Building Texas Business

Ep085: Revolutionizing Car Sales with Chris Gillman


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In this episode of Building Texas Business, I met with Chris Gillman, President and CEO of Team Gillman, to discuss how technology is transforming car dealerships in Texas.

I learn how his team uses AI and virtual assistants to streamline customer service, enabling online car purchases and digital service scheduling. Their approach to technology has improved both customer experience and internal operations while maintaining strong relationships with car buyers.

Chris shares his path from general manager to business owner, including a key moment when he had to terminate an employee who broke company policy. This experience taught him about insurance requirements and legal considerations that protect the business.

We explore how Team Gilman adapted during COVID-19 by focusing on company culture and employee development. Chris explained their strategy of reinvesting in staff training and using customer data effectively, which has supported steady growth without aggressive marketing tactics.


SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

  • We explore how technology is reshaping the car dealership landscape in Texas, emphasizing the integration of AI and virtual assistants in enhancing customer service and streamlining operations.
  • Chris discusses his leadership journey, highlighting the importance of hiring ambitious individuals and giving them the autonomy to excel in their roles.
  • The episode delves into the challenges and rewards of transitioning from a general manager to a business owner, offering insights into leadership in the automotive industry.
  • We examine the significance of building a strong company culture and the strategies for maintaining employee-centric leadership, especially during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Chris shares the value of leveraging existing customer data to sustain a market presence without aggressive advertising, focusing on customer satisfaction and long-term business sustainability.
  • The discussion includes the role of technology in employee management, mentioning tools like Paycom and Reynolds for digital transactions and HR processes.
  • Chris emphasizes the balance between short-term gains and long-term sustainability by reinvesting in employees and fostering a growth-oriented environment.
  • We talk about the evolving work landscape and the shift back to traditional office settings, with insights on adapting leadership styles to meet changing work habits.
  • The conversation touches on the impact of recent legislative changes in Texas, such as the removal of state inspections for pre-owned vehicles, and the implications for the automotive industry.
  • Chris shares personal stories and leadership philosophies, stressing the importance of leading by example and treating employees with respect to drive business growth.
  • LINKS

    Show Notes

    Previous Episodes

    About BoyarMiller

    About Team Gillman


    GUESTS
    Chris Gillman
    About Chris


    TRANSCRIPT

    (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)


    Chris Hanslik: Chris, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business. Thanks for taking the time to join us today. Thank you.

    Chris Gillman: I look forward to it.

    Chris Hanslik: So let's just start by telling the audience about your business and maybe a little bit about how you got into the business.

    Chris Gillman: Okay, well, last name's Gilman Been, a family name here in Houston since 1938. I'm a third generation car dealer. We started off in downtown Houston with Pontiac and GMC at the corner of Milam and Pease, and then my father took it over, ran it, did everything, built it all the way up, and I've kind of taken over kind of since then, since my father's passed away since 2011. We roughly have around almost 800 employees and we do roughly around 18,000 cars a year here in Houston. That sounds like a pretty big volume. It's definitely a small family business.

    Chris Hanslik: Yes, I think it's pretty good volume. Yeah, it sounds like it and so let's you know. Talk about. There's a lot, especially at the beginning of the year, about looking ahead. There's been a bunch of conversations in the last two years about AI. What are some of the emerging technologies that you see now or may be coming as it relates to your industry?

    Chris Gillman: Well, right now, one of the big things is almost 20 to 30 percent of every service appointment. When you bring in your car for service, when you set your appointment, you are actually talking to somebody. That is an AI virtual assistant that is scheduling your service appointment for you and you actually think you're speaking to a human and that is setting up a pickup and delivery. Or hey, I need to drop my car off at three o'clock, I need a loaner or I need a shuttle you're actually dealing with. I don't want an ai virtual voice setting your service appointment kind of like the virtual assistant. Yeah, it's full-blown. And also, a lot of times, if you're setting an appointment to come in, to come test drive a car, there are tools right now that we are utilizing to streamline and make and make the car buying and the servicing of your vehicle a lot easier.

