How to Get Unstuck When Your Auto Repair Business Stops Growing [THA 480]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hello everybody, Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio, another Town Hall Academy. I am so excited about today's episode because we're going to talk about getting unstuck. I've never had that happen to me, Carm. Are you kidding me? Does that have anything to do with Gorilla Glue? Well, yeah, maybe it does. Maybe it's Gorilla Glue for your mind and how we put treatment on it to loosen yourself up a little bit.

0:29But so good to have you here. We've got this great new app. You've gotta play with it. You gotta get it. It's the Automotive Repair Podcast Network app. It's for your smartphone. It's the ultimate professional automotive content provider. Save your favorites, build your own library. It is so much fun. I love the app. We'll continue to make improvements to it. You'll see that if you download the app, you'll start seeing some really new cool things.

0:56And don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'd love to have you as part of that. And every single week, we just pump out like 7 episodes a week for you in the network. And our purpose is to advance the professional automotive repair professional business. So we thank you for being here and thank you for supporting us. And we thank our great partners, Napa Tracks, Today's Class Kukui, and Pit Crew Loyalty.

1:23Hey, did you know that NAPA TRACS has on-site training plus 6 days a week support? It all starts when a local representative meets with you to learn about your business and how you run it. After all, it's your shop, so it's your choice. Let us prove to you that TRACS is the single best shop management system in the business. Find NAPA TRACS on the web at napatracs.com.

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2:21Get industry-leading customer support with Kukui. That's K-U-K-U-I dot com. You're probably tired of chasing new customers who never return. We understand. Pit Crew Loyalty ends the one-and-done cycle, turning first visits into lasting, reliable revenue. On the web at pitcrewloyalty.com. Hey, welcome back. Let me introduce and get started on this great podcast we're going to call Getting Unstuck. Now you got to stick around.

2:50Stick, stuck. Oh, that's kind of cool because sometimes we get stuck on getting over a hump in business growth, leveling ourselves up as a leader, valuing tenure over performance. I can't wait to hear about that. I think that's so powerful. And developing ourselves and the team is sometimes we just said, let's set it on autopilot and see what happens. Nothing happens unless you make it happen.

3:21And also sometimes we get stuck on finding what we really come to work every day for. Is it for family? Is it for the people we work with? Is it for our clients? Is it for self-satisfaction? What's it for? And a lot of times we get stuck. Matt Wegg is here, founder, CEO of Accelerated Diagnostics and Automotive in Bennington, Nebraska. Hello, Matt.

3:41Hey, Carm, thanks for having me. I'm really excited about this topic. I think it's really timely with things that I've had going on in my life the last couple of years, and it's going to be fun to talk about those things. Well, I know you both have some great stuff to contribute. I know that you taught a couple of classes or one class at least at VISION this year, Matt.

3:59I did. Yeah, I actually— and it goes similarly along with what we're going to talk about. I taught one class at VISION this year on employee development and engagement and kind of setting ourselves up to succeed in the next 5 to 10 years. As a business. And we'll elaborate on that through our discussion today, but it's really taking a deep dive inside at what we're currently doing and what's good, what's strong, where are we weak, where do we have opportunities?

4:26And then how do we start looking at who do we currently have that can solve those shortfalls? And then how do we get forward based on that, setting goals? You think I picked this guy on purpose? Hmm. Saju Thomas is here from Hotchkiss Auto Repair, Denver, Colorado. 6 stores. Hello, Saju. How you doing, Carm? Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here, and the service you do for the industry, um, is immeasurable.

4:52Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Been to his place. Really, I love that old legacy building you're in, and you make it— I mean, it's just like going to get automotive repair in the '30s, right? It's a 1918 building, and, you know, maybe not all of our buildings in our organization are that old, but it definitely speaks to the legacy of acquiring historic shops, keeping that historic name, and serving those local communities.

5:21Well, thank you so much. Hey, let's jump in as this valuing tenure over performance. So, you— this is one of your talking points. I find it so fascinating. Love this guy. He's been with me, uh, you know, a dozen years now. I'm not sure he's really making it. And I think we're having some problems, but I love this guy. And to me, you're always in this dichotomy of stuckness, making choices.

