Diversifying and Thriving in Motorcoach: Joey Mills on Transforming Olympus Car & Coach

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ken Lucci (00:24):
Well, good afternoon, uh, podcast Land and welcome to
another exciting episode of theGround Transportation Podcast.
I am, uh, blessed to be joinedby my esteemed, uh, partner in
this, in this scenario, JamesBlaine from PAX Training.
And, and we have a special guesttoday.

(00:46):
In all seriousness, a guy thatis pretty much a legend in the
industry because he is built atremendous company.
Um, Joe E.
Mills, well, Joey Mills, uh, CEOof Olympus Car and coach Joey,
tell us, tell us a little bitabout yourself and tell us a
little bit about this is, youknow, five minute commercial on

(01:07):
Olympus.
What should we know?

Joey Mills (01:10):
Sure.
Well, first of all, thank youall for having me.
I appreciate you, uh, invitingme out, and it's a, it's an
honor and a privilege to behere.
Uh, both of you guys.
I respect you significantly.
And, uh, as we were talking alittle bit before we started,
uh, these things are importantfor the industry, I think to

Ken Lucci (01:27):
Yep.

Joey Mills (01:28):
be able to not only learn, but be able to relax a
little bit, um, and, uh, hearsome

Ken Lucci (01:33):
You are not kidding.

Joey Mills (01:34):
people and know that they're not alone

Ken Lucci (01:36):
Yeah.
This is the highlight of myFriday.
But,

James Blaine (01:39):
Every Friday.
one,

Ken Lucci (01:40):
you owe 100% Right.
That I, I love the industry andI love what we do and I love
going to the conferences, but Ithink that continuing ed to
continuing education is allabout just keeping your mind
moving while you've got insteadof your head down, right?
Every day doing the block andtackling A to B, et cetera,

(02:02):
you're mired in your business.
You know, my hope is everybodytakes at least one or two
nuggets out of these, and that'swhy, you know, having you on is,
is fantastic.
Uh, tell us a little bit aboutOlympus.
What, what, what,

Joey Mills (02:14):
Sure.

Ken Lucci (02:14):
how did you get involved and the company's an
older company.

Joey Mills (02:18):
Yeah.
So, um, Olympus, we're based inKnoxville, Tennessee.
Um, that's kind of ourheadquarters, so really anywhere
in East Tennessee.
We also do a lot of work in theTri-Cities area, which is
Kingsport,

Morristown

Joey Mills (02:31):
uh, Bristol area.
Um.
We, we are a multifacetedcompany, so we really have three
main divisions oftransportation.
We have school buses, uh, wehave motor coaches, and we have
what people think oftraditionally as the black cars,

Yeah.

Joey Mills (02:46):
SUVs and sort of thing.

Ken Lucci (02:47):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (02:48):
so the company was actually started in 1953.
Um, our

Wow.

Joey Mills (02:52):
company was started in 1953.
Um, the company was originallystarted just as a school bus
company, was called GentrySchool Bus Lines.
Um, they kind of did that for 40years.
In 1993, they bought their firstmotor coaches, um, so

Ken Lucci (03:10):
Wow.

Just jumped into charter or what'd they do at
that point?
Joey

Ken Lucci (03:13):
wait.
Jumped in.
Jumped in.
After 40 years, they jumped in

Joey Mills (03:17):
40 years, let's

jumping from one to another.
Yeah.
Mixed fleet.
I.

Joey Mills (03:21):
So, um, I think, and I don't know the exact numbers
'cause obviously I wasn't aroundfor that part,

Yeah.

Joey Mills (03:27):
started with a couple, like

Okay.

Joey Mills (03:30):
um, and then they grew it.
Uh, so when we came on thescene, we came on the scene, me
and my business partners, and,uh, we purchased it in November,
2019.
So, you know, opportune time,five months before COVID

Ken Lucci (03:43):
Whew.
Wow.

Wow.

Joey Mills (03:46):
So, so needless to

Ken Lucci (03:47):
on Surviving

Yeah.

Joey Mills (03:49):
yeah, we went from the frying pan to the fire.
Absolutely.

Ken Lucci (03:53):
yep.

Joey Mills (03:55):
so, so that part was, uh, was challenging, but
uh, when we had it, they had sixmotor coaches, uh, 19 school
buses, and they had one SUV thatthe owner used as his personal
transportation.
It was black on black, so it fit

Ken Lucci (04:08):
Sure.

Joey Mills (04:08):
Right.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (04:10):
um,

He didn't try and take that with the acquisition.
He let you, he let you keep theblack SUV.

Joey Mills (04:14):
well it, you know, it, it was an interesting
acquisition.
Um.

Ken Lucci (04:19):
As they all are.

Joey Mills (04:20):
a little, yeah, I, I'll, I'll talk a little more
about that as I tell you myhistory on it and, uh,

Ken Lucci (04:26):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (04:26):
but, uh,

Ken Lucci (04:26):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (04:27):
definitely an interesting acquisition.
So we grew it.
Um, today we've moved to a newfacility.
Uh, we moved to a new facilityabout a year ago.
Uh, we've been in it, it's aboutfour times larger than what we
were operating out of

Ken Lucci (04:41):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (04:41):
originally.
We were in the facility that we,that he operated out of.

Ken Lucci (04:45):
Right.

Joey Mills (04:46):
So we had to move because we'd grown.
So we're at, uh, 12 motorcoaches, so we've doubled the
fleet.
we have about 17 school buses,but actually have six additional
routes than he

Ken Lucci (04:59):
nice,

Joey Mills (04:59):
were

Ken Lucci (05:00):
nice.

Joey Mills (05:00):
routes, but reduce the buses, which has

Ken Lucci (05:02):
Yep.

Joey Mills (05:03):
good on that side

Ken Lucci (05:04):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (05:04):
it.
Um, we have seven three sedans,and three sprinters.

Wow.

Ken Lucci (05:09):
Wow.
Wow.
So, so, just, we, we don't needgranularity.
But from a, from a splitperspective, are you one third,
one third, one third, or iscoach bigger than school or how
is that breakdown?

Joey Mills (05:23):
So re revenue wise, it's about 60 Coach, 20 school,
20 black car.

Okay.

Joey Mills (05:29):
you, if you break it down revenue wise,

Ken Lucci (05:31):
That's nice.

Joey Mills (05:32):
if you break, if you break it down, man, hour wise,
it's about 15 motor coach, about40, uh, bus, and about 50 black
car.

Okay.

Ken Lucci (05:43):
Interesting, interesting.

Joey Mills (05:43):
is, IM, is important for the, for the black car
people that listen to understandyou have to work a lot harder to
make your money

Ken Lucci (05:50):
Oh God, yeah.
hundred

It's a different animal.

Ken Lucci (05:54):
It's a, it's a totally different, and listen,
there's a place for it becausehow much crossover Joey, do you
have between your black car coclients that also use you for
motor coach and vice versa?

Joey Mills (06:06):
So it's interesting.
Um, the reason, well, so I comefrom a back car, Blackground
background obviously.
Um, but we, we didn't have blackcar when we came here, so we

Yeah,

Joey Mills (06:17):
went the opposite of what a co a lot of companies do.
We went from a motor coachcompany and started a black car
company

Ken Lucci (06:24):
Yep,

Joey Mills (06:25):
we had the motor coach

that, that's happening a lot more now though,
Joey, I think.
I think when you did it though,it wasn't common.
Right?
I'm starting to see that now.
When you made the jump, right?
I mean, we've got there.
There's a couple guys thatstarted on the limo side and
came over, but it was very, veryrare for them to go the other
way.

Ken Lucci (06:42):
yep.

Joey Mills (06:43):
absolutely.

Ken Lucci (06:44):
your background is such that you wanted the
diversification, which is sharp,which is smart.

Joey Mills (06:50):
Well, it was important for us because we
were, when we bought thecompany, they were really
struggling on the corporateside.
So

Ken Lucci (06:55):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (06:56):
work was either, uh, tours or sports,

Okay.

Joey Mills (06:59):
so it was, they were a Thursday through Sunday
company.
They literally had no workMonday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Ken Lucci (07:05):
Interesting.

Joey Mills (07:06):
knew we had to change the narrative on that.
Um, and so obviously going intothe black Garth side and
breaking into the corporateworld helped us grow that part
of it.
Um, you know, which, whichhelped us in the, in the long
run to diversify, as you said,and get into those different
market segments.

Ken Lucci (07:23):
Do you do.
any wedding, any private weddingstuff besides your tours?
I want to talk about the tourslater.

Joey Mills (07:29):
well, so I have, I have a rule on weddings, um,
which my staff doesn't like,but, but I learned early on it's
the hardest money you'll evermake.
Um.
so we don't do any during whatwe call our peak times, which is
basically anything beforeMemorial Day and anything after
Labor Day.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (07:48):
weddings in between, but we don't do anything in
those other periods,essentially.

Ken Lucci (07:52):
Gotcha.

Explain that though.
Tell why.

Ken Lucci (07:55):
to Labor Day is, is pretty much peak for wedding in
that area, isn't

Yeah.

Joey Mills (08:00):
that is, um, it starts a little bit earlier than
that.
Um, so James, to tell, to tellyou why, to give you an idea of
why, um, when you get into thelarge vehicle situation with
weddings, um, they want'em onSaturdays

Yep,

Joey Mills (08:13):
of course you're gonna use'em one day a week,
which

Ken Lucci (08:16):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (08:17):
of sometimes 5, 6, 5 and six day trips.

yep.

Joey Mills (08:21):
now, now the money can be good, obviously, and, and
the wedding money is good, um,

Ken Lucci (08:26):
Yep.

Joey Mills (08:26):
for, you know, regularly,

Ken Lucci (08:28):
bride.

Joey Mills (08:29):
of the day, for us it only makes sense to do it
when we know we don't have theconsistent five or six day
trips.

using it for backfill, essentially.

