Own Your Shop. Own Your Life. The Path To Freedom

0:00Welcome to Repair Shop Reckoning: From Chaos to Control. Because too many shops today are running on chaos. Phones ringing, technicians frustrated, front counters overwhelmed, owners buried in problems with nobody to call. Kevin Brown has spent over 30 years in the trenches learning how to take that chaos and turn it into control. Shop owner, operator, consultant, leader. Through industry shifts, insurance games, bad hires, great hires, and lessons learned the hard way.

0:28This isn't theory. This isn't corporate training fluff. This is real shop experience, unfiltered. On this show, Kevin breaks down what actually works— running profitable shops, front counter control, training technicians, negotiating with insurance companies, building systems that make your shop run instead of burn, and the mistakes that quietly bankrupt shop owners every single day. No corporate scripts, no sugarcoating. And yeah, somebody might get offended.

0:57That's okay. Disney's two doors down. But if you want the truth about this industry, buckle up. This is Repair Shop Reckoning: From Chaos to Control. Let's get started. Welcome back to Repair Shop Reckoning: From Chaos to Control. So I want— we've been talking about the last few weeks. We went through P&L, then we went to P&L deep dive, then we went budget.

1:21So then we went after budgets, we went to balance sheets. So now I'm kind of like, okay, I'm going to give that all a break and let these people soak this all in on YouTube, watch it all. Because quite frankly, it's confusing. So I wanted to go back to something that's been on my mind, kind of fucking irritates me. So I'm just going to just— I have my notes once again, so I don't babble.

1:43I don't need to read them. I pretty much know what I'm going to say because I can spit bullshit like the best of them. You could ask the people online that hate me. You know, I got some guy that tells everybody that I don't even have a shop. I'm just out here fucking running my mouth. And then another guy yesterday told me, um, what'd he say?

2:01I don't know if you've seen the post. Basically, he said that all I talk about is negative stuff. Every one of my videos is negative stuff. Every one. It's my simple response back to him is, you guys can go read it because It was my usual nice self because I just got so sick of— you could literally say, you know, I saved a little puppy from drowning in the river and I almost lost my life doing it.

2:26And guys would be on there like, yeah, but the 4 more died, you know, 4 streets down and you didn't do nothing. You're a horrible person. Like, there's no winning online. Yeah. And you kind of wonder why people on social media or some of these influencers end up killing themselves. These motherfuckers on their keyboard could be savage. But the beauty of me, I don't really give a shit what they have to say.

2:43Yeah. Okay. How many times have I been flamed for telling that guy guy has his head up his ass for not putting a cotter key. And I firmly fucking believe it. I don't care what anybody says, okay? My thought is, I always ask these guys, always that have an opinion, what's the name of your shop? Do you know how many of them answer me?

2:57Zero. Because what they are is a guy on the other end of the line, or on the other end of the keyboard, or wherever on TikTok, Facebook, or everything, with an opinion. That's all it is, is an opinion. Because they've never done anything in their life, but they always got to sit there and give advice, okay? It's like Dave Ramsey says, don't take advice from your broke brother-in-law.

3:14Don't take financial advice from your broke brother-in-law. Okay. That's the bottom line. So this leads me into something that's been irritating me. I've been talking to you about it. You know, I started this podcast over a year ago in December. It was a year. Yep. Mark, right? Yep. And I started this podcast just basically because I wanted to start a podcast. I started out at that place in Brighton.

3:36We didn't like them. So we said, fuck it. We built our own studio and here we are. Right. And it's grown. And obviously what I said has a lot of the stuff, what I say, obviously fricking people listen. We have a lot of viewers, right? We're smashing, you know, almost 30,000 and almost 40,000, I think. And we just went over 1,000 on YouTube, which I'll tell you what, that, that right there is tough.

3:57Yeah. You know, getting to TikTok, I don't remember our numbers. What, TikTok's 29,000? TikTok, we only took from December to, uh, to May, only a few months to get over the 10,000 mark. And now we're at like over 30,000. 29,000. And I know Facebook's going on to 40, maybe. 40? Yep, 40. Yep. Okay. And Instagram, 18K? Yeah, whatever, 19 now. Yeah, yeah.

4:17Okay, so obviously people like what we have to say because we have a lot of followers. We get a lot of people going, thank you very much, your information is, is great. And you know, around my neighborhood, it's kind of funny, I talk to— go to the shops or go pick up parts at the dealer for the guys or whatever, these people all know me.

4:31It's kind of weird. You're like, hey, you're the guy. Hey Kevin, yeah, we see your podcast. We talk. My brother's shop you know, which is like 150 miles away. They know me. It's kind of cool. I get messages from all over the world. And one thing I do, people send me messages like, hey, can I pay you to talk to me? And I said, no, send me your number.

4:48I call them, I go, what's up? Hey, I have problems with this or that. How much would you charge me? I'm not going to charge you nothing to talk to you on the phone for a few minutes. I'm not here to fricking kill people. Yeah. Okay. What's your problem? What about marketing? And I help them. Okay. And a lot of them said, hey, he's helped me.

5:02And I've talked to a lot of them, right? Now, if they want me to look at their numbers and stuff like that, I have them send it all over and then I obviously charge money to go through their books, right? Only makes sense. But, you know, just to talk to somebody on the phone, I talk to these guys and I've seen other influencers talk about like, you know, we do this, we can't just do this.

5:20And I understand if you're an influencer that's a mechanic about fixing stuff. Yeah. You're not going to want everybody calling you and their brother going, hey, I have this check engine light, this code, can you help me? I can understand how that gets old. But keep in mind, people, don't be so arrogant and forget that these people are the guys clicking on your videos and getting you your 2 or 3 cents a video.

5:40Now, to preface this whole podcast, I want everybody to be completely clear. The money we make on social media, me and Jason split it. We just frickin split it. Okay? It's not life-changing money. I'm sure someday if we were MrBeast, it would be life-changing money. Yeah. Okay. But we're a frickin small podcast with, you know, we don't even have 100,000 viewers on one platform altogether.

6:01We're getting close, right? Yep. We get a million views plus some months on one platform alone. Yeah, I think we're at 890-some thousand already on Facebook, right? Yep. But it's not life-changing money. And we've had people go, oh, you're frickin— yeah, because you're doing this because you know all the money you're making on social media. Okay. It's under $1,000 a month for all the platforms.

6:24Am I lying? No. Okay. And we're splitting it and we're splitting it and we're sitting in here coming in here once a week. And regardless of what people say, it takes time to do a podcast. It takes time to do what we do. Editing and all the bullshit. Yep. Okay. Yeah. So I didn't plan on this going anywhere. Then guys started calling me.

6:41I started talking to them. My first guy was Tim Jackson. We drove down to Arkansas. We spent 2 days down there. We went through up one side of him and down the other, his books and his employees, his shop and everything. We came up with a plan. We gave him a price. He did it. We fixed his shop. He's profitable. He's running great.

6:58His people are still happy. Everything's going good. 6 clients later, I have 6 on the books right now. All of them are doing what? Much better. And we can get anybody. I can get guys on here. I had a guy call me last night. One of my clients said, I have a problem. I have a lot of money in my bank account and I've never had this much money.

7:14I'm paying my bills and stuff like that. What do I do here? And I said, you know what, dude, I'm proud of you. Like, you were a fucking disaster. You were a disaster. Your family. I've changed your life. And it's not even about the money for me. It's a byproduct. The money's a byproduct of what I do. I like going to their shops and going, okay, I can fix this.

