How can I improve my team's phone skills?

Listening to recorded calls and providing constructive feedback can help identify areas for improvement. Regular coaching sessions can also reinforce best practices.

What should I do if my service advisors are defensive about call coaching?

Normalize the process by participating in call reviews yourself and framing it as a team effort to improve rather than a critique.

How can I measure the effectiveness of my marketing campaigns?

Use unique phone numbers for different marketing campaigns to track which sources generate calls and appointments, allowing you to assess ROI.

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The Institute's Leading Edge PodcastAugust 26, 2026 · 55 min

216 - Coach the Call: Using AI Insights to Develop Stronger Service Advisors

Customer Experience Hiring & Training Marketing & Growth Leadership & Culture

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About this episode

216 - Coach the Call: Using AI Insights to Develop Stronger Service Advisors August 26th, 2026 - 00:54:51 Show Summary: Strong phone skills can turn…

Key takeaways

—Listening to phone calls can reveal areas for improvement in customer communication.
—Asking for appointments during phone calls significantly increases booking rates.
—Creating a positive culture around call coaching helps team members feel supported rather than judged.
—Tracking marketing effectiveness through phone systems can provide valuable insights into customer acquisition costs.
—Regular training and coaching can lead to continuous improvement in service advisor performance.

Frequently asked

How can I improve my team's phone skills?: Listening to recorded calls and providing constructive feedback can help identify areas for improvement. Regular coaching sessions can also reinforce best practices.
What should I do if my service advisors are defensive about call coaching?: Normalize the process by participating in call reviews yourself and framing it as a team effort to improve rather than a critique.
How can I measure the effectiveness of my marketing campaigns?: Use unique phone numbers for different marketing campaigns to track which sources generate calls and appointments, allowing you to assess ROI.

▸Full transcript

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night. Thank you for joining. So excited for us to have this conversation today with some really good friends. Everyone, this is to be an interactive webinar, so you're sitting there, you've got questions, you've got concerns, type them into the chat. We want to be able to ask those questions of our panel today as we are talking about a very interesting topic.

And with us today first is our good friend, Mr. David Boyd of Inbound Communication. David, how the heck are you, brother? I'm great. I fully intended to have my jacket on, Jimmy. What happened? We coordinated on this and everything. I know. Next time. I was lucky, as busy as we've been at Call Inbound, to get up and organize and dress today. So I really, uh, it's always great to see you.

And of course, uh, uh, we got to visit a little bit out at WorldPAC STX, and, uh, man, I'll tell you what, your wardrobe is always top-notch. Hey, thank you, thank you. We're glad you are dressed today. Just don't stand up. Thank you very much. And joining for us in our conversation today, David, is Tanika. Tanika Hayes with Uh, Haynes with Brown's Automotive.

Tanika, how the heck are you, sister? I'm doing good, guys. What's going on? Staying alive. Great to see you also at STX. What did you think of the, the conference there with WorldPAC? It was really, really good. I was not prepared for the size of it. There was a lot of people. People were peopling. So, um, once I got adjusted to all of the crowds and everything, I enjoyed it.

I hadn't sat in a class in a really long time. Like at a next level. I'm usually just walking around and being nosy, but I picked up some good nuggets, so it was great. Beautiful, that's awesome. Well, if, if the STX was a large conference to you, I would suggest that you really prepare yourself months in advance if ever you come out to SEMA and Apex in Las Vegas.

I will be there this year. I keep hearing that, so I don't know what meds I need to be on to take, to take it all in, but you— I'm excited about it. We will talk about that because there is more than you can see within a week, and you really only have 3 days at Apex, 4 days at SEMA. You want to map out where you're going to go, who you're going to talk to, who you're going to see.

And for you, Tanika, schedule some time to sit down and chill. Yeah, I'm gonna have to definitely do that. You're talking about, um, scheduling times. I'm gonna schedule time to go sit in the corner and recoup. So where's Tanika? She's in the corner. Yep. And it's scheduled time. I'm gonna work with you on that because I know the corners. I know the places where you can go and find some solitude.

All right. Well, our conversation today is in preparation for making your shop better. David, I'm going to kick it over to you, brother. Let's start this conversation with Tanika. Yeah, let's, let's kind of move into this. You know, we're talking about communication and there are so many facets that impact the customer experience. I think that it's important to know that, you know, there are tools and there are, from an owner and manager's perspective and from a service provider's perspective, there are ways that we rally around making communication better.

You know, one of the things that is common at all shops is the customer phone call. Oh, yeah. So you winced a little bit. Yeah. How many times do we, you know, talk about our phone skills, getting better on the phone, understanding the customer, understanding their needs, addressing their needs? And this so much, you know, revolves around the phone calls and the way that our advisors and our front office team handles these.

Maybe you have a CSR, maybe you have, you know, a service manager. But people are answering calls all day long. And this becomes important that we understand who's answering the phone, how they're communicating, what's the message that's being shared every time that phone rings that, you know, we like to say that's money calling. So Tanika, let me just ask you, you know, what are some of the challenges that you see or the successes that you have with your team when it comes to managing and getting better on our phones?

I want to start by saying, um, I think I listened to my first phone call at my meeting with Jen— Jennifer with the Institute. I'm currently coaching with the Institute, and that is life-changing to listen to your team answer the phone. So if anybody's out there and they have not done that, they have not listened in on a phone call, figure out a way to do it.

I don't know if it's going to be a little paper cup and a string, but figure out how to do it. And then I listening to my own phone calls, and I'm the boss, right? I still cringe. And so you'd never know what's missing from those phone calls, what, what, what is standing out. You know, my team, we would not even ask for the appointment, like, would you like to bring this in today?

You know, you ask all the questions, they go through the scripts, but then we found that they were not saying, hey, would you like to get that done? Would you like to bring that in today or tomorrow? What works for you? They were leaving it all to the client to say, what's next? What's next? So they were answering the phone and they were being very polite, but they were not closing.

They didn't have a lot of words with closing. And so with inbound, I've been able to coach, you know, when you listen to yourself and you're like, oh, that's— oh, and you can say, do you see what you did there? Or even because, you know, the team can listen to their own phone calls. Oh, I see what I did there. I see where I dropped the ball.

So that opened up a whole bunch of eyeballs around here. It's like, oh, it's Monday. It's time to listen to phone calls. Like, but you just increasingly get better over time. Oh, it's so true. And the ability, Tanika, the ability to have calls from today or from yesterday or even the day before. There was a time a decade ago when we would have to listen as coaches.

We would listen to calls. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. We're trying to find a coach. Call, a call that is coachable. And this might be a call from 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago. The advisors are going, dude, oh man, that's forever ago. No, man, I, I don't do that anymore. I'm not like that. But David, I think you kind of solved a bit of that problem with your phone services.

Yeah, thanks. You know, it's important to, to recognize, I think every owner I've ever talked with has a similar issue. It's, and a lot of it revolves around time, right? Are we aware of what's actually happening on the front line? And some of it is, I want to keep this a little bit at arm's length because I, I can tell you as an owner, I will have an emotional response when I listen to that phone call.

And Tanika, you brought up a great point. For owners and managers here that are on the phone, Please listen to your own calls. Do it at least one time. Yeah, well, just do it. Yeah, and be ready. Just like, just like, oh, that is me. Yeah, that is you. Do it, do it twice, because the first time that you listen to a call, uh, it's gonna just be weird, right?

So listening to myself on recordings is always weird, but there's this heavy lift of time, right? Am I aware of what's actually happening on the front line? And how are we interacting with customers? And then do I have, do I have a mechanism to understand what's my expectation as an owner? You know, it's important to establish that expectation. Maybe you're working with a call coach, maybe you've been in trainings yourself.

It's ideal to have a method by which you're going to measure your call handlers. And, you know, we want to be professional, we want to build confidence and build rapport with these customers. It doesn't have to be fast, but typically, know, an incoming call from a customer is likely an appointment-setting call or a status call. We're going to set that status call bucket aside for a second because we want to be in front of status calls instead of having customers call us.

But if you're listening to these and you have that rhythm around it, we understand how these small habits can build on one another. Am I, am I smiling when I answer the phone? There's something physically that happens when I, when I physically smile. There's something that is noticeable in the way that I'm communicating? And am I, am I clear? So what are the expectations?

You know, if you watch your advisors, I have my little cordless handset here. If they tuck their phone in like this and, and, you know, they're trying to multitask, listen to those calls, because likely it's very, very difficult to hear on the other side of this. So listening to calls helps us understand how, you know, how we conduct ourselves, how we conduct business.

How am I representing the business that I, you know, that I'm working at as a professional? But also, what is the customer hearing and what is the customer's experience? So these are important points and it starts by listening. Jimmy, you brought up an important aspect here. Historically, we would listen to call after call after call after call to try to find something I can use to coach.

So Tanika, you might do this. You've got a call recording system. It doesn't do much but just record those calls. And now I have to go through this, this process to identify a coachable opportunity. And this is now, I think, where we can move effectively into technology, right? We all hear so much about AI today. And what's really nice about having, you know, a phone system that records is now you have an asset and you can use that asset to do something more with it.

And we can use AI to help that heavy lift of time and, you know, take 90% of the time requirement off. So instead of having to spend 30 minutes, I might have to spend 2 or 3 minutes to take that call, sit down with my service advisor, go through this, and have a meaningful, constructive conversation. About the things that work well. Yeah, I, I love, David, that your software makes it so easy to find these coachable calls so much faster.

And Tanika, that's just got to be a lifesaver for you as well, coaching your service advisors. It is. I remember speaking with a friend, fellow shop owner, and he's like, I need you to set aside a time. And so what I did is on my calendar on Wednesday, that's the day that I sit down and we go over phone calls. And so, you know, you got the dashboard, and that dashboard to say this is a coachable call, this is a coachable call.

And it is a habit for me as the owner-manager, um, to make sure that I'm staying on top of it all the time because we'll slip into old habits, right? So me listening to the calls and bringing the service advisor, or, um, I'm gonna bring Jade in and say, hey, let's listen to this, let's see how we can get better. You know, you continuously improve on it and you don't slide back into old habits because I'm not on the phone as much anymore.

If I have to answer the phone, I know personally, and everything's at stake for me, I slide back into old habits. So we all are capable of it. And so having that dashboard in front of us and said, hey, this is a call you need to look at, the service advisor or the person answering the phone does not feel like they're being picked on, but they're being improved upon.

So look, I'm just lifting you up. This is what we can do. Do you see how we can make this better? And it's a we, it's us, it's coachable, it's there, it's real. And, um, I really enjoyed that part of the dashboard. Oh, I love that. How often, Tanika, do you send, this is a really good call, this is a really good call?

How often do you send that to the team? You know what, I probably should do that more. But when I see a good call, I, I like to share it. And when I get a good review, like, I literally just got a good review based off of a bad situation that we were able to turn around with proper communication. And the customer literally said, he's like, the communication The problem was still there, he said, but the way they handle it in the communication was key.

So he was not satisfied when he left, but the way that we dealt with it afterwards and that recording of how we guided him through the process and how we, you know, we apologized, we came up with a plan, apologized again and kept it moving. And that was a great coachable call. It's like, this is how you handle a bad situation. Look how we won here.

So yeah, those are just as important as the losses, as the bad calls. Hey, this is a good call. Good. This is a balance. It balances it. And then, you know, it's like, okay, I did that right. Even when that client is a client that does not belong to you and you can hear them tell the customers like, hey, you know what, I appreciate your call, but this isn't the place for you.

And that's not the word for word, but hey, you handled that good. Thank you for saving us from a nightmare. Share it with your team. So you got to share the wins and the, the misses. Yeah, and, and, uh, for a lot of people, I think they struggle in the creative. So if they can hear it, that it's already been done, they can duplicate, they can mimic, they can do the same thing over and over and over again.

So the more we send these beautiful calls— oh my gosh, you guys did so well on this phone call, I love this part, this part, this part— they're able to duplicate that, and they'll do it over and over and over again. And then, then you're the mistakes that are being made become much less because you're showing, you're mirroring to them, these are the really good calls that we want to hear.

And sharing that when you're going over a call, you got the good call here, we can work on this call. But this is another good call. You know, we talk about giving that sandwich. And so that's another opportunity you can give that good sandwich. So when it's time to come in on Wednesdays and listen to your phone calls, you're like, oh, I know I got one coming.

And I think I know which one it is. And then you're like, yeah, but you got this one too. So you won here. And we missed on this one. But next time, it's not happening. Right, right. So it's, you know, it's all in coaching. Oh, you just said something that's super important. And, ooh, I think I know which one this is. Yeah.

There's a lot to unpack there. I love the good with the bad. We'll talk about that more too. But creating the awareness. So consistency wins. And I'll say it again. Be consistent with the process, because consistency wins. And when you have that rhythm, where it's familiar and it's expected, we're going to sit down and we're going to listen to calls, we're going to go through this, identify the opportunities.

It's not good and bad calls. It's, you know, it, we call them Top Calls or Champion Calls and Coachable Calls. So a Coachable Call isn't inherently bad. Maybe we even got an appointment, right? But there's, there's opportunity. So When we have that rhythm and it's expected, what's really important about what you just said is the awareness. So when I go to pick up that phone, is this the call that Tanika is going to be talking with me about tomorrow?

Or, you know, Wednesday, whatever our rhythm is. It will begin to create that moment of pause that as an advisor, when I'm picking up that phone, I can take that breath. I can, I can let that, you know, that technician that just blew me up, I can let that slide off. I can shake that off. And I can focus for a moment to make sure that that customer knows right at this moment, they are absolutely the most important person to me right now.

So that's an important message to convey over the phone are the way that we speak, the words that we use. My excitement and enthusiasm about being on that call all comes through. So as we get through this rhythm and we develop the consistency and it becomes normal, now I've got that awareness on my team that, hey, this next call I'm taking, I'm going to have the moment of pause to focus because this might be the next one that we're reviewing.

I want this to be a positive call that, that Tanika is coming to me and saying, you did really well on this one. Let's continue to develop this. And replicate the things that are working well instead of, hey, there's some opportunity here. You know, you didn't ask for the appointment. You were pricing over the phone. You said no. No comes out in a lot of ways, doesn't it, Tanika?

Where we might be telling somebody, you know, I'm really busy right now, or we are really busy right now. I can't get you in until Friday. Yeah, that's— we might as well just say no, I can't help you. Yeah, that's all they heard was the no. Even if you give— and everybody knows that I'm big on nos. Like, I can give you a no, but there's some healthy nos, but then there's some nos and you get the customer saying, hey, um, my brakes are making a noise and it just started.

And he's like, oh no, I can't see that till Friday. He's like, yeah, but I'm gonna die before Friday. I want to see somebody now. Um, so you don't— you have to learn how to coach someone and say, yes, so bring that in, let's take a look at what you've got, and then we'll come up with a plan. You didn't promise that it was going to be today or tomorrow, but you said bring it in.

I'm worried about your safety. Let's see what you've got. Let's see if you should really be concerned about that check engine light. It might be an EVAP code. They don't know that, but go ahead and bring them in. So, and then you, like you said, the cadence in it. This— I'm not going to make you any promises over the phone. And I would literally say that, hey, I don't want to disappoint you by making a promise that I can't keep.

So don't, don't make me— don't put me in that hole. But I need you to go ahead and bring that into me as soon as you can. Um, and let's scan it. Let's see what you've got. And let's see if you should really be worried, if you can make that trip. Or we need to bring you in right away. We will help you come up with a plan.

So just that solid no, no, I'll see you Friday. No, you won't. Like, so it becomes very collaborative. And what you just said, hey, let's make this about you. Let's make this about your safety and your confidence to drive that vehicle. Maybe you got to get across town and your commute is 30 minutes. Let's make sure that your vehicle is safe. And then once you're here and we make sure you're safe, Let's talk about when we're going to have that on the schedule.

We'll get that vehicle in. What are the next steps? So let's go ahead and get— let's get your nerves calm and then let's come up with the next step. Let's come up with a plan. Us, us, us. We, we, we. So, yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. And you talk about building a solid foundation for this, the solid foundation for their skills so that the ongoing training you're doing really builds on that foundation.

We've got a 3-day service advisor with the Institute. We're going to give a shout out to the Institute here right now. So everybody grab out your smartphones, scan the QR code. If your service advisor needs a solid foundation— thank you, David— if you need a solid foundation and you need to start with— yeah, get registered. I know you've been to a couple of these, David, because you've talked about all the skills here just really, really well.

If your service advisor needs that and you need to go from zero to hero very quickly, this is an intensive that you want to send your service advisor to. And it will be at headquarters in Ogden, Utah. Fly right into Salt Lake and we got you set up there in Ogden. So yes, it's a beautiful drive up from the airport. This class is— it will help establish the fundamentals to build on.

So you come here, it's, you know, it's boot camp, right? We're going to make sure that we're establishing the expectation. And give you something to build on as the owner. Send your service advisors in here, they'll get those fundamentals, and then you'll have, you know, these, these mechanisms, uh, to improve them over time. I promise you it'll be a real game changer for your frontline.

Well, you know what, I want to piggyback on that, um, and I wasn't coached to saying this. If they've already been, send them again. There you go. Send them again. Because here's the thing that I know, and I'm just going to make it simple. I want you to think about your favorite movie. Like when I was in the 20s, for me it was Friday, the movie Friday.

And we watched that movie every Friday after work with the crew that I worked with, and it was just the most ignorant movie and the best movie for my generation. Each time I watched that movie, I would see a different thing. So I want you to think about your favorite movie and— or your favorite comedy. Each time you watch it, you will pick up something else.

So it was like, oh, I didn't see that that last time. So even when it comes to training Hey, I did this 3-day class and I did it a year ago. I grew. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. You're never too much— there's never too much coaching. So just do it again and you'll see it from a different angle.

I just wanted to say that. Yeah, because, um, there's been some classes that I take, and not just this one but other classes, like, let me take that class again. And you're like, aha. I didn't remember that from last time. I didn't implement that from last time because we— you guys tell us and coaches will tell you, just go and implement one thing.

One thing. Watch those changes. And then the next time you take the class, let's do one more thing, maybe 2, and get, get a little bit better. Yeah. So speaking of training, ASTA is coming up here real soon. Real soon. We're less than 30 days out. Shout out to ASTA. Those are the people— not the people that made me, but it's my just one, my just one thing that I took away from there each time has helped build me to where I am.

And I am— I cannot say I would not be where I was without them, but I would not be where I was, where I am without them. From those, those people that I met, the village that I met, meeting you, meeting my first coach, just meeting my industry brothers and sisters that I can call on at any time when I'm about to flip out Or when I have a win, because, you know, as owners, and when you're a little higher, you can't share your wins with everybody without some jealousy.

So when you have a win and you have that community to call on— so yeah, ASTA is the place to be, September 24th to 26th, right here in Raleigh, North Carolina. So I hope somebody shows up, and, um, I want to meet some— well, I know Jimmy will be there. You will not miss him. He'll have the jacket. He will have plenty of jackets on.

It is a fun atmosphere, lots of community, lots of learning. And growing. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna have a jacket war, so anybody wants to play— David, you're bringing your jacket, so who wore it best? Yeah, I wanted to make sure that we were gonna be able to carve out some time to do the who wore it best. I think always Benji will be involved, Brett will probably be involved, right?

And, uh, Mike Allen. Mike. Okay, Mike. Yep. I, I feel like we should have a girls version of this because, you know, if the women got involved We always lose. Throw you guys under the bus. It's true. We tried that, Tanika, and you swept it. You swept it. There was no competing with Tanika. Yeah, I don't want to do that to you.

So we'll, we'll figure it out. Maybe I'll make a couple phone calls and text messages and see what's up. Yeah. Speaking of phone calls. Speaking of phone calls, I'll reel that back in for you. Yeah, that's— hey, I couldn't have asked for a better softball there, but that's great. Um, thinking, thinking about the coaching process, you know, I, I had mentioned before it can seem a little uncomfortable.

Even as an owner, you know, listen to 2 calls, because that first one, you're going to be so consumed by how weird I sound on the phone, right? So, but when you, when you started this with your team, what, how was it received? What were some of the challenges? You know, what feedback did you get about listening to calls and going through the analysis?

So I want to say that when I first did it in coaching, so in a group setting, and you're listening to your team, so they call the Institute of Calling, they'll record the call. And so it's like, oh, well, this time she did this, and this is the excuse. You want to come up with excuses. You want to defend yourself. I want to defend my shop.

And so that service advisor is going to want to defend him or herself, like, oh well, you know, that customer and this was— that was like, no. So you get past that and it's like, okay, like I said, you give the sandwich. Okay, so this is a great call. You tell me what you could have done, could have done better in this call, because I don't want to be— because if you go into attack mode and say, oh, you should do this better and you didn't follow the script and you, you, you, you, you, you're going to get somebody that's going to put up a guard and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I did my

best. So I say, I know you did your best on this, this one call, and you did a great job on this call. What happened, brother? Ball's in your court. Tell me how you can improve on this. What do you need from me to help you improve here? Was there a distraction? What was, what was the problem? So I kind of feel like I can teach them to self-coach.

Yep. I'm gonna give you a whole toolbox. You've got this toolbox. You know what a good call sounds like. You also have a mirror. There's a mirror right there. Look at yourself. You've got reminders. I've got sticky note reminders on each, each person's— hey, don't forget to ask for the sale. What happened? Oh man, I was distracted. I should, I should have— yep, you should have put the mouse down.

You should have put the mouse down. So usually people will first get defensive. Same. Um, then the defense mechanism starts to come down, said, all right, okay, so how do we fix this so next time I cannot find a bad phone call. Bingo. Yeah, I love it. I love that you have a mirror there and you have sticky notes there helping as well, Tanika.

That's— yeah, that's so good because we forget, and it's okay because we get busy, but the more we work on it— I'm certain that you guys have heard this before, that a fake smile is better than a real frown. Yes, yes. And I'm really good at that. And so I've learned that because I've been doing it a very long time. So people know that I can really make you I could like really fuss you out and I would sound so sweet because I'm smiling at you the whole time.

But you know what, Jimmy, I think that was the stupidest thing you've ever said. And if you do it with a smile, you can— you're doing it with a smile and when you're shaking your head, so that smile makes a difference. And when I'm picking up the phone out of an emergency, if they are busy up front and I'll see that phone ringing and I pick it up and I'm not ready personally, I'm not ready to answer that phone and it's a client that knows me and I'm not smiling, I will get a, hey, Tonika, what's wrong?

Because they— you're okay. And I'll say, oh, I'm sorry, I was distracted. Because that's usually what happens. You're distracted, or that service— that, um, technician just rubbed you the wrong way, or something's happened at home. So, but once you put that smile on, you just fake it till you make it. And now you— I usually don't like to say that, but sometimes you do have to fake it till you make it.

Yeah, absolutely. And use those words of— those positive words. Absolutely. Let's look into that for you. Yeah, love it, love it. We talk about the phone call and how much it's worth. Uh, Bimmer PhD Motorsports is saying, can we dig into that a little bit? How much does it cost to get that phone to ring? How much does it cost to acquire a new customer?

You talk about the mindset, you talk about the service advisor and the smile that's needed to be there, fake or real. How much is that phone call worth, Tanika? Have you analyzed any of that? So that was actually a, um, Something we did in the 20 group with my coach Jen, we went through that and we calculated how much it costs to get that phone to ring.

And I really wish I was prepared and I had that number for you, but once you realize that number, share it with your team. Yeah. And then the Institute probably has, um, blueprint on how to figure that out. So you're looking at how much your website is, your Google Ads, any form of marketing that you have out there, down to the phone bill.

How much does it cost to make that phone ring? And once you see it as the owner, you're going to be like, whoa. And you share that with the team. Like, every time that phone rings, it costs me this. And then also think about your ARO. Bingo. And every time we do not get a yes and we don't get that client through the door, we lost $850 potential, $850 potential, $1,100.

Yep. So once we start thinking about, you know, everything— everything's not about money. It is how we keep score. It's how we keep the score. Like, you know, we, we talk about we've got the metrics on the dashboard. Numbers don't lie. People do. Your emotions will. Yeah. It costs me $75 every time that phone rings. And when you ring it and when you land that deal, that's a potential $850 or whatever your ARO is or whatever That's what it is.

And that's— and how long does it take to get that one client to get through the door? And also think about how long you can hold on to them as a client. How many years? What's the lifetime value? What's the lifetime of that client? Yeah. So that smile when you answer the phone, yeah, that's worth a lot of money. Tens of thousands of dollars.

Tens of thousands. So go ahead and put your Vaseline on your teeth and start smiling. Yeah, that's an old theater trick. Are you— yes. Are you a musical theater person? No, but I just— where you pulling that from? On your teeth. And because you get tired of smiling, you, you know, at the conference you have this whole muscle thing. You're like, yeah, keep, keep, just keep smiling, smiling, smiling.

