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From Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, To Will, Can, Do: Auto Repair Business Done Right [RR 1053]
From Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, To Will, Can, Do: Auto Repair Business Done Right [RR 1053]
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About this episode
Keith Katz, owner of Kuali Service Center, shares insights from his 45 years in the automotive industry, focusing on the evolution of auto repair and the challenges of adapting to new technologies like ADAS and electric vehicles. The conversation highlights the importance of education for both technicians and customers, discussing the need for proper calibration and the complexities of modern vehicles. Katz emphasizes the value of training, succession planning, and the shift to a four-day work week, which has positively impacted his business and team dynamics.
Topics:
adas technology
electric vehicles
hybrid repair
customer education
shop management
training programs
business succession
four-day work week
Cars:
Chevrolet Trax
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS
Watch Full Video Episode
Keith Katz shares practical insights from decades of running a successful auto repair business, offering shop owners real-world strategies to adapt and grow. From navigating the challenges of ADAS and EV technology to making bold investments in team training, Keith explains how the right decisions can set your shop up for long-term success.
You’ll also discover why shifting from being a hands-on technician to a strategic business leader is essential, how proactive succession planning protects the future of your shop, and the one move Keith wishes he made sooner—hiring a business coach. His honest reflection and actionable advice make this conversation a must-listen for any shop owner ready to evolve, embrace new technology, and secure lasting profitability.
Keith Katz, Quality Service Center, York, PA. Keith's previous episodes HERE Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Learn more about NAPA Auto Care and the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://www.napaonline.com/en/auto-care NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/ Connect with the Podcast:- Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RemarkableResultsRadioPodcast/
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Trax
"...op, so it's your choice. Let us prove to you that Trax is the single best shop management system in the ..."
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This is the Aftermarket Radio Network.
Hey, everybody, Karm Capriotto, remarkable results radio, good to have you here as we move through
and celebrate our 10th year.
Hopefully you've had a chance to see that episode that we did as Town Hall Academy 437,
so please check it out.
Before we jump into this thing, heavy duty with Keith Katz, a word from our great partners.
Hey, take your AutoCare Center to the next level, the gold level with the Napa AutoCare
Gold Certified Program.
This program is for the best of the best who can provide a consistent consumer experience
and earn the trust of returning and new customers.
Talk to your Napa sales representative about how you can become a gold certified
shop.
Hey, did you know that NapaTrax has on-site training plus six days a week support?
It all starts when a local representative meets with you to learn about your business
and how you run it.
After all, it's your shop, so it's your choice.
Let us prove to you that Trax is the single best shop management system in the business.
Find NapaTrax on the web at NAPATRACS.com.
Hey, welcome back.
Let's get started.
Hey, Keith, how are you?
Good to see you.
Hey, Karm, good to see you too, man.
Been a while.
It has the owner of Kuali Service Center in York, Pennsylvania.
45 years in the industry, 27 years as a shop.
How's business, bud?
Oh, man.
It's like everything else.
It's up and down, up and down.
But for the past probably four or five years, we've seen a steady growth upward.
So things have been going well.
Got good solid crew here.
Just a good set of clients.
And we're real happy with where we're at right now.
Going real well.
Glad to hear it.
Our first episode was November 2015, about nine and a half years ago.
You came on the show.
It was a great episode.
We've done others in between.
Do you remember that episode we did on the 1990s?
Yeah, because I remember the pictures that we all sent in
of what we looked like back then.
That's kind of funny.
But yeah, things have really changed since the 1990s, that's for sure.
We had you, Scott Palava, Paul Danner, and Ryan Coyman on.
And we all had a picture of us from the 90s.
And it was like some people said, who's that?
We can't recognize that person.
You were all dark hair and everything.
And what were we thinking with the hairstyles and everything?
Well, what are we thinking now?
I mean, everybody's got that Pee Wee Herman look.
You don't have that.
And I don't have that.
It's the best I can do with what left,
what I have left and the color it is.
So, you know.
Well, you know, I heard you say you're happy with the way business is.
But you know, if you look out over the horizon five years,
what's going to change that you see?
For me personally, I hope to be retired in five years,
actually in four years.
