#340 - Chris Hellgeth aka Gas Biz Guy - Owner @ Vi-Mac

Transcript

Chris Powers: Welcome to the show, boss, man.

Chris Hellgeth: Hey, man, I appreciate it. I love being here.

Chris Powers: It's a pleasure to have you here; I have enjoyed following you. I spent two hours, actually about three hours last night, digging deep on gas man guy, gas biz guy, and you have a phenomenal story, which I want to start with: how do you even get into the gas station business?

Chris Hellgeth: So I got into it. My whole family was in the business, and my dad was in the industry. I had three uncles in the business. And so it was just a family business. So I worked on the full-service island with my brother, mom, stepmom, and sister, who had worked there for a little while after my parents divorced.

So we all worked there. It was a family business.

Chris Powers: OK. And did the whole family wake up and go to the gas station and have their role?

Chris Hellgeth: No, I thought it was, so my mom and stepmother became bookkeepers. My dad managed the place, my brother was a full-serve gas attendant, and I was a full-serve gas attendant, but my brother worked the mornings, and then I worked the evening. So my shift was 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Chris Powers: OK. And this is a critical part of your story. You were only in ninth grade and decided I would move forward with my life in a way you saw fit. Most people don't do that. What happened?

Chris Hellgeth: I could have taken instructions better and understood why I was there. I didn't see the value in it. My goal in life was to run a gas station.

Chris Powers: Really?

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. I loved it. I love it.

Chris Powers: What did you love about it?

Chris Hellgeth: We just had a lot of pride in it. You know, I don't know what it was.

We had an in-town gas station. We had a lot of. I had just had so much pride and thought it was just fun. I love the people. I loved being around the cars. I loved, it was just very, I don't know, it was an alive business, you know, like we had all these great people coming in, and we had anywhere from the mayor to the gold club was across the street, which was a famous, strip club that, you know, was run by mobsters and got taken down. So it was, it was just a lot of fun. I don't know what it was about it, but it was just me.

Chris Powers: Gas stations are like a staple in American society. It is like when I think of any place we visit in America. No matter where you go, a gas station will be part of your trip.

It has to be quick: In ninth grade, were you telling people, like, this isn't for me? Because that's a unique thing to know, I'll start researching it if it interests me. Or was this just something you were feeling inside?

Chris Hellgeth: I needed help to get the concepts. To this day, I can read and reread something the next day, and it's brand new information. So, like I can, I have some learning disability. I am still determining what it is. And so it was; there were concepts that I couldn't grasp, and I didn't understand the value of doing them.

No one could ever understand, you know, I couldn't; no one could explain why I was doing these things. And I'm one of these guys, and if I don't understand why I'm doing it, I don't want to do it.

Chris Powers: When you, now that I'm at this point in life and look, I was afforded an excellent education, but I look back, and I'm like, none of the shit I learned in college or high school.

I've never thought about calculus, pre-calculus, geometry, all these things that we studied hard for. They don't like to show up later in life.

Chris Hellgeth: There's a lot of value in it. And I don't want people ever to get away from them because I've done OK in life.

But what could I have been? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, what could I have been? Could I have gone on to do, you know, lead something bigger? Could you've been the president of Coca-Cola, you know, I don't know. We'll never know.

Chris Powers: You still have a lot of time.

Chris Hellgeth: Well, I'm running out of tread. That's the best we're starting to show.

Chris Powers: All right. So, you fall in Love with the gas station business. How'd you like it? What, then? Tell us the story of when it started for you because you had a family business, but then you started.

Chris Hellgeth: So what happened is that if you go back, I was working, so my brother and I were both working at the store and then my dad owned it.

And then we had two managers, one over the gas station or the convenience store. And then we had one who was overseeing the auto repair shop. So we had two different things going on, and I'm a protector. If most things don't get to me, the only thing that ever gets to me is if I see somebody who can't defend themselves, I'll run to their aid.

That's me, so that's the only thing that gets to me. If I see, you know, kids getting picked on or something like that, that's the only thing that gets to me. And so, and I love my brother. I love my family, like, like everybody, I love him deeply. And I was out of town with my friends. While I was out of town, my brother got in trouble with my dad and the manager, who was our boss; our immediate boss was the manager, and my dad fired the manager, and then he fired my brother. And when I came back, my dad decided he wanted to retire. And so he sold me 25% of the business and my partner, Randy, 75%.

Chris Powers: And that was, how old were you then?

Chris Hellgeth: I was 23.

Chris Powers: Did you know what you were doing then, or were you just thrown into it?

Chris Hellgeth: I didn't know how to balance a chequebook. I needed to learn how to manage people. I was 23.

Chris Powers: OK. So how'd you learn?

Chris Hellgeth: I Just went through a lot of people. We made a lot of terrible decisions, but we did a lot of things right, so it was, I learned on the fly. There was, but if all you knew how to do was add and subtract and do basic English, you could survive in that business, which is a big reason why you have immigrants who come here and run them.

Chris Powers: What were you doing right? And did you know you were doing right at the time or in hindsight?

Chris Hellgeth: I understood my market. So our market was very, it was heavily Spanish. And so we catered to the people in our market. So we were on a fringe store. So it was a very high income to one side of the road, and for the people behind me, it was.

I started catering to all workers, blue-collar people. And so when we went in there, we started doing things like cashing payroll checks and carrying items native to their country, and that's when everything turned.

Chris Powers: Did you do the lottery?

Chris Hellgeth: We did the lottery.

Chris Powers: Is the lottery good for business?

Chris Hellgeth: The lottery is like a necessary evil. You don't make much money, but we didn't push it. You know, some people believe it, and they try it. For me, it was like you were already standing there. So if I'm already standing there as a cashier, if somebody walks up and buys some lottery tickets, it is just the extra money you could; it didn't cost you anything to put it in.

You had no inventory. You're already standing there. So yeah, it was, you know, I'm indifferent to it.

Chris Powers: OK. Let's talk a little about the gas station operations. Is the money made on the gasoline, or is it on the store's interior where the cash pockets around the gas station are made?

Chris Hellgeth: So, you know, it's interesting because we have a lot of different business models. Sometimes, you have a guy that there's a store down the street here. Who's just a convenience store? No gas.

Chris Powers: You mean you came to Fort Worth and are checking out gas?

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, man, I was on the ride in. I was taking pictures of gas stations and. There's a place called Fuel City down here. I was enamoured by it. I was like, this place is beautiful. So yeah, I come to, I mean, that's all I do. I've taken this, I'm so passionate about it, but the thing about it is that we did is, I'm sorry, going back onto the, you know, where the money is at,

In some stores, you can kill on gas, you know, in town locations where you don't have a lot of competition, and you can't get a Kroger or, you know, Costco next to you, you can make a dollar a gallon.

Chris Powers: Wait, what do Costco and Kroger have to do with it because they're selling gas, too?

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, because they're selling gas, and there'll be discounters, and they'll bring the margins down. But the national average last year was over 30 cents a gallon. All grades combined, diesel, premium, and mid-grade, were over 30 cents a gallon. So it's like the best it's ever been. And then inside the store, people often say, well, what's the ratio?

If I sell this much gas, how much do I do inside? It just depends on the neighbourhood. You may have, like my store, we sold many groceries. We sold a ton of stuff inside the store but very little gas—my best store.

Chris Powers: Is there a menu of stuff that every gas station owner is given to fill their aisles?

Cause you walk into most gas stations, and it's like flaming hot Cheetos next to a 30-pack of beer next to an energy drink next to some Pedialyte.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. And that's where people understood that we're very commoditized. If, you know, you own a store, you sell Marlboro, I sell Marlboro, you sell Coke, I sell Coke.

You have to figure out how to make yourself different. And so there, and it's an open-book test right now. It is what many of the independent guys are, and I represent the independent guys. I don't. I can't speak to the prominent marketers as much. And the big guys have laid the playbook out for you.

You've got to have better service. You have to have better stores. You must reinvest in your location because we all sell the same thing. What's your service like? You know, pricing is essential. It's probably the most crucial thing if you write the top five things, but it's getting further and further away from that, where people go, Hey, I want to have food.

I want to have; what other offerings do you have there?

Chris Powers: When you walk up to the counter, there are often little Debbie cakes with pineapple, banana cream, or something crazy. And I always look at them, and I'm like, nobody eats this, but they're always here. Is it fair to say that if it's in a gas station, it's been market-tested, and somebody is eating it?

Chris Hellgeth: Well, different markets will do other things. We have a product in Georgia called white dirt, and people will eat it. They will eat; it's just white dirt, and they will eat that, but it's not going to sell well in, you know, a metropolitan area.

