The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast

97 - Double Your Business with Cecil Bullard's Exclusive Blueprint! 💼🚀

97 - Double Your Business with Cecil Bullard's Exclusive Blueprint! 💼🚀
May 23rd, 2024 - 01:05:13
 
Show Summary:
In this value-packed webinar hosted by AutoLeap, industry expert Cecil Bullard dives deep into the financial engine of a successful auto repair business. He shares powerful tools and frameworks to help shop owners go from $1 million to $3 million+ in revenue by understanding labor rates, productivity, margins, and capacity planning. With practical calculators and real-world examples, Cecil shows how to improve effective labor rate, set realistic goals, and optimize team structure. He also emphasizes the importance of building systems, increasing average repair orders, and avoiding common financial pitfalls. This session is a must-watch for shop owners serious about growth and profitability.
 
Host(s):
Amber Wright, AutoLeap
 
Guest(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder & CEO, The Institute
 
Episode Highlights:
[00:04:15] - Cecil explains there's no silver bullet; growth comes from understanding your numbers and planning with precision.
[00:05:41] - Using a calculator, Cecil breaks down how labor rate, tech count, and effective labor rate determine a shop’s revenue potential.
[00:09:49] - The second calculator helps visualize how margins, car count, and productivity connect to profitability and owner income.
[00:12:58] - Cecil shows how low effective labor rates hurt profitability, often due to discounts, comebacks, or inefficient diagnostic processes.
[00:17:50] - Improving gross profit margin from 42% to 58% drastically lowers sales and car count requirements to hit the same profit target.
[00:20:10] - Raising average repair order through better inspections, sales training, and marketing helps shops serve better customers with fewer cars.
[00:22:25] - Increasing productivity through better processes and scheduling is critical for billing more hours and reaching growth goals.
[00:28:45] - Cecil compares a business to an engine, if it’s underperforming financially, something internal needs fixing.
[00:34:43] - The power of productivity: every additional hour billed beyond fixed costs flows straight to the bottom line.
[00:55:27] - Cecil wraps up with a warning: don’t chase volume through discounts. Strong margins and systems build sustainable success.
 
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
 
👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk5mzehqZbQ&t=8s
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Amber Wright: Hello everyone joining us today. Welcome to the end of May and what feels like only the second webinar in AutoLeap's 2024 history, which I think it actually is. And normally we put these on every single month, but I think between all of the Fall conferences are. Yeah, spring conferences that we've gone through we've been juggling a lot and we wanted to make sure that the next webinar was with our very own Cecil Bullard.
Amber Wright: And so before I get started, and as everybody is joining in, which we appreciate you guys taking the time, I did wanna acknowledge that we apologize, we had to reschedule this. And I'm so glad that we were able to get it back on and see this much interest in this topic. And so, before we dive in, and I mentioned the topic and what we're gonna be focused on today, I did wanna go over some housekeeping notes.
Amber Wright: We are recording this session as we do every single webinar that we have. We will put this online on, on demand. And I wanna kind of point out, 'cause somebody's already mentioned it in the chat. So, previously we used to do surveys at the end of every webinar and we would compensate for the responses that would happen on the surveys because at the end of the day, it's what helps us plan and forecast the topics and speakers that our attendees want to hear.
Amber Wright: At some point along the way, we have had people take advantage of that. And so we will no longer be compensating for the surveys. However, I cannot stress enough that the success of these come from your feedback. And so we would continue to love to have that feedback and where we feel like we can reintroduce compensation, we absolutely will.
Amber Wright: But at this point that will not be moving forward. So unfortunately, I had to start with some barrier of bad news, but since it was flagged already in the channel, I wanted to make sure that I take care of that. So, this session is being recorded again, and we wanna make sure that we create a most interactive session for you.
Amber Wright: Again, we put these on for you as business owners, service advisors, technicians, whoever is joining us today, so that you can continue to evolve as a person and growth. And then also from a business standpoint. And so generally these types of sessions are held by coaching companies like the institute that you don't always have access to direct access.
Amber Wright: So I wanna say thank you to the institute for always being willing to put these on for our attendees because honestly it is, truly valuable that you provide this kind of thought leadership. So love to have you guys let us know where you're joining from. And without further ado, I wanna kind of introduce and align to the topic today.
Amber Wright: And so it's really all about growth and efficiencies from the front of the house and the back of the house. So the topic is unleash the power, double your business from one to one plus to 3 million with our exclusive blueprint. So, super excited for you to dive into this Cecil today and really help us understand the efficiencies that can be run for multi shop operations and how, you know, it's not necessarily the point of sale system, the SOPs and bookkeeping, but really how to create champion leader.
Amber Wright: And teams. And to introduce our speaker today, I think a lot of you guys are very familiar with our very own Cecil Bullard, who is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Business Excellence. Cecil has spent most of his life in the automotive service and repair industry. He's held every position and operated multiple successful shops.
Amber Wright: He now serves as a consultant, trainer, and teacher. He believes that there is an unlimited opportunity and potential in today's shop and that your business should provide you the life that you want. So Cecil, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it, and I'll let you take over. 
Cecil Bullard: Ready to go.
Cecil Bullard: Thank you, Amber. Sorry that I had to reschedule this, so I apologize myself to everybody. Lots of events going on and lots of travel and things get messed up. So thank you for being patient with us. Absolutely. We're gonna talk, I hate. The fact that we have people that go, let me show you how to take your business from a million to a million a month or whatever, because there, there aren't any magic tricks, there's no silver bullet.
Cecil Bullard: It's really understanding your business, understanding where your business is, where it needs to be and if you were to run at a certain amount, what does that look like? Really kind of creating the picture for that. So that's kind of, what we're gonna talk about today. So I wanna start, excuse me with a couple of different small calculators that I have put together.
Cecil Bullard: The one that you were looking at the one that's gonna pop up on the slide. This is a sales goal calculator. Now you saw a QR code, which will come back to us and that QR code will allow you to go online and to not only get, a a printout of the PowerPoint that we're using, but also the two different calculators that I'm going to talk about.
Cecil Bullard: Here's a calculator that I put together just to say, okay, what's my labor rate? What's my effective labor rate? How many people do I have in my shop? What should I be doing? Be? And there's a few different calculations in this little calculator, excuse me. They keep changing the size of things on me.
Cecil Bullard: So we have a shop that has an hourly rate of one 50. Typically, whatever your posted rate is there's only about maybe six to 10% of shops that actually hit their posted rate. And so you have this thing called an effective labor rate. That's when you add the discounts and the warranties and the things you give away along with whatever your labor rate is.
Cecil Bullard: Then you have a specific labor rate. So we've gotta shop here with a $150 labor rate. Let's say it's $145 effective labor rate. 'cause they're pretty good at managing it with six technicians and two service advisors. The sales goal should be 3.1 million for the company for the year. So if you want to know how to go from one to say three, if you're at 1 million now, how many people do you have?
Cecil Bullard: What's your effective labor rate? Parts to labor ratio, what's my hour worth? We're gonna get into that a little bit. And and so what I want to do is I want to create a picture of what 3 million looks like. Well, 3 million in this shop with a $145 effective labor rate and six technicians.
Cecil Bullard: I would need six technicians. I could play around and say, well, what if I raise my labor rate? Let's say that we moved the lab rate up to say one 70 and we got our effective labor rate up to one 60. What could I do with say, five technicians? I don't I've got a seven bay shop or an eight bay shop, so I don't think I can fit six technicians in well with five techs.
Cecil Bullard: Which would also take two service advisors. The rule of thumb for me is for about every two technicians, two and a half technicians, I want to have a service advisor. And that's about having the time to write the ticket up, build the value for the client get the job done, help the technician be productive.
Cecil Bullard: We'll talk about that a little bit, but in, in a shop with five techs at $160 an hour, effectively I need I would do about 2.8 million. And and so, we have goals for the company. We have goals for each technician, and we have goals for the service advisors. So it really starts with creating whatever the picture is.
Cecil Bullard: So if I'm doing 1 million and I want to do more what's my maximum capacity? If I walked into your shop and I saw a three bay shop, I would say, okay, well we probably can't have more than three technicians. And we have had three bay shops that did two and a half million dollars. But it's difficult to do because of the space limitations that we have.
Cecil Bullard: I mean, if my hourly rate is right and my effective labor rate is correct, and my parts to labor ratios, I'm getting my parts margins correct, then yeah, I could probably do two, 2.2, 2.5 million with three techs. Just not what I plan on. It's not. Easiest way to do it. So, this is a little calculator that you can get in here and say, mess around with the number of texts the effective labor rate, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: And it'll kind of spit out the numbers for you. There's another calculator here that I really want you to see. This is this is kind of my main calculator, and it helps owners and managers understand the relationships between margins, average repair order, car count, people, sales, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: So in this business here, we have an owner that wants to make $150,000 a year in a paycheck. They want to have 300,000 in net profit at the end of the year. Additional profit owners get paid in two ways. One is I get a check for what I do in my company. If I'm a manager, if I'm a tech, if I'm a service advisor, I get paid for those roles.
Cecil Bullard: Then I also get paid for the risk that I have. That's my net profit. I only wanna work you know, I want to take four weeks vacation. I only wanna work four days a week in this particular shop I'm gonna need a service manager because I don't want to be there every day. So I need somebody that can take that responsibility.
Cecil Bullard: We're gonna pay that person about a hundred grand a year, and we have about $450,000 worth of rent, utilities, banking costs, vehicle cost, et cetera. Insurance, you name it. And and so this calculator will then tell us what we need to do based on our gross profit margin car count effective labor rate, average repair order and productivity.
Cecil Bullard: So we have a shop with 42% gross profit margin. I use 42% and I've used it for many years because we we bring in. 20, approximately 20 new clients a month as a company right now. And out of the 20 18, 17, 18 of them have 42%, 43%, 44% as their gross profit margin. Because they're unaware of those things.
Cecil Bullard: They're not paying enough attention to those things. And so that's why I use that number. I still see it every single day when we're talking. In fact, we were talking to a brand new shop this morning. I was meeting with in our program, and they had a 42% gross profit margin. You know, that's not what we want it to be.
Cecil Bullard: We want it to be 62, but 42 is starting point. They have a posted labor rate here of about 140, but their effective labor rate is only 110. So they're doing oil changes at $80 an hour. They've got some comebacks where it's $0 an hour. They're having their technicians do dvs and they're paying their techs, you know, three-tenths or five tenths to do the DVI, but they're not charging anything.
Cecil Bullard: And they also have probably an issue with diagnostic where they're starting out with an hour and their technician might be taking two or three. And so the tech is getting paid for that because it's an hourly person, but they're not billing for that. So their effective labor rate is lower than they're posted.
Cecil Bullard: They currently have an effective labor rate of $110, even though they're posted is one 40. And we see this all the time. A current average repair order is three 90. This might be a little low but for the industry last year, I think on one of the surveys that even Auto Leap did, the average repair order was about 3 56.
Cecil Bullard: So three 90 is not out of the realm. Most of our shops, if your general repair are gonna be around seven 50 to about 900. If your German car we're gonna be somewhere between about 1,320 200 for an average repair order and or for our diesel shops, their average repair orders are in the 3000 to $4,000 range.
Cecil Bullard: So this shop would be a general repair shop might do 20% tires, whatever. And they have a $390 average repair order which is 1.8 hours a car with $110 effective labor rate. We're assuming you look over here on the right, that the parts of labor ratio is 45% parts, 55% labor, and that would be of a hundred percent of what we sell.
Cecil Bullard: How much of that is parts, how much is of that, is labor? They have four technicians in this shop. It's probably a seven eight bay shop and they have 72% productivity. And the reason I use 72% productivity is 'cause that's where we are as an industry. A lot of the shops we work with are doing a hundred, 110.
Cecil Bullard: Many of the shops are at 90%, but as a industry we're about 72%. And now that's, this calculator will also tell me, okay, this, if this is what you want to earn, and this is where your business is at, in order for you to earn what you want, you gotta do $2.4 million in sales, approximately, which is a little over $9,200 a day.
Cecil Bullard: And you're gonna need 23 cars 23.7. So let's say 24 cars in your shop every day. And you're gonna need 7.3 technicians to get the work done because of your productivity. And if you need another 11 cars a day because you don't have 'em, and you spend $69 to bring a new customer in, it's gonna cost you another $201,000 to to market and bring the right number of customers in.
Cecil Bullard: No matter what you do because your tech is $33 an hour and you have a load of about 30% on the tech FA few to workers' comp, it really costs you 42.9. But with the productivity of 72%, your cost per hour is $59 and 58 cents. So for every average hour that you bill out to a customer or you, your real cost for that hour is $59 and 58 cents.
Cecil Bullard: And so you don't have the margin you need. Down here it's telling us that if we really had a hundred percent productivity, that we could be $107 an hour and 25 cents. But with our current productivity, we need to be $149 an hour effectively. So we got some work to do. We kind of know now, hey, I can increase our.
Cecil Bullard: Our effective labor rate. I can pay attention to some of those things. Bring that up and it will lower my cost and put more money in the bank. The other thing that we're seeing here is that we're gonna lose about $138,000, almost 139 to productivity. Meaning I've got these techs, these four guys, and they're supposed to be billing eight hours a day.
Cecil Bullard: So I should be billing 32 hours out every day. But because we're only 72 percent productive, we're only billing about what would that be, 21, 22 hours. So we're not billing enough hours out and our cost for labor has gone up, which is hurting us. So now I'm gonna fix some things 'cause I want to do 3 million or I wanna at least make the money that I wanna make here.
Cecil Bullard: So I've gotta go in and fix gross profit margin. There are multiple ways to do that. I can raise my labor rate, I think, every consultant in the world is gonna look at your labor rate and say, let's bring that up. Some I can work with my staff and create more effectiveness in when we're charging our labor rate and what we're charging.
Cecil Bullard: I could go through my can jobs, bring those up a little bit. I could get my parts matrix in place bring my parts margins up. Cecil wants 62% with loaded labor. We're gonna put 58 here. It's 42 right now, so we're gonna fix a few things. Get to 58% when we're at 58%. What's cool now is now we only have to do 1.7 two 4 million or about $6,700 a day instead of a little over 9,000.
Cecil Bullard: And I only need five cars, so I don't have to spend 200,000. I can spend $88,000. To bring those extra five cars in. And I don't need seven techs, I only need 5.3. I'm not done because I'm still losing $138,000 to productivity. I'm not done here because the business is I've gotta go hire techs and I've gotta bring cars in and I don't wanna spend that money.
Cecil Bullard: So what I am gonna do is I'm gonna work on my effective labor rate. I'm gonna I'm gonna maybe lower what I'm paying the technicians for the DVI. We're gonna work on the speed, get it down faster. I'm going to look at my can jobs, make some minor adjustments there. I'm gonna be very careful about diagnostics or testing.
Cecil Bullard: I'm gonna have three different levels. So, we're not always gonna start with an hour and we're certainly not gonna stay with an hour. I'm gonna teach my techs that when they've spent an hour on the car and run some tests. Stop. Tell me what else you need to do and how much more time so we can get to our customers and sell that additional time.
Cecil Bullard: We're gonna move our effective labor rate up. We're not gonna change our posted rate of one 40. We're just gonna move our effective labor rate. We're gonna come up to say, 1 35. At 1 35. I still need five cars, but now I only need a third of a tech. So I don't need five techs. I don't need seven techs.
Cecil Bullard: I'm starting to get to a point where my techs can do the job. Now the other thing we're gonna do is we're going to increase our average repair order. We're gonna do it in multiple ways. We're gonna do it by bringing better customers in. We're gonna change our marketing a little bit. We're going to do it by building better relationships.
Cecil Bullard: We're going to do it by helping train our service advisors to be able to sell better. So we're gonna raise our average repair. Now, I said. If you're a general repair shop and you're working with us, we're kind of setting the target around seven 50 ish. We're not gonna go to seven 50 here. We're just gonna bring it up to, let's say we bring it up to say, five 80.
Cecil Bullard: So, you know, we're gonna sell one more thing on every other car that comes in. If we go to five 80, how many more cars do I need? Now, the cool thing here is now I can be a little more selective and I'm not spending anything more on marketing than I'm currently spending because I don't need to bring more clients in.
Cecil Bullard: In fact, you know what? I want to have more flexibility 'cause I don't wanna work on anything that's more than, say, 15 years old. So I'm gonna bring that average Appar up to six 20 instead and now. I can be even more selective on the cars that I'm actually going to work on. And by being a little bit selective, it's actually gonna help me move some other things up because I'm going, I'm not gonna work with the guy that wants to bring his own parts in, or the guy that's gonna argue or fight with me about everything.
Cecil Bullard: I'm gonna work with a little better customer. I'm gonna be a little more selective about the cars I bring in. And I think if you're a shop owner, you understand that, you know, no matter what, every once in a while the wrong customer gets in. But sometimes when you're desperate, 'cause you don't have enough work, you take in things that end up biting you.
Cecil Bullard: And they're not they're hard. The customers are hard to deal with and ultimately they're not profitable for us. So we're gonna work on that. And by having a higher average repair order doing a little better inspections doing a little better sales bringing a little bit better customer into our business.
Cecil Bullard: Now it's gonna give us this flexibility. I still don't like the fact I'm losing $138,000. So we're gonna, we're gonna fix that. But before I do if you have questions about this, I want you to ask them Amber's keeping an eye on that for us. And certainly at the end, we will get to all the questions that we can in the time allotted.
Cecil Bullard: A lot of people wanna make sure we get through the material, so we're gonna hold off a little bit on questions. And if she gets a really great one, she'll probably ask me. We're gonna increase our productivity. Now, part of that might be pricing. Part of that will be in our, by fixing our effective labor rate.
Cecil Bullard: Part of that will be by having multiple labor rates. Part of that will be by fixing our processes in our business and making sure that our our estimating process is. Faster and more accurate by making sure that our scheduling process is better. By creating better flow through the shop.
Cecil Bullard: We're going to be able to increase productivity in the shop. So we're gonna work on those processes. If you really want to run a very successful $4 million shop, that's not hard to do. It certainly isn't easy 'cause not many people do it, but if you understand your processes, if you look at the flow through your business and you create more productivity, then you're gonna bill out more hours and you're going to do higher numbers, which is going to kind of improve everything.
Cecil Bullard: Now we're not gonna go above a hundred percent. However, I do have shops. That are using a labor matrix at 1.2 or 1.3, meaning they're marking up book time labor by 1.2 or 1.3. There are other things that we could certainly talk, we could do a whole series of webinars on how we charge for labor and what we do and how we do it.
Cecil Bullard: So I, I do have shops that are doing that and they are getting more than a hundred percent productivity, meaning a tech works eight hours at the shop and is actually able to bill out 10. My shop ran at 119% over the six years that the last shop that I ran. So we're gonna move that to a hundred percent by working on our processes and working on you know, how we do this and what we charge and getting our margins and fixing these little issues, we're gonna be able to move our productivity up when we do.
Cecil Bullard: I now. Can do it with with four techs. In fact, in this shop I can actually do 1.7 with 3.1 techs. Well, I don't know what a 0.1 tech is. So, you know what? Let's move our productivity up a little more. Let's get to 105% and at 105 I can do it with three techs. So now I can run a business with three technicians.
Cecil Bullard: I probably have one and a half service advisors. I can do 1.7 million in sales and I can get everything I want out of my business. Now this calculator is yours to play with. We're gonna go back now. Amber, is there any specific questions on the calculator here? 
Amber Wright: So can you elaborate?
Amber Wright: There is, thank you so much and I appreciate you guys reposting the QR code 'cause I think some have had a hard time reading this. So the QR code, 
Cecil Bullard: It's gonna come right back up. 
Amber Wright: Yep, it's up right now. So the QR code, for those of you who have been asking this will take you to the calculator that is shown on the screen.
Amber Wright: So, can you elaborate on how you calculate effective labor rate? 
Cecil Bullard: Effective labor rate is a combination of all of my different labor rates. So during the day let's say that I do, I'm $140 an hour as my normal labor rate. So when I do a water pump I'm billing that out at $140 an hour. When I do an oil change, however, I I bill that out at $80 an hour.
Cecil Bullard: So maybe I charge $40 and pay the tech five tenths 'cause I want to keep my oil change price lower to be competitive. Then I also have comebacks. So I could have a two hour comeback today where I have a technician spend two hours on the car redoing the job, not their fault. But I don't get any money for that.
Cecil Bullard: So that's a zero labor rate. And so when I combine all of those things together that will give me whatever my effective labor rate is. So what I do in my point of sale, it's kind of important. So in Auto Leap, whenever I sell a job, I have time on that job and a labor rate. So let's say that I'm doing a warranty.
Cecil Bullard: Well, I have two hours, but zero labor rate. That's how I write the ticket up. I'm doing an oil change. I have my $40 and my five tenths. That's going to my technician which is an $80 an hour oil change. If I'm doing, maybe I have a higher dag rate, maybe I have $165 diet rate. So I've got. Three hours of diagnostic today at 165.
Cecil Bullard: And what I do is I run the report that shows me how many hours were billed out and how many dollars that is. And I take the dollars and I divide them by the hours and they'll tell me what my effective labor rate is. And I'm pretty sure I was looking at Auto Leap yesterday with one of my clients. I'm pretty sure that Auto Leap in their normal report has effective labor rate right there.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. It'll tell you what that is. So, and most, many of the point of sales today, not all of them, but most of them will have on your financial report that you'll run for the day or the week or the month, it will have an effective labor rate. And what it's doing is just taking the dollars that you brought in for labor and dividing by the hours that were billed out.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. So, I'm gonna move ahead. Otherwise Amber's gonna shoot me, so, we're gonna come back here. I'm going to move this up a little so I can get her going. We just, I would never shoot you. What's that? 
Amber Wright: We would never shoot, you never just slap you around a little bit. How about that?
Cecil Bullard: Maybe? Yeah. It's all in the math guys. It really is about the math and you need to really understand your business in a financial way. Because it's a, it's an engine for all intent purposes. It's built to give a certain amount of horsepower and a certain amount of torque.
Cecil Bullard: And if it's not giving that kind of horsepower and torque in the case of a business, if it's not creating the work that you can sell and the profits that you should make, horsepower and torque, then there's a problem. There's something wrong with the engine. And so when you understand it financially.
Cecil Bullard: You can look at those financials and a good coach or a good coaching company will be able to help you understand those things, which can literally make you tens of thousands of dollars. It's my experience over the last 24, 25 years as a coaching consultant that the average shop is probably losing somewhere around 140 to $200,000.
Cecil Bullard: 'cause they just don't understand the financial machine. So they've got a vehicle that's moving down the road. It's just not giving them the torque and the the high the horsepower that it really can or should. So, I in, in the terms of understanding my business and I'm not sure we're seeing what we're seeing here 'cause my screen is kind of giving me weird stuff.
Cecil Bullard: So in the terms of seeing my business. I have a shop here that's $120 an hour. They have a parts labor ratio of 45 to 55, 40 5% of what they sell as parts. 55% is labor. And they have three technicians that can do 24 hours a day for 1,960 hours a year. There are 2080 hours if MyTech works every single day that we're open on a five day shop.
Cecil Bullard: But I know that we're gonna have holidays. I know that we're gonna have vacations and other things. I'm good now. Thank you Michael. And so I calculate 1,960 hours, which gives my person three weeks off for holidays and vacation and whatever else. So if we do that, we're gonna do 1.24 million.
Cecil Bullard: That's the number. And in a good shop. That follows a parts matrix. And this is not a matrix class, so I just, let me say, if you don't know what a matrix is, you need to go online and find out. We certainly have some great stuff on that. And I know we've done at least one webinar with auto lead where we've discussed that.
Cecil Bullard: My parts expense of the 101.24 million that I'm going to bring in, I've got 18% of the money that's gonna go out for parts, which will give me about a 58% parts margin. I'm gonna pay my technicians about 20% of that, about 2.48 $248,000. That's what the three techs will earn in the shop, which will gimme a 64% labor margin and the cost of goods.
Cecil Bullard: You've heard, if you talk to an accountant and you hear cost of goods, what's it cost me to create my product? My product is parts and labor. So once I pay for the parts and labor at 38% of what the customer is paying me, that leaves me a gross profit of 62% or 62 cents on every dollar. I now take that money and I pay my fixed expenses.
Cecil Bullard: And for if you're working with as a client, we divide that into, I think, 13 different categories. You've got all kinds of, you know, you've got banking costs, you've got debt, you've got leases, you've got you know, what you pay your employees, et cetera, that aren't techs. And so we would divide that up.
Cecil Bullard: For terms of training, I use three categories. One is sales. What am I paying my salespeople that are selling my product, my service advisors, managers, whatever we call them in the shop. I pay eight to 10% of that 1.24 million. What do I pay for marketing for bringing new customers in? I pay six to 9%.
Cecil Bullard: Of that number. So I got 90,000 approximately to spend. And that leaves me 25% of that number to pay the rent, the utilities, the insurance costs, the banking costs, the truck payments, the gasoline, et cetera. And that leaves me a net profit of 20%. One of the secrets when you talk about really running the business well and really making the kind of profit that you wanna make is to run above a hundred percent productivity.
Cecil Bullard: So, and that's hours produced in a timeframe. It's, there's different definitions. So when I talk about productivity, I'm talking about hours produced in a timeframe. So if I have a technician there for eight hours and I'm billing correctly, and I'm I've got good process, I want that technician to bill, bill out 9.6 hours.
Cecil Bullard: That I can sell to customers. And when I get above a hundred percent productivity, then I start to make more money. And when I'm making that money and the reason I'm making that money is 'cause I don't have those fixed expenses. So I've already paid my rent, my utility. So if I can do 1.4 million with three techs, I will net more because I'm not paying that 25% fixed expenses.
Cecil Bullard: That's gone. It's all paid for. And that's when we talk about turbo mode or Turbo, where I can earn 24, 25, 20 6% net. And we actually have shop owners doing that. Now I also have to understand where things go wrong for businesses like mine. So, this is a shop that's gonna be at 75% productivity with their techs.
Cecil Bullard: And they're not really following their parts. They're not marketing their parts up correctly for whatever reason. They're not following their a matrix. The margin on the part is gonna be about 42%, and the cost is gonna be 26%. And the reason why is because we're not following a matrix. And I hear it all the time, Cecil you don't understand because customers are coming in and saying, I can get that part cheaper by going and buying it myself.
Cecil Bullard: And my answer is, yeah I do understand. I've been doing this for, I don't know, 43, 44 years now. And we've always had parts competition. There was always a place for my customer to go and buy the part cheaper than I would sell it to them for. And so, I know there's, it's more, there's more visibility.
Cecil Bullard: Now, I certainly understand that, but also I can go to the grocery store and buy a steak, but my local steakhouse won't cook that for me. So I never, when I'm gonna go out for a steak to a restaurant, I don't think to myself, well, I could bring my own steak. It will save me 10 bucks. And I could go in and argue with the guy in the steakhouse or the gal in the steakhouse and say, wait a minute, I can pay less for this steak if I buy it myself.
Cecil Bullard: And the answer is, yes, you can. But different things come in the steakhouse. You'd never think about that. We in the automotive industry have to understand that the part that we deliver on your car, there's a lot more going on than just if the customer goes and purchases it somewhere, especially online.
Cecil Bullard: There, there's an estimate that there's like 18% of the online parts are counterfeit. So, you know, I've got a one in five chance I'm getting garbage. Now, labor-wise I'm not productive. There's a lot of reasons for lack of productivity. So my margin is lower. My cost is higher, giving me a total cost of goods of 51%.
Cecil Bullard: And on the left here, this is more common. We see this all the time. In shops and giving me a gross profit of 49%, I lost 13% on a million dollar business, 13% is $130,000. So I didn't pay attention to my margins. I was afraid to mark up my parts. I didn't build value for my client. I couldn't sell it for whatever reason, I didn't believe in it.
Cecil Bullard: I didn't have my processes down well it took too long to get cars estimated sold. And so my ticks weren't productive, couldn't be productive. And I lost $130,000 in money that I could use to pay my expenses and and or make profit in this shop because I have four techs now. I ha I need another service advisor.
Cecil Bullard: So my sales expense is going to go up and my marketing expense is gonna come down. I'm not making profit. So what's the first thing we cut? Marketing. What's the second thing? Coaching. Neither a good idea, but happens a lot. And my fixed expenses also go up because every time I hire an employee, I need to get another computer, another desk, another chair.
Cecil Bullard: There has to be more parking, there's more insurance costs et cetera. And so my net profit is about 3%. The average net profit in the automotive industry is about 4% today. And but we really want your shops making 20. Our clients are averaging a little over 19% right now as an average. It's all in the math.
Cecil Bullard: So if I have a shop and I have an effective labor rate of $150 and a parts to labor ratio of 48 to 52, meaning 48% of what I sell is parts, 52% is labor. Then I need to know what my hour is worth. My effective labor rate is 150. The calculation is in order to understand what the value of your hour is, effective labor rate times one plus parts over labor, and that'll give you the value of your hour at one 50 and 48 52.
Cecil Bullard: That's 1.92, which means that when I sell an hour of my time in this shop, it's worth $288. That's what the hour's worth. So I wanna do 3 million in sales. That's what I want to do. And the first thing I have to do is understand, you know, what that looks like, and can I do that? And how many techs do I need, and what does my effective labor rate need to be?
Cecil Bullard: And, you know, what do I need to sell my parts for? So if I divide the 3 million by 2 88, that's what my hours worth. That's 10,417 hours. That I need to do in a year to do 3 million in sales. And if one tech can do 1,960, that's three weeks off for vacations and holidays of production in a year, and that's a hundred percent, then I'm going to need 5.31 texts at a hundred percent or 1,960 hours to do 10,417 hours total and get my 3 million in sales.
Cecil Bullard: Now I don't like the 0.31, so, I'm gonna make a change here in just a second. In order for me to do 3 million, I would need 5.31 text at a hundred percent productivity and an hour that's worth about $288. And then I can do my 3 million. There you go. I got my $3 million in sales and then I need to supporting things behind that.
Cecil Bullard: Do I have a good estimating process? Do I have good marketing that's gonna bring me the cars that I need? Do I have good techs that are going to be productive et cetera? So I'm gonna ramp it up to six technicians at 110% productivity at a $288 value. That means I could actually do 3.765 million, about 3.8 million in sales which would give me at 20%, $745,000 in net profit, plus whatever wage I'm earning for working in the business.
Cecil Bullard: There are other things that I need to think about here. How many bays do I need? Well, I like two bays protect, but that's not usually gonna happen. So let's say one and a half potentially. So I need probably a, an eight to 10 bay shop to make this happen. To do the work. So now I'm building that picture.
Cecil Bullard: If I wanna do 3 million, this is what I need. I'm if I have a three bay shop, I'm prob probably not gonna do $3.7 million in sales. I have to understand my limitations and decide if I'm gonna live within my limitations or I want to take a risk and go to a bigger shop because I wanna make more sales and I wanna make more profit.
Cecil Bullard: And then I also have the correct systems and process. So I gotta go back and I gotta look at my productivity and I gotta say, are we scheduling properly? You know, most shops that we run into will schedule a hundred percent of their work, but their techs are only 66%. So they feel like they're always behind.
Cecil Bullard: They're not making the sales they need and they feel like their technicians are not getting the job done 'cause they're really not. But in many cases it's because of, I scheduled too many cars. Now we're interrupting a tech and a big job pulling them off for a cheap oil change and they're not getting that big job done.
Cecil Bullard: And then it takes time to get back in the game later. So, I gotta understand my process is, do we have a good estimating process? Obviously having a great point of sale like Auto Leap will help me estimate better and help my technicians get the information that I need to my service advisors in a way that helps my technicians and my service advisors get more work done quicker. So, I gotta look at all my processes and I gotta say, am I doing 110% or am I doing, you know, 80%? And if I'm doing 80%, is it really because I have lazy technicians or is it because I don't have a good estimating process? Or even maybe we're not. Estimating hours and time properly. So in, we're taking time, I wa I see this where we're taking time off the ticket and so instead of charging 2.8 hours, 'cause we're afraid the customer's gonna be mad at us, we end up at 2.4.
Cecil Bullard: And so we have a 2.8 hour job that we really probably should be charging 3.2, but we're charging 2.4 because we're afraid our customer won't love us. Are those things correct? So now I need about 15 cars at 2.78 hours a car which would give me about a $750 average repair order. And we have lots of shops doing 2.8, 2.9, 3.2 hours per car.
Cecil Bullard: Because they have a great inspection process. They have the right customers that are willing to buy and they have service advisors that know how to build value and sell the customers the work that they really need. So I have quite wrap up and we are getting close 'cause I know we have questions.
Cecil Bullard: Amber, do you have a question? 
Amber Wright: Yeah. If we hit before we go on this, I think there was a really good question here that came through. Do you back tires out of your parts margin calculation? 
Cecil Bullard: Yes. In most shops, if it's more than two or 3% of sales, I pull tires out. Tires. We're looking for a 40% margin. Most shops that we would work with would be getting in the mid to high thirties. And if that's 20% of your sales, then that's gonna really screw up your parts margin when you go to look at your parts margins. So we wanna look at tires different because they have different margins. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Now if I'm only selling two sets of tires a month, then I'm not pulling it out. It's not gonna change my margin that much. So, our rule of thumb here at the institute is if it's more than about two or 3% of sales, then we'll pull it out. Like if I was selling a ton of batteries I've got a shop in the Santa Cruz area that literally was last year, was selling so many catalytic converters and you have to buy 'em in California from the dealer.
Cecil Bullard: There's nowhere else to buy 'em. So the margins are less. So we pulled catalytic converters out so we could look at our other margins and our catalytic converter margins separately. If you're really paying attention to your business, you probably will say, oh, I can't put that in the pile. I gotta pull that out and look at it differently, because right now that's what I have to do as part of my business.
Cecil Bullard: And so, that way I'm managing properly. Is that the only one? And then we'll go on. I've got one more. 
Amber Wright: I think I've got one more. And that's it. And then we'll go forward. How realistic is it to expect to have a hundred percent productivity every week of the year? It seems unrealistic to assume it. What is a more realistic expectation in your experience?
Cecil Bullard: I ran a shop for six and a half years, the last one that I ran, and we had 119% productivity for six and a half years. I love it because as a tech, I was a master tech and I beat book time all the time. So it, it was a sense of pride. If you talk to good tech today and you go, Hey, what a, you know, can you beat book time?
Cecil Bullard: They'll be like, can kill book time. And yet at the end of the day, they're not producing eight hours for eight hours. And most shops are using a 20 to a 30% multiplier on book time today. So if you're using that 20% multiplier, let's say 20%, and your tech is good at what they do, so let's talk about different texts for a sec.
Cecil Bullard: I got my ctec and and that's my oil changer. And they do brakes occasionally, et cetera. Well, wait a minute. If you've done a hundred oil changes, don't you think at some point you're gonna be faster than you were for the first 10 or 20?
Cecil Bullard: I love allergy season. You'll have to excuse me. If you do break jobs and you've done 20 break jobs, shouldn't you be faster at doing break jobs than you were? And I think, you know, also, do we base the time on our best fastest tech? So we've got shops that'll say, well, yeah, it only takes our good tech eight tenths of an hour to do a break job.
Cecil Bullard: Well, the book time is still 1.8 and but we're gonna charge eight because we want the customer to love us more, and we want to be price competitive. Let's go to the bottom altogether and let's be price competitive and let's charge eight tenths of a percent. The only problem is the only tech that can do it at eight tenths is my best guy, and my C guy can't do it at eight tenths.
Cecil Bullard: So is it realistic? If you don't believe it, then the answer's no. If you believe that you can do it, then the answer is yes. And I have, you know, if you look at the bell curve, a bell curve is how we understand data. And you look at the top front of the bell curve, the top 10% that would be the top 10% of the shops.
Cecil Bullard: And are they doing more than a hundred percent productivity? Yes, they are. Then you look at the average in the middle the other i 67%. Now we're at the 67% mark. That's 67% and they're doing average, which would be six and a half hours a day instead of eight or nine. And then you look at the bottom 10 or 15%, and the bottom 10 or 15% are always the lowest performers, and their techs are doing four hours a day, three and a half.
Cecil Bullard: Well, if the top 10% can do it and they're not doing anything immoral or illegal or unethical than can't I do it? And the answer is 10 to 15% of our shops are constantly over a hundred percent. The rest of our shops are probably running somewhere around 90% to 95%. And if you looked at a hundred percent or a hundred percent of the shops that when they first come in, they're probably running 60, 65, 70%.
Cecil Bullard: I used to argue that you have to do X, y, and ZII, I don't argue a lot. You won't see me online arguing about productivity or parts pricing or anything, because if you believe that your people cannot be productive. They won't. But I can tell you I personally ran a shop for six and a half years where MiTek had 119% productivity starting the first month that I ran the shop because we looked at the processes, we looked at our estimating, we looked at what we were doing, and we fixed the engine so that the engine could give us maximum horsepower and maximum torque.
Cecil Bullard: So, long answer. Sorry. I'm gonna give you a caution and then I'm gonna wrap this up and we'll take a few more questions. Caution is, don't listen to the people that are telling you that it's okay to discount and lower your margins because you have to have margin to have profit. It's I understand gross profit dollars per hour.
Cecil Bullard: If I'm doing enough, I'm making the money. The problem is no margin, no dollars. So we have a shop here that has a sales volume of $65,000. That's what they do. At 60% gross profit. I want you at 62 with loaded labor at 72 to 74 with unloaded labor. Meaning loaded would be with the cost of labor, fica, few to workers' comp, medical, dental, whatever.
Cecil Bullard: I pay for my, you know, 401k unloaded would be without those costs. So at 60% with a loaded labor, I have this shop doing 65,000. They have $39,000 to pay their bills. And with a $500 average of perimeter, that's 130 cars. Now we are gonna go, ah, my guys aren't gonna be as productive. And when they're not as productive, if we're paying them anything any kind of a salary or hourly pay, then my costs are gonna go up and my margins are gonna come down.
Cecil Bullard: We're gonna bring the margin down by 10%. So, we're not gonna hit our margins on our parts. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna be too emotional about that and we're not gonna look at productivity and flow, and we're not gonna fix that. And so at 10% I have the same 65,000 in sales, but I only have $32,500 to pay my bills, leaving me a $6,500 shortfall.
Cecil Bullard: Now that's a month. You could take this by 12 months, and now we're talking about $70,000. Or right around there. If I have a $500 average repair order, now I need 156 cars. That's 26 more cars. So I have to write up 26 more tickets. I have to do 26 more inspections. I have to do 26 more test drives.
Cecil Bullard: And so what happens to my productivity? I. Right. And so now because we're not hitting our margins, we're also not hitting our productivity. And we also have to spend more money on marketing in order to bring another 26 cars in our business. I'm gonna turn it around. We're gonna look at fixed expenses.
Cecil Bullard: We're gonna come down here to this $32,000 mark. I have a shop that has $32,000 monthly fixed expenses, rent, utilities, salaries, truck payments, banking costs software costs et cetera. And they're gonna make 60% net gross profit. So they have to do excuse me, my eyesight's not as good 'cause my allergies $53,000 this month to get the $32,000 to pay their bills.
Cecil Bullard: 'cause that's their bills. And if they have a $500 average repair order, they need 106.7 cars. To do that. Now, that's not making any money, that's just breaking even. And now we're gonna lower our margin by 10%. I still have $32,000 in bills, so now I have to do $64,400 in sales. And my average s gonna come down because I'm not charging as much.
Cecil Bullard: Remember, my margins are coming down, which means that my profits and my average appar is gonna come down. We're gonna go to four 50. And at four 50 I need 35.6 more cars. Again, 35 more test drives, 35 more getting cars on the rack. 35 more digital vehicle inspections 34 of five more times. MyTech has to go out front, chase a car down pull it around back and put it on the rack.
Cecil Bullard: It's a much more difficult company. And here we're only talking about breaking even. Imagine if your margins are in the 45% and you have 32,000 at 45%. I gotta do 71,000 before I ever make a nickel. And if I, my average ER comes down like it will, then I need 61 more cars, 61 more test drives.
Cecil Bullard: So don't listen to the people that tell you lower your price, do discounts. You know, you gotta do that. You gotta be competitive because the guys that are making the most money are the guys that are not discounting their products and are selling value to their clients. Learn that, figure it out.
Cecil Bullard: Understand it, know it, live it, and you will make the most money. We work with a lot of clients. We've worked with well over a thousand clients in my career personally, I've worked with well over a thousand shops. I. The shops that are doing the best have the highest labor rates. They hold the best parts margins, and they are productive because they constantly look at their systems and their processes.
Cecil Bullard: There is no silver bullet. Nobody has it, nobody's found it. It is understanding your business and then working on all the bits. It's like diagnosing a car. I've got a vehicle, doesn't run well, it doesn't have enough power. I pull it in, I put the scanner on it, I find out what's wrong. I put the part in place then I test drive it, and I see did I get the, did I fix it all or is there something else that's wrong?
Cecil Bullard: A business constantly will have something that's not allowing me to get the productivity I need. Well, what is that? Let's figure it out. Get it out of the way, because if I can increase my productivity from seven hours to nine hours, that's gonna make me another 80 to a hundred thousand dollars a year and allow me to pay my technicians a lot more money.
Cecil Bullard: I I hate this idea of, well, somebody's got a magic, magic, you know, there's magic beans. Okay. I don't have any magic beans to sell you. We the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. And if it is, it's because the person that is managing that grass is watering it, right? Is feeding it right, is fertilizing it, is trimming it.
Cecil Bullard: Because that's why it's greener. They're doing the work. And a good coach or consulting company can help you understand where your vehicle is not running properly and help you get that fixed. Alright, we have a few minutes for questions. Let's do it. 
Amber Wright: I love that statement. I think you couldn't have ended the overall presentation on a better note that I think, it all is in the work that you're doing right there, there is no magic wand out there. And I think over time we all are. If you are on market websites and you're looking at social media platforms, a lot of that conversation is going on. But it is the continual work that you look at your business day in and day out and diagnose it and really understand where issues are going wrong.
Amber Wright: So a question we had, why is margin less on dealer parts? 
Cecil Bullard: I don't know. Why is margin less? Because the automotive business is afraid to charge more than the dealer would charge for a part. That's why margins less. Most of the shops we have a matrix that they use on the dealer part. In my shop, routinely we would charge 25 to 40% more than if a customer could go pick that part up at the dealer.
Cecil Bullard: And so I would routinely charge more for the part so that I could hold my margin. Dealers today, I just saw an article from somebody that they got a message from their local dealer that they will no longer discount the parts at all to the shops. So dealers are struggling today for margins and profits, and some of the dealerships are actually now not even allowing a 20% off on a part.
Cecil Bullard: And so I have to make money on parts or I have to raise my labor rate dramatically. So it's either $300 labor rates, or we use a parts matrix and get parts margins. Take your pick. It shouldn't be different. I should be able to make margin on dealer parts and other parts. 
Amber Wright: Yeah. I love that.
Amber Wright: I think this one Ryan, I think would be a great one for you guys, Cecil, to follow up on. But I am gonna mention, and maybe you can high level we have two full-time techs and two owners. Us owners are having to wrench a lot as well as try to keep up. I think that's something we hear often. And on top of that, they're trying to find more texts.
Amber Wright: And we try to focus on handling the diag and pushing repairs to texts. They aren't as strong yet at Heavy Diag diagnostic. How can we, and what do we need to do, restructure this better? And when doing our numbers evaluate evaluation, do we need to include ourselves as a tech as well? 
Cecil Bullard: Number one, I probably wouldn't have both owners working as techs.
Cecil Bullard: I would literally shift one owner to be the tech for a while we found and built our technicians up. I would want the other owner focusing on running the business. Why? Are we, why do we have to be the tech, are we, you know, the other bits and pieces? And so there's a lot in that question. I could probably do a whole three hour webinar on just that one question alone.
Cecil Bullard: The problem is that when I'm trying to be the worker in the business, I can't be the owner and manager of the business. And somebody's gotta look at the systems and processes and how we're estimating and how we're pricing and et cetera. And I understand that the market right now is tough as far as technicians go, and that we gotta grow some of our own.
Cecil Bullard: And maybe as an owner, I have to spend half my time growing and working in, in, in the shop. But I also need to spend half of my time managing that business and understanding it so that I can determine what I need to do and put those changes in place so it gets better and better. And that's one of the things I think you know, a coach or a coaching company can do is help you figure out where to put your best focus to make your best profits.
Amber Wright: Yeah, I think that's really, I think Brian, you started to outline that at the end, that you manage the business sides of things, but being in the shop really takes you away from building and fixing operations. I think that, you know, I love to bring in kind of personal things as well, you know, as a manager or director or managing different operations in a business, right?
Amber Wright: You can only train so much and the moment that you go back and do work for your employees that are supposed to be doing work, you can't handle it all. And there are things and balls that will be dropped. And Cecil, you and I were talking about this earlier, you know, you can't be everything for everyone or your business.
Amber Wright: That is why you hire people to do the job that they are supposed to do. 
Cecil Bullard: And what you would kind of hope is that you would you know, make enough profit or figure out how to do that part. Because then that would allow you to maybe offer more in, you know, we have a hiring, training finding mentoring class.
Cecil Bullard: If I can run a more profitable business, I can do things in my business that make it more attractive for employees that I might hire. And I'm not just talking about pay, I'm talking about working conditions. I'm talking about, you know, whether or not there's air conditioning or heat. I'm talking about tools and education and things.
Cecil Bullard: Plus, I need to have a pretty good training program. If I'm gonna bring this tech in, I really want to have a list of things that I want to get 'em signed off on, that they have these tools and these skill sets. Because the sooner I can get them signed off on those things, then the more I can put on their shoulders and the more I can take off of mine.
Cecil Bullard: So I want to have a plan for. That education because I know I gotta do it, but I want it to be most efficient so that I can spend more time quicker becoming an owner and doing the things that an owner or a manager would do in the company. 
Amber Wright: I love that. I think we can end the note. Lots of people saying great classes, so really appreciate that.
Amber Wright: I wanted to end the note Tucker, I know he's been to these multiple times. I know you guys speak with him as well, but just from being in these classes and you talking about margins and raising your labor rate, he said, I've had no pushback from raising prices and not budging on margins. The good customers understand your kids need to eat too.
Amber Wright: So I think we forget that at the end of the day. 
Cecil Bullard: Tucker's doing well. He's he's doing well. 
Amber Wright: Yeah. Awesome. Well, we really appreciate it. I don't think that there were any other questions. We will be sharing the survey. Nicole, if we can go ahead and put that in the link or in the chat really quick and we'll also send that out.
Amber Wright: Just to recap, guys, the session was recorded. Any questions that I didn't get to, which I think I got to the majority of them we will make sure that they get answered by Cecil or somebody at the institute to help you guys with that. And it looks like they've also just posted a session to meet with them, so definitely check that out.
Amber Wright: We work very closely with the institute and so, if there's any personal introductions that we can make, please feel free to email me since you have my email and I will, include you guys in an email with Cecil. So, Cecil, as always, thank you so much and I appreciate it. I think we've got you on the next month as well.
Cecil Bullard: I'm raring to go. 
Amber Wright: I think we've got you on, so we appreciate it. I think we'll also see you at the end of the month at Tools. So for anybody that is also going to be at Tools, Cecil will be speaking. I think you guys have three sessions, is that correct? 
Cecil Bullard: I'm teaching three classes there. I think Jimmy's teaching one or two also.
Amber Wright: Yeah.
Amber Wright: Yeah. So we will see you guys in Pennsylvania at the end of the month if you are gonna be there. And as always, we really appreciate you being here and for all of the valuable information that you provide. 
Cecil Bullard: Thank you for the opportunity as usual, Amber. 
Amber Wright: Awesome. All right guys. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day.

