Episode 266 - Building Shop Efficiency and Team Culture with Greg Miller of Figs Auto Repair

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. Gentlemen, how are we today? Why are you so yellow? You got jaundice? Oh, I'm so yellow. Hang on. I could have. I've been around you too long. Hey, I went, I went in for blood work and it hasn't come back yet, so I'm a little freaked out. It's gonna come back. It's gonna come back bad. And I went in and I made sure to drink like copious amounts of water because otherwise the blood comes out like molasses or pudding, like straight pudding.

2:02It's not good. And I've had that happen before where it clots so fast. So they jab you right into the vein. They're like, and then the blood starts coming out really quickly. And then it clots, and then she's like, yeah, so it blocks the needle. And so she's sitting there like flicking the vein trying to get more blood out, and she's like, I got 3 more vials, so you got to do something here.

2:25And I'm sitting there squeezing and stuff like that, and she's like, no, no, relax your arm, relax your arm, we're going to go into a different vein. And before she does that though, she doesn't want to— she doesn't want to just come out and then just start jabbing, so she starts digging. You ever had that happen? In the needles, in the vein, and she's like doing this.

2:42Yeah, that feels good when they move it around. And I'm like, yeah, this is, this is great. I love needles too. This is fantastic. And so then she pulls out and then she like finds another. She's like, uh, this is a good big fat vein here. Like, and then 2, 2 vials later, it clots again. She's like, did you drink water before this?

3:02And I'm like, yeah, I drink like damn near a gallon. I'm, I'm hydrated. I'm hydrated. And she's like, hmm. She's like, it shouldn't be clotting like this. I'm like, I know. I know it shouldn't be clotting. This is why I'm here for blood work. I need to see where my platelet count is. This isn't good. With all these things that clots my blood.

3:18Well, it was one specific thing. Never taking that thing again. That was bad. Screw that thing. What was it? I'm not telling you. This is inappropriate content for this. Totally legal though, by the way. Totally legal. David has been on a fitness kick, Greg. Oh yeah. No, we're past fitness at this point. We're way past fitness at this point. We're into the research chem realm of let's see what this will do.

3:46Yeah. Trying to roll back the clock a little bit. Sure. Yeah. I don't know that there's much rolling that back for this one. I think he might be going the wrong direction. Yeah, I may be like speedrunning cancer at this point. Who the hell knows? And here's the thing, like, at this point I've tried pretty much everything I can get my hands on.

4:09And so, and just to see, because sometimes you're like, this is great. I love this. I'll take this forever. And then you're like, well, let's see what this other thing does. And you're like, oh, this is awful. I feel like I'm going to die. This is the worst thing ever. I'm never taking this again. And then you're like, you take this other thing and I took this other thing and it turns your blood into pudding.

4:28And you're like, okay, well, this isn't going to work. I don't like this at all. This is terrible. And then it causes all sorts of weird side effects. And you're like, wow, this is terrible. This is really bad. I took this one thing that made you like completely lose all feeling. So like, it's great for like 3 or 4 weeks and your joints feel awesome.

4:52You can, you go to the gym, you're like, I'm going to add another plate. Because I feel great. And you're squatting it like— I don't squat because my knee, my knee just buckles if I try to squat. Sure. And so I started squatting again and I'm like, I can't believe I can squat. Like, look at all this range of motion. This is so awesome.

5:09You're just adding weight. You're like, weee, this is fun. And then like 2 weeks later, you're like, I don't want to get out of bed. Everything seems so pointless. I just want to stare at the wall. You're like, we didn't know that you were anything but that all the time anyway, so I can only— no, no, no, I get excited. I get in the mornings, first thing in the morning, like I get excited.

5:31I'm like, how much pre-workout am I going to take this morning? And then you like decide, you're like, I don't know about you, but I don't tend to like take medications and whatnot just to see what's going to happen, right? Like, well, that— they're, they're not even medications, dude. They're like They're what they, they're what they put in rats to see if they could.

5:52Yeah. So like what ends up happening. So I take this one thing, right? I'm just going to point this out. I take this one thing and the reason why they stopped like testing it is because they gave it to these rats and the rats got like turbo cancer. And so they're like, hey, this is not, this is not a good thing. We should probably stop the testing on this.

6:14And then they just abandoned it. And so these companies just pick it up and they're like, this is for free. Like, I can sell this. Not for human consumption, by the way. By the way, it gave these rats turbo cancer. And so, but it has all these other really, really great side effects. You just gotta be really careful with the dose. Take too much, turbo cancer.

6:38Take the right amount. And it fixes your lipids, it increases cardiovascular capacity. You feel like you can do cardio for forever. It is awesome. You just can't take it all the time. This is what shop ownership does to you. This is just where you end up after being a shop owner. I'm just saying it's safer than alcohol is all I'm saying. Like, people drink alcohol.

7:02Like, how about— hey, we go to these conferences and these people are just like pounding back and they're like bragging how much they drink. And I'm looking at them going, I don't want to do that. I'd rather take the speed cancer pill because at least it fixes my lipids and I can, I can get on the treadmill and I can run longer.

7:24Meanwhile, you feel like shit the next morning and you're getting cancer faster than I am. Maybe, I don't know. We'll see. Yes, that's exactly right. We'll see. It depends what the blood work says. We'll see what the blood work says. I haven't gotten it back though. I'm a little worried. Mr. Miller, introduce yourself. Sure. So, uh, my name is Greg Miller. Um, I run a shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, Figgs Auto Repair.

7:51Uh, been doing this for 9 years now. I bought this shop back in, um, 2016. Um, great location. I'm about a mile outside of uptown, down the street from Bank of America Stadium here. Uh, it's, it's been an interesting ride, um, because when I purchased this shop, it wasn't such a great location. Um, the area has changed dramatically in the last 9 years.

8:19Yeah, we got really lucky. So, um, Charlotte is, is growing very fast. And a lot of people want to live in and around uptown. So that kind of by default has included this area. So that the area is changing rapidly. My customer base has shifted a lot. And it's turned into a great location. I love being down here. We've got a great view of the skyline from the parking lot.

8:47You know, when Panthers are in town, streets back up, you got people going crazy for the Panthers. So it's a neat location here. Even now. Yeah, the playoffs. We made the playoffs. Yeah, we're on our way back now. Last year. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's on that. Listen, I just want to point this out that David continues to like look at me funny when I said that I would rather drive in LA, Chicago, New York City, um, anywhere aside from Charlotte.

9:15Like, it's not New York. It's not New York. I can see LA because you can drive in LA, and even Chicago, I can drive Chicago, that's no problem. New York, screw that noise. New York, they don't have lanes. They don't have lanes in New York. It's like, hey, there's a spot open, fight for it. Let's see. It's a game of chicken is what it is.

9:34Let's see how close we can get to each other and who's going to stop first. That's what it is. You can't do that on Interstate 85 or 485 in Russia. No, dude, I'm sorry. This is a different level of crazy. Because here's the thing. Here's the thing. Ain't none of these mother effers from goddamn America. They're from these countries that don't have— I'm telling you, dude, I think— and it's— and I'm saying like the demographic of New York has changed.

9:59We went through the Ellis Island, um, museum thing, and I think it was like 1892, 85% of the population were immigrants in New York. Like, that's just how it's always been. But here's the thing, these People come from these countries that don't have lanes or traffic lights or traffic laws or rules, and it's just chaos. It's just— you've seen the videos, right?

10:24Like in the middle of the day, like all of these people are just trying to go through this intersection all at the same time, and it's just stop and go, stop and go, stop and go. Let's see who gets hit first. And that's how they drive here. We have laws here. Hey, you can't get in there. There's not enough room. Don't, don't try.