    Chris Hanslik: I'm sure most people will love hearing that because almost like death and taxes. Most people say you talk about buying a car and they just like poke a needle in my eye because it's such a painful process yeah, it's you's.

    Chris Gillman: You know back from way you know me being 47 years old. You know buying a car the way it did in 1985 and 1995, hell, even in 2005,. It's completely different. Now you can get in and out of a car dealership with not only an hour and a half, but the days of, oh, let's go haggle and beat up and go negotiate and oh, hear me roar. Those days are gone. If you want to make the car buying process difficult, you can, or you can make it very simple.

    Chris Hanslik: Well, you bring up a good point, though right, with the consumers much more informed these days because of the internet way more, and so which?

    Chris Gillman: is great. By the way, an informed buyer is a better buyer, you know. You know what it was in I think it was 2010. Your average consumer used to visit 5.2 5.5 dealerships before they bought a car. Now it's like 1.3 wow, yeah, so more efficient way.

    Chris Hanslik: More efficient? I don't. I mean. My sense is that's common across a lot of industries. Right, and with the age of the internet, more price comparing and shopping online and things like that oh, it's just like buying a home.

    Chris Gillman: You see all the photos online and you look at it and go. You know, you know, back in the day you used to go visit 20 different homes before you bought it. Now you might only look at three.

    Chris Hanslik: That's a good point. So you got dealerships across the greater Houston area, 800 employees. Anything that you know we talked about technology for the consumer, anything you're using to kind of help hire, manage, train employees, that is kind of innovative. Or using technology to help you there.

    Chris Gillman: Some of the technology that we're using. You know I'm not here to promote a payroll system or anything like that, okay, but you know we've been able to lower our HR staff by using a company called Paycom.

    Chris Hanslik: Okay.

    Chris Gillman: And also our hand. Also our digital handbook is in that we have training videos and all that. That's from the employee standpoint, from the consumer standpoint. We use a company called Reynolds, and Reynolds they're a Texas based company, or they have a company in Dayton Ohio, but they started off in Houston. There's a thing that we call DocuPad, where you do the whole car deal, everything. It's all digital. It's no paper, it's all digital and we are able to also I don't want to use the word FaceTime, but if you are remote, we're able to do a virtual go back and forth so you can sign your paperwork while you're sitting at home or at your office or you can be on a boat fishing if you want to do it, and you can do your whole car deal and you don't actually have to come into the dealership.

    Chris Hanslik: That's amazing. I've experienced the DocuPad. It looks like just you're sitting at a desk.

    Chris Gillman: Yeah, it's a gigantic iPad.

    Chris Hanslik: And I've seen you I mean in action when you have any car that you know you have access to under your umbrella is for sale. I think we were on a day trip and you sold a Tahoe.

    Chris Gillman: Yeah, just it's. You know, no matter where you are, you know you can have a tablet or a phone and you can do a whole car deal everything right there and there. You see, you know if you think about it we're in the world of the now, yeah absolutely and that's you know. The world has taught, Amazon has taught us that you could buy anything in three clicks. Well, if you want to go buy a $50,000 car in three clicks, I want to be able to provide that for you, sure.

    Chris Hanslik: So you know, I think we all, born and raised in Texas, very proud to be. What do you see as some of the advantages of having and starting and growing a business in the state of Texas?

    Chris Gillman: The state of Texas is very pro-business. The state of Texas likes it for people to have employees to create business, to create I don't want to say an economy, but you're generating taxes for them, right? Sure, so they are pro-business and that's, and the state of Texas likes that. And there's a lot of car dealers that wish they were car dealers in Texas that aren't in Louisiana, colorado, california.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, there's a lot. So those are some of the positives. Any challenges or headwinds you see coming maybe specific to your industry or just in Texas in general about operating here.

    Chris Gillman: Well, just from like Texas, they've just passed a new law and the new law is today's pre-owned vehicles do not need a state inspection on the car. Well, what I mean by that is the car does not for you to get a new registration for your new license plates, you don't have to have a state inspection. Well, you can now have a car with one headlight seatbelt not working, the emissions terrible, bad tires, no brake lights. That is just unsafe for the state of Texas.