But, you know, that's me personally.
But five years, it's hard to say,
because so much has changed over the past five.
Just thinking of, you know, five years ago, ADOS was something
that was maybe on our radar, so to speak.
You know, like, ah, this is coming.
But here we are five years later and it's full blown.
The whole ADOS program with the self-driving cars
that they keep talking about, electric vehicles,
things like that.
You know, right now here in York, Pennsylvania,
they're starting to build more on the hybrids here, all right?
The clientele around here really have gotten into the hybrids.
But we are starting to see more and more of the electric cars.
We always seem to be two, three years behind what you see
in other places, but the electric cars are starting
to come in here, like they have been in other places
for maybe the past five, six years.
Other places I've seen them, and we're just starting
to see them come in full here in York, Pennsylvania.
How long has it been since you've been repairing hybrids?
I think back like COVID.
You know, COVID is kind of like this bookmark.
I know we did training pre-COVID,
so it's probably been six, seven years when we started
and it hasn't really been until like the past year
and a half, two years that we actually see
a regular set of hybrids coming in.
So again, a little bit further behind
in a lot of other cities.
Are you marketing hybrid repair a lot?
We are using that in our Google searches
and things like that, yes.
So you say ADAS.
How many ADAS calibration centers exist in York?
I know of, in the aftermarket, I know of one.
Wow.
Yes.
There may be others, I only know of one.
And you know of that one because they knocked on your door?
No, I know of them because they're part
of our AutoCare group here with the NAPPA AutoCare,
so he's in our group.
When you find an instance that you have done something
to a vehicle that may need a calibration,
is that where you take it?
Yeah, we'll do that or we'll take it back
to the manufacturer, a lot depends on what was done,
the whole situation behind the job,
but yeah, that's what we do.
You're obviously talking about your NAPPA
business development group, right?
What's the discussion when you get together about ADAS?
Do people just want to stay away from it completely?
Or I mean, who wants to go out and invest in the money
because I've attended some classes recently
and they say that calibration,
that static and dynamic calibrations
are going to ebb and flow depending on the vehicle.
That's not always going to be dynamic
and some of the conditions of our roads
may not be able to make all of that happen, et cetera,
et cetera, there's so much confusion
that it makes people either scared to jump in it, Keith,
or they say, hey, I'm in,
I want to become a specialty shop.
Right, within our group, there's probably,
there's about 27 in our BDG group
and I'm going to say there's probably about five shops
within that that maybe are looking at it seriously.
It's difficult because a lot of us don't have the space.
It's also difficult because some of the driving
that you have to do to set certain things,
oh, you need to go down this highway where it's smooth
and go straight for five miles
and you have to have lines on both sides of the road.
And well, here in Newark County,
good luck with that, it's difficult.
So I'm not really sure what's going to happen.
I know I've been in talks with another shop owner here locally
that we're looking at trying to build something together.
So kind of to ease the cost of it a little bit
and kind of share it together,
but that's just in the infancy stage right now.
So we'll see where that goes.
That's a completely interesting thought
to partner up with someone to split the money,
feed that shop, promote that shop.
You obviously get to start a partnership
or a separate corporation in order to pull that off.
But when I was at the NapaNau conference
and I listened to Matt Fonslow speak to Adas to,
he did three different sessions,
him and I want to get together
and actually talk about what went on on that stage
and the kind of people that came up to him
at the end and the questions that they were asking.
There's a lot of buzz going on in the industry
about Adas calibrations.
And I attended a Keith Perkins class
at Tools just a few weeks ago.
I was in there for an hour.
I couldn't pull myself away.
And I was trying to go to a bunch of classes
and Keith just rocked my world
in the things he talked about that we,
as an industry Keith are just saying,
doesn't matter, it's not important, but it is.
It is very important.
And that issue comes down to,
we can talk about it as business owners
and we can be trained in it.
But if we don't learn to talk to our clients about it,
the importance behind it,
that's where it's gonna fall apart.
Because you already have a lot of people like,
if it doesn't work, I don't care.
Or if the lights on, I mean,
how many cars we pull in sometimes at the TPMS lights on
and they're like, I just ignore that.
