Intro: 

Hey friend and welcome to the Trend Report. I'm Sid Meadows and I'm a business leader, a coach, a consultant and a longtime student of the office furniture industry and in this podcast we have powerful conversations with industry leaders, innovators and others that to help you grow, your business grow and to help move our industry forward.

Sid:  

So let's dive into today's conversation with my longtime friend like 15 plus maybe longer years friend, James Strole, with Workspace Resources in Conroe, Texas. James, how are you today?

James: 

Man, I'm great, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

Sid:  

Well, me too. Thanks for letting me twist your arm to come on and talk today. Most of the frequent listeners know I've mentioned it that I typically have pre-calls with my guests to kind of talk about the show and figure out what we're going to talk about and maybe jot some notes and things. So I didn't do that for this conversation. I feel like that we've had a lot of conversations in our tenure together that we could just wing it and I'm quite confident we could create a really, really good episode.

James: 

I'm excited. It's going to be fun Okay.

Sid:

So, James, tell us about your business, like when did you get started? What do you do? So? Tell us a little bit more about your business. When did you get started? What do you do? So? Tell us a little bit more about your business.

James: 

I'll give you the briefest history I can, really quick. I won't start when James was born. How about that But-.

Sid: 

Please don't. That would be super boring.

James: 

It would be very boring. So when I was a sophomore in college, I was putting myself through school and I was working as a teller at a bank part-time and I was approached by one of my clients who at that time was the owner of a small furniture dealer in Conroe, Texas, and he just said to me hey, I want to talk to you about a job. He's like I think you have a great attitude, I think you'd be good at sales and I want you to come talk to me. And at the time I was ready to move on to something else. I had no idea the furniture industry even existed but A lot of people don't, by the way. I was like what, okay, people buy this stuff, all right. And so, long story short, I went to work for them and that was in October of 1995.

I worked for it was a father-son when it started and then I worked for the son and he was one awesome dude. I really enjoyed working with him. He was fun to work for. He was passionate about furniture and design and I'll tell people I caught that passion and I really enjoyed it a lot and I found out really quick that sales was something I was good at. So five years went by. He sells a business, someone else buys the business. The gentleman who bought the business from him was not from the industry, but he was retiring from an engineering background and did not have that same passion that my boss had before, and it just became very difficult. So I stuck around for five years, five years later now to this company I started 20 years ago this June.

Sid: 

That's so awesome, so you started the business from scratch.

James: 

From scratch. Just me in a tiny little 10 by 10 room connected to a little warehouse with an air conditioner in the wall wall unit that was so loud you kind of had to yell the phone just to be able to talk to your clients.

Sid:  

You know you had your own version of sound masking.

James:  

It sounds like it was built in sound masking that's right from the cars going by the window. That's great, uh, but you know very humble beginnings in, uh, so many stories around how that just worked well. But you know, you know, honestly, I, I saw I had a vision for this company and here was the vision. The vision was I saw there were, you know, just to mention, we are a non-aligned dealer. So I saw there was a really huge gap between the aligned dealer and the out-of-line dealer.

And aligned dealers your big names Steelcase, Herman, harry Barth and so on they did a really good job on the large projects. And then the non-aligned dealer did a really good job on all the small projects, right, but the gap was is those companies that were under 500, from 25 to 500 employees. Those folks wanted to buy from the aligned dealer because they wanted that look, but they weren't getting serviced. So we decided, I decided to focus on what I call the upper mid-market, delivering services and solutions that were as good as some of my large competitors, and I decided those were my competitors, not all the non-aligned dealers, and that's what Workspace was for.

Sid:  

In some cases, I would say that you could provide better products.

James:  

That's right.

Sid:  

Not just equal to, but some cases better product. So just to recap real quickly, 10 years at a dealership. The first five were really really great, the second five maybe not so great. That gave you the urge to say I'm going to strike out on my own. So you did in a little 10 by 10 space with a noisy air conditioning unit. So tell us about today. Like how big are you today? Are you in the same? I mean, obviously you're not in the same location because I know that, but like tell us about where you are today, kind of thing.

James:  

Sure. So, yeah, we have 12 full-time in the office employees, we have a full service crew, we are mainly aligned with AIS and OFS and those type of manufacturers and we tend to focus on what I call the limited distribution partners and not the open lines, if you will, and we are doing a very good job of sticking with our core business and that is helping those clients who are in the 25 to 500 in-office avoidance companies.

