Kaleb Nimz on How Auto Hospitality Transformed 98 Shops

0:00Hey, good morning, everybody. This is Todd Hayes with Auto Shop Answers. I have the— a great guest on today, Caleb Nims. He is the president of Gramat Enterprises. They run 98 precision tune units across the country. He is an absolute wonderful guy. It is so great to visit with him. Um, I have to tell the story about this. You know, obviously Auto Shop Answers is a faith-based company, and, um, we were praying because Joe Adams, who just got married, um, lives in Atlanta and commutes to, um, Houston.

0:47And, um, we're praying, you know, God, put, put someone in our life that is faith-based, that loves you, and, um, that we can work with, um, with Key2Key to call back. And guess who it was? Boom! It was— hey, what's going on? And Caleb— Caleb just opened up the podcast with a beautiful prayer. Um, he's just such an amazing guy, and man, we love him and his family so much, you know.

1:20So Caleb, welcome to, um, uh, Master Tech to Millionaire. Boom, man! Thanks for having me. That's a great intro. So God be the glory. If we can do that to start off, I mean, it's all downhill from here. That's right, man. Yeah. So we started working with Caleb and his team. We're coming off of a— why don't we talk about what we spent about a year now we have been working together or something like that.

1:48Caleb is one of those rock stars, young gun in the business. You know, um, second— I guess it's probably second generation business, correct? Third? Uh, I'd be considered third generation. Third generation. I married into the third generation. Yep, right on, man. And, and, um, and he spearheads the company now, and I must admit, he's such a great guy and doing such a good job.

2:12I'm so proud of him. But, um, you know, back about a year ago, um, Caleb came through. Um, we had met through, and I got to give a shout out to Jeremy Glasgow from, what's it, AppFuel, who actually introduced us well over a year ago. And we flew into Savannah, and that was the first time I met Caleb and his family. And we did about an hour presentation.

2:50And fast forward a year later and Caleb and his team hosted— will you tell me, what did you guys just host last week in Houston? Yeah, so, uh, I need to give my own shout out to Todd Hall, my Todd. Uh, he connected us with the 3 Shop Answers, Jeremy Glasgow, uh, brought it all together. So without him, we— I wouldn't be sitting here.

3:14Um, but no, so, uh A year ago we had our annual meeting. So every year in the springtime we get all franchisees together within our team and we brought you and Brian Rhodes from Auto Shop Recruiting in to do kind of a section of that. That lit the fire. And then this year, after going through training each month throughout this year with our team and kind of getting them introduced to it and moving in, we were like, let's just change our whole annual summit from a kind of leadership conference into a training conference.

3:50And so this past week we flew out to Houston, had our annual summit there, and just did a full-on training session with Charlie Zalacos, with Mike Quinn. You were there. I mean, it was the whole team. It was an incredible event, exceeded our expectations hands down. Just you guys always go above and beyond. So can't say no. Well, you know, it took— Oh no, I forgot Todd Westerland, man.

4:17I can't believe I left him out. So Todd Westerland put it all together, man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I tell you, you definitely had a star-studded lineup from Houston Boston Partnership and Autojob Answers. You know, Charlie Zalacos and Mikey Quinn. They actually let me stand up there for a couple minutes. And but, you know, here's the thing. Let's just talk about, you know, how has Auto Shop Answers helped your business, Caleb?

4:49You know, can you talk about that? Maybe before and after? What are you seeing uplift in units? And then we'll tell some funny stories that you and I have personally had over the last year. Yeah, absolutely. So kind of the summary I would say is we have great operators and we have a great brand. We're just— it's been inconsistent with the process over the years and we've kind of fallen into that auto repair lull, if that makes sense.

5:23And I guess something I'd like to say is, so I stepped in, I married into third generation in our business as an area developer, Precision Tune Auto Care. Precision Tune has been around for 50 years and 47 of those years we've been operating Precision Tunes through that in the family and we've grown through the business. And so we talk about bleeding yellow a little bit because we've been so much a part of the, the brand itself and we want to see it continue to go forward.

5:56And when I stepped in, I came into this business 12 years ago, I was learning from the ground up. I came from a different industry. And so learning automotive service and repair was just kind of the first step. But I wasn't, I wasn't too happy with the experience we were giving to customers. And that's grown over the years. And when I stepped in, it was almost a year ago this week.

6:21It was— it was— excuse me, it was April 26th. You guys talk about you can't unsee it. I couldn't unsee it. And I remember getting on a phone call when I landed here in South Carolina where I live the Sunday night getting back. It was like midnight and I was talking with my father-in-law David, who's the CEO of our business. I said, put me back into a store.

6:45I was like, you can, you can take my role. You can take all my responsibilities. I'm going back into a store. Because that's the opportunity that I saw a year ago sitting in key to key. And one of the things that we talk about with our team and as they've gone through it from operators, district managers, the whole level, service advisors, is if, if someone is not asking to be put back on the field or put back in the store, they probably didn't get it.

7:15They probably didn't get it. And that means that we're not the right guy. Correct. Yeah. But see, and that's also why I really connected with you, Caleb. I remember, I recall that, you know, I recall, you know, you sitting through Key to Key and, you know, you, you know, it's like anything else when you're, when you're having a class of, you know, 50, 60 people sitting there, you can tell who gets it and who doesn't, period.

7:42You can tell who's going Oh my gosh, what is this? This is a game changer. And then you can see the ones that, that are kind of puffed up and want to shoot holes in it, which you can't, you know. I mean, it is pretty much perfected business model that people want to shoot holes in it, just can't execute, and that's it.

8:04And then you went back, and the next time I saw a picture of you, dude, you were scrubbing walls in one of your stores. Getting after it. You got to get in the trenches with your wrenches. It's the greatest leadership there is. And, you know, people talk about leadership. Well, you can't lead in this business by spreadsheets. I mean, I certainly love my numbers.

