Episode 6 – Part 2 – Bob Tasca 3

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to today’s episode of David Versus Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business Software, a tree time Inc 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam DeGraide.

Adam DeGraide (00:30):

Hey everyone. It’s Adam DeGraide with David Versus Goliath podcast. Welcome back to the greatest small business podcast in the world if I say so myself. As you can tell, we’re so excited about part two today with Bob Tasca III. Last week, I got a chance to speak with him. It was awesome. We talked for about an hour. You do not want to miss this part. If you haven’t seen part one, make sure you go back and take a look at it. A few housekeeping items before we continue. Make sure to check out DavidvsGoliathpodcast.com. That’s DavidvsGoliathpodcast.com. You can subscribe to the show and apply to be interviewed on the show. This is going to be one of the best business shows ever created. That is my promise to you, my watchers and my listeners. It’s going to be great.

Adam DeGraide (01:18):

Also, make sure you watch the video on YouTube, subscribe there as well. And then any one of your favorite podcasting applications from Spotify to apple, to Google, I mean, you name it. We’re probably on it. Anyway, subscribe and listen. Thank you so much. Let’s get back to part two with Bob Tasca III. And we’re back for part two with the illustrious, the handsome, the way better in shape person than me, Bob Tasca III. Bob, welcome back to David Versus Goliath podcast. Thank you for joining us again.

Bob Tasca III  (01:50):

Oh, great. Great to be on, Adam. Anytime.

Adam DeGraide (01:53):

For those who are watching this one for the first time, stop, you got to go back. You’ve got to see what he did last, what he said last week, because it’s fantastic. We’ve already talked about plans with goals. We’ve already talked about how the Tasca’s try to find, recruit, and train great people. We talked a little bit about the tools. We talked about CRM. We talked about some marketing. Is there any other tools, Bob, that you want to have that if you were thinking to yourself, this small business is thinking to themselves, man, I just need to have one critical thing. One tool in their business. Would you say it would be CRM? Would you say it would be email marketing? I mean, what would you say to that person who is either A) just starting, they’re small, they’re growing. What is the one essential tool you couldn’t live without?

Bob Tasca III  (02:40):

Well, I can tell you, I don’t think there is one, Adam. I think there’s a couple because you can’t live without a CRM. Okay. You can’t live without some way of measuring success internally, whether it’s financial, whether it’s closing ratios, you name it. You need to have some form of software to be able to measure your business. Okay? Because a number is only good or bad by comparison.

Adam DeGraide (03:05):

That’s true.

Bob Tasca III  (03:05):

You certainly need a CRM to manage your customer database on how frequently you target your customers, how you look at that data. And then for us, we on a marketing standpoint, we have tools that go out and run our Google campaigns and our search engine optimization. And those are critical to know where your business is placed online, because that’s where all the eyeballs are today. I couldn’t say there’s one. I think you need all three.

Adam DeGraide (03:36):

It’s interesting that you say that because when I think about the type of people that listen to David Versus Goliath, you’ve got aspiring entrepreneurs, you’ve got small business owners of various sizes, right? You’ve got small business, a sole proprietor. You’ve got someone who’s got 50, someone who’s got 150 employees. When it comes to marketing and management of your business, you said something very, very important. You have to know what you’re measuring and why. And you have to have a target that you’re going for, and you have to have something to compare yourself to. Right? It can’t just be some nebulous idea. We talked about this last week where you can’t just say, I think we’re doing good. We hope we’re doing good. We’re not too sure if we’re doing good.

Adam DeGraide (04:18):

You have to know we’re doing good, and these tools absolutely help small businesses absolutely achieve that. CRM, marketing automation. Anything that you can think of to make your life easier, more effective and efficient and to give you a window into what’s happening on the other side with your customer, makes all the difference in the world. Bob, as the owner of your business, as the vice president, one of the owners, how often do you and the other owners look at this information?

