An Open and Honest Approach to Marketing With Dan Kahn of Kahn Media

Dan Kahn is the Founder and CEO of Kahn Media, a public relations and marketing agency based in Los Angeles specializing in the automotive aftermarket. A lifelong car enthusiast, Dan began his career at age 16 by pitching and landing magazine features on a Mustang he restored with his father. Before founding Kahn Media in 2008, he worked as an automotive journalist and launched digital content platforms. His latest book, The New Rules of the Road, outlines his philosophy on transparency, digital strategy, and authority marketing in a fast-evolving business world.

In this episode…

Trust and transparency are reshaping the way brands connect with customers. In industries like automotive repair and aftermarket services, reputation is everything. How can leaders and marketers build lasting customer relationships without relying on old-school sales tactics?

According to Dan Kahn of Kahn Media, authentic engagement starts with openness and education. Drawing from decades of experience in automotive journalism and agency leadership, Dan explains how businesses can thrive by prioritizing customer empowerment and honesty. He highlights the power of authority marketing and the need to communicate value without overpromising.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge chats with Dan about keys to brand authenticity, customer trust, and business resilience. Dan shares personal stories of success and failure, insights from his book, and actionable tips for both local tire shops and national brands.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• [01:53] The Mustang project that launched Dan Kahn’s media career at 16
• [05:32] The significance of converging PR and marketing in modern business
• [07:09] Why Dan founded Kahn Media to serve a gap in the auto industry
• [8:38] The concept of “open, honest, and transparent” brand storytelling
• [11:36] How education trumps selling in building customer loyalty
• [12:46] Flat-rate pricing and transparency in auto repair shops
• [13:52] Owning mistakes and regaining trust with clients
• [25:49] How a small-town tire shop survived national competition through community ties

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Dan Kahn Website | LinkedIn
• Kahn Media
• The New Rules of the Road by Dan Kahn 
• Mike Spagnola on LinkedIn
• SEMA
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners

Quotable Moments:

• “Don’t sell — just educate. If people don’t get it, they’re not your customer.”
• “Transparency makes me feel like I’m part of the process — and I’m happy to pay more for that.”
• “Our biggest hurdle with new clients is fixing the damage done by other agencies.”
• “When you own your mistakes, people respect you more and keep coming back.”
• “Marketing is like falconry — you need to stay just hungry enough to stay sharp.”

Action Steps:

1. Adopt a transparency-first mindset: Build trust with customers by openly sharing your process, costs, and updates.
2. Stop selling, start educating: Empower your audience with knowledge rather than pressure them with sales pitches.
3. Commit to consistent business development: Avoid complacency by always nurturing your pipeline, no matter how busy you are.
4. Engage in community marketing: Sponsor local events and be present — authenticity creates brand resilience.
5. Turn mistakes into loyalty builders: Admit errors quickly, provide solutions, and use failures to deepen relationships.

• Dan Kahn
• Gain Traction Podcast
• Kahn Media
• Mike Edge
• Tread Partners

Transcript

00:02
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast where we feature top tire and auto repair professionals, shop owners, industry executives and thought leaders and share their inspiring stories. Now let’s get started with the show. 

00:19
Hey folks, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I have a great guest today, Dan Kahn, founder and CEO of Kahn Media in Los Angeles. He is a car enthusiast and his company is dedicated to serving the automotive aftermarket. He is also the author of the New Rules of the Road. But before we begin, let me read you this Sponsorship this episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Let Tread Partners take a look under your digital marketing hood today. To contact Tread Partners or to learn more, visit treadpartners.com My past guest shout out today is for Mike Spagnola, President and CEO of sema. 

01:08
If you haven’t already, please check out that podcast. You can find it@gaintraction podcast.com Dan Kahn, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast. 

01:16
Thanks for having me, Mike. I appreciate it. 

01:18
Yeah, listen, I’m excited to have you. So I did my homework, I read the book, I had a good time doing it. So the new rules of the road. But before we begin, I do want to talk about. I know you mentioned this in your book, but when we talked I thought it was cool because you were already, you were just natural a car enthusiast. It was just in you from the day one. And I love your story about how you got into PR and marketing and the whole automotive sector. You, you. I mean, at 16, I’ll just let you tell the story. But what’d you do at 16? You didn’t take. 