10:41I don't know why you're trying. There's been— somehow it got into my algorithm, but there has been a deal where, especially in Florida, but, but many states are cracking down on the enforcement of commercial trucks, right? And they're starting to go out and they're— what did you take? I swear he does this for theatrics, like one day he's gonna die on the podcast.

11:04But the problem is I can't access it to, to process the podcast. Right? Like, I don't have the login saved anymore. So the podcast would just be gone. I'm gonna— Christy, send us a laptop, please. It's gonna be bad. Holy crap, I didn't think about that. I'm gonna die from a heart attack. Hey, I just want to point out that this morning— this always freaks you out here, okay?

11:25Because, you know, like, chest pains or whatever. This morning, I'm in the shower or whatever, and I think I reached the wrong way or whatever, and I got this, like, weird pain right under my my man nipple right here, my man boob right here. And oh my God, it hurts like hell. Like, I can't even breathe. And I'm like, this is a muscle strain, right?

11:42I'm not having a heart attack. I'm like, wait, hold on, which side is my heart on? I think I'm good. I think I'm good. Sorry, sorry, algorithm. They're cracking down on commercial trucks now because they're finding out that the number of people driving them that don't read or speak English— they can't speak English. And I mean, like, you think about that. You get into an area, you shouldn't be in, in a big truck.

12:08That's a different— that's a different situation, right? And, and people are getting hurt and killed because these people can't speak English and they don't really have the skill and ability. Well, how did they get a license in the first place? California. That's the answer. California. California. No, they're not from California, dude. They're from California. They show up to California and they're like— they do the mirror test and like, can you They're like, oh yeah, you fogged it up.

12:34Here's a driver's license. So that's it. That's it. Like, are you supposed to be in this country? How did we get here? So Charlotte traffic, you mentioned Charlotte traffic. That's it. I think Charlotte traffic is bad, but Charlotte is so unique because it's not laid out in any organized way, right? There's roads all over the place. So the advantage of Charlotte is once you actually know your way around here, there's like 25 different ways to get everywhere.

13:02For sure. So It, it's, it takes forever to figure out how to get around Charlotte, but once you know, it's not so bad, you know. And listen, I'm from Boston. I'm from Boston. You want to talk about no rhyme or reason on how it's laid out? That's Boston. I mean, it's just like, yeah, it's just like this. And you like, some of them are one-way streets, some of them are not.

13:25You have no idea. Like, New York, I will say, at least is set up in a grid pattern. So it makes sense. Uh, Washington is set up in like this weird like circle thing with these lines that go through it. Like there's, there's right in, uh, Kansas City's the same way too. Like there's up and down, left and right, and the streets are freaking numbered.

13:45And so you kind of know, like, I'm on 12th Street and I need to get to 38th Street, I need to head south. And so if you're heading south, you know you're going to hit 38th Street at some point. Not in Massachusetts, not in Boston. Boston, you're like, I need to get to Boylston Street and I'm on State Street and like, which way do I go?

14:01I don't know. I was going north and now I'm going east and now I'm going northwest. I don't know which way I'm going. Well, we got a traffic lesson from David this morning. I look, I'll just tell you that, that it's about timing for me. And so I time my flights and I time my trips based on Charlotte traffic, right? And I know that if I hit 321 and 85, right?

14:23Like, as soon as you get on 85, 85 is typically a parking lot, like 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning, somewhere in there it's a parking lot, right? But I've learned that if I'm hitting it right around that 9:30 mark, it's starting to move. And, and what I've— this is my theory— right there where 485 branches off before the airport on 85.

14:42Yep. I think that all of those trucks are going to the cargo area, and so they won't let them deliver, so they all pull up on the side of 485, like on that one ramp where it splits off. And they all pull off and they just sit there, right? And it blocks it off. And then in the morning they're all trying to get in to get to a dock, so they all take off and try and pull out into the road and it causes a massive traffic jam.

15:04But like, as long as you're hitting it about 9:30, it slows down but it's smooth and steady and you kind of know how long you're going to be there. I put 30 minutes extra on it and I just know what I'm gonna have. I'm a little jelly you're closer to the airport than I am, right? Like It's an hour and 45 minutes for me, right, to drive down there.

15:23Now I'm going to tell you this. I probably shouldn't say this on a podcast. I left the airport. Where were we, David? Were we in— it was Vision. I'm coming back from Vision and I called Tanika Haynes from ASTA and we're talking on the phone and I got to Lenore and I was like, that's weird. And she said, what? I said, my clock on my car says I've only been driving 45 minutes.

15:45And it usually takes me a little bit more than 45 minutes to get to Lenore. I didn't realize I was passing a lot of cars, but I didn't think I was running 100 miles an hour through there. Dude, I made it home. I made it from Charlotte to Blowing Rock in an hour and 22 minutes. And so I don't know how fast I was going, but I was hauling it.

16:07So, uh, well, tell us about your story. How did you get into shop ownership? Like, how did we get here? Sure. So I feel like I've got a kind of unique story. Back in college, I worked my way through school and I was a mechanic back then. So I worked at a little— it was a BP station, had 2 inside bays, 1 outside bay.

16:29We did a little bit of everything and I had a blast. It was— I had a great time working there, learned a ton. But I didn't really think that was the career path that would be best for me. So I graduated college. I went off and worked for a mortgage company. Then I got into IT. I ended up starting an IT company here in Charlotte, ran that for a while and eventually sold it.

16:55And when I sold it, I kind of realized this was my opportunity to do something different and do something that maybe I had a little more passion for, which brought me back to the automotive side of things. And that's when I started looking around to see what kind of opportunities I could find. And I found this shop. I think it was listed on Craigslist for sale.

17:15And it was land and business. It wasn't super productive. It wasn't productive at all, really. But it had— I could tell it had a lot of opportunity here. And it worked out really well because I actually got in touch with the owner. I spent 6 months working with him side by side. During the due diligence phase. And it worked out to be a pretty good transition.

17:47There's always— I think anytime you buy a business, there's always surprises, right? So, at the closing table, I did find out that a large number of the employees I was counting on were not legal in the United States. So, that was a little bit of a shock. I probably should have foreseen that, but I didn't. So, I had to scramble to start with.

18:12Did they just nod at you when you walked in? They're like, hey, how you doing today? Well, I knew there was a language barrier for sure, but yeah, I should have done a little more due diligence on that side of things. But, um, it all worked out, um, and it's great. They were great guys and they could— they went down the street, got another job.

18:29They didn't have any trouble finding work, so it worked out for everybody, right? Um, but yeah, so that, that got me going here and, um been, been here for 9 years now and we keep growing. Um, we started, um, I mean, when I took over the shop, it was doing about $400,000 a year, so it was very low, um, productivity. Um, and I guess I should say it's, uh, 6 bays, uh, one of them's an alignment bay.

18:59Um, so obviously lots of room for growth there. Um, we've had growth every year since I took over, and, uh, we're a little over a million as of last year and looking to keep that going this year. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So, you know, that was really before kind of the— I don't want to say before the tech shortage. I think we've had this, this running thing where we've had a hard time finding qualified— let me, let me put that out there— you can find plenty of technicians.

19:29Serving qualified technicians is a different story. But how was it trying to replace those technicians? I mean, what did you go through to do that? Yeah, I think that's been a struggle all along. I think the hardest thing is people, right? You know, getting good people, whether it's the front of the house or the back of the house, but especially technicians. I've been— I mean, I've— what's the saying?

19:54I've kissed a lot of frogs to find some good ones. I've got some stories on technicians that we brought in here and haven't worked out for one reason or another. That's a really hard skill though if you're not in the industry like for a long time because you just assume that because they have these credentials, they have the toolbox, they talk a good game, that I should be able to rely on this person to at least be able to put out competent work and then you find out that they hide shit, they shortchange repairs, they look shortcuts.

