Reacting to Changes in the Marketplace With Michael Chung of Auto Care Association

Episode 106

Michael Chung

Auto Care Association

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Michael Chung is the Senior Director of Market Intelligence at Auto Care Association, where he spearheads market research initiatives for the automotive aftermarket sector. He plays a pivotal role in keeping industry members informed about market trends, primarily through monthly content, promoting a comprehensive industry data platform, and the publication of an annual factbook. Before joining the association, Michael co-led a market research consultancy focusing on client relationships and strategic planning. Outside of his corporate responsibilities, he also serves as an adjunct professor, teaching environmental health and water quality to Master of Public Health students.

In this episode…

The tire and auto repair industry has recently encountered some unwelcome marketplace changes: Inflation has increased, interest rates have been hiking up, the cost of capital has risen, and the pandemic has led to supply chain issues that have persisted to this day. How does that impact the price of goods and services? Is it all being passed along to the customer?

The Auto Care Association has conducted a member survey, according to Market Intelligence Director Michael Chung, asking executive-level managers about excess inventory, inventory management, and price changes. They found that product, customer, and market strategies have shifted significantly over the past several years, and some had to find different suppliers. Stocking up on crucial and critical input materials has been common, Michael says, along with the diversification of supply sources.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Michael to discuss the strategic shifts executives and managers in the tire and auto industry have made due to increased interest rates, inflation, and supply chain difficulties. Michael shares some key takeaways from a recent survey that revealed changes in consumer driving habits and frequency of service.

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

Michael Chung discusses his background as an environmental engineer and how he started working at the Auto Care Association
Who the Auto Care Association advocates for
How Michael is working to educate lawmakers on issues about the Right to Repair
Why competition is healthy for those in the tire and auto industry
Michael lists some benefits of membership with the Auto Care Association
Key takeaways from a member survey regarding the impact of inflation, rising interest rates, cost of capital, and supply chain challenges

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. Where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Mike:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host today. The Gain Traction podcast is where I talk with top tire and automotive business leaders. Today’s episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is dedicated to customer acquisition for tire dealers with five or more locations. They do three things really well; number one, they know the tire and auto repair industry like no other agency, it is all they do. Number two, they know PPC and digital marketing very well, especially as it pertains to this industry. Number three, they know how to get a return on investment, they are very effective at cost per acquisition of a new customer. So what are you waiting for? Visit tread partners.com to find out more information.

Before we get started today, I’d like to give a shout-out to a new friend of mine, Giorgio Andonian, managing director at FOCUS Investment Banking. If you need guidance on how to put your shop in financial order, to sell your business someday in the future, or just simply to pass it along to your family, listen to the episode I did with Giorgio. It’s great, it’s somewhat entertaining and very, very informative.

Our guest today is Michael Chung with Autocare Association. He is Senior Director of Market Intelligence. Michael is only the second guest that I have had on the show for a second time. I don’t know if I told you that, Michael?

Michael:

I’m honored.

Mike:

He is a wealth of knowledge for our industry and a huge advocate for the industry. Michael, welcome back to the Gain Traction podcast.

Michael:

Thanks again for having me, Mike. It’s always a pleasure to be part of the show here.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, me and you stay in touch just periodically and whatnot. When I reached back out to you and you sent me this study that you did, I think it’s going to make for a great discussion today. But let’s back up for our audience sake a little bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you came from and how you ended up at Autocare Association.

Michael:

So in a nutshell, I’ve had a very interesting career across a couple of different industries. I was an environmental engineer for a long time. I moved over to corporate marketing and communications where I led market research and client satisfaction programs.

Mike:

Well, they’re so related, right?

Michael:

Of course, yeah. But it was really to support business development, to help our executives who are client relationship managers in various geographic territories. Service offerings to help them understand the lay of their land, their competitor activity, who their clients were hiring and how big their markets were.

So I went over to a market research consulting firm in Arlington, Virginia a while back and I was a client relationship manager there. One of my clients was Autocare Association. I joined Autocare Association, as their market intelligence lead just as the pandemic was starting in March or so of 2020. So really my job is to bring insights, data and trends to our members, which span the automotive aftermarket as well as the industry as a whole.

Mike:

That’s awesome, that’s a great explanation. Autocare Association, it really is an advocacy group, correct?

Michael:

That’s right. So we represent the interests of the entire supply chain and value chain. So our members include parts manufacturers, distributors and warehousers, service providers, retail stores. As well as professional organizations, professional services organizations such as research and consulting, investment banking, who focus in the space.

