00:00:00 – 00:01:00
what was one of the biggest challenges or toughest challenges that you faced in the industry and how how have you overcome it I’ll tell you being female in this industry uh wasn’t easy but I never looked at it as a disadvantage if anything I’ll tell you I’ve always seen it as an advantage you know talking about even my 16-year-old self when I would go to races when I’d go to car shows I always knew that because I was female I had an advantage and I utilized that welcome to the ride and style

00:00:30 – 00:01:33
podcast your turbocharged pit stop for automotive restyling buckle up with Jesse and Josh welcome to another episode of the ride in style podcast we’re already at episode 21 that’s very cool and today our guest is Katherine Reinhardt of hemings Katherine thank you so much for being here with us today yeah really excited this is going to be a lot of fun what do you do you like our name the Ryden Style no see she’s a marketing person so you know she’s like H whatever it’s the best that we could come up with we were

00:01:05 – 00:01:59
like pretty hard to combine pretty hard to combine all the different elements and it was kind of for restylers and then you know like it was it was a tough and those of us that don’t like cars it was tricky to come up we went through we went through a lot of names actually so and the fact that you don’t like it I’m already feeling pretty like a loser so yeah well did you ever think of like driving style like ride is usually motorcycle drive has four wheels we’re not that smart that’s that that

00:01:33 – 00:02:45
would require a lot of intelligence yeah we I and first of all I prefer being a chauffeur at all time uh so I or being chauffeur at all time so I prefer to ride in style I don’t like driving and be driven around right yeah exactly we’re high class Katherine we don’t we don’t just jump in our cars and drive places now yeah so Jesse always wants to know what how we met I don’t remember EX L the day in time so do you know no sorry it wasn’t that memorable yeah I guarantee she wasn’t wearing blue for

00:02:08 – 00:03:13
that so now I don’t remember the exact moment but I I remember lots of moments with Josh over the years look like that no whether it be at SEMA the actual show whether it be through our volunteerism work or um yeah I mean we we’ve had a lot of moments be Josh has been a really great volunteer with en Sema and so we’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time together talking about SEMA initiatives priorities so I think there’s been a lot of really good times together but I feel like we’ve also done a lot of really

00:02:41 – 00:03:57
good work yeah I think that my first memory of you was uh in back in Anaheim when you were the ltaa chair and uh I think you were maybe your first or second year I don’t know yeah that sounds about right yeah that honestly that sounds like a long time ago as well it was um that that was a lot of fun you know being the chair of a select committee is a lot of power but it’s also a lot of heat and you’re trying to do everything you can for those constituents that are paying extra money to be a part of your Council and

00:03:19 – 00:04:12
you’ve got to deliver in terms of value you’ve got to deliver in terms of you know Communications and it’s a lot of work but it’s a very rewarding experience and so I’m glad that I got to do it I’m glad you got to do it as well did you did you were you on the select committee for a couple years of LTA before you jumped into chair how long did long did you do it great question so I actually said no when they said can you run for chairel and I was like oh God don’t like I don’t have time for

00:03:45 – 00:04:48
that yeah and they said well you’re kind of already doing it now and I thought okay well I guess I’ll do it and there was a person that was chairel and then all of a sudden that person left and so I really had to jump in and then they asked me what I do uh cuz I was supposed to be chairel but that person left to go uh and was supposed to go into a chair role and he left abruptly and then I wasn’t ready to be a chair so they ended up bringing in Lee Riser she came back as a chair did it for two years so that

00:04:16 – 00:05:20
I could have my two years of chairel and then I went into chair wow oh wow that’s a that is a odd story so you do I mean how many years have you been volunteering then total I mean how many years were you on LTA what uh let’s see that were you were you there for 12 years or just well they’re threeyear terms right twoyear terms twoyear terms so I was in my second term so I probably did a good four and then four six yeah so 10 well you you got on the board during your IPC right correct yeah okay so that kind of

00:04:49 – 00:06:02
transfers over and how long youve been on the board now uh so I’m on year five you are almost done am I graduated well we won’t talk about but yeah so you have to do something different next year you can’t just sit on the board as a select or a board member yeah you know the board is uh a lot of work as well even more than being a chair of a council but those are three-year terms and so yeah I’m on my fifth year of my second term wow hey Jessie Catherine before we get into history because I was going to

00:05:25 – 00:06:20
ask you some questions there why may maybe you could start out by telling us what you do now what what uh what is it that you’re currently involved in and give us just a little summary yeah so my history is I’ve been in the automotive aftermarket for the last 20 years basically my entire career and I was fortunate enough to be able to work with a company called hemings and hings a lot of people may or may not know it it’s been around for 70 years we actually celebrated the 70th Anniversary

00:05:52 – 00:06:51
this past SEMA show and uh they’re based in Bennington Vermont which is uh the origination of the magazine and the magazine was really just a buyer guide for Model T and model A’s so that’s the history and people utilized this book in order to buy and sell their vehicles and then it just escalated from there more Vehicles came about people started entering them into the classified section of this magazine then they added more books to it and now recently they’ve created an online marketplace

00:06:22 – 00:07:23
where you can buy and sell collector car vehicles so right now it’s actually the largest Online Marketplace to buy collector car vehicles in the world World H very cool how many do you own me personally how many collector cars or how many [Laughter] magazines I could so my problem with having a collector car is what if it doesn’t start then I got to call somebody because I can’t figure it out totally so I don’t have any collector cars because I have put all of my money into my Bronco uh which I love

00:06:52 – 00:07:51
passionately but uh I don’t have any collector cars but you know you can also buy motorcycles on there you can buy parts you can also buy real estate I don’t know how people are doing it but they are selling real estate on hem.com so how what if you could buy a collector card do you have one you would buy oh yeah my dad was a big fanatic for uh Shelby Mustang so I’d love to be able to have a Mustang and of course that pairs well with my Ford Bronco yeah yeah well your Bronco can pull it so how how did you tell us about

00:07:22 – 00:08:23
the very beginning how did you even get into the automotive industry what are the some of your early jobs or early things that you were involved in how did you get pulled in into it sounds like it was a family thing no so Jesse great question no um my family admired cars but never was in the car scene at all so taking you back I was uh 16 years old and uh my boyfriend at the time had a Z28 Camaro and I spent every weekend in the garage with him and his dad uh pulling the motor um you know modifying