20:30They're like, and, and it's— here's what we normally see with newer, newer shop owners is they hire somebody and the guy just starts banging out 70, 80 hours a week, and they fall in love. And they're like, wow, this great, this is awesome, you know, making all this money, you're cutting these huge checks. And then 3 to 4 months later, all the comebacks start to hit, and then it's like one car after another, and you're like, hey, didn't Bob just look at this car?

20:56Like, yeah, why is the water pump leaking again? Like, I don't know, but it is. Look how bad it is. And then you look underneath and you're like, has that even been replaced? Like, is that just a glob of silicone? Like, what in the hell? Bob, what the hell happened? Oh, I don't know, but I can get it fixed. It's like, okay.

21:14And then one car after another after another. It gets to the point you're like, I gotta let this guy go. But man, he was making me so much money. Yeah, for 3 months. And then you saw the quality of the work and there was a reason why he was doing 80 hours a week. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So true. So did you run into that?

21:29Was that your experience or— Definitely. I've had some, some guys that come through here that start off really fast and seem really good. And then you start— I didn't take 3 months to find out, but within a matter of weeks I'm like, what's going on here, guys? And yeah, I mean, that's, that's one thing that I've definitely learned hiring, especially for technician.

21:51You've got to be ready to hire fast. I mean, uh, try to interview, you try to understand what their skill set is. At the end of the day, it's, it's really hard to know what they've got versus what they don't have. Um, so we try to get them on board and monitor them very closely. Um, really, yeah, I mean, for months, but at least for those first couple weeks and see how they're doing.

22:14Um, and you got to be ready to adjust, right? Whether it's get rid of them and move on. Um, or, you know, there's been plenty of guys where I bring them in and maybe we're not paying right, we need to increase their pay right away because they actually do have really good skills. Um, so yeah, I think that's what I learned is you got to hire fast, um, but you also have to fire fast if they're not the right fit.

22:39Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, and I'm— dude, I'm telling you, I think so many people have been through that and have, have started to see that because they're trying to hold on to them and they want to be the nice guy and they want to try and take care of this person and they want to do all this stuff. And it's like, hey, listen, you, you are going to let the rest of your team down by trying to keep this one person.

22:58You're making your advisor look bad. They feel like crap about it. The customer's the one yelling at them. It's not the technician necessarily getting yelled at. You feel bad about it. The rest of the team's starting to question like, hey, why is he keeping this dude? What is up with this? Right? This is absolutely ridiculous that we would keep him. Like, is my quality of work too high for this man, right?

23:19And it changes the whole dynamic of the shop if you allow it to become that. And so I've seen so many people, they just hold on to them and hold on to them like, oh, we're going to get this situated, we're going to get this turned around, we're gonna— no, you're not going to change them, right? Like, this is an ability problem.

23:34I have been through this so many times, Greg, it's not funny. And I was trying to hire dealer guys for a while And these guys were coming to me telling me about how much they knew and how smart they were. And they— and look, I'm not saying that the dealer guys weren't smart, and I'm not saying anything bad about dealer guys. What I'm saying is it's a different job that we do in the aftermarket than what they had to do in the dealer.

23:54They just didn't understand they were signing up for a different job, and it's just not necessarily a good fit, you know. Yeah, I learned that too, Lucas, that the dealer techs don't generally— they aren't the best candidates for this job. Um, they, they're used to fixing the, the one car over and over and over again, and that's not what we do here.

24:13Exactly, 100%. And, and yeah, same exact experience, same exact experience. And it's uncomfortable for them because they get into it and they think, oh, I'm a master level certified automotive technician, I should be able to do this. And then they see— and, and people think when I say that they seem to think that I'm saying like, oh, a dealer technician is somehow lesser than an independent technician.

24:37No, that's not what I'm saying. I don't want anybody to think that, right? What I'm saying is, is the two jobs are different, right? Yeah, the work that we do in the aftermarket is very different than the work that they do in the dealer, and it's very difficult for them to adapt to the environment that we have. And I, you know, an independent technician, man, he's got to be a slick booger.

24:56He's got to be a smart dude. Yep. Now, what are you doing as far as work mix goes? Because, you know, it's like Dutch was over in Conville, right? Like behind the Longhorn, next to the mall, right? Um, and he was kind of like over in that area, and he was on, uh, Down Street. I can't remember the full name of the, the road, but he was over there and, and had a smaller shop, very, very specialized service, very complex diag.

25:23Very high-end work, that kind of thing, right? And, and my buddy Todd, he's over next to the airport, and he's got kind of like a— yep, he's got a little bit of a middle-of-the-road work mix. It's not too complex on diag and not too, too light, just tires, oil, brakes, stuff like that. He's kind of in the middle of it, right? Where are you finding your work mix to fall?

25:44Because I found in a metro area it's very different than this area up here. I'm more rural. So I'm taking all kinds of work to feed the shop. What are you finding there? I think we do it all. Um, we have, um, a couple technicians that are really strong on diagnostics. Um, and we've, we've handled some, you know, I don't love the jobs, but we take in those jobs where it's been to 5 other shops and nobody's been able to figure it out, and, um, we'll do it.

26:13It's, it's definitely not profitable to do, but we can usually get those figured out, and we've done that a few times. Um, but really our bread and butter is— well, I wouldn't even say that. We, we do everything, you know. We're doing tires, we're doing brakes, we're doing the diagnostics and diagnostics other people can't handle. Um, but yeah, we— so we have a good mix.

26:37We've got a couple ATECs that are really good at diagnostic, um, and then we've got a couple guys that are more like a BC level that can handle lots of, uh, other work that comes through here. And then we even have, um, I've got a GS guy that does mostly quality control. Um, after we fix a car, he gets it and checks it out.

26:59Um, but he handles other GS-level stuff too, like tires and oil changes. So here's how I built mine out, right? And you look at David's shop And everybody in David's shop is, for the most part, like, he's got higher skilled diag guys, he's got guys doing the work itself, but he doesn't really have any GSs or anything like that. And so the way that we built out was, is we've got two kind of middle of the road— I don't want to say parts changers, right?

27:29They can do diag work too, but they specialize in specific types of diag work, steering and suspension, or right, aren't necessarily getting into the really advanced testing that Eric does. Sure. And then we've got a GS. And so I use my blended labor rate to make that work, right? Like, I know my GS guy is going to get my tires, I know he's going to get my oil services, he's going to have a lower effective labor rate.

27:52And so he's, he's paid accordingly. Now, in the current situation, I was hoping to grow him, so I kind of overdid it initially trying to get to that point to where we're moving him along the lines. We're not necessarily seeing that development at the rate that we wanted. But then I've got my other guys who are, hey, like, give him the steering and suspension work, give him the transmissions, give him the interior work.

28:15Eric gets the complex diag. Eric's going to have a higher effective labor rate but lower build hours, right? And I kind of found that balance. Are you using something like that? Are you using multiple labor rates to balance it out? Absolutely. Yeah, we, we maybe not as extensively, but we have our standard door rate and then we have a, uh, what do we call it, a labor-intensive rate., that all the diagnostics going to go under.

28:38Um, but really at the end of the day, I, I kind of throw all the hours in with the billed labor dollars, and I, I mostly I'm just looking at what, what my labor cost is per hour, making sure our effective rate stays where it needs to be. I think it pretty much balances out between the diagnostic stuff going to our more expensive techs and then the other work going to less expensive techs, and we just kind of monitor it all in one bucket there.

29:05You're not using the labor matrix in Shopware? We do, we use that as well too. Yeah, but we do have two. So as your hours go up, the, the labor rate goes up? Um, yeah, so the labor matrix and Shopware, I believe that only applies to when we're quoting work. So we're quoting a water pump, and it's 3 hours labor, it'll, it, I don't remember what it's set for, but it, it puts a minor adjustment based on the number of hours we're quoting out at that point.

