March 19, 2025 • 65 mins
Register for Day on the Hill in D.C. → https://www.limo.org/events/day-on-the-hill
Make your voices heard in congress. This episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast dives straight into the heart of advocacy in the industry. Explore how participating in the annual Day on the Hill Event (4/28/25 and 4/29/25 in Washington, D.C.) can shape the future of the chauffeured transportation industry. NLA President Brett Barenholtz returns in another episode to speak on behalf of the event and how the industry is stronger when it bands together.
In this episode, you'll hear:
• The significance of the Day on the Hill in building relationships with legislators
• The personal and professional growth benefits of participating in national and state associations
• How insurance challenges, like increasing costs, are impacting operators nationwide
• Insights into the NLA's political action committee (PAC) and its role in supporting operators
• The power of networking and mentorship in advancing within the transportation industry
Last year, the National Limousine Association was missing representatives from the following states. If you are an owner/operator in one of these states, we call upon you to attend:
• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Connecticut
• Idaho
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• North Dakota
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• South Dakota
• Utah
• Vermont
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming
At Driving Transactions, Ken Lucci and his team offer financial analysis, KPI reviews, for specific purposes like improving profitability, enhancing the value of the enterprise business planning and buying and selling companies. So if you have any of those needs, please give us a call or check us out at www.drivingtransactions.com.
Pax Training is your all in one solution designed to elevate your team's skills, boost passenger satisfaction, and keep your business ahead of the curve. Learn more at www.paxtraining.com/gtp
Connect with Kenneth Lucci, Principle Analyst at Driving Transactions:
https://www.drivingtransactions.com/
Connect with James Blain, President at PAX Training:
https://paxtraining.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ken Lucci (00:23):
Well welcome audience to another exciting episode of
the Ground TransportationPodcast, and we are blessed to
have the, again, to have the,uh, president of the NLA, um,
with us.
And we're going to do, today,we're gonna talk about kind of
a, a retrospective or a, adebrief on the Vegas show, but
then we're gonna also talk aboutthe importance on attending the
(00:46):
day on the Hill.
So, uh, Brett, I've gotta tellyou from my perspective this.
The, the show in Vegas wasabsolutely, the tone was
terrific.
Everybody was in a great mood.
It was literally like drinkingfrom a fire hose because there
was so much activity on the showfloor.
But as NLA president, I'm goingto tell you the, that.
(01:09):
The presentation you gave as faras at the annual meeting was
incredible.
So give us your perspective asyou walked around.
What did you feel about the showthis year in Vegas?
Brett Barenholtz (01:22):
I personally loved it and I just want to give
a shout out to the showcommittee
Ken Lucci (01:28):
Oh God.
Brett Barenholtz (01:28):
that put it together.
And, uh, we partnered with C.
D.
and Chris Weiss and Eric andJess and their team and, you
know, Kyle, Sarah and our team,but, you know, the show
committee that we have isspectacular.
They meet weekly.
They take everything to heart,everything about the education.
(01:50):
They do deep dives.
They try to be very fair when itcomes to, is this good for a
small operator?
Is this good for a big operator?
But the tone was great.
Everybody was encouraged.
I think the industry is doingwell right now.
We're looking at hopefully not,um, a recession, but we're
(02:12):
looking at record businesstravel this coming year, which
is what has been predicted byGBTA.
But the show as a whole wasgreat.
I spoke to a lot of the vendorsTuesday night when they were
packing up and they said theydid very well.
People are trying to buy moretechnology now, they're trying
(02:32):
to buy newer vehicles.
And it was, it was a home run.
It was a home run and everyoneenjoyed themselves.
We had at the NLA meeting, wehad a very, we had this, uh,
this pack fundraiser that, uh,Robert and I did with the help
of the rest of the board.
(02:54):
And we raised more money than weever have in, You know, three
years combined in five minutes.
James Blain (03:00):
You guys are amazing auctioneers, by the way.
Brett Barenholtz (03:02):
well, I give credit to the membership.
The membership, they're all in.
They get it.
They see what we're doing.
They see, you know, congestionpricing was a huge issue for the
last year or two.
And it's going by the waysideright now.
Um, 179 they were getting rid ofthe 179 tax depreciation
Ken Lucci (03:24):
depreciation.
Brett Barenholtz (03:25):
where you could write off up to a million
a year.
Now it's like 1.
2 million a year that is nowpermanent in the tax records,
which it was, it would go awayevery year.
They'd have to bring it back.
You know, we're going to talk alittle later about some things
we're lobbying for.
The fortunate thing is right nowwe don't have any.
(03:46):
Huge thing hanging over our headlike COVID just hit or, um, the
TNCs just came in, you know,illegally or this or that.
So it's, we're, we're in a goodtime now, but I just give all
the credit to the great show toour board.
And what they do and the timethey put in.
(04:08):
And we have 18 people on thatboard that just kick butt and
great.
And they run, we have 17committees and they, they go
hard and we.
We try to give back to, andthere's, we had a lot of
scholarship winners.
Again, we keep giving outscholarships to the shows and,
(04:29):
and it's very thought out andthorough and, uh, and I'm really
proud to just be part of it.
Ken Lucci (04:35):
So without mentioning any names, I had a huge client
come in that has never been inthe industry before.
And he made an acquisition inthis space.
And I said, look, you've got tocome to the conference.
Okay.
So this is a gentleman that hasliterally been in Many, many,
many different industries in hiscareer and his comment to me
(04:56):
after going to the show, we dida debrief was you guys are
incredibly professional, theteam that runs the NLA or runs
the show to me, it, it, itwould, it rivals an industry, a
hundred times your size.
And he did, I will tell you, heflat out said when he met you
(05:17):
that.
He got a, uh, a great feelingabout the industry and why the
industry is as strong as it is,is it because people there's
leadership in the industry likeyou.
So I wanted you to know that,but he was extremely impressed
with the show floor and, andthe, And the amount of vendors
(05:37):
and the amount of activity andthe energy level.
This is someone who neverstepped into one of our
conferences before.
And his only reference to thisindustry.
I joke with him all the time isthe only thing you know about
this industry sitting in thebackseat and sit in the backseat
of the car.
So, you know, when you thinkabout how far this industry has
(05:57):
come.
Right.
He sat in on the, um, the stateof the industry or the annual,
the annual NLA meeting.
They sat in on a couple ofeducation sessions and they were
blown away.
Brett Barenholtz (06:10):
You know, well, like I said before, the
credit goes to.
The committee that is puttingthis on and there's so many
brilliant people that they'renot even on the board, but
they're on that committee andI'm blown away because I try to
sit in on all of their calls,even though I miss them.
But they're weekly.
I learned stuff every day.
(06:30):
Just listening to them.
If you're a sponge in thisindustry, you're going to do
Well, It doesn't matter how longyou've been in it.
It doesn't matter if you'relike, even at a first timers
event, it You're going to learnsomething or you're going to
meet someone that's going tohelp you.
I, I was recently, I met someoneat the show there.
And the person had a badge thatsaid Telluride.
(06:55):
Nobody knows about Telluride.
I go there every year.
It's in Colorado.
And when I was in Telluride, Iactually met him and we boarded
for a little bit.
And boy, is he a good boarder.
Ken Lucci (07:06):
No kidding.
Brett Barenholtz (07:06):
about 30 years younger than me.
But he's just getting in theindustry and we were just
chatting and talking shop thewhole time.
But this is what happens in ourindustry.
It's very different.
I thought when I first got intothis, it's cutthroat.
The guy next to me, let's takehis legs out.
Let's, you know, grab all his
Ken Lucci (07:27):
well that's cause you come from the taxi business.
Let's
Brett Barenholtz (07:30):
Yeah, well, yes.
Um, but it's, it's a wonderfulindustry where people, I don't
need to own metal all over theworld.
I just need to know the rightpeople all over the world.
And, and not only do you need toknow them all over the world,
you need to know them in yourmarket because we got so much
smarter during COVID we thoughtwe were smart pre COVID and then
(07:53):
we realized we carry too muchmetal.
We have too much insurance.
We have too much this.
And just, have the rightpartnerships
Ken Lucci (08:01):
Look, and the opposite side of the coin is
when you're an ostrich, And yousay, I've been doing this for 30
years.
I don't know a deed to go tothose shows.
And I'm, that's literally animitation of many of the people
I talked to whose businesses arenot successful.
Oh, I've been on this for 30years.
I haven't been to a show in 10years.
(08:23):
That's why you're notprofitable.
That's why your mindset is backin the stone age that somebody
said to me the other day.
There's two types of people inthis industry.
There's people that express thatunderstand the ecosystem and a
part of the ecosystem.
And then there's the knuckledragger Neanderthals that think
(08:43):
they know everything.
And I said that he didn't saythat.
So the reality is these showsare not a cost.
They're an investment.
Right to me.
They're an investment if youcan't walk away with a golden
nugget from one of theseconferences You're you're there
you're sitting at the bar if youcan't if you can't create a
relationship Okay like that Iguarantee you that guy tell you
(09:05):
ride with you which felt like hewas boarding with a celebrity
Because he's the i'm dealingwith a guy who's got one of the
most successful guys in theindustry and he's showing me
some attention but if That'swhat I don't understand about
this industry.
It seems to be like the twotypes of people.
I'm not going to belong to mystate associations.
I'm not going to, I'm not goingto participate there and I'm not
(09:26):
going to participate in thenational association.
I'm not going to go to theconferences cause I know
everything.
And from where I sit, they allhave the same things in common.
They haven't grown theirbusinesses at all in the past 10
years there.
And their financial metrics areworse today than pre COVID.
Because what got us throughCOVID was the camaraderie of
remember those damn zoom callsof all of us saying, we need to
(09:49):
roll up our sleeves and getthrough this together.
The 40 percent that didn't makeit through those were the
ostriches.
But we still have ostriches inthe industry that don't go to
these conferences and don'tparticipate.
And it was interesting to meabout that, the comment of the
guy that would never was in theindustry before.
So to me, it renewed why the,the, the, the ecosystem
(10:13):
participating in the ecosystem,that is the NLA, that is the
state associations, that is thenational conferences and the
other events is absolutelycritical, but, and, but I got to
tell you, and this is notkissing up.
Great presidency.
I mean, the great
Brett Barenholtz (10:31):
thank you.
You're, you're trying to make meblush here.
Uh,
Ken Lucci (10:34):
well, maybe you, you have quite a, we won't talk
about the
Brett Barenholtz (10:37):
I, uh, I wanted, I wanted to make the,
uh, the annual meeting a littlefun.
So I, uh.
I wasn't sure if I would bomb,which fortunately I didn't, but,
um, it's, uh, I, everybody wasreally engaged and it just shows
how much the people in theindustry care about it.
(10:59):
And I'm shocked that you said 40percent of the companies are
gone.
I thought it was more like 20
Ken Lucci (11:04):
it's, it's 40%.
When we did the state, when wedid the financial state of the
industry reports, the D and Bnumbers are incredible.
Yeah.
And the reality is 16 percent ofthe companies that are below a
million, 16 percent fail everysingle year.
So what you've got is if youcome into the business, you
don't 16 percent a year.
(11:26):
So 80 percent fail within fiveyears.
And my feeling on that isbecause you don't, you don't
educate yourself and you don'tcreate those relationships where
if the vehicle is sitting idle,right?
Cause you're again, you're anostrich.
Um, you don't have a guy likeBrett that's going to send you
business.
So you have not networked at anindustry event.
(11:48):
And, um, I just, I don't knowtoo many industries that have
the ecosystem that is dependent,that we are all dependent on the
work.
Um, that we do to, toparticipate in the ecosystem and
the ones that don't don't seemto be doing well.
Brett Barenholtz (12:05):
well.
Kenny, it's even learning aboutthe ecosystem.
If you're a million dollarcompany just getting started, a
lot of people don't know thatyou should network with outside.
You're driving back and forth tothe airport every day, all the
time.
And you don't realize that, hey,maybe when the guy lands in New
York or Miami or LA.
(12:26):
We can help them there.
Your margins are almost as goodor better on the farm out work
than your work where you haveto, you know, pay W2 employees
and, and workman's comp and allof it, your insurance and all
that.
It's, uh, it's quite an industrythat there's always something to
(12:48):
learn and.
I am not someone that is, thebest thing I think I know about
myself is what I'm good at andwhat I'm not good at.
I don't know our systems well, Idon't know technology well, and,
but my business partner does.
Ken Lucci (13:02):
That's why you've got Kevin Cronin.
Brett Barenholtz (13:04):
yes, and Kevin's great.
And when it comes to vehicles,Kevin in his suit jumps under
them and starts looking atthings.
And, and, uh, when it comes toour tech, um, you know, we just
added something recently.
It is like a bot on our website.
James Blain (13:24):
Is that the quote
Brett Barenholtz (13:24):
it was very cool.
It, and you know, I think it'samazing.
And we're probably one of thelast companies that had remote
employees.
We're probably one of the lastcompanies that.
Does stuff overseas, but it's,it's very mainstream now for
that to happen.
And there's a lot of companiesnow that not only are their call
(13:45):
centers overseas, theirdispatch, their billing, there's
a lot of things going on in theindustry that if you don't go to
these shows, you're just.
You don't know about it and I, Iwill, I would like to shout out
one thing.
There is someone that isbuilding a couple of 20 groups
now.
Um, and if they want the name,I'm not going to say it on the
(14:07):
podcast, but they can reach outto me and I'd be happy to send
them the information.
And it's just something, ifyou're not part of a local
association or you're not partof different, um, committees
that help the nationalassociation.
You should join a 20 group.
