Beyond Black Car Service – SEDANZ

• Let’s talk about The who/what/where/when/how of Ron – how did this all come to be?
• What’s the difference between a Limo, Town Car and Executive Car? Are they the same thing? – Stretch Limo is obviously different.
• In motorsports we talk about “being smooth” – this is also true in your world, what are some recommendations you have for becoming a smoother driver?
• “The Limo Stop” – is that a real thing? Explain? Does it use up more brakes because of the longer braking zones (and the heavier vehicles)? 
• Detailing Techniques Interior & Exterior – what products are you using?
• Black Car vs Uber – Why choose a Black Car?

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder, a. How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: While in school, our guests needed a job with a flexible schedule in order to work around his college classes. With the help from his family, he purchased his first black car, a Lincoln Town car in late 2007, and as he quickly learned the potential of the black car business, Ron Gill founded sedans and never looked back

Don Weberg: and Ron’s with us tonight to tell his story about a young entrepreneur who at the time did not know where his black car gig would take him.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right Don. And with that, let’s welcome Ron to break Fixx.

Ron GIl: [00:01:00] Howdy. Ron, thank you for having me, guys. Appreciate it.

Crew Chief Eric: Joining me tonight is one of our regular co-hosts on Break, Fixx, you recognize his voice. It’s Don Weiberg from Garage Style Magazine. So welcome back to the show.

Don Weberg: Thank you very much.

Pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Ron, like all good break, fix stories, there’s a superhero origin. So let’s go back before 2007 and talk about how all this came to be, how you got into the black car business.

Ron GIl: When I was actually growing up there was what we call gypsy cabs in New York. Basically is cars that are not yellow taxis that surround the boroughs.

The gypsy cab would pick up people from the street, take ’em to wherever they gotta go. They pay them cash. I saw that as like a potential thing to do as like a part-time. But then even before I got into this business, I was actually working regular nine to five job and the retail world more like for a clothing.

Merchandising and sales. That was my intro to like hospitality in general. There was a lot of, particularly like a lot of the, uh, high-end net worth type people that I was dealing with even back then who came to these kind of shops to, you know, buy clothing [00:02:00] and things like that. Little later I decided to move on into, maybe make a career out of something.

From myself. So I wanted to go to school for a computer science. At the time I was living in Queens, New York, but at the same time I was needing still income. Couldn’t afford to have a, like a regular nine to five job. ’cause the school schedule was so demanding. So this was pre rideshare. Getting into the business wasn’t as expensive because it’s, you’re just basically buying a car so you can, you know, just put a down payment and then you deal with insurance and your operating costs.

At the time, I wasn’t really too serious about it. You know, I was able to get a down payment from my mom to help me get a car, and obviously at the time it was the Lincoln Town car was the car to have. But little did I know that you couldn’t really do gypsy work. It wasn’t really legal. The way cars were dispatched back then was through a two-way radio.

I decided during my school off time, I would go put myself on like a line or to the dispatch team saying that I was available for any calls. So they would throw me pickups within Queens. But then once I started going into Manhattan, I started realizing, As I was talking to other drivers that there was these cars lined up in front of these office buildings.

They [00:03:00] were telling me this is where you get bigger jobs, like long distance type work, people would with expense accounts. I started getting people in my car. They liked the way the car was always kept clean, and that was just standard me liking to keep my car. I wasn’t even into like the whole detailing thing until much later.

At the time, I was younger than the usual drivers they had. So they were more comfortable with me and they would ask if I could drive them around away from the company that I was with at the time. And back then it was really more like you would pay the company to be on this line. Little by little I had one client than another.

It just ended up snowballing from there. But ironically, during the time when it was right at the height before the crash of 2008, people that were getting my car, they had like Wall Street type expense accounts. Once the crash actually happened, I lost all those clients because that was the first thing that they were not allowed to expense anymore.

That’s when I started going into how do I acquire new clients marketing myself and really where I fell in love with it.

Don Weberg: You brought something up about the market crash. The economy slid sideways, fishtail went completely off the road, and you were talking about how clients. We’re [00:04:00] kind of drying up. How did you combat that?

How did you circumvent the Oh crap moment of I’m losing my business, I’m losing my clients, what do I do? What did you do?

Ron GIl: At the time, I didn’t have that many clients, so I felt it wasn’t a big drop as far as like my peers who’ve been in this industry much longer than I have there leveraged heavily on vehicles and, and chauffeurs.

I really started looking at where the next client would be, you know, so I was hearing tech companies seem to be like the next big thing. I would segue myself towards looking for people in those industries as potential clients, but that’s really where I focus my efforts through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

For example, you can target certain professions and people there. Our first real clients came from the tech industry ’cause at that time they were considered startups and that’s what I felt I was at the time. And they seemed to be un poised to grow. But then also before there was, you know, all these like websites for specific industries like Bark or Angie’s List or things like that.

I went on Craigslist and there was people posting, you [00:05:00] know, that we need a reliable driver. And I found one of my really first clients through there and they happened to be a consulting firm for tech companies. I learned a lot from them and from the owners of that company. They would go to meetings with their clients and consulting firms, tech companies, all up and coming, growing.

Just starting out. Once they were a crime, more clients, that’s how I grew with them. They would book me, Hey, now we’re actually gonna need you to go, ’cause we have a contract with this client and we have to go up there three times a week. You know, it became like a word of mouth thing where then they would introduce me to.

People, you know, oh, you gotta use this car service. I’ve been using, they have wifi in the car. And that was one of the first things that a lot of people at the time before used to love ’cause they can use their laptops in the vehicles. That’s where I started acquiring a lot of my clients that I still service to today.

So once the pandemic happened, basically we, we were like, shut down. All of our clients canceled their reservations. That to me was a big hit, what my peers felt in 2007. Right. So obviously

Don Weberg: 2007 didn’t hit you too hard. It was the pandemic that hit you hard. Mm-hmm. How did you survive that? What tools did you use to get you and your company and [00:06:00] your employees, et cetera, through?