So what else are they gonna start ignoring?
And it's kind of funny
because I tell the story often,
everybody loves this technology.
They're like, I gotta have this, gotta have this.
And we had a client come in,
her camera system stopped working.
And she says, I have to have this.
I have to have my camera system.
Okay, fine, fine.
So we looked into it.
Well, here what had happened was
she left her passenger side window open
one time when it rained.
The rain got in the car.
The module for the camera was underneath the passenger seat.
And guess what?
It was full of water.
Well, so you got the module, the programming.
We needed a new harness
because that was all corroded and whatnot.
For me, it was like $4,000.
And she goes, well, I don't really need it that bad.
So this is what I'm saying.
The expense behind it is what some people will sit there
and be like, well, you know,
and I'm just gonna ignore it
and maybe turn those features off.
I don't know.
We have to be able to educate our clients
into this is why it's important.
And then fortune apart is the expense behind it.
It's a very expensive proposition.
Just to do a simple calibration
on a lot of these cars,
you're talking two, three, $400.
Yeah, exactly.
I was listening to Keith and he says, look it.
He's not only has the L1 training
and he's out training everywhere.
He's doing a lot of great things.
He's got a brick and mortar.
When someone comes in and for whatever repair,
an alignment, he knows that the alignment
is going to be pretty heavy duty alignment.
And he says to the, you know,
it's a $99 for the alignment,
but at the end of the day,
it's gonna be, you know, $399.
Well, Charlie down the road will do it for 89.
Why is your so expensive?
And he explains it and they end up leaving
and going for the less alignment
because they're not going to do the calibration
to the vehicle.
And so he tells that story
and then he shows a great graphic example
of what a one degree off kilter
of that front radar means at so many feet down the road.
And it's really not looking where you want it to look.
It's looking in the other lane that's coming at you.
So no matter if it's ADAS, if it's, you know, dynamic cruise,
if it's breaking, if all whatever the safety features are,
it's not going to work as intended.
And when I looked at those graphics
and I saw Keith at lunch later that day,
I said, those graphics that you have,
and this goes back to what you just said,
telling the story,
you need to be on our counters
on a laminated flip chart.
We need to say, this is how the car runs now.
This is how it relates to what's going on down the road,
what it sees and there's one degree off.
And I want you to see where that radar is looking
and the job that it's not going to completely do.
And I raised my hand and I says,
where are the other 500,000 specialists
that work in our bays should be in this class
and all the service advisors and all the owners.
So to your point, we're not telling the story,
but there's so much crap out there
against the professionalism of our industry
that think all you're trying to do is sell up.
Well, and then you have the other person that,
okay, they go and get that $89 alignment
and they drive the car and they say,
see, there's no difference.
My car goes down the road straight.
My tires aren't wearing.
It's the unknown that,
and sometimes you may not discover that right away.
And so that's what makes it harder.
And like you said, Karm,
our industry already has enough black eyes.
You just trying to sell me something I don't really need
because the guy down the street did it without any problem.
So it's hard.
One day, Keith, I believe,
I don't even want to say this,
but we may have a liability on our hands one day.
If somebody does the research and realizes
that there was a shortcut made.
Now, if the consumer refused to have that done
and leaves and goes,
it makes their own decision on their own vehicle,
but the shop doesn't recommend to do that,
even though the vehicle service manual,
the service reports say it's not recommended.
It's required and you didn't follow service procedures.
So I'm liable not to have this vehicle had a calibration
like the John Eagle case with collision
on that roof issue that was millions of dollars rewarded
or awarded.
I heard about that.
We may have something like that someday.
And you know, this technology that's on these vehicles
and this technology to recalibrate them,
this isn't Disney.
This isn't a cartoon.
This isn't a movie or a story time.
It's all real,
but we choose as an industry in a lot of cases
that it comes to spending money to do the proper fix.
We choose to say no to it.
Well, and one of the things that I've learned,
you know, Clint White, everyone knows Clint White.
Sure does, yeah.
But he taught me one thing.
He always said, words matter.
So when you say,
I recommend you have this ADOS calibrated.
Eh, I can or I can't.