5:46It's one of the greatest challenges I've faced as an owner and operator. It's that you build a personal relationship, you build a professional relationship with the team member. And as time goes on, either their performance may not elevate like the rest of the organization, or it might actually backtrack. But I think many of us place such a high value in tenure, and intrinsically, that's not a problem.

6:12Tenure is a good thing. It shows commitment, it shows loyalty, and that should be valued. However, it shouldn't be valued at the expense of performance. And that's one of the things that I realized last year, a year ago this time, 4 out of the 5 people I had on my leadership team today are different than a year ago. And it was a hard pill to swallow.

6:38My leaders in the organization may have been exactly the leaders to take us from point A to point B, and I appreciate them dearly, but it's a serious question of, is that team gonna take you from point B to point C? That's the, probably one of the biggest things that people have in scaling. And if not scaling to find additional places, but just scaling to go from 1.5 million to 2 to 2.5 to 3.

7:06To your point, not everyone who's on that team has the capacity to, you know, balloon up, if you will, with all the tools, leadership skills, all that are necessary to get to that level. Matt, I know you're thinking this thing right now. Yeah, this was a real challenge that I had. So I'd say over the last 2 years, maybe 2 years ago, I really got to a point— our organization's rather new as well.

7:31I started this from scratch in September of 2020, and we grew really fast, but we kind of plateaued at about the 3-year mark, and I had to figure out what was causing that. And I went from just me as a sole employee and my wife doing part-time work to we had a full team of 7, 8 people on staff within 3 years, and it became very stagnant and we weren't being able to— we weren't growing.

7:56I was having a lot of turnover and I had to do much like Siju said, I had to take a deep dive into who was there and are these the right people that are meeting the goals and the mission and the vision of the organization? And have I done a good job as a leader conveying that message to them? I started working on getting that message across and then figuring out, you know what, I have people here that are not cut out to go to the next level with me.

8:25They were fine with where we were, and that's what they were keeping it at. And they didn't want to do the work. And no matter whether I was able to lead them or not, and like you guys had said, I look at it as we're constantly climbing a staircase, and sometimes people can't take that next step., and we've got a rope and we're trying to pull that person up the next step, but they're just dead weight.

8:48And sometimes we've gotta cut that rope loose. And that's what I also had to do. And so a majority of our leadership team, the, the couple higher level team members, they're within a couple years old of our, of joining our organization as well. Guys, is it partly because we're not close enough? We look at the tenure. So, Ju, is is a certain level of loyalty.

9:10We're giving, they're giving, but are we spending enough time with them? Because I know one of your talking points, Mag, is this dream manager. And really, can we get unstuck with this employee that I have and not really knowing where they're going and how I can help them? And can they really help me? What I had to think about on this topic is operating aligned with our core values.

9:36Two of our core values are development and results. And I think to myself, just because someone has tenure in the organization, are they prioritizing development? And when I say that in our organization, I'm very serious about it being personal and professional. I wanna know that they're developing personally. I wanna know that they are understanding who they are, How they operate as a team member, knowing we all have shortfalls in our temperament, are they engaged in being accountable in that regard in addition to fixing cars, serving customers, communications?

10:15So I think there's a core element of just 'cause someone's in the organization long-term does not mean they're continually pushing the pedal on development. And the same principles apply for results. If you— don't operate a meritocracy, the organization falls apart. And results are critical in what we do, and therefore, there's going to be a— some sort of KPI for everyone in the organization, and everyone should be accountable for those KPIs.

10:45Matt, how often do you have to sit down with people to make sure you are— they're aligned? I love the whole thing on the development piece, the— this continuing education. You know, I'm this big believer that you've got to be a perpetual student. In any capacity in our industry, both leadership and on the technical down in the bay side. Yeah, I agree with you totally on this.

11:06And that's one of the things we look at. So a couple of our values are commitment and excellence. And are people committed? And what does that look like to be committed? Committed to oneself, committed to our company, committed to our community, to, you know, the people we serve. And part of commitment is developing yourselves. In understanding what that standard of performance is.