Ron GIl: Yeah. Obviously, you know, pandemic happened and travel was like the first thing to go. All of our clients, like I said, canceled their reservations. There was a lot of uncertainty as to how the industry was was gonna go. So I tried to keep them on as long as I could, but I felt like it would just be easier to do unemployment for them.

Luckily it was. Short lived. We were still like in an uncertain state. During March and April, I would still keep in contact with my clients. I would email them just saying, you know, thank you for all the support. Just wanted to let them know that we’re still available for them, even though nobody wants to get in a car with anybody.

But luckily there were still a need. So the Hamptons for us is kind of like in la it’s like Malibu, like kind of like wait way deep in the suburbs, but where everybody kind of goes away for the summer. But in New York at that time, during the pandemic, it was really sheltered. Some of them eventually started buying houses there.

At the time, I noticed some of my clients were requesting us to just bring them things and then they would say, Hey, can you bring my nanny or my housekeeper? You know, we would do things like roll down the windows, wear masks. Put partitions up. We started investing into like a safe ride experience. Little by little I’m like, okay, [00:07:00] so it seems like the Hamptons is like the way to go.

So I started marketing myself online through Google Ads as a Covid safe car service, as well as cars to and from the Hamptons. And since these were long distance trips, They were considerably more expensive, and then also for long distance trips like to Philadelphia, to Washington dc, Boston, like all these cities that are driving distance where nobody wanted to get in a plane and there was no traffic.

Gas was also cheaper. So we were able to get there like in record times. Basically two months later, we were back in business. I. We were able to go back to operating, not exactly business as usual, but we at least were able to keep the lights on, didn’t have to sell any vehicles. I didn’t have to keep my people on unemployment for too long.

It pretty much saved us. And then obviously like when the program started rolling out for like E I D L, P p p, all that additional funding, we were able to survive the whole pandemic because of marketing ourselves as the Covid safe car service. Even to this day, we have clients that request us just to wear a mask or to open on the windows.

They’re still sensitive to the covid a requir us to take covid tests before each ride. [00:08:00] And then once the vaccines came out, we, we were considered essential workers, also helped us saying, oh, all of our chauffeurs are vaccinated. And they would actually ask, Hey, are your chauffeurs vaccinated? I mean, they wanted all these things.

In order to travel with us, and a lot of people would not even wanna ride in Uber cars. We acquired new clients this way because they’re like, okay, these guys seem to have like very clean cars. They’re very covid safe. So we ended up getting a whole new clientele that we probably would’ve never had. And then obviously when things started coming back online with inflation and things, you know, we increased our rates just because of operating expenses.

Vehicles that were getting harder to acquire our clients understood that there was. These new issues that everybody was having. Some of our competitors who didn’t weather, who weren’t able to weather the storm, their customers, once these companies closed, they were looking for options. And we were right then and there, we, we started ranking up higher on Google.

Like we’re one of the top companies that show up for these kind of things. And then obviously, like I, I had some downtime during those two months, so I kind of started going into like marketing. Learning these skills like, you know, social media s well, not so much social media, [00:09:00] but SS e o and ads online marketing.

Mm-hmm. That helped a lot. It was something where we were just a word of mouth operation, but now that I was able to take these new skills and increase my clientele, we definitely not only survived it, but we’re like thriving like on a different scale than before the pandemic. So that’s pretty much

Don Weberg: where we’re at now.

You brought up the P P P programs, et cetera. There were three to five programs that I remember specifically that were designed to help. Businesses stay in business, and it was funding basically from the government. There were loans, there were grants, et cetera. How did you access those? You know, you woke up, you said, oh, there’s a P P P program.

How’d you get your hands on that money? Did you call your accountant, you called your banker, your lawyer, or you did it all by yourself? What did you do?

Ron GIl: They were pretty accessible. Like, you know, I was getting the emails. Through Square Chase, my wife, she works in the finance industry, so her company was thriving ’cause they were a leader in these loans.

And that’s how I heard of it. And then it was easy to apply online. You just put in your application. So I didn’t need like actual coaching or anything ’cause everything was pretty streamlined. And then the [00:10:00] funds were deposited right away. I mean, I had to show some proof and I had all the things that they required.

Once I got the funds, you know, we were able to put it to use and got all of our loans forgiven. You know, with the PPPs and all that stuff. So it wasn’t that hard at the time. It was just before that where I was like, what am I gonna do? You know, am I gonna be out of business? You know? And then all these programs started rolling out, and then our clients started having these requests that pretty much were able to keep us from going under.

Crew Chief Eric: You hit on a couple things, gypsy cabs, ride sharing, taxis, limousine service, black car. There’s a lot of different avenues, pun intended, here to pursue when we’re talking about car services. So your industry is super competitive. It doesn’t matter what industry we work in, we’re all sort of clamoring at the same pie, hoping to get a bigger slice.

And in a lot of cases there is no more slice to get. So you have to make the pie bigger. And what I mean by that metaphor is I. The introduction of Uber into this equation over the last, let’s say 15 years that you’ve been operating a black car service. And Uber has, its uber black as well, and I’ve [00:11:00] said it myself sometimes, ah, I’m not gonna get a cab.

I’ll just call an Uber. I can get it on my phone. Maybe it’s cheaper, maybe it’s quicker. Why a black car? Versus Uber or is there an overlap there where you’re participating in those services as well?

Ron GIl: Ironically, I was the first Uber driver in New York and that’s kind of like part of my coming up to how my business grew.

And one of my clients at the time was, uh, early investor and he kind of introduced me to the founders at the time. Obviously back then, like in 2011, no one has heard of what Uber it was, so they paid us to actually be on their app. Just by the hour. And that’s how you know, we would bill clients. Once their things started going, then they didn’t need us anymore.

So we finish our contract and our deal. And obviously now Uber is what it is today. But the reason that our service is different than Uber, even though they carry an Uber Black version, they don’t go through the same training or certifications. They still call ’em Uber drivers, right? Like we tend to say what’s the difference between a driver and a chauffeur?

And a chauffeur is a more of a professional certified individual that is more of a craftsman versus someone who’s doing this as a gig to make [00:12:00] ends meet. Or someone who just does this like as a part-time deal, like with their own car, even though they still have Uber black and we were doing their Uber Black customers, their bread and butter is really the UberX and like the general public rights.

