S3E6: Born Scrappy x Mike's Mic Live from Scrap Expo

Born Scrappy x Mike’s Mic.

Live from Scrap Expo 2024.

With special guest Seth Alter.

In this special episode, which was recorded live at Scrap Expo, we bring you the first ever collaboration between Born Scrappy and Mike's Mic.

Michael Goldstein and I got to talk about all things metal recycling. We also had the pleasure of being joined on the stage for some of the show by our good friend, Seth Alter.

In today's episode, we talk about:

👉  What makes for a well-run yard
👉  Creating a safety-first culture
👉  Internal communication
👉  Retaining talent
👉  And more

Listen to the full episode. Wherever you stream your podcasts.

Born Scrappy. Brought to you by Buddy.

The only marketplace and trade OS built for scrappies, by scrappies.

https://www.tradebuddy.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/tradewithbuddy/

WHO IS STU KAGAN ANYWAYS?

25 years in the metal recycling game and still learning and growing...

I learnt from the best and worked my way up from yard labourer to Executive Director of Trading and Operations for the largest metal recycler in sub-Saharan Africa. Responsible for 4,500 employees, 85 sites, and the overall profitability of a multi-billion dollar operation.

I brought my breadth and depth of knowledge to bear and co-founded the fastest growing, most-loved, and most awarded metal recycling company in New Zealand. No small feat in a country where people are outnumbered 4:1 by sheep (spoiler alert: sheep don’t produce much metal waste).

I thought it was time that tech worked for our industry, so I took all of my experience as an operator and trader and leveraged that to build THE killer scrap app, Buddy. That’s right - built for scrappies, by scrappies.

Father of two crazy-awesome boys. Husband to Lisa. Under 9 rugby coach. YPO member. Lifelong learner. Mentee. Mentor. Chief dog walker. Committed Stoic. Undefeated dance-off champion.

COME SAY HI ON LINKEDIN

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stukagan/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/born-scrappy/

