The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast

208 - A Technician Crisis or a Productivity Problem? Ask Me Anything with Cecil and David

208 - A Technician Crisis or a Productivity Problem? Ask Me Anything with Cecil and David
June 10, 2026 - 00:55:43
Show Summary:Cecil Bullard and David Roman discuss whether the industry's biggest challenge is finding technicians or improving productivity. They explore why shop owners often keep struggling employees too long and how clear expectations make difficult staffing decisions easier. The conversation highlights the importance of job descriptions accountability and documented processes. They also explain how poor structure lowers shop value and limits growth. The discussion closes with a look at pricing strategies and why shop owners must stop blaming rising costs instead of adjusting their margins.
 
Host(s):
David Roman, Shop Owner Done With Care Auto and Changing the Industry Podcast
Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute
 
Show Highlights:
[00:01:03] – Letting the wrong employee stay hurts the whole team.
[00:05:22] – Every employee impacts the success of many families.
[00:08:15] – Winning requires the right people in every role.
[00:12:14] – Hire carefully and accountability problems become less common.
[00:17:10] – AI makes creating job descriptions easier than ever.
[00:20:11] – Structured businesses hold greater value and survive longer.
[00:24:03] – Poor productivity and margins cost owners millions.
[00:30:32] – Employees need coaching before owners assume resistance.
[00:37:46] – New habits require daily follow up and accountability.
[00:47:13] – Rising costs require pricing changes not excuses.
 
 
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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:
 