So we have a niche with our clients that are more of a. A more discerning traveler that can tell the difference between someone who can handle c e o of a large corporation who needs a more of a private experience and someone who may fly on a private jet and their executive assistants want to know who their chauffeur’s gonna be before 24 hours.

It’s a more of a a niche market that we deal with. I mean, obviously our clients may still use Uber’s here and there for short. Trips, but when they want to be picked up on time and they get used to a lot of our show first, like they would say, Hey, I want Ron to drive me, or I want so and so when they land at certain cities, they prefer a certain type of chauffeur to pick them up so they feel more comfortable.

They know they’re not getting recorded or privacy issues are very important to our individual clients as well as like discreetness and just the professional. They’re used to staying at like four season hotels by private jets. So the whole experience has to kind of match [00:13:00] the level. It’s just nonexistent there.

Uber just. It doesn’t provide that they’re great for the general public, for like you and me who just need a car to go from A to B. I do gotta say that, you know, because they did help me get my start. Once UberX became very popular, that kind of broke away my mentality into like, I want to get into like this niche market for the discerning travelers.

I don’t even think of Uber as a competition ’cause I’m not competing on price or in anything for that matter. So they’re great at what they do, but I feel I’m excellent at what we do.

Crew Chief Eric: The one that’s always stuck out to me, especially in the taxi world, is the concept of. Those medallions that the drivers have to get for their vehicles.

Can you elaborate on how that works and how that’s different than what you’re doing and how your vehicles are acquired? Yeah. There’s a fixed number of

Ron GIl: yellow taxi medallions that the industry has given, and they’re either owned or leased through a middle person that that handles the brokering side of it.

And at one point they were really valuable. I mean, they were going over a million dollars at one point, but now they’re much lower, like a hundred K or 200 k I believe. Obviously they had a lot of ups and downs in their industry due to [00:14:00] involvement of Uber and, and Lyft and those, those companies. And basically, you know, I felt like they probably lost market share because they’re not easy to work with, like as far as like payments go or even like customer service.

Sometimes you get in a car and they’re driving crazy a little bit. I mean, they do have a standard, at least the cars are all yellow and you know what you’re getting when you’re getting in one overall, like the yellow taxi industry is. Its own entity with those medallions and not just anybody can get them, but now it’s easier to acquire, but not many people actually want them.

Like in New York right now, there’s like only half of the actual medallions in use versus back 10 years ago when they were like over a million dollars and there were people like fighting over them. On my side, we call like the luxury limousine industry, so there’s like three types. In New York you have luxury limousine, community car, and black car.

And actually black car is the ride share industry. Pretty much right now. They have the most amount of licensed vehicles. We’re close to about a hundred thousand vehicles that are licensed to do non-St. Streete hail pickups. Those are cars that can pick up through reservation or through like the app for ride share.

Anything that doesn’t involve cash, obviously, like I mentioned, they can’t be yellow [00:15:00] and they can’t pick up in the street. So that’s kind of the difference right now between those two entities.

Don Weberg: Why and what makes are the best limos out there? Lincoln Mercedes, who do you think has the best limos out there?

Ron GIl: Well, the Lincoln Town car was around up until 2011, and that was like the car for the industry. After Lincoln decided not to make them anymore. We’re still like in a limbo state for a sedan type car that qualifies as town car. However, in the more niche market like mine, we tend to pick more of a premium version sedans like a Mercedes S Class or a B M W seven series.

And the SUVs, like the Escalade or the Suburban have become really popular. Those. I would say like the cars that we use as like a limo.

Don Weberg: Does an Escalade qualify as a black car? Like a town car would? Oh

Ron GIl: yeah. But we don’t even call them town cars anymore. We just, people would say, I need an SS u v, or I need a sedan.

They’re very specific as to what type of vehicle they want, and they would just say either one or the other.

Don Weberg: And do you have a preference for which one you like best?

Ron GIl: I mean, I definitely prefer the Mercedes. Just because it’s a sneaker of the car. It’s maintenance wise, it’s been incredible. It’s definitely expensive, but I think it’s [00:16:00] worth it.

And the Escalade, it’s just good for like the room and like the presence, but I would definitely prefer like S class over an Escalade.

Crew Chief Eric: When you think about the town car at that time, and we were just talking about the medallions. In what was the Crown Victoria’s? They were the same car underneath that Panther chassis, as we all come to appreciate over the years.

Mm-hmm. So going back to something you said, what about the new Lincolns? Don’s holding his cards here because he is a Lincoln man. What about the Aviator and some of these really gorgeous SUVs they have out now?

Ron GIl: So the aviators are kind of considered a sedan because there is no actual replacement. Some of my industry peers may actually do carry them.

And they call ’em sedans, even though they’re like a crossover for the SUVs. The Lincoln Navigator, the next popular car next to the Escalade. I prefer the GM one. It has a more of a look and people actually request it. So they would say an Escalade, they wouldn’t even tell me. A navigator over an S U V, kind of like if you’re in New York, you’d go through the streets, you walk down, you see more escalates than anything because that’s kind of like the car now.

Whereas as a aviator, you don’t even see celebrities. Coming in and [00:17:00] out of them. You know, like that’s kind of like the statement that the Escalade, it exudes.

Crew Chief Eric: You mentioned something earlier about town cars, executive cars, limousines, et cetera. So there is a subtle difference between all of these. The classic stretch limo that we all came to appreciate in the late seventies and early eighties.

Do those even exist anymore? Is that a thing? Do people want to ride in a stretch limo?

Ron GIl: Our company is a chauffeur transportation service. For a reason, like we don’t even use the term limo anymore. They’re really pretty much associated with like those eighties Wall Street, like the movie, like you see Michael Douglas riding in one.

They don’t make ’em like that anymore, but the only time someone would actually call us for a limo is if they’re doing a prom or a wedding. They’re still out there, but they’re more of a party type vehicle if you’re going out in any the town for a bachelorette party. But we don’t really service that type of client unless they.

Particularly ask for it. Most of the time we just don’t do it because it’s a vehicle that doesn’t really fit in with a wheelhouse.

