CEO Spotlight - Honest 1 Auto 6-28-19

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to our PM Tampa Bay CEOSpotlight. I'm Ryan Gorman and with me
in studio Michael Cohen, CEO ofHonest one Autocare. You can find them
online at honest dashwe dot com.Michael, how are you? I'm great.
How are you doing? Ryan?Good? Thank you so much for
being here. So let's start withthe backstory. What led you into this
type of business? Well, soyou know, I've been in multiple different

(00:23):
businesses throughout my life, but youknow, kind of move, you know,
fast forward in twenty eleven, mybusiness partner Sam and I came across
honest One as an investment opportunity.So we you know, we partnered with
the CEO at the time and helpedback him to go into the business.

(00:44):
When we invested in the company,there are about twenty just over twenty stores
today we've got over seventy stores.Wow. Yeah, that's a lot of
growth in a short period of time. Absolutely, and I think it's a
big part of that is because ofwhat we do. And you know,
our our old focus is to uhis when you come in as a customer,

(01:06):
we want to make sure that wefix cars. I mean, that's
what we do. We fix cars, repair and maintenance, everything from oil
changes to breaks, to transmissions,to engine repairs to air conditioning. And
we want to make sure when youcome into our stores that we only fix
what needs to be fixed, andwe do it at a good value.
And when it comes to a businesslike this, you've got it in the

(01:29):
title, honesty has to be soimportant. Absolutely. We put a bull's
eye on us, you know,so you can imagine all the different things
you can do with our names.Yeah, you know if we do something
wrong, so and that's purposeful.We want you know, we want to
be held to that higher standard.Uh. So we have no problems with
that in our name. And we'redoing a number of different things, you

(01:51):
know. One of the things Imean, it's about integrity, it's about
transparency and doing this day in andday, every day out. So when
we get up in the morning,Yeah, it's immediately in front of us.
That's what we're there to do.Did you have more experience on the
car side or you're more on thebusiness So no, I've had Look,
I'm I'm I come from the era. I'm in my fifties, so I
grew up changing my own oil,change my own transmission fluid. My kids,

(02:15):
I've got four kids, not asingle one of them have ever touched
the car. They don't know.But cars have gotten so much more complex,
right, you know, over thelast thirty years. Where you know,
when you open up a hood backin the seventies, you could see
all the space between the engines andthe sides of the car. Now you
can't. There's so much equipment,so you know. But so I have

(02:37):
the car experience, that type ofcar experience, but most of my experience
has been in business. When wefirst invested back to how I got into
this, When we first backed theoriginal CEO in the company in twenty eleven,
my intent was just to be aninvestor, be on the board,
help them strategically. And the moreand more I was around the company,
the more I got just my passionfor the business grew. And when the

(03:01):
CEO decided to retire a couple ofyears back, I knew I want to
go in and I wanted to runthis company. There's so many different things
that I thought we could do andcontinue to improve on this great model that
we had, and so that's whenI made the decision to jump in.
So I've learned a lot about carssince then. I'm sure we're doing our
CEO spotlight with Michael Cohen, CEOof honest One autocry You can find them

(03:22):
online at honest dashwe dot com.So you take over honest One as the
CEO, and what were some ofthe changes that you were looking to make?
Well, So from the beginning ofthe company, it's a franchise business.
So all of our stores at thetime were locally they're all locally owned,
but they're owned by individual franchise owners. So Honest One had never owned

(03:46):
their own store, had never builta you know what I call model store.
So one of the first things thatwe wanted to do was go out
and make the investment. I'm verymuch a you know, walk the talk
sure and put your money, youknow, using some cliches, put your
money where your mouth is. Andso we set about making investments in our
in a model store, which isthe store that we have here in South

(04:09):
Tampa at Gandhi and Bayshore at McDillso in between those streets. But so
a store that we could go wecould do our R and D. We
could make sure that we train peoplecorrectly so they could see you know,
how we believe it should be done. And so that's one of the big
changes. The other changes really takingthe brand. It's a great brand.

(04:30):
What we found we actually looked thatat one point changing the name should we
you know, because I've had peopleask me about that name, and we
went and did some market studies andfound out the name is a great name.
So what we did do is wedecided to change some of the some
of our branding and make it alittle bit more relevant in today's world.
And you'll see a lot of thoseelements in the store that we have over

(04:51):
in Bayshore. That's so interesting thatyou do research on the name and get
people's opinions. Were those people whohave interacted with the business or just you
just provide them with some information andthey come back and say we like the
name, we don't like the name. No, Look, it's the people
that we talked to obviously, youknow. But also hiring an agency that's
going to go out and actually talkto people that are unrelated that's fascinating and

(05:13):
getting objective information. Let me askyou this when it comes to your relocation.
You moved your corporate headquarters to downtownSaint Petersburg. What went into that
decision? Why downtown Saint Pete.I mean, it's obviously a growing area.
Lots of businesses are, you know, opening up shop in that region.
What was it about downtown Saint Petethat interests you? Well, So

(05:34):
there's a personal aspect to this.About five years ago, I moved to
the Tampa Bay My wife and Ihad been where I was originally living up
in Philadelphia. I've lived all overthe country, but the last couple of
years before moving to Florida, wewere in Philly and she had some business
down in the Tampa Bay area.We decided we were going to do,
like a lot of people, let'sfind a place for the winter time.