But when you use the word required,
your vehicle requires this to be calibrated.
All of a sudden it brings on new meeting.
So something that I learned from him years ago.
So how do we improve our professionalism?
I don't know.
It's frustrating because, you know,
Karm, we here at our shop,
we try to uphold the highest standards out there
that we can.
And we deal with it because of we have shops around us
that are thrown together, it goes down the road,
you hit the brakes, the brakes are working fine,
you're good to go.
And so we deal with that all the time.
We will spend the time and explain to the customer,
this is why it's important.
Some of them don't wanna hear it
and some of them are sitting there and they're like,
wow, I never knew that.
Thank you for explaining that to me.
So it's all a matter of just educating our clients,
whether it's one on one
or whether it's in some kind of,
I don't know, we used to do some classes here
with the ladies and, you know,
explaining how cars work and things like that.
But maybe we need to hold more classes like that
for the general public,
so they understand the complexity behind cars.
I mean, it's not easy anymore.
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Let's just put a pin in this whole discussion.
This is like critical.
Let's just go out and remind ourselves
that these car care clinics,
and we've always used to go do them specifically for women,
but car care clinics in whole, to your point,
I think the technology has moved so fast
beyond what the normal consumer has.
At least car, they're not gonna come.
They don't care every two years, they're done.
They don't want this hassle.
They always want it to be new and fresh
and never break down,
but the people that are holding onto their vehicles today
need to understand that this is a speeding computer bullet,
right, and that there's a lot you have to pay attention to.
It's interesting, because I had a client tell me
that he's thinking about getting rid of his cars
and going all electric,
so he doesn't have to come into the shop anymore.
And I was like, okay, let me know
how that works for you, dude.
Even electric cars, there's things
that are gonna have to be serviced and repaired on them.
It's not like you buy an electric car
and you never see a shop anymore.
So it's just a matter of educating clients
in the proper way so that they understand
what exactly they're getting into.
Well, there's thermal management,
there's tires, there's suspension.
It's amazing how, okay, it goes back to this whole thing.
Ask your customer, do you think that the specialists
of the technicians that work on your vehicle
have to be licensed?
And every one of them, Keith, I guarantee you,
99% are gonna say, absolutely.
And then you're gonna tell them, well, they don't.
But to get your nails done or your hair done.
And I know that's a whole different discussion
in the industry about having to be looked at.
Isn't it?
I know, yeah, we're not ready to talk about that, I know.
Government's got their hands in enough stuff,
but it's funny how anybody, anybody can work on a car
and it goes down the highway doing 70, 80 miles an hour.
But I have guys set my house right now
putting a new AC system in and they had to be licensed
and everything else in order to do that.
But yet it's just gonna sit still there at my house,
you know, we won't get into that discussion, Karm.
That's...
Yeah, all right.
So what are you doing with your people, your team
to keep them up to date?
You know, what's your training commitment to them?
In fact, it's funny you talk about that
because just even this morning I was on getting everybody
registered for ASTA down in North Carolina
at the end of September.
But we attend as much training as we can.
I try to hit one of the big events.
When I say one of the big events, you know,
here in Pennsylvania we have tools.
ASTA is one, there's Vision Out in Kansas.
In fact, I was just out there in March.
I think I ran into you as a matter of fact.
Yes, you did.
We will shut down the shop and take the whole crew
because it's that important.
We also do through NAPPA,
they have training going on throughout the year,
evening classes, which are good and it's important.
I've been preaching for many years
that we shouldn't be doing evening classes
because the guys work all day and they're tired.
But we still have some shop owners that are like,
well, that's how I always did it.
So they're gonna do it too and like it.
And I'm like, yeah, whatever.
I'd be more inclined to, hey, let's do training
from eight to 11 in the morning
and then work the afternoon or something like that.
But he just landed something really big
that bothers the hell out of me.
That's how I've always done it, dammit.
Keith, and there's so many shop owners
that are closing, taking their entire team.
And if not, they're taking half of their team
one year and half the other.
And they just can't accept the fact
that they would close it down.