Don Weberg: Is there a favorite type of luxury vehicle for you? You mentioned the SS class. You’ve got a soft spot for that. Obviously the Escalade seems to be [00:18:00] a choice of most of your customers.

Let’s just say money’s no object. You’ve just won the billion dollar lottery. What are you gonna run out there and buy?

Ron GIl: I do prefer a coop like a Porsche on 11. If I was gonna be the driver for myself. But if it’s gonna be driven, Mercedes does have the Maybach version of their vehicles, which are, you know, more the high end.

But ironically, our clients don’t like them because they’re too ostentatious for them. Whereas our clients prefer to be discreet. They’re more discreet in like the S-class and the Escalades. Mm-hmm. I would definitely, if I was driven around in a Maybach, I think I would, I would be great. But definitely for me, like a Porsche, uh, nine 11, I’ve even seen a Safari one not too long ago.

It was actually restored and. I fell in love with it probably cost ’em a pretty penny to do it, but those kind of cars I, I really like.

Don Weberg: What about Lexus? You know, Lexus is the flagship for them. Been the LSS forever. Is there any talk of that or does Mercedes just have the lock on that four-door market?

Ron GIl: Definitely Mercedes and B M W in different markets it depends, but the US we tend not to, to use a Lexus just because it’s a little bit [00:19:00] too different. For what their clients are used to. You know, we’ve secured trips in Asia, for example, and they have a Toyota version. We’ve used them out there. The one in Japan, is that the century?

Yeah. They made like a couple like presidential versions of that. Like kind of like our version of the

Don Weberg: Yeah,

Ron GIl: the president

Don Weberg: limo. Yeah. They’re all handbuilt and takes like six months to get one. That kind of thing. Yeah, they’re fantastic car. Are there any old limos, if you can still call ’em that? Are there any old limos that you’d like to drive the Packard or Rolls Royce or Bentley?

Example,

Ron GIl: not me personally, but we do offer them. We did one for a wedding not too long ago, and it was like more of a classic Cadillac sedan that we used. I mean, I’m not really into too much of the older cars unless they’re like the sports cars, you know, like those Shelby Cobras type cars. But not so much like the older Rolls Royces or.

You know, the roll Rce Fern is still a pretty nice car though, but I’m not too crazy about them. Just in general,

Don Weberg: if there’s a new car that you like that could be converted into a limo, what would that be? Porsche, Panama, something like that.

Ron GIl: Yeah, that would be, um, that would be it. But you know what’s funny?

[00:20:00] Like the cars that I converted that are worked on right now is. The Mercedes sprinter, which from the outside it looks like a big black van. Right. But inside, they’re completely modified now, just the version where it’s like a shuttle, but like really nicely done inside. Or they have like basically what they call it, like a private jet on wheels that are really nice and they have like screens everywhere.

You know, very large seats. Like you could only fit like six people in the back. Those are kind of like the new version of modified limos without stretching them and you can stand up on them and everything. So that’s where the cars that are limos are converted lately.

Crew Chief Eric: It brings back sort of the party bus.

Feel, but not exactly, you know, the eighties, 40 connel line short bus conversion like you see in Las Vegas. All those are still running around. And I like the fact that you brought up the Sprinter because this calls back an episode that we did with Brian Kreider from Boulder Camper Vans and their specialty, they’ve kind of gone outside of doing camper vans, but they focus on the sprinters and some of the other models that are similar too.

I’ve seen those and they do these blown out conversions. So it sort of [00:21:00] makes sense that if they’re doing that, For off-grid living that they could do that as an executive or black car type of conversion.

Ron GIl: Yeah. They’ve done it even for like touring, like some of them even have bathrooms in the back. Kind of like those camper ones you’re talking about.

Those are really the new cars that people like to be ar in. Like if they’re going out and outta town, like they even have. Limo style seating where it is like a wraparound seating and they still have like where you can have like the drinks and bucket of ice, but it’s more of a modern twist on an actual stretch limo.

Crew Chief Eric: On the motorsports side of the house, we talk a lot about being smooth and driving smoothly. This is also true in your world. I wanna talk about how you learned how to drive more smoothly, especially for your clients. You know, they’re not supposed to feel the ride. Maybe some recommendations for other people on how to become a smoother driver on the streets, and especially in traffic.

Ron GIl: We like to say we wanna have our clients be driven like the flow of water. No friction. You know, obviously no hard braking. We try to always find the quickest route with the least amount of traffic and stay within the limit restrictions. We also try [00:22:00] to schedule pickups pretty early so that way they’re not rushing to the airport as far as the technique goes.

You just can’t be, you know, on a rush. But obviously we do have some demanding clients that might stay on later for meetings and they wanna make their flights when that situation happens. You know, we try to be as. Smooth as possible, even though we have to go a little faster to make their flights and you know, we had plenty of those situations.

We try to still maintain the whole smoothness of a ride. Having these vehicles like the Mercedes or the escalate with the suspensions that they have in them with the air suspension that we can’t even feel some of the bumps in. In New York, we have so many potholes everywhere. Generally we try to be as smooth, like the full water as we call it.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and I’ve heard some crazy techniques to like imagining that an egg is under the pedals, especially when you’re. Braking, or I’ve heard things like curling your toes will also cause you to not apply as much pressure to the pedals, but to your point, avoiding those potholes, you don’t wanna be slaloming down fifth Avenue either, right?

So the car’s gotta be able to take a lot of that abuse, which will lead into a conversation about maintenance here in a second. But I wanna bring up one other thing. I’ve heard people [00:23:00] say it before, the quote unquote, Limo stop. Is that a real thing gracefully coming to a stop rather than kind of stopping in a short distance?

And if it is a real thing, does it use up more brakes because of the longer braking zones and the heaviness of the vehicles?

Ron GIl: Yeah, like especially if we’re trying to stage in front of somewhere where someone, they wanna make like an entrance, right? So we want to kind of pull up very smoothly up to the curb and then people can get out the car.

You know, whether they’re going to like some sort of. V I p venue. But yeah, it does take a little bit of smoothness and we don’t want to just come up to the area and break hard. And then when you’re driving in the city with traffic, can’t really tell you’re doing it like smooth because you’re just going kind of slow.