8:30You know, I'm very good with numbers, love getting numbers. But leadership happens when they see the leader in the trenches with the wrenches. And that's going to lead to one of our favorite stories, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, but, you know, so I know that Precision Tune has been very committed to Key2Key. And then we launched— and I'd love your, you know, I'd love you to give me an overview of how Key2Key has helped you.

8:59And then from there, we'll maybe segue into, you know, our newest program, which you have gone through now, Courtside. Oh, is that crazy? Or what? Oh man, it's so good. It is awesome. So good. Yeah. It's like, well, you know, we had a, we about, I don't know how long ago it was, but, um, Randy, who is, um, a, now is Randy.

9:24Tell me, what is Randy's position with you guys again? Yeah. So he's in operations. He's, uh, he's had every role in our business. He's, uh, been a part of our team for over 30 years. Uh, He's been David's right-hand man over those years and 100% customer-focused, brand-focused, and wants the best for everybody in our business. Even like people outside of our business, he wants the best for them.

9:52I know, I know, I know. He is really just a wonderful guy. Well, your whole organization. Yeah. I mean, you have this great organization and that starts from the top down. You can tell when you have great leadership is when you have great people. Randy, for one, is just this great guy. And we kind of tussled and Caleb was sitting next to us.

10:18This is such a fun story. And Randy was telling me how I did not understand. And because of the pits, you know, because they have bays and they also have pits where you crawl down and they're changing oil. And I go, well, no, Randy, I promise you I really do understand. No, Todd, you don't understand. And I said, Randy, what if I said I do understand and you don't understand?

10:47And he goes, no, I understand, you don't understand. I go, well, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm going to hop on a little birdie and I'm gonna fly in and I'm gonna show you I understand. And Randy goes, okay, you do that. And I mean, it was really just a beat thing. I mean, it was really a fun, fun tussle, you know.

11:09And so I did. So iron sharpens iron. Huh? Oh yeah, iron sharpens iron. Iron sharpens iron. Yeah. And so, um, the day came, you know, I flew in and went to the Noonan store. And, um, did I crawl in that pit, Caleb? You were with me. Oh man, Caleb and I had— Caleb and I now have so many great stories. The best part about it is, uh, as soon as you're down in the pit I was walking up to grab an extra flashlight from someone.

11:38And you know how, like, it reverberates when you're in the pit? Oh yeah. All I hear is— I didn't see it. Where's my flashlight? Where's my flashlight? Everyone in the shop's head just went boop. Like, everyone's flashlight came out. It was so good. Yeah. And that was— I think that was pre-weight loss. So I was a pretty fat boy then crawling down in that pit.

11:59I waddled down into that pit. Randy came right behind me. Joe Adams had never been in a pit. Joe Adams gets in that pit and dude, were we barking it out. You know, we had the underhood going on. I had instead of what you call it, you know, we have our full rise. The only thing we didn't have was a mid-rise. I could certainly look at tires.

12:22I just really couldn't inspect brakes, but Did we identify concerns, take pictures, ChatGPT, close deals? I do believe that was a record day that day for that store, wasn't it? Absolutely. I mean, they've been just since Wayne went through key to key every month's been a record month. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wayne, it's great. Yeah. Shout out to Wayne, man. Yeah. And that whole team.

12:46I know. I know we're going to give Wayne the credit, but he's going to turn around and be like, no, it's the team. It's the whole team. But yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so So, by the time we wrapped up spending some time at that store, Randy goes, "Oh yeah, you do understand." So, the great news too is, great news, double great news.

13:11There you go. Great news. Where's Rob? Randy has been the biggest advocate of using technology and influencing the stores that he's connected with, both he's owning, he owns and operates, but also franchisees and other people in the business to where he's doing his own little tour and having people come visit Noonan, that location, showing them how to use the technology and work, working alongside them, walking through it.

13:39So it's, it's cool to see the evolution of the you don't understand conversation, sitting in accounting first class down in Houston to being in the pit and Noonan, uh, and then now bringing other people on the same path. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. It's such a great— what Kita Ki opened up. Yeah, and it's all out of love because, you know, we all, we all work for God.

14:03So it was, it was just such a sweet moment. And, um, last weekend when you guys were here, he actually stood up and we had this little banter on it, and it was just so cute with that big smile because they're crushing all their all-time records. And I do believe they're now the number one store in Precision Tune. Is that correct? Yep.

14:25So they've gone back and forth the past couple of years, but this year Wayne is— he's channeling his inner Nick Saban. Let's go Wayne! Shout out to Wayne and Team Noonan Precision Tune. You know, Wayne is so sweet. He sends me texts all the time. And we correspond probably at least once or twice a week. He also talks with Charlie. He's just, he's all in.

14:53Your team is all in, which is, which is so nice. But, you know, let's talk about some other things that happened there is, boy, that store. So I have not been there now for, I don't know, maybe 6 months or so. And so I flew in and visited the store. Let me see, it's probably been maybe 3 weeks ago. It was for Joe's wedding, so about 3 weeks ago.

15:20And again, Rob picked me up. Shout out to Rob, True Euro. Oh man, we have such a good time, don't we? Yeah. Oh yeah. It's such a great family. I mean, we just have, you know, it's so much more than business and what we do. And, and That store was beautiful. You know, you guys have redone the floors, redone the image. How has that assisted you in understanding the importance of image?

15:48You know, number one. And then you guys have embraced auto hospitality. Todd Hall is like the biggest fan there is. And the Todd Fossil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Todd Fossil. Yeah. And then the world-class service. So why don't we walk through that? Because I do have to tell you, I drove in and I mean, they really didn't know I was coming. I let them— I let— I think Wayne knew that I was going to stop by, but they wouldn't know what I'm driving in.

16:19I didn't know what I was driving in. Rob had picked me up in his Cadillac. And I want to tell you something. We drove into that store and parked on the side. And man, we had a young guy, buttoned up, polished man. He was doing a meet and greet at the door of my car. And I went, wow. He had no idea who I was.

