The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast

204 - Part 1: Using AI in Your Shop to Increase Performance

204 - Part 1: Using AI in Your Shop to Increase Performance
May 6th, 2026 - 00:59:50
Show Summary:
Artificial intelligence is reshaping how auto repair shops operate in practical ways. Jonathan Seitzer shares how AI can improve communication analyze data and save time on daily tasks. He explains a simple framework of rent it feed it and put it to work to help shop owners get started. AI is positioned as a tool that multiplies performance not replaces people. Real demos show how shops can create better customer messaging and gain insights from their data in minutes. The conversation also highlights the need to review AI outputs and use it responsibly. It closes with a look ahead at AI agents and how owners can begin experimenting today.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Jonathan Seitzer, Owner, Dempsey’s Service Center
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Introduction to AI use in daily auto shop operations.
[00:02:35] – Background in finance and technology applied to auto repair business.
[00:06:20] – Three ways to use AI rent it feed it put to work.
[00:08:17] – AI acts as multiplier not replacement for shop owners.
[00:10:21] – Simple AI tools improve customer communication and service descriptions.
[00:15:02] – Always check AI outputs since mistakes and errors can happen.
[00:19:00] – AI helps create clear customer talk tracks from technician notes.
[00:30:16] – AI quickly analyzes parts data saving hours of manual work.
[00:37:31] – AI summarizes content into audio saving time each day.
[00:45:21] – Use AI internally while maintaining trust with customers.
 
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8_dcnz_4csE
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Hey, good afternoon, friends. Depending on where, when you are joining us, it could be morning, afternoon, or evening. Good to see you, my friend. I'm glad you're here. Glad we are gonna have this conversation today as we talk about the future of our industry, and how does artificial intelligence really fit into our day-to-day operations?
What does that look like? This is gonna be an interactive conversation. What do I mean by that? No, you're not gonna come on camera. No, we're not gonna unmute your microphone. Go to the comments section. We're live streaming on Facebook and YouTube and StreamYard. Go to that comments section and type in there your questions, comments, or concerns.
In fact, go into that comments section and type in where you're joining us from, the name of your shop. Love to give you a shout-out as we talk about this industry that we love that's doing so well for us. And yeah, drop in your name and where you're joining us from because it's super exciting to be here with you, friends.
It's super exciting. First and foremost is the current coach for our guest, Mr. Wayne Marshall, CEO of GEAR Group Holding, and he is joining us from Iowa. Good to have you with us, Wayne. Thank you for being here, brother. Also Steve from B&C Auto Center in San Jose, California. We've got Peggy from High Street Auto Repair, Jefferson City, Missouri.
Jeff from Miller's Automotive, Orange Park, Florida. Jeff Byrne from German Tech Motorworks, Louisville, Kentucky. And let's see, Fernando, Rohrehard Park Transmission, Northern California. Evans from Evans & Lukes in Columbus, Ohio. Evan, good to see you again, brother. How you doing? Oh, that's awesome. And Justin Pepper, Quality Auto Repair here in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Nice. Glad you guys are here. Thank you for those who are vocal and know where that comments button is. This is gonna be so much fun. We're gonna have such a great conversation here. Joining me today is John from... Oh, one more shout-out. Todd from Atlanta Speedworks in Gainesville, Georgia. John joins us today from, where are you joining us from?
Jonathan Seitzer: Newark, Delaware, Dempsey Service Center.
Jimmy Lea: Dempsey Service Center. And John is a very recent purchaser, a recent joining the ranks of ownership, of shop ownership, and he joins us from computer industry, the computer world. What's your background, John? What qualifies you as a computer surgeon?
Jonathan Seitzer: Prior to my move to the automotive industry, I was the head of product at Moody's Analytics for some of their suite of compliance products for, for their banking and government services.
Prior to that I was at JPMorgan Chase for 10 years in various technology roles. I am not a developer. I live in the product and business analysis world. So for those of you shop owners out there, you should think of me a little bit like a service advisor in my last life. My job was to stand between my customers and my my software developers, help understand what the customer needed it, translated it into something the software developers could build, and then get that information back to the customer when we had a solution for 'em.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it, Jon. This is awesome. Love that you come from the world of computers, and I guess technically we could call you a financial whiz.
Jonathan Seitzer: You c- you can call me all sorts of things.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. I heard JP Morgan Chase and a lot of financial institutions you were talking about. Congrats on that, that career, that lifespan that you had there in, in that industry.
And oh, my gosh, look, we've got a few more shout-outs. Brandon from Pete's in Topeka, Kansas. Todd Compton's Automotive in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Lance Lupe joining us from... Lance, I, I can never remember where you're at. I think he's in New York. It might be New Jersey. I think it's New Jersey.
Anyways, Lance is here with us as well. Jon so excited with your background. We had a great conversation at MARS in last October. Looking forward to another MARS conference, Marketing for Automotive Repair Shops, coming this October. Our conversation last October, we talked about, you talked about, hey, you know what?
I do a lot with AI. I do a lot with the large language learning, and I really would love to share this with others in our industry and h- how they can use it, and what would make a difference for them. So let's help everybody else catch up to the conversation you and I had, Jonathan. How is it that you're using AI in your day-to-day?
What are you doing?
Jonathan Seitzer: So there's all sorts of different things. I'll actually, I have some demos we'll be showing in just a minute, but how about we head into the the presentation, and I'll walk you through the whole thing.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. The floor is yours, brother. Hey, so everybody, as you're listening to Jon, you've got questions, go ahead and type them into the box because as Jon is doing this demo on the different AI systems, it takes a minute to process, so that's a good opportunity for us to ask questions.
So keep those questions coming in that comments box All right.
Jonathan Seitzer: Awesome. Thank you, Jimmy. So hello everybody. Welcome. As said, my name is John Seitzler. I am the owner of Dempsey Service Center. We have been in business for 40 years here in Newark, Delaware. But as I said earlier prior to that I was...
I've spent the last 15 years on Wall Street in various product and technology roles. And what qualifies me to talk to you all a little bit about AI is actually during my last stop, I was lucky enough in to release two different AI products to the market. One back in 2019 when we weren't really talking about AI all that much, and then again right before I left in 2025 we released our first agentic AI product into the market.
I've got a fair bit of experience with AI knowing what it does, more importantly, what it doesn't do. And I just wanna get that information to you guys here. The fun part about this for me is I'm not here to sell you guys anything. I'm just here to help, and at the end of the thing I'll get you all my email.
So in the event that you have questions, if you need help, if you're thinking about it, you want somebody to bounce an idea off, reach out. I am I am available. I look at AI in three different ways. There are three things you can do with AI as a shop owner. That's you can rent it, you can feed it, and you can put it to work.
Now, in this demo, what we're going to do is I'm gonna... We're gonna talk about the first two. Put it to work is a big conversation. There's a lot of different things you can do, and there's a lot of different hurdles and jumps that you have to make to do it in a way where you can trust it.
So we're gonna split that one out into another webinar in a couple weeks, so I hope to see a lot of you guys back there as we're doing that. But I think this diagram right here kinda, kinda illustrates, the amount of effort that goes into each one of this. Rent it, small and easy.
Feed it, not as big as put it to work, but bigger than rent it. You're still gonna have to do some work. You're going to have to do some learning. And then when it's time to put it to work you have to decide really is the time commitment I'm going to spend making this happen worth what I'm going to get out of it?
And some of you are going to say no, and I want you guys to know that's okay. I know everybody hears everything about AI. It's all over the news. It's everywhere. That do- and there's a fear of we might get left behind. AI is helpful AI is incredibly helpful. It can make you much more efficient.
It can help you unearth things. But I think the big thing I want to get out of this to you is to help understand what the role of the AI in your shop actually could be. AI is not going to replace I don't think very many people here in the automotive industry. The, all of the whys for that is a larger conversation than I've got here.
But w- how you guys should think of AI is not as, "Oh, this is, maybe I can replace one of my vendors at some point. Maybe I can replace, w- my service advisor," something like that. No. AI, or at least the way I use AI, is as a multiplier. AID, AI is PEDs for the shop owner that understands their operations and their data.
It will make you... It will take a good shop owner and make them great. Y- you cannot at any point go I'm not doing, I'm not doing well. Let's chuck some AI at it, and everything's going to be fixed." It just doesn't work that way. So all that said, let's talk about the easiest thing you can do today with AI, and that's rent it.
Now, what do I mean by rent it? Rent it is you all as shop owners pay for a number of services. And right now, because AI is a fantabulous buzzword, and every one of these services that you pay for, especially if they are a publicly traded company, is they're going in front of their investors, and their investors are saying, "What are you doing with AI?"
And all of these companies are trying to figure out where AI fits within the products and services that they sell. So if you use QuickBooks, there's an AI assistant. If you used any of the Google Workspace or Microsoft Office products, there is an AI in there. Your shop management system, more than likely at this point, has an AI in there in some ways, and some of the uses are big, right?
AI and Microsoft Excel as somebody who literally made his career at the start in Microsoft Excel coding stuff because, my old bosses who were around before Excel didn't wanna learn it AI can make, AI can do wild things in Microsoft Excel. Do I use a lot of them? No, 'cause I don't really need them.
You know what I use when I rent AI the most? It's this that you see on my screen. So my shop management system has a a little improve button that I can use when my techs send me- what on the right, which is a very sparsely worded, all caps missing some verbs sometimes write-up about whatever it is that they're working on.
Now, in the past, what we might have done was just copied and pasted that, and that's what the customer got to see, right? J- on their invoice. Now, what we can do is I can hit an Improve button, and it's going to run through that. It's going to try to determine the context, it's going to spit out just a nice paragraph.
Is that the world's biggest time saver? No. Does it lead to a better experience for my customers? Yes. So I wind up using I wind up using that in the rented category, honest to God, more than anything else we're going to talk about today because I have, a fair number of techs, and none of my technicians like using anything other than short paragraphs in all caps locks.
That's rented. Why is rented important? So when we talk about what my past life, right? My past life was f- my whole job was figuring out, "How do I put this into my tools?" So when you're renting your AI, one, you're not, it's not costing you really anything else because you're already, you're getting it as part of the service.
Two, the AI that you are using has been thoroughly vetted, in many cases, by a team of people who are just like I used to be, whose whole job is to figure this stuff out and test it in every way. So the risk of you using it is much, much lower. That's an important thing to understand about AI is AI is not deterministic.
It's probabilistic. And what I mean by deterministic versus probabilistic is AI uses probability to deter- to figure out what the next word it's going to say as it's writing a sentence to you. This, it's all math. Deterministic is literally, I flip a switch and the light goes off. I flip the switch, light goes on.
It's determined. It will never be, it will always be one of those two things. The light goes off or the light goes on, and if it doesn't do one of those things, that means your light bulb's broken. So that's rented. Simplest thing you can do. The return on it isn't as big, but it can make your life easier if you're using things like the QuickBooks Assistant, or it do- it might do something as simple as make the invoices that your customers see a little bit better.
Things you need to do when you're when you're renting it is, first off- Look through your tools. Who's offering this to you and where are they offering it? Determine the features they're offering, right? A feature in my shop management thing that cleans up things, that's super useful. Maybe they add AI somewhere else and I have to think do I really want AI there?
Do I want something that could make mistakes that I'm not supervising in use? So explore your tools, identify your features, and then start playing with it. Again, these are part of the tools that you are already paying for. You can afford to experiment. You're not-- you don't have to go out and buy a subscription or learn how to use a Claude code or a OpenAI codex or a Google Antigravity.
You have them here and ready for you. They're in the tools as you understand them. It just changes a little bit your process, and you can decide, is this worth changing up my process for?
Things to watch out. The quality of the AI varies by the vendor. Not all AI is created equal. The more powerful the model, typically the more expensive it is to serve. A lot of times what your your vendor that's offering you an AI product isn't using the most powerful model out there.
They might be using something open source. So all things AI, and if you get nothing else from this, get this audit it. Check it for mistakes, especially when you're starting out. I was even prepping for this. I was running a couple demos on my side and it made, a couple of boneheaded decisions and spit out some information that wasn't right.
So you've always got to check it. Then additionally, as you start to implement it, you should have experienced people working at your shop wherever you're using this stuff, looking at it before it goes out. If AI is cleaning up your emails or your or, service descriptions on your invoices, that doesn't absolve your service advisor of looking at the invoice before they fire it off to the customer.
And then also you have to assume anybody who's used ChatGPT I like to say AI has an accent. ChatGPT especially has an accent. If you have somebody that's used AI a lot, you can tell when AI writes something and the way to get around that is to teach AI how to write like you want it to write.
If you just let it go, people are going to be able to tell. I can tell definitely.
All right. Here's where we're gonna have some fun. I have a few different demos we're gonna get to run through for here. And let's first talk about feed it, right? Feed it is what we think about AI how we've been using it a lot these last few years, right? You would log into a browser, there would be your AI chatbot, you could type your question, your comment, your whatever, and it would output some type of result.
As they got more advanced, you started to be able to attach things to it to offer it additional context. And so it went from, "Tell me about the history of the moon landing," to, "I have a spreadsheet, I'm gonna attach the spreadsheet. Tell me about my spreadsheet." So this is the second piece where you can start to get real value out of AI, is you have systems that generate data.
Why not use your-- these chatbots, these AIs, to help you understand your data? There's, me as a person who came from a technology background and moved into automotive with no real experience in automotive at all, outside of being a, an enthusiast my shop management system produces so much more data than, even I could process.
Without this stuff, I'd be hours a week crafting pivot tables and running analysis just to try and understand where we are, where things I can literally do in minutes, if not seconds. And I'll show that to you as we move forward, right? So you can use things like your customer feedback, your service histories, your repair orders, your parts inventories to get real good analysis out of these tools.
So let's go on a ride, folks. I have no, no idea what's about to happen. This should work. So let's start with our first demo, and I think this is the most fun. Like I said, I was prior to this, I worked in technology. I do not have a background in automotives. I am a shop owner that does not know anything about how to fix cars, and I had never written service before I took over this shop just a few months ago, right?
So a couple of weeks ago, when my service advisor wanted to go on vacation with his family for a week and I only have one service advisor guess what? Time to learn how to write some service. And as somebody who doesn't, who, One of my technicians will come to me and say, "This is what I need and this is what's wrong."
I understand it in theory, but less in concept. So I developed a script that I used to help take what the technicians were recommending to me and give me a talk track that I could use to customers. So when I was talking to my customers, they didn't necessarily know how way in over my head I was.
So this i- these are my service writer instructions, not for my actual service writer, but for my AI service writer. This is when you're feeding it or yeah, when you're feeding it, sometimes the thing you want to do is just ask your questions, but sometimes what you want to do is you want to give your AI a role and give it some guardrails to lower your risk that the AI is going to go farther than you want, or worst case, make up something that isn't actually true.
Thing to understand about these things is they want... Want is a bad word. I don't like anthropomor- morphizing machines, but the AI is designed to try and be helpful. It wants to get you an answer to your question, and sometimes when it can't find one, it just makes one up. Or if it can't find a piece of data, it makes one up.
I told you earlier it did something boneheaded. When I was testing this it, I gave it a vehicle, and it decided that the odometer reading on the vehicle was 253,000 miles for a Ford Mustang GT, which would make it the greatest Mustang GT in the world. So in this case, I am giving my AI a set of instructions that it's going to use to help me come up with a talk track for my thing, but here are the rules, right?
So I give it the set of instructions. I give it what's going to happen, "Hey, these are the steps you have to follow." I tell it what a service writer does. I tell it what to consider here for their talk track. And then this is important. When I told you AI has a accent, this is how I scrub the accent and I tell AI to talk like I want it to.
So I've come up with a brand voice and rules for my brand here in, at Dempsey's, and I give that to the AI and I tell it, "You gotta... Here's what your tone is supposed to be. You are not allowed to do this. You are not allowed to use jargon. You are going to present the findings honestly. You're going to avoid certain words.
You're going to recommend certain things if they need to." We do have financing, right? "You're going to tell them about our warranty." Then I tell it how I want it to structure the response, and then here's the u- last thing, I tell it what it is absolutely not allowed to do, what not to do. You can't include pricing.
You don't get to invent a finding that isn't in the RO. You don't get to diagnose anything that the technician didn't say, and you don't get to tell the customer what to do. So now how does this work? This is always available to me, so I'm going to copy it. I'm going to come back to my repair order, and there's a bunch of different ways to do this, but this is the way I like I like to use this, is I u- I pay for Gemini's Gemini's AI.
So Gemini is Google's large language model. And at the tier I use, I get a little thing in my browser that I can do this, and it says, "Hey, how can I help?" And when you do this in the browser, what it's doing is it's sharing my browser with the AI. So now the AI can see basically everything I can see, right?
And now I'm just going to paste in... Nope, definitely not gonna do that one. I am going to paste in my instructions. And then this is also another important one. You typically get options with your AI what kind of model do you want, right? You almost never want to use this. This is basically the free AI. Free AI is bad, and I'll go into this a little later, but free AI is typically the lowest capability. It thinks the least amount, it gives you the fastest response, and it gives you the least accurate response.
There's a time and a place for this but in most cases I use thinking. So I've given it my thing, and we're gonna let it think. And while it does that, Jimmy, do we have any questions?
Jimmy Lea: N- none questions that have come through yet. But I'm absolutely fascinated. When you designed the voice of your service advisor, did you use your LLM to design that language for your service advisor voice?
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. Yes. Okay. So I created... So I've Russian nesting dolled my my brand voice.
I used an LLM to come up with my initial brand voice document. Yeah. So it, it contains all the rules of the brand, and I ha- I do that by having the AI interview me about what I want and then telling it I want a brand voice document, and it gives me something there, because I'm not, I don't have a marketing background.
I don't know how to create a brand voice. Okay. And then what I do is I share that document again with the AI, and I'm telling it what I'm trying to accomplish. I, my service writer's going on vacation. I don't I need to understand, I don't understand cars super well. I need to be able to give the customer- the information about their repair and their estimate.
Here's, these... This is what I want. Here's my brand voice document. Write me a list of instructions and it- make sure you incorporate the brand voice.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. I love that. So even in your instructions, you were talking about your service advisors leaving. Eh, let's say the service advisor is still there, we've got a brand new service advisor or we want to have a voice that is able to speak to a client or a customer in a, in easy terms and not speak down to them, but speak on a level that they're gonna be able to understand.
That could be part of the instruction for the service advisor voice as well, correct?
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And it is part of it is part of mine, right? When we're talking about, warm, straightforward, neighborly, no pressure, you're an expert neighbor who explains things clearly 'cause you genuinely care.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yeah. And that ensures what I get back should be to that level. But also, what did I say earlier? We're not just blindly trusting this.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: So we're going to look. So here's what we have, right?
Jimmy Lea: And one more question here before you go into this.
Jonathan Seitzer: Sure.
Jimmy Lea: Do you find that as you continue to use this LLM and as you continue to feed it with information, does it improve in its voice and tone and become more refined as to past inputs versus no?
No, sweet.
Jonathan Seitzer: No. This is very important when you're dealing with LLMs. These things don't learn. So the moment I push this button right here and it spouts- Yeah ... out a new one, it's forgotten it's ever told me anything.
Jimmy Lea: Oh.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. So there are certain applications now. So ChatGPT, Claude they do retain some memory.
Okay. You can say, "Hey, remember this about me." So Claude's always going to remember that my name's John, that I own a shop, that I'm in New York, that I have a dog named Chrissy, that kind of stuff. But it's not... The AI does not improve itself, right? That's what all, y- that's what all these LLM companies are spending billions and billions of dollars trying to get to.
It's not self-improving. It doesn't remember. If this thing spat out something that was totally awful, what I would probably do is I would figure out w- where and why, and then I would have to come back here and tinker with these instructions.
Jimmy Lea: Change your instructions, yeah. A question's coming from John.
Is there any way for you to share your instructions that you're using with Claude? And I think the answer is yes. However, the deeper answer or should be maybe...
Jonathan Seitzer: Create your brand voice.
Jimmy Lea: Create your brand voice. Have that interview with your ChatGPT or with your Claude and have chat ask you all those questions so that it comes through for you.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. And you can do... y- I'm sure a lot of people are saying how do I do that?" You... These things are, it's... Once you get the hang of talking to this- Yeah ... it's wild how fast it unlocks. So how do you do it?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: You ask, "Interview me. I need a brand voice document for my auto repair shop."
You give it as much context as you can. "Interview me to get the thing." And it will quest- one question at a time, ask you questions.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, that's exactly it. Yeah the answer is yes. However, have your own
Jonathan Seitzer: interview. If y- if I, if you use, if I send you my stuff, you're using my brand voice, which I think I have a great brand voice, but that doesn't mean it's yours.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no. And I know, John, I know, John, you're gonna have a great conversation with your ChatGPT and have it interview you what kind of voice you want. And brand voice is the keyword that you wanna use there, John. Yes. So maybe what we c- develop here, Jonathan is some guidelines for them creating their brand voice.
But anyways let's go back to what you're showing here, because- Sure ... this is where it gets exciting in putting this information into the point of sale system.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yep. So here it's welcoming me to Dempsey's, so there's something in there that made... I wrote that told it I'm brand new.
But yep, here we go. Here's our first mistake, right? This is not a 23,000 mile Mustang. You see there's nothing on the here that tells you it's a 23,000 Mustang. And again, we used the big, we used the more complex-
Jimmy Lea: Don't create information ... marketing. You told it not- Yes ... to make stuff up, but it still made it up.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. But now it's looked at the, it's looked at the thing, right? It tells you what's completed and approved, so here are all the recommendations it's got, and now it's going to go through each of the recommendations, and it's gonna, So f- the first thing it's gonna do, it's gonna tell me what the fix is, right?
So we're gonna walk through this, then it's gonna give me the customer talk track. These are actual phrases I can use on the phone with the customer. "Our technicians noticed the drive belt showing signs of age," things like that. And then it's going to talk about what our recommendation is, why it's important, and what happens if we wait, right?
Yeah. And for a solid week, and for those of you who don't know if you are s- if you're a single owner shop with a single service writer- Yeah ... the fastest way to make your phone ring is to send your service writer on vacation for a week. We did almost a record amount of cars. And it was John sitting at a desk waiting for Gemini and Claude to spit out the, trying to talk.
And I actually, one of my parts distributors said I closed a lot of sales that week, so it was good. Congratulations. We still managed. All right, so that's that's our first demo here. Let's do- Let's do some analysis, right? Yeah. All so now we're going to go directly into Claude itself.
Give me just a second to pull up my demo file, and we're gonna do a parts... We're gonna do some parts information. You guys aren't... You'll see this change in the Claude screen. I'm dropping two I'm dropping two CSVs. So I'm dropping some parts data from my from my shop management system.
And now- So
Jimmy Lea: this isn't the whole catalog from your parts supplier, this is what you've used- Yes ...
Jonathan Seitzer: in the past. This is parts data for the shop that, have come in, have come out. So basically now I need to tell the AI what I want. Here's why we're doing this. I need to get some information to my accountant.
Can you look at the provided data and let me know what my parts inventory cost was at the end of February, March, and April? Break the cost into parts, tires, fluids, and batteries.
Jimmy Lea: So that was all voice dictated. Yes. You used just the microphone s-... Okay.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. So I have a little program on the thing.
I push a button, it records my voice. A lot of computers have this built in. I use a paid one just 'cause it's a little better, and guess what guess what's undergirding it? AI. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: So here we go. So this is what I want. Tell me what my pa- I gotta get my accountant what my on-hand inventory co- or price was.
So we're gonna let it think for a little bit. And yeah, do anybody have any type of questions or anything we can go through as this thinks? 'Cause now we're at the part where this is probably gonna take a little bit of time, 'cause we're asking it to do a lot of different things and generate a lot of different information.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So right now the process it's going through is opening each of these files and- ... looking into the dates, the parts, the costs.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: And it's trying to answer the question you've asked. So it's crunching a lot of data, and I'm assuming you've probably got hundreds of lines of data that it's crunching through.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. Yeah. This is, every part we've ordered or has gone in or out the door since February 1st.
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Jonathan Seitzer: So- This
Jimmy Lea: could take a minute.
Jonathan Seitzer: It's... You'd be surprised. I, my guess is probably... So right now it's tr- it's understanding the structure. Yeah, my guess is it's gonna take a minute or two.
Yeah ... and anoth- that's another thing to get, to get used to as you're using these more advanced models. So there are basic models, there are thinking models, and then there's ways to make thinking models think longer. As you're using more and more complexity within your models, as you're turning on more features, if you're on these paid plans, you have usage limits.
And somewhere depending on how much you pay it's, you're gonna hit your usage.
Jimmy Lea: Got a question here from Sierra. She's asking, "Is this dir- linked directly into your shop management system, or do you have it upload all of the documents first, and then it does its searches?"
Jonathan Seitzer: So I uploaded all the document for this demo.
So I have an AI that is linked directly into my shop management system, or parallel linked via a public API. But we'll get more into that in two weeks. This is where the, I'm willing to spend nine hours on a Saturday building a connector into my shop system 'cause I'm a dork.
Jimmy Lea: N- nerd. The preferred term is nerd. You're a nerd- Oh ... and we love nerds. Nerds are awesome. They're amazing. It keeps the world spinning, yes.
Jonathan Seitzer: But yes.
Jimmy Lea: So you love to nerd out on developing... this is your hobby. This is your go-to. This is your fun time. This is relaxing for you.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes.
Yeah, this is I like building software and I... I like building software and I like building things that, that help me understand kinda what I've jumped into. 'Cause I can't stress this enough, I have not been working on cars for the last 15 years. Yeah. Or been a small business owner, or done anything that I do day to day anymore.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. Wow. I'm glad you have this as a hobby. This is so much fun. This is where AI is going to assist the humans, and AI is gonna assist us to become better. I think it's gonna elevate us as a human race.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yeah. So while that thinks, let's do another one. So we'll jump into Gemini. And so everybody knows, my AIs of choice are Claude and Gemini.
I've used ChatGPT. I have no problems with with it. Actually, ChatGPT's new model, I'm told, is spectacular, which was just released in these last couple of weeks. It's just a matter of, the, there, you can only pay for so many things, and for what I use Claude for- Yeah ... it just makes more sense for me.
But you can do this across just about any one. There's, and, there's a lot of, i- as you get more into this, there's a lot of, "Oh this model's good, and this model's good." The ranking changes week to week, right? Anthropic's on top now. Three months ago everybody was saying Google had ended the debate.
Yeah. Don't, you don't have to do exactly what I'm doing. But here, let's we can... and the beauty of this is we can kick off parallel demos. So allow me to pull my folder here. Let's do something a little easier here.
Jimmy Lea: I thought that said disco.
Jonathan Seitzer: So this, here's what I wanna do.
I've just joined a local chamber of commerce, and they're sending me a welcome packet. Can you read it and give me a list of action items I should do in the next five, 10, and 30 days?
Jimmy Lea: That's hilarious.
Jonathan Seitzer: Jimmy, do you- That's awesome ... read PDFs anymore? What are you, Amish?
Jimmy Lea: Evidently.
Jonathan Seitzer: I'm new to all this. I can't be, I can't be bothered to open and read PDFs.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. Okay, go back to the other one. Did Claude finish?
Jonathan Seitzer: Claude did finished. Okay. Don't contain ending inventory. So yeah, this is where it gets funny. So this is where it'll start to quibble with me, right?
On-hand, list of every SKUs. So now it's given me... Here we go. So this is my... We'll ignore February 'cause that was half a month. But yeah, so now I can, to my accountant, I can say this was my parts on-hand cost and please get that to my ba- get that on my balance sheet," right? And, three minutes.
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that's great. The other things you would have had to have done is gone into your Excel file and been an Excel wizard.
Which I'm a pretty good Excel wizard. I know a couple of people that are better than me. But yeah, it wouldn't have taken me three minutes. It would've taken me a heck of a lot longer than three minutes.
Or- I click on data.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yeah. Or I would have had to have I would have had to have pulled Excel files for February, for March, for data, and now I just all in one throw it into the thing. I don't have to spend a bunch of time playing around in pivot tables.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: And now I've got something. Now, obviously, double-check it.
Yeah. I, I would, I've so I, I know this one works 'cause I've done it before. I've double-checked the numbers, so I know when I ask Claude this thing, 99% chance I'm going to get it right.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice.
Jonathan Seitzer: All right. So there's that one. There's this one. And here we go. First five days, right? Oh my God. Things to do.
Here's what to get done in 10 days. Here's 30. Now, in the next webinar, I can show you how to then fire this into your to-do list or project management tool, like a, an Asana or a Trello or something like that. And now it's not just a thing that lives on a web browser on my computer, it's on my phone in my app that I can go, I watched the video, click.
Jimmy Lea: Love it.
Jonathan Seitzer: And...
Jimmy Lea: And you didn't have to read the PDF, Mr. Thomas.
Jonathan Seitzer: Oh, gosh, no. It's, yes. Think of the time, think of the time savings. Now-
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah ...
Jonathan Seitzer: w- we joke now because it's, it's one PDF and who can't read one PDF? I'm, maybe I'm unique in this. I get between 15 and 30 newsletters a day- Yeah
across technology, politics, economics, yeah, all the stuff I used to have to pay attention to that I still like paying attention to. I don't have time to read 'em all every day, so I have a tool that collates all of them and then turns them into a 20-minute podcast for me to listen to.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. So you're, so you've customized 15 newsletters into one single podcast, and you listen to it while you drive home from work.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yeah. So I do it twice a day. So I have a morning one and I have an evening one. So I listen to the evening one after, while I'm making dinner. I listen to the morning one as I'm finishing up my morning paperwork here and walking around and checking on things.
Jimmy Lea: I love it.
You're such a nerd.
Jonathan Seitzer: I know. But it's
Jimmy Lea: all- I'm glad I know you, John ... it's- I'm glad you're part of this industry. I'm glad you're helping share this with the rest of the world. Thank you. And the other John wanna know how it works.
Jonathan Seitzer: It's all about buying back minutes, right? Time- Yeah ... and time is truly the only finite thing that we have.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: And if it, if 20 newsletter I want to read my 20 newsletters.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: I don't have the, I don't have two hours to do it every day. So-
Jimmy Lea: Yeah ...
Jonathan Seitzer: but I got 20 minutes to listen.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure, especially while you're multitasking, you're driving, you're building making dinner. Yeah. All right.
So what else are you gonna show us?
Jonathan Seitzer: All right. So this last one is just a variant of the one that we did, but it's a lot more shop oriented. So here I am attaching one, two, three, four, five, six files for the month of March. How do I wanna say this? I need to understand better how my month went.
Please show me a breakdown of my top five services by make, model, and category, as well as the revenue generated for each.
Jimmy Lea: Wait a second, Jonathan. You could also do this for an entire year to discover your most profitable vehicles as well too, right?
Jonathan Seitzer: So that's actually a really good- call out. So technically, yes, but when you're dealing with these AIs, another fun thing to keep in to keep in mind is that the AI can only take so much contact, context.
So what is context? Context is everything that's going into this conversation. So these conversations, like the AI's not really having, we're not having a chat, right? If I go away for four days and then come back to this chat in this window and answer a question, what's going to happen is the entire conversation is going to get sent back into the cloud.
The LLM's going to reread the whole thing. Again, like I said, this has no memory. So every time you're having a long con- a conversation with AI, it's basically sending the whole conversation back and then returning the whole conversation back with a response. So the longer the conversation you have, the more you're filling up this context window of however many million tokens or hundreds of thousands of tokens, and once you hit that window, the AI will start to...
it starts to get weird after a while. It's, it becomes more prone to making making mistakes because it just can't... It doesn't have the capacity to remember everything. So if you're ever on Claude and you're having a long conversation with Claude, and that it's compacting, that's where it's suddenly, it's taking that context, throwing out what it thinks it can, and trying to keep the relevant points to keep the conversation going.
So when I say, "Oh, yeah, could I throw this for a whole year?" Yes, but I don't know how well... that just might be too much for the AI. So typically what I do is every month I run one of these.
And at the end of every week I run one of these, and I pull top-line metrics out for the week, and I keep that in a tracker like its own Excel document, and now I can, at the end of the year, I can point the AI at that Excel document and tell it to give me yearly insights without overloading the context and risking you're gonna get some bad information back.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. Oh, that's awesome. All right.
Jonathan Seitzer: So what- But yeah, look how fast this, look how fast this one came back, right? Here we are, top five service categories, repair versus inspection versus o- over the counter versus our snowplow business. We had 57 Fords, 33 unique, then Chevy, Dodge, Jeep and then we've got...
that's, yeah that was an engine. So here's the actual, this is the fun... here's where you get insights, right? Jeep, revenue we had 10 unique ROs, but look at the revenue, right? So Jeeps are my unicorns. I don't get as many Jeeps as compared to Fords and Chevys, but the revenue, way up there, right?
My- Yeah. So I know per ticket when I see a Jeep come in, oh, there's a chance this is going to be a much higher ticket for my shop, and that way I know. I know with three months of data that Jeeps and Silverados are what keep the lights on here. But as a snowplow seller also, I also know I have a lot of Silverados in this area, so when it's time for me to make my order for what type of snowplow mount kits am I making this year, I'm skewing to what I know I have a lot of, and I know I have a lot of because the da- I've got the data in this thing and it's summarizing it very cleanly for me.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: So yeah. So that is that is my presentation. Nice. Our little... Or those are our live things,
Jimmy Lea: yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: What time are... 1:48. All right. I can get through the rest of this pretty quick. All right. So again to summarize our feed it section make sure you're using the right tools that your shop needs.
Start with the big ones, but I can't stress this enough, you're gonna have to pay out of pocket. Start with the $20 models, see where it gets you. Up your spend as you find value.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: Can't use that one. Don't throw your payroll data into this. The, the, these are going into the cloud. And also make sure that your that what you're getting back is accurate.
You gotta check its work the first couple times, and that's not, I don't think, an unreasonable thing, right? You wouldn't hire a human and just let him go. Same thing here. In two weeks we're going to talk about the next evolution of this. The word you're probably hearing a lot now is agents.
If you think of AI as a giant brain, think of agents as arms and legs. So we'll be talking about that in the next thing. But this is one important thing I wanna give to you guys before and, forgive me if I'm about to be a little vulnerable here.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Jonathan Seitzer: On the screen is the email you get from your company when you're laid off.
So this was mine.
Jimmy Lea: Oh.
Jonathan Seitzer: Though, if you wonder why I'm not on Wall Street anymore, this is why. Now, AI did not take my job. I did not get laid off because of AI, and honestly, blessing in disguise 'cause now I have this cool new job. But there are a lot of people, and this is incredibly important I think, this is somebody who was an auto repair customer much longer than he's been an auto repair owner.
If you live in an urban center with a large white collar population, understand that a lot of them are worried that this is coming. So when I'm using AI in my shop, and I am using AI a lot, you guys have all seen this, it's never customer-facing. I'm using it to make me better, but you saw my brand voice, right?
I don't want my customer to ever think that they're dealing with an AI. 'Cause I think they n- you know, I think where I live, where there's a large white collar population, there's a lot of people that are worried about this. So by all means, use AI to increase, to make yourself a Superman inside your shop.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jonathan Seitzer: But be aware that people that, your customers probably have opinions about this, and use it use it for you. Don't push it to them if you're not sure they're, how they're going to take it. And that's my last thing.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, man. I love it. I love it. A great shout-out here from Wayne. "Great job. AI's not gonna replace people, but love how it multiplies the effectiveness of the staff and the effectiveness of you as an owner and the effectiveness of your service advisor."
It's really gonna help those relationships and those communications to happen at a much, a m- much better level.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes. Definitely.
Jimmy Lea: Dude, John, this is awesome. Question here coming from... k- question, comment. It's more of a shout-out from Joshua. "There are solutions for connecting directly to your SMS."
This is, in his estimation the best and easiest approach.
Jonathan Seitzer: Y- I think it depends on your SMS. Like in my case to connect to mine, I had to talk to the I had to talk to them. I had to tell them what I was doing. I had to, make sure that they understood I w- I was building something for me, not something I'm trying to take to market.
Yeah ... but y- you're right. Some of these SMSs, I think as we get more into it, they're going to start, it'll move into that rented space, where maybe from inside the SMS you can start to get a lot of this information. But there are ways to connect. Your mileage may vary depending on who your user is.
Mine took a little bit of elbow grease.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's phenomenal. That's phenomenal. Great information, John. Thank you. This opening up, opens up a whole new world of possibilities for what we should look at as we go down this road with AI. My daughter, she came to me and she says, "Man, I'm really worried about AI.
I think it's gonna replace my job." And I said it's not gonna replace your job, but the person who does understand how to use AI is the person that's gonna replace your job."
Jonathan Seitzer: Yeah. And one of the things I liked to stress back in my old life is right now there are no old graybeards of the AI world, the way there are in just about every industry.
The- Yeah ... those of you, those of us who are using it and figuring it out and charting the course, we're the ones who decide how it winds up going and what it winds up being good at.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. For sure. John, this is gonna be awesome, man. Any advice going into our next webinar, any advice for what people can do to prepare?
Jonathan Seitzer: I would research things like ChatGPT's Codex or Claude Code and CoWork. Those are the two most accessible kind of agent harnesses out there. What I would advise against is Claude, or not Claude OpenClaude, something like that, Hermes Agent, some of these open source plug your agent in.
Please don't go out and buy like a MacBook Neo or a Mac mini, if God help you, you could even get a Mac mini anymore. These agents are the reason why you can't buy Mac minis right now or a Studio Ultra. The next piece is, so I would say this, if you know what the terminal is on your computer the next webs- the next website or the next web- webinar's gonna be very useful.
If if you've never coded anything or you're not super, I'll do what I can to show you guys where it is and how it goes. But the next stuff is all nice to have fun extras, but don't feel like the next one you gotta, it's all stuff you gotta do. You're not missing out if you don't do this.
And it comes with work. It like, how important is your Saturday? Me? Well- Not super much, but...
Jimmy Lea: but this is your hobby. This is what you're doing. Exactly. This is your relaxing enjoyment time.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: So what I'm hearing you say is let's get into a ChatGPT and have a conversation. Yes. And for the other Johns of the world, have a conversation, have chat interview you about what you want your brand voice to be-
Jonathan Seitzer: Yes
Jimmy Lea: so that you can create a prompt for other LLMs to use as your brand voice as you're talking to them
Jonathan Seitzer: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: So beyond them creating a brand voice and getting ready for two weeks down the road, open ChatGPT, have a conversation. Open Claude, if that's the one you wanna use. Open Gemini, if that's the one you wanna use, and have a conversation preparing for what we're gonna do in two weeks.
Is that... Are we gonna go through setting up an AI agent here in two weeks?
Jonathan Seitzer: I, I can... So cl- that's where the Claude code. So Claude Claude Cowork is like a out of the box agent, right? And you just kinda have to point it at a spot on your computer to go. Like a full setup. Now I've got full dork, integrated agent on a server somewhere else that I talk to in Slack.
Y- we're not gonna do that. But- Oh, s- Yeah ...
Jimmy Lea: you are such a nerd. This is awesome. Oh,
Jonathan Seitzer: yeah. Yeah. Oh, I see a comment from Jeff. You heard at a conference Claude is better. I said this earlier. It's, it bears repeating. Claude is winning now. Gemini was winning a month and a half ago. ChatGPT will have its moment again in the sun.
Use the one you get the most value from and the one that you're comfortable paying whatever the price is to use it. My preference is Claude. I like the answers it outputs the most. Some people really like the way ChatGPT sounds or comes back to them. They like the quality of the answers.
It really is a pers- preference. There, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini whatever you pick, you're not you're not losing out too much I don't think. I think you're gonna get roughly, especially if what you're getting it, looking for is data back, you're going to get roughly the same quality of answers if you're using the paid versions.
As long as you're using the paid version you stick.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah ...
Jonathan Seitzer: peggy.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Last question right here with Peggy. Where can-
Jonathan Seitzer: YouTube University ...
Jimmy Lea: AI answers for simple tasks like emails and calendars, et cetera. She didn't even know where to start, so this is for the total novice.
Where can she start?
Jonathan Seitzer: So there's a great channel on YouTube. Search a person named Elliot Prince. He's he's a British guy. He does a lot of stuff with Claude Cowork. He's got a bunch of videos of, like, where to start, here's what it does, here's what you can do. And also he makes his prompts and his lessons available publicly.
Beware when you're on YouTube, a lot of these YouTube channels are really designed to get you to sign up for their paywalled course. That hasn't been the case I've seen with that one, and that one was really helpful as I was transitioning from Gemini more into Claude.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And he's even taking the stance now that he's been with Claude for so long, he's now looking at ChatGPT and saying, "Oh, my gosh it's improved so much."
I've gotta dig back into this to dig more into it. Yeah. So he's, even he's going through those gyrations of-
Jonathan Seitzer: Yeah ...
Jimmy Lea: they're constantly improving.
Jonathan Seitzer: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. Yep. That's awesome. For those of you who are listening thank you for joining us. John, thank you for joining. Thank you for sharing your nerd wisdom.
We, we need people like you in the world, and in fact, we need all sorts of people. It's great that we're not all rubber stamp identical of each other. We are all different in this world, which makes us great. So thank you, John. I really appreciate it.
Jonathan Seitzer: Thank you, all. It's been a pleasure.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And for the rest of you who are listening, we we at the Institute, we are a coaching training company.
We're a coaching training business. We're here to help you take those next steps, like we did with John when he bought a shop and didn't know what to do. We were able to step in. He hired us as his coach and his mentor. We even started coaching him prior to him buying the shop. So that's how valuable the, and important a coach can be to you and to your business to help take it to those next levels.
So if you found this information valuable, if you found it interesting, understand this is the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more that we can do and that we can do together. Reach out. We'd love to have a conversation with you and to talk about your shop and your situation, 'cause yours is gonna be different than John's.
Let's have a conversation to talk about what you can do to build the best business you can possibly build. My name is Jimmie Lee. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. So excited to be here with you today, and look forward to having our next conversation. Talk to you soon.

203 - The Future of Shop Training Is Personalized and Daily

203 - The Future of Shop Training Is Personalized and Daily
April 22, 2026 - 00:53:43
Show Summary:
Daily training keeps shop teams sharp and improving without disrupting workflow. Short mobile lessons build technical knowledge communication and consistency across roles. Data and gamification drive engagement while revealing skill gaps. Strong training habits lead to better performance stronger culture and long term business growth. Continuous development is key to retaining talent and preparing future leaders.
 
Host(s):
Wayne Marshall, CEO & Industry Coach
Guest(s):
David Boyes, Founder of Today's Class
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Importance of daily training and consistent staff development
[00:02:00] – Mobile learning delivers quick effective training in minutes
[00:04:00] – Gamification creates competition and boosts engagement
[00:06:00] – Advisors improve by strengthening technical understanding
[00:08:30] – Training data helps identify individual skill gaps
[00:12:00] – Expanding into leadership and communication training
[00:18:00] – Training fills gaps for shops with limited access to resources
[00:24:00] – Investing in people drives retention and shop performance
[00:31:00] – Developing young technicians is critical for the industry
[00:40:00] – Ongoing training separates top performers from struggling shops
 