(05:56):
Ended up coming down here and goingnope, let's be here full time.
Yeah, biggest, one of thesmartest decisions we've ever made. And so
that was about five years ago whenI made the decision to take over and
run honest One. We had alreadybeen looking at making investments in stores here,
and it became a natural because knowingthat I'm going to spend this is

(06:17):
going to be the last thing I'mgoing to do, you know, So
I'm going to spend the next tentwenty years of my life helping build this
business. I want to do itnear where I live, sure, and
I love this market here and youknow Saint Pete for you know Saint Pete
and the Tampa area. You know, I think I think most people live
here, know how many how muchit's changed, But it's just a vibrant,

(06:40):
great area downtown Saint Pete. We'vegot a lot of you know,
young people, a lot of asyou mentioned, businesses moving in. People
think flocking to downtown Saint Pete.And it's only only going to continue to
grow. I mean we've been talkinga lot about the drop site and what
happens with the rays and the redevelopmentand all of that. I mean,
there's big plans. It's amazing andour office is right on or right on

(07:02):
looking over the water, looking overat Tampa. You know, couldn't be
in a better place. And forus to be able to hire the talent
we need to build a great company. Yeah, what a better place to
bring people into. You know,when they come in and they you know,
we have a job or an opportunityfor them. This is an easy
sell, you know, so youknow, and that's going to be part
of it is we built this companyand you know, we've got competitors that

(07:24):
have one thousand plus stores, youknow, across the US. We have
seventy plus stores across the US.You know, at some point we'll get
there. You know, we're notin a hurry. We want to do
it right every day and whatever thattakes. So, but this is a
great place to be able to hirepeople. This is our it's our CEO
spotlight here on PM Tampa Bay withMichael Cohen, CEO of Honest one Auto
Care. You can find them onlineat honest dash one dot com. So

(07:46):
talk to me a little bit aboutan area like this, Saint Pete,
Tampa Bay, the entire area expandingand growing as much as it is.
How does that impact your business,especially now that you're here full time too.
Well, I mean, of course, you know, so the autocare
business. The average age of thecar auto cars in the US is twelve

(08:07):
years that's up from eight nine carsor eight nine years old for cars twenty
or thirty years ago. And they'rebetter built. It's the second biggest investment
that people have behind their houses.Except here in Florida it might be boats.
You know, might SCD third,I'm not sure, but and you
know, our businesses, the autocarebusiness has been growing three percent a year

(08:31):
on average for the last ten tofifteen years, good times and bad times.
It's driven by the fact that ourpopulation is growing and in this market,
as everybody knows, you know,this is a growing area. It
is you know, there's you knowwhen you look at all the neighborhoods that
are being built up all around NorthTampa and out to the west. Uh,
this is a great place to befor our business. So you know,
what we tried to do with ourmodel is build our stores. Put

(08:54):
our stores where people live, soyou makes sense, yep. And in
the if you go back in time, auto repair places, we're all kind
of put in a certain row ofwhere all auto repair places were or where
the dealers were. We're trying toput our stores as close to the neighborhoods
as we can because we want tobe convenient. You know, we want
to be there where you need usand where we can take care. The
final question for you, does ithelp to that there's an infrastructure issue in

(09:18):
the Tampa Bay area and people arevery reliant on their automobiles here without a
doubt. But well, not thatyou don't want to see infrastructure androw,
but I think there's always a youknow, I might ask the question about
what's happening with you know, youknow, with cars, you know,
self driving cars and electric cars andall these different things. Well, first
off, all those cars needs tobe fixed. So whether you have an

(09:39):
electric engine, we can fix.We can fix any car. So whether
you have an electric engine, hybridengine, gas diesel, they still have
air conditioners, they still have tiresand wheels and all those things. But
look, the US is a carculture. So we talk a lot about
infrastructure and about investing in you know, railways and all these things, but
it takes a long long time forthat to catch up. And certainly Tampa

(10:01):
Bay, there are a lot ofcars out for this and I don't see
that changing anytime soon. No CEOof Honest One autocare Michael Cohen. You
can find them online at honest stashone dot com. Michael really appreciate the
time, Thanks so much for joiningme. I appreciate it. And coming
up next my other show, Bestof the Bay, featuring the best people
in organizations that Tampa Bay has tooffer here. On news radio w FLA