96 - (Pt. 2) How to Mark Up Automotive Parts – Expert Strategies with Cecil Bullard of The Institute

96 - (Pt. 2) How to Mark Up Automotive Parts – Expert Strategies with Cecil Bullard of The Institute
March 27th, 2024 - 01:03:19
 
Show Summary:
In this follow-up episode, John Heller from PartsTech and automotive industry coach Cecil Bullard dive deeper into the critical topic of parts markup for auto repair shops. They unpack the emotional challenges shop owners face, the practical application of markup matrices, and how to maintain profitability while managing customer expectations. Cecil shares real-world examples, answers live questions, and explains how even small changes in parts margin can significantly impact a shop’s bottom line. This is a must-listen for shop owners ready to take control of their financial future.
 
Host(s):
John Heller, PartsTech
 
Guest(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder & CEO, The Institute
 
Episode Highlights:
[00:04:15] - “Shops are leaving thousands on the table annually due to insufficient markup strategy.”
[00:07:41] - Cecil breaks down the jobber and dealer parts matrices to reach 58% gross profit margins.
[00:12:03] - Oil changes and low-margin jobs: how to offset with higher markup elsewhere.
[00:18:28] - Real example: how adding $200 to engine jobs improved profitability without losing customers.
[00:25:33] - Defining margin vs. markup, and how each impacts your gross profit.
[00:29:46] - Three reasons why a matrix might not be working for your shop—and how to fix it.
[00:37:04] - Emotional discounting at the counter? Why it’s killing your margins.
[00:45:25] - What happens when your margins slip: the math behind needing 26 more cars/month.
[00:56:54] - How to respond when customers price-check you against Amazon, or other avenues.
[00:59:18] - Cecil’s message to the industry: Stop letting customers bring their own parts.
 
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=XXyincl3Cwk&t=1s
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
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________________________________________
 
John Heller: Hello, everyone. Welcome. We'll give a few more seconds here to let everyone join in. We know we had a lot of, a lot of interest and response from part one of this. So we thank you for taking some time to join part two. We'll make sure. We give a little time for everyone to make it in.
John Heller: All right, let's get this started. So again, as I mentioned, welcome. Thank you everyone for joining us here on this Wednesday. Hope your week is going well. We're glad you've joined us for this part two on this very important topic of parts markup. We had a great discussion last time with our guest speaker Cecil, and we decided to extend this into a part two, so we could dive a little bit deeper.
John Heller: into a better understanding common pitfalls and how we can work around them and a parts markup strategy in your shop. So I would encourage you as with last time, if you joined us, please use the chat function to post questions. Last time we had a lot of great questions and unfortunately we weren't able to get to them all.
John Heller: But I will do my best to, to look through the chat and try to summarize some common themes around questions and make sure that I'm surfacing those to Cecil and at the end, we will take about 10 or 15 minutes as well to get through more of the questions that you pose in the chat box as well. We understand your time is valuable.
John Heller: So first again, thank you for joining us. If you do need to hop at the, at the end. Of at the end of the presentation, so to speak, and can't stay for the Q and A, please know that we will be sending this out to not only those who have attended, but to the everyone who's, who's registered, so you can view and, and listen into that, that Q and A section of this.
John Heller: All right, so let's go ahead and get started here. Just as a way of reminder, PartsTech; we are a platform that makes it fast and easy for your shop to find and order the parts that you need across both parts and tires. We put all of your suppliers into one lookup, cutting out the hassle of you having to make separate phone calls.
John Heller: Cutting out the hassle of you having to log in separately into your suppliers, each and every single one of them. We make that now a very easy and simple experience to be able to find what you need in one lookup. We are absolutely free. There is no need to enter in any credit card information during the signup process.
John Heller: We just need your shop information. We'll get you a username and password, and then we'll help you get your supplier set up and integrated into a management system. If that's how you are using us and you're on your way. Simple as that. We allow you to connect unlimited number of part and tire suppliers, into parts tech, making sure that you've got the full breadth of availability when it comes to looking for parts from suppliers that you prefer to do business with. All right. So, as a recap of what brings us together today PartsTech recently conducted a survey, a very broad survey across hundreds and hundreds of repair shops.
John Heller: One of the key findings that stood out to us was this idea of parts markup. We found that a considerable amount of shops are leaving money on the table when it comes to how they're marking up parts. Gross profit margin analysis and things of that nature. So that put a bug in our minds to say, this is something we should dive into a little bit more, bring in some experts within the industry so we could facilitate a conversation and helping shops in the industry here, better understand parts markup.
John Heller: And be on the way to better profitability. Now, for those who joined us in the first webinar we didn't mention that there was some information that was available to you here. We've just got a QR code. If you wanted to scan this you would be brought to a landing page where we put together some material in collaboration with the Institute to be able to walk through a couple of these hot topics on terms, formulas.
John Heller: What are some of the foundational steps in determining this? A sample parts markup matrix, as well as the recording from our first part of this. And again, this was all done in collaboration with Cecil and the team there at the Institute. But today we get the honor. Of having Cecil join us and Cecil you made this statement here that many shops are leaving thousands and thousands of dollars per year on the table due to insufficient part market practices.
John Heller: And so we are excited again to welcome you back to this part two of our webinar and to dive into more questions, more topics around how we can help shops understand this whole idea of parts markup and very practical ways to get that in there. So without further ado, Cecil, Cecil, I'll turn it over to you and let you take it from here.
John Heller: Thank you for joining us. 
Cecil Bullard: Thank you, John. As we go, we do want questions. We like questions. It's not letting me share my screen, John. Now it is. How about that? We like questions. We want your questions. So please use the function or the Q and A to ask questions. I'm Cecil Bullard. I'm a coach and a consultant.
Cecil Bullard: I've been in the industry, my entire adult life. And I've been coaching for about a little over 20 years now, worked with thousands of shops. And so I see this over and over and over. When we first come into a shop, we look at parts margin and parts margins are usually somewhere in the 30. 2 percent to about 44 percent range when they should be in the 55 to 58 percent range.
Cecil Bullard: And that's where we get the, you know, the average shop is probably losing somewhere around 40 a year on their parts market. It's not marking parts up correctly now in a webinar, number one, which by the way, the QR code that we had on the screen earlier, we'll get you that webinar. We went through a few different things.
Cecil Bullard: One of those is the idea that parts margin is really easy to fix in the shop. You put a parts matrix in place and you stop getting emotional about pricing. This is what it costs. Think about going into a local restaurant and haggling over the price of the steak or wanting to bring your own steak into that restaurant.
Cecil Bullard: It just doesn't happen. The automotive industry is one of the few places where people can in a way haggle over whether they bring their own parts in, which is against the rules completely. We're not going to cover that here, but there's a whole series on that. And then also about what we're going to pay or what we're going to mark the parts up.
Cecil Bullard: And most customers don't understand what you're doing. They just know what the final price is. The other thing that we did talk about in number one, that you're going to want to make sure you know, is, is how to financially balance the business that I'm making the gross profit and the dollars that I need now.
Cecil Bullard: This is a QR code that will get you the workbook that goes for one and two. And so I'm going to leave this on the screen for just a minute. And then we're also going to have this on the screen at the very end. So if you don't get the, you should get the workbook because it'll help you with the formulas and, and other things that we, we have been talking about.
Cecil Bullard: So please, again, ask questions. You're going to want to get the workbook. So I'm going to take this off the screen here in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. All right. This is a parts matrix. So all the lead up before you need to put a parts matrix into your shop. This is a particular matrix that's been developed and modified over the years to get a shop about 58 percent margin when you mark things up.
Cecil Bullard: And so when you're. Dealing with a parts matrix what you're doing is you're basically saying if I buy a part from say zero to two dollars and fifty cents, I'm going to mark it up times four, so it's a 400 percent markup. And that's the multiplier, and that's a 75 percent profit. And because of what your average part is we want the average part to fall right in the, about 60 percent range.
Cecil Bullard: And so, you know, 24 years ago when I was first started doing all of this, I was looking at the average part price that we sold in the industry. And it was at the time it was about 26 and change. So just between 26 and 27. And so this matrix has changed over the years. And the markup has changed a little bit over the years in order to maintain the right parts margin in my shop.
Cecil Bullard: So, if I buy a part that is say today, if my average price on a part is 55, then if I buy that part at, say, 55, I'm gonna mark it up types two and a half, which is a 250 percent markup and a 60 percent margin. Don't, don't confuse markup and margin. Markup is the multiplier that you use to get to the price.
Cecil Bullard: Margin is the difference between what I paid for the part and what I received for the part. So, if there are any questions about Matrix, now's a great time to ask those questions. 
John Heller: And I might just mention here, Cecil, sorry there's just some comments here in the Q& A. Please put your questions into the Q and a section and not the chat.
John Heller: I may have misspoken to lead us up. So please put your questions in the Q and a thank you. 
Cecil Bullard: Okay, and you'll notice here that there's a parts matrix for a dealer and there's a parts matrix for a jobber. And one of the questions that we get a lot is, do I have to follow the manufacturer's suggested list that the dealer charges?
Cecil Bullard: And I don't remember if we answered this question in part one, but I'm going to answer it again. And that answer is absolutely not. If you follow the manufacturer's suggested list, most of your dealers are going to give you 20 percent off of that. And so I'm going to, you know, buy that part for 80 and sell it for a hundred and I'm going to have no real margin in that it's going to be very, very small.
Cecil Bullard: And at the end of the day, I won't have any profit in my parts. And parts of profit is about 45 to 50 percent of my profits. That's helped helps me pay my bills and, and my utilities and my rent and, and myself and, and have a net profit in the shop. And so you'll notice on the dealer matrix that the dealer matrix is it starts.
Cecil Bullard: Whoa, love this mouse. It starts at a, at a, a little. Little higher, but it, it fizzles out a little faster. So, in my shop, the shops that I have run, last shop that I, I ran the, the lowest matrix part we had was a 45.9%, so a 1.85 multiplier. And I would tell you also that there are certain parts that I might not put in a matrix that I might buy.
Cecil Bullard: Things like tires. Tires don't have the same margin as other. Parts and also a lot of shops don't put batteries in a matrix. They have a different matrix for a battery So they're charging a a lower markup and a lower margin on things like batteries in order to be competitive now, I will also tell you that out of the All the shops that we work with, there are a certain percentage of shops, probably some in the neighborhood of 10 or 12 percent that basically mark up dealer parts exactly the same and even batteries the same as they would mark up a parts on the jobber matrix.
Cecil Bullard: Jobber would be a world pack, a car quest, a Napa, and of course dealership. We should know exactly what that is. Now John, I hope you're monitoring questions, and if we get some that you ask the question. So go ahead. 
John Heller: There are, and right on topic with the various parts here, we had someone raise the question around oil changes.
John Heller: So oil, air filters, cabin filters do you have any guidance on that type of job and where that fits sort of in the parts matrix? 
Cecil Bullard: I will tell you that when I was running a shop, the last shop I actually personally ran was 2009, 2010. That's when I started 100 percent coaching and I kind of got out of the running a shop business.
Cecil Bullard: I marked up my oil filters, my oil and my air filters exactly the same as any other part. I did not do anything special, but we did not sell an oil change. So this is a Kind of a different thought process. I think I, I always had a minor service in my shop and I did not have an oil change because I didn't want to compete with the oil changers.
Cecil Bullard: Right? And so if I look at the quote unquote oil change companies, I think my part is a superior part. I buy a more expensive filter that has, you know, it's better on the inside. Just get a cheap oil change and cut that filter apart and then grab one of those good filters that you would put on the customer's car and you notice that, you know, the, the filter from the cheap oil change place is not the same.
Cecil Bullard: The other thing is my technicians, I think we're better than the technicians at the cheap oil change place. And so I did not want to compete with an oil change. I had a minor service, and at the time, I know everybody's going to say this is nuts, but at the time, my minor service was 165 when oil changes were going for 29, And I know we're not there now, the local cheap oil change place here is 89 for a oil change today.
Cecil Bullard: And so, I don't necessarily want to be competitive with those people. And if I don't want to compete with those people, I don't sell an oil change, I sell servicing the car. So I don't, maybe that doesn't answer the question. I have shops that feel like they need to be priced competitive on certain items.
Cecil Bullard: And we're going to talk about that a little more as we go. And so they have a less expensive oil change, and they mark their parts up less, which is fine. And as long as you make up for it somewhere else. So at the end, I want to have a 58 percent parts margin is my goal. If I have 50, I always tell my clients, if I have 55%, I'm not going to fight with them or, you know, I'm not going to get too busy.
Cecil Bullard: If we get down to 52, I'm going to, I'm going to start talking about it. And if we drop below 52, then I'm going to have a serious conversation. When you think about like a typical shop might do 800, 000. And about half of that is parts about 400, 000. If I'm off by 10%, if I'm at 48, instead of 58, that costs me 40, 000.
Cecil Bullard: And that's the 40, 000 that we're talking about. So if you, if you work for a, a big company Walmart, big corporate Walmart store Walmart's going to sell certain items cheaper. Then you can buy them somewhere else. So they've got discounted items. And if you read the book that was written about Walmart, Sam Walton it's probably 25 or 30 years old now, but at the time, and today they knew exactly what you're going to come in and buy, if you are a customer that walks in their door, you know, why do they change oil so cheaply?
Cecil Bullard: Or why do they have cheap you know, batteries, cheap, cheap tires, because they know when you walk in the store, you're going to buy a certain number of items that that happens to be three on average. That was. Before they put grocery stores in most of the Walmart. So that number has probably changed, but they also know that you're going to buy one cheap item and two marked up items.
Cecil Bullard: And so, I don't care if you decide, look, I want to be competitive on oil changes. So my oil change is going to be inexpensive and I'm not going to have a great margin on that. But what, what gets forgotten in the automotive industry is the other side of that. And so if I'm a corporation, I know that if I don't get my margin, that my stockholders will be upset and my stock price will go down and I'll be out of business.
Cecil Bullard: That's how that works. In an automotive shop, little mom and pop shop, which is most of us are independents, et cetera. We often go, okay, I'm going to bring that down because I want to be competitive, but we don't think I need to bring everything else up by one or two points to make up for that. So, as long as your pricing is part of a a methodology or a thought out methodology so that you get the margins you need, I'm absolutely fine with that.
Cecil Bullard: And so I'll tell certain clients, I mean, I have some clients, by the way, probably again, 10 to 15 percent of my clients they mark up their parts. They don't care. They get what they need. They carry a 58 to about a 62 percent parts margin and they don't get a, their customers don't leave them and they don't hate them and they don't say, Oh, they're too expensive.
Cecil Bullard: They just, they, they believe the service is great. They believe they've got a good product. They're willing to pay for it. So 10 to 15 percent of my clients do nothing. About, I don't know, 20 to 30 percent of the clients that we get in, usually when they first start, they're very nervous about marking parts up, so they go in tears.
Cecil Bullard: They go, okay, I'm gonna do it on oil, oil pumps, and I'm gonna do it on oil pan gaskets and water pumps, but on brakes and oil changes, I'm not gonna mark up the parts the way I would. And I'm, I'm like, okay, fine. That's fine. Just if you're going to pick out 10 things that you want to be price competitive on in your marketplace, then be price competitive, keep your prices inexpensive, whatever.
Cecil Bullard: I hate to use the word cheap because that's a different connotation. Keep your prices down on those 10 items. But you have to raise the other, you know, 985 items that you sell by one or 2 percent to make up for the difference. And that's, that's what you do and that's how you manage it. So are there any other questions here before I move on?
John Heller: Yeah, I, let's, just one quick one and then I know we've, we've still got a decent amount of material to cover here. Alon, just one last question on the parts thing here. Several questions revolved around sort of the 750 mark and up, we sell and install transmissions, engines, clutches, turbos, some of the higher dollar parts in there.
John Heller: What's, what's some of the advice around that type of strategy? 
Cecil Bullard: So I work, I've worked with so many different businesses over the years and, and all it brings to mind a Subaru shop that was doing a ton of Subaru motors, probably doing four or five Subaru engines a week in this particular shop in a big area and our parts margin was terrible.
Cecil Bullard: And so I come in and I'm like, okay, we're really losing a lot of money. I mean, they were probably 28 percent because mostly what they're selling are these giant items, these big items. And so I went to the owner and I said, okay we need to increase our margins here on parts. And so we're selling all these engines and those engines are very expensive.
Cecil Bullard: So number one, what's the bottom line profit margin that you're willing to accept. Now here it's, it's 45. 46%. Now, but I used to be in some shops, we had a 35 percent was our bottom line margin when I was running a shop, you know, 15 years ago. The lowest I would mark up a part. Would be 35%. So if I'm buying an engine, I'm marketing up 35%.
Cecil Bullard: Now that's about a 1. 6 1. 62 multiplier, something like that. And so, I might buy a 1, 000 motor and sell it for 1, 600 and get myself a whatever it's 35 percent or whatever that is. It, it, you have to determine where you are. Now back to my engine shop. I went to the owner and I said, okay, can we change the price of engine?
Cecil Bullard: They were like, no way our clients will leave us. And, you know, we won't be doing motors. And, and so I was like, okay, what can we raise the price by 500? So we're currently selling an engine for, I don't know, 3, 500. Can we sell it for 4, 000? I said, no, we can't do that. I said, okay, well, what about 400? I said, no, we can't do that.
Cecil Bullard: So what about 300? Nope. What about 200? No. What about 100? Can we just raise the price of an engine job by a hundred bucks? And they said, okay. And so I, I said, okay, we're going to raise the price tomorrow by 200. And we raised the price 200 an engine. Now nobody stopped. Nobody that was going to buy a 4, 000 engine or a 3, 500.
Cecil Bullard: Motor said no, because it was 200 more. And I think in, in my experience, and it is pretty vast, I've done this forever. The buyers are the buyers and the not buyers are the not buyers. Now, depending on your marketing, maybe you brought a lot, a lot of not buyers in your shop. You've been running a lot of discount coupon marketing.
Cecil Bullard: You're attracting a certain segment of the market. That's looking for discounts and coupons. And if you're not, and you never have, then you're. You're looking for, you know, you're attracting a segment of the markets looking for relationship and quality. And so, if I want to, if I want, you know, if I'm, if I've got relationship and quality customers in my shop and the job's going to be 3, 700, if it's 39, the people that were going to say yes at 37 will not say no at 39, it really doesn't matter.
Cecil Bullard: Because they're, they're not price in every survey that's been done on what do customers want prices in the top nine or 10, but it's always nine or 10, it's never first, second, third, fourth, fifth is the highest it, it ever comes up. It's always about convenience and quality of product and, and trust and relationship before it's about price.
Cecil Bullard: So, Long, long answer is maybe I have a lot of engines and I have to say to myself, well, maybe I'm never going to have a 58 percent margin, but I am going to bring my motors up or my transmissions up by X dollars, by the way, back in the day, the transmission shops were the shops that made the highest margin because the parts on transmission rebuilds, there was huge margin in the parts.
Cecil Bullard: I know because I ran a big transmission concern for years. And, and we made better margins than any automotive service and repair shop. Things have changed over the years a bit, but those are, are good margins. And I think you have to decide, you know, Cecil's telling you 58%. Some of you are going to say, there's no way in heck.
Cecil Bullard: And some of you are going to decide, well, what if I do 52? Okay, then set it for 52 and then manage your matrix to get 52. That's your decision. What profits you make is your decision. I'm going to tell you what I think best practices are. I'm going to tell you what not only me as a coach and consultant teach in the industry, but probably out of the 40 other guys that do this that I know, probably 39 of them teach the same numbers.
Cecil Bullard: All right. So you can't just put a matrix in place. You'd think to yourself, Oh, I'll just put a matrix in place and leave it. And that'll be fine. You actually have to monitor it and you may have to adjust it. Reasons that you might adjust it is it might not fit your business. So you take my matrix, that is more for a general repair shop or a specialty shop, like, not specially like transmission or, or heavy duty engine, but more for European cars.
Cecil Bullard: When I talk specialty and you put that in place and your prices are just too high for the customers that you're attracting and you say to yourself, okay, I can't use that matrix, but what you do is you make minor adjustments to the matrix. And until you get to where you feel like, okay, this matrix is working for my shop and it's getting me the margins that I want.
Cecil Bullard: And the reason why the matrix might not work is because of the type of jobs you do. So if you're a you know, a tire store where you're doing tires I don't have tires in this matrix. I have tires in a different matrix. You know, we, we set a goal for 40 percent on tires. Most of the tire stores that I would be working with are probably in the 37, 38 percent on their tires.
Cecil Bullard: There's some other things that would, would qualify based on buying and so some of the big guys that are buying millions of tires can get their tires at a better price and, and mark them up a little less. I can't compete with those people and I'm not. My clients buy tires from me because it's convenient for them and they don't want to have to go somewhere else and, and deal with that.
Cecil Bullard: And so they're willing to pay a little more for the tires from my business. I might have that business, the tire store business where half my business is tires, and I'm gonna have a lower margin on those, but on the things that are not tires that are service and repairs, I'm gonna set a goal for 58 percent and I'm gonna track that and try to, you know, make adjustments to my matrix to get there.
Cecil Bullard: I might have a shop where I'm doing a lot of engines. We are working currently with a lot of diesel shops. And for some reason, our diesel shops have much higher average repair orders and they're doing motors and, and other things that some of our general repair shops are just not doing. And so we may make adjustments to the matrix for the type of jobs that we do so that we maximize our margins and hit the targets that we want to hit.
Cecil Bullard: A quick question there. Come up. It's come up a little bit in the chat here. The Q and a when we're saying margins. I know we covered this just briefly in the last one. But can you just sort of reset the audience on some of the terminology, you know, when you're in margin and markup and gross profit, things like that. 
Margin is the difference between what I paid for the part and what I charge for it. And you will see margin a little later in the, we're gonna go through it so you really understand it. And then one more slide or two slides down. Markup is the multiplier. So if I want to get a 50 percent margin, I have to use the 200 percent multiplier.
Cecil Bullard: So I have a dollar part. I sell it for 2. That's a 200 percent markup two times one equals two. And but it's a 50 percent margin. And, and I'll explain that exactly in a moment with a slide. Gross profit, you have, you have you have gross profit. So in an automotive business, we sell parts and labor.
Cecil Bullard: That's on another slide coming up real soon, but I pay for the part and I pay for the labor. And then what's left in the pile is my gross profit. So gross profit is what's left after you take your variable expenses. And I know some shop owners and some people are saying, well, what's a variable expense variable expenses, parts and labor?
Cecil Bullard: Because if I don't do any jobs, I don't pay for any parts or any labor, but I still have rent. I still have utilities. I still have some staffing costs, management costs, etcetera. So those in a way, don't. You know, those are later, those come after, below the line, after my gross profit. So, I have my, here's my sales, I pay for my parts, I pay for my labor, I have money left in that pile, that is my gross profit.
Cecil Bullard: And then I take out all my fixed expenses and everything called net profit after I pay all the bills. But before I pay taxes, I have what's left in that pile. And we're going to target 20%. Now we went over all of that in part one. So if you're, if you're fuzzy on that, you can view part one, and you can see all of that with all the math.
Cecil Bullard: Number three If you decide to discount some items, you've got to raise others, and we've already kind of covered that, so I'm not going to spend a ton of time here, but the more items you discount, the higher price the rest needs to be so that I make the margins that I want. It's kind of funny. We talked about three different ways of marking up parts in number one.
Cecil Bullard: One of the ways is to double every part. So we have people that say, I'll just double the parts. That'll give me 50%. I'll make all the money I want. And then I get a 4 oil filter and I'm okay to sell that for 8. But I get a 4, 000 motor. I'll never sell it for, you know, an engine that I won't sell that for 8, 000.
Cecil Bullard: I'll sell a 4, 000 engine for maybe five or maybe 4, 800, but I'll never sell it for 8, 000. And so I end up with a, I don't know, on the engine, which is now this huge part of my parts, it's, you know, 4, 800 worth of my parts sales. I end up with a 22 or 23 or 24 percent margin. And then I bring this 50 percent from this oil filter that's 4 and I still emit 23, you know, 0.
Cecil Bullard: 1. I just, how many oil filters do I have to sell at 8 that make up for one engine that I sell at 4, 800 if I paid 4, 000 for it? And, and so there's always this idea of paying attention to your numbers and, and trying to balance things out so that you're sure of, you know, where you really are in the long run.
Cecil Bullard: If you're doing it the way that I would suggest, you're probably looking at your matrix. And you're, you're looking at your margins monthly, parts margins, and you, you have a system, a matrix in place, and you have some processes around how you mark up parts so that your people know how to do it. And then you look at your parts margin at the end of the month and you say to yourself, Oh, we were great.
Cecil Bullard: We're great. I don't have to look anywhere. I don't have to go anywhere. Or you might look at your parts margin and you're trying for 58 and you're getting 38 and then you say, Okay, well, what did we do? Is the matrix broken? Are we not following the matrix? So it kind of gets us to our another slide. If we're our goal is 58, but our actual margins are 48.
Cecil Bullard: Again, the difference between what I paid for the part and what I mark, you know, what I got for it. Then I might have one of three problems. It really comes down to three things. I got a broken matrix. So I might need to adjust it based on the fact that I'm buying more dealer parts than somebody else.
Cecil Bullard: I mean, in certain shops believe that only dealer parts are the right parts and you need to put those on. I, I don't subscribe to that myself. I do, having been a tech and And rant run shops and own shops. I do know that in some cases, the dealer part is the better part and I need to use it, but it's not every part.
Cecil Bullard: Some shops actually believe that they're going to buy a much higher percentage of dealer parts. And so they need to look at their matrix and make adjustments for that, or they won't make the money that they should. The second thing is that I'm doing more of those bigger jobs. That was the question.
Cecil Bullard: You know, if I'm doing engines and transmission, see, so you're telling me to make 58%, ha, ha, ha, not going to happen. There's also a thing called gross gross profit per hour. And if I'm making enough gross profit on a job, I might look at. An engine, I'm gonna do that engine in 20 hours, and I don't know, my profit on that job is say, $3,000.
Cecil Bullard: So I'm making $150 an hour in gross profit after I pay for the parts and the labor. I have $150 an hour. You know, I made whatever that, you know, that $3,000 profit on that job. And then I do a break job, which is only a $600 job, but it costs me three in parts and labor. And so now I've, I've got a $300.
Cecil Bullard: profit for an hour's worth of work or 150 profit for an hour's worth of work. As long as I'm bringing the right gross profit. And this is not a class for that. We're just talking about parts margin here, but I do need to think about my gross profit. It's an important part of making sure that my shop is, is making money.
Cecil Bullard: And so I might run an engine shop where I'm doing a lot bigger jobs. I might have a lower parts margin overall. But when the dollars are done, I'm making the same amount of dollars at the end of the month. Right. And so either I've got a plan to make dollars gross profit dollars and, and therefore net profit dollars cover my expenses and leave me money in the pile.
Cecil Bullard: Or I have a plan to make sure I'm marking my parts up correctly and getting that margin because when that's all done, then I still make 20 percent net. That's the plan. Right. 
John Heller: And you, you alluded to this a little bit in your response a minute or so ago here. One, one individual asked the question, why should we run a lower margin on dealer parts where we source the part shouldn't affect my needed margin?
Cecil Bullard: And you remember, I told you that, that like 15 percent of my clients, that that's their attitude and they just mark up parts. It's kind of funny. And there's a, a very big metro area. And if I mentioned the area, you probably would know the guys I'm talking about, but there's two pretty big players up there, maybe three.
Cecil Bullard: And they happen to be clients. One of them is a big European area. He's got multiple shops. And every time that I talked to him, I'm like, your parts margin sucks, right? It's at, at 48%. And he explains to me that where he's at in his community, you can't make 58%. You have to shoot for 52. And if you shoot for 52, you end up with 48.
Cecil Bullard: So he goes, I'm happy with that Cecil. And I'm like, okay, great. That's what you've chosen. Yeah. I'm far be it for me to argue with you too much. I have another client up there that actually runs two shops. He does he'll make 2 million net out of these two shops. One of the vish shops we'll do, I don't know, six or 8 million this year.
Cecil Bullard: And then the other shop does 3 million and he'll make 2 million in profit. He does all the time, and his parts margins are like 60%. And by the way, these two businesses are within 15 miles of each other, and they're literally kind of competitors. Well, I've got one guy that tells me, well, you can't make money on parts in this area.
Cecil Bullard: I've got another guy that tells me, I just mark them up. And the customers pay for it or they don't. I've got a guy in the San Francisco area. He's a mobile mechanic and he gets 64 to 67 percent margin on his parts. He figures I'm mobile. I'm coming to them there. They better, they need to pay for it. And that's how I mark it up.
Cecil Bullard: And by the way, his clients pay it. I always say when I'm, when I'm teaching, I'm going to write this book and the book's going to be titled Cecil, You Don't Understand. Because I have people telling me all the time, well, you don't understand where I'm at, or you don't understand the business I'm in, or you know, you don't understand.
Cecil Bullard: And so you, you know, if you're in San Francisco, you can't make parts margin because people are, you know, this, or if you're in Utah, you can't make parts margin because people are this. And I got to tell you, that's all hokey. That's all hokey. It's whatever's in your head, biggest problem you have is here in your brain.
Cecil Bullard: If you believe you can make parts, margin, you mark them up. The majority of clients are going to pay it. You're going to lose a couple, but the majority will pay it and they'll be happy to pay it because you're, they're not there because you're the cheapest guy in town. They're there because they believe that you're giving them a service that they.
Cecil Bullard: that they, there's value in it. Okay. Someone's not following your matrix. This is the problem we find most of the time. Someone, usually the owner, is feeling for the customer and saying, ah man, this is awfully expensive. I'm gonna, Lower this part by a hundred bucks because it's not real dollars. It's not like you're taking money out of your pocket, right?
Cecil Bullard: It's on paper right now. It doesn't mean anything. It's not real dollars. And what I tell owners and service advisors is go to the bank, get yourself some brand new 20 bills. And when you decide to lower the price on a part, because you feel bad for the customer, Just take some of those 20 bills out and hand them over the counter and have the customer pay you with those.
Cecil Bullard: Because every time you discount the part or anything else, frankly, you're actually giving away dollars that you should make. And, and I think we are very emotional in this business. We really feel for our clients, which is wonderful, but I will tell you that I didn't build the car. I didn't buy it. I didn't drive it.
Cecil Bullard: I didn't break it. I shouldn't have to supplement the customer's repairs. When I go to the grocery store, They don't look at me and say, Oh, that's Cecil. He's been living here for 25 years. He's had raised four kids and 14 of their friends over the years. And he's bought, you know, millions of dollars worth of groceries.
Cecil Bullard: And so we're just going to lower his prices because he's a good guy and we don't want him to feel bad when he checks out and pays for those milk and eggs. They don't do that. When I go the. To the nice restaurant over here, which I'm in quite a bit, get myself a steak. They don't say, Oh, that's Cecil.
Cecil Bullard: We know him really well. You know, normally our steak would be, you know, 55, but we're going to lower it down to 35 because Cecil's a nice guy. And we feel for him. They don't do that. We only do that pretty much in the automotive industry. So, if I'm managing the business, number one, I'm going to have a matrix in place if I'm managing the business, I'm going to look at where my margins are and I'm going to make adjustments to my matrix based on.
Cecil Bullard: The type of parts I'm buying, type of jobs I'm doing, where I'm getting those parts, so that I get the margin I need to. And if I'm managing the business, and we have a matrix in place, and that matrix is adjusted, and we're not getting our margin, I'm going to start looking for heads to cut off. And no knives are used and no people are hurt.
Cecil Bullard: But I'm going to find out who's discounting. And I'm going to go find out if they want to actually pay for that themselves. Because when they're discounting, they're actually taking money out of my pocket, their pockets, and believe it or not, my customer's pocket. Because if I have no profit, I can't take care of a customer that has a problem.
Cecil Bullard: So that's, anyway, that's it. I, I, I, I am going to come out of this really quickly. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here. The matrix that you will get the, the, from PartsTech from the QR code is a lot like this. You can put the price in here. We have a 34. 95 part. That's what we paid for it.
Cecil Bullard: And based on the matrix, we're going to charge 96. 11 for it. We could put in a 14, 000 part. Let's see 0. 00. So it cost me 14, 000. I'm gonna sell for 2, 800 in this matrix. It 1, 400. Eh, it ain't working right. That should be Lower. I have to look and see what, why that isn't doing what it's supposed to.
Cecil Bullard: Let's see if we can put it down here and make it work. 1, 400 2, 590 is what I'm going to sell that for. Ignore that particular one, the lower thing isn't working. I know it is on your calculator. I, I patched this together for the last minute so I could show it. I'm going to buy a, I don't know, a 12 part in 30 cents from my local job.
Cecil Bullard: I'm going to sell that for 33. 83. I'm gonna buy a 22 part from my dealership and I'm gonna sell it for 49. 50. Depends on which matrix, but the matrix that you guys have all works properly. I know that. We've looked through it. And if you have that little tool, you can just put the prices in and it'll tell you what.
Cecil Bullard: Also, almost every point of sale that I know of, I always say almost because I don't know of all the point of sales. But everyone that I know of has a matrix built in that I can manage. It might even have multiple matrices that I can put in for different vehicle types or different types of jobs or where I got parts.
Cecil Bullard: And it will do the calculations in and of itself. Any questions here, John? 
John Heller: I think we have some that we'll get to at the end here. I'd like for you to keep on going. 
Cecil Bullard: All right. So I have to understand how I make profit in an automotive business. I only have two things to sell.
Cecil Bullard: I sell, I buy parts from someone and I resell them. I mark them up. I buy labor from someone and I resell it to my customers. That's how I make money in the automotive business. So, if I don't mark up my parts correctly, that's about half of my business, maybe 45%, then I might lose 10%. And if I lose 10%, I might lose 40 to 70, 000.
Cecil Bullard: Labor's difficult to fix. That's a whole nother webinar. Parts is easy because it's just follow the matrix or don't follow the matrix, adjust the matrix so that it gets you where you want to be. Labor's a lot harder because we're dealing with productivity and, and other issues and costs. That's another hour long webinar.
John Heller: Well, maybe, yeah. And let's we won't dive into the details of that, but along the lines of labor, we had a really interesting question here asking, what do you think about charging the customer cost on parts? Like if they walked into an auto part and then just raise the labor that way you don't have to pay more money on tax because the parts are high and taxable.
Cecil Bullard: I think number one, the sales tax board, at least serving California is going to come down on your Fannie and you're going to end up paying some extra taxes because they know what you should be marking parts up because they know what the average shop marks parts up. And so you, you, you do put yourself at risk of a sales tax audit and trouble.
Cecil Bullard: I'm not saying that's actually going to happen necessarily, but it could. Number two, I think it's kind of chicken. Mark up your, your parts like you mark up your labor. You should be making profit on parts as well as labor. I hate to see our industry go that way. There is a contingent that's basically saying let's just sell parts for what we bought them for, for what the normal list is, and then let's mark up our labor.
Cecil Bullard: I guess in the long run, as a consultant, I don't care. As long as you make the right net profit and the right gross profit, it doesn't really matter. And I think that in some states where you have to define parts and labor maybe you're more apt to do that. In other states, you don't have to, you just have to say this is what the job costs.
Cecil Bullard: It always makes me Me laugh. I was working with a client today and I said, you need to raise your labor rate by 20 bucks. He said, I can't do that. Cecil and I said, well, what if we put a labor matrix in place and we just add 20 percent of the labor time. He was all over that. Oh, yeah, I can do that.
Cecil Bullard: And the funny thing is, is that. Basically, I'm doing exactly the same thing. It's, it, it, it, it's funny to me where emotionally sometimes we're tied up in other places where not I don't know if I answered that question. Basically, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to recommend it to my clients or the industry because I, I just don't like it.
Cecil Bullard: I can't tell you anything other than that. As long as you make the profit that you need to gross profit per hour and gross, you know, margin, net margin, gross profit margin, net margin, you're fine. How do I calculate margins? Margin is calculated by taking the difference between what I paid for the price and what I, part, and what I sold it for, and then dividing it by what I sold it for.
Cecil Bullard: If I bought a part for 3. 50 and I sold it for 11. 50, I made an 8 profit, so my profit, 8 divided by 11. 5 is 70%. That's a 70 percent margin on that part, okay? So there's the math for you the math behind the, the thing. Now labor we're also gonna, I'm just gonna do a labor one. If I bought the labor for 42.
Cecil Bullard: 50. So that would be maybe paying a tech, you know, 40 an hour. And then I got a 12 and 50 percent load parts FICA, feudal workers, comp P PTO, et cetera. And I sold it for one Oh five. I made a profit of 61, actually, geez, that's supposed to be 61 50. I've changed that in five different slides which is about a 59 percent margin.
Cecil Bullard: So if I'm supposed to make 64 percent on my labor. I'm supposed to make 58 percent on my parts. I did really well on my part here, but I didn't do really well on my labor. I did, I didn't get there. Okay I'm gonna die over this slide being wrong. Last slide of all and we'll ask, we'll answer questions.
Cecil Bullard: I have a sales volume, a shop where I have a sales volume of 65, 000 a month. I have a 60 percent gross profit that gives me 39, 000 in gross profit dollars to pay my bills. So I have a 500 average repair order. That means I need 130 cars. So assuming that I lower my margin because I'm not paying attention or I'm not using a matrix or I'm getting emotional by down to 50 percent on that same 65, 000.
Cecil Bullard: Now I'm, I've got 32, 500. I'm 600, 6, 500 short to pay my bills and leave money. And if I have a 500 average repair order. It means that I need 156 cars to do the same to do the same business. And so I need 26 more cars. And the more cars you bring into your business everybody thinks it's all about car count.
Cecil Bullard: It's not about car count, it's about margin. It's about making profit. If I lose 5 on every car that comes in, how many more cars do I want to work on today? I don't want to work on any. If I'm losing money and, and the whole point is here that there's a whole contingent out there saying, lower your price, lower your price, get more business in.
Cecil Bullard: Well, you can do that. You can lower your margins and get more business in your shop. You can lower your margins by, I don't know, 15%. And you'll have 10, almost 10, 000 less, and you'll need 43 more cars to get the same money in your bank. And then, here's the other, here's the other part of that, it's literally talking about your fixed expenses.
Cecil Bullard: Let's, let's look at the 32, 000. Let's say I have a 32, 000 worth of fixed expenses. That's me, the, the owner, I get paid for being a manager, etc. That's my rent, my utilities, my truck. My gas, my electric, you know, my insurances, my banking costs, all of that stuff costs me 32, 000 in a month. And I have a 60 percent net profit.
Cecil Bullard: Then I'm going to make a gross profit of 53. You know, 5, 300 and 53, 000. Ha ha, Cecil, get tangled up here. 53, 333. That's my I need to sell 53, 333 to pay that 32, 000. And if I have a 500 average imperative, it means I need 106. 7 cars in my shop, and that would be to break even. That would be not making a net profit, it's just paying the bills.
Cecil Bullard: Now 15 points. And so I'm losing 10 on my my parts. I'm losing five on my labor, which we see this all the time. I still have 32, 000 in expenses. Now I have to do 71, 000 in business. Now, by the way, because my margins are lower, it's actually going to lower my average repair order. So now I'm going to, instead of having a 500 average repair order, I'm going to have a 425 average repair order, 15 percent less.
Cecil Bullard: And it means I'm going to need 167 cars, or an extra 60. 7 cars, in order to make the same, to break even, be zero. And so you, you gotta be really careful about margin because the more your margin slips, the more business I have to do to pay the bills, the more cars I have to bring in the business and it's, it's risky.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. All right, now we're ready for questions. And we'll leave this up while we ask questions, and then we'll go I'll turn it back over to you sir. 
John Heller: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Cecil. Man, yeah, just some great questions. That's a great way to wrap it up. I, I love the, the diving in there and actually looking at what gross profit does to the business.
John Heller: Very valuable information. There Cecil. Thank you. A couple of things around mobile mechanics. You alluded to it a little bit in your illustration about someone in California doing that as well. This one says I'm a solo owner operator of mobile mechanic called shops around in the area. They said they're all at 30%.
Cecil Bullard: On their margins? 
John Heller: Yes, on their markup. 
Cecil Bullard: Where are you? In the southeast somewhere? In Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas? I'm sorry, I've been dealing with shops for 42 years, going on 43 now. And we don't, we have shops that are at 30 when they start. We don't have any shops at 30 when they, they end working with us.
Cecil Bullard: And by the way, if you, if you are mobile, and you're going to the customer's home, And you're charging cheap to get that job. Shouldn't you be charging more because you're actually creating convenience for them and going to their home instead of charging less? The, we, we work with several mobile mechanics as well as, as you know, brick and mortar shops several hundred of them actually.
Cecil Bullard: And Most of our guys are probably, if we average margin between all of our people new coming on and our people have been with us for a long time, we're probably averaging somewhere around 52 percent parts margin amongst all the shops that we work with. Think about a 22 percent difference in your parts margin.
Cecil Bullard: And if you're gonna sell, I don't know, 100, 000 worth of parts, that's 22, 000. That's, that's a lot of money. Sorry, John, I interrupted you. Go ahead. 
John Heller: No, that's great. And along the lines of mobile here this individual says I do flat pricing for things like oil changes and brakes. Do you think this is a mistake?
Cecil Bullard: Yes, absolutely. Are you kidding me? Flat pricing. So I'm going to do the same brake job on a Corvette as I'm going to do on a Camry or a Honda. Or a I don't know, a Jag, a Jaguar a Jaguar. You know, I'm going to have the same price. There's no way in heck I'm doing that based on my costs is, is what you're going to pay.
Cecil Bullard: It's never going to be, I just set the price. I mean, it's just. Are we, are we going to the lowest common denominator? Are we building a business that's going to be successful financially and an industry that's going to be sought at and looked at like professionals and be profitable? Yes, that's a big mistake.
Cecil Bullard: Don't do it. 
John Heller: Right. Here's, here's another one for you. If I sell a job that includes parts, such as a job for 300, part cost is 40. How do you back calculate for the part? 
Cecil Bullard: Well, I'm going to take. I take that 40 part and I put it in the matrix and it charges whatever it's going to charge. Which by the way, if you're running your business correctly and you're estimating correctly, you have about 55 percent of your sales is going to be labor and about 45 percent is going to be parts.
Cecil Bullard: Parts margin should have a 58 percent margin. Maybe you don't stick to see, you're not as tough as I am and you're going to be 52. Labor should be, if it's loaded, we want to see a 64 percent labor margin or a little higher. Unloaded labor, we want to see 74 to 80 percent margin on, and the load is the FICA Feudal Workers Comp, whether you look at it either way.
Cecil Bullard: I would back into that and say that 55 percent of that 300 which is 165, is going to be labor. And so my part with is going to be the difference, which is 135. That 40 part is going to go out for 134. 95. That's going to be you know, a $300 job all in. And by the way, I bet you that's about 60, 60 to about 60 percent margin on that part.
John Heller: All right. Here's one. How would you matrix parts for commercial customers? Any different? 
Cecil Bullard: It depends on what part of my business is commercial and what my commercial customers are looking for. If my commercial customers are looking for price We, we work with several different commercial fleet type customers.
Cecil Bullard: One guy does 200, 000 aluminum tank repairs. Another guy is taking care of the. You know, the air conditioning guys, fleet of cars and of trucks. And so when I'm selling the, the customer, I'm going to sell them on the idea that for every hour, their truck is not on the road. It's costing them four to 400 to a thousand dollars.
Cecil Bullard: Depends on what you're doing. If you're. If you're taking, you know, hazardous chemicals around the United States or Canada, then it's going to be a higher cost if you're just, your air conditioning guy's not out fixing air conditioning units because the truck won't get him there. Probably costing you around 400, 450 an hour.
Cecil Bullard: And so I'm not selling a cheap price, I'm selling, get it in, get it out fast, get it back on the road, make money. And so, the way I handle, Pricing for those guys as I talk about the value of what I do, like I would for any client and I make some agreement with them. Maybe you've told them you'll only mark up parts 20 percent or 30 percent and so now I have to start playing games with labor and try to make that extra money up in labor or maybe I reach out to my guy and say, look, we need to make 40 or 45 and they decide, hey, I don't want to work with them or I will.
Cecil Bullard: I hate the fact that we would go, look, it's 30 percent to you because you're a fleet and you're going to bring me all this business. So now the bulk of your business is people paying a lower margin. So how many more cars do I have to work on? And I don't know if that answers that question. It's not my business is never going to be about price It's always going to be about what we can do for you How quick we can get that vehicle back on the road and and the quality of the product that we offer And so i'm always going to charge a little more than probably somebody else will yeah You get to decide what you want to do.
John Heller: Absolutely. All right I think we got time for just one or maybe two more here. Cecil and I I know we've got a lot of great questions in there, and unfortunately, we won't be able to get to all of them. Just, I know you touched on it briefly, I just want to reiterate, there's several questions in here about tires.
John Heller: And I think you mentioned tires is somewhere in the 40 percent you would recommend? 
Cecil Bullard: We shoot, we shoot for 40 in tire stores. It's funny I've worked with all the different major tire chains or guys that had shops for different tire chains, and I went into one. We were about 24%. I told them we were gonna get 40%.
Cecil Bullard: They thought I was nuts. Nine months later, we were 38%. There are different things you can do to increase your. tire margins. Not enough time to actually do that here, but I'm shooting for 40 percent on tires, especially in an independent shop. That is not a tire store. My customer is gonna pay a little more for the tires, but it's about the convenience, not the cheap tires.
Cecil Bullard: They can buy cheap tires anywhere. But their cars in my shop today, they for the convenience, they're going to pay a little more from us and, and shopping tires and how you sell tires. It's a different game than selling water pumps or brake jobs. It's a completely different sales process. 
John Heller: And one last question here, and maybe I'll ask you to, to stop sharing so I can throw it one closing slide up here.
John Heller: See, so in closing we talk a lot about emotion here and you know, we just got another couple of questions in here today around what what do I do when people are out price shopping my parts on Amazon and they bring in, I found this part on Amazon for X, Y, Z, how do we, how do we handle this emotional tag that all of a sudden parts are a commodity and that people expect the lowest price anywhere on parts?
Cecil Bullard: So, think about going to your local restaurant and bringing your eggs, your bacon, your, your steak into the restaurant and saying, would you cook this for me? I guarantee you if you try it. Take a steak or take a bag with with a steak and a potato in and ask the restaurant to cook that for you and see what happens.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. So what, what's going to happen in our industry, like every other industry is people are going to do what we allow them to do. Now, there's three reasons not. To let someone bring their own parts in your shop. Actually more than that. So one is you make me crazy. You're the person that complains the most.
Cecil Bullard: You bring me the cheapest parts that don't fit. And then when your car is here for three weeks, because you had to go back to Amazon and try to get the right part. It's sat here in my way. And now you're mad at me because your car's not fixed because you didn't supply the part. In most States.
Cecil Bullard: Your warranty on parts, no matter what you write on the work order, you have the customer sign is exactly the same as any warranty on any part that you would give to any customer that comes in your shop and you supply the parts. So whether you like it or not, if you're giving a three year 36, 000 mile warranty to your regular customers who let you supply the parts and make your margin, you're giving the same warranty to the person that brings their own parts to your shop.
Cecil Bullard: Because when you go to court, And that judge says, why did you do this or why didn't you, you know, they think you're the professional and you will lose that court case, plain and simple. That's just how it is. Number one. Number two, if the insurance company that does your liability insurance finds out that you are letting people supply their own parts and creating that liability, not knowing the quality, the provenance of the part they can and might cancel you or raise your rights.
Cecil Bullard: Okay, because you're creating additional liability for them because you do not know where that part came from. You do not know what's in that part or how it's going to work or anything. Now, number three, I have to make a certain margin or I go out of business. I cannot let you bring your own steak into my restaurant and cook it for you because then I don't make the money I need.
Cecil Bullard: And I still have to pay for the lights and the overhead and everything else and make a profit. So the answer would be no, I don't allow it. Think about this. What if every shop was like every restaurant and we just said, no, I won't take those parts. Yes, I know you can buy them cheaper, but I don't know the, I don't know the quality.
Cecil Bullard: I don't know the provenance. I don't know if they're a counterfeit part. I don't know if they're quality part. If the part doesn't fit now, the things your bay, your area is going to be tied up for weeks at a time while the customer goes and gets another part. Now, you think this is a new thing. Parts pricing and parts.
Cecil Bullard: We've been fighting this same battle for 42 years. Long, as long as I've been in the industry, people have been coming in my shop with, I can buy that alternator cheaper at, at Pep Boys, AutoZone. I can buy that alternator cheaper at Napa. You know what the answer to that is? Absolutely. Yes, you can.
Cecil Bullard: But it does not come with a warranty. It does not come with a guarantee that it's fixing your problem. It does not come with my customer service. So think about that steak. I can buy it cheaper at the local grocery store. You bet you can. But it doesn't come cooked perfectly on your plate with a guarantee that it won't be tough and that you'll enjoy it.
Cecil Bullard: And it doesn't come with someone that cleans up the dishes. Okay? We have to stop. Playing the games that the cheap people in the world want us to play so they can save a few nickels. We have to start being business people in our industry. If we want to be treated like professionals, we have to act like professionals.
Cecil Bullard: One more comment here. Big, it's a big area. The guy that brings his own alternator, his own water pump, and you write on the ticket, hey, no warranty, 30 days later when that thing goes bad, you want to know who he's going to blame? Not the company that made the part. He's going to blame you because you're the one that put it on the, on the vehicle, and he's gonna, he's gonna be the one that's in your face, demanding that you put another one on and not the guy that says, Oh, I bought the part, so it's my fault because I didn't buy a good part.
Cecil Bullard: I know I've experienced it many, many times over the years. We have to stop letting people bring their own parts into our shops. 
John Heller: Excellent. Well, thank you, Cecil. Again fantastic information here. I hope everyone on the call here, this webinar, found it extremely helpful and useful. Closing here, up on your screen, you'll see QR codes to learn a bit more about the Institute and the services they provide.
John Heller: Also, you'll see QR code there for signing up for a parts tech demo. And I'd encourage anyone who's curious about how parts tech is helping shops understand and monitor gross profit as they're looking for parts and building ROs we'd be happy to show you how parts tech is solving those problems for you.
John Heller: So again, thank you all for joining today. We will send this recording out to everyone here on the call and those that may have missed it as well. Cecil, again, thank you very much for coming on and imparting your wisdom. Everyone have a great day. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you.
 
