From Key2Key to Massive Cashflow - August Key2Key debrief - Bonus Zoom Episode 13

0:01Good morning. Glenn Piccolo here with Adams Automotive bringing you another episode of Master Tech to Millionaire presented by Auto Shop Answers. We are coming off of an amazing weekend here in Houston, Texas, just wrapped up key-to-key callbacks in the Courtside program. And man, I have to tell you, it was absolute fire. This morning we're going to talk about just how to get started with this concept and You know, just a lot of people ask those questions, man.

0:28How do I kind of take all this in and where do I start? So we're going to break it down this morning. So thank you so much for listening. Let's dive in. Man, what a great weekend we just wrapped up. I am so excited. I'm so pumped up. I was tired last night, I will say. It was, it was a long one.

0:49But man, it was so good. It was sick. It was sick, man. Um, so just wanted to jump in this morning to debrief it. Uh, it was amazing. So many new faces. Uh, just the energy and key-to-key was so fire. Uh, I see Amy on the line. I can't see who else is on the line, but, uh, I really want to get into it and debrief it.

1:13So, uh, Amy, I can see you. So I'm gonna call on you. Let's talk about it. Good morning. We had an awesome weekend at Courtside, per usual. Yeah, I saw some cool videos Josh sent out. What a stud, Josh. Oh my gosh, he's amazing. But yeah, man, it was just really, really good. And, you know, one thing that we love to do on the Monday is kind of not only debrief it, but just kind of maybe go a little bit more into detail on some, some of the things that we don't have time to cover in Key to Key.

1:53So we'll get to that here in, in just a bit. But yeah, any, any great takeaways from this weekend, Amy? Yeah, we had a lot of new faces, I feel like, in courtside this weekend, which is really nice. We even had some Midas guys from from Canada visiting us. So, and they were awesome. They had a lot of great takeaways. What was really cool is Quinn and Charlie kind of changed up a couple things as far as repetitions and things like that.

2:24Most of the stations stayed the same, but we kind of changed up a little bit of how we did the take 5 presentations and practices and repetitions on take 5s, which was awesome. Quinn put together his, you know, famous spin the wheel, and he spun the wheel for topics on take 5. So it just kind of gave a little bit more, um, more importance to, you know, making sure that that take 5 every morning isn't so much operational, but it's very much training and making sure that we're sharpening our skills and that sort of thing.

2:56So we got up in front of the class and had various topics that everyone, you know, because at the point where you're coming into courtside, you have that solid foundation of the key-to-key. You know the process, you know the concepts, you know what needs to be executed. So now continuing to train your team on that and how important that is in take 5 every day.

3:15So, it was really cool. Everyone kind of got up and we did little mini take 5s on whatever topic was spun on the wheel, and it just gave a lot more weight to, you know, that importance of having that take 5 every day and what that can do for your team and how that can elevate you. Yeah, the take 5 is so important.

3:35You know, people always kind of ask, like, how do I get started? How do I, you know, how do I do this concept? Because they come in, they see they come and see Adam's if they do the VIP, or they come after hours and do the kind of open house Rack Attack, and they see all the bays and they see kind of what it's evolved to, but they don't understand.

3:53And, you know, like 6 years ago it was 30 bays. It was, you know, one iPhone, no tech metric, we were just getting started. 4 advisors, you know, just a normal shop, right? And it is really, if you think about it, it's just a normal shop. We have 15 bays now, but when we started, we had 30. And in all honesty, we just don't need, we don't use half of them, honestly.

4:26And if we do, it's just for a luxury. So for those that are listening that may think, wow, well, if I had 50 bays, I could do that type of revenue. I would challenge that for sure because it's not the bays, it's the execution. And, you know, if we had, you know, 15 bays, we would do massive revenue because it's all happening out of, you know, bay 1.

4:54That's where the money's made. And Charlie proves that over and over again with 2 bays, 4 lifts. That does massive revenue. And so we've got all different shapes and sizes. So, you know, getting started, Joe Adams, I'm gonna call you out on this one for maybe a little bit of a, you know, kind of just how to get started with this concept.

5:19Yeah, how do you get started? So, you know, there's a couple things. Number one, you have to have a Take 5 immediately, like every single day. We have a take 5 at our shops 15 minutes before the shop opens. We talk about training. We don't talk about the fuel pump that we're waiting on to get delivered for the Hyundai, whatever. We talk about, like Amy says, the, excuse me, we spin the wheel of the concept board that Quinn's got and we figure out what we're going to be training on.

