Ep 85- Revolutionizing Car Sales with Chris Gillman

Transcript

Transcripts are generated by machine learning, so typos may be present.

BTB (00:00):

Welcome to the Building Texas Business Podcast, interviews with thought leaders and organizational visionaries from across industry. Join us as we talk about the latest trends, challenges, and growth opportunities to take your business to the next level. The Building Texas Business Podcast is brought to you by BoyarMiller, providing counsel beyond expectations. Find out how we can make a meaningful difference to your business at boyarmiller.com and by your podcast team where having your own podcast is as easy as being a guest on ours. Discover more at yourpodcast.team. Now. Here’s your host, Chris Hanslik.

Chris (00:42):

In this episode, you will meet Chris Gilman, president and CEO of Team Gilman. Chris shares his insights on how technology is reshaping the car buying experience, and why reinvesting in your employees is the key to a successful business. Chris, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business. Thanks for taking the time to join us today. Thank you. I look forward to it. So let’s just start by telling the audience about your business and maybe a little bit about how you got into the business. Okay.

Chris G.  (01:13):

Well, last name’s Gilman. Been a family name here in Houston since 1938. I’m a third generation car dealer. We started off in downtown Houston with Pontiac and GMC at the corner of Milam and Peas, and then my father took it over, ran it, did everything, built it all the way up. And I’ve kind of taken over since then, since my father’s passed away since 2011, we roughly have around almost 800 employees, and we do roughly around 18,000 cars a year here in Houston.

Chris (01:49):

That sounds like a pretty big volume.

Chris G.  (01:51):

It’s definitely a small family business. Yes. I think it’s pretty good

Chris (01:56):

Volume. Yeah, no, it sounds like it. So let’s talk about, there’s a lot, especially at the beginning of the year about looking ahead. There’s been a bunch of conversations in the last two years about ai. What are some of the emerging technologies that you see or that you now, or maybe coming as it relates to your

Chris G.  (02:15):

Industry? Well, right now, one of the big things is almost 20 to 30% of every service appointment when you bring in your car for service, when you set your appointment, you are actually talking to somebody that is an AI virtual assistant that is scheduling your service appointment for you, and you actually think you’re speaking to a human, and that is setting up a pickup and delivery or, Hey, I need to drop my car off at three o’clock. I need a loaner or I need a shuttle. You’re actually dealing with an ai, virtual voice setting your service appointment

Chris (02:54):

Kind of like the virtual assistant.

Chris G.  (02:56):

Yeah, it’s full blown. And also a lot of times if you’re setting an appointment to come in to come test drive a car, there are tools right now that we are utilizing to streamline and make the car buying and the servicing of your vehicle a lot easier.

Chris (03:11):

I’m sure most people will love hearing that because almost like death and taxes, most people say you talk about buying a car and they just poke a needle in my eye because it’s such a painful process

Chris G.  (03:25):

Back from me being 47 years old, buying a car the way it did in 1985 and 1995. Hell, even in 2005. It’s completely different now. You can get in and out of a car dealership with not only an hour and a half, but the days of, oh, let’s go haggle and beat up and go negotiate and Oh, hear me roar. Those days are gone. If you want to make the car buying process difficult, you can or you can make it very simple.

Chris (03:58):

Well, you bring up a good point though, right? With the consumers, much more informed these days because of the internet way more, which is great,

Chris G.  (04:06):

By the way, an informed buyer is a better buyer. What it was in, I think it was 2010, your average consumer used to visit 5.2, 5.5 dealerships before they bought a car. Now it’s like 1.3.

Chris (04:24):

Wow. Yeah. More efficient.

Chris G.  (04:26):

Way more efficient.

Chris (04:28):

I mean, my sense is that’s common across a lot of industries, right? With the age of the internet, more price comparing and shopping online and things like that. Oh, it’s just like buying a home.