 

95 - Mastering Parts Markup Strategy for Auto Repair Shops with Cecil Bullard (Part 1)

95 - Mastering Parts Markup Strategy for Auto Repair Shops with Cecil Bullard (Part 1)
March 27th, 2024 - 00:51:17
 
Show Summary:
In this episode, John Heller from PartsTech is joined by Cecil Bullard of the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence to discuss one of the biggest missed profit opportunities in the auto repair industry; parts markup. With data showing that many shops are leaving between $40,000 and $70,000 per year on the table, Cecil breaks down why most shops are underpricing, how to implement an effective markup strategy using a matrix, and why emotional pricing and fear of customer pushback are holding many shop owners back. The conversation is filled with real-world examples, tactical advice, and encouragement to take control of your margins and profitability.
 
Host(s):
John Heller, PartsTech
 
Guest(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder & CEO, The Institute
 
Episode Highlights:
[00:01:24] - 67% of shops are losing money by underpricing parts; a problem easily fixed with the right strategy.
[00:02:18] - Many shops leave $40K–$70K on the table annually due to weak parts markup.
[00:04:00] - The Institute has helped 3,000+ shops improve parts margin, aiming for 58% average.
[00:06:15] - A 15% drop in margin on $400K in parts equals $60K in lost profit, math doesn’t lie.
[00:07:17] - Using manufacturer’s list prices leads to 32–38% margins, far below the 58% target.
[00:09:23] - The only consistent way to hit strong margins is by following a parts matrix religiously.
[00:10:31] - Customer pushback is often in your head; shops around you are likely getting 58% already.
[00:11:17] - “Parts are expensive” is a universal reaction; it doesn’t mean customers won’t pay.
[00:14:10] - If you're buying a shop with no markup, go straight to 58% and replace unprofitable customers.
[00:18:20] - Emotional pricing is dangerous: remove fear, build value, and focus on delivering solutions.
 
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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John Heller: Hello, everyone. Welcome. We'll give a few seconds here as more are joining. We've got a lot to cover today. Very exciting topic. So we'll jump into it here in about 10 more seconds.
John Heller: All right. Again, welcome, everyone. We're extremely excited that you've joined us for this very important topic of parts markup. I'm John Heller, product marketing here at PartsTech. And we'll be bringing together with you our guest who I'll introduce here in a moment. Cecil from the Institute, a couple of housekeeping items.
John Heller: We'll use our chat function in this webinar to allow you to post your questions there. We'll be monitoring these questions as we go along. I know a lot of you will have questions as Cecil goes through this information. So please put those in our chat box and we'll do our best to get to as many of them as we can during the course of this conversation.
John Heller: So a brief intro about PartsTech for those of you who are new to PartsTech, we are a platform that makes it fast and easy for auto repair shops to find and order parts and tires across all of your suppliers. in one lookup. We are completely free to get started. No credit card required. And we allow you to connect an unlimited number of suppliers through parts tech so you can quickly find and order the parts you need across multiple, multiple suppliers at once.
John Heller: We recently ran a survey and found that nearly 67 percent of shops are leaving money on the table when it comes to profit. on parts. That is an astounding number, especially as Many of us are looking for ways to save money, make more money in today's economy a very important topic. And so as we put this report together, we thought, hey, let's, let's really dive into this a little bit deeper.
John Heller: And let's bring in an expert who can shed some light into maybe what the thought processes are around getting started with a parts markup strategy. It's not as big and cumbersome as many think, and hopefully Cecil will show us how easy it is to get on your path to better profit margins on your parts.
John Heller: And so without further ado, Cecil made this very interesting statement here that many shops are leaving around 40 to 70, 000 per year on the table due to an insufficient part markup practice and or strategy. And so we are pleased to have Cecil join us today and dive into a little bit more of the specifics behind what he's seeing in our industry and some very practical ways that shops can get on their way.
John Heller: To a more profitable parts markup strategy. So Cecil, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. I'll turn it over to you now, let you introduce yourself and we'll jump into this great topic and the information that you've put together. 
Cecil Bullard: Thank you, John. As John said my name is Cecil Bullard and I am I've been, you name it, I've been a tech and a service advisor, managed shops, owned multiple shops the last shop that I ran.
Cecil Bullard: We had a 62 percent parts margin, a little higher than what we would recommend because our rent was very, very high or our, our building payment about 23, 000 a month. And so we needed the, the, the profits to pay that. I'm gonna try to really kind of sail through here. I do, however like questions.
Cecil Bullard: If you have questions, we're going to try to get some of those answered. I know we can't answer them all in the time we have, and I'm going to get some foundational stuff in. I also, as part of the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, which is our company we worked with I would say at this point over 3, 000 shops kind of intimately and improved parts margin.
Cecil Bullard: And so what I'm talking, when I'm talking about the numbers, I'm talking about numbers I've been tracking for 20, 25 years. And what my mentors taught me years and years ago and what I'm out teaching the industry and what most of the coaches that I talk to are, are also teaching. So let's, let's go. There is a workbook and there will be a couple of different calculators, including a parts calculator.
Cecil Bullard: That you can download this will come up again for someone who maybe didn't wasn't ready or didn't get prepared, but this way you can download the workbook, which will have the. More description and more information in it. Let's get her done. I make a statement and I think it's a valid statement that parts margin is costing most shops well over 40, 000 a year.
Cecil Bullard: And that's based on us working with different shops when they first come into our company. One of the things we look at is, is parts margin, labor margins, productivity, average repair order. If you are a shop, A small shop today doing about 400, 000 in overall sales. Typically we see especially for general repair 50, 50.
Cecil Bullard: So about half of what you sell is parts and about half of what you sell is labor. Technically, we would tell you that's probably not quite right. You want your labor to be higher than your parts because labor has a higher margins, et cetera. But typically, this is what we see when companies first come to us.
Cecil Bullard: They haven't had coaching or training. So if you are selling you know, 400, 000 in sales in your business, about 200, 000 in parts, and you're off by 15%, which is pretty easy to do it's costing you about 30, 000 a year. If you're selling 800, 000 this would be most shops that we would see with maybe three texts or right around there, maybe four texts, very unproductive, but about 400, 000 in part sales, if you're off by 15%, that's costing you 60, 000 a year.
Cecil Bullard: And if you're over a million, say a million, one you're selling about 550, 000 in parts at 15%. That costing costs you 82, 000 a year. So I think the statement that most shops are losing somewhere between 40 and 70, I think it's a very accurate statement based on what we see in the industry and based on.
Cecil Bullard: New clients coming into us to get coaching and training. Now again, foundationally I'm going to make some statements here and I'm going to try to build a foundation for putting a matrix in place and, and, and improving your parts margin. So I would tell you that the average shop that we look at is somewhere between about 38 percent and 42 percent has a parts margin, and we would like them to be at, at 58 now.
Cecil Bullard: I would also tell you of all the shops that we work with there's always about 10 or 15 percent are that are hitting 58 or higher. But our average in our company is between about 54 and 55 percent for our clients. And so I think that's a, a pretty accurate number based on the number of clients we have in the industry.
Cecil Bullard: Actually if you looked at the clients and the numbers we have, It's, it's, there's more people than your survey the survey that PartsTech did. So I think that number is, is, is a very accurate number. There are three common methodologies for marking up parts that we find. The first methodology is to use manufacturer's list.
Cecil Bullard: And if you are a company that use manufacturer's list, you will end up between about 32 percent and 30%, 38 percent parts margin. And this is, is fairly common. The problem with manufacturer's list is, the manufacturer doesn't know what you need to make. The manufacturer is I used to make a joke when I was training that they put a, they go into a room and blindfold a guy.
Cecil Bullard: There's a bunch of different prices on the walls. They spin him around three times, give him a dart, and he throws the dart, and that's the manufacturer's, you know, suggested list price. That has Never really meant as much as we have put into it in the industry, it really doesn't matter what the manufacturer suggests that you sell the part for it really matters what you need to make in profit in your company.
Cecil Bullard: So that your net profit is right around 20%. And that's the target. The second methodology is to mark everything up 50%. We see this a lot. Oh, if you're using many, as I said, manufacturers list somewhere between 32 and 38%. If you're marking everything up 50%, that will never get you 50 percent because you'll mark up a 4 filter, the 8 all day long, it doesn't bother you.
Cecil Bullard: You think, okay, that's, that that's fair, but when you get a 4, 000 engine. in your shop, you'll never mark it up to 8, 000. I mean, you know, most companies probably get a 4, 000 motor. They might be selling it for five but they're not, you know, and that's not. 50% margin and you can't sell, you can never sell enough filters or whatever else at at 50% and have an engine or a transmission where you made 20%, you can't get to 50%.
Cecil Bullard: So we do see shops a little higher in their overall margins between about 35 and 44% when they're using the. 50 percent methodology. The true and only way to really get your margins is to use a matrix and stick to your matrix. And you know, there are some reasons, you know, there are some parts that we don't put in the matrix.
Cecil Bullard: Obviously tires have their own matrix. Batteries are often not in the matrix. Then on the other side of that, there are some parts that we can because of what they cost us and because of what they might list for, we can actually make more margin than our matrix. So we, we need to be aware of that and we need to pay a attention to that.
Cecil Bullard: Now, if you, if you do have questions we are, someone is monitoring that. John's gonna break in and go, Hey, there's a question. 
John Heller: Yes. 
Cecil Bullard: So, what we find with shops that are following a matrix it's, it's funny to me, we'll have a, a place where we have three or four clients in the general area, and there's a place like that, I have a guy who's a really well known guy, if I mention his name, many of you might know him.
Cecil Bullard: And he's got multiple shops and he always tells me, see, so you can't make where we're at, you can't make 58%. So he shoots for 52 and his business routinely makes 48 to 49. The only problem with that from my point of view is that I have multiple other shops in and around him that are making 58%, 59 percent and even 60 percent part smart.
Cecil Bullard: And so really. What you can mark your parts up for is not necessarily based on what the customer is telling you or, or that feedback that you might be getting. It's, it's mostly in here in your head. And if you don't believe that your clients are willing to pay, they'll never pay. Yes. 
John Heller: We just 
John Heller: had a great question come in, you know, right around that topic here.
John Heller: Someone is asking the question or making the statement perhaps of yes but my customer states that my parts are very expensive. 
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, they are. All parts are expensive. I think, you know, you go to the dentist and they I go to the dentist. I needed a cap. I had to have some work done and the dentist told me what I was going to pay for a cap and I was like, holy crap, that's expensive.
Cecil Bullard: And I even said that to the dentist and. Nobody wakes up in the morning going, Hey, I want to buy brakes and I want to pay a lot for the parts. I think that that is a natural response. Even my shop today calls me and they say, Cecil, you need X, Y, or Z. And you know, it's a couple thousand dollars worth of whatever.
Cecil Bullard: And my first reaction is dang it. That's so expensive. I think you have to be careful of translating that term. That's expensive into, oh my gosh, I got a. Keep my prices down. And there's another thought here. What if you did raise your margin, say, by 10 percent your parts margin? Let's say you're currently at 33 percent and your average repair is, say, 500.
Cecil Bullard: So 25 of that you know, half of it 250 would be parts and 250, say, is, is labor. And if you raise your parts margin by 10% you would have a a 25 increase. So your average repair order wouldn't be 500, it would be 525. And, and what I explained to you, and I, I, Believe me, I've been at the counter.
Cecil Bullard: I currently have, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of businesses that we work with that, that get it done all day long. That would equate to 525 for your customer. Now tell me what, what decent customer, I mean, not the guy that comes in and always argues with you about price or the guy that you don't really want or need that eats your time up.
Cecil Bullard: But what would a customer that would buy at 500, would they say no at 525? And the answer is no, they would not. I cannot tell you how many times we've been in a seminar and said I've been doing coaching for more than 20 years and every seminar, I'm like, raise your labor rate, every seminar. And all, many of you out there, you're going to say, yeah, yeah, that's what all coaches tell us to do.
Cecil Bullard: Well, you know, it's easy. Number one, number two, we're already. Underpriced as an industry. We have had thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of shops go home and raise their labor rate. Five, ten even. I had one guy raise his labor rate almost 50 an hour. And none of them chased away a bunch of clients.
Cecil Bullard: I mean, most of them will say, I, I, I don't even know who left. And they probably lost a few clients, but those are the bottom, you know, 1 percent or 2%, which are the ones that won't let you make money that eat up your life. You go back to Pareto's Law. So, yeah parts are expensive. Milk's expensive.
Cecil Bullard: Hell, when I go home and I buy a burrito on the way home, I think, God, that was expensive. I mean, I'm, my, my burrito is now 12, 15 bucks. Used to be 6. Of course it's expensive. Everything's expensive. So, I hope I answered that. I'm going to move and keep moving if that's okay. 
John Heller: One more, one more question on this markup.
John Heller: I think this is a really interesting question. We've got someone online who says, I'm buying a shop that currently doesn't have parts markup. What is it or what is a reasonable amount to jump to without freaking out the customer? 
Cecil Bullard: 58%. You put a matrix in place, you're going to do what you got to do.
Cecil Bullard: If you're buying a shop that never marked up a part you may lose some of those clients. You're probably going to lose some of them anyway because they're probably a bunch of people who don't want to pay for automotive repair. You come in, you raise the labor rate a little, you, you're going to lose some of those clients, but the difference that you're going to make in margin will make up for it.
Cecil Bullard: Mathematically I could raise my price by 10 percent and lose 25 percent of my, Customers in most shops and still make more money at the end of the day. I've done the math multiple times. I'm not telling you to do that. Please don't go home and okay. Cecil said, let's raise everything by 10%. But you could, if you, if you ran the math, you would have to lose more than 25 percent of your clients in most shops in order not to make more money by raising your price by 10%.
Cecil Bullard: And by the way, in most shops today, if you raise your price by 10% 95 percent of your clients wouldn't even know it, feel it, touch it, think about it. It would only be those people that are focused on price and it would also depend on your customer base. Here we go. Cecil's ADHD kicking in. If you built your business on discounts and, and more cheap customers, it will definitely affect you more if you built your business on relationships any kind of price increase or anything, it's going to almost not affect you at all. 
And there are plenty of relationship clients out there. I would say that more than 80 percent of the population would like to have a relationship as opposed to have a cheap price on, on their automotive service and repair. Absolutely. All right. Next what's the easiest thing to fix? Often when we you know, we get different kinds of clients that come to us, but we have a lot of clients that come to us that are losing money.
Cecil Bullard: You know, I can, Point to several guy came in, they lost 80, 000 the previous year. Been in business for 15, 16 years was getting worried. Felt like, Hey, I got it. I need a coaching company to help me. We turned that around right away. One of the things we did, of course, raise the labor rate a little bit.
Cecil Bullard: We also put a parts matrix in place, and then we monitored and managed that. And I think last year he came to me about four years in and he said, Hey, Cecil, I, we're going to make a little over a million dollars this year. And I need to know if you have a money manager I can work with. When you get up in those, that range, your typical accountant is not going to be able to take care of your business.
Cecil Bullard: And that's, Not the typical case. The typical case is, you know, we lost 80, 000 and next year we're going to make 120 and it's really is three or four things part smart and simplest thing to fix. So, you have to decide, though. You know what you want your margin to be and for me, there's a whole nother class on, you know, I want to determine that I want 20 percent net out of my business.
Cecil Bullard: That's fair. I don't get to keep all 20%. A third of that will go to the government. I get to pay. Uncle Biden and a third of it will go to the state of Utah. Cause that's where I live. You know, part of that third will go to the state of Utah. Whoever my uncle or aunt is here. I get to put a third back into my business.
Cecil Bullard: The, the the parking lot needs to be resurfaced refinished. The roof might need repair. I might need equipment, et cetera. And then I get to keep a third. So in a way, if I earn 20%, it's like me making 8 percent on an investment that I might put my money into. So to me, that's fair. You have to determine what's fair for you.
Cecil Bullard: If you need help with that, love to, love to talk to you. And help you understand what's, what's fair and what it ought to be. You put a parts matrix in place. We're going to give you an example of one that is I wouldn't call it super aggressive, but it's relatively aggressive. It's not mild, but it will get you to 58.
Cecil Bullard: If you're a typical shop, we'll talk about some of the reasons why we might not get there. As we go. But really, you need to remove your emotions out of this. I mean, nobody wants to buy automotive repair. Frankly, I don't want to go buy groceries. I like to eat, but I hate paying for groceries. I don't want to go to the dentist, but I go to the dentist.
Cecil Bullard: I don't want to go to the doctor, but I go to the doctor. I don't like the price of gas, but I'm gonna go fill up my truck on the way home today. And I'm going to pay it and I'm going to say, wow, that's a lot of money. Actually last time I was at the gas tank, I said, thank you, uncle Biden for these wonderful gas prices.
Cecil Bullard: And we need to get rid of all our emotional attachment. The fact is I didn't, I didn't build the car. I didn't buy the car. I didn't get the value of driving the car. I didn't break the car. It ain't my car. And there are too many shop owners, too many service advisors that are really afraid of the client.
Cecil Bullard: They're afraid the client won't love us. They're afraid the client won't like us. We need to learn sales skills, tactics unique selling proposition. How do I build value around my. My parts and my labor and how do I help the customer understand that while it is expensive, it is the right thing to do in the right way to do it.
Cecil Bullard: And we have a, holy smokes, I'm putting together a big class for SDX WorldPAC's big event. Can't wait. So also I need to understand the difference between markup and margin. If you've confused those two things, it's probably costing you that 40, 000 markup is the multiplier that we use. So I might buy a dollar part, sell it.
Cecil Bullard: Multiply it times four and sell it for four dollars. And margin is the difference between what I bought it for, the dollar and the four dollars. That's that three bucks that I made. That's margin. We're going to do a little math a little later. I want to get to the matrix, but I also want you to understand that when I'm Planning my business, I'm, I'm literally saying to myself, I want to have a certain amount of my money go to parts expense and labor expense.
Cecil Bullard: It's not really a budget, but by doing that, I get margin. So, this is a shop with three techs. They're effective labor. It's about 120. If they're three techs do 1, 960 hours, which they have the capacity to do 2, 080, if they work every week, but they won't they will do 1. 24 million in business with that effective labor rate.
Cecil Bullard: Now in this shop two things happen. They, they focus on their productivity. So they're. Well, three, they make sure their techs are 100 percent productive. That's another class. They price themselves with their labor correctly, and then they religiously follow a parts matrix. And I say religiously, because that's almost what you have to do.
Cecil Bullard: You know, when you have someone that's religious, you have someone that will come to you and, and even though you might be one religion and they're another, they're gonna tell you, you need to change, you need to come here. You need to be kind of have a religious, we're gonna follow our matrix, and you need to manage that.
Cecil Bullard: So, of my total sales, I want my parts expense to be about 18 percent. For rounding math off, making it easier for Cecil, if I did a million in sales, I would have 180, 000 to pay my You know, the people I buy parts from WorldPAC, Napa, you know, CarQuest whatever, wherever I buy my parts. And it, the way I make my margin is by only paying 18%.
Cecil Bullard: And I don't do that by telling the vendor, I only have X to pay for that part. I do that by marking the part up properly and following a matrix. If I follow a matrix and I earn a 58 percent margin. Then what's gonna happen is I'm gonna end up with 18 percent of my money going out for parts that year.
Cecil Bullard: Labor loaded, that's that little L, would cost me about 20%, so in this business I would have about 248, 000 to pay my technicians. Loaded is FICA, FUTA, workers comp, everything. And my margin on that would be about 64%, and that would give me a cost of goods. What does it take for me to produce one hour of parts and labor of about 38 percent and a gross profit of 62?
Cecil Bullard: So that's money left now to pay. Me, that's where my salary comes from in fixed expenses. Money left to pay the banking costs and the rent and the insurance and, you know, the truck and the gas and, and et cetera, the utilities. And, and for training 12 categories. But for training here, to keep it simple and to do it fairly quickly.
Cecil Bullard: We're gonna break it into three categories. One is sales. So whoever's selling my product we're gonna pay about 8 to 10%. That's also a loaded expense. So it includes FICA and FUTA, workers comp vacation days, holidays, PTO medical, dental, 401k, whatever I'm paying that either the tech in the labor expense or the salesperson in the sales expense.
Cecil Bullard: So here I would have 124, 000 to pay a salesperson or, or one and a half or one in an assistant. Then I would have a marketing expense somewhere between 6 percent and 9 percent depending on am I growing my company or not? And then last but not least, I would have my fixed expenses which again is my rent and utilities and my salary.
Cecil Bullard: Anyone supportive, the guy that cleans the floors or the gal that does the bookkeeping is in the fixed expense, or the guy that does the bookkeeping and the gal that cleans the floors. And that would leave me a net profit of between 20 and 24%. Now, the 24 percent happens when your business exceeds, this business exceeds 1.
Cecil Bullard: 24 million. So if this business were more than 100 percent productive and those techs actually were able to, you know, bill out 1. 4 million, then we might have 24 percent and we might pay those techs. We'd have more money to pay the techs because we'd have more profit. Now John, I cannot see the clock right now.
Cecil Bullard: So you got to tell me where we're going. 
John Heller: I have one interesting question as we're talking about this here from an individual. If a matrix raises your part price above list cost, do you leave it or adjust it down to list? 
Cecil Bullard: The answer is yes. You leave it.
Cecil Bullard: It doesn't matter. I still have to make the money I need to make. We have a lot of people that say, well, I can't like dealer prices. I got news for you. I've been in the business a little over 40 years. We've been competing with outside parts sources for 40 years. As long as I've been in the business, you know, I can go buy it at, at the parts house down the street for cheaper than you can sell it to me.
Cecil Bullard: The answer is yes. I can buy it online for cheaper than you can sell it to me. The answer is yes. I can go down the dealership myself and buy that part for less than you're going to sell it to me. The answer is yes. But what does that part come with, right? The part that comes from me guarantees it's going to fit.
Cecil Bullard: Guarantees that it's going to last. So we have a warranty. I guarantee that it's going to take care of your problem. You get great customer service. You don't have to spend your time going down and trying to get the right part. If I, if that part goes on your car And it doesn't work. If there's a problem with it, I'm going to take care of it because I have that great warranty.
Cecil Bullard: There are a lot of reasons and things that people don't consider at the dealership, most dealerships today. If you go in and buy the part in the parts house, you're going to pay less for it than if you buy it in the service department, because again, in the service department, that part comes with more.
Cecil Bullard: We also have people that are letting their customers bring their parts. There's many reasons not to do that. The, the, the, the, the biggest one is probably I don't make my margin and I go out of business. The, the second one where I starve and I keep working and I work myself to death. The second one is that if my insurance finds out that I'm creating additional liability for them, they may cancel me.
Cecil Bullard: You know, and the third is, you know, by law in, in every state, frankly, federal law whatever warranty I give, I can't not give that warranty to the person. I'm seen as the professional in the courts. So a judge will say, well, you were the professional. Why did you put that part on? You should have known it wouldn't be a good part.
Cecil Bullard: So there's lots of reasons. 
John Heller: And I'm glad. 
John Heller: I'm glad you touched on that because there's actually several questions in the chat around, you know, the demographic of this day is an online demographic. They're out there shopping parts on their own and how do we combat that? And I think the advice you just gave, you know, really speaks to that, that mentality.
Cecil Bullard: I think sales training would really help here because you have to understand what your unique selling proposition. Why can I sell that part for more? And by the way. Almost every shop that we work with, and I don't say almost because I don't know everyone, like, I, all the numbers personally, I couldn't bring them all to mind.
Cecil Bullard: Almost every shop that we work with sells their parts in general, often for more than a dealer would sell them. I, I think sometimes, We might look at that and go, wow, that's ridiculous and bring it down. But there's a whole pricing scheme that we'll get to probably in part two about how to handle that and how to still hold your margin.
Cecil Bullard: When occasionally I'm going to sell something for lower than I probably should sell it for. I'm going to, I'm going to move forward quickly here. This is a company with four techs. That doesn't follow a parts matrix. So, they're going to do 1. 2, 4 million, the same as three texts are not productive. And so what's going to happen here is my percentage of cost of sales.
Cecil Bullard: Cause I'm not following a matrix are going to go up. So instead of paying 18 percent for my parts, I'm going to pay 26 and have a 42 percent margin instead of paying my texts, you know, 20 percent out for my texts, I'm going to pay 25. Because they're not productive. So my, my cost of labor goes up in every shop that is not a flat rate.
Cecil Bullard: And I don't, we, that's another class, another discussion. I want to get into it. I'm not a favorite in favor of flat rate. Frankly, we build other type pay plans today. But if you do this and you're not following a matrix or you're too emotional and your people aren't productive, which is the average shop, 72 percent productivity in the average shop, then your cost of goods is 51 percent of instead of 38 and your gross profit is 49.
Cecil Bullard: This is more typical. Right? And this is what we see with shops coming in that have never had education classes. They don't know how to do this, right? And so we help them fix that because my sales expense then goes up because when I have more cars here and more techs, one service advisor cannot handle that.
Cecil Bullard: So I have to hire another person, buy another computer, have another kiosk, you know, have more parking, you know, blah, blah, blah. Everything goes up because of that. My marketing actually goes down because I don't have any money in the bank. So I cut my marketing when I really need that to kind of build my business and keep it consistent.
Cecil Bullard: And then my fixed expenses go up also because when I have more people, I need more stuff. Right. And so now. I have a 3 percent net now, five years ago, the average net profit in the industry was 3 percent today. It's about four. It's just a little above four. When it should be 20 percent and I, and I just want to make sure that everybody understands this is not a problem of cost.
Cecil Bullard: Most shops do really well with what their costs are. This is a problem of margin. It all happened above the line between parts and labor. And, and if parts is half of what I sell or 45 percent of what I sell, and I give away 15 percent because I don't know how to not do that. It could cost me 000 for a small shop.
Cecil Bullard: You know, 40, 000, a lot of money. It can make a big difference. Now this is the matrix that we use for most of our shops. And this is the matrix. I think, John, that we've worked with you guys on and there are different matrices. I have a different matrix for say diesel. And, and as you can see, I have a different matrix for dealership parts.
Cecil Bullard: So, with my parts, I buy oops. Backup Cecil. I keep I hit the wrong buttons. With, with my parts, like I buy from WorldPak or Napper, whomever if I buy a 2 part, I sell it for eight. That's a 70 of four times or 400 percent multiplier. Markup and a 75 percent profit margin. And what I really want to do kind of, if I could, is look at the average cost of the average part.
Cecil Bullard: And if you were to look at that, it's probably today in a shop, it used to be 26 bucks today, it's probably around 50, 55. And so you notice that the 50 to 100 is a 60 percent margin because if you have some parts lower and some parts higher cost and lower margin, what, where's the balance? And if we want 58%, we have to make adjustments kind of to our matrix dealer parts.
Cecil Bullard: Matrix is it's a little it, it goes down a little faster. And it goes down a little further if you're buying about 20 percent of your parts from a dealership or less and you're buying, you know, 80 percent from other sources which we call jobbers mostly this matrix will get you if you follow it.
Cecil Bullard: 95, 97 percent of the time, this matrix will get you 58 percent in your business. And then, you know, I think we're getting close to the time I'm looking at my watch. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you, John take over from this point. Hang on. I'm going to go one more. If you didn't get the matrix, if you didn't get the workbook you can do that.
Cecil Bullard: John, I'm gonna let you ask a couple more questions, and I think we're gonna stay a little longer after you're done for a minute, and then we're gonna answer some more questions if we need to. And then there's a great part two. Believe me, we haven't even, we haven't even scratched the surface here yet, so you want to be at part two also.
John Heller: Absolutely. Absolutely. Cecil and I know, you know, we've looked over the material. This is just scratching the surface. I think of, of what's available here to, to really help shops take a hold of an effective. Markup strategy. So I'm excited about this. I think we've got to continue the conversation with you let's get something on the books here and keep this conversation going 
Cecil Bullard: We will and we'll i'm sure you guys will have an announcement here in the next couple weeks for part two and we'll also run that through our people and everyone that is here and signed up We'll make sure they get that announcement you want me to hand this back over?
Cecil Bullard: There you go. You took it There you go. 
John Heller: All right. So, yes, do thank you all. I'm going to just close out here a little bit with parts tech and then I want to be respectful of everyone's time. We did say this was a 30 minute webinar. Obviously so much information to pack into it. We are going to stay online for a little while longer after I wrap up here.
John Heller: And do a live Q and a with Cecil. I know there's a lot of great questions in the, in the Q and a session here that I'd like to address. So quickly, I just wanted to show you a little bit about parts tech. As I mentioned at the beginning, parts tech brings together all of your part and tire suppliers into one screen and enables you to find parts quickly.
John Heller: across all of your suppliers. So as you see here, pulling in a disc, if you're going to go out and search for a brake pad set, you can quickly pull up all of your pricing and availability across multiple suppliers. In one screen. Now, some of the things that Cecil hit on around a parts matrix. We do provide that capability within parts tech for you to be able to come in in our plus package and be able to set some of these matrices.
John Heller: And of course, we've worked with Cecil to develop some best practices around what those figures are as a good starting point for your shop. And then how that really looks in your cart. Once you've run a search here is that as you are. Oops. Came out on me. Pardon. 
Cecil Bullard: I hate it when 
Cecil Bullard: that happens. 
John Heller: I know it.
John Heller: All right. Quickly got back in it and we'll pull up our vehicle and yes,
John Heller: all right, sorry, had this system kick me out. All right. So as you're building that cart in there, you'll be able to easily see down here at the bottom. Once you've got that parts matrix set up a live gross profit view of your cart. So this really gives you sort of that real time data of how you're tracking in this quote that you're putting together for a customer.
Cecil Bullard: John, I have to say something here because I'm looking at over here on the right here and it says my cost. It looks like my cost was 35 and the list price on this is 45. So I'm making basically 25 percent here. That's actually less than 25%. You make 25 percent profit on your parts. You're not going to be able to pay your bills.
Cecil Bullard: You're going to be hungry. So that's one of those examples of look and the funny piece too, there, it just got to. Sorry. You know, in the marketplace, I've got shops selling brake pads at 125. I've got other shops selling them at 50. If you know how to talk to your customer, build value, you can get this done and you can make a decent living.
Cecil Bullard: Sorry. Go ahead, John. 
John Heller: No, that's great. All right. So just to wrap up here, we'll pop back in here, start this back up. As we mentioned we're gonna continue this conversation with Cecil. We wanna thank you for your time. I think there's been a lot of valuable information that's been presented here.
John Heller: Got a couple of QR codes up on the screen to find out some more information. We didn't have a chance to share it, but the team here at PartsTech in, in coordination and partnership with the Institute have put together a web page, kind of walking through some of this helpful information. CECL's got some information for you to download as well, and so hopefully you'll find this very helpful for your shop.
John Heller: And, and if, if you found value here we do a complimentary evaluation and I promise you, we won't pound you and pound you, but we'll be happy to do a contra, contra, contra, complimentary evaluation of your business and your finances and tell you where you can improve. 
John Heller: All right. Thank you. All right.
John Heller: For those who are willing to stay on, I know we've still got a lot still here in attendance. So, and a lot of great questions in the Q& A. We'll get to some as much as we can, maybe here over the next 5 to 10 minutes or according to people staying on. Cecil, question here. Do you feel it's more important or profitable to increase your labor rate or do the parts markup?
Cecil Bullard: I think you got to do both. Frankly. We've had lots of shops do both at the same time. No problem. Labor is going to have a higher margin probably, but if you're giving away 40, 000 in parts, why would I let that go? I mean, I might be giving away 40, 000 in labor too. That's 80, 000. You know, if you want to do one before the other parts matrix is really simplest because labor productivity also is an issue.
Cecil Bullard: So just raising your price may not get you where you want. You have to deal with the systems processes for productivity in your business also. 
John Heller: Here's another interesting one. I have a parts matrix, but what is hurting the overall markup is oil changes. We do a lot of oil changes and do thorough inspections and get upsells, but we keep our oil change prices steady.
John Heller: So our markup is low. What would you recommend? 
Cecil Bullard: So we're going to, we're going to talk about this in, in part two, but I'll, I'll, I'll answer it briefly here. If you go to Walmart and buy products from Walmart, they know what you're going to buy. They know you're going to buy three products. They know what the pricing, what it's going to cost you when you walk out, and they know what their margins are going to be.
Cecil Bullard: You're going to buy a discounted item, most likely, and then you're going to buy two higher priced items, like you might walk out with a soda. That cost you 2. 90 or 2. 50 that you could have bought at the grocery store for 0. 50 if you bought it in the giant pack. And so it's really about balance. If you're going to do something that is less expensive, like an inexpensive oil change first of all, you could change the name of that.
Cecil Bullard: You could present it a little differently as an oil service or a minor service. You can, you can up the pricing a little bit which will get you some margin. And then secondly, On the other items in your business, the other parts of things, you have to move the margins up a little bit because like if, let's say I'm selling, I don't know, 5, 000 different things in a month and I don't know, 300 of those are cheap or inexpensive oil changes and I'm not making much margin on those, well I have 4, 700 other items that if I just raise the price by one or two percent, I That would balance that out and still get me the overall margin.
Cecil Bullard: So if you're doing this right, you're actually looking at your overall margin at the end of the day, end of the month, probably at least quarterly, and you're making adjustments to your matrix. And if you have, if you've decided, Hey, I want to be very cost effective on say 10 things. Because the market, because I think the marketplace, that's really important.
Cecil Bullard: That's fine. Be cost effective on those, but raise your margin on the other items. That's the part that gets missed by small companies. It doesn't get missed by big corporations, because if they don't make margin, then they're out of business. That's what I would, I would tell you. Plus, I'd go in and look at your oil change.
Cecil Bullard: Average oil change even at some of the least expensive places here in my town, is probably about 89. And nobody's doing the, you know, 39, 29, 49 oil change anymore. So you might be able to move the oil change price up by 10 or 15, and mark up some of your other items a little bit. And then all of a sudden you've moved your parts margin by 10 percent overall and made yourself an extra 
Cecil Bullard: 30, 000 this year. 
John Heller: Absolutely. We've got several questions. I'll try to kind of summarize into one a lot of interest in understanding what your response would be around. How do you handle the difference between aftermarket parts and dealers? So question, are you using the same matrix for aftermarket parts as you would with dealers or a less aggressive part?
Cecil Bullard: I have two different matrices that you saw in the workbook and you'll see with parts tech online and that if you download our stuff, you'll, you'll get our dealer matrix in my shops was a little different where at the bottom end, very small price parts. We had really high margin. But we had less margin on some of the higher price stuff.
Cecil Bullard: And again, you have to balance it because if you're buying 30 or 40 percent of your parts from a dealer and you do that, then you're not going to have the margins you need. So you have to pay attention to that. So yes. Most of the shops that we work with probably use three or four different matrices or matrices.
Cecil Bullard: But I do have shops really, frankly, that use one matrix and they do it for all their parts and they do just fine. They're not, they don't struggle, they don't lose a bunch of jobs because of it. So you can, you can do either one. But most shops today probably have two or three or maybe four matrixes.
Cecil Bullard: Obviously we have a different one for tires. 
John Heller: Okay. Yeah. And that's a, that's a great clarification to make. One thing I'm looking through, a lot of the questions are asking, you know, does your gross profit recommendations include tires or do you do it differently there? 
Cecil Bullard: I've worked with a lot of different tire stores over the years, and it's funny one of the more local guys, three, three tire stores we started the tire margins about 23%.
Cecil Bullard: We, we wanted to have 40, frankly, and all of his people told me I was nuts at the end of a year. We were actually at 38%. And we didn't lose a bunch of clients. So we were able to, There's, there's ways to do that around tires. Most of the shops that I'm dealing with are probably looking for a 35 to 40 percent margin on tires.
Cecil Bullard: If you're an automotive shop and you're not a tire store, the customers buying tires from you mainly as a convenience, they're there. They need tires. They know they're going to pay a little more from you. You can be a little more than the discount tire guy down the street. If you are a tire store, there are other methodologies that we can move margins up by 10, 12 you know, percent on tires.
Cecil Bullard: That have been very successful. So yes tires have a different matrix, but at the end, depending on again, if I'm a tire store where I'm selling 50, 60, 70 percent tires, then I'm never going to have a 58 percent margin. If I'm only selling 10 percent tires or, or 15 percent tires, then I want you to have a 58 percent gross margin.
Cecil Bullard: And I still want either way. I want you to have a 20 percent net. 
John Heller: Great. Well, I think we've got time for one more question. I apologize to everyone. There were so many great questions in here. We could literally price spend the next hour answering, but we are going to be back with a part two where we hope to answer more of these questions and also do another Q and a last question here.
John Heller: Cecil, how do you know if your market can handle it? Can you price yourself out of business? 
Cecil Bullard: I've never in my entire life price anyone out of business. I've never seen it. When I ran my last shop, we were in a fairly wealthy area, but we were 58 higher in labor rate than any other shop in town, and we were the busiest shop of all the shops I work with.
Cecil Bullard: And that I've had experience with the shops that have higher labor rates and fall in, in higher parts margins. actually have a better, steadier, more profitable business. I had a guy we went in and raised put a matrix in place and we actually raised the labor rate about 8 six months of really great progress.
Cecil Bullard: Then all of a sudden it's, it's, it's February and he's like, Oh my God, everybody realized that I raised my prices. And and I want to lower my prices. And I said, look, dude, just bear with it. It's February. And and all of a sudden he just raised his labor at another 15. If your customer is leaving you, they're not leaving you based on the fact that you're 5 more than somebody else on a part, they're leaving you because you didn't build the value for them, where they believe that they're getting what they need from you.
Cecil Bullard: We have a a really inexpensive grocery store in town. Din, din, din a can, you do all your own stuff. We have another grocery store that's a mid range. And we have a very expensive grocery store in town. Guess which one's the busiest grocery store? Now, they all make money. And you could do the same thing for, for, for, if I'm gonna go have a steak.
Cecil Bullard: Or I'm gonna go have a hamburger. You know, you can get a cheap hamburger. You know where that's at. And you can get an expensive hamburger and you know, they're different. If your customer is leaving you based on price. It isn't about price. Look at your service. Look at at how your shop looks. Oh my gosh, you need sales training.
Cecil Bullard: You need they're not leaving you based on price. So no, we have never priced a shop at a business in any area ever. And, and I'm also just on this point, someday I'm going to write a book and it's going to the title is Cecil, You Don't Understand because I have been in almost every city in the United States, I swear to you and everywhere I go, someone says, well, you don't understand my market or, you know, my clients are different than other clients.
Cecil Bullard: No, they're not they want value. They want to understand what you do for them. They want a relationship. They want to know that that That when you do that job, it's going to be done correctly. They want to have a good experience. If you look at all surveys, convenience and trust are at the top of the survey prices at the bottom.
Cecil Bullard: So if that's where most people go, and I would tell you 90%, that's where they go. There's plenty of people for me to make a good living on that want what I have, which is again, we're not the cheapest coaching company. We just happen to be the best. So, we deliver the best results. We have the best customers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Cecil Bullard: Right. So I, again, man, ah, I could go on for an hour on that. I'm that's all you get John . 
John Heller: We'll continue this conversation. Cecil, it has been fantastic to have you join us. Today for this conversation, such great knowledge, great input and help for shops. Hopefully you all have found this helpful again.
John Heller: I apologize. We didn't get to all the questions, but please come back for more in part two. And we'll dive into more of the specifics of the calculator, looking at some of these different strategies, as well as, you know, what are some simple steps you can start taking to really make some progress in this area.
Cecil Bullard: I promise you we'll get all, we'll get to all that in part two. So be there. 
John Heller: That's right. Again, we've got the info up on the screen. We will send this recording out. Even if you missed this webinar and you registered, we will send this out. Again, If you're looking for a better way to order your parts, parts tech is your solution.
John Heller: We put all your suppliers on one screen. Cecil and the Institute have put together some fabulous materials and they have coaches standing by ready to help you improve the profitability of your shop. As well. Thank you all appreciate your time. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you.
 