5:49And we find amazing people that are willing to be trained and run the process. You know, that's pretty much the foundation. You have to have a place to have training every single day, and then you've got to have people that are going to be willing to be trained. That's kind of probably the hardest part about Key2Key is it's like, man, how am I going to get my people on my team to buy into this, this process?

6:14So I'd spend the first week getting back from Key2Key, I'd just start having Take 5, and you're going to find out very quickly who's willing to kind of dive in and go headfirst and learn some new information and who on your team probably isn't. And the first 3 things that I was telling people all weekend to get started with was, let's see, number one is it's really easy to say yes on the phone.

6:37Like, that's a really easy thing to train on, to go through the numbers of booking rate, capture rate, how many customers you're missing through the phones, listening to phone calls, teaching people how to listen to phone calls. And it's a whole lot of fun and there's so much opportunity. So saying yes on the phone is immediate offense. The next one that I always tell people is your inspection process, whether you want to do it exactly like we do it in Houston with the Rack Attack or your shop looks slightly different.

7:06Just figure out how am I going to inspect cars super fast the exact same way every time in whatever setup I've got before it goes to the technician. And then the third thing is quality pictures and videos and MotoVisuals that are being taken by the service advisors. The rest of it is, Pretty complicated. I wouldn't start with the shop tour the first thing, the first thing you're training on.

7:31I wouldn't start with the shop tour, right? Because what happened is you guys just came in, a lot of people just came in and they watched the Patriots. We had a dinner last night and shout out Woodlands team, all-time record, 900,000. And so people are coming into courtside and they're literally watching like Barry Bonds hit 70 homers in a year and they're like watching the Patriots win the Super Bowl.

7:56And it's like going back to your, to your town and you just crushed the high school 6A championship. You're doing $300K, you're doing $250K or whatever. And that's great. But you maybe didn't realize, and this isn't bragging, but you didn't realize that the game was being played at the level that is possible. I mean, I've never heard of $900,000 outta 9 days.

8:18That's just crazy. With big net. So, you know, I was talking to a lot of folks, they're like, man, where do I get started? And it's just, you're not going to win the Super Bowl tomorrow. It's Monday. You got a lot of work to do to get through, you know, the rest of high school and college and then get drafted and then get into the NFL and then get into the playoffs and then get into the Super Bowl.

8:39It's like a lot of work, but you have— it happens one bite at a time. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And so, you know, there's 4 pillars of the concept, like overcoming objections and new customer introductions and all this fancy schmancy stuff, call center and so on and so forth. But I would say that, that just spend a lot of time thinking about the most important things in your shop that'll move the needle.

9:04Most of it, it's people. And then once you have the right people, how do I train those people? And then the easiest 3 things to get started. In my opinion, are saying yes on the phones, inspecting the car really fast, and then making sure you have a quality picture and video on every single repair. And then just do that for a month and then check in next month and do take 5 every single day for another month and then check in and see what you can attack next.

9:30So I'll pause there. Those are my thoughts. Yeah. And I think starting from the top, like it really comes down to people. You know, because you've learned this concept, you've learned this perfected business model, and just like any playbook, whether it be the NFL or the NBA or whatever pro sport you can pick, right? It's always going to start with the people.

10:00Like, because it doesn't matter how good the playbook is if you just don't have the people. That are going to be able to go execute it, or you will be spinning wheels. And so, you know, we definitely talk about the leadership being in the trenches. That's super important. You have to be in the trenches with the team. It just gives you all the data that you need to be able to know, do I have the right people?

10:28That's after you determine Am I an A leader? And if I'm not, what do I need to do to become an A leader? Because A players won't work for B leaders. That will never work. Okay? It will never work. You have to be an A leader. So I think that is probably the most important thing, is to start really identifying the team by looking in the mirror first.

10:56That's super important. And kind of working from there. Yeah, the take 5, it's mission critical as Todd says. You have to have the take 5 and it can't be about, like Joe said, the cars in the shop, who's doing what repairs, dispatching work, waiting on parts and all that stuff. That's more of an operational you know, huddle, like once the day gets started, not the actual training.

11:31And so, you know, when I look back at our Take 5s and we just looked, I mean, in our library, just at our store at 1010, we have 1,400 recorded meetings. And just think about that training. And I encourage everybody to record their meetings. Because if you record them, the people that are off can go back and watch them. You can go back and watch your Take 5.

11:58It's your game film. So I think that's very important. You can, you know, just fine-tune your meetings, right? And look, I think another thing about the Take 5 is there's an intimidation factor there for people to, you know, maybe speak in front of a group. And that's a real thing. Okay? And so, you know, you have to figure out how to do the first one.

