S3E8: A values-centred approach with Kripke Enterprises' Andy Golding

In today's episode, I chat with Andy Golding. He is the friendliest face at every conference you'll attend, and he also knows a thing or two about metal recycling!

He was the VP of Sales and Marketing at Kripke Enterprises for 16 years, and is now their Chief Strategy Officer. He's also the incoming chairman of ReMA.

In today's episode, we talk about:

👉  What forges relationships
👉  Humour in marketing
👉  Texting is for friends
👉  Assessing the vibe
👉  And much 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

0:01

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 today's episode, I'm chatting with Andy Golding and he's the incoming chairman of Rima and is the friendliest face at every conference you'll attend. Oh, and he also knows a thing or two about metal recycling. He was the VP of sales and marketing at Kripke Enterprises for 16 years, and he's now their chief strategy officer. In today's episode, we talk about relationships aren't made on the good deals. Having humor in your marketing, texting is for friends, assessing the vibe and so much more. So let's jump into it with the man himself. But first intro. You Hey, Andy, how are you? I am fantastic. I am, uh, it is, uh, sunny in Toledo, Ohio and I'm doing great. How about you, buddy? Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm doing wonderfully well. I'm super happy. I'm glad to be recording this with you today. It is actually really cold here in Texas, in Austin, but really cold for Austin is, um, Yeah, probably around a hundred degrees or so. Yeah, that's, uh, I, I love hot weather and Toledo is a four season town, part of the country, and I would love to be in the heat. I would love to be in the heat. I love the hot weather. That's how we felt arriving here from New Zealand. My wife and I obviously both being from South Africa arrived here and we're like, we're in our happy place. We're back in the heat. It's something, I don't know if we're cold blooded or what it is, but when we're in the heat, we just. I totally get it. I, uh, I envy you and, uh, Austin's a great town. Well, you'll come visit again soon. I'm sure. I hope so, Andy. Well, that's an invite. Sure. Of course. Of course. Absolutely. It is. Let's, um, let's understand, right? So let's understand your background, understand how you got into this industry from the beginning and basically how we get to today and what you do on a day to day basis, which I know you for long enough, you're going to tell me basically do nothing now, but, um, Tell us really what your days look like. So I'll, I'll start you, uh, from the beginning. Cause I, you know, to me, I find it to be interesting. I was in a family business before this business. And before that I was, uh, when I was in college, I always wanted to be an event promoter. I wanted to be like a concert promoter, graduated college, went into the promotions business, learned about it. It's really about sponsorships and event production ended up working at the rock and roll hall of fame and Cleveland, which was like the greatest job in the 1990s. I just loved it, but I didn't make any money. Working for a museum. You don't make any money. A lot of people that tell you when they work for pro teams, they don't make money. It's just being there is what's fun. So then I joined my family business and we were in the auto glass business and auto glass businesses. We replaced windshields on cars or windscreens as they may, as you may say. Um, my father started it in 1955. It was a wonderful business for a long time, but our acquisition costs kept going up. And our reimbursement from insurance company companies kept going down. And unfortunately, about 20 years ago, we went out of business and I was, uh, looking for a job, uh, I had four children, twins that were two weeks old and I needed a job, so I, this was about in, uh, November, I put my resume on eBay. And I wrote a press release that said this person needs a job and he's the first person ever to go on eBay and ask for a job. I put myself up for 99, 000, uh, looking for a job. So I, uh, I got some inquiries and I had an opportunity. But I then, uh, was going to have a press conference that, uh, you know, big shot me. I'm going to have a press conference to say that, uh, I'm looking for a job. And at the time in certain parts of the country, there were things called brain drain, and that's when the smart people, and I don't necessarily include myself in that. But the smart people leave Toledo's and at the time the Cleveland's and go to Chicago's, go to Austin's, go to those towns. So big shot, I'm going to have a press release. I hire a person, she's helping me. I say to my wife in a straight face, do you think I should have a press release, a press conference? And she says, you know, maybe you should call Matt Kripke and see what he thinks. So I call Matt and I said, Hey, Matt, um, I know you saw the article about me cause there was some press, uh, the only one, uh, on eBay. And, uh, I said, Matt, what do you think? I want to have a press conference. And Matt is a wonderful guy. Matt doesn't really, he wouldn't say that's. Stupid. He would say, ah, that's interesting. You know, maybe, maybe you should do that. And so he said, but before you do, I, we just had someone that we hired here, who's working for a big company now, and I'm not ready to say his name, but successful guy. Um, we just hired a guy here, but, uh, Christmas, something he's doesn't want to start. Maybe you would like to join us. Matt is telling me this as though I know what he does. I, he could have been in the shoe business. Okay. Uh, his family and another family in town had what was, what I was told were scrap yards, and now he's a scrap broker. I have no idea. What that is. And, and as you know, most of your friends on the ancillary, they don't understand what work we do. So he says, come over and meet