The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast
The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast is where forward-thinking Automotive Service and Repair Shop Owners come to sharpen their skills, expand their knowledge, and gain an edge in today’s competitive market. Hosted by The Institute’s team of seasoned consultants and leaders with decades of real-world experience, you’ll get direct, actionable advice tailored to the unique challenges of running and growing an auto repair business.
Each episode feels like a one-on-one coaching session. Whether it’s improving profitability, building stronger leadership skills, mastering marketing, developing your team, or planning for long-term success, you’ll find strategies you can implement right away.
Have a question about your shop? Send it in, and we’ll answer it on the show.
Episodes

Thursday Sep 18, 2025
Thursday Sep 18, 2025
147 - Ballet Shoes to Bay Floors: How Julia Reynolds Streamlined a Small Shop for Big Results
September 16, 2025 - 00:33:39
Show Summary:
What happens when a former professional ballerina trades the stage for a service bay? Julia Reynolds, General Manager at RDS Automotive Service (GA), shares how she rose from apprentice to operations lead—building a transparent, commission-free culture and turning processes into profit. In this episode, Julia breaks down the exact systems her 5-person team uses to communicate faster, sell smarter, and deliver dealer-level trust with indie-shop heart. If you’re wrestling with volume, deferred work follow-ups, parts sourcing chaos, or going paperless, you’ll steal playbook-ready ideas you can implement this week.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Julia Reynolds, General Manager of RDS Automotive Service
Show Highlights:
[00:00:34] - From ballet to bays: Julia pivots careers after an ankle injury, earns ASEs, starts at Ford in 2020, and joins RDS in August 2021.
[00:03:16] - Ground-up growth: She begins as an apprentice, sweeps floors, learns under master tech Paul O’Brien, then shifts to the front after a wrist injury.
[00:05:10] - Small shop, tight crew: A five-person, commission-free team feels like family and collaboration beats push-pull leadership.
[00:06:17] - INTJ ops brain: Templates, spreadsheets, and standardized parts lists make complex jobs faster and cleaner.
[00:08:59] - DVI is the crown jewel: AutoServe1 + Protractor + AutoOps boost transparency with photos/video/audio and easy online booking.
[00:11:30] - Paperless vision: Tablets in-bay and one-platform communication would cut walk-time and raise tech efficiency.
[00:15:33] - Parts in one pane: Consolidating with tools like Nexpart/PartsTech would simplify VIN-driven estimates and ordering.
[00:17:06] - Volume bottleneck: Local zoning and neighborhood shifts reduce car count, so marketing and deferred-work follow-up are mission-critical.
[00:23:04] - New audience, new work: Target late-20s/early-30s enthusiasts who want upgrades (not just maintenance) to grow revenue.
[00:26:50] - Leveling up: Prioritize electrical diagnostics training, dealer-level programming, and evaluating all-in-one shop software on the Windows 11 refresh.
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or goodnight, depending on when and where you're joining us from. My name is Jimmy Lea. I am with the Institute and this is the Leading Edge podcast. Joining me today is Julia Reynolds. She is the general manager for RDS Automotive out of Georgia. So excited to have you here with me, Julia, how the heck are you?
Julia Reynolds: I'm doing great. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Jimmy Lea: Well, good. Thank you. Thank you. And I want to jump right into this and ask you about your journey into the automotive aftermarket. What did that look like for you?
Julia Reynolds: So it's, it almost sounds like a lie when I say it out loud, I promise you a hand on a Bible.
Julia Reynolds: It is real. I was a professional ballet dancer. I ended up breaking an ankle and retiring at about 2021. I taught for a bit after that. I. Essentially, I had a couple of jobs here and there. I worked with Shutterfly for a bit. Worked with Lifetouch, had a, you know, great group of people there.
Julia Reynolds: Very supportive still of my career change today. When I was deciding kind of what I wanted to do next with my life, I remembered growing up in. Essentially we had a service station that had a equipment shop underneath, and my happiest memories growing up were being in the shop with my grandfather and my uncles and my dad and my brother, you know, whether I was watching them or because I had little hands, you know, reach in here and twist that because, you know, I'm a girl.
Julia Reynolds: Our hands fit in places that a lot of burly guys hands don't. Oh, that's so
Jimmy Lea: true.
Julia Reynolds: And it just, when I thought back on all those memories, I was like, I. It doesn't feel like work. And I had also restored vintage, like I had a Nissan Dotson two 80 or not a two 80. My brother had a two 80, I had a 300.
Julia Reynolds: And then my brother also has a fair lady as well. So we kind of grew up in the restoration game with that just for fun, you know, kind of a bonding project with our dad. And yeah, I took the leap went and got my a SC certifications. I started out at Ford. Went through all of the Ford School Ford training back in 2020, and then I started here at RDS in August of 21.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. So you just ashad yourself sha Oh, I'm saying the wrong word.
Julia Reynolds: No, you got it. It's Shae
Jimmy Lea: Ade. You're away from ballerina into, the front desk. Oh, congratulations. A professional ballet. Thank you. I was not a professional ballroom dancer, but I was a ballroom dancer through high school and college.
Julia Reynolds: That's awesome. That's how I met my husband.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, really? Ballroom
Julia Reynolds: dancer? Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my word. Congratulations.
Julia Reynolds: Specifically like West Coast. West coast swing and blues dancing.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love West Coast. West Coast. It's so much fun. Yep. Yep. So much fun. All right, so, back to your you went from ballerina into the automotive into Ford, ended up at RDS, right?
Jimmy Lea: It sounds like outta school, you went right into RDS, is that correct?
Julia Reynolds: Correct. Correct.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: Did you go straight into management with RDS or did you start on the front counter? What, how did that work out?
Julia Reynolds: I started as an apprentice. I mean, I started from the bottom and worked my way up. When I came to RDS, like I said, I was fresh out of Ford School.
Julia Reynolds: And I just said if you take a chance on me, I promise I'll work as hard as I need to prove myself. I know I'm a girl in this industry and it is not normal for a. You know, 27-year-old female to walk into a shop looking for a job. So, you know, I paid my dues, I swept the floors, I put the tools away.
Julia Reynolds: I got to apprentice under our master technician, Paul O'Brien. He is incredible. One of, in my opinion, one of the best Toyota mechanics in the city of Atlanta. So I got to spend two years with. And then after that I ended up having an injury with my wrist. I tore the cartilage here, so I was in a cast and it's kind of hard to work on cars in a cast.
Julia Reynolds: So that's when I started learning more about how the front runs and how we, you know, do bookkeeping and all that good stuff. So my boss kind of. He and I swapped. So he took my position on the floor as soon as my apprenticeship was over, and then I kind of started learning the backend until my brother came on board with us from Subaru, and now he's our service manager.
Julia Reynolds: So he handles all of the customer facing interactions and then I handle all the backend.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, interesting. So he went from teching with Subaru to service advising here with RDS.
Julia Reynolds: Correct.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my goodness. And so you're running everything behind the scenes and he's running everything front of counter.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. That's phenomenal. So what's one of the things that you love the most about leading this team you've got at RDS?
Julia Reynolds: With RDS? I know it's kind of a taboo thing to say that work feels like a family, but as a very small shop. Yeah. We do feel like a family. I mean, there's only five of us, the owner, his wife, my brother, me and our master tech.
Julia Reynolds: That's it. So, you know, it's a very small operation and I love that we all can come together, we can troubleshoot and problem solve and feed off one another. And when it comes to leading it, it doesn't even really. Feel like I'm having to push or pull or, you know, make things happen. It's really a collaborative effort and I'm so thankful to work with such an amazing team.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that, that is so cool. And it's cool that you've got a small team. So it's, I'm not gonna say it's easier because it's also difficult. It has its own challenges. Yes, working with the technicians and the service advisors. So how, what would you describe as your management style in communicating between your technicians and your brother as the advisor?
Jimmy Lea: How do you work that?
Julia Reynolds: So. Personality wise, I'm a an INTJ, so I'm very logic oriented. I like to problem solve and you know, streamline processes and things like that. So I try to take as much of my experience as a tech because I do still work on the floor and say, okay, if we are doing this job, why don't we come together?
Julia Reynolds: We're gonna make a couple of spreadsheets. So if we're gonna sell a. A timing change up, we're gonna make a sheet. So we kind of have a template. We know we need X, Y, Z for parts and things like that. And I think having that, like I said, collaborative effort has really helped a lot in that regard.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that.
Jimmy Lea: I love that. I love that, that you have analyzed your personality as well, so that you know and understand your your Yeah, you gotta perfect mind. Have you also done the personality test for everybody else in the shop as well?
Julia Reynolds: I have. I have. My brother is also an INTJ and I believe that Paul is an Ian tj.
Julia Reynolds: So we're very similar and it kind of gives that good Yan Yin and yang kind of. Feeling.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. That's great. That's great that you've gone delved into that realm of understanding personalities because it's, it helps in the communication. It helps in Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Julia Reynolds: And knowing where your strong suits are and where your weaknesses are for your management style does make a huge difference in how successful you and your team can be.
Jimmy Lea: Oh totally agree. So where do you feel most confident as a leader of RDS?
Julia Reynolds: Can you elaborate just a little bit?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So as a manager, you've, you're a general manager. Where are you the most confident in a position of leadership?
Julia Reynolds: I would say I'm the most confident when it comes to operations.
Julia Reynolds: That, so when I worked with Life Touch and Shutterfly, I was in operations, you know, a lead team lead, that kind of thing. So I got very used to, you know, here is. What we have to do day to day, here are all the steps we need to take to make x, y, z happen. So I would say when it comes to things like streamlining our parts houses, you know, we're gonna use these three systems, you know, choosing our shop management softwares adding things like Ds to our routines.
Julia Reynolds: I think that's kind of my strong suit of vetting programs like that and implementing as much as I can with the most cost, effectiveness and highest. ROI. To get customers involved. We've started using a full like photo, video, audio DVI system, and that has, it's been incredible. The customer feedback has been awesome.
Julia Reynolds: It really brings up that transparency. Especially because we're a commission free shop. We are not like most, so we are not flat rate.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. Wow. Okay. So everybody's So it's a high trust
Julia Reynolds: environment. High trust environment.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. I love it. And what DVI program are you doing?
Julia Reynolds: So we use autos Serve one and we're paired with protractor right now.
Julia Reynolds: We may be changing protractor with via Windows 11 rollout and kind of see what we're doing from there. Sure. And then we use Auto Ops for all our scheduling.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Very cool. Yeah. Phenomenal. All phenomenal programs. They're very strong in the industry. That's very cool. Yeah. On the flip side of this where you're strong in the operations side, where do you feel that there are areas that you're still developing as a leader or as a manager?
Julia Reynolds: I think for me personally, as a manager, this has been a different, kind of a different ball game just due to the industry itself. Being a young female, working with a bunch of males that are far older and more experienced than I am, I think I struggle with my confidence in saying, Hey, this is what I think we need to do, or how we need to do it, because, I mean, they've got 40 years of experience on me, and of course I want their input, but it is tough to kind of get out of my own head and say, this is your position and you're allowed to say what you think.
Julia Reynolds: So I would say just confidence in that side is probably one of the things I struggle with the most.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, hey sister, we all do. We all do. You gotta be comfortable in your own skin and standing up for yourself and your thoughts. 'cause you've got great experience, they've got great experience, you've got great experience as well.
Jimmy Lea: Let's bring them together and have the best of both worlds.
Julia Reynolds: Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: I love that. If you could change one thing about, oh thing I hate thing, if you could change one aspect about your team's efficiency or communication, what would it be?
Julia Reynolds: If it were up to me, I would love it if we could go paperless.
Jimmy Lea: Yes,
Julia Reynolds: I would love if we could go paperless.
Jimmy Lea: Would you have technicians on their phone, technicians on a tablet, or technicians on a computer?
Julia Reynolds: So as of right now, we use tablets just for the DVI system so that we can get the, you know, pictures, video, audio.
Julia Reynolds: But there is a way, I think if we were to change shop management software, where we could use everything through one platform on the tablet. I think that would increase, not necessarily just sales, but just efficiency of communication. You know, every time you take 30 seconds to walk across the shop to talk to your service advisor, you do that 14 times a day.
Julia Reynolds: That adds up really quickly when your, you know, tech costs per minute is a dollar 65. Oh yeah. So, you know, once you do the math on how. How much it actually takes to keep the lights on and keep your text paid. That effectiveness, the less you move, the better you are. So if we could go paperless and work off tablets in our bays and have that direct line like, Hey, this estimate is ready, or This inspection is done, this inspection was sent, we got approval on this, parts are ordered.
Julia Reynolds: You know, if we could get that, you know, wham, bam, that would be really, I think, my goal. But that's where I want us to get to.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, you, and you're exactly right. When you focus on the operations, the process procedures, like you're talking about, you said it doesn't necessarily increase sales. But it does.
Jimmy Lea: It is exactly tied in together. The more efficient you are, the more you have that process procedure down, the more business you can bring in. Therefore the sales go up. I mean,
Julia Reynolds: absolutely. And it gives the service advisor more time to prepare that estimate to go over it and, you know. Have more time to explain to the customer.
Julia Reynolds: We try, like I said, to be very transparent and if they wanna know how a system works, we'll tell them. If they don't care, that's totally fine. We're not gonna give you information you don't want. But if we did have, you know, a bit more efficiency in that department, I think we could have more time to say, okay, so here's how a water pump actually works.
Julia Reynolds: And explain that cooling system to them. 'cause people in my generation, you know, between like 25 to 38 or so. Some of us grew up with fix it dads and some didn't. So as much as we can inform them, I want that to be a part of the process and that trust building with our clientele.
Jimmy Lea: It's so true. It's so true.
Jimmy Lea: And you've got that operations mind. My wife has that operations mind as well and here she was with the company. They were 48 weeks behind in processing claims. Goodness. It is. Yes, my goodness is correct. It was really far behind. She dug in and within a very short amount of time.
Jimmy Lea: I don't know exactly what the amount of time is, but it's short, like. A few months, let's call it three months. She had it completely turned around where they were processing claims within 31 days, 32 days.
Julia Reynolds: That's incredible.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They went from being a $30 million a year company to a 40 or $50 million a year company in, in, in a flash.
Jimmy Lea: And was it because the sales guys were selling more? Well, kind of, but it was because they were able to process it better, quicker, faster, easier. They had more ability to take throughput. Exactly. To your point. So let's dive into some of this operational systems, process, procedures. Yeah. What do you think that you have implemented into your shop that is running really well as far as process, procedure or operation?
Julia Reynolds: I think the addition of. Well first the addition of auto serve one number one, that DVI system, not only does it cloud save all of the information from each inspection, the customer gets an email and texts that they get to keep forever. And then if they ever do need a copy of it, we have a backup.
Julia Reynolds: And then also including auto ops with that. So both of those integrate with protractor. All the data carries over. But now you can book from our Google business page. You don't have to worry about calling us. You can just tap a button, pick your time slot. You want breaks, you wanna describe something, you know, you just check off a few boxes and you're good to go.
Julia Reynolds: I love it. Good. I would say the next thing that I wanna implement would be, I'm considering next part if we are to change shop management software so that we're not clicking through individual browser tabs to order parts, because copying and pasting that vin into four different parts houses.
Julia Reynolds: You know, that takes time. And when you're building a big estimate and one part sauce has part of it, and one part sauce has, you know, three pieces of it, it gets very tedious. And then you end up like my desk with paper. Paper. But you're gonna miss on
Jimmy Lea: paper. Yeah. You're gonna miss something. So using a program like,
Julia Reynolds: yeah, using a program like next part, you've got one window and it says, okay, out of the 25 parts houses you've selected in your area, it's available here, and here.
Julia Reynolds: And then you can build your estimate directly from all of those and order it in one invoice, which that's our next goal.
Jimmy Lea: Beautiful. I'm not familiar with next part, but I am familiar with Parts Tech.
Julia Reynolds: Very similar.
Jimmy Lea: It sounds very similar. Very
Julia Reynolds: similar,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Very cool. So, I love that, that you've implemented a DVI and that's your, one of your crown jewels.
Jimmy Lea: I, I, that's my baby. Yeah. Right. Oh, because a customer can see it worn, torn fray, broken leaking, seeping. Yeah. You can see that. Especially when you circle it, you put air clip, customers can see that. So, and
Julia Reynolds: we get that red, yellow, green, just like a dealer.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Oh, well, red, yellow, green is inherent.
Jimmy Lea: We all understand green means go. We're good. Yellow means, hey, caution. You gotta be aware. And red says safety. You've got to fix it now. So where do you see are some of the bottlenecks in the current workflow or communication or customer service? What are some of those bottlenecks that you've identified?
Julia Reynolds: Our biggest bottleneck right now has been volume in our area. There's a lot of different like zoning issues and stuff happening around us and it's taken things like, you know, they've torn down apartment complexes that were right next to us, that were a ton of our customers. There's several neighborhoods around us that, you know, people are either aging out and not driving anymore 'cause they've retired.
Julia Reynolds: And we also live in Atlanta, so if your commute's only four miles. We're lucky to see you twice a year. Yeah. So I think our biggest bottleneck right now is marketing just within our own, you know, marketing to our own clients. They're fantastic. We have an amazing, you know, book of business. Our customers are fantastic people.
Julia Reynolds: But it's getting new volume in getting that name out. And, you know, aside from just word of mouth.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Well, and it's interesting you mentioned marketing. We just completed a marketing intensive, a marketing workshop at the institute.
Julia Reynolds: Oh,
Jimmy Lea: we brought together, yeah. It was a small, intimate group.
Jimmy Lea: There was about 50 of us vendors and participants, and we had, it was a two and a half day speeches talking about marketing, what you can do, what you can implement. Then it was hands-on, planning out the marketing calendar. Yeah, it was really good. So next year when we do it, that's
Julia Reynolds: fantastic.
Jimmy Lea: You make sure you sign up for it.
Jimmy Lea: I'll be
Julia Reynolds: there. Yeah, that sounds great.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That would help you. So when they demoed the apartment complex, what did they put up in place?
Julia Reynolds: So it started to be a housing development, and then I believe it either bought or went bankrupt. I'm not quite sure. It changed hands. And it sat for a little over a year before someone picked it up.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my. Okay. So
Julia Reynolds: there, and like I said, all of the zoning changes like where we are, you can't open a new auto shop.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You're
Julia Reynolds: if you're not, yeah. If you're not existing, no new ones can pop up anywhere inside, you know, our particular overlay district. Yeah. Like I said, it's just been kind of tough because businesses have been moving around.
Julia Reynolds: You know, some of the clients like fleet truck contracts and stuff that we had, they're no longer here. They've moved to somewhere else. Just because they needed someone that had more bays and at this point, if we were to move, we would have to move outside of the city. We can't just move to another building easily.
Julia Reynolds: So that's been kind of a struggle, just like I said, for getting volume in.
Jimmy Lea: That's tough. That's tough. The good news is you're grandfathered and you're staying there. Yes. You're gonna be there. Absolutely. If you stand, if you need to grow just at another location, don't be yes.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah,
Julia Reynolds: absolutely. And we have, we just celebrated our 25th almond, well, we'll be 26 next year anniversary. We've been open since 1999. Same owner. And we have been in this building since 2003, I believe.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Congratulations. That's very cool. Thanks. And does the owner own the building or are you guys leasing the building or do you know what That's
Julia Reynolds: We've leased this one.
Julia Reynolds: We at first only leased the front half, and now we have one, two, well, we have four lifts and then we have two flat bases.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Okay. And for the amount of technicians you've got, that's perfect. That's perfect. The
Julia Reynolds: three
Jimmy Lea: on the floor. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So are there any reoccurring issues that it's eating up your time right now that shouldn't
Julia Reynolds: That's a good question. I would say. The things that take up my time the most that we haven't quite nailed down a procedure on is following up with deferred work. We do have some automated things that go out through Carfax and stuff like that, but getting that report pulled, finding that time in the week, especially with myself working on the floor still and making sure those calls go out every Friday, that is definitely something that it gets done, but it's kind of stressful.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it's kind of stressful. Look into ops. I think they have some great programs in there for the decline services that you can set up an automatic three month, six month, nine month reminder.
Julia Reynolds: Oh, I only, right now, I have it set up to remind them if they go to schedule, but I haven't looked at sending additional Sue there.
Julia Reynolds: Thank you for that.
Jimmy Lea: You're welcome.
Julia Reynolds: I appreciate that.
Jimmy Lea: So if if some of these small problems were left unaddressed, what would. Be the big headache that you could see six months from now.
Julia Reynolds: I think the big headache if we weren't to address issues like this, again, it would go back to volume. I think we would see a bottleneck in people coming in, especially new clients.
Julia Reynolds: Like I said, we have a fantastic clientele. Our word of mouth like referrals are through the roof. I mean, we probably get, I would say, two to three a week from somebody saying, Hey go to RDS, check 'em out. But you know, when we see on that intake form, you know, Google next door, Yelp, or whatever it is, we don't see that quite as often.
Julia Reynolds: So I think if we were to leave. Things like following up on deferred work and you know, the marketing side of things unaddressed for a while. I think we would definitely see A decline in profit.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We gotta get that deferred work dialed in pretty quick.
Julia Reynolds: Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: And I think with a phone call, you got it.
Jimmy Lea: You got it taken care of. So what's the vision for RDS automotive services over the next year? What's the focus?
Julia Reynolds: The focus over the next year is to, like I said, because of a lot of our customers have retired and aged out. We're trying to get car enthusiasts in. We want the, you know, those caffeine and octane guys who, you know, they want the killer be oil pan on their Subaru.
Julia Reynolds: Not 'cause they need it, but because they want it. You know, trying to get that group involved with us, because right now our goal is to take your daily driver and make it the same way as it was the day you bought it. But living in a city like Atlanta where people have super short commutes, there's not a whole lot of wiggle room there for us to grow.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Julia Reynolds: So getting that next generation in, you know. The late twenties, early thirties. And then, you know, the teens, like the customers that have retired, we want their nieces and nephews and grandkids. We want them coming in.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You want those video gamers that are willing to buy new skins for their video.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. And here they're driving a Subaru, you just want them to upgrade those bar parts, bits. Yeah. Yeah. They've got the money, put the
Julia Reynolds: fancy stuff on.
Jimmy Lea: Let's do it.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. So if you had. Let's see. If you had a trusted partner to help you remove one challenge from your plate, what would that challenge be?
Jimmy Lea: And who would it be that would help to remove it?
Julia Reynolds: If I could magically have someone who just answered the phone and did our inventory? I think that would be, if we had an actual CSR, I think that would be very helpful.
Jimmy Lea: Interesting. Interesting. You say that there's some AI phone systems right now that are very interesting.
Julia Reynolds: Okay.
Jimmy Lea: There's a company called Voice Controller talk to William Fairbank. Inbound communication. I talked to David Boyd. Yeah. I've got a couple of other people that you, I can turn you on to. And what's interesting about these AI systems is that they'll answer the phone, they'll even schedule the appointment, and if it becomes too complex of a conversation, they'll say, Hey, you know what?
Jimmy Lea: Hold on a second. Do you want me to connect you with Julia? Oh, okay. Let me see if she's available. Oh, you know what? She's, maybe you're not available. She's not available right now. Do you wanna leave a message and I'll make sure she calls you back here in the next hour or two, or Definitely today, by the end of the day.
Julia Reynolds: Right.
Jimmy Lea: So it, it's quite interesting what they can do with these AI systems.
Julia Reynolds: Huh? I'll look into that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, definitely
Julia Reynolds: look into that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. A lot of fun. We did
Julia Reynolds: receive, we had a virtual receptionist for a bit to, you know, like a phone tree. We had some mixed reviews on that.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Some of our
Julia Reynolds: customers loved it.
Julia Reynolds: Some did not.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and what's interesting, I call a lot of shops and it'll say, press one to speak to a human. And what they're doing is cutting out all those robo calls.
Julia Reynolds: I was just gonna say that's a big problem that we have is just, you know, you pick it up and it's either just a click or there's no one there, or it's a bot automated call.
Julia Reynolds: You know, when you have that option to press one, AIS can't do that.
Jimmy Lea: Correct. Correct. All right. So last question for you here as we land this plane is there any more training or systems or coaching that's around you or around your team that you would like to implement over the next year?
Julia Reynolds: I definitely want us to continue.
Julia Reynolds: At least for the technicians, including myself on the floor, you know, always trying to continue our education. When it comes to electrical diagnostics, cars are becoming more and more like iPads on wheels every day. So we wanna make sure we know how to use those breakout boxes. We know how to troubleshoot all those teeny tiny electrical problems.
Julia Reynolds: You know, getting RDS to the point where we could reflash head units and, you know, do that dealer level software programming, I think would be super vital. I'm trying to think if there's anything else when it comes to like growing the team or implementation. I think it will be interesting to see what happens with our shop management software once Windows 11 comes out.
Julia Reynolds: Because we will need to be getting new computers, new equipment, you know, all that good stuff. So I think. Once we consolidate, not only will it help us financially, but I think it'll make a lot of things more streamlined if we can find a shop management software that, you know, you can use something like next part, or, I, I'm so sorry, I forgot the name of the one that you mentioned.
Jimmy Lea: Parts tech.
Julia Reynolds: Parts tech. You know, that has that all in the same window so that you're not going from one screen to one screen to look at parts and write an estimate. Just put it all in at once. All goes and gets ordered on the same ro Yeah. You know, and there's a few out there that even include the credit processing, which would be great.
Julia Reynolds: Right now we use a third party for credit processing, for financing, you know, all of that. So using a shop management software that is an all-in-one would help us, like I said, both financially and I think just as a team and communication, working with the customers and ease of use for everyone.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Are you using 360 payments?
Julia Reynolds: We are not, we're actually using Flex Buy at the moment.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. I don't know Flex Buy, but I know that 360 payments is part of the family of Protractor Auto Server. It is on shop wear. You know, they work so they've got a really good seamless program and they've also got a program right now where your clients could finance through them.
Jimmy Lea: Okay, so a credit card. You don't have to use the credit card. They get approved for finance.
Julia Reynolds: Right.
Jimmy Lea: So yeah, check out. That is definitely something look
Julia Reynolds: into,
Jimmy Lea: yeah.
Julia Reynolds: Yeah. Flex by, they're, we don't. Really push it too hard because they're, they do have very high interest rates if you miss that six month window.
Julia Reynolds: You know, and I never want my customers to have to alter their gr grocery budget to fix their car or, you know, pay off a loan, that kind of thing. So we try to be very careful with who we present that to.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Well, and that's also the beauty of it is here's a huge bill, $5,000. I don't have $5,000 today.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, but you know what? You can finance it and pay a thousand bucks a month over the next five months. And it's same as cash.
Julia Reynolds: Exactly.
Jimmy Lea: Bingo. All right. I'm sold. Or maybe it's eight 50 a month. I don't know the path on that, but, right. Yeah, man that it's beau it's a beautiful option for those that can implement it.
Jimmy Lea: And it keeps them safe on the road.
Julia Reynolds: For sure. And that's, I mean, we always go by the, would I put my spouse or my parent in this vehicle? And that's our gold standard. You know, would I put my husband in it? Would I put my mom or my dad in it? And if the answer is no, then we gotta address these problems and get 'em fixed so that you, the precious car goes, stays safe on the road.
Jimmy Lea: Totally agree. Totally agree. All right, Julia, last and final question.
Jimmy Lea: What is your future? What are you going to do in this industry?
Julia Reynolds: I would love to have my own shop at some point. I think on my cover letter when I applied here, it said I either wanted to be a crew chief or chief mechanic for a Formula One team or own my own shop.
Julia Reynolds: Awesome. If I could get into, that's awesome. If anybody knows how to get in touch with Max for staff and let me know I'd love to work for him. Oh yeah. Actually I like Liz Hamilton a little more, but no, I think I would love to own my own shop. I just it, it's a very comfortable environment and feeling, and this is the first job I've ever had where it just feels like home.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, I think you've got a bright future in the industry. I think you've going in the right direction, and there is a unique opportunity right now that if you keep your eyes open, just keep looking out there, you're gonna find it. You are gonna find that opportunity to. Yeah, there's a lot of old 72-year-old, 80-year-old dudes out there that are like, I'm ready, I'm done.
Jimmy Lea: Here's keys. Have fun.
Julia Reynolds: Do the thing.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. And you grab a hold of that. You implement everything. New technology, you triple that business overnight. It seems like overnight. It's probably in the first year. Right. You just take it to next levels. It's never even been before.
Julia Reynolds: yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Keep your eyes open, Julia, and I'm fairly certain that you and your brother will be able to find something that's just awesome and amazing.
Julia Reynolds: I appreciate that. Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, thank you Julia. I appreciate your time today and course look forward to talking to you.
Julia Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Jimmy Lea: Are you going to ASTA in, in Raleigh, North Carolina next week?
Julia Reynolds: No.
Jimmy Lea: 25th through the 28th, there's a trade show conference, tech training service advisor training, management training, marketing training, owner training.
Jimmy Lea: It's in Raleigh a STA Expo. Look it up.
Julia Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. I think I can make that happen.
Jimmy Lea: That would be awesome. It's really good. You get in there, get into classes.
Julia Reynolds: Yeah. Are y'all, I'm assuming the institute will be there.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Yeah. We'll be there,
Julia Reynolds: absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: I'll be flying in on Wednesday and then out on Sunday.
Jimmy Lea: And we've got classes that we're teaching every day about service advisor training, communication, overcoming objections, selling. Without conflict, how to overcome conflict, how to communicate front to back. I love that training, marketing, training what's next? Training. Talking about the private equity that's coming in, buying up all these little shops to amalgamate and then they sell it to, right?
Jimmy Lea: All the PE. This is an opportunity that you have as well. So there's a lot of stuff happening in this industry over the next five years. We got this unique window. That's gonna happen here for us. Yeah. I'm super excited. I'd love to see you in Raleigh.
Julia Reynolds: No, that'd be great. That'd be awesome.
Jimmy Lea: All right, Julia, thank you very much.

Thursday Sep 18, 2025
146 - Building a Stress-Free Culture with Loren Winfrey
Thursday Sep 18, 2025
Thursday Sep 18, 2025
146 - Building a Stress-Free Culture with Loren Winfrey
September 11, 2025 - 00:38:58
Show Summary:
Jimmy Lea sat down with Loren Winfrey (Stress Free Auto Care) to unpack how he scales two San Francisco shops—inside a 23-store network—without losing the customer-first soul of the business. Loren detailed how empowering teams to “work you out of a job” creates consistency across locations, why radical transparency (DVIs, live tech feeds, clear follow-ups) builds trust and approvals, and how smart incentives keep advisors and techs thriving—even when car count wobbles and budgets tighten. From solving urban parking puzzles to living by a data dashboard, this conversation highlighted culture, process, and profitability in real life.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Loren Winfrey, General Manager/Trainer of Stress-Free Auto Repair
Show Highlights:
[00:01:11] - Loren frames leadership as “training the bench,” empowering advisors and techs so the shop isn’t dependent on a single decision-maker.
[00:02:38] - He manages two high-density SF shops a mile apart, each moving 12–15 cars daily with AGMs and advisors per location to cover five techs apiece.
[00:04:37] - With no parking at the Geary site, a porter rotates cars through smart meters on timed alerts—and earns a monthly bonus for a ticket-free record.
[00:08:47] - ARO is softening (~$1,000 → ~$800) as customers prioritize safety-critical work; Loren layers sales by red/yellow/green and explores in-house financing paths.
[00:11:29] - As a “fully deployable” operator, Loren travels to other markets (e.g., Texas) to realign processes and culture across the 23-store network.
[00:12:27] - Radical transparency: live technician video feeds and DVIs shift the conversation from “trust me” to “see for yourself,” boosting approvals.
[00:14:43] - Once skeptical of DVIs, Loren now calls AutoFlow indispensable—photos, video, and clear write-ups eliminate confusion and drive decisive yeses.
[00:19:16] - Pay what people are worth: strong base + utilization/GP bonuses keep techs and advisors engaged, consistent, and customer-focused.
[00:23:35] - Hiring is the constraint; he sets clear standards, mentors C-techs under stronger Bs, and advocates rebuilding the trades pipeline.
[00:29:22] - A custom dashboard (utilization, GP, spend) guides daily action and human check-ins—numbers tell the story, but leadership asks “Are you okay?”
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night, depending on when and where you're joining us from. It is a great day outside. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute and this is the Leading Edge podcast. Thank you for joining us today. My guest today is Lauren Winfrey. He is the general manager of two.
Jimmy Lea: Stress-free auto care shops in the San Francisco area. He is part of a 23 store network and does get transferred all over the country to help coach and train advisors and technicians all over to be the best that they can possibly be. And Lauren, one of the things that I learned very early in my career, had a great manager.
Jimmy Lea: Her name was Michelle, and she said, it is my job to work myself. Out of a job, my processes and procedures should be in place so that I as a manager, don't have anything to do. Bingo. Yes. So you understand it. Yeah. She has people in place, process, procedures, so that the business is not dependent on her to make decisions.
Jimmy Lea: She has empowered the team. To make the decisions.
Loren Winfrey: Yes. And I think it's I think it's one of the, a lot of us in this industry, you know, we are control freaks. You know, we feel like that we, in order for the ship to be steered in the right direction, we always gotta be, have our hand on the rudder, you know?
Loren Winfrey: And so. Relinquishing control and trusting in our employees that we have, and for me anyways is one of the hardest things that I had to develop in my career, you know, is putting my trust in another individual that, you know, I, they can make the shop as successful as I can. You know, make their job successful, you know, and so that, you know, I had a really good mentor growing up and in this business, you know, and he said exactly what Michelle told you.
Loren Winfrey: You know, our job is to train the bench and work yourself out of a job so you can move on to better things or bigger things or whatever,
Jimmy Lea: you know? Oh my gosh, Lauren, that, that's freaking awesome. Four advisors kind of blows me out of the out. That just blows my mind. What is the makeup of your shop with four advisors?
Loren Winfrey: Well, I have two shops. As you know. San Francisco's a really has a really dense population, you know, and oh yeah. The culture here is that if you want anything done, you go to your neighborhood and you get it done. So there's little districts in San Francisco, upper Richmond, Noah. The hay, you know, wherever.
Loren Winfrey: And so in those little regions is, you know, a really dense population of people. And so I have one shop on McAllister Street, and then I have one shop over on Geary, which is two different districts. You know, and thir San Francisco is only 13 square miles big, you know? And so I'm a mile and a half away from each shop.
Loren Winfrey: It takes me five minutes to drive over there. And but the amount of overlapping customers is very minimal, you know, and so they're doing, you know. 12 to 15 cars over at one shop and then 12 to 15 cars, you know, at the shop where I have my office at. And and I have one assistant general manager at each location, and then one service advisor at each location.
Loren Winfrey: And then I manage both locations, staffing, you know, all the fun stuff.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. And how many technicians are each of these service advisors booking business for five each shot. Five techs stuff. Yeah. Oh, that's solid, man. That's a lot of kittens to herd. And these five techs, how many bays, how many lifts are you functioning at each of the shops?
Jimmy Lea: We have six
Loren Winfrey: bays at one location and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 bays at the other location and two flat bays. And then McAllister has four flat base and six lifts. So we can have the capacity here for San Francisco yeah. Is 25 cars I can have on site at one time.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, and that's huge for San Francisco.
Jimmy Lea: You guys really don't have much for parking your properties at a premium.
Loren Winfrey: Yeah, absolutely. And the rent screens it, you know, believe me. Oh
Jimmy Lea: yeah. For you to close up at night. Not only are you bringing the cars in, you put 'em up on the lift and pull another one under it.
Loren Winfrey: Yeah. Yeah. Well at, yeah, at the Geary location.
Loren Winfrey: Yes. And Geary's. So we don't have any parking at all. There's no parking. In fact, Gary, I have a porter that his job is to get cars for the technicians, go around to the parking meters. Pay the parking meter fees with this, you know, a little company credit card that has a couple hundred bucks on it. And oh my
Jimmy Lea: gosh.
Loren Winfrey: And then I reward him for no tickets. I give him a $500 bonus every month if he gets no tickets for us. You know, and definitely an exercise and strategy, you know, at both locations, you know. Oh, no
Jimmy Lea: doubt. So like what, like every two hours? Is this boy running around with the credit card, paying the meters?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Loren Winfrey: Well, so in San Francisco they have smart meters, so they're all connected to to satellites. And so we go onto a website, it's S-M-M-T-A website and he has all the meter numbers written down on a piece of paper. And so he goes, he has them on the timer, on a clock. And you know, he is like, okay, meter 1, 2, 3, 6, 3, 4 time to put another quarter in it, you know, or this is two hour parking, you know, it has a little alarm on his phone.
Loren Winfrey: Alarm goes off, he goes, grabs that car from the two hour parking and then goes and looks for a parking place around the corner that, you know, isn't metered parking or or two hour parking. So it's. It's fun. Wow.
Jimmy Lea: It's
Loren Winfrey: fun. Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: bro, that's a constant dance that, that boy's performing for on a daily basis, going from paid meter to non metered to holy cow.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Now I understand The $500 bonus that's quite the dance that boy's performing. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So what are your challenges that you face? You managing two shops, you've got two unique cultures, makeup. Technicians, you got five at each service, advisors at each, there's different challenges.
Jimmy Lea: What is the challenging thing for you right now these days?
Loren Winfrey: You know, I. Car counts up and down. You know, we have a pretty, you know, this company's I came from a company that I worked at for a long time that sold to a big corporation, you know, and so, the CEO of this company had recruited me, you know, when they were opening up the San Francisco shop and, you know, I had been with the old man over at the.
Loren Winfrey: At the other shop for so long that I wasn't going anywhere. He had, he was like family to me, you know? And when we got bought out, the culture really shifted into a set of principles and values of a company that didn't align with what I felt that customers deserved in this business.
Loren Winfrey: Transparency, quality reliability you know. Just a, an overall experience that isn't like, your name is John. You are $20 to me. You know, it was your name is John. You have a few kids. You know, we wanna service your car, your wife's car, your kid's car, and we wanna build a foundation of trust so we can generationally work on your vehicles.
Loren Winfrey: That was the company that was there before, and that I was taught in. And so I came over here, you know, and I tell the big boss like, look, I wish I would've came over here sooner, you know? Oh yeah. But you know, my loyalty lied and you know, that's how I am. I've only had three jobs in 30 years. You know, and I just, I get somewhere, I like someplace and you know, but this place is challenging.
Loren Winfrey: So we have a really good marketing team. The dollar spend, you know, on customers is, you know, getting new customer acquisitions is really good. Car counts just up and down a little bit. We keep a pretty good a RO. It's slacking a little bit right now, but I mean, both, you know, this shop at McAllister, we average about eight 50 a RO.
Loren Winfrey: The gear locations of about a thousand dollars a RO over 220 cars. And it's down this month, probably two right around 800. So a r o's slipping a little bit and. I think the challenges that we're having is I think a lot of customers are maxed out on their credit or whatever, you know, and so we used to be able to present, you know, Hey Bob, this is the job we wanna sell you.
Loren Winfrey: This is the maintenance items, these are the, you know, do the whole stoplight method with 'em. This is the red stuff, the yellow stuff, and the green stuff. And, you know, they would say, do it all. Now we're having to kind of backpedal into the. Second, third layer of repairs, you know, when we're presenting our sales strategy to the customer, you know, and they're not doing the 3000 or the 2000, they're like, let's do, you know, the safety stuff only, you know?
Loren Winfrey: And so, gladly we'll take care of anything the customer needs, you know, and with, you know, the backing of our company, we're in TechNet, so, you know, we have their nationwide warranty behind us and you know, through worldpac and you know, it, it's that's pretty much the challenges is just car count kind of being a little unsteady and people not, they don't have so much to spend on fixing their cars anymore,
Jimmy Lea: So I just heard of a new program, I don't know if you're aware of this, with 360 payments.
Jimmy Lea: That allows a client, a customer, to be approved for all of the services that they need to have done. Similar to a credit card. Yeah. This is in store credit just for you? Yeah. We use 360. You use 360? Yeah. I'll have, yeah, check out the I forget what they call it. Client financing option. Yeah. And tell 'em I told you to give 'em a call.
Jimmy Lea: 'cause they're good people over there at 360 payments. So
Loren Winfrey: yeah, we love them. They're our we got 23 stores and they're our guys for all 23 of our stores.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. So you're part of 23 stores now?
Loren Winfrey: I'm in charge of the San Francisco area. You know, I'm kind of like a, I don't know what you like a general hitman.
Loren Winfrey: So if they need me at another location to go. Help or fill in or you know, any of that type of stuff, you know, I'm there and I always talk. Yeah. Look, I'm fully deployable wherever you want me to go. You know, I'm here, you know, the company's going on five years old. We're trying to grow anything that I can bring to help that growth.
Loren Winfrey: You, I'm there. I want to build with the company and and I want to grow with the company. They're sending me to Texas next week. We have some shops in Texas. So I'm gonna go out to Texas next week and help with one of the shops out there with with one of the regional managers and see if we can't bring some light and some processes back into play that you know, make our company successful.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. So what what I'm hearing is you went from, large conglomerate corporate environment and came back to a small repair shop, which has 23 locations, and you're working really hard to preserve that customer-centric culture. Yes. Across the board, you those process procedures and everybody needs to know that this is Mary and John and they have two kids and they have, this is their dog.
Jimmy Lea: They're not just 20 bucks.
Loren Winfrey: Yes, absolutely. You know, and our company culture here is, you know, the principles in our company represent all of that stuff. You know, do the right thing, you know, speak the truth, demand excellence you know, all the things that we were taught growing up in this industry, you know, that makes the customers trust you.
Loren Winfrey: You know, and we have a lot of. Proprietary software that we've developed. You know, we use a lot of software from, you know, the companies around Auto Techs, me at TME, protractor, all that stuff we use, you know, and we have a lot of revolutionary stuff that we're doing for our business. So we have we have live feeds that we send the customer a text message.
Loren Winfrey: Hey, Bob the technician's working on your call right now if you'd like to click the live feed and watch the technician work on your vehicle. You know, so transparency is one of the biggest things, you know, and I try to explain to the new customers that look. You know, gone are the days of, you know, Joe in the back saying, Hey Lauren this customer has this, and this.
