Episode 264 - The Value of Diagnostics, Hands-On Classes, & Finding Happiness With Tim Iezzi & Ira Waldman

0:02Hey folks, David here, and I'd like to thank you for joining us for the Changing the Industry podcast. Lucas and I started this podcast with the goal of capturing the frank and open conversations you typically have at industry events. Those conversations cover the challenges we face in our business and lives, as well as difficult repairs, new products and services, and everything in between.

0:26We hoped that these recordings would spur our listeners to enact the change they'd like to see in their own lives and businesses. That's also why we've partnered with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. My first management class was with Cecil Bullard, and his genuine passion for helping others in an honest and ethical manner permeates his entire organization. And if you need some of the Institute's help, they have a special offer for our listeners.

1:00Click the link in the show notes and get signed up for a free business analysis. They'll go over your current situation and give you advice on your next steps. And they have everything from free resources and online classes to peer groups, one-on-one coaching, and specific help for MSOs. So don't miss out on this great offer. Click the link in the show notes.

1:26And now on to the podcast. Is that what you say in your shop every day? It'll work. Are these connected? I hope so, man. Me too. That'd be awful if they weren't. No. What? How's the consulting business? Consulting business is okay. It's good. Hey, turn your mic to where you'll have to move that one down over here somewhere. Put it like in the center of your chest, right?

1:58And just make sure the little grate on the top of it's facing straight up. See the little grate? The green or the gray? Oh, the grate. Oh, the grate. Oh, there we go. I'll do this thing and the magnet comes off the back so you can adjust it, turn it, do whatever you want with it. There you go. Should be good. Worst thing is— it's fine until it's not.

2:21What's that? That is exactly right. Like, it's just a way of the automotive technician. It will be fine until it's not, right? So tell us, consulting business, how's things going? Good. All prime. So for me, the consulting part of it is I do some accident investigations. You do the car part of it. Right. I get hired by a company that is hired by the insurance company.

2:45I go out, you know, you say you were in an accident, your brakes failed, so I go look at the mechanical part of the brakes. I download the information, the airbag computer, look at that, any recent repair history, condition of the car, that type of stuff. So that's the consulting part of it for me. What kind of data do you get out of the airbag modules that is imperative to them?

3:14Brake pedal position, throttle position, engine RPM, vehicle speed. So when they say, "I tried to stop," it's like, "No, you didn't." Yeah. Yeah, no, I didn't. I was hitting the brake and you were actually hitting the gas and the brake or just the gas. You know, there's a lot of different— is your seatbelt buckled, unbuckled? I go on, do scan of the car, any, you know, codes, complete scan.

3:42Um, what about these new cars that, uh, like Subaru that has a camera on the driver? Does it record that at all? So I'm not 100% sure about Subaru, but I know that Volvo records almost everything. Toyota records a lot of stuff. Um, I guess what they call In my world, I call it a near deployment event, something enough to wake the airbag module up to go, something's going on.

4:09But so it's any time there's any time pre-collision activates on a Toyota and that you don't even have to go on Toyota, you don't have to use like the crash data recorder. It's available right through TechStream. Yeah, that's what I was getting ready to say is because one of the first classes I ever took with Dave Mackles years ago was him talking about how much data was available in TechStream.

4:28Compared to every other tool out there. And he was going over the data that it collected and it's insane. One of the guys that trains us, I won't use his name because I don't know if he wants me to, but he rented a Toyota. Yeah. And we downloaded the data from the Toyota and looked at the camera stuff and it was a rental car.

4:48So there was lots of— because we're looking at this car and going, this thing looks like it's been hit. Yeah. And we pulled the data and went, yes, it has been hit. It's pretty cool stuff. So, you know, it's evolving into, was any collision work done? Was the ADAS calibrated? All of that type of stuff. So I then bring an engineer in, automotive engineer for that, a little bit above my certified capability, I guess is the proper term.

5:20The proper word to use. So I'm getting there. What does the engineer do? What is the aspect that they take? So on the bigger cases where there's, you know, serious injury involved and stuff like that, they will recreate the accident or recreate the conditions and see, take a known good car and see when it, you know, when the ADAS starts to kick in, when the automatic braking starts kicking, when the warnings start to kick in.

5:50But at what angle it starts, you know, versus, you know, head-on collision, you know, head-on collision, we know that it's supposed to, but it's the turning when it, you know, the radius of which stuff happens. So let me ask you this because you just said something I'm really curious about. You said, was the car calibrated? Is there data available to tell us if a car's been calibrated or not?

6:15I'm not sure, but there's repair history, right? So you go back into repair history. Was it, you know, was it in an accident? What was done? All the repair history. Do you think there will ever be— because that's one of the big things right now is there's a lot of shops talking about, no, it's all right, no, it's all right, no, it's all right, doesn't have to be calibrated, it's fine.

6:37But you get into a liability situation, somebody gets hurt all of a sudden it doesn't matter if you think it's okay or not, right? It's not okay now. Is there ever a spot where you're going to see that data come back that confirms this car was or was not calibrated in the data that the car provides? I would imagine at some point.

7:00So for self-preservation for the OE. Yeah. That they'll, you know, that they'll put that in there. See, at some point was a calibration before. Kind of like Ford does with the, uh, the FDRS system. The whole history of the car was done. Now whether or not it'll pick up if an aftermarket scan tool did some programming, I'm not sure, but I gotta imagine at some point, if it's not already there— I'm not, I'm not sure if it's there or not— it, that, that would, would be beneficial to see that that was there or not.

7:33You don't find any of this creepy? Do the big brother creepy? Yeah, we do. The problem is, right, um, you can open up a shop tomorrow and say you're an EDAS calibration shop, right? And your last job— you're— but what I'm saying, your last job could have been, hey, would you like fries with that? We see that. It's looking for that to be in its next job.

7:59Yeah, well, that's my next job. I joke about that. I say My next job is going to be, would you like fries with that? And do you want to supersize it? They got nice uniforms. It's air-conditioned in the summertime and there's plenty of food. That's right. They don't supersize things anymore. No, the movie ruined it. The movie ruined it. Right. They can't call it supersize.

