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Lucas Underwood Gets Real About Leadership, Life, and Money
Lucas Underwood Gets Real About Leadership, Life, and Money
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About this episode
Lucas Underwood shares candid insights on leadership, personal growth, and the complexities of running an automotive business. He emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for one's life choices and the need for systems in business to avoid chaos. The conversation touches on the emotional burdens of shop ownership, the struggles of technicians, and the necessity of mentorship and support within the industry. With a mix of personal anecdotes and industry observations, Lucas advocates for a balanced approach to work and life, encouraging listeners to find meaning beyond just financial success.
Topics:
leadership challenges
personal responsibility
business systems
emotional burdens
mentorship
work-life balance
industry struggles
financial success vs meaning
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In this episode, Jeff Compton and Lucas Underwood get real about the realities of shop ownership and the repair industry. Lucas harps on why you need to build better systems and processes, mainly to avoid burnout. They both get heated about the technician pay structure, industry culture, and the crucial need for personal fulfillment and meaning beyond monetary success.
00:00 Intense Storms, Tornado Near Miss
06:15 "True Champions Plan for Success"
10:49 Complex Challenges in Industry Dynamics
20:06 Self-Reflection and Employee Turnover
25:07 Owner's Struggles with Management
30:23 "Chaotic Kitchen Reflections"
31:12 Automotive Industry Training Challenges
41:23 Welfare System Critique: Misallocation Concerns
45:03 Track and Tax Unbilled Services
47:12 Business Finance Transparency Needed
56:07 Rethinking Success Beyond Money
59:04 Career Pathing Concerns Discussed
01:03:14 Fishing: A Passionate Escape
01:12:29 Navigating Professional Boundaries
01:14:36 "Embracing Emotional Connections"
01:20:59 Helping Each Other: A Pipe Dream?
01:27:13 Eco Diesel Truck Dilemma
01:32:17 Online Complaints Over Car Repairs
01:38:54 Unnecessary Changes Disrupt Growing Shop
01:40:52 Emotion-Free Decision Making
01:46:20 "Challenging Stagnant Business Practices"
01:52:54 Building Character Through Purposeful Work
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Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Silverado
"...have to follow up with him. He's got a 24 Duramax Silverado there that it's on its third strike. That it's go..."
Car
Volkswagen Tiguan
"...just listen, I'm just tired of having to boost my tiguan. You're driving around with broken Coil springs o..."
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
"...ad, you know, the, the technician wash the wife's Corvette every Friday afternoon. Or, you know, they talk a..."
Car
Master Tech
"...alking a while back and he was talking about this master tech that worked at an Audi dealership. There's news a..."
Car
Dodge Ram
".... Yeah, like get in line. We have a. We have a 18 Ram with an Eco diesel sitting on our shop, which of ..."
Intense Storms, Tornado Near Miss
"True Champions Plan for Success"
Complex Challenges in Industry Dynamics
Self-Reflection and Employee Turnover
Owner's Struggles with Management
"Chaotic Kitchen Reflections"
Automotive Industry Training Challenges
Welfare System Critique: Misallocation Concerns
Track and Tax Unbilled Services
Business Finance Transparency Needed
Rethinking Success Beyond Money
Career Pathing Concerns Discussed
Fishing: A Passionate Escape
Navigating Professional Boundaries
"Embracing Emotional Connections"
Helping Each Other: A Pipe Dream?
Eco Diesel Truck Dilemma
Online Complaints Over Car Repairs
Unnecessary Changes Disrupt Growing Shop
Emotion-Free Decision Making
"Challenging Stagnant Business Practices"
Building Character Through Purposeful Work
Select text to request an explanation
If you want your life to be better, take action to make it better. Your car is not the reason your life sucks. Your choices are the reason your life sucks. And it is not my job as an automotive technician or a shop owner to fix your problems.
So what's the weather like there?
Dude? It was crazy last night we probably had 70 and 80 mile an hour winds the majority of the night and so it was pretty intense. We, we definitely, definitely had like a lot of high rain or you know, heavy rain, stuff like that. But now west of here was really bad and south of here was really bad. Lots of tornadoes everywhere but here. You know, we're up on the mountain and so for the most part that type of weather, like it, it interacts with the wind as it comes up the mountain and it changes. And so it's not nearly as big of a deal up here to have tornadoes and things like that. We do have them, but it's just not as, as frequent. What about you, what's it up like up there?
We had a beautiful, we had a beautiful day yesterday of like almost. It was, well, it was 45 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning. Yeah. So it's getting balmy. And then I drove, what did I put on 600k yesterday driving around probably almost. So I had to go to Brockville and pick up a friend. And then we went from Brockville north about an hour and a half to a place called Wheeler's Pancake House, which is because right now in glorious Canada, it's maple syrup season.
The SAP, don't you rub it in. Don't rub it in.
So Wheeler's is the largest producer, one of the largest producers in the province of maple syrup. And a family run business has been there kind of. So I had a lot of similar to your situation. Right. Family run, very cool. You sit down and of course one of the son in laws is married in is the guy that's the maitre d and they sit you down. Best pancakes you've ever had in the world. Huge, like pie plate size pancakes, fluffy.
It could be everybody, they just bring you a bottle of maple syrup sticking on the table, the most incredible sausage, incredible baked beans, like so I did, we did that and then there was a live MMA show in Belleville which is about an hour from me. So by the time I was Brockville back to Kingston on the Belleville, it was 10 o'clock when I got home last night, I'd done 600k in the Jeep. I was like, wow.
Oh that's awesome. Dude. I mean, I love those times, right? Like getting out and riding and having a good time and it. Not being about having to be somewhere or having to do something. You know what I'm saying? And so it's. I enjoy that. It's a. It's a release for me.
We took off, we went down the road. I took the phone family. We went to one local malls, had a sports coat that needed to be tailored, so I went and dealt with that. And we went to, you know, some stores and shopped and walked around the mall and just had a good time. Just got away for a little bit. You know, everything with the family, not. Not the shop, but the family business has. Because it's open on the weekends, right? And so it's led me to have to work a lot more than I usually would.
And it. They don't need me, right. I don't mean to say it like they're depending on me to do something. They don't need me for anything. It's just like I feel obligated to be there and help and be. Be, you know, supportive of them. And so it's. I don't know, it just, you know, I end up there on the weekends, and I don't end up sitting at home and relaxing and spending time with my family.
And, you know, my daughter's of the age where she's like, whatever, but my son, like, we're. We're at a spot right now where it's like every minute away is. He's. He's counting that, you know.
Yeah, for sure. And I know you. That's like, you're not going to stay as heavily involved in the family business as you are currently right now, but after what it's been through, you for sure want to turn around and put a. Like, right. The ship, per se, get it back to what, you know, your mom and your dad would want it to be, you know.
Absolutely, absolutely. And that's.
That's commendable, you know, and it has to be done.
You know, here's the thing. Here's what's interesting. We hired a coach, right? And when all that went down, we had hired a coach for the person who was running it, hoping that they could. They could get along and they could turn this thing around. And, you know, now, like, I don't know how to run that business. And I think the experience that I had, hiring a coach for my business, which is the business that I started, the business that I worked in, the business that I did everything in when I hired Rick White. It was. It was obvious I didn't have a clue what I was doing.
You know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't know. And so. So, like, I look at that and I'm like, I. I really don't know how to do this. Like, this is way outside of my purview. And so we hire this coach, and, you know, my dad and the accountant have pushed back a little bit. I just got off with him a few minutes ago, and they've pushed back and they've said, you know, this is a lot of money you're paying this person. I said, listen, I'm just going to tell you right now, I don't know how to do this.
Yeah.
And so this coach is working with the staff to develop a system that means that the business runs like a business, and this is what we do, and this is when we do it. And this is the box we click off, and this is how we go about business on a daily basis. And I said, right now, we don't have any systems. We don't have any processes. The person who was running it really thought they did. And the staff has been extraordinarily clear. There was never any, like, system, no, nothing. It was.
It was fly by the seat of.
The pants, winging it.
Yeah. And so, you know, I'm like, listen, I do not mean disrespect by this, but if that is what you guys want to do, I'm out. Like, I can't. I can't do this without helping build a system to where it can do it itself.
You know, I don't want to be that guy, to rub salt, but, I mean, when we talk about the money situation, the investment in the coach, let's be real, where we're coming back from is trying to recover the money that we didn't even know was going out the window.
Yeah.
For sure. Seem like a big amount, but, like, I hate to be that person, but to say, but that money disappeared right into thin air without people really catching it for a long time. So this is going to seem like a lot of bit of money, but we have. You have to do it to turn. To turn the ship.
Well. And if you didn't want that money to disappear, then there needs to be a system that says the money can't disappear, that there's checks and balances in place and that we know what our target number is and if we know what our target number is.
Right.
Like, I always talk about the Jim Fannin thing that he said that always stuck with me. And he said that true champions go to be in their mind, they illuminate a path back to A. They don't just go from A to B. They have to have a pathway, they have to have a map. They have to know where they're going. And so when I look at this business, I'm like, okay, if you want to do $2 million a year, net 20%, here's how to do it right? You take that and you divide it by 52 and you divide that by five and you like, you can get it down to the hour. And we know the number and we know how much we can spend if we know that's the number. Well, like without that structure, then I can come in here and say, well, but you know, I just need a little bit of money for this and I need a little brother like this.
And oh, we should buy this, we should do this, we should do this. And like when we look at business and we're thinking about what we're doing, where we're going, what we're trying to accomplish, if we leave that to a visionary who opens their mind and says, I would love to have a roller coaster in a 500 room hotel. Okay, but like how does that get you closer to your 2 million 20%? Oh, well, it's going to make so much more than that. Okay, I understand. But if you've set a task for this year, it's going to do 2 million at 20%. How does this play into that? Because like it's stairstepped. We don't just jump from this to this. You have to be able to support that.
You have to build systems and processes that support a roller coaster in a 500 room hotel. What, what? Like you have to get there. You can't just jump from A to B. You have to follow a pathway.