29:36So it's a per job adjustment there, but that'll, that'll adjust it a little bit. It, you know, the, what it did for me, because Cecil always teaches like, hey, you want a 1 to 0.85 parts to labor ratio or labor to parts ratio, however you wanna say it.. And so I had always struggled with that. My labor had always fallen a little bit under my parts.

29:59And so that labor matrix really made it easier to get that labor up because it brought the dollars per hour up when we got into those more complex jobs and those bigger jobs. Now, techs that are listening are gonna say, oh my gosh, you raised your labor rate and you didn't pay your tech more. No, because I'm averaging and I'm looking every single month, right?

30:18I go back and I say, this was my labor cost. And this is our labor revenue. I'm making sure that if you need a raise, we're making the needed adjustments when we need to make the adjustments. If you're productive and you're making us more money, I'm going to pay you more. That's how the reward system works, right? Right. You're doing a good job, you earn more.

30:35And so that's how I balance that out. And, and then I've got the 0.3 multiplier on the book hour itself, right? Because one of the things I learned early on was, you know, I was out here trying to do the evaluation, I was out here trying to do the test drive, and I was trying to clean up the car, I was trying to get the tools, and I was trying to make sure all this stuff was happening.

30:56And then I was talking to Rick White, and he was like, hey dude, like, none of that is in the book time. You're just putting base book time on it. Like, you need to be putting an evaluation where you pay your guys for doing the evaluation, and you need to be increasing the time because there's no test drive on the time, and there's no time to write the estimate, and there's no— like, none of that's in there.

31:15Yep. I'm like, yeah, well, the dealer doesn't do that. He's like, they're working on brand new cars. Like, what Why would they need to do that? They already know what tools they need. They've got the set laying in front of them. They just pull it out and work on the car. It's a very different environment. And so most of the jobs are canned jobs, so they don't really have a lot of estimating time.

31:33It's just a different environment. And so I think a lot of independent shops base off, well, this is what the dealer does. Yeah, I mean, you're not the dealer. Don't, don't run your business like the dealer. Yeah, you shouldn't be doing repairs like the dealer either, because the dealer is doing mostly warranty work. And so the part fails, part A fails, they take the part A out and they put the new part in.

31:54That's not the same repair as what I do. If I'm doing a water pump, then the thermostat's getting replaced too. Hoses are going to get replaced at the same time. Maybe a belt in there. Coolant's going to get replaced. Like, it wasn't Matco, the tool company came out with the hold the coolants in the system while you take the water pump out.

32:14Like, you put this vacuum on the system so you can take the water pump out. Have the coolant stay in the car and then slap the water pump back in, and then, then there's no bleeding time or anything like that because the cooling system's essentially stayed filled while you remove this component out. Okay, that works for a car that's got 22,000 miles on it.

32:34It doesn't work with a car with 120,000 miles on it and the car's 10 years old. Like, that coolant needs to be replaced. So all that coolant— so all of these are additional labor, um, labor lines that need to be added to that repair. So where a water pump replacement at a dealership is just a water pump replacement, we're servicing the entire cooling system because your car's old.

32:57Like, I'm sorry, it's not the same repair. You shouldn't be doing the same repairs the dealership. So why would you structure absolutely anything else like the dealer does? Yeah, 100%. I, I got into a little bit of a pickle the other day. They, they had written an estimate Got the estimate approved. We had, we had done major engine work to a Dodge pickup in 2014, 2015, back before I had learned anything about how to run a business.

33:21My labor rate was like $65 an hour. They gave this guy an estimate, and on the estimate it was, hey, he came in, he wanted his valves adjusted, front brakes lock slap up on the truck, truck's in terrible conditions, falling apart. And they, they called him and said, hey, before we do anything else, do you really want these valves adjusted because the truck's in really bad shape.

33:40We really need to address some of these other things. He said, I don't want you to tell me about anything else with my truck. I just want to do what I brought it in for. And the advisor— well, I've got the call— she said, okay, here's going to be your total at the end of the day. And he said, okay. And there was no issue.

33:52He came in, he screamed at everybody because he's like, you gave me an estimate, it should go down. And it's like, no, that's not how that works necessarily. It could go down, it could also go up, because that's kind of how estimates work. But, but he was upset and he said, why did you change my oil? Why did you change the valve cover gasket?

34:10Buddy, let me ask you a question. If I didn't change your oil and I dropped junk down in it, and all of a sudden you've got an engine problem, you've got a filter that's clogged up, whatever it is, right, whose fault is that? Are you gonna— are you gonna expect me to pay for it? Are you gonna expect me to make it right if there's a problem, right?

34:25Because those trucks are greasy, they're nasty. We clean off around the valve covers, but, you know, the, the under hood cover, the insulation, they're bad to like shred and fall all over the place. You bump into it, it falls down in there. It's a thing, right? Yeah. If we take valve covers off, we change the oil. If we go into the engine, we change the oil.

34:41That's just our rule, always has been. We've changed the valve cover gasket. He said, well, the valve cover gasket's reusable, right? The truck's got 274,000 miles on it. Would you be upset at me if the valve cover gasket leaked? Well, yeah, because you were the one that was last in there. Okay, what do you want me to do here, right? And like, they— I think one of the things that we deal with in this industry is the perception that other shops, be it the dealer, be it another independent, have created in what a proper repair is.

35:11And oftentimes I think that as consumers, right, because we— when we first become a shop owner— and Greg, I'm really interested in your perspective on this because you were a business owner in another world, you came into this world right? Like, as consumers, we come into this field and we say, hey, you know, price is the big thing, price is the important thing.

35:32And after a few years in this field, you're starting to say, you know what, price is not nearly as important as their car actually running when it gets done. Absolutely. And me eliminating any potential heartaches, taking anything out that I could potentially be blamed for later, or at least disclaiming it and saying we should do this, you said no, so here's the other option we could do, but we chose this, right?

35:54Yeah. What's been your experience in that transition from IT into this? So when I was in IT, that was a business-to-business type thing, so it, it's been all new to me learning to deal with consumers, um, and especially in this industry. So the thing, um This comes up, it came up this morning. We deal with this all the time. We've got price shoppers calling in all the time wanting to know how much it is to do front brakes, how much is it to do water pump.

36:25And, um, our big, or my big push is we can't give good pricing over the phone. It's just you can't do it. We don't know what the condition of the vehicle is. We don't know what's really wrong with the vehicle. Um, and at the end of the day, I, there's been, I've done lots of webinars and training and talk to coaches, um, you know, the end user, the customer, they don't know what to ask, so that all they default to is price.

36:51But when we start offering prices, then we're just competing on price. And that's kind of like you said, Lucas, we don't want to be the cheapest price in town. We want to do the best job for them. We want to make sure they don't have other issues, they don't have safety issues, they don't have, you know, have to come back for warranty or other problems.

37:11So, um, it's, it's an education for the consumer. Yes, you may think you need a water pump, but come down here, let us check it out. Let's find out what's really going on. Then we can find out the total solution for you. It may not be a water pump, or if it is, uh, you know, like David said, you're probably gonna need coolant and hoses and some other stuff to go along with that.

37:32So Let's do the right repair so you're not coming back again next week for more work. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I mean, my first business coach, that was one of the things he said to me. He was listening to me on the phone, I was giving a price, and he said, why did you lie to them? I'm like, what do you mean why did I lie to them?

37:47I didn't lie to them. He said, you gave them a price, you lied. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, because you've not seen the car, you don't know. Yeah, you just told them a lie. I said, how could I be lying? He said, because you don't know what it's going to take to fix the car. You just guessed, and, and you're going off what they said.