8:20Would you like that grande? Grande. Did you hear that the guy was an alcoholic? That's why he was getting sick. Lucas and I have been telling you about PartsTech for a while now and how it gives you access to unlimited parts and tire vendors and direct integration with over 35 shop management systems. And now they've just launched a new referral program. All you have to do is open your PartsTech account, go to My Shop, and click on the Rewards tab.

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9:15So if you're using PartzTech already, start sharing that referral link. And if you haven't signed up for PartzTech yet, What are you waiting for? Click on the link in the description or go to partstech.com/podcast. That's partstech.com/podcast. Hey, one more thing. If you find out that your shop management system doesn't integrate with PartsTech, it's time to upgrade. David and I use what we believe to be the very best system on the market, Shopware, with unmatched features like Parts GP Optimizer and DVX, which is their digital vehicle experience.

9:49Shopware really is way more than just a shop management software. With it, you'll be able to create an immersive and interactive experience for your client, setting you apart from everyone else using run-of-the-mill software. Are you ready to upgrade? Click the link in the show notes to get started. You've seen the movie, right? Supersize Me. All right, so in the movie, he starts eating a bunch of fast food and he gets super, super sick, and he's like, I've got fatty liver disease.

10:13You've got the liver of a, of a 30 to 30-year, uh, long alcoholic or whatever. And turns out it was because he was drinking. He was an alcoholic. Yeah, it had nothing to do with the fast food. The fast food probably wasn't healthy for him, but it didn't cause all of the problems that he reported in the movie. It was all a show.

10:33It was— he was just an alcoholic. Yeah, that'll do it. And isn't it— don't they say that like there is no amount of alcohol that's safe. Like, yeah, not even like— used to say like a glass of wine was safe. No, they're not. Now they're saying it destroys your DNA. Well, it's good. They, they said that the, the, the, the tannins and the red wine had this something in it that like if you drink one, it's good for your heart.

10:58But like they actually check the wines and none of the red wines actually have it in there like it's supposed to, and they just get you drunk. Yeah, yeah. So doctors will be like, yeah, you can have a glass of red wine before bed to relax you or whatever. It's like, or just pop a couple melatonin, that'll do it too. Well, you know, they say that, that, um, you know, they say that melatonin actually causes— or they, they don't know that it causes heart failure.

11:25Yeah, that was correlated, a study of super sus. No, I saw that. I do think that that was probably BS and it was just the correlation. I pop those like candy. Yeah, I do too. Melatonins put your sight to sleep. It's great. So what's up with you two moving forward? What are we, what are we saying? Training still? Lots of training. We're looking to expand our, uh, Ball Joint Guy series.

11:50So we came out with, in March we launched our LabScope Essentials for the Ball Joint Guy class. That is 2-day hands-on boot camp style lab scope class, small group, so that we have no more than 5 students to an instructor in the shop. And we make guys bring their lab scope with them because I don't care if, if, you know, we both use Pico a lot, right?

12:18But if you have an Autel scope in the shop or an ATS or whatever, learning how to use my Pico doesn't help you. So I'll teach you how to use your tool to give you the tools you need to fix cars. So ideally we do a couple hours in the seat, a couple hours of hands-on, a couple hours in the seat, cut back and forth.

12:38We've tried to do it in facilities that have both available, a classroom and a bay. Like we did it recently in Salt Lake City Community College. Beautiful, beautiful automotive facility. Super nice people from the classroom to the shop, back and forth. Big TVs with big screens. We had 4 instructors, so plenty of people to help with the hands-on. Tim and I did the classroom, and then we had 2 more additional instructors with us.

13:10We also did it at the Max Air Conditioning facility. That was the first test run, and we had 6 instructors that we brought extra. And we had 20-some people and stuff, and it's working out well. We have a 2-hour mini edition of the class, if you want to say it, for a trade association. Something like this, Apex. Yeah, they want to see it if you're not really sure if you want to get into lab scope.

13:36If you're into it a little bit, you take this 2-hour class. We hope it develops you into going, oh, look at all those cool cars that they fixed and the tests. I want the 2-day class. With the hands up. How many guys do you see that just struggle by not messing with the scope, right? Like, cause I grew up in IT. So like, I just, I'll sit down and I'll start playing with things.

13:55I'm like, hey, that broke it, right? The network's down. I guess I gotta figure out how to fix it. We say to guys in class is if you take this class and you don't pick up a lab scope for 3 weeks, we're gonna be bad instructors. Yeah, we are. So what I challenge the guys to do, we give the guys 2 challenges in class.

14:13Ira challenges them to spend 20 minutes a night doing something automotive, watching a video, reading something. Not on TikTok and watches a guy do crazy stuff. Because if you spend, yeah, 20 minutes, an automotive TikTok is useless. Is that what you're saying? No, no, no, I want some training. I want 20 minutes of legitimate— somebody might be a thing, 60 Seconds Training.

14:36That's over 2 weeks of training a year if you add that up at 20 minutes a night. Then I challenge guys, spend 10 minutes a day with your LabScope. Because how often do you have 10 minutes of free time in shop? You're waiting for the parts store to bring you a cabin air filter, you got the car cleaned up for a brake job, and you're waiting for the pads and rotors to show up.

14:55If you have your LabScope set up, 10 minutes, grab that known good cam crank waveform for the next time that car comes in and it's got a problem. And if you get to the point that you're doing that, now it becomes muscle memory and you don't have to think about it. Absolutely. I am so about that. And so like when I was the main diagnostician in the shop, I had a file and I mean, I still have the drive file, but like every single manual I ever bought, every single PDF, every single thing I ever had got put into a file, right?

15:25Every waveform got put into a file because I was just collecting them. And it's interesting because I'm, you know, I'm working a little bit with the family business and they've got a photographer in the family business. And she keeps saying, hey, this isn't working. And I'm like, okay, well, what have you tried? Nothing. I'm not touching anything. Okay. Like no adjustments, no changes.