    Chris Hanslik: It seems that way. I'm not sure I understand the logic.

    Chris Gillman: I have not a clue. I spent a lot of money lobbying and a lot of time in austin texas fighting that deal and I lost really so I'm just curious what was the lobby? It was the support of saying that it is getting rid of the state inspection because that state inspection it hurts the average texan of paying a fee of $25 to have them inspect their car for a safe vehicle.

    Chris Hanslik: So my view that falls in the definition of penny wise pound foolish.

    Chris Gillman: You know, in the famous words of John Wayne, you can't fix stupid.

    Chris Hanslik: So you know, talk a little bit about you know your management style and kind of your approach to leading your team of 800 there at Team Gilman. You know how would you describe your leadership style?

    Chris Gillman: My leadership style. I've kind of inherited from my father the ready fire, aim type mentality, but something that my father beat into me a long time ago hire people that are better than you. Hire people that are smarter than you. Pay them what they deserve, I mean you know God forbid.

    you pay somebody what they're worth, right? You pay them what they're worth and get out of their way. Let them do their job and also give them the authority and give them the power to make decisions where they don't have to be overlooking their shoulder, and let's not rule by a committee. I know these are all buzzwords I'm saying, but in all honesty, let them eat, let them earn, let them do what they need to do. You're wanting to hire them for a reason.

    Chris Hanslik: Put them in let them go, Tell them the job you expect them to do and give them autonomy to do it Correct.

    Chris Gillman: Say this is your sandbox and give them autonomy to do it Correct, say this is your sandbox, these are your rules. Go build and you know a lot of employees. I would rather have to pull the reins back on them than go have to kick them.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, I use. I'd rather pull the reins and crack the whip all the time around here. Right, it's so true. Right, you want someone that has that ambition and the initiative to go do stuff.

    Chris Gillman: Yeah, there's you know you can't teach hustle, you can't. You know you can tell when you were talking to someone. Okay, that person has drive, or that guy's a popcorn fart. Well, I mean, it's true, right. So I mean, at the end of the day you look at it and be like, yeah, no, that guy's just, or that person is just not going to get it done, or you look at him and go that guy's going to get it done, but I know I'm going to have to pull the reins back on him.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah.

    Chris Gillman: I would rather surround myself with that guy and then go. Okay, by the way, we'll work on polishing you later. Sure, Sure.

    Chris Hanslik: Right, it's something to work with, right. So you know, you say you kind of, over the last what 13, 14 years you've been building this company, what are some of the things that have occurred along that journey that you maybe surprised you and wish you had to know, and kind of those hard lessons that you learned along the way.

    Chris Gillman: But man, you're like man. I'm gonna try to use the word empathy and feeling bad for a situation verse what happens from a business insurance legal world. We had a technician that was working on a car after hours, illegally, with another employee as another employee's car, and the company policy is you have to have a ticket, a repair order, on any car that's in our shop. That is standard rule, that is rule number one. Rule number two working on an employee car is especially, you have to have a manager signature. Number three you can't be working on a car after hours without the shop being open, with management around. Well, this technician and this his buddy, both of employees working on a car after hours. The car goes up on an alignment rack, they don't fully secure it, the car falls down and the car falls on the employee's head and his jaw is just dangling. I mean, it's just terrible. Right ambulance comes. He rushes to the hospital. I find out I was like, oh my god, I'm at home. It's like 8 o'clock at night, I run the hospital. You know, at the time you new, fresh business owner Dad's passed, got all this stuff, like what. So I call the attorney, insurance agent, people. What do I do Right and he goes. Did he violate company policy? Yes, he did. He goes.

    When you first see him fire and I'm like, have you lost your damn mind? This man is in the hospital car and he goes. Chris, the violent company policy yeah, yes, you have to fire him and I go, but his jaw is dang. He's in this hospital. This is bad. He goes, chris, if you don't do it, I will drive down there and I will do it for you. You need to fire him. And I was like, oh my God, so will do it for you. You need to fire him. And I was like, oh my god, so I went. I saw this guy and had his mother and his sister, his girlfriend, a bunch of employees are all in the lobby like oh this, you know, poor guy, and I fired him.