38:05And, and, you know, this morning there's a gentleman posting in the Change in the Industry group, and he's talking about this old Montero he's working on, and everybody's saying like, what are you doing? Are you crazy? And he's like, I'm an expert technician. And he's a sweet guy, he really is. I'm an expert technician. I'll get paid if something else happens. It's not that big of a deal, guys.

38:24Why are y'all all getting upset about this? And it's like, because we have learned after all these years of doing this, that you don't create additional problems you don't need. Yeah. And taking on a 20-year-old car, a 25-year-old car that's got tons of problems, and putting the engine in it is a disaster. It's asking for problems, right? Like, you don't need the stress in your life, you don't need the frustration in your life.

38:47It always leads to it. And it's like, I've seen these guys giving estimates over the phone to put an engine in Right, 35-year-old car. I'm like, this is asinine, you know that, right, man? I gotta get the job, whatever I can do to get the job. I'm like, the reason you're poor is because you're taking these stupid jobs, right? Like, they are the reason you're poor.

39:08Yep. Good God, it's hard to say no though when you're brand new. When you're brand new, like, you don't, you don't know, like, you don't know when the next car is going to come in. You don't have a marketing plan. And so like somebody comes in and like, and Hey, can I do this head gasket sealer? And it won't matter. Well, yeah, they, you know, they come in with the head gasket sealer for the Cadillac.

39:28Yeah, they're like, oh yeah, hey, this thing's leaking a little, can, can you put this in? And you're like, this isn't gonna work. And they're like, yeah, good, can we do this? I'm like, let me tell you a listener story, okay? He's gonna be so mad that I'm sharing this story. A listener of ours who's become a good friend About 4 or 5 years ago, he reached out and he said— it was right after we started the podcast— and he said, I still rebuild engines in-house, and I do these Power Stroke engines, and I do this and I do that.

39:57And I'm like, this is a terrible idea. He said, why? I said, rebuilding anything in-house is a terrible idea. He said, are you questioning my ability? I said, no, I'm not questioning your ability. I'm just telling you there's too many things you can't see. There's not enough money in this. There's not enough profit in this. Just talk to David. He just ate a piston in a Hemi.

40:15Like, we, we've been through this, man. Like, this is a bad idea. And so about 2 years ago, he sends me a message. He says, dude, I hate you. You were right. This is terrible. And so he had a 7.3 that he built an engine in, and it came back and it turned into this fiasco. And then he gets an engine, he's like, fine, I'll just eat it, whatever.

40:36I'm gonna go get you a Go Powertrain engine. I'm gonna put this thing in this truck. I'm gonna be done with this. This is going to be his problem. I'm going to leave the original warranty on it, so once it expires, it's just done for, right? Like, not my problem. And he said— sends me a message, I guess, 2 weeks ago, and he said, I hate myself.

40:55And I said, what are you talking about? Are you okay? He said, man, this thing came back with a leaking plug in one of the heads, and the only way to change it is pull the head off. It's got like 100 miles left on the warranty. I was like, it's out of warranty. He's like, it's like 3 days and 100 miles. And he said, I've got, I've got to fix this thing.

41:18And so he calls Go Powertrain and they're like, yeah, this is a common problem, let us help you out. And they send him a bottle of ceramic sealer. He doesn't read the instructions on the bottle and pours it in, and now the truck's getting a radiator, it's getting a heater core, it's getting a thermostat, and it's getting a water pump. It's like, I just I'm like, dude, that's what I'm telling you.

41:37We've been through this so many times at this point, it's not worth the hassle, it's not worth the frustration. I, I just don't see why they keep doing it to themselves. Are you, Greg, are you training? Like, what, where are you getting your, your knowledge and your information to run the shop? Um, so I'm part of the coaching company. I'm with ShopFix.

41:55Um, okay, have a great coach and some good peer companies that, uh, they're great. They're kind of like a virtual board of directors. I can bounce ideas off of them. Um, you know, the, the big thing I've learned in this industry, in the auto repair industry, has been around forever, and there's some great key metrics out there. Um, if you, if you want to know how to price something, how much you should pay somebody, how much a job should cost, there's so much information out there.

42:21There's plenty of people that have already done it and are more than willing to share that information with you. Um, that, that's kind of new to me because, uh When I was in IT, that was kind of a new industry and we didn't know what was— what we were doing. We didn't have good benchmarks to go on, so we kind of had to wing it back then.

42:39So I've really enjoyed that about automotive is there's so much information out there. It makes it— I wouldn't say easy, but at least you have clear goals and you know kind of what you're shooting for. So my coaching company has been great as far as, how I've learned and grown as a leader here. Um, and really, like you mentioned, some of the local shop owners, um, I get together with some of the local guys.

43:07Uh, that's, that's been good. Um, and there's just so many resources that I try to take advantage of them for sure. And, and I, I'm telling you, like, I don't know if you know this, but North Carolina has the best group of shop owners there is. Right? Okay. Like between ASTA and our little group, like Benji's in Frog Pond, and you've got Dutch in Pineville, which he doesn't own a shop anymore but he's still there, and you got Todd Compton, and you got, you know, all of these people all around the state.

43:36And, and we're a really engaged bunch for the most part. Like we're going to events together and we're doing stuff and we're having these gatherings. And of course there's factions, right? Like you guys have your little groups and we have our little groups and people get together. But North Carolina has been really blessed to have some great training and great opportunities to be able to, to do these things.

43:56And, you know, I don't think so many people, they, they don't realize how lucky they are when it comes to like, well, I'm in Kansas City, well, Vision's right there, right? Yeah, right. I'm in Las Vegas Metro or the surrounding area, Apex is right there, Phoenix. You know, a lot of these folks have to travel halfway across the country to get to an event like ASTA.

44:15In writing, right? And so these are, these are such amazing opportunities to get to these training events and see these educators, hear as much as you can when you're there. You can hear the different perspectives from the different coaches. You know, Seth Thorson years ago said to me, he's like, hey man, I get that you didn't like that class and you're super frustrated about what they taught in that class, but like, take the parts of it that you can use and leave the parts of it that you don't like.

44:39Don't, don't lock up. Develop yourself. Right. And he said, you use hearing what you don't like from an instructor and say, okay, this is where my value structure is, this is what I believe, to solidify. So you kind of know where you're at, because if you don't have guardrails, you don't know where you're at. Yeah, right. And so that's been a big thing for me.

44:58And, and like, are you doing any local training? Do you go to training events locally? Uh, we've, we, uh, since we're a NAPA Autocare partner, uh, we do their technical training Um, but no, I don't, I don't do too much locally. No. Got it, got it. Now you've been using Shopware. How long you've been using Shopware? Ever since the beginning. Um, when I— going back to 2016 when I bought this place, I knew right away that I needed to get a better shop management system in here, uh, than what he was running.

45:29And, um, I, I found Shopware. We were one of the first ones on there. I don't know Wow. I worked with Monique, and, um, it was pretty basic back then. Uh, it's, it's grown a lot, but they've been a great partner. I love the Shopware product, and I think it's got some great features. And, um, you know, customers love it. They love seeing their DVI on their phone, the pictures, video, all that good stuff.

45:56I think I got in before Monique. Did you? What year would that be? That would have been— well, it was like 2017, like, but it was like, I don't know, like, because she was, she was with, um, Omnic. Yeah, she was Omnic. Monique from Omnic. Yep. And so I, I probably joined up right after, right after I did. Yeah. Huh, it was right after I did.

46:23Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, we all probably joined up about the same time. I guess so. Yeah. And because like it was, it was Carolyn and Monique, and, and I held out for a little bit. Like David was telling me to join, join up and, and buy, uh, Shopware, and you need this. And at the time I was using All Data Manage, and it was the first big blowup that I had with All Data Manage was it was still like the actual program where everything's stored on the PC.

