How To Create Company Culture In The Auto Industry - Scott Simons - CMA's Valley Dealership

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. Sebastian Bro.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Scott Simons, welcome to the show. Hey, Sebastian. Thank you for having me on, brother. This ought to be a hoot, man. You and I always have a good time whenever we get around each other.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

I agree with that, man. I think it's well overdue. I uh we finally got the opportunity to meet in person a couple months ago in Tampa at Stacy Raskins' event and just had a great time. And uh I figured, you know, you meet some people online and you just know when you connect with them offline, it's going to transfer right offline. And that's exactly what uh what happened with you and I. So uh grateful for uh for our friendship now and for you taking some time out of your day to hang out with me on the show. Uh I love to tell people's stories on the show. I'd like to go beyond the story, back up to almost the beginning of the story and really unpack what brought you to present day with what you're currently doing in the auto industry, which you've had a wild amount of success with. So let's back up to the beginning of the story, and then you know, that'll that'll bring us to to present day with all the great things that you're working on and the incredible teams that you get the opportunity uh to work with.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah. First of all, uh Sebastian, thank you so much for having me on, man. And uh, you know, whenever you get around somebody, real just recognizes real. And from the first time I heard you in the clubhouse streets, you know, with your voice and your energy, I'm like, that's that's that's my people. Uh, you just radiate this energy about yourself that draws people towards you. So, anyway, thank you again for having me on. But yeah, and what a great event that was that we were at. And I tell you what, you absolutely killed it on stage. So thank you, my brother. Very impressed and a very heartfelt message that uh took us on one hell of a ride. So if you haven't had the opportunity to check that out, I strongly suggest you do. Yeah, man, I'm a really fortunate guy, man. I'm in the auto industry, I've got uh some of the best people in the world that are currently working uh with me. Um, we've seen some success for sure. Uh, I've seen a lot of growth. Um, and uh I've built one one heck of a team. Uh, it started off. I'm originally from uh from southern West Virginia and I, you know, cue the West Virginia jokes. You know, did I marry my cousin? Did I have all my teeth? You know, did you know just our family tree one line? You know, when you make fun of yourself, you take the power away from other people. So I, you know, I'll tell you, I'm proudly from the state of West Virginia. I currently live in Virginia, the western part of Virginia. So when people hear my heelbilly accent, they're like, You're still in West Virginia. Now I haven't lived in West Virginia a very long time, but this accent's hard to get rid of. Um, but I had I grew up there, I had two amazing, amazing parents. Uh, they're both still alive. My dad's 84 and a half.

unknown 2:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

84 and a half. So when you start off, you're you're you you do have. So you know, you're four and a half, and then when you get to the end or you know, near a hundred, you're half. So you celebrate half. So my dad is he's eighty-four and a half, my mom's eighty, just hard-working people, man. And um, they taught me the values of uh working hard. My dad had five jobs, never made more than $32,000 a year. My mom taught me to be compassionate toward people. She worked in a lab and never met a stranger Italian lady. So I took the best of what I learned from both of them, which was work ethic, treat people right. And uh my brother and I were raised by two amazing people, and that's that's who uh the strength in both of those people made me who I am today. Um, but I knew I knew living there, um, it was rich in people, but it was very economically depressed. Uh, some calculus, some reports say it's the it's the poorest county in the United States of America, McDowell County, West Virginia. I wouldn't trade how I grew up and who I grew up with and the lessons I learned from growing up there for any amount of money, it no matter the struggles, no matter having to fight all the time because we were in the middle of segregation to any of it. I wouldn't train any of it for the world because I learned so much, you know, handshake means something. You know, when you tell somebody you're going to be there, you be there. You know, you you know, your word means something. You know, we did deals on handshakes. So I learned all that, and that helped me through the rest of my life, but I knew I needed to get out of there. You know, we hear the crabs in the bucket analogy where you have crabs pulling you a bucket. I knew it was, you know, drug rampant and poverty, and my parents clipped all the coupons and lived in scarcity. And man, I