94 - Maximizing Productivity Strategies For Independent Auto Repair Shops

94 - Maximizing Productivity Strategies For Independent Auto Repair Shops
March 18th, 2024 - 01:08:24
 
Show Summary:
Cecil Bullard joins AutoLeap to discuss practical strategies for increasing shop productivity, emphasizing that inefficiencies are often tied to management, not technicians. Cecil shared how productivity impacts profitability, why proper labor pricing is critical, and how to implement multipliers to reflect real work. He stressed the importance of clear technician estimates, assigning all work early in the day, and building systems that minimize downtime. Owners were encouraged to set boundaries, stop answering every question, and spend more time solving internal process issues. The session wrapped with insights on bonus structures, team accountability, and creating a shop culture that rewards excellence.
 
Host(s):
Amber Wright, AutoLeap
 
Guest(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder & CEO, The Institute
 
Episode Highlights:
[00:04:01] - Most shops average around 72% productivity, which increases the true cost of labor and eats into profitability.
[00:05:10] - Low productivity is typically not the technician’s fault - it usually stems from poor management or shop processes.
[00:06:14] - Using a 1.2 to 1.3 multiplier on labor guide times ensures you’re charging for actual time invested, not just what the book says.
[00:08:23] - Shops need to stop undercharging out of guilt or fear; customers must cover the full cost of doing business, including overhead and downtime.
[00:11:22] - Productivity improves when shop owners set clear goals, track them consistently, and hold people accountable with real numbers.
[00:17:15] - Techs should provide detailed estimates including what the car needs, why it needs it, a parts list, and how much time they need to do it.
[00:28:38] - Every tech should have more than one job assigned by 9 AM so they can switch tasks immediately when delayed, reducing wasted time.
[00:34:30] - Owners who allow constant interruptions from staff create their own inefficiencies by failing to set boundaries and delegate decision-making.
[00:41:57] - Posting daily productivity stats in a visible place motivates techs to improve and gives managers insight into performance gaps.
[00:57:42] - Bonus plans should reward not just productivity but also quality, training, and professionalism to build a well-rounded, high-performing team.
 
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=LfgYynBym8c
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
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________________________________________
 