A Technician Crisis or a Productivity Problem Ask Me Anything with Cecil and David
Cecil Bullard: Welcome. My name is Cecil Bullard. Welcome to the Institute Ask Me Anything. Today you get to ask me and David Roman from Changing the Industry podcast, a f- good friend of mine. Hey, David. How are you today?
David Roman: This is so professional. I'm not used to this.
Cecil Bullard: Oh, come on now. Wait a minute, brother.
David Roman: I do the production work on my podcast.
Trust me, this is professional. I just slap the stuff up on the internet and say, "Go."
Cecil Bullard: There you go. I don't know. I'm a nut, so I'm a- ... I'm a perfectionist and- Yeah ... in fact, my hair is bothering me, right? And
David Roman: just cut it all off.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. You'll like it. Just cut it all off. What's what's cooking with you, brother?
What's what do you got for us today? I know we got some people that will be asking questions and all of that. And
David Roman: you- Yeah. I've got an interesting question I- I'd like your opinion on, and this is a discussion Lucas and I have had in the past. In our minds, you, as you start to scale, you become more disconnected with the business on a personal level, and it becomes a business.
I've... and this is specifically with your staff, where when the shop is small and maybe there's three employees, maybe four employees, you're all friends. You kinda hang out, you have lunch together. It's a whole thing, right? But as you start to grow the business and you've gotta start letting people go, the weak links or people that are causing problem or people that have just run their course in the business and they can no longer keep up with what you're demanding or what you need for the business to continue to succeed, you have to start letting people go.
And that has and this question came up in the, in, in our Facebook group, where the person was having trouble finding the mindset and the wherewithal to let the person go that needed to be let go. And he just, he's "Man I'm just too c- too connected to the person. I don't know what to do. How do you disconnect that?"
And he just, he felt bad, and he knew that when the time came, he wasn't gonna be able to pull the trigger. And I see this Incredibly detrimental to businesses in general. You see too many businesses that you walk into and you immediately identify that person's gotta go. That person is causing all this trouble here.
They are binding up production. They're questioning everything you do. They're undermining your authority. They don't allow you to implement anything new because they wanna go immediately back to their old ways, and they wanna kinda hide in the weeds a- and hide in the chaos is what we call it, right?
Yeah. There's chaos going on in the shop, and they just wanna hide in the chaos and just kinda cruise and collect their paycheck. And they don't let them go because they're like, "Oh, they've been with me for 15, 20 years. I can't let them go." H- how do you make that mindset shift? What have you seen?
What have you seen work at other shops? How do you kinda make that change? And how have you done it within just the institute itself?
Cecil Bullard: It's never easy to terminate somebody, especially someone that you may have been working with for a very long time. And there, there needs to be some loyalty to your people, right?
Yeah. You can't just like, "Oh, you screwed up, so now you're gone." And I think that in mo- for me, it's been a difficult change. I, I think a lot of people think I'm a pretty cold-hearted SOB, so for me to fire somebody, no big deal. But I always keep people too long. I always have too much hope all of that.
For me, I think we talk about a vision for the business. We talk about your vision statement, your mission statement, those kind of things. I think the more you clarify the rules and the roles of the job I would I might sit down with with you, David, and I might say, "What's the org chart looks like?
What does this business look like, say, five years from now? What do you want out of your life," right? And you say to me Cecil, here's how that looks." And the organizational chart creates structure, right? Who answers to who. But it also, if you do it right, it can create description, job description.
What do I need this person in this role to do, right? And so the more you clarify, the more the people that can't or won't get the job done will stand out, all right? And I think that I have to look at my business differently. So let's say that you and I we're buddies and we're gonna start a shop.
And by the way, I'm gonna be the sales guy. You can be the tech 'cause I'm not a tech not now anymore. And I'm still pretty good at selling stuff, so- I
David Roman: rebuild car, by the way. It'll be a terrible shop.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. So you don't fix cars either. We're gonna have to hire somebody. But let's say that we do that, right?
And so we're best buds, and we go along for a couple of years, and I'm not getting what I need or want out of my life, right? I didn't start the institute to pay the bills, right? If I had started the institute to pay the bills, I would've worked for somebody else, right?
Yeah. I started the institute to do something special in the world that I live in and to try to control my future and to create my future, and a future for my family and the families of the people I work with. So we have to start thinking differently, two years from now, we've got three techs, we've got a service advisor and you and I, and I'm not responsible for just Cecil or just Cecil and Dave.
Now I'm responsible for, I don't know, 25 people, because everybody that works for me has a family, right? Yeah. And if I allow one person in the company or even two people in the company to hold the company back Then everybody gets penalized.
This is a, an ecosystem. When the ecosystem gets screwed up, everybody suffers, okay?
And it's one thing for me to say I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold onto David even though he's a pain in the ass, and even though he won't change and even though he costs me money and gives me aggravation because, I've got this loyalty thing and I like David and I'm gonna hold onto him."
I can do that when it's just you and me, right? Because I'm only affecting me and my family, right? And I can make that decision. But, at the institute we've got 30, I don't know, 34 employees now and that only counts the institute. That doesn't count other companies that we now have brought into the institute, so we're probably closer to 60 or 70.
And those are 60 or 70 families-
David Roman: Yeah ...
Cecil Bullard: that I have to affect. So if I have somebody in here that's fighting the, whatever, not doing their job correctly. Plus, I've created this structure in the organization, remember, because I don't wanna be the only person that's gonna draw... pull the hammer, right?
I think you have to understand that and I think this is one of my, kinda one of my things. I wanna win, right? And in fact, I'm so mentally ill that I will do, l- I don't really wanna win, I just don't wanna lose.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And so I will do almost anything it takes to win.
And I have to watch that, because that sometimes can push me over the edge, right?
And so I have to control that part- And I have to, for, so for me, if I'm gonna win, I can't have people in the organization that can't or won't do their job- Yeah ... or that are fighting the organization. Think I used this morning with one of my clients. I said think if you were building a, you wanted to win the Super Bowl, and you're building a championship football team, and you had a receiver that couldn't catch."
Yeah. Okay? What would you do with that guy? Yeah. Would you keep him on your team 'cause he's a nice guy, and, he always shows up to practice, he's early to practice, and he practices really hard? He just can't catch the ball, right? It's not his fault. He's a nice guy, right? Would you keep him?
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And the answer's no, because y- you could never win the Super Bowl.
You won't. And while that might seem harsh, my- personally, I don't believe it's harsh.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I had a... I took over this company that was failing miserably, and for the first, I don't know, eight, nine months I worked 80 hours a week.
I interviewed people. I sold 1.9 million annually at the service counter by myself. I ordered parts. I did a bunch of stuff. And I was away from my family for all that, so my family suffered for that time. And so I hire this guy. We'll call him Mike. A nice guy. Really nice guy.
He became my right ar- arm guy. He became the guy that when I decided I'm gonna take Mondays off, he was there Monday. If there was a unhappy customer, he took care of the unhappy customer. And so we're in this thing two and a half, three years, and he's my right arm guy, and he's allowing me to go spend time with my family.
Holy smokes. Yeah. And all of a sudden, he is the most sour, rotten guy. "This effing company," and, "This it's the same effing crap every single effing day," and blah, blah, blah, and, "I hate this effing job." And, about two weeks of this, and I pull him in my office and I said, "Dude, I'm gonna terminate you."
I said, "It's not that you're not, quote-unquote, doing your job, but you are so unhappy and you're so miserable, you're dragging all of us with you- Yeah ... and our customers with you. And I can't ha- " And I terminated him, right? And about two years later, he... I saw him somewhere and he came up and he said, "I just wanna thank you for firing me."
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And you're like wait a minute," that was a hard thing to do. You were my right arm guy.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And he said, "No, I needed something else." "And I went somewhere else and I found something that made me happy. The Institu- It wasn't the Institute at the time, it was Larry's, but Larry's wasn't making me happy.
I couldn't- Yeah ... be happy," right? "And you recognized that, and you did the hard thing and you terminated me."
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I, I- I think that business, the, what's different between, say, corporate business and, small business- ... right? Little family-run business. We all know each other. Kinda in corporate I probably do, too.
The problem with corporate is corporate has a very distinct reason for being there. Yeah. It's about profit, and if you don't make profit- It's well de-
David Roman: well defined.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. A- and if you don't make profit, then the investors leave, and you don't have a company. Yeah. It's that easy, right? And so it's very easy, and they also are much more structured.
So incorporation, in a corporate, you've got the manual, you've got your, your process manual, you've got the company a man- manual, you've got the safety manual. ... You got your procedures, and if you screw that up and the profits disappear from the company, you're fired. That's it, right?
Yeah. There's not... Th- there wouldn't be a manager because if the manager didn't fire you, if your direct manager didn't fire you, the guy above him would. Yeah. And he'd also fire the manager,
David Roman: right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And so there's no... but we as owners of small businesses, we're much more compassionate, and we put up with it a lot longer.
Yeah. I would also say that in a, in corporate, because you know there's consequence and you know that consequence is, it's going to happen, that you're much more likely to handle it sooner rather than later. Sometimes. So what happens... Y- yeah. In small business- Nope ... a lot of times we watch somebody go downhill, and we watch them go downhill, and it's only after we've kinda got the courage up to have the conversation, that could be six months from now-
David Roman: Yeah
Cecil Bullard: that we have the conversation, and by then we're probably angry, and if we're angry, we're not doing the right things.
David Roman: No, we're not rational. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
David Roman: Yeah. I've seen, I, we just had somebody on the podcast, and the guy i- is doing extremely well. He's just killing it. He's super young, and he's he just blurted out, he's I fire them as fast as I hire them."
And I go hold on now. You're just finding more people and you're just cycling through?" He's "Yeah, I just cycle through them until I find the right person." And it goes back to the phrase you hire slow, you fire fast.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
David Roman: But the hiring slow si- sometimes gets glazed over.
If you're finding the right people and you're taking the time to find the right people, and then just as you stated earlier, you're putting them into an organization that is well-defined in their role, in the organizational chart, the likelihood that you're gonna have somebody that you're gonna have to fire is going to go way down.
I don't fire a lot of people. I haven't had to fire a lot of people, and the ones that I've had to fire is for a reason. But-
Cecil Bullard: If you create accountability and-
David Roman: Exactly. But that, that- And if you
Cecil Bullard: manage ...
David Roman: that assumes that you've got well-defined roles, job description- And that's-
everybody knows exactly what they're supposed to be doing because at that point you can then hold them accountable and go, "Hey, this is what we do. We do A, B, and C. You're not doing A or B or C, whatever it happens to be. We need to either fix this or you can't be in the organization."
Cecil Bullard: And, a- and in what business can you go to work and say to your boss, "No, I'm not gonna do what you asked me"?
David Roman: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Cecil Bullard: The o- the automotive industry, I'm sure a lot of small businesses, who knows, maybe the local bowling alley the guy that's supposed to be, spraying the disinfectant in the shoes and handing you shoes, maybe he's not doing his job right and nobody is catching it.
But in, in- almost any world, if your boss asks you to do... I was when I've had an employee that won't do what I need them to do, and f- and I'm sure that we've discussed it, I'm sure they understand what it is, but they still refuse, I always ask them, "Is it illegal, immoral, or unethical?" And they're like no it's none of those. I just don't wanna do it." Okay. That's called gross insubordination, and that's means for termination. Yeah. That's in your employee manual, right? And if you read your employee manual, you understand that when the boss asks you to do something, if it isn't illegal, immoral, or unethical, then that's what you're supposed to do.
I could change your whole job description. I could go, "Hey, David, from now on, you're not gonna be talking to anybody on these dang webinars," blah, blah, blah. If I'm the boss I could do that, and you could be really upset about that, but it's not illegal, it's not immoral, it's not unethical so what?
Yeah. And then you have the choice to say, "I don't wanna be in that job anymore," right? I- Yeah. You changed my job to a place where I don't wanna... It's not what I wanna do. Yeah. And that's fine. But because we know people, because we're intimately involved with them, we know their lives. My our top admin person is in Ireland right now getting married, along with most of our admin staff.
And and you're like, we know these people. We know their lives. We know their husbands, their wives, their kids. They've been to the barbecue, et cetera. I think the way that I look at it is I owe it to the company and to the people we serve. So I've had the opportunity to change- Probably anywhere from 4 to 10,000 lives for the better- in most cases. I, at least I hope so, right? And if I didn't terminate unhealthy people out of the organization- Yeah ... I would've changed a lot less lives. Yeah. I would've helped a lot less people, right?
And so I, I look at it differently, and it still takes me too long, and it's still painful to let someone go.
David Roman: Yeah.
And th- this brings up another question that somebody had had popped up in, in one of the Facebook groups, and that ha- has to do with job descriptions. And just pertaining to the conversation we were just having, if the, if you're not outlining the job for the person, they will invent something for themselves.
Cecil Bullard: Yep.
David Roman: And then the minute you ask them to do something that in their mind they've created this job description, "This is what I do," it's okay, since I didn't define it, I guess you defined it for yourself. Now I'm asking you to do something that's not within that purview. You're gonna get upset, and then all of a sudden the the hostility starts because now they're slighted that, "Hey we didn't discuss this.
Why are you asking me to do this? That's outside of my job description." I don't have a job description written out for you. You invented it for yourself. But This was somebody that needed a something on paper, and I said, "Look, at the very least, you can always start with technician fix the car."
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, fix the car. Just
David Roman: start
Cecil Bullard: with- It should, frankly, right?
David Roman: Yeah. Be- I'm telling you, these shop owners- ... they get in their heads about job descriptions and standard operating procedures, and they just overcomplicate it, and they're like I gotta have this outline, and it's gotta look like corporate," like you were saying, the HR manual, and this, that, and the other.
You don't need to have all that. Just start with the very basics. Like-
Cecil Bullard: But the funny thing is today, first of all, from the institute, if you want a job description, we got job descriptions. I- if you're a client, certainly you have access to all of that. But I would almost tell you that I have posted job descriptions, all kinds of things online- 50 times, yeah. And it... Right now, if you were to Google or use AI and say, "I need a job description for a technician that does XYZ," and you were to just basically define it, it would come up with a pretty dang decent job description for you. And you can- ...
David Roman: adjust from there.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, and then you can make adjustments.
It's AI, and a lot of us are afraid of AI in our industry, and a lot of us don't really understand what AI is or, some of us think it's gonna, it's gonna decide to destroy us, Skynet and all of that. It's coming
David Roman: up.
Cecil Bullard: But you never know. Skynet launching
David Roman: the missiles or
Cecil Bullard: coming to town.
Any minute, right? But I think I don't even have to use AI. I can go online and say, "Can I have a job description for a technician?" And Google's gonna give me five different job descriptions. Yeah. And I can go through and pick and choose the pieces that fit my job descriptions.
It is... It's not 25 years ago where you might if you went to Google and said I don't know if Google's 25 years old, it's probably about 25. I had- It's almost there ... an opportunity to buy Google stock way back then, which I did not do otherwise. But-
David Roman: We wouldn't
Cecil Bullard: be talking right now.
But no, we would... Maybe not the same conversation. We'd be on a boat. But yeah. But if I... 25 years ago if I said, "Give me a job description," it would've went "I'm sorry. W- what? Huh?" And probably for the last 10 years, I could've went on and got a job description if I really wanted to get a job description.
The other problem we have, I think just as an industry, is that we're so busy Just trying to do the job of keep the cars going through and keep the customer happy, that we forget that we need to organize and structure the business in order to ultimately be successful, right? Yeah. There are so many guys that are my age and older that are having to get out of the business for health issues that they haven't structured their business, so there's no- nothing to sell, right?
It's solely based on whether or not you made any money, and if you didn't make enough, then it isn't, it has no value. And it's a real shame to watch guys in their, late 60s, mid sev- to mid-70s when they realize, "I'm gonna have to retire and all I'm really gonna have is the little bit of money I saved and my Social Security, if it exists, and I'm not gonna get, really get anything out of this company that I r- I ran for the last 45 years."
David Roman: Or they're delusional and they think that thing's worth a quarter million doll- And it's dude-
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, and they're
David Roman: never gonna get it ... you're doing $30,000 a month and you're not even profitable. What?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And they're ne- and they're never gonna get it. I mean- ... and, a-again, the more you st- you know with I know a lot of people are not happy with the thought of venture capital coming in and all that, but they're here.
And the more you structure your business, the more you pull yourself out of the day-to-day roles in the business, the more your business becomes worth.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Whether you sell it to venture capital or you sell it to your service advisor or someone else who's looking to build their bench, right? Or their their platform.
It's it... The game has changed a lot, unfortunately. I was do- a bunch of statistical data we did last week for this big meeting that we were having I think a 127,000 shops out of about 260 are just gonna close in the next five years.
David Roman: Yeah. '
Cecil Bullard: Cause there's no, there's nothing there. There's no value.
And there might be another 100,000 that will open and start, yeah. But a bunch of guys are just gonna disappear and fade away because they didn't structure, they didn't You know, build job descriptions and flow charts and, Biggest issue in the industry in my opinion is that we really don't fully understand our business, and therefore we don't really run our business in a financially prosperous way.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
David Roman: Not having those steps outlined... And I, a- about my shop. I'm not- Yeah ... in my shop at all, ever. Yeah. I don't go down. I avoid it. I go to the dumpster once a month and dump stuff out of my house that I need to throw away. And that's it. I just
Cecil Bullard: did that this weekend, man.
Dumpster's full.
David Roman: Yeah. And but the reason why that's been possible, and it- not that I'm maximizing profitability or to the nth degree and tweaking this, that, and the other, but we at least got the blocking tackling down. Yeah. A- and it's automated to the, to a certain point that the manager can talk to anybody that they bring in and say, "This is where we hang the keys.
This is where the car goes. This is where we hang the keys for the next car." "This is how we estimate." "This is how we dispatch the work." "This is how we price." "This is how we do the estimate." Yeah. Yeah. "This is how we..." Everything's automated on the shop management side. Y- so just whatever the price is, that's the price.
This is how we outline the repairs. Everything is just set up in a specific fashion that it can be tra- it's trainable. They can go onto somebody else brand new... And I brought in two people in the last six months, a tech and somebody to help up front so I don't have to be there at all.
And they have, they've been able to get trained on the processes where w- I just had a conversation with somebody, and they were saying that they had brought in this tech. This guy is just hurting for techs, just dying to get techs. Finally gets somebody to bite, and he's probably throwing huge money out there because he finally, he got somebody- I know.
Yeah ... and they actually moved their box into the shop. So the money was there. Within two hours, the guy was gone. Two hours, Zola, it took for the guy go, "This isn't gonna work. I gotta go." "
Cecil Bullard: I can't make this work."
David Roman: Yeah. Yeah. And I guarantee he walked in and he's he was just handed a clipboard, and he's "Hey, fix that car."
And he's li- looking at the clipboard, and there's some scribbles on it, and it, there's no process. Where do the keys go? Where are my parts? What work needs to be done? How many hours am I getting paid for? Like, all of these very basic things that need to be outlined haven't been outlined, and the, they're, everybody's just kinda shooting from the hip.
25 years later, they're trying to get rid of the business, and they're like What do you want me to sell here? There's nothing to sell. There's no processes, there's nothing. You're in the business every single day shooting from the hip. Yeah, you can't- You remove yourself from the business, like what do you do?
Cecil Bullard: And you're also costing yourself, probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars over the 40 years that you run the business. Absolutely. Because you're not maximizing, your business. I had a new client it actually wasn't one of my clients, but I often am involved in new client meetings with some of our coaches and- so we have a new client come on board, and their parts margin's off by 14%. And you're like, "Oh, that's 50 grand," right? And then you look at their productivity's at about 55%. And you're like, "Oh, there's 200,000." And so think about that. If you can clean up your margins and your productivity and, put another, say, $200,000 a year into your profit, at over 40 years let's say you s- you saved f- 25% of that.
You put 25 grand away every year for 40 years, what would you have, right? Yeah. It's... I- you'd have what, $10 million? Yeah ... maybe 20 because of the interest stuff. A- and so you're not just creating frustration for the people around you, you're not just reducing value in, say, your business, but you're potentially costing your family millions of dollars worth of revenue that you could have just even if you just ran your business smartly and saved a little bit on the- Yeah
on the way. And it's unfortunate to see that because those are the same guys. We do a lot of I don't know, we do a lot of... I don't call it marketing, but we do a lot of meetings and stuff. And so we bring in people, we do this leadership intensive meeting, and we bring in shop owners.
And a shop owner'll come in and he'll bring his two or three kids in. So we've got a, a 25-year-old a 23-year-old, and a 19-year-old, and they're all there, and they wanna have nothing to do with Dad's business.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Nothing. They don't wanna be involved because they watched their dad work 80 hours a week and struggle to pay the bills and all of a sudden- Stressed out
David Roman: of his mind.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah ... yeah, and all of a sudden, they're now at an age where they could participate and Dad would maybe like them to participate, but they're not interested at all. Because they don't see any future for themselves in it. We didn't show them a future 'cause we didn't even create a future for ourselves.
And to me, that's- that's kinda a l- that's a little criminal. So i- it would go back to, Cecil, how do you terminate somebody that's been with you for seven years that, has-- When you started the business, they were an essential part, and they've kinda worked themselves out of that, their attitude or even what they do, or they haven't kept up on their education or whatever.
How do you terminate? Because 15 years from now when my kids are 25, 30, I want them in the business with me. I don't want them, I don't want them going out to do something else with somebody else. Yeah. One of the greatest joys of my life today is being able to work with one of my children, day to day. Yeah. And my second greatest joy is having all of my family near me and having good relationships with all of my family. Yesterday- Yeah ... it was it was my birthday. Don't, please don't do anything or don't send me any more happy birthdays. But- But I was able to have my family with me.
And just have a, a nice evening. And the f- the cool thing is the dad is to sit back and watch the kids interact with each other and have good interactions, right? Of they tease each other, give each other crap, but it's all in fun. And, that's... A- and part of that's because I didn't...
'Cause when I was home, I tried to be home 'cause I wanted to have those relationships, and when I was at work, I tried to be at work because I knew that I needed, when I'm at work, I need to be at work so that I can have the home time that I need, right?
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Whoever might be listening to us, if you do have questions, we certainly would be more than happy if you'll put them in the comments to answer any of those questions.
So- It's gotta be a
David Roman: good question, otherwise I won't ask it.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, crappy question, we're not gonna-
David Roman: Crappy questions are
Cecil Bullard: ignored. No. No crappy quest- So how do you fire somebody? How do you actually terminate somebody? That might be, a good question. Yeah. First of all, you do not go into long, lengthy explanations about what they didn't do right.
You're just opening yourself up for argument, pain, and I always just tell people, we've made a decision. We're going to be letting you go." Yeah. That's it. Yeah. And and, Now if,
David Roman: In my state, if you don't have good documentation- Yeah ... it turns into now you're fighting them for unemployment benefits and this, that, and the other.
In every state. Yeah. And th- and this is... if the person needs to just go, they just need to go and just pay up. It's whatever. Yeah, I don't care about unemployment.
Cecil Bullard: And
David Roman: we're having that
Cecil Bullard: assist-- Yeah. I never cared about unemployment and I never used-
David Roman: They raked me over the coals- I used that-
in Kansas, let me tell you. Yeah. I never used that- If somebody actually dips into it.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, I never used that as a decision about hiring or terminating. If I need to terminate you and I end up paying unemployment, it's part of the game. Yeah.
David Roman: But I will say that if you specifically have a job description You've got something outlined and they are violating whatever it is that you've got in writing with their- Yeah
signature acknowledgement that they know that this is what's there, and you know that, hey, this is now going down this path. And it really for me, it's ... I'm looking at it two or three steps down. If I can sit down and coach this person and have conversation and go, "Hey, you're not doing this. I need you to pivot," then I'm gonna have that conversation, and it's not gonna get written down.
However, if I see them going down this path that, hey, this is not salvageable, I need to let this person go, the first violation is a write-up. Got you. "Hey, you didn't do this. Here's your write-up." Usually they go on their own, but if they don't, it's just three write-ups and then boom, they're gone.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
David Roman: And- And then that's it. And then the minute- But- ... that the state sends me that letter- Yeah ... here's the write-ups. Boom boom. There you go. Fax it over. Done.
Cecil Bullard: And, and-
David Roman: I'm not paying squat. And
Cecil Bullard: so I wanna make it real clear for anyone that's listening, you need to understand your state's HR laws because- Yeah.
... You need a, an HR professional in your state because each state has different rules about that. Yeah. And in Calif- I know California and Utah really well 'cause I've run businesses in both. I actually know New Jersey now pretty well. W- that's another long story- ... which we won't get into but I'll also tell you I'll never have an employee from New Jersey again.
The rules are just too complicated. In California, I have to write you up three times for the same thing.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And I have to put deadlines in your write-ups I need, in two weeks I need improvement here, and this is the improvement I need to see, so that it's not ambiguous. Yeah. And you can't be ambiguous.
It'll get you in trouble.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: It looks like we have a question- We have a
David Roman: question, yeah,
Cecil Bullard: from Adam ... that someone's gonna ask there.
David Roman: Says, "I'm interested to know if you have a limit to explaining a procedure to an employee. I've had to tell one of my advisors to go over inspections at pickup, and he keeps m- he keeps missing it.
What should I do?"
Cecil Bullard: I... For me I have a rule, and my rule is when I determine that there is no more hope, I terminate the employee.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: So I don't I don't have somebody and I don't have a three times. Okay, I'm gonna explain it three times, and if you don't get it in three times you're done.
I don't have that rule. As long as I, I believe that you can get it if I help you or someone else helps you, then I'm gonna keep you and keep working with you.
David Roman: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: Usually for me, maybe the fifth time is the time where I go, "They're just never gonna get it." The minute, the second I go, "They're never gonna get it," I terminate.
I'm... And I don't keep people on because I've watched time and time again where someone said I'll fire him on Friday or next week," and they hurt their back or they- Yeah. Oh, yeah ... they tore their shoulder or they- ... dropped the wheel on their foot and broke their foot or- Yeah ... it just happens.
This thing happens. And all of a sudden I've got an employee for life, or at least for the next year- ... that that I'm gonna end up paying for who I knew couldn't and wouldn't do the job. When you- Yeah There is a point and I gotta tell you, being the, like the director I am the direct guy, like I'm gonna sit down with somebody and say, "I've explained this to you four times and you're still not doing it.
Why aren't you doing it?"
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Because it's almost never, "I don't understand it. I don't know how to do it." It's either you didn't- If it is
David Roman: a competency thing- Yeah ... what were you doing during the interview process that you couldn't identify that this person- That I- ... can't read or write?
Cecil Bullard: Can't... Yeah.
. Yeah. Did you have them? I have them write out a paragraph and, and- ... on their own. Like the wife can't do it or the husband can't do it for the wife. Yeah. And like you have to write a paragraph on your own and what was your interview process like? You may have somebody that i- in most cases, I would tell you it's probably somebody that has...
It's like the, "I don't wanna do it."
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: The... I had an employee that I decided we were gonna announce sales over the intercom. "Hey, Bob, we sold all the work on that blue Honda. It's due Wednesday at 5:00." And so I brought two of my employees in, and both great employees, and I said "Here's what we're gonna do, and what do you guys think about that?"
And they were all like, "Yeah, okay, fine." So you want us to do it, we'll do it," right? And so I watched, and my one guy did, the other guy didn't. And I brought the other guy in five, five weeks and I said, in, in five days, and I said, "Hey, remember that conversation we had five days ago about announcing things?"
"Oh, yeah." I said I've watched. You haven't announced anything. What's up?" "Oh, it's stupid." Yeah. "Oh, okay. That's fair. It's okay." I said "What part of it is illegal, immoral, or uneth- unethical?" And he went none of it." I said, "Okay, so now you're putting me in a weird position because I'm your boss.
I've asked you to do something that's not illegal, immoral, or unethical, and you're telling me no or you're just not gonna do it. So you're being passive-aggressive. You told me you would, but now you're not." Yeah. "That's passive-aggre- can't have passive-aggressive people in the company," blah, blah, blah. Okay, I'll do it," right?
And he goes out and I watch another week and he doesn't announce anything. So I went to our HR cabinet, I got out a resignation form, I filled it out for him, gross insubordination. Brought him in my office. I said, "Remember the meeting we had five days ago about the meeting we had five days prior about announcing things?"
"Yeah." I said, "You're still not announcing things." He goes, "Yeah, I know. It's stupid." I said, "Okay, that's fine. I just need you to sign this-"
David Roman: Yeah . "...
Cecil Bullard: and and we'll be walking you out of the building." And he went I don't wanna quit my job." I said you already have." Yeah. "You're not doing what I asked you to do."
And so what are you telling all the other employees that I have, right? What are you telling everybody else? You
David Roman: can pick and choose what you wanna do. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. See, whatever Cecil says doesn't matter. Yeah. I can't have that, right? It's it's no way to run a successful company.
David Roman: Here's a follow-up to this.
Is this one of those things in California where you need to have multiple write-ups before you're able to fire them? Three, I can just check our HR laws, as you said as well, good old California. Yeah, so-
Cecil Bullard: Yeah ...
David Roman: check your HR laws. Be very specific about what it is.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
David Roman: Consult an attorney.
Cecil Bullard: But
David Roman: if you have-
I have one of
Cecil Bullard: those- If you have an employee manual and they're doing gross insubordination, let's say that you had a, I don't know, you had a cell phone policy that was like, "No cell phones while you're working on cars." That's a safety issue. If someone violates that in certain states, I believe California, that's gross insubordination.
That is terms for immediate dismissal if it's spelled out that way in your employee manual, and I don't have- It's a safety concern ... to go through all the BS, right? Yeah. There are things that wouldn't fall under that, and you just have to, you have to look in your state, Yeah ... and have... I really recommend, and we don't understand as shop owners what our liability is.
We work on... I got a I was talking to these new clients, and they're basically a general repair shop, but they're like we got our Toyota, Honda price. If we're working on a Maserati, should our price be different?" I said, "You're working on Maserati?" I said- Oh my God, right? The problem is if one of my guys backs a Toyota into the rack, it's gonna cost me a couple of grand.
One of the guys backs a Maserati into the rack, it's gonna cost me $40,000 to fix it, right? Yeah. And we don't understand the liability that we create for ourselves sometimes in this business.
And so I recommend that everybody, whatever state you're in, that you have an HR professional in that state that can give you the proper advice so you don't get yourself in trouble because- And a
David Roman: lot of times, like my insurance company will provide- Yeah
some assistance- Yeah ... with like manuals and things like that so you don't get yourself in trouble, because they're trying to limit their liability risks a- as well. And also-
Cecil Bullard: Assuming that you have that kind of insurance, and everybody should.
David Roman: Yeah, every, yeah. If your insurance company isn't offering that, you need to question whether you have the correct insurance company or if you have enough insurance coverage.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
David Roman: That's an issue as well. But specifically dealing with this employee you need to find out whether this is a competency thing or a compliance thing. If it's just that they don't wanna do it because they're uncomfortable, that's probably what it is. They're just uncomfortable bringing it up. Okay, that's a training opportunity, and you need to think back, "Why did I even hire this person, or why do I have th- what value do they bring to the table?"
And if the value is more than what you're paying them, obviously, then it's a net benefit to the company, but you need to try to keep them and go, "Okay, let me give you the verbiage, and then you change it up to whatever best fits you, but this is the verbiage you should be using in order to bring the thing up," because maybe they're uncomfortable bringing the inspection up at after or at pickup.
If it's just "No, I think it's dumb," then like you're saying, at this point, it's okay now we have a problem.
Cecil Bullard: You're also, there's a question of habit. So my habit is to say, "Thank you very much," hand them their keys after I took their money, and now I, now my boss wants me to add this referral process, okay?
And I'm not thinking that. For the last five years, I've just handed them the keys and said thank you, right? And so when y- whenever you're gonna introduce a new habit into your mix, a new thing, you need 60 days, and you need 60 days of daily QC, quality control. Yeah. You have to...
You literally have to look- Over the employee's shoulder, make sure that they're doing it. And usually you're in 30, 35 days if you've got good QC. You've created the new habit, and now it's the norm and not- Yeah ... the old thing. Often you have an employee that you have asked to do things, but they don't exactly understand how to do it.
And you have not really shown them how to do it.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And so therefore they don't know how to do it, and then they don't do it, and you go, "Why won't you do it?" And so I just wanna make sure that I'm... My wife tells me I'm a horrible communicator. I'm always... It's no, that's not what you said."
I went to pick her up this weekend and I, I texted her, I, "I'm gonna be there at 2:30," and the night before we talked and then I said, "Somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00. We'll text tomorrow and we'll figure out, and I'll come get you." And so at about 2:10 I text her, "Hey, I'm gonna be there at 2:30."
And she goes I'm already outside." And so I'm a terrible communicator. I don't communicate clearly, obviously, right? And so my assumption when I have someone that doesn't do what we've talked about, that I didn't communicate it well enough. And then my assumption the second time is that they don't really understand it, they don't really know how to do it, 'cause if they did, they'd probably be doing it.
Yeah. And so I'm gonna go through that two, three, four times to make sure that I've taught them properly, that they actually know how to do it. I'm gonna sign them off on it, because I'm gonna watch them do it- Yeah ... the way it needs to be done. And then if they still won't do it past then I have a compliance problem, not a competence problem.
David Roman: Yeah.
And I think we fall into a trap ourselves where we communicate the way we would want it communicated to us, and these are completely different people. I'm a five percenter, like I... And I'm a high D. Like just tell me what the- Yeah, how much, how many people are like you and me, right? Exactly.
Tell me-
Cecil Bullard: There are like
David Roman: five of them ... what the end goal is. What is it that you wanted to accomplish? And I'll make it happen. Yeah. I don't need the steps, I don't need you- Yeah ... to break it down. But most people aren't like that. And I had a manager that I worked under for years, and he used to tell me, "Break it down into the ridiculous."
For some of these people, you need to break it down into the ridiculous, because if you don't- Pretend I'm a
Cecil Bullard: third grader.
David Roman: Y- yeah, if you don't do that, you're not gonna get the outcome that you want. You have a very specific outcome that you want accomplished, and these people just don't know the steps.
They can't make the steps up themselves, or they're afraid to because they don't wanna mess up, so they just don't do anything. They freeze, right? So break it down to the ridiculous, step by step. Step one, do this. Step two, step this. And if you do that, then you will ensure the outcome that you want. And that might be all that's happening here is this person just needs to Give the person the verbiage, and then like you're saying, 60 days of, "I'm behi-" If you actually want it to happen, don't assume that the other, the, this advisor's gonna work like the other one.
The other one was obviously was just like, "Hey, make this happen." Made it happen. But this one is not gonna be like that. It's gonna be, "I'm gonna stand behind you. We're gonna maybe step through this. What do you say next? Hand it, hand them the inspection," whatever the process happens to be. But you have to go step by step, and it's gonna be a little bit of work for you which I've tried to avoid.
That's why I have a manager. Just give it to the manager- Yeah ... and go, "Hey, make this happen."
Cecil Bullard: Make this happen, right? Yeah. I wanna make sure that every person that leaves has gone through the referral process and been asked for referrals, and scheduled for their next appointment. And I, it blows my mind because I just have these owners who tell me we can't, I can't get my people to do it.
I can't I can't get..." And I'm like, "you... Yes, you can. I've seen it happen. It does work." Yeah. It's not impossible.
David Roman: Yeah. "
Cecil Bullard: Oh, no, this is impossible," "people won't schedule an appointment." Oh, if you ask them, if you tell them, they will, believe it or not, 'cause I've done it. And yeah I think that in most cases that we make a lot of assumptions, and we don't break it down into the pieces.
And when we, whenever we make assumptions, we get ourselves in trouble,
David Roman: right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Absolutely. Absolutely. We still have about 10 minutes here. Yeah, if, so if anyone's online and they wanna ask a question you got me and David both here. If not, David, what what other questions have come up on the podcast recently?
David Roman: They we've had one that, that has been setting me off. And this isn't... Now this has come up in the Facebook group, but then I've seen this in other industries, and it's been about parts pricing. So there's a bunch of stuff going on in the Middle East, this, that, and the other, and there are announcements coming out saying that, "Hey, the price of synthetic oil is going to skyrocket because it's just not gonna be available."
It
Cecil Bullard: has. Yeah.
David Roman: The... Yeah. And so everybody's freaking out, going what are you gonna do?" And then I just saw a story the other day about a, i've seen two. We had a barbecue place here in Kansas City shut down, and the guy didn't blame his marketing. The guy didn't say, "Hey, my marketing sucks. I have great barbecue but nobody shows up at my door because I'm not telling anybody about it, and I'm in a terrible location, and it's really hard to get into my building," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
None of those things. What did he blame? The price of beef. He said, "Man these beef prices are just out of control, and my margins are just getting tighter and tighter," and this, that, and the other. And then I saw another place in Texas, same line. "Oh, these beef prices are just out of control," this, that.
And apparently, the beef prices wholesale haven't changed in the last two to three years. They're the exact same. They haven't gone up. They went up, but it was, like, two or three years ago they spiked, and then they've just been flat. And so these pla- these places and these shop owners are freaking out about cost of goods sold.
Cost of goods sold are irrelevant to me because I just mark it up and sell it. That- I'm not paying for it. I've- My customer pays for it. I just mark it up- I've had- ... and sell it.
Cecil Bullard: I've had- The
David Roman: price is what I... It is what it is.
Cecil Bullard: I've had people tell me recently, I don't know how to charge for oil because the price of oil has gone up so drama-
three times what it was. And I'm like- It's okay ... how were you charging before, right? We were using a matrix or we had a lower price, right? You might have a lower price in. And all of a sudden they don't know how to price oil. If it costs me a dollar and I'm selling it for three if it costs me $3, I'm probably gonna sell it for nine.
Yeah. It's not hard. To me, it's not hard at all. But I'm... I don't wanna close my doors because the price of beef went up.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Okay? I went over to McDonald's yesterday. I don't ever eat at McDonald's, but I got a dollar cheeseburger. I think it was, like, a buck 89.
I was...
Wait a minute. That's on the do- that's a dollar... it's a buck 89. Get a dollar- Yeah. It, the- ... dollar things aren't anymore. Dollar- The price of beef went up. McDonald's raised their prices. Holy crap. Are we really not smart enough? We're buying groceries. We're buy- we're getting gas. I went and got gas.
It was $4.63.
And do you think the people that sell us gas haven't raised their prices because the price of oil has gone up? Yeah. I mean-
David Roman: It's the craziest mindset. I have no idea where these people are, like... are you nuts? It's... I can understand- He- ... the a bottom-of-the-line expense.
"Hey, my insurance tripled. Okay, I'm gonna have to raise my prices because I need this percentage on my P&L to stay about the same, so this is gonna cost more up the top here." But a cost of goods sold? Like-
Cecil Bullard: Yeah ...
David Roman: the pri- whatever I buy it for, you just mark it up and you sell it. So whatever the price comes in at, it's like-
Cecil Bullard: Who
David Roman: cares?
I'm sorry. And then if the customer says anything, you just, you blame something in the Middle East. You blame Saudi Ara-
Cecil Bullard: You blame Iran. Yeah. You blame Trump. You, you-
David Roman: Yeah. Just blame something that- I'm sorry ... you have no control over ... it had nothing to do with it ... because you don't. Yeah. I don't have any control of what they sell it to me for.
Yeah. And neither do they because I still have to make my margins on it. So yeah, you don't blame the beef price. And what's insane is the, this guy in Kansas City that had to close his barbecue place The minute he got featured in In- he was on Instagram as one of those small business... He cleans windows, but he features these small businesses when he close, when he goes to clean their windows, and he wears the AI glasses, and he does this whole thing.
It's a nice, it's a nice channel. It's all Kansas City businesses. The minute he was featured on this massive Instagram channel, he sold out of food every day for, from that point on until he closed his doors. For the next two weeks, he was... By 6:00, he was completely- So what if he raised his
Cecil Bullard: price like $2 a pound or whatever?
David Roman: If he had just raised his prices-
Cecil Bullard: He'd still
David Roman: be in business, right? Or he- Yeah ... I'm like, he didn't go, "Hey, if I just had better marketing. If I just had be- Yeah ... because these people found me, they'll probably come back." And it's w- it's insane to me. And he doesn't go "Hey, just a mile down the road is a barbecue place with a line out the door."
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. "
David Roman: They're paying the same price I'm paying for the beef. So you're done. You can't tell me these shops that are making three, four, five million, these shops that are expanding, they're hiring people, they're paying the same price as you for this oil. What are they doing?" Oh, they're marking it up.
They're marking it up. Something, man. Yeah, they're marking
Cecil Bullard: it up
David Roman: because we're not nuts. Who the hell cares what you're buying it for? Yeah. You gotta... These... We gotta get out of this mindset. I have no idea. Cogs
Cecil Bullard: of special- That's, it's the $29.99 oil change mindset. It's the, I have to have this loss leader that, that puts me out of business that gets people in my shop.
And it makes me mad. I won't mention names, but we keep this myth alive because it gets us hits.
David Roman: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Because it gets us attention, right? I'm sorry. It's putting shops out of business. It's putting families at risk. It's... y- Your customers will pay what they believe there's value in, and they will not fight or argue about it.
You and I both know that. Probably most of the people that li- will listen to this already know that. So if the oil price goes up, the price of the oil service goes up. It, i- it's what it is. If they raise coolant prices... I remember when you could buy coolant for two bucks a gallon. You're sure as hell not buying it for two bucks a gallon now.
We used to sell it for six. Yeah. And and now, I don't know, 20 bucks a gallon or something. And so I'm not selling it for six.
David Roman: It's oil right now. Yeah. But I'm just... it's... But two or three years ago it was freaking,
Cecil Bullard: we
David Roman: went through the- ... R1234yf. Yeah, we went through the whole- "What's everybody doing about 1234yf?
I just don't understand. Blah, blah, blah." It's dude what
Cecil Bullard: are you talking
David Roman: about? Freon.
Cecil Bullard: Freon back in the day. Just... Freon. Yeah, it just... Yeah. I... We were selling Freon for two bucks a pound when it was R12, and within three months it was $60 a pound. It, 'cause our cost went up dramatically and so the customer paid 60 bucks a pound.
David Roman: And we're- And not only that the machines, the 1234yf machines- Yeah ... are so incredibly slow. Yeah. So it takes three times the amount of time that the old- They used to- ... 134a systems, you used to hit a couple buttons and it would zap through the service and then you're in and out. Where this one takes so much longer.
So yeah, guess what? My refrigerant service, if you've got 1234yf and I have a specific line- Costs more money ... that we run performance testing, it's triple the price of the standard w- 134a system. And when they ask, you go, "Why is it so much?" It's 'cause you have 1234yf. You have the new refrigerant. Every car is gonna have the new refrigerant now.
Yeah. So guess what? Every car is gonna have to be dealing with this. And I just wanna point this out. Lance makes a comment emotional discounting. The customer will walk in with a $10 Starbucks coffee. It... They will co- come in and complain about your price with their $10 Starbucks coffee. It's it's even worse than that, and I was telling this to Lucas.
Da- DoorDash just reported profit reve- or record revenue- ... and profitability. DoorDash. They'll
Cecil Bullard: pay for DoorDash. They'll pay $18 to get
David Roman: a hamburger delivered. $18 for that $1.89 hamburger. To get that hamburger delivered to their- $18 because they want it at their door. While they're complaining about auto repair But then they complain about my $80 oil change.
Yeah. No, no thanks. Get out of here.
Cecil Bullard: No, thanks.
David Roman: Nah. Just, just- People got money is all I'm saying ... and- People got money. You just gotta- And if the s- ... charge what you gotta charge. Yeah. Don't worry about it. And if we- They'll find a way to pay for it ...
Cecil Bullard: if we at shops understood what our value is and what our liability is, we'd be charging more than we're charging now.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is not... we don't have time for that discussion. In fact, we're gonna have to wrap it up. I guess we're getting to the end of this. Yeah. And we have important lives and other things to do. We'll have another one of these coming up in a few weeks. And David, thank you very much for being here, and thanks for your- Great conversation.
I appreciate it ... questions and comments. Yeah. And you know I love you, brother, so- Yeah. You too ... take care, all right?
David Roman: All right.