That's right. Those are important numbers, uh, to know how much does it cost to get that phone to ring. In some cases it can be, uh, you know, several hundred dollars depending on really all of those factors around generating those phone calls. And then what that ties into when the phone does ring and we don't ask for the appointment, has that $850 or $1,100 just walked over to my competitor across town?

But it also sets the stage when we're talking about coaching and development to bring it back to what's in it for me as a service advisor. You know, most high-performing shops are incentivizing their advisors on these, you know, these GP numbers. And, you know, there might be other metrics on Google reviews, maybe have spiffs for these different things. It all requires us to generate the appointments and get those vehicles in so that we can have an inspection and we can, you know, generate the, the estimate and ultimately have a sale.

And then make this an amazing experience for the customer so they're going to come back next time. At the very front end of the phone call, you know, it takes X number of dollars to make the phone ring. When that phone rings, the customer, if they're a first-time caller, they're likely— we as a business are likely setting the stage within that first 15 to 20 seconds for the length of our relationship.

So based on those initial interactions, we're going to begin setting the stage of how well this customer visit is going to go, how much we're developing trust with this customer. Do they trust me as an advisor? Do they trust this business that we're experts and we're going to help them and we're going to do so in a, in a fair and meaningful way?

And then also we're going to set that basis for a repeat customer. So that's where we get into the longevity of our relationship. Interestingly enough, so much of this happens at the very first moments of that very first phone call. And when we acknowledge that, as a service advisor, I'm like, oh, that does tie back to the paycheck I get. As a business owner, wow, that ties back into the stickiness of my customers.

I love, you know, repeat customers. I love repeat business. So we want to drive these skills up front. Tanika, you talked about, you know, sitting down and going through some of these calls and the service advisor reaction. Have you really developed and, you know, share your expectations on how you'd like the phone answered? I'm not asking about a script, but like that flow, right?

We don't want to create robots. What have you done when you, you know, train and develop your team on, here's what I would like to hear from you? So I haven't honed that in 100%. But I do know that we want to thank them for calling. We want to know, how did you find out about us? Is this your first time calling?

How'd you hear about us? So we can track that, right? Was it a repeat? Was it a neighbor? Was it a Google? How did you— was it a postcard? How did you hear about me? Um, what can I help you with and how soon can I get to it? Can you bring that in today or tomorrow? And, um, and smile. So I have these little things that I want them to say that's on the side of the computer, and I don't want you to sit there and read and say, oh well, yes sir.

How can I help you today? I want it to flow naturally because that's who we are as a shop. We're not a scripted shop. We're, we're a bunch of goofy people actually. We just happen to fix cars, um, and that's who we are. And I want that to come through. I want you to be friendly. I want you to remember when they come in with the cat or the dog or whatever— please not a cat, but the dog— I want you to put in the notes, this is, this is that customer's name and this is what their dog's name.

If they refer to their, their car My car's name is Pearlene. If you called my car by his name, I'm not taking it nowhere else. So I want you to build that relationship. And so I don't have a script and I don't have a formula yet, and maybe I should work on that. And, um, we do have like an SOP, probably should do a better job at that.

But then what you just said made me raise my eyebrow, like I should do better with that. But we do have some things that I'm— they're non-negotiables. You've got your flow there, which is great, and I think you're doing better in that than, than some owners that we talk with. I encourage, I encourage everybody to have a flow, right? We want to kind of go through the conversation.

I'll tell you the number one deficit that I hear within the first probably 10 seconds of a phone call is asking for the customer name, right? So, thank you for calling ABC Automotive. How may I help you? Yeah, I can help you with that. My name's David. What's your name? It's so simple. And Uh, I listen to call after call after call.

I mean, these, they, they pop out because of our AI call analysis, but where we go through this whole process and we've had a 90-second call or a 2-minute-long phone call and at no point ask the customer name, right? And then you assume that the name on a caller ID is their name. That, that's a problem too. I know that we were doing— I was doing it as well.

I would do it as well. Yeah. But, um, and, and with that, I had a little challenge, say, hey, I want to see you guys' name on the, the review. And it really bothers me when a client calls to check on their car and I have to, have to answer the phone. Hey, who was your service advisor? Uh, I don't know. What?

They need to know your name. So I had to make sure that everybody had their own business cards when the car was dropped off. Hey, my name is Stuart. This is who you should call to check on your car. Everybody here can help you, but I'm the main person. So I think a lot of people just don't do that and say, hey, well, my name is Tanika.

Who am I speaking with? Great. Have you been here with us before? You know, if it doesn't pop up on the caller ID, have you been here with us before? But the caller ID pop-up, that's a game changer. Am I skipping ahead? Should we not go that far yet? No, you're fine. Yeah, thank you, David. Ready? Yeah, be ready when, when David Boyd calls Brown's Automotive and you call and say, Brown's Automotive, this is Tanika.

Hey David, how can I help you today? What is that? What are you doing? You knew I was calling. You know, like, yeah, caller ID exists. People forget about that. They do, but it's just extra special. And that's what the caller ID— I know one thing that I do when the customer's walking in, and if I know I have a blue Toyota Corolla coming in at 9 o'clock, who's this coming in?

Hey, Mrs. Such-and-such, good morning. Oh, hey. Instead of saying, can I help you? Yes, you can help me. That's why I walked through the door. Hang on a second, I'll be with you in a second. Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. So, um, there's a lot to be said about customer service, and there's a lot to be said about calling people by their name.

Amen. Yeah, it creates familiarity. And, uh, when, when we have familiarity, we have a relationship. It's, it's potentially implied, but people love to do business with, with the, the folks that they have a relationship with, and they're inclined You know, this is the fun thing about consumer behavior and human behavior is when I have a great experience, I want to rally my friends around that too.

I want to include them in the joy that I get to experience when I come see Tanika and her team. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna be much more likely to tell folks about it. If I have a meh, average experience, it's probably not going to come up in conversation. I'm not going to stick my neck out there. But How do we do that?

Well, we address people by their name. We know when they're calling, right? I might even be pulling that up in my shop management system or my CRM. Just the second the phone rings, it's going to pop and present that information. Yeah, I saw you were in 3 months ago and we looked at, you know, XYZ on your vehicle. Should we add some additional time to take care of that this time?

Right? We have an awareness. They have confidence in us. We know them as a person. We know their vehicles. And now we're joining together with our customers at a common goal, right? And it comes back to their safety. Well, what'll happen is you'll get a client and— sorry about the background noise. You'll get a client and they're not thinking about their car.

They've grown to love you. They've grown to know you. They're knowing you by your name. And then you made the recommendations last time. They trust you enough that they are just going to be like, okay, whatever. I'll talk to you about it next time. Tanika's going to remember that for me. Say, hey, Miss Mary Jane, you remember we talked about— I don't remember we talked about— well, here's a copy.

I'm going to send that over to you. We're going to look at these things again. It's just like having a whole system, and then you become that person. It's like I don't have to remember what my car needs because Tanika and her team have the history, and they know me by my name, and they're going to take care of me. The paradigm shift there is, I, you know, as a service advisor, I'm the expert.

As a service manager, I'm the expert, right? You've come to me because of our and my expertise. And I'm sharing the belief that you want to be safe and you want to care for your vehicle. So allow me to make these recommendations. Allow me to keep that, those notes about our previous interactions. So when we meet, when we meet again, we can make sure that, you know, we're not starting from zero, that we already have this information available and we're going to improve that experience.

On the, on the call coaching side of it, you know, I think at some level, you've kind of normalized it in your shop. And I'd love to learn more about how, you know, how did you do that? It's, it's not typical, I would say, that people are just like rallying around, let's listen to calls, right? Because part of it is, you know, the exposure or this kind of fear of judgment.

But once you normalize that and make it consistent, Um, I'd love to know how you've done that and, and keep the, uh, the big brother mentality out the door. Well, I don't— like, we've got cameras and we've got these things recording the calls. And, and first of all, these calls are not being recorded to get you. These calls are recorded to cover your butts from that crazy person.

That's where they didn't say it. This call to make you better. Um, I remember Chad say, hey, just put it on the calendar. Just put it on the calendar. Just like having that one-on-one for the first time, nobody knows what to say or to do. I'm not trying to attack you, I'm just trying to make you better. So let's just— I listen to my call.

Be vulnerable. I mean, hey, yeah, you don't want to listen to your call. I didn't want to listen to my own call. But let's, let's do this. It's just on the calendar. And like I said, the defense will just break down a little bit at the time. And I found that with my one-on-ones. Again, like, we do it first Monday, one-on-one. If I was late or if I skipped the one-on-one, they're like, well, I didn't get my one-on-one, am I in trouble?

They look forward to it. Everybody wants positive reinforcement. So if you keep it positive and then something like, hey, I looked at 10 of your calls and out of the 10, only 3 of them were coachable. Or, hey, you remember when we started out how you would have like 11 bad calls out of 20. Dude, you only got 2 this time. So make sure we measure it, okay?

Schedule it, measure it, keep it going. No, you're uncomfortable, they're uncomfortable, and just say, I don't want to do this. Nobody wants to do it. Nobody wants to lift that. Well, a lot of people don't want to lift the heaviest weight for the muscle gain. It's going to be painful, but it's going to get easier. It's going to be easier for me and you as the coach and the coachee.

Or is it a culture war? Whatever. So I mean, it's— I don't know if there's an easy way to put it, but I just know that you just keep doing it. You be consistent and you let them know if you're uncomfortable. Like, I hear shop owners say, how do you start this one-on-one stuff? How do you start this coaching stuff? You just start it and you're just like, oh hey, I don't know what I'm doing either.

Let's do this together. Let's get better together. Like, I'm listening to my calls too. We're all getting better together. So I would just say, start it, put it on a schedule, make it, make it pop up, show up. Wednesday coaching calls. Jimmy, one of those ready to go. Yep, that's perfect. I, I love the perspective too. And Jimmy, one of the, you know, the things that I share with owners consistently is be consistent.

So I think the, the technology drives that, right? We're delivering an email with, you know, here, here's a a Top Call, here's a coachable call, here's some additional information. So delivering that is important. And the technology really helps us drive that consistency in this case. So when that, that email comes out, here's a call example, you don't have to do anything with that today.

Or you can. If you don't, there's another one tomorrow, right? And we want to create that normalcy. And this is the part that drives change, is one, you know, we're making this normal. And Tanika, you were just talking about that, right? We're going to put this on the calendar. People begin to expect it, right? It becomes normal for them. And that's a super important milestone in the coaching, training and development process is that sense of normalcy in the shop.

And then understanding the expectations and, you know, where do we have the opportunities? Tanika, you know, one, one thought that comes to mind here is, you know, you mentioned at the beginning, like, ask for the appointment. As you began doing this, you know, what, what did you begin to understand and see happening across, you know, the phone calls and across your organization?

What patterns began to emerge? And really, what's that aha moment you had where you're like, this is bringing value to me while I'm bringing value to my team? Oh, that's a good question. So when we start asking for the appointment, you know what, the calendar filled up. Yeah, yeah. So the marketing was working. And, um, but the big aha moment— oh, that's a good question, Davey.

You got me on that one. Should have texted me that before you asked me that one. Aha moments with phone calls, I don't know. I really— I can't answer that one for you. But what I do want to say before I forget a chance— don't get the chance to say it— when they're sitting beside each other up front and their list, because everybody can hear everybody's phone calls.

I can hear them say, that was a good one, what was that one about? Or like Stuart would tell Haley, he's like, she's, she's had a lot of good phone calls here lately. I can hear the change in the way she's handling the phone calls. So again, um, I got a little bit off subject, but them helping each other and encouraging each other— maybe they can only hear one end of the phone call, but there's some keywords like, oh, you killed that one.

Yeah, feel that one. Or making that sale on the phone call. I heard how you delivered that BBI. I heard that delivery. You gave them the good sandwich and they said yes. Like this morning, she was like, she said yes to everything. Oh my God, it's working! Imagine that. Imagine doing a training, following the instructions, and it actually working. That really is the aha moment too, right?

Yeah, you're, you're going through, you're driving consistency, you have you know, some form of flow and expectations. And you're learning from one another. I love the fact that they're listening at least to one side of each other's conversations in real time. And then you're able to talk about it. I think I'm lucky with that with my team. I think I'm lucky with my— because they're, they're not in competition.

And he's like, how do you keep them? I don't know. God blessed me with that. But I'm just lucky that way. But encouraging each other. So It's good. That's good, Tanika. You've set up a solid culture there, solid people. They've got great results. You're listening to the phone calls, consistency like David's talking about. You know, um, hearing one side of the conversation helps a little bit, but if you, if you as an owner, if you're only listening to half the conversation and you are not booked up 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 days in advance chances are you're missing the other half of the conversation and you need to listen to it.

So you do need a device, a program, uh, a hardware. You need a phone system that allows you to listen to all sides of the conversation. You've just got to be able to do that. You got to be able to do that. Now I'm going to give another shout out here as we work in our marketing. So a lot of times I hear shops talking about their marketing.

Well, my marketing's not working. I'm not It's not working, it's not working. A lot of times it comes back to the phone call. How well is the phone call being handled or treated from an advisor? But speaking to the marketing part, we've got a shout out here for the Institute is holding a marketing intensive this October 26th, 27th, 28th. Tanika, I just got off the phone with Brett Fadley.

He is signed up. He is coming out for Mars Conference. So if you want to get signed up as well, sister, We'd love to have you out here. I got to get a real flashy jacket for that one. Uh-huh, right behind that Mars conference. So if you got your smartphone there in front of you, grab out your smartphone, turn on your camera.

There's the QR code right there. Flash the QR code and get registered. The, the, uh, the Mars conference is going to be awesome. It is a conference where when you are done with the workshops, it's a 3-day conference. When you're done with that 3-day conference, you have 2027 mapped out, ready to go, and you know what you're going to be doing month to month throughout that whole next year.

It's super awesome. I love the Mars Conference. I do too. I was at the last one. Let me just say I was there as a participant at the last Mars Conference. And one, getting to interact with so many friends across the industry was great. But also, you know, I don't own a shop. I own a communication business. I took so much away from that that I immediately applied.

I can speak from my own experience. And I know, you know, many of the participants there that took those components right back to their shop and made immediate changes. So it is— it's not just a workshop where you're going to come away with a flashy work workbook and put that in a dusty cabinet somewhere and never do anything with it. I promise you, you attend the Mars Conference and you will come away energized and ready to make a real difference in your shop.

Yep, for sure, for sure. I'm never going to be at work if I keep coming following you around, Jimmy. Just imagine your wardrobe though. Oh, I know, it'll be so good. It'd be so good. But no, we'll see. I'm thinking about that. I thought about what we talked about the other day, but we're not going to get off subject because I do that a lot.

That can happen. Yeah. David, what else? What else can we talk about with phones, phone systems, programs? Um, can we track our marketing using your phone system? Yeah, uh, just on that very note, you know, the, uh, uh, we'll talk about this a little bit this year at MARS as well, but, you know, market tracking is important, right? We, we spend a lot of money and understanding the performance is important.

So with our phone system, you know, we can provide market tracking numbers if you have different campaigns, mailers, text messaging, website-related leads that you're generating. We can certainly provide unique numbers. The customer experience is the same, and the, you know, the shop experience is the same, except you have all of this additional data about, you know, how many calls were generated. So that's important to know, and it's also important to use that as, you know, a good baseline of information about your capacity to manage phone calls in your shop.

So when we look at some of the, uh, the other performance metrics— how long does it take us to answer the phone? Are we answering the phone right? In order to ask somebody for the appointment, we have to first answer the phone. Uh, and if you're spending this money on marketing campaigns, there are a variety of reasons, and I'll just tell you one example that I hear often from owners is, you know, they put out a marketing number and they, you know, advisors might believe that it's, you know, it's generating bad leads, something like that.

So they won't answer that phone. But we want to understand the behavior of what's going on. Is it something that we can control? Are we effective in the marketing campaign? What information do I have around that? And then additionally, running that into the call analysis, so that we understand, are we, are we converting these, right? If we're generating the leads, are we actually generating appointments?

And then from that point, if you know you have the appointment, you can measure your performance, go forward. So there's a lot of data that we can capture other than just sending in all of these phone calls to the main number. I love it. I love it. I love the, the phone is such a powerful powerful tool. I love when we can multitask that tool and do multiple things with the, the same tool.

Very cool, very cool. But if there are any questions, comments, concerns from our audience, we would love for you to type those in. If there's questions for David or questions for Tanika, go ahead and type those into the comments section. While they're doing that, I will say, if you are trying to keep up with me, good luck, but you can find it on our website The website page is, uh, wearetheinstitute.com/events.

That's all of the events that are coming up here in the very near future where you will see the Institute participating and locking arms with the industry to help elevate the industry. Our motto, our mantra is better business, better life, better industry. We're going to lock arms with you as a shop owner so that you have a better business. The net result of you having a better business is that you have a better life.

And not just you have a better life, your advisors have a better life, your technicians have a better life, your, your partners have a better life, your spouse, your advisors' significant others, their spouses, uh, their technicians and their spouses, that, and their children. Everyone elevates, everyone breathes better, everyone sees a bluer sky and greener grass. When we have a better business, a better life.

And our commitment is that we will help this become a better industry. Looks like there's a couple of comments that did come through. Oh no, that's Raleigh posting out the web page for the events. Yeah, uh, super awesome, super awesome. Uh, last final thoughts, final ideas. David, we'll start with you. Tanika, then to you. That we can help this industry grow. Tanika, thank you for joining today and sharing your experience.

It's super valuable for, for me as a provider to our industry that we understand how we're driving impact. So thank you again for that. Thank you for your trust and support. For the, uh, the audience, uh, Call Inbound is our company, callinbound.com. Uh, we provide communication services, uh, call tracking information, uh, advisor call handling performance metrics and AI call analysis. But above all, we're part of the industry, right?

So I got my start with, with the Institute in a 20 group, got, you know, very ingrained in the industry while I was building my company. And, you know, I'm proud to say that I'm part of the, not just the automotive aftermarket, but the service repair industry. I want to make sure you know that I appreciate your company. Um, I don't know how many employees you have, but it seems like they're all just sitting in the same room waiting to help.

I can send an email and I get a response so quickly, and it's always been consistent, great service. So I do appreciate that. And anybody that's on the fence, whether you, you know, I'm like, I don't want to listen to phone calls, that's just another thing for me to do it. Listen to the phone calls. Start with yourself. Start with yourself as the owner.

I always say start, start with yourself. I always assume that I'm the problem, then I can work from there. Listen to your phone calls. And if you think you're good and you listen to— you realize how bad you are, think about how bad your team is if you're not coaching them. So get them in coaching call services or whatever. Listen to the phone calls, get everything in order.

And not only will you make better sales and better connections, more appointments, but I really truly believe that it could save you a lot of heartache. Yeah, they record bad calls too, bad calls from the other end that you're, you know, that you need I hate to say for court, but anything's like, hey sir, we've got that call recording that didn't go quite the way you're saying it's going to go.

So that's another part to it that could, that could be very important in your shop. Call that the replay booth. Oh yeah, yeah, we'll take that to the replay booth. Yeah, it's important to CYA. You gotta cover your own behind. There's a great— that's a great tool for that. Yep, yep, for sure. Well, with that, thank you very much, David. Thank you for being here.

Tanika, thank you very much for being here. Look forward to seeing both of you very soon at our next conference and to give you a big hug and say hello. Uh, bring your best jackets, David. Say less. Say less. Yes, yes, very much looking forward to working with all of you in the very near future. And for everyone that is listening, thank you so much for joining us today as we talk about building a better business, a better life, and a better industry.

My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and we're here to lock arms with you and make a difference. Click on it, come find us. We're here to help. How can we help you? Let's make a difference. Talk to you soon.

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The Institute's Leading Edge PodcastSeptember 9 · 55 min