with me and my dad. And, uh, I'll tell you what we do. I tell my wife, Oh yeah, they're great people. Great people go and meet. And Matt says to me, he goes, you know, you could go, you could have a press conference. You go into the insurance business. He said, the difference between all those businesses. And this one is there's immediate gratification in our business. And I'm like, I love immediate gratification. So, um, I said, that sounds great. He said, uh, February you'll start, there's this thing in St. Louis. Uh, after the St. Louis, you'll come and you'll start with us. And I'm like, sure, that sounds great. What do I do? And, and, um, Matt and I from 20 years ago have sat across from each other now next to each other within arm's distance of each other and my other partners, um, in this business and, and we are aluminum. Recycled material traders. So that's how I got into the business. I've been in it 20 years in February. I love the business. It is a it's everything that everyone says it is. I know I talked too much right there. So sorry about it. Is that enough? No, is that enough? That's a man. I want to know. Did your eBay advert, did it have, did it include shipping? It did not include shipping, but I think if you dig my name deep enough, you can see the article in the paper about it. So it, you know, I had the press come to my house. It was, it was not complicated. As you know, sometimes you can work the press a little bit when the story is good. So that's, that's how I got into it. It's been 20 years. I started out trading aluminum on a daily basis. Matt. Matt sat across from me. I would get prices from him. I was trained just like people are trained. Um, never went out into a yard because we didn't have a yard. I, uh, I went and worked at a couple of our good customers, um, in their yards for a week here and a week there. Um, a lot different than the way we train people today, but it was, uh, it was wonderful. I love it. And, um, for me, I now manage a team of eight traders. I'm the chief strategy officer for the company, which, you know, that means very, it's a very, very important title. And, um, about close to four years ago, I went to, at the time where my colleagues, um, and said, I'd like to run for Israel, the board of Israel. And, uh, I said, if I do, it's going to take a lot of time. Are you guys okay with that? And, uh, they said, yes. And now I've become, I'm the incoming chairman of REMA. And so you asked me my day to day, I manage group of eight. And then I also am working with the executive committee of REMA almost on a daily basis, and in a year and a half, I'll be the chairman of REMA. Yeah, that's awesome. And that's a great journey. What I find most interesting is, um, people are constantly complaining, rightfully so, that it's really difficult to find good people. Not everybody's thinking out the box. And Matt could have easily just given you an answer, you know, yes, do it. No, don't do it. Or what he wouldn't have said is that stupid, but. He could have easily just pushed you along and said, but instead he saw an opportunity to bring you into the industry and he jumped, you know, wholeheartedly at that. Now I can tell you, there's probably lots of people out there right now. They don't realize they have an opportunity to bring somebody in that they know, whether it's a friend, whether it's somebody who knows somebody else who's talking to them for mentorship, whatever it is, feel comfortable to invite people into this industry is a great way for us to bring, um, Unlike you, but hopefully some really high level, clever people into the industry. Right. Exactly. Thank you. I, um, you know, I tell people, uh, this is an industry about friends. And, uh, I'm a part of Rima because my friends are a part of Rima and I want to spend more time with them. So that gave me the opportunity to do it. And the people that I trade with, I trade mostly with my friends and that Is what is so great about this industry. If you do it right, you have some ancillary people that you trade with that are very transactional, but the bulk of the people that I hope that you trade with are your friends. And, and I just hired someone a year ago here as a new trader. And after putting them through our, our regular training program, I said, I just want you to call people and make friends. Don't worry about buying. Just try to make friends. Try to make a connection with them because once you make the connection, the buying and the selling, that's easy with friends. It's hard with strangers and it's about price and about things that you don't want it to be about when it's with strangers. It's a lot easier when it's with friends and, and that has worked for this individual. So, and Andy, it's quite interesting because I would have always told them, I did tell my sales team at one time, we had 75 buyers on the road and I would always tell them, make friends with everybody. Right. And even if you have to fake it, this industry, since I've been in the U S and it's been, you know, close to a year that I've been coming back and forth, it's very interesting because it's actually authentic, like there isn't, you don't need to fake it. Yeah. People are actually. Very friendly people want to do business with people they like. So you end up finding a crew of people and friends close, you know, that you become close with. And, and what people don't also understand about that is if you are in your mid twenties, mid thirties, and you go into some of these conferences, Realize that there's probably going to be 30 to 40 years that you're going to be seeing the same people over and over. So, I mean, I've now put together like a dinner for, at the BIR with people that are, you know, similar to my age bracket. Cause I know that for the next 20 years, we I've been going to many of them in the past, but I've never put my own like a crew together. And I'm like, well, this is a great thing. Every