Ep 101 - Matt Curry & Richard Tonetti | The Secret Behind an $40 Million Auto Repair Business

0:00Reggie, who's our top producer, flat rate technician, wanted $1 more an hour, $27 to $28. That was Reggie? Yeah. Holy shit, this guy's a rock star. They wouldn't give me permission. It got rejected. I was in no control of my people. It was over this guy who turns 110 hours of flat rate a week. They wouldn't give him a dollar. Where's Reggie today?

0:21He works at our Fairfax location. He made $358,000 last year. He's an automotive technician working in the shop who made $350,000 last year. Yeah, he's our— $358,000. He's on track for close to 400. The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have.

0:49There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along. So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen, with Confessions of a Shop Owner, presented by TechMetric. Simply the best software ever made. I don't believe it at all. It's a 6-day-a-week business. Well, I mean, it's ultimately, it's a 7-day-a-week business from the consumer's perspective.

1:20Yeah, I was— I'm gonna try to record with Jordan Mosley tonight when we get back from happy hour, so hopefully it'll be a pretty loose-lip conversation, right? But he's got 12 stores, right, in, uh, Dallas-Fort Worth, and they're all 7 days a week. He's here. Yeah, who is that? Back row, closest to the door. He was sitting to my left. What's his name?

1:38Jordan Mosley. So he's got a mix of quick lubes, auto repair, and I think 1 or 2 car washes. Also working on his laptop a lot. Yeah, yeah, a bunch of different businesses. He was also taking notes like crazy on his, uh, little— what's the e-ink writing tablet that everybody has? Yeah. Um, but, uh, I mean, our consumers want us to be open 24/7, 365, right?

2:03So there's gonna— in a market like this that's densely populated enough, there's going to be business 7 days a week. Maybe if you're in rural fucking Nebraska, maybe not, right? And that's okay too. But there's this whole subset of our industry that are mostly technicians turned small shop owners who have fallen in love with the coaches and the gurus that say you only need to be open 4 days a week.

2:28And fuck a lot of students. And they are like, oh well, I mean, you can get just as much done in 4 days as you can in 5 days. And when I closed my shop down on Friday, our business went up. And our customers love us so much, they're so loyal to us that they're happy for us. I've heard that a lot.

2:46And you know what? Okay, great. I'm sure that some of your customers are happy for you and they do love you so much that they'll come one day a week if that's all you're open. That's fucking awesome. But some of your customers went somewhere else. Yeah, correct. And some of your customers really fucking wish you were open on Saturday because they work Monday through Friday too, right?

3:05Right. Um, and, and my whole point is that's awesome that you closed on Friday And it's easy, yeah, it's easier to recruit technicians if you're going to pay them 5 days worth of work for 4 days of work. I get that, that's fine. But here's the thing, if your revenue went up closing a day, get those systems locked down and go back to being open 5 days, or go to being open 6 days.

3:31And then if you, if you go from 5 to 4 and your revenue goes up, lock down those systems and be consistent and go back to 6, and you've grown your business by 50% overnight. True. Absolutely, 100%. Yeah. So 4 plus 2. Well, what it comes down to is they are not money motivated. Yeah. And that's, that's the reality. I think that's what it takes to be the best in this, to be honest with you.

3:56You know, money. Yeah, you got to be money motivated, you got to be quality motivated. Yeah, I think that's a critical part of it. Yeah, people motivated. Well, I mean So there's a lot of lip service that's paid to tiptoe around the real conversation in all trades, right? But one of them is, you know, if you do the right thing, money will follow.

4:16And money does follow when you do the right thing, but you can do the right thing and not know how to run your fucking business and go bankrupt too, right? Absolutely. I am money motivated. That does not make me an evil person. No. I will never put money ahead of doing the right thing. I'm capitalist. Yeah, fucking A. Take your socialist shit and go home, you know?

4:35Yeah. You know, I think it's a problem for probably my grandkids is when they're going to be dragging people who have actually worked for a living into the streets and executing them. I think French Revolution's coming in about 30, 40 years. Yeah, um, I'll be, I'll be done by then. Hopefully, hopefully I'm not around either. I'll be on my compound in Costa Rica.

4:55Yeah. Um, anyway, uh, hey, so, uh, should we introduce ourselves? Let's do it. Only 4 minutes in. Usually it takes like 15 minutes. Oh wow. Okay, I've been recording this whole shit. I thought we were just— I should have started to say— I should have said bad things about some people. Well, you know, when we were talking shit about that specific person, we weren't yet recording.

5:17Okay, cool. So, yeah, don't want to do that. But you know who you were. Yeah. So anyway, we are at— we're in Fairfax, Virginia. We're at Level Up, which is the third time you've done this? I think it's the fourth or fifth. Fifth. Okay, okay, awesome. So we did it for our team, and then we did it for Jim Brown at Speed Auto and all that, and it just kind of became a thing.

5:45Okay, and introduce yourself real quick. Sure, I'm Richard Tenetti. Uh, I've worked for Matt for about 19 years on and off. I started— just kind of started— I started as a tire changer. Yeah, yeah. Um, and worked my way up, you know. So you started busting tires and changing oil? Yes. —now you're VP of Operations. Yes. Is that right? Essentially, yep. He's always given me a path to grow in, and I had to prove myself along the way many times, sure.

6:09Wait, you mean it wasn't given to you and hard work paid off? Weird. Yeah. That is weird. Strange how that works. What about equality of outcome? I mean, equality of opportunity? Yeah. And Matt, I think everybody knows who you are at this point. If they don't, they will soon, right? Matt Curry, President and CEO of Craftsman Auto Care. So yeah, I'll be famous now because of you.

