and you want you want one? He's like, how many Can I have? So I guess it was like 120 a bottle or easily? Oh, easily. Okay. I don't know at the time. Anyway, he told me that then. Okay.

22:21

Yeah,

Jeff Sterns  22:22

that story. But the other Gillen Nichols story is around the time that I sold him the car or after I think I was looking for another one for him. And I think we sold it to his Montana Corporation. As a matter of fact, I'm reading a book by Brock Yates called Cannonball. And I'm feeding my son Jackson a bottle on the couch. And I'm reading this cannibal book. And at whatever chapter I'm at, it says and Gil nickel came in second or third place in the 450, Sal, etc, etc. 1971 450 or something like that. And I see my customers name in the book. So I immediately just dial him in. He answers the phone. He's like, hey, Jeff, I'm in a meeting right now. So if you found a car or something, I'll just call you later. I said, No. Yeah, all I say is I've been bragging to everyone that I sold because now I knew I sold but you know, the owner. ferny intae. Is You didn't even tell me you're in the Canon ballroom. I wouldn't even be talking about the winery. And he's like, hang on a second. And he I guess he walks out of this meeting. And he goes to the hallway or whatever, then he starts not whispering and he's like, and we would have won that thing if this thing didn't happen with the 450. And, and he went on for 10. I mean, I wish he was alive now. But he went on for 10 minutes. So it's so funny. I mean, like he couldn't leave his business meaning God knows he was in a boardroom or something. Right, exactly. But you bring up Cannonball Run. He's like leaving everyone hanging and he don't care. Yeah. So it's a wonderful Gil nickel story. So Kevin, what is something somebody doesn't know about you?

24:03

So when somebody some just know about me? So Jeff, I, I typically answer The answer the same way. So that would be something that people are starting to know about me. But sometimes people don't know about me. I had such a good run with my car dealer license years ago, that I am trying to figure out how to go get it done. Again, with the limited amount of time I have, I'm going to try to get my car dealer license back. So I'm looking for a warehouse again, that's going to qualify for the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. Oh, and I'm looking to I think I looked with 887 pages of content that you have to read before you go take the test. Or I'm looking for somebody that wants to who's looking for a partner to help subsidize some of the real estate and insurance costs but I've got the itch to to do it again. I got out of it. I had it for a good 1314 years I got out of it because I felt like I'd done everything I want to add almost every I don't every almost every car. I wanted to And I wasn't averaging 1700 $50 a car anymore either in my hobby, my hobby wasn't writing big losses, right? It wasn't fun writing big losses, right. And I just didn't have the time to commit to it. And it just wasn't the same fun anymore as it was when I got started. But it's been a seven year hiatus, and I'm when I'm reading, I'm excited about trying to get back into it again.

Jeff Sterns  25:20

So in this doesn't mean you've stopped buying cars.

25:23

No, not at all. You just wanted to

Jeff Sterns  25:25

ask your limit.

25:26

I'm just doing the three and three program again. But yeah, just trying to get it exactly. Excellent.

Jeff Sterns  25:32

There's one other thing that I wanted to ask you. And yes, you're not comfortable, you know, we can edit the thing?

25:39

Sure.

Jeff Sterns  25:41

What do you wish somebody knew about you?

25:46

That's a good question. That's a really good question. What I wish somebody knew about me. You know, Jeff, I think that over the years is I've done business with people and talk to people. You're trying to build a relationship with somebody what I do for a living again, I don't know if I'd sign up all over again, because one of the biggest challenges are what I do differently for living then when you did when you were selling cars, when you were selling gild that, that Bentley Mulliner, you know, he knew what the car was, he knew what color he wanted, he knew kind of the mileage range he wanted, and he knew what was available out there. And he was buying a product, right. And so you know, he knew what he wanted to pay for that product. And he wanted that product needed to be, but he was buying a product like this pin, or this iPhone, it's a product. What I do for a living is I sell a service in selling a service is almost like selling hope, because a person who's buying from me is hoping I'm listening to what they're saying, hoping I'm interpreting it correctly, what their expectations are. And then vice versa. They're hoping that what they're hearing from me. And when I'm putting in a document that I'm asking him to sign, as well as a check next to that document. They're hoping three to six months later, I'm going to produce what they're expecting. And it's no fun to sell. It's no fun to buy hope. I don't envy, the position of people who buy services from anybody in my industry. They're buying hope. And it's no fun to be selling hope either. But at the end of the day I'd like people to know is I truly try to live my day every day with this hope that one day down the road. When I go six feet under someone writes on my gravestone, Kevin Horrigan was a fair person, and I try to live my day every day, just trying to be a fair person, try to be fair to my customers try to be fair to my coworkers try to be fair to my family. But, you know, just trying to say, you know, you said earlier, you know, you walk the walk or whatever that phrase may be, you know, I take it seriously. And you just hope as people get to read some of this content, or watch them as content, whatever it may be, listen to some of this content, you know, really try to you know, live my life that in a way that at the end of the day, I hope that I'm judged as a very fair person,

Jeff Sterns  27:52

you haven't you are congruent.

27:55

Correct.

Jeff Sterns  27:56

You are being groomed, because the way you come across and the way you live your life to my knowledge. And I don't know, I don't know, every single moment of your life is if you are living or your funeral. And you wanted it said at your funeral, like a guy was just a fair guy. Yeah, he was there. He gives you a fair shake. If you gave him too much money, he'd let you know that he owes you some change? Sure, sure. For as long as I've known you. And I think it's 35 godforsaken years. If you're accurate, very close to that. You're You're accurate 3330. I've never known you to be any other way. I mean, that's, there's people that say, here's what I'd like, but they don't live it you live, like I said earlier. And something else interesting that I find about you is, even though you've achieved some level of financial success for a while now, you don't stop with your support group you don't support with who you're following to take mentorship from. I know you and I have had confidential conversations when I was having some issues in my family and you were there to listen and provide counsel, the kind of counsel that you gave was wholesome. It wasn't one sided. It wasn't about winning. It wasn't about winning for the sake of someone losing, it was certainly about winning for the sake of it being a win for everybody. And then hearing your own empathic story about some trials you had in your own family and what you did to address it was always about a holistic, ethical, and proper way. I mean, that's how I know you when I got when I get to know you, the business the success that you have in business is well deserved, because of like who you are, and because of what you know, and because of what you made yourself, go out and find out when you didn't know. So these are true things that I wanted to say now on tape for you to have forever in case I kick on the way home or something. Yeah,

30:07

so maybe we played up my finger. Okay.

Jeff Sterns  30:11

So Kevin, I appreciate you, obviously between thinking about your dealer license, between merging with another company become one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the nation, between worrying about your family that you are worried about, between worrying about your health, that is a thing. That's an important thing. You make sure every day to take care of yourself somehow, because I can see it and you're doing it for the sake of the people around you so that you could function and keep going. I know what's driving you right? The why.

30:39

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Sterns  30:40

It's obvious for you to make time for this. For me, I take as a really big compliment, friendship, and even what you're doing for the people out there that you don't know that you're willing to give a little piece in case it helps them. Yeah,

30:54

I appreciate that. Jeff was great to spend time with you and love your podcast, love your content. I love the interviews that I've watched so far, and I wish you continued success in this journey as well.

31:05

This has been Jeff Sterns connected through cars.