The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast

175 - "Ask Me Anything" with Cecil & Lucas: Mentorship, Margin, and Marketing That Actually Works

175 - "Ask Me Anything" with Cecil & Lucas: Mentorship, Margin, and Marketing That Actually Works
December 3, 2025 - 00:46:44
Show Summary:
A rapid-fire AMA with Lucas Underwood and Cecil Bullard cuts straight into the hard stuff shop owners wrestle with daily. They break down how to hire and develop entry-level techs without burning them out, why hourly plus incentive beats flat rate for apprentices, and what a real two-year mentorship pathway looks like. From there, the conversation shifts to car count and marketing, with Cecil pushing owners to stop doing everything themselves and instead build professional, measurable marketing systems.
They also get practical about documenting warranty work so the real cost is visible, and why you can’t manage anything you can’t see. The back half drills into pricing, estimates, labor-rate layering, and the danger of trying to compete with consolidators on cheapness. The close highlights Cecil’s “Preferred Customer Program,” a simple loyalty and scheduling system that stabilizes car count and boosts ARO, plus a reminder that fixing the car is only baseline, customer experience and profitability are what keep a shop alive.
 
Host(s):
Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast
 
Guest(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:36] – Lucas and Cecil begin by addressing how to hire and structure pay for an entry level technician, emphasizing the need for a real mentorship plan.[00:02:29] – Cecil explains how a two year mentorship program should map out tools, skills, jobs, and weekly reviews to ensure progress.[00:06:11] – They discuss emotional awareness and communication and why technicians must feel heard to stay engaged and productive.[00:08:26] – Cecil outlines why apprentices should never be put on flat rate and breaks down a base pay plus incentive model that actually works.[00:10:40] – They explore productivity problems that come from broken shop processes, not technician ability, and how shops misinterpret low hours.[00:11:54] – Cecil details why owners should not do their own marketing and how professional marketing drastically changes car count.[00:15:56] – Lucas and Cecil walk through correct warranty documentation and tracking so owners can identify patterns, failures, and true cost.[00:20:10] – They explain how to get the most from a new coach by being honest, vulnerable, and open to pushback.[00:24:02] – Cecil shares why GS roles are often misused and how to pay them properly while building training and productivity expectations.[00:38:02] – They revisit pricing, customer experience, and why fixing the car is the minimum expectation rather than the differentiator in today’s market.
 
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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: Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to this AMA from the Institute. My name's Lucas Underwood with the Changing The Industry Podcast, and I am joined today by the one, the only Mr. Cecil Bullard himself. Cecil buddy, how are you?
Cecil Bullard: Hey. Hey, brother. I'm great. I'm ready. Let's knock him outta the park.
Lucas Underwood: Let's get right into it.
Lucas Underwood: We've already got a pile of questions and so I want to jump right in. Let's make sure we get all these questions answered 'cause we've got so many people asking questions right now. And so we're gonna drop these in. And the very first one is Greetings from Wisconsin. We're a small three base shop with two full-time techs that are higher level guys.
Lucas Underwood: We're looking to hire an entry-level person to do basic services and hopefully grow from there. I was looking for someone with a little, no experience, but a good attitude. What advice would you give us when it comes to pay structure, expectations, and anything else you can think of now? Cecil, there is a response down below that, and it's kind of all in one, and I think we need to talk about this as well.
Lucas Underwood: And they said that we found that hourly pay with incentivized hours on production seems to be a great carrot for the entry level tech. They mentioned that I look to get an atec, but fill our industry is in a time that we have to develop, so we have to get a bench. And so I wanna start a little bit by clarifying that because I think it's an important point.
Lucas Underwood: I have been saying, I think for your first technician as a small shop, you should really be looking at hiring the best technician that you can find. And here's why I feel that way, because I tried to do it the other way and what I did is I feel like I did a disservice to our industry. Now that's me. I'm not saying that Chad would do that.
Lucas Underwood: I'm not saying that Ed would do that. I'm saying at that point in time. As a business owner, I didn't really have all of my ducks in a row. I didn't really have it together, and I wasn't able to train somebody to do that. And it takes time and it takes energy, and it takes a plan and a program to train them and bring them up.
Lucas Underwood: My fear when I say that is that we see so many shop owners that bring a young technician into the bay, they throw 'em in there and say, go do the thing. And then what do we have? We have a disgruntled technician in three, four years because they've not developed, they've not progressed, they've not grown like they thought they should.
Lucas Underwood: But I will say I've had a lot of really great entry level technicians who have gone on to be great technicians, and we're really invested, really driven to make this happen. So I think the key is the right person. Cecil, what's your take on it?
Cecil Bullard: I would tell you number one it, it is different at the different part parts of your business.
Cecil Bullard: If I'm by myself and now I'm gonna hire somebody. I think you're probably better off hiring an AEC at that point in time if you can find them and afford them and all those kind of things. If you're gonna hire a, an apprentice technician or a trainee type technician, you need to have what I would call a mentorship program that probably lasts somewhere around two years where they think about having a list of tools that they need to master, a list of jobs that they need to be able to do a list of equipment that they need to know how to operate which might include your point of sale and their part of the writeup and the coolant flush machine and how to flush brakes out and how to do a brake job.
Cecil Bullard: And, you know, just basic stuff. And if you have a and someone needs to be responsible for not just meeting with them to teach them kind of how to do this and to answer their questions, but also to keep them moving. Down the pathway. And that is also a management step. So you can have, you know, I can hand a young tech to my grumpiest, 62-year-old tech who's a master tech, but doesn't have the patience or the temperament to really train somebody.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And go, okay, you teach him. And then all of a sudden, you know, three months later that kid's quitting or we're firing him because he screwed too many things up because he really wasn't being mentored. In our mentorship programs, we recommend that you have weekly meetings with the mentor and the mentee and management and asking questions like, what did you learn this week?
Cecil Bullard: Do you feel like you're being held back? Are there jobs that you feel that you need to be taught? You know, and trying to keep a pathway ahead of them so that they know I checked this box off this week, I checked that box off this week. Yep. That helps us understand that, that hey, they now. We've taught 'em how to do certain jobs.
Cecil Bullard: In my shops, if you came into my shop and you were a master technician, you still had a min and you still had a sign off sheet.
Lucas Underwood: Yes, absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: That was, you know, where's the bathroom and how do you clock in and out and, you know, how do you rack a vehicle? I mean, every year we lose two or three guys because a vehicle doesn't get racked correctly and somebody gets killed and Exactly.
Lucas Underwood: And when to say something. Right. If the lift's not safe, if something's going on in the shop, if, like, when do you say something and blood. Or blood or fire, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. If it isn't blood or fire, then I don't I probably shouldn't say anything. I should use a more formalized hey, we're gonna meet once a week, discuss where you're at et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: But if there is the potential for blood or fire then we should be saying something right now.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, so absolutely and you know, Dutch has always been a really close friend of mine and yours as well. And Dutch was in the airline industry. He was a captain in some real big airplanes.
Lucas Underwood: And one of the things Dutch said was, is you always had to keep a line of communication open between you and your right seat. They always had to feel comfortable coming to you and saying there's a problem, because they needed to be able to correct you in case you didn't see something that they saw.
Lucas Underwood: And that's something that I think that we have to watch, especially if we're putting an older mentor with someone. There has to be some checks and balances in place because we have to make sure they feel confident if that mentor is doing something and they shouldn't be. They need to be able to communicate that.
Lucas Underwood: And I hear from a lot of guys that are young and they're put in and they say, I don't know if I'm making progress or not. I'm not, they're not told if I'm doing a good job or not.
Cecil Bullard: You know, but that's also like having the feedback loop that is saying, you know, you checked that off. Wow, great. Now you know how to do this job.
Cecil Bullard: Now we're gonna work on this job, or Yeah. Hey, you, I, I know today was a tough day, or I know this week was a tough week for you. Right. But you know, next week's gonna be a great week 'cause you're gonna learn this, and this.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: A hundred percent. The other thing you were talking about I have to make sure that whatever they're feeling, and it doesn't matter if it's my ATech or my apprentice tech.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. I need them to, I need to pay attention to what they're feeling, whether or not I believe it to be real. Right. Yeah. Because those are the people that are gonna do the work. They're gonna do the work. Right. That are gonna be productive. Hopefully that we'll put money in the bank and make the company run.
Cecil Bullard: And so, you know, sometimes you get employees that are having a conversation and they're talking about stuff and you're just like, oh man, that's, there's no way that, you know, we're not as a company, we're not that or whatever. But if that's what they're feeling and that's what they're talking about, we have to be able to address those things and clear the water.
Cecil Bullard: Right? Absolutely. And we can't do that a hundred percent. You know? So the other thing would be, you know, having routine communication weekly meetings with your shop. Yes, a hundred percent. Where that keeps owners from piping off on dumb stuff every day. You know, hey, take that to the weekly meeting. You know, if we're not keeping the shop as clean as you'd like, take that to the weekly meeting.
Cecil Bullard: We'll discuss it then Don't come in and yell at people and ruin their day for them when they're trying to get work out. And the other thing is I, as an employee, I need a place where I think I can take something that concerns. Yeah, and I believe I'll be heard, right? Yep. And heard doesn't necessarily mean I agree.
Lucas Underwood: It just means that I've heard you and listen, here's the thing about this is a lot of folks say, oh, I could mentor someone. I'm gonna tell you, as an owner who's had multiple apprentices and I've not done many of them the justice that I should have. Yeah. But as an owner who's done that, I'm gonna tell you that to mentor them is a lot of work.
Lucas Underwood: Right. And if you don't have the bandwidth for that, this is, you're talking about some serious work and some serious management here. Now, ed is a fantastic friend of mine. I really look up to this guy. I mean, he's next level. And so he talks about the pay aspect because that was really the root of the question.
Lucas Underwood: And he says, Hey, I believe that a good hourly pay with some incentive. And I do believe that we need to be making sure these guys are paid hourly as they come in. I've seen a lot of shops putting these apprentices on flat rate, and it's like, what are you doing? Are you serious right now?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. You can't, it's unbelievable.
Cecil Bullard: You're setting 'em up for failure. I mean, exactly. And I don't. For the last say, 10 years, I haven't written any flat rate pay systems. Yeah. Everything is, you know, 60% of your pay should come from showing up. Yeah. In a base, people need to know they've got food and shelter and Yeah. Warmth and all of that.
Cecil Bullard: And then 40% is for doing what I want you to do. And in the case of an apprentice person, it would be learning the new thing, you know, making a mistake so that you learn the new thing correctly. Right? Yep. Et cetera. And we can't, that's another thing we cannot, at $125 an hour. Afford to pay these young people to make mistakes in our business.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And afford to have our best technicians take time to help train them and give them the skills transfer the skill sets that our best technicians have. Yeah. We can't do that. At a hundred. I think the last survey was $128 an hour is the average in the industry. Yeah. We need to be much higher because we can't, I can't bring a guy in at $22 an hour and expect him to feel comfortable.
Cecil Bullard: Exactly. Or her to feel comfortable and not do anything but live in mom's basement. Right? Yeah, a hundred percent.
Lucas Underwood: And that's kind of what you're expecting when you do that, right? You may not say it, but that's what your, that's your end result. Let's move on to the next question here. Cliff K says, I'd like to find a way to get more cars and more folks in.
Lucas Underwood: They really want to expand. They wanna bring in this third technician. I'm gonna tell you from my experiences, I grew fairly slowly for a number of years, and I kept hitting this plateau and I never could figure out what it was. A lot of my plateau was I was afraid to bring in that third person, right?
Lucas Underwood: Because I was running two for the longest time and I kept saying, I don't quite have enough work to get them to 40 hours a week. And I've realized that until I have them there and they can actually do something, I wasn't even scheduling. The potential for that work. And so I never could get it there until I just said, Hey, I'm gonna bite the bullet and I'm gonna go for it.
Lucas Underwood: So I think that part of that is, is we have to kind of bite the bullet. Now, I'm not saying if your guys are turning six hours a piece right now, that's not time to bring somebody else in, maximize what you have right now. Well,
Cecil Bullard: But it could be because Yeah, my people might be turning six hours a week because my shop processes are screwed up.
Cecil Bullard: It's not, I mean, I might be booked out three weeks and I still have guys doing five, six hours a day. Yeah. 'cause we can't get our dispatch. Right. And we're not getting our parts here on time, and we're not getting enough time for the jobs that we're doing. Exactly. Yes, they have to do a bunch of other crap because our shop isn't set up correctly.
Cecil Bullard: Right. Yeah. Yesterday I was having a conversation with somebody and it's a brand new person, or it was a person looking at us and you know, I was saying, you know, you, you have really bad productivity and, he goes, well, yeah, but it's not the tax fault. I said, yeah, no, most of the time it's not the tax fault.
Cecil Bullard: Right. They're the one doing that, not saying they call
Speaker 4: for
Cecil Bullard: it. Yeah. I'm saying if we could improve our productivity, then our labor margins go up our overall gross profit margins goes up and our profits in the shop go up.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: And then I can pay people more money. So Yeah. I I think pay-wise yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And we're talking about marketing, remember brain surgery like nine months ago. That's it. That's it.
Lucas Underwood: Cecil's often in Wonderland over here. So there are keeping, there are,
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Well, A DHD too, so. Wow. That's it. Marketing you know, I'm not a big fan of direct mail. I don't, I think the ROI is not.
Cecil Bullard: Real great. I think that a lot of that is discounting, and I'm not a discount fan.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I need to have a good website that's done by somebody that understands Google and what Google wants. And now AI and what a OI wants, I need to have seo, OSEM, I need to have social media you know, there are I should be booking the customer's next appointment.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. I should have a referral program. I should be working in the local community. I should be involved with the local chamber of commerce, the rotary, the local BNI groups. I should be a leader in some of those things. I think that the successful businesses have successful and marketing plans.
Cecil Bullard: And then the other thing I need to understand about marketing, not everything I'm gonna do is gonna work. Yes. And that's it's just part of the game.
Lucas Underwood: You know what, there's a lot of people listening, and I know because I too am a shop owner and they're saying, but Cecil. Where am I gonna get the time to do all this?
Lucas Underwood: And let me tell you something.
Cecil Bullard: Well, they can't they shouldn't. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. You're not qualified.
Lucas Underwood: Alright. A hundred percent. And even beyond qualified, right? Yeah. It's like, where is your value? Because my value, right? Like, you know this, if I'm the one running the shop, we can easily bang out $200,000 or more every single month with four technicians because I just know how it flows.
Lucas Underwood: And what does that mean? That means that's where my value's at in this business. That's where I need to focus my energy. I need to be paying someone who is that efficient, that productive, and that much of a master at doing the marketing for me, because it's a waste of money, it's a waste of energy for me to be doing it myself.
Lucas Underwood: That's ridiculous. We and I have to learn a new skill. There's no reason to learn that new skill. Find somebody who knows what they're doing.
Cecil Bullard: We're we are, do it yourselfers. I mean, you know, if I've got plumbing at the house or electric at the house or drywall or whatever, I'm like, oh, I can do that, but is that my best?
Cecil Bullard: Is that my best spent time? And I don't know how many people we, you know, when we get a new client, we bring 'em in and one of the first things we do is I dig up their website and I take a look and you're just like. I don't know who's doing it. Well, it's my cousin, you know? Yeah. They do it for free, man.
Cecil Bullard: Exactly. And you get what you pay for. Right. Exactly.
Lucas Underwood: And I, I don't know if you know this, and I know we gotta jumped to the next question. I'm gonna tell you this little story real quick. You know, I took over the family business, it was not intentional. It's not something I wanted to do. I'm figuring it out, right?
Lucas Underwood: Like day by day. It's not in automotive. For those of you wondering, this is completely different business, completely different world. And they had been doing all the marketing in-house and we went out and I talked to Kim and Brian Walker. I said, guys, I need help. I need you to gimme some type of recommendation of somebody who can handle this.
Lucas Underwood: And we hired a marketing company that's what they do. They specialize in this business. And do you know that we can't figure out how to schedule our people anymore because it's busy in times when it's never been busy before. And so we can't figure out how to like, make this work because we found people who were efficient and doing a good job.
Lucas Underwood: Well, if I'm gonna,
Cecil Bullard: I'm gonna, which spent a quarter
Lucas Underwood: of what we normally spend.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. You know, I it will cut my expense. Really? Yep. And it will actually get me measurable results that I can manage. And yes. And so, yeah, I mean, God bless you. Try not to do it yourself. Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Cecil Bullard: And the basis today, I mean, there's two things. There's the guy that's got a problem today. Mm-hmm. They're going either to AI or they're going to Google and asking Who can fix my Audi, blah, blah, blah. And then I also need the oh, come on. Brain damage vein brandage branding. The branding that when they need, you know, two weeks from now, three weeks from now, when Lucas has a problem, Lucas says, yeah, oh, I remember that shop.
Cecil Bullard: I've seen their name. Right. So when they do go looking, I'm familiar to them. Yeah. Different parts of
Lucas Underwood: my marketing. Amen. Amen. So Lance asked a really great question here. This is something I do that's a little unique compared to what I think you do. I was taught this from my original coach, and he says, how do I properly document my warranty stuff in my SMS?
Lucas Underwood: So, I want to know what my true cost of this is. Cecil. I'm gonna tell you what we do here in the shop is we make it like any other ticket. If it's warranty, we document the testing. We document exactly how we got to that. We go through the conclusions. It's got the five Cs on it. All of the testing data is attached.
Lucas Underwood: We bill it out like a normal job, and the way that we, instead of going in and discounting it, the way that I track it is I use a payment method and that payment method is then leaked to an expense account in QuickBooks. Now I have one for each technician. I have one for each service advisor. I have one for the manager, I have one for myself.
Lucas Underwood: I have one for each part vendor. I have all of those things placed in there. I have policy work and advertising. And you know, like policy work for me is, you know, we didn't really cause that, but I understand your situation. Let me help friends and family, same thing. Now I can track that by the percentages of income,
Cecil Bullard: my own vehicles, my own fleet.
Cecil Bullard: Yes. Absolutely. And I think we had nine marketing codes in our Yeah. In our shop. And we used those codes to track it back to an account. That, I mean, money never changed hands, but it looked like money changed hands. Yeah. And, yeah. And then the other thing is you wanna have a warranty sheet that gets filled out on every car.
Cecil Bullard: Yes. Who's the tech? What was the original repair wire? What went wrong? You know, where's the fault? I'm not trying to find fault so I can blame somebody or beat somebody up. But if I have the same tech making the same mistakes over and over, yes. And I can't pin that down, then we keep making the same mistakes.
Cecil Bullard: If.
Lucas Underwood: If it's
Cecil Bullard: a parts failure, because I'm buying parts from this company and it's a, you know, I have to be able to see that, and I have a grade form that is always filled out whenever there's a warranty and then management signs off on we've decided to give this customer, you know, a thousand dollars worth of whatever, because it really wasn't our fault, but okay, great.
Cecil Bullard: Then we put it in the right code and
Lucas Underwood: we
Cecil Bullard: track
Lucas Underwood: it. We might try and set that up so folks can get that form. I'm gonna tell you something about that beyond just this, with that form, right? Yeah. Beyond just internal needs. Something that I've learned and you know, Wayne Marshall and I had a great conversation at Apex.
Lucas Underwood: We were talking about all this stuff going on with the family business, right?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And he said, Lucas, he said, what you will learn after running businesses, the sizes of businesses that I've ran, is everything has to be documented. Yeah. 'cause it's all it can't come back to he said, she said, or this person did this, or this person did that.
Lucas Underwood: You need to document every single thing that you can. He said, I don't care if you send a text message. I don't care if you put it on paper. I don't care how you do it. You need a record of everything you can possibly document. And there's also,
Cecil Bullard: go ahead. There's also, you can't manage it if you can't see it.
Cecil Bullard: Yes. If there's no visibility into it. Yeah. And it doesn't mean like I had my super tech. Mm-hmm. No mistake that he made was ever his mistake.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: It was always a parts failure. Someone else's fault. Exactly. And so when he had to redo that job or someone else had to redo that job, you know, it wasn't my fault.
Cecil Bullard: Parts failure. Yeah. I knew it was his fault. As the manager, somebody has to say, no, it was your fault. Yeah. Okay. That's a hundred percent right. A hundred percent. And if you're just passing it through, 'cause you're, let me just put the parts cost in. Wait, no, I don't really have cost 'cause that's a warranty part.
Cecil Bullard: So I don't have that let me just put the tech cost in except my tech cost in my point of sale, shop wear, whatever it's not correct 'cause I haven't really calculated it Right. Et cetera. And so that's all it really costs me. No. Cost You double. Right? Yeah. Because that same tech that's doing that warranty.
Cecil Bullard: He's not out producing, you know, $280 worth of parts and labor per hour because he's spending three hours doing that warranty. Yep. And so I like having the whole amount, having the account set aside with the right code that you can pull it out even though I'm not transferring money, it just looks that way.
Cecil Bullard: And I can say, okay, we had a 5% warranty this month, and that's too high. It doesn't meet our standard
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. A hundred percent onto the next one. And I need to answer this won't take just a second. Same fellow Lance asked this question, said, Hey, I just hired a coach. What's your advice for meeting with my new coach?
Lucas Underwood: Very first thing, and I'm gonna tell you from the shop owner perspective. Be honest, be vulnerable. Put the things that really hurt out there and say 'em. Don't hide behind that ego. Don't hide behind that pride. Say what you're up against. Because if you don't say, if you don't get it out there, it doesn't get fixed.
Lucas Underwood: You need to be honest. You need to be open, you need to be direct, and you need to understand that they have to push back on you. Right? I'll never forget my first business coach, right? One of the things that he kept saying was, is What's your vision? And he would say, no, that's not it. And I'm saying, dude, I'm telling you.
Lucas Underwood: You asked me what I want, where I wanna go. He's like, but that's not good enough. Yeah. And I got mad. Yeah. I won't lie. I got mad and he said, listen to me, you are looking, a year from now, you're looking, six months from now, you're looking, two years from now, you have a 20, 30, 40 year life in front of you in this industry.
Lucas Underwood: What does it look like in 40 years? And so you gotta push back some.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And plus the, from the coaching side you know, having done this a lot I want data that's I can understand. Yeah. So, and reports from your point of sale may or may not give me that data. Certainly a decent profit and loss statement if you have it.
Cecil Bullard: If not, we're gonna have to develop one. You know, you if I can't see what's going on, I can't help you. And if you're not open because you're ashamed or you're afraid or whatever then I'm not gonna be able to help you. 'cause I can't get the data to make good decisions. Good choices. Yeah. Had a meeting with a new client.
Cecil Bullard: We're just, they just put in tech metric. They don't have a decent p and l. The reports from the old system are inaccurate. And he's like, well, what are the five things I should do right now? Well, you know, at this point I can't really give you great advice because I haven't got enough data. And so we have to fill that out.
Cecil Bullard: And then it if you're a decent, if you're a good coach, you're probably saying, what are your goals? What is your future? You know, what's the vision? Because things should be built around that. And I think you also have to have a bit of a relationship where you can say to, you have to respect whoever's gonna coach you.
Cecil Bullard: Yes. And if you, because if you can't, then you can't take the feedback that you need to have. Yeah. And you need to make actionable. And some, you know, I always tell people, you're never gonna agree with me a hundred percent don't care who I coach. But you know, if you listen 85% of the time, we're gonna do really well.
Cecil Bullard: Right. That's
Lucas Underwood: exactly right. And a coach has got to somewhat be a bit of a therapist, a bit of a counselor. We're big tough men. We've never talked about these things. We've never talked about our fears. We've never put 'em on the table. You know, ed Caswell, who's in here is somebody who does this phenomenally because he encourages the people in his life, Hey, let's talk about the hard things.
Lucas Underwood: Let's stop trying to cover this up. Let's stop letting ego get in the way. Let's push forward let's drive. Let's make this better, because if you don't talk about it, and if you don't get it out there and deal with it, it never gets better. I had So shop owners will hold that inside and hurt over it, and they don't need to.
Cecil Bullard: I had a meeting today with a, with one of my clients and I told him, I said your biggest challenge is that you don't have the skillset yet to be a good manager. Yeah. And you have, you need that skillset if you're gonna have multiple shops and Sure. And you could tell he was oh. But then he was like, okay, Cecil, next meeting, can we talk about what that skillset is and what I need to learn?
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: You know, that's hundred why I brought it
Lucas Underwood: up, right? Yeah, exactly. And it's not to hurt you, right? No. It's not to cause harm. It's not to make you feel bad about yourself. It's if you can't see that, if there's that blind spot and we can't see where we're weak, right. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in trouble.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Right. Because you won't ever see that blind spot. And those blind spots are what gives you your massive growth. That's where the development and the movement comes from. The next question. How should we pay a gs? There's a lot of questions in this one, so we're gonna start with how do we pay a gs
Cecil Bullard: I hate gss.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. And not everybody has to start somewhere, but mm-hmm. We hire this guy that's gonna change oil and do our inspections. Who's the worst qualified person to do an inspection on a, you know, 2019 Toyota Tacoma, right? Mm-hmm. The GS tech. There are things that are unique to that vehicle that someone that's trained is gonna see that a GS is never gonna see.
Cecil Bullard: And
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: I think I owe it to my. Customer, my client, to give them the best inspection, the best information. And but how do I pay a gs? I think you look at what's, you have to understand your business again financially. So, you know, I'm a post-it. I'm $140 an hour, but effectively I'm 125.
Cecil Bullard: Okay? Yeah. Yeah. So, based on my effective, I can pay up to 40%, about 36% loaded of my effective rate. So if I'm 1 25 as an effective rate, that really says that in my shop, I can probably pay. I don't know, $50 an hour, 48, something like that. And then I have to assume the load. So back that down. Now I'm at 32.
Cecil Bullard: Yep. And a GS is gonna get paid enough to be able to afford an apartment gas for their car. You know, maybe beans and rice have the refrigerator full enough that they feel comfortable. But they're also not gonna get paid the maximum that I could pay at say, 38 bucks an hour. Yeah. So, but this whole idea of paying somebody 18 or 20 bucks an hour to start and come to work for me the McDonald's down the street here in Utah is I think starting people out at 24 bucks an hour.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And what skillset do I need there? Right.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: We're asking these young people to come in and basically work for nothing, and we're saying, well, yeah, and they're also not productive. You have to understand that you have to plan your business so that you have the funds to pay this unproductive GS guy for some period of time.
Cecil Bullard: I would also say that along with the pay part, the bonus part is I expect four hours a day of productive work, or five hours a day of productive work out of you. And if you do that, then there's additional pay that comes to you if you get new training, if you go out and yeah, take classes. If you buy new tools or, you know, learn new skill sets on the tools and the equipment the mentorship program that we have, I have a way to level you up.
Cecil Bullard: And yeah, a lot of my bonus structures around productivity, but there's a reasonable base pay for that person.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. And you know, one of our requirements here is like we have today's class. We just implemented that and it's always been scanner danner, like, you have to go through the scanner, Danner, we'll buy you the book, whatever you need, but you have to go through that because I don't want you to stall here.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. That's one of the biggest complaints I get from young people is they get stalled out in the lube Bay. They get stalled out in the tire bay. Now, for me, what I found like a huge eye-opening thing, I had not been around other shops and I had always just done things the way I did things. So for my GS guys, what I was doing is I was just cutting the hours way down.
Lucas Underwood: I was paying them hourly, I was cutting the hours way down, so I was matching everybody else's prices. And so now I've added those multiple labor rates so I can adjust. And I know that person that's in that position and you know, one thing that I heard somebody say the other day is they said, you have to remember that your, a tech may not be as profitable and your GS tech may not be as profitable.
Lucas Underwood: They're feeding the middle. And, you know, you talk about the estimating, like, do you know, I disagree a million percent. I'm, well, I'm just saying like, I am with you. I know why you disagree, and I think that the atac we should charge should be the most profitable
Cecil Bullard: because you're charging more money for that person because they have absolutely have a much higher skill set.
Cecil Bullard: We're not, are we right? No. We, the average shop is absolutely not. Are we doing? It's why, that's why today the smart shops and, oh, Cecil just said only smart guys do this. So he's telling me I'm dumb. I'm really not. But the leading edge guys, the guys that are on the front of. Change in and everything.
Cecil Bullard: They have probably four or five different labor rates. Yeah. They have different labor rates for older cars. Higher, yes. They have different labor rates for diag much higher. They have different labor rates for European cars than they have for Kias and Hyundais and Toyotas and Yeah. You know, and they have different labor rates for different jobs that take different skill sets.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. This guy's, next question, I think this is a good one is there a time when we should charge, and Michael got ahead of me, he's going back and fixing it. Is there a time that we should charge for estimates? Now let me, I think this is important for us to talk about because for your car to make it into my shop, I'm typically going to be charging for a service no matter what.
Lucas Underwood: Okay. Mm-hmm. And so I'm making that estimate because I've already got your car in the shop and I'm doing work. I've oil service, testing, tire jobs, something. And now when I'm doing my 300% rule, I'm going over everything. I'm making estimates for what the car needs not to sell you something to inform you and keep you advised.
Lucas Underwood: Because I'm your advocate, that's my hoping that you'll buy
Cecil Bullard: the right stuff.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly. Because I'm supposed to be advising you and telling you what's gonna make this car safe and reliable for you and your family. That's my job. I'm not gonna make an estimate. I'm sorry, Cecil. If you disagree, I'm gonna tell you're wrong.
Lucas Underwood: I'm not gonna make an estimate over the phone when they call me and say, Hey, I need an alternator.
Cecil Bullard: No, we don't, not, we don't price on the phone. Okay. Yeah. The only things I can price on the phone are you know, for that particular diagnostic, this is what our base starting is this is where we start, right?
Cecil Bullard: And if I do have someone saying you know, I, I need a cooling flush and a break flush, or whatever, my question then is who told you? Yeah. Where's the car? Help me understand why do you think you need that? Right? Yeah. And frankly, I still need to inspect the car. Yeah. Because, and you see it on your, your site. I mean, every Facebook, every other day somebody is going you know, this customer said they needed X, Y, Z and they came in and I did X, Y, Z and they're dad didn't fix their problem and now they're mad at me, but I did what they wanted. Right. No. You're the professional. Imagine going to the doctor and saying, Hey, I need you to take my appendix out 'cause I have a pain in my right.
Cecil Bullard: Oh, Bob over
Lucas Underwood: here said, and
Cecil Bullard: yeah. And my cousin said, it's my appendix. And you're never gonna do that. So.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Cecil Bullard: And then back to the question, if you're doing a $69 oil change, 'cause you're trying to be competitive with oil changers or whoever down the street, and then how are you gonna afford the time for your service advisor to write that up properly in your tech, to write it up properly and your tech to do a good.
Cecil Bullard: Digital vehicle inspection. Yeah. We can we gotta stop thinking in terms of how cheap can I make it.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And we
Cecil Bullard: gotta stop talking about, we gotta start talking about, in order for me to do a good inspection and do a good, you know, 15 years ago I was running a shop. Our cheapest service was $165.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And my customers came in every day and paid that. And that included the time that it took to do a good inspection. That included the time that it took to create a good estimate. And then the other part of that would be, okay, I, but cis, I still want to do a $69 oil change because I think I have to be competitive.
Cecil Bullard: All right, great. Then raise your labor rate somewhere else so that you can pay for the time to do the inspections and pay for the time to do the estimates. Exactly. And exactly. If you're not estimate, you cannot sell. What you do
Lucas Underwood: not
Cecil Bullard: estimate.
Lucas Underwood: You're exactly right. And you know, I have been saying this ever since Michael Smith said it to me a while back.
Lucas Underwood: I tell everybody this little story that he tells and it's something that we have to think about as an industry because we are in the middle of a consolidation swing, right? It's happening all around us. It just happened to body shops. It's gonna happen to mechanical, there's no way around it. And these guys are trying to compete.
Lucas Underwood: With the consolidators and they may not even realize it. And what they're doing is they're getting out here and they're saying, Hey, that guy's doing oil change for this. That guy's doing tires for this. Michael talks about the fact that when he was in mergers and acquisitions with a very large company, they bought a bunch of funeral homes.
Lucas Underwood: And he said that the other little mom and pop funeral homes were actually coming to him saying, why can't I compete with these guys? And Michael said, 'cause I'm buying container loads of caskets. Caskets. Yeah. If I can buy 'em for a hundred dollars, you can buy 'em for 2000. Yeah. You won't compete with me when you lower your price, I'll just lower my price.
Lucas Underwood: You'll be at zero margin. I'll still be at 70% margin because you
Cecil Bullard: can't compete with me. And by the way, that customer that's gonna go to that chain store, to that dealership isn't probably not my customer. They're not looking for the same thing, you know, the unreasonable hospitality book.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: We have to become.
Cecil Bullard: Better at unreasonable hospitality than anybody else in our industry. That's the thing that's gonna allow us to be profitable. That's the thing that's gonna allow us to survive. Those, that customer's not coming to you because you're the cheapest guy on the block. And if they are right, you built the wrong business that you cannot survive because you cannot compete with Walmart or Costco or whoever.
Cecil Bullard: Right? Yeah. So, I wish we would quit the rush to the cheapest price in the bottom of the drain.
Lucas Underwood: I think we have made a little bit of a problem for our industry. Okay. I was in, so I was in Florida. Universal Studios stopped by there, went to some other places, was at a show called ia, and it's for the amusement industry, family entertainment centers, things like that.
Lucas Underwood: That's the space the family business is in. And I watched the people in this show go to vendors and make million, 2 million, 5 million, 10 million deals all day long. One right after another. Didn't even shake about it. Right. Just like, here's the money, do it. Right. They didn't negotiate. They didn't argue.
Lucas Underwood: Lots of money changed hands. And I'm, I was thinking about that. And then later in the day, we went to a universal theme park, four people in front of us went through, it was $5,200 that they invested to go to Universal for the two days they were gonna be there. 50, $200.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Right. We're afraid.
Lucas Underwood: To give a client an estimate for an oil change, yet they're over here spending $5,200 later in the week on Thursday. This organization's highly involved in Universal Studios and so we go over to Universal after they close their new theme park. And I was talking to a lady that worked for Universal.
Lucas Underwood: She said, we have 33,000 employees in Orlando. We have over 3000 managers. Yeah. We have a payroll budget that would make you sick to your stomach. We work 10,000 people a day. Yeah. 10,000 people a day. And you're telling me that they won't pay to have their car properly repaired? No. It's because of the image we've created.
Lucas Underwood: It's the situation we've made and we keep backing ourselves into this corner. It's time for us to rise up and charge what we need to charge and be the professionals we need to be. We need to stop worrying about what Bob down the street's doing. We have to do what we have to do to make sure our businesses are profitable.
Lucas Underwood: Let
Cecil Bullard: Bob, we're
Lucas Underwood: on the curve.
Cecil Bullard: Let Bob bankrupt his business. Let Bob hire somebody at 15 bucks an hour and lose him. I can't do that. I want run my business as a financial model and make sure that I'm profitable in all areas of my business. Yeah, and absolutely there are gonna be some people that are gonna say, I don't want to go there and that's fine.
Cecil Bullard: The one more just comment maybe before we go on to the next thing, we've, I've worked with three to 4,000 clients individually over my career, and we currently work with several hundred clients at the institute.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And the top. 15%, the guys that make the most money, the guys that have the most consistent businesses, the guys that don't worry about the fact that Thanksgiving is coming.
Cecil Bullard: The guys that have, you know, 500,000 sitting in the bank as a you know, here's my spare money in case we have a bad week or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah,
Cecil Bullard: those guys have things in common, and one of them is they're not the cheapest guy. They're always the most expensive guy in the neighborhood, and they're constantly helping their customers understand why that's of value.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. So why should you come here and spend more money with me than you go somewhere else? And I think we know this all the time. We buy shit online. Oh. We buy stuff online and it comes not your censorship. You can say whatever you want. Yeah. It comes and to our homes or our businesses.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And we go, well, that was wasted money. That's a piece of crap. And, but it was cheap.
Lucas Underwood: Right. I've had so many conversations with shop owners over the years, and I'll say, let me ask you a question. So what, okay. Last time, let's say you replaced a TV in your house, Uhhuh. When was that? Oh, I bought one last year.
Lucas Underwood: Okay. Tell me something. Did you go and buy the 13 inch black and white television, this thing that you could find,
Cecil Bullard: right? That they sell for $23 and 99 cents? Or did you buy the. $1,400. Right. I wanted a
Lucas Underwood: nice TV
Cecil Bullard: ole or whatever it is.
Lucas Underwood: Right, right. Yeah. No, I wanted a nice tv. Okay, so that means you are telling me that you're so worried about raising your prices because of consumer perception but you could buy the cheapest TV if consumer perception was all that.
Lucas Underwood: It was, wouldn't everybody buy the cheapest thing? It's not just money that motivates us to buy. Right. And I think that's something that's lost. And so many of us we're technicians and you know this as well as I do, there's a lot of technicians selling out of their wallets as shop owners today.
Lucas Underwood: And it, it just, they don't have the perspective they need. They just don't have it different.
Cecil Bullard: There's a, when you go from being a tech, there's a skillset that you have when you become a manager or service advisor. Different skillset. Yeah. When you become an owner, different skillset. And if you don't learn to think in a different way to have the different skillset, what that is, then you're never gonna achieve what you can achieve.
Cecil Bullard: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. Okay, next question. Can you guys please explain the preferred customer program a little more in detail now? This was you talking about it, so I'll kind of let you Yeah. I think the last time, take that and roll with it. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I looked at, I wanted people to book their next appointment. And in order to get that done, I felt like I needed to give them some something.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. So, you could come to my shop and get a loaner car no matter who you were. Yeah. We had loaner cars for everybody because we knew that if I gave you a car, you were gonna spend five times more than somebody that was gonna wait for their car. Right. So let's give you a car. You go away that solves your transportation problem.
Cecil Bullard: It's that hospitality thing that unreasonable hospitality. Yeah. We also watched every car that came in. We ran surveys. The surveys said, customers most important thing is having a clean car. And the second most important thing is having a loaner car that they don't have to worry about transportation.
Cecil Bullard: So when I did the loaner cars, when I did the car washes, I raised my liberate by four bucks an hour because my cost was gonna be two bucks an hour to do that. Yeah. Anticipated. Now that said. I'm already giving loaner cars and car washes to everybody, but I created a card that said you're a preferred customer.
Cecil Bullard: And on that card, there were two loaner cars valued at $65 a day. Yeah. There were two car washes valued at $40 or 42 or whatever. Right. There were, there was a windshield treatment, which if we had done it for you separately, like an Aqua Pelle or a high-end Rain X we would've probably charged you 90 bucks.
Cecil Bullard: And so we valued it at 90, but we gave it to our customer for being a preferred customer. We also discounted some of our services by a little bit. Okay. 'cause we also knew that if you're a preferred customer, once we did the service and we presented the work to you, you bought twice as much as a non-preferred customer.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Okay. And so I created a card that, and everybody that came in, I said, my service advisors or me said, would you like to be a preferred customer? And they were like, what does that mean for me? Well, we have a card here. It's got these items on it. It's worth about $450, and you get one of these every year, has a preferred customer.
Cecil Bullard: But we ask something from you. What we ask is that you make and keep your next appointment. Now we have six months service schedules, so will we be booking a service for you in six months? Okay. And if you can't make it, we have a communication communications system that three weeks before we're gonna send you a message and three days before we're gonna give you a call.
Cecil Bullard: And if you can't make it, all we ask is that you go, let's get it rescheduled. I'm not ready, or I can't make it. Okay. Right. Just like the dentist and For sure. And after doing that for the first year I think we were booking nine, 10 appointments a day out of 13 cars. Okay. Right. And we had a, I don't know, it was 69% or 72% show up rate.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. And I didn't think that was high enough. So I started closing the window a little people that wouldn't make their appointment, people that fought me I didn't make them preferred customers. Yeah. And so now we're booking six cars a day out of the 13. Yeah. But we had a 92% show up rate. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And if you looked at a month, we actually had a, like a 97% show up rate within a month of the appointment. 'cause that was what we did. Right? And it's just a card and it's a script that you would teach your service advisors to say, would you like to be a preferred customer? And here's what we do for you and here's what we want ask for from you.
Cecil Bullard: Now, by the way, because we were already doing loaner cars and we were already doing car washes, my cost for that preferred customer card was, I don't think it cost me $35 for the year. Yeah, for sure. To offer that. And these people spent twice as much and they didn't argue and they weren't hard to convince to do the work they needed.
Cecil Bullard: And by having six appointments a day, all of a sudden my car count leveled out.
Lucas Underwood: That's what I was getting ready to say ups and downs is I'm over here thinking, you know, here we are, we're coming out of Thanksgiving, we're going into Christmas. We know this time of year is very up and down, and I'm thinking like, what would six months ago have been, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. I'm thinking in the rush of my season, busy. And so now I'm, you know, back to the same thing where we're talking about the amusement side of things, right? I was in this meeting and this training and they had these research and analyst and they were talking about these huge parks and they've got it all heat mapped out and they're like, here's where we're busy, here's where we're slow.
Lucas Underwood: We're gonna move volume from here to here with this strategy. Hang on a minute. Now this is, we're gonna put
Cecil Bullard: The water
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: The $18 waters and the $12 ice cream over here. So people have to go over there. Exactly. And then they're gonna be where we
Lucas Underwood: want 'em to be. And we gotta think about that.
Lucas Underwood: So like in their scheduling, right? They change prices and they adjust things and they move things around based on that. And I was thinking, gosh, our industry is lacking when it comes to this thought process. Thinking ahead and planning. We've not developed and grown. Cecil, why is that? Why when you look at this industry we're what, how many points behind inflation since 1980?
Cecil Bullard: Oh my God. The average shop right now should be probably 264. $265. Yeah. If we raised 3% a year since 1980. Yeah. The average shop right now, I think, like I said, the last survey was like 1 28 or something. I do have shops. I a new client the other day I'm talking to, and he's like, I said, well, so what's your labor rate?
Cecil Bullard: He says, oh, we're 365 an hour. I was like, oh my gosh. Oh, right. You know, and of course they're in a, they're in a a very wealthy part of town working on high-end cars and Yeah, that makes sense. But they're not afraid to be what they need to be. I mean, why do we not because we make excuses.
Cecil Bullard: Mm-hmm. And we accept the excuses.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Okay.
Cecil Bullard: I'm not, I mean. What can I control, right? What can I control? Can I put a preferred customer program? Can I create a card? Can I punch it out when the customer comes? If the customer forgets their card, do I really care if I need to punch that out or not?
Cecil Bullard: Because you know what, if they came back a third time and I needed to give 'em a loaner car, I'd still give 'em a loaner car. I wouldn't say, well, you're outta loaner cars, right? Yeah, because so we are so busy trying to get the next car out. I talk about the assembly line, you know, I went to Nema Uhmi, which was Toyota's plant in San Jose, California.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, they're not there anymore, but they were the best and most successful manufacturer in the world, right? And not by like 3%, by like 28%. They put out 28% more cars with 28% less flaws outta that plant than anybody else. I went on the tour and I said at the end of the tour, I said, okay, I heard all the crap.
Cecil Bullard: What's the secret? They said, there's two things we do. Number one, when there's a problem on the line, we stop the line. Yeah. The whole line. Not just a
Lucas Underwood: piece of it, all of it. We don't
Cecil Bullard: go, okay, we'll deal with that a six months from now, we fix it. And number two, when the line is stopped, everybody's responsible for fixing it.
Cecil Bullard: So think about in terms of your shop. So I have a business and I'm not making the profits that I need to, right. But I've gotta work, instead of looking at my pricing and looking at how I dispatch and how I do, I have a preferred customer program. What's my marketing look like? I've gotta fix that car because it's got a problem and it's kicking my ass or my people's ass.
Cecil Bullard: And so I'm gonna dig into that. I'm not stopping the line. Exactly. I'm not solving the problem. Right. You know why that is. Right? Do you know why that is? Sure. You know why? Because I know why that is. Joy out of fixing the car and being the guy that can fix the car. Not the joy out of exactly.
Cecil Bullard: Fixing a lot of cars. It's because we know happy and making money. Right. We don't
Lucas Underwood: know how to do the other thing. We know how to fix the car. Well,
Cecil Bullard: then you go, okay, so that's the variable.
Lucas Underwood: I know the monster in the closet that I know. I know how to deal with that.
Cecil Bullard: So why do I need a coach? Right? I mean, I, yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I have mentors. You know, you talked about Wayne and you talked about Michael and people that work in the company and outside of the company. I'm always trying to find like, oh man, that person does that really well. Yeah. I need to learn how to do that really well. Do I have to pay them? Will they do it for free?
Cecil Bullard: Will they become a mentor of mine? Will they get in my circle? How do I get 'em in my circle? Right? Yeah. I wanna surround myself with. With everybody that has all the skill sets that I don't have, so that when I need that skill set, I can go can they teach me that? Or do I hire them to do, you know, we talked about marketing, you know, hire marketing companies.
Cecil Bullard: Stop trying to do your own marketing. You're not qualified. It's too complex, right? Oh, I'm gonna do my own brain surgery, right? Oh, yeah. Because it's cheaper. I offered Cecil, I would've to a fortune. No, I got a pair. Needle knife. Thank you. Yeah. And a and a hot iron. We would've, that's it. We would've got up there and did that, burned that right out.
Lucas Underwood: It may not have been nearly as like aesthetically pleasing was done, but I promise I've gotten it outta there,
Cecil Bullard: scar, et cetera. But you know, it's kind of this mentality of, and I don't know if it's. You know, the guys with a DHD, we have a high level of A DHD in our industry, the guys that are dyslexic, we have a high level of dyslexia in our industry.
Cecil Bullard: I don't know if we were kind of pushed into that, into automotive and fixing cars, I think all of us have certain talents that when we do certain things, it just brings us joy. Right? Yeah. I mean, you get a car that doesn't run, comes in on a tow truck, and you know, you spend a couple hours on it and then you're driving it down the street and it's, you know, you're driving it like a striped ass tape, right?
Cecil Bullard: And it's running like that, and there's you're smiling from ear to ear and you're endorphins are going, your adrenaline's up and you're just excited. And then you come in and you go. I have to try to figure out how to get my customers to book appointments. You know, that's not fun. That's not, you know, but if you plan, it's not
Lucas Underwood: like I feel like I can do anything about it.
Lucas Underwood: I feel helpless. I feel powerless.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Right. But if you know what to do and you actually do it, and you create a team of people that will get behind you to help you do those things, right? Yeah. And that's the whole company. And here's the thing.
Lucas Underwood: It becomes fun. It does. It does. And here's the thing is that I think there's a lot of fear involved.
Lucas Underwood: I think we make a lot of decisions based on fear in this industry. And we love our shops. They're our babies. We've poured our heart and soul into them, and we feel like anything we do could disrupt or damage our shops. And so it's very hard to make those decisions. It's very hard to make that push and jumping out on that limb to make a big move like that fills and, you know, I,
Cecil Bullard: so have you basically said, this is what I really want.
Cecil Bullard: This is my vision. Yeah. These are the results that I need in order. To be ultimately successful to get what I need out of this business, both financially, emotionally, et cetera.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And many guys have never thought past the next job, the next bill.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: absolutely. And they push themselves into a spot.
Lucas Underwood: And I keep seeing this happen. They push themselves into a spot where they're convinced they're either going to be miserable for the rest of their lives, or all of a sudden they're the one who does the flip. And they're like, I don't care about the client, I don't care about the car, I don't care about anything.
Lucas Underwood: And I think that's something important we need to bring up because a lot of people think that fixing the car is like some great magical thing for our consumer. That's the base level of proficiency for an auto repair shop. That's the expectation. Yeah. Yeah. You have to go, well,
Cecil Bullard: you have to go well beyond fixing the car.
Cecil Bullard: And by the way, fixing the car. I know a lot of shops that fix a lot of cars and go broke. Absolutely. Where everybody's unhappy, miserable, they can't afford the tools they need, they can't even fix the roof that's leaking water every time it rains. Yep. Because they're afraid to raise their labor rate by 10 bucks an hour.
Cecil Bullard: I argue with or to hold up parts margin, you know, properly or whatever.
Lucas Underwood: I argue with Brian Pollock multiple times a week about this, and this is a very upsetting topic for some folks. But here's the deal. I talked to Brian and we're talking about the fact that I'm over here with a 4.9 star on Google and I can look at my negatives and I'm like, yeah, I earned that.
Lucas Underwood: Yep. And I look over across the street and there's somebody with 3.3 stars. They are known to not fix the car and the parking lot's packed full. And they did tons and tons of revenue, but I, it couldn't just be fixing the car.
Cecil Bullard: So I, there's a guy, I could mention his name. You and I both know him real well.
Cecil Bullard: He is one of our clients. Been a client for a long time. Yeah. He's got multiple shops. When we started they were doing 2.1 million
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And losing money Yep. In their business. Yep. You know, and I think the first year we did like 2.4 and we made four or $500,000.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Because we restructured and we did, you know, the important, the things that are important, right?
Cecil Bullard: The, I've gotta price myself correctly. I have to make sure that I have systems and process that create productive people. Wait minute, you didn't do it by
Lucas Underwood: fixing all the cars?
Cecil Bullard: No. Fixing cars is again, like, I'm gonna go to the grocery store, I'm gonna buy groceries. Right. And I expect when I open that bread up it's.
Cecil Bullard: It's bread and that I can make a sandwich with it. Right. That's exactly. And so you, you don't win anything by giving me bread. Yeah. You win stuff by having a clean store where I can find what I need and I have some choices to make, and maybe I could buy that high end bread that's twice as expensive, but I kind of like that one.
Cecil Bullard: Right. And you could do the same thing when you talk about the industry that your family's in, right?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: It's not, it's the experience that the customer walks away from thinking how they so close out. Not for this, but I'm gonna close you out. Mm-hmm. I have a script. You know, Hey Lucas.
Cecil Bullard: I've taken your money. I'm not gonna say this, but I already, I got your keys in hand. I got your keys in my hand. And I'm gonna say, Hey, Lucas, you know, before you leave, I need a promise from you. Will you promised me something? And you're gonna say, ah, had to pay on the Cecil, or, sure. Whatever. And I'm gonna say, well, it's two things, right?
Cecil Bullard: Number one, if we did a great job three days from now, someone's gonna call you and say, did we do a great job, basically? And if we did, do you mind recommending us to family and friends? Right? And you're gonna say, what? Yes. You know, you're gonna say yes. And then I'm gonna say this, Lucas, here's where the promise comes in.
Cecil Bullard: It's the most important thing. If you can't say yes, would you call me personal? My name is on these two business cards, my personal phone number. And tell me why you can't say yes. So I can fix that so that we can take care of our clients and make you happy. Right? A hundred. And now you're walking away from my shop.
Cecil Bullard: Having had an experience with someone who cares about whether or not you're happy instead of Well, I fixed your car, right? Yep, a hundred percent. And
Lucas Underwood: I've got a reel that, that upset a lot of people and it's a reel of Dutch. And he was talking about the fact that the new generation, and I don't necessarily think this is a generational thing, but Dutch, we gotta be careful
Cecil Bullard: about generalities and course generation stuff.
Cecil Bullard: But yeah, of course. But
Lucas Underwood: he, that, that's kind of where he was taking it. And he said, I don't care if it's blowing a hundred miles an hour in the wind and it's snowing and you can't see the runway, and all of the things that could go wrong have gone wrong. You don't get a pat on the back by the chief pilot for landing the plane because that was your damn job.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: you have to do that. Your job was to land the plane. There was no exception. That was the job. And see, we miss that in automotive. We think that everything's about fixing the car. We become hyper-focused on the car itself. And the car is the least important part of this equation, in my opinion. Is it important to fix it, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yes. I would tell.
Cecil Bullard: I would tell you the most important thing is customer experience. Yes, absolutely. And customer experience starts with your marketing. Yeah. And what they can see. How do you answer the phone? I have. Yeah, I have. I have listened to 10,000 phone calls. Yeah. If I've listened to one, and that's not an exaggeration, and I can name on.
Cecil Bullard: Two hands and one foot. How many people answered the phone correctly or well, right. Yeah. And that's the customer, that's the start of the customer experience. Are you educating that customer about why you do what you do and how that's beneficial to them throughout the whole experience? Are you in the experience with another experience?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. So that they walk away with the right stuff in their head. Have you stopped the assembly line?
Lucas Underwood: To
Cecil Bullard: figure out what's wrong and a hundred percent put those things in place so that you can give them a great, and by the way, the second most important thing is making sure that you're profitable so that you can deliver those experiences.
Cecil Bullard: Amen. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Amen. So you can stand behind it so you can take care of your people. Yeah. So you do the things that have to be done. Cecil, I know we gotta wrap up here and so I'm just gonna jump in and tell Jacob's a good friend of mine. He asked a question, I'm gonna save this question. Okay.
Lucas Underwood: We're gonna answer it next time. I may even respond to him personally and answer. His parents are actually in my neighborhood right now, so they're welcome to stop. Oh, cool. Say hello. Come on in. So, I just wanted to say to Jacob, Hey buddy, I'm sorry we didn't get to your question. I promise that we will answer it next time and I will make sure Cecil gets a copy of it so he can reach out to you and give you his answer as well.
Lucas Underwood: But we will get it answered next time. Cecil. In closing. We have one minute left. And I've never heard you say anything in one minute. Is there anything you want the people to know? Don't
Cecil Bullard: misquote me online.
Lucas Underwood: Listen, I wanna say I could be wrong. I believe that was Chris Inright. And Chris is one of the sweetest, most humble and awesome human beings you'll ever meet. And I believe that Chris I believe that Chris may have taken something in the wrong light. I could be completely wrong. It may not have
Cecil Bullard: The quote was, Cecil said that all guys working outta their house are bums and you know, whatever.
Lucas Underwood: Oh yeah, that's definitely Chris. That's why got his feelings hurt. That's who he is.
Cecil Bullard: That's not, that is not what I've said. I was cleaning out a storage unit this weekend, and there's a guy working out of a storage unit on someone's car. Right, right. Now that guy is not helping the industry at all.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. But I know a lot of my clients, I know a lot of people that started in their house and then they moved to a shop and then they move to coaching and now they have five shops or whatever. There's always a starting point and there's always bad people. A hundred percent in, in, no matter what it is.
Cecil Bullard: Dentist, doctors mechanics, whatever you wanna call. Please don't
Lucas Underwood: go to a dentist or a doctor that's working out of their home, though, I'll say that might be a bad
Cecil Bullard: idea. Probably not that smart. Although it might save you some money. Right? That's it. You know, and I love the fact that we have a lot of questions.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And we have a lot of people coming online and I'm. I'm glad that we get to make a difference here. Yeah. So, I look forward to the next one, brother.
Lucas Underwood: Amen. Me too. And look I'll say this I admire someone like a Chris Enright, and I'll tell you why. It's because Chris Enright Hass been listening to people like you, people like all these other coaches in the industry.
Cecil Bullard: I like to get quoted, so
Lucas Underwood: I'm happy about that. Here's the thing is this man's been watching and he's been building the base of the business. Mm-hmm. And I wish that I had the patience and diligence that he did, because what he did is he started with the foundation and said, I'm gonna build the foundation.
Lucas Underwood: Right. I'm gonna build a good foundation under this to do that. I need to do this at my home. I'm gonna start small, and when the opportunity presents itself, I will expand. But here's the foundation of how I'm gonna do this, and here's how I'm gonna be profitable and here's my plan. So he started very early saying, Hey, this may not be an ideal situation, but I'm gonna get profitable.
Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna maximize what I have now. So now I can go buy something and I'm in a smart place. I can afford it and I can make this work. But the other thing is more people would slow down and pay attention to that. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: He charged enough to be profitable to have the money. To do the next level or the next five levels.
Cecil Bullard: So amen.
Lucas Underwood: Cecil, thank you for being here. Thank you, all of you for all the great questions. We look forward to it. Hopefully see you all again really soon. Next time we've got another one of these coming up and make sure you're emailing in some questions. We might do some more of the ones like we've done on changing the industry where we actually get a PowerPoint up and we answer some big questions and talk through some more delicate subjects.
Lucas Underwood: So make sure you email your questions in.
Cecil Bullard: Thank you guys. Thank you.