01:53
I’m one of those lucky guys that I’ve kind of always known what I wanted to do. So there wasn’t a lot of like angst for me growing up about like, should I be a firefighter or an electrician or whatever. I. I’ve always been a car guy. I grew up in a family full of car guys. My dad was in the H Vac business and I’ve worked for him in the summers during money and crawling under houses wasn’t my idea of a good time. Honestly earn a living though, so I respect it. And I restored a 68 Mustang with my dad in his garage. And when it was done, I was pretty proud of it. And I, you know, and I thought, hey, this thing deserves to be in a magazine. 

02:28
So I took it to the local park and drove it out onto the grass, which in retrospect was probably not the best move, but at the time it seemed smart. Took a bunch of pictures of it, basically kind of wrote an article emulating the articles I was reading in all the car magazines and then printed it out and took the film because this is back in old film days to I think the pharmacy or whatever and had the pictures developed and just printed off a bunch of cops. The article stuck a bunch of photos, put them in envelopes and mailed them to all the magazines and said, hey, this is my story and let me know if you like it. 

03:01
And to my great surprise, several of them wrote back and said, hey, we like it, we’ll run it in the magazine, you know, we want you to come out and meet a photographer. And obviously they didn’t use my article or my photos, but they liked, I think they liked the kind of quirkiness of a 16 year old kid doing what I did. And so that first year when I was, by the time I was 17, it had been on the COVID of Hot Rod, the COVID of Car Craft and the COVID of Mustang and Ford’s magazine all the same year. 

03:27
Man, that is that I’ve thought about that story since you told me that. But it’s so cool as a 16 year old that you know, I mean, you didn’t know what was going to happen. What’s the worst thing they could say to you? No, or not print it? 

03:39
Yeah. Just not hear back, which is kind of what I expected to happen, to be honest. I didn’t expect to hear back. And, and I, I, there’s a part two to that since you and I last chatted too. So I, I ended up, I get, got it in all these magazines. I saw these guys, how they earned a living and I thought, I want to do that for a living now. I didn’t know I was doing pr. I didn’t even know what that was. Right. I just, yeah, you know, so at that point I’m like, I want to be in the, I want to be an automotive journalist. And I did end up doing that for quite a while before I made the jump to pr. 

04:06
But that first photo shoot I met some people and this guy named Scott Colleen was the photographer for Peterson Publishing at the time that owned Hot Rod and they had this studio on Sunset Boulevard in la. I’d never been that far because we lived out in the suburbs. Scott shot it for the COVID and back then, you know, they had digital cameras, but. Excuse me, they had. Yeah, they were using large format digital cameras, but you used a Polaroid to kind of test all the lighting in the studio. And so he gave me the Polaroids. And to be Honest, this is 1994, so I don’t even remember what happened to him. Right. Fast forward like a month ago, I’m at the airport and I happened to run to this guy who looks familiar. We start talking. 

04:53
Turns out it was a guy I was buddies with in high school and we hadn’t seen each other in like 30 years. And he said, hey, you know, mom, I remember the car. Yeah, yeah, I sold it, but yeah, I remember it. A couple days later, he emails me and he said, hey, you gave me those Polaroids and I still have them. And he scanned them and sent them to me, which was so cool. And like a week after that, I was at the Grand National Roadster show and I see Scott Killeen for the first time in years. And I said, scott, do you remember me? In 1994, you shot my car in the studio on Sunset. Here are the photos and I pull them up on my phone and show him. He got misty eyed. We had this like, moment. 

05:28
It was very cool. 

05:29
Gosh, that is so cool. I love that stuff right there. That’s just meant to be providential, you know. Yeah, well, you talk about it a little bit in your book, but. And I love the, I just love the process in your book and thinking about things. And I love the Banana man story. And I guess for the audience today, I thought it was important. I want to convey to them some of the things that you were, I mean, you reveal in your book. But you know, you’re a PR guy, you’re also a marketing guy, and you talk about how those used to be individual silos, but now, you know, everything’s converged in regards to messaging and who you are. I think in the public sphere is really one of the big points you make in the book. 

