From $2,600 to $260,000: Key-to-Key Transformations - Bonus Zoom Episode 10

0:00Good morning, Glenn Piccolo here with Adams Automotive bringing you another episode of Master Tech to Millionaire presented by Auto Shop Answers. Man, what an amazing weekend we are coming off of. We just wrapped up in Houston, Texas, uh, key to key to callbacks, courtside, and the back office blueprint. What an amazing weekend we just had, and we are going to debrief it this morning.

0:23We've got Charlie Zlatkos on the line, we've got Joe Adams on the line, and we've got Amy Bartel with us this morning. So man, we are ready to get to it. Thank you so much for listening. Let's dive in. Good morning, superstars. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Rockside. Morning, morning, morning. Morning. All right, man, today's going to be a lot of fun.

0:49We've got the player panel, uh, coming off of an amazing weekend Key to Key to Callbacks here in Houston, as well as Courtside. Just an absolute— I mean, just another great month. Every single month is just so great. We had so many new faces. We had so many familiar faces, just people coming back to just continue training, training their team, bringing in new team members as they grow.

1:21Absolutely just an awesome weekend. I was so pumped up, and now I'm just pumped up this morning. We've got this just panel of superstars on the line this morning. We got Joe Adams, who did Key to Key with me this weekend. We always do Key to Key. And then courtside, you've got Mike Quinn and Charlie Zlatkos, and of course, Amy Bartel in Perfect attendance.

1:50She's always there. She's got the record, always at Courtside and just a huge part of Courtside too, by the way, just an absolute superstar in our industry. So we're going to start and we're going to break it down. We're just going to kind of debrief it this morning. So just kind of go around and I'd love to hear the feedback of Courtside.

2:11So, Tarly, how you doing this morning? Hey, good morning, Glenn. I'm great. Actually just came back from a walk with Todd. Beautiful morning. Mikey in Houston. Oh yeah. You know what I was just thinking as you're talking about Amy? She's actually been to courtside more times than I have. Because when we did the Vegas deal, I was in Vegas and she was at courtside.

2:36So Amy has been, I think she holds the record for sure. There you go. So I mean, talk about consistency. She's obsessed with improving and getting better and learning and making sure she's there all the time. So it goes a long way. One thing I wanted to ask you about for you when you debrief this and just give your feedback is, yeah, I saw some pretty emotional videos that bring tears to your eyes.

3:10You talk about changing lives. Tell us about that, man. Oh man, I mean, for all of us on the line right now, Todd has changed our lives. There is no question about it, right? So it changed my life, my family's life, my employees. Amy, the same for you and your family. Joe, your family, all of us, okay? But now it's our responsibility and our job and responsibility to get that information and give it to other people, right?

3:41Pay it forward, as they say. So to have this guy, and I don't know if I should use people's names today. I'll give a couple of examples. Maybe I'll keep the names out, but it was So emotional, as you said. And guy stands up and starts talking. And this company was doing, when we started, which isn't that long ago, by the way, it was just a few months ago, probably about 8 months ago, they were doing $2,600 a week.

4:11So think about that. That is about what, $10,000 a month, maybe 12 at best. Whatever that number is, right? And obviously been through Key2Key multiple times, he's worked Rack Attack days with you, he came in with his brother obviously, came into Boston as well, they worked with me a couple of days, when they were up in Boston like a month and a half ago, 2 months ago, their record was 108 the previous month, so they went from 10,000 to 108, 10x within like 6 months or 8 months, and then Took it and I gave him a little advice and had a couple of phone calls throughout the month just to make sure we keep him

4:55in line. So we took that $108, went to $180. And now he stood up and he says, you know, I was doing $2,600 a week and now we're about to do $260,000. I mean, that was so powerful. And he started talking about his employees and how he's able to become a better mentor for his brother and better, you know, mentor and boss to his employees and changing lives.

5:23And he brought auto hospitality to the city because it didn't exist before him. And it was so emotional. I mean, he was getting choked up and I was getting choked up. So what we do is not just about the money, but obviously you need the money in order to be able to make a change. But there is a solution out there for people that are struggling.

5:46The key to key in AutoSuppasses is the answer. I mean, Todd, wrote the playbook. That is the answer. If you have a struggling business, you just have to be obsessed with it, just like Amy is and just like all of us are, and you just have to do it. And then the other story is, this is an already, is a company, a gentleman that has a chain of stores.

6:10Company been around forever, very solid foundation, already does very well. Came to class in November because his employees came and saw show it a couple of his guys and they're like, wow, you have to go check this out. Comes in November, they have a meeting in the company in December, January 1st, they started implementing the system. Again, this is a very successful company.