You know, the same with your little Debbie snacks. Fine. You see, you can go to, you know, probably in Tuscaloosa, they sell a lot of oatmeal cream pies because of Nick Saban, but you get out to, uh, you know, the Pacific Northwest, they probably can't give the things away. It depends on your market.

Chris Powers: So if you had to describe the perfect gas station site for what you do, you're not building Bucky's, but we could even talk about Bucky's. But you do describe the perfect site for you if you could have it checked every box.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, it will be in town and high-density.

So I'm going to the less competition, the better, but I will be an Intel location. And I, you know, the best places I ever had were in front of grocery stores that didn't have gas. And so you had just so much throughput. So, metropolitan areas reign supreme.

So you're going to, cause you're going to have all the apartments, you're going to have all the multifamily, and you're going to have, you know, if all the cars going through there through the city, yeah, they're killers.

Chris Powers: And then the closest gas station from that one would be. How far away would it be? Do you even care?

Chris Hellgeth: So if you're in a more metropolitan area, it will be slightly different than in a rural area. So you're in a rural area, and your market may be 10 minutes, but in a metropolitan area, yeah, you can have it. I mean, it's your destiny right around you. So you could have a store right next door. You both do fine.

Chris Powers: And somebody asked this on Twitter. Would you rather have a, call it a moderate brand on a corner or a premium brand, not on a corner?

Chris Hellgeth: I will say this: You could have the Bucky sign out there. But if you run it poorly, you won't do any business. So, the brand is essential, but how you run it is more important.

So you, you know, brands are, you know, and location. I'd rather have a better location.

Chris Powers: Well, then, let's talk about a typical. Store because you keep talking about service, but I usually roll into a gas station when I think about it. I always park in front of the gas outlet, even when I'm not getting gas; I'm kidding.

Chris Hellgeth: Fighting words.

Chris Powers: Those are fighting words; I start getting gas. I walk in; there's usually somebody at the cashier. I'm left to wander and do my thing. I walk up and type in my 7-Eleven passcode. So I can get my bonus points, give my card, and leave. But you keep talking about excellent service.

I don't think about it. I've never left a gas station and been like Man, that was excellent service. It's good service. I get what I want.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, so not to pick on any brand, but certain brands do it well. So if you go to Wawa, which has a cult following, they are known to have the highest per ticket and the quickest off.

So they're going to get you in and out faster than everybody, and they're going to have you spend more money. I don't know that against Bucky's cause; I have yet seen their numbers. There is a component to that. So you go into, for example, a quick strip, there'll be one cashier, and there'll be working two people simultaneously.

And whereas you go into some of the other stores and they just next, next, next, and there is a difference, and that is where one place you can shine as a, as an independent because, hey, Mr Powers, how are you today? I know what you drink. I know what you smoked; if you were to smoke, I would see what you smoked.

You call them by name and ensure the store is clean. And so I consider service, which would be the presentation to just the vibe. One thing that I've seen some of these independents do is that they've gotten perfect, from lighting to music to different things they can do.

So when you walk in the store, you have a vibe more so than just. To your point, it's just a story as a commodity where you have Cheetos and Fritos and little Debbie's.

Chris Powers: And I will say that about the quick trip. I caveat that because we have a lot of those in DFW. They're on a different level. And isn't it like fighting words if you call them a gas station?

Do they have some unique vocabulary for what they call themselves?

Chris Hellgeth: If they do, I have not heard that. But they do it. You know, the funny thing about a quick trip. So, I'm from Atlanta. And I was an Exxon guy. And one way, they came in there and destroyed us. They were buying and closing up Exxon gas stations where they could not work.

They redeveloped and crushed them; they just came right in and took locations we couldn't wait for, and independence couldn't work. And they came in, scraped into the ground, put their locations up and crushed.

Chris Powers: What are the big brands? Bucky loves quick trips. Like, what have they figured out?

From a pure real estate standpoint, quick trips have been the most active in DFW, but there were years when it seemed like they were offering on; the blitz was on to get these things up. So, what's going on at the high level? Bucky's is now going national. Buffett bought Love's, right? So what's going on?

Chris Hellgeth: Well, first off, the money's never been better because, you know, if you go back, I think that because they've been printing a lot of money. So, my parents would drive across town to save one or two cents. Now, one or two cents isn't; it's just nothing.

So, if my margin went from five cents a gallon to ten cents a gallon, people don't shop it as hard as they used to. They still shop it, but it differs from what they used to.

Chris Powers: What's the craziest thing you've seen sold in a gas station that makes a lot of money?

Chris Hellgeth: You know, sometimes, it's not wild, but the things that we used to sell, I mean, vapes are enormous, but the thing I sold a ton of, vapes and energy drinks.

That's where it's at right now: vapes and energy. That's where all the margins are at. But, phone cards. I was selling, I mean, I was selling phone cards. I was selling about 1,500 a day and those things.

Chris Powers: I kept the seven-eleven corner at TCU in business. I was crushing those hot dogs on those.

I used to eat two or three of those a day, and after the bar, the bar was right next door. It's like you went straight to 7-Eleven and started loading up on hot dogs.

Chris Hellgeth: This is the best. So, in Atlanta, they used to have a skit. And so we were, again, in the town of Atlanta. We were not on the fringe.

We were right there downtown. And so we had everybody come through there. The radio station would call in one of the skits they used to do. And they would ask, Hey, how long have the hot dogs been on the roller? OK. And that was her skit, you know, cause it might've been on there for, you know, and you'd always have one of your guys who was the cashier, you know, who he doesn't understand the radio skit, and he's like, Oh, they've been here, you know, six hours, you know, it's like, yeah, it was great, man.

Chris Powers: How long must they be on the roller before you?

Chris Hellgeth: The standards have gotten increasingly better back in the day. You know, it was like, you'd sit them there in the morning. You'd throw them away at eight o'clock at night. They were not big sellers, but the big guys had figured out how to market and present them. And they do a lot of their turns. Good. Now they sell a lot.

Chris Powers: I haven't had one in a while, but towards the end there, they were doing like burger dogs, which just looked dead. I'm like, somebody's buying this. Somebody's eating it.

Chris Hellgeth: Well, somebody even asked me the other day. They're like, Hey, what's your best food? What's the best food you ever got out of a gas station?

I'm like Oreos. Like, I mean, I'm not eating it. Like I said, I love you guys, and I hope you do great. And I'm sure Wawa makes the best sandwich man's ever tasted, but I'm not getting it. Like I want it to get there. I want it to be better, but I'm still not there.

Chris Powers: Are cigarettes and dips still? You said vapes and energy drinks. Are cigarettes and dips dying?

Chris Hellgeth: They've gone down, but it's still your number one category. It's usually your number one category. You're going to sell more tobacco than anything. It's a low margin, but you'll sell a ton of it.

Chris Powers: In college, high school, a good party, I was, I'd smoke a cig, that's how you made a lot of friends, you'd go off to the side, you were the smokers, I don't know how this younger generation vaping or making friends, I mean, cause you're in isolation, you're doing it in your car, I mean, come on, it was a social thing, I don't think anybody should smoke. It could be better for you, but it was an excellent way to meet people.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, well, I mean, again, I was talking about it the other day. I smoked; I mean, I did it, and I don't know if I was making any friends by doing it. Yeah, I was making money doing it. Yeah, that's how I got started. When you look at the whole story, that's what I did.

I did the; you know, I was again working in the city, and you know, you have people come up all the time and try to bum a cigarette off of you. And you're like, look, man, like, look, I can't do this anymore. You know, give me a dime, you know, I know you got to die. And so they'd give me a dime, and I'd give him a cigarette.

And I said this is catching up, but I smoked Marlboros. Those were premium cigarettes, right? There's a couple of bucks a pack. And so what I did is I went out, and I just got a cheap package, generic cigarettes, and I taped it to a Styrofoam cup, and they were 89 cents. They're called basics, and they taped it to the cup.

And, you know, just people come in, and I, you know, if somebody wanted a cigarette, see the cashier, they're in there, and you throw the dime in the cup. And I, but the thing about it that made that work is I always kept the money out of the cup. And then what we would do, because when you run the cash register, and you had, again, cash was more prevalent than it is now.

You know, you, you'd always need change. And so you go, OK, well, I'd take ten dimes out, take the ten dimes out of the cup, put it in the cash register, take a dollar out. And you would do this, and then you'd get ten, take the ten out, throw it in the cash register, take a 10 bill. And I had hundreds of dollars in there, and that's how I started.