7:32I'm going to go ahead and do this. And let's talk about this. It's fun for me, right? Someday it'll get fucking boring and I'll stop doing it. That's just the bottom line. That's me. You see me start a vintage motorcycle company. I ran it for a couple of years. I'm like, yeah, this is fucking boring. I sold everything off and moved on to something else.

7:48Um, but I like helping people and this isn't, like I said, I'm not doing it for free. So yes, obviously I'm making money. So don't ever make that mistake that I'm out here doing this for free. Not doing Mother Teresa's work. Work, right? Exactly. I'm not Mother Teresa. Exactly, Mother Teresa's work. But I like the idea of helping people and changing people's lives.

8:06Okay, I'm not saying I have a hero complex, you know, here I am, you know, to save the day. Not at all. But you could take what you learned and go to somebody's place. Yeah. And do it. But take this into consideration, everybody. How can I leave 2 shops and leave for 2 or 3 days in a row or a week at a time and the shop still go and make money?

8:26Oh, maybe because I have policies and procedures and my people are trained and they do their job right. So none of this is bullshit. This is all provable. And I always tell people, call Motor City Truck Collision or Garrett Auto and Truck Service if you have a problem, you think I'm full of shit, and ask them, how is Kevin? Ask any of them.

8:45I, I fucking challenge you. And I've had people call the shops and my guys tell them, if you do your job, it's great. If you don't do your job, you get freaking training. You know? Yeah. Um, we've come up with training once a week with my guys. You know, there's, it's not like I know everything and I'm, I'm evolving through this whole thing too.

9:03I'm coming up with stuff like, wow, I had never thought of that or this or that. So this is a learning experience for me too. And I can't act like, yeah, I'm the coach or I'm the consultant that knows every fucking thing. Cause I don't. And anybody who comes into your shop, that's a consultant that says, oh yeah, I know everything. They're full of fucking shit because I still go out on the road and I look at something and the guy in the shop goes, I go, That's a pretty good fucking idea.

9:26Yep. You know, like one of my clients, Bill Griffin, he had fucking walkie-talkies. Yeah. I walked in, I'm like, what's up with that? He's like, they're walkie-talkies, save lives. Well, years ago we had Nextel and they were great around the shop, right? Just kind of— they kind of faded out and I forgot about it. I went to Bill's, one of my clients, and he freaking got walkie-talkies.

9:43I'm like, where'd you get them? He's like, Amazon. I order them for both shops. They're fucking great. So then I told freaking one of my other clients, I go, dude, get walkie-talkies, they're life-changing. He's like, oh my God. Okay, so I'm not so freaking proud to say I know everything. My idea was to get everybody walkie-talkies. It wasn't my idea. I seen it, I'm like, great idea, good job.

10:00Never even thought about it. We used to, but shit happens, right? So, you know, I'm sitting there going, now something else has kind of happened to me, and it's kind of interesting. Like, I had some pretty big ballers hit my freaking podcast or slide into my DMs, as the children would say. And want to talk to me about sponsors. And I'm like, huh?

10:25So I started talking to you. I talked about you, about it, because you have experience with it. I'm like, so you got these people that want to do sponsors and stuff like that, and I'm not interested. And I told one of them, I said, you can get me clients and stuff like that. I could put your logo on my YouTube videos and stuff like that.

10:40But besides me going to trade shows, and I don't fucking want no part of that bullshit. Okay. That's not me. Okay. And how did I get to this point in my life? Okay. One thing I will tell you, if you know your numbers and you run your business correctly and you make money, you're not beholden to anybody. Yeah. Okay. I don't have to do anything.

11:02It's freedom. It's financial freedom. It's frickin mental freedom. I don't have to wear another man's logo on my chest regardless of what he's paying me money. He's going to sway the way I think. At that point, I'm not saying everybody's a sellout. I'm not saying that at all. But there's something different if some guy's going to go, hey, I'm going to pay you to put my logo on your chest and talk about my product, da da da da da.

11:25And I don't like this, what you say. I don't like what you say. Irregardless of what you're going to say, something in today's world that you're going to offend somebody and I don't give a fuck. The bottom line is people are going to get offended. Okay? Motherfuckers don't even know what the women's bathroom and the men's bathroom are nowadays. So they are going to get offended.

11:42They're going to get offended by guys like me. Now you wonder why your grandpa was so fucking pissed off when he died. The world has changed before his eyes. Yeah, we got people, and I've said this before, that sit in a fucking garage and want you to call them a car. That's mental fucking illness. If you're born a fucking man, you're a man.

12:01If you're born a woman, you're a fucking woman. That's just the way it is. I don't care. I'm not playing part in the mental sickness that's going on in the world, okay? And in my mind, I am 100% authentic. I misspeak, I swear like a sailor, I say what I feel. Some people can't handle it, but the people who can handle it like my podcast.

12:22The fucking little pussies that don't like it sit there and say shit on me. And you know how much sleep I've lost over the people saying shit on my podcast or saying shit on my, uh, videos and stuff, how what I said and I can't believe it? Fucking zero. As a matter of fact, You didn't know how to take it when we got started.

12:38We put that one video and it's got a million views. When we first started working together, tell that story, how you called me. Well, it's so funny because like I had a feeling that you weren't going to give a fuck, but at the same time, like other clients I'd work with, like it was like an avalanche, you know? Like I remember there was like 2 comments that popped up and like people were kind of flaming you.

12:55And I was like, and I said like, oh, those are the broke people. Like, and it's true. Those are the broke people. They don't own their shops. They have an idea of what it would be like if they owned their shop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.. But I was like, oh crap. Like, this is more than just two. This is like, it kept on going and going and going.

13:12And it got a million views within a few days. And I, I remember calling you up like, hey, do you see that video? And you're like, yeah, isn't it great? And I was like, oh, I was hoping that's the way you'd respond. And then, and then we even like, you know, you talk about kind of doing this on accident. We would like go find the videos that would like go out there and flame people out.

13:31And those were really what started everything out. It was, it wasn't even adding the value. It was like, here's some videos that you're gonna probably get pissed about, right? And, you know, early on, let's face facts, we kind of knew what we were doing but kind of didn't know what we were doing. So we're putting these videos out, and if you watch a clip, you're like, man, fucking Kevin looks like a real asshole.

13:51But then people would go and watch the entire podcast and go, oh yeah, because a couple of the bigger influencers said, yeah, I had to go watch that and understand what was really going on. And after I watched the whole thing, that made a lot of sense. Well, one, we've gotten much better at explaining context because people obviously have put that in the comments— context, right?

14:11And so you try to fit it into that clip. But, uh, but two, um, it's like, it's just what's getting under people's skin and making them react. Yeah, totally. It really is. And it's like, you know, let's face it, you think everybody puts their videos on social media to look like freaking Mother Teresa? They put this stuff up that's the most gonna get the most clicks, the most fricking traction, right?

14:34It's like a movie trailer. You're gonna put out the most climactic scenes in the, the out there for the trailer to pull people in to watch it. And that's really what we wanted to ultimately do is for people to watch the podcast because then they're gonna get the most value out of it. And so if it takes a video that pisses them off to do it, cool.

14:50I totally agree on that. You know, um, so my thing is like, let's go back to the very beginning when I wanted to start. I've always preached to people, if you know your numbers on the front end and then you go through the QuickBooks thing and you know what, on the back end, you're gonna know exactly what's going on in your business and what you can afford, what you cannot afford.