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Traa892RFnk
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Wayne Marshall: Welcome today for our webinar. It's exciting to have David Boyds with us from today's class. Some of the things that we talk a lot about at the institute comes down to the teaching and the training and development of staff. And when we think about what we're doing and as we work with different clients, we're dealing with it and we talk one-on-one or do other different events, and we're doing those on a weekly and monthly basis.
But the beauty of some of the things that we have here to talk about today. That we're gonna have David share here more in a few minutes really goes into that daily constant feeding, developing of people and that focus. So today we want to get into and share a little bit more of the benefits and how to reinforce those different messages and those different things.
It's a privilege that at the institute we have this opportunity to have a very strong partnership and alliance with today's class. Some of the content that we've developed and that we're doing, we're sharing with today's class. And David will talk a little bit more where we're able to take that content and he's been able to develop it and put it into that little bite-sized 2, 3, 4 minute daily things.
And it could be on advisor, how to develop your phone skills, things that you can do better, that reinforces not only what we're teaching, but to make those people better on a daily basis and how it comes together. So with that, David. Thank you for coming with us today and sharing some things. If you would share a little bit about today's class, talk a little bit more as to what the content is how you get it out there, develop and the importance and what people can expect.
David Boyes: Yeah. I'm really happy to be here. Today's class has been around for a long time, but what we've really focused on for the past few years is to make training as accessible as possible in a shop environment. We know that it can be difficult to carve out. 30 minutes of time, three hours of time carving out time in an evening.
So we're coming at it a little different way, primarily through using mobile apps to push training that, that takes three to five minutes, typically for each user. It's engaging, it's gamified, but maybe most importantly it's personalized. So if we have, for example, in ATech, their training's gonna be different than a GST or an advisor.
Our background was more on the technical side of things. We'd been an a SE accredited training provider for a number of years, so we really grew up in that space, providing technical training that could support a chef. This collaboration with the institute is exciting because now we're able to leverage their expertise and really take it to a whole new level.
We know that a service advisor, for example, we can help them better understand technical concepts. However, the institute can take us to a whole nother level when it comes to things like, phone skills, communication, even things like accountability. So we're really excited to move forward here.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, it's it's interesting, you talk about gamification and I know when we, this goes many months back when we started working together on different things we, here at the institute, there was a group of us, Cecil being one that was part of it. So we're going on and be it on technical advisor, whatever it is we're going on and we're doing exactly what your clients were doing.
And it got to be very competitive inside our walls because I'm doing the daily test and it's the same one that Cecil's doing, and now we're competing to see who's got 'em. All right. Am I getting more points? Am I ahead of Cecil or is he ahead of me? So that competition. It's really interesting because I know what it does to us.
You're seeing that probably also with your clients because most of the people who do sign up for today's class, it's that rooftop or that shop with multiple people engaged. How well is it moving the needle when they get into the gamification or the competition? Yeah. 'cause guys got egos.
David Boyes: Absolutely. So the reason that we include that gamification in there is 'cause we need to promote that daily habit.
So this gets into some adult learning capabilities and motivations and so forth. But those points in the competition are a common hook. So people can earn points through being consistent with their daily training. But there's a variety of ways to leverage that. The most common thing that people will do is just treat it like a scoreboard.
So if Wayne and I are on the same team, we can see who. Who's leading the pack so far resets each month. Teams can then compete against one another. So when we have various MSOs or if you're in a group, you can compete with your peers and that can just open up the doors to, to drive people to move forward.
It's not something where, they have to overcommit to it, but it's a very light spirited way to keep it going. And the fun thing for us has been that. Seeing how shops come up with their own creative ways to leverage points, whether it's primarily about competition, whether it's weaving it into pay structures, incentives, tool bonuses, or ultimately creating your own reward store where you can take points and redeem them for gift cards, tools, trips, or time off.
So really what we're trying to do is use the points as a way to. Create that engagement tool for a management team to be able to ensure their team Can train consistently.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot to be said about. All that content that's out there. And it's like anything with learning, you gotta keep it fresh.
And the more we can do to engage people on a daily, regular basis, that keeps whatever the subject matter is of what they what, while it's on the track training track that they're on I can only imagine keeping it top of mind. Has made a difference. And when you talk to shop owners, they've engaged into your services, they got their staff using it.
What kind of testimonials, what kind of results are they seeing that trickle into? Obviously better work's going out the door. They're having less comebacks. People are being more efficient. They're seeing that proficiency in tech time, on and on. How does that trickle in and what are some of the comments you get back?
David Boyes: Yeah. Yeah, so I'd say the, I could boil that down to a few common use cases. One, I think for service advisors, on the technical side of things, we see a lot of benefit, very common for us to hear about customers who have an advisor who's great at communicating great with people. But just lacking some of that technical expertise.
Today's class is a very easy way for them to begin to. Beef up on, on some of that technical knowledge terminology that improves their ability to not only communicate with the customer. But also with the technicians in the back. So we get a lot of great feedback on that in terms of getting them up to speed, very quickly, but also in a way that's non-threatening.
They can do this on their own, they can do additional self-study. So we get a lot of good feedback from an ROI perspective on service advisors. When we talk about advanced level technicians. A lot of this gets into how things have changed. We talk about daily re-engagement, reinforcement.
This is not a static industry. Things are moving all the time. So as we keep our content up to date and fresh, as a very experienced technician, you might see something you didn't know or something that has changed since you last learned it. So staying in front of it tends to be pretty key.
And then from a measurable perspective, another area that we often see relates to a SE certifications. And a lot of that comes to prep and making sure that people are confident to go into these certifications through the way that we deliver training, the way that we measure where folks are.
We've got great reports on building individual folks confidence, so they head into those certifications knowing that they're gonna pass it.
Wayne Marshall: And on a reporting side, you are getting a lot of the information. Obviously you're seeing how people are, when they engage, what they're engaging in, how they're scoring or testing.
So if they're showing because at the end, as they go through it. The test is gonna tell you if you've got competency of subject matter. So at the end, as you report all this, it's obviously going back to the shop owner. And they're being able to see where there's gaps or weakness. How are they using that then as part of that overall development and learning?
As they continue to build it out?
David Boyes: Yeah, so measurement is key for everything we do. We have tons of data and we have a variety of shops that are data junkies and other folks that want more of that headline data. What we tend to advise is to look at that data to inform some of the additional training you may need.
The today's class experience is something that you can do in three to five minutes a day, but we recognize that technicians and advisors are gonna need more. Where this can help is the data can begin to inform that perhaps these two technicians over here really need some additional help, in, in AC services or electrical.
And now instead of sending your whole shop to per an evening class, for example, let's send these two folks that really need help. So having a line of sight to what they actually know, what they actually are confident in can help a business operator make more informed decisions.
Wayne Marshall: And I know part of this, besides just that daily interactive.
You also are doing some other things where you're doing online training, where you just recently did one on air conditioning. And ended up doing it on live where you had 40 plus. Techs and others coming in that one of your instructors went through and took even that deeper dive to help them through this training or getting them to that certification.
So it's not just the daily, it's also reinforcing it in a different way. As you're looking at everything that's going on, and we've talked a little bit about this, everybody's talking about ai. And they're talking about how this is changing and embracing, and I know you're looking at it. We're looking at it and how can we use it as a tool to reinforce and to help fine tune that messaging.
Tell me a little bit, I know you've got some things in the works, nothing ready to announce, but tell me how you guys are looking at this, because it is changing our industry.
David Boyes: Yeah. No, we need to use it as an enabler. So it allows us to evaluate content, be more consistent, with the volume of training that we push out each day and the data that we're crunching.
It allows us to identify trends. So when we talk about this AC session that we did the other day, the benefit that we get. As thousands of users are training in the platform. Each day. We can get insights that say, people are struggling with this, or people misunderstand this, or maybe we need to enhance this particular content area, and the AI can help us crunch through that data more effectively.
So it really just becomes something that allows us to do our job more effectively. Scale across broader data sets, more quickly.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. What's one of the biggest challenges that you guys face right now when it comes to the training and development of, what do you hear? What's some of the feedback that people are looking for that we're trying to continue to, as we do at the institute?
What's the gap and how are we gonna start to develop and close that gap?
David Boyes: Yeah. I'd say for us it's a bit of a balancing act because we know that the fundamental. Our key. A lot of times people are looking for what's next and we have to balance that to keep them looking ahead, but also recognize, are they doing those services right now in the shop?
Yeah. We've got, limited resources for development. We have to have that balancing act. So we use those data insights, industry insights and feedback from customers to say, here's how we can prioritize our development roadmap.
Wayne Marshall: Are you finding the need to become very manufacturer or model specific or anything like that?
Or is it still staying? Pretty universal?
David Boyes: It's pretty universal at this point, 'cause again, there, there's such deep rabbit holes you can get into once you go into that make and model specific. So at this point, we haven't gone down that road and we'll continue to explore it, but at this point we still have a lot of work that remains to be done kinda more from the broad level.
Wayne Marshall: So part of our partnership reliance is you've been working hard 'cause you had a lot of great things and obviously you've moved the needle. You've got about 11,000 users roughly on the system, which is a big number. And it was very technical specific. And now we're starting to get into. More of those soft skills and we've been honored to be able to help with some of that content and information that will help with that service advisor, telephone skills what other things, when you talk about soft skills.
Are we working on or you wanna work on to develop?
David Boyes: Yeah, so leadership, accountability and shop operations more broadly. We wanna be careful to not be very narrow, let's say with a particular focus on, on, on breaks or engine performance, but we wanna ensure that. Teams can work to together effectively communication, handoffs, documentation to make sure that all of that pieces together.
We don't, we want to enable broader shop operations. We know we can reinforce that, get that message out daily. We're even seeing with some specific customers that they're building out best practices in terms of the way they run their SOPs, the way they run their point of sale systems, where they can dish that out to their teams and enforce those behaviors daily.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, it's we're seeing this more and more. We've been to different industry events at the institute. We've had this opportunity to interact, present on different things and why there's a lot of good things going on in the technical side, those soft skills. Very much in demand. You know how to build good culture and how to be a good leader, not just be a good manager, but a good leader that inspires and gets people to rise up as we want 'em to do.
So it's something that we're, again, we're excited to be able to help develop some other content that can be used, that can be put into those bite sizes. Just good action items and a reminder of, here's something I can do today. That can make a difference in my business to be a better leader, to be a better manager to, to operationally how to get into, so I know we, at the institute, we spend a lot of time, we've got our own dashboard, we've got all these operational KPIs, but how do you then take all this good data and implement implemented into daily operations?
So it's gonna be interesting. I know we got a lot of work in front of us. To get it where it needs to be, but it's gonna be fun to build it and try to make this difference. I also find it interesting, and you've talked a lot about it in the past when we've talked. Talk a little bit of how it's different.
Adult learning has changed and it's gonna continue to evolve. The young people coming up, the millennials, whatever, their attention span and how they look at things and how they consume is different than me as a baby boomer. What are some of the things in the trends you're seeing and how are you trying to adapt to, if you could?
David Boyes: Yeah, I'd say a lot of it starts with recognizing that there's different ways to learn. I think there's a lot of, there's a tendency to learn the way that we all did, let's say in high school, for example. We gotta be very careful when it comes to a one size fits all approach, and also for longer bursts of time.
There's just a lot of research that indicates. That there's only so much information an individual can absorb and retain over time. And then everybody's probably f familiar with the idea of the forgetting curve, that we're gonna get rusty on things over time. Yeah. So we're not, we're trying to just recognize those behavioral tendencies.
Some folks might roll in attention span to that as well, which can be part of it. So we're trying to be very targeted. Hit you where you need it, hit you with what's relevant and ideally motivate you to dive deeper. Motivation is a key aspect to it when you think about somebody on your staff that it has to do required training.
Yeah. The common behavior is they'll work through it, try to get to that finish line and say, I'm done. However, if you can flip that around and find a topic or an area that an individual's very motivated and interested to go through, obviously they'll enjoy that more, but there's a lot of research that suggests that the retention there is much stronger.
So with a lot of our strategies. We're trying to build it in that way where people can, do what they need to do, but then ideally, push deeper into areas that they're very excited about.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah I'll pick on myself and, being someone who was in college in the seventies and, being in my later sixties.
I'm still old school. I still gotta have stuff on paper. I wanna be able to tactically touch it, read it, and work through. I look at my kids and grandkids man, they're in the digital space, and I know it's really hard at times when you sit there and you try to feed this content. And how it's gonna stick for this person to this person.
And yeah, this industry's changing.
A lot. But when I look at myself and I look at a lot of owners that are out there who are in their, later fif mid later fifties and beyond. Yeah. Some of us are still pretty old school.
David Boyes: And building on that, I think some of the trick in terms of what we try to do, when you think about having an individual, let's say take a course on, on breaks Yeah.
Or ac. Your sense of where they might need help is attached to that broad topic? Yeah. When we break it down to these smaller pieces, we can tell you exactly where somebody's struggling, exactly where they need help and maybe we can take them for being 90% effective. To 95 to a hundred, so we can still make meaningful gains even with those small pieces.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. And and I get your daily feeds, 'cause I've got the app on my phone. I don't, I'll be honest, I don't do it every day. There was a stretch there that we are competing more internally, but it is nice and we all work with a smart device of some kind. Be it a tablet, be it your phone, whatever.
So it makes sense. But at the same time, I know how it affects me and how I still learn and consume that kind of educational material. And yeah, still this day I still can't get outta the habit of not printing.
But I'm not the future as they say. I'm still the present and working and I look at the generations coming up and I just wonder there's been a lot of statistics out of that attention span, how you teach, how you develop, and how they become good with their hands and do.
Yeah it's getting harder and harder, yeah. To say.
David Boyes: Yeah. And I think it's, constraints are a big piece of it too, because people may have a preference for those deeper dives. They may have a preference for hands-on, but I think that the reality is carving out the time or getting to the location you need to, that's not always easy.
We have a lot of customers that are in very rural locations because they may not have a lot of options. Yep. You can do this on your phone. It's short, it's successful. You can dig deeper if you want, but a lot of these folks may not have the time or availability to, to dig deeper. And again, as I said earlier, we don't view this as the only solution that, that, folks can leverage.
I think this fits that gap where you can build from other things and tie it all together.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah I gotta compliment you, as I've looked at some of the technical training it's very detailed now. It is in those snippets. So you know, you're not gonna just get on for five days and go through breaks as an example or air conditioning.
And at the end of that, say, Hey, I'm ready. Now go take the a SC, I can be certified, whatever. But there's enough content in those lessons that you look at, and it's in, it's in the dozens, it's 2030, but if you get through the whole segment of you've gained and consumed a ton of information that really will get you prepared.
It's, I compliment you in staff and I've been very impressed with the details and the level that you can take people. I encourage everybody, take a look. There's so many ways to stay current. There's so many ways to learn and develop, and we've talked about that. Yeah.
There's a lot of service centers that are an hour, two hours from a city where training is gonna be happening, and now the expense of sending someone who's got a drive, maybe there's a hotel room. You go down the list. It adds up and it gets really expensive fast for some of these different events.
David Boyes: Yeah. And that's where I think our data for our customers that do that they're in a good position to make that call, because you're gonna have to do that hands-on training. You're gonna have to travel. But if you can do so by knowing that this employee's ready for this training.
Let's flip it around. Now, maybe I don't make that expense because I know you're already beyond it and I can say, Hey, we're not gonna invest the time and the cost to do that. Let's wait for a session that's more appropriate for you. Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: no I hear you. What are some other areas that you're considering?
I know we've talked about, besides the technical, we've already talked a little bit about some of the other different leadership management culture. Are you gonna add in accounting, financial training?
David Boyes: Financials is an area that we're very interested in. I think for a lot of, the younger, technicians, for example, that are very interested maybe in opening their own shop someday.
We would love to break into that and start. Delivering some of that foundational financial experience that everybody can benefit. Whether you're gonna open up a shop or you're gonna go off and do something else. That personal finance can be key. And again, that's where we're really excited to work with you guys on that.
Leverage your expertise. Yeah. 'cause I think we would all agree that everybody,
Wayne Marshall: yep.
David Boyes: In that shop, if they all have a good understanding of that. That's gonna improve the communication, that's gonna improve expectation setting and allow things to be smoother.
Wayne Marshall: I know this is in my past life. Years ago I worked for a company, manufacturing company and I had a meeting with staff and the title of the meeting was, how do we make money?
And I can remember taking the time and breaking down, materials, labor, and all the things that it took. 'cause it was a custom manufacturing company and everything that it took and showed them and staff, how do we make money? And I agree with you. I think when we start talking to coaching clients and others, the owner understands.
But sometimes the service advisor, the tech doesn't realize this lack of efficiency or this happens or that happens. Erodes or eats into the overall financial statement. The other thing I, is we're seeing, and you read the statistics as I do right now in this industry, they're saying between 50 to 60% in the next 10 to 15 years of service centers are gonna change ownership.
There's a lot of people and we see 'em within our marketplace who are in that age of 55 plus who want to get out and want to do it. And we're already working with clients who are selling to a service advisor or a general manager or to a tech, but now they need to understand. So this is a great way, again, not having access to certain things.
Yep. To fill that gap, and it's a big gap that's coming.
David Boyes: Yeah. I'll tie that back to the learning motivation. So imagine that you get exposed to a little bit of this and you're interested. Now I understand. It's not such a mystery to me. Yeah. And that might motivate you to learn more. Imagine if you're an owner having, your experienced technician come up to you and start asking some of these questions about the finances of the business, that can be a very encouraging step in that development cycle.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, very. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. And it's something that. I know with, and I've done some coaching calls where the owner says, are you okay? Can we have one of the coaching calls? And I'm gonna bring in my, service manager, general manager, one of my advisors. And would you talk to them about all these things that we're just talking about operationally?
Financially. They get it and they know it, but to be able to coach and teach and let it go out to them only moves the needle. And if they got focus on the dollars and everything that's going on, yeah, it trickles down. And now that shop's making more money, now they have the money to buy that extra specialty tool or to get the new alignment rack or to give out bigger bonuses or incentive plans for the tax to the service advisors to.
Everybody else, so everybody wins. Training is just so critical and we just have to constantly do and build. And I always tell our coaching clients, we talk about when we go to events, if you don't invest in your biggest asset, which is your people. They're gonna find someone who will invest in them and that's not maybe gonna be at your shop.
So I just feel like you can't stress training enough and you've gotta invest and you gotta help these people. And when you do it and it makes them better, makes you better as a shop and they know that you really do care for 'em, which builds culture.
David Boyes: Yep.
Wayne Marshall: All the things we talk about. As you look to the future.
Do you see anything out there that is going to be a big change, big movement, any concerns or is just keep an eye on the prize as they say. Keeping an eye on what we need to do.
David Boyes: We gotta keep our eye on the ball but again, I think there's a lot of enhancements from a content but also a data perspective.
We want to make, we will ultimately want to move into a more dynamic. Training model right now, our customers will select the type of training that they want. It's menu driven, but whether I'm ATAC or I want somebody to focus on breaks, as we begin to get more sophisticated with data, we can look at business ops and begin to shift that dynamically and start pushing training automatically to somebody based on what they need.
Now again, they can always seek out more information, but the more that we can do on behalf of the shop. The better off. We think that they are. They can certainly, take the wheel and steer it, but they they have a lot going on, and if we can use our expertise and their data to inform that, we think that's effective.
Wayne Marshall: We look at shop management software, obviously. We have different things we have within our own dashboard that allows us to pick up so many different data points. And all of this trickles back down to, okay, we got all this great data, but if I can't take that data and put it in a form that gives me insight or knowledge, which allows me to make better decisions, which I like.
What we said earlier is that, as a shop owner. I can see all this thing on your dashboard. I can see who's going in on a regular basis. I can see well how they're doing on the testing. I can see if they need more training. These are so important data points. No different than am I getting the right gross profit on my parts?
Am I getting the right gross profit on labor that gives me the overall gross profit on my business? But if we don't take all that data and use it to have better insight and knowledge to make better decisions. Then it's just bits and bytes and it's just data.
David Boyes: Yeah. We gotta be very careful with that.
We will hear that constructive criticism from our customers that these dashboards are great, but there's a lot, how do I make sense of that? I know. And I don't disagree. That's gonna be some of the excitement coming going forward because we're gonna continue to refine this and make it more actionable, a little more clearer.
You mentioned just some of the financial stats. If we think about the number of metrics the typical shop owner's gotta manage, it's not a short list. No. So we can do our part to try to tighten that up and connect it to those metrics because ultimately we want those training dollars to be, or those training metrics to be informing those dollars and so forth.
So the better we can tighten that up. It makes it simpler from a reporting perspective and more effective overall.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. We whenever we get a new coaching client, we, start the whole conversation of, let's get a status of your business. Let's look at the health, let's start looking at some of those data points.
Then it starts, okay, where do you need to train? Where do you need to develop, new skills or new opportunities? But at the end of the day, it it starts, nothing happens. Until the phone rings. That's right. Nothing happens until a customer drives into your lot and walks in the door.
We can do all that, but once that starts, that gets the opportunity to sell 'em. But what brings 'em back is the quality. Of the experience with the service advisor to the quality of the work the tech did, and that it's of what it needs to be. That when the customer drives away, they have a happy experience.
All that comes and we keep reinforcing it. But it all comes through training and reinforcing. One, one of the things that, we talk about from a culture standpoint, what gets rewarded, gets reinforced, and sometimes we reinforce and reward the wrong thing too. So this is an opportunity when we have the right metrics, get the right KPIs, we get the right training going, we keep it and sustain it.
Now it reinforces all the right things you wanna do. So that customer experience is at a high level. The retention stays up. So when that phone rings and they come in and you get a new customer, you keep the new customer. And then you just build on that energy and we're seeing a lot of that.
And I go back to the beginning.
This is what's exciting of being able to work together and what we're seeing that it does to reinforce what we coach and train and speak about. So yeah, it's gonna be fun to continue to help with content. New things, new stuff, that we can get it to that next level.
To truly make this, as we say, a better industry.
David Boyes: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: Because that's what we want.
David Boyes: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: Everybody wins.
David Boyes: Yeah. We're big believers and two heads are better than one. Yeah. So it's been exciting, to work with you guys. And again we're very excited to work with experts and bring in different perspectives. 'cause I think broadly what we've done is confirm that this learning model and this access works and it's.
Talking to thousands of shops, we know there continues to be opportunity where they need information, there are access limitations. So if we can get the right content piped through to those folks, the better they'll be overall.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. I agree 110%. It's just, there, there's so many shops out there and there's only enough hours in a day.
David Boyes: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: It's like how do we continually try to help and make a difference? I say and I've been around it for a lot of years, but this is a great industry. It's exciting, and I think we need to continue to do a better job as an industry to entice and bring in the young people. Sometimes we still have the phobia of what it was 20 and 30 years ago.
It's dirty, it's greasy, it's this Cars aren't dirty and greasy like they used to be. Engines don't leak and do other things like they used to do and the electronics and everything that's into it. Is making it a more exciting, interactive and challenging activity. I think about my grandson who loves the video games and the computers and all the things, but then you sit there and you try to tell him all the other things you can do and what's in the automotive space.
It is exciting. It is exciting. And what we're gonna be able to do. I don't have the right answer, but it's the only way we can do is to continue talking about it as an industry. Continue to encourage, to continue to engage, but once we get 'em in, what are we gonna do to take 'em to the next level?
What are we gonna do to continue to start? Because I hear too many stories of, especially at the dealership level, the kid comes out, maybe you went to the community college. They're not through all the programs they could do it to, but they end up being a loop tech. Then the dealership keeps 'em held down and they don't want to do this.
They don't want develop 'em, and they don't want to go in these other directions. So what does the guy do? He leaves.
I can't make enough money. I can't support myself, so I'm gonna find another one. And he goes to another industry, might be welding, it might be, a machinist, it might something else that, that can pay him.
That he is not getting because he is being held down. So I say this all the time, and as I look into the camera guys, we as a whole, as a team, we have to improve ways of what we're doing to develop the young people of this day. It is so critical and this training opportunities and the things that we're doing with today's class and it's with others in the industry, it's just so critical.
If we want to retain the next generation and beyond, and it's gonna, it's gonna take time and it's gonna be hard, but we gotta start someplace and we've gotta make those investments. And it's gotta be frequent. I don't know about anybody else, but man I've had the privilege in all my years of working.
I've learned a lot. But if I don't go back and refresh, I forget it. I forget it. And the daily aspect of it is huge. Yeah. It's huge. Just keep top of mind.
David Boyes: Yeah. And I think, again, challenging when you think about bringing in, younger folks, I think we need to challenge some of the assumptions related to is the way that we've done it, the way it needs to be in the future.
So we're trying to push a little bit in terms of this di this idea of daily engagement and the way people actually learn and what's effective. And these things will continue to evolve. The audience is changing. We need to look at them in a different way and what works. Yeah. Whether it's, we hear a lot of it, tying back to what we talked earlier about with the points and recognition and so forth.
We hear from a lot of our customers when they use our. Metrics and engagement tools, that money isn't the biggest motivator for a lot of their employees. No, it isn't. It, it's the recognition, a lot of these other tools, and it's fun to see some of the ideas that they come up with. And we also notice that those incentives vary a bit from their younger crew to their more experienced crew as well.
Wayne Marshall: That no, it's it's been proven for. I go back to. When I was in college in some of my classes, that was proven in statistics 40 some years ago. That money is not the ultimate motivator. It's job enrichment, fulfillment, and other things you do. And that is true. And this helps to fulfill some of those.
Just inner needs psychologically that we have.
David Boyes: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, don't get me wrong, money's important and we talk a lot about the Maslow hierarchy, and you get into that, basic needs. Everybody needs money to pay their rent to, make their car payment, have food and that.
But once people start getting past the fundamental things, the base of Maslow, and you start to climb up, you're looking for other things. You're looking for that enrichment that, fulfillment of and what fills your soul, so to speak, that makes you want to go to that job every day and do what you do because you find the challenges of it.
And that's something that's important as these young people start to grow.
And go through I'm curious, have you guys have any connection or. Are you gonna work to get connections with maybe some of the trade schools and or community colleges with your content that helps their students and other things?
Do you got anything like that?
David Boyes: We've tested it a bit. We're working with one school that we've been working with for years in Adrian, Michigan. And the, it works well. I think the trick that we sometimes find in particularly schools is. It is more of a one size fits all approach. Those instructors do need to bring you into this subject area.
You're gonna have a quiz on Friday, and then we're gonna move to the next one. So the individualized approach, they often like the idea of that IEP, that in individualized program. However, it can be a distraction from what the instructors. Routine is of doing. So it's been a bit of a mixed bag, so it hasn't been a focus for us.
We used to work in that business and begin to shift back towards the aftermarket.
Wayne Marshall: Got it. Yeah. I could see as we at the institute have the privilege to engage with Weber right here in the community, which is one of the top automotive technology programs in the country. Yeah. And in our meetings and being part of their advisory board and group, it is interesting. We sit there and we're looking at that and how to connect better. Just as we said earlier we've gotta invest in the young people. We gotta invest in this next generation. So we've been working harder to get connected with some of the schools and do more. Do what we say, and what we preach, but to do more.
But then you sit there and say, okay, so how can we continue that? So they can see that there is a very good career path of knowledge, teaching, training, development that takes from the next level. But I could see maybe someday.
David Boyes: Maybe someday. And we're not opposed to do more, but it, but yeah, it's. It was interesting.
We, we, particularly for teenagers, there was this thought, okay, an app-based approach would be a home run, right? And again, I think the students were interested, but it became, for an instructor, they've already got a full plate and it became an extra piece that they had to manage.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah.
David Boyes: But I do think that this, going to what we talked about earlier, imagine being a student and knowing that, hey, I could be taught not only about.
Turning wrenches. I can be taught about sales, culture, leadership, financial. Yeah. I can learn not just to do this job, but how to run an actual business when it comes to this.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, it's exciting to look, 'cause a, again, we get many people who come into the institute and we, and I just ask 'em, how did you get to own this shop?
I was the top tech at that shop or another shop, and I decided instead of working for somebody else, I wanna work for myself.
David Boyes: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: so they knew the technical side. They knew the business as to fixing cars and how to, read an ro repair order and how to get it done and fix riding out the door and make the customer happy.
What they didn't know is all those other skills. That makes a difference if you're in business five years from now or you're not in business five years from now.
David Boyes: Lots of details and whether it's the people, the financials the legal. There's lots of layers to it where, you know, who knows?
I think there's an an advantage as well. Maybe somebody gets exposed to some of those things and they say, you know what? That's not for me. I am pretty comfortable with where I am right now. I'm gonna focus on what I do well. I don't wanna have to deal with, managing people or these pieces of the puzzle.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah it's a lot when you talk to some of those and I've always found it interesting and it has nothing to do with age. We we work with some young people. I mean that, when I say young, they're in their twenties and thirties. To those who 45, we're, I've got a coaching client that I'm working with here at the institute yeah, mid forties.
Bought his first shot.
But he was the top tech and decided I wanted to do my own thing. Yeah. And now he's building. But yeah, all of a sudden he realized why he was doing okay.
He wasn't making the money. He should, he wasn't having all the success. And we started digging in and just, yeah. All that financials and just the.
Standard operating procedures and processes, the HR aspect of just managing and leading people, and it's a whole different skillset. Some people have it naturally, but most. Myself included, I had to learn it and develop it over time. Oh yeah.
David Boyes: It's not easy. The analogy that we'll often talk about is somebody that's a really good cook or you're very passionate about that.
But running a restaurant's a whole different animal. You, amen. And I think that's one that people can relate to a bit. 'cause we've all been there. We can understand what's going on in those kitchens, but there's a lot of layers to that. And I think there's a lot of value also to maybe being exposed to something and realizing that's not for me, and save yourself that trouble.
There's a lot of benefits knowing where you don't belong and if you can find that out before you commit to that step, that can be a, that can be a,
Wayne Marshall: it's, it was interesting. This goes back a little bit of a shop owner. I knew he sold a shop and he went back to being a tech.
Because he decided you know it, and that's okay.
He said, I'm not, I don't consider a failure or anything. I realized I was not a good business owner. I couldn't, we did. Okay. But I'm a better tech. So he went back to wrenching on cars every day and I still talk to him for probably about five, six months. But he was happy and very content.
It's sometimes it's not always for everybody, as they say, but yeah, it's a lot to think about as you look and how to develop that and how to get those skill sets to be that good, strong dynamic. Runner or business owner and it is it's got a lot of challenges that come into play that people just don't think about.
David Boyes: Yeah. And promoting discussion among that I think is helpful as well. What we find in our experience is it's non-threatening. You can see this stuff through the app. You can get exposed to it. Yeah. There's some. Hesitancy often to raise your hand in that class I don't understand what a p and l is.
Help that make sense? Yeah, so by making training available and accessible and pushing it to you, we think there's an advantage there. We're also enabling more communications through the platform as well. You mentioned the webinars that we are doing on AC this week. We've got some discussion feeds as well, but again, ideally.
For a technician that's listening to this, if we can expose you to some, additional knowledge on finance, culture, leadership, et cetera, get you thinking about it and maybe discussing it with one of your peers or encouraging you to go reach out and seek more help, we think that's a benefit.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. I always find it interesting when I, when we get in conversations. Our clients and just the industry in general. And I get people saying why do I need training? I'm running a pretty good shop, or why should I get coaching? Or why should I do this? Why should I do that? I always look at it and I always look at what we see out here and if you watch golf on a Sunday and the masters we just recently have, you look at professional sports and I always find it interesting that you look at the top performers in many other things.
They have coaching.
David Boyes: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: they have training. Just using golf as an example. They've got a putting coach, they got a swing coach, they got, someone for this. They got so many people that are helping 'em get to the very top. And when you think about what they do to excel and stay at the top and what it takes.
I always wonder, why don't we do that enough in business in general.
And I look at myself when I started, got outta college many years ago, but I was blessed to have some really good people in my life who were strong mentors. I took advantage of different certification programs, other training, other things.
To help build my career, to get me to where I got to. And I've been an embracer of it, even at this point. I still got people I talk to. That can help me answer those questions. So I challenge our industry out here. There's so many good resources out there and there's some really talented, sharp people talk to 'em, engage our friendly competitors we have out there in this coaching, teaching, training space.
All of us just wanna make and get. I guess just a lot of pride or fulfillment of making a difference for you, making a difference that you can do and be more successful for your family, for your co, for your team. And I tell people that when you sit there and go with my shop's, got five people or eight people, I says, no, think about them and their family.
You've got 20, 30 miles that you're really responsible for. That's a big burden. That's a big responsibility. Financially. We want everybody to get the best and the most out of it. So training, taking advantage of today's class.
Other resources and things that are out there. They're huge.
It's huge. And just as you look at many top business people, professionals, athletes, whatever, all have multiple people in their lives, helping them be the best they can be. I just say people why wouldn't you take advantage of some of these things?
David Boyes: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: And make that investment.
David Boyes: Yeah. There's a, the professional sports is such a great example for it, and I think a lot of people.
They wait until it burns 'em, until they get to that point. Yeah. And it recognize that carving out the time for personal development and training plan, it can be challenging. Who knows? Maybe that's an upcoming topic that we can collaborate, couldn't collaborate. Like why we ignore this and what can happen and maybe what's happening internally for us, why we might wanna avoid it.
'cause sometimes it could be like, I'm not comfortable because I don't know this. And I'd rather just set that aside now and hope it doesn't burn me. But if we can get ahead of that and continue to build. I think most folks would agree that's gonna put you in a better spot. People always have things to learn.
Things are changing so fast in this industry and look it up. If you choose in terms of the way our brains work, you're losing information, you're forgetting it over time. So if things are moving forward and we're losing stuff, you gotta stay on top of it. So if you think you've got it all figured out.
Perhaps today, but I would argue it's in your interest to stay ahead of it and plan for the future.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, it's it's unfortunate we get those phone calls where. Someone says we're desperate.
David Boyes: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: My business is struggling. I don't have, I can't make payroll this week coming up. I can't pay my parts people.
I can't. And you gotta help me. You gotta save me. And it's unfortunate that, oh, I just wish you would've called, three months earlier, six months earlier, there's so much we could have done. But you're to the point that you're so close to the end. That it's hard to turn it around.
Yeah, again it's no different than we always talk. Just being focused. Great industry events are out there, great opportunities, things we're trying to do, things you're trying to do how we're trying to do it together to move that needle. 'cause it hurts me to hear that person who says they're in that tough of spot and we wanna help, but we know that they're in such a bad spot.
It's just hard to get 'em to pull out. And to turn it around in that short of a window. It doesn't take a long window. But man, if we could have just had that extra
David Boyes: Yep.
Wayne Marshall: 60, 90 days, we could have saved it. We could have made a difference. So yeah, I think we beat up the importance of. Training and continue the development of content and education to keep you top of mind and keep it fresh.
And I know we're getting down to those last minutes. Hour went by, click. I told you it would.
David Boyes: Yeah, absolutely.
Wayne Marshall: I said we'll get going and we'll start talking about all these things, but yeah, I mean there's just so many good opportunities. You just don't wanna see anybody miss out. And we wanna be able to deliver.
And sometimes our industry doesn't have the best reputation with the consumers, so this is an opportunity to sit here and reinforce it.
I don't think, and I tell, we tell this to our clients, we tell it to everybody. When people come in. And you got customers coming in, let 'em know that your techs are certified in this.
Put that certificate up that your service advisor went through this training, this program. These are experts. This is a person who can, you can trust to consult with you. To give you the best and the most you need outta your car to give you that longevity. As many statistics next to your house.
It's the second largest purchase unless you buy a big boat. It's the second largest purchase that you make without a car. You don't go to work. Unless you work from home. But it's so important. At least you got a house that's still there, but your car does so many more things for you that helps you keep your house.
Because if you can't go to work, you're not gonna get paid. And if you don't get paid, you're not lose your house. So your car's invaluable, valuable asset. You gotta take care of it. And we as an industry can do even better by being smarter, better with our understanding the training and how things go on.
I know I'm looking at my watch as we get down to the end. So what are some of your final words of wisdom?
David Boyes: Building one, one on one thing you just said right there. Another tool that, that we have enjoyed rolling out, for some shops that have done it, is building up what you said with certificates and so forth with some of the gamification I referenced earlier.
People can highlight that stuff. Think of, taking an Uber and looking at their star rating. We've got ways where we're able to represent, here's the topics that, this technician, the service providers graduated. That information can be made available. For those customers waiting in that shop, it might just be a little thing that indicates, Hey, these folks are continuing to grow.
They're recognizing those things. But I would say from a closing thought perspective, we're again thrilled to be working, with you and your team. On taking this to an to another level. Again, really focusing on the broader shop as a whole. Trying to, improve knowledge, engage these folks, get them to be asking other questions as well.
So we think there's, a lot of opportunity ahead and again we look forward to collaborating with other groups and then to try and, grow this industry.
Wayne Marshall: This was very valuable and I know we have as the institute here as a whole and even outside as we've been to events.
Yeah, I talk about today's class and people go, man I need my tech to need this and that. Talk to today's class. And I know we've recommended, and I know those clients that I've talked to who have engaged into your services. I've had not one complaint. Everybody's been happy. It's made a difference.
They're getting a good return on that investment. It, I know it's not overly expensive, but it's something that moves the needle and it truly is a measurable reportable. We say all the time, what, what doesn't get measured, doesn't get managed. And anytime you can get those measurements and you get that data points, it gives us as leaders of a company, an opportunity to manage it better, to have those different and better conversations.
Staff. 'cause all we're trying to do is move it up the ladder a little bit, just a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. The old thing of is, man, if I can just do 1% more every day, we work 20, 21 days a month on average, that's a 20% increase. By the time you get to the end of the month, what would you do with a 20% better effort or better increase in everything you're doing?
That's just by doing that little bit 1% more every day.
No, we're. We're happy and very ecstatic to be able to work together on the way we are to help feed some of the content, what you fed back to us that's making a difference with our coaching clients and how we engage. So it, it's exciting and I tell people who might be listening or listen to this, I know many listen after the fact.
Reach out, get in touch with today's class. It costs nothing. Nothing to sit on one of your presentations as you put the group together. And you run through the features and benefits and how you do the different things you do. Take the time. All it is just 'cause what does it take? 15, 20 minutes as you go through.
It's not real long.
David Boyes: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: When you do your demos and just show what's available. But the knowledge gain and the opportunity is worth your time. It's really worth your time. And obviously always, we're always here at the institute. Please reach out to us. Our staff, we're here to help in another way.
Training is so much, it's just so much out there that needs to continue to be worked on things that we want to continue to raise that bar of not only the content we have, the quality of it and how we deliver it out there so that people engage, learn, and we become better. And we say it all the time, better life, better business, better industry, and if we can do all this together.
We're gonna have that to where you're gonna have a great run and shop. So it's gonna make your life better. It's gonna make your business better, which only makes the industry better. So I see we are up to that last couple minutes. I thank everybody. Reach out, stay in touch. Let's just keep talking and we're gonna continue to take deeper dives.
As David said, we got more topics to, to cover here in the near future when it comes around training and obviously how it's consumed and the benefits of keeping it on a daily and keeping it fresh. So last words.
David Boyes: Thank you very much for having me.
Wayne Marshall: So glad to be here. Thank you, sir.
David Boyes: Appreciate it.
Wayne Marshall: It was an honor.
We'll be talking more. Thanks everybody that jumped in on the live and for those later, let's talk more. We got a lot to do. Thank you.

202 - Building a Diesel Shop the Right Way With David Shaefer

202 - Building a Diesel Shop the Right Way With David Shaefer
April 15, 2026 - 00:58:22
Show Summary:
David Shaefer shares how he built Cold Front Diesel from side work into a full time operation. He credits his upbringing in his father’s shop for shaping his desire for ownership and freedom. His time in the Marine Corps helped him develop strong leadership skills and a focus on running the business. He explains the importance of investing in the shop’s foundation through facility upgrades and process improvements. David outlines his plans for growth including hiring expanding space and exploring product development. He also discusses how the industry is becoming more technical and requires a higher level of professionalism. He emphasizes training coaching and building trust with customers as key drivers of success.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
David Schaefer II, CEO / Sales Manager
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – David explains the origin of Cold Front Diesel and its unique branding strategy
[00:02:00] – Growing up in his father’s shop shaped his view of ownership and freedom
[00:04:00] – Meeting his business partner and starting side work while employed full time
[00:05:00] – Marine Corps experience forced him into business management and leadership
[00:08:00] – Transitioning from side work to full time shop operations
[00:11:00] – Rapid growth led to hiring his partner and scaling the business
[00:14:00] – Leadership lessons from the military focused on respect and clear vision
[00:18:00] – Building a high end facility to match a premium customer experience
[00:26:00] – Plans to expand into manufacturing and reach beyond local geography
[00:40:00] – Advice on customer trust training and investing in coaching
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
JImmy Lea: Hello friends, Jimmy Lea here with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. You are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today comes to us from Michigan. This is Dave David Schafer with Cold Front Diesel. David, how the heck are you, brother?
David Shaefer: I'm doing great. Doing great, Jimmy. Thanks for having me on today.
JImmy Lea: Oh, you're welcome, man. Cold Front Diesel. Where'd you get the name for? Cold Front Diesel.
David Shaefer: So since we're up in Michigan, cold front is just kind of a play on the weather. Um, thought it was a unique name and you know, if you Google it, you're, you're not gonna get anything but us or weather. So it's not something that people are trying to fight over.
Uh, pretty easy to differentiate us.
JImmy Lea: Uh, that's cool. All right, show me. So, so where are you?
David Shaefer: Right there, right in the, in the crevice up there.
JImmy Lea: I love it. I, so I haven't, I've been all the way from the bottom to the top, went across the bridge to the up, but I didn't get over into the, uh, the pinky area.
David Shaefer: Yep.
JImmy Lea: When I was up there driving around. So, uh, that's every
David Shaefer: vacation area.
JImmy Lea: Heavy vacation. Really? They got a lot of camps up there.
David Shaefer: Yep. Um, a lot of, a lot of the small lakes and, and the big bay is right next to us, so a lot of people are traveling off here. We have like, right about a mile or two away from us is at one point the third most beautiful lake in the world.
So, uh, heavy, heavy vacation area.
JImmy Lea: Wow. Third most beautiful lake in the world. Well that's, you know, that's something to stand up and say, hey.
David Shaefer: Yeah.
JImmy Lea: So what are the first and the second? If this is the third,
David Shaefer: I don't know. We're not worried about that.
JImmy Lea: We don't have to worry, but we know we're the third best lake in.
Right, right. Yeah. You wanna see the third best? Come on and check it out. Well David, I appreciate you being on here and talking about your experience in the automotive aftermarket. Uh, and I really want to get into this with you and your history, your past. How did you start? In the automotive aftermarket.
David Shaefer: So my, my dad, uh, was a mechanic as well, and he eventually started his own shop. And, uh, so I grew up in that. He started it in about 2001. So, um. I, I kind of grew up seeing that, you know, that was a majority of my, my young life is, is kind of watching him do that, being involved, you know, when I turned 16, I got a key to his toolbox into the shop and, um, you know, that was, uh, that was my place to kind of go and, and hang out and tin around trucks with friends or whatever.
Um, so kind of knew that that was something that I wanted. I saw that, you know. Maybe he didn't make the most money in those years, but he was always present. So maybe he worked a lot of hours, but. If you forgot your backpack at, at home or something, you know, it was, it was on him. Like he could, he could go do that.
He could make his own decisions, you know, he could be at the games, he could do things. So yes, he had to sacrifice time other places, but he still had the freedom when, when family mattered or something like that. So, you know, at, at least there was. It was on him, you know, and, and I thought that was, uh, that was cool.
There's a lot of pride in him owning it as well. Um, so I always enjoyed that. Um. I don't know how I got into the diesel side of things really. I thought, uh, I think just in the high school area. Um, that's when, you know, I graduated in 2011, so around then some of the, some of the more powerful engines were kind of coming out and, and that was in the diesel performance industry was, was kind of starting to roll around then, and it, it seemed cool.
So I ended up, I knew I wanted to do something eventually. I knew it probably wanted to be more, uh. Diesel related. So I went to a tech college. Um, but once you, once you go that route, it's kinda a weird industry to get into being truck specific. So you either go, you know, all automotive general dealership, or you go construction, industrial, semi-truck.
Um, so got outta college in 2012. Um, and got a job at a Caterpillar dealership, um, that was pretty local to us, so started working on semis. Did that, uh, for, for a few years and while I was there. Um, so I'm, I have a, I have a business partner, uh, with cold front here. So, um, we actually met at, at Caterpillar.
We both graduated same time. Both started working there at about the same time. Um. Both liked working on pickup trucks too. So we would come in and we'd work at my dad's shop after hours on the weekends, whatnot. Um, we were like, this is something that. We enjoy doing, you know, let's, let's see if we can make this happen.
Um, so we kind of started, we just started tinkering with that. And then I actually joined the Marine Corps, went off for four years. Um, and I think that was probably what set us up the most for success because we had something that we both wanted to do. Something that, uh, we both, you know, were, we're very excited about.
And then. Now I'm in a different part of the country for, for several years. Right? So, uh, what was really cool about that is you hear so many issues with partnerships, right? Um, and I think a lot of them are because you both are trying to be the same person, right? Um, so what was nice is when I was gone.
I'm not physically there able to do any work, turn any, any wrenches. So it, it forced me into the management side. I can do the sales, I can do the estimates, I can do the customer contact, um, I can do the books, I can do all the business stuff, but I can't physically work on anything which allowed him to solely focus on just working, just, you know, managing the, the business side.
JImmy Lea: Okay. Time out. Hold on one second. Are you saying. That you were away as a Marine and running your shop?
David Shaefer: Yes, sir. And, and that
JImmy Lea: was, how did you do that?
David Shaefer: I mean, we were, we were still, you know, he was still working full time at Caterpillar. I was still in the Marine Corps. Right. So, oh,
JImmy Lea: okay. So this is, this is the after hours, weekends we're building up our own customer base.
David Shaefer: Yeah.
JImmy Lea: You have that flexibility. Okay, I get it now. I thought this was like nine to five and the marine at nine or something and
David Shaefer: Yeah, no. So, um,
JImmy Lea: so where were,
David Shaefer: yeah, it was, it was a slow buildup.
JImmy Lea: Oh for sure. And congratulations on doing that. Thank you for serving in the Marines. My wi uh, my daughter is a Marine.
She's stationed in Hawaii right now. She's been Oh, very
David Shaefer: cool.
JImmy Lea: Twice. Yes. So you, did you get put in the motor pool like really quick?
David Shaefer: No, so I actually, so I was at Caterpillar for three years and my recruiter was actually, uh, a motor T mechanic and he was like, dude, you'll be perfect. You'll progress super fast, you know, if you take this motor T job, I'm like.
Man, I'm not trying to take a quarter of the salary and do the same job. I said, I'm gonna go do something completely different. So, um, I get in as a combat engineer. So completely different, you know, if, uh, if you've heard of that job field, it's, it's very cool. A lot of you deal with, uh, construction and explosives.
So, um,
JImmy Lea: oh, you know
David Shaefer: that, that's
JImmy Lea: every
David Shaefer: child parade, right?
JImmy Lea: That's every boy childhood dream is to be in for. Construction equipment and explosive, let's blow it up and let's play in the dirt.
David Shaefer: Right? Right. So, um, yeah, so I, I didn't do a, a parallel field, you know, I did something completely different. I said, if I'm gonna go do it, I'm gonna do something that, you know, you can't really do in, in the civilian side.
So, um, that's, that's, that's what I went for and it was great experience. Um, and I, I credit that to a lot of. Foundation of who I am now, you know? Um,
JImmy Lea: but
David Shaefer: totally agree. But yeah, it gave us, uh, it gave us that opportunity to really divide ourselves and, and I really had to focus on how to operate a business, how to, how to structure things, you know, where I think a lot of people get trapped in the bays.
Um, yeah. So it was a good perspective. It kind of put us in our places. And then, uh, when I got back home in, in 2019, we said, Hey, I'm back. I actually went back to Caterpillar. They brought me back on. Um, and we said, let's, let's crank it up a little hotter and let's see if you know, like. Time ticking. Let's see if we're gonna do this or not.
You know, and we wanted to play it a little safe. We both had homes. I was married, um, you know, working on having kids and we, you know, I definitely had a good career. Didn't want to. Necessarily sacrifice everything, I guess. Yes. So we were being kind of cautious. Uh, we knew we had a, a safety net of, you know, my dad's shop.
You know, we're not the in, in the driveway in the garage. Like a lot of people, you know, we're in a fully functional repair facility. Right. So,
JImmy Lea: yeah.
David Shaefer: Um, gotta give him credit for, for letting us do that. Right. That was a, that was a kickstart for us for sure. Um, so, you know, we kind of turned up the volume and, um.
Things started, pick up, pick up, and then, you know, you're losing on both ends at a certain point, you know, we, we started getting a lot busier. We're, we're trying to get out minimum hours, you know, at at Caterpillar, and then we're trying to do this after hours, you know, Hey, let's do it, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then, oh, we're too busy for that.
Let's do. Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then it's Monday through Sunday. You know, it's the typical, I feel like a lot of people have similar, similar core things that happen to 'em when they start a business. And I think, you know, as much as people give you advice not to do, I think it's just kind of part of the game.
You know, sometimes, Hey, don't drive yourself, you know, don't work yourself into the dirt. Uh, it's kind of part of the game. Hey, you know, don't, uh. Don't do this, don't do that. We don't wanna see you go through these, these hours. We don't wanna see you go through not not doing this, we don't wanna see you, you know, not charging high enough labor rate.
And I feel like it's just something that, that just naturally happens and it's getting out of it that's the most important. But, um, yeah. But anyways, uh, you know, we, we progressed and we got to the point where we needed to make a decision. We were gonna jump in or not. Um, and, uh. Since my dad was still, my dad was still working, we were basically renting out, uh, a section of the shop, if you will.
Um, and I said, well, I'll go first, you know, and, uh, that way if something happens, at least I can fall back. I can work with my dad, you know, we can make something happen there. Um, so I came over, started doing full-time operation. Um. And so then I was doing it all except Caden would come in and, and do some of the wrenching in the after hours.
Um, and then it was, I mean, it was five, four or five months and it was like, I can't keep up. So he came over and uh, we kind of started growing from there.
JImmy Lea: Oh, congratulations. What happened to you guys when COVID hit in 2020?
David Shaefer: So we, so we started January of 2021, so, uh
JImmy Lea: oh.
David Shaefer: We were kind of, that, that was kind of fizzled out by then.
JImmy Lea: Yep.
David Shaefer: Um. So, you know, that was as, as far as like, repair, it didn't really affect us, I would say, as far as like starting, starting the business or having to shut down or anything like that.
JImmy Lea: No. Good for you. Good for you. That's, that's awesome. That's awesome. And so you've, you've built the business, it was you and, and then Caden came in and, and what does it look like now?
What does it look like today, the footprint of your shop? Are you still renting from pops or what?
David Shaefer: So, uh, at this point my dad's been coming up on retired a, a little over a year and a half. So, um, he was, he was, we were kind of working outta the same, we actually added on these two bays right here. Uh, we added on our first year, um, and.
Then we kind of started pushing him further towards the front, you know, because he was trying to slow down. He was getting ready to retire. He, he knew, uh, we were gonna buy the, the facility from him and, and all of his equipment. Um, so he was, he was 60, you know, he, he just turned 62. Uh. He turned 62 and then like two months later he retired.
So, um, oh,
JImmy Lea: congrats.
David Shaefer: He was, he was trying to slow down, um, and we were trying to ramp up, so it kind of worked. He was, he was coming down, we were coming in. So as he scaled back to need as much of the facility we were scaling up. Needed more.
JImmy Lea: I love it. So was, was pop's wrenching at 62 years old? Is he wrenching as well or did he have an advisor and a, a tech?
David Shaefer: No, so my dad is, uh, is. He, he got up to the point, uh, at one point in time I think he had, he had three techs and then he was kind of in that, uh, advisor position, if you will. Um, I think he primarily liked, you know, he, he didn't like having to manage people, you know, he kind of liked doing his own thing.
He's, he is very, very good at what he does, found his niche, um, and, you know, made it, made it to what he wanted to be. I think when it, when it got to several employees, he didn't really. Enjoy the, the management side of, of dealing with all the, the people, you know, so, uh, or, or dealing with the employees and all the stuff that comes with that.
So, um, he was usually happy with like one, one other employee kind of thing. So, um, luckily COVID kind of took them outta place. They moved, they went somewhere else. Um, and, and that kind of gave him the ability to, to scale down and prepare for retirement.
JImmy Lea: Yeah. Very cool. So, uh, just because you own a business doesn't mean you're a good leader.
I've said this a few different times. What do you think has influenced not, what do you think, what has influenced your leadership style in running your shop?
David Shaefer: So, I would say Marine Corps was, you know, one of the most blessed things that I got out that was leadership and, uh. I, I saw very good leaders and I saw very poor leaders.
And I, especially in my, in my early years and then I experienced a lot of poor leaders and it, and it helped me reflect, 'cause it's so leadership heavy, especially more than any other branch. It's very, uh. Very heavy on leadership, even at very low, uh, low rank level. Um, so I, I learned a lot of things there.
Um, and I progressed pretty fast in that, and a lot of it was my leadership style, I guess, um, would, was a big part of it. And I learned that. You know, leading, being in a, in a position of, you know, a higher position or a higher rank, or a, or a, you know, higher level boss, whatever it is, right? That doesn't mean that you get any kind of, uh, respect for that.
Like there's, there's a difference between respecting a physician and respecting a person, right? Um, so you know you're gonna have a better time getting people to. To assist you to go with you to complete or fulfill your visions or your dreams or, or the, the task or the mission, whatever it is. If your team respects you and wants to work with you or for you, right, and you can't hide behind a, a position or rank.
In order to do that, they have to respect you as a person too. And that a lot of that has to do with being somebody that they want to emulate, somebody that they want to be like. Um, and I think you know where it goes wrong a lot is like, Hey, I'm the boss. I want you to do this. That doesn't work. You know?
Hey. We need to accomplish this. Hey, understanding why is, is very important too. I think. Um, people wanna know why we're doing this or, or what is the goal. You know, you don't wanna just float into the abyss of, we're doing this for why, and where are we going and what are we doing? You know, they, they, they need a more solid foundation led by somebody that they, that they respect.
JImmy Lea: Yeah. My father has always said, everybody's a good example. You're either a good example of what you should do. Or you're a good example of what you shouldn't do. And with a lot of those bad leaders, you, you learned, okay, I don't wanna do that. I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that. I know the right way to do it, uh, to be a good leader and, and sharing the why.
Oh man, that, that helps with the vision, that helps with the, the enthusiasm, that helps with the motivation of everybody on the team. We're all going in the same direction.
David Shaefer: Absolutely.
JImmy Lea: Oh, that's fabulous. So what, what's the footprint of the current shop? You added on the two bays, which I see behind you, you got a lift and it looks like a flat.
David Shaefer: Yep. So, um, a, a very original facility, when my dad first bought this property, uh, in 2014, it was, it was three bays. I, I call 'em XL bays. So each, each bay is, is roughly 20 foot wide by 44 or 50 foot deep. So a lot of room in between stuff. We're not, whoa, we're not post to post, you know? So, um,
JImmy Lea: it's on this double.
David Shaefer: Yeah. Yeah, it was, uh, so it was originally three in 2017, he added on two more bays, and then we added on these two, and we went a little bit deeper here. So we're, we're seven bays in total on, on this building, um, alignment rack, uh, five lifts. Alignment rack, five lifts, and then this, this bay next to me is our Washington Detail Bay.
Um, so, and any truck that we work on in some form or fashion, it gets detailed before it goes back to the customer to complete the experience. So, um, that was a big, a big thing for us is having the efficiency of having a true dedicated Wash Washington Detail Bay. Um, so that's, that's a footprint here.
We're roughly 7,500 square foot, uh, in this building. And then we. Our good majority of the way through completion of, of a new building that's about 3,200 square foot, uh, on the front of the property, three really big bays. So it's 60 by, uh, sorry, 50 50 deep by 64 wide. So 50 foot deep. We can power two pickup trucks back to back and let 'em, you know, you can store 'em pretty easily there.
So, um. That building, we'll move our alignment rack into that. Free up another bay here. Um, alignments, you know, two buildings, you don't really wanna have two buildings. It makes tooling equipment. You know, it makes stuff weird there. Alignments you gotta pull out, pull back in. Anyways, so we're gonna put the alignment over there, storage and then we're actually building a gym in the first part of it, so,
JImmy Lea: oh, nice.
David Shaefer: Excited to do that. But we've done a lot of remodeling this year on, on the exterior of the facility, the office space, and then new construction. So.
JImmy Lea: Nice. Nice. And so, and you, you're, are you, so you're building the new building, are you also in the middle of remodeling the current building too?
David Shaefer: Yeah, so slightly, you know, a lot of, you know, the, the back four bays are, are brand new.
Um, and, but the, the exterior was kind of dated, you know, uh, it was like a light blue steel on the bottom and. The back part is brand new, and then the front part that everybody walks into is like, kind of faded, you know, from 1998. Right. Um, so when we built the new building, we said, Hey, this is a good chance to, to refresh.
So we did like a, like a slate rock on the Wayne's coat on the bottom part of the building. And then we had. All of the Wayne's coat on the, the main shop taken off and, and upgraded to that, um, put in a better front entryway to the shop. And then, um, our most proud possession, we put in an 80 foot tall flagpole, uh, at the front entry.
So
JImmy Lea: 80 foot. So when as an as a boy scout, I earned the rank of eagle and I was 13. My Eagle project was to put up a flagpole in front of the church.
David Shaefer: Oh, very cool.
JImmy Lea: I had to get wet signatures. I had to work with architects, I had to work with engineers. They had to know the specs of the flagpole. Yeah. We were thinking grab an old, uh, street light that had been run into, cut off the bottom, plant it in the ground, and you're good to go.
Oh, nay, nay. It's quite the process to get an approval. To put a flagpole up in front of any structure.
David Shaefer: Yeah.
JImmy Lea: And an 80 foot the flag you can fly on that is massive.
David Shaefer: Oh yeah. Yeah.
JImmy Lea: That is cool. Did it take like an act of Congress to get your approval for an 80 foot flag pole?
David Shaefer: No. So like, we're actually positioned in a pretty good area.
Okay. We're pretty relaxed, uh, pretty relaxed township. There's no regulations on that. Um, and you know, they saw what we've done over the past couple years, improving, uh, cleaning up. And, you know, with the remodel of the building, we said, Hey, we want to do this. We want. You know, any, everybody knows where we are, whether they do business or not.
That's, you know, and there's actually,
JImmy Lea: you, you, you have become a landmark. You, you're a mountaintop.
David Shaefer: Yep. We are the, the guys with the big flag. You know, so, um, that's, that was part of it too, is we knew we wanted to do a flagpole, but we said, Hey, let's do the biggest one we can. 'cause we want to, we want to be known.
That, that that's us, you know? So,
JImmy Lea: yeah.
David Shaefer: Good for you. Um, but it, it was pretty easy. It, it, uh, we didn't get a whole lot of flag for it. Everybody was supportive of it, so,
JImmy Lea: oh, yeah. It was cool. That, that is awesome. In, uh, St. George, Utah, there was an RV park that put up a very, very large flagpole, and they didn't get the city permits, and the city came in and said, Hey, you're gonna have to take this down.
Oh, you're anti-American and you're anti, no, no, no, no. This is permits if this thing falls down, because you guys didn't put it up right. There's gonna be some hecka lawsuits. So it's not about patriotism. This is about safety.
David Shaefer: Right? Yeah.
JImmy Lea: But they, they, uh, they, they
David Shaefer: jump camping world. 130 footer, I think is what it was.
JImmy Lea: What, what's,
David Shaefer: I think, I think it was 130 foot, that one. Camping World, I believe is the one that you're talking of. Yeah. It's huge.
JImmy Lea: It is. It's massive. And you see it from the freeway. Yeah. And they've got a massive humongous flag on there. And when the winds blowing, oh baby, that's Oh, yeah. Loud. It's, it whips wh
David Shaefer: Oh yeah.
It cracks.
JImmy Lea: Oh yeah, it cracks. Yeah. Well man, that's awesome. Congrats on on living in an area that's gorgeous. You're, uh, cold front up there in Michigan. It must be gorgeous up there all the time.
David Shaefer: Absolutely, absolutely.
JImmy Lea: Get some lake effect. Uh, are you guys buried in snow right now or is it pretty
David Shaefer: Uh, it's, it's been weird, weird, uh, winter this year.
It, it comes heavy and then it was raining the beginning of the week and, and
JImmy Lea: it's all gone.
David Shaefer: Coming back again. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's snowing again today. So it doesn't know what to do.
JImmy Lea: No, that's wild. Well, congrats on the, the expansions, the growth.
David Shaefer: Thank you.
JImmy Lea: Uh, it just sounds like you're doing extraordinary things up there in Michigan.
Congrats. This is super awesome. So what, what is the future for you, David? What is your three to five year plan look like?
David Shaefer: So three to five year, um, I would say right now, um, you know, all that stuff sounds good and cool, um, and sounds exciting, but obviously, you know, we're young in business and you gotta pay those bills too, right?
So, um, I'm not saying we're sitting over here and don't know what to do with our money, you know? Yeah. You got
JImmy Lea: rolling in it.
David Shaefer: Yeah. No, we've, we've invested heavily into our. Our foundation system. So, um, we wanted to make sure that, you know, we do high-end white glove repair. Um, we're, you know, we consider ourselves top tier.
We do typically more involved repairs. Um, so we're, we, we we're known for our quality of work and we needed to make sure that our facility, uh. Reflects the quality of work that we do, right?
JImmy Lea: Yeah.
David Shaefer: Um, we have to make sure that our facility is on, on, on par with our brand that we've built. So, um, you know, these, these last couple years have been, Hey, we have things in motion, we have things, things working, but let's invest in the foundation.
Let's make sure our facility is ready for growth, our processes are ready for growth. Um, make sure that, you know, we. When you come into the shop, it is what you anticipate coming into, uh, especially when you're searching those, those higher end clients, uh, or the people that do care about value over price, you know?
So, um, you know, it's been, it's been a lot about building the foundation to, to grow from there. So, you know, we've gotten to where we're pretty comfortable there. And then this year is, is about building up our staffing a little bit heavier. Um. So with that being said, three to five year plan is, you know, our, our foundation is set with, with facility up staff.
Um, and, you know, now work on, on getting our car count up now, work on getting our sales up, um, and judging by the base space and, and kind of projecting, um, you know, our growth over the last couple years. I anticipate, and I hope that within three years we start feeling constraints of size and we have to start thinking about moving facility or doing something.
We're kind of tapped out on building on here. So my hope is that we continue our growth on the same trajectory and we have to, we start feeling, uh, we start feeling the pains of. Of getting some of the inefficiencies back by not having enough room. That's my goal. Um, so the five-year goal is, is to be searching, actively searching or, or in a new, bigger facility Is, is what I'm, what I'm shooting for.
Um,
JImmy Lea: oh, congrats man.
David Shaefer: So as far as that's, that's kind of that side as far as, you know, uh. Business type things. Obviously grow our repair facility, you know, grow, uh, grow our business. But, um, we wanna work into getting into at least some light manufacturing or offering some products of our own, uh, to be able to expand our reach.
You know, we are, we are limited by geographic location, so we're a peninsula. We're on a peninsula and a peninsula, um, limited by a lot of water. Michigan is very. Interesting because you have wearing the rust belt, so vehicles don't last as long. Uh, so you investing into that vehicle. It, it is hard sometimes because they're not worth it after so long.
So, um, the, just some geographical things we, we do have to keep that in mind of what is our true potential on, on overall growth, you know, over 10 years, over 20 years, is that gonna support continual growth? Um, so we're looking at what can we do to expand our region, um, and is, is having part sales of our own or getting onto e-commerce.
You know, can that kind of help bridge some of that gap? So that's something that, that we're starting to, starting to get a little bit more involved in over this year.
JImmy Lea: Oh, dude, that's, that's a whole lot of fun. So, are you gonna get a CNC machine? You're gonna start fabbing your own brackets, your own braces, your own parts and pieces.
What, what does this look like?
David Shaefer: So right now we've, we've, we've, it's been an idea for of ours that that's something that we wanted to get into. Obviously when you're still pretty fresh in, in, in business, you gotta fix, you gotta fix trucks and get 'em out the door, you know? Yeah. So, focusing on all this other stuff, uh, the, the core of the business is, you know, uh, be a solution for the customer and, and.
Fix their, fix their vehicle and get 'em back on the road. So, um, can't be overly distracted, but we gotta, we gotta start making time and, and plans, right? So, um, right now my, my, my brother and his in-laws, they actually own a own a machine shop, uh, outta state. And so we have a little bit of an in, I guess you could say, um.
With being able to get some products manufactured without having to take on the full investment of, you know, machinery. Buying all the machinery. Right. Oh, yeah. On, on a, on a starting basis, you know? So, um, at least we have somebody that we can. Refer to get some guidance from, talk things over with. Yeah. Um, and figure out what products we can bring to market, what makes the most sense, um, and then kind of grow it from there.
So we actually have had some more in depth conversations about what that looks like over the last week. So.
JImmy Lea: Bro. That sounds amazing. That sounds awesome. I'm, I'm so excited for you, for you, I
David Shaefer: put it out there, so now I gotta, I gotta make it happen.
JImmy Lea: Well, and, and that you've got an in, you can say to 'em, Hey, look, okay, send me six of this product and six of this product.
This one's super popular. I want a couple dozen of these. Right. Uh, you know what? I only need two or three of these. You, you are, you're able to really hone in on and not, and now all you have is inventory. You don't have the machinery to do it. So, uh, yeah. Super. Awesome. Congrats. Where do you see the, the future of the industry going as a whole, whether it's auto repair or diesel repair?
Diesel is in your back pocket. Where do you see the industry going as a whole?
David Shaefer: So. Obviously I'm still pretty young in this, um, but I did, I did get to see, you know, my, my, my dad grow up through, you know, grow up through this. So, uh, I would like to say I have a little bit of depth of understanding at least.
Um, but one thing that I, that really sticks out to me that I've noticed. Is as these vehicles and, and trucks are kind of dumb compared to some of these newer cars, right? Uh, they, they seem to lag a little bit farther behind. But what I see is there's, there's more electronics, there's more, uh, circuitry, there's more modules, there's more complex systems.
Uh, you know, especially we, we dive into the fuel systems of a diesel truck. I mean, it's emission systems. It's, it's, it's a lot and it's. It's truly not mechanics, it's technicians. It is, it is a profession that requires, you know, a a a wealth of knowledge and experience and, uh, eagerness to learn and to advance.
And, uh, we're, we're getting to the point where things as simple as a break job with the electronics that are in them now. Aren't what Jimmy Joe is gonna be doing in his driveway anymore. So as the industry gets more complex and more advanced, I feel like it's, it's at a turning point where a lot of the, the old guys that didn't want to get on board with electronics, a lot of, they didn't want to get outta carburetors and they, and, and.
Name a car with a carburetor. Not very much. That's, you know, so, you know, and then they didn't want to get on with electronics and modules and, and those people phase out over time. And it, and it, and if you are willing to advance, you are willing to invest into the future. Uh, it gives you a lot of opportunity for market share.
So I think you add on. The, the electronics and the need for information, knowledge, equipment, testing tools, um, it's, it's also not only pushing out a lot of the repairs from the, the shops that don't want to advance, but also the do it yourselfers. So I think, like I have this feeling that we're, we're really on a cusp of that next generation of people that didn't want to evolve fizzling out.
And also the, the do it yourself. We're in a heavy do it yourselfer industry. The, the diesel world is, you know, heavy with those people that are blue collar, that have a, have a know-how and willingness to do it, whether they're good at it or not in some cases. Right. Um. But I kind of see that. So if you get on board and you do invest into training and, and learning and, uh, the technology and the equipment, I think we're at a point where now we're not mechanics grease monkeys.
We're not the the shop down the road. We're a true, serious profession that. And Bill what we need to, to be a profitable business, you know? Um, I think the people that really get on board and, and, you know, a lot of the, the more automotive hospitality thing is, is taking a little bit stronger hold now I think as well.
Um, so these, these $80 an hour shops are, you know. Not as much of a competition, uh, to us as, as they may have used to be. Um, and now we can justify being able to, to work in more profitability into the business model. I think.
JImmy Lea: Yeah, yeah. You, you have a different way, different business model, uh, operating compared to, and, and that's the beauty of it too.
You know what it costs for you. You know what you want to be able to provide for your family, for your technicians, for your service advisors. You want, you know, what kind of life your business can provide to them and what it costs to provide that, and you have to charge accordingly,
right?
JImmy Lea: Those shops that are operating sub one hundreds.
On their labor hours, they, they don't know it, but they're one sneeze away from bankruptcy. They're one sneeze away from closing the front doors. One catastrophe happens and they're out of business.
David Shaefer: Right. And unfortunately, the, the, you know, the consumers at that point, not as much the clients, but the consumers at that point are typically not as, not as easy to deal with as well.
So I think that's something to consider too.
JImmy Lea: Yeah. So, uh, uh, learning, learning is a constant. We are constantly learning leaders or readers. You're probably reading quite a few books, but into training. Where do you go for training for the diesel, and do you take your technicians with you, or what do you do?
David Shaefer: So, again, pretty young into it. So we're, we're trying to. You know, we're trying to get as involved in that stuff as we can, um, and grow into where we're doing it more consistently. Um, so I'd say. Three years ago or so, the first thing that we started with was, uh, if you've ever heard of Thoroughbred Diesel, they're a wholesale distributor.
Um, so obviously you guys are, know them well. You, you deal with a lot
JImmy Lea: of people.
David Shaefer: We do, right? So,
JImmy Lea: diesel's been there twice and, and yep. Presented, uh, just phenomenal, well, well received.
David Shaefer: Absolutely
JImmy Lea: diesel industry. Yeah.
David Shaefer: Yep. So, survivor, thrive, uh, Chris here at, at Thoroughbred is, is is the big driver for that.
But the whole team in general, I can't say enough good things about 'em. But, um, that was our first real, like, training event, you know? And that was like a year in and we're like, oh, wow, this is. This is eyeopening, like holy cow. Because we were stuck in that we gotta be cheaper than somebody. 'cause we're just a couple young kids, you know?
And, well, I can't charge more than a map, you know, how do I do that? They can look online, you know, and then. That, you know, it was, it was that price look instead of how do I add the value look, you know, so we dove extremely deep into how do I provide value over price from there. Um, and then that turned into vision.
Um, so, you know, vision and, and, and Survivor Thrive were two big ones. And then what's, you know. Now plans for A STA or you know, local, you know, trying to expand our networking as well. There's, there's a lot of resources, um, just through local shops coming together, uh, to, to put on training, you know, um, and, and kind of bring everybody together for that instead of having to go to a, a convention or something like that.
So, um, we really try to do anything that we. We can, you know, that we can justify or afford or time permit permits and, um, I want to get on a more consistent routine with it as well. So, you know, there's with, with the mixture of, of the events, you know, getting at least a couple people, you know, every quarter or so out to some of the bigger things.
Um, but then continual, just small, you know. Meetings or trainings in between. But, uh, you know, we are, we're a smaller staff. We have five guys. So, um, it's, it's not terrible to, to get us all to a training, you know, or Yeah. But now we're, you know, we're growing into that size. We're, you know, maybe now we, we keep the shop.
At least open, which, which kind of helps too. And, and bring a couple people and, and kind of mix that in. So
JImmy Lea: there is a show you might wanna check out. There's two shows, uh, that I'm gonna tell you about. One is HDAW and it is this weekend in Grapevine, Texas. So imagine the scale of Vision, vision High Tech Expo.
You've been there, right?
David Shaefer: Yeah. Yep.
JImmy Lea: Imagine that level, that quantity. And it is diesel only.
Oh,
David Shaefer: and that's what what's crazy is getting into it. You don't even, it's like, where, where do I even find these things? You know? It's exactly, it's interesting until you get really involved.
JImmy Lea: So that's a January one. It's in d in, uh, a Grapevine, Texas. The second one for you to check out is Auto Value. They do a, a show in February in Grand Rapids.
David Shaefer: So they just canceled that this year.
JImmy Lea: Oh, no.
David Shaefer: Yeah. Yep. It's 'cause I, we went to that the last two years. Yeah. And we're like, perfect. There's not much going on during the winter.
JImmy Lea: And yeah,
David Shaefer: we went to that and we're like, perfect. Well, this'll be a perfect little small one day deal. And then a couple months ago they, they announced that they're not gonna do it
JImmy Lea: ever again, or just this year.
David Shaefer: I, I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. I, it sounded like it was one of those things where. They're gonna do away with that, but they're gonna try to invest more into smaller, probably online or, or, you know, smaller trainings type sessions.
JImmy Lea: It, it, it,
David Shaefer: I think there's something worth going to something.
JImmy Lea: There is, there absolutely is. The hands-on is, is paramount, especially in our highly tactile industry. You've got to have that, um, hands-on experience. To do it online is great and you get the value, you get the, the theory of it, but you don't get that tactile. I get to touch and feel and work and torque.
Uh, it's, it's totally different. Um, or the
David Shaefer: networking.
JImmy Lea: Oh, networking's huge. Yeah. Uh, a STA if you do that one in North Carolina. That would be a good one. There's a lot of, uh, diesel dudes that are showing up for the, that one.
David Shaefer: Yeah. Yep.
JImmy Lea: Cool. Very cool. Well, that's awesome. Congrats man. Alright, so if, if you were to give yourself some advice, and this is you, you are now at a level that you have lots of water under the bridge, you've learned a lot.
Yes. You know that there's still a lot for more for you to learn. You're learning a lot. If you were to give yourself advice today because you're starting your shop today, what advice would you give yourself starting your shop today?
David Shaefer: I would say. Servicing the customer and providing value is number one, 'cause that that is what it's all about, right?
So, um, sometimes you gotta do what's right and it, it's way easier to swallow the pill and, and eat it rather than try to try to lie to the customer. Like, there's, there's nothing worse that you can do, you know? So it is just being honest and, hey man, you're gonna get through. Whatever it is. So if you provide value and you have good intentions and you wanna service that client to the best of your abilities, even if something unforeseen happens, uh, it'll all work itself out.
As long as you tell, you know, as long as you go through, uh, Hey, I'm gonna build this off a trust and I'm going to, uh, um, I'm not gonna be embarrassed about telling my side of the story of anything, you know? Um, but number one is obviously providing that value. Um. Focusing on, on training and then I think, you know, get yourself to the position where you can afford to, to have a coach or to be involved in some type of coaching.
It sounds like a lot of money, but. You're missing out on a lot of money because you, you're buying experience, you're buying decades of experience, you know, and, uh, yeah, you see that, that bill come out every month or so. Um, but you gotta take a step back and look where your numbers go to over the course of that year.
And, uh, there couldn't be anything better that I've decided to do, you know?
JImmy Lea: Nice, nice. That's phenomenal. Who are you coaching with right now?
David Shaefer: So, I coach with elite.
JImmy Lea: Nice. Congrats. Who's your coach with? Elite,
David Shaefer: Doug Callahan.
JImmy Lea: Nice. I don't know, Doug, that that's awesome.
David Shaefer: Great.
JImmy Lea: Yeah, that is good. That is good. Uh, and that's what we're about here at the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence is helping you to build a better business, and the result is a better life, a better life for you, your, your employees, your technicians.
Not only them, but also their significant others and their children. It's a better life for everybody. Even your customers, your clients have a better life because you've built a better business, better business, better life, better industry,
David Shaefer: absolutely.
JImmy Lea: That is exactly what we're all about. And helping you to make sure that you're, you are getting that return.
David Shaefer: Right. '
JImmy Lea: cause if you, you don't know what you don't know.
David Shaefer: Absolutely.
JImmy Lea: And a coach is there to help you learn those things. You don't know. So you stay on that right path.
David Shaefer: Absolutely.
JImmy Lea: Straight and true.
Oh,
David Shaefer: that's awesome. Don't be afraid to, to be friends with other auto shop owners. You know, there's plenty of work out there, there's plenty of work out there.
Um, you know, if you can help each other out, it all comes full circle. And a lot of the times it's, you know, realizing that, you know, there's. There's better ways to lift up the whole industry and it works out better for everybody, you know, so. Oh
JImmy Lea: yeah, absolutely.
David Shaefer: Um, I think getting to know other, other shop owners, start out with ones that aren't in your state, and then get more comfortable and get to the ones local with you, if that's what it takes.
But
JImmy Lea: if that's what it takes,
David Shaefer: having, having friendships in, in the industry is, is a humongous.
JImmy Lea: It is, it is. 'cause you may have tools they need, they may have tools you need in a moment's pinch. You may have cars that need service that you just can't get to and they've got availability. Mm-hmm. Friends in the industry, lock arms, lock arms and grow together.
It's, it's, it's it, it makes for a brighter future and it's better when we all go together than if we try and make this journey individually.
David Shaefer: Absolutely.
JImmy Lea: David, thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate your time. Appreciate your insight. Thank you for your service. Thank you for helping keep our country free.
You're awesome, bro. Thank you so much.
David Shaefer: Appreciate you having me on. Thank you for the time and uh, you guys set the institute, keep doing what you're doing 'cause it, it's makes bay huge impact on the industry for sure. So we appreciate everything from you too.
JImmy Lea: Awesome. Thank you brother. All
David Shaefer: right. Take care.