Sid:  

That's great. Which spoiler alert? That's how we met. I was the regional at the time for AIS when you kind of started your business, I think, doing the math, but I think that's about right. And then we just worked together like all those years together at AIS, doing a lot of really fun things together and winning some really nice projects. And then I worked with you in my consulting business for a little bit. But I think the most important common thread in all that is, through the course of the years we became friends and you actually let's tell the story you actually used me to get engaged to your now wife. Tell that story and then go ahead and add to it. I didn't even get an invite to the wedding, but I'm not bitter about that.

James: 

Yeah, absolutely so. Funny story. Yes, you know, man, it's been a while since I've told that story. Thank you for bringing that up. We were supposed to have dinner, I believe, at a restaurant down in the Woodlands which is where we're close to which is where we're close to, and I told my wife that we were going to meet you for dinner. Let me back up. Let me back up on that. I don't think I let you know that we were having dinner.

Sid: 

Is that correct?

James:

No, you didn't tell me any of this until after the fact I told her that you and I were having dinner at a restaurant and so she needed to get dressed really nice. And that whole time I remember making her walk. I made her. We parked in front of Whole Foods and I made her walk like I don't know quarter mile to get where we're going. We were going and she was starting to get mad in heels right In this nice dress. And guess what, as we approached the restaurant sorry, we're actually not going to meet Sid for dinner and we walked a little bit farther. Yeah, that's where I proposed. My wife is next to that restaurant where I told her that we were meeting you. That's how I tried to correct.

Sid:  

You know, dress nice, that's correct well, if I'm going to be used for something, I think that's a really good thing to be used for, right?

James: 

so I definitely say it was the best decision of my life. Is, uh, who I right, and so that's awesome yeah, so you just also like.

Sid: 

The showroom that you're in is like on the highway, which I'm not really sure how you drive in that nonsense in Houston Texas but and it's relatively new and you just updated it right, yeah, we we just did update our showroom.

James:  

you know every dealer deals with this. It's like trying to keep it as updated as you can. It feels like I finally gave into it and said we have to update this showroom every year to some extent, because if you don't, you're doing this major renovation update every three to four years and it's just easier to do it as you go. And we've kind of given it to that, but you know what we did. We kind of given it to that, but you know what we did. We kind of used it to our advantage. We decided and this is something we're about to have our second open house and as we update, we highlight a product or two and we invite all of our top referral partners and customers to come see the newest trends in office furniture at our showroom. We do a big party. We make it about the product, so they're getting something out of it. We're also having a great time and we'll be doing that again in April. I'm very excited about that.

 Sid: 

So, James, let's talk about you for a minute. You were a bank teller, yes, and this random guy said, hey, I think you would be really good in sales. Yeah, I mean, what gave you the bug to like, stay in this industry? We all get bit by it. At least those of us that hang out for a while, right like. We all get bit by it. So what? Least those of us that hang out for a while, right Like we all get bit by it. So what gave you the bug Like? What was it?

James: 

That's a great question. I fell in love with it and you know they say people who get in this business never get out. I think that's true. I wish I could put my finger on the thing. But there is just something that I love about furniture and I love the process of helping people make their vision happen. There is nothing better and I'm sure I'm speaking for every dealer sales person out there a dealer person out there then walking through a new, beautiful, class A space with a new client who you just installed. It's like Christmas Day, yeah, and just seeing everybody so happy. I love that. We get Christmas Day over and over and over again.

Sid: 

It's a great way to describe it. 

James: 

If you execute really well, which is what we try to do. It's a positive experience from the top to the bottom, the whole thing. To keep coming back, yeah, and I love that. I love solving problems. I've often thought, if I didn't do office furniture, what is it that I would do? And I'd say I'd probably be commercial real estate. Sure, and we're very close tied, very close to that. So I work with all those guys and I'm I love seeing the problems they solve as well. You know Sure and, but you don't know, I guess I had some pretty fast success in it and I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I'd say that's what it is, you know helping people make that vision come true and seeing the smile on our face when we, when we do an amazing job.