11:29And that's a term that I use quite often now is helping people understand what that looks like. As a leader, I wasn't the best at communicating what my expectations were of people. And I think some of it was that I just was afraid to upset somebody or I was afraid to let them know, hey, this is what the plan is here. It was more of a personal, growth that I had to go through as a human being before I could really start to lead people properly and effectively and to help them explain where they're at.

12:02And so, one thing that we do is we are speaking regularly. Everybody knows what their role is in the company. They know what their standard of performance is. And if they deviate from that standard, they understand what that looks like and what the consequences are going to be. And we realize people are human beings, they're going to have off days and They might go through things in life, and I think that's where being a good leader too, and understanding and having empathy and compassion for people when they go through those moments of difficulties, we got to be there for them too as teammates and as partners in this organization together.

12:40We're on this journey together. I couldn't agree with Matt more. Just some really good points there. Oftentimes, leaders have to lead by making tough choices. And holding people accountable. And the— part of the reason that's tough is many of us leaders genuinely care so much about the people on our team that the more we might criticize that, the more that might be a personal criticism of ourselves, our ability to train them.

13:09And we have failed as a leader if we are criticizing them or giving them a disciplinary notice. There was a book that was quite transformative to me and it was Radical Candor, a New York Times bestseller, that really emphasizes the point that a great manager isn't always trying to hug and say friendly things to an underperforming team member. They're willing to speak truth and be honest.

13:32And that is the best thing you can do to develop, to create transparency, to create trust, because there's a predictability and an ownership that comes from management in the future of an employee. I always say, if manager's being tough on you, that means they care. When they stop being tough on you, then what does that mean about their investment of their time and energy in you?

13:56And you know, and sometimes they get stuck because they can't do something about the problem that they're having with you. Our whole episode here today is about getting ourselves unstuck. And what is it that I have to do to stop to realize I got a problem and I gotta figure out how to fix it. I gotta pick up the biggest, most powerful thing that was said in the last 6 minutes, the word communication.

14:22If you look at the conferences in the last year, year and a half, communication classes are right up there. I mean, you're gonna find a ton of them. And I noticed by going around Vision last year that communication classes are full because people realize that part of the magic of getting unstuck is the ability to communicate. And so I'm stuck because me and the wife, I say blue, she hears navy, right?

14:54And so we're not confirming and clarifying, and our self-awareness isn't what it is. So thank you for bringing up communications. We've been doing a lot of episodes on that lately, and I have to tell you, It's probably one of the magical points we're gonna look back in 5 years and says, I became a better communicator. Not because I'm in front of a room and I'm pontificating, I'm listening better.

15:17I can't get this individual who I think is unbelievable to the next level. They're stuck. How do I unstuck 'em? One of the keys that unlock performance and allows for better communication is culture. And when I think about what that means is, if you look at Lencioni's book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, he talks about trust, he talks about conflict. And conflict, people think of as a negative thing, but it could be something that's really healthy and necessary in a high-performing, healthy team.

15:48And so I think when you tackle why is there bad communication, it could be insecurity, it could be a lack of trust. There's a lot of whys that need to be addressed, and then good communication tends to be the end result of dealing with underlying team dynamics that are not healthy. Let's face it, your shop management system is the single most important tool in your shop, period.

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19:05Culture, baby. You know, it's one of the hardest things for many up-and-coming top shop operators, Matt. And I bring that to a point where Matt, when you first opened, were you a top shop operator? No, sir. See, it takes a guy with stones like yours to admit it, right? And you worked on it. You did something about it. And when it came to that culture piece, there's just too many people covering their ears, their eyes, their brain, because it is one of the hardest things to do.

19:37It's a, it's an untouchable. They say, well, we're gonna, we're gonna move the toolbox over there. Look at how much better we are. We're gonna have a great culture. What's that mean? How's it work? Saju, I, you guys gotta, both of you have great cultures. I hung out with your, with your manager, Matt at Vision, smart guy. And, and he bleeds that culture in the business.

19:59And that's the biggest, in fact, out of all these great topics that we're covering, it's so foundational, right? Saju, it's the foundational growth of your business, yet we're stuck in making it work. One thing I'll comment on that as well, I think too often people hear culture and they think something very subjective. Oh, we had a team lunch and now we have good culture.