And you're doing it in so, so many other owners are doing it
because they realize that this condensed training,
be it vision, be it Asta, be it ATE, be it tools,
all these other great events they're going on, they can't.
Is it they can't, they won't.
There's fear that they're gonna piss off a customer.
Listen, I'm sure you don't schedule anything
on those days.
I'm sure your clients get the fact
that continuous training or education
is a critical thing to keep up in our industry.
The first day you did this,
how did you justify that this was gonna be healthy
and good for your team and for your business?
The healthy and good for the team, that's easy.
I mean, obviously you train them, they work for you,
they then produce more,
they're able to repair the cars better, faster,
whatever it is.
So for the team, I didn't have to be convinced of that.
The whole thing was taking time to close the shop.
Like the first time we did anything, we flew out the vision.
So obviously we have to shut the shop down,
we have to get on a plane, fly out,
we spend whatever is two or three days out there
and then we fly back.
The first time I did it, I'm gonna be honest,
I was a little nervous.
How is the customer is gonna see this?
What's gonna happen?
I would say of those that I talked to,
they said, well, good for you.
I'm glad you're taking the time to do that.
I mean, I never had any client come and say,
I can't believe you closed down,
you could have at least left one person here
or anything, no one ever said that.
There's the fear of losing out on income.
I get that.
You're shut down for a day or two
depending on how long you close.
You're not bringing anything in,
plus you're spending all this money
so nothing coming in and you're spending additional money.
I get that can be a fear,
but I don't wanna step on toes, but I'm gonna say it.
If your business can't survive being closed
for a day or two,
you probably have other issues that you need to work on
and therefore you really need to be at the training.
So I don't see it as a roadblock.
That is a great summary
that I haven't heard in a long, long time.
You have other problems if you can't,
you don't think you could close.
Even the clients, again, they're fine,
kind of the throw into there
and not trying to push this or anything,
but like two and a half years ago,
we decided to go to a four-day work week.
We worked four tens.
So it's Monday through Thursday,
we're closed Friday through Sunday.
Part of my fear was what are the clients gonna say?
Are we gonna lose business?
Are they gonna go somewhere else in this and that?
Every client that commented to me said,
I wish I could work four tens.
So it's something that other people are jealous of
and our clients are like, okay, I can't come in Friday,
I'll drop it off Monday, it's not a big deal.
And so our business didn't change,
we didn't go backwards and come.
In fact, if anything, we actually went ahead.
I think the fears are there
and they're real for closing to go to training,
but I think you need to take the first step
and just do it and you'll see, you know what?
You're right.
You did it and everything's just fine.
And you had mentioned just maybe 10 minutes ago
that your business continues to grow
and I've always, when I've interviewed shop owners like you
that tell the story of they closed and they go,
they says, we never missed a beat.
The revenue for the month, it was there.
It just happened, it was in a miracle.
The team pulled together.
Yeah, well, and for me personally,
it helped me attract two good techs
that I probably wouldn't have had a chance to get otherwise
because when I interview people,
one of the things I always ask them is,
why are you looking to leave your current place?
And two of the guys that work for me said,
it's not that I'm unhappy, I like where I'm working.
I just like the idea of only having to work four days
and have a three day weekend.
That has nothing to do with the training,
but I brought up about the four day work week.
And so there's other benefits
behind some of the things that you do
in closing the shop and changing your schedule or whatever.
And the biggest benefit for us in training
is the guys are on top of the latest and greatest.
And there's, even when you get to the big shows
like the divisions and the ASTAs and all that other,
it's not just about the training,
but it's about rubbing shoulders with other people
in your industry.
And you might pick up the tidbit from the guy
you're sitting next to in class,
hey, what do you guys do for XYZ?
And it's like, oh, well, this is how we do it.
Like, oh, it's a great idea.
And they quick jot it down and make a note of that.
So there's a lot that comes out of taking the time to train.
I recently changed my slogan that I created 10 years ago,
listen to learn just one thing.
And I added the words and implement it.
And I'm an ideas guy.
And I go to a conference or I hang out with people.
I always have a paper and a small notebook with me.
When I get back, I go through it.
And I just start putting those ideas in places
that I know that I could go out and react to them
and do something about them.