Let's see, in our industry, we go buy the roller coaster first.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
And then we go, okay, like where put this roller coaster? Or I got the roller coaster and I can even fix the roller coaster, but I can't get anybody here coming to, to ride it, you know? Yeah, we're talking, you know, examples and, and, but that's what I find and it frustrates me because the more I watch the restaurant industry or I watch, you know, other industries, it's like, it's so they're scalable, they still have failure. There's. But they're scalable because there's such a blueprint of like, this is what you need to know. X, Y and Z. Before you even start, right? You don't have to be a fantastic chef to open a restaurant. It helps.
Sure, sure.
But you don't have to. People open restaurants every day that can't cook. I'm guaranteed. But our industry is, like, so sideways, where it's just like, I'm the best mechanic in my shop, so I'm gonna go start a business.
But, but, you know, about. We. We've talked a lot about Tim Kite, right? And he passed away last year. He was somebody who I really, for some reason, latched on to a lot of what he talked about and a lot of what he shared, and I really appreciate it. But. But, you know, he always talked about hospitals because he worked with hospitals, and he said they would hire the best clinician to be the leader. And making a leader out of a clinician doesn't typically work. Right.
Like, that's not how this works. You don't hire the person who's clinically sound to be a leader because they're clinically sound. You hire a leader because they're a leader. And, you know, look, I'm guilty of this. In my own business. I went and hired a manager, and I really didn't have all the things in place to hire a manager yet. I wasn't emotionally and mentally prepared for what happened next. We weren't exactly in line with where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do, and we're working through that, and we're getting him some training.
We're getting him in with. With the institute and their managers, coaches thing, which I think is really going to help. But. But, you know, I think a lot of this, Jeff comes back to perspective because me and you were in it, right? We had a. We had what, an hour and a half long conversation the other day when I was driving home from the airport, coming back from vision, and. And like, me and you are in the middle of it. And we're emotionally invested because of the podcast. And we want our industry to be better.
We want things to work. We want things to be better for the technicians and the owners and the service advisors. And so we're working really hard to try and share information and lead people in a direction that makes it better. And it feels overwhelming sometimes because, like, some people don't want to be helped, some people aren't going to be helped. Some people think they know everything already. Some people think that we're doing it for some weird reason or whatever. Like, you know, it's not.
Somebody want to take everything and just throw it up. In the air and see how it lands and see what's.
You remember the Jordan Peterson video I always send you? And it's him talking about like oppression. And he says, like we tell our students, because he's talking to a class of psychology students. And what does he say? He says, we tell our students that you can go out and fix things. And he's like, no, you can't. This is really hard. It's not that simple. Things are complex. It's not like you're a golden tool.
You can't just go out and say, I'm going to fix things and it fix things, right? Like this is a complex problem. And so when I talk about perspective, I look at our industry and then I look at other industries, right? Because you bring up restaurants. We're bad to look at the restaurants and say, oh, they're working too, man. They're going through the same thing, right? Small business around this world is going through the same thing. And those who are thriving are these big corporations who have very, very specific outlines. They don't care about the people, right? And let's be honest about it, part of the reason that it works is because they took the people equation out of it. They said, you go do this, this, this, this, and this. And here's how much money I like, you have this number on your head.
This is what you owe me. At the end of the day, you, you're a tool for me, right? And so those corporations, because they took all of the other stuff out of it, that's what makes it work. It's not what I want for our industry. It's not what I want for our society. No, but that's why it works and.
It won't work for our industry. Because, I mean, I keep saying at the end of the day, if you have a restaurant and you have the most incredible food, but the wait staff is terrible, you can eventually run it without a wait staff. That's what a food truck is, is a broner chef wait staff. But if you're a shop and you got no talent, you have nothing. I don't care what anyone tell me, sell me or show me. It is an inevitable thing that it will not last without the talent because the reputation in any community. You put it down, eventually it becomes, becomes known. Spend millions on marketing.
You can spend whatever you want, fret about your Google reviews. It will not matter if the car cannot get fixed. Yeah, for sure.
We talk, we, we talked about that just the other day. We're talking about my manager coming from the car dealership world. And you said something I said. I came back, and I said it right to his face. I said, you know, hey, listen, I was talking to Jeff, and what Jeff said is absolutely true. This isn't a car dealership, so we can't burn our reputation to the ground. And then. Then we'll sell more cars.
So we have a new batch of clients coming through the door. That's not how this works.
Yep.
Right. And. And I'm. I'm not gonna lie to you. I struggle a little bit because. And I'm not a technician, Right. Like, you don't want me working on cars. You.
You don't want me working on cars. I'm gonna up more than I'm gonna fix. But. But I. When it comes to problem solving and deductive reasoning, like, that's where I shine. And so problems that look really easy to me to fix. And again, this is not intelligence. This is how my mind works.
They. Some of my staff seems to be struggling with very simple, very basic process. And I'm like, that's very frustrating to me.
Yeah.
Because I look at that, and I'm like, no, just do this, this, this, and this. And there's your answer. And so I worry, right. Because you're right. It does take talent to run the business, but I worry that we have burned our industry to such a point that those within our industry stopped trying to grow the skill. They stopped trying to grow the talent. There's a very small portion of them doing that. And so then they're unicorns.
They're expensive. They're hard to find. And what does it tell the shop? Because they tend to be kind of arrogant. Right. And I'm not saying they shouldn't be arrogant, but I'm just saying, what does it tell the shop? They come in, they want $200,000 a year. They want this, this, this, and this. The shop gets tired of searching for these unicorns because it's not even the fact they want big money. It's not even the.
The. The moving them from across the country that gets them. It's the attitude.
Yeah.
So they come in, they work for the shop, and now we've got an attitude situation, and they're not dependable. They want to do what they want to do. They can't follow instruction. They can't follow a process, because they already know in their head they think the process is better the way they want to do it. And so what happens with the shop now? We're incompatible because we're not communicating right yes.
And if you stay closed off, I'll go back on that and I'll say that it's not so much incompatible. It's just like most shops day to day don't need a unicorn. That's the first. But they sometimes when we see the post and it's like, I need a person that can do this, this and this and this. You're thinking about the one car. You and I shared lots this week. The one car that came in. I need somebody that can tackle that car.
The rest of the time I needed only a B Tech.
Yeah. For sure.
And for that one car, once a week you need to take your business and start to say no to that one car. Or else you have to start to focus more on that one type of car.
Absolutely.
The way you build.
That might be where we're headed. That might be where our industry's headed. To a level of specialization that's not been seen before.
I think so. Because when you see the dealers that are crumbling in the sense that like so many people say, I was back five times. I just talked to Brian the other day and I have to follow up with him. He's got a 24 Duramax Silverado there that it's on its third strike. That it's going to go to Lemon Law. It's at Wilco. Not a dealer.
Right.
To fix the truck. So it doesn't go to Lemon Law.
Right.
Let's think about that for a minute. There's the unicorn tech who's not work. Who's doing something at a very vast level.
Yeah.
Above the dealer network, of course. Do. Why is Brian able to do that? Because he works in an environment where they, they cultivate that ability. They know what he is, they recognize it. Like is he. Is he a challenge and attitude wise some days. Yes. He'll tell you he is for sure.
He will go all the challenge attitude wise, bro. Like that. That's being. That's being on this planet.
But they're utilizing Brian properly. Right. They've made the investment in Brian. They've set up all the processes. They're using them properly. If you go and put Brian in a, in another shop where they get one truck like that every six months, you're not gonna. Brian's not gonna last there because he's gonna be bored.
He's gonna be frustrated, he's gonna be aggravated. It's not gonna work out because it's not. It's not utilizing his skills.
Yeah.
And. And you know, look, but see there again, that's not what the dealer wants.
No.
Right. Let's be real about it, between the manufacturers and the dealers. I. I don't think. I don't think that the manufacturers are really keen on their dealers, to be completely honest with you. And I. I don't think that their interest is training these dealer techs to be able to fix cars. And I think that the dealer principals look at these dealer techs as.
You're kind of a threat to my business. Right.
Yeah.
So if I keep you in this little box and you're in this box and you can fix this and you can do this, but you don't understand how this works. And you don't understand how this works, then you never become a threat to me. Right. You never go out and start your own shop, say, hey, I worked at Honda for 20 years and I can fix any Honda problem you've got. No, because I'm gonna tell you that you're not to go into complex problems. I'm only gonna give you 0.5 or 0.75 for diagonaling this car. Anything beyond this that gets complex, you call this number. I talked to my manager about it.
He said, look, he said, only two people in our entire shop were allowed to ask for extra time, and they had to come up and be buttholes about it to get extra time. And he said, then when they were buttholes about it, there was like a discussion behind the scenes that said, yeah, well, go ahead and give him a little bit more. But we don't want to. We don't want to encourage that behavior. We want them to call the helpline and let the helpline solve it.
Yeah. So think about that, what that does for a culture standpoint. Because think about how close that technician might have been to solving it without calling in the field rep or whoever, whatever the term you want to use. If they had just had another hour, and then you have some guy sitting in a glass office saying, this could get to be a really ugly trend. If all of a sudden, now we start, instead of calling field or whatever. Right. Tech line, we start allowing them to spend two hours. Because I can tell you, when I was at the dealer, we never had a field service guy come in once.
And I'm not bragging. It just was. We're talking way back then. It wasn't used.
That's not how it worked.
Yeah. It didn't happen back then. Right.
Yeah.
So you were stuck fixing the car. Now everything can be like, we don't really care if Mr. Smith's truck, the Duramax gets fixed or not. We went through our process of trying to avoid lemon law. It didn't get avoided. They get it back. We made a smoking deal to sell Mr. Smith another truck or Mr.
Smith gave us the big old one finger salute and he's driving a Dodge now. Whatever. Like onto the next customer. We in our industry can't do that. We're not for sure.
Like what do you think's gonna happen, right? Like what's gonna happen to the shop? I can't just turn that away.