174 - Know Your Numbers or Pay the Price: A Shop Owner’s 20-Year Wake-Up Call

174 - Know Your Numbers or Pay the Price: A Shop Owner’s 20-Year Wake-Up Call
November 18, 2025 - 00:49:58
 
Show Summary:
Todd Compton shares how a childhood surrounded by NASCAR legends and go-kart engines pushed him toward a life in automotive repair. His path moved through military service, dealership work, and an intense side-hustle era before finally opening Compton’s Automotive in 2005. Todd walks through the expansions of his shop, the risks he took, and the financial lessons that came slower than the technical ones. He opens up about tax challenges, audits, and the importance of finding a competent CPA. Todd reflects on learning to run a business instead of just turning wrenches and why protecting employees with benefits matters. The conversation closes with his passion project, Tools in Schools, where he advocates for bringing trades education back to students. It’s a story of grit, growth, and giving back to the next generation.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Todd Compton, Owner of Compton’s Automotive 
 
Show Highlights:
[00:02:28] – Todd describes how growing up around NASCAR giants like Buddy Baker and Robert Yates shaped his early fascination with cars.[00:03:55] – After his father passed, Todd taught himself engines by tearing apart go-kart motors and blowing a few up along the way.[00:05:11] – He joins the Army as a heavy wheel mechanic during Desert Storm, only to see a ceasefire called before deployment.[00:09:25] – Todd moves to Colorado, survives starving-dealership days, and eventually meets his wife before returning to Charlotte.[00:11:31] – A storage unit becomes his seven-day-a-week second job, where he and a friend fix cars in the rain and cook dinner between jobs.[00:14:26] – Todd asks his wife the hard question about risking everything to start his own business, leading to opening his shop in June 2005.[00:17:35] – He walks through each stage of expanding from 1,800 sq ft to 7,000 sq ft and building a multi-lift operation.[00:31:15] – Todd admits he didn’t understand financials for years, leading to tax problems and a CPA who failed to file three years of returns.[00:40:16] – A missed 5,500 form leads to a $25,000 penalty that his new CPA helps reverse through a North Carolina disaster clause.[00:45:31] – Todd explains Tools in Schools, a Charlotte initiative exposing kids to trades by putting real tools in their hands.
 
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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, my name is Jimmy Lea with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. Joining me today is Todd Compton of To Compton's Automotive in North Carolina. Todd, how the heck are you, brother? I'm doing well, Jimmy. Oh, that's so good to hear, man.
Jimmy Lea: How's the weather in North Carolina right now? Oh, it's about right now it's about sunny and 70 degrees. Dang. Oh my gosh. It's cold. Where am I? I'm in Utah. Yeah. This morning it was 48 degrees. I think our high today is 52. Being a guy from the desert. We just moved to Northern Utah, so this is cold for me.
Jimmy Lea: I'm bet. And 70 in November's. Gotta be hot for North Carolina.
Todd Compton: Yeah. And office. Last Wednesday, Thursday. We had little bit snow here.
Jimmy Lea: You had snow. Where are you? Charlotte, North Carolina. I love Charlotte. Oh my gosh, dude, Charlotte is one of the best Joey's truck repair. You know Joey?
Todd Compton: Joey
Todd Compton: I knew his last name.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it's Are you on the tip of your tongue when you've got it cock?
Todd Compton: Not familiar.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, okay. He's on the southwest side of town.
Todd Compton: That's where I'm at.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, are you? Joey's truck repair. He does a lot of fleet work.
Todd Compton: Yeah. I'm over by the county airport area.
Jimmy Lea: No, he's, he, I think he's past the airport anyways.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. When you look it up, make some introductions 'cause you, and I think you enjoy, you get along really well. He's a good dude.
Todd Compton: Yeah. Yeah. I was say when you fly from Utah, when you fly into Charlotte, you will fly pretty much over my shop.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome.
Todd Compton: Yeah. So that's cool.
Todd Compton: I always look out the window when I look down, make sure the guys are working.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, you do. Right? Well, I, and I'll tell you what, if ever I move out of Utah, I hope that Charlotte, north Carolina's on the list. Good. I love Charlotte, North Carolina. I love Charlotte. It's gorgeous place.
Todd Compton: So is Utah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Utah's pretty great too. Pretty great too. So, couple questions for you about your journey here in the automotive aftermarket industry. I love, always love to start with your history and your past. How did you get into. The automotive aftermarket.
Todd Compton: That's a long story. Yep. It probably really started when I was when I was a kid probably pre-teen years.
Todd Compton: My dad he was in he was into being in Charlie we were big in NASCAR or my nascar, my dad. My dad was. This was back, you know, I mean, you know, when my mom and dad went to school with buddy Baker, Robert Yates, you know, I mean, and knew these people, you know, I mean, went to school with them.
Todd Compton: And so, I, you know, growing up as a kid, I remember I remember my dad taking me to these race shops and I'll never forget gonna Daral, which is Dar, I remember sitting in the 88 Kade car as. Seven, eight years old, something like that. So we were big into go carts as well. And so, in 1985, my father passed away.
Todd Compton: And in the building we had all these go carts and all these brick Stratton engines. And and so I wanted to learn how to build these things, you know, take apart and. I blew several of them up. You know, I didn't know what the oil pickup little tab was on the bridges and Stratton figured it wasn't important.
Todd Compton: And so, well it was like the oil splash shield thing, you know? And I didn't think it was important. Well, you know, put a hole on them in engine. But anyway, fast forward a little bit. I, you know, I get in high school my ultimate goal was I was wanting to get into a race shop and and work on race cars is really what I wanted to do, and design 'em and build them.
Todd Compton: The closer my dad's had a frame shop and he would build frames for Robert Yates and I think some for Rick Hendrick, you know, back, and this was back in the 80, late eighties, early nineties. And so, I when I went, when I got into high school, I took Automechanics one, two, and three and, the third ot, catch three, we went to this central Piedmont Community College. So to take college courses there. So, and then about this time, desert Storm was started to kick out up
Todd Compton: Ooh.
Todd Compton: And, you know, out, you know, in Kuwait. And so, I joined the military in the Army. And and so I went in and I.
Todd Compton: Of all the jobs I probably could have picked. I went in as a heavy wheel mechanic and I wanted to work out in the field. So, by the time I got through basic training or getting ready to go into a IT, they'd called a ceasefire. So I never gotta go. I didn't get to go. So then after that I ended up going to you know, college, went to Nashville Auto Diesel College in, out in Tennessee.
Todd Compton: And when I was out there, I graduated. I mean, I worked for a dealership out there. And I did trim work and oil changes.
Jimmy Lea: Trim work. Trim work. Like body work?
Todd Compton: No. So like in dealership, in the dealership world, you have this, the dealership was specialized, so you had your drivability guys that fixed your check engine lights, left the problems.
Todd Compton: Then you had your line guys, which would do your oil leaks cylinder heads, valve covers, things like that. Then you had your trim guy, which he would do like, rattles squeaks, water leaks. You know, if a trim panel was discolored, you know, you'd warrant, it was almost all warranty work. Oh, wow.
Todd Compton: You know, you know, carpet that was slightly frayed or whatever you're replacing the carpet. And so, so they had me doing, like I said, I was quickly got, and I did trim work, so I remember keeping a five gallon bucket between my two stalls. I would be pulling a door panel off a Corvette and then, you know, they'd say, Todd and dispatch.
Todd Compton: I'd go up there and they'd have a waiter oil change for me. And so now I'm doing oil change. So, I did that and I finished the college, then I I moved back to Charlotte and I went to some of the race teams. And one of the guys that was really good friends with my father, he blackballed me.
Jimmy Lea: Oh no.
Todd Compton: He did. Yeah. And he said you did not wanna be in this industry. It's 70 hours a week, you know, and it's you know, the guys take the car out, they crash and they come back and they do it all over again. And he says, this is just, I'm not gonna let you in this industry. You're not going, you're not coming in.
Todd Compton: All right. You know? And so, I remember talking to several engine builders at the time. There was a company called Hendrick Mer Sports, and it was Hendrick Mer Sports. Those Yates. And so anyway he told me just as long as he was alive, he's not gonna lemme get in and not that he was being, and so as a young man, I'm like, that's kind of messed up, you know?
Todd Compton: And and so that's terrible. But I look back on it now and I'm glad he did what he did. Yeah, because around that time I had recently gotten married. I had a young child. And so, he's like, you know, this is not the life for you. Not this time. So, so I came back, Charlotte. Then I started working for a Pontiac dealership doing used cars.
Todd Compton: And so, my passion, I started to figure out that electrical work and drivability was really where I started. I started, I had fun at, fun doing. Well, let me pre preface that by when I was in Col I forgot I went to Colorado for a couple years, so, actually that's where I met my wife. And that's right.
Todd Compton: 'cause I ca I, I graduated school went in the military, came back, Charlotte, then decided to move out to Colorado and 'cause yeah, race was not going, it wasn't do anything here for me. So that's what I Colorado to, and I went out to Colorado from a Toby Keith song. And when I was living in Nashville and we talked about moving out west, you know, where there's women in gold and things like that.
Todd Compton: I'm like, you know, I'm gonna go out west. And so, alright. And the first dealer trip I worked for, the service manager hired me on like a Thursday and then he said, go ahead and move my box in on Saturday. And so I get my box moved in. I show up Monday morning. Service manager was fired that Friday.
Todd Compton: And so the service director, he's like, who are you? What are you doing here?
Jimmy Lea: Right. You're a new guy.
Todd Compton: Well, I was hired, yeah. So they gave me a bay with they gave me one bay no lift. Oh, see. And so, the only thing that I could do was al. And so, so I started doing electrical work. I starved. I starved.
Todd Compton: And fortunately it was a dealership back. They had two chips. So I'd get there at seven 30 in the morning, work, sometimes 10 at night. And and try to, and just trying to learn. So anyway, so then I meet my wife up there and I moved her back to Charles. Yeah. And then that's when I went to work for Pontiac dealership and doing its cars.
Todd Compton: Okay.
Todd Compton: I did that for about a year. And a Chevrolet dealership that I applied at when I started. When I came back to Charlotte they had drivability spot open and so they they asked me if I wanna come work for 'em. So, that's what I wanted to do. So that's what I did. And so, I worked at dealership for nine years and I became Wow.
Todd Compton: Master a SC certified GM Master certified. And I got bored. I got bored. Oh yeah, because you look at a ticket and you already knew what was wrong with it.
Todd Compton: It was just, it was pattern failures.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And, and you were seeing, so you were seeing the same job, the same cars.
Todd Compton: Correct.
Jimmy Lea: The same everything over and over again. You're like, oh my gosh, I could do this in my sleep now blindfolded. Correct. Correct. Gimme something else.
Todd Compton: Correct. Yes. And so, about let's see, probably about in year 2000 I met a a good friend.
Todd Compton: I met this guy and he had a. Storage unit that he worked out of doing side work. And so he and I gotta talking. In fact he brought his truck to the GM dealership for some warranty work. And the way the bays were set up was, you know, people could walk right, right outside the bays, you know, and I was right, the service drive.
Todd Compton: So he saw me pull his truck in. He started, he struck the ation swimming and we started talking in. And so, he tells me. He comes ever. And then, and his wife brings her vehicle in and she, you know, so we started developing a, you know, friendly relationship. And I come to find out, you know, he works on cars at nighttime, you know, he's a building superintendent during the daytime, then he works cars at night.
Todd Compton: And so, I ended up, he and I started working together outta the storage unit and we worked really well together. And so I've worked there. Really seven days a week. I leave the dealership at five 30 and then I had it set up at that storage unit where we had a refrigerator. We had electric.
Todd Compton: Electric grill. Yeah, we had a microwave. And so we, and then we cooked dinner and then still keep on working.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh.
Todd Compton: And then of course, now, by this time I have two kids.
Jimmy Lea: I was gonna say, yeah, you're still a young married couple. You got probably a couple kids there at home.
Todd Compton: Yeah. Yeah. And so, there were plenty of nights where I would leave in the dark and I'd come home in the dark.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Todd Compton: And I would see my kids right. You know, my wife would just leave me a note, said, Hey, there's a plate in the stove. So I missed a lot of time with my kids around that time. And so, but what I was missing, what I was wanting to learn was. Again, going back to the pattern failures, you know, I was working on newer cars.
Todd Compton: It got boring. I'd done everything I could do at the dealership. Yeah, as much as I could do. And I wanted more. I just wanted more. And so the only way I could do this, you know, I took in some, the most junk cards, you know, and, you know, we didn't have a lift and some vehicles, we had to deflate the tires, get 'em, roll 'em in, roll them in into the storage unit.
Todd Compton: And sometimes we work out in the rain. You know, I remember working on a Cadillac STS and it started pouring out rain. I'm doing a tuneup on it, and I got rain falling down in the back of my jeans, you know? And going in places where you don't want it to go.
Jimmy Lea: Right.
Todd Compton: So I did this for about four years, and my wife, she, you know, it was, initially, it was seven days a week, then it was you know, six days a week.
Todd Compton: And she says, you know what? She goes. You cut down to five days. I did. And then finally it got to the point where I started building a little bit of reputation. And and so I remember asking my wife, I said, you know, are you ready to, I remember sitting in the kitchen with my wife and I said are you willing to lose everything we've got?
Todd Compton: And I said, I'm ready to go into business with myself. And so, I was so naive, very naive. And I you know, I even asked my buddy that he and I worked together to chop together with, he, he was not prepared to make that jump. He was comfortable doing what he was doing. You know, he had the the security of healthcare you know, steady paying job, you know, retirement, stuff like that.
Todd Compton: He just was not ready to let that go. So. I was I had money saved up a money market. I cashed all that in. I bought a few pieces of equipment and found a place to rent. And and June 20 June 21st thousand five, I opened the doors.
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Todd Compton: And so that's kind of how, that's the journey that kind of got me into the independent world is really, it all came down to boredom and Oh, yeah.
Todd Compton: Wanting more.
Jimmy Lea: June 21st, the summer solstice. Ah any relation there of you opening June 21st or just happens to be a Wednesday or whatever it was?
Todd Compton: The only, only connection to that was I started at the dealership June 1st, 1996. I'm sorry, June 21st, 1996. I wanted to complete, I wanted to finish it nine years.
Todd Compton: June 21st, 19, you know, 2005. So that's kind of the, that's kind of the that, that's significant of the date.
Jimmy Lea: Nice.
Todd Compton: I my shop foreman and service manager at the dealership, you know, they could have just really ruined me, but I had, I told them three months in advance what I was wanting do, because I had to, I still needed a job, but I still need to handle looking at buildings.
Todd Compton: I still need to handle getting a lift put in. I still needed to handle. The attorney you know, getting my the S corp set up. So there's all these things I still had to get set up and I, but I still need to maintain some income. And so they were, I mean, they could have told me, you know what, just, you know, just leave now, you know, but I, they did, you know, so that I worked out the full three months and that they allowed me to do it, you know, and so I'm very grateful for those guys.
Todd Compton: And the funny thing is this, my service manager is actually now one of my customers.
Jimmy Lea: That's great. That's awesome.
Todd Compton: So, so that's kind of how I got into the independent world. I love that. Long story.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Long story. There is no short version to that. That's pretty dang cool, man.
Jimmy Lea: Congrats and thank you for your service in the armed services. Even in the thank you eyes of conflict. You jump right in the fray to say, I send me coach, put me in, I can take care of this. That's super awesome. I appreciate that. So what does the shop look like today and is this the same that it was when it, when you started June 21st or have you expanded?
Jimmy Lea: What does it look like?
Todd Compton: So, my very first shop was a is a 1800 square foot building. It had one bay door on one side and one bay door on the other. And it was in a row of. About 10 units, all about the same. They're all 10 units. Were right at 1800 square feet. Like a
Jimmy Lea: strip mall? Or was it a more commercial?
Jimmy Lea: More commercial.
Todd Compton: Okay. It was right by the airport. Okay.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. So it was like,
Todd Compton: Yeah, I mean, like the pe like the building behind me was US Air, and they had. Their their tugboat, their tug, I'm not sure what we call them the tug, the pushers and stuff. They'd keep those there and they'd kind have mechanic chop in the air.
Todd Compton: Next to me was a was a trucking company that was in another building.
Todd Compton: And like in, in the strip building that I was in one guy fabricated things for lawnmowers. He welded titanium and aluminum and stuff like that then.
Todd Compton: And another guy like another two doors down hit all he did was he polished the semi-truck gas tankers, you know, you know the tankers you see going down the road that carry liquids or whatever.
Todd Compton: He would bring these in and he would, he had ac crew guys and they'd sit there and they'd polish these things and, you know, to where they would just like look like mirrors.
Todd Compton: So like I said, it was a pretty industrial area and all brick brown. Yeah. You know, and so I remember July 4th, 2005 to try to stand out because when you looked at the row of buildings, every building looked, I mean, it was just, so you took a building that was a hundred yards long, roughly, or so, and you just had all these brown doors.
Todd Compton: Yep. Man, doors were all brown. So it's all L at the same.
Jimmy Lea: Same. So yeah,
Todd Compton: I was at the very end of one of the buildings. So what I did is I painted my door white. So that way when I was on the phone with anybody and I could tell 'em, you know, say, Hey, I 47 32 West Boulevard, suite eye, just look for the white bay door.
Jimmy Lea: Perfect.
Todd Compton: And so that way people would know where I'm at.
Todd Compton: Yeah.
Todd Compton: And so, and I was in that building from June. Oh five to February of oh six, then I moved about a block away to a, another kind industrial area, and I moved up to 4,000 square feet. At this time is when I hired my first employee, when I moved into that building.
Todd Compton: And I installed a couple more lifts. And so, I was in that building from two April, 2006 to around April, 2008, and I got kind of pushed outta that building 'cause the airport bought the property. It was privately owned, the airport bought the property. And I remember getting a letter saying that at some point the road will be closed, these buildings will be demolished.
Todd Compton: And so, you know, I had to find a place to, to go. So, I was on a test drive and I happened to see a building that was for for lease. And it was just literally, it was just a block away from where I was at. So I'm like, that works. But it was much bigger. It was 7,000 square feet and of course the rent's higher, all kind of stuff.
Todd Compton: Higher. I had more exposure to the road, to one of the main roads. So that's important.
Jimmy Lea: That's one of the rules of real estate is location. Yeah. Location. Location. So. Yeah. Not a bad move, but 7,000. You're doubling darn here.
Todd Compton: Yeah. Yeah. So, I,
Jimmy Lea: I I wanna pause you here for one quick second. When you started in June of oh five, how many lifts did you have in that 1800 square feet?
Jimmy Lea: One, one lift. And when you went to 4,000 square feet, how many lifts did you have in the building?
Todd Compton: I bought, when I moved in that building I bought one more, and then about four. 'cause actually the Lyft guy. Actually, lemme do 90 day financing. So I didn't have the money.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. So,
Todd Compton: so I bought one lift and he installed that one.
Todd Compton: So then once I got that one paid for, he installed the th actually had me third lift.
Todd Compton: Okay.
Todd Compton: And so, then when I got that paid for, I kind of lifted along a little bit and then I ended up buying a a Midrise a Midrise lived. Okay. That's where I stopped. Okay.
Jimmy Lea: Right there.
Todd Compton: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: So now you moved to 7,000 square feet.
Jimmy Lea: How many bays is this? How many lists do you have? How many techs are you now employing at the new location?
Todd Compton: So the location I'm at now it's still kind of, it's not like your typical automotive repair shop. It's still warehouse. So people, you don't see the, when you drive up to the front, you don't see the base.
Todd Compton: We have five loading docks in the back of the shop. And then we have a drive-in that's, you know, drive-in bay.
Todd Compton: Yeah.
Todd Compton: And so, in fact, this building used to be for Sears. Sears and Uck.
Todd Compton: Yeah. They
Todd Compton: used to use it for their, I guess, midterm shipping. You know, they'll bring them from the airport for 'em in this building.
Todd Compton: Then they'd ship 'em out to wherever they need to go.
Jimmy Lea: Right. It was like a hub. Yeah. And then they send it out. Okay.
Jimmy Lea: Follow you exactly.
Todd Compton: So. So when you look at the shop, you know, they're not, it's not like your typical shop where, you know, each bay is has a door or something like that, you know.
Todd Compton: So the way it's set up is I have I have an alignment rack, and then I have see this 2, 3, 4. So I got one alignment rack, and then four, two post lifts all in a line. And then I have another two post lift kinda off in a corner. So I got five, two post lifts and five, two post lifts. Yes. And then alignment.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. And how many technicians do you have for the the five different lifts?
Todd Compton: Three.
Jimmy Lea: Three. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. That's very cool. Do you get a lot of work for your alignment rack?
Todd Compton: We sell a lot of work in easy alignment rack.
Todd Compton: We, before I bought it, we were sub laying a lot of work out to a lot of alignment out to another chop.
Jimmy Lea: Yep.
Todd Compton: And you know, I gotta say it's probably the most expensive lift in the chop that it gets used to least.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. That's what I've heard. That's what I've heard.
Todd Compton: Yeah. So, but you know, it was one of those things where, the guys were hesitant on me. And this goes years back. Yeah. You know, before I really learning how to do certain things, they'd be hesitant to sell front end stuff because then they had to send it out for an alignment, you know?
Todd Compton: And so, I think something's got maybe overlooked
Todd Compton: Yeah. At the time.
Jimmy Lea: Probably. Probably.
Todd Compton: Yeah. And and now that we have the equipment, it's like, you know it, now we have different technicians since then.
Todd Compton: So, but now I can't say that for certain that's what was happening.
Todd Compton: But I got a feeling that, you know if the guys can't complete the job themselves, you know, then why, which it doesn't injustice to the customer.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it totally does. What kind of alignment rack is it?
Todd Compton: It's a hundred alarm rack.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, nice. Have you talked to Mr. Jay Allen? You had him up to the shop, do some training?
Todd Compton: Well, he's been to my shop that he has not, yeah, he's not done training here. But,
Jimmy Lea: well get your boys trained, get 'em, get all the boys and girls there in the shop, get 'em all trained on that Hunter, hunter alignment rack with Jay Allen.
Jimmy Lea: And then when they come back, they're gonna sell a ton more alignment work because now they're comfortable, they've been trained, they understand. Sure. Yeah,
Todd Compton: yeah. We're still all three of 'em. Well, at least two of them. Yeah. They're I would say that they have an ego on alignments, but you they have a couple of their own race cars and they set, they, they play around with alignment stuff all the time.
Todd Compton: Sure. And so I'm not saying they can't learn anything, not what I'm saying at all. But I'm saying is they are pretty competent. On, you know, looking, sometimes even looking outside the box on getting alignment. Right. You know, not always the fact respect will get something right.
Todd Compton: Yeah. Go out and
Todd Compton: drive it, and you bring it back and, you know, it's like, all right, man, this needs to be changed up a little bit.
Todd Compton: So they're not just they wanna make sure it's right when it leaves.
Jimmy Lea: No. That, and that's exactly what everybody wants. Everybody wants to make sure it's right before it leaves. You wanna make sure it's dialed in. It's not just good enough. You want it to be exactly good enough.
Jimmy Lea: Not just. So, no, I totally get that, that is awesome. Congrats on your new building too. So, are you in the process of buying this building or are you just gonna stay leasing this building? What's the plan? No, I,
Todd Compton: I, I've spoken to the landlord about it and right now he just he likes receiving those checks.
Todd Compton: He's not, see I don't think he's retirement age yet, but, okay. He's got multiple in Charlotte. He's got, I mean, that's his main career. Is he owns buildings all throughout Charlotte.
Todd Compton: And I've talked to him about buying the building and, you know, his big concern right now, at least right now is the tax hit. And he's like, yeah, right now comfortable receiving. Like, I don't need to sell it. You know, he goes, and if I do sell it, then I'm paying all his tax on it and I get it. I get it. So he didn't say no.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and if he puts it in a 10 31 exchange, he can go and buy a car wash or storage units or another warehouse somewhere else. And that's probably the best, quickest and easiest is those warehouses where you've got a company in there.
Jimmy Lea: They're gonna use it. They're gonna store stuff in it. They're assembling stuff in it. They're gonna do whatever they do in their warehouse and ship in and ship out. And it's probably easy for 'em, it's probably not a conversation or six to take 'em to lunch, take 'em to dinner, and make sure you've got that first ride of refusal.
Jimmy Lea: 'cause you want your name on that? Yeah. Absolutely.
Todd Compton: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I, I have not spoken to him about the first Right. Refusal. Refusal, but yet, but you know, he'll come in and just say hello and check in on things and I'll kind of casually talk to him. His name's Craig.
Todd Compton: He's like, Hey Craig, you know, you wanna sell this thing to me? And ah, nah, eh, not yet.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, because he could sell the warehouse to you and buy a 12 unit apartment complex, or 24 unit apartment complex. You know, you 10 31 exchange that, and now he's into something else that's making him 3, 4, 5 times what he was making.
Todd Compton: It's very, it's very true. Very true. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Well, let me know when you wanna negotiate with him and I'll fly out there and we'll sit down for, got it. Oh, that'd be fun. That'd be fun. Well, congrats on your journey. Congrats on the success of you your businesses. It's a sobering conversation to have at the dinner table with your wife and say, Hey, are you ready to lose everything? I wanna start my own business. What's some of those lessons that you learned very quickly in starting your own business?
Todd Compton: Well, I won't say they were learned very quickly tell you that you know, when I remember trying to mathematically think about what I needed to make.
Todd Compton: And there's coming from a technician to a business owner.
Todd Compton: So many different, I remember taking a notepad thinking, okay, if I bill out, literally, you're probably on these numbers, but I think what I remember is like, alright, if I bill out 11 hours this week at $65 an hour is what my labor rate was. I love it. And I was like, all right, so then I've got rent, I've got power, I've got, you know, and.
Todd Compton: I was always putting my own paycheck last. Yeah. I was like, where's leftover is without, you know, then, you know, that first year I kept, I put money into, I kept, I put as much money back into the companies I could.
Todd Compton: You know, some of the things I guess that, you know, over the years, you know, I stayed in my own little bubble. Yeah. I still, it took me a while to, to remove myself from the shop and actually run the business, you know, and manage the business. It took me, that's what probably took me so long to figure out to, I got, I had to step outta the shop.
Todd Compton: Yeah. I kept getting pulled back in. I kept getting pulled back in and I didn't know my numbers, but that's, yeah. Yeah, being in business for 20 years I guess I'm a, I'm an at tune late bloomer, but you know, for, if I could tell anybody that's starting off, learn the numbers first, you know, understand it because I did not, you know, I, you know, the years of 2020 and 21, 22, I got into a ton of trouble with the IRS, and it was not necessarily completely, and I'm gonna tell you, it wasn't completely my fault. My CPA just didn't file my taxes for three years.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, ouch.
Todd Compton: Ouch. Ouch ouch. And so, you know, I always thought, you know, I hear you hear on like movies or different things or whatever about, you know, my CPA, you know, you know, they're trying to keep me safe, you know, well, it's, when there, I don't know.
Todd Compton: You don't know what you don't know. And I felt that, Hey, as long as I see case, tell me everything's okay. I guess I'm making money, but I didn't know what I was looking at. I had no clue what a PL state looked at. I didn't know what a balance sheet was. I didn't know what cash a cash flow staple was.
Todd Compton: I didn't know any of that stuff was. It's like, Hey, okay, CPAs, he's taking care of the books. If he's, if he tees away from me to make more money, then I'm sure he'll let know. But until then, I'm gonna continue on, just turn wrenches and try to do the best I can and make whatever I can, you know, and make whatever I can.
Todd Compton: So that was probably the biggest thing for me was, is, continuing on as a technician.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Todd Compton: And not a business owner. So was that quick lesson learned? Not really. You know, because I still enjoyed working on the cars. I still enjoy it, you know, it still allowed me to take my family to, you know, vacations to mountains, take trips, you know, you know, we got involved some go-karts, dirt bikes, you know, bought a little camper.
Todd Compton: I mean, so we still had a good kids. Still brought were brought up. Well. But we were never, but we always slight, we always slightly struggled. Oh yeah, I'm sure. And I'm sure if we took some of that stuff out, we would've been okay. You know?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Todd Compton: We were not saying like we were starving, you know, but we were living pretty tight.
Todd Compton: But we still, we also wanna put the, those memories in for, you know, us and the kids.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, so it's good that you did that. The kids will remember those trips and those vacations and those overnight camp outs.
Todd Compton: Oh, they do. They do. Yeah. They bring it up. They bring it up and so, so for so long I focused on working on the cars and just trying to take care of customers that I had no clue about my finances, none.
Todd Compton: And so that's probably. The longest, quickest lesson that I guess I've learned.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, and you hit on a point that a lot of shop owners today, that they came up through the shop. They came up through the shop just like you. They worked at a dealership, or they worked at another independent garage, and they got up to a point where they thought, you know what?
Jimmy Lea: I want to do this. I wanna be the boss. I wanna be the business owner. Mm-hmm. They're phenomenal technicians they can work on darn near any car any day, time of day. Any anything blindfolded, not a problem. They don't have the same business acumen to run a business as they do to fix a car or to run a car.
Todd Compton: Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: And so your advice is totally sound and I'll echo it. Get education, get learning. There's so many free resources available on the internet at your chamber of commerce at the community college. They'll teach you go to the small business development. They have classes, courses, all the time to help.
Jimmy Lea: The budding entrepreneur that wants to start a business. What do I need to do first? What do I need to understand? And to your point CPAs, there's two kinds. There's one that just takes everything you give them and they file it digitally. They're not looking out for you, they're just putting numbers on paper.
Todd Compton: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And two is the kind of CPA that you want. And that's that tax advisor who's gonna say, Hey, you know what, if you do this. You can get this if you buy this piece of equipment at this time not now, but by this time you have these tax advantages. If you wait and hold off till next year to buy that equipment, it's gonna help you.
Jimmy Lea: You've got all your tax deductions you need this year. This is something for next year. You that type of a CPA it's a rare breed.
Todd Compton: Yeah. And the CPA that I've got now we're. There's still a few piece, few messes that we're still cleaning up from those years. From,
Jimmy Lea: from those three years.
Todd Compton: Yeah. And so we're not quite there where he can kind of gimme that advice yet.
Todd Compton: But you know, I mean, quick example is, you know, the alignment rack. Yeah. Previous CPA did not what's the word I'm looking for? He didn't add it into my, my. Property tax for the county. Oh
Jimmy Lea: no.
Todd Compton: And so when the new CPA found mistakes course he had to, you know, he had submitted.
Todd Compton: Yeah. And so then I got hit for three years for my property taxes.
Jimmy Lea: Sure. Money, sure.
Todd Compton: Well then I don't know if that, I don't know for certain, but all of a sudden now I'm going through a me a county audit and and so. Wait to see how that's gonna turn out.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So, well, and if ever you have to error, you error on the side of doing what's right, do what's right, and let the consequence follow, no matter what it might be.
Jimmy Lea: I, I, if you do what's right, you have that integrity and you stick to it, there's people gonna look out for you. And the universe will come to your rescue. Don't know how, don't know when, don't know where, don't know why, but it will. When you do what's right, and that's what you're doing is fixing past messes.
Jimmy Lea: All right. Hey, we'll get this, I gotta get it done, I gotta get done. Right? But yeah, now you're in an audit. So a quick little thing, you know, going from a
Todd Compton: technical to business owner. So, so we have a 401k here at the top. Nice. And so, and this is where my the new CPA got me out of.
Todd Compton: Really big trouble. I'm, I mean, devastating trouble. So there's a form called a Form 5,500 that you have to fill out as the as the corporate, as the owner, or as the entity. Shows that you're being basically fair on the 401k. And with that what they're kinda looking for is that the, that you're making sure they're making sure that you're offering that 401k to all your employees.
Todd Compton: It's just not a tax shelter, just for the you know, their principal owners.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yep.
Todd Compton: And so, that form is due on October 15th, I spaced it. Oh, no. And so, it was due October, the one I've done 'em all. I've done the, all the ones prior, but I, you know, so 20, 24 I spaced it later, forgot about it.
Todd Compton: And so. I got a letter in January of February of 25, January, February, and so I went and filled out, I said,
Todd Compton: i'll go get filled out. I'll get it done. And so, I knew there might have been a fine, you know, I was thinking there was a $750 fine. Well, yeah, if I'd have called the IRS Oh, no, actually it was Department of Labor.
Todd Compton: If I called the Department of Labor and disputed my calls, it'd been a seven $50 fine.
Todd Compton: But because I went and just filled the paperwork out, sent it on in, it was a $25,000 fine. And ouch. I was like, how, what do I do? Like what do I do? You know, and I'm looking online, figuring out ways to try to get out of it or, you know, I was like.
Todd Compton: Punish doesn't fit the crime.
Todd Compton: No, I mean,
Todd Compton: I mean, I mean, it's not like the r arrest where I'm evading tax. It was like, I just didn't tell the government that. Yeah I'm making sure everyone's got 4K. And so my CPA, I told my CPA about it. He's like, alright, gimme, gimme a couple hours. I'll give it right, right back with you.
Todd Compton: And so I don't like to take advantage of natural disasters. This is what happened. He found a clause or a not something that North Carolina did with Hurricane Helene, and that if you end up filing late on your taxes, that the, any penalties would be forgiven. And so, even though we were in an area that was not affected, the way the law was written was that was in North Carolina.
Todd Compton: So he submitted the paperwork from North Carolina and it came back and that 25,000 penalty was forgiven.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. I,
Todd Compton: I was like, oh my gosh.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Todd Compton: So yeah, you go back 20 years and you're working on wrenches. You fast forward. Would you ever think that if I forgot, forget to fill this form, it's gonna cost this money?
Todd Compton: Or as a technician, you know, working the dealership? Do I, did I ever think about hr, you know, human resources? Did I ever think about life insurance? Did I think about short term long disability? You know. I mean, none, you know, and so, there's all these things you don't think about. And like short term, long term.
Todd Compton: One of my technicians years ago, he was in a, in an accident and he broke his wrist. Not here the shot, but, and, you know, and a wrist is very important when you're working on vehicles.
Jimmy Lea: Amen. Yep.
Todd Compton: So he had three kids you know, this was he was kinda the breadwinner and now he can't work so. What composition does that put me in?
Todd Compton: You know, do I, not only do I lose the technician, but I care about the technician. So I paid him his wage for three months or probably three months. I did not replace him. I ended up going out and doing, trying to work, do the cars, and that cost me a lot of money. I was like, you know, and then finally I was talking to one of my insurance guys.
Todd Compton: He's like, you know, if you ever talking about short-term, long-term disability, I was like, no, tell me more about it. And so, when he told me about it and so we picked out the right policy, and again, you're talking about, we're not talking about RES anymore, we're talking about policies. Yeah. And when he comes to this stuff and so, I picked out the top policy.
Todd Compton: And so now anytime I hired somebody, ar owned that policy. Well, they like it or not. I, nobody pays for it. So they get short term, long terms of disability because I do not ever wanna be put in a position to where I, I have an employee that may not be able to take care of themselves or their family for income.
Todd Compton: With the younger generation, they don't wanna put in their four one k. They don't wanna spend the money on short term, long term. But you know what, it's an investment for me, so I'm gonna spend that money each month, make sure that they're covered.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Your peace of mind is worth more than, whatever they think they want or don't want.
Todd Compton: I know that got a little bit of rabbit hole, but I just wanted to share that little tidbit there.
Jimmy Lea: No, Todd, that's phenomenal. I love the rabbit holes. I love the way the ways, the means, the areas that we go down and the things we get to talk about.
Jimmy Lea: Because who would've thought that wrenching in a dealership 20 years ago that you would've had a form 5,500 that you had to fill out? Almost cost you $25,000. But thank heavens you had a good CPA. Yeah. That did some research and found a loophole for you. Call it a loophole. Call it a saving grace.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You're in the state of North Carolina. You are protected. Oh my word. I mean, that's phenomenal, Todd that's just so cool. I like your advice of getting that education. Do you have any technicians right now that are thinking, Hey, you know, that's entrepreneur bug might be biting? Like you might want to educate them?
Jimmy Lea: No they're all
Todd Compton: not yet. Alright. Not yet. They, they enjoy, they they're. When we go to training especially like the a CE or a CA,
Todd Compton: they're so in tune to the scopes and turbos and stuff like that. I mean, they're, that's just where they're at right now in their life.
Todd Compton: You know, that's that's what they desire at the moment. I mean, one technician, I mean, we work, we've talked a little bit about GPS and things like that and he's. Kinda like poking at it a little bit, but probably not enough yet to wanna start training, you know, gonna classes on it yet.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, for sure. Well, when they do, you make sure you educate them because there's so many free resources. I mean, shoot, look at the institute and the YouTube channel for the institute, all that free information, all that data, all that knowledge. Anybody can tap into all that information and knowledge.
Jimmy Lea: It's available and it's there. So it's pretty dang cool. I'd love to land this plane here with you, Todd. Now I have one last final question for you. Tell me about tools in schools.
Todd Compton: See you better research on me. Huh? So that's tools of Schools is a organization here in Charlotte that that we're trying to.
Todd Compton: Educate, educate the young students that there's more to life than going to college. And and that the trades, whether it be automotive, plumbing, electrical hang and air, that those are successful, rewarding trades to get into.
Todd Compton: And that, you know, the school systems have taken out the tools, you know, there's no vocational classes anymore, and so.
Todd Compton: Until you put a tool in front of a student's hand, a kid's hand, you don't know if they're going, they don't know if they're gonna like it or not, you know? And so what we're trying to accomplish is getting that out there to them, putting a trow in their hand, putting a, you know, little small, you know, butane torch for plumbing in their hand, you know, and you know, sweating out the copper and, you know, putting you know, an impact wrench in their hand.
Todd Compton: But, you know, just letting them play around with the stuff. Showing them the the scan tools and showing them you different things, the way they're exposed to it. You know, that maybe one day, you know, as they're trying to determine their career that, you know, it's like, you know, I kind of enjoyed, I kind, that was kind, it kind of seemed interesting to me.
Todd Compton: I mean, more into it. And so we're going and talking to students that are, you know, I've spoken to students as low as I think sixth grade. And that's fun. That's interesting. God bless the teachers on that, I'll tell you that. And so, then the ninth, 10th, 11th, yeah. 12th graders.
Todd Compton: You can tell the questions that as the, they start touring in age from, well, I don't know, 13 to 17, 18.
Todd Compton: That's right. The questions you're gonna start maturing and actually some of the questions that, you know, we get that, that I've gotten. Been interesting when it comes to automotive side and so being, the whole thing was just being in front of them and trying to educate the students and the teachers, you know, that the world's not survive on everybody's gonna be a doctor or a lawyer.
Todd Compton: You know, you know, when you got houses that gotta be built, you got, I mean, you, they all have depend on somebody. Pick something. And fixing things is going away, you know, and that human capacity of fixing things or building things.
Jimmy Lea: Or the curiosity to take it apart.
Todd Compton: Yeah. Yeah. And creativity.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Todd Compton: Yeah. To build things. Yeah. The carpenters, I can't do anything for it, but carpenters, they have an eye for it. And so, and if you're playing video games all day, you're not exposed to it. You'll never know if you've got the eye for it or not. You never know if you could be an amazing carpenter or not, you know?
Todd Compton: And so that's what we're trying do.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Thanks for putting tools in schools. So, is Daniel still with you guys?
Todd Compton: He is, yes.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. How long's he been? Daniel
Todd Compton: Daniel's done very well. And he's been with me since he was in high school.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. So he's, was he one of your apprentice?
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Nice. Congrats man. That's very cool. And what level technician is he now?
Todd Compton: If he hears this, he's gonna be a a plus.
Todd Compton: He's he's a good between a, a, b and a. Nice. He still, he's still got some learning to do. But he has done I mean at this point it just seems get some experience and get some things are they kind of challenge him very hardly, you know, to, for him to, you know, to start moving on up a little bit.
Jimmy Lea: Totally agree. Totally agree To be an expert. It takes at least 10,000 hours. 10,000 hours is at least five years. And where you were at the dealership at nine years, you were almost twice the expert. Yeah. Daniel's got a little ways to go. He's got four years under his belt, so he's up there. Yep. And we just need to keep challenging him so he doesn't get bored.
Jimmy Lea: That's right. Yeah. Very cool, Todd. Well thank you very much man. I really appreciate you spending some time with me today.
Todd Compton: Absolutely. It's fun.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. We'll talk to you again soon.
Todd Compton: Alright, take care.

173 - Trust Your Gut: How Levi & Sally Built Arvu Auto to Three Locations (and Counting)

173 - Trust Your Gut: How Levi & Sally Built Arvu Auto to Three Locations (and Counting)
November 18, 2025 - 00:42:39
 
Show Summary:
Growing up in a tight knit Finnish farming community, Levi Hendrickson learned to fix equipment out of necessity long before he ever turned a wrench in a shop. He shares how that background, plus time in the North Dakota oil fields and a hydraulic shop, led him back home to start his own business and eventually co own ARVU Auto with his wife, Sally. Levi walks through buying the first Cokato location, building a new ground up facility, and expanding into Watertown and Long Lake with a goal of eight shops in eight years. He explains how culture, family values, and clear expectations shape his acquisition criteria and day to day leadership. From providing full shop tools for young techs to helping employees pay down tool truck debt, Levi is intentional about removing barriers to entry for new technicians. He talks about the importance of building depth so each location can function without him turning wrenches every day. Levi also reflects on the impact of coaching from The Institute and Wayne, especially around vision, clarity, and calm leadership. Looking back, the advice he would give his younger self is simple but powerful: trust your gut and keep moving forward.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Levi Hendrickson, Owner of Arvu Auto
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Levi shares the meaning behind the name ARVU Auto and how he and his wife Sally come from strong Finnish communities.
[00:03:33] – Growing up on a farm taught Levi to fix equipment early, including a memorable lesson about safety when wheels came off a neighbor’s semi.
[00:08:34] – His first job in the Twin Cities gave him a mentor who helped him apply his college training to real diagnostic work.
[00:10:17] – After working in the North Dakota oil fields, Levi returned home, built a client base, and eventually bought his first shop.
[00:12:05] – ARVU’s new Cokato building features a drive-through truck bay, multiple lifts, an alignment rack, and expanded office space.
[00:16:57] – Levi outlines the path to three locations and their long-term goal of eight shops in eight years.
[00:18:33] – Acquisition criteria have shifted toward shops with strong teams and healthy culture, not just good pricing.
[00:21:22] – With three stores, Levi is focused on filling capacity, improving efficiency, and strengthening processes before acquiring more.
[00:26:01] – ARVU provides full shop tools for new techs and builds clear career paths using tracked performance and guided training.
[00:28:33] – Levi supports techs by helping reduce tool debt and focusing on long-term employee stability and growth.
 