wanted to live, I didn't want to live that way. So I said, What industry can I get into uh where I can make unlimited income and you know, and and basically basically create your own path? So I did go to college, I got my four-year degree in two and a half years because I wanted to get out and make money. I got my master's in a year and a half, so I did six years worth of school in four, worked full-time. I've worked since I could remember doing a paper route, got that from my dad, um, and um got in the auto industry. You know, I got my master's degree. My dad said, uh, what are you gonna do? You know, you'll go work corporately. I said, I'm gonna go sell cars. And man, you thought that I took a you know a gun out and shot him in the chest. He goes, sell cars. What do you mean, sell cars? You got a master's degree, said dad. No one could ever take that away from me. But if I ever want to produce a car dealership, dad, I got I got I need to go sell cars, right? I mean, how can I know what they go through? And I need to start at the bottom and you know work my way up. So started selling cars about uh man, time flies, bro. I started selling cars about 27 years ago and worked my way up through different stores, became a general manager of a store, uh, you know, and then worked my way up to managing partners. So now I part-owned five car dealerships with Carter Myers Automotive Group, have some of the best people in the world, have some of the best partners in the world here in Virginia. We do ship cars nationwide. I've had a lot of people been very supportive of me. You know, I've sold, uh, I've gotten in rooms that I never dreamed of, you know, the Jake Paul's and the Chase Heroes, and you know, people like that. I'm you know, I have their cell phones and I sell them cars, so it's been a wild journey from Magdale County, West Virginia to where I am today. I parlayed that to get involved in Apex, which you and I both are in Apex. Wonderful group. If you're not in Apex, I strongly suggest you check it out. Um, Brian Stewart and that and that uh family of choice is doing some amazing things. I got involved in Arte Syndicate, Lions Not Sheep. Uh, and uh man, when I get in a room, I never met a stranger before. I want to meet you and meet people and learn about them and see how we can connect and help serve each other. And that's how friendships blossom. That's how I got here today is by meeting you on an app, and then we'd be we became friends. So that's how that's how my I've learned that basically a lot of that from my mom.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Absolutely. So the the 27 years in the car business, but who would have thought was that with did you know 27 years ago, if I stick this out and I grind the pavement long enough, I'm gonna own one of these things one day. Did you know that from the get-go?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Um, I I believed it in my heart. I believed it. Um, was it possible? Uh was I dreaming? Um, maybe, you know, um, the odds are stacked against you. You know, a lot of car dealerships and a lot of businesses, or especially car dealerships, they're passed down generation to generation. So I remember the first time I interviewed for a job, and you know, there's there's some arrogance in the auto industry too, right? I mean, y'all we've all dealt with that arrogant car salesman. Like, what the heck? You know, what's this person's problem, or they think they're better than me, or whatever the case may be. Um, I interviewed for my first job and I never sold cars before. Uh, I worked for a loan company, learned how to read credit bureaus, and I learned a lot in six months out of school working for a loan company than I did all six years in school, you know, six years with school. And uh I went interviewed, and you know, you'd think they'd hire me on the spot and uh because of my um degree and because of working at the loan company. And the guy said, uh, what do you want to do? You know, I said, Well, I want to own a car dealership one day. The dude literally laughed in my face, literally laughed in my face. You can imagine this little southern, you know, uh hillbilly sitting there telling him he's owned to the car dealership one day. And he goes, 'Well, does your daddy and mommy own one?' I'm like, No, do you have money? No, but you know, I I need to I need to start somewhere. And uh when I when I got named one of the top 40 under 40 people in the United States in the auto industry, you know, out of 30,000, whatever or so people in the auto industry, um, the gentleman that laughed in my face came and found me at the dealership and and to shake my hand and say, Hey, I am so proud of you. And I said, Well, you know, sir, I said, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. And he said, Scott, he said, uh, you know, do you remember um me interviewing you? I said, Yes, sir, I do. He said, Um, do you remember uh me laughing? I said, I do. I said, You actually doubled over and almost fell out of your chair. You laughed so hard. And he said, Well, I guess you're laughing now, right? And I said, No, no, sir. I said, I'm smiling. You