Rob Satran, CEO of Royal Green Appliances Inc. - CEOs You Should Know

Rob Satran, CEO of Royal Green Appliances Inc. | CEOs You Should Know

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, everyone, This is SteveDellison and thank you guys for tuning in
for this week's edition of CEOs.You should know I am joined by Rob
Satron, the CEO of Royal GreenAppliances. Rob, thanks for coming in
today. Thank you for having meexcited to jump into the conversation, learn
a little bit about more about thecompany and really your path to CEO.
So why don't we kick it offFor those listeners that don't know and are

(00:20):
maybe not familiar with Royal Green,why do you tell us a little bit
about the company? Sure, RoyalGreen Appliance is what you would know of
as a traditional mom and pop althoughwe're a large mom and pop, but
mom and pop appliance store not necessarily, you know, dating back to the
nineteen fifties, like the movies likethat Thing You Do where the protagonist was

(00:40):
a great movie, great movie,but a great song, where the protagonist
worked in his father's appliance store untilhe hit it big. But in some
senses, in some of our locations, that's kind of what we are.
We are a luxury appliance retailer.We're a little unique in that while you
can come in and buy whatever youwant right off the street. Eighty percent

(01:02):
of our business is driven by thetrade. And by the trade I mean
architects, designers, kitchen cabinet makers, large scale development work and so yeah,
it's so we're unique as an applianceretailer even in our industry that we're
one of the largest appliance dealers inthe Northeast and perhaps in the country that

(01:23):
you've probably never heard of, whichdoesn't really speak well for my marketing deportment,
But that is ironically by somewhat ofa design, okay, because we
really focus on that business to businessmodel. That's and that's what's enabled us
to sort of sustain our growth overthe last fifty years and makes us a
little unique in the appliance space.So again, traditional retailer you would know

(01:48):
coming right off the street in Tribeca, we have we have in Willison Park,
Long Island, Parsipping in New Jersey, in White Plains, New York.
To any walk into any of thoseshowoms and buy whatever you want.
But people typically don't walk in inby thirty thousand dollars ranges off the street
right That doesn't generally happens they're workingwith an architect or anterior designer, right,
unless someone is unless someone is sendingthem there. Got it to a

(02:08):
better point, right, And towhat you just said, we are more
of a destination company, got itright. We're not like marketing to the
masses. It's not looking for billboardsout on I ninety five. We're a
destination in most of our locations.Awesome, So let's take it a step
back. What really got you onthis journey to becoming the CEO of Roger

(02:29):
Impliances? Okay? Sure, SoI started my career in the law,
Okay, big change, Yeah,a little bit, applians. I mean,
I think the most important thing thatyour audience needs to know is that
I was not disbarred. Okay,although most of my friends sort of you
know so he but no, thatis not true. I still naturally licensed.
Nice. But I started out asa commercial litigator for fourteen years.

(02:51):
And my father's first cousin was hislast name was Green Span. He was
the Green of Royal Green, andhe was more like and still is by
the way to this day, eventhough he retired many many years ago,
still has a father figure to meand my life and a life coach to
me. And it was the opportunitywhen Jay was looking to find an exit

(03:12):
strategy for himself and his partners,that he came to me, and I
was their lawyer for many years,and he sat down one night and he
said, look, we have anidea and we think that you would be
perfect to you know, to comein and help steer and guide Royal Green
in its next iteration, to whichI responded, sure, I've got sixty
bucks my pocket. I mean,you know, you guys crazy, I

(03:36):
mean, I can't afford your company. And they were kind and they were
generous to me at the time,and we worked out a situation where it
worked for everybody, and honestly,it was really an opportunity for me at
that time in my life. Iwas thirty seven to work beside my cousin
Jay and be with him in thelast few years of his professional career because

(03:58):
I respected him so greatly, lovehim so much, and he was so
influential to me in my life interms of how to operate a business,
the principles of them. Even whenI was in the law and I was
trying to build my own law firm, he was a guiding light and a
guiding force, and so I couldn'treally at that time in my life.
It was just a wonderful opportunity toswitch gears. Yeah, I sold my

(04:18):
practice to my partners. Of course, it was two thousand and eight and
the world collapsed shortly after. Andso but you do learn in a very
and when when business titans, that'sright, you learn what's necessary and what
is it necessary in order to runa business. Also, the three partners
at the time were more guys thatwere like running around the deck of the

