On today’s show, we’re pleased to welcome back Rudy Tremenio, otherwise known as Mr. El Patronn, Managing Partner at Brooklyn Mitsubishi.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Jim Fitzpatrick: Hey everyone, thanks so much for joining me on another edition of CBT News Today. We have a special treat. Mr. Rudy “El Patronn” Tremenio. Thank you so much for joining us, Rudy.
Rudy Tremenio: You’re very welcome, sir. Thanks for having me.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. The reason that we wanted to talk to you today is to talk to you about this Game Changer Conference that’s coming up. I know you’re excited about it. Tell us the motivation-
Rudy Tremenio: I am super pumped.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, tell us the motivation behind starting this and putting it together. I know a lot goes into a conference, we’ve given a number of them here at CBT and-
Rudy Tremenio: Oh man, if they only knew the amount of stress level and time.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I know.
Rudy Tremenio: It started a year ago. It was just a joke. It was like, can you put a conference together, right, that was not dealerships or GMs putting conferences together? We got it together and we booked for a 100. 170 people showed up and it was amazing, man. We changed some lives that day. I still have people that send me the recordings to say, “Because of that conference I came out a different person.”
Jim Fitzpatrick: Oh, that’s great.
Rudy Tremenio: I spoke a lot of our social, my first time, because of what I did, how to build a brand within a brand.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure.
Rudy Tremenio: It was pretty rewarding. It was one of the most proud days that I was and was very energized that day. I felt like we did change some people’s lives. We wanted to have a banging 2019 and it worked out. It cost me over a hundred grand but it wasn’t about that, it was just about making a difference. The business has been good to me, like I said to you. And it’s a way for me to give back, you know?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Where is the conference going to be held? What’s the venue?
Rudy Tremenio: The conference is going to be at Ft. Lauderdale Convention Center. The theme for this year, there is a new decade, 2020 to 2030. So we’re talking about disruption, what I did here in Brooklyn with the service department, with the body shop, with the BDC. I kind of disrupted every single department. So I want to share that with pretty much the world in the automotive industry that what I was able to do. It took me to the level that it did and I have a pretty good lineup and just people are doing things that are amazing right now that makes it a difference at a dealership.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Give us an idea of some of the speakers.
Rudy Tremenio: You got Alex Vetter, right? CEO of Cars.com, dealer inspired, his company’s public. I heard this guy speak at President’s Award that I was invited last year. And the way that he just delivers the message … He’s going to talk about what’s going to happen in 2020. We are going into a tough year. There’s a lot of changes, a lot of moving parts. It’s an election year, the tariffs and all those things that I’ve been studying. I want to show everybody because you know luxury is going to be down. So those things, I believe that if you make … If you know the information before the year starts, you can make your adjustments and you don’t have to pretty much have a bad year. You make the adjustments, which is what I do.
Rudy Tremenio: I learned everything on these conferences because they have the data, they have everything that we need in order to make the [inaudible] And we’re doing that in Brooklyn to prepare for 2020 as well. I got Eric Thomas, he’s a motivational guy. He pumped me up. I listened to him for 10 years and he’s very pumped up.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yep. And who else?
Rudy Tremenio: We got Jonathan Dawson. He’s going to talk to you about social, social selling. Instead of you going live with the customer, you are on the customer, a different experience every time the car gets delivered, make it an event, right? Because it is the second largest purchase in in their life. And it should be [inaudible] it should be on social. People love that. So it’s a little bit of a different experience. I like the way that he presents that. We got Cory Mosley talking about entrepreneurs. So by writing your own book, things like that, that it’s going to take GMs up to another level.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Everybody you mentioned has been on CBT News, so we know them all. They’re all great speakers.
Rudy Tremenio: That’s right. You see? You see?
Jim Fitzpatrick: They’re all great speakers.
Rudy Tremenio: Yeah, they are, man. They are. A lot of great speakers.
Jim Fitzpatrick: And what are the dates? What are the dates of the conference?
Rudy Tremenio: So the conference starts … It’s a two and a half date event. It starts in the 13th, okay, and we finish on Sunday with a yacht party. Pretty much Saturday is really the speaking and we do a little mastermind on Sunday and we’ll finish with and we’ll go to a yacht party and have some fun at the end.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Okay. Who at the dealership do you want to touch here? Who do you want to come to the conference?
Rudy Tremenio: Well, GMs can come for free. They can bring a sales manager. They could bring a salesperson that is wanting to take it to the next level in 2020. Dealer principals definitely want to be there because we’re going to show everything that is going to happen in 2020. You got Tim Cox speaking about [inaudible 00:04:56]. You got the CEO of Tecobi’s going to be there. This guy, $100 million company. I mean, out of nowhere startup, and he’s going wild right now on social. So he’s going to talk about how important that is in 2020, how you’re going to leverage a social.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right, right.