207 - You Can't Wrench and Run the Business Forever: A Shop Owners Turning Point

207 - You Can't Wrench and Run the Business Forever: A Shop Owners Turning Point
June 3rd, 2026 - 00:49:01
Show Summary:
Nathan Geransky shares his journey from running an automotive shop on his acreage to moving into a commercial location. Years of long hours and limited financial insight pushed him to seek coaching and change how he operated the business. By improving labor rates margins and systems he built financial stability and stepped away from turning wrenches full time. He discusses leadership team development and preparing the business for future growth. His story shows what happens when a technician learns to become a true business owner.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Nathan Geransky, Owner, Nathan’s Garage Ltd.
 
Show Highlights:
[00:01:00] – Nathan launched his shop from a building on his property.
[00:02:00] – Customers arrived at all hours because he worked from home.
[00:04:00] – Hiring help revealed lost revenue hidden in daily operations.
[00:05:00] – Running a business required skills beyond repairing vehicles.
[00:08:00] – A labor rate increase improved profits without customer pushback.
[00:11:00] – Coaching helped build a $100,000 operating reserve in months.
[00:16:00] – Better margins and scheduling changed his approach to ownership.
[00:20:00] – The new location increased visibility and attracted new customers.
[00:26:00] – Personal thank you cards strengthened customer relationships.
[00:38:00] – Nathan is preparing the next generation to lead the business.
 