201 - From Technician to Shop Owner: Building Success Through Training and Integrity

201 - From Technician to Shop Owner: Building Success Through Training and Integrity
April 15, 2026 - 00:58:22
Show Summary:
Roberto Ibarra shares his journey from studying automotive technology in Mexico to building a successful repair shop in California. He explains how continuous education and a passion for electrical diagnostics shaped his career. Roberto discusses starting a business during the 2008 recession and why mindset played a critical role in his success. He highlights the importance of honesty, communication, and clarity in customer service. The conversation also dives into technician development and why shop owners must invest in training. Roberto explains his work training technicians and helping them grow in the industry. He closes with advice for future shop owners to learn the business before jumping in.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Roberto Ibarra, Aztek Auto Repair
 
Show Highlights:
[00:04:45] – Roberto moves to the US to continue training and grow his skills
[00:06:30] – Discovering a passion for electrical diagnostics changes his career path
[00:10:45] – Starting a shop during the 2008 recession with a strong mindset
[00:13:30] – Early business mistakes highlight the importance of learning operations
[00:18:45] – Customers value honesty and doing the right thing every time
[00:25:30] – Poor communication is the biggest failure point in most shops
[00:34:30] – Shop owners must invest in technicians to grow the industry
[00:39:15] – Training programs help technicians advance and build careers
[00:43:30] – Future shop owners should learn inside a shop before starting
[00:50:15] – Continuous learning is the key to long term success
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Hello friends, Jimmy Lea here with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. And my guest joining me today is Roberto. I Oh, I was
Roberto Ibarra: Ibar. Yes. Ibarra
Jimmy Lea: Abria, Roberto Abria. He is from Aztec Auto Repair up in the Bay Area near Fremont. Is that right?
Roberto Ibarra: That's why in the Heart Fremont is.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. I'm pretty sure I've driven past your shop once or twice in the last decade and a half that we've been, that I've been in the automotive industry. I'm sure that I've driven past your shop, Roberto,
Roberto Ibarra: most likely. Yeah. We have a lot of shops around the area right here.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. That is awesome. Roberto I need to tell you a story about my brother, and his name is Robert. And my grandmother came to visit once upon a time, I think Robert was maybe 2, 3, 4, 5, maybe, somewhere in that area. And she says and what's your name? And he says, oh and no.
She says and your name is Robert. Can I call you Robbie? Rob and he says, no, my name is Roberto.
That's like the one and only time he had ever done that. And we just died laughing because where did he hear this? How did he know his name was Roberto?
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. He liked the, oh, you know the, I have another story with that name. When I came to F Freemont 1996 person was on the shop. And then he say on your uniform, he should say, 'cause I work with my uncle on that time, he should say, Bob, 'cause my name is Roberto.
And he say, you should put Bob on your uniform. And I told him, I look at him and I tell him, no, that's a dog's name. He said no. That's my name. He say, that's my name is Robert. He say and we call Bab on us. We, we call Babs the robbers. We call Bobs. I tell no on Mexico we call him Bobby.
Bobby. Bobby. The dogs. Bobby. Bobby. Bobby or Bobby. Oh, he say, no, not my David say they say okay. Maybe later.
Jimmy Lea: So did you get Roberto on your uniform?
Roberto Ibarra: Yes. Yeah. Are you always use Roberto on my uniform? Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that, that's awesome. There's a sense of pride with a name, isn't there?
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah, my grandpa.
My grandpa, that's, that was his name. And that's why, yeah, Roberto, is, this is gonna be dead.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. So your grandfather's name is Roberto. Is your father's name Roberto?
Roberto Ibarra: No, that's my mom's, that's my mom's side. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And but your uncle's name is Roberto.
Roberto Ibarra: No, I don't have the, no more Roberto's in the family.
Only my son. My son is Roberto. My, my oldest is Roberto.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, see, okay. So we, we are very aligned. I didn't know this Roberto. I didn't know this about you. My grandfather's name is James Arthur. My dad is James Bruce. I'm James Christian. My son is James Derek. So we have an A, B, C, D. Lineage. He's in charge of E so the pressure's off.
I'm good. I got, I fulfilled my duty.
Roberto Ibarra: No. Yeah, it is complicated. 'cause I have a customer, his name was Manuel. His dad was Manuel and his grandpa was Manuel. And he say, I don't want no more Manuel on my family. So her, Ernest, his son, he never named Manuel his son. He said, no, I don't, I wanna cut it here.
He said,
Jimmy Lea: oh, that's funny.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. Sometimes people don't wanna carry the legacy, the or the name basically.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. And you're right, it does get very confusing. And I tell you, within my own family there's a lot of things that my dad has on his credit that shows up on my credit, and we constantly have to just clean things up.
But, and I think that's a good practice no matter what your name is. Chances are you've got some things on your credit that you probably ought to pay attention to and make sure that somebody's not abusing you and using your information. But Robert you talked about moving to America in 96.
Roberto Ibarra: That's correct.
Jimmy Lea: How, why, what happened? How did you what's the story there?
Roberto Ibarra: I graduate as a technician on 19 92, 93. Mexico. I went to school as a, I went to a college for technician, and then when I graduate, I continue my education, because I say I need, this is not enough. Three years was not enough.
So I continue going to some trainings, and then I found out that it was not enough. I say I have to continue education. Where's the technology is on north. So I called couple colleges over here in the Bay Area to sign up for getting some more training. And I got, I came to Fremont because there was a college on that time over here.
I was, I forgot the name of that college. What was it? Biotech, I think. Biotech. So I came to continue my education. I wanted to get certified a, SC and all that. So I wanted to grow on the industry. Then I ended up getting some training over here on Concord area here on the criminal area. And I start working at the same time, and then I start going to school or to learn the language.
So in less than two years, I was already speaking English, pretty much. And then I continued my education. So since that time I thought I wa I was, I wanna get some more education and then that's it. Here I am after almost three years, still going to trainings and myself teaching some other guys after.
The technology is never, is not stopping right there. So it is, but I like it. I love it. I love the change. I love the dry. I'm coming from the carburetors area to the computers area, so I'm. I'm not afraid of touching a carburetor, and I'm not afraid of touching a computer because, I have both words on, I have, I, I see both words, 'cause I leave it I leave both of them.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. And I love where you're talking, Roberto. You talk about you were in university for three years. Did you learn at all? No. You discovered that the more you learn, the less you know. Then you come to the United States, you are in training for another three years, six years total. Six years now that you're in training.
And the more you learn, the less you know.
Roberto Ibarra: Oh yeah. It is. It's, it is just when you start, like going to school and then one. One specifically area. And then you see, oh, there's another area, A, B, S Oh, now we have communication computers. You have short sequence. Now you have new technology and there's ac you have a now you have, it is endless.
It's endless. There's a lot of things to learn that, it is, you cannot, you can say you, you can say, I have experience, but you cannot say, I know everything. That's not true.
Jimmy Lea: So at what point did you realize in your life, at what point did you realize, hey, you know what, this is the industry for me.
This is where I wanna be. I enjoy automotive industry.
Roberto Ibarra: When I start going, when I started looking at the electricity electric side of the industry 'cause when I was a kid. One of my uncles used to fix televisions, TVs. Yes. And I helped him to open the cases and check the boards, check the resistance, the capacitors, the valves the to do measurements and using the multier and all that.
On the,
Jimmy Lea: is this back when you were checking TVs and they had fuses inside of them?
Roberto Ibarra: Yep. And then we used to check, do some, create some tool to get some, some shocks on ourselves and regulate it, and then so I start, my curiosity start about the electricity on that time.
Yeah. So I wanted work on electricity when I was older, when I,
Jimmy Lea: oh yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: When I start working as a going school, as a mechanic. And then later on I started looking at the sensors and I started facing the signals, battery, 12 walls and all that. I started falling in love on the industry, and then when the computer start coming out, the low voltage, the high voltage, the signals, inputs, outputs, and all that.
And then I just felt oh yeah, this is what this is my work. I spent hours and hours working on a circuit with how the circuit operates, doing testings and all that, and using my classroom. Now all I have is. Test equipment and I have a big, oh my
Jimmy Lea: gosh,
Roberto Ibarra: I have a big screens to, to project whatever I'm doing.
I have a GoPro cameras, like five of them projecting on my projectors to see. What's happening, when I do a test and all that. So it is, I just have fun working on the, on this industry,
Jimmy Lea: Roberto. That is amazing. And isn't it amazing to see how even just the television industry has progressed from fuses and resistors to where today we have flat screen?
Those old TVs were so heavy. They were so big. They were so heavy. And now TVs, they're humongous. They fit on the wall and they're three inches wide.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. And now you, it is impossible to open one of these TVs and fix them.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah,
Roberto Ibarra: because yeah, on that time, that was the thing. You, there's a lot of parts that you can buy now.
It is that is, it is not.
Jimmy Lea: No they've made it as a discard item. You can now just throw it away and buy another one. It's less expensive to just buy another one than it is to fix it, unfortunately.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. That's why my uncle is not fixing TVs anymore.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no. There, there's no business for, and I'm,
Roberto Ibarra: I don't think they, this industry is gonna end, but we work on cars.
Jimmy Lea: So did you go straight from high school right into university to the automotive industry?
Roberto Ibarra: Yes. I went to the college, yeah for that. For being a technician? Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. And when did you start Aztec Auto Repair. And what did you do before Aztec Auto Repair?
Roberto Ibarra: So I start as the developer 2008 as a, when the, it was a big recession on that time.
Jimmy Lea: Oh dude, that is, that was the worst time to start a business.
Roberto Ibarra: That was the, it was, yeah, it was
Jimmy Lea: ing. That had to be the biggest challenge. 'cause I remember that real estate bubble burst and you are starting a business. Tell me more about that.
Roberto Ibarra: My mindset was I'm gonna start a business now. If I make it this couple years on the bad time, I'm gonna make it after that because it's gonna be better.
So that was my mindset and I just. Started, with no, with a thousand dollar loan, and then a couple months later I got a $10,000 loan and then I continue buying stuff, until I now you never end, it's never ending buying equipment. But I invest in initial it was, it just it was just a mind mindset.
Okay, I'm gonna, if I do it now, that means it's gonna be okay. After that. And Yeah, it worked. It worked. Yeah, because I got I got on the, we can say on when the time was. A lot of shops closing on my area dealers, small dealers. So a lot of business were closing at that time.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: But I saw an opportunity on.
Jimmy Lea: And if you're able to operate on a shoestring, here you are starting at the bottom. You got nowhere to go but up. So yeah, you had a great projectory there. Pretty
Roberto Ibarra: much. Pretty much, yeah. Pretty much. That was the, but it was the idea and yeah, it is just mindset. Yeah. But the
Jimmy Lea: business, I totally agree,
Roberto Ibarra: business wise, yeah.
It was a bad time to start a business but but yeah, it is. I saw if not now, when. And it just happened. But before, so
what
Jimmy Lea: were you doing right before,
Roberto Ibarra: before that I used I was a partner with a dealership selling used cars, and I was
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: And I was, I'm very
Jimmy Lea: familiar with that industry.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. And I was in charge of the shop, so I have, three or four, five technicians working on a service area. Okay. And I was managing the shop for that service area. I didn't like the sales side of the business. I don't like to to sell cars that, that's not
Jimmy Lea: not skillset. It's a different skillset.
Roberto Ibarra: Correct. Yeah. So it was not my team, but I was on the service area, so I was okay, because I was doing service and then working on my own things at the same time, managing a crew, sometimes two guys, sometimes three, sometimes sport. And, I, I was. Learning how to run a shop. Basically.
On that time I was practicing, but I started my first shop on back in 2000 back in 2000, I started the first shop here on Fremont. A guy opened a shop and he had no idea how to work on gas. He only opened a shop because he just wanted to be a, a mechanic. And then a couple months later he say no, this is not my team.
And he say, you want the shop? Back in 2000. Imagine I was only here four years and yeah. Say I wanna get rid of this shop 'cause I'm not, this is not my thing. And he offered it to me. Think he about $10,000 investment. Oh my God. And I said, okay, you make you say I never thought about running that shop on that time.
I say, okay, you, you accept payments? And he say, yes, I accept payments. Yeah, gimme payments. And I, and he say, I have some cars already in there. You can continue the repairs and then you can just, go from there. I have no idea how to run a business. And still, I'm learning still, but I imagine so I say why not?
And I just I continue the shop. For some for one year. And I create, some customers and all that. I know i new people and all that. And then another opportunity came along. A guy said, you know what? Why don't we invest in a gas station? You run the shop and I run a gas station after one year of the shop and say, okay.
And then I, the shop, I transferred somebody, a neighbor say, okay, let's go on the gas station. Maybe it makes more sense. But it was some kind of trap because now it, I, my, the deal was so bad that I didn't have experience how to read deals and all that, contracts.
Jimmy Lea: Contracts, yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: I ended up, see my lady say, you know what, I think this is not what I wanted to be on the gas station as a it was not, it was.
So I say, you know what? I quit and I moved back to working on the dealership. For about seven years I worked on the dealership as a partner and that's when I went to some training for business on that time, like preparing myself. So this is what I did to start my shop that I have now. In 2008, December thousand eight, I wrote a letter and the letter I sent the letter to the secretary of State of this California.
To open a corporation an LLCI, I'm, no I don't have the shop yet but I sent the letter December 31st to create a company on the state of California, and I don't know what kind of business, I'm gonna start on 2009, but I wanted to have already the name, they register the name and all that on the state.
So I send the letter, I received the confirmation and the approval. February nine or 2009. Yeah. And on right on May. When the guy say the owner of the dealer, she say, you know what I'm gonna close the business, the shop, I'm gonna close the shop and all that. And I, that's when I took over the shop. I say, okay, I'm gonna take over the shop.
Lemme talk to the landlord. And he say, yeah, just continue and then just pay the rent and all that. And the I have already the name and all that register on the stage, so I just. Went to get the premise and all that, and I continue the shop. But that's how I got into this shop that I have right now, 2000 and nine May 3rd I
Jimmy Lea: started.
Oh my word. That's
Roberto Ibarra: beautiful. And this is something that I always remember. I start, I came to Fremont 1996. On June the second. June the second, 1996. I came to Fremont and, I started working with my ankle shop.
Jimmy Lea: Yep.
Roberto Ibarra: June the second, 2009. I got the C the city permit as the name that I have right now.
Aztec, I repair Aztec and Enterprise. I got the certificate from the City of Freeman, June the second, 2009. How many years later? 14 or something like that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. No. Public math is not something we do right here, right now. Yeah. Congratulations on what a story, what a path that you have been on to make it here.
And lucky for you, you had some lucky strikes that you were able to get your name established. It sounds like you, you went and started down the path of learning about business and you're discovering that. There's a lot about business. You don't know, you know a lot about cars now we need to learn more about running the business from the business side.
Roberto Ibarra: That's correct. Yeah, that's right.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. That's awesome. Congratulations. So to your experience today with Aztec, what do you believe customers feel is the difference when they walk into Aztec? What's the d What differentiates your shop from other shops?
Roberto Ibarra: What I see 'cause sometimes I'm in the office, not very often, but like yesterday, I was there last week and sometimes I have to cover someone or they are lunch.
And when I go and I ask the people, I, I say hi and I start talking and I ask them, is your first time here? Sometime? They say, yes, it's my first time, second time. And then, and a lot of times, and it is not. This is not me saying it. Okay. Because I 'cause sometimes I don't like to say things about me, but yesterday when I called someone and I told him, Hey, your truck needs this and that, and we have to do this and that, and, and then he say, you know what, yes, I approve the repair and the reason. I'm gonna tell you, he say, the reason I dropped the truck to you and I'm agreed to do whatever it needs is because I feel like you are a good person.
You are an honest man, honest business. And I say really well. Yeah. That's, we, as a businessman, yeah. We have, we try to always do the right thing. And that the people are aware of that, right? Sometimes for some reason people don't see it or they don't wanna see it. But when somebody tells you that, it really fits your yeah, I have to continue doing the right thing.
There's the only way to grow a business is doing the right thing. It doesn't matter what it takes. Sometimes you take some losses, but. To grow a businesses, you always have to do the right thing. And when people tell you that you, they are here for somebody. Somebody refer, and sometimes even in social media, right?
Right now social media, like people see behind the scenes like, the reviews. Sometimes you have a value view, but what's the response? And it depends how you respond, right? People don't see the value view, but they see how you respond to the review. And that's, those are things that life is happens and things happen.
Sometimes you not, sometimes may not be happy but you try to do the right thing all the time and get it straight. And people don't wanna, accept it or it's, that's their problem. But you wanna make sure that you can sLeap well on night, like your conscience is I did
Jimmy Lea: clear
Roberto Ibarra: I wanted to make a right if I made a mistake.
And, but if it's not accepted, it's that people's problem is not your problem. But do not go because people sometimes gonna judge you. And we, I'm not the type of person that I, if somebody has a problem with themselves or some other situation, that's their problem. I have my own. And as far as I don't, somebody or do something wrong with anybody. That's whatever they, that's happen on the life. That's their own situation. Yeah. Yeah. But we have to peace of mind. That's the thing. And to have peace of mind, you have to do the right thing. That's the only way. You cannot have peace of mind when you are doing something wrong.
As much as you wanna believe. You can't, you have to
Jimmy Lea: take
Roberto Ibarra: it.
Jimmy Lea: You can control the things that you can control. And it sounds like you have very much discovered the fact that you can control yourself and how you respond, but you can't control other people and how they respond. It's their monkey, it's their circus.
It's not your monkey. It's not your circus. So you gotta let them do what they're gonna do.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. And continue. Life. Life continues. A lot of people need your help. Like, when my students go to do the test on the state, I tell 'em, Hey, when you find a question that you don't know, you have no, no clue what the answer is.
Just go to the next one, go to the next, and then later you come back to that question. You may remember something, but you cannot stay focusing on something that you cannot, that you have no idea how to resolve it on that minute, on that time. Just move on. That doesn't stop right there. The clock doesn't stop right there.
You continue click.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. That's great advice. Es especially for us in the automotive industry, there's a lot of anxieties. There's a lot of dyslexia. There's a lot of a DHD. There the people it's difficult to take these tests because the tests are created such that there's one right answer and two almost right answers and a third.
That's definitely not the right answer. And yeah I love that you're helping to teach these technicians how to take the test, and that really helps. That goes a long way. Helping them in their confidence too. So I have a question for you and it go, and I know you're gonna have a phenomenal answer to this.
What does great customer service look like in your shop, specifically?
Roberto Ibarra: Great customer service. When you are meet with the smile, with with the smile, because you have a. You have you, you living, you having a night, a good day, 'cause you happy on, on, on the place that you working, you happy with the taste, helping you, you happy with the bus, you know that always on is on your back, backing you up for everything that you do.
You have the support so you smile with or good smile, not a fake smile. And then when people see the smile. They feel it when they are, when they, when it's genuine, when it's really a smile, not fake smile. Like sometimes we see on the TV shows, right? And the actors, they smile and then they turn around and they are, Hey, why you guys doing this or that, so that's the first thing you know when somebody comes in they have to see that you having a good day. 'cause
Jimmy Lea: yeah,
Roberto Ibarra: you working, but you. You are not really working. You are working for your independence, your financial independence. That's what you are doing. Sooner or later it's gonna come.
But that's, you have you working for your financial independence that is gonna come either way. So you, you have a, you having a nice day, working on your work, working environment, and people feel it. And then after that, everything is smooth. 'cause everything you asking to the customer is is for their benefit of the customer.
How can we help you? This is your car. This is the mileage this is the recommendation. We're gonna do a right inspection. We don't say like we don't sell like oil chains. Why you say, you know what, we're gonna do a right inspection just to see everything else. Not only the oil chains.
Because you may need something else. Say, okay, you're gonna check that for me. Okay, great. And then people just take it the nice way, now we are not overselling. Of course, if something comes out, we have sell it, but not because we just wanna increase the numbers because when increase the the safety of the customer or the customer, the customer experience that, okay, these guys check this, all this, they check all this pressure, they take a, took a picture of their filter, the wipers. It is a lot of work that involved because we wanna give the big picture to the customer so they know everything about their cars. The car is an investment that you take care of, that it's not if you don't, maintain it is the investment is.
It's gonna go to the ground. To the ground.
Jimmy Lea: So where in the process of customer service, where do you feel like most other shops fail? The process of customer service, good customer service,
Roberto Ibarra: communication. Communication. And probably two things. Probably communication and clarity. 'cause that's why that when, that's what I noticed when we fell.
'Cause I'm, we not perfect. When we fail for some reason, maybe, and there's no excuses, but sometimes there's a busy day or somebody is going somewhere and then, and we miss the communication part.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: As does the does. And it is not hard to miss it, but also it's not hard to do it, to have the right communication with the customer.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: That's the biggest thing that that probably. You can damage the image of one customer. One shop is when you lose the communication with the customer. You don't have that process followed through all the way. Yeah and clarity. When you communicate, you have to be clear, Hey, we're gonna do this, but after this we have to continue doing that.
And then something, oh you told me you're gonna do this, it's gonna be okay. No, remember we told you this. And then after that, we're gonna go to the next step. So you have to be clear. And communication. And clarity. Clarity. That's probably, those are the couple of the big things that I feel, probably another shop owner may tell you something different aspects.
It depends, but for me, those are big ones. Yeah. Yeah. When there's sincerity, good communication and clarity. Everything is gonna be smooth because sometimes we, you have good communication, even if the customer is not really ready to do the repairs, but they know e either they do it or not, but they already know.
And that's important thing, right? That we have to challenge what it needs. Either they do it or not. That's their decision. Yeah, but they know, even they don't do it on your shop. They may go to somewhere else, but they know that they have to do the service. Like the rates are, about to, and they say, okay, oh yeah I won't do it, but they may go to another shop, but it's fine.
But they know that they have to do it, and that's important thing we contribute to the solution. Either we are not part of that, but, it's okay. The sun comes for everybody, right?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, it does. It does. And yeah, I Good, clear, precise communication can help alleviate a lot of issues and problems with customers, with clients, with technicians, with business partners, with spouses, with children.
Roberto Ibarra: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: Good. Clear communication can go a long way,
Roberto Ibarra: especially with the spouse. The spouse, the. Yeah, that's the main one. That's the main one actually.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And I noticed that your shop is made up of a lot of family. Your wife works there, and I believe that you have two boys that are working there.
Roberto Ibarra: No, my son is in the office and my cousin is running the, she's, she was in the office for so many years now. She runs the school program on the she's like the principal of the school. We can say. My cousin, but she was in the office for so many years and my son is in the office right now.
He's on a transition. I don't know if he's gonna continue with us, but it's fine. But he was, he's been here for two years and a half. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Roberto Ibarra: And he learn a lot. He, when he came and he had no idea how the industry was in, but he. He was in the office not as a technician side.
He didn't, my sons, I have four sons. None of them are like on the mechanic side on the industry. They see the industry, but they don't like technicians. They, it is not like the, they don't get their attention.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. That's not the job. That's not their passion. It's not what they love.
It's
Roberto Ibarra: no. Yeah. But
Jimmy Lea: they come to daddy, Hey, Papa. Help.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. But right now we working on, like my son's car, he's a carpenter. He is work, he works on the union as a carpenter. And we doing the service on his cars, rack Andino is broken. Okay. But yeah, he not like, and I don't blame, this is not, as every, any other industry, right?
Not, yeah. It's not for, we have skills for this and that. Once we discover them, we always, the sooner, the better.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I see that you're working on it looks like all makes and all models European, Asian vehicles domestic. Is there any vehicles that you're not working on?
Roberto Ibarra: EVs, EVs EVs we have the skill to do like alignments, race and all that.
We get, couple of those services, but we don't push it that much. Okay. And because the, I don't wanna the invest so much on that industry, the percentage not that much. And the guys, not every take is on EVs.
Jimmy Lea: Yes.
Roberto Ibarra: And you can force them, Hey guys, now I wanna work on these cars. And then, let's do this service on this deadline, I'm gonna drop the battery and do the, do the, or go do the troubleshooting. And then it, and it is you I feel like I'm imposing. And if they wanna do it, they gonna find their own path. They gonna say you, no, you know what? I would like to take some training on Teslas.
They have the curiosity, but when they find that curiosity on them. They follow through, and I can, as a shop owner, Hey, you you really into it? Yeah. I can pay the the training for you. Yeah. And yeah, we can do some, we can put some of, some more of this because you are you like it, you have, you feel attached to that industry, to that industry.
Not to that industry, to that technology, right? Yeah. But every tech, I find out that not every tech is into. Electronics, like electricity stuff. Yeah. Is, suspensions, brakes, all that is the same except for some settings you have to use a scan tool to do breaks and things like that.
But it's basic still. But yeah, going deep into this technologies, like you have to really like it. You have to really feel it. If not yeah. Just basic services. Yeah. Pretty much.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And I love that you're talking about the technicians and their passion for the industry. What's their passion?
Do they love working on diesel vehicles? Do they love working on combustion engines? EVs or propane is a big thing. Natural gas, not a big thing. It's a thing. And then what's coming next? Is it gonna be hydrogen? Is it gonna be, who knows what's coming next that there, but where's their passion?
That's what you're talking about.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. Just look what they do. They and everybody's different, every technician has their own
Jimmy Lea: their own strengths. Their own abilities. Their own passions. Their own interests.
Roberto Ibarra: Interests and all that. Yeah. And yeah.
And some guys like to do engines. Some guys don't like to do engines. Yeah. They like to do suspensions and alignments. And some guys like to do like services, right? Doing the all day long, you doing services, all chain inspections filters, transmission services, and all that is is once they find and then they ask the office, right?
Hey, is there any services and that I can do or the service advisor knows already. They discover, oh yeah, this guy likes to this. I'm gonna assign this. And Right, we are, we know
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: We see the potential and the guys that we, they do the most and what they never complain about it.
And, but somebody started to say, Hey, oh, I, this is not my thing, like doing tires. Maybe it's not your thing. If there's nothing else, you do it, but it's not like you gonna do it every day. Because there, there's another guy doing the alignments and tires and that's the thing.
Yeah. We have to find, we have to find that point where we meet,
Jimmy Lea: yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: Mission in the office to assign the work, the workflow. Yes. Which is pretty normal on the industry, right? It is. It's every shop probably is doing, does the same thing. Yeah. Finding the right job for the right guys.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: The better we organize that the better flow we find on the shop.
Jimmy Lea: For sure. For sure. So we talk a lot about technicians. Let's talk about shop owners now here for a few minutes. When it comes to shop owners, what what do you think are some of the biggest challenges facing business shop owners today?
Roberto Ibarra: Big challenges that I see on the field.
'cause I. Work with a lot of techs on my area, on my training is the there's lack of techs, but it is not really lack of tech. It is a lot of the lack of techs that we have on the field, on the industry. It is because the shop owners, a lot of shop owners are not investing on the tax.
And that's one, that's number one. Lot of shop owners don't get it. That in order to have to grow tax, we have to invest in them. Yeah. And a lot of shop owners really don't invest on the tax and equipment. Some they getting the point like, okay, we're gonna invest, but already behind.
Behind because yeah, you should do it. She did it like 10 years ago and they struggle finding text. Then at the end of the day, you find a tech that is he doesn't have the knowledge or the skill and he wants to grow, but he finds himself on a place where there's not too much opportunity to grow.
And they stuck. And then this tech moves to another place. And then he's not being well trained 'cause he's. The problem that it has on the other shop is not really training the guys. It's only like profit. And then we ended up with that SQL or text around just moving around and not really finding a good text.
And we and there's good text. Oh, there's a lot of good text. Yeah. But the thing is they don't. They don't go to just any place, right? Yeah, they have now they, they found themselves that they, the value that they have, they know the value they have because the industry has been changing a lot.
And they recognize that on them. And they say, you know what, if I'm gonna move, if I'm gonna look around this is the shop that I gonna work for. And they picture that shop on their, the mine. So they, when they come. Ask you some questions. They interviewing you now we interviewing the tech, they interview the shop owner.
They, okay, this is what I know. What you, how you guys do things over here. And they like it. They come, but it is a, it's a struggle that is been around for some time, but is because also it's, is some, sometime is, it is for fault, but not only us, right? The education, the educational system that we have.
It's not up to date.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. Couple of things, we can talk about it, but the thing is that as, as soon as we we as a shop owners understand that we have to invest on the guys. Yeah. So they grow and they wanna grow. Okay, let's let 'em grow let's let 'em grow. Invest on that.
Yeah. Oh, I love it. Then once, once they see that you care about them. 'cause that knowledge, they're gonna carry it everywhere they go. Yeah. Not only on the shop. Yeah. That's my saying. You know my saying is, you come to my shop, you have to live better than when you came. And that's always my idea.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that.
I love that. And I'm sure that you see the same thing that I see those shops that do invest in their technicians, they do invest in training. The technicians elevate, they, they rise to the occasion, they rise to the training they've received. And now as a shop owner, we look around and say, oh my gosh they've improved.
Now. What else can I do? A service advisor, service advisors need training as well. And once that service advisor is trained, they're looking around, what can I do? I need a coach. I need a trainer. I need somebody to help me because they know things that I don't know. When we get together, we elevate the entire shop, the entire industry.
I
Roberto Ibarra: right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah, you can, you is, as a shop owner, you, we have too many things on the plate. On our plate and on, on my case. I also run the school program, the training program.
Jimmy Lea: Tell us about your school that you're running. 'cause you've got the smog check training for the state of California,
Roberto Ibarra: correct?
Yes. So I have, I run the program for the and the reason I run the program. I like it is because I, 'cause I like to be on training all the time and that I say, this is gonna, this is gonna encourage myself to be on training more, because I have to. To be on top of technology to in order to teach something to the guys.
Yeah. So I started going more, more and more on training. And then when I shared the training, I feel like I'm doing something for the industry. I see guys that come to my training, they get certified, they start their own business, and now we've been doing this for seven years now, seven, eight years now.
I see people already, you know that they already certify. They start their own business. Now they have one or two, three locations, and some of them became technicians. Some of them, they just do inspections, but it's part of the industry. Oh, I love it. I do this on the, I have a classroom on my shop, the, I have a four day shop, five day shop.
Yeah. So one day is for the school. So I have a wall, I have my studio here to shoot videos online and also to do the hands-on training. I have everything that I have every scan tool that you can think of, scopes and all that. So I let him practice on everything that I, this is my idea of the teaching.
When the guys come, I just, 'cause I know it's, it is a short class, it's a short training. It's my longest training is three months, and it is not every week. It is like every other week. So they are here now for so long, right? I have another two, another class that is two months long. So when they are here, I like them to see what is out there, but is out there not only on the big, on the carves, on the on.
Also in the repair industry. So they see what is out there and then when they see it say, oh man, I didn't know that you can do this with this tool. Or, I don't know. This tool exists to do this simple test like a relative compression test, which is very simple to do. And I'm amazed that right now some guys that are working on cars, they don't know what is a compress relative compression is
Jimmy Lea: right,
Roberto Ibarra: and how simple it is.
Oh, relative test that you can do it in five minutes with the scope and give you a lot of information. Yep. And I'm amazed. Some guys are like still working on cars under the, on the case. They never got, and then they, when they come out, say, oh man, I'm I really, I like it what it is now. I like, but I wanna learn more.
You, so I, my idea is to open their eyes and see what they can. They can with little bit of training because they're already on the industry, but a little bit of training they can accomplish a lot. So we have the technology now, and that's the idea, the training, because they are they don't stay with me so long.
Yeah. And some they continue coming. I have a group last, the last quarter of 25 and I, the guys that came to my training, they said, I wanna continue going to your training January priority March. So they like the they wanna grow, right? So sometimes that's the only training that they go to because probably are not they.
They don't.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it, Roberto. This is freaking awesome, dude. Congratulations. The okay, so what advice, if you were starting your shop today, what advice would you give yourself? And it sounds like you've given the same advice probably to a lot of guys that are starting their own shops as you've been working with them over the last 10 years.
What advice would you give yourself if you were to start your shop today?
Roberto Ibarra: My advice and is, and this is an advice that I. If somebody told me this 18 years ago, 20 years ago for I starting a shop, this is what I, this is what I like them to tell me. So I rather go to a shop and let me work on that shop or be on the shop two, three months as a looking.
The process and all that. I can pay the shop just for them to letting me be on their side and look what they do, invest, I don't know, 1, 2, 3, 4 months run to see how they run the shop, what things happen on the shop and all that. So I can see what's the real world when it comes to running a shop.
And. I don't know if their shops are willing to do that, right? Okay, you can come to my shop, pay me, I don't know, five, $10,000 and you wanna be exposed to what is what it is to run a shop and then doing the investment. You wanna learn, you wanna see, reality. And then after that, you're gonna have the best training.
Because what happens is this, that's what I see. You go, you open a shop. You are a technician and then you say, oh, I like to run a job. And then you find out that you are not a shop owner, you are a technician, which is different thing. Running a business is not the same thing as a fixing in a car. And then that's when everything starts to you start like feeling bad because you cannot work on us anymore and you cannot.
Really service the people the right way because you don't know how to do it. And then sometimes it's a struggle that sometimes the shops does it drain you out, it drain your energy. Yeah. And I've seen it, I seen it with guys in my area that happens to them. They have laws, they have to move something else 'cause they just lose interest because they didn't know those things.
And so there's a, a. A place where I can get trained all this time and see what it takes to run a shop. So I know, 'cause yeah, I can go to some trainings, but probably the best training is going to direct to a shop. I don't know if a lot of shops are willing to train someone, but maybe there is, there's a good shops that they can let you know, somebody learn the business side.
Just watch. Just watch. Because, you get that call, Hey I just, I assume my car and my car doesn't start like in the next half, an hour later. And then you get that call. What you gonna do about it? You don't have experience. Your blood goes to, you feel like your energy just drain all the way because you don't know what to do.
You not, you don't have experience something. Yeah. And then after that moment, you don't have experience. Everything else, you do every decision you do after that moment when you get that call that people is customer is frustrated, you just gonna lose it. And you can make a bad decisions.
Yeah. So you have to be prepared for everything and you have to know that those things happen and on the shop. So it is, yeah. My best advice is to get. Onboard with a shop and get, be there.
Jimmy Lea: Training, invest in yourself. Yeah. And if there's a technician listening to this or there's somebody who wants to be a shop owner that's listening to this, go, like you're saying, Roberto, go to a shop, work there.
Or if you are already there, goes talk to the shop owner and say, Hey, look I, in my three-year, five-year plan, I wanna own and operate. I wanna run a shop. What can you do to help train me for my future? There's a lot of free classes and courses you can take from community college, from chamber of chamber of Commerce.
There's a lot of different places that you can go to and get that foundation, which is investing in yourself, and you'll discover one or two things. I can't wait to be a business owner. This is gonna be awesome. It's gonna be so amazing. I'm thriving on learning these numbers and the parts markup and the matrix and the parts labor.
And I love how this all works together.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. And two books that you should read. The, one of the books, two books that I, for the industry that I work pretty good for the industry is the Spark. That's one book Spark and the other one is Profit loss. Profit First.
Jimmy Lea: Profit First. Yeah.
Roberto Ibarra: Probably those two.
It will give you a pretty, pretty good idea on the business side?
Yeah,
Roberto Ibarra: on the business side of the numbers, how the numbers work.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Great business advice for sure.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah, those two. Because, sometimes we are excited because, oh, somebody offered me this shop, I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna, start working on cars and all that, and I'm gonna.
Be happy and then, but the thing is, I love work on cars and I'm happy that I have somebody help helping me in the office now that I can work on cars and I can shoot videos, I can you know this, in my area, I can do whatever I want. I have everything that I need to work on a car.
I have I can program my computers, I can program everything. I have contact with. These great companies, like our Logic, a tools and computer, they help me when I get stuck. So I have all the support that I possible, and I'm, and besides that I'm teaching, which is something that I feel passionate about it.
And when I teaching I just lose the, I don't know, the time, I just lose track of the time. It's not the same thing as owning a business. When you run the numbers, those are called numbers. The numbers are called they don't charge to you. They just, there's no fund. There's no it just a number that if it is one plus one is two, two plus two is four, and that's it.
And red numbers. It's red numbers. It was something, didn't render the, the right way. Something happened, you just not make making a profit.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. So true. The numbers don't lie, Roberto, this is what you're saying. The numbers are there and the numbers are numbers. You need to know your numbers and we hear that in the auto industry all the time, especially amongst shop owners.
You've gotta know your numbers. You gotta know those key performance indicators.
Roberto Ibarra: That's right.
Jimmy Lea: Because as you're investing in yourself, you're gonna discover that you wanna be in business and you love it. Or the second thing you're gonna learn is, Hey, you know what? I really love working on cars and that's where my passion is.
I really don't want to be a business owner.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. Yep. So
Jimmy Lea: in invest in your technicians, because it, they're either gonna be your best friend, competitor, and they're not your competitor, they're your best friend, or they're gonna become one of your best employees.
Roberto Ibarra: Korea. I have a neighbor, he own a shop right here.
He worked work for me for 10 years. Yeah, he is right here next door and he runs his shop with his friend, their partner, and yeah, we friends and
Jimmy Lea: that. I love it. I love it. I love it. Roberto, we wind this down. I wanna run some quick. Questions past you? One word answer, one sentence answer. This is rapid fire.
I've got five quick questions for you. You ready?
Roberto Ibarra: Ready.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. Number one, what's one tool you can't live without in your shop?
Roberto Ibarra: Scope.
Jimmy Lea: A scope? Okay. What's your favorite type of job? Diagnostic, maintenance. Big repairs or electrical? What do you love the most?
Roberto Ibarra: Electrical.
Jimmy Lea: I could have called that.
What's the best business book or podcast you've learned from?
Roberto Ibarra: Okay, say it again.
Jimmy Lea: What is the best business book or podcast that you've learned from? We just talked about two books. Do you have a third or is there a podcast that you've learned from?
Roberto Ibarra: I learned from this what was his name? What is his name?
He's always on the expertss. He had, what's his name?
Jimmy Lea: Lucas Underwood with Changing the Industry podcast.
Roberto Ibarra: I know him, but there's another guy who was before him. I think his Italian name. Italian name?
Jimmy Lea: Karm. Capto Caprio,
Roberto Ibarra: yeah. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Remarkable Results Radio.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. Yeah.
I started listening to him long time. Oh
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Yeah. I love him. He's got a great program. What habit that, what what is a habit that has improved your leadership?
Roberto Ibarra: Talk to the guys more.
Jimmy Lea: Communication. Communication. You talked about that. What do you wish your customers understood about owning a repair shop that they don't understand today?
Roberto Ibarra: Know their car. Read the menu. Read the menu of the car. Yeah, they have no idea.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. All last and final thought. What. What do you want your listeners to remember about Roberto and Aztec auto repairs?
Roberto Ibarra: That there's always something to learn and never stop learning. Never have
Jimmy Lea: That is so true.
It was so Socrates. Socrates who said, the more I learn, the less I know.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. But it's always fun. Yes.
Jimmy Lea: Because the more you learn, the more you learn that, oh my gosh, there's so much. I don't know. There's so much more I need to learn.
Roberto Ibarra: Yeah. Just open your eyes. Thank
Jimmy Lea: you. Yes, Roberto.
Thank you very much, brother. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining here, us here at the Institute for the Leading Edge podcast.
Roberto Ibarra: Oh, no. Thank you very much, Simi. See you next time and have a great year.

200 - Live with Wayne Marshall & Lucas Underwood: Culture and Hard Conversations

200 - Live with Wayne Marshall & Lucas Underwood: Culture and Hard Conversations
April 14, 2026 - 00:57:08
Show Summary:
This conversation explores the challenges business owners face when leadership culture and direction are unclear. It shows how a lack of vision and poor communication can make problems feel overwhelming. Real examples highlight how integrity accountability and honesty help overcome major setbacks. The discussion stresses the need for a clear destination and consistent leadership by example. It also explains how avoiding hard conversations creates bigger issues over time. Key takeaways include breaking goals into steps reducing noise and building a team aligned with the vision. Strong leadership is the foundation for long term success.
 