Bob Tasca III  (04:48):

Daily. I mean daily. I mean, we’re looking at key reports every single day to get forecasts. I think you start with a forecast, right? So at the beginning of the year, beginning of the month, we set our forecast. So what do we want to do this month? And then we track it, and there’s reports that go out in our company weekly. So we know. It’s not like we get to the end of the month and say, oh my God, it was a shitty month. Like, wow, it was a surprise, right? There’s no surprises. We know-

Adam DeGraide (05:15):

You know it’s coming, right?

Bob Tasca III  (05:17):

We know five or six days in that it may not be a good month. Okay. And by having the data in that timely of a fashion, you can do something about it. You can do something about it five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 15 days into the month. You can’t do anything about it 25 days into the month. Tracking the data against a forecast is critical. Because I’ve always believed the number is just a number, right? Unless it’s compared to something. And the best way to compare it to is a forecast on what you are projecting, goals that you need to hit, whether it’s monthly, quarterly, or yearly and you track it. And then you look at a number and you either do one or two things when you look at a number, celebrate it like, yeah, we’re doing good. Or two, we got a problem. We got a problem. Otherwise, don’t waste your time looking at numbers if you can’t look at it in that perspective.

Adam DeGraide (06:07):

You said something really interesting too, that you know early on, because if you wait too long to know-

Bob Tasca III  (06:13):

Too late.

Adam DeGraide (06:14):

… you’re dead. I have some great friends in line that have started businesses over the years. Some have grown their businesses to be 15 times more successful than mine and others are still trying to get off the ground. And if I was going to say what the key difference really is, I think you just nailed it, is they know early that something’s not working so they can change it effectively. I want to switch gears and go back to the family a little bit for those that maybe are starting on part two with your interview. Can you think of a time, one experience or maybe a handful at the dealership when you were watching your grandfather, watching your dad, your uncles’ work, where that hits you like a ton of bricks and inspired you?

Bob Tasca III  (06:59):

Yeah. I think, my whole life work ethic. I think just seeing how hard they worked and how much passion they put in. They loved what they did so you never work a day in your life. And that sounds good. But it’s work. I mean, you got to go to work and you love it. You’re passionate about it, but you got to go to work. And the work ethic that they put in early on was very inspiring. My grandfather also had a very inspirational way of looking at success from his perspective. He said his secret to success was simple. He asked the right people the right questions and remembered the answers. And that’s such a profound statement because when I went to speak to high schoolers around the country, I first talked to them about work ethic, which I learned at a very early age from my family.

Bob Tasca III  (07:51):

The second thing I look at is I tell people all the time, be responsible with your life and what I mean your life, not drugs, alcohol. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you’re already in trouble. I talk about your time. Being responsible with your time is the most precious asset you’ll ever spend in your life. And you have a choice. Do you want to hang out with the winners, or do you want to hang out with the losers? See me, I always want to hang out with the winners.

Adam DeGraide (08:16):

Me too.

Bob Tasca III  (08:17):

Early on because I figured that if I can hang out with the winners, if I could ask the right people the right questions and remember the answers, I got a really good shot of winning like they’re winning. Right? When I started my race team, I didn’t call up every single person out there that lost and said, “Hey, what do you think I should do?” I went to people like John Force, Don Schumacher, Tony Pedregon, some of the winiest people of all time, because those are the guys that I wanted to learn from. And it’s so important. And then back in episode one, Adam, you and I talked about goals, and goals without a plan is a wish.

Adam DeGraide (08:51):

That’s right.

Bob Tasca III  (08:51):

And I don’t want the wish. My family all along had goals. They had plans to achieve those goals, and they worked hard at it. And I tell people sometimes I say, “You know something? Hard work does not always equal success.” You’re going to work really hard at something, and you’re going to fail. But the truth is if you don’t keep working hard, you’re destined for failure.

Adam DeGraide (09:11):

That’s right.

Bob Tasca III  (09:12):

The only way that I know to overcome failure and obstacles is to continue to put that work in, to continue to follow your dreams and plans because the truth be told, Plan B in life sucks. I don’t like Plan B. I want Plan A to work, right? I don’t wake up every day, say, “Gee, if Plan A doesn’t work, I’ll just go to Plan B.” Well, I may have three Plan As, but I’m going to make sure one of those Plan As work. And that’s been my mindset from early on and certainly picked up a lot of that from my father and uncles.