(04:38):
Titanic streaming, we're all gonna die. And I was more of a all
right, so we'll find some wood, we'll float the weather the storm,
right, it's gonna be a littlechilly, but we'll float for a little
while. And I'm a glass halffull guy like that. And so it
was really good time to learn thebusiness and the path to CEO is.
It was something that happened over along period of time. My cousin left

(05:00):
the business after two years. Hewas just everything wonderful about being in business
and about understanding my growth. Andhe came to me one night and he
said that if he stayed any longer, he was going to affect my growth.
And he didn't want that, andhe thought at that time that I
was ready. But there were othertwo other partners who were also older guys
at the time, and one ofwhom, by the way, is still

(05:24):
my partner to this day. He'sseventy six years old. He comes in
every day. He's Stu Royal,the Royal of Royal Green. Stu is
a wonderful also fatherlike figure to me, and Jay certainly gave me the gift
of Stu, which I cherish everyday. But that's really been It took
about six or seven years until Iwas able to start to steer the company

(05:47):
and start to understand what it wasgoing to take for us to grow.
And that's kind of the path.That's awesome, big leap going from completely
different industries from legal over there.But it sounds like, get a lot
of really good people around you,right, A lot of good mentors,
a lot of people that were ableto coach and groom you for that next
chapter. You know, it's interesting. I don't often think about that in

(06:09):
life, but it is true.And even my own father, who is
you know, the typical grew upin Brooklyn in the nineteen forties and fifties,
you know, tough guy. Youknow, a civil servant, you
know, worked for the government hiswhole life. His father worked for the
government his whole life. I comefrom a long line of civil servants,
and my father was like, youcan't go out in the private RNT do
that. Who's gonna pay you?Right? But you're one hundred percent right.

(06:32):
I've been very fortunate in my lifeto have that and still do.
That's awesome. So interestingly enough,I try to instill that and try to
become that for a lot of thepeople that work for me and for a
lot of my family. That's awesome. Very interesting point. Yeah, piggybacking
off of that, what's the coremission of the company? Right? How
do you ensure it? Sounds likethere's a lot of really great values when

(06:55):
you got there that you're able tocontinue on today. Right, how do
you really allow that mission to beable to go through the entire organization?
Right? So, mission is somethingthat I've always struggled with. Right,
you know, like your first lessonof business school is to say, okay,
well what is your mission statement?And you know, and where are
you going? And you have tohave a goal. And for us,

(07:15):
I think your listeners would find itinteresting that mission is a very difficult concept
for us. So if you're outthere and you're struggling with your mission statement,
you are not alone. I willsay this what we strive for,
okay. And we have a veryunique business too. Within the confines of
what drives our business, which isunique, we also have a very unique
clientele because even though our client teleis and we like to say that our

(07:42):
clients are the builders and the designers, okay, our end users are not.
Our end users are people everyday,people who are looking to build their
kitchens and want certain things and havecertain demands. And so for us,
the challenge in that mission statement iswe are our luxury brand, but we
sell all kinds of product. Sowe sell the highers and the hot points

(08:05):
of the world, we sell thefrigidaires of the world. We sell the
boshes of the world, and themid levels of the you know, the
cafe, the g cafe, whichis a beautiful line and then and then
our business scales towards the high end. But the struggle that we have and
the mission that we or we tryto portray, is that is that how

(08:26):
do you treat the customer? Okay, who comes in to buy a three
hundred dollars range, okay, thesame as a customer who comes in to
buy a thirteen thousand dollars range.And that's not easy to do. It's
sort of it's sort of trying tofind an egalitarian approach to a high level
experience even when the customer isn't reallylooking for that. And so that's sort

(08:52):
of what we strive for, isto provide an egalitarian way that no matter
who you are, no matter whatyou we're gonna service it, we're gonna
follow it, we're gonna call you, we're gonna we're gonna set everything up
so that no matter what it isthat you're buying, right, Uh,
the experience is the same. Alot of people like in our industry to

