Hire Like a Pro: The First 5 Seconds That Reveal A-Players

0:00Welcome to episode 16 of MasterTech to Millionaire. My name is Joe Adams with Adams Automotive and Auto Shop Answers. We are the biggest shop in the world and we love training former master technicians turned shop owners. We're trying to turn them into millionaires. So this is MasterTech to Millionaire. Today I'm here with Glenn Piccolo, who is pretty much in charge of all the training for our entire company., and the topic of conversation today is going to be, you know, the interview process.

0:32A lot of people, you know, we know that people are very important to the concept and running the playbook, but how do you identify what a really good A-player looks like? And we're going to walk you guys through the interview process and kind of just have a great conversation on what we're looking for. So, Glenn, how are we doing this morning? Man, doing great.

0:49Doing great. This is going to be a lot of fun. Interviewing, you know, recruiting is a big part of it. I think we'll touch on recruiting, uh, probably a little bit later, but to kind of kick us off to be able to start on the interview process. You know, I think, you know, one of the, the most important things in an interview is just really how comfortable I feel with somebody when they walk in the door and what that connection is like in that first 5 seconds.

1:11So, um, we'll kind of get into it. How do you want to, how do you want to kick this off with the interview process? Well, let's just get right into it. So, you know, you said that, you said the comfortability. So something we talk about in training a lot is the first 3 seconds, you know, and the analogy we like to use is calling Verizon for support to get a person from a help desk to help you, or United Airlines, like, how long does it take you to understand if you have an A-player or somebody that's going to put you on hold for 30 minutes and you're going to have to talk to their manager?

1:40And so when we're sitting in an interview, you know, the first 3 seconds is so important because like you like to say, that's what the customer is going to experience. So I'm trying to build that connection and then the rest, you You pretty much know in the first 5 minutes, really the first 5 seconds, if you can build a connection with them.

1:57And then the rest of the interview is kind of to confirm what your initial reaction was. So do you want to walk me through kind of how you think about that process? Yeah, so that, that first 5 seconds is, is super important because like you said, so when a customer walks through the door, it's just like that Verizon example you give, right?

2:12It's like, how is the customer going to feel in that first 5 seconds? Okay. And so we've even been in situations where like you have an interview and you know, you don't feel it right away. And then as you start talking, you start talking, you start warming up to somebody, but you always have to kind of circle back to what was that initial, uh, reaction, okay?

2:30Like, how did I feel exactly when that person walked in the door, and what kind of presence did they have? And so, like, for me, I want to— I want them— I want to fall in love with somebody, like, almost immediately. And then my interview process is just, just way different because it's so, like, unstructured, I guess you could say. A lot of people have, like, the list, like, of all the questions, and obviously we have the questions that we're going to ask, but like, you know, where do you want to see yourself in 5 years?

2:57And all the typical questions that people ask. My goal is to get somebody super comfortable, like very fast, because you're not interviewing them, you're interviewing their representative. It's a first date. It's a first date. So I'm interviewing their representative. And so in 90 days, is this going to be the same person? And the answer to that is typically not. Now, if I can get them super comfortable, like typically I look at a resume, I kind of glance at it, and then I get a good idea of just like little quick summary of it, and then I just put it off to the side.

3:29Correct. And I literally don't even have it in front of me. I don't have a pen and a pad. I literally kind of sit back, relax, and I get them loose. And if you can get them loose, they will start feeling more comfortable. And then all of a sudden, you'll start getting things that you wouldn't get in a normal interview because people are trained to interview.

3:46You can go, uh, you know, online, or you can watch videos, and you can be trained on how to answer. Everybody knows the right answers to the questions, but it's about you know, the actual comfortability with them once you start breaking things down, that I think reveals a lot. So you mentioned something, you said, I try to warm them up. It's like once they get warmed up, or what did you say?

4:08You said the first 5 seconds, the first few moments, and then maybe you got, you know, once they get warmed up, you want to see what their actual character's like, if they connect, maybe they're nervous. But you made a great point as well that Elon actually talks about a lot. He says, I trust the interview way more than the conversation, way more than the resume.

4:26Sure. Because you can get down to the root of whether or not they were the ones who were actually responsible for doing the work at their old company or if they just happened to work at a good company. So getting them as comfortable as possible, I think, is very, very important. If you just read the checklist, which we're going to go through the checklist as well, we have our pre-interview questions, which is you know, do you have a clean driving record, etc.?

4:49But you are going to get the representative. And so I've literally watched you say, you know, what's up, buddy, how you doing? Like cracking jokes like it is the least formal process or that's the intention of it. Because what I've found and what I've watched you do is you get them so— you're selling, so you're on stage, it's a performance and you're getting them so comfortable and so like almost like they think it's a laydown that they're going to get the job.

5:14And this guy loves me, right? He's like, we're connecting, but they don't know that you're like selling them. And what starts to happen is they literally just let their guard down. Like, F-bombs starts coming out. You know, the truth starts coming out. Man, yeah, man, dude, you wanna tell a story about the club? I heard there was a club that interviewee was a member of that I'd never heard of.

5:38Oh yeah, yeah, so I was thinking that, I was like, club, what do you— Yeah, so I get this guy in and we're talking and, You know, like, like you said, I'm like super chill, super relaxed. Dude, what's up, man? Oh, man. You know, just like not formal at all. And so I'm like, like, what do you do? Like, even physically, you kind of— No, no, not physically.

5:55No, I'm like, you're like this. Lean back. Exactly, man. Like I'm talking to a friend or whatever because like I said, it's like, hi, how are you today? You know, like a formal interview. It's like that just doesn't work. So I'm like, man, like, what do you do like on your spare time? Like, what do you, what do you like to do?

6:12Pre-check question. Yeah. And he's like, well, I'm in a drinking club. Now, most people right there would say, like, disqualify, or okay, or write that down, or go to their piece of paper. And, you know, and that's going to give them a cue that you didn't like that answer. But me, I'm like, dude, really? Like, tell me, tell me about that. Like, tell me, you're in a drinking club?

6:33Tell me about that. That's crazy. And he's like, yeah. So now he's, he's getting to express this to me, and he's like super excited because he sees I'm engaged. And he's like, yeah, so like me and this group of people basically go We go out, you know, like after work and we go and test out different drinks and we drink. And I'm like, that's crazy.

6:50Like, you gotta be like, how do you even get up in the morning? Like, it's gotta be hard to do that. Like, that's wild. And he's like, no, it's not that bad. Like, basically I'm used to it. I do it all the time. Now in my mind, I have already like disqualified this person. Okay. But I also know that he knows people.

7:06That's right. And so there's two parts of the interview. There's the part where I'm like trying to see if this person is gonna be a fit. And then there's the part where I will shift into This person's not going to make my team, but I know they probably know somebody that might. And then I'm going to shift to try and extract who's the best person they know.

7:23And so every interview is very valuable, matter of fact. And the people that don't work out sometimes are the most valuable ones because they know somebody. And you got to remember, like, A players, which is what we're looking for, man, they're not just falling out of trees. They're not coming in off of ads. They're very hard to find. Matter of fact, you'll find a lot of A players through through resumes of people that didn't work out.

7:46Yeah. So, so to reiterate, you're saying that every person that comes through the door is a resource as well as an opportunity. So yeah, like if it's not going good, why write them off? You're putting your time in to talk to them anyway. It takes 10 more minutes to make them comfortable and pretty much convince them that they're, they're a shoo-in for the job.