You, you will have friendsaround the country.
You will make, you will haverelationships
Ken Lucci (14:29):
you can mention his name.
That's the kid.
That's the brother of the kidthat owns.
They're all kids to
Brett Barenholtz (14:34):
in San Diego.
Ken Lucci (14:35):
Yeah.
What's a, uh, a men in black isall right.
He's the bro.
He's his brother.
Smart
Brett Barenholtz (14:42):
So the, the guys from men in black have this
new business and I was highlyencouraging him to, to do it.
And I, you know.
Kudos to them because it's, it'ssomething that, uh, needs to be
done.
There, there were, there used tobe many, many more 20 groups,
you know, with Tom Mazza and,and other people and Arthur and
(15:06):
people that did that.
I know Becky has some stuff now,but it's, um, if you're not part
of one, you should be part ofone.
It gives you this comfort zone.
Where you can bounce things offof, uh, people that are normally
your size companies and have thesame thought process as you, but
(15:26):
you're not alone and you learnthat.
Ken Lucci (15:28):
Well, and that's what gets me.
I, I can't keep going back toit.
The, the most backwards people Ideal with that come to me to buy
it, to, to please help me sellmy business.
My accountant says it's worth X.
They're the ones that literallydon't participate with anyone
else.
(15:48):
The 20 groups.
Cause when I started Tom Oz, Ihad Tom Oz as a consultant from
the day I started my company inTampa and he, he was an
investment.
He wasn't an expense and himbringing me into the 20 group
was one of the best learningexperiences I had because now I
had brothers.
That I could call or email andsay, listen, I'm, I'm running
(16:10):
into this issue.
The myopic thought process ofsome operators makes them
victims of their owncircumstances.
Um, the, the, I, I never getover it.
It's, it's difficult as anentrepreneur to take advice
anyway.
Right.
And I kind of upset mypigheadedness by reading, um,
you know, and I'm reading somegreat, unbelievable books that
(16:32):
will help my customers, but someentrepreneurs, you know, the
feeling that you have to beomnipotent.
I know everything is selfdefeating you know what you just
said you know I know what I knowand I know what I don't know
what led you to one of the bestyin and yang partnerships in the
industry you and Kevin I don'tknow two people who could be
(16:54):
more different right but otherthan your hairstyles that but it
it.
The two of you are a perfect, aperfect fit, but if you don't
have people in a, in a 20 groupthat you, you don't, you know,
you don't talk to them and youdon't go to the state
associations and you view all ofthose people as your competitors
(17:16):
and you don't go to the NLAbecause you view it as an
expense and a club.
I don't, I don't know how yousucceed in this business.
I honestly think it cuts yourchances of success.
in half.
Brett Barenholtz (17:28):
I, I was laughing though when you
mentioned that, uh, if you go toa show and all you do is sit at
a bar and don't go to theeducational sessions at our
shows, if you just sit at thebar, you're going to have some
Good networking there.
It's, uh, you're, you're gonna,you're still gonna walk out of
there with some really Goodnuggets.
Ken Lucci (17:49):
Good point.
Brett Barenholtz (17:49):
it's a it's a great industry and, uh, the
people are great and, you know,you work with, we, we always
talk about this and I think Ican say it on your podcast, but
it's really the no asshole rule.
So if you find good people, workwith them.
And if they're just too tough towork with, there's no one else
(18:10):
that you can work with.
Ken Lucci (18:11):
don't.
That's the beauty, right?
That's the beauty.
If you find someone who calls,you say, listen, I need help in
Kansas City or I need help inIndianapolis.
And you call somebody like, eh,I don't do farm out work.
I don't do farm end work.
There's, there's five peoplethat will, right?
Brett Barenholtz (18:28):
Well, it's not even that can it's it's when you
have an issue, everything'sgreat when everything's perfect.
But when there's an issue, can Italk to that owner?
Or can I talk to that manager?
Get this squared away rightaway, right away, figure out the
billing piece of it, you know,work together and, uh, and just
(18:48):
move forward.
In a professional way, andthat's how you keep your clients
happy and that's and when youhave people that they're so
demanding on one side that onetiny thing, they're like, we're
not paying, we're not this,we're not that you can't do that
to the people that you work withand you have to be reasonable.
Ken Lucci (19:10):
Yep.
And there has to be the only wayto me that you develop a trust
factor.
You don't develop a trustfactor, finding an affiliate on
Facebook saying, Hey, I, I, Ineed help in Texas, in Dallas,
Texas, tomorrow morning at fiveo'clock.
Who do we have 5am?
Who do we have to me?
The trust level is look them inthe eye and say, listen, you
know, this is what I've gotgoing on.
Here's my cell number.
(19:30):
Can I have yours?
That trust factor isirreplaceable.
And you do get that byparticipating in the industry.
James Blain (19:38):
it's an echo of what you said on the first
episode you came on with us.
And I don't know if you remembersaying it, but when we were
talking about the same topic onthe very first episode you did
with us, you said, the big thingis don't screw it up.
It's not about rates.
It's not about getting the bestdeal.
I'm worried about who's going tobe the best to work with, who's
going to not to screw the tripup.
(19:59):
And it's so great now to kind ofsee that echoed.
And for those that haven'tlistened to that episode, they
really should go back and listento it.
But you've echoed that andyou've echoed the mentorship.
They're just, they're the twobig keys that seem to be part of
your success.
Brett Barenholtz (20:13):
Well, people, people help me along the way
we've made plenty of mistakes.
But you have certain people arevery generous with their time.
They're very generous in helpingyou out.
And the nice thing too, whenyou're in like a 20 group is
they, they don't really feelthat you're their competition
(20:35):
locally either.
So, but they still have the sameinsurance problems.
They still have the same vehiclemaintenance problems.
They still
Ken Lucci (20:42):
issues.
Brett Barenholtz (20:43):
all of these Driver issues.
Yeah.
So it's, it's a good way to getrolling in the industry and I
highly recommend it.
Ken Lucci (20:53):
No question about it because you're not alone.
If you have to, if you have tobear the burden of being a
business owner to begin with, itabsolutely, which is stressful.
I mean, I don't know too manybusiness owners who are not
three X the stress of anemployee of some company.
So if you bear that burdenalone, I think you're, you're,
(21:13):
you're short, you're shortingyourself.
You're, you're limiting yoursuccess by doing that.
Yeah.
Brett Barenholtz (21:18):
yeah, part of, part of the presentation that I
did at the, uh, at the NLAmeeting, there were a couple
little videos, but one of themwas.
Of Dana White, and I'm not goingto quote him perfectly or I'll
be swearing a lot, but DanaWhite was saying in this clip,
it was a 10 second clip, and hejust said, everyone comes to him
(21:39):
and they say, you know, I wantto make my own hours.
So I'm going to work for myself.
And he's like, you don't geteffing Christmas off.
You don't get effing Easter offand everyone's trying to eff
you.
And, uh, and it just, itresonates with our industry
because We're, we're 24 seven.
We never close.
We're, we're all in all the timeand it is a crazy industry in
(22:04):
that respect.
But, um, you need to have goodpartnerships.
You need to have good people atwork.
Ken Lucci (22:11):
Right.
And you, uh, so to me, 20 groupsare a force multiplier and going
to the shows and the conferencesand leaving with people that you
bond with, those are a forcemultiplier because it's pretty
fricking lonely being a businessowner.
If you don't have people If youdon't have people where you can
say, listen, are you having thesame issue?
(22:31):
So let's segue into what I thinkis tremendous value and
tremendously important in thespace is the analyzed, um, day
on the hill.
So give, give us an idea.
It's coming up.
Um, give us an idea of whathappens on the day of the hill
and why you think operatorsshould go.
(22:52):
And now, basically, there is nocost to participate.
Full disclosure, DrivingTransactions is a sponsor and
the podcast is a sponsor.
But give us an idea of why dayin the hill is important for an
operator.
Brett Barenholtz (23:08):
Well, first of all, it exposes you to the
entire NLA board.
It exposes you to some of thebiggest operators in the
industry, and it is a very smallgroup of people compared to what
we're usually with.
You know, almost 2, 000 at thefall show, 2, 500 at the show
(23:29):
that we just had this pastwinter in Vegas, and even the
retreats have a couple hundredpeople.
This has about 60, 70, well,recently, maybe even close to
75, 80 people.
And everybody is encouraged tomeet each other, talk, you have
some time.
(23:49):
It's not like you're going fromone thing to another to another.
We all sit in the same room onMonday and we go through
different issues that we'regoing to be speaking of.
We try to educate people onthat.
We also bring in Cornerstone,which is our lobby firm in DC,
(24:10):
which is one of the best in thecountry.
And they will do some pointcounterpoints to different
issues and we talk about theissues and years ago when I
started running the legislativecommittee, I would meet with
Louie Perry, who's fromCornerstone and say, Louie,
please dummy it down for me.
(24:31):
I used to go to these things, wewould get a book this thick
about this law that we're goingto try to go in and talk to our
representatives and senators andsay, we don't, we don't want
that.
This passage of everything isbroken down into like.
a paragraph or two.
This is what we don't like about179.
(24:51):
We don't want this to go awaybecause we want this
depreciation on a yearly basis.
This helps all of the companiesin our industry.
And it is made in a simple form.
So the following day we go tomeetings and you go to meetings
for the state where you live.
So there are two senators inevery state that you live.
(25:12):
And a representative of whereyou live and where your business
is.
So fortunately for me, we have abusiness in Maine, and we have a
business in Boston.
We have our offices there.
So I get to go to two states.
So that's about four senatorsand three or four, um, different
(25:33):
reps.
And it's amazing walking throughthe halls of Congress and
seeing, wow, this is really howstuff works here.
It's you, whatever we do thatday, it's not going to happen
that night.
We just have to continue to goyear after year after year.
(25:54):
So they know that we're around.
There was an accident a fewyears ago in New York and one of
the aides to one of the senatorssaid, Hey, why don't we call
those people from the NLA aboutthis, that were in the office
last year?
And they did, and we helpedcraft the new laws about this
(26:15):
type of stretch limousine.
They wanted to have CDL driverson everything from SUVs up after
this accident from an operatorthat was actually operating
illegally and not part of theNLA or anything like that.
But you You can't make a friendwhen you need a friend in DC.
(26:35):
You have to do it year afteryear after year.
And we've had some, uh, very,very good people that are part
of the NLA that know the DC.
Lay out well, especially withCornerstone helping us.
And every year we have afundraiser for a Democrat one
(26:56):
year, a Republican the nextyear, and we just want to show
that the NLA is a relevantindustry that chauffeur
transportation is a relevantindustry that not only has us
that are there lobbying, we havehundreds of employees.
They have spouses, they havesignificant others, and we have
(27:22):
mechanics and drivers and, youknow, dispatchers.
And one person going there thathas a 50 car fleet might really
represent 500 voters.
You know, they have clients,they have vendors that we
support.
So there is this wholeinfrastructure of people, and a
(27:48):
lot of the senators andrepresentatives realize that,
and they give us Some good timeand a lot of times, you know,
you, you don't get to see thesenator or the rep, but you meet
with their staffers who in mostcases are more up to date on
everything going on in theiroffice than the senator
themself, but occasionally yougo in and you are there with the
(28:11):
senators and the reps and we'vehad some great experiences.
A couple of years ago.
We.
did a lunch and a fundraiser forRepresentative Gottheimer from
New Jersey.
He led the charge for the lasttwo years against congestion
pricing.
(28:31):
He couldn't have been a betterfriend to us, but we were
already talking with him beforecongestion pricing.
Ken Lucci (28:37):
Think about that example, okay?
Think about that example.
So if you don't have the day ofthe hill, The industry has
absolutely no visibility to anyof the legislators.
What happens when they decidethey want to implement the
congestion pricing.
You're not going to have time tocreate those relationships.
He, that, that, that that's theperfect example of the benefit
(29:02):
of having a legislativecommittee, the PAC fund, the
lobbyist, and the day on theHill.
No question about it.
James Blain (29:11):
Well, and I,
Ken Lucci (29:12):
example.
James Blain (29:12):
I think it goes a little further than that
because, you know, we've, we'vetalked about the 50 car company.
We've talked about the largercompany, but one of the big
things that happens in businessis if you get to that point
where you get stuck.
And that smaller mindset, youget stuck in that smaller
business.
So kind of to Brett's exampleearlier, where he was kind of
mentoring that person inTelluride, this is that
(29:35):
opportunity to start developingthose friends, to understand
kind of what, what they look atwhen the blinders come off.
You know, if you're just gettingin business, you've got two,
three cars, you're worried abouthow am I getting my guys really
need to go?
How am I getting them trained?
How am I getting things done?
How am I not making mistakes?
But now you can start to expandthat vision and see those
(29:56):
things.
And the other side of it is oneof the things that happens a lot
is we get in this mindset of Oh,well, yeah, You know, I, I'm too
busy.
Someone will represent, someonewill be there.
Someone will voice that someone,someone will put that fire over
there out.
And I think a key thing here,and Brett's already alluded to
it several times.
If you don't go be the voice, ifyou don't go represent, if
(30:19):
you're not there doing that,there's, you know, one person
going in and talking to them hassome, some pull to it.
You get two, three, four people.
Now they start seeing it as.
We have this group in this area.
We're representing theseconstituents.
They're putting faces to thenames, faces to the industry,
and you start to open yourselfup.
You start to open that growth.
(30:40):
So I think Brett, if you cantalk for a second, what, what
does that look like?
If you're that smaller operator,obviously it's a free event, but
if I'm a smaller operatoroutside of the networking, if
I'm trying to.