Joey Mills (08:38):
Exactly.
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (08:40):
Yep.

Joey Mills (08:41):
maybe 5% of our business maybe.

Ken Lucci (08:45):
But you're also not the lowest price in the market.

Joey Mills (08:48):
Yeah.
We're probably not, yeah.
Yeah.
That's a, that's a really goodpoint too.
We're, we're definitely not evenprobably in the bottom three in
our

Ken Lucci (08:55):
Well, that's the beauty of it.
I mean, people say to me, what'sthe success in this business?
And I can tell you, being on thetop third or top 50% is key in
all markets.
But you know, I, I think you'redoing it right.
I mean, your bread and butter,how much of your coach
businesses over the road,multi-day.

Joey Mills (09:17):
Um, I would say 75%

Ken Lucci (09:20):
Beautiful.
That's gorgeous.
That's gorgeous work.
That's nice work.

Well,

Ken Lucci (09:24):
Um,

Joey Mills (09:25):
we, we don't do a lot of, of, uh, single day
transportation unless it's ourcontract work with like sports
teams that maybe

no.

Joey Mills (09:32):
day trip, you know, somewhere

Ken Lucci (09:33):
sure.

Joey Mills (09:34):
and or if we have schools that do day field trips
to, you know, couple hourlocations away or something of
that nature.

Ken Lucci (09:41):
So how did you get into the space?

Joey Mills (09:45):
So in, I was in the corporate world, um, the mid,
the mid 2000 teens, um, gotoutta the corporate world and
actually went to drive for GoldShield in Lexington, uh,

Ken Lucci (09:57):
you go.
Good company.

Yep.
The Doyles.

Joey Mills (09:59):
a

Ken Lucci (10:00):
Yep.

Joey Mills (10:00):
fantastic company.
George Doyle is one of thegreatest human you'll ever meet
anywhere, anytime.

Love George.
Shout out to George.

Ken Lucci (10:09):
Yep.
Yep, yep.

Joey Mills (10:11):
Le learned so much from him, learned so much about
not just how to run a business,but also how to, how to be a
good human.

Ken Lucci (10:18):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (10:19):
which is something that doesn't always happen in
this business as you

Ken Lucci (10:22):
In this business.
Joey, stop it.

I.

Ken Lucci (10:25):
it.
You mean there are scoundrels inthis business, Joey?

Joey Mills (10:29):
um, so George, George taught me, taught me
essentially everything abouttransportation.
And

Ken Lucci (10:35):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (10:36):
the reason that, that I ended up in Knoxville,
honestly, was because of George.
And, uh, we actually in 2015, Ithink, or 16, I can't remember
the exact year, actually lookedat buying Gentry, um, at Gold
Shield so that they, they wereactually had the appetite to try
to expand their markets.

Ken Lucci (10:55):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (10:56):
uh, we ended up not doing the purchase at that time,
basically because of, um.
School buses won.
They didn't have any experiencewith school buses and they
didn't want to get into it.
And two, owner of Gentry at thetime really wasn't ready to
sell.
He

Ken Lucci (11:11):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (11:13):
wasn't ready to get out.
He thought he was, but his pricewas way too high.
And,

I, I feel like Ken's never dealt with that.
Ken, you never deal with that,do you?

Ken Lucci (11:21):
Joey, say that again.
I'm sorry.

Joey Mills (11:24):
And, and that's the thing is the pri their prices
are always too high.
Right.
The seller, it always is way toohigh, but

Ken Lucci (11:30):
And, and you know Joey.
You and I, you And I, I, I haveno, idea where these numbers
come from.
But, and, and I don't know wherethey think that that price makes
sense for anybody.
When does the buyer start makingmoney on the purchase?
15 years from now.

Joey Mills (11:48):
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (11:49):
So what ma, what, how, how did you succeed with
Gentry then?

Joey Mills (11:55):
So I think the first thing we did was, um, get.
The expenses under control.
Um, so the expenses were, youknow, very high in a lot of
different places.
And probably the second biggestthing was we diversified the
revenue streams pretty quickly,

Ken Lucci (12:13):
There you go.

Joey Mills (12:15):
is where the tours came in,

Ken Lucci (12:16):
There you go.

Joey Mills (12:17):
they weren't doing any of those really.
Um, so we, we kind of found thepath to least resistance to be
able to produce the income thequickest.

Ken Lucci (12:26):
you know, none, everybody can do the tours.
Tell us how that, how, how that,how did you get started with
that?

Joey Mills (12:32):
so, you know, it's interesting.
The tours are, are an animalwithin themselves, of course.
Um, they're,

Ken Lucci (12:38):
Oh yeah.

Joey Mills (12:39):
they're, they're, they're very, they're very
unique.
Um, and really we, we classify'em into three types of tours,
right?
So our, our probably mostpopular and least path to
resistance tour are what we callwhirlwinds, some people in the
business refer to as red eyes.
Which is essentially you picksomebody up at, in our case,
I'll give you our example.

(13:00):
We're in Knoxville, so our mostpopular whirlwind Red Eye New
York City.
So we pick up people on Fridayat 6:00 PM drive'em to New York
City overnight, drop'em off at8:00 AM in the morning.
Um, they stay there until eight,9:00 PM at night, back on the
bus and we bring them back home.

Ken Lucci (13:21):
Unbelievable.

Joey Mills (13:23):
it's amazing.
I mean,

Ken Lucci (13:24):
How many of those do you do a year?

Joey Mills (13:27):
um, uh, per year, we're probably about 18 now, and

Ken Lucci (13:32):
That's

Joey Mills (13:33):
half of half of those are in December.
Uh, December.
It's like you can,

Ken Lucci (13:38):
nice.

Joey Mills (13:38):
know, you could, I, I could probably do in December
if I had the equipment and thedrivers and you know, people
that wanted to do it.
So, as you can imagine withthat.
of schedule.
It's very difficult on thedrivers.
The drivers struggle

many hours is that, Joey?
To get to New York City fromKnoxville?
For those that don't know.
Okay.

Joey Mills (13:58):
we, we do a driver switch.
So it's, it's actually onlyabout 10 hours from, uh, from
Knoxville,

Ken Lucci (14:04):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (14:05):
about three hours in.
So

Okay.

Joey Mills (14:07):
the overnight drivers, they drive about seven
hours in

Ken Lucci (14:10):
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.
Well, within the 10 hour limit?

Joey Mills (14:14):
yeah, so

Yeah.

Joey Mills (14:15):
hours is legal, but it's, it's a hard drive because
they're

Anything at all?

Joey Mills (14:18):
this,

Ken Lucci (14:20):
Hmm.

Joey Mills (14:20):
well, safety's the most important thing, and I, I
tell that, tell people that allthe time.
Look, you know, um, we're nevergonna take a trip that's gonna
endanger our company, or we'renever gonna put somebody in a
situation that endangers ourcompany.
No

No.

Joey Mills (14:34):
worth it.
No one client's worth it.

No.

Joey Mills (14:37):
just

Ken Lucci (14:37):
But you are pricing your pricing a way that you're
profitable.
So you can do the switch, youcan, you can do the chase, you
do it.
with a, do you do it with, howdo you do?
Do you do it with a chase car ordo you do it?

Joey Mills (14:49):
Yeah, so we, uh, so what we do is the drivers that
are gonna do the overnight onFriday,

Ken Lucci (14:54):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (14:55):
they actually go up on Thursday to the location
that's three

Yeah.

Joey Mills (14:59):
So

Ken Lucci (14:59):
Yep.

Joey Mills (15:00):
they're there the day before and they can also
sleep all day, or, you know, tryto get

Yeah.

Joey Mills (15:04):
into a schedule where they know they can be up
all night.
Um, they, they, we drive the busthere.
Then the driver that drives iton Friday will typically come
back since it's only three hoursaway in that instance, in that

Ken Lucci (15:17):
yep.
Yep.

Joey Mills (15:18):
the, then they'll go back up on Saturday morning at
like four 30 to pick up, youknow, to pick up the bus that's
returning back to

Ken Lucci (15:26):
there's a lot of choreographing of this, but it
gets, it becomes muscle memoryafter you do it a few times.

Joey Mills (15:35):
Yeah.
And, and what you do is youreally find out the best one,
one of the most, you know, whenyou sent me your list of
questions, we're gonna talkabout, I, one of the things on
the challenges that I said isone of the hardest things on the
tours is fig figuring out whereto switch,

Yeah,

Joey Mills (15:49):
switch the bus drivers at.
Now

Ken Lucci (15:52):
Yep.

Joey Mills (15:52):
is great, right?
If you got a Bucky's anywherewithin,

well, you turn'em loose and they have the time of
their lives in there, right?
The passengers are excited aboutthat.
More to than the destination.

Ken Lucci (16:00):
a minute.
For those, for those people thatperhaps are not, that don't know
what, tell us what Bucky's is.

Joey Mills (16:07):
So Buck Bucky's is, I call it the Disney World of
gas stations.

Accurate, a hundred percent.

Joey Mills (16:13):
yeah, you can, you can get whatever you want from,
from anything in the world, foodwise, um, whatever.
You can get it.
And it's great for us because.
Provides a great distraction forthe clients while you're
switching drivers, you know,making sure that the driver
coming aboard can, you know, getcomfortable, get their pre-trip

(16:34):
done, look over things, and thento the passengers it's seamless.

Well, and there's something to be said about that,
Joey, because a lot of peoplelook at the regulations.
They say, I got 10 drivinghours.
Right.
He's only gonna have eight hoursoff.
I, I think there's somethingreally important to be said
here, especially in the worldnow, where drivers are harder to
come by when you are doingthings.

Joey Mills (16:55):
we, we require nine

Okay?

Joey Mills (16:58):
of multi-day trip, nine hours

Ken Lucci (17:00):
Yep.

Yep.
That's a good policy.