know, you gave me a chance, and I appreciate that. And uh, I wouldn't be here today if you wouldn't have given me that chance. So um, you know, I always believed, and I think you got to believe in yourself. Was there times I doubted it? Hell yeah, there was times I doubt it, Sebastian. You know, depression, alcohol abuse, uh, you know, taking my I mean, when you go after something so hard and you you have setbacks, I mean, it'll if you don't get out of it, it'll take you in a dark place. And you know, let's let's admit it, the auto industry's got some wild people in it, right? I mean, you see the movies about the you know, back back in the day, what happened in the auto industry? It was wild, you know, a lot of type A personalities that spend a lot of money, make a lot of money, and you know, live life in a fast lane. And uh, if you're not careful, you can get caught up in that lifestyle. And you know, going through that career, I got caught up in it a little bit, and I had to wind myself back out of it and uh say, hey, this is what I want to accomplish. But uh I always believed, uh, but it takes you know hard work, it takes luck, and it takes uh building a team up around you, which I didn't always do. I learned that a little bit later in life, which is a lesson that uh that I teach on a lot.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, I mean, speaking of teams, you've just done a bang up job of of building teams, but in the very unconventional way of the car business. Now, I've never I've sold a lot of stuff, but I've never sold cars before. Like to think that I'd sell the ever-living daylights out of a car given the opportunity, uh, but the hour sucked. The pay did not, but the hour sucked, and I never ended up selling cars. But when I was exposed to that industry, a lot of you know, sales, you know, sales of sales and a lot of fellow salespeople that companies that I've worked for was always like, well, I'm we're gonna we're gonna come to work for this company. And if it doesn't work out, we can always go back to cars. In fact, I got a buddy that did that. We had a great run with an internet company in Southern California back in the early 2000s. Uh, and that was kind of his angle, my buddy's angle for him to come to work for us was hey man, worst case scenario, you're always gonna have a spot back at the dealership and still is GM of uh Huntington Beach Toyota to this day and absolutely loves the business, makes a minute cash on there, but it wasn't as attractive beforehand. Now you've created an environment that makes the car business attractive. I heard you talk a couple of weeks ago in Tampa, talking about what you go through to acquire new team members, pour into your team members, and and and and just give an all-around experience versus a job. So let's unpack that because I think you are absolutely revolutionizing culture building within the auto industry.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah, I mean, Sebastian, you're exactly right. Um, people can go get a job anywhere. If you can sell, you can get a job anywhere. And um, you know, a couple of things happened to me. First and foremost, uh I mean I took you through that journey from you know, pound the pavement to part owned in, you know, five car dealerships, now part-owned 25 different businesses. Um in between there, I was so focused on my goal, which I referenced that I was gonna hit that goal no matter what I had to do, no matter who, like if you weren't with me or if you weren't gonna hustle and grind like me, then I would chew you up and spit you out because I was so focused on that goal. Now, people that know me now have said, man, that's hard to believe. No, I pushed people, like I pushed them to their limits. Um, not in a healthy way, though. Not in a healthy way. I mean, I was working seven days a week, taking volunteers come in on Sunday. I was uh um just pushing people way, way, way hard. Like um in in a you know, you can push people, but I was pushing them for my gain, not their game. Yeah, and you know, 72% of people in the auto industry do not make it past the first year. I was winning then, but nobody everybody else was losing. I wasn't a good husband, wasn't a good dad, wasn't a good friend. My health got up to 265 pounds. I'm about 195 now, and I'm on a 5'9 frame. 5'9, you know, 265 is you know, I could have played nose guard for some scrub football team, right? I mean, that was not good. It was not the person that God envisioned me to be for sure. And you know, it took me having some setbacks to say, I wait a minute, wait a minute, you know, some pretty bad setbacks. My wife about said, if you don't straighten up, I'm gone. You know, my health, uh I about had a heart attack on the showroom floor. I'm I'm sure I had that, or or uh I'm sure I had that. Uh my blood pressure was through the roof. They had taken me to the hospital. And in that process, I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. I had turnover high, you know, no one really loyal. I was getting results, but just through chaos and through just personal gain. And it just dawned on me, like I basically had to think, wait