8:07And then at the end of the interview, I'm going to talk to him and I'm going to say, hey, Billy, or whatever his name is, you know, this is the part of the interview where we're going to ask for some referrals. Like, do you have anybody that would vouch for you or anybody I can call that would be, you know, able to say something nice about you?

8:23And don't give me your brother-in-law's number, you know, like, like, for example, who's the best manager you've ever worked underneath? Who's the best salesperson you've ever worked? Who's the best technician you've ever worked with? They don't know that I'm running a script. Todd trained us on the script, on running the play. I am trying to get the phone number out of their phone because, because, Glenn, you've been in the industry 28 years.

8:43Have you ever had a resume? I have not. No. Glenn, when Todd recruited Glenn for our company 6 years ago, not only did he recruit Glenn, but he recruited Glenn's entire phone contact list. And actually, probably 20 or 25 people from Glenn's network ended up coming over to our business. Well, then guess what happens? Those 20 or 25 people know people. Yeah.

9:04And so one person could literally change the future of your business. But I mean, at the end of the day, you have to run an A-player operation or you can't get Glenn Piccolos to come join the team, Mike Coins, Jose Garcia, etc. And we're going to get more into the recruiting process. But I think I'd like to get more into the actual structure of the interview process.

9:24So most people don't really know what to talk about. And the pre-interview questions are a great— so that's a good theory, good philosophy, how to approach it. The pre-interview questions that Todd ensures that we ask every single time are a good framework if you kind of don't know what to say. So the first one that I always like to ask is, what do you do in your spare time?

9:47I have plenty of thoughts on this, but do you have any thoughts on like what you're trying to look for when somebody answers that question? Yeah. Like the drinking club. Like the drinking club. What do you do in your spare time? What do you do in your spare time? Like we interviewed a guy one time and the third thing on his list was his family.

10:01Correct. And so that was kind of, you know, obviously a red flag. It was like softball. I'm big into softball. I travel, do travel softball. And I think maybe some day trading or something, which is essentially like I go to the blackjack table just on my phone. And so that's, that's going to be a distraction for me. So, and then like the third thing is like, and if there's time left over, you hang out with your family.

10:22Yeah, right. Okay. So we know that there's something going on there. So that you probably have a thought on that too. Yeah, so you cannot legally discriminate. So I can't ask you your marital status, I cannot ask you your orientation, sexual orientation, uh, if you have disabilities, I can't ask you your ethnicity, your race. These are the rules and they're there for a reason.

10:43But what I can ask you is, what do you do in your spare time? And so what that means, one, people light up they light up. They've— they weren't expecting that question. And people love talking about what they're passionate about. So if you look at all the A-players in our business, if you look at myself, for example, what's the answer to that question?

11:03Well, I work a lot. I love our business. I can't even stop talking about it. I get annoying at parties because I talk about it and people don't want to hear it. They want to talk about college football, right? And I'm like, I can talk about that, but what do I do in my spare time? I work, I think about working, and I spend all of my personal time with my family.

11:22That's it. I don't drink. I don't go to the club. I don't— I play some golf, but that's pretty much my entire life. And that's the right answer. If somebody says, you know, because you have to learn how to translate it in your mind. And I tell this story of the softball guy because he's got a ring on his finger. And I said, what do you do in your spare time?

11:43He goes, man, dude, I'm all over the country. I love travel. We've got a traveling softball team and man, we have a great time. And like, you know, we get down a little bit. I'm thinking to myself, like, this guy's cheating on his wife. That's literally the first thought that went through my head. Like, this guy's— this guy is cheating on his wife because he's thrilled to get out of town and go play softball with his buddies.

12:04Like, that's just— so I'm really trying to get an idea of what drives and motivates the person in front of, in front of me. And if all the answers— and you might think this is work, hardcore work, grindcore culture, but it is. I mean, it is. This is the NFL. Like, if you really think about our business as the National Football League, Jerry Jones is interviewing Tom Brady to be a quarterback on the team.

12:30Tom, what do you do in your spare time? Man, I got this softball team. I go around and play softball like Is that what he wants to hear? No, he wants to hear, I watch film 24/7 and I am obsessed with, with route trees. Like, that is the right answer. And so it might seem like a really simple answer, but it's, it's a secret way of getting an insight to what drives and motivates a person.

12:55And there is a right answer. The right answer is I exercise, I'm with my family, I work, I love my career. And you can have hobbies, you can go fishing, you can play golf, but you're going to find out really quick if they have toxic hobbies, and you're going to find out really quick where they are in terms of how committed to their career they are.

13:15Not every person needs to be all in, committed 100%, like a technician, for example. Um, superstar technicians, superstar service advisors. But man, it gives you an idea of where they're at on that spectrum. So any final thoughts on that question? I have more pre-interview ones that we can go through, but anything else? Well, to touch on that, like the technicians, you know, it's different.

13:32You know, a lot of times when we're talking about this, we're talking about front of the house primarily, but it's two different things, right? So front of the house is a completely different, you know, interview than a technician, I guess you would say. And so I think that's another important part to point out, which we can kind of talk about here in a little bit.

13:53Sweet. So here's one that's a non-negotiable you have to ask every time. Do you have a clean driving record? So, Glenn, why do we ask that question? Well, we had one guy, I guess what this was, I don't even know, this was 2 years ago. And do you have a clean driving record? And the guy's like, man, you're never going to believe this.

14:12I got, I just got a DUI Friday. Friday. It was the first time I've ever, like, I don't even know if he said he, the first time he ever was drinking and driving or first time he got DUI or whatever. But he was making it like this is just not a normal thing. And look, You ever talk to somebody who has a DUI?

14:32How many drinks did they have? Just 2. Just 2. It's always 2. Man, I just had 2, man. Just 2, man. Just, man, just barely, you know, just barely over the limit. It's like, come on, you drink and drive. You are lying to my face. You are lying to my face. Like, it is the first time that you got caught drinking and driving.

14:48You don't just get into that. Like, sorry, the guy— this is why you ask the question first, because we did a Zoom, we talked to him, we had a whole interview, and then at the end of the interview, We were like, oh, by the way, do you have a clean driving record? And Todd taught us a valuable lesson. He's like, translate it in your mind.

15:07He did not say, man, yeah, I had the first— first, I'm 45 years old. I've never had a DUI in my life. Friday I had 2 drinks and I just drove just, you know, half a mile down the road to my house. Got a DUI last Friday. Can you believe that? Like, you've been drinking and driving on Friday nights and you go, like for, for years.

15:29And this just happens to be the first time you got caught. So translate in your mind and it just totally ruined the rest of the interview. We wasted our time. Whereas if I would have heard that on the phone, I would have gotten some referrals. I would have been out of there. But I wasted your time. I wasted my time. I wasted Todd's time because I didn't ask that question up front.

15:46So do you have a clean driving record? I'm allowed to ask that because we're in auto repair and we've got to be able to test drive vehicles and drive customer vehicles and drive to and from work. And so do you have a clean driving record is a great way to, to, to— because I know, I know, I know this podcast goes to people in multiple states.

16:03I don't know the rules for every single state on if you're allowed to ask if they've had a DUI and stuff, but I just straight up ask them, do you have a clean driving record? Are you insurable? And so that's a good way to do it. All right. Next one. Last 2 years earnings. Oh, yeah. This is a good one. I'm sure you have thoughts on this one.

16:22I do. I want someone that makes a lot of money. Yes. A lot of people are trying to get a deal on somebody and people that like, I'll tell you, like, and we can talk about the difference of an A player versus a B player. It's, it's night and day difference. You know, it's like pro tip, replace two, you know, two B players with one A player and just pay them double.