Joey Mills (17:02):
which is still not enough in most cases, to be

Ken Lucci (17:05):
Right,

Joey Mills (17:05):
Um,

Ken Lucci (17:06):
right.

Joey Mills (17:06):
because it, it takes people longer than an hour to
wind down and get themself in acomfortable, you know,

Ken Lucci (17:12):
Sure.

Joey Mills (17:13):
And,

Well, you gotta check into the hotel.
You gotta get to the hotel, yougotta have dinner.
You got, I mean, a lot of peopledon't realize that, hey, it's
not eight hours in bed.
That's eight hours off, so youprobably need nine, 10 hours
just to get there.

Joey Mills (17:27):
we went to

Ken Lucci (17:28):
so

Joey Mills (17:28):
years ago, especially on student type tours
because,

Ken Lucci (17:32):
a hundred

Oh yeah.

Joey Mills (17:33):
tours, they, they, they wanna push it to the
minute, you know, they, theywant you to drop'em off at 10 30
and be back ready to go at 6:30AM

Yep.

Ken Lucci (17:41):
Joey,

Joey Mills (17:42):
they operate.

Ken Lucci (17:43):
do you work with any tour providers, meaning as a
subcontractor, or are these allyour own tours?

Joey Mills (17:50):
Um, so we do both, um, you know,

Ken Lucci (17:53):
Interesting.

Joey Mills (17:54):
probab, the, the split on that's probably about
60 40

Yeah.

Joey Mills (17:58):
versus, versus working for, for other folks.
Um.

Ken Lucci (18:02):
Give us the pros and cons.

Joey Mills (18:05):
So obviously the pros of having it as your own is
you have more flexibility,

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (18:10):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (18:11):
you, you know, if you screw up, it's not quite as
bad.

Ken Lucci (18:14):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (18:15):
on the bus that can,

Handle it.

Joey Mills (18:17):
and, and talk to the person.
You know, all of our tours havea host, we call'em tour host.
So we have somebody that travelswith the bus you know,

Ken Lucci (18:25):
Can I be, can I apply for that?
Can I apply for that?
I,

Joey Mills (18:28):
Absolutely.

Ken Lucci (18:29):
that.

Joey Mills (18:29):
We need them.
It's one of our

Ken Lucci (18:30):
Okay.

Joey Mills (18:31):
is finding them.
I actually wrote

Oh.

Joey Mills (18:33):
as

Ken Lucci (18:33):
No kidding.

Joey Mills (18:34):
is one of our, One of our biggest challenges.
um,

Ken Lucci (18:37):
talk about the driver on the tours.
is that also a challenge or, ordo the drivers like'em?

Joey Mills (18:45):
the, the, the whirlwind and the red eye is the

Oh

Joey Mills (18:48):
The

Ken Lucci (18:49):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (18:49):
tours, day trips or multi-day tours, the drivers
love them because they're someof the easiest trips, right?
Because you're

Ken Lucci (18:55):
Sure.

Joey Mills (18:57):
everywhere you're going is going to be bus
friendly

yeah.

Joey Mills (19:00):
part, right?
Because it's gonna be largertourist attractions, so they
cater to buses, so the driving'seasier.
Um, most motor coach operators,um, would prefer to drive tours
as opposed to sports teams or,you know, corporate or, or, um,
retail type business justbecause it's something, one,

(19:23):
they know it like,

To go.

Joey Mills (19:25):
you go to Washington DC they know all the places are
gonna go, right?
They

Yep.

Joey Mills (19:28):
we're dropping off here and there and everywhere
else, and it's simple.
For'em, it's muscle memory.

Ken Lucci (19:34):
So give us, I interrupted you, but give us the
benefits of your own versus thetour company.
The tour company kind of handsyou a manifest, right?

Joey Mills (19:43):
Yeah, so, so the tour company, of course, there's
no planning,

Ken Lucci (19:46):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (19:46):
is great, right?
You got somebody else doing itall.
So you're just, you're, you'regetting a piece of paper and
they're like, take me here, hereand here, and that's where
you're going.
Um, so you don't have a lot ofthe backend work that goes into
that.
you, you obviously don't have tohave a host on the bus because

Yeah,

Joey Mills (20:03):
that's renting it for you

they've got their own.
Yeah.

Joey Mills (20:07):
they have somebody on their own.
Um, I think the other thing itdoes for us, uh, from a benefit
standpoint is I think itactually helps our drivers

Ken Lucci (20:20):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (20:20):
for us, because it'll, they'll see that we're
more organized than others are.

Ken Lucci (20:25):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (20:26):
as you all know, drivers are sometimes fickle and
have complaints and, you know,can't, can't be satisfied, but
they're like, oh, well we do itbetter than them, so maybe it,
maybe our people are good,

Well, but,

Joey Mills (20:38):
do have it together.

Ken Lucci (20:39):
Maybe the grass isn't greener another place.

Joey Mills (20:42):
Exactly.
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (20:43):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (20:44):
so I think a, a lot, I think that's a hidden benefit

Yeah.

Joey Mills (20:48):
don't necessarily

But but it comes down to process, right?
And that goes right back to whatyou said about the Buckys and
about sending'em out there.
And it's something that hell, Ipreach at, at pacs to anybody
that'll listen.
The more you have process, themore you have planning, the more
you have a list, the more youhave something you're doing.
Right?
The big thing you mentionedthere is our drivers get to see

(21:09):
haphazard versus we have asystem, we have it laid out, we
ha we know what we're doing andthey get to see that firsthand
and it helps you.
So that's a huge part of it,Joey.

Ken Lucci (21:19):
so, talk to us about challenges are you seeing
organizing your own tours?
What's challenging about thataspect?
And compare you, you obviouslyhave to have, do you have, do
you have spec tour specialists,tour specialists inside that
design these tours?

(21:40):
Or what, what did you start,when you started doing your,
your own tours, what did thatlook like?

Joey Mills (21:46):
Yeah, so I have a,

Ken Lucci (21:47):
I

Joey Mills (21:47):
have a main person that, that devises all of our
tours, so kind of our timelineon tours and how we do things.
start planning for, um, so forexample, 2026, we start planning
in March of 25 for 2026.
So our, our first, we have aweekly sales meeting, of which

(22:07):
we discuss tours every week.
We discuss other things, butthat's always a major part of
it.
And then that, so our firstsales meeting in March, we talk
about the tours, what worked inthe past, do we wanna repeat a
tour?

No.

Joey Mills (22:21):
we not do a tour last year that we did in 24?
That we, you know, that wedidn't put on in 25, but it sold
well in 24.
You know, should we do it again?
So that's kind of thepreliminary discussion, right?
Of, and, and that's a group offour people.

No,

Joey Mills (22:35):
and, and what I would say three salespeople.
Um, and one is the main toursalesperson, and then the other
two are inside sales and one'soutside sales essentially.

Ken Lucci (22:45):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (22:46):
so we kind of all talk about it, go from there.
And then in probably mid-Aprilwe've discussed that through and
decided what our 2026 tours aregonna look like.
So then we start puttingtogether pricing from if they're
multi-day

no.

Joey Mills (23:02):
day and we're providing attractions or we're
providing food, or we'reproviding hotels, what do those
costs look like?
Um, you know, we try to have'emready for the release the Monday
after the 4th of July, for thefollowing year.
That's, that's always our

Ken Lucci (23:19):
Wow.
Talk about pre-planning.
That's great.

Joey Mills (23:23):
we didn't get'em released until after Labor Day.

Ken Lucci (23:26):
Okay,

Joey Mills (23:26):
we still, we, we had some glitches.
We released like our whirlwindsbecause as I said earlier,
those, those are the path to theleast resistance.
All you're

Ken Lucci (23:36):
sure.

Joey Mills (23:36):
a bus seat,

Right.

Ken Lucci (23:38):
Yep.

Joey Mills (23:38):
it doesn't, doesn't take a lot of planning
necessarily.
Uh,

Ken Lucci (23:42):
Right.
Where do you, where do you dropoff in New York, by the way?

Joey Mills (23:46):
uh, we actually drop off at the public library.

Ken Lucci (23:49):
Nice.

Joey Mills (23:50):
people drop off at Port Authority.
we do the library because we tryto tell everybody we're leaving
at eight, but we don't

Ken Lucci (23:57):
Yep.

Joey Mills (23:58):
until eight 30

Ken Lucci (23:59):
Good idea.

Joey Mills (24:00):
you well know in New York, you can't just sit
anywhere without somebodycreating havoc for you.

Well, and explain that for a second.
So anybody that hadn't dealtwith New York, you know, they
might hear, you can't sit.
Tell us what you mean by that.
What exactly happens when yousit with a running bus in New
York?

Joey Mills (24:16):
So, so for one, you cannot idle in New York, even

Nope.
Yeah.

Joey Mills (24:21):
is, you know, very, um, as,

they get paid to report it.
Yep.

Joey Mills (24:25):
yeah, as you guys know, they actually have folks
out there that, that will recordyou and they get paid to turn
you in.

They get a cut of the fine.

Ken Lucci (24:32):
Are you kidding?
Matt Dawes is fighting thosedamn things all the time for a
ton of my customers.
Yep.

Joey Mills (24:38):
day, every day.

Ken Lucci (24:39):
Yep.
Yep.

Joey Mills (24:40):
Um, but the public library, provi, they have a
great outdoor seating area and

Ken Lucci (24:45):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (24:46):
has those steps leading up to it, of course.
So a lot of people hang outthere and do last minute
pictures.
And, of course you gotta alsounderstand people have literally
almost been awake now for 30hours,

Ken Lucci (24:59):
Wow.

Joey Mills (25:00):
right.
So, so they're, they're just,they're really ready for the bus
to come back at

Yeah.

Joey Mills (25:05):
Um.