16:45And I said, hi, I'm Todd Hayes. I said, do you do this with every customer? He goes, yes, sir, I do. And I went, wow. Boom. Right on. See, see, that is the first start of major auto hospitality right there. So why don't we walk through how auto hospitality, cleanliness, and just the things that you have incorporated in that store. Man, so quick story.

17:11Yesterday I'm talking with Wayne and he's recruiting, like never stop recruiting or always be recruiting. ABR, ABR. Yep. And with that, he was like the third guy I talked to, he was like, you guys are the ones with the clean floors, right? And he's like, absolutely we are. And went right into it. And the guy was like, yeah, I'll be over there this afternoon.

17:32We'll talk. It's immediate. But the cleanliness, the presentation of the facility is huge. It's huge. Uh, and it's, it's a, a business card left out there that anybody can see on Google at any point. Someone can pull up photos of your shop. It's not like you have to like go and get your house clean before some guests come over. It's always there.

17:53We always have guests coming over. So the cleanliness, the, the bright lights, like everything inside the bays is so different than what people expect. And exceeding that customer's expectations is what it's about. And that's where it like flows into the automotive hospitality is if you're exceeding their expectations, you're giving them a higher level of service. That's not service anymore. It's hospitality. And you're meeting those needs before they have those needs.

18:19So All right. It's my little soapbox. No, man, it's great. Keep going. No, because, you know, there's something else that happened when I walked in the door. Then certainly they know who I was, but they proceeded on to give me a shop tour. I was like, oh, wow. No, I mean, and now the attitudes of your front of the house, they are so good.

18:45How important is attitude? How important is that shop tour, walking your guest outside, showing them you have your presentation station up? Kind of walk us through how that has assisted you in that business. Yeah, absolutely. So that location, I think the thing I remember from that first visit when you came to Noonan with Joe Adams and Rob Eskew was The amount that you guys commented on how the team hustled.

19:17No one was ever standing still. They were always attentive to the customer, attentive to the next technician next to them, whatever they could do to help. That's how they are all the time. And so when you pull up into those first two spots or pull around the corner on the lot, someone's running to that car to greet you, to make sure that you don't have to hand touch a door handle getting out of your vehicle.

19:42That the keys go in their hand before you even walk inside and they'll get the door for you along the way. And so your car is going to be pulled in probably before you check in with that first service advisor at the front of house. And so with that, the, the comment that always comes back in my mind is my wife and my father-in-law talk about his dad who started in this business in the '70s.

20:08And his phrase was just, take care of the customer. If you're greeting them on the lot, you're taking care of the customer. If you're giving them a shop tour and telling them about why you are different than other businesses, you're taking care of the customer. And we haven't even got to the performing any maintenance or repairs or service on the vehicle. That's expected.

20:28That's, I mean, we're automotive service repair business. If you're coming to us and you don't expect that, We got an issue, like, and so, uh, from there, and then it's just every step of the way, how do we communicate? So from the first phone call, uh, if I got on this— well, how, you know, this was something else that was really fun.

20:48How important is the word yes in our industry? Because it's so important. It's like so important. And so, you know, one thing I'll tell you is, um, they were very happy to show me cars wrapped around the store and the other parking lot that I guess that they're actually renting now. Two other parking lots. Two other parking lots just to park the cars because they have now found the magic word when the phone rings and that is, yes is the answer.

21:20What is your question? You know, so how important is that to learn to just say yes to your customer? Oh, it sets the tone. If we got on here and I had zero energy, would you want to have a conversation with me? No, no, no. You would have been like, all right, podcast over, we're done. If I get on here and I'm excited about the business, I'm excited about just sharing how automotive hospitality, how Auto Shop Answers, Key2Key has impacted my business, man, I'm fired up.

21:49I'm ready to go. Like, I want to get after it. But saying yes on the phone is just the starting point. Because if you say yes every step of the process, yeah. And, and with that, when you set the tone from that initial phone call of the customer before they even come into your facility, before they've seen your service, or if it's a new customer, it determines where you're going.

22:13And the industry, I would say even us as Precision Tune of the past, said no without saying no. Oh, well, we're busy, or what time can I get you in, or can I make an appointment for that? And those days are gone, and the new standard has been set, and it's only going up from here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I tell you, you know, whenever you learn that the customer does pay for everything, I mean, they pay for everything.

22:42They pay for everything. They pay for you remodeling your stores. They pay for every uniform. They pay for every vacation. They pay the salaries. We just allocate money that the customer gives us to our team members. And if you can get your entire team to understand that the customer truly pays for everything, you know, how do you not want to serve them and give great customer service?

23:11You know, we actually were talking about during your program about the old days of what I call yestertech. Which is nothing more than yesterday's service hospitality to a gas station with today's technology, which is like Yestertech. I wish I could say I coined that phrase, but that was Bob Lutz. He coined that phrase with the Viper. And I was like, well, that's a great phrase because that also is a great phrase for customer service.

23:43You know, back years ago, You would hear that bell ding, ding. And most of the people in the room that work for you and are in the industry, even my dad had a gas station, you know, Phillips 66. And you go, yeah, Peter's sitting next to me. And yeah, he started in a gas station. I started in a gas station. Who would know that it would turn into this spectacular career?

24:11But man, that customer would drive on the drive and man, you're out there because there was no such thing as self-service. It was full service. You want to put premium fuel in there. You're going to wash the windshield. You're going to lift the hood. You're going to check the oil, check the air filter, PCV valve, make sure there's no leaks there. I mean, you're going to get down and make sure the tires are pressurized all the way around, check the tread on the tires.

24:38Kind of look up, make sure that shocks aren't leaking. Well, we were doing a PMI on the drive. Wiper blades were all good right on the drive. And that is how so many families survived for so many years. And unfortunately, what happened was the oil companies said, man, we're getting a lot of complaints. You know, we're getting, we're getting, um, The technicians that are running these businesses were kind of angry and not nice and saying no.

