Adam Torres and Keith Sweeney explore the business of racing.
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Show Notes:
100Group provides best in class payment products and services. In this episode, Adam Torres interviewed Keith Sweeney, Director of Sales at 100GROUP.
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About 100Group
100Group is the first and only business services concierge. They offer various products and services that are essential to all business owners. With a personal concierge at your fingertips, the days of managing several vendor relationships without VIP treatment are over!
100Group offers a single platform for Payment Processing, VoIP (phone systems, SMS and MMS), Business Insurance, Human Resources, Financial Planning, Software Integration, and more.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and I’m happy to announce that we’re in Indianapolis, Indiana at PRI. This show is massive, largest motor sports show in the country. And today, my guest is Keith Sweeney from 100 Group. First off, I just want to say, Hey, Keith, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Good to be here. Thanks for having me on. Alright Keith, so we’ve been out here all week and we’re covering this, this show and one of my goals is, and missions is to make sure that my audience has a world inside, has a view inside the world of racing. Get a little bit to know about of course 100 Group, I’m going to talk a little bit about PRI, how long you’ve been coming out.
But just to get started, first off, how did you get started in the world of racing? Yeah, so just to clarify, 100 Group is a A specialization in races. One of my close friends was a gear head since childhood. He’s got his own custom gear. So when he started the company, I’m just in finance, credit card processing, there’s an underserved community that are embracing and we need to go out and actually help those people.
So I got introduced into it and I was always a supporter of that when I was growing up. So there’s lots of competition and things like that that I’m used to but it’s really been one of those things that I’ve got to understand in my mind. It’s been opened up to the world of it. It’s been really fun.
It’s educational. I’m still learning. Everybody gives you the, I’m sure you know, it’s your car and you know, talking about the gear and everything. You’re going to have to tell me, I don’t know. But it’s been really fun and people here. So it’s fun to be here. Have you been to TRI before? Is this the first time?
Yeah. So this is my third year here. I believe Richard, my owner, is a senior. But three years, year three in and every year we get to grow and it’s, it’s fun. Every year you can come back to your community and invite even more and more of the community. You know, I don’t feel like I’m a small fish in a massive ocean anymore.
Like, hey, there’s actually a lot of folks here that recognize the membership relationship. Yeah, one of the things I saw, when I first was introduced to Jason and I saw what he’s doing over at Trackside, I was thinking about, he was telling me about how the entire racing industry, like, is going through this digitization process.
Think about that. There’s tracks. There’s tracks all around the country. So, from your perspective now, you said on the car processing side, like, how does that work? Like, tell us a little bit more about how that fits into racing. Yeah, absolutely. So if you think about it, the law of the universe. No, nothing happens until something moves.
First law of business is nothing happens until something stops something. So, even in the world of racing, right, these are all phases. They’re not really geared as much for business as they are for sport. But at the end of the day, money makes this work. Money makes this sport run. And ultimately we’ve got the fans in the stands and we’re able to get people to do their trips and get the competition where you want it to be.
And if you look at the legacy of talent. This industry, it’s crappy, it’s garbage, it’s expensive, it’s, you know, pencil and paper and, you know, click through to tickets and go enjoy and have fun and get around and, and whatnot. But as the industry grows, they’re realizing the need for organization within within the operations that they do, because it’s also related to getting these, you know, these drivers into their cars and working for the same reason.
So so we step in ultimately, five months
Yeah, I’m in a similar situation from you. So I, I my, my business media publishing. So what’s interesting to me is, I was thinking about, like, when we talked, when I talked to Jason initially, I’m like, wow, what if we did a book in motorsports? And what became interesting is, I’m like, I haven’t really seen the type of what I’ve published done, but as I get into this community, I’m like, my eyes are wide open.
I’m like, wow, I’m hearing these stories, number one, that are remarkable. Number two, I’m seeing how Close knit, a lot of these racers, a lot of, even like different teams otherwise, it’s almost like the, the, the idea of racing just unifies everybody to a certain extent. What is the, like, community been like to you?
Like, talk a little bit more about the community aspect. Cause, cause I’m getting, you’re three years, you’re three years in, I’m one year in, this is my first year to PRI. Sure. Tell me a little bit more about the community. Well, I think it really starts, you know, for, for us, we’ve got a big on site home and it starts with a partner.
So one other group has been the first official corporate member for the NHRA. That’s really where we, we started kind of the process of just talking about that new MNHR. And that moves over to other types of racing, NASCAR. Everybody’s got kind of their niche, but NHRA, you know, racing is where it started for us.
And it’s been beautiful. And then on the,
So a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of executives watch this show and maybe some of them haven’t thought about the race car industry as a potential. So like myself, like this is new to me. What would you say to other entrepreneurs out there that maybe haven’t delved into this and thought about does their product or service match for what the race car industry needs?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you talk about racing, you really got to think about it in the sense of if there are actual distributors for all kinds of you know, machinery. Just our organization works heavily. We’re trying to introduce them, specifically in the film business, because they have these films that they do to the general public, and we’re like, there’s an entire community of, you know, creators, big and very big producers, that need these kinds of products, because they’re writing guys, and they just, they don’t know, they’re like, yeah, but it’s really has to be like, look, if you want to get your products on ESPN, this is the way to do it, and this is what we’re doing.