15:07That's why we did the whole financial thing. And when you get to the point where your business is making you money and you're able to do your bills and you're profitable and stuff, you could actually pay, you could pay your people. It changes your life and it gives you freedom in more than one aspect. It gives you financial freedom. It gives you mental freedom.

15:24Okay. Think about this. If your shop's not making any money, in your mind, you're not thinking about the numbers. You're thinking, okay, I need to work harder, more hours, and it'll all work out. I have guys tell me all the time, well, I can go make more money. Well, wait a second there, buddy. You're working 60 hours a week, so you're going to bump it up to 70 and you're really not making any profit.

15:42Nothing's sticking at your bottom line. So you're really not even— you don't even have no money. You're only surviving. Yeah. Your bank account's empty. You can't make payroll next week, but you're working 70 hours a week and you're doing these bills, but you can't pay payroll. What's going on here? Maybe stop and think about it, guys, that you're not making any money.

16:00So therefore, You have no money. So your idea in your mind is because your grandpa always told you, roll up your sleeves and go up there and do some more work and it'll all be fine. That's not true. If you're losing money and you work more and do more work, you're losing money. More money, more money, more money. I have a really funny story about our client, client, The Good Fat Life.

16:22Oh my God, dude. Yesterday she's like, I'm going over her price for her magazine. It's $50 for the year. And I was like, how are you even covering costs for $50 a year? You're printing off this beautiful magazine, right? Like, uh, you're printing off this beautiful magazine. She sends these gifts, 8 gifts throughout the year that the magazines don't come out. She sends the clients these gifts.

16:43I was like, just for shipping alone, how much does that cost you? She's like, $40 just for that. So you're charging $50 per year and just to ship the product, it's costing you $40 for the year. And that's not counting production, production of the magazine and cost of the gift. And she's like, no, I'm losing money. And I was like, you need to raise that pricing.

17:04She's like, no, I just need to sell more. I'm like, but if you sell more, you're going to lose more. Like, it's the math. Like, you can't sell more and come out in this situation. You're going to lose more money. Right. But it's not— she's not alone. No, no, she's not alone. And I'm going to tell you what, I see it happening all the time.

17:23And, uh, And a lot of my customers, a lot of my consulting clients and guests, guys, by the way, the guys who say you do consulting. Yes, I do consulting. Oh my fucking God. It says training. It says consulting. Like, a lot of these guys have not even had to market, had to do nothing besides we just showed them how to bill the actual estimates and get them approved at a profit margin.

17:47And we haven't even gotten to— I only got one client who we've gotten all the way to the QuickBooks. Now we got a bookkeeper in there actually fixing everything. It's taken almost a year to fix his QuickBooks. It was so fucked up. It took Maria at Shindle Rock and Sarah a year to go through all this stuff. And he's a guy we saved over $100,000 on taxes.

18:06Remember all that? Yep. Just by actually knowing the right people, me plugging them in, we got everything. Now we got a bookkeeper going through and tidying everything up. Now we're setting up processes, so it's going to be all automated offsite for him, billing and stuff like that. He really is going to have a hard time in-house because his people are older. So they're going to monitor it, but check runs will be done in-house.

18:26But we're going to have a bookkeeper take care of all the books. It's like he's going to take care of the money side of it. But that's taken a year. So if anybody thinks they're going to hire a consultant, they're going to get everything done in 4 months, it's wrong. Because the number one thing that I have going on with these people is I feel like I fucking have to nag them all the time.

18:43Because the problem is I'm now starting to get better because I'm settling their shops down. There's not so much chaos. They actually don't have time to do it. Now, every one of them so far, every one of my clients is working less hours and making money now, except for one who doesn't fucking listen. Thinks he knows better. Always has an excuse why he doesn't do it.

19:02Always going to talk to his team about everything, but never does it. And I tell him, you know what? You're wasting your fucking money because you're paying me every week. I do this or do that and you don't fucking do nothing. You have nothing but excuses. Do we really need to keep going down this road? Because I'm wasting my fucking time. I don't need the aggravation.

19:18The aggravation is not worth it. I don't care about the money if the aggravation becomes higher to me. If I feel like I'm fucking somebody because I'm not doing what I'm getting paid to do, I'm really not interested. I don't need the money that bad. Yep. You know, I'd rather put the effort into somebody else that wants to change, you know. So, you know, one thing I've always done, I've always stayed consistent no matter what.

19:39If you watch the first podcast to now, I've always been the same guy, okay? I've not changed. I don't Maybe— oh, there's my phone. You said it was going to irritate us and it did. I've never changed the way I do things, the way I talk and stuff like that. And I'm not for everybody. Okay. There's other coaching, coaching guys and all that stuff that, you know, are more professional and use big words and have a podcast and all that stuff and, and have very, you know, scripted videos and all that stuff.

20:08We literally come in here. And do a podcast and cut clips out. I freestyle lately, like the last, what, 8 podcasts, 6 podcasts? You're like, you should probably just have notes because it keeps you in line. Yeah. Because I do move everything, do everything fast, as we all know. So I just get rambling and just kind of go right on through everything, you know.

20:26So, you know, so see, I've already— I'm already past this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I totally get it because like it's easy to one idea and all of a sudden you're into another idea and. Right. So, you know, I've got multiple shops that have gone through my program. They're making more money than they ever have. We've changed their lives. You know, we've changed their businesses.

20:43We've changed how they think. We've changed their families' lives and their lives. So, which that makes me happy, you know? Um, I already read this shit. So back to the sponsorship offers. Uh, I, I'll do a sponsorship, but if you ever see my logo or somebody else's logo on my chest, let me tell you something. They're not telling me what I'm going to say.

21:05There's already pre-negotiated contract, whatever you want to say, before I put somebody's shit on my chest. If they're going to pay me, I'm going to say what I want. I'm going to act the way I want, and my ideas are going to come out of my mouth. If they don't like it, I don't care. Okay. I don't care who you are or what you say.

21:22If you're wearing another man's logo on your chest, okay. And he's paying you, he has say. Okay, it's like Gary Vee says, if you're 20 years old and taking money from your mom and dad, you don't have a fucking opinion. Shut the fuck up and thank them. Yep. Okay, that kind of goes with the sponsor, right? If somebody's paying you— okay, and let's give this a— let's, let's go ahead and put the big picture.

21:45How many of these athletes fuck up? They're making big money with Nike, Reebok, whatever. Yeah, and they fuck up. What happens? That money's gone, and those sponsors are like, we out. Yep. We don't need it. Yep. Oh, the public won't like it. Half our fan base will be back. Ooh, he said what? He drank what? Okay. It crashes. So my thing is I own my brand.

22:07I own Repair Shop Wrecking. I don't have to fricking be beholden to anybody. How did I do that? It's called financial freedom. Like I've said 100 times, you can walk out that door and shut these cameras and shut these lights. I don't even have to open that door for the next year and my life would not change a bit. Yep. And I'm not bragging, but what I'm trying to convey to people is if you get your shop running right and you know your numbers, and I don't care if you hire me or hire another coach, whatever fits the mold, right?

22:34Hire somebody to get you to actually achieve something instead of going to work every day and working more and more and more hours and making less and less money and struggling. Get somebody to help you get freedom, get financial freedom. Like how many of these guys right now, their credit cards are maxed out. They have no money in their bank account. Um, they, they, they have money, but unfortunately they didn't bill their customers.