00:07:53 – 00:09:01
the vehicle doing all these really fun things and so when I turned 16 I was like I really want to get my own car and I worked through Summers um I raised all this money and I went to a car dealership and it was fast and furious time so I wanted I wanted a Honda Civic and um I this is actually a great story I went to the Honda dealership and uh I wanted this specific model called the SI and they only made it in three colors and it only came in a manual transmission white black red black red and blue this oh there you

00:08:26 – 00:09:23
go and so the guy asked me do you know how to drive a stick cuz I wanted to take it for a test drive and I go oh absolutely you liar you did not know I totally lied totally lied and the dealership sits on this huous incline so I I take the car first spin I go out and I stall instantly I can’t even get it up the hill and my dad’s in the passenger seat and he’s like no she doesn’t know how to drive a stick so uh it was uh really funny um I ended up getting it out there and taking it back

00:08:55 – 00:09:47
but um I ended up buying the car and probably because you had to replace the clutch on it actually I didn’t buy I did it in a red Honda Civic but I wanted the blue so they had to order the blue for me so I get I go back to the dealership I picked up the car and I take it home and I start tearing it apart and my mother comes outside and she goes what what are you doing why why are you taking tires off it’s a brand new car I don’t understand and I said well that was the whole goal is I wanted

00:09:21 – 00:10:14
to modify it I wanted to customize it I wanted to make it my own and she she walked back inside the house and was like I don’t get it she’s crazy yeah and and she was probably right at the time but what turned out is I started taking it to car shows I started drag racing it I started autocrossing it and I had the best time ever and as a result of all these events that I went to these sponsors would come up to me and say do you have any sponsors or like you know do do you want free product and I’m like

00:09:47 – 00:10:42
yeah I’d love free product give it to me so it translated into me being what they would call now an influencer for those Brands and I would uh uh because I was the only female doing a lot of this I got a lot of media attention so super Street magazine I was featured in uh sport compact car all of these magazines wanted me to be in there um in their books and it escalated from there and then one of my sponsors came to me and said you should go to the SEMA show and I go what’s the SEMA show I lived in

00:10:15 – 00:11:07
Atlanta at the time and our big show was note Nationals and most of your viewers are going to hear that and go I don’t even know what that is but it was like our SEMA show of the southeast and so I went to SEMA that year I got on a plane went to SEMA and I remember walking into the show I remember seeing people standing in a booth and I would go up to them and go you get paid money to stand here and talk about car parts all day long you’re like this is a job you can get a job doing this stuff that’s what I

00:10:41 – 00:11:36
said and I went oh my God so I went back to Atlanta I just bought a house I put up my house for rent I quit my job I broke up with my boyfriend and I go I’m moving to California and I’m going to give this a real real try I’m going to see if I can work this out wait okay stop there for a second stop stop this is a great story but I have questions so so were you already going to break up with him probably no no like we we were on the marriage track like this was legit so he was going to move into the

00:11:09 – 00:12:09
house you had bought oh no we were living together oh my gosh you kicked your you kicked him out and you sold your house and you said I’m leaving my family and I’m going to move to Southern California cuz that’s where most the manufacturers are and you just drove your blue SI to California well no I had sold the blue SI by then now had a black SI but I trailered it with my U-Haul across the country drove across and by the way this is back in the day where like I went on to roommates.com and

00:11:38 – 00:12:33
found a place sight unseen and was like I’m going and like nowadays you wouldn’t ever do something like that that is like complete risk but I thought a guy with a mask goes hi I’m your new roommate and you’re like oh good I I found you it was uh it was a little crazy and here’s actually the the next part of that story so I get to California and I moov to a town called Corona and but between us I went there because I thought well I like Corona beer it’s got to be pretty good that has nothing to do

00:12:06 – 00:13:06
with and Corona is probably about an hour’s drive from the beach and my job that I had found was in Huntington Beach oh my goodness and you lived in the desert oh it was actually Farmland it was like very un populated at the time you walked out of your home and you smelled cure so um that only lasted a few months and then I finally got my first start at an automotive company and it was a Wheel company called C Wheels CL edenburg and uh I got my first start and it was amazing from there so what did you do

00:12:37 – 00:13:45
when you worked there where you weren’t marketing director or anything right no I mean so I sold this is actually even funnier I don’t know how but I was such a good salesperson that they said we want you to sell novatech and Tech art and this is very high-end so novatech is an aftermarket um uh body kit company for Ferraris and Tech art is body kits and wheels uh for Porsches so now I’m selling to dealers who buy Porsche and Ferrari parts and I’m 22 years old selling all of this stuff to them and

00:13:11 – 00:14:04
they have no idea who I am and I don’t know what I’m talking about but all I’m saying is hey don’t put just buy one of these buy three of them and all of a sudden I just made a sale for $30,000 cuz you know a ground effects kid on a Ferrari is you know 12 Grand $10,000 yeah yeah so uh that was a very interesting job that I had and so as a result I started doing more and more sales work and then I moved up from there and marketing was always really my passion uh sales was just something I

00:13:39 – 00:14:40
think I was good at because I wouldn’t take no for an answer yeah yeah I wonder I’ve never I’ve never seen that part of you yep y yep and and so go ahead J looking back you know because you had quite a journey and you started pretty young but looking back what would you tell yourself just getting started in the in the industry you know but you got to take the risk uh to get the reward um dump your boyfriend dump your boyfriend dump your boyfriend your boyfriend sell your house uh you know I I always say this

00:14:09 – 00:14:58
and I say this to this day you never get what you don’t ask for and if you don’t make the effort and make the ask then you’re never going to get it and I’ve always been that type of person I’ve always wanted to uh get what I wanted and never give up and I teach that to my kids of this day but it’s it’s hard to make the leap but make the leap you’ll never know what you’re going to find and you never left California I have never left California as a result and honestly That was