46:49Yep. And I had, you know, years and years and years of service history in this sucker. I always kept backups, had a little USB drive that I updated, and then I— at the end of the night, I would take it and put it in a little fire safe so if anything ever happened. And I backed it up one night, and the next day I came in and the hard drive had crashed on the computer.

47:09Not a big deal, no problem at all. I changed the hard drive and go to stick the USB drive in, and evidently the tabs on the bottom of the ceramic piece for the USB tab had pushed together and it shorted the drive out. Oh, when I plugged it into the computer, and so it corrupted the drive, and there was all the data gone.

47:29And I was like, you gotta get me— like, there's no other way around this. Like, this is— this just is. And he said, well, we always recommend you keep a minimum of 4 to 5 backups. That's helpful, right? This is not— like, of all the things you could have said right now, right? Like, I don't think that was the thing that I wanted you to say right And so that was, that was when I began to say, okay, I'm going to make the shift and, and put it in place.

47:56And then growing with it has been really interesting. Did you, have you had kind of the same feeling? Like it's grown and some of the changes and the way the customers interact with it and, and express how much they love it after it's changed a little bit. And, you know, DVX, I'm sure when DVX came out, you had the same experience I did.

48:12Everybody's like, I love this. This is amazing. I thought that was really cool. Yeah, there's, there's been so many features added to it. It's funny when I go back and look at a work order from, you know, back in the original couple years we were with them and we're like, we didn't have a shop supply calculation built in. How did we do that?

48:32Or, you know, how are we marking up the parts correctly? Or, you know, these margins are way off. What, what are these things doing here? You know, it's changed a lot. Yeah, it really has. It really has. Tell us about the future. Where's Greg Miller going in the future? What does, what does this runway look like for the shop, for you personally?

48:53Like, where's the vision moving forward? Yeah, so I feel like I'm closing in on the future. You know, back when I, uh, I bought this thing, we had a vision of what it would look like, and we're, we're getting close to what that should be or could be. Um, We've got, uh, you know, 4 technicians plus the GS in the back, got 2 guys on the front desk.

49:16That's really where I think my, uh, my employees should be at. That's the numbers we were looking for. Um, I think we still have a lot of efficiency that we can gain to increase our productivity in the shop. Um, so that, that's really the goal for the next couple years is to keep increasing our revenue. I'd like to get, you know, I think we could be doing around $2 million a year if we get things moving the way they should be.

49:45And then my goal is to kind of step away, be able to spend less time in the shop and spend more time outside the shop. Right now I'm here, you know, 5 days a week, right? 8, 8 or 12 or 13 hours a day, whatever it takes. Hopefully in a couple years that won't be necessary anymore. That's the goal. And, and so what's the runway to accomplish that?

50:10Give me a rundown of how, how does one go about saying, okay, I, I, and, and I don't know if you're anything like me, I always said I didn't want to be out of the shop, and then little by little by little it was like, I would rather this do its own thing. I would rather it be able to run on its own.

50:29It's not that I don't want to be involved. It's not that I don't care about it. It's that it needs to be able to do this with or without me. Absolutely. And so that, that kind of was a shift for me. Uh, I would say it probably started in 2020, 2021 is when I really started saying, okay, I need to be thinking about what the trajectory from this point forward is.

50:50How, how have you mapped this out? What is the plan to get there? What's your strategy? So like I said, I think we've got the number of employees figured out. We just have to make sure we can increase their efficiency. So that's really the big thing for this year and probably next year is how do we get more, more production with what we've got here.

51:12And part of that is refining processes, making sure everything we're doing from checking in cars to the quality control process is efficient. One of the things we've spent a lot of time on in the last 6 months is talking about speed of service and making sure that these cars, as soon as they hit the lot, they are moving through our process and not getting hung up.

51:37And it still happens every day. I see a ticket sitting on an advisor, sitting on a technician, and nothing's happening. And that's the thing we're really focused on right now is making sure that these cars just move through our, our process. We've got some good processes in place. I just kind of need to get the people to catch up, um, and, and do the processes like we're planning.

52:01So give me some examples, because I— this is, this is an area that I think every shop struggles with. This is something that I've struggled with. And, and, you know, as I've stepped away, I have to go to the manager and say, okay, it is your responsibility to monitor every car in this parking lot. If there is one lost, it's your fault.

52:21And she's like, what do you mean? You can't— you have to monitor everything every single day. And, and people make fun of me because of my, uh, manual planning that I do. I made a video about it, then I made a video about our morning meeting. And we're talking about every car that's here, what the plan is, what's the strategy, where are you going, what do you go to next.

52:40Let's have a— let's have some movement. And, and I've, I've got a video that I'm working on where we're talking about productivity, utilization, and efficiency. So I would like to know, is your— where is your issue at? Is it in utilization? Is it in productivity? Is it in efficiency? Where are you finding the hole at? And, and what type of processes are you putting in place to kind of catch some of this?

53:03Sure. So, um, I think the biggest problem I have right now, um, really the month of March has been eye-opening. Is utilization. We've got— we're actually going to have our highest car count ever this month, but our average tickets have just gone way down. Build hours have gone way down. So we've got plenty of cars to work on, but we're not efficiently selling the work to get them fixed.

53:32So I'm not sure. This, this is a new issue that's just happened in March. So I guess first off, I don't want to overreact and try to change processes based on one month. Yeah, I'm sure there's some, uh, market that's adjusting, you know, with the war in Iran and increased prices and all that kind of stuff. I know that has some bearing on it, but I don't think that has— I don't think that's the total picture about what's going on.

54:03Um, so One of the things that we've been really focused on, I talked about speed of service, um, in Shopware it's got the due out field. We've kind of adjusted what that due out field means to us. Every time we talk to a customer, we put notes in the internal notes field of Shopware. Every conversation should be documented in there, whether it's, um, you know, calling to get approval for an estimate whether it's calling to let them know the car got towed in, we've got it checked in.

54:34Every, every conversation is supposed to go in there. And when we do that, the key is to communicate to the customer, but also set the expectation of when the next call is going to be. Yeah. And that's what goes in the due out time field. So if we talk to a customer in the morning, get approval on the brake job, we'll tell them we're going to give them a call back by 4:00 this afternoon to let them know how we're doing.

54:58So 4 o'clock would be the new due out time on that car. Those notes will be in the internal notes fields and it'll be our job to make sure we call them before 4 o'clock. We don't ever want to miss a promised time there. For sure. Absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's huge. I mean, we're building our reputation with the customer by doing that, right?

55:18When we say we're going to do something, we do it. We increase the respect that we have with that customer. Um, so that's been the big focus is moving the tickets along faster, making sure those notes are in there, making sure we know the next time that customer needs to be called. And it's been a challenge. Um, we've gotten a whole lot better about doing that, but there's still, uh, I mean, every morning, every afternoon I'm checking and we've got tickets that are past the due out time.

55:49So let me give you two things that really changed that for us. Okay, because when I started kind of stepping away, I, I learned that I was such a control freak and that I had my hands in everything. And so that when my presence started coming away from the shop, we had a lot of holes that I just didn't even imagine we were going to have.

56:12Sure. Because it was me juggling all of the stuff to keep it all moving, and, and everybody did their part in the role, but there was no person that overseeing all of it, saying, here, here's this, forgot about this, right? Um, and so the, the big things that I did that made a huge difference is we made new technicians. We just made up fake email addresses and we added waiting on parts, waiting on dispatch, and waiting on all, and they're in the technician category.

56:41Okay, what that does for us is now if anybody in the shop sees anything in those categories at any given time, that means that my manager and anybody else that's on the front counter knows I need to go through that multiple times a day to make sure there's nothing I can do to expedite that, right? My job is to get them out of that and onto a technician.