22:56So their money is in their, uh, their customers' bank accounts. You know, their car payments are past due and they don't know what to do. And they're scared to death to pick up the phone and call somebody to help them. So we started this podcast out of me just talking about shops. Now it's morphed into we help people. Okay. And once again, I'll just say, I'm not for everybody, but I will tell you the real freedom comes when you have enough money not to have to answer somebody.

23:22And enough money for some people is not enough money for other people. Well, and you talk about freedom and it's the freedom is like when a big company out there calls you, like tracks you down, finds your number, calls you. And the first thing you tell them is, this is what I say. I'm not, I'm not, bending my— they're offering you a sponsorship.

23:41I'm not bending who I am. You know, I'm not changing. I say fuck, I say these things. I'm not bending who I am. You know, you're like almost trying not to sell them, like telling them. And then I love that, like whether it's somebody that reached out to you on social media or one of these companies, they all say, well, you are the guy on the videos, you know, like you match the brand.

24:00It's not smoke. Yeah. The one person that is really, really, really huge, if I say the word, everybody should know who it is. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not interested in fricking fitting into your mold. Yep. I am not your guy. Yep. I like your product. I use your product, but I'm not here to sell something for you the way you want me to sell it.

24:22Yep. Can you imagine the fucking— they get my hair parted to the side, I got a fucking wig on, a fucking tie, a suit. I'm here to tell you, fuck all that. Yeah, I can't picture you trying to be somebody else, right? You know, our, our, you know, a lot of our, uh, our users have a lot of hair. They all look like Elvis here.

24:42I come with an Elvis Presley fucking wig on or something. Come on. And you know what, you could see, yeah, some of these people that are sponsored, they make more money being sponsored than they do with the actual sports. That's right. Yep. Um, I guess if I was an NBA player or something like that or whatever and I could get $85 million Would I bend on who I am?

25:04Probably not. No, I'm just not that guy. I'm just, you know, irregardless, like there's certain hard stops in my life that I just would not compromise on. I never have. You can have my mom on here and go, oh my God, he just has his own fricking agenda and he just will not listen. Um, I don't even know how more to convey it to people is like, if you do what you feel is right, your life a little, be a little bit easier.

25:29If you try to be somebody you're not, it always catches up with you. Absolutely does. You know, I have all kinds of stuff go on. Like I had a guy the Tuesday, you know, we send links through Shopware out for people to approve estimates. So one of the big things is we always say click here to read this so you can read it.

25:50Well, a lot of times these guys scroll on the bottom line and see the bottom line. And they freak out. So this guy calls and he's freaking out and I just happen to walk by and he's screaming at fricking Phil and Lincoln. He's on speakerphone and they're fricking yelling back because the guy's just being unreasonable. I told everybody, stop. I walked around, hung up on the guy.

26:06They're like, what are you doing? I go, fuck that. We're not, we're not going to listen to the guy yell. So he called back and I answered the phone. He starts yelling again. I said, listen, when you're done being a fucking asshole, I'll talk to you. I hung up again. I said, do not answer the phone. I'm going to my office. No callback.

26:21So I'm going walking up front and the phone rings and Lincoln's like, he's on the phone. I come up, he's like, this boss man? I'm like, this is boss man. This is Kevin. That's what you're going to address me to. He's like, okay. And I went through the whole thing. I said, this is what your truck needs. This is what you were told.

26:36If you took the time to read, we laid it all out. Okay. You need a left tie rod. It's loose. Your kingpins have not been greased. It's got memory steers, a Zuzu truck. Your drag link is ready to fall off. I said, you told our guys that you had it aligned at another shop and it still didn't drive right, right? Yes, I did.

26:52I said, there you should know right there. And his— so he's like, well, you know, I don't have the money, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that's fine. I said, come and pick it up then. No hard feelings. Everything's documented. There's pictures and everything. I'll come there. I'll be there. So we started— he started being shitty. I said, come, I'll be here. Ask for Kevin.

27:11So about 45 minutes later, him and another guy walk in. And I'm like, hey, what's going on? He's like, I'm here to pick up the truck. All fucking pissed off. I'm like, man, why are you so fucking pissed off? I go, you asked us to do a thorough inspection. We did a thorough inspection. We possibly saved people's lives because the truck got memory steering.

27:27His driver's like, yeah, this thing's crazy to drive. Like, it's all over the road. It's, you know, it's sticky. You know, anybody who does not know what memory steering, the zuzu, is, the kingpins have never been greased, so they're seized. So if you go around a corner, you turn left and let go of the steering wheel, the motherfucker keeps going left. It has no steering return.

27:42Okay. Okay. So it's dangerous. So you're always driving the thing down the road and it's got a loose tie rod and the drag links loose. So it's really bad. Like, it's like you hit a bump, it's all over the road. Yeah. And I go, what, where did you flame out? I go, what pissed you off so bad? He's like, I'm going to tell you what, your guy told me $1,000 for kingpins.

27:59I said, nope, we already listened to the video and I already had it queued up. I played it. He said the kingpins are going to be in the thousands depending if the axle is damaged because they've been worn out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I said, yeah. So you yelling and saying, yelling at Phil, and that's how it started. He told him it was gonna be $1,000.

28:15He said in the thousands, which I told Phil, I go, you shouldn't have told them any price. We don't give prices. So he kind of caught you and whatever. So the guy's like, well, what does it need? And I, so I went through the whole list with him and I said, listen, no matter how you take the feelings out of this, the feelings don't matter.

28:33I said, the bottom line is your truck needs this. Okay, you see the pictures, you know it drives bad. You head to another place, they align it. They clearly didn't know what the fuck they were doing because they aligned a truck with loose front end parts, which is a big no-no. I said, so you could do what you want. You can get mad.

28:49This can be personal. You could say you hate us. You could hate me because you don't like the way I talk. My guys were yelling at you. I said, but the bottom line is at the end of the day, your truck still needs repair. Correct? Yes. Can you give me a deal? No. Will you give me a discount? No. Well, I'm just going to take the truck.

29:07That's fine. Pay us the fee for checking it all out. Take your truck. We'll give you the report. So at least, you know, if you can go get it done cheaper somewhere, no problem. How quick could you get it done? My guys are looking at each other going, are you fucking kidding me? And I go, if we order the parts, they have them all in stock.

29:28We could probably have it done in a couple of days. He goes, well, I have a problem with my liftgate. Will you go out and look at it? I go, no. He goes, no? I go, no. He goes, you won't go out and look at it? I go, no. I go, I'll go look at it for fucking money. I go, but you're screaming and yelling.

29:42I said, I'm not going to go out there and look. He says, well, let me call my partner. I said, okay. So he calls his partner, he comes back and he says, I think we're going to go ahead and do it. Will you look at the liftgate? I go, you want me to write it up for an hour on the liftgate to check it out?

29:56He goes, yeah. I go, okay, write it up for an hour. Lincoln, add an hour to it and write it all up. It's a hard time doing this and this and this. And I talked to him and he's like, okay, okay. I go, you do realize that the DOT is expired on your truck too? I go, so you doing all this work and stuff like that?

30:08I go, if you get pulled over, you're gonna be in trouble. I go, wanna put a DOT on it? Yeah, we should probably do a DOT. So I put a DOT on it. You upsold him. So I upsold him and we get all done. And he's like, will you trade me for a refrigerator? I go, no. I go, I got a huge refrigerator at my $2 million house.