One of the things we’re really advocating is the right-to-repair movement. So right now we’re talking with legislators in Congress about the Right to Repair Act and really looking forward to just making sure that consumers have choice when it comes to where they take their vehicle for repair. So making sure that they have access to the data so that they can take their vehicles to the provider of choice. So yeah, really happy to be part of this organization.

Mike:

Well, I’m glad you brought that up. I do want to touch on right-to-repair, because we’ve had the Tire Industry Association talk about it on here as well. I don’t think we could talk about it or the importance of it enough right now. It’s a critical issue to the aftermarket for sure.

Michael:

Oh, no doubt. I think what we’re really trying to do is educate lawmakers on the need for independent shops to be able to access vehicle data. Whether it’s a diagnostic code or otherwise. So that our consumers can ultimately have that freedom of choice of where they take their vehicle. I apologize, I interrupted you there. But yeah, I think we’d all agree that fair competition is very American. Just being able to have the consumer have the right to that data so that he or she can take it to their local provider down the street or anywhere that they would like to.

Because when you look at the vehicle, I guess the motor vehicle industry and thinking about the 283 million vehicles that are on the road. So many of them are out of warranty that allows us to take their vehicles to an independent shop. I would like to think that the automakers really rely on the independent aftermarket to take care of vehicles because of capacity issues, for example.

Mike:

It’d have to be. Well, and then from an extreme standpoint, if you want to fix your own car, you have to have access to that data.

Michael:

Oh, absolutely. It’s interesting, because our vehicles on the whole are getting older. The average age of light vehicles in the United States right now is 12.5 years. I believe 80% of vehicles are past warranty, generally speaking. So for the do-it-yourselfer or to be able to access the codes, be able to get the parts that they need. As well as even things like if you have a vehicle being pinged that you need service is one thing, but when it’s only steering you to a dealer, for instance, I think that gives a little bit of an unfair advantage in some ways to the dealer network, with all due respect. Because if you’re out of warranty, you’re not necessarily beholden to take your vehicle to a particular place for service. So being able to just have fair messaging and rights or access to that vehicle data is really critical for the industry.

Mike:

Competition is healthy for all of us. Even when we say, “We don’t want competition,” it does always make us better.

Michael:

Absolutely, it’s so true in so many things. Because it’s easy to get complacent if you don’t have competition. You could argue that quality can go down in those types of situations, whether in sports, business or otherwise.

Mike:

You bring up sports, and this is a cool documentary. There’s plenty of documentaries, but Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, they became friends, but they both admitted that, “They thought about each other constantly.” They said, “That guy, before we were friends, when we were competitors, he made me better. Because I constantly thought that he was practicing and he thought that I was….” Between those two, they saved the NBA, it wasn’t really getting live coverage at that time. People don’t remember that, before them, you watch their games on tape delay. It’s crazy to think that today.

Michael:

Yeah, that is fascinating. Yeah, there’s so many sports, I’m a tennis player. So I think about Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal. Now you’ve got Carlos Alcaraz. Of course all the women rivalries, whether Navratilova and Graf. You just think about they push each other to keep getting better ultimately. Because they know, just like you said, “The other person is waiting for their chance to get the big trophy as well.”

Mike:

I think it plays into our industry as well. But going back to the Autocare Association, what does your membership look like, in the sense of percentage of dealers? Is it a lot of dealers, distributors, et cetera?

Michael:

Very few dealers, if any, honestly. We do have a couple of original equipment manufacturing companies such as vehicle makers. But on the whole, we’re about a thousand companies that represent maybe 8,000, 9,000 businesses. So these are parts manufacturers, these are program groups, distributors. These are service providers, whether an independent shop, a multi-shop facility or a national chain.

Mike:

When I said, “Dealer,” I’m a tire dealer. I’m sorry, I meant to say, a tire dealer, independent [inaudible 00:09:37]

Michael:

Oh, tire dealer, of course, yes. So my apologies.

Mike:

That’s all right.

Michael:

So we do have tire distributors, I couldn’t tell you exactly how many. But we do have tire manufacturers, we do have tire dealers. So yes, across the service and repair and equipment, we are quite well represented. We’re so very happy to have that representation.