Kind of see further down theroad.
What is that?
What is that opportunity?
Brett Barenholtz (30:57):
Well, it's funny because when you actually
do reach the senators and thereps, they want to hear more
from the smaller operator.
These are the people that theymight look at someone that's a
20 car and up operator.
Oh, that guy has a medium sizedcompany.
You know, he might be tellingthat he's fine, but the majority
(31:18):
Of our, uh, association is under20 vehicles under 10 vehicles.
And it's amazing when you seethe reps and the senators talk
to those people, cause theyreally want to know what's,
what's ailing you.
How can we help you?
Is this going to help you beingable to depreciate this asset?
(31:38):
Is this going to help you, youknow, is this going to hurt you?
If there's congestion pricing,is this going to hurt you?
If there's a accelerateddepreciation and also one of the
biggest things we're going to betalking about is insurance this
year with them and tort reform.
James Blain (31:57):
You beat me to it.
It's it's on everybody's
Brett Barenholtz (31:59):
Yeah.
So that is, that is somethingand Ken who does all of these.
transactions with drivingtransactions that alone is
putting people out of business.
Ken Lucci (32:10):
It's the number one reason.
Now it's the number one reasonwhy people are getting out.
I had an operator, it's amillion and a half dollar
operator, been in business for20, 20 years, who this week
called and said, I cannot makemy deposit for the end of March.
I cannot pay my insurancedeposit.
And I don't have the money,which is an underlying issue,
(32:32):
right?
We've got profitabilityproblems, but he has no time to
make it up.
And he's, he's taken out a homeequity line in order to pay his
deposit.
It went up 30, 38 percent in oneyear.
Brett Barenholtz (32:44):
and that's probably with No, accidents.
Ken Lucci (32:47):
No, it's he is, again, he claims his last runs
are good.
It, it, it blindsided him.
Um, he was one of the, I wouldsay he would be the, uh, on an
ostrich that doesn't participateon the state associations.
What are you doing at about iton the local level?
And he just approached it likeit was, Oh, you know, my
insurance is coming new, youknow, whatever.
(33:09):
Um, and it's going to put themout of business unless he finds
the money and he's got to tapinto his home equity.
To pay the deposit now, becausethat's the other thing that
happened is insurance said,we're not going to do financing.
You have to put at least thismuch down.
And then you're going to anoutside financial, a financing
contract, which is eight, 18 to20 percent interest.
(33:30):
So think about what you justsaid to participate.
You go into a legislator andsay, look, If we don't do tort
reform, I'm out of business.
I won't, I can't keep my house.
I can't keep my, I can't pay my,pay myself, pay my income to, to
keep my house.
It's, it's a big, it's a bigdeal.
(33:50):
Um, so,
Brett Barenholtz (33:52):
well, and the other thing is, I think.
D.
C.
The people that represent us inD.
C.
Realize that 60 percent ofeverybody works for a small
business companies or somethinglike that.
Ken Lucci (34:07):
under a million dollars, 60%, 60
Brett Barenholtz (34:09):
Yeah.
So that that is a huge part ofthe constituency and never mind
who is part of like Nila orlocal associations.
Is 100 percent or 500 percentmore people that are in your
industry, and they're just noteven part of anything.
(34:29):
So, but they understand, youknow, our issues and another
thing that we're going to bediscussing once again is curb
space, which is very important,especially at
Ken Lucci (34:43):
airports.
Yeah.
Brett Barenholtz (34:45):
airport.
curb space because of thefederal money that is given to
every airport.
We want to make sure that wehave a voice in that and we
don't get.
You know, sent out to remotelots or things like that.
Ken Lucci (34:59):
Well, think about it.
Uber's lobbying is probably Youknow, a thousand X, what we have
as an industry,
Brett Barenholtz (35:07):
You could say a million X probably,
Ken Lucci (35:09):
by the right, right, It's like a huge line item on
their P and L for when I readthe analyst reports.
But at the end of the day, whenyou walk into a Senator rep's
office and you say, if, if Ican't, if I don't have a place
at the table, if I don't have aplace at the curb, uh, I'm not
going to be attractive.
(35:29):
To clients.
James Blain (35:31):
it's it's so much deeper than that though, because
if you think about it And youreally go through it.
Our clientele are thebusinessmen, the celebrities,
the musicians, you know, whenwe're dealing with private
airports, we're pulling right upto the aircraft.
But why is it when I take thehighest form of luxury
transportation on a commercialflight?
(35:51):
I've got to walk the furthestand be inconvenienced the most
to use that.
The curb space, right?
It should be, hey, the Uber lotsover there.
You're riding Uber, you'reriding the cheap stuff, you're
over there.
But why is this business class,first class passenger having to
go the furthest?
Airport after airport.
I mean, it's, it's one of thosethings that
Brett Barenholtz (36:12):
It's, it's not always the case in every
airport, in, in some airports.
Well, one of the things that I,I feel the airlines understand
very well is the first 20 seatson the plane is where their, all
their profit comes from.
They're not making profitcharging someone a ticket, 200
to and from.
L.
(36:32):
A.
from Boston, they're making iton the guy in first class that's
paying two grand.
Ken Lucci (36:37):
70 percent of airline profitability is from the
corporate traveler in businessclass, business class traveler,
or first class.
That's 70 percent of theiroperating profit.
Brett Barenholtz (36:49):
You know what?
I knew Ken would have thatnumber too.
I knew Ken would have thatnumber.
I sort of put the T up there.
I knew he'd have all thesenumbers.
Ken Lucci (36:57):
It's in the, it's in the financial state of the
industry report that's comingout later in the year.
Okay.
Data, data is my life.
Sorry.
James Blain (37:05):
No, I,
Ken Lucci (37:06):
not dating, not dating.
Data is my life.
I wish dating was my
James Blain (37:10):
he, he's working on that one too.
No, I, I think, I think the bigthing here, and I think the big
takeaway for everyone is.
If you plan to be on thisbusiness for more than five
minutes, if you plan to be inthis industry for more than five
minutes, these are all thingsthat even if it's not your
immediate concern now, it'sgoing to be.
And I love that you brought upthe quote earlier, Bricks.
(37:32):
It's one of my all timefavorites.
And the time to make a friend isnot when you need that friend.
The time to start building thoserelationships.
It's not when you're drowningand you need them to come get to
you.
It's when you have those peoplethat are already looking out for
you.
You brought up that accident inNew York.
We've got an illegal operator.
We've got someone who's doingeverything wrong.
(37:53):
And if we didn't have thatopportunity, if we didn't have
that relationship to be able tocome in and say, no, that's not
one of ours.
They broke every rule.
If you would have put those lawsin place, they wouldn't have
followed them everywhere anyway.
So there's no point in doingthat.
That really speaks volumes intowhat Day on the Hill is really
about.
Because with Day on the Hill,you're doing exactly what we
(38:17):
teach in PACS.
And that's not driving directlyin front of your vehicle.
It's looking down the road atwhat's coming ahead.
It's being ready for what you'regoing to reach before you reach
it, instead of trying to bereactive when you
Ken Lucci (38:31):
and if this business, you know, this, if, If this is
just a, a dodge or a gig to you,or, you know, it's not your
life.
It's not a way for you to createin personal income, personal
wealth, don't go, but if you'vegot your personal wealth tied up
in this industry, you have toget serious about.
(38:55):
Participating across the boardin the industry, because there's
a lot of stuff coming up, we'vegot, we think the disruption is
over to me when disruptionstarts in an industry, it never
stops.
Right.
So you, so Uber, as we talkedabout before, Uber is, is trying
to make headway into thecorporate space.
We have autonomous regulationscoming up in the fed, the
(39:18):
department of transportation.
I mean, that there's a big pushto have autonomous regulation at
the federal level.
And it's been openly said sothat it's not state by state
death by a thousand stabs.
They want to push that in.
We have to have a seat at thetable.
We at least have to, we have tobe prepared for it.
We have to be a voice as far asthe state is concerned, the
(39:39):
legislators are concernedbecause there's an employment
component there, right?
Um, when autonomous comes in,those people have to find other
jobs.
And again, at the airports, wedon't just serve the celebrity
class or the corporate class.
I know a lot of retirees orwealthy travelers, right?
(39:59):
That are walking with a cane orthey have a pacemaker.
They don't want to get into anUber because you know, they,
they, they want to use a privateservice.
We have to have a seat at thattable.
Um, so if you've got any amountof your wealth tied up in this
industry, day on the hill to me,it should be a participant.
And just the one on oneconversations you can have and
(40:22):
the networking and the peoplethat you're going to meet are
going to be critically importantbecause you never know when
you're going to need them.
Brett Barenholtz (40:30):
Well, it's It's funny because there are
some people that I met a day onthe hill in the last few years
that were scholarship winnerstoday on the hill.
We even have scholarships forthat and you should apply now if
you've never been.
these people might've been one,two car operators.
And in the course of the lasttwo, three years, I've seen them
(40:50):
grown into 10, 20 car operators,just because they had a kind of
networking from day on the hill,really.
And then you see them at theshows and other things like
that, where they put themselvesout there.
It's not easy putting yourselfout there.
It's hard, even if you'regregarious or if you're shy,
(41:14):
it's hard to do it becauseyou're uncomfortable, but we try
to make it so everybody, learnsand meets each other that is on
day in the hill.
So it's very different than justsitting at one table.
I want the guy from New Mexicoto meet the person from New
Jersey.
I want everyone to meet eachother.
And that's been happening overthe last few years and it's been
(41:38):
great.
and there's a camaraderie therethat I think I feel every time
that I go to the, shows and Isee the people that are regulars
a day on the hill.
I love seeing them.
Ken Lucci (41:50):
Well, it look, and I will speak to one thing there.
Some people operators have saidto me, well, you know, it's an
exclusive club.
I have never found a moreinclusive group of people.
That's led by an association,then the NLA and the livery
space, right?
It is the most inclusive, themost welcoming.
(42:12):
And to me, the day on the hillis a big piece of it because if
there's no, there's no cost toit other than getting for
travel.
And it's a great learningexperience to learn the process
and get to meet the people.
It's, it, this industry isanything but exclusive.
A club.
To me, it's, it's a greatinclusive, uh, industry if you
(42:34):
take advantage of it.
Brett Barenholtz (42:36):
Yeah, there are people that might walk
around like they're, they don'tinclude you.
Um, but that's, that's theirproblem.
James Blain (42:48):
But I think the other side of that is that a lot
of it, and it doesn't matter ifyou're an extrovert.
It doesn't matter if you're anintrovert.
It doesn't matter if you're, youknow, uncomfortable.
A lot of this is being there.
A lot of this is, even if you'rethe most introverted person, you
don't like talking to people,you don't like crowds, You know
that this is an intimate event,you know that there's not a lot
(43:09):
of people there, you know thatthe people there are trying to
look further ahead, they'retrying to build connections now,
so even just being there, you goto your first event, you might
not network a lot, you might befinding your comfort zone, but
you have to keep stepping intothat uncomfortable area for
yourself, and you have to keepbeing there, kind of like you
(43:30):
talked about, Brett, you hadthis person that was there on a
scholarship, So they were luckyenough to be able to have some
of that expense carried forthem.
And then once they were in thatzone, once they started that
networking, they were able to doit again and again and again.
And so let me ask you if, ifwe've got a listener.
That has never been a day on theHill.
(43:51):
They're looking at the calendar.
You know, we have, well, andmore so you've got two shows,
you've got a retreat, you've gotday on the Hill.
If they're trying to figure outwhere do they jump in?
What do they do?
Maybe they can only afford to doone.
Day on the hill is right aroundthe corner.
What would you tell that personabout day on the hill?
Brett Barenholtz (44:10):
I would say It's amazing because it also
makes you proud to be anAmerican.
It's walking around Congress andwhat's going on.
Occasionally you can walk intosome sessions that you can see.
It's, it's unbelievable that wehave this country and it
operates the way it does.
(44:31):
It's not.
It's not speedy.
It doesn't happen overnight, butit's really amazing.
And you feel great about doingit.
You also know that you'rehelping the industry and it's
really a way for you to be aleader in the industry for your
state or nationally.
And everyone at day on the hillrecognizes, wow, this person
(44:54):
wants to take a leadership role,even though they're a one car
company or a two car company,they want to help the industry.
People who want to help theindustry.
I want to help everybody thereon the board.
Everybody there.
When we see someone come in thatwe don't know, everyone greets
them.
We have this scholarship limo.
org go to limo.
(45:15):
org.
And look up how you can applyfor a scholarship to this if
you've never been.
And even if you don't get it,it's just a hotel room and your
travel there.
And there are a lot of peoplethat are just within a few hours
drive of a DC also.
So, you know, it's just gas atthat point.
Um, but it's amazing.
(45:37):
And I just feel from the lastsix, seven years that there is
this really nice camaraderiecoming out of day on the hill?
that just carries over the restof the year for everyone that
attends.
Ken Lucci (45:51):
so, go to limo.
org.
Monday is, give us the rundownof the events.
This is, it starts April 28th.
Brett Barenholtz (45:58):
So what happens Monday is we get
together and there are certainsessions in the morning.
Oh, maybe it starts around noonand there are sessions where we
start discussing what we'regoing to talk about.
We also have Cornerstone come inand give us like a point
counterpoint.
Last year was all about theelection.
(46:19):
And if the Democrats win or ifthe Republicans win, this is
what we can look for.
We've been lobbying for the lastfew years, no tax on tips, most
likely that's going to happen.
Do you understand if peopleunderstood?
What that means to our drivers.