Adam DeGraide (09:43):

First of all, I’m getting goosebumps. That’s how pumped I’m getting from this man. You fired me up, and I think it was, I forget who said it. I think it was actually Ryan [McCracken 00:09:52]. He’s an insurance agent. He said something really interesting about how his agency was able to win business. He had a very similar story. His grandfather started the agency, his dad took over the agency. He had no choice but to take over the agency because he was raised in it. And I said, “Well, what’s the secret to you guys winning accounts even today?” And he said something so interesting. He said, “You know what? We were there. Because you can’t win unless you’re there.” And it just hit me, man. It’s like, oh, sorry, Marty. I didn’t mean to smack the karate kid leader, Dojo leader, Cobra Kai’s leader.

Adam DeGraide (10:32):

But at the end of the day, man, if you’re not there, if you don’t have a great work ethic. If you don’t get out of bed, if you don’t show up at work, if you don’t work hard, if you’re not there when the customer wants to buy something you’re in no danger of selling anything. And it really is interesting. I would imagine you could probably count on one hand the amount of times you didn’t see your grandfather working at the dealership.

Bob Tasca III  (10:54):

He was there. I mean, that was his life. I mean he loved seeing and the family there, but no, the work ethic is so important. I tell these young kids, I said, “We know in the first week if you’ll be successful or not.” And they’ll look at you, “What do you mean in the first week?” I say, “Yeah, got nothing to do with how smart you are, how tall you are, man, or woman.” I said, “It comes down to one thing. The successful people come in early, work hard, ask great questions, leave late. And they just have a desire and a passion for what they do. And with that, you can do anything you want in life. You can do anything you want in life.”

Bob Tasca III  (11:28):

And it just comes down to having that will and passion. And I think it’s critical that people find something that they love to do. No sugar coating. It’s going to be work. You got to go to work every day.

Adam DeGraide (11:38):

Your work.

Bob Tasca III  (11:39):

But it’s a whole lot easier doing it if you love it.

Adam DeGraide (11:41):

Damn right.

Bob Tasca III  (11:42):

If you pick up every day dreading, everyone on this podcast that’s watching it knows the guy or gal, the friend or family member that dreads going to work every day. Don’t be that person.

Adam DeGraide (11:52):

No, stay away from that person if you can help yourself.

Bob Tasca III  (11:56):

Yeah. Don’t be that person, because it’s going to make life, it’s going to make success so much harder to get through. Find something that you love to do, have a passion for it, and then just go chase it, go chase it.

Adam DeGraide (12:08):

I love it. Bob, hang on one second. We need to take a quick break here on David Versus Goliath podcast. I’m your host, Adam DeGraide. Here’s a special message from our corporate sponsor Anthem Software. Stay tuned.

Speaker 4 (12:20):

Anthem Business Software system is designed to specifically help small businesses just like yours find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. We do this by providing you with the most powerful software, automations and marketing services to help your business compete and win in this ever changing digital world. Take a short video tour at anthemsoftware.com.

Speaker 5 (12:46):

(singing).

Adam DeGraide (13:05):

And we’re back again with B3. B3, man, this is I’m telling you, man. If you’re a business owner and you’re not fired up right now, you should just mail it in. Go work for somebody else. Because at the end of the day, this show right here is about inspiration, education and activation, which is what we want out of people’s lives. So now I want to transition a little bit. We’ve talked about people. We’ve talked about tools. We’ve talked about your planning goals. Process. Okay? I know that Tasca’s are very … You mentioned a blueprint. When you say blueprint, is that a real thing? Have you blueprinted the customer experience out and tried to train it across all your dealerships? What does that mean, blueprint?

