How an Ex-Firefighter Built a $9M Auto Repair Empire | EP5 | Shop Fix Academy Podcast
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About this episode
People don't usually go from working as a firefighter to accidentally starting a series of auto shops generating over $9 million, but that's exactly what…
Key takeaways
- —Understanding your shop's financials is crucial for profitability.
- —A strong mindset and confidence can significantly impact a shop owner's success.
- —Creating a parts matrix and pricing strategy is essential for maximizing gross profit.
- —Building a positive relationship with employees is key to fostering a successful work environment.
- —Networking with other shop owners can provide valuable insights and support.
Frequently asked
- What are some common struggles faced by shop owners?
- Many shop owners struggle with understanding their financials, managing technician costs, and establishing effective pricing strategies. These issues can lead to low profitability and operational challenges.
- How can a shop owner improve their pricing strategy?
- A shop owner can improve their pricing strategy by implementing a parts matrix that reflects the true cost of parts and labor, and by regularly reviewing and adjusting it based on market conditions and business needs.
- What is the importance of networking with other shop owners?
- Networking with other shop owners provides opportunities to share experiences, gain insights, and receive support. It can help shop owners overcome challenges and foster a growth mindset.
▸Full transcript
This is not what I'm supposed to do. My dream was to be the fire chief of some big city one day, and now I'm running a repair shop. I love the reset button concept. That is a huge takeaway. It's something that's truly going to change the legacy of your family. You're going to be a successful shop owner and a great leader and have a good organization.
This year, if everything goes well, we should be between 8 and 9 million. Welcome to the ShopFix Academy podcast. My name is The Berg, and joining me is Guy with ShopFix Academy, and joining us is shop owner Brandon Peavy. Welcome, Brandon. Tell us a little bit about your background as a shop owner and where you have a very interesting background, where you came from.
I started out in fire and EMS as a firefighter paramedic. In 2005, started an ambulance company completely from scratch that grew rather rapidly into 4 different regions, over 100 employees. But in 2010, Um, we weren't immune to the problems that happened in 2008, so we had to find a way to save money. So you were a firefighter and you decided, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start an ambulance company.
Yeah. And you grew to over 100 employees in 5 years. Yes. How many ambulances did you have? We had over 30 at one point. Wow. Wow, that's crazy. And it was located— where was this happening? Kind of central northwestern Virginia. Okay. Yeah. It was a vacuum of that service in that area, which is why we started it in the first place. Got it.
We're paid by insurers and they set the reimbursement rate for what you do. Doesn't matter how much you bill them based off what it's worth. That's what you're getting. So the only way you can make money in that industry is to control your cost. So if you're looking at it like a profit and loss statement on an auto repair shop now, on our profit and loss statement then, the biggest 2 items on the overhead was payroll for the people, the drivers and the MTs and the analysts and fleet maintenance and repairs.
Oh. Actually fixing the ambulances. Actually fixing the ambulances. Yeah. Because as you can imagine, they break often. They don't drive them. They're not purpose-built vehicles. You know, lots of brake shakes and warped rotors and all that stuff all the time. So obviously we couldn't fire people because we need people to drive the ambulances. So what can we do? And we're like, well, let's hire mechanics in-house.
That felt a little weird at first because I was managing people doing something I didn't know. That was very uncomfortable. Later on in life, I realized that was a superpower. I just didn't know that then. So the goal in all of this was just to save money for the ambulance. You have to save the ambulance company. So you inadvertently started a shop.
Yes. To save money. Right. And then you started covering the mechanics cost by outside work. Yes. Is that correct? That was the goal. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And voilà, Route 11. Route 11, because that's the street out front. Yeah. Route 11 was born. Yep. Wow, that's cool. Managing the repair shop, I didn't know it at the time, but knowing what I know now, looking back, I was the service advisor.
I just didn't know that then. No idea. Um, embarrassingly enough, we had a $45 an hour labor rate for gas and $65 for diesel— no, $60 for diesel. Wow. Um, because I had done the math the same way I ran the ambulance company. I just need X to do Y, right? And I just want to cover it, right? And I was trying to eliminate any barriers to not getting it, so I just made it super cheap because I knew what I needed and I just wanted to get that.
However, being on the front counter and talking to people and learning Um, how to price things. Uh, we didn't have margin back then, we had markup. Okay, that 30% was everything. It was— if it was a $1 bulb, we sold it for $1.30. If it was a $100 water pump, we sold it for $130. Wow. So the healthcare margins, profit margins, are razor thin.
Um, and I saw a huge profit potential in auto repair. Um, so you gotta remember though, I had started an ambulance company completely organically. We didn't buy it from someone else, like we literally started it from scratch. And we grew it to the size I told you earlier. So my ego was kind of big. You know, I'm, I'm making more money than any of my friends at that point in time that either went to college or didn't go to college that I graduated high school with.
And, you know, it was kind of a big deal. Like, I was very proud of that. And I was like, this is just auto repair. It's not healthcare. Healthcare is very complicated. I can learn how to run a repair shop. I was wrong. And I struggled for a long time, probably about 3 years until I was online and found a couple of all repair shop groups, you know, and I learned about Shop Hackers.
Didn't know ShopFix was a thing then and went to the Shop Hackers conference at the end of 2017. Okay. And met Aaron and most of you guys. And actually, you were a fellow client then. Yes. And you were just becoming a coach, I think, at the time. Yep. And man, it's been a whirlwind ever since. And between 2018, beginning of 2018 and 2021, we doubled it every year from that.
Well, obviously we get to a point where you can't double every year, but obviously we've still grown quite a bit every year since then. Yeah. What was that revenue in 2017 that you were doing? $480,000. $480,000 for the year. Awesome. And today, how many locations do you have? We just started our 5th location. 5 locations. And what are you tracking revenue this year?
Store 3, 4, and 5 are all a year old, so they're all still They're also different brands, so that's been another challenge. I like to make things complicated, but, um, but this year if everything goes well, we should be between $8 and $9 million. You had mentioned you were struggling as a shop owner. Can you walk us through some of those struggles of, of what you were going through then?
Yeah, um, one of the primary struggles was my shop management system was AllData Manage On Elite, and then we thought we were doing big things when we went to AllData Manage Online. Um, because we actually had a parts matrix then and some other things. Um, but even then we were very limited to what the capabilities that management system was. I had technicians at the time because I didn't have any front of house staff.
I had technicians at the time. Looking back now, whether they intentionally did it or not, took advantage of me, um, and my lack of knowledge of the industry. Everything that I was learning at ShopFix at the time, um, commission pay plans, charging with the matrix and charging the right way with the warranty and value and all that other stuff, they constantly told me that's not how you do it.
That's not going to work here. That's— we're not California. Not. They constantly listed all these places where all the money was, you know, sure, in little old Harrisonburg, Virginia. You're not gonna be able to do that here. And, um, honestly, that was probably my first major struggle, was getting myself around people that would give me the confidence, not just what to do, sure, but the confidence that you can do this.
Stop listening to them. Yes. And just let them go if you have to. Isn't that crazy how shop owners do that? They say what they're gonna do, but then they listen to the advice that they're saying it to other people, and, and using that and, and looking in the mirror and going, oh, maybe I can't do that, maybe I can't do this.
Like, wait, who are we taking advice from? Sure, you know, absolutely. That's a, that's a big key. Yeah, right there. Uh, and so you mentioned shop management system, which I know AllData back in the day, they've come a long way. I know they've got a much better shop management system now. Um, so, so that's one, one area. And then the technicians— any other struggles that you had?
Yeah, uh, pricing. Um, $45 an hour wasn't getting you there? Yeah, but that was huge. I thought it was a big deal when I went to $80. And like the first couple phone calls or the first couple sitting at the desk across from the customer and be like, so it's going to be this? And they're like, okay, that's fine, can you get it done today?
And I'm like Wow, I just doubled my labor rate and you're still like, yeah, not even being— not even batting an eye. Yeah, I felt pretty, uh, felt pretty amazing that day and pretty dumb that day. Well, that helps you kind of put yourself in a service advisor seat, right? Absolutely. They're always thinking about them, you know, what they see, you know, pulling the curtain back and seeing all the things.
And the customer, I mean, what— that's $40 more. Yeah, and was still nowhere near what we should— you needed— should have been correct. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And that was the biggest thing then is, um, I keep saying that was the biggest thing. There was just a lot of big things. A lot of big things. Uh, we didn't have a separation between the ambulance company and the repair shop.
And that was one of the first major milestones I had to get is those things separated so I could actually see the numbers. Because without seeing the numbers, I was, it was just a guess, honestly, figuring out, let's test this and see if it worked or not. We see a lot of this with used car lots and auto repair. They combine the two and it is so difficult.
To just dissect the financials because the margins don't make sense. The percentages don't make sense because they have all this work that's kind of intermingled. Yeah. Autobody too. Yeah. It's the same way. It artificially props up one company and artificially brings down another. It's a mess. I mean, even just general auto repair shops that were transmission only before and they're getting into general auto repair.
That's another, another huge struggle. While we're on the topic of struggles, like You've been a coach now for ShopFix for, for how long? 5 years. 5 years. Um, one of, one of our lead coaches now doing a phenomenal job. And you've seen a lot of shop owners struggle. What would you say the difference between like a struggling shop owner that's not making net profit, uh, like what's, what's the biggest trends that you see of a shop owner not making net profit?
Well, there's a bunch, but I would say if you had to do the top 3, not knowing their numbers, Okay. Um, usually, um, I call it have golden handcuffs. Someone's got golden handcuffs on them, kind of like I had, you know, metaphorical golden handcuffs on me with my staff at home. Sure. Once we figure out what the numbers should be, um, they go about getting them the wrong way.
And one of the biggest things, the problems that we try to fix first, and I'm going to say probably 99% of the time new ShopFix clients come in, their tech cost in their shop management system is wrong. And if that's wrong, then their GP dollars is wrong. And if their GP dollars is wrong, then what they're selling, if they're profitable, it's literally by accident.
Is that primarily because, uh, they have their techs in their system listed out at their actual— at their actual labor rate, whether they're hourly or flat rate, it's whatever. So if you're making flat rate $46 an hour, if they're hourly making $22, they put that in there. Well, gross profit is after parts cost and technician cost or labor costs in this industry for most of it.
