Scoggin Dickey Playbook: How to Grow Your Shop, Win More Shows & Build Real Relationships

Transcript

Welcome to the automotive advantage. Grow your business and get smarter in just one hour. Keith Wilson, who’s the outside sales manager for Skog & Dickey Performance Center is going to join us today. Unbelievable guest. He serves as the outside sales manager where he plays a vital role in connecting the company’s performance parts and create engine programs to enthusiasts, shops and racers across the country. Known for his hands-on approach, Keith travels coast to coast representing Skog & Dickey Performance Center at major automotive events, races and trade shows while also calling directly on performing shops, installers and builders to help them grow their business with extensive products. His deep technical knowledge, real-world relationships and passion for motorsports make him one of the most trusted voices in the field when it comes to the crate engines, tri-train solutions and dealer level support for the high performance community. Keith Wilson, welcome to the automotive advantage.

Great to be here, guys. Y’all need to know that this podcast is pissing me off every week. What happened, buddy? Because we’ll be going on, I’m measuring our business by some of the things that people are saying. Check. Check. Dang it. That should be obvious. You know. But I appreciate it. This is a great podcast. It has replaced some other podcasts. But anyway, got to be here. Alright, Joe Rogan, you’re out. Automotive advantage. We’re in. Yeah, how did you know? Alright, without reading this, because I didn’t like the intro. Felt a little… Well, you have a good AI generator. You just said that.

Give me the real… Give the listeners what they need to know about this upfront, Jamie. Give me an intro. Keith is a very rare expert in this industry. He’s working for one of the top dealers, automotive dealers, that also does performance parts very well. And I’m curious about where the industry is winning and where it’s really struggling. So, we got to capture a lot from you today. I’ll do what I can. How do you want to be known in the industry right now? What sets you apart and what’s your goal day to day?

Let me answer it this way. You know, I was listening to Nick Saban talk about our sports team and why they were successful one day. And he said they didn’t it appears that they didn’t come with a playbook to play against This team they they have a playbook and they’re they execute executed on that playbook Scoggin Dickey Your last podcast was Mickey Fowler legend in the industry there at our Chevy performance meeting they were calling the Godfathers and so we’ve had some really amazing talent at our place and we We try new things But we have a playbook and we know what that what that is and we try to refine

Our execution of that and and The landscape changes a little bit, you know We had a parts manager this year that had 53 years with us and they were remarking on What were the big events? That were big deals to scog and Dickey One of them was we got a 1-800 number You know and so you never know what thing you’re gonna try or what trend you’re gonna adopt It’s gonna you’re gonna look back and go wow. That was a 1-800 number was a big deal. They instituted a

Electronic order system because the lady didn’t put it, you know Couldn’t put those orders in with General Motors. They couldn’t read You know, so just to get for error purposes it was you never know what you’re gonna do in your small business, too That’s gonna be a turnout to go. Wow, that was really good moving. We really didn’t even know it so He doesn’t even like your questions this is not going off to a good start Here I’ll try a question. Maybe maybe we have a better better thing going here Scoggin has been kind of a powerhouse in this industry for a long time and For a lot of established businesses that are winning. It’s hard for them to Try new things change things go to different events. They just feel like we’re doing good. I don’t want to experiment anymore. We’re done We talked to a lot of people on this podcast and mainly off of this podcast Who started a shop had a very successful run-up and it felt very flat or declining for the last? decade maybe and It seems like they’re not applying some of the things that you guys are doing But it also seems like be very hard for you guys to continue to advance all the time Because you can just do the same thing you did last year and you’re still gonna make a ton of money, right? So talk to me about that drive and that like hey, we’re gonna keep innovating. We’re gonna keep trying We’re gonna get a 1-800 number. We’re gonna try QR codes. Okay, there’s didn’t work But this one did like give me that playbook for scoggin.

Yeah Well our playbook that we are successful, you know with the most is when we have a supplier that Buys in such large quantity that we can buy from them at a really good price and that applies to Automotive shops or the aftermarket Not every OEPs can be used in the aftermarket. There’s a lot of them that can and and Especially since LS introduction multi-layer gaskets front covers, you know different things outstanding heads and and then there’s some things that we we do a market do some adjustments and Then there’s some things that we’ve that we thought We’re still a ton of these and we’re still inventory and every day and one every year. So So we try things never be afraid to try some things within a reason

We went through the very You know things are so electronic I go to shops and Some of the Engine builders there’s several engine builders at this one shop and They have an account with a company and each Individual engine builder is ordering things off his phone what he needs for that for upcoming bills And so this guy that was the parts guy That’s now the place Tim to a more significant role. You just you’ve got to look at as you grow things are going to change and We went through the painful process This year