12:27So like Todd says, you can do 1,000. Okay? And so sometimes that might be a little bit uncomfortable, right? We talk about Charlie. I don't know if Charlie's on the line, but Charlie definitely was, you know, he feared that, right? It's like, look, I'm gonna tell you something. So the number one fear is public speaking. And, you know, like, like amongst humans, the number one fear is public speaking.

12:56Number 2 is death. How crazy is that? Okay, that, like Jerry Seinfeld says, that means you'd rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy. That's funny. Okay, now that's a, but that's a real thing. And we have to you know, I think address that because I know going to courtside, you're going to be getting up in front of people and you're going to be doing it.

13:18And I understand that comes with, with some anxiety and some nerves. Okay. But you can get through that. Okay. And so, you know, what I like to tell people when they ask me, because I've talked to people about this, they're like, man, I'm kind of nervous about having to take 5. Okay. I don't feel comfortable standing in front of the group and talking.

13:37Okay, it doesn't have to be this grand speech, okay? It can be an interactive back and forth. You can even— it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. It can evolve into that, but it can just be a conversation with the team, okay? And so a good tip for somebody out there that might be listening to this saying, man, I kind of fear that, is if you have to get up in front of a group, ask a question to a team member, okay?

14:07And what that does is it actually helps with that anxiety. If you ask somebody a question, they're gonna answer the question and you don't feel all the eyeballs on you there for that moment. And then you start to get a little bit more comfortable and you have kind of a back and forth and all of a sudden you start to become comfortable talking in front of a group.

14:27So I would encourage people, to learn how to speak in front of a group, you've got to get uncomfortable, you know, to get comfortable. And I think that's super important. And so we've had some people, if I go back 4 years ago, that were very uncomfortable speaking in front of people. And today, like, Charlie is a great example, very uncomfortable speaking in front of people.

14:50And now he's speaking all over the country. And He absolutely loves it. And so what if he didn't do that take 5? What if he didn't overcome that fear? Well, man, that would really limit his leadership, honestly, because now that he's able to stand up in front of people and do this, his leadership has gone to a completely different level. And now he's able to share what's inside of him.

15:21To everybody else. And so I think that's very important and not something to be overlooked, just assuming people feel comfortable doing that. So I don't think anybody— anybody have anything? Glenn, can I chime in on that? Yeah. So actually, there's a lot of good points that you guys have brought up. So Amy talked about how we switched up a few things after, what is it, 7, 8 months of running courtside.

15:46We noticed exactly that is people, people are nervous to come up and talk in front of people, which is actually natural. I get it. So this last Courtside, you know, we had everyone do the concept instead of just going up there and talking about Courtside, what they're trying to get out of it. And what we did is as you spin the board is we either had the scripts up there and as Todd always says, just read it, right?

16:08So it's like, if you got the ISO script, we handed them the scripts and it's like, hey, you don't really have to think. All you have to do is just be able to read it. Which made it easier on people. We did do, you know, if someone comes up and they got objection, you know, finance, or I don't have the money, you know, it's like if they don't, because they freeze.

16:26A lot of people have the idea or the answer, but they, you know, they're so nervous they can't think of it, you know. So it's like, what, you know, you ask your group now, it's like, what are some things? So what are some, you know, what are some things we can tell a customer when they say they don't have the money? Now you get everyone involved.

16:43And we noticed that Um, you know, during courtside is once the crowd started chiming in with some things, all of a sudden the person up front talking was becoming more outgoing and it started flowing ideas in their head and they started talking and then it was much more interactive. So you definitely saw that transition at courtside for sure. Uh, so that's a really, really good point.

17:08But yeah, I know, I know a lot of people go back and they don't they don't know what to do. They don't know what to talk about. You know, they don't know how to start. And like, you just have to do it for sure. And then, but the best way is just, if you don't, if you don't know the objections or whatnot, just, just ask for help from your team.

17:23Your team will start chiming in. But we did notice a big change on that. So that was really good. Um, and then the next thing was, uh, we actually, you talked about looking in the mirror. You know, we, we talk a ton about people. And looking in the mirror was kind of on the back burner at courtside. It was at the very end after all the people situations.

17:43So we ended up moving it to the very first thing before we even talked about any people. And it's like, guys, because we're noticing everyone wants to go back from courtside and go tell people what to do. And they want the best out of their people. They want maximum effort, but they're not giving it. And you can't You can't go back telling people what to do.

18:05You gotta go back and show people what to do. And so we talked a lot more about looking in the mirror and getting things done. We talked about, hey, we need a volunteer for this, and you had 25 people and no one's volunteering. So there's that look in the mirror again. If you can't do it here, you're not gonna go back and do it.