Loren Winfrey: Wrong on a piece of paper, you know? And I say, Hey John you know this, and this is wrong, and if you want us to fix it, I can gladly do it for you and it's gonna cost you 1500 bucks. Now we, with all the advancements in technology, you know, and all these guys have iPads and we do the digital video inspections and all this stuff, we're able to be.
Loren Winfrey: Transparent more than any time in this industry, you know? And
Jimmy Lea: What program are you on? What shop management system are you using and what DVI are you using? We have
Loren Winfrey: we have protractor for our shop management software which is, you know, and they have Epicor, they're at the root of all estimating, right.
Loren Winfrey: Pretty much have horizon everything. But we use auto text me at ME, our, which is our DVI software.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. Yep. Auto Text me. They're now called Auto Flow. Auto
Loren Winfrey: Flow, yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Craig O'Neill. Super good dude. Yeah.
Loren Winfrey: You're thinking back when you signed up. Yeah. Yeah, I remember. So back in my old shop.
Loren Winfrey: Yeah, over on the other side of San Francisco when auto Flow was CR first creating their platform. They, yeah, they brought me a, they brought me an iPad. And they say, try it out. Right? And so this was, I don't know, 2017 or something, or 18, I was
Jimmy Lea: gonna say 5, 6, 7 years ago. Yep. Sounds alright. I was
Loren Winfrey: like, and so the owner's like, well, what do you think?
Loren Winfrey: And I go, my guys can do a, my guys can do a multi-point with a pen faster than this thing. Let's not do it because I thought, you know, the time. But you know, thinking back, you know, of course hindsight's 2020, you know, always, you know, instead of me embracing change in technology, I kind of, you know, shied away from it, you know, and that was a.
Loren Winfrey: Hard lesson learned, you know, about having a closed line to something that could revolutionize, you know, the game, you know, and so, learning lesson, you know, that I learned, you know, the hard way. And now here I could not live without ATM E. I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, you know, and I think that showing the customer, you know, back in the day I would.
Loren Winfrey: I would take a bunch of pictures with my cell phone and say, Hey, Joe, I'm gonna text you some pictures, man. I wanna show you this stuff on your car. It's really dangerous, you know? And I would text 'em from my cell phone, you know, and they, wow, how much is that to fix? You know? And I would tell 'em, they like, go ahead and do it.
Loren Winfrey: And so now I'm doing on my phone and the amount of sales that I get from presenting a DVI to a customer followed up with a text message. You know, and, you know, asking them, Hey, is there anything that you don't understand that I could help you understand to get through this? Yeah. The amount of times that say, they say, how much is it to fix it?
Loren Winfrey: And I tell 'em a price and they don't blink and say, do it. Because of the transparency with the systems that are in place. It's just crazy that, you know, I slap myself every day now that I could have brought this back a long time ago, you know? But it is what it is, you know, and I embrace it now.
Jimmy Lea: Well, good. I'm glad you're embracing it. It is a world of difference. 100%. I'm so glad that you've embraced it because it, it is probably one of the technologies that has the biggest tick in the needle. Yeah. It's the DVI and the beauty of this too, regardless of the DVI program, you're on. We love auto flow.
Jimmy Lea: We, we love all the Ds. This also helps you to not have your cell phone number out with the public. Exactly. And they're gonna call you at midnight, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning. Hey, my car won't start. Are you safe? Do you need a tow truck?
Loren Winfrey: Yes, exactly. Yeah. You know, and it's.
Loren Winfrey: The new shop is two miles from the old, from my old shop where I was at for many years, and so most those customers that have been coming to me for a long time. You know, the first six months I was here, they were texting me, you know, like they get like having my phone number at six 30 at night.
Loren Winfrey: Hey Lauren you know, I got this going on my breaks. And I'm like, yo, hey Joe. Well, I'm not with todo anymore. In my old company, I, you know, I'm with stress free now. I would love to service your vehicle if you feel comfortable following over to the new shop. And so, like, I don't know, 90% of my VIP customers, my key tossers, you know?
Loren Winfrey: Yeah. They, me over at my new shop, you know, and it's crazy because most of my folks, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of my technicians have been with me. For seven plus years and oh, that's rad. That's so cool. Followed me over here. One of my assistant general managers followed me over here. Another one of my advisors followed me over here.
Loren Winfrey: They turned down manager positions to come be a service advisor over here, you know, and the biggest thing is that, you know. This company pays people what they're worth. You know, gone on the days of trying to nickel and dime someone in the door, especially for me. Yeah. I'm not gonna nickel and dime someone in the door that, you know, is worth a significant amount of customer base and customer service and giving the customer everything that they need to trust us and bring their car back.
Loren Winfrey: You know, I'm not gonna nickel and dime those guys. I'm gonna pay 'em with their worth. Same with the technicians. I'm gonna pay 'em with their worth. I'm giving 'em, give 'em a great bonus structure, you know, so when they, when their utilization is really high, they get rewarded for doing a hard job, you know, for busting their butt, you know, they're gonna get, yeah, they're gonna see dollars because we don't do this.
Loren Winfrey: You know, we all love it, but we don't do this ultimately at the end of the day because we wanna pat on the back, you know, we want something in our pocket, you know, and so. The technicians get paid at this company when they do a really good job and they bust their butt for us. And, you know, and they strive to get cars out the door and, you know, they're doing 30, 40, 50 hours of labor in their 40 hour time, you know, they get rewarded, you know, and the same with my advisors.
Loren Winfrey: I put 'em on a really good bonus structure, you know, that they're on salary, high salary, you know, plus I give 'em 5% of the gross profit on everything they sell. You know, so, you know, the advisors that would get paid $25 an hour over here at this job making 60 KA year, they're making over a hundred K over here.
Loren Winfrey: And, you know, and that translates to them being happy at their job and them giving the customer they're happy to be here. So they're giving the customers the best experience they want, they're making sure that they follow through with all their tasks. They're from start to finish on a repair. They're taking care of that customer, you know, and that's all I, that's all I can ask.
Loren Winfrey: You know? Yeah. Is that you bring a customer in, you take care of 'em, start to finish down. Does that go perfect every single time? No, it does not. You know, are there people that don't understand, you know, that one plus one equals two on auto repair? No. They think it equals five. And, you know, we gotta do our best to explain it and, you know, and we can't make everybody happy.
Loren Winfrey: And I just try to coach them into, look, you can't make everybody happy and don't try to, just try to be the best you can be every single day, you know? And so, no, I love it. Man, it's it's a good gig, man. This company's really great. I don't see myself you know, I'm gonna retire from here. They have they have a remote service advisor team that we have.
Loren Winfrey: And so, you know, when I'm 70 sitting on the beach, you know, I'm gonna go work four or five hours a day just to keep from being bored, you know, and be a supervisor, you know, and hang out with the wife on the beach, you know. And, I love it. I love it. You know, this is, most of us in this industry we are a people person, you know, we love interacting with people.
Loren Winfrey: We love building relationships and conversating, you know, and learning about people and and you know, and so this is the one of the industries that we get be service and we also get to meet people and relationships. And it is great. You know, I get happy. I get to have a new experience or a new person I get to experience every day.
Loren Winfrey: You know, I get to make someone's day go from really crappy to, you know, really good, you know? And those are my favorite Yelp reviews. Lauren was able to get in and do this. Prepare for me. We're on a trip from out of town, you know, I brought the car in at nine o'clock. I had it out by 11 o'clock and we were able to carry on with our family vacation, or my daughter was in town and I was able to take her to her graduation, you know, and those are the most rewarding things for me, you know, and it's just it's a great industry to be with Matt.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and Lauren, that goes right to the name of your company, Stress-Free Auto Care. Stress-free. You have absolutely maintained that, that company culture, that mantra, that vision mission, that is deep within not only you, but your entire company to you, to your leadership, to your culture that you have created.
Jimmy Lea: You are recruiting. You are obtaining people coming to your culture and not going to a different job, even though they may have a higher position. So what. What is one of the challenges that you face as a leader in developing this culture in, in helping others to see it? Because not everybody is born with the same mindset that you've got.
Jimmy Lea: How do you implement that or what are the challenges you face in implementing that?
Loren Winfrey: I think that, some people fit in with the culture we have and the ones that don't, they weed themselves out, you know? I just try to offer an opportunity, you know, and I'm very upfront when a technician wants to come work for me, this is what I expect of you.
Loren Winfrey: This is what the company expects of you, and we're gonna hold you to that standard. You know, I'm not. I'm really not here to be your friend. I'm here to be your boss and your mentor, and to help guide you to be the best technician you can be. Any type of learning or tools that you need or things to make your job easier and be more productive, let me know and I'll make sure that you get those things.
Loren Winfrey: You know, we'll pay for all these guys. A, we pay for all their a SC certifications. You know, right now I think the biggest thing is finding finding technicians. That aren't working someplace else and bringing them over here. There's not a lot of new technicians out there that wanna come into our field anymore.
Loren Winfrey: You know, and so I have a couple of CT techs, you know, and. I really want the CT techs. I have one of my B upper BT techs kind of mentor them, you know, and when we're a little slower on the day, I give them challenging jobs, you know, so, to help them learn. So I just really think the influx of people in our industry is one of the biggest challenges we have.
Loren Winfrey: Like some stores you know, we have an ad posted for an A Tech or a B Tech or a ctec, and it takes us a month to fill it, you know? So, you know, I, I remember back in, you know. 2000 and at 10, 11, 12, you put an ad, you got 15 applicants coming in the door, you know, Hey, I'm here. What's up? You know, all competing for the job.
Loren Winfrey: You know? Now when you put an ad up wanting quality people, they either come from the wrong type of environment that we want, you know, or they don't have the qualifications minimally that we need, that we expect when someone starts or they're just not a really good fit, you know? Yeah. You know, it's just manpower's tough right now, you know?
Loren Winfrey: So, I'm all for the automotive repair colleges and getting people brought back into the industry, you know, it's like, back when we were in high school, you know, we were told go to college, get a degree you know, you'll make all this money. And we didn't get told that, you know, the electricians and the auto repair technicians and the plumbers, you know, those are the guys that are staying in work throughout the recessions.
Loren Winfrey: You know, the guys that are that have degrees in, you know, computer science are getting laid off, you know, so I hope that you know, I watch Ro you know, and he's talking about the, you know, the people in the trades are the next set of, you know, and you know, I, my, my youngest son is, you know, he's like, you know, dad, I'm either gonna go work for the elevators union or.
Loren Winfrey: I'm gonna go to automotive repair school and come work for one of your shops. And I said, look, whatever you want to do. But, you know, he's like, well, you're not gonna get mad if I don't go to college. And I'm like, no, you don't have to go to college to make a successful life. You know, you, you could, the elevators union, you know, they top out at 70 bucks an hour.
Loren Winfrey: Master technicians top out, you know, $150,000 a year. You know, electricians, you know, they're making two, $250,000 a year, you know, and you get to be on the sunshine and be in the open air and, you know, you choose the path that suits you the best. You know, so if you know, if my kids or my God kids, if they want to get into this.
Loren Winfrey: You know, business then I'm all for I'll back on the 100%. They can't work directly for me. You know, 'cause that would be you know, weird. I would like my son, I would treat him like my son instead of treating like my technician, you know? So, but I could get 'em in the door someplace, or my God kids, I could get 'em in someplace, you know?
Loren Winfrey: And help me develop their career.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, Lauren, I love that because I think you're exactly right. You kids come into the industry. Absolutely. We'd love for you to come in here. I get you a job somewhere else. 'cause I want you to always be my kid, not my employee. Yes. It's hard. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Jimmy Lea: It is hard. It is hard. Well, Lauren, if you were to have a magic wand, if you could wave a wand, what would you change in the automotive aftermarket?
Loren Winfrey: I would say that I would have the availability of parts in 10 minutes for any car.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. It would definitely take a magic wand for that one, but yeah, for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. If we could do that, that, that would be so rad. Hey with your leadership, with your territory that you're managing the general manager, you're over a lot of different stores, how important are the numbers to you?
Loren Winfrey: I mean, numbers are important. It's what pays my paycheck, you know?
Loren Winfrey: We're blessed that our CEO is a rocket science rocket scientist, you know, and we have our own, he's created this phenomenal admin panel. And so like
Jimmy Lea: a dashboard? Yeah, it
Loren Winfrey: tracks everything. Spending utilization, gross profit tracks everything, and so I can focus on those numbers. With a click of the mouse, you know, every single day.
Loren Winfrey: And I live in the numbers, you know, and the numbers tell me everything. You know, the numbers always tell the story of the health of the shop, what's going on. If a guy's utilization is falling, what's going on with Joe over here? Is he going through some family problems? You know? So the story of the health of the shop lives in the numbers, and we have to live and die by those numbers.
Loren Winfrey: So. The numbers are very important because they not only tell a story of, you know, how much you know, Tim over here selling, you know, but it tells us a story of the economy, how customers are responding to you know, presentations, you know how a technician is doing, you know, and like I said, you know, if we have a really good technician, his numbers continuously are falling, then we know that we need to go have a talk with this technician.
Loren Winfrey: You know, not as like. Hey, you jerk. You know, you're not making me any money, but, you know, hey, are you okay? Is there anything going on in your life? Do you need my help with anything? Do you need some time off? Do you know, do you need a couple of vacation days? You have some family stuff that you need to work through.
Loren Winfrey: Ma'am, is there anything I can do to help you with your personal life, you know. Just because, you know, we're human beings and it, you know, and if there's anything I can do for one of my employees, you know, because they're having personal problems I will gladly do it. Give 'em the shirt off my face.
Loren Winfrey: Yeah. You know, because we're all in this to win, or we're gonna lose together or win together, you know, and you know, I would rather win together.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, amen. That's so true, man. I want us all to win together. And that's the plan is that we all lock arms. It's a crazy storm we're in. Not all ships are created equal.
Jimmy Lea: But if we lock arms together, we're gonna survive this storm. Yeah. We'll be together for the long haul, so
Loren Winfrey: Absolutely true.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. I'm glad to hear that you're listening to Mike Rowe and the Sweat Pledge. Make sure everybody signs one of those sweat pledges.
Loren Winfrey: Man, I listen to old Cecil too, you know?
Loren Winfrey: I listen to
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Loren Winfrey: There too. Yeah. You know, I, it's, every once in a while I, you know, I see something and I wanna share, you know, I'll share this video with HR is trying to develop, you know, training or like thing, watch this video about auto, they don't know, you know, their hr, they don't know, you know, their job is to, you know, to make sure the company's healthy, you know, and compliant with all of those things that the state requires of us, you know, watch this video about our industry.
Loren Winfrey: Just so you kind of understand where we're coming from, you know? Oh, thank you. That was so helpful. I appreciate it. You know, I'll watch that. You know, so, and not only that, but you know, I watched you guys and a lot of the stuff, you know, it just helps reiterate some of the things that I was taught that I might've forgotten, you know?
Loren Winfrey: Yeah. It's we, you know, if you're, if we're not open and learning, then we miss things, you know, and sometimes we forget important things that we need to, like, reiterate to ourselves, you know, like, oh, this procedure is important because, you know, it helps this, or it helps that, you know, and we forget.
Loren Winfrey: You know, everybody's, I'm egotistical and sometimes I think, you know, I'm a god of auto repair management. You know, I don't need any help. And then, you know, something happens and I get slapped back into humility, you know, and I gotta watch a couple of videos and I gotta rethink my strategy on some stuff, you know?
Loren Winfrey: But, you know, we gotta remain humble and teachable. Man. I think is the biggest thing.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it brother. That's awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you for your time, Lauren. I really appreciate it.
Loren Winfrey: Thanks, Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: Thanks for taking the time. My name is Jimmy Lee. This is the Leading Edge podcast, and we are the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence.
Jimmy Lea: All right, cool. We're out. Thanks, brother. That was fun. Dude, that was awesome. Hey and listen man if ever you're looking for a sounding board or backboard, if you're looking for a coaching company that's gonna help you or a group, a mastermind group. Yeah, dude, I got some managers that are managing the 20 threes, the 30 sixes locations.
Jimmy Lea: We're looking at starting a second mastermind group just for managers. I've got. One right now, and it's too big. So we're starting a second one. Yeah. Gonna make this more involved with those guys like you that are managing many locations. That way you can bring a problem and say, Hey man, I'm really struggling with this.
Jimmy Lea: Well, this guy over here's gonna say, dude, here's your solution. We solved that last Tuesday. Yeah, there you go. For sure, man. So if you're looking for anything that can help man, I, I'd love to throw you. Into the mix, if you will.
Loren Winfrey: For sure. For sure. Man I know that a long time ago. I think you probably guys got some of those a TI guys come work for you now, right?
Jimmy Lea: No, I don't have any a TI guys with me yet. Yeah. Let me think now. Cecil used to be at a TI, so there's one. Let's see I got Parker and Chad, and they're not a TI I've got Aaron. Aaron's not. And Jennifer's not Michael's. Not Michael's, not Mark's, not Ryan. Ryan. Ryan's not Aldo. Aldo's not. No I don't think I have a lot of a TI that are with me.
Loren Winfrey: Okay. I, yeah, I just, I mean that was like,
Jimmy Lea: is that where you guys are doing your training right now?
Loren Winfrey: No. That's where I got my training back. You know, I had my mentor, Vince, right, the old Italian guy, and he, you know, he was really Italian, like Christmas time. He would. Hey, Lauren, come here. I wanna talk to you.
Loren Winfrey: And he would like slit me an envelope of cash, you know, and like, for Christmas bonus, you know, here you go. Thank you so much. You know, and he would talk quiet. Oh my God. It was, he was the godfather. I mean, he was a great, if I can be, if I can be half the human being that guy was in this business, then, you know, I'm doing great things.
Loren Winfrey: You know, the guy was, you know, he, but he's, that's a
Jimmy Lea: riot.
Loren Winfrey: Yeah. And so I went to, like, back when the, you know, the world. The world collapsed back in, you know, the housing crisis, right? Yeah. And I had been working in technology. I had a installation company for low voltage, and I had 700 employees.
Loren Winfrey: You know, I was all over, I was working for Comcast, time Warner, brighthouse Networks, you know, California, Texas, all over the place, you know, and the. The bottom fell out. And so, yeah I went to this guy, you know, and like, I've always worked on cars, you know, as a, you know, just as a hobby, you know, and I always did my buddy's breaks and all this, you know, I was, that I always, the, I was that neighbor, you know?
Loren Winfrey: Yeah. This guy gave me a shot, you know, nobody hired me for 14 bucks an hour back in 2010, right? So it was 14 bucks an hour after I just got done making 150,000. But I couldn't really get any jobs, right? There was nothing out there. And so I needed some money. And so this guy though, the Italian guy, gave me a job and I started doing tires and oil changes and brake and service and all that stuff.
Loren Winfrey: And then I got hurt and he's like, oh, I think you'd be good on the counter. And he put me on the counter. And I outsold his lead service advisor by 35% my first month on the counter. And he's like, well, what do
Jimmy Lea: you mean, dude? You killed it. You killed it.
Loren Winfrey: I crushed everybody. And like, pretty soon I was like the number one salesman in the whole company and it was nuts.
Loren Winfrey: And then like. So I was a service advisor for this guy for a long time, you know, for three years. And then he is like, you're gonna go up to this store I have, and you're gonna be the right hand man of Craig up there. You've got the sales side down. Craig is the business guy of this company. He's gonna teach you the business side, you know, but.
Loren Winfrey: Then I was a service manager and then he said, look, this is what I want to do. I'm gonna send you to a TI I'm gonna pay for all the classes for you. And so he invested in me, like he sent me to Wow, the shop manager class. Then he sent me to the shop owner class. And so the dude invested thousands of dollars into me out of his, you know, the company bucket and nobody else.
Loren Winfrey: You know, and so a lot of stuff is in line with, you know, you guys, a TI, you know, and the core set of procedures is the same, right? And so I was able to take the core set of procedures, you know? That you need to concentrate on and implement it to all my service advisors, you know, and it, my shops have always been really done really well.
Loren Winfrey: You know, so I just I really appreciate what you guys do and helping people understand, you know, the reasoning behind, you know, why we do what we do, you know? And it's not just about, it's not just about how,
Jimmy Lea: it's not just, it's not just about the 20 bucks. No. Just like you were saying, it is not about the 20 bucks, it's about the client.
Jimmy Lea: It's about the person, yeah. That you're talking to.
Loren Winfrey: Yeah, man.

Monday Sep 15, 2025
145 - The Power of Mentorship, DVIs & Accountability with Brandon Hack
Monday Sep 15, 2025
Monday Sep 15, 2025
145 - The Power of Mentorship, DVIs & Accountability with Brandon Hack
September 11, 2025 - 00:25:29
Show Summary:
Brandon Hack of Lake Sumter Auto Repair joins Jimmy Lea to share how mentorship, accountability, and strong processes fueled explosive growth in his shop. What started with pumping gas at his dad’s two-bay Texaco eventually led Brandon through sales, a Snap-on franchise, and into managing a thriving repair operation that has tripled its performance. He credits coaching from The Institute, Bobby Lambert’s mentorship, and holding the team to higher standards for the success. Brandon and Jimmy dive into 300% DVI best practices, educating non–car customers, and the difference between selling vehicle wants versus vehicle needs. They also cover the critical role of tracking gross profit per hour, building processes that make customer care easy, and the power of peer groups to accelerate solutions and growth.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Brandon Hack, Manger of Lake Sumter Auto Repair
Show Highlights:
[00:00:49] - Brandon’s origin story: growing up pumping gas at a two-bay Texaco and eventually finding his way back to the industry through sales and a Snap-on franchise.
[00:01:57] - Mentorship matters: how owner Bobby Lambert and full enrollment in The Institute created a “no option to fail” culture that helped triple shop performance.
[00:05:38] - Raising the bar on ROs: after early mistakes, Brandon sets a new internal standard—clearer work orders, continuous iteration, and aiming for company-best paperwork.
[00:06:21] - Customer experience first: treat every visit like the highlight of the customer’s day to overcome the “grudge purchase” reality of auto repair.
[00:08:04] - Lean team, big output: one service advisor and two techs running five lifts, while the sister shop operates a multi-bay “mecca” with transmission expertise.
[00:14:45] - Tools + talent sell the job: invest in proper diagnostic equipment and skilled techs so transparent test results do the convincing.
[00:16:09] - 300% DVI in action: inspect 100% of vehicles, estimate 100% of findings, and present 100%—with photos required for every recommendation.
[00:17:16] - Make DVIs idiot-proof: circle the exact part, color-code issues, and sanity-check clarity by sending inspections to a non-car person (e.g., your spouse).
[00:20:18] - Don’t go it alone: join 20-groups/masterminds and coaching to gain accountability, faster solutions, and peer-reviewed financials.
[00:23:46] - Live by the numbers: track GP and dollars-per-hour on every invoice so month-end is a confirmation, not a surprise; then drive net profit with cost control.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Hey, Jimmy Lea here with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. You are listening to the Leading Edge podcast, and joining me today is Brandon Hack of Lake Sumter Auto Repair out of Fruitland Park, Florida. Brandon, thank you so much for being here, brother. How you doing? I'm doing great, man.
Jimmy Lea: It's my pleasure. I'm glad. Well, I'm glad you're here 'cause we're gonna talk about automotive repair, automotive shops and get into the nitty gritty of the challenges of a modern shop today. Before we get into the nitty gritty, Brandon, I'd love to find out a little bit more about you and about your shop and how you got into the automotive industry.
Jimmy Lea: What bet did you lose, or what passion did you have that you want went after the automotive repair full bore.
Brandon Hack: It kind of fell into my lap. I grew up in a shop that my dad owned. Started off in a small two bay TCO gas station, full service. So at 4, 5, 6 years old, I was actually pumping gas and doing what, you know, 40, 50-year-old people know nothing about it anymore because it's been gone for so long.
Brandon Hack: So that's how I grew up in it. From there, I. Thought I'd stay in it forever. My dad sold the shop, went and managed the shop for another gentleman. I worked there as well, and then he got all the way out of it and went into doing other stuff. I got into sales and just sold tow trucks, and then I got into a snap-on tool franchise, so I had a snap-on tool franchise that opened the doors that I had.
Brandon Hack: In this area with meeting a lot of fine folks, which got me involved with Bobby Lambert, who is the actual owner of Lake Sumter Transmission and Lake Sumter Auto Repair. He and I became decent friends. He has absolutely been the most incredible business mentor. It shouldn't have happened, and it did.
Brandon Hack: And he is, he's just blessed me. Number one not to pump anybody, but because the guy understands the value of the institute. Everybody is enrolled into it. Everybody has the coaching, everybody has everything that the institute offers, and that's what puts us into. Where we can't fail, there's no option to fail because we are surrounded by good owners, great employees, and then the institute to have the coaching and everything that just, here we are.
Brandon Hack: And it's been an absolute, I can't call it a rollercoaster 'cause it has just been an absolute, we sat on a bomb. We opened this place up and it just exploded. And here we are doing, oh man, triple what the shop was.
Jimmy Lea: Oh I wanna get into all that, but I gotta push the pause button first before we go down there.
Jimmy Lea: You talk about you being at a Two Bay Texaco. My uncle owned a couple of Chevrons with the two Bay. One was up in Mount Carmel Junction up in Utah, and then he bought two more down in Vegas, had the Chevrons with the two, two little bays, and he would. I mean, he would sell batteries and wiper blades. He's like, which absolutely hi.
Jimmy Lea: His favorite question was, which tire gets the nail? The most nails in it. 'cause he had the tow trucks and he would tow the cars in off the interstate or whatever. And which tire gets the most. So I asked you, Brandon, which tire gets the most nails? It seemed like to us it was always left rear.
Jimmy Lea: Left rear. Yeah. His was right rear. Right rear passenger, rear because it was always over on that side and it would kick up and his advice was never drive on the shoulder unless you absolutely have to 'cause you're gonna get a nail. I was like, that was great advice. I appreciate that uncle. He also is the guy that taught us as kids as his nephews.
Jimmy Lea: I mean, you wanna talk about child labor? Oh, absolutely. I'm sure you were there too, right? Here we are. He, and he's like, I'm gonna hire you to clean the restrooms, but first I'm gonna show you exactly how I want it done. So when you come to do it, you know you can do it. Do we go in this bathroom? It was the nastiest bathroom.
Jimmy Lea: Nasty. Oh, it was disgusting. He showed us how to clean it and he showed us how to clean it. Right. He showed us once. Absolutely. And then it was on us. And Brandon, I'm guessing you had the same training.
Brandon Hack: I, I did. I really did. I, my, my dad was, my dad is the whole that's why we're here.
Jimmy Lea: Oh man.
Jimmy Lea: That's so cool. That's so cool. Congratulations. That's wonderful. So talk to me about you getting with Bobby and you start the shop. I love a success story that says, man, we tripled this business. If you got a timeline from going from zero to hero it wasn't zero, and I apologize for that.
Jimmy Lea: It was not zero, but you took it from what it was and tripled it. What does that look like for you, Brandon, as the manager?
Brandon Hack: It definitely, there's definitely a lot that comes with it as far as like, it's not me. It is the team and it is absolutely the team that we have. It all started from there because we, I thought I knew exactly how this works. I thought I knew everything. I thought it was easy and it is not easy. Um, I came in here and we had our manager at the other shop.
Brandon Hack: He was right away, let me go a month and make some mistakes, and came down instantly and started pointing those mistakes out. It was instant when that happened that I decided no more my write-ups, our work orders our ros, everything. We will have the top ones in our company. They will come from this shop, not from the established shop.
Brandon Hack: So we've definitely helped set the bar higher and I, I don't, we haven't hit the top of the bar here. I know that we still, we work every day on making a better ro, but just the numbers are the numbers. I just come in and I do. You treat that customer the way they need to be treated. My thing always is the highlight of the customer's day.
Brandon Hack: That's, they don't like to come to the repair shop. We make it as enjoyable as possible. So having everybody and hearing success stories and having training in the guidance from the other shop with the no-nos. 'cause they've been in business 45 years, they've seen a lot. So they recognized some of the things that were happening here, which is the way the shop used to be ran.
Brandon Hack: We nip that quick and that's what got us here.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. That's awesome. You know, I love that success story. I love that you are treating the customers the way you wanna be treated with respect, with love. I love that because you are right. We are a grudge purchase. Nobody wants to go and pour 2, 3, 4, 5, $6,000 into their car.
Jimmy Lea: I mean. I'd rather put that money somewhere else, take a vacation, do something else, have an experience. But I do know that my car, my vehicle is my second biggest purchase, aside from my house. I've gotta take care of it. So the education is so important. It's so key that you've got mentors that are teaching you and training you and helping you come along.
Jimmy Lea: I love that you set your own standard to say, okay. Is where they want us to be. But we're gonna set our own standard and we're gonna process procedure, we're gonna write everything down so that the highest ros, the highest average repair order, the highest success rate, the highest satisfaction rate from clients and customers, that's gonna come from us.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. Yeah. So, how many service advisors do you have, Brendan and thank you that they're all involved with the institute. Where are you at? So, right now
Brandon Hack: with this shop, it's me. It's me and me. Only just you? Yep. Yep. Our other shop, there's four service advisors at that shop, but the new location, it's just me and two techs.
Jimmy Lea: You and two techs. And,
Brandon Hack: and
Jimmy Lea: how many bays do you have with these two techs? We have four inside, one outside. You know, that's a beauty of being there in Florida. You can actually have an outside lift. Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: Four, lift one outside. Well, congrats. And what does the other shop look like?
Brandon Hack: The other shop is a I call it the Mecca. It is it is a little tight at the top. There are six bays in the top of that, and there's usually three techs that are in that. And then down the hill we have four bays down there.
Brandon Hack: And then they also have another area for a little bit lengthy repairs that they can take over there as well as a, another large two bay shop that is for nothing but classic cars.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my word. That's like the garage
Brandon Hack: Mahal. Yes. Yep. It's the mecca.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it is the mecca. Everybody wants to go. That, that's ginormous.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, man. So congratulations to you guys. So it sounds like they're doing some restoration. They're doing some auto work. The auto body work, they got the classics.
Brandon Hack: Well, that one there is just it started as a transmission shop. Oh. So it's like Sumter transmissions. And auto repair. So that's where they'll get the classics in for the transmissions or oil leaks.
Brandon Hack: I mean, there really isn't nothing that they can't do down there. Definitely. No, none of the body shop stuff it's all general repair. And a big part of that shop is the transmissions.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. My I have a shop in St. George, Utah that I go to Ryan Snow with St. George Transmission.
Jimmy Lea: Transmission and auto repair. And so he's got nine master certified techs in his transmission shop. And the work just slowed down so much. He's like, all right we gotta diversify. So they bought the building next door, which was where they started. They still owned it, but the tile company that was there was like, all right, we're out.
Jimmy Lea: Sweet. We'll take it back. They're doing St. George Auto repair. Out of this one next door and he's got five, six lifts inside of it. And man, they're just taking off. So, when it comes to transmission repair, I know you've gotta be some super, super good jigsaw puzzle assembler or. Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And he's got nine of 'em that are master certified. Just amazing people. Well, that's cool. So what's, well for you, Brandon, um, what did you come from that you came to something or auto repair?
Brandon Hack: The Snap-on Tool franchise is what got me where I met Bobby, and he and I, it took a long time. I was so intimidated by him.
Brandon Hack: Took a long time for us to actually open up and he bought the business in the middle of me having that franchise. So he's owned it for eight or nine years now. And then once he bought it, then he and I started dealing more together. Just kept getting closer and then we started doing outside stuff. We would, we'd go to concerts.
Brandon Hack: We, we did trips, we did stuff together and got close. Nice. And I never went to him. When I was leaving that to do something else, I took another position in an off-road shop. To sell mainly to get the dealerships and get new truck builds and do that kind of stuff. I wanted to get back out. I didn't wanna be, I don't wanna be attached to a shop.
Brandon Hack: I wanted to be out on the road and doing some sales and oh, I love it. It just wasn't going where I wanted it to go. I got everything I wanted. I became the manager there and I wasn't looking for that, but we just had some things that had to get fixed, so it tied me to that shop to fix these. I couldn't go out and sell the product because it wasn't worth selling.
Brandon Hack: So I stayed there and I helped fix that and then, and we made a big turnaround and got it going and then Bobby and I just started talking one day and he mentioned to me this shop selling. And, um, I told him I wasn't interested. I didn't wanna really be in the shop and kept going. And then we started having a couple issues.
Brandon Hack: Bobby turned, had a birthday, I took him to lunch. And we just started talking about it again. And then he text me later that week, call me, and I called him and I just kind of was like, what do you, what should I do? And he said, you need to go ahead and get out of there. Come over here and we'll print some money.
Brandon Hack: I said, all right, I'll do it.
Jimmy Lea: No, man. That's so cool. So what challenges do you have from going from off-road into auto repair? Is it very close cousins or is it totally different?
Brandon Hack: It is very different. I think the biggest thing that we deal with is your profit margins. Yeah. We just don't have the profit on accessories like we can build to, to operate a repair shop properly and stay in business.
Brandon Hack: Yeah. Um, I think the biggest difference is the customers that came into the accessory shop already knew what the price of something was. 'cause they online shopped it then came to you. Whereas here, they may have an idea of how much that radiator to, to replace is when they come in there, but they're not shopping and getting exact, so it's, it just seems a little bit easier putting a total package together here and presenting that to a customer of what that vehicle needs versus selling vehicle wants.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah, that's true. People walk in and want tinted window. They already know, Hey, it's gonna be five, 600 bucks tinted window walk in for a starter. It could be anywhere from 500 to 2,500. Do I have to pull the full front off the car? Absolutely. Or can we get to it? And it's not that bad.
Jimmy Lea: It seems that most of my cars have some sort of a panel covering the water pump, and it's tied to some sort of a timing belt with the water pump. It usually ends up being $2,000 anyways. Absolutely. As you can tell I've paid for a couple of those. Yep. Oh, man. Oh, that's good. And so with your, because I agree.
Jimmy Lea: I think we're a grudge purchase. People just don't want come do this and it's good that you make it a easy for them. What is some of the technology that you've introduced into your shop that helps make it easy for customers to buy?
Brandon Hack: I would say the biggest as far as technology is, number one, having the proper equipment to diagnose properly.
Brandon Hack: Um, that's where I struggled in the beginning with not selling the diagnostics. So having a qualified tech that knows how to use it and knows where to go and what to test and use the tools that are presented. When we present that information, that's what sells it. I don't have to sell anything. We've give them, my guys here, have the tools to do that job, to do the diagnostic to run all the tests, evaluate everything.
Brandon Hack: Then we present that to the customer and there really isn't much to talk about. They have everything in front of 'em then.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And, well, how much what? What kind of cars is it that you're working on? Are you all makes all models or do you focus all
Brandon Hack: makes, all models. We don't shy away from the Euros.
Brandon Hack: There's just some of the stuff on the Euros that is just I'll do you a favor. I'm doing you a disservice by keeping it here. You need to go to this shop.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. It's good to have friends in the business that you can say, all right, take your euros over here. Take your problem child over there.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. This is our bread and butter. And that's also a lot of equipment that you have to buy. A lot of training you have to supply to your technicians that they can be on the top of their game. What about a digital vehicle inspection for the customer? Do you do a lot of DVI.
Brandon Hack: Hundred percent.
Brandon Hack: We, we follow that 300% rule. So every vehicle that comes in here, 100% of them are going to get a complete DBI and 100% of all that work will be estimated and a hundred percent is presented to the customer.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it with your I technicians in their recommendations if they make a recommendation, is it a requirement that they have to take a picture?
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. Absolutely. It helps, right? It helps sell it every time. Yep. Yep. Customers know, they know. They know what's broken. They can see it. Yep. That's clearly broken. Correct. Sometimes you have to point an arrow at it to say, this is what the ball joint is. This right here? Yep. Because they don't know this is a control arm.
Jimmy Lea: This is your sway arm.
Brandon Hack: Yeah. And that's one thing that we have a younger gentleman that workforce, so the technology is there with him because he is younger, so he understands that. And when you use the dbis that we use through, we use tech metric here, but when we use that.
Brandon Hack: He pays attention to every single one of those with the right color, yellow, if it's something that we need to monitor, if it needs to be repaired, it is in red, it is circled so that we don't just send the customer a picture and there's an axle and a ball joint and a tie rod in the picture. The customers don't know.
Brandon Hack: So he, they don't know. He will circle that. And now we have integrated that into the other tech that's here, because right away when I noticed them, I went to the other tech like, look how nice this is. And then what I did with that also was I told my techs to send an inspection to their wife, and then I want them to go there and have their wife tell them what they're looking at.
Brandon Hack: And that's when it hit home to them because they said. My, my wife was looking at it and she didn't know which one was a CV joint, which one was the ball joint? Which one? You know, she had no idea. I said, well, if you put a circle around it and a hazard, you know, a yellow, red kneading? Is that not better?
Brandon Hack: And it just took off. Everybody at the other shop started doing the same exact thing two weeks later,
Jimmy Lea: bro, that's freaking awesome. Brilliant. I love your idea there. Send it to the girlfriend, send it to your wife, send it to your. Whom? Whomever. Yeah. Can they look at it, see it and understand it? If not, then let's take that feedback.
Jimmy Lea: 'cause that's great feedback. It's not critical, it's not criticism, it's feedback that says we can do this better. Correct. Correct. Congratulations, man.
Brandon Hack: Not everybody that comes is a car guy and every, everybody to shop. I think they all know that. So you need to send that and do something like that to a non-car person so that you can see the reaction.
Brandon Hack: And that just makes it to where you can now do your inspections or even the delivery of what you're talking about. You're not, we don't all deal with car people.
Jimmy Lea: It's true and it's true. And not everybody's a car person. Not everybody's been under a car or seen a car on a lift. They've never been under their vehicle.
Jimmy Lea: So to show them pictures for me, I love it. I, it's fascinating. I love looking under the cars and seeing what's there. It's dirty, it's greasy, it's grimy. It's okay. That's, I don't, that's fine. Yep. Teach me. Teach me, educate me, help me understand what it is that's going on under here. Absolutely. Brandon, I'm definitely gonna give you props and credit.
Jimmy Lea: I'm gonna tell a lot of people that they need to send their DVI to their significant other. It works. Send it to your mother. Does she know what you're sending? No. She doesn't know. Absolutely not. Unless she's a car person. Right? Yep. Which it could be. You never know. Absolutely. So if you had an opportunity to go back in time and help your younger self, what advice would you give yourself today?
Jimmy Lea: If you were starting a shop today or managing a shop today, what advice would you give yourself?
Brandon Hack: I think one of the biggest things that has hit me is Bobby is involved with 20 groups as well as the institute. And I honestly I talked to a guy down the street that has a shop about this all the time, and they're totally opposed.
Brandon Hack: Nope nope. We know what we're doing. We don't need, and I honestly feel. That stuff right there is what gets you to the next level. Because you have so many other people that are involved in everything. They're able to look at every invoice. They're able to look at your monthlies. They look at every single thing you do, and you've got 19 people in this group holding you accountable.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. And our, at the institute, that's our GPG, which is our gear performance groups, they're our masterminds. Currently we have five. We're looking to expand to six here pretty dang soon. So that's coming up next. And you're right. What might be a mountain to you and I, Brandon, inside of this 20 group, there's somebody that has already had to deal with that mountain.
Jimmy Lea: They hand you the solution and say, Hey look, that was just Tuesday. It's not a big deal. Here you go. Here's what you do. Fixed done onto the next. We got bigger dragons to slay than this little mole hill that you think is a mountain. Absolutely. And that 20 group. Oh my gosh. What power? What power that is.
Jimmy Lea: So Brandon which program are you in with the institute right now?
Brandon Hack: Right now, just coaching right now. Right now. That's all I have right now. I meet with Ryan every two weeks and I just do service advisor coaching.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. So you're with Ryan Daily? Yes. Any shout outs for Ryan? I'll be with him this weekend.
Brandon Hack: There's no way that you could hand pick a better coach than Ryan. I mean, I've heard a couple stories from other guys. I know seven to nine people that are with coaching and they had to go through a couple. Um, they're all happy with where they are right now. And it's not that any of them are a bad coach.
Brandon Hack: It is that fit. It is those personalities that absolutely will take you to another level. Ryan was that guy for me.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Yeah. With his, so he's, have you talked to Ryan Mush? You know about his background? I mean, he's told me military Marines we bonded up my daughter, she's a Marine, she's over in Hawaii right now.
Jimmy Lea: He also has a dealership, service advisor, service manager, dealership background. And so his discipline and his ability to focus on the customer, the client, the experience, it is next level. And I agree with you. I think Ryan is a phenomenal coach. He does an amazing job. Just super proud for Ryan and what he's been able to do in such a short amount of time too.
Jimmy Lea: He's really taken it up another level, so that's awesome. Well, good. Well, thank you very much, Brandon. I appreciate it. I appreciate you, um, and your experience. I appreciate your knowledge. Anything you'd like to share with our listening public about Sumner Auto Repair Management advisors? Net profit, efficiencies, process, procedures, anything you wanna share?
Brandon Hack: I the biggest thing that I can share that has made a difference with us is paying attention to the gp, paying attention to what that shop is bringing in per hour. If you don't look at that, all you're doing is looking at a number at the end of the month and you don't know what.
Brandon Hack: You don't know exactly where you are when you build every invoice properly, that is when you know, you don't have to worry about where am I gonna be at the end of the month? You know where you're gonna be at the end of the month, the end of the quarter, however you wanna look at it. Quarters work great for us.
Brandon Hack: Um, we're new, so we are still monthly right now, but quarters is what I'm really hoping to transition into so I don't put the stress of the month. Just it the tools are in place for you. Use them. Pay attention when you are bu building these invoices. Make sure the numbers are right. Don't be in the shop that we came from, that went out of business and the only reason they went out of business is the numbers weren't and nobody cared about the numbers.
Brandon Hack: We care.
Jimmy Lea: And there you go. So you gotta care about the numbers and not only the gp gross profit. Let's also, once we get that in line, dialed in, now let's look at the net profit. What are we keeping? What? Let's control some costs, bring some costs down. We can control some costs, and what are we keeping at the end of the day?
Jimmy Lea: How much money is in the bank? That's very important as well.
Brandon Hack: Absolutely.