First of all, I want to say about the painful process there’s there’s computer software that runs dealerships The car coming in selling the car service parts everything course going back And we were with CDK and they crashed for About Two weeks and we always said, okay, it’s no big deal. We’ve got Several cases of three part forms. We’ll just go back to the way it was and I always thought we would do that No, we’re way beyond that. We went through those boxes in like an afternoon and

That cost us I can’t say but a lot of money and We had decided to change software before them and the reason we’re doing the whole reason we’re doing this and thank God we have we’ve been in business with a family for 96 years and We’re a General Motors crossword Subaru. We sell 200 lines of aftermarket parts But the one that brought us to the dance is General Motors and That’s where the succession of people that were in charge in the parts Wendell Fowler and Nikki Fowler now Crosby long and our crew

You know, we see that You know, well the guy that’s Sitting in Nikki’s chair is going back to school to understand AI to understand how that can say Somebody calls in and they buy a water pump AI looks at that the last times we’ve sold that and Suggest well these people bought 13 gallons of antifurrays these people but whatever Bought a water pump gasket. They bought a thermostat they can suggest these and then we have the

Part salesperson not an order taker. We’re trying to Train our people to not just process orders to be a salesman Did you think do you need gaskets? Do you need a thermostat? you know and So we there is some painful things that you are going to need to go through in a business to Stay on that edge and you’re gonna discover a lot about your business that you’re But you’re always gonna say that so anyway You know that those are some things you need to do I was listening to the Auto Party of Authority podcast. I

Okay Jamie you told Justin you said hey What are 10 things that the automotive shop needs to be doing right now? He’s pan bam bam and I thought okay This shop is making themselves relevant to the customer And I thought oh my god I’ve spent the last two years That’s like we check the boxes. Okay, we as you get More successful business you’re gonna draw more talent. Okay The guy that does our IT and the guy that does our social media. Do you remember Mexico Racing League? Yeah, those two guys came to us and We always said hey we got a door open they came to us and they’re doing that our engine shop Nikki We did a 55,000 square foot warehouse extension. I mean we were going over the service. We’re going out to here up to the fire code limit, you know, just whatever we could and

I’ve been out traveling and came back and it was finished and saw just walking through there and Nikki was back there and and He goes man, I want to show you something he goes This area I want to have a machine shop someday It was plumbed and wired and I was like well good luck with that because you got I said it too Good luck with that because you got to have some people that know how to do it well somebody else’s misfortune was our misfortune and we had a very notable super comp super gas engine builder that was murdered and All of his people didn’t want to move when the shop sold so they came to us and I just remember Them saying we want to start a machine shop and it’s right before PR Legal paddle and said tell me what you need because he had already preloaded that I’m sure the major backstory but

Thinking ahead with those things But what I was thinking on that podcast let me not get down this squirrel is I’ve spent the last two years Asking myself the question. Are we relevant with our suppliers? because coded really If you don’t have anything on the shelf, you can’t sell it. Okay, I pulled up to a shop in Houston and They sold the heck out of gen 5 and gen 6 Camaro accessories They sold so many heritage grills that when GM decided to discontinue it We went to GM and said can you ask that manufacturer? To do another run and we’ll buy every one of them. They did But we have relationship with that manufacturer and that bought us some time to figure out What we needed to do and I pulled up to that shop and I was like, wow We’re really down and it just hit me. Well, hell we hadn’t had a Camaro in Forever and I thought you know what

I’m gonna thank some people at GM. I was specifically thinking about Tom Peters set up Tom Peters Yeah, yeah, he’s just incredible designer legendary designer for Corvettes and Camaros and all that and I was at HPX and I was catching up with his daughter Adrian and I Said hey, Tom. I always wanted to thank you for the vehicles that you produce Because that has put food on my family’s plate and you know, we don’t have this

So you know things change and you need to Think about him. I am I just building Chevrolet transmissions or do I need to get educated on? the Chrysler transmissions or the Ford transmissions or whatever or You know, you’ve got to diversify to some degree because you never know We’re not smart enough to really have a crystal ball To know that codes coming and and all that, you know, so being relevant to your suppliers Do you even I mean with you know, you talked a little bit about private equity. Do you even know your rep?

for these big companies Because there’s some day that you you may need a favor Are you are you as a supplier or you have a business are you doing things for the people that you That buy a lot from you pay We’re selling a lot of this part number. I don’t see that you’ve bought in at least partner You probably need to think about bonus part number you know So anyway, that’s that’s probably said too much about our pay-to-play vote