There's some— there's a few franchises out there that do, um, what they call GP before labor. That's the term they'll, they'll use. If you interview a service advisor and you say like, what do you sell at the current store? And they're like, well, I do 80% GP. Dig into that a little bit. They're not getting 80% GP with labor, it's before labor.
So you got to ask the right questions, right? They're not wrong, it's just not the answer that you were looking for, right? But once we get all that dialed in, now that's where the magic happens. You can, you can price it correctly knowing off the desired net profit and the overhead that you have to cover. So we have a GP dollar goal that gets created, and then you, you know, if you get actual real salespeople in there, you can create a minimum and you can actually strategize based off the value you're providing, the price that you're offering, and not only make more money but provide more options for your customers that some of them, they
won't care about the warranty. They also may not be able to afford it at the point in time, but you can still provide them great value with great parts with a decent warranty at a better price, and it, it fit, it works out for both of you. So let's back up just a little bit. So you said the technician cost is just wrong in the shop management system.
How is, how is it wrong? Guy mentioned that you just have the hourly rate or their rate in there. What are the things influence that? Um, because you have a technician that's working 40 hours, how are there influencers on that? Like what, what's the discrepancy? Because your P&L says one thing, shop management says another, right? So I mean, if you look at most of the kind, not all of them, but most of the calculations that we go over are based off of billed hours.
You've got technician cost divided by billed hours, you've got overhead divided by billed hours, you got gross profit divided by billed hours. Everything is by billed hours. Well, once you figure out what the billed hours are, that's what's going to create the, the technician costs. If you have your total technician costs divided by your billed hours, and you always want to do 2 or 3 months, you want to get a big span.
Okay, probably too deep of a conversation to get into why today, but just always do the last 90 days of, um, technician costs divided by the billed hours for that same 90 days. Um, there's a little discrepancy there if you're in massive growth mode. For 99% of the time, that formula right there will get you what you need. We recommend total labor cost divided by the build hours for the same time frame.
Okay, so your total technician cost on your payroll, and this includes anybody working in the back? Yes. So all of those divided by the total build hours out of the shop management system? Yeah, the way I like to teach it is if We'll use TechMetric out as an example, or Shopware. If, if you can hit the little dropdown and their name exists in someone that could be assigned as a technician on that job, they get added into this formula.
Okay. Yeah. Okay, perfect. What's the worst case that you've seen? Like, can you recall? Yeah, I mean, we've had clients come in and have a 30 to 40% discrepancy, meaning that their shop manage— in the shop management system, their labor cost— there's always this telltale sign. You'll have this labor GPU of like 80%, and that's the first I know for a fact your labor cost is wrong.
Big red flag. Yeah, yeah, big red flag. So they'll have very— like, everybody's making $18 to $25 an hour, but they're only doing 20 hours a week, right? So they're actually per billed hour making $46 an hour, or costing you $46 per billed hour. Wow. On the payroll system, they're only charging you $22 an hour, and that's where the discrepancy happens. And you'll get your labor cost— it's basically, if you get— if you have a P&L, hopefully if you have one, but if you get to a point where you got a solid P&L and your GP is like 48% on your P&L, but it's 72% in your shop management system, this is your problem.
Absolutely. Yeah. I had a client once that was at $92 an hour is what we calculated. Yeah. And he had it in his shop management system as $15. Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah. So his GP and his shop management system looked amazing, right? Sorry to backtrack on that, but that was— that's a super important detail a lot of shop owners, especially newer ones, miss.
What other areas would you see that's, that's different, you know, from making a net profit? Um, not having a, a parts matrix that actually has a, um, a method or a mindset behind it. Like, you have to— you can't just set it and forget it. Like, it's something that constantly has to be massaged. And, uh, I actually, actually recommend multiple parts matrixes, um, for a lot of different reasons, and then training your staff to use those based off those different scenarios.
We'll go back to that transmission shop. Parts matrixes is the major downfall of transmission rebuilders across the country. And people usually look at me cross-eyed when I say that, but I don't want to throw any shop management system names under the bus, but we'll just say shop management system X back in the day only had one parts matrix. Sure. But let's say it's this transmission shop and they do R&R, they get them from Certified or Jasper or whatever, they do R&R transmissions, they also do some in-house rebuilds.
The problem is, is those in-house rebuilds, they put them on the same parts matrix as the one that they just do the R&R because they only have the one matrix. Gotcha. If you think about a transmission matrix, those are really high cost, so the matrixes are buckets are really, really narrow. But those in-house rebuilds, those are where the GP dollars— huge GP dollars could make, because you can take a $20 clutch pack kit or a seal kit or something and sell it for $100 when you do bid pricing and put it inside this whole thing.
Sure, there's a lot more money to be made there. Those shops that had builders in-house, that is an art. If you're a transmission rebuilder, you're like in the top, in my opinion, the top 10 of technical people that can actually do the job and understand it and fix those types of things. Agreed. And you should have been paid a premium for that capability.
Absolutely. But they weren't. It wasn't because the tech— the shop owners, they were just bad shop owners and didn't pay their people. They didn't create enough GP dollars to pay their people anything because they didn't price things correctly. They didn't have any money left to pay anybody. Right. So we have transmission shops come in now that don't even do general auto repair, and the first thing I ask them is, do you have an in-house rebuilder?
And if they're like, yes, I do, I'm like, well, then you're getting ready to make a lot more money because we changed that. And literally overnight, it's so great to see it Because that's awesome. We try to get wins pretty quickly for clients so they trust us because sometimes they've never met these people. We're talking on Zoom for the first time. You get a couple of these wins and then they realize that you can actually help them.
From that point on, things go really, really quickly. I don't know why, but when I was a Tribe coach, I got a lot of the transmission clients and pretty much all of them. I mean, we've, we've had clients coming in making $200,000 a month, doing really, really well. Um, but their transmissions are really, really large ARO. Um, but the GP is like down in the 30s when you actually look at it on the P&L.
And there was 2 issues. One, the tech cost that we just mentioned, like unanimously 100% of the time that was an issue. And then for the ones who did have very talented rebuilders in-house, um, they could jump— wouldn't be a significant jump in revenue per se. Sometimes it was, but even if it just went to from $200,000 to $280,000, they would go from 36% GP to 55% to 60% because they were pricing certain things the right way.
GP is what covers overhead and what's left over is net profit. Yeah, and that's, that's the end goal. So that's probably one of the most— the best scenarios that kind of paints the best picture of what we're talking about. What is the difference between a struggling shop owner and a successful shop owner? Like, what is the, the main differences that you notice or name, you know, main patterns?
Yeah, honestly, there's a bunch of different reasons, but they all circle around mindset. They just do. You know, people say you're the sum of the 5 people that you're around the most. A lot of these shop owners are people who grew up in the business, and that's why ShopFix exists, because they're amazing at taking care of people. They're amazing at fixing cars, but they don't know how to run the business.
You know, a lot of it's not just this blue-collar industry. It's a lot of blue-collar industries. Sure. A lot of electricians and plumbers and HVAC people. Start their own business, but they get into tax debt really quickly or 941 payments because they just don't know the things. And that's where we really shine because we can come in and teach them those things, but also the mindset of just what else is capable and what's possible.
Kind of like my mindset when I first joined, of my mindset was based off of what my technicians and my staff told me. And that's what ShopFix was able to do for me is flip that mindset and give me courage and the confirmation. That's the biggest thing, the confirmation that it's not just someone saying, you can do this, go for it. It's, look at all these other people that have done exactly what we're asking you to do.
This is the confirmation. It's not just something we're asking you to do to see if it can be done. It can be done. Here's all the people. It's up to you to get it done now. I know one of the big struggles is like you go to ShopFix and you learn these things and now you got to go back to your team and you got to get them to buy in, right?
So talk a little bit about that buy-in and how you won your team over? So I actually have taught classes at ShopFix on this. I call it, uh, hitting the reset button. A lot of these shop owners are buddies with their employees. They smoke together out back, may go drinking together on the weekends or on, on the evenings or whatever. They do things together.
And I'm not saying that they shouldn't, but they're not— they don't have a relationship with employee and employer. And if you are the employer, whether you like it or not, you're in a position that if you want to be successful, that you have to You have to play the part. You just do. It's just part of it. And it doesn't mean you can't be friends with any people or not, but it does mean that if you're going to be successful, you have to adopt this, this position that you've accepted responsibility for if you want it to work.
And a lot of times, to go home, to go to a conference, to get pumped up, to get all this great information, to go home and tell people about these things that you want to do and to get their buy-in, a lot of times I'm finding these people, their people don't believe them because of who they've been as a human, not as a shop owner sometimes, but a lot of times just as a person.
And, uh, and that's a shame, and it seems very, very difficult to overcome. But I've taught clients to do this, to just go home, write down a list of all the things that you think you haven't done great at, call them out, apologize to them for them, and just say, look, I can't stand here and say I can guarantee I will be different in the future, but I do want to ask for an opportunity to earn your trust.
And an opportunity to be this new owner for you guys because this is what I want to do. And man, it has— there's been times where they go home, everybody's left. Right? Right. That happens. And not that day. Not everybody walked up. Yeah. Not everybody kind of walked out that moment, but it was the beginning of the end of that phase. And then it was up to us to coach them through that phase and know that there's a light at the end of that tunnel and that God has a plan and that this is just part of it.
And that, you know, you initiated the reset. And sometimes the reset, the end of the reset isn't a new thing with what you had. Sometimes it's just a whole new thing. Um, and then those people who get on that path of being a good human or being a good owner is, um, staying on it. It's a struggle for all of us that, you know, life happens and, you know, you get constantly bombarded by certain things and choices and things.
And you, if you're going to be a successful shop owner and a great leader and have a good organization, and something that's truly going to change the legacy of your family, which is what should be the goal, you're going to have to be a good person. Yeah. At the heart of it through the, through the whole process. And that, I mean, resonates with me being a manager of a shop and that trickles down.
Sure. There was definitely a moment when I was managing, I became the manager where those relationships with those technicians, I was a, I was a peer and now I'm your boss and you got to separate. There's no more hanging out after work, you know. It's— and shop owners have to make this decision, and owners and employees have to make this decision. Where do I want to go with my life?
Where do I want to take my family? What's more important? And like you said, you realize you're— you shop owners, I'm sure, and I know because we've coached them, are afraid of that, uh, I gotta go back and I might shake things up so much that I have new people on my front counter, new people in the back. And that's scary, right?
