Bonus Crossover Episode: Todd Hayes on the Howie Carr Show

0:00Welcome to Meet the Experts with Howie Carr, now available in video format at howiecarrshow.com. Howie welcomes Todd Hayes, founder and CEO of Auto Shop Answers, training repair shop owners how to scale their business and improve their customer satisfaction while also building generational wealth. Todd is also the CEO of Houston Boston Partnership, a private equity firm seeking new partners in the automotive industry.

0:35This episode is full of potential for repair shop owners and anyone looking to grow their small business, whatever it is. For more information on how to take part in one of Todd's upcoming seminars, visit AutoShopAnswers.com. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Carr. Welcome everyone to our first video episode of Meet the Experts. We've been doing it in audio format for a while now, but this is our first video expert— this is our first video that we've done of Meet the Experts.

1:11And our first guest, our initial guest, is Todd Hayes, and he's an entrepreneur. He's in the private equity business, has been for many years. He is the, uh, one of the partners in the Houston Boston Partnership and Auto Shop Answers, and he's here to talk about, uh, how to build, uh, private equity, especially for auto shop owners. But if you're not an auto shop owner, if you just have a small business or you want to someday have a small business, there are lessons here for you to learn.

1:53Yeah, absolutely. In private equity. Tell us about what you do. Well, thank you, Howie. It's so great to be on your show. Thank you. Much less the first video show. You know, I've been on a weight loss. I've lost about 120 pounds, so at least they're seeing skinny Todd, not fat Todd. So you don't have to worry about the camera as much as you used to.

2:14That's right. You don't have to pull back to Idaho. Right, right. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, Background is business. I'm like a serial entrepreneur, grew up in an entrepreneurial family. And, you know, back in 1986, I launched my first small business in the automotive space. We called it Auto Hospitality, kind of taking, you know, I worked at Steak and Ale when I was going through college.

2:46And really took a business model from the restaurant industry and incorporated it into automotive repair. But we called it automotive hospitality, the whole hospitality world. And, you know, I started out at 26. I was able to grow that chain. I did my first private equity deal when I was 37 years old. And, you know, the more you know, the more you know.

3:18And so here we are again on a very, very large private equity scale today. And I don't know if people really understand the true power of private equity, whether in air conditioning business, roofing business, Lowe's. I don't care what retail business you go to, about half of all retail businesses in America are owned by private equity or partnered with private equity. So, you know, it's just an amazing way to create generational wealth as long as you're very strategic with private equity.

3:55And private equity means you, you, you have this business, you own it, your family owns it, and you bring in private investors, outside capital, outside capital. And but we'll get into it. We'll get into all that as we go along. First of all, let's talk about Auto Shop Answers. That's what you're here specifically today to promote. Yeah. Now, this is a way for auto shop owners to come down to Houston, right?

4:24And they take part in— why don't you just tell us about the seminar? Well, back in 1986, again, we kind of reinvented the whole automotive experience. Of car repair. And so, um, through that, you know, working with the restaurant industry, front of the house, back of the house, table turns, bay turns, touch every table, touch every car, hot food getting cold, cold food getting hot, you know, speed of service, runner, runner, runner.

4:53And so I took that from the restaurant industry and I incorporated it into automotive And in turn perfected a business model. It doesn't matter if you're in the automotive business model, um, space, any retail business space where you deal with a customer, it's about outrageous customer service. Auto Shop Answers is actually a company where we train that business model. Now, the good news is we can train auto shops all over the country, which we do, and we train a lot every month.

5:30Every single month of my life we have training going on in Houston, but it's actually migrated into other service platforms— air conditioning, roofing, plumbing, steam cleaning— because customer service is customer service. And one thing that business is failing at today is they have high technology, very low customer service. And we're into high technology yields higher customer service. So with Auto Shop Answers, you train owners and teams to get into auto hospitality or plumbing hospitality or air conditioning hospitality just to get some of the companies that you would know that we train.