Sid: 

So when I was a young dealer salesperson before 1995, for clarity for any of you asking or wondering I did a small project with a designer. We were touring it and it was a mixture of some used and refurbished and new right, and we were walking it and she's like just look at how pretty that is, like look how nice this space is. And that was the moment for me that I was like oh wow, I did that, I helped create that, and look how great it looks and look how happy these people are with it. And we get a lot of joy out of helping people create their space and, as you said earlier, fulfill their vision of what their space should look like. But you just said something I want to go back to. You work with a corporate real estate group and you enjoy watching them solve their problems for their customers. So I want to turn that question to you what problems do you feel like we solve for our customers?

James:  

Yeah, I think the thing that I see most, that we feel like we've solved, is because we're dealing in the, I'd say, upper mid-market. Our clients don't buy furniture every day, they don't move spaces every day. They haven't done this in five or 10 years. Whatever it is, they walk in and they don't know what to expect. So we try to do a great job, first of all, showing them what this path is going to look like, and that's our process. And so that's step number one that we feel like we solve, that we take that burden off of them. Hey, we're going to make this whole buying process very easy for you. You, that's our goal, but this is something easy and let's make it as fun as possible. 

And the second thing is the problem is most people don't know what they want. You know they have an idea in their mind of what they've seen, and so we try to walk them through. Let's look at a lot of you know we have probably you know a couple hundred professionally photographed success stories and we walk them through that, you know. We make that vision board with them. So that's probably the second thing. And once we have a direction, then we solve the budget issue and so we're literally just walking through those things and then we're solving the time issue and trying to give them options without giving up their vision. We've always been very good at helping our clients find a temporary solution, maybe some loan return or something to get by, so they're not making decisions based on five dollars that you get in stock from a wholesaler. We do not like to go down that route.

Sid:  

So I really appreciate the answer to the question, because not what I expected, because what you did is you answered it in multiple parts that we actually solve multiple problems. One of them is you break down the complexity of the process, because everybody listening to this knows how complex the buying process is for office furniture. So you break it down to make it easy and fun. Absolutely. You help bring clarity to the fact that they really don't know what it is that they want. Then you address the budget challenge and answer that problem and then you take it even a step further to the challenge of time or the problem of time. I need to be in in four weeks, but you pick furniture that needs to be that takes 16 weeks or whatever.

James: 

Everybody knows we're the last people, we're the last stop, you know, and they waited too late Happens all the time. But you're right, we do try to get them to relax and not be so stressed out about it, because most of the time they are stressed out about this decision because it's a big decision for them. But what we do try to explain to them is the one thing we promise them, we guarantee them, is that we're going to provide clear communication, quick responses and we're going to go above and beyond to make sure that they're happy with the outcome, because if you always have the outcome in mind from the very beginning, that's what's going to create, drive, success through the whole thing. We focus on that because what we find is that's where we strive versus who we're competing against. It's all about communication and setting great expectations.

Sid:  

So, James, what would you contribute? What would you say were the leading indicators to the success that you've been able to create in the last 20 years? Leading indicators or just? I mean, what do you contribute to your success? Because you started as one person in a 10 by 10 booth. Now you got 12 people, a beautiful showroom. You're growing. What do you contribute your success to?

James:  

I'd have to say to two things discipline and passion. I love what I do when I you know I don't get to, and I'm sure that you know any dealer principal that's listening to this or watching this right now has experienced this. Because, as you grow, this or watching this right now has experienced this. Because, as you grow, I'm no longer in the sales and I'm not doing sales anymore. I'm on big relationships and business development side, but I'm not actually involved in the weeds anymore. Every once in a while, when we're working on a big project, I get to be a part of that meeting and I always tell my salesperson you're going to run this. I'm not, I can't help but take it over, and I have so much fun. I love it, I love it, I do.

Sid: 

You know they still invite you to meetings. If you take it over, I'd like to kick you out.

James: 

But I try not to, because I know what's going to happen. But you know, I'd say doing things consistently, every single time, even though you don't want to do them, and it's literally over time. We have built a massive client base, you know, but all of a sudden, the two things. I'd say that those were the two things.

Sid:  

So I know you some of the listeners will know you but I know personally that discipline and passion is a common threat throughout your life, not just your business life but your personal life. I mean, this is a guy that I can literally set my watch by the fact he's walking in the gym to do CrossFit at noon every freaking day of the week, and I know not to call him between 12 and 1 o'clock because that's what he's doing, because he's disciplined and super fit, which really makes me mad, but that's another conversation and he's super passionate about exercise and help. So that's why I say and you are exactly the same way about your family, I am, and you got what? Three, three kids and then five kids, five. So you got four with your first wife and then Jackson, who's named after me, and my son. There's another just kidding guys. My middle name is Jack.