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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, my friend. Good to be with you again here, Jimmy Lea with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. You are listening to the Leading Edge podcast, and my guest today is Levi Hendricks, and he is co-owner of ARVU Auto, Levi and Sally Hendrickson. Levi, how are you brother?
Levi Hendrickson: Good. How about yourself, Jimmy?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, fabulous. Thank you very much. And Arvu what does Arvu mean?
Levi Hendrickson: Ar vu is value in finish. So translates to value.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. And so who's Finnish in your family?
Levi Hendrickson: Both me and my wife are.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, awesome. That's cool. Are you doing some family history that you're learning these family roots or what's, how do you know this?
Levi Hendrickson: The community we grew up in, both in very strong Finnish communities and, very large you know, with our faith and, you know, it's very much the same demographic. So.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. That's very cool. How did you meet your wife?
Levi Hendrickson: I met her through a friend that was dating a friend you know, his now wife was friends with Sally, and met through that way.
Levi Hendrickson: Ended up skiing the whole day together and on our kind of first date, so,
Jimmy Lea: wow. Skiing on a first date, was it a blind date? Set
Levi Hendrickson: up? Yeah, kind of, but not really. It was my buddy's now wife asked if anyone else wanted to go skiing with the three of us for the day, and she she said, sure I will.
Levi Hendrickson: And we hit it off from there, so.
Jimmy Lea: Well, good for you. Congrats. How long you been married? How long you been together?
Levi Hendrickson: Well it'll be 11 years January. So.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. That's awesome.
Levi Hendrickson: Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: And you guys have children?
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. We just in March. We just had our first baby boy.
Jimmy Lea: Hey, congratulations.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah, thank you.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. My, my baby boy right now is in Brazil. He's 19. He is serving a mission there with the church. And just loving it.
Levi Hendrickson: Getting some world travel in
Jimmy Lea: world travel developing new language skills just studying a new language and working with the people of Brazil. It's an phenomenal experience. I. Just I, it's very cool. It's very cool what he's doing, so I appreciate him being there. Yeah,
Levi Hendrickson: yeah. Yeah. He'll learn a lot of valuable skills for, you know, working with people.
Levi Hendrickson: Right. And you know, it's a different dynamic when you have a language barrier and now he'll be able to take them skills back to 'em for the rest of his life. So,
Jimmy Lea: that's exactly correct. And you know, these boys, after they come, boys and girls, men and women go on these missions. Mm-hmm. When they come home after two years, 18 months, two years.
Jimmy Lea: They are different people. They have grown up, they are now adulting and they do a very good job of adulting. They've had to look after themselves and budget and money and travel and correspondence and oh yeah. It's just so much fun.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: So much fun. So, Levi, into your history, into your past, how did you get into the automotive industry?
Levi Hendrickson: Well I grew up on a farm. And my dad always fixed cars. So he would kind of do that as a side to the farming. He'd be fixing cars for people and tractors and farm equipment. So I grew up fixing stuff all the time. You know, I was given a little toolbox when I was a kid, so I'd quit stealing his.
Levi Hendrickson: That's so true. Yeah. So, so then yeah, spent a lot of time taking things apart. I don't know how many things I put back together as a kid, but I always took 'em apart. So, but yeah, then got through high school and you know, followed a buddy's path to going to college for automotive. Did that and, really kind of just took off with it and had a fairly entrepreneurial mind going up through high school and doing some other businesses then too.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Congratulations. So back to your toolbox. How old were you when you got your first toolbox?
Levi Hendrickson: Oh I don't recall.
Jimmy Lea: Like, I mean, is this like 5, 6, 7, 8 years old or is this like 11?
Jimmy Lea: That's what I
Levi Hendrickson: would say, probably around 10. So, some, for whatever reason I didn't trash it, I still have it, so it'll get passed down to to my son David, when, once he starts robbing my tools. So,
Jimmy Lea: congratulations, dude. That is super cool. That is super cool. So you got your first toolbox when you were 10 years old, so, and dad was saying this is to preserve my tools and your life.
Jimmy Lea: 'cause if you keep taking my tools, I'm gonna kill you.
Levi Hendrickson: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's good man. So, working on a farm, I, those repairs are almost out of a necessity. The farm equipment's gotta work. It's time to harvest, it's time to seed, it's time to. It has to work. There is no downtime. So your dad working on equipment, was it all his equipment or was this everybody in the community as well?
Levi Hendrickson: So a lot of it was our own equipment that we were, you know, fixing, you know, either, whether we didn't do a lot of maintenance. We got good at learning how to fix on the fly. So, you know, we got got good at using a welder and using a torch and learning how to make things work and. Really testing the bene or, you know, testing how far something really could make it.
Levi Hendrickson: And
Levi Hendrickson: yeah. And then we did do some other maintenance and stuff for some other local people helped them out when they had breakdowns.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, for sure. What's one of your greatest success stories when it comes to a repair that you made as a young man working with your dad?
Levi Hendrickson: Oh boy. I guess I don't have anything jumping off the top of my mind as a success.
Levi Hendrickson: I had a lesson learned as a very young age.
Jimmy Lea: And we call that a success.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Alright. All right. Go ahead. So, I was we're helping a neighbor farmer and me and the neighbor were, we were putting the wheels back on his semi. And I don't remember if we were putting brakes in it or what exactly, but yeah, not too much longer than wheels departed with the semi from the semi going down the road.
Levi Hendrickson: So, learned I don't remember what I was, you know, I remember working hand in hand with him on it, but I don't remember the whole details of it. But, you know, just that safety aspect and being diligent with the work that you're doing and making sure that you're checking over everything and get it right the first time.
Jimmy Lea: For sure. People's lives are in the balance here, and you gotta make sure that you're taking care of their lives. For sure. Wow. Is that also when you were introduced to the torque wrench or the what's that, what's the wrench called? The big handle that you can set the different pressures on it. Yep.
Levi Hendrickson: Yep. That's a torque wrench.
Jimmy Lea: Torque wrench, yeah. So is that when you were introduced to the torque wrench?
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah, it probably was after that, but, the Torque Ranch was brought out for everything. You start learning what things should be set to and learning the values. So,
Jimmy Lea: so true.
Jimmy Lea: There's a really good friend of mine, a really good shop, Sherwood down at he and his son their shop is royalty Auto down in St. Mary's, Florida. And they have a rule that when you torque a tire. Then you call for a second torque and somebody comes right behind you to make sure that you did it properly.
Jimmy Lea: That's their qc.
Levi Hendrickson: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So they call somebody. That's a very good very good procedure. So
Jimmy Lea: yeah, very good procedure. Very good to make sure that you are covering yourself. Yeah. So you decided to follow your buddy. You went off to college for automotive. Mm-hmm. And then what happens after you graduate?
Levi Hendrickson: So I I got a job working down in the Twin Cities right outta college, actually. I think they even let me go a little early so I could get started instead of doing open shop neighbor to my parents weren't, grew up worked at that shop. So he got me the job down there and actually had a phenomenal mentor that worked at that shop.
Levi Hendrickson: He helped me, you know, take all my training and my learning. From college and apply to real life. And, you know, it was it was phenomenal. And we actually ended up just doing an alignment for him today because to, to circle back, that was our third shop that we just bought last year. But we can get more into that later on.
Levi Hendrickson: But so yeah, I did worked the rest of the year for that shop and then. I ended up bouncing out to North Dakota, working in the oil fields as a fleet mechanic out there for one of the companies. So I was working on a lot of you know, pickups and semis and stuff of that nature.
Levi Hendrickson: And you know, so I was kind of rounding my skills and learning the industry and, you know, where, you know, it helped me decide where I wanted to be in this field of mechanics and, and then I also ended up taking a job at a hydraulic shop out there. So it's more of that farmhand knowledge and stuff of that nature that was applied.
Levi Hendrickson: And so then I moved back from there in 2013 and actually started my own company.
Jimmy Lea: How long were you in the oil fields there? Was it North Dakota or South Dakota?
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah, North Dakota. Okay. For a year and a half.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah that's some life lessons you learned real quick. 'cause that's a cold winter.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Well, Minnesota's cold too, but they got some wind out there and That bites.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I was gonna say, North Dakota kind of cuts right through you and Minnesota. I've been there. Yeah. It's cold. But you can wear a nice jacket and you'll be okay.
Levi Hendrickson: Yep. Yeah. North Dakota
Jimmy Lea: cuts.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Yeah. That it does.
Jimmy Lea: So you went straight from the oil fields to starting your own business.
Levi Hendrickson: Yep. So I started my own business. I was kind of doing that out of the shop at the Farm Uhhuh. And I was like, oh I'm gonna be a, an adult. I'm gonna go buy a house now that I'm on my own. Well, that don't quite work. So, the bankers don't like you when you don't have a real job in their eyes.
Levi Hendrickson: So, there was also then another local shop was looking for help. So I did end up going back to work. For a couple local shops for three years. And then after that I had built enough clientele with my own business and everything that I was able to completely go out on my own. And and then six months later we bought our first shop in town with an established clientele base.
Levi Hendrickson: And, you know, then we took off from there. So,
Jimmy Lea: congrats. So which of the three locations is your first.
Jimmy Lea: Cokato because you've got Cokato, long Lake and Watertown.
Levi Hendrickson: Correct.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congrats. So Cokato first, what's the footprint of that one look like?
Levi Hendrickson: So we just actually finished a new ground, ground up build this summer.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah.
Levi Hendrickson: And so we got a 80 by 84 building that we have a drive through Truck Bay in, and then we currently have. Five Ho, or 4, 4 2 posts and alignment rack. And then we got some office space and stuff inside of that, so.
Jimmy Lea: Wow, that's big. That's a big building. Mm-hmm. So, and did you, do I understand that you built that on the first property and you demoed the old building?
Jimmy Lea: Or did you add on the old building?
Levi Hendrickson: So we moved we moved from where we were. We did we bought this lot a couple years ago. So it was a vacant lot on the highway frontage. So we moved about a, I don't know, quarter mile to a, yeah, quarter to a half mile down the road when we moved into this shop.
Levi Hendrickson: So,
Jimmy Lea: dude, congrats man. That's so awesome. And so you've got a big semi-truck pull through five two posts and alignment rack and office space. Correct. Oh my gosh, dude, that, that is awesome. And how long did you have this location in Cokato before you added the second location?
Levi Hendrickson: So it would've been about
Levi Hendrickson: five, four to five years. So in 20 in, let's see, what are we, 25 now? So it would've been 20. 23, I think it was that we started our, that we bought our second location. We'd actually prior to that we'd done a rebranding and kind of structured our business for growth to, you know, we had developed our brand and what we wanted to help us identify the direction of growth we wanted to go.
Levi Hendrickson: So then we found an opportunity to buy a shop, and, build it up and put, you know, build all of our processes and procedures and vet 'em and test 'em and it worked phenomenal. So it's been great.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, good for you, man. That's awesome. So is Long Lake, the second location?
Levi Hendrickson: Long Lake is the third location.
Levi Hendrickson: Watertown was the second
Jimmy Lea: Otter town. And what's the footprint of Watertown? What does that look like?
Levi Hendrickson: So Watertown is like. About 6,000 square feet, I think, on that shop.
Levi Hendrickson: Dude, that's huge.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. So technically we have way more, we have way more space to grow than we currently are utilizing.
Levi Hendrickson: Okay.
Levi Hendrickson: We were originally just in a very small three bay small office.
Levi Hendrickson: Part of the, there, there's two buildings on the premise. Okay. We were in that, the other tenant that was in the other building moved out. I took over that because I knew we wanted to grow it and it was gonna give us better opportunity. So we we don't currently utilize all of it a hundred percent yet, but we are working on growing into to filling it out.
Levi Hendrickson: So,
Jimmy Lea: dude, congrats man. That's awesome. So how many bays, how many lifts have you got there in Watertown second location?
Levi Hendrickson: Currently we have six hoists. Set up there. So we got a bunch of open space Nice. That we can do flat work on and stuff too, yet that, you know, we can add hoist more as we grow.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Hey, are you doing anything with the ados, ADOS systems? If you've got a lot of space you ever looked at that?
Levi Hendrickson: We've kind of looked at it. Both Cokato and Watertown are in a rural market and we don't, we're not seeing the car's volume come through to bring it in and then. We just had a body shop that went full off.
Levi Hendrickson: Full into ados in Cokato oh, good. You know, good partner, working partner there. So, we, you know, we'll be happy to use them and they'll be able to do the calibrations for us when we need.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congrats man. It's good to lock arms with people. 'cause that's how you really elevate and mm-hmm.
Jimmy Lea: You, you're not competition. You're, you are friends in the business and let's work together.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I love that. How long did you then have Watertown before you added Long Lake?
Levi Hendrickson: That would've been about a year and a half.
Jimmy Lea: That's what I was gonna say. It was pretty quick. After getting your second location, you decided for a third, so what prompted the third?
Jimmy Lea: 'cause if the other two were rural are is Long Lake more? Residential more urban.
Levi Hendrickson: Urban? Yeah. It is a direct high suburb of the Twin Cities. So in 22 before we bought another shop, we said we were gonna do eight shops in eight years. So that was our part of our big growth strategy that we wanted to go with our rebranding.
Levi Hendrickson: Love it. The. We had a connection to the Long Lake. We knew new ties, and when it was coming up for sale, we decided that we would just move on it. Maybe it was a little early. But it's it's learning, right? And it's learning what to do, what not to do as we continue to grow and remembering just to keep moving forward with it and you know, keep the positives going of it.
Levi Hendrickson: So.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it, dude. Congrats man. What is the footprint of Long Lake look like?
Levi Hendrickson: So Long Lake is is our smallest facility. I don't remember square footage wise, but it is five it's four bays, five ho and then one of them being alignment rack as well in a small office area with the waiting room and stuff.
Levi Hendrickson: So, still has great capability and ability for capacity. So it's just working on maximizing footprint and everything there. So.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congrats, man. So, in the future, as you're looking for more shops in the area, what are you looking for? What is that ideal client that gets your attention?
Levi Hendrickson: Well, so we've kind of shifted on that, and so right now our first what we went to was more of a price point that was affordable, didn't really have much for employees.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. Had
Levi Hendrickson: equipment, had some, you know, good reputation in the community, right? So. So that worked good, but it turns into a real long game and it takes a lot of my time and it takes a lot of manpower to get it staffed up and do that, so, got it.
Levi Hendrickson: We're gonna start shifting more into looking for probably more of the, an older owner that has good employees that we can, we could make more of a seamless transition into. You know, and I think culture is gonna be a big thing for our what we're looking for in the guys. We're not, you know, if it's, you know, if the culture in the shop that we're looking at buying is not good, we know that the employees that are there probably won't turn out to be very retentive to the way we're gonna run it.
Levi Hendrickson: And the, you know, the family style. Getting everyone together, get rid of the gossip, you know, just, you know, kind of, you know, make it a fun place to work and make it so it's enjoyable for everyone. So,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Yeah, that's important. The company culture goes so far, it's so important. Do you think you could buy a company with a bad culture and repair it?
Jimmy Lea: Or is it best to just steer around it?
Levi Hendrickson: I mean, it's. Possible. It probably would take someone with a lot higher s psychology background than myself might take my wife, Sally, getting in there and digging deep and, you know, and ultimately I think it, it just it would depend because there could be one bad apple in the group that's turned everything sour and you could get rid of one bad apple and it could turn around.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. So very true. I think it would all depend on the, the group as a whole and what we could determine everyone's individual status would be.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. It's true. So you would almost take it in a case by case scenario?
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Yeah. I think we would have to you know, there might be a time we get down the road where it's, where we can figure out how to do bulk buys and deals and figure out how to deal with 'em, but not quite there yet.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome, man. Congrats. Congrats on the expansion. You're growing in some fast leaps and bounds even do you have any shops that are in your crosshairs, anybody that you're looking at that might be up next?
Levi Hendrickson: Nothing. Nothing's on the radar right now. You know, I think we're. We kind of talked that we were going to play a little reserved and build our shops, fill the capa the buildings we got, build our capacity, build our efficiency.
Levi Hendrickson: Because we know how to do a startup. We know how to do a one service writer, two technician shop like the back of our hands. You know, I need to learn how to, you know, turn these into 10, 10 bay shops and stuff. And there's a lot more that goes on. And involved, you know, marketing and employees and how your workload is in a much bigger facility.
Levi Hendrickson: And so that's what we wanna work on, building it. And then by doing that, we'll also solidify our branding side of things and how we're doing it, and what's working. So that way when we do go into another facility. We have that already packaged up and we can just plug and play and hit the ground running.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. And I love that you are taking a minute. You almost call it a breather. You're taking a knee, you're working on process procedures. You're working on that live document with your employees to make it more productive, more efficient, more simple easy to understand so everybody can grab a hold of it and really adopt it as part of their company and culture.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Yep. And it's yeah you have to have the buy-in of your employees. And I don't necessarily know that I like the word buy-in, but like, they have to fit it. Right. And they have to, it has to be second nature to them. And you know, 'cause when they do that, you know, it, all that starts in the back starts for me.
Levi Hendrickson: Leadership goes into them. That just trickles out the door into the community and our customers and, you know, just makes a much better experience.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Speaking of leadership, what does leadership mean to you?
Levi Hendrickson: So, showing and, you know, and showing the proper way of doing it and assisting the people.
Levi Hendrickson: You know, that are around me, not, you know, we're not from the back pushing and saying, you know, trying to slave driver, you know, leading, pulling from the front, giving them the assistance they need to be able to do what they want and, you know, feel included within the argu team.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I love that.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. Yeah. I'm hearing you say that you bring the team together, you're part of the team, you're in the mix, pulling together with the team. You're not out in front saying, come on, pull it this way. You're not back at the back cracking a whip saying, all right, we're going that way. You're in the fray.
Jimmy Lea: You're in the mix with everybody. That's pretty dang cool. So how often do you find yourself working in the business? Turning a wrench, pushing a broom. Too much, right? Daily? Yeah. Yeah.
Levi Hendrickson: Yes it is it has been too much In the last year we bit off way more than we could chew and struggled with some some employee shortages.
Levi Hendrickson: And that's part of the reason why we want to build depth within all of our locations so that way when someone's gone, it's not a fire that I have to be there or filling in for 'em. So just trying to build that depth. And yeah, so it's pretty much every day. And we got a lot of, obviously with a, with growth like that, you have a lot of young employees.
Levi Hendrickson: You have, you know, to you and the company. So you're constantly working with your values and your culture and training them to make sure everything's going, how it should be. So, yeah, a lot of day-to-day stuff still happening to keep the boat rudded in the right direction.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's exactly right. And you've gotta build a bench. You've gotta build people that you can fall back onto and say, okay, this person left you're first on the bench. Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? And you find that right person that comes in and fits your company, fits your culture.
Jimmy Lea: What do you do for those new employees that come in and they're the, you're their first job straight outta school or you're their first job in town that they've come in working with you. What do you do for their career path?
Levi Hendrickson: So, you know, we try to get 'em some hands-on training, you know, as much training as we can.
Levi Hendrickson: To see where they need 'em. You know, we use A-A-D-B-I system that can track their time and how long it takes to do the jobs. And then I can use that to to assess where they're struggling with if I'm not in that shop all the time. So then I can go and work with them one-on-one in certain situations or, you know, we can say, okay, we're not gonna give you that job.
Levi Hendrickson: Until you can work with someone else in the job on it, you know, train and shadow a little bit more with it. The real young guys that you know, don't have any tools or anything. We have shop tools. We have a full set of tools in every shop. So every, you know, you can come in to our shop and you don't need any tools as a young guy, and we have everything for you.
Levi Hendrickson: To be able to do everything as a gs you know, and be able to proficiently do the job too. So, and if it's something you want to get into, you know, then we will, we'll go from there and develop a path for you.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. So do you have a tool allowance for your technicians or how does a brand new GS start to build their toolbox?
Levi Hendrickson: So, I guess we haven't really. You know, I just keep buying stuff and putting stuff in it. So it's kinda what you know, is what we've done. Right. You know, and you know, if they, if it's something that they want to keep going, we will probably just buy a whole nother cart and another set of tools and just say, here you go.
Levi Hendrickson: You know, these are shop tools. Just use them. If you find something that you think you have to have that's not, you know, sure, go ahead and buy it. But otherwise we're trying to buy all the tools at the shop. We're trying to change that part of the industry that, you know, there's no other, as my plumbers are down in the shop working, you know, cha putting some oil lines and some some plumbing lines in, you know, their guys don't have it.
Levi Hendrickson: They're not buying anything more than maybe $500 in pools or something that, a couple drills if even anything. Right. You know? So the company buys all of it. So why? You know? So we're trying to change that part of the industry for ourselves and what we can do and help these younger guys coming in. And just because there's.
Levi Hendrickson: It's not something we really agree with and how this industry went so
Jimmy Lea: well, and I love that you are buying the tools for your technicians and something that I used to do I had a business that I ran for a while, house cleaning, yard care and handyman business. And it was constantly, tools would go missing, tools would fall off the truck, tools would, whatever.
Jimmy Lea: They were just constantly being misplaced. And so I, I bought a drill, a DeWalt, and I said to my handyman, I said, Hey, look, this is your drill. This is company property, and if you stay with me for 12 months, then at the end of 12 months, this is your drill.
Levi Hendrickson: Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Lea: That was the best kept drill of all the equipment on that truck.
Jimmy Lea: And he was with me for 12 months and I said, congrats here. This is your drill now. Congrats. This is yours. Yeah. Take care of it. And so maybe that's an idea that in the automotive industry, we can adopt this idea that says, Hey look, I'm gonna invest 1000, 2000, $3,000 into this toolbox. So if you stay with me for two or three years.
Jimmy Lea: By the end of those two or three years, that is your toolbox. You own it and you write up some documents, some paperwork, they sign it, you sign it, and
Levi Hendrickson: there you go. That keeps, that,
Jimmy Lea: keeps 'em with you as part of the team mm-hmm. For two or three years because they want toolbox and by, and that toolbox will be very well taken care of.
Jimmy Lea: It won't become the junk drawer, it will be well taken care of. And at the end of two or three years now they own it. And thank you. Yeah. You, Levi, thank you to Arvo for helping that technician start to build up their toolbox.
Levi Hendrickson: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, it's a fabulous idea. And you know, we're still a little loose around some of them stuff, so we probably just.
Levi Hendrickson: Wing it and there wouldn't be any paper and we'd go, Merry Christmas that three years or something like that. You know, that's generally how we operate and, you know, try to get the technicians we've done a lot of Christmas bonuses to the truck tool trucks to help some of these guys pay off their tool debt and Oh, that's awesome.
Levi Hendrickson: Get out of that tool that to help free up their life.
Jimmy Lea: And they're tools that they need. There's tools that they need for the industry, tools for the trade. They definitely need 'em. And those tools that they're buying off the Snap-on truck, the Mako truck, they are lifetime warranty, lifetime guarantee tools.
Jimmy Lea: So anytime down the road, if they were to buy some chance, break it, it gets replaced. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. You gotta love that. That's very cool. So you talk about eight locations in eight years. It sounds like you're three or four years into this, you've got three locations. Are we still looking for eight and eight?
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. We're gonna still stay on that path. So,
Jimmy Lea: hello. Yeah.
Levi Hendrickson: So, and I think it's one of them things, once you learn the processes, you get 'em all built, you get the team under you it is gonna help it go much faster. You know, and we're probably gonna have a couple lull years where we don't do a whole lot, but we might pick up a two or three bay in one year, or a two or three shop package deal in one year, or, you know, and you know, that might be the direction we go, but I mean, who knows?
Levi Hendrickson: Maybe we'll get to, we'll get through three and get into five and pull our hair out and say, you know what? This is our sweet zone. This is where we feel comfortable, you know. Not, you know, the goal is to go to eight. We're gonna try push through that, but we'll see what you know, you gotta be able to feel and see the balance in there as you're going and realize that, you know, you gotta keep that balance for work and life and, you know, totally agree.
Levi Hendrickson: Keep everyone happy.
Jimmy Lea: Totally agree. You've gotta set that goal that says, this is where we're going, this is where we're shooting for. And if you get to five and you're like, Ooh, sweet. This is cool. We're good. Or you get to five and you go, oh my gosh, this is so easy. If the deal's right, we're gonna buy it.
Jimmy Lea: Buy it. Don't buy it. Yeah. And you've got it down. I wonder if it becomes that process where like, like with children, they say that your first child's like a handbag and your second child becomes luggage.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. So
Jimmy Lea: you and your wife, one for you, one for her. You can handle it. It's not that.
Jimmy Lea: Ominous, if you will. Yeah. By the third child. The third child becomes a trunk and it becomes huge. It becomes big. And this is like the location where you are right now. You have three locations, three children that you're helping along, and then once you get four and five and six, it's just another mouth to feed.
Jimmy Lea: It's not that big of a deal. You plug in your process, you plug in your procedures, and you just keep going and going and pretty soon you look up and you go, oh, hey, look at that. We got a basketball team, we got a football team, we got a baseball team. We've gone from five to nine to 12. Okay.
Jimmy Lea: No, we're good. Let's keep going.
Levi Hendrickson: Yep, yep. Well, and then too, as time goes on, they start supporting and helping. Helping each other out. Right. So yeah, the early stages, everyone's learning and developing on their own. And you know, as after everyone's done, you know, developing themselves and getting to where they need to be.
Levi Hendrickson: Well, now we can. We can help some of them other people get developed and bring them up and it's gonna bring everything up. So,
Jimmy Lea: oh, I love it. I love it, bro. That's awesome. And it, imagine this scenario here. You've got 10, 12, 20, 30, 40, 50 locations, the opportunities that's gonna provide for technicians to grow and come up in the business.
Jimmy Lea: Now you want to talk about a career path. You're gonna come on as a general service technician, and then we're gonna teach you and train you, and then you're gonna be a c technician. We're gonna help you. We're still assist. And you'll be a B technician and then an a technician. And now you're gonna become a shop foreman.
Jimmy Lea: And once you're past a shop foreman, now you're gonna be a regional director, regional manager. You'll have three or four locations that you're managing and growing. And then, so there's so much that can be done. So much opportunity for growth for a guy who comes out of high school, comes out of college and starts by turning a wrench and being that general service technician, you are able to really put out a path in front of them that they can see it, they can smell it, they can feel it, they can taste it, that says, oh my gosh, this is gonna be amazing.
Jimmy Lea: I am gonna stay here with RVU as much as I possibly can 'cause we are gonna build this business. It's gonna be the best there is in Minnesota.
Levi Hendrickson: Yep. Yeah. Well, and that's, you know, a lot of these young people do wanna see the route. You know, I hear all the time of young guys leaving their job and they're, and some of these people do exit interviews, and they're like, well, we just, you know, I didn't see where I was gonna go.
Levi Hendrickson: Or they're like, well, here's where you could've gone. And they're like, as an owner, you failed your employee because you didn't tell 'em that, you didn't lay it out for 'em. You didn't show 'em the. Show 'em the path of, to their success, you know, without them knowing that it's just day to them.
Levi Hendrickson: So,
Jimmy Lea: and they can't guess You've gotta tell 'em mm-hmm. That you're leaving it up to their imagination. They're gonna create the scenario that fits their imagination. And it's probably not anywhere near or anywhere close to what you actually have in mind because you do want them to succeed.
Jimmy Lea: You do wanna see them successful in life. Career wise and family wise and personally wise and spiritually, you want to see them develop and learn and grow.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah, definitely.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. Man you've got such a great opportunity. You've got such a great foundation. I can see here where Wayne's your coach, right, with the institute.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Correct. You got anything good to say about Wayne?
Levi Hendrickson: I mean, Wayne's I mean, Wayne sees something in us, so, you know, he definitely wants us to succeed. And you know, he makes sure that he connects with us and you know, it's, yeah it's all great. And I don't know. I mean, he's sticking with us even through his move within the company and you know, so it'll be fun.
Jimmy Lea: I say that tongue in cheek because I think the world of Wayne, I think he does a phenomenal job. I think that the shops that he works with, like you, he sees that potential in you. He knows it's there and he's gonna help work with you to bring it to fruition. It's gonna, it will rise to the top. Keep working with Wayne 'cause he will definitely get you there.
Jimmy Lea: I think the world of Wayne, I think he's doing a phenomenal job for the institute as well. Mm-hmm. So it's almost like he's a coach for a coaching company as the CEO Wayne's doing a yeah, a Cracker Jack job, man. He's awesome. We're absolutely loving it. Loving it.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Ron that's part of his position, right?
Levi Hendrickson: To be a coach and to lead and so yeah, a phenomenal man for the job. So.
Jimmy Lea: He is. He is, and he is doing a great job coaching us. He's doing a great job. Cheerleading us. He's doing a great job. Painting the picture of the future, what it's gonna look like, how we're gonna get there, what the air's gonna be.
Jimmy Lea: Crisp. It's clean. Easy to breathe. Oh yeah, man it's so much. Yeah, so much fun. Love it.
Levi Hendrickson: Paint paints the whole picture.
Jimmy Lea: He does. You have to do that with clarity. And be precise in it and do it calmly. You can't let emotions take over. So I think does a great, that's,
Levi Hendrickson: yes, that's very challenging.
Levi Hendrickson: That takes a lot of patience and clarity just makes me think, you know, you just, you gotta speak some of that stuff to the mirror a few times, so that way, you know, it sounds clear in your head, but it don't always come out clear. So.
Levi Hendrickson: Rehearse. Rehearse.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. How many times have you said something and at the end of it you go, you know, that sounded better in my head, but now that I've said it out loud, let me come back.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, definitely.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it happens. It happens. Well, Levi you have a phenomenal shop. You have phenomenal locations. I just think the world of what you're doing, I think Minnesota is such a beautiful, ripe area for you to grow your business and grow. Grow yourself personally, your family. Your business.
Jimmy Lea: It is just phenomenal. If you were to have, Levi, if you were to have a magic wand and you can't wish for more wishes, but you can make a wish, what would you change in the industry? What would you change in your life? What would you change in your business? What would you change? What's your one wish?
Levi Hendrickson: Oh boy. I see something, I feel like
Levi Hendrickson: magic wand, I don't, you know, that's hard because I feel like it's gotta be something with family because it all strives from the family. But, you know, we've been very happy. We've been very blessed and, you know, I say, you know, so I just, I guess. I hope the good fortune goes with us on our family side and, you know, and that'll, you know, trickle down through our business and going forward.
Levi Hendrickson: So,
Jimmy Lea: bless you. Bless you, and bless your family brother. That is awesome. I applaud you for thinking of your family with your one wish that Congratulations.
Levi Hendrickson: Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: I'm gonna follow that up with one more question here for you, Levi. If you were to be able to stand next to yourself today, and you are starting, you just moved back from North Dakota, back to Minneapolis.
Jimmy Lea: No, not Minneapolis. You're in Minnesota. You moved back to Minnesota. What advice would you give yourself starting today in the businesses that you're starting, as with now? What advice would you give yourself?
Levi Hendrickson: Well, I would say just, you know, trust your gut. Go, you know, don't you know, everything's meant to happen, right? So just don't trust your gut and keep going with it. Right. And then, you know, and that's how we still continue to live. And I think, you know, and then you don't, you're not fighting yourself on decisions or anything of that nature.
Levi Hendrickson: So
Jimmy Lea: trust your gut and your gut's gonna tell you the right thing to do.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. I like that. That's good. That's good advice. So that advice is applicable in, when it comes to starting your business, expanding your business, looking at other locations trust your gut with something feels like it's wrong, it's probably wrong.
Levi Hendrickson: Yeah. Yeah. Correct.
Jimmy Lea: That's sound advice, brother, that, that's really good sound advice, Levi, thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Levi Hendrickson: Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and as you know, we here at the Institute, we're all about building a better business for you, results in a better life, and a net result, if we all have a better business and we all have a better life, then we're all going to experience a better industry.
Jimmy Lea: That's our desire here at the Institute. That's my desire in working with shops all across North America, is to build a better industry. And I'm glad to be partnered with you, Levi, as we lock arms together, make sure nobody's left behind.
Levi Hendrickson: Thank you, Jimmy. We're glad the institutes took us in and helped us helped us do that, so.
Jimmy Lea: Awesome. Thank you so much, Levi. I really appreciate the time, man. Thank you very much.
Levi Hendrickson: Sounds good. Yeah, thanks Jimmy.

172 - Three Locations and a Whole Lot of SOPs with John Lascuola at LMW Auto Repair

172 - Three Locations and a Whole Lot of SOPs with John Lascuola at LMW Auto Repair
November 20, 2025 - 00:42:47
 
Show Summary:
This conversation follows how LMW Auto Repair grew from John Lascuola’s dad working out of a home garage in the 1980s to a three location multi shop operator (multi shop operation) in Maryland. John shares how his father, mother, and brother held down a tiny three bay shop for nearly 30 years before he joined in 2020 to focus purely on systems, branding, and marketing during COVID. He walks through the aggressive timeline of finding a “unicorn” second location in Eldersburg, keeping and upgrading the original Randallstown store, and then adding a third shop in Owings Mills. John explains how consolidating everything into one shared drive, creating 50 to 60 SOPs, and adding QR code training on equipment made growth repeatable and easier on his people. They dive into the realities of family business, including when someone you love should not be in a certain role and how to balance loyalty with what is best for the company. John introduces the LMW Community Foundation, which gives away repaired vehicles to people in need, funds the work with company profits and donations, and hosts youth volunteer events and car care classes. He closes by talking about his wish to understand people more deeply so he can communicate better and lead his growing team with clarity and empathy.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
John Lascuola, Owner of LMW Auto Repair
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Jimmy introduces guest John Lascuola of LMW Auto Repair, a family business now operating three Maryland locations.
[00:01:35] – John shares how his dad started fixing cars out of their home garage before opening the first official shop in the late 1980s.
[00:05:33] – He explains why he’s heavily reinvesting in the original Randallstown store so it becomes their flagship location.
[00:07:34] – John talks about joining the business in 2020 and focusing entirely on systems, organization, and marketing rather than wrenching.
[00:10:30] – The Eldersburg “unicorn” building appears in late 2020, leading to a rapid close and grand opening in May 2021.
[00:11:19] – John details staffing and bay counts across all shops and why he plans to pause expansion at three to strengthen processes.
[00:16:04] – He breaks down how 50–60 SOPs and QR-coded equipment training made onboarding simple and operations consistent.
[00:21:13] – John gives candid advice on the realities of family businesses and having hard conversations about who should wear which hats.
[00:30:06] – He introduces the LMW Community Foundation, which has already given away more than a dozen vehicles to people in need.
[00:39:59] – John shares that his magic-wand wish would be the ability to understand people better so he can communicate and lead more effectively.
 
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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, friend, Jimmy Lee here with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is John Lascuola, did I say that right, John? Very close. Lascuola Lascuola, John Lascuola with LMW Auto Repair outta Maryland, and it looks like you guys have three locations.
Jimmy Lea: Yes, sir. That is awesome. I'm so excited to dive in and get to the details of three locations and family run, family owned business, because you guys are all in the business. Which goes to the first question, how did you get started? How I, it's probably pretty obvious how you got started, but how did Pops get started?
Jimmy Lea: Where's the start of the business?
John Lascuola: Yeah, so he actually worked for a local Toyota dealership. I think they were called r and h Toyota way back in the mid eighties. He was working on cars and just kind of one day thought, you know, I could probably. Do this myself out of the garage at home.
John Lascuola: And it was probably back in the eighties where that was maybe a little more, a little easier to do.
Jimmy Lea: A little bit more lenient right there. Yeah.
John Lascuola: Right. When it comes to legal issues. So, yeah, he opened a business right out of his garage at our home in Baltimore County. Ran it out of the garage for I wanna say about a year or two.
John Lascuola: And then we got a building I want to say in 88. Then 89 we officially established the corporation that we have today. So, so that's how we, that's how we got started,
Jimmy Lea: bro. And you know, what's interesting about that, John is there are so many, even today that are starting out of their garage.
Jimmy Lea: They're starting out of the barn at the back of the house. They're starting out of a storage unit. I was talking to a guy just yesterday, start out of a storage unit. It was in there for four years. Yeah, before he finally decided to strike out on his own and got a brick and mortar facility. And the guy that he had partnered with, they, they parted ways.
Jimmy Lea: 'cause the one guy's like, man, I'm good. I got this day job, but I'm doing this nights and weekends outta the storage unit. And my buddy and the guy I interviewed was like, nah p piece bro. This has been great, but I'm tired of crawling around on the floor and I'm sure that's what happened with your dad as well.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
John Lascuola: Oh yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. But yeah, no, I mean that, yeah. That's how we started. And I'm sure a lot of people get started that way and hey, I mean, you know, hustle to get into it. However you gotta, you know?
Jimmy Lea: That's it. That's it. The hustle. I, and I love this industry. I love the automotive aftermarket because there is so much hustle.
Jimmy Lea: There is work. They're not afraid to work. They know how to work and they know how to work hard and. Smart. And that's what I'm seeing happen here recently is the intelligence, the training, the desire for more knowledge is becoming stronger and stronger. So I love that. So Pop starts, what is the first shop?
Jimmy Lea: What does that look like in 88? And dude, you must have been like. I wasn't
John Lascuola: alive.
Jimmy Lea: I wasn't alive. You weren't alive. Okay. Any pop's First shop? What, do you know what that looks like? Do you know the footprint of all that?
John Lascuola: Yeah. Yeah. So there's pictures. And actually at one of our locations we kind of have like a from humble beginnings wall with a bunch of pictures.
John Lascuola: And some of them include that first shop. It was a brick brick. I don't even know if it was brick. Just these big, heavy, like cinder block stone building. Not high ceilings at all. I think he only had a couple, I think he maybe had like two, two posts in there. It was not a building that you should, that is conventionally used for auto repair, so it was, oh,
Jimmy Lea: true.
Jimmy Lea: Do you know Lucas Underwood? Do you know that name?
John Lascuola: I know the name. Yeah I've seen some stuff from him. Yep.
Jimmy Lea: So his first shop? Mm-hmm. He had three bays. One actually had a tall ceiling, one, another one had a tall ceiling, but his third bay was seven and a half foot ceilings. Oh my gosh. How do you do that?
Jimmy Lea: I
John Lascuola: don't know. That's a flat day if you ask me.
Jimmy Lea: Y yeah. Oh to jack up the cars and try and change out a transmission. You just rested on your chest and tried. You was working on
John Lascuola: creepers. Yeah. Yeah, right.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, no. You couldn't even fit a creeper under there. You were on your, oh my god. Back.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. To. Lucas his humble starting and now he has a garage. Mahal. Oh, it's the big red barn. It is massive. You can pull two RVs all totally inside, have 'em on lifts and plus six or eight different lifts for other cars as well. So he's got like a 10 bay shop and running a three bay shop is totally different.
Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. Than running a 10 bay. Absolutely. So Pops has the first location. Mm-hmm. Few bays. When does he
John Lascuola: expand? So actually they, we, we didn't do any expanding. We were in that building. We, there was some an, a different building came available that was maybe I don't know, half a mile up the road from that fit our needs a little bit better.
John Lascuola: Love it. It was still a three so technically it was one bay door. And we could barely squeeze three bays into it. So it was two, two posts and an alignment rack. And that's what we were from 19, I think we moved buildings in 91, so early nineties we were that until 2020 or 2021. Yep.
Jimmy Lea: No way.
Jimmy Lea: So in 21 is when you expanded and yeah. Did you move locations in 21?
John Lascuola: No no. We Do
Jimmy Lea: you still have the shop?
John Lascuola: We still have it. I've actually poured a healthy, a very healthy amount of money into that location. We've got a building expansion plan. We're adding four more bays onto it. Done a lot of stuff to the property, so I'm trying to make sure that our original home store.
John Lascuola: Turns into our nicest. That's my goal.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congrats. Dude. I love you honoring the history and the everything that's there, man. Oh, that, that does my heart. Good. Congrats man. Congrats. That's super cool. I. That is very cool. Okay, so you've got the one location, when do you add the other two?
John Lascuola: So, yeah, so that was I don't know if you want a little bit of context, but Yeah. The family business was my father, my mother, and my brother. And they were in that one three Bay shop for, like I said, what was that, about 25, 30 years roughly? Yeah, long time.
Jimmy Lea: Long time.
John Lascuola: So they were there my dad ended up retiring I want to say mid like 20 15, 20 16 ish.
John Lascuola: So it was just my mom and my brother. Wow. And it was just really hard for them to work on the business because my brother was working on cars, he was selling tickets. My mom was doing all the accounting. She was helping with all the administrative, so there wasn't really a lot of time to work on the business.
John Lascuola: Yeah. And in, in late 2020, I kind of got more or less recruited. As the son that went to college. So, I don't really know anything about cars. It's not my jam. My degree is in environmental science, so it's not even super applicable to auto repair. But I really like organization.
John Lascuola: I like systems, I love marketing. I just find it interesting. Yes. So I got in there and I didn't have to work on cars. I didn't have to write up tickets. I was solely focused on how can we improve processes? How can we get more cars in the door? How can we improve curb appeal, you know, branding, creating an identity?
John Lascuola: Who are we, you know? So that was our big focus. And that's when we started to tighten up on our processes. A, a new building became available. And I just, I, it was a unicorn. It was a total unicorn. And I said, this is it. We gotta go for it. This is gonna be everything. And we snagged it when we threw a bunch of Hail Marys and we got very lucky and it worked out.
John Lascuola: So yeah that's how we got store number two. And store number two gave us the cash flow to reinvest back into store one and then also to open store three. So yeah. Okay.
Jimmy Lea: So which one is first? Ralston.
John Lascuola: Randallstown. Randallstown. Randallstown.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Randallstown is first and then Eldersburg. That was store number two and then Owings Mills was
John Lascuola: three.
John Lascuola: Yep. That, we just opened that in November of last year.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. So everybody who's listening to this, let's put this in perspective, your family, mom and dad and oldest brother ran the business for 30 years, and I'm sure that there was a super big fear factor bringing in the college student to run the business.
Jimmy Lea: When the college student came and said, oh my gosh, you guys, I found this building in Eldersburg. You gotta come check this out. We have to move on this for them. I'm sure you are moving the cheese so far out of their comfort zone that they could not even wrap their heads around it. They're like, okay dude, John, we are putting total faith in you on this.
Jimmy Lea: We believe in you. We're gonna do it. Yeah, but you're scaring the crap out of us
John Lascuola: a Absolutely, yeah. That is a hundred percent. What happened? There was a lot of conversations of me and I tried to do as much legwork as I could to show 'em the numbers, look at the demographics, say, look, you know, this is it.
John Lascuola: We can make it, like, look at the projected expenses and say, look, I really think that this makes sense for us. But yeah, they, it was, and I get it. I mean, if your head's not in it, you're not the one doing all the homework. It just sounds super scary. You know our yeah, absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Well, and for 30 years they were a single location, two lifts, an alignment rack.
Jimmy Lea: That was it. Their idea of expansion was working more hours, not actually buying another shop. Hundred percent.
John Lascuola: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So props to you, bro, because here you came on in 2020 and put in perspective, I remember 2020, that was COVID extraordinaire. That was some interesting times. So at what point, from 2020 did you find and close on the second location?
Jimmy Lea: What does that look like?
John Lascuola: Yeah, so I came on board, goodness, I wanna say summer of 2020. We found the Eldersburg store I want to say either November or December of 2020, and then we closed on it in February or March, and then we opened it in eight excuse me, in May, beginning of May.
Jimmy Lea: In May of 21, 21.
Jimmy Lea: Correct. Okay. Wow. Very, I mean, this is fast. This is happening quickly. It was aggressively fast. Yeah. And props to you for doing the legwork, the homework and the groundwork. You were making stuff happen. At what point did you find the third location? Owings Mills?
John Lascuola: Mm-hmm. So, Owings Mills was a bit of a different story that I looked for about two years.
John Lascuola: It's not a unicorn, but it's certainly a great location. I think we're doing fantastic there. We've only been there a little over a year. We're already starting to get cashflow positive in that location. But it's, it definitely was a lot more leg work. We got very lucky with Eldersburg.
John Lascuola: That was a unicorn that fell into our lap and I was very grateful that we found that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, you were blessed right there. That's awesome. Yeah, I gotta look for more of those blessings. So, that's awesome and I love where you're at. How many technicians total, how many service advisors total?
Jimmy Lea: Where are you at demographic
John Lascuola: wise? Absolutely. So we have about 10 technicians for the whole company. So, I have four in Eldersburg. That is a four two post lift, one alignment rack store. I have four in Owings Mills. That is a four two post and alignment one alignment rack store.
John Lascuola: And then I have two in Randallstown at the moment. 'cause currently that is still two, two posts. And rack. However, with the new building that we have planned, that'll add four extra bays and I'll be hiring some extra techs. Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: nice. So you're gonna go up to six lifts at Randallstown
John Lascuola: six plus Rack? Yes.
John Lascuola: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Nice dude that's awesome. It sounds like you got this four bay four post. Forklift business down pat. So this new one, you're adding a, an extra two, probably a small lift. It won't be that much different for you which is awesome. Congrats. Yeah. What does the future look like? What are, where are you gonna go?
Jimmy Lea: Now that you have the three, are you adding more or what's the goal?
John Lascuola: Yeah, so I've kind of always said that it just depends on if the perfect thing comes along. I was aggressively looking for number three. I'm comfortable at number three. And I really wanna stay here for a while, hone our processes and really dial into systems and making sure that we're just killing it every single day and every way that we can.
John Lascuola: So,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Well, and it's good to build the coffers again. I was talking to Dan Garlock Silver. Otto he's in Lac, Wisconsin. I love saying that. Yeah. He's like 7, 8, 9 locations and he is like, no we're gonna pause here for a minute. We're good where we're at. But we're gonna pause and just build the coffers back up, and then we'll aggressively go after some more.
Jimmy Lea: So, you know, yeah, keep your eyes open. Keep your ear to the ground, keep listening for that perfect opportunity, and you'll find another elder Eldersburg. Absolutely. And you'll find that in another unicorn. And what's interesting I heard this from Michael Smith. He talks about when you're looking for unicorns, you've got to put out unicorn bait.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. What does that say to you? What does that resonate to you?
John Lascuola: I don't know. I would love to know what unicorn beta is and get some of it, because that would be great.
Jimmy Lea: Right, right. So if you're looking for and this goes for technicians, it goes for finding the shops as well. If you are looking for unicorn technicians mm-hmm.
Jimmy Lea: They don't hang out with the deer in the middle of the field there Oh, sure. In the trees and Right. They. Are attracted by different things than the deer or the mule would be. Absolutely. So if you're looking for unicorn, you gotta make a unicorn call. You've gotta put out the bait for a unicorn.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. And you will find those technicians that are the unicorns, you will find those locations that are the unicorns if. You're putting out that vibe and you have that company culture and you're talking even to your technicians, Hey, who do you guys know? Who do you know where, do you know what's a shop that you think would be perfect for us?
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. That would fit our company, that would fit our culture? And it sounds like you've got that down pat, which is beautiful. What I hear from shop owners too is once you get past the three, it just becomes. The almost a rubber stamp e every place is unique in it's unique own way, but it becomes a rubber stamp that you're able to take your current process procedure and just put it in place in the new location.
John Lascuola: Yeah, absolutely. I mean that, that was our big focus for this year after we opened number three, was really honing into. Our organizational structure as a company, and I mean, we got we hammered down we used to have, you know, some processes, paper forms, and some of them were on the Google Drive and we had a OneDrive, a Microsoft OneDrive, and I said, Nope.
John Lascuola: We scrapped all that stuff. Compiled it all in one drive. Organized pathways. We've got I probably made about 50 or 60 new SOPs this year. Nice. I mean, we've got, we've really dialed into, you know, an exact process for almost every part of the job to really just try and make an easily repeatable.
John Lascuola: Valuable resource for the employees too. That way they're not having to constantly stop and say, oh my gosh, how does he want it done Again? They can just, you know, go look at the SOP. You can search for it right in your Google Drive. It's super easy.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And well, and every technician probably has a computer, so it's easy for 'em to look it up.
Jimmy Lea: It's just right there. Yep. And it to the SOPs. Are you doing SOPs for even? This is how we open the shop. In the morning.
John Lascuola: Oh yeah. I've got SOPs on the silliest stuff. I mean, I, well, what I think might be silly, but not everybody thinks that way. I, we also have I, I have QR codes on all my equipment, and we made videos of kind of explaining that way when we have a new hire, they may know how to use a tire balancer.
John Lascuola: They don't know how to use our tire balancer necessarily. So we've got QR codes on all of our equipment where we're, and it's us. It's not some, you know. Other company, it's me with my cell phone and you know, one of my techs and we're just kind of very casually, you know, 'cause we're not Walmart here, but, you know, I still like to use the technology and.
John Lascuola: And try. And I like it. I think it's a nice personal touch, but also super helpful. But that's just,
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So anybody who's listening to this, you just blew their mind with this capability. Really and truly. I, this, that what you are just doing is revolutionary. I have not seen another shop that's doing this.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. Okay. And if there is somebody who is listening, that also does QR code to explain what that. Equipment does and how it works and what's the proper process procedure to, to do that machine or that unit. Mm-hmm. I would love to hear from them, John. That is amazing. That's next level. That's. That's awesome, bro.
Jimmy Lea: And I love that you have all your process procedures into one location and what you talk about a silly process. Mm-hmm. The silly one is the one you've never written down because you think it should be done one way and they think it should be done another way. And until you put it into a process procedure, they're gonna create their own path.
Jimmy Lea: And that's not your path.
John Lascuola: Yeah, absolutely. That is a good point. Yeah, it's definitely exactly like you said the, I totally agree.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Congrats for putting this all in process, procedure. You are doing things that I don't think your brother or your mother would've ever been able to do working on the business to the point of process procedures.
John Lascuola: Yeah. Well, I mean, and a lot of that just comes down to, it's hard, I get it. When you're. When you're working on cars or service writing or working on cars and service writing or working on cars, service writing, managing employee, when you're wearing all those hats, it is so hard to go marketing and then branding and you know, organizational systems and process like I get it.
John Lascuola: The we were very blessed. I don't fault them at all. We were very blessed that I just happened to be in a situation where financially I didn't really need a lot of money. They were able to not pay me a whole lot. Plus it's my family business. I didn't mind helping out. I happen to be not terrible at it.
John Lascuola: That was my only job. You know, it was very easy for me because Monday through Friday, eight to five, all I'm thinking about is, you know, all of the on the business stuff, not in the business stuff. So I get, I totally get how it can be hard to, you know, put in those 60, 70, 80 hour weeks, you know, because you gotta work in the business.
John Lascuola: And then when you're clocked at, you know, when it's not eight to five, now you gotta start working on the business. It's tough. It pays it, it definitely pays off. That's for darn sure.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and what you're talking about, these are the things that keep shop owners up at night.
John Lascuola: Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Lea: Is, oh man, I've gotta make policy, process procedures to make it easier for my technicians.
Jimmy Lea: And then they get in the office and they're like, oh, I'm now gonna do my PO process procedure. And you get deep into your inbox or you get deep into something else, or deep into accounting and pretty soon it's lunchtime and you haven't even. The cursor's still flashing. Yeah. You haven't even gotten process one done yet.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. So it's beautiful that you've been able to do that. Question for you with the family run business, there's a lot of dudes and dts, there's a lot of men and women out in this industry who are working in a family environment. What advice would you give to another. Person like yourself in that situation where you're working for the family business in a position of responsibility, how what advice would you give that person?
John Lascuola: I think my biggest advice for anybody in a family owned business, and it's tough and it's tough advice to follow and it's advice that has been hard for me to me and my family to follow at times is. Decide what you want. Do you want a successful business or do you want, or do you want a comfortable family environment and you kind of need to prioritize one or the other?
John Lascuola: There are, I think, compromises that can be made. But a lot of times you have to make hard decisions where you go, Hey, you know, I know you wanna wear this hat, but I don't know if this is the best hat for you to wear. Or you might even have to have situations where you say, Hey I thought, you know, it might be good to have you involved in this aspect, but maybe it's better if we just, you know, let's just see each other at Thanksgiving and Christmas and let's leave the B You know, sometimes you have to have those hard conversations, and I think that is a lot of things that, a lot of that, that, that is something that a lot of family business owners struggle to, to face head on, is separating.
John Lascuola: You know, when you're the business owner and when you're the family member. And I think that's my biggest advice for everybody is have those uncomfortable conversations, face those uncomfortable realities and address those things head on. It might make things a little tricky. But it's worth it if you want to grow and have a successful business, and if that's your main goal is having a successful business, then pursue that.
John Lascuola: And if you can do that with family members, that's amazing. And I love that. And there's a lot of amazing perks. There is nothing better than having business partners that you can trust fully and totally. I mean, that is. An invaluable resource. It really is. But just make sure that your mind and your P's and Q's and you're facing reality when it comes to what people are good at and what hats people should be wearing.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. And even in that situation I know of family run businesses where one member of the family in an unscrupulous manner took advantage of the entire family Sure. And really did bankrupt. The entire business and the other members of the family. So even with the family and you have absolute confidence and trust in them, still know your numbers.
Jimmy Lea: Pay attention to your numbers. 'cause the numbers won't lie. Absolutely. Yeah.
John Lascuola: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Pay attention to your numbers. You have to.
John Lascuola: And that is that, sorry. That is an excellent point. Yeah, I, I wasn't trying to insinuate that just 'cause they're family. You never have to, that's one of those uncomfortable things is Yeah.
John Lascuola: You know, there, there is a little bit of, you know, contingency plans that you should put in place, you know, even with family businesses. You're a hundred percent correct. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And there are, there is family that we choose. Yep. Absolutely right. And that family that we choose can be that friend or that confidant or that business partner.
Jimmy Lea: And because you choose them, they're part of the family. So you mentioned something interesting hey, we'll only see you at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
John Lascuola: Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Lea: What does that mean?
John Lascuola: Just meaning that if you, I, I have. I talked with a lot of shop owners and I feel like I have talked to some shop owners that are in family businesses that are partnered with people that shouldn't be involved anymore.
John Lascuola: Either they lost the passion for it. They never had it. They just really weren't. One of them's a rock star and one of them's mediocre. And I'm sorry if I'm speaking bluntly, but that's the reality sometimes. And as soon as it's, as soon as you realize that, having that uncomfortable conversation of being, you know, saying as nicely as possibly, you know, I love you, your family.
John Lascuola: I'm always gonna see every year, you know, as long as you'll have me. But you know, maybe you being involved in this business. Isn't the best choice for the business. You know, having that conversation. And it's tough. It's not an easy one to have.
Jimmy Lea: It is a tough conversation in fact, Cecil the founder of the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, his son worked for him.
Jimmy Lea: And it, it took him about a year and a half before he was finally able to let his son go. Ah, yeah. That's tough. Yeah, it is tough. And his son, his namesake, his son is Cecil Jr. Maybe he's the third. I think he's the third. It, it is hard. It is tough, man. It's tough working for family and I applaud you for being able to do it.
John Lascuola: Thanks. I yeah, I mean, it's tough and it's also not tough. Like I get why it's so hard.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. It's
John Lascuola: just I wish more people could realize if you tried to make me a technician, you should fire me. I'm terrible. Working on co. Like, if I was in that position, I would want somebody to be like, you have no business working on cars.
John Lascuola: I'm just. I'm not good at it. I never was. It's been a family business. I've tried several times and I just don't have the mindset for it. So it's like the old saying, you know, you don't judge a fish by how well he can climb a tree. Like, you know, you're good at what you're gonna be good at.
John Lascuola: And once we figure out that something's not clicking let's face it, head on together. It just can get, I think pride can get involved and ego can get involved, and it sucks when you've got a family legacy that you think you're gonna be a part of.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
John Lascuola: That you're not gonna be, but that's okay.
John Lascuola: You're gonna find your own way in this life, and it doesn't need to be that, you know?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And I love what you're saying there. I love the analogy too. You can't judge a fish by how well it climbs a tree. We're all d. We all have different strengths. 'cause you can't judge a, an eagle by how well it swims in a lake.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent. They each have their own strengths. So where are your strengths? Where do they lie and how can they fit in with the business? And maybe they don't. Yeah, right. And that's okay.
John Lascuola: Absolutely. A hundred
Jimmy Lea: percent. Tough decisions to make. I think I'm there's so many businesses right now just running through my head of family run businesses performance place.
Jimmy Lea: Tracy Holt and his sister they own the shop here in, in West Jordan, Utah, or Sandy, Utah. Denny's auto father-in-law started the business son-in-law, took over the business and now his son is working in the business. Oh, that's awesome. Beautiful family dynamic there. And there's so many more. I'm Oh, Colin.
Jimmy Lea: In fact, he's out by you. Do you know Colin? Dude, his last name starts with an A and it has a couple Z's in it.
John Lascuola: I don't know. Is, you said he is in Maryland.
Jimmy Lea: Is he in Maryland? Is he in Maryland? He might be in Jersey. Okay. I'll have to find out. Super awesome family. They, in fact, a similar situation.
Jimmy Lea: They had a three Bay, two Bay or three Bay. Mm-hmm. Sold it and now have a 14 bay shop or a 16 shop. Oh, holy cow. Holy. Yeah. And so he's going through the same learning curves as what? You did and Lucas Underwood did and a lot of other guys. 'cause you don't run a two three bay the same way. 10 Bay.
Jimmy Lea: So I'm sure he's right in the position you are of creating all his SOPs and all his,
John Lascuola: that's a big jump too. That's big.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Yeah. And he basically went across town so. Previous customer base is probably not gonna come into his ah, new place.
John Lascuola: Scary stuff. Definitely exciting but scary.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Exciting but scary is correct. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna attempt this last name. Sure. Holland Emma Za roso o. It does not A-M-M-A-Z-Z-A-L-O-R-S-O. Does not
John Lascuola: sound familiar.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. His mother's name is Beth. Super awesome people, family run business. His expansion plan is extraordinary as well. He wants to grow to a hundred locations within the next 10 years.
John Lascuola: Holy cow. Wow. I felt mine was aggressive.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no, he, and he already has it in his mind that he wants to be doing. You know, blah, blah, blah, and these are calculations from a couple years ago. He was like no. $6.4 billion per year type of deal. Wow. I'm like, okay, but wait a second. A hundred locations.
Jimmy Lea: Maybe you want to a little bit higher anyways.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, it's fun. It's fun. So what is the future for your shops? What is the future for your business? LMW Auto Repair.
John Lascuola: So the future for our business I know I didn't really get into this too much earlier. We have a nonprofit so we fix up vehicles for community members in need.
John Lascuola: And kind of all of my scale and my growth, I really feel. Stems from trying to fuel that nonprofit. More so, the more locations I open up, the more we grow. The more I can fuel that nonprofit, the more I feel like I can help my community. That really is just coming down to obviously, yes, it's nice to make more money.
John Lascuola: Yes. It's nice to grow the work family and, you know, be able to get to know so many more, you know, lovely technicians and service advisors and managers. I love that. But really what I'm passionate about is getting involved and just really trying to help our community. I think we've given away somewhere between I've got a written down somewhere, 13 or 14 cars and we just started the nonprofit a year and a half, two years ago.
John Lascuola: We're just, we started doing community youth events, getting the youth involved in volunteering. We did some tree planting events. I'm just, yeah,
Jimmy Lea: dude, I love that. That's awesome. John, with your community foundation, are you getting people to donate their cars?
John Lascuola: Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Parts stores to donate the parts text to donate their time.
Jimmy Lea: There's a whole big PR opportunity here.
John Lascuola: Yeah, no, a absolutely. So, most of our cars are donated. I've been trying to work some stuff out with some parts stores. I haven't been as fortunate with that one. However, we've got some really awesome communities that we're in, and we do get a fair amount of cash donations from other nonprofits or very generous individuals that have helped kind of, keep this program going.
John Lascuola: And what I do is. We, the company gives $30,000 a year to this. Wow. And any more that I get in here, I'm just funneling it straight to helping more people. I love it. I'm super into it.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. So I would definitely go to your top parts suppliers and say to 'em, this is my program.
Jimmy Lea: This is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it, and I'm coming to you because. I'm gonna need some donations. I want you to donate the parts. I'm donating the cars are being donated. Our time is being donated. My technicians, they donate their time though. You give them the opportunity, guys, I'll pay you to come in on this Saturday to fix all these cars for these families that need a car.
Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. You got it in your budget, right? You got 30,000 that you can use for the technicians if they want to, but when they are part of the cause, they're part of the family now the repair takes a different flavor. Yeah. Now it takes on a whole different mindset and the technicians look forward to this.
Jimmy Lea: And are we gonna do it once a year? Are we gonna do it twice a year? What's the cadence and now they're looking forward to it. And this is when you get the bouncy houses and the food trucks and everybody comes out because this becomes an event that supports the community. So now the community comes together for it.
John Lascuola: Yeah, a hundred percent. No it's, I'm just trying to grow that as much as I can and. Yeah that's been my focus and that's my future goals really. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. So the, what, how many cars per year? What's the goal there for the growth? What, how do you judge success on that program?
John Lascuola: Right. So currently what we're doing is we have three we have three regularly scheduled giveaways. We do one at Christmas. We do one at Mother's Day for a single mom, and then we do one on Veteran's Day for a veteran. Outside of that, we are having people constantly reach out and saying, Hey, you know, my coworkers really struggling or, we fell on hard times, or We had this house fire.
John Lascuola: We, you know, I've had all of these people reach out and I'm, I've got lists and I've got backlogs and I'm trying to get to everybody when I can. And help when we can. You know, so my ultimate goal is to not have to turn anybody away. My ultimate goal is whenever we have somebody reach out, we can get them a car.
John Lascuola: That, that's pretty lofty. So, I'm just as close to that goal as I can get. I'll be happy. And that's what I'm shooting for,
Jimmy Lea: bro. That's awesome. Congrats. And you'll do it. You'll do it. I feel the commitment, the strength, the pattern. You're gonna do it.
John Lascuola: Thanks. I hope so.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Props. Props to you, bro. That's awesome. Thank you. And congrats to your community, or is it a full nonprofit now You got the 5 0 1 C3.
John Lascuola: Yes, sir.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Congrats, bro. That's awesome.
John Lascuola: Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: Very cool. So if anybody wants to donate, where can they go? How can they find you?
John Lascuola: Yep. So, you can go to lw car care.com.
John Lascuola: And if you go to our main Facebook page, we've also got information there. You can find us, LMW Community Foundation on Facebook. I think we're on Instagram as well. I the same handle LMW Community Foundation. So,
Jimmy Lea: Nice. So anybody that wants to donate some money or donate a car.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely.
John Lascuola: Yes, please.
Jimmy Lea: Lmw car care.com. And what about your car care classes? You're doing some classes too, right? Talk about that for a minute.
John Lascuola: Yeah. Yeah. So that's the other leg of this is just also trying to give back in any way that we can as far as education for new drivers. We really feel like, you know when, not even just new drivers, honestly just a lot of drivers, some very basic things about your car that it's, we think would be much safer if you knew how to put air in your tires, change a spare tire rather than waiting on the side of the road for AAA for three hours. You know how to check your oil.
John Lascuola: The amount of customers that have a car's burning oil that we tell them, you know, not a big deal. Maybe just check it regularly. You know, you got that old Honda or whatever where they have that problem. Just stuff like that. So that's what we use these classes for. We've started to kind of design some more involved ones on, you know, brakes, electrical systems for some younger people that are interested in cars.
John Lascuola: Just to try it out, just to see if they're into it. So we're still early stages with that. We've partnered with there's another nonprofit in the area that helps single moms. So we've partnered with them to put on a class. We just recently had a class with them. Yeah we also do a lot of intern internships.
John Lascuola: We have several organizations that work with, young individuals that don't learn in conventional ways that maybe Sure. So, so, we have worked with them to give internships to, to several young men who have done fantastic and honestly could have a very promising career in this industry.
John Lascuola: I mean, they showed a lot of talent. So, I just love, I love doing stuff like that. Just trying to, yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That is very cool. Congrats John. There's also an opportunity within the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of America which their new name is Scouts of America.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. They have a badge that is the automotive repair badge. I did not know that. So yes, it gives you an opportunity to reach out to all the troops in the area to say, Hey, I am an approved Merit badge counselor. Which John, you'd have to get approved. Yeah. Go through their youth protection training and make sure that you're a good, safe environment.
Jimmy Lea: You can talk to them and say, Hey look, if you guys are interested in earning this automotive repair merit badge, we're gonna do an, it'll take one evening and one Saturday morning or something like that. 'cause you gotta look at the badge. Yeah. And reach out to them that, that's an opportunity to expose it even to Cub Scouts in the younger groups.
Jimmy Lea: The kids that are eight to 12 or eight to 10 11. Yeah. Expose them to the opportunities of cars and Yeah and torque wrenches and sockets and, oh man they just totally will love it. They totally dig it. A
John Lascuola: hundred percent. I love that idea. I did not, I didn't know that was a thing, but that is a great idea.
John Lascuola: I wrote it down while we're talking, so I'll definitely be looking into that.
Jimmy Lea: Awesome. John. Yeah. When it comes to the Scouts of America, I'm a big proponent. I was a scoutmaster for 18 years.
John Lascuola: Oh, wow. My goodness.
Jimmy Lea: That's a long time. I'm an Eagle Scout. I've been to the National Jamboree, the World Jamboree, so Wow.
Jimmy Lea: When it comes to scouting and that's the beauty of the scouting program, is exposing these kids to everything that might be their possible future.
John Lascuola: Yeah. No, I love that.
Jimmy Lea: Steven Spielberg, boy Scout. Wow. Photography merit badge. There you go. Wow. Wild. Yeah, true story. True story. A lot of the astronauts are Eagle Scouts.
Jimmy Lea: Huh. So, yeah, there's a long history there of scouting and success in America. You don't have to be a Boy Scout to be successful. I don't mean to say that. I do say that the scouting gets you exposure to a lot of different areas that you might not be exposed to save it. Were the scouting program, so
John Lascuola: yeah.
John Lascuola: No great program. Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. So, last and final question as we land this plane here, John, you have a magic wand and you're granted a wish you can't wish for more wishes. What would you wish.
John Lascuola: Oh man, what would I wish for? I think if I had, if I could make any wish, you know what? I wish I, I would wish for the ability to understand.
John Lascuola: People better. I think trying to manage staff and trying to deal with the complex emotions and the varying types of emotions and wants and needs. If I could just intuitively always know why somebody was thinking or saying what they were and know the best way to handle that and the best. Approach to that, that would have them understand me the best and make just communication easier between me and my staff.
John Lascuola: That bar none probably would be my wish. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. I love that communication, being able to communicate better, more efficiently, more proper, to understand their mindset, their goals.
John Lascuola: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, we in fact, we've got a program at the institute called Leadership Intensive. It's part of our legacy program.
Jimmy Lea: I would invite you to come and check it out. We do, this year in 2026, we have three different intensivess. One in Seattle, one in Ogden, Utah, and one in Tampa, Florida. Okay. So, check out our website. We are the institute.com. Go to the events page and find the leadership intensive. That's what you wanna look at that, that is gonna help you understand why you think the way you think.
Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. What are those truth tapes that you have written in your mind? What are the truth tapes that we need to change and to alter because they're not true? You need to alter your thinking patterns and. On day two and day three is when you get into understanding other people and what are their truth tapes and what have they been through, what, why do they make the decisions they make?
Jimmy Lea: So our leadership intensive program is phenomenal. We just had a had one in blowing Rocket, Lucas Underwood's shop. Oh wow. Awesome. He sponsored it and there was like 35 people there. Totally sold out, packed in there. He put up tables and chairs inside of his garage hall, and we took over on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Jimmy Lea: Man it was pretty dang cool. No, that's.
John Lascuola: That sounds like a good thing to check out. I will definitely add that to the list.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Yeah, man. John, it's been a pleasure talking with you and learning about your shop, your business. You've got a bright future ahead of you, brother. I am honored to be able to witness greatness and it, I see greatness.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you.

171 - The Leading Edge Podcast: Standing at the Crossroads featuring Carl Hutchinson, Complete Automotive

171 - The Leading Edge Podcast: Standing at the Crossroads featuring Carl Hutchinson, Complete Automotive
November 20, 2025 - 01:42:21
 
Show Summary:
From technician to multi-shop owner, Carl Hutchinson of Complete Automotive in Missouri shares how he built a thriving, people-first business rooted in ethics, mentorship, and accountability. A Master ASE and AMI-certified professional, Carl opens up about the real leadership lessons behind sustainable growth and strong shop culture. Hear how hiring for attitude, creating apprenticeship opportunities, and balancing KPIs with team wellbeing helped Carl grow a high-performance shop that values learning and integrity. Standing at the Crossroads with Carl Hutchinson reveals how purpose-driven leadership can reshape the future of the automotive repair industry. Want help building your legacy and a people-first shop culture? Meet with Michael Smith for a leadership and legacy strategy session. Book here: https://theinstitute.zohobookings.com/#/Executive-Owner-Strategy-Session 
 
Host(s):
Kent Bullard, COO of The Institute
Michael Smith, Chief Strategy Officer at The Institute
 
Guest(s):
Carl Hutchinson, Owner of Complete Automotive
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Kent introduces the Crossroads series and welcomes Carl Hutchinson, laying out his background and values.[00:01:50] – Carl shares how growing up around “basket projects” sparked his love for problem solving and automotive work.[00:03:31] – He explains why relationships, consistency, and decades-long customer loyalty kept him rooted in the industry.[00:06:01] – Carl describes being unknowingly groomed for ownership and the moment he realized he couldn’t stay under unethical leadership.[00:10:09] – A chance phone call leads Carl to the business he eventually buys, launching the next chapter of his career.[00:14:46] – Michael breaks down why accountability doesn’t start with pressure but with responsibility and authority.[00:20:04] – Carl opens up about losing people in the cultural shift and the surprising ones who chose not to grow.[00:28:24] – The group dives into how failure becomes a learning curve for people who choose mastery over comfort.[00:40:23] – Carl shares how hiring now includes deeper questions about passions, hobbies, and cognitive flexibility.[01:32:33] – In a powerful close, Carl defines the legacy he hopes to leave behind for his team and his industry.
 