6:16We train Midas, you know, and Midas has— when we started training them, I think they had about 800 units. We're very involved with Midas. They're just an amazing company moving very forward with AI and auto hospitality. We— there's a lot of private equity automotive space that brings their team members in to learn about auto hospitality. Then we have just the mom and pops who come in.

6:44And the beautiful thing about mom and pops is that's really our private equity flywheel. It's really our funnel. And so when someone comes through and Auto Shop answers and we see that they have game, well, certainly there's someone that we want to start a relationship with. And so, you know, part of— when you say game, you mean potential. Potential. Yeah. Yeah. Potential.

7:12Because there's a lot— again, America does not need another car repair shop. They're on every corner. But auto hospitality, we have owned that market for so many years.— that when we see someone come in from the auto repair space and go, wow, we love what you're doing. And I can give example after example of that. It radically changes your business, your life, your income, and it does set you up to have generational wealth.

7:43So you have Auto Shop Answers. You go down to Houston for a weekend. A weekend, yeah. A week of seminars. Normally, just to give you a heads up, we do what's called a rack attack. What the heck is a rack attack? We teach you how to do a pit crew on cars. I grew up in Daytona Beach. And so part of my inspection process comes straight out of NASCAR, which is a pit crew approach to inspecting cars.

8:11And so that happens on Friday evening. And then Saturday, Sunday is full, 2 days, key to key to callbacks is what our business model is called. We have that running, which is normally sold out every month. And then we have another program running on the same weekend at our Woodlands store, which is called Courtside. So Auto Shop Answers is where people go to learn the business.

8:42Right. But, but it also serves as kind of like a rookie camp. Yeah, sure. And you, and you look to see who's got potential. 100%. And if if, if you think they've got potential, then you'll reach out and try to get them into this Houston-Boston partnership. Now why don't you explain what that is? That's a great story. Well, I can give you an example of that.

9:05You know, we were down in, um, I was actually doing a training program down in North Carolina, and we met a guy, JJ Mott. Okay, JJ Mott, just the sweetest guy in the world. And he comes in, you know, we're a faith-based business and we love the Lord, and JJ goes, man, I don't even know what I'm doing here, but, um, I, I've heard about and so I want to come in and listen to your program.

9:28And I said, well, I think you came to the right place. And so, um, JJ and I, we actually prayed right then, and, um, he sat down. We put on a 4-hour presentation called How Can This Be Wrong? How can great customer service be wrong, Howie? It's impossible. How many businesses do you go to with bad, poor customer service? The customer is always right.

9:48Yeah, amen. Well, that's That's in our generation, buddy. In today's generation, ain't got time for you. It's like, what? They pay for everything. But JJ comes through a 4-hour training program in North Carolina. He goes, man, I got it. I'll be in Houston next month. JJ has come through our program, I do believe, 18 times now. Now watch this. 18 times. Yeah, because, you know, you're learning a business model.

10:19You're completely Transforming your business. Now here are the results. So last month, all-time record month, $680,000. When he joined my— when he joined Auto Shop Answers, he's doing about $125,000. He had an all-time record net, net of $250,000 in a month. Now look, you gotta push back, but you can get by on that. I know it's hard. Yeah. And see, all of the $3 million a year transforms her life.

10:55It transforms her life. You know, when I met Bill Broussard, who— Bill's actually in the room sitting here. He's my dear friend. JB Auto Care. Shout out JB Auto Care. Let me tell you, you know, Bill and I have been stuck at the hip for about 2 years. I mean, 20 years. And I love this so much. You know, I'm sitting at my funky beach house down in Daytona Beach.

11:21I've been very blessed, you know, obviously in business. And I have this guy calling me up and his name's Bill. You know, that would be Bill Broussard. And Bill goes, hey, I hear you're pretty good at training, you know. And I said, well, thank you, you know. And he goes, do you think I'll ever do an 80? Well, I'm thinking $80 million.

