I Got a Guy with Michael Drelicharz

Steve Doyle (: 00:00

Welcome back to the show Brad Herda. Welcome back to Bluecaller BS. How you doing today my friend?

Brad Herda (: 00:06

I am wonderful Mr. Steven Doyle and I gotta imagine that Motor City Detroit Michigan is hot as all get out right now

Steve Doyle (: 00:16

yeah, it is nice and sweltering here. Everything is feeling very swampy. It's great. Ready? Little swamp ass going on. It's great.

Brad Herda (: 00:23

Shwetty balls, here we go. There you

perfect. They make stuff for

Steve Doyle (: 00:31

They do that they do, but you know sometimes we're just you just kind of got to roll with it. Just get in there. Let's get in there. So you know it's kind of like those nice balmy muggy days you like to go golfing. You just gotta get in

Brad Herda (: 00:37

Perfect.

Brad Herda (: 00:47

Yeah, that's gonna be tomorrow morning. It's gonna be ridiculous. Yeah, I'm glad we go early in the morning before the rise of the complete sunshine, because it's gonna be nasty

Steve Doyle (: 00:51

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 00:59

right? It's gonna be hot and nasty and yes, we like it that way. Love the midwest. Love the midwest. So Brad, who do we got on the show

Brad Herda (: 01:05

exact. Yep.

Brad Herda (: 01:10

So we have on the show today an owner of a awesome little business out of Illinois, Michael Drek. I knew I was going to butcher it. Michael Drellachars. Close. You can fix it. He owns a precision fleet tracking solutions, tracks equipment, tracks, trailers, vehicles, camera systems.

Michael Drelicharz (: 01:24

There you go.

Brad Herda (: 01:37

All sorts of things. He's been in a technology space forever in a day. We met through some common networking partners. He's also the host of I got a guy podcast. He just happens to be my guy. He's my guy for any of this tracking stuff that I for contractors, trailers, those types of things. and I'm just very happy to have him here today. So Michael, thank you for taking the time to come on our show on this Friday afternoon.

Steve Doyle (: 01:52

Nice.

Michael Drelicharz (: 02:05

Absolutely, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Brad Herda (: 02:07

So can you pronounce your name as it's supposed to be pronounced? Cause I butchered the hell out of

Michael Drelicharz (: 02:11

Well, you actually got it correct at the end there. It's Drellachars. It's phonetic. It just intimidates people with a Z.

Brad Herda (: 02:15

Okay, thank you. It's fanatic. But it's a weird. Yeah, it's I want to say deli. I don't want to see the are in there, right? Like deli jars. No, that's not it. There's an R in there. My brain one did not want to read all the letters.

Michael Drelicharz (: 02:22

Yeah.

Michael Drelicharz (: 02:30

Yeah, I get

Steve Doyle (: 02:31

So before we get rolling here, and I forget, because it's been known to happen a time or two, which generation, Michael, do you fit in

Michael Drelicharz (: 02:40

Steve, I'm proud to be a Baby Boomer. I was born in 1963. I'm at the end of the Baby Boomer generation, but I'm happy to be part of that generation.

Steve Doyle (: 02:44

Awesome, you and Brad just rockin' it

Brad Herda (: 02:52

I'm beginning of X Steve, just so you

Steve Doyle (: 02:52

I keep forgetting that you just have so many boomer traits. It's great. Right?

Brad Herda (: 02:58

It is true. That is true. I'm not gonna lie. Growing up, growing up, most of my influence was from older people around the neighborhood and guys I worked with and people I worked with along the way, because most of the folks my age were idiots.

Steve Doyle (: 03:13

Well, mean, what you got? Michael, tell us how you got started in the fleet tracking business.

Brad Herda (: 03:15

Shut up. This is right. Go on, go on, Mr. Doyle.

Michael Drelicharz (: 03:26

Well, Steve, I've been I've been in technology forever. I spent much of my career in corporate America and telecommunications area. And then I opened up my own cellular store back in 2012, actually 2013. We opened the store and had a chance to sell that business. And I met a gentleman through networking that was starting up a reseller channel with GPS tracking with a company based in Canada. And

And frankly, I haven't looked back since. It's been an awesome run. It's been about a little over five and a half years now. And it's a tremendous industry. We're doing great things for lot of businesses. So I'm excited to be in the

Steve Doyle (: 04:06

Right. That's fantastic.