time we go to a BIR or a conference somewhere, we're going to get together. We're going to have a dinner and that, that group will just grow and grow. And they are really friends. And of course we do business together, but. People want to do business with people they like, right? That's it. That's it. You know, we, um, um, eight years ago, our, um, REMA chapter put together an event called Best Young and Brightest. And at, at REMA or at ISRI at the time, we had an issue with young people weren't getting involved and we just didn't have a lot of young people as part of the industry. So we put this event together and we capped it at 50 people. It's about a 36 hour. That you pay one price. It's 36 hours and um, you all have to stay at the same hotel and you have to, you have all the meals to get. I mean, and it is every, almost every footstep is planned because we want Everyone to be friends. So the people from the first one, one of them was on the executive committee of Rima. A number of them have chaired committees of Rima. They do very well in their companies. But the string that ties them all together is, is that the people from the first class, we've done eight of these classes, the people from the first class, a lot of them are still And they had that opportunity, just like you created the opportunity for you at the BIR, they had this opportunity from people all around the country to come together and be friends and then go as friends. And then when there is a meeting, are you guys all going in the text links and everything? So that part is so great. And, and for me, the, and I just, I literally just did this this morning. Someone had an item here that I just, I didn't know the item. And I text a friend this morning. I haven't talked to this person in six, seven weeks. I said, Hey, what, what can you do with this? What do I do with this alloy? I have no, I haven't even heard of it before. Bam. Within 30 seconds, they gave me an answer that unless you have that, if everything was competition, no one would ever do that. And this is somewhat of a friendly competitor too. So that's, that is what is so wild about this business. Look, I think we could probably speak about this for days. So let's jump into some value and try and get some stories from you of things that have affected you and molded you into being, you know, the leader and the person that you are now. So, Can you talk us through a pivotal trade experience? You know, something that really offered you some serious learning that you could take with you through the rest of your career. So, you know, the, um, the, the part of trading that I think is the most valuable is when, and we as a company, It's almost one of our core principles. Relationships are not made on all the great deals. Relationships are made on the bad deals. Because that is when everybody really shows their colors. And what happens when something goes bad? What happens if you're exporting and something's in Korea? What What happens if you're exporting or if you are doing a domestic deal from California to Lancaster PA and something goes bad. What I have found is recycling people are scrap dealers. When the truck leaves their place. They never want to see it again. And if they see it again, that is like, it really is upsetting. It's they always want one way tickets. So for us, and for me, you know, best lessons that I have learned along the way are when things go bad. When you send in somewhere that, that they have told you. They don't take bales. They don't take boxes. But as a young trader, you're excited and you want to do deals and you want to do deals and maybe they'll take it. It, you know, those are the times that it burns a hole in, you know, where you never forget. And whether we send boxes in where it should have been bales or bales or, you know, bricks, all of those are the times. And then When it really goes bad, how I act with my customer. One lesson was, I sold some material to a person in the Southwest. Sold a load to them. The load went bad. It was coils and it had cores in it. And the cores happened to be steel cores. Nobody puts steel cores in aluminum. It's just so bizarre. And it got to the mill and they obviously rejected it. And, um, the person now, this is a lot of, this is in my mind, the person that rejected it. And the person that bought it from me was hiding under their desk. They refused to take my calls. And I, I just, I needed some help. Just, you know, what do I do with this? This is a one way ticket. And what do I do with this particular load? And the way that they reacted to it was hiding under their desk. And I. I have never traded with this person again. I don't even know. And I'm not really a huge grudge holder, but I don't even know if I've ever spoken to this person again, because that is the time when you know who your friends are. That is the time when you, as a broker, you, you bring your value. And if I was delivering, if, if I had picked up a load from you, And it went bad and you couldn't get a hold of me and I ran under my desk and wouldn't take your call That's it the end. Um, so I'd say that, you know, unfortunately, the mistakes are where we really, we find out who our friends are and who's smart. And for us as a company, we believe that we step up to the plate when things go bad. As a matter of fact, in our core values, um, we're Our last core value is we provide solutions, and it's really it came up from that particular not that individual case, but we provide solutions to problems because those one way tickets they don't want to return flight. Those loads do not want to return flight. Yeah, I, you know, there's a, there's a great saying, um, never let a good crisis go to waste. Um, and there's an opportunity right in these mistakes and these errors. And also you talk about coming with solutions. Now I can just think about internally, um, when you have your own team or if you're in an employee