11:40He's thinking $80,000. And so I go, "Yeah, I think we can do that." And so fast forward 20 years later and JB Auto Care is a spectacular company again over in Weymouth, is a leader in the industry. He not only has done $80,000 in a month, I think his record is well in the 500s. I don't think he's broken $600,000 yet in a month.

12:12But high, you know, just a superstar and a partner in HBP. So Bill is actually our chief growth officer now. And so Bill has now taken J.B. Auto and I kind of laugh at him and I go, hey, I wasn't kidding about that $80 million, was I? And Bill goes, no, you're not. No, no, no, you weren't. Because Bill has done a spectacular job, not only with the growth of J.B.

12:40Auto, But he is a partner in all the Auto Shop Answers family of businesses. He is a partner in the Houston-Boston partnership, a partner in all the stores in Houston, which again, Houston, we have 5 units down there. It's about a $35 million a year annual market for us. And Bill's instrumental in that market. So, so we— people go to Auto Shop Answers, the operators of auto shops and other places, other small businesses.

13:12Sure, any business can learn from this. And then if you like what you see, they learn ways to make more money, to run a better business for everybody, themselves and for the customers. And then if it looks like they've got game, as you say, the Southern phrase, then you, then they can, then you can talk about the Houston-Boston partnership. And this is bringing in private equity.

13:44Explain how that works to people and explain it again. This is not only for auto shop owners. This is for all small business people. Any business. Yeah. Well, you know, back when I was, and I'm going to try to just give it as easy as I can. You know, I was 17 years old, my father-in-law, my mentor, started teaching me private equity.

14:06And here's the easiest way to look at it. You'll go, wait, say that one more time. So, you know, if you make a dollar as a paycheck, okay, and you're taxed at 30%, okay, well, you get disposable income of $0.70. Whoo. Yeah, great. And then, you know, if you are a well-run machine, a well-run machine, and every dollar of profit you make, you can sell for $10 and $20, and you're also taxed at long-term capital gain.

14:45Well, okay, I'm going to get 60 cents or $10 to $20, and I'm going to be taxed at long-term capital gain versus ordinary income. Well, it doesn't really take a rocket scientist to understand you need to really understand private equity. And what happens is most small business owners, they have 100% of their net worth tied up in their business, period. Well, you have to find a way to de-risk that portfolio.

15:16If I told you, hey, Howie, I want you to put 100% of your wealth on this stock, you would go, yeah, Todd, that's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. You would want to diversify that portfolio. Well, that's all private equity allows a small business owner to do is diversify his portfolio. You can, you can do a 30%, 70%, 30/70 split. You can do 50, you know, a 50/50 deal.

15:45You know, right now I'm working on a very large deal for Houston Boston Partnership, which is 25/75. They will have majority, but they're not— the private equity, the private equity will. Yeah. And the, for a whole lot of money and the owners will have a quarter. Yes. Yes. And the owners get to keep their brand. They get to keep their name, but here's the beautiful thing.

16:08They pay that in cash. So now I have an owner getting a de-risk of their portfolio, which can be so valuable. So what, what percentage of the people that go down to, uh, Auto Shop Answers seminar do, do, uh, you— it's a small percentage. A small— yeah. And here's why. Most people don't have, um— and I, I'll just put it out there, you know, when you're talking about growing a business, it's hard.

16:38You know, most people don't have the discipline. Yeah, yeah, you've done it. See, it's hard. People, people think, oh my God, Howie, you're a newspaper radio star, it's so easy. Yeah, yeah, they don't know the backside. It's so hard. See, you're a business owner. They don't understand that. They don't understand the grind. You know, I call it work-life integration. I work 7 days a week, period.

17:02My phone is always next to me. I travel every single week of my life scaling companies. But the rewards are so amazing, not only for your family but for future generations. That's why they call it generational wealth. We'll see. We're not in the car repair business. We're in the hospitality business. There's enough car repair businesses out there. We're in the customer service business, one, which changes the dynamic of that.