06:11
But you really hit home for me because these are some of the things I believe and I think a lot of people in our industry believe these things like authenticity, telling the truth. You know, in, in the industry of the retail side of like tires and auto repair, you know, our guys know they get a bad rap just because of, you know, no fault of the customers, but the customer’s ignorant. They don’t know a lot about their car, so they don’t know that, you know, the mechanic that’s coming out and saying, hey, you need this done. He’s not lying. You need it done. The part, the bad part you hate to hear is it’s gonna cost you a thousand bucks you don’t go, you know. 

06:50
So I think one of the things that, like as I read your book, I know it wasn’t directly speaking to, you know, the tire and automotive repair guy, but it was speaking to, you know, anybody selling a product or doing a service out there, but transparency, accountability, hitting things head on. You want to elaborate on that in the, from the book? 

07:09
Yeah, absolutely. And, and kind of to back up for a second, you know. So like I was saying, I, I worked as a journalist, so the writing on the wall, saw the magazine thing after a few years was they had no plan for the Internet, jumped over and did some work on the Internet and launched a couple of automotive sites, got bored, started working for another PR agency. And what drove me to start Khan Media was I saw the industry I was passionate about, which was the automotive industry, didn’t really have any business, any marketing shops that specialized in the convergence and how to have a conversation with everyone in the multi step system, but also with the consumer and how to have a brand connect with the consumer in a thoughtful way. 

07:53
And when I started Khan Media in 2008, there was a book at the time that was out by a guy named David Meerman Scott, who was the first person I had ever read who wrote about this, what he called PR 2.0, where it’s like where brands can suddenly have a conversation directly with a consumer. Things like reviews on Google. 

08:14
Yeah. 

08:14
Or like a comment section. Like no one had ever really talked about that because that was all new technology. And what Meerman Scott did and is, you know, and he wrote his book called the New Rules of PR and Marketing. So my book is sort of a hat tip to him. And you know, that was kind of the driving force behind my business all these years. So that was what drove me to write the book. And you know, the thing that I have found over the years is, you know, there’s a lot of books out there that talk about, you know, kind of marketing hacks, like things you can do to try and like, you know, hack, you know, SEO or get on the front page of Google or, you know, those are all temporary. 

08:53
And I remember years and years ago I went through all this SEO training with this company that was very well known at the time. And at the end of the day, what I have figured out with our clients and with the way we run our own businesses is. And you kind of referenced the whole. My mantra is open, honest and transparent, right? Because there’s this whole concept called authority marketing where if you can help educate someone without asking for anything in return, they will generally reward you with their loyalty in their business. So to your point, Mike, I think, you know, you’ve got a customer who comes in this, and I, I just had this experience. I. I have a late model truck that was parked in front of my house, and unfortunately, an old man probably shouldn’t be driving anymore. 

09:35
Drove right into the back of it, parked. And you know, hey, it happens. I feel bad for the old guy, Took it into the body shop, they write an estimate, I go find whatever, just fix it. Well, you know, like a month and a half later, I’m getting irritated and I want my truck back. And I started kind of blowing them up. I’m like, hey, come on, let’s go. Well, I finally go to pick the truck up, and they went over the estimate by like 3, 500 bucks. And they’re trying to, like, do this, like, smoke screen thing where they’re like, well, you know, we had to take the gas tank out and we had to take the bed off. We had to. I’m like, it was just the tailgate, guys. Like, what? The tailgate had a big dent in it. 

10:15
So, yeah, either fix it or you replace it. But what are you talking about? Why’d you take the bed off the truck? And there was no frame damage and it’s got side saddle tanks, so what did those have to come off for? And they kind of took a step back and look at me, and I’m like, so what, are we soaking the insurance company? Is that what’s going on? Because I just want my truck back. Like, that’s it. Like, don’t. That kind of stuff hurts. All of us do that kind of stuff because they’re, you know, maybe they were being honest, maybe they weren’t, but it sure didn’t feel good. No, but on the flip side, when you have a company that is open Austin Transparent, and they say, hey, here’s what’s going on. We’re going to teach you about our process. 