25:12And all of a sudden that service fell off a cliff and it really did. And so the oil companies said, yeah, we're out. And so they started buying these guys out, kicking them out and put in convenience stores and C-stores. I mean, I can sell pizza, it doesn't complain. And, and then independent shops started opening. They weren't open 7 days a week, which they used to be, because gas stations never closed.

25:40Your great-great-grandparents, they kept working. They— a lot of them had— we were talking about a lot of them had homes behind the business, which is crazy. It's amazing. But see, now our business, the industry now has been frozen in time so long that what differentiates your business. And now you see the power of differentiation. You know, your store looks better than any other store when you're driving down that road going to Noonan, when you're advertising, when you're sending out shop tours and videos, and you're doing a shop tour presentation station.

26:16Well, why wouldn't they want to do business with you? You know, why would they— why would they want to go anywhere else? Yeah, they wouldn't. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, the way, so it's such a missed opportunity. People, so when they think about the automotive industry, uh, there's probably a lot of negativity that comes around the stereotypes of our business and it doesn't have to be that way.

26:45And what we're doing is changing that dramatically. Changing the perception to where when you talk about what differentiates us, I think about the opportunities. I've got 3 young girls under the age of 10 that are learning the scripts inadvertently from the book. Like I'm sitting at, quick story, I'm sitting at the dinner table probably a couple months ago and we're teaching them to clean up after themselves, put the dishes away.

27:16Like and I see that the trash is overflowing or about to overflow. And I say, Genevieve, can you take the trash out for me? She goes, absolutely. Is now a good time? She starts taking the bag and putting it together. It's like just the opportunity that comes from being— from differentiating ourselves in business. That's a marker of that. That's like that legacy marker that's going to show us where we're going to go down the path or where we're going to go in the future.

27:42Walking down that path. And it starts with clean shops. It starts with saying yes to the customer and just going through that whole process of automotive hospitality. And if you put all of those things together and you stack the chips in your favor, I mean, there's no way— You're gonna win. The customer's not gonna come back and they're not gonna tell their friends.

28:01So— Well, you know, you run a big operation. I mean, you know, 98 stores, that's a large company. You know, how do you roll that out to all your franchisees and developers and get buy-in? How is that working for you? Yeah. So over since April of last year, we've consistently sent 5 to 10 people, operators, people from our team to key-to-key. And so I would consider that as like the entry point of this whole process., you can try and do it on your own.

28:36You can search online and find videos here and there. Uh, but until you sit there and you see the intensity of Joe Adams and Glenn Piccolo and people that have lived it out and they're communicating every step of the way and rubber hits the road, they're not just teaching it, they're living it. Uh, that's where it changes. And so like sending our team through that was step one.

28:58Uh, we have quite a few team members that went multiple times last year. I ended up going with the team 8 times. And then January, when you launched Courtside for the first time, I was like, I've got to be in there because how am I going to lead my team if I'm not there with them? I know. Caleb, Caleb, you are on it right there.

29:22You know, you have, you know, you, you know, so many times, you know, you'll have companies send their people, but yet the guy running the company doesn't come in. Well, it doesn't work, guys. Because, you know, you're an ivory tower guy then. And, you know, obviously I run a pretty big operation also. And I'm an in-the-trenches guy, man. You know, hey, hey, why get in the trenches, Caleb?

29:49Oh, yeah, I'll get in the trenches, man. Absolutely. Barking out orders, I'll PMI cars. You know, people don't understand that when you're scaling a company, it starts with one. You know, you start with one. You know, when we started scaling our company, it started with Adams, you know, and Adams was already doing respectable numbers, you know, to averaging about $250 million— I mean, $250,000 a month, $3 million a year or so.

30:20And those are very respectful numbers. But then we were able to scale it up to $1 million a month. As a matter of fact, we did $1 million just last month out of Adams at 1010. Which is not a sustainable number. Our record here is 1.2 million. Now, I don't even look at that as a sustainable number. I like the number about 800 or so with a good gross profit, with super happy customers, you know, but it sure is fun to do that.

30:50And then you launch another store and then you launch another store. And I have always believed in controlled growth. Now you, on the other hand, man, you're walking into a 98-store chain, soon to be 100. I know that you guys are relocating some stores. You know, it just seems— what are some of the things that keeps Caleb up at night, you know, running such an operation?

31:18Because I mean, it's a big company. Yeah, absolutely. So kind of the first part of that, how did we roll it out? I said, just come and see. So initial picked the kind of top operators in our system, the most engaged team members, and said, come and see. So we brought them to Key2Key and there's a famous— I say famous line. There's a line that stood out to me, Joe Adams, Key2Key, that first time I went and he's holding up the script book that everyone gets and he goes, 95% of you are going to put this on the shelf.

31:53It was like, the other 5% of you are going to take this, you're going to memorize it, and it's going to change your business. It's going to change your life. Uh, and so seeing that, uh, the goal was to get the 5% in that room, uh, for me, uh, because I know if I put the right people in that room and give them the right tools, they're going to take it and run with it.

32:11And so that was the first kind of process of getting it rolled out with our team. Um, there's still certain team members that haven't been through key to key yet. And we had several people come through our summit this past week who walked away, and I'm getting text messages to say, we're leaving so much money on the table. Like, it's unbelievable. Like, where was this a year ago?

32:35And I was like, it was here a year ago. It was here a year ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But well, hopefully they're signed up. Let's go. Yeah. But that's the— so for me, there's kind of 3 phrases that's the lens that I'm looking at our business through. So I want to honor the past. I want to lead the present. I want to grow the future.

32:53And so what does honor the past mean? Well, it's taking those principles that built this business that I have the privilege of stewarding. I wouldn't be in this seat without the people that came before me. Right. Amen. But that's only half of it because if I take what I've been given and do nothing with it, I mean, that's on me. That's not on anybody else, and that's not going to happen on my watch.