Jimmy Lea: Brandon, you are awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate your work in the industry, building a better business, a better life, and a better industry. That's what we're all about here at the Institute, and we're glad to lock arms with you and have you part of our journey.
Brandon Hack: Very cool. Thank you Jimmy. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. Thank you Brandon. You man, talk you soon.

Monday Sep 15, 2025
144 - From Ferrari Roots to Modern Shop Leadership with Chris Prieto
Monday Sep 15, 2025
Monday Sep 15, 2025
144 - From Ferrari Roots to Modern Shop Leadership with Chris Prieto
September 9, 2025 - 00:39:20
Show Summary:
Miami-based JSB Autoworks’ Chris Prieto shares how a family shop evolved from basic maintenance into a three-division operation handling European/exotics, collision, and full restorations. Starting at age 12 stripping auction cars, Chris grew into leadership, discovering his passion for people, process, and the administrative side. He helped scale a prior “hole in the wall” shop from 1 bay to 8, then returned to modernize JSB with structure, tech, and DVIs. A forced relocation shrank their footprint but improved efficiency and clarity. Today he manages ~10 floor employees across 10 lifts, emphasizing attitude-first hiring, productivity tracking, and clear communication. He credits Shop-Ware and rigorous documentation for transparency and trust. Chris’s “magic wand” wish: more passionate technicians who diagnose root causes, preserving the dying art of true mechanical understanding, especially on classics.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Chris Prieto, Shop Manager of JSB Autoworks
Show Highlights:
[00:00:58] - Family roots: a Ferrari racing/restoration past and a pivot from service-only to high-line European, collision, and full restorations.[00:02:58] - Grew up wrenching. At 12, tearing down crashed Mercedes for parts sparked an engineer’s curiosity about how things work.[00:06:28] - Extreme builds: from a Diablo VT restoration to a C4 Corvette resto-mod pushing ~1,000 wheel horsepower with a modern driveline.[00:07:20] - Discovered the “people and process” side at a Mercedes-Benz dealership and fell in love with service management.[00:09:11] - Helped scale an independent shop from 1 bay/3 lifts to an 8-bay operation, then learned to manage flow with lean tech counts.[00:15:59] - Forced move from 22k sq ft to ~8–9k sq ft became a blessing—purged clutter, restructured, and boosted productivity.[00:18:10] - Current setup: 10 lifts, 6 mechanical techs, 3 collision techs, and one lube/helper: with Chris as the sole service advisor.[00:23:43] - Structure prevents profit leaks, track every part on restoration projects or money vanishes through the cracks.[00:26:14] - Tech-forward transparency: Shop-Ware DVIs with photos (old vs. new) drive trust, approvals, and technician productivity.[00:34:14] - Magic wand: cultivate techs who diagnose “why,” not just swap parts, keeping old-school craftsmanship alive for rare vehicles.
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight. Welcome to the Leading Edge podcast. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Joining me today is Chris Pedo from JSB Autoworks out of Miami, Florida. Chris, how the heck are you, brother?
Chris Prieto: I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing fantastic as always.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, always. I love to hear that brother. That's awesome. Hey Miami is getting a little bit of rain right now. Hey.
Chris Prieto: Yes, sir. We're getting we got a little storm over us right now. It's been raining the last couple days, but it's been good. It's a normal here. It'll be nice and bright, sunny in the morning, and then a full blown hurricane in the afternoon.
Chris Prieto: It just, it's just like that here.
Jimmy Lea: Right. Florida. Don't, you don't like the weather. Wait five minutes. We'll give you something new.
Chris Prieto: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, definitely don't get tired of it, that's for sure. That's for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Well, that's awesome. Well, Chris, gimme a little background of you and JSB and, you know, how did you get into the industry?
Chris Prieto: So, JSB Autoworks is a family owned business that's owned by my father and my mother. Okay. They started back, my father goes way back, you know, into the sixties and the seventies. He used to work for Ferrari Racing team restoring vintage Ferrari back in the day. My mother was in dentistry, complete different industry but they, you know, crossed paths and, you know, my dad was so passionate about cars.
Chris Prieto: He used to have a dealership as well and used to buy and sell cars. And then the crash of oh four happened, and, you know, things got turned upside down, so he had to kind of. Figure out what he wanted to do next. And you know, when my mom and him got together, they got into the service side. So they started with Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and as they grew, you know, the demand grew for other things.
Chris Prieto: They got into. From where they started was just service, you know, regular, just maintenance, you know, air filters, brakes, tires, you know, just regular light stuff. Now we have scaled so far that we not only specialize in Mercedes-Benz, BMW, we also specialize in Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, McLaren, Lamborghini, Ferrari.
Chris Prieto: And you know, we do all regular service repair, maintenance. Full transmission jobs, engine rebuilds in that department. And the reason I say that department is because we do that, we also have our collision side, that we do collision work for regular, everyday like insurances for customers that just have, you know, minor fender benders all the way to having to pull a complete car.
Chris Prieto: And then we have that department and then we have our restoration department. So we do restore cars here. We do full-blown restorations. Custom rest ides. You know, anything vintage pretty much. So we do, we have a lot of different aspects of our business. Right now. I started when I was 12 years old.
Chris Prieto: Right. I remember. Yeah. I remember my dad used to buy a lot of cars from the auction. A lot of Mercedes that were crashed for parts 'cause they were hard to come by at that time. So I remember at 12 years old, for one of my birthdays, he bought me a toolbox, like a 112 piece set or whatever. Yes.
Chris Prieto: And on the weekends all I did was take apart all these cars from the auction and I just started taking apart cars and taking apart cars, and that's how I got into it. I was always, at a young age, I was very. I had an engineer's mind. Like, I didn't like the fact of what was working. I liked how it worked.
Chris Prieto: I wanted to know how it worked. I remember when I got toys and to this day, my brother would even tell me, I would get all these toys for Christmas, and I would use 'em once, and then I would take 'em all apart, you know, because I didn't love figuring out how things worked. And as you know, time got on. I love cars and I got into cars.
Chris Prieto: You know, went to school for it. I'm a C certified. You know, I have all the certificates that you can pretty much think of. And now I manage the place. My parents are semi-retired, so they're doing their own thing. And I basically run the shop with the rest of my family that's with us now.
Jimmy Lea: Dude.
Jimmy Lea: It was totally in your blood. Yeah. Your, you have taken apart your toys as a little kid, and then at 12 years old it pops and saying, Hey, you know, just take all these parts out. So did you just have a, like a bin of starters? A bin of alternators?
Chris Prieto: Everything. I mean, I had starters, steering wheel control modules, dashes I mean I took out whole electrical wire harnesses from cars 'cause they would keep all the connectors and stuff like that.
Chris Prieto: Sure. Just in case they burn up or something. So I was, I mean, gutting cars completely, like, completely gutting them.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. How quickly could you disassemble a car and have it in the bins? It,
Chris Prieto: it, it depends on the car nowadays, you know, 'cause every car is different. Some cars have more electronics than others, so it varies.
Chris Prieto: You know, if you give me a Mercedes, an old four Mercedes, that, that's what I was working on back in the day. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I have it all taken apart in pretty much a day.
Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh, that's so fast.
Chris Prieto: That's amazing.
Jimmy Lea: That is so cool. I put
Chris Prieto: it back together. That's a different, that's a different story, but taking it all apart.
Chris Prieto: I mean, you know, the interior of a car completely now taking out engine transmission, all this other stuff. I mean, yeah, you're gonna add a couple more days, but I mean if, as far as just gutting everything outta there. Yeah. I could take a data to gut everything outta there.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's, that is very cool.
Jimmy Lea: That is very cool. And so. You, I mean, you started at 12. You weren't pushing a broom, you were wrenching on these cars, pulling them apart, putting 'em back together. Pops was doing. So you've got the maintenance side, the service side, but you've also got autobody and a rest rod, are you doing import restaurant or is this Yeah.
Chris Prieto: All. So right now we do a little bit of everything from domestic vehicles to English cars. A couple cars that I could just name off the top of my head. We have a 19 98 Diablo vt that's a full restoration all the way up to like a 1972 Jaguar e type a series three. That's a full restoration as well.
Chris Prieto: 1988 C four Corvette as a full resto mod. 'cause it's not just a restoration. We restored it completely, but that car has. 20 15 0 1 engine that has, that's supercharged from factory swapped in there with a TR 60 60 transmission. So it's all manual swapped. So we do things from one extreme to another, you know, so, oh my gosh.
Jimmy Lea: So on, on this Corvette, are you having to put in a new engine or you gonna keep the,
Chris Prieto: no. So yeah, so the original engine's already gone, so it's out of it. It has, like I said, a 2015 Z oh one Camaro engine in it already with a TR 60 60 that we built. So the engine is gonna produce about a thousand horsepower to the wheels after we're all set and done.
Chris Prieto: So. But yeah that's the kind of extreme stuff that we do. We kind of bounce all over the place.
Jimmy Lea: Oh man, you are so dangerous. That's awesome. I absolutely love it. Chris, this is phenomenal. So you're in. You're taking over from mom and pops. At what point did you step in as manager, step away from wrenching, step in as manager and then mom and dad took a side seat?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, there's a whole conversation about mom and dentistry as well, but tell me about you stepping. So,
Chris Prieto: yeah, so me, I kind of went through a couple different phases, right? So after I graduated high school, I went to go to school for Autotech to become an auto technician. Which I went through school there.
Chris Prieto: I quickly realized in the industry as I was going through school that it, I love to work on cars. I love to wrench on cars, but it wasn't necessarily my passion in the industry, right? So while I was going to school, I had the opportunity to work at at a dealership. Mercedes-Benz of North Orlando is where I used to work.
Chris Prieto: And there I worked in more the administration side of it. I was, I started out as a BDC agent. So I had a lot of experience though with Mercedes 'cause of, you know, working with my father and stuff like that. So it kind of helped me. It was to my advantage 'cause I knew a lot of the information.
Chris Prieto: So there I was able to get very close with the service manager there. And I was able to see the service side, the administration side, and that's the side that I really fell in love with. I fell in love with talking to people. I'm a very social person. I love talking to people. I love talking to people about cars, what we can do, you know, so that part stuck out more to me than anything.
Chris Prieto: I still love wrenching on cars. I still rent on cars to this day, but that's not really what kind of fills my cup at the end of the day. And so from there I got that experience. I continued with school, I finished school and everything. Got everything done. And then when I came back, I didn't immediately come back to work with my parents because I wanted to come and get some type of outside experience.
Chris Prieto: You know, I wanted to work somewhere else, just get a feel for, you know, the independent side somewhere else. So I started with a num, another company, local to us. And I remember we started, and it was a hole in the wall, you know, it was very small. And he's been, he was been around probably about five or six years.
Chris Prieto: So from there, once I started, I was very young. I was hungry, you know, I really wanted to like grow and just learn as much as I can. You know, just try to be successful in anything that I did. Yeah, so the shop went from a one bay three lift shop and within the year I helped him and I pushed him to get a bigger shop and he moved from there to a eight bay eight lift shop with a rack the alignment rack and everything.
Chris Prieto: And you know, we pretty much almost doubled in revenue right away, you know, so, and then, so we went from a hole in the wall to this full production shop. And that was really mostly domestic cars and nothing European, just, you know, Honda, you know, domestic and Japanese cars, pretty much just the normal Toyotas, Hondas, you know, things like that.
Chris Prieto: Yeah. Nothing exotic or anything like that. So, and then, so I took that experience. I worked with him for several years and he was also kind of a mentor to me because he was also young and, you know, he had been going through the process of growing his business, you know, from scratch, which is, you know, great.
Chris Prieto: And so he passed on a lot of information and, you know, we really learned a lot, I think, from each other. And, you know, I was helping him able to help him grow. It got to a point where, you know, we just parted ways 'cause I wanted to do something else. I wanted to, you know, move on with my career and I feel like he was at a good point.
Chris Prieto: So we just, you know, we just parted ways. But it definitely helped me a lot.
Jimmy Lea: Oh man, I got questions for you too. 'cause running a business of one bay with three lifts is completely different to running eight bays. Eight lifts.
Chris Prieto: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Give it, give me the makeup and the background here and then I want to dive into some questions.
Jimmy Lea: When you had one Bay three lift, how many technicians when you had eight bay, eight lifts, how many technicians?
Chris Prieto: So when we, when he was at one bay, you know, one bay shop, we had two, I would say B level techs and one kind of like lube tech. Okay. Okay. That's and it was funny when we decided to move, at that point, when I first started with them, we had two techs in the loop tech.
Chris Prieto: When we moved, we ended up losing almost both techs and then we only had the Lu Tech. So when we moved, when we were transitioning, we had no techs, you know, shut up. It was basically me and him, and then the Lu Tech. Okay. Why'd they leave? So the technician that was still there, he was a very good technician.
Chris Prieto: Very good. However, yes. Yeah. But however, he didn't like the. How can I say the different types of cars? He was more dealer oriented. He liked having the same cars all the time because at a dealer, you know, if you work for Toyota, that's all you're gonna see is Toyotas. Yeah. And so when you work at an independent shop, especially if it's just domestic Japanese, you're gonna work on everything.
Jimmy Lea: All makes all
Chris Prieto: models. Guess what? Yeah, exactly. And he didn't like that. He liked to stay. What? What he knows, which is understandable. So he decided at that point, he thought it was the, you know, the smartest thing for him. He's like, let me get outta here before things go crazy, you know? And he just, he worked at a dealership, you know, and he started working at a dealership and he's probably there to this day.
Jimmy Lea: I was gonna ask if he came back to you. Okay. What about the other guy?
Chris Prieto: So the Loop Tech stayed with us for a while. You know, that was it. But at that time we were transitioning through technicians, you know, we had to, you know, gain one, lost one, gain one, lost one. During that time, even at the single bay, you know.
Chris Prieto: And then once we got to where we moved, we were able to kind of stabilize and we were able to hire. At one point we had, I think three techs. And one Loop Tech at the eight Bay shop as well. With eight
Jimmy Lea: Bays, you only had three tech. Yeah. And that's the most you had
Chris Prieto: was three at that time? I'm sure now, maybe he has more, but I think because of flow, I don't think that realistically we didn't need that much more.
Chris Prieto: I mean, we were pretty busy as it was, and. You know, obviously you can't control what kind of jobs that you get, but you know, some jobs you had, you know, head gaskets to do. Other times you had evaporators that you had to do. Those are longer jobs, but then you had the quick oil changes, tires, brakes, things like that.
Chris Prieto: So, you know, mostly we just had to manage the flow to make it work.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So what challenges did you face? 'cause you're the service advisor up front going from one bay, three techs to eight bays. Eight techs or eight lifts.
Chris Prieto: Yeah, it was, I think the hardest part was just trying to keep the flow and the momentum always going.
Chris Prieto: So a service advisor, my job is to, you know, produce work, sell work, you know, and so my job was just to try to keep the base as full as possible. Yeah. You know, I'd rather have a bay that's full than bays that are empty. So totally agree. My whole thing was is now that we're transitioning into this big shop, how are we gonna keep this shop busy all the time?
Chris Prieto: How are we gonna keep all these things occupied? So I think that was the biggest challenge.
Jimmy Lea: So how long did you stay there with with this gentleman all makes all models before you transitioned over to working with Mom and Pop?
Chris Prieto: So I think I worked with him probably for, I think two years or two and a half years, give or take.
Chris Prieto: I think it was right after it was right after COVID hit. Once COVID hit I was with him for probably like another six months after COVID, and then once everything got, you know, everything went crazy after COVID hit. But you know, once everything kind of normalized and everybody kind of got into a routine, and then that's when we kind of parted ways, which is probably about like six, seven months after or something like that.
Jimmy Lea: All right, so Chris, what you need to understand is that Florida mellowed out very quickly. Six months, the rest of the world was still freaking out. Yeah. And they would not leave their houses. They would not, I mean there was a lot of curbside it for a lot of people. This was like not, so just two weeks and two months.
Jimmy Lea: This was two years that they were down. So. Alright. So six months. That's solid. I got you. You move in with mom and pop. So, when you start with mom and dad, this is probably late 2020, correct? And you're still with mom and Pop, you're still Yes. Right? Yes. How long did mom and dad stick around before they're like, oh, Chris, you totally got this.
Chris Prieto: I think that after the second or third year is when they kind of started. Coming back and just saying, all right he's got it. You know, because it, it was a, it was, they were still going through with COVID and stuff like that, so it was a kind of a weird time. They were, it was a huge shop. I mean, I jumped from one big shop to another big shop.
Chris Prieto: Yeah. So how
Jimmy Lea: big is the shop with mom and dad? What does JJSB look like today?
Chris Prieto: Well, JSB today is a little bit smaller 'cause in the last year we did have to move. So we were at our old location for about 10 years. We had to move from that location just 'cause the seller or the property owner had to sell.
Chris Prieto: And then somebody from New York came and offered maybe like, I think it was like $2 million over what the value was of the building. The building needed to work and everything else. So we were like, Hey, let's, we're not even gonna even compete with that. That was another thing in Florida, there was a lot of people from New York, California that had a bunch of money.
Chris Prieto: They came and just started buying a bunch of real estate. So that kind of threw us for a loop. So we had to, we were at a 22,000 square foot facility before, right now? Yeah. Right now we're probably about, I would say about 8,000, 9,000 square feet. Okay. Which is smaller. But it was actually good for us because my parents had a lot of stuff that they accumulated over the years.
Chris Prieto: So it was the urge. Yeah. So we made a, we made good from a bad situation. The move helped us. It helped me because I was able to restructure the company through the process of the move. Love it to try to get us more efficiency. Not have so much baggage coming with us, you know, and try to just, you know, focus on the things that are gonna really help us grow.
Chris Prieto: I love that. So with that, now we're actually pretty comfortable where we're at. We don't have so many things just hanging around, collecting dust, you know? And it's a lot more productive. It's a lot more productivity now.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So how many lifts are bays and lifts are you at now? Are you like So
Chris Prieto: yeah, so we have a pretty big warehouse.
Chris Prieto: It only has one entrance. So we only have one bay, but we have about 10 lifts inside of there. Oh wow. 10 lifts and lifts
Jimmy Lea: inside of 8,000 square feet. That's pretty tight. Yes.
Chris Prieto: It's actually pretty spacious. We still have plenty of plenty of space to go. It okay. A lot for us. And we make it work.
Chris Prieto: I mean, it's small for us because we're actually we're continuing to grow our company, so eventually we're gonna have to, you know, get something else. But this was kind of more for us to, you know, move, get somewhere, stabilize. Yeah. And then figure out where our forever home essentially is gonna be.
Chris Prieto: So. Okay, so
Jimmy Lea: you, you have 10 bay 10 lifts inside of the shop now. 10 lifts. How many technicians, how many service advisors, what's that makeup.
Chris Prieto: So I'm the, I would say I have, I'm the main service advisor. I'm the service manager and service advisor. So I deal with all the customers that come through here, whether it's restorations, whether it's just regular routine maintenance and collision as well.
Chris Prieto: I just have, you know, other employees that deal with the collision side and that help, you know, with, you know, like the day-to-day stuff when it comes to the service. As far as technician is concerned, I have 1, 2, 3, 4. Five, six technicians working for me right now in the mechanical side, I have three technicians working on the collision side, and then I have one just like lube tech, kind of, you know, shop helper, you know, so about 10 employees on the floor at once.
Jimmy Lea: That's true. That's true. All right, so, so you have six techs. Three techs on the collision side. So the, does the collision site also operate inside of these 10 bays, these 10 lifts, or are they section
Chris Prieto: Oh, sectional. Yeah. It's kind of sectioned off from the rest of the building. So they have their own space.
Jimmy Lea: Nice nice. Alright. And for you as a owner as the service manager and the service advisor, main service advisor, what challenges does that give you on the day-to-day working with all these people?
Chris Prieto: I wouldn't say necessarily it's the people. I mean it's, it definitely the people is the most important thing, right?
Chris Prieto: Yes. Not even just about what, you know, it's your attitude more than anything. When I hire people, I just actually hired in this last two weeks, another two people. I tell people it's not about what, you know, it's the attitude. 'cause just like, for example, we were talking about the gentleman that didn't wanna work with us at our other shop because it wasn't his day to day.
Chris Prieto: We do things here that people have probably never seen or have laid their eyes on, you know? And so it, and you know, some of my guys, they might, may be scared of they'll be scared of some of these cars that we're doing. Yeah. And it's like, it's, my father always told me, if a man built it, a man can fix it.
Chris Prieto: Right? But you gotta do your homework, you gotta learn, you know, in this industry, especially ours, if you think that you know it all, you failed. Oh yeah. 'cause there's something new to learn every day. You know? I think I, I'm a testament to that, you know, I'm very young. I'm 27 years old, okay. And I've been doing this since I was young.
Chris Prieto: And I know I've learned a lot 'cause I've been exposed to so many things. But even to this day, I could tell you that there's cars that come through here that I'm like, all right, I'm gonna have to go home and do some homework. And that's the funnest part, is seeing the history behind the cars. Some of these cars, I'll never see 'em again.
Chris Prieto: I'll have the privilege of touching them, restoring them, putting my hands on 'em, you know, and that could be the only car that I've ever, that I can ever see of that particular model ever again. You know, so we've seen all kinds of different cars here. So it's really, it's really just an attitude thing more than anything.
Chris Prieto: It's controlling people's attitudes. Yeah. You know, but other than that, I mean, managing so many people, obviously it has its ups and downs, you know, everybody has their days, you know, so you kind of have to be a people person, you know? Just come in with an open mentality, you know, which I try to do. I try to be very positive, even through the bad stuff, you know?
Chris Prieto: 'cause. At the end of the day, negative really doesn't make you feel any better. So why be negative, you know?
Jimmy Lea: Oh I agree. I agree. So what's one thing you wished all shop owners would know, and maybe now, Chris, you can answer this a few different ways. Do you want to view it from a viewpoint of a shop owner, a service manager, a service advisor, a technician?
Jimmy Lea: What's something that in each of these different areas, what's something that they all need to know?
Chris Prieto: I think that one of the things that I learned not only in this business but in the business that I was participating in prior was that you really have to be very structured. Like structure within the business, how it operates, the in and outs.
Chris Prieto: I think that is the absolute most important thing when managing a business. Because if you don't have structure especially in this industry, things can fall through the cracks very quickly, you know? And I think that's the most important. I mean, you know, we talk about being profitable in these, in this industry, in this business.
Chris Prieto: And I deal with cars restorations that have. Thousands of parts, you know? And at the end, if I don't keep track of every single part that we buy, everything that slips through the crack is money out the door. You know? So there has to be proper systems in place, proper structure in place to make sure that, you know, you're taking care of the bottom line at the end of your day.
Chris Prieto: You know, regardless of anything. We do this 'cause we love it, it's our passion, you know, but we got families that we have to feed. You know, we have people that rely on us to produce and to make the money that we need to make to continue to operate. And, you know, working and seeing how other businesses have worked over the years that I was able to just, you know, kind of go through.
Chris Prieto: Some people, especially in the automotive industry, they, they might lack a lot of structure. A lot of people maybe are old school still writing things down, you know, doing paper invoices, you know, and a lot of that stuff is it's easy for things to fall through the crack and miss certain things, you know?
Chris Prieto: Yeah. And we're very, like, the technology is like. Like our number one thing, like we try to be, we try to move with technology because now before you know. You would do just, you know, inspections on target and you just tell people, Hey look, you got this problem, you know, and it's just word of mouth.
Chris Prieto: And you really have to trust the person to know, to be like, Hey, okay, what you're telling me is true and I believe you, so I'm gonna do the work with you. Now we do digital inspections, so we take pictures of everything, you know, so that way it's more transparency for the customers so they feel more comfortable.
Chris Prieto: It's just not a matter of me saying, Hey, you need to spend $5,000 on your car 'cause you got all this stuff going on. No, look, here's. Pictures of this is why this is urgent, this is why this is urgent. You know, and people like that. People like transparency, people like honesty, trust. I mean, that's the number one thing in our industry right now, you know?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it so is Chris. You talk about a client seeing something that's worn, torn freight or bo broken. They can see that. They can see it's broken. They can see it's leaking. They become much more educated with that. And I love that you mentioned technology. What and dvs or shop management system or what's a technology that you think every shop needs to implement in their process, procedure in their shop?
Chris Prieto: I think any shop that implements DVS is gonna be automatically, is gonna change the way that they do business. Not only is gonna give them more approval rating, you know, because their customers are gonna be more inclined to spend the money with them. But it's just, again, it gives you what people look for is trust.
Chris Prieto: I mean, when they look at any mechanic shop, the number one thing that people look for is trust. And so there's only so many things that we can do to gain people's trust. Right. The number one thing people are gonna go when they look up a building or a business is like Google. Hey, look, let me check out their reviews.
Chris Prieto: Let me see what other people are talking about. And then when you go in person, if you know everything, checks out your first impression means everything you know. And if the hardest part is getting the person through the door, that is the absolute hardest part. Yeah. Once they're here, if you have everything properly structured and you have a good system in place, then the work that you do should speak for itself.
Chris Prieto: You know, but that definitely, I think that's something that a lot of shops are still doing. They're probably still all manual. They're still probably all writing things down. You know, and that there's just things that fall through the crack. You know, not everyone, everything. It's so true, Chris.
Chris Prieto: It's so true. What are you using for your DVI. So we have a system called Shop Wear. So shop ware it's our management system for all of the cars that are at the shop. And in that system, our technicians can go make notes post pictures of parts as they get 'em. That's another thing that we do. Customers like to see all the new parts.
Chris Prieto: So we take pictures of all the new parts, side by side to the old parts. On these restoration jobs that we do, we take pictures throughout all the process of the car, you know, so that way the customer kind of has a track of everything that was done and he can show it the day. If he maybe wants to sell the car, Hey look, this is it.
Chris Prieto: Throughout its whole process. So we document everything from beginning to end, especially like on a bigger project, if it's something smaller, like lighter maintenance, you know, still water pumps and stuff like that. We still take pictures of everything that we can 'cause we wanna be as parent as possible with people.
Jimmy Lea: A hundred percent. And Chris, to your point, if ever a technician makes a recommendation, it marks it red. No matter what it is, if they include a picture, it's sold. It's sold every time it is sold. Oh, okay. So to shop wear, can you tell that it was developed by somebody who owned a shop?
Chris Prieto: Well, when we first started with them, it was very basic.
Chris Prieto: Yeah. The was very basic. It was very new. The good thing about shop wear is that they listen to their consumers. Yeah. So if you have a recommendation, Hey look, we can do, we can be a little bit more efficient if we do this, and this. And you can submit a ticket and you can go back and forth with your rep and they'll actually make changes.
Chris Prieto: Based off of the things that you're telling them, which is great because they value your feedback. It's not like, Hey, a system that's gonna stay the same forever and you just gotta work with what it has. No, if you wanna feature added specifically, you could tell 'em, Hey, look, can, is there a possibility that we can add this?
Chris Prieto: And they'll listen. If they have enough people that commented about it, they'll implement it and they're constantly updating their site, you know? Yep. And the good thing is that a good and bad thing? Some people think it's a bad thing, but I think it's a good thing is that it's also web-based. So yeah, I can be at home on vacation and I can still check up on the shop, see what's going on, see what they're doing.
Chris Prieto: It tracks technician productivity so that my technicians clock in and out of their jobs as they're doing them so I can track productivity, make sure everybody's doing everything correctly. So that's also a perk, is that I can also just make changes anywhere I want. I don't have to be at the shop.
Chris Prieto: Which most of the time I'm not. I mean, I'm at the shop all the time during the day, but I'm constantly in and out dealing with customers. A lot of my work comes when I get home, you know, when I'm relaxing, I go in, I order parts, I get everything going for the next day. Try to be as proactive as possible, you know?
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. So, I, and I love that you're on shop wear. It is a phenomenal tool. They're one of our certified partners, vendor partners with the institute. They're phenomenal. They've been around a long time. We love working with Monique and the whole shop wear team. They're really good team.
Jimmy Lea: So now that you've got six technicians how many service advisors do you have?
Chris Prieto: So it's just, right now really, I'm the only service advisor that's here. So I'm the one that deals with.
Jimmy Lea: So you're running all the work for all six dudes. Yep. Shoot, man, that's a lot. That's wild. So what are the challenges that you see on the day-to-day running six techs that you can help somebody else maybe navigate that, that challenge?
Jimmy Lea: They think it's a mountain, but it's a mole hill because you already solved it.
Chris Prieto: I think that for one, you have to be very, mentally capable of handling multiple different attitudes, personalities. I think it starts really with the person themselves, you know? Yeah. A lot of people can be very emotional and be reactive when things happen because I can say sometimes here things are stressful.
Chris Prieto: We got timeline deadlines to finish things we want cars to get done, we need to make our numbers so things can get heated. You know, so you just need to have someone that's. A clear mind that like we say here, somebody that's Switzerland, that really is just here to listen, not to react, just to listen and try to figure out solutions, you know?
Chris Prieto: And that's my thing. I don't, I'm not here to create problems. I'm here to create solutions, you know, so you come to me with a problem, I will come to you and figure out a solution. And I think that just a lot of people think, oh, six technicians, it can be overwhelming. It's not that overwhelming as long as you manage and structure yourself properly, you know, like I said, since with shop wear, I have everything on my board, so I know the things that have to come in and out in the day to day, and I know what needs to get done, what's more priority, what's not.
Chris Prieto: So I know how I can move around my technicians to keep them producing hours for their paycheck at the end of the week to make sure that they're productive, they're not standing around, and that's gonna help me at the end of the day as well with my numbers and making sure things get going. But I think definitely it's not so much the technician side.
Chris Prieto: I think personally, the service advisor themselves, it's not just about how you can sell work. It's about. How you can truly manage other people. That's, and that's a very hard part. Selling work for me, I think is the easy part. It's very easy to, once you get a hang of it, you just really be, need to be a people's person, you know?
Chris Prieto: Yeah. But definitely handling people is a lot harder than I think selling. There's a big difference's, a big difference. But yeah, I think that if I could say anything to help somebody in this situation, I just would say just be very patient. Be very wise. Don't be reactive. Just listen. And you're again, just trying to come up with solutions.
Chris Prieto: You're not trying to make another problem that doesn't exist. You're trying to create a solution for whatever's in front of you. I think that's the best advice.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I love that. And Chris, this goes directly to your philosophy in hiring people, is you're hiring for the attitude. So this attitude, it plays right out into what your approach is because it's your attitude.
Jimmy Lea: You, you bring a certain skillset, but you also have to have the right attitude. And you're. You're approaching this with all the right attitude in my humble opinion. You've got the technology, you've got the work ethic. Have you ever sat down with mom and talked, had a talk about the automotive and dental industry and how similar they are.
Chris Prieto: It's funny because my wife is actually in the dental field as well, so she manages different practices and she deals with, you know, doctors and all that stuff all the time. And it's funny she has similar issues just managing people, making sure people do their job correctly, that doing it passionately.
Chris Prieto: And you know, obviously it's different as far as like the type of work that we're doing, but at the end of the day, you know, we're all, we're just. At the end of the day, it's all just producing services for people. We're doing services, you know, so, our part is the customer service side. You know, how are we gonna have customer retention?
Chris Prieto: How are we gonna make sure that everybody has a great experience, how we, you know, those things. But the service part of it, actually doing the service. I mean, that's up to the doctor and our technicians. We just gotta make sure that the quality is good. So again, very similar very similar as far as what we need to do.
Chris Prieto: We still deal with the same kind of people, you know, customers, you can have good customers, you can have bad ones. 'cause they all, they're some good, some bad, some that you love to death and some that are like, Hey man, that one was a, that was a ride. You know? So, but it's like that anywhere that you go, I think, you know, any industry.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true, man. We are in the people business. We just happen to work on cars. Your wife is in the dental business. They just happen to work on teeth or people business, right? I mean they're in the people business. They just work on teeth. We're in the people business. We work on cars.
Jimmy Lea: There's others that are in the people business. They work on air conditioners. They're in the people business. They build houses.
Jimmy Lea: You gotta connect with people and the more you connect with people, the better that situation's gonna be. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Oh, Chris, I love it. I love it, brother.
Jimmy Lea: Alright, last and final question. This is the unicorn question. You've got a magic wand. Chris. What if you were able to wave this wand and change anything in the industry? What would you change in the industry?
Chris Prieto: I think that I. I think I would want people, or at least technicians to. Really enjoy what they do and have a better understanding of why they do it.
Chris Prieto: Right. So, and the reason why I say that is, is because, you know, a lot of people just come to, you know, go to school and they get certified and they just go to change parts out at a dealer or whatever the case may be. I was never like that. I was always like, if something broke, why did it break? You know, what's the end all be all?
Chris Prieto: What's the cause of all this? Because anybody can go and change a part. Anybody can sit there and change a filter, you know, change an engine. But I'm the type of person that I would want to know what caused it to, why. Why did that happen? And knowing those things, it's more information, more knowledge for you.
Chris Prieto: And a lot of the things that I see with a lot of technicians, they're just kind of parts changers. They don't have the passion, the want to know really how these things work. You know, like they'll change the transmission. They can be the fastest one, but you ask them to take it apart, they'll say no.
Chris Prieto: I'm not gonna do it. And I think honestly, that's like the fun part for me. Like being able to take apart a transmission and take it all apart to the last final bolt and be able to put it back together. I think that is like far superior than to anybody that can just switch something out. You know?
Chris Prieto: I feel like that's something that we lack a lot in this industry, you know? Especially me that I work on a lot of old cars. I have so many people that are like, no, I don't wanna touch it. I'm not used to it. I don't care for it. I don't know how to work on it. I don't deal with it. And it's like, well, realistically I, I.
Chris Prieto: I can't really support that. I love this stuff. And so either you can learn about it or you could, you know, find somewhere else that's gonna deal with that, you know? But I need somebody that's, that wants to know why certain things are the way they are, why certain things are not working, what's the cause, how are we gonna fix it?
Chris Prieto: Because there's a lot of things now on these older cars that they don't even exist anymore. We've had to fabricate parts, we've had to source 'em through Europe and all kinds of stuff, and. You would never know. I've had technicians says, Hey, I need this part. And I take it apart and it's like, okay, it's like one little brass pin that might be broken and it's causing the whole thing to go bad.
Chris Prieto: It's like, okay, and you can make one of those little brass pins that's $5 and that's it. Look you fix the part all together. We don't have any of that anymore. We have parts changers. That's it. You know, we just have people that are not really looking into why or how these things work. They just wanna change parts and get outta here.
Chris Prieto: So. Yeah, I just think that we need, have really passionate technicians and that's really where, what's the industry has kind of gone down is just so we don't have really, we have a technician shortage. We don't have many people that wanna be technicians anymore, so. It's hard to come by, but that's the only thing I wish that if I can wave a magic wand, I would want more technicians.
Chris Prieto: I think that's something that a lot of automotive companies are dealing with now is finding good, reputable, talented, young blooded like, you know, mechanics. I think that's where we lack, you know, in our industry right now. You know? That's what
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. So your magic wand would be all about.
Jimmy Lea: Helping people to understand why and doing their homework and having them dig in deeper, just like you did in your career. Dig in deeper and find out why. Find out what it is. Yeah.
Chris Prieto: Yeah, I would say so. You
Jimmy Lea: know,
Chris Prieto: it's hard. It, I get it. Some people don't really have the interest for it, but when you do some of the stuff that we do here, I mean, there's not, the information is not gonna be out there for very long.
Chris Prieto: Time keeps coming. The people that used to work on those stuff are no longer here, and that information goes down with them. So it's a it's hard. So we need people that are really gonna wanna learn about this old school stuff. You know, it's a dying, it's a dying art at the end of the day, you know? So that's what I would change.
Chris Prieto: I would try to find some people that are really hungry to learn about the old school, and not only just learn about the old school, but really learn. How things are, you know, work, really have an engineer's mind. Not just say, Hey, I just want to come in and just change parts all day. I don't know, you know, I think that just defeats the purpose of being a technician, you know?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Chris Prieto: That's what I would change.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Chris, thank you so much. I appreciate you being here with me and having a great conversation talking about this industry that we love.
Chris Prieto: Yes, sir. Anytime.
Jimmy Lea: Brother, thank you very much and for everybody listening, thank you. Glad you were able to join us.
Jimmy Lea: We will talk to you again soon. Thank you. Take care.

Friday Sep 12, 2025
Friday Sep 12, 2025
143 - Unlocking Shop Efficiency and Profitability with Cutting-Edge Technology
September 10th, 2025 - 00:53:42
Show Summary:
Jimmy Lea leads a conversation on shop profitability and technology with Monique Mondragon-Tafoya from Shop-Ware and Brandon Ballou, service advisor at Trustworthy Auto. They unpack how a modern shop management system, a well-tuned CRM, and tools like Detect Auto streamline estimating, protect margins, and elevate customer trust. Brandon details workflow habits, from DVIs to clear prioritization, that keep the team productive while guiding customers through staged approvals. Monique shares Shop-Were releases like integrated consumer financing, online scheduling, and an in-app CRM that reduce friction and surface KPIs. The group emphasizes using photos/video in DVIs and measuring technician productivity vs. efficiency to find bottlenecks. They also discuss hiring timing, deposit policies for large jobs, and keeping advisors focused on conversations, not data chasing. The session ends with “magic wand” wishes: more grace across the industry and a win-win mindset for shops, employees, and customers.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Brandon Ballou, Service Manager for Trustworthy Auto
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya, Shop-Ware
Episode Highlights:
[00:01:52] - Technology theme set: using tools to raise effective labor rate, proficiency, and customer experience.[00:05:05] - Brandon outlines Trustworthy Auto’s layout and staffing goals, framing the conversation in real shop terms.[00:07:47] - Deposits protect cash flow: 50% down on estimates over $3,000 keeps the work moving without strain.[00:09:29] - Advisor workload reality: owner tasks happen off-hours so the advisor can focus on customers during the day.[00:14:19] - Detect Auto pairs with Shop-Ware to surface maintenance due, saving advisors 4–5 minutes per estimate.[00:23:10] - DVIs should be standard; photos and annotations build trust and help customers make informed decisions.[00:35:00] - Track productivity vs. efficiency in Shop-Ware to diagnose whether issues are scheduling, parts, or process.[00:43:02] - New consumer financing in Shop-Ware reduces awkward money talks and can lift average repair orders.[00:47:10] - Prioritize estimates: red/yellow/green with top-to-bottom ordering so safety beats cosmetics every time.[00:49:34] - Industry wish list: grace between shops and an “everybody wins” approach to pricing and decisions.
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Hello my friends. It's good to see you. It's good to be part of our conversation today as we are going to have a great conversation talking about profit in your shop and technology in your shop. Oh my gosh, this is gonna be so much fun. We are here to help you where you are at. Where are you at? I, we just finished a fabulous marketing for the Automotive Repair Shops conference.
Jimmy Lea: No, it wasn't a conference. It was an intensive. It was a workshop. It was awesome. It was a workshop where those that were there had notebooks, 111 pages of notes, note taking homework assignments. It was so cool. It was so cool. And what's great with what we're doing with the institute, building better business, building better lives, building better industry.
Jimmy Lea: Is that we do we lock arms with you. We're gonna meet you where you are and go together as we go together to further your shop, your business from those that are looking and evaluating shops to buy. They don't even own a shop yet. Jonathan, I'm talking about you. They don't own a shop yet, but they're going to, and because they're going to, why not have a coach in your corner to help you navigate all of the red tape?
Jimmy Lea: Oh man, it's so fabulous. All the way up to shop, multi shop operators. You have 10 locations, 18 locations, 36 locations. We here at the institute are here to lock arms with you and make sure that your shop experience is the best that it can possibly be. For our webinar today, for our discussion today, we are talking about technology that has helped to improve your shop, your business, your effective labor rate, your proficiencies, and co-sponsoring this with us is shop wear.
Jimmy Lea: Monique is gonna join us from shop wear. Thank you, Monique. I'm so excited to have you with us. I see you blurred background. It looks like you are being a road warrior today.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yes, I'll be a ro, a road Warrior for several months, but it'll gonna be okay. So please don't mind the hotel background, but I am very excited to be here.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So thank you for having me and I'm looking forward to talking with y'all.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. Monique has been with shop wear for quite a while and just excited with what is happening there. The conferences the surveys, the listening to the shops and the shops Love shop wear. The shops that are on shop wear.
Jimmy Lea: Love shop wear. So thank you for all you're doing in this industry. Yes, sir.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: Joining from a shop point of view, we have Brandon. He is our MMA fighter. He is our local jujitsu black belt. No you do not want to mess with this guy. Brandon, how are you brother? I'm doing great. How are you, Jimmy?
Jimmy Lea: I'm good. I'm good. I'm real good. Excited that you're here so we can talk about. Technology and the shop and the business. How is the shop by the way?
Brandon Ballou: Shop's been doing great. We had a record month in July. August was pretty good. And then, you know, hoping to just keep the ball rolling.
Jimmy Lea: There you go.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Keep the ball rolling for sure. So, back up. By the way, how's Pops?
Brandon Ballou: Oh he's great. Yeah. Is he in the shop every day still? He just, 'cause he wants to be there,
Brandon Ballou: Loves being there. Loves being part of the team, helping with the problem cars. Oh, I love it.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, so he's wrenching right.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah, when he wants to.
Brandon Ballou: And then, you know, he only touches if we have, you know, the BMW with the intermittent check engine light that only comes on Tuesday. He calls dibs and that's the one he works on. 'cause he loves figuring out the crazy hard problems.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. That's so cool. I saw one yesterday on TikTok that if you pull up the parking break, if you open the ashtray, if you open the cup holder and then open the.
Jimmy Lea: Glove box it actuated the steering wheel, spin mode, and it would just spin and spin and spin.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: What are you watching?
Jimmy Lea: I'm watching TikTok about customer states that if you put on the parking brake, open the ashtray, open the cup, and open the jockey box, the steering wheel will start to thin.
Jimmy Lea: And sure enough, it did, I mean. It's amazing. It's amazing what happens when customers come in and when a service advisor is in there and writing down what a customer says. It blows the minds of technicians because of their descriptions, which are hilarious, but it goes into what they're doing. So, Brandon I wanna dig in deep here.