15:45Like, no, I'm scared I'm going to mess something up. Bro, you're not going to mess anything up. Like, just adjust, try, play, adjust, top mix. That's what we say with the lab scope. You can take a really good pattern and make it look really bad. Exactly. Put some bad— some adjustments. But you are not taking a broken pattern and fixing it with the adjustments.

16:02But you got to know what it looks like, you know, to like— it's kind of like the scan tool, right? You plug a scan tool in the car and it's racing at 2,000 RPMs and the TPS is stuck at 2.7 volts, you know that that's a problem, right? Why? Because you know what it's supposed to look like. Same thing with the lab scope.

16:20If you keep your leads good, if you— if it's charged, if everything is accessible, these are all the things that we go over in the class. Not only using the scope but preparing your area. Yeah, right. So when the car comes in, you're not spending 20 minutes unboxing the scope and untying the leads and finding— I think everybody needs a diag cart, right?

16:41Like, I think everybody, at least an area cart. Yeah, yeah, I have a real small shop. I have a 2-bay gas station, so I don't have room for another cart. So I have all my scope stuff is in a bag next to my toolbox. So okay, I'm like, there's spag, there's all my— open it up, there's all my leads. Everything's right there, ready to go.

17:00Right. I have to take the knots out of mine every time I go to use it. So that's— I call that Tim's rule of test leads. You know, they always tell us in science, they say the strongest force in the world is strong nuclear force. I'm here to tell you it's not strong nuclear force. It's not the weak nuclear force. It's not the force that holds two 5-gallon buckets together.

17:20It's the force that tangles test leads. Dude, I'm telling you, it's real. You can lay them out perfect along— you're, you're working on the car, you lay them out perfect, they aren't anywhere close to touching each other. You turn your back, you come over, and they're knotted, right? I'm telling you, dude. And like, I had the AES, uh, like test drive leads, the long ones, and dude, I swear to God, like I'd put them on the car and like, how is it knotted to the car?

17:43Like, how did this happen? We're also having a lot of fun doing this class. Yeah. We've had such great students in the class, and we've had people that own shops, you know, shop owners and technicians and combinations of both, and just all kinds of really good feedback. And then on top of it, the feedback we get after the class when a student sends us this, a waveform, look at the car that I fixed this week, and all that kind of stuff.

18:11It's like, man, that's why we do this. Yeah. Yeah. And we ask them to contact us after. If you need help, if you're struggling with something, if you want us to help you, you know, do some, do as much as you can, then give us a call, give us an email, something, and we'll help you. I, one of the things I love about this, the, you know, the biggest mistake that I see with scopes and talking to technicians or they'll say, hey, look at this waveform for me.

18:37And I've not been in the technical side in a long time, more in the management side.. But one of the big things, and I dealt with a technician who did this over and over and over again, is like, hey, there's something wrong with this car. We need to make this repair, bro. That's a bad reading, right? Like you've got a bad ground, you've got a bad lead, you've got something.

18:55And because they're not using the scope enough or they're not using the tool enough, they just don't see that and think, man, there's a lot of noise in that. Something's wrong with this, right? Yeah. But a lot of them don't have the foundational electrical skills, right? So we now— we just in a couple of weeks, we're doing, uh, an 8-hour basic electrical testing class with hands-on going into a shop.

19:19We bought a bunch of test boards used. We have cars and stuff like that. And, and if you don't know Ohm's law, you don't know what amperes are or all that stuff, how are you gonna pick up the scope and You know, what's the question everyone asks when they've got that electrical problem that's kicking their butts? Why the bleep doesn't this work?

19:40So that's what the class is, why the bleep doesn't blank work? Electrical Essentials for the Ball Joint Guy. I love it, dude. And I think it is absolutely phenomenal. Like I said, I see it all too often and I think you're right. Too many of them do not have the basics, but I'll tell you something about the scope. The scope will teach you the basics.

19:59Because you can visualize it. And we've got a lot of visual learners in this space, a lot of guys who have to put their hands on it to learn it. Well, that scope will teach you and give you a new perspective and help you understand it, right? Like until I got a scope and started using it, I didn't understand frequency. I didn't understand pulse width modulation.

20:17Yeah, it makes sense when you see it. It makes sense for a lot of people. And so I think it's a big difference. You understand what a voltage drop is. And you're putting the ground of your scope on a bad spot on the dashboard or someplace else instead of on the battery negative for testing, then the rest of it is— You got that magnet adapter that I think someone sells, they took it magnet to the frame so you can hook your leads to it.

20:44There's all kinds. That don't work on a rusty frame. We're having a really good time. We've also employed some of our new for our friends who are mobile techs, who see all kinds of different stuff. So we're building some new classes, some procedural classes. So we're gonna, you know, we have our programming classes. Yeah, what do you mean by procedural? Just, they see, so if I'm a mobile guy, and I will be the first to tell you, I am the worst mobile guy in the world.

21:13I go out and do mobile programming, no problem, but if it doesn't run good, It comes to my shop. I can't get it in somebody else's shop for whatever reason, but we have a couple of friends that are really good mobile techs. So their procedure is different than mine, the way that they go about diagnosing it there. So, so they see different problems too that maybe you and I do see or don't see.

21:38We see them differently. So you want to build some classes around, you know, diagnosing the right way. Using different data, you know, all kinds of stuff like that, if that makes sense. Yeah, that does make sense. I don't— I'm— there's probably a big hole in the market for that. There's— the issue is always— isn't, isn't always how do I diagnose this car, or like, it's like what's the fastest way to the solution.

22:06And that's one of the things we talk about, especially like in our Why doesn't it start, Klaus? Is having a plan, executing the plan, then that laying the groundwork for it. Yeah, I think back to when I talk about building a plan to diagnose a car, it's like I tell the guys, think back to high school science class and when you're taught the scientific method.