Right. So just instead of going to another business, instead of giving ourselves, you know, any protection from any of these things, we’re giving consumers cars. No, we’re putting on a team of salespeople. Right. And Tony’s driving that around with a logo. And now you’re like so I would say Glass Zip is a massive industry that could be really well served.
I remember anybody that’s in any type of impact, quality, coordination, et cetera. They don’t have to do it just for a couple of people that are hitting these days. You know, behind the cars, they love this type of stuff. They’re saving money. Yeah. A lot of money. Yeah. So to other business owners and folks that are looking at what we call blue water initiatives, to really expand into niches that are really open to the public to serve, I highly recommend bringing the products and services here.
At the end of the day, it’s all about what gets sold, the fans and the services, right? So, if you have some product or service, Yeah. I was also thinking about maybe some of the service industries, I’m like, that’s a, I was thinking about, I’m walking through this and I’m like, this is the first time I’ve been to a conference this big in a while and I haven’t seen like social media marketing agency or like all these other agencies, even video editor, all these other things with all these businesses.
I mean, most of the people I’ve seen that I’ve walked with that I’ve at least talked to, a lot of them are business owners themselves too. Like, they spend a lot of money on these cars and on racing, like you said, I’ve been through there, and I saw some of the prices, alright, so. Oh yeah, they’re heavy. They make your eyes roll a little bit.
Yeah, so, so, what would you say to maybe some of those service businesses, too? Have you seen a lot, or? Yeah, well, I mean, Trackside is perfect for salespeople. Yeah. Right, so, think about it, like, clients, people, like, internet service people, like, telecommunications people, people like that. I mean, tech people.
These guys are so underserved. Right. The track business is all racers. It’s all enthusiasts. They’re coming to track sites all over the country, all over the town. We just want to promote an energy efficient system for our own driving sport, right? We just want to rate up, rate a little bit faster. It’s good, it’s boring.
So to service providers all over the place, especially in tech, especially in social media, Racers, we say this all the time, that we want to put people, racers, to work. Like, they want to race, they want to do it. They may not be, you know. People thinking about their social media, you know, if there’s some sort of trap or entity that’s housing these racers what are the things that are going to put them in an area that’s ultimately going to bring more attention to their location?
So the, the service provider industry is massive. You can pick your industry. It can fit here. It really can. So I can probably go for another 10 minutes just on that, but you know but I think that there’s a lot of opportunity that, that’s being missed out on by that. So, 100 Group, we’ve been talking a lot about races.
Does it serve other, other industries, other niches? It does, yeah. We, we have a few key kind of, again, credit card processing is so broad you could service anybody that’s going to the market, right? But at the end of the day, you really want to look for areas of technology that are out there and really can speak to the people out there.
No, because it’s really just such a such a big industry. They often forget that that’s ultimately a very commodity. But if you can tailor that to this industry, they love. They tell you what you need. They talk about you to their friends. You get calls from their neighbors that say, I need your help or something.
You know, we’d love to be a part of this, too. You know, our industry specifically, it comes down to weights and service, and we’ve got the relationships in place, we invest in capital and service, and we’d like to be a part of this. They typically save a little on their bottom line. It gets a little more in their pocket to go buy that next gear that they want to go, so then that armor like force.
So that being said, What are some of your future plans in racing? Specifically, I’m getting in a car. Are you getting in a car? Are you telling me this? I’m putting you on the spot because we’re both outsiders. So I say it from that sense. Hey, you can put me in a car. I’m not saying I’m going to be very good at driving.
But no. So, again, we just signed a partnership with Tony Stewart. And with that partnership, my team and I are going to be actually going to a lot of these races. Wow. To support them. We’re sponsoring them. Congratulations. So, we’re excited about it. All right. It’s a wrap. PowerRacers. com. PowerRacers.
com. Right. And just being a part of the action. We’ve been involved in this since. We’ve been the one dealing with the people. We’ve been involved in multiple systems and software. It’s time we got out there and got involved. So I’m looking forward to it. I’m still learning what’s going on. Same. Same. All the different types of groups.
But at the end of the day, it’s about actually just getting involved. And being a favorite. Watch these guys. That’s awesome. Okay, I just want to say thank you for coming on. And also the last question. Sure. If somebody wants to follow up, they want to learn more about Hundred Group, what’s the best way for them to connect?
Yeah, absolutely. You can visit us at www. albama. com. We’re just a call away. We’re happy to help out. You can also connect with Trackside Systems. We have a great partnership with them. So if anything that they might need, Yeah. All right. Well, thank you again for coming on the show and to the audience. As always, thank you for tuning in.
I hope you had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun shooting this for you. Again, we got some more interviews coming up. Don’t forget, hit that subscribe button and hit it again because and share this video too.