 

 But I joke with James about that. And then now you got a grandbaby, Just had our first grandbaby. It's awesome. It's amazing. Claire is way too. That's his wife. She's way too young to be a grandmother. You, on the other hand, I see all that gray hair coming through over there.

James:

Yep, but man is it, is it? Now I get why people say having a grain bay is the coolest thing ever.

Sid:  

That's awesome. So, James, was there a pivotal moment in your business that some, some event or something that sticks out? That was a true turning point for you.

James: 

Wow, you know I feel like we've gone through five or six pivotal moments. I think the first pivotal moment is go back to the very beginning. I remember, you know, those first early years. You leave before the sun is up and you get home after the sun is down. You know you're doing all the hats. And I remember one day when the phone was ringing like all day and I remember thinking to myself this was like I don't know, two or three years in, like okay, we're going to be. Okay, the phone is going to ring. If I could just make it as simple as the phone it's okay, the phone's going to ring, I don't have to go out there and make it ring all the time. I think that was the first pivotal moment in me, believing in we're going to make it, yeah.

The second pivotal moment was when I realized other people believed in me more than I believed in myself. Oh, that's good. And that's when I moved from that little 10 by 10 room to our first showroom and I have to give you know my first landlord. I remember going to him and looking at this face and he knew I was looking First landlord. I remember going to him and looking at this face and he knew I was looking and I said I was just like I don't know if I can afford this. And he looked at me and he said, James, here's what we're going to do. We're going to write this up and if that doesn't work out, we're just going to tear this lease up. But you're going to be just fine and I'll be like. I didn't know this guy that well, but he obviously believed in me more than I believed in myself.

Sid:  

That is so powerful and we all need that in our lives, right, that those people that believe in us, and anyways, there's people that believe in us. And there's a story in the Bible and I'm not going to be super religious about it but there's a story in the Bible about how and I don't even know the I heard it on a podcast, I talked to a friend about it we're in the Bible. It describes a quilt and at each corner of the quilt, someone is holding it and, regardless of what happens to you on the quilt, you've got your four pillars, if you will, of people that are supporting you. And that guy was you got your four pillars, if you will, of people that are supporting you, and that guy was one of your first pillars, right? That said, James, I got you right and I'm going to hold on to you, I'm going to help you up and I mean, we all need that. That's really, really powerful.

James: 

It was, you know, I'd say the next one was probably was it 2008, during the financial crisis, when business life we were scratching and clawing for every dollar we could make happen, like things just stood still? It kind of felt a little bit like 9-11, you know, and we just pivoted our business. People weren't buying new, they were buying used. We started selling used furniture. We just did whatever it took and we got through that and I realized, thinking to myself we've got grit, we've got grit. And also, I will say this we've been debt free from day one. We just never borrowed any money and I knew the only way you go out of business typically is if you owe somebody money, like we make shrimp, but we're not going out of business. 

And then the next moment this was kind of fun because I got to talk to this gentleman just recently I remember going out to a client that called me in and I showed up and it was a full floor project and I sat down and I gave this was like my second meeting gave him my presentation, you know to do his floor and he called me up a couple of days later he said James, we're giving you the project and I knew there were two other competitors I was competing against and he goes. I'm going to tell you this he's like you are the most expensive of, he said, actually of the two quotes, because one person never showed up and never got the quote of the three people I invited.

Sid: 

So many lessons in that right there.

James:  

The second person that gave us a bit. It was just. It was okay, because the reason why we went with you is because you were so excited when you delivered that presentation. I knew you cared about the success of my project. I knew I hadn't. This is the first time I'd ever done this. He was only six months into this job and he could not let this thing. Sure, and there again, he believed in me more probably than I did. That gentleman came back to me. That was 15 years ago. That gentleman just recently, in the last couple of years he never knew that. He did that. He never told me that, but he started at another company, brought us in and we now this next company he went to. They're our largest national account that we have doing a million dollars a year with us and they're incredible. Look at that. So it's just really cool how that just keeps coming back around. Just do the right thing and love what you do.

Sid: 

Say that again Do the right thing, Love what you do.