57:03We also have waiting on dispatch up there. So the parts guy moves it to waiting on dispatch, the manager or service advisor moves things as able to somebody else, right, to the technician. Right. The other thing that we've got is we, uh, added an advisor that's waiting on estimate, and that's all it is, is it's just a bar down there in workflow and it can be drag, you know, you drag it out of up top down to there.

57:25And then that way I can look at it and I know, hey, listen, where is the bottleneck in the shop? Because if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and it's in those categories, it shouldn't be there for very long. Like parts, I get that. Okay, hey, parts man, when are the parts going to be here for this? When are the parts going to be here for this?

57:43When are the parts going to be here for this? Right. Tomorrow morning I come in, you told me they were going to be here yesterday, why is it still in waiting on parts? Well, they didn't show up, right? And it gives me that visual context to look at it and say it should not be sitting here, it needs to move. Sure. And so that's kind of like an expediting fashion that we found on your internal notes.

58:03I'm gonna tell you something that's been huge for us. This has been life-changing for us. Okay, Justin, um, Clark used to be one of our advisors, moved back to Raleigh, super pissed off about it, can't believe he left us, right? I hate his guts, Justin, I hope you know it. Um, but long story short, Justin started taking all of the notes every time he talked to a client, anything that he did, he saved it as a draft.

58:25Okay, and so it's not up there in the smaller note bin, right? It's saved as a draft. So every customer communication is saved as draft, still logs the time, right? Still logs who did it. All of the information's still in there. You have to click delete just like you would on a regular note. It's still there. And if you ever had to publish it, if you ever had to add it to it, but if you ever want to go back to the log or show a client, here's what we told you and here's when we told you this, it's still there.

58:51But it gives it in a visible sense. It's not so cluttered like the internal notes, like wrench notes or car notes or things like that. Yeah, that's, that's actually a really good point. I think we started doing the internal notes back before draft was an option. Yeah. So I hadn't really considered that. It makes life substantially easier. It's been a big thing for us, but the— probably the biggest has been adding those extra categories that I can move things through, right?

59:18And then teaching myself and my team, no matter what, they're not to stay there any longer than they have 2. Yeah, so like 3 days I've had— I've had 2 cars and waiting on auth for 3 days. What's going on here? Are they getting ready to abandon these cars here? We need to call and let them know we're going to start storage because that's, that's our way.

59:37And I'll— one of the most impactful things I've, I've heard on our show was Adam Rath one time was telling David and I, he's like, dude, after 4 hours I'm calling them saying, what's the deal? Why are you not approving or declining this? I don't have room for your car to sit here. You we need to move on this, right? And I'm like, man, I don't— I've never been that aggressive.

59:56I've never like pushed them to make a decision. And he's like, but, but I have 13 parking spots and I've got 50 cars. What am I supposed to do? I don't have anywhere to put them. Sure. But, but I started being a little more aggressive and found that oftentimes people were just like delaying the decision. A lot of the students would come up here, you know, because App State's right here.

1:00:16Yep. And parking's $400 a month. Yeah, so they would be like, I'm gonna leave my car at Lucas's for 2 months. Not my problem, I'm going on vacation, right? Like, I get an oil change and leave my car for a month, it's fine. Yeah. And so like, it's— it was, it was a wake-up call for me that I needed to be a little more aggressive, you know?

1:00:35For sure. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. My oldest daughter is starting at App State this, uh, this fall. Oh, awesome. Well, yeah, you need anything We're here to help any way we can. Yeah, uh, you're part of the family, so anything we can ever do to help, uh, we're here to help her and make sure that she's good to go. And, and you just let me know if there's anything I can do.

1:00:54For sure, I will definitely keep you in mind, and I'll stop by sometime when I'm up there too. I'd love that, brother. I'd love that. Greg, thank you for being here, man. This is an awesome episode. We got to talk about David probably keeling over at some point in this podcast. Like, what's the protocol if that happens and we're in an event somewhere?

1:01:12My man titties still hurt. David, you've gotten awful quiet since you took whatever that was. My electrolytes? Those electrolytes. I just dry scoop them. It doesn't taste very good. It tastes like straight salt. So some electrolyte mixes are tasty. These, these, this was good blend. Like it's properly dosed. It just doesn't taste very good. So I just dry scoop it and chug it.

1:01:37I'm good. Let me tell you, there is no doubt, okay? People can say whatever they want about David, but Greg, if you want advice on your health and you want to know, like, he can— he's been the test dummy, right? He'll tell you anything you want to know. He's done— the problem with David is he is brilliant on the subjects that he's interested in at the given time.

1:01:58And so he's gone down this deep, dark rabbit hole, and he has done all this research. So if you go over to his Instagram channel, Optimal Optimized Over 40. You're gonna learn so much about your health. I'll have to check that out. It's— did you learn a lot from the— what is it, the 4-Hour Workweek guy, or the 4-Hour Body, whatever he did?

1:02:17The time— the— yeah, I did read the book, the 4-Hour. Uh, actually, I lost, uh, I did his diet. Okay, slow carb diet. I lost about 40 pounds right before my daughter was born. Yeah, and I gave it all right back. All right, and it's the thing is like these, these diets that are like, oh, you got to cut this food out or cut this fat.

1:02:40It turns out like it doesn't matter. You know what I eat today? Like, I eat rice. Like, I eat a shit ton of rice and chicken. And you got to get used to just eating the same foods every single day. Not what Lucas eats. Uh, what is it? Buttermilk pie. And deep fried something or another. I don't— don't eat what you eat.

1:03:01That's like, man, I just— the, the food choice, it's too boring. Hey, I will say that the steakhouse that we went to, was that not— that was— you gotta admit, that was good. That was good. Which one? Uh, Peter Luger's. You've ever been there? Where's that at? That— there's one in New York City, there's one in Vegas, two in New York. There's one in like Great Neck, New York or something like that.

1:03:26The original one is in Brooklyn. That's the one we went to. There's one in Vegas. And they have like, you show up and they have, how much meat do you want? You want it for 1, 2, or 4, or 6? And then like, that's it. And then they have some, yeah, pick the sides. And then the guy will tell you like, this is what we normally serve.

1:03:46It's like, okay. And then they bring you some bread. And then that's it. And, and though it's porterhouse steaks, that's what you get is a porterhouse. They cut it up for you, so you get a little bit of the filet, you got a little bit of the strip, and they, they call it, oh, I gotta pour some of the jus. It's not— it's straight, like, it's straight butter, butter and beef fat.

1:04:07That's what they're pouring on top, is all they're pouring on top. It is phenomenal. It is, it is. It's the best steak you'll ever eat. Yeah. They bring out the plates, right? And so they, they put it in a broiler is how they cook their steaks. And, and so it's super hot, like 1,500 degrees on either side, right? Right. Yeah. They stick the steak in, they cook the steak, but then they heat the plate to super hot temperatures.

1:04:32And so when they come out, the steak's not even necessarily to medium rare yet, but they, they tilt the plate up. And so they take the steak, and he takes the steak and he picks it up with two spoons and he goes around the side of the plate. And as he goes around the side of the plate, you hear sizzling, it heats the steak all the way up to medium rare.

1:04:49And so he serves you on your plate as you're sitting there. They come up and they wipe it and then they pour the butter on. I mean, it's just like— and here's the thing, we like, we got 3 steaks, 3 steaks, and it was enough for everybody. Like, everybody ate a ton. And the— they were all— they nailed the temperature on all 3 steaks.

1:05:09And it wasn't like, ah, this one's a little rare, this one's a little bit wet medium. No, no, they perfectly cooked all three. They were all just ridiculously delicious. It was— we've been to a lot of steakhouses. We eat a lot of steak. We're big boys. We eat a lot of steaks. And I'm telling you, this was a number one top best steakhouse.