Jimmy Lea: I want to go in on your shop, but first, give us a layout so everybody understands what your shop looks like. How can I relate to that? If I'm a single guy, I've got two techs, or I've got 10 bays, or I've got 10 shops what's your makeup so that as we have our conversation, people can relate.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah, absolutely. So we're a six bay one and a half advisors. 'cause I'm still kind of advising but not as much with three techs looking to hopefully grow to four and then two full-time advisors before the end of the year. Okay.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. And about what kind of a car count are you usually looking at?
Jimmy Lea: On a daily or a weekly or a monthly basis? What do you usually see
Brandon Ballou: monthly? We do about 120 cars with a 20 car variance either direction, depending on the month.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. And are you focused mostly on the euros, on the general repair? All makes, all models. Asians. What are you looking at?
Brandon Ballou: General repair is the worst way to describe our shop. 'cause that's not, we do fix everything, but when I say we fix everything. I have a video in my phone from earlier this week where we have, you know, a Porsche nine 11 turbo next to a brand new F two 50, next to a 2008 Ford Focus next to another Porsche nine 11, next to a Maserati, next to a 2002 Ford F two 50.
Brandon Ballou: Next to, so we work on everything pretty much newer than 2000, but that day we even had a 91 Toyota MR two in the shop for an engine. So we work on everything, you know, we have the tooling, we have the equipment, we do the training. So if it's we love to work on all of it.
Jimmy Lea: Wow. It sounds like you've got from the whole mix and the whole marriage of everything Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: All makes, all models.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Sounds like he just doesn't like to turn away money. I like that.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah. The only stuff we turn away is when stuff gets older than 2000. Unless it's a specific vehicle or customer that we know, you know, cares about fixing it like that. MR two is one we knew that customer or good customer and you know, it was a good ticket.
Brandon Ballou: Easy to find parts, but some of the oldest stuff we steer away from just 'cause we don't have the parking for a car to sit there for a couple weeks while we wait for parts.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. And with those bigger tickets, are you focusing on, on, on clients, on customers and saying, all right, this is gonna be a $30,000 repair.
Jimmy Lea: I'm gonna need 15 K to get things started.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah. So not too much of our stuff gets up into that range. We have 'em, but those are the outliers. Our aros right around $1,100 right now. We wanna be the auto repair shop for the whole family. Everything from the kids' high school car to the mom's minivan to dad's truck, and his, you know, sports car that's in the garage.
Brandon Ballou: We want to be able to just take care of everybody.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and I'm thinking of that MR two with an engine. I'm like yeah. What's that invoice gonna be? I was just shy of 12,000. Oh, so what was it, 12? Are you collecting 50% up front or 30%, or
Brandon Ballou: what do you usually do? So we collect a 50% down payment on anything over 3000.
Brandon Ballou: Just so you know, the shop doesn't have to absorb the cost of everything until the job's done.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that, that helps tremendously. Being able to have that funds in-house, you can take care of business. Okay. So six bays currently three techs. You want four currently, one and a half service advisors. You want two.
Jimmy Lea: By the end of the year you'll have this in place and then you can focus on the business and dad can tinker with those cars that. Have spinning wheels. Yeah.
Brandon Ballou: That's the plan. You know, for the longest time it was, you know, I watched my dad, you know, work crazy hours seven days a week and I was like, I'm just gonna push and grow the business to the point to where, you know, he can hang out on a beach somewhere all week and not have to work.
Brandon Ballou: And then we got to the point where we can almost do that and he's still there every day. And it took me a little bit to realize he does not want to sit on a beach or anything. He wants to figure out the problem cars. And that's exactly what. He loves to do. So
Jimmy Lea: that's his hobby, that's his joy, that's his enjoyment.
Jimmy Lea: He enjoys working on the car, so he's not losing out when it comes to, that's it, that's his downtime is working on cars.
Brandon Ballou: It's just my job to make sure it goes from him having to do it to him wanting to do it. There you go. There you go. It's great to have that up.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: I have a question for you, Brandon.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yes. So I'm very curious to know, you said you're basically an advisor. Halftime, right? Yep. Part-time. Are you, does that mean you're now doing the owner job full-time, but outside of hours, so that way you can advise during the day or how does that split work?
Brandon Ballou: Yeah, it's a lot. So all the owner duties I do after hours, like I, I'll get up and usually do like the payroll and anything like that before work starts or anything.
Brandon Ballou: Online be up 5 36 starting to do that. And then I do all the advisor stuff during the day and when I have the downtime, 'cause I'm only a third or half advisor, I'm the advisor we hired. He's a rockstar. But so the little bit of advising I do that and then I have almost like the service manager position, making sure, you know, productivity's there, margins are held everything throughout the day.
Brandon Ballou: And then I go back to, you know, just tackling everything else owner's wise as far as like filling out composite and p and l, like checking the p and l and. I do that after, so hopefully we can get another advisor in and then I don't have to do the day-to-day stuff.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So you could work less hours. Yeah. I'm curious to know
Brandon Ballou: Yep.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: In the comments from everyone how many of you are working over, out eight hours a day to maybe split yourself and be two different roles? Go ahead, Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I am.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Oh, you are? Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: But for our audience who's working over eight hours I'll bet every single person out there put it. How many hours per day are you working?
Jimmy Lea: Put it in the comments
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: that, that's a better question. Yes. I would love to know how many hours per
Brandon Ballou: day are you working? And it's not even that I really wanna work less than, you know, I wanna work less. It's, I could take, you know, the time that I'm advising and put it towards other things in the business to, you know, make it grow faster.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah. If you're working less than eight hours a day, what are you doing all day? Yeah. Yeah.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: I had a part-time job once. That's what everybody's thinking about. The eight hour day.
Jimmy Lea: The eight hour day. Yeah. No, well shop owners for sure. Tracy says four. Lance says yes. He's working more than eight. James is five.
Jimmy Lea: Daniel 11, Lance 10 to 12, six days a week, sometimes maybe seven for Lance. Oh my gosh, dude. Steven is nine hours plus a tech called in six. So he is literally working on cars while listening to this. Steven, thank you for listening. We appreciate that. Jonathan, what's stopping you from adding an advisor now, Brandon?
Jimmy Lea: I think Brandon's just gotta find the right person. Brandon, what's stopping you?
Brandon Ballou: Both. We're super picky on who we hire, but also we're in like that busy time of year, so the shop's killing it. It could definitely get an advisor. Now I just want to settle through, you know, the September months where typically we see that little bit of slowdown and make sure that drops not as substantial to where we can't have that second advisor.
Brandon Ballou: 'cause last thing I'd want to do is get a rockstar, put 'em in place and then, you know, I'm struggling to try and amp up the marketing to keep up with the added payroll.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well, and Cody Morlock working eight hours-ish, making big moves right now, but they're also a 10 fours, sorry, four tens.
Jimmy Lea: They're working four tens. So yeah. No, Cody, that totally makes sense. And just so you guys know, Cody and his wife Tasha are gonna have a baby boy any minute. Congrats. Literally, quite literally, we were at the Mars conference or the Mars Intensive over the weekend where anytime the dude would stand up to walk away from the camera, I was like, oh, we're baby watch.
Jimmy Lea: So congratulations to you, Cody. And he already sent a message to us this morning that the baby's not here yet, but there are still no baby. But thing is stuck. Oh gosh. Go for another horse ride. I put her on horseback. He had her on horseback going around the property. Still no baby stubborn.
Jimmy Lea: This is a stubborn one. You have three girls and three boys after this, so congratulations, Cody. Brandon, thanks for giving us the background of your shop and where you are and where you want to go as well. Let's talk about technology that you have seen implemented into your shop. What do you, what have you seen from.
Jimmy Lea: A technology viewpoint that has made some difference. And then let's go into the technology that has really moved the needle for you. So what's some of those that have made a difference and then the bigger.
Brandon Ballou: The biggest thing, and I'm not saying it 'cause we're on their show, is just shop wear overall as a management system.
Brandon Ballou: It's just the ease of workflow. Yeah. The, just the ease of workflow. How fast things can transition through the shop, how easy the communication and everything is. Being able to just track and hold margins and see where you're losing productivity or efficiency based on how the track, the tech is punching on and off.
Brandon Ballou: Job. So that's probably the biggest help in our shop. Other things we use having a solid CRM, our CRM really dialed in to keep our customers coming back and, you know, keep grabbing the work that customers are, you know, declining that initial visit to make sure they're coming back and still getting it done.
Brandon Ballou: Another thing is we have a, we work with detect ai. There are new AI that comes out that pairs seamlessly with shop wear. And it will, what it is so you can put your maintenance standards in it, and then it'll also go off the manufacturer's maintenance standards, and then it'll check Carfax to see if it's ever been done, and then if it has no history of it with you, no history of it with Carfax, it'll mark it yellow if it has history of it being done, but it's due to be done, again, it marks it red, and then it just saves the advisors, I would guess probably four to five minutes per estimate to seeing what's needed, far as maintenance to write up and.
Brandon Ballou: Let the customer know what's needed. So that's been huge. That's new. We've only been with them for maybe a month.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. And have you seen car owners that, that are viewing this information from Detect Auto and they're like, oh my gosh, yes. No, we definitely need to do all this stuff.
Jimmy Lea: Have you seen the average repairers going above that 1100?
Brandon Ballou: So our aros stuck about the same, but we were always presenting it. What it is just freeing up more time for the advisor. Like I was doing probably 50% of the advising before, and then detect AI was able to free up the time for the other advisor.
Brandon Ballou: So now they get to do the majority of it. And you know, one advisor with three techs is okay, and then one, two with, I'd want to add a Fourth Tech before I add the second advisor to go back to. You know, part of the reason Jonathan asked why I don't just do it now.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no.
Brandon Ballou: Get in the right direction.
Jimmy Lea: So before you as an advisor, you were going in and doing all the digging to find the information from what manufacturer said, what this done recommended in the past declined and what the card needs today.
Jimmy Lea: You were doing that process. So now detect ai, click of a button. Boom. Yep. Saved you just 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, who knows? Per car, per estimate.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah. That's
Jimmy Lea: pretty
Brandon Ballou: cool. And it adds up, you know, if you're writing, you know, six, seven estimates a day or whatever, you know, going back and forth or customer calls with another concern or it's, it adds up.
Jimmy Lea: For sure.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So, so just to clarify you were writing. Several services on a repair order before. And now, because you can see the information with the tech auto, instead of writing six services or six estimates, maybe you're only writing four. Is that correct?
Brandon Ballou: Nope. We're still writing all the same estimates.
Brandon Ballou: It just, it saves us the time from having to go look for what's due, you know, before
Jimmy Lea: information.
Brandon Ballou: Shop, wear history, see what we've done, check Carfax, see what's due, see what's been done. Call the customer just in case. And we still do that because it can't pull stuff that hasn't been reported, but now it's just, it pulls up a PDF with everything.
Brandon Ballou: Copy paste it. We put it in our DVI and then well, we can just add all the can jobs right from there.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Thank you for that clarity.
Jimmy Lea: Oh that's good. That, that, that's really good. Okay. So these are the things that are. Freeing up time, freeing up on the daily. What else? What else besides the CRM detect auto shop wear.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. Shop wear. I have a question for you, Monique and Brendan. Hold. Yes sir. When you are signing up clients to shop wear, what do you know? Is there a percentage of them that are coming from handwritten to. Technology.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yeah. I mean, it's very rare that you move someone over from handwriting anymore.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: And if they are handwriting, that's probably where they're gonna stay until they move the shop over to a new owner. Right. So most people are coming from something, some other shop management system, and I would say that's probably 95% of the people we move over are coming from a shop management system.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna throw it out there that if you are still handwriting your estimates, your invoices, your work orders, there's no shame and check out shop wear because it's gonna help you out tremendously to improve the efficiencies of you as a shop, of you, as a shop owner, an advisor to not have to write.
Jimmy Lea: And I've seen some shops, Monique, this will blow your mind. They're doing 2 million, 3 million, 4 million out of a single shop. Yeah, and the service advisors are handwriting all of those tickets.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yeah, I would say the majority of what we see when it's someone who hasn't moved to like a newer shop management system, it's usually they're on QuickBooks, so they're writing and invoices, they're keeping the history, but it's all in a non automotive tool, which.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Is great. It's helpful because you're gonna use QuickBooks to pay your bills and do all the things anyway. However, it doesn't give you the additional functionality like hooking up to your parts vendors or looking at automotive specific reporting or KPIs. There's a ton of items that you can then check off once you move to an automotive specific software.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So. You know, that's something that folks will wanna consider if they're not on an automotive specific software. For sure.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. And Jonathan's got a question, or John has a question for you. Monique question in general, is Ware making it so technicians are on a tablet or something like that, getting all their information?
Jimmy Lea: Or will you flag sheets and information? And technicians are still providing it separately?
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yeah, so this is a great question. All shops do things a bit different. So some like to print the piece of paper still, and some folks like to get their technicians on something mobile, like a tablet, so they can go through and do checkoff right from the tablet.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: However, we do both so we can accommodate both the. Where you gain and where you benefit is when you actually get them on the tablet because you can't track. Anything that happens on a piece of paper. Meanwhile, when they're on the tablet, we can track everything, how long it takes them to do things when they're marking it complete.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: They can take pictures, videos, all of the different items that you can't do with that piece of paper. So it is beneficial to get them on a tablet or a phone anything mobile. But yes, we can, and we can do all of the reporting on the backside of that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. John. I hope that helps you.
Jimmy Lea: Brandon, what do you guys do in your shop with your technicians? What do you have them on? So, we
Brandon Ballou: supply tablets. They're in the corner of the shop collecting a bowl, load of dust. 'cause all the technicians would rather just use their own cell phone. We have something we supply, but it's small fits in their pocket, does their job, and they'd much rather just carry that around.
Brandon Ballou: And then they have a Chromebook at their toolbox to, you know, follow the work order and write their stories and stuff. But yeah, for the DVI, they use their own cell phones.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, nice. Very nice. Yeah. Quick, simple, easy. It's got a flashlight. It's got a camera. Yeah I get it. I get it.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: And it reaches in.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: The hard to reach spots better than a tablet would because a tablet's bigger. The cell phone camera's be better, so there's a million reasons why they'd wanna use their cell phone.
Brandon Ballou: And I will say as like personal preference for the tech app and everything with shop, where using a cell phone is easier.
Brandon Ballou: The tech app was more designed to be used on a phone. It's designed to be able to use one hand versus if you have a tablet, I don't know anyone who's thumb is this long to be able to reach side to side of the screen on a tablet. But on the phone you could do a whole DVI with one hand with the way the tech app's designed.
Jimmy Lea: Oh wow. Monique, there's some good feedback. How about that?
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yeah, we we took a lot of time designing it, pushing it out, listening to feedback after and making changes to, to make it better and improve it. So,
Jimmy Lea: absolutely. Thank
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: you, Brandon.
Jimmy Lea: Well, speaking of DVI is one of my favorites, but let's talk about technology, Brandon, as you continue to introduce technology into your shop, what are some of those technologies that you look at and can say Every shop.
Jimmy Lea: Must have this technology,
Brandon Ballou: A digital inspection. That should be the standard now. I mean, it works great for, you know, all of us shops that are doing and other shops aren't. But it shouldn't be something a elite level shop is doing. It should be the standard builds trust. It shows the customer exactly what's wrong.
Brandon Ballou: I think it should be the new industry norm, you know? Most places, if you go and have any sort of testing done, you go to the doctor or anything, they're gonna give you a paper or something with the results, or you know, you go get an x-ray they show you the x-ray. They don't just tell you your leg ISS broken.
Brandon Ballou: It's the same thing with us. Let's show the customer what's wrong with the car. Let's inform them so they understand how the car works and why everything's needed instead of just, you know, the old way you come in. Just tell people what's wrong and how much, like help build the value of the DBI.
Jimmy Lea: I agree.
Jimmy Lea: The DVI is so important. It, it can show a client, a customer. It helps to educate the customer when they're educated. They make much better decisions. They can see what's worn, torn freight or broken. Especially when you circle it or put arrows at it. 'cause if you're saying, Hey, look at this ball joint, they have no clue what a ball joint is.
Jimmy Lea: You circle it, put an arrow at it. See that broken.
Brandon Ballou: Oh, okay. And I know most shops are doing it now, but if you're not, yeah. You gotta get on board or you might get left behind it. It was a game changer. We knew our first week we had a, she was a little sweet, old lady, came in for first time, you know, week of us using a DVI and we did our health report and she didn't have a smart smartphone or anything and so we sent it to her.
Brandon Ballou: She couldn't see it and she needed tires. Told us she needed tires and started flipping out on me. I don't need tires. I just got a state inspection last week. Like the cords were sticking out of the inside of the tires, but the alignment was off. So the outside of the tire looked fine. Her daughter's a customer at the shop.
Brandon Ballou: So I said, can I text this report to your daughter so she can see what we're talking about? 'cause I promise you need times. And then she called back. So apologetically like, I am so sorry. How did I get a state inspection? How could someone let this happen? And it just, it builds value.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Those pictures.
Jimmy Lea: It sells it every time. The video sells it every time. Anytime a technician has a marking at red that it needs attention, include a picture. It's sold. Every time.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yes. I look at this from a different perspective because I don't actually work in a shop. I've never worked in a shop. I've worked with shops for a lot of years, but I don't work in a shop.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So I am the car owner who takes my vehicle to a shop. And I agree with you, Brandon, that an inspection should absolutely be done on every vehicle because it is you are. Car doctors, and to your point, when you go to the doctor, you know, they give you all of the information. And so I think the inspection in my perspective.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Is more of a list for the technician, which is great because you need to train them in what they should be doing and how they should be doing it. But what is very important for me is exactly what you both pointed out, which is the detail that makes me an informed buyer. So if I were the old lady as well and I on the outside, it looks great and I'm.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: You know, obviously not trained to look on the inside of the tire. Then yes, those pictures, the information helps me to make me feel confident that you, Brandon, or your shop or whomever I'm taking my vehicle to is not taking advantage of me. And that's really what we all ultimately wanna know is that someone's not taking advantage of us.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So if you can. Show the information that helps me to build the trust, but also understand that you are looking out for my best interest. Then I may not need those pictures later on, or I may be able to approve without. You know, a reaction that would be unfavorable for everyone involved in the situation.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So I think that it's just really about showing the information that helps me to understand, yes, I do need that. Right? I do need that, that he's suggesting. And so I should click the approve button and I should say yes.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Brandon, think about your DVI history, your DVI experience that you've got hundreds and hundreds and thousands of digital vehicle inspections that your shop has done.
Jimmy Lea: What is one that you would say this is. A story of victory for the DVI. This is a victory for taking pictures and showing a customer exactly what needs to be done, similar to the state inspection where the tires are bald. That's unfortunate, but it does happen. Educated customers make better decisions.
Jimmy Lea: You have any stories of A DVI that went extremely well?
Brandon Ballou: Ooh. I mean, I got a bunch of 'em, but the my, one of my favorite ones is it helps, you know, we've always followed the 300% rule. Every car comes in the shop, you know, hey, it gets a hundred percent inspected. Everything gets estimated and everything gets presented to the customer well, when it's a first time customer, especially coming to our shop, usually that first visit, there's a lot of estimates 'cause a lot of shops by us aren't fully maintaining and repairing cars to the standard that we do.
Brandon Ballou: And so the car would come in and then we'd have this laundry list of stuff that needs to be done or needs to be done soon. And then it'd be a fight to try and build trust with that customer. And so we had one come in and you know, they've been going down the street forever and all they do is change oil and had their oil changed every six months.
Brandon Ballou: And then they come in and they have this huge couple thousand dollars estimate that without. The health report to show the pictures and stuff no matter how much I would've tried to build a relationship with that customer, they had 10 years of relationship with this other shop, and I'm the new guy that they decided to come to.
Brandon Ballou: They've been going to him forever and never got an estimate over $500. And now they come to me and they have something for a couple thousand. Without the pictures and everything noted and proof of what's actually wrong I don't think I could have converted them to stay a customer of ours.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true dude.
Jimmy Lea: It's so true. I was with, I was I was on a phone call with a shop and we were talking about their digital vehicle inspections and we were just doing a little audit and one came through and the technician had recommended that they need to replace their battery. Cranking amps were supposed to be in the six sixties and it was coming up with cold cranking amps in the very low three hundreds.
Jimmy Lea: It still worked. But we were headed into winter and I said to the the owner, I said, you know, if you can get the technician to take a picture of that battery test, you know, you get the receipt on it. Take a picture of that battery test results, send it to the customer, that'll be sold. Oh, by the way, back up, they had already sent it to the customer and the customer declined it.
Jimmy Lea: They declined the battery. I said, take a picture of the receipt. Send it to the customer and tell them that they are not the one that wants to be that F first cold snap that comes through. That battery's going to not crank, it's gonna be dead. They sold the battery. It was like a hundred twenty five, a hundred thirty $5 because the pitchers tell pitchers sell.
Jimmy Lea: In those situations
Brandon Ballou: and it just, it helps, you know, bridge that gap. Unfortunately, our industry has, you know, a bad stigma to it, you know, all the crooked mechanic tries to rob everybody that comes in, which just isn't true. I believe less than 10% of our industries actually, you know, crooked or trying to take advantage of people, probably even less than that.
Brandon Ballou: And then, you know. The top 20% that are actually doing things right? It's the people in the middle, they're doing things right. They just don't have the tools or the training to be able to explain things to people properly. So someone comes in, they look at the car and go, yeah, it's 3000 needs, $3,000 worth of work without any explanation.
Brandon Ballou: And then everybody assumes they're trying to get taken advantage of. 'cause you have people that only know how to speak the language of car and they don't know how to talk to people. And so the health report helps bridge that gap.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, and I love that you call it a health report too. That's very cool.
Jimmy Lea: Monique,
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: I'm curious to know, Brandon, are you sharing this off and calling customers to explain as well? Or are you just building the stories, building the value and sharing it off for them to review on their own?
Brandon Ballou: Yeah, for our model, we send them the health report. We don't have, give them the option to approve or decline with the way we work.
Brandon Ballou: Because even though, you know, if I was a doctor and I just sent you test results and pictures, hey, I still don't think you have enough knowledge to decide what needs to be done on your card. No matter if I highlight it red or green or yellow, or put timestamps. So I send you everything so you can review it and kind of have an understand what you're looking at.
Brandon Ballou: Then you really need to get on the phone with someone who understands what's going on with the car, understands what you know your personal priorities are, and can help you make a game plan with what's gonna work best for you and your vehicle. And so that, that's the way we work it. We send it to 'em, we give 'em like 10, 15 minutes.
Brandon Ballou: Once it's open to review everything. We send them a text soon as they get the, as soon as we get the notification that they opened it, just saying, Hey, seen you open this. We'll give you 10, 15 minutes to review it and then I'll call you and we'll go over anything with any questions. And then we go over everything.
Brandon Ballou: And especially because people are so, you know, dollars focused, they don't understand what's wrong with the car. They understand how much they're gonna have to take out of their bank account. So for us at least, and I know there's other shops that send it with the price and they might work for their model, but for us, I, if I send you an estimate for $4,000, the pain of how much, the $4,000 is gonna hurt you way more than what you don't understand or really know what's wrong.
Brandon Ballou: And so that's why we ex like to explain everything before we talk about, you know, just letting the customer approve.
Jimmy Lea: Well, and to your point, Brandon if you send me an invoice and it says $4,000, with that conversation, now we can decide you know what I don't have $4,000 today, but what do I need to do today?
Jimmy Lea: What can I do next month? What can I do the month after? Are there things that we can progressively fix on the car that still keeps us safe on the road? And allows us to to restore the vehicle back to its operating.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah, absolutely. And the reason we change, and we used to use it this way 'cause it was so easy and save the advisor time, but you know, there's the reason the advisor has a job and has the value up front.
Brandon Ballou: I'd have people to where I send 'em an estimate of 10 things, ball joints, brakes and tires, but the radio doesn't work. Everything else would be declined. But fixing the radio's approved, then it's like, okay, well we need to have a conversation so they understand like, you know, hey, the car. Needs the safety stuff more than it needs the radio to work.
Brandon Ballou: And the one they explain that it's, they understand
Jimmy Lea: You're reminding me of this problems how long you heard that. Well, since I rolled down the windows, since I turned off the radio, since I blew the speakers on my radio they don't hear these problems because the radio is playing so loud.
Jimmy Lea: So of course if I fix the radio fixes everything else, then I won't hear it anymore.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Alright, so two, two the shop efficiencies proficient more effective. Your DVI is part of that. Brandon, what, how do you use your shop management system to be more efficient with the clients with estimates, with work orders, invoices what do you do?
Brandon Ballou: So the way shop work can track productivity and efficiency is created, it gives you all the KPIs and everything you need. Just like you know, the customer can't really make a decision without, you know, a health report to help paint a picture and everything. Everything you can track in shop wear helps paint a picture for you as the owner to see how your business is performing.
Brandon Ballou: Like the technicians punch on each job for how long they're working, and then when they're punched in for the clock, if they're not punched on a job. It'll reflect their productivity percentage and then their efficiency percentage. And then overall shop work calls it your utilization, but your proficiency for how much your technician's producing in hours compared to how much they're in the shop.
Brandon Ballou: And you can see, you know, efficiency. You can see, okay, this tech's getting, you know, hour jobs done in a half hour or four hour jobs done in two hours. So he is super efficient, 200%, but he is only getting four hours done in a day. So he is not very productive. He's only 50% productive. Where's the issue? Is it management?
Brandon Ballou: Is it workflow? Is it the techs? You know, just not grabbing new work. So it helps you identify where the issues are in your shop.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. And do you, when you get this kind of information that he's 200% effective but only producing four hours a day, do you now know I've gotta throw more cars at him.
Jimmy Lea: I've gotta give him more work to do. Yeah,
Brandon Ballou: well that's the hard part. You gotta see, okay, is it that the technician doesn't have enough work? Is it that he's punching on accurately? And you know, he's really not 200% efficient and he is just clicking it when he is done. So that's where you gotta, you know, do the deep dive and make sure everything's being tracked properly.
Brandon Ballou: But it could be, yeah, he might not be getting enough cars. It might be that, you know, he's stuck around waiting for parts and stuff, so he's constantly punching off, just waiting. There's a parking lot full of cars, but he's stuck waiting or constantly pushing a car in and pulling another car out and there's no structured workflow.
Brandon Ballou: So that was something I know Daniel's watching Daniel. I reached out to him with some workflow and productivity issues a while ago, and he was a huge help with his process, so Nice. Great at tracking it. Yeah. So
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Where do you go first? Do you go to your service advisors to start posing questions about the workflow and how things are being done?
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Or do you go to your marketing company and start to look at, obviously, what's being brought in and if they have enough work?
Brandon Ballou: For, I look right at the calendar, first off, to make sure there's the right amount of cars scheduled today. Advisors, if you run in a trend where you're only 75% proficient advisors are typically gonna only start to schedule enough work to keep your technicians at 75% proficient.
Brandon Ballou: 'cause they don't wanna break a promise to a customer. My technicians can only produce, you know, six hours a day. I'm not gonna schedule more than that. Well then you'll never. Get better than that if that's all you're scheduling. Yeah. And so that's where making sure your advisors are scheduling what your technicians are capable of, not if they're having a rough day or week, like you need to make sure they're holding the shop to its standard.
Brandon Ballou: And then management needs to hold the technicians to the standard of what they're capable of. Oh, great. So
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: if the calendar lines up, then you go marketing.
Brandon Ballou: Yep. So if the calendar does line up and there's cars there, then I know the marketing's work. 'cause the, you know, the cars are there and they're scheduled.
Brandon Ballou: So then I'm go down and I dive into the workflow issue. Okay, where's the problem in workflow? The cars are here, they're just not getting done every day, is it? The technicians are standing around? Is it, we're not. Doing things in a structured manner to get, you know, the most work done in a day. Is it that the advisors aren't pre-ordering parts and the technicians are, you know, stuck waiting for parts?
Brandon Ballou: And that's where you find the specific issues that are causing it. And I wish it was super easy, but it's never usually just one problem. It's a mix of everything I just said.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Well, what if a technician forgets to clock off of a job? Can you go in the backside? Can you go in and adjust it?
Brandon Ballou: So they'll, if they forget to, you can't go in the backside and adjust it.
Brandon Ballou: They can't just exit an RO without completing the job. So it'll always say complete. And then I know about where my technicians run. So if I see one day or one week where you know their efficiencies 260%, then I know, you know, he messed something up. And then I go talk to 'em and say, how long do you think you were on this?
Brandon Ballou: Just so we can try and keep things accurate. Nice. Because you can't manage what you don't measure. So I try and track as much as possible in the shop so I can see what we do good, what we do bad, what we can improve on. Do
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: you ever get pushback from master Techs or any of your techs wanting to clock in and out of services?
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: I hear from a lot of people that they don't. Require every one of their technicians to clock into services. And I agree with you, Brandon. I think it's a data point that you can bring so many things back to. And so when I hear people aren't making their text clock in, even if they're not the bonus structure or anything's tied to it, I don't think that matters.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: I think just the data point itself is very valuable. So do you ever get any pushback and how did you get everyone to kind of. You know, buy into clocking in and out
Brandon Ballou: by, and the way I got in, not that we got pushback, but it was more just laziness. Technicians just, oh, I forgot. Oh, I forgot. But they really understood the value when it came down to, I don't know where.
Brandon Ballou: Our production issues are 'cause we're not tracking. If you can punch on consistently, I'll know exactly what our problem is. If it's not like you need training or tooling, or we don't have the equipment and it's taking you too long to get the car fixed, or if it's a production issue, cars are, you know.
Brandon Ballou: That we don't have parts ordered and stuff like that. So seeing that difference between, you know, your productivity and your efficiency is where you help identify the problem. You don't need to, but if you don't, then you just see, you know, the overall proficiency. You say, okay, the tech was here for 40 hours this week and he only produced 20.
Brandon Ballou: It, was it 'cause it took 'em 40 hours to produce those 20 hours? Or was he standing around for 20 hours? That's where those metrics come in really handy.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So it sounds like just communication, you just communicated the end goal and what you're wanting to do with the information, which didn't negatively affect them in any way.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So they're like, great, yes, I'll clock in. Absolutely.
Brandon Ballou: And they completely understood When it's, we have a problem, I can't identify what it is, and if I can identify and fix that problem, you're gonna make more money. The shop's gonna run better. And once everyone understood that, everyone got on board and was like, oh wait, if we fix this, we can make more.
Brandon Ballou: Then you know that now they're invested instead of just going do this because I told you to that they'll never see the value.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: And do you ever tie it back like, Hey guys, great. All of you clocked in a hundred percent of the time this week, and as a result we did 5% more because I found X issue. Or do you not really.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: You just communicated initially.
Brandon Ballou: Nope. I always, I love giving out high fives and letting the team know we're doing a good job. So I, I have no problem telling 'em, you know, when we mess something up. So I gotta make sure I do a good job and I give 'em high fives when we do stuff. That's good. And then fortunately, been giving out a lot more high fives than saying, Hey, we missed this or missed that.
Brandon Ballou: And I think it's because of stuff like that.
Jimmy Lea: That's solid. That's solid. Brandon, congratulations, man. That's very cool. And if you guys, if those who are listening, if you have some questions, go ahead and type them into the comments button, the comment field so we can ask, answer your questions.
Jimmy Lea: Monique I'm circling around here for you and a question about, I heard that shop has some new technology that it's releasing. Now that it's available, is it available now or is this to be determined soon?
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yeah, so we just released financing, consumer financing with 360 payments. So if you're a customer or not a customer, but wanna find out more, it is brand new.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Hot off the press is, we beta tested it for a while. Were you, have you signed up Brenda for consumer financing? Are you a 360 customer?
Brandon Ballou: Yes, we're a 360 customer. I have the email. I've just been running around, so I haven't filled it out yet.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, it's great because a lot of the initial feedback that we've heard really kind of actually doesn't talk about the things and highlight the things that I thought initially it would, which is the kicking up the a RO number.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: It's more about not having to have the awkward conversation when you share off that repair order. So it's not as awkward for the shop 'cause they've had it a few times, but it's more awkward for the person to. That does not have the funds to pay for their repair order. So instead of having to go up to the service advisor and have that awkward conversation, they've been just getting a lot more people who initially you know, click on the financing option without anybody having to bring it up, which I didn't even think about.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: And that's great. So obviously you're gonna kick up the AR a RO, but then you really make it a lot. More convenient for the customer, the car owner to, to confidently click on the financing option and be able to choose who they wanna get financed through. So I love that. But yes, it's available. There is information that if anyone needs it, you can put your information in the chat here and I will happily reach out.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: But that is very exciting for us. Awesome.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that's very cool. Yes. That's very cool. John is asking a question when you're using the digital inspections, are you estimating every single item on there, Brandon? Are you making a priority list or something that a customer knows? What is most important that then something else to do?
Jimmy Lea: Just seems like someone taking care of massive oil leak is going to be most important rather than the shocks. If someone's needing to get the most they can on a budget, but there's no way of showing that. It's won't seem as important, and I think a part of that comes with the conversation you have, Brandon.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah, so the following, the 300% rule is something that should go a hundred percent across the industry, and that's, you know, everything on that health report needs to be inspected, a picture taken, annotated. 'cause a customer shouldn't be making a decision on their car without knowing everything. Going on with it.
Brandon Ballou: So everything needs to be inspected, everything needs to be estimated, and everything needs to be presented to the customer so they know exactly how many dollars they need to fix everything on their car, whether it's due today or due a year from now. We even write up stuff that's perfectly fine, but it's coming.
Brandon Ballou: Breaks that are at four millimeters they're gonna need to be done, you know, in the next six months we're gonna write that estimate so the customer knows what they might have to spend coming up in the future, and then they're prepared. As far as priority, yes. Anything you take, you can annotate with a picture, whether it's red for urgent yellow, you can put off green for, you know, it's okay right now, but you'll need at some point, and it just, it helps build that with the customer. Now, every shop's different. The way I use the colors it's red is it's just, it's, it needs replacement today. It's not doing what it's supposed to. The component isn't functioning as designed. Now, whether that's a minor oil leak or a ball joint, that's gonna fall out, they're both red.
Brandon Ballou: Yellow is something that's currently performing its job, but it's near the end of its useful life. You know, breaks that are at four millimeters and then things that are green are good. Now, then you can take those estimates in the health report and put 'em in an order of priority. So even though you know, the ball joint that's fallen out is way more urgent than the minor oil leak, and they're both red, you can put that at the top and that's the first thing they go through.
Brandon Ballou: And then the priority is top to bottom. That's how we do it. I know that's how a lot of shops you shop for. I believe that's how it was designed to be used, but you can customize it to whatever fits your shop.
Brandon Ballou: Yeah.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: There are a lot going, sorry. Sorry about that Jimmy. Go ahead.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I like prioritizing it so that the customers know this is, you have to do this today, this you can do tomorrow or next month.
Jimmy Lea: And this is definitely sometime in the very near future.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yeah, I was just gonna say, a lot of people in who use shop wear. Use it a little bit differently. So as Brandon mentioned, there's a way that was designed, but someone had asked about the different ways to separate or categorize. I have a shop that uses it to break down.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Maintenance items versus, you know, cosmetic versus repair, et cetera. So there's a lot of different ways to do things, but the way it was designed gives obviously the best result on then being able to track all of the different metrics that not only Brandon talked about, but there are some really.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Interesting data points that we can track because we do things a certain way, like duration of service, so how long it takes you to get cycle vehicles through your shop as a whole. So some of this information comes from then using it the way it was designed, as Brenda mentioned earlier. So I hope that answered your question.
Jimmy Lea: It, it did. It does. And a couple of features you've got coming out here right now, Monique, is online scheduling. That's correct. And CRM with shop where?
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: That's correct. So we pushed out online scheduling first we have a bunch of shops using it already. Great feedback. And we recently pushed out our own internal CRM.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So obviously as Brandon mentioned earlier, we have great partners who you can link up to and integrate with. But we also internally have a CRM that we've been working on and recently released.
Jimmy Lea: Beautiful. Beautiful. Love that. Congratulations. That's awesome. Technology keeps moving forward. Keeps moving forward.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: Yeah. I mean, you gotta innovate. You gotta provide more than what we provided in the past. Just like the shops here, you're providing more to your customers as well, and so we're trying to just do the same. I
Jimmy Lea: love it. I love it. So, Monique, you have a magic wand. What's one thing you want to change in the industry?
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: I would love to see more grace from one another. I feel like. A lot of times if shops don't do things the way that other shops do it, a lot of you put each other down because you're not doing it the way that everyone else is doing it. I think we can all just learn from each other, but you can still do things uniquely because we're all very unique and still arrive at the end point.
Monique Mondragon-Tafoya: So that I would love to see a lot more. That would be my magic wand item.
Jimmy Lea: Grace. I love that. That's very cool. Very cool. Pass the baton over to Brandon. Brandon, you've got the magic wand. What is one thing that you would like to change in the industry?
Brandon Ballou: Change, like any advisor, tech, pretty much everyone in the industry that's customer facing, or even technicians too, I guess, to having like an everybody needs to win type mentality when estimating the car, riding it up, you know, whatever it is.
Brandon Ballou: 'cause too many people focus, oh, that's too expensive. And then they cut the price and then it hurts their pay or the owner or you know, the technicians trying to get stuff out. Crank out works and just so they can get it done and maybe spare quality in some instances versus there's a sweet spot that we can, you know, if everybody operated at, you know, the shop can be profitable, the employees can be taken care of, and the customer can still get a good product.
Brandon Ballou: And I think thinking about trying to appease everyone involved when you're writing estimates, making management decisions or anything, I think that'd be a huge step in the right direction. Just getting everybody thinking, how can I make everyone succeeded?
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Thinking more of the conceptual, the team.
Jimmy Lea: How can we work as a team to make a team win?
Brandon Ballou: Yeah. 'cause there's so many people, especially in our industry that are either, you know, it's a race to the bottom to see who can, you know, do the job the cheapest and it's, you know, killing their employees 'cause they're underpaid or killing the level of service to the customer and they're leaving and having to come back or having another issues or just, if you can find that happy medium, whatever it is for your shop.
Brandon Ballou: To where your customers are happy, your employees are happy, and then you have a reason to be in business and you're not a, you know, the business doesn't own you, then yeah I think we'd see a huge turn in our industry.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I agree. I agree. I love that. That would be phenomenal, Brandon. I hope that the industry can do that and embrace it.
Jimmy Lea: And to you. Thank you very much for joining me for this conversation today. Thank you, Brandon. And to you. Monique, thank you for joining for this conversation. You guys are, thank you for having me. You guys are awesome. And to everybody still with us, right after we're done here, pull out your smartphones.
Jimmy Lea: There is going to be a QR code. If you're looking for a review of your business, where are you at? Where do you stand? How can you improve? Scan this QR code. Set up a time with one of my team members that we can sit down and look at your shop, look at your business, give you a piece of advice or two, not giving you the full pie because.
Jimmy Lea: That's why we have our coaches and our coaches definitely step in to help you as a shop owner or as an advisor to have the best experience with your clients and customers. You're gonna work on a lot of things from production, productivity, efficiency, in implementing technology, going from implementing the 300% rule, making sure everything is, has a digital inspection.
Jimmy Lea: There's so much that can be done. But get ready with your smartphone. Scan this QR code, meet up with one of my team members so we can talk about your shop and your business. Take it to the next level. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute. We're here to provide a better business, a better life.
Jimmy Lea: And a better industry. That's what we're working for. Look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you.

Wednesday Sep 10, 2025
142 - "Ask Me Anything" with Cecil & Lucas: Profit, Pricing & People
Wednesday Sep 10, 2025
Wednesday Sep 10, 2025
142 - "Ask Me Anything" with Cecil Bullard & Lucas Underwood: Profit, Pricing & People
September 3, 2025 - 00:54:39
Show Summary:
Lucas Underwood hosts an open AMA with industry veteran Cecil Bullard, digging into how macro “yellow flags” (rising delinquencies) typically boost repair demand, and why cash flow and reserves determine who survives slowdowns. They unpack practical pricing: when to use a parts matrix, target tire margins, and why some items belong outside the matrix. The duo stresses hospitality-driven experiences, disciplined shop-supplies billing, and charging properly for diesel and specialty work. They outline a hiring sequence for growth, the productivity pitfalls that kill profit, and a simple framework for net cash flow after taxes and distributions. Throughout, they challenge discount mindsets and make the case for sustainable, unapologetic profitability.
Host(s):
Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast
Guest(s):
Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute
Show Highlights:
[00:01:00] - Economic “yellow lights” often push savvy consumers to fix, not replace; repair demand typically rises in these cycles.
[00:02:41] - Cash is oxygen—without 3–6 months of operating reserves, a short dip can shutter a shop.
[00:05:27] - Use separate strategies for items like tires, batteries, wipers, and fluids; some don’t belong in the standard parts matrix.
[00:09:28] - Thoughtful hospitality (even small freebies) wins loyalty—fund it by protecting margins elsewhere.
[00:14:01] - Compete on experience and trust, not price; most customers aren’t comparison-shopping 15 quotes.
[00:17:40] - Target ~35–40% gross margin on tires and price installation to hit labor GP goals; kits (TPMS, weights) lift the job’s GP.
[00:23:28] - Shop supplies like brake cleaner, bolts, clamps, and zip ties are parts—track and bill them, don’t give them away.
[00:29:40] - Diesel and fleet uptime are high stakes; charge your standard matrix and prioritize speed and correctness.
[00:36:32] - Hiring order for growth: add tech → second tech → third tech + service advisor; long-term, 5–6 techs to 2 advisors runs smoothly.
[00:49:14] - Aim for ~20% net; expect ~⅓ taxes, ~⅓ reinvestment, ~⅓ distributions—build real cash flow, not vanity revenue.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Lucas Underwood: What is up everybody? My name is Lucas Underwood. I'm the owner of l and n Performance Automotive Repair, out here in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and I'm one of the hosts of the Changing the Industry podcast. And today I have with me the Almighty Cecil Bullard. Cecil, how you doing, buddy?
Cecil Bullard: I'm doing great buddy.
Cecil Bullard: I don't know about Almighty. Some days it's like almost mighty or something. I don't know.
Lucas Underwood: Maybe just almost right?
Cecil Bullard: Almost is probably better. I'm great, Lucas. I'm great.