20:22Oh, we went to a baseball game and now we have good team culture. I would suggest that culture is something really tangible. What are your initiatives to pursue better culture? And it could be, hey, we're gonna do some personality assessments and talk through our different personalities so we get to know each other and put our guard down. It could be we're having a book club together and people are voluntarily reading some of the same things and talking through it.

20:47It could be team building exercises that's not just, hey, we're gonna go to the bar and have a couple drinks, which is also good. But nevertheless, culture needs to be tangible. You don't have a great culture unless you have a plan for it. Matt, what is it taking to continue to evolve your culture? The big thing for me was making sure that we have the right fit of people that we're hiring.

21:11And I think one of the biggest things for me, at least being early on in business and being a new business and in the time that we're in, in society, it's very difficult for me being a new operator to hire top talent. It was very difficult, especially within the first 6 months or year or 2 years, because people have all this uncertainty.

21:34COVID was still a real thing. And they're like, I'm not gonna go to a startup shop when I've been here 10 or 15 years. And You know, and some of the things I had to realize and learn the hard way was that I should have been more patient as a leader and a manager. And early on, we were just hiring people based on a resume or what they would tell you, and then they would get in and you would start to see that this person doesn't have values that align with mine or the organization.

22:03This person thinks this way, which is not in alignment with how we do things here. This person does work this way, which isn't in alignment with how I do things here. And I had to remember that the whys behind why did I decide to go into business and risk everything and put my whole family's wellbeing on the line to do this. And then I needed to find people that also had those sorts of importance in their life.

22:31And so when I got to this point of being really stuck and we started to rehire, I had to figure out what was the why were the people that were going to help fulfill the why and shared similar whys to me that I could help as well. So finding— Sounds like you've read— everyone's read this book, Start with Why. I actually haven't read that.

22:54Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You got to start with why. Simon. Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek. When I think of values, I remember one really cool trick on how to start. But again, it goes back to mission, vision, values. Well, what's our mission? Oh, we can come up with a really cool sentence. And what is our vision? And, but ultimately, if you don't have any of this in your culture set, really cool way.

23:21I remember someone telling me this, or I read it in a book, maybe it's a Jew, is get a whiteboard, not too big, on the exit door. Of your business, right? And every time somebody leaves for the next week, we would love you to write a reason that you work here, a reason we work for our clients, a reason we work with each other.

23:40And all of a sudden, these dozen to 20 words are there and you bring them into one of the huddles and you say, listen, we need to refine this stuff. Who wrote this down? What does it mean to you? And by the time you're done, you've probably got yourself Over a couple of weeks in massaging this exercise, you know, maybe a 5, 6, 7 key value set, these singular words that mean things to what we do as a team, what we do for our clients, what we do for each other.

24:12And the owner starts to see how this team that he's developing appreciates the business that he's running. And now I can't imagine the, you know, the goosebumps that the owner is gonna start getting as his culture is starting to percolate. Some would think culture comes from the owner down. My assessment is that culture really needs to start from the team, and it needs to be contagious.

24:39We started working on, wait, who are we? What's our value set? What's our mission? So much of it came back to analyzing who in our organization represent our culture. And understanding from all of those people that are great advocates, great ambassadors for who we are, then we were able to boil down a sense of what differentiates us from someone else. And it sounds like Matt has a phenomenal organization, but you know what?

25:06His culture is going to be a little different than the culture in my organization, and that's okay, and that's good. And that is where we cherish the differences among the people, among the communities that we're in, I think it's just critical that management and ownership allow their team members to be part of the process, to be vocal in that process, because it's most important that the team owns that culture.

25:32It is not a top-down exercise because you don't want to tell your team what they are. What you're— you hire towards your team, you hire towards your core value, And certainly, the owner and management of the organization is going to impact that culture, no question. At the end of the day, though, you really want buy-in from the entire team because you're ultimately everything you do and how you operate, how you treat customers need to be aligned with those core values.

26:00Matt, are you watering your culture, watching it grow, evolve, and develop as not only what you believe is the strength of your organization, But to Saju's point, and I so believe in this, it's gotta come from bottom up. Yeah. I go back to where, you know, the big thing for us that's changed this drastically was getting the right people brought in that had the values and the drive and the energy and the motivation and the desire to do well.

