Randy Buller, CEO of The Parts Authority

Episode Transcript
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Randy Buller (00:00):
you know, probably in order of you know,
importance in my life, yeahRight up there with the top
three.

Behzad (00:09):
I'm happy to be on that list.
Birth of your daughter, birthof your son podcast, with Behzad
right in the middle thereSitting in the driver's seat
Cool, I do.
I do want to tell you, though,before I start this, that when I
was uh, that when I was uh,when I was talking, uh, when we

(00:30):
started the podcast, I asked youknow what kind of guests I
should have on, and the idea isthat, you know, I get to speak
to some pretty high levelexecutives all around the
industry, and your name was just.
It repeatedly came up, came upfrom customers, it came from
employees, it came from vendors.
There seems to be kind of aunanimous affection for you.

(00:52):
You know, good to work with,good to work for, business is
good, and so, on the personalside, as I looked into your
story, I I was really excited totalk to you, because it's not
common it's common to find anentrepreneur, it's common to

(01:13):
find a CEO, it's common to findsomebody who's running a 40,
50-year-old business, but it'snot common to find that person
who is all three.
The person who started thebusiness has been running it for
40 years, uh, and has seeneverything that comes and goes
with that business.
So, um, I'm really lookingforward to hearing your story,

(01:39):
learning about you, and I'mcertain that everybody who
listens to this will as well.

Oh, thank you for the kind words.

Behzad (01:47):
So, uh, I gave the outline of, you know, the
skeleton of maybe, uh, yourcareer, but can you tell me,
just for everyone, a little bitabout parts authority.

Sure Um well, parts Authority actually started
in 1973.
My brother-in-law started thecompany.
Actually, Yaron Rosenthalopened a store in Queens our
first store in 1973.
In 1976, I think it was heopened a foreign auto parts

(02:27):
store a block away.
So he had two stores, oneforeign and one domestic.
And then in about 1980, myselfand another brother-in-law, dave
Wapman, joined the company.
I was still going to college atthe time and the two stores

(02:50):
were Clearway and ClearwayForeign Auto Parts.
In 1984, I became a partner inthe business and opened up the
third store in the chain and wecall that one Pro Parts.
And the fourth store was acouple years after that and
another partner came into thebusiness.

(03:11):
His name is Steve Yanovsky andthe name of that store was Cap
Auto Parts and Cap was anacronym for Clearway Auto Parts.
So four stores, four differentnames.
So we were going for the recordand finally, by the time the

(03:33):
fifth store came around, wedecided we better come up with a
common name to go forward withand we decided on Parts
Authority and we decided onparts authority.
And the reason was it was agreat name to go forward with
but we could also go back andkind of make it retroactive.

(03:53):
So Clearway Auto Parts yourparts authority, pro Parts your
parts authority, and then goingforward when we did acquisitions
which at the time we reallydidn't contemplate, but when we
went forward, when we madeacquisitions, we also said
powered by the parts authorityor your parts authority.
So, uh, it ended up working outto be a great name for us so

(04:15):
sitting here today.

Behzad (04:15):
Parts authority is over 300 stores um yeah, over 300
locations right now andemployees.

Several thousand employees.

Behzad (04:25):
Several thousand.
So when you go, take yourselfback to Randy Bowler in 1980,
opening his first parts store.
Were you picturing 300 plusstores and several thousand
employees and being CEO of thisgiant organization, or was it
just a business owner sellingparts?

Great question.
So my first store was 1984.
That's when I became a partner.
I was 24 years old.
So in those days I wasdefinitely not contemplating
having anywhere near the size.
I was definitely maybe at astore here, at a store there,

(05:03):
but we definitely weren'tcontemplating anything.
You know this big yeah, you'rejust you.

Behzad (05:09):
So in the 80, when you were growing up, I mean, part
stores were much morepredominant, right, they're just
kind of.

There were obviously four or five in a
neighborhood that you and yourfamily I don't know if they're
more predominant, because theretailers kind of came in and
opened thousands and thousandsof stores.
So there's actually, I think,more auto parts stores than
there ever were.
But the mom and pop, thefamily-owned stores, the jobber

(05:38):
stores, kind of went by thewayside because they really
couldn't compete with the powerof the retail stores, the
financing and just the economiesof scale.
So if you had a Bazant's autoparts store in whatever town and

(05:59):
all of a sudden AutoZone openedup and O'Reilly's opened up,
they had big, beautiful, freshstores, they did marketing.
It was very difficult tocompete on a retail level.
I think they definitely won thebattle of attrition there on
the retail front.

Behzad (06:17):
Well, you're obviously still around and very successful
.
You found a niche in the market.

Yeah Well, our niche is really selling to the
professional installers andproviding that extended
inventory, both domestic parts,foreign parts, and forging that
partnership with the installercustomer.
That's really our business, isreally getting the cars off the
lifts at the repair shop leveland that's always been our

(06:45):
secret sauce from the verybeginning and I think you know
still we have a pretty bigadvantage over the retailers
when it comes to that.

Behzad (06:55):
So you said when you were 24, that was when you first
became a partner and I thinkyou alluded to the idea that
you'd always owned some kind ofbusiness.
And I think you alluded to theidea that you'd always own some
kind of business.
Why, like?
Why did what in your upbringingmade you think, or had made
others think, that you would,you'd ultimately own a business?

Just when I was a kid, from when I was a young
teenager, I always had, you know, some kind of side business.
Whether it was mowing lawns orsnow shoveling in the winter, or
selling jeans at the fleamarket or five or six other
things, I was always doingsomething to make some extra
money.
And in those days it was reallyjust.
We didn't have Nintendo or Xboxin those days, so we had
pinball machines.

(07:48):
If you like to play pinball,you could spend a few bucks a
week just doing that, a fewbucks on an evening.
So just to have some spendingmoney, just everything, waxing
cars, just hustling to make someextra bucks.
So I always had that kind ofgene in me and it continued

(08:11):
throughout business.
So once I got the opportunityat the auto parts store, that
was a really fast-movingenvironment for me and I was
lucky enough to get theopportunity and took advantage
of it.

Behzad (08:24):
What did you study?
Did you go to college?

Yeah, I went to college and just a quick story
on that.
My father passed away when I was17, very suddenly, and I really
hadn't given too, you know,thought at that time and I had

(08:49):
three sisters and you know, fora minute I thought maybe I
shouldn't even go to college,maybe I should just start
working and, you know, help outmy mom and everything.
And one day I went to visit afriend of mine's father who was
a very successful guy and hesaid look, I know you your whole
life, randy, you're going toend up in business, in your own

(09:10):
business.
So the best thing you could dois go to college, get an
accounting degree and never bean accountant.
Take six months off aftercollege, go look around, travel,
take a camera with you, takepictures of signs and look at
marketing and then take thatknowledge with you when you open

(09:31):
a business.
But you're going to be inbusiness and accounting is the
best background and that waslike the best advice I ever got,
because that's been a big helpfor me in running my business
and still to this day it's beena very big help.
All the skills you learn as anaccountant are very transferable
to a business like mine.

Behzad (09:53):
So that's, I mean, incredible advice to get.

Very lucky I got that advice.

Behzad (09:58):
Yeah, so when you have the four stores between kind of
family members and a businesspartner and you changed the
brand, what made you?
When did it start acceleratingfrom there?
What happened after?
From four stores to maybe Idon't know, ten stores or
something?

Well, each one of our stores were extremely
successful.
Were, you know, extremelysuccessful From the very
beginning?
Clearway and Clearway Foreignwere, you know, two killer
stores.
They were great and I learnedthe auto parts business from
those two locations and thosetwo stores.

(10:39):
So when I opened my store wehad both foreign parts and
domestic parts.
My store we had both foreignparts and domestic parts and in
1984, that was really at thebeginning of the Japanese parts
invasion, so that was havingforeign parts.
I remember being on the roadcalling our customers and said
oh, you got foreign parts.

(10:59):
Okay, you know, we could buyforeign parts from you like that
we could give you right away.
So that was a great door openerfor me in my store and
continued to be so.
We grew slowly, remember I toldyou our mindset was, you know,
open a store here, open a storehere.
That's what we did, and soreally up until probably 2005,

(11:24):
maybe we had only 10, 11 storesat that point.

Behzad (11:27):
Oh, wow, we did so like 20 years and it's still just
like a few stores, Pretty bigstores, and you know a company
grew and Parts Authority wasstill a force to be reckoned
with.
But you know just nowhere nearthe size, but in a specific
market.
Where was the market?