16:44That's a huge pro tip because they will just generate you so much more and they just run so much harder. And so a lot of people are trying to get a deal on somebody like, man, I found this person and man, he's going to be, you know, it's going to be this great deal that I'm getting on this person. Like for me, I'm trying to find somebody that's high paid.

17:00Yeah. Because if they're high paid, they're typically good. And if they're high paid and they're not good, they just won't make the team. But we'll find out like really quick. And that's a big part of our, you know, of our strategy when we hire somebody is like, we're going to move really fast. Now in the interview process, we set that up like very, very clear.

17:17Okay. Like, this is what the expectation is, and we will pay you a lot of money, but this is the expectation. Just like the NFL. We, we— I talk a lot about the NFL in, in an interview. It's like, okay, we are the NFL, and, you know, there's only so many seats on the, on the bus, there's only so many players on the roster, and you have to execute at a very high level, and you have to earn, you know, earn that position every single day.

17:40And so sometimes it's like interviewing them out. A lot of cases it is. And so there's two ways of looking at it. It's like, one, am I chasing somebody? Like, for instance, I found a superstar and I'm bringing them in to interview. It's a different interview than if somebody is coming to us to get the job. Two totally different interviews. I agree.

17:57So they come to us, I'm trying to interview them out. I'm trying to show them all the reasons they shouldn't. Okay. Because man, are you sure you can execute at this level? Are you sure that you can play on this team? Because if not, you're not going to make the team. So look, I'll tell you this. If you have a job right now, my suggestion would be that you don't leave this job that you have because it sounds like you're doing okay.

18:17And if you come here and you don't make it, you might only last a couple of days. It's that simple. Now, if, if I'm chasing them, I have to be able to sell them the dream, right? Because the dream for us is a reality. But they don't see that. They've heard all of these things 1,000 times, right? There's always the, the picture that's painted that just, man, everything looks great.

18:37And then they get over there and the grass isn't greener. That's why you see a rap sheet resume. You know, people look at a resume and they go, man, this, this person's a job hopper, right? Like, all they do is just, just go from job to job to job. I don't want that person on my team. Why would I want that person on my team?

18:52It's like, well, has that person ever found a home, right? Like, that— has that person ever been in a good environment? And we know in our industry, we call shops and we know a lot of shop owners, and like, we understand why people job hop. And so I think that's another key takeaway from that? So, so to reiterate, you need people that make a lot of money.

19:13I think a lot of people listening to this would be scared to pay people what we pay our people. But the reality is you don't pay— Patrick Mahomes gets paid $60 million a year guaranteed for like 10 years, you know, or something. And if he tears his ACL, that's it. Like, you're, you're $60 million in the hole that year and you're hoping he's the same guy afterwards.

19:32For us, You're paying a guy $100,000 or more, you know, $100,000 unloaded, of course, is what is it like $1,800 a week, you know. So we tell them in the interview, this is the NFL and we're going to fire you. Like, if you suck, you're telling me you're really good. You're telling me you made $130,000 in the last 2 years. I'm going to agree to pay you that.

19:57But if you suck, you're done. Like, and that's not— you might think that that's ruthless, but at the end of the day, would you work for us if we sucked? You know, like, right? Like if I gambled your paycheck, if I showed up hungover to work, if payroll was late and the checks bounced, nobody would work for us. If there was no hours, technicians wouldn't work for us.

20:18So it is a deal. It is a business. I am going to, you know, handle my end of the bargain. I am going to— Todd says it'll never be us. And what that means is I'm going to just give it my all day in and day out. And I will, you know, I will hold up my end of the bargain. If you don't, you're fired and that's it.

20:41So you're not actually paying them $100K a year. You're paying them a couple grand a week. And the key is you have to let them know in the interview and you have to actually fire them if you know right away that they're not good, which we'll get into how you know right away. But I want to go back to why Todd says it the last— the way he says it.

21:01He says, what are your last 2 years earnings? He doesn't say, how much money do you need? How much money would you like to make? Right. Because people will just say they want to make more than they're making now. How much money do you need? Like, what is your compensation? Right. What did you make in the last 2 years? And they will tell you, one, if they don't really know, Not good.

21:23Yep. If they say, you know, they get paid hourly, probably not good. They're thinking about hourly, right? Like they're thinking, well, I get paid this much per week. No, I want to know. I want to hear a guy be like $140. That might make people nervous. Oh, I thought I was going to get this guy, but it's like, ooh, that means there's somebody in the market, right?

21:43Exactly. Already knows that you have a lot of value and they, in our industry, usually doesn't pay that much, right? You know, and they know that you— they can't live without you, so they're paying you that much, I'll take a swing, you know, because one, for like, for, for that amount of money, you get to get an A-player potentially, and you get to put them in a team with other A-players.

22:04That's going to elevate them. You get to give them our playbook. It's going to elevate them. And he, if they're— or she, if they're a stud, is going to elevate, you know, the other people that are already on the team. So speaking of how do you know, you know, Todd has his rules. How do you know, Glenn? Let's say you hire him.

22:17You take that risk, you take that swing. How do you know, uh, and how long does it take you to know if they're truly an A-player? Uh, like 5 seconds. No, I mean, you know, very, very— no, for sure, day one, way, way early in day one. Uh, immediate impact on sales. I mean, that's the number one rule, right? Immediate impact on sales.

22:35That actually goes both ways too, by the way, uh, with technicians. Um, you can tell if a technician has an immediate impact on sales, produce. Um, but mainly we're looking at front of the house, so immediate impact on sales. Customers love doing business with them, team loves working with them, and they make money. And so if you can hit all those 4 boxes, like, you're typically a superstar.

22:54And you know very, very fast. I'll give you a perfect example. Um, I've got a guy now, now this is something I do, and it's after the interview process, but it's, um, kind of the onboarding process that I do, probably way different. And, and people probably look at me like I'm crazy until I explain the, the, the reason behind it, which is when they come in, I tell them to come to the speed rack, and basically you're just going to stay here for a week and just observe.

23:15Now I I don't give a whole lot of instruction. It's really easy for people to say, okay, I want you to do this day 1, this day 2, this day 3, right? Like to have kind of a plan. And, you know, if you give people tasks to do, they'll typically get them done, especially like their first 3 days. So I do it a little bit differently.

23:34I'm like, look, I want you to be here and I want you to just observe. And what I know is and notice is that the superstar A players can't do that. Okay? They want to— they want the ball. Like, give me the ball. So like Jason, you know, Stud, I remember this day one. I'm like, all right, I want you to stay here and you're going to basically just observe for a week.

23:54I don't expect anything out of you. I just want you to observe and learn the process and just watch. And you'll be going to key to key, you know, on the next deal for our onboarding. And it's, I don't know, a couple hours in or whatever. And he's like, give me that ticket. I'm going to sell that ticket right now. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, you don't know the scripts.

24:13You don't know. You haven't been through. He's like, you brought me here to sell. Like, give me the ball, right? Like, I'm going to go sell this this right now and then I'll learn the rest of how the scripts later, but I need to go sell. I need to just go sell this job. It needs to be sold right now. And I'm like, boom.

24:30And then he literally just took off from there. That was it. As soon as he did that, I'm like, boom, that's my guy. But see, that salesmanship, that immediate impact, I think of Lewis Stud over at our Barker store, our Barker store, that interview. Think about that interview. And that's a rare That's a rare— good story. Yeah, it's a great story. That's a rare superstar that we get off of an ad.