And I think that's the one of the,
you got one C right in front of you.
Look at that.
This is my book right here.
Exactly.
That's the exact size I bring with me.
Yeah, exactly.
And when I come back, I always leave it on my desk.
Yeah.
And it should be staring you in the eye and says,
read me, read me.
Exactly what happens.
Every now and then open, I'm like, oh, that's right.
I wanted to paint the room blue or whatever.
But you had to leave in order to think of that.
I know exactly.
Exactly, right?
So young people coming in,
are you doing anything with an apprentice program at all?
Currently, we do not have an apprentice.
We've had several over the past few years.
I don't even know how to talk about it.
Cause some of them worked out well.
And we had one guy that, you know,
he was here for probably a year, year and a half.
And he was like, this is too hard.
I'm going to go do something else.
It's good experience.
It's a lot of work.
I'm not going to kid anybody.
It's a lot of work to bring an apprentice on,
but I don't have anybody working for me
in the apprentice level.
So how are we going to get young people in our industry?
What are we going to do?
Drag them here.
No, I think a lot of it comes down to
being available to talk to schools.
You know, they have career days all the time.
In fact, my son just did one over at my granddaughter's school
shortly before school ended.
And I was like, dude, I would have done that.
You should have told me, you know?
But I think that's part of it is getting into their
classrooms and being able to show them
that it is a good career.
So succession, you had kind of tangled that up
a little earlier that you'd like to be out in four years.
Do you have an internal candidate?
I do.
My service manager that works for me.
We've had discussions over the past couple years
and right now I'm working with my attorney
to draw up some legal mumble jumbo
to kind of like handcuff him here and handcuff me here
and so that it could all work out.
So that's the plan and the internal candidate.
I mean, let's be honest, Carm,
half the customers don't even know I own the place
anymore, so it is a good thing.
That's what I mean.
Well, that's a good thing then, right?
So if you're down to four days,
are you in every day or are you like working three there
and one from home?
I'm down to three and a half myself.
Okay, all right.
Yeah, I leave a half day on Thursdays now.
So the team's running the business for you?
Pretty much.
You know, it's funny.
It's one of the hardest lessons for me to learn.
I can't even think of what I learned at the first,
heard it the first time,
but it's work on the business and not in the business.
That took me many, many years to learn and understand.
And now that I'm working on the business
and not in the business,
I don't know how I did it before.
So anybody listening, I mean, if you're still working in it,
and maybe when you're a young business
and just starting out, I get it,
you have to wear many hats,
but as the business grows,
you need to start taking some of those hats off.
And I'm not gonna criticize anybody
that's working in their business
because I know how hard it was for me to finally pull them.
I mean, look, I even dress nicely now
so that I don't go out there and get dirty.
So...
See, I've heard that is one really big leap
that owners have been taught either by their coaches
or through networking groups,
change your clothes so that you don't wanna go out
and the wife comes in and says,
you were in the base again, why?
I hate cleaning these grease off these shirts of yours.
Yeah, no, she would definitely say something,
but no, I do that.
I wear a nice pair of slacks
who are a nice button-up collared shirt.
And I feel I look professional,
but I don't wanna go out in the shop and get all dirty.
Now, I still go out there and I,
hey, what's going on over here?
You know, type of thing and sometimes stick my nose in.
You know what?
There's nothing wrong with that.
That's management by walking around,
that's using your intuition,
that's paying attention to what's going on
and then coming back at the end of the day saying,
what did I hear?
What did I see?
What did I feel?
If you jump in and micromanage a little tiny things,
your team's never gonna wanna make a gutsy decision
without you.
Yep, well, it's funny
because probably goes back about two years now.
I was out in the shop and the one guy says,
hey, have you ever seen how to do this or whatever?
And I get in there, I'm like, oh, move aside.
I start working in there.
And he kind of pulls me aside.
He goes, how may we're gonna learn if you do it for me?
And I thought that was good, you know?
So I just kind of backed off
and I said, here's what you need to do.
And I just kind of stood there and folded my hands
and let him do his job.
So it's difficult for me.
I was always a hands-on person.
And so that very difficult for me to make that transition.
