From Childhood Dreams to Leading the EV Revolution with Terri Kirsch

Are we ready to embrace the next era of mobility?
From dreaming of owning a company at 12 years old to now, as CEO of EV Options, a Certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise, she’s turning that childhood dream into a reality by creating immersive experiences that make electric vehicles exciting and accessible for everyone.
Terri hosts fun, interactive events featuring her Cybertrucks, Thelma and Louise, to connect with individuals and communities on a personal level, where she blends education, accountability, and empathy to foster meaningful conversations about the future of transportation. With over 190 EV events under her belt, she’s empowering people of all ages to embrace sustainable transportation and lead the charge toward a brighter, electric future.
For Terri, it’s not just about business—it’s about igniting change through leadership and connection.
Get to know more about Terri Kirsch and the amazing innovations they do at https://evoptions.net/ 
To learn more about myself, Michael Esposito, and find out about public speaking workshops, coaching, and keynote speaking options, and - of course - to be inspired, visit www.michaelespositoinc.com
The Michael Esposito Show is hosted by Michael Esposito and produced by iHeartMedia Hudson Valley. Be sure to subscribe on iHeart Media, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Google Play, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:21):
Hello all, my entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcome to
the Michael Esposito Show, where I interview titans of industry
in order to inform, educate and inspire you to be great.
My guest today has been a serial entrepreneur and she
previously started in the barcode industry. Soon she bootstrapped her
own special effects company for organizations like Peter Pan, Wicked

(00:46):
and of course Pink Taylor, Swift and many other Broadway shows. Today,
she is the vice president of the Electric Vehicles Association
and serves on the national board. As the CEO of
EV Options and Experiential Event Company, she educates the ev

(01:11):
curious about electric vehicle ownership. Please welcome serial entrepreneur CEO
Terry Kersh.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Thank you, Michael, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
You're welcome, Welcome to the show. It's so cool to
have you on today. I'm going to share with all
of our guests, how we got you here. So for
everybody's knowledge, I want you to know that I flew.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Her in from San Diego. No. So the truth is,
this is so cool, so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
How these kinds of things happen. I was out in
New Paultse with my daughter, so you know some of
the story. But for everybody that's listening here, you may
not know. So we're out of New Poults. My daughters
have their soccer games going on that day. So we
have Denise and Tenley, who are seven and nine years old,
and my wife is co both teams. So she's yeah,

(02:02):
both teams, and it was our first game. It's our
first game this week that weekend, and we're headed out
there and as we're driving out there, I see the
cyber truck and I'm like, oh my goodness, Devin, that's
my wife's name.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
I'm like, oh my goodness, Devin, I need to go
there and see it.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
We're early, can we stop in and see it. She's like, Michael,
I got to get to the field. I gotta get
to the games. I want to make sure I'm set
up and prepped. I'm just like Devin, seriously, like that
truck's not going to be there all day. I'm never
gonna see it again. She's just like, look, if you
drop me off, you can go back and see it.
So I'm like, I'm not going to do that to her.
So we get to the fields and I'm like, all right,

(02:37):
you know, it was pretty cool to just see it.
And now we're on the fields, we play all of
our games. It's about two hours of soccer because we
have my first daughter's game, Tenley, and we had a
second game for Denise. And as we're leaving, I see
the cyber truck again. I go all right, come on,
it's still here. So one little lesson for all of
our husbands out there. Anything you say will always be
you know, proven wrong by your wife when she said

(03:00):
it'll still be here in two hours. Well so it was.
And so we popped in. We popped over and I
got to meet your fabulous Jonathan over here. I don't
even know what Jonathan. Jonathan's hanging out in studio. He's
not on Mike. But Jonathan, what role do you serve?
I support with logistics and tech on with Terry's wonderful option.
So he serves as logistics in tech with the EV

(03:22):
Company and I got to meet him, and I'm starting
to ask him questions about the cyber truck. He says, well,
would you like to meet our CEO?

Speaker 4 (03:29):
So of course I wish he's here.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
So it was so cool to of course see this
event take place in our community to learn about electric vehicles,
and then that you were there and so willing to
meet and be so kind.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, you got to meet my daughters.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
I love the children in the EV space. They know
more than the adults.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Too, and bring them in.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
And so you kind of stole the show from the
cyber truck because while I was there to see the
cyber truck, I became enamored in your story and being
a serialentrepreneur, and I couldn't wait to have you on
the show today. So I'm excited to learn more about
all the different things that you've done.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yeah, that's awesome, Thank you again for having me. My
entrepreneurial days started out very early when wanting to own
my own company from twelve years old. So it went
on from there and today I've retired four times, keep

(04:27):
coming back on opportunities find me and I can't say
no because I love the work. I love working with people.
I love leading, and I love success, and I very
much love seeing the people that work for me succeed.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Tell me a little.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Bit more about that twelve year old girl who wanted
to start a business, who had that entrepreneurial spirit.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
I think it starts out watching others not be able
to succeed or get things that they're wanting. So I
just said, there's got to be a better way, even
at a very young age. So no matter what it was,
if it was the selling the lemonade on the lemonade
stand at the corner, I just had a different and

(05:16):
a better way. I would always differentiate myself from the
other little girl down the street, give a little candy
away with it a little chocolate instead. So that seemed
to get people to go to my stand than others.
And that is a true story. So it started out there,
and then again when I would start working when I
was sixteen years old, I would always see things that

(05:37):
the managers wouldn't see. And that continued on and again.
Get getting into the thought leadership. I know that's a
buzz term right now, but it's really true to sort
of see the vision, see how things are going to
play out, and really how to succeed at that, and
I think that's what.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
I've always done. Is obvious.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Said there's got to be a better way or better
mouse strip? How do you make it different? So that
started at a very early age for me.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Where do you think you learned that from?

Speaker 4 (06:07):
I think I was just so independent when I was young.
I had two older sisters and they were always treated
like twins, and then little me comes along, and so
I just sort of was a survivor, and for no
other reason other than I just I just wanted to
do it better. That's kind of how it started.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
I think that's really cool.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
So you said, sixteen years old you started working, Let's
go jump over to the barcode business, because that's the
start of this entrepreneurial journey that you started. So tell
us about the barcode business. What was it like getting
into that, So we're talking about you said the eighties to.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
Me, or it was late or early nineties, early nineties, right.
I started there actually as a secretary back in the
day doing greg shorthand and wound up stepping in while
one of the sales people were on vacation or outsick.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
I don't really recall.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
And I said let me just do his job while
he's gone, because I don't think he's doing a very
good job. And I did, and I did very well
and increased what his business was the first month, and
wound up selling this printer because back in the day,
that's when the military standard started using barcodes on everything,

(07:21):
even like a little tiny screw nut widget, and so
you have this dot matrix printer that's, you know, seven
inches long. And then I actually discovered this printer that
could print tiny little labels. So I just went and
sold those to every military supplier to the government that
I could find in southern California. And no one else

(07:42):
could make these tiny little bags with tiny little barcodes.
So I just focused on that and I just sold those.
And then not long after that, I thought, I don't
need to work for somebody else, so I became a distributor,
did it on my own. But I didn't love it.
I just didn't love it. So I thought, I'm going
to let this go on as long as I can,

(08:03):
but I'm going to do something fun. So that's when
my children were in a production of Peter Pan. My
son was four, my daughter was seven, and I was
backstage helping and they were literally flying the kids with
ropes and pulleys. I was one of the moms that
helped in the back. I was a volunteer mom. I
asked the guy, hey, who's your competition, because they hired
him to come in, and he says, we don't have anybody.