Brad Herda (: 04:08

Yeah, it is. and I'm Michael, it's just, so one of the things he does is he installed, he's got camera systems. And I know one of our networking calls, you had made the statement or told us the story of, you just got done installing camera systems from one of your clients, the car, the vehicle or whatever got either equipment was stolen or gotten an accident or something. And that your camera system, your video you're capturing allowed that business owner.

to be able to prove to the insurance company that it wasn't Tom Fulary that caused the situation or any self -infliction. And that business was able to recover all the things they need to do by paying for the insurance that they're supposed to be using when things happen.

Michael Drelicharz (: 04:54

Yeah, you have a great memory. Yeah, right after we installed cameras in a plumbing company on a Saturday, Monday morning, truck pulls up at a job site and our cameras actually record for 10 minutes after the vehicle turns off. So within 10 minutes, a car pulls up and they break into the back of the truck to steal a jackhammer, cram it in the back of a Honda Civic and they drive off. But our video was able to, because it was an open cargo van,

see the gentleman that actually stole it and we were able to download video and provide it to the police for their investigation. So it helped the police out, it helped their insurance out and the owner knew that there wasn't an inside job. It was a legitimate theft.

Steve Doyle (: 05:41

Mm -hmm.

Brad Herda (: 05:42

Yeah, so I mean there's the unintended consequences of the product services you provide and so as you go through and sell those services to and because we talked about generation talk a little bit about the show before show How do the different generations perceive your product from a value property perspective?

Michael Drelicharz (: 05:59

That's another great question. What we find is majority of our clients are actually the late baby boomers. We do get some of the younger generation also investing in our technology. The older generation has been in business for 30 or 40 years and they sometimes question, why do need to this technology now? I've never needed it before. So it's a much a little harder sale.

the middle -aged business owners, they're now, especially after COVID, they're taking back control of their business and they wanna know where their vehicles are, they wanna know how their vehicle's being driven, they wanna know where their crews are located, make sure they're not doing something they're not supposed to be doing and not running side jobs on the weekends, et cetera. And then we actually find the younger businesses, the millennials, the

We find them to embrace technology a little bit better. So they believe in our technology, they know the value, and it comes down to whether or their business can afford it and what they're doing with the technology. But definitely different mindsets based on generation.

Steve Doyle (: 07:19

And that's interesting because I see a lot of the, I would say the older generation, they're more quote unquote protective of where their assets are and how they're being used. But is there something with the younger generation where it's not necessarily tracking where people are and what they're doing? Do they have a different mindset for the use of the technology?

Michael Drelicharz (: 07:44

In some cases, yes. Lately, a big issue here in Illinois especially has been theft of assets. these landscaping companies, they have these really expensive mowers. mean, some of the ride on mowers can be $15 ,000. If you get in with John Deere mower, that could be 40 ,000 up to $80 ,000 a piece. So we're doing a lot of tracking for asset protection.

Steve Doyle (: 08:14

Mm -hmm.

Michael Drelicharz (: 08:14

to protect from theft. it's a common challenge we have

Steve Doyle (: 08:21

Right. Yeah, because I've worked with a couple of clients where they've installed these on vehicles and the mindset of the workers and we had, you know, workforce that was Gen Z all the way up to I would say late Gen X and some maybe early boomers, maybe if they're early boomers and just the mindset of the workforce that, you know, they're being tracked was very interesting. What have you seen on that side for the workforce being

Michael Drelicharz (: 08:50

Well, that is an interesting evolution because early on when the tracking gets installed, the employees bristle quite aggressively. Gee, the boss doesn't trust me. Why don't you trust me? You know what's going on here. They eventually, sometimes it only takes a few weeks, but they adapt into it. They forget it's there. Then they do crazy things that it's like, well, that's why we have track.

Steve Doyle (: 09:03

yes, they do.

Michael Drelicharz (: 09:19

You know, you drive 80 miles an hour. We see that all the time. so so. Yeah, exactly. So that and you know, guys will take the truck home at night and then they'll run a side job over on the weekend when they're not supposed to and they get caught doing that. So we've seen a lot of different, you know, crazy things. But what we also found interesting within the past probably 18 months or so has been a shift.