Chris G.  (04:38):

You see all the photos online and you look at it and go back in the day you used to go visit 20 different homes before you bought it. Now you might only look at

Chris (04:47):

Three. That’s a good point. So you got dealerships across the greater Houston area, 800 employees, anything that we talked about, technology for the consumer, anything you’re using to kind of help hire, manage, train employees that is kind of innovative or using technology to help you there?

Chris G.  (05:08):

Some of the technology that we’re using, I’m not here to promote a payroll system or anything like that, but we’ve been able to lower our HR staff by using a company called Paycom.

(05:22):

And also our digital handbook is in that we have training videos and all that. That’s from the employee standpoint. From the consumer standpoint, we use a company called Reynolds. And Reynolds, they’re a Texas based company, or they have a company in Dayton, Ohio, but they started off in Houston. There’s a thing that we call docu pad where you do the whole car deal, everything, it’s all digital, it’s no paper, it’s all digital. And we are able to also, I don’t want to use the word FaceTime, but if you are remote, we’re able to do a virtual go back and forth so you can sign your paperwork while you’re sitting at home or at your office, or you can be on a boat fishing if you want, and you can do your whole car deal, and you don’t actually have to come into the dealership.

Chris (06:09):

That’s amazing. I’ve experienced the docu pad. It looks like just you’re sitting at a desk.

Chris G.  (06:14):

Yeah, it’s a gigantic iPad.

Chris (06:16):

And I’ve seen you, I mean in action when any car that you have access to under your umbrella is for sale. I think we were on a day trip and you sold a Tahoe. Yeah.

Chris G.  (06:29):

No matter where you are, you can have a tablet or a phone and you can do a whole car deal, everything right then and there. If you think about it, we’re in the world of the now.

Chris (06:40):

Yeah,

Chris G.  (06:41):

Absolutely. The world has taught, Amazon has taught us that you could buy anything in three clicks. If you want to go buy a $50,000 car in three clicks, I want to be able to provide that for you.

Chris (06:54):

Sure. So I think we all born and raised in Texas, very proud to be. What do you see as some of the advantages of having and starting and growing a business in the state of Texas?

Chris G.  (07:07):

The state of Texas is very pro-business. They like the state of Texas likes it for people to have employees, to create business, to create, I don’t want to use say an economy, but you’re generating taxes for ’em, right? Sure. So they are pro business and the state of Texas likes that. There’s a lot of car dealers that wish they were car dealers in Texas that aren’t in Louisiana, Colorado, California. There’s a lot.

Chris (07:37):

So those are some of the positives. Any challenges or headwinds you see coming maybe specific to your industry or just in Texas in general about operating here?

Chris G.  (07:45):

Well, just from Texas, they’ve just passed a new law, and the new law is pre-owned vehicles do not need a state inspection on the car. Well, what I mean by that is the car does not for you to get a new registration for your new license plates, you don’t have to have state inspection. Well, you can now have a car with one headlight, seatbelt, not working the emissions. Terrible, bad tires, no brake lights. That is just unsafe for the state of Texas. It seems that way. I’m not sure I understand the logic. I have not a clue. And I spent a lot of money lobbying and a lot of time in Austin, Texas fighting that deal, and I lost

Chris (08:30):

Really. So I’m just curious, what was the lobby

Chris G.  (08:34):

Inspection? It was the support of saying that it is getting rid of the state inspection because that state inspection, it hurts the average Texan of paying a fee of $25 to have ’em inspect

Chris (08:46):

Their car for a safe vehicle. So my view that falls into the definition of Pennywise pound foolish and famous words of John

Chris G.  (08:56):

Wayne, you can’t fix stupid.

Chris (08:57):

So talk a little bit about your management style and your approach to leading your team of 800 there at Team Gilman. How would you describe your leadership style?