It would be like you're givingyour driver a 10 to 15 percent
(46:41):
increase in take home paywithout giving your driver a 10
to 15 percent increase it'scosting you
Ken Lucci (46:49):
Yeah, without going up on your prices.
Without going up on your
Brett Barenholtz (46:51):
Without going up on your prices without doing
anything.
And the other thing that's onthe table that we've pushed is
no tax on overtime.
A lot of our drivers are busyseason.
They're not just working 40hours.
They're working over that.
And so these are the kinds ofthings that they will pay off.
(47:14):
A million times over foreveryone in the industry.
And it also educates you on alot of things that you probably
have no idea about.
You might walk into your firstshow, or your first, um, day on
the hill and be like, I reallydon't know what's going on.
You never go to something all byyourself unless you're very
seasoned.
(47:35):
Someone from Cornerstone willwalk in with you.
You will have a little packetthat you hand the people there,
whether the Senator's there orwhether it's the aides.
All of your meetings are set upfor you.
You have a schedule.
That's day two.
You hit the road in the morning,you're, you're running in and
out of your meetings, you'repitching the three or four
(47:55):
things that we want to talkabout.
There's certain states this yearlike California, there's a
couple things that we're goingto have them talk about that the
majority of the other states arenot going to talk about with
their local legislators.
But these are, and you know,that's just from GCLA working
with.
(48:16):
NLA and their members saying,Hey, we have this thing
happening here that we reallywant to bring it.
And it's like, great.
We, we might even put that atthe top of your list when you go
in.
And, but it's just really aCalifornia thing at this second.
So there, I think it's aboutengines and, uh,
Ken Lucci (48:35):
EPA issue.
James Blain (48:36):
Yeah.
The, the California airresources board is
Brett Barenholtz (48:41):
So these are the kind of things that we're
able to do and Cornerstone, whois our lobbyist there, there are
certain states, we might say,oh, in this state, you go in and
you talk about X first and thentalk about Y and Z, because
sometimes you go in and youstart talking about a topic and
(49:02):
you get carried away and it'slike, geez, I only, you know,
sometimes you only have a 15minute meeting and it's like, oh
my God, I got to get to theseother two things.
So you do it quickly.
Okay.
But then there's follow up,Cornerstone follows up, we leave
them a packet with all of ourinformation, then we follow up
with thank yous, and you know,do you remember us for this?
(49:24):
So there's this whole processthat goes on that is why it's
very important for us to havemoney to pay our lobbyists, and
if there are things going on incertain states.
We also have something that.
We can download, send out aletter to our industry that you
(49:46):
really just hit click and itgoes from Brett Barinholtz to my
local senators and whatever,complaining about this issue or
that issue.
So the legislative team has donean incredible job.
Um, and I just want to, in casewe run out of time, I just want
to shout out to everybody thatthrew money into the PAC fund,
(50:08):
whether you did it publicly oryou did it.
With the, uh, QR code in fiveminutes, that was an amazing
thing.
And it's all because our, ourmembers, you know, they're all
in on protecting our industryand doing the best that we can
to help ourselves and helpeverybody around us.
So thank you to everybody thatgave to PAC.
James Blain (50:30):
well, and I think along those lines, you know,
we're talking down the hill,we're talking politics, we're
talking lobbyists, talk to us alittle bit about the pack for
those that are listening.
That don't know what a pack is,how it works, you know, the big
thing that's always stuck outfor me is it's personal money,
right?
So it's you giving, because wecan't give us a business.
Can you tell us a little bitabout why that is, what a pack
(50:51):
is, what it does?
Brett Barenholtz (50:53):
Yes.
What it, what it allows us to dois if there is a.
Breakfast or a dinner or a lunchmeeting with a certain Senator,
we can write a check from theNLA for 1, 000 and have someone
rep us and go and be there andmaybe get a few minutes time
face to face or sometimes wedon't even have someone there or
(51:15):
we have our lobbyists there.
So it's important that they seewhen we call them about an issue
and say, Hey, can you help uswith congestion pricing?
I'm not saying they do this, butthere's a good chance they look
down their list and go, How manypeople are part of this NLA
thing that helped me out?
You know, why are they callingme now?
Ken Lucci (51:37):
That's the way it works.
Brett Barenholtz (51:38):
when you have to have a friend before you need
them.
If something happens today, andyou're like, Oh, let's, let me
call my, let me call my rep.
And they're like, this guy'snever talked to me before.
He's never supported me.
No one in his industry.
You can, I can't meet with himand you know, their time is very
(51:59):
valuable and they're, they'rebooked out all day.
If they know, whoa, this issomeone that gives to us every
year.
This is someone that helps me.
Yeah.
Have them come in.
Let's hear their concerns.
I hate, I hate when people sayit's pay to play because it is,
but it isn't.
It's about having relationshipsin Congress.
(52:22):
And we have to have them to havea seat at the table and to have
people that.
want to listen to you becausethe second something happens
where they say, Well, you knowwhat?
No more depreciation.
We're going to be like, What areyou talking about?
All we do is buy vehicles.
And who can we talk to?
Well, right now we can talk toabout 100 people.
Ken Lucci (52:43):
Yep.
James Blain (52:43):
Well, and you know, when I was really involved with
the Hispanic chamber of commercehere in Kansas city, it was very
special because, the big thingthere is when I was working on
the Hispanic chamber of commercehere in Kansas city.
They actually spawned theNational Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce.
And one of the things that Ilearned very early on is even
(53:04):
though it's not pay to play, youhave to pay to get in the door.
And I've always looked at itthat way, that the goal is not
pay to play, but you have got tobe willing to put down the
money, to put down the time, toput down the energy.
Well, and and not only serious,you have to Be there to build
the relationship.
(53:24):
We've we've probably driven athome 10 times by now.
This is one of the very fewevents where you're going to get
all this networking.
You're going to be able to beinvolved and there's no direct
cost to go to the event.
And so what that means is you'restill putting forth the time to
get there.
You're still putting forth the
Brett Barenholtz (53:43):
You're losing two days of your time.
Ken Lucci (53:45):
That's
James Blain (53:45):
losing two days of your time, but you really have
to look at it as.
I'm investing two days of mytime.
And with the PAC, the politicalaction committee, the other
question you should be askingyourself is if my company's in a
place where I can afford to takewhat I would have paid to be
involved and put that into thePAC to support it, that's what
helps us get in that door to beable to start building these
(54:09):
relationships, to be able to bethere.
Because like I said, it's notpay to play.
But you have to make all theseinvestments to get there.
Ken Lucci (54:16):
And you have to make the connection between the jobs
and the money.
Otherwise, it's, it's It's Uberis at the table all alone,
right?
With their, with theirlobbyists, et cetera.
But when you're putting a faceon the ramifications of what the
legislature, legislators areworking on, it's critically
(54:37):
important.
James Blain (54:38):
Well, and remember Brett, I'm going to harken back
to what you said just a secondago.
Let's get real that Uber repmight be in that office every
day for that Senator, but thatdoesn't represent the little
guy.
That's from the same hometown.
Your Senator is that maybe hegrew up down the street, or
maybe he grew up two towns over.
And when you're able to share,Hey, This is really going to
(55:00):
hurt us back home.
Now it's personal right now.
He's not there to help theserideshare companies, these big,
huge companies, but they're theones with the budgets to be in
front of them all the time.
So it's so important for you toactually represent and be a part
of that.
That was for me, the biggestlesson for the Hispanic chamber
of commerce.
(55:20):
In working with our localpoliticians here and we do trips
to Topeka and we do superinvolved because if they're not
there to, you have to be thereto tell your story or some will.
Not only that, someone will telltheir version of your story for
you and they may be telling thatSenator.
Hey, this thing is going to beso great for them.
(55:41):
And if you're not there to voicethe concern and say, no, this is
how it's really going to affectme, the guys like me and all of
us back home, they're not goingto hear that
Ken Lucci (55:50):
And the next step of the game, the next step is to
make sure that if you do go tothe day on the hill, you follow
up when you get back home withsome sort of a thank you note,
something to the home office.
Brett Barenholtz (56:01):
we do that
Ken Lucci (56:02):
Absolutely.
There you go.
So they are representing you.
And to me, it's critical as apart of the process.
Brett Barenholtz (56:08):
One of the funny things that happens
sometimes is You go into yoursenator's office, and the
senator's there, or, or arepresentative's office, and
they're like, so where are youfrom?
And it's like, well, I'm fromWestern Massachusetts.
Oh, what street?
My uncle lives there.
My, you know, they're
James Blain (56:25):
where they're from.
Brett Barenholtz (56:26):
your community.
It's like, oh, wow, Yeah.
you know, there's thispersonalized touch that gets
back to, we're all from the samestate, we're from the same
county.
So it's, it's amazing becausesometimes you walk in And you're
not even talking about yourissues.
You're just talking, you know,Oh, what do you think of the
(56:47):
high school baseball team?
They made it to States thisyear.
There's crazy stuff that happenswhen you go into the meetings.
Sometimes they're, a littlebland.
Sometimes I go into meetings andI know the senators don't like
anything that we do in ourbusiness.
They, they don't want to hearfrom us at all, but yet we go in
and we know it's sort of on deafears.
(57:09):
They're not focused on smallbusiness.
They're focused on other things,but yet we're there.
We
James Blain (57:14):
And they're they're still representing you though.
Right.
Brett Barenholtz (57:18):
still representing us.
And not only are theyrepresenting us, they're
representing all of myemployees, All of my employees,
families.
Ken Lucci (57:25):
all of your customers all of your customers that make
the choice to
Brett Barenholtz (57:29):
the customers on top of that, they don't want
to piss off every customer that.
Now has to walk father or now,you.
know, we, We can't get insuranceand give them proper insurance
of 5 million or a million and ahalf or whatever people are
comfortable with.
So you have that, but they onthe hill is great.
And I do want to shout out thePAC committee, uh, and the co
(57:55):
chairs of my ad Ryan and JeffRose.
And I think Tim Rose is on thatalso.
So thank you guys.
And I want to shout out thelegislative committee, which is
Matt Asselin, Rob Alexander, andI think Jeff Rose also, and I
might have missed someone, but Iwant to shout out both of those
(58:17):
committees too, because they putin a ton of work for this, and
to make it a great event, andthey work very closely with
Cornerstone.
And of course our staff, um,Kyle and Sarah and Haley and
Brooke.
So just, it's really a greatteam effort and I hope everybody
(58:39):
can make it.
So, and I, I want to, I knowI'm.
Stealing a lot of your timehere, but I just want to shout
out some states that weren'tthere last year.
We had almost 30 states covered,but we didn't have Alaska,
Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho,Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
(59:01):
Louisiana, Mississippi,Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada.
North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon,Rhode Island, South Dakota,
Utah, Vermont, West Virginia,Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
If you're from any of thosestates, please
Ken Lucci (59:14):
Hey, get us that, get us that list and we'll send it
out.
Brett Barenholtz (59:17):
I will
Ken Lucci (59:18):
We've all got, we've got, the two of us have got
customers in every one of those
Brett Barenholtz (59:21):
All right.
Whether you're a vendor, whetheryou're just, it would be for us
to get close to 35 or 40 States.
That means we have 80 senators.
We get to see that means we haveall of these.
It's just the more people thathear the story from our
industry.
And we're very focused on thebullet points that we're going
(59:44):
to talk about is, uh, it'sbetter,
Ken Lucci (59:48):
It makes it real.
It makes it real.
So if all you're going to do issit and complain on Facebook
about Uber or congestion taxes,or you don't have a space at
the, at the airport, we got nouse for you.
Participate.
This is the most, this is themost inclusive.
This is how the process works.
When we were kids, it was, youremember that?
Um, I'm going up on CapitolHill.
(01:00:09):
This is how a bill's made.
You can live this process and itcosts you a ride down and a day
and a half
Brett Barenholtz (01:00:16):
a hotel room.
James Blain (01:00:17):
and, and it doesn't cost you.
You're investing, right?
This is not a cost.
This is a investment in yourfuture and
Ken Lucci (01:00:27):
business.
All right.
So.
If I want to participate, I'mgoing to go to limos.
org, limo.
org, right?
Or is there an S on it?
limo.
org?
limo.
org, the, the event, it startson Monday.
Great camaraderie.
It goes Monday for prep.
Tuesday is the event.
Isn't there some fun Tuesdaynight?
There you
Brett Barenholtz (01:00:47):
yeah, there's dinner Tuesday night, and then
there's dinner on Monday nighttoo.
But, you know, and then I'd likeyou to also include what,
there's some guy that's doingsomething on Wednesday right
afterwards.
Ken Lucci (01:01:02):
We're not, we're not, we're not announcing that yet
because we are, there is achance that that guy will be
doing it in Savannah instead.
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:10):
Oh, okay.
Ken Lucci (01:01:11):
That's a discussion, but Yeah.
James Blain (01:01:13):
to, to, be announced, to be announced
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:16):
Alright, alright, I guess I was jumping
the gun.
Sorry to, uh,
Ken Lucci (01:01:20):
Thank you for doing that.
But that, you know, that no, no,no, not at all.
You know, that guy's mouthneeds, doesn't
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:27):
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
He
James Blain (01:01:28):
No, no, no.
he's he's got his batteries inall the time.
He's, he's
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:32):
Okay.
Sounds good.
Ken Lucci (01:01:35):
now.
All right.
So, uh, we look forward toseeing you because both of us
are sponsoring, uh, drivingtransactions sponsored and then
James.
Grabbed a sponsorship for thefor the podcast.
Uh, we are blessed to have you.
It's always great to have you onUm, you you always grad Create
great insight, but it's also alot of fun To have you on the
(01:01:57):
podcast.