Mike:

Well, the reason I ask is because I want to encourage those that are listening to consider being a member. Simply because the information that you guys provide, that we’re going to dive into here shortly, it could be critical to their livelihood. Or it could help them create new efficiencies that they didn’t know existed. Some opportunities, because you guys do a lot of market research surveys, et cetera. You help the industry in a sense, stay out in front of itself.

Michael:

Yeah, I appreciate the championing that you’re doing for us. So you’re right, we’re a member-based association. We do provide member benefits, whether the market intelligence, whether industry events. Pretty soon where we’re having our fall leadership days and legislative summit where we have a variety of meetings. We are going to have groups meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to just tell them more about the Repair Act and what our member’s businesses do to contribute to the local economy. We also will be at Apex, we co-own the Apex show. You mentioned Magic Johnson, he’ll be, I think, our keynote speaker there.

So yeah, it’s really an exciting way to network and just to build your network, learn what else is going on in the industry. Then be part of something that’s, “Bigger than yourself.” Because it’s part of the power of the association is to do things that no one individual, organization or individual can necessarily do. But through the power of synergy and collaboration to be able to do things that advance the good of the industry.

Mike:

That’s well said. So let’s get into this study that you and I connected on. Because I think ultimately, if I’m not stealing your thunder here, you guys wanted to know how companies were dealing with higher capital costs.

Michael:

That’s right.

Mike:

Absorbing them or passing them on and higher inflation and what they were doing if inventory built up during the pandemic and if they couldn’t sell it. So you want to expand on that? Am I getting [inaudible 00:12:08]

Michael:

Sure, so Autocare Association, we have a number of committees and I liaise to the Market Intelligence Committee. Which is about 25 individuals of member organizations across the supply chain who are really passionate about research data and what trends do our members need to know about. So we have marketing directors, we have operations, we have C-suite level individuals. Category managers, people who love numbers, people who love data.

Some of the questions were, over the past year we saw inflation get up to 9% and how does that impact price of goods and services sold? Is it all being passed along to the customer? Meanwhile, you had interest rates ratcheting up higher and higher. We look at the housing market for instance, and we saw 3% mortgages for 30 years going up to 7% and beyond. Similarly, the cost of capital has been higher. So how are companies in the aftermarket dealing with higher capital costs? Are they absorbing it? Are they passing it on to their customers?

One of the other questions was, if we think back over the last three years plus, three and a half years now, ever since the pandemic, all the supply chain challenges that happened. Because as materials, as raw materials, input components were not necessarily there when companies needed them, perhaps a company stockpiled on them. Or made a lot of a product, but then it didn’t sell, were they devaluing it? Were they having a fire sale? Were they even changing their accounting methodology?

So these are some of the questions that our market intelligence committee was interested in cracking the nut on, so that it could inform 2024 business planning as well. So we did a survey of a number of individuals across our membership who are in managerial executive level positions who have insights into how was inventory management changing? How was pricing changing? What were you doing in the case of excess inventory? So we ran this survey and came away with a lot of interesting findings. I really appreciate the opportunity to highlight some of them with you here.

Mike:

Yeah, so touch on some of the ones, your key takeaways.

Michael:

Oh, sure. So one thing I’ll highlight here is strategy. So when it comes to strategy, we asked, “Did your strategy change with respect to product, customer market or research and development?” For all of them except research and development, those strategies did shift quite a bit over the last several years. Research and development, it changed for some companies, but fewer than it did for products, customers, and markets. So that was one takeaway. Another takeaway-

Mike:

Let me ask you a question, on that strategy, did strategy shift to more survival mode? Or just more, let’s say long-term efficiency mode? Or a combination of both. [inaudible 00:15:22]

Michael:

So I wouldn’t say survival mode so much as pivoting towards, let’s just say, do we need to focus on different markets? Do we need to focus on finding different suppliers? One company that I talked to, they said that, “Their domestic suppliers could not meet their demand.” I believe this was an automotive product distributor. They were finding that the domestic suppliers were having a hard time meeting their demand. So they went to find new suppliers overseas. So that was a shift in products, I believe.

Then what we also saw was that the cadence of strategic discussion became more frequent across a lot of companies. Where executive leaders were talking about strategy more often. Maybe having more dedicated sessions on strategy itself. Because depending on the company, strategy may be one bullet point as part of a larger agenda. It might be an entire session on a quarterly basis. But what we were seeing was, in order to pivot and either be proactive or reactive, depending on the company and the situation, companies were engaging more employees across their organization to talk about strategy and then to talk about it more frequently.