Host(s):
Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast
 
Wayne Marshall, CEO & Industry Coach
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Wayne shares his path to leading the institute and driving change
[00:02:45] – A shop owner admits fear of failure and constant burnout
[00:04:00] – Most problems come from weak leadership and no clear direction
[00:05:30] – Wayne loses a million dollars but chooses integrity over quitting
[00:07:30] – Truth and honesty build lasting trust with everyone
[00:10:00] – Reverse engineering goals makes big problems easier to solve
[00:12:30] – Culture is built by actions not words
[00:14:00] – Success comes from team behavior not strategy
[00:20:00] – Avoiding conflict leads to confusion and poor results
[00:51:00] – Keeping the wrong people pushes great employees away
 
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VAu4ek2afFU
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Lucas Underwood: What is up everybody? Lucas Underwood here. I'm here with Wayne Marshall. Wayne was just asking the question, how many profanities can we have in each a MA session? I'm gonna tell you that Cecil usually averages around 10, so as long as you get at least 10, we're in good shape. Wayne, you're the CEO of the institute.
Uh, welcome. Thank you for being here. And I think we should kind of start, first of all, we had planned to go one direction. Something happened last night. Yeah. I'm gonna shift directions on this a little bit. Want to, uh, talk about something that I think is important and, uh, Wayne, I would love for you to introduce yourself.
I know a lot of folks know you, but a lot of folks don't. Would you introduce yourself to the people?
Wayne Marshall: Sure. I'm honored. Hey, first, it's great to be here again, Lucas, we. Always enjoy our conversations, connections with you, David, as we work through many, many things. So, uh, yeah, I've been at the institute, um, I mean, I started off coaching and doing a little bit of other things on the side with them and helping 'em on, you know, bigger leadership things.
And ultimately, uh, was honored to be asked if I would step into the CE role and helping with a lot of transitional things. So I've been in this position for a little over a year now. Uh, we've made a lot of changes within the institute. Some you're aware of some. People in the market are aware of, you know, we did create a holding company, gear Group Holdings.
Uh, we're slowly building and we're gonna have multiple entities underneath that, more announcements to come in the future. It's an exciting time. This industry is doing great things and I'm just honored to be with the institute and helping and contributing to everything we're trying to do to make it a better place, a better industry, just like we say.
Lucas Underwood: Amen. Absolutely. Yes sir. And so, you know, here's the thing is I'm, I'm watching the Institute grow to this group of individuals, right? Yes. Like we talk about our core team all the time, and I'm watching this core team develop in some of the smartest people I've ever met or on this core team. Now, Wayne, you've worked in big business before and you've worked in some big dollar businesses.
And you've told a story in the past about some of the troubles in some of those big dollar businesses in the past and some of the stress and some of that. And, you know, I'm, I'm gonna tell you, I, I've been through struggles here recently. You know, the, the kind of 3:00 AM wake up where you're laying in bed saying, can I get through this?
Is it even possible for me to navigate this? And so we were supposed to be talking about the five Cs today. Okay. We will do an a MA on the five Cs, I promise. We're, it's an important topic. We're gonna cover it, we're gonna cover it in great detail at some point. But last night I had a gentleman reach out.
Now I'd been telling him for a couple days that I was going to call him, and I've been real busy and I hadn't been able to call him. And, and he sends me this message and it kind of struck at my heartstrings and he said, um, I can only meet after about 5 30, 6 o'clock, seven, somewhere around there where I'm finishing up my day in the shop.
And it, it just struck me as odd. That conversation went on a little bit and he said, uh, man, I, I just feel like my shop is going to fail. I, I, I don't think I can step away from the shop, and that is a warning sign. Okay, Wayne, I know you've seen it. I've seen it. Um, yep. If we get to the point with our shop that we can't walk away, we can't step back, we can't take a day off.
We have to stay till seven o'clock at night. We have to come in at 6:00 AM or everything falls apart. Something is very wrong. And chances are it's that we're trying to squeeze this sucker. Like we're trying to get blood from a turnip. We're squeezing so hard, we're causing part of the problems. And so last night I said, you know what?
I'm gonna go ahead and call him. And so I called him. We had a really great conversation and. As we began to talk, I, I just so related to my own personal life in this discussion, because he gives me a list of all the problems. This employee did this, this car did this, this happened, and this employee that used to work here did this, and the previous leadership did this and all of these things.
And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop. And he said, what? I said, you know, my first business coach, I gave him a list of very similar problems and we didn't fix any of them. And he said, what do you mean? Like all of these huge problems I've got going on? And I said, listen, I said, it sounds like we've got a void in leadership.
It sounds like we've gotta void in culture. And that the problem is, is your team doesn't know where you're trying to go and it's really hard for them to follow you somewhere that they don't know where they're going. We don't have a map, we don't have a destination. He began to talk about the fact he has this partner and the partner's kind of disengaged and not really involved, and the money is really falling on his back and, and me and you have had hard conversations about this because you told me a story one time about being in that spot.
And people that you trusted, people that you thought were gonna do a, an amazing job and help you accomplish all the things you wanted to accomplish. It didn't work out that way. Did it? Tell us a little bit.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. It's, it's, you know, we've all had those. Unfortunate life lessons that we have to learn. And yeah, I mean, it goes back a few, well, more than a few.
It goes back, uh, about a dozen years or more. And, uh, I had a partner. We were rolling. The business was growing and come to find out outside of myself, but in his situation, um, he failed to pay the IRS. On his personal taxes. There was other things that came in and there was some other stuff and, and at the end of the day, he was not gonna be the best partner.
We decided it was best that we separate out. There was litigation, IRS coming, everybody trying to cross sue and do other things, and it was very hard and he ended up costing me about a million dollars. And that's not a hard one to come back from. And you know, as we were a growing business and we were able to recover, we were able to continue to grow.
And before I sold the company and got out, we reached 10 million in revenue. Um, so we, you know, we ended up being very successful. But that's where it really starts to measure who you are as a person.
Lucas Underwood: Amen.
Wayne Marshall: Choose to treat others. Uh, you know, we talk about culture as you mentioned a little bit, you talked about that leadership element of, and I always say, you know.
Problems are gonna happen in life. What really defines you as a person is what you choose to do next.
Lucas Underwood: Amen.
Wayne Marshall: And as the attorneys told me, they, you know, you just need to file bankruptcy. I said, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not going to stick vendors and others with a problem. That is not their problem. It was my problem.
And through hard work, we were able to make everybody whole. I didn't go to any of 'em and ask for discounts. I didn't ask for favors. I only asked for time. And one of the things that I learned from this, as hard as it is, and in some of the conversations when you deal and this comes even when you're dealing with those, talking a little bit about the five Cs, when you get that customer that comes in who's upset and not happy and whatever, I would always tell all our vendors and all our partners that we were working with to help get the company on the right footing.
If anything ever happens this year, you're always gonna hear the truth. You might not like the truth.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: I might not be able to pay you today. I might not be able to do this, but I'm gonna tell you what my plan is. I'm gonna tell you the truth, and I'm gonna tell you how I'm gonna continue to march forward to get us back to the right place.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: And I can remember when I was all said and done, one of our vendor partners was out of Ohio. I was at the manufacturing plant and the owner president, CEO came up to me and he goes, you know what? That was really hard. I wondered if I was ever gonna see, and I owed him hundreds of thousands and he said, I really wonder, but you, you did everything you said you're gonna do.
And he complimented me on my credibility and my integrity and at least being honorable. He didn't always like my answers. He didn't always like me when I said, I don't have any money, but I should have this and this. I'll be able to do this and do, and then we do. And it's no different when you deal with people inside.
Your company and be it a your, your team, your coworkers, uh, along with those customers that come in honesty and truthfulness. I mean, it's hard, but it's where we gotta stand.
Lucas Underwood: Amen.
Wayne Marshall: Amen. And sometimes you got bad parts, sometimes you gotta a guy who didn't do the job right, and you just, you gotta own it. And then you gotta say, but look, here's what we're gonna do next.
Lucas Underwood: You know, here's, here's what stands out to me. Right. And, and you know about all the stuff that I've been going through and, and I don't mind to share kind of the, the details, but, but the point is, is that I remember 10 years ago if, if I was faced with the challenges I have right now, they would've seemed insurmountable.
Right? And I'm talking to this gentleman and to him, these problems he's facing right now seem insurmountable.
Wayne Marshall: Yes.
Lucas Underwood: And the worst thing that we can do is lock up. Right? Yes. The worst thing that we can do is get stuck and locked down and say, I see no path forward. There's nothing I can do. This is just what it is.
I, I've heard the term before, fall in love with your problems, right? Like they, they fall in love with these problems. They don't see a pathway, and it's just like, oh, this is just what it is. But, you know, I listened to your story and I'm thinking, well, gosh, my problem's not nearly as bad as Wayne's problem was.
I mean, like his attorneys were saying, I am so sorry you went through that. My attorney's not said that yet. So it, it couldn't be that bad. Right?
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. Uh,
Lucas Underwood: I think that, that creating a pathway forward, at least taking a step instead of locking up and getting to the point that we just say, I can't see a way forward.
I can't see a pathway, it is so important to stop. And, and, you know, there is, um. A goal coach. He, he was famous years ago. His name was Jim Fanon, and Jim Fanon had this video, he is talking about true champions and one of the things he said in that video was, is he said, A true champion goes not from A to B, but in their mind they go to B and they illuminate a path back chronologically to a.
They don't, they don't look at me and say, oh my gosh, I gotta get there. I don't know how they build a pathway. One step at a time, right?
Wayne Marshall: Well, there's, there's a, you know, we all go through this and I use the comment and even when I'm coaching clients and we talk about this and I say, you know, here's where you want to go and we get it, but sometimes when you look at everything that's in between it, it just looks like it's insurmountable.
So I said, okay, time out. Reverse engineer it.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly
Wayne Marshall: reverse engineer. So stop and think about it. 'cause when you start to break down these steps, it never fails. When I've had some really, and even here since the time I've been at the institute, I mean, we've had some big things, some big hurdles to get over and we sit there and you just start reverse engineering.
It's like, okay, if I gotta do one thing or two things, what are they Before I can do numbers five, eight. Whatever the number is down, down the road. And when you start to reverse engineer, it never fails. You start to go backwards, backwards, and then you get, it's like, oh, well if I do do this and this, that's gonna help it and make it easier when I get to number five and number eight and number.
Well, good. So let's get started. Let's start doing something.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And do it
Lucas Underwood: if we don't have a destination though. Right? Right. Because that's what I found in this conversation last night. I said, where are we going? What are we trying to accomplish? He said, I don't know. You just, I show up in the morning and we just fix cars and like, that's what we do.
No, no, that, that's not a destination, dear. That's not where you're headed. We must have a destination. Yeah, we gotta be going somewhere. He said, well, I mean, I just don't know what other destination you could have as an auto repair shop. And I said, well, one day you're not gonna be able to work on cars anymore.
One day you're not gonna be able to be an advisor anymore. One day you're gonna have to retire or sell the business. What does it look like then, because that's kind of important to know,
Wayne Marshall: right? Well, I,
Lucas Underwood: I never, never gonna retire.
Wayne Marshall: Well, I, I mean, we all talk about it and when I've been, you know, when we're getting into coaching conversations, you gotta build your bench.
Yeah, I mean, if you, you've gotta sit here and say, I can't be all things to all people and do everything. So how do I build my bench and when I build my bench, how do I create that culture that if I'm not there. They know what to do. And as you start to work this through, I always suggest to everybody, I mean, we've got a client, I'll talk a little bit, and he was on your podcast, Jonathan here, just recent.
And you know, in some of the conversations with Jonathan, he buys his shop. He's going great. His numbers are, you know, really starting to build and take off. But one of the things I said to Jonathan, I mean, as you're building this team culture and you're building it out. To really find out if they got it.
Call in sick one day. Don't come in two days in a row on the whole, the process. Give them a little bit of a stress test. Let's see how the team reacts. Because one of the things when you talk about culture, and we were talking about this right before the podcast started. We all have handbooks. We all have these, you know, vision, mission, goals, all the things we're doing.
We put it on posters, it all looks pretty. All that tells you is what you can do. Yeah, but it never tells you what you should do. Yeah. And when you build the culture and you really embrace those words and you understand now you're doing what you should do, which is right for the business, it's right for the customer.
It's right for your vendors, it's right for your employees. And when you start doing all those things that you should do, you will end up on the right side of it. Absolutely. You will have success. You might not have all the success you want. But man, you're gonna start building on that and the energy will come and you'll start having success.
Yeah. And it, and it starts to build on itself.
Lucas Underwood: One of the most powerful CEOs I've ever met in my entire life, extremely successful, uh, extremely big dollar organization, and he said something I will never forget. He said, my company's success comes from the behavior of my people. It doesn't come from the strategy.
It doesn't come from the budget, it doesn't come from any of that. It comes from the behavior of my people. And I said, okay, well how do you get the behavior that you want in your people? He said, it's my belief system. It's the culture of the organization. And so I have a performance environment that is orchestrated in such a way that they understand why we're doing what we're doing and where we're going, and what we hope to accomplish by getting there.
Right. Yeah. And I think that's something that so many people miss. You know, I, I, there's a video and I can't remember exactly how they laid it out, but they said there's basically five questions every employee wants to know. Where are we going? What do you want me to do? How am I doing now? And I can't remember what the other ones were, but like, you get the point.
And we don't answer that in automotive.
Wayne Marshall: No.
Lucas Underwood: Right? No, I have seen this over and over again. What we're doing is we show up and it's like, Hey, we're gonna fix cars. It can't be about fixing cars, Wayne. It has to be about something bigger. You know, it's like this trust is earned through repeated behaviors and you have to be going somewhere, right?
We talk about this generation of employee, we talk about this generation as a whole, and everybody says, Hey, they don't wanna work. No. They want to be going on a journey. Showing up, you don't have a purpose. Take's not enough, right?
Wayne Marshall: You gotta have
Lucas Underwood: a purpose. It's gotta be more than that. How does a shop owner, so let's talk about that for a minute, because this guy's sitting here and he's saying, look, I've got one employee who's disgruntled about coming in early.
I've got one employee who's disgruntled about staying late. I've got one employee who's disgruntled about how many cars we work on. I've got one employee who's disgruntled because we're not working on enough cars. He said, I don't know what to do. I'm getting all this feedback. It's all this mixed emotion.
I don't know what step to take next.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: How do we pinpoint this? What's a good way to settle that emotion a little bit and find our way?
Wayne Marshall: First off, I would tell, um, when I've done presentations and, you know, I did a breakout session just at tectonic around culture and how to craft that culture, and it starts with the owner.
You've gotta own it. This, if you try to make this a team event to build culture. It'll never work. 'cause if one person isn't responsible and owns it, nobody owns it. And that's gotta start with you, the owner. And I, one of the questions I was asked, there was a husband wife in the session that I was at, they only have two other employees.
And she asked the question, he says, you know, we're not very big. We don't have the opportunity to stop and have these meetings and do this and do that. How do we start building culture? And I said, it's the easiest thing. Because when you are small, you start to lead by example. You develop that belief system.
And a simple thing to do is, is how, how you answer the phone, how you're treating the customers. You're walking through the back, you see the, the, the bay isn't very clean or whatever. Grab a broom, sweep real quick, help tech out. And all of a sudden you're gonna come by a couple days later and he's sweeping.
Because he saw you sweeping and people build on that example of, again, if you, if you just have it written out and here's our process, do this. Well, that's what you can do. That's not what you should do. But when you do it, you're showing what should be done.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And it, and if, and it starts with just the simple things.
And then you start having conversations that start to expand. And then you start to say, you know, well, here's what we're trying to get accomplished, and we wanna be a company of trust, integrity, you know, all the things we talk about and how a service advisor talking to a customer. You wanna build that trust because when you start building trust and you give 'em the information of that estimate of what needs to be done, that's gonna help you get their car and keep it safe because nobody wants to send Sally down the road and all of a sudden the brakes aren't what they should be.
And she goes through a stop sign where their kids in the back and someone gets hurt and you don't want to have that on you. So you wanna build that trust so we can deal with these things. So it takes time, but it becomes observable. Simple. Going all the way back to the beginning. If you see something, grab a broom, pick up the trash, pick up the empty parts box that you know the tech didn't have time because he's now going on a test drive.
Pick 'em up real quick, help him. And when you do things like this that are become observable, people notice. And you know, and again, it comes back to also when you see people doing good things, what gets rewarded gets repeated.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: So acknowledge it. Acknowledge it in front of others. For sure. Tell the tech, Hey, that was a really great job.
You know what the, the place looks awesome. You know, the day was over and man, that was awesome. You took 30 minutes to straighten up and ready. We're gonna hit the ground running in the morning. I can't wait to get started tomorrow. That energy builds. It does. Now you're changing the culture.
Lucas Underwood: You're
Wayne Marshall: exactly right.
And people feel better and they don't start complaining about, well, it's, what about this? Or, I don't wanna start early. I don't want. It, it feeds on themselves and they quit that other stuff and they start looking at the other things that you're showing
Lucas Underwood: and, and here's the deal with that and, and let's use the five C's as an example because mm-hmm.
That was kind of one of the things we were supposed to talk about. Yep. And when we talk about writing a repair order, I deal with this all the time with shops and I deal with this in my own shop. It's like we get away from the five Cs. And, and you say, well, well, why did we get away from the five Cs? Or, Hey, they won't do the five Cs.
Well, first of all, they have to see me do it, right? Right. I have to build that repair order and I show them what I expect. You see, thi this is. I'm guilty of this because what I want is I want the business to do what I want the business to do, but I don't necessarily wanna put the work in doing the things that I don't like doing in the business.
Right. Right. Like I was a tech, I love turning wrenches.
Wayne Marshall: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: Eventually I got to the situation like, Hey, it's not feasible for me to remain the technician. That means I'm gonna have to do some things I don't like doing, so I have to learn to be an advisor. I eventually fell in love with being an advisor, communicating with clients, doing all the things, but it was a, it was a process I had to.
Force myself out of turning the wrenches and into the advisor role. And then they started seeing the way that I wanted the tickets written. And so I would correct them and I would go back and I would say, Hey guys, this isn't working. Well, see, we, we don't often wanna face that conflict, Wayne, we wanna pull away from the conflict.
While I don't wanna upset 'em, what if they quit? What if something, right. But what if you, you keep them and they don't do the job they need to do. Yeah. Right. And besides what if they don't even understand, they're not meeting your expectations. What I would do is I would take the five C layout. I've got a sheet that explains what the five C.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: I would go through the five Cs and I would go item by item by item, and I would say, okay, now here's what I expect this to look like. They would send me a repair order. I would work with them. I would critique it. I would say, here's what we need to do. What do they do in school when they grade your paper?
They critique it and they come back and they say, no, we shouldn't do this. We should do this instead. Right. And so over time you build that process. Now I'm gonna tell you something, you stop doing it. Okay? Guess what happens? It all falls apart.
Wayne Marshall: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: And culture is the exact same way. Yep. If we take and we put the wrong person in our culture, Wayne.
They will destroy it. They will have their culture. I've heard time and time again, the most dangerous thing is that someone in your business is going to be a leader, whether it's you or whether it's somebody else. And there's a lot's of people you don't want leading your people. That's
Wayne Marshall: correct.
Lucas Underwood: You know,
Wayne Marshall: I, I set it on, I set it on, uh, Friday at my breakout session.
Every company has culture. Yeah. Either you designed it or it was designed for you.
Lucas Underwood: Yep. It's a choice. Listen, this is not some like buzzword gonna, it's real. It's gonna happen. It exists in your business. And if you aren't the one who set it up, somebody set it up, I promise.
Wayne Marshall: And if it's, and it's just like you said, if it's this employee and there may be a little toxic, they're doing this well, then they're gonna drive and they're gonna establish.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: that culture.
Lucas Underwood: Yep. Exactly. Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And, and it's gonna put it in a tough spot. Um, you know, one, one of the stories, I shared this story, I love to share this story because. You know, sports is very, very emotional. I mean, we watch it on tv, we see that, you know, that energy that's being done. I had the privilege to officiate football, and I had the privilege to officiate it at the college level and got up to doing D 2D one, did some D one games.
And when you talk about at that level, and there's. Thousands of people in the stands. Nobody likes the official and I can remember the whole thing and it's, and it's no different than what you talk about when we deal with the five Cs.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: because we're sitting there, we're running the game. Visitors have first in goal.
They didn't score because they had a holding call. It backed it up. He only got a field goal, so instead of getting seven, he got three. Well, I'm on his sidelines. We're lining up coaches over. They're just screaming and yelling because you know. We had a holding call, wasn't my call. So what do we do? I'm listening to the complaint.
I confirm it. I mean, we've got headsets. We're talking. I'm, you know, talking to the umpire called, yeah, what did you see? I complain. You know, I tell the coach, here's what we saw, here's what we did. But then we talked after the game a little bit and it's like, well, what was the cause? Were we all in the right positions to see and make the right call?
No d what we do every day in our shop.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And then if we weren't in the right positions and we had bad mechanics, you know, with the mechanics of where we need to be and the keys we're looking at all the stuff to make a good call and to make sure the game's going well, then what's the cure?
Then we obviously, you know, you confirm our correction as a crew. But the key thing that started with this whole thing with this coach, he is just going on and on and I'm just listening, which to me is one of the other Cs is good communication.
Lucas Underwood: Amen.
Wayne Marshall: And the thing of it was, is I found something that we could agree on, and all of a sudden he tells me, he goes, man, we lost all our momentum.
And I'm like, there's my point.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: And I turned to the coach, I said, coach, you're right. That was a big call and you did lose all your momentum. He knew I can't change the call. We can't change the broken card. It is what it is. Yep. He wanted someone to understand, so I waited for a moment. I'm looking at him and he didn't say anything, so I turned back.
I'm getting ready for the kickoff. He literally slapped me on my ass and said, I'm glad you understand, and walked away.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: What's the lesson here? He knew we couldn't change anything. Most of our customers acknowledged customer know that sometimes those cars, the bad part you got from the store or whatever it is, they get it.
They want someone to understand and you know, and find that place that you never give up your position when you deal with these things that you can say, you know what customer, you're right. That is terrible. That part should not have failed. Yeah, but lemme tell you what we're gonna do exactly. Lemme tell you how we're gonna go forward.
They want someone to listen to 'em and they want them to understand and find something that gives you that place.
Lucas Underwood: But, but all the time, like, what are we doing? When we answer that phone and there's a concern, the first thing that we do is we start plotting in our minds how this wasn't our fault and how I need to explain it wasn't our fault.
And how I need to, you know, the, the great I know great video of Simon, I know where he's talking about the airline. Right? Yeah. And he said, you, you can have two different experiences. I call up the airline and the airline representative answers the phone. I said, Hey, listen, I'm done with my conference a day early.
Is there anything you can do to get me back? No sir. You have this class of ticket, there's nothing I can do. Now at this point, I think we all know Simon Sinek is not flying on any commercial airline. That's
Wayne Marshall: correct.
Lucas Underwood: Right? Yeah. But still, and he said, you know, that, that creates one experience. Whereas if they pick up and they say, oh my gosh, I, I definitely wanna get you home to your family.
Let me make some, some adjustments. Oh, that didn't work. Oh, let me make some other adjustments. Oh, that didn't work. Oh, let me make these adjustments. Oh, that didn't work. Oh, hang on. I'm gonna get my supervisor. Let's see if there's anything I can do. And they come back and they say, Mr. Sinek, I'm so sorry. I have tried everything I can.
We've tried multiple different options. I asked for a supervisor override. Even with that override, we couldn't do it. It's really because of the class of ticket you have. I'm sorry. There's nothing I'm able to do. He said it's a completely different experience because it sounded like you tried, right? It sounded like you understood my position and, and see, I think that's what we miss so often, Wayne, is because we don't think about that other person as a human being.
No. We think of them as the trouble that's coming to bear. We think of them as the car that's got the problem. We think of them the as the telephone call. That's annoying when I have all this other stuff going on. The reality is, is what's on the other end of that phone is a human being who's experiencing stress and frustration right now.
And if you were in their shoes, you might feel the same way. And so if we can at least extend some level of kindness and human understanding to them, we can get a better benefit for all. Right. And if you knew the number of times that I'm having that conversation and somebody says, I'm so sorry. You're right.
I shouldn't be screaming, I shouldn't be yelling, I'm going through this. Right. And, and if we can offer a little bit of compassion in that moment,
Wayne Marshall: little bit
Lucas Underwood: of grace. It's not just not keeping exactly.
Wayne Marshall: Extend a little grace, a little understanding.
Lucas Underwood: And it's
Wayne Marshall: not just about
Lucas Underwood: them buying something, it's about being a good human.
You know,
Wayne Marshall: we, but we, we tend, when someone comes in, and we talk about this briefly, but that communica communication turns into a competition.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: Because at that point, we're trying to control it. In our mind, we're not really listening. We're already thinking of our response because we're competing. And if we're competing in that, we're not really hearing what they're saying.
We're not extending and you know, but at the same time, and I, I know I've shared this with my, my kids or adults now, and married kids with their own. If you want good customer service, you gotta give the person on the other side an opportunity to give you good customer service. And I love the airlines and I, I can remember I was, it was late at night.
It was one of the last flights out. Everybody's tense, and here's customer stand in front of that ticket agent who would just not in it was just unrelenting.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: she's trying to do and solve this problem and she was being very calm. But the problem is the guy on the other side of the desk wasn't giving her an opportunity to give her good customer service.
Yeah. All he did was just peppered away and I finally couldn't help myself. And I said, sir, if I could please. I'm just gonna tell you, if you give her a moment, she might be able to give you great customer service. Yeah. She's working at and try and I tried to and it diffused it a little, but it didn't calm 'em down a lot.
Yeah. But it's like if you want good customer service, give 'em an opportunity to give it to you. And as consumers, we've gotta be able to also just as much extend that graze as you want them to extend it back to you.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, absolutely.
Wayne Marshall: And we don't always think about it that way. So I always share those Ty in the stories too, because.
You're running your shop and how are you when you talk to your vendors when they didn't deliver you the right, right part on time? And man, that car's not going out today. And what are you doing when you're calling them up and they're saying, you know, Lucas time, I'll try to fix it for you, but you gotta gimme a chance.
Gimme an opportunity.
Lucas Underwood: I tell 'em all the time, Hey, listen guys, I, I see the, the people who jump out here and they beat up software companies and they beat up coaches and they beat up everybody else, and I just ask 'em like, Hey, I just want to know if you put yourself in their shoes, if this was a client of your shop doing this, tell me what would you be on Facebook saying right now about them?
Right. Yes. Well, they would be effing crazy.
Wayne Marshall: Yes,
Lucas Underwood: yes. Like exactly like you look like a psycho man. And I'm guilty of it, right? Like in the moment, the emotion can be high and, and I tell people all the time, emotion has no place in business. We use data and facts, and I, I'm an emotional guy. I have to watch that emotion because it will get away from me sometimes.
Yep. Especially on a really stressful day. I, I have to keep it in check because if I don't, it'll run away. And, and that's another thing. When we're dealing with these clients and we've got these folks coming in the front door and they're heated and they've got things going on, we have to stay in check.
Right. We have to be able to control ourselves because we have to remain in control. And if we are getting upset, if we're allowing a motion to drive us, we're no longer in control of the situation.
Wayne Marshall: No.
Lucas Underwood: So it's so important for us to take a step back, you know, talking about this jet who has this shop and he's got all this stuff going on.
He's a, he's got a business partner and the, the business partner is really not engaged at the level he wants. This guy's over here trying to make this business work. He's trying to develop the business, make it run. You know, he's, he started this business with this belief system, right? 'cause he bought the business.
It's a multi-generational family deal that he bought from the family. And now he comes in as somebody who had worked in the business for 20 years. Okay. And he's in this situation where he is saying, but this is the way we've always done business. This is what's always happened. This is exactly what we do.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And I'm saying, okay, I understand that. But the modern automobile is not the automobile of 1970 when this business opened. You're not gonna be a situation where you can fix every single car in the same day because they're pushing to get every car out exact same day. I said, that's not realistic. And he's saying, well, but, but my business partner doesn't see it that way.
So Wayne, you've been through some tough business partner dealings.
Wayne Marshall: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: How can he communicate back? With that business partner and say, okay, we're not in alignment. Because what I'm sensing from this gentleman right now is, is I'm really, really afraid to have these hard conversations. I'm really afraid to, to put my foot down and say, no, this is where we have to go.
And, and me and you both know what happens when that happens. Unfortunately,
Wayne Marshall: yes. Falls
Lucas Underwood: apart,
Wayne Marshall: unfortunately. Yes. Um. The first off is you've gotta be able to sit down and be honest with each other. And you gotta be able to sit at a table and say, you know, whatever, look here, here's where we are.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: And we have different views.
Not that we're not all wanting to get to the top of the mountain, but you know, we use that knowledge analogy. I can come up this side, you can come up that side. So we're gonna take different paths. But let's first make sure we in the same alignment of what that top of the mountain looks like. Yeah. If it does, now let's start breaking down.
How do you look at it and where do you think this starts and goes? You might find out out of the, let's just for say, give argument 10 things, five of 'em. You're in agreement. Okay. Now let's talk about those five. We're not. Where do we differ? Where can we find compromise? Maybe we can't find compromise, but at the end of the day, we have to get back here and say, holistically, what are we gonna do that we know?
And, and more times than not, we all know what's right.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: We know how to get and we know how to get there. And that means I might have to set my ego aside a little bit. And the most, the two most dangerous words in, in business is always and never, we never do it that way, or we always do it this way.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: Because as soon as you say, we always do it this way, a new, you know, something new comes out, we test different, we fix it, different, we do something changes. And as soon as you stand on that hill of always you're gonna lose. And when you say, well, we never do it that way. We've never done it that way before.
That is just as dangerous as this is how we always did it.
Lucas Underwood: Putting blinders on
Wayne Marshall: and you can't do this. And, and we get into this, and especially if you get into longer term partnerships, if you're not having some ongoing checkups of where our goals and ambitions are. Then you're, you're gonna have a challenge.
And I know what I did and the, and I had more than one partner in the, one of the business I had. And we would get together and we would have an annual meeting. We would look at, through all the financials, we would then update all our bases, our net worths, everything we had so we could see as where that that number is going.
Because we didn't get into this as a hobby.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: true. Get into this. To be successful, we made sacrifices financially and family and you know, life in general to build something bigger better. So if we can't sit down and have that honest conversation of how that looks and where we're gonna go, then I've watched too many companies.
Really, really struggled. Then some other consulting work I've done and sat down that, you know, another story I share, I mean, I worked, talked to a company that wanted me to do some consulting work. They had three partners and really at the end of it, and when I, they were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin went up and we met, we visited, we went through everything and I left and I'm like, you don't need someone to help you with operations and everything.
You guys need marriage counseling.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: your, your problems were so deep and rooted that you've gotta change your thought process because if I came in, I could help you on some of your operations, but it's never gonna fix this other. So you gotta have honest conversations, and at the end of the day, if the honest conversations is, and maybe you aren't gonna be partners, then.
You know, it's all, it's every, any company that's been put together that's got a good operating agreement, you've got the context of what to do and how to do it. And sometimes there's a place you just gotta say, you know what, we had a hell of a run. Shake hands. Yep. Let's be friends.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: Just business.
Lucas Underwood: A hundred
Wayne Marshall: percent. And we're gonna take the next step.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Aunt Tanika or Aunt Nika, as we all call her, just jumped in, said, happy. I know. Happy facts over feelings. Feelings. Don't fix cars. She's exactly right. Amen. And, and you know, I'm gonna tell you right now, listen, here's the deal. If we don't have these conversations, right, like these conversations can be really scary because there's a lot of what ifs.
But if we don't have those conversations, we, we often try to avoid conflict, but conflict is where we actually make progress, right? We don't grow in our comfort zone. That's not gonna happen. And so we have to edge out of that a little bit, and we have to have these discussions. We have to have these conversations that might be on hard topics with people that don't want to have them and, and listen.
I'm gonna tell you this, I, I am not afraid to say this. All of this crap going on with the family business. Years ago, I would've said, this will kill me if I had to go through it. And I'm looking at it now saying, you know what? I see that this is just another challenge. And if I can learn from this, if I can develop from this, if I learn new skills and new ways to navigate, and hey, what if this ever happens and what if that happens?
If I can develop from that, it makes me a master of dealing with this type of problem. Yep. So now I can go even further. I can get even bigger. I can do even more. But see, we, we, Trent, we tend to shirk away from it. We said we don't wanna, we don't wanna upset people. We don't wanna encounter that drama. We don't want to encounter that trouble.
No. See, that doesn't do anything but cause bigger trouble down the road because you didn't have the damn conversation.
Wayne Marshall: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: Right. And that's exactly what's happening in this case.
Wayne Marshall: I agree. No, it's, it's, it is so important and you know, just because you figured out and how to do it under pressure and respond and, and because you didn't develop, you know, and I know it's always that guy, the tech that bailed you out of this problem.
Well, why did the problem happen? And he had to bail you out because you didn't have process, you didn't have procedures, you didn't have communication. I can go down a list of all the things. Yeah. And what do we do though? We go back and, you know, if you were the tech I'd go, man, Lucas, you, you saved my butt.
You bailed me out. You worked two more hours tonight. You did this to get that car done so we can, you know, yeah, customer can pick it up in the morning, but why did we have to do that? And just because you become really good at managing crisises. That's not a trait you wanna to be. That's called being a firefighter.
Right, exactly. I don wanna be
Lucas Underwood: fire, I wanna get rid
Wayne Marshall: of it. And, and we've all done that, but we've gotta build on it to where we end up praising, uh, something that wasn't really good. Yeah. Now it's good to acknowledge the effort, but then if we don't go back and do the analysis and figure out why and what should have happened and you know, we, as everybody talks about, you know, running a shop's like a relay race.
The car comes in, you get the baton, you get it, you get it written up, you give it to the tech, it comes back to the service advisor. You do the estimate. I mean, you're, you're constantly handing that baton off to the next person in the relay race. And eventually, as you hand it off enough times, you get it to the end and you, you know, the race is over.
You deliver the car back. But do we ever look at all the little things that come into, and if anybody's watched a relay race? We've all watched the Olympics. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of science of when you hand off the baton, you can't hand it off too early. 'cause if you do out of the transfer zone, you're disqualified if you hand it off too late.
What happens? You're disqualified if you drop the baton. If you drop the ro
Lucas Underwood: yeah,
Wayne Marshall: you're disqualified. Exactly. And, and it's no different. I mean, if we just stop and take a moment and say, you know, I don't have to do, you know, this horri uh, uh, oric things to get the thing done because we didn't really think about those steps and processes and the facts of what we're doing and how we're doing to build that culture.
Lucas Underwood: I asked about that, right? That was one of the discussions we had is I was asking questions, yeah, Hey, what, what is the process flow in the shop? And I, he said, well, what do you mean? And so I went through my process, Hey, we have a morning meeting. We lay out who's gonna work on what we talk about. What happens if something doesn't show?
What do you go to how many hours? Right? Because I've seen a lot of shop owners go out here and dispatch 75 hours to attack. And at the end of the day they're like, well, is this not all done? This doesn't make sense. Uh, they, they didn't realize it was 75 hours. They just saw jobs and they're like, oh, I bet they can get all that done.
And they just put it out there. And, and so we talked about the fact that there was no process, there was no procedure, there was no structure behind what they were doing. And they said, well, it's always been done this way. Well hold up now. Because one of the that always that, right? Well, one of the things that, that we're, we get in trouble with in that scenario is, is because he is buying this shop from someone else.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And it's like, okay, we've always done it this way. Or you just don't know that it was ever done differently. You just don't ever know that there was a structure behind it, that they had a plan. You just didn't see it. You weren't exposed to it. Now Wayne, you, you touched on some things that I think are really important here.
Because most shop owners are visionaries, right? Mm-hmm. I've actually seen a study that said most blue collar business owners have some form of A DHD, right? And And usually fairly severe. Most I would agree.
Wayne Marshall: I would agree.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Are visionaries, right? Because they have these big dreams, these big visions of what they could accomplish and how big it could be, and how great it could be, and all these wonderful things.
Right? Now you've walked into a role in the institute. We're gonna call Cecil straight out here. Okay. We're not gonna let him listen to this part. So everybody cut this part out. Like if you talk and please don't share it. Don't, because I think I'm
Wayne Marshall: being set up
Lucas Underwood: Yeah know, right? But, but Cecil is a visionary.
Yes. And, and if you talk to Cecil one time, you recognize Cecil's got huge dreams and huge visions and all of this stuff, and we're gonna do all of these things. That at times because I, I deal with this in my shop that at times can turn into noise and it can be this technician saying, oh, this is wrong.
This is the problem. This is what's going on. And the advisor can be saying, this is the problem. This is wrong. This is, this isn't right, and this isn't working. And you all of a sudden stand up as the leader and you're like, oh, this noise, I can't pinpoint what's really wrong or where I'm going, or how to.
Find the problem. How do I move us forward when it's all this noise coming at me? Wayne, how do you isolate the noise? How do you deal with the visionary and bring it back a touch?
Wayne Marshall: So the first thing I like to do, and I'll, I'll use Cecil as an example. Um, in the early weeks of being here, we had many a conversations and one of the questions was, is, Cecil, what does success look like?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: well it looks like, you know, we, we'd start talking and we'd, you know, we'd talk numbers, we'd talk, well, it would be having this many clients, it would be having this many people coaching. It would be having this many, you know, different intensive at events and, and we'd be doing this, we'd be doing that.
I said, okay, I get it. So let's talk again. What does success look like? Because there's gonna be observable actions that have to happen in between. So if this is your vision of success. What do we do to get there? So we started having even bigger conversations and that's why we now have a holding company and we're doing some other things and we're gonna have other entities underneath and other.
Things we're gonna launch here in the coming months, um, into 27. But my my point is, as we look at all this, and you start to say, and it says, okay, if we're gonna build that vision, where do we start? Now, in the case of the institute, one of the things that we started have a long talk on. It's, it's, it's structure, it's governance.
Do we have all the right pieces in place? Do we have all the right legal docs in place? Do we have all the right legal entities in place? Do we have this, do we have that? And we just started really working through, and it's not then there, that's, that's one side of governance. Yeah, when we talk about it, but from a business standpoint, I don't care what size business you are, you have to have certain level of governance of how you operate on your side, what your leadership look like.
If you're not there, who takes over? 'cause it's gonna happen as the owner. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: Who's your, who's your lead guy? If I'm not in the shop, is Lucas my lead guy? Is Lucas gonna be the one that steps up? Does Lucas have my vision? Does, does Lucas understand what that is? So when he makes decisions. He's doing the right things that he should be doing because he has this better understanding.
'cause we've had this conversation of what does success look like? Yeah. So. Break it down to, to, you know, this was talking about Cecil and the institute and what we're doing, but take it to the service advisor. What does success look like? Yeah. Service advisor's gonna say, well, that the tech did his job, right?
He, you know, he put on the right parts. He did it in the right timeliness. We told the customers gonna be ready at three o'clock. It was ready at three o'clock. We didn't have a cost problem. We, you know, everything came together. That when they come in and they write that check or run the credit card for whatever the bill is.
They're happy. We hand them the keys. The client gets in, the customer gets in the car. It's not dirty. There isn't a greasy hand print on the, the steering wheel. You know, all the things. I mean, the list just keeps going. That's success. Okay. How does that look to the tech? Well, for the tech, do I got all the right parts?
Are they in the bins? Am I hunting for that small gasket that fell off the, you know, the parts shelf that got delivered? Because we don't have a bin system or we don't have something that the little parts and those little things are missing and he's spending 30 minutes and he's frustrated because he couldn't find that one little part.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: He can always find the shock. It's in a big box. What about, you know, that one bolt or you know, as, yeah, I work on BMWs and that's my hobby, but you know, they always have those crush washers and the things when you do the oil change, it's that small little washer but that you can't find, never fail.
That you need fail to complete the job.
Lucas Underwood: Fail,
Wayne Marshall: but I can't finish. But it's, let's define what success looks like and if you can define it and start breaking it into your process is it becomes observable. And it becomes observable. Then other people see it and they're like, I get it. We're very, we're very visual in this industry.
'cause you're right about that vision and how we're very visual and if we can see it and we can put it in that context, we can execute it. We can execute it.
Lucas Underwood: You know, what I've found is. Is if the, if the noise gets loud, if the if, if the vision, you ask them. So if I go to Cecil and I say, Cecil, what are we trying to accomplish?
And one day it's one thing. The next day it's another thing. And the next day like, Hey Cecil, what problems are we trying to solve? And every time it's a different problem. You ask Cecil what the solution is. It's a different solution every time. And I'm not saying Cecil's ever done that. Don't get me wrong.
I'm just using him as an example. Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: I get
Lucas Underwood: it. Except for every day. No, but here's the thing. Is that if, if we get to that point, I have found that it's we don't have a destination. Yeah. And that they either don't have the destination, they don't know what the destination is, or it's not clear what their part of getting us to the destination is.
It's not clear what their role in accomplishing the desired outcome is. Right? Mm-hmm. And if we, if we get to the point that it's just noise after noise after noise, and it doesn't make sense, and we're having a really hard time keeping up with it. It's because we've not clearly laid out where we're going.
And, and you know, I David, years ago told me, he said, look, he said, I, I wanna build a shop for done with Care auto repair that is set up to where they have guardrails. And it says, you can't go past this and you can't go past this, but anything in here, as long as you're taking us in the desired direction, you're on the right road going in the right direction.
As long as you don't go off the guardrails, I'm okay with that. Right? So here's what the guardrails look like. And so to do that. You have to develop a team of people who believe what you believe, who have the values that you have, and, and listen. That doesn't happen by just going out and hiring someone.
It's hard enough to find somebody just to hire period. And, and listen, I'm gonna tell you something else. People say it's a technician shortage. It is a worker shortage, okay? Has nothing to do with technicians. It, it is really hard to find good employees right now. And it is. So you go and you bring these people in.
You have to coach them. You have to guide them. That's why you are the leader. Because you have to lead them. That's your job. Yeah, but I get, we signed up to be a, a technician, but unfortunately when you own a shop, your job is to lead your people to battle. You know,
Wayne Marshall: one of the, um, when, when I was hiring more people, I mean, other people are at the institute are doing more of the interview and hiring.
I'm not as involved in, but my, when I was doing it, I always said, I wanna hire for. Personality and attitude, you know, other things that. People say, well, this guy's really talented. He's certified, he's an a, SC, master tech, all these things. But if he doesn't have some of the right things from that, you know, personality aspect and their value ubstance, all the others, that they could easily be very toxic.
And if I could find a person with the right attitude and all the right things, I always said I can teach 'em what they need to know. We can build them up. 'cause they started with the right attitude. And if you get that out of order, you're, you're opening yourselves up for a lot of challenges. And, but it really comes down to, and we gotta also understand, and I mean we've all said that sometimes, you know, not all customers are your customers.
And we've gotta be okay with that. Not all employees need to be your employees.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Wayne Marshall: And we gotta be okay with that. Understood. And the other thing I've always said, and I learned this from a really strong mentor of mine from, uh, many years ago, and he said, you know, you gotta look at bringing an employee.
It's almost like. You teach 'em, you develop 'em. They're learning new skills, they're growing or whatever. The company's growing. I mean, everybody's doing what they need to do, but sometimes you get an employee, you've taught 'em every they can, they can learn. They're not growing anymore. They're not doing all the things they need to do.
They don't see your vision. They knock, and you gotta ask a question, is Tom gonna help get me to where I want to go?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: And if you're honest with yourself and you start saying, you know, Tom's not gonna get me there. Yeah. And then my mentor said to me, the guy said to me, he says, you gotta look at it like high school.
You graduate 'em, you get 'em outta your business, you let 'em go to the next employee, promote
Lucas Underwood: them to client,
Wayne Marshall: to promote them to client. But you gotta let them move on. And you gotta be at peace with that because you gotta sit here and start saying, what's that vision exactly? And how do you wanna get there?
And if that person isn't gonna help you get there, then you're just delaying the inevitable.
Lucas Underwood: We've, we've always just,
Wayne Marshall: are
Lucas Underwood: we, we've, in this industry, we've held on to people because it's hard to find help. Right. And I'm gonna tell you that's one of the most dangerous things you can do is holding onto somebody that's toxic.
Yeah. Holding onto somebody that's not a good fit for your organization. Now over, over the years, you get good at pinpointing who those people are. And so you get a little bit better at not allowing into the, into the hen house to begin with.
Wayne Marshall: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: But if you can craft and select the perfect selection of people who believe what you believe, who are on fire for what you're on fire about, right.
Like the direction you want to go, and they can see that and they say, Hey, I see value in the direction we're. You can build an unstoppable team that doesn't need your constant oversight that they do it because that's what they want to accomplish, right? Mm-hmm. And if we are constantly fighting, and, and I, I've talked to so many shop owners, and then they're like, I feel like I'm in a boat and I'm trying to paddle upstream in the rapids, and I'm going as fast as I can, but I'm not getting anywhere.
What do I do? And I'm gonna tell you right now, that's usually an indication that we have the wrong people on the team.
Wayne Marshall: Wrong person on the wrong seat on the bus. Sometimes
Lucas Underwood: you
Wayne Marshall: gotta stop the bus and let 'em off.
Lucas Underwood: You know, the ES it's
Wayne Marshall: hard.
Lucas Underwood: It is. And, and I'm gonna tell you something, I, I've been on to Cecil about this.
I've been saying to Cecil four months now I want. The, the institute to pick up some of the EOS, uh, you know, kind of material and develop some stuff like that as implementers in the automotive space. 'cause I'm gonna tell you the one thing about EOS that's life changing. As we set everybody around the table and we have the hard conversations, we're forced to have the hard conversations.
It's not about your comfort anymore. That's correct. It's, this is the process. This is what we have to do, and we're gonna grade one another. Oh my. That's uncomfortable, right? But the, the option of sitting here and saying, oh yeah, but Tom's a great guy, is gone now. Because if we want our organization to grow, if we want our organization to develop, gotta have the right people in the right seat.
And, and sometimes we're letting the wrong people drive the dang pu. Right.
Wayne Marshall: Well, and it comes back to sometimes we are rewarding the bad behavior and the things that we shouldn't be rewarding. Yeah. And we need to start being, you know, and holding, you know, coming back to what you said about, you know, the tech shortage and, and this got talked about in some of the panel discussions, that tectonic and bottom line is, is many people are saying, we really don't have the tech shortage.
We have. We might have training and we might have some other things that, you know, we have inefficient shop owners who don't understand running at 72, 70 3% efficiency. That, that's a lot of hours. You're leaving on the on the counter. If you just used your, you know, we're better organized and ran a tighter ship, would you need another tech?
No. 'cause you'd be used and they'd make more money. Everybody's happier. You're happier. Yeah, but I say all that, to go back to this and you look at it, is that we gotta be really careful because when we get into those situations with people, the next thing you know is you got that tech who's working next to a guy who you, you can't afford to lose, but you don't hold him up to that high bar of expectation.
Yeah. Because he's too hard to replace. Yeah. So what happens is you're really good tech. Leaves
Lucas Underwood: or Yep, exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And this stay guy stay or they start to
Lucas Underwood: lower, they start to become toxic,
Wayne Marshall: but, but they leave because they can get another job. Yeah. This guy doesn't leave 'cause he can't get another job.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly.
We end
Wayne Marshall: up with the
Lucas Underwood: worst we're
Wayne Marshall: everybody else ends
Lucas Underwood: up with the best
Wayne Marshall: and it does and it becomes a really slippery slope. So, uh, you know, all these things that we talk about is true. And it's about how are we gonna build on this and how are we going to develop and how are we gonna develop as leaders? And there's a difference of being a manager and a leader.
So, you know, how do you develop to be that leader? How do you do to inspire and lift up and make a difference? So,
Lucas Underwood: yeah, exactly. And, and that is
Wayne Marshall: the, you get it. No
Lucas Underwood: that you
Wayne Marshall: get it.
Lucas Underwood: You gotta have a destination. You gotta know where you're going. You have to inspire your team and help them understand why that's what's best for them.
Wayne Marshall: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: You have to walk them through the process of how we're gonna get there. Here's our steps, here's the steps we're gonna take today. Here's what we're working on. And then you have to motivate your team. You have to be there and, and look, eventually the system can become self-sustaining. You can get there.
Yes, you can get the system to self sustain. I'm not saying you can't, but I'm saying that you're often gonna have to do the work that you don't necessarily want to do to get it there. You're gonna have to commit the time to doing the things you may not like doing.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: because so many of us love turning wrenches, but I hate to tell you, as a shop owner, your job is no longer turning wrenches.
Yes. That's not what you do anymore. That's correct. You lead and inspire your people. You set the destination, you hold them accountable. Right, and see that's another big one in this industry, we don't like holding people accountable because that's uncomfortable. No. You see what your employee craves is accountability because they want to know if they're doing a good job or not.
Wayne Marshall: That comes back to, again, like we said, do you wanna sit here and, and 'cause you're afraid you need two texts. You know, or whatever the number is, your top tech is working next to a guy who isn't living up to where you want him to be. And after so much of seeing the empty boxes, the trash, he doesn't clean up.
He doesn't do this. You know, we, we've all seen those techs. This guy does it at a high level. He keeps his space clean, his tools are clean, his boxes organized, all the things. Pretty soon he just gets tired of this. Because you didn't do anything to raise the bar.
Lucas Underwood: Yep,
Wayne Marshall: exactly. So he leaves. 'cause again, he can find a job.
This guy can is easy. A hundred
Lucas Underwood: percent.
Wayne Marshall: So he stays and now you're really paying a bigger price.
Lucas Underwood: That's exactly right. You got the one guy that you didn't want to keep. That's not gonna lead your organization to the winning the winner circle, if you will. Right? That's
correct.
Lucas Underwood: And that's the guy that we've got in the bay now.
Wayne, thank you so much. I don't know where the past hour has gone, but I sure have to like that. It was
Wayne Marshall: awesome.
Lucas Underwood: Thank you. So we always have a good
Wayne Marshall: time.
Lucas Underwood: Yes, we, we always
Wayne Marshall: have a good time.
Lucas Underwood: I can't wait for the next one. We've got another one coming up soon. We are gonna cover the five Cs in depth, in detail at some point here really soon.
But I thought this was too important. I thought we need to cover some of this because this is something a lot of shop owners are fighting with and I, I gave this poor guy an hour and a half lecture last night. Didn't even mean to, you know, feel really bad for the guy. I'm sure. Off the phone. He's like, oh my God, that guy never shut up.
But
Wayne Marshall: we all need a little tough love sometimes.
Lucas Underwood: That's it. That's exactly right. So Wayne Marshall, thank you so much for being here and folks, we can't wait to see you at the next a MA.