a minute, what if I find out what Sebastian's importance is, Sebastian? What if I can sell my vision and then bring their vision along with my vision? So then I started doing things like, hey, Sebastian, what where do you see yourself five years from now? I started hiring on character, not on results, you know, not on credentials. So, you know, and that's something you hear Glenn Lundy talk about. So I started hiring better people and then pouring into them. Hey, don't make those bad decisions, don't be out all night like I used to be. Go to the gym, you know, save your money. You know, we used to tell people into blowing their money because then they would stay broke. Now we taught people into maxing out their 401k. So I started a mentorship program a number of years later. I was already doing it, but I didn't have it um, a title to it. I didn't have a structure to it. And my assistant helps me run it. It's called Improve You. I do them every uh four months, and we talk about health because without health, there's nothing else that matters. We talk about um uh uh family or relationships and we talk about money, and we we get like you have to sign up, you have to apply, like you have to say, this is why I want to join, and this is what I want to accomplish. It's not sanctioned by it's not endorsed by my partners because when we go into a room, I'm not the the quote unquote boss, I just lead the discussions and we do life together, man. We talk about some serious, in-depth stuff. Give you an example. Um, who could lose the most weight? I have a nutritionist that comes in and talks to us, you know, and gives us advice. We we go over meal prep, we go over working out in groups, accountability groups. I have one person in my group almost every single time that loses 40 to 50 pounds in four months. I got one right now on this one, and I had another one that just lost 50 pounds. Some of these people, Sebastian, don't even look like the same person, they don't talk like the same person, they don't even act like the same person. And so guess what it did? It drove my it drove the 72, 73 percent went way down. Turnover. I then I started having people, I had a waiting list, people wanting to come work for me. Then I then I had people relocate all over the United States. Now I got people saying, Hey, I want to come work for you just for you to mentor me, because I don't mentor people outside the dealership because I don't have time. I am an Apex example. I do lead a pod of about 12 people, but I just lead that pod. And I just started recently doing it, you know. Um, but you know, somebody outside, if they call me saying what you to mentor me, not less just through this and through Apex, I don't do it because I simply don't have time. And man, you would not believe like you got people coming up to you and say, Hey, hey, my credit rating was a 480. Now, now, hey, Scott, I'm a 620. Well, no other car dealerships are doing this that I know of. I hope others do, but not many businesses get to know their people on a personal, professional level. So, what you're through personal goals, write them down. Losing weight's not a goal, saving money is not a goal. Like, we're gonna nail down a specific goal with a time on it. We're gonna profess it out on social media with us and we're gonna hold you accountable. Like, I just had a guy in my class that's 22 years old, weighs 275 pounds, and through my class so far has lost one pound. And I said, Look, bro, I love you like my son, but I'm calling you out right now. This is bull. You've wasted my time, you've disrespected everybody here, you've disrespected you, you're disrespecting your family. I'm putting you right on the hot seat right now. You turn 23 in 40 days, your your goal is to lose 25 pounds in 40 days, and if not, that's going down, we'll be severely disappointed in you. And you know why I can get away with saying that? Because he knows I genuinely care about because you know what? I've asked what your personal professional goals are. If I just went in and said, Hey, Sebastian, you're fat, you need to lose weight, they're gonna say, Hey, F off, I'm out of here, right? So by asking them what's important, so hey, Sebastian, you want to send that child to college, or hey, you want to buy that first house, or you want to buy your first car? Okay, how many cars do you need to sell? How much money do you need to make to make that happen? So, what I'm also doing is I'm driving performance. You know, so if you want to put more money in your 401k, then you got to produce more results. So, how are we gonna produce more results? And then on top of it, too, I teach them the method that we learned through Apex, which is build your machine. So I teach my team to sell through social media. So when we first started tracking it, Sebastian, we were selling five cars, five percent of cars through social media, which means I, the associate, had generated five percent of the sales. Now that we've trained them on how to build your machine, you know, take your Facebook friends up to 5,000, you know, store all the people that contact you in your phone. So I have people store me at 200 