It is. Yeah. Leaving familiar is very scary. I love the reset button concept. That is, that is a huge takeaway on this for sure. Moving from being a shop owner, less than the ambulance, you know, business and growing to multiple shops. So talk a little bit about how you went from one shop to 2 shops and then where it went from there.
When I first got into ShopFix, you know, we were making a lot of money with store 1, and I was, I was content for a period of time. And then I got challenged by my fellow tribe members. That, that's one of the things that we don't talk enough about being in ShopFix and being in a tribe is get around the right tribe and you start pushing each other.
I mean, it's, it's super helpful. I mean, it's one thing to be around the right people in the right environment, but it's another thing to be around people that you push each other and believe in you. Yeah, and believe in you. And not that you like can't ever be happy with what you have. I'm not saying that, but everything can always be a little bit better, a little bit stronger, or you can create a scenario where you're good but you can make things better for your people and then they can grow.
Multi-shop ownership is not just about more money for the owners, creating more opportunity for your employees. You can attract and retain a different type of employee when you create a ladder of success for them to climb. That's one of the biggest unintended things that happened to me when we went MSO is learning the people that we could attract and retain, um, that we couldn't before.
And I didn't know that until we put on the Indeed ad— multiple shops, multiple management positions, you know, multiple pathways to success kind of thing. And then different players started showing up. Interesting. I was like, I wonder where you guys have been. And then that's what it— that's what they were looking for. My scenario may not resonate with everybody, but I wanted to do MSO not to brag about multiple shops, but I saw this opportunity.
But we teach, you know, you want at least 3 months of overhead for the current store and the store you're going into. You want at least $100K in operating budget after you've done your build out, after you've made your down payment, all of the things, right? And you want to be able to step away from your original store for at least a month or two.
Not like never go in, like you're still going to review your P&Ls and stuff, but you're nowhere near any part of the day-to-day operations. Even if a few people call in sick, that's like the safe way. Have people ground stores without that? Absolutely. We know tons. However, as a coach, we're always going to recommend the safe way in that and just help them with whatever they end up doing.
Sure, we're always going to help, but that's the way we have to teach it and what we're going to advise. So I did all that. I did all the things. And I talked to brokers, I talked to tool truck people, I talked to, um, part store managers, talked to all the people that might know where other shops were. And man, for like a year or two, a dead end after dead end after dead end.
And I was like, you know, I'm I'm a big believer in God, and I, I think maybe it's just I need to look at this as maybe this is not what I'm supposed to do. Maybe multi-shop ownership. I was like, because I— my dream was to be the fire chief of some big city one day. Now I'm running a repair shop and I'm not even in healthcare at all anymore.
Wow. So why don't I take that lesson and realize that maybe this is not what I'm supposed to do? I just need to keep doing what I'm— what I know to do, be the best at it as I can, be willing to do what other people aren't, and I'll land where I'm supposed to land. Yeah. And then it was within a couple of weeks somebody said something and it hit me in a weird way and it made me think to myself, what if it's not something that I'm— that I need to do?
What if it's something that I just haven't done yet? And what if it doesn't have anything to do with revenue and operation, operating account and all the things? Because I met all those criteria and it still wouldn't happen. And I said, I thought to myself, what would not happen if I've got a second store today? A local shop owner walked in the door and said, I know you don't know me, but I've heard about you.
I want to retire and I'm worried about my customers and I'm worried about my employees. Everybody says you'd be the best steward of both of those. Cool. Would you be interested in buying? Wow, that's awesome. There's no way. That's, that's not so cool, right? So you just got to look at it from all different avenues. Store 3 was an expansion of Store 1, that brand.
Store 4 was a retiring shop owner. And then Store 5 was the same thing. All Store 2, 3, 4, and 5 I didn't go after, didn't look for. They all came to me because I finally figured out what in life I needed to do to be ready. And now we put a verbal offer in store 6. They haven't accepted yet, but we might be doing that this year too.
Wow, hot off the press. You heard it here first. Yeah. So it is awesome to hear that, you know, if you are a good steward of your things, there is a plan in place for you, right? And you will reap the benefits of that. Yeah. And the saying, you don't always reap where you sow, is so true because I had, I had planted a bunch of seeds a bunch of different places and didn't get any harvest from those places, but I still got the harvest.
It was just from someplace else. I have a saying that, uh, you know, don't, don't pray for God's will to happen in your life and then complain when it happens. Yes. You have to think that sometimes things happen, like your employees leave or whatever, and it's the worst thing in the world. That might have been What everybody's been waiting on this whole time.
Sure. Right. But maybe God didn't create the scenario where those employees are going to leave because you hadn't become the owner of the leadership yet for the good people to show up. Because had the good people shown up before, they wouldn't have stayed because you weren't the leader you needed to be to retain or attract and retain those people. Man, Brandon, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
There is a ton of gold nuggets in there, a lot of wisdom. If you're a struggling shop owner, just have hope and belief because Brandon believes in you. And just like all of ShopFix Academy, that's what I love about ShopFix is our community of people that believe in you and push you further every single time. So keep doing the things that you know to do.
Eventually you are going to reap that harvest. You just don't know what day that's going to be. Last question. Have you ever thought about growing a mustache? No. I mean, firefighter, you should. I think you should. Just think, consider it. Just consider it. That's a different podcast. No, I don't do the— All right. I don't do the mustache podcast. I'll start that podcast.
That's cool. That's good. That's all I needed.
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215 - Ask Me Anything: Car Count vs. Profit - Why More Cars Doesn't Always Mean More Profit
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Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. 👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7M70n_DfTDg Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com. Episode Transcript: Ask Me Anything Car Count vs. Profit - Why More Cars Doesn't Always Mean More Profit Lucas Underwood: What is up, everybody? Hey, y'all. It's Lucas Underwood from the Changing the Industry podcast and L&M Performance here in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I am joined today by the one, the only, Mr. Cecil Bullard. We're gonna be talking about car count versus profit. Cecil, how are you today, buddy? Cecil Bullard: I'm doing fantastic as usual, Lucas. Lucas Underwood: Very good. Very good. So Cecil, one of the, one of the things I'll never forget, I taught a class at a industry event one time, and I had been in another class where the person was talking about do whatever it takes to get them in the door, and they'd been in a shop, and they were in their own shop, and the, the advisor had turned down a car at 4:00 in the afternoon that came in for a coupon oil change and wanted to wait. And so she chased the person back out into the parking lot and said, "No, no, no, no, no, we'll get you in. We'll make it work. I'm gonna pull a technician off something else. I'm gonna put them on this," and fired an advisor over it. And I've, I'd been in that class, and I'm talking about that in this training, and that person was sitting in the back of the class and I didn't see Cecil Bullard: him. Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And, and the thing that I said about it was this, is I said, "Listen, one of the most impactful things that I've ever experienced was being on the other side of an experience like that as an advisor, as a technician, what it feels like to feel that kind of pressure and why we shouldn't do that to our people And so I know there's been a massive movement, movement in the industry that's pushing people to say yes to every car that comes in the door. Doesn't matter what it is, just more cars, more cars, more cars, more cars. And I have had a very, very different experience than that. I am someone who has experienced a higher ARO with less stress and less pressure on our people, a better experience for the client, and I have found that that works best for me. And I'm not saying it works best for every organization, but I wanted to dig in with you and talk a little bit about this. Are you a say yes to every car man, or are you a balanced car count and balanced ARO man? Help me understand. Cecil Bullard: I think there's a, I think there's both, frankly. Um- Okay ... it, it has to make common sense, and I think you're really talking about two different things. So first of all- Yeah ... you know, before you fire someone for not doing what you want, does the person really understand what you want, right? Yeah. I mean, is that, is that well defined? Did the guy know that no matter what, I have to bring that car in? Uh, you know, so at 4:00, your service advisor made a decision. He'd made promises to other customers that they would have their cars. Yeah. And instead, now you're jumping in the middle of that and you're saying, "Well, I'm gonna fire this guy because he turned down a, a discount oil change or whatever." Yeah. Maybe a dis- and it- maybe a dis- you know, the guys, the discount oil change guys would say, "Well, yeah, but we do discount oil changes 'cause it leads to other sales." Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: But so that's one thing, you know? I- I- is the person who works at your counter... Um, I, I was in, uh, North Carolina. You saw me last week. I was on the road- Yeah ... for four da- after one of my meetings, and this happens a lot, one of the kids came up, young guy, uh, looked like he was about 14, but he was probably in his 20s, and he's like, "I'm a third generation. My dad runs the shop, but, but you know, my dad, he's getting in the middle of everything. It's really hard." And, and, uh, I, I always say you work for someone, they write you a check- You have to make a decision about what you're willing to put up with or not put up with, right? For sure. As an, as an employee, right? Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: And so when you decide that I, I wanna work here and I wanna take the check, i- in a way you also decide I'm gonna follow the rules of the company, whatever those are. Yeah. Whether Cecil agrees with them or Lucas agrees with them or, or whatever. None of that really matters. What matters is that the person that's writing you a check is, is basically saying, "This is how I wanna do it," right? Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: And, you know, behind the scenes, we can have all the arguments we want. We can sit down and go, "I don't think that's correct." Um, a- a- but until the owner changes their mind about how we do this, then you gotta do- That's how business Lucas Underwood: runs ... Cecil Bullard: you gotta do how, what the owner wants. And so if that employee got terminated legitimately because- Yeah he knew better, then I'm, I'm fine with that. I, I, I think we have a craziness in our industry. I think we've all lost our minds because You know, you, you look at car count, car count. I mean, that's everybody's... That's like the mantra, right? More cars, more cars. I'll make money if I have more cars. Yeah. Well, that's, that's not necessarily true. It's never been true, frankly. Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: Right. You know, we have these shops. I mean, I can't tell you how many times, you know, having done seminars in the industry for well over 20 years and, and, and worked with automotive- thousands of automotive shops, we have these shops that come in, they're doing $2 million a year worth of business and losing money. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and so... And we also have shops, frankly, that are doing, you know, uh, 700,000 and losing money, and, and I'm pretty sure there's shops out there doing 10 million and losing money. Yeah. Uh, there's a balance and there's a way to run your business that is successful, right? Yep. Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. 100%. So- And, and look, h- I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a play directly from the Cecil Bullard playbook, okay? Hey- I'm gonna pull the play straight out of the playbook because you said something that I think we need to address right here and right now, okay? We Cecil Bullard: lost our minds in our industry? Lucas Underwood: Well, I mean, you would've had to have had one to have lost it, okay? You have to have something to lose it. So, I, the industry in that sense, we're in trouble. But, you know, th- this brings up something that's completely off-topic and, and I'm just gonna ask you what you think about it. There's all these technicians who are really upset right now, right? They're, they're very disgruntled, and it's primarily in the dealership space, right? You know I make these videos and they come out- Yeah every single Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. And these videos come out, and all these dealership guys get so upset and so mad because they think that I'm talking about the dealership space. And I keep saying to them, like, you set the terms for what you're willing to accept in that, that job, in that role as an employee, and if you don't like the job, for God's sakes, leave. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, there's- And if Lucas Underwood: everybody leaves- Cecil Bullard: There's so many... There, I mean, you know, I, I think if you got a thousand shop owners in a room and you said, "How many of you need a good technician in your shop?" You know, 999 hands would go up, right? Yeah. Um, the, the... And, and yet we have these techs that are so miserable in their lives, in their sh- in the shop that they're at, and the, bec- the owner doesn't pay me, doesn't appreciate me, doesn't whatever, or she doesn't- Yeah or whatever. Okay, Lucas Underwood: cool. Why Cecil Bullard: are you there? Go somewhere else. Right. I mean, holy, holy crap. Um, yeah. I'm with you, man. I mean- I am like, uh... And I was t- I talk about the level of incompetence you're willing to accept. I, I do that- Yeah ... with owners because, you know, nobody's gonna be Cecil, right? Yeah. And by the way, in Cecil's head, in my brain, I think I do it right all the time. Right. Yeah. I mean, there's a piece of me that knows that's not true, right? But we're all a little- Sure ... insane in some ways, and we think that, you know, we, we know how to do things, and we think that our way is the right way. And, and, but as an owner, I'm gonna work twice as hard as pretty much anybody else, you know? Yeah. If it... I, I was talking to one of our, um, our marketing people. I, I used to print our workbooks, and I used to write our workbooks, and I used to edit our workbooks. Yeah. And, excuse me. I don't, I don't do that now, but I was, I was talking to her and I said, "You know, I used to be here at 2:00 in the morning-" Lucas Underwood: Yeah Cecil Bullard: printing workbooks because I had a class the next day that I needed the workbooks for- Uh ... and putting them together. 100%. And now I'm really glad I don't have to do that. Lucas Underwood: But- We, you know, we got a, we got a review the other day b- at the family business, and it said, "The owner was in there serving food." And I wanted to reply and say, "Yeah, because, like, I gotta do whatever I gotta do." 'Cause Cecil Bullard: everybody quit, and, and I'm in trouble, and I c- I'm the only one. Otherwise, I wouldn't be there. Lucas Underwood: Right. I've gotta do what I gotta do, right? Yeah. Like, this is how we're gonna survive. And, and I, uh... What is it that old Dutch always says? Like, "I'm paying for the blessings of tomorrow with the sacrifices of today." Of today. Whatever it takes. But Cecil Bullard: we a- you know, a- and so you, you create the level of incompetence. And I would say from an owner's point or a manager's point, you say, "Okay, in that position, I'm willing to accept 3% warranty," right? Yeah. So I've got a tech, I'm willing to accept 35 hours a week as a, okay, that's, like, you, you, you hit 35, you're, you're still in my good graces. You- Lucas Underwood: Right ... Cecil Bullard: you only have 3% warranty, you're still in my good graces. But, but also employees have to do the same thing. I mean, you have to decide, what am I willing to put up with? Am I willing to put up with- Yeah ... crappy pay? Well, if you do, and you take the check, and you keep taking the check- Lucas Underwood: Ain't Cecil Bullard: nothing gonna change then shut up. Right? Right. I mean, stop bitching about it. And we're, we're a, an interesting industry. Like you said, maybe we never had a mind, but- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: you know, we, we, we constantly eat our tails, you know? Yeah. We constantly bitch and bitch and bitch, and, and we don't W- I don't even think we fully understand. So, you know, I'm pretty sure if, um, if, uh, uh, Aaron Stokes was still alive and, and we had Aaron on this, Aaron would be saying, "Yeah, you say yes, and you say yes because of this, this, and this," right? Yeah. Because that was w- that's one of their philosophies, was that yes philosophy. And on the same time, I would be saying Yeah, but sometimes you gotta say no. Yeah. Because you've already made promises to other customers because you're pulling a guy off of a $5,000 job that he could finish up- Lucas Underwood: For a $29 Cecil Bullard: oil change ... and you're gonna have him do a, an oil change where you're gonna lose $35. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And then he's gotta come back to the $5,000 job, and he's gotta get his head back in the game. So now you've increased the odds of, of mistakes happening, comebacks, et cetera. And so I think there's a point where you say to the customer, "Look, you know, we, we would love to do that oil change for you, absolutely. Only I can't do it tonight, right now, because my techs are all tied up on other jobs, and we've made promises to customers." Absolutely. "And I'm pretty sure if you were one of those customers who I made a promise to, you would not want me pulling the tech off of your car to do someone else's- To, to do that ... service or whatever it is, right?" I, I think- And it's not even about a $29 oil change. If it was a $300 oil change, I still wouldn't pull my guy off of a $5,000 job- Yeah at 4:00 to do that oil change. Lucas Underwood: I, I think it's easy, right? Like, so, so my vision of leadership is, is my job is to create a awesome environment for my internal customers, my employees. Right. And, and currently I'm not in the shop that much, so it is my managers' job to create an amazing experience for them, and then they in turn create an amazing experience. The desired outcome is a safely and properly repaired automobile for our consumer that is safe and reliable for them and their families. Or that, that's what we're trying to accomplish, and we have the guardrails which say, "Here is the, the metrics of profitability that we expect, and so you guys stay within these guardrails. Here's where you're going. This is the roadmap. This is what we want." You saw the roadmap. Well- I've, I've got it on the whiteboard, right? Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And so- And you're also not, you're not setting yourself up for success here, right? I'm, I'm bringing a, a $29 oil change. So I'm working with, uh, big old tire guys, uh, not, not the big company, but a guy who owns three locations. Yeah. And we're doing free tire rotations and free brake inspections. Yeah. We're doing hundreds of them. You know what we're selling? Probably Lucas Underwood: nothing. Nothing, Cecil Bullard: right? Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: Because we're so busy doing the tire rotations and brake inspections, we forget to look at the car. We don't have time to get to the Lucas Underwood: actual work Cecil Bullard: that they could approve. We, we forget to estimate the work and, and we don't have time to have a conversation with the customer. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm literally going... I said, "Why, why do you guys do free brake, uh, you know, inspections, free tire rotations?" Yeah. He said, "So we can look at the car." Well, you forgot that- Does it matter if you're not getting the end of it? somewhere along the... Yeah. So now I'm gonna bring this, this oil change in, and we'll get to that question in just a second, but I, I just have to make the point. I'm gonna bring this guy in at 4:00. It's a waiter, you know? Yeah. Uh, we're gonna service the car, and if I have a good technician do a good inspection, we're 35, 45, 50 minutes in. So now we're pushing 5:00 Then we will find stuff on this car that needs to be talked about. Customer may not buy it, but it needs to be talked about. The whole reason I'm doing the cheap oil change is to get the guy in so I can look at the car and try to sell him the things that he really needs, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Except now it's close to 5:00. Is that customer gonna sit for another 15, 20 minutes while- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: my service advisor estimates the work, and then is he gonna sit for another 15 or 20 minutes with my service advisor after that to discuss what he needs- In- ... so that he can make a good decision? Lucas Underwood: In this instance, the, the, their theory was is like just, just find one thing wrong with the car that will make them leave it, and then do an inspection and provide the inspection later. I didn't feel like that was very kosher. Cecil Bullard: It's not my, it's not the way that I would- Lucas Underwood: No, I didn't feel like Cecil Bullard: it ... I would approach it. And it's certainly, it's certainly not the way that I would teach. I don't wanna have three phone calls with you, right? Yeah. Or three meetings. I don't wanna find one thing and say, "Oh my God, your, y- you know, your oil leak is coming out of the, the whatever timing cover so badly, we've gotta do your timing cover, and it's gonna cost X, Y, Z." And you go, "Okay, you know, I've seen the leaks. Do it." Yeah. And then you leave And then I go, "Oh, and now we've had time to check the car over, so here's another $5,000 worth of crap." Right. I don't wanna have that. I wanna have one conversation. I don't wanna have three or two, right? Right. I may have two because when we get in the middle of stuff, uh- Yeah we may find something- My vein's gonna have to- ... that are related that, that we can't see at that point in time with a basic inspection. But I certainly don't wanna have three conversations. And- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: and I think you're, um... Everything is i- with a client is about how does that client feel about us, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And that experience with us. And, and so by telling him yes, I made him feel good, okay? So yeah. Tell him, any, anytime you tell someone, "No, I, I really can't do that," if that's all you say, you're in trouble, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Or no. Uh, nobody wants to hear no, right? Yeah. "Oh, my gosh, I would love to do that for you right now, but unfortunately there's just not enough time, and if we did it right now, we wouldn't do you a justice. We wouldn't be able to-" Yeah "... inspect the car. We wouldn't be able to tell you about what's going on with the car. You would not have the information you need to make intelligent decisions, and my whole job is making sure that you have the information you need to make the right decisions about Lucas Underwood: your car." Is advising you, being your advocate. Cecil Bullard: That, that's what I do, right? Yeah. And so this, this yes mentality and this car count thing of just driving as many cars through. We... I watch... I'm a numbers guy. You, y- everyone in the industry kinda knows, you know? Cecil understands the numbers or thinks he does. And- Yeah and I watch shops drive car count, and as they drive car count, I watch sales go down. I watch- Yep ... average repair- Yes ... orders go down. I watch mistakes go up. Employee satisfaction Lucas Underwood: go down. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. The whole nine yards. Employees are, are running around- Yep ... like chickens with their head cut off. Yep. There's a lot more inefficiencies that, that happen in the business. Yeah. And so if you, if you run a shop and you really pay attention, you'll learn where your sweet spots are, right? Yeah. Where does the shop make m- the most money? Where does the shop create the most happy clients? Where does the shop create the best average repair order? You know? Yeah. Those things that matter to me. And then where does the shop create the most profit? Because y- I, I have to, I have to be profitable here i, in the short term, and frankly, in the long term. Yeah. Otherwise, I, I have to go work f- For somebody else, and I'm not employable Lucas Underwood: Right. I, I'm the same way, and I, I think it's important, right? O- one of the things that I'm bad for doing is painting with a broad brush. Yeah. If you own, own a tire store, right? And, and you can turn hundreds of tires a day, that, that's a different model than what we're discussing. We're not talking about a high volume just tire store or something like that. That's a very different model. But even then, these same practices work in that tire store the same way they work in, in a mechanical shop. Cecil Bullard: And- Most of, most of the tire guys that I know are- Mm-hmm ... probably doing 50% tires, 50% um- Mechanical ... at least. Yeah. I mean, I know there's some that are 70% tires, 30% service, but I don't know of- Yeah ... any tires, uh, other than maybe discount tires, that are only doing tires. Just tires. Yeah And not getting into any of the service at all. Um- Lucas Underwood: Well, you know, I, I thought, I was, I've talked with Mark Ponz a lot. Brilliant, brilliant businessman, right? And, and one of the things that I always learned from Mark was, was, "Hey, watch the way we do tire business," and then we kinda shift gears in the mechanical business. You have to. It runs a little bit differently, right? Cecil Bullard: It's a different business, right. Lucas Underwood: And so you've got your tire team that's out here just nailing the tires out, and that's what they do every single day. And, and I've, I've, because of ASEA, I've had some amazing opportunities to work with some of the best tire men in the entire country. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And, and I always, I was the guy saying like, "You can't make it with tires." How do you make it? And then I meet Mark Ponz and I'm like, "Whoof. He did more than make it with tires." Cecil Bullard: Holy smokes, you can make a lot of money with tires. Yes. But- Lucas Underwood: Yes ... Cecil Bullard: it's a different margin, it's a different business. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And it, it's ran differently. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And so, you know, I found my sweet spot to be three cars a day per tech, somewhere between $900 and $1,100 on my ARO. That, that's my sweet spot. That's where we run. That's where things work. We get too much higher than that, we start getting into very complex jobs. And, and listen, I talk to a lot of shop owners, "I got a $3,000 ARO. That's too high." And they're like, "What are you talking about that's too high?" Well, Cecil Bullard: if, if you're a diesel shop, it's not. For sure. If you're a European shop, you're pushing the edge. But- For Lucas Underwood: sure ... Cecil Bullard: but if you're a general repair shop, it's, it's too high, right? Lucas Underwood: Exactly. It means you're Cecil Bullard: doing engines and transmissions all day. It also means you're doing a lot of heavy duty work. Engine repair. And if you're doing a lot of heavy duty work, the margins and the matrixes that- You currently would have in place normally that would be taught to you will never work for your business- Yeah to make the profit you need. Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Right. You're 100% right. You're 100% right. And, and I think that's why, you know, it's like when I talk to folks about coaching with the Institute, I'm always saying, "Listen, there is no cookie cutter model that fits every shop." Like, this is a- I think there, Cecil Bullard: I think there is, frankly. I mean, if you say, "I'm a tire store," there's a model that works best. Yeah. If you say, "I'm a- I don't Lucas Underwood: disagree ... Cecil Bullard: I'm a discount store-" I don't disagree with that ... there's, there's a model that works best. Yeah. But, you know, I was... A- and again, I, I have never run a discount store, so I've never done- Yeah ... a cheap oil change or anything cheap. Or frankly- Right ... I'm, I never, when I was running shops, I never was a discounter. So- Yeah ... I don't understand that model. And I know some guys, however, that run really discount. Yeah. I've known some guys in my life. And, and their model works for them, only their techs are usually, uh, pretty transient because- Yeah they're just- Discount model, that's it ... they're not paying them enough, and they're running too many cars through, and that's, their service advisors can be somewhat transient in that business, and their customers can be somewhat transient in that business. Yeah. So the other part of that is if I'm running a discount model, I have to keep really hounding- Yeah marketing. Tha- those are the guys that are also saying you need to send out 10,000 to 40,000 mailers every month so you can bring- Yeah ... these oil changes in, so you can do enough business to- Here- ... you know, to be profitable. Lucas Underwood: Here, here's my thing, though, okay? When, when we look at the numbers, right? When we look at the financials, because I talk to Eric Jordan all the time at Geisen. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, yeah. Lucas Underwood: And I'm like, "Dude, I... You know where I was at, I didn't have clean numbers." I, I ran through a, a spell where we didn't have good bookkeeping and, and our numbers were a mess. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And it's impossible to run a business without good clean numbers, right? And so what I'm saying, though, Cecil, is that without good clean numbers, without good clean data, there is no model that's gonna work. And I think that when they have good numbers, that GP number that you have to hit every single month to pay the bill- Cecil Bullard: Yeah ... Lucas Underwood: what, what the shop down the street's charging- They don't, they don't- ... is irrelevant to you. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. They also- Lucas Underwood: What you have to make is what you have to make. Cecil Bullard: If you don't have clean numbers, you make mistakes. Yeah. And you make bad decisions. So, you know, imagine- I've made bad Lucas Underwood: decisions with clean numbers, Cecil. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Right, yeah. But, but, you know, imagine that we brought a new car in or a, you know- Yeah ... a four-year-old whatever, and we didn't have a scanner, and we couldn't get the data- Yeah ... out of the car, and so now what are we doing? Now, now it's the, you know, well, I, I, based on my experience, I think, or- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: you know, my tech is saying, "Let's- Yeah ... place re- let's rep- replace these six parts. Maybe that's gonna solve the problem." Yeah. I, I don't wanna be that company. I wanna be the company that says, "I know exactly what's going on with your, with your business, and- Yeah these are the three or the five things that we can do that will really improve your business and- Yeah ... put more money in your bottom line, create more happy, happier employees, happier- uh, clients, et cetera. For sure. Um, we do have a question. Let's- Yeah. Kyle ... let's get to the question. 2020, Kyle. I know that this is supposed to be ask me questions, so, and I've al- I have kinda read the question, but I'll let you read it. I read it myself, so. Yeah. " Lucas Underwood: I'm a mobile programming and testing company netting 8% currently." Now, Kyle is a, a fairly new company, very proud of him, doing awesome things. "My GP's 55% per RO, but my car count is only about 10 per week, so two a day. Should my next step be more investment into marketing or jump into coaching to maximize what I currently have?" Cecil, what do you think? Cecil Bullard: Well, I would, I, I, I would lean on the coaching side, and here's why. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Y- Cecil Bullard: you're supposed to be making net 20, and your gross profit is off by, uh, what is that? 12, 14 points. Yeah. I mean, I need 62 to 64% GP. Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: And I need to know where that's missing. For sure. And what I have to do to get that. So you can bring more cars in at this point, and you'll st- and, and if you maintain a, a net eight, you're just gonna... If you wanna make tw- you know, the 200 K you told- A higher Lucas Underwood: net eight. Cecil Bullard: I wanna make, I don't know, I wanna make $200,000. At 8%, $200,000 is an awful lot of cars to work on, an awful, awful lot of places to make mistakes, and a lo- awful lot of liability. Yeah. At 20%, you know, $200,000 is a lot less cars, it's a lot less liability, and a lot less places to make mistakes. I- So for me, I, I'm, I might do both. It, it would depend on, you know... I mean, 8%, if you're doing, you know, 10,000 a month, okay, I'm making 8%, that's, in my opinion, that ain't enough to survive. You know, if you're doing 100,000, you might do both. You might, you know, get coaching, improve your margins, figure out where your business is going wrong, and then while you're doing that, you might improve car count and put a few more, you know, butts in seats so that I can make 20% on more people instead of 8%. Lucas Underwood: So here, here's my perspective, okay? So, so thing number one for me here Is that you're exactly right, and my reasoning's a little bit different. I would want to fix my net and I would want to fix my gross profit- Gross Cecil Bullard: profit ... Lucas Underwood: first before I started stacking more clients in the door, because now I'm gonna have more attrition because I'm changing my model midstream as opposed to narrowing down and polishing my model right now and getting my model right before I start presenting it to more people, right? Well, then- So, so I can set the expectation early. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And if you, if you do that, you'll have happier clients that will continue- Yeah ... to use you and come back. And- Lucas Underwood: I Cecil Bullard: agree ... this is a mo- mobile programming guy, so his client is probably not, uh, like the end user. This m- he may be working with more shops. I mean, there's- Yep definitely more information I'd need in order to- For sure ... evaluate him. And, and he is- These are the five Lucas Underwood: things ... he's working with a lot of shops. Right. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And, Lucas Underwood: and I think he's doing some mobile diag too. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: But so here- But you're- ... here's the next question to that though, right? Okay. Because I think there's a lot of mobile diag guys out there, there's a lot of mobile techs out there, and, and that does lead us to that next question is, hey- Like I, I'm not... If I do a DVI, how am I gonna upsell something? Because I'm really just coming out to do the diag and program the vehicle. Cecil Bullard: Well, in, if I'm working with other shops, I'm not doing a DVI. We're, we, we are just there to fill a, a place. That's why- Yeah ... I never liked, like, uh, being the alignment guy for the 10 shops around me. Um- Yeah ... because when the car comes in, I see things that- Lucas Underwood: Wasted Cecil Bullard: opportunities ... that the customer should be talking. We, w- we need, I, I feel like- Yeah ... oh, my God, why aren't they telling the customer that, you know, your upper control arm bushings are falling out of the car, and- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: you c- I can't even align it, right? It, I, uh, uh, but it, I have different roles in, in different places. And, and if I am coming out to do programming and I'm the, I'm at the end user, the, you know, the client who owns the car, and I do a DVI, I might have an opportunity to sell additional stuff. But do I have the tools with me? You know, do I have the parts there? You know, do I have the equipment? Can I do it wherever I'm at, or do I have a place where I can take it and do it? I mean, there's a lot of additional questions and information, you know, depending on the model that you wanna build, right? I- And- Lucas Underwood: Yeah. I- ... Cecil Bullard: I don't think you should run three different models. I think you need to find the model that's gonna work the best for you, and that's the model that you wanna run, and you wanna run it as, a- as, as well as it can be run. Right? Lucas Underwood: I, I don't know anything about the mobile business, and I'm not gonna pretend to. But I, I think if it were me, right, what I would be doing is I'd be working with professional shops, and I'd say, "Hey, what I'll do, you guys get the cars you need programmed lined up. You get everything you need. In other words, do you have multiple cars that are gonna need programming? Do you have things? Try and get those all scheduled on a day for me. I'll come out, and I'll get the repairs made if you need me to do repairs. Whatever. I'll get diags done. But get me a day's worth of work," right? Cecil Bullard: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I can't be moving around. I'm losing- Exactly ... my time, and time has to be billable no matter what. So either I gotta- Exactly ... charge... If, if I'm, if I'm working with five shops in a day- And I'm traveling around I have to shop Lucas Underwood: to shop, I spend as much Cecil Bullard: time and gas money Lucas Underwood: moving Cecil Bullard: Am I charging enough? Yeah, do, am I charging enough to cover the vehicle, the, the expenses- Yeah ... the, the gas, the rent, the, uh, excuse me, the utilities, the payment, whatever, uh- Yeah you know, or... Utilities, holy smokes. You know, I bet I'm, I'm thinking one thing, and it c- what comes out of my mouth is something else sometimes. Um- Lucas Underwood: We're used to it, Stace, so it's fine. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, it's all right. Guy's losing his mind. Um- You Lucas Underwood: never had one ... Cecil Bullard: and never had one in the first place. Um, but am I charging enough? And- Yeah ... and by the way, if I'm going to one shop and I'm gonna be there all day, that cost, uh, can be less for that shop than if I'm going to five shops. If I'm going to five shops- Yeah ... I have to cover all the traveling time and all the expenses that go with it. I've gotta charge more, otherwise I only make 8% or I only make 3% or whatever. I don't make my 20%, and I need my 20%. Lucas Underwood: I, I, I think, you know, to summarize basically where we've gone with this is, is like, the, the base numbers, the 55 and the 8%, are not fixed by increasing car count. Mm-hmm. So we fix those numbers first. Cecil Bullard: Yep. Lucas Underwood: And then, like, we, we get some of that dialed in, and we get the model dialed in, we get the efficiency dialed in, and then we work on marketing to bring more in if we need it at that point. But that's, I, I, that's how I would take it. Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So imagine you were, say, building houses, and you weren't charging enough, plus you maybe weren't building the house in a correct manner. All right? Yeah. So, and I, I build more houses, I create more liability- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: that la- later I may have to go back and fix, repair, whatever. Um, I think you always wanna fix the model first. And, and there- Sure ... is a point, you know, hey, I'm a guy. I, I wanna start a business. I don't know what I don't know. Uh, I'm gonna get in there, and I'm gonna work my butt off and, and all of that, but there's a point in that where you have to say to yourself, "I want this to run well- Yeah and I want this, you know, I want... And so I need to know what it really takes to run it well, because I don't wanna work, you know, 12 hours a day, uh, in order to make the money I need to take care of my family or to- Yeah ... you know, take..." So yeah, I, I mean- A- and that, back to the... Okay, so I hope we answered that well enough, Kyle- Yeah, I think so and thank you so much. Thank you so much for that, that question. Um, and, uh, you know, back to this yes mentality, I told you I'm, I'm of both worlds, so I don't wanna tell a customer no, no matter what. Yeah. I, I really don't. But sometimes I have to say, "Yes, but..." Right? Lucas Underwood: Right. " Cecil Bullard: Yeah, we'd absolutely love to take care of that for you. However," right, "this is the situation." Uh, I always try to, um, to create some, uh, empathy, uh- Yeah ... around what's, what's going on in my world. Yeah. And, and by the way, if I get a guy that comes in who's really pissed off because at 4:00 I can't stop everything and change his oil- This is Lucas Underwood: somebody I want in my shop. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, and is that the guy I wanna work with? Yeah. And the answer is no. N- for me, the answer is- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: uh, uh, unequivocally no. Lucas Underwood: So, so many of these shop owners, okay, and, and I'm gonna be really blunt here, and I'm not talking about the Institute. You blunt? Wait a minute. Yeah, I know, right? I'm not talking about the Institute when I say what I'm gonna say, okay? Cecil Bullard: Okay. Lucas Underwood: But so many of these shop owners, they go to a class somewhere, and somebody gives them these ideas of what to do. Now, listen, I, I've been this guy. I've been disconnected from the front counter. I've been disconnected from the base, and I go to a class, and this person recommends... And, and I'm gonna tell you, why do you think coaches have got such a bad name? There's, there is a coach that, that if you go on TikTok and search his name, it's technicians cussing him. Like, every TikTok video is people just cussing this guy out, right? And it, it's, it's that they have become so disconnected from what it's like to do the job. Now listen- I think what happens is, is that owner has been struggling for a long time. I've told you about this in my personal life before, that I spent so many years fighting and just climbing and trying to get things right and dealing with the stress and the upset client and all the things, that the minute somebody was willing to walk in that front door and take that pressure off of me, I'm like, "Here you go. It's yours. Take it. Do whatever you want with it. I don't care." Right? Cecil Bullard: Like- Well, would you... I mean, if you're gonna listen to someone- Yeah ... give you advice, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Um, uh, you know, uh, am I going to do some research on that person or that company- Lucas Underwood: Absolutely ... Cecil Bullard: and, and find out- Lucas Underwood: Absolutely ... Cecil Bullard: you know, you know, what their clients are, are saying and, and, you know, where did that person get his education? You know- For sure ... what, what's the, where's the- Lucas Underwood: What's Cecil Bullard: their experience? Uh, as they said in What Are the Bona Fides, right? You know- Yeah ... um, uh, in, in whatever movie- Right ... I can't remember the title to, but, um, i- or are, are you just, uh... At one of our events, and again, I'm gonna be brutal but not name their name. Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: You know, last year, um, chose speakers based on the title of their thing. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and they got a- Never Lucas Underwood: actually inspected the class or anything. Cecil Bullard: They got a lot of complaints. Uh, uh- Yeah ... and I heard a lot of feedback from people saying, "Wow, I, you know, in 20 minutes I walked out of that class." Yeah. And, and so do you wanna ha- I, I'm not saying we don't wanna have new people in the industry, 'cause we do. We wanna bring new people in, but do you wanna have people that, that have no bona fides, no, no qualifications? Just, they're just basically- Well- The, the thing I hate about the internet is they're able to say, "I'm the expert on this," and all of a sudden- Exactly everybody believes they're the expert on this- 100%. Lucas Underwood: 100% ... Cecil Bullard: even though they don't have the experience. They don't- Well- ... have the, the basic knowledge to really- E- ... be the expert. Lucas Underwood: Here's my beef though, right, is like they, they can come in and say whatever they want and, and it's, it's like a lot of what's being taught in the industry right now has consequences that, that we're not paying for yet. And I believe there were a lot of things taught over the past however many years that we're paying for the consequences right now, right? Like, there's a lot of things that we're paying for that were done years ago, and this is just how the industry works, and now we're paying the price for it. We don't have any techs, and all of these problems and all this stuff's coming up, right? And so when I... I guess what I was saying about, like, they're teaching these things, but they've never been on that side of the counter. And so it's like the shop owner comes back and says, "Hey guys, we're gonna start doing this." Well, let me ask you, Mr. Shop Owner, how many years has it been since you've sat on that front counter? How many years has it been since you were the one getting the butt chewing because you did something that was shady or was... Right? Like, have you disconnected yourself from the, the experience? Have you disconnected yourself from the consumer, the advisor, the technician? So I'm gonna- Because many of the guys we teach- Cecil Bullard: Yeah Lucas Underwood: were technicians, they were advisors. And- Cecil Bullard: Yeah, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kick you in the teeth here. Lucas Underwood: Okay. I like it. Do it. Cecil Bullard: Just because you sat on the front c- on the front counter- Lucas Underwood: Mm-hmm ... Cecil Bullard: doesn't mean that you learned anything. Lucas Underwood: Of course. Cecil Bullard: So, so I think, um, like having a technician who becomes a service advisor, I would rather have a service advisor who was never a technician. Yeah, I- And I know a lot of shop owners are gonna go, "Man, you're crazy, Cecil." But there's bad habits that you learn as a tech- Yes, absolutely ... that are great habits when you're a tech, but when you're a salesperson, service advisor- They're terrible ... they're not good habits, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and so that's one thing. One thing is, okay, so you did it for 20 years. So what, right? And, and I know, you know, that's some of my bona fides. I used... You know, I- Yeah ... I did this. This is... I've, I've, I've run business, been successful, et cetera. I, I believe I've learned a lot of things that, that maybe many shop owners don't really know and understand. Here's, here's the other part of this. There are things that need to be taught to a tech that a service advisor should not be taught. Yeah. There are things that a service advisor needs to know that a tech shouldn't know, and, and there are things that a manager needs to know that are different than a service advisor, and there are things that an owner needs to know that are a, a lot different, and not all of those will, you will learn by being on the counter or by running the business, right? For Lucas Underwood: sure. Cecil Bullard: And, and listen- We... I've got guys that has, have been doing this for 30 years. I see them all the time. They come up and they're like, "Yes, I've been, I've had a shop for 30 years" and, and their business is worth $150,000 all in. And they, and they have no money. Right? A- and but they've been working at this for 30 years. Lucas Underwood: We've always done it this way. Yeah. But, but here's my point, though, is, is where I'm going with this is a little bit different. Where I'm going with this is it's been so long since you've sat on that front counter, and your policies and procedures are causing problems for the front counter that you don't even see. Cecil Bullard: I, I cannot use my policies and procedures when I was running a shop 15 years ago for a shop today. Yeah. Exactly. Lucas Underwood: Um- Cecil Bullard: Exactly ... and, and we don't teach that, you know? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: It might be a good place for you to start, because you can see what a policy and procedure should, should look like. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: But to take my policy, even my sche- the way I scheduled- Lucas Underwood: Yeah, Cecil Bullard: completely different um, uh, today, I think it's a bit different, right? I, i- it has to be modified. But- And that, another thing you want your coach to be is somewhat flexible on certain things, because- Yeah ... if they're not, they're gonna teach you what they learned 25 years ago, right? And- Well, Lucas Underwood: I, I mean, I guess my point in that, though, is let, let's, let's go back to the example given, okay? Of, hey, we're gonna have this situation where we bring this car in, and they've got a coupon, so we just wanna get the car in to convert it into a car that we can turn into a higher ARO, right? Now, I've got an advisor who's at the end of the day. Yeah. They're trying to make all of their telephone calls, they're trying to update all of their clients, they're trying to get everything cleaned up. Cecil Bullard: Once finished the 15 tickets that are going on- Exactly ... they get the money in the bank, et cetera. Lucas Underwood: Trying to make sure- Right ... the shop looks good, trying to get everybody wound down. They're, they're in the end of the day. They're phasing it out. They're getting ready to bookend the day. Plan tomorrow, right? Cecil Bullard: Right. Lucas Underwood: And now I've got a technician who's in the middle of a job, he's got an hour left, and I'm going back and I'm saying, "Hey, I need you to stop what you're doing. I need you to inspect this car. I need you to do an oil change right now. I need you to pull this thing in right now." And plus you're asking the advisor to go to that client, write an estimate for something simple, something that needs to be dealt with right now. It's a big deal to get the car to stay, and now I'm arranging a ride for this person, right? So the- Now you wanna talk about disgruntled, think about how that disrupts every single person in the shop's day. I've disrupted a porter, I've disrupted an advisor, I've disrupted a client, I've disrupted a technician. Cecil Bullard: I've disrupted my profits. Yes. I've disrupted my, my workflow. Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. Cecil Bullard: You know, one of the biggest, one of the biggest expenses in the automotive industry, the biggest cost and, and where we're losing the most money is that we do not have good workflow. Yeah. So the productivity issue, and we have a... Because of that we have a lot of techs complaining 'cause they can't get paid. If they're on flat rate and we don't have productivity, and it is the fault of the business because of our flow, um, then they got a, they got a legitimate complaint, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and what we're doing, I have a class called Stack the Deck, and what we're doing is stacking the deck against us. Yeah. We're not stacking it in our favor, Lucas Underwood: right? Right. Cecil Bullard: And so we're doing... By, by bringing that car in at the, at the last minute, we're doing everyone a disservice. Everybody. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: The, the client, the car, the service advisor, the tech that's gonna have to be pulled off, and, and we're creating kind of hatt- havoc and, and bad attitudes. Lucas Underwood: Chaos. Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and if we create, you know, bad attitude and havoc in our, and chaos in our business, then what are our results gonna be? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Okay? Exactly. And you can beat guys only so long. You know, you, you can- Yeah ... be a forceful manager and, and use the whip or the, you know, the, the prod or whatever only so long when guys say, "Uh, no more of this." It is not a long-term strategy for running a good business that's gonna last long-term and be profitable long-term. It's just not a good strategy. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're exactly right, and, and I think that that's where it comes back to me that, that if I build a workflow That is prioritizing profit over the car count, right? Because I, I don't believe in the, the high car count numbers. I- now let me tell you something. I, I had an epiphany a few years back because I was in three bays. You've seen the shop. Cecil Bullard: Mm-hmm. Lucas Underwood: I was in three bays, and it didn't take a lot- With Cecil Bullard: no ceiling. I mean, nine feet- Yeah ... or eight and a half feet or whatever. Yep. Yeah. Lucas Underwood: It didn't take that much to fill that shop, and it didn't take that much to pay that shop's bills. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And then you've seen the new shop, and I, I, I'm, I don't even have to tell you, it takes a lot to pay its bills, right? Cecil Bullard: Yes, sir. Lucas Underwood: And so I have a whole new appreciation for people who try and drive car count. Like I get it. I get it. Cecil Bullard: I had a... In the, in the class, I had a, a guy come up and he's like, "Hey, I'm just, I'm just me, and, uh, what should I do now?" And I'm like, "Well, first of all, I, I don't know enough information." Yeah. "But second of all, when it's just you in one bay, you're gonna have the least expense, but you're gonna make the most money." It's gonna be hard because, you know, you gotta be the service advisor. You gotta, you know, when you've gotta answer the phone- Yeah ... you have Lucas Underwood: to stop what you're doing- Maybe you can stack Cecil Bullard: that bank account full like that ... blah, blah, blah. But you, you can. Yeah. I also have to... Kent made a comment that, um, it requires you to hold the stick. Somebody has to hold the stick. Yeah. And my answer is, "It doesn't require me to hold the stick. It requires the stick to be held- Yeah ... and held by somebody that, that knows what, what they're holding and knows what they need to do, right?" Yeah. Flying a plane, I don't wanna put my, you know, uh, 13-year-old grandson flying a plane. He's no experience. I put the stick in his hand, we're probably in trouble. You know, I want, I want a pilot, I want Dutch at the- Lucas Underwood: Exactly ... Cecil Bullard: you know, behind the wheel, right? Lucas Underwood: Well, you know, it's funny you say that because I was getting ready to bring him up. I, I was talking to him years ago. I was really frustrated about the way the shop was going, and he said, "Son, let me tell you something" He said, "When I worked for the airline," he said, "it does not matter who flies that plane or who does what on that plane." He said, "Because I was the left seat captain, that was my job." He said, "I could let anybody I wanted fly the plane. For God's sakes, I could let a passenger fly it." Cecil Bullard: Yeah, but he- "But I Lucas Underwood: could give them- Cecil Bullard: But he's responsible ultimately for what happens on that plane ... Lucas Underwood: I could give them all the authority in the world- Yeah to fly the plane, but ultimately it was still my responsibility." Good luck. And I said, "What does that have to do with me?" He said, "You're letting a bunch of bimbos fly your plane." Yeah. Cecil Bullard: People who don't know. Lucas Underwood: Like- Cecil Bullard: That's like, that's like- You know? It's like- ... going to coaching and, and going to classes- Yeah with people who, who have a nice internet presence who don't really have the, the experience or the knowledge to really help you out. Lucas Underwood: Yeah, 100%. Cecil Bullard: You know? And, and, and- I, I see these, some of these new coaches come on and they say things and I'm like, "Well, that sounds really pretty, but-" Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: you know, it i- i- it's not meaningful or impactful. It just sounds pretty. Lucas Underwood: Right. Okay, we've got a question here. Um, Steve from Wasp Automotive: "My question is how do you decide when adding capacity, another tech, actually helps profit versus creating more chaos?" Been there, done that. It's all in the numbers. It's all in your financials. Ha- I, what do you say, Cecil? What Cecil Bullard: do you- I think, um, I think you look at your business and you say to yourself, uh, you know, like, "I've got three techs. I have one service advisor. I'm probably... My flow is now starting to get affected because one service advisor, three techs." Lucas Underwood: That's Cecil Bullard: for sure. Uh, and 11, 12 cars a day, maybe 15 if you're running a lower ARO model, and that service advisor can't talk to all those people, answer all those phones, deal with everything that's happening and make that happen. So you say to yourself- Yeah ... "Okay, um, I'm gonna add a fourth, uh, uh, tech," before you really have your service advisor stuff really set up. So, you know, I'm, if I'm adding a fourth tech, I'm, I'm certainly probably at that point adding a second service advisor. And if you're, if you're willing, if you have your systems and processes down and your shop is efficient, the, if you have a, a decent ARO, if you, if you know your inspection process and your sales process is good, then let's add a tech. But if you're, if you're adding a tech because you feel like we're, we're stacked too deep and I can't get the work out, then y- y- Yeah ... it's not the tech you need, it's the process you need. Lucas Underwood: So- Right? ... w- what I do in my shop, okay, let me give you a rundown of how I do my daily planning, my weekly planning. Yeah. Is I'm monitoring how much work we have in the shop at any given time. So I know how many hours and I know how many dollars I have in the shop, and I'm saying, "Okay, I know what my typical sales per build hour are, and does that line up with the financial model we've put in place for the shop?" And so if I'm consistently at that number, I can take my hours and I can say, my technicians should be able to turn eight hours a day. There's gonna be days they're a little bit less, there's gonna be days they're a little bit more, but if I have X number of hours and it gives me a runway, because I view this like my runway, right? Like, how far can I go? And I run this shop somewhere between five and seven days out, is, is typically where it falls, right? Yeah. I wanna have between new appointments coming in, right, because I know my average hours per repair order, new appointments coming in versus the work that I have here right now. How much work would that give me, right? And a lot of guys come back and say, "How could you judge what a new appointment's gonna be?" Because it's my average hours per repair order. That's what we always run. It doesn't go up and down hours. It goes up and down five, 10, 15 minutes. It goes up, down .1, .2. It's not a huge swing. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And so now I'm looking at the shop and I'm saying, "Okay- If that is the case and I have this much work and I'm billing this much, is the work getting done? No, it's not. Okay, well now I have an efficiency problem in the shop. Cecil Bullard: Maybe. Maybe- Okay, the work... Go ahead. Maybe it's an efficiency problem in the shop. Maybe it's a, I have too many clients and I need another tech, right? So- Lucas Underwood: Well, I guess, I guess what I'm saying though is if, if I'm in that situation, right? So if I've got that number and my number is, is each tech should be able to do eight hours a day, and I am not moving that number through the shop, and I go and I look and I find out, hey, I got four hours per day per tech, that's an efficiency problem. And by the way, that's a- Adding another tech Cecil Bullard: will not fix that problem don't hire another tech. Yeah, because now you're gonna have- Unless you- Now you're gonna have five guys doing three hours- Doing four hours a day ... or whatever. So yeah. And, and all the marketing, all the money you've spent on that and everything else- Yep ... is just gonna go by the Lucas Underwood: wayside. 100%. So- But I'm gonna maximize what I have, I guess is my point. I'm, I'm, I, it, it's ran by the numbers. There's a formula. I Cecil Bullard: think, I think if you're smart, you're always maximizing what you have. And so- Yeah ... um, you know, you're, the question that I ask every day is, is why not, right? W- why- Yeah ... aren't we? Why, why, why isn't the institute growing faster? Why are we not, uh, signing up more people? Why are we, you know, whatever, whatever it is. Because the answer to that question is the answer I need to, in order to really move my head- Yeah ... right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Sure. And, and so if you're, if you're saying, you know, I've got, um, six hours of productivity out of my s- out of my techs- And now I'm gonna hire another tech because I have too many cars. Well, m- maybe your price isn't high enough to, you know- Yeah ... maybe your price needs to be a little higher. Uh, so th- that's a way that you might manage car count. So we're booked three weeks out. Well, booked three weeks out is, is not okay, and what, what often happens is I, I have customers come in today, and they were scheduled for whatever, and then we found $4,000 worth of stuff they need, and they wanna buy it- Get bumped I said, "I can't, I can't do it today." Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So they get bumped a week and a half out, two weeks out. And then the other problem is if I'm, if I'm scheduling that way, and, and I have new people that are, that I'm... They don't know who I am. Yeah. So they're calling for a first time. I need to get those people in either today or tomorrow. Yeah. I cannot- If you wanna retain that ... schedule those people. Yeah. Otherwise, that money I spent is wasted money. Yeah. And, and so, you know, there, again, there's these balancing and tipping points in your business that if you really understand the business and you're watching the numbers as, as Ken says, you know, if you know where you're going and you're, you know, you got s- your hand on the stick, and you got the data that you need- Yeah then all of a sudden, I'm making better decisions, and so I know what to do when I need to do it. And then- For sure. Lucas Underwood: Absolutely ... I Cecil Bullard: think, I think everybody should have mentors or coaches. Uh, y- you know, mentors, uh, uh, many of... Some of those are paid because you, that's what you hired them for. Yeah. And they might be your coach, and some of those are not. I mean, you know, I'll, I'll call you occasionally for something and say, "Hey, Lucas, what do you think about this?" Because- For sure ... frankly, I look at you in s- some areas as that guy where I can call you and get some good information. Right. Um, and, a- a- I just think we have so many people in our industry that they just don't know enough about the business and how- Yeah the business runs to make the best decisions, and so they keep running into the wall. Lucas Underwood: They were really good at fixing cars, and they were really good at maybe selling service. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: But they weren't good at running the business that fixes cars and sells service. Cecil Bullard: Well, Lucas Underwood: how many- There's a d- there's a difference. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And then, you know, how, how about how do I manage these people? I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "Well, my guys won't do good inspections," or, "They won't take-" "... 20 pictures of the car," or whatever. Ah. And, and, and I'm, I'm like, part of me is, is flabbergasted, right? Yeah. Part of me is like, how, how do you have people that won't do what you need them to do, and you keep writing them a check every, every week- Yeah right, or every two weeks? And, and then part of me is, is angry, like- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: are you, are you really that dumb that you, you can't figure this out, and, and manage people, and make sure that you're getting, you know, what you need out of your staff? And, and so I, the... I'm always two people in my head, you know? I'm just always. But they keep doing the same thing over and over. Yeah. And they keep thinking they're gonna get different results. Lucas Underwood: You know- Cecil Bullard: It's insanity ... Lucas Underwood: here, here's what stands out to me, because you know I've been working at the other end dealing with- Mm-hmm ... with much younger employees, right? Cecil Bullard: Yep. Lucas Underwood: And I had one a while back come up to me and said, "I really appreciate you holding me accountable." And I said, "What are you talking about?" And they said, "Nobody has ever said to me, 'Why didn't you accomplish this thing?'" And they just acted like I was gonna be upset or was gonna be mad if somebody came and said, "What about?" And they said, "The problem was is I never knew if I was winning or losing. And so I need somebody to tell me I'm doing good or I'm not doing good- Yeah so I understand where I need to go, but that's not happening anywhere else I've been." And see- Cecil Bullard: Well, it doesn't... In most places it does not happen, my friend. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And so- Lucas Underwood: Exactly ... Cecil Bullard: you know, we, we don't have goals. I'll, I'll go into a shop and say, "Well, what are your goals for your techs? How do they win," right? "Well, uh, they do a lot of work and they don't have any comebacks." Well, first of all, not having any comebacks is ridiculous because you can't work on cars without having a comeback. Lucas Underwood: You figure that Cecil Bullard: one out, buddy. Second of all, what's a lot? What's a lot of work, right? I mean- Yeah ... a lot of work is, is 10 hours a day. I mean- Yeah ... uh, people need... If you hold people accountable, if they understand, if you're fair, meaning- Yeah ... they know what their target is, they know what they have to do, and then you hold them accountable, they're very happy. They're happier than they can ever be. Yeah. It's the people that don't have any direction, that don't know if they're winning, you know, every two years, every three years they move to another shop hoping that they can find that thing that they don't have, and the thing that they don't have is goals, targets, accountability, and winning. I mean, those are the things you absolutely have to have to be a happy human being, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: If not, it wears at you and it wears at you until what you do is you go online and you just bitch, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and so we got a lot of online complaining going on. Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: Um- Lucas Underwood: The, the quickest way to a depressing life is unmet expectations. Yeah. And the only human being capable of setting your expectations is you. Is Cecil Bullard: that right? Well, and that's the other thing I think we all... You know, I, I always say, um, managers need to manage, meaning- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: you know, you... When I was a tech, I kept track of every hour I billed, okay? Now, the reason I was keeping track of every hour I billed was not because I d- I thought my company was gonna not pay me for it. The reason I kept track of every hour was because every day was a competition against yesterday. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So if I did seven hours yesterday, today I wanna do eight. And, you know, I, I, I'm competing against myself. In, in a way, part of my life has been managing myself because if somebody else- Yeah ... doesn't create the expectations for me, I create the expectations. Lucas Underwood: Amen. Cecil Bullard: Because I need the- The dopamine or whatever that comes from being successful. Lucas Underwood: Amen, Cecil Bullard: buddy. Uh, if not, at the end of the day, you watch me. I'm sitting watching TV doing this because- That's it ... I wasn't successful today, right? I di- I didn't- Yeah ... make anything happen. Lucas Underwood: Kent says, "Complaining can make the problem feel bigger it is to the point it feels insurmountable." Um, I- Cecil Bullard: Yeah, it happens all, all, all the time in this, in this industry ... Lucas Underwood: somebody told me one time that human beings can be in love with their problems. They can make their problems their identity, and so I think that Cecil Bullard: that's- Well, think, think about this. As a technician, I'm a problem solver. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Right? And problems are brought to me all day long, but all of a sudden- Yeah I become a salesperson or I become a manager, sol- creating problems so that I have problems to solve, right? Lucas Underwood: Amen. Cecil Bullard: And, you know, don't get me wrong, you'll... A- as a salesperson you'll have plenty of problems to solve. As a manager you'll have ple- plenty of problems to solve, but we have a lot of people in, in the industry that are creating their own nightmares- Lucas Underwood: Yes Cecil Bullard: and then they're living in them, and then they're complaining about them. Yeah. And, and, and my mind is like, "Okay, fix it." Lucas Underwood: Right? Exactly. Exactly. Cecil Bullard: It might not be easy. It might not be quick, but fix it. Stop doing what you're doing today. Start learning how to do something just a little bit different and, and because you keep going the same way, you keep getting the same thing. Lucas Underwood: That's exactly right. If you continue to do the same thing and expect different results, that is the definition- Is Cecil Bullard: insanity ... of Lucas Underwood: insanity. Cecil Bullard: Yes, sir. Lucas Underwood: Cecil, thank you for being here today. Cecil Bullard: Yes, sir. Well, thank you. I love these things. And- Yes, sir ... uh, thank you for those of you that participated and, uh, and asked questions, and we'll be back again soon I'm sure. Lucas Underwood: That's it. Well, I guess another month and we'll be back Cecil Bullard: here. Another month, and we'll make your head Lucas Underwood: hurt one more time. Another AMA. Yeah. Waiting to hear y'all's questions. Cecil, see you next time, buddy. Cecil Bullard: Love you, brother. Lucas Underwood: Love you, brother.
Ep 169: How They Doubled Revenue With Fewer People with Brian Moak
Ep 109 - Becca & Tony Zanders | The Truth About Selling Your Auto Repair Shop
Tekmetric transformed my shop. Plain and simple. Want that for yours? Touch HERETurnkey Marketing takes the stress of doing something I'm not good at off my plate. And gives it to someone who is. Click HERE for more.47 Consultants brings your shop’s story to life on social media, helping Carfix engage 60,000 people in Raleigh in just a few weeks. See what 47 Consultants can do for your shop, and tell them Big Daddy Mike sent you!Elite Worldwide's Ignite 2027 is coming up in February and NOW is the time to sign up. It's happening in Vegas February 4-6 and it will be the best 3 days of your shops year when you attend. Save $100 when you use code CONFESSIONS HEREWhen I used the maintenance tool for the fist time with Detect Auto, my mind was blown. My advisors had the same reaction - and then SO MUCH MORE TIME. Learn more about Detect Auto and book a free demo now!In this episode, Mike Allen sits down with Tony and Becca Zanders to discuss the realities of selling an auto repair shop and what it takes to leave behind more than just a paycheck. They share the story of building Heritage Auto Repair from the ground up before selling it to a longtime employee, explaining why preserving their legacy mattered more than chasing the highest offer. The conversation explores private equity, succession planning, burnout, and the emotional challenges many owners face after selling their business. Tony and Becca also offer practical advice for increasing your shop's value, building systems that outlast you, and creating an exit strategy that aligns with your long-term goals.Timestamps:00:00 Legacy vs. Payday: The Truth About Selling Your Shop 01:00 Meet Tony & Becca Zanders: Building Heritage Auto Repair Together 04:41 From Backyard Garage to One of Idaho's Top Repair Shops 07:00 Selling to an Employee Instead of the Highest Bidder 08:20 Private Equity, High Multiples & Internal Buyouts 10:42 Questions Every Shop Owner Should Ask Before Selling 12:14 Don't Wait Until Burnout: The Three Keys to a Healthy Exit 16:07 Defining Your "Why" Before You Sell 17:44 Choosing the Right Successor and Passing the Baton 21:14 The Emotional Reality of Staying On After the Sale 23:24 Losing Your Identity After Selling Your Business 24:18 Empowering Employees to Increase Shop Value 27:13 The D6 Elements: Building a Sale-Ready Business 35:16 How to Start Planning Your Exit—Even If You're Late 37:03 The Biggest Mistakes That Destroy Shop Value 39:40 Why Strong Processes Matter—Even After the Sale 44:02 Vegas Food Recommendations & Planning for AAPEX
AutoShop Ministries Episode 3 - From Technician to CEO: Pace, Purpose, and Long-Term Success
Joe Adams and Chaplain Devontae Tidwell discuss why endurance beats speed in leadership and business. Using scripture & practical examples, they explain how steady, sustainable effort builds lasting success. They challenge listeners to slow down, set a sustainable pace, and ask whether today’s choices will still be good eight years from now—emphasizing discipline, patience, and long-term planning.