(08:25):
And I said, Ah, this is America. Everybody has competition. Well,
sure enough they didn't. And so I started a company
and that now.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
The company right now cfx ZFX.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yes, yeah, CFX still in business now.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
I was with him for twenty one years and we
started literally with five thousand dollars and two people. And
when I left, they're doing really well right now still.
But when I left, we had forty nine employees and
have flown people all over the world. And like I said,
flying is through cables, harnesses and ropes. So we have
we had flown or have again. Left they're about ten

(09:00):
years ago. But flew Hangover three the FIFA Championships in Bogatah, Columbia,
their halftime show. We flew the flag raising ceremony at
the Olympics. I mentioned Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons, Pink Zach
Brown Band. We've kind of done it all and lots
of Broadway productions, but the thing that is most fun

(09:23):
to me was in that business was flying the young
up and coming performers, the elementary schools, the middle schools,
the high schools, the colleges, the passion that they have.
And a little sidebar here. My son is now a
director and he has his own children's theater. His first
show was Peter Bann, So it's kind of all within

(09:44):
the family.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Coming full circle. I got another little full circle for you.
So I wasn't here at the time. We're currently recording
in the Poughkeepsie studios at iHeart, but it's my understanding
from you met Tina just a little while ago, and Lara,
who is the one who got me the role to
be able to do podcasts here is the one who
shared a story with me. She's been She was with

(10:06):
iHeart for over twenty years, so she was here for
a very long time. So I don't know where in
her tenure this happened, but it was an up and
coming Taylor Swift who actually came through these studios.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
She was promoting a show that I believed she was
doing here in Poughkeepsie, and either the Bartivon or the
Civic Center over here. And so Lara, I remember telling us,
and we're good family friends now telling us the story.
She said, I just remember this, like, you know, skinny
little girl and blonde hair and coming in and you know,
and everybody said she's going to be a star. So
she met her on her rise. And that's kind of

(10:38):
cool that you were one of the people that has
held her up.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
And that's true, literally held her up. Yeah, because I
saw her the first time at sixteen years old. I
saw that lanky little thing as well. And to see
her develop because like I said, every concert she did,
we did a little something for her for the flying effects,
and so I did. I watched her grow up and
it was like one of my children. So even though
I don't have a friendship with her per se, I

(11:04):
certainly feel connected.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, it's kind of cool.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
It is. It's really cool.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
And I mean just staying on Taylor for just for
a moment here, because right now, you know, I have
two young daughters. Yes, you can only imagine I pretty
much know all of her songs. Yes, we have, like
the she just had her album just came out, and
it came out on my daughter's birthday. It came out
on Tenley's birthday April eighteen, so Tenley feels that's so special.

(11:29):
She's been like telling her sister Denise, I don't know
about what's special about your birthday.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Taylor dropped an album on my birthday.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
A second too even actually right, she dropped a second
one immediately after that. Did you know that?

Speaker 3 (11:39):
No? I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, I look that up right immediately. I think sixteen
more songs or something.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Oh my goodness. I'll have to tell her that. But
so we also have My wife then purchased the CD
because we don't have a cyber truck, which we're going
to talk about soon. We have an older model at
twenty sixteen, and so we have to load the CDs
in to go and sure beyond dashboard. But I got
the CD and my daughters were looking at they received

(12:05):
this exactly, and it was so funny because we thought
that we were giving them this gift.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
We were like, here's Taylor's.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
CD, and they kind of looked at us and like,
I mean, we've been playing it on Amazon for the
past the past.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Three days, Like what are you doing to It's so cool?

Speaker 1 (12:22):
So the other thing that we've gotten to see, which
is where I'm getting into your FX company.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Here is Taylor launched.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Her movie of her entire show, so you really see
what what you're kind of talking about. I don't think
she flies in that one there.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
No, she has other other lift effects. Yeah, and to
keeping in mind, they have to have loading in and
loading out.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
It's got to be done quickly.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
I mean they have to actually rent the stadium, you know,
ahead of time, and so all that's very expensing.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
That's actually exactly where I was going with this question.
Is so watching these these performers, uh get lifted.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
I mean, I'm thinking about the halftime show.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
I think Rihanna was like lifted up through these different
chords and everything. But you're using harnesses.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Well, it's the same type of thing where there's hoists
and oftentime they're automated with you know, actually motors and whatnot,
motorized hoys. And I don't really know what she had done,
but their different effects are just a single pickpoint and
the double pickpoint with the three sixty swivel, and depending
on how they want to do it, whether somebody is

(13:24):
three sixty going around, you need three pickpoints and so
when you get that, like I said, the Hangover three
movie or the halftime shows, you can imagine how large
these hoists have to be from one end to the
statum to the other and even going down that drag
down in Las Vegas when on Hangover three the man
landed with parachute in the limousine that was us and

(13:46):
that was a long hoist a half a mile from
one point to the other just to have him follow
along to gently drop.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Him into that limousine.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
That's what they do, depending on how they want it,
how the effect one.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
So where all of this is kind of of going
for me in my mind of questioning is you started
behind the curtain at a kid's show and you got
ropes and pulleys, and we are moving into what you
just beautifully described in the Hangover of this like half
half a mile cord and all this other stuff. The

(14:18):
mindset that you have to have in order to move
from you know, just holding a rope to and I'm
hoping you can get into some of the planning to
planning for this huge event. What is that mindset? Like,
what are what are some of the things that go
through your mind and how do you quell the nerves.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
That's actually a really good question because I work best
under best under pressure. I rarely get stressed. We actually
have an event this weekend and we got a call
last night that one of the people can't be there
or like I mean be there, meaning a big element
of it.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
So I'm like, it's okay, we'll pivot. We just have
to do that. I'm used to that, but I do
work best under press. Sure.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
But the thing I think that the common thing in
all of these businesses that I've had, because whether you're
flying people, evs, barcodes, potato chips, you still have to
have the customer service in mind. You have to have
the vision of where you want to go and how
you're going to get there. For me too, it's you

(15:24):
have to be a risk taker. If you are ultra
conservative as an entrepreneur, you're just not going to make it.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Now, that's my opinion. But my risk level is can
you survive if it fails? Can you recover? If you
can recover from your risk take it, do not hesitate,
but if you can't, and you have to really think
hard on that. But for me to calm the nerves,

(15:51):
as you mentioned, it's really just a matter of planning,
making sure you delegate, and training the folks to always
be bringing problems ahead. So if you're running into an obstacle,
you need to know immediately, bring it up, expose it,
don't wait till the very end, because you can typically

(16:14):
always fix those things once the curtain goes up, and
I mean literally what we do at the events that
you were at, the curtain goes up, the start time
happens on stage, the curtain goes up. When that happens,
you have to be prepared. You can't make up more time.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
So that's where all the planning and the preparation needs
to be done. Delegating, proper training, proper procedures, documentation, doing
live scenarios, playing it out. Okay, what's going to happen
when we get there? What if this doesn't happen? How
will we recover from that?