No, I think it’s great I think back to when I started in the industry and went to my first shop and we had never gone to a trade show or anything and you think that the game is oh, we just get a certain product and we sell it and then we’re good and then after Selling zero of those things we realized oh the game is you have to know the person at the place you’re buying it from and you have to get margin and you have to understand what’s coming next and what’s hot and like I Think you of all people that we’ve had on can talk to how important those personal relationships are Like you’re going to a lot of events you’re talking to customers and being like, okay, that’s what we need But then you’re talking to suppliers to and being like what are you guys seeing? What are you guys doing and I think a lot of people in this industry? For whatever reason are kind of anti-social People or they don’t want to get out and they don’t want to talk too much and they feel like they’re giving away secrets If they’re talking about those things, but give me kind of your vibe on just how important it is to communicate Face to face or phone calls or emails probably more phone calls and face to face I’d imagine but where you at on that continuum

well, I think that you Like with most of my shops that I’ll walk into I’m just not Doing what I call a howdy call have a reason to be there. So I’m not wasting their time when I go in I Do try to keep up relationships because you never know where they’re gonna show up Talented people will show up probably in that same space at someplace else. I just this month I was Calling on a shop and he does business with another shop in that town. I thought I don’t know that So I was going to another shop and there it was across the street where another shop had been and went somewhere else The players were gone and there was a mechanic that that came up and I said well who

You know here the decision makers here. Oh this guy wait This guy and I said his full name he used to work for another Person that we had I didn’t know where he went well Our salesman that dealt exclusively with him. I went back and said, hey, here’s his information. No calling they’re bound from us, so It’s it’s it would seem and it would appear to you and be intimidating that it’s a big industry and it is but these trade shows events

Things like that Just if you start out Calling them emailing About certain things building a relationship Those can pay off in spades are so valuable I’m gonna I’m gonna ask the question again, but What’s it take to be a good salesman right now in? 2025 like I think you have made this look easy for years But talk to us like if you were coaching your son on how to be a great salesperson or your daughter What does it take what what you’re pre calling them? You’ve prepped them, you know the handshake Like what are the details of being a good salesperson right now?

Most of what I’ve learned in the industry came from other great people You know that have a past life of 18 years selling them the knee implants shoulder implants Man, they taught us because there’s nothing nobody in no Customer in the world like a doctor that can tear your ass off if you’re wrong and So and that’s one thing I was telling you know, it’s no secret Get me back on task, but there’s it’s no secret that we’ve got another small block coming out and I told The catalog people the marketing people the engineering people this week We have got to be on kill When we come out with this product We have to have we have to know everything we have to you know Don’t pre-sell it and then it never quite gets out. I Think we’re it can be 90 days out and be alright, you know

But so what I have learned has come from great people and Basically Planning your work and working your plan Even if you modify that plan a little bit You will see that Over a period of time you will probably get it pretty right You know, for instance trade show season’s coming up That’s my back. So Ice I had a revelation one day that All my data is what? People bought from us. Wait a minute. Who are we buying from?

You know, so I have a list of probably 14 14 people whose who we bought from and they buy from us Okay big manufacturers and We will have a meeting this next week and we will put a name on Somebody that’s a CMR PRI or probably HPX next year when it goes around to go and see That people those people make sure we’re getting the best deal And you don’t know so you we I? Nikki and Kurt urban were walking to somewhere and I wanted to go tag along and They said well, we need to go over here. There’s draw some people Draw some tank manufacturer because they have one that really is going to be what we’re going to use in the factory stock cart okay, so we go over there and Because saying you know, they just don’t give us the best deal. It’s it’s it’s not we don’t get a great deal from them

so Somebody at the trade show that was one of their salesman was listening and he stepped forward and he said Well, why don’t you buy from us and if you said you just don’t get a great deal and he goes Well, if you put it on your website, we can go here done Just we didn’t know you know and the salesman that has our account. I Never knew that nobody ever knew that so going in and Just being honest if you say you’re gonna do something do it to the best of you I’m not gonna be able to do everything just just be honest in your work and You don’t know if this guy is starting out here. That’s little is gonna be Have an amazing volume of business, you know, so treat everyone like

a great customer someday or they are you know and Just keep coming back you know Be friendly try to help people you know But yeah I mean, I think there are some amazing points in there that might get glossed over. So maybe we should go through them again. I feel like you mentioned setting goals and I’ve been to all of the trade shows a million times with a million different people. Most of the goals are like, what bar are we going to? What’s the, when’s the VIP thing? Blah, blah, blah, we’re gonna fucking, I got to check out that new blower for my car. Right, some race car you’re never gonna build. Like having tangible. For six years. Yeah, you’re never gonna do it. Having tangible real goals where it’s like, hey, we need three new international accounts, five mid-size accounts and two flyers. Let’s just take a chance on them, something like that. Is that what you guys are doing every show, every quarter? Are you thinking about it that detailed or is it giving kind of your vibe on that?