It's all in New York, okay, all of New York,
yeah, and all Long Island andQueens and I think the catalyst,
if you want to look at acatalyst event.
Our industry was always kind offar behind in in technology.
We, we first computerized ourstores in 1981, which was pretty

(12:08):
early.
We had a great computerconversion.
I remember I wasn't involved init, but I was working there and
it went as smooth as silk,which is very unusual
considering the nightmare thatmost computer changeovers are.
So we went from paper tocomputer and it was incredibly
smooth.
That was a testament to howwell Cleo A Autoparts and Yaron

(12:33):
was running his business.
He had a process for everythingand there was a spot for it on
the computer.
And you know the expression,you know blank in, blank out,
and in this case it was good in,good out and so.
But the problem with thecomputer system that we had and

(12:55):
everybody in the auto partsbusiness had at that time was
the computers weren't like theyare today.
They're not really open.
You can't do what they wantedand really the businessmen
didn't really know how to use acomputer.
We could punch a few keys butwe didn't know how to program.
We didn't have any of thatacumen.

(13:15):
It was all new to us.
It was a big deal for us justto do a backup tape at the end
of the day.
So that was really pretty muchthe limit of our skill set when
it came to computers by the year2000,.
It was apparent to me that wewere kind of slaves to our
computer company.
When we wanted to do anacquisition, we'd say okay, we

(13:37):
want to buy this company, whencan we change it over?
And they'd say June.
I'm like June, that's great,it's only May.
They're like no, june six yearsfrom now.
So we'd get on this long lineof things we want to do and it
was really holding up ourprogress.
Remember, 2000 was the techbubble and all the stuff was
happening all around us theinternet and our company wasn't

(14:01):
going to make it.
So I kind of decided we neededto change computer systems to
get out from under the thumb ofour existing computer provider
technology provider.
I got some great advice fromthis guy, howard Cohen, who
still works with us.
He's an unbelievable guy and hesuggested the AS400 IBM because

(14:25):
it had a relational database.
We would be able to get all ourreporting and be able to have a
lot more flexibility and therewas a little consternation among
our partners to make a computerchange like that.
But we did it.
And from the moment we did itand got it converted, which
wasn't that easy, but it wentsmoothly we did it and got it
converted, which wasn't thateasy, but it went smoothly.

(14:47):
From that moment that put us ona completely different
trajectory and we were able todo our own computer conversions
in-house.
We were able to start doinge-commerce business, which we
would have never been able to dobefore In the early 2000s, I
would say 2005, 2006.
Yeah, so we were able to dothings and say yes to them.

(15:09):
You know, very early.

Behzad (15:12):
Was there I mean did at any point in this process?
Did you think that?
Were you steered by, maybe, thevaluations of internet
companies at the time, thinking,hey, you know, were you still
just parts distribution, or wasit that?

There was no, we weren't looking at internet
valuations or anything like that.
We just I just you know whenyou're not getting out of a
relationship what you need to begetting out of the relationship
it was clear that the computer,the way that our technology,
our technology, was holding usback and there was no way to get

(15:49):
out from under that thumb, andso we needed to make that change
.
It was very clear to me, andsometimes those I could tell you
.
The first, the first computercompany that we made the
decision, was not able to to getus live.
So, uh, so that took a year oftrying to get onto another
computer system and we weren'table to do it.

(16:11):
So we kind of sat there in aconference room with our hands
folded waiting for this computerto come on and we tested it,
tested it, tested it and wewouldn't sign off on it.
So we had to switch again.
But the second time, you know,they were able to handle us and
it ended up working out great.

Behzad (16:31):
Did you see an immediate growth change in the business
when you enabled the e-commerceside?

It wasn't just e-commerce, it was everything In
those days and still today weget all kinds of requests from
fleets, e-commerce companies,even some of the retailers we do
business with.
They want to do business.
They have certain technologyrequirements, and one of our
catchphrases in our company isthe answer is yes.

(16:57):
And the reason I say the answeris yes is we're going to do it
if we can physically do it,unless it's something absolutely
crazy.
But basically, with thetechnology upgrade that we had,
we were able to say yes tothings we couldn't say yes to

(17:18):
before.
So basically we could say yesto a lot of things that we
couldn't.
So it wasn't just e-commerce,it was dozens of other things
that we could say yes to, a lotof things that we couldn't.
So it wasn't just e-commerce,it was dozens of other things
that we could say yes to.

Behzad (17:28):
Can I ask you, as we sit here, we're in Scottsdale,
Arizona.
Can I ask you how you ended upin Scottsdale as the CEO of a
business that's in New York?

Well, there's a lot of people who have opinions
of that.
So when we first got thecomputer system in 2005, we
converted our system and shortlythereafter we bought a company
in Queens and we were able toput their four locations onto
our system almost overnight andget them live on our own system,

(18:02):
which was a great feat for us.
We were extremely proud of that.
Our team was able to traineverybody and get their
purchasing and able to use allof the things that we had at
Parts Authority.
We were able to have allvisibility for this new company
on our system, which gave us abig advantage in running the new

(18:23):
company on our system, whichgave us a big advantage in
running the new company and, asI said, we were able to start
doing e-commerce and things likethat.
We continued to expand.
We expanded down to WashingtonDC and how I got to Washington
DC was a fellow Procter member,who was getting quite old,

(18:46):
really wanted me to buy hisbusiness and he kept asking me
to come down there and I thoughtthat's a big stretch from New
York to Washington DC.
But I went down there with mypartner and he liked the
building and he liked the otherplace and we ended up making
that deal and a lot of peoplesaid, oh, I know what Randy's
doing, he's going to, he wentdown to Washington and now he's

(19:08):
going to fill back in throughNew Jersey.
And I was like I'm glad youknow that, because we had
absolutely no plans for that andwe did it.
We stayed in Washington and weopened up several more places in
Washington, maryland.
You know probably seven oreight more places, you know,
through 2009 and 2010.

(19:28):
And then we were doing a lot ofe-commerce and I wanted to, you
know, have the ability to shipfrom the West Coast.
So we looked out in Californiaand California has some pretty
tough laws to do business in andit was a little scary and we
didn't really find the rightsituation until one day another
pronto member called and saidwould you be interested in

(19:50):
buying our business in arizona?
And that's what we ended updoing.
That's how I ended up inarizona, uh, but again people
said I know what randy's doing.
He's gonna open up in arizonaand he's gonna.
And I'm like we had absolutelyno plan.
So a lot of people, people justkind of decide what we're doing
, but we just take advantage ofsituations that are in front of

(20:13):
us.
We didn't have any kind of.
I'd be lying to you if I said Ihad any kind of 10-year plan,
or there's enough to do with aone or two-year plan, and that's
the kind of the way I'veapproached it all these years.
So from Arizona we ended upexpanding it to California.
We had some great opportunities.
And from Washington we expandedit to, you know, virginia,

(20:38):
georgia, and then eventually,when we, when we bought a large
distributor in New York, weended up expanding it to New
Jersey.
So finally, many years later,somebody said oh, you see, I
told you you'd end up in NewJersey, but that's really, that
wasn't the plan.

Behzad (20:56):
So I guess I mean it's not totally unreasonable to say
that Randy's going to fill in.
So I understand that, becausethe conventional wisdom would
say something like you know, youhave your resources here, they
can go to X distance, and so,you know, start expanding from
there.
How did you, who did you hire ateam to go to Washington or

(21:17):
Arizona?
Did you physically go yourself,and and how?

well, the for the first one was Washington.
That we, we did out of marketand I absolutely went down to
Washington and I actually stayeddown in Washington for quite
some time because it blew up soquickly and it happened so fast.
The business that we bought wasa real sleeper.
They were a three-stepper.
I'm not sure if you know what athree-stepper is.

(21:42):
Three-stepper means traditionalwarehouse distributor to sell
to auto parts stores, and theyreally didn't sell to repair
shops.
And when we bought it weconverted it to selling to
repair shops and we gotextremely busy extremely fast
and we had to make a lot ofchanges.
So I spent about six monthsdown there straight and so that

(22:10):
was interesting.
And I did the same thing inArizona when we expanded out
there.
So we do take a really stronghands-on presence when we do
these things.
As we've expanded in the lastfew years.
Certainly with COVID I stoppedbeing as much of a presence on

(22:30):
these conversions as I used tobe.
You know, during COVID, youknow everybody was kind of on
lockdown but we did manage tohave a few expansions during
that period of time.
But we have an amazing teamexpansions during that period of
time, but we have an amazingteam.
And, interestingly enough,conversions are really tough
when we buy a company or mergewith a company putting them on

(22:52):
our computer system.
Everyone talks about thenightmare of doing that.
We do it so quickly.
That's really our special sauce.
We'll close on a deal on aFriday night 10 locations and
Saturday morning we're up andrunning on our system and to get
that done so quickly andefficiently, so much work and

(23:14):
planning goes into that.
It's an unbelievable thing andour team is so great at it.
The people that are doing itand it's amazingly enough the
people that are doing it are alot of.
The people are the people wejust recently got from
acquisitions that were likefighting it for the first couple

(23:35):
of weeks and then after a whilethey're like, ah, and now an
opportunity comes six monthslater to do another acquisition,
or a year later, and they'rethe first people with their
hands up raising you know,because it's a great testament.
They just I went through thislast year and you know first
week's going to be tough, butyou'll love the way this ends up
.