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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVN5iNrWm4
 
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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:
Kent Bullard: Welcome to the Institute's Leading Edge, the Crossroads podcast where we examine the crucial decisions that professionals make that define careers, that shape industries that inspire thought leadership and that build lasting legacies. I'm Ken Bullard and I'm joined with my colleague Michael Smith.
Kent Bullard: And today we have the pleasure of interviewing with Carl Hutchinson, the owner of Complete Automotive out of Missouri. Our guest today is a seasoned automotive professional with both a MI and a master a SE technician certification with an extensive experience as a service advisor beyond his technical expertise.
Kent Bullard: He's a dedicated family man celebrating 40 years of marriage with his wife Maureen, and a proud father of three children. With a passion for scuba diving, spearfishing, and spending time at the lake, he finds joy in both adventure and travel and guided by his favorite saying, just because he can doesn't mean you should.
Kent Bullard: He brings wisdom and a thoughtful approach to every endeavor. A committed Christian, he's been honored with the Vision Humanitarian Award, and the Small Business of the Year Award, reflecting his dedication to his community and industry. Above all, he cherishes his role as a husband, calling his wife Maureen, his best friend and greatest support.
Kent Bullard: We're excited to dive into his journey, insights, and the values that have guided his success. Welcome Carl to the Institute's Leading Edge Crossroads podcast. Welcome, carl.
Carl Hutchinson: Thank you. That's quite our introduction. I'd like to meet this guy.
Kent Bullard: Just look in the mirror, man. Look in the mirror.
Michael Smith: We're glad we did. Yeah.
Kent Bullard: So I'd love to start off with we always start off with the same question. You know, what originally drew you into the industry, but most importantly, what made you commit to it?
Carl Hutchinson: Oh that's pretty in depth. What drew me to the industry was just kind of growing up in it, you know, like the short story is my stepfather was a technician and mechanic.
Carl Hutchinson: He didn't do it professionally af especially after I came along. But he still had that passion and I can remember many projects that he would buy and bring home. They were basket projects, something that somebody had taken apart and couldn't put back together. So he would bring them home and put them together and make them work.
Carl Hutchinson: And it's just kind of inspired us to, to be in, in that. And not having a lot of means, we'll put it that way. We did without a lot. So if we wanted something, it was usually a basket project. If we wanted a motorcycle or a lawnmower or whatever, we usually wound up buying something that needed to be put together.
Carl Hutchinson: And so that's how it kind of got started. And then I think my love of it was the projects, you know, just every day, honestly, two or three times a day, the projects change. So just being in the industry, you had multiple different projects and it was all problem solving. And you know, if you could make somebody's day by taking something that was broken or didn't work correctly and put it back together, put it, make it work, and they didn't have to go buy something new, I think that's really where it all started.
Carl Hutchinson: I guess what kept me in it, that's a totally different thing because I've tried to get out of this industry several times and I think this industry has teeth. Once you're in it and you're ingrained into it there's a huge draw to it, but there's also a huge security to this industry that, you know, the 40 years that I've been in it now I've pretty much always had a job.
Carl Hutchinson: I've always. Had security. I've always been in a relatively decent position of making money and having insurance and days off and vacations and things of that nature to where I've seen a lot of people around us. In other industries they don't have that. And especially when COVID hit, it was like, well, our industry was blessed and, you know, we had a job.
Carl Hutchinson: We didn't have to worry about, you know, staying home. And I mean, I guess that's what kept me in it is once you're in it and you understand it, and you have a little bit of a passion for, I don't wanna say just the automotive portion of it, but it's the people in the automotive portion of it, it's a steady customers that come through.
Carl Hutchinson: And, you know, just this past, oh, two weeks, I've had two. 30 year customers come through our doors. And to see them to know that I, as a technician worked on their car 30 years ago and they're still with us through all these years is that's fantastic to see that. So I think that's what keeps me in it more than anything is is the people of it, you know, just having that ability to make somebody's life and honestly change somebody's life in it or make it for the better, just have a part of it.
Carl Hutchinson: So that long answer to a short question, I guess,
Kent Bullard: Carl, was there a specific moment where you had to make the decision or where you made the decision Oh, ly, that this was where you're gonna stay?
Carl Hutchinson: Oh, absolutely. So this is how ignorant I was being in this industry. You know, I didn't realize I was being groomed.
Carl Hutchinson: To purchase the business that I was in. I actually worked for a good friend of mine for many years, and he was the owner of the business and he was grooming me to, to buy it. And I had no idea, you know, just I hate to say I'm using those same tactics on our employees now as we go along, just, you know, advance 'em along, give them a little more, and but I was being groomed.
Carl Hutchinson: And one day he came to me and he says would you like to own this business? And I thought, oh heck no. No way. Why would I wanna own this business? I mean, I'm very happy with the idea of, I, you know, I show up early in the morning, do my thing all day long, lock the door at night and go home. And I'm pretty happy.
Carl Hutchinson: And at that point in time. I thought I was actually going to get out of the industry. I had a passion to, to be in the home industry and building homes and things of that nature, and we were doing some of that on the side. Well, that was 2005, 2006, 2007, all in those years. And he sold the business to somebody that I could not work for.
Carl Hutchinson: And I didn't think that there was people out there that I could not work for, and I just, I could not work for this gentleman. The ethics, the they were not my ethics. The morals were not my morals, that the culture changed overnight and it really sucked. So at that point in time, I had to make a decision.
Carl Hutchinson: I either have to change industries. Or I've gotta figure this out. Well, by this time it's 2007 in the the sections there. And the housing industry comes to a stre and halt. And all of my dreams that I thought I had were just gone. And I found myself in an ultimatum that I can't work for somebody.
Carl Hutchinson: And so I went to this new owner and gave him an ultimatum. And then again, this is how ignorant I am. You know, when you're not the boss, you don't give the boss an ultimatum. Because the boss, I couldn't leave. So, so I found myself having to stand my ground and I had to leave which was the right thing to do.
Carl Hutchinson: So, 2008, I didn't realize that jobs were not available. And, you know, I wound up going to work for another competitor, which was a good and bad thing. I realized there was somebody else that I could not work for, but he taught me a lot. He taught me a lot of things I didn't know, and I thought I knew a lot, but he taught me a lot.
Carl Hutchinson: But I guess to, to answer the question, that's when I had to make the decision is right then is when I realized I could not work for somebody else. That the way that I had been brought up in this industry and the way that I wanted to operate a business and was not allowed to anymore. The only way to do it was to work for ourselves.
Carl Hutchinson: And the funny story is I was I was really looking for a job I needed to get out of where I was at. It was such a bad place, such a toxic place that I had to get out of there. And my mental and physical whole world was crashing. So I was just dialing everybody that I had in my index, anybody that I knew that was in the automotive world, I said, look, I'm looking for a job.
Carl Hutchinson: I'm looking for a job. I'm looking for a job. I gotta get outta where I'm at. I'll be a technician again. I'll do anything. I gotta get my head cleared. And this one guy that I called, he says, well, there's no jobs here. Oh. So the one and only time that I'd ever said this was I'm looking for a job or a business to buy.
Carl Hutchinson: I only said it once. He said, there's no jobs here, but I think the business is for sale. And I said, can you hand the phone to the owner? Can I talk to them? By the end of the day, I'd already, I toured through their shop and realized there was opportunity and then just kind of make the rest of the story short.
Carl Hutchinson: And about six months we became owners of that business. And that's honestly, that's when we had to make the decision if we were gonna do something, I had to do what I knew and this is what I knew. And I thought I knew a lot until I bought the business and then realized I don't know anything. It just.
Kent Bullard: Well, Carl, I gotta commend you for, you know, having the moral courage and the moral fortitude to stand your ground on that. I think a lot of people don't, and it leads to a very, a world that is lacking for sure. But I wrote down here, you know, it, you you decided to be the good you wanted to see in the world.
Carl Hutchinson: That's,
Kent Bullard: and that's
Carl Hutchinson: true. I mean, that's, so I'd worked for two people that I thought were very unethical and your ethics don't allow you to do that. Just because you need groceries and pay your mortgage and, you know, send your kids to school those kinds of things doesn't mean you can trash your ethics.
Carl Hutchinson: And I was really struggling with that, with both places that I was working, that just, it was a job. They were good paying jobs, but I couldn't stay. I just couldn't stay. And that was, so that was one of the driving things about why we wanted to do what we're doing and the way that we're doing it is that we wanted to make sure that we were on the up and up, that every decision that we made, that if we saw the customer in the grocery store, we wanted to be able to walk up to them.
Carl Hutchinson: We wanted to be able to have a conversation instead of it having to turn, walk away, or, you know, have people call your lawyer. I mean, I couldn't tell you how many times I heard that well just call my lawyer or sue me or something like that. That's not the world I wanna live in. That's not the way we wanted to run business.
Kent Bullard: So do you think that that tension or that moral tension that you were experiencing led you to seek, you know, high performance or people development driven practices in your business?
Carl Hutchinson: Now? Yes. Then no. Like I said, we didn't know what the heck we were doing. I thought all these years of experience, I knew everything.
Carl Hutchinson: And holy cow, once, once you become the owner, you don't know nothing. It took a long time for us to figure it out. And really, the blessing is you start surrounding yourself with people that know way more than you do, and you trust them and they, you allow them to push you. And then that's where all of a sudden you start changing your performance.
Carl Hutchinson: And when you start changing your performance, you start changing everybody else's performance around you. Now it's a little different now. I think our baseline expectations are much higher than the majority of the industry. And that's just our baseline. You know, what we consider a. What other people would consider be to be very good, talented people.
Carl Hutchinson: We feel like these are just basic places to start, and that's probably one of the biggest challenges for us now as we go into this. More of a high performance attitude or mindset and culture is weeding out those that that, that don't wanna play. They just don't wanna be here.
Kent Bullard: So I want to ask Michael, so the companies that know that they want to invest in, you know, the high performance or the people development, what are some of the things that they will experience when they don't have those pieces in place?
Michael Smith: You know, our industry is really a long history of focusing on the sales transaction at the front desk, the work that's done in the back shop, that it's accurate enough not to come back and cost a lot of money to refix, if you will, and running the basic financials just to try to be as profitable as possible.
Michael Smith: And you know what? Happened in the last 20, 25 years was that there was a lot of work done outside of our industry about humans and, you know, how do humans work and why do they work the way they do? And some of the science goes back many decades. But the work that was put together, and I had the fun and fortune of being in the middle of some of that, was trying to bring it forward and start to understand that humans are such a competitive factor in a business.
Michael Smith: And so, Kent, this is a setup to the answer to your question. Most people are either come at this human-centric people productivity competitive advantage of humans model. They come at it from a different philosophy more often than they do from a business experience, especially in our industry. And when they come to this and start looking around and realizing that human beings turned on outperform.
Michael Smith: All the rest of the, sort of the business models that have come before it. The answer to your question is what people who don't get excited about this get is what I guess you'd call sort of average performance and average, you know, organizational structure and average relationships with their people and that are on their teams and with their customers.
Michael Smith: And so it's kind of interesting when, like, when I met Carl and we started talking to each other Carl's had this in his heart. Carl, and I'd love you to speak to this a little bit. You had this in your thought process for quite a while, and I don't know how you got there from here, Garrett. It happened before I showed up in your life and we connected with each other and I'm bringing science to the table and some methodology and supporting you and, you know, development.
Michael Smith: Tools and that kind of thing. But you were on this track before that, and so Kent, that's kind of, kind of the answer. The majority of the industry is still focused on sales and production and the human side's a little bit new for us anyway. So Carl, would you take us there? How did you get there from working in the industry in a sort of an average kind of a way?
Michael Smith: What brought it to you in the first place? Was it fate? Like you mentioned that at the beginning. So,
Carl Hutchinson: There's probably several factors into it. I think that I think like-minded people draw like-minded people. You start running in groups and as you hire you start hiring people that think and act along the same lines.
Carl Hutchinson: So, we've not mastered this by no means. Honestly, we're, I think we're in the rebuilding stage of this more than anything 'cause I think I am. Probably the same as so many other business owners out there that have been complacent over the years, and especially in the last five or six years as talent is hard to get or just anybody is hard to get and you hire the best of available.
Carl Hutchinson: They may not be the best, but they're the best available. And then you start making concessions and you have a hard time weeding things out. So I, I think we, we started early on just really trying to find people that had the same viewpoints as much as possible. And that's a challenge 'cause you, you start overlooking people that just have a great resume.
Carl Hutchinson: Just because they did great things, one other place doesn't mean they're gonna do great things here. Or they might do a lot of production for you and they might do a lot of sales for you, but they do a lot of damage for you also. And that's a real challenge when you start hiring these people and then having to let them go and people don't understand the rest of your staffing doesn't understand and really you can't speak to it as to why, you know, to the technical pieces of it.
Carl Hutchinson: But that, that's a real challenge when they ask, well why did you let such and such go? And it's like, well, I can't speak to it, but he just didn't fit our culture. And that's a challenge, you know, when they start running customers off or it's more of a me, attitude as opposed to a we attitude when it's all about me and what I want, what I need, as opposed to what we need.
Carl Hutchinson: That those are the tough things. And that's, and we're still in that rebuilding. And honestly as we got more and more into this culture change, 'cause we thought we had a pretty good culture to begin with. Once we stepped it up a little bit, we were really amazed at how many people washed out.
Carl Hutchinson: And people that shocked me. I mean, people that I really trusted and really was trying to build a program around. And I think that's probably one of the things that's held us back or set us back more than anything, because I really wanted to be further along in the, in this business life that, you know, some of the people washed out that I was really trusting.
Carl Hutchinson: They just, they didn't see it. They just they couldn't get out of their way and see the bigger picture. So, so that's what we're What do you
Kent Bullard: think I'd love to dive into that because I think a lot of businesses run into this hurdle when they start realizing that I need to be investing in more than just competency.
Kent Bullard: Right. And you've gotta deal with that reconciliation of of competency versus attitude. You know, everybody hears it higher for attitude versus Yeah. But what does that actually mean? Right? I mean, it's so much deeper than that, but what is it like when you're transitioning your team from kind of, Hey, we've got a good culture to now this more scientifically driven approach to human development?
Carl Hutchinson: I don't know that I'm not sure that I can speak to that really well. You know, I, I think the warning, and I think Michael's probably warned us all, you start holding people accountable to do the things that need to be done and in a manner that you'd like them to be done. And either they get on the bus or they don't get on the bus.
Carl Hutchinson: And to, that was one of the biggest shocks to me anyway, is I knew some were going to go and that was okay, but then the others went and it's like, wow, I didn't see that coming. So I'm not real sure.
Kent Bullard: Well, Michael, what do you what happens? So when you start holding people accountable to the next level Sure. To basically saying, I know that you have a much higher potential, and I'd love to Right. Make sure that you meet it.
Michael Smith: Yeah. I'll preface this. It's, it doesn't start with accountability. It ends with accountability.
Michael Smith: And Carl, we've talked about quite a bit in the group that we're in too about responsibility and authority. And then accountability and people are wired to want more responsibility. I mean, that's science. Social science shows that people thrive when they're growing and when they're doing more and they're achieving and they're champions.
Michael Smith: And so they're, they want it. They need it inside. And so when we show up and say, Hey, we think we'd like to do something more together with you, once they sign onto that's it. That's exciting intellectually, right? Then we turn around and say, okay, we're gonna give you the authority behind that.
Michael Smith: It's not like I'm gonna sit there and watch you. You go do this new thing, and if you need some help. Come talk to me. Then they go off and start doing that. Here's what inevitably happens is they bump into difficulties in the new thing. Theoretically, they're over the other side of their comfort zone in a space they haven't been before.
Michael Smith: They're a little bit nervous, and oftentimes people just pull back and maybe stop trying or they back off and they don't try as hard or whatever. That's when the accountability part kicks in, is you need to be real close to them at the beginning when they're nervous about whether they're gonna make it or not, and that.
Michael Smith: Process of self challenge. And I'm coming back to the topic here. You know, it's a surprise sometimes that people will pay all the intellectual, all the verbal you know, say the right words and say, I really want to grow. I wanna do all this stuff. And then when you give them the right to do that, they scare themselves.
Michael Smith: They go back to old tapes that they heard when they were kids, oh, you're not very smart, or, you're gonna have a hard time with this, or whatever. They tried to learn things before and it didn't go well for them. And so there's all kinds of stuff creeps up into their mind and their and into their emotions out of the past.
Michael Smith: And then they decide that they're gonna slow down a little bit. And then, and that's really the challenge, right? Carl? Say you come to a point where some people. Given the opportunity to step up and swing for the fences, step up, and then they step back from the batter's box and they tap their bottom of their shoes again.
Michael Smith: They line up and then they gotta back up and do their grip thing. And they just, this is, you end up with this little dance and it's a surprise. I'm always surprised by the people that decide not to compete, right? They just step back and say, I don't wanna be the best that I can be. And there's lots of reasons for it, and we can all go forward, but some people choose not to for all kinds of different reasons.
Michael Smith: So what,
Kent Bullard: Michael, what's the, I mean, 'cause any time that you are pushing yourself to be better, you're gonna be in areas of discomfort, right? New things that you have to learn. What. Is different about the ones who put themselves in that space and pull back versus the ones who put themselves in that space and lean into it?
Kent Bullard: Yeah, I
Michael Smith: mean, I, Kent, that's a great question. I, if you asked anybody, Hey, would you like to play on a championship team and win all the time? Everybody would say, well, yeah, that would be cool. That'd be really fun to do that. It's like, okay, here's what it means. You have to put yourself out there and you have to challenge yourself, and you have to be humble and people have to be able to coach you and you have to, you know, you have to swing for the fences and you have to help other people do the same thing.
Michael Smith: And by the way, when you're trying something you haven't done before, you're gonna fall on your face a lot. And that might not feel real good. And some people are a little bit low on self-esteem from the way they were raised, and it's hard for them to fall down. And it's not really about what we're gonna say about 'em, it's what they say to themselves.
Michael Smith: And if they had, you know, people that told them in their earlier life they weren't gonna amount to much or they was gonna, they were gonna have to work hard to, you know, blah, blah, blah. Then when they go try something new and they fall down, that just validates those expectations that were set in their lives earlier on.
Michael Smith: And that's hard for them because it's like, I'm in tender territory now. This is stuff that I'm not comfortable with. And so again, they'll either step up and decide, no, you know what? Carl's behind me. This is the time we're gonna do this. The organization wants me to do this inside. I know I want it and I need it, and I'm gonna fight through this until I win.
Michael Smith: And Carl, we've been all down, up and down this road with all kinds of people. Once they start to get used to the fact that they can challenge themselves and actually succeed, then it becomes a little bit addictive. Right? It's kind of fun to say, Hey, I wonder what I can do next. Hey, I wonder what I can do next.
Michael Smith: And once you get that under your skin, then it's almost like they're striving for more and more. And that's, and this is back to our. First accountability question. You don't have to hold people accountable who are self-driving for continuous growth and improvement. They gotta make that transition though.
Michael Smith: They gotta get over that hump and into that self-motivated zone. Or once they do that, then, and those are the people that don't make it over that hump, that end up washing out, right? They're just, you chase 'em, you try to help 'em, you encourage 'em, you put your arm around them, occasionally you have to yell at 'em 'cause they're doing something really stupid to sabotage themselves, to keep you from, you know, believing in them.
Michael Smith: All kinds of weird stuff happens. But it's really interesting how the people who do want to go forward then just take that ball and run with it. And at some point there's self-correcting too. You bring in a dead new employee or you've got that one last employee who's not gonna play the team's all over them.
Michael Smith: And I don't mean in a mean way, but they're like, come on, you can do better than that. And at some point when they get frustrated with them, 'cause they're not gonna try and they're not gonna go forward, the team will turn to you and say it's time. It's time to get rid of this person. It's time to replace 'em.
Michael Smith: And by the way, while you're out there, go bring back another champion to join the team, right? So another star player who wants to play on the team, not just a rockstar, but a rockstar team player. And that it just cha, the culture changes. It's a beautiful thing to see.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah, I think you said it much better than I, sorry, Kent, I didn't mean to jump in there, but No worries.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, the ones that, that have jumped in and said, yeah, I want that and I'll do it. Have succeeded. And yes, we've already seen those kinds of things come along. Instead of saying some of the things like can you help me with this? Or what do you think? It's, this is what I've done, this is the action that we're gonna take.
Carl Hutchinson: This is, oh, I screwed this up, but we're fixing this and as opposed to bail me out of trouble, or I don't wanna, you know, we learned a lot of that.
Michael Smith: Go ahead and make me go ahead and make me right. Yeah,
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, I think you said, you know, you said it pretty well. I mean, there's a, I think everybody wants it until they get, get it, and then when they get it, then it's easier to revert back.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, it's, so, I gotta call it ownership mentality. Because if you owned it, you can't walk away from it. I mean, really you can't walk away from it. I mean, we could not walk away from it. It was, there was, failure was not an option. Hard, hard work was a great option. Working long hours was options.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, bringing in counsel was options. I mean, all the failure was not an option. So, we learned a lot. And I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of is that to fail and learn as opposed to just go, I'm done. I'm out.
Michael Smith: Let me jump on that for just a second, Kent, and then I'll turn it back to you.
Michael Smith: That failure is not an option. Model is something owners know very well because it's your house that's leveraged to buy the business in the first place or whatever. You can't just decide to take another job, right? You've got to make this thing work. And I'll say this though, the reason I brought this up was something you said.
Michael Smith: That's what happens in the mind of a person who decides to actively become a master. They develop this mindset to say, failure is not an option. It's like, I get it now and I'm gonna optimize my life, and I'm choosing not to live below my potential. And I don't know what the limit is, but I'm gonna start getting out there and just.
Michael Smith: Kitten into it, and it's not good enough for me to be the same as everybody else anymore the way I used to be. I'm gonna go beyond that and I'm not gonna live that way. Right. And that it's almost becomes a failure is not an option mentality, even though they don't own the business. Right? It's like, I'm gonna become a master or die trying.
Michael Smith: But then they do. All of a sudden it's like, well, geez, if I can do that, what else could I do? Hey, what's the next level up? Here's a huge step forward. I'll take it. I'm stepping into it. Then they do that too, and they're like, oh my God, I wonder what I could do next. And the leaps start to become exponential.
Michael Smith: They're little bitty steps at first, but then it's a big step, and then it's a really big step, and it's like, and shoot for the stars. What could I do? Well, this is the really big one. And then they go do that too. It's like, wow. And now they're in a pipeline for themselves. They do it themselves and it's a beautiful thing to see.
Michael Smith: It really is.
Kent Bullard: I, I have a working theory. Just bear with me. Here we go. As we were going through this, I'm like trying to diagnose what are some of the key differences? And I really like, you know, I think that those that do versus those that don't, they view failure differently. They have a different perspective of what failure is.
Kent Bullard: Absolutely. And the purpose of failure. And Carl, you put it. You put it beautifully. I screwed up, but this is how I'm fixing it, right? Yeah. Versus I screwed up. What do I do now? Can you save me from this? You know? 'cause that's when you really look at it and go, look, this is my problem and it's my responsibility.
Kent Bullard: I'm the one that's, that has the authority over the decisions on this. And I know that my team is gonna hold me accountable to the solution of it. And fully understanding that, you know, fail and learn. Right? So there was, rather than fail and secede
Carl Hutchinson: short story, that, and my wife's walking back and forth, they
Carl Hutchinson: want to hear this, but it's so my story.
Carl Hutchinson: So
Carl Hutchinson: she said one time, she said, you don't ever screw anything up. I don't know. I never see anything that you screw up. I said, oh my God,
Carl Hutchinson: you don't have many things I screw up. I just don't tell everybody. That's right.
Michael Smith: And really, it's a quiet, it's a quiet experience, right. I just fix it before
Carl Hutchinson: anybody
Michael Smith: else.
Michael Smith: That's why I go to work early to get it all fixed before the next day starts.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah. That's why I work so hard. I wanna fix, I gotta cover that up before anybody sees that. So, but really that, I think that's what we're looking for
Carl Hutchinson: In people that we wanna put in leadership positions and the people that we want to advance is, you know, they're not afraid to push the button and go, oh, what does that do?
Carl Hutchinson: You know, oh crap, just nap. Right? Pull the plug and let's reset this thing. But I think that's what we're looking for in people to do that and not be afraid to take chances and. To mess stuff up and really to fix it and really going back to this leadership mentality kind of thing, and to give people enough rope to do those things and to stay out of their way.
Carl Hutchinson: That has been the biggest challenge for me. And as I talk to our emerging leaders 'cause I, I keep getting this question about, well, what do you do when others don't do the exactly the way that you want it done? And it's like, man, you gotta give them some space. You just gotta let 'em, you gotta let 'em fail to learn.
Carl Hutchinson: And that's the only way you're gonna be able to do that too. And that's really tough, especially for those of us that are in this industry. 'cause I hate to say this industry is a very precise industry. It is not an industry of, oh, take two aspirins and call me in the morning or in time it will get better.
Carl Hutchinson: It's either is or isn't in this industry and we have very little grace in this industry or forgiveness, and that's, it's a real challenge.
Kent Bullard: I've always had this thought and I've never been a technician, but I know that a lot of technicians put a lot of value in whether or not they have the answer.
Carl Hutchinson: Oh, absolutely. That they fix the
Kent Bullard: problem that's in front of them, right? But then when it comes to an owner in the position where they're training and bringing technicians on board, they're like, well, I need them to be up here. And it's like, well, they didn't have the same level of years of experience and the opportunity to fail like you did.
Kent Bullard: And you know, oftentimes in classes I'll say, how many of you guys have, you know, busted apart or done this? Or, you know, a lot of hands go up and it's like there was somebody there that gave you the grace to make those mistakes. I wrote down here, you know, failure is 'cause I always view failure as not the opposite of success, right?
Kent Bullard: So here, done here, failure is the cost for competence. And when you're striving for success, I mean, mistakes are gonna happen. And it's how you deal with those things.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah. I think you have to fail. I mean, if you're not failing, you're not trying. It's the way I look at it. And to me. There's no I don't know how to say this.
Carl Hutchinson: It's not a bad thing to fail. It's a bad thing to quit. That's probably not the right way to say it, but
Michael Smith: that's a good way to say it.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, I don't mind people failing 'cause those are learning lessons and it's like, well always come away with, well, we're not gonna do that way next time. Or now we know, or, there's so many of these lessons in this industry that you can't tell somebody.
Carl Hutchinson: You have to live through them. And that's some of the challenges that we're having with some of our emerging leaders was, you know, I could have told you what was gonna happen, but you wouldn't have believed me until it happened. And then you're on the other side of it, and then you can see, oh, now I understand what happened.
Carl Hutchinson: And you're right, I wouldn't have believed you if you would've told me this was gonna happen, but this is what you have to do. So sometimes you have to let 'em go through it and to learn that lesson. And then they have that basis for the next one. The ones that get me are the ones that quit. You know, they're just, no, I failed. I'm done. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna try again. I'm not gonna put myself out there. And the, those people, I don't know I'm not interested in putting a lot of sweat equity into those types of individuals. I'll help just about anybody that wants to help themselves.
Carl Hutchinson: If they wanna learn, if they wanna do, if they want to grow, if they want, I'll take chances on people. If they have a desire and a passion to do something, and I think that's what we should be doing. 'cause you never know there's a diamond out there that just needs to be polished up somewhere.
Carl Hutchinson: Somebody spent a lot of time with me to give here, so I think we need to pass that on to the others.
Michael Smith: You know, if you see, and I'll add to this, if you see failure as a mistake or you see failure as some kind of a character weakness or a an indication to others that you're not all, that you are trying to present yourself to be.
Michael Smith: If that's what failure is, then it's gonna be a painful, avoidable, you know, try to avoid it thing. If there's an emotional, an emotionally dispassionate approach to failure and say, look, I'm a master. And I'm a master in training and I'm gonna continue to master more and more things in my personal and professional life.
Michael Smith: And failure for me is nothing but an attempt at something I haven't done before that I'm gonna conquer. If I miss it this time, I'll try again. If I miss it that time, I'll try till I get it. And once I got it. And so failure isn't a mistake. Failure is a learning curve. Yes. Experience. And so then you can step back and you can make it intellectual and set the emotional part aside.
Michael Smith: You can be frustrated all you want, but don't take it personally. Right. It's like, it's not like, right. You as a human being have failed because you didn't finish this properly. It's just one more, one more chip on the pathway to getting it right and that, that. That mindset shift is huge for this path to mastery.
Michael Smith: It's huge because that's what allows people to say, Carl's not gonna think less of me. I work for him. He told me to take a chance. I tried my best. I failed. I'm gonna beat myself up more than you. I know you, I, you know, you, and again, as long as I'm trying and learning, you'll stand with me indefinitely.
Michael Smith: It's when I stop and lock up and say, oh, this is stupid. I'm not gonna learn. Or, you know what? I hate this and you know, I'm gonna just stay stuck or whatever. That's I'm with you. That's when I look at people and say, I don't know how I can help you at this point, because as long as you're trying this path is endless.
Michael Smith: And as soon as you master something, pick something else that's parallel to it. Pick something else. That's interesting. Add that to it. This is a lifetime journey. Endless learning opportunities and I'm with you. So it's that emotionally dispassionate approach that really helps a lot. So if anybody's stuck in that self separate your self-esteem if you can from the failure in a moment and realize it's just a learning moment.
Michael Smith: So,
Kent Bullard: thank you Michael. I needed that personally. Most of us
Michael Smith: do. Me too, by the way. Calm me. We, that's the thing
Kent Bullard: is like a lot of this, a lot of this stuff is like practice. It takes practice. Even I struggle with a lot of this stuff, you know, and just going, oh, I wanna quit, or I have these negative thoughts and I'm like, well, no, I can't.
Kent Bullard: I gotta get back up, dust myself off and keep going at it, you know? Yeah. I wanna put a pin in this. Just, I love this topic, but I wanna put a pin in it because I wanna move towards you know, looking at Carl, you know, what are some of the strategies or the philosophies that you have found have been effective for developing your talent?
Carl Hutchinson: Wow. Strategies. I really didn't know much about strategies until I met Michael. And I'm still learning about strategies. Most of the rest of it is just learning the hard way developing people. You know, you, I don't know. We come from an industry that has come so far in the last really 20 years, but in the last 40 or 50 years, it's really come a long ways.
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, it's just the, we've cleaned up the industry, we've been become professional. You know, there's so much of that. The strategy is man,
Carl Hutchinson: probably to know them more than what I would've ever known them in the past, and I still struggle with that. And really knowing in depth. I think we have a surface level of knowing our employees and then maybe the second step down. We know 'em, maybe we know their kids' names or something like that.
Carl Hutchinson: But to really get to know that the really inner passions that's one of the challenges that I'm working with is to really, to get to know my employees better. Screaming and yelling. That's not a strategy that, that we done that once and that doesn't work both ways to me out from me.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah. It doesn't work. I think trying to pick the right people, asking the right questions and if I can marry up what they want to do with what I need done is probably one of the biggest challenges. 'cause we've hired a lot of people in the past that we knew were not five year people. They were not 10 year people.
Carl Hutchinson: Which was okay to fill a spot to get us going, to get them going, to get them from A to B. But if they want to go on and be an architect, if they want to go on and be a lawyer, if they want to go on and be something else, and they need us for a short period of time, I think that's, we've done that. I'm still working on the strategies.
Carl Hutchinson: I think that's the best thing I can say is I don't know that I'm on my way to mastery, let me put it that way. We'll put the yet in there.
Kent Bullard: So well, let's look at let's take a pivot here. Then we can go onto another subject. Let's take a look at, you know, I mean, you're actively hiring and finding.
Kent Bullard: Team members to, to expand, you know, complete automotive and what you guys do. What are some of the unique qualities or skills that you tend to prioritize for a high performing team versus, or I guess above and beyond the competencies or the technical skills? Yeah,
Carl Hutchinson: and I'm trying to come up with some scenarios as to the things that we've hired to and the things that we've passed over.
Carl Hutchinson: I guess that falls into the strategic planning portion of it more than anything is I put a job offer out to a gentleman that had all of the credentials that really could have been a production machine for us, and I had to withdraw that job offer. The more we thought about it, the more we realized this was not.
Carl Hutchinson: A long term thing, and I didn't wanna do that for our team, and I didn't wanna do that for him. So that was the conversation that we had. So I think that falls into that category of, you know, just because they have all the credentials and they can come in and do, doesn't mean that they're going to be the right person for everybody else and for our long-term growth.
Carl Hutchinson: So I think that falls into that being selective and being more strategic there. I use the word in a sentence.
Kent Bullard: Does it hurt having to say no to somebody who looks really good on paper? It
Carl Hutchinson: really does. I mean, and I think I can say this for about every shop owner out there, probably every business owner out there, it doesn't matter that when you get somebody that has all of their credentials, you want so badly to hire that person that you actually make them the what you want them to be, as opposed to what they really are.
Carl Hutchinson: And that's a real challenge. 'cause that's where you have to have people around you going, yeah, I don't like the way he walked in. I don't like the way they talk to us as they come into the interview. I don't like the way they were dressed. I don't, you know, they, they see all the things you don't see because you're blinded because of the resume and.
Carl Hutchinson: What you need to get done. And you're tired of hiring, interviewing and it's like, man, I had to pass over somebody else. And then you think, well, I'm gonna hire somebody that's of a lesser caliber, but you don't know. You've not met that other person yet. So I think that's some of the strategic, if I can keep going back, I'm gonna learn this word at some point, I'm wanna get into my brain.
Carl Hutchinson: That yeah,
Kent Bullard: It's like good relationship advice, right? Yeah. You know, sometimes you just like the idea of them, you romanticize or fantasize this version of them that could just fit into your life so well and you don't look at them as a human being. And I think that's one thing, you know, especially in my interviews, in my, filters, right? Yeah. Is to ask specific questions so that I am trying to hit as many of my own biases as I can with logic, right? Yes. Yeah. Is this, you know, we look at a personality profile, there's gonna be this discrepancy here. How is that gonna play into the dynamic of my team? And frankly, if that were turned up to 11, how bad could that be?
Kent Bullard: Right? It just, it's the same as I would look at some of the good qualities and turn those up to 11. What would happen if I Right. Was able to put them in a position where they were using all of this. Right. What could that do for the business? Yeah. And that takes a lot of thought and consideration, not only from yourself, but also with your team.
Kent Bullard: And I think there's a lot of people who. Are just like, I need to put a body in the seat and so that I can get back to trying to, you know, I think I've said that keep bailing water out of the boat. Right? I think
Carl Hutchinson: I've said that a few times. I just need somebody here that can
Carl Hutchinson: do something. But yeah it's a real challenge, you know, and we've learned to ask more people-centric questions than maybe process procedural questions.
Carl Hutchinson: And, you know, one of my things as of late as I'm trying to get this leadership team to grow is I've handed off that hiring portion. So to let them do the interviews on the technical aspects, to let them do the interviews on the positional aspects. I may do some of the preliminary type of stuff.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, I may go through and look through resumes and go, yeah, this stack. And this stack? No. And and I may do some of the initial phone interviews to say, yeah, let's get this person in or not. But you know, I'm trying to ask more of the, I guess, the intellectual questions and more the deep thinking questions.
Carl Hutchinson: And one of the questions that I've asked over the years, and I really was surprised at how much effect it has on decision making is I asked them what their hobbies are and if they can't answer quickly, that's really not a good candidate. And it really amazed me that was such a defining question that if they don't have a hobby or a release or a passion for something other than what they're doing it was a big indicator and I was really surprised that it was such a big indicator.
Carl Hutchinson: 'cause the ones that really didn't have a hobby, they were pretty bl pretty just.
Kent Bullard: So, so let me ask you, does it matter what the hobby is?
Carl Hutchinson: Not really. I mean, you would think people that are in the automotive industry, that would be their hobby. And it's the good ones that's really not their hobby. And it's amazing, whether it's RC cars or whether it's archery, or whether it's horses, or whether it's motorcycle or motocross or whatever.
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, the list is endless. Artist dancing, I mean, that was, that's the one that blew my mind. I hired this young man that when I asked him what his hobby was, he said, dancing. It's like, dude, you're 19 years old. Dancing is your hobby. He says, absolutely. I says, well, what kind of dancing? And then he rattled off stuff I'd never heard of.
Carl Hutchinson: And it's like, you're, it, I mean, but I was really shocked that was such an indicator that it gave me the idea that there, there was more to the person than just the job. And if you're just showing up here and you're going home and sitting in front of the television or you're, you know, you don't have another interest.
Carl Hutchinson: There's no driving. And I was really shocked that question was such a game changer as opposed to a lot of the other questions.
Kent Bullard: Michael, I wanna throw it over to you 'cause I just had a thought and I wanna ask a question here. So bear with me as I kind of flesh this out. Okay? Sure. Looking at this question, Carl do you think, Michael, that it has to do with the fact that the people who don't have these extracurriculars or these hobbies are somewhat locked?
Kent Bullard: Yep. I think
Carl Hutchinson: you're getting
Kent Bullard: it.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah, I think you're getting it too. Yeah. They're,
Kent Bullard: they're locked in this space where they're not cognitively flexible and that prevents progress or growth. So an evidence marker to say that this is gonna be somebody that is gonna be hard to invest in their own personal benefit and development just because they don't have, like, they are already inflexible with their life.
Kent Bullard: They're doing this and this, and that's it. I don't know if that is a great question there, but I don't know. I don't wanna answer
Carl Hutchinson: for Michael, but I just. The more I think about it it's more of like the critical thinking. Like if you have horses and man, they're just problem solving all over the place with horses.
Carl Hutchinson: So if you have horses and you're trying to train them and you're trying to get them to do something, you're constantly just on the this thinking thing. RC cars or archery, I'm just thinking all these things. All of 'em have critical thinking. I mean, the hobbies that I have, there's a lot of critical thinking in it and problem solving.
Carl Hutchinson: And you're always challenging yourself to do something more, go places different. And so I really think there's something to that, that those are the ones that I kind of think set, are set apart. That they're already on a path. That if they're doing something like that, then they're teachable then they're.
Carl Hutchinson: Maybe they're more apt to take on that extra thing and not really know what the heck they're doing.
Michael Smith: And yeah, and I'd absolutely agree with that. And I would I'll add this to it, and sorry that my intercon internet connection this afternoon is just a tad unstable, so I caught most of that. Now, you know, I'll say this.
Michael Smith: We live our life in habits and Carl, we've talked about this and some of the stuff we studied together, we are 90% habitual. As average human beings. And so the point is we groove our lives in ways that worked in the past, and then we tend to stick with it because it's energy efficient, it's time efficient, it's, you know, it's success efficient.
Michael Smith: I know if I do it again, I'm probably gonna succeed. And so in some ways, all, every single one of us gets lazy. And whatever we habitually tracked is what we tend to continue to do. And so you can track sitting on a couch and playing video games with every ounce of free time you have. Or you can track, you know, dating your girlfriend, turns into your wife, and you spend all of your life focusing on just one person.
Michael Smith: And that's all you do outside of work too. You can track anything you want to in terms of this habitual model. And so I'm just sort of bringing the psychology behind what you guys are talking about. You can track learning too. You can become a learning, mastering being, and you can habituate that and you can then be interested in trying new things and doing hobbies and, you know, getting good at something.
Michael Smith: And you can have one hobby, or you can have a hobby for a while and then abandon it. I think those of you who know me know how much I think of da Vinci and how he would just grab some very strange challenge and work it, fail at it, work it, fail at it, work it until he mastered it, and then when he was sufficiently.
Michael Smith: Pleased with his level of progress. He'd say, okay, that's enough. I consider that I've mastered this particular thing. And then he'd turn around and pick up some equally difficult, impossible thing, and he'd take that on until he mastered it. And that, you know, that's the person you kind of, in some ways want to hire.
Michael Smith: Right? A da Vinci, of course, if he was still here. But beyond that, people who are just ready to try new things and say, you know what? I love this process of learning. I'm not afraid to fail, and I think it's great to do new things together. 'cause frankly, as a business owner in the industry that we're in, you can learn to run the operation better.
Michael Smith: If you're in the back shop, you can learn more about what happens at the front desk. If you're an owner, you can learn more finance, you can learn more psychology. If you're in the customer studying business, you can all figure out. What's happening in your community and in your particular unique customer base and watching the vehicles change?
Michael Smith: There is an endless number of things. There are an endless number of things that we can study and learn in our industry to be at the top of the game. And, you know, that's the thing. Are they habituated to couch sitting or are they habituated to the learning curve and to being excited? And that's where the hobbies would lean in dancing and motorcycle riding on the weekends and whatever, right.
Michael Smith: Whatever their things are. I, so I join you in that. There's a lot of psychology behind what you guys are talking about finding the champions in preparation. Right.
Kent Bullard: I wanna reiterate the question now that I've had a chance to think about it. So for now that we've
Michael Smith: the wrong question.
Kent Bullard: Now that we've answered the question, I'd love to reiterate the question. And we'll do this in post, we'll put it back in the beginning, but the question really is, do you think that the hobby question is related to the cognitive inflexibility of somebody who you are going to invest a lot of time and energy in developing and could bear evidence to whether or not there's somebody who can view that potential and pursue it?
Carl Hutchinson: I'll say yes. I mean, that's the short answer, just for the simple fact that I have passed over potential employees based on that answer. I mean, that's the short of it because if they don't have a driving interest it's a real challenge. I mean, that's just been my experience is it's a real challenge to get them to do anything that I need them to do and Right.
Carl Hutchinson: It's almost like a qualifying question as opposed to, you know, do you have a driver's license? We have to have a driver's license to, to work in this industry. It's like, do you have a hobby? And that ought to be like question number two, makes this interview really short. I don't know. But yes I think to me it does, and I don't know about to everybody else, but to me it does because it, I find it a real challenge to, to get somebody to go to where I feel like they can go or where I need them to go if they don't have that teachable or that ability to problem solve, learn self-motivated, I mean, those kinds of things.
Carl Hutchinson: Because I think that's what comes from hobbies. I mean, I mean, you think about it, if you wanna fly RC airplanes, there's a whole lot of stuff you gotta know. I mean. Way more than I ever thought about knowing. Like you just can't fly them any day. I mean, just because you're day off, that doesn't mean you can fly them that day.
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, there's a lot of things that go into it, and you really have to be on this constant thinking and planning and I really think that's where, I think that's where the hobbies come into it. At least that's what I see. And I hate to say, I just stumbled onto it, just I picked it up somewhere.
Carl Hutchinson: In some class that I was in, it's probably the one thing that I got out of a class. I'm gonna say it was a Cecil class. We'll give them the credit for it. I
Michael Smith: picked it. You're not
Carl Hutchinson: here to defend
Michael Smith: himself. Go ahead. I picked it up. Now I'm in class and it's like, oh
Kent Bullard: yeah we are creatures of habit and we tend to habitualize the things that are successful.
Kent Bullard: Right. What we do. So to take it one step further, I guess you could even say, you know, is the hobby something that is mentally stimulating in the sense of dealing with problems? 'cause I could see people answering hobbies that are not necessarily like, that seem a lot more passive, you know?
Carl Hutchinson: I don't know.
Carl Hutchinson: My wife does needle point and I don't know. Yeah, I guess there's problems with that too, that you gotta solve and mean. She does all kinds of craft hobbies. This house is full of it and,
Kent Bullard: I guess aside from saying you, you enjoy watching tv, you know? Yeah. Which is right. Anything other than that? Yeah, I,
Carl Hutchinson: I was gonna say, that's a mental note to anybody that's doing any kind of an interview, even if it's a fake
Kent Bullard: hobby, don't answer with that question.
Kent Bullard: Make
Carl Hutchinson: a hobby, but be prepared to answer a few questions, because there may be somebody that knows a lot more about it. I mean, you know, I know a little bit about motocross or motorcycles. I mean, that's a hobby that I could ask questions about. You know, badminton, eh, probably not. You know, I don't, you know, pickle ball?
Carl Hutchinson: I don't know. It's like ping pong in a big court, I guess. But I don't know.
Kent Bullard: So let's refocus let's go into the next piece here. Because I think there's a balance here. A lot of people who are listening to this out there. If you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh, this is a lot of,
Carl Hutchinson: where are they going with this mumbo
Kent Bullard: jumbo where it's like, we're, oh yeah, people, you know, all of this and can take it as this very ethereal intangible thing, you know?
Kent Bullard: How do you approach the balance between driving a team for performance? 'cause a lot of people are gonna be numbers driven. I wanna make sure we're hitting targets and all that. And also maintaining a supportive, human-centric environment with your team where you're having the time for the people, parts of it.
Carl Hutchinson: I think that's the one question that I put. I don't know. I got that one figured out that's a master level of somebody else there that I need to get in their wake and figure out how this happens. Honestly, it's a bigger challenge for me now than it had been because we were such a numbers driven and, you know, go push and, you know, we could make the numbers work.
Carl Hutchinson: But you also wear your people out and, you know, you don't have the right attitude. So I honestly, I'm trying to do the softer approach to it. I'm trying to back out and really give people a lot more space and a lot more ability to make those decisions and learn some of the tough lessons of making those decisions to get some of that balance because.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, I hate to say we can't work from home. Okay. So it's not, we can give you that kind of a benefit. And any kind of time off is a detriment to the company. Twofold. I mean, when you really think about it. So trying to work within the people that you have, trying to give them the time that they need to, you know, to buy homes to get off early, to go to their kids' school plays and, you know, to ball games and things like that, to be somewhat flexible.
Carl Hutchinson: I think we're a lot more flexible now than what we've ever been in this industry. And I think that's how you keep the good people. I think that's how you motivate and motivate, iss the wrong word. Maybe inspire the right people. To show up early the next day, maybe to work, I hate to say work through lunch, but work through lunch that kind of thing.
Carl Hutchinson: So,
Kent Bullard: well not only work life balance things, but what about, you know, the time to invest in development discussions and team meetings where you're talking culture and, you know, those are practical things that take time within the business space and leveraging whether or not those are valuable to the overall output of the company.
Carl Hutchinson: Well, right, and I hate to say I'm struggling with that piece of it just this week because we've got some planning meetings that. Don't tell Michael, but I'm a little bit behind on, and I won't tell him either. So in the years past, it was pretty easy to do all this, and I'll use the word strategic. I love the word now.
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, I was the guy that was doing it. I had my core people, they were around me. They and those were outside of my business. Those were the counselors and people that you bring in the group process. And we could go through and I could run budgets and I could run market plans and I could run projections.
Carl Hutchinson: And I could do all these things and I could have all this stuff done. The challenge is now nobody knows it but me. And now that we're trying to bring these other leaders in, and I really want their input and their buy-in as to what we're saying to be done. Now I'm running into this time barrier of vacations and, you know, people are off.
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, I got a gentleman off right now for a couple of days, you know, he's moving and so now I can't take my leadership out. And so, no, I'm struggling with that. I'll be real honest with you. I'm really struggling with it. So one of the things that we've done to, to curb some of this is we went to a every other week lunch meeting entire staff at that location.
Carl Hutchinson: We're providing lunch, we're running a mini L 10 meeting or a mini leadership meeting. Don't tell 'em, but there's an agenda and I got the agenda in my head and we click through it. I'm not writing it out. I'm not telling you what the next steps are, but I mean, it's that check-in process. Tell me what works.
Carl Hutchinson: Tell me what doesn't work. Tell me what we can do better all of, get all this input as much as we can in a short period of time. So that's carving those times out. Honestly, even that as a challenge, because the pushback has been, you're taking my time, this is my lunch hour. I don't know I come up in an industry where you went to work and then you did all your training and everything after hours, you gave up your Saturdays.
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, this is the old school we're dealing with the new school way. So it's a different way of thinking. Yeah. But so no, that's it. That is working for us. It's taken a long time for everybody to understand that it's a safe place and that they can speak, they can say. Such and such offended me. This tool doesn't work.
Carl Hutchinson: What do you think about doing this? You know, this needs to be fixed and it's fixing all the little things. Keeps them from being big things. I guess that's the best way to put it. And if we fix all the little things along the way, then they never become big things And you know, all of those big things have, we don't have the big fires anymore, they're just the little ones.
Carl Hutchinson: So that's, I guess that's the best way. And it's, that's probably the hardest thing is trying to carve out time now. 'Cause our industry and our people have changed. And I honestly, I think it's for the good, but then there's so many of us that are, my God, why don't we just stay after work and let's get this done?
Carl Hutchinson: And, you know, it's like everybody's wanting to, no, I'm going home. I, it's like, well, I really can't ask you or demand you to stay. So we have to figure out how to carve out time. Yeah,
Kent Bullard: that's right. You're hiring with pe people with hobbies. There's more to life than just work, right? I do wanna commend, I just wanna make a comment for Carl.
Kent Bullard: You know, he said we experienced this problem and here's what I'm doing about it. Just to, well, you know, talk about leadership, right? We
Carl Hutchinson: keep changing it, you know, 'cause I mean, we're running kind of the EOS program as closely as I can run it. So we're running an operating system and it's a lot of meetings and I, and I've told this to Michael several times, it's like, man, I'm meeting out and it's just every day there's another meeting, there's another meeting.
Carl Hutchinson: And but it works. And that's the challenge of it is it works. I think that what we're experiencing is we're running extremely lean right at the moment, and it's hard to carve out. It's hard to pull out that leader that you need with
Kent Bullard: everybody there. Yeah.
Carl Hutchinson: And still get stuff done because somebody's being shorted because that person's not there.
Carl Hutchinson: So if you're running fat, it's a lot easier. But if you're running very lean, which is where we're at right at the moment, and we chose to be lean at this point. We got tired of all of the distractions, so let's just run lean for a while. But that's what's also turned into a challenge, especially when you have a leadership meeting.
Carl Hutchinson: Then you have, you turn right around and you have a staff meeting, and you try to do all those in the same day. And then, oh, now we have a planning meeting to go to. Now we have a financial meeting to go to. Now we have a. Strategic, what are we gonna do for next year meeting? And yeah's,
Kent Bullard: there's always things that I personally like to prioritize when I'm having a meeting is just either this meeting is here to make a decision for how we move forward, or this meeting is gonna save us 90% of the headache later.
Carl Hutchinson: And the, just for clarification. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The second one is the biggest thing that I try to explain to all of our employees that speak up. Let us know what's going on. Let us help you, let us fix it. Let's figure out what training you need. Because if I can train you now, we have less headache in the future.
Carl Hutchinson: Everything has that. Let me get you through fire safety. Let me get you through whatever. And we don't have that big headache later. But to circle back, that's honestly, that's one of the biggest challenges we have in this industry. Not just in-house, in our house, but as an industry whole. We see our associations really struggling, and we see our business development groups struggling because the mentality is I don't wanna go seven o'clock at night.
Carl Hutchinson: I don't want to go eight o'clock at night. I don't wanna give up my Saturday. I'm already giving up. So honestly that's probably one of the biggest things that we have trouble with in our industry. And as, as I talk to people in other industries and I don't know how they relate because we're such a production oriented industry that like, if somebody needed to go get 20 hours worth of continuing education, they just go do it.
Carl Hutchinson: Well, I don't know who does their job when they're gone. You know, it's like if we sent two technicians out to, to do that, who does that? It just doesn't get done. And that's, that, that's a real challenge for us. 'cause we are so product driven, we're so sales driven. We're so, and it's tough to carve that time out.
Carl Hutchinson: Well, I think if you can communicate,
Michael Smith: Ken, can I, oh yeah, go ahead Mike. No, just a little bit. You know, I often meet owners who say, you know, I put in an EOS system or something similar to it, and they come and they say it's not working and this is not a slam on EOS or traction or any of that.
Michael Smith: And they come and they say It's not working because we sit in our meetings, we have our L tens, whatever, and people take, pick up their rocks and they promise they're gonna get it done, and we make all the commitments and then they come back to the next meeting and it's not done. And so then we sort of castigate each other and we reset the expectations and we add a couple more rocks and they go away and they come back to the next one and it's not done.
Michael Smith: It's incredibly frustrating. And then they'll say something like, this system doesn't work right, because they get to that point. And I'll say, it does but I'll say, here's the difference. If you do the accountability thing with those fine accountability systems, and there's many of 'em, you've got an accountability book.
Michael Smith: On your bookshelf right behind you that some folks know as well. Right? And those systems are great, but if the people aren't motivated from within themselves to be engaging in what they're doing, then these meetings are meetings for the sake of meetings and you hand them rocks and they're carrying a load and it's like, why do I have to carry this on top of what I have to do?
Michael Smith: Or do you know how busy I am already? Or blah, blah, blah. Right. Well, we, what we seem to find is that when the teams and Carl your is in the done a chunk of it, and there's still always more to do when individuals decide they're going to grow their own life. Right? It's like, I decide working for you, Carl.
Michael Smith: I'm gonna make the most of my life. I'm gonna make it. Personal side, professional side. I wanna master everything I do at work. I'm gonna go home and master my relationships. I'm gonna go back onto into my friend group and clean it up a little bit and fire some of the jerks that I should have fired a long time ago and all that, right?
Michael Smith: I had to decide I'm gonna lead a different kind of a life. All of a sudden. I want the metrics, and this is gonna sound crazy, but it's like, you know what? Now I come to the L 10 meeting and guess who I'm answering to? I'm not answering to you. I'm answering to me because I've decided that you're gonna help me.
Michael Smith: And you said it. You have so many seeds that you've sown through this. Carl, I'm gonna pick up on a couple you want you've aligned what I want with what you want from me. Right. Your job as the owner is, look, I gotta move the company and I got all the stuff that needs to get done. You guys are all here working and you're growing in your own profession.
Michael Smith: My job is to know you and what you want and need, and then I gotta put all that together so that I ask from each of you what you are gonna be able to give and want to give so that at the end that all adds up and we all get what we want, which is a highly successful company. Enough profitability to raise paychecks, all the stuff that we all want, all the way around the board.
Michael Smith: And when the culture takes that turn. And people aren't there anymore for a job. They're not there anymore because they have to be there. 'cause Carl's gonna be on their back if they don't, or the store manager or whatever. Accountability suddenly becomes this thing about, look, hold me accountable and I want you to pick out what I can do better.
Michael Smith: Most people are like, what? I don't want you to talk to me about my failures. Are you kidding me? It's like, no. At the end of the meeting, I don't want to hear what went well. I want to hear what we could do better next time because I'm on a journey here and you're here. You told me you were gonna come help me with this journey, Carl, and I want you to push me right?
Michael Smith: I want you to hold me accountable. I want you to kick my rear end, right? We have peer groups of owners and they always ask, we want our butts kick more. And it's like, you like this? It's like that's what helps us to stay moving, right? Because there are times when we sit down and go, I'm tired. Then you look in the mirror and it's only you looking at you and you go, Hey, that guy looks tired too.
Michael Smith: And then you decide to sit there. Right? But if somebody calls on the phone, did you get that report done? You're like just a second. I'll get it out tomorrow. Right. Yeah. And again, it's just back and that's where I'm just building an awful lot of stuff. You said when you get a true championship team turned on, they are in the metrics 'cause they want them for each of their individual selves and they want to know how the team's doing.
Michael Smith: 'cause you know, at the end of the day, the way you become a chronic champion is you beat everybody else more consistently than you lose. The only way to know that is if you keep score. As dumb as that sound. You can't just do it and go, well, that one felt pretty good. It's like, you gotta win. And that's where the metrics part comes in.
Michael Smith: So I, and you're, you have largely turned that corner and you know that you're past, the meetings are a pain in the neck. 'cause they just take time away from me. Now you're into the, well what do they really mean to me? And why am I here? And now I sure they care. And some of the folks that work for you are there and some of 'em are getting there.
Michael Smith: And it's good, right? Because 'cause that's when it takes on a whole different nature. Anyway, I wanted to add that to the mix. 'cause I often hear, oh, my accountability system doesn't work. It's like, well, let's dig into that a little bit. It's probably not the system that's the problem at this point.
Michael Smith: And you get back into the human side, right?
Carl Hutchinson: So give it a, you get the nail on the head and any operating system is not easy. I mean, really it's not, it doesn't matter what it is. You know, you can read all these books and do all, but doing it and holding yourself accountable to it is probably the hardest thing, right.
Carl Hutchinson: But yeah the, to carve out the time is probably the hardest thing. Because anytime you have people that are in production roles of whatever, it doesn't matter, whatever role they're in, they're producing and you take 'em away from that is a challenge. But I've always looked at it as, if I took 20 minutes of your time or an hour of your time, can I save you three hours later?
Carl Hutchinson: Can I save you upset customer? Can I save you some kind of headache? Or even if it's just a discussion or passing on the knowledge of, hey, let's don't work on that. You know, let's some of this old knowledge that we have, some of these newer people don't know. To not do. I think that's the best way to put it.
Michael Smith: Yeah. Well, let me add to your list. Can I, can we have a meeting where I share something with you that will help you to have a better life? Yeah. I mean, that, that's really what we're after, right? Is to have the meetings be productive in that way. And when people get it and they realize the kind of investment that you're making in them, that you actually care about 'em and you do know who they are, and you do understand their career and personal aspirations, and you're asking them at work to do what they're good at and also what's gonna cause them to go farther with what they want and dream about in their life.
Michael Smith: Why wouldn't I show up in a meeting that you hold at that point? 'cause I know I'm gonna get something outta it, right? Which,
Carl Hutchinson: well, and so many of them are shocked that we want them to be better husbands or better. Wives or better partners or better fathers or whatever. And a lot of the things that we try to teach and do is not necessarily for their professional position.
Carl Hutchinson: And it's how do we make them a better person? And I think if we can make 'em a better person, we've got a much better employee staff member, team player, whatever tag you wanna put on them. I try to, family members is really what I I don't know. It's kind of weird, but I think if we could, I think family members will call each other out faster than maybe coworkers.
Michael Smith: And they enjoy it more, do they? Right.
Carl Hutchinson: Well, yeah. Your brothers and sisters will pick on you. Depends on the family. Yeah.
Kent Bullard: Yeah. Or you get blackball. I will say this, I feel like as a society, we've forgotten the importance of mentorship.
Carl Hutchinson: Yes. And
Kent Bullard: I think, you know, with the advent of the internet, you know, I talk about this a lot, but with the advent of the internet the dissemination of knowledge and information is now, you know.
Kent Bullard: You've gotta go around on both sides because now it's easier for me to not have to go to somebody like Michael and ask him a question, but I can go online and Google an answer. But at the same time, it's also kind of a lot easier for the older generation to go, well, I mean, they can just Google it, so I'll focus my attention elsewhere.
Kent Bullard: And you kind of have this like, separation and really the younger people really need that. And I think they know that, right? And so just reaching out and making that connection and saying, you know, I wanna mentor you, not just bark at you and tell you what has to happen, but really invest in them because that's what we've done generations prior.
Kent Bullard: Yeah,
Michael Smith: I like that. Mentorship. Go ahead Carl.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah, go ahead. I mean, when I come into the industry as a technician, you know, 40 years ago, everything has a 40 years slant to it now. I begged for a mentor. Yeah, I mean, and basically they just threw you into the deep end of the pool and you either, you know, swam or you sank.
Carl Hutchinson: And I did not like that. I mean, I figured out how to swim, but I didn't swim well and I've been told that there's three things in my life and my professional life. There's the right way, the wrong way in Carl's way. Well, Carl's Way is because Carl learned it on his own, and he wasn't really taught anything.
Carl Hutchinson: What it works, I mean, I tell my son a lot. It's says, well, he looks at some of the stuff that I do and as, but it works. I, and that's all I need to know is it works. So yeah, the right way, wrong way in Carls way. And so mentorship in our industry, I don't think really came along until maybe 20 years ago or 15 years ago, that we really started talking about apprentice programs and bringing people in and.
Carl Hutchinson: Tutoring them. I mean, I think I'm a product of that. Like I said earlier in this was I was being what, I forget the word that I used. I was being I can't think of modified or groomed, that's where word was for groomed. I was being groomed for a position that I didn't know. The but we really need that in our industry and not just in our own houses.
Carl Hutchinson: I, I really think that I've had a lot of great mentors that own businesses, other places, and I get to watch and see how they interact and how they d deal with their employees and how they deal with their hiring and I, how they deal with those things. So I think we need to be mentors for other.
Carl Hutchinson: Businesses and in our groups. But in-house I think that's a huge thing. I think we're never gonna get our leadership teams to where we want 'em to be if we're not gonna mentor them, if we're not gonna bring 'em up, we're not gonna get our technicians to where they need to be if we don't have programs for them.
Carl Hutchinson: And really I guess one of the bigger challenges is hiring the experience that wants to teach the ones. That's probably one of the bigger challenges that I've seen in our industry is the ones that have a lot of experience are not necessarily good at teaching. They say they will, but when they get in, you know, it's that culture.
Carl Hutchinson: Well, I mean, they've had a,
Kent Bullard: they've had a system that has predominantly rewarded them on them being the one that answers the question. And so there hasn't been any in my, you know, yes. Just as a guess here, I don't think there's been enough utility for them to teach others. Right,
Carl Hutchinson: right. Yeah. And well, you're giving away their time to, to teach somebody else and you know, that's, you're back to that they're not making money.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah. You
Kent Bullard: know, not making Right. Hours on, right. Yeah. You're back to
Carl Hutchinson: that. What's in it for me? And we have to figure out workarounds and I've I've learned a lot in that realm. I've learned a lot of things that you shouldn't do.
Michael Smith: Well, I have a question for you. I haven't you haven about one out
Carl Hutchinson: yet either, but we're still working on it and we're Can I
Michael Smith: throw one thing in?
Michael Smith: Yeah. Before we slide away from this one. I'll tell you what a number of the folks that I work with are finding the folks that have been in our industry for 25, 30, 35 years. And, you know, if you've been under a car for 30 years, your hands hurt, your back hurt, your knees hurt. There's folks that can't pull on a wrench the way they used to.
Michael Smith: And, you know, in their minds while they're working every day is, what am I gonna do? I'm X age and what's my future look like? And I just wanna throw this out there. The older we get. The more it seems that the legacy questions become important to everybody, not just owners, and what's the legacy for your business, but also, you know, what you start to think about the people that helped you in life and the people that, that you wouldn't be where you are if it wasn't for them.
Michael Smith: And it doesn't matter what your current job is or been seminal people in your life. You ask folks who are kind of wearing out, if you will, physically, mentally, emotionally, and you say to them what? What would you like to do next? The older we get, the more we tend to get a response. You know, I would like to help the next generation.
Michael Smith: I'd like to pass along to the folks that are behind me and help them pay it forward. Like, you know, somebody paid it forward to me back in the good old days. And from that perspective, I just wanna throw that out there for thinking that, you know, there's a change in the mentality, I think, from this transactional industry that we've been in.
Michael Smith: As we realize that humans are different today, they have a lower tolerance for BS at work, which may be a good thing. We also have a lower attention span, right? That means they don't, our younger generations tend not to be thinking about, oh, I'd like to spend 10,000 hours learning this. They're like, can I just find the hack on the internet and get there short way, the mentoring things up against it, but.
Michael Smith: The folks that have got the experience would love to mentor, and in relationships that are healthy, the people who are new to the industry, it's nurturing and positive and productive to have a mentor. And so even though we're up against the social trends of the quick and easy, you find a hack and, you know, cut the corner and not really learn, but just go find the next hack online.
Michael Smith: Next time you get into this genuine mastery conversation and both ends of the spectrum, it becomes meaningful very quickly. And I'm just throwing that in there. It's kind of a mystery, mysterious conversation when you first start having it. And people look at you like you're from another planet. But the more they think about it, it actually does match our developmental psychology, as you know, as adults from childhood to death, if you will.
Michael Smith: And so it, it really does bring us back to how we're made. When we start talking about this and people aspire to it, I'm gonna say, and end here very quickly. Once you put it out there and they start to get it, they're like, you know what, I really like this suits me. And it does, it suits humans.
Michael Smith: So just encouraging us on the backside of this, that this, even though it is becoming less of a common subject if you make it a subject that's more unique, but it's also very powerful human to human. So,
Kent Bullard: so Michael, we're probably gonna have to do another podcast on this subject. Just, you know, this question I'm gonna ask you.
Michael Smith: Sure.
Michael Smith: But
Michael Smith: I'll try to keep it short.
Kent Bullard: What are how do I, how do, how does the youth, the younger generations find a mentor? That's
Michael Smith: a great question, and I would I would ask, I, you know, here's the thing. I would, it's a little bit like we talk as owners about finding the rock stars, the unicorns, the champions to come work for us.
Michael Smith: Sometimes you have to kiss some toads, and if you're a young person, and you, and I'm gonna say this Carl, you probably reflect on this too, when I'm running a business and a young person walks up to me and says, I want to learn to be great and I'm gonna ask you if you'll help me. Not a lot of people have that conversation.
Michael Smith: And does that, I mean, that sticks out in my mind. I remember those people. I can count 'em on, you know, two hands after 40, almost five years of doing this. Right? And, but those people stood out and basically they were taking charge of their life and saying, I want, I'd like to ask you if it's not too much to ask, to spend some time with.
Michael Smith: Me, and I'm not gonna be obnoxious about it. Whatever you're willing to give. But I would love to have that if you're a young person, go have that conversation with somebody who looks like they're respectable to you. And you may get into it and find out they're not Carl. Maybe one of those people that once you start mentoring and they close the door in the office and go, now how can we lie to the customer and cheat that one back so we don't end up losing all the money on that repair?
Michael Smith: And you end up as the young person kind of walking away from that going, Nope, not for me. I mean, you're fully entitled to fire a menka too here, guys. Right? But I would ask Kent. I would just simply ask, and it's not, doesn't happen enough. It doesn't happen enough that's a wearing question.
Michael Smith: It's an attractive one for an old guy. Let me
Carl Hutchinson: jump in here. I think before you Yeah, go. Yeah, for sure. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Carl. So I don't think I've ever asked somebody to be my mentor. But I've sought them out. I have a handful locally and then. When we got into the group process many years ago, that's what you're asking for.
Carl Hutchinson: I mean, you know, you're I didn't know that. I mean, I was trying to learn all the stuff that I thought I knew and didn't know, and then you realize you don't know it. But then all of a sudden you're thrust into this group of, and there's usually four or five of 'em in there that have achieved, and you just marry yourself to them.
Carl Hutchinson: You just gravitate to them. I've never asked one of them to be my mentor, but it didn't take a whole lot to figure it out that all of my conversations were over here or over there, or, I understand this guy's. Good at marketing or I understand this guy is a good people person. I understand this person is a good process, procedure person, and you start marrying yourselves up with these people and all of a sudden they're your mentors.
Carl Hutchinson: And you know, I have a lot of those and a lot of 'em have went on now out of the industry to do other things. And you don't. I think that's what you need to do. Don't be afraid to you know, I like the ask the question. I feel like I'm very bold and I do a lot of things, but I don't know that I would go ask somebody to be my mentor.
Carl Hutchinson: That's our challenge. But I could sure be in the room with them enough that all I'll absorb what they're putting off, I'll absorb it. And honestly, I think that's one of the things that's gotten us to where we're at, is just being in the room with people that are so much smarter and they've been there, done that.
Carl Hutchinson: Or you ask 'em a few key questions and all of a sudden now you've got an answer to something. I think we as business owners in this industry, have to make an environment of when you're hiring people in a, we've got people here that will help you. You're not gonna be stuck out on an island. It's not a, an individual sport here.
Carl Hutchinson: This is if you're gonna come in at whatever level you're coming in at, there's somebody around here that probably has a little more experience and would be willing to help you get you out of that jam. I think that's the environment that we have to create whether we have an individual person that is the mentor, which we've had in the past, and or do we have a group of people that is a mentor?
Carl Hutchinson: And I think that's where we're at right now as we go through this lean stage is we have a group, it's a group effort, and I think we're in a very much of a help everybody situation. So I think that's. The young people that are wanting to be in this industry, God bless 'em to come in. We want 'em here.
Carl Hutchinson: But if I was coming into this industry, even with all the education that I think that you can get through the colleges, I think it's, you're just barely scratching the surface now. I mean, it was so different years ago. To come in now is there's it takes so much to spool up and be where we need you to be in four or five years.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, I think you could be 4, 5, 10 years into this industry. Now, when I come into the industry, it only took you a year or six months. I mean, it just the gap is so much more now. You know, we're not learning about fuel ratios and compression ratios and stroke and bore and all, I mean.
Carl Hutchinson: Honestly, it doesn't matter. We're learning about computer controls and, you know, how do your wipers work? And honestly, all this stuff is so computerized anymore that they have to be very intelligent. It's so, so the learning gap is a lot bigger now. I mean, it's takes a lot more. So I think the answer to the question is I think we have to be the ones that create the environment of you can come in here and learn even the master technicians that we hire, you're gonna come in here and learn.
Carl Hutchinson: You may know more than everybody here, but you are, you're gonna come in here and learn because you're gonna learn and then you're gonna teach somebody else. So I think that's the environments that we have to create in this industry. So I think that's the answer. I love that. Yeah.
Kent Bullard: So we're kind of getting at time here and I wanna do kind of a lightning round with you, Carl.
Kent Bullard: Okay. Oh man. Is that fair? That's fair. These are gonna, some big questions come. I don't have to date you at the
Carl Hutchinson: end of this, do I?
Kent Bullard: No. I think so, so three questions. Okay. First one, how has focusing on the human side of your business changed you as a leader?
Carl Hutchinson: It's made me more of a thoughtful leader.
Carl Hutchinson: I think. I think I would have to ask the people around me. I think I've softened my position a lot on some of the, what I would call my demands or my requests. I think I hire differently now than what I did in the past. I think I interview a little differently. I think our conversations that we have maybe not quite structured as opposed to more getting to know you, finding out what you're wanting to do and can we marry that up with what we're trying to achieve.
Carl Hutchinson: And really find out what's important to people. You know, 'cause that's, it's so different from employee to employee every, you, there's so many things that are different and finding out those things. So I think that's probably one of the biggest things that has changed me and honestly I'll give kudos to Michael on this one, is telling people that they are better than what they think they are because they've been told incorrectly.
Carl Hutchinson: And to get that out of their heads. So every time I hear these negatives is to reinforce them with positives. And, you know, I think I'm also telling myself that as I'm telling them, because I've heard so many of these things over the years. I think we all have. So I think those are one of the biggest changes in the way I view what I do and our teams.
Carl Hutchinson: Check that box. What
Kent Bullard: advice? Yeah. What advice would you give to other leaders that are aiming to create a workplace culture that is gonna prioritize wellbeing and growth and personal development?
Carl Hutchinson: Gosh, what advice would I get? I would think figure out what you want and who you are first. And I'm only saying this because I'm going through this myself.
Carl Hutchinson: I thought I knew who I was, but I also know what we were portraying. And the two are different and I'm trying to figure out how to marry those. And I think we, and I think I'm going down that path. I think I'm starting to live that path a little better. So I think figuring out who you are and what you want to portray it is a team concept, but the team is only as good as the leader.
Carl Hutchinson: So if the leader doesn't believe in what they're doing, I think we're really struggling right off the bats. And I'm just saying this because this is where I'm at. So once you figure out what you want and who you are, stick to your guns. I think that's it. Because there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna fall off the bus, the boat, whatever the heck you wanna call it.
Carl Hutchinson: I think there's gonna be a lot of people that's going to fall off. They may not like the direction that you want to go, or they may not be willing to go where you're wanting to go. And that's some of the things that I've learned in this past year or so is, don't be afraid to lose some of the people because you will find people that will fill the void.
Carl Hutchinson: Your people will fill that void and then you haven't found, you haven't hired the person yet. You haven't met the person that you need yet. And you'll get through it. And I think that's the biggest thing. And I'm only saying that because I have to speak that to myself. 'cause I'm in that boat.
Carl Hutchinson: I'm in that same position as we're in this evolving position of really trying to figure out, well, I need to get back to our roots of where this business came from and get back to what got us here. And I think that's going to shake it up a little bit. And don't be afraid to put yourself out there.
Carl Hutchinson: I think that's the best advice that I could give anybody at this point.
Kent Bullard: I love that. Last question. You know, what do you hope to leave in your organization and your community and beyond for your legacy?
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah. Legacy's a great thing. You know, and I'm trying to get away from these truth tapes that, that stuck in my head.
Carl Hutchinson: Yeah. The old messages of the new one. The old messages, yeah. You know, the uneducated guy that, you know, you know, if you work really hard, you'll eventually get there. It might take 40 years, but you'll get there. And honestly, the legacy that I wanna leave is not about me. The legacy that I wanna leave is about those that I leave behind.
Carl Hutchinson: The complete automotive name. I would love to see that. The rest of my life here on Earth and into the next generations and the next generations. But I think that's asking a lot. I think the legacy that I wanna leave when I step outta this industry is that we've left people behind that have the same passion, morals, and ethics and views that I have and that I've been brought up with.
Carl Hutchinson: And I think that's the best legacy that I wanna leave because I just keep thinking that it's not about me. It's not about complete automotive, it's not about it's just not it. It's the people that are around us and the, and what we're gonna do. You know, I would, I like to be as famous as Coca-Cola or Disney prob.
Carl Hutchinson: Then again, yes, but no, I'm not willing to put that much effort into it. So I think that's the legacy that I wanna leave, is the people behind me, they can be proud of what we've done and proud of what they're doing, that they're stepping into. I think that's probably the biggest, the best legacy that I could leave is not only for our community, for the people, but for our industry also.
Carl Hutchinson: You know, I think there, there's a lot of people that come and go in this industry and there's a lot of people that do it dis disservice to it and really make it tough for the rest of us that are trying to do well and not just make money at it and not just whatever, you know, we're actually trying to grow people and to be a good service service to our community.
Carl Hutchinson: So I really think that's a legacy that I really wanna leave. Legacy is a tough question because six months from now it might change, but I think that's where I'm at on, on this ones. That's what I want people to speak. At my funeral about, that's what I want people to speak about. Not only me, but the people that, that I've trained or brought in, that they have that same type of outlook on life.
Carl Hutchinson: So, yep,
Michael Smith: it'll play that out. Great answer.
Kent Bullard: Well, from, you know, what it takes to hold a team accountable to our perspectives on failure, all the way to does, do you have a hobby? And what is it? This has been such a tremendous conversation. I definitely would love to bring you back, Carl, to dissect some of these things.
Kent Bullard: Even just the idea of, you know, what is mentorship? How do we pursue it from both ends, I think would be a phenomenal conversation to have. Absolutely. This has been absolutely invaluable. Those of you who are listening to this and have found value in this conversation, please help share this with others like and share.
Kent Bullard: It helps the algorithm, but most importantly, it gets this content to people who need it. If you want more information about what we do at the institute, you can find that at we are the institute.com. And Carl, thank you again so much for your time today.
Carl Hutchinson: You're welcome. Truly, honestly I enjoy speaking about the industry.
Carl Hutchinson: I don't necessarily like speaking about myself that much
Michael Smith: for you. I start seeing in my room ears, which for clinical learning experiences, right? So. Right, right. Carl, this is awesome. Thank you. All
Kent Bullard: of this, all of this is a part of a grander conversation. And again, those listeners out there who wanna join the conversation, please ask your questions. Let's continue this discussion in the comments below, and we'll see you guys in the next episode.
 