6:34They're already doing a revenue, I think of about $36 to $37 million a year. Right now they're tracking $47 million a year. That's more like a 30% increase on the revenue and double on the net because don't forget, again, we'll be talking about P&Ls in for this podcast recently. Once your DNA is paid for, all that extra money flows straight to the bottom line.

7:01So all that extra 30% increase goes straight to the bottom. It doubled his net. That's within 6 months. At the end of this month will be 6 months that they started implementing it. It is that fast. But he bought all in. And the main thing he said too, As I've said this before, he came to class and he's like, "Oh boy, I have to become a better leader and I have to find another level for myself."

7:28So he had to level up for his people to level up. And it's just amazing. I mean, these are some great, great stories. How can you not wake up in the morning fired up trying to help these people? Like, how can you not do it? Yeah, exactly. And you made a great point on the revenue number versus the profit number. And a lot of people don't realize that sometimes, you know, you can have the revenue number go up and, you know, look, we're seeing double and triple revenue numbers, but more importantly, it's that net number.

7:58Like we've seen some companies that the revenue number didn't maybe double, but the net like tripled, like crazy numbers. And so that's another part of it. Like on Friday, having the, you know, the back office deal, which is another insane meeting. I mean, just teaches you about how to manage your business, how to manage your profit, how to not let money leak out.

8:27You know, we got some really great feedback from, from that. So, you know, just all around just such great feedback. It's so awesome just leaving the weekend and getting messages from people like, man, this, I could see what you're saying. I understand. I get it. Like, this changed— this will change my life. And we get those constantly. And then, I mean, this is just people, maybe it's their first time coming through, and then just people continue to come through and it just gets better and better and better.

8:56And it's just so fun. And winning is, man, just absolutely incredible. So, uh, absolutely. Yeah, just great story. So, uh, Amy, let's get— let's hear from Amy this morning. Good morning, guys. Muy bien. Muy bien. I have to mention, I went to the Back Office Blueprint on Friday, and I was, I've been to plenty of the accounting classes previously, but this one hit so differently, and I have to give major kudos to Joe for being a big part of it, because what was really cool is Matt Keyes brought insane information and really kind of dumbed everything down to make it as simple as possible to, again, how we can grow that bottom line and where

9:40you can find you know, you're missing profits and things of that nature. But having Joe there as an operator and kind of bringing it full circle and going, but this is what you need to look at. These are, you know, your payroll expenses and you know what that percentage needs to look like and what that means on an operating level as far as do you have key players there?

10:00Do you have, you know, guys that are having an immediate impact on sales and things of that nature? It just really, it was really very fruitful in seeing that full circle moment of how important those numbers are. What you do when you do a deep dive into those numbers, what that looks like on an operations standpoint. So that was, it was really helpful.

10:22I talked to a lot of really cool shop owners there who were having a lot of aha moments as well. And you know, as many times as I've been through it, Joe really was able to solidify some aha moments for me. So no matter how many times you do it, there is just so much to take away and there's always something that we can do better and always something to improve on.

10:42So that was a really, really good class. So kudos, Joe. That was great. Yeah. I was going to say like, man, I wish I did. I don't get to go to the Friday class because we do the VIP Rack Attack Day over at 1010. So I haven't been to one in a while. And all I hear is this amazing feedback. Just so everybody that's listening knows, because I want to just touch on this real quick, is just kind of what that weekend looks like for us.

11:11So on Friday, we have a VIP Rack Attack Day where you get to come and spend a day in the team or in the trenches with our team. So we worked the whole entire day together. This Friday, we did a $60,000 day. It was absolutely fire. And we just had some, you know, some people with us that were getting to just watch it, you know, just happen in action.

11:33So if you're listening to this, that's a great opportunity when you come through Key2Key, and you bring your team is to come that, that day early and get to actually spend an entire day with the team and just seeing how we do it. Because, you know, classroom setting versus in-shop training, Courtside is obviously, uh, it's a combination of both. You've got the Back Office Blueprint, which is classroom training on running numbers.

12:00Uh, it's just an all-around amazing, like, experience with so many different options of how you can do it. So Joe, yeah, let's get some feedback on that. Yeah, so the Back Office Blueprint was on Friday, and I just want to shout out Matt Keys, our CFO. I've watched him in less than a year really come into the industry and kind of diagnose a lot of the pain points from a back office perspective.