somewhere, instead of taking a problem to somebody. Inform them of the problem, but take them a solution at the same time. It goes a really long way. So if you, for example, you've got a claim, you've got an issue. You received some material that was off spec. Here is the problem, but here is what I would like to do about it. Makes a huge difference to, as you say, hiding behind a desk, not taking calls. You can't actually solve anything. I mean, the, the, the comp, those are two complete. Opposite ends of the spectrum, you know, often what you can get is an angry phone call, um, somebody is upset, but they're not thinking, they're not solutionizing. They're just thinking, this is an issue right now. And you've done this to me or whatever it might be, or I'm hiding for whatever reason. Instead of just being, this is how we can solve it. And if you have that in your customer service. You'll go very long way and you will make friends and you'll do business with people for a very long time. Absolutely. This stuff that we move on a daily basis, it isn't a, we're not moving TVs that work, you know, we're moving stuff that someone else didn't want. So, um, yeah, so it is great. Right. Yeah, there's a gray area in all these specs. There's a gray area, you know, um, buying versus selling, it's very easy to put a different set of glasses on and say, well, I'm seeing this now as a buyer I'm seeing is that both can be absolutely correct. That's the problem. And you just have to be aware of that. And also if you. In it for the long haul. And if you consider that this is just a time right now, an issue right now, and this will be gone in a couple of days time, and you will carry on doing business. Is it worth running your reputation? Is it worth running a relationship or whatever it might be, or step up? Conclude the deal. If you have to take a knock, you take the knock and you move on to be able to carry on, you know, to be able to stay in the ring, I guess. Absolutely. And you know, our second core value is, is that relationships are the backbone of our business. And our backbones aren't getting broken over, uh, one bad deal with a good customer. It's just, it just doesn't happen. It just doesn't. Yeah. I think, you know, I think, um, so many of us feel the same about relationships. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have bought, built a relationship led relationship. Marketplace. I realized that we're not going to become transactional. That's never going to change in our industry. What we need is somebody to help our relationships to make it more efficient. So I completely agree in that, you know, there's a great, um, great values to have. When you now, you guys do a lot of brokerage, so when you are selling, it's very easy to get a phone call, get a message from a million different buyers who come to you from out of nowhere, go to the BIR, which we were talking about and meet thousands of new buyers. It's very difficult to know who are the most reputable, who are not, who are going to honor their deal, who's reliable. How do you decide who you should sell your material to? And how do you consider bringing on even new, new buyers? So, um, we do it a couple different ways. Um, and for us, have it doing a lot of domestic business. It is very rare that there is somewhere in this country, there is a buyer of, Um, that melts that I don't know someone or someone else doesn't know some. So, uh, especially when they come into the market and they're 20 cents above the marketplace or something crazy like that. So one is, um, you know, we do some simple background checking. The simplest form, hey, Stu, do you know this guy? Yeah, you know, something like that. Two, as brokers, we have credit insurance on about 95 percent of the people that we do business with. Uh, as brokers, we're making, you know, thin margin. So, we need to protect ourselves. It's in our bank covenants. Credit insurance is extremely important to us. If credit insurance is an issue, or if we are selling someone that, uh, we'd like to sell more than we can get credit on, then, um, we may, uh, our CFOs may exchange financials to see, uh, if they are worthy where they're at. That's really how we do it with regard to, uh, export, which, um, we do. We are, um, Growing our export business. Uh, it is a little bit more difficult. Um, the place where we are is we don't deal our bread and butter, our primary alloys and extrusions, and the really good aluminum stuff, the low grade wire and the, um, the sealed units, although we do them, we do them in such small quantities that, um, we. We don't have enough to talk to 20 people about, you know, if we have a place to sell sealed units, we sell them. And it's not like we have 40 different loads of sealed units from 20 different dealers to sell. So we really, um, on an export basis, we really don't have that much checking on. Um, Uh, we don't have that much checking, and we also will do credit insurance on them. And sometimes we may go through a broker in the U. S. that sells to the end customer. Obviously, our goal is to have direct relationships with the mills. But as we're finding, even the mills have an in between. So, uh, referrals, uh, credit insurance, Um, and, and maybe, and this is the part that I know you love because it's so inaccurate is, um, the vibe, you know, you know, it's, it's the vibe. And since we're not filling up, you know, entire ships for one or two loads, the risk is not there as much as possible. Potentially it was when you were, um, uh, back in your previous life. Mm-Hmm. So it's, um, that's how we do it. That's how we do it. There's a lot of vibe at the BAR, um, right. It's trying to choose the right vibe, which is always really tricky. But now you obviously, in order to have a lot to sell, you're having to buy a lot. What's your strategy when it comes to, to buying. Do you, you've mentioned before, you know, build relationships, but, um, how much