Chris G.  (09:10):

My leadership style, I’ve kind of inherited from my father of a ready, fire, aim type mentality, but something that my father beat into me a long time ago. Hire people that are better than you. Hire people that are smarter than you. Pay them what they deserve. I mean, God forbid you pay somebody what they’re worth, you pay ’em what they’re worth and get out of their way. Let them do their job and also give them the authority and give them the power to make decisions where they don’t have to be overlooking their shoulder. And let’s not rule by a committee. I know these are all buzzwords, I’m saying, but in all honesty, let ’em meet. Let ’em earn. Let ’em do what they need to do. You’re wanting to hire ’em for a reason, put ’em in, let ’em go. Tell ’em the job

Chris (10:07):

You expect ’em to do and give ’em autonomy to do it.

Chris G.  (10:09):

Correct. You say this is your sandbox, these are your rules, go build. And a lot of employees, I would rather have to pull the reins back on ’em than go have to kick.

Chris (10:22):

Yeah. I’d rather pull the reins and crack the whip all the time around here.

Chris G.  (10:26):

Right.

Chris (10:26):

It’s so true. You want someone that has that ambition and the initiative to go do stuff.

Chris G.  (10:34):

You can’t teach hustle. You can’t. You can tell when you were talking to someone, okay, that person has drive, or that guy’s a popcorn fart. Well, I mean, it’s true. So at the end of the day, you look at it and you’re like, yeah, no, that or that person is just not going to get it done. Or you look at it and go, that guy’s going to get it done, but I know I’m going to have to pull the reins back on him. I would rather surround myself with that guy and then go, okay, by the way, we’ll work on polishing you later.

Chris (11:04):

Sure, sure. Right. It is something to work with. So over the last, what, 13, 14 years you’ve been building this company, what are some of the things that have occurred along that journey that you maybe surprised you and wished you had to known? Kind of those hard lessons that you learned along the way, but man, you’re like, man, I’m so much better for this

Chris G.  (11:25):

Now. There are moments where you take, I’m going to try to use the word empathy and feeling bad for a situation versus what happens from a business insurance legal world. We had a technician that was working on a car after hours illegally with another employee. It was another employee’s car. And the company policy is you have to have a ticket, a repair order on any car that’s in our shop. That is standard rule. That is rule number one. Rule number two, working on an employee car especially, you have to have a manager signature. Number three, you can’t be working on a car after hours without the shop being open with management around. Right, right. Well, this technician and his buddy, both of employees working on a car after hours, the car goes up on an alignment rack, they don’t fully secure it. The car falls down and the car falls on the employee’s head and his jaw’s just dangling.

(12:35):

I mean, it’s terrible, right? Ambulance comes, he rushes to the hospital, I find out. I was like, oh my God, I’m at home. It’s like eight o’clock at night. I run to the hospital at the time. New fresh business owner, dad’s past got all this stuff. So I called the attorney insurance agent people, what do I do? Right? And he goes, did he violate company policy? I went, yes, he did. He goes, when you first see him, you fire him. And I’m like, have you lost your damn mind? This man is in the hospital, a car. He goes, Chris, did he violate company policy? Yeah. He goes, you have to fire him. And I go, but his jaw’s, dang, he’s in those hospitals’ bad. He goes, Chris, if you don’t do it, I will drive down there and I will do it for you. You need to fire him. And I was like, oh my God. So I went and I saw this guy and had his mother and his sister, his girlfriend, a bunch of employees are all in the lobby like, oh, this poor guy. And I fired him. I felt is just a piece of sand, like a piece of grit.

(13:49):

And that was the defining moment of knowing I now live where I was just a normal general manager employee. Now I’ve gone to business person, owner, this is the world now I live in. And to me that was a turning point of know your insurance, know the law, know the hr, and when an incident happens, which something will always happen no matter what, make sure that when you make the phone call at that time, you have somebody you trust that will give you the right advice so you can make the right decision. Because the employee sued anyway and they lost because we did everything by the book. But my normal mindset would’ve been like, okay, let’s do this. And I would’ve done it. I would’ve handled it differently, but the attorney told me to do it like that. So have good representation.

