When you hear the term the solo business, what does that bring up for you?

You know, it's interesting because that's at the core of what my book was really about.

For me, you know, we think about the soul of your business.

It's the culture.

It's the people.

It's understanding what it is that we do every single day and making sure that we don't lose sight of our core values as a company and, you know, as clients.

And so every company takes on, whether an entrepreneur or a CEO, it doesn't matter.

We had East Texas.

What did that company actually sell, the manufacturer?

So we were a new vehicle franchise dealer.

We had 42 franchise dealerships spread around the country.

So we had Ford, General Motors, all the GMs brands, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, GMC.

We had all the Stellantis brands.

But we also had the imports, big, big Toyota.

I was a huge partner with Toyota and loved Toyota, Toyota and Lexus both.

What is the right money? What does that mean?

Tell me about that point in the life cycle of RFJ.

Good question, Joe.

So the short answer is we were not looking to have an exit event at the time we did.

We were coming out of COVID.

We'd come through what was some of the more challenging times for all businesses across the United States.

You think about COVID, how it literally shut down businesses and some never recovered.

We were coming out of that.

But then as he got into it, he worked in the business through high school and college.

to

me.

Um, They had all those same original thoughts.

And I remember my uncle who pulled me aside, the same one that, you know, Chewy made himself into something more than I ever could have dreamed of.

He pulled me aside.

He said, Rick, he says, it doesn't matter what industry you decide to go into.

As long as you make the commitment, you're going to be the best at that business and you're going to do it with integrity and do it the right way.

Love working here, but is there anything you can do about pay? I'm just assuming that's probably the kind of culture you create with that kind of environment, right?