We spend way too much money recruiting customers. But at the same time, I've said it for years, you've heard me say it for 20 friggin years. If you cannot in a feasible amount of time and money satisfy what that customer needs, you are better in that customer's eyes to say, sorry, this is beyond my realm. Yeah, then go and make a fucking mess out of it. Because even if you make a fucking mess out of it and you don't charge them a dollar, they go away thinking that's the most incompetent shop on this boulevard.
Think about this though, think about this though, right? I was talking to somebody a while back and they said they've had two complete employee turnovers in their shop, right? Like complete employee turnovers. And they, they had had a whole list of the reasons that they had had this employee turnover. Oh, they wouldn't listen, they wouldn't. This, they wouldn't. That, wouldn't. Right. And so we begin to talk about perspective and being honest with oneself right? Now, I have long been somebody who my mom, my dad, my wife, everybody says like, hey, you have got to quit judging yourself so hard. Now I know I get on the Internet and I paint with a broad brush and I say things that sounds like I think that I have the answer, right? But inside I don't really feel that way, right? Like, I don't think that I'm always right.
I don't think that I always have the answer. There are things that I will stand my ground on because I have done it so many times and I have tried different ways that I say like, hey, this is the only, like, I'm sorry, this is just right. And, and the, the things I really stand my ground on are honesty, integrity, like to, to the book. And I, I make mistakes with that. I won't admit I don't make mistakes with that. But I guess what I'm trying to say is, is that that shop owner who went out and fired her staff twice was unwilling to take into account are There other factors. Are there things that I'm doing? Is it possibly me? Did I make bad decisions? Is it one person in this? Is it all the people in this? Is it me? What is it? Right? It was. It was emotional.
It was visceral. They messed up this car and I can't believe they did this. And they're getting out of here, right? And they go in and they destroy the whole culture. They blow it up and they start over because it's embarrassing and because everybody knows that they're the jackass.
So they have one. They have a list of reasons on why they had to turn over the whole shop. Now, again, go back to perspective. I have a list from their perspective because I'm gonna put myself in their shoes and goes, yeah, why do we turn it all over? Because you weren't bringing in the right cars with the right stuff.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Hey, who am I to say they hate to hear that, but we can probably break it down. And more times than not, I'm right about that.
You are. And I'm not going to disagree with the fact that you're right. But I will say, how hard is it to get the right car? Because, like, look at my shop. Now, I've hired this manager. He knows nothing about cars. He's. He's really good on the front counter, but he knows nothing about cars. So they call and they say, my car's broken.
And he says, bring in I fixed.
Yeah.
How can I train him to know that unless I'm. Unless I'm technically proficient on the front counter? How do I train him as someone who's not technically proficient, to have an avatar of the clients that we want to pick out and put in the shop? How do I get to where I have a life that's not seven days a week, 12 hours a day, trying to keep up with a repair shop, unless it's three bays and at that point I should go get a fucking job.
That's right, because my answer is going to be, well, the way they bring that up is with. Through mentorship, the same way you would do it on the floor. But how do you mentor in a smaller operation, the front counter, without it being such a cost expense? We've seen that, right? And you and I talk. How many times do technicians quit a shop or they don't work out because you have a lone wolf mechanic who started the shop? The wife is the service advisor. Doesn't know a lick about cars.
Why does it sound so familiar? Sounds like something I know. A friend went through something like this a while back or something. I don't know.
Has the wrong kind of. It's too empathetic for the customer, right? Where they're, they're cutting off their nose in spite of their face for the fact to help the customer because that's what they would want to do in their business. Wise, it sucks. Yeah, Humility. Wise, from a human standpoint, it's a brilliant thing. How many technicians wind up in a shop like that and it doesn't work. And they keep saying, I can't get technicians that jive with my people. Well, your people are the problem of why your technicians are driving.
Because you tell them you want one thing, but then we don't implement it and allow and it's not consistent. Yes.
Yeah, we say one thing, we do another. And, and you know, look, it's hard. It's really hard, right? Like when you start talking about building culture in a business, you start talking about building character in a business, you start talking about building systems in a business and then you add a significant other who has very different views and perspectives. And now you're trying to navigate this together, right? Alex and I, dude, we, we have knockdown, drag out sometimes over the staff. And it's, it's like, I am not afraid to say that, that in some ways if it was up to her, we would not have a manager right now. You know what I'm saying? But, but here's the deal is like, there are so many complexities that go into this and there's so much noise, right? Because like, I remember, I don't, I don't know if you were there. We were at the community college and we were having an event and, and I was talking about Nico, who is the apprentice. Now we've stopped doing the apprentice thing because I couldn't get it right.
It has nothing to do with the apprentices. I wasn't good at it and I'm stubborn, I'm hard headed. I want things done the way I want them done and I can be a jackass, right? And so it just, it was creating too much drama, it was creating too much mess. But I said to Nico in this panel because they were asking him, like, hey, you know, what is it that you would want to see from a, from a mentor or the shop owner or whatever? And I tried to explain to him, look, dude, like, there are a lot of pieces of pie because the technician has, you know, half his pie cut this way and half his pie cut that way and the service advisor has his pie cut into 16 pieces, because we work on 16 cars a day. And then he's cut into this to work on these other, you know, working with the techs, working with this, working with that. But me, I've got vendors and I've got bills, and I've got, you know, 12 employees. And all of a sudden, those slices of pie are getting smaller and smaller. And as an owner, what I had done to myself is I built this hub, right? I was the hub and all of the wagon wheels.
And even though I'd been taught not to do that, that's exactly what I did, because I didn't know how else to do it. And so then I become wholly dependent on the shop doing what the shop does. And then all of a sudden, the pressure is too much, and I. Holy shit. Okay, I'm. I am going to prioritize mission critical functions because that's all I've got left, right? You look at the space shuttle, I remember watching a documentary one time, and they talked about the strategy within the space shuttle. And it said, like, hey, as things start to shut down and as the power goes down, same with airplanes. Like, we're.
We're keeping mission critical alive. Your creature comforts are gone, buddy. Like, those suckers are out the window. Air conditioning? Nah, you'll be okay. But if you want to get back home, we're going to do this right? And so that's something that a shop owner experiences because it's so much work. And then you bring in the manager, and the manager, we've talked about this before. It happens to service advisors, it happens to managers. The owner walks away because it's just like, they've been under so much pressure for so long, then they're like, here you go.
And in the case that we're talking about, because I'm intimately familiar with that case, in that case, it's this emotional connection. It's an unhealthy connection to the client, and it's not serving the client. Okay, I'm just going. I'm gonna piss everybody off. It's not serving the client. It's not doing what's best for them because you don't have any fucking money to fix the problem when the car breaks or something goes wrong. You can't. You can't do what's right for the client.
You ain't money.
Like, it takes money to make it right.
And so, yeah, Sherwood from Royalty just put up a video yesterday. Yeah. Where they show the customer, I think is. Again, because Sherwood gets a lot of stuff, I think, from out of state. Yeah. And they ramp the car and he was in Georgia, so rust isn't really a thing for them. And they go to ramp it and it's like this thing can't be ramped.
Yeah, right.
It can't be. We put it up there and the frame started to fold or the subframe or whatever you call it because again, it's up there because of a blown brake line. And it's so funny because I'm talking to a good shop owner friend of mine who we talk when we talk. We talk for like three days back and forth, voice, text, voice, text. And then we get busy and we don't talk for a month. And he's saying the very same thing to me. He's under all this new processes and things. He's trying to turn his business around.
There's an out of town car towed in. He gets it stowed in for a blown brake line. Now why does it get towed there if already the situation should be in the process. We could say we don't have, you know, unknown customers towed in for BRO and Blake line blown brake lines. Because of course, when he gets it up there, it needs a frame repair too.
Right?
Now he's backed himself into this point of done. He's invested this hour into the complimentary DVI inspection of the rest of the car. The car shouldn't be on the road, let alone being like two hours away from where it's supposed to be. They're sitting in a hotel room and all this kind of stuff. And he's like, I'm, I'm here by myself now because he's turned over his shop. Fixing a brake line to get this customer out of my face.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I look at it, I go, it's still processes broke down, right? We have to set the rule. Somebody you saw it bragging about they had a Rolls Royce for a repair, gave them the hell no, I don't want to price. And the customer said, yes. Yeah, well. And he's arguing with me and I'm like, well, if you just don't want to do the job, just don't do the job. Don't give a quote. And then they turn around and they go, because I'm going to make money on this. Well then what the hell was your point of opening your mouth to complain about something, right?
And you know what? If you are having that discussion with yourself at any point in time, you are not going to make any money. Okay? Let's just be real with it, like, and you know I think that there is something so broken in our industry. And I hate to say this, right, but like who makes money in the restaurant? Like, who's making the money for the restaurant? The waitress. Right. Your service advisor and your, your chefs. Whether, like you might have a sue, you might have a line, you might have a. Right there. They're the ones who are truly making the money.
Now the owner, he. Right, he's still making money. He's making the money because he facilitated the space. He took the liability. Right. Like all of the things that go into it. But, but at the end of the day, moving that production through the facility is where the money comes from. Now here's the thing though.
It's not the, the Top Chef like the dude in the Bear, right? They, they were talking about a documentary about that show the other day. Fantastic show. And I'm not going to lie to you, it made me feel so much like my shop. It was like super disappointing. Like it was pure chaos. And I'm like, I was waking up at 2:00 in the morning, could not breathe, chest hurting, saying, oh my God, that feels so much like what we go through on a daily basis. But it was in that show and in the documentary about who that show is kind of framed after. It wasn't him that was making the money.
It wasn't the high end, top of the notch chef. His name was associated with it. And that's why people sometimes wanted to go there. Yeah, but it was the quality of the food. And, and guess what? In the auto repair shop, the high end diagnostic work is not where the money's coming from.
No.