18:24So really good points, good changes at Courtside for sure. But yeah, no, those are, these are great topics and you just, you gotta get in, guys. You gotta go, you just gotta go do it. That's the, we ended that, that last line of the day was the Just Do It campaign by Nike. You know, you just gotta do it. So I'll chime in on that.

18:44You know, public speaking is difficult, but it's really not, you know, when you get passionate and Charlie's passionate because he lived it. I'm passionate because I lived it. Todd is passionate because I, because 'Cause he lived it, Glenn, all of us. And the best advice that I ever received in the world of public speaking was from Todd. He said, don't practice. And I was like, what?

19:09What do you mean don't practice? Like, when you're getting up to talk in front of people, like at a wedding or something, you gotta practice what you're gonna say. You don't gotta just get up there. And when I've gotten up at other people's weddings and stuff and said stuff, I'm so nervous, 'cause it's like, I've never done this before, you know? But when I'm at training, I just don't get nervous anymore because I've done the reps and I know the content.

19:32Like Todd said, you don't practice, you just have to know the subject matter and be an expert. And it's difficult to go to a Take 5 Monday after Key to Key and train on the concept because you're not an expert yet. You have to ride the bike and fall off the bike a million times until you are a subject matter expert. And so I asked this guy, this one guy, he goes, hey, do you ever get burned out?

19:54This weekend he asked me that. I said, of course I get tired, but man, burned out is something different. What do you— I asked him, I said, what do you do for fun? And he said, I drift cars. I like to drift cars. I said, great. You ever get burned out of that? He's like, no, absolutely not. I'm like, of course. So whatever you like doing, imagine if you had to give a TED Talk or something about that.

20:18You know, 5 years ago for me, it was golf. Like I could talk to anybody's ear off for an hour about how great Tiger Woods was and he's the best player of all time. And because I knew what I was excited— it was exciting to talk about that. Like, I know what I'm talking about and I'm passionate about it and that comes through.

20:35And so when you're in a take 5, I think that's great advice. It doesn't have to be some grand speech. Like, me and Glenn have been doing this a long time. Todd has been doing this a long time. Of course, the energy that we can hopefully manufacture in training is the byproduct of us doing it a million times and refining our presentation.

20:56But the presentation that everybody got this weekend was the byproduct of doing it a million times. And so if I would've not, you know, I was, I was not ready to start training 3 years ago. I was, you know, I was like 24, 25 years old the first time I was talking in front of people. And anytime I didn't know the answer to the question, I had Glenn to kind of crutch me up and help me through some of the more complex things about the industry.

21:21But my point is you just have to study it. Like, you just have to have the gene, you know, like Mike's saying, you have to get, like, look in the mirror and like actually learn it yourself. You have to actually learn it yourself and have those huddles. Think of it more of a team meeting in the morning and less of, I'm about to go give a 15-minute presentation on some article of the concept that I haven't really learned yet.

21:45So I love that. Like, just get in the trenches, have a meeting with your team, talk about it. And over the years, you'll get so confident in the way that you guys train at your shop, at your business. If you put in the reps, I promise you, a year from now, you'll speak the language and you'll just feel— there's no rehearsing for us anymore.

22:04Me and Glenn don't rehearse. We just get up there and we share our experience because we've lived it and we're passionate and we believe in it. So That's just my 2 cents. Man, just get in the trenches, put in the work, and eventually you pull your head up 2 years later and you're like, man, I know a lot about this concept. And I think a lot of people have experienced that just coming through.

22:25So yeah, I'll pause there. Yeah, you rely on that muscle memory and you don't— yeah, I love that. Don't rehearse. You know, I remember back early doing Key to Key, I would be driving in and I'm just like thinking about like my intro, right? And it's like, I'm thinking about how I'm going to say it or whatever. And it's like, you kind of get this rush, this adrenaline rush.

22:50So just to think, I'm going to tell you guys something. So whether you're a pro athlete or you're doing public speaking or whatever that is, you have the same physical feeling that's in your body typically before you go on. Joe's played you know, thousands of rounds of golf, but it's like, if you are on the first tee, you know, like you get those first tee jitters.

23:14Like I was reading about that, like even the professionals, right? It's like the first tee, they get up there and there's a little, there's this adrenaline rush. And it's the same physical response that your body has to nervousness is the same physical response that your body has to, being excited, which is like an elevated heart rate and, you know, these different nerves that come.