199 - The Tax Credit Most Shop Owners Miss (And How to Claim It)

199 - The Tax Credit Most Shop Owners Miss (And How to Claim It)
April 8, 2026 - 00:56:05
Show Summary:
This episode explains how shop owners can use the R and D tax credit to recover significant money. Derek VanNess breaks down recent tax changes that allow credits from past years and shows how common shop activities qualify. He explains that labor and process improvement drive the credit, not equipment purchases. Many shops can receive ten to forty thousand dollars each year. The episode also highlights using these savings to build long term wealth.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Derrick Van Ness, Founder, Big Life Financial
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Introduction to R and D tax credits and industry crossover
[00:02:00] – New tax law creates limited time opportunity for past credits
[00:04:30] – Why most shops qualify through daily improvements
[00:08:30] – Labor hours drive the credit more than equipment costs
[00:13:30] – Front office systems and software changes can qualify
[00:18:00] – How credits turn into real cash or tax savings
[00:24:00] – Tax strategy can add ten to twenty percent to profits
[00:30:00] – Shop technology upgrades like alignment systems qualify
[00:36:00] – Long term investing turns tax savings into millions
[00:46:00] – How to get a free estimate and take action
 
 
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TM7FyJlKDVo
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: My guest today is Derek VanNess. Derek is with Big Life Financial and we have a phenomenal, phenomenal amount of information to share with you today. Derek has been in the industry for quite a some time at my behest. He was heavily involved in the dentistry industry and I said, Hey Derek, you have got to come check out the automotive industry.
We're having a great time over here. It is so much fun. Come check us out. And he brings with him a lot of knowledge and information that transfers between dentistry and the automotive industry. So with that, thank you Derek for being here. Good morning.
Derick Van Ness: Good morning Jimmy. Excited to be here. And yeah, I'm always amazed at how similar dentistry and the auto repair business really is.
Uh, if you think hygiene appointments and you think oil changes or checkups, suddenly you start to see. People come in, they do a diagnostic, you're working on cars, they're working on teeth. But it's, uh, it really has translated well over the last, last six or seven years.
Jimmy Lea: Dude, that's awesome. That's awesome.
And what we're talking about today is, is it, are we going into the r and d tax? 'cause that been a constant conversation that we've had over the last two or three years, but it seems like things are changing.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah, there's, there's been some big changes in the, uh, research and development arena. Uh, the most people know there was a big tax bill that passed last 4th of July, and in that tax bill, it fixed the RD credits.
Now, a lot of people didn't know they were broken, right? And we could go back three years. And so we were filing for people for 20 20, 20 21. But 22, 23 and 24, actually, the tax code had been changed or, or broken from the 2017 tax rewrite. Um, and people didn't know, like the credits still existed, but they weren't necessarily worth doing because, uh, long story short, it would make your income go up more than the tax credits would help.
And so it wasn't worth doing now, uh, over the long term. It, it worked itself out, but it was, it wasn't worth doing for those couple of years. The tax bill in July actually fixed that. But we only have one year from that date, so this 4th of July to where we can go back using the new code and claim all of those credits for 22, 23 and 24.
So that's, that's what you were talking about with expediency, is if you can get this done and in before the 4th of July, then you can get all that money coming back in one year. What broke it before was you have to take it over five years and. It raises your income. So I don't want to get into all that 'cause it's kind of technical and most people's eyes glaze over the net.
Net is, um, there's an opportunity right now to go back and claim credits that you just couldn't really claim or didn't make sense to claim. And so we're trying to help as many people get that money as possible.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. What qualifies the automotive industry? As an industry to qualify for this r and d tax, what is it that makes us unique or, uh, susceptible to this?
Derick Van Ness: Well, I don't know if you guys know this, but you kind of have a technical industry, right? And most people, when they think of RD credits, they think of like guys in white lab coats with beakers making some sort of concoction that's gonna change the world or something. But the truth is the RD credits actually were created for the automotive industry way back in the eighties.
Um, basically when the, the foreign cars came over and the US wanted to be able to compete with those, uh, Congress said, Hey, we want our people to, to experiment, to try new stuff, to be cutting edge. And we also know when you try new stuff, sometimes it doesn't work. So we're gonna give you credits to help you do that and help fuel that innovation.
Long story short, fast forward to where we are today with the automotive industry, with all the changes that happen all the time. Every time you try something new and there's something called the four part test, I won't bore you guys too much with it, but if you're doing new things in your business to improve a product or process, most of what you guys are doing is process.
Um, and it's based in technology. So. Computer science, biology, physical science, or engineering. Obviously you guys do a lot with computers, a lot with engineering, probably not so much with biology, but um, but anytime you guys buy new diagnostic equipment, right, which is a really common one where, hey, we want to be able to, uh, diagnose a problem.
Faster, cheaper, more accurately. You know, get the solution a better outcome for the client, but also make it easier for us so we can be more profitable. They want to encourage that they being the government and so they give these credits for that. So, um, with EVs coming out, with all the self-driving stuff, with all the new, you know, features that are happening with cars, with all the technology that's allowing people to.
You know, communicate from the shop up to the office and back and forth. Automated billing, automated follow up, automated tracking, all you know, all of that. Plus of course, all the innovations in how you guys are diagnosing things and, and fixing them more quickly. Uh, all of that is technology based. So if it's new to your business, it's technology based, and you're trying to solve a problem so you can get better.
You're probably qualifying for credits, and if you're listening to all that going check, check, check, it's because we've done this for hundreds of shops and there are very few that don't qualify for something. Yeah. Some of them is really big. Some of them, you know, it's, it's a little more modest, but it's pretty common for shop owners to get between 10 and $40,000 a year for this, depending on the size of the shop.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, now, so that is, is that the moderate number?
Derick Van Ness: Uh, yeah, I mean, yeah, I would say like, it seems like I have a lot of shops that are in that 20 to 30 range, you know, if you're, yeah. A million to $2 million shop. Right? Which is,
Jimmy Lea: yeah,
Derick Van Ness: pretty common for, for shops that are probably working with you guys. I know you guys take them to the moon, but a lot of them, when they come in, they, they've got it kind of figured out, but they're going to the next level, right.
So like the guy who's working out of his garage, bringing in $200,000 a year of revenue and maybe only 50 KA profit, he's not paying a lot of taxes. Probably not worth it. Yeah. But I would say doing over half million dollars of revenue, then it starts to make sense. You're gonna, you're gonna get enough credits 'cause you're probably big enough to grow, try new stuff.
You've got some employees. Um, yeah. So I would, yeah, I would say. 10 to 10 to 30 is really common. If you've got a bigger shop, you get into multiple shops, it gets quite a bit bigger. And we, we have some, you know, MSOs who get a couple hundred thousand dollars back so it, it can get quite large.
Jimmy Lea: Oh wow. So you started with the technical and you totally had me, I was like, oh yeah, Pico scopes, OB two sensors, all the scopes that they get.
And, and it's not just a scope, it's not just, uh. Had or tablet that, that diagnosis, they've got it for every make and model. Sometimes. Uh, certainly Volvo has their own software and Porsche has their own software and Mercedes and BMW. There's usually not an all inclusive, all in one. Uh, scope that you could combine that would test every single vehicle.
Right? So, so you had me there. Yeah. I totally follow. And these, these scopes start at $10,000 a piece and every year you have to update the software.
Derick Van Ness: So I, I should probably clarify this. So a lot of people think it's the cost of the equipment, it's the cost of the software. You, you already get to depreciate the equipment.
Um, so what this actually is, is it's the labor, it's the man hours that go into this is much bigger. So what, before you got that tablet, what you did, what you did was you figured out, Hey, we need to figure out how to do this more effectively. What we're doing is too slow, not accurate enough, or we can't do it for.
Porsches or Volvos or whatever. So we have a problem. We wanna solve that problem. So you go out, you spend time, or your team spends time looking at what are the solutions that are out there. There's different providers, there's different hardware there. What do we wanna do that's going to integrate into our shop?
So all the time that goes into that, then you buy the equipment. Then you've gotta figure out how to use it. How does this work with our workflow? How does this tie in with all of our technology? So all the hours on that. And then once you actually start using it, you know, the first day you're using a new P piece of diagnostic equipment, you're not an ace, right?
You make mistakes. You're figuring out how to be better, and you start figuring out how to do that. So all of that process of getting better. So it's actually much larger in many cases than the cost of these scopes. It's you're paying, you know, 25% of your your man hours to your. To your team is figuring this stuff out, getting it better.
So it's a huge portion of your wages in a lot of cases, which is actually a lot bigger than, Hey, a $1,500 laptop. It's like, yeah. But the three people who use that laptop make $175,000 a year combined, and now it's like 25% of that. So we're talking about, you know, 45, $50,000 money. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. So, okay. So you had me there.
I I, I, I totally follow you on the technical and, and when they're getting this new technology, they're implementing it new process procedures, they're, they've, do they need to document that? Is, is that part of the proven process for this r and d tax that they've gotta have a book of process es.
Derick Van Ness: Great question if you do, awesome.
But Congress figured out a long time ago, small business owners do not have a team of guys going around documenting everything, right? Like I know a lot of what you guys do is help people get their systems documented and create duplication and all of that. However, that is not always super common. So they created what's called the alternative simplified method.
So there's a, what they call a contemporaneous method, which is like what? Google and all those guys use who like have teams of people that document stuff.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Derick Van Ness: For small business owners, they said, Hey, we're gonna do a simplified version, the the RD credits for dummies, if you will. And you don't have to have all that now you do get a little lower percentage than the guys who have everything documented to the, to the penny.
But that way you don't have to have all of it. So one of the things. My team does, or if you were gonna work with your, your CPA or whatever is we do write down and the IRS RE requires all of this. You have to write down all the projects. What are the things that you've made better fixed? And you have to answer the questions for the four part test.
You know, how are you improving a product or process? How are you re reducing technological uncertainty? Is it based in science and is it. Experimental meaning is it new to your business? Not Not to the whole world, just to your business. And you have to document that in a very specific way. Our team's able to do that in about 45 minutes with a shop owner.
Just go through, 'cause we've done it so many times, we know the questions, we know the format the IRS wants to see. Yeah. So no, you don't need all of this supporting documentation. Is it nice to have? Sure. If you ever end up getting audited. The question comes up all the time. Is this a big audit, red flag?
No, it is not. I mean, Congress literally said, we want you to file for this. They changed the tax code so you could file for this. And the fact that you are going back and amending those things is not a red flag because they told you, we realized it couldn't be done before. Now we want you to do it. So it's not a red flag.
It, we have not seen over doing thousands of these. We have not seen any. Change in the audit rate that people get over people who don't do RD. 'cause we have a whole tax firm too, right? So, so we have good data on that, so it's not a red flag. Um, so yes, there is some documentation that goes into it, but you don't need to be doing that.
I mean, if you wanna be proactive, you can be writing things down throughout the year once you start to understand this. But the reality is you don't need to have binders. I've seen the binders you guys have. Uh, you don't need,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Yeah. The, the three inch, four inch binders of process procedures, which is good.
I mean, there's no agenda here, Derek, but I'm gonna tell you, you just cut me off at my knees by saying you had this a CM alternative method,
Derick Van Ness: simplified credit, the A.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So I, I, and that's, that's not the point. The point is, uh, we've got a phenomenal program here that has such great possibilities, and, and you had me for the technical, and then you mentioned.
The front desk
Derick Van Ness: Uhhuh
Jimmy Lea: intake. What if they go from handwritten to a point of sale system that is computer based or what if they switch computer based systems, then they go from one point of sale system to another point of sale system? Does that also qualify all the service advisor time, the, the prep, the research and the the going into it as well?
Derick Van Ness: As long as you're looking to improve. So if you just went from merchant processor A to merchant processor B with no changes or improvement, that's not gonna qualify. Okay. But if you're saying, Hey, we have a standalone point of sale now, we want to, we want technology that's gonna integrate that because it streamlines invoicing.
We're able to do follow-ups, we're able to collect more easily, we're able to API everything together so that it works better. That would qualify, right? Because you're improving a process. So if you, same thing with equipment. If you buy the same equipment, just 'cause it wore out, that's not an improvement.
It's not an upgrade. It doesn't do new things or improve. You're just maintaining. That doesn't qualify. But
Jimmy Lea: okay.
Derick Van Ness: To your point on the, on the front desk, I know there's so much software out there right now and AI is getting integrated into everything, right? And so as you're doing those things, there's a process of experimentation and I think we've all had, uh.
AI not work very well for us. Um, so all that time that's being spent to figure it out, how do we use this effectively? Is this the right fit for our shop? Is it really helping us or is it just a distraction? All of that stuff, those are hours that count toward research and development because you are trying to improve your process and even if something doesn't work, you still get credit for the hours.
It's not just for the things you get successful. They really wanna help when it doesn't work.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so, so I, as a shop owner, I could be looking into changing to a different point of sale system and decide at the very end, Hey, look, no, no, no. We've got the best process procedure at the moment. This is the best system for us.
And all those 20, 30, 40 hours of research, research, research that goes towards the r and d tax.
Derick Van Ness: Yes. Yes. I mean, it would look weird if you did 30 of those and none of them worked, but yes, there. There's a lot of things that people try that just don't end up working out. I mean, I've heard the horror stories, right?
Somebody buys, yeah, you set a scope or something and they're like, man, this thing is just a piece of garbage. We hate it. And so they just lose, you know? They get rid of it. Right. They go find another solution. Yeah. Yeah. You get credit for all the time and put into that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. And there's such great programs now that, uh, there's a lot that were server based and that was big technology.
Here's your CDs, update your information. They would update and update software, old school, but then they got 'em onto, onto their servers in-house so people could remote in and do the updates that way. And now they're totally cloud-based point of sale systems that Sure. Yes, the, the follow up is more streamlined, the collection, the ability to text a client and get payment, text for payment, text for follow up text for reminders, emails for reminders.
There's so much more that can be done now with partnering with a great point of sale system that wasn't there before or re required you as a person to go in and do so much more information,
Derick Van Ness: right?
Jimmy Lea: Or so much more work. But now you found a solution that helps you to streamline that. So it it's not just the technicians in the back office or the back?
No, in, in phase. It's the front office as well.
Derick Van Ness: For sure. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much software that goes into all of that, right? All of the billing collection organization. Obviously, to your point, AI's going in and saying, Hey, this person typically comes in once a quarter. They've missed their time, even though they got our normal stuff.
Hey, let's reach out to them with something about how they've interacted with us before, like adding those kinds of things in there. There's a lot to it that's happening. It's, it's pretty cool. I hear about new stuff. Like every week.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh yeah. No, that's very cool. And I'm sure you've got stories galore of shops that came in and talked to you and, and they were able to turn around and with a few meetings, they were able to get a check for 20 or $30,000.
Now do they
Derick Van Ness: get
Jimmy Lea: a check or is it a tax credit?
Derick Van Ness: So it's a tax credit when you, when you file it for stuff that you've already, um, when you amend. Right. Already done for 22. Yeah, so when you do it retroactively into the past for 22, 23, 24, you will get a check back from the IRS. If you do it proactively, like if we do it, a lot of people are, you know, extending their taxes.
They won't be filed by next week. So if you do it this year for 2025, but actually happens is it's just like depreciation or something else. You just don't pay the taxes. The difference is this is dollar for dollar. So if you get a $20,000 tax credit, you will get. $20,000 in taxes that you do not pay.
It's not like a $20,000 write off, which might may save you, you know, five or $6,000. So it is dollar for dollar.
Jimmy Lea: Holy cow. That is awesome. Well, yeah, shops definitely needs to take advantage of.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, to me, this is. You know, I, I, as I was thinking through what I wanna do, one of the things that I see a lot, Jimmy, and this is maybe a zoom out one step, is there's so many shop owners that work super, super hard and they understand how to make money, but they don't understand how to keep it or what to do with it once they do.
So they're, they're creating income, but they're not building wealth. A big part of what my company Big Life Financial likes to do is how do we create money for you? How do we find taxes? You would've sent to Uncle Sam, put them back into your pocket, but instead of you going and buying a little nicer wheels on your car or a swimming pool or something, let's put that money to work somewhere safely so that you can grow it.
Because like the typical shop owner, you know, we all know guys, a lot of guys who are gonna retire before the pandemic happened, right? Yeah, they still haven't retired. Right,
Jimmy Lea: right.
Derick Van Ness: And, and there's a lot of that going on in the industry right now, and it's because a lot of these folks, and this is not an indictment, this is across the board for business sellers, um, they, they don't have a plan to translate business income into personal wealth.
You need personal wealth to be able to sell the business and walk away. I know you guys help them make the business worth more, help them sell it, do all of that, which is awesome. It's just depending on that one Hail Mary pass at the end of your career is a little bit scary. I would prefer that people do things like these tax credits.
Hey, we got 20,000 bucks a year. Let's put that to work and let's build a nest egg. You know, that isn't, stop drinking your coffee. That isn't, you can't ever buy anything new or have any fun. This is found money that you already gave to the government or would be giving to them. There's a ton of other tax stuff out there too.
On top of this, I mean, we're typically able to save a lot of people, 30, 50, a hundred thousand dollars depending on what they're paying in taxes. This is just one really easy, in an hour or two a year. You could turn that into 10, 20, $30,000. You don't pay in taxes, so bang for your buck. It's really hard to beat.
It applies to most shops, so that's why I wanted to bring it to the table is it's if you're gonna just do one thing and get it right, this is a really easy one for shop owners. Keep more money and then ideally take that money and turn it into wealth, you know, long term or, or sock it away for a nest egg.
Because having every single thing you own inside of your business is scary. I think. I think of it like a, you know, before NIL college athletes, right? These guys run the laps. They did the work, they did the long hours, just like shop owners. And if they blew their knee out the senior year, they never got the big contract.
And so many shop homes, work hard, do all the stuff. Maybe they just don't get it together, or something happens with their health or a divorce or a partner or something else and they don't get the big payoff and their whole life's work is lost in that moment. And listen, we wanna do everything we can to avoid that, but I believe it's really powerful to be able to do things like this set money aside.
So you have a parachute if you need to, you know, if your, your plane starts burning, you gotta get out. You've got a safe way to get into retirement. Take care of your family, do the things you need to do. So this is like one component of a much larger picture, which is why we like working with you guys 'cause you guys help people to be so much more successful.
Um, so they have the problems we solve. They, they're, you're getting crushed on taxes 'cause you're making a lot of money. You're, you've got a bunch of money. You don't know what to do with it, how to grow it, how to protect it, all that kind of stuff. Because you worked with the institute and you guys have helped them to create the much better problems of, I've got a lot of money.
How do I protect it? How do I grow it? How do I turn this into personal wealth?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You know, it reminds me there's a, a shop, two, two gentlemen that, that own the shop and they got with the institute, Wayne was their coach. They're working and working and working with Wayne, and they finally come back to him.
They're like, Hey man, um, we've got so much money now. We need a personal investor. We need an advisor that can help us invest this money. So not only have they grown the business and have that as an avenue of income, they're, what you're talking about is creating a second, a third and a fourth avenue of creating wealth.
So your $1 is doing more than just one thing,
Derick Van Ness: a hundred percent. I talked to some guys last week, they had $3 million sitting in a bank account. First off, that's not covered by the FDIC. So that's a little dangerous. But the second thing is they just got all this money doing nothing. If they just stuck it in a high yield savings account, it would earn 'em a hundred thousand bucks a year.
Um, but they just didn't know. And they were like, Hey, we, we've, we know how to make the money. We just don't know what to do with it. And they paid taxes all year. They wrote a big check at the end of the year, and then March 15th, their CPA came and said, Hey, uh, sorry we didn't get it quite right. You gotta write another $240,000 check this year.
And they don't even know why, because they, they haven't been paying attention. Listen, I know taxes are the most boring thing ever, but if people get this right in an hour a month, you can save yourself a ton, a ton of money. So it's, it's a necessary evil. Just like we don't necessarily wanna get up every day and work out and eat all the right food and do all that kind of stuff, right?
But if you don't, if you don't take care of, your health becomes a problem. Taxes are a similar thing. They're just way easier than your health. Um, you gotta pay attention to 'em, you know, they're part of your business and if you get 'em right, they'll add an extra 10, 20% to your bottom line every year without extra employees.
No extra marketing, no extra customers. It's just more money you get to keep RD is just a very easy part of that whole bigger process.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So let, let's, uh, let's paint a picture of what it, what kind of a shop. Needs to come to you. Um, it sounds like a shop that has 500,000 in annual sales or more.
Derick Van Ness: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: That's a good starting point.
Derick Van Ness: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: What else was, what else are those qualifiers?
Derick Van Ness: Yeah, I would say you probably wanna have paid at least $15,000 in, in taxes. Right? You can only get back from the tax credit that which you've paid in Uhhuh. And so if your shop's new and maybe you've got a bunch of revenue but not a lot of profit 'cause you're reinvesting in the shop.
If you haven't been paying taxes, you may need to wait until you're paying taxes to do this. But if you're paying at least $15,000 in taxes, I would say yeah, you're, you're there. And then anybody, if you're doing anything new, right? If you've been doing the same thing, uh, with the same equipment, with the same software for the last three or four years, which is not that many shop owners, I feel like just to compete, you have to do more than that.
But if you just haven't made any changes for whatever reason. Then you might not be a great candidate, but I, I would say it's still worth a conversation. You know, we usually do like a 15 minute assessment call just to make sure we don't wanna waste your time if it seems like, yeah, you're doing things that qualify, we want you to know that if, if you don't, it's like, Hey, Well's, keep an eye on this.
And when you do do those things, we'll claim the credits. But if not, you know, it only takes 15 minutes to have a pretty good idea.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. What about conferences, trade shows, um, evenings of pizza and training? Do these types of events, do they count towards that r and d?
Derick Van Ness: It depends. So if you're just doing like routine training, like, Hey, here's how we handle this, here's how we handle that.
Not necessarily if you're bringing something new in though, like, Hey, we want to have a better way to do this, then yes, if you're going to conferences. For exactly what we talked about. Like, hey, we need to figure out a better way to solve this problem in our shop, right? We need, we need better technology, better communication from the front end of the back end.
We need better diagnostics or better ways to figure out, um, how to, how to fix particular problems on particular vehicles or whatever. And you go, and part of that, the hours that you're spending there, that you're paying your guys to be there or that you're there yourself, those would qualify. The cost of the conference itself?
Not necessarily. Um, but the But the man hours, yes.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so, okay. So even in that scenario, it's not the scope, it's not paying for the tickets for the conference or trade show. It's the amount of hours that your man or woman was in coaching and training, teaching, learning, because maybe they're, they're trying to discover how to better service, uh, fuel injection for.
Ford vehicles or fuel injection for Chevy vehicles, if that's their focus, that's what they're going there to learn. Now they've got in three hours, four hours, eight hours of training on fuel injection for euros. That helps them in that RD tax, correct.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah. Yeah. If they're learning how to make the outcomes you get in the shop better, then it's probably gonna qualify.
If you're just doing routine training, like how do you change the transmission? I know I'm being really generic here, right? How do you change a transmission? That would be considered like routine training. You're not adding a new business component or improving a business component, so it wouldn't, but if you're looking at things that could change the way you do things in the shop, then yes.
Jimmy Lea: Okay, so if we went, and I'm gonna use your basic scenario here, changing out a transmission. If we go to a conference trade show and we're taking the basic level class of how to remove a tire and change a tire on a wheel, and okay, this is how you remove a transmission. And we discovered that they've got a new lift because our old way of holding it by hand.
And unscrewing it so Bubba can take the transmission and put it on the floor and then put it back up when it's done. So now we've got a lift, A table lift that is able to hold the transmission. Does is that in the arena of r and d, that helps our shop be better and proves our process, improves our procedures, helps Bubba not go to the hospital so much for back pain.
Derick Van Ness: Yes, a hundred percent. Because at that point you're saying, Hey, we just realized we have a problem. We're way too slow at changing wheels or transmissions, right? And we're looking at, okay, these, there are lifts out there that make this a lot more ergonomic, a lot faster, a lot more efficient, less injuries, all of that kind of stuff.
Then you go, oh wow, we have a problem. We need to find a solution. You may not just buy the lift they were talking about in that class. You might look at the other lifts that are out there to see what fits into space and what the types of vehicles you work with. Um, and then maybe you do go out and purchase that, and then you start figuring out things like what height, how do we do this?
Um, you know, what kinds of cars is this optimal for? All of that kind of stuff. So yes, that, that wood camp,
Jimmy Lea: oh man, it's fascinating. I'm it just opening up a whole new world of awesome possibilities here. I'm even thinking like alignment equipment. A lot of shops might have equipment that's 30 and 40 years old, but the new vehicles, they're all wheel drive.
So being able to only align the front wheels or just align the back wheels, you need to be able to get new equipment to do all of that. Plus. Hunter's got equipment, you just are able to drive across it and it will tell you in about 30 seconds where you are in alignment or out of alignment, what needs attention.
Then you pull it onto the big alignment machine. I mean, this is like $140,000 machine.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: that is definitely an improvement over the archaic dinosaur you used to have.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah. All of that kinda stuff. Right? Because it's so much faster. Hopefully more accurate, so you're able to move more cars through the shop.
And so you're improving your process. Yeah, so all of those kinds of things definitely create credits for you and, and that's, that's the whole thing is shop owners just don't realize that you're already doing all this stuff, right? You have to, to stay in business. If you own a shop, I'm sure you're obsessed with how do we get better?
How do we get more efficient? How do we make our numbers better? A lot of the stuff you're doing. The, the, the stuff that doesn't count is the stuff that's not based in science, right? If you're just running spreadsheets and analyzing numbers and some of that, that may not count. But every time those numbers turn into, okay, we realize a problem spot, we need to fix that, here's what we need to do.
Um, if it involves technology at all, you're probably gonna qualify. So, and you'll notice, I keep saying probably, I don't wanna make promises about things, and you make a a guess. But the truth is, in today's world. Technology's changing so fast for shop owners that you are probably doing this stuff and you don't even think about it because it's just part of what you do to try and compete and get better.
Otherwise, you get left behind. So you, that's why so many shops qualify.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. You have to. You have to. You have to keep reinvesting in your company, into your business. Lucas Underwood. It was just on Facebook or one of the social medias talking about how as shop owners, we work so hard in our business just to get a 4% net return.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And that's so low. We, we, we need more. We, we should be operating at a higher level. That's where the institute can help you as a shop owner to get you to that 20, 22, 20 4% net profit. I I, I'm thinking of a few success stories that happened within the last year or two. With the institute, they came in and said, Hey man, we just can't break 7% net profit.
What can you do? How can you help us? Well, where do you need help? Where do we start? Well, if you're gonna talk to us about car count or average repair order or charging soft supplies, we're done. And, and they were right. That's not what they needed. We needed shop efficiencies. So we went in and met them there with shop efficiencies, help them to improve their process procedures internally.
And what's the net result? Car count went up. Average repair order went up. Their efficiencies went up. They had more availability for production and, uh, record, record breaking months. Derek, they went from 7% net profit to 23% net profit in November and 24% net profit in December.
Derick Van Ness: Amazing people think that stuff adds up.
It actually multiplies up. Because if you have, it's like
Jimmy Lea: compounding
Derick Van Ness: per car, right? It it, people, it's really easy to underestimate the value of that. Um, so that's awesome work. That's what, that's what people need and that's why we love you guys. 'cause you guys help them do that. And then they have the problems that we do, we solve, which is, holy crap, why am I gonna owe $150,000 in taxes?
And we're like, well let's cut that number way down. Because now you're making money. And truthfully, most people, the first year they work with with you guys, like if they make a bunch more money, they don't even realize and they're probably not saving for taxes properly, and they get that punch in the nose of like, Hey, you know, especially if you're in a high tax state, you can, I mean, if you're killing it, you can be paying nearly 50 cents on the dollar for taxes.
Um, so you guys help him make it? We help him keep it. And, and that's what I love because a shop owner making 50,000 bucks a year, like, he just, he doesn't need what we do. Um, so that, that's why it's a good one, two punch.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Derek, this is taken to the next level. So what, what's, and then, uh, remind us what I know July 4th is the deadline.
Yeah. There's tax code that goes in with it. What, what is the July 4th that says. If you're gonna do this, you gotta do it by July 4th.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah. So if you're going to amend into the past, you know, it's not that you can't still amend your 22, 23 or 20 fours, you just have to do it in that way. I was saying was broken.
So they're giving us until the 4th of July to go and amend and they call it immediate expensing, which means you get all the credits at once. Um, so there we have until that time to, it's just like in April 15th, right. If you've got the postmark. July 4th, which actually is the sixth because the fourth is a Saturday this year.
Um, then I know crazy stuff. But anyway, uh, if you have that, then you can, you can have the amendment where you get your full check back versus getting it over time. Um, and, and we just think that's really important. I mean, truthfully, for the people on the, you know, on the cast right now. Knowing this is available, even if you didn't go back and get it, but just doing it proactively.
You've got between now and whenever you retire to get this money every single year. You know? And if, if you're, uh, I know a lot of shop owners are 50 plus, but God, if you're in your forties, you can do this for the next 25, 30 years. And it's, if you just took this money, like I'll, I'll teach you guys a quick little math trick.
If you save $20,000 a year and you invest that at 7% in 30 years, 20,000 a year turns into $2 million. Just, just over $2 million 30,000 turns into about 3,040,000, turns into about 4 million. So if we look at that and go, okay, when I get to retirement age, if I'm 40, when I get to 70, this 20,000 a year or 30,000 a year is gonna be worth two or $3 million without me having to.
Cut back or, or have a conversation with my spouse about why we're gonna spend less or not enjoy life as much. You know, 'cause I'm all about enjoying life. Um, it's a huge difference and for most shop owners, it's more than they would save on their own. Like you're doubling or tripling what you were saving for retirement without having to do really anything.
Right. Just save it in taxes and then put the money to work. So it's a, it's a huge win. And this is something that multiplies, just like you were talking about with, um, with each of the different metrics. When you put them together, they multiply. Same thing here. When you don't pay it in taxes, then you put it to work and you give it time, that multiplies over time.
It, it can really move the needle. So.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. And you know, in, in your math equation.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Talking about 30 years down the road, if a guy's 40 right now, so that's 70. Let's back that up a little bit. What if a guy's 20, he's opening the shop, he's starting to hit 500,000 a year. He's starting to hit a million a year.
If he invested, was it 20,000 a year?
Derick Van Ness: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: At 7% to get 2 million.
Derick Van Ness: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Now imagine that he's now 50, has a couple million in the bank.
Derick Van Ness: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: And can retire on a couple million, or maybe he started at 20,000 a year, then he went to 30,000, then he went to 40,000. Now he's got somewhere between three and $4 million at 50 years old.
And can retire and live very comfortably doing whatever else they might want to do. Or you, yeah.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Here's the math you probably aren't gonna do in your head, and if you do, I'm totally impressed. What if that same person at at 20 investing 20,000 a month, 7%, 50 at 50 years old, so that's 30 years. What if they say, Hey, you know what?
I'm 50 years old, but I've still got another good 10 years in me. I'm gonna start the process, getting things ready to sell, but I'm not gonna sell yet. I've got 10 years to work this out. If he goes another 10 years, 40 years total at 7% doing 20,000 a year. Are you doing a calculator? You're not doing it in your head, are you?
Yep. I'm,
Derick Van Ness: I'm, I'm doing a calculator right now for you. Let me just do it. I do this stuff all, all the time. Uh, okay. So. 40 years instead of 30 years
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Derick Van Ness: Would turn into, um, instead of turning into 2 million in 40 years, so the extra 10 years, you go from 2 million to, to 4.2 million. And if you went 50 years, let's say that guy really loves it and he wants to do it, uh, all the way to retirement, then you're looking at $8.7 million.
They,
Jimmy Lea: and
Derick Van Ness: that's just doing
Jimmy Lea: 20.
Derick Van Ness: Yes. Yep. An easy number. Uh, generally is once you have a sum, so let's say at 50, this guy had $2 million, let's say he just retired and just said, I don't wanna do anything more, I'm just gonna let that money grow at 7%. Your money will double. About every 10 years there's something called the rule of 72.
Um, yeah. So, you know, 10 years from that, he would go from two to four, another 10 years, from four to eight. Um, so it's, it's pretty significant. Once you get the, once you get the snowball growing, it's, it's really weird. It's like a hockey stick, right? It seems like in the beginning it's really, really slow and then it gets going and there's a point, like I usually think it's like a race to a million dollars.
'cause once you get to a million dollars, if you're earning six, seven, 8%. Then even if you don't put any more money in, it's earning 60, 70, 80,000 a year to compound. Right? And it gets faster and faster. Faster. It feels like at that point, like let's say you've been putting in 30 or $40,000 a year trying to push this thing uphill, but once you get to that million, it's doing a lot more pulling and you're doing a lot less pushing.
But there's no way to get to the million unless you start at the zero. So it's, it's definitely a, the best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago, but the second best time is right now, if you don't have a tree, you gotta get the seeds in the ground and get them growing, even if it's not. Life changing and, and people look at the the mountain to climb toward retirement.
And you have to remember every mountain is made of grains of sand. You have to do them as you go. If you just try and climb the mountain in one leap, it's not gonna happen, right? Unless you're Superman, like Jimmy Lee here. But the rest of us, the common man, we have to do it one grain at a time. And a lot of that is efficiencies.
You make more in your shop, you do all the things right? You keep more of it, you put it to work safely, you grow it over time and it compounds. So it is, uh, it is just a different skillset. It's, it's similar in the sense that you just can't build a whole business overnight. You can't build wealth overnight.
Um, but it is attainable if you show up consistently and have systems in place. We have.
Just like in your business, you have systems for how do we market, how do we do sales? How do we fulfill, how do we bill, how do we collect? It's the same thing. It's how do you, um, of course you make the money first. How do we save on taxes? How do we put the money to work? How do we create systems and automations that make all that as easy as possible?
How do we build the team just like in your business? So we've got experts that can help us in the key areas. Um, and all of a sudden you have the same machine running in your personal life as you do in your business life. And the truth is, the, the personal wealth side doesn't take near the amount of time.
Like I said, I, I think in, in an hour a week, you can stay right on top of that stuff and absolutely crush it, whereas your business can have the other 39.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And, and I think a lot of us as shop owners, you're, you're gonna identify with Atlas and just feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.
Yeah. And in the beginning, yeah, you're right. You are Atlas and it is the weight of the world on your shoulders. And, and at some point, you're gonna feel like CFUs pushing that rock up the hill, pushing that rock up the hill, pushing that rock up the hill. You wake up the next morning, it's back at the bottom of the hill again.
Now you gotta keep pushing it up the hill. But I, I love what you're saying about that, Derek, at some point, CFUs is now chasing the rock up the hill because there's the, the, the machine, the unit, the interests, the compounding interest is reinvesting more than what you are putting into it. So that rock is rolling up the hill and you're chasing it,
Derick Van Ness: but more or less, yeah, you're just helping it to push faster as opposed to move it all.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, that's phenomenal. And you know, for, for the people that come and work with the institute, for those shop owners, men and women that come and work with the institute, we're gonna help you to build your kingdom. Whether that is optimizing a single location, like the example I was sharing just a minute ago.
They are optimizing a single location to the multimillions and the family is heavily involved in this shop. The success or failure of the family depends on the success or failure of the shop. Of course, we want it to succeed, so that's, that's where they are. We'll help build the kingdom. Is it one single location or is it multiple shops?
You wanna have multiple shops and you want to grow that because you, you, if you go to multiple shops, you've gotta have process procedures in place and managers to reinforce it. So at some point, and maybe when you turn 50. You've got these process procedures in place where you can go around and rubber stamp it and you add it in the location every other year.
You add a location every other month. These process procedures go into place and your job of working is maybe coming into the office once a week to do payroll, but then maybe you hire somebody else to do payroll.
Derick Van Ness: Sure, sure. Once you can get to the point where you have an operator, right. Someone who really has ownership.
Yeah. And I don't mean like like stock, but like really has taken ownership and has paid to run that for you. Yeah. It becomes an investment for you. It's no longer your identity. And this is a real shift for business owners. I'm sure you guys go through all of that, but it is a real shift from I operate this business.
It is who I am, how the business is, is how I am. Um, versus this is just something I own in a bigger portfolio of companies. And it could be a bunch of auto shops, it could be shops and parts and towing and all the other related things. It could be unrelated, right? But ultimately, um, it's a real different way of looking at it as a, an asset that you own versus a business that you run that takes all your time.
One is quite frankly, a, you know, a high paying job and the other is an investment.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. So let's invest in your future more than a 4% net profit.
Derick Van Ness: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Let's get bigger than that. And then let's compound that interest. Definitely reach out to Derek VanNess with Big Life Financial. Derek, how do people reach you?
Derick Van Ness: Well, our, our website of course, is big life financial.com, but we do have a special link for, uh, institute people who want to get the r and d credit estimate. We'll do it for free. It'll probably take you in total, probably an hour and a half of time, 15 minutes for a first phone call, a short if, if you're a good qualifier.
Uh, maybe a 30 to 40 minute call. And then at that point we just gather all the documents and we give you your estimate for free. Um, and if you wanna move forward, we'll, we'll take it from there. So if you go to, uh, big life financial.com/auto shop as one word dash credits. That will take you to, uh, a place where you can get a free estimate and, uh, we'll know that you came from, from Jimmy and the institute here.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome, Derek. Uh, thank you. Thank you. I, I appreciate you doing this. And, and it's not just for the institute and not just for the institute clients. This is for everybody. If you're in the automotive industry and you're listening to this, you're watching this, or maybe somebody has told you you need to watch this, this is for you, follow that.
Link, follow it to Derek's, uh, big life financial.com/automotive-auto
Derick Van Ness: Auto shop, dash
Jimmy Lea: auto shop dash credits. Credits, plural,
Derick Van Ness: yes, mm-hmm. Comes worse. You can go to Big Life Financial and you can look for credits and you'll find your way through. We just won't know that you came from the Institute
Jimmy Lea: or
Derick Van Ness: from Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and, and, and that, and that's okay. It doesn't matter. We are here to help build the industry. You know, the, the motto with the institute is, better business, better life, better industry. The better we can help you in your shop and in your business to be the best business that you can possibly be, the net result is you will have a better life.
You'll have more opportunities, you'll have more freedom to be able to. Be with the family, to have dinner at home every night of the week to go to the kids' plays, to go to their races, their cheerleading expeditions, whatever it might be, you'll have a better life. And the net result of that, and working with the institute, we think is going to be a better industry.
So we're gonna help build this industry to be the best it could possibly be. I love it. And guys like you, Derek, you are really helping us to move that needle.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah, I, I believe in a big life you're talking about a better life. I would say those are the same things. 'cause that's the real game. It's not necessarily just about more money.
Only if that money serves you having a better life. Right. If you make more money and your life isn't as good, I would suggest maybe you trade back. 'cause the better life is the goal.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. The better life is the goal. We all want to have a better life. We all wanna have a better existence here on earth.
What does money provide more options.
Derick Van Ness: Yep. More options, more choices. I totally agree. Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Well, that's awesome, Derek. Thank you very much. Brother. Any final words of wisdom to depart upon our automotive shop members?
Derick Van Ness: Yeah. You know, if you're, if you're on the, the fence about these credits, I think it's at least worth a phone call.
It, it has transformed a lot of people. It really opens people's eyes. I'll, I'll just let you know, if you do an RD credit estimate, a lot of times we already have your. Your data. So we'll do a free tax review as well and look at everything. Um, but the, but the big thing is whether it's with us or with someone else, taxes are worth figuring out.
They don't have to take a ton of time. You just have to find the right people who will, who understand this stuff that can help you. For most shop owners, it's worth at least five figures a year for the bigger shop owner, six figures a year. This is, this is real money. That goes straight to the bottom line.
And you know, Jimmy, you're talking about shops that have a 4%, 7%, 10%. Like if you can just take and cut taxes out of a ton of that, you can probably almost double that. Um, and the shops that are doing, you know, 20, 25, 30%, obviously it's massive. So, uh, this, this is an important thing to figure out. I know it's not exciting.
I know nobody loves the IRS. You only have to figure it out once. It doesn't change that much year to year. So once you know it, you get the benefit for the rest of your life. So whether, like I said, whether it's talking to us or your existing people or someone else, this is a game worth figuring out because it will pay you every single year.
Jimmy Lea: So now I have a final question here, Derek. And, um, I'm, I'm scratching my head here on this one. So. CPAs are, are you guys, CPAs, are you replacing the CPAs or are you an addition to a CPA?
Derick Van Ness: Great question. So we, when we do the RD credits, we let you work with your CPA on that. We do, I do own a part of a, a, a tax firm, right?
Where we file taxes, we do tax strategy and all of that sort of stuff. We're not trying to take you away. If you've got a great CPA. Great tax preparer. We're not trying to take you away, but if we find out or you find out that, Hey, I really do need some help with this. Maybe the person you have isn't the best fit.
Maybe they're not super proactive, maybe you've outgrown them, then that is something that we can do. We have a firm that does that. Um, so that wasn't my point to promote today, but
Jimmy Lea: yeah,
Derick Van Ness: we do have that. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: So, so, uh, you could be the CPA for an automotive repair shop. But certainly you would work with their CPA 'cause.
I, I think a lot of CPAs don't understand the r and d tax. It's, right. They're more, I, I've seen a lot. Not the CPAs that we work with. Kaizen is, is phenomenal. We work with them really well. They know the automotive industry and they do a great job. There are other CPAs that are really glorified bookkeepers and r and d tax is so well outside of their realm of comfort.
Derick Van Ness: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: They don't, they don't know anything about it. So automatically, oh, it's a red flag. Don't do it. You're gonna get audited. No, you're not. You gotta have business built on.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't want to ever tell you you won't get audited 'cause you can get audited for anything at any time. But we have not seen it cause audits.
Um, and I, you know, I know Eric over at Kaizen, actually I think I was the one who even introduced him to the RD credits. When they looked into it, they were like, holy cow. This is legit. So I think they do it for people. So if you work with them, you can definitely ask them, um, about it. We've done it for a lot of people who work with Parus, uh, which is another automotive group, right?
But at the end of the day, you just need someone who's proactive looking at these things on your behalf, if you're being the tax pro in the relationship. It's probably time to upgrade, right. Just being honest with you because you're not even a tax pro. So, uh, you know, but I think a lot of shop owners are underserved.
Like you said, they've got someone who basically is what we call a tax recorder. Glorified bookkeeper may not even be telling you what your books are saying. They're just keeping them. So you have a way to file taxes. But ultimately it'd be great if you had someone who was meeting with you at least a couple times a year proactively telling you.
What's going on, how much you should be saving, what to look for, um, how to create opportunities and, uh, makes a big difference over time. Especially if you make a lot of money.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. For sure. It sure does. Well, that's awesome. Well, thank you Derek. Really appreciate it. Appreciate you being here and sharing with us the r and d tax.
Uh, I think shops everywhere need to take advantage of it. It's a 15 minute phone call. Give Derek a call. See if he can do something for you. If he can, great. And if he can't, that's okay too. At least you know you're on the right path. Go in the right direction, doing the right things.
Derick Van Ness: Yeah, you
Jimmy Lea: gotta explore.
That's phenomenal. Yeah. Well, my name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and the information you've heard today, if you've found it interesting, if you found it enlightening, if you found it compelling, we do a lot more than just. Phenomenal webinars and podcasts. We work with advisors, managers, owners.
We work with you to help you optimize your business, to build a better business, a better life, and a better industry. So if you find this information interesting, get out your smartphone because in about 30 seconds you're gonna see a QR code come on the screen. Scan that QR code. One of my guys is gonna reach out to you.
And have a conversation. And I was just reminded today, Don was like, oh, hey. Remember that one guy? We were talking to him? Yeah. And he was doing like 80, $90,000 a month in in revenue. We gave him some advice. He told him one thing, Derek, do this one thing, and it increased his business by $30,000 the very next month.
And the guy's like, oh my gosh, that one thing. It made all the difference. Phenomenal. Absolutely. Everybody needs to do it. Scan the QR code, meet with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Let us help you to make your next $30,000 from doing just the one thing.
Derick Van Ness: Amazing.
Jimmy Lea: Did it cost him anything except for our phone conversation with Don and, uh, you know, yes.
Did he join the institute? Yes. Yes he did. And he has grown exponentially since then. So let's do it and let's do it together.
Derick Van Ness: Let's do it together.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you so much you guys. I'll talk to you again soon. My name is Jimmy Lee with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you're listening to the Leading Edge podcast.
My guest today, Derek Vanes from Big Life Financial. Derek, thank you very much, brother. I appreciate it.
Derick Van Ness: You got it. Loved it.