Chris (14:50):

Hello, friends, this is Chris Hans, your building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations, and business leaders. Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm@boyermiller.com and thanks for listening to the show. That’s a good point. Look, especially with the must be a law firm. No. Yeah, exactly. By the way, Boyd Miller use them. But there’s a fine line of that as the leader and owner having to make some tough calls to protect the business while still trying to show some compassion and empathy towards your employees because you want to retain good employees. You want to have loyalty amongst your employees where they are true team members. And so it’s finding that balance. It’s not easy. Right? Well,

Chris G.  (15:54):

It’s also that during the hiring process, you have someone that has, we do background checks on you and let’s just say you have some bad stuff on your background. Right? Well, it’s my job to have it. So when female employees come to work, they know that the 879 other employees, people, you have to have that good work environment instead of going, okay, by the way, we’ve got a guy over here, he’s been a pass felon. It was 10 years ago, but hey, it’s 10 years ago, it’s passed. Like no. And that’s probably crossing so many HR and laws right now, but I background check you, and if you’re a famous words of what Trump says, you’re a bad owned brand. I don’t hire you.

Chris (16:40):

Oh, man, that’s good. So what would you say if you were advising a young entrepreneur maybe about to start, what are some of the biggest lessons that you would want to pass along? Maybe one or two, maybe three things of here’s some things that you ought to consider that I did or I’ve seen others do that worked.

Chris G.  (17:00):

The number one thing I would definitely say is you’re going, I’m going to use this example. And I tell to a lot of people, at one point in time, babe Ruth was the home run king. He was also the strikeout king. You got to keep swinging and there’s going to be failure. You’re going to stub your toe. You’ve got to find a way every day to get back up on the horse, get back in the saddle, get back in that car, drive your ass to work, figure out a way it’s going to work out if you believe in it and you do it and you hustle and surround yourself with people that believe in the same thing that you do, and just you’ve got to keep fighting. It’s the fighters that work. And people are like, oh, well, that’s just cheesy as shit. Something I’ve never met anybody that has started their business and said, it just fell into my lap.

Chris (17:57):

Yeah, I’ll tell you this. I mean, we’re, I don’t know, 80 some odd episodes into this podcast and everyone that’s come on has said it was harder than I thought. It will be harder than you expect it to be. Expect the unexpected, all those things, right? Because it is not easy. It’s not easy. But if it was easy,

Chris G.  (18:16):

Everybody would be doing it.

Chris (18:17):

Yeah, for sure. So part of that to get to success is you’ve got to be profitable.

Chris G.  (18:23):

Yes.

Chris (18:23):

So let’s talk a little bit, I mean, maybe your mindset and how you balance getting the short-term profitability to keep the business going against long-term sustainability.

Chris G.  (18:36):

So one thing I’m going to say, and people kind of get mad at me for saying this, but profit is not a bad thing. Period. End the story. Put you’re in business for it. That’s why I’m in business. Okay. Return on my investment. Not only you need to reinvest into your employees. If you reinvest into your employees, they will bring back profitability and make your business go longer. Put the money back into your employees. That’s number one. Number two, there’s a big thing that we’re currently doing is I use the word data mining. Data mining is I’m taking my own current customers that are doing business with me in the service department. They’re driving a two to 3-year-old car. And I just look at him and I go, Hey, would you like the exact same car, one trim level up at the exact same payment? And the customer goes, you’re telling me if I can get 2.9 for 60 months, the exact same car, but now this car has leather, has a sunroof, has navigation, has Apple CarPlay, and they have the exact same payment.

Chris (19:42):

Sounds too good to be true.

Chris G.  (19:43):

And I go, yeah. And they go, yeah, that’s a no brainer. I’ve spent zero advertising dollars.