Behzad (23:58):
Usually the tech side of the implementation is the hard
part.
But which one, in your opinionor in your experience, has been
harder the culture side or thetech implementation,
implementation side?
I don't know how you roll up somany businesses.
How many acquisitions have youmade?

in time, dozens, literally.
So, uh, it's all hard, okay, um, the technology is certainly
hard and you know the people whodo that on our side.
They have it down to a scienceand it's unbelievable what they
do for that.
There's so much preparation butthey do a great job.

(24:33):
And you know we have people inthe IT department that work on
all the connectivity and all thedata, the data conversion, the
data loading, and then we havethe people in our pricing
department.
You know, making sure thatcustomers, you know the day of,
are being billed for parts thesame price they were the week
before when they were owned bysomebody else.

(24:55):
That's a whole other thing andthe culture is even.
You know, that's really, reallyimportant because people get
upset with any type of change.
You know, in my experience, Iremember one of my first
experiences with that was whenwe only had like four stores and

(25:16):
we had one warehouse, and thefourth store was a warehouse in
Rockwell Center and I rememberwe combined the offices and one
of the people that worked at theoffice was really upset one day
and I was like you know, whyare you so upset?
What's up?
And she was like you know, atthe other store we keep the

(25:39):
envelopes in the left drawer andnow we keep them in the right
drawer but I like them in theleft jaw because I'm left-handed
and it was something someaningless like that or, uh,
something so small like that,but was having such a big impact
, so I learned never to take itfor granted.
The slightest thing reallythrows off people's routine and

(26:01):
it really does.
So we have to be reallyconscious of the cultural impact
.
One of the things that's reallytough, I think, for the folks
are sometimes we go in and youknow we're going to change our
lines, the products that we sella lot of times, to the products
that Parts Authority sells, andwe have relationships with a

(26:24):
lot of suppliers that have beenthere and that have supported us
all along and we want tocontinue to support them because
they work for us.
But the customers and some ofthe workers, they're like hey,
we really love this brand, canwe keep this brand?

(26:44):
Can we keep that brand?
And sometimes we have to makethat decision and sometimes you
know, if you ask what do youthink, should we keep this or
should we keep that?
And if you ask too manyquestions, people get invested.
And then when you.
When you make the change, theyget upset.
So sometimes we just have torip the bandaid off and make

(27:06):
some changes, and so that couldbe a little harsh for some
people.
But the culture is a toughthing.
One thing I'm really fortunateis the culture at our company is
, I believe, the best in theindustry.
We have great folks workingthere.
They really care about thecompany, they care about each

(27:27):
other, they police it themselvesand if they see somebody
treating people the wrong waythey jump in.

Behzad (27:52):
And those kind of people really I work with in your
company is so good and sofriendly and helpful the culture
of the initial four or fivestores you know, because they
were kind of close family andand friends and uh, I mean the

(28:13):
that dynamic.
Obviously when you're, when youhave a tight crew that you see
outside of work also becauseyou're related to them and you,
you get to see them at holidaysand in non-business related
events, you build kind of athere's a familial bond there,
there's a culture, there is aculture there.
Is that what you've keptthrough the whole?

time.
I mean, look, in life you haveto do the right things.
I don't think a company staysin business for 50 or probably
52 or 53 years.
If you're not doing the rightthings all the time, you're not
going to stick around inbusiness.
One of the things I like to sayI don't want to beat it to

(29:00):
death, but you have to treatyour team members right.
You have to treat yourcustomers right.
You have to treat yoursuppliers right.
If you do those three things,you have to treat your team
members right, you have to treatyour customers right, you have
to treat your suppliers right,and if you do those three things
, you have a chance.
You've got to be lucky.
A lot of things have to happen,but you have to do those three.
So we always try to take thehigh road.
We always try to under-promiseand over-deliver, but I think,

(29:22):
just in general, we do the rightthing in our company and that's
that goes a long way.

Behzad (29:27):
Did I and I.
That's the feedback that I got,or the input that I got from
you, even from the your partners, is that you know we love doing
business with parts authority.

Well, it's before Las Vegas.
You know, we haven't beat themup yet.

Behzad (29:53):
We haven't beat the partners up, you know, in Las
Vegas for extra discounts yet.
So you talk to them in November, they might not say the same
thing.
Yeah, I was super curious as towhy your company and your
employees and your partners havesuch, it seems, like loyalty
and affection for the managementteam of Parts Authority and

(30:15):
also for you, and I found avideo of you did you like maybe
just conceding your salaryduring COVID to your employees
or to people need during thattime?
I mean, is that, was that aone-off?
Is that?
Can you tell me a little bitabout that story?

Well, you know not that big a story.
You know, covid was like acrazy thing.
I remember being out here inArizona it was kind of like at
the end of March or the thirdweek of March and the stock
market kept falling.
I think the stock market wentdown like 3,000 points in one
day and, and you know, we werejust we weren't sure where it

(30:57):
was going to go.
I remember our projections forApril were we said, boy, if we
could do 50% of what we did thelast April we would be happy.
And but we ended up doing muchbetter than that.
May was better, but you know wewere cutting back hours and
right-sizing of the staff and wehad a lot of concentration in

(31:19):
New York and California, whichwere pretty hard hit by COVID.
And there was a lot of laws andeven though it was a what do
they call it?
A necessary business orwhatever they deemed auto parts
it was, the laws were prettystrict and pretty tough.

(31:39):
A lot of people were closed, alot of people were sick.
So I just, for the rest of theyear, gave up my salary and I
want to say that my partners didit also and we kicked that into
a bonus for our team members Atthe end of the year.

(31:59):
It got split equally among ourteam.

Behzad (32:04):
Maybe you think that a lot of people do that, but there
are not many instances of thatthat I've heard of.

People do what they do.

Behzad (32:14):
Can we tack this conversation in a different
direction?
Because the sense of theconversation that I'm getting
right now is that, you know,very positive growth, culture,
technology, implementation,business has been successful.
In my perspective, it can't allbe like rainbows and

(32:44):
butterflies and you can't alwaysbe kind of the conceding,
pleasant, nice guy to besuccessful in such a competitive
industry, and so I want to askyou actually a really specific
question.
And so I want to ask youactually a really specific
question.
But the first time I saw you onstage, the first time I saw you
actually was on stage on apanel and I was standing next to

(33:06):
somebody and said oh, it'sRandy the Bull.
Where did that name come from?
Have you heard that?

My last name is Buller, so some people call me
Bull or whatever.
But my email address foreverwas Randy the B and the reason
it was Randy the B is like whenI first joined AOL, you know,
100 years ago, I went for RandyB and it was taken.

(33:32):
So they would recommend apassword.
They said, well, Randy B'staken, but Randy the B isn't.
So I picked Randy the B prettymuch like that the b isn't.
So I picked randy the b prettypretty much like that I was I.
I didn't want to give up randythe b, I loved it and a lot of
people just call me randy the b.
Some people thought it stoodfor randy the bull or whatever,
but it's just randy the b, okayso it's not from like a heart.

Behzad (33:53):
You're heart charging, or I?

happen to be heart charging.
You know, uh, to answer yourquestion about being a nice guy,
I probably have.
I am sure I have some nice guyqualities but you know, working
with me on a daily basis, theguys who work uh closely
probably would say I'm a pain inthe ass.

(34:16):
I follow up on a lot of things.
I definitely don't take no foran answer.
Very persistent person.
I'm sure my vendors feel thesame way.
So from that standpoint Iwouldn't call myself a nice guy
at all.
Uh, but I think uh probablylike when you have a, I think

(34:39):
probably my teammates that Iworked that closely with
respected probably in a way,like you know you might remember
a teacher or two from highschool or or a coach or two.
That was pretty rough but yeah,but made you better.

Behzad (34:56):
Yeah, and I think that's probably.

I like to think of it that way.

Behzad (35:03):
Yeah, I mean, to me it just makes total sense because
this is your business, that youand your partners started and
you're in charge of it.
And quote that Kevin Plank, whois what's CEO of Under Armour,
is known for saying, is that youhave to grab your business by
the throat and drive it.
There's no other way.

