Hey folks, I'm Matt Major from Growth Mode Content.
Welcome to Good News York. It is, I don't even
know what day it is, because we got back from
Retro Game Con, it feels like five minutes ago.
I think it's been a couple days now actually,
but that was an absolutely incredible, phenomenal
time. Check out all our social medias if you'll
see that, and there'll be a lot of other stuff
coming. We recorded all the panel events and
all kinds of really cool things, so we'll have
a lot to share. Big shout out to Danny and Pat
and Nathan and all the guys that put on that
event. It was the most incredible thing ever.
And it was just a great time ahead by all. Get
your tickets for next year. Like as soon as they
announce them, because this thing sells out and
you can see why it's just more value. I've ever
seen an event ever. So big shout out to those
guys again. And thanks for having us there this
weekend. You might notice my spiky haired sidekick
is missing. It's his birthday. And he wanted
to run around Ithaca in his birthday suit today,
so we let him do that. He's got the day off.
And happy birthday to our boy Mikey B. So without
further ado, we do have a guest. He's not auditioning
for Mike's job, but he is a pretty damn funny
fella. You might have seen him all over the local
New York comedy scene. Our buddy Stephen Brown
is with us. What's going on, buddy? Hey, not
too much. It's fun. In fact, it's actually my
mom's birthday, too. Oh, wow. Yeah, but she's
not alive anymore. So good on Mike. Jesus Christ.
All right, man. This is why I love comedians.
Happy birthday, I guess. Thank you. I'll let
her know. Steve is here to talk about something
pretty crazy. There is a comedy fest that is
coming up, and this is not like a one -time show.
This is four days, five shows spread across Broome
County. It's billed as the funniest weekend in
the history of Broome County. And I feel like
that that's a valid claim. I mean, it is sort
of a low bar, but it's called the Crooked Mouth
Comedy Fest. It's coming up on the 16th. Stephen,
tell us about this thing. We did it last year.
It was a ton of fun. We've got five shows over
four days, different lineup on every show. different
headliner in every show and like the really,
really talented people. And it's really going
to be a fantastic showcase of not only the strength
of our local regional scene from Binghamton,
Syracuse, Scranton, but as far as like New York
City, we have national touring acts coming through
here. We have acts from California coming in
for it. So it's going to be really exciting.
A lot of familiar faces and a lot of new faces
and really just showing the strengths of our
scene. Wow. Wow. And so what's really cool to
me is you can get a pass for all these shows,
right? You just kind of one ticket gets you into
every event. Yeah. Uh, for $50, you can get access
to all five shows and you get a festival t -shirt
for free. Otherwise it's $15 per show in advance
or $20 at the door. So it's if you have, even
if you plan on going just to two or three of
the shows, it's a significant savings. That's
a phenomenal deal. Wow. You guys. You guys don't
like making money, I feel like. But you do like
making people laugh, and that's what is awesome,
and that's why we love these shows. Tell us a
little bit about where some of these venues are,
and who you might be able to see there. Well,
we're actually running out of one spot, because
I really love the guys we work with. It's at
Crooked Mouth Brewing. That's where I've been
running shows for the last two and a half years.
That makes it easy. It's a small little brewery.
Got 60 chairs in it. They do all their... Homebrews
they have a great fantastic kitchen great menu.
It's like standard bar fare, but nothing out
of a deep fryer So it's you know, actually tasty
and well and you don't hate yourself after it
unless you have like too many IPA's but that's
on you You know, and they're super duper big
comedy fans too Like I knew these guys from going
to comedy stuff before they opened the brewery.
It's one of the reasons they wanted to open the
brewery So it's really a fantastic partnership
that they let us run a rampant and we're an entire
weekend at their spot. That's incredible, man.
Four days, five shows. What can you expect to
see during these shows? Something for everybody.
You know, it's like we make a point to have different
styles on every shows, people from different
scenes on every shows. And you're going to see
people who have been doing comedy for 18 months.
You're going to see people who have been doing
comedy for 18 years. You know, so you're going
to really run the gamut, but these are people
who, like I said, they tour the country, like
Sean Murphy, the headliner for early show, just
did a round of sold out shows in Finland with
Mark Mormon. Like literally yesterday he was
in Europe and Saturday he'll be in Binghamton.
You know, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. What
is it like to put together a lineup like that?
I mean, it's got to be, you know, book in one
show is one thing, but book in five, you know,
how does that happen? It's terrible. I don't
recommend it Every year when I say I'm gonna
do it again and I said like why am I doing this
again? It's um, it's a lot to juggle. This year
was much harder than last year for some reason
You know, it's one thing when people say when
their availabilities are and then they change
them Yeah, it makes you wish they wouldn't stop
doing comedy sure But no, it's it's a lot of
work I start the work on it in March Wow, so
it's really like a six seven month process of
First you book the weekend and you book the headliners
then you put up the submissions I see and then
the worst part of the process is watching over
a hundred submission tapes Don't do that. Oh,
wow Don't do that. It's it's it's I don't recommend
it. I feel like you got to make a bit out of
that You got to do like, you know, the first
few episodes of America's Got Talent or whatever
where it's the horrible auditions, you know,
oh my god Christ you'd be amazed what people
think is their best five I Yeah, I've seen some
people on stage. I'm just gonna say, I've seen
some shit. Yeah, you have. Let's talk about the
ones that made the cut though, right? Who you
got headlining these shows? Thursday night we
have Cindy Arena, just a powerhouse of a six
-year -old lesbian coming down from Rochester,
New York. She's been out to our spot a few times.
She works clubs all over. She's done festivals
all over the country. She's amazing. Friday night,
really excited about this one. We have Christine
O'Dea. Not a name everyone knows, but she's recently
been on tour in the opening for Gave a Tell.
Oh, wow. And she came up and did a short spot
at one of our brunch shows back in the spring
and just blew everyone out of the water. Everyone's
like, oh, my God, who is this woman? And she
I'm so thrilled to have her back. Saturday early
show. That's Sean Murphy. He's always on tour
with like mark norman dan soder. He's your favorite
comics favorite comic. He's an absolute killer
And uh, he just recorded a new special that'll
be coming out soon Excuse me the saturday night
is clinton williams. He's the previous winner
of buffalo's funniest person up in buffalo Hilarious
hilarious comic and then someday. I definitely
london unfortunately got sick and unable to make
it Very funny guy from Buffalo as well. Brian
Netzel is gonna be filling in. He's a returning
hero He was a festival participant last year
and it's great to see him get upscaled to to
headliner for the brunch show Oh, that's pretty
cool That's really am I right in in Assuming
that you're the host for for the shows. I yep.
I host all the shows I'll do you know three four
minutes up top just to warm the crowd and then
the shows are packed They've all got like ten
comics on it. So I'm gonna bring people up and
get the hell out of the way and let the people
you know do their thing everyone's getting you
know sets from six to eight minutes for the regular
comics and then of course your headliner's gonna
do a 30 minute headline set yeah that's that's
incredible um i've hosted a couple of shows back
in the day uh it's been not since covid but um
it's it's really interesting because it's not
like doing a set where you you necessarily you
know can start and finish you got to have sometimes
a variety of jokes and and things like that and
you've got all these different shows uh just
as a host how do you prepare to kind of have
a good uh you know to set people up properly
you know you just have to make sure to let them
know what to expect because i mean it's a little
bit different than a normal comedy show it's
a bit more of a gauntlet you know you're not
gonna have people aren't gonna have time to really
like warm up to anyone you've got to come out
the firing and you gotta let them know this is
what to expect you gotta get hit him quick hit
him hard and get out of the way for the next
guy. You just want to keep the line moving like
an old baseball term, right? Gotcha. Keep the
line up turning. Keep the line up turning. And
so yeah, I'll just do a couple little bits here
and there and make sure once we get a good laugh,
then bring up the next comic and get it moving.
That's great, man. That's really cool. What is,
I'm going to ask you two sides of this, but I'm
going to start with the wild one here. What is
the worst thing? That can happen at a comedy
show and then ask you the best but start with
that. Oh shit. Okay A white guy saying it. Um,
no No, uh The the worst thing is especially early
in a show is um If a comic isn't doing well If
they turn on the crowd, uh and ruin it for the
guys coming up next. I see Sometimes you just
gotta eat your shit a sandwich and say thank
you and move on because you do that people bit
Okay, that guy wasn't for me But if they go antagonistic
and attack the crowd, then that takes them all
on the defensive. Now it's like, make me laugh
instead of I'm ready to laugh. Right. Yeah, that's
wild. What about hecklers? Do you see a lot of
them, and then how do you deal with them? You
know what's nice as the host? Usually people
are pretty sober, so I don't have to deal with
them often. There are some times where you feel
like 80 minutes into the show, all of a sudden,
the crowd goes from like having fun to like a
quarter of them are just wasted. Gotcha. And
that's when the vibe can shift and there could
be more interaction. You don't often see heckling,
but you just see people who don't know when to
shut up. Gotcha. Yeah. Like needed participants.
I almost feel like that's worse when people are
just having their own side conversations in full
volume. You know, to me, almost like heckling
almost gives you the opportunity to. either add
to the show or you can just throw that guy out.
But when you got, you know, three people sitting
at the side table just carrying on like they're
at a restaurant or something, it's it's horrible.
And that's one thing that's nice about a paid
show is the room can police itself a little bit
because everyone is invested. It's not like,
oh, there's a comedy show having the bar on a
wing night. Yeah, it's happening to them like
we're not happening to them. They knew what they
came for. They all paid for it. They all want
to have a good time. So it's not uncommon for
some people in the crowd to turn to the other
people and say, hey, yo, shut the hell up. Right.
No, that's nice when problems solve themselves,
you know? Yes. So what do you do after this?
You said you plan this. You start in March. After
this thing happens, do you take two weeks off
and go lay on a beach somewhere? It's got to
be a big relief once it's finished, right? And
I took a Monday off of work, and a Sunday, I'm
gonna take the fattest fucking nap you've ever
seen. It's gonna be a beautiful thing. And otherwise,
you just get right back to it. We've got four
more shows booked for the rest of the year, two
in November, two in December, and booked through
May of next year, so the wheel doesn't stop turning.
You just keep bringing the fun, and hopefully
people keep showing up. And all of those are
at the same venue we were talking about? I'm
looking. Yeah. Everything I run is that Crooked
Mouth Brewery. They're so good to me. And I think
people in the area kind of understand now that
that's the best place to consistently go to see
comedy. That's great. Binghamton is a small town.
We don't have a comedy club. Sure. So we try
to do a show every two or three weeks to kind
of keep this the hub for it. Oh, that's great.
And there's other comedy in Binghamton, like
Mike Peters runs the Don't Tell. Sure. He does
a couple other things local in town. His shows
are fantastic. but they're all over the place
and not as consistent in the same spot, you know,
with the same kind of lineups. Yeah, I think
you got a good strategy, good thing going, man.
That's great. We're trying. We're trying. Love
to hear that. Love to hear that. Let's give folks
the details again. It's the Crooked Mouth Comedy
Fest, 16th through the 19th, through the weekend
here. Let's see your website. Go ahead and you
give it to me because you can... CrookedMouthComedyFest
.com It's got bios for all the headliners, links
for individual show tickets, along with the weekend
pass. And like I said, if you get the weekend
pass, you get access to all five shows. And we
printed up festival t -shirts. There's only around
50 of them made. You get one of those for free.
Otherwise, you're selling them for 20 bucks.
That's pretty awesome, man. It's a phenomenal
deal, honestly, for that much comedy. And you
get a souvenir like this. You're providing incredible
value to people, which I think is really awesome,
man. We're trying we're trying it's tough times
man. Everything is expensive. Yeah, everything's
hard for everybody right now, you know Yep, so
we want to make sure we've got enough to make
sure the handliners are taken care of and then
everyone gets really good value for their money
We always we only charge what we need to not
what we should I like that man. I like that That's
an honorable way to go about it Let's see. So
it's hard to get that out of your blood, you
know Before we go, you said something earlier
about Crooked Mouth that stuck in my head. You
said they have phenomenal bar food, but none
of it's fried. What's your favorite menu item
at the place? My favorite item lately has been
the peanut butter and jelly smash burger. What?
Yeah, it's delicious. Also, they do an excellent
beef on whack, and they do a beef on whack pizza.
OK. So those are my go -tos. So hold on. You
got to back up to this. So is it like it's a
peanut butter and jelly when they just jam the
burger in between the normal PB &J sandwich?
Is that what happens? With peanut butter and
jelly and bacon and cheese. And it's amazing.
Oh my god. I can feel my arteries clogging. It
sounds incredible. Yeah, but it feels so good.
Yes. Yes, he's got it there. He's got it. Who
wants to be 85 anyway? You know, the man's got
a solid point. And on that tip, my friend, I
think that's just about it. Anything else that
we should tell folks about the show, other than
get your tickets in advance. Don't be one of
those wait for at the door folks, right? I'm
just gonna say that for you. I appreciate it.
And also, you saved five bucks. Yeah. It's cheaper.
It is. Do yourself a favor and save me a little
anxiety. You know, I'm just, he's not saying
this, I'm saying this. This sounds like a nice
size venue, but not a massive venue. So with
this type of talent, there's a real good chance
you're going to get to the door and they're going
to go, Hey, all the seats are filled. So, you
know, if you want to plan a night out, make sure
you can keep your plans, you know? No, it's a,
we've been very, very fortunate where I think
probably eight of our last 10 shows have sold
out last year. There was no walk -ups available
at the festival. So, you know, and if there are,
we will definitely announce, Hey, we've got 12
tickets or come and get them. Otherwise. Yeah.
We have had to turn people away. We don't like
to. Right. Nobody wants to do that. Yeah. It's
one of those things as a show promoter that's
like, it's sort of a good feeling because we
have more demand. But at the same time, you really
want to serve. Everybody wants to see a show,
and you've got to send some folks away. Yeah,
and also people are like, oh, I didn't even realize
the tickets would sell out. It's like, oh, it's
not like we haven't been advertising this online
for months. Right. I couldn't imagine there was
another person who might want to come to this
show. Wow, what a surprise, you know? Yeah, they
show up. We had Jean -Marco Cereze in a couple
weeks ago. It sold out two months in advance.
People are showing up like, oh, it's sold out?
Like, brother, this guy's got two million views
on YouTube in the last two weeks. Yeah, he sold
out. Oh, man, people are fun. I love it. It's
the second annual Crooked Mouth Comedy Festival
down in Endicott. Come check it out, Crooked
Mouth Brewing. It is 231 Vestal Ave in Endicott.
If you want to pop that in your GPS, go check
it out. Four days, five shows. He's even got
a brunch show. You can't lose here. It's great,
man. Congratulations on all this hard work, seriously.
I've never done it, but I've seen so many folks.
Uh first hand put this shit on and it is a hell
of a job and uh, you're killing it man Thank
you very much. It's a it's a lot of fun eventually
Fair we're not there yet fair. I hear you. Uh
steven. Thanks again, man Uh, we will uh talk
to you soon. Give us an update on everything
else you got going on. Love to have you anytime
Oh, thank you so much, man. We appreciate you.
Thanks for taking the time for me And you guys
are great things. I love the positivity, spreading
the word about what's going on. Community is
very important. It's how all of us stay afloat.
So keep it up. We appreciate you. 100%. And I
appreciate you saying that, man. Thank you so
much. Have a great day, my friend. Thanks, buddy.
Bye -bye. And hey, folks, we will be back in
just a moment. We've got another guest. We're
trying to really deliver as much as we can because
we took yesterday off for you. So stick around
for more Good News York in just a moment. Hey
everybody, we're back That measure again from
growth mode content here with good news York.
We've got an incredible guest in studio But before
I introduce you to this gentleman I got to give
a quick shout out to our man Zach with ads on
the go the sponsor of good news York Get ads
on the go .com is the website. You've seen the
truck driving all around the greater Syracuse
area it's one of the few in our area you've seen
these all over the country, but around here our
man Zach is the one to go to if you want a mobile
billboard or even a video screen at an event
it's incredible you can pull up they can jack
anything into these screens and we may even have
a video game tournament in the middle of the
field with this thing one day but again just
shout out to Zach get ads on the go dot com if
you want to advertise your business with him
so without further ado we have a gentleman who
came to us Want to say as a referral necessarily
but as a he saw our buddy Dan the car man Our
returning champion here on Good News York. He's
good friends with him. He works with them I'm
gonna let him go ahead and introduce himself
in his business and let's learn a little bit
about this Yeah, so my name is Steve Blanchard.
I'm the president and founder of Empire State
Warranty. We're based out of Albany, New York
We provide vehicle service contracts ancillary
products and other marketing things to automotive
dealerships across the Northeast. And we're just
expanding into the Mid -Atlantic. So we're the
first of its kind, first ever. What we're called
in the automotive industry is a TPA, which is
a third party administrator. And we're the first
ever TPA in New York state. So it's been a wild
ride over the last several years. We've grown
incredibly fast. You know, we're just trying
to break the perception of what car warranties
are, you know? OK. The ice tees of the world
that are on car shield, or the Danica Patricks
on Endurances, you know? There's a lot of misconception,
misperception, I would say, in the car and the
warranty business, and rightfully thought of
based on a lot of people's, you know? Probably
experiences, I should say. And we're just trying
to break the node. And it's nice to know that
it's in the backyard right here in New York.
That's awesome. I can understand some of your
challenges. Because I think some of the time
when you just hear these warranty things, you're
thinking about, I'm going to date myself. But
you go to Sears, and you bought a television.
Do you want the extended service product? They
always had that add -on. And it was sort of nonsense,
you know? It's like I'm buying a remote control.
No, I don't need a service plan, you know? And
I feel like people get a little jaded by those
things. Absolutely. When it comes to a vehicle,
that's the thing that I want a warranty on, right?
Yes, yeah. So what do you do differently and
kind of provide that some of these other folks
may not? Yeah, so first and foremost, we're primarily
a wholesaler through and through, right? We don't
sell direct to consumers. Gotcha. We partner
with dealerships across the country as we're
expanding very fast. I think when I started us
becoming our own administrator in 2023, we were
just in New York. Now we're in 10 different states
in a little over a year and a half. First and
foremost, we try to vet out relationships with
quality dealer partners, whether it's an independent
guy like a Dan and RCS services and the garage
at 3100 or a franchise dealership like the Nimes
Auto Group in Utica. So we vet out our partners
first. We identify if they're going to be a good
quality partner, not just for us in working together,
but also the consumers that we're going to provide
a program to. And that's who we are through and
through, is customer service -oriented and focused.
Our average claims authorization time right now
is under an hour, which is unheard of. Wow. Our
average industry is anywhere from a week to two
weeks. It's very much convoluted relative to
communication. You want to try to call a service
contract provider to see what's going on. It's
pretty difficult. You might be talking to eight
or nine different people. One might be from Idaho.
One might be from out of the country. Oh, wow.
It's totally unique and different depending on
the company you work for you're working with
You'd be calling a mom -and -pop family oriented
company right out of Albany everybody, you know,
we're small -knit group and that really is unique
not just to the dealerships we work with but
the customers that decide to invest in the product
when they're buying their vehicle at these dealerships
and We have a great reputation because of that.
So I would say that's our biggest differentiator
is just I think the level of protection the customers
feel, not just from a product -oriented perspective,
but a people -oriented perspective. When you
can just call, get an answer real quick, hey,
what's going on with my car? And you can get
all that. It just makes the whole process smooth,
and that customer feels like this company has
our back. And we have a lot of repeat business
due to that. I mean, the only time we really
do direct is if a customer that might have got
in our contract or been referred to by somebody
that has gotten our contract in the past and
they're buying from a dealership that might not
be partnered with us. We'll try to work with
them to try to get protection. Wow. Wow. So what
goes into protecting something? Is it vehicle
specific? Do you have particular standards of
what you can and can't cover? You know, how does
that work? Yeah. So the service contract space
works on And us in particular, we're pretty standard.
We work on a classification basis, right? So
a Honda Civic might be different than a Range
Rover. Sure. Just because of the type of cost
that's associated with parts. Sometimes it's
harder to get parts. Sometimes there's a specialty
element to the service person. that's doing the
work right not everybody can work on a Range
Rover yeah but there's a lot more mechanics out
there that can work on a Honda or a Chevy or
a Ford right they're more common in the area
so the easiest way to think about it is if your
cost is going to be much greater if a failure
occurs well obviously the cost on the contracts
is going to be much greater as well because our
contracts are built on a reserve element and
that reserve element is essentially set based
on the risk factor I see typically that's on
a classification basis most companies work on
a Class one through five models some other companies
work on a class a through FD model The administration
companies are constantly changing that way. It's
almost turning into a more forward -thinking
Almost insurance type of yeah, you know, really
it's almost like we're sister company to insurance
in a way, right? But, you know, we're constantly
looking at data to analyze, you know, what classifications
are what, but that's the main premise of how
we identify what the cost should be. Gotcha.
And when people buy these, they typically, I'm
guessing, buy it at the time of the purchase
of the vehicle. And then the cost of the warranty,
I'm assuming, goes, it's just part of your monthly
car payment, is it? Yeah, you know, so either
either they're fitting it into their loan. So
if they're going to Sydney Federal Credit Union
or Empower, I'm thinking of some some individual
banks that are used up here. They would typically
have it financed with with their bank and their
bank is going to allow an allowance of what they
can provide, which will allow their dealership
to figure out Can I do just a service contract?
Can I maybe do tire and wheel? Maybe can I do
a gap product or something that uncovers my interior
and exterior protection? It all comes down to
what the dealer really is going against is the
approval rate of, say, the financing. Sure. To
see what they can actually get into your loan.
Yeah. They can't get it into your loan. It will
just up your down payment, usually. Oh, I see.
They pay for it out of pocket in your cash. Sometimes
if you're getting a higher down payment, it might
not. It might not necessarily mean that was the
approval. It's what the dealership is trying
to get you based on your needs through a menu
presentation or essentially the information that
they got to the customer during the sale of the
car. Gotcha. Cash as well. I mean, there's there's
opportunities that we have like installment payment
plans that are zero percent down that the customer
can get a monthly payment on. That's kind of.
Yeah, it's kind of what like these TV. You know
warranty company in a way is a monthly payment
plan. It's a little bit different than that You
know, it's uh, think of it this way. You said
sears before it's like a warranty on layaway,
right? You're slowly paying it and I see it off
and you go from there There's there's programs
out there like that or obviously customer can
just pay straight cash Wow, that's that's phenomenal.
Um, you know, I I can attest this years ago.
I had a dodge caliber Don't ask me why I ever
would have bought one of those things. Okay,
but um At the time, I got a lifetime unlimited
warranty on the thing. And let me tell you, that
paid for itself probably 10 times over. We kept
that car much longer than anyone has ever kept
a Dodge. They put a transmission in it. I mean,
it was no joke. And like I said, worth every
penny. Tell us a little bit about the process.
So you have a warranty on your vehicle. but now
something breaks. Is it a real hassle now to
get that fixed, or what do I got to do to use
this warranty? Yeah, so the first step is there's
a lot of fear and uncertainty and doubt, right?
Somebody has an engine light pop on your car
immediately thinking, my engine is toast. It's
done. When it could be just their gas cap is
just loose. Ultimately, it's just triggering
that light to come on. It's it's overcoming first,
you know, consumers going to feel immediate anxiety.
Yeah. Unfortunately, in our industry, in the
automobile industry and repair industry, there's
a lot of repair facilities that can take advantage
of that. sure so the first step is finding a
reputable repair facility that you feel that
you're comfortable with that you can go to and
talk to on this to figure out what the true mechanical
failure is or if even if there is a mechanical
failure on the car maybe it's something simpler
yeah you know simple like the the gas cap situation
that I that I said But what we do is we have
an in -network repair facility program with us.
We vet out particular repair shops and they get
into an agreement with us where we feel confident
enough that we can refer our Empire State Warranty
customers to them and then they work with our
rates to not just mitigate the cost associated
on the contracts because they're on, we call
it in -network because it's similar to like Yeah,
of course. Yeah, like, your health insurance
is going to have in -network doctors and out
-of -network doctors. It's the same concept.
You go to our in -network repair facilities.
We have the confidence to know this is a reputable
repair facility. You're going to come out very
minimal, if any, out of pocket. Because a lot
of times, our in -network repair facilities,
the deductible is waived if that's how your contract
is constructed. Or they're working on rates that
match our labor rate. There's a lot of different
factors involved. And there's profiles on our
website that say that. But we try to direct them
there. If they decide that or we don't have an
in -network repair facility in that customer's
area, you got to ask a lot of questions first
before even taking it there. The first question
with somebody who has a service contract today,
do you take aftermarket warranties or do you
take aftermarket service contracts? There's some
repair facilities that have been so tarnished
by the industry that they just don't take anybody.
And it's not they're not taking Empire State
Warranty or maybe a product that somebody has
purchased. They just don't take anybody. Right.
They just don't want to deal with that. They
don't want to deal with it. It takes weeks and
weeks. They manipulate our process. They'll send
out inspectors. It takes weeks and weeks and
weeks. And I totally understand their philosophy
on that. And that's why we constantly try to
talk to repair facilities to say, give us a chance
for our customers and see how our process is
in comparison to your previous experiences. That's
what a customer should be asking if they're out
of network. The second thing is they want to
make sure they know what the labor rate cost
is of the repair shop, right? So I think sometimes
people get blindsided that nowadays, I think
the average labor rate currently in upstate New
York is about $135 to $140 an hour. And it's
continuing to increase. Fortunately, due to COVID.
It's not 25 bucks an hour? No. Come on. What
are you talking about? It's not. I just paid
that guy that 30 years ago. Come on. Think of
it this way. I started in 2013 coming out of
college. I went to Siena University in Albany.
And coming out of college, I think the average
labor rate in the independent space was about,
I want to say about 85 to 90. Wow. And that was,
and I've been in this industry now for 13, 14
years now. So 14 years ago, it was about $85,
$90, and now it's $140. Yeah. So it's constantly
increasing. So a customer is going to want to
ask that because, say your contract only pays
$125, but someone's charging $175 an hour. And
that's not the standard norm. Maybe this is Mike's
used repair shop. But there's six other repair
shops that are around the area that pay $40 less.
Well, who's paying for the difference? Customers,
right? If there is an approval. So you want to
understand what the labor rate is. And they want
to understand their contract, too. What does
their contract cover? To mentally prep them that
their contract is going to cover it, then they
feel good. But at the same time, understanding
that's always giving us a call first or calling
any type of service contract provider that you
have. is really important and vital because we're
gonna guide you to understanding what the process
should be and communication is key. And I would
probably say that would be inevitably the starting
point in order to make a smooth process. That's
great. That's great. I'd probably say a million
other things because I have so much knowledge
and experience in it, but I'm trying to simplify
it. No, no, I love it. That's what the podcast
is all about. Let's get the details out. This
is so cool. Let's step back for a minute. And
I'd love to learn a little bit more about you
and just kind of how you got here. So you mentioned
you're the first of this kind in New York State.
How or why did you come to even getting into
this venture? By accident. OK. So I graduated
Siena University in 2012. I worked full time
through Sears, actually. I worked for Sears Holding
Corporation for six years. Sold tractors, tillers,
mowers, mattresses. I got you. Craftsman tools.
You name it, I sold it at Sears. Sold a lot of
service contracts there. It was great. No, I'm
just kidding. My percentage was all right. But
yeah. I wanted to always get into business to
business outside sales. I wanted to be a consultant
to help businesses grow, was the main reason
why I got into B2B outside consulting. And it
just so happened, I did nursing education temporarily.
I would go out on the road and talk to nurses
that needed basically a remote program because
Mohawk Valley Community College or some of these
other nursing programs are two years, three years
behind. There's a waiting period, right? Or they
were so far outside of the norm from a logistics
perspective that they needed help trying to get
their LPN or the registered nursing license.
So I helped on that for a year. But I wanted
something and that was still kind of more B2C.
And I really want to fall on that. So there was
an opportunity with a corporate company up here.
that was opening up a market and expanding. And
I decided to take a chance. Young 22 year old,
23 year old just breaking in. I didn't know anybody
in the car space, man. My dad's best friend owned
a repair facility in East Green Bush, New York.
So it kinda felt like I was always around cars
in my life. But man, it was tough. I mean, nobody
knew who I was. Nobody knew I was coming. of
what company I was. It was like I was building
a business from the ground up, because of an
expansion market. But just boots on the ground,
knocking on a lot of doors, people giving me
chances. A little over three or four years, I
built it to over a million dollar market. I was
one of their top reps in their company. They
promoted me to a regional director to cover basically
the entire Mid -Atlantic, so Pennsylvania all
the way down to South Carolina. covered some
in New York, too, in a way. There was another
regional manager that covered New York, but I
had so many relationships. There was kind of
the pseudo de facto as well there. And, you know,
I performed at an extremely high level for that
in that realm for a little over eight years until
we mutually agreed to part ways in 2019. Just
a lot of change in that company. And, you know,
they were going into a different direction. And
I felt in a way I was as well. So that's kind
of where, in a way, Empire State Warranty was
born. It was during COVID, actually. It's funny,
because I felt like COVID was a little bit of
a Petri dish of maybe entrepreneurs saying. Completely
agree. It just kind of kickstarted me to go,
what am I doing? I've always had this mentality.
even when I worked in the company that I worked
at, I never felt as if I was working for them.
I was just working underneath their umbrella
and they were paying me, but I was still working
for myself. And I always was, I was probably
overly opinionated, but because I had all the
right intentions, I just had to help others.
So I always had that in me. And I think COVID
was a pushing point. I had an amazing business
coach. His name's Wayne Herring Jr. Just an amazing
guy. Shout out to Wayne, because I had a conversation
with him. It was a very emotional conversation,
I remember. I was in a pretty dark place, not
knowing what to do. He just said, why don't you
start your own warranty company? I go, how the
heck am I going to do that? I had no idea how
to start. You know, in a way, I look at him as
an angel knowledge investor, right? You know,
he doesn't have any money or any game into my
business, but he provided me the confidence and
knowledge to push myself to do that. And he gave
me some connections within the automotive space
to kickstart me out. And Empire State Warranty
was born in 2021. Wow. That's incredible. So
now you're expanding. You said you're in multiple
states now. Yeah. What does that take in terms
of a team? Do you have lots of people? Are you
spending 100 hours a week yourself? How does
it go? All of the above. So 2021, when I started
the company, we were white labeled. So we basically,
our name was on some other administrator's product.
So that's how we got kickstarted because New
York has a lot of laws and other states have
a lot of laws. In New York state, what you need
is what's called a script, which is service contract
reimbursement insurance policy. And that's required
in order to be an administrator in the space.
When you're a brand new company and you're doing
zero dollars and zero cents, there's only about
a handful of companies in the country that provide
this underwriting insurance. They're not going
to take you on because the risk is too great.
You got to have a proof of concept. My vision
was to create a proof of concept underneath a
white label umbrella to eventually break off
on my own. We did that for a little over two
years. We got big enough to ultimately that relationship
that we were working with under a white label
was strenuous. It was kind of like we were conflicting
based on what my vision of the company was to
the vision of the administrator. It was almost
like a partnership in a way. And I had to make
a determination. Do I weight label under somebody
else, or do we just bring this all in -house
internally and do it all on our own? Making our
own bread is what I do for most people, right?
So at the time, I asked my wife. She was the
director of a day spa called Kimberly's in Latham.
And I said, how would you like to start this
thing with me and bring this in -house? And she
said, I'd love to. Get me out of this place.
I'm ready to take on this venture with you, which
I'm very grateful of. her and making that decision.
Without her, I wouldn't have been able to do
this. Yeah. And we took a chance. It took me
a year to get the licensing for New York State
to approve us. We had to get the underwriter
approved. We have an A plus underwriter, Older
Public Insurance Corp, which is a phenomenal
partnership that we have to you know, protect
our dealers if, God forbid, anything happened
to us. And if we're protecting the dealers, we're
protecting the consumers at the end of the day.
We get that question a lot, because we're younger.
So if anything happens to you, what happens to
these service contracts that are on the road?
That's what the underwriting insurance is for.
And that's requirements. It's called the McKinney
Law of New York State. And I did all the marketing.
That was my background at Sienna. So all the
brochures, the name brands, the coverages, the
components. I did all of that. I hired a compliance
team out of Florida to help me to make sure that
our contracts were compliant. And we launched
in October of 2023 to be our own company. And
that's when we really, really grew. Because I
feel like a lot of the dealers kind of looked
at it as he's all in now. It's fair. They could
relate. When you're an entrepreneur and you're
an owner, I think a lot of the times it's scary.
It's I I dumped my entire life savings in 401k
in order to make this work It was almost like
listen, I'm a Texas Holden poker player. Yeah,
and I was putting all the chips. Yeah, I was
going all in and My dealers could resonate with
that like let's give this a shot and Help him
out. And if it doesn't work for us, then we'll
we'll tell him why yeah, but our retention state
this we executed at an extremely high level and
You know, we grew tremendously. I think at the
end of 2023, coming out of a white label, we
were a little over a half a million dollar company
in 2024. We did about 3 .2, 3 .4 million. And
this year, we're projected to do about 6 .7.
Wow. And we're in 10 different states now. We
have seven employees. We have two other additional
employees coming on by the end of the year, a
director of finance and another individual to
help out my tech department as my tech department's
starting to grow, my VP of tech. Yeah, I think
that was the jumping off point, is when we became
our own administrator, there was an immense buy
-in by the automotive sector. That's great. I
love to hear that. So let's talk just for a couple
of minutes about who you're looking for to continue
to grow this, right? Who is your now target client,
and who should be talking to you about partnering
up? Yeah, I would say any automotive dealership,
franchise or independent that's looking for a
true partnership. Maybe they're service contract
provider. A lot of our industry has turned very
transactional. It's a 1099 agent comes in, slings
products, hopes that you sell 50, 60, 70 contracts,
a month, 20 contracts, whatever the amount is.
They're just more worried about how many contracts
they're gonna get for themselves. as opposed
to how they can truly partner with the dealership
to become a better dealership overall, how to
grow their backend business or backend revenue
and have a partner in that category. It's a little
old school, but there's any dealers out there
that are looking for, man, I'm looking for someone
to help partner with me to make more money. I
mean, if their average PVRs right now aren't
a split between backend and frontend, you should
talk to us because the average industry right
now is If you're at a 90 to 10, you know, all
the majority of the money that I make right now
is in the front and our back end PVRs are just
in the dumps. It's 10 percent or 20 percent of
the gross revenue or our store. Talk to our team,
you know, because the majority of our dealerships,
once we sink our teeth into them and we really
build that partnership, I'd probably say the
split of revenue at the stores are 60, 40, 50,
50, which is a huge difference. And just, I would
say, if there's any dealers out there that are
thinking to themselves, I make X amount on the
front right now, and I can match that same amount
I'm making on the front and the back, how much
of a difference would that make for your store?
I mean, that sounds incredible. Are a lot of
the dealers that sell the vehicles and the warranty
also some of the service shops that folks would
then bring it to for warranty service? Or do
you find they're kind of different players? You
talking in terms of, like, consumers? Just the
dealership themselves. Do they typically take
both parts? They're then the warranty center
where they do the work in their shop? Yeah, for
the most part, yeah. And honestly, those are
our best relationships. Because there's a structured
element to it, right? There's a level of ownership
in the product that they're selling. And honestly,
any of our dealerships that have a service department
attached to them are really, really strong partners
for us. And in the long term, they can grow into,
you know, a gross profit share program with us
or eventually there's programs called reinsurance
or DOWC programs that they can get into and they
can really grow their portfolio that way because
they can control the narrative on their service
side. It's not just for people coming in, but
it's also the reconditioning associated on the
cars. When you're buying a used car, there's
a lot of... And for most people, it's their new
car. So they expect everything to be good, everything
to be great. This is my new car, even though
it might be a 2017 Chevy Tahoe with 95 ,000 miles
on it. That's their new car. And reconditioning
costs for a good, solid, reputable dealership
is anywhere from $1 ,500 to $2 ,500. Does everybody
do that? No. And it's even harder when they don't
have their own service department, because that
dealership has to partner with a third party
repair facility for essentially wholesale work.
They're paying them due to volume. And so it
makes it a little bit more difficult on their
end. So yeah, I would probably say a lot of those
guys that have an attached repair facility are
great partners. But that doesn't necessarily
mean the individuals that don't are good partners
too. We have a lot of dealerships that do like
a certified pre -owned program that will ultimately
show all the work that's been done ahead of time
onto the car to give the customer a peace of
mind, hey, this car is really tight. And on top
of that, they might include a warranty on it,
too, to say, we don't think anything's going
on, but in order to give you a peace of mind,
we're going to include a six -month or a 12 -month
warranty. So yeah, I mean, repair shops are just
as important in our field, but in particular
for dealerships, that's kind of how it's structured
on there. So if I'm shopping for a car, Is it
fair to say that I might be able to hit your
website EmpireStateWarranty .com and see a list
of dealers that you work with? Unfortunately,
not. OK. So don't do that. We don't have any
list. We have a list of repair facilities that
they can take it to. But a lot of the times,
we don't have a list of dealerships that we work
with. I would probably say if they're looking
for a good general idea, some of the dealers
we work with, our social media page is awesome
for that. You know, so Facebook or LinkedIn because
we have a diamond dealer program and we give
a lot of recognition to a dealer program. So
our diamond dealer event happens once a year.
Last year was at the KCQ Resorts in Florida.
This year, I think it's going to be double in
size. It's going to be at the Sagamore Resorts
in Lake George this year. We're bringing it home
to New York. That was a request from our dealers
last year. Bring it closer to home. And we post
all those awards. We post F &I manager of the
year, all of our diamond dealers. We post service
directors of the year. So if you're looking for,
if you're a customer out there and you're saying,
who's a reputable dealer I can go to? Follow
our social media page, because I can guarantee
you in the previous posts that we've had or their
upcoming posts that we're going to have in the
future, because our diamond dealership's around
the corner here in the next couple of months
to identify that. That will show exactly who
has that diamond status with us. And those diamond
dealerships are our cream of the crop. Those
are our top of the line dealerships. And I know
that's who the customers are going to really
want to gravitate to. And we have some in the
area around here. And I'd recommend you look
into our social media. Awesome. Awesome. One
last question I will ask you. And this is one
that I asked Dan. And I'm interested to get your
perspective as well. As somebody who's in the
car warranty business, You see all kinds of things,
you see claims, you see what breaks down, how
often things break down probably. If you had
to choose the most reliable vehicle on the market
today, I'm going to buy a used vehicle, what's
the one that's gonna last me the longest? Toyota,
hands down. Any particular model? Nope. Okay.
Toyota or Lexus, either one, you're in good shape.
They are the most popular brand in the country
right now. Subaru and Subaru kind of competes
with them pretty much. But, you know, hands down,
Toyota Lexus has a tendency to be the top of
the line. And I'm personally a Toyota Lexus guy.
And I'm not saying that because that's who I
am. our data shows that as well. They're just
phenomenal vehicles and I wouldn't. I mean, honestly,
you can't go wrong with any Asian -based program,
like a Honda, Toyota, stuff like that, but I
would probably say if there was any particular
brand, it would be Toyota. Dan also said Toyota.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. His specific recommendation
was for the Toyota, I think it's the Sienna,
the minivan, and his logic was, that you can
put your kids in that. You can fold the seats
down. You got a cargo van. It was the ultimate
in terms of not only reliability, but just one
of the most versatile. I have a sales rep. He
had a whole logic built out to it that I really
appreciated. I have to agree with him, because
I have a 26 -year -old guy looking for a reliable
car. I don't know if you're going with a Toyota
Sienna. Exactly. But I have a sales rep on the
road right now, works directly for us, who has
a Toyota Sienna with 210 ,000 miles on it. And
that thing just doesn't, it doesn't, you wouldn't
even know it had 210 ,000 miles on it. So yeah,
for sure. I mean, you can't go wrong with Camrys,
Corollas, 4Runners, you name it. There's just
so many good products in the Toyota brand. There's
a reason why that in that that particular manufacturers
as popular as it is they just you know I don't
want to say they're bulletproof like they're
not you know reliability nowadays is like you
got to think to yourself I mean 45 to 50 percent
of these cars Have technology on it now. Yeah,
it's like the more bells and whistles you have
when you when you purchase a car You should think
of risk. You guys are in the tech space. It only
takes one line of code to be off in order to
mess up everything. My career exists because
this stuff doesn't work all the time. Yeah, exactly.
And it's the same thing with cars. So your car
is made up of over 120 computer chips. During
COVID, the reason why there was an issue with
manufacturing, like getting cars out, it was
a similar thing in real estate, was because they
couldn't get the computer chips to bring in the
cars. in Detroit, Michigan, in COVID, there was
over 100 ,000 units just sitting in fields because
they couldn't get the computer chips by Nvidia.
And that just tells you that reliability is defined
in different ways now. I would probably say the
person that mitigates the risk the most is Toyota,
but regardless, for any car that you get, there's
gonna be a level of risk there. That's why you
need a warranty. That's right. That's awesome.
EmpireStateWarranty .com. You mentioned the socials.
Let's go ahead and give all the plugs. What to
look for on the social networks and all those
fun things. Yeah, so you can follow us on our
main website is EmpireStateWarranty .com. Our
Facebook, which just go at Empire State Warranty.
LinkedIn at Empire State Warranty. We have a
YouTube channel as well, which is just basically
an upload of our videos. We have a high level
production team that works on all of our videos
if you want to take a look at all of our products.
on a video format or our diamond dealership from
last year or even a story about us. So those
are the main platforms that we're on. That's
awesome. Listen, this has been really phenomenal.
I've really enjoyed learning about this business.
And I love just talking to entrepreneurs who
really sort of break the mold here, especially
in New York. Oh, New York State's so hard to
do business. And it's a challenge, but we can
pull it off if you're dedicated and you've got
the right people. And I love hearing. folks to
do that, so thank you for that. Thank you. Thank
you for having me. That's what we're, you know,
here at Good News York, that is really the whole
purpose of this, is celebrating things all over
the Empire State that are positive and people
doing it right and creating jobs and building
businesses and keeping people's cars on the road,
which is pretty damn, that's essentially a public
service. Listen, there's a saying by Frank Sinatra,
if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,
right? And that's the truth. I like it. I like
it. And on that note, I think we should call
it a day. Guys, this has been a phenomenal episode
of Good News York. Please like, follow, share,
all that fun stuff. You know how to do it on
all of our socials. And we will be back again
tomorrow with more exciting good news. And with
that, peace out.