Retail News

WORDS BY LAURA KEMMERER

On The Old Fashioned Car Audio Podcast, hosts Matt Schaeffer and Gary Bell are helping mobile electronics customers make more informed decisions about what to look for in a shop. According to Schaeffer, these customers will have had something installed that they’re not happy about, or they might be looking to begin again. Often, he noted, customers call in to the shop where Schaeffer works—Sound FX in Lewes, Del.—without any knowledge. Explaining things thoroughly can take up to half an hour.

“A client will bring us a car and they might want us to add to it and there’s a lot of things wrong with it, like maybe the left and right channels are flipflopped,” Schaeffer said. “And from the starting point his car wasn’t done correctly even though he didn’t know that. They just want it to be louder and clearer, but they might not understand sound stage.”

The podcast aims to revitalize the passion for car audio we often see in the older demographic. The majority of the work Schaeffer does is for the 40 to 70 crowd. These clients grew up in the heyday of car audio and are looking to revisit that with their current vehicles but won’t trust just anyone to do the work. Schaeffer noted that Bell had worked for Alpine doing demo vehicles with Steve Brown and other people, and that they’d been friends for a long time and had also done a lot of Mobile Solutions trainings together.

“Any time we go out, we always enjoy an Old Fashioned, the drink, and that’s where the name came from. It’s paying homage to the old-fashioned side of car audio, the evolution of it, while giving a comparison or a nod to us drinking an Old Fashioned on air,” said Schaeffer.

Though there are several different enterprises doing this kind of content on different platforms, like YouTube and Facebook, Schaeffer considers the podcast angle a more personal touch. The hosts tell real stories, talking to people in the industry.

With the first season available for streaming now and a new episode dropping every week, The Old Fashioned Car Audio Podcast also features guests from time to time. In one episode, the show’s first guest, Steve Brown from Alpine, and the hosts talk about Brown’s evolution in car audio. Schaeffer noted that a lot of these kinds of stories resonate with people who have a lifelong passion for cars.

“It’s just another way to give someone the tools or education or build excitement, it’s all of the above, and there will be installers and manufacturers listening too. Shops can also use a lot of what we say as a sales tool for their own clients,” said Schaeffer. “I think it’s good for the entire industry and I saw it was a hole that was being unfilled because when I go to work, I put on my headphones. I don’t listen to music at work. I like to learn throughout the day, so I listen to different podcasts throughout the day. Anyone in our industry who has done a car related podcast, it’s very niche.”

In terms of promotion, Schaeffer films a video promoting the podcast, puts it on his YouTube channel, then posts the same thing to Instagram. As a bonus, most of the jobs Schaeffer does currently come from out of state, with the customer alluding to the fact that they’ve been a long-time fan on YouTube or Instagram, and that they’d finally decided to pull the trigger on getting work done.

“I see [the podcast] evolving organically as the conversation. There is no real goal. In the era of [corona], being stuck at home, it’s nice to connect with people, chat, catch up, learn about things I didn’t previously know about on-air guests. It’s fun,” said Schaeffer.

On the final day of this year’s KnowledgeFest LIVE, Schaeffer and Bell hosted the Keynote event, the Installer of the Year roundtable in which candidates for the award were interviewed. The Old Fashioned Car Audio Podcast is available to stream on all podcast services, with plans for up to season three and a new episode dropping every week.

Due to an increased demand in business, Traffic Jams Motor Sports, based in Buford, Georgia, recently welcomed two new professionals: Chris Ott, a former Installer of the Year, will serve as a fabricator, and Dustin Daigle will serve as the shop’s sales manager. In the photograph, Daigle stands on the left, and Ott on the right.

For now, Ott will be focused on larger projects like custom door panels and pillars, though he may eventually help with the enclosure side of the business. According to shop owner Ron Venable, both Daigle and Ott are well known in the industry and have great resumes, making them a good fit for Traffic Jams.

Moving forward, Daigle will also help with organizational management. With such talent on the team, Venable is confident the business will continue to grow.

“[Daigle and Ott] bring a lot to the table,” he said. “We worked hard to get them, so we are bragging a little bit that we have them.”

Venable added that the business is a full-service shop, offering lift kits, wheels, tires, accessories, car audio, fabrication and an enclosure department. “We’re booked out two months now and it’s been amazing,” he said, adding that Traffic Jams has also had issues with inventory recently, like many other shops.

“We keep a large inventory here, so we get a lot of dealers calling and asking for help, which is fine—but now we’re so slim that it’s even hard to do that.”

Josh White, the head of the mobile electronics department for Tacoma, Washington-based Auto FX, recently celebrated his first year working for the company. White, who has a couple of techs working under him, is also an integration and fabrication specialist.

“I started out with Best Buy. I was with them for 10 years or so. Then I worked in technical support at Compustar for four years,” White said. “I worked at Car Toys for a couple of years, the local corporate chain in the Pacific Northwest. I went to Auto FX last year. They reached out to me, and I went from there.”

Auto FX has been in business since 1996 and offers services such as window tinting and full vehicle paint jobs. The business also does leather and upholstery work.

Like a number of other industry businesses in the pandemic, Auto FX has had to change the way it operates to keep things moving. Last January, going right into 2020, White was doing $15,000 to $20,000 jobs, and since those large-scale jobs aren’t happening as much lately, both White and the business have had to adapt and go for new kinds of business and learn new skillsets.

“We were invited to go to Connecticut and learn about lithium batteries, charging and alternators, how to upgrade power systems to lithium, so we brought that back and we’ve been doing a lot of Winnebago type off-grid vehicles,” White said.

“I had a couple clients who were bird watchers and they wanted to upgrade their systems to lithium so they could be out there for a week. People spending money on solo vacations so they can avoid flying anywhere. We take the AGM batteries out and there’s a big weight reduction as well, so they can use that weight elsewhere for carrying gear. Space-saving and increasing efficiency is off the charts.”

White also helped with changes made to the building, which included the construction of a sound room. White went on to add that the shop signed up with MSC America, and brought in a Helix display, as well as a BRAX display. Now, the shop has a nice demo room. Auto FX wanted to have a shop car, so White built it with MSC.

These days, White isn’t doing as much audio as normal, which he misses. But when that business comes back, the new employees can use their knowledge of lithium technology and fold it into new jobs, with hopes of growing the business, rather than just staying afloat.

“We’ve grown a lot in a year and stayed constantly busy and it’s been very rewarding for me,” White added.