6:31So yeah, yeah, that's right. Uh, 8 locations here in the DC, kind of Virginia area. Um, but you've grown a small group and sold once before already. Yep. And then got bored and started all over. So we started Curry's Auto Service back in 1998 on $103,000 on 13 credit cards and a $35,000, uh, Loan from my father-in-law in the back of a shitty industrial park.

6:59So here's the thing. Outdated SMS, just, they don't just slow you down, they cost you money. And I learned it the hard way. Before TechMetric, I was wasting time on inefficient processes, manual updates, back and forth calls with customers. Now I handle everything in one place. DVI, customer communications, payments, real-time reporting. It's all in one page. Since making the switch, my average repair order has jumped from $293 to $916.

7:26And it's not just me. Techmetric powers almost 10,000 shops nationwide. By the time you're hearing this, it probably will be 10,000 shops, helping them grow and operate smarter. If you're tired of losing time and money to outdated systems, tap the link in the show notes and see what Techmetric can do for you. Hey guys, Kari Lynn with Turnkey Marketing. If you are looking to increase cars and you're looking for the right demographic to go after, you wanna get the right people who need auto repair right now.

7:54Then give us a call. We have a service called Direct Track and it utilizes AI to find people in your area who are the great demographic that you wanna go after, have raised their hand and opted in saying, I need auto repair help right now. We send them an email. As soon as they open the email, we then get their physical address, follow it up with commercial ads on all their streaming services like Hulu and YouTube and ESPN, Fox News, all those different things.

8:22And then we also get their physical address and we start sending banner ads and display ads to every single device in that house. It has been incredibly effective. It has made shops seem like they're everywhere to those people who need repairs right then. And I mean, I'm telling you guys, the return on investment has been huge. So if you want to increase car count, you want to get great people in the door, give us a call or reach out to us and ask us about DirectTrack marketing.

8:51Grew that to 10 stores and about $18 million in sales. That's when labor rates and parts were a lot less money. And sold, retired, wasn't very good at retirement. So 3 and a half years later, we started again, and we've opened 8 stores in 8 years. Excuse me, 8 stores in 8 years. And it looks like we're going to be opening another one, so 9 stores in 9 years it'll be.

9:13What's your ideal store? 8 bays, 10 bays? Yeah, somewhere in that range, 8 to 10. I mean, there's some of our stores now, like our Fairfax store and our McLean store, could use 20 bays. But I think a 10-bay store, if you've got that capacity, is a really good size store. If you're in a hot location and the real estate has the capacity, would you rather spend $1 million to add on to that building or go a mile and a half away and open another building?

9:40I would rather spend $1 million in that building probably and maximize the capacity rather than start all over again. But I would do both. I mean, if the opportunity is there, I mean, I'm ready to grow. So I mean, we want to get to $100 million and then, I don't know, get a $200 million, whatever. So, uh, do you have like a formula for, okay, here's the traffic count, here's the demographics, and here's the distance from current locations, we're going to draw a circle on the map and we need to find a corner in this circle for the next location?

10:13Or do you just look at the deals as they come along? So yes and no. I mostly look at the deals as they come along. I'm a native Washingtonian, so I know this area really well. I've been here for 60 years. There's like 3 of you that actually have lived in D.C. your whole life. Yeah, there's only 3, exactly. 'Cause it's a super transient area with the elections and all that stuff, so.

10:32But I was actually born in D.C., lived there 'til I was 7, grew up right down the street from here. So we know the area really, really well. You know, our big thing here is getting proper use and proper zoning. So if we find a place that we like— and I have brokers that usually do this for— 2 or 3 brokers are constantly looking.

10:53And if we find a place that we think looks good, we'll jump on it. Okay. Do you like to buy distressed properties or distressed businesses, or do you want to start from the ground up? I love to buy distressed businesses. That's the best. I mean, we are turnaround kings. That's what we do. I mean, our Fairfax store that you saw today that does $642,000, I think in October they were doing about $20,000, $30,000 a month when we took that store over 5 years, 5 or 6 years ago.

11:23So, love it, love it. Yeah. Um, and that's the NTW that we went to, or no, that was the second one? Yeah, that was the second one. Other ones, that was the, um, the one that was right on Lee Highway. Really good, really great location. Um, Yeah, but the, the NTW we took over, we'll do over 300. We just opened up 3, 4 months ago, and they were doing $1.3 million a year.

11:48We— this will be our 4th or 5th full month, I think our 5th full month, and, uh, we'll do over $300,000 this year, this month. Okay, so I want to talk about, um, what you think the key factors are that are driving this very high volume. It's a lot higher volume per bay than the average independent shop in America. 2 and 3 and 4 times more than the average volume per bay.

12:18And is it fair to say that it's typically like you're running an $800 to $1,000 ARO across most of the stores? So we try to hit $800. Some of our stores sometimes get up to about $1,000. The Maryfield location in particular. But our average RO across the company is about $680. So we want it to be more. Some stores are bringing that down and we're working with those stores and Richard's coaching those stores to get them up.

12:49Closing rate across the company? 40%. Is that your target? Yeah, 45% is our target, but we write everything up. So we do a full digital inspection on every car. We run a full CARFAX on every car. So if the technician doesn't recommend, say, a transmission flush at 50,000 miles, my service managers are trained to add it to the ticket and prioritize it, put it in the proper order of priority.

13:16So we absolutely write everything up. Our closing ratio was— we've been working on that, really, because it wasn't that great. It was like 34%, and we were striving to get to 45%, and we've We realized first we had to get to 40 though, and we're there now. We constantly do training and sales training and coaching and all that. You do most of your sales training internally or do you outsource any of that?

13:40Both. Internally mostly. Okay. Yeah, it's mostly internally. And it all starts with the goal setting, right? He's got a goal in mind, it makes sense, it's achievable. We achieve the goal, then we do the next level. You know, well, let's take this one step further. You know, we don't He's a winner, I'm a winner, you know, we want to win and we're money motivated and sales is not a negative thing, you know.