(09:13):
the car industry, because we're highend, large scale, durable goods.
And I've always been jealous of theidea that the Mercedes of the world and
the you know, the BMW's ofthe world, they become factory stores.
You know, sure it's easy toyou know, to uh, to give
out like coffee and peanuts and andsnacks when you come in for service,
right and you know, maybe maybegoing for a massage, right, Like,

(09:35):
I mean, I don't know that, but but but but but when
you but when you sell a lotlines that stretch the spectrum a price,
it's not so easy to do thaton on slimmer margins. And so while
I'm jealous of that, I believethat the approach is something that we try
to emulate and we try to instillthat in our salespeople that you know that

(09:58):
the customer who buy a thirty thousanddollars you know, lack cornew stove,
Okay, it should be treated thesame as somebody who comes in and buys
a three hundred dollars frigidaire pro oror frigidaire. The other part of that
is is and here's the tricky part. You have to do that because you
never know who you're talking to.Yep, right, the guy coming in

(10:20):
or the woman coming in, andthey're dishoveled and they're this, and they're
that, and they're and they're buyinga frigid air Okay, that could be
for their garage and they're thirty milliondollar house. Happens happens every day,
one hundred percent. And so that'sthe struggle that we have is to how
do you maintain that sort of likeyou know on it, you know,
a full luxury service type of anatmosphere where the product spectrum is so wide

(10:43):
it makes a ton of sense.Like it's all about the customer experience.
You never know who's gonna maybe startwith a three hundred dollar appliance and then
become a lifelong client, right,And then they're also gonna tell other people
about you guys and the amazing experiencethey have there. So I think that's
a really smart strategy. Yeah.The other part of that, too,
is is that you have no ideawho built their house yep, and to
us, right. And this iswhy at Royal Green we have a fully

(11:03):
staffed customer service department, Right,I have six or seven people. All
they do all day for the lifeof the product. Okay, we don't
necessarily it's not the warranty for thelife of the product, but for the
life of the product. If youhave a problem in your house with anything
that we sell you, you callour store because for us, when we
call the manufacturers and ask service,right, yet, we're not waiting for

(11:24):
an hour. Okay, so we'retoo important to that establishment. But they
might keep you on hold, butthey're not going to keep you on hold
if you come through me. Andthat's kind of that approach. And we
do that because the builder who referredthat customer is it's not a single house
that I'm worried about, it's tenhomes I'm worried about m And I think
that philosophy keeps us on our toesand it's beneficial to everybody involved. Yep,

(11:48):
makes a ton of sense. Yeah, we talked about this earlier,
the multiple locations, right, andreally expanding. And I think since you've
taken over the CEO role, thecompany has continued to expand. What do
you attribute that to, like whatstrategies you put in place to continue to
grow? So I think that partof it is knowing what you're good at.
Part of it is knowing what you'renot good at. And it's funny,
I was just talking to some ofyour staff earlier about the idea of

(12:11):
like knowing what you're not good atand coming to terms with that and embracing
that. Yeah, And I thinkbecause when when you figure that out one
hundred percent, right, when youfigure out what you're not good at,
there's two schools of thought there.Once is you've got to figure out what
you're not good at and then killit so that you right. Yeah.
And the other school is, Idon't care how hard they try, it's
not working. So let me gohere. Let me focus on my strength
sun see out of work, fightthe fight where the fight can be won.

(12:33):
I think that from our perspective,our growth is really tied into acquisition.
We are not good traditionally okay,at at our marketing okay, which
is which which we have a planin place actually right now, I think
for the first time in our company'shistory that sort of makes sense for us.
Nice, yes, super excited aboutit. But we'll see how it

(12:54):
goes. But if I were tolook at the strength of why we uh,
why we grew the way that wedid, I think it's because I
had always had a love of Mand A work. Even when I was
litigating, a lot of my litigationwas centered around commercial litigation, acquisition,
problem solving, raising funds. Howdo we move money from A to B

(13:18):
in order to effectuate a much largersolution. I always love that, and
it took me a long time atRoyal Green to kind of get back to
that, Okay, because I hadto sort of get the right people in
place in order to free me up. When I first started, I was
doing everything right and not by myself. By the way, let me be
very clear, Royal Green is comprisedof a lot of great people, and