10:50
We’re going to send you updates. You know, I’ve had, like, you know, with. I have a car builder that I work with on a hot rod project. And one of my favorite things about working with this guy is I get message. I get texts from him almost every day where he’s like, hey, here’s what I’m Working on. Here’s an issue I ran into. We have two options of how to deal with this issue. Option one is the easier, more, you know, less expensive way. Option two is the right way, but it’s going to cost you more money. And here’s the fab time it’s going to take to fix it. What do you want to do? That level of transparency makes me feel like I’m part of the process. It makes me understand what he’s doing. 

11:24
I’m going to learn more about my car and I feel actually better about giving him more money. So, you know, I’m like, yeah, no, do it the right way, I’ll pay the extra. 

11:32
Absolutely. He doesn’t even have to. But he’s not even selling you. He’s just the point. 

11:36
Don’t sell. 

11:37
Right? 

11:38
Just educate. 

11:39
You know, that is so interesting that you say that because it’s been my mantra the last several years of my life. Just quit selling. Just educate people. And if they don’t get it, I, I can’t help you. I mean, you know what I mean? It’s like, you’re not going to be a good customer anyway. If I’ve got a, if I got a browbeat you and understanding what I’m trying to convey to you, then it’s probably not gonna work. But one day it may sink in. You know, I, I, I think sometimes you just, you gotta plant seeds and then eventually it comes back to you. 

12:05
But you know, that experience that you just had about building the car with the gentleman that you said you’d give more money to, it’s very similar to what consumers get now with the good shops, tire shops and auto repair shops that have dvi. If they, you know, the digital visual inspection, they, those things are awesome because it keeps people plugged in the whole way and they get to, okay, yeah, well, heck, I don’t, that does look bad. I don’t want, I don’t want that on my wife’s car or whatever, you know, I want that repaired or whatever it may be. Or I think that process of communicating builds trust, but you’re also educating, hey, here’s what’s going on. And it validates you. You just had a personal experience with that and you’re willing to give the guy more money. 

12:47
Well, that’s right. And I think when you, when you conduct business that way, that’s why flat rate pricing typically works better for shops too, right? You go in there and they say, hey, I think you’re going to need a radiator here’s how much that costs. Hey, by the way, I know you came in just for tires, but your brakes are almost gone. Like so we, let’s talk about that. Here’s what it costs. And they’re not going to come back and double the price on you at the end. The price of the price. And the onus is on the shop to beat the book if they want to be a little extra profitable. But that’s okay, right? And I think it’s these curveballs that freak people out. Yeah. And it’s what has kind of hurt all of us reputationally is you get one. 

13:21
I mean, even as an agency, and I’m sure you guys have experienced this too. Our biggest hurdle, signing up new clients is not anything we’ve ever done. It’s what our competitors have done in the past. And I have those conversations at least once a month where I’ll talk to someone, say, well, this last shop we worked with, you know, they’d send us all these overage bills at the end of the month. They pulled all this stuff and, you know, or took our money, never did anything. And I’m actually having to do damage control for someone else’s mistakes that I had nothing to do with. Yeah. And I think it applies to any service based business. 

13:52
It does. And sometimes you just got to be blunt with the customer, say it wasn’t me. And I don’t know how to get you back over the trust fence, but that’s where you got to get yourself, you got to trust again because that’s the only way to move forward. We’ve all been in relationships where we’ve been burnt and you take that to the next relationship, business, personal, whatever. But the reality is that person’s not guilty. 

14:15
Right. 

14:15
You know, and you gotta give them a shot, you gotta start over. But there and the proof’s in the pudding. I mean, you know, it’s kind of like you say in your book, you know, on the review stuff and, and whatnot. But you know, when you’re transparent, when you’re willing to accept mistakes. I’ve always found this to be true too. And I know you were alluding to this in the book, but if you just own up to mistakes, man, your relationships get so much better. Because I think real customers understand they’re going to be mistakes. But I want somebody to help me through that process and not BS me, not try to spin it, just say, I’m sorry, I screwed up. Here’s how we’re going to fix it. That’s basically, I think, what you kind of summed up in the book, didn’t you? 

14:56
That’s right. And in my experience that creates stickiness where if you can do that, if you can own your mistakes, if you can learn from them, if you can have those conversations with your own customers most of the time, if they’re a rational person, they’re actually going to probably respect you more for that and they’re going to come back. 