Speaker 2 (16:46):
So it's all.

Speaker 4 (16:46):
About the planning ahead of time, and that can be
nerve wracking for some folks. So again, documentation, writing lists.
But the big thing for me is including my staff
in what those decisions are because they have to take ownership.
If they take ownership of what they're having to do,
then they will succeed. And when you do that, they

(17:10):
feel relevant and want it and need it, and they
want to succeed for you as an owner. It's not
a personal thing. It's a family thing, and to me,
that's really important and that's where we succeed.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
I want to just talk about the planning, and I
love everything you just said because it really goes into
that leadership leadership track, the different values and thoughts on
what a leader is. There's a couple of things that
you said. One that I'm curious about, which has to
do with risk, and then the other one, of course,
I want to know about planning. So I think planning
is going to be the easiest one because that's kind

(17:45):
of like I'm just.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
It's more of a curiosity.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Okay, So in terms of one of these big events,
like let's use the Hangover one. So we're talking about
the movie The Hangover three, and you have a scene
where you have this half a mile cord and parachuting
down into a car and.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
All this stuff.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
I'm assuming that it's kind of like very similar as
like a halftime showing all the rest of like setup
and all that stuff. What's the time frame of planning
for an event like this.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
That's also a good question. Something like that was highly
sophisticated because there were very powerful high speed hoists. But
something like that depends on whether we were building it
or whether we were renting it. But the logistics for that,
it's about a six month process. However, in the movie business,

(18:32):
they can call you on a Friday and say can
you be here on Tuesday, And at that point you
have to decide if it's worth it. You know, if
the risk is worth it. And trust me, I am
not one that likes to say no. I do not
like to say no, so in fact, I've been accused
of you have to say no once in a while. No,
you guys can do it. I have faith and most
of the time people deliver when you give the bring

(18:54):
that challenge toward. But to do it properly, it's about
a three month three to six month plan. But you
don't always have that, especially too, because there's permits that
have to be pulled when you're going to be doing
an effect like that.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Insurance has to be handled right.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
You have to do testing and that the you have
to get the stunt doubles because the celebrities aren't available
till the very last second they walk into the gate
of their God. No, we worked closely. We worked closely
with their managers, their agents, the producers, the directors on
how that will all happen.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
The studio says, we need it done in two days.
They're doing all that stuff. You just got to figure out.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
Yeah, and sometimes they you know, sometimes the performer says
I want to I want to fly in like a parachute,
and they go, you want to do what And they go, okay,
make the calls, see what you can find. So yeah,
that's when we would get the last minute things. We
did a lot of passion plays for churches at Easter
and Christmas lying you know, Jesus and the rise and
all that, and that you can plan. Year's an advance,

(19:52):
right and so that that is takes a lot of
planning as well, and a lot of rehearsals, but nothing
like you do in the movies, you know, in the
in the film industry, because again sometimes there last minute.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
So and like you said, with the with the stadium,
you're renting the stadium and you got to figure out
where to put all these things. So it's it's I
was just thinking about that from a logistical standpile.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
I was like, how do you figure all this? It's wild.
So I've done a few theater shows.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
I've acted in a few theater shows, and then I've
also hosted our own, which is called the take Action
Events that we've had and they're really simple.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
They're like panels, like the take Action event.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
So the acting part it was, you know, setting up
some stage stuff and I I was just an actor
in it, so I just got to perform in it,
but I got to see what goes in the back exactly.
And then when I put on my shows of the
take Action events, this was my show, and I was
working with with Katie Haynes.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Who does all of my marketing.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
I was working with her on setting up the show,
and then Uncle Mike, who's actually right next door here,
helped produce the show and everything, and we worked on
putting this whole thing together.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
And we're talking about us six foot table, three chairs.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
And myself in a couple of mics and seeing the
production that goes just into that. That's where my curiosity
came from because I'm like that took like, you know,
two weeks, three weeks of planning, like where the seats
are going to be because the theater would constantly change
on us. Even though I rented this theater for six months,
they said, you're going to take it as is, and
it was it's a black box theater here in New
Pauls and they have a different show every month. So

(21:22):
they changed the seating from surrounding the stage or for
stadium style or other way.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Like one of them was really cool.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
No, yeah, I totally You're totally right. You don't know
what you're going to walk into, what you have to
fix at someone else left behind. And sometimes you share
the space where you have evenings and someone else's during
the day. That's a hot mess, right.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Like a Staples Center for instance, right where you have
again in the evening. I'll just say the really cool
one with the take action event was they actually had
a mural not a mural, but I can't think of
the word. The whole floor was painted.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Oh cool.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
It was so cool.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Up.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
All of us had to take our shoes.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
So I had all these professionals coming in and I'm like,
you can't walk over here unless you take your shoes off,
and like one of them, they're looking at you, like
what one of them Cecil, who is this this She
was Miss Philippines, So she's this beautiful Filipino woman and
she was decked out for this event. She was one
of my panelists, and she had these beautiful shoes and
I'm like, Cecil, you.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
Have to carry them, but you can carry him.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
It was one of those things.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
But anyway, so that was part of Pukey my curiosity
in terms of the leadership side.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
So it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Something that you said that kind of really caught me
is about risk. And I'm with you, right, like, we
as entrepreneurs, it's a game of risk. And I remember
my uncle, who's one of my mentors, always said, like,
you know, don't like kind of what you just said,
don't put put in more, don't bet more.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Than you have, right, right, exactly.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
But you also know that sometimes as entrepreneurs we take
risks and we don't know that we might be overstepping
what we have.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
And so one of the.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Ideas that we hear a lot today and it's you know,
this year was like, what's your word of the year,
And for me, it was resilience of always being able
to overcome a challenge. And you mentioned that there are
sometimes that there are some challenges that you might not
be able to overcome, or maybe seeing a risk that
you might not be able to overcome. I'm curious on

(23:29):
what that means for you or where you see that
kind of taking place.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
I think for me it has been it's changed as
I age. I think that's with everything, right, Everything changes
as you age. I can recover a lot faster now.
But there were times where my husband and I would
be should I do this? Should I start this new company?
He was always the working man, and I was always
the one that says, we got to do this, got

(23:55):
to take that.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
I have that balance?

Speaker 4 (23:56):
Did that is that? So? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
So that's awesome?