Those are always great slap
upside the head moments that we all need.
I wrote my most recent blog that I wrote
was called, Are You a Mechanic or Owner?
And it's just kind of what you and I talked about.
And we want to open a business that we have for years
and it's a hobby.
And in order to really reap the benefits
of really good quality success,
both personal and business,
you have to become the chief executive officer somehow.
And everyone, no one knows how that's why they hire
a coach and accountability partner
or go to these conferences
and take all these great classes to teach them that.
You were mentioning working on the business.
And of course that was Michael Gerber's
the e-myth that was written so, so many years ago.
And it applies exactly to our business.
I mean, I think that's going to be a business,
something that if you want to get yourself up
and out of, I might not want to say the word failure
or marginality in making a profit
and running a business and hiring great people,
you have to learn not to work in it, but work on it.
And that's such a tough, tough haul for people.
It is hard because again, I mean,
when I went into business for myself, it was me.
I mean, I answered the phone and made the appointment.
I did the invoice, I did the repairs.
I did everything.
And slowly you start hiring other people to do those things,
but you still feel like you got to have your fingers in it all.
Honestly, one of the hardest things for me was going from,
even though we were working four days a week,
but I went from a four day work week to three and a half.
And I leave at one o'clock on Thursdays.
I'm like, oh, it still feels weird, Carm, it really does.
But I walk away and I'm like,
I know things are going to run just fine
and I'll come in Monday and the shop is still here
and everything got closed out on Thursday like it should
and life is good.
So it's getting easier though.
This great advice that you've given us
and again, one of the best advices
that I was ever given was the words pay attention.
And you can still pay attention from afar.
You can still review to repair order audits.
I mean, there's still so many things
that you as an owner can do
to stay connected to the business
as you are grooming a successor.
And even if someone's listening to this and says,
well, you know, I'm only really 40 years old,
everyone tells me it's a perfect time
to start planning this long-term
because you never know who the candidate
to an internal succession could be.
And if you're growing a great business and you're young
and you've gotten the right mentoring
or accountability partner,
the big thing today, Keith,
and we haven't even talked about this,
but scaling and growing
and the opportunity for private equity to come in
and buy up these five to 10 store groupings
of these independent groupings,
this industry is on fire for, you know,
MNA mergers and acquisitions.
Yes, you could be a big 10 bay, you know, super center,
but the opportunity to grow a great business
when you're young needs to be highly, highly considered.
That's just my point.
And I bet you if I asked you,
would you make a change or something different 20 years ago,
I'm sure you would have four things on a list to tell me
I should have done this, I should have done that, right?
I'll tell you, the first thing should have hired a coach
right from the start.
There's always all kinds of things, you know,
you should, would have should have could have,
but you know, I don't know how long I fought
having a coach, you know, I got it.
I'm good, I'm good on good,
but that just makes a whole difference
having a coaching company with you, you know,
and I don't care who you pick.
I mean, there's all kinds out.
There's a lot of great people out there.
Just pick one and work with them, listen to them.
They know their stuff.
Such incredible advice.
Thanks for hanging out with me
and let's catch up to find out what's going on
in the world of Keith Katz
at Quality Service Center in York, PA.
Wow, 27 year business.
And one again, when you mentioned that it was 2015
when we did our first.
We did our first one, yeah.
Podcast together, just kind of like shooting a breeze
and it's like 10 years ago.
Come on, Carl.
That's a long time.
And you've done a lot of great things with your podcast,
so I appreciate them all.
And I think if we both look at each other's picture
from them, we have a little less gray hair.
I'll bet we do.
But you are so young in what you speak
and how you look and I don't feel gray hair-ish.
I probably had a lot less wisdom back then too.
It's amazing the things that you learn in 10 years.
Absolutely.
Well, hey, thank you so much for being here
and to our listener.
Thank you so much for your support over all these years
and we have some really fun, neat new things
that are coming up that we can't wait
to make some announcements about.
And whatever you do, please do it well.
Thanks, Keith.
Thank you.
Thanks for being on board to listen and learn
from the Premier Automotive Aftermarket Podcast.
Until next time.
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