We're very happy with thesuccess of the podcast and it's
in no small order to the gueststhat we have on because I I
don't know how anybody sits andlistens to just the two of us to
be
Brett Barenholtz (01:02:09):
you have a great podcast.
Congratulations, Ken and James,and Thank you very much for
having me.
I really appreciate it.
And please come today on theHill.
Please come today on the Hill.
Represent.
Ken Lucci (01:02:21):
And now Brett, we'll let you get back to, I know
you've got a tough rest of theday of work, so we're going to
let you get back to that.
Brett Barenholtz (01:02:28):
Thank you very much.
See
Ken Lucci (01:02:29):
All right.
James Blain (01:02:30):
Take it easy, Brett.
Thanks for
Brett Barenholtz (01:02:32):
you later.
Have a great day.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
(01:02:53):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.
Well welcome audience to another exciting episode of
the Ground TransportationPodcast, and we are blessed to
have the, again, to have the,uh, president of the NLA, um,
with us.
And we're going to do, today,we're gonna talk about kind of
a, a retrospective or a, adebrief on the Vegas show, but
then we're gonna also talk aboutthe importance on attending the
(00:46):
day on the Hill.
So, uh, Brett, I've gotta tellyou from my perspective this.
The, the show in Vegas wasabsolutely, the tone was
terrific.
Everybody was in a great mood.
It was literally like drinkingfrom a fire hose because there
was so much activity on the showfloor.
But as NLA president, I'm goingto tell you the, that.
(01:09):
The presentation you gave as faras at the annual meeting was
incredible.
So give us your perspective asyou walked around.
What did you feel about the showthis year in Vegas?
Brett Barenholtz (01:22):
I personally loved it and I just want to give
a shout out to the showcommittee
Ken Lucci (01:28):
Oh God.
Brett Barenholtz (01:28):
that put it together.
And, uh, we partnered with C.
D.
and Chris Weiss and Eric andJess and their team and, you
know, Kyle, Sarah and our team,but, you know, the show
committee that we have isspectacular.
They meet weekly.
They take everything to heart,everything about the education.
(01:50):
They do deep dives.
They try to be very fair when itcomes to, is this good for a
small operator?
Is this good for a big operator?
But the tone was great.
Everybody was encouraged.
I think the industry is doingwell right now.
We're looking at hopefully not,um, a recession, but we're
(02:12):
looking at record businesstravel this coming year, which
is what has been predicted byGBTA.
But the show as a whole wasgreat.
I spoke to a lot of the vendorsTuesday night when they were
packing up and they said theydid very well.
People are trying to buy moretechnology now, they're trying
(02:32):
to buy newer vehicles.
And it was, it was a home run.
It was a home run and everyoneenjoyed themselves.
We had at the NLA meeting, wehad a very, we had this, uh,
this pack fundraiser that, uh,Robert and I did with the help
of the rest of the board.
(02:54):
And we raised more money than weever have in, You know, three
years combined in five minutes.
James Blain (03:00):
You guys are amazing auctioneers, by the way.
Brett Barenholtz (03:02):
well, I give credit to the membership.
The membership, they're all in.
They get it.
They see what we're doing.
They see, you know, congestionpricing was a huge issue for the
last year or two.
And it's going by the waysideright now.
Um, 179 they were getting rid ofthe 179 tax depreciation
Ken Lucci (03:24):
depreciation.
Brett Barenholtz (03:25):
where you could write off up to a million
a year.
Now it's like 1.
2 million a year that is nowpermanent in the tax records,
which it was, it would go awayevery year.
They'd have to bring it back.
You know, we're going to talk alittle later about some things
we're lobbying for.
The fortunate thing is right nowwe don't have any.
(03:46):
Huge thing hanging over our headlike COVID just hit or, um, the
TNCs just came in, you know,illegally or this or that.
So it's, we're, we're in a goodtime now, but I just give all
the credit to the great show toour board.
And what they do and the timethey put in.
(04:08):
And we have 18 people on thatboard that just kick butt and
great.
And they run, we have 17committees and they, they go
hard and we.
We try to give back to, andthere's, we had a lot of
scholarship winners.
Again, we keep giving outscholarships to the shows and,
(04:29):
and it's very thought out andthorough and, uh, and I'm really
proud to just be part of it.
Ken Lucci (04:35):
So without mentioning any names, I had a huge client
come in that has never been inthe industry before.
And he made an acquisition inthis space.
And I said, look, you've got tocome to the conference.
Okay.
So this is a gentleman that hasliterally been in Many, many,
many different industries in hiscareer and his comment to me
(04:56):
after going to the show, we dida debrief was you guys are
incredibly professional, theteam that runs the NLA or runs
the show to me, it, it, itwould, it rivals an industry, a
hundred times your size.
And he did, I will tell you, heflat out said when he met you
(05:17):
that.
He got a, uh, a great feelingabout the industry and why the
industry is as strong as it is,is it because people there's
leadership in the industry likeyou.
So I wanted you to know that,but he was extremely impressed
with the show floor and, andthe, And the amount of vendors
(05:37):
and the amount of activity andthe energy level.
This is someone who neverstepped into one of our
conferences before.
And his only reference to thisindustry.
I joke with him all the time isthe only thing you know about
this industry sitting in thebackseat and sit in the backseat
of the car.
So, you know, when you thinkabout how far this industry has
(05:57):
come.
Right.
He sat in on the, um, the stateof the industry or the annual,
the annual NLA meeting.
They sat in on a couple ofeducation sessions and they were
blown away.
Brett Barenholtz (06:10):
You know, well, like I said before, the
credit goes to.
The committee that is puttingthis on and there's so many
brilliant people that they'renot even on the board, but
they're on that committee andI'm blown away because I try to
sit in on all of their calls,even though I miss them.
But they're weekly.
I learned stuff every day.
(06:30):
Just listening to them.
If you're a sponge in thisindustry, you're going to do
Well, It doesn't matter how longyou've been in it.
It doesn't matter if you'relike, even at a first timers
event, it You're going to learnsomething or you're going to
meet someone that's going tohelp you.
I, I was recently, I met someoneat the show there.
And the person had a badge thatsaid Telluride.
(06:55):
Nobody knows about Telluride.
I go there every year.
It's in Colorado.
And when I was in Telluride, Iactually met him and we boarded
for a little bit.
And boy, is he a good boarder.
Ken Lucci (07:06):
No kidding.
Brett Barenholtz (07:06):
about 30 years younger than me.
But he's just getting in theindustry and we were just
chatting and talking shop thewhole time.
But this is what happens in ourindustry.
It's very different.
I thought when I first got intothis, it's cutthroat.
The guy next to me, let's takehis legs out.
Let's, you know, grab all his
Ken Lucci (07:27):
well that's cause you come from the taxi business.
Let's
Brett Barenholtz (07:30):
Yeah, well, yes.
Um, but it's, it's a wonderfulindustry where people, I don't
need to own metal all over theworld.
I just need to know the rightpeople all over the world.
And, and not only do you need toknow them all over the world,
you need to know them in yourmarket because we got so much
smarter during COVID we thoughtwe were smart pre COVID and then
(07:53):
we realized we carry too muchmetal.
We have too much insurance.
We have too much this.
And just, have the rightpartnerships
Ken Lucci (08:01):
Look, and the opposite side of the coin is
when you're an ostrich, And yousay, I've been doing this for 30
years.
I don't know a deed to go tothose shows.
And I'm, that's literally animitation of many of the people
I talked to whose businesses arenot successful.
Oh, I've been on this for 30years.
I haven't been to a show in 10years.
(08:23):
That's why you're notprofitable.
That's why your mindset is backin the stone age that somebody
said to me the other day.
There's two types of people inthis industry.
There's people that express thatunderstand the ecosystem and a
part of the ecosystem.
And then there's the knuckledragger Neanderthals that think
(08:43):
they know everything.
And I said that he didn't saythat.
So the reality is these showsare not a cost.
They're an investment.
Right to me.
They're an investment if youcan't walk away with a golden
nugget from one of theseconferences You're you're there
you're sitting at the bar if youcan't if you can't create a
relationship Okay like that Iguarantee you that guy tell you
(09:05):
ride with you which felt like hewas boarding with a celebrity
Because he's the i'm dealingwith a guy who's got one of the
most successful guys in theindustry and he's showing me
some attention but if That'swhat I don't understand about
this industry.
It seems to be like the twotypes of people.
I'm not going to belong to mystate associations.
I'm not going to, I'm not goingto participate there and I'm not
(09:26):
going to participate in thenational association.
I'm not going to go to theconferences cause I know
everything.
And from where I sit, they allhave the same things in common.
They haven't grown theirbusinesses at all in the past 10
years there.
And their financial metrics areworse today than pre COVID.
Because what got us throughCOVID was the camaraderie of
remember those damn zoom callsof all of us saying, we need to
(09:49):
roll up our sleeves and getthrough this together.
The 40 percent that didn't makeit through those were the
ostriches.
But we still have ostriches inthe industry that don't go to
these conferences and don'tparticipate.
And it was interesting to meabout that, the comment of the
guy that would never was in theindustry before.
So to me, it renewed why the,the, the, the ecosystem
(10:13):
participating in the ecosystem,that is the NLA, that is the
state associations, that is thenational conferences and the
other events is absolutelycritical, but, and, but I got to
tell you, and this is notkissing up.
Great presidency.
I mean, the great
Brett Barenholtz (10:31):
thank you.
You're, you're trying to make meblush here.
Uh,
Ken Lucci (10:34):
well, maybe you, you have quite a, we won't talk
about the
Brett Barenholtz (10:37):
I, uh, I wanted, I wanted to make the,
uh, the annual meeting a littlefun.
So I, uh.
I wasn't sure if I would bomb,which fortunately I didn't, but,
um, it's, uh, I, everybody wasreally engaged and it just shows
how much the people in theindustry care about it.
(10:59):
And I'm shocked that you said 40percent of the companies are
gone.
I thought it was more like 20
Ken Lucci (11:04):
it's, it's 40%.
When we did the state, when wedid the financial state of the
industry reports, the D and Bnumbers are incredible.
Yeah.
And the reality is 16 percent ofthe companies that are below a
million, 16 percent fail everysingle year.
So what you've got is if youcome into the business, you
don't 16 percent a year.
(11:26):
So 80 percent fail within fiveyears.
And my feeling on that isbecause you don't, you don't
educate yourself and you don'tcreate those relationships where
if the vehicle is sitting idle,right?
Cause you're again, you're anostrich.
Um, you don't have a guy likeBrett that's going to send you
business.
So you have not networked at anindustry event.
(11:48):
And, um, I just, I don't knowtoo many industries that have
the ecosystem that is dependent,that we are all dependent on the
work.
Um, that we do to, toparticipate in the ecosystem and
the ones that don't don't seemto be doing well.
Brett Barenholtz (12:05):
well.
Kenny, it's even learning aboutthe ecosystem.
If you're a million dollarcompany just getting started, a
lot of people don't know thatyou should network with outside.
You're driving back and forth tothe airport every day, all the
time.
And you don't realize that, hey,maybe when the guy lands in New
York or Miami or LA.
(12:26):
We can help them there.
Your margins are almost as goodor better on the farm out work
than your work where you haveto, you know, pay W2 employees
and, and workman's comp and allof it, your insurance and all
that.
It's, uh, it's quite an industrythat there's always something to
(12:48):
learn and.
I am not someone that is, thebest thing I think I know about
myself is what I'm good at andwhat I'm not good at.
I don't know our systems well, Idon't know technology well, and,
but my business partner does.
Ken Lucci (13:02):
That's why you've got Kevin Cronin.
Brett Barenholtz (13:04):
yes, and Kevin's great.
And when it comes to vehicles,Kevin in his suit jumps under
them and starts looking atthings.
And, and, uh, when it comes toour tech, um, you know, we just
added something recently.
It is like a bot on our website.
James Blain (13:24):
Is that the quote
Brett Barenholtz (13:24):
it was very cool.
It, and you know, I think it'samazing.
And we're probably one of thelast companies that had remote
employees.
We're probably one of the lastcompanies that.
Does stuff overseas, but it's,it's very mainstream now for
that to happen.
And there's a lot of companiesnow that not only are their call
(13:45):
centers overseas, theirdispatch, their billing, there's
a lot of things going on in theindustry that if you don't go to
these shows, you're just.
You don't know about it and I, Iwill, I would like to shout out
one thing.
There is someone that isbuilding a couple of 20 groups
now.
Um, and if they want the name,I'm not going to say it on the
(14:07):
podcast, but they can reach outto me and I'd be happy to send
them the information.
And it's just something, ifyou're not part of a local
association or you're not partof different, um, committees
that help the nationalassociation.
You should join a 20 group.
You, you will have friendsaround the country.
You will make, you will haverelationships
Ken Lucci (14:29):
you can mention his name.
That's the kid.
That's the brother of the kidthat owns.
They're all kids to
Brett Barenholtz (14:34):
in San Diego.
Ken Lucci (14:35):
Yeah.
What's a, uh, a men in black isall right.
He's the bro.
He's his brother.
Smart
Brett Barenholtz (14:42):
So the, the guys from men in black have this
new business and I was highlyencouraging him to, to do it.
And I, you know.
Kudos to them because it's, it'ssomething that, uh, needs to be
done.
There, there were, there used tobe many, many more 20 groups,
you know, with Tom Mazza and,and other people and Arthur and
(15:06):
people that did that.
I know Becky has some stuff now,but it's, um, if you're not part
of one, you should be part ofone.
It gives you this comfort zone.