Rudy Tremenio: So dealer principals. I mean, it’s really for everybody, but the main thing is the decision-makers that are going to see things a little bit different. Because people are still scared of social, man. I don’t know why, but people are still scared of social, you know?
Jim Fitzpatrick: So it’s going to be Saturday and then the yacht party is on Sunday?
Rudy Tremenio: It’s on Sunday. We start Friday in the afternoon, like around five, six o’clock kickoff, two speakers only. We have a little cocktail. We come back Saturday. We learn Saturday and then Sunday a little mastermind in the morning and we finish up with the award. We’re going to be giving out awards to all the GMs out there that been hustling. And there’s a lot of people that got my email and reach out and say, “Hey, I’m honored.” So we’re going to be given out the Game Changer award for 2019. People that are making a big difference, like [Jarretts 00:06:01], like [Barbosa 00:00:06:01], that is doing a lot of big things in the automotive space right now. So these guys are coming to get that award.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Do you see this as a mainstay every year and will it be in the same location? Will it be in South Florida each year or do you move them around the country?
Rudy Tremenio: No, no, no. Last year was in New York. We thinking Vegas in 2020. [inaudible] Automotive reach out and they might want to do a collaboration for 2020 and make it bigger.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure. Sure, that makes-
Rudy Tremenio: So we thinking Vegas or California, you know what I mean? Because a lot of people are reaching out from Cali, like, “Why can’t you do something like that here?” You know what I mean?
Jim Fitzpatrick: And for those people that want to go, is there a cost other than … I mean, you said the GMs and dealers are free, but if a salesperson wants to go or a manager?
Rudy Tremenio: Yeah, I think that we dropped down the tickets. It was a down to like $297 per salesperson. You could write it off on your taxes. It’s an investment. You know?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure.
Rudy Tremenio: LeBron James, the number one top five athletes in the world right now, spends about $4 million on his own body every single year and it’s the best in the world right now. And we upgrade our phones every time it comes out. So why not upgrade ourselves?
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.
Rudy Tremenio: Invest a little bit in ourselves.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s exactly right.
Rudy Tremenio: That’s my thinking.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.
Rudy Tremenio: We never do.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I know. I know.
Rudy Tremenio: I never do. We spend money on a lot of things, but we never spend it on ourselves.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.
Rudy Tremenio: So the little investment that you make, it will pay tenfold.
Jim Fitzpatrick: We’ll think nothing about dropping $297 and going out for dinner or a bottle of wine or something. But to pick up a few techniques that might make you thousands of dollars over the course of the next few years, we kind of look at it and say, “Oh, I’m not spending 300 bucks on that. That’s crazy.” Right?
Rudy Tremenio: It is crazy. And the reason why this happened is three years ago, somebody forced me to go at a conference. Okay? And it changed my life forever.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Hence the name Game Changer Conference.
Rudy Tremenio: And I didn’t even get to meet the speaker that I wanted … the motivational speaker that I wanted to see.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.
Rudy Tremenio: It was the second speaker and I felt like he was just talking to me and I went home and I just change everything. And I became this social media thing and the rest is history.
Jim Fitzpatrick: If you had to share one idea for 2020 for new salespeople and even salespeople that have been in the industry for a while, what would that one idea be?
Rudy Tremenio: One idea that I keep thinking is that we all struggle with something and they say that if you give up on your dreams or if you give up on your goals one day, two days, you could be pushing your dream six months. So keep pushing. The idea that put yourself out there, because if you are in the sales business, people got to know. And the one idea that I can tell you is get people’s attention. Okay? If you get people’s attention, you’re going to sell. You’re going to sell. So that’s really what it is.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yep. All right. Awesome.
Rudy Tremenio: We’ve got a lot of attention. We got a little buzz going on. So I think that has helped me a lot in my career and obviously our dealership as well. And we’re one of the most social dealerships out here in New York.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right. Right.
Rudy Tremenio: And it has paid off.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Which is a highly competitive market, so kudos for that.
Rudy Tremenio: It is. 2 million people in Brooklyn alone.
Jim Fitzpatrick: My gosh. That’s incredible. Wow.
Rudy Tremenio: I can’t wait for you to come so we can go and show you the madness.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. I’ll be up.
Rudy Tremenio: Well, we’ll make it work.
Jim Fitzpatrick: El Patronn, thank you so much for joining us on CBT News. I don’t want to take up any more of your ride there into the office. I know you got a lot to-
Rudy Tremenio: Nah, we almost here. Thank you so much for having me.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Probably the next-
Rudy Tremenio: GameChangerCon is the website.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Awesome.
Rudy Tremenio: GameChangerCon. We have everything there.
Jim Fitzpatrick: For those of you that can make it, make it, put it on your calendar and go, no excuses.
Rudy Tremenio: [crosstalk] 2020.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Thanks, man.
CBT Automotive Network, the number one most-watched network in retail automotive. This has been a JBF Business Media production.