218 - What Your Opt-Outs Reveal: Your CRM Isn't Broken. It's Being Misused

218 - What Your Opt-Outs Reveal: Your CRM Isn't Broken. It's Being Misused September 9th, 2026 - 00:55:22 Show Summary: Most CRM systems are capable of producing results but the way shops use them can weaken customer relationships. Mass messages often focus on filling bays instead of delivering value customers actually want. Strong retention starts by understanding communication preferences and earning permission before sending messages. Shops can build stronger relationships by creating meaningful reasons for customers to stay connected. Automation can support that process but it should never replace genuine human communication. Returning customers should become a primary measure of success because lifetime value matters far more than a single repair order. A retention focused culture can create steadier car count and stronger long term growth. Host(s): Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development Guest(s): Craig O'Neill, VP of Training Autoflow Show Highlights: [00:02:45] – CRM systems work but shops often misuse their capabilities. [00:06:32] – Mass text blasts can create opt outs instead of appointments. [00:12:10] – Effective communication must focus on what matters to customers. [00:18:18] – Customer retention should create meaningful relationships built on trust. [00:21:08] – Customers should understand why your messages provide real value. [00:27:36] – Promotional mass texts require proper permission before being sent. [00:33:28] – Retention should become a goal across the entire organization. [00:35:02] – Returning customers can reveal more than traditional sales metrics. [00:41:12] – Give customers a compelling reason to return after every visit. [00:45:35] – Safe reliable vehicles provide a powerful purpose for follow up. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? 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/10RC8L1nKhM 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: Jimmy Lea: Hello, welcome. Glad to be with you today. It is Wednesday, so excited for Webinar Wednesday. Coming to you live from the road. I'm in Eugene, Oregon, here at Brian Slater's shop in Eugene, Oregon. This is the North Eugene Auto Repair in in Eugene, and so coming to you from the road. Thank you, Brian. Jimmy Lea: Appreciate you letting me use your office today as we're out and about visiting shops. It's just an awesome, gorgeous weather here in northern U- northern... no. I was gonna say northern Utah. I'm not in northern Utah. I'm in Eugene, Oregon, and this is not northern Utah, but it is gorgeous weather. Jimmy Lea: So if you don't have gorgeous weather where you are, you wish you were here. We're gonna have a great conversation today. Those of you who have comments, questions, comments, put them into the chat section. That chat section comments allows us to have this conversation back and forth. I will be the voice for You've got questions, comments, concerns for our guest, want to make sure that those are voiced for you, put them in the comments section. Jimmy Lea: My guest with us today is ever-present, ever-linguist, Mr. Craig O'Neill of AutoFlow. Craig, how the heck are you, brother? Craig O'Neill: I'm really good, Jimmy. Really good. I was actually thinking northern Utah, as you mentioned Utah, even though it was Oregon. Both places are beautiful. I can't blame you for the distinction issue there. Craig O'Neill: That was- that's all right. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. No it is absolutely gorgeous up here. Now, I will tell you that there is a large lack of mountains in Eugene, Oregon- ... Jimmy Lea: That northern Utah does have, is bounteous mountains. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. A lot of them. Yeah. I can't wait. Ogden, a couple, next month. Next month now is October. Jimmy Lea: Yes. October for the Mars Conference. Craig O'Neill: Yep. Jimmy Lea: Yes. Yes. Speaking of Mars Conferences we're gonna put up a QR code for the Mars Conference. If you scan this QR code, it will get you right onto our registration page, and those sticking around to the very end, there is this very special, very unique offer for anybody who wants to attend the Mars Conference. Jimmy Lea: So stick around, scan the QR code. Save that in your smartphones. We are gonna have a great conversation about marketing. Craig is one of our presenters at the Mars Conference, and super excited for Craig to be here. Craig and I have known each other for a couple of years now, and worked together at a couple of companies, and- Jimmy Lea: glad that we are able to still be friends here in this wonderful industry that we call home. Craig, what are we talking about today? Craig O'Neill: Jimmy, this is the, one of my favorite topics to go into. We're talking about CRM systems, of course. Now I have some opinions about CRM systems. Both of us come from a background that deals in these systems. Craig O'Neill: You have opinions as well, and you have some observations, and my observation is simply this: the systems themselves are capable of some pretty cool things- Jimmy Lea: Yeah ... Craig O'Neill: but we aren't using them very well. The it's not broken, they're being misused, is the title of our conversation today. Your CRM isn't broken, it's being misused. Craig O'Neill: And I don't like to walk into a conversation with "Oh, you're doing something wrong", or on the opposite side of it, I don't like to walk into a conversation as you guys are doing it right. You're just fine, but other people are doing it..." Like I, I've used stuff wrong. I've made mistakes in how I leverage the different systems and tools that are available, and I just believe, and I hope you just go along with us today, there might be a better way than our way that we're approaching it now. Craig O'Neill: Be open to that. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Be open to it, because what they're, what you as a shop may be doing today is working. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. It's not even a debate. It is getting results of a certain level and type that are appearing to be adequate. Jimmy Lea: Adequate for today. And hopefully with this conversation that you and I are gonna have as we talk about the customer relationship management software Hopefully there's something we can expose shops to that might say, "Hey, maybe there is a different way of doing this." Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: So what are these ways? What are the five mistakes that shops make the most, or not the mistakes. What, how can we help these shops improve? Sure. I would call Craig O'Neill: them hurdles that we have to get over, right? Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. This one it's an opportunity for us to make it better. It's an opportunity to make it better. Jimmy Lea: This is what it is. It's not a mistake. You're not doing it wrong. Consider this. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. We're gonna talk about a lot of things on this, and I think before we even get into those hurdles, let's talk about the nature of communication today. Yeah. People's attention span today, because I think that there's a couple of different things that we need to understand. Craig O'Neill: And first off, let's talk about why we even wanna leverage a CRM system. And for many shops, you might have a sustainable s- sort of automatic practice here, but when you're a busy shop, you feel very successful, and then all of a sudden things are not as busy as they are. This happens to all of us. All the time. Craig O'Neill: We've ... shop, Jimmy, our transmission shop, family business that I came up, down into grew up in, and like we never had a slow spell. The shops around us always had those little slow spells, and we're like, "Yeah, we don't." And that was a good feeling until it happened to us, too. So we're all vulnerable to it, and the knee-jerk reaction that I see is this. Craig O'Neill: People as eventually hit that slow spell. They check, see if other people are experiencing it, too. We comfort ourselves with the fact that others are doing it, defining it as a, a market-wide symptom of broader events that we have no control over. And so then we can just comfort ourselves with another idea. Craig O'Neill: It's like, "Ah, it'll come back around." And I heard this over, and over again from my family who is owner of the business, my, my dad and my grandpa, because that has been the experience. It always comes back around. Why would we ever be okay with the fact that a slow spell also technically always comes back around? Craig O'Neill: And if our knee-jerk reaction to those moments is then to go into a, a degree of marketing or a degree of follow-up or a mass blast text strategy, like I see a lot of people fall into is like, "Huh, the work needs to be drummed up. We'll turn to our CRM system. We'll construct the perfect message and send it out, and then people will make appointments and fill our bays." Craig O'Neill: Sound familiar? Jimmy Lea: Oh, it does. It does. And if we know those, those times are gonna come back around because it's cyclical, what are we doing? We... It- Yeah ... is preventable. What are we doing that we can prevent this from happening and being that cyclical item? Because- Craig O'Neill: This is, this goes straight into it, because what I see people doing with the knee-jerk response is they're actually crippling their ability to handle the cycles of this. Craig O'Neill: When you do a knee-jerk text blast response, what's the number one reaction that you get to it every single time? Opt-outs. They are the most common reaction to this, and that's what I... If you go on the socials and you look on comment threads of shop owners experiencing a slow spell, they're asking each other "What's the perfect message that you can type out that gets fewer opt-outs and more appointments?" Craig O'Neill: There isn't one. There is no perfect message that gets X number of people. The ratio will never be the same in two demographics with unique people being the customers or clients in every one of the unique repair facilities that we have. There is no perfect message. Jimmy Lea: No. They're not. They're looking for that silver bullet, Craig. Craig O'Neill: Yes. It's silver bullet is the right term for this, and I discussed this on my podcast in an early episode of the podcast Speak Up: Effective Communication on the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. It was episode 14. I said, "What your opt-outs are really telling you," and I think that what they are telling us is something we need to listen to. Craig O'Neill: So now on that, let's move into the attention span of the people in the world today versus the past. And Jimmy, I love to read. I love deep thoughts, and we're gonna get philosophical for a second. I know you don't mind. Love it. We love this. Yeah. Let's Jimmy Lea: go. Craig O'Neill: Signature classic, C.S. Lewis. One of my favorites, Screwtape Letters. Craig O'Neill: In the early chapters in that book it's describing... I won't go into the details of Screwtape Letters, but the way that you distract someone if you're trying to distract them from serious thoughts in C.S. Lewis' time period was, and I'll quote here from the book that- Got the guy to think he was hungry, and then I showed him a newsboy shouting, "The midday paper," and the number 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps, I had him into an unalterable conviction that whatever odd ideas might come into the man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of real life, which he meant by the bus and the newsboy, was enough to show him that all that sort of thing just couldn't be true. Craig O'Neill: He knew he had a narrow escape, and then years later was fond of talking about it. I w- I'll skip ahead. But thanks to the process which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. So this is hard to digest 'cause it's C.S. Craig O'Neill: Lewis. You... It's like a tough piece of wonderful, awesome, the best flavor steak in the world that you gotta chew on a whole lot of times before you can actually get to digesting it. But the point is, C.S. Lewis's era, the distraction was you wanted to get them into this stream of events and that's your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Craig O'Neill: Teach it to call it real life, and don't let him ask what it means by real. And that stream is exactly what people are having today. This is a word used by C.S. Lewis before streaming like we are on a webinar, streaming across the web even existed. What distracted a man? Just being on the street with a bus and a newsboy shouting. Craig O'Neill: That's yesterday. That's 1940s United Kingdom, actually, in C.S. Lewis' time. Let's fast-forward Johann Hari's book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again, absolutely nails the same point in the modern age and puts a name to it with this term called the f- this frenetic digital interruption, and he says, "Is pulling our attention away from our thoughts and suppressing your default mode network," cool term. Craig O'Neill: I think we're almost in this constant stimulus-driven, stimulus-bound environment, moving from one distraction to the next, and if you don't remove yourself from that, it will suppress whatever train of thought you had, right? And I think that frenetic digital distraction really i- it's just, we have to acknowledge this is the reality we're in today, and there's people that are struggling with notifications and attention, and bombarded with media messages. Craig O'Neill: Every news article you read has the pop-up ads. Are we in that same zone like C.S. Lewis, where a newsboy and the sign on a bus is the only thing that could distract our attention? No. We are under a constant 24/7 assault for our attention span today. That's where we're communicating from, and when your shop gets a little slow and you decide you're gonna have a knee-jerk reaction to the slowness, and you expect a message to land that leads to action with a population that's drowning in this reality, would it be any surprise that it only sees marginal results? Jimmy Lea: Is there any irony that it is called streaming? Is there any irony that it's called a reel? No. Craig O'Neill: Jimmy, it's like the oldest problems are always resurfaced again in our lifetimes today- Yep ... with different technology. Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's totally different. And now it's 17-second blurbs about it's a seven-second commercial, it's a 17-second commercial. Jimmy Lea: We're being bombarded with this instant stimuli to totally distract us from what is actually real- Yes ... and consequential, and you're being bombarded by things that are momentary blurbs of Jimmy Lea: Endorphins Craig O'Neill: Yeah. It, and it just- It's a Jimmy Lea: temporary- Craig O'Neill: You're competing with that- Yeah ... tendency too, to escape with these things. You're spot on. This, this topic is why I lead into these five barriers to that are causing us, like the things that we're misusing in our CRMs, right? Yeah. I consider them barriers or hurdles because we can get over them. Craig O'Neill: Yeah ... and we can decide to lever it right. And number one and we have a slide for this, so I put it up there. I know some people like to read and some people can listen. I wanted to put this quote on there because... And I'm gonna, fatal sin of speakers, I'm gonna read the quote. I know it's on the slide, but I know some of you can't see it, and I know some of you are only listening. Craig O'Neill: Yes. I can't read it. Oh, Jimmy, I'm sorry. It's too small. Too small? Oh, that's okay. That's why I'm here. Yeah. So- You can Jimmy Lea: read all of them. Read all of Craig O'Neill: them ... it's a big meaty slide. Problem number one though is we're not communicating to people on what matters to them. That's the problem. And to reference this point the, a great read, and please write this down, pick up this book, How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age. Craig O'Neill: Amen. If you're interested in this topic at all, read that book. It's from the Dale Carnegie and Associates. So updated for the digital age. There's so many profoundly good things in this, and this is a quote I pulled straight from the book, and I wanna make sure it gets its proper reference there. Craig O'Neill: But it says, "When it comes to mattering to others, you must discuss what matters to them. Assume all else will fall on deaf, or in this case, dull ears. This is an interesting principle to consider given the spirit in which the vast majority of people are communicating today. Most messages are primarily meant to educate others about our lives, our products, to reveal compelling portions of ourselves we think others would be attracted to. Craig O'Neill: While this appears to be an assertive strategy, it is actually a passive strategy in that it requires others to connect with us." "The trouble is that's marketing monologue, not relational dialogue. It's assumption, not assimilation. When assumption guides our efforts to befriend or influence others, the results end up on the wrong side of memorable." Craig O'Neill: Okay. End quote. That is that's another, like I'm giving you solid food to digest today. That's, that's- ... we don't have time to go this layer of depth in our presentation at Mars, so that's why I'm really happy to have this conversation today. It's a primer. If you walk in primed with some of these thoughts, you're gonna be able to get a lot more out of it. Craig O'Neill: But here's where I go with this. We are communicating from a position of our interests most of the time in the auto repair shop. When it slows down, we're interested in filling our bay. If we were really interested in having those customers come in, we would have done the harder work of relating and documenting and managing the data, all sorts of things differently to have a sustained conversation that they understood the value in, because we understand what's important to them. Craig O'Neill: And that's a whole different thing, and that's gonna come up again as we move into these, these other hurdles. But I think that's the thing, first and foremost, remember what messages right now are you pushing out there that are not memorable? I didn't give this in the slide, but I have an example recently, Jimmy very recently. Craig O'Neill: I turned 43 earlier in August, and I'm not on social media these days. The one thing that was fun is getting all those birthday harvests. You know how you get all the happy birthday thing. It's actually a lot of work. Yeah. Then you gotta go like everything and all that stuff too. But don't worry, I don't miss that entirely because I have been a patron in local businesses that have CRM systems in my neighborhood chiefly my Subaru dealership where we have a, a vehicle leased presently. Craig O'Neill: And I got three happy birthday emails from three separate people in that organization. Two of them were identical emails automatically constructed, and there was a neat little quote in the bottom of one of those emails. It actually said, "This email is automatically generated, and we do not monitor replies to it." Jimmy Lea: Oh my God. That's- Craig O'Neill: But it was a beautiful picture of balloons with the branding of that dealership on it. Oh, it was touching. It was such a great birthday blessing to receive that on Sunday afternoon. Jimmy Lea: Had it been from an actual person and not an automated system would've made it even better, but... Craig O'Neill: Sure. But does the birthday greeting from a business actually land on the memorable side of communication, or is it a cheap and simple automated gimmick to feign that you care with a direct interest that is more for the business's benefit rather than it is for my birthday, right? Craig O'Neill: Congratulations, you captured my birth date in a data field in a system that is automated to generate a joy, because I don't unsubscribe because I love these examples. It really was a gift for me that I get to use and communicate from. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. And that's good. That's good. Craig O'Neill: But no, this is a common thing, and we've we've seen this strategy. Craig O'Neill: You and I have been in the CRM space for a while, and you've seen that given as a best practice. We wanna capture the, birth date and month, not the year. Birth date and month. And then you can have these sort of birthday messages go out. All right, maybe you have that strategy applied in your shop. Craig O'Neill: Is that a wrongness? No. Maybe some people really appreciate it. I think a lot of people don't give it a second thought, and that's the majority. Jimmy Lea: They probably don't, but they also aren't sending it from an email that is not being monitored and not gonna reply. Craig O'Neill: Let's hope not. Yeah. ' Jimmy Lea: Cause if Jimmy's Super Shop were to send you a happy birthday message, it would purely be a happy birthday message. Jimmy Lea: There's no other ulterior motives whatsoever. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Jimmy- And you would reply and say, "Oh, thank you so much, Jimmy's Super Shop." We would reply again to say Craig O'Neill: I would hope so. Yeah. Now, my experience in birthdays are one thing, but all sorts of messages. I know when CRM automation occurs, and I'll touch on this at Mars a little bit further the team is not engaged in that part of the process, and it's difficult for them to engage in the inbound Present Jimmy Lea: conversation. Jimmy Lea: Yeah Craig O'Neill: Yep. There's a, a loss of continuity there. So I do feel a lot of times there's automated things going out from a shop, but there is actually no behavior that is being encouraged or directed or accountable any accountability layer for the team to be a participant in that. So it does play in that. Craig O'Neill: But this goes to number two which I think is at the root of the whole problem, and this is, again, another quote from the Dale Carnegie and Associates. First off, problem number two we're not cultivating a community, and this, this principle comes for me from my study in this book. And as I was reading that book, assessing how shops are leveraging CRMs, this stuck out. Craig O'Neill: And it says, and I quote, "Often forgotten is the long-term plan. Businesses call it a customer retention strategy, but it is best thought of as a lively, meaningful dialogue among a community of friends. If the foundation of all long-term success is the establishment of trust-based relationships, then the goal of all interactions should be to convey value as soon and as often as possible." Jimmy Lea: Not just birthdays. Craig O'Neill: Not just birthdays as a data field. What's meaningful for a client in a repair shop? What's meaningful to them in a repair shop? What is the purpose in our community, and how are you articulating the value of staying in touch so we can continue to express what this purpose is and how it benefits you? Craig O'Neill: And by the way, Mr. Client, it's very important, save this number in your phone so that you recognize that we're a contact 'cause you can reach out to us here, and we're gonna be here if you have any questions. And that's starting to get to the sense of community here. And Jimmy, this is getting more important. Craig O'Neill: In today's world, here's a tip for y'all right now. I want you to open up your phone, go to your text message app, look at the spam folder How many messages do you have in the spam folder of your messages app, whether you're using Android or Apple, does not matter. Automatically, messages are going straight to those folders with default settings from the phone's operating system and device. Craig O'Neill: There's a bunch in there, and a lot of it probably is spam, correct, Jimmy? Jimmy Lea: Oh, I'm pretty sure all of it's spam. Craig O'Neill: A lot of times it's very accurate in mine. I- I've only on occasion seen one or two messages in there. Here's how your shop is gonna land in the spam folder. If the client never accepts you as a contact and never engages in the dialogue with you in text. Jimmy Lea: Yep. Craig O'Neill: And so the manifestation of this, and I've started to see more of this recently, very recently, just this summer people sending a DVI link to their client, for example, but the client claims they never got it. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Craig O'Neill: But they do receive- Because it went to spam ... messages without the link went to the spam folder because sometimes those links are just being interpreted when it's not saved as a contact. Craig O'Neill: The solution is to get it saved as a contact. Interesting little issue, but that takes a little effort, doesn't it, to keep your client- Yeah ... to add you as a contact. There's some cool tools to do that, simple QR code scans, and lots of things we can do at the counter to help people through this problem. Craig O'Neill: But we need our advisors to express the importance of the communication and why they should want it before they'll ever accept it as a contact. Jimmy Lea: That's right. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. So interesting, right? So I think that cultivation of a community, that's the easy entry point. Help them understand the value of the communication that's coming and why we're going to be reaching you and make sure they actually do want it. Craig O'Neill: And that leads perfectly into hurdle number three. Hurdle number three is we are not gaining an opt-in for the purpose we seek. And Jimmy, you know this is true across the board generally for opt-ins and shop capturing, and we're gonna talk just a minute about this here as well. We'll do this after the next point. Craig O'Neill: The next point is a strong one on this. But you want the customer to want the message from you. Yeah. Does that happen automatically that they understand what you're going to be sending them and why you're going to be sending it? Jimmy Lea: Not unless you explain it. Craig O'Neill: Not unless you explain it. What's the value in it for them? Craig O'Neill: Why is there a benefit for them to be on a list in your shop for a certain type of message? I used an example earlier about text blast when it gets slow. And the mistake I see the most, Jimmy, is that shops literally have their all or repeat customer list, and they just hit this whole list with this message like, "Hey, we're slow. Craig O'Neill: Come in." Yeah. What if... just go with me here. Love it. What if you created a list that people could sign up and subscribe to in your shop? It's like, "Hey, if you wanna join our slow day list, there's a couple advantages of this. If you wanna just you have a few lingering maintenance items type of a thing, and we have openings we have a... Craig O'Neill: Maybe there's a promotion rate, or maybe it's just literally we can get you in and out because we know time is important, and we're not a discount culture anymore here, right? So maybe we express the speed of service. We know it's inconvenient to have the car down when it's quiet like this. We'll have loaners or rides available. Craig O'Neill: Whatever. There's benefits for you signing up on this list, so you can gain access to this thing that we're gonna do to make it better for you. Would you like to be on that list? We maybe send one or two of these out-" a quarter and perfect, right? And they sign up for that, so now you've got a warm lead list of people who are ready to fill your bays when they need filling. Craig O'Neill: How hard would it be to create that? Jimmy Lea: Oh, not very hard, and I wanna rename it already. I wanna call it the VIP available spots list. Perfect. Craig O'Neill: Yes. Yes. All sorts of things that you could do. Yeah, you could call it your membership list. Whatever. You go crazy. Have fun with it. Communicate the value of it. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. And you have some- My wife does this at art shows. She sells her art in these art shows, and she's found that even just the placement of the sign-up form matters. Like, when it's front and center, people who are waiting in line for the checkout now are able to sign into that book while they're waiting for their turn to check out with the art, and she gets way more signups for her email list. Craig O'Neill: Love it. It's perfect. Yeah, and similar practices are totally possible still today, but what do shops do? We automatically assume everyone wants to get any type of message we wanna have for any purpose, and we never clarify or distinguish any special type of thing, and thus they never get the opt-in. Craig O'Neill: And thus, what are your opt-outs telling you? Man, that's their first chance to talk to you about their preference for the type of communication you send. And you know what happens in an opt-out, Jimmy. You know as well as I do. That number's blacklisted at the carrier level. Jimmy Lea: Yep. Craig O'Neill: That's hard to undo. Now you gotta communicate to them about the value of reengaging in that by texting the word start to this number, and that's a harder thing for a busy service advisor or customer service rep to be able to engage in. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, it's true. It's true. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: We've gotta communicate with them on the level they want in the form that they want. And sometimes those opt-outs are them saying, "Look, I just don't want to communicate in this method." Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: But what do they prefer? Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Might Craig O'Neill: be. Yeah. Jimmy Lea: What's the conversation? Where have you built the relationship to continue that conversation on their preferred platform? Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Look, I cooked my cellphone a long time ago doing demos of AutoFlow at, with multiple instances. Now I get texts that I forget to clear out of their thing all the time. That texting's not the best way to get me during the day. I am, however, in my inbox. And I promise you, you have clients that's the same thing for them too. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Or they don't even want... Now, go with me here. What if we had a list of people who prefer a phone call follow-up, Jimmy? Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. And there are. Craig O'Neill: Yes. Jimmy Lea: There's people that's what they would prefer. Craig O'Neill: Yes. 100% yes. And if you don't get the buy-in from that group, and you think everyone wants a phone call follow-up we already do this- You're wrong Craig O'Neill: at Chris' shop, Jimmy. Yeah. You wanna know in about 90 to 120 follow-up calls that we do in a week there we have a gal doing this for us, for Golden Rule Auto Care. Yeah. We get about 10 to 15% of those calls that go out end up with good connections. Like a good conversation. Jimmy Lea: Oh, they actually answer the phone and have a Craig O'Neill: conversation. Craig O'Neill: Actually answer the phone and have a conversation. Only 10 to 15% 10 to 15. Around 120 calls. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. I, Craig O'Neill: I- Not a huge number. Jimmy Lea: No, it's not. Because people are busy, and they don't wanna be interrupted. And those that want the conversations, they're the ones that answer the phone. And the other 80, 85%, 90% prefer a text message or an email or a Facebook message or purely nothing at all. Jimmy Lea: Thank you very much. Goodbye. Craig O'Neill: Let me ask you this, Jimmy. You got it, man. And when you get a phone call today from a number that's not a contact in your phone- ... do you answer it? Jimmy Lea: Voicemail. No. I- Craig O'Neill: Or screening? Yeah ... Jimmy Lea: I found the you push the two buttons on both sides, boop, right into voicemail. Done. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. I, I have, one of the call screener things on mine now. If it's not a contact, it hits that pretty much automatically. I don't answer my phone. I don't answer my phone. I then check to see the missed call, and if it is something important, I'll call it back. That's the world we're entering, and it's the same principle that we just discussed with that text message that i- if they darn a contact, same is true for the phone number that you're dialing from. Craig O'Neill: If that hasn't yet been saved as a contact, look, guys, your call isn't gonna be trusted yet. Area codes that are mine are the least trusted. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Yes. But that's the world now, and we have to be able to recognize that and combat that. Yeah ... but that involves becoming that contact, agreeing to that type of conversation, and maybe making a note somewhere in your management or CRM system about those preferred lev- levels of contact. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. So- that's the hard work here, and I understand why shops that are low staff or only have one service advisor to five technicians, and he's also the CSR, and he handles payroll because he's also the owner, and yeah, it gets really tough really fast. And you have opportunity there when you're overwhelmed to hire someone else who can do these things, that's gonna add value to your business. Craig O'Neill: They'll be able to help cultivate these lists, which ke- it's more retention, guarantees you have the income and the cashflow to be able to support their livelihood, and everything gets better. But the starting point's really tough. Problem Jimmy Lea: Number four Craig O'Neill: Let's go. All right, this one's key. Mass blasts- Oh Craig O'Neill: without express written permission are against the law. True. And this is- True ... the really bonkers part of this is shops are loosely aware of this and yet they do it anyway. I forget what the fine is right now, and I'm not a lawyer. I'm not giving legal advice. Just disclaimer on that if you can put it in bold. Craig O'Neill: Yeah, no. But I think it's a $1,500 fine per offense, and if somebody knows that they did not expressly give you permission to text them very specifically- Jimmy Lea: Yep ... Craig O'Neill: text is what we're talking about here. Yep ... that's something they could sue you for and win every time. Notice a lot of the largest organizations out there with multiple locations do not engage in this method of follow-up Jimmy Lea: Because- They Craig O'Neill: know the targets Jimmy Lea: they've lost multiple court cases. Jiffy Lube is one that comes to mind. You can Google it. Court cases where Jiffy Lube had to pay out multimillion dollars because of their mass texting clients. A- and- and what's makes it worse is that they were mass texting clients who had opted out. Craig O'Neill: Oh. Oh, no. Craig O'Neill: So they had a blacklist failure- Yeah ... which is even another thing. So yeah, this is where, okay, you videcoders out there, I know you're out there, and I know you're even playing with APIs from groups like Twilio. And you might think "Cool, we can do texting real easy." Guess what? Start managing your blacklist because Twilio sometimes doesn't do it properly for you. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. And the carrier sometimes doesn't do it properly, and it is still you on the hook every time. And if you're giving your software platform to other people to use, your platform, unless it has clear terms and conditions, could also fall under some scrutiny. Oh, boy. It gets sticky. Investigate that. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. It does. It really is. So there's a difference between mass sending a marketing message versus pinpointing and being very specific. Craig O'Neill: Oh, I'm glad you bring this up, Jimmy. Yeah we have a slide on this. So CRM permissions are not actually the same across the board in multiple channels. So the- you probably use terms like transactional versus promotional, Jimmy, I'm sure. Craig O'Neill: But industry terms do vary from- from some- And our industry itself is not usually good at taking universal language- ... Craig O'Neill: And carrying it forward. But these three categories of- of text messages, I put this out. This is I don't have the source on here, but I pulled this source from online. Craig O'Neill: Conversational, informational, promotional. I wanna draw your attention to that blue arrow on the screen. It's kind of a bluish-green arrow, Jimmy. It's on that- Yep ... one, two, three, third row down, where it's talking about how that- that message is constructed. Messages promoting a brand, a product, or a service Or anything that prompts a consumer to buy something, go somewhere, or otherwise take an action. Craig O'Neill: That, if it's in that category, requires express written consent to be legal. Express written consent. Consumers may sign a form, check a box online, or otherwise provide consent to receive promotional text message in some fashion. That express written consent is the highest form of consent, and I haven't met an organization that's tracking it yet. Jimmy Lea: And through the TCPA- Yeah ... which is the act that governs over texting and how you can communicate, it used to be that you had to have a wet signature for that promotional message to go out, and you had to retain it for seven years even after you stopped your business. You still had to have it on file. Jimmy Lea: It's now changed. You can track it digitally. Yes. But you have to be able to provide the source, the date, the time, where it consent was given- Craig O'Neill: Yeah ... Jimmy Lea: for you to send promotional messages. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Yeah ... Jimmy Lea: conversational, reminders, informational. Now and it's interesting you've got informational broke out here that you do need consent Craig O'Neill: Express consent, which is different than express written consent, and this was interesting to me when I started studying this too, and these things are pretty stable. Craig O'Neill: I don't see this element changing a lot. Yeah. But permission can happen over text on that, or on a form or a website, or verbally, and that's an interesting one. And that's just a message that contains information, just information. It's a status update, it's an appointment confirmation or a reminder. Craig O'Neill: Those types of things are information text, and that's handled- Yeah ... very differently than a promotional marketing text that's asking them to take an action. It tips towards promotional anytime you're asking them to click a link to schedule an appointment, for example, on your slow day blast type of scenario. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. That is a promotional text purely. Even if it's a deferred service reminder. Think about those deferred service drips that people have active in just about every CRM system in the world. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Craig O'Neill: That is asking the consumer to take an action, and this is exactly the type of thing I will be combating in, in, in our session at Mars 'cause we have a better way forward. Craig O'Neill: We can start talking a little bit about that here too. But those deferred work little drips are... Like, it's a strange thing to do. It's the thing your customer said no to during your visit that we're now assuming they want to receive an, a reminder about without any knowledge that this is coming, and certainly no express written consent. Craig O'Neill: And all of the burden is fully on them to take the action to make something happen about that still deferred work. Yeah. We aren't doing anything. We, in fact, automated the whole thing. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So what's- Craig O'Neill: It's a passive reminder, as we discussed earlier, right? Jimmy Lea: What's the better way? Are we gonna discuss that here, or are you waiting for Mars? Craig O'Neill: Oh, we can ta- we can talk on it here. So our better way is, it depends on our sense of purpose here, but I think let's go to barrier number five before we talk about that better way, 'cause I think this plays into the whole topic that we're discussing. And this is really the largest barrier, and it is the, the one that I think needs to be overcome before you fix any of the other ones. Craig O'Neill: We don't have our whole organization truly oriented towards retention as a goal What are we oriented towards then? Is the question I like to ask. And if you really stop and you really think about what your organization is structured to achieve, what is it? And it might be what you consider your most important metric might give you a clue. Craig O'Neill: I think it's an interesting question to ask, Jimmy. I do this a lot in different courses. I ask what's the most important metric for a service advisor or for a technician or for this or that?" I like to ask specifically for our front counter staff, whether it be a CSR, a reservationist, a service advisor, whoever we have working our front counter. Craig O'Neill: What is their most important metric? And you get all kinds of answers. You've probably heard every one of them, Jimmy. Closing rate. Those service advisors are like, "I sell 98.92% of all work I ever write up." Terrible stat, by the way, 'cause that's the work you write up. You can artificially inflate your closing rate on sales by writing up what you know will sell. Jimmy Lea: Yep. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. But I th- I'm gonna give you my answer. Jimmy Lea: Okay. Craig O'Neill: Your ratio of returning customers Jimmy Lea: Agreed Craig O'Neill: It's your most important statistic Jimmy Lea: If they're not coming back, you're doing something wrong Craig O'Neill: Correct. Yeah, I don't care what your ARO is really. It's an interesting stat to know. You'll establish baselines for all sorts of KPIs. Craig O'Neill: They tell you useful information. But is our goal to sell all of the stuff we find on every visit? And is our team like, "Is that's what's gonna impress the boss? That's what's gonna make him very happy"? Jimmy Lea: No, returning customers. Totally agree. Craig O'Neill: Yeah, because what's the value of one good visit, right? Yeah. Craig O'Neill: What's the value of one visit versus the lifetime value of a client? Jimmy Lea: Yes. The lifetime value has so much more weight to it. Neck and neck. Tens of thousands of dollars versus- Craig O'Neill: Hundreds. Yeah ... Jimmy Lea: hundreds that, for that one visit. Craig O'Neill: Some, yeah. Yeah. And o- I had family accounts, family accounts- Yeah ... literally in the hundreds of thousands with, For Jimmy Lea: the lifetime value? Craig O'Neill: Lifetime value of that particular individual. He had a lot of vehicles in the family. Jimmy Lea: And, What's the family fleet? Craig O'Neill: It's the family fleet ... it's a family fleet. It's Jimmy Lea: a Craig O'Neill: fleet Jimmy Lea: account. Craig O'Neill: Yep. Yep, but even when the kids grew up, they were still coming in as well, too, and that, the lifetime value of the relationships that turn into more things, like, man, if that's true, though, and we do this. Craig O'Neill: Jimmy, we pay lip service to this all the time in our industry. It's a relationship-based business. It is. And then we go and we emphasize we gotta sell this much, and this is our target for sales, and all this other thing, and it's and how much time really are we putting our human attention on our team's human attention in this frenetic age on retention strategy? Craig O'Neill: Yeah. How involved are they in your team right now towards the goal of getting people back in the door from the beginning of that visit to the end of that visit, and what happens in between, the humans involved? And Jimmy, you've been in this industry. It... Most shops, I hear they say, "Hey, my guys aren't gonna use this. Craig O'Neill: I just need this to be automated." Jimmy Lea: Yeah. We'll try and make it sound as personal as possible in that automation, but Craig O'Neill: Yeah, we use those cool little variables. Your service advisor gets filled in with the service advisor's name, all the automated message, and automation has merit. It does. We create, through automation, consistent repeatability of things that we want to have occur That's good, right? Craig O'Neill: It is. Jimmy Lea: Make it personable, and make sure you're responding. Craig O'Neill: And make sure you had a hand in that, and make sure you are responding. Correct. The service advisors know these are going out, they know when it's going out, and they're maybe involved in scanning to see who replied and who didn't, or maybe that's somebody's job in the shop. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. And we'll talk about this at Mars a little further. I believe it is somebody's job in the shop. We call... I call it the reservationist. A lot of people have a CSR. Yes ... it's a fun topic because... And it goes deep, and we have podcasts on that too. But dude, it's an orientation thing. It's if it's important to you, you're gonna do something about it. Craig O'Neill: If it's not important to you, you won't do anything about it, and that's the measure that, yeah, like, all right. So I just kinda threw a C.S. Lewis mindset at you. There's like this is one of the things I love about reading some of these, these thinkers, right? It's and of course, he's Christian apologetics and that sort of thing, but he said... Craig O'Neill: i'm breaking it down to just a simple point, like something is important or it's not important at all. Craig O'Neill: That middle ground in this topic, I think this is true, that middle ground's not given to us, which forces us to either have to decide, "Eh, it's really not important and we can continue as we are because we're okay with the results," or, "No, this is a really important topic. Craig O'Neill: Our strategy for getting clients into the shop is of actually critical importance to the ultimate success of our business, and is the most important thing that we should be focusing on to guarantee our success. So we're gonna really put in all of our effort towards this goal instead of just reacting to the chaos, reacting to the things that made it in today." Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Craig O'Neill: Wow. What would happen to your business with that focus? Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. Man. We wanna exponentially increase it. We wanna rocket fuel this. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: And I wonder what the statistics are. There, there was a, a, a read a while ago that talked about restaurant industry was tracking this. How can they get a client to come back for the second dining experience- Yeah Jimmy Lea: and the third dining experience, and the fourth dining experience? And once they get 'em in for that fourth dining experience, they've got a client for life. Craig O'Neill: True. Yeah. I actually just had a interesting restaurant follow-up. I'm on the email list for one of the sushi joints here in Grand Rapids. I love sushi. Craig O'Neill: Love this place. We go Maru Sushi on Cherry Street. Fantastic. Next time you're in Grand Rapids, wonderful. Love going there with my wife. It's our go-to spot. We had a couple months of a dry spell there where we didn't make it in, and we were busy with art shows and all sorts of stuff. Sure. And I got an email that must have been triggered. Craig O'Neill: It's like their little lost customer reminder. It's like- Jimmy Lea: Yeah ... " Craig O'Neill: It's been a while. Here's a free app- appetizer" Okay ... for next, on, on your next visit." It was an interesting follow-up. I thought it was really good. Oh yeah, it has been a while. Man, I want sushi right now, is what I experienced with that. Craig O'Neill: And then, and there's a benefit for me right there in it, and I already wanna go there anyways. It's just been a while. Jimmy Lea: Yes. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: It's a great way of getting you back in. I, there, there was the example That the manager would go around and say, "Oh, is this your first time?" They had different colored napkins, so he knew- The servers ask us, they're the new ones that don't recognize us. Jimmy Lea: They ask, "Have you guys been in before?" It's like, "Oh, yeah." Yeah. All right. "You can hold on to the menu. N- unless you need it to show us that you haven't taken the order yet," right? Yeah. Yeah. The the managers are going around and they're giving away, "Hey, on your second visit, make sure you try the cheesecake, and here's a coupon for a free cheesecake." Jimmy Lea: You get me back for a $100 meal for a free cheesecake, is it worth it? Craig O'Neill: Totally. Jimmy Lea: What's that cheesecake cost you? Craig O'Neill: Cheapest marketing. All right. So look- Cheesecake more cost ... how much Jimmy Lea: money Craig O'Neill: do you spend on other marketing efforts for what kind of results? Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And we've got to do the optimizing everywhere. Jimmy Lea: We've got to optimize ourself in all the locations. There's, which is true. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: But also how effective, and it's extremely, ex- extremely effective when they're there at your shop enjoying the experience, you give them a reason to come back. Craig O'Neill: Yes. And I like what you said there, Jimmy, and I think that's worth drawing some out a little further. Craig O'Neill: What you described is what I we have an improv club in our Toastmasters club, so the we play a lot of improv games, and we've been taught the yes and- Yes and ... approach. Yes and. Yes and. It is, it's, so it's a rule in improv where one of the people in your troupe are make something, that's truth now. Craig O'Neill: You react with that. It's not, you can't go combat this thing. It's not this or this. It's these things now have to be recognized as, as connected. The reality of Jimmy Lea: what you create. Combining forces for something good. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. So you said- Using that idea ... all networks, all channels, and this is exactly it. Craig O'Neill: This conversation that we're having doesn't say "Oh, yeah, we just master this and we won't need to spend as much money in this other area." That's not necessarily the case. Now, although maybe you have have some restructuring of that, it's you do refine your strategy on how your team is engaging retention, and you continue your outreach efforts, and maybe restructure how your phone call skills and other things go into all the m- effort you did take towards generating leads actually gets converted into real clients that come back again. Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. W- I was talking to a shop the other day, "My marketing's not working. My marketing's not working. I need to redo all my marketing." Got digging into his phone call log, discovered 43% of phone calls were- Ooh ... not being answered. No. 43%. Craig O'Neill: This is the world th- that AI assistants are entering. Craig O'Neill: And Jimmy- Yes ... this is this is the deepest, saddest thing in the world for me. AI assistants are one, a thing that is i- in demand and two, that it's sometimes better than the Jimmy Lea: people. If you're not able to answer the phone, you need to figure out either you need a human that's there answering the phone, or you implement this AI answering system- Oh, man Jimmy Lea: that's tied to your point of sale that sees your schedule, that can schedule- Better Craig O'Neill: at containing the context and keeping the notes and everything else ... four different... Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. Craig O'Neill: Yeah, I know. Jimmy Lea: And it's true. If- I do not support the idea that the AI answering your system is going to replace your advisor. Jimmy Lea: Absolutely not. Yeah. Craig O'Neill: No. Jimmy Lea: You do need to answer the phone as quickly as you humanly possibly can, but if you're not able to, that's where you've got this backup that can take care of business. And it's an interesting thing. Craig O'Neill: And this backup Jimmy Lea: is just that. Yeah. It needs to be backup, not plan A. Craig O'Neill: Oh, not plan A. Craig O'Neill: And in fact, you need to be aware And we were having this conversation in our team, too 'cause our sales guys, when they're calling shops, they're hitting AI- Jimmy Lea: Yes ... Craig O'Neill: systems far more frequently than they ever used to, and it's interesting to see that volume go. But simultaneously, we understand, like, how do you feel personally when you call a business and the first thing you get is an AI? Craig O'Neill: Are you happy or a little sad about that? And in an election year right now, it has turned divisive. And we did tailor- trace this back to this really started about two weeks ago. Even in demos where we're talking about AI features- ... the data center issue is coming up. And, like, all these things are, like, top of mind, front and center. Craig O'Neill: "Oh, I can't believe you guys are engaging with AI stuff in this world right now." And it's oh, wow, hot button issue. You have an AI assistant, you probably are gonna have a 50/50 split. I'm y- I'm talking 50/50. Some people will love it and think it's fine or just tolerate it. The other 50% are going to hate it, hate you, and may never call you again. Craig O'Neill: And congratulations, now we're in 2026. Yep. Jimmy Lea: And I, I think the 50/50 might be a little, Craig O'Neill: I'm just thinking about how the elections play out- Jimmy Lea: Yeah ... for two different parties. I propose there's probably a 30%, maybe a 33% that loves it, 33%- Fair ... that hates it, and 33% that's in that middle that says, "Ah." Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: I Craig O'Neill: would love to see a strong third party too, Jimmy, but that's neither here nor there. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. So look at this though. We talked orientation. We don't have a whole organization structured towards retention. Now I had a great coach. Bob Greenwood was my coach. He passed away 2021. And I talk about this frequently. I echo what he taught me a long time ago, and he described our professional responsibility. Craig O'Neill: He asked the question, "What's our job? What's our job? What is your job?" I remember being the technician in the room that raised my hand, and I told him what he was expecting someone in the room to raise their hand and say. Jimmy Lea: Fix cars. " Craig O'Neill: I fix cars." Yep. He pounced. He was ready. This is what he did. I've seen him do it multiple conversations after that. Craig O'Neill: He said, "No. Your job, your professional responsibility, is to make sure the vehicle's safe, reliable, and efficient. That's the job. And that, Mr. Client, is why we do a multi-point inspection on every vehicle that we do, and we will send this digitally to you, and we won't let you down." And there's lots more that goes into that, but there's a whole underlaying sense of purpose about the service that we provided. Craig O'Neill: And if that is our job, to make sure the vehicle's safe, reliable, and efficient, we owe it to our customers to be participants in that- Yeah ... as a member of the community of which they are also driving in. It has direct benefits to us and the other people we love on the streets. But that's an orientation, right? Craig O'Neill: And if that is what you believe about your purpose in this industry- Amen ... yeah, we're gonna start following up with the strong ability to communicate that sense of purpose, and people will hear the conviction in there and that commitment that you made to not letting them down. And that is not going to be heard in your competitors. Craig O'Neill: If you master this, and you don't, you will stand out, I promise you. Jimmy Lea: It's true. It's true. Yeah. Craig, this is a, a phenomenal conversation that we're having, talking about all things marketing, customers, customer relationships. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Managing those relationships, communicating in their preferred method, form, and fashion. Jimmy Lea: This is gonna continue in our Mars Conference. I can't wait. Let's throw up that QR code again. If you are able to attend, and you are listening to this, today is... What day is today? Craig O'Neill: Today is the 9th. Jimmy Lea: September 9th It's called Wednesday. September 9th, intensive giveaway winners. Oh, don't forget the giveaway winners here, Craig. Jimmy Lea: We've- Oh ... le- but- Great Do you wanna announce the winners first, or do you wanna announce the the special giveaway for everybody listening? Craig O'Neill: Let's do the winners first, Jimmy. I'm excited. So we had a drawing as we had two tickets to give away to Mars, and we have two winners, and we'll be sending emails to these winners as well. Craig O'Neill: Winner number one, Preston Callahan. Winner number two, Jordan Jawarenko. And we will get those emails out to you and hope to see you in Utah. And yeah bring your hiking shoes if you wanna go up in the hills with me. I definitely encourage getting up in the hills. So- Jimmy Lea: Are you gonna be rucking? Craig O'Neill: Oh, see, when I'm in the hills I don't just bring useless weight, I bring actual hiking gear, so I just call it hiking when I'm actually in a mountain. Jimmy Lea: When you're in Utah, you go hiking. Yeah. Everywhere else it's Craig O'Neill: rucking. Yeah. Rucking is what I would call urban hiking. Jimmy Lea: It's for you flatlanders. Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Yeah. So no, I will definitely be ha- I have a pack, I have I put water in there for weight and snacks that I can eat, and the, the idea is you get it lighter as you go with that sort of stuff, but- Oh ... it's absolutely beautiful. So these- Yeah ... are the winners from the Autoflow drawing that we'd had. Craig O'Neill: Those of you who did not win on that drawing, we'll still email you and hope to see you in Utah. Take advantage of this promotion. I think it's gonna be a great conversation. I've done this intensive multiple times. Jimmy, I gotta give you guys some props on this because this is my favorite format literally in all events that I go to. Craig O'Neill: You're in one room together at your headquarters in Ogden, Utah- Yeah ... which is a cool town. Everyone hears the same presenter. We get everyone here asking those same questions, and then- Yep ... the next presenter's gonna be up, and then we do that. We have great food in between, and then there's breakout sessions afterward where we get to go and break out into groups and discuss everything that's done. Craig O'Neill: No one's missing any of the context from any of the presentations. It's not like you're in one session and then another session is going on and "Man, that would've been a cool talk too, but this is really good." You don't have any fear of missing out on anything that's happening. Everybody's a participant the whole way. Craig O'Neill: It's awesome. Jimmy Lea: Oh, and I love the, the vendors are included. Everyone is in the same- Yeah ... room, and we're having these conversations together. It's not just shop owner to shop owner point of view. We get everybody's point of view in on these conversations- Yeah ... which is super awesome. All right. So if you scan this QR code, grab out your smartphone, scan this QR code, this is a coupon. Jimmy Lea: It is on- coupon, oh, I hate calling it that. Yeah. This is a special member VIP. Because you are watching this webinar, this is a cu- the, this code is good until 12:00 AM tomorrow morning, Pacific Daylight Time The code is, and I have to switch over to my other computer, the code is Mars300. This is $300 off of the general admission pricing. Jimmy Lea: So you and a- anybody of the public that is out there, you will get the webinar, the the whole entire intensive, Mars Intensive at the institute member pricing. So use the code Mars, M-A-R-S 300, and that is good until, for in the next, what? 12 hours? Craig O'Neill: Yeah. Where are we? 10, 12- And after Jimmy Lea: you fill that out- Oh, 13 hours. Jimmy Lea: You got 13 hours. Ready, set, go. Go ahead ... after Craig O'Neill: you fill that out, email us and I will tell you my favorite two sushi joints in Ogden, Utah, and maybe we can even grab a bite there. Jimmy Lea: Ooh, that's great. And you know what? We do have a couple of more tickets available. There's not a lot, but there are a few more tickets available for that exclusive dinner with Cecil Bullard. Craig O'Neill: Nice. Jimmy Lea: We're gonna have some great conversations. Those that are speakers are invited to be able to be part of this conversation and it's an exclusive dinner with Cecil, so you're gonna have some really good, intense, great conversations with the speakers of the event, with Cecil being there. These are gonna be some really good focused conversations. Jimmy Lea: Those Craig O'Neill: are my favorite moments, Jimmy. Yeah, the event is one thing, but the conversations that happen throughout and at dinners these... If you're not frequently going to industry events like this is... You owe it to yourself to do this. The ideas that you get to go back with are phenomenal, and the connections that you make and the sense of community that you feel that, that's permanent Jimmy Lea: Agreed. Jimmy Lea: Agreed. Couldn't have said it better. Thank you, Craig. Oh, yeah. Congratulations to Preston. Congratulations to Jordan. Look forward to seeing you in Ogden, Utah, October 26th, 27th and 28th, right before SEMA Apex. And for those who are the adventurous types rent a car. Let's go drive down through Zion and Bryce Canyon and- Yes Jimmy Lea: I'm sure Craig Craig O'Neill: and- Zion. If you haven't been to Zion National Park, what is that place? It is beautiful. It is. Southern Utah, phenomenal, dude. I could go... We have another hour here, so we can just talk about Southern Utah. Man, dude- ... you guys have got the pocket of beauty in this world. It is phenomenal. Craig O'Neill: Like- Jimmy Lea: It's gorgeous. Yeah. It is gorgeous. Craig O'Neill: Absolutely. You will... And Salt Lake City's no joke either. You fly in there, you're gonna think, "This is amazing," and it is. And then you go to Southern Utah and you think "What is... It gets better?" Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. Glad you had a great experience with your family down there in Southern Utah. Craig O'Neill: Dude, my wife and I are flying out a little early. We're staying through the weekend before the Mars Intensive we're gonna be hiking some hills then too. It's hard to get the bigger hikes in between the event stuff. Jimmy Lea: Yes. Craig O'Neill: It gets dark- Yes, it is ... it gets hard on the mountain. Jimmy Lea: It does. It does. Jimmy Lea: Even with that, it's not quite enough. I got you. With that, thank you, Craig. I appreciate you being here, brother. Oh, thanks. Thank you so much. Look forward to Mars- Can't wait ... the Mars Intensive. Let's continue this conversation. Let's get in deeper with these conversations and have a great time. I will see you there. Jimmy Lea: Thank you, everybody. See Craig O'Neill: you soon.