That was my first kind of real business that stuck because it came in, and I was trading the cigarettes. And a guy comes in one day and says, be on most day check case. And I was like, what does that mean? I figured it out when he showed me the check, and it was check 342 Martin's painting.

And I was like, how much? And he said, you know, or he says, how much? And I was like, five bucks. And at that point, I was like, I got nothing to lose. I'll take the money out of the cup. And I put 5 dollars. I was like, man, I must sell five packs of cigarettes. See, but what the deal was then, we were able to get away with this.

So, like, I've caught hell about this on social media. But I was selling Lucy's, which is illegal. I wasn't creating a business doing it. Like it's, it's like somebody came in, You were selling a couple of cigarettes, you know, and then once it got more extensive, you know, we got out of it, we kind of, I don't even think it was illegal back then, like, I'm so so old, this wasn't even a thing back then, you know, and it's the same thing with cashing checks, like, oh, you were supposed to be in the money service, but like back then, I mean, like when the Patriot Act got created, yeah, you needed to have like, you know, More documentation. You had to have different licenses and stuff, but back then, you could sign a check over to me, and I could take it and put it in my account, and that's how I got going.

Chris Powers: All right, so let's go back now. So you've taken your dad's hand, or you bought 25 per cent of the business, correct? Your career is starting to take off. Then what happened?

Chris Hellgeth: So what happened is my partner, Randy, was the best. Like he is, this guy was the best. And so, outside of my parents, two people influenced my life and catapulted me to the next thing: Randy. He was the best business partner. He was my dad's service manager. We're one of the first, if not the first, guy ever hired; he was, this guy was more significant life. He was the best. And then the guy who works for me now, who runs my transportation company, Cosmin, is, those are two people who kind of, and I don't want to leave this thing without that being noted, like these, these two guys made me who I am.

And so what happened is Randy and I were these two prominent personalities in one building. And so he and I decided one day, we're like, Hey, we need to expand. So we bought a gas station in Griffin, Georgia, the first one we bought with the land. And so how that worked out was.

Chris Powers: What do you mean with the land?

Chris Hellgeth: So when we bought the gas station from my dad, we just had a leasehold. And how that deal worked out was that it was 75-25. My dad financed it. The way that worked was that he invested the whole thing. And the way that worked out was we had to pay him back. It was three years.

However, we only had a three-year lease and played EBITDA thrice. OK, so it was a, you know, it was a good way for him to get out, we, you know, it worked out being awesome, but we, when we added the check cashing business to the business, we started making a ton of money. We had a truck; we had a truck rental.

And so we started killing it. And so what we did from there is we put some money together. We saved up 100 000. And we bought a property in Griffin, Georgia, you know, south, you know, out in the middle of nowhere is Bonney area, and we put a hundred thousand dollars down, and we bought it with the land this time. So, at this time, we now own the land and the business.

Chris Powers: Real quick. What are the economics of check cashing?

Chris Hellgeth: We were getting 1 percent plus 1.

Chris Powers: 1 per cent of the total check plus a dollar?

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, and we were when it was all said and done, and the audience loved this story because, you know, one of the things we did was we had to get market share.

When talking about service, we hire this girl from South America. She has platinum blonde hair and is so flirty. And so we put her, we built a check cashing booth. You know, we, you put two guys in there, full-time check cashers. And the guys loved her. And so, our check cashing business is booming.

It's cheesy and cheap, but it worked. And so we were doing, we were doing, when it was all done, we were doing over, over 2 million a month in check cashing.

Chris Powers: And was that hard? Did you have to? Was it regulated, or could anybody have gotten into it? Or did you have to get some?

Chris Hellgeth: When we started, you did not. Once we got going, you did; you had to have a money service, at least to my knowledge; if there was something out there, we didn't know about it; we were just because nobody was coming around and policing it. But again, once 9/11 hit and the Patriot Act got into effect, that changed everything.

So then we had to get licenses and permits, which got heavily regulated.

Chris Powers: You took a page from Hooter's playbook and brought it into your gas station.

Chris Hellgeth: We did, man. And it was the very thing that turned our whole check cashing business, which made us go from good to great.

Chris Powers: OK, did you know that would be the case, or how did you even stumble into doing that? You're like, we need to make more money. Let's try this. Or was it obvious?

Chris Hellgeth: Well, it went back to the whole thing. And the guy came in for; there's a segment of the population that was unbankable and more so then than now, you know, where you have electronic transfers, and that's right.

It wasn't, so that came back from the Spanish guy who came in, who asked me to catch his check, and we just rode with it. And it took off. We were, so the first week, it was the guy from Martin's painting. He brings in the rest of his crew a couple of weeks later.

So he brought in the rest of his crew, and now I have five guys there and 1,500 worth of checks. Well, now I made, what was that, 15, 20 bucks on that deal. And then it went from there. Next thing you know, they told their friends. And it went on. Then the other thing I noticed was that I would go to, at the time, Nations Bank, which is where I banked.

I would go in there and see the line of people to cash their checks. So it went on and on forever. I was like, man, there's a business here.

Chris Powers: And you had a neon sign in the window that said, check cash or whatever.

Chris Hellgeth: We did not. We wanted to be low-key; we wanted it to be low-key.

We didn't, and that's one thing about how I've almost developed all my businesses. I've been very under the radar. Yeah. I don't; I didn't even have my name on my trucks.

Chris Powers: Interesting, OK. So you buy the second gas station. That was a success.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. It was good. It was the busiest one that I had ever seen.

Again, it was in a natural rural area, and it was a great location, but I made a big mistake there because I got an SBA loan and me and Randy. And now, all of a sudden, I want to; I know nothing about real estate. I have yet to learn about real estate. So I, it's passive.

I saw you show up and collect checks. So I went out and sold the business for 300,000 to somebody.

Chris Powers: Well, you buy the gas station, sell the business out for 300, 000 and then basically do a lease.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. I was more bright than I thought I was. So I put down a hundred thousand and got 10 per cent owner financing from the guy who owned it.

So that was our 20%. For the bank, I go, and I'm like, OK, I'm going to sell. I built the business up some more and was like, I'm going to sell this. I'm going to get 300,000, and I'm going to be, you know, plus the inventory, and I'm going to buy another one. The SBA found out, and I had to give them all the 300,000.

So then I was still, no, I had no store and had to give the money. I just had to pay down my balance of 300,000, and then I had to pay tax on it. So the, you know, I thought I was a genius, but again, nobody, this is how, when you talk about, you know, I don't have any education, this is how I learned.

Like I would, I would do one stupid thing after another. I just tried not to repeat.

Chris Powers: OK. What happened after that?

Chris Hellgeth: After that one, I had another; I had already bought another one in the interim. I funded that one; Randy and I were attending these seminars around town about how to be an options trader.

And it was during the dot com deal. And so it was the late nineties. Everybody was getting rich, buying and selling stocks. And so he and I, one day, it was either Dell or Yahoo earnings, we put all these contracts on those, on their earnings play pops. We make a hundred grand.

And we're like, this is amazing, you know? And so we went out and bought another gas station because I was like, Hey, before we lose this money, let's buy another guy. Let's invest it. So we bought that other gas station. So, at the time, I had three gas stations. I had the one in Atlanta, my first gas station and the one I bought with the property.

But I had sold the business, and then I had the one in another town called Fayetteville. And so I had that one. So I was running that store. But it was not a killer. It was different from my other two stores.

Chris Powers: If you're going to own a gas station, do you need to hold both sides of it?

Chris Hellgeth: What do you mean by both sides?

Chris Powers: I'm asking if operating and owning real estate is better. Or is it good to be a landlord and treat these things like triple-net deals? Or is that just a different view of the world if you do that?

Chris Hellgeth: So my business model is similar to many guys. My business pays my bills, and my real estate built the wealth.

And so all I wanted to do was add to my portfolio. And so I would go out, buy, you know, buy the store, make some income, take the proceeds, invest it and buy another piece of real estate. So you know, quick trip and wild, wild, all these guys are doing. They have access to cheap capital, and they're able to continue growing.

But for me, you know, I didn't ever think I'd get on that level. So, it was an excellent way to start stringing these things together. Next thing you know, you got 5, 10, 15, and it just kept on compounding.

Chris Powers: OK. So then you got to what 4? And then what happened?

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, I had 4. So this is where it got dicey. I got over my skis, back to what I told you before. I made a lot of mistakes. I was highly leveraged. I had gotten married, had a family, and had the economics changed. So what? I did a couple of brilliant things, but I also did some foolish things.