30:24And we're laughing at the time now. And he's like, $2 million house. I go, yeah, how do you think I got a $2 million house? Selling kingpins. And then he's laughing. He's like, will you go out and look at my kid? Now that we're friends, yes. So I put my arm around. He's like, man, I'm really sorry. I just got so fucking irritated, so pissed off because of the price and this and that.

30:41He's like, I get everything's expensive. He's like, you know, but I don't know what to say. I'm like, I'm not worried about it. But, you know, me being who I am, being crass and fucking telling the guy, I don't know what the fuck to tell you, and this and that. I sold him the job plus 2 more hours and he's happy. And he gave us a deposit and you can call Lincoln and Phil.

31:00They're like, what the fuck just happened? Because this has happened over the years. You know, these guys flame out and once I bring them down to fricking ground zero and explain to them, hey, this is an emotional thing for you. That's fine. But at the end of the day, the truck is dangerous. You're going to kill somebody. And that's where it goes to the back where I was pissed off about that cotter key and the technician and people, you know, tagged me and wanted to trash me.

31:21The bottom line is I'm going to tell you exactly what's up. There's no guessing. I'm not being rude, I'm not being mean, I'm telling you the fucking truth. And the problem with the United States of America, nobody wants to hear the fucking truth. ChatGPT won't even tell you the fucking truth. No, it glazes you. It glazes you. It does. Like, you know, how do I look?

31:38Oh, you look good. That's a lying fucking mirror. It's like, you see these people nowadays, it's like they got the standard issue fucking purple hair, nose septum, sweatpants and stuff. They must go to their mirror. How do I look to go out in public? Fantastic. Oh, you look like fucking Miss America. You know what I'm saying? Like, nobody hears the truth. And I think there's so much big money with corporations now controlling little people.

31:59How do you know what the truth really is? Okay, like, look at the bullshit that goes on online with Tesla. The AI videos are insane. Like, there's an AI video that popped up. Look at this guy, did not plug his Cybertruck and drove away from the charging station. It started chasing, blows up. So anybody that has a Tesla knows that with the charger plugged in, the thing will not go in gear.

32:20It errors out. Also, they know that, uh, what was the other thing Teslas won't do? Oh, people driving down the road, generators plugged into them. That wouldn't work. This all AI because they hate Elon Musk. Yeah. So there's, there's sponsored people that hate Elon Musk to do videos, you know. But let's bring this back to reality, is like, okay, be who you are.

32:43And a lot of times people, you'll find like-minded people. Yeah. Your customers will actually freaking know what kind of person you are. Like, I sit up front and I talk to some of these customers sometimes, you know, some of these customers I've known for 30 years. So they, hey, is Kevin here? I'm like, oh, hey, Mark. You know, Mark from, he used to own a company like MC Cartridge, and now he's retired.

33:06They sold the company. His dad died and he works for another company. He still comes back. You know, I go up and talk to him. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. These guys know exactly who I am, how I am, and who I am. There's no— and do I offend people? Absolutely. Do people not come back? Absolutely. Well, they're not our, they're not our people.

33:23We look for professional buyers and we get rid of the knuckleheads. Yeah. Okay. If you come in and you start questioning why we're putting two calipers on your truck because your business partner whose brother's a mechanic said you only need one, that's not our customer. Okay. If you look on Garrett Auto and Truck's website, we've We talk about customer service, satisfaction, 100% accurate work every time, blah, blah, blah.

33:46If you go to Motor City Truck Collisions, we'd say we are not the cheapest place around. We do quality work. Okay? Know your message, have your message out there, guys. And the problem is some of these shop owners don't know what their message is because they're out in the back with their head underneath the hood of a car trying to survive. And we talked about brands a few weeks ago.

34:04These guys don't even have a brand because they don't even know. And then that's where we kind of led into this, you know, where we're going to start this course if we ever get it finished, because it's just one thing after another. Um, let's make sure we're adding the value, right? We're like perfectionists. Yeah. We're adding value to it. Exactly. Because we're not happy with the way it was.

34:22We want to think we want people to get their money's worth. Right. Um, so we, as a business, we know our message. We know what to say. We know how we're supposed to answer the phone. Help people. We want people to understand how— who we are. We want to be professional. A lot of the guys don't do that, and it always goes back to one thing: they're not making any money, so they're always in emergency mode.

34:45Yep. Do you know what I mean? Scarcity mindset, right? It's like they're going down a hill in North Carolina, down the side of a mountain. You just got back from Pigeon Forge. Yep. Can you imagine going down one of them hills and your brakes are fucking go out in your car, right? Oh my God, you're in emergency mode, right? Yeah. Imagine driving that road every day like that in emergency road or emergency mode.

35:08Yeah, holy shit, right? Yeah, everything's like, holy shit, we're gonna die. Yep. And that's no different than these guys that are not running their businesses correctly by the numbers. They don't know, they have no procedures, policies in place. They do it by how they feel that day. Okay, you know, they have these flat rate guys. Hey, you pull this in, do this.

35:27And oh, by the way, Mrs. Smith just shows up. Her, I think her alternator's bad. I Pull it in, check it all out and let me know what happens. And then, oh, oh, it's just a loose battery cable. The technician tightens it up. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Smith. The business owner lets her go because he wants to be a fucking hero. And that guy just worked for free.

35:41Then it spirals down to the guys online going, we're getting fucked on flat rate. We're not getting paid. We go to work, we're not getting paid. It always goes back to the business owner not doing his job. Yep. As a business owner, he thinks that he needs to be a referee or take care of the customers, give discounts and not know his numbers.

35:58How can you give somebody a discount when you don't even know how much something costs? I've said that a million times. I would hope it would resonate with people. And this all goes back to knowing your brand, sticking to who you are, and getting financial freedom. The number one thing to do is get to know your numbers. I mean, can you think of anything more important in a business?

36:18No. Because again, like, then what's— what you're getting out of one, your numbers and knowing your value, is you can and you can talk to people a certain way, and it's not being rude, it's being like straight to the point. It's not having to fluff it. No, and I am 100% believe in everything I do and everything I say in my companies, and my people do.

36:37Yeah. If they don't, we have a training about it. Yep. What's the problem? Why do you have trouble selling this? Well, uh, uh, you know, I don't know this. Let's have a training. We just had a problem with front end alignments. You know, one of the younger guys went to do an alignment. His old shop he used to work at, they were like, you get 1.1 hours to do an alignment.

36:58That includes major angle adjustments, camber, caster, and set the tow. Well, at my shop we don't do that. We pull it in. Well, first thing we do is we check the air in the tires, fill it up. We go out and drive the vehicle, make sure there's not no front end noises, no pulls, no worn out parts, no wanders, whatever you wanna say.

37:14Then we bring it in, we put it on the alignment rack, we raise it up, we check the front end. If there's loose front end parts at that point, they're estimated. Okay, there's a process for that. Yeah. Well, it got brought in, they drove it, it wouldn't drive very good. They brought it in, raised up, it had all new front end parts on it.

37:32Instead of the young guy saying, okay, hang on, son, this thing's gonna need camber caster adjustments. 'Cause whoever put it together didn't know what they're doing. Didn't clean up where the adjusters go. It was a Chevrolet van. They, it was all rusty and stuff, so they wouldn't move no matter what. And they didn't set 'em in the middle or kind of look at the old control arms and say, okay, we're gonna set 'em kind of where they are.

37:50On the oil control arms. They put them both fricking whack. So the front end of the thing's jacked up. So instead of him saying, hey, this thing wasn't greased, they didn't clean this stuff up, blah, blah, blah, blah. He tried to be a hero. Ah, cause that's what he learned at the other shop. He spent like 3 hours till we realized that it had to be done that day.