Steve Doyle (: 09:20

Yep. Yep.

Brad Herda (: 09:27

Why are you going to your girlfriend's house again?

Michael Drelicharz (: 09:48

back to the owners wanting to take control of their business. During COVID, the owners were afraid to lose employees. So they were hesitant to put tracking in their vehicles because they didn't want to lose anybody because it was hard to replace them with good employees. Remember that day when it was hard to find an employee, let alone a good employee. And so they didn't want to lose their good employees or even their marginal employees. So they were reluctant. Now the pendulum has swung the other direction. And now the owner is saying, wait a minute, you know what?

Steve Doyle (: 10:06

Yes.

Michael Drelicharz (: 10:18

I'm paying for these assets, I'm paying for the fuel, I'm paying for the repairs, it's my tools and equipment in the truck, I didn't know what this is at. So owners are now saying, if I irritate an employee and he leaves, well, he probably isn't the employee I need to have on my staff anyway, I'll find somebody else. So there's been a very deliberate shift in the last 18 months or so, which I find refreshing because that's what I embrace. I like working with the business owners and you

Steve Doyle (: 10:34

That is

Michael Drelicharz (: 10:47

drivers will come up to me sometimes and they'll give me a hard time about the tracking. And my answer is a pat answer, which is, if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. And they don't like that. The drivers get kind of, one guy was got in my face a little bit and I come to find out he had some anger management issues. So, anyway, the owners are much, much easier to deal with. So I typically work with business owners.

Steve Doyle (: 10:58

That's right.

Steve Doyle (: 11:09

Hahaha!

Michael Drelicharz (: 11:16

that want to enhance their growth and profit.

Brad Herda (: 11:20

I love to hear that the shift of, of taking back the business, so to speak, for those owners that are taking back their business, as you said, are they doing it autocratically where it's just, this is the way it's going to be, or do you believe they're having those conversations to set it up to be successful? as you put the information or put the technology into their vehicles on the equipment

Michael Drelicharz (: 11:47

It varies quite a bit actually. We've had a few that are putting it in and A, in Illinois, the law is that you're supposed to inform any driver of a vehicle when there's tracking installed. So you're not supposed to sneak it in the vehicle. our documentation states that and we make it clear to the owner that they're really, you know, are obligated to tell their drivers. We actually have some owners that deliberately don't tell their drivers and

Brad Herda (: 11:50

Yeah.

Michael Drelicharz (: 12:17

You know what? We let them run their business the way they want to run their business. I'm not going to tell them what to do. But most of the time, the owners are sharing the fact that this is going to help reduce insurance costs. If somebody is accused of an accident and they're wrongly accused, this will help prove that they're not doing something wrong. So the better business owners, the smarter business owners, the ones that are really looking to build a good, solid, long -term business have done a better job

of working with their staff and not making it be this, know, not try to trick them into it. But we do have a handful that are a little different.

Steve Doyle (: 12:59

Now have you noticed is there a. Because we're going to always try to tie this back to a generational thing mixed generations or is there more of a trend that you see that is more autocratic?

Michael Drelicharz (: 13:11

You know, it's a mix. A lot of it tends to be the type of industry.

When we're noticing, like, for example, I do a lot in the landscape industry. If you're hiring unskilled laborers just to cut lawns, those business owners are generally seem to be more autocratic and just, this is the way it is. And if you don't like it, hit the bricks. When it's a more skilled industry, plumbing, for example, if they're a union plumbing shop,

You know, they're paying these guys a lot more money. These guys are skilled guys and gals. shouldn't, I shouldn't say it, their employees are skilled and you know, they're, they're, it's, it's a bigger, it's a bigger ticket item. So they, those business owners tend to work with their, what I've seen, they tend to work with their employees a little bit

Steve Doyle (: 14:10

Got it. I always find the tracking to be actually more beneficial for companies. And for one of the reasons that has you kind of alluded to it more on the traffic side. So with it's not just for accidents, it's for those, I would say the insurance fraud side where we have, we have seen some of my clients have seen where people will try to claim insurance fraud or,

say, hey, your driver's bad, now I'm gonna go out and watch them and be a little more malicious with it. And now you actually have recordings of what is going on, not just both of the driver and how they're behaving, but also of the environment going around. So it does protect the business overall by having those in the vehicles. So yes, I am a proponent of the trackers in the vehicles.