00:14:34 – 00:15:37
supposed to be a one-year deal if it didn’t work out I could move back into my house cuz I rented it out for a year and uh that one year came up and I go let’s sell it we’re we’re we’re staying here forever yeah good weather so now uh you’re you’re working for a company and we’ll talk about in between but I’m it just blown away do you have any inclination to move to Vermont I do not okay I’ll just make it sure okay even if they offered you a brand new 1994 Honda Civic SI in royal blue no no

00:15:05 – 00:15:55
okay no all right fair enough so you work there for a little while um y let me go back to the blue SI for a minute what was the first thing you did to that thing when I mean when you said you tore it apart in the garage I mean did you put wheels on it did you put a spoiler I mean it already had a spoiler probably but it did it did uh you know what actually the first thing um was and this is no plug to K&N but it was a K&N intake um I really wanted to get an intake header an exhaust those were kind

00:15:30 – 00:16:32
of the the burger the fries and the coke uh performance was where it was at at the time and Josh I’ll tell you when I when I finished with that thing it had a widebody kit on it it had a roll cage it had bulk Rays on it um I had you have like ricaro seats in it like with this racing and the shifter and everything I had Momo seats on it because Momo was one of my sponsors I had an RSX headlight conversion tail light conversion I had um Wings West body kit I mean I had everything you could possibly think of like it was like um

00:16:01 – 00:17:03
you know when people tell you in fashion like to edit down like take off accessories I had everything on it and I couldn’t take anything off and um this was back in the day where you could actually sell a car on eBay eBay Motors had just started and so I put my car up on eBay and this guy offered me $30,000 for a Honda Civic and I was like what totally it’s yours come pick it up and he did yeah um so I sold it and um I I don’t think I made any money off of it it probably I broke yeah yeah you lost

00:16:32 – 00:17:40
money let me just tell you let me let me tell you right now in my and he inherit an electrical problem by the way but that’s okay uh my if my mother’s listening I broke even yeah oh okay fair enough yeah yeah totally broke even oh my gosh okay so uh after you were selling high-end Ferrari parts to all the Ferrari dealers I’m sure there’s hundreds of them in Southern California but um where’d you go next was that to flow at that point or no oh no I made a couple pit stops um I I went to Advan star and I sold print

00:17:06 – 00:18:08
ads uh if you guys remember print magazines I sold print ads for motorcycles I sold Booth space for dealer Expo that’s actually how I met Tom cuso from the SEMA show runs the SEMA show now uh we had a really good uh working relationship where I was selling motorcycle uh boost spots uh print ads I did styling performance and then I ended up working at gor Rhino uh where I kind of got the truck Jeep off-road bug and then I went to MagnaFlow and spent seven years there and what a great company to

00:17:37 – 00:18:47
work for uh what a great family to be a part of uh and then from there I went um to Pilot and then I went to foral parts and that was a journey spending three years there doing nothing but off-road Jeep Bronco working with Ford helping launch the Ford Bronco wow and then um yeah now at Heming so tell us a little bit about that launch that launching of the Ford Bronco what that sounds fascinating what was that like oh that’s a great story so we’re at King of the Hammers um it’s 2020 uh yeah uh and uh no it’s 2021 and

00:18:12 – 00:19:03
we’re still Marine mass at the time and Ford comes over to us and they said hey like we want you guys to help us launch the Ford Bronco and I cool sounds great like what do you need us to do he goes well we’re going to ship you a Ford Bronco and we need you to accessorize it make it customizable so that uh you know it’s in relationship to what people are doing with the Jeep Wrangler and uh we need you to bring it to um the show and help us unveil it and I go cool what’s the show he goes oh it’s uh Easter Jeep

00:18:37 – 00:19:38
Safari and I go that’s six weeks away yeah and we seen it’s not Jesse at this point it’s not like you call up and you say hey can you send me the Bronco parts because you have all of them laying in stock and just tons of SKS we haven’t even seen the Bronco like we’re all seeing it the Bronco for the first time at Ko and all they had was a twoo base Bronco and we’re just like well like what do you mean like we we haven’t even seen it our engineering team hasn’t seen it we have to build

00:19:08 – 00:20:10
stuff and they were like so are you in or out like okay I’m in yeah I just got to sell my house and dumb my boyfriend and I’m in and so I said okay well I went back to foral parts and I said hey guys like we can’t say no Ford says jump we say how high so two weeks later uh the Ford bronos shows up and then they also say can you do one more we’re also going to send you the Ford Bronco sport oh okay sure so the next six weeks I’ll tell you I’ve never worked with better engineering product development teams in

00:19:40 – 00:20:41
my entire career it was all hands on deck nobody said that wasn’t my job we all said we’re going to figure it out and we ended up creating 36 products between the Bronco and Bronco sport uh complet the first lift right including the first lift um we I don’t know how we did it but we managed to get the vehicle there on time uh ARB RTR and fourwh parts were the three strategic partners that Ford picked to unveil that vehicle at ejs and I think the headline was uh Ford crash the Jeep party which was

00:20:11 – 00:21:08
really cool to be a part of that launch because you really got to work hand inand with an oem and um really overd deliver on something that you weren’t sure you could actually do to begin with and that really elevated foral parts to be able to be the Bronco headquarters for everything aftermarket you know if you wanted aftermarket products for your Bronco you were pre-ordering them before you even got your Bronco from forp parts.com and so that was something to be really uh you know grateful to be a

00:20:38 – 00:21:34
part of so cool great story so Jesse here here’s your chance I mean listen you’re a marketing Guru and Katherine’s a marketing Guru so you guys talk marketing stuff like what marketing question would you ask her about this industry totally yeah and you’ve got such a unique perspective um I want to know Katherine what what you think about in general just like maybe at a high level right now in the industry what are you seeing in terms of marketing that you like that you don’t like and where

00:21:07 – 00:21:59
do you think it’s going in terms of marketing and because you you have a slightly different perspective you’re working on different kinds of projects but i’ love to hear what you have to say about it I don’t like the name Ryden style well we know that but let’s move past that you you know I’ll tell you co was such an interesting time for all of us you know I think we all had these really great marketing plans hands in our heads and we all essentially crumbled them up and threw them out the window and said