26:28So all people that aligned with the values that I built this organization on. And I think when you've got that core framework, skillset can be taught to people, right? I can teach somebody to fix a car better, or do a task better, do an administrative duty better. Like Saju said, the big thing is, is like everybody is part of the culture. It's not what I make it.

26:50It's getting the right people there. And now we're taking pieces of everybody's, what they bring in that's unique about them and their good experiences. And we let this all mold and mesh and build into this really cool thing. And that's what we're like really in the catalyst of right now is experiencing all these great different personalities. Of this team that we've built right now, and it's all working together.

27:12And one thing that I always stress to everybody, especially when we talk about our organization and the Wyse, and it's, you know, I always place myself in a position that we're all equals here. Everybody here plays a key role in the success of this organization. No one person here is more important than one another. If I'm gone or I'm not doing my job, it's going to affect everybody here and the customers.

27:36If one of the technicians is gone or not doing their job, It affects everybody in the organization. And we've really learned that we all play such a vital role in the success of this ecosystem we've built. And people, when they see that they're valued and they play a really important role, that just, I mean, it lights a fire in the right people.

27:57When you've got the right people on the team. I gotta stop and just go in a tiny little different direction. I'm listening. And I'm not sure I can do it. I'm listening to this episode on being stuck. I believe that the culture is a critical piece. Okay. First of all, selfish promotion. You just go to my website, remarkableresults.biz, type in the word culture and listen to the unbelievable number of episodes.

28:25Maybe look at people you know and some coaches that we've had on and some authors that we've had on and listen to them and maybe get excited and motivated about it. But if you can't seem to get yourself over top dead center, I love that term, right? Automotive term, right? Do I need to hire someone to give me a kick in the butt, like a coach, a mentor group or something?

28:48Because so many of the top operators didn't get there unless they found someone willing to say, yes, Matt, yes, you can do this and you will do it by next Thursday when we have our next call or we never have our next meeting.. And a lot of times we stuck ourselves, we stick ourselves someplace with greatest intentions in the world, greatest. We never have an accountability partner to get us to that next step in that next level.

29:16So you can take all this learning down, write all these great notes, read the show notes, and still be in the same place and stuck in another 5 months saying, damn, where am I? I'd like to speak to that. Cause that's a really great thing. And that was something that I did early on in business was I realized where I was strong and where I was week, and I realized what I needed to improve on.

29:37And I hired a coach within 6 months of starting our business. And I've worked with a coach every day since. And it's a little humbling because oftentimes us as business owners and people that are self-employed or in small business, we don't have these wealth of resources that a large organization has. And that's part of why we went self-employed was because I want to do it my way and I want to do it this way, or I can do it better.

30:06But we have to eat a piece of what I call humble pie sometimes and realize we don't know everything and we're not the best at everything and we never will know everything and we'll never be the best at everything, but we can improve every day. Matt makes that reference of we don't know everything to what I think about is that adage of the emperor has no clothes.

30:29And I think oftentimes as owners of, of the company, we're not being held accountable for our shortfalls. And there's this higher status of us needing to be self-aware of, of those pitfalls because sometimes we're stuck and we don't even know it. And we could spend multiple years operating in a suboptimal way without realizing we were stuck in the first place. And so that's where in recent years, as I mentioned, one of our core values is development.

30:59What I constantly tell myself and my leadership team is that we have to show the rest of the organization and lead by example by prioritizing development. And that's part of the reason why, Carm, I've been part of some of these coaching groups, whether it's Pro Services with Elite or Transformers or the Institute. There's so many great— coaching groups in this country, and I think we're blessed for that.

31:23At the same time, there's a number of great peer groups that go beyond just the coaches and the coaching groups. I was part of one locally and then part of another national one. So it is absolutely critical for owners to be self-aware, to not walk with ego and arrogance. And that's why humility has to be part of that development culture. And as the rest of the team sees that, then they're more likely to go pursue classes.