Speaker 4 (24:00):
And so he would do this and I would say, Okay,
you're going to carry me for five years because I'm
not sure if we can make any money. So we
just kind of balanced it that way. We didn't always
have the answers, and there were times where but we
were younger, you know, where we could still recover, and
so it was really weather or not. The risk and

(24:20):
the payout was there, and it was like a work
life balance. I wanted to be home with my kids,
so I wanted to be able to work out of
the house. Which back then virtual wasn't a thing. It
was just oh, you're working out of your house. Now
it's called virtual air quote. And so I did that.
I've always worked out of my home so that I
could be there for the kids, and I could be

(24:41):
there at their soccer games, and I could be the
team mom on my son's football team and the PTA
president and I did all that. Yeah, and so that
to me is where that came from, as far as
how much risk do you take? And I even went
as far as saying, listen, if this bombs, can I
take a mortgage out of the house? What can I do?
And how far? And we've done that. We did that

(25:02):
where we weren't doing so hot, and but you know what,
it was a never give up. It was this has
to work. And so what can I do? What have
I not done right that could get us farther? And
I go back and reflect, to go back and reflect
and say, well, if I had done it this way, okay,
I won't do that again. And so to go back
and learn, and that's that's part of it too, is

(25:25):
to reflect on what you've done, what succeeded, what didn't?
Don't do that again? Or do more of that.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
So right, and so I'm glad you clarified that, because
the message that you're giving is not not to give up,
it's to reflect on what went wrong.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, evaluated right from it, yep.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
And then maybe you do pivot, maybe you go in
a different direction, But what do you take from that experience.
I really appreciate you sharing that. The other thing that
I want to ask you about is company culture. We
still haven't even talked about ev options quite yet, but
I'm assuming you're carrying it over because you just mentioned
it before with the FX company about open communications, and
so that to me speaks to company culture, is that

(26:06):
you're creating a culture where your employees, your team members
feel comfortable enough to say to you something is wrong
and we can't go forward.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
We can't go on right now, we have to pause,
we have to stop whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Especially when we're talking about flying people.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
How do you.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Create that culture to where you have people that are
able to bring that to let's call it the air
quotes Boss.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
Gosh back early early twenties. I think it was I
had taken a course just to talk about people, and
they had done a survey. It's probably been done one
hundred times, if not more since then about what's important
to people. And oddly enough, of the stack rank these
ten things, the least important was money. The top three

(26:58):
was being in the know, being a pre and being trusted,
and I never forgot that. I don't even know what
the other ones were. It doesn't really matter, but to me,
it was about money. I've had people tell me I
want to raise, I need more money, I need a raise,
and I bring him in to the office. I say,
this isn't about money. What's really going on. Please tell me, well,
that guy got a title, he's got a title, he's

(27:19):
senior whatever. And I say, this is about that, because
you deserve that too, And I'm really glad you told me.
I had nothing to do with money at all. It
had to do with the fact that he didn't feel
appreciated and I didn't recognize that.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
But the fact that I thought to ask.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
Him and really act like not act really cared because
I did. I really did care what they felt. But
I just knew it had nothing to do with the money.
But that's kind of where people go and you have
to be able to acknowledge and recognize that. But for me,
the culture is really important because it's about building family Again.
People can be managers and not lead, but to be

(27:58):
a leader, you don't have to manage. And it's really
I look at the fact that I work for my employees.
How do I educate you and move your success forward
by just knocking down obstacles for you? Because I don't
hire people for me to do their job. I hire
people to do a job for me. But if they
don't have the right tools and skills and confidence and

(28:22):
want success mentality, then I might as well just hire
new people because I'm going to be doing their jobs
for them, or I'm going to be correcting the job
they did wrong.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Tell me more about the success mentality.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
It just happened this morning where I told one of
my people, listen, I don't want to have to ask
you for this. I'm giving you the responsibility and to
make the decision. So you do it, and here are
your tools. You make the call. Because I knew whatever
decision he made, of course led him slightly, was going
to be okay, but I let him make the call

(29:01):
on that. At the end of the day, after it
was over, it's when I went, maybe I shouldn't have
told him that because but guess what, I've always felt
that if my staff or my employees make a decision
on my behalf because either I'm not there or I
coach them wrong, it's my responsibility and I have to
take those you know, take it on the chops as well,

(29:21):
and we'll bounce, we'll recover, we'll pivot. Nothing isn't that
bad of a deal that you can't you can't fix it.
I mean, think about it. I was the one that
got the call at eleven o'clock, and I if there's
a problem on stage on Wicked, they'd be calling me,
say we got this issue, and I'm like, oh no,
so yeah, I had to be able to handle all
of that.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
So and there's a lot of trust that goes into it.
I asked that question about what you just said, the
success mentality. It's interesting, that's actually one of the first
times I've heard that term. So I kind of I'll
coin it as yours.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
It's a it's a military term.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
And so I was coaching an individual this morning in sales,
and it's a very unique opportunity to be working with
this individual. He is actually just graduating college in May May.
I'm very, very happy for him, and he and I
met through toast Masters, but he wanted he wants to
or he is working on starting his own company, and

(30:12):
so he reached out to me for coaching. And I'm
just making a long story short, but just want to
give some context here.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Reach out to me for.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Coaching, and there was an affordability issue, but we decided
that we would do some sort of a barter. And
he wants to learn. He wants to learn sales and
get gain sales experience. So I said, okay, cool, I'll
coach you in sales on my product and what I
do at Michaelsposito, Inc. And my services, and then you know,
when you graduate and when it's time for you to
run your business, we can talk about what that looks

(30:39):
like then, but for now, I'll give you the coaching
and you'll sell my product. Right, So we have this
like nice little agreement. And the reason why that context
is important is because in our coaching this morning, some
of the things that we're going into today was more
specific about his outreach and about starting to reach out
because we've been doing this now for several weeks and
he kind of was a little I guess concerned about

(31:03):
the outreach about you know, what should I say to
people or how do I say?

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Or how do you want me to respond?

Speaker 1 (31:08):
And his name is Kelvin, And I said, I said, Kelvin,
this whole time that we've been working in sales or
I've been teaching you sales, I haven't even been teaching
you sales. I've really been teaching you a mindset.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
And the reason why I'm ready for you to start
reaching out to my prospect list is because you're in
the right mindset. That's beautiful, And it was it was
because I don't want you to be Michael. I want
you to be Kelvin. But what are we doing? So
it's like one of the things that we did together.
One of the exercises we did together was we went
to people's linkedined So all of the prospects that we

(31:42):
tagged as like these are the right prospects for my organization,
we went to their LinkedIn profile and what do they
say in it? And so simply put, if their profile
doesn't say anything about growth or or employee development, or
team development, or or inspirational or anything of that nature,
and it's simply just very cut and dry, they might
not be a good fit. We don't know that yet,

(32:03):
but we just know that they might not be a
good fit if they say things of like, you know,
talent development and growth and we're looking to grow a
team and inspire our employees and support our employees.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Well, they're a great fit.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
The reason why I bring that up is that started
helping him realize who are the right prospects.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
And how do I speak to them?

Speaker 4 (32:23):
Right?