    I felt is like a piece like, like just a piece of sand, like a piece of grit, you know. Yeah, and that was the defining moment of knowing, okay, I now live where I was just a normal general manager employee. Now I've gone to business person owner. This is the world now I live in and to me that was like a turning point of know your insurance, know the law, know the HR and when an incident happens which something will always happen, no matter what make sure that when you make the phone call at that time you have somebody you trust that will give you the right advice so you can make the right decision. Because the employee sued anyway and they lost because we did everything by the book, right. But my normal mindset would have been like, okay, let's do this, you know, and I would have done it, I would have handled it differently, but the attorney told me to do it like that. So have good representation, that's a good point.

    Chris Hanslik: Look, there's the, especially with us being a law firm.

    Chris Gillman: Yeah exactly by the way Boyd Miller used them.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, the. But there's a fine line right of that, as the leader and owner, having to make some tough calls to protect the business while still trying to show some compassion and empathy towards your employees, because you want to retain good employees, you want to have loyalty amongst your employees where they are true team members, right, and so it's finding that balance. It's not easy.

    Chris Gillman: Well, it's also that during the hiring process, you know you have someone that has. You know we do background checks on you, okay, and let's just say, let's say you have some bad stuff on your background, right? Well, it's my job to have it. So when female employees come to work, they know that the 879 other employees people, right, you know you have to have that good work environment instead of going okay. By the way, we've got a guy over here. He's been a past felon. It was 10 years ago, but hey, it's 10 years ago, it's past. Like no, I mean, that's probably crossing some of the HR laws right now, but I background check you and if you're a famous words of what Trump says, you're a bad hombre, I don't hire you.

    Chris Hanslik: Oh man, that's good. So what would you say if you were advising a young entrepreneur, maybe about to start? What are some of the biggest lessons that you would want to pass along? Maybe one or two, maybe three things of. Here's some things that you ought to consider that I did, or I've seen others do, that worked.

    Chris Gillman: You know, the number one thing I would definitely say is you're going. I'm going to use this example and tell it to a lot of people. At one point in time, babe Ruth was the home run king. He was also the strikeout king. You've got to keep swinging and there's going to be failure. You're going to stub your toe. You've got to find a way every day to get back up on the horse, get back in the saddle, get back in that car, drive your ass to work, figure out a way. It's going to work out If you believe in it and you do it and you hustle and surround yourself with people that believe in the same thing that you do. And just, you've got to keep fighting. It's the fighters that work and people are like oh, that's just cheesy as shit. You know something? I've never met anybody that has started their business and said you know, it just fell into my lap.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, I'll tell you this. I mean we're, I don't know 80 some odd episodes into this podcast and everyone that's come on has said it was harder than I thought. It will be harder than you expect it to be. Expect the unexpected Right. All those things Right, Because it's not easy.

    Chris Gillman: It's not easy, but if it was easy everybody would be doing it, yeah for sure.

    Chris Hanslik: So part of that to get to success is you've got to be profitable. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit. I mean maybe your mindset and how you balance getting the short-term profitability to keep the business going against long-term sustainability.

    Chris Gillman: So one thing I'm going to say, and people kind of get mad at me for saying this, but profit is not a bad thing.

    Chris Hanslik: Period, period, end of story.

    That's what you're in business for that's why I'm in business.

    Chris Gillman: Okay, return on my investment. Not only you need to reinvest into your employees. If you reinvest into your employees, they will bring back profitability and make your business go longer. Put the money back into your employees. That's number one. Number two there's a big thing that we're currently doing is I use the word data mining. Data mining is I'm taking my own current customers that are doing business with me in the service department. They're driving a two to three year old car and I just look at him. I go, hey, would you like the exact same car, one trim level up, at the exact same payment?

    and the customer goes you're telling me if I can get 2.9 for 60 months. The exact same car, but now this car has leather as a sunroof, has navigation, has Apple CarPlay and they have the exact same payment. Sounds Sounds too good to be true and I go, yeah, and they go, yeah. That's a no brainer. I've spent zero advertising dollars, right, yeah.