33:16Uh, and so I want to put our team in the best possible situation. And when I stepped into Key2Key in April of last year, uh, it was a cohesive system or process that I could see every step of the way to roll it out into our business that would change trajectory of any one business, and then it's just growing legs from there.

33:41Uh, and you know, the, the top operators, they want an edge. They see it, and when they see it, they can't unsee it, and they take it, and they want to go, and they want to push the boundaries on it. Yeah, they literally— exactly. Yeah, your players will run to it. Let's, let's kind of walk over, um, since you were at the very first, um, um, courtside Yeah, that was a fun vision to have come true.

34:08Mike Quinn and Charlie Zalacos, if you've listened to any of the podcasts on Charlie, you know that he is an absolute superstar in the industry. I do believe George, he was up from TruAuto, was visiting with him for the last couple of days. And just was like, wow, this changed my life, you know, working with Charlie, you know, and the Rack Attack program that we have.

34:40But, you know, our Goodyear store, Adams Goodyear up in the Woodlands, I was sitting there one day and, you know, you know, it was kind of a junk room, to be honest with you. And, you know, our training center here had turned into our recruiting company because we outgrew the space upstairs. And we moved it over to the hotel. But man, I always thought, wow, wouldn't it be great if we could do a whole in-shop training program on key-to-key?

35:15I mean, man, where it's live, you're doing the reps, you're in the shop. And so I put together a little budget, which was busted. I mean, I'm like, wow, that's a big TV. Is that a big TV, Caleb, or what? Yeah, it's the wall. Jumbotron. Yeah, boy, is it a big TV. I'm like, yeah, we kind of crushed that budget. Yeah, but it's such a beautiful facility.

35:43We turned it into, you know, really, we have a, we built a great podcast studio over there. We have Peter Handels' podcast studio here. He's such a stud. And then we put together this program that's spearheaded by Mike Quinn. Who is just an absolute freaking superstar. You know, we gamified our business back in '86 when we started Auto Hospitality. The great book, Jack Stack, The Great Game of Business, gamify your business, you know, make it a great place to work where people want to show up.

36:19And Ben, you walk into your Noonan store, do they want to work there? Oh yeah, absolutely. You can feel it, man. They want to be there. And that closes deals. See, they are happy to answer the phone. They're happy to do shop tours. They're happy to do those meet and greets. They're happy to shoot great videos. They take a sense of pride in making sure that video goes out or get the customer out to the car and, and do a great show sell presentation.

36:49I'm calling it show sell. I like to call it a show and tell presentation. Because if I find you have bad, bad brakes, not selling you brakes, I'm just showing you something needs your immediate attention. And I mean, the attitude of that store replicated over 98 stores. Caleb, you will be legendary. And I know that that is your mission. And I know you're going to do it.

37:17I mean, you know, you have the drive, the ambition, and And the thing about you, Caleb, that you're like us, you're a grinder, you know, man, you probably don't have to be. But see, you understand the grind. You understand being in the trenches now. And it's just so fun. But kind of walk me through, you know, man, you were the first. You're one of the first.

37:42You're the first group to go through Key2Key. Um, and again, boom, I wasn't there, so you opened it up with prayer. Yeah, absolutely. God is for you, who can ever be against you? Kind of walk me through, um, um, some of the takeaways from Courtside for you and your team. Yeah, absolutely. So with Courtside, uh, I'm going to use an analogy. So I'm a runner.

38:05I can talk about running. I can tell you how to run. I can tell you what to do, how to tie your shoes, all that. But if you're a runner, you want to go run. And so courtside is taking what you learned in a classroom and implementing it immediately. And so I kind of saw it as like, uh, preseason training camp. It's like I get to go sit at Woodlands, which is a beautiful shop, amazing team, great like customers, everything.

38:32It's just perfect. I get to sit there and I get to listen to Coach Charlie and Coach Quinn basically train me, and then I get to go out into their shop and play on their field and go through it and get reps in and get like fine-tuned where I'm like soft, where I need to tighten up. And then I get to go back in and try again.

38:50And I'm going through every step of the process with that. I mean, it's truly priceless. I mean, yeah, absolutely. My opinion, any, you know, any athlete would pay to have Nick Saban spend a day with them. Yeah, right. Or pick your favorite coach and you get 2. Yeah, you get 2 days. Uh, and just the, the interaction with it. It's like everyone in that room is there to work and to go through it.

39:17And so you don't want to be the weakest link. And so when I'm telling my team and they're, I'm, everyone's like, hey, how was Courtside? I'm like, it's awesome. It's like, you need to go through Key2Key one more time. Uh, you need to step up because you don't want to be the weakest link in that room holding the, holding the group back when you're getting in there doing your reps.

39:34Uh, and so, but with that, big takeaways: it's interactive, uh, it's hands-on, uh, Michael Quinn and Charlie are there with you, uh, rack attacking vehicles, shooting videos, doing shop tours. The whole team at Woodlands is walking through, helping you strategize on tickets that may be difficult or going through that of how to best present it. Uh, and it's not like you shut the shop down for a couple days.

40:00Now it's like customers are walking in, so you're getting live reps and they're saying, oh, hey, like, why is all— like, why are all these people here? It's like, oh, they're here training to make your experience better and to make it better elsewhere. And the customer becomes part of that process. It's just incredible. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just thinking maybe we'll do one of those for Precision Tune.

40:23I was thinking, yeah, why don't we pack the house with Precision Tune and do a private— Let's do it. I was just thinking, man, that would be really hot just to see, you know, the reaction of all that. So maybe that'll be one of your future programs where I bring them in. We'd love that. Yeah, just take that over. It just was so fun.

40:41But, um, yeah, it is very special, um, and it doesn't matter what your demographic is. You know, we, we talk about that all the time, um, even if, you know, when, when you were young in business and you picked a poor demographic, maybe Well, if you're the best in that demographic, you will have more revenue than anyone else. And you can make a lot of money at that.