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The Institute's Leading Edge PodcastSeptember 3 · 1h 4m

217 - AMA: How the Best Shops are Confident in their Pricing

217 - AMA: How the Best Shops are Confident in their Pricing September 3, 2026 - 01:03:32 Show Summary: Profitable auto repair shops build pricing around financial data instead of fear or competitor rates. Rising technician pay and rapidly advancing vehicle technology make strong margins essential for investing in people training and equipment. Confidence comes from understanding the true cost of doing business and recognizing the value a skilled independent shop provides. Customers are often willing to pay more when they trust the quality and experience behind the service. Strong systems and productive teams also give owners the foundation needed to grow without sacrificing profitability. Long term success requires clean financials clear value and the willingness to charge what the business needs to thrive. Host(s): Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute Show Highlights: [00:01:00] – Rising technician pay makes accurate pricing more important than ever. [00:07:00] – Setting prices based on competitors leaves shop owners flying blind. [00:12:00] – Great technicians use diagnostic data but often ignore business data. [00:19:00] – Confidence means explaining why quality automotive repair costs more. [00:27:00] – Low prices can actually make customers question service quality. [00:31:00] – Build operating reserves before expanding into another shop. [00:37:00] – Create a shared vision to earn staff support for pricing changes. [00:44:00] – Automotive pricing has failed to keep pace with rising costs. [00:53:00] – Independent technicians bring valuable diagnostic skills to complex repairs. [00:59:00] – Clean financials create confidence in what your shop must charge. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? 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/bk5g3FjpoEo 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: Lucas Underwood: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Lucas Underwood from Changing the Industry podcast. I'm a shop owner here in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, own LNN Performance Automotive Repair, and today I have the honor to be joined by Cecil J. Bullard, and we are talking pricing here, uh, on today's show, and we're talking about confidence in pricing. Cecil, buddy, how are you? Cecil Bullard: I'm great. I'm Lucas Underwood: great. You're not a has-been yet? Cecil Bullard: Not yet, brother. I'm a still-was, I think, or maybe never was. I don't know, man. Lucas Underwood: I'm a something, right? Cecil Bullard: I'm something. Somebody knows who I am. Lucas Underwood: Man, I love it, and, and listen, we're talking pricing today, and it's really interesting. I'm, I'm headed up to Kentucky, uh, for the Survive or Thrive Thoroughbred Diesel event in October, and I was working on a presentation for them, and it's really about my story as a shop owner. And for those who don't know, I, I started in diesel performance. I was selling diesel performance parts, and one of the things that we faced in the diesel performance world is they had these MAP prices, and all of these online vendors were selling their parts for MAP prices, and I thought I had to compete with that. And one of the biggest challenges I ever faced as a shop owner was overcoming that fear of charging what I needed to charge. So Cecil, how do we get these shop owners who are listening, these shop owners who are gonna view this later, to the place that they're confident in their pricing? Cecil Bullard: It, it's, it's a, a combination of multiple things obviously. I mean, we, uh, I think if you understand, um ... So let's ... See, this is gonna jump around like it always does. Uh, you keep me on focus. Um- Bet. I'll Lucas Underwood: do what I can. No promises. Cecil Bullard: Right, right now we, we have this, this, uh, techs coming in. Uh, had one yesterday, uh, you know, uh, one of my clients is interviewing a tech, and the guy's saying, "I want 100 grand guaranteed." And, uh, you know, I would tell you two years ago that was probably 65 or 70 maybe. Yeah. And so now it's 100,000. And so we have this, um, uh, you know, the, the, the shortage, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, uh, we have a demand, and we have, uh, a necessity of probably paying more. So if I understand, you know, what I'm paying and why I'm paying it and what I need to pay, then I also have to relate that to my pricing. Because- Yeah ... um, if I don't charge enough, I don't get paid enough to pay the person that I need to enough to buy the equipment, to buy the training. And y- you know, when I, uh, was, was working as a tech, which is a long time ago, um- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: and, and people will go, "Oh, wow, did the cars have wooden tires?" Yeah. "Or were they rubber?" I was Lucas Underwood: gonna say, I, I Cecil Bullard: can't believe- They, they were rubber, man ... we had Lucas Underwood: cars that long ago, you Cecil Bullard: know? They were, they were rubber, yeah. But, but, um, you know, classes were, uh, few and far between frankly. Mm-hmm. Uh, mainly manufacturers had classes. We didn't have a lot of the aftermarket stuff like Asta that's coming up where we could get great tech training there or- Yeah you know, great management training. Um, and it wasn't ... But it also was very inexpensive in comparison maybe to what training is today. And the cars, of course, were a lot simpler. So there's this idea that, okay, what I'm doing ... Uh, and I think this might be one of the core problems we have with shop owners. They do not understand the value of what they do- For sure ... their knowledge, right? Yeah. Most of them, you know, uh, we still have a, probably a higher percentage of people in our industry that were not ... You know, they don't have a college degree. They didn't, uh, you know, have a master's degree in, in automotive technology or- Yeah or, you know, engineering or whatever that is. Um, and many of these guys, I had a, again, a conversation, uh, Sunday with one of the clients that, um, you know, he's like, "I, I didn't even graduate high school," right? "I, I, uh, I got into drugs. I went to, I went to prison. Uh, I got out of prison. I started to be a mechanic 'cause I, that's, I could do that." And now he owns a shop, and a pretty successful shop. Now he owns a couple pieces of property. And, but- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: I think if we don't value what we do- Or we don't see the value in what we do. And I also think that, that we have blinders on as, uh- Mm ... shop owners because all we really see, uh, we, and, and how we interpret what we see is probably, uh, very limited. So I drive down- Lucas Underwood: Yeah, through our lens. Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: I drive down these five streets to get to work, and there are three shops, and I drive by, you know, Billy Bob's shop, who is the cheapest guy in town, and I know that, and man, he's got a lot of cars parked outside that shop. He's always got a lot of cars. And then my phone doesn't seem to be ringing, and it's- Yeah a real, it's a natural leap to go, "Well, my price must be too high," right? Lucas Underwood: For sure. For Cecil Bullard: sure. Uh, as opposed, uh, as opposed to, number one, I don't know what Billy Bob's costs are. Yeah. I don't know if Billy Bob, uh, is paying rent, you know, how much rent. Uh, I don't know what Billy Bob's- Yeah ... paying his technicians. Don't Lucas Underwood: even know if he's doing any marketing. Right? And frankly- Those could all be comebacks, right? Yeah, and, and- Like, we don't know Cecil Bullard: Yeah, and frankly, I don't even know if he's making any money at all, right? He might be losing three grand a month, and- Lucas Underwood: That, that's a- But- That's a great point, right? Because I, I've been- Right there, done that, right? Because I, I, I was the guy riding by the other shops, looking at the other shops saying, "Oh, look how busy they are. Look at what they've got going on," not realizing that some of those cars had been sitting there for weeks. They hadn't- Yeah, for months ... got anything done. Yeah. Right. And, and a, as I dug in and I started talking to these guys, I'm going and talking to them, I'm realizing, hey, listen, they're doing twice the amount of work for the same amount of money. I'd rather have an empty parking lot and make the amount of money I'm making as I would- Cecil Bullard: Oh, yeah, yeah. If I'm not gonna make any money, I'd rather not work. I mean- Lucas Underwood: Exactly ... holy smokes, right? Exactly, and look, here, here's what I keep seeing, and I talk to shop owner after shop owner, and this- You know, David gets frustrated because we keep having this discussion over and over again. And he said- Yeah ... "Why do we keep having this discussion?" I said, "Because all of these techs leave shops and decide to start their own mobile mechanic business. They decide to start their own shop. They go out on their own and they do their own thing. And so we have to continue to teach them because they were uninterested in this when they were technicians. They didn't care." And eventually what happens is we have these new folks coming in, they get burnt, they're trying to figure out, "Why can't I pay my bills? This isn't working for me. What's going on? Why doesn't this work?" And Cecil Bullard: so then we- And by the way, they- when- Go ahead ... when people see this or, or people that are watching, many of them will be barely making a living. You know? Yeah. They, what they have is a bad job that doesn't- Yeah ... pay well. So I work- Lucas Underwood: Exactly. 100% ... Cecil Bullard: I work 70, 80 hours a week, and I, I can't go to my daughter's play and I can't do this and I can't do that, um, because I'm trying to get this car fixed so I have the money to go in the bank to pay the bills. And, and they're- They're payrolls we- ... trapped in this, they're- Yeah ... trapped in this thing, and, uh, they don't understand that, that you don't have to be trapped in that thing. Lucas Underwood: For sure. Right? And, and here's the thing, is, is over and over and over again, I have this discussion. Right? I talk to, to hundreds of shop owners and techs becoming shop owners through the span of a given month, right? Talk to- Yeah ... tons of them. Get a message every single hour throughout every single day- Yeah, every day ... from somebody, right? Cecil Bullard: I'm glad I'm not you, baby. Lucas Underwood: And so what I'm noticing is, is they're all going out and they're setting their prices, and they're using what I like to call the Oreo pricing method. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: So they've got, you know, shop over here's on the high end, shop over here's on the low end, I'm gonna be somewhere in the middle. And I talk to them and I say, "Guys, hey, listen. I don't know if you know this, but you should probably be using data to set your prices. And that data comes from your financials, and otherwise you're flying blind because you don't know if you're pricing yourself correctly or not because you're not using the data. Now yeah, we can give you some numbers that the industry standard is, and we can get you 90% of the way there," but they all panic when you give them those numbers, Cecil. Cecil Bullard: But I'm also- They have a- I'm also, I'm also not sure there's an industry standard because- That's true ... you know, we still have shops, you know, uh, that are probably under $100 an hour in the industry. Yeah. I mean, there's that mobile guy that's out there for 80 bucks an hour. Lucas Underwood: Yeah, yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, uh, I've got shops that are- And thinks he's Lucas Underwood: doing them favors. Thinks he's doing- Yeah, Cecil Bullard: and I've Lucas Underwood: got- ... the guest a favor, man. Come on now. Cecil Bullard: I've got shops that are in the same- General location that are 250 an hour. Yeah. So I don't, I don't know that there's an industry standard. I don't think there is a standard. But- In fact... Yeah. Lucas Underwood: Here, here's the problem though, is that it- standard or no standard, the reality is, is they're setting their price- Survive ... based on feel. Yeah. They're setting their price based on what the market looks like around them and what they suspect the market will bear. And, and I'm telling you, would you go out and say, "I feel like this car needs a $4,000 control module"? No, you wouldn't do that because that's asinine. That's stupid. Why would you take your business, which has the potential to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue every single year, every single month in some cases- Cecil Bullard: Yeah Lucas Underwood: and take a gamble with it? Why would you do that? You wouldn't do that with a client's car. It just makes Cecil Bullard: no sense to me. Well, you know, we, we don't like... I, I wouldn't go to a doctor that didn't have a degree, and I don't mean this in the sense that mechanic-wise. I'm just saying if I knew the guy was a quack, I wouldn't go there because I don't want somebody- Yeah guessing about my health, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And yet I have this business, and, and my business has done everything for me, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Don't get me wrong, I've also done everything for my business, right? Yeah. But, but my business provides the money that allows me to live the lifestyle, that allows me to help the industry, that allows me to drive a nice truck, that allows me to, you know, have a, a nice coat- Yeah if I want it, that feeds my family. You know, and we can eat steak and, you know, all that. The, the business is the engine that runs your life- Yeah ... in a way, okay? And so I've got this thing that literally can create generational wealth- Mm-hmm ... or it can be a bad job where I work too hard too long and don't, and don't get paid for it. Be a burden take away from Lucas Underwood: my family. Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So, like, I, I'm talking to, uh, another shop a couple of days ago and, and we're talking about, uh, they're gonna- they wanna hire this guy who wants $100,000. And I'm like, "Okay, we can do that," right? Yeah. And I'm like, "Uh, so that's," whatever, it's 50 bucks an hour basically. And, and so, uh, what's our effective labor rate? Well, our effective labor rate's probably not what our po- Our, I think the posted labor rate was between 155 and 175, depending on the kind of car and the job we're doing and- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: and but the effective labor rate was probably 130, 140. And, and so now you're... I'm doing math saying, "Okay, it's $50." Then I've got 30% load, so it's really 65. And then if the guy comes in and he's only, say, 80% productive, then my cost goes from, say, 65 probably all the way up into the high 80s. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And now I'm paying out 55% of the labor I brought in- Instead of 40%. And so that difference of that 15% is the difference in my profit, right? Yeah. And it means I don't make money in most shops. Exactly. Yeah. Many shops are, are not even making 5% profit. Lucas Underwood: Hey. Cecil Bullard: And, and so if you're gonna lose 15% because you hired the wrong guy or you didn't price yourself correctly- Yeah ... or you didn't hold the line or you didn't build value, um, and you're gonna end up losing that 15% and only make 4%, then you have a terrible job with terrible hours and terrible pay. Um- Lucas Underwood: With no return on investment. Yeah. And, and he- here's on top of all of that, like when we look at this and we think about the whole strategy here behind setting our pricing and everything else, like profit doesn't happen by accident, okay? Cecil Bullard: No. Lucas Underwood: You're not gonna just walk into your shop one day and say, "I think the number needs to be X", and set that number and be profitable. Now, you might get lucky. Yeah. You might actually become profitable. But without clean books, without good data, without the ability to look and, and dig into the information- It's very unlikely you're gonna be Cecil Bullard: wrong Well, that's the other thing. That's the other thing that makes me a, a little bit crazy. We have these guys that are really great technicians. And- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: they're great technicians because of, they have the education, they have the hands-on experience, they have the right tools, the right equipment, and they also know how to read the data. Yeah. So, you know, I hook up the car, I get the, this from the scanner. It tr- I track down to the oxygen sensor. I know how to test the oxygen sensor. I know what good is, I know what bad is. I know how to look at a, a wave, uh, uh, form for a injector, and I know what good is and I know what bad is. Yeah. And so they, they do that in their job every day in their life because they think that's important and because it is, but they don't do the same thing in their business. Yeah. They, they literally pull stuff out of the air, or they listen to somebody like me, and they go, "Well, that guy's crazy 'cause he's saying we should be $220 an hour- Yeah. Yeah ... and there's no way we could be... We, every one of our clients- And let emotion drive it ... would run away. Um, you were, you were talking about the, um, the event that's coming up, the diesel event, Thoroughbred. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I was at, at Thoroughbred, uh, last year and the previous year. And so the previous year, uh, you know, I did a thing and, and talked about the numbers and all of that. And so the next year I'm there and I, I said, uh, "Is anyone here that joined up with the institute or became a client in the la- you know, from the last meeting?" Yeah. And there's a guy, uh, raised his hand a- and I said, "Okay. Um, if you don't mind me asking, and if you're willing to share, what is your labor rate, uh, when we started a year ago? When you joined the institute, what was your labor rate when you first came to this?" And he said, s- uh, he was like, "$79 an hour." Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Right? And I was like, "Okay. And so I'm assuming that you walked away and you said, 'I'm gonna raise my labor rate.'" And he said, "Yeah." And, and I said, "Okay. If you don't mind me asking, what did you raise it to?" Right? He said, "Well, today we're at $180 an hour." Yeah. A year. Yeah. He went up over $100 an hour a year. Now he was- Didn't lose Lucas Underwood: all of his clients. Cecil Bullard: A- no. And I said, "Okay. A- and so how many clients realistically, just, just be as honest as you can, how many clients did you lose? Did you lose any?" And he went, "Yeah, we lost a few." Right? Yeah. And I said, "Okay. And, and who were they?" He said, "They were the people who would never pay us to do the work." I mean- Yep ... he lost maybe 3% of his clients. Yeah. And at, at 3%, so what? I mean- Exactly ... his labor rate- Lucas Underwood: 100%. Cecil Bullard: Think, think about, think about three guys, let's say they're only doing 70%. So- Mm-hmm ... you got three guys doing about six hours a day. You got 18 hours a day. If your labor rate goes up 100 bucks- Lucas Underwood: Yeah Cecil Bullard: that's $18,000 a day, right? Did I do that right? 1,800, uh, 1,800... It's $18,000 a day in a- uh, additional profit that because your labor rate went up 100 bucks, right? And- A- and most people, they're like, they can't even fathom that, right? They, first of all, they don't run the math. They don't figure it out. They're, they're diagnosing based on emotion, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um- 100%. I, I, uh, you know, I had a cl- if you, if you're in this industry, if you're in, in the industry, I don't care where you are, I don't care who you are today, you're gonna deal with price objections- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: every time. Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. Cecil Bullard: And, and, and you're gonna deal with a lot of them. Uh, you and I were kinda talking about that before we started. I mean, right now, uh, a lot of people are out of money. They don't know what's going on. The price of gas is, you know, higher than- Yeah ... it should be, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What's Trump doing? What's... What, what are the Democrats doing? What are the socialists doing? Um- Yeah. Credit card delinquencies- A lot of them- Lucas Underwood: are through the roof. Yeah. Car loans are through the roof. Delinquencies are through the roof. Cecil Bullard: A- and, and you're gonna deal with price objection. And the problem is, if you don't know how to deal with price objection and, and understand your value and be able to, uh, create value for your client- Yeah ... then you're not gonna win the game. 100%. And, and, and what's gonna h- the other thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna get this emotional response, and the emotional response is, "Wow, I have these people that are beating me up on price. And number one, I, it's uncomfortable for me, and I don't wanna be uncomfortable, so what do I do?" Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: "Well, let's lower our price." Yeah. I've shopped in, um, Tennessee- And, uh, the owner was like, "Yeah, we're really struggling right now," blah, blah, blah. Uh, I lowered the price on a, a, uh, several of our jobs, and I'm... I, I just wanna, like, you know... Yeah. Um, and, and what happened was his marketing was bringing the wrong customers in. Yep. It wasn't that- Reaching Lucas Underwood: the wrong people ... Cecil Bullard: we changed the marketing companies, we changed marketing strategies, and all of a sudden the shop is full and people are paying a full price. They're not discounted, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Here, here's the thing is, is you're right, because it is all emotion. And, and- Yes for so long it's been driven by emotion, it's not been driven by data. And one of the things that we fall victim to, and, and I'm gonna tell you one of the greatest David rants of all time, and I was there to witness the telephone call. Because David, say what you want about the guy, he's extraordinarily intelligent, right? Absolutely. And I'm not saying that because he's my best friend. I love David. I'm saying that... Yeah. Yeah. If you really could get David to show you how smart David actually is, it would amaze the people who have negative things to say about him. Yeah. The man is genius level. I would say he's in the top 3% of- He just Cecil Bullard: gets frustrated. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: He... And by the way, if you're really smart, you get frustrated- Yeah ... easier. Lucas Underwood: Exactly, because everything looks easy to you. You're just like- Yeah ... "Why are you this stupid?" Um, and- And then- That's why Cecil Bullard: we're friends, right? And then if you don't learn how to con- It works ... if you don't learn how to control that, it gets you in trouble. So. But, Lucas Underwood: but here's the thing is we, we were riding down the road one day, and this lady is, is fussing about his price. And he said, "I'm sorry, can you help me understand something?" And she said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "Are you an expert in automotive repair?" And she said, "No, I, I, I just own a car." And he said, "Okay, are you an expert in automotive parts?" And she said, "No, I, I, I'm not." And he said, "Okay, are you an expert in automotive diagnostics and testing?" And she said, "No, I'm not." I said, "Do you..." Or she said, "Do I... You know, what, what are you getting at here?" And he said, "I'm asking because I do this for a living. Every single day I make estimates to properly repair automobiles. I, I make sure that I get the torque-to-yield fasteners on. I make sure that I get all the gaskets on. I make sure that I have the part pricing proper so I can stand behind the repair after I'm done." Cecil Bullard: And qu- and a quality part is Lucas Underwood: not a- And a quality part. It's a, I am- And I, I am, I am a professional- Yeah ... at estimating your job. You are not. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I don't need you sitting here telling me what the price should be unless you're an expert in pricing it. Now, if you want a different quality product, go somewhere else." Cecil Bullard: Yeah, 'cause that's not what I do, right? Lucas Underwood: And she stopped and she said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You can, you can go down the street and you can have somebody do this job with poor quality parts, not using the torque-to-yield fasteners, not torquing things to spec, lowering the time using a, a poor quality technician, and you can do that if you want. If you wanna take that risk, that's your business, but you're getting what you pay for." Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And the lady said Just do the work. Cecil Bullard: Oh my. Lucas Underwood: And so- Right. Yeah ... it, it was so interesting because it's a completely different mentality than most shops take. Because the consumer comes to them and says, "I can't believe you're gonna charge that. That seems really expensive." It is really expensive because it's expensive- Yeah ... to fix a modern automobile. Yeah, I mean- But instead what do we do? We quiver, we shake inside, we get upset, our little hearts beat fast and we're like, "Oh, God, what do we do?" Cecil Bullard: So- And- ... I bou- I bought my first truck, um, uh, 40 years ago. And, uh, shortly after I bought, I bought a Toyota truck, and it was, it was kinda basic. It didn't have a lot of- Yeah ... crap in it. And that truck was, I think, uh, like eight grand or something. Seven, eight grand. It was not much. Yeah. And, and like, uh, two months later my wife was pregnant with our first and so I had to get rid of the truck and get something- Yeah that we had back seats in. But, but- Lucas Underwood: Yeah, they didn't like it- Cecil Bullard: I Lucas Underwood: bought a- ... back then when you put them in the back- Cecil Bullard: Right ... in Lucas Underwood: the snow. Cecil Bullard: I, yeah. In Lucas Underwood: Utah. Cecil Bullard: I, yeah. I bou- I bought a, a new truck, uh, about a year and a half ago. It was $82,000. Right? I mean, that comparison, I, I bought my first house. My dad's house was 13,000, my first house was 100,000. Uh, I think, you know, we're paying somewhere between six and 800,000 for houses out here today. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and you know, everything, what, what kills me is kinda this, you know, I, I don't know, I went to, um, uh, Jack in the Box, uh, this morning and got a couple of, uh, croissants, one for me and- Yeah ... and one for Kent. And, and it was 15 bucks. Yeah. And I was like, "Those used to be two bucks a piece." That was the- Exactly ... you know, two years ago it was $4. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, a- and you know what I did? I gave them my credit card and I paid for it, right? Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Didn't say a word. Didn't Cecil Bullard: fuss. Didn't- And I didn't say a thing. And- Yeah ... I had to fill up the truck on the way home the other day. It was $4 and, whatever, 38 cents a gallon. Yeah. It was $4.38 a gallon. I got a 32 gallon tank. I mean, it was almost $80 to fill up the truck. And, and you know what I did? Filled up the tank. I ran my card through the machine and paid it and walked away. Yeah. I went to the grocery store, right? And, and eggs were, I don't know, whatever eggs are. Milk was whatever milk was. I spent $400 on, I don't know, a third of a basket of food. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and you know what I did? I paid it and walked out and, and I didn't think about it because that's the way it is. Lucas Underwood: You know, my first business coach taught me a very valuable lesson. He said, um, he said, "You're selling from your wallet." Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You're selling from your wallet. Everything's from your perspective. And because you're broke, because you're not charging what you need to charge, everything feels expensive. So when you're pricing it, it does feel expensive." And so later on we had this discussion, we're talking about discounts. Because- Yeah ... it, now listen, I, I don't mean to, like, get y'all enraged here. I know it's going to. But here's the thing is like when we talk about this, all these shop owners come up and they say, "No, no, no, my labor rate's $200 an hour. My, my part margin's 60%." Cecil Bullard: Oh, but then they- Lucas Underwood: Why do you have $150,000- Well, they give it away on the other side in discounts? Yeah. Yeah. Right? And, and so he- Cecil Bullard: I see the financials. I'm like, I'm like, "You made t- $2,000 last month, but you had $12,000 in discounts." Lucas Underwood: Right. Exactly. Cecil Bullard: Help, help me understand that, right? Lucas Underwood: And so he- Cecil Bullard: How... Yeah. Lucas Underwood: Well, my, my first coach said to me, he said, um, "I've, I've got a, I've got a rule that you're gonna implement in your shop." And he said, "This is just a set rule. This is what it is." And I said, "What?" He said, "If you feel like giving a damn discount," he said- Yes, absolutely ... "I want you to keep some money in your wallet- Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Big Lucas Underwood: time ... and I want you to go up here and pull that money out of your wallet." I said, "Well, I ain't got no money." He said, "That's my point. You don't have any Cecil Bullard: damn money." And you, and you, and by the way, you never will if you, if you don't stay ahead on the straight. Lucas Underwood: Keep doing what you're doing. Cecil Bullard: Right. Lucas Underwood: And, and- You have to- But see- ... stay ahead on the straight ... we don't think about that, Cecil. We're so- Yeah ... disconnected because we're focused on fixing the car. And, and it, I believe it's a mindset, okay? Because we're back there in the bays and we're turning the wrenches, and in our mind, the, the desired outcome is that car gets fixed. And so we begin to change whatever it takes to get the car fixed. Well, I could lower the quality of the part. I could, I could reduce my labor rate a little bit. I could give them a discount here. Maybe I don't use that part there. Cecil Bullard: No, Lucas Underwood: it's to get the- Because we're technicians, we're- Cecil Bullard: It's not to get the car fixed. And, and I, I understand what you're saying. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: But it's to get the car in, right? I believe that in order to get that car in, I need to bring my price down. I need to be, quote-unquote, price competitive. Except- Tell me what price competitive is. I have shops- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: I probably have, um, in some areas I have three or four shops that we work with, and the price variance between those shops that are in, within 30 miles of each other can be as much as $60 or $80 an hour. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And by the way, the shops that are most successful are not the cheaper shops. Yeah. They're the higher price shops. Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: Because I think the consumer, there's this thing about price. So I'm, I'm in Edmonton doing a, a gig, and there's a Mercedes shop up there, and this is, I don't know, six, eight years ago, pre-COVID. And, uh, the, the lady that ran the Mercedes shop, she was like, "We can't... Nobody is booking, you know, the phone rings, but nobody wants to come into the shop." And they're a Mercedes shop. And I looked at the shop and it was, you know, it was, it was okay. It wasn't, like, filthy, it wasn't terrible, yada, yada. And, and you know, I called the shop, and it wasn't a bad con- It wasn't a great conversation. It wasn't a bad conversation. And I asked her, I said, "Well, what's your labor rate?" Now, by the way, at the time, say eight years ago, my shops up in Edmonton were between 130 and 160. All right? Lucas Underwood: Mm-hmm. Cecil Bullard: And she was 75 bucks an hour. Yeah. And I said, "Okay, if you own a Mercedes, right, and you're not the fourth owner, you know, the guy that- Yeah the, it's the hand-me-down Mercedes that I got that's not fixed, that's t- you know, falling apart- Yeah ... I have no money. If you're the second owner of the Mercedes or the first owner of the Mercedes, and somebody says, "Well, you know, my price is half of what everybody else's is," what's the first thing that comes into your mind? You know, if you, if you saw, I don't know, if you saw, uh, let's say, uh, tamales, right? You got, uh, tamales. You go in the grocery store, and there's two kinds of tamales. Yeah. They, they kind of look the same, but not exactly the same. And one of them for six tamales is 12 bucks, and the other one is three. Which one are you buying? Lucas Underwood: I Cecil Bullard: know, I'm telling you. I'm not buying the, I'm not buying the $3 tamales. That's a, that's a chance that number one, I'm not gonna like them, and number two, it could make me sick, blah, blah, blah. Might have Lucas Underwood: that listeria added in there. I'm, Cecil Bullard: yeah, I'm buying the $12 tamales. It- Between the ch- I- if I'm thinking about price, right? At all. Lucas Underwood: For sure. I, we, we had those cabins, right, where the shop's at, there used to be nine cabins here. Yeah. And for years they were $100 a night, and they were log cabins. Actual log cabins with a kitchen, with a sleeper sofa, and a living room, and a dining room, had a shower and a, a bathroom. Some of them had hot tubs, had a, a bedroom. And the, the occupancy rate stayed in the 40% range, and my parents were, were content with that. It was paying the bills. It wasn't that big of a deal. They're making Cecil Bullard: enough money to pay the overhead. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. My brother came in and decided he was gonna raise the prices, started charging $225 a night, and our occupancy jumped to 80%. Yeah. Nothing else changed. No marketing, no nothing else changed. And people started coming in saying, "I thought there was something wrong with them. I thought they were gross or nasty or something." ' Cecil Bullard: Cause they were, 'cause they were so cheap. Lucas Underwood: Because they were so cheap. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we don't think about that perspective. And I, I'm telling you, I buy things on Amazon, and I'll see two exact comparisons side by side. Like, I'm not gonna get the cheap one 'cause there's a reason it's cheaper, right? Cecil Bullard: Yeah, when I see the cheap, my, my thoughts are, uh, I just bought, uh, uh, some stuff yesterday and I saw the cheap stuff, and I was like, "I, I don't wanna buy that. It's too risky for me." Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Right? It, it might not be... It might be some Chinese whatever, because I don't know. I mean, it looks like the product, but it's, it, it probably isn't. At that price, it can't be, right? Lucas Underwood: How... Uh, so look, here's the thing, because we, we're talking about confidence, right? And, and at the root, we, we know that the pricing has to go up in this industry. We know that- Yes ... beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yeah. There, there's no if, ands, or buts about it. Nope. And because we, we need to be paying our guys more. I don't think anybody debates that. And if you do debate that- Man, come on now. Second of all- Cecil Bullard: If you're, if, if you're not making 15% net profit minimum- Yep ... on your business, and your business isn't designed to make 20% net, then- Oh you're gonna end up with Ford and struggle. Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Absolutely. Cecil Bullard: Go ahead. Sorry. Lucas Underwood: And, and so here's the thing is, is the confidence piece of this. Because we know that the price needs to go up. We don't have to debate that the price needs to go up. How do we get shop owners to the point they're confident in sharing that price? And I, I think there's a, a, a myriad of things, and I, I think that a lot of small business owners tend to be people pleasers, and that's something that I am learning myself to overcome. And, and I'm trying to work on this concept that if you're not happy, I have to be unhappy, too. And I'm growing and developing in that, but I've, I've realized, like, hey, I can't let that person's emotion dictate my emotion. And so when they- What do you think- Go ahead. Cecil Bullard: What do you think the future of automotive repair... Who do you think are gonna be the existing successful shops, say, 10 years from now, right? Lucas Underwood: Well, I know we're gonna have venture capital and private equity with a bunch of big chain shops bought up. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's gonna be a handful of small independents left that, that could overcome the financial challenges associated with small business ownership and automotive repair in the, uh, in the 2030s. Cecil Bullard: It's all about... It will, it will all, it will all be about a couple of things. First of all- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: it's not about fixing the car. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: You have to fix the car, okay? That, that's a given. That's the base level Lucas Underwood: expectation. Cecil Bullard: That's a, that's a base level. That's not Lucas Underwood: like a... Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Somebody shows up to your shop with their keys and says, "Here you go," they expect you to fix the car, okay? Yeah. It is going to be the, uh, the additional items, the way the customer feels about your service, the way the customer feels about your pricing, the way the customer feels about how you paid attention to them, did you listen to them- Yeah you know, all of those things. And, and by the way, the average person, in fact, I'd tell you 80, 85% of the people will buy the more expensive product if they feel good about the interaction and they feel good about the product. They will always do that. We got a couple questions coming in, so I think- Lucas Underwood: Yeah, I, there's some really good ones in here. Yeah. I've, I've got one, I'm passionate about this one. It says, "How much money should a shop have set aside?" I'm gonna tell you something. The best advice that I was given by anybody before building this new shop was maximize the shop that you have now. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: Don't just decide to move. Don't just think that, and run the numbers and figure out what your max capacity is. And I'm gonna tell you, if I learned anything, I wish I had set on that bad boy for as long as I could, just letting it make money and stacking cash. I would get every single dime of money I can in the bank account, because here's what so many people don't realize about expanding They think when they have that small shop, that when they expand, all of a sudden they're gonna have all this demand and they're gonna be able- Yeah to fill up that new big shop. If you, if you build it, they will Cecil Bullard: come. Lucas Underwood: It does not work that way. Yeah. Right? That doesn't work that way, I promise. Cecil Bullard: Well, yeah, three bays, three bays, low roof, uh- Yeah ... no racks, uh- Exactly ... to, uh, what, 12 bays, uh- Yep ... you know, super high roof. Lot of space. You can get anything you want in, and all of a sudden you think, "Why isn't my shop full?" Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Well, wait a minute, you didn't Lucas Underwood: do all the work. Well, uh, we're making more Cecil Bullard: revenue. Yeah, yeah. Lucas Underwood: That was just the limit of the capacity that we had at the given time. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And so, I, I Cecil Bullard: would- And so maximize it. Exactly, man. So I have a client... Lucas Underwood: Maximize what you got and stack the cash. Cecil Bullard: So that particular question, I think, I think the answer is ve- it varies. Yeah. First of all, every shop, every shop owner should have a minimum of three months worth of operating capital in a savings account, period. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Right? That's before I even think about buying another shop. So- Yeah ... uh, I have a client, uh, we're buying shop number three. Mm-hmm. Um, he's been a client now, I would say probably since 2021. Um, when he started with us, he was making three, four grand a month. Uh, we currently have two shops, we made $87,000 in profit last month. Now, he's got half a million dollars in the bank. His machine is generating between, say, 70 and 90,000 every month. Yeah. The machine that he has built. And, uh, and that's, and that's pure profit, right? It's not, "Oh, I'm gonna have to do this with that or that with it." And then it depends on the deal, because he's gonna buy a piece of property for, uh, a million dollars that comes with a shop on it that just hasn't been operating for a bit. So he's got some- Yeah ... expense for marketing, building it up, tools and equipment, et cetera, that if you bought an operational shop, you wouldn't have. And this is not an owner finance carry. Yeah. So if I'm, if I'm, if I'm gonna do owner financing and the owner's gonna carry it, I might need less cash, right? Yeah. Or if I have to buy more equipment, I might need more cash. Or if- Yeah ... if I have to go through and remodel the shop, I, I mean, I don't think anybody that I've dealt with when they bought their next shop didn't spend at least $40,000 in the move. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Right? Lucas Underwood: And, and at this point, I think 40,000's an undershoot because- Oh, it's way, it's way low ... things have gotten so expensive. I mean- Cecil Bullard: Yeah, you could... I need, my signage is 40 grand, right? Yeah. I mean, if I'm gonna- Yeah, for sure ... put signage on the building. And- Lucas Underwood: And- Cecil Bullard: And, yeah Lucas Underwood: Uh, here, here's the deal about this, is that, that you think, "I'm gonna go buy a shop," or, "I'm gonna go build a shop," and you get these numbers in your head. I promise you, because everybody told me, you can double it. Just double it. Just- Yeah ... right off the number, whatever it is, double that number. And so they told me- And the timeframe ... $2 million, that's what it's gonna be. Yeah. And I didn't believe them. Cecil Bullard: And Lucas Underwood: the timeframe- Cecil Bullard: And so... Exactly. So by the way, not six months, a year. Lucas Underwood: Oh, yeah. Double the money, double the timeframe- Cecil Bullard: Yeah ... Lucas Underwood: and, and then get comfortable with those numbers or even higher numbers than that. Target the lower numbers, sure, but be expecting for it to be way more expensive than you think it's gonna be and take way longer than you think it's gonna take, and be way more uncomfortable, create way more stress. And, and let me tell you something. If you think it's not gonna impact the shop you have now- Yeah ... when you're in the middle of that- Yeah ... you're gonna find out if you grew a team or not. Cecil Bullard: Well, the other thing, I- Lucas Underwood: Because you're gonna be focused on something else. Cecil Bullard: So the other piece of that is if I have a really great team and I have really good systems and processes, I need less money to open the other shop- Yeah because I don't need... Like, the shop I have, if it runs really well, if it runs, uh... You know, if it's very consistent, et cetera, and it's done that for, I don't know, six months, a year, year and a half- Yeah ... and I have a great team there, uh, um, then I need less money to open up the next shop because I'm, I'm, I'm comfortable. I'm putting money- Yeah ... in the bank routinely, et cetera. There was another part of the question, uh, best marketing strategy in a small town. I, I'll tell you the best marketing strategy, period. Do an unbelievable job- Yeah ... for your client. And, and- Treat people well ... and the other thing is, you know, learn how to answer the phone correctly, and learn how to build value from the start. You know, when people- Yeah ... called me and they said, "Hey, Cecil, um, you know, how much for a water pump on a whatever?" I'd say, "You know- Yeah ... I know price is important to you, but before we have that conversation, can I tell you about, you know, Larry's and, and why we do what we do here?" And I never had somebody say, "No, just give me a damn price." Um, I... Then I was able to say, "Look, we... This is our philosophy of taking care of cars. We, we believe that our customers can drive these cars for 10, 15, 20 years and take care of them, and if they do, it's gonna cost them a lot less over the, the lifetime of the- Yeah ... of the vehicle. So every time you come in here, we're gonna inspect the car. We're gonna do a- Yeah ... complete inspection, and every time you come in, someone like me is gonna sit down with you and have a conversation about what you need and, and, and why you need it- I'm gonna be- ... and be able to tell you exactly what it costs- Yeah ... so you can make a, an intelligent decision. For sure. And if that's good, if that sounds good to you, then I have an appointment on Tuesday or Wednesday. And- I think if you create a product that's different than everyone else's product, that's better, that's superior, that you get that, right? The, the, the person, uh, uh, uh, that the, the, the 80% of the population that's gonna value that is gonna value it. The 20%'s always gonna look for the cheapest price. And- Absolutely ... and by the way, they're not my, they're not my, they're not my clients. Lucas Underwood: Exactly. So- Exactly. And, and that's what they're gonna be going after no matter what. You're not gonna please them. And even if you made 50 cents on it, they're gonna be fussing about that. Yeah. Right? And so it, it doesn't work. Now I, I wanna jump into this next question and, and Steve from Wassbalden Motive, Steve, I really hope that we see you at ASTA. Uh, you're in Durham, it's in hometown, so we'd love to see you there. I'm, I'm gonna post a link down here in the comments, and I, I hope that you, uh, see that, Steve. Because I, I think it's important. Because he's asking the question is how do I get my legacy staff to buy in? And I think this is touching- Shoot them Cecil Bullard: all. Shoot Lucas Underwood: them all. There you go. Um- Shoot them Cecil Bullard: all. I, Lucas Underwood: I think it- No, Cecil Bullard: um- ... Lucas Underwood: starts for me with vision. Yeah. And it starts w- with destination. It starts with what we're trying to accomplish, what do we believe, where are we trying to go? Cecil Bullard: What if we really sat down and had a conversation with our staff that said, "Who are we and what do we wanna be?" Yep. "And what's the image that we wanna portray to our clients," right? Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Cecil Bullard: And, and we built that with our staff because, like, I took over a shop, I went in and, you know, within a week I sat everybody down, I said, "Okay, what kind of shop do you wanna work for?" Right? "What do you wanna be? You wanna be a discount shop, you wanna be a tire shop, you wanna be a transmission shop? Do you wanna be, like, a, a top shop in the industry? Do you want the community to look at you as a top shop, or do you care?" Right? And, and everybody in my shop said, "We wanna be a top shop." Yeah. And by the way... So then we started talking about, well, what does a top shop look like? What does it feel like? How, how do they answer the phone? How do they... What's their comeback rate? What's their, you know, what's, what do they charge? Are they on the lower end, are they on the higher end? Yeah. So you, you have to get your team on your side. You have to get your team behind. Like, if I can't value my own pricing- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: how can I expect my team to value my pricing, right? For Lucas Underwood: sure. 100%. Cecil Bullard: I have to be... My, my dad, and I've said this in a lot of classes and a lot of people, my dad always said I had an over, uh, developed sense of my own self-worth. Yeah. All right? But when I was a, a tech working on cars, I always thought, "Man, we are so cheap." And I've always thought that through the whole thing. Yeah. Even as a coach, I'm like, "Man, there are coaching companies that are a lot more expensive than us. Why are we so cheap?" Um, I'm always thinking that, right? Yeah. And, and what that did at the service counter for we was when we were $158 and everybody else was 100- It made me confident because I thought we should be charging 300, right? Yeah. But- It's, it's kind of the same thing as having that cash in your pocket. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: But when I have cash- Yeah ... in my pocket, I think differently, right? Lucas Underwood: He- here's the thing, i- is for me, right? When we're talking about this staff and we're making this transition, we've never charged any more, especially somebody buying a shop, and they know the fundamentals of shop ownership. They know about financials. They're buying a shop that was from somebody who did not know, and they did not charge appropriately. They didn't have a lot of overhead. Now this person's buying the shop, so they've got payments, they've got all this stuff going into it, and they're trying to retain the legacy staff. And I get how hard that can be, but you can't have a staff member that is the equivalent of the bottom 20% of the clients that cause all the problems. If they believe- Yeah ... that no matter what, you shouldn't be making any more money than you have to make, and no matter what, they know how much you paid for those parts, and you shouldn't be marking those up that much. If that's their mindset, if they have a- Yeah, when- And, and I'm... Look, I mean no disrespect by what I'm getting ready to say. If you have a poor person mindset, you're not gonna fit into that organization well. Not a- If you don't believe people should have money- Cecil Bullard: Not a company, not a company that wants to be exceptional. So the other- Yeah ... thing would be, and, and this is not to tout, say, the institute, but well-trained people. We have a service advisor intensive coming up. You know, it's a- Yeah ... three-day service advisor, and, and after many days with some of the top service advisor trainers, sales trainers, what do we- Yeah ... really came up with? We need confidence. How do we build- Yeah ... confidence in the service advisor- Exactly ... in the product, in the price, in the things we do? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, uh, you know, we have a, a big marketing event coming up. We have, uh, the MARS event, which is Marketing for Auto Repair Shops, coming up in October. And, and if you wanna have a great marketing strategy and you wanna learn what you need to do today and what the shops that are winning today- Yeah are doing, that's the place to be. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So I g- I, I have to, I have to a little bit, you know, sell the, the company and what we do, so. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Um, Lucas Underwood: uh- Cecil Bullard: Uh, this question comes from Steve ... how do we... A- and the other- Go ahead. Go ahead ... one, one more thing on that, on that legacy stuff If I can't bring them ahead, if I can't get them to think correctly, if I can't get them on the page, you can't have, you know, two people that think that you're too expensive- Yeah and that you can't, you can't make a profit or you shouldn't make a profit, and, you know, five people that wanna be profitable and wanna go. You can't have- Yeah ... slugs with, with, uh, super performers. You just- Yeah, you can't Lucas Underwood: have slugs- You can't do it ... with the racehorses. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. It's not gonna work out. You, you, it won't work. Right? You, you're exactly right. The racehorses will run a lot slower and be upset. Lucas Underwood: And, and look- Cecil Bullard: So- ... Lucas Underwood: I'm, I'm gonna tell you something. I used to be so afraid of letting people go, and, and I made a video this week talking about this as, hey, I get that there's a shortage of... And, and I'm gonna tell you right now, this is gonna upset some people, we don't have a technician shortage, we have a skilled and willing worker shortage across all trades, across all professions. There's a shortage of people who want to actually work. And so I get the fear associated with letting someone go, but that person will become toxic and cancerous inside your business if you keep them. They will start telling people you're too expensive if you keep them. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, even your clients, by the way. Lucas Underwood: Yeah, that's what Cecil Bullard: I'm saying. Will start making excuses for you with your clients. Yeah. Exactly. "Well, got this new, got this new owner. I don't know. He raised the price, and you know, I..." Lucas Underwood: Yep, because it's gotta be somebody's fault besides theirs. Cecil Bullard: But here- Yeah ... but here, let me help you out. I'll give you a discount. That's Lucas Underwood: it. Right? Cecil Bullard: We, I had a, I had a shop- Yeah ... out of, out of Arizona. Um, uh, we, we went in, and they were not profitable. They lost, I don't know, he, he did 2 million, they lost, like, 200 grand. Yeah. And so I said, "Next year, what do you wanna do?" He said, "I wanna do 3 million." I says, "So you wanna lose 300 grand?" Right. You go, "Wait a minute." And, and I said, "Why don't we do a million and a half, make 20% net?" Yeah. And, and we went in and we looked at their coolant flush and their brake flush, and at the time they were, like, $39. Lucas Underwood: They were charging- Cecil Bullard: Yeah ... $39. Now, by the way, this is 10 years ago, but everybody else was charging 100. Yeah. And so we instantly, we went to 79, right? These coolant flushes and brake flushes gotta go to 79. And his two sons are at the counter, and a month later we're looking at the numbers, no margin changes, no nothing. So we start pulling work orders, and what they were doing was discounting the $79 down to 39. Yeah. Right? Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: People have to understand that, that first of all, we're not the, we're not Billy Bob's Auto down the street. And so I don't know what's going on at Billy Bob's. I do know what's going on at Cecil's, right? That's, that's what we're gonna do. And- Yeah ... this is who we wanna be, and if we wanna be that, this is what we need to look at, this is what we need to look like, this is what we need the education in, this, these are the things we need. And in order to get those things, we have to be able to afford them, so we have to charge X price, whatever X price is. Okay. And I'm not trying to set a price, but I can tell you right now by math, at, in 1980, we were $70 an hour in our shop. Okay? Yeah. And we were one of the higher priced shops in town at that time, because I'd been through a bunch of training. If I had started at $70 an hour in 1980, and I raised my price 3% to today, we'd be like 286 an hour. Right. Yeah. And, and we're not. I mean, I think the last survey I saw, which was one of the TechMetrix surveys, and it was like 150-something, 152 or Lucas Underwood: something. Yeah, that's what I saw as well. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, and- Lucas Underwood: That's what I saw as well Cecil Bullard: We're, we're not gonna survive at 152, nor would we be able to- Yeah, Lucas Underwood: and, and none of the other industries have lagged like we did Cecil Bullard: get the Lucas Underwood: cars fixed Cecil Bullard: and deliver the rest. No. Lucas Underwood: None of the other industries have lagged like we did. Now, here's a really interesting question by Steve, and I, I wanna answer this kind of from the technical aspect first. Okay. Because he says, "Manufacturers are making it increasingly difficult for anyone outside their dealer network to service their vehicles. As independent shops invest more in the tools, technology, and expertise required to keep up, how do they confidently price that capability and convince customers they aren't sacrificing quality by choosing an independent shop?" Now, a couple things. The first thing is, and, and I loved your explanation of this, all you have to do is go to a dealer one time and you realize the experience isn't so great. And so maybe this- I, I wanna... I, Cecil Bullard: I need to clarify something here. The dealer expenses I have, experiences I have had, have mostly been terrible, okay? Yeah. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: I have had a couple of decent dealer experiences. Lucas Underwood: Yeah, for Cecil Bullard: sure. Just not very often, and, and, and few and far between. Yeah. And so I'm not saying all dealers suck, but the dealers I've dealt with suck. Lucas Underwood: Yeah, for sure. Right? And, and maybe this is a good one for Steve, too. Yeah. Is, like, Steve, go, go take your team, give them the money to go somewhere else and get their oil changed at a dealership and let 'em see what the experience is like, and they'll come back and they'll say, "We're amazing." Cecil Bullard: And I think you should do- And they will go to a, once a year you should go to a Quick Lube. Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly. Cecil Bullard: And get the Quick Lube experience, and see- So- ... how they do what they do, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, here, here's the first thing that I wanna say to Steve, is I personally believe, based on my relationship with a number of manufacturer guys, I personally believe... And there's, there's some folks in C-suites and manufacturers who have a very different outlook on this. But the engineering teams and the people, the boots on the ground, who are getting us tooling, who are getting us access to the information we need, genuinely want us to be able to work on their automobiles. There's a couple that don't. There's a couple manufacturers who are trying to lock things out. The large majority of the auto manufacturers are trying to provide us access in a meaningful yet secure way. And so the reality of that is it is more expensive. But here's the deal, is the car itself got more expensive to fix? The difference be- I don't think- Go ahead. Cecil Bullard: I, I don't think that it's more expensive than what they would be doing at the dealership. Well- And if you look at the survey data and the customer data, currently the consumer believes that the independent shop is a much better place for them to be. Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. All right? All right. But, but here's the thing. Here, here's where I was going with that, though. Right. Is the difference being the, the automobile got much more expensive to fix because the technology increased tenfold. I was in a meeting, and Mary Barra was there, and it was like 10 years ago, and she said, uh, the technology in the vehicle in the next two years, I think she said, will outpace what we've seen in the past 100 years. Oh, yeah. And then we saw her again at another event, and they said in six months we'd already outpaced that. Like, it happened before we realized it had even happened. Cecil Bullard: And- And we're gonna have self-driving cars on the road. I mean, and we have them now- It- ... but we don't, we don't have a mass. The problem- Fully autonomous, Lucas Underwood: yeah. Cecil Bullard: The problem that they're dealing with is data transfer, so they can't get the, the links good enough. So as the links improve, as the- Well- ... you know, StarNet and all that improves, that will happen better and faster. But it, it... There's gonna come a point in time in the future where we're gonna have a bunch of self-driving cars on the road. For sure. And that technology is not today's technology. That's not what I worked on five years ago. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Oh, yeah. You know, the- Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. And Cecil Bullard: the technology- Everything has Lucas Underwood: changed so dramatically ... the technology we're seeing in automobile right now has advanced- Yes ... so much in just the past few years, it's unbelievable. And, and here's, here's kinda what I'm getting at, though. Is that the automotive aftermarket, the independent shops have withheld increasing their pricing like they should, while the technology outpaced them. And that technology outpaced a lot of technicians too. And so we, we weren't investing in training of our people, we weren't investing in the tooling for our people, we weren't doing what it took as an industry to keep up. Now, there's a lot of really great shops that have done a fantastic job. You think of Seth Thorsen's shops, you think of, uh, Matt up there in Minnesota. Yeah. You think of these shops that have really put the work in to learn this technology, grow. Brandon Steckler, great educators out here teaching these guys how to take this next technology. And, and somebody commented the other day, and they said, "Lucas, it's voltage drop, it's all the same stuff," right, but it's theory and operation of these systems, understanding how it works, understanding Cecil Bullard: how the networks- It's also, yeah, how, how does the computer talk to itself? How, how, how do the networks talk to each other- It- and how does that data transfer and, a- and that. It, it's, it's changed dramatically in the last five years. Just dramatically. And Lucas Underwood: so, so here's the thing, though, is like as an aftermarket, we just didn't see the value ourselves. The consumer- I- ... sees the value. Cecil Bullard: I also think- Lucas Underwood: If they want their car fixed, they see- Yeah the value. Cecil Bullard: I, I also think that there are, are shop owners that believe that they can just do brake jobs or- Yeah ... I can still do suspension work, and so I'm gonna do that. Yeah. The problem is, is that- You're right up Lucas Underwood: to- ... Cecil Bullard: all of that's getting- ... Lucas Underwood: putting those piston calipers back in. Cecil Bullard: It's all getting... Yeah, it's all getting tied into the computer systems. Yeah. All, everything is being monitored now, and adjusted and changed as the, as the... And it's gonna get worse and worse and worse. Yeah. And I, by worse, I mean there's gonna be more and more opportunity for the peoples that understand the technology. And you said something that I think I gotta, I gotta make a statement about. So the manufacturers of the equipment are gonna continue to wanna sell us equipment. Mm-hmm. Okay? Yeah. So they want us, uh, uh, to do that. We currently work on, I don't know what it was, 78, 79% of the industry. Mm-hmm. So the independents do almost 80% of the work. Um, the dealerships tomorrow, if, if, if there was a law passed that dealerships had to do all the work or even half the work- Lucas Underwood: They couldn't take the- Cecil Bullard: They couldn't do it. Yeah. They're already, some of them are already scheduled out 8 weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks. Yeah. Because they also can't get good technicians in their shops, and- Yeah ... they have shops with 42 bays, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and, and so I don't fear for us as an industry because of that. I look at, at things like, you know, we just went to STX. What did that cost? Lucas Underwood: Oh, Cecil Bullard: yeah. And if, and if Worldpac decides not to support that because they lost, you know, $2 million putting on STX, now where are we gonna get that training that we need? Yeah. You know, uh, ASTA, the big e- uh, the big event coming up at ASTA, and, and I know that it'll be a great event, but that event should be five times the size it is- Yeah because of the training that's needed. And i- if we don't support that additional training and those equipment manufacturers, they're gonna stop supporting us. Yeah. That's the thing I worry about the most. It, it- That's the thing that keeps me up at night. Lucas Underwood: It's so interesting because I'm, I'm in other industries too, and I go to their trade shows. And, and there's one particular trade show, attendance starts at $1,500 a person- Yeah ... and they put approximately 400,000 people in a convention center, right? Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And you think, at $1,500 a person, and- Cecil Bullard: That's not one of our trade shows in the automotive industry- No ... is it? No, okay. Lucas Underwood: No. Cecil Bullard: Just checking. Lucas Underwood: It's, Cecil Bullard: it's, Lucas Underwood: it is a big trade show. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And it's for the amusement industry. Yeah. And, and there's people here, and they're learning, and they're developing, and they're growing, and they're... Right? Lots of opportunities, yet we aren't there, yet we have a bigger footprint. We have a bigger presence. Definitely. Why are we not there? And, and I'm gonna tell you something, Steve. You're talking about these dealerships. There, there had long been a belief that the dealerships were the authority in fixing that brand's automobile, and I'm gonna tell you something. They screwed that Cecil Bullard: though. They Lucas Underwood: screwed it. That's gone. Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, Lucas Underwood: they screwed it. That's gone. They, nobody believes that. Cecil Bullard: When they- Yeah ... when they decided to try to be competitive with the industry. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So when they, when they, uh, decided not to have all A-Techs... Uh, 25 years ago, if you came in the program, you were gonna be an A-Tech. Yeah. There was no, "We're gonna have 10 C-Techs and one A-Tech." Uh- Yeah ... they couldn't make money because their expenses are so much higher than ours in general, and so they decided, "We need to make money, and we're gonna cut down on A-Techs. So we'll have one A-Tech-" Yeah ... "and we'll have 10 C-Techs, and that's how it's gonna be." Uh, when they decided to compete on tire prices, and when they decided to do quick lubes in their dealerships, they started competing in an area, and they, they lowered, they took themselves off of that, "We're the best" pedestal. They, they did. Yeah, Lucas Underwood: absolutely. Cecil Bullard: And when, when BMW started, uh, using aftermarket parts and going out to- Yeah ... uh, aftermarket suppliers to get a cheaper part for their customers, they don't even understand their market. Are they... Are you kidding me? You know? Well, Lucas Underwood: look, look, I'm gonna give you the hot take, and, and Raleigh's gonna cut this up, and it's gonna go out as a reel. Cecil Bullard: It wouldn't. Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And it's gonna, it's gonna upset a lot of people, so I'm just gonna put this out here. Cecil Bullard: Go, baby, go. Lucas Underwood: All right, here's the deal. I'm gonna tell you what happened, okay? All these technicians were paid unfairly And they were not treated fairly by the dealerships, and there was favoritism, and there was a lot of BS happening in dealerships. They did not see the value in continuing to develop themselves as a diagnostician because the way the pay systems were set up is they could make a whole lot more money hanging parts than they could truly understanding, learning, and growing how to diagnose a modern automobile. Yeah. So they are pattern failure fixers. They do not specialize in deductive reasoning like we see in the aftermarket industry. Now listen, automotive dealer technicians, that is not me talking trash about you. I'm not saying that. You were conditioned by the environment which you were faced with to behave and learn that way. In the independent aftermarket, we have to focus on deductive reasoning, learning, growing, developing at a much higher level. We work on all makes, models, brands of automobiles, and so we do things a lot differently in the aftermarket than you do in the dealership, and we have a lot more skill in the independent aftermarket that fixes cars that the dealerships can't fix. Cecil Bullard: It's a- Lucas Underwood: And so it's about a value thing in that sense. Cecil Bullard: There's another thing that happened, um, and this happened over the past 20 years, and that is, you know, uh, I know the guys that developed the... What's the, uh, mechanic thing where the mechanics would go on and ask questions, and they would have a whole library of- Lucas Underwood: Like IATN or something like diag.ad ... IATN. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. I know the guys. I was, I was... I wasn't involved with it, but I knew the guys. Lucas Underwood: Jeez, you're old, Cecil. No, I Cecil Bullard: am. I Lucas Underwood: wouldn't tell anybody. I wouldn't tell them I'm a diagnost- But- Let me know Scott Brown. Don't tell him you're 70, Cecil. Cecil Bullard: But, but I'm not 70 yet. Um, not yet. I'm not, I'm not dead yet. Um, but, but what's happened over the past, say, 10 years is with... An- and it's gonna happen more and more with AI, is they're looking at pattern failure diagnostic a- as the, as the key because they're saying, "Well, you know, 9 out of 10 times when this kind of a car with this engine, with this transmission has this problem, this is the solution." Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And so now the m- the guys who are technicians at the dealerships, they haven't had to learn how to fix that, that 1 out of 10. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Right? 'Cause they just don't fix it. They just basically- Yeah ... you know, they throw the towel in and go, "No, thank you." And it goes out to the aftermarket, and in the aftermarket- Mm ... we have to... For some reason, we believe we have to fix the car, right? Yeah. Lucas Underwood: We, we don't send Cecil Bullard: them out. And, uh- Lucas Underwood: What Cecil Bullard: are we doing? No, we, we, we basically don't chase anything away. Uh- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: e- even though maybe sometimes we probably should. But, but I think that the skill set that we have developed in the aftermarket is a much broader skill set, a much better skill set, and I think it will take us into the future even- Yeah ... even better. So I, I agree with you 100%. I mean, the, the flat rate pay system, I, I... And here you go. Here's another one, right? It's not fair to the employee. It just is not. It's not. It puts all the responsibility of car count and flow and getting the right parts on the employee's shoulders. And it, it, it- I mean, I, I talked to a shop last week and they're like, "You're at 40% productivity." "Oh, well that's fine because I'm paying flat rate." And- Okay, so now you have a bunch of employees that aren't making any money. How do you think they wanna work? How do you- Exactly. What's the... How motivated do you think they are? I'm gonna come to work and make $400 this week, uh- Mm-hmm ... 'cause we, we're only gonna have, you know, six cars that I can work on. Um, and it's not because the cars aren't there, it's because the process of fixing the car and getting the parts here and getting the estimate done and getting the inspection done and getting the diag done, those processes are screwed up. Mm-hmm. We don't have a tech shortage. We have a productivity and process issue problem in our industry. Yeah. And if we fix the productivity and process issues in our business, every shop owner, I guarantee you, would make five times, 10 times more than they currently make- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: if they fixed that- Yeah ... and got their productivity up. And- Absolutely ... most shop owners are looking at the end and they're going, "Man, I hope I make it to the end of the month, and I hope there's still money left at, on the 1st in the account." Yeah. And they're working their butts off when what they should be doing is running their business and, and fixing those, those productivity and those, those process issues in their, in their business to create the machine that runs the best, right? Yeah. 100%. And I don't think we, we un- I don't think we understand our business in that way, right? Yeah. Lucas Underwood: We, Cecil Bullard: we don't- In this, in this industry. Not as a, as an industry. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. We, we've, we have fallen into the, uh, the trap of seeing our businesses as fixing cars. Yeah. And, and that's one of the issues with being technicians be- that become business owners- Yeah ... is we, we get stuck in the mentality of doing what the business does, and it, there has to be a shift. There has to be a- And, and- ... a view of synergy ... and Cecil Bullard: because it's, because fixing the car for us is relatively easy, right? Yeah. Um, you know, uh, uh, Wayne bought a, a, a used Cadillac and, uh, Escalade and the water pump, uh, was leaking and, and he was like, "Ah, I think I'm gonna do that. It looks pretty easy." So we got a water pump. Ah, easiest water pump I ever put on in my life, right? I mean- Yeah ... I think it took all of 15 minutes to take the water pump off and put the water pump... Took more time to figure out the serpentine belt and how it runs- Yeah, Lucas Underwood: figure how, how Cecil Bullard: to route it ... than, than doing all the rest, right? Mm-hmm. We know how to do that because we've done it a million times. Mm-hmm. Because when I started, I didn't, I, I couldn't have done any of that, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And so our, our, the consumer sees our value when we don't see our value often, and I think we've also trained the consumer to not see us as valuable 'cause we don't value ourselves. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Okay? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: 100%. And until we fix that, until we, until we realize that, yeah, we probably should be upwards of 200, 250 an hour. And, and I'm not trying to set a price. Please, I'm not trying to. Yeah. Whatever it takes you to make 20% net in your, in your place- Amen ... where you're at, in your region with your costs, that's where you should be. That's what your pricing- Yeah ... should be. But- That's it ... if you don't understand how to figure that out, you need somebody that knows how to figure that out. Lucas Underwood: Amen. And listen- Cecil Bullard: So that you can be profitable ... Lucas Underwood: without clean financials, okay? It's gonna be real hard to have confidence in your pricing. But when you have clean financials, then you realize you ain't making no money, it's a whole lot easier to charge that money. " Cecil Bullard: Lucas, we, I think, I think we gotta go up 15 bucks an hour." I know. "Oh, I don't want to, Cecil." "Yeah, but, but we have to, brother, 'cause there's not money in the bottom line." 'Cause you're not paying your bills. Yeah. Well, yeah. Remember those bills that keep piling up? That's it. They're gonna still be there. Lucas Underwood: That's Cecil Bullard: it. Cecil- So confidence in your, in your product, you know, uh, I think the confidence we have sometimes is even weak that we're gonna fix the car. And so we- Yeah ... you know, even a sales guy sometimes doesn't trust the people behind him. Yeah. And I don't think you can sell when you don't trust the staff behind you to fix the car. Lucas Underwood: Amen. ' Cecil Bullard: Cause you're gonna be the one that takes the heat. And so it's more- Yeah ... than just, well, we should be 300 bucks an hour, so I'm gonna be 200 bucks an hour, or 220- Yeah and I can do that and I'll make money. I, I think it's more than, than, hey, I have a skill set that no one else has, or very few people have, and I have people that have that skill set, and there's value in that skill set, right? Yeah. And what we do and how we do it. And, and I think it's even more than, "Hey, if you go to Billy Bob's Auto down the street, maybe you won't get the same service level or the same quality part or, or those things. But here I know that we're gonna do all those things correctly." Yeah. I think it's also knowing that and feeling comfortable that, that in the end for yourself and the consumer, it's gonna be all right. It's all gonna be okay. Yeah. And if you feel that way, if you feel like no matter what I charge, it doesn't matter. What you charge, it really doesn't matter at all. How you treat the customer and whether or not you can build value in what you charge is everything. Yeah. And if I can do that and I feel good about it, then it, I can be very confident in my pricing, Lucas Underwood: right? You're exactly right. Cecil Bullard: Amen. A- and, and it, also, I have to be willing to send some people home Meaning I have to be willing to say, "You're not my customer. You're not willing to pay my price." You know, the guy comes out, I, I had a, um, a water heater blow up or whatever and leak, and guy comes out and, uh, I could go get a water heater at the time for around 1,100 bucks, and I could lug it in, you know, go down to the thing and lug it down and, you know, go out five times to my toolbox to get the right wrenches and, and all of that and, and, uh, then I could hurt my back trying to lug it out of my basement. And guy came in and, and he said, um, you know, how... I said, "How much for the thing?" He says, it's, I don't know, it was $2,200, 20, 26, whatever it was at the time. And I was like, "Okay, great. When can you have it done?" Right? "Oh, I'll, I, I got a water heater in my truck." Yes. "I'll Lucas Underwood: be done." Just Cecil Bullard: go get the water. "Put the water heater in. There you go." That's it. When we were all done, and I, I paid him, I said, "Now, I, I didn't argue about the price. I don't care about the price. What were you charging per hour?" Yeah. "What was your Lucas Underwood: hourly rate?" Cecil Bullard: Well, let's see. He was there for less than 45 minutes start to finish, and the part, uh, my cost at Home Depot was 11. You know, he paid less than that, and he charged me, I don't know, 22, let's say $2,200. I think it was 26, but he charged me $1,000 for being there for an hour- Yep ... and for driving over, right? Whatever that 15-minute, 10-minute... Uh, by the way, he only lives two blocks from me, 'cause I see his truck- That's it ... outside the house, right? Right. Um, but... And, and people tell me, "Well, Cecil, you lie when you say there are plumbers out there that are 4 or 500 bucks an hour." No, I don't. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: I paid it. I've paid it more than once. That's it. And I'll pay it again tomorrow so I don't have to hurt my back lugging the, you know- Water heater ... heavy water heater out of my thing and, and carrying it away. Yeah. Um, and there are- Oh, that's so true ... lots of people in the world that are willing to, ready to, and able to pay that. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And they're not willing to, to do it themselves, and they want a quality product. Amen. If you're that person, be confident in what you do. Lucas Underwood: Amen, buddy. Cecil Bullard: You'll Lucas Underwood: sell a lot more crap. And, and we, we as the independent auto repair aftermarket are here to serve you. And Cecil, it has been great being here with you today. I'm excited to do the next one coming up here soon. Cecil Bullard: Always is, brother. Lucas Underwood: That's it, and I can't wait to see you guys next time. Cecil Bullard: Soon. Lucas Underwood: That's it, real soon.