Amber Wright: Good afternoon, everybody. Happy Monday. I am so glad you are joining with us. I'm going to give it a few minutes as we have attendees joining in. And I look forward to kind of introducing the session and our speaker today, who many of you have seen on an auto leap webinar before and at our Amplify 2024.
Amber Wright: But for this call today, I want to start by doing some housekeeping notes. We are recording this. If you do have to drop, obviously, we would love for you to stick around as long as possible, we realize some of you are hands on in the shop. If you do have to drop, however, we will be sending out the recording sometime this week, probably Wednesday at the latest.
Amber Wright: I love that you are already in the chat. Craig, thank you so much, we would love to hear how you guys are doing, where you're coming from. At the end of the session, we will have Cecil smile. We called you out. At the end of the session, we will have a survey that is circulated. It will pop up after the session is concluded.
Amber Wright: We really do want to get your feedback, guys. We use that for sessions in the future, whether that's the topic or the speakers that we host. Although we've had a resounding request for Cecil to be on, on our session. So we bring him back for more and more because you guys want to hear from him. So thank you for that.
Amber Wright: We do give out Amazon gift cards. I want to make it very clear the Amazon gift card guys. Is for your feedback. So I really do need live actual feedback. I will make a I will kind of cut you guys off if you are not giving us feedback. Just FYI. We're not going to just give out Amazon gift cards.
Amber Wright: So, I am super excited to have you guys here as we continue through the session. Please ask us questions. I will be posing them to Cecil as he goes along. Obviously today's session is on maximizing productivity strategies that will help you guys as independent auto repair shops and even your multi location shops.
Amber Wright: And so there are a lot of shops Cecil that you talk to that are struggling to maximize productivity. So. Today you're going to help us really gain some practical insights give us some five to six critical elements that can help propel productivity this year. So things like streamlining operations, reduced turnaround times, and boosting overall performance.
Amber Wright: This is what this is really tailored to. And I heard you had a really engaging hands on session. No slides today. So, guys, we would love to hear what you want to hear as Cecil is walking through this. Ask questions and we will get those answered to the best of our ability. Awesome. Cecil, welcome and thank you so much.
Amber Wright: And for those of you who do not know Cecil, he is the founder and president of the Institute for Business Excellent. So a coaching company in the industry who we work very closely with and Cecil, we always appreciate what you're doing for the industry continued thought leadership and help that you're guiding, not only Autoliv customers, but the industry in general.
Amber Wright: So thank you for being here. 
Cecil Bullard: I love doing it. So thank you for having me. 
Amber Wright: You're welcome. Welcome. All right. The screen is yours. 
Cecil Bullard: All right. Let's talk productivity. As Amber said we like to have questions during it. If you have questions to ask the questions and we'll do our best to get to them. I don't have a PowerPoint for you.
Cecil Bullard: However, Amber, I will get you a productivity class, a workbook to send out. Just after this, I forgot to send it to you. So we'll get there. 
Amber Wright: Wonderful. 
Cecil Bullard: I want to talk about productivity and I want to make a couple of statements from the beginning. Productivity in our industry runs about 72%. It's been that way for a long time, and 72 percent drives up our cost dramatically.
Cecil Bullard: So I may think I'm paying a technician 30 an hour, but then I have a load. If I could a few to workers comp makes me 39. And then if they're about 70 percent productive, I'm not paying 39 for that hour anymore. I'm paying I think it's somewhere between about 54. So I, my, my profits go down dramatically because of lack of productivity.
Cecil Bullard: I will also want to make a statement that productivity is usually not the fault of the technician. I was talking to one of the shops that we work with. And they have a really pretty healthy pay plan in place where their technician earns, I think, 36. dollars an hour for just working in the shop, just normal every hour.
Cecil Bullard: But if the technician is productive, it can go up as high as 47 an hour. And they're not productive. Their technicians are probably closer to, you know, 70 or 65 percent productive in that shop. And so I mentioned to the owner. I said, we have a management problem. So, productivity starts with the pen.
Cecil Bullard: You can make more money with the pen than you can with anything else. And I think one of the problems we have in our industry is because we are primarily mechanics or technicians that have become owners. In many cases, we don't value what we do or what the customer should pay for that. So we think, well, this is really easy for me to do this job.
Cecil Bullard: I've done this job, I don't know, 57 times. And the book is three hours and that, man, that seems like a lot. And in a lot of places, we're actually reducing book time or we're only using book time. So one of the first things you can do in a shop, if you want to increase productivity, it has nothing to do with technicians.
Cecil Bullard: is you use a multiplier on book time. There's two suggestions that I would have. Number one, most of the shops that I'm working with are using a 1. 2 to a 1. 3 multiplier on book time. So the technician comes to us and says, this is a three hour job. We're adding somewhere between 20 and 30 percent additional time to that job.
Cecil Bullard: And I usually give that credit. to the technician. Now, why are we doing that? Well, book time was, was never meant to include all of the things that a technician has to do. So starting out God, my mind, I'm, I'm ADHD. So in any of you that have seen my webinars, to jump around a little bit, but starting out book time is figured.
Cecil Bullard: They bring a car into a bay. It's a new car. They have the part there, they have all the tools lined out and then they have the technician do that job and they time it and they do that multiple times. And so that's how they figure out book time. They average multiple times. So you have a new car in a clean bay.
Cecil Bullard: All the tools are laid out. All the parts are there. It doesn't account for paperwork time. It doesn't account for test drive time. It doesn't count for cleanup time. And I was having a discussion the other day with one of my clients. And I said you know, who pays for what I call brown bananas. Grocery store is going to buy 3000 bananas.
Cecil Bullard: They're not going to sell 3000. I don't know. They'll only sell 2, 800 because 200 will go brown. People won't buy them or someone will steal them and eat them while they're walking around the store. So they just don't get paid for them. And I said, who pays for the brown bananas, the bananas that don't get to get eaten.
Cecil Bullard: And the client I had said, well, the shop does, the business does. And I'm like, no, customers have to pay for everything in your business. When you understand that you need to build in time that your technician is going to spend. If you're going to pay the technician to do the work. Then you need to build in the time all the time necessary.
Cecil Bullard: So most of the shops that I have are using this matrix on their labor of 20 to 30%. And that's the makeup for the time that the technician is going to do paperwork and other things. And then, you know, I think my gosh, our clients are going to compare us to 15 other shops, and they're going to find out that we're a little more expensive on this particular job.
Cecil Bullard: And I don't find that to be true. I've never found that to be true in the industry for the majority of the clients or the clients that I want to have in my business. So number one, you can make more money with the pen than you can, and you can have more productivity with the pen than you can with any other tools in the shop.
Cecil Bullard: Number two. It's not the technician's fault in most cases that they are not productive. And if you want to figure out why your people are not productive, the best thing to do is ask them look at the, the processes for flow. So, you know, what's the first happens. How do we schedule? Dispatch. How do we write up the ticket?
Cecil Bullard: So if you look at the tickets and you do a ticket review on your repair orders and you say to yourself, okay, that technician came in, that customer came in, I complain actually 140 for us to diagnose that or is 100. So what, what happened is when the customer showed up, there 
Amber Wright: Hey Cecil 
Cecil Bullard: You want anything else?
Cecil Bullard: Is there anything else that I can do? 
Amber Wright: Hey, Cecil, you're breaking in and out. I don't know if there's an audio issue but it's coming in and out. 
Cecil Bullard: Excuse me one second. We don't want to be breaking in and out. 
Amber Wright: Yes. 
Cecil Bullard: Give me a second here, we get it. 
Amber Wright: It's okay. And then I do have a few questions from the audience.
Amber Wright: Once we get your audio back up and running. Thanks guys for hanging tight. We're going to get the audio really quickly updated. Maybe some new batteries in there.
Cecil Bullard: How is that? 
Amber Wright: Sounds better. Keep talking for just a second. 
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, I will keep talking. I'll talk. 
Amber Wright: You will. While we paused you. Do you want to go ahead and answer a few questions that came in at the beginning? Wonderful. Is there a prioritization of productivity tasks? Like, is it the same for the type of shop you are is the prioritization of productivity tasks the same regardless of the shop you are?
Cecil Bullard: So, I would say no, there isn't. It's if, if you're a. General repair shop. The issues with productivity that you have are probably the same issues as a specialty shop, tire shop big truck shop, diesel shop. You're really dealing with the same issues over and over and over again. So, priority number one set goals with your staff.
Cecil Bullard: What's the productivity I want? measure and manage staff. If you have a management problem it, there are, there are two types of productivity issues. There are it's funny. I'll say Institute issues. Let's say I ran a shop. It was called the Institute. And we had a low productivity. There are two types of, of problems we have.
Cecil Bullard: We have Institute issues. What is the Institute in control of? What does You know, dispatch how we write up tickets how we price ourselves whether or not we have all the tools we need the arrangement in the shop. Where's I was in a shop in Sacramento area. The bay they did the oil changes in was right next to the office, the bay, they kept the oil filters and the oil and the other stuff for the service work.
Cecil Bullard: Was five days down. So every time that technician had to walk down there to get the tools or walk down there to get the oil filter, they've made four or five trips across the shop every time they did an oil change. That's not an employee problem. That's an institute problem. Okay. And so when you think about productivity, you look at everything you do, you say to yourself, Okay, first of all, yeah what do I believe the text can do?
Cecil Bullard: How am I pricing myself? How do I, how do I set that up? So in my shop 1. 2 times is what we did on literally every job, except for what I would call a canned job. So. Our minor service, which was our oil change with a complete inspection of the vehicle and a written documented report pre DVI was not only was it 165, but I paid my technician eight tenths for that.
Cecil Bullard: Excuse me. Did I, did I charge enough? Did I pay enough? That's an Institute problem. That's my problem, right? Whether or not the technician can do the job in the time allotted in the eight tenths may be a technician problem. It might be, say, if Bob is my technician, it might be a Bob problem. But if I don't have a goal and a target and what I believe to be true, how do I manage that person?
Cecil Bullard: So we, we need to set goals. And in my shop, by the way, just so everyone knows I ran a shop, last shop I personally ran, I ran for about six years. We had 119 percent productivity out of our technicians over the six year period, meaning that my technicians delivered 9. 55 hours a day worth of work that I could bill out in an eight hour day.
Cecil Bullard: And the reason they can do that is because of efficiencies that are created both with the technician skill set and within our processes, how the shop runs. And, and so when you walk into a shop and you have 60 percent productivity, the first thing that I look at is what are the goals and targets for the employee and what does the owner or the manager believe about productivity in the business?
Cecil Bullard: Because if you don't believe that your techs can be a hundred percent, You'll never get 100%. Okay. I don't know if that answers that particular question. Probably does. And then some, did you have other questions, Amber, that you wanted to ask me right now? 
Amber Wright: Did I, if you're open to me asking?
Cecil Bullard: I kind of planned it.
Cecil Bullard: So 
Amber Wright: what type of jobs would get 1. 2 versus 1. 3 on the multiplier? So going back. 
Cecil Bullard: Your, on your typical stuff, that would be easier. I might go 1. 2 on harder stuff or stuff that's like if I'm working on an older vehicle, let's say it's say eight years or, or more. And I happen to be, you know, north of the Mason Dixon line.
Cecil Bullard: I'm probably dealing with rust and, and other issues. And so I might do 1. 3 on an older car and I might do 1. 2 on everything else except for. My minor service, my diag for starting we had a starting and charging system diag. We didn't multiply that. We had our our level one, level two, level three diagnostic.
Cecil Bullard: We didn't use a multiplier there, but we also were not charging an hour. We were charging an hour and a half because there's no parts. And some of your efficiencies you create by charging properly. In other words, again, it's an institute problem. How am I charging for my people's time as opposed? So in a lot of shops.
Cecil Bullard: You're paying your tech three tenths and you're eating the five, the DVI. So you got five tenths, half an hour, and you're not paying, you're not, you're paying your tech, but you're not charging your customer. And so that would be something that, if I made that decision, I certainly need to be, say, 1.
Cecil Bullard: 3 on everything else so I can make up for that 5 tenths of an hour that I'm giving away every time I look at a car. So you, it's about, as much about management as it is about employees, okay? It's as much internal as it is anything else. You should have multiple labor rates. You should have frankly, multiple multipliers.
Cecil Bullard: Depending on the situation, etc. And in my shop, the technicians gave the service advisors. So technician estimating is very important. How does a technician estimate because. If the technician estimates easily and well, and we follow what the technician is telling us, we trust our technicians, then the service advisor estimates faster, and there's less wasted time.
Cecil Bullard: So, for instance, if if I'm a te a service advisor, and I get an estimate that's unclear and let's say it's one of those jobs that the book is just completely off. And the tech knows it. You know, the book is telling us two hours. The tech is telling us it's six or not telling us at all. Then it gets sent in and it gets estimated by a service advisor that doesn't have all the knowledge.
Cecil Bullard: In other words, the tech knows it's a six hour job, but if he never tells the service advisor, The service advisor uses book time. Okay. And, and even if they're using a multiplier, they have a two hour job by the book. Maybe they charge 2. 5 or even 2. 6, but they don't charge six. There are many jobs in the book that are incorrect, or there might be extenuating circumstances that the technician would find.
Cecil Bullard: So for instance one of my techs was doing valve covers on a five liter Ford pickup F one 50. And the job was like 2. 6 hours by the book. And my technician wanted six, I think it was six or 6. 8 or something like that. There was no explanation. So, as a service advisor, I had to go out to the shop, call, or call the technician in, and have a conversation with the tech.
Cecil Bullard: Which, by the way, what happens, when I'm talking to the tech, what are they not doing? They're not working on cars. So, I want to have really good tech estimating that gets the right information. And, and, a lot of shops, they don't, they've never thought of that. They never said, hey, if I really cleaned up my tech estimating, got all the best information to my service advisor.
Cecil Bullard: It would speed up throughput, meaning that the service advisor would spend less time out in the shop talking to the tech, the tech would be more efficient because they would have more time to work on the car, even though they spent maybe five minutes to write the estimate out. Okay, now I'm not having that five to ten minute conversation once or twice on the car as a service advisor.
Cecil Bullard: Then that makes the service advisor's time more valuable, but valuable, and then the service advisor can actually spend, you know, get that estimate out faster. So the technician will have more work to do in a more timely fashion. A lot of times you walk into a shop, you look at their estimating process, and it takes two, two and a half, three hours to get a car through estimation and get the work sold or not sold.
Cecil Bullard: And you, in the meantime, you have a technician standing around. If you look at your processes and you say to yourself, well, wait a minute, we have a process of a bad process of tech estimating, the service advisor not getting information, which is causing probably three things. Number one I want from my technician four items.
Cecil Bullard: I want to know what the car needs, why it needs it in as few words as possible. I want a comprehensive parts list from the technician and, and you'll have people come here jumping in going, Oh my God, I'm going to have my technician, you know, look up all the parts. No, not necessarily, but I want a part. I want to know from the technician what's required on this job.
Cecil Bullard: And I also want the technician to give me a time. I want the technician to say, yeah, the book's right. This is a two hour time or know the books off. It's a six hour job or it is right. It's two hours, but I want three. I'm going to work with the technician. And we had a rule in my shop that within 25 percent of the book time, if we, if the technician's time was within 25 percent of the book time, the service advisor had to sell it for that time, no taking off.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. So you're looking at your, your processes and you're saying to yourself, do I have. Institute problems, or do I have Bob problem? Okay. So, all right, that's that question. You have it sounded like you had more than one. We 
Cecil Bullard: have a ton of questions. So hopefully this, and I, I hope you're okay with this.
Cecil Bullard: I'm trying to answer them in the way that you're speaking. What are key factors to considering when implement implementing different labor rates? What are the key factors? 
Cecil Bullard: I think you decide what. I think you decide what legitimately you think that job that you need to be successful in profitable on that job.
Cecil Bullard: I think that's factor number one. Factor number two is, is that going to create productivity or take away from productivity? In other words, are, and, and I don't want to cheat customers. So that's a factor in this. Maybe it's factor number three. I don't want to charge customers, you know, 12 hours on a three hour job.
Cecil Bullard: I don't, I don't believe that to be fair to my client, but I don't have a problem charging four hours on a three hour job to a customer because it's, I'm taking into account things that the technician is doing that the original book time never took into account and that's what I need. To be profitable to 20 percent net.
Cecil Bullard: So to me, I'm going to start there. I'm going to set a goal for each tech and don't set a crappy goal. I mean, if, if your tech's giving you four hours right now, you know, I have this little saying goes in my head. How many, how many tires could a tire buster bust? If a tire buster could bust tires. And it would go for an oil changer, a GSM, whatever.
Cecil Bullard: If I had a good tech, a say B level a level master level tech in my shop, and they had everything they needed to be successful, meaning tools, jobs authorizations, parts on time. How many hours could that person or should that person produce in a eight hour day? And, and so we also should clarify productivity.
Cecil Bullard: When I talk about productivity, I'm not talking about proficiency or efficiency. Productivity is I'm here for eight hours. I'm on the clock for eight hours. How many hours did I produce during that time? And if I'm using a 20 or a 30 percent multiplier, and if I have a good technician that has done the job more than once now.
Cecil Bullard: I I know the tech knows the job well, and I believe the tech should be beating book time, I don't know, 60 70 percent of the time because they know how to do the job. But talk about the scars on my hands. I have I don't know, whatever it is now, 153, 154 scars. And those scars are from working on cars.
Cecil Bullard: And I, so I earned that extra hour on that job, just because the book says it's 2. 5, we're going to charge three and I can do it in 1. 5. I earned that. It's because I'm a great master at what I do. There's a a story, joke, whatever. There's a squeaky floor in this beautiful concert hall.
Cecil Bullard: And they, they hire multiple different people to fix it, and nobody can fix the squeak in the hall. And so they hire a master carpenter, and he walks in. And he walks up and down the floor for a bit. And then he says, okay, I can fix it. And it's going to cost 2, 000. And so they're like, okay, great. We can't have this squeak in this beautiful concert hall.
Cecil Bullard: And so what he does is he takes one nail out of his bag and he puts the nail in a very specific place, hammers it in, squeak goes away. And all of a sudden the, the concert hall manager's like, well, I'm not paying two grand for that for you just to drive one nail. And what we think is that we're nail drivers in this business.
Cecil Bullard: That guy is a master. He knew where to put the nail. They're not paying, you know, two grand for him to drive one nail. They're paying two grand for him to know where to drive the nail. And so, we, we, I think as owners, we, and even service advisors, we, we give into the temptation to make the customer feel great.
Cecil Bullard: Oh my gosh, you guys are less than other people. Oh my gosh, this was less than we thought. And that's fine. When, when I can do that legitimately. And still protect my family. And I mean, I do mean my wife and kids at home or grandkids and, and, and kids that aren't at home anymore, but I also mean the employees that work for me.
Cecil Bullard: Am I protecting my technician when I'm taking five tenths off the job? We see just, you know, on every like Facebook, every group, every, we see texts complaining that they're not getting paid enough. And we have owners and service advisors that are giving their work away when we have masters that deserve 2, 000 for knowing where to drive the name.
Cecil Bullard: Right. And so we have to think of ourselves in a different way. And, and, and you're right. I'm, I'm, I'm crazy. I have this vision of this industry of, of professionals who get paid for their knowledge and their experience and all of that. And maybe that's crazy, but I'm going to go, I'm going to die with that very same vision, create goals first, right?
Cecil Bullard: Understand realistically, I've been in classes where I had. 200 people in the class. And I said, how many of you actually believe that a technician can only do six hours a day and half the class will raise their, their arms. And so if you only believe a tech can do six hours a day, then you're not finding where the Institute problems are and where the Bob problems are.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. And so that's a management issue when I have bought Institute problems. The manager or the owner has to fix those and estimating might be one of those areas. You know, I, I wish there was a, a, a manual that taught us all, well, exactly how should I price myself? What's what exact rate? And there kind of is.
Cecil Bullard: Certainly I can teach you all of that, but it's not as simple if I'm in a certain part. If I'm in Georgia in, you know, rural areas, I'm probably not charging as much as if I'm in Los Angeles. But but also my cost of living there is less than it is in L. A. You have to make decisions about your business and what you believe should be able to do.
Cecil Bullard: And I think one of the great things about being who I am is that I've worked with, I don't know, probably 3, 000 shops over the years. And I have seen shops with 120 percent productivity, and I've also seen shops with 40 percent productivity. And the difference is, do we believe it? Do we have goals for it?
Cecil Bullard: Are we managing? So if I'm going to set goals for my tech of eight hours a day or 9. 6, as in my shop, I'm going to let the tech know what that is. I'm going to help them understand why that goal is set. So they believe that it's possible. And then I'm gonna start working on where are the problems. The management should constantly, if I don't have 100 percent productivity out of my techs, I should say, what problems, institute problems do we have?
Cecil Bullard: What Bob problems do we have? How do we solve those problems? So again, a great estimating I would say form, but I online, how, what is the tech going to give my service advisor will increase? The service advisors efficiency and the text productivity. If that information is passed, well, dispatch you know, a lot of shops will dispatch one car to attack and they'll hold on to all the other tickets.
Cecil Bullard: It's kind of in a pile on the service advisors desk. And when the technician gets done with that car and the technician comes up and say, Hey, I'm done. And the service advisor has time, which might be 25 minutes, 30 minutes later. Now, all of a sudden the tech gets a second job. Well, what if the tech gets held up for a part?
Cecil Bullard: Because we don't have the right authorization or there's something else or something, you know, and, and, and they don't have anything else to do. What's the natural tendency of a tech that doesn't have a second job that they know they're supposed to get done? There's, there's, there's easy things to do, like, adding a matrix.
Cecil Bullard: And then there's harder things to do, which are, you know, changing just the way we dispatch. Changing the way we schedule. Holy smokes. We still have shops scheduling waiters where customers can come in throughout the day and wait for 30 minutes for their car. And we're pulling texts off of a 3, 000 job to do a, I don't know, 59 waiter.
Cecil Bullard: Who's not in the right place to make the best decision about their automotive service and repair. Cause all their thinking is all the things they have to do today. And, and we wonder why the tech's not efficient when you pull somebody off of a complicated job. At least for me, when I come back, I need to spend 10, 15 minutes figuring out where I was making sure I didn't miss anything, kind of rechecking some of the stuff, some of the steps to make sure that I don't screw something up.
Cecil Bullard: I'm talking to one of my clients. They had a an Audi in for timing chain and the technician did it and put it all together and was off a tooth. Because probably because they got interrupted in the middle of when they were setting it all up and they didn't double check and make sure. So the car wouldn't run or wouldn't run correctly.
Cecil Bullard: So they had to tear it all down again. And then when they put it back together, it was off a tooth. Had to do the job three times, but we only got paid one time that costs that particular shop, probably not just the, the, I don't know, nine hours for each, each time you had to pull it back apart. So 18 hours, but it also costs them the 18 hours of time that he wasn't able to bill out on other cars.
Cecil Bullard: So you have to think about this in a more. Big picture kind of, way. And you have to drill it down to, again, do I have an institute problem? Is there a problem with my dispatch? Is there a problem with me interrupting technicians in the middle of jobs? Is there a problem that I've got, you know, 15 waiters coming in today and I'm pulling texts off of other jobs and I still want them to be efficient.
Cecil Bullard: Is, is that problem in the institute problem or is that a Bob problem? Right. And then I have to fix the institute problems and maybe some, I decide not to, maybe I, I say to myself, well, Cecil's full of crap. We're going to have waiters. I'm not going to fix that one, but what other things can I fix? What other institute problems can I fix?
Cecil Bullard: Right. And then I want Bob to recognize the problems that Bob has. So we don't. We don't often recognize our own issues. We need someone to bring attention to them. And so that's what a manager does. A manager says, Hey, you're supposed to do eight hours. You only did six. And you're only doing, I don't know, 30 a week and you're supposed to do 40.
Cecil Bullard: So what do you think's wrong? And if the employee says, well, I, the way I get dispatched is not okay. I only have one car and sometimes I have to wait for my second car. Frankly, in my shop, we scheduled every job to come in, in the morning. I didn't have any waiters whatsoever. We didn't do any cheap oil changes.
Cecil Bullard: We kept the car for at least the day we dispatched every car by nine o'clock in the morning, all the cars we had in the day, 13, 14 cars for four employees, four techs were all dispatched. And then throughout the day, the manager, whoever was in charge, service advisor, service manager, manager, whatever you want to call it, would say, Oh, wait a minute.
Cecil Bullard: We just sold for Tom. We just sold 25 hours worth of work and he still has two cars that diagnosed today. And so the manager would then go to Tom and say, you're booked, you're busy. I'm going to take these two cars and redispatch them to someone else. But again, if we're, if our. Techs don't have work, or if they don't know I have another weird saying and, and that is you know, a tech will, will make, a tech will, if, if only given the job, a tech will take the amount of time that the job requires.
Cecil Bullard: So if I give a tech four hours worth of work in an eight hour day, that will take them eight hours. If I give a tech 10 hours worth of work in an eight hour day, my experience, if the systems and processes are run well. And I have a manager that's actually managing that tech will do 10 hours in a 10 hour day if they have 10 hours worth of legitimate time to do.
Cecil Bullard: And so my guys by 9 o'clock pretty much knew what they were at least starting with. And when they got held up on one job, they had another job they knew to go to. They didn't stand around. They didn't talk on the cell phone. You know, they went to work because that, in part, is how they got paid. And you want to have pay systems that support that.
Cecil Bullard: You want to have a base pay based on the hourly, and then you want to have a performance part of your pay plan based on additional productivity, knowledge, skill set, etc. Okay other questions? 
Amber Wright: You knocked a few birds out, so you, you did good. So, the next question, I think this is more on, I'm going to say this is on an Institute.
Amber Wright: Let's just say company issues. Let me see if I'm right. What are your thoughts on how to protect an owner, operator from the technician, service advisors, etc , from just coming into his office and inundating him with questions when he is trying to focus on whatever he needs? 
Cecil Bullard: That's an owner problem.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. That is not a service advisor problem or a technician problem. We have made ourselves the, I don't know, the shell answer man. Some of you I'm dating myself will remember the shell answer man, big commercials about that. He had all the answers to everything. I see shop owners that have become the shell answer man in their business.
Cecil Bullard: And I'll talk about electricity because a lot of the guys in here are going to be technical. We're And so electricity follows a rule. And the rule is it always goes to the quickest path, the ground, what's the easiest route. So if I put electricity through a series of wires, it will go to the first ground and not to the last ground.
Cecil Bullard: It'll go to the thing that's easiest for it. So if you've become easy for your people, if you're, if they're, if they're electricity and you're the first ground, they will come to you all the time and owners. And managers, even service advisor have to stop being that person. I don't know. I don't want, I hate to condemn any generation and I don't think it's a demonic of one generation or another, but we want the easy answer.
Cecil Bullard: So if I can go to the owner, when I get questions, you know, oh my gosh, I've. I've I've got a code. I traced it to the problem that the, that the computer told me. And that's not it. I don't know what to do. I'm going to go to the owner. And of course the owner wants the tech to be efficient because he's already not efficient.
Cecil Bullard: So the owner says, Oh, just go do this. Right. Except the owner learned how to do that. By struggling through that repair the first time or maybe even the second time before they figured it out And and so we are answering far too many questions for our people If we have system and process in our business, that answers 50 percent of the questions, what's the process, what's the system, you know, when, when people come to me and they say, well, should we do that?
Cecil Bullard: We have our mission statement. We have our core values. We have five core values in the company. And my, my question to them is, does it fit within our core values? Yes or no? That's it, right? And if the answer is it fits within our core values, then you know what you should, the choice you should make.
Cecil Bullard: I don't have to make it for you. So if we have a repair process that we've talked about, if we have a, what do I do when I get in trouble process? I mean, we have so many resources today for working on cars that we didn't have 20 years ago, 25 years ago. Why is the owner or the manager or the service advisor the first place that the tech goes?
Cecil Bullard: Right? Because it's easy. Stop being easy. Start telling your people, I'm not going to answer those questions for you. Because you want people that can make good decisions and know how to make the right decisions and they never will if they're always relying on you to make the decision. And one of the funniest things Amber, I find you'll have an owner that will be out or even a master, like their, their, their shop foreman will be out for a week.
Cecil Bullard: And you know what? The shop does. Okay. Without the form in there or the owner there. And, and so the owner wasn't even there to get asked questions. The reason that so many questions are coming their way is they haven't created boundaries, any boundaries at all. And they don't know how to tell their people no.
Cecil Bullard: Because the priority is Get that car out today and get that money in the bank instead of what's the system and process that will get that car out quickly so that we can always put money in the bank. 
Amber Wright: Yeah. 
Cecil Bullard: Right. 
Amber Wright: I think we're also afraid to fail, right? And the way that I can relate this, I don't own a shop, right?
Amber Wright: I'm not a business owner, but when my son climbs a tree and then asks me to get him down, what lesson is that teaching him, right? Yes, as a mother, I want to get him down so he doesn't break a bone. But again, if he does break a bone and he does it himself, that's the lesson he teaches himself, right? And so it's so important for our employees even ourselves to be less accessible.
Amber Wright: And I think you mentioned it generational. I think it's just society, right? We all have our iPhones. We have, you know, chat GPT , and all of these things that we can just look up. But, but you are right. There is a generation where they are so used to not actually looking it up and just going to somebody. So I think that's a really good pivot.
Cecil Bullard: I think, I think we've created that within our businesses a lot in this particular industry, probably true of a lot of industries, but I think what I asked my clients to start doing is. When that's when someone comes, you can ask the question. First of all, you should be asked for answering maybe 20 percent of their questions.
Cecil Bullard: The other 80%, you probably shouldn't answer. I asked them to stop and think, is this a question I should answer before they answer it? If the answer is no, you tell the employee, that's something you need to figure out. You know, I, I'm not a tech anymore. I, when I was a service advisor, when I became a service advisor, I would have texts come to me and say, what's the fix for this, I'd be like, I'm not the tech, I'm the service advisor.
Cecil Bullard: I have different responsibilities. That's your job to figure it out. It also creates accountability because if the owner's always the one. When the problem, when it doesn't solve the problem, the owner then becomes accountable for the not having it solved. Not my fault. That's what the owner told me to do.
Cecil Bullard: And so I think all of us, we'd like to reduce our accountability. And not take the consequence for that. And part of that is asking too many questions of other people. So we can say no, no, that was so and so that told me to do that. All right, go ahead. Next, 
Amber Wright: What are some effective production tracking applications that a shop can utilize when the estimating platform is not enough?
Cecil Bullard: Unfortunately there aren't really great tools in the industry to track production. I built a piece of software 25 years ago. It never took traction, but it was literally productivity tracking, hours tracking. And it gave real time data to the employees and the owners about what the productivity was, what the sales were, and it actually projected based on current productivity, where we're going to end up at the end of the period, and that didn't take off.
Cecil Bullard: And that piece of that those patents were just sold to another company who hopefully will, will take it and run with it. But currently in, in most of our point of sales, I'm not seeing what I'd like to see. So what I need to understand, and I can run this report in, in auto auto leap. And that is at the end of the day, how many hours did my guy actually produce that we were able to get paid for?
Cecil Bullard: That are done. And so I can create my own daily report that looks at everyone's productivity and you should and you should post it on the wall so that they know if if I'm an employee who's supposed to do eight hours a day and my productivity today was six, do you want me going home feeling good about it?
Cecil Bullard: Because I don't know, or do you want me to know that tomorrow I have to act a little differently and work a little harder? Which one is it? Once you set goals, you should have a display, whether it's a whiteboard or you know, some kind of you know, computer display that will show what the productivity was for each person and what the overall productivity for the business is.
Cecil Bullard: That's what you, you need. And, and there's some simple reports. I have a weekly report that will pop out most of that. Also, if you understand your financials your hour is worth. One ti your effective labor times one plus parts over labor. Not a complicated formula, but it is algebra. Basically, if you say I'm $120 an hour, most shops, parts and labor are very close to 50%.
Cecil Bullard: Shouldn't be 50 50, but it, but they are. And so if I'm $120 an hour effectively, then I'm 200, let's say $230 an hour. For parts and labor for my tech, this is rough math and Cecil's brain. So if I've got someone that that's eight hours a day, that's going to be 1, 840 that they should have produced that I should have sold that I should have in the bank today.
Cecil Bullard: So if we brought in 1, 840 for each guy then we hit a hundred percent productivity. So if you understand your numbers and you understand what each hour is worth, You can kind of look at your sales and your, and, and it will tell you what your production was. So how much did Bob do? How much did Tom do?
Cecil Bullard: How much did, you know, Bailey do? And I want to know that if I'm a manager, I absolutely want to know that every day. So that anyone that's lagging behind, that's falling behind. I can get with them to identify is it a Institute problem or is it a Bob problem? Right? And that's kind of one of the really key things is do I have someone working on that and solving the institute problems?
Cecil Bullard: And helping Bob understand what his problems are and how to solve those.
Amber Wright: Appreciate that. The next one. So you didn't mention earlier, and I just want to make sure everybody that's still on. Thank you guys for everybody who's staying. We will give it another 15 minutes. If you have questions, please do.
Amber Wright: Craig asked, Is there productivity checklist form or tracking in an Excel sheet? I think you mentioned you had a tool for them. But do you have anything 
Cecil Bullard: Productivity checklist for tracking in an Excel sheet? 
Amber Wright: I Just any type of resources for productivity.
Cecil Bullard: I have a, I have a weekly report that I have my people fill out that shows productivity. I have a monthly report that I have my people fill out.
Cecil Bullard: I won't pass out the monthly report because it's very complicated and it's also very proprietary. I will, however, give you a weekly report and I have some projection tools that I will send to you, Amber, that you can get out to the people that attended. that will help me understand if I, if I'm this much, if, if I'm this much an hour, then how many hours you know, how many, how many dollars should I be bringing in, in that time period?
Amber Wright: So 
Amber Wright: projection tools and the weekly product. 
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And you're going to 
Cecil Bullard: send me an email right after this that says, Hey, Cecil, you promised. 
Amber Wright: Absolutely. You guys got it. Wonderful. I Anthony mentioned the one minute manager going back to that question earlier about people coming into your office. That is a really good resource for you guys to read taking the emotion out of it, making it about business, giving it back to employees is a really good book.
Amber Wright: And then another question. I think that everybody is also wanting to get this. How do I get well, how can I get a well trained professional or how can I train them to be a professional? 
Cecil Bullard: Well, I think you have to have, first of all, a good interview process. And it's like if you want crappy customers, there's certain marketing that you're going to do.
Cecil Bullard: Same thing for employees. You need to have a good ad. You need to have a good management and you need to have a good interview process when people come in. And if you're, if you want a professional, there are questions that you can ask that will help you understand that that person is more of a professional or less of a professional.
Cecil Bullard: So you need to get good at interviewing. And then I think like in my shop, everyone that came in my shop, whether you were a 25 year veteran of the industry or a five year veteran, or you just started, Had a mentor assigned to them and we had a list of things that they were going to be trained on that we knew, you know, their mentor was going to work through for them.
Cecil Bullard: And so you're, you're starting it in your ad. You're continuing, continuing it in your interview process. And then you're also reinforcing it in your systems and process in the way you run your business. So you, you need to be congruent kind of throughout as an example, like you're advertising. I see shops that will run the you know, they, they're, they're really good looking shops.
Cecil Bullard: They're marble, you know, countertops and tile floors and all this, and they'll run a, you know, a $10 off if you spend 25 and $50 off if you spend, you know, 500 and a hundred dollars off if you spend a thousand. And so you have this ad that looks like. You're kind of a discount shop, but you're really not.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. And so when the customer sees that ad, the discount customer walks in your door and gets confused. All right. They look around, they go, well, wait a minute. This isn't a discount shop, but I thought it was based on its advertising. That very same thing is true of the way we market for technicians. And even through our, throughout our interview process I think in general, most technicians are not necessarily great interviewers.
Cecil Bullard: Even because they start asking technical questions and what we really need to know first are character questions and, you know, kind of who you are deep down, and then I can ask you technical questions later. Once I understand what your character is and whether or not you fit in my culture, which also, if you create a culture of productivity in your business, then you're likely to get productivity.
Cecil Bullard: So if you're measuring it, if you're managing it, if you're talking about it in your interview process. If you're using mentors to help them understand that we, and then if your pay plan supports it right productivity, we have a lot of shops that are paying our hourly and they just pay hourly and it doesn't matter how many hours I produce, you know, if so one of the first things that happens often when I start working with a client is I try to find out kind of who they are and how they're managing their people.
Cecil Bullard: We have a lot of guys that are screaming and yelling at their employees. But their employees are not changing. So if, if, if the screaming and yelling is not doing the job, it would be like I don't know, expecting to fix a leak, but you never replace the radiator, which is the problem. You're always replacing the water pump.
Cecil Bullard: And if that's not going to solve your problem, find out what's going to solve your problem. Stop screaming and yelling. That doesn't belong in business. Learn how to manage people correctly, create expectations, goals. And then help them understand what a, what a Bob problem is and what a, what a institute problem is, and then fix the institute problems.
Cecil Bullard: Stop, stop taking away the hope of your people that they can ever be productive because your shop runs poorly. Look at your estimating, look at your dispatch, look at how you schedule look at, at how work flows through your shop, how you communicate, how. How technicians estimate how service advisors estimate take responsibility for the things that are your responsibility and get them fixed.
Cecil Bullard: And you'll create more productivity in your business. 
Amber Wright: We don't have any other questions. Vic asked about training for service advisors and managers, and I did send over your website programs for both general managers and advisors, and we'll be in contact afterwards. 
Cecil Bullard: I think we have a 
Cecil Bullard: great service advisor training program.
Cecil Bullard: Of course, I own the company, so I and I developed most of it, so I I would think it was great. We get great results from it. I think we have a great management training program. We get great results from that. And I think all owners need to learn management. There's some great accountability books.
Cecil Bullard: There's some great manager books, things that you would you know, read or have read to you, you know, however you want it audible, however you want to do it. I can go on about productivity for the next three hours, five hours, 10 hours. I think we got about five minutes left. 
Amber Wright: We do have two more questions.
Amber Wright: So they're still coming in unless you wanted to finish out. 
Cecil Bullard: No, go ahead. 
Cecil Bullard: Go ahead. 
Amber Wright: With vendor 
Amber Wright: parts delays being a major issue at this point in time how do we improve production when it's a part 
Cecil Bullard: manager 
Cecil Bullard: vendors, first of all you need to have two or three good vendors and it needs to be not about what it costs.
Cecil Bullard: But about how quickly they can get your parts and how the quality of the part. So you manage your vendors like you manage your employees. The better you manage your vendors, the better that will happen. I would also say that there's a third thing that you're going to find when you're looking at this wall, that's keeping you from being productivity with all its different bricks, you know, your dispatch brick, your, your tech enthusiasm, brick, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: One of those bricks is going to be. We're in the middle of the country. We only have a certain amount of suppliers. They cannot get the parts to us quickly. That's not something I can fix. So work around that. What other things can I fix? There are challenges in life. I shattered my right leg. I'm not going to run any races.
Cecil Bullard: I don't I work around that. I do things that I can do and I do what I can do really well so that my Right leg doesn't come into play. Right. And I think in the shop, if you, if you have vendor display delays, et cetera, talk to your vendors, find other vendors, find the other suppliers. If you need to make sure that you manage, I'm probably the only guy ever that went to my vendors and said, charge me 2 percent more.
Cecil Bullard: Just get me the parts here in 30 minutes. How do we do that? If I'm going to spend 20, 25, 000, 30, 000 with you every month, I want the parts here quickly and I want a quality part. I don't want a part that's going to be breaking down or falling apart. And so, and I think right now, some shop owners, rather than price their Parts correctly because there's so much quote unquote transparency and parts competition.
Cecil Bullard: They're trying to buy cheaper parts from a cheaper vendor and that's never gonna, it's never gonna pay off. It's just not gonna pay off for you. Find good vendors and manager vendors. That's all I'll say on that subject right now. And if you want to have more, whatever it was, 
Amber Wright: Communicate expectations, I would imagine.
Cecil Bullard: What's 
Cecil Bullard: that? Yeah. I always set my vendors down every year and I said, this is what I spent with you last year, and this is what I'm probably gonna spend with you this year. This is what I expect of you. Can you meet that expectation? You create goals for them too. Every, every position you have in the business should have goals.
Cecil Bullard: And the vendors are a part of your business and you need to create realistic goals for them. And then if there's things you can't fix because now it's a different world than it was five years ago, then work around that. I need to bring more jobs in. I may have to have more space. I maybe have to buy a small vehicle so I can move things in and out of my shop while we're waiting for parts.
Cecil Bullard: I have to work with what I have. But I'm still going to fix the Institute problems and I'm going to help Bob understand what his problems are. And help Bob come to the right answers to solve Bob's problems. And then there are a few things I may not be able to affect much. I'll do the most I can, but I'll spend my energy in places where my energy will give me the best return.
Amber Wright: I love that. That was answered really well. Last question. Think we've got a few and I'm going to kind of piecemeal this one together. How do I take into account teamwork and customer satisfaction in a tech bonus? 
Cecil Bullard: I think customer satisfaction is not necessarily up to the technician. I think that's more of a service advisor bonus structure.
Cecil Bullard: The service advisor is really the interface between the tech and the, and the, and the, you know, the customer. And so, yes, I think a tech has something to do if they're going to have a lot of comebacks. And my customer satisfaction is going to go down. They're going to leave greasy fingerprints on the car.
Cecil Bullard: My customer satisfaction will go down if they leave rags under the hood that are going to then smoke or. You know, whatever catch fire, then my customer satisfaction is going to go down, but customer satisfaction primarily as a service advisor and, or an institute issue, and so I'm going to put processes in place to make sure that we have a good QC on the car, whether that's the tech doing it or an individual as far as quality of work having production bonuses that also either using reward, not punish.
Cecil Bullard: But reward them for doing a great job on the car. I would also say education. The smarter they are, the more they know, the better job they'll do on the car. And then I think if also if the owner is answering too many of their questions, they're not learning what they need to learn. So I would say the secret for all management is really Creating a vision upfront and helping them to understand what that vision is and agree to that vision.
Cecil Bullard: So, you know, when, when I sat and talked with, with my employees, I came into a shop that was really losing a lot of money, not doing very well, not a million one with 14 employees. I sat the employees down and I said, what kind of a shop do we want to be? Do we want to be an also ran? Do we want to be a discount shop?
Cecil Bullard: Do we want to be a, I don't really give a crap shop. We're just going to drag as much money through the coffers as we want to. Or are we going to be a great shop? Are we going to be the best shop? And, and so we define that and discussed it in a company meeting and we discussed it routinely whenever we, whenever our comebacks went up too much, we sat down and said, what's our goal for comebacks.
Cecil Bullard: And in my shop, it was less than 1% based on a dollar spent on comebacks. And at one point we were at 8 percent in my shop and I sat down with the employees and I said, what's the goal? Because they, we'd already talked about it previously and we'd agreed to it. And they said, well, the goal is less than 1%.
Cecil Bullard: And I told them, well, right now we're at 8 percent and everybody kind of jaws dropped. People went, oh my God, that's not acceptable. And then we sat down in that meeting and we came up with three or four solutions. Implementation things to do to increase or decrease our comebacks and increase our customer satisfaction.
Cecil Bullard: We put those in play. Then we reported that. Hey, we went down below 1%. We're back where we need to be. Thank you very much. And I think I think if you create the vision and you help them, there's there's Like if I'm selling to a client with a car, a whole nother subject, but I want to know who they are, how they think about their car et cetera, because I want to lead them.
Cecil Bullard: I want to say, this is kind of a nice car or you think about keeping it. I think you can get another five, 10 years out of it, blah, blah, blah. And if they agree to those things, then I have a different conversation. If they say, well, I hate this car and I'm trying, I'm going to get rid of it next week. By the way, customers will also lie to you.
Cecil Bullard: So you don't always take what they tell you. You know, with, with you know, we take some of it with a grain of sand. But if I can define the kind of shop we want to be with my employees. And then I can have regular meetings about that and help them see we are or we're not that. And if we're not that, is it an institute problem?
Cecil Bullard: Or is it a Bob problem? Right? And if it's a Bob problem, then how do we help Bob get where he needs to be? If it's an institute problem, how do we solve that? It goes It goes for almost everything that I'm going to manage in my company, right? And, and so I would, I would tell you that in your pay plans, they should about 40 percent of your pay to any employee for any position should be rewarding for the behaviors you want from them.
Cecil Bullard: And about 60 percent should be base. And we have financial classes online at our gear for shops. com. We have, you know, we're going to be teaching a lot of financial classes at all the different events that are going to happen this year. If you don't understand your business financially, it will be hard for you to understand some of the other things that will help you to build the right pay plan to manage and motivate the person.
Cecil Bullard: That's out there. Get the right pay plan in place. Stop. Stop rewarding them for crappy production and crappy work. Start rewarding them for good production. Good work. 
Amber Wright: Love that. I think that's really important. And I think a lot of times I think employees to are looking for rewarding What they're supposed to be doing.
Amber Wright: I think we've gotten away from actually rewarding people for working hard and being the best at their skill, right? Sports, right? We give everybody a trophy and it's lost its meaning. And so rewarding people for actually doing what they're supposed to be doing and setting those expectations as the owner that really, I think.
Amber Wright: Setting the goals and understanding productivity issues and where they're coming and holding people accountable. 
Cecil Bullard: We did 2. 6 million with four technicians, two service advisors and a parts person at our shop. It's 119 percent productivity out of, I would say, everyone in the business. People ask me why that happened.
Cecil Bullard: I will tell you it's not because Cecil was managing it maybe in some part, maybe 20 percent was that, but it's really because we decided who we wanted to be and we constantly went through and said, okay, if we're not there, what's in the way, is it an Institute problem? Is it a Bob problem? And we fixed those and we continue to fix them.
Cecil Bullard: And if you own a business and you're not spending the bulk of your time doing that. Then you're spending the bulk of your time in the wrong place doing the wrong things. 
Amber Wright: And going back to the questions you know, making sure to that your employees have the resources to be able to figure those things out.
Amber Wright: Right. And so that goes back to processes. Have you set them up for success? 
Cecil Bullard: Well, we have a great question. We have a couple of really great process things. I, I wrote an article, I don't know, 20 years ago about processes. And I define, I think I defined 63 or 64 processes. My latest class has like 140.
Cecil Bullard: You. You, you look at, at two different things for processes, whole nother class, but I look at, at my positions and the requirements. So every position I have has three goals, three targets at least. And so I look at the position and what are they, what process do I need for that position to be successful?
Cecil Bullard: And then I also look at my workflow from answering the phone call to the followup with the customer. And all the way through to develop the processes, the process for dispatch, the process for scheduling, the process for technician estimating the process for service advisor, estimating how do we finish the work order, you know, the process for asking for referrals the process for tracking marketing, you look at all these processes and you just write them down and you say, okay, you know, every, every business already has processes.
Cecil Bullard: The problem is most of them are not official. And therefore they're not managed and evaluated and, and improved constantly. And so you, you start somewhere, you get the first process and the first process is I teach everyone in my company how to write a process so I don't have to write them all.
Cecil Bullard: And then the second is to identify everything. And then by the way, if you're one of those people that has to have everything perfect before you get, you know, you start you can't, you're never going to have completely perfect processes for your business. You do the best you can, then you improve them as you as you deal with them and have issues with them.
Cecil Bullard: But it is one way to create consistency of product and consistency of profit and productivity. 
Amber Wright: Yeah, and I think too, right? You know, we are a management system that helps with these things, right? Your efficiency, your productivity, but it has to start from you, right? Tools in place are great, but if you don't have processes in place, they're not going to, they're only going to work.
Amber Wright: As they're supposed to 
Cecil Bullard: It's funny too because you're depending on the management system you have, you're going to design some of your processes around that system because you have to. How do I write people up? How do I finish tickets? How does my technician estimate in within the system to get it to the service advisor?
Cecil Bullard: Etcetera. If you don't have a management system and you, we have people that surprisingly don't have management systems, oh my gosh, you gotta start there. Second thing for me would be marketing website, S-E-O-S-E-M. And then coaching is probably third. I hate to say it, but it's probably third 'cause if I can't.
Cecil Bullard: The information and you can't get the clients. We're all in trouble. 
Amber Wright: Yeah, last note. And I want to make sure that I've directed the attendees to the correct resources. When you were talking about processes I. Took them to your course library on your home page. Is that where you would like them to go?
Amber Wright: All of that should be there. Yes, so take a look at that. James, I put that in as well. 
Cecil Bullard: Kent Bullard has a great class. On process. It's a little more modern because he's younger. I have a great class on processes in there. It's a little less modern because I'm older. But both of them have really great assets will really help you get it done.
Amber Wright: Yeah, I love that. Guys, there's a lot of other great resources. When we're talking about service advisor training. There's a lot of industry events out there that are held for you guys. The Institute hosts a lot. You know, something that we love to do as a company is to help kind of sponsor you guys to get to these events.
Amber Wright: So if there's any events that you are interested in or you don't know where to look for those, you can email me at amber at autoleap. com and we will get you those resources to help you get there. And yeah, so, we look forward to hosting you guys at our next webinar next month. More details will be pushed out, but Cecil, I know you're with us for a few months this year, so everybody be on the lookout.
Amber Wright: We have at least four more webinars with Cecil, if not more. You can go to our website online under the resource tab. Some of the things that Cecil was talking about have actually been webinars that we've already hosted. We do have an on demand resource for you to go and get that from, from us.
Amber Wright: Or go to Cecil's website. I'm happy to get you guys connected. They're phenomenal coaching company that we work with. So we really appreciate it. Thank you for the engagement. Cecil, thank you as always for your time. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday at your home. 
Cecil Bullard: Thank you for having me. I can't wait.
Amber Wright: I'm excited, guys. We did send out the webinar survey. I want to make a note again. We are cracking down. We really do want like actual survey feedback. It is important to us. So if you have any questions, guys, just let me know. But thank you everybody for joining. We had a lot of people staying.
Amber Wright: So, Cecil, thank you as always. Michael, thanks for the behind the scenes. Bye guys. 
Cecil Bullard: Thank you.

93 - Fortune in the Followup & Inspiring Women

93 - Fortune in the Followup & Inspiring Women
March 13th, 2024 - 00:53:17
 
Show Summary:
The real growth in your business doesn’t come from chasing new customers, it comes from taking care of the ones you already have. In this powerful episode, the host Jimmy Lea from the Institute discusses relevant industry topics with Ryan D’Souza from Steer CRM, and Summer Guerrero of Affinity Auto Service explore how CRMs, personalized communication, and automation can unlock long-term growth for automotive repair shops. Summer shares her incredible personal journey, proving that grit, heart, and the right tools can drive success no matter where you start.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Ryan D’Souza, Steer CRM
Summer Guerrero, Owner, Affinity Automotive Services
 
Episode Highlights:
[00:04:40] - “It costs five times more to get a new customer than keep the ones you've got” — Ryan explains that the real revenue lies in your existing database, not new customer acquisition.
[00:06:11] - Summer shares how missing CRM automation caused a 6-month drop in returning customers and phone calls, proving how essential follow-up is.
[00:07:09] - Customers who trust you will spend more and return more often, follow-up drives lifetime value.
[00:08:01] - A great CRM must support data-driven personalization, compliance, and multi-location visibility to truly nurture customer relationships.
[00:11:35] - Reviews are a huge trust signal; automated review requests via text are a key feature of a good CRM.
[00:15:24] - Ryan breaks down dynamic automation: CRMs should trigger follow-ups based on key events (like service due dates or birthdays), so you can “set it and forget it.”
[00:16:36] - Summer says CRM automation saves time and keeps the personal touch, freeing staff to focus on higher-value tasks.
[00:30:34] - Steer CRM supports A/B testing for campaign optimization, helping shops learn what messages drive the most revenue.
[00:21:37] - Summer uses CRM reporting to target marketing—like identifying top vehicle makes for future campaigns.
[00:46:53] - Ryan concludes: the goal of a CRM is to free up your time, grow revenue, and personalize communication that builds long-term customer loyalty.
 
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=NSlefIap_3w
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
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Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
 