Ken Lucci (25:06):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (25:08):
that's, that's the reason we do'em that way.
Um, but I think back to thequestion about the, the, the
planning.
I think the most important thingis, is to try to plan something
that you think the area aroundyou is going to, to want to go
and appreciate.
Um,

Ken Lucci (25:26):
other words, the demographic

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (25:28):
people you serve, where are they gonna want to go?
O.

Well, and Joey, talk about how you find that
too, because you know, you'vegot marketplace, you got a lot
of events.
How do you, how do you findthose locations and then how do
you figure out if thedemographic's gonna go for it?

Joey Mills (25:44):
well, I think part of it's experience, right?

Yeah,

Joey Mills (25:47):
you, you've, you've, you've

get to know'em.

Joey Mills (25:50):
you've tried it and it worked.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (25:52):
I think the other part of it is you just pay
attention to where people takevacations.

Yeah,

Ken Lucci (25:56):
Oh, sure.
Yeah.

Joey Mills (25:58):
it's, it's not difficult to, to find those
numbers to see, okay, people,one good place is airlines.
Where, where do, where doairlines at your local airport,
especially if you're a smallerairport like Knoxville, where
are

Ken Lucci (26:10):
Yep,

Joey Mills (26:10):
destinations from your airport?

That's a great tip.
Yeah.

Joey Mills (26:14):
you know, gonna be some of your most popular travel
destinations are those directflights, because obviously the
airlines are saying, okay, wehave the demand to go Gulf
Shores or wherever it

And they're putting a lot of money into
research too, right?
I mean, the advantage you havethere, that's, that's, you know,
one of my favorite tricks was ifI ever wanna know where the
affluent parts of a city are andI wanna stop in, I start looking
at things like Costco, right?
Because you have, thesecompanies will spend millions of
dollars to figure this out andwe can literally just go look at
what they're doing and use it toinform us it Absolutely.

Ken Lucci (26:46):
airlines track a ton of data.
And

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (26:48):
what everybody thinks, airlines are not
incredibly profitable.
They have to micromanage theirrevenue.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (26:55):
Um, so you, all right, so you do the, the, the
red eyes and the whirlwinds toNew York.
Where else do you take the redeyes and the whirlwinds DC

Joey Mills (27:03):
we do, so we, we do Disney, um,

Ken Lucci (27:07):
Nice, right?

Joey Mills (27:08):
Um, we do, we do actually, we do a few to
Washington dc especially in thespringtime for the cherry
blossoms.

Yep.

Joey Mills (27:16):
of the big times to go there.
People love, love to see theflowers and so forth.
Um, we do, Chicago is one of ourmore popular ones.
Um, we do any variety ofbeaches.
We do Panama City, Gulf Shores.
People literally just want to gospend a day on the beach.

Yep.

Joey Mills (27:34):
and it's simple and easy for'em, right?

Ken Lucci (27:36):
Right.

Joey Mills (27:37):
really cheap Transportation.
We charge$250 a seat.

Ken Lucci (27:42):
Wow,

Round trip or one way.

Joey Mills (27:44):
That's round trip.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (27:46):
trip,

Yeah.
That's.

Joey Mills (27:49):
so

Ken Lucci (27:49):
know.

Joey Mills (27:50):
that's cheap transportation.
Um,

Ken Lucci (27:52):
Logistically, how challenging is it?
Are you, are you taking allthese reservations manually?
Do you, do you, do you, do youhave a, software program to do
this?

Joey Mills (28:02):
um,

Ken Lucci (28:03):
you get efficient at doing it?
Yeah.

Joey Mills (28:05):
yeah, we, we have a software program.
It's called Go Travel Odyssey.
Um, it's, it's a decent program.
Of course there's several outthere.

Oh yeah.

Ken Lucci (28:13):
Yep.

Joey Mills (28:13):
you to book by the seat.
Um, you know, we, we felt

Ken Lucci (28:16):
That's the key.

Joey Mills (28:17):
with that one and the one we went with.
Um, know, I think one of thethings not to overlook on tours
that I think is important is I,I think as business owners too,
we have a corporateresponsibility to let people see
things that they might not seeotherwise.
And I see that a little bit withlike our whirlwinds,

Talk.
Talk about that.
What?
What wouldn't they seeotherwise?
What do you mean?

Ken Lucci (28:39):
do you mean by that?

Joey Mills (28:40):
So, so in my opinion, the average, let's say
lower to middle class personthat lives in East Tennessee,

Yeah.

Joey Mills (28:47):
they would never have an opportunity to see New
York City.
They

Oh, yeah,

Joey Mills (28:50):
an opportunity to experience that culture.
Right.
you're giving'em a pretty easy,you know, not many hurdles to
jump over.
Ability to go spend 12 hours ina city that they would never
have access to otherwise

yeah,

Ken Lucci (29:05):
have photos, they'll have memories.
They'll take pictures in frontof that.
They, they just, don't haveaccess to.

yeah.

Joey Mills (29:11):
yeah, for, for 500 bucks, right.
Which is, which is not aninsignificant amount of money,

Ken Lucci (29:16):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (29:17):
to what they would have to spend otherwise.
It's definitely something that'sreasonable.

But look, if, if you start looking at flights
right now, right?
Unless you get a bare bonesflight, that's just your body on
a plane.
That's about as close as you'regonna get to the two 50.
Even Southwest they've rolledback, right?
Southwest now wants to chargeyou for bags.
Thank God I'm a list, right?
I still get my bag.
But, but seriously, I mean,it's, it's getting to the point
where that's becomingincreasingly more difficult.

(29:45):
The other side of that is yougotta deal with TSA, you gotta
deal with the airports, yougotta deal with everything
there.
Getting back it and forth forthese guys to be able to come.
Yeah.
You come, you get on the bus,you go there, you come back.
I mean, you're giving thesepeople opportunities they might
not have otherwise.

Ken Lucci (30:00):
reminds me, where do you pick him up in a parking
lot.
Where do do you?
Yeah.

Joey Mills (30:05):
we, we have, we have two partner locations in, in
Knoxville that we pick up at,and then we actually have a
couple of partner locationsalong the route

Ken Lucci (30:14):
Nice.

Joey Mills (30:14):
we'll pick up at.
So we're going to New York City,they're obviously gonna be east.

Yep.

Joey Mills (30:20):
so, you know, we, we stop at, we stop in Bristol and
pick up, um, then

Ken Lucci (30:23):
Yep.
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (30:27):
director of events, which she's my main tour person.
She's actually from, from thatarea.
So we actually have some clientsthere because of her.
So it makes sense that, youknow, we stop there.
And that's also where we do ourdriver switch.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (30:41):
kind of a easy place for people to come to.
But, but our locations here, ourCracker Barrel, we have a
Cracker Barrel.
They lack it because when theyget back on

Pay.

Joey Mills (30:51):
a lot of the people that gets off our bus will go
into the restaurant and eat.

Yep.

Ken Lucci (30:55):
And does Cracker Barrel charge you for parking?

Joey Mills (30:58):
they do not, uh, the only time we're not allowed to
park at Cracker Barrels inDecember,'cause that's one

Ken Lucci (31:03):
Sure,

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (31:05):
Sure, sure.

Joey Mills (31:06):
we're not able to park there.
But then, but the other 11months, they have no, no issue,
no charge, you know?

Well, they're making money off the people
you're bringing.

Ken Lucci (31:14):
oh god, yeah.
It,

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (31:16):
like the proverbial gift shop after the theater.
Right

Exit through the gift shop.

Ken Lucci (31:21):
right.
yeah.
So, so what's the mostchallenging on the tour side of
your business?
I.

Joey Mills (31:29):
Um, I would say the most challenging is probably the
planning and picking out theright locations

Ken Lucci (31:38):
Yep.

How quick do you act something if you don't think
it's right?
Like if you find it, Hey, we gota tour and it's hurting.
How long do you let it kindalimp on before you exit?

Joey Mills (31:48):
so, so it's interesting what the first year
we did this,

Okay.

Joey Mills (31:52):
to kind of give you guys an idea.
When I came and, and purchasedGentry and, and transitioned to
Olympus,

Huh?

Joey Mills (31:58):
the first year we did about$70,000 in tour
business,

Okay.

Joey Mills (32:02):
just starting.
And that's kinda like all wedid.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (32:06):
Um, that would, I would really classify that as
2022.

Ken Lucci (32:10):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (32:11):
some in 21, it was very limited because of COVID.
We

Yeah.
It hadn't come back yet.

Joey Mills (32:17):
yeah, until the first part of 21.
So in 23 we did about 350,000.
Now, 2022 was we, we lost money.
Obviously you can't run, but,but

No way.

Joey Mills (32:31):
any tours.
We went, I mean, I took, peopletook one group of to New Orleans
with five people on a motorcoach.

Wow.

Joey Mills (32:38):
and I didn't wanna do it with, with, in a smaller
vehicle like a sprinter orsomething, because I wanted them
to have the motor coachexperience,

Yeah.

Joey Mills (32:46):
uh,

Ken Lucci (32:46):
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joey Mills (32:48):
so kind of made that, that decision the first
year it was gonna be marketing

Yeah.

Joey Mills (32:52):
nothing else.

Loss leader basically.

Joey Mills (32:55):
we did, last year we did about 600,000 and we're on
pace this year to do about eight50

Congrats.

Joey Mills (33:02):
the tour side.

Ken Lucci (33:03):
with that at all.
And, and, and the thing is,it's, you control what, who, and
when control, you really docontrol the profitability
because once you've done onetour, I, I imagine the pro forma
for that specific tour, youknow, your costs almost down to
the penny.

Joey Mills (33:23):
Absolutely.
Um, you know, obviously you'realways gonna have some
miscellaneous things that popup, but, but at

Ken Lucci (33:28):
Sure.

Joey Mills (33:29):
you, you pretty much know your profit margin from the
beginning.
know, your break even, it'sroughly 28 people.
You really should be pricingyour break even at 28 people.
Um,

Ken Lucci (33:39):
Nice.