12:28We talked about, you know, identifying talent in your back office and recruiting the right people in the back office. Talked about the main bottlenecks. You know, accounts payable is kind of our, you know, what Matt likes to say is it's 98% of our business in the back office is accounts payable. And when you start running the key-to-key model, you have a whole lot more invoices and parts and quantities that you have to input into Tekmetric.

12:55And how can we use, you know, AI and technology to audit a lot of our invoices, parts, reconciliation, the whole thing. We talked about Fraud, you know, Todd is, uh, we introduced a new character into the mix. His name is Fraud Hayes. He's a policeman in our back office. We want to make sure that we're not getting stolen from. And the beautiful thing about the accounting class is it ranges from, um, you know, people doing less than a million dollars in revenue.

13:25And so we've got single unit operators who, you know, we're learning what the difference between loaded and unloaded expenses are and setting up your P&L and setting up your profit and loss statement to be the exact same chart of accounts that we have at the Auto Hospitality Group, and then being able to button it up to have the main key categories. Where does certain line items go into certain buckets on the P&L, and how can we identify, like Amy's saying, as an operator, the perspective that I get to bring.

13:56Matt has all the numbers and he's a genius in the back office, but You know, really what is the P&L? It's a moving scorecard that allows people like me and allows people like Charlie and Glen and Amy to identify where the main leaks in the business are, where is all the profit going, and how can we build a bigger and more healthy bottom line.

14:16And then on the other end of the spectrum in the class, we've got, you know, multi-unit operators. We've got people with millions of dollars of EBITDA, and when you're at that level, You know, you've got a healthy and mature business. Every percent to the bottom line is so valuable. And we talked— the last thing I'll say before I shift on is, you know, we talked a lot about exit readiness.

14:40You know, the reason that Todd and Charlie and a lot of the feedback we've gotten in the past, the reason Charlie says that, you know, all the money's in the accounting class is because If you're not counting your money, somebody else is. And one, you're losing a lot of profit if you're not counting your money tightly. You're running the key-to-key model. You're going to, you know, when you go from $2,600 a week to $260,000 a month, you know, you might break the company in the back office.

15:08That's a lot more parts to buy. And so you got to build systems to be able to track that money. But more importantly, you know, if you are ever going to do a deal, whether it's with private equity, or whether it's with just anybody, the quality of your earnings and the quality of your back office is really a major indicator for the quality of your business.

15:30And we talk about building a business to sell, you know, whether you're not, whether you want to work for, you know, another 20 years in the business, or whether you do want to exit one day, that you want to build a business that another person wants to buy. And you want to build a business where There are no leaks, you know, because they, and especially in private equity, they're sharks.

15:50They've done 1,000 deals. They do deals for a living. And as a business owner, you repair cars for a living and you run a business for a living. You might only get to sell a company once, maybe twice in your life. So just talking about value creation, talking about arbitrage, about rolling equity, about building a business that is you know, so valuable that somebody comes and wants to buy it from you.

16:14And they, you know, they come in and they see our operations, they see the facilities, but man, at the end of the day, they just want to see the numbers. They just want to see how profitable you are. They just want to be blown away by the unit revenues, by the unit profitability. And then yeah, like Tommy Mello says, revenue is for vanity and profit is for sanity.

16:37We don't want to talk about revenue. We want to talk about profitability, EBITDA, net operating income, and ultimately building a tremendously valuable business. So the Back Office Blueprint was amazing. It was great. We got to learn a whole lot. We were hosted by TechMetric. We had a great day. And then yeah, I'll hand it back to you, Glenn, for the rest of the weekend.

16:58Yeah. Yeah. Actually, before you move on, Glenn, can I take a second? I wanted to bring up TechMetric as well. I mean, they hosted us. Their office is absolutely amazing. What amazing people. They were so welcoming to everyone. What do you need? How can we help? Absolutely amazing, amazing people. We love Tectonic. We love Techmetric. I don't get paid to say this, but they're just great people.

17:22And then the other thing, Joe, maybe you can paint probably a better picture than me. Could you mind for a second telling people about our new website, orahospitality.com? Yeah, it's, you know, AutoHospitality.com. If you're driving right now listening to this, don't, you know, don't get on your phone. But when you're done, go and look up AutoHospitality.com. Shout out Michael Floyd. He's our chief officer and chief technical officer.

17:49You know, he put together our story for pretty much every store that we have in the partnership, you know, in our platform, in our platform at the Auto Hospitality Group. It's got, our history, our backstory before and after we implemented the concept, a few case studies from Auto Shop Answers. You know, it's got some explanations of what it would look like to partner with us.