00:21:33 – 00:22:33
we got to think of something else and so a lot of that became digital marketing I think a lot of that became social marketing um and now that can I say CO’s over now that CO’s over it’s over um a lot of that has also changed I think we’ve gone a little bit backwards in the fact that we really wanted to have you know one toone touches and so I think a lot of event marketing has come back I think a lot of people are looking for experience itial marketing they want to have uh unique uh experiences where they

00:22:03 – 00:23:09
can touch and feel taste product and then be able to uh receive it after the fact I think that people are really looking for uh influencers ambassadors people that they know and trust to be storytellers of their brand uh so that people feel connected and ultimately want to use that product in uh their hobbies and in their lifestyle so I think marketing has really shifted uh from a batch and blast to really one to one and more uh hand to hand I love it I can couldn’t agree more I I might use

00:22:37 – 00:23:22
slightly different words but it’s the same thing I I like you know we we we got kind of crazy with the digital movement to the point where everybody says that’s it well then everybody flooded into that and they got really dumb because in the old days when you did print marketing or or whatever you had to think really carefully about what your ad said because you were going to spend a lot of money to do it now people can say whatever they want on digital because it’s cheap and they end up doing

00:22:59 – 00:23:49
a lot of dumb things right so and I love what you said about the influencers and the experience I couldn’t agree more I think I like to say it’s like the blend of the old and the new so there’s no reason why we can’t take the online and combine it with offline and we could have it more interactive and also people want human connection with all the AI and everything out there it’s like well people want even more it just raised the bar on the expectation and people really want to know more about that they’re

00:23:24 – 00:24:17
dealing with a human when they when they work with a company they don’t want to deal with a bot so yeah I like what you said yeah I completely agree you know heminges has their own um four series events called muscle paloa which we haven’t had in a couple years and uh it’s kind of a stretch for reaching new customers we’re actually going to have in-person events where people can go drag racing and have a car show so again that experience touch is really important um but what we saw were people

00:23:51 – 00:24:42
that wanted to get out of the house they wanted to meet the brands that they’re ultimately utilizing and so having this event series is costly but and it’s a big risk but uh what I’ve seen and we’ve only had one thus far and it was um at Maple gra rway and these people want to talk they want to talk about their vehicles they want to talk about what they do with the vehicles and they want to talk about how your brand can help them in their Hobby and I think that’s really important and the ride and

00:24:16 – 00:25:08
drives are huge I think that being able to have people experience things uh they remember those for uh for the rest of their lives it’s not just uh send me an email um we do a little bit of everything we do we do Billboards we do social media we do we do it all I don’t think there’s one bullet in the chamber that says this is the perfect way to Market to somebody It’s a combination of everything like you said Jesse Yeah I love you thank you for emphasizing that I have to preach that all the time it I

00:24:42 – 00:25:36
had a mentor once that told me I can I can help you find uh a hundred ways to get one lead but I’m going to be hard pressed to help you find one way that gets you 100 leads and the whole point was it was about diversification just like you would with an Investment Portfolio and you guys are doing that which is super cool good example of it um what’s a big what was one of the biggest challenges or toughest challenges that you faced in the industry and how how have you overcome it you sound like you’ve been through a

00:25:09 – 00:26:08
lot of different things I I love maybe whatever comes to mind is maybe one of the bigger challenges or toughest things you face yeah and why are you smirking right now because that there’s you know I’ll I’ll tell you um this is a this is a this is a kid-friendly show by the way but it’s totally tvma go ahead listen um I’ll tell you being female in this industry uh wasn’t easy but I never looked at it as a disadvantage if anything I’ll tell you I’ve always seen it as an advantage you know talking

00:25:40 – 00:26:52
about even my 16-year-old self when um when I would go to races when I’d go to car shows um I I always knew that because I was female I had an advantage and I utilized that now fast forward to working in the industry I definitely had a lot of people uh Overlook me uh not consider me for positions uh not think that I knew what I was talking about from a you know program uh product mechanical standpoint so there’s been issues of of you know gender inequality if you would say but I always looked for

00:26:16 – 00:27:27
the opportunity that allowed me uh a better way to navigate that and so I know a lot of people may look at women having a disadvantage I’ve always used that as an advantage in in any situation possible uh because I think that most people want to have a diversified mix of people but I also think that uh women bring a really valuable uh perspective and expertise totally oh my yeah I think uh good answer sorry am I lagging no you’re fine keep going I was just going to say good answer good answer oh yeah

00:26:52 – 00:27:43
no I mean listen all of her answers are as if she’s got them written right in front of her and she’s reading off a prompter okay that’s you mean that in a good way he mean that a good way no it’s great I mean listen she and what I do love about her she doesn’t um she never comes up with excuses it’s always let’s move forward let’s get this done and if she if we fail I mean if there’s things that we fail okay what did we learn from it let’s do it better next time it’s not

00:27:17 – 00:28:13
you know sit there and sulk like so many people do it drives me nuts you know but I think that’s part of being in small businesses instead of larger corporations so talk about that you’ve been in all different Siz businesses and a lot of them are SEMA members what do you see as far as the difference between large companies that are SEMA members versus small companies uh you know I’ve worked for both um and I’ve loved working for each one and they also they both had different Dynamics uh I’ll I’ll

00:27:45 – 00:28:39
talk about being at MagnaFlow I loved the family Dynamic of that I loved being able to uh avoid red tape go straight to the president and say I’ve got this great idea and he goes yeah go with it sounds great um I’ve also worked for corporations where I had that same idea and they were like well did you ask your boss first oh oh I have to go through that chain of command oh okay um so there’s there’s definitely advantages to both of them I will say working at foral Parts I got to work under leaders that

00:28:12 – 00:29:05
came from Polaris and OEM and they had a lot of red tape but it was good red tape because I learned um different evaluations different steps different questions I needed to ask myself instead of just running with an idea I needed to have you know a strategy I needed to have a proposal proposal I needed to think it all the way through and have rebuttal when I presented this what did I think they were going to say no to and be ready for that and be prompted for that you know I worked at small companies like gor Rhino where you know

00:28:39 – 00:29:28
the owner was the person that was also making the product in the back um and those are great experiences because I got hands-on experience of things that I would not have gotten at a corporation because I needed to stay in my Lane so it was a variety of both and uh to anybody starting this industry I would say you know work for both companies have as much experience as possible never say that isn’t my job go in there and go I’m going to learn or I’m going to figure it out and I love what you