24:55Okay. I was trying to think this morning. I was like, man, how many people on my team did we get off of an ad? And I was going through the list of all the people and I was like, man, I don't like— there's like a couple like here at this store. Yeah. So Lewis, it's an ad and Todd's doing a phone interview with him.

25:10With me. With you there. And he's like, look, I just don't think it's going to be the right fit. And Lewis is like, well, hang on, hang on. Look, man, look, before before you hang up, like, why don't I do this? Why don't I come down there, meet me in person, and then, you know, let's just kind of go from there. And it's like, whoa, Todd literally looked at me and he went, oh, he literally looked at me and he was like, he's got it.

25:33Like, he kept me open. And he goes, Lewis, you kept me open, bud. When can you meet me? And he came in that day and we hired him on the spot because he overcame an objection. It is literally high agency. Like, you do not need to know anything about cars. It is a sale. It is a, you know, high agency. It means that when you run into a problem, do you just stop or do you look side to side and say, like, how do I get around this problem?

26:02Like, the customer is giving me an objection. Todd is giving Lewis an objection, but that doesn't— that's not going to stop me. Like, that's not— that's all we needed to know. And then he comes here and obviously he's a stud. And then I end up meeting him and he's a stud. I felt like Like, and here's the great part about it. And we talk about that first 5 seconds, like, man, you fall in love with someone in the first 5 seconds, man.

26:24I'll never forget that interview with him. I felt like I knew him my whole life. Like we were tight immediately. Like, like Mike Quinn, same thing. Like we were tight immediately. I was like, man, I could talk to you all day long. And so that overcoming that objection, that's another part of the interview that I'll do with somebody is I'll be like, look, man, like if this, if this isn't the right deal, like it might not be a fit, like, what's your next move?

26:46I love that question. Yeah, because if the, you know, like, just think about when we talk all the time about like Todd, if somebody asked Todd that, like, Todd, if this wasn't like, if this wasn't the right fit for you, what would Todd say? He's like, me? You talk like, yeah, not the right— are you serious right now? I'm literally going to change your life.

27:04Like, are you serious right now? But that question, like, what's your next move? I like to know where their mind is like, did they put all their eggs in this one basket? Are they actually talking to other people? Like, that gets them talking. The real, you know, like getting people talking is so valuable. And a lot of people that are interviewing just do a lot of talking and ask a lot of questions and don't really extract with follow-up questions to get the data that they need.

27:29Yeah. I'm going to follow up on something you said. You said you connected with Mike Quinn, you connected with Lewis immediately. So there's something that Elon says. He says, A players do not like being around fuzzy thinkers. And what I think that means— well, one, I think that's true, but I think that, I think that some people who don't think about it that much or they don't try very hard, it's like annoying to an A-player.

27:53And I think it's literally like, how do I say this respectfully? Like some people don't maybe have the snap to like understand quickly and they're not trying, they're not doing anything in their personal life to try and understand quickly. And so it gets— it's like the processing speed of their brain. It's like it's frustrating for a Glen Piccolo or a Todd to talk to somebody that they're not connecting with really quickly because it's like every time you say something, it doesn't land.

28:19But then you find a Mike Quinn and you're like, oh, you're my guy. Like, you got— you get it. Like, he gets it right away. So an example of a question that we like to ask for technicians. So, you know, people always ask if technician interviews are the same is we actually do a diagnostic question. And I don't know anything about cars and I have my thoughts on this, but I want to hear your thoughts on what you're looking for.

28:41We ask the question, Hey, walk me through your diagnostic process on a PO456. Yes. So what are you looking for in a technician interview and their response? Well, it tells you a lot about— okay, so one, if they don't know how to answer that question, it doesn't necessarily mean they're not going to be a fit. Okay, it just depends on what level of technician they are.

29:01Okay, so if I ask them, hey, there's a code, uh, PO456, some, some people don't know what that is. So that shows you their level of— that shows me their level of experience. It doesn't say that they're not going to be a fit for a different level of technician. Now, if they're like, well, I go in with the scan tool and I command the purge valve to open, and then if that doesn't happen, I do a smoke test, it's something like that.

29:23I don't know much about cars either, but I know it's pretty close to that. Yeah. Then I'm like, oh, wow, they know. Okay, they know what they're talking about. Like they know it's an EVAP code. Okay, so asking a couple of codes just gives you a little bit more feedback as far as what the technician really knows, you know, but technicians are different.

29:38You know, it's— they're typically more introverted. They're, they're not, um, you know, they're not customer-facing. And so it's a, it's a totally different interview, right? I just want to know that, man, do they have a great attitude? Um, are they clean and organized? I can tell how— I can tell like a really, really good technician if I look at their box and their hands.

30:00Yeah, clean. Okay, if you can look at their box and their hands, that tells a big story with the combo there. It's like, while that box is massive and this guy's hands are completely like clean. I can't tell they're a technician. The best technicians, I mean, I'm sorry, but like, you run into them in the grocery store, you don't know they're a technician.

30:17Okay, they're more pro. And so, um, yeah, it's, it's a different set of questions. But for me, like, when we talk about A players, front of the house got to be an A player. Yeah, no B players. Technicians have to be an A player by way of like attitude, energy, reliability, knowing your skill set. One of the most dangerous technicians that's out there is the one that thinks he's an A but he's B.

30:42A B technician is great if he knows he's a B. A C is great if they know they're a C. As soon as they think they're a higher level technician than they are, that's where they get in trouble. So I want to follow up on the question, how do I— what am I looking for in the PO456 one? Is I don't know anything about cars.

30:57I am literally just diagnosing the person. I am seeing how their brain works and watching them walk through the process. So if they say, hey, you know, I would just go to AllData, and then I would like— okay, so I know that you don't have enough experience to just know that off the top of your head, but that's fine. Fine, but what I can still find out is, are you willing to admit that you don't know something, right?

31:19You know, and that is a very valuable skill in a technician, is like, are they thoughtful? Are they thinking about like how to solve the problem, or are they just going to be a person that just throws the part at the car? Like, if you ask Josh G, you know, he's one of our top diagnostic technicians in the company, he one, knows exactly what to do.

31:36He knows the exact workflow in his brain for how to diagnose that check engine light and where to start first. But then he is so granular, he would be able to walk you through his exact thought process on why he would try certain things based on certain scenarios. And so what that tells me is he has spent a lot of time thinking about solving problems and he enjoys solving problems, which to me is a good indicator of intelligence.

32:00Like, right when it's, when it's satisfying to think, it's like a fun thing to do. It's fun to solve problems. Right. That is somebody who is going to continue doing that and they enjoy thinking. And I think it's a pretty good indicator of, of how much snap you have. So my technician interview is— I usually— we usually trust, honestly, the general managers to interview technicians and our recruiting team.

32:23But if I'm interviewing a technician and I've interviewed plenty of technicians, it's pretty much the exact same as the pre-interview checklist. But I'm asking, what would you do to diagnose a simple check engine light? And the other one I'm asking is toolbox inventory. Yeah, like that tells the whole story, right? I mean, if you have, if you have a 15— it tells a part of the story.

32:43Yeah. You know, I don't give a ton to the toolbox. Okay. Because I've seen some really, really nice toolboxes. No tool filled up with a lot of tools, even with bad technicians. Okay. Okay. And, and anybody listening to this definitely knows that that's out there. There are nice boxes with bad technicians. I've seen like stud technicians that I had. This is many, many years ago.

33:07I had a dresser. Okay, this is many, many years ago. And this guy was a stud. No certifications, right? Like, literally had a, like, a chest and working out that. But he was a stud. I've seen a master technician that, you know, just can't fix anything. So I don't— you know, I don't give a ton to the box, but I like to know.