18:12And then my favorite part of the website and our story is, you know, the Todd Math section. You know, and it's a very key concept that we talk about in the Back Office Blueprint is when Todd was in his 20s, his father-in-law Taught him Todd Math, and it used to be Dad Davis Math. Now it's Todd Math. He said, every dollar you take out of the business is worth, you know, 70 cents at a regular tax rate.

18:36You know, you gotta pay taxes and then you get to go use that 70 cents to buy things, you know, and if you want to do Todd Math, you can leave your money in the business. You can build your bottom line and you get to sell that dollar for a multiple of earnings. And he said, you know, every dollar I leave in the business, I can sell for $10.

18:53And so we've got an even more advanced version of that on the website. You know, read the Private Equity Playbook, research on ChatGPT. I'm not going to explain arbitrage right now, but about how you can leverage Todd Math to partner with not only, you know, an average operator, not only an average PE group, but being able to partner with Todd and the Auto Hospitality Group and rolling equity.

19:18You get to, you know, experience expand and even a more expanded version of Todd Math, if that makes sense. So yeah, keeping your dollars in the business, building your bottom line, building enterprise value equity in the business and be able to roll into an even greater platform with a greater multiple and greater arbitrage. Man, really, really awesome stuff. And shout out Michael Floyd for capturing all of our stories and putting it in one place.

19:44So autohospitality.com. Can't recommend it enough. Yeah, you really need to check it out. You know, one thing about this I can just tell you is like, when you come through and you get in the circle of just people that really know what they're doing, it's like a lot of just so much horsepower that has really done all of the trial and error, the blood, sweat, and tears.

20:14I think back of just the years and years and years that everybody has put into trying to figure this out and just work so hard. And then when it clicks, it clicks. And so the advantage that everybody has to be able to come through now is we're actually seeing lives being changed and and shops being transformed over a weekend. Okay. Like you hear these stories like Tarley and, you know, 15 years of just like grinding it.

20:49And we tell that story and, you know, and, and Perry for, for so many years, like just building this amazing business, but really, you know, how to get it to the next level. And so many of these great stories. And, you know, we were talking with the gentleman yesterday at Key to Key that came 2 years ago, and I mean, he's doing $20 million.

21:13I think he's got 4 or 5 shops, you know, but they doubled, you know, like doubled the revenue, right? Like literally doubled the revenue, like very, very, very fast. And so when you come through Key2Key, you learn the concept. When you go to Courtside, you get to do the concept. When you go to VIP Rack Attack Day, you get to just be in it real life.

21:33I mean, it is just real world in the action. You know, you get to learn the back office. It's so fire. And, you know, let's take a technician that we hired. Took us 2 years to get this technician, right? We talk about always be recruiting as part of our training, always be recruiting. And it took us 2 years to get this technician.

21:56And he comes in and he's a hammer. And he says, man, I wish I would have come sooner. I should have come when you guys called me the first time because you don't know what you don't know. And I think that's the exact same way with this program. And if you're listening out there, you got to figure out a way to come down.

22:18You have to figure out a way to get a seat. You have to figure out a way to get a seat in this class because it will literally change your life. It's like, hey, What if I could tell you you can get a winning lottery ticket? You can buy a winning lottery ticket. I mean, that's what it's like. And it's not about the money.

22:36It's about changing lives. It's about winning. It's about that. But just to put that into perspective, like, if you could know that you were going to buy a seat and then you were going to win, that's exactly what this is. So you've got to come and see us. So anyway, enough about that. Charlie. Amy. Yeah, I want to hear more about Courtside.

23:00Well, you want to go? I— yeah, I hear— here's the other thing to build off of that too, Glenn, is I think that what the reason that I obviously keep coming down is, you know, first of all, I'm really lucky to be able to come down every month and have a seat at Courtside every month, but it's the village that surrounds you, right?

23:18So I mean, every month I come down and we, we get some of the same faces. Shout out Bill from True, he's, he's on on my tail here for trying to take over my record attendance. But I mean, hanging out with these superstars and these elite people that just have the same passion and the same desire and that same, you know, high sense of agency to want to be the best in this business and to want to, you know, provide that next level of service for our customers and to prove that, you know, we can change this industry.

23:51And, you know, the fact that it is marked as, it's you know, being this dirty industry, but we are changing that. And they have that passion for it. It is so cool to build your village. And you know, what's awesome now is having some of your guys coming through, like spending time with— I spent a lot of time, I was in the same breakout group as Lewis, shout out New York, from Cypress, and taking tidbits from him on top of taking tidbits from the Woodlands team.