Joey Mills (33:40):
person beyond 20 eights pure

Is profit.

Ken Lucci (33:43):
N nothing wrong with that.

Joey Mills (33:45):
and, now that's, that's on the multiday and the
single days on the whirlwind,obviously it's more like 10
people are breakeven

Wow.

Joey Mills (33:54):
it is pure

Ken Lucci (33:54):
So how do you market to, how do you market these
tours?
How do you get the word out?

Joey Mills (33:59):
of our marketing is Facebook.
Um,

Ken Lucci (34:01):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (34:02):
um,

Ken Lucci (34:03):
What, what,

Joey Mills (34:03):
we we're up

Ken Lucci (34:04):
you mean to tell me that you are just not
complaining about the politicalestablishment like everybody
else?
I see you're actually makingmoney through posting on
Facebook.

Joey Mills (34:13):
Oh yeah, Facebook is awesome.
I'll say Facebook and, and it'sfunny because you're, you kid
about

Ken Lucci (34:19):
I,

Joey Mills (34:19):
you, but it is the reality of what people wanna do,
right?
and

ads, is this like regular post videos?
I mean, you know, every,everybody right now
pay-per-click.
Pay-per-click.
But you know how, and, andobviously don't give us the
secret herbs and spices, but youknow, is that, are you putting a
ton of money into that or areyou putting effort into that?

Joey Mills (34:41):
No, so, so the beauty for me is I can't even
tell you how it's done because Idon't wanna know.
I'm one of these people thatsays, you know, I just wanna
know what it tastes like.
I don't know.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (34:49):
care what goes in it.

Ken Lucci (34:51):
Yep.

Joey Mills (34:52):
so, you know, we, we have a marketing company, uh,
that, that we hired, um, in 2021to kinda rebrand us as Olympus,
because obviously we boughtGentry.
So that was the

Ken Lucci (35:02):
yep,

Joey Mills (35:03):
And

Ken Lucci (35:04):
yep.

Joey Mills (35:04):
in charge of our social media.
You know, they're, they're theformer makeup of Curtis.
Gabriel, I don't know what theircurrent

Ken Lucci (35:11):
Conversion.
Conversion.

Joey Mills (35:13):
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (35:14):
Yep.
Yep.

Joey Mills (35:16):
So they've been great.
Um, they've been wonderful towork with.
Um, obviously they're, they'refrom England, so we had a little
bit, so that's a funny story.
We had a little bit of a hiccupwhen we first started.

Uh oh.

Joey Mills (35:30):
'em to market, to market to identify us to our
region.
Right?
You

Yep.

Joey Mills (35:34):
have been to East Tennessee, so you know what East
Tennessee region is made up of.

Ken Lucci (35:38):
Yes

are you, are you tell me they had a English
accent broadcasting your ads outthere.

Joey Mills (35:43):
not, not, not necessarily the accident, but
they sent us a, they sent us avideo to release with an Arab
driver,

Okay.

Joey Mills (35:50):
like.

Ken Lucci (35:51):
Uh,

Joey Mills (35:52):
that's, that's not gonna work for us.

Well it's no in your market.

Joey Mills (35:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's

Yeah,

Joey Mills (35:57):
So, but, but I mean, they've been great.
They've

yeah,

Joey Mills (36:00):
us.
Um, you know, some people, Ithink, and, and this comes
through my conversations withpeople in the industry and, and
like 20 group I'm in andwhatnot, you know, some people
have been dissatisfied with it,but I think it's like anything,
it, it, you gotta define thegoal

yeah.

Joey Mills (36:17):
of it, and then you gotta manage toward that goal.
so I think a lot of people, likewith any marketing agency, just
like say, oh, I'm hiring you,make me look good.
Well,

Ken Lucci (36:27):
Well, and you you

You gotta put the effort in.

Ken Lucci (36:30):
something.
You, you just hit upon somethingbecause I, I, Simon Curtis is
one of my favorite people.
I talk to him all the time nowthat he is part of convergence.
You know, truth be told, I kindof helped him with that deal
when he did his, when he didthat, um, acquisition, or excuse
me, when they acquired him.
I hear the same thing about,about Mark Petri and any other

(36:52):
digital marketing company that'sin the space.
I hear fantastics and reviewsand then I hear some so sos and
I'm with you.
I think if you expect to justwrite a check and that's your
involvement, it's not, No.
matter who it is, it's not gonnawork for you.

Joey Mills (37:08):
Never gonna work.
Yeah.
it's

Ken Lucci (37:10):
Yep.

Joey Mills (37:10):
gonna work.
And, and that's what I get outof people when they come to me
and they're like, now you alwaystalk great about'em, but we've
had this, this, and this.
And I'm like, okay, are youtalking to them regularly?
Are you

Yeah.

Joey Mills (37:21):
them what you're looking for?
Are you telling

Ken Lucci (37:23):
Right.

Joey Mills (37:23):
this is what I want out of it in the long run, you

Well, and that, I think that's every vendor,
right?
Because to a certain extent, andit, and it happens to me with
vendors that aren't even a partof this industry and what we do,
I think one of the things thatpeople forget is.
Getting a vendor is a little bitlike hiring.
You have to have a culture fit,you have to have a partnership
type relationship.
Look, there's people out therethat would probably tell you,
Hey, you know, we, we tried Paxand it didn't work.

(37:46):
And I can tell you right now,I've had people come to us, not
put anybody on it, not doanybody with it, and then go,
well, we thought we were gonnabuy it, it would magically work.
Now that said, are we foreveryone?
No.
Uh, my goal is to work withpeople in top percent, but I can
tell you right now, I havevendors that I use where it's
not a culture fit or we're notthis, you know what I mean?
It's, you gotta find people thatfit with what you're trying to

(38:09):
do and you gotta work together.
Oh, absolutely.
More so there.

Ken Lucci (38:13):
and listen, we can pick a dozen.
A dozen companies and peoplethat have, have been through
this industry, you know, I'lljust call it waving a hundred
dollars bill through a trailerpark, meaning they just slip

Brutal.
Brutal.

Ken Lucci (38:27):
They take out, they take out a few hundred thousand
dollars and they do nothing.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (38:31):
But, but, but, but I, I will share with you all right,
Joey, he, they've got some verysticky clients, some great
clients that love them, and withdigital marketing and SEO and
PPC, it's, It is, the devil isin the detail.
It is tracking return oninvestment.
It is what is our goal andobjective of this, and none of

(38:53):
it is magic.
It, it takes a lot of work.
But listen, in your case, theproof is in the pudding because
that's one of the primary waysthat you generate tour business.
Correct?
That's it.
Yep.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (39:06):
and, and I think other business, I think we've
had a bleed over our tourbusiness has, has bled over
into, so I can, I can give youan example.
We have a local college in townthat, um.
The sports, the admin for thesports department went on a
whirlwind with us

Ken Lucci (39:25):
No shit.

Joey Mills (39:26):
Right.
Um, so she comes back, talksabout how nice I equipment was,
how great the experience was, soforth and so on.
calls, she's like, she called medirectly, they gave her my
direct number, which is

Yeah.

Joey Mills (39:40):
I

Ken Lucci (39:40):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (39:41):
call.
Right?
And they're like, she's like,Hey, would you like to bid on
our sports contract?
You know, your equipment's

Ken Lucci (39:46):
Nice,

Joey Mills (39:47):
You know, we're

Ken Lucci (39:47):
nice.

Joey Mills (39:48):
looking for new vendors.
Would you like to bid?
into a$675,000 annual contract

Wow.

Ken Lucci (39:55):
Listen, you know, you know, it's, it's, uh, funny.
This is why I wanted to have youon, because I, I, I know your
personality and your extremelypositive, and you're also
analytical about your numbers.
I, do you agree with thisstatement that the, the people
that whose businesses are downit, it's, it's more their

(40:16):
mindset than their marketplace.

Joey Mills (40:19):
Yeah, I think, uh, yeah, I think that's probably
more true than not true.
Um, I, I think in, I think inthe world right now, we are
dealing with probably somethings that we haven't seen and

Ken Lucci (40:32):
chaos.

Joey Mills (40:32):
really,

Ken Lucci (40:33):
the chaos factor.

Joey Mills (40:34):
it, it really in the last 15 years.
But, but I do tend to agree withyou.
I think it's like any businessmodel or any industry, you
either learn to adapt and figureout how to change with what's
going on or you get left behind,

Uh.

Ken Lucci (40:47):
know, it's, Uh.
it's so funny that you said thatbecause, uh, the call before I
got on this, I had a call witha, a, a very large client,
excuse me, very largeprospective client out in
California.
And he said, listen, you know,so-and-so does business with
you.
You've improved his, improvedhis profitability, and you know,
we want to have you come in anddo a business plan.
I said, well, back up.
We do financial reporting, afinancial review of your

(41:10):
business to look at what'shealthy, unhealthy, and, in the
case you're talking about, youknow, we found some things that
needed to change.

Joey Mills (41:17):
mm-hmm.

Ken Lucci (41:17):
I've been doing this for 30 years.
I said, okay, what were youdoing in 20, 20 19?
He said, oh, you know, we weredoing 20 million.
Great.
What are you doing now?
12.
Okay, so is it working?
Is the same thing working foryou?
You just hit the nail on thehead when you said adapt.
Okay, so there's something aboutsuccess, right?
That every entrepreneur gets tothe point and they're profitable

(41:40):
and they're successful and theythink, oh, I've reached the
pinnacle.
You know, the problem with that.
It's a bitch to get up to thatmountain, but it's also really
difficult to stay up on thatpoint.
Right.
Because it, to me, worst part ofbeing an entrepreneur is when
you get too comfortable, get toocomplacent.
And then it's what I call omniNip, omniscient thinking.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (42:04):
tomorrow for me in my life is gonna be exactly the
same as today and yesterday.
So you have to try new things.
I mean, how many people when youwent into tours said to you, ah,
I've tried it, it doesn't work.