Transcript

0:00

Hi, I'm Stu Kagan and welcome to Born Scrappy, the podcast for scrap metal exporters and traders. Join me in conversation with some of the most experienced traders and operators that have helped shape this incredible industry. In this special episode, which was recorded live at Scrap Expo, we bring you the first ever collaboration between Born Scrappy and Mike's Mic. When Michael Goldstein and I got to talk about all things metal recycling, we also had the pleasure of being joined on the stage for some of the show by our good friend, Seth Alter. In the episode, we talk about how do you know when a yard is run well, we give you some cost cutting examples, training people, how to retain people, how to create a culture of safety. How to differentiate yourself from the competition and so much more. This one was real fun recording. So let's jump into it. But first intro. Okay, guys, we're going to get started in the next couple of minutes. We've got, uh, Born Scrappy, which is my podcast, and Mike's Mike, which is Michael Goldstein here next to me, who does his, um, touring podcast, which we'll talk a little bit about as well. The idea is we want to chat and, um, see if we can add some value where possible, and we'll ask Michael a few questions, and then after that we'll bring up Seth Alter from Tungco as well. Michael. And ask him some questions more around customer service and looking off your customers and acquiring new customers as well. It seems to be Seth's wheelhouse and maybe talk to him a little bit about a day in the life and his social media that he gets up to as well. So, and why is he wearing bike shorts? We'll talk about the bike shorts. Um, I think he was expecting these chairs to be different. So he wanted to be comfortable for the hour. Okay, guys. Um, I guess it's, it's worth chatting about what we do and who we are probably very quickly. So I previously ran the largest scrap metal recycling company, still getting it right, metal recycling company in Sub Saharan Africa. We have 85 yards, five mega shredders, 4, 500 staff. And that's my history. I did that for about 17, 18 years. I moved over to New Zealand when we had our first kid, started a metal recycling company there, which I did with my wife. And while she was in the business, she's really struggled with the lack of technology in our industry. So we exited that two years ago to build what's now the first global marketplace for recycled metal. So my background is, is on the obviously running of the operations as well as doing global trade. And also started a podcast called Born Scrappy about a year and a half ago. We're on to season three now and we've had, you know, the likes of some people I look around. In fact, just the other day we had Tunko on it. Um, Cliff Nance and we had, um, George Adams in the last season. So we interview a whole bunch of people to try and get a little bit more knowledge If we can learn from everybody else's experience. Mikey, can you tell us a little bit about what you do? I know it's not much, but. You know, if you can't give us a bit of background, I do a little bit. I don't know. Can you all hear me? I want to hear some noise out there. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. I want to hear some noise. I need some energy. Come on, let's wake up. The more you drink, the funnier I am. So Jim, we need the bar to be open. Um, so I'm with alter trading based in St. Louis. We have 75 yards. I'm the executive vice president of operations. Uh, been with the company for 15 years. We're fifth generation, 126 year old company. I happen to be the fifth generation. And my job really as the executive vice president of operations, I tell all of our people all the time, I work for them. Um, we have a couple of guys here from Altar that are watching me. Thanks for being here, John and Scott. I say that you've heard me say this. I work for you guys. I make sure that the guys in the field and the ladies in the field, the people in the field have the tools they need to be safe because safety is number one and efficient. And without that, we can't do what we do every day. So that's why I say my job is I work for everybody out there to make sure their lives are easy as they can because our, our, our jobs are hard in the yard. We all know this. And, uh, I think that's a pretty important thing. So I also, uh, about a year and a half ago, we had a meeting in St. Louis about increasing our social media presence. And I've never been on Facebook, MySpace, I don't even know if that's in existence anymore. Any of these things, only fans, I've never been on that. Um, I don't know, I don't do any of this social media. I subscribe to your only fans. You do? Yeah, I saw your feet the other day. Yeah, they were there, yeah, yeah. Like dirty boots. And, but we had a meeting about increasing our, our, our presence on social media. And I thought as much as I don't like it and I don't want it, I've never been a part of it. I should be part of it. And I had this idea to start making little videos talking about products made out of recycled metals that keep families safe because nobody can argue with keeping families safe. And from there, it just kind of blew up. And now when I see something that's made out of metal, I talk about it. And then a year ago, now I was sleeping or trying to sleep. None of us actually sleep. And I had this idea for Mike's mic, where I wander around and interview people. Uh, for like a minute to three minutes and just post that. And that kind of kicked off into something called Mike's bike, where I ride my bike around and talk about things made out of metal. And, uh, it's been a lot of fun. I get recognized all over the world and, uh, it's gone beyond anything I ever thought, so. I can't stop. My wife now makes videos. Her friends make videos, people like her more than me, which is no surprise. And it just really proved to me the power of social media. It really, we didn't know each other existed before. And now he's like my brother from another mother, Seth alter will be up here in a little bit. You know, we didn't know each other existed and now we're like cousins. So really, so it's a powerful, powerful tool if used the right way. Yeah. So I think, um, we could go and really delve into social media and how it's going to help you, but I think we're going to try and go more around operations. And then we're going to bring guest set alter up to talk more about the commercial side of things to understand how we can add value We got to fit it all within an hour. Um, and Mike and I and Seth could probably talk for days. So we'll try and make the answers short and try to add value and then we'd like to open it up to you guys for The last five or ten minutes if there's anything you think you want to ask questions about or If we can help or even if it's just a whole big discussion, we're happy to go there So I think mike you always talk about it and and we always did it in my previous companies But we say safety first, so let's start with safety and then we can go all over the place So when you you've got many operations When you go into an operation and you drive in, what are kind of the first few things you're looking for? And even when it's not yours, right? You're going to visit customers and, um, suppliers, et cetera, that you see, what are you looking for that tells you that this place is safe or it isn't? You know, I'm looking at, are they wearing hard hats? I'm looking at, do they have vests? Are they wearing their, their safety glasses? steel toed boots. You know, those are the things that are non negotiable in our world. You have to wear those things every day, but believe it or not, there are yards I'll walk into where people aren't wearing any of this safety equipment. In this day and age, it's unbelievable to me. We want our people to go home safe. And you know, I look at the forklift operators. Is their seatbelt on? So many times I see people ignoring the seatbelt. That does not fly in our company. If you are