17:32Two, I do look for superstars. It's like any other business, any other— just like it's just like wealth in America. Is controlled by such a small percentage. Do you know why? Because there's such a small percentage, right, who wake up in the morning at 3:30 in the morning, start busting their butts, work all day, go home. They don't drink, drive. They don't do stupid stuff.

17:58They scale companies. They go to sleep. They don't wake up, play video games, do crazy stuff like, oh my gosh. You know, I mean, man, it is hard to scale a company. Very hard. So before we talk about private equity, let's talk about what happens at an Auto Shop Answers seminar. Sure, great. 'Cause most people aren't gonna get involved in private equity who go to Auto Shop Answers, but they could still make a lot of money.

18:29Double their revenue. Any business that goes through— So tell us briefly what they're gonna learn in that weekend in Houston. Well, about outrageous customer service. You know, really, you know, my industry, in any industry, you know, today I call it yestertech almost, you know, we have yesterday's service with today's technology. And if you can think of the old gas station, full-service gas station, ding ding, people go running out, they would wipe down the windshield, they would check the air in your tires, lift the oil, check the oil.

19:00See, everybody knows that. What happened to that? What happened to that? Now you gotta put your own damn gas in your car. No one checks your tires, no one checks your oil. And actually, the reason that business went away is because the oil companies got so tired of dealing with technicians and they said, you know, we're done with this. Let's cap those bays off, let's put C-stores in.

19:24I think we can make more money selling lottery tickets, cigarettes, alcohol, tobacco. And they can. Boy, and they don't have any hassles, but man oh man. And so what happened was then the small business mechanic had to get into his own business without oil company help. Well, that's like me going out and buying a toolbox, Howie, putting tools in it and becoming a technician.

19:51That's not going to happen, you know. So we teach technicians how to go from master technicians to millionaires, how to answer the phone, How to send out a shop tour, how to do meet and greets. When that customer hits that store, it needs to be clean, spotless. Give them a shop tour. Differentiate yourself from the industry, from car repair. I mean, the minute you say the word car repair, you instantly get a feel of it, don't you?

20:21You know, or you say tires. My hands are dirty. Greasy. Yeah. Just from sitting in there. Where did you go? I went to the tire store. Yeah, you smell like a tire. Our stores do not smell like tires. And, or you go to an auto repair shop and you instantly got to go take a shower. You know, it's like, yeah, but our stores are spotless.

20:41And we teach people how to have curb appeal, how to be great, how to have a better presentation. You know, in 1986, I had a defining moment where I took a Polaroid picture of a broken car. The customer told me no, and it was so bad it had to be done or he was going to ruin his motor. And so I took a— I ran down to Ecker Drugs.

21:06I buy a Polaroid camera. I take a Polaroid picture. And when the customer came to pick up the car, his van, I said, Mr. Jones, I was so concerned about your van. I went down, bought a camera. Here is that intake leak. It needs your immediate attention. And what did the customer say? Fix it. Well, wow. Okay, so from now on, I'm going to be taking pictures.

21:33That makes all the sense in the world. Evidence, as they say. Yes, there you go. There you go. You know, an exhibit. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You know all about that. It's the same. Yeah. You know, and the better the presentation, the higher the close ratio. So today that turns into a video presentation, turns into a motivational animation attached to a ChatGPT description.

21:57Sent to the customer. The customer, we can watch them watch the video, we call them up and close the deal. So you call it going from master tech to millionaire. Oh yeah, a lot. And it's just in, just in two, in just in the weekend, the two days in Houston, two and a half days, you can, uh, you can see, uh, double, double the revenue 100%.

22:17Yeah, yeah, any store, any store. If they want to, uh, if they, they want to go to an Auto Shop seminar, boy, go to autoshopanswers.com, autoshopanswers.com. That'll fill you in on everything. Yeah, it'll fill you in on everything. Gives you the next class, all the live classes. Every month. Every month. A weekend. A weekend. It's a weekend every month. Houston. Yeah. And talk to Todd Westerlund.