38:07And you know, the service advisor came out and said, is this gonna be done? No, I can't get this adjusted stuff. And I was happening to be leaving. I'm like, what's going on with it? Now he showed me, I'm like, dude, I told the service guy to call the customer, tell them this is what happened. It's not together right. Tomorrow morning we're gonna give them a proper estimate.

38:22It's got to be taken apart. Everything's had to be cleaned up. We're gonna put new cams in there cuz these are all screwed up now and the one's bent and the bolts are rounded off and everything else from us trying to deal with something we shouldn't have dealt with. We should have charged them. This is not on us. This is on them.

38:37And, uh, called the customer. The customer understood. The next day he put the new cams in it, cleaned everything up. I went back there. Me and Jason went back there, we adjusted it like butter. Everything was good to go. Gave it to the customer, showed him the pictures and everything. He's like, oh my God, this thing drives great now. Cause I took him for a ride.

38:55He's like, it's never driven this good. I go, yeah. And I showed him and he understood. Yeah. But that was a learning situation. So guess what happened yesterday afternoon? We had a training on alignments and what we should do and what we shouldn't do. So the customer gets every expectation made. Yeah. Is it going to be cheap? No. Are people going to say you charge extra for adjusting angles?

39:14Absolutely. No doubt about it. I don't care if you're Superman, you couldn't have taken them cams out of that thing and cleaned it all up and did all this stuff, you know, in an hour, 1.1 hours. It's just not happening. And keep in mind, my guys are hourly. Yeah. So I was taking all the risk. So all the extra time he spent, guess what, guys?

39:31It costs the shop. So guess what? We were losing money because if we make $50 an hour, we sell 1 hour worth of labor, we have $50 profit in a labor hour. You know, they're going to say, oh, your guy makes half. I'm using round numbers. We just charge $100 for labor an hour, $50 to the mechanic, and you'll say $50 profit.

39:47What happens if he goes 3 hours? You're losing money. That profit is gone. Okay. Now, once again, that's $50. I know everybody's going to say mechanics need to make half the, half the hourly rate because, you know, we know we're mechanics. Okay. But you know, my point to this whole thing is, guys, know your numbers and know your value. And that goes into being sponsored.

40:10Yeah. Okay. If you don't know your value, you're going to let somebody buy you, right? If your value is way up there and you're like, yeah, I'm not bending on anything. And I won't bend on quality. I won't bend on jobs or anything. I had a guy come in here today to buy electric brakes, 12x2, 6,000-pound axle. He says, my company doesn't want to put these, put new drums on.

40:28I said, well, I'm not selling you the backing plates. He said, why do you care? I said, because you're going to go ahead and put these on, these shitty drums. They're not going to work. They're going to overheat the new brakes. You're going to want me to warranty it. I'm not interested. So either buy all the stuff to do the job right or go somewhere else and do it.

40:44I'm not being rude to you, but I could see a potential problem. Yep. He went outside, called this company. They said, yep, you better buy the drums then. He came in, he bought the drums. Okay. A guy who was hard up, who needed that money, What would have happened there? He would have said, fucking 4 brakes, that's $400. Yep. I'm going to— yeah, you want bearings?

41:04Sure. You don't really need bearings. Let's just buy the seals because, you know, I need to sell something. So all of a sudden it's $420. He puts the 4 backing plates on. 2 days later, the guy calls him and says, you know, the bearings burnt up. The brakes are— you sold me are shit. Well, we all know it was the drums anyway.

41:20How can we convince him that the drums were the problem? He's not going to admit it. Now he wants a warranty. Now you get a bad review. Now you're this. Now you're that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead, I said, listen, it's not worth the aggravation for me to sell you these parts for you to destroy them and cause a big fight.

41:34Yep. So in me being confident and being profitable, we looked at a customer and said, Mr. Customer, you don't have the education or the know-how to talk about what you're doing. You're not— you should have looked at your boss. If you're the mechanic you say you are and say, we got to put drums on this thing, we can't put brand new brakes on this electric brake trailer when the drum faces literally had chunks out of them.

41:54Were the magnet rides. So the minute it went by the chunk, it was going to mess the magnet up and— oh my God, it was going to hit the brakes, hit the brakes. It was going to be a mess, right? I, by being profitable, knowing what I'm doing, my people know what they're doing, we would— we just said no, we won't sell you the brakes.

42:10And we end up selling the whole job and it was $900-some. Was I aiming to sell the guy $900 versus $500 or $400? Absolutely not. What I was aiming to do is give him what he needed I'm the professional. I'm the guy who sells brakes. This is what you need. If you don't want to do it right, I understand. We're not for everybody.

42:27Go somewhere else where they'll do it. And I'm pretty much sure any electric brake place they would have went into that sold trailer parts would have looked at them and said, you can't put them in there. But think about this. Think about a shop, trailer repair shop that has not enough money to highly pay their staff. So they had the high school kid come in there and got— and the older guy comes in and says, we're not buying the drums.

42:46High school kid's not gonna look at him and go, no, you have to. He said, okay. He would have sold them the drums. Yep. And that, or sold them the backing plates. And then it would have had a problem and they would have came back and the owner would have been like, what the fuck? You know? And he's the kid that sold it is making $10 an hour and has no fricking skills whatsoever, or not to know, or the balls to even say, hey.

43:08Yeah. He's not gonna say that. Right. So if you, if you know, your value and you're profitable, you could look at people and go, we're not going to do that. And how many places have you go, they'll take your money and they don't even know what to say. They're just like, well, we gotta have— we got— we need it, we need it.

43:26I can remember, I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I remember back in the day some of the jobs we would do, and it was not long ago here at Motor City, it'd be December. Yeah, before our marketing was fixed, it was slow. I remember, um, one of our construction companies came in, their fifth wheel plate on their, uh, 210, 53-foot, uh, trailer was freaking rotted out.

43:49We didn't have much to do. I didn't really want to do the job. It ended up being like $30 grand. It took us like the whole month of December. We did it. Yeah, it was horrible. Wow. Horrible job. But we're like, yeah, you got to kind of do that. But now we got our marketing fixed and our parking lot's full. I can kind of pick and choose what jobs I want to do.

44:06I just don't do the loss leader jobs just to do the loss leader jobs now. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I know where they should be as far as when we price them and we kind of keep them there so we are profitable. Knowing your numbers is one thing. Now, having— not having enough work to maybe do something a little bit cheaper, lower than you normally would, but you're still making money is a whole different story.

44:26But what if you don't even know what it's costing you, right? You're going blind, right? So what if that job say it was a $30,000 job and that was the only job I did in December and my costs were $90,000. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, you're just trading dollars, you're losing money, you're trading dollars. Like, you barely even made a third of what you should.

44:48You know, I'm not going to say we can obviously charge a guy $90,000 to fix a trailer, but it was just kind of a picture, you know? Like, if a job costs you your cost of goods sold, like we talked about the $100 bill, right? It's $40 to do the job. And you get to keep 60% of it, right? $60 out of that job.

45:05What if the cost of goods went up to frickin' 90 and you're making 1%? Do you know what I'm saying? Like $99 to make 1%. There's, there's a lot of different variables that knowing your numbers is really going to change the outcome. And I'm repeating this because we're kind of right coming off of what we talked about. If you don't know what your, what your costs are, what your profit margin should be and what you're keeping, because you're looking at your budget and all that stuff, This is a real big problem.