(35:23):
And so I don't.
I mean, it's totally reasonablethat you, that somebody would
need to be, you know, a littlebit, a little bit tough about
their business, because it'sit's yours and you built it and
you're growing it and thesuccess that the business has
seen is specifically because ofthe mentality and the business

(35:44):
practices and the discipline ofyou and your co-founders.
Is that that's fair to say?

That is true, you know.
Just, I just don't want to.
First of all, it's definitelynot all about Randy.
This company, my partners, youknow, are still working today
and have been incrediblyinstrumental throughout all
these years and still today Iget a lot of the limelight

(36:10):
because my partners did a lot ofthe stuff that you know was not
in the limelight.
One of my partners, dave,handled all the insurance, all
the accounting, all that stuffand it's kind of the back office
stuff.
Yaron, as I said, you know whostarted the business, you know,

(36:32):
handles all the real estate andfor many years you know a
million other things in thebusiness.
But I was always kind of thefront guy who took, you know,
worked with the vendors and thesales force or the technology
team, so I kind of got thevisible job.
So, but beyond those partners,there's also literally an army

(36:56):
of people, and when you talkabout the culture today and the
people driving the businesstoday, it's those people.
And that's what I'm reallyexcited about is the culture
will live, because there's notjust four of us, there's
hundreds of us with that culturethat are in the management team
teams.

(37:23):
So you know, that is reallyjust what I just want to say.
This company is really a teameffort.
It's a big company and there'sa lot of people involved.
So this is just not a Randyaccomplishment at all.
As far as like pushing, youknow, the initiatives, yeah, you
know it's my vision, a lot ofit's my vision, and what I find
is the difficult part, the mostdifficult part, is keeping

(37:46):
everybody on the same page, andwhen something goes wrong, it's
generally a drop incommunication.
That's the hardest thing.
There's all kinds of quotes.
If you look up communicationquotes on Google, you'll see all
these things.
But the biggest part of our thebiggest, they say the biggest

(38:10):
problem with communication isthe illusion that it took place,
that it happened in the firstplace.
Right, and that's the part whenwe try to crystallize what went
wrong with something.
It's usually somebody thoughtsomeone else was doing it,
somebody explained itincorrectly or the person
received the message wrong.
So a lot of what I do believeit or not is tracking down where

(38:34):
that communication broke downand we have three things that we
really tell somebody who startswith our company today and
really for the last 20 yearswe've been telling them the same
thing If you want to besuccessful at Parts Authority
and really in life, you knowthese are three in business.
These are three qualities youneed.

(38:57):
You need passion.
We call fire in the belly.
If you don't have passion, youcan still do well, but you're
not going to jump ahead to thetop of the class.
If you're in sports or inacademics or in business, you
have to have passion.
If you want to climb to the top, you have to have great
technology skills.
And it was important 20 yearsago but it's even more important

(39:20):
now.
People, kids today are doingPython and SQL with AI coming up
.
If you're not doing that stuff,you're going to be left behind.
And the other thing iscommunication skills, and that
hasn't changed one bit.
Communication skills are soimportant that some of our

(39:42):
people are great at it and somepeople are not so great at it.
And I have to kind of figureout my job.
Or our COO is Eric Schwartz.
He has to figure out in his jobhow to communicate with each
leader.
It's different for each people.
It's almost like in the UnitedNations everybody speaks a
different language ofcommunication.

(40:02):
You have to make sure you'recommunicating effectively with
each person to get messagereceived.
Message acknowledged.

Behzad (40:14):
Of those three.
So passion, computer skills andcommunication.
I think, like you said, tosolve a problem it's usually a
communication gap and you can gophysically chase it down and
figure out what thecommunication breakdown was.
So that feels like a teachableskill.
The computer skills, obviouslypeople can learn, your system

(40:39):
can focus on it.
But how do you teach the firein the belly?

You can't.
You can't teach the fire in thebelly.
You either have it or you don'thave it.
So I can tell you that today,you know, in my own business
it's 1984.
So that's 40 years, probably 35years as CEO.
I can count on one hand.

(41:02):
Still less than five peoplehave come to me and said hey,
randy, you got me doing this.
But I want you to know I can doso much more.
If you give me a chance, I cando this, I can do this.
I work hard.
I got it, I'll learn, I'll doit.
Trust me with more.
I can do this, I can do this.
I'll work hard.
I got it, I'll learn, I'll doit.
You trust me with more, I cando more.

(41:22):
One hand I have I can stillcount it on, and I've been
saying that for 20 years.
So I tell everybody that's achallenge.
So I'm not sure if people don'thave that kind of passion, or
they don't want to work as hard,or they don't want to achieve
it, or they really don't likeworking with me and they're like
you know, maybe that's what itis.

(41:43):
But if they do, you know I lookat it.
I could tell you, speaking withother people in my position,
they kind of say the same thing.
Not a lot of people are puttingthemselves up for it, and I
think that's one piece of adviceI would give to youngsters out
there is, you know, let yourboss know you can do more, you

(42:05):
want more.
And that's a big first step,because the first time a project
comes up and I think to myself,okay, who would be good for
this?
You know, if I have somebodytop of mind, I know who I want
to pick.
But if I have somebody top ofmind that said they could do it,
I'm going to, I'm going to givethat.

Behzad (42:23):
That's actually really good.
That's a really good structureto work with in terms of
teaching somebody fire in thebelly, because I think it's not
exactly synonymous with workhard.
You know, fire in the belly, um, and?
And passion could beinterpreted as okay, I will just
do my job with more.

(42:45):
You know, focus or effort, um,but it's not that.
It's actually more aboutcommitment to.
It sounds like it's more.
It's more like commitment toyour own career and to the
business and to just wanting toproduce more of an output for

(43:06):
the organization and foryourself.
Is that like?

It's a tough one, bizad.
You know it's a tough question.
You know things have changedthrough the years, through the
generations, right?
So there's a lot of work-lifebalance talk these last 10, 15

(43:30):
years.
People talk a lot more todayabout work-life balance and
that's really important.
Work-life balance is extremelyimportant.
You hear a lot of people thatworked their whole life got
burnt out, died at their deskthat type really important
Work-life balance is extremelyimportant.
But you know you hear a lot ofpeople that worked their whole
life got burnt out, you know,died at their desk, that type of
stuff or never got to see theirchildren or didn't get a chance
to go to Little League games.
And there's, you know.

(43:53):
So things have changed, right,you can still, in my opinion for
sure I have people on my teamthat have been doing this for 25
years you can still be a greatfather and go to coach Little
League and still have passionatebusiness.
You know it's not easy to bewell-balanced but, like I said,

(44:14):
people you know I have peoplethat work for me that say they
want to do these things.
But if you want, you know, ifyou want to get to the top of
the class, if you want to getahead.
If you want to make the mostmoney in the company and you
want to be the most successfulfinancially or title-wise or

(44:36):
whatever you have to be willingto outperform the rest of the
people in the company.
It is a competition andsometimes you know there's
people that are naturally betterat certain things.
Some people are better salesmen, some people are better
technologists, some people arebetter negotiators, some people
are better with a lot ofdifferent skills.

(45:00):
It doesn't have to be.
Our company has a lot ofdifferent departments that you
could be skillful at and rise tothe top, but the commitment and
the effort has to be there allthe time and there's a big
difference from 1980 to 2025.
There's a big difference.
And one to 2025.
There's a big difference.

(45:20):
And one of the differences is1980, when I was thinking of
going into business back in 1980, there was a lot more mom and
pop businesses.
You could have a stationerystore, you could have a shoe
store.
You could own a restaurant.
You could own an auto partsstore, you could go into the
clothing business.

(45:40):
There was literally hundreds ofthings people could do,
entrepreneurial things.
But if you look around thelandscape today, you have Home
Depot and Lowe's.
You're not going to be verysuccessful with a little
hardware store Auto parts youhave these giant, massive

(46:01):
retails.
It's really hard to just openup an auto parts store and buy
as well and have the economyscale of marketing and all the
things that a retailer wouldhave.
But pick the industryrestaurants.
But pick the industryrestaurants.
There's just chain after chainafter restaurants and just about

(46:23):
every single business is likethat or every single vertical is
like that.
So the people that aresuccessful are yesterday's
entrepreneurs that own singlebusinesses.
No-transcript.
If you wanted to stay inbusiness, if you had a clothing
store, you had to be better thanthe other clothing stores.