22:42Again, you'll find him through AutoShopAnswers.com. You can sign up at AutoShopAnswers.com. Hey, if you're faith-based, we also have Auto Shop Ministries. We actually have a live minister on staff. Who actually does a Sunday service for anyone who comes in on Sunday. And it's just spectacular what we do for the industry. We love this business. Tell us how, how a guy who's got a shop on a corner can, can cash out or somewhat cash out or get, get some return on some equity.

23:22How does that work? And how do you, how do you set it up? Yeah, well, the first thing I would recommend is, again, Adam Coffey is a strategic advisor for us. He works with Houston Boston Partnership and he's a rock star. First thing I would recommend, read his book. Also read all of Howie's books. God, you're really good. My mom loves you.

23:43Hi, Mom. Yeah, but, you know, read Private Equity Playbook. Private Equity Exit Strategy. Those are great. Adam Coffey, C-O-F-F-E-Y. That's right. Yep. Just a real rock star and works with us. We put on private equity roadshows with Adam about once a quarter. He's a star. But, you know, again, when you're thinking about de-risking your portfolio, so you might have kids, you know, and, you know, people want to keep their legacy rolling.

24:15Well, this is a great way to do it.. And so we teach you how to do it. Well, when you join our team, we're the good guys. You know, we will do a 75-25 deal with you. We'll pay you if you're integrated, pre-integrated with us. That means you're using my business model. You're using our call center. You're using our recruiting company, all this Fortune 500 infrastructure that I bought.

24:42Well, I'm going to pay you a higher multiple. Than just some private equity company coming in off the street. So do you buy the— you do you buy in or you, you buy? Yeah, yeah, we do. Okay. Yeah. So it's not— you're not searching for, you know, Mr. X in Duluth? No, no. What happens is they come in and we have an unlimited funnel of people now because our reputation is so good.

25:07I mean, poor Bill handles that side of it also for me, and he goes, I can't keep up. And I go, I know. And so actually, you know, we scaled. My mission was to scale to about— and so, so, and, and I want to stay on your question though of how does this work. And so that guy comes in who has maybe a single store, 5 stores.

25:30Well, he wants to get the best bang for his dollar, right? Well, and so we can show him, we will walk him step by step how to do that. And increase the multiple to his EBITDA. So, you know, the average small business out there might get a 3x. You can join my team and I can get you double that. I'll pay you double that, 6x up to 10x if you're a superstar.

25:55That's a lot. I mean, every dollar of profit you make, I'm going to give you 10. And then people go, well, could you please explain what 10x means? Because I mean, this is really just break it down. Here's how it works. That means I'm going to give you 10 times earnings. That means 10 years of your earnings today for what you're making.

26:16See, everybody makes it so complicated until you start listening to it and you go, oh wow. So if your company's making $400,000, 10x would be $4 million. $4 million. $4 million. You're going to get $75 percent of that in cash. We're going to roll the next 25% because you can double that as we scale the company because we're going to sell that and keep selling it.

26:42You know, the thing about selling your company or de-risking your portfolio, you can do it 2, 3, 4 times. I think Adam has done it. I think his biggest— Adam Coffey, this is the guy who wrote the book that you should buy— was about 6 times. CC, you can keep flipping it, keep flipping it, and each flip you're going to double your money.

27:02So that $4 million turns into $8 million. That $8 million can keep rolling, keep rolling. And all of a sudden— so what happens? What happens to me and the company if I, if I sell out? I get business. I keep running. We want good operators. Here's why. Here's the thing that is misleading. Now, there are some private equity companies— I don't like this— they will come in and buy 100%.

27:23Well, then the founder's gone. Okay, well, guess what happens when you got a good operator? Oh, there you go. See, it's the craziest thing. Like, no, I tell my people, if you become part of Houston Boston Partnership, the only way you'll leave is if I kill you. Because, man, I need you to keep operating. But here's the down— I will make you very rich.