 
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/5G4i75jw-no
 
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Links & Resources: 
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________________________________________
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: Welcome, Nathan. It is good to have you here with me. Good morning.
Nathan Geransky: Thank you. Big introduction. For a little
Jimmy Lea: guy. Yeah, man. You've done a lot over the last little bit. You've really spread your wings and gone the distance. It's amazing to hear the growth.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, it's been a journey for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. How long have you been with the institute? How long you been with coaching and training?
Nathan Geransky: Just about a year now.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congrats, bro.
Nathan Geransky: About a year. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That is awesome. All right. Let's go back in time, Nathan. Let's talk about the past. How did you get into the automotive industry, the automotive aftermarket?
Nathan Geransky: So I was I was working in another shop and they kinda... It got slow there, so I went to- I've always been an automotive guy, so I've worked at Ford for many years and been doing it all my life.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah ...
Nathan Geransky: so this other shop I was working at, they kinda got slow, kinda lost my job, and I had an acreage and a shop there, so figured start, I'll work at home until I find a job.
So I looked around a few times.
Jimmy Lea: Nice.
Nathan Geransky: No jobs, and started on my own.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. So this is the residential cul-de-sac you were in. You had an acre. You had a- That's right ... shop on the-
Nathan Geransky: Yeah ...
Jimmy Lea: w- like a two bay or a three bay? What did you have there at- It was a- ...
Nathan Geransky: the
Jimmy Lea: back of the house? ...
Nathan Geransky: a 30 by 60 shop.
It's on three acres. Oh. So it was on acreage. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: So fairly big shop. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that is a big shop. And so you're working from home.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Tell me about that challenge.
Nathan Geransky: So right at first it was figuring out what parts and everything. So I'd work in the morning, figure the cars out, go get the parts all afternoon, work till 10:00 o'clock at night, puttin' the cars back together.
Oh
Jimmy Lea: my gosh. And a lot of us work remote, so we're able to work from home. Yeah. Me being one of them. Yeah. Now you're working from home. Were there any challenges you faced by having your garage in the backyard?
Nathan Geransky: Customers, they're like, "Oh, you're here," so they come any time of day, like drop off a car at 10:00 o'clock at night, or they'll expect payments.
Like they'll come out at 7:00 o'clock and run your payment through, right? Or whatever, but- 24-hour garage.
Jimmy Lea: It's true, because you were there. You were available. They're coming directly to you. Yeah. They thought, "Oh, no, he lives here. Yeah, no, I can come any time." Yeah. Oh my gosh. So how long did you operate out of the backyard?
Nathan Geransky: Just until a month ago now, when we moved to the new shop.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. How many years were you operating from the house?
Nathan Geransky: Seven years.
Jimmy Lea: Seven years, wow.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Your neighbors must have loved you.
Nathan Geransky: They did, except for one guy.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. So how many bays did you have in your garage, 30 by 60?
Nathan Geransky: Two bays. I had a wheel alignment hoist, which I'm still using, and another two post hoist.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Okay.
Nathan Geransky: S- other side,
Jimmy Lea: nice. Side by side. Oh, wow.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. And w- you went from... So were you parking car... you say you had three acres.
Three acres is huge. Yeah. It's a lot to- That's a lot of-
Nathan Geransky: Yeah ... l-
Jimmy Lea: lot of property. And- Were you parking cars all over your backyard?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. And then, so I had at one point in time probably 30 cars waiting there. Oh my gosh. And then the county came- ... "Hey, you got too many cars." So I learned how to schedule slowly.
'Cause people drop it off, says, "Get to it when you can," so I did, and then ended up being a pile of cars. Yeah. Before you know it, it goes from one car that's waiting to seven to 19 to- Yeah ... 30. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Nice. Packed double rows. Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. So what were some of those biggest challenges you were facing as a shop owner working out of your house, working out of your backyard?
Jimmy Lea: So I- What were some of the biggest challenges?
Nathan Geransky: Parts and I guess mechanics. So I hired Noah, my son, for do administration because he was, Actually, I hired my other son first, Justin. He's a journeyman, so I needed more help there, so me and him worked together about a year or so, and then hired Noah because when parts, when customers come back for repairs and they're like, "Oh, we put this part on for warranty, but we didn't ever charge for it."
So we're like, "Okay we are charging you this time." So hired Noah to... His wages paid for all his parts we missed putting on vehicles or building out vehicles.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah, he caught everything. It's- But just even catching that paid for his wages. That's amazing. Oh, for
Nathan Geransky: sure. Yeah. So we're l- in a losing battle, right?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. No, yeah. Yeah. And what about all the core returns? If you're not getting credit for the returns.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, that too. Yeah. We probably lost a lot there too, yeah. But-
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no. But now you're, you've captured it.
Nathan Geransky: Swapped around. Yeah, you bet.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, man. So what's one of the biggest, And not, maybe not the biggest, but what's one of the hardest parts about going from being a technician in the business to being the owner and working on the business?
Nathan Geransky: Ha- I guess challenging because I can fix vehicles
Jimmy Lea: Yeah ...
Nathan Geransky: but to run it, like I've never ran a a business, I guess business-minded, but not, never went to school for anything, so you always struggle and worry what, Yeah, it's a challenge for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. It's easy working on cars. It's harder- Yeah ... it's a different skill set to work on your business, right?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, definitely.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, man. So what was w- what was one of those challenges that you faced in making the transition? What was one of those skills you had to learn from being a technician and turning a wrench to being an owner and sit in front of a keyboard?
Nathan Geransky: I'm still learning. So biggest thing is working for my business or working on my business, not in my business.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: Mentally challenging, still work in progress, but we've come quite a ways.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. Yeah. That is true. That is true.
Nathan Geransky: Maybe not
Jimmy Lea: answering the question fully, but- And there are different seasons. No, you totally did. Okay. Yeah. There's different seasons that we operate in. So y- there was a season where you had to be the technician, there was a season where you had to be the technician and the owner, and as you- Yeah
built up your business, you were able to take those steps to become the true full-time business owner. How often are you turning a wrench these days?
Nathan Geransky: So now s- since we moved to the new shop I haven't done anything in the wrench. Oh. So I left my toolbox at the other shop. Did you leave your toolbox at
Jimmy Lea: home?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. So Jess was like, "You're not bringing your toolbox to the new shop." So it's there. Out of the
Jimmy Lea: way.
Nathan Geransky: So it's mentally, The other day I was trying to find, get something and I told the o- all the guys to lock their boxes up. So on a Saturday I came in here, I had no tools. Yeah. What-
Jimmy Lea: So I was like, "I can't do anything."
No. Yeah. Of course you couldn't. No, you, you c- if you wanna work on your own cars, go back to your, Yeah, go back to my old job. Yeah ... go back to the house.
Nathan Geransky: That's what happened. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's funny. That's funny. All right. Y- switching f- from technician to an owner, a different skill set. Y- you've a very technically trained, cars spoke to you.
You're making that transition to business owner. What was one of the hardest things for you to adjust at first? Was it you raising prices, managing people, or trusting your financials?
Nathan Geransky: Probably a combination of all of those. You're you're managing people, not too much that. I guess you're
Yeah, just a little bit of everything Just a bit
Jimmy Lea: of
Nathan Geransky: financials?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, it's a bit of everything.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And all right- How you're figuring it all out ... so digging into each one of these I have a question for you about raising your prices, because you were at a certain rate and you raised it by $30 an hour.
Talk, talk to me about that. Yeah. Riff on that for a minute.
Nathan Geransky: Through my coaching through Chad we're, He was saying, "You need to raise your labor rate or you need to give Justin a lot lower wage, otherwise..." And he's "I don't think he'll stick around for that because even though he's your son."
So yeah, I raised my rate like 30 bucks. I was worried about customers because you think maybe they can't afford it." And, but then you realize they're coming back from holidays, and I'm not going on holidays. So you raise it up, and surprisingly nobody batted an eye. They didn't even question the labor rate, nothing.
Over a couple more times they came over "Oh, your rate went up." I said, "Yeah, it went up to the amount." And yeah, it was crazy. I was... That was the biggest surprise,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Isn't that amazing?
Nathan Geransky: People didn't care.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They didn't care. So all the fear was where? It was inside your own head.
Nathan Geransky: It was in me, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. But and the beauty of that is you analyzed the business. You looked at your business, you looked at your expenses, you looked at your overhead, you looked at all of what it cost you to run your business, raised it by $30 an hour to cover the business so that you- Yeah
could have the life that you needed, and Noah and Justin, and is there anybody else on the team? Don't you have a few more people? There's
Nathan Geransky: two others. Yeah, Dawson and Arthur.
Jimmy Lea: Dawson and Arthur. Yeah. So you raised your labor rate so that as a business you could survive, as a business you could provide- for not just yourself, but for the- No ... entire team. And that's essential.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That's so important. So what made you decide to reach out to the institute?
Nathan Geransky: So we're, They had phoned before, Michael had phoned before, and I was like I think we're doing pretty good in the business, and we're all...
We've been doing it for seven years, and how hard can it be, right?"
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. And then last year we're, About about this time last year we're like, "This is getting... We're making money, but we don't have any money." So we're like, "Okay, we need to figure this out." So that's when I reached out to the institute and got a plan and went from there, and it's been amazing.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's good. That's good. And we'll give a shout-out to Michael Wiltrout. In the past, he has been a partner and owner of four different shops in the Arizona- Okay ... area. And so w- y- you connected with the right guy at the right time, and I'm sure that you guys had some phenomenal conversations talking about your shop, your business, what you were doing.
A- and he's got the chops. He's been there. He's done that. Yeah. He can talk to what you're going through and what you're doing. So I'm sure a lot of that- Great guy ... resonated real strong with you.
So when you connected with Chad, what were you hoping that coaching with Chad would help fix?
Nathan Geransky: Just how to run my business correctly and be more financially s- secure, and- That's
Jimmy Lea: important.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. That's, yeah, that's very important.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So h- how long did it take you? What was that realization of, "Oh my gosh, I, I think this is actually working.
I think I can see that we're, we have money. We have money-
Nathan Geransky: yeah ...
Jimmy Lea: not just on the books, but we have money." What was that point for you? What did that look like?
Nathan Geransky: So when we started with it, it was I think I've said this before even, but so our books were, they were okay, whatever, but we had we had no money in the bank and like we were struggling along.
And then within about four or five months we had, with adjusting our margins and everything and increasing the labor rate, we put $100,000 in the bank for operating.
Jimmy Lea: Holy cow.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. So it went up quickly and it was, yeah, amazing
Jimmy Lea: That is
Nathan Geransky: awesome Before I was happy, I'd... Before I'd had 20,000 in the bank, I was like, "Oh, we're doing good."
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That first month when you have 20,000, it's like an eye-opening, "Oh my gosh this is working." Yeah. And then you look up- Yeah ... two months later and you're like, "Oh my gosh, we have 100,000."
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. That was crazy.
Jimmy Lea: That is cool. Congratulations- Yeah ... bro. That is very cool. Talking about the moving of your business, John Beasley is totally commiserating with you or loving on you in that residential area.
He started in residential as well many moons ago. Had people showing up eh, on days when he was closed and walking around his house.
Nathan Geransky: Oh, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And John, y- clearly they had to be on the outside of the house, right? There's nobody coming inside your house. No, nobody. Even though they think that's your office.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. No, my office was always in the shop, so nobody ever came in the house, but.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, that's wild. Wife
Nathan Geransky: was like, "Who's here now?" I was like, "Oh, just another customer dropping off in the evenings or Sunday afternoons." And we have company over "Oh, that's a customer coming again."
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. We should be happy
Nathan Geransky: now.
Which
Jimmy Lea: we love. Yeah, no,
Nathan Geransky: it's good.
Jimmy Lea: I love being able to drop off late at night. Yeah,
Nathan Geransky: for sure ...
Jimmy Lea: John says, "Yeah, it was just a duplex, much smaller scale." John, I feel you on that. I- Yeah ... I love dropping mine off late at night. And the key box, oh my gosh, I love the key box. I love filling out that- little envelope putting it in the box because I... There was a period of about four or five years, Nathan, that I don't even think I saw my, the shop owner or even any of the staff, 'cause I would drop it off late at night. Yeah. And they would do the work and, Yeah ... I would pay over the phone and- Yeah
pick it up two, three days later, late at night- Yeah ... or something like that. And, Yeah ... in a residential- I've had that
Nathan Geransky: before too, yeah ... oh my gosh. Couple customers didn't even know who they dropped off,
Jimmy Lea: like- But in residential, that could be a nightmare.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That could be a nightmare. Here you are, 10 o'clock at night you're laying down in bed.
You- it's bedtime and you got people dropping off their car.
Nathan Geransky: They just put the keys on the floor mat and go. Like- ... we were on acreage, so it was pretty safe. That's what they did
Jimmy Lea: yeah. So what was one of those first things that, Working with Chad, what was one of those first things that he challenged you to change in your business?
Nathan Geransky: I think the first thing was labor rate. Really? Yeah. Okay. And he did that because he could see that the business just needed a bump in the labor rate- Yeah, for sure. Yeah ... and he knew that Justin needed to make some more money.
Yeah, for sure, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. When you raised your labor rate, what were you expecting to happen?
Nathan Geransky: I thought we'd be slower. Maybe our customers would complain about it or they'd ask questions on the bill, right? "How come there's so much more money?" or whatever. But when Chad explained it to me, you raise your labor rate up, and you have... say you have a two-hour job You're only going up a few dollars or an hour job, right?
Yeah. Top 50 bucks. So people sorry, people probably don't even hardly notice a little bit, like $30 is quite a bit, but they're not gonna question too much. And when you get the big jobs, like eight, 10 hour jobs, they're like, "Okay." And then they kinda realize it's a bit higher. But the just day-to-day jobs, people didn't seem to care too much.
Jimmy Lea: No. And add to the bo- it added to the bottom line in a hurry, right?
Oh, yeah. Which is- Big time ...
Nathan Geransky: great. Yeah. S-
Jimmy Lea: so le- let's use some fake numbers, but, Sure ... somewhat real. If we're talking about a two-hour repair order, let's say that's around $600. Does that sound about right?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: So at a $600, your increase made it $660.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. So $60, right? Yeah
Jimmy Lea: That's a nuisance increase in my book. Yeah ... it's just a, "Oh, okay. Yeah, everything's going up."
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Shoot. Have you seen hotel rooms now?
Nathan Geransky: No, I know.
Jimmy Lea: I agree with you. Even Motel 6 is 150 bucks a night.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: All your Hiltons and Marriotts are over 300 a night. It's... Ah, man. I know
it's ridiculous. So how has the institute and how has Chad helped you move from reacting to problems to managing the business more intentionally?
Nathan Geransky: Through, your parts and margins, we've learned about, more about that, and scheduling. It's helped a lot with sched- scheduling. And just revamped everything from being a mechanic point of view to a owner point of view.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Isn't that wild? Y- and all those days you worked at the other shop, and you're working on Fords, and you're thinking, "Oh, this owner, he's putting all this money in his pocket. Oh, he needs to get more cars in here." "I could work on more cars." Now you're on- Yeah ... this side.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Now you're the owner. Now you're the one that has to put more cars in the bays and-
Nathan Geransky: yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So how important is that for your team to understand the financials of the business as well? Do you have a different perspective on that now that you've been
Nathan Geransky: on- ... the
Jimmy Lea: other side, and now
Nathan Geransky: you're the owner now? So I think the team has some- somewhat... i've shared my financials with them, and they're like, "Oh, we're doing good."
I said this is why we're doing good, because we're... We have our labor rate's better, our mar- margins are better, and this is why as you go through your jobs, you need to make sure you're writing everything down and your stories are correct so we can bill correctly. And it all results to you getting more money at the end of the day."
So a teamwork, and that's how I've always addressed it. So everybody works together, and everybody makes money.
Jimmy Lea: Nice.
Nathan Geransky: It's not all about me making money. It's about everybody making money,
Jimmy Lea: yes. It's important we all
Nathan Geransky: make money. No, and everybody to be successful. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, 100%. 100%. Yeah. So do you feel like you look at your team differently now than you did a year ago?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, probably. Yeah. And do you feel like your team is looking at you differently than they did a year ago? Definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But... and d- what do you, what would you attribute that shift and change to i- in yourself?
Just learning more about business and through coaching and- yeah, it's-
Jimmy Lea: and
Nathan Geransky: leadership
all, all together. Leadership,
Jimmy Lea: yes.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: It just sounds like you have grown so much tremendously in your role as a leader here at the shop. I would say that your team is looking at you more as a leader than they ever have before.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, they have. Yeah, they are.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.
Congratulations on that. And that's a big transformation for you to make and to grow. How have you changed? How ha- how do you view yourself today versus what you, who you were a year ago?
Nathan Geransky: It's a hard challenge or hard vision, I see myself more as a manager now or owner-operator, right?
And like I'm in charge of a big, like a big business now, right? So it feels like a big business. Yeah, so it's been mentally challenging, and you're figuring out where I st- I- where my role is, right? Or how I manage people and everything else.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's a big change that you go through, and Chad's giving you a shout-out here. That Nathan is humble. He's becoming involved with BNI and NAPA AutoPro, becoming a spokesperson for the industry.
Thank you for doing that, Nathan. That's from Chad, your coach, so he- Yeah ... he knows who you are as well. Oh, thank you. Yeah,
Nathan Geransky: for sure.
Jimmy Lea: So you've now- And- ... moved into a n- oh, sorry, go ahead.
Nathan Geransky: I said he's been an amazing coach. Yeah, I've always, every time I talk about business or whatever, I said, "Yeah, I got this great coach, Chad."
He's I bring him up all the time.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. Spread the word. We need more shops- Oh, yeah,
Nathan Geransky: I do. Yeah. For sure.
Jimmy Lea: Chad needs more shops to coach.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: He'd love it. Bring it on.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Bring it on.
Nathan Geransky: Tell everybody, you, everybody needs a coach.
Jimmy Lea: Everybody needs a... that's so true. Yeah. That is so true.
Everybody needs a coach. Everybody needs someone to hold them accountable and inspire them towards r- achieving their goals.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That's good. So you've just recently moved into the new location. Did you say a month and a half now?
Nathan Geransky: It'd be a month. This week is a month.
Jimmy Lea: This week is a month.
Oh, congratulations.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. Oh, thank you.
Jimmy Lea: What has surprised you most about moving into this new location?
Nathan Geransky: The amount of, So my customers that have been with me for years they're happier now because I'm on the main road. They don't have to drive three kilometers off the highway to go to my acreage.
Oh, that's right. They said- ... "You're actually closer," so I didn't realize that. I'm probably five minutes closer to Sherwood Park, which is the next big town or city here. So- Nice ... overall it's been really surprisingly, everyone's happier
Jimmy Lea: Nice.
Nathan Geransky: A- and so- A lot more drop-ins off the highway too, 'cause it's more visible.
Jimmy Lea: That's what I was just gonna ask. Yeah. What about your walk-ins? What, how, what are you seeing there? Walk-ins, probably about
Nathan Geransky: 10 new customers from last month. People walk in-
Jimmy Lea: 10 in one month?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: How does that change the energy or the culture of the company? How does that change the energy inside your business?
Nathan Geransky: It didn't change too much, just that we're now, we're... I guess we're more surprised that, or happily surprised, that people are coming in and noticing us. "Oh, where do you guys come from?" "We've been looking for a mechanic for a long time," some of them said, right? Or whatever. I was just...
I've been in business eight, over eight years, and now I moved here, and they're like, "Okay, good." So couple of new guys have come in and got their stuff checked out, and yeah, so it's been good.
Jimmy Lea: That is good. That's awesome.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And they would've never found you back in that residential cul-de-sac, so thank
Nathan Geransky: heavens you- No, unless you...
Yeah. So a lot of it was word of mouth before, so I've never really advertised or never cared to advertise 'cause I was so busy. Just word of mouth, and everybody's coming that way, right? Tell their friends.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. And word of mouth is powerful. That is very good. Yeah. That's great. And that's how it's been
Nathan Geransky: great till now,
Jimmy Lea: and now it's gonna become exponentially even more great. And speaking of marketing you... We have a marketing for automotive repair shops, we call it MARS, here at headquarters in October.
Nathan Geransky: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: You should really look at coming down to our marketing intensive. It's three-day intensive, talking all about marketing.
So it's gonna be amazing. What is this? What was the finance like switching to the shop? Was it a fairly clean transition or was it bad requiring loans and such? Oh, this is from Nathan Garcia. Oh my gosh, Nathan Garcia. I thought Nathan, you, I thought you typed that in there. I was
Nathan Geransky: like, "
Jimmy Lea: What the heck is he saying?"
What's going on here? So Nathan Garcia's, he's asking what was the financial... What was the finance like switching to the shop? Oh, from switching from the home business to the- Yeah ... the shop business, the brick and mortar.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. It was relatively painless because I had money in the bank.
Jimmy Lea: So all my- Wait, so you...
This is when you had 100,000 in the bank or what? Yeah. I mean-
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. That's
Jimmy Lea: right ... so you had to fund the whole mer- move?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. So I renovated this place. I probably put probably 40,000 or 30,000 into renovations, rewiring everything, and because it was just a lawnmower repair shop before. So I moved walls, built mezzanines, put voids in rewired everything.
Yeah, so now we're down to minimal funds again, but I didn't have to borrow anything. We're all- Oh, yeah ... all our books are paid up. Everything's good just because I had money in the bank. Otherwise-
Jimmy Lea: Dude ...
Nathan Geransky: I couldn't have done this move.
Jimmy Lea: That's
Nathan Geransky: awesome. I'd have been out of- Congratulations
I'd have been, I'd have been looking for a job.
Jimmy Lea: And so would've Justin, and Devon, and-
Nathan Geransky: Yeah ...
Jimmy Lea: noah and- The
Nathan Geransky: other
Jimmy Lea: five
Nathan Geransky: other guys. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Oh, you guys all would've been looking. Yeah, 'cause the county shut you down in being in that residential area, right? They're like- Yeah. They-
We're not gonna renew your license anymore." That's right. So they said, "Look for a new shop, and when you do, then we'll worry about your license then." So they kinda held it in limbo.
Wow. I'm glad you got in there. I'm glad that you've- Yeah ... seen success there. And you've made 100,000 before, so you'll do it again.
Nathan Geransky: Do it again. Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And congrats-
Nathan Geransky: easier now because we have systems in place. Well- We can-
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And what does the shop look like today? How many bays are you at? How many lifts? What does that look like for you today?
Nathan Geransky: So we have three bays, three lifts in our new shop here, and we could use the old shop for, like I have a wheel align machine.
I do ADAS calibrations and everything. So do all that over at the old shop, so we're kinda running both shops. So I guess moving from a two-bay shop to a five-bay shop now combined. So it's been pretty amazing.
Jimmy Lea: That is very
Nathan Geransky: cool And yesterday we're like, "We could use four more bays 'cause we have so many customers."
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh, yeah. Now, so now you need to be a seven-bay shop.
Nathan Geransky: Now we need to be a seven-bay shop, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Under brick and mortar, and then still have the- Yeah ... two at the house if you need them. That's the overflow.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's cool. Congrats. So w- are you expanding? Are you gonna grow? Are you gonna take the businesses next door?
What what does that
Nathan Geransky: look like? So the next door, there's a body shop next door which owns this whole building. So my building's a 50 by 50 shop. So 30 by 50 is the shop side, then we have a mezzanine and office space on the other side of it,
Jimmy Lea: okay. So you can't take any more space. You're pretty well
Nathan Geransky: landlocked.
No, I cannot here, yeah, landlocked, unless I buy land beside me, which, another guy has it, I could buy from him, but it's got lots of environmental problems,
Jimmy Lea: oh.
Nathan Geransky: Maybe in the future, see how it goes.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. Keep your eyes open. You m- might find another shop-
Nathan Geransky: Yeah ...
Jimmy Lea: somewhere in the area.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That would be good.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, my next shop would be at least five, 10-bay shop if I'm going again,
Jimmy Lea: oh yeah, for sure. For sure.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. See how this works
Jimmy Lea: out- so I- ... and go from there ... I read in your notes something interesting that you're doing in sending out handwritten thank you cards. Yes ... what inspired that?
Nathan Geransky: So we're trying to be different in our shop, like community-based, right?
And we're like... So we have, So all of our work orders are in a folder. They have Nathan's Garage folder all done up in our deckling and everything. And so every work order, people are surpri- like when your work order is done, we're not just giving you paper, we're giving you a folder and being professional.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow.
Nathan Geransky: And so these, Like a postcard, we got a... There was a sale on postcards. We were like, "Hey, we should put this in there." And Napa, we had Napa brand it at all, so for our... If you like, for our warranty or "Did you know that your vehicle has three years, 60,000 kilometer warranty since it got repaired here?"
And on the back of the cards, we write a note of thank you for whatever they came in for, your oil change or your diagnostics or tire changeover. So my wife writes them all out for me, and I sign them and we mail them out. Oh, wow. A few customers that come in, it's like, "We got mail." Where like they're all excited to get mail, and they're like, "Oh, it's from Nathan's Garage."
They're like, "You guys are pretty awesome."
Jimmy Lea: But That
Nathan Geransky: is
Jimmy Lea: awesome. That's good ...
Nathan Geransky: I knew it'd be a good result, but I wasn't expecting maybe that good. But our people- Nice ... were excited about that,
Jimmy Lea: oh, that's very cool.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That's very cool. I'm glad that they're responding well and
Nathan Geransky: enjoying it. They put it on their fridge and everybody sees it when they come in the house.
Jimmy Lea: Hey, there you go.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. I... You talk about it, it was better than you expected. What's something that you have implemented, besides the postcards that you didn't think would make a big difference and it turns out that it did?
Nathan Geransky: The postcards and I guess the envelopes or they are folders.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: People like, they're always happy to get... one guy was so ecstatic about g- getting a folder. That's what started this, 'cause we gave him a black folder at first and put his stuff in there, and he's "Oh, a folder." He's "We don't get these."
So ha. So I'm, I made a whole bunch, like 500 folders and with our branded on there handed to all the customers, and people are always surprised and happy. You f- hand them a folder and your keys, and they're like, "Oh, this is professional." And they're always good results in that.
And they're like, "Okay, this is not just a backyard garage or an ordinary garage," right? 'Cause we started at the other place already. Yeah. So now the new place, everybody's "Okay, this is..." I think that's a- It's
Jimmy Lea: legit.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, it's legit. Yeah, for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, good for you. In Canada they have a little bit different program with NAPA.
I- in the United States you're NAPA AutoCare, and in Canada you can be an AutoCare, but then there's the next level, which is AutoPro. NAPA
Nathan Geransky: AutoPro, yeah. Are
Jimmy Lea: you guys an AutoPro?
Nathan Geransky: We are AutoPro now, yeah. So as of January we're at AutoPro.
Jimmy Lea: Congrats.
Nathan Geransky: So that's been great. Yeah, so they... All their war- labor w- and parts and everything parts and labor, three years, 60,000 nationwide And they'll...
If you're waiting for your part, they'll put you in a hotel, they'll pay for your towing-
Jimmy Lea: Oh my
Nathan Geransky: gosh ... everything else, wow. Yeah. Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: that's that worry-free guarantee.
Nathan Geransky: Worry-free guarantee, yeah. And for the new vehicles, there's 10 year, 100,000... 10 year, 400,000 catastrophic failure, up to $5,000. Wow. Which is a pretty phenomenal new car warranty.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: A- and when you say new car warranty, like new to your shop or brand new 2026? What are you talking about?
Nathan Geransky: New under 40,000 kilometers. Like brand new.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: Under 40,000. They have to register through you. We're supposed to do most of their oil changes, all their maintenance.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: And then if they do that, then they they get the warranty.
Jimmy Lea: And did you say up to 400,000 kilometers?
Nathan Geransky: Yeah, 10 year, 400,000, which is phenomenal. Holy
Jimmy Lea: mackerel.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. If your transmission blows up or your motor blows up at 300,000 they'll reimburse you up to 500... Five, $5,000. $5,000? Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my
Nathan Geransky: gosh. Which is better than nothing.
Jimmy Lea: Bro that's amazing. Yeah. That's awesome. Congratulations. I'm glad you're- Yeah ... with NAPA and NAPA Auto Pro program. They- Yeah ... they have a great program. They're gonna do you very well. Very cool. Yeah,
Nathan Geransky: no, I'm pretty excited about it. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Let's talk about, It feels like I've been
Nathan Geransky: starting my business all over again.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, right? Yeah. All the excitement and the energy- yeah ... that, that instills. Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Talking about you and Noah Noah's your son. He's working the front counter.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: D- how closely do you and Noah work together on your financials?
Nathan Geransky: Very close, like daily
So we're working it out Did you guys work with Dani on
Jimmy Lea: your-
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Nathan Geransky: So we went from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online with our bookkeeper, and then so Noah kinda took over that, and we're kinda working back and forth trying to figure it all out 'cause I used to like for financials was like, "I don't wanna deal with this.
Give it to the bookkeeper. Deal with it. She can deal with the accountant. I'm gonna fix cars." But realizing it's, how important it actually is, and that's what it's all about. So we need to dig into it and figure it out. I need to figure it out, which I have. Yeah. It's come a long ways, for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, I, and I'll bet there's a lot of technicians out there right now that are like, "Oh my gosh, I don't wanna do the books. This is something they hate to do." That's exactly what
Nathan Geransky: I didn't wanna do. Yeah. Sure.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They, maybe they come in on a Saturday morning for a couple of hours trying to get it done.
They're trying to do- Yeah ... the full week's worth of stuff.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. It sounds like what you're saying is it's better to have a person who's able to do it for you if you're not the one to do it. Absolutely. Yeah. But even then, you need to have your fingers in that cookie jar. You still have to
Nathan Geransky: get involved.
Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: You still gotta
Nathan Geransky: be involved. Which that's my where I'm going now is where we always need to be involved with that. That's what I'm learning. So that's part of the- Yeah ... manager role that I'm learning to do.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. It's the big nemesis that you're facing. It's the big- Yeah
elephant in the room. Yeah. And how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. So now you're doing it. You're in there. Yeah. You're doing- Yeah ... the steps you need to take to get to that point where you can be the manager you need to be and the owner you need to be, the owner that your business demands.
And that's so important. Yeah. And you recently joined BNI. I was a member of BNI for oh, two and a half, three years when I had a landscaping, house cleaning- Okay ... handyman business.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: What have you discovered so far with BNI?
Nathan Geransky: I think it's the next step. I just recently joined got inaugurated or whatever the other day, like joined their group, right?
Yeah. Passed all their, You bas- have to apply for it and make sure the right fit for your chapter. So I passed all that. So yeah, I just started. I think it's a good next step for my business to become more manager mentality, and looking working for my business or on my business, I should say.
So yeah, I think it's a... That's why I joined it 'cause I feel it's the next best step, and referrals, and they give you more business, at the end of it. And more- Yeah ... helping make a community out of it, so which is great.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, you will. You'll discover quite a bit of community out of it.
Yeah. What I discovered is the more I was able to come in and give, to give knowledge- Definitely, yeah ... to give information, to give understanding, to give tips and tricks and reasons why, and this is for automotive you would say, "Th- this is what a timing belt is. This is what it does, and this is why it's important for you to go to a certified, a trained, certified automotive repair shop.
And by the way, that's who we are. We, this is what we do." Yeah. So for those of you who don't understand BNI, they only allow one company, one business from one vertical into the chapter. Yeah. So Nathan will be the only automotive repair guy, person in the, in that chapter. They could have a collision person.
They could have a quick lube person maybe. That might be a little bit
Nathan Geransky: too close. No, I think it's all automotive is different. Collision would be, yeah, they would have a collision person. They have all your lawyers and financial people and bankers and-
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yeah ...
Nathan Geransky: everything is... There's 34 people in that group, so it's a pretty big- Oh, it's a big group
Chapter. Yeah, a very big chapter. They've already done over a million in referred business already this year.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow.
Nathan Geransky: So it's a- That's phenomenal ... quite a a healthy group to be into.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Nathan Geransky: And yeah, their motto is "Givers gain," so you wanna give as much as your information, like you were saying, help them understand what their car needs, right?
Jimmy Lea: Yep.
Nathan Geransky: Or what's their tips of- And maintenance, big maintenance stuff,
Jimmy Lea: oh, yeah.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah. So I think it's gonna be good.
Jimmy Lea: It's gonna be really good. Nicole's giving a shout-out here as well for BNI. It's a wonderful for their shop. And Nicole, glad you're in BNI. Congratulations, that's awesome. Yeah. One of the things that I would love to see auto repair help educate the industry is a lot of people think, "Oh, my manual says I can go 17,000 miles before I change the oil.
My manual tells me I can go 10,000 miles. My manual tells me I can go 9,500 miles before I need to service the oil." That's not true.
Nathan Geransky: Because so if you look in your manual too, it'll say extreme circumstances or extreme duty, which is most of our cars, especially in Canada, you have such extreme hot, cold, and everything else.
You... So basically our cars are running extreme duty all the time.
Jimmy Lea: All the time.
Nathan Geransky: So your maintenance is a quar- like probably half of what it should be per-
Jimmy Lea: Yes ...
Nathan Geransky: less time- Yes ... to say, less kilometers.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Oh, for sure. My- Yeah ... my father taught me to treat my F-150, my truck, and this is the way he treated his Ford F-150.
He says, "I treat it like a Honda. Every 5,000 miles I go and get it an oil change, and it's always synthetic."
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Never conventional. He was always synthetic. I did that, and I drove that truck 225,000 miles. I sold it, and to this day I really wish I still had that truck.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: It was a great truck. And man, it just kept running and running.
Yeah. So yeah, the more you can help educate the industry- ... not even just the industry, but the public. The more you can help- Yeah ... educate the public as to what they need to do with their vehicles, the better it's gonna be for- Oh, absolutely. Yeah ...
Nathan Geransky: for you and for repairs
Jimmy Lea: too.
Nathan Geransky: And that's what joining BNI, that's my goal is to help people.
People are like, "I just turn the key and drive." It's you need to do more than that. Yes. Go to Quick Lube, but that doesn't do you good. What about your transmission oil or brake fluid or all this other stuff people don't think about?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, it's- They
Nathan Geransky: forgot about all those, right?
Jimmy Lea: It's not the...
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So you talk about the extremes where you are in the hot and cold. Yeah. I grew up in Las Vegas. I... That was extreme hot.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: We had extreme hots. A- in fact, I would change my radiator fluid at the beginning of summer and at the end of summer because there were- Okay ... many days that we would be up there in the 110, 115 degrees, which is in the 40, 42 Celsius.
Nathan Geransky: Oh.
Jimmy Lea: Maybe 46 degrees Celsius. It's very hot, and I knew that radiator fluid, it probably didn't need to be done twice a year, but I did it twice a year.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Are you calculating Fahrenheit or Celsius? Sorry.
Nathan Geransky: No, I'm my battery's running out.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, no. Get it plugged in quick.
Nathan Geransky: I'm trying.
Jimmy Lea: So- ... let's talk about the future of where you're going here, Nathan, as we come in to land this plane. What does the future look like for you? Here you are a month and a half in your new location.
You already need another four bays. What does the future look like for Nathan and Nathan's Garage?
Nathan Geransky: Future would be, like I guess my sons would take over, Justin and Noah. And I would be more off-site, is my next plan, to be train them, which is Noah's. I'm training Noah already, or we're working together.
And then Justin would be more of a leadership role. So yeah, just more, just progress along, see how it goes
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it Yeah The future is bright. It is definitely- Yeah ... bright. A lot of things happening there. So what would you say to a shop owner a- as we talk about things and go into landing this plane? What would you say to other shop owners that are on the fence about them getting coaching and training?
Nathan Geransky: Coaching and training, it would be, It's changed my life, changed my business life for sure. More realizing that you need coaching is, unless you went to business school and you learned all that stuff already and then you became a mechanic. But I think from mechanic to being owner, I think now that I've done it, it's it's a no-brainer. You need to do it. And the correct coaching- Yeah ... like the guy that fits with you, right?
Your, like with Chad with, he owns a shop too where you can relate. Not like some people are very schooled knowledge, right? Or like educated, which is good, but you need to be also down to earth terms, I guess you call it.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta have boots on the ground But yeah, so it's a- you've gotta be- That's right
experienced it.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So l- everyone needs coaching, and you've gotta find- I would say- ... the right coach.
Nathan Geransky: That's correct.
Jimmy Lea: So how do you judge that right coach, Nathan? What would you give advice to let's say Nicole or Nathan or John? What would, w- advice would you give them as they're looking for a coach?
Nathan Geransky: I don't know. I guess I don't know any other coaching, but sorry. This is, It's been a good fit with Chad, and yeah, it's worked out well. So I'm not sure. I've never experienced any other coaching companies or anything, but from what I've gathered and all the reviews or suggestions from the institute has been great.
I think- That's awesome ... that'd be the way to go for sure. Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad you hit a grand slam here at your first go. You didn't know any other coaching companies. Yeah. I'm glad that you teamed up with us. I'm glad we were able to lock arms with you and help you navigate this industry as a business owner.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 'Cause there are a lot of other coaching and training companies, and you gotta evaluate. Would that be a match? Would that be a fit? If everything is a party we don't need to pay for our friends. No. Yeah. If everything is a joke then no, that's not what we're here for.
Yeah. If everything I'm doing is not increasing my business, then you need to look at a different coaching and training company.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And yeah I'm so glad that you found the institute when you did so that we could do the things that we've done together. Yeah ... and Chad has been a major force in driving that forward.
But he's clearly and still a backup singer to you, Nathan. You are the star here. You are the star, and you have done a tremendous job. Congratulations. In fact, Yeah ... chad gave you a shout-out here a minute ago. Nathan is humble. He's becoming involved with BNI and NAPA and becoming a spokesperson for the industry, so congratulations to you, Nathan.
Nathan Geransky: Oh, thank you.
Jimmy Lea: A lot of people are seeing what you're doing, and- ... and it shows. It's awesome. All right, last and final question here, Nathan. What are you most excited about right now?
Nathan Geransky: Just moving forward and getting fit into our new location. Just progressing, it's keep on going. Keep growing-
Jimmy Lea: Progressing, building, growing
Nathan Geransky: yeah, building. You learn every day, and I'm, I keep learning. It's if I'm not learning, you're not living.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Amen. Amen, brother. Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. Congratulations to you, Nathan. Thank you so much. Pleasure. Thank you for spending the time with me to talk about your journey and that you're experiencing.
And for those of you who are listening, if your story sounds familiar to Nathan's and this is something you wanna look at, the institute, when we sign off here, there's gonna be a QR code. So get your smartphone out, get the, get ready to scan this code. We can sit down and have a conversation and see if the institute is a fit for you.
There are many who- Yeah ... come to the institute and wanna make the changes, but at the end of the day, if you don't make the changes, if you don't do the work, there is no magic bullet. There is no silver bullet that's gonna make things happen. You've gotta do what Nathan did. You've gotta sit down and stick to it and go forward and make stuff happen.
So Nathan- Even at first too- ... thank you
Nathan Geransky: so much for joining. So-
Jimmy Lea: Go ahead.
Nathan Geransky: Even at first too it was like I couldn't afford the coaching. It was like, or I thought, right? But now it's like I can't afford not to, so that's where we've come to.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? And Nathan, to your point, I'll bet there's many out there that feel the exact same way.
"Oh my gosh- Yeah ... I just really can't afford to do it. I can't afford to do it." And then when they do it, they're like, "Oh my gosh, why didn't I do this sooner?"
Nathan Geransky: Should've done it years
Jimmy Lea: ago. "I should've done this- Yeah ... years ago." Yeah. "A year ago, two years ago-" Yeah. "... three years ago."
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Congratulations.
And I hear that your future is bright. In fact, it's so bright I brought my shades for you. There you
Nathan Geransky: go.
Jimmy Lea: Nathan, your future is bright. This is gonna be awesome. I'm so excited for you. And for everybody who's listening I love this industry. I love what we're doing. As we lock arms together, we're gonna make a big difference in the world and in the industry.
So Nathan, to you, thank you very much. You're welcome. And to you listening, my friend, thank you very much. Any final words, Nathan?
Nathan Geransky: Just keep on going.
Jimmy Lea: Keep on going. Hey, there's a little fish that kept saying that as well. "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming." You're awesome. Thank you very much, brother.
Nathan Geransky: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Take care. Look forward to talking to you soon. Everybody listening, grab out your smartphones, scan this QR code. Let's get together. Let's take those next steps in your business journey to become the shop and the business and the owner that your business demands. And with that, my name is Jimmy Lea.
I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.
 