So, during that process, I built a gas station and bought a distributorship. So I was like if I'm out in the play. It just gets complicated. I'm going to make it as easy as I can. So the plays are this: you have the gas station owner, and then you have the guy who sells him the gas.

OK, he's a distributor. And so I realized then that's the side I wanted to get into. I wanted to be a distributor because the distributor was flying jets, and I was driving a Chevy S10. And I was like, OK, that's the play, like, that's where I want to go with this. So we spent everything we had to put into buying a fuel distributorship.

OK, but you had two things going on within the fuel distributorship. You were selling to gas stations for yourself, and you were selling to contractors. Well, in 07, I can tell you selling to contractors was not a good move because now, all of a sudden, all those guys that you were selling to that ran bulldozers and heavy equipment, they burn all their diesel up.

You had them on 30-day terms, and then we weren't paid. And so we had guys bankrupting on us left and right. So we put everything we could into buying this fuel distributorship, and everybody started going bankrupt. So we got killed.

Chris Powers: How long was that window between when you bought it?

Chris Hellgeth: About two years.

Chris Powers: So it was suitable for two years, and then you got.

Chris Hellgeth: It wasn't even suitable for two years. We overpaid. So when we got it, we brought in a third partner, and the deal was this. It was the seller; he was financing part of it, too. And he brought us in an agreement, and he says, look, here's the P& L.

And I looked at it again. I'm not the most sophisticated guy in the world, but I Did addition and subtraction. I said we'll lose about 20,000 a month if we buy this. And the guy we took on as a partner was a, you know, he had a lot of tenure in the business. He was a general manager of another fuel distributorship.

He said, no, we're going to make 20,000 a month. And I was like, well, we're far apart. Let's get a third opinion. So we went to a CPA, and he looked at it. He goes, you're going to, he says, you're going to break even. I was OK, so we bought it anyway and never made much money.

We weren't making any money cause we were not growing the business. We needed more capital to do to be a distributor. You have to have capital. And we needed more capital. We spent it all to get in.

Chris Powers: So you just kept doubling down and doubling down. Every time you'd make some, you'd buy the next.

Chris Hellgeth: Just like my cigarette deal. It's like you; you bundle and unbundle. You know, and that was the same thing. So I'd go, I'd buy. And then, if it worked, it was great. And so we did, but the problem was I bought too much. And then, when people started bankrupting on me, and we couldn't grow the business, we were screwed.

Chris Powers: OK. I imagine you've been riding a high and coming into 08. Things are going wrong, and you have lots of businesses. There are lots of things going on. So the timeline, you don't have to get it order by order, but I'm trying to paint a picture for one, the sake of a great story, but also, for like listeners of like, this is what happens when the things don't start going your way.

Then, we will examine the other side, including how we dealt with it and where we are today.

Chris Hellgeth: OK, let's back it up. I'm backing up here. It got me in trouble: I looked at other people's actions. I'm out borrowing money, getting leveraged, wanting to be, you know, everyone's going, man, you're a rock star and the best investor.

And this guy, he doesn't miss. And, you know, that's what everybody's seeing on the outside. OK. So, one of the mistakes I made was that I had sold all of my retail operations, and I had two things going on. Randy had the store in Atlanta, but the neighbourhood changed. So it went from this big Spanish neighbourhood where we were killing it to the busiest store in Atlanta, too. They went upscale, and the business started but needed to do better.

I had a distributorship, meaning everybody was bankrupt and couldn't pay their bills. It's getting wiped out. Like we have nothing's making money. I sold my last retail store and got into business with my extended family. So, we got into a business and did landscaping and furniture.

How much furniture are you selling, and how much landscape are you doing when? All right, I'm not doing any. The other thing going on out there was we had a gas station that I had, and I was in the middle of a flip and sold it to my manager. The man, the bank said, well, if you believe in this guy so much, why don't you get on the note with him?

So I get on a note with him, and then he defaults. So I have these businesses going on, but they need to make more money. I'm getting killed. So now, where does it go? I got way too leveraged. I got too leveraged. I mean, I didn't have the capital.

I didn't have the resources to back it up. So everything started falling apart, and then what happened, to be honest with you was that the mortgage company put a note on the door. That's when it got real. And so then there was no hiding it.

Chris Powers: And then you were married, kids.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah, married kids. They're in elementary school. And then what was happening? Again, I was doing fine before. The kids come home from school and don't get their report cards because we didn't pay tuition. So now my kids are embarrassed because they're trying to ask. So now I know my kids need their report cards.

You got a mortgage; knock on the door. And then, it got into again. I was doing what any guy would try to do for his family. Like, I was just kept on trying to flip gas stations and selling, you know, real estate, and I had stock I had bought from the time I was 12 or 13 years old, and I was selling that trying to, you know, just, I mean, you're trying to get grocery money.

And like I told you, I didn't go to. I didn't have the money to walk into the attorney's office and go, Hey, here's 500 bucks. I want to file for bankruptcy. I couldn't get that kind of money together because I had to pay the tuition or do this. And so I kept rolling it from one thing to the next; I didn't see any end in sight.

I couldn't stop; it was just within me, like I had to keep doing it. So it was very, very hard, and then it was, I mean, Chris, listen, man, I know there's a lot of guys, and I've heard about some of these guys who I don't know them personally on Twitter, and they've, you know, they've had a hard, I was, and I put a post up on this, and people don't believe me.

And listen man, I pulled up on a 4th of July, and I didn't even have; I was trying to put the money together to get to a state park to watch fireworks. Like, that's how far I mean, you're talking 7. You know, so this is not. It's everything: the banks are calling, and everything's going straight to voicemail.

Your wife is going. Why was my credit card declined? And people go, well, you should know your credit limit. Well, you're right. You got a capital one over here, and then she got one. And then, American Express, you know, will first burn through your cash. Then, you're going to burn through your credit lines. And then, you know, the music stops. And so I was trying to move, you know, as a shell game.

Chris Powers: Did you ever sit down with your wife or family and say, here's what's happening? Or did you play through it?

Chris Hellgeth: I just ran through it. I never said; I never knew there was no denying it. Now, my kids were too young. My kids thought we were rich forever. They never were against it. I mean, look, man, it was. It got down to the fact that we were catering, and I was going in and catering people's Super Bowl parties. You know what I mean? That's because that's my barbecue sauce.

It goes back to when I made a little money, but my overhead was here. But my income was here. Yeah. You know, even these developers and guys who have a hard time are making money, and you've got some money coming in from others. It's like who you're not going to pay. And how that started. It was funny. Cause I had that gap. They had the gas station that the forbearance got put on. And, like I said, they didn't foreclose because of an environmental issue, and the bank didn't want it. And so, I had this idea, I was like, I'm going to sell ribs, you know, and so I put them on it.

We had a rotisserie, OK, and for me to get people in the store, it's a store that looks like a tomb. It looked awful, like a Russian air bunker. And so, to get people in, I wish I had a picture of it. I would, I got this old Weber grill, and I rolled it out by the road and, and I loaded it up full of wood and, you know, and I put meat on there, just hamburgers to get the fragrance and it's at, by the stop sign.

And this thing was smoking, like, I mean, it was just smoking like crazy and, and people would come in there, and I'd start selling these, I'd start selling the ribs and people like, man, this, this, these ribs are amazing. I'm like, man, you should pick up a sauce bottle. Where do you get this from?

I don't know, man, I make this right here, you know, and so what I did is I started buying, you know, I got these Mason jars, and I started getting the Mason jars, and I started filling up for the sauce from Sam's Club. And, you know, it was great. And so we didn't have any name on it, but I put it underneath the counter, even where it wasn't on display.

You had to know you like that, like the secret handshake, to get the sauce. And it was like this word spread like wildfires. Like you got to see Chris, you got to get the barbecue sauce, and you got to know what you got; he won't sell it to just everybody. And so we built it, and we made it at the time.

Again, the funny thing about all this stuff is that it is expected of me. Like there is nothing to this, it's abnormal. And I could put it on Twitter, and people like this are amazing. I'm like, doesn't everybody do this? You know, like, so, anyway, it was good times.

Chris Powers: You are the definition of scrappy. So you said, I didn't see the end in sight. You don't see it, but it came. So when did things start working back in your favour again?

Chris Hellgeth: This is amazing. So we had the thing as I had that fuel distribution business; it was losing money.

OK, it was losing money. How do you make money? You have to; all we sold was gas. So I needed to sell gas. One day, I'm driving down the street, and there's this chain of gas stations called hotspot gas stations, and they have five stores in Atlanta. OK, and I'm driving down there. I've been going by the store forever, and I'm like, I'm going to write that guy a letter and see if he'll sell me that store.