is, you know, location, the price, how much marketing do you guys do? Is there something around like a customer experience, which you hold dear to you? Um, how do you guys handle your buying? So, um, I love this question because this is really gets to the heart of who we are. We're not transactional. Uh, we have dealers that are transactional. Um, we go out of our way to satisfy our dealer relationships. You know, if something goes bad, most of the time we eat it. We may start a relationship and not even make money on stuff just to get something going. Um, our reputation. Is bigger than anyone here, um, and our reputation is what I hold dearly and watch closely with eight traders. I tell our traders if you go to the round tables or go to the, um, Go to the St. Louis meeting and everyone, and you're the guy that everybody's talking about when we come back, that isn't going to be good. That's not us. We hold our reputation very important. We do tons of marketing. We have so much fun with our marketing last year. Elvis Presley rock and roll. If I remember. Yeah, that's I mean, we have for the past 10 years sponsored the Mama's Rules and we have special photography done and we do a lot of things. But the thing we did last year, this was this was pretty crazy. So last year we always do an April Fool's joke. So last year, um, cause we do a lot of emailing and we have a texting program and I mean, we try to stay at the forefront of it. So last year on April fools, we sent a letter to our customers. This went good and bad. It was weird. And we said to them, uh, congratulations. We just bought a jet and it's the same jet that Taylor Swift uses. It's big and congratulations to us. But the truth is we didn't buy it for us. We bought it for you and we have two pilots and three stewardesses and it's beautiful and it's going to give us the opportunity to visit you more and to To see you more. And we're really not going to use it much on the weekends. It's really for you. We did this for you. And it went on a little more. It was an AI written letter. Well, some of our customers who know us, you know, I sent this out to 5, 000 people. Some of our customers who know us said, are you guys are so full of shit. And what is going on here? Some of the fringe was like, what is, what are you nuts? You assholes will never do business with anyone who talks to us like that. You know, they thought we were for real. So, you know, the, the reason I mentioned it is because you know, comedy and humor and that it, you have to have some risks. You have to push some boundaries. That doesn't mean you're in bad taste. It means you got to push the boundaries a little. You got to get people's attention. People were talking about it. That, I mean, they were talking about it. We were just at the round tables and everyone's like, how did you get here on your jet? And some people still believe it. The whole line, we didn't buy it for us. We bought it for you. I mean, to us, we were belly laughing, crying our eyes out on how funny it was. And so you asked how we do it. We take some risks. We take risks with comedy. We try to be in front of people all the time. We try to stand out. We do guerrilla marketing. I mean, we, um, we really, uh, try to differentiate ourselves from everyone. And what we want to do is we want to capture your attention and give us a chance to experience what Crip, what dealing with Kripke is like, because what we find is the people that deal with us. Love dealing with us. Our number one core value is we do what we say. And that came from the founder, Larry Kripke, Matt's father. He said it differently. Um, the way he said it is we pay our bills on time and we say we do what we say, because when he started, what was important to him was paying the bill on time. Because sometimes brokers, they play games, this and that. Our most important thing are in our core values are we do what we say. And once we capture your attention, whether it's through our marketing or our advertising or emails, texting, or just general fun, and you experience us, you stay with us. So we don't always have the best price, but you know that you can trust us. And that we are people of integrity. And in this business, that's number one, you can have lots of friends, but in this business, you don't hang out with people that are criminals or that cheat people or anything like that. You are judged by those that surround you. And we hope to surround ourselves with the best. And our customers are really the best recycling facilities in the country, and if not in the world. Yeah, that's awesome. And I can think of, I actually, I actually, um, while you were talking now, I could think of quite a few of your little marketing things you've done. I remember the Elvis Presley with the sideburns there was once you did something where, um, I can't remember what you were doing, what everybody, everybody in your company did, but on the back of the screen was funny, like videos on their computer screen. And that was really what was hilarious about the whole, the whole scene was What were they watching? Like, it's like, that's all you noticed and really got your attention. And as you say, people are talking about it. Well, then you, you, you're doing it right. So that's awesome. It's the difference between transactional. I mean, as you know, and in, in your, um, business, you can survive for a while being the highest price. And you can survive for a while being the lowest price software company or a company that does the things that you do. You can survive a while, but you're not going to survive the long term. Someone's going to come out with a lower price. Someone's going to come out and pay more. And, um, it's, you know, Our people like to do business with their friends, guys that they can joke with, guys that they go or women that they go and have some beers with and have some fun with. Yeah, it's a sprint versus marathon is the analogy