not wearing your seatbelt, you're going home. So, you know, it's safety's number one. Um, every single meeting that we have, it doesn't matter if it's a meeting that I'm having with Jack or CEO and Matt, you know, at a upper management level, or if I'm at the yard level or not even with me, every single meeting starts with a safety message. And last year, because of our focus on safety, you have to ingrain it in your culture, guys. You can't take it for granted. You can't say, ah, well, I'll let this one slide. You have to just make it part of your culture. And last year we had the best safety record in company history, which is amazing because we continue to grow. And now we have 75 yards. Like I say, we're always bringing people together and we, we take the best practices from everybody, but safety is not negotiable. Um, like I said, every meeting starts with safety. And, uh, that's our most important thing. So, so you speak about safety belts on forklifts. We're talking about PPE, hard hats, boots, et cetera. I mean, I've got the two opposite ends of the spectrum. I started off in South Africa where people honestly can walk in the yard with no shoes. And then I went to New Zealand and it's the complete other end. I can tell you it's a long story, but I'll make it really short that I had about a whole bunch of drivers and our health and safety officer made us they had to wear long sleeve shirts because of skin cancer. Now, that's another level. So our drivers were complaining that it was too hot. The only other option was for us, management, to put on their sunscreen. And we were like, but our children put on sunscreen themselves. Like, we can trust our kids, but we couldn't. And those are the regulations in New Zealand, right? So you've got two complete opposite ends of the spectrum. But I've been traveling through the US for the last maybe six months and seeing a lot of yards. And you guys seem to have two complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Like you'll go into a yard and people will be like your kind of yard. We'll go and everybody's fully kitted. But then I'll go into another yard. You know, I can think of one I was at the other day. And they gave me reasons why they don't wear high vis, they don't wear hard hats. And some of the guys didn't have on safety boots. And I'm being serious, like that's really happening. So I think what we're trying to get across there in our social media posts and what Mikey's talking about is, um, treated important. You know, it's got to be important, but it comes across in your culture if you, you treat it as such. So if it is like what he says, it's the.First thing you guys are talking about in your meetings, um, everybody, then it rolls down and everybody realizes the importance of it. You know, the other thing I look at is, and we can, we're going to talk about this later with equipment, I guess. But what I look at is the back of equipment, the back of equipment. And John Sacco talks about the back of equipment all the time. If you're backing up and bumping into stuff, it means you're not paying attention, plain and simple. You're not paying attention. And it drives me insane when I see a scratch on the back of a brand new forklift or a brand new piece of equipment. But what drives me more insane is the fact that that guy, that person was not paying attention. And when that person is not paying attention, that person is going to run over somebody and kill somebody. And somebody is going to have to make the phone call to somebody's dad or mom. Hey, sorry, I killed your dad or your mom or dad today because I wasn't paying attention. And that to me is just, thank God I haven't had to make that call, but it's real and it could happen. It does happen. And I urge everybody that's listening or watching to go back to your yards and tell and reinforce the safety message. It's just, it's so important. So let's move slightly into operations, still the same theme, but I'm going to say it again, multiple yards, you're visiting lots of people. What are some of the first few things that you notice when you walk into a yard and you go, this is a good operation or. I don't know if I want to spend much time here. It looks a bit shitty. How do you know that? Yeah, well, I mean you walk in is it a mud hole is there is the pilot management just garbage stuff is everywhere There's no organization Does the equipment look like shit? You know, is it, is it just, do the people look like they don't care? And there are yards that are like that versus when you go into a yard, maybe it's paved, maybe it's not paved pile management, you know, uh, equipment looks nice. They clean it. Um, and the people are wearing their safety uniforms. Uh, those are the things that really stick out. I look at the bathroom and that bathroom is a disaster full of mold nastiness. They probably don't take care. It's a very good point Um, so we'll talk a little bit about collaboration when Seth comes up. But I think often, and I had this 85 yards and I would go visit one and maybe he was quite a distance away and he wasn't getting visited all the time. Over time, your yard can become worse and worse and you think it's okay because you're there every single day and that's all you see. When I think about collaboration, I talk about going to visit other people's yards, like I told everybody on my one post, go and see John Sacco's yard, like John Sacco's yard looks like it seriously has come out of the movies, like you can eat a meal on his floor, and it wasn't like he wasn't buying scrap, things were happening there the whole time, so if you feel that you want to be better, I do feel that you should be spending more time visiting other people's yards, and yeah, you might get one guy who says he doesn't want you in his yard, And maybe he's the guy next door you you're competing with, but there'll be hundreds of others that would happily open the door, and I know Michael would do that, and a whole lot of other people would happily open their doors to you to go and actually see what, I guess, a great level actually looks like out there, because it's hard to know if you haven't actually seen it. Right. How do you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even within the company, we have 75 yards or 85 yards or SA with 150 yards. They're not all going to be perfect. So you can learn within your company too. Hey, you know, so and so over here and Davenport's doing this, but in constant bluffs, they're doing that. I'm looking at you two guys and, uh, you learn from each other and, uh, take best practices. So, with operations, and I think to try and add some value if possible, um, with multiple yards, you're often looking at cost cutting. So, a couple yards aren't performing, regions aren't performing, it doesn't have to be the whole group, but you'll go and you'll work out what's going on in that region. There could be a new player, there could be a consolidation of multiple players, um, transport prices could have increased, whatever it could be, all of a sudden you're not doing well and you have to look at your costs there. Can you think of some examples or times that you've had to restructure and look at how to save costs quickly? Because I think with the current market, the way it's been, people will be going through that at the moment. Well, I mean, the easy one is watching your overtime, right? I mean, you know, volumes are down. You don't, we don't need to be running our shredders or shears or our equipment slower. We should be running as efficiently as possible. Pound, pound, pound, get to the ground, turn it off to your maintenance. and go home. You know, naturally an operator is probably going to want to slow down as they get towards the bottom of a pile. Obviously in the bottom of pile, you'll have your heavies and stuff that you have to clean that stuff out of there. But naturally they're going to slow down because they're running out of equipment and they want to meet their hours or continue getting overtime, but