41:06People, I don't care who the public is, they want to be respected. And we have access to money for them. And so I had a store in it, not me personally, but one of my clients had a store. In a horrible demographic. And but man, he did everything right. You know, he had a clean facility. He made it the cleanest store in a bad area, which is number one.

41:35Number two, he answered the phone saying yes. Number three, his prices were more than anybody else in the area. And he would— the guests would walk in the door and he would just start filling out the credit application right then. Because— and he became the number one EasyPay, number one EasyPay shop in America because they wouldn't qualify through, um, uh, Masynchrony. And so we just shift them over to EasyPay, and, um, he blew that business out.

42:09See, it doesn't matter the demographic as long as they still need that demographic. Their cars break, Their cars are older and we're already running about it. The average vehicle is about 12 years old right now, which is amazing. People are holding on to their cars. And I'll also tell you about job security. You know, AI, I tell people this, I tell it during our training program, AI will not take your job.

42:41Someone who knows AI will take your job. And Caleb knows, and you guys hear me talk about AI. We have a whole AI division. My company is infected with AI and we're in— we're 3 years into it and it's phenomenal what we're doing. And we continue to explore AI at a level I can't even fathom. What's your position on AI, Caleb? Oh, it's, it's mandatory.

43:12I mean, the, the fact that it— when I hear people talk about AI and technology, it's this kind of elusive, like, magic ball. And the reality is it's not. It's just, it's there and it's going to be in everything that we do. And so prior to being in the automotive industry, I was in the design tech world and having some of the tools that I have today, if I would have had them back then, man, it would have been incredible the things I would have been able to do.

43:43But every step of our business can be made more effective and efficient using technology, whether it's from listening to phone calls and analyzing phone calls and getting better at that to on the back end when we do our monthly financial review, going through the numbers, having the summaries ready to go and it analyzing it for us. So it gives us talking points or it helps us navigate that financial review faster because we all know in business, the faster you have information, you know, the scoreboard, the faster you can pivot and change and either like change the way you're playing, review the film, or get better or not.

44:25But if we're not getting better, we're going to get benched. I mean, whether we choose to ourselves or someone chooses to bench us, if you're not progressing and you're not utilizing technology, business is not going to be around. If you're frozen in time, you won't make it. I mean, it's that simple. Business is sport. You know, we're leveraging AI technology, especially on another subject you brought up.

44:55You came through the Accounting First program and the importance of accounting, you know, which my industry out there, they really truly do not understand the importance of the precision it takes to count your money. Can you walk us through Precision Tune, their commitment to number one, you know, integrity throughout their company and, and how you, you look at accounting. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, I manage 3 bookkeeping offices.

45:30So across 98 stores, that's housed in different areas. And, uh, in that Accounting First class, I mean, we talk about fraud almost every other sentence because this is a phrase I use with my girls, but if you're not counting your money, somebody else is. Uh, and I wonder where you heard that from. Exactly. Exactly. But that, that's the reality of it. Of, uh, money goes to the people that count it.

45:56And if, and if you're not looking out for your business and you're not stewarding it the way it needs to be stewarded, you're going to— there's going to be theft. There's too many ways to lose money in our business. And so from that standpoint, um, we talk about financial education. We, we're all about transparency here. So similar to you guys. But with that, we review our full P&L and balance sheet with our manager every month.

46:27Right on. Good. I mean, how many, how many businesses do that? Yeah. And I don't understand why they don't. How can you— There's nothing to hide. Yeah. And how can you possibly try to drive numbers that they don't even understand? You know, and without showing them the numbers, they actually think you make way more money than you do. You know, if you say, wow, man, we, you know, we did $250,000 last month, they think you made $250,000.

46:59No, no, no, no, no, no. Does not work that way. Correct. Yeah. But that's, that's that financial literacy that comes with if we want to. So in Precision Tune, in our business, Gromod Enterprises, and the stores that we operate, we offer minority partnerships or partnerships with the operator in the store. That's something that Joe Gramad, my grandfather-in-law, started when, when he— with his first business.

47:25And through that, we grow through kind of sharing the pie. And so one of the things that we talk about often is that the pie isn't just so big. There's always more room in the pie. There's always more slices. There's always more pie to go. Like, to go around. We can grow that pie. We can— yeah, it's— grow it. Yeah, we can grow it.

47:44We can share it, right? Find the right people, make it a great place to work, get them the financials, taking the outcome of the business, and train them. How do you know you have the right people? Immediate impact on sales. Immediate impact. Customers love doing business with them. Their team loves working with them. And they have to make money because we, we have to make money to be I'm a good steward of our money because obviously your family serves the Lord.

48:12We serve the Lord here. And so it's not like you get a wheelbarrow of money and you're going out buying stuff. You're doing a lot of good out in the industry. Talk about the auto hospitality and attracting talent to your company. Yeah. So the technicians, managers, in our industry know what stores in their markets are doing well. They're so tuned into the business.

48:42And so when we started rolling out automotive hospitality and really kind of those key shops that have started implementing it and moving forward with it, you start getting the phone calls. And first it's like the haters are going to be out there and they're going to be talking trash, doing whatever. But then they realize it's not like a one-and-done situation. And it's like, oh, they're here to stay and they're changing.

49:07And then it levels up, levels up, levels up. And then you start getting the phone calls from technicians that you haven't heard in a while or from managers that you tried recruiting that are now super interested. And so it's one of those things that the best players want to play on the best team. They want to get that championship ring. They want to hustle.

49:27They want to move forward. And so when you're doing things right and you're doing automotive hospitality, you're gonna attract amazing people and amazing talent. Yeah. And kind of back to your point about demographics, whenever I, it frustrates me whenever I hear people talk about lower demographics or poor demographics, because it's like when they say that, it's like that human, just because they're in a low demographic area.

49:54You don't treat them like a human. They're still a human. They still want hospitality. You still treat them with care, with excellence, and move them, uh, or help with— help them move through that process. It doesn't matter where you live. I mean, it doesn't matter what area you're in. You still treat them with kindness, with respect. You know, I'll be honest with you, whenever I hear that, I call it a cop-out.