Where you can bounce things offof, uh, people that are normally
your size companies and have thesame thought process as you, but
(15:26):
you're not alone and you learnthat.
Ken Lucci (15:28):
Well, and that's what gets me.
I, I can't keep going back toit.
The, the most backwards people Ideal with that come to me to buy
it, to, to please help me sellmy business.
My accountant says it's worth X.
They're the ones that literallydon't participate with anyone
else.
(15:48):
The 20 groups.
Cause when I started Tom Oz, Ihad Tom Oz as a consultant from
the day I started my company inTampa and he, he was an
investment.
He wasn't an expense and himbringing me into the 20 group
was one of the best learningexperiences I had because now I
had brothers.
That I could call or email andsay, listen, I'm, I'm running
(16:10):
into this issue.
The myopic thought process ofsome operators makes them
victims of their owncircumstances.
Um, the, the, I, I never getover it.
It's, it's difficult as anentrepreneur to take advice
anyway.
Right.
And I kind of upset mypigheadedness by reading, um,
you know, and I'm reading somegreat, unbelievable books that
(16:32):
will help my customers, but someentrepreneurs, you know, the
feeling that you have to beomnipotent.
I know everything is selfdefeating you know what you just
said you know I know what I knowand I know what I don't know
what led you to one of the bestyin and yang partnerships in the
industry you and Kevin I don'tknow two people who could be
(16:54):
more different right but otherthan your hairstyles that but it
it.
The two of you are a perfect, aperfect fit, but if you don't
have people in a, in a 20 groupthat you, you don't, you know,
you don't talk to them and youdon't go to the state
associations and you view all ofthose people as your competitors
(17:16):
and you don't go to the NLAbecause you view it as an
expense and a club.
I don't, I don't know how yousucceed in this business.
I honestly think it cuts yourchances of success.
in half.
Brett Barenholtz (17:28):
I, I was laughing though when you
mentioned that, uh, if you go toa show and all you do is sit at
a bar and don't go to theeducational sessions at our
shows, if you just sit at thebar, you're going to have some
Good networking there.
It's, uh, you're, you're gonna,you're still gonna walk out of
there with some really Goodnuggets.
Ken Lucci (17:49):
Good point.
Brett Barenholtz (17:49):
it's a it's a great industry and, uh, the
people are great and, you know,you work with, we, we always
talk about this and I think Ican say it on your podcast, but
it's really the no asshole rule.
So if you find good people, workwith them.
And if they're just too tough towork with, there's no one else
(18:10):
that you can work with.
Ken Lucci (18:11):
don't.
That's the beauty, right?
That's the beauty.
If you find someone who calls,you say, listen, I need help in
Kansas City or I need help inIndianapolis.
And you call somebody like, eh,I don't do farm out work.
I don't do farm end work.
There's, there's five peoplethat will, right?
Brett Barenholtz (18:28):
Well, it's not even that can it's it's when you
have an issue, everything'sgreat when everything's perfect.
But when there's an issue, can Italk to that owner?
Or can I talk to that manager?
Get this squared away rightaway, right away, figure out the
billing piece of it, you know,work together and, uh, and just
(18:48):
move forward.
In a professional way, andthat's how you keep your clients
happy and that's and when youhave people that they're so
demanding on one side that onetiny thing, they're like, we're
not paying, we're not this,we're not that you can't do that
to the people that you work withand you have to be reasonable.
Ken Lucci (19:10):
Yep.
And there has to be the only wayto me that you develop a trust
factor.
You don't develop a trustfactor, finding an affiliate on
Facebook saying, Hey, I, I, Ineed help in Texas, in Dallas,
Texas, tomorrow morning at fiveo'clock.
Who do we have 5am?
Who do we have to me?
The trust level is look them inthe eye and say, listen, you
know, this is what I've gotgoing on.
Here's my cell number.
(19:30):
Can I have yours?
That trust factor isirreplaceable.
And you do get that byparticipating in the industry.
James Blain (19:38):
it's an echo of what you said on the first
episode you came on with us.
And I don't know if you remembersaying it, but when we were
talking about the same topic onthe very first episode you did
with us, you said, the big thingis don't screw it up.
It's not about rates.
It's not about getting the bestdeal.
I'm worried about who's going tobe the best to work with, who's
going to not to screw the tripup.
(19:59):
And it's so great now to kind ofsee that echoed.
And for those that haven'tlistened to that episode, they
really should go back and listento it.
But you've echoed that andyou've echoed the mentorship.
They're just, they're the twobig keys that seem to be part of
your success.
Brett Barenholtz (20:13):
Well, people, people help me along the way
we've made plenty of mistakes.
But you have certain people arevery generous with their time.
They're very generous in helpingyou out.
And the nice thing too, whenyou're in like a 20 group is
they, they don't really feelthat you're their competition
(20:35):
locally either.
So, but they still have the sameinsurance problems.
They still have the same vehiclemaintenance problems.
They still
Ken Lucci (20:42):
issues.
Brett Barenholtz (20:43):
all of these Driver issues.
Yeah.
So it's, it's a good way to getrolling in the industry and I
highly recommend it.
Ken Lucci (20:53):
No question about it because you're not alone.
If you have to, if you have tobear the burden of being a
business owner to begin with, itabsolutely, which is stressful.
I mean, I don't know too manybusiness owners who are not
three X the stress of anemployee of some company.
So if you bear that burdenalone, I think you're, you're,
(21:13):
you're short, you're shortingyourself.
You're, you're limiting yoursuccess by doing that.
Yeah.
Brett Barenholtz (21:18):
yeah, part of, part of the presentation that I
did at the, uh, at the NLAmeeting, there were a couple
little videos, but one of themwas.
Of Dana White, and I'm not goingto quote him perfectly or I'll
be swearing a lot, but DanaWhite was saying in this clip,
it was a 10 second clip, and hejust said, everyone comes to him
(21:39):
and they say, you know, I wantto make my own hours.
So I'm going to work for myself.
And he's like, you don't geteffing Christmas off.
You don't get effing Easter offand everyone's trying to eff
you.
And, uh, and it just, itresonates with our industry
because We're, we're 24 seven.
We never close.
We're, we're all in all the timeand it is a crazy industry in
(22:04):
that respect.
But, um, you need to have goodpartnerships.
You need to have good people atwork.
Ken Lucci (22:11):
Right.
And you, uh, so to me, 20 groupsare a force multiplier and going
to the shows and the conferencesand leaving with people that you
bond with, those are a forcemultiplier because it's pretty
fricking lonely being a businessowner.
If you don't have people If youdon't have people where you can
say, listen, are you having thesame issue?
(22:31):
So let's segue into what I thinkis tremendous value and
tremendously important in thespace is the analyzed, um, day
on the hill.
So give, give us an idea.
It's coming up.
Um, give us an idea of whathappens on the day of the hill
and why you think operatorsshould go.
(22:52):
And now, basically, there is nocost to participate.
Full disclosure, DrivingTransactions is a sponsor and
the podcast is a sponsor.
But give us an idea of why dayin the hill is important for an
operator.
Brett Barenholtz (23:08):
Well, first of all, it exposes you to the
entire NLA board.
It exposes you to some of thebiggest operators in the
industry, and it is a very smallgroup of people compared to what
we're usually with.
You know, almost 2, 000 at thefall show, 2, 500 at the show
(23:29):
that we just had this pastwinter in Vegas, and even the
retreats have a couple hundredpeople.
This has about 60, 70, well,recently, maybe even close to
75, 80 people.
And everybody is encouraged tomeet each other, talk, you have
some time.
(23:49):
It's not like you're going fromone thing to another to another.
We all sit in the same room onMonday and we go through
different issues that we'regoing to be speaking of.
We try to educate people onthat.
We also bring in Cornerstone,which is our lobby firm in DC,
(24:10):
which is one of the best in thecountry.
And they will do some pointcounterpoints to different
issues and we talk about theissues and years ago when I
started running the legislativecommittee, I would meet with
Louie Perry, who's fromCornerstone and say, Louie,
please dummy it down for me.
(24:31):
I used to go to these things, wewould get a book this thick
about this law that we're goingto try to go in and talk to our
representatives and senators andsay, we don't, we don't want
that.
This passage of everything isbroken down into like.
a paragraph or two.
This is what we don't like about179.
(24:51):
We don't want this to go awaybecause we want this
depreciation on a yearly basis.
This helps all of the companiesin our industry.
And it is made in a simple form.
So the following day we go tomeetings and you go to meetings
for the state where you live.
So there are two senators inevery state that you live.
(25:12):
And a representative of whereyou live and where your business
is.
So fortunately for me, we have abusiness in Maine, and we have a
business in Boston.
We have our offices there.
So I get to go to two states.
So that's about four senatorsand three or four, um, different
(25:33):
reps.
And it's amazing walking throughthe halls of Congress and
seeing, wow, this is really howstuff works here.
It's you, whatever we do thatday, it's not going to happen
that night.
We just have to continue to goyear after year after year.
(25:54):
So they know that we're around.
There was an accident a fewyears ago in New York and one of
the aides to one of the senatorssaid, Hey, why don't we call
those people from the NLA aboutthis, that were in the office
last year?
And they did, and we helpedcraft the new laws about this
(26:15):
type of stretch limousine.
They wanted to have CDL driverson everything from SUVs up after
this accident from an operatorthat was actually operating
illegally and not part of theNLA or anything like that.
But you You can't make a friendwhen you need a friend in DC.
(26:35):
You have to do it year afteryear after year.
And we've had some, uh, very,very good people that are part
of the NLA that know the DC.
Lay out well, especially withCornerstone helping us.
And every year we have afundraiser for a Democrat one
(26:56):
year, a Republican the nextyear, and we just want to show
that the NLA is a relevantindustry that chauffeur
transportation is a relevantindustry that not only has us
that are there lobbying, we havehundreds of employees.
They have spouses, they havesignificant others, and we have
(27:22):
mechanics and drivers and, youknow, dispatchers.
And one person going there thathas a 50 car fleet might really
represent 500 voters.
You know, they have clients,they have vendors that we
support.
So there is this wholeinfrastructure of people, and a
(27:48):
lot of the senators andrepresentatives realize that,
and they give us Some good timeand a lot of times, you know,
you, you don't get to see thesenator or the rep, but you meet
with their staffers who in mostcases are more up to date on
everything going on in theiroffice than the senator
themself, but occasionally yougo in and you are there with the
(28:11):
senators and the reps and we'vehad some great experiences.
A couple of years ago.
We.
did a lunch and a fundraiser forRepresentative Gottheimer from
New Jersey.
He led the charge for the lasttwo years against congestion
pricing.
(28:31):
He couldn't have been a betterfriend to us, but we were
already talking with him beforecongestion pricing.
Ken Lucci (28:37):
Think about that example, okay?
Think about that example.
So if you don't have the day ofthe hill, The industry has
absolutely no visibility to anyof the legislators.
What happens when they decidethey want to implement the
congestion pricing.
You're not going to have time tocreate those relationships.
He, that, that, that that's theperfect example of the benefit
(29:02):
of having a legislativecommittee, the PAC fund, the
lobbyist, and the day on theHill.
No question about it.
James Blain (29:11):
Well, and I,
Ken Lucci (29:12):
example.
James Blain (29:12):
I think it goes a little further than that
because, you know, we've, we'vetalked about the 50 car company.
We've talked about the largercompany, but one of the big
things that happens in businessis if you get to that point
where you get stuck.
And that smaller mindset, youget stuck in that smaller
business.
So kind of to Brett's exampleearlier, where he was kind of
mentoring that person inTelluride, this is that
(29:35):
opportunity to start developingthose friends, to understand
kind of what, what they look atwhen the blinders come off.
You know, if you're just gettingin business, you've got two,
three cars, you're worried abouthow am I getting my guys really
need to go?
How am I getting them trained?
How am I getting things done?
How am I not making mistakes?
But now you can start to expandthat vision and see those
(29:56):
things.
And the other side of it is oneof the things that happens a lot
is we get in this mindset of Oh,well, yeah, You know, I, I'm too
busy.
Someone will represent, someonewill be there.
Someone will voice that someone,someone will put that fire over
there out.
And I think a key thing here,and Brett's already alluded to
it several times.
If you don't go be the voice, ifyou don't go represent, if
(30:19):
you're not there doing that,there's, you know, one person
going in and talking to them hassome, some pull to it.
You get two, three, four people.
Now they start seeing it as.
We have this group in this area.
We're representing theseconstituents.
They're putting faces to thenames, faces to the industry,
and you start to open yourselfup.
You start to open that growth.
(30:40):
So I think Brett, if you cantalk for a second, what, what
does that look like?
If you're that smaller operator,obviously it's a free event, but
if I'm a smaller operatoroutside of the networking, if
I'm trying to.
Kind of see further down theroad.
What is that?
What is that opportunity?
Brett Barenholtz (30:57):
Well, it's funny because when you actually
do reach the senators and thereps, they want to hear more
from the smaller operator.
These are the people that theymight look at someone that's a
20 car and up operator.
Oh, that guy has a medium sizedcompany.
You know, he might be tellingthat he's fine, but the majority
(31:18):
Of our, uh, association is under20 vehicles under 10 vehicles.
And it's amazing when you seethe reps and the senators talk
to those people, cause theyreally want to know what's,
what's ailing you.
How can we help you?
Is this going to help you beingable to depreciate this asset?
(31:38):
Is this going to help you, youknow, is this going to hurt you?
If there's congestion pricing,is this going to hurt you?
If there's a accelerateddepreciation and also one of the
biggest things we're going to betalking about is insurance this
year with them and tort reform.