Chris (19:50):

So you’re just looking at what the data you already own,

Chris G.  (19:52):

Right? I own the data, it’s managing my own data, and then I’m leasing that customer and I’m currently doing gas and go, the only thing you got to do is put gas in the car. I cover your maintenance. I cover doors, doors, dings, and whatever road hazard stuff on your car, the only thing you got to do is put gas in it. Then when you’re done, come back, come get another car. So I am creating my own market so I could be sustainable,

Chris (20:22):

I guess. So like a reoccurring revenue, almost like

Chris G.  (20:23):

Software licensing. Right. Exactly. But I’m doing that with my own customer base, so I don’t have to rely on going to go get new customers to go battle 16 other Honda stores, eight other Subaru stores, and we’re all fighting for that one customer over a hundred dollars on the price of a car. I’m keeping my current customers happy so I don’t have to play in that crazy, oh, let’s all go cut each other’s throats. Price war.

Chris (20:51):

Yeah. There’s so much truth to that to me, that it transcends across all industries. We always find ourself. I think trying to get the new customer and we lose sight of the existing. Right? Exactly. And we have this existing customer base that’s gotten our business where it is. And not that you don’t want to grow it, but you can grow the existing base. You can grow revenue and profit from your existing base if you’re smart about it. And not that you don’t want to add new customers too,

Chris G.  (21:17):

But that current customer already likes you. You already have good CSI. Well, in the industry is customer satisfaction index. I like to call it constant source of income. And so your current customer base, that’s where your money is. That’s what you need to focus on. You don’t need to go focus and go spend thousands, millions of dollars to go find new customers. You already have people that are happy with you already.

Chris (21:46):

Yeah, no, right. You don’t have to convince

Chris G.  (21:50):

Them. No, you don’t have to convince. And they’re coming back into your service department anyway. So they bought the car and they’re servicing with you. I mean, do you need to get hit over the head with a two by four? Hey, they already like you.

Chris (22:01):

Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned something, the first point you said was reinvest in your employees. Yes. When I think about that concept, which I think is very true, it brings up to mind culture. You’re investing in your employees. You want them to where they are, you want them to see opportunity. How would you describe the culture that you have built or trying to build at Team Gilman?

Chris G.  (22:24):

Number one, we are trying to build this thing daily on a culture. So whatever the vision is, sorry, the vision that we have up on top, we’re trying to really push it down. And sometimes the culture from the bottom comes up and we find a way to meet it. I don’t want to say this, how do I say it? I want you to treat everybody kind of like it’s your grandmother, right? If your grandma’s in the room, if you feel like that’s something bad, you shouldn’t be doing it, don’t ask, don’t tell someone to do something unless they’ve seen you do it first. If you ask someone to go pick up a piece of trash while you’re walking around the car lot, because trash blows, that employee’s not going to pick it up unless he sees you do it, lead by example. Doing stuff like that, giving back into the community, being of the SBCA, doing with dog shelters, buying dogs and training ’em for blind people, stuff like that, donating to cancer, whatever charity that we have going on, I want the employees to know that not only am I giving back to the community, but I also want them to know that, hey, your kid’s soccer team, your kid’s football team, I want to sponsor it. I want to take care of it. And they also feel like it’s a good thing for them.

Chris (23:45):

Okay, so that inclusive, we’re going to take care of you take care of the

Chris G.  (23:49):

Customer. We’re right. So during Covid, I probably catch a lot of shit for this, but hey, it is what it is. During covid, new car supply was non-existent. The inventories went down, right? Prices went down. Everything. Well, I needed also used cars to sell. Well, the only way you get used cars is to take trade-ins, right? Well, we normally trade company average around 50%. So for every a hundred new cars you sell, we get 50 trades. Well, I sat there and I said, Hey guys, we need to be trading around 80%. I have people that need to buy cars. And I had some people get mad at me. They’re like, well, what happens if I don’t have a trade? Well, I got 20%, but I’m not selling you a car. And they go, well, that’s just not fair. And I go, well, okay, well, out of my 800 employees, how about I have to go fire 160 of them and we’ll see what’s

Speaker 1 (24:53):

Fair.