James:  

Our purpose and passion is to create spaces that inspire people to do their best work, but really what I want to do is make spaces that people love to work in. That's great. Since we've gone through COVID, nobody's going back to a crummy office and I want to make spaces that people love to work in, and we're passionate about that, so it's fun.

Sid: 

So is there another one. Those were great, by the way. Pivotal moments I love the last one for sure. Those were the pivotal moments. Way Pivotal moments. I love the last one for sure. Those were the pivotal moments. Okay, I'm so disappointed in you because I know you, yeah, and I'm going to put you on the spot now because you left off one. There's two actually. You left off, okay, okay. 

The first one is the day you met me, I mean, come on, let's be you right. No, in all seriousness, the one you left out was honestly one of the ones I thought you would lead with was the day that you decided to run your business on EOS.

James: 

Okay, so I did look at all purpose because that was a pivotal moment of growth in our company 100% and I think I should have re-listed the question growth in our company 100% and I bet you should have re-listed the question. We were going to succeed anyway. What EOS does was like pouring gas on the fire.

Sid:  

Got it All right. So for the people listening, what is EOS? I know what it is, but what is EOS?

James: 

EOS is the Entrepreneurial Operating System and that's what it stands for and basically it is a set of tools that helps you get everyone in your company on the same page, pulling the cart the same direction at the same time. And it helps you get clarity on what your culture is Not what you want it to be, but what it is and making sure that you hire, fire and reward and recognize around that culture. And then keeping the eye on not getting distracted by shiny things, on what you are really good at and doing that one thing so you can hear some common things in there, like the book good to great. They talk about the hedgehog concept. That's that one thing and it's all those things I think we were doing. 

But we didn't have a way to pull it all together and that's what EOS did. It pulled it all together for us and we grew 30% the first year, 32% the second year and we've done it for three years. This last year was a little bit of a down year but when you look at, we're going to double our growth over a five-year period. We're going to double the size of our company and we'll probably be up 25% this year. It's incredible, the biggest thing that it did for me as a business owner is it took all the pressure off of me, feeling like I had to be in charge of everything. If you haven't looked into it, I'm not saying it's for everybody, but, man, it changed the quality of my life One thousand percent. I don't feel like the business owns me anymore. I own the business and all our people on the same page. We've got the right person in the right seat and man, we're on fire.

Sid:  

That is so very important. Congratulations to you. I want to know what was like. Did you hear about it somewhere? Did you read a book? How did you discover this EOS and then make the decision like, oh, I'm going all in?

James:  

Yeah. So one of my best friends, Nick Brown. He called me up one day. He is a partner in a financial planning firm. He was one of our clients as well. And he called me up and he said have you read the book Traction? I was like no, I've never heard of it. He goes get on Amazon, get a copy right now. I'm like sure. So a couple of days went by and I think he was over at the house. He goes did you get that book? Yet I'm like no. He goes, dude, do you want this book right now? And what had happened was he had started six months before that, seeing incredible growth, and he knew there was a small business, I was a small business. So finally, probably a couple of weeks later, I read the book. It is like that book was talking directly to me. It hit everything. I couldn't put it down. I read that book in one day and he introduced me to their implementer and that also was huge and it yeah, it was. It's been a game changer.

Sid:  

It's been a game changer.

James:  

My stress level is, you know, down, not only mine, everybody's here. Sure, this is why you don't have any gray hair, by the way, I mean, but no, that's definitely a pinnable moment in our growth in the last three years, because I would never own a business again without it. Period.

Sid:  

What a testament, right, and I hear a lot of people talking about it. I don't think it's used in our industry a lot, but I see a lot of other businesses talking about it. I have a couple of the books that are from that series that they've written. Attraction is one of the books that I have. I have not read it yet, but I do have that book, but I think it's great. Right, you invested I think one of the keys you invested in yourself and in your business. That had a positive impact on your business, had a positive impact on your business. And then I think the other thing that you just talked about so much that people measure year over year success. You're like we grew 30 something percent this year 30 percent and then we had a down year, but over a five year period. So you're looking at the bigger picture and not just the micro measurement of what did you do year over year and did you hit the gold. That I think can be detrimental to a business focusing so much on that.

James: 

For sure, for sure and and you know when we first started. You know I tell people, you know when you start that process of it, the first year is literally just learning a system. You don't roll it out for 12 months. We did not roll it out for 12. It takes you build a leadership team, you learn the system together and then it takes another year to roll it out. So it is not a quick.