50:17You know, you've already surrendered, you know, you've already just surrendered to, man, I'm not that good, you know, because you really and truly, again, no matter what demographic you're in, you can't— I don't care if it's a restaurant, you know, think about it, you know, if you had a restaurant, you know, every restaurant can offer great customer service. Well, it's the same.

50:49And what happens the minute you shift to auto hospitality, you have no competition. Yeah, none. None. See, none. See, you have no competition. Now, now, if you want to stay in the auto repair business, you have repair centers all over at every corner. I mean, you can throw rocks across the street. I remember hands-on recruiting. You know, we used to work with the Crossroads Automotive on the other side of the freeway up in Noonan.

51:21And I think that they did a private equity deal with Main Street. And man, I went down and I was recruiting. I've hands-on recruited that whole area. And oh, how fun is it now? But you know, that Jiffy Lube down there. And you're right, you know, they technicians and front of the house, they want to win. And so when you see your store and it's cleaner, it's got cars everywhere, you know, you want to go to that restaurant, you know, but they want to work there.

51:56When you have a shop tour and you shoot a shop tour video and you send that to a technician, if you need to recruit them, I mean, I hate to break it to you, but, you know, this is not— you know, I say this all the time. This is not rocket science. It's just not. As Joe Adams says, just advanced common sense customer service.

52:20And that's all it is. Advanced common sense customer service. Take care of the customer. Where did that— where did the industry lose it? You know, people, people freak out that we're open 7 days a week. Car doesn't know what day of the week it is, what month it is. You know, my industry wants to excuse out poor performance by telling me the rodeo's in town, it's first quarter tax time, people are on vacation.

52:48Heck, if I listen to all those excuses, well, there's never a time to be open. When is a good time to be open? You know, versus why don't you just focus on executing great for the customer? Because most your competitors are not. One of my favorite exercises of all time has to be the phone skills exercise at Key2Key at the very beginning.

53:14I don't know, are they— do they do that at Courtside also? Yes or no? Yeah, yeah. It's one— I think they've changed it up because it was, uh, they were doing it on Sunday, uh, and like our industry is just on Sunday. Good news is we control the market on Sunday, you know. So yeah, you know, it's wild because of our inbound call center we're working on.

53:36This will blow you away. We had 115 calls on, on Easter Sunday just through our company. Is that crazy? That's crazy. See, I mean, we're, we're an essential business. The government calls it an essential business because things break 7 days a week and people need— nurses need their cars to go to work, you know, doctors need their cars. Every other person out there needs a car to go to work.

54:05How many people went to brunch on Sunday? Cars broke. You know, things— the world still happens. How many people drove to the airport, flew away? Man, they're utilizing their cars. You know, these things, man, the population does not stop. Just somewhere, you know, our industry got frozen in time and actually they got angry. You know, they're angry at that. You see a lot of shops are angry at the customer.

54:34They don't really care about the customer. And they're just a transaction. You know, and auto hospitality is about building a long-term relationship with a customer. You know, I mean, key to key to callbacks. You know, when that customer calls in, being nice, not hard. It's not hard. It seems like you can't imagine that that has to be, you know, taught to people.

54:59Like, you gotta be nice. What if your mother called? You know, you've heard me use the phrase all the time. Would you talk to your mother with that mouth? You know, like, wow. You know, hey, hey, son, my car won't start. Yeah, I can get to it in a week. What? You know, no, man, you're going to take care of it. I think you nailed it.

55:20It's just the industry's frozen in time. And that's— it's sad, but there's opportunity everywhere. And if you're making excuses, you got to fix mindset. If you're my opportunities. You got an abundance mindset, and so you're driving for those new opportunities and you're growing the pie. Uh, but you know, you know, Caleb, you know, and, and again, I saw your light go off right away.

55:44And see, and, and you— and Todd Hall, oh my gosh, you know, he becomes an evangelist for auto hospitality. He really does. He was like, oh my God, you know, I had another pretty major client. Hold on, shout out to Todd Hall. He was on the show. About a year ago, we started every Wednesday morning, we do our ring ring call for the whole group.

56:08Yeah. We have all of our take fives throughout in their own areas, but he does, he leads a full ring ring session with everyone. Oh my gosh, man. You know, that's that ongoing training. You know, people always ask what's one of the most important things that you can do when you leave key to key, and that is your daily take five. At the unit level.

56:30And I know Wayne is always posting Take 5s and sending me pictures of his— His whole team. So you were talking earlier about the team getting excited about the business. His whole team shows up to the Take 5. They decide on their own to come early. He doesn't make them. Technicians, everyone in the whole business wants to be there because they want to be a part of it.

56:54And he's passing the baton. He's letting them lead the take five from what they did yesterday or the day before or last week. And even kind of another shout out, he's throwing on Meta glasses and he's making each one of them go around and do a shop tour. So he's seeing a shop tour from so many different perspectives, from a technician all the way up to a manager throughout the whole, whole business.

57:17But it starts with that take five and Right now. So one of the blessings of having 98 locations is through that I can step into probably one. I can choose out of 6 take fives every morning where I want to pop into, uh, whether it's a Zoom one, whether it's someone adds me on FaceTime, but I can be a part of the take five and be in that location.

57:41Even if I'm here in South Carolina and they're in Texas, or if they're in Alabama, uh, It's just, it's incredible to see the leadership development happening in every shop in the morning through that Take Five. And that's the, it's just consistency. It just builds and builds and builds. Yeah, it's incredible. You do it every, every morning, you know, whether it's 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it is.

58:07And then you get into your day. My gosh, man, the amount of synergy training Again, I have been committed to Take 5s for so many years, it is ridiculous. I mean, it's like, it's just, it's religion with us. You know, as you know, you've been to many of our Take 5s and it's mission critical. The phone skills training, ring ring, you know, once a week, you know, back years ago, I was doing once a week phone skills training.