When you get to like any destination, it’s not gonna be a hard stop.

Crew Chief Eric: Just like in racing, you have to be situationally aware. You’re probably looking way ahead to see if something’s going on. People are doing crazy stuff coming out from the sides because again, the number one thing is your client’s comfort.

Correct. In this particular instance, you’ve gotta be hypersensitive to everything that’s. Going on around you

Ron GIl: Definitely got our peripherals going. Obviously check the traffic [00:24:00] beforehand to avoid those kind of situations, but sometimes it happens right in front of us. You know, we try to look for detours and anything that we can get out of all of our chauffeurs are pretty experienced with the city as well as in other cities that we service.

So, you know, that’s part of the main role of a chauffeur is to be like a concierge of your city and know your way around. Similar to like kind the uk, they have like that knowledge test. Like I test our team here. Not officially like how they do it, but you know, they gotta know hotels, they gotta know sporting venues.

They gotta know how to get to the airport. If there’s a certain week, like we’re gonna have in September, the UN general assembly, they kind of already have to know, okay, what areas to avoid Manhattan. ’cause it’s gonna be very congested in the east side. Same thing for like a stadium and we have to go through a separate entrance for our client.

So all that, you know, we cover and we try to make sure that it’s pretty smooth.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s interesting that you bring that up because I grew up around some cabbies and my grandfather was a chauffeur after World War ii. Back then, obviously it was paper maps. We didn’t have, you know, hold on a second. Let me put it in my iPhone, or let me put it in my garment.

G P s. Do a lot of your drivers still [00:25:00] have the city basically mapped out in their head, and if somebody says, I need to go to here and here, they know exactly where that is. On the same token, are you converting cabbies over to become black car drivers because of their experience? Not necessarily.

Ron GIl: You know, say someone gets in the car and, and we have like as directed type.

Right where the client won’t give us an itinerary beforehand. They would just say, I’m going to this restaurant. We would still put it in the G P S, not because we don’t know how to get there, but it’s more for what is the quickest way to get there. So are we gonna avoid Fifth Avenue or seventh Avenue to get downtown?

Because there’s multiple options. Like we know how to get to places, but we can’t see technologies there for a reason, right? So we use it to our client experience better. Doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t know how to get there, but you know, we’ll discreetly try to put it in our G P Ss just to avoid pitfalls like traffic.

As far as like taxi drivers, I wouldn’t say I’m recruiting cabbies. They do have the experience, but the customer service is a huge aspect to our industry, and that’s something that’s very hard to teach if they’re not willing to learn. So they have to be receptive to that. And if not, then you know, they’re probably great at what they do [00:26:00] and stick to it.

And I’m sure there’s money to be made there, but we’re very selective with that. Sometimes we even prefer that they’re not in our industry. Because things like maps and you know, locations can be taught, but the customer service part of it is one thing that is harder to teach in. Like I didn’t even start in this industry as a driver from the beginning.

Hospitality, customer service is something that’s much easier to, to work with people that had that background.

Crew Chief Eric: What do you think are some of the biggest mistakes or faux pause or especially we talking about customer service with a client? They may inadvertently do, you know, these social indecencies or whatever you wanna call them, what are some things that you’re training the guys to kind of get out of certain habits or to begin doing?

Smoking was a big

Ron GIl: thing for us. It’s like our clients don’t prefer that and nothing personal, but I would not hire someone who smokes just because of the smell in its hearts for people to quit that unless they’re in on some particular treatment. So that’s like a bad habit, that it’s just hard to work with people who are late.

That’s a big one. Like if they’re not used to being on early on time, I mean, we do send out alerts and phone calls and stuff, but like I said, we wanna have the flow of water type service where we don’t have to [00:27:00] communicate too much. Like our, our chauffer already are pretty knowledgeable of when they need to get to a certain location.

So the less communication when we physically have to call them or email them or, or text them, is actually better for us because, All of our jobs are dispatched electronically to their phones and they already have all the details. We may call ’em to go over some special requests, but nothing where like, Hey, where are you?

Are you, are you gonna be there on time? That stops the flow of water. That’s one thing that we definitely work with people who are very customer service oriented from the beginning, and they’re very serious about being on time and about their job.

Don Weberg: Do you ever take the drivers out? Do you test them? Do you train them?

How does that process work when you got some guy that showed up? He’s interviewing for the job. You like the guy, you obviously you take him out for a drive. Right? How does that work? What goes on there?

Ron GIl: Yeah. After we interview them and, and everything checks out and we see that they’re someone who’s teachable, we actually put them on mystery rides.

It could be someone from our company or even another senior chauffeur that can critique them, and eventually they reveal themselves as I’m actually part of the company and I’m here to critique the service. And based on that, sometimes it’s a pass or fail, but most of the time we’ve had our [00:28:00] chauffeurs.

Say, oh you know, this is gonna be a good hire. Like if they make it to that kind of level, like we’ve had a lot of people who won’t even show up to interviews so that are automatically already like would not qualify. Obviously we’re very strict about when we are looking for cha first, you know, they have to have some sort of certification training as well.

Like we look for that. And then as far as like additional training, we have like an online. Portal where there’s other things they could learn from some of the industry courses that we are involved in. And then we do some offsite training. Like not too long ago, I had our team go to one of our partners that we work with a lot in New York and they provided additional training for just their clients.

We flew them down to South Carolina for this training. That way they just keep getting better in into their craft.

Don Weberg: What about the maintenance? I would assume that brakes are probably the first thing to go on those cars. What, what is that like maintaining those black cars?

Ron GIl: We put a lot of wear and tear on these vehicles.

We rotate them every two years for us to even get to the brakes. Like some of our cars already have like indicator of what percentage of the brake is at, like the escalates for example. They have an indicator now that tells us the percentage, you know, once it reaches 50%, where like we’re just gonna change ’em.

Since we rotate our [00:29:00] cars fairly quickly, we sometimes don’t get so many, unless it’s like a defect or like a recall or anything electronical that may go down in the vehicle. As far as the maintenance, like obviously we do oil changes almost monthly now, just because we go sometimes long distance. We change the batteries also because.

