So we are now going into the 4th month of the new 2023 year and it has been far too long since I have updated and posted on the blog for you and I apologize for that. The last 3 years have been the most challenging of my life on a business and personal level. Far more obstacles running a business than I would have ever imagined in my life. To get a glimpse of some of this drama you should read my post from 2021 on keeping the brand alive as this highlights a lot of what is still going on along with things that are becoming more challenging.

To start off the new year the biggest change was I sold my 2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV and got a new 2023 BWW M3. Now I mentioned the reasons why I did this so many times in my social media videos but basically the timing and situation just made sense. I loved that car more than anyone but it was so unsafe to continue on with the car shutting down and almost killing me 50+ times that I simply said enough is enough. BMW was the only dealer willing to give me top price trade in on a broken car and the M3 was a special ordered car that just came in that day and the original purchaser backed out. Fate and timing could not have been better. So far I really am enjoying the new car, better service and new clients and audience I am now meeting all over. I have done quite a few modification and changes already to the M3 and have to admit it is a better driving car than the Alfa Romeo in so many ways. Do I miss the Alfa Romeo QV? Maybe a little but not the stress and fear owning it and getting stuck all the time. Granted the BMW M3 isn’t the sexiest car but when was any BMW sexy besides the 1957 BMW 507 and the 2000-2003 BMW Z8. I did not buy the M3 for looks but bought it for the dealer support, tech, better build quality and the 6 speed manual transmission. I also decided to replace my 2019 Alfa Romeo Stelvio with a 2023 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Veloce. The reasons were simple, the older car was getting beat up, warranty was expired and the new model is far superior in every single way. We also plan to take some longer road trips soon and felt having two new cars gave us some options of security along the way so we will see. I may VLOG our road trips for fun.

Now let’s move along to many changes we have made regarding our Amazon presence and page listings. So when I decided to sell on Amazon back in 2019 it was really done as a supplement for our web shop. I did not put much effort or thought into the platform and maximizing our look on there. We still were doing well with sales but it wasn’t until about 12 months ago thanks to a social media DM I received from a customer who said they could not find my products on Amazon that I got alerted of a serious issue with our listings. Well to keep this simple and blunt one of our competitors who we know exactly who it was filed falsified complaints against our top selling products. As a result of this scammer the Amazon Seller Central platform automatically suppressed each and every one of our product listings. What this created was a huge negative issue that impacted our sales for almost the entire year of 2022. When Amazon flags you nobody can find your product when they type the name into the search. The only way someone could order your product was by going back into their order history and placing an order. Now as challenging as business is and I am so consumed on big projects at the shop I was not aware of what was happening. By the competitor doing this sneaky unethical tactic it enabled them to reap sales with less sponsored advertising by not having to worry about Auto Fanatic competing and outbidding on pay per click ads. It gets more complicated on the back end which I wont even bother going into but this is what happened. I spent weeks trying to fix these issues myself to no avail. I then spent more weeks vetting to hire a professional company to go in and simply fix everything and revamp our listings to look more professional. Low and behold I signed a contract with a new company that specialized in Amazon FBA management and paid them thousands of dollars upfront and weekly to get started. Days and weeks passed by and I was not seeing any progress taking place. The owner of the company would call and BS me on the phone how the team is working non stop behind the scenes but my patience was running out and glad it finally did. Fast forward 6 weeks from our initial contract engagement and over $12,000 paid I had nothing to show for this. One important aspect of our contract was filing for a specific trade mark for Auto Fanatic which would allow us to enter Amazon Brand Registry and streamline our listings and other perks. This company lied week after week that they filed my applications so one day I called the bluff. I spent 6 hours tracing and calling to get answers from the US Trademark office if this application was indeed filed. I finally got the answer and it was a big NO! That same day when I logged into my Amazon Seller account I noticed some alarming behavior. When you hire a company to help with your Amazon Seller account you grant them access to pretty much everything and this always comes at a risk. I started seeing my balance fluctuate by huge dollar amounts hours apart. Someone was skimming my balance and sending deposits to a phantom bank account. I immediately spoke to my attorney and sent a termination letter to the company CFO. I demanded my money back and I also demanded an explanation. Not only did they rob my money, waste 3 months of my time, provided zero services on what we agreed upon, they were also skimming money from my account daily. I was able to recover most of my money in payments I made to this company but was not able to recover the thousands of dollars they skimmed from me. This was a huge wake up call for me as a business owner seeking to hire an independent contractor to help. What I learned from this is that most Google reviews can be bought and paid for and most likely FAKE, anyone can build a professional website and post false references and content. How do you even weed these scammers out today? What upset me most is that this company was willing to take advantage and jeopardize a small business during some very troubling economic times, total scum! How devious and unethical people can be from falsifying claims to hurt me on Amazon to then robbing money and promising me help only to deceive and rob more from me. Welcome to the new world we live in. The Christmas Holidays and New Year were here so there was nothing I could do about this but accept it, recover what I could, learn from this experience and move on.