23:39And if you could just prepare yourself and you, uh, you don't have to actually rehearse it. You just— I literally do not think about anything about Key to Key before I get up there. Um, I don't think about anything. I literally do not think about anything. Matter of fact, I completely tune out of everything on my way into Key to Key. Intentionally, because if you start thinking, you can start going down a rabbit hole and kind of spinning in your head.

24:07I'm just being honest with you, and I do it all the time. Now, when I get up there to do it, initially you get up there and you get a little bit of an adrenaline rush. I don't know if you do, Joe, but I do, because man, it's a new group, it's new people, there's all these faces looking at you, and you got to go.

24:25And then about 5 seconds in, your body just kind of calms down. And this happens with, you know, I did research on this, you know, because I like, I know people have this, this fear. I get it. Like, I totally get it. And, you know, it's just something you have to learn about, study, learn your you know, learn what you're about to, you know, talk about and just know it like the back of your hand.

24:58And then muscle memory will just take over and you just can become really, really good at it. So I just say that because I know like one of the hardest things to do is to start. And it like, if you have that fear and it's the most important thing that you have to do to start. And so people will put that off because of that fear, and it really is just a roadblock to open up the whole entire process.

25:28Can I chime in too? Sorry to interrupt, Glenn, but 100% validate that. Like, I have the same experience, and I had the same experience the first time I ever sold a job to a customer. My heart was pounding. I remember that. It was so weird. 'Cause I'd never done that before. I remember feeling so nervous, like so weird to think about it back then.

25:49Like first few calls I took and did the Anytime presentation, it's like, I like was like scared to like, what if something goes wrong? Not, it's not that I was scared. It's just that you're in a position that you've never been in before. And there is a real live customer asking you a question. And I've like heard Todd say it a million times and I'm like, shoot, it's like a performance.

26:08You're like, shoot, I have to. And I remember being in high school and playing in golf tournaments and it's like, shoot, I've hit a million golf balls, but this is different. There are people watching me. My parents are here. You know what I mean? They paid for me to be in this tournament and I got to take this seriously. And it's a performative thing.

26:27So I would say a lot of people, I think it's human nature to think what could go wrong. And I want to reframe it and I want you to think of what could go right. It could go right. What if you do great? And what if you do better the next time? It's an asymmetric bet. What I mean by that is, what could go wrong?

26:49Nothing. When you do that first shop tour and you're like, man, I'm kind of nervous trying to sell this job to this customer, the worst that can happen is you don't sell a job to a single customer. Great. The best that can happen is that you get slightly better time after time after time, and then a year goes by and it's like, you've 1,000x'd your productivity by being able to train on new customer intros and getting your whole team rowing in the same direction and getting so good at parts of the concept that you can influence your revenue and your business and eventually open up a second location and eventually elevate people in your business.

27:27But none of it happens unless you literally jump off the cliff and just do it scared. It's pretty much Do it, do it scared, or just continue to be the same for the rest of your life. And you gotta just do it. Like nobody, Tiger Woods in the 18th fairway at Augusta, you know, you dream of being in that position, but if you just don't do it scared, you know, you'll never, you'll never get there.

27:50And the reason he's confident is because he's done it a million times. There's this concept called worthy to win. We learned about this at the RILA conference. Pat Riley, head coach. He's won 10 championships or 11 as a player, as a coach, and as an executive now, I believe with the Miami Heat. He said he would train his team members, the players, you know, he said he would train them.

28:16Are you worthy to win? Did you put in the practice? You know, if you're nervous, it's because you haven't done it before. You haven't put in the practice, but I've put in the practice. Glenn has put it into practice. Mike, Charlie, so many people through P2P, Amy, everybody. When you put it into practice, it's like you have this feeling, this sensation of being worthy to win, and you just get comfortable.

28:39And then it's onto the next thing. We talk to private equity people, we talk to bankers, and it's intimidating. And Todd's not intimidated because he's done it before. And then a year goes by, 2 years go by and Todd's trained us and I don't get intimidated anymore because it's the same. I've practiced, I've learned, I've done the research, and we feel worthy.

29:02And so I encourage you guys to just study it, just like anything. Just try to become obsessed with it and bury your head in the sand and don't get distracted with TikTok and Netflix and Facebook and just study it. I've literally, I was reflecting on this last night, Todd, he's crazy. He literally, I remember being 23, 24, trying to turn music on in the car when he was driving around, when we're visiting stores.

29:29And he was like, he was like, turn that off. Like he told me one time, he's like, turn it off, man. I ain't got time for that. And he was just talking to me and I thought he was so, I was like, dude, I'm tired. Like I want to relax and put some music on. And I'm not saying don't listen to music.

