『The Empire Builders Podcast』のカバーアート

The Empire Builders Podcast

The Empire Builders Podcast

著者： Stephen Semple and David Young
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 Reverse engineering the success of established business empires.The Empire Builders Podcast マネジメント マネジメント・リーダーシップ マーケティング マーケティング・セールス リーダーシップ 経済学
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  • #222: Avis – They Try Harder…

    #222: Avis – They Try Harder…
    2025/09/10
    Avis found a loophole for selling used cars at whatever price he wanted. This became the norm for all rental companies. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ECO Office Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young, here alongside Stephen Semple. And again, breaking from tradition, if you listen to the episode just before this, which is the Hertz Rental Car, you realize that we have a spoiler. Stephen told me the topic of this podcast, gosh, a whole podcast ago. Stephen Semple: That's it. Dave Young: We talked about Hertz Rental cars, and now we're going to tell the story of Avis, number two, but they try harder. Stephen Semple: If you haven't listened to Hertz, I recommend go back and listen to it because these two stories kind of tie together. And it is interesting. We think about Avis as number two. They're not number two any longer. They're now number three. It's now Enterprise, Hertz, Avis. But that's a whole different thing. Avis is still... Look, it's a massive business. They have 5,500 locations. They do 5 billion in sales. They're a big deal. And they were founded by Warren Avis in Detroit in 1946. So just shortly after the end of World War II. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So the war's over. Troops are returning home. Cars are now being produced for the domestic market. Because, if you remember, one of the things we talked about in the last episode was you could not sell a car domestically. All car production was going into the war effort. We've got people returning home. Roads are being built. The suburbs are the place to be. Cars are now being produced for the domestic market, and sales are exploding for cars. It's going crazy. And so Warren decides to open a Ford dealership. He sinks 10 grand of his own money in. He gets a $75,000 loan. But there's one problem with being a new car dealer at this time. The federal government puts a cap on what you can charge for a car. So there's price controls on cars. So it's actually hard to make a living selling new cars because the margin is really thin, even though lots of people want to buy it. Dave Young: If you're renting cars, you're selling them over and over and over almost. Stephen Semple: Well, you're really close. Warren finds a loophole that you can hold onto a car for six months, and then sell it as a used car, no restriction. So this is what he starts doing. However, this creates an expensive inventory problem. So it's hard to do and hard to grow because he's holding onto the cars for six months. Around this time, Warren Avis rents a car from Hertz. Now, if you remember in the Hertz episode, while Hertz did amazingly well during the war because you couldn't get a car and they had cars for rent, at the same time they couldn't replace their cars. So the cars by this time were pretty rough. Dave Young: Yeah. Oh, I bet. I mean, usually rental cars now, you don't have to have very many miles on them to have them be a little rough. Stephen Semple: And Hertz was also in what was now becoming poor locations because Hertz had located in downtown locations, and now people are moving out to the suburbs. So it was out of the way, kind of a crappy car. So Avis decides to take his new cars that he has on the lot, rent them, and then sell them as used at the six-month mark, which means he would always have new cars for rent. Dave Young: Yeah, this is the business model they're all in now. Stephen Semple: Yes.
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    15 分
  • #221: Hertz –