198 - Overcoming Set Back to Go From Farm Kid to Shop Owner

198 - Overcoming Set Back to Go From Farm Kid to Shop Owner
April 8, 2026 - 00:58:14
Show Summary:
Peter Bailey shares his path from farm life to owning Limitless Garage in Iowa. Early setbacks redirected him from the military and law enforcement into automotive. He built skills through hands on work and formal training while learning leadership in a fast paced shop. His focus on culture and people shaped how he leads today. He started his business in a home shop and grew into a full facility. He believes hiring for character matters more than experience. His story shows grit faith and steady growth.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Peter Bailey, Founder and Owner of Limitless Garage
Show Highlights:
[00:02:45] – Peter discovered he loved fixing equipment more than working livestock on the farm.
[00:09:20] – His first shop job started with labor before earning the chance to repair vehicles.
[00:13:40] – He learned attention to detail prevents mistakes and builds strong habits.
[00:14:45] – Safety work like brakes and suspension must be done right every time.
[00:19:10] – He pursued leadership after seeing limited growth at his first shop.
[00:28:10] – Running a fast paced oil change business became his leadership training ground.
[00:33:10] – Leadership means building culture that helps people grow and succeed.
[00:38:20] – He left his job and launched Limitless Garage from a shop at home.
[00:42:10] – He faced zoning issues and rejection before securing a commercial location.
[00:47:10] – The technician shortage comes down to culture not pay or skill level.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Hello friends. This is Jimmy Lee with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge Podcast. My guest with me today is Peter Bailey. He is the owner and operator of Limitless Garage in Des Moines, Iowa. Peter, how the heck are you, brother?
Peter Bailey: I'm doing well. Thank you for having me on.
How are you?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, fabulous. Thank you very much. It's a beautiful day outside, beautiful day. If we could be outside, it would still be a beautiful day.
Peter Bailey: Is it cold? Where you, where you at?
Jimmy Lea: Uh, yeah, I woke up, it was 19 degrees this morning.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. That's chilly. Yep. It's similar around here.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Did you guys have snow here this last week?
Peter Bailey: Not this last week. Well, a minimal amount and it didn't stick very long, so it's all gone at this point.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We had a few inches and it was gone the next day by lunch. Uh, anywhere in the shadows it's still there, but otherwise it's, it's pretty much gone.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, I, we had a small snowstorm, like a little blip come through on Saturday and it was like right as I went to the shop to pick up actually one of, uh, my pieces of equipment to take it back to my home.
And I had my boys with me. And so anyways, it was completely clean, but by the time we got it home, I had to wash again. So that was frustrating, but so good.
Jimmy Lea: So what is a little snowstorm in your book? I'm new to this cold area. I grew up in Las Vegas. I lived in St. George, Utah. I'm a desert rat, so this climate change is new to me.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: What is a small snowstorm in your view?
Peter Bailey: Oh gosh. I mean this, when I, when I was saying with snow, small snowstorm for this, it lasted all of an hour and a half. And it was done. And so the amount of snow left on the ground was, I mean, it was there, everything was white, but at the same time, we're talking like half inch at best.
So it's not much.
Jimmy Lea: No, that's not much at all. You, you barely hit mock three, driving on the street, having the stars come at you like Star Wars.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, it, it was heavy snow like coming down, but the temperature, it was still warm here on Saturday, so we were like 35 degrees or so. So by the time it hit a lot of it was melting anyways.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well let, let's talk automotive, let's talk the industry. Let's talk, uh, automotive aftermarket. Want to start Peter, at the beginning? How did you get into this industry?
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Um, so I've been in automotive now for 15 years at this point. Um, I started out actually wanting to go into the military, and so I had gone through like.
All of my testing through my asvab, through my maps and everything in preparation to go into the military, into the Marine Corps, but then was denied at the end due to a heart mur. So no process went through, tried to get a waiver for it, didn't work, and by that time it was like six or eight months of a process and I was like, I'm not doing this again.
I gotta see what plan B is. And Plan B was, I really enjoyed. Automotive. And so I was, um, yeah, I was sucked into there next, so it was going to find a shot to work for and uh, that's where it started. So I worked.
Jimmy Lea: So, so where did you, I mean, how did you get, how was even automotive a plan B for you?
Peter Bailey: That's a good question.
Growing up, um, I grew up on a hobby farm and I really enjoyed tinkering on small things. And now almost
Jimmy Lea: the ranch. Almost the farm,
Peter Bailey: yeah. Almost a farm. Yeah. So like we had small tractors, we had, you know, trucks, stuff like that. Right. Dad still worked his normal eight to five job and everything, but we, we would do everything to bailing hay, you know, and livestock.
And so I enjoyed working on the stuff around the farm and actually, of all people, I was thinking of being a farmer initially. None of my family was. And then one day we're sitting at the supper table and my sister looks at me and I was probably 16 at this point, and she goes, Peter, you don't really enjoy going out and doing all the livestock chores, but what you do seem to enjoy is fixing and maintaining all the equipment debt has.
I said, well, you're right. I hadn't really thought about that, but I do find enjoyment in that. So that kinda sparked from like 16 years old on. Then I was like working in small engine shops, so like lawnmower shops, dirt bikes, stuff like that. All the way up until I turned 18 when I moved out, and that's when the whole Marine Corps thing happened.
And then it's been history since,
Jimmy Lea: right? The Marine Corps thing happened and then didn't happen.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, it's gone.
Jimmy Lea: It's gone. Yeah. Well, and I have a daughter that's a Marine.
Peter Bailey: Oh yeah,
Jimmy Lea: yeah, yeah. So she's in Hawaii right now. Um, and then my grandfather, similar story to you. He, his was not a heart mur. He had shaky knees.
They called him, uh, crazy legs in high school. His knees were really loose. So here he got his draft notice and he was heading off to war. Oh, wow. And he had to report, so he sold his business.
Peter Bailey: Oh, wow.
Jimmy Lea: Showed up. On whatever showed up. And, uh, they, they gave him the physical and by the end of the physical they said, uh, thanks, but no thanks.
Here's your ticket. Uh, you can go, you can leave now, you can
Peter Bailey: go
Jimmy Lea: home.
Peter Bailey: That's terrible. That's a way worse story than mine.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So he, he, uh, he had sold his business. He, he went back and, uh, opened up another dry cleaning business, uh, and his wife had a daughter. Like, I mean, he was going off to the war and it was not a good thing.
But anyways, yeah, that, yeah. Lucky for him. He had shaky knees, crazy legs. Okay. So, so on the farm, you're working on everything, you're, you're really enjoying the mechanics of it all. Yeah. Thank heavens for the women in our lives that can look and see and say, Hey, you know what? You really light up when you work on.
Cars, trucks, tractors, lawn mowers.
Peter Bailey: Yep. Yep. You got it.
Jimmy Lea: You're, you're swearing at these animals. What's going on?
Peter Bailey: Just about, yeah, you're actually not too far from that. 'cause even now I got kids that wanna raise animals and we live on a small acreage now, and so like I've got some hard nose. I'm not raising that type of anil and sheep is like at the top of that.
I'm not gonna raise sheep any longer. So anyways, that's the side story. But at the same time, you're right, a hundred percent. I did not enjoy the livestock as much.
Jimmy Lea: Okay, so on the sheep thing, my brother is in Sacramento, California. Cameron Park, he has goats.
Peter Bailey: Oh, okay.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And sheep. Not sheep, I guess you can't call him sheep.
Uh, dirty Fred is, is the, the alpha male. And then there's all this, this harem that he has. Uh, and they have all these little baby. The baby goat are so cute. They're absolutely adorable.
Peter Bailey: And that's what everybody likes and they want, right? That's what my wife,
Jimmy Lea: your
Peter Bailey: daughter, right,
Jimmy Lea: until they get bigger. And then you're like, nah, no, we're done.
But he also goes through a phase where he'll raise chickens. So he has, he has 12 or 13 that he keeps for the, the normal for the good. And they lay the Easter eggs, the blues and the greens.
Peter Bailey: Cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: But he'll raise these, uh, these, the, the white chickens for the meat, a meat chicken. Um, and, and then they go through a whole food processing thing.
So for you, that's a hard, thou shalt not.
Peter Bailey: No, just certain animals. So don't get me wrong, I will still ra especially, I got kids now, I got four of 'em. So like I'm all about, I want the experiences for them. So we raise chickens, we raise ducks. Uh, my wife is all about that. I have to figure out how to keep everything clean, build it all, and then just maintain it and then she figures out what to put in there.
So yeah, somehow we ended up with 30 chickens and a couple ducks and yeah, it's not a small thing anymore.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, he's not a small thing. Oh, that is so rad. He has a, uh, oh, what does he call it? Uh. Oh, it's like a clucking to, it's a chicken, chicken chickshaw that he can move around the property.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: And he has this, uh, electric fence that goes around with the, the chickshaw and the chickens are scratching the ground and fertilizing the ground and,
Peter Bailey: yeah.
We used to refer to 'em as chicken tractors. You'd move 'em around, you'd pick it up and you pull it. You know, you move 'em around. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yep,
Peter Bailey: yep,
Jimmy Lea: yep.
Peter Bailey: Very familiar. I don't have that for mine, unfortunately. They are confined to, they have a nice outdoor run in pen. It's very large. However, I like my yard as well, and so everything that's going to be kept will be kept nicely, so they would currently stay off of it.
So yes. Well,
Jimmy Lea: there you go. There you go. We'll have to trade chicken stories. Next time we get together, make sure I tell you about Ru Ru from a different brother, Ru Ru Rooster. Yeah, that's a story for another day. So here, working on the tractors, you are working on the farm. The Marines doesn't work out.
Where's the first shop that you step into that you're now cutting your teeth and getting paid? Not just food room and board, but this is real money.
Peter Bailey: Yep. So I started working full-time at a local independent shop here in Des Moines. Um, and I, I actually was in the process of applying for the Marine Corps when I started this job with them.
And I knew I liked automotive enough to be able to get a job in it, depending on how long it took me to get into the Marine Corps. So I took it, moved to Des Moines from Pellas where I grew up. So I moved from Pella to Des Moines, which is about an hour. Yeah. And got a roommate and. We got our first apartment and then I started doing this, um, for 40 hours plus hours a week.
Right. Working automotive. And when I say that it was, take that with a grain of salt because one of my first jobs when I started on site that. Morning. I remember the first day I started the shop owner had me filling the concrete in the parking lot with expansion foam and everything, uh, for all the cracks, expansion joint cracks.
So I filled foam and caulked like all of the cracks in their parking lot with expansion foam and joint sealant and everything. And, um, I was power washing like the outside of the building. I just remember that summer I was very tan and very burnt by the end of it, but I did, that was my intro into this is what I'm gonna do.
And then that escalated into once I not proved myself, but at the same time, once I was able to do this well. Uh, I started going into uh, do oil changes right? Then it starts to go on to, I'm gonna do brake suspension, stuff like that. And in short order then, yes, it kind of just started to fly by at that point in time.
'cause kind of back to the farm thing. My boss figured out pretty quickly, Hey, I can hand Peter a almost anything. 'cause I did everything from the caulking of the expansion joints to, I was fixing tire machines for him to, I rebuilt a carburetor on his 1950 Ford truck that he had out front for show to, like, I was kind of moving through everything at that point in time.
And then at that point he's like, all right, you're gonna start working on cars. Here's what we're gonna do.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. So, and, and it's true. The, the farm boys, they're, they're hard workers. They're smart. They figure it out that there's usually not a manual or a guidebook, but they figure it out, right?
Peter Bailey: Yep, yep.
You got it.
Jimmy Lea: So here you are. He, he's handing you all these jobs to test your, your, your muster to see if you're gonna survive. Are you coming back tomorrow or are you done?
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And you kept coming back, so
Peter Bailey: Oh, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Congrats to you for keep coming back. You went from facility maintenance.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: And, and then into the automotive industry.
Peter Bailey: Yep. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And, and that's awesome that you did. I mean, what a, what a road in. So here you I, did you have any formal training or is this still all hard knocks?
Peter Bailey: Yeah, I had zero formal training at that point in time. The only closest formal training I would've had would be working in a mower shop on like small, like lawnmower engines.
And I got to work next to a tech that did that. But, so like the fundamentals, but everything else I had learned just from trial and error or watching people or being willing just to talk, go talk to people and ask questions.
Jimmy Lea: Dude, that is, that's amazing. So that is awesome. Alright, so how long are you at this first shop?
Peter Bailey: Yeah, I was there nine years. So I spent a good stint there. Um, and I went from where I told you all the way to by end of year one I was entering into like I could do. Suspension, brake oil changes all your light maintenance and suspension work, um, to alignments. And at that point I was like, Hey, um, I'm ready to dive into this full fledged, like what can I do next?
And then at that point in time, I had found General Motors, their ASEP degree through our local college. And um, at that point I reached out to them and. Wanted to go into the program there. So normally there's a waiting list, at least here in Des Moines. There was a waiting list at that point in time. It was what, 2012 at that point?
Some 2012 or 2013 at that point. And there's normally a waiting list. So I remember going in and meeting with the director of, um, that, of the automotive, um, education there. And he. Walked through everything with me, and at that point I'd worked a year in the shop and this shop was AC Delco affiliated already, so I, I already had the in with that so my shop could sponsor me and I go to school.
So I immediately took up that and started the very next semester and dove in on that two year degree. And then I did my, I did my GM ACEP degree at that point from, and I graduated 2014. That would've been, um, from asap.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congratulations. That's phenomenal. Yeah. What in, in that first year or in that first two or three years that you were working at this first shop?
Mm-hmm. What's something you learned there that still rings true today, that's advice that you stand tall on, that you learned in that first year?
Peter Bailey: That's a good question. Um, I would say that. The thing that I took away the most was attention to detail on everything that I did. So what really quickly started happening was whether it was pulling apart major repairs or whether it was even minor stuff, everything that went back together, you will. I would catch mistakes before they ever happened.
If I could pay enough attention to detail throughout it as soon as I started just going into, um. Just automated repairs and I'm not thinking about it, then mistakes start to happen. So it was that, along with, I worked next to an older mechanic there and, um, he left during the stint that I was there the whole nine years.
But during the beginning of it, one of the things that rang true to me that he taught me was, um, when working on vehicles, anything that has to do with an, let's say specifically in the engine compartment. If something's messed up in there and it breaks while a customer has it really realistically, one of the worst things that's gonna happen is unfortunately they're stranded on the side of the road, right?
Let's say the engine completely quits and fails. It's not gonna blow up and cause immediate harm. However, they'll have to get off to the side of the road. However, if you're working on suspension, tires, anything like that. You can't mess up, that's like a no go because you've got people's lives at risk at that point in time.
So brake, suspension, tires, anything that has to do with that. So everybody that I have through the shop at this point in time, all my text is basically continuing to ring true with, of like when anything leaves here, it cannot have an issue with any of those components.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that. Yeah. The attention to detail, especially in those critical areas, break shocks, strut.
Tires.
Peter Bailey: Oh yeah.
Jimmy Lea: It is huge. Yeah, absolutely. That's, you don't mess around there. So when, when you have your technicians working on cars and they are, are, are, um, let's see, tightening down a, a tire or wheels onto back onto the car and they use their torque wrench, do you have a second person come over and qc their work to make sure that it's torqued to the right?
Peter Bailey: We have an initial phase where we will do that. So like in the first, depending on the length of the technician being there, within the first six months, like I had a very new technician that we had here that was 18 years old. Everything we called qi, so quality inspections, everything that left and even before we started vehicles, after oil changes, we would qi his work.
So nothing started without oil. Nothing's left an oil filter off. No wheels are not torqued to your point. So we have those put in place, but then a couple of the other, um. Processes that we have in place, especially even for the more knowledgeable techs, including myself, is that if anybody's doing tires, it's a no-go.
You don't ask questions at that point in time. You go come interrupt people at that time. You have to complete that part of the repair before you can move on and do anything. So you can't leave, uh, torque wrench, stuck on a wheel and go do something else. No. You complete that before. So anybody that comes back should have a question in their mind.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. That's so important. So important. Okay, so you're at this shop for nine years.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Working your way up. You got your, uh, AC certification.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Then what, what's next?
Peter Bailey: So through that was GMAC to your point. I did a, my a c exams as well. I worked then for about five, the five years after that, remaining in that shop, and it worked up through heavy repair.
Pulling motors out, transmissions, all the way to then a lot of dag. I ended that, my career stint there with a ton of diag. I was helping to teach some dag in it, um, as well as, um. Help assist in the office as well. So I did a lot then moving into service advising. So I learned how to service right? I learned how to talk to customers in this job.
I learned how to open and close the shop. I learned how to do everything I could while there. And um, I had the opportunity at the end then to kind of talk, discuss with the owner where the shop was headed and what his intentions were and. When I got to the end of that, the stint there, really what just pushed me to end up finding another w another job was that hey, he had his plans for the shop, where they wanted, where he wanted to go, staying in the family.
And I respected that. That was great. Um, it just was, that was the end of my, where I wanted to go with that section of being an automotive tech. I knew that wasn't the end for me, so I needed to find what was next.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congrats. I mean, that's, and that's a hard conversation to have with somebody to say, Hey, uh, what's the plan with the shop?
And to find out, um, it's gonna stay in the family. But congrats to you for having that conversation. There's so many that don't.
Peter Bailey: Sure, yeah, that's true. Uh, there's a lot of people that don't. Right. But then at the same time, I don't, nobody wants to overstep their boundaries. So you have to have it in a respectful way, right?
When you're gonna have that conversation. Everything is open, I think, for a question. However, you have to respect the answer you're given. And then that was pretty much my takeaway at that point. It's like, Hey. That's great. You have a plan. I'm, I'm probably not part of this plan, and for that reason, I hopefully respect on both sides and I'm gonna move on.
And my next mission at that point in time was I wanted to enter leadership. Like my ultimate goal was I just wanted to lead. I wanted to know how to lead people. How to make processes, how to get to the next stage. 'cause at that point, actually I was still, I still wasn't interested in owning a shop as much as I was in leading, managing, and, uh, being able to help make calls on a higher level at a shop.
So my next venture or my next stage was anything that had to do with leadership and of all things that I wanted to do initially I took a, like a 180 again and I went to, I want to think about law enforcement. I wanna do law enforcement, or I want to do something that has to do with that. Um, 'cause I wanna learn how to help others, but at the same time lead a different group of people.
And, uh, so I started that venture. I was still at that shop. I let the owner know and he was, he was just fine with it. It was like, Hey, I'm gonna look for my next. Career path and I think it might be in law enforcement. And I spent almost two years, 'cause that was, that would've been a seven year mark for me.
But I spent almost two years trying to get into a law enforcement agency somewhere only to keep getting denied for, and I was never given a reason, to be honest, each time 'cause it's. It can be fairly political, but at the same time, some of it also can be, uh, just the needs of that agency at that time being.
So, like in Des Moines, we've got multiple different departments that I'd end up going to and um, I tried probably four or five. I ended up actually ending that stint of looking. When going through the Border Patrol. So I ended the stint by going through the border patrol's process all the way through being interviewed by Homeland Security, going through multiple polygraphs with them and everything like that.
Um, at the end, again, I was denied for I again, and a reason that I never got a good answer for. Um. I'm a guy that I think likes to follow up, but at the same time I'd call, you know, Hey, gimme some feedback. What can I do differently? 'cause I'm sure this is what I want. And uh, it was very vague, uh, gray areas.
And so I'm a Christian at that point in time. I'm like, there's gotta be something different because I'm getting shut down. There's something out there that has a higher. I have a higher calling for. So,
Jimmy Lea: amen. Amen. And I, I fully agree. I understand. Uh, God is in charge and this is his way of saying, all right, da da Peter, stay here.
Stay here. Wait. Nope. There's gonna be something better. There's gonna be, gotta trust me.
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And in the moment we're thinking, what the heck? What am I doing wrong?
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: How come I'm being denied? I mean, two years is a long time.
Peter Bailey: It was
Jimmy Lea: for you to be going down this path, having a goal, seeking this goal, pursuing the goal, and be denied the goal.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, it felt like eternity, obviously when you're in sitting in it. And I had, I mean, I have the most supportive wife ever. 'cause at that point in time, we had a small kid who was less than a year old, our oldest at this point. And um, anyways, I remember driving to Minnesota with them to go like, Homeland Security, you have to drive.
Like Missouri, they had a headquarters, Minnesota, they had a headquarters. I had to go between those. It's not long drives, like five hours or so, but she'd come with me on some of those. We'd stay overnight in hotels, we'd, we'd do the whole thing and then I'd get. I get knocked down again. It's like, all right, am I gonna do this?
And I try a couple more times until at the end I was like, ah, this is, there's something else. I've gotta try something else.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. Okay. So, so you finally throw up your hands and you say, all right, Lord, you're in charge. I get it. Where do you need me?
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: So what's next? You, you're denied by the border patrol?
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Did they, did they ever say, oh, by the way, it's your heart murmur?
Peter Bailey: No. I, I had so many, so Border Patrol was one of 'em, and I ran into some issues, which I thought was going to be that. Um, but I remember calling in, they. They had at that point in time, they had what they called an expediting program. And it was 90 days compared to six months.
It was done in 90 days. And, but you had to be on the call at that point twenty four seven to do whatever they asked you to do in the next step of the process. And so I immediately elected to do it. Okay. I was like, do it. I'm gonna do whatever you asked. So I remember getting the call at 8:00 PM one night and they're like, Hey, we have an O opening all of a sudden for your medical exam, but you have to be onsite 9:00 AM tomorrow.
And you have to be able to be off. Most of the day. So I call my boss up and I'm like, Hey, I know this is the last minute. Can you make this work? If not, I'm gonna have to find a different way, but they're gonna drop me from this program. And he said, all right, we'll make it work. And I said, all right. So I headed out, I go to this medical exam and they find the same thing.
The heart remember thing, right? And they're like, oh, you haven't had an exam in the past six years on this. We need to have an exam. And so at that point, like I'm talking to this doctor who's doing it, and like, I'm going through all these loopholes. I'm like, have you tried this? Have you thought of this?
Have you done this? I remember leaving the exam office running to my doctor or establishing a new doctor nearby that I had met a couple times, getting a good relationship with him within the course of a couple hours, asking him how quickly can we do another assessment on me? He's like, okay, within 24 hours we can figure this out.
Like. I did an extensive amount of just hopping around all to bring it back to them. I made it through the medical part, but to that point, like the amount of loopholes that I had to jump through just to try to get to the ending where I did it was. Amazing. It was crazy, but it was a lot of just making, it was making friends really quickly and starting to ask for favors.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, for sure. There. Yeah. You're having to make a lot of friends very quickly in that situation.
Peter Bailey: The Border Patrol, I would say that was an interesting one that I got sent on the track of in from the automotive industry. I talked to, I was at Vision Conference in Kansas City and I talked, I remember going to, uh, it was, I went to a class with my boss at that time it was called Robots on the Road, and it was all about autonomous vehicles.
And I talked to that person at the end 'cause they were somehow affiliated with Homeland Security at that point. And I talked to him about my interest and he said, have you thought about border patrol? Because if you went to the coast anywhere and you had to. Be able to, um, inspect vehicles coming in off the coast on ships and stuff.
With your automotive industry, you'd be able to tell if there's anything abnormal in the vehicle, if people are trying to smuggle things, anything like that. And you could be valuable for that. So that sent me down the border patrol thing and I was fully committed to, if they wanted me, I was gonna, I was gonna move, I would go out to whatever coast I needed to to make this work.
But yeah, it was an interesting one.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, there, there again, you got the maker standing up there saying, whoa, hold on. Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. Right here, right here, right here. I I, we've got a better path for you. So you going through all of this to get to the point where, what's next?
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Now what You, you, but you're coming home from the border patrol final denial.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, I went, so I was told no. Um, yeah, there's a backstory behind that, but I was told no, and immediately I remember. We went to church the next Sunday, or two Sundays after that. And I had a guy that I had met a couple times come up to me and he, he was, he's a partner at, um, he is a partner at a business here in town and he does very well.
But anyways, he came up to me and he said, Hey, I know you're in the automotive and I know you had these goals. Um, have you considered reaching out to one of my friends that I know that owns a. He owns, he's in the automotive and he, he was very vague. He's like, he owns, um, a shop here or a couple shops here.
And I know that the son who was one of my employees in the past is looking to come back, be the CEO for this company. And he needs good people. I know. And I remember he, I tell him, yeah, I, I'd be interested. It's an automotive again, but let's do it. I just want something in leadership. And he said, okay. So I remember standing there actually with my family and he is a very charisma guy.
He's, he's awesome. He's all high energy and he is like, Hey, uh, let me take a photo of you guys real quick and I'm gonna shoot a text over to my, my, uh, friend, uh, who's this, who used to be my employee, and I'll see what he says. So he shot a text. Well, within like 24 hours, this guy was texting me and he is like, Hey, can we set up an interview?
Can you send me a resume? And so I remember writing out a resume out resume. Um, I was boarding an airplane when he sent me that. Um, uh. Text message I remember. So I remember sitting on an airplane, typing up my resume, finishing it all, sending it to him, and then meeting with him. And at that point he was coming actually back from the job that he was working in prior to the company his dad owned, which was in automotive.
Well, I met with him and I found out this company, it's quick loop. It is oil changes and it's a local, oh
Jimmy Lea: gosh.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. It's a local company that does oil changes. And I'm like, oh, well. So I sat in this, I sat in this interview with him and we probably spent two and a half hours in an interview as he went through all this stuff with me.
Um, come to find out this. Wasn't any oil change place that I had ever been aware of. Um, and they're in town, they're a local company that's family owned still, and they were, had two stores and they were looking to start their third and they needed a general manager for their third. But this oil change place, Ankeny, which is just up the road from me, their biggest store was there and they would process upwards of 250 cars a day if.
If like during a round holiday season and on normal we'd be, they'd be somewhere around 180 to 200 at that place. So like a ton of volume, like this was not normal. It's crazy. So I went,
Jimmy Lea: that's a lot of oil changes.
Peter Bailey: That's nuts. Tire rotations, they do some fluid services, mostly oil changes. That's their bread and butter.
And I remember thinking about it. Then he said, come out for a day, just work in the shop for a day with, uh, his brother at that time was an ops manager. So I went out and worked with his brother and, um, come to find out, I was like, well, this would be a place I could learn leadership and interviewing skills if I really wanted to, but do I want to do it?
And they shot me an offer, and it was more than I was making at that time, uh, in automotive as a mechanic or anything. And I said, okay, I'm gonna give this a shot. They, their idea was they wanted to put me as a general manager. For their Walkee location, just west of town here. When they opened it, which is their third location, I said, all right, let's do this.
So I signed on with them and I got the most amount of calls I've ever received from all the people in automotive that I knew, like from, I initially told my boss, but it was all because it's like. Forbidden sin to go from automotive repair where we really pride ourselves right. To anything that has to do with quick lube.
'cause quick lube has a terrible wrap to it. You gotta,
Jimmy Lea: oh yeah. They, they skim the top, they take all the gravy. They, they're gonna go in and do the air filters and the windshield wipers and they
Peter Bailey: do shoddy work. Right. And they, they don't tighten drain plugs and you end up with lawsuits and all that sort of stuff.
So I was like, all right.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Peter Bailey: I'm fully aware of this, but if this is what I, if I wanna learn leadership, like I can do it here. I think, 'cause these stores, they would be equipped with about 25 to 28 people per store that you had to be able to lead. So there's quite a few people in the store.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Peter Bailey: Everything from your managers to your assistants to your employees. Um, cut me off if I'm going too long on any of this, so just let me know. But in any case. I started working for them and I started learning to be a general manager. Uh, within about six months, the CEO who had hired me had, was, had joined at that point in time, and he.
Came to the shop that I was working at a couple times and he'd come every week and then eventually he is like, Hey, Peter, I, you've been working, I see your eth work ethic and everything. Would you consider going to lunch with me? And so I went to lunch with him a couple times. And then at that point he, he's like, Hey Peter, you have the automotive knowledge.
You're the subject matter expertise is here. Um, and his brother, who was the ops manager for the whole company at that point in time, stepped down and said, Hey, I'm gonna do something different. And he left the company altogether. And so the CEO comes to me and he goes, Hey Peter, can you, can you be an ops manager?
Do you think you could do this? And I said, well, absolutely. I think I could do this. And I jumped into that fee first. Then at that point, I was in their AIM store. I jumped into ops manager and um. It was like a convergence of all of your leadership changing over in a very, it's a small business, granted, right.
We're under $12 million at this point. Um, but you have like 50 plus people. 'cause we had two stores and everything had hit the fan at one time. I remember. And having to just figure out how do you keep two stores open that are doing roughly. I don't know. Again, we're doing maybe 8 million at that point in time between the two stores.
Okay. How do you keep all of this running and still working while the owner's there? The CEO's there next to you and I'm the ops manager and I'm trying to keep everything pulled together. 'cause at that point we had a general manager and Ames, our ames store, quit ops manager, quit in store manager and it's all 'cause of leadership turnover at that point.
So I'm just, I'm watching all this go down. I'm like, ah, this is making sense. I know why this is happening. People are. Worried about their future. They're frustrated with leadership turnover. What's happened for the past five years is no longer happening. So all this happens, and I remember having a lot of conversations with the CEO, but then just starting to dig into, like, I listened to every podcast on leadership I could find.
I read every book I could find on it, and then I started just talking to people and I. Was there to help try to build it back up. So I stepped in in Ames for a brief amount of time, found a general manager, played that role, found a general manager, put him in the store, trained him in the store, turned down the Ankeny store, did similar thing to there with them.
Um, and I stayed with that company for almost four years. Trying to learn this. And I, I learned it at the end, but that's where I cut my teeth in leadership of I figured out I can work 90 plus hours a week if I need to and I won't die. I know how to try to manage a home life and a business at the same time.
And also I went through some difficult conversations with. Owners and the CEO as well, both of which had come from corporate backgrounds. And I didn't on how to, how do I speak to these people? How do I gain their respect and trust? And at the same time, how can I sit in a room full of owners and CEOs and hold my own and not let everything hit the fan and get flustered?
So it was a great learning experience.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it sounds like it. I mean, you, that was the, uh, uh, refiner's fire. You stepped right into it and it was on full blast, full furnace. Sounds like you stepped into a, a, a landmine, uh, just from day one. Everything was blowing up right around you.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Okay,
Jimmy Lea: so I have a question for you.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: What does leadership mean to you? Now that you've been through all this, you've had all these experiences, you've read all these books, you listened to all these podcasts, you've had four years, you're working the corporate, you work in the private. What does leadership mean to you?
Peter Bailey: It is a generalized question.
I mean, that's a super broad question, but at the same time, um. I think leadership takes different appearances depending on the stage that you're at in the company or business and the business's lifespan. But at the same time, just in general, leadership is being able to cultivate culture inside of a business that's going to thrive and people enjoy and they get to the next level, and at the same time you can.
Use the efforts from those people to continue building a business to the next level. Right. But when I was doing this all for this last place and what I'm doing right now, everything is centered around culture at this point. 'cause if I don't get, if I don't have people that are happy to work, that are interested in working, that I can't continue to put push into, I'm lost because I can't do this myself.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. It it is so true. And people don't leave a job because it's a bad job. They leave a job because of poor leadership.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Poor leadership normally, or Yeah. The people that are in leadership, so you're right. Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Poor management. Uh, yeah. That, that's why people are leaving their jobs and, and searching for fulfillment somewhere else.
Peter Bailey: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I agree a hundred percent. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: So you were there for four years and now you are limitless garage. Yeah. After the, so talk about that transition of going from the, the corporate quick lube into independent auto repair.
Peter Bailey: So by about
Jimmy Lea: back into auto repair.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. By about year middle of year three at this job with oil changing and everything.
Um. I figured out pretty quickly, like once I had established what work ethic I want to have and what we're capable of, once I had experienced that, I'll be honest, once I had experienced that with my wife currently as well, so that she knew like what this took. I mean, there were days that I'd leave at three 15 in the morning and I would not be home until after 11 at night.
I remember days where I would work that extensive of a day and she would figure out, and she'd be more than happy to continue supporting me as her Hu as her husband. And that was groundbreaking for me. So once we had established that we were a team, this is what we wanted to do. And at that point I was like, I, I can make this work.
I can make a business work. 'cause I went from that. Being able to work those hours to being able to. To put people in place, train people in place, and see the progression to get me to work six hours in a day. So it's like, okay, I know how to do this. If I can train in the right areas. And I'll be honest at this point, now that I've gone through it and I'm, I'm not super old by any means, so I have a lot to learn, I'm sure.
But at the same time, once I'd figured out I could do that, um, at this point in my life, like it's not 'cause I don't wanna work. I really do enjoy working, but I still enjoy cars and people and all that sort of stuff. However. I wasn't confident unless I knew that I could make the business successful, even without me, that I could make this work.
So by about middle of year three, I was like, I know I can make this successful without me. And if that's the case, I know how to get there. I want to do it myself now. And that started sparking the conversation with my, with my, um, with the CEO and my boss at that point in time where I was like, 'cause I moved from operations manager then to director of ops right underneath him.
And, um, I started hiring ops managers and general managers and starting to tweak the business in certain areas and processes. And at that point I was like, Hey, I'm ready to do this myself, and I think that this is a good time for me to exit. I've got some great people that are surrounding me and I think that you would be well off without me, but at the same time, respectfully, this is something.
I had the potential and I told him earlier, I had the potential of doing and I'm back to it. And so of course, initially that started a full course press on, let's keep Peter and Yeah, that it's great. It's, it's flattering to be honest, right? Anytime it happens. But at the same time, my mind was made up at that point.
Uh, so I gave, um. Several months notice, a six month notice I started, we started telling people that Peter's leaving and here's who's taking his place in these areas and training and everything to like, I remember the last week, just not really having much to do. 'cause I had trained, at that point in time, I was reviewing, I was making sure everything's happening and it's like.
Let's make this a very easy handoff. Nobody should know that Peter's gone. Um, everything should be handled and when I step out, it's seamless. Um, and I like to hope that that was very close to what happened at the end. So I stepped out and I remember this was May 27th, 2024. Was my last day at that shop, and I remember going home and that was a, oh gosh, it was like a Wednesday or Thursday, I don't remember now.
I remember going home and for the next, then proceeded to be the next three months. All it was was renovating a pole barn on my property to try to get ready to become a shop where I could just start outta my own barn because I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure what my clientele was going to be yet, but I had my vision put in place my LLC at that point.
I had a lot of that stuck out or put together, but I didn't have what I was sure was gonna be limitless garage yet until I had finished that first building. And so I spent the first two or three months finishing the building and opening then officially in July. Well, it wasn't even three months, I guess, right?
I spent all of the Es of May, June, the beginning, parts of July before I opened in July then.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. Wow. Congratulations. And so you, you opened your shop in your barn on the, on the property. And how long were you in there and how many did, did you have employees? How many did you have?
Peter Bailey: I did it all right. It's a, it's a typical business startup, right?
You know, especially in automotive. It's like, I'm gonna do it all. Like I am all my hats. And honestly, at the very beginning, I knew it immediately. I was like, this is not sustainable, but I'm gonna make it happen just to get the cash, just to be able to get to the next spot. So I say that right? We look at May 27th, 2024.
That's not that long ago. I look at where I'm at right now. That's
Jimmy Lea: a heartbeat to go, dude. That's, that's really barely almost, it's almost two years ago, but really you're like a year and a half ago.
Peter Bailey: So now we're sitting, I mean just bringing you up to here, but now I'm sitting in my office here at the shop.
We have a little over 5,000 square foot shop at this point in time. I've got multiple employees. We just built our lounge out and I'm a little love talking to you about them, but. The inception of that, I started at the shop. I started initially, I'll be honest, I live in Mitchellville or right outta Bondy in Iowa.
And I'm like 20 minutes from a metro area. From the metro area. So nobody wants to come out and visit me unless they know me and they just wanna support me. So initially, right off the bat, like I built my Google profile and I just shouted out there, I'm like, everything is free pickup and delivery. I'll come to your house.
I'll pick it up. Just tell me what you got and let's get going. Bye. From July 4th, well, from, it was July 12th. From July 12th until the end of October. By that point, I could not keep up with what I had, and so I hired my first employee at the beginning of November and I remember vetting him, interviewing him.
I was like, this is like, I, at that point, I had interviewed over 300 people and I'd filled like 185 positions at my previous company. I was like, I'm very familiar with this. Let's start my interviews. Start my interviews. Found a guy, guy. He joined me. Um, and we started together in my shop and he was coming out to my shop.
Very close there. That's November. Uh, my neighbor calls me in to the county and says, Hey, there's this guy doing commercial work on a residential area. And I'm, I'm literally out in the middle of nowhere, but I have a fairly close neighbor. He was not happy about it. So then the county shows up at my door, gives me a notice.
I made friends very quickly with the county. Uh, they were great guys at the end. They gave me several months notice to make this happen. Richard was like, 30 days get out. I was like, no, I, I can't do that. Gimme something. So they gave me until January. Um, and so then I just started my, my process of finding a facility to rent and to lease 'cause I didn't have another option, like where do I find something to lease?
So I visited, oh man, half a dozen to a dozen different areas with my real estate agent, which I'm calling up then people from my past employer that I did real estate with. It's like, Hey, help me find a place to lease. And I remember going around to all these, and it's hard to lease for automotive in like a flexible space.
They don't wanna lease to repair, right? 'cause they don't know who you are. You're gonna keep a trash heap. What are you gonna do? So I remember I got shut down again like multiple times. I remember trying to sign leases four to five to six times with these people and that nobody wanted to do it because automotive.
So at the end I got really desperate and I'm like, I'm not stopping unless I've tried everything. I remember talking to people trying to find the owner of these buildings so that I could call them, and I found several of 'em. I called their cell phones. I finally got phone. Left them messages, texted them and said, just call me back because I want a lease.
Your building, and I think you're gonna be really impressed with what I have and I really want to, I wanna buy you over. And I had a couple that called me back. You fast forward until January, December 20, right before Christmas. I signed the lease for this place before I had to be out January 1st.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Talk about cutting it close, brother. Oh my gosh.
Peter Bailey: I signed the lease and I walked my employee, uh, in here with my wife and his wife actually came as well. I'm like, here's our new shop. I remember holding up the keys and we got a picture of us holding the keys to our shop, and um, I was like, here's where it's gonna happen.
And 5,000 square feet of open space feels like a lot. Initially I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna fill this, but we're gonna fill it together and, uh, uh,
Jimmy Lea: feet, it's full.
Peter Bailey: Oh my gosh, yes. So we start there and then I start with all of kind of, I mean even just what you see here in my office, but then it's logoing and moving everything over and having a moving party, which included all my brothers are coming over with, you know, the farm equipment and everything.
So yank hoists out and to put 'em on flat beds and everything over here and toolboxes. And then, uh, my first employee and I started here and by March of that year I had to find another guy 'cause we were buried again. So March we hired our next guy. Um, and then it happened again. By June, we were destroyed again, and I had to find another guy.
And this time it had to be a service writer. Wow. And I hired a service writer then. Um, and so then by this past November we were bordering that again, but that's kind of where I pulled the. The, the thing in the back pocket where it's like, Hey, I know how to work these hours and I'm concerned about what's January and February gonna be like.
'cause normally it can be slow. So that's when it's just kicking to high gear. And that's where I'm working late nights trying to figure out, 'cause now going into first quarter here, we're looking for another guy. I need a nice, I need a good tech at this point in time to be able to get to get things.
Jimmy Lea: You're going for your third tech.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Yep.
Jimmy Lea: So does this mean that you, as an owner now, you're able to put down the wrench and go into the office and now work on the business rather than always in the business?
Peter Bailey: Not yet. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Not yet. Okay.
Peter Bailey: Not yet.
Jimmy Lea: Keep going.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. So even now I still can't do that a hundred percent.
And. Is by design a lot. And I, like I said, I do enjoy working. Um, I en I enjoy the pieces of it as well, um, in the shop still diagnosing cars. 'cause that was my backbone initially was just, I could diag cars. I, I mean, I was learn, I, I knew scopes, I knew a lot of this stuff and I really enjoyed it. So now it's, it's teaching a lot and getting my guys up to speed of like, Hey, here's what we need to be doing.
Here's how we die at cars. Even if you knew automotive initially, here's what, how I want it done right. Um, in my, in, in my mind, true leadership and delegation and teaching anybody. This is not a one 60 day plan. This is not a 90 day plan. This can be six months to get somebody to where I want them to be at.
'cause by the time I'm done teaching them, I better be very confident that they're gonna do the things that I want the right way. They're gonna have their own style and technique, but at the same time. I'll be honest. Dave Ramsey says it really well. I don't follow necessarily all Dave Ramsey's stuff, but at the same time I think delegation from him.
That booklet is amazing because it does teach you if you have a Ferrari and you, you don't immediately hand the keys to your kid and say, you go take my car and drive. Right? If you want them to be able to drive the car, you start with, they ride in the passenger seat next to you while you drive, right?
Then you move to, hey. You sit on my lap and we'll drive around the block together and I'm gonna teach you how. Then we morph to, I'm gonna sit in the passenger seat while you drive. Then we finally get to the spot where, okay, you can take it for an hour and you drive to finally, okay, I'm confident. Hands you the keys.
Go drive. You got this right. Delegation. It's a, it's a art in my opinion, and it takes time and I'm not rushing through this. So if I'm gonna build it to make it last, it's gonna last. And I've got a, I got a plan to be able to do that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congrats. Congrats. So you are deep in the, the neck of, uh, finding a new technician, a, a third technician right now.
Peter Bailey: Yep. Correct.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. So if you're listening. Give, give Peter a call. He's ready for you.
Peter Bailey: Hundred percent. Yeah. We're ready for you. And I think we've got something here that you're not gonna find anywhere else. But um, I think that the piece there of like finding another tech, 'cause all. A lot of, every, a lot of people are hearing right now, right?
We're at a shortage of good techs, right? It's all over the industry. It's been over the industry for a long time. Um, it is the way it is, uh, and all these theories out there of what's causing it, right? Why aren't people wanting to do trades, all that sort of stuff. Um, I think that that gives me a great opportunity, if you're okay with me saying this.
But in my opinion right now, the shortage of automotive attacks, um. In my opinion, it's not because of flat rate, it's not because of pay. It's not because of it's hard work and nobody can learn this. Um, it goes back to leaders and culture a hundred percent. Because if you come into my shop and you look at what I have here, um, if you look at me and where I came from, I played Australian football.
Through college. I'm an avid view musician. I play violin. I played it for 25 years. At this point in time, I have all these things that I really enjoy, but if you, if you get down to the roots of it, it's just basically, I really enjoy a challenge and I enjoy being able to figure things out and cars was a great way to do it.
But if the culture isn't there, I'm not, I'm not staying probably as a tech. I now have like one of my best technicians out here right now that's learning still, and he's a music grad. He came from, he got he, he came from his music degree and getting that to now an automotive and being like one of the best technicians I've ever seen, and it's all because of his attention to detail.
How well he, he, he's designed to read and to be able to absorb information and put it into practice, and he does a phenomenal job at it. And so when I look at like, how am gonna find my next tech, yes, I need, I need an A level tech. But at the same time, I'm very, I'm committed to being able to train that person if I need to.
But right now what I want is the person who has the character traits and qualities that may not even be an automotive. I wanna pull them in because yes, the pay is there. Yes, the hours are there, everything like that. But I got a culture and I've got guys, and I've got a shop that they would be interested in and a vision that I think I could gain their trust on.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I, I agree. I agree. Yeah. The pay is there, the work is there, the hours are there. And what's awesome and amazing about this, the automotive industry and, and your culture, your culture is so important. It, the, the amazing thing about us in the automotive industry is, uh. The, uh, the, the instant gratification, the, the instant feedback, the instant sense of fulfillment where you took something that was broken, took it apart, put it back together, and now it's fixed.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That is so fulfilling for so many people. They, they don't even know how fulfilling it is.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Oh yeah, I a hundred percent. And I mean, yeah, that process along with you, you sprinkle in like just the inherent challenge of finding all those pieces. And it's not an easy process necessarily, but you gotta head on your shoulders and you're willing to think and think outside the box.
Like it is awesome. You can't beat it.
Jimmy Lea: I totally agree. Hey, so when I tell you about Rru the Rooster, we'll talk music backgrounds as well. I'm not from the violin. I'm not orchestra, but I'm from the band.
Peter Bailey: There we go. Oh, I love it. That's
Jimmy Lea: great. Yeah. Pet band, jazz band. Symphonic band. Uh, ensemble band, uh, honor bands.
Yeah. So we'll, we'll have us a jam session.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, exactly. That'd be a blast.
Jimmy Lea: Oh wood Peter. That's awesome. It's amazing. Congrats on your journey. Congrats on creating a culture where people wanna be there.
Peter Bailey: Thank you. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And you are you. You are an attraction. People are being attracted to your business.
Yeah. And thanks. Thanks for listening to the Man Upstairs who kept patting you left, patting you right, patting you left, patting you. Right. Keeping you on that straight and narrow. So you could get to this point where Limitless Garage is an icon there in Des Moines, Iowa. People want to come to you, they want to bring their cars to you.
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, limitless Garage and even like, you see the logo behind me a little bit and everything like that. But at the same time, um, everything we built, uh. Like we said, I do like cars. I do like a challenge. However, in automotive, in the repair business and in the company that I'm building, um, hospitality and experience is the heart of the shop.
So we've formalized ourselves around being a concierge, automotive repair shop with facility. So everything we do is with. Intention, but to feel, have a high-end luxury feel to it, but still staying within the budget and the, the budget of what people are used to in the automotive industry. So I'm not, I'm not the highest of highs and not the lowest of lows, but at the same time, I'm creating an experience and that I think is what draws a lot of my customers in.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. Peter, I'll, I'll say that you're not the highest of the highs. You're not the lowest of the lows, but you are the best of the best.
Peter Bailey: You got it. That's, that would be the hope and that'd be the dream as we continue to try to make it happen.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congratulations bro. That, that's awesome. So what is the future?
Where are you going from here? You've got a service advisor, two techs. You're looking for a third.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Then what,
Peter Bailey: um, obviously continued, continued growth for the business altogether. Um, I have mapped out. So far, uh, three different phases I'd like the business to go through and I'm, while I'm not willing to share all of where we're headed at the same time, I would say, Hey, uh, the next spots for, uh, or the next stages for us is continuing to, the building we are in right now is a flex space building.
So. We had to do a lot of logoing, a lot of, uh, sign signage and everything like that just to make it feel at least enough for customers to come in here. Um, 'cause it's in, it's a new building. It's built in the last year and a half. So we were the first tenants in it. Um, but this building is also massive. I say massive, but it is fairly large, like it's about 25,000 square feet.
Um, and we have a small bit of it on the end here. So I'd like to continue growing, leasing out more of it as we develop and ramp up into our next several stages. So the continue, I would. This building here, I would like to have about between probably 15 and 20,000 square feet if possible, if I can fill it, um, and be able to continue building out the different, uh, pieces of the business, which is customer care.
So we have customer care and repair, right? For all the cars with li like or limitless garage. Then we've got. We're working on right now, which is all of our fleets. So we've got a fleet program, um, put together and we've started to attract large fleets that are coming in and we're doing all of their, um, we're doing all their repairs and dag and everything on.
And then the next parts are vehicle modifications and detail work. So the goal is Limitless Garage will be a one-stop shop for everything for automotive. Um, and while it may be a pie in the sky at the same time. I can make it happen. It's just a matter of taking bite-size chunks, one at a time.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congrats man.
Yeah. I love it. Uh, you're gonna build the kingdom, you're gonna optimize this one, and eventually there's gonna be a second and a third, and a fourth and a fifth. I, I see you, I see you building the kingdom, brother. That, that is phenomenal. Congratulations.
Peter Bailey: I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: If you need any help along the way.
Peter Bailey: Oh, I do already.
Jimmy Lea: We would love to help step in and, and help you out with whatever it is you need in your journey. 'cause it's, it's great to have a second set of eyes. A coach. You have a coach. Are you working with anybody right now?
Peter Bailey: Not currently, no. I've not, uh, I've not hired a chef, coach as of yet. I've had multiple people, including yourself and I, I fully believe in having a shop coach.
Don't get me wrong. Um. It's more along the lines of, while I don't know everything, I still have pieces in my mind that I have to build and get to that piece and that limit so that I'm ready for the coach and that I'm like, okay, now I'm ready to take the next step that I'm not quite sure about. Where am I going?
And that is short. That's a short amount of time before I'll be there, so we'll see.
Jimmy Lea: Oh bro. That's awesome. Are you guys head division this year?
Peter Bailey: Yeah. Yeah, we're taking the team division, so we'll be closed for a couple days, but yeah.
Jimmy Lea: We have to make sure that we connect. I'll be there.
Peter Bailey: Oh, absolutely. I love some space.
Jimmy Lea: I'm teaching my final classes on Sunday morning.
Peter Bailey: Okay,
Jimmy Lea: so Peter, we gotta get together. We gotta post up a picture of us being there together at the show.
Peter Bailey: Oh, absolutely. I'll come find you. I mean, while it's a fairly big spot, it's not that big of a place I can,
Jimmy Lea: yeah,
Peter Bailey: probably.
Jimmy Lea: It's not that big. We'll find you brother.
Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Here you are. Starting out on this journey. What advice would you have for somebody in a similar position to you that is starting their journey and starting their business?
Peter Bailey: So already committed to owning their own business. Okay. Um.
Always find enjoyment in everything you're doing and knowing that it does have a purpose and that you're building something that can be yours a hundred percent. Um, second would be, uh, there is a teetering point between. Supply and demand and you don't wanna upside upset that too far because one side you'll lose customers.
The other side, you lose people. And so you're not gonna wanna make that, you're not gonna wanna be rash on that teeter-totter effect right there. And that's probably one of the hardest things that I struggled through was. Do you hire the tech and hope for the work, or do you have the work and can't do the work, and then you hire the tech and there's a fine line to draw.
So those would be the two things. Third thing would be become obsessed with knowing all of the rules and regulations behind automotive and having your own building, because if I could go back and do it again, I probably would not have started on my property. However, I, I made it through it and I'm gonna do it differently.
Jimmy Lea: And you had to, you had to do what you had to do.
Peter Bailey: Oh yeah, you're right.
Jimmy Lea: Because the results wouldn't be what they are. Had you done anything different? So congratulations, props to you, Peter.
Peter Bailey: Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: I'm very much looking forward to seeing your success and, and being a witness of this awesomeness. Keep going, brother.
Thank you very much.
Peter Bailey: Absolutely. Thank you.

197 - Mastering Shop Communication: Turning Every Call Into Opportunity

197 - Mastering Shop Communication: Turning Every Call Into Opportunity
April 2, 2026 - 00:54:03
Show Summary:
Great communication drives shop success. This conversation shows how call tracking and AI improve performance and consistency. Real examples highlight how better language and tone increase trust and conversions. Coaching becomes easier when teams review calls together. Shops that train consistently build stronger teams and better results.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Parker Branch, Industry Coach
 