170 - Ask Me Anything: Financial Education and What the Numbers Are Really Telling You

170 - Ask Me Anything: Financial Education and What the Numbers Are Really Telling You
November 19, 2025 - 00:55:59
 
Show Summary:
This AMA with Cecil Bullard, Founder, and Wayne Marshall, CEO, dives deep into the financial realities shop owners face and how to interpret the numbers that drive the business. They open by addressing slow seasons and share practical strategies for building consistent car count long before the dips happen. Cecil and Wayne break down the roles of internet marketing, SMS outreach, community engagement and long-term relationship nurturing so owners stay top of mind when customers need help. They clarify how to build preferred customer programs, how to track ROI across marketing channels, and why added value attracts stronger clients than discounts. The conversation moves into financial structure as they explain proper P&L layout, separating labor categories, and how technician, advisor and admin expenses should flow through the business. From pay plans and KPIs to accrual vs cash accounting, they show how to read trends rather than reacting to one-month swings. They wrap with guidance on staffing, capacity-based sales goals, and why high-performing shops anchor their decisions in clear data rather than assumptions.
 
Host(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute
Wayne Marshall, CEO & Industry Coach
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] - Cecil and Wayne kick off the AMA and dive into how shops should prepare for slow seasons long before they arrive.[00:01:27] - Cecil explains how pre-booking appointments and preferred customer programs stabilize car count.[00:03:03] - They discuss using events, community involvement and customer touch points to fill traditionally slow months.[00:05:25] - Wayne covers why consistent marketing beats stop-and-start efforts tied to car count.[00:06:52] - Cecil outlines the two sides of marketing: capturing today’s buyer and staying top of mind for future needs.[00:10:36] - They break down how preferred customer programs increase average repair order and long-term loyalty.[00:15:04] - Cecil explains why online marketing outperforms direct mail and how to watch ROI by channel.[00:20:31] - Wayne and Cecil clarify how to separate labor, parts and advisor costs correctly on a P&L.[00:23:37] - Cecil walks through target margins, expense percentages and the structure of a healthy composite.[00:33:55] - They discuss how to interpret financials using cash or accrual accounting without being misled by timing delays.[00:41:10] - Cecil shares staffing ratios, when to add admin roles and how to calculate their impact on labor rate and capacity.[00:43:20] - Cecil explains the daily KPIs he watches and why certain metrics should only be reviewed weekly or monthly.[00:52:14] - They address phone scripts, objection handling and how structured communication builds higher sales consistency.
 
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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:
Cecil Bullard: Welcome to the Institute's Ask Me Anything. My name is Cecil Bullard, founder of the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and coach Presenter. And today we have with us Wayne Marshall, who is our relatively new CEO. And he does coaching with us. Also started out as a coach and then we.
Cecil Bullard: Needed his help in some other areas, and so he got I, I don't know if I'd call it a promotion. It might be a demotion actually to.
Wayne Marshall: Level of service. It's just a level of service.
Cecil Bullard: If you are with us online we appreciate you being here. Please put your questions in the chat. I will do my best to pay attention, but we actually have a couple of people off site off camera that are looking at that, and they'll be popping those questions up as we, we need those.
Cecil Bullard: I've got a few questions that were asked to start. Quick tips for when times are slow. I think marketing is always a bit of a challenge, Wayne and right now, I think because of the government slowdown, there was a period where, you know, about a month where things were a little slower. I'm gonna tell you, first of all, don't wait for times to be slow, to be marketing.
Cecil Bullard: 'cause it's too late at that point in time. There are things that you can do if you have a good customer base. Number one book the appointment. Book the next appointment. You're the professional, you're the one that knows be like the dentist start booking your customer's next appointments, and if you want, give them a reason to do that.
Cecil Bullard: At my shops, we had a preferred customer program and part of the preferred customer program was booking their next appointment when they needed to have the car in for service. We had a 6,000 mile. Six month service schedule for our clients. And so number one, start now booking the next appointment.
Cecil Bullard: And if you do that, we had we had six to seven appointments booked per day and a 92% show up rate of our clients under that circumstance. I think there are some things you can do if you're already out there in social media or if you are. Regularly hitting your clients with some type of an email that they are looking at or opening or you're setting, sending some messaging through their texting.
Cecil Bullard: I know that we looked at our pattern. So when were we traditionally slow? November had traditional October, November had traditionally been a slow time for our shops. When we looked at that, we. Looked at events that were going on. The city had a pretty big event in October and we supported that event.
Cecil Bullard: We participated in that event and we actually did a shop where we had the event. We brought the event into our shop. And so we ended up having between three and 400 people in our shop in mid-October for an event between the Chamber and the BNI group that we belong to. And that made our Novembers our, that finished our Octobers out really strong and made our Novembers very strong.
Cecil Bullard: So within a year we were able to, because we were aware of the fact that November was a slow month, we were able to do some things that made November a much stronger month for us. And actually November became one of our strongest months. I think if you're, it's like, oh no, I just don't have any cars.
Cecil Bullard: There are things that you can do. We did a, I did a pizza thing once. I just called the, one of the local pizza shops and I said, I wanna buy 10 you know, large pizzas with everything on 'em. What's it gonna cost me? And I sent a message out to my clients, Hey you know, it's February's a little slow for us, so we're gonna do something we don't normally do.
Cecil Bullard: If you make for the first 10 customers that make an appointment they're gonna get a large pizza at Giovanni's Pizza Place. And believe it or not, we made 19 appointments within about an hour. Sending that out. And it was funny 'cause I said 10, and when number 11 came on board, I said congratulations, you're number 10.
Cecil Bullard: And when number, you know, 14 came on board, I said, congratulations, you're number 10. We booked 19 appointments. Now if you're doing stuff like that and you're doing it kind of continuously that you can't make a business on that. You need, a website company that does good, S-E-O-S-E-M good local search et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: And you can't, I love the shops that say, Hey, we're really busy right now, so we're gonna cut our marketing. We don't do that even when we're busy. We don't cut our marketing, and especially when we're not busy, we don't cut our marketing. So, Wayne, do you have anything to add there?
Wayne Marshall: We got a couple questions, but Yes.
Wayne Marshall: On what you just shared, Cecil, you're correct. Consistency. People get busy, they quit marketing or like, Hey, I don't have to do this. I got car counts, I got bookings, you know, out three, four weeks. No, you gotta keep marketing. Be consistent. Keep the message going, stay top of mind, and you know, and as people talk when it comes to what works and what doesn't.
Wayne Marshall: I see one of the questions was internet marketing versus SMS marketing more efficient. Some of that depends, and I always tell people, you know, kind of pay attention to what people are asking. If a customer comes in and it's part of your intake. What's one of the first thing your service advisors are asking?
Wayne Marshall: How do you wanna be communicated with? Do you want me to call you? Do you want me to text you? Do you want me to email you? If you're being told that, well, I like to be text. Make a note of that because that's telling you that SMS marketing or text messaging them and doing other things might be more effective for that particular client over some other things.
Wayne Marshall: So you've gotta look at your data, which you can get within your CRM. But yeah, the biggest thing is the consistency of what you're doing and how you're doing it. And don't stop. Don't stop. And
Cecil Bullard: so I, in that particular question that we just had you know, internet or SMS I'd like to answer that question a little more completely.
Cecil Bullard: There's two types of things that I'm trying to do with marketing. Number one, I want to capture the person that needs auto repair. So that person is going to, if they don't already have a shop, they're gonna go online and they're either gonna go to Google or one of the search engines and they're gonna say, you know, where do I find.
Cecil Bullard: Toyota repair or Toyota service, or how do I find someone to check my check engine light or whatever that is. That's someone that has a problem today, money in their hand, and they're looking for somebody that is internet marketing. And that's one aspect of who I'm trying to find. Right? And so I need to have that.
Cecil Bullard: But I'm, I also. Need to be top of mind. And that is more SMS marketing is more top of mind. So social media is more about getting my name out there so that when you need something, you remember my name, you know who I am. So, you know, if you if you never thought about coaching and you said to yourself, all of a sudden, oh my God, I'm going broke.
Cecil Bullard: I need a coach. And you went online and said, you know, who are the best coaches? You know, I'm going broke. How do I find a coach? I want to show up there. I want the institute to come up there. But I also want you to have seen things about the institute. So our YouTube channel, our our social media stuff that we do our regular emails being a part of our institute group.
Cecil Bullard: Because when you go to look for that coach, I want you to say, oh. Those institute guys, I've heard about them. I know who they are. I feel comfortable with them, and I'm, and that makes you more likely to then select me and show up at my place. So it, marketing is not necessarily one or the other.
Cecil Bullard: Marketing is, you know, I'm probably doing seven or eight things at any given time. So I have a website that's maintained by somebody that knows how to do that. I have sEO, search engine optimization, et cetera. I have social media. I, I book the, my customer's next appointment. I work within the community.
Cecil Bullard: I'm involved with BNI, chamber, rotary things like that. And so I, I also have a CRM that is sending my customer database information routinely. Maybe three, four times a month. Once a week a client will get something from me that reminds me that I, them, that I'm here and it reminds me of their name.
Cecil Bullard: So marketing is. I mean, I believe first of all that most shop owners are not qualified to do their own marketing. We love to, we're do it yourselfers. And I would just tell you, how do you feel when one of your clients who's not qualified to work on their car, works on their car, then brings it to you and says, oh, it won't run, fix it.
Cecil Bullard: Right. And yet we kind of do the same thing. I need to have someone that knows what they're doing, do my marketing, and I believe that marketing is an important part of a long-term successful business that makes a profit consistently. Okay. So, Hey Michael, you got another question for me there, brother?
Cecil Bullard: Eric Se, and by the way, I think that was Cheyenne if I mispronounce your name. Thank you for that question. Cheyenne. We have Eric seven. Hey Eric. Good to hear from you Bob, brother. Can you speak more about preferred customer program? What is the reason what you think most people booked and came back in?
Cecil Bullard: Our preferred customer program gave our client two car washes a year, two loaner cars a year. We did a windshield treatment as part of a preferred customer program, and we did bring the price of our minor service, which at the time 12 years ago, 14 years ago, was $165 down by $25 as a preferred customer.
Cecil Bullard: And the reason why. Was because we knew when preferred customers came in that their average apparator was a few hundred dollars higher than our normal, average appar of 800, whatever it was at the time. And so we were able to say if I gave them $25 as part of that program I asked everyone at the counter, if you wanna be a preferred customer my.
Cecil Bullard: Service advisors asked every single person, Hey would you like to become a preferred customer? We'd like to hear about that program. I think we even had some buttons printed that said, ask us about our preferred customer program, et cetera. And so then they said, well, okay, what is it? And we said, well, we give you to loaner cars and to car washes.
Cecil Bullard: So when your car comes in, we wash it. When you leave it, you have a clean car, which by the way. We did anyway, so all by putting it into a preferred customer program, we made it more formalized and we printed a card out for them that was a punch card that they had. And frankly, if you didn't bring your punch card, I'd still give you a loaner car or whatever if you were a preferred customer because you were gonna spend $1,100 on your car every time you came in.
Cecil Bullard: And so by creating a preferred customer program, I was also during that conversation, able to say and preferred customers book and keep their next appointment within, you know, 30 days. So, you know, we're gonna schedule an appointment for you six months from now. We don't, we know you don't know what you're doing and so, we're gonna send you a message three weeks before and three days before we're gonna call you.
Cecil Bullard: And if we need to reschedule, it's not a problem. We just need to know that three days before so we can plan our schedule and then we just reschedule 'em. And and so that was our preferred customer program and I think it was a really good, thing, no, I did not incentivize, I did not incentivize my service advisors to book future appointments or reward them part of their pay plan.
Cecil Bullard: I mean, my service advisors, you know, again, 14 years ago, were making 150,000 a year. They were getting paid exceptionally well. So, you know, there are things I'm an old guy. You can tell the white hair et cetera, and, you know, I just. Sometimes feel like it's your job, right? And so we book our customer's next appointment and we had an expectation of that and that was part of the job and it became a process and a habit that we did all the time with our clients.
Cecil Bullard: So thank you again, Eric, for the follow up. Anything else to add there, Wayne?
Wayne Marshall: No. But I agree with you. It's their job. And they get incentivized by selling the service, the work on top of what they're already doing. So it's about building it for everybody. Everybody wins type of thing, but that's part of their job.
Cecil Bullard: The other. The other part of that is, is preferred customers are more likely to buy. Their easy, easier to handle. You already have trust with them, so they're better for the service advisor. It's just easier to deal with that particular person all the way through. So if you don't have a preferred customer program, man, I would certainly think about that as part of what I do.
Cecil Bullard: Let's throw another one in. So this is if I mispronounce your name, just ignore it. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm gonna say Isa Tola, how often do you send out mailers and how often do you send text blasts? We use shop Genie and Tech Metric. I don't, I'm not a big mailer fan. And so today I look at return on investment on mailers and return on investment on dollars spent online.
Cecil Bullard: And I was just looking at with a client yesterday. I think online we have a. Almost a five to one return on investment. On our lowest and on our highest, we have about an 18 to one return on investment on our online marketing dollars spent on our direct mail or mailers. We have like a half a percent, like a one to one ROI, maybe a one and a half to one ROI.
Cecil Bullard: So if I have a thousand dollars or $2,000 and I can spend it here and get $3,000 back, or I can spend it. Over here and get $5,000 back. I'm always gonna spend it where I can get $5,000 back. If you are gonna do text messaging or emails to your client base, one of the things you have to be concerned with is I don't want to send so many emails that they take me out of the system.
Cecil Bullard: And I would tell you that if you're sending probably more than two a week. That's probably too many and you're gonna get pulled from the system. So, you know, I kinda like maybe four a month, one a week. And sometimes that's difficult from our end because we'll have, you know, our normal stuff. Then we'll have some special thing like we're gonna do this event and that.
Cecil Bullard: And we'll have a class at the same time. So you might see two or three from the institute in a week, but you're not gonna see two or three from the institute in a day. 'cause we know you're gonna X this out. So you wanna be careful about how mu often you hit your clients and you don't want to overload that.
Cecil Bullard: You also don't want to, primarily if I'm going to use discounts as a way to bring people in. I don't wanna use discounts with the customers I already have because they're the ones that are most likely to spend the most money. I want to use discounts if I'm going to with the customers. I don't have as a reason for someone to come in and try us out.
Cecil Bullard: And I still, even though if I'm gonna do that, I'm still talking about added value. Things like loaner cars and rental cars and great warranties and things like that, both on my website and in anything I'm gonna do. Wayne, back to you, brother. Yeah,
Wayne Marshall: I guess the thing I would say, as we all know, if I'm sending an email or a text.
Wayne Marshall: You have to give people the option to opt out. So pay attention to your data. If you're sending out with frequency and you're not, you're seeing low opt-outs, you're probably okay. But if all of a sudden your frequency goes up and you start seeing a lot more people drop out, that's telling you, look, they're opting out because they're getting too much.
Wayne Marshall: The other thing when it comes to frequency of, and what you're doing, be it direct mail or anything. The reason certain things work better over others sometimes just comes down to what the offer is. And so again, pay attention to what the data's telling you. If I offer X and I see this return and I offer Y and I don't see as good and I offer Z and it's really bad, well obviously don't do Z again, but think about what's working and what responses you're getting.
Wayne Marshall: Same with direct mail. You know, I tell people if you send a direct mail. Piece on anything. It doesn't have a good call to action that you can see that card, you know, bring this card in for X and they don't bring the card back in. You're still gonna honor it, but, you know, get good data of what's working and what's not.
Wayne Marshall: Too many people just throw it out there and then don't track it. And that's the biggest thing of, you know, if you're gonna do it, track it, get the data, understand what's working and what's not.
Cecil Bullard: And I think you get the excuse, I've heard the excuse. Well, it's kinda hard to tell if they came online. And so anyone that came to me and said, Hey, I found you on the web, I ask a second question.
Cecil Bullard: Do you mind, you know, if I ask you another question, what. Specifically directed you to us. And that helps me determine, and then I get the best data I can and I make the best decisions. Wayne is talking about like AB testing, meaning that I have two messages that I send out and then I see what the return is.
Cecil Bullard: So this is one offer, this is another. And when we're talking offers, an offer can be a lot of things. It doesn't have to be a discount or a. You know, $25 off or something like that. It can be you know, if you come in off of this, you get a pizza, it can be if you come in off of this, you're gonna get a extended warranty on your card added value services.
Cecil Bullard: And I always believed, and I think the data supports that customers that are attracted to added value services are better customers that will spend more money on their car than per se customers that are attracted by discounts. Okay. I don't know what the next question is, Wayne, but why don't you let's see.
Wayne Marshall: Well, Levi, I've good to see you're with us. Levi had the privilege to talk to you and Sally I'm a firm believer and I think Cecil, you will agree, you need to separate those out on your p and l because your tech pay is part of what you're doing when it comes to the services being offered. And that's gotta be part of that cost when we're looking at our gp.
Wayne Marshall: The other costs that you have for advisors, that's an expense that's part of your overall operating expense. So when we start talking about those ratios of trying to get to 63 to 65% gp, your tech pay is in that top with the parts, what the revenue was minus these things. So you can see where. That return is coming and the advisors, yeah, I wanna show them separate.
Wayne Marshall: That's the cost of doing business as part of your overall overhead and expense of operation. Wanna
Cecil Bullard: add? They also, yeah, they also have different margins. So my, my. And I also want to measure my business based on, you know, parts and labor and based on sales expense and marketing expense. Even. I look at my banking expense cost separately than all the other exp expense.
Cecil Bullard: I don't just put that in the fixed expense pile because I want to know that I'm not paying, you know, three and a half percent for my credit cards. I want to know that I'm paying. 1.8 because there are companies that will get me 1.8 and if I'm gonna run a million dollars through credit cards, you know, 1.2, that's a substantial amount of additional profit for my company.
Cecil Bullard: Let me draw this out. We kind of got a new thing so. I'm going to draw this out with my unsteady hand. One sec here
Wayne Marshall: with this is on, it's been a pay plan for service advisors, so you could probably do a little of this at the same time.
Cecil Bullard: Right. So I have parts in labor here, and I want parts to be about 18% of my sales.
Cecil Bullard: And I want a margin on my parts of about 50 8%. If I don't break it out, I can't tell what the margins are and I also don't know what percentage of sales it is. My labor cost, which is my tax, and we'll call that a loaded labor. My tech cost is gonna be about 20% of my sales and I want my margin on my tax loaded FICA feta workers' comp to be about 64%.
Cecil Bullard: And then also my parts should be about 45% of what I sell, and my labor should be about 55%, and that would give me a cost of goods of 38%. I'm sorry. If my writing's a little sloppy and an overall margin gross profit of about 62%. Now, by the way, that's 62% with my labor cost in there. That's not 62%.
Cecil Bullard: Only with parts cost and no labor cost. And then under here, then I have marketing, I break marketing out so I can measure it better. That's marketing, by the way, if you're online, let's see here. Let me let me see if I can't make that a little clearer for you.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, that's marketing and I want that to be somewhere between six and 9% of sales. I have my sales cost, my service advisors, whoever's selling, and that's a loaded cost also. And I want that between eight and 10% of. My sales and then fixed expenses, which I will break up if you're one of our clients, will break up into about 12 categories.
Cecil Bullard: Fixed expenses would be 25% of my sales, which would leave me a net of just about 20% to about 24. And so that's the breakdown of what we're trying to accomplish. All right, so, we had the, another question, I think about pay plans. Yep. Where'd Wayne go? There you are. So, why don't you take the next question here, Wayne, while I try to erase the board and so it might be ready for another use here.
Wayne Marshall: The, well, the question was what's good incentive pay plan for service advisor? And I'm gonna default back to you, you're the master of, and I know pay
Cecil Bullard: plans,
Wayne Marshall: we'll explain it quicker, faster than I would be able to.
Cecil Bullard: So, you know, there's a bunch of theory behind how you pay people and you want pay plans that are motivational, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: I think if you're watching online and you're looking at changing the industry podcast or in that you're hearing about, a lot of techs complain about things like flat rate or and you're hearing maybe owners complain about hourly. Because hourly has no motivation to do more. Because if I do more, I'm still paid whatever I'm paid.
Cecil Bullard: So a salary or an hourly to me is not motivational to the employee. Flat rate is certainly motivational to the employees that can be motivated by money. But flat rate puts the whole load of the shop whether or not I have cars and work and flow on the shoulder of the technician, which I don't believe is fair.
Cecil Bullard: And so what you need is a blended program where we know that because I'm gonna have 20% of my sales be tech pay loaded, I could say to myself, you know, I'm gonna sell an hour's worth of labor. I happen to be $150, I have $30 an hour to pay that tech under that $150 an hour labor. So, that's all I can have.
Cecil Bullard: So it, I can't, excuse me. Hang on. Go back. There's two different things that we're talking about and I just got 'em mixed up of my. Total sales, 20%. So if I'm $150 an hour and I'm close to 50 50 parts in labor, I'm $300 an hour and I can afford to pay 20% of that out to a technician, which would be $60 an hour loaded.
Cecil Bullard: If I'm $150 an hour as my effective labor rate. I can afford to pay almost 40% of that, about 36. And so that would give me $70 an hour or so to pay a technician. If I hold effective labor rate very close to or above whatever my post-it rate would be at say one 50. So somewhere between, I don't know, $60 and $70 an hour loaded is what I have to pay.
Cecil Bullard: That technician that does that work, that gives me eight hours a day. I want to give my technician you know, Maslow says people that are not worried about food, shelter, things like that, can think about God and science and how to do the job better, et cetera. So I want to give my technician somewhere around 60% of what I can afford to pay them.
Cecil Bullard: So I can afford to pay $60 an hour loaded. Unload that it's somewhere around 50. So I've got a $30 an hour base rate, and I do that particularly on the clock. It's kind of like my minimum guarantee for that person. Now I have another $12, $15 that I can build in. To a bonus plan for my tech. And so what do I want from a tech?
Cecil Bullard: That's what I have to think about. And I would tell you that it doesn't matter what position you're looking at, service advisor, tech manager, parts person just did a shop foreman pay plan. The shop foreman's job is to make sure that the shop is productive and that the techs are getting educated and the problems are being handled, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: So if I can. Tie in the bonus structure to what I want from a shop foreman that 12, $15 an hour, then I'm gonna get more of the behavior that I want with a technician. I really want three things. I want a technician to be productive so the more hours they put out in a day up to and above eight hours of.
Cecil Bullard: Of time and since we are use, most shops are using a multiplier on book time. We should be able to get, if we're. Eight hours a day there, I should have a decent tech be able to give me 10 that I can bill out because of the 20 to 30% multiplier I'm using on time. And so I'm gonna pay them, you know, based on that's gonna be part of their bonus.
Cecil Bullard: And I usually put three different levels of productivity where it's a dollar, an hour plus another dollar, an hour plus another $2 an hour. And then I want. Quality of work. And for me, quality of work comes from someone that's being educated, has experience, et cetera. So I want certifications either from the manufacturer, the cars that they're working on or from a SC at this point in time.
Cecil Bullard: And I know we could argue about a SC and the validity and what it means, but I think that a guy today that, you know, takes the test, takes the time to take the test and. And seeks that out, is trying to do a better job and is gonna have more knowledge. And I like that. I also have a, so I have a bonus based on maybe being a master tech.
Cecil Bullard: There's a couple dollars an hour, I have a bonus on eight to 12 hours of education per quarter. So if you're getting classes and you're taking them I'm gonna pay you another $2 an hour in your bonus structure. And the, so I might have 12 to $15 an hour built in bonuses for that person. And they get that based on production.
Cecil Bullard: So I could have a guy come in and spend 40 hours on the clock and only produce 30 hours. He's gonna lose six bucks an hour in his bonus structure, but they're still. The potential to earn six, but he's gonna earn six from education and training and, you know, maybe a longevity you've been here for a while or a comeback you know, standard that you put in place.
Cecil Bullard: And but he's gonna earn six on 30 and now the same guy comes back and the next week he produces 50 hours in a 40 hour week. He gets the $6 for productivity. He gets his $30 an hour, he also gets another six for the other bonus stuff, and now he's made 12 times 50. So $600 in a week. As an additional bonus, over and above the $30 an hour, he got paid as a base rate.
Cecil Bullard: And I'm gonna put, so wherever I build pay plans, I'm thinking about what do I want from this person? And the motivational part, which is the bonus structure part, is going to be built around what I need from that particular position. And frankly, you know, someone mentioned to you, bonus, your service advisors for booking appointments.
Cecil Bullard: Well, maybe I do. Maybe that's one of the bonus things that, that's a dollar an hour or that's a percentage of sales. You know, you get 0.05% of your sales based on the fact that you booked 90% of the clients in for a ne their next appointment. Or something like that. And I would also tell you that the rules around pay plans a whole nother class.
Cecil Bullard: We have that online at@gearfreeshops.com, but the rules around pay plans, I have to have a bonus that is enough to motivate and change behaviors. So. Here I am a, you know, a master tech in your shop. You're paying me $40 an hour and, or maybe you're paying me 60, whatever, right? And that's all well and good.
Cecil Bullard: And now you're gonna gimme a bonus. And if I work much harder, you're gonna gimme a dollar an hour. That doesn't motivate me. In fact, that's almost insulting. So you have to have bonuses that are substantial. I need to make it so that a tech could earn another $2,000 a month. If they do what I want.
Cecil Bullard: And then the other thing is the more productive your techs are, the better quality of work. The more flow, the more you sell, the more money I have to pay the tax. And when you overcome a hundred percent productivity and you start to get into the 110 and 120% productivity outta your tax, I have a lot more money than I can pay tax at that point in time.
Cecil Bullard: And that's why we structure those pay plans in that way. Okay. I probably, I hope I answered the question well. If not that we do have a pay plans class online@gearforshops.com. And there's other YouTube stuff that we have at our YouTube channel. That would get you there and give you some more information.
Cecil Bullard: Melissa Velazquez, thank you very much. When looking at your financial information, I find it difficult to navigate the issue of vendor expenses lagging behind a month from the revenue. March vendor bills are being paid in April, so it seems a bit skewed. So I'm gonna make Wayne, this is more, I mean, this is good for you, so I'm gonna let you.
Cecil Bullard: Answer this, and I hope you're gonna talk about cash versus accrual. And if I am doing cash, which is what we're talking about here.
Wayne Marshall: Yes. I
Cecil Bullard: need a, I need a bigger picture, like three months to kind of get the feel of what's really there. So, go ahead Wayne.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, Melissa, in, in the question, it's looking like what you're lagging.
Wayne Marshall: And so if a bill comes in on March 31st and you've done the service, you've done the work, you've invoiced the customer, so the customer's paid for that part, and then you get the invoice and you know, obviously a few days later from the parts vendor. And then you pay that invoice in April. If you're posting it and you're showing it in April, that's being, you're doing it on your cash flow and you're doing it based on cash basis.
Wayne Marshall: If you're on an accrual, you're, you are accruing that expense. So if you've received the revenue, you're gonna accrue the expense and still show it in March, even though you paid it in April. So it really comes down to how are you setting your books, and if you're setting your books on cash basis. You're right, it will have a lag.
Wayne Marshall: If you're setting your books as accrual. You accrue that expense even though you paid it, it's still gonna go back and show it. It's all part of what you carry as work in process or whip. And then you also have the cost of goods and services once you close out your invoice. So depending on your shop management software that you are using.
Wayne Marshall: You can choose which one you wanna do, which will also change how you choose because of like if you're tied back to QuickBooks, you can decide and you can click it on and off if you want to be cash basis or if you want to be accrual basis. So that question as I read it, and as I think about what you're asking really comes back to how you're setting your books.
Wayne Marshall: And that's what we try to address and try to talk about. So maybe we didn't, it's something for us to go back and look at our material, but it'd be a little more, I guess, specific on the differences and why you would do what you're doing and how that does affect your cash flow.
Cecil Bullard: A lot of shops do an accrual base accounting because they do get a lot of their bills in the next month.
Cecil Bullard: Many shops, however, do a cash basis accounting, so they wait till they get their bills. Then they push that expense back into the previous month so they can get a clearer picture of what really happened in the previous month. And that's a great way to do accounting, frankly. On the other hand, you may say to yourself, wow, that's a lot of work and a lot of trouble.
Cecil Bullard: And so if you're going to run a, an accrual, or excuse me, a cash basis accounting, you don't wanna necessarily look at one month, you wanna look at maybe a three month period as your norms. And that'll help you understand because every month you'll carry parts pricing or you'll carry some of your expenses into the next month.
Cecil Bullard: And if you see a bigger picture, like a quarterly picture, it'll give you a more accurate data to make better decisions. So, and you know, I don't know that accrual or cash basis, some people probably tell you accruals a little more difficult because you are going. You know, f for starting here and moving that back into the previous month.
Cecil Bullard: But once you set it up and once you decide to do it that way. It's really pretty simple and pretty automatic if you have an accounting company or a bookkeeping company that does that for you. All right, Nicole Weller. Thank you. Nicole. What is the best way to know how many admin people you need in your business and how do you calculate their salaries?
Cecil Bullard: How many admin people do I need? I think in my shop we did. 2.6 million with Fourex. This is again, 14 years ago. So, we ha obviously you need someone to do accounting. We had a part-time bookkeeping person on staff that also helped with phones. I had a parts person and with those four techs and I had two service advisors and I was the manager so.
Cecil Bullard: You know, you look at that and you say, wow, that seems like it could be a little top heavy, except we had a very high average repair order and we had 120% productivity. So the four technicians did the work of five. And I think what happens if you have more than two techs per service advisor is that you'll, if you're paying attention, you'll see that your average apparator is starting to drop and customers are starting to be penciled out further and further.
Cecil Bullard: So my car count might even drop in a day. Because my service advisor is overwhelmed and my customer service is going down because I have too many cars for that person to deal with. And so I like one service advisor to two techs. Now I've gotta have accounting people in my business and I think, you know, you might say, well, wait a minute, I'm a really small business.
Cecil Bullard: We only have one tech, and I'm the owner. And so I'm either I'm doing the accounting or my wife's doing the accounting fine. At that point in time, that's what you're gonna do. But there probably is a point in time where you look at yourself and you say to yourself, okay, I've got two service advisors and four technicians in my business, and my two service advisors are having a hard time keeping up with estimating and selling and flow in the shop, which is one of the things that just kills.
Cecil Bullard: Productivity and profitability for automotive shops, and so am I gonna hire another service advisor? Or if I hired a parts person and they took that off the shoulders of my service advisors, would that give me higher average repair orders and higher flow? I, I do know, frankly, that I look at what a shop does and I say, okay, a manager of a shop that's gonna do say 3 million in sales, that's probably someone that's gonna get paid somewhere between one 20 and 200,000 a year, maybe even two 50.
Cecil Bullard: If the margins are right, the productivity's right, and the profits are right. Again. Now I'm building a pay plan for that manager where 40% of their pay is gonna come from margins and productivity and sales, as opposed to, Hey, you're just there, making sure people do what they're supposed to do. And then, you know, for my techs, like I said technicians 20% of sales were.
Cecil Bullard: You know, about 36% of my effective labor rate for my service advisors. 10% of sales, eight to 10% of sales loaded. And then if I'm gonna have a parts person, it would depend on the size of the business as to what I could or would pay that parts person. And if I did hire a parts person, I would increase my labor rate.
Cecil Bullard: So that I could pay for that parts person and not take that outta my pocket. And so I couldn't hire a parts person at a shop that had one tech and one service advisor because I don't have the money, the flow, or any of it built up to have that. You know, that parts person. So, you know, I want to keep my admin expenses in that 25%.
Cecil Bullard: And by the way, in that 25% of fixed expenses, I also have banking costs, debt costs management costs, my salary for managing the shop and the truck and the insurance and the. Liability insurance and, you know, everything else is in that pile, the building and the equipment and, you know, debt et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: And so I want to have a fairly comprehensive composite. It's not just my p and l, but another way to look at my financials. To help me understand what those percentages are and to manage those percentages. We call that a composite. And all of our clients have one of those, or have the ability to have one of those.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. I, again, I hope I answered that question. Didn't create too much confusion. So, ia Tola, what are the top four KPIs you'd like to see in your operation? And does each KPI pay the team individually? I'll answer the second part of that as not necessarily. And I'll answer the first part of that in, there's more than four KPIs that I want to see.
Cecil Bullard: So there's the daily KPIs that I like to see. What did we sell? What did we close, what did we finish? What, how much money came in? I like to see productivity daily and I like to see opportunity, what did we find on the cars and and what our average repair order is. Those are five KPIs that I look at every single day.
Cecil Bullard: Now you notice I'm not looking at margin daily. And the reason I don't look at margin like parts margin or labor margin daily is because I could have a, an engine that closes today with a 35% parts margin. And I look at that and I go, oh my God, we are, we're not getting our margins, blah, blah, blah. I personally did not look at margins parts margin or labor margin on a daily basis.
Cecil Bullard: I looked at that on a weekly basis and a monthly basis through my composite and through my p and l. And what you hope is that you have processes for estimating in play that will hold your parts margin and will hold your labor margins because of the processes that you've built within the business.
Cecil Bullard: So I gave you my daily five. I would add cell rate into my weekly. What are we selling of the opportunity that we have, what the techs are finding on the cars. I look at that because you know, a bad attitude at the service counter, all of a sudden my average repair order and my cell rate will drop.
Cecil Bullard: And that's just somebody having a bad day or maybe having a bad week. You, you just don't know. We had a cell rate and an A RO drop. And cost us $3,000 in sales a day for three days. First day I didn't worry about it. Can't, you know, short, small amounts of data are not, you don't wanna make tough decisions on small data.
Cecil Bullard: Second day it made me nervous. By the third day it was, I go, we have a problem here. Went to my service advisors, brought 'em in, had conversations with them about selling. One of the service advisors, very defensive. Calmed that down, said, Hey, you know, I just need you to really focus on sales. We gotta bring these things back up.
Cecil Bullard: Sent 'em out of my office. The average apparator went up by $400 and et cetera. And then I found out three months later that the day that our sales dropped. His wife served divorce papers on him. Didn't find out right there. He didn't want to tell me he was whatever, embarrassed, whatever it was I found out later.
Cecil Bullard: But because I'm watching that number and I'm paying attention to that number on a daily basis, I was able to potentially probably save us maybe a hundred thousand in sales during a three month period that I would've dropped if I wasn't paying attention to those KPIs. And then we have a class I hate to keep, you know, but we do have a class.
Cecil Bullard: It's, I think it's called Everything you Need to Know about Numbers and Profit in our gear for shops.com. It's not very expensive. I think it's about four hours, and it's all the formulas, all the KPIs, what you need to look at, et cetera. And that'll give you a much deeper dive than we can do here into that next question there, and I think we got about 10 minutes left, so we probably could do a couple more questions.
Cecil Bullard: Hey Andrew. How you doing brother? Wayne, why don't you why don't you go there? Sure.
Wayne Marshall: I was looking at this question as they're showing up early for us. Andrew, and yes, I always look at it, it depends on, again, if you're building out a budget or a cashflow projection, you gotta work on averages.
Wayne Marshall: The big thing is, and I think this plays into, and it's a little bit of what we got talking about earlier when Cecil was talking about credit card expenses. You know, if you're paying X or Y and you're seeing certain trends and you're looking at that as a percentage back to your overall revenue. Yeah, that's where you want to go.
Wayne Marshall: You know that you're gonna spend somewhere around one point a half to 1.8% in credit card expense. You don't know how much it's gonna be. It's gonna go up one month, depending on how many people charge to them, what people don't charge the next month. So put in the average, do that percentage. Same with utilities.
Wayne Marshall: Look, there's so many different expenses that we have that have variability. So what I would do when I had my own business. I plugged everything in and I said, look, this is what my average is based on. I think sales are gonna be a hundred thousand dollars. I think I'm gonna run one and a half percent for credit card expense, so I'm gonna put 1500 bucks.
Wayne Marshall: It's that easy. Same with your utilities as you. And then when you look at things quarterly, when you run your p and ls balance sheets, those quarterly reports, a lot of that settles out. So those ups and downs that you get from month to month now start settling out. You can see trends, you can see averages, and then really decide what you want do or not do.
Wayne Marshall: If you need to tweak something or change up what your sales goal needs to be and some of the things that are gonna be done, which plays back into a lot of what Cecil was just talking about, of what different KPIs to look at, what are some of the different trends, and this all plays in that if you're seeing something go here or here Yeah, you wanna pay attention, do I need to change it?
Wayne Marshall: Is it just something that happened for those few days? Or do I got a bigger problem that's systemic because we don't have whatever in place that gives us the right checks and balances.
Cecil Bullard: I, I would also add to that sales goals are not necessarily only set on what my expenses are. I mean, that's one portion of it.
Cecil Bullard: I want to set sales goals based on, hey, I came in this business because I want a certain amount of profit. I also want to set sales goals based on my capacity. So if I have three technicians and I'm $200 an hour, and my parts delivery ratio are. You know, 1.8 eight, 8.8 in parts for every hour of sales.
Cecil Bullard: I of labor I sell that's $360 an hour times three guys times, eight hours a day. Times 1,960 days, which is what a average technician will work taking a month off for holidays and vacation. And then I want to know what that number is, which is probably today. Two, two point something, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 million.
Cecil Bullard: And I wanna set my sales goal based on that because if I'm paying the tech a certain amount of money, a certain percentage of that is going to my tech, but my sales aren't enough. Then all of a sudden my fixed expenses become more as a percentage, my costs become more as a percentage, and I won't make the profit that I need.
Cecil Bullard: And again, I hate to say it, but man, if you really want to understand this and dig deep into it everything you need to know about numbers and profit. I'd take it and watch it five times because I'm setting my goals, not just based on what my expenses are. Obviously I have to cover my expenses and I want them to be 25% without parts labor sales cost or marketing cost.
Cecil Bullard: Because I want that 20% net. But I'm also looking at, well, I've got the capacity to do 2.4. If I only do 1.6, then my margins, my, my labor margin's gonna be very low and I will not make the profit that I wanna make. I have to know what my capacity is, and I have to set the target in sales to hit that capacity at least at a hundred percent.
Cecil Bullard: And I can't say more. It's last question. I think, and then we'll wrap it up. We're gonna do this again next month. Do you phone script, huh? Yes. I think phone scripts are great. We have oh, I hate to say it, but we have a, you know, becoming great on the phones class. That, that is I think a four hour class, very inexpensive on gear for shops.com that will tell you how to do all the phone, you know, how to think on the phone, how to answer the phone, how to book appointments, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: And I think phone scripts are great. To start. And I think, you know, everybody should have a script. We answer the phone in a very specific way, you know, put a smile on our face which I'm looking at myself and I haven't been smiling much this morning, but I'm gonna answer the phone, so I'm gonna think of a great joke.
Cecil Bullard: Let me do that. Oh yeah, that's funny as heck. Good morning. Thank you for calling Larry Autoworks. This is Cecil. How can I help you today? That's a script. Okay? And that's a script that I want everyone answering the phone to use every single time that way with a smile on their face. I think you need to have scripts for people that you're training so that they understand the basics and so that they could do it.
Cecil Bullard: How do I sell a coolant flush? How do I sell a brake, flush, or brake service? You know, how do I answer? Well, that's too much. Or I can get it cheaper somewhere else. I, that's a script that once I look at the common objections that I have on the phone. Then I write scripts for those common objections, and I teach those to my staff that is gonna be dealing with those things and then they make it their own.
Cecil Bullard: So, for me it's, I want you to use the phone script enough that it's part of who you are. And then I want you to make minor adjustments to that based on your personality or on who I'm talking to. And so we're gonna make some adjustments to those phone scripts. Phone scripts can't be. Well, we're gonna do this a hundred percent of the time every single time.
Cecil Bullard: That's exactly what we're gonna do, except for, and people don't like you gotta be genuine. It's gotta be you. Yeah. So, yes I absolutely love phone scripts, but ultimately I want you to follow the script, 80%. And be genuine and move around a little bit based on who you're talking to and based on your own personality and style.
Cecil Bullard: My style, I'm a much more direct person. I'm always gonna be more direct. Your phone script, if you're a. You know, if you're a supporter or if you're a interpersonal is never gonna fit me completely. And so I have to make adjustments to your phone script to fit my director style. Alright we are gonna do this again next month.
Cecil Bullard: Michael, you're gonna put the date of that up there, I assume. And if you would like to have a business evaluation, business review. No charge, no commitment, et cetera. We're gonna put up a QR code for that. Man, I thank you all for your time today. I thank you for your questions. I think Wayne, you're not gonna be with me next time, but Michael Smith will be here.
Cecil Bullard: It might
Wayne Marshall: three of us,
Cecil Bullard: so yeah. All, all right. That'd be great. Then somebody's never gonna get to talk, that's for sure. So, but yeah, it could be all three of the, of guys from the institute. So thank you very much for your time. Stay tuned for the for the QR code and the date of the next class.
Cecil Bullard: Thank you very much.