    Chris Hanslik: So you're just looking at what the data you already own.

    Chris Gillman: Right, I own the data. It's managing my own data and then, I'm leasing that customer and I'm currently doing gas and go. The only thing you got to do is put gas in the car. I cover your maintenance. I cover doors, dings and whatever road hazard stuff on your car. The only thing you got to do is put gas in it and then, when you're done, come back, come get another car. So I am creating my own market so I could be sustainable.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, so like a reoccurring revenue, almost like software licensing right.

    Chris Gillman: Exactly. But I'm doing that with my own customer base so I don't have to rely on going to go get new customers to go battle 16 other Honda stores, eight other Subaru stores and we're all fighting for that one customer, over $100 on the price of a car. I'm keeping my current customers happy so I don't have to play in that crazy. Oh, let's all go cut each other's throats price war.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, there's so much truth to that. To me, that is transcends in across all industries. We always find ourselves, I think, trying to get the new customer and we lose sight of the existing right and we have this existing customer base. That's gotten our business where it is, and not that you don't want to grow, but you can grow the existing base. You can grow revenue and profit from your existing base if you're smart about it, and not that you don't want to add new customers too right, but it's that current customer already likes you.

    Chris Gillman: You already have good csi. Well in the industry it's good is customer satisfaction and index. I like to call it constant source of income right yeah, and so your current customer base is. That's where your money is. That's what you need to focus on. You don't need to go focus and go spend thousands of millions of dollars to go find new customers. You already have people that are happy with you already yeah, no, you're right, it's.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah.

    Chris Gillman: You don't have to convince them no, you don't have to give it and they're coming back into your service department anyway. So so they bought the car and they're servicing with you. I mean, do you need to get hit over the head with a two by four? Hey, they already like.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, so you mentioned something to the first point you said was reinvest in your employees. Yeah, when you? When I think about that concept, and which I think is very true, it brings up to mind culture. Right, you're investing in your employees. You want them to like where they are, you want them to see opportunity. How would you describe the culture that you have built or trying to build at team gilman?

    Chris Gillman: number one. We are trying to build this thing daily on a culture right. So whatever the vision is I'm sorry, the vision that we have up on top, we're trying to really push it down and sometimes the culture from the bottom comes up and we find a way to meet it. It's you know I don't want to say how do I say it. I want you to treat everybody kind of like it's your grandmother right Right.

    You know, if your grandma's in the room, if you feel like that's something bad, you shouldn't be doing it right? You know don't ask, don't tell someone to do something Unless they've seen you do it first. You know, if you ask someone to go pick up a piece of trash while you're walking around the car lot because trash blows, you know that employee's not going to pick it up unless he sees you do it. You know, lead by example, right. You know, doing stuff like that Giving back into the community, being the SPCA, doing it with dog shelters, buying dogs and training them for blind people, stuff like that donating to cancer, whatever charity that we have going on I want the employees to know that not only am I giving back to the community, but I also want them to know that, hey, your kid's soccer team, your kid's football team, I want to sponsor it, I want to take care of it, and they also feel like it's a good thing for them yeah, okay, so that inclusive, we're going to take care of you.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, we're going to take customer right.

    Chris Gillman: So like during covid, you know I'll probably catch a lot of shit for this, but you know, hey, it is what it is.

    Chris Hanslik:During covid, new car supply was non-existent the inventories went down, right prices went down everything.

    Chris Gillman: Well, I needed also used cars to sell. Well, the only way you get used cars is to take trade-ins, right. Well, we normally trade company average around 50. So for every 100 new cars you sell, we get 50 trades. Well, I sat there and I said hey guys, we need to be trading around 80%.

    I have people that need to buy cars and I had some people get mad at me. They're like well, what happens if I don't have a trade? I got 20%, but I'm not selling you a car. They go well, that's just not fair. And I go well, okay. Well, I got 20%, but I'm not selling you a car. And they go well, that's just not fair. And I go well, okay.