45:31So, and then you find yourself, uh, it's the opposite of freedom. You're a slave to the dollar. Yep. When a company calls you and says, I'll give you a sponsorship, but you gotta change who you are, you're like, yes, sir. No. When a customer says, will you put these, these brakes on? Uh, even though you know they're gonna be back and it's gonna be a bunch of problems, or you're gonna get these bad reviews, you're like, absolutely.

45:53Because you're just counting the dollar. You're a slave to the dollar. Yeah. And you know what Grant Cardone says? Scared money don't make money. And that happens a lot. People are scared money. They're scared. So they don't really know what to do. It's kind of like, you know, one of my clients said, man, it was a real big deal. Like I said to, you know, uh, get you to come to us.

46:12It was really scary, but now I'm glad it happened. But you know, he took the leap of faith. You know, a lot of these guys are thinking that, you know, they can't afford to do anything. They're just stuck. There's no help out there. No matter what, everybody's a cold heartless prick that's going to try to charge him a million dollars and do nothing.

46:30You know, that's not what we do. Yep. You know what I'm saying? And, uh, so just to recap this, you know, my thing is know who you are and don't compromise. That'll get you somewhere in business and in life, right? People know me, they're like— my wife always says, he's black or white, he does not have a gray area. She's like, it's, it's like either yes or no with him.

46:50Yep. She, she always says that because people are like, you know, my kids Well, I'm going to make a deal with Dad. Like, my one son borrowed money and he's like, Dad doesn't say thanks when I pay him back every week. My wife's like, that's not the fucking deal. He loaned you the money, you pay him back. Do you think he's going to call you up and go, good job, you made a fucking deal, you're living up to it?

47:12Does the mortgage company call you up and say, great job, Kevin? Right, exactly. That's what she said. She said, if you really want to know how he feels, don't pay him one week. But it's either black or white with me. It sucks sometimes. It's like, you know, I can't help the way I'm wired. You know, women deal in emotions, men deal in facts.

47:36Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And then some men nowadays deal in emotion when it comes to certain things. They can't handle it, you know? Yeah. I mean, it just seems like everybody's getting softer and softer as we go on in the world. So my thing is be confident, believe in what you sell. Believe in what you say and stick by it.

47:50Don't bend. It might cost you money, but I'll tell you what, if nobody owns you, it's a great feeling. Get to know your numbers on the front end, doing your estimates, and on the back end so your shop is profitable and you can fricking run your shop on your terms, not somebody else's. You know, you ever see these customers that come in and go, I'll give you X if you do it today, or I'll give you Y if you do it today.

48:10You know, we always say, that's great that you're willing to pay more, but unfortunately the guy has been waiting a week. We would be assholes if we put you in front of him for money, and we're not doing that. But imagine if we weren't profitable, we needed that money. Because I'll tell you a little secret— bend your integrity. Yes, my old boss would take a freaking brake job in, in front of somebody's engine job that had been waiting for 3 weeks, but he needed that money.

48:32So he would sit there and pull that brake job in, you know, and lie to the other customer because he needed that money right away because he didn't run his shop right. Yep. And I was there and I watched it. It'd be like, what Fuck, you know, I gotta lie again to this guy, you know, and we just don't do it. We go right in line.

48:46And you know, you have to have your position, your SOPs in place, your rules in place, your policies, all that for your people to know what they're doing and know what you're talking about when you talk to your customers, train your people. I mean, this was kind of a mixed bag of a lot of good information if you ask me. Um, a potpourri.

49:04Yeah, a potpourri. Potpourri. Yeah, it smells good too. Yeah. I'm sure there's gonna be somebody that says, oh my God, what a dick, but whatever. Whatever. I'm self-made and I'm not bought and paid for by a corporation. And you're not for everybody. Nope. Great. Why are you still listening? It's been an hour. Yeah. Why would you wait till like 1 hour and 2 minutes to tell me you didn't like that part of the podcast?

49:26You ever know them guys that call you like, oh, I didn't like the glitch at 1 minute and 15 minutes. Like, okay. It's like the people that eat the whole meal at the restaurant and then complain about it and try to get their money back. 'Cause they're not paying any money for the podcast. If anybody doesn't think that big corporations are not a problem in America in controlling us little guys, you're crazy.

49:49Just look at politicians. Look at politicians. I was watching a video, a little funny story on a guy that details airplanes. And he said something that really made me curious. He said, I got a call from a politician that one of his wings was dirty. Somebody made a comment. So I'm out here cleaning his plane. He's like, you know what? These politicians don't give a shit how much money you charge them, they just pay it.

50:12How the fuck is that? If these guys make $150,000, $250,000 a year and they don't care, a guy comes out and charges them stupid amount of money to clean their plane. First off, they have a plane and they're making $150,000. Like, that in itself, they're not affording that on $150,000 a year. And I know guys that have their own planes and they say that is the one bill that comes around every month.

50:31I think to myself, holy fucking shit, that's expensive. And these are guys that I know that are billionaires, and they say that's expensive. Fuel. And politicians are like, I don't give a shit how much it costs, go ahead and clean her up. You're a public servant, you're not worried about your airplane being clean, just one of your passengers. There's probably a fucking stripper.

50:53So when your corporate sponsors, uh, as a politician tell you to vote this way, do you say no? Yeah, imagine that, huh? No, because you're bought, you're paid for, you have no freedom, you're a slave to them, right? Could I probably make a lot of money if some of these people— if I, if I would have said absolutely, let's talk about it?

51:13Yeah, probably. Would it change my life? Probably not. We all know I'm rich because I made my money on the back of flat rate tax and upcharging parts, right? Not letting people bring their own parts. I don't let people bring their own parts. I fuck every flat rate guy I can. That's how I got all my money, guys. And you know, just an update, we have not done the update on the, um, moving the guys hourly.

51:39Oh yeah, they're still producing the same amount of money, same amount of hours. Yeah, they've just moved around. The hours have just moved around. Jason's training longer and harder with these guys, so they're learning more, but their hours have gone up. His have gone down a little bit, but the average is still exactly the same. That's awesome. That's teamwork. That's a team of guys that care.

51:57Okay. All my guys here, same way. They're all hourly, but their efficiency last, last month was 106%. Okay. So I'm completely okay with that. I'm not greedy. Yeah. You know, I'm 55 years old. I mean, why can't you get 120? Yeah, exactly. You know, some of the things. So, you know, I guess that was pretty much— I kind of ran through the whole thing.

52:16Yeah. And that's what Repair Shop Reckoning is. You know, so my thing is we've done everything. This is fun. What we get to do every week is fun, I think. Yeah. This is kind of one of the things I don't really consider a job. Yeah. You know what I mean? I just think it's fun. And I think— well, and it's a life-changing thing.

52:37It's like when the $100,000 tax bill gets you wiped out, right? Or the, oh my God, I've got a problem. I've got money in my bank account and I'm paying my bills. I don't know what to do. You know, like that's That's fun stuff. And it honestly, I swear to God to you, it like touches me. Like it's like, wow. I don't cry, don't get me wrong, but I'm like, it makes you feel good.

52:56Yeah. It makes me feel good that I can help people. Yep. And I'm not saying, guys, once again, I'm not saying that I'm Mother Teresa and I'm flying here and there like Mary fucking Poppins and doing shit for free. I charge a healthy buck, but I am not a corporation. You get what you see is what you get. When you call me and all my clients can attest to this, When you call me, I pick up the phone and go, what's up?