Bob Tasca III  (13:52):

I mean, this is what I tell managers, new people coming into our company and it’s as simple as this. There’s a 100 ways to run a car dealership. There’s a 100 ways, and 90 of them work really good. 90 of them. I’m sure at least 90 of them work really well. And I’m sure there’s dealers that are very successful doing it one of those 90 ways. At Tasca, we do it this way. This is how we do it. Okay. This is how we do it. We know it works. Okay. You may not agree with it 100%, but this is how we do it. And the concept of a blueprint or a process when you have it, it’s like the Bible. This is how we do it. There’s no deviation.

Adam DeGraide (14:36):

Do you guys sing the song? This is how we do it.

Bob Tasca III  (14:40):

This is how we do it, and there’s no deviation. And I tell people all the time and they chuckle, some chuckle, some have actually done it. I said, “The train’s going that way. And it goes pretty fast. We’re on a fast train. This is where it’s going. And if you don’t like it, get off. And by the way, it don’t stop. So just don’t hurt yourself on the way off, because no one’s going to derail our blueprint, our process and how we run our stores. And you’re either with us or you’re not.”

Bob Tasca III  (15:05):

And that’s just our philosophy. I call it to some extent, rigid flexibility. We’re always open to new ideas or processes, but nothing gets changed until it’s discussed, it’s reviewed, it’s talked about, it’s thought about, because the worst thing that you can do is just to keep changing, keep changing, keep changing, and you never really learn if anything worked, right?

Adam DeGraide (15:28):

Yeah. You’re dead.

Bob Tasca III  (15:29):

So we’re very disciplined on that.

Adam DeGraide (15:31):

Hey, man, I got to tell you. I really hope people listening and watching, just hear what he said there. They have a formula that works, and it’s not like they don’t respect other people’s formula. This is their formula that they’ve built over the tens and tens of years, decades really, of how to run a dealership to A) love and serve your customers, to satisfy them, to make sure that they have a great buying experience, a great service experience, a pleasant ownership experience. And that’s been the Tasca way since day one. As a matter of fact, little story, I don’t buy all my cars for you, Bob, but I buy many of my cars.

Bob Tasca III  (16:15):

Many, many.

Adam DeGraide (16:17):

And if you can’t get them for me, you tell me where to get them, which is another thing that I really appreciate about Bob as well, too. Process, man, blueprinting, thinking about these things. If you’re listening and you’re watching, have you thought about out what we’re talking about? What is insert your company’s blueprint or way? And I used it early on. I learned this principle from Eustace Wolfington years ago. What do you want people to think? What do you want people to feel, and what do you want them to do about it?

Adam DeGraide (16:51):

And those three words are powerful because when you’re mapping out your growth strategy and your business, or you’re mapping out the plan for a new business you’re going to start, what do you want your customer to think about you? What do you want them to feel when they look at your brand? When they call you or walk in or see or communicate with you, however they do it. And then more importantly, Bob, what do we want them to do about it? And that’s a place where I’ve seen a lot of small businesses fail, Bob. They’re great at helping somebody think a certain way about them, feel a certain way, but they’re afraid to ask for the sale. I call it just ask for the money.

Adam DeGraide (17:34):

At some point, when you’ve earned that trust, it’s okay to say, “Can we help you buy this beautiful vehicle today?” How do you train your staff to not only help have a great experience, but get to the end? And so the customer’s not totally uncomfortable, but at the same time we want to say, “Hey, we would like to earn your business. You love this car. Let’s do it.” How do you walk your people through that last part, which is in a lot of cases for small businesses, sometimes the most difficult part?

Bob Tasca III  (18:03):

We break it down to three things. Me, the machine, the money. So you got to build value in me because ultimately the customer’s going to be buying the car from you, not from the building that says Tasca on it. So you build value in me, build value in the machine. Okay. What they’re about to buy. And then you get to the money and then to your point, you ask for the sale and then shut up, shut up. Ask for the sale and shut up. Because so many times salesmen, they don’t shut up. They just keep talking. They talk the person right out of buying the car. [crosstalk 00:18:35].

Adam DeGraide (18:36):

We need to think about it. [inaudible 00:18:36].