(46:44):
You couldn't mail it in.
You maybe got lucky for acouple of years, but if you
wanted to be in business for 30years, you had to be very good
and you had to work hard and youhad to have a great system.
And today that translates tothe people you know at these

(47:08):
chains, like Mike's, mylocations or some of the other
guys in our business, like aFisher or factory, motor parts
or auto wares or auto zone orany of these chains.
The people that are leaders ofthose companies are yesterday's
entrepreneurs and they have tohave the same dedication and
passion and drive to besuccessful at those jobs, and

(47:30):
some of them have it.

Behzad (47:32):
So you said you could name like five people who you
think had that drive in yourcompany who have come to you and
said you know I can do more,people who you think had that
drive in your company have cometo you and said you know I can
do more.
Were any of those in the past,uh, 10 years?
Were any of those people in thepast like 10 years, you know?
Then we said, like you've hadlike free on one hand oh, yeah,
yeah, they're all still.

Yeah, they're still working.

Behzad (47:52):
I guess I mean like it is there, uh, you mentioned, in
the last 10 years there's thisconcept of like work, work, life
balance has really kind of comein a little bit a lot more as a
demand of employees.

It's not a demand of employees.
I call them team members.
There are teammates, you knowthey're our teammates, you know,
and I, you know I don't.
Work-life balance is a realthing and it's a good thing, but
there's a way to do it,especially, you know, with COVID

(48:30):
.
You know everybody startedworking at home and that became
a thing in our country andaround the world.
A lot of people love to workfrom home, but not everybody's
cut out to work from home.
Some people, especially youngerpeople, really need to learn in
an office environment.
It's really tough.

(48:53):
Or they need to learn in astore environment.
That's where you pick up a lotof vital information about
face-to-face interaction, sales,dealing with people.
It's a completely differentsetup today than it was 20 or 30
years, but achieving work-lifebalance is so much easier today.

(49:13):
I had a long drive yesterday.
I was on the phone the entiretime on the long drive.
I was driving for five hours,but I was able to do business
calls the entire five hours.
It was practically working.
If I take a plane today, I login and I'm at my laptop the

(49:35):
entire time.
So that wasn't available 30years ago.
So work-life balance isdefinitely achievable.

Behzad (49:44):
So do you think technology, the ability to kind
of be on the road and you know,balance your work and your life,
meaning you can kind of do ifyou're let's just assume you're
a hardworking and successfulemployee, but you know your job
is kind of do if you're let'sjust assume you're you're a
hard-working and successfulemployee, but you know your,
your job is kind of wherever youare.
Technology enables that.

(50:05):
Does everybody?
Do you think everyone perceivesit that way?
Or sometimes is the perceptionthat technology enables me to do
my job faster, so I need to, Ican shut down earlier and I can
go get my work life balance Iwill tell you a story.

Um, there was a guy I spoke at a Yang conference
like 10 years ago, and a guy, aguy, they asked me to speak at
a Yang conference.
You know Yang Young AutomotiveNetworking group.

Behzad (50:34):
Networking group right.

It's always a great group and I love working
with those guys and girls.
And this guy says to me youknow, I took this job at a place
and after, you know, afterabout a month, some guy quit and
they gave me his job to do too.
I'm like okay, and he goes, soI'm doing two jobs.

(50:56):
I'm like okay, and he goes, butI'm done by 11 o'clock in the
morning.
I'm like okay.
So he says well, I feel like Ishould be able to leave at least
by 12.
Like I'm doing two jobs, whyshould I leave at 12?
I'm like I don't think that'show it works.
He goes well, I'm good atcomputers and I'm able to do
those jobs.
So I'm able to do those jobs,you know.
So, like why wouldn't?

(51:16):
I was able to automate this anddo that, so why would it be
tough?
So I couldn't.
I still was never able to getthrough the guy and I said, look
.
Eventually I was like look,guys like me who are 30 years
older than you, we also havecomputers and I don't look to go
home at 11 o'clock.
I look to.
I look to work till 11 o'clockbecause now I can stay along.

(51:37):
Even you know I could stayaround later.
Maybe I would have had to retire15 years ago if I didn't have
computers.
But now I have all this powerin front of me to work faster
and work better.
And you might not havecompetition in that one office
you're working for in California, but you've got plenty of
competition in the world.

(51:57):
People are out there, you know,busting their butt to get it
done and they're usingeverything in the world,
including artificialintelligence.
So you're not going to get it'snot going to get any easier out
there.
It might appear to you, but myadvice to everybody is it's
still a competition out thereand I, you know personally maybe

(52:18):
it's my age, like you know Iknow it's important to have a
positive attitude and positivereinforcements for everything.
But in business you reallydon't get trophies for coming in
fourth place in business andfifth place in business.
You really have to do a betterjob if you want to stay in

(52:39):
business and you want to payyour bills and pay your
teammates good wages and providethe level of service that you
need to to your customers andall that stuff.
You have to win.
You know you can't come inthird or fourth and expect those
things to happen, and that'sone of the tough things that I

(53:03):
have.
I might not be saying it right,but on one hand you have to win
.
On the other hand, you have torespect the differences in
generations and people's needs.

Behzad (53:16):
If I can kind of replay.
What I think you just said isthat I confused myself.
No, no, no, I think I thoughtit was actually really, really
eloquent and and thoughtful.
I think that the you were kindof juxtaposing the dynamic
between technology enabling usto do more, but that doesn't

(53:36):
mean work less.
It actually means you can bemore efficient and get more done
.
And you need to constantlyinvolve in technology because
you always have to keep track ofthe objective to win and you
have to out-compete on thetechnology.
You have to get every edge andevery advantage you can because

(53:57):
you can't lose sight of the factthat you have competition
abroad and also in your you know, in your in the workforce.
So you can't lose sight of theobjective to win.
Is that a fair?
That's, that's exactly what I'msaying and do you find that the
there is a there's a kind ofcommunity going back to
communication gaps, acommunication gap on that

(54:18):
critical component there beingthe win part that you have to?
It's not like there are notrophies for everybody kind of
thing.

My experience in business is there's a limit to
how much profit you can make.
We're not trying to break thebank, but there's a limit.
Your customers won't let youcharge a certain amount.
You have to provide a certainamount of service, pricing

(54:49):
competent people, and if youdon't do that you're not going
to get the business.
So you have to do it to acertain level, but there's
nothing stopping on the downside, if you're selling too cheap,
nobody's going to say hey, I canbuy it for more somewhere else.
People will continue, so there'sno stopgap on losses.

(55:11):
It's very easy to lose money,so I wish I could just put a
plug in and say okay, I'mautomatically setting my margins
to this amount, my payroll tothis amount and everything's
going to stay the same.
But conditions today are sodynamic that it's constantly
changing and we have to be so onour game just to make sure

(55:33):
everything's working.

Behzad (55:45):
And I think I was addressing more the question
about is there a generation gap?
You know, is there agenerational gap between there's
this knock?
I think that in the newgenerations everyone gets a
trophy and or the youngergeneration, or the younger
generation of the new generation, but, uh, that everyone gets a
trophy and um, that we kind ofneed to be sensitive to

(56:07):
employees, um, needs and um, youknow various sensitivities and
I, I just you know, Iacknowledge that on one hand,
but I also am just curious howyou have adapted to that,
because it's a reality of theworkforce in a way.
But you clearly, just throughyour energy and through your

(56:30):
history, it's clear that since1984, when you were running your
business, to now, you've seen aton of change.
Um, you've seen a ton of change.
You've had to hire, you know,people in different age groups
and different generations whohave different experiences to
different walks of life indifferent geographies.
But, um, now you are, you know,40 years into it and you're

(56:51):
hiring people in their twenties.
So, um is, is that gap hard tobridge sometimes, because is it
very different than it used tobe?

Well, it helps being a parent, right?
So I have two children in their30s right, they work at your
company, right?

Behzad (57:12):
Yeah, they work for the company.

They're great.
But it helps that I have arelationship with them and a
relationship with their friends,so I kind of know what that
generation, how they think.
But we've also done plenty oftraining on the different
generations and what a babyboomer like myself you know
values and what you know.
Each generation values there'sbeen three or four different

(57:40):
ones what each one's value, howthey rate the different things
in their life.
But I will tell you that one ofthe things that it's not a pet
peeve, but it's another piece ofadvice Today and for years now
they've been telling kids atschool hey, you're going to
change jobs, you're probablygoing to have 10 different jobs

(58:02):
in your life, et cetera, etcetera.
I don't want a company like oursand I've seen it firsthand with
lawyers and things like that.
There's a lot of value insticking out in your job.
Someone might switch a jobafter two years and go to

(58:23):
another company and switch forthree years and go to a
headhunter.
And there's plenty of thosecompanies around.
Monster and all those types ofcompanies tell you in a company
like ours, if people and manyother companies, if you stick

(58:43):
around and you do your thing andyou have that desire and you
have put that effort in, you'regoing to end up at the top of
the class.
If that's what you want, ifyou're trying to make your way
to the top, a lot of people arein the right spot.
They just don't know it.
But the timing might not beright.
I mean the timing they mightwant to earn that much in three

(59:08):
months from now or next week,but there might be somebody in
that job.
But if they stay through and dothe right things, they have to
have confidence in their ownability.
Their time will come and I knowin our company we have a lot of
those opportunities are comingevery day and some people have
done a great job takingadvantage of those spots that
opened up.

Behzad (59:30):
And how do you?
Personally, it sounds like youhad to just navigate a ton of
change on your side of theequation.
Just being Randy Buller, I mean, how do you think about change?
You know, how do you thinkabout evolving and changing.

I personally think , you know I am a change ready
person, like to the extreme.
I personally think that thereare times when you know I'd be
called stubborn.
But I think I'm a change readyperson and you know part of it
has to do with all theseconversions that we do and maybe

(01:00:05):
a little bit immune to it.
But I've been through so manychanges in this business that if
you're not changing a littlebit every day with the times,
then one day you wake up andyour compass is pointed in the
opposite direction and you'llnever be able to turn fast
enough.

(01:00:26):
So I really do believe you haveto make small, incremental
changes every day.
And again, a lot of them arecommunication based.
Is everybody even on the samepage of where we're going?
You know change is an important.
Look at our society.
Look at, like, what's going onjust today with artificial
intelligence.
They're predicting massivechange.

(01:00:47):
So like if you're not ready tomake some changes, you know
what's going to happen.
You're going to be left behind.

Behzad (01:00:53):
Yeah, so change is hard, but positioning yourself to be
ready to change is probably thetakeaway from that.
Moving from change to kind oflike decision making.
I saw a LinkedIn post that youwrote and the conclusion of it
was so was so helpful for me.

(01:01:16):
Sometimes I, uh, I I tend tolook for the perfect answer or
the right answer.
I call it threading the needle,and it comes with, obviously,
you know, a lot of brain powerand sometimes more time than
needed.
Um, and reading your post kindof helped and the conclusion of
it.
I'd like for you to talk aboutthat a little bit, but the
conclusion of it was somethingalong the lines of you know, you

(01:01:38):
either make the right decisionor you make the decision right.
You, you know it's thefollow-up of the decision.
That is the most important partof it, can you?
So that was helpful for me.
Can you just touch on that alittle bit?

Randy Buller (01:01:51):
Sure, like well.
First of all, if there's ahundred decisions to be made, 80
of them are easy, right, youhave all the information and if
you ask 10 competent people,they'll make the same decision.
So it's an easy decision, right?
The tough decisions are theones that are like 50-50 or

(01:02:13):
55-45 or 45-55 or 60-40.
Should we do this or should wedo this?
And you know, if you ask 10people, four people say this and
six people say that.
Those are the tough decisions.
But sometimes you have to makethose decisions.
For instance, you're dealingwith a fuel pump company that
goes out of business.
Well, you have to pickcompetitor A or competitor B.

(01:02:36):
And you know, four people saypick competitor A and six people
say pick competitor B.
Well, what do you choose?
Well, there's obviously goodreasons for both, right?
This is just a silly example,but there's good reasons for
both, right.
So you're going to pick one.

(01:02:57):
But then you have to stack thedeck in your favor.
Right, you have to.
You said you pick one, so whatare you going to do to influence
it?
You have to do a lot of work.
You got to make people knowyour brand.
You have to make sure yourprice is competitive.
You have to make sure you getbuy-in to the customers that did
prefer the other brand and youhave to explain your reasons why
.
And then you have to monitor itand you have to make sure that

(01:03:22):
you're selling more fuel pumpsthree months later than you were
three months earlier.
You want to make sure that thischange exceeded expectations.
And if they didn't, whathappened?
What went wrong?
And then it goes back to thecommunication oh, we never
followed up.
Oh, wow, we didn't realize welost that account.
So what went wrong?

(01:03:42):
So the follow-up and dogging ituntil you get it right, that's
the real key to gooddecision-making there.
And my friend Robbie, who's inthe business, robbie Reifberg,
is the guy who says either makethe right decision or make the

(01:04:03):
decision right.
He's the one who says that andI agree with him.

Behzad (01:04:07):
I love that line, so I'm going to ask Robbie.

This is only good lines, yeah.

Behzad (01:04:11):
I'm going to ask him for permission to borrow it too,
and I'm going to tell him.

He'll rent it to you.
He's a rep.
He charges 3%.

Behzad (01:04:19):
That's a pretty fair rate for that wisdom.
But when you're makingdecisions, a lot of them come
with risk.
Can you just talk about how youthink about taking risks for
your business?
Is it along the same lines ofwe just got to follow through
and make it, you know, likemitigate the risk downside as

(01:04:40):
much as possible, or is it thatyou calculate a bunch up front?

Well, I'm not a risk averse person.
You know, I think we're reallygood at auto parts and so, like,
a lot of our acquisitions havebeen risky.
You know, we've expanded todifferent areas but we were very
successful in Washington DC andMaryland.

(01:05:06):
We were very successful inArizona, so we kind of
replicated what we were doing inNew York.
So when I expanded to a newregion now we kind of expect
that we're going to do prettywell, we have a good formula and
so it's not as risky as wethought we thought.
We know we can do a good, solidcomputer conversion.

(01:05:28):
We know that our people aregreat and you know we're going
to take.
We know we have confidence andtrust in ourselves and we know
that the acquisitions we madeand the team members we have are
going to speak well on ourbehalf because they've had
positive experiences and so likethose types of things aren't

(01:05:49):
that risky.
You know I don't think I do anycrazy stuff and I always check
myself Is this crazy?
But we'll do some cutting-edgethings.

Behzad (01:06:04):
If you're comfortable sharing.
Can you tell me about a timewhen you took a risk?
I mean, you have 40-plus yearsof experience here, so it might
be tough to recall, although youseemingly have just an
impeccable memory Uh, when youtook a risk and it was just an

(01:06:25):
absolute home run and or justmade a decision, and when you
the outcome was likecatastrophic.
You know, the way I think ofthese things, just from like a
human level, is that there aresome moments in our lives that
stand out to us and they're justburning our memories.
We know the exact locationsetting time.

(01:06:48):
You know how we felt in thatmoment.
You know there's some kind ofsocietal events that that happen
and we're we're all kind oflike subject to them.
We all can place ourselvesexactly in 40 years of business
because basically it's, it'sbeen, uh, you know, parallel to
your life the entire time.
Do you have those kinds ofmemories where you just when you

(01:07:09):
think of like something thatwent wrong, there's just this
one thing, or something thatwent amazingly right, there's
this one thing?

Well, first of all it's it's important to separate
personal from business, right?
So you know, thank God, ourbusiness has been, you know,
very successful knocking on woodover the years and I can't
think of anything that we didcatastrophic at all, nothing

(01:07:37):
even close.
Catastrophic at all, nothingeven close.
But you know, on a personallevel, you know, there's been
around and seen firsthand, youknow many terrible, terrible
things.
One thing I always ask, and Iadvise and talk about it with
you know, close people.
You know, and it's a good pieceof advice for anybody when
something's bothering you, youknow, on a scale of one to 10,

(01:07:59):
what is this really?
And you know, you know thedog's leash.
You know not being that greatis not a 10, you know it's a,
it's a one, you know.
But somebody you know who'ssick, that's a 10, you know.
Or somebody who died, or that'sa 10, right?

(01:08:20):
So nothing in business has everbeen, you know, other than the
personal tragedies that happen.
You know there's been stufflike that, but we haven't had
any kind of you know businessthing that's even on that chart.
So let's set that thing.
Yeah, thanks, that chart.
So let's set that thing, yeah,thanks.

(01:08:40):
So a lot of the things thathappen in business.
Look, I don't like when we hateto lose a customer.
That's happened over the years.
It's happened a couple timeswhere a customer got really bad
at us or vice versa.
We hate that.
We try to do the right thingfor our customers all the time.
We hate to part ways with ateam member.

(01:09:03):
You know it's both ways.
If we have to part ways withthat team member or a team
member quits us, and you knowthat's very personal, we hate
that.
But I guess you know some ofthe things is, occasionally we
butt heads with a supplier andthey're trying to stay in
business and we're trying tostay in business and even though

(01:09:25):
we can do great things together, sometimes our interests are
diametrically opposed becausewe're, you know it comes down to
we need to buy it for less andthey need to sell it for more.
Sometimes that creates a littlebit of stress.
But I can't think of a singlething Now.