27:48That's a fact. But now you still have to keep that same work ethic that you had to grow that company to do it for my second turn. It's called the second bite of the apple. So how many people, how many people are currently involved in this? How many? We have 14 units right now. Those 14 units generate close to $100 million in revenue.

28:08We're pushing $20 million in EBITDA. So I'm going to get a pretty large multiple. So right now I have an enterprise value on my 14 units is somewhere between $300 and $400 million. My team has turned down $300 million as a de-risking of our portfolio. And, and again, we have an unlimited deal flow so we can keep growing that. I needed— it's called the PE pyramid.

28:33Again, if you listen to anything Adam talks about, it's getting to that. Once you get into that $100 million in revenue number, I'm $100 to $200. It's a different private equity group that can look for you. See, they can't really buy real small companies, and that's why we can. We buy them as bolt-ons, and then they buy us, um, because we're the platform company.

28:56So, so Auto Shop Answers, you're, you're trying to train people, but at the same time you're looking for potential partners? Partners, 100%. Yeah, it's too— oh yeah, it's many things. You think about it, you know, in my space, we not only have Auto Shop Answers, we have Auto Shop Recruiting. So, you know, that's really a false narrative out there when they talk that there are no technicians.

29:22Well, there is a shortage of technicians in auto repair, not in auto hospitality. Not if you can give them plenty of hours, not if you can give them a beautiful workspace. I mean, you know, JB Auto, perfect opportunity. Air-conditioned facility, clean floors, clean environment, great owner, great CEO. Well, my God, he's stacked with people, and man, he's a great guy to work for.

29:48Charlie Zalacos, air-conditioned shop, PCC Watertown and Newton. Well, it's not very hard for me to recruit guys that can make unlimited hours because we are that good. And so we also have a recruiting company. We have a call center. That means if Howie Carr brings his car to us, you know what we do, Howie? We're going to call you and thank you for bringing your car in the next day.

30:12I'm also going to pre-book all your future services. That means every oil change, state inspection, fluid exchanges, warranty. Man, I pre-book it and I'll remind you. You and Kathy never have to worry about your car again. And you know what? If you don't want to bring your car into our shop, all you got to do is call Bill and go, hey, Bill, I need my car picked up.

30:35And Bill will go, you betcha. Call Charlie. You bet. At all of our stores, you have free pickup and delivery. It's amazing hospitality. So how could someone get involved in this? Now, let's, let's go over it here. If you, you know, you just start out by going to Auto Shop Answers. Come down to Houston. Answers every month. 2 days every month. Just look it up.

30:56Come down to Houston and it's life-changing. I mean, Bill is sitting in this room and he will tell you it changed his life. Charlie will tell you it changed his life. I mean, every single client will tell you it's changed his life. I, you know, when I started this years ago, I, you know, it's like that, that old Nordstrom's deal. If you're not— it's the same principle in business.

31:18If you're not completely satisfied with our services, I'll give you your money back. How much money do you think I've given back? Howie, how much? That would be zero. That's not going to happen because within the first hour you go, what is this? It's a fire hydrant of new information hitting you in the face that you can't even comprehend. I mean, we just flew up to Canada with Charlie and the team to train 50 MIDAS units up in Canada.

31:51You know, and man, we started out with a rack attack day on Friday working the shop. Here's how fast you move the needle. So walk in the store, never walked in the store before, grew the ticket average by $400 by properly inspecting the car because it's our professional obligation to inspect the car. Had an all-time record day of a store who's been there for 20 years.

32:14Now, do you think those 50 people watching got buy-in? They're like, oh my God, how did you just do that? Shout out to Charlie and Mike Quinn again. And then the 2-day program happened. Well, by the time you're done with it, you go, oh my God. All it is is outrageous common sense customer service, period. So what separates a $2 million shop from a $20 million?

32:40Period. People. That's it. It's always people. You know, everything about business is people. You have to have great people, period. That's it. You know, when I was scaling my first company, I had a single store and here it was. And I can muscle that store. You know, man, I was open 7 days a week, killing it. I bought this little tiny B.F.