Bob Tasca III  (18:36):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. By the time they get done talking, they say, “You’re probably right. I shouldn’t buy right now. I’m going to come back tomorrow.” And it’s like, wow. It’s like, okay, you did the me, you did the machine, you talked the money. Now just be quiet.

Adam DeGraide (18:49):

That’s right. Let them decide. [crosstalk 00:18:50]. And for them to say, no, it’s totally fine.

Bob Tasca III  (18:54):

It’s fine.

Adam DeGraide (18:54):

[crosstalk 00:18:54].

Bob Tasca III  (18:57):

What’s it going to take? We always like to kind of frame it this way. On a scale of one to 10, how do you rate the car? So if the customer rates [crosstalk 00:19:05].

Adam DeGraide (19:04):

Let’s do it right now, ready? I like that car and give it an eight, eight and a half.

Bob Tasca III  (19:10):

So just before we go down that road, imagine if Adam said a three, how many people in their head rate the car three or four. And then the guy, the salesman is trying to sell. Well, you’re not going to sell it if he rates it a three or four, no. Rates it an eight, okay.

Adam DeGraide (19:23):

Now you get a shot.

Bob Tasca III  (19:25):

Got a shot. So my next question, gee, Adam, great. What would it take to make it a 10?

Adam DeGraide (19:31):

Obviously it would have to be the a right price, hopefully a good warranty and a friendly smile.

Bob Tasca III  (19:37):

Okay. So Adam, friendly smile we got covered. The right price. Assuming we can get to the right price and the right warranty, are there anything else that would prevent you from taking this car today, Adam? Anything else that you can-

Adam DeGraide (19:48):

I love what you just did there, Bob. I love what you just did there because you literally backed this person in a corner gently. If the person says, if the person says no, now you say-

Bob Tasca III  (20:00):

[crosstalk 00:20:00]. But if he said, well, well-

Adam DeGraide (20:02):

I got to talk to my wife. I’m not sure we can afford it.

Bob Tasca III  (20:06):

I know. So I know I can’t go all in because he’s not in a position to say yes. But yeah. Yeah. Other than warranty and price and a great smile. Okay. I’m ready to take delivery now. I love the color. I love the moon roof. I love everything. So now at that point we’ve established, or at this point you can come back with numbers that you believe are fair pricing. Adam, I know that you’re here because you saw our pricing online.

Adam DeGraide (20:34):

Yep.

Bob Tasca III  (20:34):

Clearly, clearly, Adam, our pricing was very competitive. And at Tasca you get all of this, A, B, C, D. We do a sandwich when you come in for an oil change, a car wash, and you build value in all the things that makes your company different. And then say, Adam, the price is 499 a month. Okay. And we’re able to discount the warranty because I know that was important for you. Can we do business today? And then shut up.

Adam DeGraide (20:57):

You know what, man? I got to tell you, businesses listening, if you just rewind this section and run your business like this, you’re going to sell more stuff. I call it the other then question, Bob. So I train my sales guys. They get to the end of showing whatever product at the time they’re representing. They get to the end and they say, “What do you think? How would you rate it? Scale of one to 10?” We do the same thing. And they say, whatever it is, eight. And then they tell me the two things. Well then other than a fresh smile, other than a great warranty, other than, is there anything-

Bob Tasca III  (21:30):

Are we good?

Adam DeGraide (21:30):

… other than, other than, guys, because you get to the end. Otherwise, you never get to the end and it just strings along and it wastes everyone’s time. That’s fantastic. Fantastic advice. Well, I want to take another short break, Bob, for another sponsor message. Because when we come back from the break, we’re going to talk about the thing I’ve been dying to talk to you about is how do you strap yourself into that car that goes zero to 330 in literally under four seconds? That courage it takes to do that. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back on David Versus Goliath.

Speaker 6 (22:08):

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Adam DeGraide (23:25):

And we’re back. And the time has come. I’ve been waiting for two weeks to talk to you about this, Bob. The fifth smooth stone I tell businesses they have to have is courage. So you think about the story of David and Goliath, Bob, right? I don’t even know if you know this or not. But he was offered Saul’s armor. David is going to go fight this giant. Saul, the king at the time says, “Hey, you can’t go out there dressed like a shepherd boy. Put this armor on. Grab this sword.” He’s like, “I don’t need that. I’m going to go down by the river.”