169 - "Ask Me Anything" with Cecil & Lucas: Culture, Accountability and Real Leadership

169 - "Ask Me Anything" with Cecil & Lucas: Culture, Accountability and Real Leadership
November 12, 2025 - 01:12:13
Show Summary:
What starts as a casual catch-up between Lucas Underwood and Cecil Bullard quickly turns into a no-filters AMA on the realities of running a modern repair shop. Together they examine why stepping back onto the counter resets an owner’s perspective, and how broken estimating routines quietly rob advisors of hours they can never get back. The conversation cuts into emotional discounting, “hero” pricing, and the financial chaos that follows when shops try to save everyone but themselves. Cecil and Lucas break down the power of documentation, signed warranty terms, and photo-backed repair validation when customers push back or chargebacks hit. Culture becomes the centerpiece as they discuss boundaries, accountability, and removing toxic influences before they shape the entire shop. The AMA winds down with straight talk about coaching, long-term planning, and why shops that prepare now will be the ones standing strong as the industry shifts.
 
Host(s):
Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast
 
Guest(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] - Lucas and Cecil open the AMA and talk about why owners should revisit the front counter.[00:02:00] - Cecil explains how broken estimating processes drain advisor time.[00:03:58] - Lucas describes how weak training turns procedures into the “telephone game.”[00:07:15] - They discuss why repair shortcuts almost always lead to comebacks.[00:08:45] - Cecil and Lucas highlight the dangers of emotional discounting.[00:13:10] - Lucas shares his “cash on the counter” exercise for pricing confidence.[00:26:01] - They address a stopped $9,000 check and stress the need for signed warranty terms.[00:33:20] - Cecil explains how photos and torque marks protect shops in disputes.[00:33:58] - A culture question leads to insights on accountability and standards.[00:57:43] - They wrap with advice on hiring a coach and preparing for industry shifts.
 
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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: Hello folks. My name is Lucas Underwood with the Changing The Industry podcast, and I am a shop owner, l and n Performance out here in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I am so excited today to be joined by the one, the only Mr. Cecil Bullard. Cecil buddy. How you doing today?
Cecil Bullard: Howdy Brother? I'm great as usual.
Lucas Underwood: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm back in the shop working today. That's, and as you know, it's been a little bit I remember why I hired people now.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Like it's a reminder.
Cecil Bullard: It's a good idea every once in a while to get back on the front counter, just to stay grounded a little bit. I think. For
Lucas Underwood: sure.
Lucas Underwood: I, you know, I see that a lot. I see a lot of a lot of owners who will go to a training class. They will go and be involved in something and they'll come back and they'll say, I want you to do this, and I want you to do this, and I want you to do this, and I want you to do this. And I'll ask 'em. I'll say, Hey, could you imagine doing that?
Lucas Underwood: Like, seriously, could you imagine being on the front counter? And doing all of the steps that you just shared. And they'll say, well, I'm, I pay people for that. Okay, I understand, but I'm just saying like, let's say that tomorrow if you were, yeah. If you were on the front counter, tell me how that would work out for you.
Lucas Underwood: And he's like, oh, that would be miserable. Like maybe you should think about this process before you implement it. Right.
Cecil Bullard: Funny thing too, you know, if you look at service advisors, they, in my opinion, that's probably the toughest job in the shop being the service advisor. Absolutely. So much going on that you're trying to organize, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: And they believe that they're really busy and they are really busy.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And so now you have an owner that comes in, comes to a class of mine or whatever, and goes in and goes, okay, hey, I want you to do these three things. And you're like, if you're the service advisor you're saying to yourself.
Cecil Bullard: Well, when and how would you like me to do those? Because right now I'm tied up.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And instead what we need to be doing is we need to be going, okay, how do we make you less tied up?
Lucas Underwood: For
Cecil Bullard: sure. So for instance, if you don't have a really good estimating process in your shop
Lucas Underwood: Then
Cecil Bullard: your service advisor is going out to the shop and talking to the techs, and every time they walk out to the shop and talk to the techs, that's 15 minutes, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yes. Yep. And so if you do that, say eight or 10 times, you've just killed two, two and a half hours of the day, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep, a hundred
Cecil Bullard: percent. And so instead of looking at your processes and going, oh, this one is not very efficient, this doesn't work Well, if we created a more efficient estimating process where the service advisor never had to really go out in the shop and look at the car or talk to the tech.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: That would save two hours of time. Now you could be doing some of the other stuff that you might need to be doing or want to be doing. I th you know, I think it's unfair to walk in and go, okay, here's five more things. Now we're yeah. Instead, you know, and we do this on A-A-C-E-O level. You know, what can I give away?
Cecil Bullard: Right? What do I do that I shouldn't do? Or what do I do that someone else? Probably could do or should do. And you know, I'm, I want to delegate that out so that I have the time to do things that are on a different level. Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep. Well, and you're so right and one of the things that I've noticed is that process builds garbage, right?
Lucas Underwood: Like through the daily basis of doing what we do, especially you have an advisor and I'm gonna tell you something this is not automotive specific. This is any business. No. Yeah. And I made a video about this, I don't even know if I've released it yet, but I was talking about the family business and, you know, what's happened with that?
Lucas Underwood: And it's this big mess, right? And so I was talking about it the other day to them and I said, Hey, like I see all these processes and I see all these policies, and I see all these procedures. Why is everything such a mess? Why is it like, why do we not do those things anymore? Because somebody put a lot of work into making this happen.
Lucas Underwood: They said, well, what happened was is it was trained once and then it was given to the employees to train the next employees. Who then train the next employees, who then train the next employees and it became the telephone game.
Cecil Bullard: But you have to, if you have policies and procedure, when you have policies and procedures,
Lucas Underwood: yeah,
Cecil Bullard: you need to have regular procedure review.
Cecil Bullard: Meaning, yes, are we doing it? Are we still doing it? Are we doing it correctly? Is it efficient? A random change, something change. Yeah. Yeah. And so what, every employee, everybody's going, well, wait a minute, if we did it this way instead of that way, it would be simpler, it would be easier, it'd be easier for me, or whatever.
Cecil Bullard: Instead of having a, like a formalized. How do we get this done? Yeah. Where we're sure that it really made a difference where we're sure that it was better and where we're Sure now that everyone's being taught the same way. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. And so what happened was is you ended up with this little bit of garbage.
Lucas Underwood: Right. Imagine a desk and there's all these crumpled up papers all over it. And so, you know, it's like you go and you talk to 'em and they say, well we've always done it this way. Yeah. And you work through the process and you can find where it happened at.
Cecil Bullard: Well you're
Lucas Underwood: managing that
Cecil Bullard: process. Yeah. We're creatures of habit.
Cecil Bullard: And so whenever I bring something new into the shop or into the business, I need to create a habit, right? Yes. And then I can bring in one of the problems with bringing in like really strong employees. You know, you bring someone that's really got good willpower for a service advisor manager. That's what I want.
Cecil Bullard: I want a really strong person.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: But when I bring a strong person in, one of the problems with that is. Let's change this. Let's do it my way instead of the way that a shop has done it does it. And sometimes that's good and sometimes that's not good. You have to be there or someone does have to be there.
Cecil Bullard: And paying attention to when it's not good. And also recording the new process, if that's the new process.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: And then you had a, you did something. I was gonna make a joke when you were saying, I don't know if I've released it yet. I don't know how you could tell you probably release like 27 things a day.
Cecil Bullard: So I don't know how you do anything else but then you have owners or managers, you know, high powered people that go, well, I'll I won't follow that process, right? Yes. Okay. This time, because I can make that decision, right. I, it's
Lucas Underwood: mine.
Cecil Bullard: I'm the guy. I
Lucas Underwood: can do this if I want.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. I can do it however the heck I want.
Cecil Bullard: And unfortunately I think you and I were kind of talking before this, but you know, so when we did breaks in my shop
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: You know, we cleaned we cleaned the calipers up the slides, made sure they worked properly, clean the practice. We put new hardware, new pads and new rotors, period.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Okay. Unless it was like some giant. Dodge Diesel truck that had, you know, super, super inboard mount that you
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. That you could, or that it was built that way, right? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Other than that, new pads and rotors. Well, you know, the one time that the owner wants to save somebody some money and they go, okay, I'm not gonna put new rotors on this.
Cecil Bullard: The rotors are. They're okay. They're close enough, blah, blah, blah. I'm gonna save my pal some money, my buddy.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: That's the time that it bites you in the ass.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: You know, and
Lucas Underwood: Never fail,
Cecil Bullard: man. And you get yourself in trouble. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Well, and it happened just this morning. That's where the conversation came from is I've got a friend, Scott reached out to me and he said, Hey, Lucas I, man, I wanna go back and read a comment that you made about something.
Lucas Underwood: And I said, okay, what's up? He said, you were talking to this lady and she was talking about how somebody had purchased a car. They bought this car, they brought it in, it overheated before they left. It, it was just like a mile down the road from the dealership. They take it back, they put a thermostat in it.
Lucas Underwood: She makes it a mile down the road, it overheats again. She starts to question what they're telling her. So they bring it to the her shop. She begins to look at this car and finds out, Hey, it's got coolant in a cylinder. Thermostats aren't gonna fix this, and it's a really expensive repair, like $25,000 and I want to help her.
Lucas Underwood: And it's like, listen, the best way you can help her is properly repair the automobile. Yes. And charge what you need to charge so you can stand behind it if something goes wrong, being the hero is not helping. And see, that was something that messed me up for years because I always wanted to be the hero, always wanted to lower the price.
Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna be the hero with awesome customer service and with a properly repaired vehicle that I can stand behind. And the minute that I deviate, I break that.
Cecil Bullard: I think we all want to be the hero and we all want to help people out. I think that's one of the things that's kind of indicative of our industry.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Hey, I wanna, I'm a nice, I'm a nice guy. I really want to help people out. And so, but you know, you can't help others if you can't help yourself.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly
Cecil Bullard: right. So, I got a shop I don't, it's three or four months ago, a relatively new shop to the institute. I think they made like three grand and they discounted almost $12,000 in that month.
Cecil Bullard: And, but they made three grand. And three grand was probably two, two and a half percent net. Yeah. And so that's not a company where I could help somebody out. I can't I'm giving away so much on the front end
Cecil Bullard: That I can't make a conscious decision to say, Hey, I want to do X, Y, Z at the shop.
Cecil Bullard: The last shop I ran we had, I think the budget was 30 grand and we went down to the, one of the local churches and we said, Hey, to the pastor, we said, Hey, we have $30,000. It's our annual budget for helping. Community, you know, we know you have people in your community that need help. We want you to send them to us.
Cecil Bullard: You can decide I'll use the whole dollars. I won't pay for labor or parts. Or you can say, Hey I'll pay for the parts, you'll pay for the labor whatever you want to do. But it's 30,000 and Yeah. But you can't do something like that if you don't have 30,000 to give away. Exactly. Right. Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: And I think, you know, in, in small business, again, I don't think it's automotive specific, I think it's small business specific.
Cecil Bullard: We, we, we don't understand what our real finances, what we really should be making. What is a fair profit? You and I were kind of talking about that before.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And therefore we do this in a. Like, I'm gonna help this one or that one because they got a great story or because I know that one.
Cecil Bullard: And by the way,
Lucas Underwood: it's not enough. And by the way, everybody has a story. Okay?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Every, everybody has hard times. Everybody has things that, that is not fair. And I'm gonna tell you something, if you wake up in the morning and expect life to be fair,
Cecil Bullard: oh yeah. Well, if
Lucas Underwood: You are asking for trouble,
Cecil Bullard: you're gonna have a tough life.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. No, my, my dad, you know, my dad was one of those guys that life's a bitch and then you die. Right. You know, that was one of his sayings. Right. And
Lucas Underwood: yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And I think he certainly understood that life wasn't gonna be fair. I don't ever wake up any morning and think, oh, it's gonna be fair today.
Cecil Bullard: Right. Right. It's gonna be what I make it. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm gonna, the other thing too, I think we all have to realize in our lives and in our businesses, they're gonna be good days and bad days. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: Be I believe because of the government shutdown that a lot of shops have had a kind of a weak month last month more so than normal.
Cecil Bullard: We look at the numbers and yeah, we got more shops down. Now all of a sudden, it's picking up now that the wonderful people we have in Congress have decided to do their job. I think you sound
Lucas Underwood: sarcastic.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Oh yeah. Trust me. I was gonna say something else, but you know, I don't, I, my daddy, my mommy said don't swear.
Cecil Bullard: It makes you look dumb. So I only do it a little bit 'cause I'm only a little dumb.
Lucas Underwood: Oh my goodness.
Cecil Bullard: But now it's coming back. But I think you have to like look at that and you have to say, that's normal. I mean, yeah, there are gonna be times when our government can't get their crap in a pile and it's going to affect us.
Cecil Bullard: There're gonna be times when things don't work perfectly. They're gonna be community situations, they're gonna be personal situations that are either gonna affect us personally or they're gonna affect our businesses. And if we're not profitable to a certain degree, I can't ride through that for sure.
Cecil Bullard: So I've got a couple of different business I got a young couple that's kind of building their business. I think we're, when they started, we were doing like 57,000. We're probably up about one 10 now consistently monthly. And I keep saying to them, put money aside. Put money in the bank, have a savings account, and they do.
Cecil Bullard: So now they put 15,000 in this account where they never had money before and something came up and it's a $4,000 cost. And you look at it and you go, oh, okay. Not too bad. I can do that. Right. And then you pull it out of the pile, you put it in, and then you build the pile back up. Right? Yes. Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And, but I, you can't do that if you're not being profitable.
Lucas Underwood: Profitable, yeah. Okay. And you know, I've got a friend, his name's John. And John is a new shop owner, right? Never ran a shop, never was a business owner, anything like that was a tech. And we were having discussions a while back and I said, you know, he would call me and he would say, Hey Lucas I've got a 30% margin on this part.
Lucas Underwood: It's really expensive. I don't know if I feel okay charging this. And I said, okay, well let me give you a piece of advice. This was given to me years ago. What I want you to do is what you think is a fair price. I want you to go get that much cash outta your personal bank account or outta the business bank account.
Lucas Underwood: And then I want you to walk back into the shop and when he comes in, I want you to walk around the front of the counter and I want you to count out a hundred dollars bills, how much you think it would take off that, and I want you to lay that down on the counter and I want you to pay it. And he said, but Lucas, I don't have that much money in my bank account.
Lucas Underwood: I said, that's my point. Exactly. Right. Like, you, those don't have the money to do this.
Cecil Bullard: And yet we, again, this is another kind of piece you and I had have kind of talked about is
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Cecil Bullard: so many owners are. Doing this on the fly, right? Yeah. They don't really even understand how financially prosperous the business needs to be in order to be a comfortable, safe business where you can help when you need to help or when you feel like I just absolutely have to help.
Cecil Bullard: For sure. And I always say I hate emotional discounting. Yeah. And that's emotional discounting, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: If you you know, I would tell you that you need to make 20% net profit, and if you don't have a business designed, a machine designed to make 20% net profit, then you do not have a business that is safe work, come comfortable, and you do not have a business that can help people when you need to help people.
Lucas Underwood: Listen, I'm gonna tell you something. You know, I'm a huge Warren Buffett fan. Yeah. And you know, I became one of his fans years ago. I posted this in my LinkedIn, but I became a fan of here's years ago, and I was watching a YouTube or a Yahoo Money or Yahoo Finance video, and they asked, they said, Hey, Warren, what is the best advice you've ever given?
Lucas Underwood: He said I wasn't given this advice. I was taught this advice from my dad, and he said, my dad just showed me what unconditional love was. And he said, if you can do that with a child, you're 90% of the way home. And then she said, what's the worst advice you've ever been given? He said, you know, he said, I've always kind of known what good advice was.
Lucas Underwood: He said, I'm sure I gave plenty of terrible advice. But he said, I'm gonna tell you that Tom Murphy told me 40 years ago that Warren, you don't have to tell that guy to go to hell today. You can wait and tell him tomorrow. You ought to sleep on it and think, make sure you feel the same way. And he said, I've learned that instead of making decisions and emotion, I need to make decisions.
Lucas Underwood: In fact, yeah. Now I'm gonna tell you his retirement letter, if you've not read his retirement letters, one of the most powerful things you'll ever read. Right? Because he talks about an obituary and he said, you better be writing your obituary right now because you don't want somebody else writing it based on what you didn't do.
Lucas Underwood: Right? Yeah. And so that's something that I often think about and emotion plays into this. I had a probably two hour conversation with a shop owner day before yesterday, coming back from sema, you know, over the weekend, that kind of thing. And I happened to see it and I didn't respond to him until yesterday.
Lucas Underwood: And he said, I've got this guy, he's been working for me since October, paying him 30 bucks an hour, flat rate, 30 hour guarantee. I'm doing all these things, trying to keep this guy happy, and all he does is complain and fuss and I don't get paid for this, and that's not my job. And this isn't that. I'm like, bro, right now's the time to send him down the road.
Lucas Underwood: And he said, yeah, but this is a nice guy and I, you just don't understand, and I'm trying to help him. I'm like, there is no place for emotion in business. Right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: It's not okay to keep this person because they're toxic. They're gonna make the environment toxic. It's gonna destroy your business. But see, as business owners, we often bring emotion into the situation.
Lucas Underwood: There is no place for emotion in business. It's by the fact. And if you look at,
Cecil Bullard: would you
Lucas Underwood: Go ahead.
Cecil Bullard: Would you talk to my CEO about that a little bit?
Lucas Underwood: Your CEO is a pretty tough guy. I don't,
Cecil Bullard: yes, he is. We all are emotional beings and we all. Keep people too long and we, yeah. Allow people to do certain things and, you know, so I had a, I got tagged by one of, one of my guys, and I'm not currently coaching with him, but you know, I love the guys I've worked with over the years.
Cecil Bullard: And he said
Lucas Underwood: Yeah,
Cecil Bullard: I got an employee. This is the second time that he's lied to me. What do I do?
Lucas Underwood: Oh,
Cecil Bullard: okay. And my answer is you can't have people working for you that you can't trust. Exactly. You get one. You know, you get one. Okay, you made a mistake. I'm going to overlook this. You can earn my trust back by doing this, and this over time.
Cecil Bullard: But if you come back a second time, you lie to me a second time and it's very obvious that you lied to me and there's no out, then you can't work for me. And it doesn't matter if, you know, I love this excuse. Right? Well, yeah, but Cecil, good techs are hard to find.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And back ones are fairly easy to find.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. So you might as well just pick another one, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Pick another bad one and see if you can't change their habits. But
Lucas Underwood: oh man.
Cecil Bullard: But it's the excuses that we use to. To the, you know, to justify whatever where choice we're making. And it's often an emotional choice and not a logical, or a good business decision.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. And I'm not saying fire everybody, and I'm not saying you, you shouldn't have grace and those kind of things, but you know, if you've got a guy that's worked for you for say 60 days and all he does is bitch and complain,
Lucas Underwood: it's only gonna get worse.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. You're, that's
Lucas Underwood: only gonna get worse.
Cecil Bullard: Get used to that because that's gonna be your life as long as that guy's with you
Lucas Underwood: and you can set the standard. Yeah. And this is one of the things I see everybody do, is they don't set the standard fast enough. So the very first day you can ask my team, right? Like, you step outta line down here.
Lucas Underwood: I'm not waiting to talk about it. I'm talking about it right now. And they, I used to think, oh, this is very aggressive to do that and I care about my people, so I don't want to know. Like you, you set the standard from the word go. And if you let that slide once, we're gonna see a decline. If you don't let it slide at all, we'll either hold that line or we can begin to improve and go in a better direction.
Cecil Bullard: So, you know, one of the, one of the guys that spoke at our summit said something about you may have a standard here, but you allow this behavior.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: He said, congratulations, this is your standard. That's your new standard. This is not your standard.
Lucas Underwood: You.
Cecil Bullard: And so
Lucas Underwood: you promote what you permit.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And we do that almost constantly.
Cecil Bullard: Well, that guy's a nice guy, so you know, okay, he's having a bad day, blah, blah, blah.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I'm gonna let this slide and then pretty soon, that's the habit. And then now that they've created the habit, everyone else is looking at that and going, well, wait a minute. I thought we had this standard here.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Obviously we don't. So if that person can act that way, then I can act that way.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: And the other thing is, I'm not gonna spend my life and I, and believe me, I have made mistakes up the Ying yang. Just many mistakes. Business mistakes, personal mistakes, life mistakes et cetera. You know? But I'm not gonna live my life thinking, oh my God, I gotta go work with that guy and it's gonna be oh and oh.
Cecil Bullard: And I know he is just gonna, you know, all he's gonna do is bitch. Today we have we have our core values, right? Our five core values and one of those, it has to be fun. And so when it's not fun, we take a look around and we go, why isn't it fun? And if that's a person, then how do we help that person modify the behavior or how do we replace that person?
Cecil Bullard: That's all there is. There's no more.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: Right? Absolutely. And we want
Lucas Underwood: time. 'cause your business will become who you allow in it.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And I want timeframes around that. You know, are we gonna give this guy two weeks? Are we gonna give him two months? What's the and by the way, I'm gonna let that person know you've got two weeks, you know, pull it out.
Cecil Bullard: Hundred
Lucas Underwood: percent because
Cecil Bullard: It has to be fun. I'm gonna, you know, I tell the story. I'm not supposed to be in the automotive industry. I never thought I would be in the automotive industry. My father didn't want me in the industry. And yet I've spent 45 years here. And you know, you wake up one morning and you look in the mirror and you go, wow, that guy's old.
Cecil Bullard: Who is that dude? And it's 45 years have gone by and I'm not gonna spin, I don't know, the next 15, the next 25, whatever I have left. I'm not gonna spin that being miserable. I'm isn't worth it.
Lucas Underwood: Right. I've told this story before and I'm gonna, Gary, I promise I'm gonna answer this question. I know the car's pulling into your driveway right now, so we're gonna go to it next, I promise.
Lucas Underwood: But I am gonna tell this story. You know, here's the thing. Years ago I walked into this shop. I had a guy who was here and he tinted windows. He had a Volkswagen and there was a Volkswagen specialist in town. And I knew the Volkswagen specialist really well. He was elite. I mean, like you, you wouldn't find a technician this good on Volkswagens anywhere in the country.
Lucas Underwood: I mean, this dude was just that good. And so he was known to be a little ornery. And so I, my friend took his Volkswagen over there. He didn't know, he worked over here, didn't know anything about that. And he went to pick up the car. After weeks, he hadn't heard anything. The guy called him and said, your car's ready.
Lucas Underwood: And he's what? Like, you didn't call me with an estimate. You didn't anything you, this, that and the other. And he was really rude and really short and really abrasive. And so I said, well, I'll tell you what. I'll go over there with you and we'll pick up the car. And so we go in and he walked in first and I came in behind him and this guy's just giving him up the road and he walks in.
Lucas Underwood: I said, Hey, what are you doing? And he said, oh, not much. What are you doing here? I said, oh, he is a, he works for me. And he said, oh, well let come on back here. Let me show you what was wrong with the car. Let me show you how you can avoid this next time. And by the way, you don't owe us nothing. Don't worry about it.
Lucas Underwood: Come on back. And I was standing there and the lady at the front counter was there. And I said, what makes him like that? And she said, sweetheart, he spent his entire life of making every person who walks through that door problem, his problem. And he's bitter his ill. Yeah,
Cecil Bullard: Can't do that.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly.
Lucas Underwood: And so that's what we do when we involve ourselves in these levels. We can't fix other human beings. And so if we run our business by the numbers and by the facts, it eliminates this emotional attachment that's unhealthy. Right.
Cecil Bullard: So, so that I'm a bit of a counselor often between partners or between Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: for
Cecil Bullard: sure.
Cecil Bullard: My husbands and wives even who work in the business together and I have this situation, had this situation where the husband was almost abusive, verbally, at least to the wife in the shop. And then the wife would, they had this pattern that she would just, you know, start screaming and crying and blah, blah, blah.
Cecil Bullard: And you know, I talked to her and I said who can you control? What can you control? What you know? Yeah. And she said, well, only me, that's what it came to. And I said, okay. So if he was abusive to you or verbally abusive to you in the shop, in front of people, instead of screaming and crying, what behavior could you do that might change the situation?
Cecil Bullard: And so what we came to was that she should say, that's not appropriate. That's not what you should be doing. You shouldn't treat me this way in front of all these employees. And then I'm gonna go take a break and then you and I can talk about it later tonight, tomorrow, whatever. But no screaming and crying.
Cecil Bullard: And you know what happened? It shifted the whole tide. You cannot control other people. You can only control yourself. That's all there is.
Lucas Underwood: Yes. Absolutely. So, absolutely. And E plus R equals O. See, a lot of people live life and they say E equals O No, the event doesn't equal the outcome. Your reaction is what creates the outcome.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And so if you can learn to slow down and think about it before you react, don't let the emotion drive you into a reaction. Focus on the event and say, what are my options? What is my solution? What could I do? How could I make this better? But make good decisions after the fact because you can't control what happened
Cecil Bullard: and also under
Lucas Underwood: respond to it.
Cecil Bullard: And also understand that not every choice will be a good choice, even though you make it right. Yeah. So it's not about whether or not I have some failures, of course, I'm gonna have some failures.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: It's about am I moving forward in a, intelligent, logical,
Lucas Underwood: yes.
Cecil Bullard: Way that's gonna improve my life and improve the lives of others around me, right?
Lucas Underwood: A hundred percent. So, hey, listen, we're gonna jump in. We're going to answer this for Gary, okay? Yes,
Cecil Bullard: sir.
Lucas Underwood: Because here's what's happening.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Live right this very minute. This car go, Gary, that he's asking about, just pulled back into the driveway.
Cecil Bullard: Let's
Lucas Underwood: do it. He says, client from a big project came and picked up, paid with a check, no issues with the previous check from this client and send a message saying they're stopping payment on the check due to mechanical issues with the vehicle.
Lucas Underwood: Unable to contact the client at this time to retrieve the vehicle for diagnosis on the issue. What's your opinion on best approach? Mind you, this is $9,000.
Cecil Bullard: I gotta get the car back in the shop somehow, because number one if they're saying that I have mechanical issues, then they can decline the check.
Cecil Bullard: That's I almost have no recourse. And if it's something I did. I have a warranty and so what I've done in the past is made sure I got in touch with a client and that might take more than just, oops, I sent them a text or I sent them an email. It might be multiple phone calls. It might be chasing 'em down where they work.
Cecil Bullard: Yes, where you can be in front of them and I've gotta get the car back in my shop. Number one,
Lucas Underwood: absolutely
Cecil Bullard: to verify that whether or not what I did was done correctly. That's the first thing I'm gonna do. Yeah. Whenever we worked on a car and things didn't go the way they were supposed to, the first thing we do is we check the work we did to make sure that the work we did was legitimate and then it was done well, and then it, this is not our instance.
Cecil Bullard: I document that very clearly and I don't release the car until they bring me cash. Cash this time. Yes.
Lucas Underwood: No, no credit card, no check,
Cecil Bullard: no checks, no nothing. Cash on the barrel head.
Lucas Underwood: I have a very similar process, step number one, right? Because you're right, they can stop payment on a check. It does not have to be legitimate for them to stop payment on check.
Lucas Underwood: They can do that if they want. Same with a chargeback that it doesn't have to be legitimate. Nope. Now, an amount that high. Because I have warranty terms and service and I tell people this all the time. Your warranty terms and service, dang well better be on your invoice. Yes. And they better have signed something.
Cecil Bullard: Yes. '
Lucas Underwood: cause it says what my warranty is. And
Cecil Bullard: by the way, it doesn't
Lucas Underwood: say
Cecil Bullard: if they don't sign, you don't have a contract, you have nowhere
Lucas Underwood: to go. Exactly. Absolutely. And so own that warranty terms of service. When they sign their invoice it, it literally says, we don't do refunds. There is no refund policy. We correct the problem if it's related to something that we did, and here's how you obtain that warranty.
Lucas Underwood: If that is not on there, you are up
Cecil Bullard: the
Lucas Underwood: creek in many cases.
Cecil Bullard: It's a vacation warranty. You have to bring it back to us. We have to have the car. It's not take it somewhere else and then send me a bill. It's not
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: We don't pay for hotels or travel rental
Lucas Underwood: cars or Now if you wanna do that.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: if you wanna do that's on you.
Lucas Underwood: Right. You can do that after the fact, but it needs to be on paper that you don't do that.
Cecil Bullard: The whole back page of our work order
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: Was printed with our warranty policy stuff.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: I mean the whole page. And they had to make it
Lucas Underwood: small to fit it
Cecil Bullard: off 0.9 or 0.8 to get it there. Yeah. So. So, and it's like, you know, we did a transmission and we got a call from somebody and they were 500 miles away from the shop and the transmission's leaking and they're at a dealership.
Cecil Bullard: And the dealership's like, well, we have to put a new transmission 'cause these guys are idiots, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we're gonna send you see, so we're just gonna send you the bill from the dealership. Oh no you're not. Right. Yep.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: You will take it to a shop of my choice.
Cecil Bullard: I found a shop nearby there.
Cecil Bullard: There was a seal leak it, I think it cost me like, I don't know, $24 to have it fixed.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: The shop was being nice to me, but they didn't need a whole new transmission. Absolutely. And that, that the only way that happened was based on the warranty policy and the signature
Lucas Underwood: Yes. Absolutely. And I'm gonna tell you something.
Lucas Underwood: Listen when I go into these instances, I get a telephone call, Hey, there's an issue with something you did. Hey, I'm unhappy with my experience. You know what I'm doing? I am attacking it like you would not believe. I'm on the telephone, I'm calling them, I'm texting 'em, Hey, I wanna make this right. I wanna take care of this.
Lucas Underwood: Tell me what's going on. How can I help? What do I need to do? And by the staff is by,
Cecil Bullard: I'm also documenting all of that because I may have to go to court. Yes. And if it's nine grand, I'm gonna go to court.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And I might even talk to the district attorney because that's a felony for them to mislead and steal nine grand from me.
Lucas Underwood: Well, in North Carolina, theft of services.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Right. In North Carolina it's theft of services. And that's why the terms of service is very important, right? Because I have to have a terms of service that says what?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. But this also goes back to the conversation that you and I also had, and that is we have so many guys that are flying by the seat of their pants.
Cecil Bullard: And you, they don't even understand the liability they have. Forget about the $9,000 job that the check got bounced on. Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Think about somebody you doing work on somebody. They take their car outta your shop the next day they kill somebody.
Cecil Bullard: You know? And who do you think is gonna be named in the lawsuit?
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely
Cecil Bullard: right? Yeah. Absolutely. No matter what, even if it's not your fault, even if it's not even remotely your fault, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with you because you touched the car, you're going to be named in the lawsuit. Yeah. And if you cannot prove what you did, how you did it, and why you did it.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And you don't have signatures. You are screwed. And
Lucas Underwood: We have completion photos. Yeah, on our repair orders. And so the part was replaced. Here's a picture of the part. Oh, by the way, you see that red mark right there? That means that we torque the bolt, right? Yeah. That's torque mark.
Lucas Underwood: And so we know that never gets put on until we torque that bolt. And so you can see the repair that was done. You can see the completed completion, you can see the photos of the parts that were changed. All of that is documented and available for you, for your review at any point in time. And people say, Lucas, that repair order is like 25 pages long.
Lucas Underwood: And I'm like, right, because shop wear makes it super easy. It's not like it's a lot of work for us to do that. I don't care how long it is, as long as it's documented
Cecil Bullard: and you better raise your labor rate by 50 cents an hour or so So you can pay for the paper.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Right?
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: Absolutely. So it is what it is.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And we used to, like, we always had an after fix report.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: So if the car came in with this symptom. And this is what we diagnosed. This is why we decided to replace that component. We replaced that component. We retested the vehicle, we verified that component is working properly at this time and that, and so that's always documented.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: In whatever repair you're doing or whatever service you're doing that, that was done legitimately. Especially if you're torquing. I love the idea of, you know, here's a red dot on that bolt. It means it was torque. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Yes sir.
Cecil Bullard: Imagine, you know, going to court and then you can stand in front of a judge or whatever and go.
Cecil Bullard: Here's our process, here's how it's done, here's how I know it was done properly. Yes. You know? And by the way, it's
Lucas Underwood: documented. It's on paper.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Here's how this works.
Cecil Bullard: And we do that how often? Every single time.
Lucas Underwood: Yep. About
Cecil Bullard: just the way we do business, right? Yep. And nobody gets the choice not to do it.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Lucas Underwood: Now look I'm going to, we're gonna step on the accelerator here. I got yelled at by somebody last time. They said go. You didn't answer my question.
Cecil Bullard: Go.
Lucas Underwood: And I said, well, Michael Smith's a talker, man. You can't let him just talk on and on. I mean, he's smart. Cecil
Cecil Bullard: two, you don't hear
Lucas Underwood: what he says.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Cecil two. So let's, this is, I don't know about the smart part, but the talking part, we definitely,
Lucas Underwood: I tell you that Michael Smith is a very smart man, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yes. He
Lucas Underwood: is. Like, he's pretty awe inspiring when you get to talking with Michael and the way he asks questions. That's how you know he is really smart, is because the way he asked the question, you're like, you're trying to get in my head, aren't you?
Lucas Underwood: All right, Matt McCann. Now, I love this question. He says, we have a solid team of technicians and front staff. Oh, they moved it over so I can see it over here. We have a front staff who work well together, but it often feels like most of them work for the company rather than with the company. I truly believe a great culture and buy-in leads to a positive outcome in production.
Lucas Underwood: What are some effective methods or approaches to help strengthen our shop's culture and shift that mindset toward a sense of shared ownership and teamwork? Now, I'm gonna tell you this, okay, Cecil, I've gotta jump in and answer this first because it's something that's near and dear to my heart.
Lucas Underwood: Okay?
Cecil Bullard: Go for it.
Lucas Underwood: The first thing is there's this great video and it's by a man named Tim Kite. It's on YouTube and it's about leadership. And if you go search this, it's got some like yellow and purple dots or something on the title screen. You'll see it. And it is one of the most beautiful speeches on culture I've ever heard.
Lucas Underwood: And he names a couple things. And one of the things that's always stood out to me is that you have to be going on a journey. You have to be going somewhere, right? Because people today want to be on a journey. They want to be accomplishing something. It's bigger than just showing up and getting a paycheck for them.
Lucas Underwood: And so we have to show them what that journey is and why it should matter to them and why it matters to us. And you know, the other thing he talks about, you have to do it for the right reasons. It can't be a personal agenda. It can't just be about me getting a paycheck. It has to be about this business serves you too, right?
Cecil Bullard: You have to, you also have to talk about it. You have to document it, and you have to live it. So, you know, when we start talking about your mission statement, your vision statement, and your core principles, you need those documented. And I always tell people, look, if you're gonna write a mission statement, put it on the wall and then not live it, don't write it.
Cecil Bullard: But that, that in, in the, at the institute we worked together. Now I had a meeting the other night with a few of the top people here, and I was like, I need everyone to understand it's not a democracy. Right? Yeah. It is not everybody's not you're not gonna get what you want because there's three of you that want x.
Cecil Bullard: It's what does Dutch
Lucas Underwood: say as a benevolent dictatorship?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. It's, it is, it's a benevolent dictatorship. It, it is. Right. But, so there's that. On the other hand, people need to feel like their voice matters, right? Yeah. And that their
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And that their vision or their their, what they want lines up with what the company wants.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: So why do we have a mission statement? Well, 'cause Cecil's nuts and Cecil feels very passionate about what we need to do, but it's not Cecil's mission statement. It's a mission statement that was brought by all of the employees of the institute at a point in time. And it's been, it really hasn't been modified 'cause it's very simple.
Cecil Bullard: Better business, better life, better industry. But we, when we advertise for people, when we say, Hey, I want a new employee, it's there when you interview, it's there. When you have meetings with your people, it's there. It's constantly there. It's not just on the wall, but we also discuss it. We talk about it, we talk about how it applies when we have decisions to make at the institute that are tough.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Decisions. We say, how does that fall in line with our core values? Yes. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: We had one of those last week.
Cecil Bullard: And we decided that the decision that we were making didn't fall in line with our core values, so we were going to make another decision. A different decision. Right. Yeah. And I think that other piece that you and I talked about, when the owner or the manager doesn't follow the process or doesn't, then it's all out the window.
Lucas Underwood: You're taken outta that trust account,
Cecil Bullard: right. You're
Lucas Underwood: taken outta the trust account, you know,
Cecil Bullard: and now you. Go ahead.
Lucas Underwood: You go ahead.
Cecil Bullard: No you go ahead.
Lucas Underwood: You'd already forgot what you were gonna say.
Cecil Bullard: Go ahead. No, I haven't. I'm good.
Lucas Underwood: So, Tim Kit said the real challenge of like, because core values the way that we see it, right?
Lucas Underwood: Because core actually is a Latin word for heart. Yeah. And he talked about the fact that, you know, because you go to the coronary department of the hospital and he said the challenge is getting it off of the wall because those are poster values into the heart of your people. And so it means that we have to hire people who believe what we believe.
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Right. Now, I'm gonna tell you something. One of the, one of the coolest practices or I don't know what you'd call it that we've done in our shop, Jeremy Hoem is the business coach for the family business up the street, right? And he suggested something and I found it brilliant. He said, I want you guys to sit down and I want you to name three people.
Lucas Underwood: Each person in the room named three people that made a big impact in your life. Named.
Cecil Bullard: That's, you guys do that on the podcast?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. We name all those three people. And then he says, okay, now what I want you to do is I want you to name three things about those three people that was impactful for you. The reason that stuck with you and why you, why it emulate matter.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And so we go down and we make this list. And you know, when we got done, we found out that the things that mattered to every single person in the room mattered consistently across the board. Honesty, integrity, doing what's right, regardless of who's looking right. It wasn't about money.
Cecil Bullard: We can't, yeah, you can't run a business and make.
Cecil Bullard: You know, poor decisions because that's gonna put more money in your company. Now again, you and I have conversations all the time and 'cause I love talking to you, and I don't know if you care about, I don't know if you love talking to me or not, but I do. I do, of
Lucas Underwood: course.
Cecil Bullard: So of course. So, you know, we have the shop owner who's not making a living who feels bad if they make a profit, et cetera, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that, you know, the business has to be profitable and it has to be profitable to a certain extent because that then allows me to take care of my employees and their families and my customers and my community and all the other things. But when you have a financial decision to make and you decide to go against your core values because it's a financial decision, 'cause it's gonna impact you, right?
Cecil Bullard: You are making a mistake. Okay. You need to build that bank account that allows you to make the right choice even when it hurts, right? Yes. And in order to do that, you have to charge properly on the front and be profitable on the front so that you have that opportunity. I would tell you, you know, that there was that post about, there's these dishonest guys and there's always dishonest people.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. No matter what industry you're in, right? Yeah. There's gonna be a certain percentage of those no matter what you do. But I think that most of the stuff that looks dishonest, it might actually be dishonest in our industry, but it's really because I put myself in a position where I could not make the right decision because I didn't have the money or the finances to make the right decision.
Cecil Bullard: So instead of, you know, pulling that motor out and putting a new motor in at my cost because we screwed it up, I'm gonna put it. Cheap patch on this thing and hope it gets past the warranty period. Right,
Lucas Underwood: right.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. 'cause I don't have the money to do anything else, and it's not the decision that I really, if it was my car, it's not the decision I would make.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And so I always look at it like that. I'm gonna be the one driving that vehicle. Yeah. And so if I'm gonna be the one driving that vehicle, how am I gonna fix that thing? Yeah. And if you charge enough, and I can't say that we always do either. You know, there's sometimes you come up against a financial decision and maybe there isn't all that money sitting in the bank, but if you make the wrong choice and you've got the writing on the wall and the mission statement and the vision and the values, and you
Lucas Underwood: value against that, but
Cecil Bullard: yeah.
Cecil Bullard: What message? You just wiped it all
Lucas Underwood: out.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And I think as business owners, as people who want to be leaders, who try to be leaders, that we need to be very conscious in the decisions we're making. We need to be very solid in the in, in our core values so that we keep making the right decisions. 'cause when we make the wrong ones, we can get a little grace from our people.
Cecil Bullard: But if that becomes a pattern
Lucas Underwood: yeah,
Cecil Bullard: Then there's no grace.
Lucas Underwood: They will not trust. Do you know how many technicians I talk to, how many service advisors I talk to and they say I don't trust them. I've seen what do to other people. I'm not gonna.
Cecil Bullard: But I, and I also think that we're not building the emotional bond with our employees that we need to build.
Cecil Bullard: And the emotional bond is not, you can walk on me and you can do whatever the hell you want. I'm gonna pay you whatever you want and all that. There, there are rules and B, my can't boundaries. Yeah. You gotta have boundaries. Boundaries. Okay. There, there are rules and boundaries but we need to have an emotional connection with our people.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: A around the core values of the business and that journey that you're talking about. You know, what's the journey that we're on together so that when we fumble, right, when we fall down, we have a lot of people there to pick us up and help us move forward.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And not point fingers and laugh at us while we're on the ground.
Cecil Bullard: Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And if we don't build that core, if we don't build that emotional bond. Yeah. Then we don't get Absolutely. We don't get what we need. Absolutely. What we should have.
Lucas Underwood: And you know, one of the things I'll say about this to Matt is that, that, for one, you need to be really careful here because usually if the culture, right, like, so I have a big personality and the people in the shop know my heart.
Lucas Underwood: They know what I believe, and I try my very best to live that. There's days that I don't hit that mark. Yeah. And they pick me up and they get me there and there's days that they don't hit the mark and I pick them up and get them there. There's days I don't feel like it, and they're like, Hey dude, it's okay, right?
Lucas Underwood: Like, we got this, we're fine. We're gonna get through this. Right.
Cecil Bullard: I,
Lucas Underwood: well, so here's the thing. It's like you need to be careful because if you don't have a culture that's developing underneath you, there might be a seed somewhere in that culture that something's wrong. There might be someone in the culture Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Who is trying to distract and pull back from it. Now, you said something about boundaries. I wanna just tell you how smart my wife is. Okay. The other day she can't be
Cecil Bullard: very smart. She's still hanging out
Lucas Underwood: with you. So,
Cecil Bullard: I don't know, brother. Go ahead. Sorry.
Lucas Underwood: She tolerates. Okay.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. There we go.
Lucas Underwood: I'm always gone.
Lucas Underwood: You notice that like, yeah. I'm always on the road. That's how she tolerates me.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: She said, listen, I'm gonna tell you something about yourself that may not feel very nice. She said, you're a giver. And I said, okay. She said, givers have to set boundaries because takers never will. And I thought, oh.
Lucas Underwood: Huh. Right. Because I'm bad. You've seen me do that. Yeah. You've yelled at me for doing that.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And it's like, listen you have to set boundaries with these people. And one of the things I see shop owners doing, I just had a conversation with that guy who's having all these issues with this tech in the shop, only been there for a short period of time, super toxic killing the organization.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. If you don't set a boundary that says you will not behave this way, we do not tolerate this here. Right. Because see what I've learned, Cecil, is that I have to have a line. And that line is once you cross that, no, I no more Mr. Nice Lucas. Okay. I have a job to do. I'm not letting you damage the rest of the team.
Lucas Underwood: It's not that I don't care about you, it's not that I wanna harm you. It's that you're going to cause harm to the people that I care about.
Cecil Bullard: And that's the kind of the point I kind of wanted to make is that while I'm trying to be the nice guy, and I'm trying to be a giver and I'm trying to make sure everybody's taken care of.
Cecil Bullard: I can't have someone that, that routinely is not part of the team, is not part of the mission. It's not part of the vision. I can't do it. Exactly. You know, I was, I thinking, you know. What's your favorite whiskey or bourbon?
Lucas Underwood: What
Cecil Bullard: do you like best?
Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna say horse soldiers probably my favorite right now.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. So I've got a really nice young, maybe I've got a really nice glass bottle. I'm gonna pour you you know, two fingers of horse s soldiers and but I'm only gonna put a little poison in it.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, just a little.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. I'm just gonna put a little poison. Probably won't kill you.
Cecil Bullard: Might make you sick a little bit, but it probably won't kill you. Are you gonna drink that or not?
Lucas Underwood: No.
Cecil Bullard: No.
Lucas Underwood: Even a little bit.
Cecil Bullard: No, I thank
Lucas Underwood: you. I like David. I'm not trying to have the stomach plug in the middle of a podcast,
Cecil Bullard: but kind of how do we do that in our lives? We keep poisonous people around, we keep poisonous ideas, we keep poisonous behaviors around us.
Cecil Bullard: But I'm
Lucas Underwood: gonna fix on Cecil.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Win because you know, I was invincible until I was, I dunno, 57.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And you know, prior to 50, about 57, sometime in my 57th year, I looked out there and I thought, oh my God, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, there's a, there's an end to this life, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And it's closer now. Than it was, you know, now I can see that I got 25, 30 years left maybe. Right? Maybe. Right. And then quality of life and all of that. And when you're invisible, it's like, okay, so I'll drink that. It's got some poison in it, so what? Right. You know? Yeah. I'll take care of that tomorrow.
Cecil Bullard: I'll i'll do that next week. I'll, oh, you know, having to deal with that guy, you know, and then it's gonna be tough on the business because now I don't have that guy. Yeah. Well, I got news for you. Running shops and running, you know, the institute, when you get rid of toxic people, it's amazing how much the other people step up.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: EE. Every single time I've gotten rid of someone toxic, the company has made leaps and bounds move moving forward. Percent. Right?
Lucas Underwood: A hundred percent. And look, here's the thing is there's a video of Jordan Peterson. It's actually the video that got him canceled. And you'd watch it and you'd say, how in the world did that, did they cancel
Cecil Bullard: him?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Right over this, right? It's in, it's insane. But he talks about fixing things and he said we teach all these kids in school that they're gonna be able to go out and do something. 'cause he taught psychologists, right? Yeah. He's like, you know, we teach 'em, they're gonna be able to fix something.
Lucas Underwood: And he said, no, the world's a really complex place and it's really hard to fix things. And you're the equivalent of a chimp with a wrench, right? Yeah. You're whack. Did it make it better? No. You, to fix a human being is a lot of work. And it takes years. And it's not something that as a business owner, you're really supposed to be doing in the first place.
Lucas Underwood: You're getting off into some gray area here. And so we have a toxic person in the shop because what, what happens? How many season, how many times have you seen it? They've got this toxic person in the shop. Yeah, but he's banging out hours. The minute he's gone, you're gonna find out that he was covering up all of his mistakes.
Lucas Underwood: And when that car came back the next time with loose bolts, he tightened them up and said, what do you think to do?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, I didn't, it wasn't my fault. I didn't do that
Lucas Underwood: exactly.
Cecil Bullard: I'd rather have the guy go, oops, I made it. Yeah, I did it. Right. You know,
Lucas Underwood: a hundred
Cecil Bullard: percent. When I'm interviewing potential people, I'm asking open-ended questions that will direct me to whether or not they will take accountability or not.
Cecil Bullard: Take accountability for sure. One of the questions I might ask someone is, tell me about the worst mistake that happened. We all have a, like if I said that, I know you have a picture, you'd go, oh man, we did this. Blah, blah. And tell me what it was about and tell me what we did to take care of that.
Cecil Bullard: You know? Yeah. And a lot of people will instantly go, well, so and so did this, and so, and it was, it's never them. They never have a part of it.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: Another piece of that is we're all broken, right? We're not, none of us are perfect human beings. We don't, I mean, we're, I guess we're perfect human beings.
Cecil Bullard: We're just not perfect. Right? Yeah. Human beings are flawed. Yes. And it's not my job to fix you. It's my job to set goals, set boundaries. To run my business the way that I need my business to run so that my clients can be taken care of and my employees can be taken care of. 'cause you know, that's my
Lucas Underwood: job.
Cecil Bullard: That's my job,
Lucas Underwood: what I do, right?
Cecil Bullard: That's what I
Lucas Underwood: do.
Cecil Bullard: And when somebody comes in that's going to interrupt that or make that, you know, more difficult, the more I tolerate that, the harder it becomes because other people are also paying attention, watching, et cetera.
Lucas Underwood: And I'm hurting other people, right?
Lucas Underwood: Like, that's the thing we don't really want to talk about. I'm actually hurting other people. I'm impacting the lives of other people. I'm help I, we talk about negative attitude, right? And I tell people all the time, like, I wanna be careful about who my kids hang out with.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: absolutely. 'cause the negative attitude is contagious.
Lucas Underwood: Don't
Cecil Bullard: one.
Lucas Underwood: You know,
Cecil Bullard: if I had only one thing I could do for my children when they were growing up Yeah. My grandkids now, it would be choose their friends.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. Absolutely. Who they hung out with. Absolutely. Because you become like the people around you.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And you know, when they talk about, you know, you don't wanna be the smartest guy in the room, you wanna be in a room where there's a lot more smarter people than you.
Cecil Bullard: That, that is kind of the example of, if I'm in a room with a lot of smart people, I might not be really smart, but I'm gonna get smarter. Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: If I'm in a room with a lot of yahoos and idiots, guess what? I'm gonna be a Yahoo and an idiot. It's inevitable. Yeah, so I, one more thing about the culture piece.
Cecil Bullard: Not only do you need to communicate routinely, but some of the things that are important to them when they fall in line with what's important to the company, you need to make a part of what your company is about in doing, and you need to make a big deal about that. So it's not just, well, the company's here to make 20% and take and have a great reputation, blah, blah, blah.
Cecil Bullard: It's also like, what do you want and how does that fit into that company goal and values?
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: And how can we help you achieve that
Lucas Underwood: a hundred
Cecil Bullard: percent by working here and doing your job here. Right?
Lucas Underwood: A hundred percent.
Cecil Bullard: And if you're not having routine communication, and that's not, it is like, okay, I'm outta your toolbox, you know?
Cecil Bullard: Good morning, how's your family doing? How's your son, Bob? I know you had some problems with him. Is that okay? What can I do? You also have to be talking to the employee on a, this is your job. These are the boundaries. These are the things that you're doing fantastically. These are the things that we need you to improve.
Cecil Bullard: Here's how, if you need help, here's how I'm gonna help you as leaders in our companies. We should constantly be helping others in our companies become better and better. And we do that and they see us as that. They don't see the company as outside of themselves a different goal, different direction.
Cecil Bullard: Then I have people that work. With the company. Become a part of the company. Yeah. As opposed to, oh, I'm just here for a paycheck. I don't want people that are just here for a paycheck.
Lucas Underwood: A hundred percent. I, one of the, one of my very close friends worked for a big national organization and he was so depressed and just really upset about the position.
Lucas Underwood: I'm like, dude, you're like their top sales person and all this crazy stuff's happening and you're doing all these amazing things and look at all the progress you've made. He's like, something just doesn't feel right. And he switched positions and he said, I figured it out. It was feedback. It wasn't good or bad feedback, it was just feedback.
Lucas Underwood: No feedback.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. '
Lucas Underwood: cause I was getting nothing.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Right. And so if we're not talking to our people and they don't know the content of our heart, but
Cecil Bullard: so
Lucas Underwood: missing an opportunity. So
Cecil Bullard: how many small businesses shop owners have a goal for the company that they know that everyone knows what that goal is? A sales goal.
Cecil Bullard: A customer satisfaction goal, a comeback goal, you know, et cetera, et cetera, that everybody knows and understands that you're routinely talking about. How many of those shop owners now have a position that's well-defined? Here's what you're responsible for. Here's who you answer to. Here's who answers to you.
Cecil Bullard: Here's how we have our decision making paradigm. You know, it's how we make decisions in this company. And how many of those owners now have goals with the position and good position. Yeah. You know, agreement, contract description, whatever. And then how many of those people are having routine interviews?
Cecil Bullard: I mean, like, at least twice a year. On your position and on your personal checks, personal goals, et cetera. And I mean, I see employees. I've been working in this company for seven years. I've never once had a Here's how you're doing an interview.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I mean, I've had the owner come out, yell at me because I, I did something that they didn't like, but I never had a sit down and say, this is my job and I'm doing a great job here, but I need improvement here.
Lucas Underwood: Well, I'm gonna get us through these last two questions. Go for it. I think you're absolutely right. And I'm just a little disappointed. Nobody's asked why you're in a 1970s bathtub for this recording. I don't even
color
Lucas Underwood: in the background.
Cecil Bullard: Don't even, I don't know why the green is there. I don't know what happened.
Cecil Bullard: So we're gonna,
Lucas Underwood: we'll,
Cecil Bullard: Michael,
Lucas Underwood: later we're
Cecil Bullard: gonna get some other acc later.
Lucas Underwood: There you go. Right. Go
Cecil Bullard: something.
Lucas Underwood: Okay, so, so one I'm gonna answer really quick. I'm just gonna go through, I think we're fairly close on this. Kyle says, Hey this is a weak point for me. Should we be telling the tech and advisors actual revenue numbers and goals?
Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna tell you
Cecil Bullard: something. Yes. Yes.
Lucas Underwood: I share every single dime of numbers. Yes. The only thing I don't do is share like individual payroll data. No, we don't do that. I share everything. I share the payroll.
Cecil Bullard: I'm not telling you what everybody else gets paid, by the way. Probably everybody knows anyway 'cause the employees are gonna talk et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: But why do I share the numbers? Because we have a goal and we have a target and we're not hitting that. I want you aware of that.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: If we are hitting that, I want you aware of that. And if you don't think I'm here to, you know, make a profit and drive a nice truck, then we didn't interview you properly.
Cecil Bullard: Right. Here's the thing
Lucas Underwood: I'm training my staff every single day about how to look at those numbers. What those numbers mean. Yes. What number affects what, how it changes things, how it affects the bottom line. Because you know something, one day I won't be here anymore and if I can raise them up because what do we have happening?
Lucas Underwood: I told you this in the meeting we had a while back, we see all these people that are leaving shops and starting their own and nobody's ever taught 'em how to run a business. And so if we can advise them, if we can educate them and people say, well, what if they go start their own thing? So what? Yay. At least your competition knows what they're doing.
Cecil Bullard: At least they're charging a reasonable rate instead of 75 bucks an hour because they think I can be cheaper and blah blah, blah. The other thing, if you're not telling them what's happening, they are guessing what's happening. Exactly. And you don't want 'em guessing. You made a
Lucas Underwood: lot of money
Cecil Bullard: And when you come in, when you hang on, 'cause you gotta cover this.
Cecil Bullard: When you come into a shop and you have like the technicians going, well, the reason we're not busy is 'cause we're too pricey. You're not having the right conversations with those people. They don't understand why we have to be $156 an hour, a hundred, $200 an hour. And all of your employees need to know what your rate should be and why you need to hold that rate.
Cecil Bullard: Steady because if you don't, then you make 3% and you have a business that's unsafe and you can't make good decisions financially for sure. And so I'm the guy that says, you need to know where we're at. You need to know what the profits are, and you need to understand that the company is set up to make 20% net profit because I don't get to keep it all.
Cecil Bullard: If I'm lucky, I might end up with seven or 8%.
Lucas Underwood: Amen. I've got one question we're gonna answer. There's actually another one in there that I think's important. One is how to know when to hire a coach. And I'm just gonna say, like, for me it was very simply that I knew that my knowledge had gotten me as far as it was gonna get me.
Lucas Underwood: I was up against the wall. Every time I turned around, I was dealing with another problem I didn't know the answer to, and I felt super stressed out. I felt like no matter what, I just could not make progress. And that's when it's time to get that outside perspective. I'm gonna tell you that I think if you're starting a business, you should hire a coach when you start the business.
Lucas Underwood: And I understand the revenue concerns with that, Cecil, but I think having somebody help you set the business up properly, ensure success down the road. If nothing else, just somebody to help you set up a proper chart of accounts. Oh my God, I hate to even bring that up.
Cecil Bullard: So I'm a coach and yeah, and I've been a coach. You're retired. Let me, no, I'm not. No, I'm not brother. I'm not. I will kick you in the head next time I see you. And you don't want that. 'cause I have this giant boot on my foot right now.
Lucas Underwood: That
Cecil Bullard: we have clients that, that. Come to us and say, I'm buying a business.
Cecil Bullard: And we usually save them a hundred, $150,000 on the purchase price because they don't really understand the numbers and blah, blah, blah. We help 'em negotiate, we help 'em set up the systems and process. We help 'em get the goals in place. We help them understand the business as a financial machine, a model, you know, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: And so our average client I think last month we were over 19% net for our average client. And that includes brand new people who are only at three or 4%. So our clients have been with us for a while, are making really good money, and they're not working 60 hours a week or 80 hours a week. These are guys that are now working 20 hours a week, 25 hours a week in their automotive shop, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And
Lucas Underwood: absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: And so, you know, it. Can I do it by myself? Yeah, probably. It might take me 20 years to figure it all out, or I may never figure it all out.
Team
Lucas Underwood: trying to get
Cecil Bullard: it here. And so guys like yourself, you know, if I asked you, I said, Lucas, you know, when did you first hire a coach?
Cecil Bullard: And you say, okay, I did it when, I don't know, I was in business 12 years, right? And
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: I finally thought, okay, I'm in trouble enough that I better hire somebody otherwise I'm not gonna be here. Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And that's a huge portion of guys that hire coaching. I've got to a point where I'm almost desperate.
Cecil Bullard: And my coach, the coach is the last straw. I gotta either, you know, I'm gonna go broke or I'm, they're gonna help me, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: But I will ask you, so I don't know if it was 12 years, 15 years, seven years when you got the coach and you started, you know, helping yourself and you don't run a perfect business.
Cecil Bullard: Neither do any of my clients. Okay?
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: Sure. But do you say to yourself, man, I wish I'd had done this. Sooner.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: Okay.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: So I have people,
Lucas Underwood: Do you know I, I mean like I know where, do
Cecil Bullard: you know how much farther along I would be if I had hired
Lucas Underwood: a coach myself? I would've money, I would have like college accounts for my kids and I would have a HSA and I'd have a lot of money put back in it.
Lucas Underwood: I'd be 10 years ahead towards retirement right now.
Cecil Bullard: My business instead I'm playing would be worth, my business would be worth twice what it's worth or three times what it's worth right now. Even though I did hire a coach and I'm working towards all those things, I could have done it better sooner, faster.
Cecil Bullard: It's
Lucas Underwood: kinda like compounding. The earlier you get in and get it started, the easier it is to get there.
Cecil Bullard: And so I get into a lot of meetings. In fact, I have one with a potential new client today. I'm, when we have someone who's kind of outside of what the institute normally does, like they don't just have a normal, like I work on Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Repair shops or whatever. I get involved and I have these conversations and what I really detest is this you go through and you say, okay, we do this for you. And they believe it. They see it. They go, okay, and you talk about, you know, your parts margin is off by 18 points and that's costing you $70,000 a year and you know, we may not get the 18 points, but we'll probably get at least 12 and that will certainly pay for us and put more money in your pocket, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And. And then you get done and you're like, okay. And they're like, oh yeah I really, I think this would be great. And you say, okay, sign on the bottom line.
Cecil Bullard: And we don't have long-term contracts. We're not even, we're not like signing for a $60,000 contract. We're just saying, yeah, you're gonna pay us month to month, and if you don't like what we do, bye-bye. You know? And if you do like what we do, you're gonna keep paying us. And our clients keep paying us because they like what we do.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. But then they go, well, you know, I'm I'm gonna hire a service advisor. So once I do that, I'll then I'll come back. There's always a reason. Do coaching or I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, yeah. And you know what I tell 'em, I said, no, you're not. You will never come back. And I'm sorry, but if you think you can do this on your own, can you Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And you know what? You'll probably make half or less of what you should earn. Yeah. And your life will be, but the cost of doing it
Lucas Underwood: that way, do
Cecil Bullard: you know how much it's pain that
Lucas Underwood: causes, do you know what it
Cecil Bullard: does? It's painful not to for you, your family. Yeah. You know, and that's what they don't Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: That's what they don't understand. Right. It's like, you know, my, my dad all he worried about was the clients and he did care about his kids. Don't get me wrong. He loved us and he provided food and all that kinda stuff, but when it came decisions about where he spent his time and all of that, it was always with the business.
Cecil Bullard: It was never with the family and on, there was always
Lucas Underwood: another fire to put out
Cecil Bullard: on his death bed. After two months in, in the hospital on a breathing tube, knowing he was gonna die, all he could say to me was, I'm sorry.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. And it wasn't, I'm sorry that I, you know, didn't leave you $10 million or, you know, any of that.
Cecil Bullard: It was, I'm sorry that I didn't give you the time. That you should, that we should have. I'm sorry that we didn't have the relationship we should have. So they don't understand that. And if you talk to, I don't know, I could give you a hundred clients to talk to, and they would say, oh my God, my life is so completely different.
Cecil Bullard: I, I now have time for my family. I have a life outside of my business. I have money in the bank. I'm not concerned about, I, I can do investing in other areas. You know, Michael, Mr. Smith you know, brainchild there you know, he talks about like having that extra bid and peace.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Well, Maslow basically says if you're worried about money and whether or not you can pay payroll next week, you can't think about family. God you know, life.
Lucas Underwood: You can't have a good life. You can't enjoy life. And you know, here's on the other side of that, right? There's a lot of shops out here who are listening and they're saying, but man, you know, I've got things pretty good right now.
Lucas Underwood: I've got things pretty dialed in. I've got things lined up. And you know, the reason that I coach with the institute is this, because when I sat down and started talking with Michael Smith and because I'm not gonna lie to you, Michael and I butted heads when we first met. And I went to Michael and I said, I really like Cecil.
Lucas Underwood: I feel like he's a close friend of mine, and I'm worried that what you're doing with the institute and your engagement could be bad for them. And he said, why do you say that? And I said, because you're trying to tell all these people to go sell their shops. And he said, whoa, stop down.
Cecil Bullard: That's not what we're doing.
Lucas Underwood: That's not what that's
Cecil Bullard: about.
Lucas Underwood: Down we, we were at a conference and he pulled out a chair and he said, I want you to sit down and you need to listen to me. And I said,
Cecil Bullard: It's about creating a legacy and having the legacy and controlling some of that.
Lucas Underwood: Go ahead. But beyond that,
Cecil Bullard: yeah,
Lucas Underwood: but beyond that, what he did is he put his hands up on my shoulder and he said, I need you to listen to me because I have seen all of these businesses and other verticals go through what's getting ready to happen to you.
Lucas Underwood: He said, if you don't believe me when I say this, go look at the collision space and see what's happened to them. Because you work in the collision space too. I said, what are you talking about? He said, I'm talking about consolidation,
Cecil Bullard: mom and pop hardware stores, mom and pops, pharmacies, et cetera.
Lucas Underwood: Funeral homes, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. He said, what I'm trying to tell you is that the environment of which you operate now is not gonna be the environment of which you operate 10 years from now. And if you wanna sell your shop, great. If you wanna build a bunch of shops and sell them as a package and take the money and run, great. But what I'm trying to tell you is that you're not gonna survive and thrive in this market, in this environment unless you change what you're doing, because you're gonna be in a different market 10 years from now.
Lucas Underwood: You have to Yeah. The
industry
Lucas Underwood: prepare for it now.
Cecil Bullard: So I don't know you're not a young guy. You're young compared to me but you've been in here for, I don't know, 20 years, right? Yep. In the industry. And you've seen the changes that we have, not just technologically, but even Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Kind of business. And we have fought that tooth and nail, like Yeah. Raising our labor rates and, you know, charging what we're really worth and actually even paying technicians and creating a path. And we fought a lot of this stuff. Right. If they're good, they'll figure it out. Right? Okay. Yeah. That's what we should do is roll the dice and hope that we have good people.
Cecil Bullard: Why not help them become the best that they can be?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And. The changes we had in the last 20 years will pair pale in comparison Yes. To the changes we will have in the next 10.
Lucas Underwood: A hundred percent.
Cecil Bullard: Okay.
Lucas Underwood: A hundred percent.
Cecil Bullard: I mean, we've got AI to think about how is that going to influence what, who is that gonna replace?
Cecil Bullard: How is that gonna be used in our business or buy the do it yourselfer out there. Right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And by the dealerships and the manufacturers and, you know, there's so much going on here and what I hate we probably have, I don't know, at any given time we have I dunno, 50% of our clients are probably.
Cecil Bullard: 50 or older. And we have a good percentage of guys that are 70 and still working in their shops because they need to, because they have to, because they don't know how to do anything else. And they have no life outside of that. And they've come to the point where they're physically or mentally not capable of moving forward and they have no path.
Cecil Bullard: They haven't spent the last five years with one of their key employees helping their key employee understand the business so that key employee can pay them and get them out. Or they're you know, they go to sell their business and they need, I don't know, 800,000, but it's only worth two.
Cecil Bullard: And they don't even understand. I, we have an employee, a, an older gentleman, fantastic guy. He's been with us for a very long time and he's gonna sell this business for like, I dunno, 500,000. And we look at the business with him, we go, this business worth a 900, $950,000. And he cried. I mean, he cried because at 500,000, it wasn't quite gonna be enough to make him feel secure.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. But at 950,000, it's enough to make him feel secure.
Lucas Underwood: He's gonna make it through it. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And it's it breaks my heart
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: To see these guys at the end of their career. With no plan, no move forward plan for themselves. And I don't know how many shops closed this year. I can tell you we're not 240,000 shops anymore.
Cecil Bullard: And the only reason that we're maintaining numbers is 'cause you have all these technicians, all of a sudden we think, oh, I'm just gonna go do it. And now they're working out of their garage and they're calling themselves a shop and charging, you know, $75 an hour not marking parts up and letting their customer bring their own parts in.
Cecil Bullard: And we're gonna see that disappear. Yeah. We're gonna see it disappear because of regulations, because of technology. It's gonna be less and less
Lucas Underwood: different world. Yep.
Cecil Bullard: A hundred percent.
Lucas Underwood: And
Cecil Bullard: I'm telling you, in the next 10 years, there are gonna be so many guys that are going to have to be out of the industry.
Cecil Bullard: And it's a shame because they could control their destiny. So when do you hire a coach? I don't know if you're looking at going, yeah, why not? Right. Yeah. What's the first thing I'm gonna do? You're gonna hire me and the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look at your parts margin. I'm gonna look at your labor rate.
Cecil Bullard: I'm gonna say you're, we're costing you x. You have to make that from your customer.
Lucas Underwood: I'm
Cecil Bullard: your new
Lucas Underwood: accountability
Cecil Bullard: partner. 10 bucks an hour, right? I'm your new And I have a big foot. That's but, and by the way, if it doesn't fit, don't stick. Yeah. Don't sign long-term contracts. Yeah. Percent. If it doesn't fit, don't stick.
Cecil Bullard: And if it doesn't fit, like we, we have, I don't how many coaches we have now. Nine or I don't 11 or whatever it is. Yeah. And I'm also the guy that gets the call, Hey, I'm working with this client, I'm kind of struggling. Not, and it doesn't it's not working well. So ciso, will you get involved? Yeah, absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: I'll meet with a client and I've taken on some of those clients, or I've moved them to other coaches where it fit better. Right? Sure. Where it felt better, where it worked better for them. So. You also want to probably hire a coach that, or a coaching company that has the philosophy that you fit with if you
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Are the discount, the
Lucas Underwood: belief and moral, ethical guidelines.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. If you're the discount, get 'em in, get 'em out. Get as much as you can, and that's what you wanna be. It isn't gonna fit here at the institute. We're not, you will not be happy with us and we will not be happy with you.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: If you want great relationships in a shop that runs really well and people to build a great team with really good culture.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: That's what we do here
Lucas Underwood: to make the world a better place, baby.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. That's what we do here.
Lucas Underwood: Well, hey listen, I just got a text message from the producer. He says he too late, calls us too late, double overtime for every minute, past an hour. So I, we
Cecil Bullard: better go,
Lucas Underwood: right? You're gonna be yelling at me for my p and l here in a few hours.
Lucas Underwood: There we go.
Cecil Bullard: No worries, baby.
Lucas Underwood: It's a big bill, man. It's a big bill. So,
Cecil Bullard: and we can do this again. So
Lucas Underwood: that's it. No worries. That's it. Cecil, thank you so much. I think this was an awesome conversation. I appreciate all the wisdom and knowledge you shared and I can't wait to do you
Cecil Bullard: too, brother.
Lucas Underwood: See you buddy.
Cecil Bullard: You too brother. Bye-bye.