22:28That's what we're doing to fix a car. To what Ira said, I'm also— I'm a horrible mobile diagnostician. Because when I'm working in someone else's shop, I don't have all of my stuff with me. Because it doesn't matter how much, how many tools you take with you, there's always something to get back. You always leave something in your toolbox. So I don't have all my normal stuff with me.

22:51I'm working with someone working over my shoulder. So now my head's in the wrong place and I break my rules. And as soon as I break my rule, I go down the wrong path. We're finally getting into a good roll and here comes Lucas interrupting the episode. Folks, now you know exactly why I hire Shop Marketing Pros to do my shop marketing.

23:14It's that I am spastic and all over the place and I lack consistency. But here's the thing, that doesn't work in marketing. You see, marketing takes 30, 60, sometimes 90 days to be effective. And I was all over the place with my marketing. There was no consistency at all. Caused these waves in my business because I was so inconsistent. And that's why I am so happy to refer Shop Marketing Pros.

23:41They bring consistency. They are true professionals. I'm going to encourage you, go down to the link below and get your free digital marketing inspection. Just like we do digital vehicle evaluations for automobiles, they're doing the same thing about your marketing, and they will help you get your business turned around. And now we're off in the weeds, and, uh, Jim Morton talks about the diagnostic funnel.

24:07I know it looks a whole lot like a funnel at the top— a rabbit hole. Yeah, I— one of the things I talk about in class is, like you said, a procedure. So it's simple. My oil change procedure, I I don't do a lot of them, but one of the things when I do an oil change is when I put the car up on the lift, first thing I do is take the oil cap off and put it at right at the latch, the hood latch, so I can't close the hood because the oil cap is there.

24:34How many times did I do it? The other thing that I do is when I put the car up on the lift, when I take the drain plug out, when I'm done draining the oil and I tighten the drain plug, I take the tool that I used and put it away. Put it back in my toolbox so that I don't have to go, ah, did I tighten the drain plug?

24:52Because that's procedural, it's muscle memory, it's procedural. So diagnostics, lap scope routine, if you follow that, that's part of what we try to teach in class. It is just, it's just straight up, do it the same way, take some notes. You know what happens, you're in the shop, somebody's texting you, somebody's calling you, the guy next to you is asking you a question.

25:14A customer walks in, hey, can you check my air on my tires? All kinds of different outside factors and you have to know where you were and just stuff in general. Do you see the way that we're training our technical staff changing over the next couple of years? And here's why I ask. There's two facets to this that stand out to me to be interesting.

25:37The first is, is we've really been focusing on training diagnostics., right? And I don't think that you see a lot of basics in these, in these trade shows, in the opportunities we have for training. And so we've not really been reaffirming. Now I know that you can go to the pizza party class and you can get a break class, but if you go to that break class, 90% of what those are right now is them talking about their product and why their product's better than another product, right?

26:04And that bothers me because I think that we still need basics. And I think that it also creates this illusion that, you know, the last interview we had, he said, Lucas, I've spent thousands of hours doing diagnostic training and I don't feel like I'm being rewarded for all the effort that I put in. I'm like, bro, it's because there's not a lot of money in diagnostics.

26:24The money, for the most part, the way that shops are running it right now, the money is in repairing the car, not in the diagnostic. No, no, that's all I do is diagnostics. I don't do the other end of it. I don't do ball joints, I don't do— right, I'm doing diagnostics and programming. The money's there, I charge for it. Exactly, but you charge for it.

26:44But what I'm saying is, is look at the shops that don't. Yes, look at the shops that say, hey, I can make X dollars because they don't have enough diagnostic volume to do what just you do. Or they put it into the— the other thing that I've heard is, I don't charge a lot of time, I put it into the repair. I, I— that, you know, when you go to— over there crying, you see that?

27:03He's got tears streaming down his face. The doctor, and you say, my knee hurts, he looks at it and goes, oh yeah, you got to go to a knee specialist. So that's $300 for me to look at it, and you go to the knee specialist and pay him. Everybody gets paid along the way, and we should too. Yeah, I agree with you.

27:18And, and then like on the other side of this, like we talk about, we're not really charging what we should for diag, Do you see us going to a different training model where we're training technicians in shops? You know, we just did Leadership Intensive in my shop. And so like, we've got a nice shop, we've got a big shop. And so I've got a space that's in the middle of the floor that we typically use for quality control and ADOS, right?

27:41So I can open up that space and I put tables in and well, we've got all this equipment, so I just record the classes when we do them. And like, do you see that shift happening where we're moving the training into the environment the technicians are already in? It's certainly— it is something that we offer. We've had a couple of shops reach out to us about that.

28:00But it's funny, a lot of people that have reached out to us about that back off when they find out how much it's going to cost. Yeah, for sure. You know, it's— but it's like anything, there's— you're going to see return on your investment if you make the investment. Now, to your point about the training, about the basics, that's in my opinion something where we in the independent aftermarket are lagging behind some of the chains.

28:25Because, you know, I looked at one of the other companies that I teach for, we do have developed those entry-level training programs for some of the big chains. Yeah. And they will spend beaucoup dollars bringing trainers in, paying their guys to be there for 2, 3, 4 days to learn how to do brakes right. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think we're— I think in with us in the independent aftermarket, we're relying on for that entry-level stuff, the kid coming out of tech school to know how to do it, which is another part of one of the things I think we need to change in this industry is that entry-level technician training, in my opinion, needs

29:11to come out of the high schools. It needs to go into a 2-year college. Yeah, because at 15, 16, 17 years old, you're not ready to learn this industry. Because when I've had interactions in the past working with our, some of our local VoTechs and talking to their students, doing like their NOCT evaluations, things like that, and asking students questions when they're having problems, I'm saying, didn't your instructors teach you this?

29:36Yeah, but I learned that sophomore year. I don't remember it anymore. They haven't grasped that concept of you're learning for life. When you're that 50th— I've not used it. You gotta use it. And when do you use it? If you don't use it— if you learn electrical testing today, if you learn power steering pump rebuilding today, if you learn whatever it is, if you learn today and you don't use it again for 2 or 3 months, you have to— I try to instill that in the guys.