Michael Drelicharz (: 15:04

You're hired, Steve.

Brad Herda (: 15:04

Yeah, it's huge. And, it, it the, and I believe you have the additional SAS product for, um, being able to do the, just, I'll call it the dispatching or looking or looking at the map as to where vehicles are and things like that. And that becomes invaluable to that plumbing organization or whatever, to see if, if Billy's always 40 driving a hundred miles a day with.

nothing to do, well, we got to figure out how to get our appointments better. So we're not paying Billy $65 an hour to drive around in front of a windshield.

Michael Drelicharz (: 15:40

Right. That's exactly right. you can see if, you know, sometimes you'll see vehicles pass each other on the road and, you know, a business owner can say, well, gee, we can consolidate these loads and maybe one guy go, you know, north for, for 60 miles and make a delivery instead of two drivers. And, and so, yeah, we definitely can use the data to enhance their business and be more efficient. I mean, fuel is expensive right now and time is expensive. You know, they're, they're payroll time

So the data is used for those purposes a lot and just enhancing and streamlining the process.

But to your point, Steve, from an insurance standpoint, we have had a number of situations. We have video evidence of drivers driving along and literally slamming on their brakes. Truck will rear end the car and they'll get out and they'll fall in the ground. And you see the whole thing unfold. And oftentimes, the driver that caused that accident is shocked when they realize a camera's installed.

Steve Doyle (: 16:36

Mm -hmm. Yup.

Steve Doyle (: 16:46

yeah.

Michael Drelicharz (: 16:46

On our website, we have several examples and it's pretty sad when it happens, but it's rewarding when we can prove that the driver was doing all the right things. Driving the speed limit, not weaving, not being crazy, not being aggressive. And yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 17:07

Yeah, don't do stupid things. Don't have to find out, right?

Michael Drelicharz (: 17:10

Yeah. we've also, there was a study, I think it was University of Michigan did a study a few years back where when there's an accident between a commercial vehicle and a passenger vehicle, I it was 91 % of the time the commercial vehicle was blamed for the accident. But when you, when they peel back the layers of the onion, they've realized that the commercial vehicle was responsible less than 45 % of the time. But the, the, the assumption is big corporation, there's big insurance. We got a payday

Steve Doyle (: 17:24

Mm

Brad Herda (: 17:41

Well, that's what I find interesting. What I would find interesting, though, is that your emergency response folks would be the ones creating that initial report as such and and buying into I understand, but buying into the commercial vehicle versus non. And and I and I wonder if that becomes some of the as you talked

Michael Drelicharz (: 17:41

So the video is...

Steve Doyle (: 17:54

We're not a political show, Brad.

Brad Herda (: 18:09

earlier a little bit, the skilled versus unskilled labor force activity versus the residential driver possibly where maybe they can't communicate well with the officer or whomever's on site to begin with, which is unfortunate.

Michael Drelicharz (: 18:21

Yeah, there could be a couple different things going there. Yeah, yeah. And that's where, you know, for the business owner, that's where it's even more important to have the technology in the vehicle so it can speak on behalf of that driver. Maybe it's a language barrier, maybe there's other things going on. Regardless, the proof is in the video.

Brad Herda (: 18:43

So Mike, just got, I don't know if I've ever asked you this question and all of our networking and other things that we've been involved with, but what possessed you to get into the wireless phone, car phone store environment back, way back in the 2012 era as this industry started its, in its infancy. What made you make that decision to go out from

that corporate side of things to go into your entrepreneurial journey.

Michael Drelicharz (: 19:13

from corporate America.

Michael Drelicharz (: 19:17

Well, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I always had that feeling that that's what I wanted to do. And I remember sharing a story with my wife and I said, gee, I was in my later 40s at the time. And I told my wife, said, if I'm going to do something, I better get going. Otherwise, time's going to pass me by and I'm going to have regrets as I get in my retirement years. I was always in, like I said, was always in technology. I spent about 20 years in the telecom field.

