Remarkable Results Radio Podcast Aug 19, 2025

From Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, To Will, Can, Do: Auto Repair Business Done Right [RR 1053]

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Chevrolet Trax

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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.

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shop.

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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.

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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.

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.

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Original notes

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:

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