Lucas Underwood: Very good. Thank you for being here. I'm gonna jump right into some questions. We have, uh, some great questions over here on the side. Got some folks.
Lucas Underwood: I know Craig's in here, lots of folks asking questions already, but one of the things that came up in the changing the industry podcast group, first thing this morning is I posted something about some credit card debt delinquencies and posted some stuff about commercial delinquencies Now. I should, I should admit there's a caveat to this because when you put this out over the max span, that they've collected these numbers and have the data for this, we can see that these numbers aren't too high.
Lucas Underwood: Right now they're about 1.5, five to 2%, somewhere in there. Back in 2008, they were in the seven and 8% range, so they're not that high, but we are starting to kind of see those go up. Now what I said in the group was, is typically this is a good thing for auto repair because you're really financially savvy consumers.
Lucas Underwood: The ones that our shops typically work for are watching these warning signs. They're not flashing red, they're flashing yellow, and they're saying, Hey. Maybe I better back up a little bit. Maybe I don't buy that brand new Denali. Maybe I fix the one that I have now. Cecil, what does this mean for auto repair?
Lucas Underwood: When we start seeing some of these yellow warning signs flash,
Cecil Bullard: I think in, in every instance so far, um, auto repair, uh, succeeds, uh, greatly. And I think that's why you see venture capital really taking a serious look after 2020, uh, in every, you know, uh, when the. Gas crisis hit, uh, people kept their cars and spent money on them.
Cecil Bullard: When, uh, uh, the housing crisis hit 2008, 2009, same thing, uh, Enron before that, uh, same thing. Uh, during COVID, uh, we were an essential service. And while the restaurants were losing money and closing down and, and all of the other services, the hotels, uh, automotive was, uh, hitting record, uh, record pace. I also would tell you from what I can tell, uh, um, our industry is actually shrinking a little bit, uh, which is the first time that you really kind of see that in a long time, and which means that there are going to be fewer shops out there.
Cecil Bullard: So I, I think this is good for us, but we need, we, we need to remember, I don't, I, I need cash. Cash, cash and cash flow are, are important. And so it, it's really important that I understand my business and how to generate that, those profits. If I don't have any cash in the bank and another trauma hits. Uh, where people tighten up for a month or two, I think.
Cecil Bullard: I think we're gonna see a lot of businesses, automotive businesses, close. For sure. 'cause they don't have cash and they're, and they're on the edge all the time. And,
Lucas Underwood: and, and I've, I've been there, right? Like I have absolutely been there and, and I see a lot of businesses when we talk to 'em about, Hey, you need at least six months of operating expenses in the bank.
Lucas Underwood: They say, that's unattainable. That's crazy. How could you ever do that? And, and you're exactly right though. And, and cashflow is king. Right. Because I see so many businesses, they go out and they finance all of this stuff and all of their cash flow is committed before they even get the first dime in the door.
Cecil Bullard: And then you have a, a really dangerous spot to be in. Yeah. And then you have a bad week or a bad month because of the, you know, the weather or the whatever, and all of a sudden you're behind a month with all of your vendors and everything. And it, yeah. That's a really tough place to be. So, um, be smart. Um.
Cecil Bullard: Profit, understand what you have to mark things up, understand you know what profit you need to make and, and hold the line and you'll be fine. And I would say, you know, let's have at least a minimum of three months worth operating capital in the bank. And the way to start that is start, if you can't put 500 bucks a, a week aside, put uh, 200, whatever.
Cecil Bullard: Can put 200. Put a hundred. Yeah. Just get a habit of writing yourself that check first. Right. Yes. And putting that in that account and that account is not, Cecil gets to go buy a new truck account or a boat or that account is that money doesn't get touched unless the world is on fire. Right.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood: And I, I learned something years ago. Um, I, I did shop supplies for a long time. I made an adjustment to that. But when I took those shop supplies, those shop supplies were a percentage of income, and I just took that money and that went into that account no matter what. And so that was. Started building that kind of nest egg, that that protection blanket there started putting some money back.
Lucas Underwood: Cecil, the first question I wanna talk about, um, is what parts should not be in a parts matrix and how do we charge for those parts? Now, for me, my tires, they're not in the standard matrix, right? They're in a different matrix, but my batterie. I'm typically doing 35% on those, uh, wiper blades. I'm typically doing like 50% fluids.
Lucas Underwood: I've got one for that around the 55%, somewhere in that range. The one that I see a lot of shops get caught up on is things that are multiples, so eight spark plugs or a pin of star where you've got 16 rocker arms and it might drive the, the price to that 70 or 80%. Range because they're inexpensive. Tell us how do we, how do we navigate this?
Lucas Underwood: Because there's some things that may not need to be in a matrix, right?
Cecil Bullard: Most of the shops, um, don't put tires in a matrix. So we're, while we're looking for a 58% margin on our parts
Lucas Underwood: mm-hmm. We're
Cecil Bullard: looking for a 35% margin to 40 on our tires. Okay. Overall. Okay. And there are ways to deal with that, that will increase your profits, that will make that a very gross profit per hour worthy job to do, but it's not necessarily parts margin.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. Or tire margin. Yeah, for sure. For sure. About. 25% of the shops you have, uh, you know, there's a, a book about, um, um, the Innovator's Dilemma and there's like four books in that particular series. And they talk about the, um, different types of people. Like, uh, you would be in the forward group, like you're gonna try things and you're gonna Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: You're gonna investigate and you're, but then there's an a backward group that basically doesn't wanna do anything until everybody else has done it and Right. And so there's always 15% of my clients that are in that forward group that are innovators, and they're going to, uh, constantly try new things.
Cecil Bullard: And, and I would tell you that a large. Percentage of those people right now are using batteries, charging out batteries, just like in the regular matrix. Okay. But the bulk, the majority of our clients, probably 80, 85%, they have batteries in a separate matrix where they're not making more than say 30, 35% like tires.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, it's like a, it would be like a tire matrix. And, and then, um, I, I would tell you wiper blades, I, I wouldn't do it myself. Never did. Okay. Um, but, but if you think, uh, you know, I used to. When I used to talk about this, I used to say, don't discount anything. Do not. Right. Yeah. And, and the, your thought of competition is a false thought, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yes. Agreed. Agreed. You're, you're thinking that someone's looking at the wiper blades and if they don't buy wiper blades from me 'cause I'm too expensive, then they're gonna say everything else is too expensive. And, and I would tell you that the majority of your clients. The majority, 98, 90 9% are buying from you because they feel comfortable because you're close.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. You know, for a bunch of other reasons. Okay. Absolutely. And, and, and nowadays when I talk to clients, I say, if you're gonna pick, say, 10 items that you're gonna lower margins on and have a different matrix you're gonna use, or a different margin, like maybe I'll say, Hey, I'm gonna make. 35% on wiper blades and then that's it.
Cecil Bullard: I won't make more. Yeah. Um, you, you need to counteract that in some areas. Like, uh, axles for me was one of those where I could buy at the time an axle for a buck eighty nine, a hundred eighty $9, and if I matrix price, it'd go out at four something. Um, right. But if I had to buy an axle from a dealership, it was $1,400, right?
Cecil Bullard: And so,
Lucas Underwood: correct.
Cecil Bullard: I didn't sell axles at 4 89. I sold them at 6 99 where I could make a little extra. Yeah. So if you have things that you're gonna not make money on or not as much, you need other things that make up the difference. So, well, so
Lucas Underwood: I, go ahead. I, I, I've got something I've gotta throw in here, right.
Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna let you go on, but No. Well, so here's the thing. Okay. I've been, I've been working in the family business, which is all about hospitality, and I realized something about my shop. That I had never taken into account before. Right. It's that we're really good at hospitality. Yeah. And, and listen, because my ticket's profitable, there are cases where I can afford to go and put those windshield wiper blades on for that guest.
Lucas Underwood: And when they come in the door and I can say, Hey Mrs. Smith, I noticed those windshield wipers were worn out and your safety's very important to me. I went ahead and replaced them for you. Right. And then I mark it off on the ticket and I can pay it and I can take the money outta my wallet if I have to and pay it.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, yeah. But, but the thing is, is, is I use these opportunities to build hospitality. Yes. Now, when we talk about batteries, something that a lot of shops are missing right now is there are vehicles that the battery has to be coded. The battery has to be programmed to the vehicle. The installation is complex.
Lucas Underwood: There's a high likelihood of issues. And so I'm, I'm making my matrix. When I'm looking at some of these things, I'm not putting in the matrix. I'm saying, what's the chance that I have high liability here? What's the chance that I need to make this extra money because I could run into issues. Now if I'm putting an engine in a car, I know I need to make the money because there's a high likelihood something goes wrong.
Lucas Underwood: I need the extra margin. If it's something simple, well, why did we always do that with batteries and tires? Because it was a low chance of something happening, right? There was a low chance of a major issue occurring. So my tires.
Cecil Bullard: But think about this. Think, think about this. If your guy forgets to torque the lug nuts and that they lose a tire and they get in an accident and somebody gets killed, you wanna talk about liability?
Cecil Bullard: I mean, absolutely. That's why poor people,
Lucas Underwood: your tires
Cecil Bullard: have the highest liability of almost anything you do. You know? Absolutely. You screw up an engine. And uh, yeah, you might be replacing that motor, but nobody's probably gonna die from it. Right? Yeah, you're exactly right. And so you have to, and then we have cars catching fire because yeah, their electoral systems are overcharging or.
Lucas Underwood: You know, I don't know if you ever did this as a shop owner, we have social media now, and so like on the weekends when I see a car that's on fire and it got posted on social media, I'm scrolling and I'm trying to find the tag number,
Cecil Bullard: make sure, make sure it's not one of your clients. I did that whenever the tow truck showed up, like I was like, I'm in the point of sale, just like putting that, that license plate in.
Cecil Bullard: So I'm like, yeah, we do that. Is that one of mine? Did, has that been in in the last four months? I mean, you know, I, I, I hate it. Absolutely. I'm, I'm with you. So. But yeah, you, if you're gonna lower your price on certain things, 'cause you feel you want to be competitive, that's fine. Just remember that you raise the price by 1% on everything else to make up the difference.
Cecil Bullard: Because at the end of the day, I want 20% net period. Amen. Amen. And also, if you're estimating the way that I would teach you, which would be adding 10% into the jobs that you can. So, yeah, obviously an oil change, it has a cost or a, you know, uh, a, a brake flush has a cost, and I can't add 10%, but if I'm doing a water pump, if I sell that for 800 or 880, it doesn't matter.
Cecil Bullard: The, the, the buyers or the buyers and the not buyers. And not buyers, and if I have that 80 extra, extra 80 bucks. I decide I want to put wiper blades on Mrs. Jones' car and say, Hey, that's no charge. I still made my margin. Mrs. Jones felt like she got a great thing, she got wiper blades. We're all happy. Right.
Cecil Bullard: Well, and which is what I wanna create.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. And the experience plays into that. The experience has to play into that. And in the, the, the book I'm talking about unreasonable hospitality, right? Mm-hmm. He, he owned 11 and Madison, right? And one of the things that he talked about is he said he was out there, the owner of this, you know, world class restaurant, recognized as the best restaurant in the world.
Lucas Underwood: He's busing tables. They don't know who he is. And he hears this, this group at this table across from him. And he said, they're talking about the fact that they'd eaten at all these amazing restaurants, but the one thing that they had not done is they had not gotten a New York City hotdog. And he said, until you've walked to a Michelin Star chef and a five star restaurant, and handed him two hot dogs from the street, hotdog cart outside the front door, and said, please prepare these and take them to that guest.
Lucas Underwood: You don't know what a butt chewing is. Yeah, but he said they didn't look at the bill. They didn't, and he said that's what made us world famous, is that when we went out there and handed those hot dogs, they got on social media and talked about how amazing that experience was. And so we're in the business of creating experiences in auto repair too.
Lucas Underwood: And I know it sounds crazy to a lot of people, but I didn't realize that's what I was doing. When I would give a set of wiper blades away, I was making it up in my margin elsewhere. Cale, I, I can see it in the face. Like I'm, I'm debating how bad the butt chewings gonna be in our next coaching call.
Lucas Underwood: You're giving what away?
Lucas Underwood: Actually,
Cecil Bullard: actually, no butt chewing. I, if the bottom line is right, who cares if I give away wiper blades? Amen. Or anything else, right? I mean, yeah. So. And, and I got, uh, so I'm, we're doing the marketing conference, the Mars Conference in the next couple days, and I'm speaking Yeah. And I gotta tell you, everything is about the customer experience.
Cecil Bullard: Yes. All right. It's not about the price, it's not what it costs for the majority of the population. They don't care what it costs. They don't know what it should cost. They don't really care. They're not absolutely calling 15 shops and comparing you. And if they are, they don't know what they're comparing.
Cecil Bullard: Right. Exactly. So it doesn't matter. Um, it's all about the experience. And if you really want to be successful in automotive service and repair, don't forget about the service part of it. Amen. Because that's what it's all about. It's really taking care of that client
Lucas Underwood: a hundred percent. Jumping onto the next question, and it's kind of along these lines, and it's something that I've had a ton of experience with here recently.
Lucas Underwood: I'm on the board of the Automotive Service and Tire Alliance. A lot of people know that used to be the Independent Garage owners of North Carolina. We Mer, or we merged with the North Carolina Tire Dealers Association to make the Automotive Service Tire Alliance, and all of a sudden I'm sat in a room with the most successful tire shops.
Lucas Underwood: In my opinion in the country, right? Some of the most brilliant tire shop owners you could ever meet. And I'm sitting in this room with them and they're sharing with me their strategies. And all of a sudden I'm saying, you know, for years I said, tires don't make any money. And now I'm sitting in this room with these guys who are making way more money than I am with tires.
Lucas Underwood: Cecil, what should the, what should the margin and installation be on tires? How do we calculate this? I, I think margin
Cecil Bullard: wise, um, I was always looking for 40%. So, uh. I worked with, um, I've worked with many of the big tire guys. I, I mean, I worked with Goodyear for a while. I worked with guys big o tire stores, you know, just, um, uh, Bridgestone, Firestone, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: Right? And I, a guy had three big O stores here, and their tire margins were about 21%. I came in and I said, well, we're gonna get 40. And he was like, there's no way we're ever gonna get 40% on tires. And I'm like, yes, we are. And within six months, we were at 38. Now it, it's, it, it, it, it, I would like the goal to be 40.
Cecil Bullard: If we're at 35 or higher, I'm okay. We're fine. Okay. For tires. Alright. And then, um, there's other things I can do to improve my margin in the tire job, which is selling like A-T-P-M-S repair kit, uh, which is the O-rings for the TPMS and the, and the wheel weights as a kit. Also you were talking about like, uh, selling, I don't know, 12 spark plugs or, or yeah.
Cecil Bullard: You know, six spark plugs or whatever. I can create a kit out of that and sell that as a kit as opposed to individual. I can still get good margin, but it doesn't look like I'm charging you $45 or $54 per spark plug. Right. Yeah, that's a really good idea. And so creating kits, uh, around those things where I'm gonna put in like 12 injectors or, you know, whatever, those will help you look better and maintain margin, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And absolutely. And so that would be that as, and so how much to put on. I'm gonna have a technician who's going to spend, um, a tech, not really a tech, 'cause we don't tire tech or whatever. Gonna spend a half an hour probably. So I have to, I have to think about that half an hour cost for that guy, mark that cost up so that I can make my.
Cecil Bullard: You know, 62% on labor gross profit. And then that's what I wanna sell a set of tires for, um, you know, the, the installation part. So I'm gonna have the installation. Uh, I, I think today I'd be 20, 25 bucks a tire. I don't think it'd be less than that period. Yeah. I,
Lucas Underwood: I think I'm more than that. I think I'm 32 right now.
Lucas Underwood: And yeah. And you know, one of the things that we talk about a lot. Because it's the automotive industry, we tend to come back to hours, right? And we talk about hours a lot and how long it takes somebody. You know, one of the things I think is important to share is that within reason. It's not really that important how long it takes 'em, we don't care necessarily how long it takes.
Lucas Underwood: We just wanna make sure we're paid for their time and they're paid for their time.
Cecil Bullard: Right. Yeah. But, but, but kind of we do, because the biggest problem we have in the automotive industry that's killing profit is, uh, labor productivity. It's, it's not necessarily pricing or parts pricing. It's productive.
Cecil Bullard: It's lack of
Lucas Underwood: productivity. You're absolutely right. But, but here's my point with it is if you're, if you're tracking it properly. Because what was it Jimmy always said you can't manage what you don't measure. Yeah. And so if you're not tracking it and you're not managing it, and you're not saying, Hey, like I don't really care how long it takes you to do this job.
Lucas Underwood: Here's book. You've got this kind of margin over top of book. But if you're gonna go over this, we have to have a discussion so I can bill appropriately to make this work. Well, and you have to
Cecil Bullard: understand when you're gonna go over and you have to know how to deal with that and the times that you are gonna go over.
Cecil Bullard: And you also have to expect that every once in a while you're gonna go over. Right. Yeah. And that's just part of the job. I mean, uh, I was at a shop the other day and, and the owner was like, oh my God, we got this car in here. It's been kicking our ass. We did this, we did this, and we did that. And yeah, and I'm like.
Cecil Bullard: Welcome to Automotive Service and Repair. You know, every once in a while you're gonna have a car that kicks your ass. And same thing with that's it, busting tires. Every once in a while you're gonna have something to fight you and it it might take you longer. It it, and as a manager, I, I don't care if you do that every once in a while.
Cecil Bullard: I just care if you do it all the time. Absolutely
Lucas Underwood: right. I, I don't even care if they do it from time to time as long as they're communicating with me. Yeah. Right. One of my biggest issues is, and, and I've shared this with you as, as my coach, I've got a diagnostician and he gets so wound up in the problem that he doesn't stop and come back to me and say, Hey, dude, I've done this, this, and this.
Lucas Underwood: Here's the next test I need to do. It takes me this long. Yeah. And by the way, if it's so end up three hours in, I dunno.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. If it's his car and he wants to spend his time working on his car for free, that's great. But if it's my customer's car and we're gonna take more than the allotted hour and a half, um, then I want to know and have the opportunity as the owner or the manager to go, either I'm gonna give it away or I'm gonna charge for it.
Cecil Bullard: Absolutely. Absolutely a hundred percent. And I know owners all the time, they're like, oh, I'll make it up on the end. No, you don't. Yeah, mostly you don't. Right? Yeah. So it's better if we have good communication. We need to build those communication things into our process so that when the guy gets something that kicks his ass, uh, my son, my oldest boy sent me a, a, a meme and it's a guy with a, a, a big ratchet and he's like trying to get this bolt.
Cecil Bullard: And all of a sudden you hear Snap. And the ratchet's kind of free, and you see his whole face changes. And, uh, my son thought that was funny, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really funny. I've been there. Now you're gonna have to, now you're gonna have to drill that out. You're gonna have to probably rethread it, blah, blah, blah.
Cecil Bullard: That's when that guy needs to go to the service manager, service advisor and go, Hey, we need more time. Because this car that I'm working on, that thing happened and yeah, not my fault. Right? Or my fault.
Lucas Underwood: Right? Yeah. And I shouldn't pay for it percent, a hundred percent. I didn't build it, buy it or break it.
Lucas Underwood: So it's kinda like, you know, I didn't even get to drive it. I didn't have the fun of driving it, so why am I paying for it? So let's jump into shop supplies. And sublet, because that's another question in here is, is how should we approach, uh, shop supplies and sublet charges and, you know, shop supplies. I said I'd do something a little bit different now.
Lucas Underwood: Right. And what I did with mine is I increased my labor rate. For that same percentage, just so I don't have to have the discussion about it every ticket. And so I took that off the ticket. And then I just remember that that's in my labor rate. So when I go up and when I do my labor calculations, I know that percentage is not truly for that.
Lucas Underwood: That's another percentage that should be somewhere else in my financial data. I just know it's there.
Cecil Bullard: But also, but also, think about this, if I went up, say $40 an hour, and I was charging say, 6% of my labor rate as a shop supply. I have to move my labor rate up another $2 and 40 cents to keep that or my shop supply part of that at the same percentage, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yep. Absolutely. And I do, so I,
Lucas Underwood: I calculate it just like that.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And, and those guys don't want you to yell at me. Most guys, most guys probably don't, but, but that's what I need to do. Now, if you are charging soft supplies, you have to also understand this, and this makes me crazier than all. Stuff. I had a guy in the office yesterday, one of my clients, and we're talking and he's like, yeah, I bought, I said, why was my parts margin so bad?
Cecil Bullard: Oh, we bought the 2 55 gallon drums of brake cleaner. Great. How much brake cleaner did we charge out last month? Oh, um, I don't know. None. I. Didn't charge, it's a shop supply. And I'm like, no, it isn't 55 gallons. It's, you know, whatever it is. A a 1,012 ounce cans. Right? And every time I do a brake job, I'm charging for a can of brake cleaner, even though it only costs me a buck 27 in a 55 gallon drum, I'm charging 13, $14 for a can of brake cleaner.
Cecil Bullard: It's one of my higher margin items. And I want to know that if I had a 55 gallon drum that I have the commensurate. Brake cleaner cans being sold. Okay. Right, and, and so what is a shop supply? Shop supplies are cleaners for the floors. Yeah. Um, shop supplies are gloves, hearing protection, eye protection.
Cecil Bullard: Shop supplies are rags. Okay. And, uh, potentially fees to have your rags kept clean and et cetera. Uh, bolts, nuts, washers, uh, brake cleaner. Uh, tie wraps, those are not shop supplies. Those are parts. And those are higher margin parts because they're inexpensive and can be marked up higher. And if you're giving those away, even if you're charging 4% on shop for your shop supplies, you're not making that up.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. So what what got me was we spent $3,900 on, now this guy made about 6,000 on $130,000, which is not good enough. Right in in net. Yeah. And he sold, uh uh. He sold, he bought, he sold $3,600 worth of shop supplies and he bought $3,900 worth of shop supplies.
Lucas Underwood: Okay. Oof.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And so, you know, obviously that's a, oh my gosh, what are we doing?
Cecil Bullard: And then you find out that he's giving away things like break brake cleaner and you know, and they use brake cleaner. Like it's, I don't know, like I take showers. Yeah. Uh, I mow the yard, I take a shower. I, I, I You think they're cranking it? I walk. Yeah. They might be. You never know. I'm just asking for a friend, you
Lucas Underwood: know, it's not like I go for 25 cases a week.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. But, but are we charging for parts the way we should charge for parts? And are we charging for shop supplies the way we should, should charge for shop supplies? And yes, we should have a shop supply charge, whether it's a four to 8% of our labor rate charge or whether it's a, I charge shop supplies at four to 8% on as a, as a line item in my billing, and then I'm not.
Cecil Bullard: I'm not giving away my bolts and my washers and my correct, um, tie wraps and my um, uh, clamp hose clamps.
Lucas Underwood: When you start charging for it, you realize how much you were leaving on the table. And it's not just about money. It can be thousands, a, a month, I mean for sure. Yeah. Well, and I mean, like when that happens though, let's think about what happens when we do that.
Lucas Underwood: When we give that away, not only are we giving money away. But we're also messing up our entire inventory. And so now if we have a parts guy, if we have a service advisor, it's very difficult. How many times have we stopped the production of a job? 'cause we didn't have one bolt, right? Yeah. Now I've got bolt bins out here, and if I'm watching that number go down and I'm saying, Hey, I'm gonna need this bolt.
Lucas Underwood: If my part guy puts it on the ticket, he says, oh my God, I've only got two of those left. I better order some. Yeah. And so when we talk about efficiency in the shop, this is stuff that plays into efficiency in the shop. And look, I mean, even if they don't wanna charge for it, fine, whatever, but you need to track it so you can at least have them when you need 'em.
Lucas Underwood: That can do, we need them,
Cecil Bullard: that can hold up a $10,000 job for two days. Yeah. While I try to order a special bolt that I should have had that I don't have because I've been giving them away and not keeping track.
Lucas Underwood: And let me tell you folks, when, when you've got a coach like Cecil Bullard and you realize that that job didn't close last month because of.
Lucas Underwood: 41 cent bold and nobody in town had one. But you usually keep one on the shelf and you've got to explain that to Cecil Bullard. You'll quit doing it, I promise. Okay. I'm just gonna tell you right now,
Cecil Bullard: if every shop owner were like, oh, I have to spend a an hour with Cecil once every two weeks, they would be like, oh, I'm gonna do these things better because then I don't have to have those conversations.
Cecil Bullard: That's exactly
Lucas Underwood: right. I don't want to have that. Discussion again. Um, so er, auto, diesel and tire. Ask, what about diesel parts? Now look, I'm, I'm gonna get on my soapbox, Cecil, because when I started this, I was a diesel performance shop. Yeah. All I did was work on diesel trucks and I thought that I had to match what everybody was selling the parts for online.
Lucas Underwood: And you know what I do now? I charge the same price that I charge for everything else. I don't make those adjustments. And it's because, so what if you, that's what takes to fix the truck.
Cecil Bullard: What if you really charge what you should charge? Okay, so I use my same matrix, uh, my diesel matrix. I have a diesel matrix.
Cecil Bullard: It's not much different, frankly.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Um, what if I used my same matrix and I charged what I needed to charge and let's say 20% of those clients said no. Too expensive for me. I can get the parts cheap and, and so this is the, I, I mean, I can remember as a 25-year-old service advisor. Um, arguing with a client over whether or not they could bring their shitty alternator in their rebuilt alternator, or I was gonna replace the alternator.
Cecil Bullard: And I can remember having that very same client tell me, if it's no good and it doesn't work, I won't be mad at you, so I won't hold you accountable. And even having them sign something that said, if we have to replace it, you're gonna pay for it. Right? And every one of those SOPs. Um, treated me poorly, treated me like I, I was the one that bought a, a shitty part, et cetera.
Cecil Bullard: This is not new. Okay. Yeah. We've been dealing with this since automotive started. Yep. I mean, since cars had wheels, uh, uh, we've been dealing with this and there's always gonna be somebody that will do it cheaper. I'm not, yeah. I, I'm not building my business on Oh, and. It just drives me nuts. You'll, you'll, I'll go do talk in a diesel place and I'll talk about parts margin.
Cecil Bullard: They're like, oh, diesel, you can't, sure you can. I have clients that do it. Diesel shops. I do it all day long That are charging what they charge. Yeah. All day long in getting what they get. Now there are some things like, um, uh, suspension kits. I have shops that do that and Yeah, and they can get it on cheap online, and they'll let a client bring the suspension kit in because they just can't even come close to.
Cecil Bullard: Competing price wise, I, I see. I
Lucas Underwood: quit doing that work. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't, I just, by doing it, it's too much headache. It's too much frustration. And, and when we start looking at the shop, right, you've really taught me to look at the shop in a box and say, here, here's like, Lucas, you only have this much time during the day.
Lucas Underwood: And if, if you're gonna be efficient a hundred percent of this time, here's what it takes. Here's what it should be, and why would it fill my
Cecil Bullard: time with something at 3% margin as opposed to at something at 20% margin,
Lucas Underwood: it turns into a mess and turns into hurt feelings. I'll, I'll never forget. I had to go get an LT two 60 here in North Carolina.
Lucas Underwood: It was somebody had abandoned their car here and I was sitting in the magistrate's office as the person in front of me goes up. And it's an argument between a professional provider and a consumer. And he said, but sir, if you look right here, they signed a waiver that said, and that magistrate said, according to federal and state law, you cannot waive a professional responsibility.
Lucas Underwood: I'm sorry, but that waiver is no good in this court.
Cecil Bullard: And you use in every single court case. Absolutely. You are the professional whether you like it or not. Exactly. And you cannot sign your rights away. I don't care what the. You, you know why? Like I, I went in and had brain surgery, and what did they have me sign?
Cecil Bullard: If they screw this up, I'm not, they're not liable. I won't sue the hospital. I won't do this. I won't sue the doctor. Blah, blah, blah. You know what that is? That's all smoke and mirrors, because that's a, that's a, please
Lucas Underwood: don't sue us.
Cecil Bullard: Yes. And, and because they know that a certain percentage of the population will say, well, I signed that, so I can't sue.
Cecil Bullard: Right? Yeah. You cannot sign your rights away. Exactly. You cannot. A hundred percent, hundred percent. Well, so stop. Go ahead. What's the value? What, what is the value of your time and your person's time? And, and stop saying, well, somebody else is giving their time away, so I have to give mine away.
Lucas Underwood: So here's my perspective on the diesel truck thing, okay?
Lucas Underwood: Um, are there consumers who want the cheapest price? And there are people who can't afford a diesel truck. A diesel truck is the most expensive automobile on the road to maintain, maybe aside from a, just a handful of very expensive European cars, right? Diesel trucks are the most expensive to maintain.
Lucas Underwood: You don't buy a diesel truck to play, okay? I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings. That sucker is meant to work, and if it's not out there making money. Then I don't know why you got it. Yeah. And if it is out there making money, you know that you need to pay me to fix it correctly and quickly so it doesn't go back down again.
Lucas Underwood: Okay. Because it's a question, think about what
Cecil Bullard: it costs, think about what it costs when it's not on the road. Exactly. It's costing five, $600 an hour to that guy. Absolutely. And then I'll never tell me that you wanna argue. Would
Lucas Underwood: it cost to fix the dang thing? Absolutely. And the, those are the good clients who don't argue about it, say, fix it, get it on the road quickly.
Lucas Underwood: I've got a fleet who is HBAC, right? Really great fleet, and they bought a ton of Sprinter vans. These things kept going into a D rate where they would lock themselves out, they would run 'em low on death fluid, or they would have an emissions failure and it would lock out and it would only run five mile an hour, or it would go down to where it wouldn't start and they would have to tow it all the way to Charlotte.
Lucas Underwood: From here, it's a $400 tow bill down there. It's two days of sending somebody down to pick it up, get it. It's taken all these two guys outta work. It's a big deal. Right. It's expensive. And so I'm talking to the man about it and I said, Hey, listen, you know, I, I hate that you have him do that, but it's under warranty.
Lucas Underwood: And he said, I don't care about the cost of fixing it. Let me explain to you on the road needs me $30,000 a week or more. And he said, so taking it out for one day and sending it down there and taking two guys to do that, that's $60,000 a day. Right? He's, it's a bunch of money.
Cecil Bullard: And let, let me ask this question 'cause I, I gotta ask the question.
Cecil Bullard: Who in the f taught these guys that they have to be price competitive with a bunch of idiots that don't understand their business and don't know how to make a profit. Right, right. Where, where did they get that idea that, well, it's, it's a competitive marketplace. Well, of course it is. Everything's a do.
Cecil Bullard: You know, you wanna know Burritos is a competitive marketplace. Yeah, absolutely. But I don't go to the place that has the cheapest burrito. I go to the place that has the best burrito, the one I like that's close by, blah, blah, blah. A hundred percent and a hundred percent. Yeah. It it, and, and we, we have a bunch of these in the industries.
Cecil Bullard: You could, you could talk about the diesel guys, you could talk about the, the, uh, some of the European shops. You could talk about the diag guys trying to give away free diag all the time. Yeah. 'cause someone else is giving away free diag. And, and we, we get these crazy ideas that we can't. We can't make a profit and then we live by that and then we
Lucas Underwood: die by that.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. And, and I share with shop owners all the time. Look, the numbers are, the numbers are the numbers. Right? There's no way around it. And, and if that's what the business takes to be profitable, that's what the business takes to be profitable. I can't just make numbers up and throw 'em out there and expect to survive.
Lucas Underwood: And you wanna know, it just
Cecil Bullard: does not work. Do you wanna know that my, my highest priced, most profitable shops?
Lucas Underwood: Mm-hmm.
Cecil Bullard: Are the most consistently busy. Also, they have the best clients. They have the best client counts. The, the consistency, it's the guys that are discounting and cheap that are fighting and arguing every day and not consistent in their business because of what they're doing.
Cecil Bullard: They have the,
Lucas Underwood: they have the happiest tax. They have the happiest clients. They have the happiest staff. Yeah. They have people that go home at the end of the day and take the weekend off and Right. Like, that's just how it is. I love, and you don't have to fight for this.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. I got a worker's comp audit and they sent me a bill today and I'm like, okay, I just need to talk to my hr, you know my people.
Cecil Bullard: And I said, Hey, is this the company? And they're like, yeah, that's a company. I said, did they really do an audit? Yes, they did. Okay. I owe 'em money. Well, I hate that. Right, but it sure is nice that money sitting in the bank that you can just write a check and go, okay, here you go. It's just an inconvenience.
Cecil Bullard: It's not, oh my God, where am I gonna come up with that money so that I can pay this worker's comp audit that I have to pay? Right? I mean, it's not like I get anywhere around it. You know, my rent. I have to pay my workers' comp, I gotta pay, and it's nice to have money in the bank. Stop thinking that you need to be competitive with the guy down the street who's running himself in the ground.
Cecil Bullard: You don't.
Lucas Underwood: Well, and even beyond that though is you don't know what his financials look like. Yeah. You don't know what his numbers are. He may not be paying rent. Yeah. You don't know what his situation is, and so you can't base it off what he's doing. You have to base it off of your financials. There's no way around that.
Lucas Underwood: So let me ask, understand what your business needs to do financially
Cecil Bullard: first.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. Absolutely. So let me ask you this. One of the things that we've been talking about a lot in the group here recently is the onboarding of new staff. And, and the two that really stand out to me is there's a lot of folks who are saying, Hey, I'm gonna hire my first tech.
Lucas Underwood: Hey, I'm gonna hire my first advisor. And then after that, you start hearing, Hey, I'm gonna hire a manager, or I'm gonna hire a parts guy, whatever it may be. In what order do we begin to put people in the shop? So we're a one man band. We've got the shop it, it's cooking, we've got it full of cars. We're doing all this work.
Lucas Underwood: Cecil, when do I start bringing people in and in what order do I bring them in?
Cecil Bullard: The first thing I that I have to do is decide what I want, uh, 10, 15 years from now. Okay. What do I want to be? If I wanna be a tech in my business and that's my joy and I wanna have someone else manage it and run it and, and all of that, then that's a different, uh, uh, progression.
Cecil Bullard: I would tell you for most of us though, we have a vision of. I won't be working on cars, I'll be the, you know, I'll be the manager owner. I won't, you know, I'll take Wednesdays off, you know, whatever. And, and so usually for me, it's a tech, um, first. Okay. And when I have, you know, so I should be doing somewhere between, probably around 40,000 a month by myself.
Cecil Bullard: Okay? Me writing service, me talking to clients, me doing work. And then, uh, and then I'm gonna probably hire a technician, and now we're gonna be doing 60, 65,000. I'm gonna step into the more of the service advisor role, less of the production role. Then I'm gonna hire a second Tech, and now we're gonna be doing 80,000 to to a hundred thousand, and I'm gonna be writing service 99% of the time, and I'm not gonna be working on cars.
Cecil Bullard: Then when I go to hire my third tech, I'm hiring a service advisor. To come in. Okay. Okay. And so I, I, I want to have no more than six techs for two service advisors. Okay? Probably when I get to four at before four techs, I want to have a, either an assistant or somebody as a service advisor. And so for me, building the business is almost always let's go find the tech or a tech, either one, we can train or one that's already trained, hopefully.
Cecil Bullard: Um, before I do a service advisor or, or anything. 'cause I am the face of the business when I start a business and it's just me. Yeah. And so I want, I want that continuity with my clients. Um, and I'm much more likely to be able to sell the, the customer, et cetera, than say someone else that I might quote unquote bring in.
Cecil Bullard: Um, right. And so that's kind of the progression. And also, you know, when does my shop run most efficiently? Most profitably, five to six techs, two service advisors. The parts guy. Right, right. And one of those techs, one of the service advisors is probably a quote unquote service manager that has some management duties, uh, so that I don't have to show up every morning or I don't have to do everything in the business management wise.
Lucas Underwood: So, a couple, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take us off track here a little bit. So one of the things that we see happen a lot is a technician becomes disgruntled in their current place of work and they decide they're gonna start their own job. And they say, I am going to reinvent the wheel. I'm gonna show these guys how to run a business because the auto repair industry just doesn't work the way it is now.
Lucas Underwood: And I, there's aspects of that I don't disagree with. And I, you know, I am a huge proponent for technicians. I don't believe that we've been treating them very well, and I believe that in a lot of ways that we have to make sure we're respecting them and taking care of them. But we're seeing these guys go start shops and they're treating themselves worse than the shop was treating them.
Lucas Underwood: But because they're doing it for themselves, they feel really good about it, right? And so I believe that it's important that we educate them and help them grow up in that. But what I'm seeing is, is these really, really skilled. Technicians go out, start a shop. Then they decide to charge less than everybody else.
Lucas Underwood: Now, from the way I see it, that's a boutique type shop, right? That's a, that's a one in a million. You get to talk to the guy that's working on your car. He's the owner of the business, cares genuinely about its growth, and cares genuinely about you because he has a personal connection with you. To me, that seems like it's very valuable.
Lucas Underwood: Why do you think they're not charging more than they are for that service?
Cecil Bullard: We're all afraid. Um, the whole industry's afraid of charging and losing customers and losing techs and blah, blah, blah. I, I, I'd like to, I'd like to say two things and I, I want to have the conversation about how we're treating techs separately.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. So, okay, let's do it. Um, uh, first, uh, I, I, I was teaching a class, uh, about the numbers and everything here in Utah, and the mayor's brother had a shop and he was like, I'm sick and tired of shops ripping off customers, and in my shop, we're only gonna charge the whatever the parts cost us, and $90 an hour in labor because that's all I need.
Cecil Bullard: And if I do 90. Dollars an hour, then I get what I need financially and that's the way it's gonna be. And I said, I said, dude, um, congratulations. You're gonna be outta business in 12 months. Yeah. Now he proved me wrong. It took 13 months for him to go out of business. Yeah. We need to understand our business as a financial model and profitably how we need to be profitable.
Cecil Bullard: And if we don't understand that, stay outta my business because all you're doing is hurting yourself and hurting others and, and hurting our industry. So that's common aside. Um, why do they charge less? Because they don't. First of all, I'm, I'm, I'm fearful because I'm starting something out fresh and so I'm gonna use discounting 'cause that's what everybody does to attract clients and try to bring clients in.
Cecil Bullard: I build my business on a bunch of discount clients who are the ones who will argue with me over price and reinforce my idea that price is the number one thing. Okay. Yeah. Isn't it amazing like on online where we, if we're conservative, we get the same conservative messages over and over and we never get any liberal messages in our feeds because.
Cecil Bullard: Online, Facebook and Twitter. The algorithm follows what you wanna hear. They all know what I like and they're gonna feed me more of what I like. Okay. Yeah. That kind of happens in our automotive businesses, especially because we're in this area where we have blinders. Because it's only my business, it's only my experience.
Cecil Bullard: I don't have the experience of the 800 shops or the 8,000 shops. Okay. Yeah. And so that, that, that is an issue for me if I am gonna be that guy that gives you that personal attention. I have to pay for myself my time and my time is the most valuable time. Okay? Yeah. And, and so I can't charge you less because Cecil's doing it.
Cecil Bullard: I have to charge you at least what I would charge you for any of my other coaches, if not more. Than my other coaches because my time has more value. Right. And, and it is a, a premium service if you're getting to talk to the tech. Yeah. Um, and my recommendation would be you don't do that. You don't set that up.
Cecil Bullard: You, you're the, the service advisor. Whoever's talking to the client is the front, oh, is the business. Right. Yeah. I represent the tech, I represent the owner, I represent the parts department. I represent the whole company. And I'm here to take the heat for you, the client, right? And, and to make sure that you get what you're, you deserve.
Cecil Bullard: And, and so I would say that's an issue. Now, how we treat our techs, I don't agree with you, frankly. I mean, are there techs that are mistreated? Yes. Okay.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: But you have choice. Okay. You don't have to say, yes, I'll, I'll agree to this shit. And, and, and deal with a, an owner that treats you poorly or doesn't pay you well, especially right now, I mean, the last numbers I saw, holy crap, we need is your tax.
Cecil Bullard: I mean, you can go anywhere and, and yet they put up with this crap and these poor pay plans and the, and, and being treated, mistreated and, and in my opinion, frankly, uh. Stop. Life's too short. Okay. Yeah. And, and so as an, whenever we like, uh oh, a whole generation, they're just terrible. You know, these new generations, they just don't have blah, blah, blah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Generalized. That's crap. That's crap. So, generalizing the fact that techs are mistreated, are there great examples of mistreated techs? Yes. Yeah. By the way, there were before. Okay. It's just now more visible. And if you don't like the way you're treated, oh my God, you got wheels on your toolbox for a reason.
Cecil Bullard: Right.
Lucas Underwood: Listen, I upset a lot of people. Okay? Yeah, because I made a video a while back and I was talking about the fact, and there's another video coming as a result of this, but I was talking about, Hey, listen. I completely understand that if you're not paid fairly and if things aren't working right, but you can't be a victim, you have to solve the problem.
Lucas Underwood: Right. You, you should be working on that in
Cecil Bullard: your shop.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly. And so like, we can't be victims. We have to take the problem, we have to solve it, we have to fix it, we have to go on. And if it's that we're not being paid fairly. If things aren't working for us, nobody else is gonna look out for me or you.
Lucas Underwood: We have to look out for ourselves. We have a personal responsibility. If we have a family, we have people we love. We have people we care about. That's our job to look out for them. The industry isn't necessarily gonna look out for Bobby that works in the shop down the street. That's Bobby's job. And I'm not saying that, that there aren't shops that will look out for Bobby.
Lucas Underwood: I'm just saying if it's not working and you're not making enough and you're not surviving. You've gotta do something different. Whether that's spend less money, whether that's take ownership of it,
Cecil Bullard: we perpetuate this same BS because I, I start my own shop because the guy before me is charging $150. Now he's only paying me 30, so I'm poorly paid.
Cecil Bullard: Right. Right. But, but because I think that he's making 150 for every hour, but I don't understand about rent and utilities and banking costs and, and yeah. Uh, uh, insurance and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That guy, in most cases is making less than you. And we perpetuate this and we keep perpetuating it because we don't learn about the business financially and understand the business financially and how to.
Cecil Bullard: How to dig ourselves out of these holes and yeah. And so, you know it, there are examples of really poorly paid technicians and really shitty bosses. There's plenty of that out there. Yeah, absolutely. But most of the guys that I know and work with. These techs are making tons of money. We put these pay plans in place.
Cecil Bullard: You understand the pay plans? We put 'em in your place. Yep. And it gives, gives them tons of opportunity. But the business, the business has to succeed along with them. I can't charge $90 an hour. Pay somebody, you know, 40 bucks an hour plus benefits and still survive financially. I, I, I can't do it. And, you know, I'll, I'll tell you, I don't think there's a shop in the United States today.
Cecil Bullard: I used say, should be under 250 an hour. I would tell you right now it's 300.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. If you look at inflation, if you look at the, the way the data's played out over the years, the complexity of the car, all of the things that, that play into what auto repair should be charging, we're not where we're supposed to be.
Lucas Underwood: Not even close, right? No. Like we, we fell behind. Why? Yeah. Let me ask you, why did we fall behind? Scared.
Cecil Bullard: We're fear. We're afraid. We're afraid. It, I, I think I have to, I have this false sense of the guy down the street. I drive by his shop, it's full, and I think, oh, he's busy. And, and I know what his labor rate is or what he talks about.
Cecil Bullard: And, uh, you know, we, we have a friend who talks about, uh, not charging diagnostic fees. Yeah. Oh, come on, gimme a break. You, you charge diagnostic fees. You just charge everybody. You raise your labor rates so that everybody pays the diagnostic fee. You just don't. Yep. Give it to the, the client. We, we have this false sense of that.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Because this, this per this particular person is giving that false sense out. Like he's doing something secret that nobody else knows how, and he's magic. He, he ain't magic. The guy down the street that's got cars in fully in his shop is either doing one of two things. He's either cheap, cheap, cheap, and he has every cheap person.
Cecil Bullard: With every piece of crap car in his shop. Yeah. Which he's not getting out 'cause he's not productive, he's not as profitable as you think. Or his service is so good that people are lining up and willing to wait for them. Yeah. And if that's the case, then his price is, is much higher than the guy that's giving it away.
Cecil Bullard: Absolutely. Okay. And 'cause he understands the dynamic. Yeah. And there's nothing in between that.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: There's really
Lucas Underwood: nothing in between that. Yep, you're exactly right. Last question, uh, what percentage of net profit should be your net cash flow after paying shareholder contributions and any debt?
Cecil Bullard: Um, uh, so I, I, I want 20% net, net.
Cecil Bullard: Net. Okay. Okay. Out of that 20% net, I'm gonna pay taxes, which is gonna be about a third. Okay. Somewhere around 30% of that 33% is gonna go to tax. It's gonna leave me, um, 60% of that 20%. Okay. Okay. So now I'm at 12 to 14%. Depending on my, how good my tax guy is of that 12 to 14, I am now gonna pay shareholder contributions, which is gonna be about half of that.
Cecil Bullard: And the other half of that is gonna be set aside for, um, building tools, uh, et cetera. Um, I'm gonna end up with seven to 8% of the of the net net. Uh, of the, not of the 20%, but I'm gonna end up with seven or 8% of the overall net profit in my pocket as a shareholder. Got it. Okay. Got it. And, and I might even end up with 10 or 12 if I do this right and I run myself at 24%, which means I have to be more than a hundred percent productive.
Cecil Bullard: But I have shops that certainly do that. Um, basically for training purposes. A third is gonna go to taxes, a third is gonna go to, um, the building, the maintenance, the upkeep, et cetera. And a third is gonna come to me, the shareholder. Got it. Got it. Of whatever that profit is.
Lucas Underwood: And, and you know, there are some shop owners who don't believe that they should be making a profit.
Lucas Underwood: What do you say to them? Get outta my
Cecil Bullard: business. Get outta my business. I mean, business is about profit and like it or not, we, you know, would, we love to be in, in a sense, socialist, socialist, uh, uh. I go, I want to take care of everybody. Um, I love everybody. I, I really would. If, if I could do nothing. But coach and, and do this and help people, my life would be the best life in the world.
Cecil Bullard: All right? Right. Except I have to eat, I have to pay my bills. Um, who's gonna take care of me when I can't do this anymore? Um, yeah. Uh, uh, Lucas, if, if I fall into hard times, are you gonna take care of me? Uh, is it gonna be you and my Listen, listen. You ain't gonna live on, you ain't gonna live on
Lucas Underwood: this champagne budget anymore, Cecil.
Lucas Underwood: I'm just
Cecil Bullard: telling. So, so, you know, profit is what business is about. It's about creating personal wealth. And personal wealth is not, it's not I want to bleed society and et cetera. I need this to have a business that is, um. Comfortable, meaning there's money in the bank. I've got three months worth of operating capital to six months worth of operating capital in case the world goes nuts for a while.
Cecil Bullard: Um, I, I need to prepare for my future, which someday I'm gonna sell the place and, and, uh, retire. I don't know what that's gonna look like or what that is, but I know what it's gonna cost. Um, for me to live. Um, I don't, I don't drink champagne. I'm, I'm a more simple guy. I do like a nice steak though, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, yeah. Um, but, but those get
Lucas Underwood: more expensive these days.
Cecil Bullard: Yes, they are a lot more expensive. But, but I just, I. I've worked very hard for a very long time to help a lot of people in this industry. And, and is it, is it because Cecil loves it? Yeah. We don't, I had somebody say, um, everybody does something.
Cecil Bullard: Every, everybody's reason is a selfish reason to, you know, for whatever you do. And I said that that's not true. And, but it, but if you think about like Mother Teresa, right? She went to Calcutta. You know, um, sacrificed her entire life for other people. Why did she do that? Because it made her feel good. Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Okay. Because it made her closer to her, God, because, you know, but there was something in it for her. If there was nothing in it for her, she wouldn't have done it. Okay. Yeah. And, and we're the same. And so I need profit. And if I don't have enough profit, then every month I'm, I'm going, man, it's only the 24th and I'm outta money and I've got payroll and I've got bills, and I've got utilities.
Cecil Bullard: And, you know, with what's going on with the family business, you know, uh, um, when money's tight, it's, it's a hard way to live. It is okay.
Lucas Underwood: Yes, sir. And,
Cecil Bullard: and I don't mean that I need millions and millions in the bank, but I do need to know that I have the cash flow and that I can buy a steak once a week if that's what I want to do.
Lucas Underwood: Okay.
Cecil Bullard: Absolutely. So yes, it's, it's about profit and it should be about profit.
Lucas Underwood: Well, Cecil, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for answering these questions. You're a wealth of knowledge, you're a blessing to our industry, uh, and to me personally. So big thanks from me, big thanks from the industry, and I can't wait to do it again.
Lucas Underwood: Thank you, sir. I love you, brother. Love you, brother.
Lucas Underwood: Y'all have a good one. Thank you.

Friday Aug 29, 2025
Friday Aug 29, 2025
141 - From Technician to Shop Owner: Joshua Langstaff’s Journey with The Institute
August 27, 2025 - 00:47:46
Show Summary:
Josh Langstaff’s journey from chef to diesel shop owner is one of resilience, grit, and growth. Starting out with a single used service truck, he built Mach 6 in Edmonton through long days, lean operations, and lessons learned the hard way. In this conversation with Wayne Marshall and Jimmy Lea, Josh shares the realities of launching a business on credit cards, the transition from mobile trucks to a full facility, and the financial wake-up call that led him to coaching with The Institute. Together they reflect on the importance of parts and labor margins, building leadership, and creating systems that protect profitability even during tough months. Josh also talks about investing in apprentices, his future expansion plans, and the mindset shift from working harder to working smarter. His story is a powerful example of persistence, strategic coaching, and how the right support can accelerate success.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Wayne Marshall, Industry Coach
Guest(s):
Josh Langstaff, Managing Director of Mach 6
Episode Highlights:
[00:03:25] - Josh shares his early career as a chef and how it inspired a drastic career change.
[00:05:02] - A poor experience with a previous employer gave him the confidence to start his own business.
[00:06:49] - Landing Canadian National Railway as a first big client nearly sank him due to 90-day payment terms.
[00:08:08] - Starting with one beaten-up truck, Josh scaled to three mobile units before moving into a shop.
[00:12:52] - Discovering Cecil Bullard’s training videos led him to The Institute and real profit solutions.
[00:14:15] - The biggest shift came from correcting parts margins and labor utilization.
[00:19:04] - Josh outlines plans for a second shop in Edmonton and future expansion across Canada.
[00:23:26] - Coaching provided strategies that gave the business stability to weather crises like fraud losses.
[00:33:31] - Josh emphasizes apprenticeships as key to solving the technician shortage.
[00:40:27] - His early struggles with credit cards turned into lessons on financial discipline and perseverance.
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Hello my friends. It's good to see you. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or goodnight, depending on when and where you're joining us from today. So depending on where you are in your journey, we are here to take it to the next level. Joining me today is Wayne Marshall.
Jimmy Lea: Wayne is the CEO of the Institute. He is also the coach of our guests. Wayne. Thank you. Good morning.
Wayne Marshall: Thank you. This is gonna be fun 'cause Josh has got a really great story. It's a little eclectic when you hear and as he will share a little bit of his background and how he got into this industry, some of the things that he has been doing that's got him to where he is today, along with some of his aspirations and goals and ambitions of where he wants to go.
Wayne Marshall: Great things that he's been able to do, great things I know he is gonna be able to share and some of the challenges that he's gone through. We've all gone through, we've all experienced them. So it's gonna be really nice that he can share and know that, hey, you're not alone in this adventure, in this journey.
Wayne Marshall: There's people like Josh out there who have also been experiencing it. So why do it alone when you can learn and listen from others And as I always say, it's better to learn from others and try to recreate from scratch. So this is that opportunity we have, and I see that Josh is now joining us, so this is awesome.
Wayne Marshall: Oh, good. Josh, how are you brother? Good to see you.
Josh Langstaff: Good, Jimmy. Hey, how you doing?
Jimmy Lea: Hey, we're good. Welcome. Thank you for navigating those internet challenges.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, there's always technical difficulties, right?
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. There can be. Technology is great and it's wonderful as long as it works, but when it throws a challenge at us, oh my gosh, it can be challenging.
Josh Langstaff: It only goes wrong when I do it myself.
Jimmy Lea: Right, right. Yeah Wayne was just talking about examples and it made me think of something Wayne that my father has said quite a few times, which is that everyone is a good example. Oh, really? Dad? I thought there were bad examples. No. Everyone is a good example.
Jimmy Lea: Everyone's a good example of what you should do, or everyone's a good example of what you. Shouldn't do words thinking of that. Well, it always rings true.
Wayne Marshall: Well, Josh, thank you again for taking this time and your willingness to share not only with what we've been doing here, but what we can share with our other friends and family and clients who are out there listening to us this morning or maybe in the afternoon, depending on what time zone they're in, but to begin with.
Wayne Marshall: I know you and I have talked a lot and you've shared a lot of your journey that's gotten you to this place. But I would love for everybody to hear a little bit of how you got started, share a little bit about your background what you were doing before. 'cause I think it's a great story, but what you were doing before you decided to get into being a diesel tech that ultimately drove you to having your own shop up there in Edmonton.
Josh Langstaff: For sure. Yeah, so I used to be a chef and it was a good job. I did it for about 10 or 12 years, but the pay wasn't exactly wonderful and the hours and lifestyle left a bit to be desired. So after I was getting to the tail end of that, you know, kind of picked up some bad habits, was running with the wrong people and decided it was time to make a change, figured I would try either mechanic or electrician.
Josh Langstaff: And then I just went out and started handing out resumes. I must have dropped off 300 of them too. To get a call back and I ended up getting called to be a shipper receiver, not even a mechanic. So that was sort of the foot in the door as they say. But after I did that for a bit, got the apprenticeship, which over here we do four years of schooling supported by a company.
Josh Langstaff: So you'll work 10 months and then they give you two months at your post-secondary institution, and you do that four years in a row. But got set up with that, got my ticket, and then went and worked for a small service outfit doing something similar to what we do right now. And this guy was running what might have been.
Josh Langstaff: The worst business on planet Earth. Just customers didn't like 'em. You wouldn't buy products, wouldn't buy filters unless they were on sale. So you'd go to do a service call and you have to tell the customer, we don't have any of this stuff ready. The whole place was a gong show. I kind of inspired me.
Josh Langstaff: I said, well, if this guy can run a business, anybody can run a business. So that's what got me going. And man, was I wrong, but I mean, the inspiration was there.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. So you started and I get everything and I think it's awesome story how you went from being a sous chef to a diesel tech to ultimately running your own shop.
Wayne Marshall: So tell everybody a little bit more. So what year did you start Mach six.
Josh Langstaff: Mach Six. We started in 2017. Yeah. November of 2017.
Wayne Marshall: And in that time period from when you started, what were some of the biggest hurdles that you had to get over to get started from being a tech, working for someone to now being the owner, the guy that has to be responsible for everybody else?
Josh Langstaff: Well, there is a ton of stuff that happens in the backend that you certainly don't know about as a technician. So I realized all of a sudden I had. Inventory to figure out. I had to source stuff. I had cash flow, I had safety that, you know, wasn't being taken care of by me initially. Planning the jobs, fielding the calls, you know, usually you have a service advisor doing that.
Josh Langstaff: But now I was doing that myself. 'cause just a one man show at that point. Figuring out insurance for your trucks, insurance for the business. Man, there was just. You know, one of the first jobs we picked up was for Canadian National Railway. And I thought, wow, I'm so lucky I have this big client, like tons of work.
Josh Langstaff: What a great start to this business. And then I go in and I realize that CN doesn't pay for 90 days, but I've got a hundred units to take care of. I'm buying filters, I'm buying oil. I've got all this stuff. I've got the credit cards maxed out. I'm borrowing money from the girlfriend and at some point she says to me like, what are we gonna do?
Josh Langstaff: You've used my credit card. Your credit card. There's no cash. I think we're gonna get paid in three or four days, so we'll be okay. But that was kinda the gateway to realizing there's a lot more to manage there than just. The repair side of things. There was so much.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. And if I remember right you didn't start in a physical building.
Wayne Marshall: You started in mobile trucks, service trucks going out to do the work. Correct? That's right. Yep. So that, so I know there's a lot of people out there who sometimes think the only way you can start doing what you're doing is you gotta start in a building. I gotta have a shop. But you started, and today you still run mobile trucks, but when you started, did you have one or two trucks before you finally got into a physical facility?
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, so we started off with one truck, which coincidentally enough was also a Canadian national rail truck that had got the hell beat out of it, and I fixed that up on my driveway and got that thing running for about, I think we're only into the truck $15,000. And then. I bought all the tools, threw my old tools in the truck, got the filters, the oil, whatever you needed for the jobs, and just got billing.
Josh Langstaff: Just doing that at the time, I mean, we were way, we were undercharging like I was, I think I was charging $90 an hour to guys to show up in a service truck and working 15, 18 hours a day. So we're building lots. Didn't know anything about parts margin, so probably wasn't helping myself there. But we ended up with three trucks before before moving to the actual shop, and at that point it was all outta my garage and I said.
Josh Langstaff: I got three service trucks parked in the neighborhood. The neighbors are probably gonna lose their marbles here soon. So we should look at a location.
Wayne Marshall: Which I think is very inspirational in the aspect of, 'cause I know we have other clients that's how they're starting. I mean, they're starting out with just mobile.
Wayne Marshall: Service. And as their business started to scale, no different what you've done, they then say, now I'm at a point where let's get a, let's get a shop. Let's have a physical building where people can come and go. And I find that to be really inspirational and I like to share, and I've shared your story before, I've told you this as we've talked on coaching because.
Wayne Marshall: It inspires others to say, there's many ways to bootstrap this and to start small scale it. You don't have to go big. 'cause, remind me again, or for everybody else also out here. How many years did you do that with the mobile before you finally went to a physical building?
Josh Langstaff: Oh gee, it was only two or three.
Josh Langstaff: And actually we were making, I mean, we were making very good money run and lean like that. Because we had, you know, no shop space we were paying for, we were buying the trucks fairly economically, and it was just me and another guy at the time. I think we picked up a third and just a lady in the office helping us.
Josh Langstaff: So costs were really low. And then you get the shop and we need more people, we need a parts guy. We had a spike in cost there. So yeah, there's a bit of a runway where you're. You're making the same profit as you were run and lean with five extra guys, or you know, more staff, big shop. So, I mean, there's pros and cons to both
Wayne Marshall: sides.
Wayne Marshall: So as you began to scale and as you started to get bigger, you now have a facility, a shop with multiple bays. You're still running the service trucks, so you're still doing the mobile. I know there got to a point and we talked about it, and you started to look for some of those outside resources and assistance.
Wayne Marshall: So as you started to look. What got you and what got you to the institute? Was there something that you saw, read an article? Did you go to a seminar? Tell us a little bit about how you got in and connected with us here at the institute.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, so I. We had a few years that weren't very profitable, and I knew I had, you know, I had a problem going on with the business, but I wasn't entirely sure what it was.
Josh Langstaff: I mean, we're not making enough money. That was the problem. But what was causing it, I guess? And, I started trying to figure out what industry standard margins were for a setup such as ourself and didn't really know who I could ask that to. Didn't know a ton of shop owners or anything like that.
Josh Langstaff: You know, anyone in our area, if we ask them it's gonna be competition probably so.
Josh Langstaff: That's not you know, they're not always willing to share the info and someone who picks up at another shop is generally gonna be a service manager and they might not know all that info. But I started Googling it, looking around, found a few videos.
Josh Langstaff: One of them happened to be Cecil, and he was talking about getting to net 20% profit and what your margins should be. And I was looking at it thinking, well, it's automotive, but it can't be that different. So watched his video thought, wow, this is a pretty smart guy. And then I watched a few more videos and said, okay.
Josh Langstaff: This could be a good thing here, like a lot of wisdom popping out at me. So then I just ended up calling and asking you guys, do you do heavy duty as well as automotive? And it was funny, the conversation sort of went well. Let me see. I think I actually got a check on this. I'll call you back and I think whoever I talked to at the time must have talked to Cecil and then called me back.
Josh Langstaff: And that was sort of the beginning of it all. And yeah, learned a lot. You guys had a lot of good info, answered all my questions, and you know, we started being more profitable.
Wayne Marshall: So I know I was the lucky. I guess I drew the long straw. Short straw, but you and I got to work together. Straw. Yeah, I got the straw.
Wayne Marshall: And you and I got to start working together right outta the box. And I remember I. And in prep for today, I even went back and I read some of my early notes from some of our very first calls and some of the challenges and some of the things that we had to do. When you think back and you just talked about what you were needing to do for the business and some of the struggles and why we ended up getting connected as we've done, what was the best advice?
Wayne Marshall: What was the best thing that we were able to give you that got us started on the right direction with where we are today?
Josh Langstaff: Honestly go after parts margins. I think we were hurting ourselves worse there than anywhere else. I mean, on the service side of things, we had a lot of stuff figured out and that's what I did before, you know, running the shop.
Josh Langstaff: So I knew how that side worked. But yeah, that followed by just making sure we get our labor margins and the efficiencies and, you know, the utilizations you need.
Wayne Marshall: I would agree. That was the very first thing when I looked at the very early financial statements and we were looking at some of the different metrics.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, there was no question. We did change your labor rate. Some We fine tuned, updated your parts markup matrix, which immediately. Started to, within 60 days, we were starting to see some great results and movement forward. Now obviously we've spent a lot more time and we've taken deeper dives into the nuances of the business that has now make it more perpetual, I guess, and it just kind of takes care of itself and it's like I, you know, I've already complimented you. I mean, we looked at one of your p and Ls and yeah, there were some things that needed to be corrected, and I asked you, I go, well, Josh, tell me, what do you think we need to do here? It was like, I don't even know why we were talking that day. You answered everything that needed to be done.
Wayne Marshall: You already got it all figured out after the six months of working together that I thought it was awesome. You had the answers, you know what we need to do. And then it's a matter of going in and fine tuning again and continuing to work on those different fine, you know, smaller detail things that makes a difference to the bottom line and moves it.
Wayne Marshall: One of the other things though, I know. Which we're happy to have you involved in is that as we started out on one-on-one coaching, you've also found and taken advantage of some other of the services and other things that we're doing here at the institute. Talk a little bit about some of the other things that you have gained out of, 'cause I know you've attended some of our different events and you're also involved in some of our other programs.
Wayne Marshall: So just tell me what's been happening with that and how you're taking advantage and what it's doing for you.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, well you got the I mean that learning dashboard on the website's. Awesome. There's lots of good info there that you can just self-study whenever you feel like it and broaden your horizons.
Josh Langstaff: But I went to the, I went to the 2025 summit. That was great. Met a ton of people. There was like good vendors there that we've actually utilized a few of now, and lots of good knowledge being shared. Lots of good contacts in general. Like there's still people I'm calling with questions and we're sharing info, other shop owners.
Josh Langstaff: So that was great. Dabbled in the m and a thing a bit and just kind of got the introduction to that, seeing what it was all about. So that seems like a great opportunity of, you know, once we get this shop running perfectly the way we want it to, then you can start looking at other opportunities buying other shops.
Josh Langstaff: Expand the brand. So that looks pretty good starting GPG soon as you know. And yeah, that seems like a good group of guys. I'm not sure entirely what it's gonna be, but you know, seems like they're gonna keep me honest.
Wayne Marshall: Well, the one thing I would, the one thing I would say to all of it is.
Wayne Marshall: And thank you for the compliment of our other clients and other people who are part of the family here at the institute, because just as you've reached out to them I've know I've put you in touch with some of our other folks and you've helped them on the other side. So that's what makes this industry better.
Wayne Marshall: That's what really grows this, that's what I get the most excited about. Of working here and being part of the institute. It's not what we just do for Josh, but it's what else we're doing for others and things that you're even able to help them with. So being able to be part of that family and network back and forth and share like we do and like you have done.
Wayne Marshall: Thank you, because just as you've benefited from it, you're paying it forward also. And that's what's gonna continue to make us successful, and it's gonna continue to make the industry better, which is part of our, you know, the virtues or mottos that we wanna live by, is to create a better industry. So you talked a little bit about m and a.
Wayne Marshall: Talk a little bit about where you're looking, what's next? What do you think the next big thing is for Josh and Mach? Six?
Josh Langstaff: Is the limit, but yeah, like we wanna open a second shop here in Edmonton in the next six months. We just hired an operations manager about a month ago and he's doing good. So we wanna give him some time to get his feet wet here.
Josh Langstaff: And then if all goes well, put our second shop pilot program into play here. I guess stress, test that and see what goes wrong and figure that out. And then if we can get a handle on two, then start expanding out east and west here in Canada.
Wayne Marshall: Do you think as you look, 'cause we've talked and we've put together kind of a big picture draft of that business plan.
Wayne Marshall: Do you think it's better or are you looking to buy existing, or is your preference maybe to start from ground up and make it what you want it to be? Do you have a preference here?
Josh Langstaff: I have a preference to buy an existing business, but I don't know if we'll have the. The opportunity of available shops for that.
Josh Langstaff: You know, looking around town currently most of the people I've talked to are investigated. They have a succession plan, they wanna stay in their business or you know, the ones that are potentially available don't seem like good options. So it's kinda slim pickings in the acquisition department.
Josh Langstaff: Might have to just, you know, build from the ground up for a few. And wait for that
Wayne Marshall: opportunity. Right. I know you came and you mentioned earlier about attending being part of the m and a group that we had here about two months plus ago. Was that really helpful for you as you've looked at this, when you look at scaling and as you've gone to approach some of those existing businesses?
Josh Langstaff: Definitely even. I mean, I went to just kind of an introductory, this is what the M and a program will entail. So not even, you know, you're just getting some basic info. And there was a ton of info, like a ton, two days worth of info that gave me all kinds of. I don't know, stuff I needed to just plan the next steps.
Josh Langstaff: So talking to a few lawyers in town, making sure I got the right legal guys in our corner. When we go to do this, talking to some accountants that I've experienced with this, just kind of putting together a timeline for it, what it's gonna cost, who we have to hire, what it looks like. There's a lot of questions to answer if you wanna do it.
Josh Langstaff: So just right. Just being made aware of those questions was was a pretty good experience. A lot
Wayne Marshall: helped. Yeah, no, I know. You and I taught, we've talked a lot extensively of having the right professional advisors. And not that there aren't many good accountants or attorneys out there, but like anything else, some have a niche.
Wayne Marshall: Just like in our industry, there are those who specialize in this or this. Just like we get in some of those professional services. So yeah, I mean, finding those people, getting them into your corner so they're there for reference as needed. Along with, and thank you for talking a little bit about the m and a program, we also do, but it is, it's a lot of good foundational information that gives us those tools needed so when the time comes or the opportunity presents itself.
Wayne Marshall: That you do it efficiently. 'cause you know, attorneys and you know, and other professional services can get really expensive fast. So having that foundation and knowing what questions to ask and how to address. It really does make a difference and puts you in the best position for success. So yeah. As you look back now, so you're, you know, like I said, you're eight years in Give Fast approach in your eight year anniversary of when you started in 2017, in November.
Wayne Marshall: As you look back, if you could share a few pieces of advice with somebody. What do you wish you knew sooner as a business owner that you would share with others? Starting out? Get
Josh Langstaff: help. I wish I knew so many things sooner, but the biggest one was I'm, I was always very much, if you put your mind to it, you can just do it.
Josh Langstaff: You don't need any help. If you just get after it, like you can make it happen, which I still believe you can, but man, getting some good advice from someone who's already been there before can really grease the wheels and speed up that process.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, I know and I've had the privilege, and not to go into your private details of, but I know you're still on pace to have one of, if not the best year in the history of the company this year.
Wayne Marshall: And I also know that with that. We've been able to do a lot of great things together that is allowing you to also have one of your best profit years, if not the best profit years also. So, and I know that's not because of what we've done, it's because of what you have done and, you know, we can share and we can coach, but at the end of the day.
Wayne Marshall: It comes down to you. I mean, it comes down to what you're gonna do. So with that, talk a little bit about how much has this helped and what has transpired in your growth? Not only personally, but professionally through this process of the last seven, eight months of us working together.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, big a big part of it is just.
Josh Langstaff: As we develop like these strategies and improve margins and stuff, you know, if we have a bad month in service and parts isn't sinking the ship, we still end up with an okay month, you know? So defensively like we're in a lot better position. Having all that extra profit over the year, you know, things come up around a big shop like this and I mean, we had that incident of credit card fraud there the one month, which was I think a $20,000.
Josh Langstaff: Credit card fraud. And that would've, I mean, that would've been such a tough blow to us back when things were tight, you know, margins weren't as good. So, you know, we could weather that storm, develop new procedures. So just doing all this, giving us the staying power, you know, to. To survive a few of these issues that come up in business.
Josh Langstaff: That's a big one. And then a lot of leadership and just kinda how to give people the freedom they need and make sure that you're assigning them their tasks and they want to do them and they know clearly what they are. So you can follow up and say, you know, you understood this, what happened here?
Josh Langstaff: They get coached, sort of like you were coaching me, right? They start being the one that says, yes, I know this, and this happened. Next month we'll have a better month. But like I can see where we went wrong. It's accountability.
Wayne Marshall: I know. Yeah. We talk about that a lot. You and I. Yeah, no it is, and I can see the difference it's making in you as a leader and a manager of the company and how it is trickling down.
Wayne Marshall: Because I do know you've got some of your other staff involved with our advisor program and I listened to those who are working with, who are saying great things. I mean, their growth and their understanding. And how that's going to, and only continue to create that alignment of what your culture is and what you're trying to get done.
Wayne Marshall: That the bar of expectation is being set for people and they understand where they gotta rise up to. And it all makes a difference 'cause you got everybody really pulling in the same direction now. And even with your new GM that you've hired. Yeah. Having the opportunity to meet and visit with him also.
Wayne Marshall: I compliment you. You've done some yeoman's work in these last seven, eight months to put you in a position that you're in, so. Good job. Thank you. As we think about all this, and I'm thinking now of all the things you've learned, and it comes back to what advice you would share. I mean, if there are three or more key things that you try to do every week or every other week that keeps you focused and grounded on what those key metrics are or key things that drives your business.
Wayne Marshall: What would those be? What would you share with the rest of the people?
Josh Langstaff: Well definitely control your costs. That's a big one. You know, you can make all the profit you want or all the revenue you want, but if you spend it all, you know, you're gonna have a problem. Definitely. The Outlook calendar or whatever you use is your best friend because as things start getting busier and busier, you know, you're just gonna lose track of everything if you don't have a way to keep that schedule going and make sure you're making your meetings and not disappointing people.
Josh Langstaff: That's a pretty important one. And then really just day to day the basics, you know, every day, making sure. The efficiency is good. Checking on the utilization, checking that customers are getting the calls back and reauthorizing work if we have it. You know, there's a few small things that if you just do 'em all the time, you can prevent giving away tens of thousands of dollars a month in service related work that you didn't charge for.
Wayne Marshall: Right, right. Yeah. Keeping it simple as they say, and yeah, it sounds so easy. In some ways it is, but it isn't it's about focus and discipline and the diligence. To do it, as you just said, to keep doing it on a regular basis because it's easy to let one week turn into two or three, and then all of a sudden you look at certain KPIs or metrics and you're going, oh, didn't know that happened, or, we gotta fix this.
Wayne Marshall: And next thing you know, you've lost or left money on the table. That we just didn't need to leave on the table. So, that's the
Josh Langstaff: death of a thousand cuts.
Wayne Marshall: Death of a thousand cuts is very true. You pretty much covered a lot of the questions, Jimmy. I don't know, has anybody offered up a question and from out in the internet land or do you have something.
Wayne Marshall: Oh, man I, yes,
Jimmy Lea: I have questions. Josh, thank you so much. I appreciate your story. Appreciate where you've come from and what you're doing. My question for you is here we are in automotive repair, automotive service, coaching and training business. How similar is it to the diesel?
Josh Langstaff: Very similar.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah. Some of the margins are a little different, but I mean, it's all nuts and bolts, right?
Jimmy Lea: Right. It's nuts and bolts. It's services, it's filters, it's fluids. It's very similar. It's just happens to be a diesel truck, not a gas burner.
Josh Langstaff: Yep. I think automotive has a better handle on, customer service and communication, though as heavy duty, we're used to dealing primarily with fleets and like business to business sort of things.
Josh Langstaff: And when you're dealing with the general public instead of that, I just feel like you have so many more people interacting with you and they expect a certain level of service, and it seems to be higher than what fleets expect.
Jimmy Lea: Yes I would agree with you. Are you expanding from fleets into a more broad range passenger vehicle?
Jimmy Lea: Guys with big trucks you're taking care of their big trucks or girls with big trucks, you're taking care of their big diesel trucks.
Josh Langstaff: We do a bit of that, but primarily on the fleet side. So if you're bringing us your construction equipment, but you also have a fleet of pickup trucks, we'll throw it in there as added value so you can call one, one location.
Josh Langstaff: Oh wow. But I mean, the biggest thing we noticed with that is just the software is available to the fleets. Like we're moving into using protractor now, and the stuff it can do on the CRM side is just. Blows what we're currently using outta the water, so
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Texting your clients, texting your customers, sending them digital inspections.
Jimmy Lea: Are you doing DDIs yet?
Josh Langstaff: We're just setting it up actually. Yeah, that's gonna be with AutoVitals. So we already do something similar, but it doesn't have the really nice format and the pictures of everything and yeah, just that goes such a long ways, especially when you're explaining the work to people.
Josh Langstaff: Why they gotta do it. Some fleet managers aren't actually mechanically, like they don't have a background like that. They're, they could be an accountant or something. So
Jimmy Lea: yeah, but even an accountant knows items on a vehicle that are worn, torn, freight, or broken. They can see that. And if you show it, circle it, point arrows to it, say, Hey, this is the problem area right here.
Jimmy Lea: They're educated and because they're educated, I think they make better decisions that really help to keep the vehicles safe on the road, whether it's a fleet vehicle or a personal vehicle.
Josh Langstaff: Definitely. I feel like when people don't get a good explanation, that's when they start feeling like maybe they're getting taken advantage of or they get a little less trustworthy because, I mean, our industry doesn't have the best reputation to begin with.
Jimmy Lea: What. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, so I have a question for you, Josh. If you had a magic wand, a unicorn horn, whatever it may be, that magic wand that you could wave, what would you change about the industry?
Josh Langstaff: I would go back 20 years in time and tell all the kids that we told to get degrees instead of trades tickets, to get trades tickets.
Josh Langstaff: So we actually have some journeymen.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, so true. Everybody needs tax. Everybody needs, yeah. Tax. That's, there's a lot of people
Josh Langstaff: moving into it.
Wayne Marshall: Yes. Now there
Josh Langstaff: is.
Wayne Marshall: Yes. Yes. Talk talk real quick, Josh, because I know because you're in Canada, they do have a tech training program and there's some compensation reimbursement, and as a company you're embracing some of that with the local entities and the government.
Wayne Marshall: Talk a little bit about the program and what you're doing and giving back to the industry that way.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, so there's a few different programs they do. The young one. So they'll have something called a registered apprentice program, which is kids from high school. They want to become a tradesman of some sort.
Josh Langstaff: So they'll get credit towards their first year of the apprenticeship here, which is what's your guys' training? A SE, is that correct?
Wayne Marshall: Yes.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah. So we have four years. It's kind of run by the government and structured by the government with input from private. Private operators, but they'll get credit towards their first year of that.
Josh Langstaff: And then when they start in the private sector or at a shop, you know, there'll be a second year instead of starting from scratch and already have a little experience. So companies such as ours can get approached by, you know, facilitators for this, saying, Hey, we have a bunch of students who want to get into the trade.
Josh Langstaff: They're 17, 18 years old, still in school. They can come in here, work for us for I think minimum wage is what they start 'em at, and then the government gives you a grant towards that as well, cutting them down by 20%, 25% of that wage. So that's a good opportunity. I mean, you don't you don't make any money off these kids or anything like that.
Josh Langstaff: It's strictly to invest in the future for both you and them. Right? Because even at. Let's say $12 an hour. They are, they're breaking some things.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, they break. Yeah. Yeah. They'll probably break things, but hopefully you can get 'em set up to where even at $12 an hour they're doing some mobile oil filters or some breaks or something that really helps them feel like they're a contributing factor.
Jimmy Lea: I've talked to a few other automotive service industry shops. That brought in an apprentice and just from day one they, they were working half a day and they're at school half a day. So on that half day that they're working, they're still getting 4, 5, 6 hours out of these apprentice. They've got a mentor that's watching over them and helping them.
Jimmy Lea: Is that similar to what you're doing in Canada there, Josh?
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, it's very similar. We've we've talked with like the apprenticeship board here and some of the secondary schooling providers and also some other companies running these guys. So we've tried to build our own formal training program for them.
Josh Langstaff: That way we can document everything and make sure it's structured, but at the same time, you know, just getting these kids early like this, yeah, we have to put in more effort to train them, but. When you get guys from other shops, they've already picked up a lot of these bad habits. And if we're talking about being the top one or 5% of the industry here, then why am I asking the other 95% to train my guys when I want 'em?
Josh Langstaff: Train like the top one or 5%. Yep. To train 'em here?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, grow 'em in house. That's what you're gonna do. You currently have
Wayne Marshall: two or three? I think you had two or three you said in the program, correct. Or where are you at? We got
Josh Langstaff: two. We got two right now. Yeah. And then we've got a whole shop full of apprentices in the actual, like our a SE program.
Josh Langstaff: So right now we're trying to find another journeyman. And that's really the hardest part right now is finding these ticketed guys because we got, we've got apprentices and young kids banging on the door constantly wanting to learn. We just, you know, don't have enough guys to train them.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. It does take a certain mindset for a good trainer to step up and be a trainer.
Jimmy Lea: Your best salesman doesn't make the best sales manager. Your best technician doesn't make a tech trainer either.
Josh Langstaff: Well, they only have so much capacity too. Like if you wanna train them right, maybe you can take on two apprentices and still do your day job.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's phenomenal. That's phenomenal.
Jimmy Lea: Josh your journey is amazing. It's awesome. Congratulations. I love hearing where you've come from and where you're going. It is just so inspiring. And you know, we've got the a hundred thousand net club, the 200,000 net profit club, the 300,000 net profit club, 400, $701 million net profit club. I hope to see you in there.
Josh Langstaff: Yep. I should be in there somewhere, but I was hoping to be a lot farther by now.
Wayne Marshall: Well, you've got the right, you've made great strides. You've made great strides, but I love that you're driven the way you are. This is what makes it fun.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it is. That's what makes it fun. It is fun and you know, we can coach, we can train, we can teach as much as we want.
Jimmy Lea: But are you going to implement it? And Josh, you have not only implemented it, you've expected and wanted more. And the teacher is as prepared as the student is willing to learn. So the more you're coming back saying, okay, I did all these things. I did everything you said. Now what's next? Give me a longer list because I'm ready.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. Yeah, there's always
Josh Langstaff: more to do.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, there is. So, quick questions. I wanna circle back to you and your girlfriend. Your credit cards are maxed out. You're getting net 90 from Canada. Is everybody paid off now? Are you good? Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Josh Langstaff: Everybody was paid off about four or five days after that conversation, but man, it was stressful.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, well, the real beauty of it is girlfriend is now wife with two kids, and a lot of other great things going on.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, congratulations brother. That's awesome. So she was a keeper. We
Wayne Marshall: decided to keep her around. She was a
Josh Langstaff: keeper after that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, for sure.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, I mean, she was probably pretty stressed out there too.
Josh Langstaff: 'cause takes a lot of trust to let someone use your credit card for $20,000 when you know, that's all your $20,000.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And it's all tied up. It's all tied up right there. I just applaud you for being able to stretch it, make it work, make it happen. Persist four or five days, you got the paycheck and things were paid off.
Jimmy Lea: Congratulations, Josh. That is phenomenal. Thank you. Thank you.
Josh Langstaff: And try to avoid running your business on a credit card.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah, that's true. More words of advice, man. We've gotten so many words of advice. Yeah. Don't run your business on a credit card.
Jimmy Lea: That interest is Steve. Yeah, it sure is. Sure is.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. Love it. I love it as well. Wayne, thank you very much. Appreciate the interview with Josh. Josh, thank you very much for the interview with Wayne. Really appreciate it. Yes. Let's land this plane, Wayne, with your last bit of advice. You've now got the magic wand. What would you change in the industry
Josh Langstaff: besides the going back in time for technicians?
Josh Langstaff: I think I would also change just how we're training people and. Bring it up to more modern standards. I know that here, the education being all government regulated and stuff is a little dated by the time the apprentices get in there,
Jimmy Lea: so Oh, wow.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Wayne, final thing I would share, every time we end up talking, I'll ask questions to Josh or other of our coaching clients, and I'll say, so as you look at this now.
Wayne Marshall: You knew three months ago, six months ago, you should have done X, Y, or Z. And the one thing that Josh has already admitted to me and others admit is, you know what? I should have done what I'm doing today. Earlier. We all know it's about, you know, it again, it making those hard calls, making those hard decisions because like Josh knows.
Wayne Marshall: It. It's challenging and living off a credit card to start your business. I mean, people have done it before, but it's hard. So we all know what we need to do. Just go back and look and tell yourself as you look back. You know what? Take advantage of it. Do it when you can. You know what you need to do. Put your words into action because we keep saying, tomorrow I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this tomorrow.
Wayne Marshall: Never gets here. Gotta work on today. And you gotta come up with something and just, even if it's a little thing, do the little thing. And that's why I like what we talked about earlier and what Josh said about stay with the basics. If we stay focused and we do those things and we do it with consistency, excuse me, we will.
Wayne Marshall: Have success. So Josh, thank you. Much love working with you. We're gonna continue to build on this 'cause they're better and bigger days in front. And yes, as he sat at the summit, I remember you told me then at the big awards dinner and they're giving out awards for people at this number and net, and you said.
Wayne Marshall: I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna hit this and I'm gonna hit that. And you're doing it. Yeah. You're not everywhere you want to be, but I'm driven just like you are. But you're doing it and you're gonna get into that club 'cause you're already there and be on, you'll be one of those top guys. You're on track.
Josh Langstaff: It's also a sprint, not a marathon. So just keep going. Some days
Wayne Marshall: it's, some days it's,
Josh Langstaff: or sorry, a marathon, not a sprint.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. Just flipped out a little bit.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Some days it's a
Wayne Marshall: sprint though, too. Some days. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Josh you spoke about something here a minute ago. You thought that if you just tuck your head down and go to work and just work, then it will work itself out.
Jimmy Lea: And that doesn't always happen. It doesn't always happen that way because you may be building a trail and knocking down rainforest and you may be going this direction, building a highway, and you're making good headway. And then some of the time here comes a coach that says, Hey, you know what you're going the wrong way.
Jimmy Lea: You, you're supposed to be going that way. Oh, but we're making great headway. We're getting so much done. But you're going the wrong way. We need to go that way. You hired a coach, you hired a trainer, you hired somebody that is gonna be able to look at that work and say, okay, you work really well, but let's go this way.
Josh Langstaff: Yeah, let's channel that energy in the right direction.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Josh, congratulations. Thank you very much, Wayne. Thank you very much. Appreciate you guys being here, and those of you who are watching this on the recording or watching live, if any of this has resonated with you as, oh my gosh.
Jimmy Lea: My shop is in this situation. I have these area areas I want to improve. I have these areas I need to look at. I'm maxed out on my credit cards. I'm maxed out on everything, but I'm not making the headway that I wanna make. You need a coach. Look at every professional athlete. They all have coaches. In fact, they have multiple coaches.
Jimmy Lea: So if you are in this industry, whether you're working on gas vehicles electric vehicles, diesel vehicles, any vehicle that is involved in transportation, come check out the institute. Check out what we're doing here. 'cause it's awesome. It's amazing. It's making a difference in so many different people's lives.
Jimmy Lea: Our motto is better business, better life, better industry. That's what we're here to help you do as well. Create a better business for you. It'll change your life. It'll change your spouse's life. It'll change your partner's life. It'll change your employee's life. As we all lock arms together, we're gonna help elevate and build a better industry for everybody.
Jimmy Lea: My name is Jimmy Lee with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Excited to be here with you today. I hope you learn something today. What nuggets did you take from this conversation? Let me know. Reach out. Love to talk to you real soon. Thank you. See you next week.

Monday Aug 25, 2025
Monday Aug 25, 2025
140 - From Two Bays to TrueCare: David Long’s Journey to Building a Thriving Auto Repair Business
August 22, 2025 - 00:27:07
Show Summary:
David Long shares his journey from fixing family cars in a small rural town to owning and growing multiple successful auto repair shops. He reflects on starting in the industry out of necessity, building his first shop in Palo Alto nearly from scratch, and learning the business side through training and mentorship. After selling his first shop, he opened TrueCare in Shingle Springs, California, where he recently expanded into a larger seven-bay facility. David discusses the challenges of finding good employees, the importance of developing managers and technicians, and the lessons he’s learned about renting versus owning property. He also opens up about stress management, the difficulty of industry training, and what keeps him up at night while moving his business into its new permanent home.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
David Long, Owner of TrueCare Automotive
Episode Highlights:
[00:00:47] – David expands his shop from five bays to seven and finds the perfect property by chance.
[00:02:39] – Growing up fixing cars with his dad and neighbor sparked his automotive path.
[00:05:01] – Remembers sneaking out with a 1978 Dodge truck and push-starting cars on hills.
[00:07:37] – Starts career working at his aunt and uncle’s shop, learning diagnostics without internet or modern tools.
[00:11:22] – Mentor encourages David to open his own shop and loans him money to start Dave’s Auto Repair.
[00:12:26] – Runs a highly efficient two-bay shop that nearly hits $1M in annual sales.
[00:14:02] – Opens his second shop, TrueCare, after moving out of the Bay Area.
[00:16:34] – Shares vision of stepping out of daily operations and developing strong managers.
[00:20:26] – Biggest regret: renting for too long instead of buying property for the shop.
[00:22:19] – If given a magic wand, he’d strengthen technician training opportunities industry-wide.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
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Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or goodnight, depending on when and where you're joining us from today. My name is Jimmy Lea. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. And you have joined us for the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is David Long with TrueCare in And you're in California, right, David?
David Long: Yeah. Shingle Springs, California.
Jimmy Lea: Shingle Springs, California. How is the weather in California today? It's about 90. It's not too bad. It's gorgeous. I moved, I just recently moved. And you recently moved? I recently moved from St. George, Utah to Northern Utah. We went from the 100 and teens into the nineties.
Jimmy Lea: I'm thinking it's gorgeous outside. It's so beautiful.
David Long: Oh yeah.
Jimmy Lea: And you just recently moved as well from five base to a seven base shop. Tell us about that.
David Long: Yeah, well I've been looking for a bigger place for years actually. And sometimes universe just pushes you. Had a problem with my landlord at the old place.
David Long: We found out about this place hitting the market. We actually were able to come and look at this building the day that the realtors signed with the seller. And so we were able to get a contract like just a couple days after that, before they ever even advertised it, which is lucky because there's very little inventory out there for automotive.
David Long: Commercial properties, so, oh my
Jimmy Lea: gosh, yes. Congratulations. And David just gave me a little tour around the place. If ever you're in Shingle Springs, California. You definitely wanna go see this shop. It's absolutely gorgeous. I love his waiting room, the woodwork that was done in there. You own a fabulous shop, seven Bays, two outdoor lifts.
Jimmy Lea: Is that correct?
David Long: Five indoor, two outdoor.
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. And how many technicians are at the shop? How many service advisors? What does the makeup look like?
David Long: Currently there's just five of us here. We've got a service manager, three technicians, and I'm a floater. We're kind of, we're gonna be expanding our employee inventory soon, once we're more settled in here.
David Long: 'cause we just moved into this building a month and a half ago.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Congratulations. That's awesome. Get your feet on the ground, make sure you're stable. And then start the expansion.
David Long: Yeah, exactly.
Jimmy Lea: Gotta love it. Gotta love it. All right, well let's go back in time if you will. Go back with me. How did you get started in the automotive industry?
Jimmy Lea: That's slower.
David Long: Well, I grew up in a small rural community and our family. We mostly had to fix our own cars except for the many times that they became unfixable. So a lot of cars went through our family over the years growing up. And my next door neighbor down the hill from us was a heavy duty mechanic.
David Long: So he would work on tractors and anything. He would work on anything. So I remember going down there with my dad when I was a little kid and they, he'd be. Asking Dick for advice and I was just looking and learning. And you know, then when it was time for me to go to college, I was thinking, well, I don't have money for college.
David Long: I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I have a knack for working on stuff. So I went to school for automotive technology and that was, let's see, I took my first. Job as a mechanic in 1996.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Okay. Now you talk about all the cars that went through the family. I think our, we fell out of the same tree.
Jimmy Lea: There were a lot of cars that went through the family that, that we would work on as well. What was your first vehicle that you drove that you had to maintain and if the. If the battery died, you had to replace it. If the windshield wipers needed new windshield wipers, you had to replace it. If the starter got a didn't work anymore what was that first vehicle that you worked on?
David Long: Well, I mean, before I had my own first vehicle, of course I would do whatever we could do. I mean, jumping the bat that batteries that were dead. Did you ever push
Jimmy Lea: start?
David Long: Oh yeah. All the cars were stick shifts. Oh yeah. And we did live on a hill. Oh yeah. Matter of fact, when I was, before I had my driver's license, I'd sneak out and steal the truck and I'd just coast it down the hill far enough down that my mom wouldn't be able to hear it start.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. No, I understand. Oh man. So what was the truck that you were? It
David Long: was a 78 Dodge. Would've been a half ton pickup, whatever that was. Had a slant. Six engine.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Nice. Mine was a, my great grandmother's 1952 Chevy Deluxe, Bel Air three on the tree. Three on the tree. And I would park it at school on the downhill.
Jimmy Lea: So after school I could jump in coast, pop it into second, jumpstart it.
David Long: Because it wouldn't start otherwise.
Jimmy Lea: No. 'cause the battery was dead. Oh. And I couldn't afford another battery, so I know, right. That was my solution. And you know, you get creative when the mother of invention is creativity or creativity is the mother of invention, one of the two.
Jimmy Lea: It works that way. So what's one of those defining moments for you in the beginning of your. Working on automotive you've got the neighbor that's doing everything from lawnmowers to diesel trucks and tractors, but what's that defining moment that you go, Ooh, I think this is me.
David Long: Well, honestly, it was more of a decision out of necessity to try to get a job and be able to support myself.
David Long: I don't think working in automotive was ever my. First choice. I mean, it was a choice, but like I probably would've gotten into engineering or something if I had lived somewhere else and had, you know, different resources available,
Jimmy Lea: different opportunities. Yeah, no, I understand that.
David Long: But I mean, looking back on it, I'm really grateful that I made that decision 'cause it's been great.
David Long: Way to interact with the community, I think is probably my favorite part about it Now. So it's just nice helping people. Sometimes we get to save the day.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. And it is good when you can save the day. For sure. There, I'm sure there's been a lot of opportunities for you to save the day for many family vacations, road trips kids going off to college, coming back from college.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. Exactly. Nice. And when you started in the automotive industry you started in 96 you were working for somebody else or did you start your own business right out of the gate?
David Long: No, I worked for my aunt and uncle. They had a shop in Palo Alto. And I moved down there. I basically lived in the shop on a couch.
David Long: For, I don't know, close to a year before I was able to go and find some roommates. But but yeah I just started out at the bottom and I had gone to college, so I knew like a lot of theory about admission controls and. Different, complicated things that surprise, it surprised me that most of the people that worked there didn't know that much.
David Long: And they had tools and experience and they knew how to wrench, but none of 'em were that strong in diagnostic work. And also, remember back then we didn't have like the internet and like there were paper shop manuals. Eventually we got all data, which was a stack of like. 20 discs CD ROMs that were Yes, just for the Asian vehicles that we worked on.
David Long: It wasn't even the domestic or European stuff. Like if you needed this or that. Okay. Put in disc seven and sometimes you'd get partway through reading something, then you need disc eight. And things are a lot better now. Oh yeah. For diagnostic stuff. That things are much, you know, I mean, the first shop was a Honda shop and all of those manuals were.
David Long: Poorly translated from Japanese, so you had to kind of read between the lines in a way. The wiring diagrams were just horrible. I mean, the older guys couldn't even do that. They couldn't see good enough to tell which little line was which. Oh yeah. I don't know if you've ever seen those older wiring diagrams, but they're on paper.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. The black and white ones no color.
David Long: There's black and white, and they'll group like 20 or 30. Just horizontal lions. You'd have to follow it along.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. I remember. And then PHI came along and that helped a tremendous amount.
David Long: Oh yeah. That's fantastic. We use that all the time.
Jimmy Lea: Yep. So that's good.
Jimmy Lea: So you worked for aunt and uncle for how many years? How many years were you there before you struck out on your own?
David Long: Yeah. So let's see. I worked there. Must have been like five or six years. They sold the business to a guy that didn't have any automotive experience. He made me the general manager, but he, it was not managed well from him though.
David Long: It was, there were some issues, so I ended up going with a couple of the other employees to another shop, which was just across the street. And I worked there until 2008 and great guy to work for. He owned the building there in downtown Palo Alto, and he eventually got an offer to sell the building and they wanted to redevelop it, you know, which is what's happened down there or everywhere.
David Long: It's just a lot of you know. 6, 7, 8 story buildings now what used to be a exclusively automotive area that started back in the fifties. But anyway, so when he sold the building, he told me, Hey Dave, you know, I think you're ready to have your own business. So here's the deal. I'm selling the building and I'm closing the shop.
David Long: But if you can figure out a place to move to open your own new shop, and you can have all my customers. I'll loan you all the money that you need. You just gotta tell me how much you need. Yeah. So in 2008, I opened up my first shop in Palo Alto Dave's Auto Repair and owned it for 10 years down there.
Jimmy Lea: Congratulations. What was the footprint? What did it look like?
David Long: It was an old gas station that was built in the fifties. Metal shell building. Tiny, two bays. Two bays? Yep. Two bays. Yep. I had hydraulic lifts. Yep. Hydraulic lifts. Yep. I bought one of those little portable outdoor lifts and used that occasionally too.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, okay.
David Long: Yeah. But yeah, we did really well there, actually, surprisingly, we were. Almost got to a million dollars in sales, like for years
Jimmy Lea: outta two bays. Bro that's awesome.
David Long: We were very efficient. You had to be.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You had to be.
David Long: And when I opened that shop, I had no experience of being a business owner.
David Long: So, you know, I, I did a couple different training programs one with. Management success, maybe if you've heard of them or remember them.
Jimmy Lea: I do. I do their drive now.
David Long: Very intense program that they offered. Not sure. I totally agree with everything that they had going on there, but and then I was with a TI for many years and got a lot out of that.
David Long: Was in a 20 group for a long time. So
Jimmy Lea: nice. What are you in now? Are you in training now with any training companies? No. Okay. Masterminds, business development groups, BNIs, nothing. Nope. Nope. Just David on his own. I
David Long: completely pulled away from all of that stuff, so.
Jimmy Lea: Well, congratulations. It sounds like you've learned a lot along the way.
Jimmy Lea: You've got a tremendous amount of. Technical knowledge. Couple that together with the business knowledge that you now have and you're doing a lot better. And congratulations a month and a half in the new location, which is awesome.
David Long: Yeah. So this is my second business. The first one I sold in 2018.
David Long: This business I opened in 2017 just 'cause I moved out of the Bay Area and where we're living now, it's, we're about between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, if you're familiar with the area.
Jimmy Lea: I am. My brother lives in Cameron Park.
David Long: Oh, okay. Well see Cameron Park and Shingle Springs share the same zip code, so I know
Jimmy Lea: exactly
David Long: where you are.
David Long: Yeah, and we just moved from our shop was in Cameron Park where I opened it. So.
Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. That's awesome. Well, next time I'm out visiting my brother, I'm gonna swing by and we'll say hello.
David Long: Yeah, you should. That'd be awesome.
Jimmy Lea: That would be awesome. So the we, we got the footprint of where you are today and what that looks like.
Jimmy Lea: Where are you gonna be in five years? David? What does that look like as you look down the road, five years, eight years, 10 years, what are you gonna be doing?
David Long: Well, so. I definitely wanna get back to where I was with my other business, which was not involved with the day-to-day operations. That has to be the goal of any auto shop owner or any business owner I would think.
David Long: And I mean, if you're a dentist or something, well you have to work on the teeth. But if you own a shop, you shouldn't be the one working on cars all the time. Love it. And so I'm not there yet. This business. I opened it from scratch. We moved here, we didn't know anybody in the area, and I got my toolbox, rented a space.
David Long: I knew how to, I knew the recipe, just, I was like, I just need to get some people in here, advertise on Google and get reviews. And you know, then it took probably. A couple years before I was able to hire my first employee, and it's just, and now I have an incredible presence in the area. I think we've gotta be the top rated shop, like for a wide radius, very wide.
David Long: So
Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah. It sounds like you just went scrappy on it and claw your way to success.
David Long: Pretty much. But yeah, so back to your question of where I wanna be in five years. Yeah. I definitely want to be like have a back office that's kind of detached and spend maybe part-time there and be able to focus more on other stuff, whatever that might be.
David Long: I don't really know. Sure. I mean, I'm just, I had a lot of time before with my old shop and played a lot of golf. I really was thinking about maybe just doing something else too, you know, but I couldn't really put my finger on what that was, so I just decided to open another auto shop. But
Jimmy Lea: there you go.
Jimmy Lea: And eventually you'll get there. You get to the point where you're either a multimillion dollar per location as a single location shop, or maybe you look at expanding the kingdom and you create a bigger footprint for yourself where you have multiple shops doing multimillions and now you just manage the kingdom.
Jimmy Lea: You're not in the day to day.
David Long: Yeah. I've thought about having other shops. It's a possibility. I mean, it's all about having good managers though. I mean, that's what the key is.
Jimmy Lea: So how do you find a good manager, David? How do you develop 'em? Do you find 'em, do you recruit 'em? Do you poach 'em? Do you what?
Jimmy Lea: What? What's a good, I think you have
David Long: to develop 'em. That goes for any good employee, you know. I mean, technicians, I've always had to develop them.
Jimmy Lea: Do you have an program keeping
David Long: develop? Developing 'em and keeping 'em is keeping 'em sometimes the tricky part, but
Jimmy Lea: yeah, my, my father built gas stations in Las Vegas for 28 years or something like that, and he said that he was always developing his competition.
Jimmy Lea: He would invest and train and teach his people. Then they would go out and start a competing business and compete against him. So do you feel like you're compet, you're training your competition?
David Long: I guess it could be. You could look at it that way. I don't know. I never thought of it that way, but that's an interesting concept.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And hopefully you stay friends. You remain friends. You remain com Oh yeah. Is in the business so that you can refer business back and forth with each other and just have a really good relationship for the future.
David Long: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's good. So what's something that you have learned from the most in the past?
Jimmy Lea: We learn more from our failures than we do our successes. What is one of those defining moments that started out as a failure, but in the end it probably became one of the greatest success stories that you have in your business life cycle, if you will.
David Long: So just related to business alone, you mean? Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. We'll stay out of the personal stuff. Let's just remain in the business realm.
David Long: It's, that's a tough one for me, Jimmy. I mean, honestly, I've been so blessed. I, got the training I needed very early on after opening the first shop. And I feel like there would've been a lot more pain and discomfort if I hadn't done that because I've never had a time where we were slow or where we weren't making money.
David Long: So
Jimmy Lea: yeah,
David Long: I haven't had like a lot of like, I guess. Just renting. I guess that's kind of a failure. I think that, you know, buying a property ought to be the goal for any auto shop owner also. Yeah. But I've only now just now able to do that. So that's after a long, many years of owning a business.
David Long: It's just a, you know, if you were to buy a parcel of land up here, I looked into this last year. I was in escrow on a parcel and got a bunch of bids on building a building. Well, guess what? By the time you're all done, you've got a building that is worth way less than what it costs to create.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
David Long: And I don't I just don't think that's sustainable.
David Long: So
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
David Long: It's just tough to find places, footprints, you know,
Jimmy Lea: it's, yeah
David Long: They're building. What was it like. How many thousands of new homes in Folsom right now? Guess what? They're not building there auto shops,
Jimmy Lea: right?
David Long: That will not happen there.
Jimmy Lea: No. No. And the amount of red tape that you've gotta wage your way through the amount of red tape and scenarios and case studies that you've gotta do just tremendous.
Jimmy Lea: It makes it even more difficult. To try and establish an automotive business in California. What a challenge.
David Long: Yeah. But yeah, I think that'd be like the biggest thing that I wish I could have changed Uhhuh, is to been able to purchase a building for the business to live in sooner. Because all that money you throw away in rent and plus you never know what's gonna happen. You got a good landlord today, tomorrow he dies and it goes to somebody else and they might not be so great.
Jimmy Lea: Right. So, makes it difficult. Very difficult. So if you were to have a magic wand, if you could go, if you could change anything in the industry, what would you change?
David Long: The industry. Big magic wand. Well, it would be great if we had enough flexibility or bandwidth as an industry as a whole to train technicians, I think as one of the biggest things. And, you know, maybe it's different in different areas. There, around here, there's a fair amount of young guys that are interested in being mechanics, but it's a tough, it's a tough job, you know?
David Long: So that'd be my magic wand. I mean, I get kids coming in a few times a year saying, do you can you do apprenticeships? Can I work? I just wanna get my foot in the door. But the thing is we don't, we're not big enough to really have someone take the time to train someone completely from scratch like that.
David Long: Very difficult. It takes a lot of time. And so I think just better, more training. That'd be my magic wand.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's a great magic wand. That's a great magic wand. So if you were to have the ability to go back to yourself when you were starting, and you've talked a little bit about rent, you've talked a little bit about starting your own business, what advice would you give yourself in starting your business?
Jimmy Lea: It's the same number. It's just x and that two.
David Long: Which would mean doing something differently.
Jimmy Lea: So, or reinforcing something. Just say, go after this quicker, faster, better, stronger.
David Long: Maybe just don't beat yourself up so much. Managing stress better. Definitely could have done that better, you know? Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no. Stress is a tough one, that's for sure.
Jimmy Lea: That's for sure. Well, David, I am impressed with your story. I'm impressed with your lineage in the industry. You've got a great location. I am definitely coming out to Che Link Springs and gonna come see you next time I go visit my brother there in Cameron Park, so you're probably not too far from his exit.
David Long: Yeah, no, that's a small area up
Jimmy Lea: here. Nice. So, you know, one last question for you. What keeps you up at night today? What keeps you up at night that you think about that is heavy on your mind that is keeping you awake today?
David Long: Well mostly just with the moving the business. We're. We've moved into the building, but we're also still in escrow.
David Long: And there's been a bunch of environmental tests that the SBA wanted done, which were very costly and time consuming. I think we're on our 11th amendment to the purchase agreement and we're about to have a 12th one, probably like today or tomorrow, but we're almost to the finish line. And that's been.
David Long: For the last, since March, what's been keeping me up at night is just moving the business. But I mean, other than that, we have a really solid process and I mean, there isn't any, there isn't really any for the most part, I'd say it's just smooth sailing for us all the time, just because we have such great customers.
David Long: They love us, we love them. We have a great team of people that work here. And yeah just having that stability of not worrying about, well, what's gonna happen if we don't have a place for the business to operate? That's a big one.
Jimmy Lea: Sure. Yeah. That, that would keep me up at night as well. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Are we still gonna have front doors to open tomorrow? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, David, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate your insight, your influence, and your inspiration here We are in this industry. That's awesome and amazing. We keep the world running.
David Long: Yeah, it's true.
Jimmy Lea: Doors open.
David Long: Yeah. Thanks, Jimmy.
David Long: Hey, I appreciate that. All right. Take care.
Jimmy Lea: Take care.

Tuesday Aug 19, 2025
Tuesday Aug 19, 2025
138 - What Winning Shops Know: Direct Mail Works Best with the Right Guidance
August 19, 2025 - 00:16:41
Show Summary:
Jimmy Lea sits down with Scott Repman of Scott Repman’s Auto and Truck Repair to explore his path from fixing an unreliable high school car to running a multimillion-dollar repair and towing business. Scott’s story highlights the power of persistence, mentorship, and a commitment to honesty and customer service. He shares how paying technicians well, keeping the business family-driven, and focusing on integrity have fueled his success. Along the way, Scott reflects on industry challenges like rising parts costs and outlines his vision of building a lasting legacy for his children. His guiding lesson through it all: “Don’t be afraid.”
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Scott Repman, Owner of Scott Repman’s Auto and Truck Repair
Episode Highlights:
[00:00:42] - Scott shares how a bad first car led him to discover his love for automotive work in high school.
[00:02:22] - At 20 years old, Scott was given the chance to run an independent shop, taking it from $2,000 a week to $130,000 a month.
[00:04:26] - He later managed a 28-bay shop, becoming the largest AAA contractor in the U.S., handling both repair and towing.
[00:06:24] - Starting from a single bay in 2017, Scott has grown his shop into a $2M+ three-bay operation.
[00:07:06] - Customer service, honesty, and paying technicians well are the cornerstones of his success.
[00:08:17] - Scott highlights parts price gouging as one of the industry’s biggest current challenges.
[00:09:39] - His five-year vision is to expand into a 10-bay shop and build a legacy business for his sons.
[00:10:32] - Keeping the business family-run ensures integrity and a unique customer experience.
[00:13:37] - Offering free towing instead of cheap oil changes is one way he adds value for customers.
[00:14:07] - Scott’s advice to his younger self: “Don’t be afraid." Taking risks and leading with integrity brings success.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
Links & Resources:
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or goodnight, depending on when and where you're joining us from today. My name is Jimmy Lee, and you are joining the Institute with the Leading Edge podcast, and our guest today is Scott from Scott Reitman's Auto and Truck Repair. Scott, how the heck are you brother?
Jimmy Lea: I'm wonderful. It's good to talk to you this morning and be a part of your show. Yes. Well, thank you very much and in fact, I want to talk about your shop and about your business and what you've done. Specifically like how did you get into the automotive industry because your shop's only been around since 2017.
Jimmy Lea: How did you get launched into this?
Scott Repman: Well, honestly my parents buying me a very bad car in high school is what made me become a mechanic when you were always having to fix your own vehicle and they still offered high school automotive. That's what led me to working on cars. I was fortunate to have a father that was in the mechanical business, not automotive, but in air conditioning, so he taught me great work ethic, work ethics.
Scott Repman: When we finally got a chance to start turning a wrench in high school, I really enjoyed it. I found a love for it, so I stayed very in depth to it. That is awesome. What is your first car? My first car was a 1981 Ford Escort. I'm embarrassed to tell you, but 81 Ford Escort. That's why you had to learn to work on cars if you own that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. You did. Oh, that's awesome. My first car is a 1952 Chevy Deluxe, Bel Air. It was great Grandma's car and I got to drive it.
Scott Repman: Oh, there's nothing wrong with a classic. Oh, that's a good car. That's a lot better than the 81 escort. I did get to learn to drive three on a tree, so that was pretty cool.
Scott Repman: That was very cool. Today, I don't think we could get 10 young men to be able to drive three on a tree.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. So true. My son could do it. I could tell you that.
Scott Repman: That's 'cause you're a good dad and you taught him. I, same with my boys. I've got five boys and they can all drive a stick. They had to learn.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. It's so true. So going back to when you started your shop, you've got a solid foundation, high school, auto shop, what's one of those defining moments that really set up who you are today as a budding business owner?
Scott Repman: When I was 20 years old, I was fortunate to be given a chance by a gentleman named Dan Verdo that owned an independent repair shop in Phoenix, Arizona that butted up next to an kaman transmission.
Scott Repman: So I had the, i, I got the. Just an opportunity that was unreal to be able to be in control of a shop that was growing. We ended up taking it to be one of the largest auto repair independents in the nineties over in North Phoenix. And just grew from there. Took a business that was only doing a couple of thousand dollars a week up to doing about $11,000 a week.
Scott Repman: So that was a major change for that company. And then by the time that I had spent five years with that company, we had 'em up to about 130,000 a month. I always was someone that was dedicated to growing my customer base, making sure they were satisfied and happy. I started as a mechanic, but as people found out and I found out myself, I was very good with people, I was very good with our industry and explaining what needed to take place with people's cars, and that's a success story starting right there.
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. It sure is that's awesome. Inspiring that you went from being mechanic to a service advisor. You took a shop from. A few hundred dollars a day to 1.3, 1.4 million a year in a, that is correct time. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. So at 25, did you strike out on your own
Scott Repman: or did you. No, I'd love to share.
Scott Repman: So I, through the industry and time, like you probably know, anytime you've got somebody that's successful at the front counter, you're gonna have plenty of people come look for you. Yeah. So the next person that found me was a gentleman named Scott drag me that owned a Coman transmission and took me to my next level.
Scott Repman: He allowed me to really run his facility with my abilities and my talents. I ended up taking him to the number third rank for kaman transmission between 96 and 99 of for, you know, the whole industry throughout the 50 states. And at that point then the next person that I got to meet was a gentleman named.
Scott Repman: Johnson. There's a lot of good and bad that rolls with that. But at the end of the day, I was able to run a 28 bay shop largest AAA contractor in the United States for both towing and repair. And this is before AAA had their own repair shops. And at $256,000 a month in business and service, and over 2000 calls with towing, it really broadened all my horizons on the business.
Jimmy Lea: Holy mackerel.
Scott Repman: Yes, sir.
Jimmy Lea: Two, you are a $3 million a year business.
Scott Repman: Probably closer to four when it was all said and done. The, being the largest AAA contractor I evolved the towing industry into an amazing product that we still use today at my shop. So having 10 tow trucks at your disposal, I gotta be honest, one of the things that made me successful was giving a little bit away to get a lot.
Scott Repman: We used to average bring in 10 cars a day minimum into that shop. Via a tow truck and anybody in our industry knows a tow truck. Back then they were an average of 900 to $1,100 per car, and today they're closer to two to $3,000 per car because of the cost of auto repair. Wow. So. We wrapped everything I, over time, I took everybody's great ideas and wrapped them into one is what brought me to my own business.
Scott Repman: So I did work for a large multi-company that had sold this last year. And my best friend is actually the vice president ex vice president, and that was Gruels Automotive. They really taught me integrity. I gotta be honest, for a 25, 25 shop company, they had integrity, honesty, the things that really make an auto shop successful.
Scott Repman: And I took that last little tidbit and I opened my own company in 17, actually was on my own me one bay and me running another man's shop to be able to afford to start my own business. 'cause I'm not rich. I had to start from the ground up. So at that point I put enough money together to get a single bay.
Scott Repman: And today I'm proud to say that we're doing a little over $2 million out of a three bay shop. Congratulations. A three bay shop at that three Bays three, so 680,000 a bay. I'll be happy to put my number I, yes sir. And we are hoping that we are fixing to move into a new 10 bay shop that's just a couple of miles down the road and we'll know that answer this week.
Scott Repman: So fingers crossed we're growing to the next location.
Jimmy Lea: Well, congratulations. We'll be praying for you. I hope it all turns out very well for you. 10 bays. If you can do 2 million, 3 million out of a three bay, what are you doing out of a 10 bay, brother? Oh my gosh.
Scott Repman: Customer service. I have to be honest. We don't advertise.
Scott Repman: We definitely have a free Facebook page, but it's word of mouth referrals, honesty, I just can't say that word enough. Honesty, integrity will get you everywhere. People will bring you more work than you could ever handle. I learned in this industry there's so much honest repair. You never have to dig deep to find repair.
Scott Repman: It's all sitting there. You just need to have good mechanics. And I'd like to wrap that in a little bit. You've gotta pay your guys good. I can't lie. My top guy makes 65 an hour and he is worth every penny of it. Every hour that man turns for me. He makes me money. My guys average about 55 hours a week. They're just they're the best the industry offers and they're worth it.
Scott Repman: So getting back to paying your mechanics, the right amount of money has made me successful with less comebacks good customer service, and people that want to deal with my mechanics. I mean, they ask for 'em by name and I it makes me feel special on that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that sure does. When they know your mechanic by name.
Jimmy Lea: That's a whole nother level of trust in the industry. That's very cool. So, what's one of the biggest challenges that you're facing today?
Scott Repman: Being point blank the way that the parts companies are taking advantage of the tariffs. We are very big into American parts and are always have been into American parts, buying those specific, but we've noticed the price increase on American parts, which should not be taking place.
Scott Repman: Considering how the tariffs work. So I feel like our industry is like many others, the parts companies are seeing where they can gouge. I will use that word because if you look at repair one year ago, two years ago on the same part number, you're just watching it go up. Quality come down, which I'm sure you're very easily aware of, seeing all the recalls, lack of bolts being tightened at manufacturers.
Scott Repman: But tying that back, the biggest issue is that you're having to raise your prices. I'm all for making money, but you've gotta be cost effective for your customers so they can afford the repairs.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. It's so true. Parts is such a intricate part of what we do. It's 50% of every repair order is it's parts and labor.
Jimmy Lea: So labor we can control, but the parts man, yeah, it is a challenge. It is a challenge for sure. So, looking to the future, where would, where do you see yourself in five years? We know this week you're looking at a 10 bay shop, but where does the five year plan look for you, Scott?
Scott Repman: Well, I've been fortunate to have five boys, as I said a little bit earlier ago, and out of those five I grabbed two that really love the industry.
Scott Repman: So my 28-year-old is the manager of our shop. I really deal with the mobile repair and the towing side of our business. And then my oldest, my oldest stepson is one of our mechanics. Where I'm going with that is I wanna build something for them to take over. The next five years is going be to build more foundations so they're more secure and they're better off in a position to continue what is, I believe, our legacy.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So that's the impact you're gonna make, is building a very good, solid foundation of an business that the two of them can work together as partners and really take it up to the next level.
Scott Repman: That's correct, along with my wife. I hope to always be here, but you have to think of the future. My wife is the HR and the book bookkeeper.
Scott Repman: She's expanding that to our daughter-in-law. We're keeping it in the family because it gives them a guaranteed future, and it keeps our industry very clean the way we want it. We know when people come into our facility, they're going to get an experience that's unlike anyone they've ever had in the auto industry.
Scott Repman: They're gonna be treated like family better and just more in depth than ever.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. Your wife Lisa is your wife? Yes, sir.
Scott Repman: Yes
Jimmy Lea: sir. Yeah she's doing a great job there, being in the industry. And then partner with you. So to your experience with Ulix, do you think you'll ever expand the kingdom or you just keep it one multimillion dollar, single location?
Scott Repman: Just a couple of locations. I can't see going the GRU style. And I wanna remove that word unfortunately since they got sold out, but it's. I've seen them multi-locations lose their integrity. I'm sorry guys. Anybody out there that hates me on that one? Apologize. But I get more customers out of those large venues of shops more than ever before.
Scott Repman: When you get that large, it's very hard to make sure your customers, number one, it's very hard to make sure they know that their car is just as important as the other ones that are in that shop. Well, when you get into multi-locations, you don't see the happiness at the front counter 'cause they really don't take care of their people like they should.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You know that does happen. It's culture is a very fickle beast and it's hard to wrangle. It's hard to create. It's hard to tame, but once you've got it in there, man, it just really explodes and goes really well. So if you do expand to a couple locations I've heard it said before that. A single location is like a handbag.
Jimmy Lea: Two locations is like luggage, and three locations is like a trunk.
Scott Repman: You, and I've heard everybody say that three you gotta have. So there might be a third down the road, but two that are close together. 'cause we have so much work right now we're sitting on usually having 40. 50 cars on the lot for repair, which I'm just proud as can be.
Scott Repman: Yeah. But we wanna make those cars, we really can turn 'em over fast. Even with the three bays we have four mechanics. We do heavy duty, so we do work on anything from a Peterbilt down to a chevette. I think that's very unique for our company. And in our net neck of the woods, we're in North Phoenix and very few people offer what we do when it comes to the big trucks.
Scott Repman: Oh yeah. So that's that. That's a really big part of our business that people. It's scary to a lot of the automotive shops, but gasoline and diesel, you almost have to take care of both today if you really want to keep all your customers.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, and it's amazing that you're doing everything from the big semi trucks, the Peter belts, the box trucks, the reefers, all the way down to a Ford Fiesta.
Scott Repman: You got, Hey, I'd love a fiesta. They're easy to work on. But yeah. We do mobile service for the big trucks and little cars. We have the tow truck, which I'll be honest, we give towing away because I'm the driver and it's free of charge almost. Why not? I wanna give my customer a benefit. Instead of giving 'em a cheap oil change, I give 'em a low cost tow whenever they need it, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Scott Repman: That's important to them. They, I've never had somebody ask for a cheap oil change that lacks good service. 'cause they would rather have the good service than a cheap price.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. It's so true. So if you were able to send yourself a message back to the days when you started your business. What message would you send yourself in those early days of starting your business or maybe even Scott, going back to when you first started turning a wrench as a 20-year-old in the shop?
Scott Repman: Don't be afraid. Literally one statement. Don't be afraid. 'cause the day that I accepted that, which would've been around my 19 to 20 years of age, I've never turned back. I've always gone forward. Every shop I've worked for has made more money than they made before. Every mechanic that's ever worked for me, even being through somebody else's OA ownership, they always make more money.
Scott Repman: You lead 'em to the promised land when you take your people there. They'll follow you to the end of the world. And that just creates, once again, all this is a domino effect to have great customer service and exceptional customers. It all comes together.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. I love your advice. Don't be afraid.
Jimmy Lea: So, going back to the days of this starting and your advice is don't be afraid. What's one of those risks? That were you to go back, you would take it this time where before you may have been a little bit risk adverse.
Scott Repman: I probably would've actually have just rented a shop my first year instead of a single bay and worked for and run another man's company.
Scott Repman: I'm not against it, but I think if I would've put a little more into my first year, I could have got a bigger shop. But at the end, you don't want to second guess, because if it's a success you end up at, then it may not have been the best move to change anything, if that makes sense. But I wanna say, I guess, you know, going through those times when you're.
Scott Repman: You have no credit worthiness, your business is up and starting. You've gotta go give a hundred percent. We, you know, I personally went out and got accounts, got contracts, become part of the government account system, took on the VA hospital, which we're very proud to say that we work on all their large equipment at the Veterans Administration in Phoenix.
Scott Repman: Things like that make me proud. We took our. Great company and showed them what we had to offer, and in return it just turned it right back to us. So don't be afraid. It turns into you. Just open all your doors.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, amen, brother. Amen. Well, Scott, thank you so much for joining me today. Those of you who can't tell Scott is in one of his tow trucks today joining us from the road.
Jimmy Lea: You are an inspiration for sure. Thank you for not being afraid. Thank you for taking the risk and being honest and providing integrity to our industry, not only for yourself, not only for Lisa, but for your boys and for your team, and growing your kingdom. The impact you're gonna leave is just so invaluable.
Jimmy Lea: It is just inspirational. Thank you very much, Scott. Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Scott Repman: I appreciate your time and this morning was wonderful to talk to you. You have a beautiful, amazing day.

Friday Aug 15, 2025
Friday Aug 15, 2025
138 - What Winning Shops Know: Direct Mail Works Best with the Right Guidance
August 13, 2025 - 00:59:56
Show Summary:
Jimmy Lea hosts a conversation with Cameron Ritter from Upswell Marketing and shop owner Tom Grover of All Right Automotive & Diesel, focusing on the power of postcards as a marketing tool for auto repair shops. They explore how tangible, personalized mailers create strong connections, and how targeting the right customers, like diesel owners, can dramatically improve results. Tom shares his journey from running a busy shop with no formal marketing to achieving a 47-to-1 ROI through strategic campaigns. Cameron explains the difference between saturation and database mailings, the importance of penetration reports, and tracking returns through address matching and call tracking. Both emphasize the value of consistency, combining “push” (postcards) with “pull” (digital ads), and avoiding the stop-start trap with marketing. The discussion closes with Tom’s lessons learned on refining processes first, then using postcards to grow the right customer base.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Thomas Grover, Owner of All Right Auto Repair
Cameron Ritter, UpSwell Marketing
Episode Highlights:
[00:00:55] - Postcards remain effective because they’re tangible, personal, and can be highly targeted.[00:05:12] - Tom shares his history in automotive and why he initially avoided marketing.[00:10:40] - Targeting diesel owners boosted ARO and attracted the right type of customers.[00:15:33] - Cameron explains saturation vs. database mailings and when to use each.[00:20:48] - Penetration reports reveal where high-value customers are coming from.[00:28:50] - Response to postcards can be immediate, but they often generate business months later.[00:36:22] - Lost customer campaigns can re-engage clients after 6–12 months of inactivity.[00:44:08] - Keeping postcard messaging simple avoids customer confusion and increases results.[00:53:35] - Combining postcards with digital ads creates a more complete marketing strategy.[00:59:20] - Consistency in marketing prevents the “cruise ship” slowdown effect.
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=fNPAwjHFZ7I
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
Links & Resources:
Want to learn more? Click Here
Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
See The Institute's events list: Click Here
Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript DisclaimerThis transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: Thank you everybody for joining. Glad you are here, my friends, as we have this conversation. Joining us today is Cameron from Upswell, formerly known as Lik Mail. You may know them from their postcard days, way back in the day. And Cameron is here with us representing the, uh, ever-present world, world of marketing and postcards.
Jimmy Lea: Cameron, thank you for joining us. How you doing, brother? Hey, I appreciate you guys having me. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, you know, the, the postcard industry is an industry that's never seen a downturn. Why is that?
Cameron Ritter: I think in the consumer, when you're, when you're marketing to your consumers, right, you're always looking to give them good incentives to come into your shop, and so that's exactly what that does in a proactive way, and it's something that they can touch and feel.
Cameron Ritter: Right. Digital is something that they can just see, but really when you're sending a personalized direct mail piece, it's got their name on it, they it, it feels like them, right? We can really personalize those messages and tailor that to who we're marketing towards. So I think that's why it's never gonna go away 'cause it's so
Jimmy Lea: personal.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true, and postcards are awesome. I love postcards. I, I love postcards because they always get to the address that you have put on the postcard, whether or not that person lives there anymore, and I just moved recently. Right? You know that it gets there, it gets to that person, or it gets to that residence.
Jimmy Lea: Question for our audience. Have you ever had a client come into your shop with somebody else's postcard? Drop that in into the comments. Let me know if you have ever redeemed a coupon for a, a client or a client at your shop and the coupon was not addressed to 'em because the person had moved or maybe you had an old list.
Jimmy Lea: That, that's interesting. Cameron, thank you for being here, brother. I appreciate it. Absolutely. I appreciate the time. Uh, and joining us as well is Tom Grover. Tom from All right Auto Tom. How the heck are you, brother?
Tom Grover: Doing great. Great to be able to be with you today.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. How's the weather up there in Boise?
Jimmy Lea: Well, you're in Emett outside of Boise.
Tom Grover: I think yesterday it was 102. Today's only supposed to be about a hundred, so not too bad.
Cameron Ritter: When you say only a hundred, it's hot.
Tom Grover: That is hot. That is
Jimmy Lea: hot. That is hot. I, I, I just moved from St. George, Utah to Northern Utah, and I'm, I'm delighted with these mornings where I wake up and it's 65 degrees outside, and the high today is 94.
Jimmy Lea: I don't know what it is today, but the other day it was a high of 94, and I thought, wow, that's great. I'm, I just, I think I'm gonna go outside and work all day. 94 degrees is, is not that hot when you grow up in Vegas. And 115 is your August. That's true in August. Uh, there's many nights. It does not get below a hundred degrees.
Jimmy Lea: I think there's a good three week stretch in August that that happens. Well, gentlemen. What's that, Tom?
Tom Grover: It's all stay in the air conditioning.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We do that too. We do that too. It's climate controlled. 72 degrees and gorgeous. So, Tom, uh, thanks for joining. I wanna get a little bit of a history before we start about, all right, automotive, how'd you get started?
Jimmy Lea: What, what brought you into the industry? Uh, and then let's jump into some marketing questions.
Tom Grover: You know, I actually started into the industry back when I was. A teenager, I had an uncle that had an auto repair shop. Uh, he always said that he wasn't a mechanic because a mechanic made a living fixing cars and he could never make a living.
Tom Grover: So I was introduced into a shop like that, um, back in teenage years. And uh, and I went from there into a dealership setting and some other things. Tried to get out of the automotive world. I actually turned down a full ride scholarship, uh, to Weaver State in the, uh, management program because I did not want to, uh, be in the automotive program.
Tom Grover: And, uh, I actually found myself going back to it because it was something that I knew and I knew I could make money. So I opened my own shop in, uh, 1997. Just a small one person shop. Well, I had, I had another employee for a little while. Um, and I had some injuries to my body that, uh, the doctors just said, you just can't keep doing this.
Tom Grover: You either gotta grow bigger or get out.
Jimmy Lea: And,
Tom Grover: and at the time, I, I got out and I went back and I finished my, uh, education, got my bachelor's degrees in business and, uh, HR management. Uh. I went into the financial world in, uh, 2007. Um, wrong time to jump into the financial world as the markets were crashing.
Tom Grover: And, and I, yeah, oh man, a couple of years and, uh, said, I'm going back to something I know I can make money in. And, uh, had great opportunity to, um. To open up this shop, uh, in Emmett in 2012. Um, and it's, it's big enough that I can grow and not be doing it myself. I mean, the first little bit, it was me doing everything myself, but I quickly grew it and, uh, have come a long way since that day.
Tom Grover: So I've been in the industry quite a while.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, you have, and, and it sounds like a Phoenix story where you started with one that kind of died. You regrew, you rebirthed, and. Uh, after education, you had survived the hardest years in the world, in the financial industry. Oh, seven to 12. Holy cow. That's tough.
Jimmy Lea: And then you decide to jump back into automotive and, and the success you're getting from it now. I, I just love it. At what point in that rebirth, when you came back and, and it was you and somebody else, and, and you were getting things started up again in 20 12, 13, 14, at what point did you look at what you were doing and say, okay.
Jimmy Lea: We've gotta establish a marketing plan.
Tom Grover: You know, I didn't look at marketing plans at all for, not until the last year and a half or so, because oh, I was so busy. Marketing was the farthest from my, from my mind, in all honesty. Um, I was. I was very busy and couldn't keep the work, keep up with the work that I, that I had coming.
Tom Grover: Um, wow. And my biggest struggles were other areas, um, just productivity and trying to get the work out and in a timely manner and things like that. So,
Jimmy Lea: so you, you had that perfect, you had that perfect problem. It was so much word of mouth marketing. It was so successful. Your shop was so busy. Not until a couple years ago did you implement a marketing program.
Jimmy Lea: Correct. Oh my gosh. I mean, Cameron, do you hear that very often?
Cameron Ritter: No, it's, it is pretty hard out there for a lot of shops. Um, you know, a lot of shops have to market, especially in, in, you know, suburban areas, um, where there's a lot of competition. Right. So now you don't hear that too often. No. You really don't.
Cameron Ritter: That's no, the, the main, the main topics I hear are, uh, I don't have enough cars and I don't have enough techs. It's one or the other. Um, so those are the two problems. I'm, I'm always hearing year after year.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Now, when Cameron, when Tom came on with Upswell and, and turned on his postcard program, what were the results?
Jimmy Lea: What did you see from your point of view as you have a, a, a, basically a view of more than one shop, you view all the nation, what did you see happen with Tom?
Cameron Ritter: Yeah, Tom, um, his area is very unique. Um, 'cause when we send out a postcard blast, it, it is immediate return, um, from what we see on our side as far as the analytics.
Cameron Ritter: Uh, just to give you guys an idea, I can pull up in my, in my, uh, screen here, but an, uh, a typical saturation mailing for the automotive industry. Through this is our own database, right? We've been, like you said, Jimmy, we've been doing this a long time. So we've got a pretty substantial database of shops in our system.
Cameron Ritter: And so through all those shops, they're receiving about a 0.8% response rate, which is well above, uh, an average response rate that you would get in the way that if you target differently, right? Um, now Tom here went ahead and did a two and a half percent response rate on his saturation mailings. Um, so it's pretty actually incredible, um, how much more he's doing than, than what the average is.
Cameron Ritter: And a lot of it has to do with area, right? I mean, if you're talking about 0.8% response, I mean, that's a very good response rate in direct mail. Um, but really what you wanna look at is, as far as this stuff goes, is rate of return, right? So a typical rate of return, um, on a saturation mailing would be like an eight to one.
Cameron Ritter: Um, and then database mailings, they, they fluctuate, but all in. Um, and the database ones, I mean, you can get anywhere from 15 to one to a hundred to one. Um, but Tom is, Tom is sitting at like about a 47 to one through all of his postcard marketing efforts. Oh, that's awesome. So, yeah, it's
Jimmy Lea: Cameron. Let's, let's define a couple of terms here so everybody understands.
Jimmy Lea: What's, what's the difference between a database marketing and a saturation marketing?
Cameron Ritter: Right. So database marketing, that's something that we're gonna do, not monthly. Typically it is gonna be more of a, um, quarterly type of endeavor. Can you guys hear me still? Yep. Yep, yep. Oh, okay. Perfect. So yeah, that's gonna be more of like a quarterly type endeavor for us.
Cameron Ritter: Now, a lot of shops, if you've got text messaging, emailing, all that good stuff, that's all good, right? We're just talking about print here. Um, so to give you an example, we'll send out gift cards in the fall, um, getting towards like September back to school. We'll do it in Christmas time as well. Um, rebate checks in the spring.
Cameron Ritter: Holiday cards. There's a multiple, there's multiple products that you can do for. Uh, database mailing. So that's going to your database and that's gonna be either a lost customer mailer, so maybe someone that hasn't been in, in the last, uh, six months or 12 months all the way out to 24 months trying to win those people back.
Cameron Ritter: Um, or it could just be all of your database and your to your top spenders, right? So there's multiple different ways that you can do that. And then saturation mailing is something that, um, Tom has, has done a pretty good bit of. Um, it's where you're basically taking your top performing routes. So for those that don't know a carrier route, if you think of a zip code as a, a pie, a carrier route's just a slice of that pie, right?
Cameron Ritter: And so we're targeting very specific carrier routes in a zip code that fit the demographic that you're looking for, um, and the spin levels that you're looking for, right? We can see all kinds of data on this stuff. Um, and then one, one thing that we forgot to mention here is list mailing. So if you're a diesel shop or if you're a Euro shop, we can go out and find those specific makes and, uh, we can find year ranges.
Cameron Ritter: There's a lot of different stuff that we can do to bring in, uh, those specific customers, right?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So, Tom, when, uh, Tom, when you got started with Upswell and Upswell marketing. Where did you start? What did you go after
Tom Grover: first?
Jimmy Lea: You know,
Tom Grover: our, our first area, we were, we were still busy, but, uh, the customers, we weren't getting our ideal customer.
Tom Grover: One of the things that we had noticed is our diesel customers were more our style of customer. They were willing to spend the money and, uh, do their work. So we said we wanna get a. More diesel customers in here. And so I reached out to Cameron and I says, Hey Cameron, what can I do here in, uh, getting more diesel customers?
Tom Grover: And we reached out and we looked at how many diesel truck owners there were in my area, and we sent a mailing out just to them and. So those that responded were diesel, diesel truck owners, and all of a sudden our diesel work increased and our, our customer that we wanted increased. So, you know, we were really busy with an a RO of, uh, I don't remember exactly what it was at that point, but it was like $450, uh, average repair order, you know, uh, through changes and stuff like that.
Tom Grover: I mean, now we're. Almost a thousand dollars a RO, you know, but it's, it's getting the right customer. So we were really busy, but we didn't have the right customer. And reaching out and trying to pinpoint some of those, um, of the ideal customers is what one of our focus was.
Jimmy Lea: Nice, nice. That's awesome. What, what kind of results did you expect that you would get, Tom, as you put out these postcards?
Tom Grover: You know, I, I see postcards all the time in the mail and I just throw 'em away. I think, you know, they're not really that, you know, not that big of a deal. Okay. Cameron says, try it. And I sent 'em out there and, and we did see a lot more response. You know, it's like, okay, we're, we're starting to build and, and bring people in.
Tom Grover: Um, the one thing I, I did want to keep from getting was. The guy that was coming in just for the, the cheap, uh, oil change type of a thing, you know, I, I didn't want him to be out there just, uh, looking for the, for the deal and that was it. Well, and that
Jimmy Lea: goes to your setup with your postcard. What did you do to modify the postcard?
Jimmy Lea: So it's not an oil special, this is an oil service postcard. You, you must have clearly. Demonstrated exhibited the ideas that this is a value to you as a diesel owner. What did you do? What was your message?
Tom Grover: You know, we, we got a few people, 'cause we put a, a, a special on there for an oil change, diesel oil change.
Tom Grover: But the thing we got the most was probably, uh, our added value one, which was, uh,
Cameron Ritter: uh, 15 off, 1 50, 30 off, three 50 and 90 off a thousand.
Tom Grover: Yeah.
Cameron Ritter: Yep. Wow.
Tom Grover: So it, it kind of helped boost that, you know, and, you know, for a diesel truck it's always over a thousand. So, you know, uh, people were coming in not just for their oil change, but for the, that additional repairs and to get, get a little discount there, but it, it got our name out.
Tom Grover: Uh, we had some of our current customers respond to us and say, I didn't realize you did diesel old. And, and so, oh, that told us, you know, that was a education issue that we were lacking. Uh, we did some changes at that point and added diesel into our name, uh, into our, into a lot of our marketing and stuff like that.
Tom Grover: So people did know that we do diesel, so.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. I, that's exactly where I was gonna go. What was your current client's feedback? And it sounds like they were opened up to a whole new world of, oh my gosh. I can take my diesel there too. Yeah. Yep. That, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Uh, Blake's got a question that we wanna ask and Tom Cameron, I, one of the two of you, which one wants to answer this one?
Jimmy Lea: How are you calculating that rate of return to get a 47 to one? What are you doing? So that is basically
Cameron Ritter: total revenue over total investment, right? So. Tom has invested X amount of dollars and has generated x amount of dollars in revenue that's gonna give you that, that 40, uh, seven to one. Right? So basically all that's saying is, it's just a fancy term of saying every dollar that Tom gives me, I'll give 'em 47 back.
Jimmy Lea: And so you are, you've been able to isolate this to just the postcard. So this isn't all of his marketing. This is isolation down to just the upswell marketing. That's, so this is
Cameron Ritter: what we do is, uh, what we call address matching, right? So postcards are something that are very hard to track. Um, as a lot of people know that have done postcards, not everyone's gonna bring the postcard in.
Cameron Ritter: Um, so what we do is we say, okay, um, we know that Jimmy received a postcard this month
Jimmy Lea: from,
Cameron Ritter: all right, auto repaired. We know that he came in within the last 45 to 60 days, right? So then we match that address up. And not only that, but we also, uh, have call tracking on there where we can say, oh, he called that number on the postcard, right?
Cameron Ritter: So there's ways that we track what the return is on what we can, what we're able to match up, and then also categorize them, right? So was it a new customer that came in? Um, was it a win back, someone who hadn't been in the last 12 months? Was it a loyal customer from a loyal customer campaign or what we would call a database mailing, right?
Cameron Ritter: Yeah. Or was it a upswell loyal, someone that came in initially from the postcard and has returned for a second and third visit. Right. So we're able to categorize that and what they spent on our, uh, on our dashboard to really show you kind of what the whole picture of what you're looking at. Right.
Cameron Ritter: Because it's all, marketing's all about transparency. And so we want you guys to be able to see really who's coming in and what they're spending. And calculate, you know, your cost per customer, revenue per customer, your rate of return, all this fun stuff that lets you know that your marketing's working.
Cameron Ritter: Right.
Jimmy Lea: That's nice. And, and Tom, to, to what Cameron has just said, people with the postcards, not everybody brings it in. Uh, I The question for you, Tom, but also for our listeners, ha, do you honor the postcard? Coupon promotion. Do you honor that if they don't have it in their hands and are able to give it to you?
Jimmy Lea: Or do you say, oh, you know what, that's great. Uh, when you bring the postcard in, then you can claim the promotion.
Tom Grover: We actually do honor it. Um, and basically one thing that we found is a lot of times they won't bring the postcard in. Yeah. Sometimes they won't even mention the postcard. But part of marketing is, you know, them seeing it and reminding them to do it, you know, and so it, it could have been an existing customer that we had.
Tom Grover: Um, and you know, they sat there and thought, oh, I, I've gotta get my vehicle in and get this service done. And, and then they see the postcard and they go, oh yeah, let me get, go in there and do it. And they'll go on their phone and they may have already had my number in there and call. You know, but, um, so sometimes it may have not have even been directly related to what we said on the postcard as much as it was a reminder.
Tom Grover: Um, and we kind of track that as we, um, Cameron had mentioned there was, uh, geo routes, you know, that, that we went, um,
Jimmy Lea: like neighborhoods that's getting neighborhoods, right?
Tom Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Where are our customers and. One of the things we looked at, we said, okay, on those that are, are where the mailing's going to or where our current customers are, Cameron was able to give me a map and says, okay, here's the area.
Tom Grover: And I looked at it and I said, man, I'm not even getting this new neighborhood with all these new people that are moving into town. I says, we need to do some marketing to that area. And, and so we switched and, and marketed to that area and, and another area it's like, okay, the downtown area. They're, they're lower income.
Tom Grover: They're not spending that much. But this neighborhood out through here that I'm not marketing to, they're, they're a more affluent neighborhood. I want marketing to this area. And so I, I started pinpointing these neighborhoods and said, okay, I want this neighborhood and this one, and this one and this one.
Tom Grover: And we started sending postcards to that. Um, 'cause it's really hard to, you know, send it to all. You know, every possibility in your, in your area, just cost-wise. So you can start in and you just start working through each specific area and market to those that are, that are your customer.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I love that.
Jimmy Lea: You know, and this goes right into John's question, John has a question about how do you determine what's the best approach for those you target and for your marketing? Do you, do you, uh, feel that it should be based on your ideal customer? Uh, a preferred area. They live a targeting brand or model owner, a gas versus diesel.
Jimmy Lea: Uh, John, that's a phenomenal question and yeah. You know, Tom, you, you talk about going to the neighborhoods. Have you ever gone to Cameron and said, Hey, I, I, well, no, you did mention it. You went and said, Hey, I want more diesel customers. So you guys targeted the diesel with cars and trucks, but mostly trucks.
Cameron Ritter: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That, that is a good question. Um, we, I, so really it's a conversation if, if you get started doing direct mail, whether it's with Upswell or whoever you choose to use, it needs to be a conversation between you and that consultant, right? Because we only know what you guys tell us. Um, so if you're, if you're a diesel shop, I'll probably know it 'cause it's in your name.
Cameron Ritter: Um, but I'll still probably ask the question, well, do you want to target diesels? Right? Um, but if you're an auto shop, they just hired a diesel tech. It. Okay. Maybe you want to go after some diesel. So you, if you let me know, then I know that what we can go after and then we'll do a, a, a full evaluation of your shop and really see, you know, how many cars you need, um, to fill up that text time.
Cameron Ritter: Right. So we do a full evaluation of all of that stuff and, and really, uh, all, a lot of it is, you know, on, on the, on the part where you said a preferred area they live, most of your customers are gonna come from right around your shop. And you'll see that, um, if we pull what we call a penetration report, I've got one here.
Cameron Ritter: I don't know. Jimmy, are we able to share screen or
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Cameron Ritter: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: At the bottom, click on the, uh, present. Okay. Plus you can share screen. Let's see here.
Cameron Ritter: We will do
Cameron Ritter: this one here. Can you guys see that? Not yet. It's coming up. It's thinking. There it goes. Perfect. So this is Tom's penetration report. And so this is something that we use to identify, uh, where your best customers are, where your best carrier routes are, right? So we're able to see, like, for example, Tom crushes it.
Cameron Ritter: Um, he's got, if we take this first line, for example, here's the zip code carrier out. Um. You know the residential counts here. This is single multifamily, but this is his customer count, right? So he's got 81 customers coming from this single carrier route. So he's, he's dominating, um, penetration percentage.
Cameron Ritter: This, all this is, is market share, right? He's got 11.82% market share of this carrier route. Yeah. Um, we can also see what the average customer spends. So when you're talking about who do we know to target. Well, it's gonna be the routes where you're already having the most success and who is spending money with you, right?
Cameron Ritter: Like Tom said, there's some areas, um, let's find one. Like for here, for example, uh, penetration is not bad here. I mean, you're still getting 5% penetration, but if I had to choose between that route and let's say this route, I'm choosing this one all day, right? They're spending $2,600 and he is already got 53 people coming from there.
Cameron Ritter: Right. Um, so we know that that route is gonna bring new customers once you introduce postcards into it. Um, and then you can see different things like median household income, median home value, net worth. You can see a lot of different stuff here, right? So when you're talking about how do we know who to target on a saturation level, this is it.
Cameron Ritter: And then on like a, uh, on a list mailing level. So that's gonna be your diesels and euros. Um, that is. Really what we're doing is a couple of things. We can pull a radius and find diesels and euros that way, um, which is probably the most common way. Or we can still take your data, run a very similar report to this, but on a zip code level and figure out what your top penetrated zip codes are, and then target those zip codes.
Cameron Ritter: So there's a couple different ways that we can do this. I love
Jimmy Lea: it. And, and Tom, question for you, when you are setting up a, a postcard campaign or you're, you're developing this idea, you're going after a neighborhood, you're going after a vehicle make and model or diesel or gas, how quickly do you see a response from postcards when you send them out?
Tom Grover: You know, sometimes within a week I start seeing them coming in. Um, I mean, I've had some, the, the same day they get the postcard, they pick it up and they make a. Call and set an appointment. So, you know, it's, it's normally fairly soon is when we start to see it. Yeah. But as far as how long does it last?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Tom Grover: We've had people bring 'em in six months later and says, you know, I've had this thing sit in here, will you still honor it? And it's like, well, yeah, I'll still honor it, you know, but that's just telling me, you know what, they saw some value and they stuck it on their refrigerator or on their counter, and they, they kept it there until they needed it.
Tom Grover: And so, yeah. You know, sometimes it is hard to tell what the impact of that mailer is. Um, because they may have sat on it for a long time. We done That's true. Two other mailings since, since the time that, you know, some of these have come in and, and they bring it out. Can I still honor this one? It's like, sure.
Tom Grover: You know, so.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And that's great 'cause it gives you an opportunity. You can either honor it or not. It's your choice. Do you put expiration dates on all of your postcards, Tom?
Tom Grover: Not, not all of 'em, but some of them.
Cameron Ritter: Yeah. A lot of times, uh, we do like limited time only. Yeah. And that, that kind of language leaves it up to the owner to say, you know, no, we're not gonna honor it or we are gonna honor it.
Cameron Ritter: But
Jimmy Lea: yeah. The
Cameron Ritter: thing with expiration dates, now you got me on that, Jimmy. Um, we like to think of expiration dates is that's only hurting you and it's only hurting the customer because once the expiration date hits, the customer can't use that coupon anymore. And that's one less person that's gonna come into your shop.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Cameron Ritter: Right. So you, you want as many at bats as you can if you need car count. Um, and so that's what we're trying to do.
Jimmy Lea: I love it. Tom, have you ever, uh, had a situation where you reactivated a client that was lost because of postcards?
Tom Grover: You know, we, we've had a few, uh, I haven't tracked that very much, but, but we have had a few that, you know, it's been a, a while since they've been in and they, they come in.
Tom Grover: So,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Uh, Cameron, what do you see in the industry as a lost customer campaign? What, at what point do you consider a client lost? That's a great question. Um,
Cameron Ritter: and it depends on the shop. It, a lot of times we, we take a look at what you're currently doing to retain your customers, right? So like text messaging, uh, emailing, reminders, all that sort of stuff.
Cameron Ritter: And then we say, okay, when does that cut off? Yeah. Um, for a lot of shops, that's six months, right? Some shops it's 12 months. So what we do is we say, okay, at the end of whatever campaign that you have going on, now, we'll start there. So if, if they haven't been, you know, if there's six months from visiting your shop and then you stop putting touch points on 'em, okay, well, we can put touch points on 'em with a postcard, right?
Cameron Ritter: And send that out to them. You know, like I said, roughly quarterly. Um, some shops do it monthly. Um, to, to their lost customer campaigns. Right. 'cause you're just trying to get as many as you can back. Um, right. So that, that's a general answer. But for a lost customer, for us in our system is technically 12 months.
Cameron Ritter: Um, oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. So that's what we count as what, what I refer to earlier as a win back, but a lost customer could be up to the shop owner, um, on what they,
Jimmy Lea: they define as a lost customer. Oh, and that's so true, Cameron. I was talking to Kathleen Callahan down in Florida, and she's got a lot of snowbirds that are back and forth.
Jimmy Lea: So for her it's 18 months to 24 months. Yeah. That it, that it actually triggers a lost customer campaign for her versus every other shop. It, it is probably somewhere in that six month, nine month, 12 month on the outside. Right in that realm. That you need to make sure that customer's coming back into your shop.
Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. Because if they're not, they, hopefully they're going somewhere else and taking care of the vehicle. Yeah. Hopefully they're into your shop and, and making sure that you got one set of eyes and one set of professionals taking care of your vehicle.
Cameron Ritter: Absolutely. No, for sure.
Jimmy Lea: Um, Tom, to you, Anna, I know that you most recently had the mastermind group come together to your shop to give you a lot of feedback on your shop from.
Jimmy Lea: The street signs to the parking lot, the lobby, the front counter, the, the, the shop, the receiving parts area, the parking lot, marketing, bookkeeping, all the things. What, what value do you see in your mastermind group, you know,
Tom Grover: as a, as that, uh, being in a group? I don't know if it's as much having them come to my shop as much as it is me going to other shops.
Tom Grover: And, you know, as I went to other shops and, and I said, man, I've got to improve this and this and this. And when I'd come home, I had, I had pages of stuff I, I needed to improve in my own shop. And so I would come home and I would make all these improvements. So the nice thing was, is when they visited my shop, I had already hit a lot of these areas and they really focused on.
Tom Grover: Some areas of, um, kind of a little deeper aspects, you know, on how to make a little bit more productive and, and some processes to refine and some things like that. Um, there were a few, few little issues that, uh, you know, came up as far as, um, signage and things like that. It were, there were things that I was already working on.
Tom Grover: Sure, sure. I actually had sign. Coming. They were already ordered when they came, but they weren't up yet. So, um, but it was based off of feedback from other shop owners, from other shops and things like that. So, you know, just to, to see what other guys are doing and seeing what expectations, see what's working out there.
Tom Grover: I mean, it is worth a lot. Um, and then to have 'em come into my shop and say, you know, ask us, is it always this clean? Well, yeah. It and asking the guys, is it always this way? Is always, it is like, yeah, it generally is. Or, or, no, it's not, you know, um, but just kind of backs us up a little bit as Yeah, you're, you're doing good things, you know, you're on the right path, so.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I think that's awesome. I, my father says that everyone's an example. Some people are a good example of what not to do and some are a good example of what to do. And it sounds like you have learned from other people's scenarios, from their situations, brought it back to your own shop, implemented it so that you were even further down the road when they came to look at your shop.
Jimmy Lea: It was, it was more of a surprise. Oh my gosh, this is so good. Because you did the work, because you put in the time because you visited other shops and said, oh my gosh, I need to fix this at my place as well, Tom, that's phenomenal. Speaking of that, did you run your marketing ideas through your mastermind group?
Tom Grover: Um, I, I've kind of talked about a few of 'em, but, um, not as much as I, as I should have, I guess. Um. Once I started this group, I mean, I only started the group a year and a little over a year and a half ago.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Tom Grover: And I tell you, I struggled. I, I always had constant growth, you know, from 2012 to where I'm today, I, I kind of had consistent growth.
Tom Grover: You know, I'd grow a little bit each year, right? I was always growing, I was always behind schedule, you know, had plenty of work. But my biggest focus was getting the work done. How do I get this work done? And, and I tried a couple of different groups out there that, you know, uh, coaching groups and they would come in and they would say, okay, your big focus, you need to be doing marketing.
Tom Grover: And I'd look at 'em, I'd say, why do I need to be spending more on marketing when I can't get the work done that's here? And they says, well, just trust me.
Jimmy Lea: You know,
Tom Grover: do this and this and, and let's start focusing on your marketing. And I, I, I just, you know, I didn't agree with what they wanted to do in the direction.
Tom Grover: And so I'd kind of given up a little bit on, on the coaching groups. I thought, ah, they're just after my money and wanting to do marketing. And, um, then I went to CIMA and, uh, Cecil was, was doing a workshop there. Uh, yeah, I don't remember the title of it, but basically it covered communication in your shop and, uh oh, it's the
Jimmy Lea: front to back conversations.
Tom Grover: Yeah. And I sat down in that meeting and I go, whoa, he just hit exactly what I need to do. I need to improve my communication in my shop. I need to make this, this will make things happen. And I, and I came home and I started putting stuff to work, and I started into doing some coaching. And, uh, all of a sudden I went from, uh, so that was in November?
Jimmy Lea: Yes.
Tom Grover: And that year I finished strong. So that year I finished at 1.2 million.
Jimmy Lea: Congratulations.
Tom Grover: I finished the next year, almost 1.7 million after joining the coaching group. Oh, what did that, what did that do? But as a result, I mean, our A A RO went up and everything else, I hired more technicians, but my challenge was then, now I have to market and how do I market?
Tom Grover: And so I actually, I went to Mars last year and I, I brought one of my employees, she was also my sister, and, and she was really wanting to do the marketing and, and I sat down, went down there with her, and we kind of went through some stuff. I came back and did a few things, but it wasn't really, really clicking.
Tom Grover: Hmm. So we, I've, I've thrown some things out there with, uh, you know, as, as I've met with these other shops and see what's working and, um, and then really I'm excited here for, here in a few weeks. I'll be taking my manager down there, uh, and, and going through this marketing again and setting it together a real, we have a marketing plan, but we want to refine it.
Tom Grover: We really want to make it to where our weakness is, uh, is not getting the cars in. I want to be able to just churn, you know? And yeah. So we want to increase that volume of the shop in order to do so. Now we have to focus on marketing, but we've been able to fix a lot of the other aspects that needed to be fixed, so.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it, Tom. That's amazing. Uh, you, you, do, you know Tracy Holt performance place down here in, uh, Northern? Yep. Very similar story. Very similar story. The two of you, you needed shop efficiencies. You didn't need car counts, you didn't need average repair order, you needed shop efficiencies. And once you got that down, what happens naturally?
Jimmy Lea: Car count went up, average report order, app repair order went up, and now you're at the point where, oh my gosh, okay, we're efficient. Average peer order is perfect. It's where it needs to be. Alright, now we're at the point. Let's bring in more cards. Let's increase. Ah, I love it. That's awesome.
Jimmy Lea: Congratulations.
Tom Grover: You know what I also have to say about our postcards? Um, so when we started our postcards, and no one else here was really doing any postcards, and I really don't have a lot of shops here to, to pattern after either. Um, but. I started sending some out and I have to just as far as kudos to Cameron here, I got one of their postcards from one of the other shops and, um, I looked at it and I had to look at it.
Tom Grover: I kid you not for a good minute to figure out what they were trying to sell because they had so much on that postcard and there was. There was just so much. I'm like, well, are they a wrecking yard? Are they towing service? Are they a repair shop? What are they, what are they marketing here? You know? And they just threw so much in there and, and I thought, that's odd.
Tom Grover: Well, my son got the same postcard and he looked at it and he is like, did you see this dad? And I says, yeah. He goes, I couldn't figure out what they're marketing. You know, and so that has been a big example to me. You know, as Cameron as, as we shoot out these different things and he makes recommendations and they try to keep it pretty simple and where our focus is.
Tom Grover: Um, so, you know, sometimes we get stuff out there. Yeah, I looked at that postcard for a long time, but I really wasn't sure what they were marketing. Um, oh wow. So, you know, sometimes it's, it's getting our name out there and it, you know, in the right way.
Jimmy Lea: Right. Hey, it is that kiss method. Keep it simple, Simon.
Jimmy Lea: You've gotta keep it simple. Have a very focused message and know exactly what you're promoting. That's what you want in your shop, so you, that's what you ask for. Oh, I, I love it. I think that's great. I think that's great. What else? Uh, let's see. We've gone it through. Oh, John's got a question here. Let's, let's give John some some love here when it comes to marketing.
Jimmy Lea: Who should make the actual postcard that is sent out? If I make a postcard, can I just send it out to my customers? Anyways? What are the benefits of using someone like Upswell for my marketing? You know, I think that's a great question, Cameron. 'cause yeah, yeah. J John, I, I could go to Kinko's or copy place and, and print all the postcards I'd want.
Jimmy Lea: And you can, and you can put a stamp on every single one of 'em, or Cameron,
Cameron Ritter: or you could use someone like Upswell, right? So obviously your time's valuable and your time is money. Um, and so not only that, right? It's, it's actually a lot of times cheaper to use a company like us because we get print discounts, postage discounts, um, we also, you're not designing it.
Cameron Ritter: Our, we have an in-house design team that is actually designing that for us. Um. It's, makes it a lot easier on you, number one. Number two, when you are targeting, or when you're sending these postcards out yourself, you have no, no backend analytics or tracking, right? Um, so you can't see, you know, like I was talking about earlier with the address match backs, um, it's, it's hard for you to see all of that data on the backend, on what your actual return on your investment is.
Cameron Ritter: Um, and then number three. Targeting is such a big deal. Um, with, with postcards it's much harder for you to do when you go to USPS and you do EDDM, all these things. It's, um, you, you can see the map and you kind of know your area, but there's some areas maybe you don't know where you're getting customers from.
Cameron Ritter: And so that's what we are able to pull that penetration report that I was showing earlier. And really find out, okay, you've got eight people coming from here, but they're only spending 500 bucks, uh, on average in the last 12 months. But you've got, you know, 20 customers coming from here and they're spending 2000 with you on average in the last 12 months.
Cameron Ritter: So it's very, we can very fine tune, target your ideal customers, which is much harder for you guys to do on your own. Um, and so that, that's really three reasons. I, I would say you would want to use someone like Upswell. Um, and like I said, it, as long as you're doing postcards, uh, with somebody and you're doing it the right way, you've gotta have three things, right?
Cameron Ritter: The right, uh, the right people at the right time with the right messaging, right? All those three things have to combine. And we've, and we've been doing, I'll keep saying it, we've been doing it a long time and we've started in the auto repair industry that, you know, Greg Sands, our founder, uh, owned auto shops.
Cameron Ritter: So all of this stuff is from his brain and, and knowing how to do it, um. So we just have it down to a science, right? And we, we have different plans and, and programs that we do, and no contracts. And I mean, a lot, there's a lot of reasons I, I guess I should say on why you should use someone like Upswell.
Cameron Ritter: Um, it makes your life a lot easier and you're gonna, you're gonna get better return if you use, uh, so, so like, if you think of it as a cost savings thing, like, oh, I'll save myself some dollars to. Design it myself and, and do it this way myself. It's really gonna cost you money on the back end because of, you know, our ability to target and track this stuff for you.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. It's stepping over dollars to pick up dimes. I, I wouldn't advise it. Absolutely. Yeah.
Tom Grover: And I'll tell you what I, I do, I mean, Cameron will send me out a a what? A, a print.
Cameron Ritter: Postcard, proof, proof,
Tom Grover: postcard proof. And I look at it and go, that is not at all what I want. And I say, I want this and this and this.
Tom Grover: I want something like this and this and this. And they send it back to me and I go, oh, that's better, but this here, it's not what I want. Send it back. And, and they change. And you know, sometimes
Jimmy Lea: it's
Tom Grover: throwing things out and seeing what works. Um,
Jimmy Lea: yeah,
Tom Grover: we recently, the last two mailings. Which I haven't even reported back to Cameron as to how well this worked, but, um, we added, we have a, a virtual golf place here in town that started up and I thought, you know what?
Tom Grover: Maybe that's our target market. Let's get, let's, let's focus on some golfers, you know, and, and see if we can kind of pick up some of that. And so, uh, up in the top corner it was, if you pick up the thing, first thing that pops into your eye is, is the virtual golf. And, uh. It said, get round of golf on us. And we, we launched this out actually last, was it December, January?
Tom Grover: Ja. It was a winter month, so, you know, yeah. Were closed and, um, we, we sent it out and interesting enough, we did not get, we only had one customer come in and request the code to go get a free round of golf, but. My friend who owns the golf place, who is actually a financial advisor, so he works with my type of clients, um, reported back and said, man, our memberships jumped through the roof this month.
Tom Grover: It was all you, so here it is. We, we sent out, we didn't get people in the door specific to that golf. They didn't want the golf code. We got a lot of people coming back with, with the postcard itself. But, so we didn't, we didn't actually pay for anyone's round. 'cause only one, well, only one person requested it.
Tom Grover: Um, and we gave it to 'em and, and, you know, and so we thought, well, we didn't get anything. So the next round they actually, they sent that postcard to me, um, as a proof. And I go, oh, I haven't taken that off yet. I just. You know what, I'm just gonna run in another round. And so I think that was like in April or something like that.
Tom Grover: We ran it again. And,
Jimmy Lea: and uh,
Tom Grover: same results for us on our side. We did not get anybody coming in to ask for that, that code to do their own round of virtual golf. But on their side it picked up. And so how did that affect us? One thing is they were holding onto that, that card, thinking about the golf side.
Tom Grover: Yeah, they weren't looking for the special, but it, they were bringing in the card for other services. Um, wow. But you know, so sometimes it's throwing stuff out. It's like, was that unsuccessful? Was it successful? Hey, you know what? On the golf side, their memberships went up. They loved it. And so they were happy 'cause I just marketed for 'em.
Tom Grover: You know what, they deal with my clients. They're my type of client every day. So, yeah. Is, is that a loss for me?
Jimmy Lea: I'm seeing a co-marketing opportunity here. That's what I'm seeing.
Tom Grover: Yeah. It works great for that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That's super awesome. Tom, what advice would you give to a shop owner that's a little bit hesitant on starting a uh, uh, postcard campaign?
Jimmy Lea: What advice would you give them?
Tom Grover: You know, Cameron told me run at least at at two consecutive mailers. And before you really make a a decision. Um, the mail campaign is not the only thing we do in marketing right now, um, because, uh, it is a, it is, you know, more expensive than doing Google or Facebook marketing, things like that.
Tom Grover: But adding that into, um, our process keeps us in the forefront of people's minds. Um, it brings stuff in, it's just another aspect. So. You know, if you're a struggling shop and just struggling on, on trying to, to get the most dollar for, for value of getting out there, you might wanna start in, in like your Google and your Facebook, because it, it's the cheaper area.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Do the digital stuff first.
Tom Grover: Yeah. When you wanna get into really targeting your ideal person and to grow that a RO and to market specific areas. Um, you know what? The direct mail is a great way to do it, and you mix that in once you have your other campaigns going. So you send the, your direct mail, and then they go to the computer and they look it up and, whoa, your ads pop up on Facebook or Google or, you know, your, your website pops up.
Tom Grover: Now all of a sudden your marketing is, is more complete, more, um. You know who, who actually was responsible for getting that customer in? Was it the ad that they saw after that? Was it the, the original piece of mail? Who cares? You know, it's just another part of your marketing.
Jimmy Lea: And, and the answer is yes, and yes and yes, and yes.
Jimmy Lea: It was all a part of the marketing program. So yes, it was the Google ads. Yes, it was the Facebook ads. Yes, it was the postcards. Yes, it was all of the marketing plan. It worked because you had a marketing plan. You put it in place and you launched it. You track it, you find out what's working and what's not.
Jimmy Lea: Then you really elevate that. I, there were pe I, I've talked to people. I'm, I know we're talking about postcards, but I'm gonna put a billboard. Comment here. I had a friend, uh, two, two different shops that had billboards. They didn't know if they were actually making money off those billboards or not put tracking onto it.
Jimmy Lea: Shazam, now they know exactly. What they're getting from the billboards and neither one of 'em have taken 'em down. They are absolutely there and they're gonna stay there because it works and they're right off the freeway. So it totally makes sense. Yeah. So, uh, Tom, if you were to go back in time, what advice would you give to yourself in starting your postcard program?
Jimmy Lea: What lessons have you learned that you wished you knew a year and a half, two years ago?
Tom Grover: I think. Probably get a marketing process down and, and stick with it. You know, one of the things we did is, is we threw out some marketing. We go, oh, now we're busy. And so we quit marketing. And then when it got slow, I called Cameron, Hey, I, I gotta send something.
Tom Grover: And well, you know, then it takes a little bit to get that going again. And, and so it's like being consistent with the marketing. Um. Uh, trying to keep, keep things in the forefront. Don't wait until it's, uh, you know, a slow day and then say, man, I wish I had more, more cars in the door. Um, but you put together a campaign and, and some of it's just to keep out there in the forefront of, of people's minds.
Tom Grover: And, um, something we're, we're playing with a little bit for, for next year. Um. Two more areas we're gonna focus and use direct mail in. One is we're gonna put together something that's associated directly with the community. So with like a, a calendar of events on there, something that they're gonna take and put on the refrigerator to remember those, those, uh, schedules.
Tom Grover: Um, and that can go out direct mail. And the other thing is we just started doing tires and so we're gonna use, uh, direct mail to, to get our name out there as far as doing tires. So there's different times. Um, but you know, don't wait until there's nobody coming in the door to, to really do it. Just kind of put together, plan on, you know, Cameron knows that right now I'm planning on the end of this year, there's gonna be a couple of, of, uh, pieces going out and so that's
Jimmy Lea: nice.
Jimmy Lea: That's, that's very cool. That's very cool. Uh, uh, Tom, I'm looking forward to seeing you here at the Mars Conference because, uh, we'll take this up to the next level here, helping you to refine your marketing program, your marketing plan. Uh, thank you for coming down here because it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Jimmy Lea: So we're gonna, we're gonna land this plane here now, and Cameron go to you first and then Tom to you, and then we'll land the plane to, uh, Cameron. What is something. What is a concept that you wished automotive shop owners understood about marketing? Like if you had a magic wand, you could wave it and everybody would understand about marketing.
Jimmy Lea: Tom could have said it better.
Cameron Ritter: Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. Um, that's why, like Tom said earlier, give me two months at least. I mean, that's, that's bare bones minimum. Just gimme that. Um, but I mean, I've got shops that have been mailing with me for four years straight. Um, and so, and they stay consistent and as it's just like your Google ads, right?
Cameron Ritter: You wouldn't just turn your Google ads off, then turn it on and off and on. It's just like your website. You wouldn't do that either, right? Postcards are the same way. All your marketing's the same way. And I guess the other part of that, um, would be to have these two different types of marketing push pull.
Cameron Ritter: Right. So push is gonna be like your direct mail. You're proactively reaching out to customers, trying to entice them to come into your shop. Pull is gonna be your Google Ads, right? You're getting customers that are in need of service right now. Like, Hey, I need brakes right now. Um, I'm gonna type in auto repair near me, or brakes near me.
Cameron Ritter: Um, have those two types of marketing in place because that's how you're gonna get the best results and stay consistent with both. Don't shut them off either. What I always suggest my customers to do if, 'cause I, I have customers call me all the time in the summer, summer months, Hey, I am slammed. I'm too busy, I can't take on another car.
Cameron Ritter: Okay, awesome. Look, let's not shut this off. Let's cut it in half or let's cut it down to a quarter. Let's, but it's like a, it is like a cruise ship, right? It's hard to get that thing going. And you get it going, it's going great. And once you stop it, it's hard to get it back going again. And so then, especially when you come into September, October, November months that are slower for a lot of shops, now we've gotta get that cruise ship back started up again.
Cameron Ritter: And that goes for all of your marketing. So stay consistent with it. Um, it will pay off and it will pay more than what you paid for it. It's an investment. It's not a cost.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's so true. So true. Thank you, Cameron. That consistency is so important, especially in marketing and when it's going well, you don't let your foot off the pedal.
Jimmy Lea: You don't let it off the gas. You should double down. That's fish when the fish are biting. Yes. Yes, absolutely.
Cameron Ritter: Get them in the shop. There's never a bad time to market fish. When the fish are biting. When they're not biting, guess what? Everyone pulls their lines outta the water. Put yours in, keep yours in.
Cameron Ritter: Keep yours in. Yeah, keep in.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, uh, uh, I'll answer Evan's question real quick and then Tom will come to you, Evan, the question that you're asking about the billboards, uh, these two shops put a call tracking phone number on the billboards, and from that they knew how many people were calling, how many of them made appointments, how many of 'em came in to the shop and had services performed on their vehicles.
Jimmy Lea: Uh, and it was a staggering number. It was shocking. Uh, both, uh. Dan and Bill were shocked. They were both surprised that it was such a high number. Um, so that's the way you can track your billboards. Evan is with a call tracking phone number and you would think, oh my gosh, call tracking number. How are they gonna see that and call me from the freeway.
Jimmy Lea: Here they are going 80 miles an hour down the freeway. I don't know. They took a picture of it, they memorized it. I, I don't know, but they called. I, I know that's what they did, and it worked and it was shocking results. So. Evan, try it out. I'd love to hear the results you get from your billboard tracking efforts.
Jimmy Lea: That would be, that would be pretty awesome. Uh, and thank you Elena for putting information out there about the Mars Conference. If you wanna see Tom and shake his hand and uh, be part of the Mars Conference, we would love for you to come check us out. We are the institute.com. Go in there under the events, the Mars event, uh, marketing for automotive repair shops.
Jimmy Lea: You can meet Tom, you can meet myself. We'd love to have you there. Uh, because it's, it's gonna be a great marketing conference, one that just really is gonna elevate your marketing business. Now, Tom, the question I have for you as we close this out is, what does the future look like for Tom and Allright Automotive and Diesel?
Tom Grover: You know, we went through some major struggles these last few months. Uh, kind of, we were getting a lot of our processes done. We grew so much. We really started to focus on culture. And we did a big shakeup and, uh, you know, it cost us a lot. But you know what, when people show up to work now, they love coming to work and they love being able to, to contribute and have their voice heard in, in the things that we do.
Tom Grover: Um, communication's better than ever. Uh, and we're actually starting on the uptick. Um. Now, I mean, it's been a, a rough few months as we've gone through some change, but you know what? We have things in place and moving forward, so, but
Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. Good. Congratulations. The future is bright. You know, when you're lean and mean, you're a fighting machine, it sounds like you got rid of those bad apples and now you're ready to rock and roll.
Jimmy Lea: That's right. Nice. Congratulations. That's awesome. Well join us at the Mars Conference. All of you who are here, uh, we would love to have you there. Tom, thank you for joining. Cameron, thank you for joining. It is been a, a great conversation. Anytime I get to talk about marketing, I absolutely love it and I look forward to these opportunities.
Jimmy Lea: So to both of you, thank you.
Cameron Ritter: Thanks for the time, Jimmy.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, absolutely. And, and for those of you joining us here, there's a, a 32nd commercial here at the very end. Pull out your cell phones, get ready. The QR code. Scan that QR code and you can get an appointment with my team, so we can talk to you about your business.
Jimmy Lea: We'll give you a little analysis of your shop and say, Hey, you know what? Here's one or two things that you could really do that will help move the needle for your shop, help you improve your process, procedures, help move your needle so that you can retain some more profit. That'd be great, wouldn't it?
Jimmy Lea: Uh, check us out. Also for the leadership intensive. We are coming to North Carolina in October, going to Blowing Rock North Carolina. For those of you don't know, that's Lucas Underwood's shop. He is hosting a leadership intensive at his shop and we are gonna be conducting that. It's a three day super awesome intensive leadership training.
Jimmy Lea: You definitely wanna be there for that. And those of you who have advisors that need some training, you are on the East coast. In December, we are coming to Atlanta, Georgia, Cameron, that's right down the street from you. We're coming to Atlanta, Georgia for a service advisor, three day service advisor intensive.
Jimmy Lea: We just finished the last one here in Ogden, Utah. We're ready now to do it again. We're gonna take it East Coast. So if you have a shop, you're East Coast and you have an advisor that you wanna take up from zero to hero. We can definitely help you do that in December. Look forward to seeing you there. My name is Jimmy Lee.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you for the time. I look forward to seeing you again soon at a conference or maybe even at your shop. I.