29:41I still listen to music every now and then, but he, He doesn't have time for it. He's like, this is valuable time for me to be training you on the concept and to be talking about business. So keep that in mind. Like, Todd is just a byproduct of 40 years of obsession over one thing, and that's the business. And the reason he is that way, and what I'm coming to find out as I grow up in this industry, is it's more— it's just more rewarding.

30:10It's more gratifying. It's more rewarding to go to a dinner last night with The Woodlands team and celebrate people that have truly transformed their life and their career with our company and talk about that and win. It's more rewarding to do that than it is to listen to a new country album, in my opinion. So I'll get off my soapbox. I do want to hand it to Mike Quinn if he's still on the line about that dinner.

30:36There's an exercise we do in courtside that is a scatterplot. And on the y-axis, it's talent level, 0 to 10. And then on the x-axis, it's complexity to manage, difficulty to manage, 0 to 10. And what we found out is sometimes the most talented people are the most difficult to manage. So I'll pause there. Mike, I want to hear your thoughts, just reflecting on our celebratory dinner last night courtside and the journey you guys have been on at The Woodlands.

31:07All of it. Perfect. You kind of broke up on me a little bit, but I heard scatterplot. So yeah, scatterplot. I didn't hear anything else. Yeah, just debriefing the scatterplot and last night's dinner. Oh, dinner. Okay. Yeah, perfect. Yeah. So we had a great team dinner. It was actually our first— kind of surprising. It was our first team event in 3 years.

31:32So it was like a pretty special one. We went to Tru Lux and obviously it came after doing $900,000 in revenue. The guys working on their days off last month, $289,000 in net out of that store, which is pretty remarkable. So we decided to celebrate as a team. Tru Lux had a nice little private room, but we gave out some hammer awards and whatnot to the guys that have all been with our company for— that staff's been with us for anywhere between 3 and 5 years, you know, which is, which is also amazing.

32:08And those guys' lives are completely changed. Um, we talked about guys getting out of debt, uh, guys buying homes, guys getting their kids back, you know, guys, um, you know, having great relationships, uh, with their significant other at home. All has happened in the last, you know, few years at the, at The Woodlands. And that's something I talked about where Like, I didn't realize what changing lives meant, you know, until I came to this company.

32:34I didn't, I mean, I've never even heard that before. And it's always like, I kind of lived in the world of you just do what you do, you know, and if anyone wants to join, they can join. But the reward for changing lives, and I didn't really say last night, which I should have, is like, these guys have completely changed my life, you know, like, and it's, I should have said that last night.

32:56So if they're on, I'd love for them to hear that. But, um, but why we talk about a lot of scatter plots, you know, me and Joe have been strategizing the scatter plot for a long time now. And what it is, is, you know, the woodlands we've all seen is, you know, these guys were tough to manage. They've been to multiple shops, they've been fired, transpired, quit, all this stuff from shops over the last 15 years.

33:18And they get, they get over the woodlands and their management complexity is a 10, but their sales ability is a 10. So they're typical guys that cause problems, but they can sell anything that people get rid of. When I look at these guys, you know, I've learned a lot from Todd this way is they're not thieves. They're not, you know, drunks. They're not missing a ton of work where it's detrimental.

33:43They just need it. They need direction. They need a father figure at the end of the day, you know, and it takes time to get that. There's a lot of patience, a lot of work outside of outside of work to help these guys. But what I've noticed, and we talk about the scatterplot, is with especially Felix, William, and Joe, is they're all transitioning from 10 management complexity, tough to manage, dropping down to the 9, to the 8, to the 7, to the 6.

34:13I think we have them all the way down to a 4 on one of them, but their ability is still high level. And it's pretty rewarding to see that and notice that they're much easier because these guys are on the road to greatness. They want more than just being service advisors. They want to run stores. And so that's where we're trying to get them.

34:34But look, when they return, look what happens is we're helping them grow into their life. And I think the main thing is how do you do You know, let's just say realistically on average we're $600,000 a month store. That's what we've been doing. But obviously the $900,000 is great. It's because they're happy. You know, their life is completely different. They don't do that without everything at home being well, them having money, them working as a team, you know, them having a good leader.

35:06They don't— and working for a great company. They don't do all that without all those things, other things happening. So, um, I love watching the scatterplot develop. Um, and then there's also— we talked about— I know this wasn't with The Woodlands, but we talked about Damaris. You know, I, I don't know if Damaris is on this or not, but, uh, Charlie, you know, who, who loves Damaris, um, you know, and kind of had a big part of his role— what's that?