15:15
Yeah. 

15:16
And I mean, we had that experience at Con Media last year. We had a multi year, long term client, really good client, very well known brand, and it was kind of a prestige account. And I think 90% of what we did a great job and I’m extremely proud of it. There was one aspect of the account that didn’t go the way we all hoped it would and I think it was probably, it starts with me, right? Like I had some account managers and maybe didn’t handle it the best possible way. I should have seen it and flagged it. I didn’t. So one ball did get dropped and I felt bad about it. And when it came time to renew, the client wanted to talk about it and I wanted to talk about it too. 

15:53
And we spent multiple calls discussing, here’s how it happened, here’s where we made the mistake, here’s the plan, that’s written down on how we’re going to address it next year. So if you’re willing to give us another shot, here’s how we’re going to fix it and here’s going to make sure it’s not going to happen again. And I thought it was a healthy conversation for everybody because they said, look, we actually really like working with you guys and we actually trust you even more now that we’ve had that conversation. You didn’t damage anything. You just out of, you know, two out of the ten categories of things we’re working on together could have gone a little better and let’s fix it and move forward. 

16:22
And we have, and it’s actually, the calls are easier and there’s no like kind of layer of uncomfortableness happening on the calls now because we have to dance around anything. 

16:30
Yeah. 

16:30
So. Well, I, I’m a big component of that. 

16:33
Well, it’s interesting in the marketing world, you know, we’ll go up against some competitors and you know, everything’s always sunshine and roses and movie in the way they report to their clients. And you know, if that’s the case, you know, that’s not the reality. I mean, because, you know, the space we’re in regards to digital, you’re dealing with Google. You’re dealing with a lot of things that you definitely can’t control all the time. I mean, you understand it, you know how to work with it. But there’s big things that can change quickly. So if there’s always sunshine and roses, you better check up, because there’s got to be something negative once in a while in there, and you need to be the one telling the client, hey, this didn’t go well this month. But this is why and this is how we’re addressing it. 

17:19
And I think when you have those relationships, no one wants to leave that because you’re honest with them. The last several marketing firms they had are typically somebody that, you know, gave them, hey, here’s how many clicks you got. And this is, you know, your click through rate, and this is what’s going on. And everything always looks sunny, and it’s just not. It’s not reality. 

17:40
I tell my team all the time, like, if you went to the doctor and every time he went in there, he slapped you on the back, said, looks good, buddy. And I. And that’s the end of the conversation. And then you find out later, you’ve got diabetes. That’s a problem. Right? Like, I, I want you to just shoot me straight. Tell me what’s going on. Let’s work on a plan and let’s fix it and let’s. Yeah. 

17:57
Where. Where are my risk factors? I just want to know, you know, and I’ve, I, you know, I, I think most people, and I think most people in business are, you know, as natural entrepreneurs. They want to know their risk factors, whatever the category in their business, whether it’s in hr, whether it’s in marketing, accounting, whatever. Where’s my weak spots and what can we do to shore it up? Or who needs more support, Right? Maybe some, you know, maybe Betty doing the accounting needs assistance. Maybe she’s overloaded right now. You know what I mean? So. But you know, another line, I wrote this down too. I never knew this before, but I totally agree with it. Am I saying it right? 

18:37
Yarrick is the state where the falcon is just hungry enough to be ultra alert, on edge, and ready to hunt, but not so hungry that it’s weakened. Yarrick is used in falconry to keep the falcons always ready to hunt and in peak condition. 

18:53
That’s right. 

18:54
That’s cool. 

18:55
Yeah. 

18:56
Am I saying it right? 

18:57
Yeah. Yeah, Yarek, it’s from Yvonne Chouinard, who’s the founder of Patagonia. 

19:02
And yeah, you mentioned that in the book. 