206 - Part 2: Using AI in Your Shop to Increase Performance

206 - Part 2: Using AI in Your Shop to Increase Performance
May 20th, 2026 - 00:56:24
Show Summary:
John Seitzer returns to break down how automotive shops can use agentic AI to improve efficiency and save time. He explains the difference between basic AI tools and systems that can actively perform work inside your computer. The conversation covers organizing files, creating customer drop off envelopes, building social media campaigns, and automating repetitive tasks using skills and projects. John also explains the importance of oversight and why AI still needs human direction. Shop owners will walk away with practical examples they can start applying immediately.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Jonathan Seitzer, Owner, Dempsey’s Service Center
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:36] – AI tools are spreading fast across automotive repair shops
[00:03:28] – John explains the three ways he uses AI daily
[00:05:07] – Agentic AI gives AI systems arms and legs to work
[00:06:20] – AI projects require time money and constant supervision
[00:10:42] – Claude organizes an entire messy downloads folder automatically
[00:16:11] – Shops can redesign drop off envelopes using AI tools
[00:21:12] – QR code envelopes reduce overnight key drop confusion
[00:24:05] – AI creates social media campaigns with branded shop content
[00:28:27] – Skills automate repeatable daily tasks inside Claude
[00:43:48] – AI works like an eager intern and still needs oversight
 
 
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/bAchtVE0Klo
 
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: 
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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, my friends. It is good to see you again this day. Glad that we're able to join together and have this conversation. AI is taking over. No, not really taking over, but good night, it is spreading like wildfire. We gonna have a great conversation here today. This is part two of our conversation with John.
This is gonna be awesome. But before we get into that conversation, I want you to understand, this is an interactive conversation between you and me and John. So to make sure everybody knows how to put in the comments into the comment section, we're live streaming on YouTube and Facebook and StreamYard, so I wanna make sure you know how to put in those comments.
Go into the comment section, type in your shop name, your city and state. We'll give you a shout-out here for everybody that's on the live event. Get in there and get it done quickly 'cause it goes fast. It goes fast. So let us know where you are joining us from today. A La Part Deluxe. A La Part Deluxe.
Tom, what is A La Part Deluxe? Is that the name of your shar- shop? That's awesome. And John's joining us from the surface of the sun. Oh, you're so funny, John. John is our guest that's joining us today. So those of you who are with us live, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your support.
I, I hope we provide for you some awesome information. Sid joining from German Tech Motorworks in Louisville, Kentucky. Glad you are here, Sid. So glad you're here. In fact, we're gonna be in an event in Kentucky, hopefully in September, October, something like that. More details to come later. Go to our website, wearetheinstitute.com/events.
You can see all of the events that are there and ready for you to come and join us as we travel all across North America, bringing valuable information to you as shop owners. Oh, and Peggy Belt, High Street Auto Repair, Jefferson City, Missouri. Peggy, so glad you are here. Thank you very much. Glad you are here.
All right, let's jump into this. We're talking to John from the surface of the sun about artificial intelligence, and specifically today, we're gonna jump into that closed loop learning AI system of Claude. Is that your favorite to work on, John? Or-
Jon Seitzer: Yeah, it's mine of choice for right now. When it comes to agentic AI, Claude is my agent of choice.
In-browser it tends to be Gemini, but that's 'cause I'm a Chrome user.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Now I've been an, a recent adapter of Gemini in all things that I'm doing in Chrome and in email 'cause I have a Gmail account. And then Claude is my nemesis. I've been on it now for two months, and I tell you, I wanna just throttle it because I'm running out of credits way too fast.
Jon Seitzer: That's, so that's interesting. I- I'd be interested to see what you're doing. We'll- ... I'll get into that in just a few slides here about what goes into agentic AI and how- Yeah ... it's different from some of the stuff we talked about in the last one.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, this is gonna be awesome. I'm super excited.
John, the floor is yours, brother. I'm so excited to sit at your feet and learn. Let's get into this.
Jon Seitzer: Awesome. Welcome back to those of you who made the first one, and welcome to those of you just tuning in. My name's John Seitzler, owner of Dempsey Service Center here in Newark, Delaware.
Prior to this, though, I spent 15 years on Wall Street working in technology and specifically delivering AI products as far back as 2019 back when it was just called machine learning. So I'm gonna put up my presentation, and we'll talk about today's topic which is agentic AI, which is just one of the last things I did before I became a shop owner, was introducing an agentic AI product into the market back where I used to work.
All right. So quick recap. There are three ways I use AI, and it is rent it, I feed it, and I put it to work. Rent it is when I use AI in the tools I already pay for, like the AI in QuickBooks, in Microsoft Excel, in my shop management tool. That's AI you basically get with your subscription. And it is the easiest way to use AI, and it delivers some of the best quality of life wins.
Number two is feed it. Take your tools that generate data, put that data into your large language model of choice, be it Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude or an open source model if you're really into this kind of stuff. And then look for insights. What can AI tell you? What can what can you learn from something that can get through the data quickly that might have taken you a long time and a lot of elbow grease analysis to figure out?
And we did a few example of those around revenue insights. Today we're gonna talk about the third one. This is putting your AI to work. So put it to work. This is agentic AI. So we, you hear a lot of different terminologies and terms thrown out, and I'll do what I can to explain to some of these.
If you think of AI or an LLM, think of that like the brain. An agent or an agentic harness is giving that brain arms and legs. It's instead of you bringing stuff and loading it into your eye, your AI, it is sending your AI out to data with a job to do and giving it the space to do that job. So it is...
it's AI that works for you. It works on your computer, in your files, in your applications, which brings a certain level of risk. So there's a, there's a few steps you're gonna wanna take when you're starting to run these things just to... You don't wanna let an AI go running buck wild on your computer.
Today is going to be mostly a live demo. I'm gonna run through a few different scenarios, some things I've done to use AI to improve things at my shop. And as I said last time, AI is not deterministic. Deterministic is if I do A, B happens, like flipping a switch for your light. The switch- the light goes on, the light goes off.
It happens every time. AI is probabilistic. And what do I mean by probabilistic? Probabilistic is if Jimmy was to say, "Hey, John," I could say, "Hi" or, "Hey, Jimmy," or, "Hey, what's up?" That's probabilistic. There is no set response to a greeting. And you can actually do this with your AI to prove this. Go into ChatGPT and just type hi and see what it says, and then open a new one and do it again and see what it says.
My guess is you're not gonna get two of the same responses. Let's do a few reality checks before we really get into this because these are very important things to understand. This tier of putting your agent to work, it is going to cost you. It is going to cost you in money and it is going to cost you in time.
Why? Because in many cases you are accessing tools that are third-party tools that are not built inside of your agent, so probably these extra tools come with some level of a subscription and it is also going to cost you in time. N- you don't know it when you're doing this, but what we're doing when we're interacting with things like Claude Code and Claude Cowork is you're following many of the same processes a software engineer follows.
You're building a folder on your computer and you're pointing your tool at it and you're working inside of your folder. That's how every computer application you use gets started. It starts as a project on a software engineer's laptop somewhere and this is no different. This is just a little more user-friendly version of it than my old software engineers used to have to do.
So understand This isn't something where you just set, forget, and off it goes and life is easier. Especially at the start, you're going to have to put in the time, you're going to have to put in the work, you're going to have to babysit it a lot, and you're gonna have to be ready to spend a little bit of money to, to get moving.
But once things are moving you'd be shocked at how how fast the efficiency gains start to stand up to s- stack up for you. Other thing to understand, this is what I use. And this might be important as well. First off, my computer is a MacBook, so I am... When you see all this, I am working on a Mac.
A lot of developers work on Macs and when it comes to some of these programs like ChatGPT and Claude their desktop applications, Cowork and ChatGPT has its own desktop tool, they came out on the Mac first. I'm guessing that is because most of their developers are Macintosh. I know Claude Cowork has a Windows app now.
I haven't used it but be aware that probably when new features are released, they're going to release for the Mac first and then flow to Windows. My LLM of choice is Claude, and my agent harness is Claude Cowork or Claude Code. I say agent harness 'cause this is literally a thing you're going to download onto your computer.
It's a computer program. Claude Code, Claude Cowork. I believe OpenAI's is called Codex. Or there is a thing I think called the ChatGPT app. So this is a, these are apps that work on your machine. And then as always, if you have any questions or are looking for any type of support feel free, you can find me on Facebook or LinkedIn, you can send me an email.
I'm always happy to chat AI with folks as we or as you start to learn these tools. But that said, that's my little spiel. We now have a little bit of time to work off on our demo. Let's start here. Like I said, the... This is my desktop. It's my MacBook Pro, one of my monitors. I- the first thing you should do when you're doing one of these tools, and real quick... Not that.
This is the tool. This is Claude Cowork or Claude Code. This is the desktop app that I download to interact with Claude, and you'll see it's got three different modes. Chat, so if I do this, right? This is just what, like what it looks like on the on the website. You can chat with it. CoWork is where you start to use this to work in a place on your machine.
And then Claude Code is the more advanced version of this. So today, we're primarily gonna be working in CoWork. Now, when you set up CoWork and you download this onto your machine and it is the same with any type of agent harness that you would get from OpenAI or anywhere else, you want to sequester it.
This thing can, if you gave it full access to your machine, right? It's gonna tell you to... If you wanna work in a folder. If I was to do this and just give it access to my entire computer it... I could do that. I could let it go wherever. But understand, this thing is going to work in your computer the same way you do.
That means it can delete files. That means it can change things. So what you want to do, and what I do anytime I set one of these up, is I set up a folder and I limit Claude to that folder. This is where you can work, and if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna have it do anything, I'm gonna make sure all of the things it needs to do its job are here, and it can go nowhere else, so it can't delete anything else on my computer.
In this case I've set up a special one just for this this demo today. But let's work outside of it for just a moment, and let me show you what I mean by when I say your compu- this thing works on your computer and does stuff on your computer. I bet you this is a problem every single person on this call has.
This is my downloads folder. This is every single thing, like when I'm browsing online and I have to download something, it all comes here, and there's a zillion things in it, and it's disorganized, and it's hard to find stuff, and I'm usually searching something. So let's make the first thing we ask Claude to do, and this is something any of you can do, pop in here and go "My downloads folder is really disorganized.
Can you organize it for me?"
And here we go. And it's gonna start to think, and now you can see it's gonna start running through here and, yep, it's gonna look at it, and then it's gonna start asking me questions about how I think it should be organized. 130 items. Shockingly, documents for my my shop. And it's gonna start asking quest- So how do I want th- it?
So Claude is really good at doing this, asking you what you want. Let's go by category. If there are duplicates, put duplicates in their own. Put them in the categories, and off it goes. And it's gonna think for a little bit. And you may actually be able to see If we do this, downloads.
Not yet, so it's gonna start thinking, but pretty quick here you're gonna start to see this folder change. Now again, all of you have a downloads folder on your computer. Any one of you can do something like this, and this is just to show exactly what it's doing. I'm letting it work in my computer.
Here back in Claude World you can see it's running a bunch of commands and continuing to think. Thinking, thinking, thinking. And again as Jimmy said earlier if you have questions, if you're if you're running into any issues or if there's anything I can explain a little bit bre- better.
Yes, Jimmy?
Jimmy Lea: Okay, so question. First of all, rookie, only 130 in your downloads folder? Oh my gosh.
Jon Seitzer: I, I- I have- ... organized it. It's- Oh ... my downloads folder's been organized for months. I disorganized it for this webinar.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you for doing that. I feel much better now. All right to my next question. You're organizing your downloads.
It's going by categories. I got that. Is it... Are you also giving it the ability to rename? It's not gonna rename it, is it? Or can it?
Jon Seitzer: It could if I told it to. Oh, gosh. Okay. I've done that with, So every day I have a stack of parts invoices, and the parts guy leaves me a piece of paper.
Every day I take all of those parts invoices, I scan them they go into a folder in my Google Drive, and then once a month I will send Claude in there and say, "Look at every single one of these, and title, and give them this naming convention." So it's like parts invoice, date, month, day, year.
Huh.
Jimmy Lea: And it'll grab the month, day, year off of the invoice number in that way? It'll, yeah,
Jon Seitzer: It'll read the invoices. 'Cause, because I do it every day, the invoices are typically the date on them is all the same anyway. Yep. And yeah, it'll, It just, it does it for me. But it'll, it does what you ask.
The only thing I asked it to do was organize the folder. Yeah. So all that's going to organize the folder, and it's gonna follow the, these three rules we set as it was asking me the questions.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. So I really need your help on this download thing, because I have way o- way more than 130.
Jon Seitzer: That's the beauty of AI.
Yeah. It doesn't care how many you've got.
Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: All right. All right, brother.
Jon Seitzer: All right. So as this is as this is working, we can potentially jump into another- One of our demos here, and I think this was a mistake I made. I'm using way more model than is necessary, so this thing's thinking really hard about how to do a really easy task.
All so let's do a fun one. Who here has... Tell- in the chat, tell me if you recognize this, if you have one of these but with your shop on it. This is a nine by six drop-off envelope that I that we keep in front of the shop. A customer has to fill out all of this stuff, write what they want, sign it, throw the keys in, throw it through the throw it into the drop-off slot.
And then in the morning we come in, open the envelopes, get cars checked in. Now, I hope this isn't unique to me, because I have lots of customers that see all of this stuff that we're asking them to fill out and read and go, "No." And then they just throw their keys in the box, and we get to go on a bit of a hunt every morning to match keys to cars for overnight drop-offs.
So I thought to myself, I bet you there's a better way to present this information to customers, especially because I use Auto Ops, like I'm sure many folks out there do, and Auto Ops gives you QR codes that allow customers to do this do the booking and check-in from their phone. So let's see if we can't come up with a better envelope than this one.
So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna go into Cowork. I am going to pick a different folder, right? So I'm gonna go Desktop, Demo, Drop Off Envelope. So now I'm telling it, "This is where I want you to work. This is where all the things I want you, Claude, to start to think about are," and I'm gonna tell it that folder.
I'm gonna tell it's allowed to make changes to the things in that folder, and then I'm gonna give it I'm gonna tell it what I'm trying to do. And I've got a... if you weren't on the last one, I have a tool that allows me to just talk into my computer, and it types for me. That way you guys don't have to watch me hunt and peck and misspell things.
In this folder, you'll find a picture of my customer's drop-off envelope. I want to come up with a better way to have customers give this information to me, and I want to utilize the QR code that I've also put in the folder- so they can, instead of having to fill anything out, they can simply put their keys in the folder scan the QR code with their phone, and then book their service through their phone so they're not standing outside in a cold parking lot trying to fill out an envelope in the dark.
Can you read the envelope and then suggest an alternative that incorporates the important data elements of the envelope, but also has the QR code featured prominently and gives customers the choice of either using the QR code or filling out the envelope before they put their keys in it and put it into our car drop-off?
So this is what I've done. I've given it exactly the tools that I want it to use. I've told it where all of the information is, and now we put it to work. So it's gonna start thinking. Meanwhile, our downloads folder has been organized. Oh, it found 195 items organized into 10 topics folders. Let's see.
There we go. Downloads organized, right? Personal stuff duplicates, miscellaneous. We got stuff from vendors and, in X number of minutes everything is set and ready to go. Meanwhile... All right, so it's looking at the folder. It's looking at the QR code. It's recognized what it is.
And also if we look back into the folder, so this is where I talk about some work you have to do, at the start, right? When it comes to this AI demo, I needed to make sure there was a folder for it, and everything I wanted to use was in the folder. So in this case, I had the QR code, I had the logo and then I also have my the picture of the envelope from before.
We're gonna have a couple of questions. This is a nine by six envelope. I'm gonna say tighten the wording on the legal thing. Let's just go one color because I only have a black and white printer, and now it's going to think.
And then at the end of this, what it should output to is a Word document that I could that would end with me being able to buy, at a much cheaper price by the way, a 9x6 envelope that I can then just stick on my printer and as needed, print out car drop-off forms. And while it thinks I'll say I know this is going to work because these are what our envelope forms look like now, right?
We've got this, we've got our QR code, we've got all the important details if the customer wants to fill everything out, and a place for them to sign. And this is something we've been using for a while, and I have had all sorts of success and a lot less wild goose chases of me walking around the parking lot beeping a key trying to play match the car.
Which is good, especially because, you think, "Okay, how bad is the problem or how bad is that as a problem really?" If you have a lot of fleet customers that have a lot of Ford Express transit vans, you know- They all look the same ... I have two, I have one customer that has two of the exact same kind of vans having two of the exact same kind of surface with two of the exact same key chains on the van 'cause they're corporate vans.
Jimmy Lea: That's wild. Okay, so I have a question for you. And I know you're using Claude. Why do you prefer Claude over, say a ChatGPT?
Jon Seitzer: So Claude came out with their the CoWork- ... program first. So what Claude first came to market with was something called Code, which is this, which- Super advanced
su- it is, yeah. Really the irony here is CoWork is just Claude Code with a fancy UI to make it a little more user friendly. They do- Okay ... they both do exactly the same things, and I, honestly, once you start to get more familiar with Claude Code or CoWork and are more comfortable with it- Yeah
switching over to Code is not, it's not a hard thing. Huh. Now it's totally different than Claude... There's two different types of Claude Code. There's Claude Code in the app, right? So they just put this in. It us- this used to just be chat and CoWork. Code used to live here in the terminal. Oh, God. And that was where it was very, you had to this was, you had to learn special commands to find your folder path names, do all this stuff.
Yeah. Now we can use Claude Code inside of here, we can get all the benefits of it. But CoWork is just, it's a little more user friendly. You get things like this. Your pro- your, your progress tells you all the things it's doing- ... any additional context. All of the things as it's as it's kinda like working through it.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Very cool.
Jon Seitzer: T-, so while we're doing that, how about we jump to get another demo started? So we're gonna go back to the desktop, back to the demo. Okay, let's do a fun one. All right. Social media post. Now I wrote that I was coming from the surface of the sun. Those of you ear- here on the East Coast agree with me, it's been very hot over the last several days.
Let's say I've decided I want to run a special to try and juice some AC job sales and I'm going to promote it on social media and I'm gonna use a, an adorable picture of my dog. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna go to Death AI demo. So I'm telling Claude again, we're selecting our folder, right?
Social media post. All right. Always allow. So this, so you know, so this is the image I'm going to use. Inside here I've got a folder called agent output. I'm gonna tell Claude to put anything it creates here. And then I've got this, which is my brand assets folder. Because we're working in social media, I'm, want to make sure Claude is writing in the voice I tell it to, so I'm also giving it a number of our brand assets and letting it have access to those in the event it decides it, it wants to use that.
The next step this is where we talked about earlier, talking about extra spend when it comes to this stuff. So we're not just gonna have Claude generate an image, 'cause Claude can't. Claude doesn't actually generate images. ChatGPT and Gemini both have that feature. Claude is pretty much text only right now.
So we're going to, we're gonna connect a couple of different tools to this. We're going to probably use Canva for it to take the picture of my dog and modify it, and then we'll use a tool called Blotato to schedule it to do the social media post. But let's start by telling Claude what we're trying to do.
I want to increase some AC check sales at my auto shop, and I want to run a special promoting AC services on my Instagram. I want this to be a lighthearted and fun Instagram post, so what I'd like you to do is take the picture that I have in this folder of my dogs- And I would like you to take that picture and add a cartoon thought bubble with an ice cream cone in it.
Once the picture is created, I want to post that to Instagram, scheduling it to run on Friday of this week, and the text copy in the Instagram post should read something like, "We know it's hot, and we want to encourage everyone to get their AC checked by offering a cool treat. Schedule an AC check between now and Friday, and you'll get a $20 gift card to our favorite ice cream shop, Dempsey's Ice Cream, in Newark, Delaware."
Ask any questions that you need before starting, and put all of your outputs in the agent output folder in the social media post folder. All right. So this one's gonna probably take a few, but it's a pretty complex thing. I'm telling it I want it to create a picture, to post that picture to Instagram, and to use all the relevant the relevant copy, hashtags, all that stuff.
So we sh- I still have to run through that. All
Jimmy Lea: right. So while this is processing, did you hit the button? Are we going? Not yet. Not yet, okay. I was
Jon Seitzer: gonna add something to the thing real quick.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Jon Seitzer: You add. Oops. Make sure you follow the brand voice guidelines in the Instagram post. All right, and away we go.
Jimmy Lea: Okay, and the wheels are turning. Okay, so here's a question coming in from from Sheila Costa with Marin Auto out in Fairfax, California. I know Claude Work is super powerful, and I've been experimenting with it a little. Time may not be enough, but I wanna talk about how skills work in a practical way in our shops.
Or do we need a part three to do that, John? We don't
Jon Seitzer: need a part three to do that. I can quickly go through skills. So Claude has two different things, projects, here, and skills. And skills you can see customized here in the customize bank. So skills are they are... If you have a task you do a lot and it always follows the same step, creating a skill in Claude Cowork is a great way to give Claude the ability to go and run that skill without having to tell it every single time, "Do this."
Now for those of you who were in the last chat, I talked about how I have a number of newsletters that get turned into a podcast for me every single day. Well- To do that, I created a skill called Daily Brief. The skill will load here, but basically what you wind up doing is you create a set of product project instructions for the skill and then it loads in here.
And then if I was to go back into Cowork and do a new task, Please create my afternoon brief. And it'll start doing that for me too. So that is a skill. Skill is a repeatable task that you can teach to Claude, and it will give you the ability to run that task in a simple set of words. In this case, anytime I say, "Please create a daily brief, brief me," it, it picks up the context, and it starts to spit out the skills.
And now what it's going to start doing is it's gonna go into my email, it's gonna look for my newsletters folder, it's gonna read all the newsletters, and then it's gonna spit out basically a script that I'll load into a different tool.
Jimmy Lea: How does it know to go into your emails to get all the email?
Jon Seitzer: It's in the sc- it's in the skill. So the- So you
Jimmy Lea: taught it to do that from the beginning?
Jon Seitzer: Yes. When you're setting up Claude, we start talking about the connectors right here in the customized menu. Yeah. So you can see these are all the things I have Claude connected to. So in this case, it's connected to my Gmail.
So I've got another skill that I run in the mornings called Check In, and it will check... it'll go through my emails, it'll tell it'll try and, it'll try and rag state them for me. "Okay, here's important with action items. Here's something you might not have to worry about. Here's spam or something you don't have to worry about."
I've also got a task list it reads the emails, and I can move things onto and off of my task list and things like that, just to try and, again, buy back minutes, right? I've got X number of minutes of the day. If something can summarize my email and tell me what's important and I don't have to sift through 30 of them, that's how we go.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Jon Seitzer: So when we talked about, earlier when I said that, there are a number of it costs money, right? I use because we're also a Fisher snowplow distributor- Yeah ... I use a tool called Apollo to help me keep on top of people in the area, businesses, that might be good snowplow sales customers, right?
Landscapers that offer snow removal service school districts, government entities. So I'm, so Apollo lets me look for people with certain job titles in my specific area. I use Canva here. We should actually go back and see- How some of our projects are doing. So the newsletter, so here you go.
All right, how- let's see what it came up with for our drop off envelope. So not exact- so it's not exactly what I would like, right? So it basically did a nine by six, but it would have me printing on both sides of the envelope. In this case, probably I didn't do a good enough job in, in prompting it.
I can ask it. So here's what I'll do. I like the style, but can you modify it so that it is only on one side of the envelope, since I can't print on both sides of an envelope, and so it's in portrait instead of landscape? If you need to lose some of the legal disclaimer or data elements, then I'm okay with getting rid of some of them if it...
to make everything fit.
So we're gonna go back to there. All right, here we go. Oh this wants a list of things to do. Dog picture, agent output.
So it this, when we talked about last thing about memory, right? It remembers that a chocolate lab is our mascot. So it's thinking. So I'm just, I'm gonna... Typically I can just say yes. Yes, use this photo. I didn't mean to say dogs. It should have only been a singular dog. I'm gonna say 5:00 PM, because I'm not actually gonna post this, because I'm not actually going to.
Call the shop. Polish it to the brand voice. All right, and it's gonna get back to work. Meanwhile it's mad 'cause the newsletters are large. Still thinking. One face portrait. Yep, so we're gonna try again, and then we're going caption. And it's thinking again. Now, now, You can see we're running three pretty process-heavy things at the same time, and I could run as many of these, a- as I can do. But worth mentioning, again, I'm on a specific plan. This is the max plan. And this is costing me in usage. So let's see where we are. So this current session, I'm at about 10% of my usage.
So I think-
Jimmy Lea: How are you not running out of tokens? '
Jon Seitzer: Cause I spend a lot of money on tokens. Okay. So there are a few different there are a few different plans when it comes to Claude. There is the 20 d- there's a free plan, obviously. There's a $20 a month plan that has a certain amount of usage.
There's, I believe, then $100 a month plan, and then there's a $200 a month plan. Because I do coding and stuff in my spare time, and I'm building other stuff, it just makes the most sense for me to spend the $200 a month. But to everybody on the call, I spend $200 a month on Claude because I get $200 worth of value, from Claude. N- there, in no circumstances should you be doing that if the, you're gonna use it once or twice a week or a few different times a month to try and do some extra stuff. I always say start at the lowest tier you can and see where you hit your limits. Yeah. And if you're hitting the limits, jump up one tier and go until you hit that limit.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. I really want you to look at what I'm doing, 'cause I'm running out of tokens every time I run a cycle. It runs out within two, two and a half hours, and I have to wait- Oh, yeah ... for another two- Yeah ... two and a half hours for it to kick back in and keep going again. So- All right.
So here's what we're doing. We'll have to talk. I'm gonna take you up. I'm gonna take you up on that half-hour conversation.
Jon Seitzer: It is here, and I am here for you. But, hey, look at this. Ooh, I actually like this one more than I like the one that I came up with the first time. So here we are, a 9x6 envelope.
Nice. People can scan. They can give that. And then yeah. So again, what did I... What do I get out of this? One, I can buy envelopes and print them. Yeah. The envelopes that I print are, they're my envelopes with my logo and my QR code, and I'm not beholden to a printing company that is gonna charge me, several hundred dollars to custom print- Custom print
me an envelope when the only thing they're doing is putting my shop's name on it, and everything else is ex- the exact same every other shop gets. So this is something that now has made my shop unique.
Jimmy Lea: John, that's awesome. And I do agree. I like this envelope. This looks very good. It's easily usable, something that everybody can jump in and start using.
Still thinking on that. Is that the skills running, or which one did you jump into?
Jon Seitzer: Oh, so this is... So this, now what it's doing so now it's going into, So this is multiple tasks, right? So now I'm guessing it's going into Canva. It's looking at my brand. Save to my a- so here we go, it just finished my picture.
Okay, so this is the o- AI will also check your work, so when you're doing a f- if you're doing something fun like a cool webinar for all of your new shop friends, if you, and you say something contradictory like you're gonna run a special from today to Friday, but you're not gonna post about it till Friday-
AI's gonna call you out about it. Are you
Jimmy Lea: sure
Jon Seitzer: you wanna run it till Friday? Yeah, you know what? We'll run it till next Friday. AI doesn't need to know. But- Yeah ... we can jump into the thing. So here's our envelope. AI demo. We're doing the social media post, agent output. What do we got? Oh, that's really good.
I like that. Oh, that's really good. I don't know if it's gonna fit on Instagram, but, we'll see. And now off it will run through Friday. Caption now. Saving it to the agent output folder. So now y- again we're chaining a number. You can see here, right? We're running through a number of different a number of different tasks.
So it's now done that. It's written the Instagram. Here's the c- promo caption. "It's heating up in Newark, and somebody at the shop already has summer on the brain. We know nobody loves thinking about car care when the weather is this nice, so we figured we'd make it worth your while with a cool treat. Bring your vehicle in for an AC check now between Friday, May 29th.
We'll send you home with a $20 gift card to one of our favorite shops in town, Dempsey's Ice Cream," which does not exist. A quick check. So there we go, and now we've got... now I've got this, and now it's going to go into my other tool, Blotato, which manages my social media for me and does all of my, it does all of my scheduling, right?
So for me it's important obviously having a social presence is important. I don't have a lot of time so what I do every month is I build a calendar of, what I want posted to Facebook, posted to Instagram. I then have the AI go out and generate based on the calendar, and then it schedules the posts for me via this tool called Blotato.
Oh, still doing this. Ooh, boy. Yeah, the afternoon brief is still running It's a big
Jimmy Lea: day. Big news day.
Jon Seitzer: It is. This is another... So this is also, this is a danger of AI and especially working in Claude, which tends to push a lot of updates. So this never used to take this long. When it came to my daily brief, it would just run, summarize, create the script, and Claude pushed an update a couple of days ago, and suddenly suddenly every AC run is a fight.
But yep, so here's my here's my folder, right? So it's my daily brief. It's written to all of the things, starting with politics, economy markets, and basketball stuff 'cause I'm a big NBA guy. But yeah, now it's in here. Now it's in there in a folder. And what I would do is I would drag and drop it into a different tool that I use, and it would spit out a podcast wr- that for me to listen to on the drive home.
But that's- Oh, I love it ... but that's the skill thing, right? The steps are always the same. Go to my email, go to a specific folder in my email, read every newsletter in the folder, summarize it following this script or f- this script architecture, spit out the, create a text file because the tool only takes text files, and it's the same thing every time.
So that's the perfect type of thing f- that running a s- or doing a skill would help you with 'cause it's the same thing every time. Create a skill, and now you don't have to give it all those steps every single time. You can just say, "Create my brief," and off it goes. So there's- Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah. Let's see. Blotato's upload. I can't push the image. Oh, no. Okay, so here's where... So every now and then we're gonna run into an issue. In this case, Blotato would probably prefer I use their tool to generate a picture of a dog thinking about an ice cream cone. It doesn't want me to push my own image.
We'll see if we'll see if it can figure out a way around it. Yep, it's gonna use a different one than I use, potentially, Cloudinary. But yeah, we'll continue to let that think, and what's our next demo? W- while we do this, Jimmy, are there any other questions that anyone has I can answer for them?
No,
Jimmy Lea: man, a- and I agr- I appreciate you saying that. If there are questions, type them into the comments box. Let's ask John. Sheila, you had some great questions there about skills and projects and what's the difference between the two and how can we utilize them in the shop. I, this is a s- fabulous way of using AI technology.
And the, what so I just recently went to an AI- conference, an AI trade show, and it was huge. It was amazing. And in this they were saying, "Oh just let AI do it. Just let AI do it." No. Nay. Oh. There's a caution here. There has to be human interaction. There has to be human oversight.
'Cause if you just let AI do it, there are errors. It's gonna make mistakes. And like any good employee, you've gotta monitor and make sure that they're giving you and doing the right things for your business, for your outcomes, for whatever it is that you're trying to develop or do. Th- those prompts that you're giving it, it's g- that's where the magic happens.
Jon Seitzer: It is, and let me build on that by saying, so when at my last job, I worked with a gentleman named Han Lee. He's absolutely brilliant. And he was a manager of our software engineering team, and this is a couple years ago as these AI agents are really starting to move into the mainstream.
And they started with coding agents, so agents designed to help software engineers write code. I sat in with Han as he was giving a presentation to his software engineering team about how to use some of these agents. And this agent, which was, I believe, GitHub's agent, the whole point of it is to help your software engineers write code, 'cause they have to write a lot of code.
But and he was using it to... When you're a software engineer, you write code, and then you have to test your code. So you, not only do you write your code, you write tests for how to test your code. They're called unit tests. So he was showing the the software engineers how to use the AI to write your unit tests, 'cause that's one of the most kind of mind-numbing parts of being a software engineer.
You're not writing cool code. You're writing unit tests for the code you already wrote. And so he was showing them how to do that, and, y- just like this, right? It's chewing through all these unit tests and spitting them out. And one of the software engineers on the team went, "Wow, it's like having a, my own intern."
And with immediately Jimmy shoots back, "Yes, and it's about as dumb as an intern." Meaning and that's like- You gotta check the work ... check the work. Yes. The AI it's eager like an intern too. It's eager and helpful, and it wants to do the best job it can. But oh boy, does sometimes it...
i- in the last webinar we did, right? Yeah. It wanted to know what my Mustang's mileage was, and it just didn't have it, so it decided 224,000 miles seemed like a good number. Yeah. And that's what it told us. "Oh, this M- Mustang has 224,000 miles on it." So yeah just give it to AI?
N- no. But give it to AI and double-check it and babysit it and give it the right instructions and stuff like that? Man, it's great. It's the envelope itself, right? The envelope- That's a really cool envelope and, it's a dumb thing to be excited about, but, hey, I have a unique envelope.
And I didn't have to think about everything it would take you to do to build that envelope. Oh, it- Who wants to learn how to use Photoshop?
Jimmy Lea: It would've taken me hours, John. I'm gonna be quite honest. Three to four hours for me to create that envelope. The layout, make sure it's lined up, make sure it works, make sure it has all the information in all the spots.
I... Two to three hours. Probably four because I really don't know Photoshop at all. Yeah. And yeah, you were able to create that really quickly.
Jon Seitzer: Let's do another one here. Okay, so-
Jimmy Lea: It looks like this might be our last one that we're gonna be able to do today. Oh,
Jon Seitzer: whoa, you're right. It's actually...
So yeah, let's... 'Cause this one would take a bunch of time as well. So yeah, this is still gonna run. I have no idea what's, what it's going to do. But I guess the next piece I would let everybody know is when you're using something like this, when you're using connectors, hitting this will allow you to browse, and you can look for the various tools you use to see if they have connectors into Claude Code that would allow you to connect your t- your tool the same way I've connected Gmail, my calendar Asana, and some of my other services.
Here you can see, right? I can pull a P&L out of QuickBooks. I can... The the, What was it? The presentation you saw at the start of this that I've done for two things now, that was created in Canva talking to Claude. Nice. Nice ... feel free to, to explore this. I would also recommend, A lot of my learning in Cowork has been off of a YouTube channel by a gentleman named Elliot Prince.
It's not one-to-one 'cause he's a software consultant and he's not a shop owner, but for a good explainer of things like skills and projects and the difference between chat and code in Cowork and how to get everything set up that's really good. It's free. He's not trying to sell you anything. If you want extra stuff on YouTube, there's a lot there.
Yeah. Just try to avoid the hype masters on YouTube and find people that are grounded, and you can get a lot of value out of this.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. Yeah I totally agree. I've been on and watched a few of Elliot Prince's things, and he's pretty dang good. Sheila agrees as well. So here's Sheila's final question here we got coming in.
"We use Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT-" Inter-calculated? Depending on the task we're doing. We audit our invoices and calls weekly and determine alignment with our SOPs. Gemini works for us 'cause it is the browser and it can read what's happening in the background of Shopware, like the logs and when the tech received the RO, when he sent it back to the service advisors, et cetera.
Is Claude Chrome extension able to do the same thing? Do you know?
Jon Seitzer: I don't know. I use... So I use Claude Chrome to help me navigate all data. So when I'm in all data, I'll log into the vehicle, like I'll type in the VIN, and then I'll say something like, "What is the labor time for plugs and coils for this thing?"
And Claude code will click around. I haven't used it in that way, so I don't know. I would say the best way to do it is to experiment. The difference between Claude and Gemini that I've found is that Claude tends to create a plan, ask for your approval of the plan, and then it... Claude tries to click around the site for you, versus Gemini, which tends to just read, summarize, and send information back to you.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. So you appreciate the plan. "Yes, let's execute the plan," where Gemini just says, "Okay, here's your answer." And you're like yeah, close, but not exactly what I was looking for." Yeah.
Jon Seitzer: So like when it... the all data example, right? Yeah. All data, to get to, to get from just having entered a VIN to plugs and coils, all, like the mouse has to move and things have to be clicked.
I haven't seen Gemini move your mouse for you yet. I think it's coming, but Claude and Chrome will actually click to different sites to try and get you to the spot.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. Very cool. Very cool. John, wonderful information. So valuable. Thank you so much. I'll be reaching out. We're gonna have a conversation.
I'll be here. Bye. But I, I hope
Jon Seitzer: that was valuable for everybody. I really do.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, John, this is awesome. And you've got a gorgeous pet, fur baby there. Oh, she's- Is she in the office? Yes. Oh, nice. Oh, no, I don't have enough cord. No. Yeah, can't see her today. Maybe next time. John, thank you so much, man.
That's just so valuable. AI is definitely not a fad. It's definitely not going away. It's something that we need to adopt and adapt to and learn how to use it. It's a powerful tool if it's used right. Yes. Just as a hammer is a powerful tool, a 10 millimeter socket is a powerful tool if it's used right.
Definitely. So dude, that's, this is awesome. Thank you very much, John. Really appreciate it
Jon Seitzer: Thank you. Really appreciate it. And again, all of you, if you need me LinkedIn or Facebook, I'm happy to help anybody that's run into any issues or wants to bounce an idea around.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. Hey, and my name is Jimmy Lea.
I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. This is valuable information you're getting today. This is the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more that we're able to do. Please go check out our website at wearetheinstitute.com. Click into the Auto Academy. This is an online learning m- system, helps you to discover more, become better.
There's tons of different videos that we have available on there. Our YouTube channel has a lot of information on there as well. Check it out. Check it out, our events page as well, all the next up-and-coming webinars we're doing, as well as all of the trade shows and conferences that we're gonna be attending.
It's all there on our events page. Look forward to seeing you at the next trade show. Look forward to seeing you at the next webinar. And together we're gonna lock arms so nobody gets left behind. Thank you very much, everybody. Talk to you soon.