58:40Which is wild, with a RadioShack recorder. And we would listen to the calls with a RadioShack recorder with a suction cup plugged into it. And we would wear those tapes out, you know, listening to these phone calls and then role-playing and role-playing. Well, today with the advancement of AI— Oh, it's so much easier. Yeah. Yeah. We'd wear the tape out. What do you say?

59:09What do you say? Yeah, I think we need a new tape, Bob. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you have the pencil, you know, because— Yeah, using your pinky trying to get it. That's right, trying to get the pinky, trying to get it fixed, you know. But, you know, and then so who would ever believe that? But yeah, instrument, that's so amazing. You know, Todd Hall again became an evangelist of it, of auto hospitality.

59:31And you just see, but also you see the joy in your team's spirit because their close ratio goes up. That means their numbers go up. That means their sales go up. That means their close ratio goes up. That means they're happier when they go home. You always talk about a low close ratio is, you know, if you have a 50% or lower close ratio, that means, man, half the people are coming in your shop telling you no.

59:58Well, that is, you know, can you imagine getting rejected 50% of the day? 50% and more, actually as low as 30% getting rejected. No, no, button it up. No, no, no, no, no. Oh my gosh. And then you have to go home, you know, and I'm like, wow, man, you know, you can have a very high close ratio because, you know, the key is being nice on the phone.

1:00:25Transparency, take pictures, treat your customer like family, just like you were talking to your mother, father, brother. It's not that hard. And then when that customer comes and pick up the car, be nice, show them what you've done again. You know, be— be almost, almost overexplain. And then, you know, we do callbacks on every customer. We make sure I call every customer and thank them for their business.

1:00:51And where else are they gonna go? See, they're so— if they said no to— they're saying yes to somebody because their car is broken. And so, uh, does it, does it take that much more effort to be nice? No. To sound excited? Sounds crazy. It sounds like take a pause and be like, hey, good day, Mr. Hayes, how are you doing today?

1:01:15I, I, I did it. I did a LinkedIn post, you know, talking about my 40 years in the business. And I show Mobile Car Care, then Repair One, and now the company that we're scaling, Adams and the rest of the family of businesses. And, you know, it's hard to believe that the success has always been auto hospitality. Yeah, that's why we chose the business, to clean it up and to answer the phone Positive, have positive people.

1:01:46Polaroid cameras is now shooting digital videos, MotoVisuals, send it out to the customer, let them watch it, call them up, explain it to them, close the deal. I mean, wow, this is not rocket science. And a strong meet and greet again when they're picking up the car. Why wouldn't you want to do business with that company? How can you— Exactly. You know, just as an operator, you know, the term that we use all the time is you can't unsee it.

1:02:15Well, see, a customer can't unsee it. See, once a customer comes into your Noonan store and he sees this positive attitude, he sees the videos, he sees a shop tour, the car's fixed. That's amazing. He fixes a car, but that's a given. That's expected. You know, you guys get them home or whatever you do for your transportation needs. Then you get them picked up, you do your invoice review, you blow them a little kiss when they're leaving.

1:02:48Why wouldn't they come back? Why would they ever go anywhere else? See, and they don't. See, they don't. And that's where that car count keeps going up and up and up and up. Well, I'm so excited for you, Caleb. Boy, we're up on our hour here, so I better wrap up. Peter's giving me the, uh, No, I, I just love you so much.

1:03:12Um, I thank you. Um, you know, thank you, Lord, for introducing us to Caleb and the Precision Tune team. You know, we're just honored to work with you guys. Um, continued success. Um, you know, Caleb's a runner, I'm a walker, but, um, when Caleb's in town, you know, he's up with this man. Forget those steps, baby. We get— hey, how many steps you got right now?

1:03:35Right now? I've got— come on, lay it on me. I changed my goals. I've gotten harder. I am at 8,344. 86, 28, baby. Got me. Yeah, I was up early. I was crushing it, you know. It's so funny, you know, Caleb has known me a pre-healthy Todd. And so, man, yeah, I'm up and at it. And we get our steps. And that's also a really fun time when Caleb's in town because, you know, we get to talk business the whole time.

1:04:13You got Charlie Zalacos, Caleb, myself, Eric from VIP if he's in town. You know, we just get this crew of guys, you know, that love to walk and talk. And it's a beautiful hour spent together getting our steps in. So anyway, Caleb, thank you so much for joining us. On Millionaire to Master Tech. We love you so much. I'm so glad you're part of our world and family.

1:04:40And, and, um, I'm looking forward— I'm so— I'll see— I guess I'll see you this weekend. You're coming in for Adam Coffee. By the way, guys, if you're listening to this, Adam Coffee live on Sunday, this Sunday at the Marriott, um, 8 o'clock Sunday after Tech Tectonic, same hotel. So if you're coming in for Tectonic, we have Adam Coffey, who will be talking about private equity, the Private Equity Playbook.

1:05:12He's written 3 bestsellers, actually 4 bestsellers. Adam's coming in. He is our special advisor to Houston Boston Partnership. So we are bringing him in to actually speak on private equity to a neat group of people. And so you're coming in for that, correct, Caleb? I can't wait. Yeah, absolutely. Yep, that— yep. So good, Caleb. So when you go ahead, Caleb. No, I was just going to say, man, it's been a pleasure, and thank you for helping change my life, our business's life, uh, but also to help change where we're going in the future.

1:05:48And so to God be the glory, baby. To God be the glory. It's a privilege, and so thankful that our paths, uh, crossed couple years ago. So, well, again, Caleb, um, all continued success with Precision Tune. I'll see you this weekend. I can't wait to see you. And I also— David's coming, and I do believe that's going to be a really fun time.

1:06:08All right, guys, again, Todd Hayes, Caleb Nipps from, um, Precision Tune. We're going to be signing off, um, from Master Tech to Millionaire, and we will talk to you soon. Thank you, guys. All right, thank you. See you.