30:07Go home. Get the meter out, get the lab scope out, get the scanner, whatever we're teaching. If we're teaching you programming, if we teach you module programming— to when, uh, Thursday we do a module program— if we teach that class and none of those guys go back, they will— or girls go back to their shop and they don't do any module programming for the next 4 months, they're not going to remember.

30:31There'll be a book, but yeah, you know, you need to practice what you're learning. I'm a big proponent of that. I've spent hours, even now we all get together, all a bunch of us get together and just test cars, known good cars, and just, you know, practice and practice and practice. Do you think that the value is there in training right now?

30:55Maybe the trainers, what are you going to say? No, it's terrible investment. No, I'm not necessarily saying value. I'm saying that the value equation with the people buying training. And what I mean by that is yesterday I had a conversation with somebody that is a very, very experienced person who's ridden training from all the way at the OE level, all the way down to the independent level, right?

31:25And you know who he is, but like this guy's got it going on, right? Extremely smart human being. And he said, look, you know, I remember when you'd go and you'd write a class for the OE and it was $150,000, $200,000, $300,000 to write this class. And now I've got people coming to me and saying, hey, will you write these classes and we'll give you $1,000, right?

31:44Like, do you think that the industry is valuing training properly right now? And how do we change that? I don't know. I'm not sure how we change it, but I don't think so. I don't think that You know, the hours that we have paid in for our classes to build them. Tim and I, on the Expert Tech side, we build our classes from the ground up.

32:03Yeah, I know some of the other companies that he works for, um, there's people that build the classes, but I have hours, hours. My Why Doesn't It Start class that Tim and I do together, I have hours and hours into that. She looked at like manipulating it, changing it, making it better. Even just like some of the case studies in that class.

32:23Yeah, every— in our Why Doesn't It Start class, every vehicle, every system that we talk about is a real broken car that one of us fixed. And you look at that and you go like, until you're done writing up one of the case studies, you go, I fixed that car in 20 minutes, it just took me 3 hours to document a car that took me 20 minutes to fix.

32:42And now multiply that by the amount of material that takes to put into the class. You know, we have— we do a 2-day intensive Chrysler programming class. Yeah, we spent months developing that. Months. Months. And to the point of like, we built for some of the classes that we do closer to home, we couldn't— if you try to bring one of these on the airplane, TSA is not going to be happy.

33:08But we build what we call a car in a box, right? Because a lot of places we go to train You can't pull a car into the classroom. So we take, and we take the essential modules out of a wrecked car, wire it all up so that we can program something on the bench in the classroom. And, you know, takes 4 or 5 days to make one of those work, you know, between harvesting the modules, figuring out what you need in a hotel room.

33:35Yeah, Queens, right? The night before we're teaching a programming class, building a a GM and a Vox. And no, it didn't. And no, it didn't work. And that, that one didn't work. But that's the, the stuff in a hotel lobby, cloning a, cloning a Volvo ECM in a hotel lobby before we're doing a class. That was fun. Yeah, well, we, we're constantly— I, I don't know what the answer is, and I'm really not— the problem is that they, the— you do the training and it's not that it's not valuable, it's just like you you guys are saying, these guys don't use it.

34:09And so you send them through a Chrysler programming class, 3 months go by before the next Chrysler needs to be programmed. You're like, yeah, I just sent you this Chrysler programming class, you don't remember anything. And you know, that's where the shop owner's fault though, is he not advertising that he does. Yeah, even if you do advertise it, it's like it's 60, 90, 120 days before like it starts to come in.

34:36And so you're, could you start advertising early? Maybe. But then what if it, the class didn't take, or what if they didn't get a good experience, or what if they didn't learn anything? And you're like, okay, now I'm advertising for something I can't really offer. Yeah. But you like, you guys are saying like, you gotta, you gotta practice. And like, even at that stuff like that runs in spells.

34:54Like I had for probably 3 months, I was programming Nissan transmissions left, right, sideways. I haven't done one in 4 months. They'll show back up. But you can still figure out a way to practice. The other thing that we push— you have to get a car, practice it. Me, I will buy a used car, right? Take it apart, practice on it, program it, And then, you know, I don't care if it's got 300,000 miles with all kinds of problems.

35:29I'll spend a few hundred dollars, buy something, we'll test on it, see, you know, can we get the BCM to work, a used one? Can we get the ECM to work? Can we program a key? Can we do whatever we can do on it and stuff? But, but that's dedication. I think that goes back to, are you, are you in 100% in for it?

35:48And then as well, to your point of, okay, if it's 60, 90 days after the class. One of the things we always say, and Ira said before, with us the training doesn't stop when class is over. So we give— every student gets email address, and we say, hey, if you got a question, reach out to us. Now we are both working during the day, so we may not get back to you in 5 minutes, but yeah, we'll get back to you and help you as much as we can.

36:15I still have I got a text message last week from one of the students we had in our first Chrysler class asking about how to do something. And it's like, hey, do this, this, this, and this. Well, you know, here's the thing is like y'all are extremely passionate about this, right? Like y'all are fired up about it. And I love that. And I get fired up about it too because I love this stuff.

36:35This stuff is really cool to me and I enjoy it. And I enjoy technical training. You know how hard I had to work to stop taking technical training and learn how to run a business? Like I enjoyed the technical training. Training. I didn't want to go to management training. It's boring, right? It sucks. I'm a mechanical person. Like, I like those things.

36:51And, and I know y'all have seen this, right? Like, we've watched a lot of really cool people, some of the people that we call friends, that have gone to work for some of these training companies, and they're making pennies on the dollar because they're passionate about it, and they're not really being rewarded for all the work that they're putting in to try and teach this stuff because they're passionate about it and they love it.