Jimmy Lea: Welcome, everybody, as you are filing in. So glad to have you here with us as we are going to have an awesome webinar.
Jimmy Lea: Super excited to have with me Ryan and our special guest. And our webinar today it was supported by the institute and steer CRM. Thank you, Ryan. I gave you a raise here the other day, Ryan we had you as chief revenue officer and we did give you a raise to the chief growth officer. I'll show you.
Ryan D'Souza: Perfect. Perfect. Hopefully it comes on my paycheck soon. 
Jimmy Lea: And infinity automotive service. Summer Guerrero is going to join us as well. So there you go, Ryan. How about that right there? Chief growth officer. Perfect. Oh, so excited. So excited to have you with us. Exciting for our conversation that we're going to have here as well.
Jimmy Lea: And especially, let's see, we'll stop that. Yes, here we are. All of us, we've got attendees coming in. They're coming in fast and furious. Thank you to everybody who's joining us on this live event. In fact, this is going to be interactive for both of us. We want to make sure that everybody understands how to be interactive with this webinar.
Jimmy Lea: So at the bottom of your screen, there should be a questions and answer a Q& A box. Go ahead and click on that box. And then type in, if you will, please, where you're joining us from today. I love to see everybody where they're joining us from where city state that you're joining us put in there. Also your shop name.
Jimmy Lea: We'll give you a shout out here as we're going live with this. Webinar, show, chat, show on the cloud, on the computer, polls and quizzes. Where's my Q and A? There it is. Found it. Found it. All right. Those that are joining us from today. Well, I thought I found it.
Jimmy Lea: Anybody seen the Q and A? Where are people joining us from today? 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah, we can see it. I can see it. 
Summer Guerrero: Welcome our guest! New City, Florida. Boston, Massachusetts. We have Lynn from Mad Hatter Automotive. What's up, Lynn? 
Jimmy Lea: I saw Mike. We saw Mike at Vision. Did you see them, Summer? 
Summer Guerrero: Mad Hatter? I did not, but I have checked out their brand new customized website.
Summer Guerrero: So you gotta check it out. It's pretty awesome. 
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Yes. Yes. Love that. And Lynn, it's showing that you are Mike. How about that? Tom Thomas from Greenville, South Carolina. First class halt for locations. Welcome, Thomas. Glad to have you here with us. Tulsa auto doctors, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jeff McKill McElroy.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. I think I got that one right, Jeff. Thank you. Thank you. Don from Kearney. See, and we said it right, didn't we, Summer? 
Summer Guerrero: Yeah. Huntington Beach. Love the beach. Love it there. 
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. California. Mike from Appleton, Wisconsin. How's the weather in Wisconsin? Trish from Gustafson's Brothers Huntington Beach.
Jimmy Lea: There's your Huntington Beach one. Nice. Loving that. Mike at Mad Hatter. Carny Tire. Hi, from Atlanta, Georgia, Emily. Thank you, Emily. Ottawa, Canada. There you go. 
Ryan D'Souza: Hey, there we 
Ryan D'Souza: go. Another Canadian. 
Jimmy Lea: Ah, perfect. Another Canadian. We are deep into our international broadcast right now. How about that? Jamie Sanders from San Diego and Mike.
Jimmy Lea: Mike, it was actually Andrea. Oh, from the office with Lynn. So, oh, very nice. Well, that was a Mad Hatter comment right there. So excited that you guys are here. So excited that we are going to pump the, prime the pump and talk about finding the fortune in the follow up. There is a fortune. There is the follow up.
Jimmy Lea: There is hidden gems. In your information, and I'm so excited to have Ryan here so we can talk about this because not only are we going to ask questions of Ryan, but summer's going to ask questions of Ryan as well, which is awesome. And then we'll flip the tables and ask some or some questions as well.
Jimmy Lea: So Ryan, help us understand. I'm a new shop owner, or I'm a shop owner that's been in business for five years, 10 years, 20 years, I've got a database, or maybe I don't have a database. Where can I find that fortune? 
Ryan D'Souza: Well, listen, I mean, I think everyone's trying to look for it. Some check in the mattress, I'm checking the backyard, digging up holes, but the reality is most folks don't realize that.
Ryan D'Souza: it actually costs you five times more to get a new customer than keep the ones you've got. So the fortune actually sits in the customers you already have. And when you think about, not only is it more expensive to acquire a new customer, but the conversion of an existing customer is 60 to 70 percent when, five to 20 percent on the new side.
Ryan D'Souza: So listen, When you're talking about three times as easy to get someone who already knows and trusts you to buy more stuff from you, the formula seems simple, but the key is how do you get them to trust and love you? And that is really what I think everyone on this call and everyone even not on this call is looking for in their business, customer love.
Ryan D'Souza: And that customer love comes in many different ways, but ultimately if you can get that customer love and trust, then they're more willing to accept recommendations. And hence spend more with you and ultimately increasing their lifetime value with your business, which is where the fortune lies. 
Jimmy Lea: It's true. It's true. That follow up is so important. So everybody's looking for the silver bullet. There isn't one. Shocker, right? Is there a silver bullet, Ryan? Summer, is there a silver bullet? 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah, we're looking for it ourselves to put on our shelves as our next big thing to sell. But no, no silver bullets yet.
Jimmy Lea: Summer, have you found that silver bullet yet? 
Summer Guerrero: Well, I will tell you that the follow up is huge. Like that is our bread and butter of what continues to grow our business and make us successful. And you had Ryan, you had just mentioned how important it is. And there was a time that. We had changed management systems that and we didn't realize that we didn't have our CRM set up.
Summer Guerrero: And it took us about six months to realize that because we saw a downfall in phone calls and customers coming back in. And then they were calling and they were a little upset because they didn't get the reminders that we normally send out. We I guess, prepare our customers and train them how we want things to be in our business.
Summer Guerrero: And so when something's not right in your business, your customers are definitely going to feel it and they're going to tell you. And so, Those appointment reminders are super important. Text messages about your appointments when they're coming up reminding them. I mean, it's a busy world right now.
Summer Guerrero: So if you can make sure that those things are in place that's where the money is going to be at. And it's going to your customers that already trust you are going to spend more money with you than the ones that you have to really work for. And another like, super amazing part of CRM is it.
Summer Guerrero: Like we're very personable in our business. So anytime we can customize it, the more customizable and personal, we can make those text messages out to our customers, the more that they love them because it is us actually touching them. So yeah, you are 100 percent on that. 
Jimmy Lea: And I love that. Thank you, Summer.
Jimmy Lea: That's such valuable information. I love the customization. I love the personalization. And to that point, Ryan, what should a shop owner look for in software, in a software for a CRM program? 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah. So listen, there's a number of things out there and I think folks get into a feature war and a tick box war.
Ryan D'Souza: And I think that's the wrong approach. I think there's a couple of things that you want to make sure you do. And. Some are touched on it a bit in terms of personalization. If you can picture yourself talking in a room with thousands and thousands of people, and you're in the audience, the way you connect with the speaker is when they hit you in a personal way.
Ryan D'Souza: When you say, ah, Hey, that's me. He's speaking to, or she's speaking to, and that level of customization and that personalization only comes with. Understanding your data within your organization within your shop. Not every CRM does that. You want to make sure you look at CRMs that have a rich data structure that looks at D duplication service advisors in a rush.
Ryan D'Souza: You might have john smith in there four times, you don't want to send john smith the same message four times because guess what? They'll know it's a machine and they'll not feel very personally talked to. So that's one thing you want to make sure, D duplication and data is such a big part of it.
Ryan D'Souza: So that's one. Another big thing too, is compliance. Like, we all know it sucks that we have rules that govern the world, and in some cases they hinder us more than they, they help us, but, with recent changes to what's called 10 DLC, and the FCC basically saying, if you're a commercial texter, you better make sure we know how much you text, otherwise, There's going to be a problem.
Ryan D'Souza: You want to make sure that the provider has good 10 DLC registration, make sure they protect you from yourself. Cause guess what? Sending messages is amazing. Unless you're flagged as someone sending spam messages. And then it's something that's really tough to recover from. So make sure your supplier, watches your back in that respect for sure.
Ryan D'Souza: And then one other massive thing is if you've got more than one shop. You want to make sure that the data can be seen across all your locations, whether it's 2, And you can be in corporate looking at data across everybody. You can be in a region looking at that region. And when we say looking at data, it's really understanding how to get your customer segments to love you.
Ryan D'Souza: Because someone who has a Ferrari might love you in a different way than someone that has a Ford F 150 maybe. So you want to make sure you look at your data in a segmented way that you can speak to the person, even though you're sending out maybe a mass text. So you can feel, make them feel like you're speaking directly to them and you really get it and you get them.
Ryan D'Souza: And that builds customer love. So again, data structure, watching your back in terms of compliance on texting and a database that cleanses and looks across all your locations and has multiple permission sets to allow you to look at it from the top down or from different layers, depending on what you decide.
Ryan D'Souza: And then there would probably be an overarching thing is work with a company Literally got a handout to help you whenever you need it. Self serve easy tools are great, but I don't know how many shop owners out there have a ton of spare time. If you do raise your hand and tell everyone else how you're doing it.
Ryan D'Souza: But spare time is not something that most people have. So partner with a company that's going to be able to run campaigns for you, monitor your data and ping you and go, Hey, like you didn't get as good a results as you could have last month. Maybe we should tweak X or tweak Y. That's really what you want to look for.
Ryan D'Souza: So I don't know, maybe a longer answer than people are expecting there, Jimmy, but there's lots to think about when you're looking for a new software partner, other than just features or price. I was 
Summer Guerrero: just going to add real quick was we're talking about text messages and follow ups and just those touch points with the customer and where the bread and butter is, but something Ryan, you didn't really mention and I think is huge is the way that customers communicate now is more so by text or by I mean, they are still checking their emails as well.
Summer Guerrero: But a huge one is, I mean, When that phone does ring, why is it ringing? It's a lot of times it's because of reviews. And so we have the opportunity of having people that have everything linked to their phones. And when we're sending them that text message to ask them for that review when they're happy as well as, you can send a text before the review and just make sure that their car is fine.
Summer Guerrero: So there's Okay. Multiple ways to be able to communicate with your customer and how you want to personalize it, like you were saying, but reviews are huge with a CRM as well. 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah, absolutely. No, great point. A reputation is something you build over time, but can lose in a minute. So really important to make sure you have a tool that you can, respond with, that you can see feedback good and bad, because honestly, the bad feedback makes us better.
Ryan D'Souza: We oftentimes don't feel that way when it comes in, especially if it's on a Friday night after a few cocktails. But when you see that come in, you need to make sure you take a breath and say, Hey, maybe they've got a point. Even though it may seem alarming at that time, but yeah, great point summer.
Ryan D'Souza: Thank you for that. But absolutely. These are all important things. And, next Friday at one central. If you're in the room in Ogden, you'll hear a ton about it and super excited for those that are going to be there from this call. Be sure to act surprised if you hear the same thing again. 
Jimmy Lea: Well, they're not going to hear the same thing again.
Jimmy Lea: You're going to expand on this and this is going to be face to face and what in the world are you talking about, Ryan? 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. I mean, to be in that room will be a big difference. And, you'll hopefully be able to see exactly what I'm talking about when we talk to things that are directly impacting you and you'll feel personally connected, you'll come up to me after and go, Hey man, you really connected with me there and that'll be great.
Ryan D'Souza: And that's what we need a CRM to do with your customers, through their phone, through their email, and listen, even through direct mail, if you can find a tool that connects with the customer the way they want. 
Ryan D'Souza: And 
Ryan D'Souza: that's really a key piece is depending on where you are in the city, in the country rural versus urban, you might have a very different demographic, and you might have millennials, you might have retirees, they might want to communicate differently.
Ryan D'Souza: A tool that allows you to communicate the way the customer wants is huge as well. 
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I love that. And the the room that Ryan is referring to is the Mars Conference at the Institute in Ogden, Utah. You definitely want to be there. March 21, 22, 23. It's going to be amazing. Let me give a couple more shout outs here real quick to Tommy Nicholson down at Advanced Auto Repair Denton, Texas my good friend, Mr.
Jimmy Lea: Craig Zale, Craig's Craig's Car Care in Lucas, Texas. I always thought you were in Allen, Texas, Craig. A very good love Craig Zale. Been to his shop a few times. Super awesome, you guys. And he's getting air conditioning put in there. Is it done yet, Craig? Is it done yet? Tracy Peters Paul's Automotive, Sacramento, California.
Jimmy Lea: My brother lives outside of Sacramento. He's up in Cameron park. So not too far. We'll have to stop by and say hello next time we're up there in that neck of the woods, back to shop owners being busy. Some of you didn't raise your hand. You didn't say that you have extra time. Ryan, I'd love to talk about automation because if ever there was a silver bullet automating those personalized messages.
Jimmy Lea: Going to customers is about as close as we're going to get. Tell us about that. 
Ryan D'Souza: Absolutely. So you want to make sure you use a tool that allows you to create, macro segments, everybody that I haven't seen in a year and micro segments, people whose birthday is tomorrow. And be able to. Set those campaigns up and be dynamic.
Ryan D'Souza: And when I say dynamic it means that when someone meets the criteria, hence someone's birthday is tomorrow, they are automatically added to that campaign and get those messages. So you can set it and forget it. Knowing there's someone watching in case something goes awry or they're not working as well.
Ryan D'Souza: And this idea of finding the formula that works for your shop because Not every shop is built the same and everyone's customer base is slightly different. The cars they service are slightly different. And so you need to look at that data and see, is it working? Could it be better? Let's try tweaking. So tweaking and iterating.
Ryan D'Souza: But once you find that formula and you start generating 20, 30 percent growth top line growth year over year, which is what folks CRM can do. You just set it and forget it. And it will continue to work dynamically with the data that's collected through your shot management system and piped in automatically.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I mean, that's a little ShamWow situation, but Summer, how has automation helped you or saved you? 
Summer Guerrero: Well, I was just gonna actually pipe in and say that it is. It's huge because that is something that I felt like I needed to handwrite those letters every time. And that is something else that you can add.
Summer Guerrero: But a lot of times just having the automation and I know that it's happening, they, they are contacted two days after their repair, make sure that everything's good. And it's my personal message. Definitely helps. And with, yeah. I don't know about anyone else, but you know, everyone at our shop has extra tasks already, and they are, trying to do their best at everything.
Summer Guerrero: So this just took one, one thing off of our plate to not have to worry about that. And then just every morning, come in and just keep an eye and log in and keep an eye on all the text messages and any anything that happened during the night. So it's definitely. Helped free me up to be able to do more things.
Summer Guerrero: And then even my staff, this takes one less thing off of them. 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's cool. That's super cool. Ryan, I have a question for you about about I mean, in fact, it's about your software about steer. And I wonder if other CRMs have this ability as well. Can I schedule when I want my messages to go?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Automatic ones. 
Ryan D'Souza: Yep. The set it and forget it mentality is one that allows you to absolutely, schedule And, put timing on exactly when they're going to run. So yeah, that, that's a feature that's one that's utilized. Not only, weekly, but daily and hourly by people. You can also do that across multiple locations.
Ryan D'Souza: So if you have multi locations, you can, from one point set it for all your locations, so you don't even have to worry about doing it 23 times. If you have 23 shops, just do it once and duplicate that campaign across all your shops. 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that. And anybody with 23 shops, we need to talk. 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah, absolutely.
Ryan D'Souza: Absolutely. Three shops at 23. It doesn't matter. Absolutely. 
Jimmy Lea: Right. I mean, let's expand. Let's grow. Let's get better. Let's get better. Absolutely. I love it. What else can, what else does the steer CRM software, what else does it do that really helps a shop owner? 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah. So, I mean, listen, there are a ton of things.
Ryan D'Souza: That it does today. But also, you know what's coming. I think when you look for a partner in software, you want to make sure the innovation doesn't stop. In the past year, we've had almost 50 new development releases, eight new products released. And the plan is to actually accelerate that, not slow that down.
Ryan D'Souza: And so we have things like new appointment scheduling coming up where you can, define what kind of appointment it is a follow up different types, appointment types is one thing obviously the data driven nature of our campaigns is the foundation of the fortune, the follow up, so to unlock that, we have tools that allow you to analyze your data to see Hey, what's the campaign that was the most profitable?
Ryan D'Souza: Let's duplicate that and run that across my shops my shop's database. So we have those tools at your fingertips. The reporting is massive. It's probably more robust than any shop owner needs, but that's the point is to arm them with tools that they wouldn't normally have. And maybe too many numbers is scary, but that's what we're there for.
Ryan D'Souza: Just, give us a call, give me a call, message me directly. Happy to help you. Dig into the data to find that formula to get you to unlock that fortune because it's there. 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. And I love this question that's coming in. Summer, did you see this question?
Jimmy Lea: The question and Ryan, the question is, and I'm going to expand on this David, I'm going to add a little bit to your question.
Jimmy Lea: So this question is, does your CRM allow AB testing? And I want to take this. A, B, C, D. So if I've got four different messages that I want to test out to find out which one's the best one, which one hits home the strongest, can I put out four A, B, C, D? Or is it just A, B? Or do I have to create two different campaigns if I want to send out those A, B testing?
Ryan D'Souza: Great question. And so, yes, the simple answer is yes, we do. You have functionality to allow A, B, C, D, E, F, G testing if you want. It is by campaign duplication and tweaking. The additional thing we can do there though is set it so that the data success criteria is set up in advance and then we can look at it and you can tell us, Hey, when we get, when the campaign reaches 20, 000, the first one to reach 20, 000 in invoice revenue.
Ryan D'Souza: Let's just go with that one and we would monitor track it and then turn off the other ones and run with it so we can actually help with the analytics part of that. You can just tell us the formula and your success manager would basically implement that for you, provide the data and go, Hey, here's the one that one do you want us to turn this on monthly, weekly, so yeah, great question and I love where your head's at because AB testing and iteration is the only way to make sure that.
Ryan D'Souza: The formula for your shop is the right one. And you're getting the most out of your tools and your customer base. 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. That was a great question, David. Summer. 
Summer Guerrero: I was just gonna mention that, like, the reporting that Steer has is top notch. Like, I use the reporting for other marketing that I marketing that I do because it is so thorough and it actually has texted our customers that knows their, their how they do their maintenance.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, their maintenance. 
Summer Guerrero: Yeah. So, as well as, if I want to pull a report and see what makes are, my top five makes so that I can market to them, you can utilize the reporting. It is so good to help you in other areas of your business. 
Ryan D'Souza: It's pretty awesome. Thank you. Thanks for that, Summer. And I think there's another question coming up.
Ryan D'Souza: But while that's, being looked into and brought forth, another couple of things that are super important is, one, when you're looking at features and functionality. You want to make sure that it's stuff that you actually use and need a lot of bells and whistles aren't things you'll ever blow.
Ryan D'Souza: But what's going to be important for your business? Things like the reporting are critical. We've recently launched customer surveys, so you can actually run surveys of your customers within the platform. Use that data beyond just the campaigns and asking for them to come back in and do things. You can leverage the data to staff.
Ryan D'Souza: You can see and plan specials for days when you have your senior texts there. Maybe more complicated things, or if someone calls in sick, you can, fill your calendar with other things using the tool. So there's a million different ways to find your formula and we're there to help.
Ryan D'Souza: Absolutely. We've also recently launched a reserve with Google. So if you go to Google and search auto repair in that market, if you've enabled it within steer. You can just click a button directly from the home page of the search page of Google and book an appointment. With the shop. So we all know Google doesn't want anybody to leave their site.
Ryan D'Souza: So if you can't beat them, join them. So let's just put the appointment booking button right on the Google search page. So no one has to click more than one time to get to you. So that's a great new feature that we've recently launched and is live and steer today. 
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. So Gary, you've got a question.
Jimmy Lea: You've got your hand up. Ask it in the Q and a, we'd be happy to ask those questions for you. Let's give a shout out to Bree Tilford, Japanese auto care in Orangeville, California. Awesome. Thank you for joining you guys. I love the CRM. Let's ask one more question, Summer, and I'm going to ask this of you.
Jimmy Lea: You now have a magic wand. If there were a wish that you could be granted for your CRM, and Ryan, here's where we take notes. If you could wave the magic wand, what would you wish for in your CRM? 
Summer Guerrero: Really, honestly, Probably our biggest thing right now is that all of our messaging systems are not together.
Summer Guerrero: So like Facebook messaging is not in with the Google because the Google messaging is just awesome. But if you could add the other messaging platforms to the one so that when the team comes in, they're just looking at one and maybe have like a message there that says where that came from. But I would say that's probably the one thing right now I'm running around that could save me a little bit of time.
Ryan D'Souza: Well, Summer, and you know what? Great news. What, what is coming in the third quarter of this year, it's step, step one to get to where you want to is the centralized review response platform. So within STEER, you'll be able to respond to reviews across your social media. The next phase after that would be.
Ryan D'Souza: Messaging messages that aren't reviews that are coming in from there. So, stay tuned. Thank you for the feedback. And for those on the call that are not summer and have a microphone, love to get that feedback as well. So whatever we can do to make steer better for your shop. Yeah, 
Jimmy Lea: there's, that's a, it's an awesome request.
Jimmy Lea: And from a software development side, and I'm hearing what Ryan's saying, cause it makes my, the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Yeah. Yeah. Great requests. Summer. Yeah. We're working on that. It'll take us to third quarter and about a million dollars to develop that, but we're getting there.
Summer Guerrero: I kinda heard through the grapevine just cause I have an amazing manager that I talk to on a monthly basis. And so 
Summer Guerrero: she knows my. Concerns and things that would help me and definitely is keeping me in the loop that this is coming 
Ryan D'Souza: Good. 
Summer Guerrero: We did get a question in there that says is there additional charge for steer through steer for that appointment button through google 
Ryan D'Souza: No, it's covered in your platform.
Ryan D'Souza: There's three different plans that we offer and they're all based on the registration on commercial texting So the texting level that you have the size of your shop whether you want to communicate Fully engage or just keep in contact with your customers. We just, the plan that meets the needs of the business is what we'll fit into.
Ryan D'Souza: And that feature is available across all of them. So we don't restrict features across the platform. 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. That's awesome. Thank you, Ryan. Ryan, let's turn the spotlight onto summer here. for a few minutes. It's it's the month of inspiring women in history and summer. I put you right up there with Amelia Earhart with Madame Curie.
Jimmy Lea: You have had an extraordinary life. Tell us a little bit about your life and your inspiration so that we can document this and have this for posterity. 
Summer Guerrero: Well, I can tell you that Mark and I had, did not come from a family of entrepreneurs at all. And we've been together since we were 15.
Summer Guerrero: And my first Touching of a car was in a 1971 Nova that he had under a big oak tree and a come along hanging from it. And he said, hey, let's take this engine apart. And I was somebody that did not work on cars did not have 30 clothes to get. 30. And here he is telling me, let's go take this thing apart.
Summer Guerrero: And his big thing was, he was raised by a single mom and he had a soft spot for women and he just told me, I just don't want you to be taken advantage of. So, I want you to come in and do this. And so that kind of leads into my. My past and I tease him about, when we pulled that engine apart and he was such a good instructor and teacher and taught me how everything moved and talked about, fuel air and fire that I became a firefighter and I blame him, but 
Jimmy Lea: oh, it's his fault.
Jimmy Lea: I didn't know that. 
Summer Guerrero: I tell him he says, whatever. But, yeah. No I tease him about that because that was like my first, little understanding of chemistry there and how everything worked. But I did become a firefighter. I was a firefighter for 15 years, loved helping people, led a team of rescue, of a rescue squad.
Summer Guerrero: So, but during that I was, Also army. So I went away to Iraq for about 16 months. So Mark had to raise the kids. And he did a wonderful job. When I came back from Iraq, I found out that I had stage four breast cancer. So I went through all of that realized so many people need uplifted and even that situation.
Summer Guerrero: And so that's when I really knew my purpose is and what makes me happy and my heart light up is helping people. And Back when we were 16, Mark's like, I want to own a shop one day to show people there's good, honest technicians and shop owners and things out there. And so after I went through chemotherapy, I just has uplifted me.
Summer Guerrero: He's taught me all about cars. I can, wow, all the guys. I can help all the women just be empowered. And with Mark empowering me through all of that and allowing me to be a firefighter, which is really hard for a man to, be the only spouse that is of a different background. Usually in the big balls and everything like that.
Summer Guerrero: But, that was pretty, that says something about how much Mark loved me. And so, after going through the chemo, I started. Looking for ways to learn how to be a business owner and so that he can own and have his dream one day. And so, there's several ways that you can, be, learn how to do business.
Summer Guerrero: And I can tell you some of the cheap ways because we sure didn't have a lot of money at that time. We sold everything we had to start the business, or at least we sold everything and mark wasn't quite sure it was going to happen until I just gave him the keys and told him today's the day you start a new job Good luck I got this i'll handle everything else on my 24 on and 48 off.
Summer Guerrero: You just Work from front to back and make it all happen. But yeah, I just realized he hadn't lived his dream, but he sure did. Let me do what I wanted and empower other women that way too. 
Jimmy Lea: Summer, that's such a beautiful love story. That's really what I heard is the love that you and Mark have for each other that he has for you cause you're right.
Jimmy Lea: There's a lot, not a lot of guys out there that would be able to express that kind of love. There's a lot of single dads. There's a lot of single moms, they're doing the best they can and props to you for making it happen props to you and Mark for making it happen together. You're fulfilling his dreams and he was fulfilling your dreams.
Jimmy Lea: That's such a beautiful thing. I love it. Thank you. So Mark is the, I call him the wrench, the phone and the computer. With your 24 on your 48 off you were coming in that had to be exhausting for you How long were you able to maintain that before you're finally like, all right, we're good. 
Summer Guerrero: Oh really?
Summer Guerrero: It was only about six months and yeah, because then I started Getting a little crabbier because you know some shifts, you get sleep some shifts you don't. And but really it was about six months, and then we realized that we had exhausted everything that we had learned through. Business development centers and things like that, that we, if we were going to grow, we needed help.
Summer Guerrero: And so we actually the story really is funny as you got, we get this mailer in the mail and. Nope. It's money. I throw it away. And Mark's like, wait a minute. Isn't this what you're talking about? We might need some help from these coaching companies that are industry specific, 
Jimmy Lea: right?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. How about that? 
Summer Guerrero: Yeah. So, about six months in, we aligned with a coaching company and within another six months, now we're hiring our first. team member and figuring out the whole structure behind actually the automotive industry, business development centers are great because business is business and everything.
Summer Guerrero: There are certain things that are the same all across the board, but the automotive industry has some different KPIs that you really should focus on. And just having someone that knows that for you to be able to help give you that focus and grow your business really makes a difference.
Summer Guerrero: So if you're struggling, that's one thing I can say, if you are struggling, you definitely need to find the right coach. Or consulting company that will give you what you need right now to boost you up and get you through whatever's going on and help you grow your business. 
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Ryan, you have a question for Summer. 
Ryan D'Souza: I do, as a father of four daughters, definitely inspiring female stories are amazing. I would love to maybe double click a little bit on the industry. It's not an industry that's very female heavy and women in auto care is something I've been involved with as a periphery person, obviously not being a woman, but supporting it and trying to hire folks within the team at steer, not only divert, not only just women, but fully diverse.
Ryan D'Souza: I would love to understand, how you staff your shop and how you're feeling as a minority in the industry. 
Summer Guerrero: So I'm pretty naive to it. I don't even, I have to have, sometimes people have to tell me that I am different. 
Jimmy Lea: Well, she, in the army, she was in charge of a platoon of men and women.
Jimmy Lea: It didn't matter. So she's not seeing gender. She's seeing valuable people. And I love that. I mean, Summer, you're even the chairman of the MWACA. 
Summer Guerrero: Yeah, I am president of MWACA. And yeah, the first one man, but you know, I understand all the hard work that all the men are doing in our industry and the passion that they have in this industry and how good they are with their hands and why they love what they do.
Summer Guerrero: And so women can see that. I think a lot of women have that connection with seeing. If someone has passion about that and our team actually, I think they're proud to have a woman as one of the owners, because I learned so much from Mark through the years of the testing and repairing, and I'm not afraid to get dirty and.
Summer Guerrero: Work on the cars or diagnose or test something to be able to help a customer because you just do what it takes. And I think a lot of moms just automatically do that when it comes up. If you're a mom, or you've had to take care of even a family member of some sort that nurturing. Side of us understand when there's a need and we just make it happen.
Summer Guerrero: Like that's the will and the power of a female. And so I guess that's something Mark and I do talk about too. Cause he's empowering to me and he doesn't always feel like he is. He just feels like I'm very powerful in what I do always. And 
Ryan D'Souza: well, you know what the staff should feel great and be proud.
Ryan D'Souza: Cause it's not just. A female, but great people are great people and everyone loves working for great people. So, kudos to you. 
Summer Guerrero: Customers do love it too, when customers come in and I know just as much as the guys and I can answer all of their questions. Or more. Or more, yeah. Yeah, so I actually can protect the guys from being interrupted, for the most part.
Summer Guerrero: So, there is a good part of being a female in this industry, and we can multitask like crazy to without people feeling like we're multitasking. So, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot that women do that can do. And that power makes a difference, I think, in anything that they bring to the table. 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that.
Jimmy Lea: I love that. Summer you have an inspiring story and Trish gives you a shout out as well. Trish says such a courageous woman, Summer, and you've got an exclamation point as well as a smiley face. So thank you for that. What advice would you give shop owners that are coming up in the industry?
Jimmy Lea: You weren't raised in the industry. You weren't a second generation wrench. You weren't, I mean, you learned on a note, but hopefully you never lit that on fire to have to inspire that firefighter side. Just kidding. What advice would you give the shop owners that are coming up in the industry?
Summer Guerrero: Well, I would say that it took us longer than it, it should have because a lot of times we let ego get in the way and we think that we can figure things out on our own, but business owners, and especially in the automotive industry, we've just found that Automotive shop owners really want to help other shop owners not make all of the same mistakes that they did.
Summer Guerrero: So, and things sometimes work out for you that wouldn't work out for someone else. So you do have to take things with a grain of salt, but listening to other business owners and communicating with them and actually just telling them your problems of what you have and just letting them.
Summer Guerrero: Give you some problems that they've seen and some solutions can make a huge difference. And again, like a coaching company, if you're struggling and you can't figure it out, like, just don't try and Do it for so long because you know that it's just going to be a little bit more work if you're going to feel like you're in quicksand and you're trying to get out of it by yourself, and there are so many helpful coaches and consulting companies that really want to help you and have the tools to get you out of it, you just have to listen and do what they when they give you that recommendation, really try and apply it because I mean, there were years that we were with which coaching company that, we fought it for a little bit.
Summer Guerrero: So, actually longer, way longer than what we should, we would be way further along in our company if, had we had listened then, but we just weren't their maturity. Why is Mark or I so I could for the first company that we had, it worked great within for six months to a year. And then tech and Mark started coming out and he started giving more pushback, but I was the owner hat, so I was like, no, we'll just change these little things.
Summer Guerrero: He won't notice until I can show him results. And then, that's how our business kept growing every year. And then I would probably say, if you have not implemented, Profit First. So Profit First is a book. Read it. And and then there are CPAs and accounting firms that can help you apply that.
Summer Guerrero: But that actually was a huge thing when we first started because you don't really realize that a lot of that money is not your money. Like it's already spent. So that's where you have to realize how to actually set up it. Your set up how you, for some reason I just drew a blank, but like how you feel like your labor rates and what you're charging is based off of all of your expenses.
Summer Guerrero: And when you do the profit first method, you're separating that money into different accounts. So you know, what accounts not to touch and what account is actually your money. So, to have a good. Foundation for your business. I think those three things really just remember you can we're here for you.
Summer Guerrero: Like, all of us want to help as business owners, even if it doesn't matter what level you're at as a business owner, you could be a one year business owner, because the things that you've learned The spar is going to help even someone that's a 10 year 15 year because we, like when I'm teaching someone or I'm talking with someone, I remember those things that crap, we've let that go, or why did I stop doing that, and I'm giving them the recommendation.
Summer Guerrero: So, you really help us if you're asking the questions to somebody that you feel is at a different level. The reality of it is you're helping them too by asking those questions so that they can make sure that everything that worked for them is still being applied.
Summer Guerrero: Ooh, you're muted. 
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. I hear that from a lot of shop owners that they say, I really wish I would have started with coaching and training sooner. Everybody needs a coach. Everybody needs a trainer. Think of all these professional athletes that are so successful. They have multiple coaches, they have multiple trainers.
Jimmy Lea: So yeah, in, even in the automotive industry, we are not immune to that. We do need coaches. We need trainers. We need somebody that is able to look at it from the outside, because maybe as you're in there somewhere, you get a little snow blind and you don't see things, but that coach is able to help you to see those things.
Summer Guerrero: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Cause you can't learn everything like all at once. Like there's so many things like we just focused on the, things that we understood at that time and then would start adding in different KPIs that we could see the changes in. So, and again, really that business owner touch just reaching out to other shops and, it doesn't we.
Summer Guerrero: Well, and I can go in, just being so involved in Milwaukee, like the 
Summer Guerrero: big 
Summer Guerrero: thing is we are not competitors against each other. Really? We're not. There are millions and millions of cars out there and it's just actually hard to justify how many cars are out there. So if we can all just get on the same page and help each other.
Summer Guerrero: Be successful and make a good living and just be happy and love what we do and why we do it, then this automotive industry is just gonna be better off. We have things that we need to actually fight together for, that are fighting against us that is not each other. So 
Jimmy Lea: yeah, for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Go ahead, Brian. 
Ryan D'Souza: I was going to say, when you do that, when you actually love what you do, guess what? Customers can feel it too. 
Ryan D'Souza: And 
Ryan D'Souza: that love comes through and that whole cycle of building trust and building a community around your shop starts with you loving what you do, because that will translate into doing great work.
Ryan D'Souza: And that's where it all, the foundation of that customer love and trust happens. So great point. Awesome. Well put. 
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. It is super awesome. The author of your book, Profit First is Mike McAlowicz. Yeah. So everybody should read that. If you're listening right here, you need to get the book and you need to read it.
Jimmy Lea: It will change the way you do business and you'll find yourself to be more profitable. 
Summer Guerrero: His audio book is pretty entertaining too because he reads it himself. So if you're like me and we don't have a lot, we drive a lot of back and forth. So, but I do recommend the book cause there are illustrations that you will want.
Summer Guerrero: But definitely if you don't do, I mean, cause some people are overwhelmed that there's so many accounts that he's talking about. You don't have to do all of them, but at least you get the gist of, like in my business we have the we have payroll, we have expenses, we have 
Summer Guerrero: Taxes, owners distributions is huge.
Summer Guerrero: Your money. 
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. 
Summer Guerrero: So it's huge. 
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Warranty work, tire warranties. But you have a little different. 
Summer Guerrero: You 
Summer Guerrero: can have many accounts. 
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. Absolutely. Trish gives a shout out, says that coaches and mentors are a plus for sure. So thank you, Trish. We really appreciate that. This has been a phenomenal discussion.
Jimmy Lea: You guys absolutely phenomenal. Any final words of advice? 
Summer Guerrero: I would just say no that I am one for sure that I can speak for that if you need help or you have questions you can definitely reach out to me. I'm open to that. And I. actually look forward to meeting more business owners and hearing their stories and learning from them too.
Summer Guerrero: So, you would be giving me a call would be beneficial for me as well. So, but don't struggle very long at all. Like we're all here to help. And I mean, Mark and I are actually growing right now. We're, we do a 10 year plan. And so, the next generation of technicians and service advisors is our big focus right now.
Summer Guerrero: And, focusing on the EV and ADOS and all of that. So we are remodeling and setting up for the next 10 years. So our shop is, we'll be alive in 10 years, and so, even if we're not actually in the business as much as we are 
Jimmy Lea: on a beach, sipping mai tai's is a good place to be. And the shop can run itself.
Summer Guerrero: Yeah. 
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Or 
Ryan D'Souza: you can run it from your iPad because steer works wherever you are. So you could be in the Cayman islands, managing campaigns, talking to us. No problem. 
Ryan D'Souza: Working on the business 
Ryan D'Souza: versus in the business is still adding value. So absolutely. 
Summer Guerrero: That you mentioning that like that has been that was a focus last year was trying to get everything cloud based in our shop so that anybody could access anything, anywhere, even with our technicians to because we put a lot of notes in and they like their notes to be good and sometimes doing it.
Summer Guerrero: In the middle of working on a car is not the best time for them. So they'll put a notes later, so the whole automatic and just the accessibility is what is really going to be helpful and attract those new young, technicians and advisors, they love that technology. 
Jimmy Lea: Yep.
Jimmy Lea: We all do Ryan last bits of final advice for our shop owners. 
Ryan D'Souza: Yeah, honestly, I think, you know what we talked about right off the hop, do great work, get your customers to love you by personalizing communication, use a tool that frees up your time to run your shop and allows you to do the things that You want to do every day and that's probably not building campaigns and marketing.
Ryan D'Souza: We can do that for you. So, I think that's a big part of it. And again, however, we can help to make your lives better and grow the shop revenue so you can do less and make more. That's what we're here for. So happy to help. 
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. To put a final capstone on this. Is to say everyone, just as summer said, let's get together next week.
Jimmy Lea: Mars marketing for the automotive repair service industry. We are doing a Mars conference in Ogden, Utah. This is the best marketing conference that you can attend. Spoke is focused specifically on you and on your shop. Ryan's going to be there talking about steer. We've got seven other presenters talking about marketing methods that will work for you as well as additional additional sponsors that have time that, Oh my gosh, this is, it's going to be so good.
Jimmy Lea: Let's come together. Let's get together and. Share ideas so that we aren't competition. We understand we're not competition. We're working together to elevate the industry. Let's lock arms together and become one tribe to make sure we all make it to the finish line. As someone was saying, you need coaching and training.
Jimmy Lea: Come talk to the Institute. I'd love to talk to you about what we have to offer you with your advisors, managers. There's groups, there's one on one coaching and training. There's even high level, high performance groups that we have available for you. So let's get together and talk about what that looks like for you.
Jimmy Lea: Everyone needs a coach. So do you. We'll see you guys soon. Thank you very much. This has been awesome. Let's check out any other questions, comments, concerns? Nope. Looks like we are good. We'll see you there. Oh and at the Mars conference. At the very end, you will be setting up in a breakout session.
Jimmy Lea: You'll be setting up your annual marketing plan. Oh yeah, baby. You go home ready to rock and roll, hit the ground running. Let's do it. Set it and forget it. I'll see you there. I'm Jimmy Lee. Here's Ryan with steer summer with summer with affinity auto service. Guys are awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time.
Ryan D'Souza: Thanks everyone. Take care. Be well. Okay.
Jimmy Lea: So just stay right here and keep smiling.
Jimmy Lea: Cool. All right. I'm going to shut it down now. 
Ryan D'Souza: We're clear. All right. Take care. Thank you. Great job, everyone.
 

92 - 5 Star Google Reviews: How to Get Them, and Why It Matters So Much

92 - 5 Star Google Reviews: How to Get Them, and Why It Matters So Much
February 22, 2024 - 01:09:49
 
Show Summary:
In this episode hosted by Nicole McLaughlin, previous Marketing Director at R.O. Writer, special guest Jimmy Lea from the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence dives into one of the most powerful tools for shop owners: Google Reviews. With humor and insight, Jimmy explains how reviews influence Google rankings, how to handle negative feedback, avoid common pitfalls like incentivizing or gating, and use reviews to turn customers into raving fans. This engaging session covers strategies for responding to both praise and criticism while leveraging reviews to boost shop visibility and credibility. A must-listen for automotive professionals looking to grow their digital reputation the right way.
 
Contact(s):
Sadie McCann, Director of Marketing, R.O. Writer
 
Guest(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Episode Highlights:
[00:08:44] Why Google Reviews Matter More Than You ThinkJimmy reveals how reviews impact Google rankings and why a 4.5 - 4.8 rating is the sweet spot.
[00:14:51] What Not to Do: Incentivizing & Review GatingLearn why offering freebies for five-star reviews or gating feedback can backfire and fast.
[00:20:09] Every Review, Positive and Negative… They ALL Get a ResponseFrom 0 to 5, Jimmy breaks down how to respond authentically to any type of google review.
[00:25:25] Make It Personal: Why You Should Respond to Reviews Yourself
Personally responding to reviews, not only shows genuine engagement with your customers, but also builds trust with Google, boosts SEO through natural keywords, and proves you're invested in the customer experience far beyond a copy-paste reply.
[00:40:44] Flagging and Removing Fake or Abusive ReviewsStep-by-step process for reporting, documenting, and getting harmful reviews taken down.
[00:46:04] The Risk of Review Attacks: What to Do When It Goes ViralHow to approach attacking reviews on Google Business Review Profile - Remain calm and relaxed. Report to Google.
[01:03:40] Google Rankings/Reviews - Using KeywordsClient-written keywords in Google reviews carry significant SEO value, so focus on authentic customer language rather than keyword stuffing to boost your shop's online ranking.
[01:04:01] Where to Spend Time: Google, Yelp & Facebook Review StrategyBreakdown of where shop owners should focus their review response efforts.
 