David Boyd, Founder & Ceo CallInbound
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Strong communication improves shop culture and results
[00:05:00] – Call recording builds consistency across service advisors
[00:07:00] – Reviewing calls improves coaching and accountability
[00:09:00] – Using outside calls reduces team defensiveness
[00:10:00] – AI scoring saves time and highlights issues
[00:15:00] – Remove negative words to improve conversations
[00:18:00] – Positive tone increases customer trust and conversions
[00:24:00] – Recordings resolve disputes and protect the shop
[00:29:00] – AI finds missed chances to book appointments
[00:33:00] – Consistent coaching raises performance over time
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/e694rhmVtfA
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or goodnight depending on where you are and where you're joining us from. It may be morning for you. For us, it is still Morning in Ogden, Utah. I'm at the headquarters of International Headquarters for the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and I am so excited to be here with you for this webinar.
This is to be an act interactive webinar, so find that comments button and go ahead and put in your information where you're joining us from Today. We are gonna have a, an amazing conversation with both. A highly successful shop owner and a supporting technology in this industry that helps move forward shops, that helps us to take the next step and make the next.
Step in improving our shop, our culture, our skills, our sales skills, our relationships. This is gonna be a phenomenal presentation, a phenomenal discussion as we talk about those things that are gonna help you in your shops to make it awesome and amazing. We are stream, live on Streamy Yard. We're streaming live on Streamy Yard.
We're also out there on YouTube and on Facebook. So if you're joining us from any of these locations, now's the time to put in the comments. Let us know where you're joining from. Love to give you a shout out as they come in. We'll pop those up for you. Joining me today is from a skill point and a a software in the industry.
David Boyd with inbound communication. David is awesome. We, I've known David now for many years. We've known each other. David. We even have a picture of a us being twins,
David Boyd: right? The it was a I dunno what you call the wild jacket, right?
Jimmy Lea: Yep.
David Boyd: I'm looking forward to the next time that we'll meet.
Actually just in a month, at the end of the month. I'll see you out in Pennsylvania, so I've gotta get my gear in order for that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, get your jacket and get ready for tools. That's the Tools. Trade show conference in Pennsylvania, Hershey, Pennsylvania. It's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be awesome.
Yeah. And our next Mars conference where we took the picture initially. That is gonna be in October, so put that on your calendar as well. If you're wondering where to find the dates, do what I do, and you go to the website and you look it up on, in the events for the Mars conference. Thank you, David.
Thank you for being here. I really appreciate your expertise and your awesomeness here in this industry. Thank you.
David Boyd: It's a pleasure. Thank you, Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: Joining as well is Parker Branch from Branch Automotive and Diesel. Is that right, Parker? Are you automotive and diesel?
Parker Branch: These days we just DBA as branch automotive.
Jimmy Lea: Branch Automotive,
Parker Branch: yeah.
Jimmy Lea: The most amazing jacket I have ever seen was that vision on Dan. He had a jacket that his logo lit up over the pocket.
Parker a branch Automotive was all across the back of it and it was totally lit up. It was the most amazing jacket. Parker,
David Boyd: did you
Parker Branch: sponsor
David Boyd: his wardrobe that day?
Parker Branch: He is, he's pretty daring and his wife is pretty talented in that area they took it upon themselves. He was excited to bring it out as a surprise to me and everybody else and
David Boyd: love
it.
Parker Branch: My understanding is he can change colors on the. The lighting around the logo and all that fun stuff. He can even make
Jimmy Lea: a pulse.
Parker Branch: Oh, he can make a blink and light up and so he was looking to put some moves on Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And he did, bro. He was next level. That was some awesome stuff.
I was so impressed. Not only has his wife done that for his jacket, she's also made custom t-shirts for concerts and jackets and hoodies, and they go to the concert and the logo is in response to the beat of the music, how it's flashing and s strobing. Oh my gosh. That's just some next level tech for your jacket.
Pretty crazy. Yeah. That's awesome.
David Boyd: Of all the ways you've impacted our industry, your greatest legacy may just be the jackets.
Jimmy Lea: Hey.
David Boyd: I don't know. Time will tell.
Jimmy Lea: Time will tell. I love it.
Parker Branch: You'll never be forgotten. Everybody knows the crazy hair and the awesome jackets. Love
Jimmy Lea: it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man.
You guys make me blush. I love it. I love that we are known in the industry and that we're good friends and we support each other in this endeavor, and I think it's just really a great way for us to express ourselves and our creativity and yeah, it's a lot of fun. So on that note, back to Business Parker Branch, you are a highly successful shop owner.
Your shop is doing extremely well. Not only are you a successful shop owner, you are a coach in the industry. You're coaching other shops, and you are a user of inbound communication of which is an awesome program. How do you use this program? How does it. Develop skills with your team, and then maybe even we can talk about how it develops in the culture of your team as well.
But first to, to the team and the skills. What do you see because of phone calls?
Parker Branch: Yeah, it's a great point. When we, years ago when we were trying to improve our conversions, we're getting these leads, the phones are ringing. And we're communicating with our customers. We have, four service advisors at our store here.
And so there's a challenge in that alone, having that many people and trying to keep consistency across all four advisors. And so we needed to be able to hear the conversations. And at that point in time, I didn't have, a phone system that allowed me to go, record or go back and listen and.
I don't remember where I met David, obviously somewhere that I was traveling with the institute as a client and when I discovered what David's product could do with all the recording of the phone. Calls and that it, and quite honestly, his pricing was fantastic for, it was probably an improvement at that point in time for us with better technology.
And so we, we talked with David. I was very impressed with what he had. Know at that. I don't want to get him in trouble. But at that point in time, he literally flew out here and did the installation of our phone system, came over to the house and I think had dinner, or
David Boyd: we had dinner. It was fantastic.
Got beautiful view out there
Parker Branch: and it was like, I was blown away that and I'm sure he may have grown to where he's, got team members coming out, whatever, but he really took the time to make sure we were set up. And it gave us the capability to then start listening to phone calls so that we could go back, listen to calls.
For a lot of people, a lot of us in the industry, one of the things we worry about liability and what conversation was had with a customer. And quite honestly, in the beginning, our use of his product had a lot to do with, he said she's, if a customer was like, oh, that's not what I said geez I'm sorry that there's a misunderstanding.
If you'd I can. Download our phone call and email it over to you and you can listen to it again to see what we talked about. So it was, it protected us in that facet. But back to your point, for the coaching and growth and improvement of our shop and our team and our culture and consistency, we're able to start listening to some calls.
And that was pretty awesome.
Jimmy Lea: That is cool. I like that. You can also listen to the inbound and the outbound with David's program. Yeah. Once upon a time, there was a time where call tracking was only recording the inbounds inbound phone calls, and now. With David's program, we can not only do the inbound, but we can also get the outbound as well.
So
Parker Branch: yeah, the dashboard through, from inbound is fantastic. I'm a lot better at working on a truck when it comes to a computer system than I am on the desktop here, but even myself, his system is so user friendly, the dashboard that I can get in there in less than a minute and search inbound outbound.
What extension, who had the phone call by phone number, whatever you want, you can search through that system and pull it up really easily and quickly. And from there we try to have, we'll have one-on-ones with our service advisors, little privacy and let 'em listen to some calls. We'll do some team exercises as well.
Sometimes, I'm in a gear performance group still, so I'm coached by the Institute, by Jennifer Holbert and in that Gear Performance Group. Occasionally this becomes a subject how, like we hit it from time to time 'cause we need to stay sharp. How are we handling our calls? How are we doing on converting these leads?
All of you are spending a lot of money to make the phone ring with your AdWords campaign, social media, whatever it is. How are they get asking for the appointment, getting 'em in here And they'll coach that even in our group. And so we had a session, oh, I think in the fall. And Jennifer had secret chopped all of our shops multiple times, and she brought those phone calls to our gear performance group meeting.
David Boyd: And for
Parker Branch: Jennifer, and I'll tell you what, it was painful to listen to some of the calls, but that's the reality, and what I learned from that meeting and what I brought back on that specific time. We listened to some of o our other peers from the group. We listened to their calls here at Branch Automotive.
So it wasn't, Hey Jimmy, let's listen to your call and put you on the spot and make you defensive. Or we just said, no let's use David's software. We've already pulled some of these phone calls from other stores. Let's bring 'em in here and have my four advisors critique these other calls.
And it became an exercise. And they bought in and everybody was like, oh, I should have done this, should, so it changed the narrative where it wasn't defensive. Then after that we went through and listened to some of ourselves and our own calls here from branch. And it was it set the tone to make it constructive and fun.
It kept the culture up where we didn't want people to feel like we're beating them up. But that part of it was really cool. Beyond that, David developed his capabilities to have AI scoring and listening to these phone calls and helping give feedback. That's another thing for a shop owner.
Do I have time to listen to hours of phone calls? I should take some time to do that, but yeah, it reduces the stress. Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: That's John firm busting in there with those comments. Yeah.
Parker Branch: Love it.
Jimmy Lea: Automotive down at Fort Worth.
Parker Branch: For sure. So
Jimmy Lea: thank you. Yeah. The truth, John. Yeah.
Parker Branch: Yeah. Now the ai, we get the, we get a, from the institute, we get an email every day letting us know, here was your metrics today, sales, and all the KPIs that they track.
That comes right out of our dashboard, and I have the team receiving that so everybody on the team can see it. It's not a secret and it helps everybody know how we're doing. Now we get the email from David from Inbound Daily. So that they can look at the AI scores on how phone calls were handled and.
The, it's, there may be some low scores. Sometimes it's a, it's a phone quality the call quality or whatever. It's not our fault, not a phone system issue. It's who's calling in is an issue maybe. But it really, the guys are interested now, so if they see. A lower score on a call.
They're like, what the heck is that? I'm gonna, I'm gonna go have a listen myself. So it encourages your team to investigate for themselves to see how things are going. And then we'll still follow up on that and have at least a monthly lunch and learn where we'll talk about the calls, listen to some calls.
I can't say enough about the tools. I could talk until you guys are sick of listening to me, so I'll stop a minute and let you jump in. But what a tool to make it easier to be better.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so true. I'm thinking of a shop owner's listening to this right now, and how can they start this conversation?
Maybe they have inbound, maybe they have another phone recording system. Maybe they have no phone recording system whatsoever. How can they start? They could call their competition record the phone call, right? Depending on what state you're in, you wanna check on that. But if you're using it for training purposes, you can record the call.
Record the call of your competition, sit down with your team. And play the call. Let's analyze this phone call. How can they do? What can they do to make it better? And then as a culture, as a team. We're now gonna record our phone calls and this is where you can introduce it, Parker, just like you were saying, with your shop, with your 4, 5, 6 advisors.
I know. Sorry. It's just four. With your four advisors, you're able to listen to each other and can help each other grow. And what a phenomenal program with Jennifer to allow you to listen to other shops. I, that's phenomenal. I love that. I love that. That's very good. And there was another way I was gonna go down another road or the shop owner that's wanting to start with this.
How can they start? That's the way to start,
Parker Branch: right?
Jimmy Lea: And then the second need to make is with David and get signed up for inbound because you would be surprised. It is top quality. Oh, I remember it. Okay. What about this Parker, have you ever coached? No. No. David, this is to you.
David Boyd: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: Inside of your system, we can flag a weak word, a gray word, a word that's not positive, right.
The word, unfortunately.
David Boyd: So that's a great example. And there's so much to unpack with what. Parker talked about the key takeaway for your audience right now and the listener to this webinar. This podcast is normalization. It's important to normalize this aspect of your business, listening to one's own conversation on a recording.
Can really be challenging at the onset. So we wanna normalize that. And how do we do that? We do it by consistently reviewing and maybe moving in with a software expectation, moving more toward training, coaching and development as we normalize the, just the simple act of listening to these call reviews.
When we leverage ai, AI does something really powerful for us, which is takes this heavy burden of time and the time requirement. For Parker or his leadership team and others that have had to deal with this, it takes this burden of time away. You don't have the time. If your shop gets 150 calls in a day, you can't listen to a hundred.
I always joke with owners like, how long does it take to listen to a three minute phone call? 10 minutes
Jimmy Lea: so easily. You gotta add in the time to find the three minute phone call to listen to.
David Boyd: Hey, you have to find it. And then you listen to it. And then you listen to it. Did I hear that? And then now I gotta go and figure out how am I gonna coach?
I'm around this. Forget it. It. This is why historically call training and coaching has not happened unless you have. Mark from the institute and the team that does this, and that's their role in the industry, is to do this right? To sit down, find these calls and train it. But with, within the context of your normal daily operations, how do you normalize this?
Now we can leverage ai and that gets back to your question, Jimmy, which is one of the fun things. And another one of your coaches from the institute had requested this at one point in time, and I think it's phenomenal. He was just getting wrecked by. The use of the word, unfortunately,
love it. Can we just take the UN off of that, right? So we don't wanna lead with a negative, right? We don't wanna lead with no, or can't or don't, or won't or unfortunately these types of things. We don't wanna say, unfortunately, I can't get you in until next Tuesday. Fortunately, I have availability for you at 10:00 AM on Tuesday.
How do I find that in a call that's buried in 50 calls? I have to go listen to each of those one by one no longer, right? You just say, okay, ai, go it. It's certainly much more powerful than finding a key word or a key phrase. It can analyze the context of the conversation, which is where we really get that power and going through the analysis part of this.
But even something simple, just finding that word, saying where are we leading With no and no takes on different words. Can't, don't, won't. These types of things. Yeah. Unfortunately, is another way that we disappoint customers without knowing it.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Let's finish the story.
Tell us about the shop that flagged the word, unfortunately. What happened there?
David Boyd: So we set it up to identify that word immediately, send an email, and I don't know if it was maybe two examples. And I think we licked that problem. Nice. So it be, so what happens is we create this awareness, right?
Yeah. And this is the power of coaching. It really is because, and I'll say it's it, we've done coaching for a long time as a, as an industry. It's the power of consistency in coaching. Consistency wins. Jimmy Parker you know this in your shop, Jimmy, you're certainly aware of it. Consistency wins.
So when we create this awareness. Now the coaching and training that I'm trying to extend to my service advisor resonates and it creates an awareness. So the next time they go to pick up that phone and field the call, we now have a new awareness. We're creating a new awareness of what is this?
The next one that I'm gonna be sitting down with Parker and talking about is this the next one, that in five minutes my manager or owner's going to have an email. In their inbox that says, whoop, we used the word unfortunately. Hang on a second.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. The and I think what happens for a lot of people is they don't realize that they're using these mental placeholder words.
They don't realize that they're using the word just, I'm just calling to follow up on your car. No, you're not just justice from justifying. You have to justify your existence. Why did I interrupt this person's day? No. You dropped your car off with us. I'm calling to update you on your Ford F-150.
You don't use the word just, so if we can eliminate those words, we now have a position of strength and of power, and of authority. Because we are in the industry. We are the power and the authority. We can speak with better words and better vocabulary, right?
Parker Branch: Yeah. The good news, Jimmy, I can't wait to tell you how great the software is helping us, and these phone systems make it a pleasure to try. It's that point that we're having these conversations with our customers. They're gonna go where you lead them, and it's to instill that in our service advisors. And help 'em understand. Some of it's like Michael Smith, personal leadership, understanding of human, how we operate.
And if you can train using this tool with your advisors and point out that. Being positive. Hey, the good news is this is what's going on. And here's, we found what your primary concern was. We were able to diagnose that we know what the right course of action is. We want to take care of this, that, and the other thing.
And it's this many dollars. And the good news is when we're done with that, you're gonna be back up and running. So there's no. Unfortunately, oh, this is gonna be expensive. Or, the keeping it positive and energy to David's point about the keyword or yours from that learning of, unfortunately, so I always tell 'em, Hey, remember, energy positivity and they will follow you along that line.
If you come in there and it's negative and, oh, I don't know about this. You've art, you've just, you've spent all this money to make the phone ring. You got 'em on the phone and then you led them down. The poor old, Nope, this isn't so good. So it makes a big difference, just the connotation and the energy and some of those key words.
And using the AI to expedite, sure. None of us have time to spend hours and hours searching through it. But dedicate, pick a day a month to have a lunch and learn and make yourself or your manager have maybe the day before or that morning, spend an hour or two. It's well worth spending some time, at least once a month to prepare.
Then go to the team, Hey, let's do this exercise. I'll buy you some pizza. Whatever you guys want. It's just a great toolbox.
Jimmy Lea: Oh it really is. And to your point, if you're not having company meetings consistently with an outline, with an agenda, then what you're actually holding are company beatings.
Parker Branch: Yeah, and to that point, having, if you're gonna have a meeting at least once a month you certainly should, if not more. And in that once a month meeting for a lot, there may be people out there that listen or watch this podcast that don't know have a safety topic and have a sign, sign-in sheet every time you have a meeting.
And whatever else is gonna be on your topic for that day and keep a log of that safety topic that you talked about, everybody signing in that could qualify you depending on your state and so forth. For a discount on workers' compensation insurance, it does for us.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. Great tip. That's that's great to hear.
Parker. Do you know of any stories, whether it's personal with your own shop or some of those shops that you're coaching? Do you know of a story that involves a phone and a phone conversation that could have gone bad, but actually turned out to be good?
Parker Branch: Oh, that's a tough one. Certainly, I think my little example earlier about he said, she said yes I know there have been a couple of times over the years where there was, it was suggested maybe by a client that.
This wasn't what I agreed to or, that type of situation which that is unfortunate, but we tried to keep it positive and as much as we can be frustrated by that situation, I think when we presented it, we tried to be professional and courteous, but let them know that, in fact I can send the conversation over if you'd like me to, because this is what we had talked about and you had agreed to.
This situation. So I'm not sure how there could be a discrepancy there, but I'd be happy to send a recording of that over and we can look at it together. So certainly if that had escalated, which it didn't thankfully but it had that escalated and put someone into a legal situation, I would advise you to check with David and his team as far as what rules and regulations.
In your state regarding recording phone calls, whether you have to have a message that announces it or whatever. But as long as you've consulted his team, he will make sure you are compliant and have that ability to then have that protection. So I, I hate getting into the examples 'cause none of us wanna have the negativity.
But it's solid if you have an issue and need it.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah,
David Boyd: I have a couple examples that I can expand on that if you have a second, Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
David Boyd: One of my favorites that I actually use when I'm talking with other shops that are considering call inbound for supporting them in their communication is Institute.
Member that was part of GPG for a lot of years that uses our program. Had a customer come in and ready to check out, right? So they're there to pick up their vehicle. Were presented with their $3,000 bill and they said, $3,000. You told me they'd be $300, and they were convinced. They, they made a convincing statement, shall I say.
And now we know the rest of the story. So the manager there did something that I love and the way that we approach the use of the call recording sometimes we have to be a little bit delicate because we don't want necessarily wanna come across I'm gonna throw this in my customer's face, right?
We still are maintaining a relationship. This manager did something that was beautiful just naturally. Stated, I wasn't part of that conversation that you had with a service advisor. Lemme just go grab the call recording real quick and we'll just check that out. And he said, Hey if that's what we said, we'll stand on that.
And all of a sudden the amnesia cleared and the customer's memory returned and they said, ah, I probably have it wrong. Don't worry about it. They didn't wanna be embarrassed. Sure, because they made the demand. You told me this was $300. So it's, I call it customer accountability. We're not trying to corner somebody or we just wanna say, Hey, I call it the replay booth.
If we need to leverage the replay booth. So this is one of the pieces of a really comprehensive set of best practices about how you handle calls today. Of course, we've spent a lot of time about call, talking about call recording and how important that is and how we use that in reviews and coaching and training.
The metrics the the way that we analyze. Are we even asking people to come in and see us? Are we training our service advisors in this arena? And this is one of a set of best practices that we leverage because we're part of the automotive repair industry. So what's the best time to answer the phone when somebody's calling you?
And how can we use technology digital technology like, like our digital phone system? To ensure that happens as, as high a percentage as possible, that we answer that phone when somebody's calling. And then how do we leverage technology when we're not available? Nights, weekends, holidays?
There are various times Parker does something great at his shop. I don't know all of the details around this, but I think you got a period of time daily that you you go offline, right?
Parker Branch: Correct. For your lunch,
David Boyd: is it
Parker Branch: free your lunch? Yeah, we're closed. We're closed from noon to one.
We shut the phones down from noon to one.
David Boyd: Yeah.
Parker Branch: To give our service advisors a lunch break. But even, during that period of time, every time the phone rings and it goes to voicemail, it generates a, an email that comes into our whole team. If someone calls after hours and leaves a voicemail, it comes in to our whole team.
And we pride ourselves on, if it's during the day. W we see that email, that customer's gonna get a call back within minutes. And if it's, I have it coming to my phone maybe I'm guilty. I don't turn the business completely off. If I see an email come in over the weekend and somebody's hot and there's been a, an issue or something that, that, maybe I'm embarrassed we made a mistake or whatever.
I can see it immediately and I can turn around with his technology that he's helped us set up. I can call from my cell phone and it'll ring out with business's phone number as if I was calling him from the shop. Hey, I'm sorry that you've had this issue, whatever. But just on, in the day-to-day, receiving those emails immediately to see, it transcribes whatever the customer said.
Also has a recording. It's pretty awesome for making sure we're staying on top. I'll, like even the, sometimes the marketing team will look at, the calls that are coming in. They're like, oh, this one got missed or not answered, and I'm like, no, I don't think so. It might have been lunch or after hours, but I can guarantee you that within a short period of time, that person is getting called back because of the technology that David brings in his package.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Hey and Ashley, Joe, if you'll expand on this question a little bit, unless David, you read that and go, oh no, I know exactly what she's talking about.
David Boyd: I don't, I was wondering I think I've got about 80% of the question there, so some more would be helpful.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah I think she's saying, we're always so busy.
What happens when the phone call does go to voicemail? What happens?
David Boyd: Oh, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And Parker's got it set up to where it comes in as an email to him. Are there other options? Are there other things that we can do?
David Boyd: Yeah. And this is the beauty of the age in which we live now, where we can leverage alternatives.
We've been familiar with things like auto attendance for a while. How can we. Try to identify the common things where customers are calling. Do they need to get an appointment scheduled? Let's kick out a text message to them right through the phone system. Can we engage them with a an AI scheduling assistant, and have that tied right into your online scheduling system.
Yes, there are ways that, that even when we can't answer that phone, that we can leverage technology to try to engage our customer. We always wanna do something that is. Forward thinking in the sense that we want to al always help our customers understand that we are the shop they wanna do business with.
Oh, you've anticipated my need in this way. After hours is a real common example, getting their vehicle dropped off. A lot of customers have never done that before, so it's uncomfortable they don't know what to do. We can provide very straightforward information, establish a clear expectation of what to do, when they arrive, what to do with their keys, when are they gonna hear from us.
And then we're leaving them with this idea of, oh, they're, they've really thought of me, right? Getting them connected to a tow service. But then using other aspects of our technology where we can get them scheduled during business hours or after business hours. If we can't handle that call, let's identify if they're calling about needing to schedule an appointment.
Just engage them with that and get that appointment scheduled right through the phone system.
Parker Branch: Yeah, I think follow me answer Ashley's question.
David Boyd: Yep.
Parker Branch: Looking at the AI will let you know if you have that option. It'll let you know if they did request the appointment. So that's part of the scoring.
So again, instead of you having to listen to calls and calls in a lot of time. With the AI tool. And I can tell you I'm probably guilty in a sense that I don't know exactly what cost is associated with what specific part of the program that I have. But I know that of all the things I do I still feel like I'm stealing the service from David because he is so fairly priced.
David Boyd: I'm
Parker Branch: making note here and but yeah, the that AI section of that will give you clues actually really quick. As to which calls maybe to go listen to or, you can pick a few and get in and out of the tool pretty quickly.
David Boyd: We leverage AI to analyze the context of each call. So we want to categorize that, one is this a customer, we don't want to have to bother with vendor calls if it's a parts shop or a parts house or dealership or somebody's calling me.
That doesn't have, it's not a customer engagement. So we can set those aside and then identify as an, an opportunity where there's an appointment or scheduling opportunity. Is it a status call? Depending on your process in your shop. A customer calling for status might be essentially a fail, right?
If they're calling us for the status versus us providing that. So do we wanna identify those status calls? And then also sales calls. In what Parker's talking about in the opportunity or scheduling call analysis, we go through various aspects, right? How did we greet the customer? Did how did we qualify, right?
Did we know who they are, their vehicle information? Did we ask for the appointment? And this is the key. I think that's exactly back to your question. Hey good to see you, Josh. You might be surprised or you might not be surprised to learn that there are various obvious, there are obvious times in a conversation when it would be appropriate to ask the customer to come in and see you.
And there are also times that we failed to do that in the shop. So quickly identifying when those occurrences happen and then be able to. Train and coach and guide against those using them as real life opportunities. Hey, we had this conversation. This would've been a good opportunity to ask the customer to come in and see us.
And then it also helps identify if you've got, some challenges maybe with advisors who are just not getting it that the AI can give you examples where this is important for understanding over time. How many times do we have to repeat this idea of asking for an appointment? I don't mean to get so sidetracked on that, but if an objection arises a hesitation, how did we overcome that?
And then in the in the scheduling and sales call analysis, we have what I affectionately call our customer care composite. How well did the service advisor care for this customer? This is important. It's your brand at stake. Were we professional and enthusiastic? And what was our tone? Were we helpful?
So these things are gauged. What was the follow up and reassurance at the end of this call? How did we sign off? So these are all, this is a very comprehensive analysis that. We leverage AI to do so that you don't have to, it's delivered to you. One other note too, we spent some time talking about maybe the opportunities in these calls.
I hesitate to call them bad calls, but, calls are there, there are things that go well and things where we have learning opportunities really in every call, but where are the good ones and can we identify those calls? Because when we identify a good call. Where really all of the boxes are checked.
Let's sit down and listen to that one and say that thing. Do that one again. Exactly what you did here. 'cause you hit all of the right things. So let's replic replicate the good behavior, the high performance, and then let's identify where we have opportunities in the parts that were missed in calls, and use those for training purposes.
Parker Branch: Yeah. Let's point out the wins in that call. And the things that were great, encourage. From there, and to your point, it's gonna get replicated. We'll have more consistency across the business that we want. So great things.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. It's so true. And it's awesome to see the progress that these service advisors are making.
The call that they have today, that is their very best call. And you've identified it. You put it up on a pedestal, everybody listens to it. There's even things there that you listen to and you go, ah, you know what? I could have done this better and I could have done this better and I could have done this better.
Let's fast forward a year down the road, listen to that call again, and that will be one of the not best phone calls because now the phone calls skills have improved so dramatically that no longer is the training module for f phone skill. You have a new standard because you have coached and trained
Parker Branch: right
Jimmy Lea: And practiced those skills consistently.
In your company meetings.
Parker Branch: Yeah, I think you just gave me an idea, Jimmy, that in our, in our drive where we have all of our, resources, materials, SOPs, whatever it is, I think there ought to be a folder for some of these calls To that point, some great examples. So let's have a new folder.
Maybe Daniel, we need to have a phone training folder added into our drive so that we can drop some of these. Coachable and celebratory, calls in there to refer back to your point, Jimmy, that's a great idea.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. This is our best of the best for 2026 and at the beginning of 27, you're gonna listen to those calls and go, wow.
They, I, okay. They were good, but man, we're so much better now.
Parker Branch: We are, we're gonna have to develop a new trophy. We have the big dog trophy here with a we have a Mack truck emblem attached to a piece of trophy board with the big dog placard on it, and Daniel Howells and celebrates someone each month.
We're gonna have to have one of those with a golden phone on it or something.
David Boyd: I've got an extra handset here. I'll paint it gold for you and ship it over.
Parker Branch: Yeah we'll nail that sucker onto a plaque and we'll have to come up with a creative name. That's
Jimmy Lea: great. I love it.
I love it. That's awesome. That's awesome. Hey, and those of you who are listening, if you've got questions, comments, concerns, type 'em in the comment section. Let's ask these guys something's on your mind. Let's ask them and go ask questions. Yeah, put 'em in the comments. David, you were gonna start some
David Boyd: I was gonna say, just it, its important to create normalcy around this.
And have an expectation as the leader of your shop and communicate that expectation so that, I love that phrase, if it's not a meeting, it's a beating. And I think the biggest damage that I've seen is, and it's not intentional. No, no business owner is intentionally beating up their team about this.
But call coaching tends to occur only when a major defect has occurred. Historically. So there is maybe some negative connotation. Maybe your service advisors came from a different shop where they did this and it was not a comfortable experience. So this isn't, we're not gonna sit around the table and hold hands, but we're gonna sit down and we're gonna have conversations consistently, consistency wins in this case.
So we want to quickly identify good opportunities, and I would encourage you, as the leader in your organization when you're doing call reviews. To talk about what went well and where we have opportunity. And any one call has that even a poorly executed call. There's something that went well even if it was just they had a, an uptone sound when they answered or, upbeat sound, that type of a thing.
So identify the positive with the opportunity and, create it. Do this consistently enough that it becomes normal and that we're elevating, together. We're gonna learn together, we're going to the other. Actually, now that I say that make sure that your advisors know the what's in it for me, part of this.
Coaching without an objective is just, it's just talk, right? It's more, we need to have this be more than a conversation, need to understand, look, I want you to do better so that our brand is valued in our community. Our our work is respected in our industry. Customers love us and trust us.
And oh, by the way, at the end of the day, your paycheck probably goes up depending on your comp plan, right? But this is the, what's in it for you, right? We wanna have these familiar relationships with customers. We wanna make sure that our service advisors know, like when you ask for the appointment and the customer comes in, and then they, spend the money.
Whatever your a RO is asking for that appointment could equate to whatever your a RO is, right? And then they. Realize the benefit of that. This is really about painting the full picture. So it's more, so much more than just answering the phone. I think that's where a lot of people start, is like, all these phones are just blowing up, or it's so busy.
I have so many other things that I have to do. Take that breath, calm yourself, brush off the tech that just, chewed you out, whatever it is. And make sure that the person on the other side knows that you Mr. Or Mrs. Customer are the most important person in the world to me right now. You have my undivided attention.
And identify those opportunities when that doesn't happen so that we can elevate that bar for your shop.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that. I love that. Parker, a question for you about your service advisors. How do you train them on these programs? Is it a once a month deal or is it weekly? How do you train your advisors?
Parker Branch: So it's once a month that Daniel, my manager, will actually have a lunch and learn and talk about the phone calls. I think I had, when I mentioned before, I think it resonates like what David was saying. We don't wanna beat them down or only highlight the negative or, the.
Opportunities to make 'em feel like, oh, great, here we go. We're going to, here how bad we did on the phone. And my example early on, just to say it again and make sure the people out there listening can maybe learn from, what we experienced and learn how, if you have peer, if you're in a GPG group with the institute, you have composite partners.
Get some of their phone calls or if you have a coach, ask them to share some coachable phone calls. And we started that when we really started to do a better job of listening and coaching our staff that we have now. We took some outside calls so that they didn't feel attacked, and we listened to some of those calls from our peers that were coachable.
And they really, they got into it. Oh geez. That guy was, he sounded he was upset or somebody just kicked his dog or he didn't want to be there, or, he didn't even ask what the customer's name or, got a phone number or things went well. The customer acknowledged, yeah, sure, that sounds great.
And okay, yeah. Are we gonna ask for a appointment here? Or, just some of that practice upfront and then. We eased into listening to our own calls and and we played a little game where we just said, Hey, each of you has one minute after we've listened to the call, tell me what you think.
Yeah. And we only had, in one meeting we would maybe only have three or four calls. And spent, we'd listened to the call. Stop. Give everybody a minute a piece. Of course, I, you know how much I talk, so I'd get in there and probably break the minute rule, but try to reel it in a little bit.
But it became fun. And pointing out to David's point again, the positivity and the tone and culture of your phone call and how you. Made it relational and upbeat and, oh, hey David, how's it going? What's happening with the airplane? What have you been doing? Let you know. I know him and I know my customer, and if I'm, make some conversation and enjoy that.
And genuinely I'm asking, how are you doing, Jimmy? What's the next Coke gonna look like at the next thing? All right, great. Let's talk about your truck. When can I get you in here? So having that. Positivity. It's unbelievable how much difference that makes in converting that appointment.
And then when they're having a communication, hey the diagnosis is done. We've gone through and done the digital vehicle inspection. We promised you, let's go over this together and talk about it. This is what's going on. That's what's going on. Oh my gosh, how much is that? You know what? Let's just get through the inspection so you know what all is going on with the truck.
Then we'll decide what to do from there. Oh, okay. So again, that positivity, leading the customer is gonna follow you when you treat them that well and as a relationship. So I think that's a lot of this helps us to do that and to go back and listen to how well have we done.
Jimmy Lea: I love that.
Yeah. Tho those,
David Boyd: one more one more facet of that Parker, you had shared that you actually do something that I love and it's somewhat unique, but you're sending the AI insights emails that come to you daily into a shared mailbox. And what do you do with those?
Parker Branch: I encourage the guys to take a look at 'em and Daniel will use those in training.
Yeah. But again, a few years back. I was just going to meetings by myself, going to trade shows by myself.
I guess quite a few years back. And I had one of those moments where I was like, I learn all this stuff and I come back and try to share it. It's not the same as if I include my team.
So I would encourage you no matter what size shop you have to figure out a way to include your employees in it. So to that example, sharing the insights with them daily. Now when, we just came back from vision, we took 13 people to vision. And all of them came back empowered and like excited and stoked and we, let 'em choose their own, topics.
Even some of my technicians wanted to go to leadership type trainings and stuff because they know someday they wanna move up and, have growth potential. It ties together with even this training on the phones and stuff, and send the insights to them to, we send it to our info at Branch Automotive channel and that way everybody in the off, really everybody that has an email can see it.
And it creates that curiosity. If I see, you wanna see if you got a, a grade that you're like, what the heck is that, low, high, whatever. It creates some curiosity. And they might go in and listen to it themselves, and that's pretty fun to when you witness that, they're like doing it on their own.
I think it empowers 'em. Kudos to you for that tool, having that capability to let the individual that's on the phone take a peek and get excited about it.
David Boyd: Definitely I, and I love too that, that you've put it out there in a way like, Hey, this is normal. It's expected, it's, this isn't taboo.
If somebody gets a 50 versus a 90 or something like that, there's a learning opportunity. I think human nature says we're gonna look at that email and go. How did I do? But then the second question is how did the guy sit next to me do? So it it creates this this fun environment. So I like how you've you've leveraged that something that, that we can use ai.
I think this is a great application to ai. We talk about AI in so many facets of our businesses today, right? But we can leverage this to make it easy to access one. Then normalize so that now you've done something too where you've, you get extra credit for this one Parker, but you've you've, allowed your staff, your service advisors to consume that themselves and find those opportunities where they can self-improve.
And it, it happens even outside of the context of the formal training activity around it. It's just normal daily. Hey, we can peek at that email and see how did I do, how did my neighbor do?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. You guys, any final words of wisdom? We need to land this plane 'cause we're approaching the hour.
I will put in my shameless plug now and then we'll close it with you, David, and then you, Parker. My shameless plug comes to say, Hey, we're the institute. We coach and train. We train shops to be the best that they can possibly be. Come try us out. There's no long-term contract. We are month to month.
Try it out. I guarantee you will see a difference in your shop right around the three to nine month time period, and usually it's right around six. You will see a difference. The difference also includes are you gonna do your homework, are you gonna do those things that Coach Parker's gonna tell you that you need to implement in your shop?
If you don't do those things, guaranteed it's not gonna work. But if you do, you will see success. You will see it turn at the institute. We have programs for advisors, managers for you as shop owners. We have 20 groups that get together and they'll descend on your shop. Imagine 20 shop owners come into your facility looking at your shop from front curb to back wall.
What do you need to do to improve on your business when they leave? You've got a list of 200 to 300 specific things. That you need to do in your business to take it to that next level. It's absolutely phenomenal. We also have programs that go into legacy. Are you looking at expanding a single location to be the premium location?
Are you looking to expand the kingdom and expand your footprint? You wanna add additional shops to your program? We can help you with that as well. That's with our legacy program. So we, at the institute, we know you need a coach. You know you need a coach. Pick up the phone and give us a call. Let us help you, help yourself, and we can help drive that difference.
David, final words from you, brother.
David Boyd: Thank you. I I echo everything that you just said. I'm a big fan of the institute. I'm a product of the institute as well on the shop side of it. But so thank you for having me on and this conversation. I'm very passionate about communication and coaching and training.
Call Inbound is a business that is really best in class. Digital voice communication, calling bound, makes shops and shop owners champions in communication. We have a whole suite of technology and best practices that we use, not only for call handling and we also leverage AI to help improve.
Performance on your phones, give you lots of data that's important to manage the the behavior and the improvement of your service advisors know how the customer engagement is going and when needed. We have the recording and data available for that customer accountability we talked about.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Awesome.
Parker Branch: Thank
Jimmy Lea: you.
Parker Branch: Yeah, thanks for having me as well, Jimmy. It's fun for me to be here as a, just a shop owner, a client of the institute doing the coaching one-on-one for some clients for the institute. The institute has made a huge difference in our business and my life and growth.
And I think the institute does a fantastic job of being involved in the industry and networking, meeting all the vendors. Suppliers, partners that are out in our industry and bringing light to the ones that they know can really serve you well. And that's how I met David, was through the institute bringing me, together with him.
So I can't thank you all enough for that. But yeah what a great topic today and thanks for including me.
Jimmy Lea: You're very welcome. You're very welcome, everybody. That's here for to the very end. In the next minutes, you'll wanna pull out your smartphone and scan the QR code.
Set up an appointment to meet with the institute and have a business discussion. Let's talk about your shop, talk about your business. There's probably one or two or three things that my account executives could talk to you about in your shop that if you were to change them immediately, you might make an extra 15, $18,000 next month.
And the answer is yes. I have had that exact thing happen with one of our account executives and a prospect who is now a client of the Institute. So with that, thank you very much. Thank you everybody for being here. My name is Jimmy Lee with the Institute. Thank you to David. Thank you to Parker, and thank you to the Institute.
We'll talk to you again soon. See you next at the next webinar.

196 - Building Modern Collision By Putting Quality Before Cost

196 - Building Modern Collision By Putting Quality Before Cost
April 1, 2026 - 00:54:54
Show Summary:
Micah Storm shares how he grew up in the family business and built the mechanical side alongside collision repair. He explains how he and his brother took over the shop and later expanded into the building next door. The conversation covers insurance challenges customer education and why quality must come before cost. Micah also talks about leadership team culture training and the value of a four day workweek. His approach is simple: take care of people do honest work and keep improving.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Micah Storm, Owner of Modern Collision Rebuild and Service
Show Highlights:
[00:00:36] – Micah explains how buying the shop next door doubled their mechanical space.
[00:02:29] – Growing up in the business shaped his path but collision work never fit.
[00:04:50] – He returned in 1999 to build the mechanical side of the shop.
[00:07:10] – Micah says customer education is critical when insurance does not cover proper repairs.
[00:09:00] – Pre scans and documentation help determine what damage is accident related.
[00:12:20] – Digital inspections create trust and uncover mechanical work during collision visits.
[00:15:20] – Micah and his brother gradually stepped into leadership before buying the business.
[00:27:15] – A four day workweek improved morale retention and work life balance.
[00:38:00] – Community involvement helped make the shop a trusted local name.
[00:41:00] – Micah says associations training and strong culture are key to long term success.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Hello friends. Jimmy Lee here with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. You are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is Micah Strom. He is on Bainbridge Island in Washington, the great state of Washington. I have been to your shop before Micah. Thank you for being here. How the heck are you, brother?
Micah Storm: I'm great. I'm glad to be.
Jimmy Lea: Exciting. And anybody listening, anytime you get out to Bainbridge Island, you need to go and visit Micah shop. And there's one specific thing you need to look for, and that is the old style gas pump you have out front that has been converted and has an electric charger cord in inside this old glass, the old glass gas pump.
Man, that is so cool.
Micah Storm: It's old meets new.
Jimmy Lea: Old meets new, yeah. A blend of the two coming together. Do that, and that's awesome. I love it. I love it. And quite recently, not to spoil the surprise here, but to rather spoil the surprise, you expanded recently. You expanded your automotive repair side, correct.
Micah Storm: We, we bought the business, the shop right next door. And we've actually been side by side for 50 years and he was retiring and said, you guys wanna buy it? And I'm like, sure let's do it. So we doubled our mechanical space and I said, Bing, it was right next door. It was a no brainer at that point.
Jimmy Lea: Wow that's really cool. Did you buy the building, the property the land and the clients? Did you buy the business or did you just buy the property?
Micah Storm: We bought the property of the building. He actually kept the name but he retired. And so basically all his mechanical clients were typically our collision clients anyway basically we just bought the land in the building and that was what was basically what we paid for.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, and it makes sense 'cause your clients were his clients already were your clients. You were just expanding the ability to take care of those clients
Micah Storm: Correct place.
Jimmy Lea: Before we get into that, let's jump back into history back in time. 'cause Micah, I know you have a very interesting story of how you got into the automotive industry and how you got into this location where you are.
Modern collision, dude. Talk to me brother. How did you get started in the automotive aftermarket?
Micah Storm: So I grew up in the, obviously I grew up in the business, in the automotive business. My, dad and my parents started the 1974. As a kid I'd be down there sweeping the floors or what have you, and getting outta high school.
I was like I gotta do something. So I'm like I learned. At an early age, I don't like body work. I can't stand standing. That was, we'd go down there standing. It's, I'd spend all day standing box fans and my dad would paint 'em, and I'm like, I, whatever I do, it's not gonna be collision. So I decided to go into the mechanical side.
Got a job at a local shop around backup. I went to school for six months or the year at UTI. And ended up coming back here, getting a job at a local shop. And that's where it started. Worked at several of the shops for a few years. My parents were getting ready, my dad was getting ready to retire and said, Hey, you want to come back?
I'm like sure, but I'm not doing collision works. That's not what I'm gonna do. So he said let's start some mechanical work here. And that was about 90 19 99. And that's when we, our. Mechanical work started at that point. But like I said it's something, I don't know.
I like cars. I like the technology, I like getting my hands dirty. And it's, again, growing up in it, it's it was a natural thing for me. And same with my brother. He's same thing. He is run, he does collision. He likes that side. And I like the mechanical. So honestly, both of us, we both own the business together and it really works well.
Between the two of us.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's cool. And so you've just pointed out something that is so ironic you don't like working on the collision side of things, sanding, and I totally agree sanding, forget about it. I'm done. And I know that you are the director or executive director or the board
Micah Storm: C collision chair.
Jimmy Lea: You're the collision chair for CTE
Micah Storm: or yeah. CT CTEI was that's again, that was putting that together and that actually evolved, like we can get into that, but that kind of evolved from my start in the mechanical to where my parents retiring and where I am today. Yeah, but I'm also the collision chair for the Northwest Auto Care,
Jimmy Lea: so Oh, that.
Oh, the irony there. That's hilarious. Yes. Thank you, Micah, that this a whole nother level of friendship between us and the coalition. Oh, the irony. That's awesome. Okay, so back to mom and dad. Mom and dad have the shop and you come back and join it. Are you turning a wrench or are you stepping into the front office?
What did you come back and start doing?
Micah Storm: Came back. We started with, I was doing the service advising, turning wrenches the whole thing. At that point, because it was obviously really small, we just started but we would, offer a inspection when the car came in. We, a free mechanical inspection and upsell a brake job, or they needed an oil change when they came in for body work.
So at the, at that time I was doing. Everything from the service advising, ordering parts, the work, and then closing it out. But it would go in addition to the collision work.
Jimmy Lea: So did mom and dad do, is it based on a lot of insurance work or is this a lot of cash customers?
Micah Storm: It's mainly insurance work.
Okay. So they're on the collision side. Yes. It's. We are not a DRP for any insurance company, which is a direct repair. We work, again, we, we work for the customer, not the insurance company. But ultimately they, they pay your bill on the insurance, right? A check. But they owe to, they owe the shop to fix it and they owe the customer to pay for it.
There are some customer out of pay that has actually changed a lot in the last year. The kinda that landscape of, like I said, if we want to get it, we can get into that, but it's become a lot more customer pay because rates are going up insurance rates and people are going, do I really want to turn this into as a claim and have my rates go up?
So there's a lot more customer pay out of pocket jobs because of that, which is again that's a SO'S
Jimmy Lea: and I witnessed it. I saw it happening 15 years ago when the insurance companies were coming in and buying up all the collision companies. And Yeah, you're not supposed to direct, but they were directing, they were telling people where to go, and they were telling 'em where to tow their vehicle and, oh yeah, you're gonna go to this company over here because that's who our collision company is.
They didn't tell you that. Oh yeah. And by the way, we own it.
Micah Storm: Yeah. They don't, they own the
Jimmy Lea: steering. Steering, that's what it's
called.
Micah Storm: Steering. They, there's an M, it's an MSO, but they don't necessarily own the company, but they have a contract with them that says, we will send you work, but you have to do what we tell you, and this is all we're gonna pay for.
And you gotta accept our rates. You gotta accept discounts, you gotta accept everything. And it's that's not how you run a business.
Jimmy Lea: No. Yes. Thank you. But no. So what do you do in those situations where. I'm bringing in my car because I was in an accident and it wasn't my fault, it was somebody else's.
I'm bringing in my car for the collision side of things and the insurance company says we'll cover $13,000 worth of damage. But it, your quote was $16,000. What do you do in those situations with clients?
Micah Storm: It comes down to educating the customer. Okay, you know what the difference is what we, we'll start by breaking down what aren't they paying for?
Is it rates? Is it particular procedures? Are they paying 50% of something they should be paying all, as far as a procedure, they're only paying half it. Break it down. What is not, or what is, what are they covering and what are they not covering? And then to go to the customer and explain to them.
What the insurances paid for, what the portion they paid for and why we do what we do. The safety behind it, that we use only original equipment parts. We don't use aftermarket parts, and you start explaining that to a customer and they start going I don't want that stuff. The aftermarket stuff in my car.
I want it back how it was. Before the accident. Yeah. And you talk, and not all shops are the same. And you have, it's, you have to educate the customer. 'cause if you don't educate the customer, the difference is the price. And they're gonna look at the, it's why here if it's $3,000 less and you don't tell 'em why your $3,000.
More than the insurance ones do. They're going to obviously choose the lesser price. Yeah. But it comes down, like I said, it's the quality, it's doing it right. It's follow procedures and not having an insurance company dictate how you fix a car.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. So I have a dangerous question. I have a dangerous question.
Micah Storm: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: The question is so I bring my car into you and you write up the estimate, $16,000, they're gonna pay for 13. Have insurance companies gotten to the point where they're asking collision shops to scan vehicles prior to doing any repairs that they're might be a preexisting condition that they're not gonna cover?
Micah Storm: So e every car gets a pre. The manufacturers, the your OE manufacturer require a pre-scan. Sometimes it's an in end process scan and not a post scan. So the insurance companies will pay for it because it is required. It's in, in the position statements that has to happen. But they have contracts with providers that they will only pay a certain amount.
They have a contracted price and that's all they're gonna pay. So even if it costs more to do it, they say that's, this is all we have a con company that will do it for this much, and that's all we're gonna pay. So it's. Again, it comes down to educating what we're doing.
And if they're only gonna cap, if they're gonna say we're gonna pay a portion of it, it's this is what it costs. Here's an invoice for it, and we need to collect that from the customer. 'cause the insurance decides not to cover it.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. What and what is, so if those situations are there where.
There were, and it almost crosses over into like health insurance. That's a preexisting condition. I'm not gonna pay for that. The insurance company, that's what they say.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Is that a situation then when you go to the client and say, Hey, look, this $3,000 that the insurance company's not gonna cover, this is something you're gonna have to cover, or you're gonna have to decide if you want this work done or not.
Do you do that? Or does it's, is that a thing?
Micah Storm: If it's insurance, or I should say if it's accident related typically they will cover it with proper documentation. It's, they're not gonna cover something that wasn't there prior. And I. And honestly, they shouldn't pay for something that was already there.
You know that's a customer's responsibility at that point. Yeah. But it, let 'em know is, hey, we've got the car in, pulled into the shop, we scanned it, had these codes. There's this issue. We, it's not cover, it's not part of the accident. It's not related, the accident. And it obviously that goes depending on what the code is.
Know. 'cause sometimes you say, this is not part of the accident, but in reality it is because with Can Bus and all the other things that modules that talk to each other, you could have something. The back end takes out a blind spot and it creates a starting issue. We had a Mercedes that did that one time.
Oh
Jimmy Lea: gosh.
Micah Storm: So it's, there's a line, but you still gotta be able, to say if it's not covered by insurance, that's, you're gonna be your portion out of pocket.
Jimmy Lea: And most of these codes have a date timestamp that goes along with it like. I'm thinking like, oh, two sensors. That might've gone out in October and here it is January, and then we have the accident, or it needs a, body repair.
That's an old code.
Micah Storm: Correct. You can either, like the Mode six data will have all the, the mileage. Typically it was set at things like that okay. It's, you gotta use all the, all your tools that you're, at your hands to be able to come up with a timeline and a, where does this fall?
Who's responsibility is this? Yeah. It's our job to tell the insurance, say, Hey, this is what we have, this is what we see.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Micah Storm: Whether they pay for it or not, that's. It's not my call I, but either, either the insurance has got it covered or it goes back to the customer. So
Jimmy Lea: yeah, that's that.
It's not my circus, not my monkey. It's not my problem to solve insurance company client. Here's, here it is, and you figure it out and lemme know.
Micah Storm: Yeah. Provide all the documentation's needed for it so they can Yes. Make their decision.
Jimmy Lea: So are you, do you do a lot of digital vehicle inspections with these on the collision site?
And I know it's not your jam, it's your brother, but.
Micah Storm: So yes. And as far as being my gym, I'm ex, I, my brother does more of the hands-on stuff behind. He likes working on cars. Okay. I deal with all the office stuff and all the business stuff, and I, that's what I love. That's what I love. So I don't have to touch the collision.
Cars, but I like working. Yeah, you're
Jimmy Lea: not sanding anymore, you just buy the sandpaper.
Micah Storm: I'm sand. I'm not sanding. I, but I love working the business side of it. That's, that's really where it comes in. The d d vs. We do on all the mechanical jobs. But we also upsell a complimentary inspection on every body job.
That comes to the door, so our mechanics will inspect it and that has a DVI attached it so we can get pictures and send them the report, give 'em estimates for everything. And upsell some repairs, some mechanical work while the vehicle's there for the collision work.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it.
Who are you using for your DVI?
Micah Storm: It's through shop wear.
Jimmy Lea: Through shop wear. Phenomenal program. I love the integration of that. Oh man.
Micah Storm: And
Jimmy Lea: there's so much
Micah Storm: to do. We was 2017. We were, we had a regular program and we were, I wanted the DVI with it. I'm like, I can either get an add-on to what we had or do I, find something that has it all together.
And I'm like, I don't want, he said, she said, this works. That's, no, that's their problem. That's their problem. I'm like, I want something that's all in one. And at the time, that's, again, it was shoppers, there was towards the beginning of it, and we've been with them. For many years with, as Caroline had it and all the way to where it is now, so I know it's she sold a year or so back.
Still a great program, so
Jimmy Lea: Oh no. It is. Shop wear is a phenomenal program. I love the DVI, I love the integration of it. And for you, just like you said, it's a one phone call. You don't have to play matchmaker anymore to get two people to talk with each other. It's one phone call. Hey, look, this isn't working.
Figure it out.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And call me when it's done.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's good. You've 1999 pops calls, you come back to the shop, you start on the automotive maintenance side of things. When does your brother come back or has he always been there? What? What's the story with you and your brother?
Micah Storm: So he's always been there.
He started as right, outta high school in the paint department painting cars. Did that for quite a few years. I went off and did the mechanical stuff 'cause I, we didn't do it at the time and I wasn't gonna learn it there at the shop. I came back, started the mechanical side of the, what we have today, and as time goes on, physical things, I've had two back surgeries, so I stopped working on cars, just physically.
I couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't the. The career was really hard on my body. And so I started getting in more the service advising. So I we hired a mechanic. I turned in just doing the service advising and at the time, my parents were still my, my mom really was the instrument of running a very lean and dialed in shop.
My dad just kind. What do I need to do next? I'll write estimates, I'll go fix cars, whatever. But like I said I worked in the service advising. And then again, as my parents were, my dad retired, my mom was there probably another 10 years. And she is, as she's beginning to step out, she let my brother and I start running it.
At that point, we made decisions we would, she'd sit there. I'm here in case something I don't agree with, I'll tell you, but. Do you guys start making decisions?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. So she's really positioning you and taking you and pushing you into that leadership role where you are running the business.
So where is that on the timeline that mom the dad retires. Mom sticks around for another 10 years and when is it that she retires, but still has control of the business? It's just you're in the leadership position.
Micah Storm: I'd say, so my dad retired, probably about 2001 is when he moved back and then started doing, having an enjoying life at at home.
And my mom probably, she stuck around for, she ran it for another five years or so. And then she let us started taking over those decision making and the running of the business. And in 2010 is when we officially bought it from 'em. So she was there till probably about 2008 and then just it's Hey, if you need me I'm at home.
Call me.
Jimmy Lea: Congrats.
Micah Storm: We've let us. Yeah. So it's it's been see 15 years, 16 years now we've had it
Jimmy Lea: oh yeah. No, that's a long road, bro. Congrats. Yeah, man. That is awesome. And mom and dad are they still with us?
Micah Storm: Oh yes. My dad makes garden art. Welds rusty metal together. My mom just loves to travel and grandkids and yeah, so they're doing great.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, man, that is so cool. Congrats to mom and dad. Congrats to you and your brother for stepping in and taking over too. That's very cool. So what does the shop look like today? How many on the collision side, how, what does that look like? And then on the mechanical side, what does that look like?
Text space, cars, that kind of stuff.
Micah Storm: So we have 21 employees right now. 21 team members, including my brother and I. Right now. We have, let's see, one. Five mechanical technicians. We could probably use another one, maybe two for mechanical techs. And then we have three body techs and that my brother really does.
The body is one of the body techs. A painter's helper, a parts guy. Deals, just deals with strictly the parts. We have a detail. Two people in our detail department. 'cause we do clean all the cars that leave the collision side get washed, and cleaned depending on the severity of the repairs and stuff.
Yeah. And then we do, we, so we have two people in the detail department and then we have two service advisors and. Two estimators, a front office receptionist or bookkeeper, office manager. And then she's getting ready to semi-retire. So we have hired somebody else to take over some of those responsibilities.
And then, and then there's me. So that's kinda the layout of how everything you know, as far as the people are concerned. Everything flows really well. As far as the we share the same office for Yeah, the mechanical and the collision shares the same office, the back on the, our upper building the mechanical and then the collisions share the same building space.
Obviously there's different sections in there that we do different things, but it's it's a pretty well oiled, I think, at least I feel it, is to be able to run both businesses in the same spot.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, dude I love it. So anybody who's listening to this right now, if you know somebody who's a technician and they would love to live in one of the most gorgeous places on earth, Bainbridge Island is on the sound side of the peninsula.
There in the very, very northwest tip of the state of Washington. If you're a tech and you'd love to live up in that area, Mike's got a job for you. Just tow your. Toolbox right on over you. You're ready. You're ready. Bring it on. Oh yeah. That is so cool. That is so cool. Congrats on the business, man.
That is very good. Oh man, I have so many questions. I'm gonna, I have to slow down a little bit here. Breathe. Alright, so first question for you is when is it, at what point did you decide automotive is the thing for me? Yes. I understand you didn't want the collision side, but you definitely wanted the mechanical side and you did go to university UTI for a minute.
When is it in that high school career that you said, that's my jam.
Micah Storm: I, that's a good question. I'd have to say. I started doing it because that's what I knew what to do. I Oh, yeah. Messed with my hands. That's, and it's I was in the car business, so it's naturally I stay in the car business 'cause I grew up there. Yeah. I started working on cars.
I, changing oil and at a mechanical shop, I, and I started going, okay, I this stuff. It is it's fun. And, again I guess I kept with it until my. I'd have to say that probably that turning point is when my parents, when they said, Hey, we're gonna sell you internet.
We're we want you, we're gonna retire, eventually. Want you to buy it. Are you interested? And I thought what do I wanna do that, it, it was more of I had the job at the time the career side of things. That's when it started going, okay, maybe this is. It's a great opportunity and it's, this is something I could, continue doing at that point.
I enjoy it. I know what I'm doing. I can, do a good job at it. And I guess that's where it kind of things clicked at that point for me. If I didn't, oh, go. What's that?
Jimmy Lea: You blew me away there. I thought for sure it was gonna be like something in junior high or, yeah, I know you grew up at the shop and you're pushing brooms.
It's in your blood. You bleed oil. I get it. I get it. But you're telling me that it wasn't until you have the opportunity to say, am I, is this for real? Can I do this for the rest of my life? Then you're like. Oh yeah. No, I love this. This is what I really enjoy. Yes. We can make a life out of this.
You and your brother.
Micah Storm: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, yeah, that was kinda the turning point of this. This is it, and here we are today.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. And 2010, that come after the the real estate bubble popped.
And at 2010, it was finally starting to. Inch its way back up into realms of, okay, we can now see an incline coming back and the world is returning to normal again.
Micah Storm: Yeah. It was, it during that time though, every, the, we were busy 'cause everyone's hung out with their cars. They weren't gonna buy new cars. Business was busy for the automotive industry at that time. It was
Jimmy Lea: good.
Micah Storm: It's a recession proof business for the most part. It is, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: It really is.
And I'll tell you, at that point in my life, I was in mortgages. I was a mortgage broker. And I had to figure out what am I gonna do? What do I want to be when I grow up?
It was a hard situation to be in.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: To come outta that. Man,
Micah Storm: Here we are.
Jimmy Lea: And here you are. And here you are thriving to a point where you expand your shop by buying out the the mechanics from below.
Now you've just expanded your footprint. You can take care of customers. Yeah. I love that.
So what's the, what is a misconception that the public has about a collision shop that if you could magic wand it and correct this misconception, what's a misconception that the public has about the collision side?
Micah Storm: The, as far as the public, I think the misconception that they have is that the insurance company is there to take care of 'em and they have their back.
That's they, again, if you don't take it financial advice from somebody that owes you money, and that's where it comes down to is they're looking to get it repaired as cheap as possible and for as little as possible. 'cause that's where they make their money. And, I guess that's my take on that.
That's what
Jimmy Lea: you blew my mind on that. That would, that's a good one, Micah. Thank you. Yeah. Don't take financial advice from somebody that owes you money. That also very wise. Very wise. So what's a misconception that the public has about the maintenance side of the business?
Micah Storm: Probably they, they think it's easier 'cause they look on YouTube and it's done in 10 minutes and in reality it's something might take you, three hours to do, but it looks easy on YouTube.
Jimmy Lea: Oh we oh my God. I just went through this man. I just went through this video after video, I we're watching these videos because we replaced the radio in my wife's car. And I will tell you that I gave up and we took it to a professional. However, it took me two days to finally throw in the towel.
So here's the scenario. I'm watching all these videos and they're like da, and you just, you take out the radio. Pop, and then you disconnect the wires and you see them disconnect one, but there's seven more back there back. They don't even show that. And then they're like, okay, and then you take the new unit and you just plug it back in.
And they plug it back in and, but you don't see 'em plugging them in. You see 'em pushing the radio back in place and it's like a second. This can't be right. You only plugged in four and I've got seven here. Where did these other three go? Oh,
Micah Storm: and then you could then just pop apart. It takes some finesse and finagling a lot of times.
Jimmy Lea: And I'll tell you what I learned from this most recent experience is that the modern vehicles, it's more about the transfer of data than it is transfer of voltage.
So these vehicles today are much more complicated than the old days when it was a carburetor and spark plugs, and you could tune.
Properly tune a vehicle. Modern computers are, is tuning that vehicle constantly, correct?
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And just to be able to pull out a radio and put in a new radio? No.
Micah Storm: And certain cars, they, it's considered part of the anti theft and you have to actually take it to, they have to program it and be able to re, to be able.
It's crazy some of the stuff they do now,
Jimmy Lea: I hadn't even considered that. You know what, you're exactly right. This one wasn't that way. What it came down to, after two and a half days worth of research and discovery and phone calls and emails with a company out of it was either Japan or China.
Not exactly which one. Sure which one, but they had pins on their harnesses that the pins from the card did not line up. So they're like just plug it in and it works. I have plugged it in. It does not work.
Oh, shoot, man. That's cool. Okay, so same question on the mechanical side. Did I ask that question? What's the misconception on the mechanical? Oh the YouTube? Yeah, the
Micah Storm: YouTube.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Micah Storm: That's it. It's a it, some cases YouTube actually has, its place at certain times, getting things apart that you can't see in a repair manual, but yet someone on, you can look on YouTube going, Hey, this is how you do it.
But as far as the diagnosing and it's they. Yeah, that, that's, they've kinda lost it there, I think. But there we, YouTube does have its place in the auto repair. I'll say that.
Jimmy Lea: Yes, it does. As does some AI information, but it's not always foolproof. I've been watching Correct. Sherwood down there in Georgia and Florida.
Royalty Automotive. They have some videos there that where Sherwood is asking Ai, asking chat GPT to help diagnose the car. Totally off, totally wrong. One was a super success. One was a bad failure. It was. It was just horrible.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So it's interesting. Okay. Back to you. Enough about them.
Let's talk about you, Micah. Okay. What's your current hours and why did you choose that schedule?
Micah Storm: So we as of today, we do four tens Monday through Thursday 7:00 AM to five 30. And we close for, we just closed the shop down for lunch, locked the doors for a half hour from 12 to 1230. So everybody goes to lunch at once and everybody comes back at once.
Very similar to a doctor's office, but we started that. Transition, I'll call it a transition. During CO when COVID started we get everything in Monday through Thursday. We really didn't have any appointments coming in. We'd just be finishing stuff up on Fridays. Yeah. And so we didn't really have any customers necessarily calling in, 'cause they all knew we were closed on a, or we were closed for taking a, we would take appointments.
But as far as customers coming in, dropping cars off, nobody was coming in the door. It was all, a goal of trying to minimize the amount of contact between people. And we kept that and was it 2022? I think we're like, what about four tens? And to be honest with you, my brother did not want, he's it's not gonna work.
It won't work. It's not gonna work. And after, doing a lot of research, it's let this is here's, people have done it. This, if you wanna try it, but it's not gonna work. Two a month or two months of, he is that's the best thing we ever did. I'm never gonna go back to working five days a week.
So he, but he was the, it was, again, it's that I think we set ourself up during COVID to be able to switch to the four tens, because Fridays were really a. They were a day that really, there was this, there's a lot of work going on in the shop, but nothing, no customer activity, no customer other than maybe a scheduling of phone calls and scheduling, no one is coming in the office.
So it, it really we set it up to where we were able to do that and actually have a pretty seamless transition to going from Monday through Friday to Monday through Thursday schedule. And, in the collision industry, it's not it has not been adopted very well. I don't think some shops are doing it, but not a lot of 'em are.
The mechanical side though, you see a lot of shops switching to the four tenants. And yeah it's a great tool for it know, employee acquisition, retention. Everybody likes a three day weekend, so you can't keep that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Imagine having a three day weekend every weekend. So what about those days where there's a holiday Monday
Micah Storm: We close Monday, we're open.
They got a four day weekend.
Jimmy Lea: Cool. I love that.
Micah Storm: It's. They, they work hard. Our team works hard for our shop, for my brother and I, and again it's okay to give 'em an extra day off and, let them enjoy their, have time. And we just, for Christmas, we just, we close the week at Christmas for our, to our shop.
Just, we close down. Everybody gets, spend time with their family. It's just I, it's. It's part of taking care of your people, and it's,
Jimmy Lea: that's awesome. I'll bet they were shocked that you gave them that full entire week off.
Micah Storm: Yeah. And being four tens also makes it a little bit easier because we usually close Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Micah Storm: So when Chris, when Christmas falls in the middle of a week and you're like going, okay, we're only gonna be open two days anyways, and then we're gone for four days or six, five days, and then we're back for two and then off again. It's like, why don't we just close and, give everybody a little more extra rest.
Family time.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. That's awesome. Yeah. Family time. Yeah. When you're taking care of your people, then your people will take care of you,
Micah Storm: correct? Most definitely.
Jimmy Lea: Oh,
Micah Storm: most definitely. We have our longest term employee there Tim, he's been there 31 years, I think. He's one of the body techs.
Most, a lot of our employees have been there, been with us for at least 10 years. We've got some new addition as far as needing more. New, more people and more employees. But the ones that are there typically are, have been there for a long time. And again, it's just we respect that and appreciate the time they put in, invested in for us.
And it's like I said you gotta give it back,
Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. It sounds like you're still the new kid until you've been there for 10 years. Yeah.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. No, that's really cool. Hey on the collision side what are the top three to five numbers that you pay attention to the most so that you know that the shop's going in the right direction? Same question, but on the automotive side as well. But give us the collision side first.
'cause I haven't done much with collision, so this is all new information you're giving me,
Micah Storm: so I'll be a hundred percent honest. I'm not a numbers guy. Oh I, the numbers are important. They give you a snapshot. But ag yes. I know, again, I know some shops, they're driven by the numbers and I, we're not, my brother and I, it's just, you can tell where we're sitting.
You get a good feel for where you're shitting. But again, at the end of the year. What where the, where are the numbers sitting is the reality where it's at. So I don't really look at numbers day to day.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Micah Storm: What I look at, is, like I said, I look at capture rate of an estimate.
How many estimates we writing, how many are we getting? If we're not getting the estimates, we're not gonna have the work. They coming in the door. So it, that's, that to me is an important, that's an important number to have. And if, that's, I do every once in a while, glance at the, where are we sitting as far as our, part, how much the, I guess your gross, where that's sitting.
But I don't look at it every day. I probably look at it. Some of them maybe once a week and others once a quarter. It's like I say you run you collect and you get paid for what you do. And I, there's not necessarily a need to be constantly looking at the numbers and seeing where you're at.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You can run your business, you can have a pretty good feel of where things are. It sounds like you still have a couple of numbers that you're looking at on the daily that, that gives you a good indication of, Hey, we're in a good spot. But it's not something that you're constantly monitoring on the every five minutes.
Micah Storm: No.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no,
Micah Storm: I like again, it's just. I've actually worked at a shop that was a very numbers driven shop. Yeah. And I, it was, it's all about the bottom dollar. And I guess I don't want my team to feel that way. It's about, I want them to know they come to work.
They're there because we trust them. They're good at what they do.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Micah Storm: They get the job done. They do a good job. Yeah. And that's, it's not all about numbers.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And Micah, I think if you were to be tracking the numbers on the daily and you were to pay attention to that was your focus of where you were paying attention to the numbers that way.
I don't think. Your employees would feel like the most, the only important thing was the bottom dollar. I think your company, your culture your feel would say, here's the bottom dollar, but a number one, we gotta take care of our customers. We gotta take care of the business because that's what, take care of that bottom number.
I, I think you would still have because you're aware of it. I think your team would be aware of it as well. And it wouldn't be just about the bottom dollar, it'd be about the client, the customer.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Okay. Speaking of clients and customers who is the final sign off on cars before they leave the shop?
Who's your QC?
Micah Storm: So it's actually our does QC is our parts guy. It goes Oh, really? Yes. He, it actually goes to several QCs. So we have our detailers, obviously they're working on it, they're putting their hands on every part of the car when they clean it up for on the collision side. We have our parts guy will actually go over line by line to make sure everything got done on it on the Es, on the repairer.
And it's, it's, we give them, we give our employee or. In this case, the parts guy said, this is what we want. This is what the, this is the quality I want. This is what we want out of it. And give it, make sure he, he understands what we're looking for. That's and he does a good job of it.
He's make sure it's done. I, again, I don't go micromanage and say, you're this and this. It's like I delegate it out. I would rather delegate it. I can only do so much. And I figured by the time it gets through our detail department and it gets through a second check after it's all done it's been looked over very well.
And again, every everybody's aware of what we're looking for, the kind of work we wanna turn out. And if something's not right, they're gonna say something.
Jimmy Lea: So true. So true. I love that you've got multiple people with hands-on looking at the vehicles. I bet you don't have very many com comebacks.
Micah Storm: No, I, they, if their comment's not right, we're gonna take care of it before it, say, Hey we're not happy with it. Do I need to repaint something? Maybe the color doesn't match as close to, we were what we were thinking. It's I'm gonna, I gotta take care of this. Sorry, it's gonna take a little bit longer, but I wanna make sure it's right when it leaves.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so important. Yeah, because when you're in mixing and paint, it oxidizes at different rates. So if you're painting that quarter panel it's oxidized differently, the hood compared to the rest of the vehicle. You gotta make sure it all looks good.
Micah Storm: Especially like today's, you got Tri Trico, you got matte finishes, all these new paints that are coming out.
And sometimes what used looks good inside on in the paint booth under some lights, you put it outside in the sun or something and it's okay, this does not look the same as it did in the shop. That ha that happens. That's just, that's life. That's, you gotta deal with it and take care of it.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Micah Storm: But that. It's, paints have changed over the years. Like I said, a lot of these new colors, they look, they're cool, they look good, but man, they can be a pain to, to make sure it turns out right. So
Jimmy Lea: It's true. It's true. And as a colorblind person, there are things that are obvious to me that are bad color matches, but for a lot of it, I'd be like, yeah, it looks good.
And you'd be like
Micah Storm: No,
Jimmy Lea: we're gonna fix that.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: I think we, they're one out of 12 people is colorblind. Really? Or lefthand might be left-handed. No, I don't remember. I, we went down a rabbit hole the other night, colorblind and left-handed people, and just having a good time. My dad's left-handed.
I'm colorblind.
Micah Storm: Because the best of both worlds.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, sure. That's it. Let's go with that. I know the people there in the Northwest Bainbridge and up in that area, they're very relationship driven. What is your approach? What do you do to build that trust and communication with your clients up in Bainbridge?
Micah Storm: Be honest, be real. If you make a mistake, own it, take care of it. As, as far as we do a lot with our community we're, we have, I could rattle off all kinds of things that we do with our community. We have a, a. The rotary auction that's up in this area on Bainbridge, just one of the, it's last year we raised over a million dollars in, in, in one day sale of, with a sale.
Oh, 1 million, over a million dollars in one, one day. And it's so we donate to that. We donate our time. If we have garbage pickup we do on the highway sponsor sports teams. We like I said, we do a awful lot. We do a car show four times a year. All the money we raise goes to project backpack.
It helps kids get into school, buy supplies for school. That we, that was, I think we hit, we almost hit $10,000 last this last year. But again, it, being involved with the communities was, is so important. Especially with the the relationships, I, I always say that probably 80% of the businesses or people, actually 80% of the people on Bainbridge Island know who we are.
We may not work in all their cars, but they know the name, they know who we are. They know what we do for our community. They know, that, they can bring their car. Us, we can fix it. And they know some of that's gonna go back into the community. Some of whether it's time or money's gonna go back into the community.
So it's very important to, to be there for them. 'cause it's they're, they write the check, they pay the bills. They, that's you gotta get back to 'em.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's it is true. It is true. The relationship, communication is so important. So important, yeah. What's the future of Modern Collision?
Where are you headed to next? Bigger, better, simpler. What are you looking for?
Micah Storm: I'm gonna say better. There's always room for improvement. I don't necessarily think bigger is an answer. Yeah. You don't need to be bigger. If you've streamlined things, it, it can improve flow of the process.
And that can actually getting better at what you do is I think a better way to. Improve and getting bigger. It's, at least that's my input on it. I don't need any more volume to deal with.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no, that's true. There's a lot coming through there. Yeah. And I, there, props to you.
You've got a phenomenal company, phenomenal business, great company, great culture. For those who don't know and none of them would know, but unless you're listening to this, Mike and I were set up to do this right before their Christmas lunch. And I said no. Micah, you do you take care of your people first.
And he's no. I can do this. I can do this. Yeah. Okay. I'm calling it, you're not gonna do this. Let's do it in the new year. Let's circle back. So you're taking care of your people super I just props to you, brother. I love what you're doing, man. Keep it up.
Micah Storm: Oh, thank you.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, you're welcome.
You're, you are welcome. So I, I wanna ask some questions now if I started my business today, questions. And if you were starting your business today, what, knowing what you know now
What advice would you give yourself starting your business today?
Micah Storm: I'd say. Join an association. An automotive association is important and not just joining it, but participate in it.
We've. Yeah, I think it's so important. There's so many, they're networking. The ideas that are created at an association level with some of these events and things like that. That has probably been the number one thing that has helped me in the business. Business side of things and streamlining what we do is the events that I go to through, through the Northwest Autocare.
I guess that would be my number one thing is like I said, is to join it and participate. The more you give to it, the more you're gonna get out of it. There's, that's the so important what is, what else? Is it higher personality? Not talent. You can teach somebody a job, but you can't teach somebody a personality.
And, if you have the wrong person, sure, they may know everything in the world, but if you have the wrong person there, they're gonna, they're gonna tank everybody else. And that's, it I don't mind training people. I'm always willing to, whether they're young and outta high school or they're from a different industry and wanna move into the, into the collision or into the automotive field in general.
I said I don't mind training 'em if they're the right person.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I totally agree with that. So second question here. What has been the most expensive mistake you've made in your career? And what would you do differently knowing what you know now? Same situation. What would you do differently?
What's the most expensive mistake and what would you do differently?
Micah Storm: Let's see. Mistake. Living life, you're always making mistakes. The most expensive one, I would say.
That's a good question. I, what do you consider expensive too? What's the most expensive as far as relationship? Most expensive, dollar wise?
Jimmy Lea: Your choice,
Micah Storm: Mike, that, I guess most expensive, the mistake would be probably relationship wise in the industry as far as like with the cu between customers and stuff.
It's being, again, being honest with your customer, own up to your mistakes. You end up starting to. Something doesn't go right, say, Hey, I messed up it, it's, I broke that. I'm sorry, I, I apologize, but I'm gonna take care of it. If you start making excuses and or don't own up to it, it, you'll lose a customer, you'll lose reputation, you'll lose I so much more.
And then, bad news travels fast, especially on an island. It kinda hits Oh yeah,
Jimmy Lea: for sure.
Micah Storm: Hits the edge of the water and comes right back at you, and then hits,
Jimmy Lea: Ricochets. It just bounces all around the island. So what is one of the best investments you ever made in your business? Whether it's training a higher Go ahead.
Micah Storm: I say I'm gonna say the best investment is probably training. If you again, you train you're gonna learn how to either work on something new how to do something better. Again I think training is the best investment. Also s you know, personal training whether it's personalities and how to work with, I liked working with younger kids and helping them.
Understand, especially outta high school, they're trying to figure life out. Not all of 'em had a great maybe not a great upbringing, but I can help them grow and become someone that they, it's become somebody that's. They appreciate where they're at. They like it they're en engaged in society.
One of the kids, one success story we had is one, one of the kids that hired in high school, he washed cars and did stuff like that. But he runs a boat building business now that has, I think, over a hundred employees. They do. So they have government contracts that's like a. It's, he has 60,000 square foot facility he just built for be able to paint.
Again, it's just to watch, teach them when they're young, out in high school and help them grow and understand and see, they may not stay in this industry, but it's rewarding to see where they end up. It's training, it's it's business training, it's personal training. It's, it's that's one of the biggest, I think the best investments.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Alright who should I interview next? Who is someone that you respect in the industry that's doing it the right way, that you think, oh, you know what, Jimmy, you need to do a podcast with this person.
Micah Storm: Oh, Todd Innsworth.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I'd love to talk to Todd. Do you think he'd do it?
Micah Storm: I'm sure he would. Oh, he's, oh yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: I'm gonna tell 'em you, you sent me over. Oh,
Micah Storm: okay.
Jimmy Lea: All right. Lightning round. Here we go quick. Okay. One word answers or one sentence answers. You ready?
Micah Storm: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: One word that describes your shop's culture.
Micah Storm: Team.
Jimmy Lea: Team. Oh, I love it. Your number one daily. KPI. You glance at first. We talked about that, but you don't have numbers that you're looking on the regular,
Micah Storm: I guess capture rate of our estimates.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Hardest position to hire? Four.
Micah Storm: I'd say a tech.
Jimmy Lea: And by the, how many texts do you want right now? Two or three?
Micah Storm: Two.
Jimmy Lea: Two.
Micah Storm: Use two.
Jimmy Lea: Give Mike a call. Favorite vehicle to work on?
Micah Storm: Don't laugh, a Volvo two forties. The wagons, the sedans. No way. Yes.
Jimmy Lea: That's hilarious.
Micah Storm: I know those are like back of my hand.
Jimmy Lea: That is awesome.
That's hilarious. What's the car you hate working on the most? Are you secretly dread working on
Micah Storm: Land Rover?
Jimmy Lea: Best tool you've ever bought?
Micah Storm: I'd say software. D The dvs.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Micah Storm: They can pay for themselves.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, totally. Amen brother. Amen. What's a habit that made you a better leader?
Micah Storm: Practicing emotional intelligence. That's, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. What's a book that shaped how you run your business?
Micah Storm: It's actually probably I gives you two. One is the ideal team player. That's yeah, that's an awesome book for hiring people. I can't tell you enough about that one. The other one I think is, like I said, probably Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Those, the two books?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That emotional intelligence one, that, that's a heavy read man.
It. It's intense. It's got a lot of really good information in there. I'm in the middle of reading the emotional intelligence again. Yeah, because I've read it once and now I need to go back and read it again. Biggest time waster in most shops.
Micah Storm: I'd say
probably the biggest time waster. I'm gonna see him. I look employees not getting along. And I, you deal with drama. I think it wastes a lot of time in, in most shops. I think we're lucky at ours. We hire again for the personality, not the talent.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. What is a non-negotiable standard?
You refuse to compromise on
Micah Storm: quality.
Jimmy Lea: Amen, brother. Finish this sentence. The future of the collision and service industry belongs to shops that
Micah Storm: adapt. You have to adapt.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, you do. You do. It's an ever changing world.
Micah Storm: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Ever changing world, man. Awesome. Micah, thank you so much for joining me, brother.
I I really appreciate it.
Micah Storm: Thank you. Appreciate that.