24:18It's just, it's so cool and it's so much fun. And hearing Kobe's stories and hanging out with your superstars that are coming through the Courtside class, it brings so much more value to the class. So it's not even about, you know, the information that you're sitting through in the classes and what you're doing. It's the village you're hanging out with and the people you're hanging out with and the stories they tell.

24:42And, you know, I'll give my woes and what's been happening and what my frustrations are at our shops. And then how you strategize and troubleshoot that with the other people around you who are so elite is so helpful. And, you know, that was, I feel like, one of the biggest takeaways from Courtside this time is a lot of talking about strategy and working with your team and how you, how you strategize not only working with various customers but working on, you know, individual tickets and but also strategizing how you're just operating your business as a whole.

25:13So there's just so much to get out of these classes that it's not even about the information that's being presented, but it's about the stories that everybody else is bringing to the table. So I mean, I can't say enough, like I woke up this morning with a fire inside of me of all the things that I can't wait to get back into the shop and implement because of things that New York gave me.

25:33And you know, Kobe was talking about and Bill was talking about, and you know, I met Ashley, she was sitting next to me and the things that her and I were talking about. It's, I mean, it's just the village that in the support system that now you gain from sitting in these classes with the best of the best. It is. Yeah. So exciting.

25:53You hear the excitement on your voice. It's crazy, right? And yeah, it's so good. So many times. Yeah. And every time is something new and every time is something— because again, it's just, I can't— it's the village that you're building. And I have to actually, I have to tell you guys a brief story here. We were at the airport last night, um, waiting for our flight, and a shop owner that was at Key2Key recognized, um, my guys in their, you know, Bartell's polos.

26:19And he walked up to us and he's also from Illinois, was on our on the same flight. And he goes, "Oh, you guys are Bartells." And like, you know, so we started talking to him a little bit and it was his first time down at Key2Key. And so of course, what's the number one question? How do I start this, right? How do I implement this?

26:35Where do I begin? And, you know, I told him JJ's story about just go back and start saying yes on the phone. All you have to do is just say yes on the phone and do take fives. You gotta do take fives. Just choose, even if it's just those two things and those two things that seem so small, they are so big, right?

26:52And then the other thing that I've really been thinking on and I've been talking about with my team is you have to learn to speak the language, right? So what is the biggest way to learn to speak the language? You gotta listen to these podcasts. These Master Tech to Millionaire podcasts are the constant language over and over and over again. And not everybody can make it down to these classes every month.

27:15So what do you do in the interim? You pass these podcasts off to your team. You listen to them on the regular. I've listened to, I mean, I've listened to Quinn's recruiting one about A players and B players. I can't even tell you I can't tell you how many times. I've listened to Charlie's Rack Attack podcast multiple times, because there's always something else that you can pick up in these podcasts.

27:34So even when you can't be down at class every month, if you're listening to these podcasts and learning the language and learning to speak that language so you can reiterate it to your team, it's so, I mean, the impact of that is even incredible. So, you know, I was telling them, just get on these podcasts, start listening to them, listen to them over and over again, and it will become second nature, and your subconscious just picks up on it, to see the light of how easy this really is if you just take baby steps to implementing it.

28:05Yeah, we had a guy that was, uh, here, I think it was probably 2 months ago, and it was his first time here, and he was like, man, oh my gosh, thank you so much, like, everything you guys are putting out, this content you're putting out, he's like, our numbers went straight up, and he'd never even been here before, okay? And then when he comes, he actually goes to a whole nother level, and you, you have to listen to it, you have to be, you know, just constantly training, but, but you have to come down too, and it's got to be a combination of both.

28:36And you're right, like, you are in, uh, you are in a circle of absolute superstars that are thinking like-minded. And that's what I meant, like, Courtside. For me, I got to, I got to do Courtside, you know, a couple months ago when, uh, Key to Key was in Vegas. I did Courtside with Mike, and like I'm learning also. Like, that's another part of this that I love.

29:01I left with a, like, a sheet full of notes that I'm able to get from, you know, from everybody else that's in the class as well. It's not like— it's so interactive that we are learning things from each other, which makes it even better. Like, we've got the model, like the business model is perfected. But what happens when you get a bunch of really, really talented people that can take this model and learn the language like you're saying what they're saying and understand it, well then what happens is all of a sudden you start to get more, just more brain power that can just evolve certain things and it just becomes even better.

29:41So we've taken so many different things from people that come through the class, incorporated it with the things that we already know are a perfected business model and it just makes it better and better and it gets better and better and better. AI class coming up. Is AI this next month, Joe? We've got leadership this next month in July and then August AI.