14:01Sales is not a dirty word. Yeah. And if you think it is, then you're in the wrong fucking business. I think of sales as a, honestly I think of sales as a health check of the business, you know what I mean? That you do all these other things right, sales are just gonna happen, do you know what I mean? And so I guess I want to answer your question early, I know you were asking Matt primarily if you don't mind me, was It's a lot of it is people, you know, in the culture, and it starts at the leadership position from Matt down.

14:25He's got a vision, right? And he's a positive individual, you know, and he pushes people, you know. And, and that's my job is to relay that information and keep that same mindset, you know. He calls me in the morning, you fired up today? You know, and I'm fired up, man. You know, let's, let's go, let's win today, you know, one day at a time.

14:41So getting the right people is a, is a start. Positive mindset is something that I struggle with. Not that I'm like a grumbly guy or down in the dumps, it's just I'm just kind of steady, right? I don't get a lot of high— my son is the same way. And but the best performers that I've seen in the world and in our trade are high energy, like they bring it.

15:08It's like they're like cheerleaders for their team every day. And I think It's impossible that they feel that energy every day, but they bring that energy every day even if they don't feel like it for their team. Correct. You gotta be on. And so that's what is an area for improvement for me is being able to, you know, overcome my resting bitch face and actually be a positive influence on days when I don't feel like being a positive influence.

15:32So I tell people during my sales class that they're like an actor on stage. It doesn't matter whatever the fuck happened back home. I mean, They got in a fight with their wife or their girlfriend or whatever. When they get to the store, they got to be on and they got to be on 100%. And when I ran stores, I ran a lot of— I don't even remember— 10 or 11 different stores at least.

15:56I mean, I was running 100 miles an hour all day long. And I tell my crew, I tell everybody, this needs to be fun. This should be a fun job. You're not sitting in an office in a cubicle for 8 or 9 hours a day. You're out, you're doing stuff, your day's different all the time. I mean, yeah, is it hard? Is it stressful?

16:14Is it long hours? Absolutely. But it has to be fun too. So I think the fun starts when the customer throws you a curveball and it takes you off the script, because the script should cover 80-90% of the problem. Absolutely. We know how to overcome objections, we know how to, to, to move the conversation along in the time frame that we need.

16:34And manage the communications and the inbound call. It's when that 10% of the time that it goes off the described tracks and you get that oddball situation. That's when it's fun for me. That's when you need to learn how to shuck and jive, baby. Yeah. You know? Move and groove. You know? So I like the systems that I saw. Definite conviction on speed of service and saying yes and bring it in right now.

17:01Right, which we hear across more and more of the industry is starting to understand the value of that in the circles that I run in, right? Um, and, uh, one of the things— so like, I got enamored in '24 and '25 with Todd Hayes's program. Sure. And I mean, they're building an incredible business. Absolutely. And I failed miserably to execute on it because of many reasons, right?

17:30But me being the primary one. But I've never gotten over the heartburn of multi-stage sales. Of sell the ISO, send them home, call them back and sell the rest of the DVI even though the DVI is done. Right. And then after that's sold, wait until the parts are all there and then call them back and say, hey, all the parts are here, we're about to get started.

17:54I want to talk to you about some maintenance stuff that we see that we can take care of while it's here. So I'm not a big believer in that either. Um, that's, um, not how I was brought up, and we don't really do that. We kind of do a full DVI while it's there. Um, so Todd has a great program going on out there, for sure.

18:12We went and checked him out. Um, Goodyear had this program back in the '80s, it was called the Early Morning Checkout Program. Bringing him, check him out, back him out, bring him in, check him out, back him out. So I learned that in the '80s. We didn't have pagers and cell phones, and so you couldn't always get in touch with people right away.

18:29And so that's what we always did. And what Todd did is just basically put that program on steroids. And, you know, the rack and roll, or as they call it, rack attack, it works. The thing you gotta be careful of is number one, you need the car count, and number two, it's gonna add payroll. And payroll is your biggest expense. So it's something that, you know, we look at really, it's a really major KPI.

18:53It's probably our number one KPI is payroll to gross profit percentage. So, uh— What's your target on that? Well, we look at our gross profit differently than most people. I went to the Norm Gaither School of Business. He was the leader of our 20 Group. And so we take labor as 100% gross profit. So it's different. I'll show you that in the class tomorrow.

19:1340 to 45%. And ours is typically, when you look at it that way, again, I look at it differently than most people, ours is typically 47 or 48. But if you start creeping over that, your P&L, your net, quickly. Quickly. For March and April, we did run closer to 45%, actually 43%. And we made half a million dollars last month, so I mean, it shows.

19:43Yeah, that doesn't suck. Yeah, right? Well, the thing that I loved, I was talking to your store manager at the second shop that we stopped at today. Perfect. Um, jeans, polo, Josh. Oh, some tats. Josh. Yeah, yeah. And the gist that I got, and if I'm misrepresenting this, please correct me, was, you know, you call the client or you talk to the client at the counter if they're there.

20:10And the thing that they came in for, if they're in for a problem, or the most pressing found need, uh, if they're just there for maintenance, is sold initially and they approve that dollar amount. And then in the next breath, in the same conversation, you then review all the other things that you found. Um, is that— I said, yeah, that's, yeah, that's typically the way we want to do it.

20:34I mean, I think I like that a lot better. Yeah, I want to look at the whole car over and I want to have one conversation with you. I don't like the 2-conversation deal. Or 3. Yeah, or 3, certainly 3. But, and we want to always prioritize, obviously it's safety or what they came in for, and then prioritize it all the way down.