Okay. It's the brake job, it's the set of tires, it's not necessarily oil changes, but it's the light miner services. But our industry went out and said, hey, we need to train all of our technicians because we need diagnosticians. Oh, okay. So tell me something. Has for the past 20 years our industry been doing what it takes to prepare the consumer for the modern automobile, charging appropriately for diagnostics on something that's more complex than F16. Have we been doing that? Because it takes time to get the consumer from down here where it's, it's a mechanical injection diesel truck or it's a carbureted engine with no computers whatsoever. It takes time to get them from here to here.
But you two, or you guys or gals or shop owners were so worried about consumer perception, especially in the independent world that you lagged so far behind that we can't charge what we need to charge, to have a properly trained technician that is a expert in plumbing, that's an expert in electrical, that's an expert in H vac, that's an. Heat pumps. Okay, let's be real. Cars have heat pumps now that have networks like I have in my shop to run my shop.
Yeah, right.
We, we've not, we've not brought the consumer along with us on this journey because we were too worried about what we were charging because we didn't know how to run a fucking business.
But see, but look at how many times the situation comes up and somebody says, you see it, and I see it all the time. Somebody says, well, listen, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not flaying all the meat right off the bone of my customers. You guys are just over aggressive and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, or, or somebody said to me two weeks ago, well, I'll put that bulb in for free. Okay? I got. Here's where I'm gonna blow everybody's mind. I'm gonna give you a theory. Try this out.
Put all the bulbs in for free, but charge for every little diag that you do. Every little code, every little quick thing. Or don't charge for any diagnosis, right? Or excuse me. Or don't charge for any bulbs, but charge for, you know, you know what I'm trying to say here? Whatever we normally do for free versus what we don't, what we seem to be wanting to charge for. Let's flip that, right? Because everybody's going, oh, it was only 0.3 to put that bulb. And I just did that. I can remember. Heard my famous story where, you know, the boss says if we just do another point three every week, you could go take your, your vacation.
And then the first time I go put a bulb in and the service rider goes, I got to charge the customer 0.3 for that. I go, hey, boss, remember the meeting we had yesterday? Yeah, this. Trying to take my vacation away, you know, head blows up. We have to stop trying to say I'm gonna do things for free. But only certain things. We either need to make up our friggin mind what that's gonna be.
I can see that.
I could see uniform or we don't because work.
That's complex. That's complex. Let's be real. That's complex. There are things on that front counter until you sit on that front counter, buddy. There are things on that front counter. There are nuances and there are ways to navigate that. We, we've got to figure out a better way to go about this.
And this comes back to what Jordan Peterson said. Things are complex, right? They really are. They are very complex. And the nuance of handling these clients and the fact that for so long we've not set proper expectations, and now we're trying to set them all at once. And you look at some people like Mikey Chipmunk Alvin. I mean, Alan, I've not told you about that, have I? Have I said anything about that?
No.
So I called him the other day. He's got this video out. I call him. I'm like, hey, dude. I was like, I love the chipmunk filter. He's like, what are you talking about? I was like, I think Braxton put a chipmunk filter on your latest video. He's like, what's a chipmunk filter? I was like, it makes your cheeks look all full and fudgy. And I was like, it looks like you got your cheeks stuffed full of nuts.
And he said, what? I said, I don't know, man. I was like, go back and watch that video. Your cheeks look really full. And I got a string of exploits before he hung up. So now he's Mikey Alvin, the chipmunk. But, you know, you look at him and he's saying, hey, the majority of my clients, like, dude, I'm here to make money, and I'm gonna do away with diag on most of this. I'm gonna. Everybody's gonna pay for the diag.
I'm gonna raise my prices across the board so the dye gets paid one way or another. I don't care. Right. Or, you know, like, me, I'm over here charging by the hour for diag. And I'm. I'm trying to. I'm saying to my text, like, hey, listen, I don't care how long a diag takes, but there's a system to get you additional time.
Yeah.
Please, please don't spend four hours on something without asking for additional time. Four hours later, right after the conversation. What are you doing on this? Oh, man, I forgot.
I'm sorry.
What do you want me to. Like, I can't do both. I can't. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, I think that we've so long set this expectation with clients that we don't know what the fuck we're doing, that it's really got to the point that. That consumers just don't trust us. And consumers are the point that so many shops don't have qualified staff that can actually Diag a problem that they don't think anybody can diag the problem. They think we're all idiots. And it's just look of the draw.
Are they going to fix my car or not?
Well, that's. That's been my argument forever. Everybody always has this horror story of this vehicle. It was so hard to fix at the dealership and the dealer guys. I. It was at the dealer three times and they couldn't look at it. And I keep going. And they go to somebody.
I'm not gonna name names because everybody's gonna know, but they go to somebody that maybe has a small shop, maybe they have a YouTube channel. And it looks like it was really simple repair. It was a really simple. You know why? It was. Because it was a really simple diag. You know what we removed? We removed the. All that we're gonna pay you for the time wise is this. And that's how they're able to do it because they take that pressure off.
That the focus became fixing the car.
Price said, I got $500 quoted to find this problem. Most of the time within $500 worth of time, I am going to find the problem. Does that mean everything needs 500 bucks? No, but we have to look at it and start to have the communication with the customer that it isn't 60 bucks anymore. And it's not even really 160 bucks. It's probably closer to 300. If you bring me an 09T gone with a parasitic drain and I tell you that I'm probably.
Dude, I'm a thousand out the gate. At least I hope I am. That's what we have always done before here. Lately. I don't know what we are probably telling them. 60 bucks.
We were at 160 and it ate our lunch. And you know, and to me, it's become. As I spend more and more time moving around, and I don't want to move around. I'm watching people and it's like I'm just starting to value the whole car because, like you taught me, advocate for the customer. And somebody says you actually should be advocating for the vehicle. And I'm now doing it both if I drive it, and it's got glaring safety issues that are wrong with it. It's overdue for an oil change. And I go in and I go, hey, this thing needs all this as well.
And I cannot sell that to the customer. The safety points. I just listen, I'm just tired of having to boost my tiguan. You're driving around with broken Coil springs on the front, right? Make it.
You understand you probably shouldn't be driving it.
I shouldn't probably have that car in my bay if I fail to instill the value of what I'm trying to sell you, the customer that, like, safety wise, you need to fix this before you were. But. And I can't get it to go. I can't get them to commit. I might as well sell sandwiches for sure.
And advocating for your. For the car is advocating for the client, right? At the end of the day, that's what we do. If we're advocating for the car and we're talking about its needs and building a plan for how do we get there. That consumer looks at me and says, hey, I'm not interested in any of that. Now there's the belief system that Mike has, and that's very much like, I don't. That's not really my problem. I need to get all the money from you that I can right now. And so that's not my problem, that you don't want to fix it.
And then I look at it and I say, hey, listen, we're probably not a good fit because I don't have the time for the drama, okay? I don't have the capacity for it. And especially if I'm the one running the shop, I definitely don't have the capacity for it. I don't need the drama in my life. I don't feel like dealing with this.
Here's what I don't want on my plate. If I go and enable somebody that is driving around something unsafe, and the last straw for the camel would have been that they had to boost it every day. And I go and make it so they don't have to do that anymore. And they drive around something unsafe and they end up hurting themselves or hurting somebody else. Do I want that on me? Because I. And I can put my hand up and say, listen, the customer's always right. The customer didn't want the safety stuff fixed. If you want to keep telling yourself that in this industry that you're doing the right, go ahead and keep telling yourself.
But I will laugh at you to my final day, because I know it not.
It's not right. You're absolutely right. It is not right. And it's not really serving anyone. I don't disagree with that. I see the logic, right? I see the logic that the consumer says, hey, I don't want to invest this and here's what I want to do. But I also see the fact that when I have that consumer right there in front of me. And it's my job to educate them and tell them what's going on with the car.
And I know that if we do this, I am increasing the workload and the stress load on my front counter because they are coming back.
Yeah.
Okay. You can guarantee it if they've let the car get in that condition. The reason that the car has problems is always going to be somebody else's fault. And people that are like that. I'm going to tell you, I've seen it too many times. I've listened to too many stories. I've talked to too many shop owners. These are people who do this with everything in life.
Everything is always somebody else's fault. I'm sorry, but it's not like the only person who's in control of the scenario in front of you is you. And so if you don't like the fact your car's broken, do something different next time.
That's right.
Maintain it. Better fix it when we tell you it needs to be fixed. I don't have the money. I understand. I'm in this Wall Street Journal chat group, and they're. They're. It's kind of like an impromptu interview. And it's a chat group where they.
They filter through and they watch your comments. And there's a lot of talk about welfare. There's a lot of talk about political stuff. You know me, I'm not a big political guy. And this one lady says, she said, hey, listen, I'm really concerned because if we take all this money out of the protective systems that protect the individuals who are down here at the bottom and need help. And I said, listen, the way I see it is there's probably a very small percentage of people who actually need help. And the system's so bloated that those who actually need the help aren't getting it. Because the people who are manipulating the system know how to manipulate the system, and they don't really need the help.
So they're. They're in better condition to be able to manipulate the system. And it's bloated. And they're taking all this money and the politicians and the workers and all these people are ending up with the majority of the money.
Yeah.
Now, how does that play into this? Well, it plays into this as in, like, hey, if we want things to get better, we have to do something different. You're responsible for your own life. I understand. If you are a disabled veteran, you were hurt in an accident, you can't work, and you don't have the money, fine, come tell me, I'll help you. Right? But the majority of people who come in and say that that's not true. Majority of people who are expecting handouts, that's not true for them. If you want your life to be better, take action to make it better. Your car is not the reason your life sucks.
Your choices are the reason your life sucks. And it is not my job, an automotive technician or a shop owner, to fix your problems. Right? That's what it is.
And again, though, this is the struggle I have is because, like, in the greater scheme of running a shop, yes, number one priority is to fix the customer's complaint, fix the car. But when we keep coming down to that one word all the time, the production word, right? And it's like, it's always about that, and it's always about production. Okay, are you running a matrix on your. No. Are you marking your parts up? No. Are you bringing. Is the customer. If.