37:14And they're just like, hey, one day I'll make it. One day I'll get there. One day I'll get there. I worry about some of the trainers because it doesn't seem like they ever have a chance to truly get there. And I know that sounds bad, but like when you have— and I'm not trying to speak poorly about trade associations. I know this one does a really good job of taking care of people, but some of these other trade associations are saying, hey, to teach your class, you got to pay to teach your class here.

37:36That's wrong. That's wrong, right? Like, I don't— you— the peop— the reason people are going to these classes, and, and I have had an experience where I saw somebody come in that had never been in this, and they're like, yeah, well, we— when we had our trade association in a different world, we used to charge $5,000 for somebody to come in and teach a class because they're getting all this exposure and all this opportunity.

37:56Like, that's bullshit. Like, that's— yeah, we just saw there was a request for speakers put out for an event next year. I won't say who put it out. That was terrible. But it was, oh yeah, you have to pay, you know, you tell us what class you want to teach, and if we pick you, you have to pay your way to the event.

38:14Yeah, we're not gonna pay. You have to pay admission to the event as well as you got to buy a ticket to be there in addition to paying all of your travel expenses, all of your hotel. But they're charging for people to come to my class and they want me to, and it's going to cost me money to do it. Forget that.

38:30Yeah, exactly. Well, it's the same thing like coming and recording with the podcast. It's like, dude, do you understand? It's like they think that we make money from every episode or something. It's like, that's not how this works. I don't know. I saw some of those checks, the millions of dollars you guys are making. Oh, yes. Yeah. So many millions, I tell you.

38:49A lot of the bigger shows— I'm not going to say the one, but there's one in particular that I'm just not going to anymore because We put in for a ton of classes. We put in a good job. The only reason we're not getting picked is because we're not sponsored. And that's the first question we get asked is, who's sponsoring you for this?

39:09It's like, well, no one. I sponsor myself, right? Yeah. Yeah. Tate, you know, that's who sponsors me. Well, I mean, that's where I come from with the value question. It's like, how is that— like, what is the logic behind that that makes it seem like this makes sense? You know what I mean? Like, how do I— because the trade show wants to make money.

39:28I mean, that's why I get that. These trade show— the trade associations that put on these events, we get they are out to make a profit, pay their expenses just as much as we are. Yeah, but there's room for everyone to make money. Yeah, if you're taking— you're taking 4 days worth of classes, yeah, charge a little more, right? Charge a little bit extra because You know, a good class, a good 2-day class by itself is $700 or $800.

39:56But if you're getting 6 classes in 4 days or whatever it is and you're only charging $300 or $400, well, maybe charge a little bit more. Yeah, maybe. Or offer a premium class and a budget. Like, let the sponsor classes come in and, and that comes with your typical sponsorship or your typical admission. And then if you want the premium classes, you pay more for the premium class.

40:19There's no reason for all of us not to get paid. What we're worth. That's why we're doing it on our own too. That's why we started the Expertech Training Company. That's why we're trying to get out there and travel and go different places. And, you know, we come to events like this to get our name out there. This week will cost us money in the end, but I think the networking and the exposure— but you can only do so much of that before you have to turn a profit.

40:48Well, hold on, whether or not it costs us money depends on how good we do at the blackjack table tonight. Hey, listen, you go hang out with Cecil, okay? You go find Cecil because I hear that, like, they talk about him all the time. They said, listen, you just wait for Cecil and you hope to heck that his room's not ready when he gets there because he'll go hit the blackjack table, come back with $20,000, take everybody to dinner, right?

41:08Like, I said, man, it would not happen for me. I'd be broke. But like, I just don't see how we're going to turn that corner based on, based on like where we're at right now and our industry, because it seems like it's going the other direction. And so that was the reason for my question. Are we going to start moving in a direction to where we're training in shops?

41:32It's going to start changing when guys stop working for peanuts. And it's the same problem that's in our industry as a whole. You still have it. I was in a shop a couple of weeks ago. This guy's always busy. Yeah, always busy. Parking lot full, but he's working on junk because he's charging $80 an hour. Yeah, 100%. Drawing in the wrong crap.

42:03And he could work— he's always stressed. And I told them, like, you know, you could work— raise your labor rate, work on half the cars, fire that bottom half your customer base that you don't want to deal with. You're going to lose 90% of your stress and you make more money. What do you think suppresses the rates in the industry right now?

42:25I, I think fear is a big part of it, but I feel like there's something else suppressing rates too, because is it just the fact that that it's the pack. I think we also need to educate the consumer a little bit more to what we do. Right? How many times have I heard, you've heard it too, do you have that machine that fixes the car?

42:43Go, it's right here. I'm the machine. I'll tell you, I'm the machine that fixes the car. I don't have the magic machine that I can plug into your car and it says, hey, Ira, change this part. Right? Some of the chain stores, you go there, they plug it in, they read a code for you, they tell you change the sensor. If it doesn't work, we're not a repair shop.

43:02We just, you know, I think any consumer education is part of the problem. I always go back to this: why is it okay for you to go to your general doctor and him to go, you need to go to a specialist, but you still owe me for the visit? Why is that? Why is it not okay for us to look at your car and go, you know, you have an engine mechanical problem, we need to do more testing We need to, we need to spend more time and run some intricate tests.

43:31Or you have a network problem with wires that run throughout the whole car, or whatever it is. You have a brake line that rusted away and we're going to spend the next 10 to 12 hours replacing all your brake lines, and we have to get paid for that. And all the bleeder screws going to open. And why is it not okay for all that?

43:49What happens in the market if you see a shift? We've talked a little bit about this recently, like BYD, the Seagull, right? It's a $10,000 car, $9,000 car. In some markets it's even less than that. How do you counter that if that comes into our market? Right now they can't be in our market, right? They won't let them import. But then all of a sudden you— like right now you've got a $50,000 car, you got a $70,000 car, it makes sense to do the testing and make the repair.

44:18What happens to our market if something like that were to fly lash in out of nowhere, and that car's a $9,000 car. I, I find right now there is a subset of even my good clients who trust us and who know we're doing what's best for them, and they understand why we charge for testing, and they appreciate the testing, that will look at an automobile and say, I don't value that automobile that much, I'm going to replace it.