Yeah, we look at, so I was doing all of the road shows and the trade shows and I came back to, in between Christmas and New Year’s, I would go to the office, run sales reports, the year ends that really looked at what we did over year over year. And I would like, I haven’t been at that. They were wanting to sell their business. Did I even know if there’s a new person there? And we would go to a show and get back and follow up and then plan for a show and would have a few days to call on local customers. And I went to Nicky and I said, hey, this has got to change.

And we had hired Warren who’s absolutely fearless young man. I can see him like, they tore ourselves and his ass off on the phone and it just really, we couldn’t get a break. Would you go call him? He goes, yeah. So I had a great guy, Warren Eckree. And Nicky goes, okay, well, figure out how you need to do that and let me know. Okay, thanks. (Laughing) Give it to this room. (Laughing) And so I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought,

Warren’s been asking for the trade shows, or had been asking for the road show. He’s been with me for five years. He knows where we go. He’s made relationships with the people at the trade shows. I mean, if trade shows are gonna be your, if events are gonna be your deal, sometimes you talk to other manufacturers and other people in your area of the business and you say, what’s your most successful show? Or better, somebody that has a little bit of different, different things, so you’re not trying to poach their business, because they’re not gonna tell you. Get somebody that’s parallel with you and ask them, hey, where are your best shows?

Well, what’s going on there? What, ask them questions. Then if you find that it’s a good show, and you’ve just probably been to one in a series, get to know like, you know, Sadie at Good Guys. What’s your biggest show? Do you have any dealers there? You know, Keith, there’s a really good show and there ain’t one dealer that’s showing up. Well, I have spent most of my budget changing out Chevrolet performance logos. So here’s about what I can do. What can you do for me? You know, you need to go negotiate. You don’t just take the sticker price, and they want people to come to these shows. So you are now working the trade show people and the show people. So, and you know, and look at, you know, like I said, suppliers, other people in the business.

You know, you’re people that you’re selling to. So we sell to some really nice rebuilder shops. Hey, what are your biggest shows that you’re selling the most? Or where are these customers coming from? Dino’s get down, okay. Then we may need to go there or C10 National. Okay, well, you know, there are gonna be a thousand other guys just like this guy there that may not even know. People don’t know. People call me all the time. I just had a guy call me this week. Hey, you know, just wanted to see if somebody gave me your number, and I just want to see if we could get an account with you.

And I was like, okay, yeah, sure. What do you do? Small time shop, you know, and I said, yeah, we can, would you be okay with a credit card account? Absolutely. You know, I don’t know where this perception is that the individual buyer can’t buy it, but we’ve, somehow we’ve, that’s been planted in his mind. So we, you know. I want to go real deep into the rig program because it’s pretty rare. Yeah, I got off that.

And we didn’t have a power outage. Yeah. We got through it though. No, we didn’t even have one. Some flawless in here. I think I’m sorry. Go on. Cost of a rig program, how many events you’re going to, how do you staff it? How do you measure a show? And I’m going to ask the same question. What are your top five shows that you’re, you according to your ranking. So hit me with the cost of a rig program and why are you even doing this?

Well, there’s something to be said for brand promotion and awareness. You know, the guy that they’re looking and they’re like, who are y’all? Are you Chevrolet performance? No, Chevrolet performance doesn’t come to this anymore. We’re representing them here. We’re their number one dealer. Okay. Well, I’m over here. We ship around the world every day, man. We can launch an engine out to you. And, so, it’s a lot of money. The way we’re doing it. Yeah, it can be. Depending on what size rig you want to get, we’ve done it from a 32 foot tag trailer and a dually to a Kenworth, Todor, Semi, and our Renegade, Stacker, Liftgate, Holler, 40 foot trailer. And taking a 53 foot semi trailer to SEMA and PRI.

So, there’s that scale. So, initially, you need to have a staff that can man it and they can be away from your business. Depending on shows, it’s about a week. And once you do some of the things that I said about determining what shows you want to go to, you need to think hard about logistics. Warren and I have, it was cheaper for us to store the trailer than to drive all the way back to Texas and drive all the way back to Michigan or Chicago or Las Vegas or, you know, wherever. So, we find somebody in the industry. We whatever, store the trailer, fly back. And then we can get back to business.

And there’s gonna be the long haulers and there’s gonna be the short haulers. There’s gonna be the guys that are answering the phones. They’re probably your best technical experts that you want to fly in and do the trade show and you want to shoot them back out. And then you’re gonna be the guy that’s, you know, eating at loves, you know, for two days on the way back. The way we started was somebody else’s misfortune. And Nicky called me into his office and he said, “Hey, GM’s going through their bankruptcy.”