you just got to reinforce it, pound it, get to the ground, finish it up and do your maintenance and go home. Reduce your overtime. Um, you know, when volumes are down, maybe it's some of the larger shredder yards. You might have four cranes at an infeed. Well, you know, you probably don't need four cranes anymore. You might need two cranes. You might not need a crane to be stacking, to restack, to restack just because they have, there's not much, it's quieter in the yard. Um, maybe, you know, do you have two, you have two cranes, one is unloading one, the trucks, one's putting stuff on the shredder and, uh, keep it compact, keep it contained, pile management. I can keep going on and on. Yeah. Um, I get that, but it's not always as simple as arriving in a yard and looking at it very quickly and saying, this is how we're going to cut the cost. The manager on site needs to be, to also be aware of what they're looking for. I found many times, if your manager isn't hands on or isn't in the yard enough, you actually find that your, your team are looking busy. So they're constantly moving metal around. And if you're sitting in your office and you just hear the machines moving, you think you're busy end of the month comes and you realize there's a lack of profitability and you can't work out why, because it seems like sometimes it seems like you don't have enough people, but it's quite funny that you think you don't have enough people. And when you get rid of 10%, they do the exact same job or even more because now there's less messing around and that moving metal around is costing you money as well. It's costing you money every single second. Every time you touch something, it's costing you money. You know, maybe five, six, 10 years ago, we would say, look, every time you pick up something is going to cost you five to 7 a time. I guarantee you right now that that's double, at least double. It could be more every single time you're picking something up and putting it down. It's costing you. 15 a ton and it just is that's a lot of money and you know there's no need for that every time when the trucks come in dump it where it's got to be put it in the shredder have it come out load it up and get it out of there you don't need to be moving stuff all over the place try to keep your yards contained consolidated orderly, organized, and the material will flow in and out in an efficient way. And it's really not rocket science, guys. I bet you every one of you are sitting there going, yep, absolutely, we know we have to do that, or yeah, we do that, you know, safety comes first, or we don't double handle. You'll be surprised what's happening in your yard when you're not there. Spend more time in the yard, making sure what you think is happening, just because you've told your team to do such a thing, doesn't mean they're actually doing it right. It's harder when you have a lot more yards and you have to rely on the managers. If you have one or two yards, I'm sure most of you guys are spending your time in the yards, but get in there and assess what the guys are doing. And if they need to be doing it, Um, but yeah, I expect most of you guys think that that's easy enough to do or is being done. I think you might be surprised when you look in your yard and you go, maybe it's not perfect. And it's a lot of those things that we spoke about that you think are being done, but aren't actually executed on. So the idea is the easy part, right? And having a strategy is easy. It's executing on it, which is really hard. The other thing is this. I'll say, let your managers see the data and the information. We're very metric driven company with a lot of data. Some people might think too much data. I don't know what you guys think, but let them see it. There are so many companies out there that don't let your managers see the data, see the information, see what something costs. And when a manager sees that, they'll better understand it. And if they'll better understand it, they'll buy into it. And then they'll go out and they'll be more proactive and they'll be better at managing their yards. Let them see that data. So they understand. And it gives them more of an entrepreneurial spirit and it makes them have more ownership in that facility or facilities, whatever it might be. And they're just more well rounded, better leaders. That's what we want as leaders. Yeah. Giving them ownership and bringing them on the journey is absolutely vital to get them to buy in and commit, but talking about your people, right? Because I've seen and met a lot of older people. Um, and you're going to say alter boys, alter boys, and I have, um, seen a lot of posts coming out of alter and your culture seems to be phenomenal. Now that isn't normal in the metal recycling industry. Sure. A lot of you guys work, you guys really hard. And I'm sure your guys also work really hard and it's hard to give that to enforce this work ethic of we have to be in at this time we leave when the work is done. There's a lot of manual labor, et cetera, involved, and to still have a team that. You know, whether, you know, my company was teal, so bleeds teal or bleeds blue or whatever to have them really buy in and be a part of it. What are the things that you think differentiates you from those sort of people, Mikey, that, um, that your guys do bleed for Ulta? And I don't mean in the safety way, right? Because they don't get hurt. And I mean, literally their blood flows, um, Ulta. You know, it's just, it's really amazing. And I feel so lucky that we have so many people that have been with us for. 40 years plus, or that alone, that alone, when I look at the, the time people spend in your company, it's unheard of to me coming from some of my previous companies. Yeah. And it really is. I'm getting that we've got multiple generations. We have people here whose father worked for the company for a long time. And now We have a manager sitting here who, uh, who's been with the company now for a long time, too. I mean, it doesn't happen overnight, building your culture. It just doesn't. And it took us 126 years to get where we are. And, you know, that culture happens over time. And as much as we've grown from 9 yards to 75 yards, and as much as we've had to put in processes and, you know, more corporate type functions, we're still a family business. And I think that the majority of the, of our people that work for the company or with the company know that, you know, we're, I'm approachable. My dad's approachable. My grandfather was, we're all approachable. Jack's great. We're all approachable. People come talk to us. It doesn't happen overnight. Um, okay. So Mikey, what can. the people listening do tomorrow to start to build a better culture internally. I know it took you a long time. Nobody can go back in time and give themselves 127 years, but what they can do is go back to the yard on Monday and do what? I see your wife's who's watching the buddy stand right now. Focus, Michael. I'll bring it back in, Jack. Don't worry. Focus, Michael. I'm not selling the program right now. You know, what can you do? You just gotta be You gotta be there for your people. You have to let them understand that you're there for them. You're with them. And, you know, my dad always says you take care of my family. I take care of yours. Like, and he's been saying that for decades and decades and decades. And it's true. I say I work for you. Right? And that just helps reinforce and enforce that culture that, that, that we have, that thing, it, it, it's just hard to describe, you know, when you buy a yard and the toilet looks like crap, literally, clean the bathroom, put a new bathroom in, people are gonna say, wow, you know, they, they care about us, they care about the people, they care about uh, you know, accommodations, um, Because I'm going to challenge you there. I know how Alta has a family, family values. And I think that's something you guys can take is creating family values. I've often challenged the idea of, of, um, it being a family. And I always will say we're a team, right? Because I related to a sports team, right? If you're not going to be a part of this team, you're choosing to, and if you're going to let down the other players, we're going to get rid of you. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, depending on how good your family is, but you can't really do that to your family. And, um, your, your family forever, whether you like it or not. And I, I've been through the phase where we were family. And unfortunately we had people that have stolen from my company, um, and done different things that are going to behave in ways that we struggle to, to treat them anymore as family. So I moved to a team mentality because I believe that we're And, um, we've got to all focus on the same goals. Go in the same direction, but I like what you're saying. If you were a team and everybody's a part of the team for you, then you wouldn't treat them in a certain way. So for example, I love your example of, you know, go in and clean your toilets. Your team immediately will thank you for that. And I know sometimes it's hard in the situation when you're running a business to spend that money, but you should see that the culture starts to slowly increase. And it's small things like that. And being in the yard and knowing people's names, And greeting them and being approachable. I think of being approachable is one of the most important things. You know, a couple more things to the team. That's I use the team term all the time and words matter and how you write the words, words matter too. It might not be grammatically correct. I always capitalize the T and team when I'm talking about our team. Always just to reinforce that we are a team. the other thing I say, and I mean, these guys have probably heard me say this when I'm talking to somebody or introducing somebody. Honestly, this guy works for me. I always say I work with John. I work with Scott. Scott works with me with not for or not. You know, whatever, it's not, it's not I and me. No, when you talk about how you've performed, it's the company, how the company, and I hear you say it as well. Um, okay. So we're going to invite up a guest speaker here who got dressed up, but don't worry. We'll, we'll delve into why he's dressed up. Um, this is Seth Alter from Tango. So for you, for those of you that don't know him, um, said there's a major influence in the middle recycling space. Um, he posts on social media and he gives us days in the life of what he gets up to every day. Um, and sets focus and what I love about this. Speaking to Seth, his focus is on, on customer and relationships. So we've, we've spoken a little bit about operations and we were asked to get up here and see if we could add any value. So I've kind of broadened the spectrum and we've gone operations, we've spoken about safety, which I included in operations. But then we also are going to talk a little bit about customer acquisition. So landing new business as well as, um, Maintaining your current business. So, so keeping that relationship strong in ways that, that sets able to do that. We also have a talk tomorrow at eight 30. It might be a bit early for some of you after the bourbon tasting tonight, but we're doing a talk, I think in one of these rooms about this exact topic, but it will deal, we'll delve really deep into it. Where's the, I will just touch on a little bit. So why are they pushing so early? Don't you have any influence? You're an influencer, dude. I got no influence here. Um, said let's just send us a little bit about what you do on a day to day basis. So we can get a context of what you're up to. Absolutely. Uh, so my name is Seth Alter. I'm a second gen recycler from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I work for Tunco. Tunco is a processor of tungsten carbide. We're based out of Madisonville, Kentucky. Uh, it's a fantastic group of people who have joined me today, which I'm really appreciative. Um, so I'm a buyer. I, uh, I handle the North American market. Uh, as well as global, uh, South America. And, uh, I'm looking for anything tungsten based alloys, uh, tungsten carbide, high speed steel. And, uh, yeah, just looking to provide tremendous value. We are an end consumer. So that's what I'm saying. So he's going to sell, sell to you and sell, sell, sell. We're not here to promote who he's selling. We're here to add value in what he does. Right. So as you can see, Seth is a salesperson. Okay. And he goes on a daily basis and is meeting with recyclers trying to buy So what I wanted you to get from you was how do you, and this is really useful for everybody. How do you differentiate yourself from your opposition? When you walk into a customer and they've got other buyers of the exact same product, how, how do you break through? Because I think a lot of us deal with that on a day to day basis. What kind of tips did you have and what have you done in the past? It's a great question, Stu. Add value. What add value can I bring to your company? And if I can, the optics, the eye test, if I can see something and point something out, uh, for instance, Central New York, I pointed out to one of the largest dealers in the region. Uh, he was, he was putting in, uh, some, these road tools into his heavy melt for maybe two to three decades. I said, stop that 15 to 19 cent item you're sending to the mill. I'll pay you 75 to 80 cents right there. I've got a supplier for life. Yeah. Yeah. So just finding ad value. Mikey, can you think of, um, times that you've seen that done in the scrap site as well? Sure. Of course. I mean, we're looking to add value every single day. And when you talk about operating costs and reducing your costing and that you're, you're adding value, right? Um, but to your point, you just may have a customer for life. Don't take that for granted. Don't ever take that for granted. Don't ever take for granted that your customer that you've had for 30 years is going to be with you forever. Because. There's always a competitor out there that's coming after you. So, and somebody else is going to knock on the door, right? and so I think when we talk about adding value, right? So you guys might have a large customer in your region that you're looking to land, um, their recyclables or their metal. Um, you could have a customer that you're currently looking after. Um, and I think Tim, you'll delve into this quite a lot tomorrow, but the idea is We'll talk a bit about relationships, but when we talk about adding value, you know, he's giving an example on tungsten, but if you think on, on metal recycling, if you can find a customer that's, that's putting certain grades in, in the waste or not upgrading certain grades. So, so you go to a site and you see that they've put aluminum in their steel bin because it's easier for them to just chuck it all in. And, and you can go to them and actually calculate the saving that they might get. And say them, well, actually guys, this is what you're going to save X dollars per year. If you start pulling this out, it's exactly what he's saying all of a sudden, even if they're not your customer right now, they're starting to look at you as somebody adds value. And I tell you what, if you came to me and I wasn't supplying you metal and I was doing that and putting aluminum in there, I'm wondering to myself, my current service provider is probably taking out all the aluminum and has never told me. So immediately it's making me question my service provider. So it's about getting in with a customer and spending time there, not just trying to rely on your price or I've got a certain size bin, or I can get you with these trunks, but actually adding serious value. And then from there kicks in the relationship part. so tell me a little bit about relationships, Seth. I mean, it's very much what you do. This industry was built on relationships. Relationships, you know, relationships are crucial. Mike and I talk about it all the time. Yeah, without relationships. We're not here. We're not, um, and