33:28So Another great question for technicians would be like, look, I need someone that can produce massive hours. Like, are you that guy? Like, I need someone— like, I don't need a 40-hour-a-week guy. Like, I need somebody that can produce 60, 70. Is that something you can do? I like to hear that from them because that tells me a lot about their level too.

33:45Like, how much money did you make last year? Another great question. Or the last 2 years earnings. I need somebody that made a lot of money. Okay. I mean, if they didn't, that means they're not probably a highly skilled technician. And in our industry, sometimes they don't know, like they don't know where they stack up, right, with, with other technicians, right? So there's guys that come in that think they're the top, you know, and maybe they are the top in the company they're at and they make, you know, half of what, you know, maybe some of our top guys make.

34:11So I asked this technician a question one time. I said, how much money did you make last year? $140,000. Okay, nice. What's your toolbox inventory? $80,000. Okay. Yeah, check. And then I said, what's the most hours you've ever done in a week? 147 and a half. And a half. And he said, I've not— you know, that was obviously a bunch of stuff had to go right.

34:34Yeah. But like, that's it. Like, I, I'm pretty sure this guy's a pro in 3 questions. Like, somebody who's capable of making money as a technician, producing. He's a top hourly paid guy. You know, I know his hourly rate. I know how much he can produce. Now I just got to figure out if it's— if he's somebody that we want on our team.

34:52But honestly, if you check those 3 boxes, you just got to get them in the game, in my opinion, sign an offer, and, and then you find out pretty quickly if they're not going to be the right guy. Would you agree with that? Yeah, technicians, um, immediately too. I, I mean, you— there are some situations where you will have a technician that comes in and you might think they're better than they are, and then you may have some rechecks that, you know, that does happen.

35:14Uh, but for the most part, you know, they will drive revenue. A lot of people don't really understand that a technician coming in can really drive your revenue majorly. Like, they make an immediate impact on sales also. And so, and, and why is that? Well, it's because, one, they just move super fast. They run to the car. They want to be efficient, and they hold the front of the house accountable to move faster and be efficient.

35:41Because it's like, look, and they have a high expectation. So when somebody comes in, they have a high expectation. Like, I know this guy needs to make X amount of hours this week. Like, you work harder and push harder to make sure that they get there, because the last thing I want is that superstar leaving my shop. And so, um, it— and, you know, it, it makes the immediate impact on sales kind of like— trying to think of how I'm trying to say this, but like, when you're trying to make sure that somebody's getting top hours because they need that, it pushes you harder, which inevitably is going to have immediate impact on sales.

36:16So I've got a follow-up question for you. What if you're in an interview with either a technician or the front of the house and it just goes really poorly? Not my guy, but one of your team members vouches for them. Does that influence your decision-making? Yes, 100%. So walk me through that. Okay, so I interview a guy, this is probably 2 years ago, and it's a technician, and I just didn't feel it.

36:38Like, yeah, just like you're saying, like, I just didn't really like this person., and they had some good answers to some questions, but I wasn't feeling the energy. I was thinking maybe a little bit arrogant and like, I don't know, right? And so one of our team members, you know, knew this technician, I guess saw him walking up for the interview or whatever.

37:03And it's like, oh, hey, I just saw you interviewed so-and-so. I'm like, yeah, do you know them? Oh yeah, he's a stud. Beast. Boom, that's it. That's all that matters. Done. Hire him because a superstar is telling me it's a superstar. And so I remember he did 90 hours that first week and, you know, he was a hammer. And so a superstar telling you this is a superstar, it's like it kind of trumps everything.

37:27Yeah, I agree. So last question on interview and then we'll get into recruiting is, um, you've talked a lot about a working interview, you know, so it's kind of like like if they walk out of the door. So, so I want you to paint a picture in your mind. You've done 10 interviews today. What's the feeling you have when they walk out of the door?

37:45You know, is it, I think he'd be good, I think he'd fit in, or she, or is it, man, I hope they take the job? Like, number one is you got to be like, man, I hope they freaking take the job. I really hope they come work with us. That's the person you're looking for. Yep. But if it's the second one, the first one, I mean, they could be a good fit.

38:04You generally do a working interview, correct? So you might invite them in, do a half day or whatever, uh, to kind of continue moving the ball down the field to get a good idea. Because maybe they're nervous, man. People, people— we put it out there, we're on a freaking video podcast right now. Yep. Putting it out there that we're the NFL, man.

38:20You're gonna get fired if you suck, you know. And so they might be nervous. I've had people tell me they were so nervous in the interview because they knew it was the opportunity of a lifetime for them in their career. And, uh, and so they're nervous. I totally get it. Well, I don't totally get it because superstars aren't nervous. They know, they know they're good, right?

38:38Antonio Brown, you think he's freaking ner— you think Deion Sanders was nervous on draft day, right? No, the guy had a gold chain on, diamonds around his freaking neck, you know. He showed up in a— Deion Sanders for the Combine showed on a private jet, didn't stretch, ran the 40 in 4.3 seconds and left. Yeah. You think he was nervous? So he knows, you know, Pat Riley in the NBA, he says, bring your ego, bring your ego, don't leave it at the door.

39:11He's like, bring your freaking ego, but just put it under the umbrella of the team. Yeah. Like, bring your ego at the door. I'm on a tangent a little bit here, so So maybe superstar people aren't nervous. Deion Sanders was not breaking out of his shell. Todd Hayes was born without a shell, you know, like he did not. He's never been nervous a day in his life.

39:33So that's, that's a piece of context. But, you know, for technicians and for certain people in the company, maybe they were nervous and they, you know, they understand the situation. I know people that have had a lot of success with our company that were nervous. So I don't want it to be a blanket statement. But let's say the first interview doesn't go well, but you don't want the process to end.

39:53You'll invite them in for a working interview. So what are you looking for? How does— how do you set that up? And just give me your thoughts on that. Yeah. So I actually don't set up like a working interview. Okay. This is another one of those things I do a little bit differently because it's going to tell me about the, you know, the potential candidate.

40:08So it would be more like, hey, come into a Take Five, our morning meeting, and then just come and hang out at the speed rack for an hour and just see what you think. Now, here's what happens. There's two types of people. Okay, there's the type of person that comes in, they come to the speed rack, they come into the meeting, and they're like, wow, that was cool.

40:24But right, we fist pump and high five after our meeting, and they're like, all right. They come out to the speed rack and they're there for 20, 30 minutes. They're like, yeah, this is cool, man. I think I could, I could see myself doing this. And they're like, yeah, all right, cool. We'll just get back in touch with me or whatever. I'm like, awesome.

40:37Yeah, take care, man. Thanks so much. And then I'm like, that's not— they're not gonna make my team. Uh, I think of a guy one day, he comes in and he Yeah, man, let me, let me, uh, come and rack attack, you know, with you guys. Next thing you know, he's got gloves on and he's PMing cars. Yeah. Okay, now he was there.

40:52I said just come hang out for an hour or two. So at the end of the night, it's— I mean, it's like 6:30 or something, and he's still there. He's washing a car. Okay, he's washing a car because the car needed to be washed, and there was people watching the car, and he's out there washing the car. He's not getting paid. He's not I'm like, he's just there, just coming to do an hour or two, kind of check the shop out.

41:17And he's literally washing a car. At the end of it, he goes, all right, perfect. I'm putting in my notice and just let, like, let's go talk about the numbers. Like, let's see what I'm going to be getting paid. I'm going to put my notice in. Let's go. Let's go get this deal done. And I'm like, hammer closer, right? I had another guy.