(01:09:49):
I can tell you that when we doacquisitions, especially the
bigger ones and we've done a fewof those, starting with I guess
the first real, you know, major, major one that was well, I
guess Washington DC caused me alittle stress in the beginning,
I was down there for six months,but then when we bought

(01:10:11):
Woodbury in the Bronx, it was abig distributor.
By the time we got it up andrunning and we got things going,
but by the time all the noisewent away and my life got back
to normal.
That probably was a year whenwe bought, when we expanded in
Atlanta, it was another yearthat kind of, before things got

(01:10:35):
all calm again.
When we bought Metro inCalifornia, that was a real year
of turmoil before things gotall calm again.
When we bought Metro inCalifornia, that was a real year
of turmoil.
And when we bought IMC fromAutoZone back in 2018, another
year of my life and a lot of ourteam was in turmoil.

(01:10:56):
But I guess one of the things Iwould say during those times
was if you want diamonds, youknow one of the things that
you're going to have, one of theingredients is pressure.
Yeah, and there's a lot ofpressure that goes into those
things, but you don't get frompoint a to point b without
without that, and so when wetake on an opportunity like that

(01:11:17):
, we know we're signing up forsome pressure.
And so those I wouldn't saythey were catastrophic, but I
would say they were.

Behzad (01:11:26):
They're challenging and they put the business under
pressure, put you personallyunder pressure, the team under
pressure, and does that stop youfrom does it?
You know, is there kind of likea reflection period and you're
like I can't go through thatagain anytime soon?

You know actually all four of those that I
mentioned.
I've worked out beautifully,like unbelievably well, but like
what you discussed earlier,like the cultural changes, you
know the line changes, you knowputting up with it.

Behzad (01:11:58):
You know what carries me through it, you know putting up
with it.

Actually you know what carries me through it.
Though, bazant, tell me I'mdoing this really since 1980.
I'm in the auto parts businessand you know from the very
beginning.
You know Yaron took me in andfrom the very beginning you know
like we are a family business.
So from the very beginning,even before I had an ownership
stake in the business, we werealways trying to improve this

(01:12:20):
business.
And so now it's from 1980 toit's what is that?
45 years.
Okay, that I've been in thebusiness.
Okay, every single one of thosedays, every single one of those
days, we have tried to make ourcompany better, right?

(01:12:40):
So no matter what happens, goodor bad, if something bad goes
on, I can get on with thatcustomer, myself or supplier or
teammate, and say we have triedto make this thing better every
single day for 45 years andbefore me, the 10 years that was
around before me were sevenyears before I came on Every

(01:13:02):
single day, this company hastried to get better and do the
right thing, and if somethinghappens to go wrong, I can trace
it back to what went wrong, whyit went wrong and what we did
about it, and I will never feelbad or make an apology.
I'll make an apology if someonegot a wrong delivery or late
delivery or somebody didsomething wrong, but I never

(01:13:23):
have to apologize for the effortthat goes into this company.
Nobody works harder than ourcompany at doing the right thing
for all of our constituentsthat are involved here,
including the industry ingeneral.
So I know that I have somethingto sell and the one thing I
learned is that somebody insales if you believe in what

(01:13:43):
you're selling it's the easiestthing to sell.
And the easiest thing in theworld for me to sell to anybody
is parts authority.
It's the easiest thing becauseI know what I put into it.
It's a lot of days, it's a lotof hours.
That's the easiest thing for meto sell.

Behzad (01:14:00):
That's awesome.
So you mentioned yourcompetitors.
You know the competitivedynamics are only getting harder
.
You're finding some of themmove into your market a little
bit and you know we spent a lotof time in the last, on the last
45 years.
But as you think about thefuture, the future turning the

(01:14:20):
lens the other way, the nextmaybe 10 years, five years how
do you see the market kind ofshaping up?

Well, it's a great question.
So I'll answer your question interms of competition, right?
So they say if you're runningfrom a bear, you don't have to
be faster than the bear, youhave to be faster than your
friends.
Okay, because the bear is goingto catch somebody and the bear
is not going to catch partsauthority, right?
So when I look at ourcompetitors, like, yes, it's

(01:14:51):
competitive, there's morechallenges.
There's technology challenges,cultural challenges, there's
workforce challenges, there'stariffs, there's inflation.
There's all these incrediblechallenges in our business, and
some of them weren't there 10years ago.
Some of them were.
But the fact remains everybodyis playing under the same

(01:15:15):
circumstances.
Everybody, same circumstances,everybody.
So whether the retailers wantto be more like a traditional
aftermarket distributor and domore deliveries to repair shops,
they have to put a lot moreinto their service than they
ever did.
They have to put a lot moreinventory on their shelf.
It's going to really drive uptheir expenses really really

(01:15:38):
high.
It's going to really drive uptheir expenses really really
high.
And, as far as you know, verycomfortable with, you know,
competing against the retailers,I'm very comfortable comparing,
competing against the biggestof our competitors.
And look, you know we do try tocome in first place.
We try to be first call, we tryto be the best of the group and
so you know, for theforeseeable future, I think

(01:15:59):
we're doing all the right thingsto you know to do that.
I feel very good.
I feel very good about the autoparts business.
I think EV will play a smallpart in it but, you know, not
for a very long time.
And if ever in the UnitedStates and this the aftermarket

(01:16:19):
has always been able to changeand been able to answer the call
.
We deal with the best suppliersin the world and I have parts
authority remains a very, verylarge percentage of branded
parts.
Our suppliers are mostly thetop brands in the industry.

(01:16:43):
It's still a good 85% 90% ofour business.
Some of our competitors havegone to all private brand and
outsourcing and while there's aplace for it, there's also a
place for the branded parts.
I think technicians knowexactly what they're getting
when they open the box.
It's not like a retail customerwho buys parts once or twice a

(01:17:08):
year.
A technician is buying parts 10times a day and they know
exactly what's in the box andthey know exactly what they're
getting.
These guys are craftsmen andthey're really good at it, and
so I love to stick with thebrands and what the brands
represent, and we try to have asymbiotic relationship with them
, so it's beneficial to both ofus.

Behzad (01:17:31):
That's great.
So you, in all of thisconversation I've picked up
notions of you know,thankfulness for your success
and gratitude.
Is that a practice of yours, oram I just like kind of reading
into it a little?

bit.
Gratitude is a practice andit's a good healthy.
And it's a good healthy.
You asked earlier about, like,have you had any catastrophes?
Like you got to ask yourself isthis a one or is this a 10,
right, and on the grand scale oflife, most business things are

(01:18:15):
not a 10.
But in the grand scale ofbusiness, things can be a 10,
right.
So, but I was lucky enough torun into a gentleman many years
ago at Canyon Ranch and heactually was like a life coach
or gratitude coach and he makesa big deal and I still get an

(01:18:38):
email from him.
His name is Jerry Poster.
I still get a thing EveryTuesday it's Gratitude's Day and
I'd never, ever go withoutopening his email every Tuesday.
I will not open that email.
I open it and read it and it'sjust to be grateful for the

(01:19:02):
small things.
I mean he's grateful for coffee, a laptop, you know his dog,
and I have my own gratitude listthat I have.
It's maybe seven or eightthings that if I'm feeling down
on myself a little bit, I'llopen that thing up and just say,
yeah, so gratitude is a realthing.

(01:19:23):
In fact, I hired that guy andhe spoke to probably 200 or 300
of our people.
We flew around the country itwas in California, georgia, many
different regions and we hadhim in there for a couple days
and our team thought it was anice little touch.

Behzad (01:19:42):
So that's why your team, I think, is there's so much
camaraderie it sounds like inyour organization, at least from
what I pick up Because when youdiscover something that helps
you, you share it with your team.
I hope so.

Again, this is my opinion.
My opinion is I'm also.
I have a good sense of humor.
My friend Rob Feinerman tellsme it's only because it's only
my suppliers and my team membersthat laugh at me.

Behzad (01:20:09):
But I have my jokes.
Yeah, I've heard you have jokesand you haven't shared any yet,
but maybe we get an opportunityto share one.
Jokes and you haven't sharedany yet, but maybe maybe we get
an opportunity to share one.
Um, when you so you share, youshare things with uh, you know
the with your company, and Ithink that that's probably part
of your success in terms ofkeeping it a team together.

(01:20:30):
Do you have like specialcommunication practices that you
that you think are fairlyunique, that you've discovered
that maybe I could, I could takeback to my team?