00:29:03 – 00:30:01
said earlier you know failure is just learning failure is finding every way not to do it and then being able to say okay well let’s try this way because that’s the only way left yeah oh yeah no it’s you got to do that you got to do that so I all right so you have to tell Jesse I want I want you to talk about your Bronco race talk about the race how awesome was that and you did it what two years right yeah so first of all I have to tell you it’s not a race it’s a rally okay rally sorry I’m sorry uh because

00:29:32 – 00:30:57
it’s not a race for Speed it’s a rally for accuracy uh so Jesse have you ever heard of the Rebel rally I think I have but I don’t know what it is great okay so I want you to imagine uh that you were in a vehicle for 8 days and you have to go about, 1500 miles uh off-roading and there is no no GPS no cell phones you’re using a compass and a map to find yourself off-road trying to find um uh you know checkpoints that are either big flags or tiny poles or invisible checkpoints and then you have to check uh uh through a

00:30:14 – 00:31:27
um a satellite and say I’m at the coordinates I think I’m supposed to be at and then kind of hope and wish that you are where you are collect points along the way and these are 10hour days for 8 days in a vehicle with someone else and not kill each other and and somehow win at the end yeah this is insane it’s like geocaching meets Around the World in 80 Days insane Adventure in and and people it’s like I it’s it’s like The Amazing Race and Survivor oh and here’s the best part only women can

00:30:50 – 00:31:57
compete oh that’s a Twist awesome interesting so I found this event probably uh a few years ago and I knew someone that was doing it and between us I was like uh she doesn’t seem like the outdoorsy person so I kept thinking to myself well she could do this I could do this right I’m an off-roader I’ve been off-roading for 10 years at that point and I thought I could do this so um at the time I was at four parts and uh Tori was a female cooworker and so we were at off-road Expo and I said hey Tori um I found this

00:31:24 – 00:32:21
event where we can go off-roading for like eight days and not have to go to the office and she was like woo sounds like fun I go great I already signed us up and then I sent her the link and she goes what the hell is this yeah where where’s the bathroom by the way oh there is no bathroom and that’s another great point so you sleep in a tent that you pitch every night on the ground yeah wow oh my goodness and what and you just do you stop for food ever I mean I mean I it’s not like you just roll

00:31:53 – 00:32:53
through McDonald’s what do you have like pack I mean what do you have to pack enough food for eight days and ration it out now they do have uh a Michelin star Chef that cooks you breakfast and dinner each night so the food there is actually very good uh but during the day you’re on the road and they are long travel days these could be a couple hundred miles so yeah you got to pack your own lunch so uh our go-to were like peanut butter and jelly uh you know fruit snacks whatever we could possibly get our hands on uh ARB

00:32:23 – 00:33:17
gave us a fridge so that actually helped keep everything cool which was nice because this is a desert um you start in a uh Northern California uh Nevada area so it’s cold and then it becomes super hot as you get further down cuz we always end in Glamis at the dunes which is pretty um intense because the the dunes you can’t see anything you could be looking for a checkpoint and I could tell Tori I’m like we’re it’s here it’s here like I don’t see the flag why isn’t

00:32:49 – 00:33:48
the flag right here and then you would basically turn around and it was right behind you on the other side of that Sand Hill oh my go so it’s a very competitive uh you know group of women there’s about 50 to 60 Vehicles so about 100 to 120 women so when you do reach base camp to answer your question Josh there are four trailer bathrooms but four for 120 women you could see how that could get a little ugly I could I could see where that would take seven hours yep um but it’s an incredible

00:33:19 – 00:34:03
experience and I say that because you you do this thinking you’re coming in here and you’re winning and I’m very very competitive and so I remember in our first training in Miller the host of Rebel she goes who here thinks they’re going to win and my hand immediately goes up and I’m the only hand and I’m like why is anybody else raising their hands and she goes listen you’re probably not going to win because there’s women that have been doing this for six years at that point and I go all

00:33:41 – 00:34:47
right whatever like uh so fast forward did I win no I did not win my first year competing we ended up 25th out of uh like 52 teams which I think was was a win in my head it’s huge um so then we thought let’s do it again so we did it the next year and I think we ended up 15th uh which big Improvement we were getting better every year and then um we took a year off and actually you guys are probably the first ones I’m announcing this for but I am actually going to go back and do it again this year

00:34:14 – 00:35:30
202 2024 I do have a different teammate and I am doing it in a different vehicle I can’t release who my uh who my uh sponsor is oh sponsor okay or who the OEM is but I will tell you that I am competing in 2024 nice and it will not be in a blue Civic SI I’m assuming not not into the desert yeah okay sadly enough it’s not but that leaves it open-ended for anything else okay first heard it was first heard here ladies and gentlemen D style here just changed her name on driveing Style driveing Style

00:34:52 – 00:35:48
style or or ride in style for Josh with the chauffeur so yeah right yeah yeah well here’s how lazy by the way here’s how lazy I am on that tagline is that’s literally my business’s tagline so that’s I was like how about this because I don’t want to have to think anymore he’s like oh that’s great so anyway that just goes back to me so that’s awesome you’re going to do it again this year and your goal this year uh what top 10 well number one of course would you be

00:35:20 – 00:36:21
happy with top 10 no no honestly no I’m coming I’m coming to compete I want a Podium uh at the minimum I’ll take third but I want number one I’m coming in hot this year nice that’s awesome that’s great and it’ll be in October again oh yes so great question uh it’s going to happen I think we leave like October 5th or something like that and it goes for essentially two weeks so luckily SEMA got moved back a week so I’m not going from Glam aons directly to Vegas we yeah

00:35:51 – 00:36:57
right no no bathroom to plenty of bathrooms got it now if if uh people want to hear more about that is there a website follow r or coverage how does that work yeah so Rebel rally.com actually is a great place to do it and this is actually a really cool um thing that they’ve been able to uh really expand upon uh there are some really big Outlets that come out to this event MSN Autos Yahoo autos um we’ve had uh the Wall Street Journal we’ve had uh really big Outlets uh Cosmopolitan magazine