 But we because we were already doing a lot of the things we didn't even realize it we did a lot of the right things. We were able to make fast and quick changes. The bigger the ship, the harder it is to turn right. We were small, so we were able to try to ship pretty fast and you know what it also does, sid. It helps us focus on the client experience. That's why people buy from us. That's what our focus needs to be on, and when you get all the right people in the right seats and you get your processes done right and you focus on what you're good at and all of the things that they teach, you put it all together. You know you're going to grow. Do not do it if you don't want to grow. Period, because you're going to grow.

Sid:  

It's great advice, right, A great advice. So you just said something and I talk about this a lot which is creating an amazing customer experience right and right people in the right seat on the bus, with the right vision, right leadership, right processes all those things and you're going to create the best customer experience. So I have a really close podcast friend. Her name is Stacey Sherman. She has been on my podcast twice. The name of her show is Doing CX. Right, We'll be sure to drop a link to it in the in the show notes. 

It's all she does is talk about customer experience, because she is a customer experience seasoned professional and has worked for major brands doing customer experience. Now she's a keynote speaker, she her podcast is award-winning. She does all these really cool things, including consulting with brands on customer experience, and i'm going to quit giving Stacey's flowers because she's awesome, but she said something in one of her episodes recently. She was listening to a guest and I have this written down because I just think this is a really, really great question. This was episode 158. So that'll be in the show notes, right? Her guest actually said that we need as a society and I'm going to say also in our industry that we need more kindness, more curiosity and more optimism. What do you think about that?

James: 

I love that. I love all that. I mean it speaks to our human nature. If you want to have a successful relationship with your spouse, just be kind, even with your neighbor.

Sid: 

You know I want to add on to that Be genuinely curious, you know, be genuinely curious about others, and I absolutely love that a lot For sure, I think there are ways that it can be incorporated into all of our lives, both our personal life and in our business life, because just being kind is easy, but it's also difficult for a lot of people just to be kind and not to be philosophical. But just because you're different to me doesn't mean that I can't be kind to you, right? I can't be nice to you, and I think I think a lot of that has been lost a little bit, especially in the last several years. I think a lot of that has been lost a little bit, especially in the last several years. I think a lot of that's been lost. All right, so we got to wrap up, but I got another question that I want to ask you. So, in your opinion, what is the dealership of the future?

James:  

So I thought a little about this, because I did know that we were going to talk about, maybe, the future of the dealership, and the thing that comes to my mind right now is and I don't know if it's what the dealer looks like, but it's how the dealer is going to change and the thing that's going to make over the next five years the biggest difference is AI. Okay, what do you mean by that? Well, so I'm going to tell you how it means.

 I have a friend of mine that's in the freight business. He called me up one day and goes if you're not using AI yet, you need to learn more. You need to start learning about this. He said that they started because there's standalone apps right now. Right, you've got ChatGPT and there's integrated AI that will help you run systems in your company and I'm not the expert by any means. So anybody listening to this or watching this I really don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just telling you what I've just learned and what I just experienced. It said to me I'm going to give you a phone number to Uber Freight, because you know, uber is now in the freight business.

Sid:  

I heard that actually.

James:  

I want you to call it. I'm going to give you a loan number and just talk to it. It's going to sound like a real person, but it's not Said. I was blown away. I called it, picked up, sound like you're talking to a person. I'm asking a question, just naturally, and it's naturally giving me answers back.

Sid:  

And he really thought it was a real person.

James:  

He told me I knew it wasn't. He goes you're going to be, yeah, but how real it seems. But let me take it a step further than that. That was the first time I experienced it because he said you can call it, tell it what you want and it'll send you a quote. And there's not a person doing this. So he said so they have. So they have integrated AI. They have an inbox that AI runs. All of their inbound quote requests come into. Ai actually creates a draft email and a proposal from the information that's in there. They open up the drag signal, they send the edit and they hit the send button.

Sid:  

Wow, so the AI is doing the heavy lifting and then the person is just reviewing it to make sure for accuracy.

James:  

I started thinking about this and started thinking about let's just talk about some of the you know the back, because as a dealer, you can only control top-of-line margin so well, but you've got to get really good at helping bottom of line margin. Yep, let's think about some of the things that we could use this for. How about staying? You know ar and ap and all of these things. Managing that? He said to me, this is going to be a note writer easy. You won't need to have a team of people following up on AR and creating all of that for you. So that's the first place. 