    Well, out of my 800 employees, how about I just have to go fire 160 of them and we'll see what's fair? You know it's make you mad or go fire these 160 souls that have nothing to do with it, because the economy is something it wasn't. It wasn't something that I did as a bad businessman. It was just because of a virus or whatever. Right, and next thing I know is they have to lose their job. So I made business rules to keep these employees intact. Now, did I piss off some customers. Yeah, I did but did. But at the end of the day I kept my 160 employees and at the end of the day I put my employees first, over the customer. And some people might disagree or agree with that, whatever, but I put my employees first and that's what makes me successful.

    Chris Hanslik: I think that's what you've got to do, so they take care of the customer, right? Yes, because if you have customers with no employees to service them, you're not going to have that customer very long either, right? So that makes sense. What were some of the? You mentioned, obviously the shortage of new car supply.

    I mean, you know, it's nice to kind of be turning the page into 2025 and we're five years now from 2020, which you know is you know a distant past, but talk about some of the leadership challenges you face in keeping the company together, keeping all those employees together oh, well, you know, finding good people is hard.

    Chris Gillman: It is really hard. There are some benefits to COVID, you know. I mean you hear, you know let's talk about Texas business. Okay, sure, there's a lot of businesses. Talk about Texas business. Okay, sure, there's a lot of businesses that had record years during COVID.

    Chris Hanslik:Okay.

    Chris Gillman: Some of them failed, some of them dive bombed, but some guys they had not only record years, but it was crazy. So let's talk about that elephant in the room. Right, there are some people that just got overpaid during COVID Period, end of story. And it wasn't because of their stellar management style, it wasn't because of what they did or what they brought to the table. It was the market that got them overpaid, right, and when COVID went down, then now they have to get back to working, get back to doing follow-up, get back to the basics, get back to the foundation of whatever industry that they're in. And it's made some people lazy and it has created a vacuum or a vortex of people hopping around different businesses because they keep chasing that COVID number that's out there and some of them have come to, okay, you know Now, some of them, it's made them lazy.

    Chris Hanslik: I've seen it. I call it the COVID malaise. Yes, and just saying we're five years removed and it's still out there.

    And it's still to me, one of the biggest impediments to your business achieving its fullest potential Right Is getting people. So many people came into the workforce at that time, yeah, and that's all they knew. And they don't know any different. And I mean, was it yesterday, in the last day or so? Right, jp Morgan, everyone's back to work in the office five days a week? Absolutely. Amazon announced it in what October or so, but it started this week and I said for a while that was where the pendulum was going to start swinging back and it's back there where the hybrid work. I don't know if it will ever go away but it is going away in big numbers.

    Chris Gillman: I had salespeople come to me and go. I want to work from home. And I went great, knock yourself out. And they were like I'm at home. I've, I've been at home now for 10 days and I haven't sold a car and I go, yeah, because no one's knocking on your home door to come by a car.

    Chris Hanslik: They're knocking on my door, I mean some of them. It just makes sense, right?

    Chris Gillman: I mean it's just like a you know, some people just need to stay home, I guess. Right, well, it's, you know, covid.

    Chris Hanslik: Decisions have consequences.

    Chris Gillman: Yes, they do.

    Chris Hanslik: Yes, they do. So let's talk about you. Look back since 2011, when you took over. What's the one thing you're maybe most proud of at this moment? Knowing that you still have goals ahead of you.

    Chris Gillman: I guess one of the things that I look at each dealership like. They have their own heartbeat, you know, instead of making it a blanket, okay, these are the business rules at all. Yeah, we have our basic foundation rules, but each store has its own little heartbeat, you know.

    Chris Hanslik: And that's from a business standpoint.

    Chris Gillman: You know, I grew it from three stores to eight stores, so we we've doubled it up, almost tripled it. By the end of this year year we should have a night store. So I would have tripled the business. And just, we're just having fun, man, you know, just having fun, that's, yeah, every day's a new day and I'm not here to be cheesy when I say it, but it's, I don't think I've had one bad day. We're just having fun and every day's a new day and we're just kind of throwing a pickle on the windshield on the window. We're just kind of throwing a pickle up on the windshield on the window.