Speaker 1 (32:24):
I didn't even have to tell him what our product
is anymore because he knows what our product is. It's inspirational,
it's growth, it's development's talent development. And so from there
I said to him, Calvin, like today, said you could
start responding to people because I trust what you're.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Going to say to them, right.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
And so that's why I asked about the success mindset,
and because it was like when you said it, I said,
That's what Kelvin and I were talking about. It's a
success mindset. It's this mindset of positivity and constant growth
and development, not just for the people that we're prospecting,
but for him as the employee.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Right, it's pretty neat.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
And I do find too, it seems like you have
this as well. They want to make. They really want
you to be proud of them. I don't care how
old or young they are. They if they see how
you behave and how you are and the responses you
get from customers, they want to do that. And you're
the first person they want to tell when they get
a win. So it's not the thrill of the kill.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
It's not that.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
It's really more look at how I succeeded and look
at what I did. Be proud of me and for
them to be proud of themselves too.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
So that's it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
And I said to him, I said, I don't want
you to do it for me, right, but I know
that that's going to be a part of it.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
I want you to do it for you, But you're
on a hundred.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
We want to share our wins, yes, yes, we want
to share our wins with someone, and you know, especially
when we have a mentor, Like I'd reach out to
my mentors all the time, and like, there's a woman
Linda Grace Farley. She was my mentor at toast Masters.
She helped me so much to find my authentic voice
as a as a speaker, and when I got my
first keynote, she was like one of the first people.
I mean, she moved to Florida. We speak sporadically, but

(34:00):
she was one of the first people.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
I was like, Lenda, we did it.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
That's so good, that's beautiful. But Calvin will remember that
for the rest of his life. It's amazing. People learn
by example. And that's why when I do see some
people that just are very successful and they just don't
do a great job, and you look back in the
people that have been that they've surrounded themselves by they
don't have anybody to learn from. And you know, book
learning and going to school, all that's great, but you

(34:25):
really do learn by example. I remember people back in
my early days when I would go, you know, on
a sales call or a meeting with them. They'd say
things and the people would respond. I go, I'm going
to remember that because they responded and it made everybody
feel good and they and they either never said it
again they didn't realize what they did or they didn't

(34:46):
realize how effective what they said was to that person.
But I think that's really important is how do you
affect others, you know, by what you say, your positive
attitude that you know the team player. I know, for me,
my my prospects, our prospects, and I'm a vendor until
we do a contract. Then we're a partner. And that's
how I treat them, and that's how they treat me.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
And by just changing that language also changes the whole dynamic.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
Yeah, And I say to them a lot when they say,
what do you think, I go, well, if it was
my money, this is what I do, because it's true.
You know, I will get business somewhere else. I'm not
going to oversell somebody. But I do say to them,
if this was my money, I'd handle it this way.
And I think it makes them feel comforting. Okay, great,
then we'll do that like okay, good.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
So in part of this, we've been talking the open dialogue,
the communication, and the culture, and in all of this
something that many leaders struggle with. Many you call them
any type of leader, manager, leader, anybody who has a
team or has people that they're trying to inspire or
help move towards a goal. It has to do a delegation.
And you mentioned delegation, and so I'm curious on your

(35:52):
maybe three little tips on how you're able to delegate
to a team, and you already mentioned it a little
bit in a story that you just shared about the
individual this warning, But what are some other things that
a leader today can look at as to being able
to relinquish some control and give ownership to their employees.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
That's a really it's a tough one, especially to you know,
always being a serial entrepreneur myself and knowing what successes
I've had. If I delegate something and they're not going
down the direction that I know, again, that gets into
what bad thing will happen if they don't do it
this way, and that's kind of where I take it.

(36:29):
So and if they don't, if I see them them
going down in the wrong direction, I will guide them
and say, let me explain to you why that won't work.
So it won't necessarily be do it this way, but
explain to them why that way won't work. And then
when I do that, they say, oh, I see what
you mean, and they have to. It has to click

(36:50):
or it won't stick. And that goes to that success mind,
and they're going to do the same mistake again and
they won't feel proud. So if they if you it's
like children, if you give them the opportunity, they'll succeed,
but you just have to give them the coaching in
the right direction. So delegating is a really tough thing,
especially to doing this for so long that I know
what the email should say to give responses, and when

(37:12):
I read an email, someone else write and I go, oh,
swinging a miss. But that's okay, you know what, nothing
bad's going to happen. And they're still learning as well,
and that's I do that a lot. What bad thing
will happen if I don't correct this. So but I
always have to be teaching. You know, it's not just
for my benefit for my company, it's for their future success.

(37:33):
You know, what good do I do as a leader
if I don't help them develop for their future. And
so I have to do that for the good of
my company, for good of them as a person. That
makes sense, y oh.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
It makes perfect sense of what I What I heard
there is there's the risk management again, as an entrepreneur,
constantly managing risk, and we're looking at a risk and
we're saying, you know, if it's a risk that's not
worth taking, now, maybe you're going to take it on
and maybe hold.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Their hand more. But I also like the word guide.
You know, what is a guide? A guide.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
You know, I think of a river guide. You know,
have you ever white water raft and a river guide?

Speaker 3 (38:07):
I mean there's six.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
That's right, there's six people paddling. And I've done the
Gauley in West Virginia. I don't know which is which
is I think the fifth or the seventh in the
world of like most challenging rivers. And so those Gaully
guides they are very they're they're up there in top train,
but they'll let you run the raft. And then there's

(38:30):
moments and I remember two specific moments, one of them
where there's a five foot drop and where you heard
her voice where.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
She was she was charge, your paddle.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Is not doing anything unless I tell you what it is.
And so there's that risk management. It's like, hey, look
we're we're going along and this is you know, we're
hitting some pretty decent you know, class two s, class threes,
fours even, and and she's not saying much. She's just
doing her little adjustments the guiding like you did. But
when we went to that five foot drop, I remember
you heard her voice and it was paddles in and

(39:01):
that was it.

Speaker 4 (39:01):
She's that kind of gives me chill. That's way cool.
I did that Whitewater rafted in Alaska at the spring runoff,
and it was some of them are unrunnable fives and
I'm thinking, I want to go over there, and they're like,
you're not going over there. We're staying over here. So
it's the same kind of thing. I totally get. I
totally see it.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
But I love that.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
So I love how you really helped us really understand that.
And the other part that I love, which is a
great segue into your organization today, is you said you're
always teaching, and I think that that's another important attribute
for leaders is to be a teacher, to be someone
who is has individuals and as you said, to where
you're helping them succeed to get further in their careers.

(39:41):
And how can we do that if we're always telling
them what to do. We have to trust them and
teach them.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
So I love that.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
And so why this is such a great segue into
your organization is because your organization educates people who are
curious on electric vehicles. And that's what I witnessed when
I got to go to your event just spread just
because of a soccer Well then it worked, it worked,
but you had all of these different people who were
ready to share what it is, how it is and

(40:07):
be able to test drive these vehicles. So I'd love
if maybe you could start sharing a little bit about
this organization about ev options. Was what was the spark
for you on starting it and take it from there?

Speaker 3 (40:18):
For us?

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Well, I became involved in the electric vehicle This is
kind of a funny story business because I was at
lunch one day and I had a friend that was
in the business and had an e V or two
and did some things, and I thought, I think I'm
going to buy a Tesla and so literally it was
on my phone at lunch, because you back then, this

(40:40):
was gosh seventeen, twenty seventeen, and I'm just looking on
the app and I'm think, oh, yeah, I'll buy this
one and then I'll just cancel it if I don't
want it, and I just you can't cancel. So I'm like,
I just bought a Tesla literally at lunch, and I'm like,
uh yeah, okay again, risk I did it. I made
a mistake because I did didn't know what I was doing.