I always use, like what are you in this for? Are you in this for the long haul and are you making friends because you want to hang out with them for the next 20 or 30 years or are you just looking to make a buck? And if you are, that's all good and well. But just know that your time span will be a lot shorter than those that are behaving in a different way. It, Stuart, it is amazing that just today, I mean, just today, I have had these same conversations with my traders. You know, someone brings me an opportunity, it looks like we can work on a gigantic margin. I'm like, you can do that, but that's the last time we'll do business with them ever. And that's not how we do things. So I, I completely agree with you. It's a marathon and 20 years goes by like that. Yeah. A hundred percent. So let's talk about, um, decision making you hold a role where you're going to have to make quite a lot of decisions in your time. What, what sort of data are you using? You know, the key metrics that you run your team on, run the company on, how are you making better data driven decisions? Again, this is so timely. So we run things very tight. We're very lucky. We wrote our software system internally, and after using it for five years or so, the person that wrote it came to work for us. So we have an in house Code writer. So I have the ability two days ago. I said to him, look, I want to look at the projected profit deals made compared to the actual money deals made. I want to look at the projected freight rates compared to the actual freight rates. I want to look at how many deals this person did with who and how When, and now he is writing code to predict when this customer should be doing their next deal with us. So we use data in the deal making constantly. So everything, all the systems that we create over here, we do the same in our logistics area, and we do the same in our consolidation and retail area. And so it. Can I tell you an interesting story about how we use data? All right. So not only are we in the scrap business, but we are in the aluminum coil brokerage business, we buy and sell aluminum coil that really goes into the building and construction business. So building a BNC and then gutters and downspouts. And the beauty of gutters and downspouts is, is that we buy bare coil, some Domestically, some overseas, we send them, we get them painted. Basically, a lot of it is we get painted white and the people that paint it sits, if they sit in their warehouse at no expense to us, it sits in their warehouse until we call it to send it to a customer. And I look out my window, my window backs up to our retail area. And I see all these beautiful. Trucks driving in, gutters, gutters, you know, we do gutters, seamless gutter, gutter, gutter, gutter. And I'm like, jeepers, like we have all these guys coming in here with gutters, and we have this coil that is sitting in warehouses in Kentucky and Minnesota, all over the place. I'm like, you know what? I think we should bring the coil in here, some of it, not all of it. And sell it to these guys. I go to my, um, computer guy, or sometimes I call him our computer nerd, but I say that to his face. Um, and I said to him, uh, we also have a very vibrant retail texting program. I said to him, pull everyone that has ever sold us 3105. And we're, we took everyone that did it. Everyone that's in our texting program. We dropped all the names into our tech system. We sent out a text to them that said, Hey, we now sell coil. We know you'd sell 3105. We assume you're in the gutter business. Next day we made sales. Next day. So it's like when you have the data, having the data is one thing reminds me of a Seinfeld thing. Having the data is one thing. But when you have the person that knows how to access it and and use it to your advantage. The sky is the limit. The sky is the limit. So that's what I mean when I say we drill down on stuff. And I know that you have to do that as well. Um, it just is so powerful when you have the data. And you know how to access it. What do you think? Oh, look, you're speaking my language, Andy. That is, um, that's gospel. I mean, I am such a big fan of, of that answer that, you know, George Adams was up the other day on stage in Chicago and he was asked, you know, what his thoughts were, um, about buddy and, and that sort of data play coming through to help on the trading side, cause we don't have that. Um, and he went on and on about how important data is and he couldn't run his company without data. But then it's a lot of companies that are still using pen and paper. Like. We need to move holistically, um, across into the era of utilizing data for our entire industry to be better. Your example is on point. Like it is brilliant. The fact that you could just delve into your data and say, who has sold me this material, plus have all of their information you need to be able to now also send a text message and it immediately. Converted into revenue like that is, that's just hugely, hugely powerful. So if, yeah, if people have retail yards, okay. And I know you, since I'm not selling anything, if you have a retail yard and you are not collecting, Cell phone numbers for texting. You are, you are like, um, and we do a lot of radio advertising and other local advertising, but you are letting money like go right out the door. Um, we are able on occasion to run a special And they line up outside here because they got the text. Does the text work every time? No. Do we send people jokes too? Sure. Do we give away hot dogs? Yeah. But we are able to use our data to make more money. And, you know, I, I, I think to myself, if, if, um, And we have a small retail yard. If you have a big retail yard and you're filling containers, and you know you've got two containers that you need to get another 20, 000 pounds of insulated wire or sealed units or whatever it is, and you can send a text out to say, Hey, I'm willing to pay a little bit