especially on the, on the supplier side, you're only good as your relationship, right? And if you show up, that's one thing. I find in the industry, uh, complacency, complacency kills. You have to get up, you have to get on the road, you have to show up. And I think that, that provides, once again, it's a lot of value. And that, that solidifies the relationship. But like Mike said, never take it for granted. Your only good is your last deal. Your only good is your last deal. It's just maintaining that relationship. Don't take it for granted. You know, when I first started and I was wandering around central Iowa, And, uh, buying scrap. And I was meeting some of these guys have been in the industry for a long time. And I had people come up to me and say, Michael, I shook your great grandfather's hand in 1952. And I've done business with alter every single day since I'm like. Blown away by that. It's an honor and it's a privilege to be able to have an, to have accounts like that, but you can't get complacent. You just can't do that. Cause that's how you lose them. So you, you work for Tunko, right? So how do you recommend? Cause a lot of people here aren't necessarily the person who's going out to buy this material. And you're not necessarily the ones who are looking off the relationship. You might look up to some key ones, but you're not necessarily, how do you get Your buyers to be as motivated as it seems you are to get up in the morning and get out there and get it done Either got it or you don't I really got to be honest It's it's either in you you're either a scrapper at heart or this industry's not for you and that's not a slight No, that's just the reality of the situation You either have everybody. No, this industry isn't for everyone. You know, you've got to get your hands dirty. You've got to show your colleagues. You're willing to get in there. If, if, if material comes in and you need to get into a sort, you got to go, you got to drive a truck, you drive the truck. That's one thing about. Our company, it's the whatever, whatever it takes mentality. Yeah. But I guess that starts at the top as well. so the top management has to be able to show that that's in, in the blood, that's how everybody performs In order to get your lower level and everybody else performing at the exact every level to do that starts at the top. So if you need to drive a truck, you, you know, if somebody needs a, the owner or managers should be willing to drive that truck as well. And then everybody else. But I'm going to question or challenge you. You said, um, that it's got to be in your blood. Now I look at 18. I didn't have any family in the industry. I started off. I needed a job as a laborer. And I guess maybe you could say it was in my blood. I didn't know about it before. Right. But what about when you're bringing in a sales rep? And cause that's really what you're doing. You're not selling, but you're buying, right? So you bring me in a sales rep and I'm sure a lot of you guys hire sales reps. Right. Um, and yeah, there are easy ways to identify early on if the person's able to do this job properly or not. But I'll tell you a quick story. I loved hiring rugby players in South Africa, and my best was to hire famous rugby players in South Africa. I had, if any of you have seen the movie Invictus, from the 1995 Matt Damon plays Francois Pina, where in 95 South Africa won the World Cup And a guy who played in that team actually works in the metal recycling industry in South Africa for my old company. I hired him because I loved his team ethic. I loved that he would die for his team, and I knew that if I could get him to bite, and I could get that bug to bite him, right, and recycle, he would be incredible, and he was amazing. But, how do you incentivize You know, some people say, Oh, give your sales team a commission, you know, um, are you monitoring them on CRM systems? Are you, are you utilizing data? Like, what are the kind of tips that people here can take away and go, all right, maybe that's going to help me bring in a better sales team or get more out of my sales team. That's a good question. Again, culture, uh, like you guys were mentioning before, you've got to buy into the culture. And if you have a good culture, that's what attracted me to Tunko. I was an owner operator, uh, family business, started a high temp business, and I was attracted to Tunko because of the culture. Um, I recently was put on an employee experience. You know what? I want to bring it up. This is important. Employees never quit. I wrote this when they are paid well, they're promoted, they're respected, they're mentored, they're appreciated, they're valued, they're supported, trusted, empowered, developed, challenged, and recognized. That's awesome. That's culture. Yeah. Okay. So are you saying that that's that a company culture can help you create the sales team that you need? Because I, I don't want to challenge you too much, but I'm going to tell you that I've seen great cultures and salespeople just ducking off when they leave the yard and going to sleep in their car. Like that does happen. So I'm going to bring up an example. Um, there's a recycled materials professional up in Montreal, Quebec, and his name is Herb Black. He runs American Iron and Metal. Small company. Small company. Um, Herb Black brings in former NHL players to events, uh, events with his suppliers, uh, industry events, and people gravitate towards that, just like your rugby, uh, analogy. So, you know, people like salespeople, when I see that or new younger guys in the industry, when they see that their gravitate towards that, I want to be a part of that culture. They're doing something right. So once again, sales, you've got to empower your people with the right tools. The person obviously has to have it right to be able to go out there and buy or sell um So and like you said incentivize Take care of your people your people will will have a vested interest like you guys were saying before in the business and be prideful Talk us through I think a good marketing person also has to be willing to go out in the yard And learn the metals and understand what the operations side has is facing understand the cost and understand the business, not just one side of it. And that's not just saying marketing has to do it. The operations guys have to understand the marketing side to be well rounded. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I think the best sales team, your best buyers out there will have spent time in the yard. Not only because you have to exactly, not only because they'll be able to identify and build relationships because they actually add value, but But because they won't fight with the operations team. Now, I'm pretty sure you've all been through, if you're in operations, hated your buyers at a stage or your buyers have hated the operations. If you're on the buy side, it's standard across the industry. And the second you can kind of inter train and we can kind of have people in other divisions and learning from the other, all of a sudden you have respect for the other division. So I've found when you are having that massive clash and it will always happen straight away, try and swap people within those divisions. And so, okay, well, you're going to spend the day on the road with such and such and see what it's like to knock on doors and get doors down in your face all day because they all think that all you're doing is lunching and drinking and partying and golfing now go see what that's like. And then on the vice versa, you know, the sales team get in the yard for the day and see what it's like when your buyer send you 12 meter lens. Beams that you weren't expecting a ride to arrive in the yard. And all of a sudden, um, you've got to try and work out how to offload this and, and manage that. So that's super powerful to help you with your culture as well. That's the best part of this industry. When you go to a yard as a buyer and you're sitting across from a team of savvy, you