    #221: Hertz –
    2025/09/03
    Snippet Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Simple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is ... Well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Travis Crawford Ad] My name is Travis Crawford, and my company wouldn't be here if it wasn't for one person. 17 years ago, I was at a friend's wedding with my girlfriend at the time. As the evening wore on, I got to complaining about how plumbing and HVAC companies got it all wrong. I knew I could do it better than they could, and she said, "Okay, then do it." I must've given her eight reasons on the spot why I couldn't do it, and she shot down every one. "Those problems are easy to fix," she said. "Stop being soft and go do it." First it was just me and a van, and then one more guy, and then one more truck. 17 years later, we have a team of more than 60, each one as energized as I was that night, to do it better than anyone in town. That girlfriend is now my wife. She doesn't work here, but this company would not be here without her. And to me, that makes all the difference in the world. Travis Crawford. HVAC.com. Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple, and we're talking about empires. We're talking about big businesses that started out as usually smaller businesses. None of them ever start big, Stephen, when are we going to talk about businesses that just started huge? Stephen Semple: I don't know that they're as interesting, Dave Young: But today we're talking about Hertz Rental Car. Stephen Semple: Yes. Hertz Rental Car. Dave Young: And in my mind, they've always been the big one. They're the big guy. They're the top dog. Stephen Semple: Well, actually in the market today they're number two. Enterprise is the largest one, and they're number two, and then Avis is number three. Dave Young: But the Enterprise combined ... They conglomerated a bunch of them, right? Stephen Semple: Yeah. And there's even a few that are under Hertz as well these days. None of them are just one banner anymore. Dave Young: Yeah. Everything's becoming one brand. Stephen Semple: They're big. They do over nine billion in revenues in 160 countries, and they're part of the S&P 600. So they're a big deal. Dave Young: They've been big for a while. Stephen Semple: They've been big for a long time. Dave Young: I remember when Avis started, this was back in the Mad Men era. The big idea, the big advertising slogan for Avis was, "We're number two, but we try harder." So at that point, Hertz was number one. Stephen Semple: Yeah. We'll find out as we go into the story, Hertz was the first national brand as well. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So they really, and in many ways, kind of created the car rental business as we know it today. Dave Young: Awesome. Stephen Semple: They were founded by Walter Jacobs in 1918 in Chicago. And as I was saying, today they do like nine billion in revenue. So it's 1918 in Chicago, and the Model T Ford has been out for 10 years. There's about six million cars on the road, which is about 60 cars per 1000 people in the United States at that time. So they're pretty new, but you'll see a car. They're not foreign, but they're not new. It's kind of at that stage where you'll see them. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: So now back to Walter Jacobs. Walter's this real car junkie, and he had started out actually working on an assembly line, and now he owns a Ford car dealership. He really sees cars as the future. And when he opens the dealership,
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    18 分
  • #220: LeNoble Lumber (con’t) – 3 Generations Strong

    #220: LeNoble Lumber (con’t) – 3 Generations Strong
    2025/08/27
    LeNoble has prided itself, since generation #1, that because it is hard to do, it has to get done. Then mastered the how... Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Simple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelers Ad] Rick: Told you, Brian. Brian: Told me what? Rick: This is part two of last week's episode. Brian: Oh, yeah. And it was getting good. Rick: If you missed it, go back and listen to part one first. Take it away, fellas. Stephen Semple: There's got to be some really interesting, unique challenges to delivering your products and whatnot in Manhattan. Dan LeNoble: Yeah, Manhattan, it's just tough dealing with the congestion, the amount of people and everything like that. It is not an easy place to do it. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But what we've spent a lot of time and resources doing are hiring the right people to do the job. And Ben does a lot of our hiring as well as a few other key people in our organization and finding people that want to do it the right way, don't want to cut corners, don't want to, I'm going to park the truck on the corner here and they can come find me. Getting good drivers, good yard guys, that's the world of difference. It's simple to say no, but how do we get to yes. Stephen Semple: That's interesting. Dan LeNoble: And getting those key people has really been, I think that's what transforms us. I think our people are our single greatest asset that we have. Everyone around us it makes our life that much easier because of their skill and professionalism. Jessica LeNoble: Our dispatch team is incredible when it comes to navigating what truck goes where if there was a mistake, how to fix it. And there's never... I shouldn't say never, but there's not a blame game. If I go downstairs and I'm like, "Hey, this happened." The first thing out of the dispatcher's mouth is, "All right, what do we have to do to fix it? How do we get this done so that way they're happy?" Stephen Semple: Well, in this dispatch thing, I just want to give some background that people may not realize is in the construction space, in the home services space, I have lots of clients who are in the suburbs of a city, whether it's Philadelphia or Toronto or Vancouver or Los Angeles, who will say, "Yeah, we do not go into the downtown core because it's a pain in the neck. It's too hard. It's too difficult. There's all these challenges." I think both Jessica and Dan, you guys hit the nail in the head. What you're recognizing is one of your competitive advantages is dispatch. And also people getting that parking around the corner and they'll find us ain't good enough. You've got, yes, the city's challenging and you just have to overcome that challenge. Jessica LeNoble: We've never been outside of the city, so this is what we know. Stephen Semple: Right. Right. Dan LeNoble: I think also one of the things that is giving them the tools to use, and what I mean the tools in this case is just some of the logistics with trucks. It's easier to just have these massive tractor trailers that you can load up with however many stops and it just goes on its run. But when you're dealing with these narrow city streets and you have to make these sometimes, not huge deliveries, having a smaller truck that's nimble and can actually maneuver gives you a little advantage. So for a company our size, we're operating 42 vehicles that range anywhere from little box trucks up to those big trailers and everything in between.
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    23 分
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