(13:41):
you can't big you can't build bigcompanies without having great people. But it
wasn't until I started having the rightpieces in place that I was able to
walk away from some of the moremicro managing things that I was doing.
And when that happened, it enabledme to sort of take a ten thousand
foot view of the business and ofthe landscape. And we'll talk maybe a

(14:03):
little bit more about the relationship aspectand the relationship building of what we do
at Royal Green. But for us, that growth, I would say,
you know, almost one hundred percentof it. Okay, Yes, we
have the relationship building and the organicspreading of our name and the referral business,
which is a massive and major partof our business. But the real
sustained growth has occurred because we've beenvery aggressive and very unique in the sense

(14:28):
too, very aggressive in the acquisitionspace in our industry over the last five
years. So in the last fiveyears, yeah, we've acquired five different
companies. Nice congrats, thank youSpeaking about the people at the company,
right, I think one of theconcepts that I read about that you guys
really embraced is what you guys calledthe vesting heartbeat. What does that personally
mean to you? And what doesthat mean to the team? Right,

(14:50):
So, which is sort of appropriateconsider where it iHeart radio investing heartbeat,
but bump, I'll be here youknow for me investing heartbeat, which is
obviously play on words, right,Resting heartbeat is is the idea that everybody
will tell you right old, youtalk to any ceo, you watch any

(15:11):
you know, TikTok Okay, what'sthe key to you know, your employees
and what's the key to driving business? Right? You know, you've got
to get invested. Right if youhave a vested employee, you know the
world can open up. Investing isreally you know, it's a fancy way
of saying taking ownership. Right,and so again, also concepts that are
thrown around a lot. You know, uh, you know, I'm gonna

(15:33):
you own that power point, youknow, own that sale, own that
experience, own that you know resolution, you know, conflict resolution, own
it. What what we've found isthat vesting and that ownership is a two
way street. Okay, ownership,and the executive side of that equation has
to tune into the employees. Yep. It can't be a one way road

(15:58):
where you just expect your employees tobuy into what you're trying to do.
We are Royal Green, yeah weare, and I'm very proud of that.
But but but that only happens whenwhen you yourself on the other side
of that equation, care as muchabout them as you hope they do your
company and for us, and thatonly happens, by the way, when

(16:25):
you have an authentic approach to yourto your to your business, and an
authentic approach to your employee your team. Right. Authenticity occurs when you believe
in what you're saying and what you'resaying is true. And for us,
we really take that mantra that Ethosto heart in the sense that you know,
you know, we we we focusin on our employees' issues and their

(16:48):
problems at home, and we wantthem at their graduations and we want them
at their baseball games. And whenpeople come in to meet with us,
you know, or the interview withus, I say, listen, here's
here's the pecking order. Okay,here's the pegging water. Okay. This
might sound counterintuitive, but then there'sthere's there's your family. Okay, then
there's you. Okay, because everybodyputs their font right, that's sure.

(17:11):
Okay, there's the family, thenthere's you, and then there's Royal Green.
And if you can do that,then I'm pretty sure that Royal Green
will get taken care of, Okay, because that means when that you have
everything settled at home, and itisn't always going to be wonderful, Okay.
A lot of people bring a lotof baggage with them, right,
and you have to figure out howto navigate through that, and you have
to figure out how to be therefor them. And it isn't just something

(17:33):
that you can say you have toyou have to live it. We've we
have to take We've taken care ofour employees financially when they needed it,
well beyond the confines of their salaries. We've been at events that were important
to them in their lives to showup in the background. And it probably
wouldn't shock you, right that thatthat I showed up at one of my

(17:53):
employee's sons high School championship basketball game, okay, and I stood there and
because I was because I genuinely lovemy employee, Okay, So there's an
authenticity there. But I knew whatit would mean to him for me to
just be standing off to the side. And it's funny, I haven't thought
about that in a lot of years, but it speaks directly to that point.