Do you charge the customer the same amount, labor wise, if they show up with the part that they brought versus you sourcing the part and you let that margin go? Yes, yes, and yes, I'm doing all of that. Okay, so then why does the P word always become the number one thing that we keep talking about when there's still so many other places where they're not getting it right and we couldn't come back?
Do you think that. That A, education is the biggest component in that, but B, do you think that it's that we're not properly conveying, like, what happens in a shop? Right? Like, you ever play those, like, little management games on your cell phone where it's like, okay, I'm. I'm producing food for this little fake restaurant and I have to keep up with it? I'm like, organizing all the pieces? Right. Well, it's the same thing, like, where does the money come from? And I just don't think that we've taught technicians and service advisors that. And I walked into another business and I went to the person who's managing it and I said, hey, share your numbers with everybody. And they said, do what? Yeah, said, share your numbers. Share what your revenue is. He said, I can't do that.
They're going to say, oh, my gosh, why am I not earning more if they made that much today? Hang on, let me show you the numbers then, because you don't understand them either. Because by the time I get to the end of this list, there's nothing left.
Right?
Like, there's nothing at the bottom. And so we go ahead for the.
Shop owners that are listening there. When he says share the numbers, make sure you share both columns, the ones you actually have, the books. And then all that other jobs that you did for cash. Make sure you share that.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This stuff that you marked off, and you better be tracking that, okay? Just because you didn't want to charge for it does not mean you don't have to pay taxes on it, okay? And just because you didn't charge for it doesn't mean that you're not responsible for it. And so you better have a record of that bad boy, because sooner or later it's gonna bite you if you don't. But, you know, you look at a repair shop and you say, okay, Mr. Technician's frustrated. Just this morning we had another conversation about 50% labor. And I make a post or a comment on it, and I didn't go into as much detail as I typically do, but let's have a discussion about where does the money come from and where does the money go? Let's understand what you're asking for, because production is required to pay said technician, okay? There's no way around that now.
Lazy shop managers and shop owners. Maybe I shouldn't say that. That's not fair. But. But there's a generation of shop owners and managers that did the flat rate thing because it was easy, okay? That's all there was to it. A lot of techs even love it because they can manipulate the system and figure out how to make more money, right? Like that. That's a. That's a dead giveaway for me.
Somebody walks through the door and says they want flat rate, and I'm like, I don't know if you're a good fit for us. Sorry. And. And there was a. There was a situation. You knew the technician I'm talking about. He's not with us anymore, but not. Not with the shop.
He's. He's passed away. But it was very similar situation, right? You want to manipulate the thing. I talked to the store manager of the dealership that he worked for, and he was so proud because it was like a recall for the Ford door handles. And it was like four hours to do all the door. And he had it down to like 30 minutes. He said when he left, he said, we found these bags of all these parts and all this stuff that was supposed to be changed that never happened. Like all the parts that.
That, you know, he had. He had said he had replaced. He had not. But I think it's important that we talk to technicians and we explain to them, okay, here's why those numbers are the way they are. Here's why the max is 30% for technician pay. You could, you could snub that if you wanted to. You could say 45 with a really solid, high quality technician, you could pay more. Means that somebody else is going to get less.
But like, we need to show the progression and the pathway of the money. So it's not just about production. I don't care for my team knowing how much money is moving through the shop. I didn't show up to not get paid. No, it's still a business. But I think that the lack of transparency about these numbers has led to this thing that they, they, all they focus on is the, oh, it's all about production, it's all about this, it's all about the hours, it's all about the money. But if we started talking about where does the money to feed your family come from? Okay, how do you get paid? How does your insurance get paid, how do your taxes get paid? Right. Because in the States, one of the things I talk to a lot of technicians, they don't understand is the shops also paying tax.
Right. When we pay you, we pay tax on you as well. Like that comes out of us. Not just your part, we pay a part too.
Yeah.
And then you, unemployment and fica, futa, all of the pieces of the puzzle. And so if we're not sharing that with people and helping them understand how business works. Now look, I think that the school system is really at the root of this because we've not been talking to them about what entrepreneurialism actually is and how a business works and how to budget. They're not even learning how to budget for themselves personally. They don't understand taxes. Right. I've got a whole crew of employees up here at this other business and everybody's saying, hey, I'm trying to get the biggest tax return I can. And I'm using the David Roman line, like, you're going to give the government a free loan, interest free for a year.
What's wrong with you? You know, like, oh my God. And so it's a lack of understanding, it's a lot a lack of information. And I think that some industries do it intentionally, right? Some industries try to hide that information and hide that data. Like a very transactional business doesn't want you to know about those things because it becomes a dirty business real quick. But independent shops, they don't want, you know, about Those things because they don't understand them. They don't have those numbers. They don't have something to share with you. But I think if we educated technicians about where does the money come from, how much money is left over when it's said and done, and why does production matter? In that sense, I think it makes it a lot easier to be able to have a production discussion.
Yeah, I. And my thing always. People have heard my joke, right, that there's been lots of shop own, lots of shop owners that have had, you know, the, the technician wash the wife's Corvette every Friday afternoon. Or, you know, they talk about the. They'll talk about the home they bought in Mexico or they'll talk about the rental properties. I can tell you that. And I'm not listening. I'm not.
It isn't my place to tell anybody what they're entitled to in life. But keep your cards to your chest if you want to have a good morale because sometimes the people that are working for you just don't understand your hard work. Yeah.
And whether you commit and everything else, that. I'm just going to be honest with you. I am clearly a shitty shop owner. Okay? And here, let me tell you why. Because I ain't got no Corvette and I ain't got no boat. Now, I look, the things I spend money on, I spend money on like going around the country and hanging out with my friends in this industry and like going to training and things like that. But I, I promise you ain't got no Corvette.
No.
Do I have a nice new shop? I do. I'm going to be paying for that son of a bitch until I'm dead. Right? Like, there's no way. So I don't, I clearly do not have the capacity to be an ESO like Mike Allen, who's over here banking bucks. Right. Like, I, I just, I don't think I have the capacity for it, Jeff.
I really don't. I. So anybody that knows you the way that I know you, the time that we spent together, there aren't too many people that are more generous than you. And we've, you and I have talked about that. That's in your blood, that's in your lineage, that's in how you want to be. Right? It's, it's, it's. You couldn't be you be that person you don't know how to be, not that person.
I would not. I would be, I would be mentally unwell if I found myself in a situation where I couldn't pay for My friend's dinner and where I couldn't. If somebody needed something, I couldn't be there to support them and help them. Like, I just. That's just not who I am. Right?
So when I. When I see the people that are that, you know, I, I make the. The example of the Corvette or the, or the, the boat, you know, all that kind of stuff. Some of them are a couple generations removed, maybe from where. Maybe that was their grandfather's way of doing business. And every generation trickles down and they learn that, like, when it was all done, Grandpa went without this because of these strangers. Yeah, these customers that are slash strangers. They weren't there at his funerals.
But I guess what I'm trying to say, so I think that that sometimes trickles down. So when you're talking to your staff and you're saying, I can't. I can't pay you five more tents because of this, I'm going back to keep your cards close to your chest. Because we remember things. So if we remember that, you get bragging because, you know, I dropped a piece of equipment off at your rental property for you. We remember all that shit.
So, sure.
Keep a healthy distance sometimes in the relationship between what you're doing.
Dude, that's something that we miss as owners, right? That's something that we miss. We say this little thing and we have so much going on and so much in our head, and we're hearing so many different things from so many different directions. We never even thought about how it came out or went across. Right. We didn't think about, like, hey, he probably interpreted that completely differently than the way I intended. And he. That stayed with him, right? Like, dude, I. There's a deal with another podcaster, and we.
We've talked about it. You know what the deal is? And like, dude, it broke my heart because I don't want to say, like, everything wasn't. Was untrue, but there were things in there that were just, like, completely away from. And I'm sitting back saying, okay, holy shit, I must have, like, miscommunicated this, or I must have done this wrong. Or maybe it was the way I said this or the way I said that. But, like, we don't as human beings, I'm not even talking about shop ownership and technicians in the automotive industry. We as humans don't recognize the weight that every word that comes out of our mouth has. Right? And I think about, you know, there were things that happened to me as a kid, specifically with my uncle, specifically with my mom and dad, things that they said, the people I was closest with, that resonate today, I think about, like, my son.
Right. I'm looking at the way my son is a very active child. Right?
Yeah.
He makes David Roman's ADHD look like nothing. Right. This dude is 100 million miles an hour from the word go to the time that he just can't go anymore and he falls over and he goes to sleep. Right. That's just who he is. And. And I'm thinking back to my life as a child, and I'm saying to myself, you remember that one time mom fussed at you for that? That one time dad did that? But they didn't understand what you were trying to do. They didn't understand what it was you were working on.
They didn't understand that you had this idea in your head, and instead of shutting it down, you should go and help him understand how to make that what nurse wants it to be. Because you can see it. Right. And as human beings, I think that we owe that to our fellow man to slow down a little bit and think about things before we react. That's hard to do. Right. That's really hard to do, especially when it comes to the business. And I.
I have. I have poured my heart out to you more than once that I have mistakenly lost my temper. I have said things that I didn't mean to say. I have done things I didn't mean to do with my staff, not because I don't love them, not because I don't care about them, but because I was emotionally spent.
Yeah.
And, you know, I've talked to a lot of people about this, like, recently of, you know, for instance, the manager that came to work here, we have this discussion, and he goes through a lot of life stuff right when he first starts, and life got really rough for him.
Yeah.
And so we're at this meeting, and it's the leadership intensive for the Institute. And it's. The psychology of leadership has nothing to do with automotive. It's like, how do we lead people? And why does it matter what we say? And how do we tell people what it is that we want to convey without misleading them? And how do we do this? Right? And I left super overwhelmed, and I'm like, I don't know that I'll ever be able to get this. I watched this dude cry through the majority of the class. We go on the airplane, he looks at me, says, you know, I realize now that I was always a company man, and I never thought about personal goals for myself. I Never thought about, who do I want my children to be? Every goal I had was for the company, and it was to make the next dollar, because that was how we were incentivized at the company.