I have no money. The car I was driving at the time was a 2003 Chevy S10. That was my dad's, but he sold me for 2,000. That's what I'm doing. So I write a letter to these people. Hey, would you sell me your gas stations?

Chris Powers: It's Health Enterprises.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. Well, that was our company.

It's Hellgeth Enterprises. That was our corporation—some big fancy name. So I write him a letter. I'm like, Hey, I own this fuel distribution. I'm Chris, Chris Hellgeth. I own Vimac. I'm a fuel distributor. And I was leveraging the name, which had a good name but was making zero money.

It was losing money. And so I write the guy a letter. I want to buy from your stores. Listen, man. About a week later, I got a phone call, and they said, " Hey Chris, yes, this is. I think his name was Danny. It is Dan from Hotspot convenience stores. I'm the CEO here, and our owner just passed away, and we need to settle as a state.

And so we will sell the stores to settle as a state because they owned 50 or 60 stores. And they were a big player, but mainly in South Carolina. And so I'm like, awesome, man, that's great. He's like, I was like, what's the price? And he goes, we'll make us an offer. And I'm like, OK.

And so I offer him five and a half million dollars plus inventory, dude, I can't even, like, my wife's card is declining. OK, I'm talking; I'm trying to broker this deal. And so he's like, OK, so, well, hey, let me speak to the board and talk to the board, get back to you. So he comes back and says, hey, look, we're going to put it up for bid, and we're going to see what the best deal we can get is.

So another guy offers him 6 million with the inventory. I'm at five and a half plus inventory. He goes and physically counts the inventory. And apparently, I was like 10,000; my deal was 10,000 more. Then what the other guy did was he was straight as street. Matt, he goes, I'll take the deal. And I was like, awesome.

And he goes, all right, send me a contract. I'm like, cool. No problem, man. I got you. Like I'm cool as a cucumber. And my S10 probably prepaid minutes at the time. You're like, I got, you know, I got to make this call quick. You know, otherwise, I'm going to get turned off. So I'm like, yeah, you got it.

And so then I go, and I'm like. Well, where am I going to get the earnest money? So then I went to my neighbour, who is a dentist, and he was always intrigued by what I was doing. He goes, you know, he's like, Hey, I'd like to get in business and do something with you one day and invest, whatever. I was like, yeah, man, let's do it.

You know, that's great. I'm an expert at this. So he's like, OK, great. Well, he comes up with 25 grand. I was like, I need another 25 grand, and I've got earnest money. So I go to my dad. I'm like, Dad, I got this investment going on. Are you interested in doing it?

He goes, yeah, sure. You know, he goes, great, I'll do it. So he put the 50 000, you know, I get the 50 000 hours, you put it down. And, so I bought these, it ended up being six gas stations. I need to find a way to finance myself, but I can't get capital on my card. Like, I need help getting a 200 limit. How will I get five and a half million dollars together?

So I knew what they were worth. So I went out there and got with a broker I knew could move these things. I'm like, let's move these stores. So he went in, and we flipped; we had contracts on all five of these, or only we ended up selling four of them, and we kept two. So I sold those four stores for enough.

To buy the others. And so I got all their money, but everybody who was coming in, I was playing hard balls like you need a hundred thousand dollars earnest money, non-refundable. So that's what these guys all had to get in the deal. So, I knew my deal was solid. Well, then we bring it to the closing table.

Only some people have earned it; only some have all their funding set up. They're short a hundred thousand. I'm owner financing. I'm putting the whole deal together, but that was the deal. That turned my entire life around because of that deal, and right there we went. I was able to take the volume that is going from all those stores and put it into my fuel distribution company. Now I'm profitable.

Chris Powers: Because you became your customer.

Chris Hellgeth: That was what you would do. For example, when you're a distributor, you want to own the locations, and they must buy fuel from you. That's what you're trying to do.

Chris Powers: So when you sign contracts with the four, you flip that I'll convert it to you, but you have to buy me a gas. Where do you get the gas from?

Chris Hellgeth: We get it from the terminals up in Atlanta, but you had to have contracts. And even how we were on our contracts, you know, most of these guys are running around with unsecured lines, just open lines of credit can buy whatever you want. We had to have a secured line, so you had to be careful how much you could buy.

So they wouldn't sell me any more gas. So I started going out to friends of mine who were competitors who just knew who I was but never knew that I had terrible credit, and they started selling me gas.

Chris Powers: How long did that deal take to assemble and execute? Was that over a year?

Chris Hellgeth: No, no. I did that in a couple of months, like four months.

Chris Powers: Who bought the other four from you? Just local operators or like a big group?

Chris Hellgeth: Two guys from Boston, one guy from California, and another guy, he was local. So it was one local guy, a guy from California. And the one guy, on his way to the closing table, flipped his moving truck on the exit.

His furniture is strewn all over the road. And I'm like, look, you got to come. I'm sorry, you'll have to get your wife to deal with this like you got here. You don't get these stores because of that whole deal. And I'll never forget the other, the guy, the closing attorney; he and I are now friends.

Cause all that money came into his escrow account. Then, he funded the deal. And I walked out with a lot of money.

Chris Powers: And paid off probably all your credit cards.

Chris Hellgeth: I restored my 200 credit limit with Capital One. You know, I paid off all those bills. And then I got serious at that point.

And we never looked back. And that's the thing that I want people to understand. As quickly as things go wrong, they can go good. And you got to, you got to hang in there, man. And it's like not getting too biblical on you, but God will give you what you can take, man.

And never more. Nevermore. And it would help if you kept sight of that. You just got to go like, OK, I'm being tested. Everything I did was for a reason. People look at me now like I want to enter the gas game. Are you sure about that? Like, you sure? Like, all anybody sees right now is, " Oh, this guy's got a bunch of shiny trucks and lives in, you know, lovely home and has a vacation home like, you don't know, man. Everybody doesn't have to take it that way, but it's not been easy, man. I don't ever want to. I put this watch I'm wearing on Twitter the other day. It is the one I wore when I was a teenager. I wore it today because I want to remember where I came from.

Chris Powers: Yeah, you said something, maybe it was in a tweet or something you said, I can, or perhaps it was somebody that, it was somebody you're doing business with that said something like, I can be poor longer than you can be rich or something like that.

Chris Hellgeth: So my tyre man, his name is Thomas. This guy's fantastic; he's this old African American guy. And he comes in there. He goes, he goes, you don't ever forget he goes, I can act poor longer, and you can never act rich. And he's got all the money in the world. Like not all the money in the world, but, you know, he's got plenty, he's stacks of cash and stuff, and he does great.

And he's just that wisdom. I love talking to these older adults. And here is what they got going on, but that was when everything flipped from bad to excellent.

Chris Powers: I've done 300 and some odd of these episodes. And like, it is a continuous thread that the, the greats have, the greats are great.

Cause they've been through a ton, you know, God gives us those moments so that we can build wisdom and build, I mean, nobody's like great just because they've been great forever. They're usually great off the backs of either giants or huge mistakes they've made. And if you're looking for tons of mistakes made, you can find them right here, too. I've done the biggest bonehead things ever, personal and business.

Chris Hellgeth: It's how you learn. You'll have a hard time if you don't learn from it. Again, I subscribe to it. Like, I don't; as you said, I know many successful people, and every one of them has had to drag their knuckles until they got, until they were bleeding and Try to figure it out. And it's just part of it, man.

Chris Powers: The other thread is that most of the most incredible deals we've discussed on this podcast have been a cold call, a cold letter, or something cold. AI, you can come out with all the technology in the world. I am still waiting for something more effective than a cold outreach to find the diamond in the rough.

Chris Hellgeth: It is, I mean, that's where your money is made. You, you, you know, if it's easy and it's out there for everybody, it's, you know, like how I do deals. I don't do anything like off-loop net, correct? You're not throwing shade at them, but I always think that's how I trade.

I look for things that nobody else is looking for. That's where the money's at for me anyway.

Chris Powers: How do you flip a gas station?

Chris Hellgeth: So I would get a good reputation for being a buyer. People just knew I was a suitable buyer. You see, I'd always do it. That was one thing I always did.

I always did what I said I was going to do. And so you go out if you like how I was able to build my portfolio. I had a formula, and I've posted it before, which is if I knew the bank wanted 20 per cent down, I needed the business value of that as of that purchase to be at least 20 per cent of the purchase price.

So, if it was a million-dollar purchase, I needed the business and the leasehold to be worth 200,000. So I'm going to go to the bank. I'm going to borrow eight, and I'm going to put down two.