And they had spots already paid for, but they’ve taken away, as a part of the bankruptcy, they’ve taken away the rig program. And so they can’t show up. They need a dealer to go in those spaces. So, we bought the 32 foot bumper pull. In my first event, we pulled it with Marty Morris’s three quarter ton pickup to somewhere. He was like, and his wife was like, this is his best car, his favorite car, if you wreck it, he’s gonna kill it. So there was no pressure. But, so we started, start with where you’re at. If it’s an eight, 10 foot, get a pop up with your logos on it.

And don’t look like a bunch of dirt bags. Brush your teeth if you’re working with, I had to tell a guy, you know you have a bad breath problem. Oh, I didn’t know anything about that. From that day on, he didn’t have a bad breath problem. You can’t be out partying all night. I’m sorry. Because, and I’ve had some young 20s, join us at SEMA. And they were going home that day, like the middle of the afternoon from the show and they show up at the booth.

And they’ve got slides and basketball shorts on. Send them back to the hotel to change. They did not understand what just the visuals are when people are walking by your booth. At Good Guys one year, we got best outside display. And we take pride in our displays and signage. People don’t know what this is. Give them a sign to help them out. And you’ve got your talking points right there. But yeah, prep for those. Trade shows are a little different. You gotta get to know the trade show.

I think they’re valid in our business. I’ve been interested in some of the products from a guy that just brought his pickup and offloaded some stuff and had a, well, I think Nicky tells a story about the first PRI. They had like a 10 foot table and a tablecloth or something. And I remember when PRI was in Orlando and we were all shacked up in a Airbnb. But it may be humble, but beginnings and you may not look like Holly or something like that.

But you’re, start where you can. Take advantage of free stuff at the trade shows. Your first new product is free. There’s digital ads and things like that. So really read the stuff on the trade shows. Get to know your rep. Ask the people, you have people that sell to you and you look and saw that they were on the vendor list. Well, how was it for you? What do I need to know? Where did you stay? Where did you park your trailer?

What was teardown and setup like? How can I, again, not pay half a billion dollars in drayage? Is there something that I don’t have to have forklift in that I could walk in, you know, and it’d be just as successful? Do I need experts in the field? We hire a lot of GM engineers to come and I told the GM people, I said, I want to have some of these guys here. And we, I said, we’re going to have her run an engineer. You know, and we had a guy that was an ex trucker that just did logistics for us and it was his retirement job, you know, and it, he just loved cars. He could fix anything.

He was our dude, you know, and he loved it. And he would have gone for nothing probably, you know. But you’re going to get the bug and you’re going to be upgrading, you know, longer trailer, nicer trailer, wrapped trailer, duly, you know, and I asked Nicky one day, I said, well, when he said GM was going for their bankruptcy and these rigs have gone away, I said, well, did y’all, did not, did not, did not do this? And he said, yeah, we used to do it. And I said, well, why did you quit?

And he said, well, we got to the show one day and we looked around and there were no vendors there. So we had to ask the question, do we need to be there? So don’t get in love with one show. You need to, there’s waves of things, C10 trucks. It’s going to probably be your grand national show at some point in time. I don’t know if it made enough of them, but I wish they did. So get in love with too many shows,

How do you measure a show? And what are your five best shows? Wow, that’s, I wish Warren was here too, but I asking, you know, what are our best shows that we take our trailer to and we’re showing outside. And I would say, God, you’re gonna have to rank them. Outshot shows, LS Fest and Bully Green is still really good for our market. Okay, we stay over for the Chrysler show. And we did stay over for the Ford show there. Your junk’s already there. You’re probably in the space. You know, that may make it a little easier for you.

The C10 national shows for the truck market is really hot. I mean, on the way to HPX, I left on Labor Day Monday, I think it was, and drove to Talladega and did a show in Talladega Speedway. And then packed up on Saturday afternoon, Sunday, drove to HPX, unloaded, and did that show. Warren flew in, drove to Kansas City. You know, you can’t afford to take everybody because there’s people that have to be at the shop,

who can even drive out here and help set up. And then this guy that’s working the show could drive back. I’m sure you need to leave it there. But man, Ellis Fest, C10 nationals for the other shows. I know Dino’s get down is fabulous, but they’ve got other dealers and we try to play nice at this point in time. And of the trade shows for us, because we’re in the performance and racing, we’re not into styling and things like that.

PRI is our best show, and we’ve really got our eye on HPX. From what I saw at HPX, it’s coming. I mean, it is in a fabulous place. It is in a fabulous place. Walking distance to downtown Charlotte is just the best for accommodating people and food that doesn’t cost a bazillion dollars like Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a killer man. SEMA’s still legitimate. That show was on a year to year basis for a while. And I was setting up the marshaling yard,

and I’d been there since 11 o’clock in the morning. These are some of the things you need to think about that you’re gonna have to go through. And at 4.30, I kept going up and saying, hey, they’re gonna call me to drive 20 miles back to the convention center. And this lady said, I got there at 4.30, and she said, no, they’re cutting it off at five, and if you haven’t been called, you’re gonna have to stay another day. Well, I already checked out of my hotel.