Adam DeGraide (23:58):

He grabs five smooth stones. And that’s where I came up with plans, people, tools, process, and the last stone, which is the one I believed slayed Goliath is a stone called courage. It took a ton of courage for your grandfather to start his business. It took a lot of courage for your dad and uncles and you and your cousins and everyone that continued it on to take over those successful businesses. But it sure as heck take takes a lot of courage to get into that NHRA drag race car and fly like the wind. Tell people what that is like the first time. I want you to think back to the first time you got in there. Tell us that story.

Bob Tasca III  (24:46):

Yeah. I don’t know if the word is courage or crazy, Adam. One of the two I bet. It’s I think it fuels my passion. I’m a competitive guy. And all I think about is competing and winning at the highest level in drag racing, which my grandfather did back in the ’60s, and I was fascinated about the stories about what they did. “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday,” was a phrase that my grandfather quoted. And to get the opportunity to actually be able to live my dream and drive a Nitro Funny car for Ford Motor Company.

Adam DeGraide (25:22):

That’s serious. You can’t just drive down the street and get nitro fuel. Can you?

Bob Tasca III  (25:26):

No, no. It’s pretty regulated, but it’s intense. I tell people it’s like pulling the trigger of a gun and riding the bullet. It’s a very violent, violent experience of acceleration and deceleration. We’ll pull over six and a half Gs of acceleration and over seven Gs when the para-negative seven Gs when the parachutes come out. So it’s a 13 plus G swing from hitting the throttle for when the parachutes come out and it’s no mistakes. It’s a sport that if you blink, you lose. And I think that’s-

Adam DeGraide (26:08):

[crosstalk 00:26:08]. And I was watching a video of yours online on the YouTube where you said that for that three and a half, four seconds, you can’t breathe.

Bob Tasca III  (26:17):

No.

Adam DeGraide (26:17):

The G forces push so much pressure on your ribcage, your lungs that it literally-

Bob Tasca III  (26:23):

It compresses your lungs inside your chest. You can feel the ear come out of your mouth. And then and the chutes come out and you hit the parachutes. It’s trying to eject you through the windshield, and it compresses your chest. And you get out of the car. I remember I had a friend of mine say, “Bob, you look a little ridiculous getting out of the car.” I said, “What do you mean?” “You’re all out of breath. You’re moving.” He goes, “You just drove for three seconds. How could you possibly be out of breath?” I started laughing. I said, “Well, truthfully, your adrenaline’s rising, you can’t breathe.” And you’re accelerated. The acceleration rate in the car, I put it in perspective. I think people can relate to this. Zero to 60 in a Shelby GT 500 Mustang, really, really, really fast car, 3.2 seconds. Zero to 60 in a Nitro Funny car, half second, 0.5.

Adam DeGraide (27:14):

It’s unbelievable.

Bob Tasca III  (27:15):

Zero to 100 in 0.8 of a second, and then we’ll start to cover a football feel every half second. So the acceleration right on the car is extraordinary. But for me, I don’t know anything else on the planet that really gets my competitive juices flowing more.

Adam DeGraide (27:32):

I see it. I watch you on TV. I see you do it now. I’ve also know that your mom’s a nervous wreck when she watches it. You actually blew up once. And I saw that and I … literally my skipped a beat. I’m like, oh God, please. Make sure he is okay. You literally blew up in the car. What did that feel like?

Bob Tasca III  (27:52):

I’ve done that. I’ve done that unfortunately a couple times. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s 11,000 horsepower engine that’s inches away from you. It’s in front of you, not behind you. And when things go wrong, it can be catastrophic. I think it goes back to everything that you heard in the last two episodes about team and people. And I’m blessed with an unbelievably dedicated group of men that work on this race car. And I get in it and people say, “Well, what’s going through your mind?” I’ll never forget. After a big explosion, there was a Ford executive there and the car came back totally destroyed. And my guys were thrashing and he looked at me and goes, “Bob, what are they doing?” I said, “Well, they’re fixing the car.” “But why are they working so fast?”