Chris Powers: Businesses were two in the real estate's worth eight; you're just bifurcating it in your head.

Chris Hellgeth: That's right. And so all I would do is it, and this is like the most extensive cheat code in the world; man, I could accelerate everything. I'd go out, and I'd find Chris wants to get in the gas business, and he wants to run a store. I'm like, incredible, man, give me 200 grand. I'll put you in the store.

I'm, And so Chris would give me 200. I have no money out of my pocket. I got the real estate. I got the fuel supply agreement. And you got a store.

Chris Powers: So you would sell them the business. To this date, would you rather own the company now? Or do you want to own the real estate?

Chris Hellgeth: No, I can't. I needed to be a better operator to be at one store.

I could run with anybody, but I could do it now. However, I wanted to run something other than ten stores when I was younger. That was just not my thing for me. You could scale to infinity, just owning gas and the real estate and selling them gas. It's so easy.

Chris Powers: Are you still flipping stores?

Chris Hellgeth: I got five. I'm doing it right now. I got to buy that Porsche. I got to get that nine 11, man. And it, you know, it's like, I'm not even doing it. I'm only doing it as a bit. I'm trying to show everybody how to do that. You can do it. I'm like, how you do.

It is a cheap deal. I'm going to show the numbers when I get it all done. And you know, it's like, I'm going to make more than one Porsche out of this deal, but I'm not going to. Take it all and put it all in one pour. So I mean, that's just, that's a bonehead deal. But so I'm showing everybody how to do it.

Like I'm walking you through, Hey, buy these stores, sell these stores. It is how you do it—boom, boom, boom.

Chris Powers: How do you find the stores' buyers? Do you go to business, buy, sell, or do something else?

Chris Hellgeth: No, you need to work. We're a very tight niche. It would help if you found guys who operate in that circle.

And just like you, if you're selling industrial, you work with, you know, you're not going to call convenience store guys. I'm not calling industrial guys. So we have a tight circle that we run in, and we, um, you know, I have brokers that I use that run specifically in gas stations.

And then I also have a ton of my connections. My phone, I have about 1500 people on my phone.

Chris Powers: All right. 2016 rolls around. You've built a port. What, what did the, the, what did, Hellgeth. Enterprises look like at that point going into 2016.

Chris Hellgeth: Going into 2016, I bought Randy out in 2013. So it was a hundred per cent mine.

He wanted to go; he wanted to retire. He knew what Randy knew was this. He said that he is holding back this business. And he said, Hey, look, you're grown. You're the guy who produces it. You're the working guy. I've made my money. I'm good. I'm going. And he moved to Mexico. He took his money and moved to Mexico.

He's happy for me; he left me here with it. And then I got after it because what happened was a tweet. I put it out the other day. You have your working Parker partner, and you have your equity guy. OK. And so I'm going in here and working every day, but I need to get half the money.

Yeah, I mean, not no fault of his. He was doing the deal precisely right. But I'm like, or even if I was getting half the money, I'm like, this is just no fun. Like I'm doing everything, and I'm only getting, you know, I put an account on, I'm supposed to make 5, 000 and making 25 has not changed my life.

So, he was ready to sell out. It was amicable. It was great, but I had to sell part of my portfolio to fund that. I didn't have the cash to give him to support his. I had everybody was going bankrupt on me. All these different things that happened. So, I sold part of my gas contracts to another friend. Use that money paid off, Randy.

Chris Powers: Wait, what do you mean by your gas contracts?

Chris Hellgeth: So when you sell gas to a gas station, if it's a branded gas station, Shell, Chevron, Exxon, whatever. You will have to enter into a 10-year fuel supply agreement with them.

Chris Powers: Exxon gas doesn't necessarily come from Exxon wells.

Chris Hellgeth: I don't know what happens. What I can tell you is this: I pull my truck up to the terminal, and we pull different brands out of, uh, out of a particular terminal, but they do know it like this. I can testify to is that they do have their additives. They have proprietary additives, and they're put in line before they get on the truck.

It doesn't. It doesn't come from, and I don't know where it comes from.

Chris Powers: I pulled the cardinal sin. I interrupted you. So I asked you why you were selling contracts to pay him out.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. So when you, that's the beauty of the business. So you own the real estate, then you're selling that, and then you're selling them the fuel.

So now you're getting an annuity and a 10-year deal. You know, you're going to invest, call it two years of, you want, you want to get your money back in two years, you got eight years of income, sometimes it's three years of cost to get in it and seven years of income. So I had a bunch of these things. I don't know. At the time, I had like 70 of them. So, I sold off some of them and then gave them to a competitor. And I used that money and gave it to Randy to fund Randy.

Chris Powers: So you gave gas con. You're in the gas business but sold some of your contracts to a competitor. Did you get those contracts back to pay him off, or are they gone forever?

Chris Hellgeth: No, man. But you know, it's fantastic because I sell the fuel too. I delivered fuel to almost every one of those locations now.

Chris Powers: OK. Bunty walks in 2016 and says, Chris, what's your price? And you said, man, I'm not for sale.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. We had done well at this point. OK. So I had gone from. Uh, you know, if you return to a way, everybody went bankrupt on us.

Then we started building it up again in 20, like, call it 2010. We were buying another distributor out. And so he goes bankrupt on us. So I'm back to, you know, like, 08 again. Then I buy another guy. I'm trying to buy another guy out, and then he goes bankrupt. It happened to me three times. That we're guys, we're selling to bankruptcy.

And so I eventually learned I'm not doing that anymore. OK. Like we don't own or find it. We don't sell gas to distributors. We're trying to get out of the business. So 2013 comes along, by Randy out, and I get after it now. I'm like, OK, now it's a hundred per cent mind. Like I am, we'll get after it.

And I started going out and turning deals, deals, deals, deals, everybody. Like if you're in a gas business in Atlanta, I've. I have been involved in so many stores there. I either owned them, bought them, flipped them, sold them, brokered them, or did anything that had to do with it. And, you know, I was a go-to guy.

So I got out of them and built the volume up big. Now, I'm selling gas to over a hundred gas stations, up to a hundred million dollars. And, you know, I'm hitting a lick, man. So now I'm on the radar. So I wouldn't, even as distribution goes, we were a smaller company.

We were not significant, you know; it was all self-funded. I wasn't borrowing any money anymore. I wasn't even bankable. So, I'm sitting there in my office. I get a cold call, and the guy calls. He said, Hey, we want to meet with you as an attorney; his name was Paul. He goes, we're going to have a meeting with you.

I was like, OK, what will we discuss? And he goes, we want to get in the distribution game. I was like, OK, well, just whatever. Come on by and see me. So he comes by and sees me, and the guy pulls up, and I might, my Bach, that's what you call that. And, in comes Paul, the attorney, and Bunty, and they say to me, he says, you know, they're trying to figure out different ways they can buy gas and put them in their stores.

And eventually, the guy looks at me and goes, why don't you sell us your place? I was like, it's not for sale. Like I'm not for sale. It's not. He goes and just dead straight in the eye. He goes, everybody has a price. And I was like, OK, give me X. He stands up, shakes my hand and says, we'll do the deal.

No, he hadn't looked at any paperwork; he just did everything on my word.

He just said, yeah, we like what you've done. So he shook my hand and walked out of the office, and I just broke down, man. It is not, this is the furthest thing from, cause I was making money now. I'm doing good. Like, I'm like, I'm good. Like the, you know, I'm not fronting anymore. Like, I'm making money, and everything's great.

And Bunty walks in, he says, you know, he wants to have it, name your price. And I was like, give me this. And I knew with what I had then that if he gave me that, I'd never have to work again.

Chris Powers: What'd your wife say?

Chris Hellgeth: We both just cried, man, because you go from, like, you have to know, man, like going from declined credit card to never having to worry again.

It's, I mean, it's just like a, it's a feeling that you, it's like nothing.

Chris Powers: And those report cards were getting signed.

Chris Hellgeth: They were paying tuition in advance, you know? We went from that to being the most significant donor at the school. You know what I'm saying? So, like, and so I sold it to Bunty in 2016, and I had the only thing I did on that.

So when you run a fuel distribution company, you only have a couple of employees. You know, you've got your dispatcher, market manager, and accountant running all that stuff, and everything's automated. But he had a lot of drivers. And so the only deal I made, I had just hired this one guy, Cosman, who works for me.

He's the second guy I was going to tell you about. That changed my life and made my business great. So I've got Cosman working for me. And I was like, I can't get rid of the trucking part because I don't, I can't tell Cosman, I just hired you three months ago. And now you're going to work for this guy.