Mike:

Well almost, you were forced not to be complacent. Because the supply chain was disrupted massively. You had COVID that caused most of it. But no one knew exactly what the end of the tunnel looked like. So it was a constant strategy session, it felt like, at least from my perspective. Is that-

Michael:

Yeah, that’s really well said. Perhaps hand in hand with that goes the inventory management, that was another focus of the study. That certainly has become more critical, as you can probably imagine with supply chain challenges and shipping and so forth. Because so many parts are obtained from all over the world. What we found through this study was that stocking up on key and critical input materials was fairly common. What we also saw was that diversification of supply sources was pretty common as well.

You had a fair amount of change of production sites, reshoring of facilities, but that tended to happen for fewer companies. But again, increased inventory of critical input materials was common. In some cases, reduction of product offerings too. Where going back to that strategy, I mentioned, products, customers and so forth, was that did companies need to assess their product offerings and perhaps reduce skew counts? That was true for a number of companies throughout the last several of years.

Mike:

I think that’s so important to know. Being in the industry and understanding that you’re not the only one out there. Because in a sense, I used that word, “Survival,” a minute ago. But when you’re stockpiling, you’re thinking of, “Hey, I got to take the peaks and valleys out of this and there are some critical components that I need to store up on.” In a sense, it’s a good thing that you’re doing it, but the negative is you’re having to expend capital that you probably really normally wouldn’t do.

Michael:

Yeah. You bring up a couple of things that are really interesting. I’ll try and stitch a couple of observations together in response to that are, as you can imagine with supply chain and what’s selling, what’s the changing demand? Because driving habits changed. So service frequency may have changed for a lot of people. Demand change for those products. So you had a lot of companies looking at their inventory levels and reviewing those inventories more frequently. Particularly for those critical final products, which makes perfect sense.

Another thing that came to bear, that I learned in the survey, was just that importance of communication. A few moments ago, I mentioned an automotive product distributor, where they’re importing products, say from overseas, they’re selling it to stores within the United States. So they’re almost like that middle agency, if you will. The communication was so critical that this executive told me where, “If their supplier didn’t let them know there might be a delay or a reduction in the amount that they could bring to them, that really affected him and his customers that relied on him.”

You also had the circumstance where perhaps with increased shipping costs, because when we think about the freight costs throughout the pandemic, it was like, ride the roller coaster. So you may have had delays in shipment as well as, “Oh, we have to charge you more for this shipment.” So it’s like, “Okay, well let’s look at what was in the contract. What can I reasonably pass on to my customers?” Just that communication and heads up, if you and I are in that situation, it’s like, “Okay, Mike, just keep in touch with me. Let me know if things are going to be late or if you can only get 10 pallets as opposed to the 15 we had contracted with before.” So that way I can set and manage expectations with the customers at the [inaudible 00:20:52] transaction, if you will.

Mike:

I totally agree. I’ve been that way with people that I’ve done business with. I’m very upfront that, no communication is far worse than bad news.

Michael:

Right. Over communication you can’t go wrong with these days.

Mike:

Not at all. So what’s some other takeaways you’re thinking about?

Michael:

What was interesting is, and this ties into something that I learned in terms of inventory being such a key asset. If you’re not managing your inventory well, then you have the potential to lose money or not make as much money as you reasonably could. So thinking about the turnover of your inventory. If it’s something that turns over monthly. If it turns over every six months, how are you managing that calculus of various products across various categories, the frequency at which they change, and then getting them to your customers?

But another thing that we saw in the survey was regarding real estate. We asked the question, “Have you increased your square footage in your warehouses, in your operations and production facilities, in your office spaces? Did you decrease it?” What we saw was that while most companies did not change their warehouse space, their operations and production facility footprints or office space footprints, a quarter of the companies that participated did in fact increase their warehouse space. 20% increased their operations and production facility space. Which is interesting, because it’s that reminder of always having your finger on the pulse of the market. Whether it’s real estate or whatever. Being able to recognize a good deal that’s available and that lines up with your company’s needs. So I thought that was very interesting.

Mike:

Yeah, technically up until this year, the rates were so low that it was still a really good deal if you were going to finance land or building.