more, or if you can get it here immediately, like, how else do you do it? What do you do? You're standing in front of the door. My wife must love you. Well, she will love editing this episode because when we had the business in New Zealand, all I used to hear was first party database. Now this is seven or eight years ago. I didn't even know what that meant, but in the tech world, it's exactly what you're talking about. It's the ability and people pay a lot of money to buy these databases from other companies. We have. These customers delivering to us on a daily basis, we are already getting information from them. It is very simple to say, can you please give me your mobile phone number? Or would you like to join our premium supplier group? Right. And all of a sudden, of course I would, what do I get? Well, you get a 10 percent premium on all the prices. And of course, we factor that into our pricing and how we, how we structure our pricing. But now all of a sudden people feel that they need to give you their information. And when they give you the information, you can use that to communicate because they have to opt in to receive text messages. They do that by becoming a member of Kripke retail, whatever it is. And then you have the ability to communicate directly with your customers. And it's exactly what you say. And so here's what was interesting. The reason one of our pathways to retail was it was COVID. Matt sent a challenge out to all of us. Where are COVID pivots? We have a pretty big building in a very nice part of town that there isn't another person that collects metal within 12 miles. And the idea came about let's do retail. And we said, we're going to do it. If we do it, we're going to do it like Chick fil And I'm talking to my friend, uh, Neil Bice and Neil says to me, he says, if you do retail the way you do brokerage with our same core values, you guys are going to kill it. And within, you know, I mean, it's. It is, we use the same core values. We treat people the same way we have the same amount of fun. And, um, you know, we're not trying to kill them. There's no trying to kill them. And our, um, you know, in the, in, in SACOs world, we are spotless, you know, our slogan is you leave with air in your tires and cash in your pocket because there's, you know, it's clean here and we treat you like you're at Chick fil A. So, um, we do this like points program, you know, same, same thing that you're talking about, like a VIP program. And we give away certain things, but the thing that people want that I'm like amazed by is they want stuff with our name on it because their affinity is to us. We're like their guys. We're their scrap guys, and we're there. And the person that's in the window that pays them and the guys that are on the scale, those are like their friends. And, um, you know, you can't come to our place with a shopping cart. It's just, it, it, it's, it's, It's not that you couldn't, it's that you couldn't get here with a shopping cart. And the way our place is set up, people that are shady don't come here. It isn't the place for them. So the people that do come, they're such pride, because we take such good care of them, that they want our name. We'll give away Yeti coolers, they want sweatshirts with Kripke on it. And so when you do that text messaging, text messaging is between friends. That's how you communicate between friends. So it's not, you know, you're communicating like you would a friend. And that's the other reason why it works. Now, if you're a yard where you treat people shitty, and everybody leaves with a flat tire, and your scale guys are trained to screw them, well then, text messaging isn't for you. Because that's just, yeah. But if you're good people, you created a community. www. larryweaver. com That's really what you've done. Exactly. Correct. You've created a Cryp key community in your area. You know, Lisa used to always say to me, you can tell a lot about how it's going by the responses you're getting. So when you send out a corporate text message and it goes out from a company, usually when you receive it, you're like, okay, there's a promotion, but you know it's going well when they reply. Thank you so much. And it wasn't even from a person, right? It's from a company, but then you can immediately see that they're relating to you, they're a part of a community. They appreciate what you're doing. You know, you talk about Chick fil A, we, our whole strategy in New Zealand was because we compared, um, what was out there at the time and what we wanted to do was create, we, we set a McDonald's process and we created a drive thru under a nice big cover and you pulled up. You had your material offloaded. You were able to watch them weigh everything, put it on the system. You pulled up the next one and you got paid and you drive out. And it was, our big thing was when we did market validation in the area, we sold a bit of material to other metal recyclers before we built what we were building. And we were able to see that usually you got shouted at. You arrive there. It's intimidating. It's your first time in a scrap yard. You go, where do I go? And some big guy goes, put it down in the corner, criminal criminal. Go over there. Right? Exactly. Whereas we want to was Lisa's whole thing was way finding when you go to McDonald's drive thru, no one ever wonders. Oh, do I turn right or do I turn left? Where should I stop? So we had all these signage, all the signage, and it was like arrows pointing and it was like, um, weigh and pay here or weigh here, pay next. And when you arrived in, there was a big container wall, which showed you step one, two, and three. So you knew exactly what was coming next. And if you can manage that as well and manage the expectations of the customers, immediately they have a better experience. But we could probably talk about this for days. I mean, this is a topic I think you and I both really love. Next time