Joey Mills (42:19):
Yeah, I, I, a lot, um, especially in, in the
industry I was in, because youhave to remember, I was more in
the black car

Yeah.
This is completely new territoryfor you.
Yeah.

Joey Mills (42:31):
coach business.
When I bought this company, wehad motor coaches at Gold
Shield, but relatively speaking,we were new.
You know,

Ken Lucci (42:38):
Yep.

Joey Mills (42:38):
afu, I got a funny story about the Motor Coach Co.
You know, James, earlier youtalked about like places to go
and

Yeah.

Joey Mills (42:45):
So I went to my first UMA in 2017

Okay.

Joey Mills (42:49):
at, um, UMA is United Motor Coach Association.

which, which city was that?
The way we were in, in 2017?

Joey Mills (42:56):
it was in Fort Lauderdale.

Okay.
That's what I thought.

Ken Lucci (42:59):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (43:00):
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (43:00):
Good memory.

Joey Mills (43:01):
um, anyway, I walk in on the first day, and of
course I'd been used to going toChauffeur Driven and the n LA
shows.
And in that world we had, Ithink at the time Shield had 12
motor coaches, right?

Yeah.

Joey Mills (43:13):
the limo side we were big guys, right?
We were like,

Ken Lucci (43:15):
Big.

Joey Mills (43:16):
yeah, you

Ken Lucci (43:16):
That's big.

Joey Mills (43:17):
of buses.

12 motor coaches.
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (43:20):
Yep.

Joey Mills (43:20):
I walk into UMA and they have what's called the
maintenance interchange, right?

Yep.

Joey Mills (43:24):
don't know if you guys have ever been a part of
this or not, but

Describe it'cause there's gonna be a lot of people
that haven't heard of it.

Joey Mills (43:30):
So, so basically it's, it's a, it's, it's
operators only, no vendors.
People can't go in there

Oh.

Joey Mills (43:36):
like Prevo and those, you know, the bus
companies or parts companies oranything.
It's just the operators.
And I was, thank goodness I wassitting toward the end.
'cause I have this kind ofpersona of like, oh yeah, I'm a
big guy.
I'm happy to be here, you know,I can't wait to come in here and
talk.
So the people start introducingthemselves and saying, okay, how
much, how big they are, how longthey've been in business.

(43:58):
And you know, my naiveness I'mthinking, oh yeah, we're, we got
12 and we've been in businessfive years now.
And you know, the first guy waslike, oh, I got 350.
The second guy's like, I got800, you know, and I'm like,
been in business since 1950.
And I'm like, oh, okay, this isdifferent.

The, the you, you were sitting with the Legacy
Motor coach operators, the onesthat have been doing it since
Yeah.

Joey Mills (44:18):
is a different different animal here that I'm

Ken Lucci (44:21):
Yep.
And you know, we found the samething when we, we did a UMA.
No, it was Pennsylvania BusAssociation.
We did a preparing your businessto exit we did a webinar, uh,
this was about a year and a halfago.
And we get a phone call fromthree operators and I'm like,
okay, Pennsylvania buscompanies, how can they be, how

(44:44):
big can they be?
35 million, 35 million,

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (44:48):
million.
This division of my company is10 million.
But

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (44:52):
know, and, and when you delve into those financials
and you look at profitability ofline runs and you look at
profitability of tours, and no,we don't.
And it was, what was foreign tome was there was just a lack of
charter In many of thosecompanies.
There are tons of touring, tonsof, of, of, of, um, line runs as

(45:15):
well.
So what was your, if, what's themost challenging thing about the
Motor Coach side of yourbusiness?

Joey Mills (45:27):
So I think, um, think it's probably threefold in
that, I think, I think probablythe biggest challenge is the
capital investment.

Yep.

Joey Mills (45:35):
Um, especially, especially when you're talking
people from the limo business,right?

Ken Lucci (45:40):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (45:41):
they're, they're used to buying five to seven to
10 vehicles for what you'regonna purchase for one.

One coach.
Yep.

Ken Lucci (45:50):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (45:50):
so, so to bite that apple, it's sometimes a little
bit daunting.
Um, I think probably the secondis to run it like you run a limo
business.
for me that was one of the mostchallenging things because I
especially, so one of the thingsthat was hard for me when I came
to Knox and bought this.
I was realizing how I couldutilize my school buses because

(46:14):
I was very hesitant to send myschool bus to a wedding.
Right.
Because I've been taught, okay,a wedding, it needs to be
pristine.
You need to have people inshirts and ties and coats and
you know, the whole nine

Yeah.

Joey Mills (46:27):
Well, I didn't want the school bus to be associated
with my company first moved toKnoxville.
'cause I thought it wouldcheapen it.
And so I was hesitant to marketthat to my wedding side.
Well now I do it all the time.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (46:41):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (46:41):
or 10 school buses on a weekend at a wedding.

Ken Lucci (46:44):
Yeah.

Joey Mills (46:45):
people don't care.
they just

Ken Lucci (46:46):
No,

Joey Mills (46:47):
want the transportation.

What's your difference in price point, Joey?
I mean, obviously, you know, ifyou want, you want a brand new
motor coach versus a school bus.
Is that where you saw theopportunity is to get them in at
a lower price point?
Or where did the opportunitycome in?

Joey Mills (47:01):
And, and, and I think an availability
standpoint,

Yeah,

Joey Mills (47:03):
know, as I said, we don't do a lot in the, in the
peak seasons for us on

yeah.

Joey Mills (47:08):
we can offer the school buses as shuttles, and a
lot of people will be okay withit.

Well, and the bus is just sitting there.
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (47:15):
talk about, we do heat, we do heat maps for people
where we show 365 days ofutilization

So,

Ken Lucci (47:22):
and we show what hours of the day the vehicles
are actually moving.
And then you have this big swathof red, right?

no.

Ken Lucci (47:30):
many bus and motor coach companies and school bus
companies.
It's almost always Thursday,Friday, or excuse me, Saturday
and Sunday, you know, so you'vegot the vehicle sitting there,
the asset sitting there.
Um, very, very astute.
So, okay,

No.

Ken Lucci (47:45):
the coach side, it, it was really, it's obviously
getting over the capital, right?
Getting over the capital outlay.
But talk to me about that.
You, you're, you are also buyinga piece of equipment that you're
gonna keep on the road for howmany years a limo guy thinking

Joey Mills (48:01):
Yeah, for sure.
And, and I think that's one ofthe harder things to understand
too, is, is you're buying a 20year asset.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (48:07):
Um, you know, a lot of people, especially from the
limo side, are afraid to usethat asset past seven or eight
because it starts to get old, inthat world.
Um, but in the motor coachsworld, you're, most companies
are at the 20 year mark.
Now,

Ken Lucci (48:24):
Oh, absolutely.

Joey Mills (48:26):
You know, they, they may, they may redo the, the
fronts to make'em look newer,but

Ken Lucci (48:30):
Yep.

Joey Mills (48:31):
capsule of the, of the equipment is 20 years old.

What?

Ken Lucci (48:35):
Yep.

Joey Mills (48:36):
you know, uh, they're most, most people are
financing on seven years.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (48:41):
you're getting 13 years of, you know, complete
free profitability outta those

Ken Lucci (48:45):
So let's think of, let's just look at that.
If, if you are, if you arefinancing a piece of equipment.
for seven years, okay?
And you are mixing your good, agood diversified mix of
business, your gross profitmargin should be like a, it
should be about 40% gross.
Agree on the right.
Okay?
So now you go into your six,seven years.
Seven years in one month.

(49:06):
Okay?
I guarantee you now you'remaking more like 52% gross
profit margin because you get apaid off piece of equipment,
right?
At least, And, and, and I thinkthe limo side of the world
doesn't, doesn't look at that.
I mean, I just saw a very goodcustomer mind just, you know,
got rid of a 2019 van Houl with210,000 miles on It I called

(49:28):
him, I said, was that thinggiving you a problem?
He said, no.
I said, was the interior beatup?
No.
And I felt like, I said, whatthe fuck are you selling it for
then?
but that's, it's kind of amentality issue, right?

Joey Mills (49:41):
Yeah,

and it, it's a different type of vehicle
though, right?
You can't, nobody in their rightmind is gonna take an SUV,
right?
We're not gonna take a Suburbanand put a new front end on it
and rip the interior out and puta new one in.
But what.
Right, but these, these arereally more like aircraft.
You've got this massiveinterior.
You can strip out the interior.
There are no lack of companiesout there that are going to cost

(50:06):
effectively, quickly, and easilyrefresh the interior of the
vehicle.
You could put a new right and,and for, I don't know if MC i's
still doing it, but for a whilethey'd put the new front clip on
it and you do the interior inthe front clip.
That passenger can't tell.
You just can't do that with anSUV or a sedan.

Ken Lucci (50:22):
you can't, well, you can't even do it with any of the
others.
The,

No,

Ken Lucci (50:25):
fall apart by that time period.
And, and, but, but, but thesecret, the secret to what he,
what Joey is talking about isit's an asset utilization
mentality

no.

Ken Lucci (50:37):
and Okay.
And how much is this costing meto maintain?
If you are maintaining a motorcoach properly from day one, you
can get a full 20 years out ofit.
Right.
And, and well, listen, we're nottalking about 12 hours a day
transit buses here, you know,we're, we're talking about, you
know, charter use, transfer useand tour use.
But you have to have thatmindset that it's not about,

(51:01):
it's not about the new, the new,I have to have a new leather
interior.
I have to have a brand new motorcoach to get a new leather
interior.
One of my favorite people in theentire motor coach business is,
is Francis that owns Academy.
And, and that guy, I think he'srunning, I think he's running
like 1800 pieces of equipment.