And I was talking to a friend of mine who's also a serial entrepreneur. And he said, well, gee, you've been doing so much in telecom. Why don't you just open up a wireless store? And I'm like, that's a great idea. So I researched it. I actually bought a franchise. And there aren't many franchises in the cellular space. Most are dealerships. I bought a franchise and pursued it that

Brad Herda (: 20:09

And what possessed you to get out of the franchise telecom world?

Michael Drelicharz (: 20:13

So I owned that business for five years and I often say that it was the longest 15 years of my

Michael Drelicharz (: 20:23

Retail, you learn it some in business Sometimes your best lessons come from the challenges the failures if you will I found what I wasn't good at retail was not my strength and I was fortunate that another franchisee came knocking on my door saying hey I want to expand in the Chicago area. Are you interested in selling your business? I handed him the keys It wasn't the best negotiating strategy

Steve Doyle (: 20:33

Always.

Michael Drelicharz (: 20:52

But I was done. was, you know, stick a fork in me, turn me over, I'm done. And it just kind of fell in place.

Brad Herda (: 21:04

So what was the, so being in the B2B world that you are today versus being in the business to consumer space, what's the difference for you that you enjoy the business to business spot versus the business to consumer? What's the driving factor that makes it more fun, gets you up every day, et

Steve Doyle (: 21:04

That's awesome.

Michael Drelicharz (: 21:25

Well, one of the biggest reasons is I've always enjoyed small businesses and I believe that small business is really a foundation of our country and our economy. And I want to help more small businesses. I like working with small business owners and they may be, you know, have two trucks. They may have six trucks, maybe have 60 trucks. It just, I like work with the owners themselves. I can have a rapport. I'm a small business owner. We can relate. I know about the sleepless nights and the challenges and

Brad Herda (: 21:34

thousand

Michael Drelicharz (: 21:54

and the sacrifices that you have to make. When you work with a municipality or a major corporation, it's different. There's too many committees, too much hierarchy involved. The people you work

Brad Herda (: 22:05

You say it. You wanted to say it. You wanted to say bullshit, but you didn't. You can say it.

Steve Doyle (: 22:08

Yes, dude. Claim it.

Michael Drelicharz (: 22:09

Yeah.

Yeah, so OK, so so that's the bottom line is I like work with small businesses. And when I when I did the business to consumer, I liked helping the consumers out. I actually like the phone business. But it was different because you get somebody coming in and they're complaining about, you know, whatever, all kinds of silly things that are really insignificant that could take a lot of time to address

when we're talking with the business owner, they just don't get stuff done. And I just like that approach.

Brad Herda (: 22:48

So, Michael, how are people gonna find you? We reach that audience, what area do you serve? How do people get a hold of you? What's your ideal client look like? I mean, you talked about anywhere from two trucks to a fleet of vehicles. Tell people how they find you.

Michael Drelicharz (: 23:07

So the best way to find us is our website, which is Precise Fleet Tracking. And I wanted to clarify that for you, Brad. The business is Precise Fleet Tracking Solutions. Oftentimes it gets confused with precision, but it's Precise Fleet Tracking. And so you can go to my website. Our phone number is 847 -865 -6008. 847 -865 -6008. I do serve the entire country. A lot of my clients are here in the Chicagoland or Midwest area.

Brad Herda (: 23:16

Not precision.

Michael Drelicharz (: 23:36

Wisconsin clients, clients in Indiana, majority of them, but I have clients scattered throughout the country. So we have no limitations on that. We actually, our trucks can travel into Canada and Mexico as well. They work all throughout North America. And ideal size, we have several customers that have one vehicle in their fleet. When the owner's not driving the vehicle, if an employee's driving it, the owner should have a tracker in there, even if it's one vehicle. So we go up from one vehicle on

And so there's no fleet that's too small. Somebody has a question, just call me or send me an email or reach out to me via the website and let's have a conversation. It's really pretty

Brad Herda (: 24:18

Yeah, I will vouch for Michael and what he does and how he goes about it. unfortunately I've not been able to get anybody out of their, their big V contracts to do the things that they need to do. it's like, man, you really need to change it. But it's the integration to some of the other tools that are out there, I guess. So talk about some of the integration talk. So let's just get into some of those details for some of those. What do you, what other service platforms do you integrate with?