30:02Yes, it's, AI is crazy. So we've got a leadership class coming up this next month and then the following month is AI. And the thing about AI, I tell this every time, is like if you've been to the AI class and there's another class scheduled, whatever you learned in the last one, it's old news. I mean, there's obviously great things and and there's no doubt that you'll learn from that, but the next AI class is going to be 2 months after or 3 months after the previous one and everything has changed so much.

30:37So just think about that. Like Todd says, AI will not take your job, but somebody that knows AI will take your job. I was talking to somebody this weekend about, they're in the parts department and I was talking to them about some things that we're able to do with parts with auto receiving invoices, you know, auto reconciling and certain things with returns and all this stuff that like the system that they're doing is like, it's old school.

31:10And even though it was like a few months ago, it wasn't old school, it's old school today. It's like, I can do what you just, what you're doing right now, I can do that in 5 seconds. It's like, huh? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm not like, have you heard of Codex? No, I've never heard of Codex. You're behind. Let me give you a tip.

31:30You need to learn it. You need to learn it right away. Because if you learn it, you can start implementing these things because in 6 months from now, you're gonna be way behind because you're already behind. So it's time to catch up. And these are the things that Michael will be able to start teaching people in the class to where you can get, you know, get ahead of the game because it's happening so fast that if you don't, you will be left behind and stuff that used to take us hours takes us seconds.

31:57Okay? And you have to learn these things. So embrace it. It's not going anywhere. You have to learn it. And you really, really should sign up for that class. It will absolutely blow your mind. So man, Joe Adams, man, we had some fun this week, this weekend. Any takeaways, Joe, that you had or any great conversations you had? We had all these great conversations in breaks.

32:23What takeaways you have from this weekend, man? Nothing. You know, it's like business as usual. It's people coming up and they're like, dude, this is— I heard one guy said, and it sounds like we're beating our chest and patting ourselves on the back, but we're not. It's just like this one guy's like, man, I've been doing this 30 years. This is the real deal because it is, you know, it's like it's not kumbaya.

32:46It's like, here's what you do. And the customer says this on the phone. Here's what we do. And the customer gets to the shop for the first time. Here's what we do. When we were trying to recruit a technician. We recruited a guy live, you know, and I think we're still working on it. We're, we're just literally walking through the day-to-day steps of shop owners and people get to see it.

33:05And I love it when people see it. And now it's like my favorite part. I'll get on my soapbox, but it's the are you going to go home and implement a thing? And my rule is like 5% and maybe it's more like 10%, but it kind of feels Like somewhere in that range, like 5 to 10% of people are actually going to go home and do it.

33:26And you know, right away it's predictable. We talk about the predictability of customers, you know, that's like kind of the key factor of the, of the training. It sets everything up. Well, it's predictability of who's going to go home and implement as well. And you can see that the people who are, you know, falling asleep in class, like you're probably not going to go home and do it.

33:44But then, man, what gets me going is like the handful of people that are just like, Oh yeah, I'm going to go home and I'm going to double my revenue. And then they do. And it's the most satisfying thing in the world. So yeah, implementation, Amy touched on it earlier. I would say that the entire business is your booking rate. You know, how well are you converting customers over the phone to visit the store and your ticket average?

34:06And so how do you increase both of those to increase your revenue? Number one, get really good at saying yes on the phone. You know, I would just go home and just start training on that immediately. You know, a big car count covers a multitude of sins. You'll see your revenue go up right away. And then number 2, implement a take 5 exactly like Amy said, and use that take 5 to have daily training, daily training 15 minutes before we open the shop, daily training on the concept.

34:34We don't want to have a take 5 that is talking about the whip screen or what parts are waiting on. We want to talk about the concept, and the concept is what allows our ticket average to go So, man, yes, there are a million things to focus on, on the concept, but those are the main two things. Just start saying yes on the phone, start having a Take Five to train how to say yes on the phone.

34:56And then I would say the lowest-hanging fruit for increasing your ticket average is going to be the quality of the pictures and videos. Just that's it. If you just have a really good Take Five, you just have a really good, you know, system for answering the phone and you have really good pictures and videos. I guarantee you your ticket average, your car count will go up.

35:14And then I guarantee you, you'll feel a lot more comfortable going out and recruiting superstars and, and growing your business. So I'll hand it back to Glenn, but that would be my main strategy, my main takeaway for implementation for sure. Yeah. You know, Taylor, Taylor came up to us and he's, he comes back all the time. He's been through a bunch of times and he always brings his new team members.