These cars do take up a lot of juice and I don’t wanna get a chauffeur stuck out in the, in the field not being able to service a client because they don’t have enough juice in the car. As far as like the actual other maintenances, eventually I think we’re gonna evolve into like more of a ev. Mm-hmm. It might have take away some, some of those oil changes and things like that.

You know, in the meantime we still deal with that and part of our regularly maintenance tire rotation. Still, obviously that’s still gonna happen, but recently though, one of our vehicles had to go down because the engine seizes. And it was only 6,000 miles. It was a brand new Escalade, and the worst part is all these parts are back ordered, so we had to wait like almost a month to get the new engine from Cadillac.

You know, we have those downtimes with the vehicles because of that lately, and luckily it was only one, but I’ve heard from other affiliates in, in my industry that they had. Similar situations with this particular generation of escalates. It just came out in [00:30:00] 2021, so obviously the first couple years you usually get these kind of issues.

You know, obviously with the whole pandemic and everything, the supply chain is still catching up with certain things. We get these kind of issues here and there for the overall, like daily run pretty well. You know, we do the regularly scheduled maintenance just a little bit faster than usual because we, we run them so many miles.

What kind of EVs are you considering? Well, Escalade obviously just came out with a new one last week. They unveiled it in New York and pretty impressed at least it has some sort of range with the 450 miles, and it’s not too bad. The problem with EVs right now is more the infrastructure and the charging times we’re out on a long distance trip.

Probably wouldn’t even assign a cart like that because how are we gonna get back and it’s, we’re in the middle of nowhere, like where are we gonna charge? If we’re paying for the car to even charge out on in the field, if it could charge faster, would be better. You know, still a, a bit of a time gap there.

It’s not like as quick as filling up a gas a tank. I would definitely consider that Mercedes actually did come out with uh, E Q ss, which is kind of like the version of the SS class. It just looks different, you know, I hadn’t really gone down that path yet, but I would consider also the Cadillac lyric.

[00:31:00] They also came out with just this year. It’s an interesting vehicle and, and you know, it has like the extra capacity that, you know, most black cars don’t have, but we can use that as like a good sedan type vehicle. And also B M W actually came out with a really nice one, which is actually the same body style of the gas, you know, internal combustion engine version.

So that one would also be considered. As far as like going outta town, we would probably not use ’em for that kind of service. What do you, do you lease ’em or do you

Don Weberg: buy ’em?

Ron GIl: What do

Don Weberg: you do?

Ron GIl: Yeah, we finance them and then we trade ’em in for new ones or we, we sell ’em in the off market because we get more return on that.

If we give ’em back to the dealer. They always try to like low us a little bit, but we’ve been able to find people to buy them, even though they’ve been used for limo service. You know, we tell them, you know, we maintain these cars, you know, meticulously, they’re garage caps a lot of the time, so even the body’s still in perfect condition for this kind of service that we always have to keep them clean.

They’re always well maintained, clean, so we’ve been pretty successful in like selling them after we’re done with them.

Don Weberg: Detailing has to be a big part of this business, trying to keep that car clean and sharp. Are there any special techniques you guys use for the interior exterior, or [00:32:00] what kind of products do you guys use?

Ron GIl: I’m not sure if you guys heard of this company called Detail King. They’re based out in Pittsburgh. Back around 2015, I think I actually went over there to learn auto detailing. We had our shop in Queens, New York at the time, and when the cars were gone from the garage, we would actually detail people’s cars as like a way to kind of pay for the rent.

Obviously, like I hired a couple of detailers. To help me clean our fleet. And then when they weren’t too busy, they would actually detail cars from the neighborhood. I physically learned how to do buffing and you know, working with compounds and polishers and all that stuff, you know, I wanted to really learn the business.

We ended up buying all of our supplies from them and all of our liquids and soaps and rotary buffers and that kind of thing. And that’s pretty much the equipment that I use now. It’s. A dual rotary buffer. And you know, we have air hoses that help with applying interior soaps. We have these hot vacs that also have like steam and soap coming outta them for like the carpets and even steamers to sanitize the interiors without having to use actual liquids.

So we order all of our supplies from these guys

Crew Chief Eric: because you’re dealing with [00:33:00] black paint and as anybody who owns. Black cars like I do and Don does and a lot of other people, it’s one of the hardest colors to keep clean. So I’m looking for a little secret here. Like, you know, in the old days, McGuire’s gold class paste was like the IT thing for black cars, but that was 20 years ago, right?

So I’m really curious, like what you got, or maybe it’s a trade secret. You can’t tell us how you keep the limo so clean, you know?

Ron GIl: No, no, no, of course. Like they all have really great products now. Like they specifically made for black vehicles and McGuire’s, you know, it’s easier to buy. But then when we order, we either be from Detail King or even chemical guys, you know?

But then if we are shorthand and we instead we can’t wait for the shipping, we’ll just go to Auto Zone or something like that, or anything, and they got McGuires and that kind of thing. Unfortunately, we sometimes, you know, we’re in a rush and we have to go through the automated car washes, which is like the worst, right?

But have to still keep the car clean for every ride. If there’s a car wash 15 minutes away from our pickup, we would just go there. But, you know, every couple months or so, we do a whole buffing of all those fine lines that the, you know, those rushes make definitely big on the [00:34:00] compounds and the polishing and you know, we still do wax ’em at the end.

So keep it protected a little bit here and there with that. But fortunately, it’s part of the business that we have to go through. The automated ones.

Crew Chief Eric: Because you detail the cars so often you’re re waxing them, polishing, et cetera. You are not coating them. Right. You’re not using like a ceramic or something like that to try to seal the paint?

Initially, yeah. When

Ron GIl: we get them, we do do that, but again, we go through these automated car washes sometimes that it just kind of wears it out, unfortunately. You know, it’s not like a regular car that probably won’t see the benefits of those techniques. We’re constantly have to go through these car washes just ’cause we get rained on all the time.

We keep them garage when they’re not working, but then out almost daily go through the elements like everybody else. So we have to keep the car clean regardless of where we pick up.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that the frequency of washing with the cars? Is it almost daily?