53:17I don't go, oh, you reached Kevin's voicemail. I'll call you back next Tuesday because it's not our time to talk. Yeah, I talk to these guys sometimes on their way home from work. I talked to one guy like 10 o'clock, 9:40 last night because I said, you're doing a job interview, call me afterwards. He's like, really? It'll be late. I don't care.

53:31He called me and said, I hired him. I said, good for you, man. I said, that was the next step for you need to do. Now let's get him trained. On the way to work this morning at 7 o'clock, I called a guy at a different time zone. It was 6. Hello? I go, you're not up? I said, let's talk. All right, sir.

53:44And I went right through the thing with him, like, and I told him, you're not doing this, you're not doing this. I'm not here to hold your fucking hand. I said, you pay me every week, don't you? Yeah. I said, why don't you take advantage? I know, I know. So good morning call. Yeah, you know, I call these guys and I talk to these guys, and, uh, you know, I like what I do, and I think it's going to get bigger and bigger to the point where I don't know what we'll do.

54:06You know, cause right now I'm at capacity. It's kind of hard when you're running two shops of my own. Not that I really, but I still have to do my day-to-day stuff, my numbers and stuff like that. You know what I mean? And that was, we just got done paying all our taxes and had to pay Lincoln's taxes with him yesterday, show him how to do that on his business.

54:25And you know, it's, uh, it's eye-opening. And I think that, uh, I think shop owners, I don't think that this business, I'm going to end with this. You got guys out there in a podcast that always just have, have bad technicians on and say this business is just gloom and doom and horrible. I agree this business has problems, no doubt about it.

54:43But think about this, guys. If there's a technician shortage and there's this shortage and that shortage in this business, number one, you should make enough money to take care of your guys, okay? So you can keep your shop. And number two, if people are leaving the business, what is that doing to the shops that are still healthy? They're making them healthier. Healthier.

55:00Right? Because as people, these shops keep getting richer, keep getting going, going away, these other shops just keep getting better and better, you know. And there's, there's technicians out there that are good. Okay, like I said, we're not going to get into this because we'll do a whole different thing on how to negotiate, you know, a job if you're a technician. That's a good topic.

55:19Yep. Um, these shops that are closing, they have guys that are probably pretty decent that have stuck with them just because. I know a guy that was an alcoholic that stayed at a body shop called A&M Collision. This guy could paint. His name was Jimmy. He paint like a motherfucker. He was the best painter around. He stayed to the point because he was so loyal to his boss, Tom Mason, who ended up becoming a cokehead and everything else and taking a body shop that was Premier Body Shop and crashing.

55:44He stayed there for 3 years afterwards, getting promises of a paycheck. He'd pay him maybe once a week or once a month, and he owed him 3 weeks. And this guy ended up losing his house almost and everything else. He finally— that business ended up closing. Went bankrupt and closing. It was A&M Collision. And this kid Jimmy, he went to a place called Farming Hills Collision.

56:06He quit drinking and died. This guy used to drink during the day. He stayed at A&M because alcoholism was so heavy that he could drink during the day. His boss didn't say anything to him. That's why he'd work for free, essentially. So yeah, and that was a guy that, you know, stayed at the shop that was a really talented guy that if somebody, the right person, would have got him like Scott did over at Farming Hills Collision and got the guy to stop drinking and and started bringing them up.

56:30Unfortunately, it was too late. Yeah, but if you would have found somebody that took care of them, you know, there's a lot of guys that are out there that are good people. They just have problems and you can navigate them and deal with them and you could treat them pretty good and bring them around and they would do a good job for you.

56:45But the problem is you have to be able to run your shop. You have to be profitable enough to actually hire these guys because, you know, think about it. You watch Elon Musk. That's the richest man in the world now. He sounds like a fucking bumbling idiot when he talks. Like he's really hard to watch. Yeah, he is. His mind is moving so fast.

57:02It's not coming out of his mouth fast enough. So he's stuttering and— Yep. Okay. There's a lot of guys like me that didn't do good in school. You didn't do good in school. You talk about the sports numbers and stuff like that. Yeah. There's guys out there just like us that are just looking for that right place and you guys could do it.

57:17Yep. I was that guy and I own two shops now. I bought the shop, one of the shops I started at. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, you can do it guys. And once again, this is a mixed bag of everything. I'm just kind of pouring my heart out over this whole thing. Just because it's something to fucking do. Yeah.

57:33But you know what I mean? I mean, do you have anything you want to add to any of this? No, I think that's really awesome. And I do think even though there's a mixed bag, it's really holding true and being able to have that integrity, having a value to your business to where you know what you're offering and you can be confident about it.

57:51And then the other thing is, is when we're talking about like the scarcity and if you're worried about being broke, Are you being that leader and that person that is taking care of the Jimmies out there? Because if you're thinking about your money, if you're constantly worried, you're not showing up as that leader that's really making an impact in Jimmy's life. I told Lincoln this, I told my son this, 18-year-old.

58:12I said, you do realize if you're not leading your people and you're out there with them, you're just taking a walk. You have to lead your people. You don't have to whip them, but you lead them. Yep. Lead by example. The things you shouldn't— the things I don't do because I'm leading by example, right? I can't go in. I said, I'm going to tell you this.

58:29I'm going to end this podcast today. I fucking broke one of my policies and it almost cost me $1,200. Every once in a while I fuck up, boys. Yeah. Today was the day. The guys were at lunch. Guy walked in, said, I'm here to pick up my trailer. I said, okay. I took him in the office. I said, what's the name? I looked and I did.

58:44I hovered over his thing. I'm like, oh, it's okay. It's paid. But I didn't pay attention. It went gray, and then I went back and had a glitch and went green. So I'm like, oh, he paid, right? I printed his repair order. I had him sign it. I never looked at the total. He sold us like $1,187. I said, thank you very much.

59:01He left. Jim comes in. He's like, uh, you didn't collect any money from this guy. I'm like, oh shit. He's like, look. I'm like, oh fuck. So So I walked out to the shop and I told Pat, I said, Pat, he said, yes. Remember last week when I yelled at you about not checking that tire because it's procedure? He said, yeah. I said, remember how pissed off you were?

59:24I go, yeah. He goes, yeah. I go, guess what I just did? He goes, what? I go, I fucked up. I didn't follow procedure and it only cost me $1,200. He goes, why are you telling me this? I said, because I think you fucking people need to know that I fuck up too. I'm not perfect. I said, but what's the one thing that we both did?

59:40We broke fucking policy. When you go outside, you color outside the lines, it's a problem. Yep. We picked up the phone, sent the guy a link. He fucking paid us. We were good to go. He paid us. But ending in that, I fuck up too. I'm human. Yep. But it's coming back and having the strength to be able to say, hey, to your guys, look at this, I fucked up.

1:00:00Yeah. Because it's teaching the overall point is that you're the common denominator is you broke policy, whether you're the owner or you're an employee on the team. Whoever breaks the policy, it's the same sin. Yeah. And then they start teasing me. Well, you need to go in the bathroom and yell at yourself. You broke policy! Go in there and slap yourself. Sorry, you broke policy!

1:00:26What is wrong with you? I can't babysit you all the time. We have policies for a reason. They're all teasing me. I'm like, yeah, I get it, guys. Fuck off. All right, guys, thanks for watching. All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning. If this helped you, please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

1:00:44We drop real conversations, real systems, and real solutions every week. We'll see you back here next time on Repair Shop Reckoning.