Michael:

Right. Just reading the mainstream media, whether it’s the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, we read about what’s happening with office real estate. Because this whole, are we returning to work? What days? How many people? As leases get re-upped, what are the changing terms there? So certainly there are some advantages if you are renting space where perhaps there could be more flexibility, more options. I can see how it makes sense for a real estate manager in the automotive aftermarket. Whether you are a manufacturer or a distributor, a provider, there could be some deals to be made there. So yeah, it’s always dynamic

Mike:

It is and it’s interesting. You’ve always got to be prepared for that… This is where I think you all’s information’s helpful, but it helps you discern where that good deal may be for you in your local market. You might say, “Mm, some of that data that speaks to this opportunity that just crossed my desk that normally I may not have looked at. But I think I’m going to take a look at this and maybe engage.”

Michael:

Right on, exactly.

Mike:

Does anything else stand out to you on that report that you want to share?

Michael:

Oh, sure. A couple of things that come out that would, I’m sure our audience is going to be nodding their head yes and saying, “Yep, that makes a lot of sense,” is customer behavior. Where companies that took the survey, half of them saw their customers delay purchases. The regular listeners to your podcast are probably saying, “Yep, I’ve seen my customers; they may not be driving as much, they’ve delayed their tire purchases. Or maybe their driving needs have changed and they’ve gotten different types of tires.” So I think from a consumer standpoint, all of us can probably relate to, “Oh, maybe I just delay that purchase.”

What our participating companies also saw was that their customers were just cost conscious. They’re taking advantage of promotions, they’re purchasing less. They often substituted a lower price product. They even would substitute lower quality products, if they didn’t even opt out if at all together. All that said, about 20% of companies did not see these kinds of consumer behavior changes. So they’ve been able to hold steady with regard to the product sales to their customers.

Another was staff. We always hear about the war for talent, and that was certainly evident here. Where I think by and large, the aftermarket has been taking better care of its workers. We’ve seen higher salaries, higher wages, increased bonuses and benefits. I think that’s a hallmark of the robust economy and competition for… We had low unemployment for a long time. So being able to keep businesses attractive for staff was certainly top of mind for a lot of companies as well.

I think the last thing I’ll mention, for now at least, is supply chain risk management. A little bit of an esoteric topic for me, and I’m sure other people, is having a supply chain risk management plan. The majority of companies in the aftermarket did not have a formal supply chain risk management plan before COVID. Relatively few that didn’t have one created one, a quarter of those companies that didn’t have one, created one after [inaudible 00:26:38] COVID happened.

Yeah, so it’s interesting. Because I think depending on your company’s culture, and maybe how many employees you have, the communication. I think you and I could probably brainstorm of, “Oh, what if this happens? What if that happens?” We might have a playbook in our heads, but maybe having a formal one documented, a lot of companies didn’t have that. The last thing I’ll say about that is, those companies that did have a formal supply chain risk management plan, half of them have updated it since the pandemic. That makes a lot of sense to me, because how many people may have foreseen a contagious disease or freight rates going sky-high, things like that.

Mike:

If you remember, the initial lockdowns were only 30 days. We were just going to get past this curve, and then it went into six months.

Michael:

Right.

Mike:

[inaudible 00:27:32] takes longer.

Michael:

So it was really an interesting study and just to see how companies have responded to just these really not very common types of events. Between the pandemic, all the supply chain chain challenges, interest rates, cost of capital and everything.

Mike:

Well, and I’ll plug Autocare association again. But that’s what I love about you guys taking on these research projects just to answer some of these questions. Some of these questions had been in my head, but you had quite a few more that you had covered that it was like, “Oh, okay.” It was fun for me to read this, and I’m just glad you came back on and gave us a sneak preview of it.

Michael:

Oh yeah, thanks so much. You did mention Autocare; I would be remiss if I didn’t say the website, it’s autocare.org, so A-U-T-O-C-A-R-E.org. I’ll be publishing an article about this. So it should be on the website by the time this podcast goes live. I feel like I teased the audience, I talked about some of the questions. I will say that half of the companies that participated said, with higher interest rates half of our companies have increased the price of products, 30% We’re absorbing the costs, and one out of eight we’re negotiating the costs with their banks.

So it’s like, okay, let’s get in an arm wrestling match over how high this interest rate should be. You did have a couple of companies who were like, “We’re debt free, this isn’t an issue for us. We have cash in the bank.” But generally speaking, it is an environment of costs getting passed on to the customers. These are other costs, like material costs, shipping costs, labor costs. We’ve seen wages go up. One executive said, “Yeah, those prices, they’re pretty much not coming back down.”-

Mike:

No.