Ron GIl: If the weather’s good and the car comes back to the garage, then we’ll just do like a clean sweep inside that gets the most use.

If the outside doesn’t need to be washed necessarily, we won’t wash it. We’ll. Probably just clean out any smudges, fingerprints and that kind of thing. But I would say at least three times a week minimum. [00:35:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Switching gears a little bit, pit stop question here. You mentioned restaurants earlier and you get to cart around some of the coolest and probably most famous people in New York all the time.

So let’s talk about favorite places and recommendations to go visit or go eat at in New York City.

Ron GIl: I mean, I’ve taken a page from my clients when they go to these fancy places, and then I decided to take my wife out there just to experience it if there’s even a table, because some of these places, like you either know somebody or you have to wait like two months to get in.

For example, there’s one that’s called Leber Nadine, and it’s like a French restaurant. It’s very hard to get in. I still haven’t gotten to that one, but I heard it’s really amazing. But then there’s also Carbon, which is a Italian restaurant, but they have other, in other cities as well. Popular one in New York.

Another French restaurant is called Balthazar. Also a little hard to get in, at least on a Saturday night, but you can go there during the weekend. It’s a pretty cool place, and there’s a new place called Lafayette, also another French restaurant. They’re kind of known right now for their croissants, like in the morning.

They have a long line just for that particular pastry or you know, for the evening. There’s definitely availability for that. You know, go and have a nice dinner. My background’s [00:36:00] also Peruvian, so I tend to like Peruvian food a lot. One of my favorite spots is Mission Ceviche, which they has like really, really good ceviche.

Other Peruvian cuisine, and that one can get packed also. Like it’s very popular just like the others.

Crew Chief Eric: So when you take your wife to these restaurants, do you drive yourselves or do you have one of the guys pick you up in a black car? I’ve done it a couple

Ron GIl: times. You know, I mean, it’s, it’s a perk and it’s, it’s, it’s a way of me like keeping tabs on them too.

So I tend to do it a couple times here and there, but, you know, we drive ourselves, we have our own personal car, you know, if it’s like an anniversary or something like that. When I first met her, one of our dates, I had one of our chauffeurs pick her up and brought her to a restaurant that we really like.

Also in Queens, it’s actually called Ella’s. It’s an Italian restaurant I use my service for, for that kind of thing. So yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: and that’s a great segue into talking about, I. Quality of life and work-life balance because your industry, the black car industry, is really sort of on beck and call. You never know when a client’s gonna wanna be picked up or where they want to go.

And like you said, they might be running late for a meeting and then you gotta run off to the [00:37:00] airport and you’re stuck in traffic and you really can’t have a normal nine to five schedule. So how do you juggle work and family?

Ron GIl: Yeah, this industry is very demanding. It’s a 24 7. Industry. And now that we’ve started doing rides in different time zones, it’s like even worse because now we have to operate 24 7 in different markets.

You know, it takes a team to do that. Like at one point I was handling a lot by myself, but eventually, like I just had to like get myself organized. And as I was growing, now I have a team, different cities, different time zones who can help me with taking reservations while I’m asleep or chauffer handling trips when I’m in a different city and or even in New York, for example, like my team is very trustworthy.

We’re still operating, you know, remotely. You know, I had to do some automation to make sure that all this happens. The automation helps a lot, and also like the team, like knowing what they’re doing, it just helps me scale a little bit better. Now I actually have more time with my wife and my son. Before it was just very, very demanding.

I still keep in touch, especially with my high-touch clients, but we’re not doing millions of rides. So a [00:38:00] lot of the rides that I do see that are reserved, I always glance to see we’re picking up. Even from my phone, I can check up rides in progress. Just to make sure that the chauffeurs are on schedule and that the vehicle is where it’s supposed to be.

You know, with my team, it, it’s been able to pass on a lot of those operational situations where I can focus more on like generating revenue so I can plan my days better and I can have my weekends now starting out it was, I. Difficult because I wouldn’t even be chauffeur and still having to work with other clients who needed transportation at the same time when I wasn’t available.

So that’s how I started adding chauffeur to my team, and then obviously reservationists and dispatchers to handle all of our bookings in different cities and in different times, different dates. Having a website that can take reservations and our dispatch system that can automate sending trips out. It has done miracles for my personal life as far as like me handling things.

All by myself.

Crew Chief Eric: That brings us back to the beginning of the conversation where you talked about getting started even before 2007 in the hospitality industry, and then kicking off sedans in oh [00:39:00] seven. So if you look back over the last 20 years, what do you think is the biggest change in the industry outside of the technology part, which is making your life better?

Is there something else that’s sort of churning under the surface technology-wise?

Ron GIl: Yeah, there’s still obviously improvements that need to be made. Also ideologies of pricing and also knowing your costs. When I started, like I didn’t know what my costs were and what my numbers were, and I just knew that if I had money in my pocket, I was good.

Once you start growing from like one car and two cars and, and then you’re dealing with employees and affiliate relations, kind of have to know your numbers, right. That’s kind of like where a lot of new operators that are starting to come in, they don’t know their numbers yet. I feel like that can bring issues to pricing because.

They probably wanna acquire clients, but at the same time, they’re doing a disservice to themselves because they don’t know what their costs are. They might not be as profitable as they could have been, at least in our industry. Now, there’s a lot more mentors or social media groups that cover these kind of things so that people don’t make the same mistakes that I did when I was starting out.

I wish I had that growing up. [00:40:00] But now there’s a lot of influencers and not so much influencers, but like coaching those teachable portals that you can kind of learn certain aspects of the business, whereas none of that was. Existing during my time I had to learn the hard way. You know, I think it’s evolving where people are learning a little bit more or, or should be learning more about what actually takes, aside from the technology and the expenses and what it even takes on your personal life.

Because it is like a 24 7 industry. You know, when I was young I could hang with the best of them and just, you know, be out there and keep growing my business. But once you start having family and things get a little more complicated, kind of have to like really. Know when to work and when to pass on to a teammate or if you have employees, you know, pass on what you’ve learned and and also be able to grow that way.