So I started looking at app at just a, like a sleep-in was 200 something dollars a night, you know. So you really need to do some math whether you can afford to go to that show. How do we evaluate shows? It’s very hard. I have a manufacturer that says, well, how much did you sell to show? That is the worst metric. I mean, I hope it fulfills all fantasies, but I’m sorry, because it might be not a fantasy, it might be a nightmare.

But did you have engagement with people who have the ability to buy now or buy later? Is it some shop or some person that you can develop over time? So, I mean, I went to a show one time and there was a guy and he said, well, I want this engine. I was like, cool, we’ll take your information. It’s before we had electronics and could just sell it right there. So we’ll take your information, we’ve got them in stock, and we’ll get back with you. No, I wanna buy this one right here.

Okay, yeah, we can sell. We can sell you one, but we wanna ship it from the dealership. No, I wanna buy this one right here. We went over to the engine swap tent, borrowed a cherry picker and put it in the back of his dam pickup. And he brought back a masterpiece and he was a great customer from then. I just was too stupid to know that he wanted to buy this exact display engine. So take stuff that you can sell, lock that to the show.

But yeah, I don’t have a crystal ball, but it was easy to do business at HPX. Let me just say that. And we did some really good business. What’s your timeline for a show? Meaning I think a lot of people we talk about, they wanna go to a show and they’re like, “I didn’t sell anything.” It’s like, okay, well, that’s a terrible metric, one. But two, even the first time you meet someone, you’re not gonna get to know them until the second or third or fourth or 10th time, right? So when Scoggins looking at a show, are you always thinking three years unless it’s just obviously terrible? Or like, how long should a person at home give a show before they’re like, “Okay, this isn’t for me.” I feel like in this industry, we’re very quick to judge things. And we’re just like, “I went once, I hated it. “I’m never going back again.” What’s your kind of vibe on length for building a relationship

at a show? Generally, we’re looking at probably three years and we should definitely know. And we wanna see some improvement. We wanna see some leads generated that paid off within three months to a year. Were we relevant at that show? Did we take the right displays? We need to have some introspection about the show. If it was a total loser, did it rain like hell? And it was an outside show. And nobody came or whatever. You have to really have a debrief on the show when you get back, Jamie, what was your experience? Who did you talk to? What are the leads? What are the leads you’re gonna follow up? What is your timeline? What do we need to do? What did they say about our business? Justin, who did you talk to? Who did you engage with? We keep a, we pay outrageous money for internet and we have a lot of money to do. We have internet and we have a computer there and we’re logged in. They can buy anything that we have right there and we can give them, you know, processing information and all that, spend the money on that. So that you can be relevant right then

and or follow up. And if they didn’t hit initially, keep looking for them at other events and keep, if you have a business card or whatever, that person may have moved to a different role. We’ll find out who that new person is at this place or stay in touch with these people. Hey, did you know that I was thinking about you the other day, we brought on a new product and this might be relevant to your business.

You’re in their court. You’re trying to help them. You’re trying to develop them. Gotta stay in touch. You know, you don’t wanna see them the next year and think, God, I could, I should have. You know, and I’ve done it. Oh yeah, we’ve all done it. I think the other thing is that it’s working the plan part, but also having a plan to begin with, right? And being like, where are we going to put our leads?

Maybe we don’t have a CRM. Okay, that’s fine. Maybe they’re going in a sell spreadsheet. Maybe we’re all just gonna write them down and hand them to Rick at the end of the day, whatever. But if you don’t do that, 10 years later when the guy buys $2 million worth of stuff, where did this guy even come from? I think we met him at the, yeah, it’s like, no, it came from this show, right? And just being able to measure that is so important. I think a lot of the times people take for granted,

how did you end up here on this podcast? Like, I met you at probably PRI 30 years ago or something like that, you know? You were on the camera. Yeah, exactly. And it’s like, it’d be so hard to quantify that today, but that is the reality of it, right? And people miss that a lot. Yeah, and I’ve, you know, pre-planning, post-follow-up, and I mean, when I’ll leave a show, I’m thinking about what works for us and what’s not working. And I’ll learn something at every show

so that what was painful at the previous show is not as painful at the next show if possible. But yeah, ILS Fest is still knocking it out of the park. PRI, just because that is a lot of our customer base. And HPX, because I really, you know, we go to SEMA because we do sell into that market and a lot of people, God dang, a lot of people go. There’s a lot of people that aren’t buyers there.