James Blain (31:57):
You beat me to it.
It's it's on everybody's
Brett Barenholtz (31:59):
Yeah.
So that is, that is somethingand Ken who does all of these.
transactions with drivingtransactions that alone is
putting people out of business.
Ken Lucci (32:10):
It's the number one reason.
Now it's the number one reasonwhy people are getting out.
I had an operator, it's amillion and a half dollar
operator, been in business for20, 20 years, who this week
called and said, I cannot makemy deposit for the end of March.
I cannot pay my insurancedeposit.
And I don't have the money,which is an underlying issue,
(32:32):
right?
We've got profitabilityproblems, but he has no time to
make it up.
And he's, he's taken out a homeequity line in order to pay his
deposit.
It went up 30, 38 percent in oneyear.
Brett Barenholtz (32:44):
and that's probably with No, accidents.
Ken Lucci (32:47):
No, it's he is, again, he claims his last runs
are good.
It, it, it blindsided him.
Um, he was one of the, I wouldsay he would be the, uh, on an
ostrich that doesn't participateon the state associations.
What are you doing at about iton the local level?
And he just approached it likeit was, Oh, you know, my
insurance is coming new, youknow, whatever.
(33:09):
Um, and it's going to put themout of business unless he finds
the money and he's got to tapinto his home equity.
To pay the deposit now, becausethat's the other thing that
happened is insurance said,we're not going to do financing.
You have to put at least thismuch down.
And then you're going to anoutside financial, a financing
contract, which is eight, 18 to20 percent interest.
(33:30):
So think about what you justsaid to participate.
You go into a legislator andsay, look, If we don't do tort
reform, I'm out of business.
I won't, I can't keep my house.
I can't keep my, I can't pay my,pay myself, pay my income to, to
keep my house.
It's, it's a big, it's a bigdeal.
(33:50):
Um, so,
Brett Barenholtz (33:52):
well, and the other thing is, I think.
D.
C.
The people that represent us inD.
C.
Realize that 60 percent ofeverybody works for a small
business companies or somethinglike that.
Ken Lucci (34:07):
under a million dollars, 60%, 60
Brett Barenholtz (34:09):
Yeah.
So that that is a huge part ofthe constituency and never mind
who is part of like Nila orlocal associations.
Is 100 percent or 500 percentmore people that are in your
industry, and they're just noteven part of anything.
(34:29):
So, but they understand, youknow, our issues and another
thing that we're going to bediscussing once again is curb
space, which is very important,especially at
Ken Lucci (34:43):
airports.
Yeah.
Brett Barenholtz (34:45):
airport.
curb space because of thefederal money that is given to
every airport.
We want to make sure that wehave a voice in that and we
don't get.
You know, sent out to remotelots or things like that.
Ken Lucci (34:59):
Well, think about it.
Uber's lobbying is probably Youknow, a thousand X, what we have
as an industry,
Brett Barenholtz (35:07):
You could say a million X probably,
Ken Lucci (35:09):
by the right, right, It's like a huge line item on
their P and L for when I readthe analyst reports.
But at the end of the day, whenyou walk into a Senator rep's
office and you say, if, if Ican't, if I don't have a place
at the table, if I don't have aplace at the curb, uh, I'm not
going to be attractive.
(35:29):
To clients.
James Blain (35:31):
it's it's so much deeper than that though, because
if you think about it And youreally go through it.
Our clientele are thebusinessmen, the celebrities,
the musicians, you know, whenwe're dealing with private
airports, we're pulling right upto the aircraft.
But why is it when I take thehighest form of luxury
transportation on a commercialflight?
(35:51):
I've got to walk the furthestand be inconvenienced the most
to use that.
The curb space, right?
It should be, hey, the Uber lotsover there.
You're riding Uber, you'reriding the cheap stuff, you're
over there.
But why is this business class,first class passenger having to
go the furthest?
Airport after airport.
I mean, it's, it's one of thosethings that
Brett Barenholtz (36:12):
It's, it's not always the case in every
airport, in, in some airports.
Well, one of the things that I,I feel the airlines understand
very well is the first 20 seatson the plane is where their, all
their profit comes from.
They're not making profitcharging someone a ticket, 200
to and from.
L.
(36:32):
A.
from Boston, they're making iton the guy in first class that's
paying two grand.
Ken Lucci (36:37):
70 percent of airline profitability is from the
corporate traveler in businessclass, business class traveler,
or first class.
That's 70 percent of theiroperating profit.
Brett Barenholtz (36:49):
You know what?
I knew Ken would have thatnumber too.
I knew Ken would have thatnumber.
I sort of put the T up there.
I knew he'd have all thesenumbers.
Ken Lucci (36:57):
It's in the, it's in the financial state of the
industry report that's comingout later in the year.
Okay.
Data, data is my life.
Sorry.
James Blain (37:05):
No, I,
Ken Lucci (37:06):
not dating, not dating.
Data is my life.
I wish dating was my
James Blain (37:10):
he, he's working on that one too.
No, I, I think, I think the bigthing here, and I think the big
takeaway for everyone is.
If you plan to be on thisbusiness for more than five
minutes, if you plan to be inthis industry for more than five
minutes, these are all thingsthat even if it's not your
immediate concern now, it'sgoing to be.
And I love that you brought upthe quote earlier, Bricks.
(37:32):
It's one of my all timefavorites.
And the time to make a friend isnot when you need that friend.
The time to start building thoserelationships.
It's not when you're drowningand you need them to come get to
you.
It's when you have those peoplethat are already looking out for
you.
You brought up that accident inNew York.
We've got an illegal operator.
We've got someone who's doingeverything wrong.
(37:53):
And if we didn't have thatopportunity, if we didn't have
that relationship to be able tocome in and say, no, that's not
one of ours.
They broke every rule.
If you would have put those lawsin place, they wouldn't have
followed them everywhere anyway.
So there's no point in doingthat.
That really speaks volumes intowhat Day on the Hill is really
about.
Because with Day on the Hill,you're doing exactly what we
(38:17):
teach in PACS.
And that's not driving directlyin front of your vehicle.
It's looking down the road atwhat's coming ahead.
It's being ready for what you'regoing to reach before you reach
it, instead of trying to bereactive when you
Ken Lucci (38:31):
and if this business, you know, this, if, If this is
just a, a dodge or a gig to you,or, you know, it's not your
life.
It's not a way for you to createin personal income, personal
wealth, don't go, but if you'vegot your personal wealth tied up
in this industry, you have toget serious about.
(38:55):
Participating across the boardin the industry, because there's
a lot of stuff coming up, we'vegot, we think the disruption is
over to me when disruptionstarts in an industry, it never
stops.
Right.
So you, so Uber, as we talkedabout before, Uber is, is trying
to make headway into thecorporate space.
We have autonomous regulationscoming up in the fed, the
(39:18):
department of transportation.
I mean, that there's a big pushto have autonomous regulation at
the federal level.
And it's been openly said sothat it's not state by state
death by a thousand stabs.
They want to push that in.
We have to have a seat at thetable.
We at least have to, we have tobe prepared for it.
We have to be a voice as far asthe state is concerned, the
(39:39):
legislators are concernedbecause there's an employment
component there, right?
Um, when autonomous comes in,those people have to find other
jobs.
And again, at the airports, wedon't just serve the celebrity
class or the corporate class.
I know a lot of retirees orwealthy travelers, right?
(39:59):
That are walking with a cane orthey have a pacemaker.
They don't want to get into anUber because you know, they,
they, they want to use a privateservice.
We have to have a seat at thattable.
Um, so if you've got any amountof your wealth tied up in this
industry, day on the hill to me,it should be a participant.
And just the one on oneconversations you can have and
(40:22):
the networking and the peoplethat you're going to meet are
going to be critically importantbecause you never know when
you're going to need them.
Brett Barenholtz (40:30):
Well, it's It's funny because there are
some people that I met a day onthe hill in the last few years
that were scholarship winnerstoday on the hill.
We even have scholarships forthat and you should apply now if
you've never been.
these people might've been one,two car operators.
And in the course of the lasttwo, three years, I've seen them
(40:50):
grown into 10, 20 car operators,just because they had a kind of
networking from day on the hill,really.
And then you see them at theshows and other things like
that, where they put themselvesout there.
It's not easy putting yourselfout there.
It's hard, even if you'regregarious or if you're shy,
(41:14):
it's hard to do it becauseyou're uncomfortable, but we try
to make it so everybody, learnsand meets each other that is on
day in the hill.
So it's very different than justsitting at one table.
I want the guy from New Mexicoto meet the person from New
Jersey.
I want everyone to meet eachother.
And that's been happening overthe last few years and it's been
(41:38):
great.
and there's a camaraderie therethat I think I feel every time
that I go to the, shows and Isee the people that are regulars
a day on the hill.
I love seeing them.
Ken Lucci (41:50):
Well, it look, and I will speak to one thing there.
Some people operators have saidto me, well, you know, it's an
exclusive club.
I have never found a moreinclusive group of people.
That's led by an association,then the NLA and the livery
space, right?
It is the most inclusive, themost welcoming.
(42:12):
And to me, the day on the hillis a big piece of it because if
there's no, there's no cost toit other than getting for
travel.
And it's a great learningexperience to learn the process
and get to meet the people.
It's, it, this industry isanything but exclusive.
A club.
To me, it's, it's a greatinclusive, uh, industry if you
(42:34):
take advantage of it.
Brett Barenholtz (42:36):
Yeah, there are people that might walk
around like they're, they don'tinclude you.
Um, but that's, that's theirproblem.
James Blain (42:48):
But I think the other side of that is that a lot
of it, and it doesn't matter ifyou're an extrovert.
It doesn't matter if you're anintrovert.
It doesn't matter if you're, youknow, uncomfortable.
A lot of this is being there.
A lot of this is, even if you'rethe most introverted person, you
don't like talking to people,you don't like crowds, You know
that this is an intimate event,you know that there's not a lot
(43:09):
of people there, you know thatthe people there are trying to
look further ahead, they'retrying to build connections now,
so even just being there, you goto your first event, you might
not network a lot, you might befinding your comfort zone, but
you have to keep stepping intothat uncomfortable area for
yourself, and you have to keepbeing there, kind of like you
(43:30):
talked about, Brett, you hadthis person that was there on a
scholarship, So they were luckyenough to be able to have some
of that expense carried forthem.
And then once they were in thatzone, once they started that
networking, they were able to doit again and again and again.
And so let me ask you if, ifwe've got a listener.
That has never been a day on theHill.
(43:51):
They're looking at the calendar.
You know, we have, well, andmore so you've got two shows,
you've got a retreat, you've gotday on the Hill.
If they're trying to figure outwhere do they jump in?
What do they do?
Maybe they can only afford to doone.
Day on the hill is right aroundthe corner.
What would you tell that personabout day on the hill?
Brett Barenholtz (44:10):
I would say It's amazing because it also
makes you proud to be anAmerican.
It's walking around Congress andwhat's going on.
Occasionally you can walk intosome sessions that you can see.
It's, it's unbelievable that wehave this country and it
operates the way it does.
(44:31):
It's not.
It's not speedy.
It doesn't happen overnight, butit's really amazing.
And you feel great about doingit.
You also know that you'rehelping the industry and it's
really a way for you to be aleader in the industry for your
state or nationally.
And everyone at day on the hillrecognizes, wow, this person
(44:54):
wants to take a leadership role,even though they're a one car
company or a two car company,they want to help the industry.
People who want to help theindustry.
I want to help everybody thereon the board.
Everybody there.
When we see someone come in thatwe don't know, everyone greets
them.
We have this scholarship limo.
org go to limo.
(45:15):
org.
And look up how you can applyfor a scholarship to this if
you've never been.
And even if you don't get it,it's just a hotel room and your
travel there.
And there are a lot of peoplethat are just within a few hours
drive of a DC also.
So, you know, it's just gas atthat point.
Um, but it's amazing.
(45:37):
And I just feel from the lastsix, seven years that there is
this really nice camaraderiecoming out of day on the hill?
that just carries over the restof the year for everyone that
attends.
Ken Lucci (45:51):
so, go to limo.
org.
Monday is, give us the rundownof the events.
This is, it starts April 28th.
Brett Barenholtz (45:58):
So what happens Monday is we get
together and there are certainsessions in the morning.
Oh, maybe it starts around noonand there are sessions where we
start discussing what we'regoing to talk about.
We also have Cornerstone come inand give us like a point
counterpoint.
Last year was all about theelection.
(46:19):
And if the Democrats win or ifthe Republicans win, this is
what we can look for.
We've been lobbying for the lastfew years, no tax on tips, most
likely that's going to happen.
Do you understand if peopleunderstood?
What that means to our drivers.
It would be like you're givingyour driver a 10 to 15 percent
(46:41):
increase in take home paywithout giving your driver a 10
to 15 percent increase it'scosting you
Ken Lucci (46:49):
Yeah, without going up on your prices.
Without going up on your
Brett Barenholtz (46:51):
Without going up on your prices without doing
anything.
And the other thing that's onthe table that we've pushed is
no tax on overtime.
A lot of our drivers are busyseason.
They're not just working 40hours.
They're working over that.
And so these are the kinds ofthings that they will pay off.
(47:14):
A million times over foreveryone in the industry.
And it also educates you on alot of things that you probably
have no idea about.
You might walk into your firstshow, or your first, um, day on
the hill and be like, I reallydon't know what's going on.
You never go to something all byyourself unless you're very
seasoned.
(47:35):
Someone from Cornerstone willwalk in with you.
You will have a little packetthat you hand the people there,
whether the Senator's there orwhether it's the aides.