31:51Then you don't have that senior 20-year tech, you know, beating his chest because he's the best technician in the world, because we know this is a humbling industry. And the second you think you know everything, you're going to get beaten down pretty quickly. You're proven wrong. Yeah, that's absolutely right. So that's where development has to come from the top. And, and you have to know when you're stuck in order to get unstuck.

32:12Wow. Thank you for that, because I know that ego, being stuck in an attitude that no one can teach me, tell me, I know everything, but yet I'm too busy to even do anything about it, but we're okay. And maybe this is the episode that 5 people are gonna listen to this that have been, that I call in struggle mode, that are really looking to go somewhere new and special and different.

32:41How about the word profitability? How about the word, I can't believe all the great work we're doing. We have money now that we can buy. Again, I'm sorry, but I think all of this stuff of how to get unstuck in a lot of it, we didn't even bring up the whole financial piece. I'm stuck just giving enough money to mama to buy groceries every week.

33:01I haven't cashed a couple of paychecks and I really found this great individual. I can't afford that individual. I can't believe people want that kind of money. Was this guy crazy paying that kind of money to people? And those are all things that are getting in your way. You're stuck in an attitude, which is why I love this episode. I'm so glad this thing is working out to the passion that I wanted it to come from you.

33:26But thank you for bringing up, I'm stuck in— you're stuck in your ego because that's what's preventing the marginality that exists in our industry. The marginal operators are pulling the rest that are working their butts off. This professionalism of our industry is such that there are too many pulling it down. What do you mean the alignment? The alignment over at Carm's place is $400.

33:54Well, he says he's gotta do a calibration. I mean, you know, they're like, don't worry about that. Mine's $99. Because we're not paying attention. We're not reading the factory manuals. We're not doing seju, the continuous education and improvement. The word development, which is just beautiful that you talk about all the time. Where is the development? So when you sit down with your people and say, we're gonna do training like we've never done training before, and, and I believe the word is education, we're gonna be educating ourselves beyond imagination.

34:26This year I'm committing to 40 hours. I'm gonna fly a few of you to conferences. This is what we're doing. I'm bringing in a trainer. I'm working with some guys. We're going to the next level. Uh, I don't have time for that, boss. Uh, am I going? Who owns the business? Or is it that you haven't been able to sell the continuing education thing that's getting in our way of being so good at what we do?

34:52Right. And I think as a leader, you must be a visionary or you need to have a visionary mindset on your team in a leadership role, because we have to be looking at where is the future going. And we have to be communicating that to our team members, especially the younger generation. They want to know purpose. They want to know what's in it for them.

35:14They want to know they're going to have security in 5 years. Is this business even going to be around? And when they see, like Saju said, the leadership not developing themselves or investing into others, people are smart enough, they see things and they realize, hey, I see all these new systems on these cars. We're turning away cars that are going to the dealer or we can't fix these things.

35:36And we're not investing into the right tooling for me to do my work. I'm not getting trained on this. The owner's more focused on retiring rather than develop. And I hear this all the time. The owner's more focused on this or that, and we're just suffering here. And you know what? I mean, these shops are gonna go outta business, unfortunately, if they're not taking the time to look at what is 5 or 10 years down the road and what am I doing today to prepare for that?

36:03And we have got to be building that into our team members. And that's how you build purpose behind development is, hey, here's where we're going in 5 years with this industry. Well, guess who has to know that? The owner and the management have to be educated on what what the trends are and what's coming down the pipeline. And then we have to build that value and we have to sell that to our team members.

36:26Hey, guess what? I need somebody trained in this skillset because in 5 years, 75% of cars that we see are going to have that technology and it's gonna be failing. And there's a class coming up and here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send you to it and we're gonna start getting you involved with it. We're gonna start giving you these jobs when they come into the shop, and I want you to be my subject matter expert on that particular system or vehicle.

36:53I'll tell you what, if we were to survey, and I think both you guys would agree, all the shop owners and managers in this country to say, what is the number one thing shops are stuck on right now? And it's been an issue for years. It's probably labor shortages. It's competencies and high-level technician, automotive engineers that are capable to come in and do the work and do it at a high level.