41:35He's rack attacking a car with us. And he breaks something and he's freaking out. Okay, we're rack attacking a car and there's like this like little coolant hose that's coming off of the like a reservoir. In the interview, in the working interview? Yeah. And he's freaked out. He's like, oh my God, he thinks I'm not gonna get this job. He's like, I broke it, I will pay for it, I'm so sorry, like whatever it takes, I'm gonna pay for it.

41:58And I'm like, see, that's exactly what I needed to see. I don't care about the hose. It was like a $180 hose. But I said, look, don't worry about that. Has nothing to do with this. The fact that you broke that hose tells me all I need to know because you were in it. You were in the freaking car. You were PMIing the car.

42:16And so that was a great indicator for me. So, um, and you care a lot about the hose. You're like, oh my gosh, this is— it's an important thing, you know. It's like, not to cut you off, but it's like you You're in it like you, you, you're nervous that you broke the hose. You care about the customer, right? You know, so it's the, it's the Patriots, man.

42:37It's the Cowboys. It's the Chiefs. If you got invited to a working interview for the freaking Yankees. Yeah. Hey, man, this is cool. Mr. Steinbrenner, I'll see you. Let me know what the offer is, right? Or are you taking a lap around Yankee Stadium? You know, like you might think, whatever, it's a car repair company. Okay. You have not received the texts that I've received.

42:59People literally come into our company and it changes their life. You get to watch people buy houses. You get to watch blue-collar people who have never made money, who've worked for owners who take advantage of them. They rip them off. They don't pay them what they're worth. They are ripping off their employees. And then they get to come into an environment where we are massively intense and we push people.

43:19And it's amazing. You get to watch people I watched a guy get on a phone call in front of a group of grown men that work for our company this past week. He said, my family's noticed a difference. Yep. My family has noticed a difference in the way that I am at family functions, that I was a different person 3 years ago.

43:38Yep. And that's a product of the quality of leadership of yourself, of Mike Quinn, of all the top people in our company, of Todd Hayes. And so I'm sorry to get passionate, but like, it's the pros. And if you take it seriously, it will literally change your life. And you can have a career based on this playbook and our company and our training.

44:00Key to Key to Callbacks. Please come through Key to Key to Callbacks. That will literally change your life. It changed mine. My family's business was at $2.25 million a year, and it wasn't every year. 2011, it was $1.6. I bet we, I bet we lost big money that year. Dad's getting a loan against his house. You know, his kids are in private school.

44:22Todd comes into our business 2020, for those that don't know, doubles the company in 4 months. 2021, $8 million. 2022, $10 million. 2023, with you and the amazing team, $12.25 million. You know, what's the difference? It's you started taking it seriously, you know? Todd Graves, Cane's Chicken, $10 billion company. On his business card, it says CEO and frontline fry cook. He calls it his chicken finger dream.

44:57He's like, I am going to be the best in the world at chicken fingers. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, they say the secret to success is to take something very simple and just try harder to treat it more seriously than anybody else on the earth. And I truly believe that that is what we do in car repair. And I truly believe that it's the Patriots for some people.

45:17You got a shot to play for the Patriots and you're walking around the state Gillette Stadium and Tom Brady's rings are on the wall and you're like, man, that's pretty cool. All right, see you, Mr. Kraft. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. If you're an ace, you are locking the place down at night because you get it. Or you don't get it yet.

45:40You don't maybe understand that yet, but you have the qualities of somebody who takes something super seriously and they want to win. I know I'm long-winded here. Our general service technicians— I asked one guy last week, I said, what can we do better, man? And he's like, man, I really actually love working here. Maybe some better communication with the service advisors, which we could all work on.

46:01But, but he said, you know what I like about working here? He says everybody takes it really seriously, like everybody's on it. It's not about the money. It is literally not about the money for our people. It is— they are winners. They are literally on a winning team for the first time in their life. And so I want to get into some recruiting, but do you have any thoughts on that, on watching some of these young guys literally transform in 6 months?

46:24Like, we've got a GS here today, 6 months ago he was a different person. Now he's like like, why do— why does he care about the sales every day? It doesn't affect what he gets paid. He wants to be a winner. He gets to go home a winner because it's like, we killed it today. So do you have any, any thoughts on that?

46:40Yeah, it goes back to remembering the difference between front of the house and back of the house. As far as like, front of the house, obviously just extroverted, you know, charismatic, typically, um, type of people, whereas technicians in the back are not like that. So when I interviewed him I mean, he is very introverted, right? I mean, he's been working at a job where he's kind of getting beat up.

47:05Manager yells at you. You know, that's, that's pretty typical, especially coming in as a lube technician in our industry. Those are typically the guys that are just getting yelled at and not doing enough and getting low, you know, getting low pay. And so we bring him on board and it's like I could just slowly see this change in him because we tell him he's a superstar every day when he walks in.

47:27And we're having our take 5 and he walks in the building and we just literally clap for him and we're like, superstar Lewis is in the building. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. And everybody claps. And so now it's like when we, when we, you know, have a sale, he's like, boom, let's go. I was a part of that. And he's like, what do we do today?

47:48Like, how much do we do today, man? I was a part of that. And he loves it. And then appreciating them, you know, I think a lot of people just don't tell their people enough how much they appreciate them. Yeah. Like, man, we appreciate you. We couldn't do this without you. That is so important. Telling them they're superstars. We hug our team members.

48:06We love each other. And so people might look at that and be like, oh, that's weird or whatever. But I can tell you it's not. Some people never have been hugged, which is crazy. I mean, I look at some of these guys and some of the people that have been through and come through and have grown in our company. And some people don't, you know, just people come from different backgrounds and sometimes that's what they need.

48:34We're in a blue-collar industry, man. If you're listening to this in the car right now, go ahead and when you stop, pull out your phone and text the person who's running your business. Text the general manager how grateful you are for them and how thankful you are for them. Text the top technician. Be like, man, I am so proud of you. I'm so happy you're on the team.

48:55You know what kind of influence that will have on their life? They probably haven't heard that in years. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't, but that's how seriously we take this. It is so serious, and I just don't have time. I will not allow an average person to get in the way of that. I'm not going to allow somebody— people are like, man, you're ruthless, how do you fire people?

49:18Because I'm thinking about the other 10 people in the shop that their life will be affected by this person's poor performance who doesn't really care. Right. You know, and so it's— Todd understands this, you know, Todd Hayes, our CEO, he understands this, that the work is the most important thing. I love people. We love our people. We love our team members. I hope you can feel the passion that we deeply care about our team members, the people we work with, not the people that work for us, the people we work with.

49:47But the work has to be the most important thing. And I need superstars to produce the work, the quality, the product, the service. Because if that's not good, you're going to get average people who just don't care. And the customers pay the price. They don't get good service. And then, you know who pays the price? The entire company. And I don't get to have an environment where people get hugs and they get to grow and they get to win.

50:15People that want to win want to be on a winning team. If you start— if the work is bad, you start to lose. If Tom Brady stops going to practice, if Tom Brady gets hurt and the backup comes in, what happens? The team starts to lose, right? The team starts to lose. And what happens then? Less tickets, less concessions, less TV deals, less, you know, superstars want to come get traded to Tom Brady's team, right?

50:43The most important thing is winning the game, because if you don't win the game, you don't get to do all of the other things that allow you to influence the people in your business's life. And so that might sound like a ruthless thing, like we don't care about our people, but in fact it's quite the opposite. Todd has a reputation for being, as he says, not nice.