19:04
Pretty interesting guy. There’s some things about him I really admire. There’s some things about him that maybe we’re not aligned on. He’s not a big fan of internal combustion and so we’re not aligned on that front. But, but he wrote a great book and it comes from his book called Let My People Go Surfing. And that’s his whole thing is you’ve got to, you’ve got to keep, don’t let anyone get complacent. Like if they’re fat and happy. Fat and happy is not good for a performance driven company. Right. Like, you want people to be hungry and you want them to be sharp. And in my experience with any organization, the best talent is spiky. Right. People that, like, you know, the ones that are really good are not going to be really good 100% of the time. They’re going to have ups and downs. 

19:48
And so you have to kind of, as a leader, you have to figure out how to kind of motivate them to get to the top spike so they’re performing really well and sort of minimize the dips. And that’s the whole Yara concept is how do you kind of keep people just enough on edge that they’re constantly looking for the next opportunity, but not so on edge that they stress out and quit? 

20:08
Yeah, no, that’s what I liked about it. Now it’s true though. I mean, I look at it in life in general, but I’ve done just for health reasons and whatnot, even religious reasons. I’ve done fasting, but when you fast, dude, gosh dang, your sensories go up. I mean, everything, it’s sharp and it’s fascinating how alert you get, you know. And granted you got to get through that little bubble of pain, right? But you get to that first bubble of pain, it’s like the, I always say it’s like the second 12 hours is always my hardest. You get past that, okay, it’s a mental game then. But it’s not as hard. But then all of a sudden your sensories go up and it’s like, oh yeah, you know, you can just tell, man, I’m zoned in. I’m a hunter. 

20:54
So I mean like, if I’m keenly aware of what’s going on, I mean, I could smell really good, you know. But when I’m fat and Sassy man. I can’t smell with a crap. You know what I’m saying? It’s like if you’re just overindulged in food, whatever, you know, you go through those periods of your life where you just, you know, you eat everything. Yeah, everything goes to haywire. 

21:17
Well, I think that applies in business too. Yeah, you know, as is. You know, I, I think one of my biggest wake up calls was right around the time my second daughter was born. This was around 2013. Up until that point, you know, the business was about, we were five years into the business and I had been just working like, you know, 80 hour weeks every week after week after week, cleaning the toilets on Sundays. Like, you know, just, I did everything and I was a maniac and I was starting to burn out and I got now a toddler and a baby and business was good and cash flow was good. We had money in the bank and I’m like, you know what, I don’t need to work so hard. So I think maybe it’s time we can throttle back a little bit. 

21:59
And I got fat and happy and things were really good for about four or five months. And then we had two things happen in the same 24 hour period. The biggest account we had at the agency called me up and said, I have bad news. We’re going bankrupt. And not only can we not continue working with you, even though we love working with you, we also can’t pay our last couple of bills. And you’re probably gonna be getting a call from the bankruptcy court because you’re going to be one of the, you know, debtors or whatever they call it, literally within the same 24 hours. Our first client ever, who was kind of a mid sized client who had normally traditionally paid their bills on time. 

22:37
I let them sort of unintentionally get in their rears with us for three or four months with the work. And he was doing some weird stuff where he was asking for advance work for like stuff he wouldn’t need for a few months down the road. At the time I didn’t know what to make of that. He called up and said, hey, I’ve got some bad news. I’ve got some stuff going on in my personal life and some other stuff going on. I can’t pay any of those bills and I’ll just have to figure out, I’ll pay you over time but I can’t do it. And I had nothing in the pipeline because I was not prepared for that, right? I was fat and happy. I’m like, I don’t need to do biz Dev. Things are good. 

23:11
And all of a sudden my world collapsed and I didn’t take a paycheck for a year after that. It was all I could do to not lay anyone off and just keep the doors open. And anyway, I think we had moved the office right around the same time, so. Which is tremendously expensive and disruptive and all that. And so it was really a challenge. And man, you talk about how you start intermittent fasting, it sharpens all the sense as well. Same thing applies to finance, right? Like all of a sudden, like, you know, you gotta, you only eat what you can kill. You get pretty sharp pretty fast. And at that point I’m like, okay. And I vowed to myself, I’m never gonna let this happen. Like we’re going to stay on the. 