(41:01):
Who buys a car and an app in twenty seventeen.
You go to a dealer, right, But now I owned
a test like, Okay, all right, I'll go with it.
I'm going to go with this, and I did, and
then I just fell in love with the technology, the
fact that it's you know, saving our environment. I have grandchildren.
I suffered from asthma my whole life, and that's the
number one cause of asthmatics is you know, our air

(41:25):
that we breathe. And so when I did that, I
was in I started doing some work in the business
and became part of the Electric Vehicle Association. Started as
somebody talked to me to being secretary and I hate that.
I'm not great in finance, but I'll do it. And
so then we did that then with secretary, and now
I'm vice president and so my business partner, Elaine and

(41:48):
I she's the president and vice president and we're both
partners and me of the options. So I started doing
that and really realized, and I've seen the ebbs and flows,
it's kind of neat, meaning that it's all in for
electric everybody drive. We have to educate, then COVID hits.

(42:08):
Then everybody shifts to infrastructure because nobody could drive. So
now we have to get the grid ready. We have
to be able to install chargers, and I'm thinking, I
said to myself, we have to do both because you're
going to have crickets chirping at the charging stations if
we aren't educating people on how to own these cars.
You got to have both. But you know, COVID put
a damper on everything, right, our whole lives changed. But

(42:30):
then it started opening up a little bit. Gave us
an opportunity to start doing these events and educate folks
with masks on making sure we had COVID tests on site.
Would the owners be okay to sit right seat?

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Because that's that's our model.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
The model is, yeah, it's to work with owners to
sit right seat because you can go into a dealership
and they are there are avenue to get these cars
on most levels. Some you can buy them online, but
they they don't necessarily know everything about evs. Sometimes it's
a revolving door. There's a lot of salespeople that come

(43:08):
in and out. Other times they have to sell the
model that makes them the money. They have a lively.
Their livelihood is to make money. So if they can
sell the gas card that's on the lot, and if
they have no EVS, they're going to talk you out
of the electric vehicle. So our goal is to bring
owners there and just say, yeah, it was tough. I
got down to about, you know, fifteen percent range. I

(43:29):
was really nervous, but I was able to plan or
how long does it take? What's the mind shift?

Speaker 2 (43:33):
You know?

Speaker 4 (43:34):
How do you how do you change your mindset on driving?
And so we did that with the owners in the
right seat, and we pay them. I get paid, they
get paid. Everybody should get paid. We don't ask for volunteers.
It's really we need the most professional people because we
are working with professional organizations. Our primary business actually only business,

(43:54):
shouldn't say that primary are utilities. They hire us to
work with their communities, public facing and employees and fleet.
So they want us to come in and educate. They're
an electric company. They have the most to gain if
you think about it right. They get the money, but
they also have responsibilities, and so they bring us in

(44:17):
to do that education because they just don't have the tools,
they don't have the people.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
We do this in our sleep.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
We can literally bring up an event and stand it
up in a matter of a couple of hours and
they walk in and they go wow, this is an
event because it's an event. It's not just bring cars
and drive.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
There's a lot to it an event as you saw.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
So so yeah, we want to work with the dealers,
the automakers and the manufacturers, the OEMs. They really wear
us of the lip, you know, on what they need done.
If they only knew how many cars we sold for them,
we get no commission, we get no mention, none, whether
it be the profit or the nonprofit ev Options or

(44:55):
Electric Vehicle Association, no love. We can actually have an
event because we take reservations and appointments for drive times.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
We can actually have.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
You know, ninety appointments for BMW and they just won't come,
so we have to take it off the list or
source our own. So we're out there doing the good
fight without support of that.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
I'm curious in that in what the good fight is
because you have a business and you're essentially selling cars
for these automakers and not getting a commission.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
We understand the.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Structure is that it's the utility companies that pay for
the event and rank for you to be there. So
what is the good fight? What is the mission of
the organization? And you mentioned it before, educate people on evs.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
Well, okay, the underlying to me, the underlying mission is
to clean have clean air. But the reality is how
do we make that happen? Which, to me, my task,
if you will, is to make sure that when you
walk into that dealership you can stand on your own
two feet and when they try to say you can't

(46:01):
charge at home, you can and for them to say, well,
we don't have any of those vehicles when there's three
on the back lot, for you to stand on your
own two feet and say, then I'll wait or I
will find out the answer somewhere else so that you
don't go, okay, great, I'll just I'll you know.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Buy be convinced otherwise.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Yeah. So the goal is that empowering yes, yes, for
you to become your own advocate and so you know
what the right answers are. So when they say you
can't charge at home, you can go, yeah you can.
You can charge one ten you know, level one two
and three, one ten two twenty DC fast charger.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
You can't do that at home.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
But yeah, the other thing I noticed at the event,
and it's only because I really glanced at it, so
you know, correct my ignorance. Where you had different models
and you had their prices. Was that because they were
for sale or was it just showing their best question?

Speaker 4 (46:55):
I never thought about that, but that's a good question.
We people want to drive kind of what's in their
price point? It's kind of funny, yeah, it's kind of.
And also their range.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
There is the outside of the cyber truck.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
I know, right, it's worth driving, it's so cool. But
the misconception is that you need to have five hundred
mile range. I don't know anybody that's going to drive
five hundred miles in a gas car, much less so
I one of my first TV's I had two hundred
and thirty five mile range, and I never once felt
that was a problem. Was a mindset change. Just like

(47:27):
going from a home phone on the wall to a
cell phone. I can't go, hey, honey, pick up the
phone downstairs. You got to hang up and call them.
So it's a whole different mindset. And so for the vehicles,
they need to know what that range is, and some
people are hung up on that, and it's a hang up.
We can't change everybody's mind. So we we list the range.

(47:51):
So how far can these cars go? People go, oh, yeah,
three hundred miles. I can do that when they probably
would never drive three hundred.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Miles without That's what we got out of a gas car,
without a doubt.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
And also too, it kind of is an interesting paradigm
shift when you're going, you know, four hundred miles in
a day, to stop every hour, hour and a half.
To charge for ten minutes because you can get two
hundred miles and ten minutes, and then you just keep
on going because the middle of the batteries which charges
the fastest, because it slows down. You know, it's like

(48:20):
a fire hose and a waterspicket. You need to slow
it down for battery health when you get up to
the top end. So just charge right in the middle
for fifteen or twenty minutes. Sometimes the car says stop
for five minutes and be on your way. I'm like,
I'm not going to stop for five minutes, but thank
you car. So there's that, and then the price point
we do for people to say I want to stay
within my price range. But I will tell you we

(48:42):
do a lot of disadvantaged communities and I bring the
fancy cars because they may never ever get a chance
to drive those cars again, and it helps them aspire,
and so I like bringing the cyber truck to a
community that would never buy one. Get in there and
drive that car and they are just tickle pink. It's
it's a great feeling for me to do that.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
That's so cool.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
How did you get your hands on a cyber truck?

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Because did you get it early or did you Well?

Speaker 4 (49:07):
I was at the reveal in twenty nineteen.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
When he threw the ball out.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
Oh I was there the steal ball.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
Yeah. Cool.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
So the lady and I were both there, and I
literally ordered four of them that night. Don't know why.
There's the risk side I say ordered. I placed a
reservation four of them, and I had to open up
a second account because it would let you do two.
So I opened up a second account sort of you know,
slid under the radar there, and I ordered the four
and then just let it sit. It was one hundred

(49:35):
dollars a piece of four hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Who cares?