Fast forward to the first week of February and I finally found, vetted and hired a professional to help fix our Amazon issues. This guy worked independently and his education credentials were all Ivy League. Not only did this guy fix all the search issues from those false claims we got my trademark filed, Brand Registry enabled and now all my listings have new photos, graphics, videos, we have an Amazon storefront and our presence is much more professional and optimized. Our Amazon presence now looks awesome and I am so happy to have turned this situation around in such short time. We are still working with him on some other marketing strategies but wanted to share with you all what has been happening since 2023 started.

If you all follow my content you may see that I have just completed and delivered a very special Ferrari restoration project I was working on all winter. This 1989 Ferrari 328 GTS will now be shown at some prestigious venues thanks to all the hard work I put into this project. Exciting stuff to be part of.

A big part of my business and what I do behind the scenes is concour level restoration work and customization of cars. Each day I am involved doing custom upholstery, design & fabrication along with manufacturing aftermarket products, running and marketing Auto Fanatic Car Care. I am hands on every single day on special projects. This is my true passion as a craftsman and muti faceted entrepreneur. If you may have noticed I have cut back producing Youtube content for the last 12 months for good reasons and I want to briefly mention why. Since the world was tipped upside down this also started hurting content creators from all segments big and small. People talk about the shift in wealth or the great reset but let me tell you the universe is doing things that really align with these theories. If anyone did not know, social media platforms are controlled by algorithms that monitor your behavior, push propaganda and their own agendas. Regardless of what they do they are so powerful that they can simple shut any creator down at the click of a key stroke. You need to watch every comment you make, video you watch and every post you make and any words or phrases in your content otherwise you get flagged or shut down by these regulators. The censorship is real and is not going away. I strictly used my social media platforms for fun, to engage with like minded car enthusiasts and promote and market my business products and services. The shift lately is destroying creators in the automotive segment who actually earn a living off views. I never earned my living off views but used the platforms as marketing catalysts for my brand advertising. I have friends with huge channels, some with 2 mill subs to 800k subs or 200k subs and those are considered huge content creators. Today those content creators spend days making videos, post their videos only to receive less than 1% views of their subscriber base. Many might ask what is going on and how is this happening and it is simple. The social media platforms turn off your fans notifications without their knowledge and then use their algorithms to suppress your content. This situation is not getting better but for creators who do not have a brick and mortar business selling products and services the end is near for people earning a living off these social platforms. Simply put these social platforms do not want to pay creators anymore unless it aligns with their media agenda and politics and it is such a shame as I see this affecting some amazing content creators only to see all their hard work go nowhere. One of my favorite creators is Doug Demuro he has about 5 mill subs and is one of the most successful Youtube creators in the automotive segment. Doug has emphasized this for the last 3 years in interviews how even he saw a drop in revenue and views and as a proactive response he took his fan base and created Cars and Bids for more financial security and boy did this pay off for Doug recently. This has affected me as well, heck all I watch are videos on dogs, fast Cars and food yet my content is sidelined every single time I mention Auto Fanatic in my audio or visual of the content. To shoot videos it is very time consuming and stressful for me to even manage my time to do so. Now it has gotten to the point that my current videos get such low views it is not even worth posting as much anymore. Why spend physical effort over and over if it does not lead to growth, financial gain or effective advertising for your brand. I simply rather spend my time on special projects for clients that challenge me and have incredible end results, maximizing my creativity, skill and passion. My projected goal is to hit 100k subs shortly and then move onto something new for myself and my brands. I may create a new channel specifically for auto detailing content only or just car reviews and drives, maybe I will switch to a new platform or maybe I will abandon social media entirely and have my old life back of running my business ventures without the added stress which I honestly miss so much. I do not enjoy social media anymore for what is going on, the negativity being expressed from the general public, the divisive nature of our culture and the big tech censorship are the reasons I despise being part of this now.. It is not a fair playing field anymore and free speech is finished.

Another new venture I am working on is the creation of dog specialty treats and my test buddy Bravo the Cane Corso above will be the one who QC and approves what we create. He is a bundle of mush and affection but he is also a slobbering picky eater lol. We love animals so much I always wanted to create products for dogs for well over 20 years and I feel this is a very smart segment to take my experiences and talents to apply it to a new sector. With the manufacturing experience I learned from Auto Fanatic and 30 years of manufacturing automotive products it really schooled me on taking on something entirely new. Will it be called Canine Fanatic who knows but this is one of those fun projects that I am excited to bring to life.

In the interim I will be busy working on cool projects at the shop, developing new Auto Fanatic Car care products, struggling with manufacturing suppliers and shortages, modifying my cars and enjoying them with fans and friends and hopefully relocate from NY by the end of the summer 2023. I am just getting started and have so many more ideas and passions to share with the world. I am still thankful for all the fans and support who continue to trust and use Auto Fanatic products on your cars and I will try my best to post more frequent updates as time goes on and more curveballs come my way. The one thing these last few years has taught me is patience and perseverance to never give up as there is always a positive end to everything in life.