00:36:25 – 00:37:35
come out and actually um either compete send teams or cover the event and put it into their Publications after the fact and that really uh tells the story of how many different types of women are coming to this event it’s not just for automotive women these are women that are firefighters ex-military it uh strategists um you know surgeons uh these are women from around the world in different uh career uh experiences coming because they want to go Offroad they want to get challenged and they

00:37:01 – 00:37:47
want to have this experience and so when Emily Miller when I finally connected with her and I said Emily like I’ve this event at the time had been going on for six years I said how come I’ve never heard of it she goes you’re not my demo what do you mean I’m not your demo like I’m an automotive person she goes I don’t want Automotive women I want women that want to experience a challenge and want to go off-roading and maybe even for the first time and so it kind of struck me that I wasn’t just competing

00:37:24 – 00:38:21
in an automotive realm I was competing against women in every environment possible which makes it so much harder but also you appreciate it so much more because the women I’ve met along the way um they say they have this comment very successful women but when you get on the other side they say you become a rebel and you become a part of this group of women that um it it’s hard to explain until you experience it and I’m not an emotional person but I’ll tell you when I finished on that finish line that very

00:37:53 – 00:38:44
last day I almost started crying because I was like oh my God like I did it like it’s it’s such a uh it’s such an you know accomplishment that at at some point you don’t think you’re going to be able to finish because you change tires you get lost you you know lose your head um this is a mental game it’s a physical game it’s a strategy game uh it’s really tough to accomplish and so anybody that’s ever done it you know tip your hat to them because they’ve they’ve

00:38:19 – 00:39:24
accomplished something that’s really really tough wow that’s so cool and let just to plant a seed if I were to start identifying as a woman would you ever take me up as a partner to for eight days I would not pick you up as a partner but not because of your gender but because uh we would uh definitely butt heads you’re right yeah but remember I like to ride in style I don’t like to drive so I would let you do most of driving well no cuz a Navigator’s is the hardest part oh so

00:38:51 – 00:39:42
you’re the good you love navigating then you’re probably very good at that yeah you’re like you’re the one telling her where to go yeah I mean let’s be honest I mean the driver is a glorified Uber driver because I’m telling her where to go what time to be there and uh don’t tell her I said that but essentially like you were calling the shots you’re saying where we’re going so I don’t think i’ trust you with a map either good point do they give you like a satellite phone yeah in

00:39:17 – 00:40:11
case of emergencies but not to like you know call your call home and that’s another thing you can’t call home like there is no communication to the outside world so I can’t call my husband I can’t talk to my kids like there’s none of that and honestly sometimes you’re like yeah well I was going to say Craig’s probably like this boys we’re having a vacation in eight for eight days we’re going wherever you your mom won’t let us go you know I will say it is really

00:39:44 – 00:40:51
tough on the um on the parents uh but he does a really good job and he actually would send me daily text messages that I couldn’t receive of what happened that day and I think that that really helped me to feel like I didn’t miss that much either uh but also to know that he kept them every day yeah here they are baseball and now getting sick you I wish you were here that’s it yeah that’s awesome go ahead Jessie Katherine um this is super interesting all this stuff I do want to get back to hemings a little bit um just

00:40:17 – 00:41:10
to hear kind of you know now that we’ve gone through the past and all the cool stuff that you’ve that you’ve done and accomplished what’s tell us more about hemings and what you do there and also what sets the in this crazy competitive industry yeah you know like I said Hemming’s Heritage alone I think it’s one of those brands that you trust uh we can go to any event and people will say you know uh my dad used to get that magazine my grandpa used to get that magazine and it was a trusted book where

00:40:44 – 00:41:29
you can buy and sell your vehicle and nowadays you could go on a a ton of different platforms where you could sell your vehicle but you really wanting to get the most amount of value for it and you want somebody to pay for it because they know what it’s value would add and there’s not a lot of Market places where you can do that and Hemmings is definitely that place and hemings has three really cool options for you to sell your vehicle you can do it in a classified and kind of put it out there

00:41:06 – 00:41:55
and wait for someone to come to you you can also do what they call a make offer where you put it out there and go here’s what I want to sell it for but make me an offer and you can actually negotiate the terms uh with the with with this uh the buyer directly and then you could do an auction where you can say hey I want to sell it and here’s my price but what I really love about what hemings brings to the table is they really have expertise people that know the value of vehicles they are watching the market

00:41:31 – 00:42:27
they can sit there and tell you hey that vehicle was valued at $50,000 last year but guess what it’s only valued at 45 this year and the market changes on a day-to-day basis when whatever happens with the economy whoever is the president at the time whatever if there’s you know covid happening all of these factors change the the virality of of the the price of the vehicle and hemings has this expertise on staff and they’re a phone call away you’re not calling International you’re not talking

00:41:59 – 00:42:50
to a bot you are talking to a real person that understands the marketplace and what I also like about Heming is they have all these frictionless Marketplace options think about back in the day when you would sell a vehicle and you’d have to meet somebody in a random parking lot and you’d have like a bag of cash that you had to sell it that that by the way that’s how you sold your Honda Civic and that’s how you got your apartment in Corona let’s just not forget that so you is that you you bring

00:42:24 – 00:43:14
a lot to the table here go ahead and so you don’t want to that anymore so hemings has this option where you can do a Pay Plus title right where we handle the titling for you we handle the payment for you we don’t release the funds until the vehicle is is received by the buyer and they say it’s good to go like an escrow basically an escrow of program cool and so a a lot of other marketplaces don’t have that um we also have opportunities for you to shop insurance we have a ton of insurance

00:42:49 – 00:43:41
Marketplace providers where you can find the insurance that matches for you um you know there’s just a lot of opportunity valuations I don’t know what my vehicle valued at I inherited this vehicle you know my grandfather had this but I don’t know what it’s worth let us tell you what it’s worth or let us tell you a um evaluator in your area that can actually go and uh see it in person we tell you how to take pictures how to get videos of your of your vehicle to have the best price possible Heming it’s gone