205 - The Diagnostic Fee Debate: Ask Me Anything with Cecil Bullard and Lucas Underwood

205 - The Diagnostic Fee Debate: Ask Me Anything with Cecil Bullard and Lucas Underwood
May 13, 2026 - 00:56:50
Show Summary:
Lucas Underwood and Cecil Bullard explain why diagnostic testing should never be treated as free work. They discuss how weak pay systems and poor communication have lowered the value of technicians across the industry. The conversation compares automotive testing to the medical field and explains why customers should expect to pay for professional diagnostics. They also cover technician growth customer education leadership and the need for stronger professionalism in repair shops. The episode ends with a call for the industry to raise standards and focus on creating long term value.
 
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:
[01:00:25] – Customers understand testing better than diagnostics.
[01:03:09] – Proper testing requires skill experience and expensive equipment.
[01:04:04] – Shops lose profit when diagnostic time is given away.
[01:06:47] – Flat rate pay discourages advanced diagnostic skill development.
[01:12:10] – Lucas explains his Level One testing process.
[01:14:45] – Cecil compares automotive testing to medical diagnostics.
[01:19:22] – Skipping testing leads to poor repairs and wasted money.
[01:31:06] – Lucas discusses leadership responsibility and coaching influence.
[01:39:40] – Accurate testing saves money and prevents unnecessary repairs.
[01:50:16] – The industry must value professionalism and technician expertise.
 
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/cUCa2tz_G1c
 
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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:
 