Michael:

… because they’ve gone up. Yeah, don’t expect them to ever come down.”

Mike:

My little econ background, that’s the reality that happens. That people don’t realize whatever cost you put on a small business, most of it’s going to be passed on to the consumer. So whether It’s a tax or regulation, et cetera, all that’s ultimately going to hit the consumer, because that’s the only way it can be absorbed. In order for a business to stay in business and have its operating capital. But I’m glad you brought that part up.

Michael:

Yeah, and I think we were talking about it the other day with regard to free markets. What are the competitors doing? Are other competitors raising their prices? Maybe they’re absorbing some of the costs, but how long can you do that? So it’s that interesting dynamic as a business provider, whether small, medium or large, just really keeping your finger on the pulse. Seeing what other players are doing in the marketplace. Identifying what’s the appropriate path for your business. And it is, of course-

Mike:

No, go ahead.

Michael:

I’m sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and of course, one of the companies that I talk to, they have a variety of whether it’s preferred partners or promotional programs, or tiered rates. That just makes it, in some ways, more complicated. But it has to be, how do you… When we’re thinking about strategy, we talked about strategy earlier, it’s like, “Okay, let’s make sure we’re approaching this thoroughly, but as well as with enough responsiveness that we’re not taking too long to respond”

Mike:

Well, we’re actually coming up on our hard stop here. So I want to bring it back a little personal before we let you go, Mike. You got any good related business stories that you might want to share with us?

Michael:

Sure. So Autocare, we’re about 40 employees, give or take. We had a recent all staff team event. So we have maybe 10 or 12 people who work remotely outside of the Washington DC area. We’re based in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of the capitol. Our team leaders, they organized an event where we went to a museum called, Planet Word. So it had language and etymology, new language and a lot of interactive displays. Then afterwards we went to a rooftop bar where we made teams and did word competitions. So I like games like Scrabble. We had our own custom Wordle. We took Autocare, and how many words can you make out of the letters that comprise Autocare? A lot of fun games like that. So it was fun to sort of nerd out in that wordy sort of way. So it was a lot of fun and-

Mike:

A little competition.

Michael:

… it goes to the culture. Yeah.

Mike:

So one more question, what’s your favorite movie of all time?

Michael:

Of all time?-

Mike:

Or if you can just say-

Michael:

… That’s a tough one to answer.

Mike:

You could say whatever’s been on your mind lately that you’ve experienced, maybe.

Michael:

Well, like a lot of America, I did participate in the Barbinheimer phenomenon. So I was a little bit skeptical of the Barbie movie. When I sat through all the commercials in the first couple of minutes I was literally twitching and cringing. But after the first couple of minutes I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is really a lot of fun.” I was just really, really impressed with how well they pulled everything off in that movie. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a lot of fun. My wife and son and I, we all went. I even sort of did the dressing up to the extent that I could. I enjoyed it so much that I actually went with my mom and my brother down in Florida. My brother is in Los Angeles, he went down to Florida to visit my mom. I also went to celebrate her 82nd birthday. We went and saw Barbie. So it was a lot of fun. Then I saw Oppenheimer a few weeks later, and so I could complete the dual package that everybody’s been talking about. So those were fun movies.

Mike:

Are you at all an Equalizer fan? Have you seen that series with Denzel Washington?

Michael:

I have not, should I, is it good?

Mike:

Yeah, it’s kind of like… Denzel plays a good role because he’s a vigilante. But he’s got all these special Skills that he really tried to retire, and then he ends up helping civilians that can’t help themselves. So there’s a lot of goodwill in it, and he’s able to equalize it. But my wife and I-

Michael:

I’ll look for it, yeah.

Mike:

… we watched the first two. So the third one just came out September 1, and we were like, “We got to go see it.” So anyway, it was good too. For a series that had three movies, we actually said, “We liked all three and probably couldn’t tell you which one would’ve been our favorite.”

Michael:

Oh, that’s impressive. Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah, they did a good job.

Michael:

That’s impressive.

Mike:

Well, anyway, definitely, Mike, thank you again for being on Gain Traction. It’s always a pleasure.

Michael:

Thanks again for having me, really appreciate the opportunity. Best wishes to all of the listeners for a great fall season.

Mike:

All right. To all the listeners, thank you for being part of our podcast. If you would like to recommend a guest to us, please email me at [email protected]. Until next time, be safe and have a great day.

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1 In this episode…

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

1.2 Resources mentioned in this episode: