Changing The Industry Podcast

Swell AI Transcript: Episode 121 - Bill Adams.mp3
00:00 *Lucas * We were both first class coming out here and Dude, I've got a bad back. And so the reason I fly first class is because I'm a big dude I don't really fit in even a premium economy seat. So you don't like Spirit Airlines either. No Or Frontier what a joke And so like the seats have gotten tighter and tighter and tighter and so they not what they say they say more legroom 11% more legroom they lie and they say we're getting wider and wider and wider Well, so here's the situation is that like it was either make it he just he just said it's cuz you're getting fat dude Well, I know I could have told you that I'm not saying that I'm just saying like There's only so much I can do about it. There we go. The problem is my legs are too long It's not that I'm too necessarily wide for seat Now the two people sitting next to me they were too wide for the seat That was super uncomfortable because I was in the middle and I look I can even deal with that Like I don't have a problem with that this dude takes his leg and he puts it over on my side underneath the seat Uh-huh. And so like now the the one thing the doctors told me I cannot do is she said look You cannot sit with your knees above your hips You have to sit with your knees below your hips or you were gonna be in tremendous pain It's gonna cause you to lock up. You can't do that You have to keep your and and so this entire flight I was sitting crunched up like I was sitting on the toilet Right, man, it's terrible squatty potty. Yeah

01:24 David What a party Oh man Do you squatty body those things are pretty cool. You sit down and you lay the legs out like that The the the squatty pot is it a tall toilet or a short toilet? It's a tall toilet But then you're not you're not well, I guess maybe you're not eliminating as you should. Yeah No, I'm saying like your your legs aren't your legs are gonna be like you got to prop yourself up

01:46 *Lucas * I mean at least I do with a tall toilet. We gave away squatty potty's for Christmas gifts when you're Really freaking hysterical the just stuff appreciate that oh they thought that was it was a gag gift. Yeah Oh my my aid or all my gifts are gag gifts my Yeah, all your know what you should have said is all your gifts are a joke However, you want to phrase it You just gave poor old Nick a wonderful joke or a gift there in the last podcast just and like I could see you

02:18 David All gonna come out over weeks like I'm just saying it

02:23 *Lucas * Understand the reference. I didn't say they would understand the reference. He has a technician Well had a technician had a technician, you know I would I sent you the list of things that people hate about podcasts and inside jokes was on the list Well, you're the one who made the inside joke

02:40 Bill Maybe maybe people just hate you They didn't say me and you know, I think I think the inside joke thing it's it's the familiarity factor His podcast are relatively new. We don't know the nuances. I don't know his life story like they am your am radio guy You know you grew up with that guy. Yeah, right. I mean you knew everything about that guy

02:59 David So if he gave an innuendo you knew about that because he had it happened him 1978 the popularity of Everybody having a podcast I think Well has is a relatively new it was 2020 everybody started a podcast in 2020 podcasting around for 15 years right 20 years now, right right but yeah, but yeah now everybody's got a podcast

03:22 Bill That's why I did radio because there's like who is going to go look at a podcast right now. It's like, okay Yeah, I can start it but like yeah, they still were paying me to do terrestrial radio. So it's like, okay Pay me that's it. That's it. We're good. You do radio. I did you all stop a couple of us 2020 Yeah, I did a 10-year tour of duty that's awesome dude, yeah Nor Cal Auto talk, okay Was a Colin. Yeah, we took some colors We we of course pre-screen them after we got a couple of tinfo hat guys with Chevy Vegas Oh Then there's I should get you some classic calls and send them to you because you would just pee yourself laughing They're so funny. Oh, dude Nick from Brisbane. How you doing? Hey Bill. Oh man, I'll see you every week man Just yeah, I can't tell you how many times you've bailed me out man. It's like hey, thanks a lot. Appreciate that. Oh, I got Okay. Now my my my my 82 citation, right? I'm like You're feeling the lifeblood just right moving out of you Okay. Yeah, go ahead Nick. Yeah You know, I changed the distributor. Okay, and then I changed spark plugs. Okay What are you trying to solve Nick? Well, it just doesn't have the power used to have All right and I'm like Nick, you know what you need to do? Well, what's that bill? I said YouTube Bubba Cooter. You need to go find Bubba Cooter. They're down there in Alabama. So, you know, it's it's a Thing I'm looking at you because he said Bubba. I just assumed Oh, thanks. I I I coined you talk about inside joke I coined the phrase anybody that was on YouTube at that time doing automotive I called him Bubba Cooter They always had a good drawl and they're always from down south somewhere where they had more time and beer than they had Common sense. Okay, and they fixed stuff that you're like, why did you even bother? So yeah the 82 citation Oh, yeah, we could turbocharge that thing Run good pull them heads off there. We get imported out. Oh my gosh, we get ourselves 185 horsepower That's good for a citation So you're you're from introduce yourself. I'm sorry, but Bill Adams from Adams Auto Works in California. We're in California, San Francisco San Francisco Bay Area, okay. Yeah, we got three shows It's conceivable that a citation still driving around and oh you Of course, and it probably only had 50,000 miles on it. Well, there you go I mean we see we see stuff they would have rusted out in my of course. Oh, yeah, and we wish they would but yeah, they yeah, we We've priced ourselves out of most of you know in our shop where it's like you've got a what? Oh good good for you I got I got a place you can take that too, right?

06:08 David We just talked about that with Cecil we recommend people that we don't like and we give them their number Really? Oh, yeah so we have I Don't do that We don't work on anything older than 99 So if they come in with a 97 or an 87, they're still around. Mm-hmm Wait, there's a shop that used to be my neighbor. He he's not gonna do a DVI He didn't have a process right he fixes what's broken and he he scale He used to have a much bigger shop, but so he's got an old Sun lab scope machine in the corner Yeah, he doesn't do scan tools. He has them, but he doesn't do them It's not what he plays. Yeah, I get it. And so That's why I said, he's great guy Pretty good mechanic great guy. So 87 El Camino that you need somebody to work on that's why I send them to you bet I love the guy to death, but he'll work on that. He's something El Camino. All right, I will not touch that

07:07 Bill There's no reason. Yeah, if you're doing any sort of production repair There's no way if you want if you're running a shop

07:13 David Yeah, and and I you know, I just if you got a hobby shop or your you got a job and you like to fix that old Stuff. Hey, God bless you. Right, but yeah, but he's he's to the point where he's got the overhead is is turning the lights on Yeah in the space and that's it. That's what he likes. He doesn't buy equipment He's got a couple of guys that work for him. But I mean he Everything's paid for at this point. He does not buying anything new He's not and he's not investing in technology and training and all that nonsense He what he's doing is he's tinkering and you know, he makes he makes pretty good money

07:48 *Lucas * Probably wasn't a hundred thousand dollars a year. Yeah, we've got two local shops, right and and one of them He handles all the old stuff like that. That's what he wants to do That's what they want to work on they work on a little bit of everything But that's that's what they're focused on and then we've got another shop that handles the performance side of it So the guys who want to build a car and I just send those things right on that

08:06 Bill That's great because I always try and teach my team. We don't say no. Yeah, they're calling us cuz we're We're Nordstrom, yeah, they're calling us cuz they got a problem and they found out we're the best. Okay And usually in our neck of the woods They have that old car because they got it from grandpa grandpa grandpa went to be with Jesus, right? and they had a bus pass before that and Yeah, they don't have two nickels to rub together. It's not like if you had an 87 car back where you're from Yeah, that's cuz you had it in the garage exactly. It's a whole different animal out where we're at Well, grandpa had it and can I drive it or I got my 80s? I got grandma's 88 Toyota Camry, right? Oh god Yeah, yeah, it's only got 387 thousand miles on it, but it's it's in great shape. Grandma took good care of it I'm like great. I got a shop for you, right? Are you looking are you looking to are you looking to drive? This is an a car every day Well, yeah, what'd you drive before?

09:07 David Well, I'd like to know if I can get this running So, you know that they they need a ultra budget shop so we know a couple ultra budget shops like, you know You're right. No DVI. Yeah, very very few tools. They will yeah, you got a blown-up or hose in the Bay Area's ultra budget mean What does that even look like under 150 grand a year? Yeah in income Income for the owner, but they're doing a million and a half. No, no, I'm talking if the charge $300 an hour I I'm asking if they're like on the DL like Like hey, you have to ask for Bob

09:45 Bill You got a knock six times and then he'll take you to his back there are shops behind my my a shop my big big shop We got a guy back there He runs a chop shop and it's in the back the little industrial complex and he has no street signage and yes You got to know somebody to come in. Yeah, he's back there. He'll Whatever you want to do. Yeah, no, there's no bar light. There's no beer of automotive repair license There's no insurance. There's no nothing. Yeah, right, and he probably has a spider tattoo on his you know somewhere Yes, how would you know I See what rolls in other sometimes I was like, yeah, okay Well, so tell us a little bit about you right a lot of our listeners don't know you tell us a little bit about you Are we recording? We've been recording. Oh, I'm recording excellent, I grew up in the automotive the the the the Speeches I grew up in the automotive industry. I was literally born into it. My dad was a Vietnam vet and When mom said the rabbit died he had to get a job because he was a corpsman in the in the Marines and Can't quite support a family. So yeah, he came from Pennsylvania out in the oil he worked in the oil rigs before he came out here to California and Then he decided to get a job. He started fixing Volkswagen's and Porsche's back in the 60s really then he started you know buying gas stations fixing cars and I remember eight years old pumping gas and the old gas station and We were 82nd in MacArthur in Oakland, California. And for those of you that don't know that's the hood so I am the boy from the hood made good and We I grew up in the business at 18 years old I had worked as a mechanic as a before we even knew what it was called a service rider because I knew how to talk and I could actually tell the people what's wrong with their car you know the 18 year old punk kid that would interpret what the mean mechanics would say right and Help mrs. Jones understand how to fix your old Buick. Yeah, and that we did great had a little three bay gas station We were freaking killing it and at 18 years old I swore that I would never come back to the family business as a lot of 18 year old young men yep, full of themself do and at 30 something I got a call from my dad saying hey you want to buy the business and I went oh heck no Right. I was had a good tour of duty with I was serious tire group. I was our national training director for a bit Did a lot of a lot of fun things in the automotive industry worked for another major tire concern And it's like okay, so I'm gonna go back to the gas station Yeah So I went up took a look at it, and you know I had the time I had three kids and I was traveling all over the country and Okay, you know what time to settle down a little bit so I ended up buying it in 2002 and We had a good run there we ended up six years ago. We moved from that location after we had bought and sold a couple other shops Built a went from a three base place that was our killer shop You know we're doing you know who we're doing million and a half million six yeah Remember Cecil would come in here he goes. I have no idea how you do this this pooh poll any I don't think the use word poop right um We did we had a team of five and we just freaking killed it had a ball and Then we moved and got herself a real shop Yeah, I mean the only spot in this town now in California you hear is the PRC the People's Republic of California Whatever you hear about it. It is it loves the PRC it is it is true And I have pictures It's a it's a whole different animal So I'm one of the few people that are left because everybody that had common sense and money left I figured okay Well, I'll stick around here in Toronto lights But we bought this beautiful shop. That was the only good shop in our town Okay, and I'd want this shop since I was forever. I mean I grew up in this town like oh One day I had to go down. I said hey old owner. I said I'm looking for a new place to play You know anybody that wants out he goes ah The hand comes up real slow, and I went you you're ready to retire he goes Yeah, I went okay 90 days later we moved in oh, that's completely And this place was built in 1947 No original paint no original nothing The internet was dial-up Yes, only six years ago, okay, I'm holy cow okay, okay all data was still on CDs It was it was it was really a picture and you know they were killing it. I mean they're doing you know seven days They were doing you know solid 750,000 There are four technicians, and I'm like how do you guys freaking eat? I know right. I'm like oh So you know my team are like okay? And we interviewed their team and it's like hey guys. I got good news and bad news Good news is we're gonna grandfather you all in we'd love to have you You know that'll give us a team of six got an hour office We got you know service writer got me got got a person that we call it the estimator that writes up all our stuff for Us and they're like okay, so what's the bad news is you got to be here at eight o'clock to start work? Mm-hmm. Oh, and we're gonna expect if I'm gonna pay you for 40 hours. You're gonna have to produce at least 40 hours. Yeah Two of them quit right there, so it's like okay all right Cuz I mean they've never done more than 25 30 hours a week Yeah ever in least in everything that I saw so I was like okay all right So we went in there with a team of four and started looking for people and our first Year there we did just like 2.6 2.7 Okay, and we grew it up we ended up buying another building next door to it and mill Added more space to it build a really beautiful office kind of like what Cecil's doing here in this place. Yeah, and So we had a dealership quality Customer reception lounge we in the month before we opened that place we completely gutted it I found a contractor buddy of mine from church. I said hey, I need you to pull off the impossible He goes what I took him down. I said I need you to strip it get it rewire it plummet for a plummet for electricity Run the electricity lights floors and then we got to put internet in and he goes and So what three four five months I said weak He said what's the budget I gave it to him in a paper bag and he goes Sunday morning My CFO and I we walked in there and our pastor come down. He says let me pray for you guys Oh Lord, right Monday morning 530 We clicked on the lights praying that the internet would come on praying that the computers would turn on praying that all this would work It did We got into the day. I didn't replace any racks because they had these Nussbaum racks. I'm like, okay German Nussbaum Right stuff. Yeah, you know had an old FMC alignment rack those little sketch. I'm like, where'd you find that thing? 1970 right? Yeah, that's me here. Oh the CRT the cathoid ray tube had to flicker and then come on I was like, okay, that's gotta go Week one out of the seven lifts three of them snapped with cars on them Oh, yeah, just broke and their cars in there going, you know, they're all laying there and everybody that's ever had that happen You're like, yeah, it's no crap moment. Imagine three of that in the first week. You're open Oh, and then the alignment rack gets stuck with a car on it on one jack and Go try and find a FMC repair manual Yeah Oh, yeah Yeah, we had we had to do some mechanic in that day and we finally got that thing down So yeah, and so in the first couple months we ended up replacing all the racks New alignment rack came in there. It was we really rocked and rolled Couple years into that that store was really moving and grooving we wanted to grow the business have a Cecil what great Cecil story since we're sitting in this building When I get in this building Cecil, I remember the first time I heard him I used to do consulting used to do training back in my unwashed youth. Mm-hmm. First time I heard him was probably Yeah 2001 to I think he just really started out as he just moved out of Larry's auto repair Yeah knew who he was kind of a local legend Heard him do his first training gig and I walked up to him. I said Who's who are you and how did you steal all my stuff He's a and of course, you know Cecil. What are you talking about? Right? I said I used to train this I said, this is my gig. Yeah, it's like Huh? So started our friendship, right? So He was the only guy that I knew in the industry that could kick me hard enough Yeah, and hold me accountable enough and squeeze me enough to make me move Yeah, so we walked into this place I'm like, oh poop Because I mean I spent dollars that I didn't have I Leveraged everything I had because I I had to have my shop. I had to save my team. I didn't want to lose my team I was kind of I was like screw it. I'm all in let's go I was like, okay, I can go back and do consulting work. I could I had other options, but I didn't want to let it go right So I called Cecil I said, all right get your fat butt out here and he came out and he looks at he goes, okay All right, and month later. He sent me a hundred page manual Right how to run the shop how to fix the shop and I knew what I was gonna read. I already knew And I looked at I got to page four and I literally threw it across the room and just you know smash and my My number two she looks at me and she goes that bad. I went I just walked out of the room That bad I went I just walked out came back about an hour later. I picked it up. I Said give me a month. He goes a month. He goes takes people a year. So give me a month, right?

19:58 *Lucas * What was on page four that pissed y'all?

20:00 Bill It was just all the stuff that we've heard about for years on how to get your process procedures in place how to sell properly How the look texture and feel your shops have to be if you're gonna truly be successful and make this a business Yeah, and not a job There's a process absolutely and those of us that run the process guess what we have businesses Yeah, those of us that don't have crappy jobs. Absolutely that we dilute ourselves into thinking our businesses Yeah, so and that's the Cecil process who goes through how it looks who our service devices are how they're talking How our technicians are what's our DVI process and that time it was brand new kind of yeah, and I'm I'm one of those guys that actually wrote the original red yellow green Motorist assurance program stuff 25 years ago. Yeah when that first came out I was yeah, so I was like I knew this stuff But right like I was so freaked out about opening up this big old monster shop that you weren't he's like Big thing he told me was you can't fail He said if you fail you're you're cooked you are right way over your friggin skis I mean he scared the living crap out of me and he kicked me so hard. I'm like, alright month later We had that boat on plane and we haven't looked back and now we've got three stores. We're looking at a couple more, right? We're talking with folks all over the country on how to how to do this a little bit better, right? Unfortunately, I'm talking to a lot of guys in our industry right now that are in their sunset Yeah they've The group that made it through kovat Are tough tough group because there are a lot of them that said I'm done and they yeah, they just quit right? I picked up a shop in 2000 do that You just quit walk away I'm sure you could Yeah, and you know what they you know what else those guys do now in the morning Welcome to Walmart That would be the perfect job that's not bad it's I don't I don't know if they're welcome to Walmart but Welcome to Costco. I love you. Yeah, that's a different cuz I remember one time is right when we opened this store and I was freaked out. Yes, five kids big house. I Couldn't fail if I failed it was bankruptcy. It was yes, we're going down. Yeah And I had you know, great team that was with me and everybody got paid really well and it's like wow. Okay, so I'm like man, maybe I should just say forget it and I'll go do something else. Yeah, I'm gonna take a step back or two or ten All right, then I go over to Walmart one day and I'm not a big Walmart guy, but it was pouring cats and dogs Cats and I mean to and we're in from California. I mean the one day every year right exactly You know you guys back in North Carolina, it's like you call that Thursday, right? Yeah Yeah, so it was like you know, one of your good old-fashioned southern Thunderstorms right where it's coming down in buckets You can't see you know Bob in front of two feet and I'm driving in the parking lot and there's this old cooter out there He's probably 75 80 years old got his yellow slicker on and He's pushing shopping carts. I Don't want to be that like I'm like damn Damn and I'm just looking at this guy going and He's you know all of probably five five and he's hobbling. Yeah, like oh Oh And sure enough I go park and I go inside he's just pushing the carts inside he walks up

23:39 *Lucas * He goes hello sir, and he hands me a cart. Welcome to Walmart. I went I Just looked I was a god bless you man Yeah, and I vowed that I would never be that guy And I would vow that every guy that I talked to in our industry I would say don't be that guy Yeah, you don't have to be that guy. What what was it in the business at that point in time? Right. I know Cecil gave you the manual What was it? Was it that the shop was struggling financially was it that the shop had problems?

24:07 Bill What what was it that you were going through? We were at the point. That's a great question We were at the point where you get where the owner Business owner who was also the chef cooking bottle washer. Yeah, or the celebrity Everything revolves around him or her. Yeah, they're the hub and what Cecil told me is if you're gonna survive It can't be about you. Yeah, you have to create this team and he says and what he really kicked me with you know this Yes, you've taught this You've preached this. Why do you think you're better than everybody else? Oh man, I was like Why do you think you're better than everybody else? Yeah, another good friend of mine Greg Bunch. He looks at me and goes Are you gonna be okay if it's not your name on the door, right? I was like, oh Ouch, okay turn to the right kick me again. Yeah. Yeah, and I was like, alright and since then it's been like, alright Yeah, you're right. So it does not have to be about me What what was the first step in solving that though? Trust Letting people bang their shins and bloody their toes a little bit. Yeah Letting them fail let him make the mistake knowing that you didn't have the money to let him fail, right and it's like, oh but you know now I've got I've got I got a team that is well, well well represented one of my couple my greatest moments first woman to ever be named ratchet and wrenches executive of the year was my CEO CEO really? Yeah, Melissa back in 2019 I think it was Wow. Yeah, we had just got that store opened and I made her our CEO Oh, I said, hey, I need it's basically I'm stepping back. Let you Line the line it up get it done She also was our estimator at that time in the industry hardly anybody had what was called an estimator, right? Because we figured out there's another Cecil thing and it was a it was kind of a Epiphany moment great service advisors suck when they were called to be parts people Right and great parts of people. Oh my gosh, they're awesome, but they're terrible salespeople Yeah, yeah now sure can they suck it up and do a great job Yeah, they can but only for a period of time because then their life blood starts to have out of them, right? I mean, it's a tough job to do both and We try and you will dig dig into deep into but you know Well, we're asking some of our service providers to do we want these folks to do a million and a half million six Yeah, and then we wonder Well, why didn't you get that estimate written out that car was here at 8 o'clock this morning. Mrs. Joan wants her break job He hasn't had lunch. He hasn't been to the bathroom He's got three other people the phones have been ringing off the hook and he had to order all the parts He had to sit on the phone with a stupid warranty company Oh and he had to call the Honda dealer and wait for them to pick up the phone to get a stupid part that we

26:57 *Lucas * Couldn't get from the local jobber What and we want him to do what? Yeah, and I've talked to David about that before and like hey am I asking too much of my service advisors? Yes Because we're pushing them that hard right and we expect them to provide that that service and one of the things that I've seen Is when we push them that hard that Reflects and how they act with the client that that reflects in the experience the client gets So tell us a little bit about this estimator position. I mean, what what is it that they do and how do you find somebody?

27:27 Bill Like that. Let me let me ask you guys a question. You all like basketball. I don't this dude What was Phil Jackson known for? the triangle offense, right? Yeah, yeah So we looked at it in the triangle offense two service advisors versus one estimator versus the shop Where it's all simply it's all circle everything works in a circle But the sales the service advisors are salespeople. Okay, first thing you have to do is Understand that that person is there to do one thing that's to solve customers problems. Okay, that means they're gonna sell them something and They're gonna sell them to your shop. Yeah, they're gonna sell solutions to their the customers problems They're not gonna if they're gonna be top-line superstar service advisors, which we all want them to be They're probably not gonna be good parts of people if you hired the right people I know a lot of people's heads has probably snapped but stand back and look at it and Really look at it hard What are you expecting them to do old Sean Connery line from the untouchables? What you've prepared to do, right? Yeah, you don't bring a knife to a gunfight What do we want them to do? What we decided we found is our Co-o Melissa She loved to write work orders. I mean and that's how her and I got together and started is I Was I'm a monkey flinging poo against the wall. I mean I'm going as fast as I can give me ten work orders I'll get get him done get him sold get him out gone done. I'll call ten people. Give me 20 minutes I've got him sold right we're done. We're good She would actually write all the work orders so I could look at it, okay, uh-huh, okay massage the number for about two seconds Hello, Mrs. Jones. This is Bill from Adams Auto Works. How you doing? Right? We're done. Yeah Click the button Melissa will order all the parts magically the parts show up in an hour mechanic goes and gets the jobs done I'm already down the road selling the next set of jobs That's where we kind of figured out. Okay, so then when we moved into the big store and Cecil got done kicking me We hired hired two top-notch salespeople service advisors We turned one. This is another great story. She was my CSR my customer service representative. Okay, we got it from a grocery store because Everybody loved her in our town. Everybody knew her everybody loved Becky. She's also a ratchet and wrench service advisor of the year That's awesome. Yeah First woman to be service advisor of the year. I think she's the only one that's been that She she only did 1.9 million dollars last year. Holy cow. Yeah in the triangle offense But Becky she she was the produce manager at the local grocery store Mm-hmm until she got to a certain women of a certain age in that industry They just decided to wipe out the whole department and go get a bunch of 18 year olds and start over right? she started there at 18 she was not 18 and you know 20 year in her career and Found out through a friend that she needed a job and I said well, come on she's well, I don't know anything about cars I said perfect. Yeah, I said, you know people she goes. Yeah Okay Started off as a CSR for a couple years. She'd answer the phones for me I taught her how to answer phones and then it was just beautiful We opened up the new store I brought her into the office and I said hey You know, we're going through a lot of a lot of stress a lot of times I said I got good and bad news and she goes okay I said now you've been through this before She's like, oh no. I said yeah. I said I'm eliminating your job. I'm sorry She said is that the good news or bad news I said well, that's the bad news she goes Okay, what's the good news? I said I'm making you a service advisor You're gonna make me do what you do. I went. Uh-huh. I Don't know how to do that. I said yeah you do right? Yeah you do Yeah, you do first commission check she got and She was always paid well, right but now she's you know, I don't know what she did probably 40 or 50 grand that week Right and we had a pretty robust plan for our folks It was a very good paycheck and she I handed it to her and normally comes in the mail But she'd never seen this so I handed to her. I said hey, I said who said you can't do it Yeah, she looked at it and she's about all of you know, four foot nine She looks like Sally Field from the Flying Nun you could picture that she looks up at me see little tears start to come up in her eye and her hands start to shake and She says I've never had this much money in my hand at any one time in my life Oh, wow single mom mother to yeah changed her life just changed her whole family tree. Yeah, and Now she's poster child for a lot of other women that are in the industry now But the triangle offense has allowed her to do what she does which is talk to people solve the problem Mom comes in with a problem. Hey, I got to get my car done blah blah blah Becky You'll take care of them great Carl go through the shop DVI comes through The estimator team picks it up writes it up Clicks the button and through the magic of our SMS system Becky sees it looks at it might massage a number to calls the customer done Clicks the button again parts magically show up in about an hour and the car gets finished, right? That's the triangle offense. So we're not waiting till three o'clock in the afternoon Everybody gets to go potty everybody gets to have lunch Are you are you hiring parts people for the estimator position? Who are you hiring for that position? People that can do puzzles, okay People that like people that are linear thinkers I I like service advisors, I like X mechanics in that job too because well, I want to get this part in that part great Just get them. Here's your nagging long to give me 62% GP. I don't care what you do. Boop it out, right and Okay, so but what we've had go through that position is Folks that really love to put together the estimates they like to put them together and that's their strength That's their strong point and boom boom boom they get it done. They know where to get their parts They know who to go to they know what vendor the use they know what fluids they need to get because the advisor you talk about you know, I talk about we see a lot of this with Athletics here this fast twitch especially the football players fast twitch muscles fast twitch muscles. I started studying our sales team and How many times they would do the fast twitch when the phone would ring? Or the fast twitch when something would come up on their screen Somebody that's writing a work order They can't have fast twitch they have long twitch They need to have the slow being able to put it together methodically Systematically with a purpose to get to the end Give the customer the best job for the best amount of money So everybody wins get the right labor on the tag from the right source All that fun stuff the estimator puts it together If he has a question, I don't have a service advisor. How many how many folks out there have seen the service advisor run out in the shop Phones are ringing Interrupt a mechanic. I need to know if it's a four-wheel drive. Yeah, I want to throw freaking rocks. I mean, oh or is it a 17 inch wheel or Or you Ford Ford brakes is it a seven lug or a six lug You're like just shoot me in the face, right? Because it kills a ton of time It till and and it just throws the whole process. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and you were wondering why we can't get stuff done Yeah, we're wondering why we're only doing you know an hour and a half a car instead of three hours a car We're wondering why our arrows are 300 bucks instead of at a thousand bucks It's that let your salespeople sell turn them loose and Yes, there's an expense that that's that estimator costs as much as a service advisor if you're doing it, right? okay, but they might not be they might be a retired service advisor or and Folks out there. I know you've all seen this but sometimes the mechanics when they get up to my age with a few gray hairs or no hair Their body may not work so well anymore, but they know everything Right, but they suck at salespeople. They always have and they always will Yeah, and very few mechanics that really transition to be good service writers It's a different set the person that's a good estimator is a lot like a good mechanic They're plotters. They think they're linear. They're more of an engineer mind, right? So that's that's kind of the secret to our success and we've taught that with any anytime you get a store of volume And I say anything above a million and a half If you go to that system it works whether it's one advisor versus one Estimator and then when you hit that two million mark you can go to the two advisors with one estimator When you hit about three and a half four million dollars, you need two and two Okay, but or three and two but it's it's it's a it's a formula and it really works

36:32 *Lucas * so Who dispatches in your shop then?

36:38 Bill Well, it depends we have shops, you know We got one shop that's got 14 people and we got two shops that have between three and five people depending on what we got Going on. Okay the smaller shops. We still run the estimator model as much as we can. Okay, and with the beauty of remote SMS's I could be sitting in my house 50 miles away from one of my stores I see that a car got estimate or car got checked out the DBI is done I see that the managers on the phone talking to two people and I'll send him a slack message saying you want me to write That up for you, right? Yes, okay great About two minutes later send it back to him. There you go. He's now selling that thing right instead of Wondering and in the back of their mind as a salesperson in the back of your mind If you've always got pressure on the back of your mind that you've got to get something else done That's gonna take you away from selling. You become distracted. You're never gonna win. You're never gonna win. So it's That is it's the beauty and I'm seeing guys that are really breaking out of the I've got a really cool shop That's really a job model to having a really good business where you can step aside from it and watch it run, right? Yeah, you can I've seen guys beat the crap out of their service advisors. We're not getting the GP We're not getting this we're not getting that they have no chance to write wonder why service if I just go hey you know what I'm done or you know, I'm gonna go to the dealer or you know what I'm gonna go work for so-and-so because they have no chance to win and We grind them up. We don't need to yeah There is another way to do it Now do you have to get and this is goes back to what Cecil and then Greg taught me is get out of your own way as the owner and Let him run Okay, let those people run because once you get to that certain level you start to get the inertia and we've all heard the flywheel Stuff about hey as soon as you get the flywheel moving Keep it going the hardest thing to start to stop trained So your your estimator then orders your parts, right? They make the estimate estimator estimator will Normally write up that work orders off the DVI They'll be the one that will interface with the technician most of the time if they have a question on parts now when it comes back to dispatching we use a Protractor or a shop management system. We've customized it to where we flag each each car The technician might have five cars one two three four five We have flags to sell the client tell the the technician when the parts are going to show up If the parts are there cars ready to go because no car comes in the shop unless the parts are all sitting there, right? We do not ever let a car sit and I know some guys like well, I get you know BMW don't care Oh, yeah, I got Mercedes. Don't care. It goes out. It absolutely goes get it the flip off the rack Okay, that's a sprinter band put the wheels on yeah, I get outside with a forklift. Don't care. Whatever you got to do It's got to go back outside. Yeah, and you got it because Only we sell one thing we sell time yeah, we sell time so we got to keep those racks turning and burning So the estimator yeah, they'll get the parts there. They'll get the parts coming Our system we do have because we have seven texts in our big shop We have a shop manager and his job is to play 3d Tetris or 3d chess And he's staying two three steps ahead of each technician knowing what's there what's coming in what's not coming in parts parts delays

39:48 *Lucas * So that's kind of a dispatch role in the big shop

39:50 Bill He handles the dispatch role where the smaller stores, which is your traditional shops They'll the store manager will do that or the technicians. They'll know okay. I've got 12 cars coming in today He's got six. I've got six. They're all lined out one through six We know that car needs to be done today that car needs to be done tomorrow. It's process procedure and it all comes back to the ballet of Who's selling it? When are the parts showing up? Yeah, when do we get the car in the air? communication communicate communicate in the triangle the triangle offense between the sales the shop and the estimator or manager and It works with a small store. It works with a big store. It works with the monster stores It works with remote service advisors. It really works with on-site work at service advisors I got a buddy mine Dave tool tools garage. A lot of people know him We both kicked kind of kicked around this idea because we both have you know three stores We're both in the Bay Area and he's got a guy that

40:47 *Lucas * Phenomenal estimator. Oh my god kicks probably the best I've ever seen right He doesn't his bunny slippers sit in his house For all the three of his shops, that's pretty cool. Yeah, but maybe you should do that job

41:01 Bill It's a phenomenal position that a lot of the industry is this now I've shared it with a bunch of shops and it's starting to catch on some traction Because guys that are doing are like, oh Why didn't we think of this? Yeah It was that for us was that a necessity and we kind of figured out you really love doing that I really love doing this. I really am not good at that. Even though I'm lying to myself saying I'm a good parts person

41:25 *Lucas * I'd not I suck Well, so when you we talked about money a little bit when you look at the percentages How does this play out on paper right because a lot of you know, some consultants say well, you know You shouldn't have over 10% and fixed employee cost or you know How does that play into this what were you seeing?

41:49 Bill That's a probably whole nother podcast But the numbers are the numbers and accounting is a language of business. It doesn't lie black and white So yeah If you want to keep it between 15 and 20 percent for your sales side that he needs to include your sales team including your estimator

42:05 David Okay, so that you're including it in that. Oh, yeah Did you say 15 to 20 percent for your Sales team sales team, right? Okay For and that I guess that would also that also includes our management staff too. So that's that's all on top of that So so 15 to 20 percent for your estimator sales team manager

42:26 Bill 20 to 25 on tax. Mm-hmm and then 20 for parts. Yeah That's where you have that money How you have everyone to play it if you want to morph Skill-sets into the best who's got the best point a person for that job Somebody might be a six-figure parts person Because they make it rain Okay, they make it so instead of you're making 55 gross profit. You're making 63 percent gross profit. That's real money Yeah, we only eat gross profit, right? It's not a matter of their top-line revenue. It's a matter of gross

43:03 David So you're relying on on them driving down your cost of parts to 15 No, well, no, no, I wish but no godly that'd be awesome under 20 Yeah, 20 to 25 is where we always normally see it on that includes tires and batteries But okay, but so now this is 20 to 25. Okay, but now now you're sitting on 60% of your GP is eating up Mmm, no, cuz we're we're traditionally running right around between 58 and 63 percent depending on the month in the store Well, I understand that but I'm saying that's 58 to 60 percent after parts and technician You including yours your no no you are correct. Yeah sales sales sales staff and management or before yeah, yeah, you're at 40 ish percent Mm-hmm Leftover And traditionally is 30 percent for overhead

44:06 Bill You at 20 percent 25 percent overhead 25 to 30 It really is numbers don't lie. It just depends on what bucket you put them

44:13 David And so at the end of the day then you're you're easing up Everybody's Or you are specializing there are duties in order to drive that top-line number. Yep, and then eventually Obviously 10% of 4 million is better than 10% of a million. Yep or and No, handling on your part where you're you're absent. I can sit here and do a podcast with you guys Well, I mean, you know you can sit here and do a podcast and not do any You could be flat broken

44:56 *Lucas * I Done that yeah, but it well, you know I talked to Mike Allen the other day and and that was one of the things that we talked about is he said look I want to build wealth for my family, but also want to be able to have a life Mm-hmm, right like I don't want to be in the shop every day. I don't want to be in that management position every day I'm looking for ways and tools to be able to build that It kind of sounds like what you're doing here It is and and you know, that was one of the things Mike said is he's like I'm willing to take less Net put the good people in place that allow me to be as

45:27 David Yeah, all that works though. Once you get certain to a top line to a certain top line revenue number Yeah, there's a there's a breakthrough part. Yeah, there's a threshold because you get underneath that number I don't I don't care what you think you've contrived like 750,000 like you were saying 750,000 in top line revenue like you're not hiring That's you yeah, you are the estimator slash salesperson slash CSRs They might call it cleaner toilet cleaner chef. Yeah, you can't you can't make that work now

46:00 Bill You get to two million and the numbers you get to 1.2 And if you do the math you do 1.2 you can hire that next six-figure person That if you hire the right person and you give them to get them the right figure They can do it Numbers work, okay tight

46:20 David It's tight but the you at this point now you are really watching those expenses Cuz that overhead can get ugly if you're sitting on I don't know $75,000 hunter machine payments and Yeah, they'll make it fun to you and the the lease is a little too high Well, I'm saying all that work yeah, you can you can pay for that at four million

46:47 Bill It's a little hard harder when you at 1.2 and you're like I stopped my small stores don't have $70,000 My four million dollar store has a brand new one. We just put in the ground Yeah, yeah, I mean we flushed out of that boy is a $90,000 machine Yeah, what it's gonna be paid for in about six months, right? She got the volume to do it the volume to do it now the one point where I've seen at one point to you know Go back to Star Trek. It's when you go to warp drive. It's a whole different animal You can talk about the flywheel. It's when that inertia finally gets going Yeah, but yeah before that, you know, it used to be the seven hundred thousand dollar shop now I think it's a one point two million dollar shop where you finally can break through hire that next person that can almost take the place of you as an owner or as the top-line person where you can Start looking to how do we get this thing to two because up and to that point? It's a slug

47:39 David It's a 10 to 12 hour a day frickin slug. You are in the middle of oh no. No, no No, I have people tell me the first millions easy. It's that one million to two million. That's really hard And I Okay, I've had several people tell me this several people tell me this it's absurd. Of course, they're idiots but The Problem of you guys are the problem I would say is to get from that one to two

48:11 Bill Every single every single person I've ever met that can't get to that two million is It has the entire shop revolve around that there the hub that there the hub every single one of them That's what I'm saying. You got to take that six figure and I'm just using a number for California That's even a low number for California where I'm at Yeah, that makes you have to be able to you have to hire that quality of a person and say hey You're here to be the hub. You're here to You know in a couple of my stores, I've got chef cook bottle washer managers that are absolutely frickin world changers Yeah, but we also support the crap out of them with our two executives Where and we also watch, you know, we have systems in place. We have software in place We're completely paperless across all of our platforms. There's no paper We see we're watching constantly we're even moving to a different Different platform that we won't mention on this on spot gas because somebody will get butthurt But to be fully cloud based where we can see stuff even faster and in more of a real time Yeah, that'll even help us out and smooth the estimating process out even more if we get another 10 15 percent efficiency Everything we have now it's beautiful where yeah, he's a Trump. It's beautiful Only thing we're paying for right now is parts Yeah buildings are paid for technicians are paid for Insurance is paid for lights are paid for everything's paid for. Yeah So now as we got to pay for is the parts go hang them You get to that spot where you can start just adding gas to it adding efficiencies and you're like, oh Now I see how gossel does it now. I see how some so what are you doing? And I like completely understand where you're coming from but the complexity in the intricacy of the vehicle Is it going to force you or are you considering that it might force you to slow down Your entire process. No That's not just missing it or you haven't considered it or you've considered it and said nah be fine. I consider it every day It scares me to bring five of my technicians here to Ogden, Utah at the cost of well thousands of dollars

50:28 David So they're gonna come in here and the guy is gonna stand up up in front and say I don't care if you're even doing An oil change because if you have to drop that bottom pan you might you might have to do an ADOS calibration. Yep That means that every vehicle that comes in that you used to account for again You just said I got turned that bay because we sell time Okay, so now that 30 minutes is now gonna be 35 minutes because I gotta take five minutes to read through SI every single car

50:55 Bill Yep, every single time. Yep How are you mitigating that? Great question, it's I Want to say with fear and loathing but fear and trepidation It's how do we stay ahead of it knowing that there's no such thing as an oil change anymore There's no such thing as a quick wheel alignment anymore. Right my 24 year old son is our number one alignment guy He's also our best ADAS guy and He's been to one ADAS hunter class. How do you do it? Bubba Cooter on YouTube figuring the crap out Yeah, we also have given him enough Space and you know, I've got guys from 20 all the way to 65 years old working on cars. We got 14 mechanics We're all paperless. Everybody's all Technologically geeked up and some guys are slow like me when it comes to tech some guys are awesome but Being able to leverage technology being able to go. Where do we go to find the answers to help us improve our efficiencies? That's where we have to and stay up on our training if we're not training if we're not staying ahead of it We're not looking down the road Also, I think it also comes from leadership and from owners and from managers from consultants you can't be afraid of the future because

52:10 David The clock doesn't stop. It's tick tick tick tick tick tick. So it's just I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm entirely incompetent about just about everything but I Hear that information, okay the information these guys are gonna disseminate and in my estimation it stops being about Necessarily efficiency it stops being not that you are entirely inefficient, but I'm no longer counting Minutes I'm looking at how much revenue can I get out of each vehicle and Realistically how many Vehicles are we having to juggle? It becomes the model shifts a little bit I'm adjusting that way because I think that's the only in my mind The model that you're running Has been wildly successful for you and a lot of shops, right? But all of a sudden this in influx of technology that is critical to safety just something like battery EVs, right? They don't double-check and make sure that that that things powered down they now you've killed somebody right or the thing catches on fire and everything goes up in flames and it's because well, I Only had 15 minutes to do that inspection because it's 15 minutes or I start to lose money is Is it a shift in the way we do things on a daily basis or are you looking at it from that aspect? Or you're like, well, I still need to maintain efficiency and in the amount of time I can allot for a B and C But I'm gonna shift how I charge like how are you approaching that?

54:01 Bill You just hit it you have to look at it from a different level of abstraction You have and this comes back to ownership if you're down in the weeds You're down in the trees. You're gonna run into one. You have to get above the trees You have to then just what you're doing. You're taking a general's look at it. You're looking at the whole battlefield You have to know that you're gonna have some folks are gonna be doing Relatively quick services and stuff that's gonna be here your bread and butter great You know what that's gonna make you You also know that you got a bunch of check engine lights coming up for random different issues, okay is your I Don't just gonna say an amount but we won't you're your high-end age supertech big brain, dude You're 12 pound brain most expensive guy in the shop most least efficient guy in the shop It's what it is. They have to be able to balance each other out if you can build a shop they can Allow for that to happen and allow for growth to You know our younger some of our younger guys that are more tech savvy or even helping some of the big brain dudes Change the way they think and it's a different level of abstraction. It's it's a yes-and we also have to not remember that if You're selling a cheap oil changer. You're selling a cheap alignment fine. It's marketing. That's not business. That's a marketing cost, right? Your effective labor rate has to be X your gross profit has to be Y Otherwise you're going to make Z which is zero. You have to be able to balance that out And if you're down in the weeds as an owner You're gonna wake up one day. There's nothing in your bank account and people are calling you looking for money You got to get above it. I've got guys in the Bay Area now independent shops charging 300 bucks an hour They have to Because we're paying people to live there Francisco's yeah, but if I move it back to North Carolina, maybe they're charging to

55:54 David Because the effective labor rate when you balance out that $39 will change when you balance out the discount alignment It the effective labor rates a number that I don't see a lot of guys looking at that. So where you're you're mixing though You're mixing talent in differing pay scales. Yes I'm looking at it from I'm not mixing pay scales. I want Three four five big brain guys Wow Okay In the same shop in the same shop most dealerships with 60 guys don't have five guys that do that I steal the ones from each dealership and then you can deal with free mirror Technologically super savvy. Maybe you're charging 350 $400 an hour. Okay, you would think that but here's the problem they equate what I do and The shop I'm not not you not you But the shops that carry four Luby's and one guy that can do the timing belt They think that we are the same and we are not we're not okay So I I come at them and go hey, I'm 350 an hour It's a $750 charge dyak charge for me to even start touching your car Something like a dos Something like a dos perfect example the way I charge for a dos is each individual System component is calibrated separately and has its own charge own time own charge that's just the way it is a new blind spot and Depending on service information because we check I might have to do blind spot and then the front radar and oh I just needed the front radar. It's like I don't it doesn't matter If it says start with blind and then do radar I can't separate them So you're paying for two services not just one. Um, they're intertwining Whatever. So if I'm gonna have three or four Now it becomes a how do I make the math work? Mm-hmm. Well, I Set a fixed cost on my technicians So I'm gonna pay them X Y and Z and that dollar amount is gonna be fixed, right? And now rather than saying I'm gonna have this many Luby's and this many B guys and this many a guys and this many C Guys now I'm looking at I've got to bring in this many C level cars This many B level repairs and this many a level problems Every week every month for me to spread the workload out

58:37 Bill To be able to get X amount of revenue in at this percentage to make my numbers work and again, you are creating a beautiful mosaic of a complex shop that I have one of those and I have my smaller shops, which would be Your traditional chef cook bottle washer shop or your three to five person shop B guy You might have a C guy and a manager maybe a parts person. That's your traditional shop in America What you're describing if you're having four brain surgeons Even if you look and I also I steal I try and steal genius everywhere I can find it I have a couple of really good folks that I become friends with that are top-end surgeons and run top-end surgical centers in San Francisco Bay Area I Had a knee replaced about six years ago and I I'm an efficiency guy. I'm a systems guy and I'm going in with a busted knee I'm going in with a busted knee This guy actually designed the knee that's in my body right now. Oh, that's crazy Yeah, but that wasn't the thing out of this whole deal. It was a $250,000 knee You have to see the actual cost they charge my insurance He spent 15 minutes with me Yeah, I know he made probably a hundred and a half right he didn't have Lvns he didn't have Anything below a seasoned RN and when he walked into his office You felt smelt and could taste the how you were going to be treated which is Nordstrom level above Yeah, and okay we're gonna need to get you signed up because now we know exactly what we're gonna do and all the prep work is leading up to the 15 minutes that that brain surgeon spends with you, yeah and He comes in you're half doped up he's looking at you you've already spent 30 seconds with him telling he's gonna get a new knee He's riding on your knee gonna cut here gonna cut there. He's looking at you. Okay, great He's literally in you for 15 minutes. He's cut chop boom bang done. It's out. Yeah, I remember I was sitting in the recovery room and I just woken up and I look up in dark room. I look down. It's like Hmm. I got a catheter in me. Oh, I wasn't expecting that and my legs all you know They got got the big big thingy on it. Yeah, not a cast but the big way to call the rap on it And lady walks in she knew that I'd woke up Dark room right had to have camera in there She knew I woke up. She looks at me. She goes. How are you doing? Mr. Adams? I'm still half dope and I went She walks over and she moves me at least two to three millimeters and I went oh She goes better now and I looked at I said, how did you know to do that? She goes, that's my job Yeah, I went Never forget that right three millimeters. She knew that about the brain surgeon Yeah, she was the people that handle the CSR s for them

01:01:48 David So you're talking to these other shops Here's my concern. Mm-hmm Shop owner is listening to this and he's sitting at six hundred seven hundred thousand dollars Mm-hmm, and he's going I'm gonna follow the I'm gonna flood the market with cheaper oil change and oil alignments bring a bunch of cars in there. I'm going to I'm gonna do the the the whole thing and present Try to build a relationship and I and maybe they'll sit down and do the same thing They'll sit down and do the whole I think it takes six visits before we understand each other and I believe they can do that whole thing yeah, and Good better and different but my concern is that if they If they are now starting on a journey, that's well That's shown proven to be to be very successful They're now starting on a journey to try to emulate what you had in some of them in a couple of your shops or where you have a mix of CBA and You're just you're trying to keep trying to break out you're trying to keep the the momentum moving you're trying to keep those those bays Producing revenues got to come in and out every single day. The cars got to go cars got to go They're trying to build that Over the next year two years three years. They're trying to build that model Now you are well established and at least have the revenue that you know What if tomorrow all of a sudden I've got a shift and I got to bring in two more a level guys in each one Of those two stores you can afford it. You can market for it. You can You're the the 600 pound gorilla in the room. You can absolutely do that in your market tomorrow. You can make the shift Those guys will be starting the momentum towards that trying to get to that one point two, right? And all of a sudden they hit that brick wall where oh crap Like I just caused an accident because that you know system went haywire. Well, why did you not check? Well, it was just an oil change. It's like hold on now that year make a model It was here for 24 97 oil change right for a full synthetic And you're like, yeah, I understand that but service and from us I understand

01:04:03 Bill But I only pay point three to my flat rate tech to do that oil change. Why are you paying your flat rate tech? That's a whole nother podcast. Yeah, that's a conversation. But yeah, it we get Troy Kaplan is it that

01:04:17 David Are we doing a disservice To to to push that model and say that model is the way or I don't know the right answer. I'm just trying to Question somebody I feel smarter than I am. It's okay. I'll do we get behind a mic. We get really smart I'm how do you how do you view that shift? How are you? Specifically for other shops because I think you're you'll be fine. You'll be fine. I haven't been fine. I've been broke I've been that guy. No, I understand that but you at this point you have a proven model now you you like I if you You were you were talking about going to other parts of the country looking to buy shops Oh, yeah, you buy a shop in North Carolina. You have a model that you're gonna put in Yeah, and they may not necessarily be I'm gonna have three or four a level tax and they're all gonna get paid a base salary and You're gonna you have a specific model that requires you to bring in so many cars oil change They only take so much time this that the other and all of a sudden this wave of technology because again, it's not even though We're switching from carburetor fuel injection. We're gonna go there. Yeah propulsion entirely So now This the the oh, I'm not an electrical guy. I'm sorry That's like saying I'm not an engines guy and you work on engines Like that doesn't make any sense the the electricity is what moves the car Yep, so everybody has been electrical guy now But you didn't bring electrical guys that you you just bought this shop and you put in a C B A Your a is pretty good with electrical B won't touch it and all of a sudden it's like hey, we're not we're not hanging We're not hanging parts anymore The brakes don't need to be done But every hundred thousand they need to be checked every hundred thousand or whatever, right? You may have to do a fluid here or there so see guys gone because there's a little lube anything now There's a few fluids you have to check and maybe service, but that's it. This will be a fancy machine that'll do it for you so the big guy is Teetering whether he needs to even be there we need the a but the a all of a sudden has to be able to do EEPROM work or whatever. So I mean what?

01:06:33 Bill What do you tell those guys? scale up as fast as you can because it's coming and you need to be ready or You know, that's a great question again We're back looking at being in the trees or being above them Sure, you got to know what type of shop you're gonna run. Yeah, you talk about going back to North Carolina I'm gonna say Brandon Harrell. Yep Brandon was parts guy. Yeah Brandon Inadvertently fell into buying a bunch of stores Brandon and I are good friends. Yeah, he's it Super successful super successful Brandon has a freaking model. Guess what? His bottle looks a lot like mine very similar. He understands how many cars he has to get and what the mix is So he knows that he can be successful and it can be a five or six person shop. It could be a 20 person shop How you make that is a cookie cutter? No, you also have to be able to play to your strengths if you don't have an a tech Yeah, then you got to really be smart as an owner and know that what you're not gonna touch, you know I had a shop that we bought We bought it in kovat their a tech in when kovat hit when They were basically told to go home. He said you know what? I'm gonna get out of this move out of the PRC. I'm moving down to Louisiana I'm gonna get me a shrimp boat and fix Mercedes So he's working at Mercedes Benz in New Orleans making Buku six-figure dollars. Yeah has himself a beautiful boat and That shop was left with a really solid B tech who's here Gonna be training going through because in the last year and a half guess what he's had to learn is I've been forced feeding him with a fire hose. Yeah, and he's smart Wants to do it. Yeah, great do never and my thing is I'll never fault you for making a mistake Don't ever let it out of the shop. Yeah. Yeah That's my 100% I'm the I'm the owner Yeah Now if I'm sitting I'm paying you three tenths of an hour to go to the check engine light get it diagnosed I'm training you three tenths of an hour. That's the owner's fault Yeah, that's and that's where you go back to a Cecil or you go back to an ATI Whoever your coach is holding you accountable not to be a stupid idiot. Yeah, it's the owner's fault It's always the owner's fault because we allow that crap to happen. Yeah Conversely a lot of us they get into that six seven eight hundred thousand dollar shop They get to that spot. Okay, I made a hundred grand last year. Cool Now again, we're back to Sean Connery. What are you prepared to do? Yeah, do you want a job or do you want a business is you now have to make a decision? Are you gonna invest in the technology? Are you going to accept that? Oh, we're not fixing carburetors anymore We're on fuel injection or oh, I guess this disc brake thing. He's here to stay Yeah, oh I guess that computer thingy in the car. Yeah. All right. I guess that MC solenoid I guess we got to figure out how to make that work Oh, what's that the Cadillac converter? What what? Yeah, what's that thing? We've gone through different evolutions We're going through a huge evolution now. That's also going to probably change the industry again Yeah, we had kovat that took out 20 25 percent of the shops in the country. We're seeing consolidation. We're seeing technology

01:09:52 *Lucas * Really 30 20 25 percent which I get that number that can't be right is it I think it's even worse That's crazy We didn't I don't think we lost anybody around us

01:10:03 Bill But no, I don't think we lost I think a lot of shops lost employees because they shut down we didn't we said open but I Think a lot of shops stated but they open back once a triple a number There was a lot of consolidation a lot of consolidation especially in a especially in collision collisions all Different animal now. Yeah. Yeah overnight and you know, it was at Rama manual. Don't let a good crisis go to waste. Yeah. Yeah you know not not my favorite type of dude, but Reality get above the trees and look at it. Oh, there's opportunity here I picked up a shop that never did more than 700,000. The guy was making good money all his life owned the property All of a sudden he's making 400,000. I need to get out. I look at it went. Okay We ran our model through it. Here's what it's worth It's not worth anything. You're right It's not a business with the property was probably worth eight billion dollars and you know what Again back to the ownership. Yeah, how can we both succeed here? Yeah, your business isn't worth anything I'm not gonna pay for it. Yeah, but you have a piece of property in the middle of the most Affluent area in the flippant world. Yeah, and they're all driving cars. Yeah. Yeah, I know how to and I have a man I have a model that will work. Yeah, so we went in there We took the same team and now they're doing 1.2 million dollars I next the same team the next year nice just our and it's not rocket science. I'm not a sharp guy I only do one or two things really well It took Cecil and a couple other good guys to kick the crap out of me. So I'm not the hub Yeah, and if anybody hears this and go, okay, they get one thing you can't be about you 100% 100% gotta be about your team because somebody in that room if it's two people somebody smarter than you are Absolutely, let them run find out and going back to your thing if you got three or four Atex. Oh my god I'm thinking 15 20 million dollars. That's what's popping in my mind Cuz I know what each one of those guys is worth and like a good surgeon Mmm, you're thinking about you're thinking about how many hours are they turning? No, I'm looking at it How many mouths that they can feed because of all the downstream? Repairs that have to be done. Yeah

01:12:19 David Sometimes you don't want that guy you want the guy that diagnosed that

01:12:24 Bill That's a sensitive repair. I better leave it to that sensitive repairs have a sensitive guy, but he might not be the big thinker He may be the guy that likes to sit there with a soldering iron. Yeah, right And it comes back to who does what well and then as the owner as the marketers Play to that success. Yeah, if you got a brain surgeon, well, don't let them fix knees mmm, you know, and I look at a B tech is an orthopedic surgeon and A tech is a brain surgeon. Yeah, they're not the same person. They fix they don't do the same job exactly They're completely different revenue streams. Yeah, you're see your C person is your GP we run our shops much like a Hospital center we do appointments in the morning and we do surgery in the afternoon Yeah, and if surgeries need to stay over we flex everybody can do the GP work do I want my Dollar a Technician doing a service. Oh heck no, absolutely not and and he sucks at it and he knows he sucks

01:13:29 *Lucas * Yeah, cuz he doesn't do it every day. I let Eric do an alignment one time It was miserable. Oh, it was miserable took him like, I don't know four hours to a single alignment

01:13:38 Bill Because he wants to write that on like zero. Yeah No, no, no, he's gonna go even deeper and find out. Okay. Okay. I gotta find out that. Okay. Okay. I gotta look at that Cross camber. No, no, no. No. Oh, wait a minute. Yes. See ice is not the way Ah, and he'll be digging into the theory of it. Great. No, I'm not a it's in the green back it out guy I want to solve the customer's problem. Yeah, does it pull Do you have tire wear? Yeah. Now if we're setting up a Porsche, that's a different animal I'm charging six hundred dollars to change to do the alignment on the thing. Yeah, if I'm doing grandma's Honda We're gonna set the toe make sure the cameras right we're getting the hell out of the shop. Yeah, right Again back to pricing My brain surgeon is not being charged at the same rate that I'm charging for the orthopedic guy or the GP guy But when you put it all together and it could be a three-person shop or it could be a 14-person shop The mix has to work So the numbers come out the same because the numbers are the same no matter if you got a three-person shop or a thirty-person shop It but yes when the when the when the bigger bigger wheels are rolling When that wheel comes around on a four million dollar shop versus a four hundred thousand dollar shop Those are different numbers. Yeah, but once you break through the inertia once you break through that line where you can start Getting that inertia running and it becomes a business instead of a hobby You're not running a taco truck. You got a couple taco trucks You got people working it instead of you being behind there cutting the cilantro That's where the magic happens. Otherwise, you got a really cool job