51:04I'm not nice, but he's the nicest person I've ever met in my life. He just really has such a deep care for, for the people in the business. And that's been his strategy to, to, to really lift up the people that want to take it a step further. So we've only got a few minutes left in this podcast. I want to talk about recruiting.

51:22Glenn, these A-players, these Tom Bradys, where— what are they doing with their lives? Are they just knocking on our door trying to work for us? How does that— No, I mean, they're out producing somewhere else. I mean, they're studs. They don't have resumes. They are literally making big money for somebody else. Correct. And so you have to go and chase those people down.

51:43And, you know, like we were talking about earlier, I mean, how do you find somebody? Well, if I talk to anybody, I've gotten, I think, as many as 20 phone numbers off of just one resume. Yeah, I agree. Okay. And I think that's probably one of the most underrated, like, honey holes for people is the resume. And it's not the resume, like, look at the— okay, if you look at references on a resume, right?

52:09What's a reference? I've always wondered this and somebody, I was listening to this on like a podcast not that long ago and I was like, okay, a reference on a resume. I always thought that was weird for like, as long as I've been looking at resumes, I always thought a resume reference was weird. Why? Who is going to put somebody on the reference that's not going to say something good about them?

52:31Right. It's their mom or something. It's like, who would do that? Now, like as an example, You know, we were talking about that technician. That technician doesn't know what a PO456 is, man. If you were trying to diagnose that and you needed some assistance, like, think of all the technicians that you've worked with. Who would be the best one that would probably be able to help you diagnose that car?

52:54You dog, that's sick. Is that bad? That's a good one. You're sneaky. I didn't even know what you were doing until halfway through the sentence. I'm like, oh, he's trying to get a fish. But wait, wait, wait, so Glenn, hold on, hold on. Hold up. Are you telling me that you poach other people's employees? Yes, we do. Really? Yes. How do you— how do you sleep at night, dude?

53:12Man. Okay. Oh, man. Oh, come on, man. Hey, we love this, right? Look, at the end of the day, people are out there working for companies that are bad environments. They're taking advantage of their people. They don't have insurance. They don't have 401. They are being underpaid. They can't afford to put tires on their wife's car. They're struggling. Okay. And shops are out there competing with other shops that are struggling.

53:43This is a common theme out there. Okay. And so there are superstars out there. They just haven't found the right shop. And so for us to give somebody an opportunity, I know we've got a bunch of stories in this, man, of just people we've recruited, whether it's been somebody we got in 24 hours that we literally changed their life. Or somebody that we worked on for 2, 3, 4, 5 years that they finally come over and they say, wow, you've absolutely changed my life.

54:05So I feel like it is our obligation, our responsibility to be able to go and change people's lives. And so if I can take somebody from an environment and put them in an environment where they can thrive, if they're a superstar, then I'm going to do that all day long and sleep perfectly fine at night. Just as you know, and it goes both ways.

54:23Like if somebody was to come over and try to recruit one of our people, which people do all the time, by the way, right? Literally try to come and recruit our team constantly because they know they're trained superstars. And if somebody was to find a better opportunity out there, why would I stop them? I wouldn't stop them. I wouldn't maybe be happy about it initially.

54:41I'd be like, man, I dropped the ball here. Right, right. I dropped the ball. This is on me. But I would never feel bad about someone going to better themselves. And so we will go out and we will take people. I mean, look, how else are you going to get the good people? Not only do I sleep perfectly well at night poaching other people's team members, I feel obligated to do it because I have received so many texts.

55:06Thank you for reaching out to me. I never would have made the jump. Yeah, thank you for changing my life. And that's not me. That's not Todd. That's not you. It's our ministry. And so how do I say this? I was born with certain privileges. I— my parents had wealth. I went to private school, no student loans, public school, college education, hook 'em, University of Texas.

55:33You know, I grew up with technology. I had a job waiting for me after college. A lot of people in our life, in our world, they didn't grow up with those privileges, right? I've gotten a text from one of our guys, and it's a picture of his family. And they had a birthday party. And he said, Joe, nobody in the history of my family has ever thrown— had enough money to, to throw a party like this.

55:58Yep. For his 2-year-old. That's what it's— dude, I sleep pretty good at night. He was poached. He was driving a truck. Yep. And we poached him from another company. He actually got fired. You talk about rap sheet resume. Yep. He fired from another auto repair company. And so is there a shortage of talent in the industry? No, but there is a shortage of A-player operators in the industry.

56:26B— A-players, they don't work for B-players. They don't. They don't. Like I said, if I showed up late, had a tea time in the afternoon, didn't put in the work, same for Todd. Would you have followed Todd's, you know, reputation? Would you have followed Todd's lead if you knew that was his reputation? No. You followed him because you knew he had a track record of growing companies.

56:48Yep. And the trenches guy that I could just, man, just latch on to. And he, and he will teach me everything he knows and he has. And, well, he teaches me in, in stages. You know, his mind works like so far ahead of ours, but he's, he's taught us so much. So, you know, the, the probably the most important thing that he's taught me He's taught me so many, which is, you know, there's a mentality that I can't afford this person.

57:15Mm-hmm. And his mentality is I can't afford not to have this person. And a lot of people out there listening are like probably thinking the same thing, like, man, I can't go get this person. They make too much money. You have no idea the difference of what that type of person can make in your business. It takes you 3 people to produce what that one person could produce, and it costs you a to, you know, a lot less.

57:40So, um, you can't afford not to have them. Very, very— for a superstar, if a superstar walks in the building, what do you do? You hire them, period. What if you don't have space? You hire them. See, LeBron— LeBron— Michael Jordan's walking in the front office. Hey, coach, you know, I want to join your team. Sorry, Michael, we're full. There's no space.

58:01You see, we always like the sports analogies because it seems glaringly obvious, but well, though— well, that's the NBA, it's different. It's not. It's the same. It's running a team, it's running an organization, it's running a business. If Michael Jordan comes into your front office, you hire him. The NFL owners, they understand the arbitrage of paying people what they're worth. Overpay. Glenn says it great.

58:26He says the most highly paid people in the industry are underpaid because they're producing 10 times what the people that are middle paid are. And the people that are averagely paid They are way overpaid because they're just coasting by. They're good. They're doing a good job. They're showing up to work, but they are not moving the needle. Look, why is Steph Curry getting paid $60 million a year?

58:51He's made over $500 million in his career just from the Warriors. But guess what? Underpaid. Underpaid. The value of the Warriors was $417 million— $70 million in 2010. 2026, 16 years later, 4 championships. You know, Kevin Durant wants to come work with Steph Curry recruiting. 4 championships, literally changed the game, ruined pickup basketball for the rest of us. Everybody just jacks up threes now.

59:20The value of that company is worth $10 billion today. So for $500 million, he got a return of $900— no, $9.5 billion tax-free, by the way, that growth, plus all the cash flow and all the deals and the momentum that they've shown along the way. It's like they were the 29th or something most valuable franchise in the league, and now they're number 1 or number 2 behind the Lakers.

59:48And so you think you're getting a good deal, you're paying the price. Like, you— the ultimate arbitrage is to find an A+ player pay them double what you think you should, you know, and, and watch them change your life. Imagine, imagine LeBron comes in for a raise. No, no, no, sorry LeBron, we're actually gonna cut your pay. See, it doesn't work like that.

1:00:14Well, you give 'em a financial stake and that's an, you know, another one of Todd's rules. It's find the, you know, find the right people, make it a great place to work. Give them a financial stake in the outcome of the business and train them. Mm-hmm. And so that financial stake is very important because look, somebody has to have incentive, right, to be able to— I mean, they're getting a piece of it, they take ownership in it.

