i do a little bit of everything, do all the posting and management for our social media,
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, primarily, and YouTube. Do a little bit of amateur video
production. We don't usually contract that out. We do that in-house, so I do some of
that. Digital marketing in terms of email blasts and that kind of thing newsletters, I put
those together. Of course, for any printed materials, I also design and write that
information as well. And our displays, things like that for conferences and events, I
design and create those. Let's see what else? Any type of event I usually facilitate and
organize those are CRM tool management. I do that as far as our-- Yeah. So I think
that's kind of a general overview.
Great, good. Now, I want to get your sense for what you're seeing. Maybe it's through
social media activity, or whatever what you're hearing from customers like, what's
interesting about the category right now, what's exciting about it, are there things going
on that they're particularly interested in or excited about?
I think probably the thing that everyone would say is electric. I see a whole lot about that
just discussion and that kind of thing, either loving it, or there are quite a lot of haters out
there as well. You're on one end of the spectrum, you're either super excited about it, or
you think it's absolutely horrible. And on social media and in school bus leads, school
transportation news, those types of publications, that seems like that's what everyone
wants to talk about. I have noticed that, especially with electric coming out, we have not
seen as much content about diesel. I just don't see much about diesel in general. Either
way, even no one really talks about it much anymore. I do see where Thomas
occasionally will do some things about diesel being still a clean fuel and that kind of
thing. But honestly, besides content that Thomas puts out, I just don't see a whole lot
about diesel. Really haven't seen a whole lot about gas either in any of the markets. It
seems like really everyone has pivoted to talking about electric. So that's kind of what
I've seen thus far. That's been my kind of overlook of it.
And I see you got Julie behind you. Have you guys sold any Julie buses?
Yes, we have 50 here in Virginia. Looking at several different onesie-twosie orders
through some grant funding and whatever, there will probably be another 30 to 40 in
Virginia here in the next year or so. So yeah, we've got quite a few.
And have they all come from Sonny Merryman?
Yes.
Are those all being-- Are they in use?
Many of them. So that was part of the Dominion Energy electric School Bus program.
Dominion chose us as their dealer partner for those buses that are part of their program
for [BOG?]. They offset the costs for the school divisions, that kind of thing, and also
funded the charging infrastructure. So we delivered those 50 buses started in November
of 2020. And we just finished up delivering them. I think we delivered the last one in
May. We have had several running on the roads in Virginia. Some school divisions have
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, primarily, and YouTube. Do a little bit of amateur video
production. We don't usually contract that out. We do that in-house, so I do some of
that. Digital marketing in terms of email blasts and that kind of thing newsletters, I put
those together. Of course, for any printed materials, I also design and write that
information as well. And our displays, things like that for conferences and events, I
design and create those. Let's see what else? Any type of event I usually facilitate and
organize those are CRM tool management. I do that as far as our-- Yeah. So I think
that's kind of a general overview.
Great, good. Now, I want to get your sense for what you're seeing. Maybe it's through
social media activity, or whatever what you're hearing from customers like, what's
interesting about the category right now, what's exciting about it, are there things going
on that they're particularly interested in or excited about?
I think probably the thing that everyone would say is electric. I see a whole lot about that
just discussion and that kind of thing, either loving it, or there are quite a lot of haters out
there as well. You're on one end of the spectrum, you're either super excited about it, or
you think it's absolutely horrible. And on social media and in school bus leads, school
transportation news, those types of publications, that seems like that's what everyone
wants to talk about. I have noticed that, especially with electric coming out, we have not
seen as much content about diesel. I just don't see much about diesel in general. Either
way, even no one really talks about it much anymore. I do see where Thomas
occasionally will do some things about diesel being still a clean fuel and that kind of
thing. But honestly, besides content that Thomas puts out, I just don't see a whole lot
about diesel. Really haven't seen a whole lot about gas either in any of the markets. It
seems like really everyone has pivoted to talking about electric. So that's kind of what
I've seen thus far. That's been my kind of overlook of it.
And I see you got Julie behind you. Have you guys sold any Julie buses?
Yes, we have 50 here in Virginia. Looking at several different onesie-twosie orders
through some grant funding and whatever, there will probably be another 30 to 40 in
Virginia here in the next year or so. So yeah, we've got quite a few.
And have they all come from Sonny Merryman?
Yes.
Are those all being-- Are they in use?
Many of them. So that was part of the Dominion Energy electric School Bus program.
Dominion chose us as their dealer partner for those buses that are part of their program
for [BOG?]. They offset the costs for the school divisions, that kind of thing, and also
funded the charging infrastructure. So we delivered those 50 buses started in November
of 2020. And we just finished up delivering them. I think we delivered the last one in
May. We have had several running on the roads in Virginia. Some school divisions have