    We're like let's just see what happens, man you know. So we're having fun, so I'm sorry that's such a cheesy answer.

    Chris Hanslik: No, look, if you can't have fun, it's. I mean you won't be able to make it through the tough times, right, right and then they're going to be there.

    Chris Gillman: So if you don't love it, you know you're, you're in trouble.

    Chris Hanslik: Yeah, you're definitely in trouble. So well, that's great. I'm going to turn a little bit to some just going to be texas related things. Okay, tell us what's your favorite kind of maybe vacation spot in texas or a place to visit I think south texas is the most prettiest place in the world.

    Chris Gillman: You know, some people might look at a cactus or or a mesquite tree, but I look at him. You're like, well, that's just a thorny little bush man, but it's too. I love to hunt and I love to fish, so I love South Texas. I love lower Laguna, madre, I just died that whole ecosystem, everything down there. I think there's nothing better in life having a margarita looking at a South Texas sunset man. I think that's just. I think that's the most awesome feeling in the world. I'm sold.

    Chris Hanslik: I couldn't agree with you more. Well, kind of continuing that then. What about you know? Texas traditions, houston traditions, anything that you just love to do every year?

    Chris Gillman: So I have been fortunate enough. You know, one of the staples here in Houston is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, so I'm one of the announcers for Mutton Bustin'.

    Chris Hanslik: Okay.

    Chris Gillman: One of the volunteer gets you know. It's just a, it's a, it's an eight second ride for a little five year old, right and a fistful of wool Right. Literally it's a. You know, when they fall off that sheep it's a face full of dirt and a lifelong worth of drift of memories. Yeah, so I love the houston livestock show and rodeo only because I'm an announcer. As a kid my dad used to take me to the art car parade and so now, because of the financial situation, I'm in team gilman automotive, we are the main title sponsor and we have kind of built back up the art car parade. Okay, that's every year, that's in april, that goes up and down allen parkway I've been it.

    Chris Hanslik: I mean, if no one, especially if you're listening and you're in the greater houston area and you haven't been right, you owe it to yourself to go at least once it's definitely.

    Chris Gillman: you know, I was sitting there talking to a bunch of kids the other day and all these kids, all these different schools that I've donated some cars to, and they're like what's the one thing?

    that you can tell us and I go. Creativity takes courage and you know something? Amen, be creative, decorate the car, express it, do whatever you want, and let's just hope to God, the car runs in April so you can go up and tell them I'll impart quality, you know, because there are some cars, man, you're like, ooh, this thing needs some extra oil, right? So those are probably my two Houston things that I do tradition-wise.

    Chris Hanslik: All right, I love it. So last question do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Ooh, that's a bold that's tough.

    Chris Gillman: Save the hardest for the last.

    Chris Hanslik: That is tough man.

    Chris Gillman: I love crispy tacos man. I the hardest for the last. That is tough man. I love crispy tacos man. I mean, if you have a great three, three crispy tacos, I think everything else in the restaurant is good.

    Chris Hanslik: But it's also it's hard to beat a good dry chopped beef sandwich oh well, the crispy tacos you have to actually be able to eat right. Some places you know they're already in the grease and you can't pick them up.

    Chris Gillman: Yeah no, no, I'm the standard. I like old-fashioned Crispy tacos man. All right, I'm Texas, it's crispy tacos. Got it, chris? This?

    Chris Hanslik: has been great.

    Chris Gillman: Oh, thank you so much.

    Chris Hanslik: Really enjoyed the conversation. Congratulations for what you and your team are doing, not just with your business, but what you do for the community. So with your business and what you do for the community, so really appreciate it. I appreciate it, thank you for having me.

    Chris Gillman: And if anybody wants to buy a car? It's teamgillmancom.

    Chris Hanslik: There you go, all right,

    Special Guest: Chris Gillman.

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