Well, well before COVID, our company was doing the
video chat thing.
I think the first one we usedwas, you know, skype.
And you know, as we expanded toWashington and Arizona and
Georgia you know, we're all overthe country you know, sometimes
our teammates would say, okay,I've got to go down to Georgia.

(01:20:59):
I'm like what, are you goingthere?
Oh, I got a meeting.
I'm like you're not going toGeorgia for a meeting.
Like what, that's crazy.
The airport is, you know, takesan hour and a half just to get
to the airport.
Like why can't you just, youknow, have a phone call or do a
Skype?
So we got everybody on Skypeand then after a while, skype
wasn't really very secure.

(01:21:21):
So we went to, I think it was,google Chats, and so, probably
three or four years before COVID, our whole company was on
Google Chats so we could reachanybody anytime and, like I said
, there's certain people in thecompany that are great with
communication.
So you need somebody who youknow it's like back then it was

(01:21:43):
like the Jetsons, right, it wasalmost futuristic, but you can
have meetings, you can talk topeople face-to-face.
And what I really enjoyed isworking with the younger folks
in my company.
My son who's at Daughter is oneof them.
My son and a bunch of otherguys you know in their like late
20s and 30s and when I was likekind of working, showing in the

(01:22:07):
business, teaching the business, and a couple other guys you
know by age were working withthem.
We would drop these culturalreferences, like from a movie or
something, and people would belike you know, they wouldn't
know what we're talking about.
And fortunately there wasYouTube.
So they're like, okay, youdon't get that.

(01:22:29):
So I put on a film clip fromthe movie Stripes or a film clip
from the Exorcist or a filmclip from you know a hundred
different movies and I'd saythis is what I was referring to.

Behzad (01:22:42):
That's such a good move.

And so not only do we have now we can share those
cultural references, but that'sa big deal, right?
You know all these, you know wesaw.
You know, back then we didn'thave video games and all that
stuff, we had movies and TVshows.
We didn't have video games andall that stuff, we had movies
and TV shows.
So that was one great way tobridge the generation gap yeah,

(01:23:06):
the generation gap you couldstill call it that and we have a
lot of fun with it and makejokes about it.
Same thing with music.
Some of the guys are reallyinto music, so we share music
back and forth and lyrics andthings like that.
I have a couple of guys thatare really into that, so you

(01:23:26):
find a common ground.
But I find that's a great wayto relate to different people
and they relate back that way.

Behzad (01:23:36):
I'm happy to hear I'm not alone on the movie clips.
I had a co-worker once kind ofcritique means.
You know.
I was talking to a guy that Iworked with and we just all day
were going back and forth onmovie quotes and she said I
don't get it, why is it that youcan remember a quote from the
most obscure movie you've seen,once, like 20 years ago, but you
cannot remember my birthday,which is the same day every

(01:23:57):
single year?
And I just said I don't know.
But it's really helpful thatyou know there's a message that
we can convey to each otherthrough this thing and just like
a quote of a movie.
So I'm glad I'm not alone onthat.

Yeah, well, that's a whole.
You know.
You should ask her if it's on aone to 10, how big is that?

Behzad (01:24:19):
It came off as a 10, so I didn't really dig in.
So, thinking about the wholeeverything to date, you know
your career, all theacquisitions, starting when you
started with the.
You know the business the wayit was and you know the talent

(01:24:41):
the way it was and having tonavigate it all the way through.

Now, if you had to start over, today and you know,
just you were 24 again or 23,.
Could you do it all over again?
I would say yes, you know, Iknow I have somebody starting in
a company who's 40.
And he's, you know, having akid.

(01:25:07):
He's recently married and I'mstarting him as a, you know, at
the bottom, knowing he's goingto have a fast rise, but it's
the way.
Have a fast rise but it's theway to learn the business.
You know, if you want to be inthe auto parts business, learn
the auto parts.
Everybody I know in the autoparts business started as a

(01:25:28):
driver or a stockman.
Went to work.
However, they got there andwhen there was a family business
and they just took a job andthey started learning and then
there was another job to do andsuccessful people, like I said,
took the initiative into theirown hand.
They didn't have to wait.
If they were a stock man andthere was a line of people at
the counter, they startedhelping customers.

(01:25:49):
The next time it was busy,someone said, hey, jimmy, get up
here and help, and that's howpeople get ahead.
That's what you do in anybusiness.
So the answer is whatever Iwould do would kind of be this

(01:26:16):
Whether it's sports or anythingelse, playing an instrument in
business, you have to do thosethings.
You've got to put the hours into be good at it.

Behzad (01:26:19):
Well, I can't thank you enough for this conversation.
I want to ask I have this kindof final question.
It's oriented around you knowyou have influenced so many
people in your role.
You've worked with so manypeople have worked with you.
You've had vendors that workwith you, partners that work
with you, business partners,employees, and you've had an

(01:26:41):
impression on all of them.
And if you think about your ownlife, you know there are people
that your dad's friend who ledyou, steered you towards account
and gave you that advice.
You know, obviously that hasnever left you.
Obviously that has never leftyou.
If I talk to somebody whoworked with Randy Bowler five,
ten years from now, what do youwant them to say about you?

(01:27:05):
What do you want them to saythe impression that you had on
them was, or the lesson that youleft them with?

I guess I pride myself.
I like to think of myself asalways taking the high road,
always doing the right thing,but, you know, as a hard worker
and not taking no for an answer,and having the courage of my
convictions and being, you know,a good teacher and a good

(01:27:35):
mentor.
You know, my partner, yaron,was like the best teacher I ever
met.
He was such a great teacher toso many of us.
So, you know, as a role model,I thought of that Like the last.
You know, 10 or 15 years, thelast 10 years or so I've worked
so hard on, you know, bringingin the next generation of talent

(01:27:55):
to Port St George, but not onlybringing in younger people, but
spending so much time with them.
You know, teaching them the joband the nuances of the job, and
you know how to make thosedecisions themselves.
And it's almost like ourmeetings on Google chat are

(01:28:16):
frequently like game shows, likeokay, here's the question, okay
, what's your answer?
And this might be five or sixof us, and I make them write it
down on a piece of paper,including us, including myself,
and we'll all hold up our answer.
Who's the closest?
Because it's always, you know,it always depends on the
situation.
But we have people in pricingand negotiating and

(01:28:41):
replenishment and IT and HR andoperations that are like I have
a guy, my operations, I can'teven say each one of those
apartments is like really deepand really deep with young
people.
When I say young, young, youknow like ready to go another 20

(01:29:03):
years easy, you know, at a very, very high level.
They're very, very highlytrained.
So I feel really great aboutthat.

(01:29:28):
I would look back and saythat's what I would want people
to say and say, wow, we reallybuilt a really strong
organization, because it's notthe same as running one store.
It's like it evolved into this300 location plus business and
how could we you know what werethe needs of that 300 plus
business to go forward?
So I think that that's what I'mproud of and that's what I
think the legacy of our companywould be.
That's amazing.

Behzad (01:29:49):
Not that I'm going anywhere.
No, no, clearly not.
You seem to you still have aton of energy, obviously.
You said you're a joke teller.
You want to send us out with acouple of jokes.

I'd love to send you out with a couple of jokes,
but my HR department hasdiscouraged me from telling
jokes over the years and it'd bevery hard for me to tell a joke
without offending somebody.
So I want to take the high roadon the joke telling.

Behzad (01:30:17):
All right, you mentioned your business partner, Yaron a
lot.
What do you think he would sayabout you if I asked him about
you?

What kind?

Behzad (01:30:25):
of funny thing.
Would he leave me with?

He's got a lot of funny stories about me and vice
versa.
He's a great joke teller too,but probably a great teacher.
But the funniest thing Icould—one of the things that
always makes me laugh aboutYaron is like over the years
he's given me advice andfrequently I put that advice

(01:30:49):
into play and I'll go back tohim like a couple years later
and I'll go like you know, I didthat thing.
He's like what thing?
You know, remember, you told me, when this happens and this
happens, do this.
And I'll go like you know, Idid that thing.
He's like what thing?
He's like you know, remember,you told me, when this happens
and this happens, do this.
And I'm like yeah, and I'm like, oh, I did that and it worked
like a charm.
And he goes.
You did that.
I'm like yeah, it worked like acharm.
And he's like I was onlykidding, like I can't believe

(01:31:11):
you did that.
I'm like, yeah, what do youmean?
You were only kidding, and sohe's done that.
He goes.
I don't even remember tellingyou that Some high-stakes
practical jokes.
Yeah, so sometimes stuff likethat happens.

Behzad (01:31:26):
That's funny, Randy, this was amazing.
I really appreciate you sittingdown and spending the time with
me and I think people are goingto love this.
Thanks so much.

Okay, thank you.

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