[01:00:00:01 - 01:00:11:22]Lucas Underwood Good afternoon, everybody. My name's Lucas Underwood from Changing the Industry podcast. I'm also a shop owner. And this afternoon, I'm here with the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Cecil Bullard. Cecil, how you doing, buddy?
[01:00:11:22 - 01:00:14:10]Cecil Bullard Howdy, howdy. I'm great, Lucas. As always.
[01:00:14:10 - 01:00:24:14]Lucas Underwood Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So we've got some deep dive topics for the day. I'm excited about it because this is a hot button series of topics. So let's dig right into it.
[01:00:25:15 - 01:00:53:00]Lucas Underwood Now, now, Cecil, we're talking diagnostics. We're talking testing. We're talking charging for it. But you know something? Very, very early on when I first started kind of working on improving my business, I went to ASTA for the first time and I got into some training classes. It was drilled into my head from the word go. You don't sell diagnostics. You sell testing and testing results in a diagnosis. How do you feel about that, Cecil?
[01:00:56:10 - 01:00:56:24]Cecil Bullard Who cares?
[01:00:58:05 - 01:01:03:19]Cecil Bullard I don't care. Here's the thing. I mean, I sold diagnostics for, I don't know, 25 years.
[01:01:03:19 - 01:01:04:04]Lucas Underwood Yeah.
[01:01:04:04 - 01:01:52:00]Cecil Bullard We're going to diagnose your car. Now, testing actually, we keep having these people that come into our industry and they come up with these great new words. And so let's not call it green anymore. Let's call it, I don't know, pumpkin pie or whatever. Who knows? Who cares? Right. And so if you're selling pumpkin posse. Yeah. If you're, if you're selling, if you're, if you're good at selling diagnostics, who cares? Right. This is the one instance where testing probably makes more sense only because the consumer probably understands testing a lot better than they understand diagnostics. Okay. And, and so, you know, I'm, I'm, if I'm going to go to the doctor, they're going to run a series of tests.
[01:01:53:03 - 01:02:38:10]Cecil Bullard If those series of tests don't give them the information they need, then they're going to run another series of tests or more tests. And, and so I think that at least because of the medical industry and the, and the work they've done, the testing probably makes more sense at this particular point. And if we made that shift in the industry, would it make it easier for your customers, your clients to understand what you're, what you're doing and why there's a cost to it? And, and the answer is probably yes. So, you know, as far as calling, you know, technicians, mechanics or mechanics technicians or specialists or whatever, I don't care what you call me, you know, just call, make sure you call me. As
[01:02:38:10 - 01:02:40:16]Lucas Underwood long as you pay the bill when you're done, I don't care.
[01:02:40:16 - 01:02:41:09]Cecil Bullard Yeah.
[01:02:41:09 - 01:02:42:09]Lucas Underwood Yeah.
[01:02:43:17 - 01:02:44:16]Lucas Underwood Go ahead. Go ahead.
[01:02:44:16 - 01:03:09:03]Cecil Bullard I just, we keep coming up with new words, thinking we're going to change the game when we're not really changing the game. The problem is that we don't value ourselves as an industry or our time as technicians or as mechanics and we never have, and we still don't value that time. And that creates a lot of the unrest in our industry and a lot of the financial issues in our industry.
[01:03:09:03 - 01:03:45:15]Lucas Underwood I agree a thousand percent Cecil. I completely agree with you. But here, here's where I'm at on the testing thing. Okay. And a couple of thoughts behind this process. When, when I bring a client into my shop, I start with a level one testing routine. Now look, if you've never tested a car, if you've never done the diagnostic process yourself, it is very easy to say, well, hey, I'm just going to wrap that into the price. It's not that big of a deal. No, it's a talent. There is skill associated. There is knowledge associated. There's tooling associated with it. If you've never been the one to do it, you just don't understand how complex the process can be. Okay.
[01:03:45:15 - 01:03:52:14]Cecil Bullard I'm talking to a shop yesterday. They have $189 posted labor rate.
[01:03:52:14 - 01:03:53:07]Lucas Underwood Yeah.
[01:03:53:07 - 01:03:55:29]Cecil Bullard Okay. They have an effective labor rate of 123.
[01:03:57:26 - 01:04:00:08]Cecil Bullard Now they're wonder why there's no money in the bank.
[01:04:00:08 - 01:04:01:00]Lucas Underwood Yeah.
[01:04:01:00 - 01:04:02:13]Cecil Bullard And you know, we're talking about.
[01:04:02:13 - 01:04:04:06]Lucas Underwood Everybody they're higher than everybody in town.
[01:04:04:06 - 01:05:44:14]Cecil Bullard How many comebacks do you have? Oh, we don't have any, we have hardly any comebacks at all. Okay. And by the way, that's the answer. 99.9% of the time, we don't have any comebacks. Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. It's not that how many, how many DVI's do you give away without charging that to your customer? Yeah, we do DVI's for free for our clients. Okay. All right. How much, how many times does your master technician, your A-Tech have an hour to quote unquote run tests or diagnose a car and take two days? Oh man, that happens a lot. Okay. Now we've, we've, we've circled in on one of the main reasons that the effective labor rate. And by the way, it's like $27,000 a month for this shop because their effective labor is so far off of their posted rate. And they, their A-Tech is again and again and again. If it's so easy to do this quote unquote diagnosis, anybody can do it in half an hour, anybody can do it in an hour. I cannot, you know, you got these ego tacks out there and I'm going to get blasted, but they're out there and they're like, Oh, well anybody should be able to do that in an hour. You know, we should be able to diagnose this code in an hour that code. And yet hundreds, if not thousands of guys are spending three, four, five, seven, 10 hours on a car, trying to figure out what's really going on. And, and how does that not come together? My ego is being in the way of being profitable and making money. Right? Yeah. Then I'm going to come up to the shop owner who's cheating me.
[01:05:44:14 - 01:06:47:25]Lucas Underwood Well, so a couple of things here, right? First of all, let's just, let's put the elephant in the middle of the room and beat it. Okay. Because the reality of the situation is this, the pay systems and the way that we have set up the testing routines have not rewarded technicians. Okay. Now I get that there are thousands of ways to obtain reward and to find meaning and purpose in life, right? We go back to Michael Smith's leadership in the last. It's not all about money. It shouldn't be right. Right. But I'm going to tell you right now, if you don't pay somebody for it, they're not going to develop the skill. Right? I mean, let's just be real about it. You go and you work in the dealership and you get paid 0.25. You get paid 0.5 to go and do said testing that you know is going to take you an hour and a half or two hours to do it. Is it fair? One, no, it's not. B, there's no system. They're, they see them giving it away. Okay. When, when someone sees you giving their work away, it says to them, I don't value this. Well, we've, I don't see value in it.
[01:06:47:25 - 01:07:11:22]Cecil Bullard Yeah. That's, that's one of the other issues we've devalued ourselves over and over and over again. And we continue to do that. You've got an owner that used to be a tech and for him or her, it, oh, it was easy for me. You know, every car that came in, I could figure it out in an hour. And, and then, but they're not the one figuring it out. Yeah. I have a, I have some companies that are, um, uh,
[01:07:12:29 - 01:09:26:29]Cecil Bullard like restoration. So that what they're doing, there isn't quote unquote a book time for right there. They're sometimes making components and, and taking something off of a vehicle was never intended for this vehicle and, and re retooling it and et cetera. And we're timing materials. So when your timing materials, um, what's better to have the worst tech doing the job or to have the best tech doing the job. And if you do do that, you're going to have to do it. And if you do have the best tech doing the job, is that, is that hurting the shop, but helping the customer? Is that hurting the tech, but helping the client? Right. So yeah, our, our, um, the way we pay and obviously, you know, I'm for a pretty decent base pay. Right. So you're going to be here. You got to know that you're going to have, you know, food at home and a shelter over your head. And once in a while it would be nice if I could take my wife out to dinner or whatever. Right. And you got to know that. And then I think you need to have performance enhancement stuff. And if you are excelling in certain areas in certain ways that I can earn more money, I can make a bigger paycheck. And if you can blend those two, which is what we do, then I think you have the best of both worlds. But, but it doesn't, it will never matter if we don't, if we continue to devalue what we do. We do this techs all the time because, you know, we'll go, "Oh, I know exactly what that is." And then you have to have a lot of money. And I think that's, that's what I think that is. But wait a minute, why do you know exactly what that is? Well, you're some experience. So I have, I don't know, 252 scars on my hands. The reason I know this is because when I'm sitting in church and I'm bored, I'm OCD. So I'm counting the scars. And I've done it a hundred times, right? A thousand times. And where did those 252 scars come from? Working on cars. They came from reaching up under a dash and, and getting cut. And they came from, you know, a bunch of cars. And I think that's, that's, that's the reason why I'm here. sized them as they mostly were. Is because, uh,
[01:09:27:29 - 01:09:49:02]Cecil Bullard I work overtime and I had a lot of hard work around them. And then you do the whole thing, pushed into that and I were like, Oh my God, this is terrifying. and, uh, you know, and there at the first time, you're someone else's medical Vancouver department. weren't born with it, right? You, you,u paid for it in blood, sweat and tears. You paid for it in extra hours that you didn't get paid for, you paid for it in real blood. Right?
[01:09:50:15 - 01:10:17:11]Cecil Bullard And yet we constantly, we disregard that as technicians. I would say it's epidemic in our industry. And then you have your ATEX who don't understand why the C-TECH can't do it as fast or as good as they can. Right? Well, I don't understand. This is so easy. Well, go back to when you were learning. It wasn't easy when you were learning it. Right? And until we... Absolutely.
[01:10:18:16 - 01:10:30:04]Cecil Bullard Until we find a way to kind of value ourselves and our time, that's what we have. Could you imagine a lawyer, like lawyer giving you 30 minutes without charging you?
[01:10:30:04 - 01:10:33:09]Lucas Underwood Let me just tell you something. They don't ever.
[01:10:33:09 - 01:10:35:01]Cecil Bullard No, they don't.
[01:10:35:01 - 01:11:14:29]Lucas Underwood The one I've been working with here recently is fire. I mean, so good. We've got two right now that I work with on pretty much a daily basis. And there's a lot of things that they will just talk to us and say, "All right." And then they roll that into what they're doing. And I understand that, right? Because it's too much to every telephone conversation. Every second. Yeah. But I'm going to tell you right now, I've got a bad one and two good ones. And the two good ones, buddy, I don't even care. I don't flinch when that bill comes in because it's like, a great example is one of them, they're in another state and he calls me the other day and he said, "These people that we're going to battle with."
[01:11:16:01 - 01:11:32:03]Lucas Underwood Two years ago, they were in a civil case and they accidentally released a document and I found that document and it is your everything you need to get what you want from them. And it's right there. Yeah. And he went through thousands of documents.
[01:11:32:03 - 01:11:36:16]Cecil Bullard A few hundred thousand dollars. I'm like, "Yeah, you're worth your money, man.
[01:11:36:16 - 01:11:52:07]Lucas Underwood Whatever you need to do. Send me the bill." Yeah. And so here's the big thing for me and I've dealt with a lot of shop owners and I talked to a lot of techs, a lot of shop owners on a daily basis. I talked to probably six or seven already today.
[01:11:53:07 - 01:12:09:14]Lucas Underwood First of all, the main issue that I see is the people who have never done it don't value it because they don't understand it. And so there's a lot of these shop owners who went and they just bought a shop and they just say, "Well, a car goes to tech, tech tells me what to do, car fixed."
[01:12:10:14 - 01:12:50:23]Lucas Underwood And all they see is the time associated with it. They don't understand the talent. They don't understand the skill. They don't understand the logistics of what has to happen to properly repair that automobile or to find out what's wrong with it. And so what I started doing in my shop season, and you tell me if this is right or wrong, I start with a level one testing routine. It has one hour on it and they get the basic data. It's a code read, it's fuel trends, it's data acquisition, it's confirm the client's concern, determine where it's at on the car, get me some base data. And if you can figure out in that hour, which about 90% of all cases they're able to, then great. It's an hour. We roll on with it. Typically they're out in half an hour to 45 minutes.
[01:12:50:23 - 01:12:59:07]Cecil Bullard And maybe this is just coming in my head at the moment. Maybe what we're really doing in that first hour is creating a testing plan.
[01:12:59:07 - 01:13:00:19]Lucas Underwood Well, that's what I was getting ready to say.
[01:13:00:19 - 01:13:01:22]Cecil Bullard Or a diagnostic plan.
[01:13:01:22 - 01:13:05:20]Lucas Underwood That's exactly what happens if it is something advanced.
[01:13:06:21 - 01:13:30:12]Lucas Underwood And so step two, that technician comes to me and they say, Lucas, here's the data I have collected. It tells me that I am looking at an issue that is in X circuit because it says circuit high and I know it's not the component and I know it's not the computer because I've done these two tests. I have to do X to find this.
[01:13:30:12 - 01:13:37:01]Cecil Bullard I have to spend this amount of time or I have to run these three tests in order to determine what's really going on.
[01:13:37:01 - 01:14:45:03]Lucas Underwood You came back to me with data and you said, here's the test I need to do. Okay. Now, if I go to the doctor, I just want to point this out. If I go to the doctor and I've fallen, I've hit my arm and it's all bruised up and it's all to pieces and I go to that doctor, first of all, I'm going to pay for the visit fee. Okay. So I go into the doctor and they're going to say, Hey, it's a hundred and whatever dollars. The doctor comes in, takes a look and says, Hey, Lucas, I believe you've broken your arm. Now for me to determine the best course of action to correct your concern, I have to do additional testing. That's going to be an X-ray, that's going to be an MRI, that's going to be whatever it is. Now at that point, we'll know what course of action we need to take. Do we have to do surgery? Can we just set it? What do we do next? Right? First of all, they're not giving me an estimate for what's wrong. They're giving me probabilities. They're giving me some idea of where we're headed. But if I went into that doctor's office and they said, man, it looks like your arm hurts. I'm going to have to do some testing. It's going to be about a thousand bucks. Okay. What test are you going to do? Well, I don't know yet. I'm going to figure that out when I get there. I'll let you know.
[01:14:45:03 - 01:15:10:13]Cecil Bullard Right. But that's not, that's not kind of how it works. I mean, I was at the doctor yesterday, normal visit. I'm diabetic. So I go twice a year and he says, how are you doing? I paid my $95 coded up, whatever. So he's getting paid, I don't know, $250 for between me and the insurance company. Maybe it's 150 for 10 minutes of his time at most.
[01:15:12:09 - 01:16:16:01]Cecil Bullard And he says, oh, well, you're looking great, but I want to send you to this guy because you've got this problem and they need to, we need to figure out what's going on so we can have a course of action. Right. So we know what we're going to do or if we're not going to do anything. And so I paid for him. Now I'm going to go see a quote unquote specialist that will, I'll pay for that visit and then I'll pay for the testing on top of that. And then I'll have a plan to move forward. That's that's you know, we could discuss why are our medical systems out of hand and other things. The process that they do to determine the plan to solve the problem is a good process. They've been doing it for years and years and years. It works. It gets the right answer most of the time, 97% of the time or whatever. Right. And and and we move forward. And yet in our industry, we're like, well, I can't charge anybody for that.
[01:16:16:01 - 01:16:23:25]Lucas Underwood Well, I just need to point out to you Cecil. Yeah. That's when you know you over the hill when they start saying, well, we're not going to do anything about this.
[01:16:23:25 - 01:16:24:16]Cecil Bullard Yeah.
[01:16:25:27 - 01:16:26:03]Lucas Underwood Yeah.
[01:16:27:21 - 01:16:30:28]Cecil Bullard Until you can't walk anymore, then we'll think if we need to do something,
[01:16:30:28 - 01:16:32:18]Lucas Underwood we'll get you a wheelchair then see.
[01:16:32:18 - 01:16:39:16]Cecil Bullard Yeah. Yeah. That'll be great. You can get one of those little things. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
[01:16:39:16 - 01:16:49:19]Lucas Underwood My dear friend Rick white, when he hurt his back had a scooter that they read him around on at Apex and I've never let that go. I just rubbed it in all the time.
[01:16:49:19 - 01:17:00:26]Cecil Bullard You know, I had a, I had a foot surgery three years ago before Apex and I was, I was on a scooter for Apex and yeah, not, not fun. I'm really not fun.
[01:17:00:26 - 01:17:18:13]Lucas Underwood I bet not. So look, when we talk about this testing thing, I just want to point something out about this because I think it's so important when we look at that medical field, they see value in the test that they're going to do because they know what test needs to be done.
[01:17:19:18 - 01:17:52:23]Lucas Underwood They're in charge of charging you for that test, right? They decide what test has to be done. They put it on there. It gets billed to you and then the thing happens, right? Yeah. I think what happens in our industry is there are so many people who do not understand the service advisor and the owner or the service manager do not understand the skill, the talent, the tools, the ability, the time it takes to properly diagnose an automobile. Well, and so it's, it's different for them to stand up there and say, this is $400, but that's why I do the testing routine.
[01:17:52:23 - 01:19:21:25]Cecil Bullard That's part of the problem with our industry. So if we look at, at a doctor, a doctor cannot afford to just go set your arm, right? Yeah. The bone is sticking out. You know, I know I've, I've got the scars to prove it, blah, blah, blah. Bone is sticking out. The doctor says we need to do some testing to find out what's going on because we need a course of action. All right. Now, if they had just set my arm at the time because the bone was sticking out, then I wouldn't have use of my wrist. Okay. Because it was, the bone had shifted when it broke. All right. Now, and they needed to find that out. And, and in the medical field, they cannot afford to set that bone and then later have me sue them or come after them because I know I now, I now no longer have use of my wrist in the automotive field. We don't seem to have a problem with, well, that guy wasn't right. Okay. And we, we even, we even, we propagate this idea that there's too many guys out there that aren't right. Well, yeah, because we're not giving them the tools or the necessity to run the testing to be right or the time when you, when you have a free, Oh, by the way, I have an hour. Man, you've spent three hours on that car.
[01:19:22:25 - 01:21:03:07]Cecil Bullard How come, how come? What is it? You know, well, let me pull something out of my behind so that I'll get you off my back. And then, well, wait a minute. That guy was wrong. Now the shop is paying for it or the customer is paying for it or whatever, because we didn't do the testing in the front because we didn't value it because we didn't understand the liability that we have on the other side of that. It's a, it's a problem that is bigger than we think. And it's been going on for a very, very long time. Don't get me wrong. There's some guys out there working on cars that shouldn't be working on cars, but there's a lot of guys, when you put someone in a position for their family to starve or them to cheat, what do you think they're going to do? Let their family starve. Yeah, they have to. Right. And so when you're not charging for your text time and, and I don't know if, if Mike is here or not, but if he is Mike, don't tell me you're not charging for diagnostics. If you raised your labor rate, you are charging for your diagnostics. You're just charging for it in a different way. So now we got that out of the way. All right. But if you're not, if you're not charging for your diagnostic and, and you're asking your tech to do that for free, or you're paying for that yourself somewhere, there's a cost. There's either cost to the customer in poor diagnostics or incorrect answers. There's a cost to the, to the, the owner of the company, the company. And if there's a cost to the company, there's a cost to the employees of the company. And that's one of these things why we have techs constantly complaining about how poorly they're treated. You know, is it fair?
[01:21:04:12 - 01:21:29:24]Cecil Bullard You call me, Hey Cecil, I've got this Toyota Camry that, you know, 2014 and it's got this weird blah, blah, blah. What's it going to cost? Right? Oh, well, you know, we're going to need to. We need to do some testing. And so we start at $300 and that'll be applied toward the testing. And if we can solve the problem with that, we'll certainly solve the problem. You come in, it's not even a damn Toyota.
[01:21:30:24 - 01:21:46:02]Cecil Bullard Right. Yeah. And you show up with a, I don't know, you show up with a Nissan and you don't even know what you're driving and you want me to tell you on the phone what that price is going to be to fix something that I have no idea what it is or, or anything.
[01:21:46:02 - 01:21:55:27]Lucas Underwood But our industry set that expectation, right? Our industry has created that expectation in consumers and, and, and we, you know, Dutch is always bust about us being a commodity.
[01:21:55:27 - 01:22:24:05]Cecil Bullard Yeah. We keep propagating that. And you know, some of it is because we have egos and our egos won't let us get out of the way of ourselves. And, and, and some of it is because we don't, we don't get it, right? We really don't understand the, the financial aspects of the business or the, the, uh, uh, liability we have or any of the, you know, a few other things. And, and, and some of it's just probably plain ignorance.
[01:22:24:05 - 01:22:43:28]Lucas Underwood Okay. Spicy, spicy perspective coming in here. I think some of it is because we're too stupid to have our own thoughts. So we go and we listen to some big wig coach who is in a metropolitan area who has thousands and thousands of clients that they can pull from. And, and we don't realize that what we're doing is basically market manipulation.
[01:22:45:00 - 01:23:01:28]Lucas Underwood And, and we don't care that it devalues our industry as a whole. We don't care that it damages our industry because all we care about is making enough money to sell the shop or do whatever we need to do. We don't care who it upsets. We don't care who it hurts because all we care about is our shop. All we care about is the money.
[01:23:01:28 - 01:26:37:16]Cecil Bullard I think, um, when you look at, at, at human beings in general, um, certainly there is the trap of I'm only doing what's best for me. Yeah. Okay. And, uh, right now, you know, someone hangs this sweet carrot of if you get 10 locations, you're going to get 16 X and, uh, and they stay. And by the way, you're going to get a really nice VC company that's going to buy your company for top dollar, and then they're going to take care of all your customers and employees, just like you would. Uh, you know what? I will, I was born at night, but not last night. Okay. So, so yeah, we're. And by the way, should we be doing what's best for us? Right. Yeah. So on the, on the chart of, of, um, uh, what's important, uh, my chart is, is Cecil's relationship with Cecil. Okay. Then it's Cecil's relationship with God. Then it's Cecil's relationship with his family. And then it's Cecil's relationship with his business. And then it's Cecil's relationship with everybody else. Right. And the, and the reason why that has become that over the years, because it wasn't always that was because if I'm not happy with me, I won't be happy with anything else or anybody else. I have to like me. I have to understand me. I have to know that with all the, all the warts and all the other stuff, you know, the temper, the whatever, that I'm a good guy and I'm trying to be a good guy and I'm trying to, you know, et cetera. And so I like me and, and then I need to have a relationship with God, whatever that is, so whatever your. You know, you may say there's no God, Cecil. There's a, there's a being or some science or something. Okay. Whatever that is, you have to have a relationship with it. You have to understand how you fit in the world. Right. And then I got to make my wife, uh, mostly happy. Can't make her all happy. Can't make my kids happy, but I got to do my best for my family. And then it's my business because there's an awful lot of responsibility. So with that nature that we have, are we going to look out for ourselves sometimes more than we probably should? Yeah. You know, I think it's, it's inherent. What, what gets me in our industry is that I almost dread going online anymore because 90% of what I'm hearing is negative. Yeah. And, and I, in this industry, this industry has been good to me. All right. Uh, I was, uh, 19 dropped out of college, came home, started as a tech for my dad. I was making 50,000 the first year I was working as a tech and I got news for you. I didn't know squat. Right. And, and then I became a service advisor and a manager and, and eventually I owned shops and sold those. And then I started a coaching company and now we're, you know, we're expanding and doing other things. And, and the industry has got me here. And got me through, I don't 45 year, 45 tough years with four kids. All right. And, and where else can that happen? You know, someone that drops out of college that really knows very little high, high intelligence, high ego, right? But other than that, not much going for me. Uh, and, and I end up here, this is a great industry. There's more opportunity in our industry right now than there's ever been. And you know what, if your owner is treating you like crap,
[01:26:38:18 - 01:26:40:11]Cecil Bullard you know, how many shops need a tech,
[01:26:41:11 - 01:26:52:14]Cecil Bullard right? And so don't sit in the, excuse me, do not sit in the pile of shit and then complain how stinky it is. Right. Get out,
[01:26:53:14 - 01:27:43:19]Cecil Bullard shower yourself off, go get another job somewhere. Because I know right now I could tell 50 shops, if they could find an ATEC, they'd be paying that ATEC as much, almost as much money as they wanted. And probably a lot more than the average in the industry and, and really giving them a great place to work with all the support they need, all the tools, all the equipment, all the education, all the training, et cetera. And then I understand what you were saying about like the coach. Sometimes we have these companies that are telling you what you want to hear. Yeah. Not what you need to hear. Okay. Absolutely. And, and, and I think, you know, it's probably a good thing that I'm not God, frankly, cause I don't have the patience or the understanding and I might do some,
[01:27:44:24 - 01:28:15:15]Cecil Bullard I might do some really crazy bad things because there are people in our industry that, you know, if I had the, if it was up to me, they wouldn't be in our industry, but that competition, that, that knowing that that's out there drives me harder every day, right? Yeah. It makes me want the Institute to do better, to do more, to, to have more impact, to, to help more people be successful. Right.
[01:28:15:15 - 01:28:34:29]Lucas Underwood Here's the thing is that those people, okay, let's think about this for a minute. They know, right? Those people are intelligent enough to know what they're doing. They're intelligent enough to know what the outcome is. Um, Mike Allen says he wants a list of people that sees with Smike. Mike's at the very top of it.
[01:28:34:29 - 01:28:37:05]Cecil Bullard No, he's not. He's like fifth on the list.