But I would take HPX because we didn’t know. And I just thought about it when we had that. We had some East Coast customers that I don’t see it, that PRI or SEMA. And I need to, I need to ask them why they don’t come out there. Maybe they’re a machining facility that are cranking out a bunch of parks and they’re in freaking Mooresville that you can’t swing a dead cat and not hit somebody that worked in NASCAR building a specialty park, you know. And they came to HPX, you know. And I had never met them, and they’d been buying from us before.

I started in 2009. (Laughing) So there’s always room to grow, okay. And we just got a 10 by 10. We’ve already signed up for a 10 by 20. We’ll grow as the show grows at this work. Keith, what’s the biggest threat to sky-gadgeting here right now? I would say supply chain. We’re still not out of supply chain disruption. I’m sorry. I’ve talked to so many customers in this last 10 months that if they’re keeping an inventory, they’re keeping a just in time inventory,

the end user people. They’re building engines that are building cars. They’re not stocking stuff. And I think that’s gonna be a problem for them, especially if they don’t have a supplier near them. And we haven’t talked to them about how they can buy and use our warehouse basically as their inventory. And that is part of our reason we changed DMSs so that we can integrate B2C and B2B better than we are. And so, you know, shipping is a total bitch.

I’m telling you, man, during COVID, you would be shocked at the pile of freight damage engines that we have. And we have to put money in that. We have time in that. We have a dedicated person that just repairs or determines this engine is not salvageable. He comes to work every day. And that’s what he does five days a week from 8 to 5. of all, that’s insane. Yeah, I’m sure. We gotta stop there for a second. That is insane. But yeah, this, I think everyone got really spoiled because there was a period of time where just in time on demand was fine. You could come into a shop. What do you need? Blower, got it. It’ll be here tomorrow. Got it. Simple. And then as soon as that started to turn, I think a lot of people are still struggling with that. And I think the smart shops,

like I just, Venjis was working on a grand sport for me right now. And Venjis is a smart shop. So, yeah. Ron is awesome. They were like, do not drop the car off until I have every single part here. Yes. Because we’ve all done this where you dropped the car off and months later, you’re still waiting on. It’s rare though. That’s rare. It was great. He’s like, do not drop this car off. Do not even think about it. I’m gonna, this is your list. We’re ordering everything. Probably have it came from you. And then I’m gonna check it. He’s got a guy. They go through every box, make sure everything’s there, make sure nothing’s broken. Okay, cool. We have it. Bring the car, right? And that was such an awesome system. As a customer, it’s a great system because I know my car is not just sitting there, doing nothing. As a business, it’s a great system. But to your point,

if you know you’re doing a bunch of these, start to inventory some of this stuff, right? Especially if you can. Does the business have terms where you don’t have to pay for it immediately up front? And will they give you 30 days to pay for it? And then you can get into it and see, did I need to stock 10 or can I just stock five of those? And talk to your manufacturer, your supplier. Is there a better way to buy this? Do you have an alternative that’s better, that’s cheaper, that is the same thing?

And if I get a charge account, will you do free shipping for me? What is your shipping term? You’ve got to run a business. You gotta be smart about your business. And a lot of, this is teaching people to run a business from people who are running a business. And they’re teaching me a lot. That’s why I love the podcast. But yeah, it’s, and we’re gonna use AI to determine what is moving and what is not.

And I think we will be getting better. But I think the things that I see at Skog & Dickey that I think are dangerous, are supply, as I said. And we cannot set on our laurels. We’ve been the number one Chevrolet performance, be there for quite some time. But if Chevrolet can’t supply the engine, we need to change our knowledge based on other things. And we’ve had to do that. We’ve had to, we have a cross-store store. So we are becoming experts in gym three handing. We have one guy who’s absolutely fabulous and he is an expert.

And, you know, becoming, everybody needs to, that touches a customer, needs to become a salesman. They don’t need to take, be the order taker. We can automate that in many, in many, in this world. But, and one thing that I really like is we’re communicating with each other. We have a weekly wholesale meeting and we have a weekly performance meeting. What’s working, what’s not? Did you know there’s a rebate coming up? Did you know that we aren’t getting that product?

So here’s the product that we can sell. Just communication within the company. And I think when you empower people to have a voice or, you know, have a good idea, management’s not responsible for all the damn good ideas. The guy sitting on the phone, we had a salesman that was selling a collision part and these people did not buy from us. And he thought, well, what if I did our discount plus 0.01? Started getting orders. He was a salesman, figured it out. And then everybody else figured it out off of what he did.

I mean, people love the AI conversation here, so I think we should dig into that. I mean, immediately, right, an old school sales guy, he’s kind of his own, what other parts is this guy gonna need AI system, right? Yeah. I’m sure if I had an AI that could tell me that sometimes someone bought something from nitrous outlet, I know they’re gonna need tires, converter. I can kind of guess into this pretty quickly. And that used to have to be tribal knowledge. Like, okay, I’ve done enough of these that I know you’re gonna need a clutch or I know I’m gonna need this. But there’s probably so many missing things there that you wouldn’t even consider.