Like, I couldn't do that. I was like, I got to keep this guy on. So I made a deal with him, and there's another guy named Chris working for me. I was like, well, here's the deal, guys. I'm done. I don't want to work anymore. If you guys want a job, here's the deal. I will pay you guys, X, and I don't want to come up here anymore. And they're like, yeah, we'll do that deal. So I'd go up there once a week, once every other week, and check on things. Pick up checks or ask him about certain things. But I did nothing. And my goal was to give it to those two. When I was like, take it like you want it, you can have it. But he was just nervous about that.

Chris Powers: You sold your distribution business to Bunty very quickly. Who is Bunty?

Chris Hellgeth: Bunty is the Co Am, Georgia's video poker machine operator and the most significant game and gaming operator.

Chris Powers: OK. I thought that was a guy.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. He's great, man. This guy's unbelievable. That's another story.

Chris Powers: We'll loop back there, but you sold it to him. So, real quick, what did you leave to these two employees then?

Chris Hellgeth: To run the trucking company. So, at the time, we had seven or eight trucks.

Chris Powers: OK. Doing what?

Chris Hellgeth: Delivering gas.

Chris Powers: So what'd you sell?

Chris Hellgeth: The contracts. So you have three things going on. You have the gasoline, the real estate, the trucking. Those are the three ways I was making money. I sold the gas contracts. That's where the money's at.

Chris Powers: I kept the trucks quickly and have to get here. I watch too much Crime TV, but I picture a gas station in a good area of town, but only a little.

And then you see a lot on these TV shows, and you see these: a lot of the crime happens at the gas station, and there are shootouts in the gas area. There are robberies, and like my heart, when you watch them, you just know something's about to happen. So typically, you're walking into these stores, there's Plexiglas or bars, and the employees are back.

I am still determining how to do these; some people own these gas stations in some of the most challenging areas in the country. What is happening there? It is dangerous to show up to. As someone who's seen it from that side, how do these stores survive?

Chris Hellgeth: It's just a way of life, man. You don't know any different. You know, you wake up every day. I carried a gun when I was younger. It was Mason, you know, it's like a billy club of sorts that the police had. I was like, you know, a baton, you know, I took that. You just, you just got used to it. I mean, you, you didn't think any, you didn't think twice about it.

Chris Powers: But was theft a part of the business model? Part of it.

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. I mean, you, you know, we've had shootouts. We've had people, you know, we've had it all, man. I mean, we've had the people, you know, stealing stuff, and you're shooting mace in their face, and they're underground, and you got the police coming.

I mean, it's all that stuff. It's just that you get desensitized to it after a while. I mean, you don't even like it, you don't look forward to it, but you get used to it.

Chris Powers: Well, we're going to have to go back in time then because don't you have a story of having a gun pulled on you?

Chris Hellgeth: I have had a gun pulled on me more than once, but yeah, I mean, that's a lot. When I finally left the business and sold the last store I was running, a guy stole my grill. His name was Poon. And so Poon stole my grill, and I didn't realize he was a local drug dealer. And when he said, No, this was my pull behind a smoker that I pulled behind, you know, that I had upgraded.

So, I confronted him about it, and he threatened to kill me, and I was done with running stores. That was it. Cause I had a family then. When I was younger, I didn't care. It's like you didn't; you're invincible, and anything is loose.

Chris Powers: OK. So you sell your and your wife high five tuitions, and prepaid report cards are being signed.

It's been an excellent eight-year run. You go on a little sabbatical, and then in 2019, your right-hand man in the trucking business.

Chris Hellgeth: He, his name was Chris as well. And Chris decided that he didn't choose. He found a girlfriend and got engaged. We're going to get married. So he gets married, and I'm, and I was like, Hey, Chris, I know you're not going to stick around and do this.

Like you're marrying a doctor. And he's not, man, I'm here. I'm here. And I was like, no, you're not. And you shouldn't be. You know, so, sure enough, he doesn't quit. He gave me notice, and this was all right when COVID hit. And I was like, this game on, let's do it, man. I'm watching the news.

The news says that there's a national truck shortage for fuel delivery companies. I see everything that's going on. And it's very personal to me; many people count on me for what we do because we're good at what we do. And I just felt like it was my calling. I was like, let's go, man.

I'm ready for it. I'm here for it. So I went straight to work, got in there, started working five days a week again, actually worked seven days a week, but go into the office five days a week and started, we started putting it together, and we started hiring like crazy—buying equipment. I mean, I was doing things nobody was doing to get equipment.

I was buying used trailers, refurbishing stuff, rebuilding stuff, we were doing everything, man. We were, I mean, it was, it was unbelievable.

Chris Powers: Did you lose your touch over three years, or had you stayed dialled into a place where it was just second nature to you?

Chris Hellgeth: No, I don't think I ever lost it. I got a better perspective, which is Iter at managing people. Number one, I was, my goals were different. And so my philosophy was when I started the trucking company, I started pushing it. People in the industry tried to figure out how much the owner could make and how much they could keep from the driver.

And I flipped that, and I was like, look, I want this to be the best place to work in Atlanta if you're a truck driver. And so when I flipped that script, everybody started coming in, and it was like the less I worried about how much money I was making, the more I started driving.

Chris Powers: What do you know about managing people today that you didn't know when you started?

Chris Hellgeth: You need to respect these people, their dads and moms, somebody's kid, and treat them like you want to be treated. And that's a big part of it. And you have to give people an opportunity, you know, and you have to make them feel like they're part of the team.

It's not, you know, one reason I don't drive a Porsche to work is because I don't want to be like. Chris is here, and you're driving a Nissan Altima like I didn't; I don't know. It's a bad look.

Chris Powers: Was that just acquired Duchess wisdom over time?

Chris Hellgeth: My dad did an excellent job of that. You know, cause he, he was good at his number one thing for me.

If I start seeing I'm losing employees, there's a problem. That's the number one thing I look at. I don't, you know, customer, you know, I don't lose customers. So, if I started losing customers, I know there's something with that, too. But that's always my metric. If I start losing, we keep drivers if my turnover goes up.

Chris Powers: OK, you're in the trucking business, which is a tricky business. But you said we're good at it. Why are you good?

Chris Hellgeth: Because I do it for personal reasons. It's not a, you know, we're a commoditized business, and you've got to try not to be a commodity.

And so how we do it is we work on the relationships, even though I'm the company owner, and I'm going to be, you know, the anti. Nick Huber here; when I say this, I can't give my stuff to VAs, and I can't give it to anybody. I dispatch hundreds of loads, thousands of loads a week.

I understand Atlanta because I understand the traffic patterns, the store sizes, the personality of stores, and what they're all going to do. And so I've just taken it out personally because I can make all the money I want to make out of that. Right there, within 150 miles of Atlanta. Like, I don't need to go outside.

Chris Powers: See, you just, what you kind of, what I heard was you're a market expert in Atlanta, but if you come, let's say, I said, you, you went back ten years, but you still had the knowledge you have today. What would you do if you arrived in DFW?

Chris Hellgeth: What would I do if I came in here? First, I covered the bases, which is the ability to get to the terminals. I would be going out and finding relationships with the local distributors. And they're, you know, hard to get because a lot of them have their trucks, but they can only do so much on their own and end up giving their overflow out.

I'd be making relationships with the local distributors. I want to get with the big guys who don't use their transportation, like Wawa, Quick Trips, and Kroger. They don't use or have their trucks. So I'd be making relationships with them, but it's all about the drivers. You have to get the drivers, find out the best drivers, and figure out how to attract them.

How do you attract them? They want to make the most money. How do you make the most money? You have to charge the most. You can't trust the most if you're a new guy in town. It would help if you determined how to determine that most guys come in and give their product away.

I'm not doing that. I'm figuring out that you have some value in what you have, and you, you know, the best advice I ever got from somebody. I remember I was sitting on a, I was at a football game as a friend of mine. He's the wealthiest friend that I have.

And he said, you know, you got to find the people who want to pay top dollar. That's the guys you like. You can't make money work for the guys who want to do it, do it cheap.

Chris Powers: So, really quickly, I should ask this to start. What is the supply chain? So, starting from the ground, it goes through midstream lines to the refinery and takes it from there.

Chris Hellgeth: All I do is downstream. So we pick up at the local terminals you see around town. So, who gets it to the terminal coming up the pipeline? So it's pipeline determined. Now ethanol comes in on the rail. Ethanol goes into gas, so like most cities, you have to have at least 10% ethanol for every gallon of gas.