[01:28:38:17 - 01:28:38:23]Lucas Underwood Okay.
[01:28:39:28 - 01:28:43:19]Lucas Underwood Um, uh, now I need to, oh man, this is going down a dark tunnel here.
[01:28:45:20 - 01:28:56:15]Lucas Underwood But I, you know, look, I'm just going to say like, I think that, that those people know, and they know that the impact they're making on the industry. We pick on Mike. Mike really does.
[01:28:56:15 - 01:29:01:00]Cecil Bullard Mike's a easy target. Thanks. And thank you for being that target, Mike.
[01:29:01:00 - 01:29:09:08]Lucas Underwood Yeah, absolutely. And he's, he is working. I see his efforts behind the scenes all day long of like teaching people and trying to lift them up and,
[01:29:09:08 - 01:29:27:23]Cecil Bullard and, but you, you have a big responsibility when you have the ear of the industry. Okay. And if you're going to be an industry influencer, there's a responsibility, not just to provoke, but to educate and to help.
[01:29:28:28 - 01:29:39:26]Cecil Bullard Okay. And if you're, if you're provoking for the sake of, um, uh, hits and likes and crap like that, that's problematic.
[01:29:39:26 - 01:29:42:05]Lucas Underwood That is not why Mike's doing that.
[01:29:42:05 - 01:29:44:15]Cecil Bullard No, I know what Mike's up to.
[01:29:44:15 - 01:30:00:18]Lucas Underwood I, yeah, what Mike is up to is he's just trying to meet his brother's level of this success. I mean, his brother was this super successful pilot and he did all these amazing things and Mike has always felt a little bit less than because of that. And so Mike is working really hard to get to the next level.
[01:30:00:18 - 01:30:39:16]Cecil Bullard Do you know where we, do you know what we have to compare ourselves to? If you do this, right? You compare yourself to yourself. That's it. Amen. I, if I, I will never be the man my dad was. Okay. Um, he was stronger than I am physically, uh, till the day he died. He, I will never be him. Okay. And there's good and bad about that. And there's a lot of people out there that I admire. Okay. But I'm not going to be them. I hold myself to my own standard, right? It's my standard for me. I don't, yeah.
[01:30:39:16 - 01:31:06:00]Lucas Underwood I've got to ask this question. Okay. This has nothing to do with diagnostic testing and it's something that I think I have personally struggled with a little bit, um, and something that I think about often when, when we give advice, right, it's rooted in our belief system. It's rooted in, in who we are, but I take giving advice to other people very seriously, and I take lifting them up and getting them to a better place very seriously,
[01:31:07:03 - 01:32:07:05]Lucas Underwood when we look at, at people giving some of this advice and, and I, I think they genuinely believe that they're doing what's right. I think they genuinely believe they're, they're doing the right thing for other people. See, so how do you judge that advice? How do you know that you're leading them in a right direction? Because like these, what I keep seeing is I see these people, they're business owners and they're, they're lost, right? They don't know where to go. They don't know what to do. They don't know. And, and many of them pull from many different facets and they get information from lots of different people. But sometimes someone will attach to a very specific person. And what that person says is the grace and they believe everything they say. My fear is that my belief system may move their morals or their values in a different direction that doesn't align with who they are. And I take that very seriously. But I don't, how do you avoid that as a, as a coach? How do you make sure that you're not infringing on their belief system?
[01:32:07:05 - 01:33:31:20]Cecil Bullard Do you, do you remember what I, I, I started out with in, and that is, um, Cecil has to like Cecil and then God and family and et cetera. So, um, you know, I judge the success of what we do with clients by their success, right? And I always said, you know, we, we can influence, um, we can't, I can't make your decisions for you. I can ask you what I can, I can tell you what I would do. Um, I can tell you also as a coach 20 years ago, I was a lot harsher and a lot more imagine that right. Uh, and a lot more, um, you got to do this and you got to do that. There were, there were a lot more definitive statements. All shops should, all people should blah, blah, blah. Uh, those, a lot of those things have disappeared from my, from my vernacular, I look at the, at what the Institute for all the clients that we have served and all the clients we serve and the success that we have. And I judge my success by that success. I also judge my success by being able to look at myself in the mirror in the, in the morning and, and, and like what I see, even though it's, it's a little flabbier, a little older and a little whiter.
[01:33:31:20 - 01:33:33:05]Lucas Underwood Well, saggy, the old nine yards.
[01:33:33:05 - 01:33:34:09]Cecil Bullard Yeah. All that.
[01:33:34:09 - 01:34:34:01]Lucas Underwood There's a, there's a great question that just came up and I'm going to take a stab at this, he's going to pop it up on the screen for us because I'm wondering about the best ways to present a higher cost for Diag to customers. I always have a hard time, especially if we end up having to send it elsewhere because we don't have a special tool or software. We go as far as we can. Then we have to stop sometimes medical field. It's not a big deal to pay a bill to one doctor after they tell you they need to send you to a specialist, but in our industry, it feels like we've just failed. Now, listen, I'm going to tell you that for me, I'm judging that situation very early on. Okay. I'm not taking on things that are out of my wheelhouse and I have learned my lesson. And listen, Cecil, this is something you've seen in my shop. If the advisor is not astute, automatically, if they don't have that technical knowledge, if the manager doesn't have that technical knowledge, it can be very difficult to weed those out. But you have to have a technical team that says, "Hey, I believe this is something that we shouldn't get into. We need to get this out." There's things that require some treatment.
[01:34:34:01 - 01:35:55:10]Cecil Bullard But I don't, I would, in a way, I disagree with you because we need to define what our jobs are in the business, right? If I'm the owner and the manager of my company, what's my job? To provide my people with the things they need to be successful, goals, org charts, job descriptions, tools, education, et cetera. Am I the one making the decision as the owner that we're going to take that job or we're not going to take that job? No, I'm not qualified. I haven't worked on cars in 16 years. Okay. There's no grease under my fingernails. There's, you know, the scars I have are well healed and there's no fresh stuff going on. Is it the service advisor's job to make that decision? No, no, no, it's probably not. It's the tech's job. This is beyond our capabilities. And by the way, can the tech do that if we haven't charged some time up front to determine that? And maybe we need to develop a list of specialists in our area that we can say, "We need to send you to a specialist on this type of a car." And not feel bad about doing that because that's what's best for the company. That's what's best for the client and the client's vehicle. It's not to bring it in and try to mess it around and, you know. For sure.
[01:35:55:10 - 01:36:32:07]Lucas Underwood But, but I mean, here's, here's the thing. A 1993 Mercedes SL shows up. It's KJET. It's one of the worst injection systems ever built. Somebody's going to yell at me for saying that. It's terrible. It's awful. You look at that car and you say, "Hey, I don't work on cars that are older than 20 years old." "Hey, I don't work on Mercedes that's this type of fuel system." I don't, right? Like there's, if we know, right? If I know there's no way I'm going to work on that car, I know better. I have learned my lesson. I have paid the price for it. I'm not going to take that car.
[01:36:32:07 - 01:36:41:12]Cecil Bullard As techs in our industry, we judge ourselves by being the guy that can fix everything and have all the answers.
[01:36:41:12 - 01:36:45:10]Lucas Underwood I'm over that Cecil. I am so over that.
[01:36:45:10 - 01:36:45:25]Cecil Bullard Me too.
[01:36:46:25 - 01:37:06:01]Cecil Bullard Someday, hopefully we mature enough to understand that that's, you know, that there are things in our life that we're never going to do, right? I'm never going to fix every car. I'm not going to fix every client. They won't, you know, I, I've got, believe it or not, there are people that won't listen to me, right?
[01:37:07:24 - 01:37:49:25]Cecil Bullard Sometimes I'm like, "God, you've hired us to help you. We're telling you what to do." And yet you won't go do it, right? Right. And again, I can only have influence. So I think, yeah, I think we need to decide kind of upfront what our roles are and what we're willing to do and what we're not willing to do. And the better we make that, the clearer we are, then the better we can focus our business on being more successful as opposed to, you know, all the crap. And I got to tell you, it's, it's really hard when you have no cars in your shop to say no to somebody that's bringing in a Mercedes with a K-Jet system or whatever. Right?
[01:37:49:25 - 01:37:56:05]Lucas Underwood No, it's not. So I would rather be broke. I would rather not pay my bills this month. Okay. I'm just telling you.
[01:37:56:05 - 01:38:23:07]Cecil Bullard It's hard for most people to, when they think, again, if you think, if you judge yourself on your, your prowess of fixing cars, and now all of a sudden you're making a shift into ownership or something, and you have to judge yourself now on the success of the people that work for you, not, and your clients, not on your own ability to, to fix cars. And that's not an easy shift to make.
[01:38:23:07 - 01:38:37:07]Lucas Underwood I agree. And that, that was one of the hardest things for me to do because the things that I saw as easy, the things that I saw as, Hey, just go do this. I recognize other people don't have the same abilities that I had. Now, I don't have the ability anymore.
[01:38:38:15 - 01:39:34:28]Lucas Underwood But they were easy for me. And so I would judge the situation based on my knowledge, right? The curse of knowledge. I would talk to clients on the front counter based on what I had experienced and got myself into trouble many times. Now I'm going to tell you, be prepared. Here's where I am with this. What I do is I bring them in for a level one testing routine. And I just explained in 90% of all cases, I'm able to determine the cause or causes of your concern. Other 10% of cases, I may have to refer you to a specialist or do additional testing. I will never, ever, ever change my estimate from this price. You will stay in control of the entire process at all times. But I may come back to you. And if you are one of those 10% cases and let you know, we have to do additional testing or you need to go to a specialist or you comfortable with that. And so I, you know, I made a video last night talking about this until you've been to a shop that throws parts at your car and can't actually fix it. And you just spent $3,500 trying to change all these parts and you still have the same exact problem you went in with.
[01:39:35:28 - 01:39:40:05]Lucas Underwood You listen, they have no issue paying for proper testing at that point in time.
[01:39:40:05 - 01:40:33:04]Cecil Bullard And those are my clients. The least expensive way to fix your car is to have someone that knows and understands that vehicle, inspect it, do the proper testing, create a diagnostic, a diagnostic process, plan for it and pay for that. That's the least expensive way to fix your car. And this, the stuff we do in our industry, like taking it over to, you know, one of the parts houses and they're going to test it for free and then sell you an oxygen sensor and you're going to bring it in and I'm going to put it on your car. Can't, can't make that work. Right. I, and we, we have to stop as an industry doing those kinds of things. And we have to, and, and those of us that are in the industry that are being affected by that, we should be fighting that tooth and nail. Yeah. Right.
[01:40:33:04 - 01:40:54:18]Lucas Underwood Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Got an incoming question and I vote. I know which one it is. And it's Mike Allen saying, are you super clear if you have to pump this to a specialist that you're still charging? Yes. Now listen, I've had issues with advisors not being super clear, but I am super clear and I am very, very transparent about that.
[01:40:54:18 - 01:41:24:15]Cecil Bullard And what I want to, what I really want to teach my advisors is this. We need to be as clear as, as I mean, crystal clear about what the costs are going to be and what's going to happen with our clients. And by the way, if I want a client to argue with me about the cost, do I want that to happen before I work on the car or after my tech is spent two hours on the car and created a plan, right? And, and what happens a lot is the advisors, we have a lot of.
[01:41:25:23 - 01:42:43:22]Cecil Bullard Unqualified salespeople in our industry. We're not really salespeople. Okay. They're not really advisors and, and they're, they might be the nicest people. They might be all kinds of things, but they're not really advisors and they have a fear, I don't want to have this conversation because it's going to be a potential to have that person be mad at me or have that person take their car away or whatever, and they may walk away and not like me. Right. And, and, and so we're vague. We're vague about our answers. We're vague about what we're going to do. We're vague. How many shops have you walked into that have a very good script about Diag and what they do, why they do it, what the costs are, why those costs are the costs and what, what is likely to happen and what could happen. You know, how many shops have that script that your service advisors know and understand. So that customer is right off the bat understanding what's really going to happen and why it needs to happen that way. I would tell you for me, like sales and building value, it's so easy, but it is not easy for the average service advisor because they've been taught how to do that and they don't have the experience to do that. Right. And so we, yeah, we, we need to, yeah, we got to clean that up.
[01:42:43:22 - 01:44:28:21]Lucas Underwood You know, look, we, we pick on Mike, but, but let's be honest about why Mike does a lot of what Mike does in this instance. And it's because Mike needs a competitive advantage. He is, he is in a very, very heavily saturated area. There's a lot of shops around him. There's a lot of people around him too, but he uses this as a tool to try and drive more people in the door. He uses it to set himself apart from the rest of the crowd. I use something completely different, right? Like for me, I'm using the fact that we can test anything. I'm using the fact that we have abilities nobody else has. And we have those abilities because we pay our guys to learn this. We pay our guys to go to training. We have this set up so they can develop these skills and we have the equipment and that costs money, right? I understand like in their eyes, a lot of times it's like, Hey, they don't really know that they're still paying for it. They don't understand that it's in the labor rate, but to me, like, I feel like that devalues the industry as a whole. I feel like it makes it look like this should be a free service. You know, just two weeks ago, we had a car in the shop that, that came through and he called somebody else and they, they were going to do the job we were going to do for $700 for $240. And they're telling them about how we're ripping them off. They've never heard of a coolant service. They've never heard of this. They've never heard of that. And then we look at our industry as a whole and it's like, Hey, this guy's over here talking smack on an industry standard just to talk smack about it. I think if we could align ourselves, if we could get our industry moving in a more similar direction, where we're, we're making it better about our actions in our shops, our single shops at a time, we have a chance at getting this industry to where it's seen as a professional industry.
[01:44:28:21 - 01:44:34:01]Cecil Bullard So let me ask you, let me ask you a question. I got, I got a couple of points, but let me ask you this question.
[01:44:35:22 - 01:44:49:09]Cecil Bullard We're going to go somewhere and have a steak. Yeah. All right. And they've got a, uh, I don't know. It's $120 steak. Yeah. Um, but they also have a $30 steak and they're the same steak.
[01:44:49:09 - 01:44:50:04]Lucas Underwood Yeah.
[01:44:50:04 - 01:45:00:22]Cecil Bullard Okay. Does that, did, would that even play? I mean, would, would anybody at all look at the $30 steak and think that's the $120 steak?
[01:45:01:23 - 01:45:15:16]Cecil Bullard No. Right. So if somebody comes into my shop and we're going to charge them $700 for whatever, right? Uh, Mike, that's my imaginary shop. Okay. Um, I don't own one. I'm thinking of buying one just because you put, you goaded me,
[01:45:15:16 - 01:45:18:00]Lucas Underwood but no, I missed this.
[01:45:18:00 - 01:45:55:09]Cecil Bullard But, but, um, uh, if I'm 700 and they call and say, this guy is, is saying he doesn't even know, never heard of this and he's going to charge $240 for the same thing, you know, my answer would be it's not the same thing. It can't be the same thing. Because if he, if he knew what he was doing, if he understood his business, if he understood the time it was going to take to properly diagnose and fix this car correctly, he'd be charging you $700 also. And then I want to, I want to play on something you said. Mike uses this for competitive advantage because he's in a saturated place.
[01:45:56:13 - 01:47:28:26]Cecil Bullard Boo hoo. I mean, every, you're, you're somewhat unique, right? In your out in the country and you're kind of further away. There's a two thirds of the shops are in saturated places. And there are a lot of guys that aren't using, well, we don't charge for diagnostic as their competitive advantage. And they're doing just fine. I know they're my clients, right? Um, I, I always talk about this stupid book. I'm going to write that Cecil, you don't understand is the title, you know, I love it. You, you don't, you don't understand Cecil. Um, my shop had 41 shops within a mile of it and two dealerships and we were $58 higher than the next shop and we were the busiest shop. We had the happiest clients, the most satisfied. Uh, we, I believe we were the most profitable, although I didn't see all the other shops, P and L's. I did see some of them because I was, you know, that's when I started my coaching career. But, but I, I, I don't need to do that for a competitive advantage. I need to take great care of my clients. I need to help them understand why it costs, what it costs and how they're paying when somebody says, you know, I can get it done for 240 and you're going to charge me 700, you must be ripping me off. I have to say, wait a minute. Time out. No, that's not true. Because if you and I go to the restaurant and I ordered the $120 steak and you order the $30 steak, we're not getting the same steak. Okay.
[01:47:30:04 - 01:48:17:23]Cecil Bullard And in, in, intelligently, internally, we understand that emotionally. We don't necessarily get that. We have to help our clients take their understanding and create emotional intelligence around that, uh, with what we, we charge and why we charge it. And I would say that most shop owners understand that we, or at least believe that if the client comes to them, the client is going to get a better repair, a better job, we care more, et cetera. And we should definitely feel that way about it, but a good salesperson helps the client take their emotion, their mental intelligent understanding and create emotional understanding around that.
[01:48:17:23 - 01:49:58:04]Lucas Underwood Yeah, absolutely. And I think that if we, if we are not doing that, and so it's your job as a coach to do that for us, it's our job as a business owner to do that for, for your people, for our people and our people's job to do that for the client coming through the door. And I genuinely see that if we don't start taking moves to move our industry in that direction, as far as educating the consumer about the value in what we do, that we are professionals, right? And see that, that, that's the thing that trips me up on this. Because I can look at Mike's shop and say, that's my friend's shop. I love him. I care about him. I want the best for him. And if that's what's working best for him, so be it. He can do whatever he wants. The thing that, that hems me up on that is that I know that it has a detrimental impact to our industry in the longterm, right? There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We've seen what it does. We see what the code scan from AutoZone and Advanced Auto Parts does to our industry. And so we know that not charging for that testing makes it look more like a commodity. Right. And I'll never forget. One of these coaches we're talking about was on a podcast a while back and he said, man, he said, I'm a retailer. I'm a retailer. I don't care about the industry. I don't care about any of that. I'm a retailer. I'm here to make money. And I'm like, but, but we're not retail. We're professionals. This is our job. We are here to advise, consult, provide information to the consumer, help them make an informed decision about one of their most expensive purchases that they'll ever make in their lifetime. Right. And it's not just about money to us.
[01:49:58:04 - 01:50:16:05]Cecil Bullard And if that customer takes care of their vehicle, that vehicle will service them and service them well for a very, very long time. Now, now here's the, here's the other thing. And I think this is like super important. And we have to stop complaining.
[01:50:17:11 - 01:50:48:22]Cecil Bullard We have to stop talking. I'm not, not talking about the bad stuff. And, and, and I can't, whose actions can I, can I change? Luke, Lucas, can I make you do something? No, I can't make you do anything. I can only change my own actions. So we, if we want consumers to understand the value of what we do, we have to start talking like what we do has value, not like what we do is crap.
[01:50:49:22 - 01:51:04:17]Cecil Bullard And, and there'll always be some bad guys out there. We can't, we can't help that. We can't make that go away. You know, um, like I said, it's a good thing. I don't have that power because I would do some,
[01:51:04:17 - 01:51:06:07]Lucas Underwood there would be some people, uh,
[01:51:07:07 - 01:51:08:03]Lucas Underwood burning crisp.
[01:51:08:03 - 01:52:23:22]Cecil Bullard Yeah. But, but, but I can be as positive as I can be and work towards a better industry and, and try to bring people together to, to work towards that better industry, I can influence again, what we say on our podcasts and, and how we say it or what we say in our, um, our groups and how we say it, I can influence that hopefully, but I can't change it all. I can only change as much as I can change it and work as hard as I can work. Um, I, we, we, we want to be seen as professionals as an industry. And yet many of us don't act as professionals and we need to, we need to turn that corner. Yeah. Okay. And whatever that takes, I mean, if it's a, if it's a badge that we wear a star on our forehead, a tattoo, whatever, whatever that's going to take, I'm for it. As long as we change the conversation and we start moving towards, you know, becoming in being the professionals that we know we need to be and that we know we should be, that's what we, that's what I'm for.
[01:52:23:22 - 01:53:29:05]Lucas Underwood You're exactly right. And I think that it takes experience. I think it takes commitment to trying to do the right thing, focused on doing the right thing. And, and sometimes it has to be, you know, I, and I'm with you, right? Like I've, I've really shifted over the past couple of years from, Hey, I'm primarily focused on our industry and making our industry better, right? But I still have to be able to pay my bills. I still have to be able to take care of myself and my family and I have to be there for them and, and I've seen the impacts through other people's actions of what misaligned, uh, desired outcomes or misaligned intentions can do. And so I recognize that I have to align my, my family, myself, they have to come first, my business has to come first, but still yet, every decision I make in my business, I'm trying my very best to say, how can I improve this industry? How can I make this industry a better place? Because one day I have this vision that I'll maybe my son owns this shop and I want his life as a shop owner to be easier than mine, because I'm not going to lie. This has been a slog.
[01:53:30:05 - 01:53:30:11]Lucas Underwood Okay.
[01:53:30:11 - 01:55:23:25]Cecil Bullard I'm just saying you like it. I mean, that's the other part. You know, we, we, we go through our lives and, and you know, I, I'm not, I always say I'm not supposed to be in this industry. I wasn't, this wasn't the plan. And, and here I am, you know, 44, 45 years later and here, you know, here I am. And I've been in this industry and, and, uh, it's been good to me. It hasn't been easy. But you know what, the hard part of it has, what's kept it interesting and, and make me strive and all of that. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't think there's a perfect anything and, and, you know, thank you, who, whoever's in charge of the universe for doing that to us so that we, so that we know how to strive and that we continue to strive. Um, I've had a great life. I've enjoyed my life. Uh, I'm going to hopefully enjoy it for another 20, 25 years and, and, uh, continue to try and influence, um, the industry to be as professional as possible. And, uh, I just, I really want to go to the changing the industry blog and all the, the, you know, the group and, and I want to see some people say, man, you know, my owner Lee is just a great guy. And man, this is a great shop that I work in. And there's such great opportunity to be a tech in this industry today. You could almost write your own ticket. And I'd love to see some owners go in there and say, you know what, man, it, it's a struggle, there's some bad weeks and occasionally there's a bad month, but overall, man, what a great industry we work in, because if we can't, if we can't talk about it that way and be that way with it, the public is never going to understand why they pay us a nickel. Yeah. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. If we get, we got to get more positive focused in this industry.
[01:55:24:25 - 01:55:45:28]Cecil Bullard And, uh, so look for the, uh, automotive industry initiative coming out soon, which, uh, is the group of, uh, people we put together and we're going to be putting more people into that pile to drive the industry towards more professionalism and towards, um, worse, uh, to be more solidified and more positive.
[01:55:46:29 - 01:55:47:03]Cecil Bullard Absolutely.
[01:55:47:03 - 01:56:17:17]Lucas Underwood It's going to be great Cecil. Thank you for being here today. Everybody. Thank you for, for being part of the conversation. Our dear friend, David over at inbound is going to get all kinds of diagnostic questions because the email says support at call inbound. So, you know, David, listen, you just answered the best you can. We'll riff off of it next time. Okay. So, uh, you know, I'm really excited about the things that are happening and the moves that we're making and even, even little old Mike Allen over here, his efforts in the industry have been huge as well.
[01:56:17:17 - 01:56:21:13]Cecil Bullard I'm going to have to give him a big old wet kiss on the cheek next time I see him.
[01:56:21:13 - 01:56:49:14]Lucas Underwood So that's it. He would enjoy that very much. So, uh, but I am so thankful to be here with you today, Cecil, and I can't wait for the next one. We got another one coming up next month and, uh, it's just been a blast. And if you guys have any additional questions, make sure that you email over to the Institute and we'll try and answer those next time on our next AMA with Cecil Buller. Cecil, thank you, sir. Thank you, Lucas. Have a good day, buddy. Love you, brother. Love you, man.

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
 
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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
 
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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.
 
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________________________________________
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.
 
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________________________________________
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
 
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________________________________________
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
 
 
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Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
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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.