35:33Stud. D Hustle on the line. Stud. Oh, sick. All right, that's so good. Hey, that's why you're a 10 now. All right, uh, so Damaris, I don't know, you know, maybe he could chime in a little bit, but as, uh, we updated the scatter plot at Courtside, you know, we had— I had Damaris coming in at, you know, a 7, you know, um, sales ability and easy to manage, you know, because he's always a hard worker.

35:58But until recently, I put Damaris, uh, transitioned him over to a 10 sales ability, so he's at the top level. You know, and he's also very easy to manage. So he's like, I told everyone at Courtside, I was like, I'm gonna say it right now, Damaris is the best employee in my mind as a service advisor in our company. You know, he's the easiest to manage and he has one of the highest abilities and he's young.

36:23So he's gonna be with our company a very long time, you know, but he's earned all that. But you can see in the scatter plot how he's transitioned You know, and I know Charlie got a little emotional in there, you know, looking at it, seeing such a young guy do so well. I know he— I think he sent you a picture like during courtside, Damaris?

36:43Yes, he actually did. He sent me the scatter plot. You know, he's like, you know, very proud. I actually started Key2Key with Charlie. It was Joe, Charlie, and Todd at Key2Key when I first started about 3 years ago. You just want to break up on me? Hello? You start 3 years ago? There you are. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He sent me a screenshot yesterday at courtside and just the transition about 2 or 3 years ago of where I started at key-to-key to now, it's just truly amazing.

37:16Yeah. How'd it feel to see you as a 10 up there? Because last time I saw you, you were down in the 7s and 8s on the scatter play. You weren't even mentioned on it. And to know everyone's seeing your name up there. As a 10. Well, how does that, how does that feel? Yeah, um, honestly, like I said, it, it felt really great.

37:33Um, you know, it gave me some reassurance that the work that's putting in is definitely, you know, I'm definitely paying off. Um, you know, consistency and just, you know, dialing in on all sides of the category. So it felt great, man. It felt really good. Yeah, man, well, you've earned all of it. So, and that's what we love about the scatter plot.

37:50I know, uh, I'm going off a little bit on the Woodland side, but Or I switched off. But it's, uh, you know, I— we just love doing them. I don't know how many we've done of these together now at this point, but it's like, it's the best way to see what's going on with your team, you know, how they're developing over time, you know, to see if there's a player that was a 10 sales ability, now he's dropping down to like a 9 or an 8.

38:10Like, and we talked about that, a lot of that in Courtside as well. If you got a guy like Damaris who's a 10 now, and all of a sudden his ability is going down to a 9 or an 8, Like typically that's not— there's either a distraction outside of work that's happening or something in work that the GMs or owners need to figure out what's going on with your best guy.

38:30Um, so you— but by doing those scatter plots, you can see, you can see where they're progressing or not progressing, or if they're at a standstill, you know, at a 7 for a long time. Um, but I've been doing that with the Woodlands boys pretty consistently, um, and I can see Their sales ability is always up. Felix did drop down sales ability because Felix, as you guys all know, is a wild ball.

38:53Um, you know, he's like, he's got a hot head. Yeah, he's a freaking hothead though. Like, so he's— his development was— what was happening, what we noticed was his— he was concentrating so much on being calm that his sales ability started dropping down. You know, he didn't have that His drive is, is energy, you know, for sales. And so what started happening was he wasn't selling as much.

39:18He had a couple months where he just wasn't— he wasn't closing deals, you know. It was almost like he's afraid to help customers because he knew if, if he had that energy, he could get in trouble. Well, his sales— his sales performance went down, but not his sales ability. Oh yeah, thank you. So that's one thing I think that's really important for people to hear is once If somebody's a closer and you know that and you've seen it and you've seen them close something that you just thought was impossible, you can't unsee that.

39:47I've learned that. Okay, no matter how, you know, much of a slump they could be in or whatever the case may be, you just— they don't lose that ability to close deals. And there is some type of, you know, whether it be a distraction or, or like in his case, he's actually trying to you know, adjust his, you know, method or whatever to, you know, uh, you know, be like you said, be more calm.

40:12But within him is this, the big cat that is trying to just like bust out, right? Because a lot of people will look at somebody, they'll know they're a great salesperson, and then all of a sudden they'll be like, oh man, this, you know, they used to be good, you know, but now they're not good anymore. That's not them. I can almost guarantee you it's, I mean, it might be them by way of a distraction, But there's something you got to figure out and peel that back because we've seen plenty of people that have like major game and they're just not doing good somewhere.