(18:17):
Vesting and ownership has to happen twoways, and it's very hard with
a small company because we don't havethe budgets to like, you know,
parachute our people into Times Square,okay, or shoot them out of canons.
It stirkd to sole okay, whichI've heard about. But but but
we we don't. We you know, we're we're relatively speaking, as much
as we're a large company for whatwe do, we're you know, it's

(18:37):
starting conceptually from an industry perspective.We're a small company, and so we
have to fight that fight, youknow, at the personal level. And
I think that we I think thatwe do that pretty well. I think
our employees will tell you that,you know that there is a deeper meaning
to the way that we deal withthem. Yeah, yeah, well it's
really refreshing here. I could saya lot of seas talk about work life

(18:59):
bounds, but it takes it astep further when you actually practice what you
preach. So I think, inmy opinion that that goes a longer way
than some of the shooting a cannonout of it where yeah, that sounds
like a blast who out of thecat Well, I've been accused of that
in so let's take it a personalroute, right. I do want to
talk about, and I'm sorry tohear this, the loss of your older

(19:21):
brother, the childhood cancer. Howdid that really influence your outlook on life?
And how has that really helped alsodevelop your leadership skills? So right,
great questions, and it's certainly atopic that I'm very comfortable talking about,
primarily because my parents put me intherapy right away early on when my
brother got sick, and I usedto sit there in the therapy sessions throwing
pencils at the ceiling tiles, thinkinglike what am I doing here? I

(19:44):
was like thirteen years old at thetime. But when I look back at
it, it taught me how totalk about it, taught me how to
not shy away from it. Idon't want to get too far into it.
But my brother, older brother,was fifteen years old when he was
diagnosed. He was twenty when hedied. He was my only and older
brother, and he was, asyou can imagine, very influential to me

(20:07):
in my life. It took mea long time to come to terms with
that, which makes a lot ofsense. For a very long time in
my adolescence and then he even inmy early twenties, you know, I
felt alone for a lot of that. And then something interesting started to happen
with me in my life. Iwent to law school, learned how to

(20:30):
speak again. Okay, it shocksmost people who know me to know that
from the time I was like thirteenyears old to the time I was like
twenty two, I didn't really sayanything. But for me, okay,
the catharsis of coming out of thathappened in my mid twenties. And what
I learned was as time passed thatI that I wasn't alone, that everyone

(20:56):
sustains trauma in their lives to someday. And I learned an even more
important lesson, which was that youdon't get to decide the level of hurt
that someone has in their life.And so while I went through a tremendous
loss personally, that doesn't mean tosay that my loss is more traumatic than
something else that happened to someone else. And so what that does to a

(21:18):
person is it grounds them. Ioften say that my brother gave me the
gift of perspective. He enabled meto look at life and say, Okay,
maybe this isn't the biggest deal inthe world. I've been to the
abyss. Okay, I've looked overthat edge and come back, and I
know that no matter what it is, right, we can somehow get through

(21:40):
it. It's what I think mademe the eternal optimist that I've become.
The other thing that happens when yourealize that you're not alone is that you
learn how to and this is Ithink one of the most engaging important lessons
in life. You learn how toask for help, because when you're alone,

(22:04):
you don't you don't go there,you know, nobody understands, you
know, you feel sorry for yourself. You go through that whole spectrum.
But when you learn that you canask for help and you learn to rely
on people, and then you startto see the result of getting help,
of saying you know what I didn'tthink of it like that, where I
don't have all the answers. Iget accused a lot by my staff,

(22:26):
and I'll defend this and deny itto the day I die. That sometimes
I could be a little arrogant.I don't think that's true. I think
it's just that I'm confident in whatI know and confident in what I don't
know, and when I don't knowsomething, I am not shy about asking
for help. And you know,it's that old expression, right if you're
the smartest guy in the room,leave right, that's kind of how I

(22:48):
That's kind of how I approach thingsright now. And so yeah, I
said, if I look back atthe experiences that I went through and my
brother, I think he gave methe gift of perspective to the point where
if I'm sitting across from you rightnow, you know, I consider myself
to be one of the luckiest peoplein the world. That's also that's a
really good lesson. And thank youfor sharing that my story with the with
the all of our listeners. I'msure your brother's very very proud of all

(23:11):
the stuff you've done. Sure,yeah, I think that that's a great
message though, and I think buildingoff of that, obviously taking a loss
and turning into a positive and obviouslybeing able to learn those key leadership aspects
from a different perspective in life isbig, right, Yes, Wedding the
small stuff? Yeah. What otheradvice would you give to aspiring leaders that
are tuning in? Okay? Soit's a great question, Okay, And