Okay, if I buy plugs, I might need wires, got it. But really, what’s the next thing that you’re not even thinking about, that an AI could be like, hey, every single time they do this, it’s a huge signal that they’re about to buy a car cover. So just some random thing, I don’t even know. To look at a customer that you buy, that buys a lot from you. And if you could get AI to say, what are they not buying that other customers have a similar volume or buying that are in the same business? Then you may have to go back and say, these people are in hot roger restoration, this is a machine shop, this is an independent repair facility. You may have to help it.

But how can you leverage that? I mean, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunate. My son has taught me a lot about that. Oh yeah. You know, a 29 year old son, not afraid of it. He’s gonna use it to his, he understands that that has to all come through him. And he can say, that’s fabricated, that doesn’t work. But looking at your particular business, and I can’t imagine that there’s, okay, I always think a lot about from the transmission shop owner.

He’s selling some, he needs to determine, what are you good at? Why are customers coming to you? I wonder if that transmission shop could go along and say, what are other performance transmission shops selling that I’m not selling? What is their pricing? Can you give me a characteristic on how they advertise? Do they do build videos? Do they do promotional videos? Do they do tech videos? You know, what? How can I leverage that to help me build my business?

Yeah, this is an absolutely huge one that I think everyone should be doing. But you can use chat GPT, cloud, whatever, for competitive analysis that’s really good. So just like, hey, this is my brand, website, social media, blah, blah, blah. This is who I am competing with, website, social media. Tell me what they’re doing better than me and tell me what I’m doing better than them. And it’s a great test because it’s gonna tell you what you’re doing better than them. That should feel right to you. If you’re like, yeah, my website is better than theirs. That’s obvious. My social media is bigger than theirs. Then when it tells you the other side, you should also believe that, even though it’s gonna be hard to read sometimes. But I think that one’s huge. I do think, have you guys heard of the Washington DC Pizza Index?

This is a fascinating deal, but if you haven’t heard of it, basically there’s a group of people now that track how busy pizza places in Washington DC get. At any given time, because before a major war or sending a bunch of B-52s into another country, everyone has to go to the Pentagon or lock themselves in the office to prep for this thing. And they figured out what are the interns do? They order pizza for all their bosses. There’s some ora-leris there. Exactly. That you can— Yeah, so it’s like, I wonder with a powerful enough AI, again, how many UPS trucks are going in and out of Nitro Dave’s house? And how many 4L60Es do I need to start building?

(Laughs) What is this, how can I make this work together? But there’s gonna be more and more of that type of winning going on, and it’s gonna be from people that try it. And just, again, listen to this podcast because you’re very good at that. And listen to them to a, I mean, get out of your shell and listen to a podcast on AI and go, that’s complete horseshit, I’m not ever gonna do that. But whoa, wait a minute, let me go back. Yeah, that could apply to my business. Do I know how to do it? I don’t know. Can I find a college kid that needs to work part-time and do that for me that’s, NIT or something?

Drew Pritchett, Dane Arnold, there were the guys that did Mexico Racing really, but they’re just techy as hell. And we love them. Yeah. I guess we need to ask, we gotta get him on the road. I think he’s probably got a show. Yeah, I feel like he’s late for something. Yeah, I would agree with that. Where do people find more, Keith Wilson? Where can they keep up with you, buddy? Well, they need to keep up, you know, Scoggin’ Dickie. You can reach us online at sdparts.com. We have everything on there.

We don’t ever mind you calling. We have six guys that are experts in their field. The numbers are on that website. And the phone numbers are on that website. And come see us at the different shows. Go to, on our Facebook, Instagram pages, SD Parts. You know, look us up. We have everything that’s going on in the engine shop. When we can find time, we’re testing cams and intake manifolds. We have the, when manufacturers are coming to us and say, hey, y’all know about LT1 engines. Can we bring our air to water intercooler and test it on your engine? Yes, Dane posts those up. You learn a lot on those. And so those formats, give us a call if you need to. Look at our Facebook page, Instagram, X, whatever, and go to sdparts.com if you wanna order some parts. If you see something that, I need a little bit of different widget here. Don’t be afraid to ask one of our guys. They’re real human beings.

I feel like the least likely place to see you would be in Texas, honestly. I’ve never seen you at Skog & Dickie, but if I was like, if you said you have to go find Keith Wills and I, the last place I would go was to Skog & Dickie. Go find what show’s going on, where is he in the world? Warren travels more than I do. And just with one hotel points place I’d already logged in, and I don’t use them a lot. I was 24 knots out.

By like January 28th, I don’t know. (Laughing) All right, that’s the pod. Thanks guys. Thank you.

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