I'll dial Lisa in because she can give us all the homework she's done and all the courses she's done. I want to leave, I want to leave this one subject because you did say something. When we send texts to our customers, we always make it from a person. We don't do it from Kripke Enterprises. Say this. No, no, no. So, so that when I said it from an enterprise, I mean, physically, actually, but we always use the name. Um, okay. Cause, cause we're going to start running out of time. We're going to have to skip a whole lot of the questions, which we had planned. Cause we're having way too much fun yet. So I want to ask you quickly, um, who do you want to hear next from on Born Scrappy? Boy, that is, um, so. I'll make this as short as possible. I feel as though our businesses have such a strong connection to the can manufacturers and to the automotive, but we don't hear enough from them. We may hear from the novelluses of the world that make the can stock and make the automotive stock, but our businesses are symbiotic. We cannot live without each other. The recycling can't live without the coke. And Coke can't live without recycling and automotive. I want to hear from the consumers of our products and understand what is important to them. Do I have their exact names? I don't know, Mr. Coca Cola and Mr. General Motors. I mean, I want to hear from those people. I want, I am dying for someone from the automotive industry to say to our industry, thank you so much for what you do. Um, and. So that's who I want to hear from you have had such great guests and it's funny because you know you um, you've had a lot of good ones and and some of the They're what they talk about and some of the things that we've talked about. I've heard even from from them but I want to hear from the consumers of The products that are made from recycled materials not the melters, but the people that they sell to and uh understand so that could be great that could be um You Um, heating and cooling companies, uh, you know, air conditioning companies, so many people that rely on us. And I feel it's so imperative that we make that clear connection between us. It's not just Scrapyard Novelis Abyss. It's Scrapyard Novelis General Motors, Scrapyard Novelis Coca Cola, or that's who I want to hear from. Yeah, I'm with you. Cool. That's a good one. That sounds like season four. Um, let's get to know Andy quickly before we go favorite to TV series or movie. So, um, I love Jack Ryan. I love anything CIA. Uh, my favorite Jack Ryan. I also love oceans 11 movies, 12 with women without women. I love those show me a Jack Ryan or Jack Reacher. I am as happy as a clam favorite place to visit. So I love northern Michigan and I love southern Florida. I love, uh, you haven't been to these areas yet in the country, but northern Michigan is like Charlevoix Harbor Springs, Petoskey. And then I like the East coast of Florida, the Bocas West Palm beach. And in that those are where I've spent most of my I'm there tomorrow. I'm literally flying to Boca tomorrow. I've got a few meetings in that area, uh, and then staying at a cousin of mine. Uh, and then I'm back there in December, we'll be holidaying for a few weeks there. Are you renting a house or were you staying in Boca? Uh, hotel. With your children? No, they've got other family there at the time. Yeah, we'll be at Boca Raton. Let's, favorite book? Uh, you know, I like, um, like, uh, David Balducci type books. Again, I'm a CIA kind of junkie. I also like anything that, you know, James Patterson. But the book, now I'm going to do a little promo here. The book that I'm totally hot on right now is Fans First by Jesse Cole. Fans First by Jesse Cole. I mean, that's not CIA. What is that about? No, that is not CIA. Jesse Cole is the owner of the Savannah Bananas. Oh, he's incredible! The Savannah Bananas are reinventing baseball, and I am He's amazing. Although it's out there, he is the opening speaker for this year's The Show convention 2025. So he is an, he is, I follow him on social media. He is brilliant. He's an absolute genius. Yes. So he is our opening speaker on Tuesday morning of the, um, of this year's, uh, Rima 2025, so I'm really excited about that. That's cool. And his book was amazing and the friction points and you know It's stuff that you did at your yard and you're doing I mean, it's really your story about your software on how you're taking out all the friction points and just uh getting rid of those and that's his story of baseball and it is I hope for our business owners that he opens up their eyes to what is possible because Baseball is so american and so like, uh has been done It's The same for so long and he has changed it all and sold out stadiums. I mean, I'm, I'm amazed with him and I'm totally stoked that he's going to be the opening speaker. Um, lastly, favorite quote, favorite quote. All right. So I really have, uh, two, one, uh, I don't know who it can be attributed to, but sometimes when I get, Confused or low or whatever. I, I remind myself to march by the beat of my own drum. And, uh, my other favorite quote is if I had more time, my letter would be shorter. Uh, I believe that I believe in things that are concise and in marketing, you know, uh, doing things concise takes a lot of time. So I absolutely love that quote and it makes a lot of sense. Um, it sounds very simple and. Sounds backwards, but brutal when you understand exactly what, what you're saying, it's brilliant, Andy, that's been awesome. I love the show and we could have spoken for days. So looking forward to seeing you in the next few weeks at one of the conferences somewhere around, uh, Singapore, Singapore. That's right. Next week, we'll be. I look forward to seeing you there and I'll be there Saturday. Hey, this has been such an honor to be a part of this. Thank you. I know I talk a lot, but thank you so much for having me on. It's really been an honor. Thanks, Andy. Cheers. Bye. Bye bye.