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://info.rowriter.com/blog/shop-management-tips/5-star-google-reviews/
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
 
Nicole McLaughlin: Hello, everyone. Welcome. I'm going to give folks a couple minutes to trickle in. I see we have Adam. Hey, Adam, how's it going? Who else do we have? We have Dawn and Ed, Hugh. Thank you guys so much for joining us. When I say I'm excited to be here today, I mean, I'm excited to be here because our friends from the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence are back.
Nicole McLaughlin: So we have an exciting session today. But before I jump into that, my name is Nicole McLaughlin and I'm the Marketing Director here at R. O. Writer. Before I get to the good stuff, I do have a couple of housekeeping notes as always. So this presentation is a live broadcast. We will send you a copy of the slides and recording via email by the end of next week.
Nicole McLaughlin: So keep an eye out for those. There will be a follow up survey after the presentation, so if you like what you hear and you want to hear more from either R. O. Writer or the Institute, please let us know there. And then, rather than opening up the Q& A at the end, we do want to make this session as engaging and live and interactive as possible, so what you'll do is you'll drop your questions as we go, we'll address them right away and then we can, we can go from there.
Nicole McLaughlin: I see a couple of new faces on the line with us today, which is fantastic. So if you're not familiar with our writer, we are a comprehensive automotive repair shop management software built to help shop owners, just like you optimize every aspect of your business. So this includes service, writing, invoicing, customer communications, reporting, and so much more.
Nicole McLaughlin: And we've been in the business for over 30 years. So we're the trusted business partner you need. But let's get to the good stuff. So we're, this, this is exciting. Not only do we have my friend Jimmy Lee with us today, but Jimmy just celebrated a big birthday on Tuesday. So everyone helped me in welcoming Jimmy with a happy birthday note in the comments.
Nicole McLaughlin: Welcome, Jimmy. 
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Happy birthday. I'm now over 50. 
Nicole McLaughlin: You don't look it. 
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. I appreciate that. Yup. Thank you very much. Everybody's, are you dropping in happy birthdays? I have to look. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Adam wishes you a happy birthday. Both Adams wished you a happy birthday actually.  
Jimmy Lea: Thank you Adams.
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks guys. 
Jimmy Lea: Cool. 
Nicole McLaughlin: I'll hand it over to you to kick us off. 
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Okay. Well, if I click back and forth, my clicker stops clicking , so my God, we're gonna, we're gonna hit this ground running because we're, we are gonna talk about raving fans and about your Google reviews and how they're important, why you need them, how you need them, and what we can do to create more, and how you can convert that Google Review to become a raving fan, an an advocate for you.
Jimmy Lea: That is working for you 25 hours a day, 366 days a year. Do you know what I'm talking about? They're out there working for you all the time. So there's, this is, this is so much information that we're going to jam into this. And you would have never thought that we could talk about reviews for an hour or two hours or three hours or four hours.
Jimmy Lea: But I will tell you that there is so much that goes into. Google and Google reviews that it is definitely worth this look that we're going to take so you you've heard it said before Well, I you know, I have some negative Google reviews. I'll never be able to get rid of them You can't get rid of them.
Jimmy Lea: Well, the answer is actually yes, you can And it depends. So there's a 50, 50 chance. And there's three different phases to go through that you have a 50, 50 chance of getting it removed. So we're going to talk about those as well. But first of all, let's talk about Google. What is Google type that in the chat?
Jimmy Lea: What is Google? So as you are thinking of Google and their platform and the information that they provide, what is Google? Go ahead and put those in the chat and Nicole as people are typing those in. I'm not able to 
Nicole McLaughlin: see it on my side 
Jimmy Lea: So if you got any information, tell me what they're what people are typing in here for what is Google?
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah, I've got you I've got you. So we'll give people a couple minutes because there is a little bit of a lag Adam Adam who Adam Ford who wished you a happy birthday says is it a search engine question mark 
Jimmy Lea: search engine? Yes, it is a search engine, but it's more. What more is it? What? What is google? How does google make money?
Nicole McLaughlin: So matt matt is matt's on target here He says google is a for profit company. We're getting closer. We're getting closer. So what else do we have? Ed says It's the best internet search 
Jimmy Lea: You know, that's ed you're you're you're you're not wrong it is the godfather of the internet Google's able to track the sources of things.
Jimmy Lea: We know how much people are searching from Google. Depending on the report you read, it's anywhere from 66 percent to 74 percent of all internet searches are done through Google. So yeah, it is a great source of finding out information. 
Nicole McLaughlin: What else did you get? We got a couple of folks that are right on the money though.
Nicole McLaughlin: We have Steve saying search engine, AI, marketing. We have Hugh saying. Selling advertising. Chris saying a platform for marketing. I think we're right on the money. 
Jimmy Lea: Yep, Google makes money because they're a marketing company. They are a marketing company. So you as a shop owner, your currency that you have with Google is the trust they have in your shop or in your business to provide Their clients with the answers that the clients are searching for so the more confidence google has in your shop your business your website The more they promote you the more you get drawn to the top the higher your google ranking So their google gives us tips every once in a while They talk about what goes into a good website and what you can do as a shop owner we'll go over these three because well, but just very quickly because what we want to get to is Reviews reviews, Google draws back the curtain every once in a while, and they really open up to say what goes into your Google ranking.
Jimmy Lea: So let's talk. We're going to focus specifically on reviews today and what those reviews mean to you as a shop owner because we love reviews. Does everybody love reviews? Type in the chat. Do you love reviews? Yes or no. Give me a yes or no. Type it in the chat. Do you love reviews? Yes or no. In the chat, are they all yeses Nicole?
Nicole McLaughlin: Well, most of them are yeses, but People want the five star google reviews. They say yes if it's good and only if it's good 
Jimmy Lea: Yes, yes. Yes. Yes, and I love it. I love that you were all saying yes But I also understand that you're lying to us because we know that you also hate reviews. You hate reviews because there is this negative connotation, negative reviews.
Jimmy Lea: We're going to talk about what you need to do in both these situations. So when Google pulls back the curtain, what I'm showing you here, this comes from Moz. com. You've seen this for quite a few years. This is an accepted Iteration of what goes into your Google review and about 23, almost 24 percent of your Google ranking comes from the social cues.
Jimmy Lea: of your website, of your interaction with the public. So how does Google find this information? It's from all of the reviews that you're putting out there. As well, it comes from your social media. Totally different subject. We're not going to talk about social media today. We're going to focus on the reviews because the reviews become a very strong platform that you can stand on that shows The value of your shop and the value of your business, almost 24 percent in social cues.
Jimmy Lea: And it's almost 8% 8. 6 into your reviews. So this has a lot, a lot, a lot of weight. Google gives the reviews. You've got a one, two, three, four, five star ratings. Google analyze the automotive industry and what they discovered is interesting. Shops that have a 5. 0 rating, 5. 0 Google review rating, they didn't believe it anymore.
Jimmy Lea: And I can't argue with them. Do you believe a business that has a 5. 0 rating? If it's a 5. 0 rating, do you believe that? No, Google doesn't either. Shops that have a 5. 0 rating. No, no, we're human. We make mistakes, but there's a lot that goes into it. So the Google rating that you want to have is somewhere between a 4 and a 4.
Jimmy Lea: 8. And I'm going to say it's probably even better that it's between a 4. 5 and a 4. 8. This really shows the human side of where you're at. So if your Google ratings. And you're at that four, five to four, eight, chances are you're doing really well. Google analyzed it. You do want one stars, two stars, three stars, and four stars, and five stars.
Jimmy Lea: This all goes into your Google rating. Customers, clients can only leave a single Google review. So what do you do? You still want more information. Well, they can update their information. They can update their review. I've done this with my shop here in St. George, Utah. I think I have like 12 updates that I've put in for my Google review.
Jimmy Lea: Cause we keep adding cars to the family fleet. The family fleet has more than one car. So we take care of all those. So let's first dig into a little bit of abuse, Google review abuse. This is an interesting topic because it's not necessarily what you're going to look at on your shop and on your Google reviews.
Jimmy Lea: This is where you're looking at other people and seeing what they have or what they're doing. And this is where knowing what other people are doing, trying to boost their. Google review you want to make sure that you're not doing it for your account because this is flagged by Google and Potentially you could lose a tremendous amount of your Google reviews.
Jimmy Lea: So spotting some of this abuse It is coming from people that leave reviews all over the world Why? I don't know, but it, it is one of those things that Google looks at if a world traveler. Have they actually been to your shop? So that's, that's key there. Number one, trolls, trolls. This is quite interesting.
Jimmy Lea: There was a a profile that had gone in on one specific city and Negative reviewed every single automotive repair shop. Those trolls, you can flag that profile and get that deleted. Those trolls that are in there. It's a business practice that some review companies will try and implore to try and get you to buy their services.
Jimmy Lea: Don't fall for it. So those negative reviews. I'm going to show you how to get rid of those as well using stock images or stolen photographs that that don't belong to the person that posted it. Show you what this looks like reviews that are being left for the multiple locations. Even though they haven't been to all those locations.
Jimmy Lea: So if somebody's reviewing a business that has four, five, six different locations, but they haven't been to all six, they've only been to the one that is abuse of the Google review platform. And those can be flagged and removed also. And this is more common amongst attorneys. And what's the other one?
Jimmy Lea: Attorneys some dental practice where a friend or a colleague will go on and review you as a business to say, I've known Nicole for 15 years, and she's an awesome person, so you should definitely go and see her business and and have her work on your vehicle. I've never been to Nicole's shop. You can clearly see that from the review that it's just a friend or colleague giving a review.
Jimmy Lea: A positive review. So those, those are ones that you want to pay attention to. If they're on your website or on your Google business profile, there's a chance that might be deleted because that person hasn't been to the shop. Next is incentivizing five star reviews. This is a bad thing. This is a no, no.
Jimmy Lea: So I'm telling you this so that you go in and look at your pictures that are online in your Google business profile. Are there photographs and what you'll see even going in on. The, the the Google tour where people can come in and walk through your shop because somebody has come in with those three 60 cameras, go in and look and make sure that you don't have any placards or signs up that say, leave us a five star review and we'll give you a free set of wiper blades.
Jimmy Lea: Those types of incentives to get Google reviews is bad. And Google will take those down. And I've seen shops. Well, they will, it wasn't from. Incentive incentivizing reviews. It was more towards this last one, review gating. I'll save the story for when we get to review gating because they went from 440 reviews down to 85.
Jimmy Lea: Very dangerous. So we'll talk about that here in a minute. Nicole. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Hey Jimmy, I have a quick question for you. Is it, I guess, bad to incentivize, incentivize five star reviews, or can you incentivize reviews in general? Even if it's a one star, you're still gonna be the recipient of x. Or it's any incentive around reviews is a no no.
Jimmy Lea: Any incentives around reviews is a no no. Yep. And if you want to read the 14 pages of Google Review Terms and Conditions, feel free to read it. I've read it for you already. I'm telling you don't incentivize any sort of reviews, even if it's five stars or four stars, or even just saying, We'd love to here's free wiper blades for leaving us a review.
Jimmy Lea: No, you don't, don't, don't, don't go there. Don't do that. No raffles, no raffles for Xboxes or, or PlayStations or even teeth whitening kits. So a lot of dental practices got busted on this one because they were giving away teeth whitening kits for leaving five star reviews. In the automotive industry, a lot of shops will give away wiper blades for the five star reviews.
Jimmy Lea: So don't do that. Don't do that. We'll talk about what that looks like. So let's talk about stock images. Can you tell which one is the stock image? And the answer is yeah, absolutely. Nowhere here in North America are we wearing coveralls like that in the automotive shop. This is somewhere in Norway, Netherlands, the Netherlands.
Jimmy Lea: Professional photographer went in took a bunch of shop pictures. So anytime you see these guys in these blue coveralls, It's this guy and a professional photographer made all the images available to everyone. It's a good placeholder for your website, but as soon as you possibly can put on a picture of your shop, put on a picture of people in your shop, actually from your shop, not stock images.
Jimmy Lea: This is bad as a picture in a shop. So, so don't do this. Don't do this. You, you want the actual photograph of the inside of your shop. And that goes a long way because not only can you put pictures, but your guests, your clients, they can also put pictures of themselves in front of your shop in front of their vehicle, in front of your shop.
Jimmy Lea: So now you've got happy customers in front of. The vehicles you work on with your local logo and your branding in the background, super powerful and that they're posting the information away from the shop from a different IP address goes even further. It increases the value of that review. To your shop and to your website, to your Google business profile, that's so this is powerful.
Jimmy Lea: So if you're looking around and you're looking at your competition, are you looking at other shops and you do see some of these stock images, you could report it to Google as inappropriate as a stolen image or a stock image. And Google would go in and take it down. I don't know any of you who have enough time to be able to go and start trolling other companies.
Jimmy Lea: So I'm not worried about them. I am worried about you. I want to make sure that you're taking care of yourself so that you're not posting up these stock images because they could be taken away. Okay. Is it okay to have a review contest? Now, Nicole, this goes to your question. Is it okay? Can I put up? An incentive.
Jimmy Lea: Can I give a 200 visa gift card as a raffle? The answer is no, no, you can't. Well, Jimmy what if I go and buy some five star reviews? There's companies out there that will sell you five star reviews. No, no, no. This is also bad in the terms and conditions of the Google reviews. It, this is people that have been to your shop, been to your business, and this is the interaction that they have had with you at your shop.
Jimmy Lea: So don't buy them, no, this is bad, this is, and Google knows it, they'll, they'll catch onto it fairly quickly and they'll take them all down and, and you will be punished for it. As well, the raffles, the incentives, no, don't do it. Don't do it. Absolutely not. It's bad. And it's really bad. So let's go into the reviews.
Jimmy Lea: Now you're getting reviews. You are not incentivizing, but you are encouraging customers at the exit interview in a day or two or three or five, depending on your shop. You test this to know, is it best, do I get the best response at two days after the invoice or three days after the invoice is closed or five days after the invoice is closed.
Jimmy Lea: You want to send a link for your customers to be able to go in and leave a review on your Google review platform. And every time you get a review, you want to respond. So thank you. Craig's car care, Craig sale in Allen, Texas. He responds to every single review. And you can see that through here, every single review, both the positive and the negative, they all get a response.
Jimmy Lea: They all get a response. This is a long list. And they all get a response. Every review, positive and negative. They all get a response. Now why? Why is that important? What should I say? What should we say in these review responses? When the positive ones, it's super easy. Right? You know this, you get the positive reviews.
Jimmy Lea: You reply. Thank you so much, Nicole, for bringing in your Lexus 450. We love working on your vehicle, keeping your brakes and shocks and struts, everything up to safety standards. It's easy to respond to those positive. What about the negative reviews? What do you do on the negative reviews when you get that one star or that two star, what do you do?
Jimmy Lea: We're going to talk about that because it might just be that badge of honor that you earned it, you earned it. And I'm going to tell you what, there are two different types of. Bad reviews of one star reviews because it always seems that we're the one extreme or the other you either get a five star Review or you get a one star review.
Jimmy Lea: So let's say that this is a one star review. This is a badge of honor You earned it There's also the other side, which is the mayor of crazy town. Everybody can smell them coming. Oh my gosh, this is so wackadoodle. This is crazy. There's no, this is not a real review. We're going to talk about what you do with those, but let's first talk about the badge of honor.
Jimmy Lea: What does that look like? I want to tell you about Griffin muffler and break my good friend, Nanette Griffin. Was a 5. 0 star rating. And, and, oh man, now she's up to 189 and it's even better than that. She has sold the business. So this is a new owner that is taking over and the new owner is doing a great job.
Jimmy Lea: So I'm telling you a story that has years under the bridge. Nanette Griffin, five star shop. Nobody believes the five star shop, right? 49 five star reviews. I've been to Griffin, Muffler Brake. Phenomenal shop. And, and she does provide that five star experience. But she didn't have any one stars, twos, threes, nothing that would bring it out of that five star rating.
Jimmy Lea: Well, one day, Badge of Honor, they got a one star review and she's so excited. What do you do? Well, she went on and replied to the review and said, Oh, my gosh, this doesn't meet our experience that we try and provide for our clients. Here's my phone number. Give me a call. We want to make this right. Lucky for her, what happens?
Jimmy Lea: Lucky for her, client comes. And calls on the phone, client comes into the shop, brings the car back. What is it? Oh, it's smudges on the hood or something very, very, very minimal, but they take care of the client. They take care of the customer. They do a whole nother digital inspection on the vehicle. The customer's feeling really good about this experience.
Jimmy Lea: And on her way out of the shop, she pops her head into Nanette's office and says, Nanette, this is. Experience. Thank you so much. Customer service has never been. This is a stellar experience. All customer service should be trained the way that you have trained your staff and your people. This has been a wonderful experience.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. I'm going to go change my five star review or my one star review to a five star review on Google. Oh, wait, wait, wait. What did Nanette say? Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. Hold on a second. No, no. I need that one star review because it's, I'm now a 4. 9 star shop.
Jimmy Lea: This is, this is perfect. This is what I need. Instead of changing the review, because clients see that. They see that out there. They see that one star review. When you go to a business. Do you sort it to look at those one star reviews? How old are they? How old are they? Nicole? What are we seeing? 
Nicole McLaughlin: I'm i'm back in but steve brought up a couple of good points to us It's it's a little bit long, but let me read it to you.
Nicole McLaughlin: So 
Jimmy Lea: Let's hear it 
Nicole McLaughlin: He says I coach my team to ask how their experience was and depending on the answer at the time We ask for a review while the customer is still in the store And in the event their experience was not great. It allows us the opportunity to basically fix that we have QR codes for Google that customers can scan to leave a review.
Nicole McLaughlin: But then he follows up with a question. And his question is, do you feel it is better to personally respond to reviews or use a service that monitors reviews to respond for you? 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's a good question, Steve. So phenomenal. And in fact, let's unpack this because Nicole, there is so much inside of this.
Jimmy Lea: Let's talk first to his first question, which was right at the very end. And now that I've said that, I forgot the question at the very end. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah, is it better to use a service service reviews or should he be doing it himself? 
Jimmy Lea: So Steve, my advice would be that you do it yourself. If you do hire a service to do it for you, make sure that they have 8, or 100 different responses that could be from you.
Jimmy Lea: So that it's not a copy and paste template on every review response gets the exact same information that shows that you as an owner are engaged with your clients and that's what Google wants to see. That's the currency that you're building with Google. Am I able to provide that additional value to my clients?
Jimmy Lea: So if you are going to hire a service. Make sure that they have 20, 30, 40, 100 different responses from you that could be thank you for coming in. We appreciate you and we're here for you when you need us. That's what I would do on that. In the personal response that you are able to give, I would always recommend that if the client doesn't leave in their response, or in their review, their vehicle, year make and model, the services that were performed, your response, your reply to them can contain that information.
Jimmy Lea: And what are you doing by doing that? Well, we're providing Google with some really good keywords. We're not keyword stuffing, but we're providing Google with some really good keywords about your shop working on 2012 Ford F 150s because you replaced the brakes, the shocks, the struts. The pads, the rotors, and you're taking care of Jimmy's Ford F 150.
Jimmy Lea: I love my truck. 
Nicole McLaughlin: And so say I have a Ford F 150 and I'm looking for somebody to service my Ford F 150 in the area, what's that gonna do, Jimmy? It's gonna pick up that truck, right? 
Jimmy Lea: Now when Nicole goes on and she types in Ford F 150 expert, Ford F 150 brakes, Ford F 150 rotors, Ford F 150 tires, Ford F 150 back axle, If those keywords are in my review, Google may queue that up and tee that up as an easy response to say, Hey, Nicole, I know you're looking for an F 150 expert.
Jimmy Lea: Here's somebody that had a really good experience with Jimmy's Super Shop. Maybe you want to go there because they're a Ford F 150 expert. Here's a five star review for you. 
Nicole McLaughlin: And I know we're probably going to get to it in a minute, Jimmy, but I wanted to drill down on the other aspect of his comment there about having a QR code to scan.
Nicole McLaughlin: Do you want me to save that for a little bit, or should we drill down now? 
Jimmy Lea: No, let's drill on that right now. So I love that you have the QR code. I love it and I hate it. I love that you're incentivizing people and you want 'em to come into it. There is a little bit of gating that you're doing. It can't be proven to Google.
Jimmy Lea: Probably not. It probably can't be proven. So what, what you're doing by that is, is, and, and I love that. You want to make sure that, to make it right. Because you may have a a bad experience with Mrs. Jones and her Mustang. So you definitely want to make that right before she leaves, goes home, and just unleashes wrath on, on a Google review.
Jimmy Lea: Okay, love and hate. Love it because the QR code there encourages them to leave a Google review. Here's my hate side, or my dislike side. I don't hate it. I dislike it. And for this reason, if they're leaving the review and Google knows the geo fencing, they know where that Mrs Jones is leaving that review.
Jimmy Lea: And if it's inside of your shop now, Google has to question. Okay, why are they leaving this review in the shop? Are they incentivizing? Are they giving a discount a dollar amount off? Are they giving free windshield wipers? Is there something nefarious happening here that we want to cut that review out of that shops, Google reviews.
Jimmy Lea: So now, now what happens, we'll go, we'll go into this in the, in the. Gating section, which is really cool because you, you, you want them to be at home or at the baseball field or at the grocery store or back at the office, leaving that review. So. Perhaps your QR code now goes on to the repair order or the invoice, or your QR code is a link that comes in a text or a link in an email requesting that review.
Jimmy Lea: So now they're away from the shop because it's two days later, or maybe it's still even that afternoon. One hour after the invoice closes, you're sending a request for a review. Why? Because they came in. My story. This is my story, Nicole. I brought my truck in for an oil service. 89. Synthetic oil. Getting the oil service.
Jimmy Lea: I get a call two hours later and, and they said, Hey, Jimmy, you know, we've got the truck in on the lift. We're getting ready to da, da, da, da. In our digital inspection. You remember, we've been watching these back breaks. You're down. It's now time. They definitely need to be replaced. So we did the pads the rotors pads and rotors pads and rotors Yes pads and rotors, so it's now 800 more so eight hundred eighty nine dollars Okay.
Jimmy Lea: Yes, you're right. Definitely get it done. We'd want to do it They call again in another two and a half hours and said hey jimmy you know, we've got the tires off We're into it. We're halfway through and we're seeing some seepage from your back axle We're halfway. We're almost do you want us to replace that seal now or do you want us to do it next time now?
Jimmy Lea: It's four hundred dollars for us to do it next time It's gonna be an additional eight hundred dollars because we have to pull everything off and get to this point where we are right Now do you want to do right now? I said, yep. Yep. Yep do it So my experience my oil change went from eighty nine dollars to eight hundred eighty nine dollars To 1, 289.
Jimmy Lea: Give me a minute to fall in love with my truck again. And by the way, driving down the street, I fell in love all over. It took me three minutes. I was in love again. The review request came the next day and I went on and gave him a raving review because they're helping to keep me safe on the road. And I really appreciate them doing that.
Jimmy Lea: What hurt was going from an 89 oil change to a 1, 200 invoice. But I, but listen to both sides of that story. I appreciate them keeping me safe on the road. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah, that's a good story. Thanks for sharing, Jimmy. But well, just as a takeaway, though, tell me you don't actually have a Ford, do you? 
Jimmy Lea: A Ford F 150?
Jimmy Lea: I do. Did. I just sold it. 
Nicole McLaughlin: I'm sad. Oh, good, good, good. I'm more of a Chev person myself. So that's why I was wondering, well, 
Jimmy Lea: you and your bow tie can go. 
Nicole McLaughlin: I mean, I do have a, I have a couple more questions coming in and then I'm sure all the Ford people I'm going to hear from the chat here in a minute. So, 
Jimmy Lea: and all the Chevy 
Jimmy Lea: supporting you.
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah, yeah, there we go. We have David chiming in. He's asking does asking for customers you helped to change a review, violate the Google terms and conditions. So asking them to, hey, can you, can you fix that from a one star to a three star? Was that a no no? 
Jimmy Lea: No, that, that's not wrong. That's not bad.
Jimmy Lea: Sometimes some people think, well, first place won, one star is the best. Oops. It's actually five star that's the best. So going back to Mrs. Smith and saying, hey, you know, thank you. We're glad you had a great experience when you leave a one star. That's actually the worst score you could give us. It would be great if you would change it to a five star and they would do that.
Jimmy Lea: If somebody had a bad experience and they did leave a one star and then they did get that one star or that experience was. rectified, the problem was fixed. There's no issue with you going to them and saying, Hey, you know, that you left a one star as an owner, you would go in and type out to say, Oh, thank you so much Mrs.
Jimmy Lea: Quinlan or Mr. Quinlan for bringing in your vehicle. We were, we're so glad that you brought it back to us so we could make everything right. And you list all the things that you made, right. Thank you so much for your experience. We're here for you when you need us. Keeping you safe on the road. So that response to their one star also helps Nicole when she comes and sees that the next time and Google sending out the Google bots.
Jimmy Lea: They crawl these reviews. They see that you made it right. So for you to go back to Mrs. Quinlan or Mr. Quinlan and say, Hey, you know, I'm glad that we had a good experience. Glad that if you feel it appropriate. You could go in and change the review from a one star to a five star. We would appreciate that.
Jimmy Lea: Or maybe you actually want the one star because it puts you in that sweet spot because of your reply. It's good. And it took you from a five Oh rating. Down to a 4. 9, which is giving you more credence and credibility with Google. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah, people can see that, right? So like, this example that you have up here is a good one.
Nicole McLaughlin: 189 reviews. If you're scrolling through, you can see they're all 5 star, 5 star, 5 star, 1 outlier. It's probably not going to break you, right? Like that, to your point, you want to be in that sweet spot. But I do have a question that lends itself to the topic as well, and then we'll keep moving. So Kim, I'm not really good at math, so I'm going to ask Jimmy the question, but I think I know the answer.
Nicole McLaughlin: Public math? It's not really math. At some point it says, please answer if our score goes down, how many five star reviews does it take to get back up? But you can never get back to a five star review. Can you, Jimmy, once you have that one that's brings it down.
Jimmy Lea: You can get, you can if all of your reviews are five stars, yeah, you could get, and then you got a one star and you got it changed or got it deleted and you went back up to a five.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. You could go back to a five. Oh, however, I wouldn't want to go back to a five. Oh, because Google has come out and said between a four point. Oh, and a four point eight is where you want to be. Chances are you want to keep that. One star, but now let's let's flip this, Nicole. Let's go down and say your shop is at a three.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so you've got a lot of one star reviews. How do you get rid of those one star reviews? How do you show Google that? This is the mayor of crazy town. How do you show Google that this is a badge of honor? You went in and you made it right. You you do it with your responses question. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah, Kim chimed back in and I'm glad she did because it gives more specifics.
Nicole McLaughlin: So it says, we're not at a five star, we're at a 4. 7, but we want to get to a 4. 8. 
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so to her question. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah. How many five stars do you need to get back up to? I think it depends on how many reviews are there, doesn't it? It 
Jimmy Lea: does. And the only true answer is nobody knows. There are companies trying to break this algorithm, trying to figure out this algorithm of Google Reviews.
Jimmy Lea: So follow me, follow me with this on, on this, this algorithm. And nobody knows the answer, by the way. Nobody knows it. If they tell you that they know it, they have a bridge to Hawaii. They want to sell you as well. It just, it just, it's not a thing. Your Google Reviews. You have longevity. So you have reviews that are older.
Jimmy Lea: Those reviews that are newer have a higher value than those that are older, but they're still both five star reviews. So, which one has the more value, the more current? You're, you have negative reviews that are in there as well. You have old negative reviews that don't have as much currency, but you have recent negative reviews.
Jimmy Lea: And maybe we don't call them negative. Yeah, recent one star reviews. Those have a different weight than the older ones. So to the question, how many five star reviews does it take current to get it from a four seven to a four eight? Nobody knows. Your shop might be 20, but Nicole's shop might be five.
Jimmy Lea: Pooja's shop might be 50. It depends on how many reviews you have. So the true answer is nobody knows. Nicole. 
Nicole McLaughlin: And I hate to get caught up in the questions, because I know you still have a lot to cover, but we do have some good questions coming in. So, Steve made a good point, and I guess I'm going to turn his comment into a question for you.
Nicole McLaughlin: But, he says that you can utilize a Google Review Calculator to input what your current rating is and how to get to the new one. I'm going to turn this into a question to say, how do you feel about Those calculators, Jimmy, are they accurate? Does anyone really know, et cetera? 
Jimmy Lea: According to Google, they're not accurate.
Jimmy Lea: According to and I'm, I'm basing a lot of this off of a company out of Canada called Sterling Sky. They are tier one, tier two and tier three support for Google. They subcontract with Google and they specifically specialize in Google reviews. So, Steve, I'd love to have a link to that calculator. I'd love to check it out.
Jimmy Lea: But to your point, are 
Nicole McLaughlin: there dates and different weights and to, like, the, the different criteria that you were mentioning, does that calculator take that into account? 
Jimmy Lea: That's the thing. Nobody knows. Yeah, they're all still trying to, to figure it out. Even Sterling Sky that's subcontracted with Google for providing those tiers of support even they don't know what the algorithm is.
Jimmy Lea: So there's people out there that will and, and with a pretty broad brush, they're getting close, but there's not anything that's exactly correct. That's probably the best answer for it, Steve. The Google Calculator will get you fairly close. But it's not going to give you the exact number and that's what I was trying to address is what's the exact number that I need and nobody knows 
Nicole McLaughlin: Steve's on it.
Nicole McLaughlin: He's 10 steps ahead. He's already pasted the URL. So I'll send that to you later on Jimmy. But I do have one more question before we keep moving on. And this one's from Chris. It's a really great question. How do you respond to a one star review that you are being left by people who are not customers but are leaving one star negative reviews based on encounterments by their friends of friends that they feel that they had a bad experience?
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Yes. This falls right into that abuse category, which is what we're going to go into here next as we talk about how do you respond or how do you reply to those? I, as an owner, I would reply to say, Hey, Joe, I don't know who you are. You haven't been into my shop. You haven't experienced here. We'd love for you to come in so we could make it right or so we, you could experience what it is here in our shop.
Jimmy Lea: But then also let's take it right over here to the next steps of reporting that Google review to Google. You go to the negative review, click on the three dots, and report it to Google. This is phase one. Now, this is phase one of three different phases. Click on the three dots, report it to Google.
Jimmy Lea: And there's a menu that'll come up. You mark it as inappropriate, or you can also mark it as spam, or you can, there's another one. There's like nine different options that come up when you do this. Inappropriate is the first one I would do. And you can ask your friends and your neighbors to also go in and mark it as inappropriate.
Jimmy Lea: Two or more, according to Google, two or more gets their attention. With 12 people going in, mark it as inappropriate. You definitely get even more attention from Google because there's more people coming in and marking it as inappropriate when you do this from your Google business profile, and we'll, we'll talk about this as well.
Jimmy Lea: This is on, on phase four here, or sorry, step four after three days. Google, they do send you a notification, they'll send you an email. If you do it from your Google business profile, they'll send you an email. You can now go to the Google business profile, Google, I did the wrong initials there. The Google business profile forum, you can go into the forum now and report it.
Jimmy Lea: Don't give away too much detail yet because you want a case number. As soon as you have a case number, then you've got a human on the other end, they can help you to get that removed. So first phase one is mark it as inappropriate, then take it to the Google business profile and have them go down the path.
Jimmy Lea: Chances are it's somebody from Sterling Sky that's helping you with your case. Once you get a case number, provide them as much detail and data and information as possible. Document, document, document. So if you look and it's Joe Smith that is leaving this negative, sorry, leaving a one star review. And you want it removed, you show in your database.
Jimmy Lea: Under all J. Smith, John Smith, Jason, Joe, Jacqueline, that there is no Joe, there's no Joseph, there's no J. Smith that drives that vehicle that is in my shop. So you're documenting and you're showing this to Google so that they will then remove it. That's phase two. You have a question before I go to phase three?
Nicole McLaughlin: I I don't have a question. I just have a quick comment from Philip, which is a good point. He says that he's had a tremendous amount of success when he gets his store managers to report the, the, Bat, the one star review, the, the spam, the whatever it is that same day. He says it's like as fast as you can get on it.
Nicole McLaughlin: That's the best 
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Totally agree. And get people from your church group, get them from the Cub Scout pack, get it from your technicians, your service advisors, their, their wives, anybody that's around you, anybody that you work with and associate with, as soon as you possibly can, get them on there to mark it as inappropriate.
Jimmy Lea: That'll get it removed fairly quickly. Yeah. Thank you. Was it Phillip? Thank you, Phillip, for that comment. Super awesome. All right. So, there's a couple different ways of reporting them. Google maps is one way as well. Google search, you can mark it as inappropriate. My favorite is going directly from the google business profile and marking it as inappropriate right there.
Jimmy Lea: I've, I've gone through and marked lots of different reviews as inappropriate because it was clearly The mayor of crazy town any questions there about phase one and phase two phase one is into Marking the review as inappropriate phase two is taking it to google and saying this is inappropriate Get a case number before you divulge a tremendous amount of information.
Jimmy Lea: Nicole. What do you have? 
Nicole McLaughlin: No questions for you, Jimmy, but I did just want to remind the audience, you don't need to jot it down like crazy. We will send you the slides, the recordings, some tips and tricks. So, if we fly through this last little bit quickly, it'll come your way later on. 
Jimmy Lea: Yep, yep, it's all coming to you.
Jimmy Lea: And, and this is the 14 pages of information. This is, I'm summarizing this for you to make it easy so that you can go in and report these as inappropriate. All right, and go to I'm going to skip past this because time permitting, this is coming to you. You can read over it. It's inclusive of all the information that you're looking for.
Jimmy Lea: Okay, on to remove by spam. Google automatically detects this. Now Google's not as good as Yelp and Facebook. So if somebody comes in as attacking and then it goes viral and then there's a, a firefly of, of things happening at your shop, Google will. Temporarily, they can pause your Google business profile from these attacks, but there are these attacks that can sometimes happen.
Jimmy Lea: And the question is, what do we do? How do we respond? Step one is to remain calm and relax reported to Google so that they can. Pause the account. So the, the specific scenario that happened here is River Bluff Dental. This gentleman, the doctor, the dentist, was on safari. He paid money to a safari company.
Jimmy Lea: They supposedly had all the right tickets, all the right information, all the right stuff for him to go out on a big game. Hunting safari and he went out and he shot a lion that he had a license. He thought he had a license for he thought everything was above board, but the attacks that came in were relentless against this dentist.
Jimmy Lea: He went from a 3. 8 Google reviews down to a 1. 8, there were over 6, 000. One star reviews that came in within 24 hours over 6, 000 BAM right on to and they keep getting these reviews And it's down to a 1. 1. Look at that right there 2711 reviews. This was in the early stages. They they such an uphill battle to go from this Because of this scenario where he had gone and killed Cecil, the line here's it.
Jimmy Lea: Here's here's the different phases that you go through in reporting the review. So you report the review. It gives you this drop down menu. The 9 different things. And you can mark it as spam. You can mark it as a conflict of interest. And all of these different ideas here is where you go to market as inappropriate for your business.
Jimmy Lea: So this clearly is not a customer that has been into the shop and this is online. This is right. You can go see this. I'm not pulling anything. I'm not making this up. This, this is a gentleman, Mr. Peter, that feels that he wants to bring this dentist to justice. 
Nicole McLaughlin: I'm glad you brought that up, Jimmy. Sorry, just to pause.
Nicole McLaughlin: Can we just go back one? Because we do have a question on that. So a couple of folks are looking for a quote unquote inappropriate and said that they don't see it. But there are, just to highlight, a couple of alternatives to inappropriate, whether that's bullying or profanity. So I believe you used the term inappropriate to summarize the majority of these.
Nicole McLaughlin: These points, correct? 
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Inappropriate is all seven of these or eight of these different options that you can select. The one that I use the most is a conflict of interest or off topic because it's somebody who clearly has not been into the shop. Conflict of interest. This is a competitor or this is somebody who's trying to bring the business down.
Jimmy Lea: Those are the two best ones that I've seen. Profanity, bullying. Discrimination or hate speech, while you would think these have a lot of really strong teeth to them, Google seems to think that there's a much broader definition of discrimination or hate speech, or even bullying or harassment. And to, so to the bullying and harassment, clearly this person lives down here in Iowa and they're trying to bring down a dentist that lives up in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Jimmy Lea: This is not, this is not somebody that should be reviewing this dentist. It just shouldn't be a thing. Same thing here with Jonathan. Oh, so I put this on here because when somebody, the hardest one star reviews to remove, the hardest ones are this one. Where there is no data, no information, no experience, nothing for you to Engage or, or, or try to prove as wrong.
Jimmy Lea: This one star review is the hardest to get removed from your Google business profile. So this is where you need to go in and document, document, document to show that Jonathan Calloway, you have no Jonathan Calloway in your point of sale system. You have no Jay Calloway. You have no Jonathan C. There's no, there's, you, this is where you're documenting this information to show Google.
Jimmy Lea: This is somebody who just really shouldn't be here. So that goes through phase one and phase two. Now let's go to phase three, which is, we can see that Jonathan clearly does not live up here in Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. From his profile, we can see where he is leaving reviews. So you can now go up here into Jonathan's account and under the profile.
Jimmy Lea: You can mark it as a inappropriate profile. You can get his entire profile shut down. So usually with the mayor of crazy town, and this is somebody who's marking every shop as a one star review that getting their profile shut down. Deletes all of their reviews. So not only are you doing a favor for yourself and your own shop You're probably helping a tremendous amount of other shops as well that don't even know you're there working for them Nicole you have another 
Nicole McLaughlin: comment We have quite a few questions coming in and they're all really great.
Nicole McLaughlin: So This, this first one here is what about on the opposite side of that spectrum, Jimmy? So how about if somebody leaves you a five star review, you have no idea who they are, they've never been to your shop before, and they don't exist in your database. Do you just leave it there, pretend? 
Jimmy Lea: I would. I would say very much, Stuart, for leaving us a five star review.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. I mean, if it is a client, somebody that has been into your shop, they leave a five star review put in there the vehicle, the year, the make, the model, the services performed so that there's some collateral there for Google on the next review. If it is a five star review and you have no idea who it is, it could be a relative of somebody
Jimmy Lea: that went on and left it for him or a spouse or a partner or You You never know. So the five stars that you don't know, say thank you very much and carry on. 
Nicole McLaughlin: The person that asked this question is skeptical. They, they think that, I think they're going to get caught. They're, they're like, they're not trying to set us up for anything.
Nicole McLaughlin: Google isn't testing us, etc, etc. 
Jimmy Lea: No, Google's like, got other fish to fry. They're, they're, this is not a, a, a conspiracy theory on, on that one. 
Nicole McLaughlin: And then Chris, he, Chris is the, the gentleman that asked you earlier about the one star review and how you respond. So he's actually followed up with another question.
Nicole McLaughlin: So he says, when you receive a one star review from someone you did not do business with, Do you respond to that review? Like, even though you're reporting it, do you also respond to it and say, Hey, not sure who you are, love to make it right? 
Jimmy Lea: Yes, absolutely. Love to meet you. Love to shake your hand and say hello.
Jimmy Lea: Love to make this right. Here's my phone number, give me a call, let's make this right. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Absolutely. And then you follow it up with reporting it as well, just in the, in the case that Google's like, nope, I'm going to leave that up there. At least you've done your diligence, due diligence, and you, you've replied, you've replied.
Jimmy Lea: In hours, we talked about it before. Somebody said that, that when their service advisor or manager goes in and marks it as inappropriate, the same day, it has a better response. Same goes for your replies or your responses. To the one star reviews, the quicker you get them out there, the better it is. Even the five stars, the quicker you get your response out there, the better it is.
Jimmy Lea: So within the same day is really good within the same week. Yeah, that's, that's nice. That's good. Within the same month. Okay. You might want to actually allow somebody else to do it for you so that those replies have that additional Google review juice to really pump up your Google business profile. 
Nicole McLaughlin: And I hate to keep jumping in, Jimmy, but I know that I love it.
Nicole McLaughlin: This is 
Jimmy Lea: great. 
Nicole McLaughlin: I know that a tip or trick that we use is we do set up email notifications, right? So Google, Google My Business will actually say, Hey, you've just received a new review. And so you're not having to go check Google every single day, but you can, you can get those email notifications.
Jimmy Lea: And that helps, that helps tremendously. So when you get that email, don't ignore it. Don't delete it. Don't say, Oh, good, another five star review. Go in and reply to it. And call them out by name, name their vehicle, services performed, and, and chances are you know what that is because you have your point of sale system, you can look them up in our writer and say, Oh, yeah, we worked on the Ford F 150 or Nicole's Chevy.
Jimmy Lea: Super awesome. Okay. I'm showing you this because it is Yelp. Same thing happened within Yelp. And very quickly, Yelp was able to shut it down. Love them or hate them, Yelp is a thing. People use them and it's a thing. So you do have to pay attention to it. I would advise that as much as possible to not pay them for those services because you can have a free account.
Jimmy Lea: But once you start paying, you got to stay in there. So, the, the, the stars that you've got when there's unusual activity, Yelp will close down the account fairly quickly because they see that. unusual activity that's happening and, and calming it and making it stirring up all those negative reviews.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. So let's also talk about missing reviews. This does happen within your Google business profile within your Google platform. So every week log in and copy and paste your Google reviews into a word document, into a Google doc, have those in there because you can go back. To Google and say, look, I had 440 reviews, and now I only have 200 when Google goes in.
Jimmy Lea: Sometimes they change the rules and all of a sudden they're all gone. So if you can prove to Google that you had 440 reviews and they weren't removed because of you breaking the terms and conditions, Google will That's Google. Re re revitalize those and bring them back up. The way to get those back up is to document, document, document.
Jimmy Lea: Stage four there. How do you document? You screenshot your RO rider. You screenshot showing that that is a customer or not. Screenshot as much as possible. Nicole, another comment? 
Nicole McLaughlin: No, you just addressed it. It was how do you copy those reviews? 
Jimmy Lea: Copy the reviews into a Word doc. Absolutely paramount. But don't give that information or data to Google until you have a case number, a case file, that's when you've got a human on the other side that is going to assist you in, in documenting and bringing those reviews back up.
Jimmy Lea: Very important. All right, so let's talk about review gating. I think it was Steve talking about the the experience that exit interview. Google will never be able to prove that you are gating, but by definition, you're kind of gating. What does that mean? That means if it's a three or less, and, and this so I'm going to speak not to the exit interview, I'm speaking to your follow up afterwards.
Jimmy Lea: So when you're sending an email or a text message, how did we do? How would you rate us on a scale of one to five? Well, they give you a one to three. You're going to send them a Google form because you want to make that right. You want to correct that before it goes into a Google review. Well, if they're going to leave you a four or five, then you send them a link to your Google reviews.
Jimmy Lea: This is gating, this is gating, and this is where a shop went from 440. Reviews down to 85. So what happened? There's a, and there's an analysis that Google did. They went in and looked and said, okay, well from this point forward, everything was a five star review. They're going to delete them all. They deleted all those reviews and you will not get those back, even the legit ones, even though they are legit, the gating says that you have been steering those to a Google form, because it was a one, two or three, and those that were a four or five got the Google review link.
Jimmy Lea: I've seen this happen a lot, and it's not good. Don't do it. Some shops say, oh, you know what, Jimmy? I'm just gonna do it until I get caught. Okay. Good luck to you. I hope you don't get caught. Chances are you're gonna get caught. And when you do, you're going to lose all those reviews and it happens instantly.
Jimmy Lea: It happens overnight. And it, and it hurts. It just hurts because you have worked hard to make it right from the very beginning. So my advice to you is if you're going to go after Google reviews, be an open book. Have that open book experience with everybody and give them the opportunity of leaving you a one, two, three, four, or even a five star.
Jimmy Lea: Here's the link to our Google reviews, leave us a review. And there are some platforms that after a client has left a Google review, you can switch it to leave a review on Facebook or leave a review on Yelp or leave a review on the website. So after they have had multiple drops or multiple reviews with your shop, now, maybe you just put them all into the website.
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah. Is it possible to export the reviews from the business page or a simple copy and paste into a Word doc is what you're suggesting. 
Jimmy Lea: Copy and paste into a Word doc. There is no export function. It's a copy paste. So if ever you go to your website developer and say, Hey, look, I want all my reviews to be listed here on my website.
Jimmy Lea: It's called scraping. They can go out and scrape your Google business profile for reviews. They can scrape your Facebook for reviews, Yelp for reviews, SureCritic for reviews, Birdseye, Neighbor, Glassdoor. They can scrape all these different business platforms and bring all those reviews into one location.
Jimmy Lea: Which is where you'll see some shops have 1500 five star reviews on their website. But when you go to their Google business profile, they might have 500, 600, 700, 800, where where's all these other reviews coming from? They have scraped them from all these different areas and brought them into one big pile on their website.
Jimmy Lea: And there's tremendous value of having those on the website as well. So that's really good. But don't, gating because that becomes very bad. Google reviews. Oh my goodness, Nicole, we are. All right, everybody that's here, you're welcome to stay, but we've hit the hour point but I've got some great information.
Jimmy Lea: Let me drop this last story and then we'll, we'll put a period or a comma at the end of the sentence. Maybe we have to come back for a little bit more. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Well, that's what I was going to say, Jimmy, folks, folks can stay. We can keep going. If I have time, if you do, and if you have to drop off, like I said, we'll send you the recording and you won't miss a thing and you can watch it whenever you guys have time.
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah. Take your time, Jimmy. 
Jimmy Lea: Okay, so let's talk about Collins Automotive. This is a shop in Canada and this shop came to their website provider and said, Oh my gosh, you're, you're wasting our Google ad spend. You're optimizing us for transmissions. We don't work on transmissions. We don't do the R& R. We're not going to unbolt them and plug them back in.
Jimmy Lea: We just stay away from transmission. We don't do transmission work. Well, the website developer was not. Listing them for Google ads for transmission. They were not there. There was a change in Google's Rules and when we talk about Google says and what Google does isn't always congruent This is that scenario.
Jimmy Lea: They say that the Google reviews don't affect your Google ranking Well, in fact, they do this happened with this client And it took a lot of research to discover a review from 2018. It was like two years prior. The client mentioned the word transmission three times in the review. And this boosted them to the top.
Jimmy Lea: Even though there was a transmission shop right down the street, this shop showed up and they were getting eight to nine calls a week for transmission work. They're like, we don't do transmission work. We do transmission flush. We change transmission fluid. But we're not doing the transmission word. So, interesting scenario.
Jimmy Lea: The keywords that you're putting in there have a tremendous amount of value. Don't keyword stuff it. Don't make it look like you're stuffing it full of the word transmission. Client's words here, not the shop's words. Client's words carry a tremendous amount of value. to your Google ranking and to your Google reviews.
Jimmy Lea: So the question might come from you to say, all right, Jimmy, this is great information. There are so many review sites. Where should I spend my time, effort and energy? So depending on how much time you have set aside, whether it's a daily basis of 10 minutes or a weekly basis of an hour, whatever that scenario looks like, you want to spend the majority of your time in Google.
Jimmy Lea: About 50 to 75 percent of your time you want to spend in Google and the other 25 to 50 percent of time I would spend it in responding to Facebook or Yelp reviews. That's where we want to spend your time in working those reviews to be those raving fans for your shop. Nicole. 
Nicole McLaughlin: I'm back. And I know we're trying to get through this, but some great questions.
Nicole McLaughlin: This particular question says, does Google tell us when they make a change in their reporting methods? So like in their algorithm, basically, and if not, is there a resource where we can find the changes that have been made? Google doesn't make it easy. Google doesn't make it 
Jimmy Lea: easy. No, they don't. They really don't.
Jimmy Lea: And no, they don't really project it out there. They don't give a whole lot of warning or, hey, this is coming or, hey, this is happening. Now, there is one that's happening in March that Google has announced. Which is governing around using celebrities or celebrities as fish bait where you, the celebrity brings you in, but you're putting them into something else as well as AI, there's a big release in March, but to the Google reviews, no, there there's, there's no algorithm, there's no warning, they make the change.
Jimmy Lea: And then all of these companies. Come and work it in reverse, trying to figure out what is it that changed? What is the new rule coming from Google that has changed here in this situation? Because as you'll see, Google doesn't communicate a lot of what those changes are, nobody knows the algorithm, Google won't release what that algorithm is.
Jimmy Lea: I suspect it's because it's super complicated and it gives a lot of weight to recent reviews and not as much to older reviews. And yeah, I think there's a lot that goes into there that we just don't know about. Final questions, comments, concerns? Google reviews, I love them. It's such a love hate relationship because we love the positive, we hate the negative, but now hopefully you have some tools that help you to embrace that negative a little bit more.
Jimmy Lea: And let's not call it negative, let's call it a one star review. You can embrace those one star reviews, especially those badge of honor that you earned. To help the next person understand how you made it right. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah, thank you so much, Jimmy. While I'm waiting for any last minute comments, questions in the chat here I just want to remind the audience, once again, hate to sound like a broken record, but the slides and recording will be sent to you, so don't stress there.
Nicole McLaughlin: We'll try and get those to you by the end of next week. We do encourage you guys to complete the post webinar survey, so if you want to hear more from us, or if you want to give us feedback, topics for next time, we love the feedback, so we really appreciate it. And then one last point and an exciting point for our writer, but we have a brand new resource coming out in the next couple of weeks on hiring and retaining the best team in the business.
Nicole McLaughlin: So, if you're struggling to obtain new technicians, like a lot of folks in the industry. Let us know in the chat and we'll, we'll put you on the distribution list. You'll be the first in line to get that ebook. Like I said, a lot of stuff in there. We have a hiring checklist. Really get great resource.
Nicole McLaughlin: So we want to get your hands on that. We have a couple people, Hugh and Chris, just say thank you so much, Jimmy. They really, really appreciate it. Lots of great information there. So, I appreciate that, Jimmy. Any kind of final words to leave the audience with today? 
Jimmy Lea: Yes, I love your Google reviews. Love them.
Jimmy Lea: The one stars, two stars, three stars, four stars, and five stars. You love them all. Respond to all of them. Some you actually earn. And some are given to you as a gift and, and I'm, I am from the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. This QR code that you see here on the screen, if you want to scan that, we can have a conversation and really go into analyze your business, analyze your practice so that what are those areas that you might be blind to?
Jimmy Lea: What are those areas that you might need a little bit of assistance with some advice? We can push you or pull you or direct you in the right path to take, to become that best shop that you can possibly be. That business assessment, it's like a 6, 000 value. And we provide it to you pro bono for being here as part of this webinar and being part of the automotive industry.
Jimmy Lea: Our goal from the Institute is to help you build a better business so that you have a better life. And as collective, what's the net result? It's a better industry, better business, better life, better industry. 
Nicole McLaughlin: Yeah. Yeah. I, you couldn't have said it better. Thank you so much, Jimmy. Happy belated birthday.
Nicole McLaughlin: I hope you have so much fun at your party this weekend. Don't celebrate too hard. And a final thank you to our audience. You guys tuned in, you showed up, you asked questions. It was amazing. You're always engaged with the content. So until next time, we'll talk soon. Take care, everyone. Have a great day.
Nicole McLaughlin: Bye bye.
 