Bob Tasca III  (28:41):

I said, “Because in 35 minutes, I’m going to go do it again.” And he went, “You’re going to do it again? You just blew up. You just set yourself on fire. You’re going to get back in that car?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m going to get back in that car hopefully in 32 minutes.” And he goes, “Well, how can you do it? What are you going to think about?” And I said, “Trust me.” I said, “When you believe in your team.” Okay. And in this example, you have your life in their hands.

Adam DeGraide (29:04):

That’s right.

Bob Tasca III  (29:04):

When you truly believe even your team, the only thing I’m thinking about when I’m sitting in that race car, the only thing is winning. It’s winning. It’s the only thing I’m thinking about. And that’s the level of commitment and focus that you have to have to go out there and compete in the sport that I love to compete in. But yeah, no, it’s been an exciting year. We got a couple wins, four final rounds, two wins. We’re right in the meat of this championship as we come into the end of the year.

Bob Tasca III  (29:36):

People have asked me the question, “What’s it like to drive a Nitro Funny car?” For me, it’s a privilege. It’s a tremendous privilege to be one of the handful of people on the planet that get to do it. And then to represent sponsors like Ford Motor Company and Motorcraft that I’ve grown up with as a kid. It’s an unbelievable privilege to be able to do it and represent the Ford fans. They love me when we win. They love me when you lose. They love me when I’m on fire, although they don’t get too close when that happens. It’s really cool to be able to do this around the country and get to meet so many awesome Ford dealers that come out and support me. It’s a whole lot of fun. And I’m looking forward to closing this year out strong and who knows, maybe we’ll get that championship.

Adam DeGraide (30:26):

You never know, man. That’s why you’re out there to win. Right? I mean, that’s why you’re there. In closing Bob, so people listening to this, I mean, first of all, have to be inspired and motivated. I know that I am. So thank you so much for spending so much time with us today on David Versus Goliath, because this is just been wonderful. I want you to think of that man or that woman right now that has a small business. They’re either having success or mild success, or maybe even some difficult times. What final advice would you give for them in growing their business? The one little secret or the one nugget that you’d want them to leave from this podcast?

Bob Tasca III  (31:04):

For me, is work ethic. Just don’t give up. Don’t give up. Keep working. Keep working hard. Keep working the plan. Just keep working. Don’t give up. I mean, when you give up, it’s over, right? And for me, I went a lot of years losing in racing, lot out of years, struggling, struggling. And you just keep digging. You just keep working. Ask the right people the right questions. This podcast is just a great place to come to, to listen to successful people and the challenges.

Bob Tasca III  (31:37):

I think back to, I think it’s something Michael Jordan said on one of the videos, I’m not going to quote him exactly, but he’s always been an inspiration of mine. He said, “They got it all wrong. They got it all wrong with me. They showed all my successes. They showed all my wins. They showed all my championships. They didn’t show the heartache, and they didn’t show the struggles. And they didn’t show the hours of work that I how to put in. They didn’t show that. They just showed all the highlights.” And that’s what it is with business. Business isn’t a highlight reel every day. There’s a lot of struggles. There’s a lot of challenges. And I think the businesses that really succeed are the ones that don’t give up. They believe in their plan, and they work each and every day passionately towards making it a success. So it’s great to be on here, Adam. I wish all your viewers all the success in the world, and hopefully we can do this again.

Adam DeGraide (32:35):

Bob, it has been so awesome. As you say, never give up, never surrender. You can’t win if you’re not there, folks. You can’t win if you’re not there. You can’t have a great day if you don’t get out of bed. And you can’t have a successful company if you’re not willing to work for it. Thank you so much for tuning in. I’m your host, Adam DeGraide. Stay tuned next week for another amazing edition of David Versus Goliath. Have an awesome day.

Speaker 4 (33:16):

(singing).