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The Institute's Leading Edge PodcastAugust 6 · 55 min

215 - Ask Me Anything: Car Count vs. Profit - Why More Cars Doesn't Always Mean More Profit

215 - Ask Me Anything: Car Count vs. Profit - Why More Cars Doesn't Always Mean More Profit August 5, 2026 - 00:53:54 Show Summary: Higher car count does not always create higher profit. Excess volume can lower repair order averages and increase mistakes while exhausting the team. Strong financial data helps owners find the right workload for their business model. Shops should improve margins and workflow before investing in more marketing or staff. Host(s): Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute Show Highlights: [00:01:00] – Higher repair orders can create less stress and a better client experience. [00:04:00] – Strong sales mean little when the business still loses money. [00:09:00] – Last minute work can disrupt promises and increase costly mistakes. [00:15:00] – Excess car count often lowers sales and employee satisfaction. [00:18:00] – Every shop must find the workload that supports its model. [00:20:00] – Clean financial data helps owners make sound business decisions. [00:22:00] – Fix weak margins before spending money to attract more clients. [00:28:00] – A thoughtful response can protect workflow without rejecting the customer. [00:42:00] – Adding technicians without strong processes can create greater chaos. [00:49:00] – Clear goals and accountability help employees understand how to succeed. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? 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.

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The Institute's Leading Edge PodcastAugust 6 · 47 min