40:41And then we move them, you know, like your guys, you know, they were at other locations, right? And so we have guys here that were, that were here, that are here, that were at other locations. And so I think a lot of that is like you said, you know, just kind of peeling that back and figuring out what that thing is. That's taking away from their performance, not their ability.

41:04Yes, correct. That's a great point. And for Felix, as a developmental basketball trainer, my thing was his energy was coming down, his performance was coming down, but he wasn't getting in trouble anymore with customers or popping off with employees. But what we always told guys in basketball was, everything has to be at game speed if you want to get better. You know, if you slow down your, your training and your game, your, uh, your speed, what's going to happen is when you get in the game and you got to speed up, you're not going to be ready for it.

41:36So I gave Felix a talk about, you know, just do what you got to do and I'm going to give you a little runway. You know, you are going to make mistakes, you are going to blow up on people, but do it at the highest energy level so that we can correct it faster and help you faster. But if you, if you just stop selling and then you're calm, that does— that's not a win on either side.

41:55So he ended up— he still has had some moments, you know, but at the end of I mean, I'm just extremely proud of him because, I mean, for all you guys that have known him longer than me, everyone in the company has told me how much different Felix is. And it's pretty crazy to see where he's come over 5 years. But with that, he tries— I mean, Charlie said it at Courtside that he can say that— I think he said Felix actually might care more than he does about the company.

42:24And that's unbelievable to hear because obviously Charlie cares about it at the highest of levels. You know, and, uh, and we, we passionately know that Felix does as well. So, um, I know we got to get off this here in a second. I want Glenn to be able to see— close it. But, and I can talk about this all day, but, uh, you know, really, again, really great job to The Woodlands team, uh, last night.

42:46And, you know, again, thank you. Obviously 10-10 is our, you know, that's the industry standard, you know, that's where we're trying to go. We don't, we don't really do 900 without 10/10 pushing us, throwing a little smack talk our way a lot of the time because we love it. But thank you guys so much. And then all the other stores stepping up over the last year, giving us a run for our money and some of you beating us in some months.

43:11That's what we look forward to. We know we're not at the top of the mountain right now. Well, we might be. Yes, we are actually. Look, we're going to give a little congratulations here. So, you know, I'll kind of tell you how this kind of went down. So obviously, you know, $10, $10 million a month store, you know, we did $12 million, you know, in '23.

43:37And, you know, as we started growing, the team started getting kind of broken up. We started growing and, you know, and then The Woodlands, you know, is obviously just doing an amazing job. And then, you know, last year, I was probably talking a little bit of smack about revenue and, you know, being the top revenue store. And then Mike quickly said, hold up a second.

43:58It's all about the net, baby. And, you know, and The Woodlands beat us in net for the year. And so that just got me fired up, man. I'm just like, I'm just, I'm like, let's freaking go. And so we come out, we come out this year freaking cranking. Net, and we got a nice little cushion on them. And, uh, you know, last month Mike and, uh, the Woodlands team set the all-time, uh, net record, probably for any store in the world, I would freaking think, uh, from an independent standpoint, maybe even beyond that, of, uh, $289,340 or something like that.

44:43And, uh, we came in right behind at $289,142, and I saw the numbers and I was just so bittersweet, man. I was so happy and so pissed at the same time. But I was like, dude, this is so fire because boom, we got a new— there's a new target. Let's freaking go. And so great job to you, Mike, and your leadership, you know, in the market and, you know, obviously at that store being pulled a million directions and still being able to pull that off.

45:10What a great, great job and well-deserved dinner you guys had last night. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. But it's all one team at the end of the day, like we were talking about at dinner, and we all push each other in Auto Hospitality Group, including Premier and them out there as well. So thank you guys, all advisors, everyone, man.

45:29Look how fun this is. And that's what Todd always talks about. We're all winning at the end of the day at this point. We had a record Houston market, record Auto Hospitality Group. I mean, that's what this is all about. And at the end of the day, we're retaining a lot of customers. We're getting a lot of new customers. And that's like we're we're helping so many people, and that's what's so great about everything we're doing.

45:49Boom! Well, let's go. Well, that's it for today. We're about to start this week. Flush the swamp, strip the board. We're coming down the the home stretch of this month. So everybody have an amazing day. Thank you so much for coming on this morning. Let's go. Boom! Let's go. Have an amazing day. For more information, reach out to Todd. Westernland at 925-980-8012 or visit autoshopanswers.com.

46:16You can get more information about Key to Key to Callbacks, uh, 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 Stop shop.

46:37Once again, that number for Todd Westerland is 925-980-8012.