know, recyclers, they know immediately if I know what I'm talking about and that's, you know, I met Mike this year and we immediately hit it off. You know, we've been doing this our whole lives. That's the cool thing. So you've got to take your people who are coming into this industry and it's not the perception right now is we're not the most desirable industry. And as that goes out there, people think scrap, they think trash, they think landfill. No, we're essential. So putting your people into your practices, you know, your, your ops team, that's how they learn. You've got to touch it, see it, feel it to know what you're talking about. That's right. It's very important. That's right. I want to just mention one other thing about that rugby player and I won't hop on rugby for too long because I'll lose the crowd very quickly, but you can relate it to NFL, NHL, whatever you want it. There wasn't a door this guy couldn't get open. So your biggest customer in an area that you just can't get in there. Um, Crano Otto, this guy, he literally, I would go with him and he would arrive downstairs at reception and he would say, we'd know who we were going to see. And he'd say, I'm here to see Mr. Whoever. And the lady would phone and she'd go, Hey, Crano Otto is here to see you. And he, I would hear him say, clear my schedule for the rest of the day, because he's speaking to a world cup winning superhero. And we'd walk in and I would talk metal recycling and they would just talk about rugby and whatever else they wanted to talk. So I, I love the idea of, like you said, bringing like what Herb Black does, bringing people into a room where really, um, your customers love that experience. They want to stay your customers. It's kind of like when you take customers to sporting events or whatever it might be that they really love. They know that if they're not selling you metal anymore, they're probably not getting to go to those big games or go and meet those players. Got to invest in your customers, your suppliers, because if you lose that, it's a strategic supplier. You lose that feed. Where are you replacing it? Yeah, absolutely. Um, I want to open this up, but before we do, um, I wanted to ask you guys about your outfit. It was nice of you guys. I didn't know we were playing fancy dress. I would have dressed up as a biker too, but, um, tell us a little bit about what's going on this weekend. Yeah. So this weekend is a big weekend for the recycled materials industry in St. Louis. Yeah. We have a program, uh, it's the 15th year of the program called Pedal to Cause. We raise money for, uh, Sightment Cancer Center and Sightment Kids in St. Louis. In 15 years, we've raised over$45 million and a hundred percent of it goes to cancer research. It's an amazing program and, uh, I've been involved for eight or nine years on a team. Ludicrous speed. And this will just take a minute. Um, yeah. Good. And, uh, it was a, it's a it star as a family friend team, we had an honor of my friend's, uh, brother who's now a survivor. And, uh, we wanted to do something more with the team. We, last year we raised$25,000. That was the most we ever raised, and that was amazing. But my friend Tim Riter, buss, stand up. Tim, you won't miss him. I told you to stand up. I can't see you. Yeah. Yeah. Seven, Tim, Tim. I did a, a LinkedIn post about bikes being manufactured, cancer carrying bikes being manufactured using recycled metals. And Tim messaged me and said, how do I get involved? But we didn't know each other that well Then. I said join the team. And then I had this idea. Why don't we make our team to do more? The team of the St. Louis area recycled materials industry. I said, Tim, what do you think about that? He goes, I'm in. If you know, Tim, you know, Tim is all in on everything all the time. So I called my buddy Zach, the captain, and he said, yeah, let's do this. So we got together and we had a goal to get the St. Louis area recyclers together and raise 50, 000. What happened? What happened was I was, uh, with, uh, the Senebogan people at, at REMA and Mr. Senebogan, Eric said, he's a cyclist. We were talking about biking and I brought up the program and he looked at Constantine and said, we want to support this. Senebogan is one of our big sponsors right here on his shirt. Next, what happened, Genesis saw this and we started doing posts. Dan Buck, Lee Bearer, American State saw this. We have Lee Bearer and Senebogan on our shirt guys as sponsors and donors. That's like having CVS and Walmart on your NASCAR, right? CJ, that doesn't happen. So we have now raised 86, 000. I mean, it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. And that's thanks to a lot of people in this room, a lot of people. Sierra Sacco was involved in helping out, uh, SIAPS. And I've got an announcement to make. SIAPS made an amazing offer a couple months ago. The next two donors, that donate 5, 000 to get their name on the SIAPS NASCAR for a race. We have one who's already donated and we have one spot left still. So for the next person or company that wants to donate 5, 000 come to me and your name will be on, uh, the Viking Motorsports NASCAR next season. So, uh, thanks to the recycling metals industry. We have sponsors and riders. Seth's coming from Canada to ride with us. Dan Buck's coming from Chicago to ride with us. Uh, there's people coming from all over to ride with us in St. Louis this weekend. We're going a hundred miles. Now we're doing it again next year. So anybody who wants to participate next year in March, we'll be doing this again. So we're going to go full spectrum and we kind of touched an operation touching the commercial on the commercial side I'm going to just ask you guys a little bit more about social media now, you know We don't have some of the others here That would probably do a show and talk about why it's important to do it and why you should hire a marketing team, etc Etc I don't necessarily believe that that's the route that you should be going to start. I think you should be starting. I think the value that any form of social media, um, that you start with is the value is huge. So what can you guys tell us about the effect that it's had? You touched on it briefly. Um, Seth, you do quite a bit of it. Can you guys talk to us about why it is important that everybody should be doing something? I mean, I'm a believer, you know, I was not a believer. I didn't want to be a believer a year and a half, two years ago, but Saco's out there, I call him the godfather of the recycled materials, socials. And now a bunch of us are also doing it. He's trying to hide, but you can't hide. Um, and I'm a believer. People say, can you monetize this? Like, do you know how, are you guys making any money off these little videos? I have no idea, but I do know this. We're, I'm getting people, uh, from all over the world that connect with me cause they want to buy our material. And I send that information to our sales guys, and maybe we've done some deals and maybe we have them with other people. But the name is about getting your name out there. I'm out there trying to change the image of the industry though, too. That's number one. And, uh, I think it's working three weeks ago. I'm eating lunch at a bar in Milwaukee with two of our guys. And some guy walks in. I've never seen this guy. I've never heard of this guy. I wouldn't know this guy, right? I wouldn't know him now. And he sits down and he looks at you. He goes. Are you Michael Goldstein? And I said, yeah, he goes, I watch all of your stuff, all of your LinkedIn videos. I love it. They're great. I'm learning so much about the industry that I didn't know before. And it's changed. It's changing the narrative. This guy's a real estate guy in Milwaukee. I live in St. Louis and I was there visiting a yard and, uh, it's unbelievable. It's about getting your name out there, being active and, uh, just doing it. You just got to do it. So attention is the asset. I met Stu at the BIR in Abu Dhabi last year. Correct. And I said, Stu, how