(23:33):
we talked a little bit about thatbefore, about the idea that I you
know that I was mentored a lotand have a lot of mentors, and
honestly, until today, I didn'trealize how truly, Thanks Steve, I
would say, if I had totake two lessons, I'll break that down
to the employees and I'll break itdown to the would be CEOs of the
world. To the employees, Iwould say, chase your ability. Chase

(23:59):
your ability, chase your aptitude.Find something that you like doing. Not
every day is going to be amazing. Okay, You're gonna have your hard
days and your bad days, andyou're gonna be your frustration and all in
the anxieties of life and work.But happens, right, But I found
Okay, and maybe because of theexperiences I had earlier on in my life.
I found that that when you whenyou don't make money, the focus

(24:22):
of your life and money is important. So don't misunderstand me. We all
need it, okay, we allneed to be able to afford all lifestyles.
But don't let that become the mainfocus of your career. If you
chase your aptitude and you chase yourability, I found that everything else in
life will follow you, and ifit doesn't, then you're in the wrong

(24:45):
place. Then it isn't you,And not everybody is in the right place
at the right time. You know, you've got to make that happen in
your life. You can't just sitback and think, you know, you
know, Royal Green is kind ofunique, right Like I preach that at
work, and I'll tell you thatten to one, ten to one of
my employees that I've promoted and raisedtheir salaries before they've ever walked into my
owns. We watch that. Ibelieve in that. I preach that if

(25:08):
you're if you're chasing your ability,yeah, I'll see it, I'll find
you, I'll I'll know. Uh. From the CEO perspective, I would
say, be very careful not towork in your business, work on your
business if you get mired down onthe weeds for too long and too often.

(25:30):
And I get that it's slightly nuanced, the inn and the on,
but if you but if you focustoo hard on that, on that micro
task, you're gonna get lost inthe weeds. And so I think that
and and and it can't happen overnight. It takes time. But when you
can get to the point of yourcareer where you can focus on your business

(25:51):
from ten thousand feet, then yourworld opens up. If you have which
I've been very fortunate to have theright people in place, a world opens
up. And it is it isa privilege, an absolute, abject,
in controverted privilege to be able towork on your business every day. That's
great advice. Yeah, that's greatadvice. So we talked a lot about

(26:12):
the journey, right, what's what'snext? What innovations do you see in
the industry? What's next for RoyalGreen? So another great question, you
know for us, you know,the the the the innovations really don't happen
at our level. You know,we're we like to say that we refine
our approach every day, but theinnovations take place within our product, right,

(26:36):
So it's the you know, it'sthe ability to walk over to a
dishwasher, knock on it and itopens, okay, Or to be able
to talk to your appliances, orto be able to control you know,
be able to open up your phonewhen you're in the supermarket and open up
an app and see what's in yourrefrigerator. Okay, because that's out there,
by the way. Very cool,Yeah, I mean bad. And

(26:56):
there's there's all sorts of crazy innovationsthat are coming down the pike as far
as your you know, your youreveryday appliances. You know, we're getting
into like the Jetson's territory, ifif your audience is old enough to know
what I just said. But butwe're getting into like real you know,
twenty twenty you know, twenty twentyor twenty fifty five stuff. What's coming

(27:18):
down in terms of trends in ourbusiness, I would say there's a there's
a consolidation that's happening in the applianceindustry today, which is I think very
unique. We are going through aperiod of time where we have the second
generation owners. Okay, so themom and dads that came back from the
war in the fifties and sixties andstarted these main street businesses, right,
they grew them to a certain point, and then they brought their families into

(27:41):
a business because because the appliance industryis still very familial, Okay, there's
a lot of generational passing, thatsecond generation owner is now getting to retirement
stage and for whatever the reason,which I haven't really been able to one
hundred percent figure out, but thatsecond generation owner, whether it's an ego

(28:03):
thing, whether it's no you know, nobody could do it better than I
can, but that second generation ownerdoesn't have the exit strategy that or the
foresight for that exit strategy like mycousin Jay did sixteen years ago. He
was way ahead of his time onthat issue. And so what's happened is
is that that second generation owner,whether it's because they believe that no one

(28:26):
could do what they could do,or or they finally figured out what their
mom and dad were doing and they'relike, yeah, I don't want this
for a you. Right, It'sbad enough that I got lumped in because
I need, I needed to makea living, but I want something different
for you, which I sort ofunderstand, and I love what I do,
right, like I would love formy I have three daughters, I
would love for them to be inthe business. I would love for my