All of your meetings are set upfor you.
You have a schedule.
That's day two.
You hit the road in the morning,you're, you're running in and
out of your meetings, you'repitching the three or four
(47:55):
things that we want to talkabout.
There's certain states this yearlike California, there's a
couple things that we're goingto have them talk about that the
majority of the other states arenot going to talk about with
their local legislators.
But these are, and you know,that's just from GCLA working
with.
(48:16):
NLA and their members saying,Hey, we have this thing
happening here that we reallywant to bring it.
And it's like, great.
We, we might even put that atthe top of your list when you go
in.
And, but it's just really aCalifornia thing at this second.
So there, I think it's aboutengines and, uh,
Ken Lucci (48:35):
EPA issue.
James Blain (48:36):
Yeah.
The, the California airresources board is
Brett Barenholtz (48:41):
So these are the kind of things that we're
able to do and Cornerstone, whois our lobbyist there, there are
certain states, we might say,oh, in this state, you go in and
you talk about X first and thentalk about Y and Z, because
sometimes you go in and youstart talking about a topic and
(49:02):
you get carried away and it'slike, geez, I only, you know,
sometimes you only have a 15minute meeting and it's like, oh
my God, I got to get to theseother two things.
So you do it quickly.
Okay.
But then there's follow up,Cornerstone follows up, we leave
them a packet with all of ourinformation, then we follow up
with thank yous, and you know,do you remember us for this?
(49:24):
So there's this whole processthat goes on that is why it's
very important for us to havemoney to pay our lobbyists, and
if there are things going on incertain states.
We also have something that.
We can download, send out aletter to our industry that you
(49:46):
really just hit click and itgoes from Brett Barinholtz to my
local senators and whatever,complaining about this issue or
that issue.
So the legislative team has donean incredible job.
Um, and I just want to, in casewe run out of time, I just want
to shout out to everybody thatthrew money into the PAC fund,
(50:08):
whether you did it publicly oryou did it.
With the, uh, QR code in fiveminutes, that was an amazing
thing.
And it's all because our, ourmembers, you know, they're all
in on protecting our industryand doing the best that we can
to help ourselves and helpeverybody around us.
So thank you to everybody thatgave to PAC.
James Blain (50:30):
well, and I think along those lines, you know,
we're talking down the hill,we're talking politics, we're
talking lobbyists, talk to us alittle bit about the pack for
those that are listening.
That don't know what a pack is,how it works, you know, the big
thing that's always stuck outfor me is it's personal money,
right?
So it's you giving, because wecan't give us a business.
Can you tell us a little bitabout why that is, what a pack
(50:51):
is, what it does?
Brett Barenholtz (50:53):
Yes.
What it, what it allows us to dois if there is a.
Breakfast or a dinner or a lunchmeeting with a certain Senator,
we can write a check from theNLA for 1, 000 and have someone
rep us and go and be there andmaybe get a few minutes time
face to face or sometimes wedon't even have someone there or
(51:15):
we have our lobbyists there.
So it's important that they seewhen we call them about an issue
and say, Hey, can you help uswith congestion pricing?
I'm not saying they do this, butthere's a good chance they look
down their list and go, How manypeople are part of this NLA
thing that helped me out?
You know, why are they callingme now?
Ken Lucci (51:37):
That's the way it works.
Brett Barenholtz (51:38):
when you have to have a friend before you need
them.
If something happens today, andyou're like, Oh, let's, let me
call my, let me call my rep.
And they're like, this guy'snever talked to me before.
He's never supported me.
No one in his industry.
You can, I can't meet with himand you know, their time is very
(51:59):
valuable and they're, they'rebooked out all day.
If they know, whoa, this issomeone that gives to us every
year.
This is someone that helps me.
Yeah.
Have them come in.
Let's hear their concerns.
I hate, I hate when people sayit's pay to play because it is,
but it isn't.
It's about having relationshipsin Congress.
(52:22):
And we have to have them to havea seat at the table and to have
people that.
want to listen to you becausethe second something happens
where they say, Well, you knowwhat?
No more depreciation.
We're going to be like, What areyou talking about?
All we do is buy vehicles.
And who can we talk to?
Well, right now we can talk toabout 100 people.
Ken Lucci (52:43):
Yep.
James Blain (52:43):
Well, and you know, when I was really involved with
the Hispanic chamber of commercehere in Kansas city, it was very
special because, the big thingthere is when I was working on
the Hispanic chamber of commercehere in Kansas city.
They actually spawned theNational Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce.
And one of the things that Ilearned very early on is even
(53:04):
though it's not pay to play, youhave to pay to get in the door.
And I've always looked at itthat way, that the goal is not
pay to play, but you have got tobe willing to put down the
money, to put down the time, toput down the energy.
Well, and and not only serious,you have to Be there to build
the relationship.
(53:24):
We've we've probably driven athome 10 times by now.
This is one of the very fewevents where you're going to get
all this networking.
You're going to be able to beinvolved and there's no direct
cost to go to the event.
And so what that means is you'restill putting forth the time to
get there.
You're still putting forth the
Brett Barenholtz (53:43):
You're losing two days of your time.
Ken Lucci (53:45):
That's
James Blain (53:45):
losing two days of your time, but you really have
to look at it as.
I'm investing two days of mytime.
And with the PAC, the politicalaction committee, the other
question you should be askingyourself is if my company's in a
place where I can afford to takewhat I would have paid to be
involved and put that into thePAC to support it, that's what
helps us get in that door to beable to start building these
(54:09):
relationships, to be able to bethere.
Because like I said, it's notpay to play.
But you have to make all theseinvestments to get there.
Ken Lucci (54:16):
And you have to make the connection between the jobs
and the money.
Otherwise, it's, it's It's Uberis at the table all alone,
right?
With their, with theirlobbyists, et cetera.
But when you're putting a faceon the ramifications of what the
legislature, legislators areworking on, it's critically
(54:37):
important.
James Blain (54:38):
Well, and remember Brett, I'm going to harken back
to what you said just a secondago.
Let's get real that Uber repmight be in that office every
day for that Senator, but thatdoesn't represent the little
guy.
That's from the same hometown.
Your Senator is that maybe hegrew up down the street, or
maybe he grew up two towns over.
And when you're able to share,Hey, This is really going to
(55:00):
hurt us back home.
Now it's personal right now.
He's not there to help theserideshare companies, these big,
huge companies, but they're theones with the budgets to be in
front of them all the time.
So it's so important for you toactually represent and be a part
of that.
That was for me, the biggestlesson for the Hispanic chamber
of commerce.
(55:20):
In working with our localpoliticians here and we do trips
to Topeka and we do superinvolved because if they're not
there to, you have to be thereto tell your story or some will.
Not only that, someone will telltheir version of your story for
you and they may be telling thatSenator.
Hey, this thing is going to beso great for them.
(55:41):
And if you're not there to voicethe concern and say, no, this is
how it's really going to affectme, the guys like me and all of
us back home, they're not goingto hear that
Ken Lucci (55:50):
And the next step of the game, the next step is to
make sure that if you do go tothe day on the hill, you follow
up when you get back home withsome sort of a thank you note,
something to the home office.
Brett Barenholtz (56:01):
we do that
Ken Lucci (56:02):
Absolutely.
There you go.
So they are representing you.
And to me, it's critical as apart of the process.
Brett Barenholtz (56:08):
One of the funny things that happens
sometimes is You go into yoursenator's office, and the
senator's there, or, or arepresentative's office, and
they're like, so where are youfrom?
And it's like, well, I'm fromWestern Massachusetts.
Oh, what street?
My uncle lives there.
My, you know, they're
James Blain (56:25):
where they're from.
Brett Barenholtz (56:26):
your community.
It's like, oh, wow, Yeah.
you know, there's thispersonalized touch that gets
back to, we're all from the samestate, we're from the same
county.
So it's, it's amazing becausesometimes you walk in And you're
not even talking about yourissues.
You're just talking, you know,Oh, what do you think of the
(56:47):
high school baseball team?
They made it to States thisyear.
There's crazy stuff that happenswhen you go into the meetings.
Sometimes they're, a littlebland.
Sometimes I go into meetings andI know the senators don't like
anything that we do in ourbusiness.
They, they don't want to hearfrom us at all, but yet we go in
and we know it's sort of on deafears.
(57:09):
They're not focused on smallbusiness.
They're focused on other things,but yet we're there.
We
James Blain (57:14):
And they're they're still representing you though.
Right.
Brett Barenholtz (57:18):
still representing us.
And not only are theyrepresenting us, they're
representing all of myemployees, All of my employees,
families.
Ken Lucci (57:25):
all of your customers all of your customers that make
the choice to
Brett Barenholtz (57:29):
the customers on top of that, they don't want
to piss off every customer that.
Now has to walk father or now,you.
know, we, We can't get insuranceand give them proper insurance
of 5 million or a million and ahalf or whatever people are
comfortable with.
So you have that, but they onthe hill is great.
And I do want to shout out thePAC committee, uh, and the co
(57:55):
chairs of my ad Ryan and JeffRose.
And I think Tim Rose is on thatalso.
So thank you guys.
And I want to shout out thelegislative committee, which is
Matt Asselin, Rob Alexander, andI think Jeff Rose also, and I
might have missed someone, but Iwant to shout out both of those
(58:17):
committees too, because they putin a ton of work for this, and
to make it a great event, andthey work very closely with
Cornerstone.
And of course our staff, um,Kyle and Sarah and Haley and
Brooke.
So just, it's really a greatteam effort and I hope everybody
(58:39):
can make it.
So, and I, I want to, I knowI'm.
Stealing a lot of your timehere, but I just want to shout
out some states that weren'tthere last year.
We had almost 30 states covered,but we didn't have Alaska,
Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho,Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
(59:01):
Louisiana, Mississippi,Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada.
North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon,Rhode Island, South Dakota,
Utah, Vermont, West Virginia,Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
If you're from any of thosestates, please
Ken Lucci (59:14):
Hey, get us that, get us that list and we'll send it
out.
Brett Barenholtz (59:17):
I will
Ken Lucci (59:18):
We've all got, we've got, the two of us have got
customers in every one of those
Brett Barenholtz (59:21):
All right.
Whether you're a vendor, whetheryou're just, it would be for us
to get close to 35 or 40 States.
That means we have 80 senators.
We get to see that means we haveall of these.
It's just the more people thathear the story from our
industry.
And we're very focused on thebullet points that we're going
(59:44):
to talk about is, uh, it'sbetter,
Ken Lucci (59:48):
It makes it real.
It makes it real.
So if all you're going to do issit and complain on Facebook
about Uber or congestion taxes,or you don't have a space at
the, at the airport, we got nouse for you.
Participate.
This is the most, this is themost inclusive.
This is how the process works.
When we were kids, it was, youremember that?
Um, I'm going up on CapitolHill.
(01:00:09):
This is how a bill's made.
You can live this process and itcosts you a ride down and a day
and a half
Brett Barenholtz (01:00:16):
a hotel room.
James Blain (01:00:17):
and, and it doesn't cost you.
You're investing, right?
This is not a cost.
This is a investment in yourfuture and
Ken Lucci (01:00:27):
business.
All right.
So.
If I want to participate, I'mgoing to go to limos.
org, limo.
org, right?
Or is there an S on it?
limo.
org?
limo.
org, the, the event, it startson Monday.
Great camaraderie.
It goes Monday for prep.
Tuesday is the event.
Isn't there some fun Tuesdaynight?
There you
Brett Barenholtz (01:00:47):
yeah, there's dinner Tuesday night, and then
there's dinner on Monday nighttoo.
But, you know, and then I'd likeyou to also include what,
there's some guy that's doingsomething on Wednesday right
afterwards.
Ken Lucci (01:01:02):
We're not, we're not, we're not announcing that yet
because we are, there is achance that that guy will be
doing it in Savannah instead.
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:10):
Oh, okay.
Ken Lucci (01:01:11):
That's a discussion, but Yeah.
James Blain (01:01:13):
to, to, be announced, to be announced
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:16):
Alright, alright, I guess I was jumping
the gun.
Sorry to, uh,
Ken Lucci (01:01:20):
Thank you for doing that.
But that, you know, that no, no,no, not at all.
You know, that guy's mouthneeds, doesn't
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:27):
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
He
James Blain (01:01:28):
No, no, no.
he's he's got his batteries inall the time.
He's, he's
Brett Barenholtz (01:01:32):
Okay.
Sounds good.
Ken Lucci (01:01:35):
now.
All right.
So, uh, we look forward toseeing you because both of us
are sponsoring, uh, drivingtransactions sponsored and then
James.
Grabbed a sponsorship for thefor the podcast.
Uh, we are blessed to have you.
It's always great to have you onUm, you you always grad Create
great insight, but it's also alot of fun To have you on the
(01:01:57):
podcast.
We're very happy with thesuccess of the podcast and it's
in no small order to the gueststhat we have on because I I
don't know how anybody sits andlistens to just the two of us to
be
Brett Barenholtz (01:02:09):
you have a great podcast.
Congratulations, Ken and James,and Thank you very much for
having me.
I really appreciate it.
And please come today on theHill.
Please come today on the Hill.
Represent.
Ken Lucci (01:02:21):
And now Brett, we'll let you get back to, I know
you've got a tough rest of theday of work, so we're going to
let you get back to that.
Brett Barenholtz (01:02:28):
Thank you very much.
See
Ken Lucci (01:02:29):
All right.
James Blain (01:02:30):
Take it easy, Brett.
Thanks for
Brett Barenholtz (01:02:32):
you later.
Have a great day.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
(01:02:53):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.
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