contacts in their phone. I said, if I told you I'm gonna kill you today, if you don't sell a car, you have 200 people a car. I have 6,000 people to call. Who do you think is going to sell a car today? Me or you? Well, so we just start teaching them about how to utilize social media. Do you know now that we sell 45% of our cars through social media? Wow. So it was 5%. So almost one out of every two cars that's sold by this whole organization here is sold by individual by them utilizing social media, which the consumer purchases at a higher rate. So they, you know, they they come in and they want to deal with you. So the transaction goes a whole lot more smoother because they're dealing with someone that they know, like, and trust. So that's another part of it that we teach people that I've learned through Apex. So I just learn, you know, and and just pour everything into them. But I had to figure out not what was important to me, I knew it was important to me, what's important to them, and then how do I fit it within my vision and how do I help them achieve their goals, which then will help me achieve my goals. And when I figured that out, that's when my career took off. And that was probably, you know, a number of years ago. Uh, you know, I've been here with this company as a partner for over 12 years. Uh before that, I really saw some dark, some dark times, you know, because I was just going about it the wrong way. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

And you well, you you shifted your focus to service and figuring out what I can do to pour into people's lives. And as a direct result, they're going to sell more and their life's going to be better overall. And I just don't think that there's enough uh compassion towards the culture to get no wonder nobody wants to go to work. Nobody, no, no wonder nobody shows up at all. And I'll I'll never forget, you know, my uh my good friend Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, really started to coin this whole idea of there will be a chief culture officer at every single company eventually. This is not customer service, customer service is defense. This is a C-level executive that's only job is to give a shit. That's what their job is to do, to be able to literally care. And he's been able to execute on that. Claude Silver has been his chief heart officer at Vayner Media for the past almost 10 years. And she started as an account executive and was miserable. Gary said, What do you want to do? She said, I just want to love on people. He said, I got the job for you. So you're really doing this in an industry that is very unconventional for this type of culture. It is a very burn them down, bring them up, sell, or you don't have a job and you will work eight days a week. If you don't like that, there's the door. And I actually mean that. So to really mix things up a little bit, um, I believe uh is the is the way of the future. I believe that you what you are rolling out here will become a blueprint if it hasn't already from other dealerships, from your competitor going, we need to bring Scotty Simons in here, turn this place around, not to increase sales and and the bottom line overall, but to increase the quality of the culture on there. So, man, I just love what you've done there and you continue to do.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

You know, and I've heard Claude speak twice. She's amazing. She spoke at the Automotive State of the Union, which is the first time I met her, blown away. We were so impressed by her. Liza had her come speak to all of our leaders. So I've heard her speak twice in the last year. Love it. And that's a person that I want to emulate. That's a person that when she's talking, I I wanna hear what she has to say because I was that person that um if you didn't produce you were gone. And I shifted the focus to this. If that if that team member does not work out in the past, it was their fault. Their fault. They they didn't get it done. Now we shift to hey, if they don't work out, it's not only my fault, because guess what? We all agreed, we all interviewed, we all tested, and we all agreed that person had what it took to do the job. Once we do that and we put them through all of our all of our gamut of hiring and they don't work out, it is now our fault. It's not only my fault, but it's their direct leader's fault. So when they don't work out, I don't go and get upset at the person that left or that wants to leave. I first of all see how we can maybe put them in a different department dealership position because I have the ability to do that with five stores. But who I hold accountable for that and who gets some some some coaching from me is their leader. Because I said you've let them down. That's somebody's son, that's somebody's you know, brother, that's somebody's dad, you know. And if you have a bunch of turnover in a small town, especially, which we're in a small town, that's not good. Turnover is not good for expenses, but it's not good for the individual that's leaving. Now, if someone leaves and betters their life, and we may made an influence in that, we handle with class. We