20:52We give them one price for everything. We're gonna do everything on the car, it's $2,900, and I can have it done today. Elite clients don't just learn more, they do more. We help shop owners build stronger teams, improve profitability, and create systems that don't fall apart when you step away. The goal isn't just growth. The goal is sustainable success and a life you actually enjoy living.

21:14Elite Worldwide. That's how I end every sales call. And they go back and they go, well, I can do this, I can do that. And then you always got to go back for the one more thing. Okay, we'll go ahead and do the front brake pads and rotors and the brake fluid flush. But let's also take care of that transmission fluid flush while it's here.

21:36Today. That's the next most important thing. So that's one thing, that's one thing we teach in our sales class, is always going back for the one more thing. That's how you drive average per car. And a lot of that sales class that we do internally that Matt hosts, you know, that I'm there part of, um, it's also just building confidence, you know, and that's confidence is key, right?

21:56So, but you got to start off with the right people, you know. What are some of the markers that you look for in in a potential front counter person who's gonna have the, check the right boxes for the right energy? I'll let Richard take care of that because I don't actually do anything. I'm not really sure what I do, so Richard actually hires everybody.

22:16Sure, I do 100% of our hiring, right? So it's always positivity first, you know, can they fit our culture, right? Our culture is this, right? These are our morals, these are our standards, right? You know, lying, cheating, stealing, right? Like, just good people, you know. Or do they have— are they part of a team? I always ask about, are they a coach in some way?

22:38Have they ever been a leader on a team or on a club, like a chess club or something? You know, I always give them role-playing scenarios. Chess? Yeah, because not everybody was part of the sports team. Football? Well, they're thinking two steps down the road. Yeah, I, I'm saying like You know, not everybody has been, you know, an athletic person or played sports.

22:59So I always let them know, like, hey, any type of team, any type of team you've been on, you know, and what was your role on that team? And then I give them role-playing scenarios to gauge them as a person, you know. And then the last thing that I care about truly is, you know, obviously the yes people and they want to continue to grow and develop.

23:16But then I also find my final step of that is, are they reliable? You know, can they show up every day? I don't even— the automotive side of things, you know, I don't— that's not a checkbox for me. That's not a, do they have experience in automotive? Like Matt can teach anyone automotive. I can teach anyone automotive. We have people in place that can teach automotive.

23:39And they have tools that can teach them automotive. You're not asking them to fix it. I'm not. That doesn't matter so much, you know, if you're looking for a front counter person to answer your questions. That doesn't matter so much. Can you be personable? Can you shake hands? Like, can you hold— if you see an elderly lady walking up, do you know it's in your brain already, I need to go open the door?

23:55I need to go open that door. Do you know what I mean? And that's— those are the questions that you got to get— you got to ask in order to get those people. Yeah. Now, the one thing, the caveat, one caveat is if you're hiring at a high-level position, and high-level position for us is really anything from assistant service manager to service manager, store manager, because our store managers need to sell.

24:17Everybody in our store needs to be able to sell. So I mean, I'm not going to hire somebody as a store manager or a service manager that doesn't have 3 to 5 years experience in the automotive business selling. So we can teach them how to do it better, but a front counter guy, you can hire anybody to do that, and then you can teach them as they go.

24:36And then, I mean, I started mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms, and everybody's going to start somewhere, right? So do you feel like you can get a guy from a Firestone or a Goodyear and get them to slide into the culture and the systems you get, or do they have too many bad habits? I do. I do. It depends on their age, you know, and I hate to bring it up, but it's true, you know, the older ones.

25:01Yes, the older ones are much harder to retrain, you know, and to break the mold and get them to understand the why, because that's what we're trying to do. Right? As leaders, we're just trying to get them to understand the why so they believe in it, you know? And I have a hard time with, you know, the older generation and doing that, but I leave it open, you know?

25:18If they're awesome and they're a rock star, they're awesome and they're a rock star. Yeah, you know, yeah. But generally the awesome rock stars aren't working at those places. Yeah, that's true. I mean, to be honest. Yeah. So where do you go when it's time to go headhunt somebody? Where do you go? Oh, we don't actually know. We don't have that issue anymore where we have to go headhunt people.

25:36I mean, they come to us, they come to us, and, um, it's, it's great. It's the brand, it's, it's, it's what Matt and Judy have built, you know, that have gotten us there. I'm sure I'm part of that success, but all credit goes to them, you know. So it's the reputation and the brand. Let's talk about reputation. Well, I was going to say we're also a well-known entity in Northern Virginia auto repair.

25:56We've been doing this for 30 years in business. And then people know that we pay really well. We have some of the nicest stores, the best equipment with the best training, you know, and we treat people well with dignity and respect and kindness. And, you know, I think one of the things that you meant— so this morning, I guess it was afternoon, we toured shops all morning, right?

26:20Had lunch, came back, and we had, uh, 3 speakers today. You were first, you were kind of running through the class that you had done, the presentation that you had done at Tectonic. Tectonic. And it was on driving Google reviews and why they're so powerful and important and the things that you've done to help build that. And you're pushing up on 10,000 5-star reviews across your stores right now, which is awesome.

26:44That's awesome. Thanks. And when I think about it, like, 2 of my stores are 4.8, one of them's 4.7. Frankly, they all went down after I tried and failed to execute on AutoShop, uh, on the AutoShop Answers because I just didn't pull it off right. I didn't staff appropriately. And yeah, um, so if you do anything wrong, it's not going to have the right effect, right?

27:11Right. Um, and so we've been pulling them back up. We were at 4.6 and 4.7s, and so we've got them to 4.7 and 4.8s. 4.7s and 4.8s in auto repair is good too, you know what I mean? It's always, it's always better to be better, but yeah, you know, one day you'll be like me, maybe, you know. Well, but if you think about it, so like one of my stores is at like 935 reviews.