do you do it? What's the secret sauce? And you gave me some advice. I've taken that and run. Um, especially you, you, John, Tim, Jessica, you guys have pushed me. Uh, we have done tremendous business on LinkedIn. Well, LinkedIn being the platform. Uh, just exposing our company and what the, what we do. Um, so yeah, it's, it's a vehicle and it's free. Why not? It's a no brainer, 100%. Yeah. I think a lot of people feel that they don't know where to start. And, um, you know, I've got to hire a marketing person to pay somebody else to do that, like that's absolute rubbish that you can literally put up a post about the Scrap Expo today, any photo, be in it, Don't be in it. You can start to like other people's posts. You can share other people's posts. Like it's easy to participate and the more you participate, the more people will see your post, the more LinkedIn, or depending on whatever platform you're going to be on, will like you more, and there's an algorithm in the background, so the more you do, the more juice you'll get, so every time you then do a post, it's going to show it to more people, and the more people that like it, then LinkedIn knows that you're putting out good content, so it's going to show it to more people, you don't need a marketing team, or to hire a team to do it for you, you need a Phone to take a picture with and just decide what you want to take it off and whether it's one day a week, whether it's one day, one post a day, like whatever it is, if you start trying to keep that consistent and grow that, and you might not say that to a lot of people that have reached out, you might not know what you're going to need it for now, but when you do know what you need it for, it's going to take you a year to build it. So if it's that you decide that now you're going to go on the road and want to be buying more metal from another region, whatever you're like, I wish I'd been posting. Because then more people would know about what my company does. Like, you're too late. It's going to take a year for LinkedIn or whatever social media platform to actually say, okay, let's give this person juice because people like their posts. So it's about creating that early on before you even know what you're going to do with it. And once again, what, you know, people are asking, should they be on LinkedIn? It depends on what you want. Like, LinkedIn is, is business to business, right? It's B2B. If you're looking to land customers, And to do business with, um, to do business with businesses or deals with businesses, LinkedIn is the place to be. Obviously there are people behind all those businesses. So there are people and that's who you're engaging with. But if you want to look for, you know, some people would call it vanity metrics, which is rarely just people liking your posts to make you feel better, you know, and maybe it's that you're looking to, um, actually a better one. You're looking to grow. No, I was going to say, and, and, um, Facebook and that's really people like your little post. That's great. It might not be necessarily what you're looking for. So make sure that you've done the research and choose the right thing. If you're looking to build your street trade, once you want to buy your retail, build your retail side of your business and you're in a region, Facebook and Tiktok is a great tool because it's, you know, it's the tradies that are going to be dropping the plumbers, electricians, et cetera. They're going to be coming into you. They're not necessarily on LinkedIn, but they're probably looking at TikTok and Facebook. So choose, or Instagram, wherever you want to be, but do that homework and then kind of stick to it. We, I can tell you this right now, the three of us, and I can tell you John's the exact same. If you comment on one of our posts, we will engage with you straight away. And by us engaging, once again, LinkedIn likes you. It then sees that when you comment something, people engage with you. That will give you more juice to be able to promote you at a later stage. Like I say, you might not know what it's for now. But if you want it later, it's too late to build it in a year's time when you want it then. So, I don't know if there are any questions on any of the topics we've kind of been all over. If anything sparked any sort of interest or a question. Oh, there we go. We got Morty. There we go. you want to repeat it as well? Yeah, he's asking about our company's communication and you know that's something good to talk about. His communication. Is he you're only as strong as your weakest link. Obviously, we have our emails that go to the people. We have a quarterly newsletter of phone calls and that sort of thing. Typical person that works in your yard. How do you get them to feel as part of the team and just know what's going on? You get out there. You get out there. You get out there with them. And you go into the yards. And you pay attention. And you ask questions. And you listen. You listen. A good leader has to listen. And I think that's goes a long way in our company with how we build our culture and how the people buy in and want to be part of something. Yeah, because I feel like there's so many people at so many different levels. You sent an amazing email celebrating a big win. People in the yard don't even see it, you know, it's being approachable. You know, you have somebody who's about to retire calling them, thank him, doing something for him. You know, maybe we have like a pizza big party on a, not a pizza lunch on Friday or something, just. bringing your people together and make them feel like they're part of something rather than just individuals running around and go home at the end of the day and just stuck here. It's a good question because for bigger companies, it's hard. It makes it more, it's more difficult. It's way more difficult. So it's a great question. Like, I think if you've got one yard, you know, quite easy to create a culture. So last year was our 125th anniversary. And yet we had a party at the Rima event and we all have different kinds of stuff, but we wanted to do something to celebrate with all the people of our team to team with a capital T. And so we built this big smoker. And a lot of you might've seen pictures of this online on LinkedIn and elsewhere. And we had, I think, 19 barbecues in our regions. We didn't bring the smoker all over to all of them because it's from Wisconsin and Nebraska can be far to pull that thing. Um, but we brought all of our employees together and we did something that we've never done in 100, now it's 126 years. We shut the yards down during the day for an hour or two. We brought everybody together from even the outlying yards so everybody can be together and we celebrate together and we ate a meal together. We broke bread together. So much happens when you're eating a meal together. I went to all but two of them And the only two I didn't go to is because I got sick. So I couldn't go and I went later on and I thanked everybody. Um, but it's bringing people together. I always, so we're going to thank everybody. I always thank every single person when I'm walking in the yards. So at any level, it doesn't matter. Thank your people. That means something to them. Can I pay him a compliment? I was fortunate to tour the Milwaukee facility with you this summer. Which you compared to Hollywood, by the way. Which I did, John. Um, he stopped at every department, knew every woman and man's name, spent some time, had a conversation. It was awesome to watch. Thanks. I saw it firsthand. Thanks. Anybody else got any other questions they wanted to ask anybody? taught you how to operate a forklift 15 years ago? John Hoefing, when he was a college intern. He what he taught you how to operate the forklift. Yeah, he was a college intern. It was my first week. He trained me. That's awesome. Okay, guys, we in the next few minutes, I think John's getting up here. So thank you for your time. Thank you guys. I think it was fun. Yeah, this is great. And, um, thanks guys.