Sounds about right.

Ken Lucci (51:20):
literally, he literally puts, backs, fronts,
does the entire thing.
He has an entire refurbishmentand he's, he loves it.
He's like, are you kidding me?
I'd love to take A milliondollar bus, strip it down, put
new motor, new motor, newtranny.
If you're gonna do a motor, dothe tranny, do it all together,

(51:42):
slap it all back together.
Nobody knows the difference.
It's just from our mentalitycoming from the limo side.
Oh no, I, have to have the bestand brightest.

Joey Mills (51:50):
Mm-hmm.

Ken Lucci (51:50):
and the other thing is, I think, you'll agree if
you, if you take care of it, youshouldn't be able to tell a
10-year-old motor coach from anew one if you take care of it.
So talk about your ma, talkabout your maintenance, talk
about how you keep these,

Joey Mills (52:03):
I

Ken Lucci (52:03):
the.

Joey Mills (52:04):
think the maintenance is really important.
Um, I think, you know, both froma, um.
Mechanical standpoint as well asa body and interior standpoint.
I think it's important.
Um, you know, I, I say this allthe time.
Motor coaches are big driversare gonna hit things.
It just

Ken Lucci (52:21):
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.

Joey Mills (52:22):
It's, it's,

Parked objects is the number one com, right?
When we deal with training, whenwe help train drivers, the
number one thing we always hearand we're always dealing with.
They forget how big the bus isand it's parked objects.
It's little things.
It's, I forgot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or, or the back or the tailswing.
Right.
I forgot the, the back of thebus swings out and I smacked a

(52:46):
car.
Right.

Joey Mills (52:48):
always tell my drivers, I, I will be way more
upset about a left side than aright side damage because you

His,

Joey Mills (52:56):
see the left side necessarily.
But if you hit something on theright, then you're just careless

yeah.

Joey Mills (53:01):
the

Ken Lucci (53:01):
Yep.

Joey Mills (53:01):
cause you can see what you're doing.
Right?
A hundred percent.

Ken Lucci (53:04):
So talk about the maintenance piece.
Do you do a lot of your own?

Joey Mills (53:08):
Yeah, we do, we have, we have, uh, three
mechanics that we have that, youknow, are full-time, um, at our
shop.

Ken Lucci (53:15):
because you get 17, 17 motor, um, uh, school buses,
right?

Joey Mills (53:18):
I got, I got 12, 12 motors and 17 school buses.

Ken Lucci (53:22):
17 and 12.
So the 29

vehicles.

Joey Mills (53:26):
stuff.
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (53:27):
need those mechanics.
Yep.
Yep.

Joey Mills (53:32):
but it, it's important to have that because
as you all well know, onebreakdown on the road, your
profitability's completely gone.

Well, and you've gotta have people you can call
on the road too.

Joey Mills (53:45):
exactly that, that's probably the third most
challenging thing that you askedme that I didn't get to, but
that

Yeah,

Joey Mills (53:50):
number three, is when you have a breakdown in a
motor coach, it's so muchdifferent than dealing with
breakdown in an SUV.
That's, you know.
15 minutes from your shop orwhatever, that you

yeah.

Joey Mills (54:02):
something else too.

Ken Lucci (54:03):
Yep.

Joey Mills (54:04):
you're on the road and, and you know, as we all
know in the business, thebreakdowns only happen at 3:00
AM on Saturday morning, youknow,

Ken Lucci (54:10):
Absolutely.

Joey Mills (54:11):
weekend

There there's little timers in every piece of
equipment that are set to theworst possible time.

Joey Mills (54:18):
it's 4:00 AM I'm gonna break,

Yeah.
Yeah.
That's how it works.

Joey Mills (54:21):
one of the

Ken Lucci (54:22):
So how do you manage that?
Yeah.

Joey Mills (54:24):
one of the most important things I would tell
you is this one, the driverimmediately needs to start
managing it from a clientstandpoint,

Yep.

Joey Mills (54:34):
That might be the most important thing of all of
this is to manage it, be honest,even if honest is bad.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (54:42):
I had, I had a whirlwind coming back from New
York City about three years agonow.
Uh, the breakdown happened aboutthree 30.
calls me, Hey, I've thrown abelt.
I think the alternators, youknow, got a problem.
What can I do?
I said, well, here's the deal.
Where are you at?
He tells me he's about an hourand 40 minutes, from, I wanna

(55:05):
say maybe, um, I don't know whatcity, but hour and 40 minutes
from the largest city that wasnear him.
And I said, look, it's probablygonna be 10 o'clock before I get
a bus there.

Yeah.

Joey Mills (55:17):
honest with you right now.

Yep.

Ken Lucci (55:19):
Mm-hmm.

Joey Mills (55:19):
morning, right.
I'm probably not gonna get him.
And, and I knew I couldn't get amechanic to fix it on the side
of the road, so I knew a bus wasmy only option.
said, so I'm, you need to tellthe passengers, it's gonna be
10:00 AM They need to getcomfortable now.
He was able to get it off theroad.
They were at like a rest areakind of thing.
And he's like, that's six hours.
I said, but be honest, becauseif you're not honest, this is

(55:42):
gonna go in the wrong direction.
He goes and tells the passengersit's gonna be two to three
hours,

No.

Joey Mills (55:47):
so.
So we get the bus there at 9:40AM

Okay.

Joey Mills (55:53):
able to

Ken Lucci (55:53):
Sure.

Joey Mills (55:54):
a bus, get somebody there at 9:40 AM

Which would've been earlier than expected.
Right.
He would've had good news.
I told you it was this and I gotit there early, but no.
Now we're late.

Joey Mills (56:04):
yeah.
If, if he would've just followedinstructions.
But I think that's one of thefirst keys is to make sure
you're planning that right.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (56:10):
Yep.

Joey Mills (56:11):
I think having good partners that you can call on
the road, which I, which is onereason I think the shows are
really important.
The UMass, the ABAs,

Ken Lucci (56:19):
Yep, yep, yep,

Joey Mills (56:22):
That,

Ken Lucci (56:22):
yep.

Joey Mills (56:23):
that's the most important part of those shows,
is making that connection.
'cause I tell people all thetime, if you call me and I don't
know you at 3:00 AM I'm probablygonna do everything I can, but I

Ken Lucci (56:34):
But that's just you.

Well, but the time to make a friend is before you
need a friend.
Right.

Ken Lucci (56:41):
Right.

Joey Mills (56:42):
you call me at 3:00 AM you know, and, and we sat in
a bar and had a couple beers.
I'm gonna be much more likely tobe like, okay, let me move
heaven and earth

Yeah.

Joey Mills (56:52):
care of this person.

Ken Lucci (56:53):
And that motor coach, the motor coach side of the indu
ground transportation industryis a hell of a lot more
congenial.
Am I Right.

Joey Mills (57:02):
Absolutely.
It, it definitely is.
And, but I will say this aboutthe motor coach side as opposed
to the livery side.
The motor coach side is alsoo'clock on Friday we're closed,

It's not a 24 hour business.

Joey Mills (57:16):
and, and

Ken Lucci (57:17):
yep, yep,

Joey Mills (57:18):
again at 9:00 AM on Monday morning.

Ken Lucci (57:20):
yep,

Joey Mills (57:20):
you have those relationships that you

Ken Lucci (57:23):
yep,

Joey Mills (57:23):
somebody's cell phone or you can get

Ken Lucci (57:26):
yep, yep.

Joey Mills (57:26):
and send a message and say,

No.

Joey Mills (57:28):
so and so, I'm near you.
I'm broke down.
Do you have anything?
If not, please tell me who I cancall or

Ken Lucci (57:34):
So, so as we wrap this up, that's critically
important, is a good takeoff.
What's your advice to achauffeur guy who's been in the
business for a while?
Who wants to get into the motorcode space.
And, and I gotta tell you, II've had more the last six,
eight weeks, I've had moreoperators call me saying, you

(57:55):
need to sell my business becausemy insurance just quadrupled.
I'm not lying, quadrupled.

Joey Mills (58:00):
Oh yeah,

Ken Lucci (58:00):
And, and, and I, have, and I have one motor coach
and I, I'm a$1.5 millionoperator.
And, and my answer in the backof my head is, you should never
have been in the motor coachbusiness to begin with.

Joey Mills (58:11):
Exactly.
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (58:13):
what, what, what is your advice to someone who's,
let's set it up.
He's gotta, they're gotta bewell capitalized, okay.
One of my heroes in thisbusiness Ha, from Rose
Transportation down in, inCharlotte, right?
H ha Thompson said to me backthen, Ken, before you get into
motor coaches, you better havean extra$20,000 a piece just

(58:35):
sitting around and you get twoof them.
You better have an extra 40,000.
And I didn't believe him, but hewas right.
So what is your advice to thechauffeur side that, that this
horrible herd mentality in theindustry?
Well, I have to have this.
Okay.

Keep it up with the Joneses.

Ken Lucci (58:52):
What's your advice to somebody who wants a cha that
comes from the chauffeur side,wants to get in the motor coach
side?

Joey Mills (58:58):
So I think the first thing I would make sure of is
you have the demand, um, whichmeans that you're doing, you're
either turning down calls oryou're farming out at least
$350,000 a year in work.

Ken Lucci (59:10):
Agreed.

Say, say that again.
'cause a lot of guys don't getthis, they just want to go by
the bus.

Joey Mills (59:16):
Unless

Ken Lucci (59:16):
Yep.

Joey Mills (59:16):
unless you're turning it down or you're
sending it to somebody else andit's 350,000, you're not ready
for a bus.

Yep,

Ken Lucci (59:23):
Great.

Joey Mills (59:23):
I would say that almost needs to be 500

yep,

Joey Mills (59:28):
wanna have two buses to start.

yep.

Ken Lucci (59:30):
Yep.