The second thing I think about is, right now, the amount of time it takes through our process when you take all of the information in and then you've got to create a presentation and a quote and all of these things. You'll be able to enter all that information into AI and it's going to do a lot of that head-to-head work Because, guess what? We do the same thing over and over again with just a different product. This is going to change how fast we are able. The time a client's excited about an idea, so we deliver a finalized presentation and quote to them and it's going to help the dealer team, salesperson, whatever get that done faster and deliver a better experience, and so that's the thing I think is going to be changing the dealership. So if you don't embrace this, you're going to get left behind.

Sid: 

So I'm not anti at all. Right, I know my facial expressions are more curious than like really interesting If you're watching on YouTube. My facial expressions are like James, are you sure? But AI is here, it's growing right, it's getting smarter, it's getting better. Point being is, as a business owner, business leader, I'm going to say, at the manufacturing level, at the dealer level, even at the installer level, right At the A&D level, you need to learn how to incorporate AI in your business to create greater efficiencies and speed to market. Not to replace employees, Because there's a lot of fear about oh, it's going to take my job. It's about creating efficiencies and faster speed to market.

James:  

In my opinion, we will never lose human interaction. We will never be successful without interacting with humans. We want it, we need it as humans. That's never going to. Creating spaces for humans like that's never going away.

Sid: 

We're not going to create spaces for humans like that's never going away we're not going to create spaces for robots.

James: 

That's for exactly, but how you, your processes and how you get to that result. We're going to be able to get there so much faster and you started this.

Sid:  

well, you started this off by saying that it can also help to improve the bottom line. That right, and in a world where you are squeezed for a margin, anything that you can do that helps those efficiencies to make you overall profitable is a smart business decision for any business owner, any business owner. Is there something else besides incorporation of AI that you think will be part of the dealer of the future?

James: 

Man, I have one other thought. Tell me, all dealers are looking for how to separate themselves from their competition, and this one that I thought of the other day. Are you familiar with the car dealership Sewell?

Sid:  

I got a whole story about Sewell dude.

James:  

I love me some Sewell Like let's be clear Do you buy a Cadillac or do you buy a Sewell?

Sid:  

Oh, I bought a Sewell, that's right. I'm going to tell you a story. Okay, two years ago I needed a new car because the lease on my BMW was up and I with my family and, you know, my 20-something-year-old daughter. So I said I'm going to get the new cars, because what are you getting? And I said I'm just going to get exactly the and, lucy, I love you. But she looked at me and she goes well, that's boring. And I'm like kid, I'm going to smack you right this minute. A week later, I bought a Ford Bronco.

James: 

It was cool.

Sid: 

I love it. I loved, loved, loved it. I hated it. I had a love hate relationship with that thing. When Teresa and I would go up to Kansas to see Jackson play football, I'd have to scream at her because it's so dang loud, right, you had to turn the radio up to like 20 to hear the radio because of the road noise. I could hardly talk on the phone when people called me. If I was going to listen to a podcast, I would take my over-the-ear headphones right. And one day I just had enough and I'm like I'm out, I'm done. I had it for 18 months. I called brian at the bmw dealership and said this is what I want, did the whole transaction on the phone, never even saw the car until I got there. But to your point, I didn't buy a bmw, I bought a sewell because they take care of you Like. They service the heck out of you. They make the buying process easy. The service, I mean everything. I am a lifelong Sewell. My wife has a Sewell car too. I'm a lifelong Sewell customer.

James:

And you will tell everybody you got to buy a Sewell. How do we make that happen for our dealership?

Sid:  

Oh, that's so good.

James:  

How do we make that happen If they could do it for the car business, which doesn't have a great reputation, and we're doing it.

Sid:  

No, it's an awful reputation. Let's be clear. I experienced it at the Ford dealership.

James: 

Yeah, we're doing something way better and easier and we're helping people customize solutions for their space. How can we get people? We need people to buy us, not the product.

Sid: 

I love that. I love the Sewell effect. All right, so we'll drop this in the show notes too. There is a book that was written by Carl Sewell I believe he's the founder of Sewell Automotive and they've got Cadillac, BMW, Lexus all over the Metroplex or all over North Dallas. Do you have a, Sewell down there?