27:34I'm like, that's really good, we're gonna push that up over 1,000 this year, no problem, right? Um, but if you Google, you know, mechanic near me and, you know, wherever your market is Listener, and you've got Joe's Garage that's got 4.9 and 27 reviews, and you've got Bill's Garage that's got 4.8 and 72 reviews, and you've got Mike's Garage that's got 4.8 and 1,135 reviews.

28:04You're going there. You're probably going there. It is free marketing. It's not free because it's hard work to get the review, but— Yeah. I'm not paying for AdWords for that, right? That's organic search. Correct. On Maps on your phone resulting in phone calls. You know what we pay for our marketing? About 1.5% of our revenue is marketing. Now our revenue is pretty high.

28:31Yeah. But it's because of our reviews and because of the other things that our marketing team does. We have 3 people in our marketing We don't do mailouts. We don't, I mean, of a new store we will. We'll do maybe $30,000 or $40,000 and do 3 or 4 mailouts, but we don't typically do a lot of external advertising. A lot of it is community-based and all that.

28:55Think about how expensive direct mail is. Yeah, super expensive. Compared to all the online marketing opportunities that are there, right? But if you've only got 120 reviews, that's not gonna make you stand out above the other guys in town that all have 125 reviews also. So you need to do something to drive the, make the phones ring and drive cars, right? But if you have 5 times more reviews than everyone in your market.

29:22Yep. And they're fucking good. And if I go read through 'em and they're not bots and they're not all names from Eastern Russia, you know. They're not all in Cyrillic. You know, they're not bought reviews, right? And then I sort by negative and all the negative reviews are obviously unhinged or responded to in a reasonable manner. You don't have to send all that direct mail.

29:52You don't. And you know, if it's been that way, you can reduce your marketing costs, you know, obviously increase your profits. And like I presented today during the training, is it allows you to— I think you get better customers out of it. Your customers come in there with a huge trust signal already. They're like, they already trust you even if they don't know you yet.

30:13And it allows you to hire better employees. I mean, we have people coming to us now wanting jobs because your employees or your potential employees or go looking at your reviews before they interview with you. So, and that's something that I hadn't— didn't even think of, you know, doing this. So, well, because we started making the reviews part of their bonus, right?

30:35And look, when I first opened my shop, I thought my old systems would keep up, the software that I had would continue to evolve. But as we grew, the slow estimates, scattered workflow, increasing downtime, it really just It was becoming a real problem. That's why I switched to TechMetric. It's not just software, it's a complete shop management system that makes my life easier.

30:57Smart jobs, instant estimates, integrated payments, integrated financing options. I mean, it allows me to focus on the work that actually makes me money and not get bogged down in the other details. My shop's repair orders have jumped over 300% since switching to TechMetric, and when I need help, their support team responds in real time. I actually was online with them asking questions just this week, and I got answers in minutes rather than having to wait for callbacks and emails days later.

31:22If your system is holding you back, it's time for a change. Tap the link in the show notes and see how Techmetric can help you move your shop forward. We never incentivize them to get to be awesome and to get reviews. We don't incentivize our customers to give us reviews, but we do incentivize our guys to ask for reviews and to make sure they're getting 5-star reviews.

31:41So I've started doing the same thing. I started in November of last year because that's when I was like, holy shit, our online reputation is taking a hit because, right, because of reasons. And I checked while you're talking today, year-to-date we've got like 321 reviews, 305 of them are 5-star, and most of the non-5-star stars or 4 stars. So it's like, I did the math, it comes out like 4.92 or something.

32:09Yeah, that's good. I'm good with that. Yeah, I just need to increase the frequency. Um, and, um, what we're doing is I do a cash spiff that I pay out on the first week of every month for last month's reviews, and it's $20 goes in the pot for every 5-star review, and $60 comes out of the pot for every review that's not 5 stars.

32:29There you go. It's kind of the same thing we do. Yeah. It's kind of the same thing, same same but different, as they say in Thailand. But they like, you know, and they like that I walk around and hand out $100 bills. I do that too. But I heard somebody, I don't remember who it was, and they might have heard this from you guys, and I apologize if I missed it, but the thing that they were doing was it's up to $15 per review paid to the specific advisor, right?

33:00Because mine goes into a pool and then it's divided evenly amongst the advisors across the company. And it's $5 if they leave a 5-star review. It's $5 more if the 5-star review names the advisor or a technician by name. And it's $5 more if the customer takes a picture with the employee and posts it on the Google Maps. Oh, that's cool. So if it's, this is my guy Matt, he's my car guy.

33:24Yeah. They're awesome. That's $15. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, right? We don't do that, but I like that idea. I might steal it. That's pretty slick. But what I immediately thought was— I'm all about stealing people's great ideas. Well, it's not stealing it. It's called R&D. Rip off and duplicate. Rip off and duplicate. Oh, I didn't submit an idea for tomorrow, so I'm just going to give it to you now.

33:42OK. And this is not my idea. This is R&D. I was kidding. That's fine. You get a stuffed animal that is wearing a shirt that has your logo on it, uh, and if the customer's car has a car seat in the back with a 5-point harness, you buckle it up in the seat. I love it. And they're holding a little card that's like a little limerick for mom and dad thanking them.

34:06It's like a little poem thanking them for trusting you. It's a twist. And that you trust them, uh, for trusting you with the vehicle that protects the thing they love the most, or whatever, right? And you don't even tell them about it. You let the kid discover it. And every little camera in it— I know, I know, don't get creepy, man. But every 6 months it's a different stuffed animal, so you keep tracking your software.

34:31So you have a bear and then a dog and then a giraffe or whatever else, and the kids become militant if mom and dad go anywhere other because they want the next one. So I've got pictures I've got pictures that parents have sent of their kid with 4 different Car Fix dolls, right, from 4 different generations. And they only get one because we're documenting the car.

34:51They've gotten a bear, they've gotten the dog, they got the giraffe. They get one every time they come in. These things are fucking expensive. I'm not rolling around with Matt Curry money up in here, right? But, uh, I learned that from, uh, Matt Lackawitzer, who was in my 20 group, uh, in my Elite 20 group 7 or 8 years ago, and he left that and then he became a coach.

35:18And I think he was with Transformers for— I don't know where he is now, he's bounced around a little bit. I might ask you to open up tomorrow with that. Yeah, that's okay. So remind me, um, you'll be there tomorrow for sure? Of course. Yeah, yeah. So I might ask you to open up with your best idea because that could be the best idea because, I mean, it's, it's, it's— Alabama was the follow at.

35:34Yeah, that's pretty good, man. So, but I shared that idea years ago, uh, and Matt shared it with us, and a bunch of us went and did it. And then during the pandemic, there was a little group on Facebook that was just, uh, like 50 or 60 shop owners from around the country, and I shared it there, and like half of them did it.

35:55And it's like, it flares up and then it dies down, and then it, it breathes. You know, so a lot of programs are like that. Like, there are leave-behind programs where we have a thank you card, QR code, you know. It would be lucky if it gets done half the time sometimes, but that's one of the things we're not as good at.

36:13But we're really good at a lot of things. That's— but what's weird, when they get directly compensated for it, it happens more effectively. Imagine that. Wait, wait, being money motivated makes you evil. But to be fair, the review thing ended up not— I don't know if it was so intentional, maybe Matt can correct me, but it also, you know, one of the outcomes was it became our culture too.

36:38Do you know what I mean? And I don't know if that was his original intent other than just, hey, we need to get reviews because it drives business, right? When Matt had this idea and I was all for it, you know, obviously a side story there I'm not going to get into it, but it became like a conversation. Now everybody talks about it all the time.

36:56I mean, yeah, we still, you know, commission off of that, right, and provide bonuses to it, but it did become our culture, you know, it really did. I mean, as I said today in the training, it started off during COVID as a way to— people could make their bonuses because they weren't making bonuses, and but it went from a paid incentive to just part of our culture.

37:18And, uh, now, I mean, like, the stores will have inner inner company battles. Shit talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's great. And then I can rile up, or he can rile up, one of the guys who's really good at getting them like, come on, man, you're number 2 this time. What the hell, dude? Yeah, come on, man. We play shit. We play our guys off each other all the time.

37:39Friendly competition is healthy. It drives performance, right? Right. I love that kind of stuff. And I've— so like, I'm In the past, I've been the guy who wants to put a whiteboard in the shop and puts everybody's numbers up and everybody can see who's winning. And it depends on your culture. Um, and but that causes some people to shut— my wife is, um, my wife is a pediatric dentist and, uh, she works, uh, one of her jobs, uh, is with a dental group that has like 120 offices.

38:13Right? So you are holding the money, you're full of shit. I don't— dude, I wish. Um, she, uh, but they have an internal newsletter that's just for the dentist, uh, that's shared, and it has a ranking of every dentist in the organization, uh, top to bottom on average production per day, average production per patient. Tell me you wouldn't want to be top.

38:40So I've got a story, I got a couple stories I can tell you on that. Number one is I used to do it starting Wednesdays and print them out that way, because you don't want— we're flat rate, right? So text-to-pay flat rate. You don't want one guy on Wednesday doing 70 hours, one guy doing 20. Like, the guy doing 20 hours, you might have to give him some gravy, you know, especially if he's one of your better techs.

38:59Drag him along. Yeah, yeah. So, um, but so when I sold, I had Curry's Auto Service. We had 10 stores we sold and retired. And we were all about culture and community and all that stuff and making money. And we're capitalists. And the company that bought me, Monroe, they're a publicly traded company, had like 1,200 locations then. You know what they cared about?

39:23Stock price. They would fax the stock price to the store every day. Like their guys gave a shit about stock price. What the fuck do you think the kid changing oil in bay 2 cares about the stock price? Their 401 share program or whatever, whatever they are, their profit sharing. There's one dude at that store who cares about the share price. Their profit sharing deal.

39:43Store manager, right? And not all of them did. And of the 1,200 stores, probably only 7 or 8 of them had internet. And this was back in 2013. So anyway, that was a true story that I heard from some of my former employees. So what happened to your stores? Oh, they got— Are any of them still open? Yeah, some of them are open.

40:02I can't wait to get a couple of them back. They're all pretty much open, but they've been run down to the ground. Are they still Monroe? Does Monroe still exist? I mean, yeah, Monroe must have retired. Mavis, they might be owned by Mavis now. It's constantly turning over. I stayed along when Matt had retired, right? I stayed along and became their district manager.

40:22But yeah, they all just slowly fell apart. You lost the people. It's a corporation. They don't care about— you could have a really good CTEC who— this is, this was actually my breaking point, like real story. Reggie, who's our top producer, uh, as our company, in our company, flat rate technician, wanted $1 more an hour in flat rate from $27 to $28, and they wouldn't give it.

40:46Reggie? Yeah. And they wouldn't— holy shit, this guy's a rock star. They wouldn't give it. They wouldn't They wouldn't give me permission. It got rejected. I was in no control of my people over this, this guy who turns 110 hours of flat rate a week, you know, $1. They wouldn't give him a dollar. Where's Reggie today? He works at Fairfax. He made $358,000 last year.

41:09Yeah, I mean, he works— he's an automotive technician working in the shop who made $350,000. Yeah. He's on track for close to $400,000 this year. Now, he works his ass off. He comes in 6 days a week. We have to tell him to go home. He's got 5 kids. Yeah, he's obviously a maniac, right? Yeah, he's— I mean, he gets there— Doesn't want to go home because it's too loud.

41:29Yeah, something like that. But that's what happens in those stores. You lose those people. And then eventually, I lost hope. And at that point, they're gone. And yes, some of those stores have already— they stopped renting because they were just rental units. A lot of them. But I know that we would love to get back in with a couple of those locations because they are sweet spots, you know.

41:50Yeah, 3 of the stores that we've opened now used to be NTVs and Merchants. And so I don't know who— I don't know if Mavis owns all that mess now or what, but I can't wait for Mavis to fall apart because they've got some good locations. Yeah, good looking. Well, I can tell you from experience, you know, over the last 3 years, 4 years, we've gotten 3 of their stores.

42:07So They are, you know, they are falling apart. Or they'll probably turn around and sell to someone. They can't keep up with the good quality independents. I mean, the independent operators have such an advantage over the big corporate behemoths. So the question becomes, with the evolution of technology that's kind of sweeping through all trades right now and all industries right now. Sure.

42:37And the wave of private cash that's coming through that's absorbing so many of the independents. Can a small independent maintain relevance moving forward, or is this an opportunity to be even more relevant? I think it's an opportunity to be even more relevant. I mean, they're talking about multiples of 12 of EBITDA. 12, 13, 14. Yeah, I mean, I've heard 16 even. But, um, that's crazy.

43:02Somebody who's trying to reproduce that right now. I mean, I get offered— I was offered $50 million, which is a starting point for my business, last week. And I'm like, no, quit calling me. I've had— I have people call me every week. I'm never selling again. That's why somebody's in the room today said they're thinking about selling, and I'm like, talk to me first.

43:22I mean, I've got some input on that if you want to listen. But I mean, Number one, I can't retire. I mean, I don't have to do anything. I could leave my business for a year or two. It'd be perfectly fine. I've got Richard and Vernon and Matt, my son. So I mean, there's no reason for me to sell. I'm happy. I like to go visit my stores and thank my people and talk to my customers and thank my customers.

43:46But yeah, I think the independent, they can be more nimble. They can embrace technology. Technology quicker, faster. They can make shifts and changes in their business that have— that can make huge differences. Like if they're not inspecting every car, you know, they can just say, okay, we're gonna start inspecting every car properly, right? Well, when you have 500 or 1,000 stores, you can't make that happen very quickly, and you're not going to be doing the shit right anyway.

44:14It's just not going to happen. Yeah, now I could probably make it happen with 100 stores. I mean, Richard could with the right team, but we— but you got to be, you know, militant on it. I think it feels like, like the, the level of quality in our industry is pretty shitty in general, right, across automotive repair, aftermarket automotive repair, um, to include all the Midases and everybody else.

44:37Yeah, if you include all the, um— and so if we are right here and our quality goes down, we're still way above average, right? And I feel like as you grow, it's really hard not to let quality drift. Because if you have 500 employees, it's really hard to know everyone's name and everyone's story. That's asking Matt or myself, can we oversee 500 stores?

45:02Like, the answer is like, we personally could not. But that's where you got to have the right building blocks The foundation was built right by him, and I give him a lot of credit for that. But take it slow and do it right. There's no need to rush it. We will be successful. Let's build the right infrastructure. And I think he does a good job in setting that tone and just giving everyone the right growth path and the opportunity.

45:30So if you do it right, you won't lose track and lose sight of who you are. You know, and what made you successful. Just don't forget that, you know, the little things separated us in the beginning and we want to continue passing that forward. Yeah, I think that's well said. And there's no reason to grow just to grow. I mean, you know, I don't need to be the biggest, you know.

45:49I really want to concentrate more on being the best and keeping my 4.9-star review status. And even at one or two stores, you know, 5 stars and getting 10,000 5-star reviews and 20,000 5-star reviews. That's more important to me than, you know, than making a little more money. So— or opening another store even. This is a conversation I recorded earlier today with Adam Rath, who— this is his first time coming to one of these events and he's blown away.

46:25He's not ever been exposed to, um, you know, the speed of service concept and the, uh, what do you call it? We call it rack and roll. Rack and roll. Okay. Um, and I got exposed to it in Houston. I'm like, I know, I think I know, I understand that there's multiple things at play down there, but you know, they're building a revenue stream of this, you know, selling this concept and they're selling you all the answers supplementary services to support it.

46:55And I think they're recruiting acquisition aspects for them to build that package deal to get rolled up a second time. And, and I understand all that, and they're not hiding that from people, right? You know, he has a desire to do a billion dollar deal. Good on him. I hope he does. He's going to make a lot of people wealthy if he does that, right?

47:14So, um, and I know what ShopFix is trying to do, or I feel like I understand what they're doing. But this— the Level Up event is not something you're trying to, to line your pockets with. You're doing okay. So what is the driving factor for opening this up to the industry? So, um, 100% of proceeds from Level Up go to charity, plus we match it— we match it $10,000.

47:40Um, this started as an internal thing that we did with our guys, and we kept kept improving it. I went down to Jim Brown's, his stores in Atlanta, and gave it to him and Richard Weiss and another guy, and they really enjoyed it. So I said, well, let's invite some other people in, and we— this is, I think, our 5th time doing it.

47:59And so we just started inviting other auto repair shops in and, you know, see if we can help the industry and bring, you know, level people up, help them help themselves. And I don't know, it's fun. I like helping people. It's a giveback. This industry has been really, really good to my wife and myself, and it's one way of us giving back.