Exactly.
Never thought about, like, what I want my goal to be, who do I want to be as a human being? And so what does that do to a society if that's all that we ever talk about? And the only goal that we allow our citizens and our people within our organizations to build is to make more money. Right? And the pay plan is the entire focus of the human being, you know, went up to this other business, right? And when we started, one of the things that we did is like, hey, where do you want to be in five or 10 years? Nobody had the answer, right? Like, nobody. And so then I went back and I said, hey, what's important to you? If you could learn something new today that's like, really been on your heart, really been on your mind, what would it be? And so they came back with some things, and I went and I paid for, like, masterclass forum, and I got on training opportunities and things that didn't have anything to do with that business. Because if. If we are so evil to the point that all we focus on is money and those people who are helping us make it, we don't do something to lift them up and make sure they have their own vision to allow them to stay grounded. We're building a world of mental illness.
You create a whole population of people that are alone within a crowd, completely oblivious to the person. You don't notice the person color next to you, their beauty, what makes them. Because we're so full of green on green or gray or whatever, a screen, it all is the same. We're all chasing the same thing. I. You know, and that's the thing. I'm not a company man, but I'm somebody that has always been so focused on myself that sometimes I've. I've not necessarily been.
What's the word? I've been a good mentor, but I haven't necessarily, like, been. The first way I've been to try to help somebody is to shake the, you know, put the hand out. The first instinct was to always. Just to give the lesson and then put the handout. And I think now I have to give the handout first. Get them up and then say, here's the lesson.
Yeah, here's why. You see that?
You know, here's why that move didn't work. Here's why. Because. And it's so Simple. And the way we teach sports sometimes is because it's just for fun. It's. This didn't work because of that, right? You, you tried to do this and it didn't. You, your, your golf swing is off your butt, your ball bat, swing, baseball bat is.
Swing is off. Because of these fundamental mechanics in, in our industry, I'm too locked into. You don't know how to do that because you didn't do this. Yeah, and I have to back up more. I've. I've done better, but I have to back up more and say there's, there's a pathway here and if the pathway starts with this. So let's get you on this path and then let's get you down the next thing because otherwise it just, we all just look like, like, like sharks. And we're not sharks.
Right? It's a whole ecosystem.
But we, we talked a lot over the past couple of weeks and David and I have had some heart to hearts over this because we've, we've been talking about, like, what's the outcome? Like, where are you, where are you going? Like, what, what are you. Because, like, you know, the, the staff doesn't really have a vision. They don't. What's next? And he's been really on this rampage about career pathing. He's like, I hate that, hate this career pathing thing. Because what does career pathing mean? Where does it go? What does it lead to? Like, come on now. This, this doesn't sound like what we're trying to accomplish. This sounds like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna give you some BS I rip my manager a new one because he went around giving everybody manager titles.
And I'm like, dude, it's a name. Like, they don't care about that. That's not who we are here. We don't care about the stupid name. Right? We care about the human that's behind the name. And so what's the outcome? Right? And I think that's something. I'm a catch flack for this. But look, for so long we've been so focused on the money now.
Technicians should earn more money. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Like, we need to make sure people are having a livable wage. But when you get to the livable wage, one of the things that upset a lot of technicians with David is because he began to question that once we got the livable wage wasn't that he was saying that you shouldn't earn more money. No, that's not it. What he was saying was, is if you earned more money, what would it do for you?
Right.
Where would it take you? Because the meaning of life is not earning more money.
No.
What are you trying to accomplish? Where are you trying to go? Why does it mean something to you? Because, for fuck's sake, if you have no meaning, if the only thing is to earn more money to get to this next level of this job, it's meaningless. It doesn't lead anywhere. It doesn't get you anywhere.
My. My whole goal is just to get out sooner. Right. That's the whole.
But then what? Then what?
Well, then I. Then I start my second half of my life, which is, you know, moving away from this industry and more towards my. Not necessarily. I'll be going to fish every day. But I can. I can take what I like to be as an educator and a guide and start to say, share my passion for something other than auto repair with more people.
So. So I don't disagree with you, and I think that's awesome. But then the question becomes, why? What are you going to attain from that? What? Because, like, see, here's the thing. For me, like, the shop for so long has been my meaning.
Right?
Right. It's overwhelming to hire a manager who comes in and changes my meaning. Right. Like that. That's been a very, very painful thing for me.
Sure.
And I have had to watch myself from losing my temper and coming in here and firing somebody because I'm just like, right, no, we do this like this because I want to do it like this. This is mine. That's not right. But the point is, it's because I built all of my meaning into this. What's next? And what is the meaning that you're going to get from teaching that next generation? What is it that you accomplish by doing that? And why weren't you doing that all along? If that's your purpose, if that's your meaning, if that's what you care about, why can't you do it with this?
Because I care about multiple things at the same time. Right. But there's only so much energy or focus. Focus is a better word than energy for that. So I can focus on the automotive industry and, you know, bear the slings and arrows that I have. In trying to change what I have, I have changed. And there's no doubt about it, I've changed shit that you can see in the. In the average technician attitude, the way that people talk to me, I have changed things.
Absolutely.
But to be able to focus on something now to take them to what is essentially a pastime for me and a tr. Passion and, and. And just share it a. In that realm. We're talking the fishing realm. It's a lot bigger. It's an even like. Because it's like somebody says, well, why don't you have a fishing podcast? Holy.
If you thought there was already a lot of automotive content out there on, on the worldwide web, there's even more for fishing. Oh, yeah, for sure. That's a bigger toll that I have to. And then the thing is, the reality is, is like when I'm right in the middle of it is when I can get fired about it, right? So I spend five days a week in the shop. I spend five days a week immersed in this, watching where the wheels fall off the cart, all that kind of stuff. So it's always right on the tip of my brain when I am not. I am not thinking about it. It is, it is my fishing, my pastime is my escape.
It is probably in the end of it, what my legacy will be will not be what I do in my escape time. It will be what I left in my five. My nine to five, right? You have to remember that your legacy will be what you leave in honor and respect and a memoriam to your mom and your dad and for sure your children going forward, right?
And that, dude, that's. That's like, that, that's. That's the thing for me, right? And like, just like we were talking about that other podcast, that's what breaks my heart about is because clearly I missed the mark, right? Like, clearly I missed something somewhere. Clearly I didn't take the right step somewhere. I didn't mean to.
Yeah, right.
And see, that's the thing about life is it's fucked up, right? Like, we're not going to get it right every time. And, and it, it does not always feel right when we don't get it right. But if, if our entire life revolves around the automotive industry and we put a technician. So let's think about this. I. It's. If you've watched any of Landman, it's a similar thing, right? These people put up their entire life to work in the oil field. They put up their entire life to work in the auto repair industry.
And by the time they come out, they're beaten, they're broken, they're jaded, they're upset, they're frustrated. Life has not led them to where they thought it was going to be. And so if in our businesses, if in our personal Careers, we don't implement some type of meaning if it's mere survival. That's not a life. Right. And so as business owners, I find it imperative that somehow we begin to incorporate something into the lives of our people that says this business is here to serve you. Right. Because like my, the theory and what my parents did with their business and the theory that I have in my head is that my business serves clients.
Right? That's what the business does. To serve clients, I have to have solid people within the business. Okay, Right. And so this business serves people with the people that work inside it. I serve the people that work inside of it and empower them to serve the client at a high level.
Yep.
Okay. And so to do that, I have to make sure they are balanced, well rounded human beings that believe in things similar to what I believe in. That gets heavy, bro. Yeah, right, that gets heavy. That gets to the point that like, I can't, I don't even understand how can you manage that and how can you put the right pieces of the puzzle in place and how can you get the things moving? And then I look at like this manager who comes in, he's like, man, I really don't care about the clients, man. I'm just trying to get as much money from as I can. I'm just trying to make money. I'm just trying to make money.
It's all about the money. Like, whoa, hold up, stop.
Yeah.
The money comes when you do the right job, when you do the right thing, when you take care of people and you give more of the fucking money away than you keep. That's when the money comes, right? That's when happiness comes. That's when meaning comes. That's when we begin to turn a corner from existence into meaning. I don't sit here and mean to tell you that I have the answers for that because I don't. And I ain't quite got it figured out yet. And I don't know that I ever will figure that out.
And.
But I think that's what we're missing.
And, and somebody on a different path or a different perception can still serve a role within your company.
Right?
They can still a notch, a niche, they can still get the cars fixed, but it takes a. If you sit there and watch that person, you go like, they're not. Like, I've seen it in the dealerships. That guy is a producer. Yeah, he was a, like, he, his attitude sucks. He comes in 20 minutes late every friggin day. He's a producer. His attitude you know, at some point you have to get the reins on that horse.
Yes.
And rein it back.
All you're doing. Think about this.
Yeah.
You were making a self destructing human being, right? You're, you are being part of what's going to eventually destroy somebody's life. Noah and I were talking a while back and he was talking about this master tech that worked at an Audi dealership. There's news articles all over the place about what happened. And so, dude, it was a fantastic tech, was lovely to work with, really cool guy. And then slowly but surely things began to change and nobody did anything. They noticed something really weird was going on. One day he left and he went home and killed himself and his wife. Right? And he had been in trouble with drugs and all kinds of stuff.
Nobody knew it. Nobody walked over and said, hey man, you doing okay? Like, what's going on, dude? Nobody thought about anything beyond, hey, he's turning 40 hours. Don't say anything, disrupt him because we might lose revenue if we do that. I don't give a fuck about the revenue, give a fuck about the human being, right? And so like we talk about our society and I think that anybody who says that our society as a whole, not the us, not the Canadian, our global society as a whole is on somewhat of a decline. There's no way to deny that. How people treat each other, how they act, the belief system, the movement away from truth to feeling. Right. Like there's a shift.