00:43:15 – 00:44:22
above and beyond to make this uh an easy frictionless marketplace where you can sell your vehicle and get the maximum value of it great really cool wow I never thought about that escra that is you know listen if I’m going to buy a classic car for you know 60 Grand from Vermont to California I’m G to want to have somebody in the middle trusted name and they’ve got the name a trusted third party that’s going to make sure it goes smooth that’s smart yeah H and they only take 25% that’s pretty good uh actually

00:43:48 – 00:44:49
it’s 5% wow even better see I was willing to doy that was pretty low there there are other marketplaces um um that do big events in different cities and they take a lot more and I don’t know what their number is but I uh I think you might be in the ball ballpark there uh Josh interesting Katherine how do you what do you think about overall the aftermarket automotive industry like where do you think it’s going like if you had a crystal ball and what should we be looking for what’s your

00:44:20 – 00:45:31
predictions of the future oh great question um I see you know that’s tough cuz we’re in a situation where there is electrification happening there are alternative fuels happening there are a new generation of buyers coming in um I kind of joke around we’re not competing with um you know other vehicle manufacturers we’re competing with kids who would rather do this instead of drive and and that’s a difficult conversation because when I was 15 the first thing I want to do is get my

00:44:56 – 00:46:02
license because that was a sense of freedom and so we’re really trying our best to talk to the youth and make sure that they’re utilizing the automotive industry to uh you know be a customization tool for them to be uh something that they can uh modify and showcase their personality with uh and use that vehicle to do their hobbies to match their lifestyle and I think that the automotive industry and specifically the aftermarket uh has a little bit turbulence uh and I think that we have to really band together this is a time

00:45:29 – 00:46:18
where automotive aftermarket Industries don’t need to be pointing the finger at each other we don’t need to be um you know taking down our association we need to be supporting each other we need to be lifting the tide for all boats to rise because this is a time where we’re going to see a lot of change and we really need to band together whether it’s against legislation whether it’s against regulation whether it’s against uh the government telling us that we all have to have electric vehicles we need

00:45:54 – 00:47:09
to have the option for consumers to choose what they want that matches their lifestyle um and I think that in this particular time uh SEMA is that Association that’s going to band us all together and this is the time where a lot of automotive industry uh aftermarket companies need to uh work together see that’s why she was SEMA person of the year that’s why she was chair of SEMA cares because she really cares unlike my charity um and yeah chair of LT EA now Torah now on the board and who knows what the future

00:46:31 – 00:47:32
is maybe she’ll announce it on our show at some point oh but Jesse what do you think it is what do you think’s happening in the industry do you think that we’ve got a bright spot ahead do you think we’ve got some hurdles what do you think yeah I have to I have to side with the idea I try to stay the glasses half full and so I’m just looking for an opportunity Whenever there is something that happens in in any industry or just the econ e in general there’s always an opportunity for an equal opportunity for

00:47:02 – 00:47:54
every misstep and problem just like how in the Great Depression some of the the most millionaires were created and new businesses came out and sprang out of that so even though we’ve gone through this weird economic change with the with first covid and then the and supply chain and problems I actually think that you’re right that the personaliza personalization and customization that’s what people always want and they’ve always wanted it you know that we we’re at that point again where especially

00:47:28 – 00:48:15
like you said the younger generation you you pointed out the phone people people are going to spend a lot of money just customizing their phone with a case right and I think Josh you pointed this out before it wasn’t that you that said it you know you buy a$ thousand phone and you you you’re going to spend a bunch of money on the case and the special headphones and all this stuff and yet you think that the consumer won’t want to do the same thing with their vehicles and so I I think that

00:47:52 – 00:48:44
there’s always going to be that and it’s only going to go up they might temporarily reduce the opt just like the Ford did with the Model T in the beginning you know he’s famous for saying you can have any color you want as long as it’s the color black right that’s what they were making and maybe Tesla tries to do some of the same thing but how long will that last it’s just a matter of time so the customization and the personalization that’s not going to change and because of that everybody in

00:48:18 – 00:49:10
aftermarket has opportunities they just have to adapt it right to whatever that new change is going to be so I don’t know if that was a good answer to your question but uh what I think no I I’m I’m so glad you brought that up cuz uh next week I’m going to Washington DC for the SEMA DC rally and um I was actually practicing my pitch with someone just last night and um I go into these you know meetings with congressman and senators and uh let’s be honest you’re not actually meeting with them you’re

00:48:44 – 00:49:36
meeting with their staffer and their staffer is usually someone in their early 20s and uh they’re just taking notes they’re they’re not really that engaged in the conversation so here’s my pitch and I love that what you just said because this is the is spot on I walk in there and I said hey you know first first question do you want a car and you’d be surprised how many of them actually say no because they just walk around DC that’s how they get to their jobs every day and I go well okay uh do

00:49:10 – 00:50:18
you own a phone yes everybody owns a phone right great um when you bought your phone did you go back to Apple and buy your case did you go back to Apple and buy your case for your airpods did you buy your cord from Apple no where did you buy it from online am wherever yeah right a third party a third party now what if I told you that you couldn’t do that and you could only buy your case your cord from Apple I wouldn’t like that and they set the price and whatever the price is that’s what it is there’s

00:49:44 – 00:50:33
no other option and they can change the price they can increase it they can double it whatever they want to do are you okay with that and then usually they go no no I don’t want that at all great well that’s kind of what the aftermarket is all about imagine if you get a car and you want to go and modify your car or you need to replace something and the only option was to go back to the dealer because now the oems have locked out the aftermarket from being able to uh access a computer and be able to make those

00:50:08 – 00:51:04
modifications and now there’s only one price and that’s the price you got to pay how do you feel about that all of a sudden their attitude changes and that’s kind of and that’s a comparison I like to make because I feel like these younger kids maybe uh that’s the only way that it can understand my pitch I love it it’s it’s such a perfect um analogy and also the average person doesn’t even know what aftermarket even means they have no nobody gets it what you did was you made it made it real

00:50:36 – 00:51:39
that’s very cool yeah yeah yeah no I mean cell phone is perfect perfect and you know they spend ,000 another question you could even ask them is you know if you spend $1,000 how much would you how much are you spending to protect it you know not just accessorize it personalize it some people are personalize it they just want the they want the fancy you know case and fancy airpod but other people just get something to protect it so either way you stand what if you had to pay double just to protect it and you’re not