195 - Ask Me Anything: The Questions Every Auto Repair Shop Owner Should Be Asking

195 - The Questions Every Auto Repair Shop Owner Should Be Asking
March 13, 2026 - 00:53:14
Show Summary:
Entrepreneurial drive can turn destructive when shop owners chase ideas without discipline. Impulsive spending and constant pivots create stress at home and in the business. Stability comes from personal responsibility and honest self reflection. Counseling and trusted advisors help owners slow decisions and see problems clearly. Strong routines and clear boundaries create healthier leadership. Long term success requires better communication and the courage to address hard truths.
 
Host(s):
Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast
Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:36]  – The episode opens with a tough question about destructive cycles in shop ownership.
[00:01:40] – Repeated impulsive decisions and constant pivots are framed as warning signs.
[00:03:15] – Counseling is presented as a strength, not a weakness.
[00:05:27] – Serious debt becomes a key marker of unhealthy behavior.
[00:07:31] – Big purchases need structure, delay, and outside accountability.
[00:10:00] – Routines and systems can reduce stress and prevent bad decisions.
[00:15:12] – Personal responsibility is essential for change and long term stability.
[00:18:12] – Boundaries and better responses can shift unhealthy relationship patterns.
[00:28:12] – Avoiding hard conversations allows damage to keep growing.
[00:38:10] – Calm, fact based conversations build trust and create a path forward.
 
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_vTLf1P2xbM
 
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
 
Episode Transcript:
Lucas Underwood: Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you everybody for being here today. I am here with Cecil Bullard. Cecil, how are you buddy?
Cecil Bullard: I'm doing fantastic. Lucas. You know, it's, uh, it's not Friday, but it's, uh, but we're almost there.
Lucas Underwood: Close up, right? We're getting there. Uh, Cecil. Hey, listen, so I got a message last night.
Okay. And it was a little concerning. It was from a dear friend of mine, um, and it was, it was actually from his wife. And, and they're going through some struggles right now. You've been doing this a long time. They're shop owners, and I just want, I've, I've summarized the message. I'm not gonna, uh, expose who they are or anything like that, but I've summarized the message, I've brought it way down.
I have a couple questions that I wanna start with in this episode. We're gonna dive off the deep end in this. Is that okay with you?
Cecil Bullard: Absolutely. I'm ready to go with you.
Lucas Underwood: Okay. In the shop owner world, how do you distinguish between normal entrepreneurial stress and behavior that might signal a deeper mental health issue?
I know of a shop owner who goes through repeated cycles of extreme enthusiasm and big decisions, buying equipment or vehicles, talking about expanding to multiple locations, launching new services like towing or obsessing over competitors. Then shortly after they regret the decision, get discouraged, withdraw, or pivot to something completely different.
Now, Cecil, this is not just once we've seen this cycle. This, this is, we're, we're 10, 15 times deep at this point. The pattern also shows up financially, large, impulsive purchases or debt in leadership difficulty with sticking with a plan. And they, they, they'll say, Hey, we're gonna do this. And they'll, they even have a coach and they'll say, Hey, I'm gonna do this.
We're gonna make this happen. Then it all falls apart and in constantly chasing the next big idea, instead of stabilizing what they're already doing. Right. Like they, they have it together. All they have to do is be there and lead and guide their team and take 'em to the next level. So the first question is, how common is this cycle in the industry?
Cecil Bullard: Well, I, I would tell you, you know, after, I don't know, 27 years or whatever it is of doing this, that, that the cycle's very common. Um, and I don't know. I don't know that it's an industry challenge as opposed to a human being challenge. I used to think there was a normal, like, Hey, maybe I'm normal or I'd like to be normal.
Yeah. And um, the older I get, the more experience I have, the less I think there's a normal. Okay.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And so hundred percent.
Cecil Bullard: And so number one, right? Um, entrepreneurial spirit means, uh. I want to do something. I want to do something special. Certainly I've had that entrepreneurial spirit. I'm also, um, a little bit obsessive compulsive and a little bit manic depressive myself, and a lot of the people in my family have these traits.
My mother was way manic depressive.
Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Um. Even bordering on what, what most people today would call mentally ill. Right. And so, you know, learning to, to deal with that, learning to deal with it in your own self.
Lucas Underwood: Mm-hmm.
Cecil Bullard: And, uh, you know, I would say unfortunately, most of us are kind of blind to it ourselves.
Yeah. 'cause when we're in the, if I'm in the moment, like this new thing that's so exciting and everything
Lucas Underwood: Right.
Cecil Bullard: Everything else goes away. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Um, I could be, I could be called, I mean, my wife could have called you and. Maybe he told you the same thing. Uh,
Lucas Underwood: yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Pattern over years and years and years.
I'm so excited about this new shop and, and I'm gonna do that. And then, and then it gets a little hard and I get distracted. And now I'm over here doing this other new project and this other new project, even the institute, um, if it weren't for other people here that could stay focused on one thing, um, we couldn't be where we are or who we are.
If it was just up to me, 'cause I would be moving around too much.
Lucas Underwood: I resemble that remark. I really do. Yeah. And here's the thing is, you know, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and went and spoke with somebody and, and I got really lucky because I found a therapist who I really connected with and, and first of all, I just wanna say like.
I know we're supposed to be big, strong, tough men. There's nothing wrong with going and talking to a therapist. As a matter of fact, I think if you want to be your best version of yourself, that you should do it even if you're perfectly healthy and you don't have any concerns whatsoever. I,
Cecil Bullard: I think that, uh, I don't know, 35 years ago I was, um, the guy that said counseling, no way.
Never for me, not gonna happen. Yeah. You know, blah, blah, blah. Had a problem. My wife, um, was ready to divorce me. Uh, we went to see a counselor. I, I would tell you that is some of the best money I've ever spent in my entire life.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Uh, learning, learning, learning skills that you don't have. It's like, it's almost like getting a coach, um, you know, for your, for your business.
Okay? You have a coach telling you, Hey, you should raise your labor rate, or you should fix your parts margins, or, here's how you manage people, create process, you know, all of that. In a, in a, um, a situation where I might see someone, a counselor, um, that counselor is probably helping me create strategies for me to deal with the world, right?
Yeah. Because again, I don't, I don't think there's a normal, my mom,
Lucas Underwood: amen.
Cecil Bullard: Was very abusive. My dad was a, a wonderful guy, but not home. He was obsessed with work. And part of that, I think as I've grown older was that I think he didn't want to be home because there was a crazy woman that lived there with his kids and
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And uh, what, and back then you didn't divorce. I mean, you know, that was no way. And, um, yeah. And so you have, I don't know, you said something I think's important is, you know, when is it? Normal or, or up to what point. And then when, yeah, and I think, I think if you're getting yourself in serious financial debt.
Yeah. So, you know, and then, Hey Cecil, what's serious finance of debt? Oh, I don't know. A million. Eh,
Lucas Underwood: it's not that much. Well put this way,
Cecil Bullard: but serious. If
Lucas Underwood: it's this way, if it's, we went and bought $140,000 truck. Yeah. We financed it at a very high interest rate, and now we wanna refinance the house.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Because we've also stuck some other financing in that truck too.
Cecil Bullard: Well, and the problem is that you, you, you, you work all your life to. Like pay off the house and all of a sudden you're financing the house because you've gone out and spent money in places that you shouldn't have done. Yeah. Right. And I have people in my life that have spent lots of money, got, got themselves in serious, serious debt.
And I, I mean, don't get me wrong in business, to me, debt kind of comes along with business if you're going to push the envelope and try to do things that other people aren't doing. Right, right. So
Lucas Underwood: yeah, for
Cecil Bullard: sure, for sure. If for sure, if the opportunity came along right now for me to buy. Another company that made sense that, that I thought would be really great for the, for the institute, et cetera.
I, I'd go do it and I'd get in debt to do that.
Lucas Underwood: Right.
Cecil Bullard: But, but I think if you're not, if you're not stopping and spending, you know, 48 hours or maybe even a week, thinking about the consequences and how you're gonna make the payments and what does that really look like, and
Lucas Underwood: yeah. You know, Warren Buffet once said, he said, if somebody wants you to make a decision right now, it's typically in their favor, not yours.
Cecil Bullard: It's a bad decision. Yeah. And it's almost always gonna be a bad decision because
Lucas Underwood: yeah,
Cecil Bullard: you're caught up in the moment. Especially if you have like obsessive compulsive romantic depressive, you know, if you're manic, you'll do almost anything. And then if you're depressive, you'll do almost nothing. Right.
And it's, there's not an InBetween. Right, for
Lucas Underwood: sure.
Cecil Bullard: For sure. The switch is either on or off.
Lucas Underwood: How important. So, so for me personally, right, the, the way that I've mitigated some of the anxiety and some of the other things, now, I'm not gonna lie, and I think you know this, the way that I've really managed my anxiety is I have put so much on my plate.
I don't have time to worry,
Cecil Bullard: to think about anything else, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: That's, that's what I do.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. But, but you know, the big things for me were, is that we built systems around my life, right? And standardized systems. Yes or no.
Cecil Bullard: Coping, coping, coping mechanisms. Exactly. Um, so I have, um, I have anxiety, uh, when I'm in big crowds and you would think, oh, well wait a minute.
That's Cecil. He, you know, he, he's there a lot. But you'll see me, um. Accounting, uh, doing different things. Right. And those are coping mechanisms that, that you develop over for sure. Um, a lifetime to, to reduce the amount of stress that you feel under certain situations, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Cecil Bullard: absolutely. Um, and, and, and that's another thing that a counselor will help you with, right?
Um, so as an example, I have a shop owner and his wife, and he's a nice guy. I, I, I, I've, I've, I've known him for a hundred years and. I was working with him probably 10 years ago.
Lucas Underwood: Mm-hmm.
Cecil Bullard: And the wife, um, was working with him and he was borderline abusive with her in front of, verbally abusive with her in front of staff, in me, staff meetings, et cetera.
And she, all she did was cry and, and, and leave and shut, you know, run away. And, and, um, I had a talk with her and I said, what can you control? Can you control him? No, you can't. Right? It's, it's up to him to control him. But, but you can control yourself. So what you're currently doing is not getting you what you want.
The kind of behavior. Yeah. How you're treating him, how you're dealing with, sure. What he does somehow is making him feel bigger or better or whatever, instead of the other way around. I said, what if we tried a different behavior? And I think that's what, I think that's what you, you do when you have counseling.
You have a counselor that says, well, yes, you're not able to communicate this way. So. What if you did this instead, right? Yeah. What if your behavior was different? Um, um,
Lucas Underwood: because I, I think that's,
Cecil Bullard: yeah,
Lucas Underwood: I think that's huge. And, and look, here's the other side of that is, is one of the things that I worked on was routine.
My wife has been phenomenal for me for this because it's like when I come home, I put my keys in a certain place. And when I get up in the morning, I know where my keys are. That's, and she, she helped me build those routines that add some, some safety for me. Stability. Does that make sense? In other words?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: It's, it's less stress. It's like I just know what to do and it's not something I have to think about. And, and those were things that we worked on and, and building routines in your life that protect you from behaviors. Right. I'm not saying that like you can protect yourself from every behavior in every episode, but you can create routines that help prevent things.
Cecil Bullard: Well, and so if you go around and say spending money
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Um, maybe I have some limits that I put on that, that I can't make that decision without talking to two other people. Yeah. Like, uh, uh, I'm gonna talk to my wife if I'm gonna spin. A lot of money. Mm-hmm. I, I'm not, and, and, and by the way, for me, I'm not really asking permission.
I just need her to know what I'm thinking. Yeah. What I'm up to and to give me some counseling around whether or not I'm thinking Right. Or, or not thinking. Right. Yeah, exactly. That outside perspective, I may still do it. Right. And then maybe you have a business, uh, coach or a, or, or a mentor that you also have a con, so you say to yourself, okay, I put ourselves in financial.
Uh, risk too many times. Alright? Yeah. And too many might be twice, right? I mean, you've got, you, you, you work and work and work and you build and build and build. And then all of a sudden, you know, because you're in a manic state, you or you might be depressed. And the way out of it is to go buy $140,000 truck.
Um, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And so if you create some rules around that or structure and you say, okay, I can't spend more than 10 grand without, yeah. Going and having a two conversations, one with a, a, you know, a, a, a peer counselor and maybe one with my wife or my spouse, or, you know, whatever that is. Right?
Lucas Underwood: An outside perspective, something to slow the process.
Cecil Bullard: So, yeah, because at very least. If you, you know, if we waited a week and we thought about it and we said, man, I'm paying whatever it is, you know, 18% interest on this thing, 140,000. By the time I'm done, I'm gonna pay $400,000.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Um, is that a smart decision or not? No. It's probably not a smart decision as much as I want that truck.
Uh, the truck I got Will, will do. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: A
Lucas Underwood: hundred percent. And
Cecil Bullard: so structure, which again, a counselor, you know, my dad, uh, didn't cry. My dad didn't tell me he loved me, you know, until he was on his deathbed and, and I heard it. Right. Um. As he got older, I think he realized that, you know, real men can cry.
It's okay. Right? Yeah, sure. In fact, maybe we should every once in a while, you know? Yeah. Just to, just to let some of that out. Um, right. But, but I, getting a counselor, if I, if I was doing. I do crazy things all the time. I mean, I think most of the people around me are like, man, that guy is wired. Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: that's what we hired Michael.
Or for, I don't know if you know that or not. Yeah. But
Cecil Bullard: yeah, that's Keep an eye on
Lucas Underwood: me.
Cecil Bullard: No, I think that's Wayne and Kent, the two of them kind.
Lucas Underwood: No, they're the enforcers. Michael's the one that's saying red flags, boys red
Cecil Bullard: flags. Watch out. But, but I think, I think if you understand that, yeah, and, and again, not.
What's normal, right? I mean, if you, if you really wanted to know what's normal, it probably really is someone going out and buying $140,000 truck because they're depressed or because they're upset or because they're not getting out of their relationship what they want or their business what they want.
And that's probably more normal. And so they, but that's also destructive behavior, right? Yeah. And so I think the way you know Lucas is, is my be behavior destructive to me or. Other people around me. Right. Yeah. That's the, maybe that's the judgment call, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And I, I think in a lot of ways, you know, for, for one, I, I've gotta say this.
Jordan Peterson said something, I was watching one of his videos a while back, and he said, I am a firm believer that about 70% of all the people who come into a clinical psychology practice do not have mental illness, but their life has become so complex they don't know how to manage it. And, and my job is to break that down and help them begin to find tools to navigate through that.
In this case, this individual, every single time we've gotten here. Has come up with a, a reason, an excuse that it's not them. And they begin to place blame on everything around them. And it's all, well, that's, it's this, no, it's this. No, it's this. No, it's this. Instead of taking that ownership.
Cecil Bullard: Well, that's kind of the other thing.
And I, I, I don't, I don't, I think you and I actually kind of had this conversation. It's about taking in our podcast we did last week.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Are you taking personal responsibility or not, right? Yes. Am I blaming this on everything else? I mean, here, here's the deal. Uh, as I grew up, my mom was physically, verbally, mentally abusive, right?
I mean, literally for the first 13 years of my life, she told me what a worthless.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: X, X, X, XI was every day, many times a day. Right. And, and that was often accompanied with anger. Mm-hmm. Um, being kicked hit with whatever there was. And, um, and so you, you grow up with that and you're like, well, you know, I'm, I got my weird stuff because it's my mom's fault.
Right, right. So I'm gonna let, let me blame my mom. Well, if you blame mom, you can't get, you can't get rid of it. You can't get out of it. Right, right. If it's not, if it's not what you do. Who you are, right? It's someone else's in control or, or something that happened to you 10 years ago. Amen. Now controls your lives.
Amen. Then you, you're stuck. You're trapped.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. When you own the problem, by God, you own the solution.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And you know, I think that that, number one, that might give you a little more frustration, right? Yeah. So why am I feeling like this? Oh, well your mom was mean to you and she told you you were worthless.
Okay, so. But, but you also can, if, if you're, if you can be aware. And if you can say, okay, you know, when was the last time? I mean, my mom's been gone for 10 years now, maybe 12. And, and, um, prior to that, I didn't, you know, for the last 30 years of my life, I really haven't, she hasn't been in my life in the way that she could influence my life on a daily basis.
So, for the, at least the last 30 years, who's had control of my life. Yeah, well, guess what? This is the guy, right? Amen.
Lucas Underwood: So every, if you leave
Cecil Bullard: that
Lucas Underwood: toxic person in your life,
Cecil Bullard: yeah,
Lucas Underwood: hey, that's still your fault, right?
Cecil Bullard: Like, I hate that. And the other thing is like that, but so, so putting it down in, in, in kind of shop owner, uh, uh, you, you asked about like in the shop.
So yeah, I teach classes about management, leadership and sales and, and you know, I'll say, here's what you probably ought to do and yada, yada, yada. And, and. At the end of almost every class, I have someone come up to me and they say, well, my owner won't do this or won't do that, and yet the owner's the one that paid for you to be here.
And so
Lucas Underwood: right.
Cecil Bullard: For me, it's like I have to decide what I'm willing to accept in my life. If I went home and my wife started yelling at me about, you know, what a worthless piece of crap I am. I've look at me, I'm 64 years old and I haven't been financially successful yet, and I'm in debt and, and you know, oh, you're always gone and you're, you know, blah, blah, blah.
I'd get rid of her. I mean, and it's not like I don't love her, right? Yeah. But I can't have that, uh, acidity in my life.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Right. It's not healthy for me. Right. And if I'm not healthy, I can't help other people around me be healthy. Right. A hundred percent. So Kent calls it setting boundaries and Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: You
Cecil Bullard: know, sometimes I think God.
Damn Kent, you have a boundary for everything. But maybe that's the right thing is, is really right. Being very clear about what you need or what you want or, or the boundaries in your life. Right?
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: And I, yeah, and then, so I had the conversation with the, the wife and I said, well, what if instead of this you did something different instead, just say, instead of crying and, and rushing out and you know, et cetera.
What, what if you said. You know, I don't think that's really appropriate here amongst the employees to have that conversation right now, to be, to, for you to treat me that way. Yeah. And and she did. And guess what?
Lucas Underwood: He stopped.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Right. So I, I think. Part of the, for me, I want to have control over my own emotions and my own life.
And that's, that's hard, right? Yeah. And sometimes it's not even possible. I mean, I'll see some weird movie and I'll, it, it'll make me cry. Right. Right. And I don't, I, I don't even know why. Right. Yeah. I'm just like, I. Why am I crying about this is the stupidest thing and here's this, you know, 64-year-old guy sitting there, oh my God, you know, he's dead and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, that's not even real. It's just a damn movie. But most of the time, I'm, I go, okay, this is what I'm willing to accept or not willing to accept. And, and when a service advisor comes to me or a manager and says, my owner won't X, Y, Z, right? My, my advice is this, first of all. Figure out do do the pluses of being in that place and, and working for that person.
They outweigh the minuses, right? Because the minuses are gonna be there. I you, you've been, I don't know how long you've been married. Um, I got four kids. I got four kids ranging from, I don't know, 30 to to 40. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Right.
Cecil Bullard: And, and they have given me grief, uh, and pleasure beyond, uh, what I thought I could endure.
I mean, right. You know, happiness, that, that, that is, is overwhelming and pain. That's overwhelming. And do I think that in the next 20 years that's gonna disappear because I, I just want it to No, it it, you ha you're in business. Business is always a challenge. I mean, don't, don't be wrong. There might be days here where nothing goes wrong.
I don't have any clients that are upset or everything's perfect, you know? No, no employees. But you know, the bigger your business gets, the more people you have in your life, the bigger your family gets, the more opportunity to have challenges. Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, Cecil, the very first business coach I had, I called him one time and I tears in my eyes so upset over all these things that have gone wrong, right?
I said, man, I said, I just want all these problems to go away. And he said, son, you listen to me when all those problems go away, you're dead.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Let's get rid of problems. If we think we're gonna escape the struggle of life, we've lost our minds. Right? Yeah. Like struggle is part of life. Sacrifice and pain is part of life.
We can't just expect that to go away. I think it's, we can work to make it better though.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. I think it's part of growth though, too. I mean, how do you. How do you experience extreme, um, joy without having experienced extreme sadness? Right. You know, you, you know, you know, family dies and passes away and, and that's challenging, right?
Yeah. I mean, it's extremely challenging. Some people more than others, and. And if I think that's not gonna happen to me, um, I, I am crazy, right? Yeah. I mean, and I for
Lucas Underwood: sure,
Cecil Bullard: I love talking to owners. 'cause I'm like, well, today, this morning I'm talking to a guy and he's got a service advisor and it's a, this person's a problem.
They've literally decided that his pricing's too high and that the community can't afford anything and blah, blah, blah. And his sales have dropped by 40%. I'm like, dude. He's like, yeah, I don't, you wanted this. Yeah, you bought the business. You signed your name to the the lease. You're the one that's responsible.
You have to make decisions, and if you think that you're gonna have a business and never have any paying you. Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: aint, go
Cecil Bullard: ahead. You are, you're gonna be disappointed a lot in your life. It's, yeah, it's, and I don't know. For me, the challenges are things that make it exciting, not necessarily when I'm in the middle of it, and it's the most painful or the most stressful.
Right. But you know, before thinking about, well, man, we could do this or this, and then after thinking about, man, we solved that problem. It's, it's, it's what makes the highs, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. So let me ask you about my friend. Um, for one, when does it cross from normal entrepreneurial volatility?
Like, when,
Cecil Bullard: when, when is it? When it's hurting the people around you now, now I, and I don't mean in a sense of, well, my wife's mad at me. Okay.
Lucas Underwood: Right.
Cecil Bullard: My wife has been mad at me a lot. And I'm pretty sure that, you know, I've made some decisions and she's just shaking her head going, I don't know what that idiot's doing this time.
Right. And yeah, but she doesn't, she, she, she's non, she's non-confrontational. Married a woman who's non-confrontational, which for me is probably good. But
Lucas Underwood: you'd have been dead
Cecil Bullard: by now if I'm, if I'm putting my, my family
Lucas Underwood: in
Cecil Bullard: jeopardy at risk. Now, and, and again, there's different risk tolerances. So for me, you know, when I first signed my first house, it was a hundred thousand dollars and I thought it was the end of the world.
My God, I'm gonna, I'm gonna owe forever. And how am I gonna make these a thousand dollars payments? Well, you know, I bought another business. I spent over a million dollars on it, um, and, and most of that debt. And so I think, you know, tolerance of risk is different for different people. But if I'm really putting myself in a position where I'm, I'm accepting 18 or.
25% interest because I just gotta have this right now that is not healthy, right? If I can't recognize that, that's a behavior, that's probably not a good behavior to have, then it's not healthy if, if, if I can't talk to my wife about it and, and have an open conversation that's not healthy. Right. And so I think, I think every, I don't know, most shop owners I know have this entrepreneurial spirit.
And it's different than, than the people that just come to work for you. Right? Right,
Lucas Underwood: right. For
Cecil Bullard: sure. And thank God that we have that, because otherwise there'd be no businesses. There'd only be people that need jobs. Right. And
Lucas Underwood: yeah.
Cecil Bullard: But is it. I don't know. There's harmful relationships, which you have to be careful of too because, uh, I don't, I don't know their situation.
I don't know them like you do. And I don't know if, if, is the wife contributing to this
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Or not. Sure. But that's, that's why I need a counselor here. That's why I need to get somebody in the middle.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Who's trained and who, uh, who who can go, that's not healthy. And maybe I go first. Yeah. And then maybe I invite my wife with me down the road once I've figured out that my behavior is not healthy.
Lucas Underwood: You bring up a really valid point is, is in life and in relationships there's casualties, right? Yeah. And, and so I impact my wife, whether I'm mean to or not.
Cecil Bullard: You impact a lot of people, whether you mean to or not, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly. And, and what I say and what I do matters, and sometimes I'm not polished on what I say and sometimes I'm not paying attention to how I'm acting and I'm letting emotion control, you know, I tell people all the time, there is no room for emotion in business.
It doesn't work. I've tried it. Right. Like I, it just does not work for me. And so if, if I am having emotional responses, there's a chance that I impact someone I love and someone I care about. And I don't think that we can have a relationship without negatively impacting that other person at times. I don't think there's a way to avoid that.
Cecil Bullard: Well, yeah. No. No matter what. Yeah. No matter what we, you know, and that's the. Give and take of relationships. I mean, yeah. You know, you and I, I, I've been married for I don't know how many years now, 43. I think we just celebrated our 43rd anniversary and, right. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. It, it's been tough, right?
Yeah. I mean, probably harder on her than me. Yeah.
I,
Cecil Bullard: you and I, and you and I have known each other for a long time, and I'm pretty sure that at some point you've probably said, ah, man, that Cecil, I just, you know, I pissed you off at some point, or I said something that you didn't like, or that's where.
That's where understanding the human condition and having some love in your heart and, and some forgiveness in your heart is super important, right? Yeah. I mean, I, I would say in this particular case, I think both, uh, the, both spouses need to look at how they're interacting with each other. Okay. And, and so who knows?
You know, why, why does someone do that and put the family at risk and then wanna mortgage the house? Uh, you know, we, my wife and I, not too long ago, we had a 7,000 square foot house. The kids were gone. Uh, my wife is not as physically able as she used to be, so she can't get down on her knees and clean the bathroom.
And, and I, and I have a hard time doing that. And
Lucas Underwood: yeah.
Cecil Bullard: But I'm also a clean freak, so, so the bathroom's gotta be clean and, and I couldn't keep up the house and I, so I, I put the house on the market and I did tell her, and we had a conversation, but she was very resentful of that. Right. You know, we've lived here for 28 years.
This is my home, and you're selling my home out from under me. And we went to, we went to see a counselor.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And the counselor said, you know, Cecil, why are you doing this? I said, I, I, I can't keep it up. I can't, like, I can't, I can't live in a filthy condition. It's not in me. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Right.
Cecil Bullard: Um, and, and I can't do all of it myself and my wife is not physically able to do that.
We need to be in a more controlled situation. And the counselor looked at my wife and, and said, he's not trying to take away your home. He's trying to create a home that the two of you can live together well, that you can both be comfortable in. And, and so that was. You know, it took a counselor, I think, to help us both, to come to terms with that.
We still sold the house, right? Yeah. And, and we're moving on with our lives, but we can become resentful and we can do all kinds of, um, behaviors that we might not even know we're doing. To prove a point or to create something that we're just unaware of.
Lucas Underwood: How often are these situations caused by our avoidance of hard conversations?
Cecil Bullard: Oh, we don't communicate. That's a real problem. Like we don't talk about things, Hey, I'm feeling like this. Why? Why I'm not supposed to. I'm a man.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Cecil Bullard: right. You, you started this out kinda like, well, yeah, real men don't cry and we don't talk about our feelings and we don't, I mean, I, if I'm disappointed in, in my family or my wife or, or my, even my employees or, or whatever, I'm like, I don't want to have that conversation.
That's not a comfortable conversation. Right.
Lucas Underwood: For sure.
Cecil Bullard: But I think, I think if you don't, if you're not able to have that conversation, then it doesn't get better. It gets worse. Right. So your behavior gets more
Lucas Underwood: coming back to Kent's boundaries, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Right, right. And Kent's boundary's, like my boundary would probably be further over here and he, but his boundary's here, but he has a very solid boundary.
And Kent gets mad at me 'cause like sometimes I don't have the boundaries that I need. Right. Yeah. He feels like, Hey dad, you're not, you're not you. Why do you put up with this? Why do you let so and so do this to you and whatever? And I'm like, well. You know, I, I am who I am, right? Yeah. And
Lucas Underwood: yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And, uh, which is an imperfect human being.
Who, which is what I'm supposed to be. Yes. You know, working on doing the best I can every single day. And I would go back to am I taking personal accountability, right,
Lucas Underwood: right.
Cecil Bullard: For my actions and the results of my actions. And then am I harming the people around me, right. Yeah. Or not am I adding And, and I can't go through life without creating some harm.
Right, but am I, am I continuously, am I consistently creating harm and danger, uh, in the lives of other people? Who cares if I go broke and I, you know, end up
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: You know, being homeless, I'll go live on a beach in Hawaii or something, but, but, um, what if I take my family with me, or I take
Lucas Underwood: yes,
Cecil Bullard: my business with me and the people that rely on that?
That's not healthy. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Right. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So let me ask you this. Now, we, we've isolated that it's not healthy. We, we've determined that something needs to be done, something needs to be said. But in many cases, especially with the shop owners that I've worked with, it's a very difficult conversation.
Very difficult conversation. Mm-hmm. And we have a really hard time getting them to acknowledge this and, and take ownership of this, at least to a degree. Or, or, and, and when I say degree, I'm saying like, Hey, some of this, not all of this, but some of this may actually be your fault and you have to do something to fix it.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And, and listen, I'm the same way. Like you, you, the, I guess it was a month ago, you came to me and said, you need to raise your labor rates. What did I do? I went in and I raised my labor rates while we were on the call. Right. I didn't ask, I didn't question, I didn't do anything. I just did what you said and, and 10 years ago I would've cried for two months about it.
Yeah, right. Like I would've complained. I would've fussed, I would've said that Cecil's an idiot. I would've, right. I would've come up with all these things, but I've recognized to shortened my pathway to growth, I have to take. Immediate action. When someone I trust gives me perspective and feedback, I, and I analyze the situation, right?
I know the data and I say, Hey, listen, I know they're not leading me wrong. I agree with them. It was uncomfortable, but I'm gonna make the decision and if there's a consequence, there's a consequence. This is what I'm doing. And so that takes time to acquire that. In this case, this friend of mine has been doing this for years, right?
Yeah. And never taking it. And it, it, we get better, we get worse, we get better. And I listen. If there's anything that's ever exhausted me about myself in my life, it's the seesaw.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Going up, going up, going up. Oh, back down, back down, back down, back down. Right. I can't like that will wear you out. And so you have to break that cycle.
How do we help them do that, Cecil?
Cecil Bullard: Well, you know, as a, as a coach who often is a counselor, um, I have to build trust with you to a point that if I make a comment or if I say, Hey, we need to do something, that you actually take that seriously. Okay.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And I also have to realize that. I can't just blindly go raise your labor rate.
Right. I mean, yeah,
Lucas Underwood: for sure.
Cecil Bullard: Because for you it's like, for me it's, it's just words I'm saying.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And I, I have a lot of experience to back all that up, but, but for you, it's, it's like, well, what if I do, and what if I lose all my customers? And what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if? So I have to build trust with you, and, and what we need to do as human beings is we need to not only find people, but create those relationships of trust with different people in our lives, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, you know, um. You and I have known each other a very long time. You came to some classes 25 years ago.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: They helped you. You went to another coach, he helped you, you, you did some other classes, you know, and at some point we ran into each other and I said, okay, now it's time for you to be my client.
And we've developed, um. I think, uh, not just a friendship, but also a, um, like I trust you and I, I know that what you're doing is, is, is for the, for the best. You are always trying to do what you think is best. And I think that's the other thing, like if we're, if we're sitting around and going, why are they doing that to me?
Oh my God. They're, they're, they're, they're, you know why they always put me in this position. We either have the wrong people in our life or we don't have the right um, attitude.
Lucas Underwood: Right,
Cecil Bullard: right,
Lucas Underwood: right mindset, right perspective.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. My mindset is, you know, if I have people in my company that, that come here every day and work hard every day and, and love the company and, and espouse the company thing, that if they make a decision, they're not making a decision necessarily that's in their own interest.
They're actually making a decision based on our foundational principles and based on, you know, what they believe to be. Best for the country company. Now, I might not agree with what they're doing,
Lucas Underwood: right,
Cecil Bullard: but if they're doing it in the best intention, right? Yeah. Then, then maybe this, this guy is doing what he's doing because he's really trying to provide for his family.
But, and what he sees is if I have this nice truck, then I'm providing for my family. If I, and by the way, I can refinance the house, I mean, that's no big deal, and I can get a lower interest rate
Lucas Underwood: insecurity.
Cecil Bullard: But the problem is you keep. You keep doing that over and over, and when you get old, you don't have anything of any value left.
Yeah. There's nothing there, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And, and so I'm, I'm just, I'm saying you need to, number one, you gotta cultivate relationships of trust in your life, and you, you need to trust somebody. I mean, I, it, it would be very easy for me never to trust anybody. I mean, the, the one person that probably should have loved me the most didn't and didn't have the capacity to do that their entire life.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And, and so, but again, I, somewhere in my thirties, and, and by the way, it took me a long time. I was in my late thirties. I finally said it, it's not me, it's, it was her. And, and so I have to learn how to be me and how to be good with me. Right.
Lucas Underwood: You know? There, there's, you've heard me talk about him many times.
He's passed away now. His name was Tim Kite. Mm-hmm. Um, and he owned Focus three leadership and he did a presentation, um, for Ohio State Football. He was the culture coach for Ohio State Football. And he said something that always stood out to me. He said, love. Is given freely, it's never earned, and trust is earned.
Yeah. And you better not mix those two things up. And he said, how do I gain trust through repeated behaviors? Yeah. You know that I'm gonna do what I say I'm going to do. Right. Well
Cecil Bullard: my,
Lucas Underwood: and I think that,
Cecil Bullard: yeah, go
Lucas Underwood: ahead.
Cecil Bullard: It might be scary too, though, because this, yeah. If this particular person has repeatedly put them in debt and
Lucas Underwood: mm-hmm.
Cecil Bullard: Bought large purchases and et cetera, I'm, I'm not building trust by repeated behavior at this point. I'm actually creating stress and, and other stuff by repeated behavior.
Lucas Underwood: Well, exactly. And, and that's what I was gonna say is, so now we, we take a step back and we say we're in a relationship. We are in a business partnership, right?
Like this is not just about relationships. This is gonna be partnerships too. There's baggage that comes along with this. There, there, there's baggage in a relationship regardless of what kind of relationship it is. That one time Mrs. Smith said this about me and I'm, oh, I'm very sad about it. But we remember those things.
Cecil Bullard: Mm-hmm.
Lucas Underwood: And we have a responsibility of saying, okay, I have to reset the dial here. At some point because I, you know, one of the things about marriage is, is that vow says. This is forever. This is a forever thing.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. We're
Lucas Underwood: right.
Cecil Bullard: This is not just for a week or until I get tired of looking at
Lucas Underwood: you.
Cecil Bullard: Here's where
Lucas Underwood: it goes.
Goes better or worse. Yeah. And worse can be pretty worse. Right? So
Cecil Bullard: And they've done that.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. So when we, when we're in these situations, we at some point have to reset the dial. And I, I think as, as business partners and as as folks in relationships and marriages, we've gotta back up and stop and say, Hey, wait just a minute.
One, as being in this relationship, I know there's parts of me that I'm gonna have to sacrifice. I'm gonna have to compromise with you, right? And to build trust, we're gonna have to compromise with one another to get back here. Right? I understand. I've done things that have upset you and you understand that you've done things that have upset me.
And so we have to come back and find a common ground somewhere because the water gets so muddy.
Cecil Bullard: But you, here's, here's. Am I, am I, how am I talking to you? How am I treating you? Yes. How am I approaching you? Because that's the, if my ego is hurt or if I'm mad,
Lucas Underwood: right?
Cecil Bullard: And I come to you and I go, Lucas, dammit, you son of a bitch.
You always X, Y, Z, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: That's not healthy. That's not good. And by the way, that's never gonna get me what I need.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: If, if I come to you and I say, Lucas. I'm really concerned, uh, uh, I'm gonna have a conversation with an employee, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I, I have rules around having those conversations. Number one, I need to have proof of the behavior.
Yeah. So if I come to iga, Lucas, I'm concerned about you. Because I've seen this behavior five times and here's five examples of that.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: And, and you know, when you're having conversation with people, it's a management technique. It's a counseling technique or whatever, you know, um, uh, I've seen this behavior.
Do you recognize that there's a pattern here, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Hey, can you see this with me? I see that. Okay, great. Now we're, now we, it's a completely different conversation, and unfortunately we let our hurt and our anger
Lucas Underwood: mm-hmm.
Cecil Bullard: And our disappointment and our egos get in the middle of all this, and we say things and we treat people in a way that's not healthy.
Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep. A hundred
Cecil Bullard: percent. When I, when I start saying, well, you know. I don't know who I could pick anybody and go, well, you're this and you're this, and you're that. All of a sudden, all I'm doing is putting a big widge between us,
Lucas Underwood: a hundred percent man,
Cecil Bullard: and it's probably gonna create more of the behavior I don't want and not the behavior that I want.
We have to be so careful in our relationships and when we're talking to people, how we approach them and, and what we do.
Lucas Underwood: You know, growing up, and I've told you this before, um, I, I, and I love my daddy to death. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying anything bad about my daddy. I don't want you to think that, but I remember growing up, if I grabbed a sandwich bag.
And I put a sandwich in that sandwich bag and it was the right size, he would tell me, why'd you use that bag? Because we don't have that many of that bag. Okay. Um, alright. And I would go to a bigger bag and he would say, why'd you use that bag? You shouldn't have used that bag. Too big. It's too big.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And then I'd have got a small bag. It doesn't fit in there. Right. Like that, that, that's how my dad was. And I look back and I recognize my grandmother was very much the same way with him. Right. That's how he was raised and that's how he raised us. And, and I have to be careful about that. But it also created a thing in me that sometimes when my wife says, so.
I, I respond and I'm like, boom, I can't believe you. Right? Like, I get emotional because of my pocket. I, I put
Cecil Bullard: whatever bag I want, you know, I'm an
Lucas Underwood: adult now, and she's right. I bought
Cecil Bullard: those bags,
Lucas Underwood: right? Whatcha talking about? Whoa. Yeah. And so she, she came to me years ago and she said, can you see that I'm on your team?
Can you see that I'm trying to fight the fight that you wanna fight, that we're doing this together? I'm hearing you. I'm not against you. Right? I want, and if you perceive something I'm saying is against you, you're not hearing what I'm saying. If
Cecil Bullard: there isn't a person that in my life that I don't want to see successful, there isn't a shop that I've ever met.
I mean, I have clients that left me and went to other places where I don't think it was the best thing for them, and it hurts me still today. Yeah, I see 'em and I'm like, oh man, and it hurts. And, but you have to, you, you, you, you kind of have to overcome those things and, and move those things forward or put those things in a place that you know how to deal with them, right?
Yeah, absolutely. My dad was, was very critical. You know, same thing, you know, I mean yeah,
Lucas Underwood: it was
Cecil Bullard: the
Lucas Underwood: generation, it was the generation he was raised in. It was,
Cecil Bullard: yeah, if I cleaned it, it wasn't clean enough. If I put it away, I didn't put away the way it was supposed to. If I. If I used it, it, it was probably the wrong thing, right?
Yeah. I, I, I wore my shoes out too fast and I grew too fast, so my pants were too short and, you know, and as a parent, I'm thinking, you know, and by the way, guess what? I've screwed my kids up. Just as much as my parents screwed me.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Right. Yeah. And not, not out of bad intention. Yeah. Just out of, you know, oh, I'm really stressed about work and I come home and things aren't, you know, kids are too loud and I scream at 'em instead of get in there and, you know, enjoy the time together.
Right.
Lucas Underwood: It makes me think of that Zig Ziglar story, Mr. B. Where he said that Tomcat was the only being in that entire equation who could not have changed the outcome of the circumstances. Right. Like sometimes we gotta be the thing that stops it. Sometimes we have to be the one to put the, the foot down and say, no, I'm not gonna continue this.
This is where we're stopping this. Well, it, it's a really great comment over here. I, I wanna read this book because I know we have a few minutes early, so there's really great comment. Um, it's Todd Ainsworth and he says, I think trust is not only an issue in creating the relationship with clients, but independent shop owners.
Are independent by nature, believe that they have a better way due to past experiences and have trouble believing other people, shop owners, coaches, et cetera, want to help them and not gain some sort of, sort of advantage by looking more closely at financials, et cetera. I have seen that time and time again, they, they tend to say, oh, you, no, I'm, I'm, he's out to do something.
There's a reason there. They wouldn't just want to help me for no other reason. Like, there's got to be something there, right? And so I think that's a really great perspective. Thank you, Todd.
Cecil Bullard: So if, if anything is unhealthy, healthy in my life, it's probably the, the driving force to try to change the industry and, and make it a better place for a lot of people.
I mean, because if, if I didn't have that. I would've done a lot of different things and I'd probably be a much wealthier person than I am at this point. Yeah, right. Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: a hundred percent buddy.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, I That's a great co thank you, Todd, that, that's really a great, a great comment. But again, it's up to us to be as adult as possible and to recognize what's my part in this and, and, and I think, yeah.
We have to get conscious, and that's one of the problems that we're often unconscious about our communication. And we have to get conscious, especially when we have situations. So like if, if, if I have a real problem with my wife or one of my clients or one of my partners here at the institute, I mean, hell, I.
I never had partners. All of a sudden I got partners in the last couple of years and
Right.
Cecil Bullard: And that's not an easy relationship. I had to be very,
Lucas Underwood: you messed up. You went and hired some really, really, really, really
Cecil Bullard: smart, amazing people, smart
Lucas Underwood: partners.
Cecil Bullard: Yes, I did. Actually,
Lucas Underwood: they were very,
Cecil Bullard: well, somebody at one point, I think it was, um, I think it was, um, Covey or somebody who said, uh.
You really wanna surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Um, and I, I think you've outdone yourself a few years ago, I've kind of taken much apart. I
Lucas Underwood: you're much smarter
Cecil Bullard: than all of us. Yeah. I mean, I, I, we, we just restructured, um, did a lot of restructuring and I'm signing, I don't know how many pages of legal documents and I'm like.
Man, I'm either, I'm either doing the best thing for myself in the world 'cause I brought the right people in, or I'm gonna end up broken on the streets because I just gave away everything to everybody.
Lucas Underwood: I'm not reading all this. It'll be fine.
Cecil Bullard: No, I read, I read it, but it's, it's not easy to understand. Um, yeah, I, I think.
Y Yeah, but it's not an excuse. We use all these excuses like, like my mom or, or, you know, uh, today I heard, you know, president Trump, uh, the economy and, and the economy's bad. Well, if you're a business owner, you don't get to use excuses.
Lucas Underwood: Amen.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. If you wanna be successful, you have to be aware. You have to be awake, you have to be.
Knowledgeable, you have to be pursuing knowledge and, and finding out that maybe the way you did it for the last 20 years is not the way it needs to be done in the future. If you wanna really be successful. You know, that adage about doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, for
Cecil Bullard: sure. Um, and, and so back to the idea of counseling. There's never anything wrong with, with finding a good counselor. And I think you can do that. You might have to interview two or three, but, and then saying, help us. To communicate. Yeah. Uh, you know, you have, in this case you have a wife who's, who's concerned.
She's probably concerned for her kids, her future, her husband, their business, et cetera. And then you have a husband who is doing semantic behaviors, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And those are probably legitimate, meaning there's something behind all that that is, has brought that all forward.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And, but the first thing that really needs to happen.
Is they both need to sit down in a calm situation and say, we need help and find help.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely right, because we have to realize that we're on the same team.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. We're all, you know, we, my wife and I that years ago, my wife does so many things that piss me off, and I, I've said it more than once on a, on a, on a podcast and it's, it's, it's harmful for her to hear that.
So don't listen to this part, honey. But, you know, she's, she, she doesn't live her life exactly the way I want, and she's not, she doesn't do this the way I want. She doesn't fold my laundry the way I want. You know, those kind of things. Right. And, and, and so if I look at all the things that she does wrong, I can't be married.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And, and I don't know, 20 years ago I was just this negative guy who just was unhappy all the time. I said I have to change my perspective 'cause the world's not gonna change. My wife, we've been married 43 years, she's not changing tomorrow. She's not gonna wake up tomorrow and go, I'm gonna do all this differently.
Lucas Underwood: You're too hardheaded. Okay, listen. Oh yeah. My wife, she had me trained from the word go. She was right. Okay.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. She's not wrong ever. It's me. Okay. I just, I have gotten to the point that I accept it. I know it, I acknowledge it, and I just do exactly what she says. And, and believe it or not, my life gets better when I do.
Cecil Bullard: You're a smarter guy than I am.
Lucas Underwood: She's gonna kill me when I get
Cecil Bullard: but kind. This my, because she's like, bullshit. Um, but, but what I had to do was I had to make a conscious choice to not look at. The stuff that doesn't fit, but really mostly to look at the stuff that fits and that works well. And, and you know, I, it is, I, I love talking to my wife at the end of the day and going, here's where the business is at and here's what I'm thinking.
Yeah. And here's why I'm doing this. Me, and I mean, me too. There's anybody else I'd rather have that conversation with. And I've got, I've got Wayne and Michael and Kent and I do have lots of those conversations with them. Shouldn't
Lucas Underwood: hit the same.
Cecil Bullard: I like having the conversation with my wife.
Lucas Underwood: There's something different about, here's where we're going together.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: right. Yeah. There's something different about your closest companion and having a conversation with them saying, I'm so excited to do this with you. So my wife hates talking about the business. Yeah. I swear she does. But that of all the things and, and I've had to be very guarded about this, but of all the things that provide me relief.
Being able to share how I feel about the business to her. Yeah. 'cause here's, here's the big thing, right? And, and this was a big thing about counseling for me, Cecil, is even you being as close as we are, there's things that I don't feel comfortable coming and telling you about the business. Now I do, I forced myself through it, but it's not comfortable.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: When I went to counseling, I learned what it feels like to truly be vulnerable and say how I feel about something and not worry about being judged. And so I can talk to my wife. Let that out, and that's a big deal for me
Cecil Bullard: and understand from. Our, from our relationship. Um, I'm a coach and, and I'm a coach, and I'm a coach, and I'm a teacher, and it, it's just ingrained in me.
So, and, and because of whatever happened to me in my life and all the experience I've had, I, I, I have a gift or. Whatever to see things that some other people don't all often see and
Lucas Underwood: yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And so when I come to you and I say, Hey Lucas, I need to know this. Or Hey Lucas, I think we need to do this. It's never, we're on the same team.
Yeah. It's always, we're always on the same team. It's never, how do I, how do I get extra money from Lucas or you know, how do I get influence or whatever. It's none of that. It's always. I want you to be successful as much as possible. And I believe to the core of my being, that 99% of what I'm telling you is right and that I might be insane.
I might be on that mental side, right? That, that
Lucas Underwood: Well, good news. I trust you. And so I might be mental too, but like, hey, we'll be, we'll be on the same bus together, so it's okay. Uh,
Cecil Bullard: well, yeah, we, we, we, we have to take accountability for ourselves. We have to look and see are, am I harming? The people around me and, and myself.
Alright.
Lucas Underwood: Amen.
Cecil Bullard: And then we have to be very careful about how we talk to people again, especially if we're on the same team, right? I mean, there are people that I just don't like, and so we're not even gonna talk. I'm not wasting my time with that person. Right? Yeah. And, and I'm not wasting my energy, but the people in my life that I care about, I'm gonna give them everything that I can give them.
Yeah. And, uh, hope that I'm right most of the time and, and, you know, we'll ride this thing out together. I'm always there for 'em.
Lucas Underwood: Amen, buddy. Well, thank you for being here, Cecil. I know we gotta end it a few minutes early. I gotta make it to an accountant's office. Yes sir. You've got stuff you gotta do. I hear that Michael and everybody else has this huge stack of paperwork for you to sign.
Cecil Bullard: They got all kinds of stuff for me.
Lucas Underwood: Something about financing 42 brand new vehicles is all I heard. Yeah. I don't know what it's, I'm just gonna
Cecil Bullard: 40,000 a. No, it's just paperwork.
Lucas Underwood: That's it. It's just paperwork. It's fine.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: it's fine. Hey, did they get that auto sign thing set up for you?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, it's all done.
It's, it's literally, it's buddy, I signed a, I dunno, 47 documents in like 10 minutes. Uh,
Lucas Underwood: that's it. I love it. I love it. Don't know
Cecil Bullard: if they, I read. It's
Lucas Underwood: fine.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Guys, guys, thank you so much for being here. Go ahead, Cecil. I'm sorry.
Cecil Bullard: I, I called Wayne and I was like, Hey Wayne, I'm looking at this stock stuff and, and, uh, it looks to me like this.
But on this other side, it looks like this. And he's like, oh, it's fine. No problem. And I'm like, okay. That's,
Lucas Underwood: don't worry,
Cecil Bullard: don't worry. Yeah. Okay, don't
Lucas Underwood: worry.
Cecil Bullard: There we go. And I told him that, that, that proves how much I trust you. Yeah, I mean these are, and, and you need to foster relationships in your life that you can have people in your life that you know they're on your side and you know they're working with you towards things.
So
Lucas Underwood: amen.
Cecil Bullard: Wrap her up there buddy.
Lucas Underwood: And folks, that's exactly why if you own an auto repair shop, you need to have the institute in your life, especially with all the new great big things that they're doing. Their coaching services have been a life changer for me, and I hope they will be a life changer for you in the very near future.
So you guys, make sure you check out all the institute has to offer and have a great day.
Cecil Bullard: Thank you brother.