So that comes in on the rail. So, we transport a lot of ethanol, like I have a love-hate relationship with ethanol, but we transport a lot of it. So that comes in, and then we get it from their terminal. We bring the ethanol terminal to the terminals. You see, the trucks pull in locally to pick up the gas, which goes into the gas station to the end user.

Chris Powers: What is disruptive to the gas station business? Are there any significant risks out there?

Chris Hellgeth: I know that; I feel like I'm getting led down this one. We're talking about EVs. No. OK. I'm not that worried. I'm more concerned about Costco or Kroger jumping into my market. If you think about it, if a Costco sells a million gallons a month, that gown's coming out of your market.

You have any EVs you have to put, it's like 20,000 EVs got to like pull it into your city. You know, is it going to happen? It will, but you know, we've figured out a way to make money in this industry, and you know, me specifically, OK. Personally, these are covered land plays. I'm selling them gas.

And so you sell the gas to the store, you deliver the gas to the store, and get the rent money. And then, if it ever becomes where it's not a viable model, I'm going to rent it to Dutch brothers. I don't know what we are, but I'm OK. These guys are savvy.

They're doing this. Most of these guys are not, we're, we're not, I mean, I know some guys are sweating it, and I think specific markets are, it's more robust, but like in Georgia, we're not, I'm not worried about it.

Chris Powers: It's still a growing industry. And the margins are good.

Chris Hellgeth: You know, the margins we figured out that we can, like, we're going to sell every drop of it, and you can make money on it, and people are still going to buy it.

Chris Powers: Well, people talk about how long until all gas stations are converted to EV, and I'm like, it's undoubtedly going to be in your lifetime, probably your kid's lifetime. The critical infrastructure we already have built in this country would cost trillions of dollars.

Chris Hellgeth: I agree. And the two other things that I say to that, OK, so the primmest real estate that most of these.

Cities will be owned by a gas station most of the time, you know, only some of the time, but we have significant real estate. So if we have great real estate, well, there will be a use for its number one. And if I have an important real estate I need, I need to make some good money off of it, right? Why am I going to put EV chargers at a gas station?

It makes more sense to go a block down the street where it's not, you know, at a strip mall, for example, and they could put. Ten of these things up there, like it doesn't. They don't. I mean, they go together. If you're looking at a Bucky's or something like that, you know, or, you know, these quick trips where they're going to have these, but a local gas station has two of these things.

It shouldn't be there yet because many of those guys are parking. They're charging at home, you know? So if I'm competing with. I'm never going to be able to overcome that. That's number one.

Chris Powers: If somebody drives a Prius, do you let them get gasoline from their gas station?

Chris Hellgeth: You know, I saw Sean say something about that. It's more than anything. Like it's more like, it's, what I don't like about it, I feel like, I feel like it, maybe I'm wrong. I may be self-conscious. Everybody wants us to fail. Like, I feel like it's a cult.

People want to see us fail. And that's the part I don't like, like, I don't care if you drive a Prius. I don't care if you go with a Tesla. I don't care what you drive, whatever you want.

We're not bad guys. Like we do a vital thing to the industry, we do it, we contribute to, you know, we're, we do a lot, you know, we're not, you know, we were families too. You see, we're not trying to like pollute. We're trying to provide a valuable service to the community.

Chris Powers: I had to. I had to poke you there.

Chris Hellgeth: No, I thought it was hilarious when he said that. I was like, Oh gosh, this one's coming, but I don't, you know, it's more of a bit. It's a lot of fun talking about it, but I don't; it's not self-preservation because I mean, I'm, I'm doing everything I'm doing now is just, it's just extra.

Chris Powers: What about car washes at gas stations?

Chris Hellgeth: They're great. The problem with most of them is that they need to be managed better. So if you order them, well, they're going to be great. They're great little profit centres. But you know, if you can't get the guy to clean the bathroom, you think you'll go out there and scrape a car wash?

No, it's not happening. So if you get a good operator, they're still a viable business. What will kill you is they open up an express wash next door. Then you're, it does suck up all the volume. It's tough to make it. But still, his friend, one of my customers, has it when he does a frictionless wash, the touch wash, and kills it.

You know, and there's a big express wash right down the street because some people don't want their car to, you know, get friction on it. And so he still does well, but he manages it great.

Chris Powers: Buying new or building new or buying existing.

Chris Hellgeth: I'm going to do existing. Cause usually, they already have great locations. They're generally already great locations. They need a few hundred thousand dollars put in them. Right now, trying to get anything in the title is almost impossible. OK, something other than what you're trying to do matters. Well, that's true. In general, nobody wants anything to be built, including homes.

And it's so hard to do. It, you know, time is money. And if it's taken me a year or two years to get something entitled, I'd instead go in there and pay a little bit more. Curb cuts are there. DOTs have already approved the permanent access. I like it; there's so much value in it.

Chris Powers: What's your environmental process?

Chris Hellgeth: I'd skip phase one. If I can, I go straight to phase two, and phase two is they're going to poke holes in the ground, take their samples, and tell you what's going on there.

Chris Powers: Wait, why do you skip phase one?

Chris Hellgeth: Cause they will tell me to do a phase two.

Chris Powers: I know it's so self-serving. The company that charges you for phase one is like, you should do a phase two. I'm like, why do that? OK. But that's when you're buying, right? Yeah. OK. Then what do you do with the report? You get to use that as negotiation power.

Chris Hellgeth: Or you can, because if it even has trace amounts, you can usually go back to the buyer and go, you know, and you may not; you have to clean it up.

It could be below the level where the EPA has to get involved. So it's a play. It's always a good idea. I have. There are times when I bought some here recently that I didn't do, but there's a reason why I didn't. And I talk about it. Like today, but there are some things I'm doing, and I'm OK with it.

If it's something I know the history of, and I, you know, in what most states have, I can only talk about some states, but most states have a fund set up. If there is an issue, they'll take care of it. So, if my exposure will be limited to 10,000 deductible and all my paperwork's in order, I'm OK with it.

Chris Powers: What's the dirty secret on unleaded versus premium?

Chris Hellgeth: Oh, geez, here's the deal on that. OK. Put what your car asked for. OK. Yeah. If your car, you know, if your vehicle only calls for 87, then put 87 in it.

Chris Powers: And what's 87? What is that number?

Chris Hellgeth: Octane. And so then the 93 is a 93 octane. So, as your car calls for 93, I'm putting 93 in it.

Chris Powers: Do you own any trucking gas stations?

Chris Hellgeth: I don't; truck stops and gas stations are a different animal altogether. While it may seem very similar on the outside, it's different. There's a whole other network, you know, trying to get contracts with the big like Swift or J. B. Hunt or Yellow, whoever, if you're trying to, you got to, they usually have salesmen able to get them to come to their locations like pilot loves or whatever.

Chris Powers: All right, we will end on video poker. How good of a business is this, and why?

Chris Hellgeth: It's unbelievable. Just because people are gambling at it, so, I don't know. Every state is different. Some states allow it, and some don't; where we're at, the Georgia lottery regulates it. OK. They have set up that they get the first 5 per cent, and then you split the other. And so, you can buy a couple of those machines for, you know, 7, 8, 000, 10, 15, 000 dollars a piece. I know of locations that make 100 200 000 a month.

Chris Powers: God dang. Do you need a license to have them?

Chris Hellgeth: Yeah. So, just the license, this is probably the biggest mistake I ever made, but they're the biggest, probably the biggest mistake I ever made if I had that license. And so they only issue a certain amount of those licenses in Georgia anyway. And you're called a master license. And that license alone is trading.

I had one; I sold mine for 60,000. Again, I had tuition, and I sold it for 60,000. It's worth about 4 million daily with no revenue, just the license alone.

Chris Powers: And they're not handing out a ton more.

Chris Hellgeth: I think the lottery is like water. One or two a year. That's it.

Chris Powers: If somebody wins, gets the Royal flush or something, who bears the risk of the big payout? Is it the lottery system, or is it the store owner?

Chris Hellgeth: Well, you're, they're going to be only a thousand, 2,000 payouts. So it's small money. And so, you know, the winnings could be better. And so what you do is you're not supposed to pay cash, and you're, that's what the rule says, but the guys who are trading at those 102 000, it doesn't, they can't, it's hard for me to be convinced that they're giving them gift certificates and making a hundred to 200, 000 a month.

Chris Powers: All right, Chris, this is awesome.

#340 - Chris Hellgeth aka Gas Biz Guy - Owner @ Vi-Mac - Building a $100M Gasoline Empire

Recent Episodes