00:51:08 – 00:51:57
into that so I mean yeah it’s a lot of people spend and that that’s kind of where I go to when the dealers is the dealers go oh don’t put that stuff on this well yeah but these guys they want to protect their investment cars are so expensive yeah that actually reminds me of my motorcycle days I remember going into a place and I was looking at helmets and I looked at this helmet I was like oo this helmet’s really expensive and the guy come me goes how much is your head worth oh wow yeah yeah

00:51:33 – 00:52:30
so instead of buying one for 150 bucks I bought the $400 one I go okay he’s right he’s right my head I’m Gonna Keep it Josh I have one last question for Catherine but do you have any others that maybe you you usually ask more SEMA questions so I’m not sure I just want to make sure listen she’s the queen of SEMA okay so uh she can do whatever she wants she walks around Red Carpet you know I I feel like if asked to do anything hey can you help Catherine out yeah absolutely here just pass out these

00:52:01 – 00:52:56
pedals before she walks you know I’m like really that’s my job okay that’s fine it’s for Katherine it’s fine so listen uh she she you know let me ask you this is there anything I mean you you’re involved in so many different ways with SEMA you’ve done a lot see like I said SEMA cares and all the volunteering you’ve done and everything like that what would your message be to people who maybe are not involved in SEMA what would you do what would you tell them and what have you gained from

00:52:29 – 00:53:30
it you know what I’ll quote Tim Martin on this one um I have received way more out of SEMA than I ever put in and I like to think I put a lot in a lot but but I’ve got I’ve I’ve received everything in tenfold whether it was you know uh networking opportunities whether it became Partnerships uh strategic Partnerships that came as a result I’ve received jobs job offers because I was a sea volunteer because they saw what I was doing in my commitment um I’ve had lots of opportunities come

00:52:59 – 00:53:56
to me whether it was extracurricular activities whether it was you know uh leadership roles within SEMA all of that is because of my time I dedicated into it and I’ve also been able to work for some really great companies that saw the value in it as well and I can’t tell you how important that is if you’re going to volunteer for SEMA bring your company in show your company how valuable that is to their brand to your personal and professional development but also the insights that you bring back to your

00:53:28 – 00:54:25
company because those insights are going to help your company have a leg up on the competition as well and again I’ve just receed so much more out of SEMA than I could ever give and if you have the opportunity to serve raise your hand because it will pay you tenfold that’s awesome and what are you most looking forward to doing or what’s most excites you about your your work that you’re doing right now like what do you look forward to right now you know um I really enjoy helping small to

00:53:56 – 00:54:47
medium-sized businesses with their marketing you know I I do a lot of Consulting I help with companies that don’t know how to create a go to market strategy don’t know how to launch a new product and I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of companies lean on my experience and my expertise to be able to help them on that um I’d love to be able to continue being a volunteer for SEMA in some capacity um I think that we definitely like I said before we need a band together this is a time where we

00:54:21 – 00:55:22
need SEMA leaders to really bring us all together and find the bigger purpose to support our businesses for the uh for the future so I’m looking forward to just riding the wave I get to do what I love every day not everybody get to wake up and say I get to play with cars and I get paid for it and if I go back to my 18-year-old self and go oh my God like I made my dream my hobby an actual career I’m grateful to be able to say that and so every day to be able to work in this industry I’m I’m just I’m really

00:54:52 – 00:55:59
appreciative that’s it I’m buying her a Civic SI and sending it out that’s the way to drop the mic right there Jesse that’s way I’m finding and I’m finding a 94 I am not going to buy a new one what what year was it it it was a 2000 oh okay jeez you’re so much younger than I thought I’m younger that’s well good it’ll be easier to find good you know that’s 24 years agoez oh my gosh I thought Fast and Furious was over by that time I guess it’s never over they’re still on still

00:55:25 – 00:56:32
27 making one like that’s your grandma’s ride nice go ahead Catherine this was an awesome interview we’re really appreciate it and maybe even we’ll do a part two at some point after you’ve done a couple these cool challenges and live on the rebel rally yeah like like with a drone that’d be a suit I’ll be in the car next to you in the back how I got I got there we’ll hide in the trunk you know honestly this has been a lot of fun I love being ble to talk about the industry I love being able to share

00:55:59 – 00:56:55
experiences with people and so I’d love to uh be able to talk more about it uh at another time and you know who knows what the future holds uh how do people find out more about you or if they have questions for you how do they get a hold of you uh well you could stock no um you can go uh LinkedIn is obviously an easy way to find me Katherine Reinhardt um a lot of people like to follow me on Instagram I don’t know why it’s usually pictures of my Bronco and my kids but yeah it’s usually your kids I’ve never

00:56:27 – 00:57:28
seen the Bronco hardly uh and then you’ll see some stuff on Rebel coming up soon but uh yeah you can reach out to me people can find me through hemmings.com they can find me through Linkedin or through even SEMA happy to help if there’s anybody out there that wants uh you know some advice on how to get into the industry how to start in the industry I’m always there to help people out awesome awesome or apartments.com if you’re looking for somebody near Corona so and by the way I’m still friends with that guy he was a

00:56:57 – 00:57:56
very nice guy and um and I I only stayed there for about 7even months not because of him but because of the location but his name is Allan Allan was a really nice guy great roommate to have shout out to Allan nice well thanks again for joining us it’s been a lot of fun we’ll catch up on that and I’ll see you soon thank you thanks guys appreciate it and there you have it another high octane episode of the ride and style podcast reved up and ready to go your hosts Jesse Stoddard and Josh pson

00:57:30 – 00:58:31
shifted your Automotive game into overdrive if you’re hungry for more insights Trends and game-changing interviews from the automotive restyling Universe don’t forget to hit subscribe and leave a glowing review we’d also love for you to share this podcast with your Gearheads installers and autol lovers Network because remember knowledge is power but shared knowledge turbocharges the whole industry for more expert resources to Super charge your business cruise on over to autostyle marketing.com your One-Stop shop for

00:58:01 – 00:58:24
Everything Automotive marketing until next time keep those Wheels spinning and your passion ignited thank you for riding in style with us see you on the next lap