And you can't deny that. And so the longer that businesses, because like the core of what our society is right now is I go to work to earn money to live a life. And so at the center of who we become as human beings is the career path, much to David chagrin. And so if that career path does not have some level of balance to it and business owners aren't looking at these people as human beings and saying, hey, I want to develop you. I want you to leave here smarter than you walked in. I want you to leave here more well rounded. I want you to be a good human being. I want to help with the resources I have, make you a better person.
Because development doesn't stop when you get out of high school. Development doesn't stop when you get out of college. You're constantly developing. I want you to be a good father.
Yeah.
You know, Jim Fannin, one of the things, the guy who taught the GO to B, illuminate a path back to A. That's what true champions do. That that was said by Jim Fannin and He said, I have coached people who were absolute rock stars on the basketball court, but they went home and beat their wife and kids.
Sure.
That's not a true champion, right? I want to raise true champions. I want to make well rounded human beings that develop into making this world a better place. Now, like, people are going to come back and say, dude, this guy's fucking arrogant as fuck. And like, no, no, let me explain. Do I think I can do that? No, I don't. Like, I don't think that I can change the world. But I know if, if at least some of us don't start and start doing something with it, the fucking things gonna get worse and worse. And we've all been waiting for somebody else to fucking do something and they're not doing anything.
So it falls on us. And us is the businesses within this global, whatever society that we have to start making the world a better place. Educators are doing their part, or they should be. I'm not gonna say they are, I don't know. But past that, who's the next interaction they have? And I heard somebody say one time, he said, you know, he said the businesses are depending on the mental health experts to solve their problems. Like, what do you mean? He's like, because there's no counseling coaching, there's no anything in business today. And most of people in this global economy spend the majority of their time at work. And there's no counseling, there's no coaching, there's no helping these people figure out what's important to them.
And does this align with what's important to you? And does this align with where you want to go in life? So they wait till they break them and they send them to mental health experts by the time they're depressed and anxious and upset. And he's like, by then a lot of these people, we can't help because they're so broken, they can't see the forest for the trees. And we can talk to him and talk to him and talk to him. He said, on top of that, we're not paying them enough. We don't have health insurance and we don't have mental health coverage for these people who genuinely need help. And so they don't get it.
But see, it's such a slippery slope, right? Because it's like you want to be professional and have a healthy distance so that you're not like, I don't want my, I wouldn't want my employees to come to work every day. And if their home life was terrible, yeah, the only saving grace Be my relationship with my employer, because that puts that employer at a place where they shouldn't be. And B isn't healthy because I have been that place. I have been that company guy where I thought my manager was like, him and I were like this. I had barbecued at his house. He still fired me when it pushed him to shove years. And I'm talking way early in my career now. I'm not talking recently in my career when I was standing up for myself, I became the quote, unquote problem.
He still did what he had to do to save his own ass. You still.
I had to do, you know, the story. I had to do that a while back. And, dude, it broke my heart because I. There was a point when I realized I had made a fucking mess, okay? Like, I had almost ruined somebody's life by letting things go too far instead of stepping up and saying, dude, I'm not gonna let you do this. We're not doing this. You got to go right? And you're exactly right.
It's finding that healthy distance, though, between, like, how do I am emotionally invested in my people, right? From a. Do I know what their. Their home situation is? Like, I know if it's healthy or not. I know if it's not healthy. What kind of guidance and support and inspiration on giving them to turn the corner? What kind of big brother, fatherly, kind of like your father would have done with so many people in the past and helped. You know, how he did that?
And we need to build systems around, right? That's the thing is like, how do we. How do we provide that support in a healthy way for everybody? You know, My parents lost an employee when I was five or six years old. He was. He had left late one night. He was going somewhere. I can't remember the whole story. I still remember pictures of the car. He encountered the abutment of a bridge, right? Like, he hit the side of the bridge instead of going down the road.
He had fallen asleep and it killed him. My mom was crying about that 30 some years later, right? Like, when she first got sick, we talked about it and she. I mean, she just bawled her eyes out because she had a connection with this person. It impacted her. And I think it is a mistake for us as human beings to think that we can get out of life without it getting messy. I think it's a mistake for us as human beings to think that we can work with someone and not have some type of emotional impact on them and them have an emotional impact on you, for sure. Because, like, the minute that we start telling ourselves that is the minute that we dehumanize the experience. Right.
And, like, you can tell yourself you're not, but you are. And so how do we build systems that says, hey, look, you care about this. Let me help you invest in this.
Well, I think the first thing we have to be is the shop has to be doing good enough numbers. Yeah. That somebody can come in and have a little bit of a day where they're distracted by what's going on at home. And the whole. The whole fucking thing just doesn't house the cards, doesn't fall down.
Yeah. Like, absolutely.
We didn't hit the thousand dollars today. We hit 900. What took you too long to do is why we didn't hit that. It all falls on you. That shouldn't. There's accountability, but then there's all this weight that we put on our people because we are trying to. I'm trying to build it out of the people that walk through the door and not who the people that are live on the other side of the door.
Look, as business owners, we're doing the same thing. And why does the weight often. It's not all the time. Right. Like, there. There are some people who are ruthless. But why does the weight get applied to our people like that? Because we're applying the weight to ourselves, and we're riding the razor's edge at all times. We're right on the edge of failure at any given time.
I'm telling you right now, I run on the edge of the field, on the edge of. Of failure quite often. Right. And, you know, like the family business thing, that's been on the edge of failure, nobody even knew it. And it was on the edge of failure in a big way. And so, like, if we're on the edge of failure, a, we've got to get our industry to the point that it can charge enough and that the consumer is willing and sees enough value in that that we're not on the edge of failure at all times. Now, blue collar often finds itself there, whether they'll admit it or not. And it's not just automotive.
It's H vac, it's electrical. It's all of these other trades. We talk about it like it's just us. And the employees will talk about those other trades, about how much better they are. But you talk to the owner, and they're on razor's edge at all the time. Right. They're right on the brink at all times. Because that's how business Works right now.
Now, I think there's some economic things behind the scenes that have led us to a situation. The devaluing of the dollar, inflation, all of the pieces of the puzzle that go into it. And then you look at the consumer and you say, look, I hate to charge you more because you really don't have more. Right. I was thinking about that the other day. We keep talking about raising prices and charging more and there's consumers who come in and say, I don't have the money for that. Like, think about that. Like, if we gave.
If I gave you a $15,000 estimate on your Jeep, would you have the money right now to go out and drop that and be okay with it?
No.
And so that. That presents itself as a problem. Right. We couldn't even afford some of the things that we would have to do.
I'm. If I want to even do the required maintenance that I should be doing at my Jeep right now.
Yeah.
At 130,000 kilometers, I kind of have to change what I eat for groceries for the next two weeks.
Exactly.
Go out and buy 14 liters of the dealer ATF fluid and the filter and the gasket just to do the trans service, for instance. That means when I go to the grocery store that Friday night, when I cash my paycheck, I don't walk out with steak.
Yes.
Walk out with ramen and hot dogs. Right.
Yeah.
And everybody goes, that's a terrible place to have to be. I get it. Totally get. And you're not wrong. It's not. But it doesn't change the reality of what still needs to be done. And people that are running a shop. And you listen to me right now, it sucks.
But it's the choice that I would make to keep my vehicle where it needs to be. We don't need to meet them in the middle and say, okay, so you can't have steak, but I'm gonna let you have hamburger. And I'm gonna discount what I do and devalue what I do so that you're not eating ramen and crackers for the next week. We don't need to do that in this industry. Because I'll tell you why. No other flippin skilled trade does it. And that's what I mean when for sure. These rants about pandering and shit.
That's what I mean. I'm not trying to say reach in and get the last nickel out of their pocket, but I think the goal isn't to leave them with 50.
Like. Like looking at building the shop right. Like the $150,000 electrician bill, dude, it freaked me out. Like, I don't have the money to pay this.
Yeah.
Where's it going to come from? I've got to pick up pennies and I had to put them off for a while trying to figure out like, how do I, how am I going to navigate this? And.
Yeah.
And like, you know, I, I catch flat because I buy expensive steaks and that's where literally every dime of my profit and my paycheck goes to. And if it wasn't for, like, if it wasn't for all of the, the wonderful things my parents did for me, none of this would be happening. I'd be broke. Working for somebody else too. Right. Like, I promise you, I, my life is not together. I'll give you that right now. Most of it is my own undoing.
But, but we have to look at this from a societal perspective too. Right. And we got to take a step back and say, wait a minute, how did we get here? What is it? In the US they say 40% of all of your income's taxed.
Yeah.
Or goes to, goes to taxes. Right. By the time you figure sales tax, gas tax, use tax, all of the things, income tax, property tax, like all the money goes to this big thing.
Yeah.
And you know, maybe there's some science behind that. And they say, hey, look, if you, if you have a society that has everything they want, they become fat and gluttonous and fall apart. Who knows, maybe they've got, maybe they know something we don't. But, but without challenge. Right. There's a lack of character. And, and I go back to that same thing that Jordan Peterson was talking about. Like, life is struggle.
And he said that's what the religious people have been trying to tell us all along is life is struggle, life is suffering. This is hard and it's not going to get easier. And so we all, until we start lifting one another up, until we start working to try together to teach someone else, hey, listen, here's how I want to help you and here's how you go help somebody else and here's how they go help somebody else and we start passing this concept of helping one another and lifting up not just our industry, but our society as a whole. It's pipe dream. I know it. Like, I'm not saying it's not, but I've seen the impact that my parents made on people. I've seen that it made a difference in people's lives. And that's all I want to do.
I want to make people's lives better. I want to see people smile. I want people to be happy.
Right. I want to draw the emphasis on the fact that when it comes to helping people, you got to help the people within your own building first. That should be a part of you, not the person that walks through the door. The person who walks through the door is not necessarily a stranger, but they're not family like the people on the other side of the door should be. And so don't get lost in that idea that we're, you know, we have to help everybody to bring this industry up. You have to help the right people. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna counter with saying that the.