Joey Mills (59:30):
you're at 500, you can easily get to 700 if you've
got the equipment and you canmarket it.

Ken Lucci (59:35):
Yep.

Joey Mills (59:35):
you're there, I wouldn't even consider it
because you're gonna make moreprofit sending it somewhere else
if you just

Ken Lucci (59:41):
Correct.

All it takes is one downturn, right?
If you're at the limit of Ibarely have enough for one bus
and you lose one client or youlose, there's any kind of drop,
right?
The rule of thumb I was alwaystaught when we moved into the
motor coach industry by thementors that I've been lucky
enough to have there is yougotta have enough business for
two buses and then you can buyone, and then you do that again,

(01:00:03):
and you use those partnershipsthat we've talked about.
Ken, I think you'd probablyagree.

Ken Lucci (01:00:08):
well, one of my favorite people in the industry,
Johnny from Sterling, uh,transportation in Philadelphia.
So, Johnny, Johnny, I mean, I'veknown Johnny since the first
time I went to his 20 group andhe calls me up about a year and
a.

Joey Mills (01:00:23):
too, by the way.

Ken Lucci (01:00:24):
There you go.
I remember that's, there you go.
Um, so he called me about, abouta year ago.
I said, look, I wanna give themotor code space.
What do you think?

James Blaine (01:00:31):
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (01:00:31):
much motor code business are you doing?
He said, at at least a milliondollars.
Okay.
And I said, so tell me about it.
He said, Ken, I can't part, Ican't find anybody that wants to
take the work.
I I don't have

No.

Ken Lucci (01:00:42):
that wants to do the work.
Forget about the price.
They're all too busy.
So what we did is we did afinancial proforma for him, and
I said, John, Johnny, here'swhat I want you to look at.
Look at the number of what itcosts you when this bitch is not
moving.
Look at that number per day, canyou handle it?
Absolutely.
We did a production possibilitywhere we showed he wanted to use

(01:01:05):
it and he's actually on hissecond by now, right?
We wanted to use it for hiswedding business'cause he's,
he's unbelievable inPhiladelphia.
And we did a productionpossibility.
We actually did his break evenon that piece of equipment.
And I said, can you do it?
He said, absolutely can do it.
And we set his pricing up beforehe ever owned the piece of

(01:01:25):
equipment.
What is he gonna charge fortransfers?
What is he gonna charge forcharter by the hour?
What is minimum?
Is it gonna be, we literallycalled the manufacturer and
said, how much miles per gallonis that vehicle gonna get and
how long's the warranty?
And I actually made him putmoney aside for repair and
maintenance even.
He's like, Ken, it's underwarranty.
I said, stop, put.

(01:01:47):
you to calculate it and repairand maintenance.
'cause you're not gonna do itnext year.
So the one, he's, he and manyothers that are like him, very
methodically thought through theprocess.
Okay.
Another client up in Bostonthat, that literally could not
get anybody to do his work.
And Boston had a lot of motorcoach companies and they were

(01:02:07):
screwing up his work.
So I said, okay, well if you'regonna do this, we need to figure
out a business plan around thiscoach.
And he's on his third coach now,so.
So, okay.
So talk about from a, from acapital perspective and what
else should they be aware of?

So I think, you know, making sure you have the
work.
I think the

Up

is, is you wanna make sure that you run it like a
motor coach company.
So many of the operators,especially in chauffeur
transportation, they wanna runit like a limo.

up.

or a sedan or an SUV and it's not the same animal.
It's not the same animal fromthe driver.
It's not the same animal fromthe clientele,

Ken Lucci (01:02:48):
And, and, and when that,

It's not the same business.

Ken Lucci (01:02:52):
And, when that thing sits for two or three days, it
costs you a shit load more thanan SUV costs you

key things you said about Johnny, and actually
talked to him a little bit toowhen he was getting into the
space, the pricing.
You know, it, it's funny, I talkabout it all the time.
So whatever, I'm trying to senda, a farm out somewhere, you
know, or a affiliate job.
I rarely use chauffeurtransportation companies that
have motor coaches.

(01:03:19):
Because they want to tell me,oh, it's a five hour minimum at
$180.
I'm like, no, I need a price forthe day.
Well, we don't do that.
I'm like,

They're treating it like it's black car.

coaches.

Yeah.

it, you

I.

how motor coaches are priced.
I can't tell my softball teamthat's traveling to your area
gonna be there three days thatit's gonna be a five hour
minimum at$212 an hour for

Ken Lucci (01:03:42):
Right.

need to know what the price is gonna be.

Ken Lucci (01:03:45):
right.

so

Ken Lucci (01:03:46):
percent.

I, I think that would be my second thing.
And, and then I think lastlythe, the motor coach in that
world completely different fromthe chauffeur world because the
chauffeur world, in my mind istransactional.

Ken Lucci (01:04:06):
Mm-hmm.

I'm gonna, they're gonna be in my car for five
minutes and then they're outtamy car.
In the motor coach world,sometimes they're with you three
and four days.

Ken Lucci (01:04:15):
Mm-hmm.

ever have that in the sedan and SUV world.
So the driver training that goesinto that, and the way you're
trying to create your cultureand your company is completely
different than it is you'redoing the sedan and SUV.
Yeah, you have to be on pointfor 20 minutes, but if you're a
motor coach driver, you gotta beon point for four or five days
sometimes.

And, and we could do a whole nother episode on
that.
You know, when we So, so we arelike you Joey, we are just kings
of timing, right?
We nailed it.
Like you nailed it.
Pax makes its move towards busin 2019.
We, we timed it to the button,right?
We launched our motor coachtraining in March of 2020.
'cause God helped me.
I have all the right timinganswers.

(01:04:56):
But, but all joking aside, oneof the things that when we were
really making the move towardsdeveloping that training and
working there, it's a completelydifferent relationship.
It's a completely differentworld, right?
A chauffeur's got a load, acouple pieces of luggage.
I.
You have to, even just loadingluggage, you have to pace
yourself.
You gotta really be smart.
You gotta think about things.

(01:05:17):
Yeah.
You have to organize it.
You gotta slide it in becauseyou've got all of these seats on
the bus.
If everybody's got one piece ofluggage right now, you got 50
some odd pieces of luggage.
Plus the hover around scooters,we won't even get started on
those.
And then your relationship isdifferent because like you said,
it's not, Hey, I'm gonna turnaround and hand you a water

(01:05:37):
bottle.
It's, I want to try and greetthem and welcome them on the
bus.
And then, you know, it's funnybecause one of the things you've
never seen in a training videofor a driver, one of our
training videos, you know, youactually see someone come up and
try to hug the driver.
Why?
Because that happens in theMotor Coach world.
You've been on that bus withthem for three or four days.

(01:05:58):
So I think you know, it, it kindof goes both ways.
There's these great things youcan pull from Motor Coach.
There's these great things youcan pull from chauffeur.
But Joey, I think as we kind ofbring this to a close, you
couldn't have outlined anybetter that you have to
understand that these businessesare fundamentally different even
though they're somewhat thesame.
What would you say, right?

(01:06:18):
As we kind of close it out,we've got time for, for kind of
a closeout, what is the bigtakeaway for you?
Or if you've got someone that'sbeen listening to this episode,
right?
Maybe they're a, a motor coachoperator, maybe they're on the
black car side, you know, maybethey're school bus.
They're thinking about go in oneof these directions.
What do you tell that person?
Like, what's the key lesson?

(01:06:38):
If you had one thing to shareand leave people with that you
would leave them with on yourexperience,

I think.
I think the key to anything iswhen you're starting anything,
figure out what the end lookslike and then work backwards.
What's your ultimate goal?

Okay.

What, what, what is your ultimate goal?
What do you want out of it?
You know, I wanna start motorcoaches.
Do I want 20, I wanna startblack car.
Do I want 10 or do I want arevenue number?
Or do I want a bottom linenumber?
What is my goal?
And then you make your decisionsto get to that goal.
what's my timeline for thatgoal?
Right?
Like when we bought this companyhere, my business partner's

(01:07:14):
about eight years older than me.

Okay.

he wants to be out at 66, uh, he's 62 right now.
I wanted to be out at 55.
We sat down and talked aboutthat before we started.
This is how we want, what wewanna do is manage toward
getting to those numbers andthen any, anything we undertake,
whatever decision we always talkabout, what do we want it to
look like in the end?

Right.

we want to do for five years or is this something
we wanna do for two?
And then pivot and transition ina different way.
But I think anything you dobusiness-wise, new product line.
Whatever you're doing, startwith the end in mind and work
your way back.
I think if you're always workingtoward that goal, you're
probably gonna be successfulmore times than not.

I don't know that there's Ken, I don't know about
you.
I don't, I don't know that youcan end on a better note than
that.

Ken Lucci (01:08:03):
way to end.

I, I, I gotta say, Joey, you know, I, I've gotten
to know you.
I, I remember when you're stillat Gold Shield and I've watched
you progress.
I know.
I gotta tell you, you've gottons to be proud of.
You've done an incredible joband I think I speak for Ken and
I when I say we appreciate youbeing willing to share and
coming on, and we'll have tohave you back on

Yeah, definitely.
Thank you all so

Ken Lucci (01:08:26):
No, I, I actually made notes about other things we
could talk to him

Huh?

Ken Lucci (01:08:30):
his experience buying the business, his experience
with a partner, his experienceon business planning.
A hundred percent.
Uh, knows he's one of myfavorite people in the industry
and he knows why too.
So.

mutual, you know that too, so,

Ken Lucci (01:08:45):
man.
Uh, listen, we really appreciateyou coming on, uh, James.
Close us out.

Hey, thank you everybody for listening.
As always, please subscribe.
Drop us a comment like let usknow if we're doing something
you like or something we don'tlike.
And as always, we'll see youguys on the next episode.
Bye-bye.
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

(01:09:12):
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.

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