214 - The Future of Shop Training: Why Gear Group Acquired Today's Class

214 - The Future of Shop Training: Why Gear Group Acquired Today's Class July 29, 2026 - 00:47:05 Show Summary: Gear Group Holdings acquired Today’s Class to create a stronger training experience for automotive shops. The platform delivers personalized lessons in just a few minutes each day. Continuous reinforcement improves retention and reveals hidden skill gaps. Shops can develop stronger teams while improving productivity and customer satisfaction. Future updates will expand content and use AI to make training more effective. Host(s): Wayne Marshall, CEO & Industry Coach Guest(s): David Boyes, Founder of Today's Class Show Highlights: [00:03:14] – Daily reinforcement helps employees retain and apply new knowledge. [00:05:38] – Personalized training adapts to each employee and role. [00:09:35] – Shared learning builds motivation and stronger team chemistry. [00:13:12] – Shops need one clear path for complete employee development. [00:18:35] – Investing in training helps shops attract skilled technicians. [00:20:33] – Better training improves efficiency and reduces costly comebacks. [00:24:03] – Training data reveals skill gaps that experience may hide. [00:27:42] – Employee development creates a stronger workplace and business. [00:31:03] – Shop owners must learn business processes and financial performance. [00:39:21] – Working interviews confirm whether technicians can apply their knowledge. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? 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/16mXEg1aOZI 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: Wayne Marshall: Say hello to today, to everybody that's joined us for Ask Me Anything. Uh, today, Cecil normally does these, but today it gets to be myself as Cecil is traveling, as he is out east on the ASTA Roadshow. But today we have the privilege to bring in David Boies from, uh, Today's Class to talk a little bit about some of the things we have going on here at Gear Group Holding, and some of the things that are changing as we continue to expand, try to be bigger, better, the things that we can offer out to the industry. So I welcome in David. It's great to see you again. Great to have you. David Boyes: Happy to be here. Wayne Marshall: So many of you have seen and pay attention, some of you guys I know have been involved with the Institute at different levels in the past and have seen our change and growth. Some of you are more new, and maybe some are just coming in today for the first time. Uh, for those of you who are newer or coming in for the first time, uh, just to help set the stage, so here recently, a few months ago, uh, the Institute, we created Gear Group Holdings, and it's the holding company that now owns the Institute and still does the things that we've always been doing. And with that, though, we have the privilege of being able to now bring in a cl- a business of Today's Class and the things that they do, which we think is a great fit for everything we got going on with our coaching and our other programs, and we're continuing to look because as we've always said and as our tagline has been, is we wanna create a better industry. And part of helping to create that better industry is we know and understand we need to continue to offer up better things, better content, better programs, better services that can help to elevate all of us in what we're doing. So today we're gonna talk just a little bit of why we have Today's Class, some of the things it does for us and why we're excited, things that it's going to help not only strengthen what we have to offer with the Institute and the holding company, but also how this plays in, and I'll let David even talk about his excitement toward what this does for Today's Class, and some of the things that we're seeing in the future and what we're trying to develop and what we're trying to do. So hopefully, uh, those of you that are with us, if you got a question, we know we have the ability, you can, uh, add those in. You can put them into the chat. We'll try to take a moment or two and answer if there are anything as you listen to what we're having to say and as we share. So anything, uh, opening words, comments, David? David Boyes: No, e-excited to be here, excited to share the vision. You know, since the press release went out a couple weeks ago, there's been some questions about how this all works, so happy to have an opportunity to, to talk through it. You know, explain where we think this goes, explain, you know, how the institute will continue to carry on what it can do and today's class as well, but then also explore some of those opportunities for collaboration to, again, help, help our, uh, shared customers Wayne Marshall: Yeah. So as, you know, one of the questions I know we've been asked, uh, early on when we started to do this was the, you know, well, why? I mean, why, why was the reasoning behind some of this? And when we first got into conversations, we started looking at all this, and one of the things that we know through research and through adult learning and other things that have been done, when we hold a session, and we've done, you know, uh, intensives on different subject matters or different things, we know that when you leave those, those classes, if you don't apply it in short order, it's only a matter of days, and they say within five days you lose about 70% of it. And as the days go on, you continue to lose a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And one of the great things about today's class is it's very interactive. It's mobile-based, as those of you who have seen it and maybe even use it. But being that it's mobile-based, it's a short three to five minutes a day that helps to keep top of mind the things that we're trying to teach and coach and develop in the content. And whenever you can reinforce it on a regular and daily basis, the knowledge and retention just goes up dramatically, and you start to use it and remember it so it makes a difference for what you're trying to do as a business. So talk a little bit, if you would, David. So most know, you know, people get coaching. We teach at different industry events, but talk a little bit about what today's class is, how it functions, uh, some of the benefits, the gamification of, and how it brings the team together, 'cause it is. Even Cecil and I compete against each other when we go on with some of the daily questions of who's gonna be right or not. But just give, you know, the people an overview on that if you could, please. David Boyes: Yeah, of course. So, so generally what we're trying to do is helping to impart knowledge, you know, for, uh, personnel at shops, whether that's a technician, a service advisor, a manager. There's a lot of information that we all need to learn to get better, whether that's new vehicle technology, uh, being reminded of shop SOPs, uh, learning more about finance. There's no shortage of opportunities where, where we need to learn. What we always question was, what's the best way to make that happen? Uh, traditionally, you know, there's the standup instruction, there's traditional online learning, and what we, what we began to explore was, what is a potentially more efficient way that we can connect with somebody? Can we consider how much information that they can consume in a single, you know, in a single session? Can we account for the fact that, as what Wayne just described a second ago, that people forget? Are there ways to, to shift that? Ways to remediate that? So our learning approach is really applied at, at solving those problems. We wanna spend three to five minutes with you each day. That training will flex. There, there's a lot of advanced tools, AI, machine learning, and so forth, that would take my training, given my settings, my role, and make it different than it would for Wayne's training or somebody else's. So it's personalized. So there's a lot of really advanced learning technology underneath that, and then we build content to, to help be delivered through that channel, for lack of a better term. So whether that's training on engine performance, suspension systems, or phone skills, or financials, we've got a great pipeline to be able to, uh, push that information to the learner. But then maybe more importantly, measure what they know. That has historically been a big snag in all learning and development, is to understand, okay, how much did this person really comprehend? Uh, the way that we've often worked around that is to do an end of class assessment or something like that. Uh, but doing that one time may limit the visibility that, that we get. So for example, I might get lucky answering a question. That might be interpreted as I know this, and I don't. On the other hand, maybe I read something too fast and I really do understand this concept, but I got it wrong. So, so our approach through this daily interaction allows us to, to push you forward from a learning perspective, gather that data to really understand where you need help, and then we adjust tomorrow. So from a, from a learning strategy perspective, we think this is a really effective way to train, you know, personnel that are very, very busy, don't have a lot of time to sit down and, and do training. So if we can find that sweet spot operationally, and do it in a very effective way, we think that's a win-win. Wayne Marshall: Yeah. I'll tell you what, it, it's in, in the short time that we have now been working together, we're seeing it move the needle. And this is what gets me excited 'cause even though I am the CEO of, I still coach. So I've been working with shop owners and, and managers, and we talk about some of these things, and everybody's trying to raise the bar. I mean, the technology is constantly changing, and their techs, and even the serv- service advisors are constantly trying to get better, smarter at what they're doing and how to communicate. Going back to your phone skills as an example. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. Wayne Marshall: How to communicate with the consumer. I mean, what we do anymore has gotten very complex, and when you're sitting there and you're trying to communicate that and teach that or explain it, I should say, to the client, this just helps to bridge some of those technology gaps or understanding gaps that you can take the complex into good talking points that the client understands what we're doing and why. And the other thing of it is, is that it, uh, it also empowers a manager to see, are my team learning? Are they going and raising the bar? Because we all know y- y- you might be bringing in a tech, he might be a B tech, but you don't want him to stay a B tech. You want him to be a B plus, maybe an A minus. You want him to start climbing that ladder. This is a way to do it and connect some of those dots. Um, I, I mean, and it, and it is, and it's... It, it reminds me just here, just recently with one of your new, newer, uh, customers that we work together with at the institute. He's using it in such a way as a measurement for his service manager to make sure that the service manager's working with the techs, they're doing their training because part of his comp- you know, his comp plan is you need to coach up and we need to make our techs better. Mm-hmm. So they're supposed to do so much training every month. This is a way to make sure they're getting their training in. David Boyes: Yeah, and, and, and I, what we've found, it's been, well, this started as a very, um, focused learning activity. It's been a very interesting, like, social and, and team experiment. Yeah. And understanding where motivation and teams that are curious and wanna learn more, how powerful that is. Um, there is an element of this, and I think with any business, winning some hearts and minds, if you really wanna develop your team, you know, you're gonna need to get them, you know, rowing in the same direction. Uh, Today's Class has some capabilities that, that can foster some of that. Yeah, Wayne joked a bit about the, uh, the points competition with Cecil and, and there's avenues like that. But, um, we also know how that ties back to learning. So if, if you think about, um, attending an in-person training session, talking to somebody at the break in between, you might share some stories. And, and those things from a, from a memory and retention perspective are very sticky. So when we're able to create environments where teams can, can train together two or three times a week, four or five times a week, and they're talking and they're learning from each other, that's enhancing those memories. That's also building some of that team chemistry. That's exposing where somebody might be really strong, might need, uh, need a little more help, and also has kind of downstream retention benefits as well. So there's a lot of pieces to this that, um, that you really can, can leverage, uh, when implemented effectively. Wayne Marshall: Yeah, one of the early wins for us, excuse me, one of the early wins that I've really enjoyed is many are familiar with our advisor training program. And being able to take some of that content early on, create it into those bits of training, daily bites or bits of training every day when it comes direct to advisors on developing their selling skills or phone skills, some of the other, you know, how to go through that presentation aspect. So not only do they hear it from the coach, but then when they continue to get it every day and they stay on that very specific track, it really reinforces, and it just empowers them to be better at what they're doing faster because they keep getting it every day. And the other thing I think is really cool that I know you're able to do is, depending on what that, like, tech is or advisor, you can customize the track. Mm-hmm. So if, if you've got a young tech who doesn't have all that knowledge, well, you're not gonna give them the same things or content that an A tech's gonna get. So he gets this track, or she, they get this track so they can start to learn and build, and it's the same way that the advisor gets their specific track. So everybody can be on a little bit of different track or the same- Which is really pretty cool when you start to see. And thank you, Aaron. That's right. It is a good product, and it does make a difference. So, uh, i- it's exciting when we see these things all come together Because training is, it's a big thing in our industry. It's really needed, and we hear it from our clients all the time. You hear it. Everybody wants us and they're saying, "Well, we need better, even more tech training or service advisor training, manager training." It just goes on and on to raise this bar. David Boyes: Yeah, and it's, uh, the shops are in a difficult position to try and stitch together all of these different training solutions. And, and this leads into part of- Yes ... you know, where, where we, uh, were very motivated to become part of the GEAR Group. 'Cause Today's Class kinda grew up as more of a, a technical training solution. However, if you're running a shop, you need more than just technical training. Wayne Marshall: Yep. David Boyes: Um, and I, I worry for the shop owner that has to spend tons of energy and hours to stitch together a training program that covers everything fro- from tires, um, to drivability, uh, on the technical side, or basic phone skills up to management and financial training. There's a lot of information there, and it can be very challenging for somebody that's running the business to also put that all together. You know, larger organizations may have a, a training director that, that can support that, but, you know, if you're a single shop, unlikely you're gonna have somebody that's got that bandwidth to do that. So again, collaborating, you know, as part of the GEAR Group, alongside the Institute, we can begin to share more of those resources and get better a- and make it a simpler opportunity for a shop to say, "Look, if, if I need this, this, and this, this is a very effective way for me to go. 'Cause all these pieces fit together and make it very easy for me to roll out and maintain." Wayne Marshall: Yeah. You know, it's... And we talk about this as we have, as we just had here a few weeks ago, a strategy meeting, and we talk a lot about meeting staff, shops, organizations where they're at. Yeah. We have those who really need to start here and then grow. Some others are higher up. We can meet them and still help them and develop. Um, this customization and the things that you're saying, this is what excites me the most, is because, look, if someone comes in, they're like, "We need help on the selling at the front end," we have that track. We have the coaching that can do it. We can reinforce it with Today's Class. We can make it very holistic. And then when they get that mastered, sure, now you get that rock star and we start talking about we want them maybe to no longer be a service advisor. We need them to be a general manager or become- Mm-hmm ... a manager. And hey, we have that track, too. Not only can we coach it and teach it, we can reinforce it with the daily bits and bytes of learning and those snippets of questions to keep it top of mind and continue to grow. And even when it comes into that ownership and the tech work- And what I think is also really cool, um, one of your staff members, uh, Jim, I know he even goes out and does live teaching and training- Mm-hmm ... when it comes to the tech. So it's not just what we're doing online, we're even out there in front of people. I know he's speaking at upcoming industry events later this fall at different places, and that's exciting because we're even bringing it in live and connecting the dots, not just doing it online or through the app and the tool set we got. David Boyes: Yeah. I think, you know, if we look at vehicle systems, right? Do we, do we- Yeah measure things? Do we adjust things periodically, once a month, once a quarter? No. You know, these things are happening in real time. Um- Yeah ... we believe that there's, um, a need for that, for learning, engagement, all those types of things. We've got opportunities where we can, you know, push, uh, knowledge, a webinar, react to, to an audience day by day by day, where we can be a little more dynamic, a l- a little more nimble. That example with Jim Kokonis is a great one. We can see data- Yeah ... today about what's gone on in the past week in today's class, and if we see something that's concerning or we see an opportunity based on this data that we have right now, we can spin up a webinar like we're on right now and say, "Hey, we're gonna dr- jump in and provide, uh, an update on, you know, uh, latest and greatest in, in oil specifications and, and so forth." And because we have the advantage of having, you know, thousands of people log in today, they can see that message. They can see it's there. It's not something where next month they'll realize that, oh, this, this event happened. So we're trying to just shorten- Yeah ... the gap between what, what those shops need, um, and where they are right now. To your point, meeting them where they are and trying to find that path to them. Uh, but, but I believe very strongly that the m- the more work it takes for a shop owner to piece these things together, the less of an impact that they're gonna have. So, so, you know, I tend to see it as the, the more that we can meet them where they are and make that job easier so they can get what they need- Yeah to go perform their services, they'll win, and then we can develop those relationships, and obviously that's, that's good for us too. Wayne Marshall: Yeah, I just, hey, uh, I, I just saw, I'm looking at comments. We got some people sending in notes. Uh, I just shout out to Buckaroo Bob. Yeah, you're right. Jim Kokonis- Mm-hmm ... solid man. You're right. He is the best. Uh, so it made me smile when I saw that come through. And also, you know, and I think Kevin Clark, who also sent a note in, really made a good point here that we, you know, that training is a process, a continuous and process improve- performance improvement. But- Mm-hmm ... but the key is when we invest in people, people now wanna come work. It makes it easier to hire the next tech because in this industry, why it's very large and we got hundreds of thousands of shops, and you got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people that work in it It's sometimes a very small industry. And when you look at your community, techs seem to see each other and talk at different events, be it through the parts company and other places. And when they start to say, "Yeah, my owner invests in training. They're in, they're doing this, they're doing this in coaching. They're doing this with today's class. They're helping to raise my game, my skill set to be a better employee and a better technician." And when people hear that, then that tech down the road, when his shop doesn't do it, he goes, "Yeah, I wanna go work for him." Now that becomes an attraction, and it helps bring in better people because they know you're gonna take care of them. They know you're gonna invest in them. So it helps to build a, a better and enhances that workplace culture. So great remark, Kevin. Thanks for sending that in, and as a reminder of why training and what we do from a developmental standpoint is so important. David Boyes: Yeah, and I would build on that and said, um, you know, what, what, what stands out to me with what Kevin said is continuous. Again- Yes ... uh, uh, uh, very commonly training is, is treated like, uh, an event. Check the box. We did this. We're good. I would ask anybody listening to this, you know, when was the last time you learned something, exposed to it once, and just remembered it forever? Maybe you did it 10 minutes ago, and you still got it, but think about something six months ago, 12 months ago. Yes. We need to be aware of that. It is continuous. So if it's gonna be continuous, how can we find these strategies that actually can fit in our day-to-day business world? We gotta start ... If we're looking for different outcomes, we gotta start changing what we're doing. We can't do the same old thing and expect different results. Wayne Marshall: No, no. And you know, it, it is. And I'm smiling again 'cause thank you, Buckaroo Bob. Bob's sending in a couple more notes of just ... And it's true. Training doesn't cost. It ultimately ends up paying because you're efficient. Things, cars come in. They get fixed first, right, correct. They go out. They're not coming back. All that stuff that you don't take advantage of to do it right the first time ends up costing you more. So if you invest in your team, you get a better customer experience. If you have a better customer experience, they come back, and they become sticky, and they stay with you. If you don't, and you have those problems, or it isn't fixed correctly the first time- Now you gotta spend more money in marketing and other things to get that car count back. So no, those are all really solid comments. Thank you for those who are sending in some of the notes and commenting over what we're talking about today, because it is important. And there's a lot, look, there's a lot of competition out there, and there's people who are doing it well, and some aren't doing it so well. So the better we can do and deliver a great experience, and part of that is, is doing the job correctly the first time and keeping the customer happy. So, and you have better employees when it's all said and done. So yeah, very much so. Very, very much so. David Boyes: Yeah, I, I, I tend to look at it in terms of the, the alternative, right? So if I'm not gonna train my team, if I'm not gonna invest in them, you know, what, what results do you expect? So, um- Yeah ... I recognize that it is not easy to develop a team, to take a, take a GST and, and build them up over time. So, so you need, you often need support. And again, that, that's why another reason that we're very excited about, uh, you know, working as, as part of the GEAR Group to, you know, with the customers that we deal with, often they'll say just, "I need more You know- Yeah ... and, and we wanna be able to, you know, say, "Oh, look, let me, let me connect you with, with Aaron and the team over at the institute. They might be able to help you out. Here's some resources that we're familiar with." Um, 'cause again, there's not just one, you know, uh, silver bullet provider that's got everything out there. So, uh, I tend to believe two heads are better than one. You know, so us working alongside the institute I think is a, is a great combination, and, uh, looking forward to continue to collaborate with the team, you know, as we, you know, begin this journey. Wayne Marshall: Yeah. It's, it's... And, and, and we're the same, because we, we, as we've strategized, we have so much content that has been developed that we teach, uh, at different events or that we coach through that we know we're gonna be able to convert and put it inside of today's class. And what even gets me more excited, because as we've talked, I mean, it's not uncommon that you're getting more than 4,000 people come in every day- Yeah that use the software. Sometimes it's more than that. Mm-hmm. 4,000 people that we can start to move the needle to teach, improve their skills, and hopefully, that... And the number is growing. We're getting more and more every week, and that number's getting bigger every week. But it's exciting when you know that you're starting to touch that many people with good information, training them up, getting better at their jobs, that we can deliver and make this industry what we hope it can be. 'Cause it's a great industry. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. It's Wayne Marshall: very rewarding. David Boyes: Yeah. And, and being able to understand where, where the gaps are. Um, you know, again, I think there's sometimes there's, uh, it can be a misunderstanding of where we need to focus our energy. Uh, we have a lot of customers that are surprised when they find out where, where their gaps are. For example, I, let's say I've got a very experienced technician that I thought was a rock star and all of these things. However, they've got major gaps, you know, in key fundamental areas. So we can do that, you know, at scale, and really understand where those opportunities are, and then try to apply a remedy. Um, one side project that, that we continue to explore is this idea of kinda going very broad with beginning to teach shop financials. Yeah. Not to be the headline of folks training each day, but we believe that, you know, if we can raise that bar little by little, and if you could snap your fingers and every, every employee in every shop had a basic understanding of, of shop financials, margins and so forth, I would argue that benefits the industry. I would argue that would promote, uh, better conversations, you know, in the shop. I would argue that better positions somebody to take that next step to become, you know, a, a foreman, a shop manager, and so forth. So again, we think we've got some good opportunities to- To, to make an impact, not just in the technical area, not just in the service advisory area, but as a team to, to overall benefit the shop. Wayne Marshall: Yeah, and that's, and that's something we're spending a lot of time when we talk internally and we're s- trying to, you know, work on our content, strategize, improve our educational material. That is truly gonna raise it up because it really does become your unique identifier. You know, I just... Earlier this week I was in Washington DC at one of our intensives talking to some of the people that were in attendance, and one of the things we got into conversation is is, like, well, what is your differentiator? And, you know, you get those people that start to say, "Well, you know, I offer a warranty." Okay. Does the guy down the street offer a warranty? "Well, yeah, but mine's 36 months. His is only 24 months." Well, the guy on the other side, well, he's offering 40 months, so now- Mm-hmm ... how are you? All of a sudden, well, that's not a differentiator. And you start going through and it's like, you know, what really starts to set you apart, and that's why we do what we do, is, is okay, well, let's, let's become better business people. Let's become better at what we do. Let's become that so, again, we don't have the comebacks, we don't have some of the other things that I was already talking about. Those start to become differentiators. It's how you make that customer feel and they leave happy and satisfied that they wanna come back. And, and it, and it takes time, and it doesn't happen when one, one, you know, one call or one visit. It happens in usually two to three. Um, there's been many a research of what creates brand loyalty. It doesn't happen on the first visit. People talk about going to your favorite restaurant or, shouldn't say favorite- Right ... but you go to a new restaurant. Sure, you have a great experience, but does it make you go right back? No. But if you have a second one and then a third one, and they say by studies by the time you get to three, the odds of someone coming back and becoming loyal goes up to 72% after three visits. So what are the ways to get there? Have good people, have good training, do your jobs well, deliver on that experience, and that's our goal here. That's our goal here at GEAR Group. It's what your goal is, is we want to make your people the best and let that be that differentiator that people wanna come back, and you get to that three plus, that you maintain that 70-plus percent retention. That's huge. That's huge. David Boyes: Yeah, and from a differentiation perspective as well, it's not just to your customers, it's to the job market, the employees. Like if you- Yes ... can create a, a work environment that is truly different, you know, than the other shop down the street- A place where people can grow, thrive, be connected, understand what's going on, have open conversations. Again, I recognize that's easier said than done. Uh, but taking steps towards that is important. And again, if you put in that work, you're likely to see those results in terms of the retention of your team, you know, building somebody up and, and setting yourself up as a shop owner in a more comfortable spot where maybe you don't have to have your hands on it every single day. So the more you invest in your team, obviously that- that's gonna pay off in the long run. Wayne Marshall: Well, and it gives the, it gives your techs even an example, uh, an opportunity to make more money. Mm-hmm. Because a lot of them have a performance bonus, and when they can do better and they become more efficient and more effective in their job, their productivity goes up. They're gonna get a few more hours in, available time over, you know, their clock rate or their clock time. That puts more money in their pocket. Yep. Plus everybody wins. The business wins, the tech wins, the customer wins because they're getting a better job. Everybody wins. And that's what we're trying to really do instead of just, eh, you know. And that's why, that's why we continue to say education in any industry, but especially in automotive, as much as it's changing, is so important to stay fresh and stay on top and keep doing it. So David Boyes: Yeah. Uh, yeah, could- couldn't agree more. And again, it, it's so diverse. You know, there's not just one thing you're gonna learn today that, that's gonna, you know, solve all your problems. You gotta continue to grow. It's gotta be continuous, gotta recognize that you have gaps in every area. Uh, but again, for the individual, similar to what I've said a couple times about shop owners being responsible for ha- stitching together this program, as an individual it's often difficult also to figure out, what do I need to learn? You know- Yeah ... there are these things I might be interested in, uh, but sometimes we don't know what we don't know, and there might be things I need to know to do this job. So again, that's where some of this more advanced technology changes things a bit. So instead of, let's say, looking at a list of, of classes at an upcoming event saying, "That's the one I think I should take," sure- Yeah that, that's fine and good, but there's other alternatives, today's class included, where the system's gonna figure out where you need help, and it's gonna push it. And your reaction might be a surprise, might, might react with, "I didn't realize I had gaps there-" Yeah ... "and I invite that." There could also be the more uncomfortable option where, "Oof, I, that doesn't feel good. I thought I knew this stuff, and apparently I'm a little shaky on that." But those that, that kind of embrace that and say, "All right, cool. Let me figure this out. It's gonna make me better," you know, that tends to be a very productive outcome. Wayne Marshall: Yeah. It's, it's always fun when I... We talk to some of our coaching clients, and they talk a little bit of how they start to build this out and start to really gain this understanding because what we see and you see, a lot of shop owners at one point was a technician. They were the best technician, one of the best technician at that time, and then they transfer into that ownership position. And part of this whole conversation we end up having is, well, it, it, and I'm, and I say this with high respect and regards, they look at the business as a trade because that's how they were taught- Mm-hmm when they went to, you know, to college, community college, went to tech training. They talk about it as the trade it is. But when you turn into a business owner, now it's not only about that trade, it's about the processes. It's about how you run that business, the KPIs you need to look at, why we're building out some of these different financial things so people can understand more what it takes. And it's about putting those things in. So it is exciting when we can build this and reinforce it. It stays in alignment with our coaching- And then you get more snippets of it every day that keeps it top of mind and just keeps building and building and building on that knowledge curve to where pretty soon it just becomes a natural thing. Just as you know when you were a tech and it came in, you could do a good inspection and write up a great, you know, report for the service advisor in a matter of 20 to 30 minutes 'cause you just knew what to look for and you knew what to do. And be able to do this and bring it together to, you know, not only tie it into the coaching and other things we're doing, but to the daily aspect of it, it comes so cyclical that it's just so nice to be able to do. And it's moving the needle, and that's what we see. We see it in the financial reports. We see it in their dashboards, you know, or their point-of-sale, you know, software. Um, that, that's what's exciting. David Boyes: Yeah. What, uh- And, and I, I would say that the... You know, that's not limited to- Oh ... that tech that becomes a, a shop owner, right? And I, and I think those that do that, you know, it does take a little bit of vulnerability, for lack of a better word, to say, "All right, look, I really understand this part well. This other stuff I need some help with it." But again, that's not limited to, to shops. In the spirit of transparency here, you know, like one thing that I'm personally excited about from a GEAR Group perspective i- is learning from, from yourself, Wayne, and, and others on the team in terms of how to grow a business, the, the governance, some of the structures that we at Today's Class, you know, some things that we could do better. Uh- Yeah ... like I said a little bit ago, two heads are better than one. Uh, I think all businesses can, uh, should look inward to see where some of their gaps are, where they, they need some help. Um, you know, we're, we're certainly doing that, and it's, it's been a good, uh, experience for me personally to see, okay, well, sure, we're trying to help shops improve, but we can't be blind to the fact that we also need to improve. Everybody's got those gaps. Everybody's got those opportunities to, to get better. Wayne Marshall: Amen. No, you, you are totally correct. That's why, I mean, even though as I've been doing a lot of this for a lot of years, I'm still learning. And even though I don't, I'm not on Today's Class every day, I have been on it enough. I've learned a few things, and even though I'm a hack mechanic and I do a lot of things in my own personal shop, uh, it's taught me a few little tricks to be a better tech on my own personal vehicles and the things I do. So I enjoy it. I love, I just love learning, and that's what we really see is, is there is a hunger in this industry. So it's great that we can be able to do some things and take this additional content and develop it into the different modules that we can obviously put inside of Today's Class. So- So what's, um... Tell me a little bit. I know there's some things that, uh, you and staff have been working on when it comes to AI. AI's a really big thing out there, and I know there's some things to help to look at how people are answering and how AI can come in to help you take those things and give you other feedback that teaches and shows you those weaknesses. Anything you wanna share? A little bit of some of the new stuff and exciting things you guys are working on? David Boyes: Yeah, so, so from an AI perspective, our approach to it is a little different than what I think most consumers s- see today with, with ChatGPT. A lot of it is more number crunching in, in the background. So if we've got thousands of people training today, we need to use very effective tools to, to see where, where their gaps are, where they need training and where they need reinforcement. So that's one layer. Uh, but then we're getting to other layers when it comes to, uh, evaluating our, our content as well. So we continue to build content. Do we use AI to support that? Sure. But at the end of the day, we need to make sure that our training is effective, meeting our standards. Um, so we use it more as an efficiency tool, but still, you know, bedrock to us is, you know, the ASE task list from, from a technical perspective- Mm-hmm and continue to build that out. Um, you know, we do have some upcoming, um, you know, content areas that we're releasing. That's gonna be something that we're gonna be able to accelerate as we get into the fall. But we're also really beginning to dig more into individual engagement and, and different tactics for, you know, enabling shops to, to drive adoption of the platform, putting some ownership, you know, back on the employees to learn, coming up with some fun and engaging tools for, for measuring that. And then we also, at the end of the year, are expecting kind of a, a big, uh, user interface update, which has been a lot of work- Yeah ... as well. So we gotta continue to, to keep pushing forward. Um, and then lastly, I would say just promoting communication in the platform. You mentioned the webinar approach. We're trying to get stronger and stronger in engaging with our audience, having some two-way communication through there so we understand where their needs are and how we can help. Wayne Marshall: Yeah, one of the, and the one of them that I know, 'cause I've seen some of what you've been working on behind the scenes- Mm-hmm and what I guess I would, uh- Get to tempt the audience to be excited about is when you can take 4,000 plus, 5,000 people who are coming in every day and, and growing, and take all of that information, how they're answering, how they're interacting, and how it can be boiled down to me as one individual to take all of those, you know, I guess, patterns and saying, "Here's what we can do to make you better, Wayne," because we're seeing what's going across. And AI, obviously some of the technology that can process that so much faster and then come back and give me something that's more personalized based on what they're seeing across the industry. Mm-hmm. To me, that's pretty cool when it can- Yeah ... get down to me on a personal level based on all the other things we're seeing to up my game. Yeah, it's gonna be exciting to get that pulled together and rolled out, so. David Boyes: Yeah, absolutely. Wayne Marshall: So, no, this is, th-this is all good. And we, you know, I can't... I know I've said it to you before, but just we are excited for what we're gonna be able to do and how we're going to be able to come together and only enhance what we've got on both ends. I think this is a great win-win because we're able to share our content, we're able to share your deliverables out to the marketplace in different ways. Um, and the consistency of what we're trying to build, that's only gonna make this industry better, our ultimate goal. So it is exciting. Anything else that we should, uh, people should be knowing? David Boyes: Yeah, I mean, I, I would say, again, I, I think the broader, you know, GEAR Group vision. So today it's the institute and today's class. You know, tomorrow, you know, we'll, we'll see where that goes. But I think it's, uh, you know, our, our visions are aligned for how we can, can impact, um, the industry. Um, you know, working in, in collaborative teams, you know, recognizing strengths of, of other parties I think i-is key. Uh, and that's something that, again, we're, we're very excited about in terms of being part of the GEAR Group. Wayne Marshall: So we got a couple questions that came in. First one is from, from Tyler, and thank you, Tyler, for sharing. Um, yeah, those are, those are hard. And I'll, I'm gonna use, I'm gonna use myself as an example. I tell this to people that, uh, could I study for an ASE and be certified? Sure. I could study up. I can understand the content. I could take the test. I could pass. But does that mean I can apply it? Because doing, doing exactly what you just referenced is they're really just memorizing the content. So in the, in the educational space, they always look at this. There's those who are certified and then there's those who are credentialized. And the difference is, is those who have the credentials, they, they have able to apply it. They're able to do it. So how to deal with situations like that is to have people actually show you. And I know one of the things that we're seeing, and I even talked to some people here just when I was traveling these, uh, previous two days, one of the things that you're hearing a lot of shops do, they're doing working interviews. They try to hire a new tech. They're pulling a car in, and they know there's something wrong with the car. They've already done the, the research of or the inspection of, and they're gonna see how well this guy can troubleshoot. And based on the complexity, they're making it harder if it's an A tech and he's at this level to then another, which actually is what they're trying to do to show that they have the credentials or the ability to actually do. And the best way that I could give you as a tip is to do some of that nature Um, one of the things that I know we talk and we coach is, is to do an inspection rodeo. Maybe you've already done this. That's another way to find out if people are really l- learning. Bring in one car, you know what's already there, but take your techs separate of each other, and take each tech and have them do the inspection and see what they see and don't see, and where's the inconsistency. That tells us what we need to do to focus in. That comes back from what they know here to what they actually apply or have that credentials to actually know how to execute it. So that's what we're seeing people do. It's some of the things that we suggest because it's easy to memorize. It's another to apply it and actually execute, and that's what you're wanting to do. Can they actually execute? So do a working interview, and if you're trying to hire somebody that they just didn't memorize the answers or know, but they actually know how to do it, do an inspection rodeo. Have them, have a tech go out and actually show you and do something of that nature. Um, another one that just came in was Brett. Thank you. I see, uh... Oh, you've already answered it Great. You can see you can send an email to David, uh, to get that information, Brad, on pricing and some of the different, uh, offerings that are available, and I know David would be happy to catch up with you and talk and, and, uh, further details on. David Boyes: I'm gonna, I'm gonna chime in on, uh, for Tyler as well. Tyler, another- Yes ... so, so for those that aren't familiar with today's class, one important aspect of it is our daily training sessions are, are question-based. They're... You can think of them like building blocks, but we lead with questions 'cause that allows us to gather data. So what Tyler mentioned is, you know, there are sometimes people that are really, really sharp, real great memories, where they might see question text essentially and just remember what the answer is. It could be just the, the pattern of the question. So Tyler, sometimes another tactic would be to, to take that and rearrange it, like come at the technician with, you know, structuring the question the opposite way, leading with the explanation and, and reframing that. And y- you know, one alternative would be to use an AI tool to kind of type that in, be like, "Okay, give me three different ways to ask this question." That might be a simple way if you're looking to just do a little prompting or nudging to see where this person is. 'Cause, yeah, I mean, if they're just kind of, I don't wanna say getting by, but, like, they're able- ... to leverage their memory to just- Yeah ... breeze through that, um, there could be some gaps. We see a lot of that. I, I was having a discussion with Jim Kokonis on our team yesterday. He's working on, uh, some material essentially on learning strategy. Sometimes we will see people that fly through this stuff and go really, really fast. That tends to be an indicator they're not really taking the time to learn it. So, so we really want to... You know, we can't pump the brakes through the platform on these folks. What we really wanna do i- is try to connect with them on another level and say, "Hey, what, what are we doing this for anyway?" Like, if, if you're really here to, to learn, here are some ways you wanna consider it. Here's how the brain works. Here's the way these are structured. Here's how you can get the most of it. It's not a, it's not a contest to get through your questions the fastest. It's not a contents- a contest to answer the most questions in a, in a given time period. The intent is to learn. The intent is to get you better. So we're gonna, we're gonna put in some more work to try and communicate that to a way with our audience where, a way where, where it makes sense and, and hopefully it can improve, uh, their experience so they can, they can get more out of it. Wayne Marshall: Hopefully, Tyler, that gave you some, uh, nuggets of, of skills or information to apply back to those so they can really show that they are understanding the content and can apply it correctly when they're doing their work. So thank you to everybody. I know we've got a handful of people that have chimed in on different things, so I, I appreciate the comments. Really appreciate some of those questions. So yeah, if there's anybody else out there listening that, uh, we're not seeing, throw them out here, and, uh, in the next, uh, few minutes we have left, we'd be happy to discuss or add in too. But nope, this has been good. I've b- I've enjoyed just being able to talk a little bit more of what we're doing, what we're trying to get accomplished here at GEAR Group Holdings, uh, with the addition of Today's Class and as we grow and expand. Um, and we're not, as you know, d- uh, David, we're not, we're not ending here. We wanna really work hard to continue to expand in other ways and other things that can and will help what we wanna do and the passion we have for this automotive space. So, uh, and thanks. It sounds like, Tyler, I see you h- had us back, so it sounds like that maybe helped you out a little bit. Happy to really do it. So just, yeah, and Kevin, you're right. I ... Just so everybody knows, uh, for those of you that do wanna reach out to David, it's D-B-O-Y-E-S, David Boyes, dboyes@todaysclass.com. Please reach out. We're happy to help. Uh, we're excited for what we're doing and how we're, uh, moving forward in this industry, and we just wanna be able to c- continue to contribute back and make a difference. David, I'll let you have the final words as we wrap this up today. David Boyes: Oh, well, well, thank you for that. Yeah. E- e- excited for n- next steps. Lot of, lot of exciting things around the corner. Yeah. A lot of work to do. Uh, but again, I think, I think we're well positioned to continue making an impact. Um, excited to collaborate, you know, with, with a broader team. You know, lots of sharp people that we're looking, uh, forward to working with and, uh, you know, looking just to continue to grow the experience as we move forward. Wayne Marshall: And thank you, Ken. Yeah, David and the Today's Class team are awesome. He just h- he just hits you up and, uh, and we appreciate that. Ken, Ken's the David Boyes: man. Yeah. Wayne Marshall: You know? Yeah. Appreciate that, uh, feedback. But yeah, they're ... It's a great team. Excited to have them part of, uh, the group and what we're doing. So with that, thanks everybody. We look forward to the next one. Keep the questions coming. Let's keep this building, and let's make this a better industry.

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