91 - Success From One to Many, Sue & Jason Ingram

91 - Success From One to Many, Sue & Jason Ingram - Japanese Car Care
March 15th, 2024 - 00:31:56
 
Show Summary:
Jimmy Lea converses with Jason and Sue Ingram, the visionary duo behind a thriving automotive repair business. Venturing from the inception of their journey in acquiring a longstanding shop in 2017, through transformative growth and learning curves, to the expansion into a second, larger location, this narrative is a roadmap of entrepreneurial evolution. The Ingrams share candidly about the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from hands-on technicians to business owners, the instrumental role of continuous education, and the strength found in community and expert advice. Their story is a beacon for current and aspiring shop owners, illuminating the path of growth, adaptation, and success in the automotive industry.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Sue & Jason Ingram, Owners of Japanese Car Care
 
Episode Highlights:
(00:01:00) - Jason and Sue Ingram share the beginnings and challenges of owning their business.
(00:05:00) - Insights on the importance of community and expert guidance in business.
(00:14:00) - The impact of the Institute's coaching on business profitability and growth.
(00:18:00) - The journey from a small, cramped shop to purchasing a second, spacious location.
(00:21:00) - The pivotal decision to join the Institute and its transformational outcome.
(00:30:00) - Strategies for hiring and the unexpected places to find potential employees.
(00:40:00) - The significance of a strong CPA and building a supportive team.
(00:53:00) - Reflections on growth and the vision for future expansion.
(01:00:00) - Encouragement to seek community support and not navigate business challenges alone.
 
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.
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
 
________________________________________
 
Kent Bullard: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Institute's Leading Edge, a show dedicated to giving automotive professionals the tools and education needed to succeed. The topics we cover are all geared towards running a better business, leading a better life, and ultimately changing the industry for, well, the better. Here's
Jason Ingram: what's coming up.
Jason Ingram: Like I said, there was very many nights between working with customers and helping our techs try and figure out a car or taking on a problem car myself. Being the janitor and fixing the plumbing and doing a little bit of everything, you know, there was many days I'm like, what did I get myself into? Was no more going home and clocking out and being done.
Jason Ingram: It was a whole new level there. So this business is rough. Sometimes it can really take your mindset and put you in it, put you down the wrong path. I told
Sue Ingram: her the same thing, get a CPA and talk through it. Don't go it alone. You really need to find that group. We
Kent Bullard: need your help by submitting questions or topics to info at we are the institute.
Kent Bullard: com. We can continue to provide relevant content to you, the listener, but for now, what are we waiting for? Let's
Jimmy Lea: get into it. Our discussion today, leading edge. podcast. We're talking with Jason [00:01:00] and Sue. What are you doing that is doing really well? I hear that you're expanding, you're growing locations, you're growing the team.
Jason Ingram: Well, we're just kind of following the advice that Aaron and the Institute has given us. Uh, things that we took for granted before, didn't really follow, didn't know to follow. And so, um, kind of brought us back to the basics as to what we're looking for, what we need to focus on and, and, uh, we committed that if we're going to do that, we were going to stick with it best we could.
Jason Ingram: And, um, it's, uh, definitely paid off for us for
Jimmy Lea: sure. So, yeah, Sue was just telling me that she had a really good conversation with a potential employee. Congratulations. Always recruiting. Sue, where, where did you find this potential employee at?
Jason Ingram: Um,
Sue Ingram: T Mobile. T Mobile, yeah. Um, have, have, only, I went into this T Mobile store, um, about a year ago, had such great customer service with this gentleman that I specifically went back to this T Mobile store, [00:02:00] looking for him, in hopes that I can get him to help me, and he gave me um, A year later, he remembered me.
Sue Ingram: He remembered that when I came in, I had my daughter. He remembered that we had an automotive repair business. Um, he couldn't remember the name, but he remembered, and it was a year, you know, it was just right at about a year. And, um, he gave me amazing customer service as well. So I actually, I don't, I don't have business cards.
Sue Ingram: So I gave him Jason's business card and gave him, put my cell number on the back and said, if you ever think about leaving T Mobile after 12 years, because that's what his badge said. I really hope you'll give me a call. A week later, he's called.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. Yeah. What a beautiful success story. I love that.
Jimmy Lea: So I'm going to put a comma right here for a minute. Maybe it's a semicolon. I don't know my grammar is not as good as uh, So the question is let's go back in time back to when you guys started what did that look like when you started your shop X number of years ago. How long [00:03:00] ago was that?
Jason Ingram: Uh, well this this particular shop opened in 1977, but of course we purchased it from a relative my uncle uh back in 2017 I started work here and working here in 2016 Yeah with the knowledge that he was to be retiring and we'd be purchasing the shop.
Jason Ingram: Uh, so that's when it started of course we Had a great name great reputation Uh, but it was doing things, uh, like they were doing back in the 80s, you know in 2016 They were still doing that and so, uh, we just kind of went Uh status quo didn't want to rock the boat or change anything too much to shake things up because it seemed like it was running well and successful at a Again a great name and good customer base, but Uh, really wasn't, uh, producing or turning, uh, what it should have been, of course, all during that time, so.
Jason Ingram: Nice. Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: so when you started in 16, the intention was to buy out
Jason Ingram: [00:04:00] Uncle. Correct. Yes, sir.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Okay. And what did that original shop, the first shop, what does that look like? What's the footprint? Uh, the footprint
Jason Ingram: is, uh, had one, uh, Very, yeah, very small head, uh. The whole building is 2400 square feet, including the office and the shop.
Jason Ingram: So, which we're still in, uh, but, uh, we've had, uh, my uncle was the, the main writer and it was just him up front managing, writing, doing everything and, um, and then we had, uh, at the time there were three technicians, uh, two older gentlemen that were kind of long term employees and, uh, then one Fairly new, um, you know, CB tech, if you will.
Jason Ingram: And that was what we were doing. That was it. And all that with one guy up front.
Jimmy Lea: How many bays were you working with these three technicians? Uh, so
Jason Ingram: we have um, we've increased it even though we've crammed more in but it was originally four bays four bays with the three [00:05:00] decks Wow,
Sue Ingram: very
Jason Ingram: very cramped
Jimmy Lea: very cramped.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty tight quarters pretty tight quarters and and was it four bay doors or were you double double deeps or
Jason Ingram: So they're not double deeps, but they're, um, it's, um, there's three, uh, two car, if you will, doors. Uh, and so again, we kind of took out a little bit of air, uh, a wash area that they had, and we made an additional bay out of it.
Jason Ingram: So at least we have five indoor bays now and an outdoor bay. Um, but, uh, you know, originally it was just the four and, uh, again, it was just right stacked on top of each other. Um, you know, lift posts actually, well, actually when we took it over, it still had the single pole in ground lifts. In it, which were, of course, as you know, very dangerous and we had to get rid of right away.
Jason Ingram: Yeah,
the
Jimmy Lea: hydraulic in the ground hydraulic big foot one foot wide thrusted up in the air. Oh my God. Yes, sir. My dad used to install those in gas stations [00:06:00] back in the 70s, 80s, 90s in Las Vegas. And then his company, they would service all those, um, he owned the company and, and they, they did all that.
Jimmy Lea: That's, so that's, that's so interesting. Yeah. Cause they, they tend to leak quite
Jason Ingram: a bit. They, they do. They leak quite a bit. And of course you get the air in them and then it wants to shoot the car off the rack, as you know. So, uh, so we had that a bit of a scary situation that we, as soon as we, uh, signed the papers, uh, we took those out.
Jason Ingram: Put in some traditional lifts, which made it a little tighter, uh, but, you know, at least it was much safer, a better working environment in that regard.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that's great. That's good. So, you're working, uh, the, the shop, you take over in 17, uncle retires, he's on the beach with my ties. What point is, uh, Sue, do you join the company, the corporation, the business?
Jason Ingram: Um,
Sue Ingram: so I actually started right at the beginning and a little bit before. So while I wasn't necessarily on the payroll, [00:07:00] um, I, uh, Jason's aunt did the books, um, for, for the business. And so, um, In, in 20, I guess it was probably late 2016. Um, I started working with his aunt to learn the books, to learn the business.
Sue Ingram: My. Um, I hadn't worked for a few years prior to that. Cause I stayed home to raise our daughter, but she went back to school or she went to school. And, um, so then, um, but my, my background was actually in, um, the administrative healthcare field. So automotive was brand new to me. I started working with, with his aunt to learn it.
Sue Ingram: So from the moment that we signed the paperwork, I was working full time in the business. Um, cause it was, it was just him and I for a little while at the front and then, you know, very shortly after that, um, our manager was able to move up front. [00:08:00] And so Jason taught me how to, to do service writing and estimates, and I learned how to do all that
Jimmy Lea: jazz.
Jimmy Lea: And with all that jazz, how did you do, how did you do as a service advisor? Um, I
Sue Ingram: think I did okay. I, I love people. And so I, I actually, I miss that part of it. I do miss having that contact with the customers on a regular basis. Um, but, um, I think I did okay. I had lots of questions and Jason and our manager, Eric, were very gracious with me and answering my questions or, you know, I would go grab the technician and say, Hey, come look at this part because it's listing too, you know?
Sue Ingram: And so the guys were great. They were they were great with me, but um, I think I did. Okay, I think Um, I think I did okay on
Jimmy Lea: it. Oh, that's awesome And jason if we go back in time remembering sue as a service advisor, how did she do? Oh, she did Well, yeah,
Jason Ingram: she did. She was uh had a really good. Yeah Yes Connected [00:09:00] with the customer really well, I think she uh, you know, uh put it uh But put an element in there that we we didn't have before.
Jason Ingram: Uh, so it helped us out quite a bit because I was just uh You Of course, a former tech who is now trying to, uh, run a shop and be a service advisor at the same time, which I had never done full time. And so, uh, you know, kind of learning from her approach as well, I think helped me adapt a little quicker and as to what, you know, uh, what the customers were looking for, what we needed for a customer base.
Jason Ingram: You know, they've been coming to us for many, many years. And so I think we had a pretty smooth transition that she was very much key, key to and helped out with quite a bit.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. And at what point along the route, did you, did you say, okay, uh, I'm a very high skilled technician. Now I'm a business owner. I need to be a high skilled business owner.
Jimmy Lea: When did you start looking for assistance with being a business
Jason Ingram: owner? Well, um, you know, quite honestly, we, uh, we started doing this and then we thought we were doing pretty [00:10:00] good. You know, I'd been trained, uh, by some pretty big corporations, uh, you know, uh, some of the dealership groups and, and some pretty large, uh, uh, independent, uh, you know, retailers, if you will, that, that put me through a lot of training.
Jason Ingram: So I thought, well, you know what, I can go in there and apply what I've learned. And, and we did well, we, we increased, you know, on our own, what my uncle was doing. We, we doubled it within the first couple of years. Yeah. But then we seem to stall out and, um, you know, again, out of mindset that was kind of stuck in some of the old ways.
Jason Ingram: We tried a lot of new things that I have learned. But again, we didn't have any specific training as to this particular business model. Uh, you know, my training was much larger business models and much different metrics. And so didn't have really any. Any idea what metrics I needed to be going for and where they needed to be, uh, other than what, you know, uh, my uncle was doing in the 1980s, if you will.
Jason Ingram: And so, um, we kind of got tired because we [00:11:00] were beating ourselves up. We were there, you know, 12, 14 hours a day. And, um, again, the business was running. Customers were happy. Things were doing well in regards to that end of it, uh, personal land. We were running ourselves ragged and we weren't really producing anything.
Jason Ingram: We're making anything out of it, barely breaking even if you will. And I said, this was just too, too darn hard, uh, to do all this, to work so hard, just to, uh, you know, say, Hey, we broke even this month, you know? So, so we started kind of looking around. We started
Sue Ingram: looking probably about six or eight months before we signed up with the Institute.
Sue Ingram: So we've been looking at our options and everything like that. So, um, and talking about it, what do we do? What's our next steps and things like that? Uh,
Jason Ingram: knew about the Institute, knew about a couple of, uh, the Institute's competitors and things of that nature. But then when we, uh, we actually, uh, went to a [00:12:00] presentation that Cecil put on at the, uh, Napa Expo.
Jason Ingram: Yeah, Napa Expo in 22 and, uh, you know, as soon as it was over with, we went and kind of talked to Cecil for a few minutes and talked to, uh, another gentleman and, um, and decided right there that, you know, after what we knew and after talking with Cecil, we better sign up with these folks and see what they can help us out with.
Jason Ingram: So what has happened
Jimmy Lea: since. Presentation with Cecil. What does that look like from then until today? Where are we? What's, what does
Jason Ingram: that look like? It definitely become a profitable shop, which is, is nice. It's a much less stressful in that regard. Our demand is increased even from there. Uh, we've gone from, you know, generally about a two to three week wait was our average time to, uh, right now we're, we're.
Jason Ingram: Booking about six weeks out, which is why we're expanding. We're trying to remedy that by expanding here. Uh, so, uh, we've Maintained our customer base. We've gained some Uh, we've become profitable now We're hitting hitting the [00:13:00] metrics that we need to hit. We're watching them We're able to adjust and we're much less stressful, uh for myself and susan um, you know, there's New components, of course, with expanding, uh, as expected, but, um, but, you know, that would never been a possibility before we got involved with, uh, with the institute was, uh, the expansion would have never even been a possibility.
Jason Ingram: So, uh, so, you know, it's brought that that opportunity to us and we're moving forward. You know, getting, getting, getting much larger and moving on.
Sue Ingram: Our, our group and our coaches helped us, you know, like Jason said, with the matrix, you know, to see where we have improvement, but also, which was a little painful at the time, but they weren't shy about saying, well, Okay, ding a ling.
Sue Ingram: Why are you doing that? You know and pointing out the mistakes, you know that we were making not just the things that we Can be doing but [00:14:00] the mistakes that we were doing um, and and that was you know, extremely helpful and um, you know, we we signed up and um And like I said, that the expo was in July of 2022.
Sue Ingram: And we signed up, you know, there, um, you know, after deciding that this is the organization we want to be affiliated with and we, um, really started, you know, getting into it. That first October, that October, 2022, when we went to the first group meeting and, um, we felt a little beat up when we left, but we left there with.
Sue Ingram: Pages and pages and pages of notes and, um, a great community, you know, that, that was there to support us and back us. And by about the end of May, mid to late May of last year, 2023, Jason and I were looking at properties. So, not even quite a year into it, we were looking [00:15:00] at properties to say, okay, it's time to take the next step and expand because there's no reason not to at this point.
Kent Bullard: What if we told you that you could get quality training and education conveniently and without emptying your pockets? Our gear platform presents great education and resources for automotive shops. Courses led by experts inside and outside our industry. A community of like minded people to engage with.
Kent Bullard: And a resource library at your fingertips. With a monthly membership, you can gain access to Access to every course we have in the library with the ability to watch wherever and whenever you'd like. The right training is more easily accessed than ever before. For help with improving your business, go to we are the institute.com and take your first course today.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. I love it. So properties, does this mean you built a new facility or you're looking at properties to purchase? We,
Sue Ingram: we purchased. We purchased so we we own our original property. Um, and we purchased this location. We did look into purchasing [00:16:00] land and building, but there's not a whole lot of options were kind of landlocked here in Albuquerque.
Sue Ingram: Um, and so, um, that the next, you know, obviously best thing was to find property that we could purchase this building is not a, it was not automotive, but it has a large warehouse that we were able to very quickly, we're, we're still in the process, but we're, we're quickly renovating it to be an automotive repair shop.
Jason Ingram: Nice.
Jimmy Lea: And how big is this second shop? What
does
Jason Ingram: that look like? Okay.
Sue Ingram: Total square footage is about 9, 000 square feet.
Jason Ingram: Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: that's massive. That's huge. How many lifts were you going to get
Jason Ingram: in there? Sue? Uh, jason,
Sue Ingram: how many he just had the lifts installed. They just finished them up on thursday or friday Yeah,
Jason Ingram: yeah, we've got uh, we've got eight lifts in there basically so it's uh, Much much larger than than what we have now much more room And so, uh, with a total of eight in there, I think that we're in, we're in much better shape.
Jason Ingram: [00:17:00] Uh, the office is, is quite large there, which we've never had office space. So we've got some office space that we can work with and, and have some, uh, as you know, like right now, uh, our office space at the old location where I'm at. The phone's ringing, people are talking, as you can hear, there's not any private space here at this current office.
Jason Ingram: So at least we'll have that now as well and then have a much bigger shop for the guys to, you know, do, do their, do what they do out there. So it'll be much more comfortable. Oh,
Jimmy Lea: I love it. And how close, what's the proximity between the two locations?
Jason Ingram: It's about
Sue Ingram: seven miles, um, about 14, 14 to 15 minutes, um, away from our original location.
Sue Ingram: Very close. Yes, not so close that it's Albuquerque for being a large city, it's not. It's very spread out. It is. So seven miles is in Albuquerque people tend to not like to drive any more than about 10 miles from [00:18:00] their home or their office. They're very funny. There's, you know, we've got the river through town.
Sue Ingram: And if you ask a West Sider to drive across. The, the river to the east side, it's like the end of the world for them. Um, and vice versa, you know, west siders don't like going to the east side. East siders don't like going to the west side. It's, it's this whole thing. Um, so it's, it's, it's a really good, and it's a, it's a really good demographic that the new shop is located in as
Jason Ingram: well.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, isn't it amazing that natural land barrier that people just don't cross over? Yeah. Rivers, rivers is one, freeways is another, railroad tracks becomes another. It's interesting that people just have an aversion to crossing over.
Jason Ingram: Yeah. Those things. Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, that's good. That's phenomenal.
Jimmy Lea: You're, you're growing, you're expanding. You've added Eight more bays, which is awesome. Um, and, and, and having office space helps that as well. So this is where you [00:19:00] are today. And, and are we, do you have the occupancy? Do you have a certificate of occupancy? Are you, are you servicing vehicles
Jason Ingram: today?
Sue Ingram: We are not, um, because we just have a little bit more, um, uh, construction to do.
Sue Ingram: I mean, if you will, we just have some, you know, the lifts, you know, Jason had the lifts put in, we need to have some electrical ran, actually the electricians out there working right now to run the electrical for the lifts. Um, and then we've got just a. A few other small, uh, minor things. One of the bays that Jason's gonna put the alignment rack in needs, he's having a garage door put in and then running some additional electrical in that room.
Sue Ingram: So little things, little things like that. And, and then we're, we'll be up and running. So I'm. Yeah, sure. Working on getting the office, you know, set up and everything. So, so we are not servicing vehicles as of yet. We have our fingers crossed for no [00:20:00] later than mid April. We would really like April 1st, but we're trying to be realistic at the same time.
Sue Ingram: Then
Jason Ingram: maybe kind of like Susan said, maybe mid April we hope to plan this to go. Uh, full on, if you will, so.
Jimmy Lea: Nice, nice. Mid April, hopefully, mid April is your launch date. That'd be phenomenal. What's your advice for, uh, people getting into the industry now? What's your advice to those that are opening a shop, or maybe they've had a few years under their belt?
Jimmy Lea: What advice would you give shop
Jason Ingram: owners today? Well, I know Seuss has some things to say on that as well, but I'll start out with is definitely don't do it alone because, uh, that is a a tough road that you're probably going to end up, you know, making the wrong decision or, you know, getting out of the business, if you will, because it can be pretty rough.
Jason Ingram: Uh, but when you have a group to work with, you know, the, the folks in our group that the other shop owners and then the coaching from, from Aaron, uh, you know, that really kind of simplifies it and makes it, uh, to where you can understand really what you're trying to do and [00:21:00] what you're going for. Uh, again, it, it changes your mindset.
Jason Ingram: You know, this can really, uh, this business is rough. Sometimes it can really. Take your mindset and put you, put you down the wrong path. And so we want to say definitely don't do that alone. Get somebody involved like these guys. Aaron is great and really has helped us along the way and helped to correct.
Jason Ingram: You know, when I'm not thinking right or, you know, making poor decisions, um, really helps to bring, bring it around to, you know, a simple, simple, simple way of correcting what we're doing wrong. And so, um, but it's invaluable. Uh, you know, it's just not worth trying to do it on your own without having these guys back you up and help you.
Jason Ingram: Uh, it's just way, way too hard, uh, to do it without some, some help and some coaching.
Sue Ingram: Have a really great CPA. I, I, I can't emphasize that enough. Um, Jason and I, we inherited the CPA from his uncle and we chose to because they knew the business. [00:22:00] But it turned out that that was not the best way to go. So we found a new CPA.
Sue Ingram: He's been absolutely wonderful. He truly looks out for us. And so have a really good CPA on retainer and, uh, don't hesitate to reach out to them. Don't try to figure things out on your own. That's what they're there for. They're the experts. So that would be my first piece of advice. Along that line, surround yourself with really great people like Jason was saying.
Sue Ingram: So yes, Aaron's been absolutely wonderful. John, you know, he, he was so great and challenging, especially me, but the employees too, you have to surround yourself with like minded, really great employees. And Jason and I have been so blessed in, in having that, having that through that work family that they want to see the business.
Sue Ingram: succeed. Um, you know, of course they need to succeed as well. And if they succeed, the business [00:23:00] is, you know, succeeding and vice versa. And so I would, I would say get back up. You're, you're going to get knocked down from time to time. And Lord knows, I've been knocked down quite a bit, you know, but get back up.
Sue Ingram: And when you're surrounded by great people like Don and Aaron and the rest of our group and the rest of, you know, all of you guys at the Institute, our employees, it makes it easier. To, to get back up.
Kent Bullard: The most crucial interaction our customer has with us is with our service advisors. So why not have it be with someone who's confident and capable?
Kent Bullard: We train hundreds of top performing advisors, utilizing the latest technology, tactics, resources, and training methods, placing them in a group of their peers. Our training keeps them accountable, engaged, and dynamic at the counter. We believe in developing career oriented advisors so that they have a place they can call home and you don't have to stress any more about turnover.
Kent Bullard: If you're looking for the next sales training opportunity to provide your advisor with the best possible outcome, experience what it's like to have an Institute trained advisor. Book a discovery call today [00:24:00] at wearetheinstitute. com. There's a lot of sales training programs out there, so why not choose the right
Jimmy Lea: one?
Jimmy Lea: I heard two things there. Get a good CPA. And secondly, is Surround yourself with community. Surround yourself with people that have been there done that that have that experience and they can talk to you about That experience they can talk to you about the next steps you need to take Uh and and holding you accountable.
Jimmy Lea: How powerful is
Jason Ingram: that?
Sue Ingram: Yeah, no, it's great. It's great. Also having those people that not only have been there, done that, but are there doing it that are making the same mistakes as you, that you can talk through it. Jason and I had the opportunity this weekend, um, by chance to talk to another couple that they own a business.
Sue Ingram: It's not an automotive repair, but talking with them and, and we were telling them the same thing. I told her the same thing, get a CPA. Don't go it alone, and you [00:25:00] really need to find that group. Of course, we, we just couldn't say enough great things about the Institute, but you've got to find that, that group to, to help, because you guys can, can learn off of each other.
Sue Ingram: Finding those people that not only can give you advice, but that you can also
Jimmy Lea: help. Yeah, it's powerful. It's powerful. Well, we appreciate you. Well,
Jason Ingram: we, you know, really appreciate everything you guys have done for us, all the, all the help and the training we've got. So
Jimmy Lea: let's look down the road. And thank you, Jason, by the way.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. Um, let's, let's look down the road. What does, and maybe this is too soon to ask this question because you're still moving into 9, 000 square feet. What's the goals? Where are we going? What, what's, what does that look like? What does that future road look like for Jason and Sue? Well,
Jason Ingram: for
Sue Ingram: Sue, I, I, I swear Jason wants to, to throw a hammer at my head every time I jokingly say this, but I, I'll say, well, when we're, when we're opening our third location, he just glares at me and looks for something to throw [00:26:00] before we do that.
Sue Ingram: I want to see this second location up and running, thriving, doing as well as. As our first location, having happy employees. I, I think our employees are happy. They, they tell us they're happy. They show up and do good work every day. Thank God. But we want all of our employees to be happy. I want to see this location thrive and, and do well and serve the community with the same honesty and integrity as we strive for at, at our original location.
Sue Ingram: If that means in a few years. That I can talk Jason into a third location, then that will be, that'll be the goal for that location. But one step at a time, I suppose.
Jason Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, well, like I said, I would love to, uh, you know, the, the goal is to get this second location up and running, uh, maintain the equality and integrity that we're, we're known for.
Jason Ingram: Get it profitable. Have the guys from our group come out and give us some, [00:27:00] some input on the new spot and see how it's doing and, and get there. Their feedback on our layout and what we can do to improve it and just get it up to where again It's it's something that we feel that is is running The way it should run that we are maintaining Uh everything that we stand for and um, you know, once it's it's up and running successfully I think we'll have to look at the next step from there.
Jason Ingram: I'm not a huge fan of Of multiple multiple locations like some of our shop owners in our group, uh have but you know It's I I have my comfort levels, but that's what the institute has helped me with Like I said, there was no possibility that we'd be even be opening a second You When we first got involved with the institute, but, um, but they changed my mindset and, uh, made me realize, you know, that that was probably the right way to go.
Jason Ingram: And so who knows? Uh, you know, who knows? Right now, like I say, the block is, is me probably more than anything, but we'll get this second spot up and going, get the, the first one maintaining and, uh, We'll see where we're
Jimmy Lea: at from there. I [00:28:00] love it. And once, once you're have created that rubber stamp that is culture is quality, is integrity, and you're able to expand that out to location three and four and five and six, it becomes that rubber stamp where you know what it takes to do it.
Jimmy Lea: And every couple of years you just add another location along. Long, long along. There you go. And it's that easy, right?
Sue Ingram: Right. Why not?
Jimmy Lea: Well, that's cool. Well, I appreciate your advice. I appreciate your insight. I appreciate your experience. Appreciate you taking some time to meet with me and talk about that experience and what it looks like for you.
Jimmy Lea: There's a lot of shop owners in the industry. Uh, and they feel like they're an island. They feel like they have to go it alone. And that's what I'm hearing from you is no, don't go it alone. You, you don't have to do that. Lock arms with a community, lock arms with a group of like minded shop owners, and together [00:29:00] we can make that path quicker, better, easier, faster, avoid the mistakes because, uh, together.
Jimmy Lea: As a group, we know more than we know individually. So as a group, we can help us to succeed. So
Jason Ingram: that's been a
Sue Ingram: conversation that Jason and I have had a few times since joining the Institute is imagine where we would be now, if we had joined back in 2017, when we first. bought the business. Imagine where we could be.
Sue Ingram: And I mean, we don't dwell on that because we are where we are, but, um, just imagine if, if we'd have had that community, what seven years ago versus just a year and a half, almost two years ago, it's don't, don't go it alone. Get that community and don't give up.
Jason Ingram: Don't give
Jimmy Lea: up. Was there a time period where you thought, Oh my gosh,
Sue Ingram: I think more so for Jason, there was probably some, some very stressful times that he [00:30:00] was like, what did we get ourselves into?
Sue Ingram: Um, never really a regret that we considered selling or anything like that, but just more stressful times than others. Um, I can say that this, This last year and a half, um, with really getting the training and knowledge that we need to continue to take the business further and further. It's like Jason said earlier, it has been less stressful in a lot of ways.
Sue Ingram: Brings on some other stresses. Um, just because you have some other things to look at, but, um, good stresses if there is such a thing. Yeah.
Jason Ingram: It's a, like I said, there was very many, many nights I, uh, between working with customers and. And helping our techs trying to figure out a car or being on a problem car or actually taking on a problem car myself and, uh, being a janitor and fixing the plumbing and doing a little bit of everything.
Jason Ingram: You know, there was many days I'm like, [00:31:00] what did I get myself into? You know, I was no more going home or clocking out and being done. It was a whole new level there. So, uh, but yes, I mean, after finally getting the training where, you know, these guys, why are you trying to do everything? You can't do everything you're you can't do it.
Jason Ingram: So. Uh, getting that mindset change that I needed from them, uh, was just a game changer for sure. Well,
Jimmy Lea: congratulations to you guys. The future is bright. Wear your sunglasses because you're going to need
Jason Ingram: them. Thank you. Well, thank you, sir. You're welcome.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you very much. I appreciate you spending some time with me today and tell me about your story, about your experience.
Jimmy Lea: Next time I'm down in Albuquerque, I'm going to have to come by and say hello. Absolutely. Please do.
Kent Bullard: That's it for this one. This episode was brought to you by gear for shops. com, the gear heads network, and the Institute for a better business, a better life and a better industry visit. We are the institute.
Kent Bullard: com. Thanks for listening. And we'll catch you in the next one.
 

90 - Embracing Change for the Better, Thomas Sciortino - Total Automotive

90 - Embracing Change for the Better, Thomas Sciortino - Total Automotive
February 6th, 2024 - 00:45:25
 
Show Summary:Jimmy Lea sits down with Thomas Sciortino of Total Automotive, discussing how Thomas's 38 years of industry experience have shaped his unique business strategies. They delve into Total Automotive's growth, their speciality in complex auto repairs, and how they've become a diagnostic and programming leader. Listeners will also get an insider's view of the shop's operational structure and the adaptability that's crucial in today's automotive industry. Tune in for this masterclass in sustaining and innovating a business in an ever-evolving field.
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Thomas Sciortino , Owner of Total Automotive
 
Episode Highlights:(00:00:00) - Introduction of Thomas Sciortino and the legacy of Total Automotive.(00:02:45) - Discussion on the origins and evolution of Total Automotive's business model.(00:06:30) - Insights into the specialization in complex repairs and how it sets Total Automotive apart.(00:10:15) - The importance of staying ahead in diagnostics and programming within the automotive industry.(00:16:00) - Strategies for business growth and the significance of adaptability.(00:20:20) - The role of customer service and relationship management in business success.(00:25:00) - A deep dive into the operational strategies that ensure efficiency and productivity at Total Automotive.(00:31:30) - How Total Automotive handles training and education for their technicians.(00:37:50) - Thomas Sciortino's perspective on the future of automotive service and technology.(00:42:10) - Closing thoughts on maintaining a competitive edge in the automotive industry.
 
We want to hear from our listeners! After diving into Thomas Sciortino's journey and strategies for doubling business growth, what's one pivotal moment or strategy in your career that significantly impacted your success?
Share your insights and stories with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and your experience could be highlighted in a future episode.
 
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
 
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89 - Eagle Scout Ownership, Jason Brennan - Fine Tune Auto Service

89 - Eagle Scout Ownership, Jason Brennan - Fine Tune Auto Service
December 19th, 2023 - 01:00:25
 
Show Summary:
 
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
 
Guest(s):
Jason Brennan, Owner of Fine Tune Auto Service
 
Episode Highlights:(00:00:00) - Opening: The pursuit of industry excellence.(00:01:00) - Evolving from technician to owner.(00:05:00) - Scaling up: From a modest start to multiple locations.(00:14:00) - Leveraging coaching for business transformation.(00:18:00) - The cost of delaying business education.(00:21:00) - Strategies for struggling shop owners.(00:30:00) - Team dynamics boosting revenue.(00:40:00) - Planning for business expansion and growth.(00:53:00) - Leadership lessons from scouting.(00:57:00) - The impact of mentorship and advice.
 
We want to hear from our listeners! After tuning in to Jason Brennan's story of growth and learning in the automotive business, what's one lesson you've learned from your own experiences that you wish you knew when you started?
Email us your stories at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and we might just feature them in an upcoming episode.
 
 
Links & Resources: 
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
 
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88 - The Diagnostic Journey: Tools, Technology, and Teamwork with Justin Kidd & Eric Edberg, iSCAN by Autoland

88 - The Diagnostic Journey: Tools, Technology, and Teamwork with Justin Kidd & Eric Edberg, iSCAN by Autoland
May, 2023 - 00:52:27
 
Show Summary:This episode of "Leading Edge" brings into focus the ever-evolving landscape of automotive diagnostics, with insights from industry experts Justin Kidd and Eric Edberg of iScan by Autoland. Kent Bullard orchestrates a deep dive into the complexities of modern automotive technology, from the intricacies of high-pressure systems to the burgeoning domain of electric vehicles (EVs). The discussion pivots around the critical importance of ongoing education and the implementation of support on demand, painting a picture of an industry at a technological and methodological crossroads. As the conversation steers towards the horizons of automotive service, listeners gain an understanding of not only where the industry is headed but also how to equip themselves for the journey ahead. A narrative of change, challenge, and opportunity unfolds, emphasizing the role of strategic adaptation and the power of a well-informed team. For anyone passionate about cars or curious about the gears that drive the automotive service industry forward, this episode stands as an essential tuning point.
 
Host(s):
Kent Bullard, COO & Partner - The Institute
Guest(s):
Eric Edberg, Director of Business Development - iSCAN by Autoland
Justin Kidd, iSCAN by Autoland
 
Episode Highlights:(00:00:00) - Opening remarks on the importance of education in automotive success.(00:01:00) - The critical nature of safety in working with new automotive technologies.(00:05:00) - The urgency of adapting to electric vehicle (EV) technology in the industry.(00:14:00) - The value of technical training and resource accessibility for technicians.(00:18:00) - How the evolution of the industry affects technician competency and shop operations.(00:21:00) - Insights into the partnership between the Institute and iScan and its benefits for technical training.(00:30:00) - The financial impact of service and the importance of understanding business operations.(00:40:00) - A personal anecdote emphasizing the importance of charging adequately for services.(00:53:00) - A discussion on the future-focused strategy for automotive businesses.
 
After engaging with the forward-thinking dialogue between Kent Bullard and the iScan experts, we invite you to reflect on the advancements in automotive technology. What are the lessons from your professional experience that resonate with the transformative trends discussed in this episode?
Share your insights with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com for a chance to be featured in future discussions.
 
Links & Resources: 
See about attending the next ITTC! Click Here
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's Events List: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
 
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