Chris G.  (24:55):

It is make you mad or go fire these 160 souls that have nothing to do with it. Because the economy is something, it wasn’t something that I did as a bad businessman, it was just because of a virus or whatever. And next thing I know is they have to lose their job. So I made business rules to keep these employees intact. Now, did I piss off some customers? Yeah, I did. But at the end of the day, I kept my 160 employees, and at the end of the day, I put my employees first over the customer. And some people might disagree or agree with that, whatever, but I put my employees first, and that’s what makes me successful.

Chris (25:35):

I think that’s what you’ve got to do. So they take care of the customer, right?

Chris G.  (25:38):

Yes.

Chris (25:39):

Because if you have customers with no employees to service, you’re not going to have that customer very long either. Right. So that makes sense. What were some of the, you mentioned obviously the shortage of new car supply. I mean, it’s nice to kind of be turning the page into 2025, and we’re five years now removed from 2020, which is a distant past. But talk about some of the leadership challenges you face and keeping the company together, keeping all those employees Well,

Chris G.  (26:12):

Finding good people is hard. It is really hard. There are some benefits to Covid. I mean, you hear, let’s talk about Texas business, okay, sure. There’s a lot of businesses that had record years during covid. Some of ’em failed, some of ’em dive bombed. But some guys, they had not only record years, but it was crazy. So let’s talk about that elephant in the room. There are some people that just got overpaid during covid period, end of story. And it wasn’t because of their stellar management style. It wasn’t because of what they did or what they brought to the table. It was the market that got them overpaid. And when Covid went down, then now they have to get back to working, get back to doing follow up, get back to the basics, getting back to the foundation of whatever industry that they’re in. And it’s made some people lazy and it has created a vacuum or a vortex of people hopping around different businesses because they keep chasing that covid number that’s out there. And some of them have come to, okay, now some of them, it’s made ’em lazy.

Chris (27:29):

I’ve seen it. Okay. So I call it the covid malaise.

Chris G.  (27:33):

Yes.

Chris (27:34):

And just saying we’re five years removed and it’s still out there. It’s still, to me, one of the biggest impediments to your business achieving its fullest potential is getting people, so many people came into the workforce at that time, and that’s all they knew. And they don’t know any different. And I was it yesterday, in the last day or so, right? JP Morgan, everyone’s back to work in the office five days a week. Absolutely. Amazon announced it in what? October or so? But it started this week, and I said for a while that was where the pendulum was going to start swinging back. And it’s back there where the hybrid work, it will, I don’t know if it’ll ever go away, but

Chris G.  (28:16):

Going

Chris (28:16):

Away in big numbers,

Chris G.  (28:18):

I had salespeople come to me and go, I want to work from home. And I went, great, knock yourself out. And they were like, I’m at home. I’ve been at home now for 10 days and I haven’t sold a car. And I go, yeah, because no one’s knocking on your home door to come buy a car.

Chris (28:30):

They’re knocking on my door. I mean, some of ’em, it just makes sense, right? I mean, it’s just like some people just need to stay home, I guess. Right.

Chris G.  (28:38):

Well, COVID

Chris (28:40):

Decisions have consequences.

Chris G.  (28:42):

Yes, they do. Yes, they do.

Chris (28:44):

So let’s talk about, you look back since 2011 when you took over, what’s the one thing you’re maybe most proud of and at this moment, knowing that you still have goals ahead of you, but

Chris G.  (28:54):

I guess one of the things that I look at each dealership, they have their own heartbeat. Instead of making it a blanket, these are the business rules at all the stores. We have our basic foundation rules, but each store has its own little heartbeat. And that’s from a business standpoint, I grew it from three stores to eight stores. So we’ve doubled it up, almost tripled it. By the end of this year, we should have a night store. So I would’ve tripled the business and just, we’re just having fun, man. Just having fun. Every day is a new day. And I’m not here to be cheesy when I say it, but I don’t think I’ve had one bad day. We’re just having fun. And every day is a new day, and we’re just kind of throwing a pickle up on the windshield, on the window. We’re like, let’s just see what happens, man. So we’re having fun.