James:  

We do. It's out of Houston.

Sid:  

Okay, and it's called Customers for Life and he talks about their process and what they. I haven't read the book, but I just have heard people talk about it, but we'll drop that into the show notes too. So, if you're interested, but that's a really, really great analogy. How do we create the demand for your business and not the demand for furniture? So do you think that means that eventually you'll start getting into adjacent industries and not just office furniture?

James: 

Well, I don't know about that, but the thing is is furniture has changed so much. There used to be a big difference between Steelcase and AIS, and now the lines are blurred A lot. Steelcase and AIS and now the lines are blurred A lot. Everybody is there's been all this, has gone like this, which is why I believe we can be more like that when you're buying my brand, not necessarily the product, and so, because they all look alike, they all are doing the same exact thing, you know we did a product.

Sid:

I hate to hear that, though If you're a brand and you're listening, I'm sorry, don't be mad at us but it's all the same.

James:  

You know there are quality differences, but I'm just going to say, on the mid to higher end it's all the same, with a few differences here and there.

Sid:  

And so we're selling the same stuff, yeah so on, and sharing all your wisdom, sharing a little bit about your story, who you are, and I think you echo what I think is really, really important in our industry is the people, right. The fabric of our industry and the people that make up the fabric of our industry are amazing, from all different walks of life, doing different things, building businesses from a 10 by 10 room with a noisy air conditioner to a very successful, you know well-known dealership in North Houston or north of the Houston marketplace, right? So last question what piece of advice would you give to either leaders in our industry today or to someone new and young coming into our industry?

James:  

Invest in yourself, invest in your people and constantly be training, training, training, training and um, because I mean, that's nothing new, you know that's nothing people don't listen, you know, but if they haven't heard the first time, they haven't heard it seven times, they haven't heard the first time you know, but you know, I think that I'm looking for something.

Sid: 

You see me. If you're on YouTube, you see me looking around. James, what are you doing?

James: 

I'm looking for something keep talking, you know, invest in yourself and invest in your people. You know, I think that's that's the key, the number one. We can't do that. Other great people and and uh, we're very fortunate I have an amazing team and uh, that's what the yes you do yes, you do.

Sid: 

You have a really, and most of them have been with you for a really long time. That's right, a testament to you and your leadership. So, James and I do share a lot back and forth about books and podcasts that we're listening to. I shared a podcast with you the other day, didn't I?

James:  

Yeah, you sure did.

Sid: 

So I discovered David Novak. Do you know who David Novak is? I don't, so he is the former meaning former, as in retired CEO of Yum Brands, which was Taco Bell, Pepsi Pizza Hut, and he has a podcast called how Leaders Learn, and he talks to some amazing leaders. He's got a great book about how leaders learn might as well as sitting up here on the shelf as I was looking for and then he's got an app about it as well, and the whole premise of the fact and people that he talks to is you have to be a lifelong learner, like as a leader. You got to be a learner, you got to embrace learning and a learning culture, because that's what's going to help you grow, that's going to help you get better, and you cannot invest in your business, your people, your family until you invest in you first.

James:  

You have to love learning. You better learn to love learning. You have to love learning. You better learn to love learning. I read more books and listen to more audio than I ever have in my entire life and I'm going to say it's probably the last five years, because I started working on my business more than in my business, which gave me the capacity to really and it's been tremendous effect in the better leader you become. You start developing leaders to train and develop leaders, and until you do that and until you've seen a leader that you've developed develop another leader, you haven't hit growth yet. When that starts happening, your business will boom.

Sid: 

We could sit here for another hour talking. We could, because this is just like what we do, right?

James: 

And I love talking about this stuff.

Sid: 

It's awesome.

James: 

Thank you so much for having me on.

Sid:  

Thank you.

James: 

Doing this and spending time with you, so thank you for having me on.

Sid: 

So if our community would like to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to do that?

James:

I'd probably just say shoot me an email.

Sid: 

Okay, perfect, we'll drop it down into the show notes. Great, and if you do reach out to James, let him know. You heard him here on the Trend Report. That's why you're reaching out, buddy. Congratulations to you and your business, all your team and success you're having. Most importantly, thank you for 15 plus years of friendship, buddy.

James:  

Same. Thank you, Sid.

Sid:

Go out there and make today great, everyone, and we'll see you again soon. Take care.