48:20It also allows us to give to our charities that we like, give even more to our charities. So it's cool. Yeah, we don't— we're not doing it for the money. We plan on doing it 4 times a year. We usually have 35 to 40 people, which is about what we have now. I want to make it a little bigger. Judy and Asha don't want to get too big because we want it to be intimate, intimate enough.

48:43Normally if you have 75, 80 people, right, it's super tough. I want to be able to shake everyone's hand and say, hey, welcome back, Lou, you know, hey, nice to see you again, Mike. Like, like, that's what— that's the vision he has. We just, um, promoted one of our guys to like a— it's kind of a lateral promotion to a, um, a trainer, a training manager.

49:03Um, he's going to do more technical stuff. He'll do our to take this probably over from me, like not the Level Up thing but for internally. But he was a master technician, he's worked up front, so we're doing, we're rolling out a whole training thing. This is all internal for our company to train our C-techs or apprentice technicians, to train them up and get them to B-techs and A-techs eventually and all that because I think we have to grow our own tomatoes, you know, we don't have technicians just dropping out of the sky, right?

49:35So, um, but we've got technicians that make mad money. Like I said, Reggie, you've got dudes making $350,000 a year. I've got— I got people will track you down. Yeah, I got 8 or more guys are making over a quarter million. Yeah. So, um, you think those guys— there's any risk of anybody trying to pluck those guys out of your hand? There's no fucking way.

49:54Nope. Nope. As long as Matt and me are around, no shot. Yeah, there's no way. I mean, they're not gonna— plus they get a month vacation a year, plus we pay 80% of their health insurance. I mean, I exited once. I mean, the other thing is I don't need 20% net. I'm pretty good with 15, especially if we're doing $40 million a year.

50:16Yeah, yeah, that's enough. Yeah, it's a great question, but I don't— we get too strong a culture. Now, and our core is really good, you know. Well, I've heard it over and over. I don't build a company that when a headhunter calls, they laugh at them, right? Yeah, yeah, go fuck yourself. Yeah, I'm not going. Yeah, correct. Uh, I have failed to do that, but I'm working on it.

50:39At least you're able to self-reflect on it 2 months before. At least you're honest with yourself and you can reflect on that, you know. You've been doing it forever. Your dad started the business, or— so my grandfather opened a store in '37 that Dad grew up in. That's right. And then Dad, uh, got his— bought a store from a guy that he worked for in like '82, '83, and I grew up in that one.

51:02And, uh, Car Fix— Dad bought Car Fix in 2005, and I started buying Dad out in 2016. Now, Car Fix, is that everything to do with Richard Weiss? No, Richard— after Richard and I met at ShopFix in 2019, the month after I quit ShopFix, he was posting online his new branding. I was like, motherfucker, no way! Oh shit, I mean, I shouldn't have brought that up.

51:29I don't care. I mean, look, Richard— I mean, and I've gone from 1 to 3 in that time frame, and he's gone from 1 to 12, so And I think, uh, Zane Said— didn't Zane, uh, change his company name to Carfax? There's another one. There's a dude in New York, there's a dude in Florida now, right? Yeah. Can I ask you a question?

51:52Sure. You've asked a lot of questions, they're great. So how do you— do you want to go from 3 to 12? Um, that's a question my wife asks. Okay. She doesn't ask 3 to 12, she asks how much. Okay, like, why do you need more, right? Okay, because we do fine. Yeah. And, uh, I want to grow as long as it's fun.

52:15Yeah. And like, the last 18 months I've done a lot of beating myself up for screwing up, for, for growing too fast and not maintaining quality. Um, I think you were just trying new things. Yeah, you know what I mean? Well, I've— I have shiny objects I'm like, "Oh, that's fucking awesome. I want to do that." ADD. That's it. And then there's a lack of completion and follow-through.

52:38So my latest shiny object that I'm starting to get zeroed in on is I think I need to adopt EOS and get a high-level implementer integrator in my business because I'm a vision guy. I think you're missing number 2, man. Yeah, it sounds like it. Well, I failed at number 2 a couple of times now. I've pooped a couple of times, but I haven't gotten a good number 2 yet.

53:04That's something that him and I are really good at is he's the innovator, he's a thinker, and then he'll say, this is what I want to do, what do you think? And most of the time I'd say, yeah, okay, we can do that, you know. And then it's my job to make it happen, you know. But I think that strong number 2— Do you have the freedom to say, dude, that's a bad idea?

53:20Yeah, I think he respects my input. He asks a lot for my input, and I've had to earn that over time too, you know what I mean? But I believe so because of his history and me meeting him and my history and my growth. I think that I've earned that. But he does— My job is to go in there and create chaos and then walk away.

53:39And then call me. I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good at that. And call me and say, hey, Brad, see you later. You got this going on. You got to get there. And I got to figure it out. And I do it. But anyway, a number 2 might be the difference for you between, you know, if it is a fourth store, or for you to feel like you can get over those wounds that you might have had over the last year, year and a half, you know.

54:00Well, I've got a director of operations now that, uh, might be that guy. Uh, good. He's just very, uh, soft-spoken. He's very level and calm. You know what wins is positivity and energy. Does he got— does he bring that? Is he a rock? He a leader? I try to be very calm and, and level also, just because I have, I have big emotions.

54:23We all have big emotions, right? But I learned a long time ago that, uh, letting the big emotions out maybe isn't always super helpful. Sometimes it's necessary, but, um, I think I do need that high drive, high motor guy, and, uh, I've had that, but I found out there were some characteristics there that didn't check the right boxes. I like the high drive, high motor guys.

54:50Yeah. Give me all the horsepower and small brakes. You'll figure out how to do small brakes or no brakes. Figure out the rest. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out. The good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes, so why not laugh a little bit Learn a little bit and maybe have another drink.

55:13You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover, or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike@confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership.

55:36I'll see you on the next episode.