So that’s really one of the things that I see that’s happening right now.

Don Weberg: What’s in the future for Ron and sedans and where are you going? Are we expanding

Crew Chief Eric: any new services, new things you wanna share? Something going on with the business?

Ron GIl: Our future is really like doing trips worldwide. We’ve been [00:41:00] growing this out, you know, where we facilitate trips in different cities.

That has been like our next venture. We, we have a lot of great partners that we work with. We obviously can’t have cars in every major city. You know, this is like a very mom and pop industry. We do meet a lot of ’em. Whether it was when I traveled to different cities or through conventions, I was able to meet a lot of operators like myself.

We all have like the same software, same vehicles. We are able to like trade off work in different cities, right? As long as they have the same principles that we do and they provide the same level of service. We’re able to replicate it in different cities, but we started doing other services such as meet and greet service, where the clients will be met by, uh, a representative by the gate or outside of customs to bring ’em to the cars.

This helps a lot with traveling with minors or senior citizens, or someone who’s not familiar with the airports. We also added a touch of security services where we partner with law enforcement or people who used to be in law enforcement and now are either moonlighting or they’re making security, uh, their careers.

And we partner with certain firms. And for as individuals, we have a client who wants that extra level of [00:42:00] service for. Security purposes. We can facilitate those kind of things now.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Ron, we’ve reached that part of the episode where I get the asks, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered thus far?

Ron GIl: You mentioned before like this is a family business. Right, and I’ve had my mom to think, obviously to help me get started. My sister’s heavily involved. She’s like even a chauffeur, my stepfather, also a chauffeur, and my wife who came later on in the business. But she helps me a lot with internal operations and calls.

I had a lot of family coming in. I have my best friend who I grew up with back in Queens, like as a kid who’s involved. He was our mechanic, but now he works remotely from a different city and he handles our dispatch. They’re really great people that I’ve, I’ve surrounded myself with and they’ve been able to support me even through like the tough times and things like that.

And they still stuck. Like my sister has been with the company for 15 years, you know, so, Been great with putting up with all of our growing pains, and I’m just happy that I’m able to help them provide for their families as well as all of the other team members that we have that have come through and excelled with our [00:43:00] clients and have learned in this company.

And I don’t think it would’ve been possible had it not been started with the simple loan that my mom gave me. And yeah, definitely shout out to them. And then the rest of my team who helps me with everything from the chauffeurs. Detailing reservation teams and even our affiliates who work, you know, help us spread the word in different cities about our services.

And obviously last but not least, but our clients, they’ve been very loyal. Even the new ones that we acquire, they always wanna test us out, and then they’d stick with us because they’re very happy with the level of service that we provide. It’s been a, an interesting experience. Like I never would’ve thought I, I would’ve had a business like this, like growing up.

Like it’s not like, you know, I was like a kid and dreaming I wanted to be in this industry, right? It just kind of fell into my lap and. At a circumstance and I was able to make it into something else. I mean, I just hope that can keep it growing for the next generation. Maybe my son would take over it or, or something like that and we’ll see.

I’m just glad that I was able to have family backing up throughout the whole ride.

Don Weberg: Ron wanted to make sure each chauffeur would treat sedans clients the way he would treat them, [00:44:00] providing that next level personal touch to every ride. While sedans operate out of New York City, their fleet reaches beyond the tri-state area.

They have secured trips for their client in all major cities such as Los Angeles, Boston, London, Paris, Stockholm and Beyond. Sedans focuses on bespoke chauffeur, transportation for celebrities, dignitaries, sea C-level executives and large event logistics, coordination. Their select fleet of sedans and SS U v limos set them apart.

Luxury vehicles available. Sedans vehicles are garage kept, fully licensed, insured and warrantied

Crew Chief Eric: sedans. Chauffeurs are held to the highest standard. Their chauffeurs are screened, insured, background checked, and the back office staff will coordinate travel to your specific demands and needs. Sedans also offers travel solutions through seamless booking software and a suite for large enterprises who book multiple vehicles for corporate employees.

You can book your next Ride with sedans by using the Drive Anywhere [00:45:00] app and enter operator code E nine, C 4 7 5, and your email that you created your account with.

Don Weberg: You can learn more about Ron and sedans by visiting his website www dot. sedans.com. That is SS E D A N z.com, or by following them on social media at Go Sedan, G O S E D A N Z, on Facebook and Twitter as well as at.

S E D A Z on Instagram.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Ron, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your evening with us here on Break Fix, and I gotta say, I really love your mantra. Be Like Water. It’s very Bruce Lee, right? I think that’s where I took it from. It. Yeah. But it’s also sort of the long-term understanding of chauffeurs in general, right?

To be seen and not heard, to be smooth and to be discreet. You guys are the unsung heroes of the autos sphere. You’re out [00:46:00] there battling traffic and the woes of the world for the benefit and the comfort of your clients. So I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing and for sharing your story with us.

Ron GIl: Oh, that’s, that’s very nice. So for you to say, I appreciate that. You know, this is an industry where we have a lot of hard to please clients. Anytime we get like a, a nod or a pat on the back or something, it’s like, wow. You know? So, yeah. I definitely appreciate that. Thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about G T M, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at Crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M remains a no annual [00:47:00] fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and G T M swag.

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newton’s, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction to Break Fix Podcast
• 00:27 Ron Gill’s Early Career and First Black Car
• 03:30 Challenges and Growth in the Black Car Business
• 05:42 Impact of the Pandemic on the Business
• 10:22 Navigating the Competitive Car Service Industry
• 15:04 Luxury Vehicles and Client Preferences
• 19:57 Modern Limo Conversions and Smooth Driving Techniques
• 22:12 Smooth Rides and Vehicle Maintenance
• 22:59 The Art of the Limo Stop
• 24:03 Chauffeur Expertise and City Knowledge
• 26:21 Customer Service and Chauffeur Training
• 28:38 Vehicle Maintenance and EV Considerations
• 31:52 Detailing and Keeping Cars Pristine
• 36:43 Balancing Work and Personal Life
• 40:56 Future of the Black Car Industry
• 42:11 Family Business and Final Thoughts

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