1:00:33So that's a very, very big part of it. So yeah, I mean, look, you can't— like, when you run the numbers on what a top producer, right, like brings to the table versus an average person, uh, I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy when you look at the numbers. Average people cost you money. They do. A-players make you money. So let's close with this.

1:00:51I know we started with the interview process, but it's really turned into just a great conversation on people and the quality of people and how important it is to find the right people. So we do an exercise every month in training, and we honestly do it every day of our lives and every week of our lives with our general manager meetings and just the way we think about the business.

1:01:09It's called checkmark, question mark, or X. Yep. Brad Jacobs, multibillionaire. He started $8 billion companies. Shout out Founders Podcast. We heard about him on there. He's currently the CEO, I think, of XPO. It's a logistics business. He says, I try to think about A players, B players, and C players, and here's what I do to know. So how do you know? I want to pay people a lot, but how do I know that they're actually an A player?

1:01:35Well, immediate impact on sales, all of that. He says, I imagine them coming into my office and they say, Brad, I found another opportunity. You can't save me. Me and my wife, we've already packed the U-Haul. We're moving across the country to go run this other company or work at this other company. And he tries to envision the way he feels, the way he feels, the what he would be feeling if that person were to leave.

1:02:01A C player, he says, is easy. He was going to fire them anyway. They show up late, they're drunk, they're hungover, they're not into it. He's like, well, whoo, thank God I don't have to fire. Nobody likes firing people, right? He says a B player, this is his reaction. Ah, that stinks., but we'll be okay. We're going to find a recruiter. We're going to replace him.

1:02:23The business will be okay. An A-player, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady. Tom Brady comes into the office. He says, Bill, Mr. Belichick, I'm done. What do you think his response is? I'm going to the Buccaneers. You know what Bill Belichick thinks about? He's like, oh my God, I'm going to lose my legacy. People are going to find out that it was Tom Brady the whole time, not Bill Belichick.

1:02:47Think about the feeling that the CEO has when an A-player walks into the office and puts his keys on the desk. If you are panicking and rolling around on the ground, it's an A-player. Yep. And that's the difference. So I want you to— I want to hear your thoughts on— we do this exercise all the time. How long does it take you to know what somebody's perspective on somebody is based on their response?

1:03:12How long does it take for me to— So if I ask you, how's so-and-so doing? What are you looking for? Oh yeah, yeah. So that's so funny. Um, immediate. So we know, we know immediately. So it's like, how's, how's this person doing? Stud. How's this person doing? Killing it. How's this person doing? Well, they're— boom, done. We know. That's it. Done. See, because it's Kobe.

1:03:33See, it's Wilt Chamberlain. Shaq. Hey man, how's Shaq doing? 40 points last night, 10 blocks. Dude, he broke the glass on the backboard. Did you see that on Twitter? See, like, that's the, that's the answer, right? Shaquille O'Neal, Deion Sanders. Like, how'd Deion do last night? 2 picks, 100 yards. He played both sides of the ball, right? Like, did you not see SportsCenter top 10, right?

1:04:00It's that clear. And you have to be in the business so much and so often and so long that you can clearly see the difference. It is a language. I, you know, Todd, I'm grateful for him. He's trained me on the language of business. And you speak it. He literally says you can't fake it till you make it. You can't. I know if you can speak it, right?

1:04:23I know. In the same way, I know if somebody can speak English or if it's a language that they're learning, right? They say— I'm on a tangent here, but I just love this stuff. Do you know how you're truly natural-born fluent in a language? You can sit in a TED Talk for an hour, and if they make one mistake like in grammar, you notice it, right?

1:04:43One mistake. If they say Netflix are coming out with a, with a new show, you would notice. You'd be like, what? Netflix is, right? Right. It's the same way in business. It's, it's the same way in any language. Like, I know, I know in the interview if you're faking it. I know if you don't— you can't fake it till you make it that you speak Spanish.

1:05:02It doesn't work that way. And so an A-player will change your life. And if you ask me how Deion Sanders is doing, stud. Yep, he's a beast. How's Todd doing? Beast. How's Michael Floyd doing? Oh my God. Matt Keyes, stud, our CFO. How's Glenn Piccolo doing? Beast. That's it. How's Mike Quinn doing? Oh my God, dude, what would we do without— like, I can't— how's Sadie doing?

1:05:26See, if your responses have to think about it, like, it only takes One second. One second. We had one the other day. We were talking about somebody and it was literally a half a second. You and I looked at each other and we were like, wow, we knew. And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, wow, I don't have any of those people, look in the mirror.

1:05:48Like, I want to be in awe of the people that are on our team. Do you think Coach K, when he's doing— when he's coaching for Team USA, he is in awe LeBron is dunking from the free throw line. It's unbelievable what these people can do. He's in awe. I want to be in awe of the people on the team. But do you think they'd be on the team, you know, for a coach who didn't care about them?

1:06:12No. Like, if you don't have any of those people, actually ask yourself, am I one of those people? Because if you're not, don't kid yourself. This is not an absentee. I hear a lot of people in the industry, absentee ownership, get to 10 stores, $10,000 a month to the bottom. Them. You can scale that to infinity. And it's like, but can you scale— can your people scale their own lives to infinity?

1:06:35You know, no, you're the only person in your company that's making money. So I'll get off my soapbox, but man, A players will change your life. You know, a perfect business model with B players and horrible people, how are you going to do? The triangle offense with the Lakers with a bunch of 5-foot-10 16-year-olds against LeBron, like, you're gonna lose. You're gonna lose no matter what.

1:06:59Really, really good players with no playbook at all, they're still going to get you most of the way there, man. Like, you put LeBron and Kobe on the same court with no playbook— give me the ball. Yeah, give me the ball. Like, you know, Deion Sanders, if he— if they go 3-and-out and they didn't throw it to Deion Sanders when he's on offense, he's slamming his helmet on the sideline.

1:07:18You know, AJ Brown, throw me the ball, Jalen. Jalen Hurts, throw me the ball. What are you doing? So it's the same. It's a sport. It's a language. I could talk about this all day, but I think we're up on time. Do you have any final thoughts for the people, the people in our audience? Would you work for you? Yeah, I think that's the best question.

1:07:36I love that question. Would you work for you? Um, you know, a lot of people out there, they'll cycle through people because they are not the leader they need to be.. And so would you work for you? Because you can't expect for anybody to continue to work for you if you wouldn't work for you. There is not a shortage of technicians. There is not a shortage of superstars.

1:07:57There's a shortage of people who know how to lead. That's right. Well, dang, this was sick. This was our premiere episode of the video podcast. This has been Master Tech to Millionaire. I think this is our 16th or 18th episode now. We've been doing the Zoom calls. If you want more information, Please look us up on LinkedIn. We've got this podcast. We're going to be putting more content out there.

1:08:20Get in touch with Todd Westerlund, myself, Charlie Zlatkos, Glenn Piccolo, Mike Quinn, Brian Rhodes, any team members on our management team. We would love to invite you down to Houston, to Boston. We run the biggest shop in the world, $1 million a month led by this guy. We run the biggest small shop in the world, Charlie's Zlatkos, 2 bays, 4 lifts. $4 million a year, all-time record month, $427,000.

1:08:46It's in— it's the NFL. If you want to learn how to, how to just drive your business to levels that you did not think were possible and influence the people that work for your family or your business's life, please give us a call. Reach out to us. We have monthly training programs in Houston. Come hang out with us in Houston. This has been Master Tech to Millionaire.

1:09:07We'll see you guys next time.