23:49
Gas all the time I’m sitting here smiling just because, I mean, I can remember some of my own issues in life and where you go through those moments and it did teach me the one thing that you never quit doing. You never quit doing biz Dev. You don’t have to do it like a maniac. You just have to constantly be digging or mining for that gold or whatever you want to call it. But you got to keep, you get, you got to keep your pick sharp and your shovel ready to go. And you got to keep digging and doing that. I parallel it also with the. Our audience is primarily dealers and auto repair shop owners, operators, et cetera. You got to keep marketing. You can’t ever stop marketing. Sure you can. 

24:27
You can scale back here and there, but you got to keep the faucet on. If you don’t, things like what you experience will happen and you’ll just wonder what’s going on here, you know. Yeah. Big believer in constant business development. And I use that broadly, you know, and I mean, and when I say business development, I’m saying everything from the acquisition side. 

24:48
That’s right. Well, I think we have an example of that in the little town where I’m sitting right now. So it’s only, you know, I think we’ve got about 15,000 people. And so it’s not a huge town or anything like that. And family owned wheel and tire shops been here for like 50 years. Everyone goes there, everyone likes them. And you know, they did a lot of community outreach, sponsor local high school football team, all that stuff. All of a sudden one day, the biggest national retail chain in America moves in across the street. And it raised a lot of eyebrows directly across the street, like, oh, my God, what are these guys going to do? Turns out they were fine. And they were fine because they just kept doing what they were doing. They kept sponsoring those football team, you know, football games. 

25:31
They kept being part of the community. I think one of their owners is on the city council. They’re involved. They’ve got personal relationships. They know, like, everyone knows, like, hey, look, you can go there. They’re going to take good care of you. They’re part of the community. They live in town, and they’re doing just fine. If anything, I think they might actually be up, which is weird. 

25:49
And then. Yes. I was wondering. Wait, you say something else in your book about. What is it the csr. Social responsibility. 

25:59
Yeah. Community, Social good. 

26:01
Yeah. But you got to look at those. People were already doing those things. So therefore, when. When a storm did come in or what was perceived to be trouble, it wasn’t a big deal for them because they were already involved. They didn’t have to have a new plan to survive. They were already staying sharp, in a sense. Staying involved. 

26:22
Yeah. I think one of the best examples of that is not an automotive example, is Waffle House. I think. Have you ever heard of the Waffle House Index? So Waffle House. Every Waffle House has a backup generator. That’s part of their corporate culture. And they actually have this written down, like, in their actual, like, company handbook and in their mission statement that they are a gathering place. Most Waffle Houses are in relatively rural areas. 

26:45
Yeah. 

26:46
And there’s a lot of them in the Southeast. And they’ve kind of said, hey, we are a gathering place for our communities. And so we are going to be the last ones open if there’s a storm, if there’s a hurricane, if there isn’t anything. And so the federal government actually works with Waffle House. Every time a hurricane comes into, like, Florida, they actually will call the managers of the Waffle Houses to say, hey, what do you see what’s on the ground? And are you going to stay open to feed our first responders? They’ve been doing that so long that FEMA and the federal government are actually talking to a local restaurant chain to use as a resource for emergency response. When you’ve got somebody that’s that embedded in the community, they’re. They’re not going anywhere. 

27:33
No, like, they’re. 

27:34
They’re going to be embraced by the neighborhood, by the community, by the people. That’s. That. You can’t buy that. The only way you can get that kind of brand awareness and love of a brand is by just showing up. 

27:46
Yes, yes, that’s it. I mean, and again you mentioned this in your book as well, but it’s the tortoise. Well, y’ all don’t think you say tortoise and hair. But I was thinking about, it’s the, it’s not, it’s a marathon, not a race. That’s what you say. And that’s life, right? I mean, our best. Who, you know, I asked myself while I was reading your book, I mean, you know, the reality is, who do you admire most in your life? Well, it was people like my dad. I had some uncles and I’m going to say from a man’s perspective, the men in my life, they had so much constancy and consistency that you already knew where they stood, you know, and it sounds like you had a dad like I did, where, you know, I already knew my dad was a hard worker. 

28:27
My dad had the same message. He, he didn’t. There was no wondering what dad’s up to or what’s he going to do. He was just consistent with all of us, you know, and consistency matters, constancy matters. As long as you’re on the right track. I mean, you know, of doing the right things. Well, you know, virtuous at least. 