44:45But to us, because we work on cars every day, we place a lot more value in that automobile and fixing the problem. So I just worry what happens down the road. Is it possible that we back ourselves into a corner that— I think that's something we're going to cross that bridge when we come to it. I can tell you, I just had that conversation with a customer last week on a 160,000-mile Toyota minivan that is 30 degrees out of time.

45:15And it's like, well, you're looking this much or this much. I'm like, I can't justify sticking that kind of money into that car, bro. Listen, it's a Toyota minivan. Of course you can invest. Yeah, see, like, $200,000 miles. Yeah, dude. It's like, if it was a Chrysler, I would have said like, hey, why are you even bringing it in? Just replace it.

45:33But I think part of the thing that has helped us, hurt us, I don't know, but COVID was terrible, right? Terrible for the country and stuff like that. But our industry thrives from it. Right? People are— I'm working on cars now with 200,000 miles on them. I never worked on cars with 200,000 miles on them. But as an industry, I think that we have to be sure that that 200,000-mile car is worth putting the money in.

46:00And we have to make sure that we tell the person, right, that, you know, when I put a car up on the lift, I look at it and go, you know, I'm from the Northeast, right? The cars up there, you know, if it's, if it's rusted beyond the point of being safe it needs to go. Yeah. And I will tell you that.

46:15But yeah, that's one of them. Not— and we're going to put some money into it, and people are doing it stuff. Yeah, I just— we need to educate. I try to take the time to educate my customers. I do printouts, I do before, I do after, I do all that stuff to try to make sense of what's being done to your car.

46:35I'm worried that the, that the industry has lagged behind the economy so much that it's hard to claw our way back, right? We've had massive inflation. The industry was already way behind, right? They weren't charging what they were worth. They didn't build any value. I'm super peeved at ASE. Like, I get mad about it and I upset people because I say this.

46:59You can go look at their budget and you can look at their P&L online, right? Like, we're depending on them to make us look like professionals. They're not doing anything to market what an ASE certification is. And like, that's why I'm so heavy on AVTECH is because I believe like if we can show genuine competency and make a difference, like that's going to be really important moving forward.

47:18But dude, you look at HVAC technicians, you look at carpenters, you look at plumbers, and you look at what they're making, you look at what they're charging. Yeah, we're doing something far more complex, far more difficult, right? Like I've done other jobs and I, I go do this Dude, I know he listens to the show. I'm gonna hurt feelings, and I'm sorry, I'm not trying to hurt feelings.

47:39HVAC guy comes to the shop, has a code on the unit, right? Very, very basic system, and it says something about a thermistor, and it says the, the literal diag chart or flow chart for this unit says turn it off, pull the power Wait 15 minutes, put the power back on, turn it back on, and see what it does, right? That— you know how I feel about flowcharts like that.

48:06Try not to cuss. Dude comes to me and says, hey, it needs this board, $3,500. I'm like, all right, cool, get it. 3 weeks go by and I'm frustrated because I'm not hearing anything back. Calling, man, it's not in yet. Another 3 weeks go by, not hear anything. So I went outside and I turned the unit on because he didn't tell me what the code was.

48:31This is a teacher, okay? This is my teaching HVAC in a community college. I go outside, hook everything back up, turn the power back on, and the unit runs. And he shows up 3 weeks later, right? So we're almost 3 months out at this point. He shows up and I said, tell me something. What data did you use to decide the unit was bad?

48:57Why did you say it needed the board? Because I didn't even give a shit about the $3,500. What I cared about was, is that it was hot in my office, my clients, my staff was miserable, right? It was the hottest time of the year. And he says, oh, it had a code in it. Okay. Um, so tell me, did you check the thermistor?

49:18Did you check it and just see if it was open? Because it says this code indicates this thermistor is what it's talking about. Did you look? Did you do any investigation? Did you do— nah, man, you don't do— you don't do that stuff. All you gotta do is just— if it's got the code and it says that, you just replace it. Like, now wait a minute, I'm giving your ass $250 a fucking hour and, and you Like, your level of care and attention to detail is a 16th of what we put in at the shop.

49:47But now if I charge my consumer that, they freak the fuck out. That bothers me. It makes me mad. Plumber comes to your house, he gets $400 to change the seal on the toilet, takes him an hour, and you pay it. I needed a roof on my house, and I had to kiss the roofer's ass for 6 months. To get it freak— no, it was 2 months to get someone to show up to give me a freaking number and bid the job, and then another 4 till they actually showed up and did it.

50:18And it took— I made the deposit right when he gave me the number. I'm like, here, get me on schedule, I want it now because I know my roof's not good. Yeah, I know my house needed a roof, I want it done before winter. This was— I called in August. Yeah. And by the end of September, I was at ASTA when I got the— when he showed up and gave me the estimate, like, cool, here's my credit card, do it.

50:40And then I'm like, it's my— where's my roof? Where's my roof? Oh, it's too cold. Well, it wasn't too cold in August. And, and then finally it got to the point where I have my roof that I knew I needed a roof, it starts leaking on my bed. And if— and that was a phone— and that was the next morning, it was a phone call of I had to sleep in my recliner last night.

51:04Yeah, dude, you're gonna get this or I'm gonna sue you. Yeah, yeah, dude. And, and, but that is the experience. But that's not— that's— that level of mediocrity is expected, and we're held to a standard of perfection. And I don't care about being held to a standard of perfection. You know, we should be. You know, there's the motto, perfect is the starting point, we refine from there.

51:28I'm fine with that. Every other trade's held to that, and they're not. Well, I mean, but then the question comes is like, I look at what it costs to fix that AC, or what it would have cost, and, and if I had not done that, you know, he'd have gone out there and stuck that board in that thing and turned it back on, and that would have been the end of it.

51:46Would have never known that I just wasted $3,500, you know. And, and I look at We've got an awesome Hunter rep. I'm not saying anything bad about my Hunter rep, but like we had an issue with an inverter in a tire changer and he went out and he looked at it and he thought it was one thing and then he changed it and didn't fix it.