35:34And one thing, it was kind of a funny like take on what his thought was, because we were talking to him and he's like, basically, you guys are going to go through here and what you're going to learn is you're going to just, you're going to be just working, you're going to be working harder. You're going to be outworking everybody. That's like the biggest difference.

35:49It's like you're outworking the competition. And that's really what it is. But the good thing about it is, is it's, you know, systems and processes that eliminate decision fatigue. So even though you are outworking the competition and you're working way harder and you're working way faster, well, you're doing it with processes that just don't make you think. That's a lot of people get this mixed up is, you know, they, they, they're thinking too much, okay?

36:16And they have decision fatigue. At the end of the day, they're actually worn out because they don't know when the customer says this, I say this, when the customer does this, I do this. And see, we know that just down to it. I mean, we know every single thing. If the customer says this, we know exactly what to say. If they do this, we know exactly what to say.

36:32We know exactly how to handle every situation. So it just really eliminates set decision fatigue. So yes, we outwork the competition, no doubt about it. We work hard, right? This isn't easy. There is no magic pill. Like, you don't just come in and a lot of people do that. They will send— we had a shop owner that was in and she was like, this is absolutely amazing.

36:51This changed my life. This is something that I am implementing. She's like, I'm going to be on family vacation in July. Should I send my team in July or should I wait? Until the following month to send them where I can come back with them. And I'm like, well, you're already one step ahead of the game because you've already seen it and you already understand it and you already have buy-in to it.

37:11Usually it happens the other way around. Shop owners send their team members down, and when they send their team members down, those are going to be the people that you're talking about, Joe. Some of those people that are sleeping in the back of the class, they're being sent down to a training and they're supposed to come and learn all this information, take it back to the shop, implement it, and all of a sudden the revenue's gonna double.

37:36And that's just not gonna happen if you don't have the owner buying into the actual concept. So it's really hard for you to send somebody down to learn something that you haven't actually learned yourself. You have to at least know the concept and understand it so you can have the buy-in. Because if you have the buy-in, then your team is gonna also have the buy-in.

37:54So I'm like, you need to send them down right away because when they go back and they're like blown away by this, you're already gonna understand why they're blown away by this. And so sometimes we'll have that happen where the owner shows up or comes down, comes sometimes 2 or 3 classes later after they sent team members down and they have a hard time understanding why they can't actually implement it.

38:17And the trick to implementing it is everybody being synced up on the same page, consistency, doing it every day. If not, you will backslide. It's very easy to fall into the traps of the industry excuses if you, who don't execute and practice this concept every single day. It's just like we talk about the day you open your business. You didn't open your business to be average.

38:45You didn't open your business to say no to customers. You didn't open your business up for it to be dirty. You didn't open your business up to use excuses that there's a technician shortage and that it's tax season and that it's, you know, it's holiday season and it's rodeo season and all the other excuses. When you open your business up, you weren't thinking of those things.

39:06Okay, but what happens is you can easily get sucked back in to all of the excuses if you, if you make them an excuse. And, you know, when you have owners that come down and get the buy-in, it's going to translate so much better to your team. And then it becomes a winning formula. We have so many shop owners that say they don't even like going to their shop or didn't like going to their shop, and now they absolutely love love going to their shop because they're in a winning environment and they're seeing people's lives change.

39:38And so I can't emphasize that enough. Oh, you really have to come down. Go ahead, Charlie. I was gonna say, I'm sorry to cut you off. I see you running out of town, out of time, and I know you're about to cut it off, but I had some things to cover on courtside. Gotta take 2 minutes, please. I'm gonna run through them, okay?

39:57Just because I understand time, so This is what I realize. And again, the more we do it, the better we get as well, just like what you said. Okay. But if you simplify everything in order to be successful, you really need two things. Number one is you need a system and we don't need to worry about a system because Todd already did all that legwork for us.

40:16Okay. We can all agree on that. We don't need to worry about a system other than executing the system. Now, what do we need to execute the system? We need people. That is your job to find great people and train them and train them and train them. And just like Amy says, you train them, you send them videos, you send them this podcast.

40:39And now, how do you know if you have the right people? So if I send them a podcast, I say, hey, listen to this. And then the next day, did you listen to it? Oh no, I didn't get a chance. Okay, next day you ask them again. Oh no, I didn't listen. That guy is not bored. Putting that guy or girl, they're just not going to invest the time and effort that we do, right?

40:59So that is the recipe. Now, my favorite parts on Courtside, really everybody's favorite parts. First of all, Hammer Panel. You get to talk to some of these professionals and get to really find out what these people you're looking for look like, smell like, talk like, all that stuff. It is invaluable. And I love the fact now, in the beginning we only had Woodlands guys, and now we're bringing some other guys in from other stores to tell their part of the story too.