28:46
That’s right. Yeah, that’s exactly it. Just show up. And that’s, I think the long haul kind of long view perspective is something that has taken me a long time to find, figure out because I used to chase things, right? Like, like, you know, weird little goals or things that, and finally I started to figure out like, okay, like even, even with my own business, not just helping clients grow their own business, but even with my own business. I, I, I used to stress out on a day to day basis all these little things. And I finally realized like if you take the long view, it’s a better, healthier approach, right? Like, okay, you know, like, and we have, you know, because we now have employees in nine states, which is a mixed bag, right? 

29:29
Like there’s some things about it that I love and things about that are challenging. So we try to get everyone together at least three or four times a year for these all hands meetings. Physically in the same room, breathing the same air, talking about big ideas. And the first one we do every year is typically in early January and we kind of go through a whole SWOT analysis and then we set up a big goal for the year, whatever that One big goal is, and it might be a client satisfaction number, it might be a profitability number, it might be entering some new market. And then we build a blueprint all around that goal and then we check in on that every week in the staff meeting. 

30:04
And because to me, like, you know, if you ever like see video like the Knights of the Round Table and they’re going to medieval times most places, and there’s the guy with the lance and he’s on the horse and he’s, you know, riding across the arena. That’s, that’s us. Right? And you’ve got the big bullseye at the other end of the arena. As long as you just keep staring at that thing and you keep riding, you will eventually hit it. 

30:24
Yeah, I agree. 

30:24
But you can’t get distracted. If you’re looking around and you’re getting off and you’re kind of wandering around and you’re looking at some people up in the stands, you’re never going to hit it. 

30:31
It’s interesting long term thinking, you know, it’s interesting you say that. So in my phone, I, I, I, I’ve got a note to myself, don’t chase. I mean, if you’re chasing, then, you know, plus chasing is like, I mean it’s kind of like it, there’s a little, for me, I discovered there’s a little bit of immaturity in me. Like, you know, there’s this, hey, there’s shiny piece, you know, and oh, there’s, you know what I’m saying? I’m kind of like the, I like to go fishing. So it’s kind of like I’m just the, the dumb bass. You know, I’m in the South. It’s like I’m not bass fish. So it’s kind of like, hey, I’m just going to go bite it because it’s shiny, you know what I mean? Turns out bad every time for the fish, right? 

31:11
So, yeah, I agree with you 100. And you do got to think long term and got to think. I think part of it is. And I, I, you know, Dan, I guess it also comes with the fact it’s can’t, you can’t just turn it on. It comes with age and experience and you realize like, I’ll never forget I have one of my mentors was my uncle. He’s passed on now, but when he was in his 70s, before he passed away, died in his 80s about 10 years ago. And he, I remember telling him one time, I said, man, I wish I could take what’s in your head and just stick it in mine. He goes, man, I wish you could, too, but it just doesn’t work that way. You know, it’s earned, right? 

31:46
You got to earn it. 

31:47
Yeah. 

31:48
Wear the scars. 

31:49
You do. You do. Well, if somebody. And in particular, I think, you know, think some of my audience sometimes is tire manufacturers, I know some of the guys that work for some different brands. If they ever wanted to work with Kahn Media, what’s the easiest way for them to reach you? 

32:06
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. Just first off, just check out the website. It’s kahnmedia.com you can also check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and all that. Or they could always email [email protected] and we make ourselves pretty available and we’re always up for a chat, meet new people. 

32:24
Awesome. Well, Dan, I can’t thank you enough for being part of the podcast. I had a blast talking to you, and I’m sure I’ll see you. 

32:30
Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it and appreciate the time and I appreciate you reading the book. Thank you. That means a lot. 

32:34
No, well, you sent it to me, and I really appreciate that. So I wasn’t going to waste that opportunity, and I did enjoy it, so. And to the rest of the audience, the new rules of the road, how to navigate the rapidly changing marketing landscape. It’s worth three. Check it out, folks. 

32:51
Thank you. It’s on Amazon. 

32:53
So to all our listeners out there, as always, thanks for being part of the podcast. You know, we love you. Till next time, we’ll see you here at Gay Traction. 

33:04
Thanks for listening to the Game Traction podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.