Michael Drelicharz (: 24:39

It is, it is country.

Brad Herda (: 24:48

Let me ask you that

Michael Drelicharz (: 24:49

Well, the answer is from the opposite direction. We have an open API in our platform, so anybody can come into our API, grab the information that they need from the tracking, and put it into their system. So we are open and we're flexible to be integrated into whatever platform, CRM, back office system that needs to be integrated with.

Brad Herda (: 24:56

Okay.

Brad Herda (: 25:14

So if you, if so, a service Titan organization, if they're using service Titan, they can use your product. No problem. No issues. No big

Michael Drelicharz (: 25:24

Well, service design has to allow for us, allow for the access into our system. So some of those have, you know, predefined restrictions, but technically the answer is yes, if the provider allows it to be accessed. But I do want to, I want to touch on one other point real quick. When I started Precise Fleet Tracking, what I ended up doing is I looked at the big players in the

Brad Herda (: 25:40

Gotcha.

Michael Drelicharz (: 25:54

couple of, you mentioned one of them. And I looked at how they do business and I wrote my business plan to be the opposite. Specifically, we don't require long -term contracts. I want to earn my customer loyalty each and every month. The contracts are the, customer, they get sold a bill of goods, they sign a contract and then they, for the next three years, they regret that contract. I don't want any regrets. We don't have auto renewal collage.

Brad Herda (: 26:23

Not even a letter.

Michael Drelicharz (: 26:26

I'm sorry?

Brad Herda (: 26:27

Not even a letter. No regrets, not even a

Michael Drelicharz (: 26:28

Not even a letter. All right, that's

Steve Doyle (: 26:30

No regurts.

Michael Drelicharz (: 26:34

But we don't have the auto renewal, we just do a month to month billing. And then we rent the equipment to our clients. They don't have to spend capital out of their budget to buy the equipment. So they rent it from us. When we end our relationship, all I ask is just return the equipment to us and we'll rent it to somebody else. So it's just a monthly subscription fee. It's really easy to get in, easy to get out.

We have really strong loyalty with our clients because we provide a really awesome service. They don't want to leave us, which is the best of both worlds because we have a happy relationship. And we also, we don't hide behind overseas call center. I don't have a toll free number for people to call into somebody in Singapore or Bangladesh and try to explain what the problem is. They call us directly. We answer the phone evenings, nights, weekends. It doesn't matter. So we're just easy to do business with.

Brad Herda (: 27:09

That's awesome.

Michael Drelicharz (: 27:29

much different than the big guys in the industry.

Steve Doyle (: 27:30

Yes.

That's awesome.

Brad Herda (: 27:33

Yep. And I can, I can vouch for that. And I, I truly appreciate you taking time on your Friday to come on and share your knowledge and share the wisdom with our, with our audience. and, I wish you all the best here for the rest of the summer. And I can't wait to get another call with you here soon. And by the way, let's not forget about the, I got a guy podcast. Where do we find the, I got a guy podcast.

Michael Drelicharz (: 27:56

That's right.

So I Got a Guy podcast, something that I've been doing for the last year and a half or so, it's on my website. All the podcast episodes are listed. In fact, your interview is on there as well, Brad. But IGotAGuyPodcast .com, you can find all of our podcast episodes. on YouTube, Rumble, and on all the audio platforms. So each week I bring in a different guest, either a referral partner or a customer, allow them to promote their business.

It's just a part of way of giving back, saying thank you, and growing small businesses.

Brad Herda (: 28:32

Yep. So, so if you're a guy or a gal or a person that has something, reach out to Mike and see if there's an opportunity for some collaboration.

Steve Doyle (: 28:33

That's awesome.

Michael Drelicharz (: 28:41

That's right. Let's go to our website. I got a guy podcast .com or precise fleet tracking .com and we'll get connected and we'll go from

Brad Herda (: 28:52

Thank you very much, Michael, for an awesome time here this afternoon and look forward to talking to you

Steve Doyle (: 28:54

Yeah, thank

Michael Drelicharz (: 28:56

Awesome. Great. Thank you, Brad. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. Make it a great day.

Steve Doyle (: 29:02

Thank you.