41:29So it's amazing. The live reps, that is invaluable. So key to key is obviously the foundation, will tell you how to do it, but people still go back and they don't really know how to do it. Now they have an opportunity to do every piece of the concept with a coach right next to them telling them how to do this. Hey, you made a mistake here.

41:53Don't do this, don't do that. And they give them a reason why. Invaluable. Like you cannot get this anywhere else. One of the things that stood out this class too, 'cause a lot of people spoke about it. We talk about GP, obviously all our money is on the GP, right? And how we shop parts and how do we do that. And I'm surprised till today how many people don't even think about that, but how much it stood out.

42:17Out. So we'll show you how to raise revenue. We'll show you how to do reps, how to have better customer service, how to make more money. Invoice review was a big deal this time around. Again, it stood out. How many things we got to find out during an invoice review? It was incredible. Then the value in that. What else we doing? Accountability partners.

42:40I love that part because everybody comes to class, they learn a lot, and they go back and you're still a little lost. And we tell them, break it down. What is it that you really think your business needs? Oh, I need to change X. Okay, great. Who's gonna be your accountability partner to check in with you, to have somebody to talk to?

43:00Like I said, sometimes maybe you are the owner and you say, I'm gonna change the way we do videos, right? Well, who's gonna keep you accountable in that? Your team doesn't know how to do it, so you need to find a partner from another shop and then I mean, vice versa, you keep them accountable in what they're trying to change. I mean, all these things is incredible.

43:19Another thing you brought up, Glenn, is how we keep getting better. Our system gets better even though it is perfect by really fine, fine-tuning our system and our process and all that information that we collect, it comes back to you guys. It is amazing. And the last thing is you cannot do this once. I get a lot of people that are like, oh, I've been to key-to-key, I know how the system works.

43:42I'm like, this is not how this works. I'm sorry. It really, key-to-key, you keep getting better and better and better and repetitions is the only way to do this. If you came in and did it once, like I was doing a class and I forgot what subject this was. Oh, the modern baguette. And somebody's like, oh my God, I've been through key-to-key so many times and courtside a bunch of times and I forgot I forgot about the born-aback audit.

44:13So even though you went through and you think you know it, you really don't know it. You just have to keep going back and learning more. That's it. Those are the things I had to hit. I'll touch on one final thing before we close. Just, A, you said it with listening to the podcast over and over again, and now Charlie's saying it.

44:30You know, it's like, it's a language, and Todd has been able to bless us with the fluency in speaking the language of business. And I'll just leave with an anecdote. There's a, I think it's either Robert De Niro or Jack Nicholson, you know, two of the best actors ever. And you know, somebody's asking him in an interview, they were like, how do you do it?

44:50Like, how do you get so in depth? Like, how do you understand your characters or whatever? And he just said, he was like, it's really simple actually. I just read the script 250 times. He's like, I just read it 250 times in a row. Go, and then it's just part of you. Like, you just speak, you know it, you know? And it's the same way I feel like with anything.

45:11And, and I've, you know, I've been to the class, I've been to Key2Key 100+ times, and I've just had Todd riding shotgun in my Suburban for 10,000 hours. And it's just like constantly inputting that data into my brain. And 6 years later, really 4 years later, and Overnight success, right? It's like you just speak the language. It's like getting in shape. You don't just go to a 2-day boot camp and get in the best shape of your life.

45:39It took Todd a year to implement systems in his life to lose over 100 pounds. So yeah, I'll leave it at that, but it's the language. It sounds like a sales pitch, keep coming back, but it's really not. It's the most gratifying thing in the world, hearing people's stories because you know the impact it's having on their team members' lives, on technicians' Hey man, I'm fired up.

45:58It's Monday morning. We're ready to go. Boom. Let's go. Well, hey, that's, that's our time today. Thank you guys so much for jumping on. This was another amazing weekend and just what a fun debrief. So let's rock and roll Monday. Let's get back to it and we'll see you next time. Let's go. Boom. Let's get hot. For more information, reach out to Todd Westerland at 925-980-8012.

46:26Or visit autoshopanswers.com. You can get more information about key-to-key to callbacks, courtside. We have a VIP Rack Attack Day where you spend an entire day in the trenches with our team learning this perfected business model. We offer leadership classes, we have an AI Academy, and also get more information about auto shop callbacks. We have auto tech training. We are literally your one-stop shop.

46:50Once again, that number for Todd Westerland is 925-980-8012.