168 - Pay Plans, Profits, and People: Inside Lake Sumter Auto Repair with Bobby Lambert

168 - Pay Plans, Profits, and People: Inside Lake Sumter Auto Repair with Bobby Lambert
November 11, 2025 - 00:25:28
 
Show Summary:
Jimmy Lea sits down with Florida shop owner Bobby Lambert of Lake Sumter Transmissions and Auto Repair to trace his journey from VO-tech student turning wrenches to successful multi-shop owner. Bobby shares how a high school instructor opened the door to transmission work, a move to Florida “chasing a girl” led to a lifelong career, and decades in one shop eventually turned into an ownership opportunity. After buying the business in 2018, he quickly realized how much he did not know about the numbers and credits coaching and 20 groups with reshaping his skills as an owner. Bobby explains how adding general auto repair around the 2008 downturn set the stage for growth and later expansion to a second location with a rough reputation that he is steadily turning around. He breaks down his approach to pay plans for techs and advisors, why flexibility attracts top talent, and how he consistently hits 20 percent plus net profit by controlling expenses instead of chasing every dollar of revenue. The conversation closes with his succession and retirement plans, traveling the country in a motorhome, and his belief that neighboring shops should lock arms instead of competing out of fear.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Bobby Lambert, Owner of Lake Sumter Transmissions & Auto Repair
 
Show Highlights:
[00:01:46] - Bobby shares how a high school VO-tech program and his teacher’s transmission shop launched his career in the aftermarket.
[00:02:58] - Moving to Florida “chasing a girl” leads Bobby to Lake Sumter Transmissions in 1982, where he works nearly every role in the business.
[00:07:57] - Bobby buys the shop in January 2018 and quickly realizes ownership requires a totally different skillset than managing daily operations.
[00:09:47] - After hearing Dan speak at a NAPA conference, Bobby signs up for coaching and classes that reshape how he thinks about his numbers and his market.
[00:11:59] - Inspired by multi-shop owners in his Gear Performance Group, Bobby takes a chance on a second, struggling shop and installs a coachable manager.
[00:15:02] - With retirement three to five years away, Bobby outlines a plan for each manager to buy their location, supported by succession guidance from Michael Smith.
[00:17:47] - Bobby explains how disciplined expense control helps him consistently achieve 20 percent or better net profit at his shops.
[00:20:52] - He breaks down flexible pay plans for technicians, using hourly, guarantees, and flat rate to match each tech’s stage and strengths.
[00:26:47] - Service advisors earn salary plus bonuses tied to shop and individual gross profit, encouraging true teamwork at the counter.
[00:37:13] - Bobby urges owners to get coaching early and see neighboring shops as partners to lock arms with, not competitors to fear.
 
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, my friend. Good to be with you again, this bright and beautiful sunshiny day. My name is Jimmy Lea. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is the one, the only, Bobby Lambert. Bobby, how the heck are you, brother?
Bobby Lambert: Doing great. It's a little chilly down here in Florida this morning, but it's a beautiful day. Like you said, it's sun shining. Birds are chirping. I guess I'm,
Jimmy Lea: It's not often that Florida is colder than Utah, but today it's colder than Utah.
Bobby Lambert: We'll get colder than utah.
Jimmy Lea: Well, of all the things, and in fact you're colder by 10 degrees.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Colder than what Utah is this morning. So are is Florida. Wondering, have the, has hell frozen over what's going on here?
Bobby Lambert: No. We we get these little cold bursts, but they're only every
Jimmy Lea: once in a while,
Bobby Lambert: one or two days, and then it is gone. So,
Jimmy Lea: so do you keep a jacket for those one or two days or do you
Bobby Lambert: just.
Jimmy Lea: Tough it out.
Bobby Lambert: No, we keep jackets. I was scurrying this morning getting propane for the shop heaters so the guys would, could function a little bit.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my word. That's hilarious. Because you, you're down in the 34 degrees this morning
Bobby Lambert: and we were
Jimmy Lea: Oh, my word. Yeah. And Utah, we were 44 degrees. And this podcast is being recorded on Veteran's Day, November 11th.
Bobby Lambert: Thank you to all the veterans.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you to all the veterans. Thank you for your service. Thank you for keeping us free and where Freedom Rings. Love it. Bobby, I want to get right into this in talking about your journey and your experience, how did you get into the automotive aftermarket?
Bobby Lambert: Pretty much like everyone else, I had this burning desire when I was a kid to wanna know how things worked and work on things and, you know.
Bobby Lambert: I went through the VO-tech program in our high school, and the instructor there had a transmission shop, and I worked for him in the afternoons, and then I moved to Florida and went to work here at Lake Sumter Transmissions in 1982. Pretty much had every job in this place up until 2017 when the previous owners decided they wanted to retire.
Bobby Lambert: And offered me the business and showed me how to make it pay for itself and with their help and help the institute here. I sit with the, you know, this shop on the verge of making its biggest year ever biggest profits, margins ever opened. My second shop this year it's just phenomenally rolling along and I couldn't be happier.
Jimmy Lea: Bobby, that is phenomenal. Congratulations. I'm so excited. I'm, there's so much to unpack in what you have just said. I wanna go back to the start here. You're at the vo-tech program at high school. Where did you go to high school?
Bobby Lambert: Camden High School in Camden, South Carolina.
Jimmy Lea: South Carolina.
Jimmy Lea: Beautiful. Thank you to the vo-tech program. Thank you for those teachers who would take you under their wing, bring you into the transmission shop, which is the
Bobby Lambert: absolutely
Jimmy Lea: puzzle of a thousand pieces with no pictures.
Jimmy Lea: When did you start working on transmissions? When did you start breaking them down and putting 'em back together?
Jimmy Lea: What did that look like for you?
Bobby Lambert: Pretty much when I was a senior in high school, he, you know, we'd. We were working on 'em in the vo-tech class. And then, like I said, I was working with him in the afternoon, so I'd pull the transmissions out and have 'em torn apart. He'd come in order the parts and you we'd work on putting 'em back together.
Bobby Lambert: And then I moved to Florida and started all over.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my word. That's amazing. So, what took you to Florida from South Carolina?
Bobby Lambert: We're chasing a girl.
Jimmy Lea: Ah, there it is. Did you catch the girl?
Bobby Lambert: For about a year, and then she moved on, so I
Jimmy Lea: stayed. Ah, there you go. So you were already at Link Sumner when when she moved on?
Jimmy Lea: Yes. And your career just continued on there. So as you are working at Link Sumner did they have a program laid out for you? Did you have training laid out for you? Did what? What did that future look like for you?
Bobby Lambert: It, it was back in 82, 83. So really wasn't a whole lot of programs out there for this kind of stuff.
Bobby Lambert: It was pretty much on the job training. I was an r and r Tech for about a year, and then they started bringing me along, building transmissions. Started with the Turbo three 50 and it was pretty easy transmission. Okay. We would stay at. In the evenings about two hours a night and work on individual pieces of that transmission, how they worked, putting 'em together, you know, and it was just my time and his time didn't get paid for it, but I learned a huge skill.
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Bobby Lambert: So, so
Jimmy Lea: is this something that the owner did know?
Bobby Lambert: The owner. The owners did, yes. For you? Yep. The owners did.
Jimmy Lea: So this is a two hour course every night that you're learning and learning more about transmissions. Yes. How they work, why they work, what each of the elements are inside of them.
Jimmy Lea: So this is your free education that only costs you time.
Bobby Lambert: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congratulations. That's awesome.
Bobby Lambert: It was
Jimmy Lea: awesome.
Jimmy Lea: Your technical skill was growing by the school of hard knocks. You were, yes. You were learning and growing all along the way. And learning all about these transmissions. So at what point did you transition from transmissions to full auto care?
Bobby Lambert: Probably around 2008 when the economy tank and cash for clunkers were here and they were crushing all the cars that we were gonna have to. Put transmissions in and we were slow and customer would come in, Hey, while you got it, can you put spark plugs in? Sure, we can do that. I mean, so, you know, and it just, it started snowballing from there and it's probably 45 or 50% of my business now.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. Wow. So, and what does the layout look like of the first Lake Sumpter? What's that layout look like with your transmission shop?
Bobby Lambert: This particular location has 10 bays. Nine of 'em are inside, one's an outside bay for motor homes and box trucks and that kind of stuff. Six technicians, three service advisors, customer service agent, and my manager, my wife, my side myself and my wife.
Bobby Lambert: So pretty big staff here?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That is 10 bays. And how many technicians did you say?
Bobby Lambert: Six technicians. I left my transmission builder out, so he's, that's all he does is build transmission. So he is not really out there slinging wrenches on the cars or anything. He's out there, you know, making sure the transmissions are fixed.
Jimmy Lea: Right. Right, right, right. So, of your six you have six technicians doing auto care. Do they also do transmission as well, or
Bobby Lambert: They'll r and r the transmissions? Yes.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. Wow. Okay. And at what point after you, well, what leading up to you buying the shop, what year did you buy Lake Sumner?
Bobby Lambert: I bought it in January of 2018.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my word, congratulations. Exciting, scary as heck.
Bobby Lambert: Yes. Yes,
Jimmy Lea: yes. To all the above. And
Bobby Lambert: then
Jimmy Lea: some more. So what did that process look like for you with the previous owners and you buying it out?
Bobby Lambert: You know, they had brought me along every step of the way from the r and r tech building transmissions, and I was their diagnostic tech.
Bobby Lambert: Then I was a service advisor. And manager and the only thing I didn't do was sign the checks. But then, you know, they just taught me so much.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: But there was a lot that they didn't teach me, which I found out after I signed on the bottom line there. Hey, I knew nothing about these numbers in this office.
Bobby Lambert: And that's where. The institute, well, when it was RLO is when I signed up with them and of course when Cecil and everybody bought it, it was big change. But it's been a, it's been a huge help.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, for sure. So here you are growing up in the business, just like the Rockefeller, you did everything from sweeping the floors and buying the stir sticks to wiping the counters and working the front counter.
Jimmy Lea: You were the general manager, and you would've thought that doing everything in that day-to-day, you would've thought that you knew how to run the business, and then you discover
Bobby Lambert: no,
Jimmy Lea: being the owner is a different skillset,
Bobby Lambert: a whole different skillset set.
Jimmy Lea: So how long did you go from signing on the dotted line to saying, okay, I need coaching and training?
Bobby Lambert: We signed in January went to the NAPA conference in Biloxi in June and sat in Dan's class and says, damn, that guy's telling me everything I need to hear.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: So I immediately found him at the expo hall and said, sign me up.
Jimmy Lea: Sign me up. I'm in.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. I got, I had to do something because,
Jimmy Lea: oh, congratulations.
Jimmy Lea: That that's such a unique situation to know that you didn't know. And then once you heard it, you were saying, oh my gosh, yes. I need to know more about everything that this man is teaching and talking about whole different skill set.
Bobby Lambert: Then they put me through the Gorilla Shop management course with Vic.
Bobby Lambert: And went through that, signed me up with John LERs. A coach.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: And he kicked my ass for about a year and a half.
Jimmy Lea: Good, good. Sounds like you needed it.
Bobby Lambert: I did. I did so, and I was that I can't do that. My, my area won't support that. Yeah. It will.
Jimmy Lea: It will. Yeah, it does. Yes, it does. Right.
Bobby Lambert: And then we joined up in the BDG group or the, I'm sorry the
Jimmy Lea: BBL group.
Jimmy Lea: BPG.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Bbl. Yeah. Bottom line named Pat Group.
Bobby Lambert: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: And now you're in the Gear performance group
Bobby Lambert: with my, yep. Uhhuh.
Jimmy Lea: Which, which group are you in?
Bobby Lambert: Group two.
Jimmy Lea: Group two. Oh yeah. That's the technology, the best group technology. That is a very good group for sure. They are very forward thinking.
Jimmy Lea: Technology adopting group two is on the cutting edge. So yeah you are in a good group there, Bobby. That's awesome.
Bobby Lambert: And that brings us to where we're at today
Jimmy Lea: and where are you at today? Oh, that is awesome. So at what point do you decide you look around and say, Hey, you know what? I think it's time to open a second shop.
Jimmy Lea: Let's go find something to buy. Let's go find something to build. What did you do?
Bobby Lambert: You know, I'm sitting there in these these gear performance groups and listening to other multi shop owners. There's I think three or four of us in there, and I'm thinking. First we were in there with AJ and you know,
Jimmy Lea: AJ Neely, great
Bobby Lambert: guy,
Jimmy Lea: love him.
Bobby Lambert: And he scared me to death. I had no earthly idea how that guy just does what he does, but he does it. But and I'm like, man, that's some ambition. I don't know if I ever want two shots. And then one came available. So, and I had a friend of mine that wanted to manage a shop. I took a chance on him and it's it's doing well.
Jimmy Lea: Well, congratulations. What does this second shop look like? What's the footprint?
Bobby Lambert: The footprint of that one is four bays, again, one more bay outside. So five, five lifts in total two techs and my manager slash service advisor there. So just three people at that shop, but
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Bobby Lambert: Wow. It didn't have the best reputation and we're slowly turning it around.
Bobby Lambert: I've gotten him in the the coaching program with Ryan in the apg With the advisor? Yeah, sorry. Advisor performance group. Yeah. And he's picking up something every time they talk and that's just so excited. So excited. I gotta reign him in. He gets going too fast and just gotta slow him down a little bit.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Don't outrun the horses. Come on now. Hold up.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. But that shop is it's turning around. Like I said it's growing every month. It's not putting up huge numbers or anything, but it's a steady climb and steady progression and we we're extremely fortunate.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. With these smaller shops, these three bays, four bays, two techs, one service advisor.
Jimmy Lea: It can be a lean, mean fighting machine. You know? Yeah. It doesn't put up the big numbers, but the net, the gross profit, the net profit, it can be very impressive.
Bobby Lambert: Yes. So,
Jimmy Lea: so if something came along again, Bobby and would there be an option for a third shop?
Bobby Lambert: I can say yes. 'cause my wife's not here in the office with me today.
Bobby Lambert: She's at home so. She would be shooting daggers if she saw that, but I would not be opposed to a third shop if one came along. Yeah. But the caveat to that is I've only got about four more years left in me before I'm ready to retire.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, nice. No, let's talk about retiring and if you're retiring then what?
Jimmy Lea: Well, not the, then what, hold on. Let's back up.
Jimmy Lea: Who's gonna buy your shops from you? What's the plan there? Do you have a plan in place?
Bobby Lambert: I have a semi plan. Yeah. We don't have anything hammered out in full details or anything, but yes, my my manager at this location is very much interested in this one and the manager, the other one, he's interested in that one.
Bobby Lambert: So I'll split 'em up and, have them buy them if they want. And if we can't, then I'm talking to my buddy Michael Smith and I'm in his classes as well. So you can't learn too much in this business.
Jimmy Lea: And even if they are not the ones that end up buying it. Even if, and let's go with that as the current plan, you still need to talk to Michael Smith.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Michael Herzberg Smith about that succession plan. That's something that you do want to have in place and the way to start it is now
Bobby Lambert: yes.
Jimmy Lea: Anybody that wants to sell their business and they want to sell it today. We need a flex capacitor in 88 miles an hour. 'cause we gotta go back in time three to five years.
Jimmy Lea: So you are in the perfect spot is put in place so that your key employees are the ones that are able to buy it and there are ways for them to buy it where don't have to come in with cold hard cash and put 20% down.
Bobby Lambert: Right.
Jimmy Lea: Over the next three to five years, they're earning that 20% down. And then they are able to refinance it, get a small business loan.
Jimmy Lea: And and Bobby and wife are sitting on the beach drinking my ties.
Bobby Lambert: That's right. But yeah, the Michael Smith is he is a wealth of information and we've we've been talking and trying to hammer out a few details here and there, and
Jimmy Lea: good.
Bobby Lambert: But I'll go back to the previous owners that had this shop when I bought it there, there were two of them.
Bobby Lambert: And one of 'em told me, he says, the day you sign on the line, start your exit plan.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so smart.
Bobby Lambert: So start right there, know where your goal is and keep it in sight.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah,
Bobby Lambert: the other one said, get yourself in a good 20 group.
Jimmy Lea: Bingo.
Bobby Lambert: Like I said, me, how do it,
Jimmy Lea: what's a 20 girl
Bobby Lambert: not go? Yep. Showed me how to do it and not go wrong.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's good. That's good. Congratulations, man. That's awesome. So the future is three to five years. Bobby's ready to retire.
Jimmy Lea: Gonna sell the businesses. And then what?
Bobby Lambert: Well, we just bought a motor home, so we're gonna travel the country a little bit in the motor home and see what's out there. Love
Jimmy Lea: it.
Bobby Lambert: Keep popping in here and see how these guys are doing. And
Jimmy Lea: there you go. I love it. I love it.
Bobby Lambert: Tell 'em all about my adventures and. Love it. I'm going again.
Jimmy Lea: We'll get you one of these water bottles that has the national parks on it and you go visit every single one of the national parks.
Jimmy Lea: And when you get to Utah, let me know 'cause I'll show you right where all the good Utah parks are.
Bobby Lambert: I'll do it.
Jimmy Lea: Cool. But,
Bobby Lambert: Yeah the future looks good for us. I'm super happy with where the shop is. We are consistently. That 20 plus percent
Jimmy Lea: net profit.
Bobby Lambert: Yes. Month after month,
Jimmy Lea: 20 plus percent net profit,
Bobby Lambert: month after month, year after year.
Jimmy Lea: Congratulations. How do you do that?
Bobby Lambert: How?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: You get a fantastic coach and facilitator like Jennifer. Jennifer Holbert.
Jimmy Lea: Jennifer Holbert is awesome. I agree.
Bobby Lambert: She. Helps me watch my numbers, but the key is control your expenses.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: If you're making money, save some money.
Jimmy Lea: Amen.
Bobby Lambert: You don't have to spend everything you make.
Jimmy Lea: That is so true. But I just did a podcast very recently with Clinton and he talked about how one year compared to the next, he cut. A ton of expenses. He did $16,000 less in total revenue, but netted an additional 8,000 for the entire year. If you can control your expenses, you can control what you take home, and that's where the awards come from, is you are awarded based on your ability to keep it.
Jimmy Lea: Keep it in the bank, keep it at home.
Bobby Lambert: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Good for you. Congratulations. Thank you. That is awesome, that you're able to work on the business and not necessarily in the business that you are expanding the business and growing the business.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. I don't make any appointments. I go say hi to customers, but I don't talk to customers about their vehicles.
Bobby Lambert: I don't. It's just, that's not my job.
Jimmy Lea: Right.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. It's I've got awesome people in place that do such a great job at doing that. Yeah. I don't need to, I just can go enjoy the customer, sit and have a conversation.
Jimmy Lea: Let your employees do what they were hired to do. Let them do their job.
Bobby Lambert: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome.
Jimmy Lea: Congrats. What now? We talk about empowering the employees and, you know, we all have bills to pay and we can't pay the bills on feel good. We do need money. How do you pay your employees? What's your pay plans for technicians and advisors? And managers? What do you do?
Bobby Lambert: Well, no one pay plan is right for every technician.
Jimmy Lea: True. Wow. Okay. So do you have different pay plans for each of your techs in-house right now? I do.
Bobby Lambert: I do.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my
Bobby Lambert: god. I have hourly techs. I have techs that are on a guarantee and you know, I have flat rate techs. Just whatever that tech has. You can't take a 25 year tech and say you've been flat rate all your life.
Bobby Lambert: You're going hourly.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. He wouldn't know how to compute
Bobby Lambert: that. Yeah he's, so I. They know what they need.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah,
Bobby Lambert: I know what I need. So you tell me what you need. I'll see how we can make it work and we make things work.
Jimmy Lea: So are there performance kickers in there as well?
Bobby Lambert: There are, yes.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. So let's talk about your hourly employees.
Jimmy Lea: Your hourly technicians.
Jimmy Lea: Who are they? What does it look like? Not specific names per se. Yeah. What's the demographic of it look like?
Bobby Lambert: Basically, I've got two hourly techs and they're pretty much part-time. They're approaching retirement age, so they're not producing the hours, so let's keep them on an hourly.
Bobby Lambert: They're, their bodies are not letting them do the jobs that they have done all their lives.
Bobby Lambert: So we're backing 'em down. Yeah. Just. I'm not firing you. I wanna keep you going. You've got a great mind. You know so much about these cars. Let's keep you here. Let's make things happen for you. But at the same time, we're gonna cut your hours back so your body can let you enjoy some life.
Bobby Lambert: Because if I keep pushing you 40 hours a week and your body keeps breaking down, you're giving me 20 hours a week in production. That's not good for either of us.
Jimmy Lea: Wow.
Bobby Lambert: So we, we back it down and you know, we pay 'em what they need to make a living. My guaranteed texts once they hit their minimum hours, they get a bump.
Bobby Lambert: So, usually, so, so what
Jimmy Lea: is that number? Is it, is it a 40?
Bobby Lambert: It's around 30, 32 hours is the minimum they have to turn.
Jimmy Lea: Per week. Okay.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. So once they hit that, they get a $5 an hour bump back to hour one.
Jimmy Lea: That's phenomenal. And so these gen, these ladies and gentlemen that are on a guarantee, how often do they exceed that?
Jimmy Lea: 32
Bobby Lambert: Most every week.
Jimmy Lea: That's beautiful.
Bobby Lambert: So
Jimmy Lea: does that mean that they're up in the forties?
Jimmy Lea: 40 twos fi. 40 fives,
Bobby Lambert: yes.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. That's extraordinary. That's awesome. Congrats. And then you say you also have technicians that are flat rate. What does that look like?
Bobby Lambert: My flat rate techs, there's two of them.
Bobby Lambert: One of them is an r and r Tech. All he is, that's all he is done all his life. R and r transmissions phenomenal at it.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Bobby Lambert: He's producing. 50 to 70 hours every week, just slinging transmissions.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my word.
Bobby Lambert: Just slinging transmissions.
Jimmy Lea: That's because he knows all the shortcuts. He knows the secrets, he knows the how tos and whatnots and have been, and probably could do it in his sleep blindfolded.
Bobby Lambert: And you know, you say that the secrets and the shortcuts, but it's so much more than that. It's a mindset.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
It
Bobby Lambert: doesn't look at the job as like, oh, I hate these things. It, this. He just looks at it and says, this is a job. It pays four hours. I can get it done in two.
Jimmy Lea: Ooh, bingo.
Bobby Lambert: And it is, just get on it, get it done.
Bobby Lambert: Gimme another one.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. Yeah. Just line him up. Line him up and I'll knock him down.
Bobby Lambert: I have to slow him down sometimes because you, we have 10 lifts and he'll have. Six transmissions out. So you got six lifts tied up with transmission. So we have to drink. Reign him in just a little bit once in a while.
Bobby Lambert: But
Jimmy Lea: yeah, that's pretty, that was, that's pretty good. He's got six transmissions out to keep all those straight in your head and know exactly where you're on each single one of 'em. Oh my goodness sakes. What a mind That is phenomenal.
Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Bobby, that, that is amazing. You've got such a a diverse group, such a motley crew put together of hourlies and guarantees and flat rates. I mean, any discussion that comes around, you can participate. You're in there.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. Well, you have to, like I said, I mean, everybody doesn't work the same way.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: You when you want top talent, it's. Meeting them where they need to be.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. I love that you've got those performance kickers in there as well at a level that says, Hey, I know you can hit this every month. And this is, keep your job. Hit 32. Count 32, bonus. Let's go. Yeah. You want to rake it in for a really good Christmas?
Jimmy Lea: Let's go.
Bobby Lambert: Yep,
Jimmy Lea: we can do that. All right. Now what about your advisors? How are they, what's their pay plan look like?
Bobby Lambert: My advisors are all a weekly salary. Then at the end of the month they get bonuses off of their gross profit dollars. Usually it's one and a half percent of the shops gross profit dollars, 3% of their individual.
Bobby Lambert: So. They'll get a bonus usually in the neighborhood of about four grand a month.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow.
Bobby Lambert: So it, it keeps them motivated to help each other because they're getting one and a half percent of what the shop does. If it's just paying them what they do, I'm not helping him with that. That's his customer.
Bobby Lambert: He can, but no, I mean, you're all in this together. You're all getting paid but's.
Jimmy Lea: It's a team. It's a team effort.
Bobby Lambert: It is a team.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's extraordinary. And it's paid off of the gross profit. Did I hear you say that right?
Bobby Lambert: Gross profit dollars? Yes.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. That's phenomenal. And each, and how many service advisors do you have?
Bobby Lambert: Three. Three At this shop and one at the other?
Jimmy Lea: Three at this shop. And one at the other shop?
Bobby Lambert: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: But the, and the shops do operate separately, or is it
Bobby Lambert: They're completely separate businesses.
Jimmy Lea: Separate business. Separate business names.
Bobby Lambert: Well, they're, well this is Lake Sumter Transmissions and Auto Repair.
Bobby Lambert: The other one is Lake Sumter Auto Repair.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. Okay. And they operate separate. So each one, each advisor is concerned about making sure that their company, their business, their operation is functioning at the best they can possibly. Exactly. It's phenomenal. That is phenomenal. That's very cool. I you've got a great program set up there and how did you come about all of these different ideas or all these different ways of paying all your technicians?
Jimmy Lea: Where did that come from?
Bobby Lambert: You? Just a lot of listening in my 20 group. And if you got a question, you put it out there, somebody's got an answer for it. So, and that's the. Biggest bonus to these 20 groups is the amount of knowledge that's in that room when you're in there, in that three day meeting.
Bobby Lambert: But it extends to every day. I can shoot a text out and say, Hey, I'm thinking about this. What do you guys, what do, what's your thoughts on this? Excuse me. And I'll get five or six answers in 15 minutes. And it, they are awesome people. Awesome businessmen.
Jimmy Lea: That is very cool. See, I and I explain this to a lot of people and I try to explain it.
Jimmy Lea: If you can confirm or deny. Here. You come to the group and you've got this huge mountain of a problem that you think is a huge mountain of a problem because you have thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and you're thinking, oh my gosh, there's no way I'm gonna be able to get over this mountain.
Jimmy Lea: This is a huge problem. What am I gonna do? You put it out to the group and the group comes back and says, oh, Sally solved that here last week. And John was last month. And Joe did it the other day. So here's five different solutions. From five different areas, five different companies, what they did.
Jimmy Lea: So you listen to all this and go, oh, it's not a mountain anymore. This is a mole hill. I can easily step over that. And the group is saying, okay, come on, let's go.
Bobby Lambert: You the, you say that and it's, I think back to. When I bought the shop, what our hourly shop rate was and we were below a hundred dollars an hour.
Bobby Lambert: We were at like $96 an hour or something like that, right? And Waffler kept saying, raise your labor rate. You're way too low. You need to be 115, said John, I can't get 115. So it took him, I don't know, 3, 4, 5 months of just get over that a hundred dollars. Finally I went over a hundred dollars and it was like nobody noticed.
Jimmy Lea: No,
Bobby Lambert: it's 110. Nobody noticed it. It the only one that's noticing that labor rate is me.
Bobby Lambert: I, and I, and that's the same way with just about anything. I mean, you see a change that you need to make and you talk yourself and talk yourself, and it's. Not a huge deal.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: You make it a huge deal, but it's not a big deal.
Jimmy Lea: No, it's really not. And I talked I spoke with a friend of mine about this specifically raising your labor rate, and we were talking about $10, raise it by $10, raise it by $20, raise it by $30, and he's like, oh no.
Jimmy Lea: Okay I'm gonna raise it by $4 and 50 cents.
Bobby Lambert: You don't move the needle.
Jimmy Lea: Listen, shop owner I happen to know that your average ticket is two and a half hours. That's an additional 13 bucks.
Jimmy Lea: No. Is anybody gonna notice that? No. What if you do it by $10 and it's an additional 25 bucks? Is anybody get a notice?
Bobby Lambert: No.
Jimmy Lea: No? Okay. What if it's an additional 50 bucks? Anybody get a notice? Probably not, but maybe
Bobby Lambert: The ones that'll notice are the ones that you don't really want anyway, the customer that you don't,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Yeah. And it could be a, an easy way of chasing off the customers that you Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Really shouldn't be servicing anyways. They're the 80 20 rule. That's that 20% that takes up 80% of your time,
Bobby Lambert: you'll get that better quality vehicle to work on.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, bingo. Bingo. What does your shops work on? What do you guys like to work on?
Bobby Lambert: We don't care if it's broke, we'll fix it.
Jimmy Lea: It's got wheels in an engine.
Jimmy Lea: We'll work on it.
Bobby Lambert: We don't shy away from anything. And maybe that's our detriment. Now in our main shop here, like I said, we have 10 bays here. We have two extra bays that it's in a separate building that we do classic cars in.
Jimmy Lea: Oh.
Bobby Lambert: So, you know, we're down here at the edge of the villages and there's so much disposable income in there.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. And disposable money. And they got the cars that they have always wanted when they were in high school. These cars leak constantly. They lease when they were new.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: So we keep two in that building pretty much all the time. And there's a list, a waiting list to get in that building. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That's amazing.
Bobby Lambert: Just work on just about anything. Right now I think we've got a 70 Plymouth Road runner in there and a 72 Chevy pickup truck.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. What great trucks I, in high school or college, I drove a 71 long bed.
Jimmy Lea: Had a granny, granny gear and three.
Bobby Lambert: Yep. This one's a long bed with Power Glide.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, gee I tell you, any, if I tried to go faster than 65 miles an hour, that old engine was just a screaming at me. It didn't have any more gears.
Bobby Lambert: Kept you from speeding.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah, it did. Yeah. No, couldn't do it. The only way I'd speed is going downhill with a tailwind.
Bobby Lambert: But,
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so fun. So fun. Well, Bobby, if you had a a magic wand and you could change anything in the industry, what's something you would change in the industry and you can't wish for more wishes?
Bobby Lambert: No. I could change anything in the industry.
Bobby Lambert: Oh, man. Yeah. You know, I There's a lot of things that you could change.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Bobby Lambert: In my little world.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah,
Bobby Lambert: I, I, my little wand here says, Hey buddy, you're perfect. Let's keep this thing going. Let's just, let's not rock the boat too bad. But the magic wand I'D wave would be at insurance companies and try to get some decent rates.
Bobby Lambert: God, it's so expensive. Health insurance and garage keepers. It is all just way overpriced.
Jimmy Lea: Amen, brother. Amen.
Bobby Lambert: But everybody's gotta make a living, so that's what they're doing. So
Jimmy Lea: there you go.
Bobby Lambert: But no that's probably the only thing I'd wanna change would be something like that. 'cause I love my life right now.
Bobby Lambert: It's doing great. I can sit here and look out the door and I can see all my guys walking back and forth roundabout and the cars in the parking lot. And life is good over here in, in Lee Burke, Florida.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. It's a, it's good to live a blessed life.
Bobby Lambert: Its,
Jimmy Lea: you're living that blessed life.
Jimmy Lea: Congratulations.
Bobby Lambert: And that's huge respect and props to the institute for showing me how to live this life that that is been bestowed upon me, I guess.
Jimmy Lea: Ah, that's beautiful here. You were growing up in the industry. You have the chops, you have the technical background for everything technical, and you knew there was things you thought you knew at all and then you discovered, oh my gosh, there's things I don't know.
Jimmy Lea: I don't know.
Jimmy Lea: I need training, I need coaching, I need guidance and props to you for seeking out that guidance. And Bobby, I think I was at that Biloxi, Mississippi 2018.
Bobby Lambert: You probably were,
Jimmy Lea: I was probably there. You were probably there at the same time. That's pretty cool.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: that's pretty cool. So, one, one last final question for you.
Jimmy Lea: If you were starting fresh today, what advice would you give yourself?
Bobby Lambert: Oh, probably the same advice that that I got when I did get started is yeah. Find someone to help you over the rough spots and you're gonna have rough spots. But they they're pretty easy If you get a good support system to help carry you right across the top of 'em.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Go for the coaching and training.
Jimmy Lea: It's gonna make a world of difference.
Bobby Lambert: It does. I've actually got two shops in our area that I got coaching. With the institute and now they're 20 group members as well, so.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations that Talk about locking arms with your neighbors. This is great.
Bobby Lambert: Yeah. That was something else that was taught to me.
Bobby Lambert: They're not competition, they're not competitors. They're other shop owners. There are other business owners. Everybody. There's enough out there for everybody
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. To
Bobby Lambert: help somebody along. Oh,
Jimmy Lea: amen.
Bobby Lambert: Don't kick 'em to the curb whenever they're down. Just, Hey, what do you need, buddy?
Bobby Lambert: Amen. Let's talk this thing through. Let's figure things out.
Jimmy Lea: For you. Congratulations. That's awesome. You've locked arms together with them and Yeah. I mean, think about it. If the three of you and the four shops that you represent, it, could you service every car that passed in front of your shop every single day?
Bobby Lambert: No.
Jimmy Lea: No. Not a chance. Let's lock arms, let's elevate the industry. And Bob, Bobby, props to you brother for elevating this industry.
Bobby Lambert: Sure. Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: That is super cool. Thank you very much, Bobby. I really appreciate it, brother.
Bobby Lambert: Jimmy, thanks for your time today. It was a absolute that had a lot of fun.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that's what we're all about. We're here to have fun. If we're not having fun, we're not doing it right. If we're not doing it right, we better find something else to do. All right, Bobby, thank you very much.
Bobby Lambert: Thank you, Jimmy.

167 - Owning the Alignment Niche and Building a Happier, High-Margin Shop with Alejandro Muñoz

167 - Owning the Alignment Niche and Building a Happier, High-Margin Shop with Alejandro Muñoz
October 30, 2025 - 00:40:23
 
Show Summary:
From sweeping floors in New Jersey to leading All Four Tires in Marietta, Georgia, Alejandro Muñoz shares how he built a tire and suspension focused business that fits his life. He scaled up to 18 bays, then intentionally downsized to six to reduce stress and raise margins. Alejandro explains why not every shop needs a master tech and how a tight scope of work can improve quality and profitability. He details his apprentice-first training approach, consistent retention, and a culture that rewards learning and life balance. The conversation covers hands-on training goals, DVI-driven maintenance sales, and stocking strategies that speed throughput. Alejandro also describes designing a customer-forward facility to elevate how the public views our industry. His closing advice is simple and powerful: do not overspend, learn the business side, and invest in yourself.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Alejandro Munoz, Owner of All 4 Tires LLC
 
Show Highlights:
[00:04:27] - Alejandro buys a three-unit property, scales to 18 bays, then later consolidates to one unit to reduce complexity and stress.[00:06:56] - Intentional downsizing to six bays increases free time and lifts gross profit margin while keeping the business stable.[00:08:04] - Lean team model: two full-time B-techs, a part-time learner, a long-tenured service advisor, and Alejandro overseeing training and quality.[00:09:00] - Clear scope wins: tires, suspension, alignments, and emissions repairs, avoiding work that requires a different talent mix.[00:10:49] - In-house apprenticeship: classroom sessions, projector-based lessons, and a three-plus-year average retention for techs who start with little experience.[00:11:44] - Culture moments that matter: a paid December Caribbean trip for the whole team tied to collective performance.[00:15:34] - Tires are 30% of sales but drive most suspension work, with reputation bringing in six alignment appointments per day.[00:17:42] - DVI process and smart stocking of filters, wipers, and batteries convert inspections into fast, ethical maintenance sales.[00:26:22] - Industry wish: change how the world sees automotive careers and shops by offering professional spaces and experiences.[00:33:48] - Hard-earned lesson: do not overspend; pay for knowledge or pay through mistakes, but always invest in business education.
 
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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 friend. My name is Jimmy Lea with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is Alex, and he is in Marietta, California. California, that's where my other cousin is. He's in Marietta, Georgia, where my other cousin is. His shop is called All Four Tires website, all four tires.com in Marietta, Georgia.
Jimmy Lea: Welcome, if you will with me. Alex. Alex, how are you brother?
Alejandro Munoz: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for the invite. Oh, you're welcome man. I'm excited to be here.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I'm excited for your shop as well. It looks like I'm looking at your website. It's a beautiful shop. You've got it set up extremely well. It's, this is cool.
Jimmy Lea: How long have you been in business?
Alejandro Munoz: Well, I've been, overtime has been open for 11 years this month. Congratulations. Thank you so much. And I've been in the automotive industry since 2010.
Jimmy Lea: I remember 10. That's when I had to reinvent myself. So you got into the business, both of us. Let's go back to there.
Jimmy Lea: 2010. What? What happened? How did you get into the automotive industry?
Alejandro Munoz: Well, that's interesting you asked the question. I moved from Columbia, south America. I'm originally from there, and I, you know, for personal reasons, I have to move to the us. My mom lived in New Jersey and family members had a shop, a small shop, and I got the opportunity to get my first job there.
Alejandro Munoz: Basically, you won't believe this, but sweeping the floor and learning how to do all the changes.
Jimmy Lea: I believe it. That's where everybody starts.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. So, I stayed there for probably a couple years and I learned a lot. I have a background of engineering, so I'm a mechanical, I'm biomedical engineer, so it didn't take me too long.
Alejandro Munoz: To kind of get my mind aligned with the automotive industry. I loved it since day one. Yeah. And I had great people around me. I remember I have a couple great technicians back in those days, which I learned a lot from, I. Watching, you know, passing them the tools and helping them clean their mess and, you know, asking them for the opportunity to jump on.
Alejandro Munoz: And definitely after a few months, I was able to start working. Own cars, getting my own tools and, you know, a lot of independent study. Yeah. I gotta tell you that even though I have a background in engineering, I have to learn how cars work and that most of that happened at night, you know, so I'll finish working, I'll go home and I sign up to any online class or, you know, training available, and I just started absorbing until.
Alejandro Munoz: Couple years later, I was already, you know, swapping engines and doing timing bells and all this kind of stuff. So we started selling tires in that same location in, in big volume. Yeah. And then I moved to a different company and this company was more towards tires. It was about 70% of their sales were just tires.
Alejandro Munoz: Their inventory was huge. And over there I learned that part of how to sell tires in the automotive industry.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah, a few year, years later in 2014 I moved to Georgia and you know, I thought it was a better place to live you know, compared with New Jersey. With all respect for people from New Jersey.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. We love our friends from New Jersey. It's the garden state. There's a reason. It's the garden state and we know the history. Yes, but Georgia.
Alejandro Munoz: Georgia, so I landed in Georgia and about nine months later I have found a pretty good shop to open all four tires and the rest is just, sorry.
Jimmy Lea: Nice.
Jimmy Lea: Congrats. So what is the shop look like? How many bays? How many techs? And is this the, this is the shop you opened after being in Georgia for nine months.
Alejandro Munoz: Yes. Yes. Okay. We have never moved. Well, it is good you ask. Offer Tire has been, you know, up and down over the years, like any other business.
Alejandro Munoz: This shop is huge. The property has three different units. Each unit has about six base. So I was, I started leasing one after two and a half years. The owner was selling the property, so I bought all three units. 'cause it was, oh my
Jimmy Lea: gosh. Yeah.
Alejandro Munoz: It was part of the same parcel. So, and then I, with all the motivation and excitement that I had back in those days, I decided I wanted to occupy everything and didn't want to lease any part of the units.
Alejandro Munoz: I pulled all three of units together. And yeah, we did a pretty good amount of growth sales during 20 17, 18 yeah, part of 19 until COVID. And then it took a big toll the amount of stress to manage a big job. You know, I went through emotions and, you know, stress and, you know, I was getting sick because I was just dealing a lot of, dealing with a lot of the, you know, day-to-day duties of running a chop with multiple people working for you.
Alejandro Munoz: So, and then I I left the business running. With my service advisor, she's been with me almost since I opened. I mean, she joined me probably before nine months of being running the business and she's been with me since then. So yeah, I moved back to Columbia in 2021. Oh, and the business. Stay here, you know, open, and I came back about 18 months ago, but now with a different perspective, the small, the chop is smaller.
Alejandro Munoz: Right now our gross profit margin is higher. Okay. But I, that was a personal decision. Yeah. That was, you know, it was not everybody wants to be a multi-location shop, and I learned that. Yes. You know, based on the experience, so,
Jimmy Lea: yes. Yeah.
Alejandro Munoz: The other two units now are rented or leased to other companies.
Alejandro Munoz: What kind of companies? What, who's in there? We do have a mankey car care. Okay. We do have a car dealership. They don't do any retail, anything. They just fix their cars in that shop. There's really no customer flow there. Okay. And then we're here. Yes.
Jimmy Lea: So, so you went from a single location, bought the entire thing, went garage Mahal on it, 18 bays, massive COVID hits, oh, hold on a second.
Jimmy Lea: Let's reevaluate Now you're down to six bays. I'm assuming you're just in the one building, one location. Six bays and much happier.
Alejandro Munoz: Much happier. A lot of free time for me and my family. And yes. Oh, nice. Yes, that's exactly how, congratulations how it is going right now.
Jimmy Lea: So with the six Bays that you have now, how many technicians, how many service advisors what does the makeup look like?
Alejandro Munoz: We do have two and a half technicians. Two, when I say two and a half is two, two full-time. And I always have a learner that it works part-time and you know, I have my service advisor and myself.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. That's good. So the two technicians, do you have one that is the professor, one that is the trainer, coach for the half tech?
Jimmy Lea: The part-time tech? Well, they, is it an apprentice?
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah, I, oh no I do have a two B Techs. So they know enough to do what we do. Yeah. And it is interesting you asked the question 'cause not every chop. Needs a master tech that wants to make $200,000 a year. So our shop is limited to suspension tires and emission repairs, and we basically leave it there.
Alejandro Munoz: All right. So what we do is basic.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. And
Alejandro Munoz: it, you know, with some, you know, requirements for computerized diagnostic, for like emissions, basically RC and sensors, catalytics and you know, and so forth. So. What I have done for several years and it's good you ask that question, is I have trained most of my technicians, I won't say everyone from scratch, but most of them come with.
Alejandro Munoz: Little to no knowledge. And I've been a trainer, so I have a teacher inside of me. So I have the classes prepared. I do have, you know, a projector, my computer, we do have a pretty big training room here in the company, and I teach them everything they know. So I do, we do keep, I would say, an average of.
Alejandro Munoz: Three and a half years of retention. We do know that this company it's al it also plays a role as cool for those who wants to learn and then fly away basically. So I, and it is interesting because every time I hire someone that wants to, I always tell them like, you probably not gonna stay here your whole life.
 