handle with class. Um, you know, obviously, if some people come in and they go up against their our culture and they go up against uh any HR issues, obviously we have a zero tolerance for that. But we try to sit and figure out hey, if that person doesn't work out, let's give them all the tools to be successful and if they don't work out, you know. We knew in our heart we did all we could to get that person to work out, and that's a mind shift because I was there where all right, that person can't get it done. Let's hire 10 and hope two survive. Wait a minute, you know for a fact by eight's not going to make it, we're gonna make them compete. You know, there's certain dealerships that still fire the person at the bottom every single month. If you're at the bottom, you're the bottom of the list, you're fired every month. And I that's just not the way to treat people, man. I mean, if I worked there and saw that happen, maybe I had a bad month. We all have bad days, bad weeks. Maybe you your family members are sick and you have a bad month, and they're gonna let me go because of that. That's not a place, that's not a place I want to work, man. That's not a place that has my back. That's not a place I take a bullet for. Wait a minute, this guy's coming to me and asking me what he can do to help me, and am I okay? Yeah, I'll take a bullet for that guy. Yeah, so that's and it I mean, it it's it's it's much harder than what we're describing, I assure you. And the way that Claude describes it, it it takes because you know, Gary's a hard-charging dude. I mean, that dude's intense, intense, and but he was smart enough to know I've got to hire this person, or if not how intense I am, I'm probably gonna run a lot of people off.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

He's also very emotional, too. So he gets so emotionally invested into people. And I'm speaking of, you know, something doesn't work out at Baehner. I mean, they got Gary seeing him out with some flowers and a check and an open door if you ever want to come back. I mean, he you know, really, you know, is is his exemplifies the way culture should be treated and where it's at. It's changed drastically. I mean, I grew up in sales, uh, I didn't go to college. I found my I found my my footing in the world of sales, but it was the burn them down, bring them up, hire them in masses, teach them in classes and fire their asses. That was exactly where it was.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Say that again one more time.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Ironman masses, teach them in classes and fire their asses.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Man, that sounds like that sounds like it was me years ago.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

It was, you know, it's like you're great. As long as you sell, you are fantastic. But the second you don't sell, we have a problem, you know. And it was, you know, it was almost mild, you know, gaslighting uh that would take place. And it was such an emotional game. And I never forgot it. I was so emotionally attached to gosh, I don't want to let that person down, or what does that person feel about me? And then that directly relates right back to childhood and and being seen and and being uh you know, being recognized and being heard. Uh, I think a lot of that had transferred over. And then when the whole hardcore sales really started to to exit the world, I still don't. I went to a couple of Sandler sales trainings um locally here a few years back. And I that was still too much for me. And I'll sell the ever-living daylights out everywhere. Whatever you want to sell, we can sell it. Not a problem. But the whole idea of listen, if you don't lift up your skirt and sound off like you've got a pair, that stuff just doesn't work anymore. And that was the environment that I that I that I was raised in. The consultive sale came. Now, as an entrepreneur, I've been an entrepreneur for almost 18 years now. Um, when I left sales and realized, wait a second, I can write my own paycheck. And if I'm gonna have stress, I'll create my own stress, I can become an entrepreneur. Now you're still selling every day and you're selling yourself and your product, but the freedom is, you know, is is is unexplainable. But what I've developed over the years, and especially with the type of work that I get to do in the digital world and digital marketing and things of that nature, specifically with podcasting, has been integrity selling. And integrity selling says that you sell something to someone because it's in their best interest. And for me, Scott, that was an absolute game changer because there was no pressure, there was no deal, there was no anything. And it comes down to everything. The way I price my products, if you're paying one price, the next guy that calls me is paying the exact same price. Now, I don't feel like I can get an advantage because you may have more money than the other guy there. And integrity really, when it comes to sales, keeps me so accountable to myself and to the people that I get the opportunity to go and serve. So to say that say the world of sales and how things have operated have changed drastically would be would be a gross understatement.