1:05:30Like, that's it. I don't know if it was— was Vegas as good? Oh yeah, Vegas is just as good. I mean, that's what I'm saying is like from restaurant, they nailed the process, right? Consistency is down, right? The flavor was the same, the texture of the steak was the same, the service was the same, the way they take the steak and rub it around the plate was the same, the way they stack the plates is the same.

1:05:52Like, everything is down to a side. Yeah, I mean, Apex, we're gonna have to— like, I'm, I might make the reservation now. I'm telling you. Are you going to Apex, Greg? Uh, no, I generally— I, uh, doing Shop Fix, I I pretty much focus on their events. Okay. All right. Listen, here's the deal. No knock on ShopFix. We knock them plenty and we just won't do it in front of you.

1:06:17But like that, that's one of the things like, dude, like I get that they have 55 conferences. So only come to our conferences. Like, dude, you're missing out on so much, so many connections you can make outside of just that circle or whatever. And especially when you get to Apex where every vendor under the sun is there. Every vendor ever, even the ones you've never heard of, right?

1:06:39Even like the sketchy Middle Eastern guys that come up to you and they're like, hey, we want to be on the podcast, and they hand you a card and it's all in Arabic, and you're like, it might be a really good guy to have a connection with right now. I'm just saying, send me some barrels of crude oil. Yeah, like Apex is one of those, you, you, you have to at least experience it once and at least one time, and then yeah, you do need to make, uh, just a walkthrough of SEMA See, SEMA isn't that appealing to me.

1:07:06I like Apex, the training at Apex. I like the, the vendor selection. Apex is more geared towards our industry, and being able to then walk up to Timken or BCA or KYB and then just have conversations with these people is just, is fantastic. And then just being able to see the newest and greatest that, that they have coming out. And then Peter Lugers is the Listener.

1:07:31Yeah, exactly. Here's the thing about Apex is the people that you're walking up and talking to are senior leadership within those organizations. Yeah, they're not sending randos. Talking about like just a random salesperson, we're talking about senior leadership is there. So when you walk up and you're saying, hey, I've been having this problem with— they're like, okay, hang on, I want to hear about this, let's figure this out.

1:07:53And so you get a lot of opportunity from doing that. The other big one is, man, ASTA is year, right? Like, you've got Fueling Connections coming up, which is— I think we're doing that in Charlotte again. I'll have to ask Tanika. But then, um, and, and we had been doing it in South Park, but I think they moved it to the NASCAR Tech and the Hall of Fame, right?

1:08:12But then the other thing that's coming up is ASTA in Raleigh, like the expo, right? I don't know if you've ever been. I know Jeff's been a few times, and, and I'm just going to tell you right now the amount of training that's coming to that show, the amount of fun that we— like, not to mention the networking events. We're doing this In-Shop Shenanigans thing here in the state where it's like we're all getting together and we're going to another person's shop and we're just hanging out.

1:08:39The shop owner prepares food or gets it catered, and we all just sit around and hang out and have a good time. And it's talking shop, and it's, it's not about allegiances or anything like that, right? It's like really just about the shop owner to shop owner connections. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, 100%. And then it's close enough that you can at least send your text, you know what I'm saying?

1:08:58Like, you can send your texts at least one day, if not the whole time, or whatever. And then that way they— here's the thing, I'm just going to give you this tip. We're 1 hour and 7 minutes and nobody's going to watch this part, therefore I can say titties anyway. Nobody watches it. All these people keep saying, actually, David, I did listen to an hour and 15 minutes, and they started saying liars.

1:09:23Liars. Yeah, yeah, that's bad. That's bad. But here's the thing, the best retention tool, the best retention tool, you've got good guys, and I'm sorry, it's not pay, it's not extra vacation time, it's not— it is connecting them to the larger industry. The minute that they see that they're just not in this tiny little bubble at this tiny little shop in this, like, in this just this silo.

1:09:46They're not. They're part of this huge network of tens of thousands of people, and they start to meet the vendors that they deal with, and they start to meet all these other shop owners and these techs and the YouTubers that they see on the regular. Like, hey, it's so-and-so, I watch this YouTube channel, he's here. Yeah. And they're able to make these connections that they wouldn't, and you gave them that opportunity Oh man, you want to talk about like to the death loyalty?

1:10:16Like, I'm not leaving the shop because if I go to the shop down the street, might be $5 more an hour, but I'm not going to be able to go to this training event. They're not going to ship me to— like I said, one guy goes to SEMA every year. I send him to SEMA, I hook him up in a hotel, I pay for the whole thing.

1:10:32He gets to go to SEMA. He's never been to SEMA until I started sending him to SEMA. I got another guy who's like dying to go to SEMA, so much so that he said, hey, can you just say I work here so I can go with your tech to SEMA? That's— I ended up hiring him and he works for me now, and like, I'm gonna send him to SEMA.

1:10:51He's gonna get to go. And I'm just telling you, like, these guys are gonna be able to make connections and experience things that they've never been able to do, and you could afford that. And you just include that as an overall package, just like, yeah dude, I paid you whatever, I paid you $65,000 this year. Uh, by the way, it was $4,000 for me to send you to SEMA.

1:11:11Yeah, like include— and I paid for everything. Like include that in your, in your compensation package. Like I paid you pretty good this year and you got to go to freaking Vegas on my dime and experience something that you wouldn't have had otherwise. And I guarantee you no other shop in the area is doing for you. I guarantee 100% no other shop in Kansas City is shipping their flipping techs off to SEMA.

1:11:33Nobody. Yeah, I am the only one. And so when they come to me and they're like, hey man, I'm thinking about jumping ship, and then I tell them about this shit and they're like, really? Like, yes, really. I do this because I want you to stay. I want you to be connected to the larger industry. I want to see how— I want you to see how big this industry is and how great the people are and how great the vendors are.

1:11:54And they're like, oh, this is great, I'd love to do that, this is awesome. And they jump ship. And then they don't leave. It's fantastic. Yeah, yep. And, and listen, your ShopFix family's at all these events too, right? Sure. So yeah, they all come work and be part of what they're doing, and, and they have gatherings and go to dinners and all kinds of stuff there too.

1:12:12So, you know, we want to see you go out to these events and get this perspective and, and be able to network. And, you know, and, and here's the thing for me is like here in North Carolina, you know how many times that I've had to call Todd or somebody or call Dutch or call, you know, Jay or, or Mike in Raleigh and be like, hey, I need help with this.

1:12:30And that connection is so huge because, like, the difference between calling and saying, hey, I'm sorry you've got a problem, here's the NAPA Auto Care number, call this and they'll find you a shop, to the personalized care of, hey, my friend Tanika at Brown's Automotive is going to make sure you're taken care of. She's, she's going to handle this. I had a lady who came in one time, we, we had replaced a window regulator multiple times, right?

1:12:56And there was an issue with the window regulator. They could not get it situated. We kept having to use aftermarket, never could get an OE. It came in one day and she came in, the lady came in and said, I'm actually moving to Raleigh, how can we handle this? Tanika was here for the leadership intensive training. And I said, hang on one second.

1:13:12I went back and I got Ethan. I said, come here. And she said, oh baby, hang on one second. I just wanna give you my business card. And since you're gonna be living in the area, here's a good realtor to talk to, and by the way, here's my insurance agent. You know, it made a connection and it made this lady— and she called me back and she said, you don't know how good that made me feel because I felt like I had made a friend before I even moved.

1:13:33I'm 19 years old, I'm just getting out of school, I'm getting ready to move, do all this stuff. It was really impactful to me to be able to have somebody that I felt like was in my corner. That's cool. That's, you know, that's what this is about, is building relationships and networks. And so I encourage you to get out and be part of it.

1:13:50Cool. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right, now when he hits end, sit around for just a minute because it's going to upload. 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, and 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 Show notes.