37:19And you know what? What I've realized is recruiting over the last few years has become exceptionally easier in my organization because we talk about continuous education. We talk about training and development. I constantly say we are a development organization. That is a core of who we are. And so not only is it something we talk about, but it has to be something we do because of what Matt pointed out and the evolution of the market.

37:47Because if you're a high-level technician, you want to be in an organization that recognizes the complexity of what we do. We're not doing an arms race on who has the cheapest alignment. We are going to price the work we do appropriately at the level it needs to occur to make sure that the team is being compensated appropriately for the complexities of this industry.

38:09There's a lot that goes into it, but it requires managers and owners to be unstuck and have their head out of daily operations every day. If all they're doing is dispatching and writing tickets and putting out the fires of normal daily operations, they're not going to have time to be thoughtful about the growth and development, or the growth of their shop and the development of their people.

38:33All they are is a boat floating on the lake without an engine. Mm-hmm. That's right. That's it. That's where I was at a year and a half ago. Oh my God. Guys, this was great. I'm not necessarily saying we have changed the world, but hopefully there's enough people that listen to this. Forward this to a friend of yours. Part of the answers to so many problems we have in the industry exist in all the, the content that we produce and the articles that we write.

39:04So guys, I wanted both of you because you're so damn successful in your own right, in your own markets, and you've gone out and gotten the help and you've realized you've raised your hand and says, how can I be a better leader? How can we have great culture? How can we find our purpose? And these were all things I'm sure over the evolution of your business you were stuck on.

39:27Even what I do, every once in a while I fall into a problem and I say, ooh, boom. I know how to back up. I know how to rethink. I know how to research. I know how to ask. I know how to get. And then I take all that stuff, I apply it to the roadblock and see if I could push that block left, right, forward, something.

39:51And you keep working it. But you can't give up and you can't give up in trying to get unstuck. And it is not easy as you both have outlined here. Any final words to our audience? Uh, so, you, I'll do you then, Matt next. Thanks, Carm. Again, really appreciate being here. One thing I'll call out is one shouldn't be scared of getting stuck.

40:15In fact, you should be a little bit concerned if you never do get stuck. That might mean you're not being ambitious enough, you're not pushing hard enough, you're not finding yourself into complex situations that you need to solve. The beauty of being stuck is your ability and opportunity to get unstuck. So embrace it, have a positive attitude about it, and have a solution-oriented mindset in those circumstances that you actually welcome periodically.

40:42Wow. Saju Thomas, CEO, Relay Hill Auto, Denver. 6 stores. So glad to have you here. Thank you for wanting to do this for us. Always. Matt Wegg, founder, CEO, Accelerated Diagnostics and Automotive in Bennington, Nebraska. Final word, Matt. Yeah. Well spoken, Saju. Love it. I mean, that's exactly the truth there. And I'm going to kind of follow up with what you just said.

41:04And I think sometimes we don't realize we're stuck and we're stuck because we don't always have that outside perspective. I ask yourself this question: how do you know if you're stuck and what are you doing to quantify that? Do you have goals set? And if you don't have goals, you're probably stuck because as we just said here, your goal should be challenging you to get stuck and figure out new and more complex ways to grow yourself as a human being and a leader to get that goal accomplished.

41:33No goal should come easy. So what do goals look like? I mean, you gotta find purpose and meaning in your business and why you're doing what you are doing as an operator. And an owner. Set, you know, whether that be setting your end game or I have a growth goal, you need to have something and it needs to be something that matters to you.

41:51Don't let somebody else set that goal for you. Don't live somebody else's life like, oh, the guy down the street, or I listen to this guy talk and I need to be like him to be successful. You need to find what matters to you and what's in your heart, what drives you, and that needs to set your goals. That's what I'm working on actively.

42:09I'm so glad you brought up the goal thing, Matt. Maybe we should have gone back and maybe added it to our earlier dialogue. I don't think there's a whole lot of things that we can do without having set goals and then getting ourselves unstuck while we go to reach them. Hey, thanks again so much. Automotive Repair Podcast Network, 7 episodes, great, great talent.

42:28That's all part of the content that we produce each and every week. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive repair business podcast, Remarkable Results radio. Get your episodic education on the ARPN listing app at automotive repair podcast network.com. Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry.

42:56Until next time.