52:05And he called me, he's like, hey dude, I screwed up. It's not gonna be $3,500, it's gonna be $40. Right? Like, but there's a guy that made good. I just worked on a car recently. It's an overheating issue. It's, you know, we put a thermostat in the car. And didn't fix it, right? If one of my guys said, let's put a thermostat in there, it's not going to fix it, it's a fan issue, I know what's going on, stuff like that, but I'm not charging the lady for that.

52:28Sure, and that's the right thing to do, but how much more can the consumer take of these people who are incompetent? How much more can the consumer take of these prices? Him and I see the parts cannon all the time. I got a shop right down the street from me that is my best advertising right now. Because instead of getting the phone call of how much is it going to be to fix my car, I'm getting can you actually fix my car?

52:50Yes. Yes, I can. Right. But that's just it. It's like, who's making the big money right now? What shops? Think about this. We've seen all this, the free diag. We've seen the open 7-day-a-week model. We've seen all this stuff. Do you know what it takes to accomplish that? What it takes to accomplish that is you have to give no shits about the quality that's coming out of your shop.

53:10You can't care, right? We've talked about this. We've sat down and I said my— we were in a rental car, or maybe we were in at dinner the other night in Salt Lake City, and I said, I can't take this anymore. I am so frustrated with my shop and I'm so frustrated with all the things, and it's constantly something, and I have to kill myself to make this place work.

53:34And I work in another business too, and I like see its bank account grow, and I'm like The shop just feels like a fight to constantly get it to go up. That's because you care. Uh-huh. You care, right? You care about the product you go out the door. You care about the way the car looks. You care that there's no fingerprints on the car, that it's clean when it's done.

53:52I brought a car in the other day. The floor was a mess on the car, right? I took the vacuum cleaner out and I vacuumed the guy's floor and stuff because I care. Yeah, right. But, but that's just it, is that's what he said. Is he said, the problem is, is you give a shit and you're not going to find success like those guys until you quit giving a shit and just let whatever goes out the door go out the door.

54:14I can't find it. I'll never do it. Because you know what? At the end of the day, my name is over the door. Yeah. And you know what? They laugh at us. They make jokes at us because of that. They're like, yeah, but you're never going to be successful. Hold up. Like, when did we start to find success? I am successful. I am successful.

54:31When I go to a restaurant and I see one of my customers and I leave and my dinner is paid for before the bill comes to my table, I'm successful. When someone says, "Thank you very much," or, "Here's $2,000 for fixing my car, I appreciate it," and calls the next day and says, "Ah, this Toyota RAV4 that you put two wheel bearings and a set of tires on rides unbelievable."

54:58Thank you very much. That makes me successful. I maybe had to make as much money on it as I should have or whatever, but I'm successful. Yeah, when someone— when a new customer walks in and says, I'm here because you have the reputation that you fix it right the first time, right? Don't get any better than that. That's being successful. I don't disagree.

55:19I really don't. I promise I do not disagree. I just coupled with, you know, you look at Okay, I'm never going to be wealthy. Yeah, I'm never going to have a private island. I don't want a private island. Come on, man, of course you're not. But I don't want— but you know what? Happy. Yeah, I get to do stuff like this. Yes.

55:40Yeah, as long as you get to do what you want to do in life, who's to say you're not successful? I mean, we go into some of these big, big shops to do programming and And the owner's there and he's complaining. Well, as he's driving his Cadillac, going to fish on his boat and stuff like that, but he's miserable. I see that part of it a lot.

56:01I see the, you know, I'm not miserable. I like going to work every morning. I get up, I enjoy it. I like that. I like that there's a couple of cars there. I like that my guys call me, hey, can you come program this? Hey, I got some guys that need some training. Can you do that? I like the mix of it.

56:22And I'm good with that. I'm sure you've seen them. There's, and I may have just made the algorithm show them all to me, but there's a couple people who go around the world and they interview super successful people, right? Like they go out and they hunt down the most successful people they can find. And he's just got a little mic he carries around.

56:41He does a really simple, basic interview. Interview. And it's so funny because he asked all of these people, like, hey, did money make you happy? And every single one of them laughed, right? Like, and that— and he said, that's when you learn. Because there was one in particular, because he asked the guy, he says, like, hey, do you believe money brings happiness?

57:02And he just like dies laughing. He's like, absolutely not. And like, if you believe that, and if you go chasing at that, you are going to be miserable the rest of your life if that is the path you follow. Because money is not what made you happy. It gives you tools and it gives you time. That's it. What money does is makes— when something happens, you have the money to pay for it.

57:20Yeah, right. And the other thing that I— somebody told me this recently and I really like it— is I have survived 100% of the worst days of my life, right? And I am, I am here and I'm happy and I'm moving on. I've had some stuff go on in my life, so— but I have survived 100% of them. And that's to me what counts.

57:42Amen, dude. The, the last guest that was in here was talking about the fact that, uh, he had lost a brother-in-law that he found him, and he had lost another family member to an overdose and he found him too. And it was like, dude, of all the things that we go through and all these challenges, life could be so much worse. It could be so hard.

58:04Right. And so if I can get up every morning and do what I love, like you said, then it's better. You know, when I call Tim and say, we landed, let's get an Uber and let's go and let's have some fun and spend 4 or 5 days in Vegas and learn some stuff and teach some stuff and have a good time. That's what Rick White told me one time.

58:23He said, the only standard I have for an airline is it gets me up in the air and back on the ground in one piece. I don't care about the rest. So thank you guys for being here. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Of course. Thank you for listening to the Changing the Industry podcast. If you enjoy the show, do us a favor and leave us a review on your favorite podcast player.

58:43And don't forget to set it to automatically download the latest episode. Our efforts with this podcast, the YouTube channel, and the Facebook group wouldn't be possible without the support of our awesome sponsors. So please take a moment, check them out by clicking on the links in the show notes.