33:04Goodrich doing $10,000 a month. I think my first month at about $30,000, $36,000, $38,000, I scaled that thing on up. And then I opened up my second store in 1980. Well, 1980, you can't muscle two stores, so now you have more management team. And I was like, oh boy, oh boy. And so I started— I hired a recruiting company and I started recruiting great people.

33:30And see, whether you have great front of the house people, your management team, or technicians, you must have great people, period. That's what holds back every single company on the planet. And everywhere you go, Howie, you know, when you bump into that great customer service person or that business is tuned in on customer service, wow, you go, wow, they got game. Well, in my business, there's not many of those.

34:00And so I had to start recruiting people from outside the business. So I look for guys straight out of college, young guys that don't know what lane they're in. And I recruit those guys and teach them my business model and turn them loose, man. And they are fire. And that's how we scale companies. People are going to— people are going to say, I— they're not going to— no one wants to buy my place, Smitty's Auto Repair, down on the corner.

34:26But tell us why. Sure I will. Well, that's what I'm going to say. Tell me a great example, Bill. There was a company right next door to his. This is crazy. These two, these two guys, they had this business. I can't remember the name of it, but it was literally next door to Bill's store. And these two guys worked that store for over, what, 60 years or something?

34:47And they worked for— and, um, and all of a sudden they needed to sell the store. Well, you know, Bill negotiated the deal, they financed the deal, and it was for pennies. You know why? Because they didn't understand business. They knew how to fix cars. That deal right there for Bill was worth millions. You know, we do that all over the country, and we try to explain it.

35:12If your name is Smitty and you got Smitty's Car Repair, well, Smitty, clean it up. You know, turn into a business, have good financial records, mission critical. To get big money for your company, you must have good financial records. Whether it's small revenue, but you better have good financial records. Do you know that most small business owners don't run P&Ls? Like, man, that's insane.

35:40You have to. If you're not counting your money, someone else is. Someone's stealing it. There's so much fraud in business today. Well, yes, I'm familiar with that. Yeah, we are. Hey, hey, hey, check out how he's attending. Yes, we are familiar with it. No, I'm So you just spent 2 days at the Stifel Conference in Boston. This was trillion— a trillion dollars under review.

36:03A trillion dollars. So what I'm telling everybody who's watching this is that Todd knows what he's doing. I do know what I'm— there's so much, and that should tell you how much— that's money sitting on the sidelines, Harry, trying to buy great companies. Even if it's Frank Smitty's. If it's named Spinney's, they'll rebrand it to Now Auto Care. I'll tell you that.

36:29Okay, what's your— what is your message? If they— we're wrapping it up here. What is your message? Come to Auto Shop Answers in Houston, Texas. I don't care if you're in the roofing business, I don't care if you're in the plumbing business, learn our business model. Um, autoshopanswers.com. Um, Todd Westerlund, you'll see all the dates at autoshopanswers.com. Sign up for it online.

36:51This is not rocket science. It will change your life and change your business and change your family. Do your family a favor and sign up here. And again, this is for people, anybody who's got a small business, not— doesn't have to be an auto shop, or you want to someday have a small business. This is a sort of a basic training camp.

37:12Yeah. And one more thing, just as we wrap up and we're out of time. And that is go to Master Tech to Millionaire Podcast. It's a great business podcast. Also listen to it. Where can you get that? On Spotify. Spotify. Matter of fact, we're kind of following your lead. We just went video also. But we have— I don't know how many segments we have, but they're fire also, just like yours is.

37:35Yours is fire. Shout out to Howie Corrigan. Thank you so much. Okay, Todd Hayes, thank you for being with us on our initial video. Broadcast of Meet the Experts. Once more, visit AutoShopAnswers.com to reserve your spot at one of Todd's upcoming seminars. That's AutoShopAnswers.com. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Meet the Experts. We'll be back soon with more interesting guests you're sure to learn a great deal from.