(28:47):
son and laws to be in thebusiness. I got one, I got
one son on one. But butfor me, you know, look,
I love the idea of of that, you know, of that generational passing.
The problem is is that it hasn'thappened in our industry. And so
because of our relationships with our manufacturers, and because of our past history,
and because of our success in termsof the way that we treat our acquisition

(29:08):
targets. Right, so when weacquire a company, we don't just blow
the place up. We leave managementin place. The business that we buy
generally buy and large those owners.They may have struggled in certain areas of
their business, but by and largethey're very good salespeople. And so what
we do is we just remove allother aspects to the business other than sales

(29:30):
for them. And we're very carefulabout how we treat them in our meetings
and in our interactions and business thereare you know, we work with them,
they don't work for us. Andso we've been very good in terms
of being able to kind of consolidateand treat these people with a lot of
respect. And because of that,the manufacturers are out there, you know

(29:51):
when people talk to them and theysay and the reps go out to all
these different appliance stores. You know, look, I'm getting tired. You
know, you should really talk toRoil Green. You should really talk to
Stu Royal or Rob Saturn. Theyreally seem to have they seem to have
a plan in place to be ableto to effectuate everything that you want right
to allow you to start to enjoyyour life, to give you value both

(30:12):
financially and vocationally. Uh, they'vegot it. They've got to figure it
out. And like planes landing,it's like I'm right now busier now in
terms of looking at different sets offinancial statements of other companies in the Tri
state area. Now in South Florida. We just took offices in Boca.
Yeah, we're looking at the Caribbeanright now. So there's there's a lot

(30:33):
of growth opportunity. So if you'reasking about a trend, I would say
that you're going to see in uh, you know, the lows and the
big box stores and the home depotsof the world. You know, they're
always gonna they're always going to bethere. Okay, slight thorn in my
side, but okay, too farfield. But but for us, it's
really about the consolidation of the market. And and sometimes we keep the brands

(30:56):
right. So if the brand hassome value in the location, like a
like a Mister J's on Long Island, right, mom and pop store for
fifty years, I'm not coming inand hey, Royal Green's here. That
doesn't work like that, right.There are people that come in they want
they want their Mister Jay's right.And other times we take the we take
the acquisition targets and we fold theminto Royal Green if it makes sense.
We're very malleable like that. Wedon't have one strict set of rules that

(31:18):
has to occur. We'd like tobrand everything similarly, so we change maybe
the color schemes. We call themRoyal Green companies, so it's Mister J
Royal Green company. But we tryto keep as much in place as impossible
if it makes sense. So forsure, I would say consolidation and and
and for that mid level appliance companylike me, it's a wonderful opportunity to

(31:40):
kind of grow and to build ourbrand in that process. Yeah, I
think I think that speaks volumes ofyour personal brand, the company's brand,
have that reputation in the market.We're very going to be proud of.
We're very fortunate. Yeah. Absolutelyso. We talked about a lot in
closing. Is there anything you feellike the listeners should know that we didn't
cover? No, I think wehit a lot of topics. Actually,
if someone wanted to find out moreabout the company, what's the first step?

(32:02):
Okay, so go to the website. Even though I'm not really an
online retailer, all right, youcan go to my website and see whatever
you want, but we try tobring that experience more, you know,
in house. But you can goto Royal Green and why so it's it's
two ends. Confuses people sometimes,Okay, royalgreenandwy dot com. And but
you can find us on online veryvery easily. But no, I would

(32:23):
just say that, you know,from our perspective, it's been an exciting
journey for us. I'm certainly excitedto see where we can head. I'm
super proud of the people that workat Royal Green. They all own it,
and I think that if you cansomehow figure out how to instill that
kind of methodology into your people Sky'slimit awesome. Well, Rob, thank

(32:47):
you so much for coming in andsharing your story. I was very excited
about your background, and you shouldfel very confident and proud of all the
stuff that you've done, so I'mexcited to see what's next. Thank you,
Thank you, Steven. I reallyappreciate it. I appreciate it.
Thank you guys for tuning in.Tune in next week for next week's edition
of CEO You Should Know