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Yeah, for sure. I mean, integrity means everything. And if you believe in your heart what you're selling can help that individual, you're it'll come through so genuine. I mean, you and I we mean we've been around. I mean, we see right through slick talking bullshit from a mile away. You and I both are like, all right, come on, bro. But if you genuinely care and you believe in it and you have a great reputation, then man, hey, what what's what's it cost? Let's roll, you know. Um, but there's a lot of truth to what you what you've shared and what we both shared this, you know, today.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah, man. Well, it's so great to this this conversation, like I said uh in the beginning, well, well overdue, but I just knew we were gonna make it happen, especially when we got the opportunity to spend a few days together in Tampa. In fact, we're getting ready to do that again tomorrow uh with our Apex family of choice uh for Apex Live in Dallas. So I look forward to hanging out with you. Uh and what'll be full circle for us because I'm joining you uh on Breakfast with Champions for your segment on Friday morning. Uh, we're gonna chat a little bit about I'm gonna sell you a podcast live on Breakfast with Champions. So I'm looking forward to that, man. Um, thanks, man. Thanks for taking some time out of your day. I know you're legitimately a busy guy. You got your hands in fire over there. So I sure do appreciate you coming and sharing your story. It's deeply impactful to not only my life, and I'm sure the people that are getting a chance to listen. If you're listening to this right now and you're in a job that you absolutely hate, to just steal another page out of my out of my boy Gary V's book, you can make just as much money doing something that makes you happy or an environment that will thrive happiness, very similar to what we got done talking about today with Scott here. So, Scott, thanks again. Any final thoughts for our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

No, Sebastian. Uh, you know, thank you for having me on. Uh, you know, if there's if there's anything I could do for anyone out there, you can reach out, reach out to me across my socials. I'm on Facebook at Scott Simons, Instagram, Scott E. Simons. Of course, I run the clubhouse streets, but uh yeah, Friday, yeah, reach out to me, I'd be glad to help you anyway. Scottesimonds at gmail.com. But uh I look forward to our show on Friday. So it's gonna be at 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Clubhouse, Breakfast with Champions. We're gonna talk about why I should start a podcast and what it should be about. And I know a lot of people out there have been thinking about this, so you're gonna see a live test case of someone, a podcast expert, talking to someone that's been thinking about a podcast, and you're gonna hear it live. You're gonna hear him talk about why it's a good idea for personal branding and all the other benefits of starting a podcast, which I know they're there. And then he may even call me out hey, bro, like you're gonna get off the sidelines and get in a game, you know, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna take your skirt off and put your helmet on. I'm sure we're gonna have a lot of fun with it.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

But yeah, we we we certainly are, man. We absolutely start with a mill like you've seen you're surrounded by folks in Apex that have been impacted based on their, especially the executives, and based on them making the jump to go and start a podcast on there. So, man, I'm excited for our conversation, and I sure do appreciate that opportunity to to come be your guest on the segment.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Hey, Sebastian, I appreciate you, brother. And uh real recognizes Rio, and uh thank you so much for having me on, man. I love your energy. Man, I could talk to you all day.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Thank you. We totally could. We're gonna we're gonna pick this conversation up where we left off in Dallas. Absolutely. But brother, thank you so much for having me on. It's been a it's been a hoot and that it went by like that. Thank you so much. It does. Time flies when you're having fun, it most definitely does. Hey, listen, Scott Simons, ladies and gentlemen, you're thinking about buying a car. This is a I'm I'm the this is my show. I'm gonna do a shameless plug from my brother Scott Simons on here. Yeah, it's and the reason I do that is because I know within Apex, the mastermind that we're part of, if anybody even whispers the word car, I need a car, I need to buy, sell, trade, whatever. It doesn't matter where you're at in the nation, he makes that car transaction happen. So I'll make sure to link his information in the show notes at the description of this podcast episode if you're wondering what in the hell a show note is. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.