Jimmy Lea: Forever. Right?
Alejandro Munoz: Forever. But I want you to learn as much as you can while you're next to me. So I do most of the training. I do oversee the shop. My friend Kelly, my service advisor she takes care of most of the customer. I'm, you know, as a business owner, I'm back and forth, you know. Sure. Customers know, obviously know who I am.
Alejandro Munoz: But I love spending more time with my guys outside and, you know, making sure everything gets out on time and, you know. So on.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, Alex, that is phenomenal. I appreciate the teacher spirit that you have in teaching your technicians. That's phenomenal. Have you taken your techs and gone to any conferences or trade shows?
Alejandro Munoz: Some of them in the past have been with me. The ones that I currently have, they're, they haven't been able to go. Okay. The one is, they've both been here for about a year and a half.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Alejandro Munoz: So, since I came back from Columbia, as I told you so the situation of when you have a small shop now that is a small shop, it's, you know who gets to go.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. You know, and sometimes it's difficult to pick that, but I tell you what, we do have a Caribbean trip on December for Christmas, and we're closing the shop and everybody's going, so
Jimmy Lea: bravo.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. So, you know, those are things that, and I always tell them, you know, don't take me for it. I'm not doing this for you.
Alejandro Munoz: You guys are doing this for yourself. Like, you know, everything that we can do, it's. It's a teamwork. Yeah. Like everything that we do is for everybody. So we are gonna be living in about four weeks the first week of December, and we'll go to the beach. Everything pay. And that's good.
Jimmy Lea: That's beautiful.
Jimmy Lea: They have been a blessing to you. Now you are being a blessing to them. And that's beautiful. I challenge you or this is free advice, so you know what free advice is worth. Take it into advisement. There's a show not very far from you in Raleigh, North Carolina. It's called a STA, automotive Service Tire Association, A STA.
Jimmy Lea: They do it in, usually it's in September. And so if you set a goal that says, Hey guys, if we can operate at this level every month. We'll shut down the entire shop and we'll all go to training at A STA Raleigh, North Carolina. Anybody that operates at this level, you get a go. If you're down here, you don't get a go.
Jimmy Lea: If you're up here, you get a go.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah that's great. I'll take that. But I also wanna share something. You know, it's interesting 'cause after COVID everything turned into virtual. Right much. Everybody wants to virtual classes. Yes. So I tell you what, back in the days before COVID Yes. We did have several opportunities for training with Goodyear Michelin.
Alejandro Munoz: Yes. You know, we were actually part of a TI for five years. Yes. You're familiar with a TI, the coaching company? Yes. And we travel a lot and everybody. Got to go. Like we, but now, nowadays it's like you get this invitation to join a Zoom meeting. So yeah, training is pretty active. But it's most done online right now.
Jimmy Lea: It is. And I love the online availability of it. I love the frequency and the ease of use, if you will. So we can be in Georgia and here we are in Utah. We put on the training and you're able to join. Because you can't always travel to Utah. We understand that. Yeah. In this training that they're doing with Asta, that hands-on training takes that learning level just a little bit higher.
Jimmy Lea: So we, yeah, we learn on Zoom, we can do that, but now when we put hands-on, it elevates that education, elevates their learning.
Alejandro Munoz: Yes, sir.
Jimmy Lea: Every technician I've ever talked to, every shop owner I've ever talked to, when they come back from training, those technicians operate at a higher level. They have learned how to work a picoscope.
Jimmy Lea: They've learned how to diagnose something. They've come back away from this training and say, you know what, if I would've known this. These other cars, we would've been able to fix those. We would've been able to make those repairs. And maybe for your business, because you're doing the filters, the shocks, the struts, the brakes, the brake pads, the calipers.
Jimmy Lea: Maybe it's the easier stuff, but it's also what you're good at. Maybe you don't need to know about timing scopes and timing belts and water pumps and alternators and starters. Maybe you don't, maybe everything you need to know is right there in the tires and brakes and brake pads because what percentage of your business is tires versus auto repair?
Alejandro Munoz: 30% of our sales is the tire itself. But the tire brings a lot of suspension work. It does. We used to have on our website all four tires, your tire and suspension experts, because there was a point since we opened, most of it will be suspension. Yes. Why? We very throttle on if you're gonna get a set of tires, we wanna make sure your tires will last
Jimmy Lea: a hundred percent.
Jimmy Lea: Totally agree. So not only is it the suspension and the sway bars and the control arms, it's the alignment. Do you have an alignment machine too?
Alejandro Munoz: Yes we do. And and it's interesting you mentioned like not everybody needs to learn about, you know, how to do, use a scope or how to do an electrical diagnostic.
Alejandro Munoz: Suspension is a whole science. It is. So we are alignment experts here. We do alignments all day long. Just to give you an idea, we get an average six alignment appointments. That's how well our reputation is, where we at. People bring vehicles here with drivability issues that nobody has been able to resolve.
Alejandro Munoz: So it's a whole science we spend most of our time. There on. And then the 30% of the tire sales that we do brings another. 60% additional on suspension work?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. For sure.
Alejandro Munoz: Absolutely. So I can tell you for sure, 80% of our business stays there. Tires and suspension. We do open hoods. Yeah, I know shops and I met a guy who actually was a trainer and I learned a lot from him.
Alejandro Munoz: He said he own a shop and never open a hood. That's how you know. Interest in the suspension and tire is Oh yeah. Just fixing drivability issues. But we can tell probably 80% of our business comes from suspension and tires.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. That's phenomenal. Do you also get into the, like the oil changes the fluid flushes filters, what?
Jimmy Lea: Windshield wipers?
Alejandro Munoz: Yes. We do all that. We do have a system in place to do a multi-point inspection and you get to. Sell most of these items almost guarantee per vehicle.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, you
Alejandro Munoz: pull your cabin filter, you air filter, you check your wipers, you check your battery, you have to have a battery tester and you have to have a pretty good system in place to do multiple inspections.
Alejandro Munoz: The customers can see the pictures and videos and. And circles and details of what, what is needed. Oh, I love that. So we do have a filter rack. We keep most, 90%, 95% of the filters in the stock. And that's the only way to get done. Honestly. Nobody's gonna wait half an hour to an hour for an auto part to bring an air filter.
Alejandro Munoz: So you have to stock your filters, you have to stock your wipers, you have to stock your batteries. So yeah, we do take care of that portion as well. We partnered with Baline about seven years ago. Okay. I would say already. So all our fluids are baling, so we do. Brake fluid replacement. We do differential fluid replacement.
Alejandro Munoz: We don't touch transmissions. Because nowadays every transmission is different. It's not like in the nineties it was just one transmission fluid for everybody. Right. So we stay away. Yeah, we stay away from that. But we do power screen even though it's tending to disappear. And we do coolant flush, I mean, you name it.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. All the maintenance items will include it as part of our service as well.
Jimmy Lea: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So what do you do as a company to retain your employees, to keep them engaged? How do you work on company culture?
Alejandro Munoz: It's been a process. I can tell you this. From 2014 when I opened the doors, and you probably heard this a hundred times, you think you're a great technician, so you decide to open a shop and then you realize life is not as beautiful as you think.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Alejandro Munoz: So first, let me tell you this, you gotta work on yourself. Ooh, nice. My temper is not the same that it was in 2014. My patient is not the same that it was in 2014. You know? My ability to listen to other people's opinion. The ability to be able to share my knowledge with other people is from zero to 100.
Alejandro Munoz: Like, I'm right here. I was right there. So that probably answers your question. You need to work on yourself. You have to have your personality in place. To be able to teach others what you want to transmit as a company, your culture, it starts with yourself. I do believe that if you're not honest, if you don't treat your customers well, if you don't show up on time, if you don't help cleaning the shop, if you don't lead by example,
Jimmy Lea: yeah.
Alejandro Munoz: It's it, your culture is gonna be completely destroyed. So, I have to obviously give credit to God. I believe in God. You know, I'm not a religious person, but I do know that, you know, God can help you significantly when you have challenges on your personality. Yeah. And he will, you know, he will guide you through it.
Alejandro Munoz: So, and also education. Man, as I told you, we joined a coaching company for several years. I learned a lot. You know, as a business owner, if you want to create a culture, you gotta be around. You know, with those that are where you wanna be. If you wanna be a million dollar shop, then you have to meet with million dollar shop owners.
Jimmy Lea: You gotta surround yourself with the same people that you want to be.
Alejandro Munoz: Exactly. So we do, I mean, what else we do? We do have some perks here and there for the employees. We do pay for some of the tools. We obviously, we listen to them, to their personal needs. You know, if they have a family emergency, we take in consideration if they're parents, they have kids.
Alejandro Munoz: You know, if at some point you might have people that have family members that you know depend on them to do daily duties. And you know, being able to listen to their needs as well. They will give you a hundred percent, 150%, 200%. It's not about the time or the amount of hours that they clock in, is the quality of service that they can provide you.
Alejandro Munoz: When you adjust yourself, and I'm telling you this from a very conservative point of view, because I was raised differently than the way these kids are now in the market. Trying to find a job.
Jimmy Lea: Right?
Alejandro Munoz: It's a different world.
Jimmy Lea: Yes.
Alejandro Munoz: So you can't talk to them. Like, for example, I'm not too old, but I'm not too young.
Alejandro Munoz: I consider myself like I'm in that age that I'm like a sandwich in the middle. I learn a different way that I'm teaching my employees, but. Yeah, you got, you kind of have to get the best of everything, you know?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Alejandro Munoz: It's, it is just to get adjusted to the culture, I guess, to understand what these generation is looking for.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. You gotta be adaptable,
Alejandro Munoz: you gotta be fluid and it is continuously changing. Every two, three years, you start seeing, and I'm telling you, because remember I told you this company's a school. Yeah. So I do get young people constantly. Every three years I get to get someone that just got outta high school.
Alejandro Munoz: Right. And it's an, and I learn something every time you learning what you know their interest is and it's different every generation, every. Time that years go by. It's just different. Yeah. And you have to get adjusted to it.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's true. I've heard it said before that just because you're a business owner doesn't mean you're a good leader.
Jimmy Lea: What does it mean to you to be a good leader?
Alejandro Munoz: Lead by example?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Alejandro Munoz: I think that's key. The leader, you know, s. The leader is going to run next to you. It's not gonna ask you to run on your own. You know the leader is gonna be there to extend, you know, a hand when you need it, when you need to be lifted. The leader is gonna, it's just gonna show you, it's gonna transfer you information.
Alejandro Munoz: He is gonna want you to grow. The leader wants you to be better than him. I mean, I'm not an expert on motivational, you know, writings and words, but I think that's basically how I would say a leader should behave. It's very important that you are with them. You share time with them, you listen to them, as I mentioned before.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh yeah. It's important. You gotta pay attention to your people. You gotta listen to them. I applaud you for working on yourself to have the patience to work with people, to have the patience, to listen to customers, to have the patience to be there with your people. And it is not just about you.
Jimmy Lea: It's about them as well. That's very cool, Alex. That's really good. That's correct. So if you were to have a magic wand and you were to be, to have one wish, you can't wish for more wishes, but you have one wish, what would you change in the automotive aftermarket industry?
Alejandro Munoz: Whoa, that's a tough one.
Alejandro Munoz: I would say. The perspective of how the world see us.
Jimmy Lea: You would change how the world sees the automotive aftermarket? Yes. Yes. Nice. And yeah, I would Go ahead. What would you change it? What would you change? What would you change? What would be the difference between is currently and what they see tomorrow?
Alejandro Munoz: Okay. I'm a, I'm gonna give you this answer in two parts because there's two things that I wanna, two separate things I wanna discuss about what I just said. One is how people perceive it as a career, and the other one is how customers perceive you as a business. And that's why when you ask me what my wish would be, I'll say that one.
Alejandro Munoz: Well, obviously when I, you know, being a biomedical engineer. And with good grades at school. My parents were not too happy when I said I wanted to open a shop.
Jimmy Lea: Right.
Alejandro Munoz: Okay. But I think that's normal. No, I don't blame them for it. And not only including my parents, but including most of my family members, you know, I got to love it.
Alejandro Munoz: I didn't know how to explain it.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They're wondering why do you go from being a doctor to being a tech technician, an automotive repair guy? I don't see the line.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. So how do I change it? I think I already did, you know, because I put a lot of effort in showing them this is as a beautiful career as any other, and I'm putting a lot of love on what you do every day.
Alejandro Munoz: And with this, I'm not saying I'm happy every day I wake up, but I know I love what I do. I know it for sure. And that conviction sends a message. When you love something, you're gonna make it happen. Yeah. It's that simple. Yeah. You know, from turning wrenches or as I said, from sweeping a floor all the way to, you know, now just to say, you know, having real estate investments and, you know, other type of investments and still working on cars, you know?
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. Still doing what I love. Nice. That would that's one thing, you know, that's one of the things I told you and from the customer perspective is because when I wanted to open a shop the square footage in New Jersey is expensive. So you don't get to get a lot of space for cheap, let's say that way.
Alejandro Munoz: Yes. So it's really hard to find a place. Where you can have a clean bathroom, you can have a waiting area such as, you know, dealerships do, you know, you go to a dealership, buy a new car and you have probably 20,000 square footage of, you know, customer area for customers to enjoy. So I say when I open a shop, I do wanna offer that.
Alejandro Munoz: I do want to, I want them to walk in and they don't have to see an alternator on the counter. They don't want to put their fingers on and you know, so what I did to change it, man, we allocated about 2000 square feet of customer area, like just re between reception bathrooms and, you know, the TV room.
Alejandro Munoz: We have you know, working. Like a work workspace where Workspace, yeah. The laptops. Yeah. Yeah. So the coworking area. Sorry about that. Yes. And we do, we did allocate area for our employees to take a break and have, you know, a small kitchen where they can. So everything I dream of, at some point I executed it and I changed that perspective.
Alejandro Munoz: Some people walk in here and they say, man, this smells better than my house. Ah.
Jimmy Lea: So we, congratulations. So it doesn't smell like oil. It doesn't smell like tires. It doesn't smell like rubber. It smells like relax. It smells good. It's cool. I pulled cinnamon by the way. Apple cinnamon. It's apple cinnamon.
Alejandro Munoz: It's apple cinnamon. Yeah. Even when I'm here right now, I can smell it like every ev everything is, you know, putting love in details like every single nail on these walls. Because let me tell you another thing. I demolished about 70% of the. Office area and rebuild it the way I want it. Oh, wow. So I, yeah, I got to grab a hammer and take every wall down and we remodel everything and put new sheet rock and paint and everything is fresh.
Alejandro Munoz: And I, I'm telling you, every single thing you see in this shop, it has love in it.
Jimmy Lea: Congrats.
Alejandro Munoz: Every single. Every single thing. And we think about customers, you know, we have a baby changer on the battery. Like, you know, you never find a baby changer unless, again, unless you go to a dealership. Right. They probably do.
Alejandro Munoz: But it's the pleasure to change the perspective. Yes. Thank you for that question, by the way, because I think that question is. It is. It is probably the best question I've really been asked, to be honest, but this is how I created a change to change the customer and the family and friends perspective of the automotive aftermarket industry.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. We talk in the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. We talk about building a better business, and as a coaching and training company, this is what we are here to help you do, is to build a better business. Because when you build a better business, you have a better life. And not only do you have a better life, your spouse does, and your family does, and your service advisor does, and their significant others have a better life, and your technicians have a better life and their spouses and their children and their families, everybody benefits and has a better life.
Jimmy Lea: And for the institute, we know that result will be in a better industry. Better business, better life, better industry. That's the foundation of our company and what we do. That's our vision in helping shops to take that next level and become what you have done. Alex, that, that's phenomenal.
Jimmy Lea: Congratulations brother. That is super awesome. Thank
Alejandro Munoz: you. Thank you so much. I'm actually happy to be able to share, you know, I love sharing.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, right. Yeah, it is. It is. In with the teacher spirit.
Alejandro Munoz: Yeah we do learn something new every day. I love it. I love it. Every day when I turn the key and I close at 6:00 PM I always go home with something new in my head.
Alejandro Munoz: Love it. I always learn every day.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Oh, congratulations. That's so beautiful. That is so beautiful. So, last and final question here, we come into land. If you were to talk to yourself today. This is you years ago, before you were starting, what advice would you give yourself today if you were starting your business today?
Alejandro Munoz: Don't overspend.
Alejandro Munoz: Don't overspend. Oh my God. I can tell you how. I mean, I can spend hours telling you how immature I was financially when I opened. Four tires. Tires, it's, I look back and I say probably would not do that now. You know, save and invest. That's what I will tell myself.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Save and invest and I, I hear you saying things like, make sure you have an education.
Jimmy Lea: Make sure you learn, make sure you have a good team that's helping you to build your business, because you as a technician need the business training. You need business acumen to take it up to that next level.
Alejandro Munoz: Sorry, I lost you for a second.
Jimmy Lea: You, you need the bi. So many of us as technicians, we have the technical training.
Jimmy Lea: We can fix cars, we can repair cars, and you did this for hours and hours every evening. You were learning how to fix cars, fix and repair. And what we lack in the industry is the business acumen, the business knowledge, the business knowhow. Which is where you were talking about in the beginning.
Jimmy Lea: You were very immature in your financial decisions. Where now, today, because of the school of hard knocks, you have learned how to be smarter with your business, how to be smarter with your money. Your advice is, hey, get the training and be smarter with your financial decisions.
Alejandro Munoz: Knowledge is converting into dollars. I'm explain myself what I just said. You learn two ways. You pay someone to teach you or you're gonna make a big mistake that's gonna cost you money, and then you learn
Jimmy Lea: either. It's so true. It's so true, Alex. You either paid somebody to help you get there, or you made a mistake and had to learn on your, I have a $17,000 lesson that I learned, but I want to hear what yours is.
Alejandro Munoz: Okay. Oh. No I got many. I got many. I got many. I've been smart in certain areas, but I've been a fool in others. You know, I'm gonna give you, I know we have to be done in a minute, but let me just tell you this short story. When I opened all four tires, I didn't have a lot of money, so there's something I know now.
Alejandro Munoz: I did smart. I bought. Almost brand new equipment from shops that were closing. I and I don't ask me how I found that. I think probably by just Googling, Googling at some point, you know, I got information and when I opened up four tires, I remember I got a $50,000 rack for like $3,000. And the, yeah.
Alejandro Munoz: I'm talking about the alignment rack, the alignment machine, all that. And it was barely used. Yeah. And I paid three grand for the rack. And I remember I paying like 10,000 for the system itself the digital system, but it was worth $50,000. And I. That for like with the tire changer and the now, nowadays I can probably, you know, something breaks, we're just gonna order a new, but not back in the days when I opened.
Alejandro Munoz: I that's a different story. It might take hours, but I can just tell you I didn't have what it was needed when I opened and it caused me a lot of stress at some point. So, and you can pay to get the knowledge. I told you I was trained, I was part of a coaching company, cost me thousands of dollars, but that also saved me a lot of trouble.
Alejandro Munoz: Not only that, the return on investment was great.
Jimmy Lea: Yes.
Alejandro Munoz: So I tell everybody whoever's listening, either way, you're gonna have to pay you, choose what way you wanna take, what route you wanna take. All right. So it's a learning experience anyway. 'cause even though you get coach, that coach is not gonna do it for you.
Alejandro Munoz: You need to start making changes on yourself, on your company. You gotta start influencing the people you work with. And then this is another thing when you start making changes, some of the people that you think they're with you, they will leave. Yes.
Jimmy Lea: The people that got you where you are today are probably not the people that are gonna be with you when you get to where you want to go. Because they're with you for today. They might not have the same vision, the and the drive that you do to take it to that next level. So they, yes, they'll be with you today, but they may not be the ones that land with you when you make it to the final destination.
Jimmy Lea: And that's, and,
Alejandro Munoz: and for those who actually have let's say some sort of faith or belief and you kind of have to, you have to learn how to separate the employee that comes late because you know, always something happened. I'm so sorry. And then you wanna give them opportunity, over opportunity and then you gotta understand this is a business.
Alejandro Munoz: Yes. Because if not, then you will go up in a church. It's that simple.
Jimmy Lea: Yes.
Alejandro Munoz: So it's to have that mentality clear because trust me, you can't run a business with emotions. You have to have a goal. You have to have your standards in place. You have to have a plan that your team knows what route you going to, so the goals can be met as a team.
Jimmy Lea: That's so true, man. We're either going there together or we're not going.
Alejandro Munoz: Definitely.
Jimmy Lea: And it takes a lot of individual input to, to make it to that final destination. So Alex, thank you very much brother. I appreciate talking to you. I appreciate the the banter, the back and forth.
Alejandro Munoz: Listen, I feel honored for the invitation. Thank you so much.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you, brother.

166 - Brad Updegraff on Scaling Dave’s Ultimate Automotive the Smart Way

166 - Brad Updegraff on Scaling Dave’s Ultimate Automotive the Smart Way
October 30, 2025 - 00:38:17
 
Show Summary:
Brad Updegraff’s journey from a small gas-station lube tech to leading a thriving multi-shop operation in Austin, Texas is packed with lessons for shop owners hungry for growth. In this episode, Brad shares how mentorship, smart partnerships, and a forward-thinking approach to technology helped him expand Dave’s Ultimate Automotive from two stores to seven. He dives into customer programs like the VIP discount tiers, lifetime “Premium Protection” warranty, and his signature half-price oil change promotion that doubles as advertising on the road. Brad also discusses the value of adopting digital systems, tracking KPIs, and investing in business coaching to break the $1 million barrier. His focus on training, apprenticeships, and gamified learning builds a culture that keeps his people engaged and his customers loyal. Looking ahead, Brad talks expansion, leadership succession, and his ultimate goal to strengthen trade education and solve the technician shortage for the next generation.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Brad Updegraff, Owner of Dave’s Ultimate Automotive
 
Show Highlights:
[00:00:27] - Brad credits founder Dave and early internet marketing as the spark that drew him from a small gas-station shop into a growth path with real upside.[00:04:31] - From hands-on beginnings to master certification, Brad explains why learning the tech’s language made him a better advisor and leader.[00:06:26] - The buyout story: strong years opened the door to acquire and then expand the Dave’s brand, culminating in seven locations.[00:07:28] - Gold-certified NAPA Auto Care status becomes a competitive edge with stronger warranty coverage and brand trust.[00:08:13] - “Premium Protection” lifetime warranty and a clear VIP tier system drive retention by rewarding long-term customers.[00:11:27] - The half-price oil change sticker program turns customers’ cars into billboards and reliably brings new faces through the door.[00:14:32] - Breaking the $1M ceiling starts with tech adoption: DVIs, modern communication, easy payments, and financing.[00:17:48] - Coaching and KPI discipline matter; reading P&Ls and managing to benchmarks changed how the business operates.[00:24:03] - Multi-layered marketing plus visible community giving builds brand equity that reviews alone cannot.[00:26:29] - Apprenticeships with local schools and an internal “professor” tech at each store grow the talent pipeline while shaping culture.
 
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, friend. My name is Jimmy Lea with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is one who is on a fast track for super growth. I'm so excited to have Brad here on this conversation as we are gonna talk to him about Dave's Ultimate Automotive.
Jimmy Lea: Brad, thank you for being here. Good morning.
Brad Updegraff: Thank you. That was quite an intro. I appreciate that, Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: You are on a fast path. So Dave's Automotive, Dave's Ultimate, who's Dave?
Brad Updegraff: So Dave is actually the original founder of the company. Certainly somebody I considered a mentor as I learned in this business for sure.
Brad Updegraff: Nice. And how long have you known Dave? So I met Dave in 2009, became an employee of his in 2010.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. And that was some rough times in the world. We were recovering from a real estate boom bust.
Brad Updegraff: Yes.
Jimmy Lea: Yikes. Yeah.
Brad Updegraff: Thankfully the Austin market was somewhat insulated from a lot of what we were hearing nationally at that time, just because of the tech boom we were actually experiencing at the time.
Brad Updegraff: But you know, certainly felt that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, and I think for the most part, the state of Texas. Was protected. State of Texas did a lot of really good things to insulate from that real estate. Boom. I was in mortgages back in the day, so when I hit oh 8, 0 9, 0 10, I was, oh boy. I was done. Wow. I had to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Gotcha. Wow. Back to the drawing boards, that's tough. Yeah. Yeah. So you came on with Dave in oh nine.
Jimmy Lea: Was it a single location? What did that look like?
Brad Updegraff: He owned a South Austin location and this current one I'm in, which is the North Austin location. At the time I came to work at the North Austin location as a service advisor.
Brad Updegraff: I had actually sought out. Dave just basically through what I had heard about his reputation in the industry. He was one of the first to get into internet advertising for the automotive space, and that was super attractive to me. I was in this little gas station repair shop with a, you know, very clear ceiling for what that looked like, and knew I needed better and knew I had a lot more to give to this industry.
Brad Updegraff: And so, Dave looked like the opportunity that I wanted to be in.
Jimmy Lea: Okay, wind it back a little bit further. You're at a gas station a little bit further. How did you get started in automotive? How'd you start the 10 30 weight?
Brad Updegraff: So, that actually started in high school. I was actually, I took the automotive program the senior year we did the the practicum experience out of the dealership.
Brad Updegraff: And that actually was almost a huge turnoff. I wound up going into that. First week and I guess annoying the lead technician I was under long enough that they stuck me up in their tower at Acura watching training videos the rest of the time. So I got an A, but I don't feel like I learned anything, you know?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. If you don't have that hands-on, you learn theory and theory only takes you so far. You've gotta have that practical hands-on. I, yeah. Imagine
Brad Updegraff: being 18, trying to learn theory too, you know, it was just more of like a
Jimmy Lea: waste. You know? No. And you've already got a DHD and you can't pay attention and you want me to watch a video?
Jimmy Lea: I don't think so. Absolutely. So senior year, you graduate. Then what?
Brad Updegraff: So I actually went to college for a non-automotive program. I was thinking law enforcement at the time. Oh. And was coming back to Austin for you know, basically just part-time work to you know, keep myself, you know, employed and you know, have some money in my pocket.
Brad Updegraff: And the natural fit was an automotive garage. And so I started as a general service lube tech and a state inspector pushing brooms and doing it from the ground level and learning my way through the industry, which, it quickly, I fell in love here in Austin and realized that college was gonna keep me away from her.
Brad Updegraff: And so it that was a career choice to just jump into the automotive space full time. And that really just kind of took off from there. I started trying to learn as a technician but then realized really quickly that my skillset was. Customers and people. And so I transitioned into a service advisor as an opening, came into that little gas station shop and had a great owner that was another great mentor of mine that taught me a lot about what I didn't know in, in customer management shop management and.
Brad Updegraff: I had an amazing time with him, but I still trained as a technician at the time, mainly 'cause I wanted to be able to speak the lingo. And so I actually wound up getting master certified actually after I joined Dave's, but I was on my way by that point.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. So the same gas station, the summer job became the full-time gig.
Jimmy Lea: And now you're up in the front. So how long did you stay there before you sought out Dave's?
Brad Updegraff: So 2010 is actually when I moved over to Dave's. I started making that that. Goal for a shift in 2009.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. Wow. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. And so what does the journey look like with Dave's? And you start there in 10 as a service advisor at one location and.
Jimmy Lea: How does the conversation go that you start talking about, Hey I'd like to buy you out,
Brad Updegraff: Dave. Well, it actually kind of happened organically, but in the initial conversation when I'm recruiting him for my next boss I told him that I had a goal of being, being I love that
Jimmy Lea: you interviewed him just as much as he interviewed you.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah, it was definitely that kind of interview for sure. I love it. And, I actually had told him right then that I had a goal of owning a third location. Should he decide to open it, I would like to, you know, have an opportunity to get into that with him. Didn't know how, or, you know, how that was gonna play out.
Brad Updegraff: But what wound up happening is we had such a great year in 2010 and 2011 that, dave had been able to step away from the co the company and really focus on what he I guess he found his new passion, which was coaching you know, and shop development. He was working with a TI at the time and decided to try to take that on as more of a a career path, and decided to put this particular location up for sale while he still owned the south one.
Brad Updegraff: My somebody who wound up becoming my business partner in this situation was basically the main financing side of my opportunity. But I had all the industry experience he needed and so we paired up and took off and we were able to expand that Dave's brand quite quickly. So.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. And did you buy the south location too?
Brad Updegraff: Yeah, that was actually our fourth purchase in the group. So we expanded into a close by city, another close by city in two subsequent years. And then that same year is when we actually bought Dave's fourth location.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. Congrats. And now you're up to seven locations?
Brad Updegraff: Seven. We actually took on our seventh location this year actually.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And I see your seventh location has like 12 Google
Brad Updegraff: reviews. It's literally started in July. So we're a building from nowhere side of things, so,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Yeah, I was seeing that. Every location has 600, 6 50, 700, 7 50 Google reviews, and that's solid. I was like, oh, I wonder which one's new. Oh.
Jimmy Lea: That one right there.
Brad Updegraff: Definitely. Thankfully there's still all five stars, so
Jimmy Lea: we're happy. Yeah. Well, yeah. No, that's good. That's good. Congratulations. Oh one suggestion on your website, you do need the new NAPA Auto Care logo. You're right. Yeah. Good catch. And congrats on being the Gold certified.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. Thank you. That's not an easy bar to step over. That is that's a high bar for you guys.
Brad Updegraff: It really is. And fortunately it was nice to be the first company to kind of, take that on in the Austin market. Really gave us a, an edge with our competitors to be able to offer a warranty that wasn't available out there.
Brad Updegraff: But also the features and benefits that Napa provided to a partnership like that were just accelerated more. And really just opened the door to even more opportunities for me.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. That's awesome. And I'd love to dig into, you've got three different programs that I was super interested in that I saw on your websites.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. One, one is the the protection, premium Protection plan. Yeah. What is that?
Brad Updegraff: So Ed is essentially a lifetime warranty that we will provide to our best of the best customers after they've earned, you know, kind of that relationship or we've earned that relationship with them. That, that is basically a service that we provide.
Brad Updegraff: And in addition to their normal VIP discount program we for any repair that we do, as long as we're following best practice procedures that, you know, include, you know, things that make sense to do as part of a made. Repair. Then we will honor that warranty for life of the vehicle as long as they are.
Brad Updegraff: Oh,
Jimmy Lea: wow. Yeah. Yeah. So are you then relying a lot on the, parts manufacturers on their warranties and on BG with their warranties and things like that. Are you're relying a lot on those two as well?
Brad Updegraff: Certainly, yeah. So, we do, you know, BG has a program that we've been using for years that is extremely helpful for the customers that are early in their maintenance and that we can start that program early.
Brad Updegraff: It, it does, that company provides an extreme level of. Extended protection just from using their products and been very happy with them. But to go back to that question, the parts vendors are a huge part of that. So we buy quality to make sure that we don't have to turn it in regularly, right. Napa Amen is great with helping with that.
Brad Updegraff: We use a lot of OEM stuff when it's required, but NAPA is by far the best independent repair, you know, parts company that we use.
Jimmy Lea: Napa has a great program and their, the NAPA auto Care program that all the shops that I've ever taken my cars to are Napa because of that nationwide Worry Free.
Jimmy Lea: Anywhere I am, I know I can take it to a Napa auto care center.
Jimmy Lea: And I know they're gonna take care of me.
Brad Updegraff: Fantastic. Yeah. Over 14,000 of 'em across the nation.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. So now also you talked about the VIP program as well. So this is, that's beyond the VIP. So what is the VIP program?
Brad Updegraff: Yeah, so VIP is a, basically a way of building customer retention for us. And we reward our customers with discount programs that are. Essentially anytime they come in, they can, you know, earn those. And we have simple qualifiers. They have to hit lifetime spend amounts that qualify them into the next level.
Brad Updegraff: And that discounts applied from that point on.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. I think I would be one of your top VIP clients. When I had, I, and I just sold my truck. I had a Ford F-150 and I was about every six to eight weeks getting that 5,000 mile. Full synthetic oil service. And I was always like, gosh, guys, we gotta figure out, there's gotta be a great program somewhere that we could put together.
Jimmy Lea: And I think you've nailed it with what you're doing on your VIP. So if anybody's interested and you're like, oh my gosh, I need to know more about what it is that Brad's doing here at Dave's Ultimate Automotive, you need to check it out. His website, he's in Austin, Texas, he's got, it is all laid out on the website, so very
Brad Updegraff: detailed, easy to follow for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Easy to follow. Yeah, very good. It's the KISS system. Keep it simple. Yeah,
Brad Updegraff: I hadn't heard that in a while. That's perfect.
Jimmy Lea: That is perfect. So, one of the benefits that I saw too on your website was the half price oil changes. Yes, sir. Talk to me about that.
Brad Updegraff: That is my baby. So, I thought during COVID there was obviously a an issue where everybody was very cost concerned with, you know, their, how much they're spending.
Brad Updegraff: And we needed to figure out a program that worked for, acknowledging that need and trying to also do what, where our need was, which is gaining customers in that time. So we decided to make our oil change program essentially an advertising piece. So how this works is customers purchase for $10 a small football shaped sticker.
Brad Updegraff: I'll use about that. Big says, take it to Dave's on it, as long as they keep that on their vehicle. We give them half price of the oil change. So essentially they're advertising for us that they choose us as their trusted service facility, and in turn we basically do the oil change at half price.
Brad Updegraff: That simple. Dude, I love it.
Jimmy Lea: I love it.
Brad Updegraff: And so what's really cool is having so many locations now and being that this program's several years in the works now I'm pulling up to traffic lights and I'm seeing, you know, one or two of those cars sometimes at a traffic stop. And it's really makes my day to be able to see that kind of membership taken on.
Brad Updegraff: And it seems like customers are really seeing the value in that.
Jimmy Lea: For sure. I'm scheming here, marketing. I love marketing and I love what you're doing with this sticker. Thank you. And I'm wondering, could we take it a little bit further? Could we take it to be a little bit more with this sticker and what comes to my mind, so riff with me on this.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. What if there was a QR code that at a stoplight or in a parking lot, somebody could scan the QR code, select the location they want to go to, and schedule an appointment.
Brad Updegraff: That's awesome. You know, we actually have a QR code already. We just don't put it on the sticker. So that would actually be a really cool addition.
Jimmy Lea: That might be a good thing.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah. I like that. Somebody might be like, what's take it today's about? And that would be a good, easy way to look it up.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Yeah. What is, take it, Dave's, what does that mean? I love what you're doing. Now there's also a danger in doing that. So if any shop is hearing this saying, oh, I'm gonna do the same thing.
Jimmy Lea: Whoa. Time out. You better evaluate your business before you start doing this. 'cause there's so many shops that hear this and go, okay, well if Brad's doing it, I'm gonna do it half off your oil service. Just put my sticker on your thing. Okay. But somebody has to pay for that.
Jimmy Lea: It's gotta be part of your business plan. Yep. So what do you think are some of those I'm gonna use the word things, but I hate using the word things. What are some of those? Activities marketing plans, pay plans, business plans that shops set up, they tried to implement, and it's what's holding them back from breaking the million dollar ceiling?
Jimmy Lea: What holds a shop back,
Brad Updegraff: in my opinion, it's really the, kind of the unwillingness to adopt, a lot of the technology that's available to us in our space today. If you think about digital vehicle inspections and how prevalent they are now if you think about really even from the repair order software, the ability to communicate with customers differently than picking up the phone now giving 'em easier pay features, things like that, that are designed to enhance the customer experience.
Brad Updegraff: I think when they're not being done and certainly somebody that recognizes that in a competitor or even a different area of their life, you know, they're gonna be attracted to, to looking for that in their service facility big time.
Jimmy Lea: Who, and I love it. I love what you're saying there.
Jimmy Lea: Because we as an industry all the way back to our roots as blacksmith of the town and the city, we were slow to adopt to technology. I'm glad that you are. What are you using
Brad Updegraff: for your DVI? We have used autos serve one from the beginning.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congrats. And they integrate in with your point of sale system?
Brad Updegraff: They do. They do.
Jimmy Lea: What are you using for your point of sale?
Brad Updegraff: We use NAPA Track.
Jimmy Lea: Napa Tracks, phenomenal program. And as a multiple shop operator? Napa Trax is able to track all of your locations. Yep.
Brad Updegraff: We actually have they have different enterprise formats you can use. You know, if you'd prefer to have servers in your locations, you can use it in that sense.
Brad Updegraff: They have a cloud option as well. That gives you a lot of on demand availability.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. And you also talk about customers being able to pay and pay quickly.
Jimmy Lea: What programs are you utilizing for that pay here? Pay quick Pay now.
Brad Updegraff: So we actually still use a local merchant because I've just basic had a great relationship with them so long, and I'm, I value a lot of personal relationships in my business.
Brad Updegraff: So, we we have that, and then we also have a text to pay feature that we added through that business that I think is, handled through a company called ve, N-U-V-E-I. Okay.
Brad Updegraff: But there's several out there. In fact, one of the Napa sponsored ones is 360 payments. Yeah. NAPA Pay is also coming out, which is gonna be just an extremely good option to consider for certain management systems as well.
Brad Updegraff: Oh,
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. Yeah. I have a Synchrony card. I have a, the Napa
Brad Updegraff: Napa Synchrony
Jimmy Lea: card. Yeah.
Brad Updegraff: Oh yeah, that as well. You bet. Financing is certainly one of those things that, especially in the time that we're dealing with in our industry, that you want to have an alternative for having to pay directly in person like that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, for sure. For sure. It all helps. So technology holding shops back and I agree. If they can adopt technology, I, I think as an industry, they've been burnt. In the past, and so they're slow to see it, but once they see others doing it, then it does trickle in more people are doing it. So I would say dvs are more prevalent today than they were 15 years ago, or even 10 years ago, or even five years ago.
Jimmy Lea: I think. Absolutely. If you're in a shop today, you're doing a DVI, it just depends on which DVI are you doing. Yeah, definitely. All right. What else besides
Brad Updegraff: technology? Well, I think if you think of the way that most shop owners become, shop owners in general, they're technicians first, you know?
Brad Updegraff: Yeah. At least that's what I've found in just through our networking and a lot of cases, those technicians don't have a business acumen that helps them with knowing how to manage their p and ls properly and how to structure and, you know, budget for things that they wanna be able to do.
Brad Updegraff: I would not have had that information myself if we didn't have a management success style company that was, that we partnered with to learn those things. And certainly it goes a lot past reading a p and l correctly. And that's really where a lot of the value is helping shops understand what.
Brad Updegraff: Key point indicators are important for for their business success. They are able to give you industry standards to use as a benchmark. Things like that, that are really extremely helpful though for somebody that doesn't have that experience to really gain and understand it in its full picture.
Jimmy Lea: Oh I totally agree with you. Who was your coach? Who was your trainer that guided you through that business acumen?
Brad Updegraff: So, we used a TI way back in the day and Jeff Berman was my particular coach at the time.
Jimmy Lea: I love Jeff. Yeah, Jeff is the man. Oh,
Brad Updegraff: he's great. Yeah. That's phenomenal. Are you still with a TI?
Brad Updegraff: No. We actually left the program a few years ago. There was a point where we realized that it wasn't for us anymore. They add a lot of value to a company that doesn't have you know, that foundation to them. But then at. At one point you know, at that point the coaching changes, you know, because you're just not in that same growth plan and need.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah. And so the maintenance side of it just seemed a little redundant for us, and we felt like, you know, we could probably take it from here.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. We got this now. Yeah. At the institute we have a program for mergers and acquisitions. We call it the high Performance Group. So to be in that group, you have to be an MSO.
Jimmy Lea: Multiple shop operator. Makes sense. And Michael Smith is in charge of the program. He's the one that pulls these shops together. Have you heard about Straightaway Auto? I have not. Brian Bates. So he got these shops together and they decided, hey, we're gonna do this. We're going to represent, we'll have, there were five owners at the time, they represented about 42 rooftops, and they took that and interviewed different private equity groups.
Jimmy Lea: To find the private equity that would fund it the way they wanted it.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Not the private equity that says, Hey, we're gonna buy you out, and I'm gonna show you how this is done. I've got my MBA, I'm gonna show you how it's done. Yeah. Yeah. No we've seen that before. It doesn't work. You don't know this industry.
Brad Updegraff: Exactly. As soon as you mentioned Brian Bates, that whole story kept came back. It came back. Yeah. It's, it was quite remarkable how they pulled that off.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. He did. And they did, and they are, I think they're approaching 75 locations now, so here in another 25 locations, they'll look at bundling it again and selling it again.
Jimmy Lea: To a next level private equity. Yeah. So at certain levels of private equity, they pay six times ebitda, seven times ebitda. Now you're up to an eight or nine times ebitda and now you're at a 12 to 15 times ebitda. And once you have a package or a bundle, that is significant and this is what's happening in our industry.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah. I'm glad you got on that. Private equity is coming and bundling it up. You know, it's funny. So. There's a lot of shops you know, store owners that I know that seem to be very concerned about that buyout. Some of 'em are actually just waiting for the phone call themselves. But the ones that are planning on sticking in, it's kind of a mixed bag. You know, you have some that are concerned 'cause they don't understand what that's gonna mean to them and you know, if they're gonna have to align with certain pricing just to stay competitive, blah blah, blah, blah. But I have some that look like me, that look at that as a complete opportunity.
Brad Updegraff: The minute a shop goes corporate and it's felt by the employees and the customers, you lose both. Yeah. So that's an opportunity for us to gain so.
Jimmy Lea: And I love that. I love that you mentioned that. That's what Brian has done and the straightaway has done in their entire company and their culture is to keep the local family run business culture.
Brad Updegraff: That's awesome.
Jimmy Lea: That's important. That's so important. Yeah. The PE that they partnered with said, okay, we bought you and da, but you're still on, you're still with us, and we want you to continue to run your business. If you need any equipment. There's a blank check for that equipment. You just order it.
Jimmy Lea: You do it. Yeah. We know, you know this business and this is what we wanna do. This is our plan, this is our growth plan. Get us to that point. So now as these guys are going out looking at shops, they're evaluating, they don't have to spend their own money on it. They're spending the private equity money to buy the shop, so they're growing exponentially.
Jimmy Lea: It's just so much fun. Wow. It's so fascinating because not only were they able to sell the shop once. They're gonna sell it again and again. And again, and this is becomes generational wealth for these shop owners that they are going to be able to stay in the game. And at some point they may decide, Hey, you know what?
Jimmy Lea: Deuces I'm out, me and the wife, my ties on the beach.
Brad Updegraff: Exactly. Yeah. Isn't that everybody's goal?
Jimmy Lea: And when they do. God bless you. Exactly. Let's flip that. Okay. I'm not gonna leave, but eventually I do pass and in my will, I will it to my children. The children are now partnered with the PE generational wealth.
Jimmy Lea: It keeps growing and growing. Back to the original question, what is holding a shop back from breaking that $1 million per year annual sales.
Jimmy Lea: Adoption of technology. We got adoption of technology.
Brad Updegraff: I think actually, you know, being able to get the customers in the door is an evolving challenge. Okay. Internet advertising is obviously key for new customer acquisition. Everybody's using Google or something connected to Google to learn about a potential shop that they want to use.
Brad Updegraff: So it's important to have your space on there but you need to have a multi-layered approach to that, you know. People care that they're doing business with a company that cares about the community. Yep. So making sure that you have a strong community involvement, whether that's supporting local schools combination of that, maybe doing some community outreach if you have people that are willing to donate some energy outside of work.
Brad Updegraff: Things that, can help build that portfolio of your shop as far as the reputation that it has outside of just five star reviews is really big. And I think that unfortunately a lot of companies don't really invest the time and energy or money into those areas. Because it doesn't always give you an obvious ROI, you know, that's something the brand building that you do with that has a long run effect, you know?
Jimmy Lea: It does. I had an interesting conversation with Jeffrey, last name. Come on. Rudnick Pit Crew Loyalty. They run a pit crew loyalty program. And so you talk about community, his involvement is involving the community businesses. So you have an app for your shop and these businesses become part of your program where if somebody's coming to your shop and they earn points.
Jimmy Lea: They can donate those points to the local animal shelter. And once a year you show up to the animal shelter with a check for a thousand bucks. Wow. And you invite all hundred people, 200 people that made this possible. They're giving back to the community. Now you're supporting the next phase, the next level.
Brad Updegraff: I'm gonna write that down when we get off this call. That's a really good idea.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Jeffrey Rudnick pit Crew loyalty. In fact, I will send you his information and we should put that in the show notes because anybody that wants to check it out should check it out. It's pretty dang cool.
Brad Updegraff: That's a great idea.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That's fun. It's fun,
Brad Updegraff: you know, so, kind of adding to that, we yeah. Going back into the school system. So one of the things that we felt was extremely important for the future and development of our industry as a whole was making sure that we had a good way of creating better interest for the young generation that we want into our industry that doesn't have as much of a, a.
Brad Updegraff: I guess an interest in it at this point and being able to provide a way of training through that. So, we partnered with a local school system and we actually serve as their senior apprentice shop that we work with right now. So what's been awesome with that is, you know, we wind up with more students than necessarily we can handle in our shop.
Brad Updegraff: You know, so somewhat overstaffed, you know, taking on a little bit of extra cost doing that. But we get to train people for our industry that might not even necessarily start out with us when they get into the career field, but hopefully they come back 'cause they really enjoy the environment.
Brad Updegraff: You know,
Jimmy Lea: and that's what they'll find out. They don't know what they don't know. They think every shop is run just exactly like yours is because that's the first shop they go to. Yeah. And then down the road they're gonna go to a different shop, a different location, different gas station, different dealership, different shop culture, company culture.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And hopefully they realize and they come back to you because like, Tim Kerian in California, he had a technician that moved away and when he came back he says, I don't care where you put me. I want to be here. He just wants to be there. Yep. I want this is home for me, so figure it out.
Jimmy Lea: So not only is he one of his best technicians, he's also the instructor for the Apprentice. That's awesome. They built him a lean to tent out in the back of the shop because all the bays were full. The bay he didn't have a bay for him.
Brad Updegraff: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: But he built him a bay, put a lift in it, and because it was a temporary structure that he got around a lot of city stuff.
Jimmy Lea: But the dude has to work outside Pasadena, California. Ah, you're fine.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah. I could deal with that every day.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, tim, phenomenal job at creating culture. And it sounds like, Brad, it sounds like you are doing the exact same thing with your company culture.
Brad Updegraff: Definitely. It's important to have two different mindsets in our company.
Brad Updegraff: We need to be have a hospitality culture for our customers and a training culture for our team.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Talking about, and I almost felt you say technicians, training for your technicians, do you also train the whole team advisors, managers, leadership? Yeah, definitely. Nice. Nice. Where do you go? What do you do?
Jimmy Lea: Is it all in-house or,
Brad Updegraff: Yeah, it's actually, it's things we've learned through a TI, you know, through the years. It's a bit of a playbook and we've certainly have our own way of doing business that we certainly, follow a protocol and process for, I guess is a good way to put it. But we're accountable.
Brad Updegraff: You know, we review their phone calls. You know, we help them in their areas that they need to improve. If there's particular service development areas that they can you know, learn more in a particular class, we would pay for that, but another extra. Just daily training thing is, we're actually part of today's class.
Brad Updegraff: I don't know if you've heard much about that program, but it's in a fantastic way to keep consistent training in your program.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. Yeah. Are you in the gamification? Do your seven locations compete against each other? Do you have a top tech?
Brad Updegraff: They do, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That's awesome.
Jimmy Lea: That's a fun name. Are you meeting on it too?
Brad Updegraff: Oh yeah. In fact, we have an admin team that competes against the shops.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah. That
Jimmy Lea: is so cool. So they, we, we met with today's class here a minute ago. Probably sometime during the summer and the executive team is. Answering all those questions.
Jimmy Lea: So, Cecil, Kent, and Wayne, they're all competing amongst the three or four of them there in the office headquarters in Ogden. Yeah. And it's interesting to see that Wayne is answering the questions right? And he has no, well, okay. No, he has a pretty dang good garage and he has like five or six BMWs that he works on.
Jimmy Lea: But he's not a. Master technician.
Brad Updegraff: Sure. Kinda more specialized in that area then.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Well that's,
Brad Updegraff: I mean, that's awesome. I honestly thought I would answer more questions. Right. I get, oh, it's a good mix of technician and service questions that are peppered into my particular profile.
Brad Updegraff: And. I'll tell you if I'm trying to just, you know, get through it for the day and fast track my answers I miss a lot, you know? Yeah. It definitely takes some thinking. But I really I can't say enough about that program and what it means. You know? The other great thing about it, you know, for you talk about culture.
Brad Updegraff: So monthly we actually do prize raffles. So as they're answering questions, they're building points in the yes. In their game, and they're able to use those raffles or those particular points for either raffles or auctions that we host. And so, you know, we're using our vendors to give away products.
Brad Updegraff: We have certain things that we give away just in the store as well. Like PTO day or something like that, just to be kind of cool and give 'em, you know, something. Or, you know, one of the fun ones we get to do with the few of 'em, my employees is a day of golf with me. You know, just dude. Yeah. You know, just to kind of keep it different, you know,
Jimmy Lea: do a date night basket.
Brad Updegraff: Ooh.
Jimmy Lea: Dinner, gift cards, movie tickets. You know, here's a fancy box of chocolates. Date in a basket or date night in a basket. That's a great idea. Oh yeah, that, that'd be rad. I. Gotta love that. Absolutely. Cool. So Dave, what? Dave? Brad,
Brad Updegraff: I get that daily, don't worry. I'm sure you do. Yeah, I'm calling for Dave.
Brad Updegraff: Good being Brad. When the name on the building's, Dave, by the way. Yeah. There's a nice little ninja effect to that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, there is. And you know what, I've been to so many Dave's automotives across the country and it's never owned by a Dave. That's funny. It's owned by somebody else. Yeah. So, what does the future look like for you, Brad?
Jimmy Lea: You're currently at seven locations. Now what does success look like?
Brad Updegraff: So, we certainly haven't stopped our growth plans. But we now have the ability to be quite strategic with our next footprint steps. You know, now that we have a really good coverage of the Austin and kind of surrounding area map, we intend to go north.
Brad Updegraff: And there's areas, you know, between us and Waco that kind of makes sense to expand into. There's areas out east of us that are becoming more populous centers since Samsung's moving in and places like that. So, Bastrop, Elgin, you know, some little neighboring towns that, you know, seem like they would be good potential fits for our next move.
Brad Updegraff: But I'm also very specific about. What type of shop we're gonna get into. Sure. Size wise, you know, it needs to be 10 bays or more. 10. 10. Yes. That's
Jimmy Lea: a big shop, bro. Okay. It's 10 bays. Yeah, because that fits your footprint, that's your business model. You know how to effectively. Produce a 10 base shop.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah, I would even say eight is a potential. Since state inspections have kind of gone away in this last year from the state of Texas it's less base space needed for that. So I think I could do the same type of business model in an eight based shop. Okay. And you know, certainly we have one in the company right now that's quite successful from a profitability standpoint.
Brad Updegraff: So there's definitely something to the manpower involved with an eight bay, eight bay versus 10 base.
Jimmy Lea: So when you've got an eight bay or a 10 bay shop, how many technicians do you have operating
Brad Updegraff: out of there? So, I'll use the example I'm in for a 10 bay shop. I try to structure four. Diagnostic skill level technicians and three general service technicians at some varying skill level that can do, you know, we call 'em GS pluses when they're kind of advancing to that level where they could become flag technicians. But we you know, also kind of can do ground level startups as well.
Brad Updegraff: You know, somebody that's just trying to learn and become an apprentice in the industry has a space in our environment to try to work underneath the team that, you know, can help them grow and accelerate as well. So we do have a range of that technician. General service technician structure that we try to keep in every shop.
Jimmy Lea: So you've got the general service, these are your C minus technicians. And an apprentice that's a C minus. They're coming up in the industry. And these four, are they the instructors, are they the oversight? Are they the quality control for your general service technicians?
Jimmy Lea: Is that what you do?
Brad Updegraff: We actually try to keep one particular technician equipped in each shop with that role. Okay. Instead of utilizing all of them.
Jimmy Lea: So one, one tech in each shop is the professor. Yes. Okay. Very cool. Oh, I love that. So if there's anybody in the Austin area or are you're, it sounds like you're also expanding out from that going up to Waco and out towards what's east?
Brad Updegraff: East would be heading towards Houston. You know, there's Houston, a little neighboring cities in the,
Jimmy Lea: anybody with a six bay or a 10 bay shop?
Brad Updegraff: Holler. Give Brad a
Jimmy Lea: call.
Brad Updegraff: Definitely give him
Jimmy Lea: a Hollerer.
Brad Updegraff: Yeah, brad@davesua.com. That's direct email, so
Jimmy Lea: Oh, perfect. That'd be good.
Brad Updegraff: So that's the future. At what point do you say, okay, we're good.
Brad Updegraff: So I actually put a date on that for myself when I turned 55. So I've got nine years left now.
Jimmy Lea: Nine years to 55. Yeah, dude. Congrats. Thank you. So at 55 that becomes the opportunity to cash out. Do you still have a business partner or is it all you? It's all me now. Oh, congrats bro. Thank you. Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: So by 55, how many shops you want? 55 shops,
Brad Updegraff: you know, I don't know that answer to be honest. Okay. It's more of a, more about, I don't wanna be putting words
Jimmy Lea: in your mouth, I don't want you to knee jerk reaction this, but it's something to think about. When you do hit 55, what's the goal?
Jimmy Lea: If it's just 55, you know you're gonna get there.
Brad Updegraff: Sure. I think we've already grown to the size of a company where it's gonna take a strategic buyer for for a purchase for us.
Brad Updegraff: You know, and so there's already that kind of, that mindset of what that looks like down the road.
Brad Updegraff: I
Jimmy Lea: gotta plan for you, brother. We need to talk. Okay, cool. Alright, congratulations. Well, if you were to have a magic wand and you had one wish, you can't wish for more wishes. What would you change in the industry?
Brad Updegraff: Just one wish. One wish? Yep.
Brad Updegraff: Ooh. I think the biggest one for me is. That there isn't a pre, that there was already a program built centered around the trade industry better than it is today that is focused more on automotive than it is. If you see, you know, electrical companies, plumbing trades those have had very thorough programs for the longest time.
Brad Updegraff: And it seems like the automotive space is just slow to catch up to that. And I think it's created the problem we have of a technician shortage right now. So if I could wave my widget magic wand, I would do away with the technician shortage and have a better building program.
Jimmy Lea: I love it better education for those coming into the industry.
Jimmy Lea: Better education for those that want to become part of the program. And I think what you've also dialed that in on your shops, you know that you've got a professor that's gonna guide the GS down the path. So you've got that outlined. We need that on a larger scale. Right. Brad. I love it. I love it.
Jimmy Lea: Brother, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Appreciate you showing up for us. I've enjoyed it, Jimmy. Thanks for having me. Alright. Thank you brother. All right. We'll talk soon.