Chris (29:49):

So I’m sorry, that’s such a cheesy answer. No, look, if you can’t have fun, I mean, you won’t be able to make it through the tough times. Right. And then they’re going to be there. So if you don’t love it, you’re in trouble.

Chris G.  (30:00):

Yeah, you’re

Chris (30:00):

Definitely in trouble. Well, that’s great. I’m going to turn a little bit to some just maybe Texas related things.

Chris G.  (30:06):

Okay.

Chris (30:06):

Tell us, what’s your favorite kind of maybe vacation spot in Texas or a place to

Chris G.  (30:10):

Visit? I think South Texas is the most prettiest place in the world. Some people might look at a cactus or a mesquite tree, but I look at him and like, well, that’s just a thorny little bush man. But I love to hunt and I love to fish. So I love South Texas. I love lower Laguna Madre, that whole ecosystem, everything down there. I think there’s nothing better in life. Having a margarita looking at a South Texas sunset, man, I think that’s the most awesome feeling in the world. I’m sold.

Chris (30:45):

I couldn’t agree with you

Chris G.  (30:46):

More.

Chris (30:47):

Well, kind of continuing that then. What about Texas traditions, the Houston traditions, anything that you just love to do every year?

Chris G.  (30:54):

So I have been fortunate enough that one of the staples here in Houston is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. So I’m one of the announcers for mutton busting. One of the, I love it. One of the volunteer gets it. It’s an eight second ride for a little five-year-old, right. And a fist full of wool. And literally when they fall off that sheep, it’s a face full of dirt and a lifelong worth of memories. So I love the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo only because I’m an announcer as a kid. My dad used to take me to the art car parade. And so now because of the financial situation, I’m in Team Gilman Automotive, we are the main title sponsor, and we have kind of built back up the Arc Car Parade. That’s every year. That’s in April. That goes up and down Allen Parkway. Yeah.

Chris (31:45):

I’ve been, if no one, especially if you’re listening and you’re in the greater Houston area and you haven’t owe it to yourself to go at least once,

Chris G.  (31:52):

It’s definitely, I was sitting there talking to a bunch of kids the other day and all these kids, all these different schools that I’ve donated some cars to, and they’re like, what’s the one thing that you could tell us? And I go, creativity takes courage. And you know something. Amen. Be creative, decorate the car, express it, do whatever you want, and let’s just hope to God the car runs on in April, so go up and down out Parkway because there are some cars, man, you’re like, Ooh, this, they need some extra oil. So those are probably my two Houston things that I do tradition wise.

Chris (32:32):

Alright, I love it. So last question, do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Ooh, that’s a bold. That’s tough. Save the hardest for the last. That is

Chris G.  (32:40):

Tough, man. I love crispy tacos, man. I mean, if you have a great three crispy tacos, I think everything else in the restaurant is good, but it’s also, it’s hard to beat a good dry chopped beef sandwich.

Chris (32:54):

Oh, when the crispy tacos, you have to actually be able to eat right. Some places they’re already in the grease and you can’t pick ’em up.

Chris G.  (33:02):

Yeah, no, no. I’m the standard. I like old fashioned crispy tacos, man. Alright. I’m Texas. It is crispy tacos.

Chris (33:10):

Got it. Chris, this has been great.

Chris G.  (33:12):

Thank you

Chris (33:12):

So much. Really enjoyed the conversation. Congratulations for what you and your team are doing, not just with your business, but what you do for the community. So really appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Chris G.  (33:23):

And if

Chris (33:23):

Anybody

Chris G.  (33:24):

Wants to buy a car, it’s team gilman.com.

Chris (33:31):

And there we have it. Another great episode. Don’t forget to check out the show notes at boyarmiller.com/podcast and you can find out more about all the ways our firm can help you at boyarmiller.com. That’s it for this episode. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you next time.