Speaker 4 (49:37):
So did that? And I just waited and life went on,
COVID hit, I mean, all kinds of things happened just
and then December eighth, I got the email that said
your cyber truck's ready. I had kind of forgotten what
I had done cyber truck singular, and I'm like, oh
my gosh, okay, first thing you do is you order it.
Now you have to order it because the reservation's there,

(49:58):
two hundred fifty dollars that and then I just was
super excited and I go, wait, there's another email here.
What is that? Oh there telling me I had to
order my cyber truck. And I went, wait a minute,
was it a different email? And I realized it was
for another reservation. So I put the two hundred five
dollars on that, and so now I have two reservations
and I'm just again waiting. I'm not should the date

(50:20):
I should know this. I think January sixteenth. I was
actually working the Buffalo Auto Show whenever. That was maybe
the end of jet February, the middle of February, and
they called me and said, your cyber truck is ready
for next week. And I was like, oh my gosh, Elaine,
the cyber truck's ready. Should I buy it? Because at
that point, you know, now you have to say, I
got to figure out how I'm paying for this thing.
And so she goes, oh my gosh, yeah, well five

(50:42):
minutes lat of the phone rings again, it's Tesla and
they said, uh, we noticed you have a second cyber
truck here and I was like, I'm busted. There's no way.
I'm totally busted. They figured it out and they go, well,
do you want it because we can let you have
the second one next week. I'm like, yes, So that's
how and in fact, every place we go that like

(51:03):
any Tesla service center. How did you get to I said,
through the luck of the draw? So yeah, that's kind.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Of you to afford him. Is it the best?

Speaker 4 (51:13):
Well, what's the difference, right, right, right? Yeah, it's we're
we're a an LLC and so and honestly, because it
qualifies as a commercial vehicle, we get one hundred percent
right off for the depreciation for the first.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Year's interesting, that's funny.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
My friend of mine he also put the deposit down,
So this is like a luck of the draw, right,
because he put a deposit down and I texted him
I said, Hey, the cyber truck's.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Going to be tomorrow. He's just like, good, tell her
to come by my house.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
And tell having gotten yes, I'll take hers.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
He's so jealous.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
I don't really know. It seems like most of them
were going to Texas, Austin where they're made in California,
because I saw a list of all the ven numbers.
But they're showing up randomly in certain places. But because
I know people, like I said, I I was number five,
four and five in San die Go, and I don't
know how many there are now, but I was. We
were really early on. But the other places that are

(52:06):
being seen, I'm not really sure how they're distributing them.
They do have to be careful because they're brand new bills.
These these these technological marbles are having issues. And yeah,
I'm not going to sit here and try to defend
the whole savage I think, however, I will say this,
everything is blown out of proportion, so and I say,

(52:28):
I'm not going to defend it because if I do,
then there's all those naysayers out there. Even though I
loved you all day long.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
But the great part.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Is that you're on a podcast where our listeners are
just here to grow.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
And yes, yes, no, no, with oh thank you very
much for saying that.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
I do appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
But just little things like the roller ball on the
steering wheel that you turn the volume up and down.
It goes down but not up now, little things like that.
But the car, the truck is it's just amazing. And
so anyway, I'm not sure where I was going back.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
I have some curiosity, and I don't need you to
divulge exactly what you paid for it. My curiosity is
more is like, what's the price range on a cyber truck?

Speaker 4 (53:08):
The foundation range the fine Yeah, between sixty nine and
one hundred.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
So they're not that bad. I thought they were now
even higher, My goodness.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
They can be that the Cyberbeast, which has three motors, yeah,
because I.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Know, like the models is like one twenty right, No, no.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
No, it's that's down to I think that's seventeen now, okay,
but I think it just went yes, yes, and then
there was there used to be the Ludicrous model. Oh
there's there is the Plaid right the Plaid has three Yeah,
that's right, around one hundred, one hundred thousands, but.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
There, but they are affordable in a way.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
Well, gosh, cars have gone up. I remember back in
the day, a thirty thousand dollars car was like expensive, right,
and now it's like to spend the car it spend
seventy grund on the.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Car and people just don't cord is up there.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
Yeah, it's really cool.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
I do have a question for you, and and I'm
phrasing this intentionally like this so that we don't go
off the rails.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
But this has to do with adversity.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
So in the in the in the business that you're in,
in the ev business, there is a lot of adversity
on the other side. You know, obviously you're fighting for
clean air, and then others, you know, they're they're looking
at it differently. And you have the great issue, you
have the coboat mining issues and all these not asking
you to get into defending or or speaking on those
issues at all, My question has to do with how

(54:21):
do you deal with the adversity? How do you deal
with things like that? Because I'm sure you have probably
been met with some adversity in what you do. So
my curiosity is, as a leader of an organization who
is firmly planted in her beliefs and in her mission
for clean air and everything that you believe in, how
do you deal with that adversity and continue to move forward.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
With your mission.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
That's that's a really good question. It kind of depends
on the energy. If it's a person, an individual that
I'm talking to. It depends on the energy that's given,
if they give, if they have bad energy, I tend
to kind of come out scratching at tis. But like
there was this there was this one family at the

(55:05):
New York Auto Show. It was a woman and her
four teenage daughters, and she said, I took back my
Tesla Model S because it ran out of battery and
I was stuck and I couldn't. I couldn't do it.
It just wouldn't work. This is stupid technology. She was

(55:25):
just going on. And she was from a region where
they're a little bit sharp anyway, So I was like, okay.
So one of my guys was standing over there and
he was he tried to go to defend the technology.
I didn't say anything to him. And then the next
day I said, hey, Dave, let's talk about that woman
you spoke to last night, And he says, well, I know.
I was just trying to explain to her that she

(55:46):
should have listened to the car. There was a charger
right there, like miles ahead. She had gone to the
point of no return where she couldn't turn around. She
had to be towed, and I said he. So I
was trying to tell her the car could have told
her that. And next time, I go, well, listen, before
you do that, think about how.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
She must have felt.

Speaker 4 (56:02):
She was a woman with four teenage daughters at night,
where her car had broken down. What is she going
to do? Maybe you should have related, said, that must
have been really hard for you. Now I saw like
a psychologist, don't mean to be, but literally relate to her.
She was angry and felt let down and disappointed. I said,
maybe if you had handled it that way, then you

(56:22):
could have gotten those points and to help her understand
the technology. So that's part of the education. That's part
of the things we want to teach people. And it
happens every day. So those are the types of things.
When I go on a one on one for the
adversity side, when it's a bigger mission, I usually won't
play because I am one person.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
My company is a little company.

Speaker 4 (56:45):
That there's a bigger fight. There are climate groups out
there that can do that, that have the money, they
get the funding. I don't chase that money. I don't
know if I'm going to make much of a difference
in that way. For the electric vehicle Association. We have
a policy team, policy committee. We have folks that stand

(57:06):
at the podium and they try to get bills passed.
That's great. I'm glad they're doing the good fight there.
For me, I want that focus to be to the
individuals because I really believe that that's bodies and seats.
But sin seats are what people call it. I like
to call it bodies and seats. Those are the ones
that really are going to be buying the cars, and

(57:27):
they won't buy the cars if they don't get it.
If you buy an electric vehicle without having an education,
it's going to be a terrible experience. I can almost
guarantee you. I just recently developed a thing called the
ev Essentials. It's a little teeny six inch booklet of
eight pages that has like the top five questions. How
long does it take to charge, how far can you go?

(57:47):
How long does the battery last? Just the typical things.
I can in five minutes tell somebody what they need
to know for them to go. I'm going to buy
an electric car now, So that's where I want to be.
So for the adversity is I'm not one to go
fight that fight, even though I do believe it. I
just think that there's bigger people out there that have
more resources than I do. I want to talk to

(58:09):
the individual and go through the public facing side. I
think both you have to have both.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Well.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
I think what we're picking up from here is is,
you know.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Trusting your industry and leaning on the people that are
willing to fight the fights. And I think it's like
choosing your battles right right and in entrepreneurship and in leadership,
that's truly what it is. It's figuring out what's worth
my time and energy right now.

Speaker 4 (58:33):
And where it can be most effective exactly. You know,
can I be effective over there? I don't think so.
I can be more effective here, you know, knowing what
people need to hear, the small amount of information that
you really need. I don't care about battery chemistry. I
don't really care about of the seven thousand cells out there,
if three of them go, does it dfrag? What does
it do?

Speaker 2 (58:53):
I don't really care about that.

Speaker 4 (58:55):
And when people ask if I get in my car
in the right seat and I let them drive, they
start wanting to talk about pet chemistry. I go, I'm
an owner. I go, if you want that, you call
the automaker. Otherwise I can tell you what how you
get to Grandma's house who lives three or fifty miles away.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
And I think the other important part for everybody who's
listening to understand too is in terms of dealing with
adversity is empathizing with the people. And I think that
that you said it from from the one to one level,
but I think just even on the public level, there's
a way to empathize and say, hey, I appreciate your
concerns on X, Y and Z issues. Here's what I'm doing,

(59:28):
and here's here's our focus and our attention. But it's
it's I think the thing that we get lost in
is not acknowledging others right, And that's where that defensiveness
and that argumentative comes in, is that they want to
be heard. And I mean, like, like I think about Tenley,
my seven year old, Like Tenley will repeat something fifteen
times until you.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Know, dad, dad, dad dad. I thought that that stewie
thing of.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Like my mom mom, until I had kids, And it's
like because until you acknowledge them, they're not going to stop.
And but once you do and just go yes or okay, honey,
or give me a money once you have empathize. So
I love that of just in terms of dealing with adversity,
is empathizing putting yourself in their role and understanding how

(01:00:11):
would I want to be spoken to or dealt with
in that situation. I think that's a really, really great advice.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
One of the ways.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
One of the things I like to learn about someone
like yourself is a driving phrase or a mantra. And
so what is maybe a mantra that is new to
you today or one that you've lived by your entire life,
that you know stands firm in your life today.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
You really put me on the spot with that one,
that'd be a good one to think.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
No, I think it's just one thing I've always done,
and I always try to teach the people that work
for me, or my kids or my family, is that
the people that you deal with, they just want.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Your authentic self.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
And being authentic shows the energy that you give out.
They know if it's real or fake, and make sure
it's not fake. So be be authentic, be genuine, put
yourself in someone else's shoes. I've told my kids forever,

(01:01:18):
there's no one on this planet you will not like.
If you accept them for what they can give. If
you watch the series Friends and you look at all
the characters, they all had something quirky right. Monica was
OCD and Phoebe was a ditch and Joey they all
had their thing right, but they all loved each other.
And so when my kids come home came home from

(01:01:38):
school and would tell me something about somebody at school,
I say, which one are they on? Friends? Because you
will love them anyway even with their bad qualities. Everyone's
got something. I got things people don't like, but you
have to accept them for what they are. So be
genuine because people buy from people and not a business.

(01:01:59):
Whenever we made a mistake or make mistakes in my company,
I say, don't you dare blame it on the company.
You take responsibility because they will forgive you. They won't
forgive the company. You know that we had big trucks
and every time, every time I come in, one of
the windows with the mirrors were broken off. Big trucks
like twenty six footers, and I'd say, guys, another mirror.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
We were laughing on who's going to knock it off
next week? I go, do you realize that money is
coming out of my pocket this well no, because they
just thought of the company. But so you have to
put into that, which gets into being genuine and people
wanting to buy from you and have that relationship with you.
So it's all about the respect, relationship, caring, and it
brings it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Back, like you said, bring it back to the family.
It's been so cool to have you on. It was
serendipitous for us to meet, wasn't it that, And for
Jonathan to be able to communicate with me, to be
able to get us yeah together because you've been doing
like the East Coast tour up and down the course
with everyone and you're kind of wrapping it up today
I think right going down the Pearl River, which is

(01:03:02):
which is really really cool. I would love for you
to share any ways that people can get a hold
of you, get in touch with you, whether through your
website or social media handles. Of course it'll be in
the show notes, but just for our audio listeners. If
you have any.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
Hello at evoptions dot net, that will get right to me.
Hello ATVL at evoptions dot net.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
That's the best way. I have to be honest.

Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
We are a B to B company, business to business,
so we don't really have a big social following. Not
to mention we're really busy. I know we need that.
We've hired a social media person, but I just I
haven't had a chance.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
We did have.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):
We stopped through Kansas City at Evergy Energy to let
them drive the cyber trucks, and she posted something on LinkedIn.
Terry Kirsh and her team stopped by and it just
got I mean, I can't say it went viral, but
it's certainly got a lot of attention. I go, I
think we probably need to do this more, but we're
certainly not hurting for business.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
So that is so cool to hear because I put
a big push and bus is on social media to
help with business right right, So for you to not
even need it quite yet is pretty cool. And I mean,
you know, whatever it is, but that's nice. That's really cool. So,
like I said, it's been awesome having you on. I
also want to share about my fast that I'm doing
with everybody who's listening, doing a seventy two hour fast

(01:04:17):
on May fifteenth, and that's to raise awareness and money
for the people in Haiti. We're doing it through the
Forgotten Term of Haiti, which is going to help the
agricultural program through the Saint Luke Foundation in Haiti. So
if anybody wants to check it out or learn more
about how they can help, just visit my website Michael
Esposito ink dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
Wonderful That's what I have for everyone.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
I want to thank you so much for kay, Thank
you for having me such a pleasure to meet you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Thank you for listening to the Michael Esposito Show. For
show notes, video clips and more episodes, go to Michael
Esposito Inc. Dot com backslash podcast. Thank you again to
our sponsor dn ten Insurance Services helping businesses get the
right insurance for all their insurance needs. Visit I to

(01:05:01):
get a quote. That's d E N t N dot
io and remember when you buy an insurance policy from Denten,
you're giving back on a global scale. This episode was
produced by Uncle Mike at the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie.
Special thanks to Lara Rodrian for the opportunity and my
team at Mike Lesposito Inc.