The right people for too long was thought to be the customer. The customer is always right. You serve the customer. You do serve the customer.
It's fear, right? Let's be real. Let's be real. In the independent service world, it is all fear. It is all fearful.
It is.
What if they say, what if it damages the reputation? The dealer world? The dealer world was, it's not my money. I don't care. Right?
Right.
Like, I'll knock this down so I get my sales bonus. Make this look the certain way. And I like, dude, I'm telling you what, Based on my recent experiences, the dealer does not give two fucks about anybody. They don't give a fuck about the people in the door. They don't give a fuck about the car. They don't give a fuck about the consumer. All they give a fuck, the entire culture and character of that organization is about how do I make money, right?
And we just blame it on the car. When it's right, we go, well, they're building shit over at the factory. Look at. They're drunk Friday afternoons going on shift. No wonder these cars are piece of ground. It doesn't matter whether their technician couldn't diagnose a light bulb. We keep saying, well, those trucks are just terrible because the, you know, the engines are all kinds of problems. They always have a scapegoat at the dealer level.
We don't have that as an service provider. We don't have that. You have to look at that customer and either decide, I don't want to touch that because of the brand that it is. And I don't think this customer has the right car for them to be. For me to be a successful service provider, not my customer. Where. And then we have. But if we take it on, we owe it to them to be profound.
We're Stuck with it.
Efficient and thorough and, and as. As good as what the dealer would give them. Because that's unfortunate. That's the unfortunate yardstick we're always held against. And I listen, you're not going to talk to too many people that know both sides as well as me, because I've done them both over and over again, always coming back around. It sucks. But that's what they're comparing to. So when I'm saying you're valuing, you have to show them that they're not valuing you because tomorrow they sell another car and they don't really care.
Yeah, you are not gonna come to me with another car tomorrow. You're gonna bring me the same damn car until our relationship with this car is done. So I have to get it right when I have to get it right. Fuck, you know what? I'm gonna have to charge the time to get it right. Because you want it right? Do you want it right? Yes, I do. Okay. That's gonna cost X amount of dollars. Do you not want it right? I'll live with it.
Okay, cool. Perfect.
Yeah.
Both are good answers for sure.
If you don't ask them, though. If you don't ask the question.
Yeah, yeah, right.
And, and look, I'm gonna tell you something else. And I think it's the corporate world that's done a lot of this, this, this pandering, if you will. It's. Oh, my God, my car is scratched. Well, sorry, Mr. Client, we, we. We had pictures of it. You're gonna make this right.
So we just pay, right? We just. We give them a discount on their service. We give them lifetime free oil changes. We like all these stupid things keep happening. And I'm going to tell you something. We've taught our consumers that. Because I go up here to this other business that's in a completely different industry, and they, they complain just to see what they can get for free.
Course.
And so if we don't find a little bit of a different strategy for this, you know what I mean? Like, if we don't figure out how to turn the tides on that concept with the consumer, the Canadian and the American consumer and whatever consumer anywhere else where it's like, hey, actually it's because you bought a piece of shit.
That's right.
And your car's broken. And I'm sorry, but it's gonna be expensive to fix. But it doesn't mean that I'm gonna give you the world because that's just not how this works. I'm sorry. Life Is not fair. Yeah, like get in line.
We have a. We have a 18 Ram with an Eco diesel sitting on our shop, which of course has.
That sucks. That Sucks, guys.
Got 138,000 kilometers on it. So it's just past the powertrain warranty. He's done all his maintenance at the dealer. He says he's never been to our place before. It's $19,000 just to buy an engine for that truck.
And he's.
It's been sitting there for a month now while we decide. I pulled the oil pan off and pulled the stripper glitter and the chunks out of it and showed them. And they said because he'd course it had the recall done for the high pressure fuel pump. And then three days later, it's back at the dealer, won't start locked up. And they tell him, hey, there's a hole in the engine block. You need an engine. He tows it over to us. Never been there before.
But he's a friend of the boss of the owner. Friends, Friends. And he says, hey, they tell me I got a hole in the engine block. I look, there's no hole in the engine block. So I'm like, well, maybe the engine ain't locked up. No, it was locked up.
But I had to.
For the diag that was sold to that tech. Wasn't the time to pull the oil pan off. It was enough time to put a bar on the crank bolt, try and turn it over and go. It was locked up. I don't know why. And then. But for them to write down, there's a hole in the block. We looked for 30 minutes.
Where's this hole? Is there an oil leak? We have to stop thinking that that problem is my problem. It's not problem for sure. From 2012 on, they'd have known. You do not buy trucks with eco diesels in them. You lease trucks with diesel because when you go to the dealer and try to buy a used truck, you can't buy a used eco diesel because they turn around and they flogging to the wholesalers because they don't want them sitting in their lot. Because they do not want to be married to that when it sells to the second customer. And the guy is in all the time going, this thing's broke again. Why did you sell me this lemon?
Yep.
Do not make.
That is the worst diesel engine ever built. Right. Like they. Dude, I'm telling you, the 6, 4 and the Eco diesel are in close running with one another. And you know, look, I. I think it's the mentality. Because I have had to, like, literally almost flog out of my manager this concept. Like, why are we.
Why are we giving them more time? What is going on here? Why do they need time to look at this? They should. They should be able to just look at this and know what's wrong. Dude, you've never done this, have you? You've never been a technician. You've never. You've never experienced this. Well, this is just how we did it in the dealer. This is you. You're letting these technicians walk all over you, dude.
You don't understand, man. I catch so much flack from some of the shop owners because they're like. Like, you were a technician or something. Just can't err on their side all the time. Fuck you, right? Like, until. Until you've had to do it. Until you've had to lay on top, man. I remember working on cars.
I remember working on a. On a 6, 0 power stroke that had gone down the mountain. After we fixed it, it started acting up. They drove it back, and I needed to get that fixed because as shop owner and technician, I felt the need to take care of this right away, to make it right, to show them that I cared. This is important to me. Yeah, dude. It was so hot. I remember my contacts bubbling out of my eyes and falling off in the engine, not being able to see what I was doing.
Burning the crap out of myself. Like, I've still got scars from burning myself. Everybody says that's stupid. That's crazy. No, it's because I give a. Yeah, right? And, like, I'm committed to this. I want this to be right. And I didn't do a good job and I made a mistake.
And I'm gonna fix this, right? And if I have to sacrifice and if I have to suffer to make this right, that's what I'm gonna do. And so they. They don't understand that technicians do that every day. They don't understand that we're back here and this. Bolts broke. And Eric said something that was really pivotal to me the other day. He said, when I fuck up to the point that I have to tell you I fucked up, it's bad. And he said, because usually I've already fixed the problem, right? I broke a bolt.
I got the bolt out. You didn't even know it happened. And I just kept moving and went on about my life. But by the time I'm coming to you to tell you I fucked up, I've got a problem. I need your help, right? And so that is the technician mentality. That's how I was as a tech. And I don't think that owners who have not had their head under a hood and done those things. I'm not saying they're not qualified to own a shop.
Please don't misunderstand. That's not it at all. I'm just saying that they need to slow down and think, maybe I don't understand what you're going through. Right. Like there are bolts that I know for a fact I was going to get out that I snapped off. I remember taking a line wrench to a power steering rack just to change a power steering hose. And the side of the line, bung break out. And then I read in one of the Facebook groups about this tech getting screamed at by the owner because he damaged this dude.
It fucking happens. Right? Like this is part of it. If we charge enough, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. It sucks. Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
But we're human beings and we're working with machines that don't always participate.
No. And, And. And the reason we're not charged enough is because we're still thinking like, we have to do certain things for free as a marketing. And I get it, it's cheaper. Sometimes you can build a customer. Doing a 0.3 job for free is way worth a better investment than a thousand dollars. And paying somebody to pump your Google algorithm to get a customer, which is.
Which is more reliable. Which is a more reliable client.
I don't want the client that is only there for me because of what I did for them for free.
Okay. And so, so I'm. Let me ask you this. Do you think that if you fucked up that client's car that you did it for free? They'd be willing to overlook it because you did something for free once?
Most clients don't. They still want to tell everybody how you're up. See, that's. That's, you know me. Why I can't read the Internet comments for too long because I already. In my head whether that's truthful or not. I already know the second side of the story, which was just like, look at Dave's engines. That engine for that guy.
The backstory is, is that they stroked him a check a big amount off of it. He was. He didn't say nothing about it until he got right. It was worth more to go out there and throw somebody under the bus. So everybody wants their two minutes of infamy where they get online and they say, that shop can't Fix my car. The reality is you went in there maybe thinking that repair or that diet should have been free and it wasn't. And you drove out and you ran to your keyboard like a little bitch and you said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna blow up the them. Meanwhile, there's nobody in the back that even had a chance to look at that car.
Because the service advisor said, I'm sorry, Mr. Smith, our first diag is going to be $150. Check this out. Because whatever you were promised by a salesman or whatever you told doesn't apply here. That's why I don't give a flip about what I read online about what somebody says. Somebody didn't fix this. Unless I'm the one that was involved or I know the person. It doesn't mean anything.
They say the technician broke this. They say the technician broke that. We're going behind so many hacks anymore in this, but I'm lucky. I fix what I can fix. Yeah. Because of what's been done to it prior to getting it.
I have had a. I have had a series of toxic relationships since starting as a business owner. The first one was with the vehicle. Okay. And that's because they didn't want to be fixed all the time. And sometimes I couldn't fix them. The second was with the client.
Right.
Like, I cared a lot about how they felt and what they wanted and like it was. It felt like a personal attack against me. And I care about what people think and while I shouldn't, I do. And so then it's a, it's this thing of like this really unhealthy relationship with Google reviews and the clients. And like they come in. I feel sick at my stomach just seeing the review pop up. And then it's the part stores because the parts are shit. I can't get decent parts and it doesn't matter if they're OE or wherever.
Dude, we just got a Chrysler engine from Chrysler. Brand new. Didn't even start the fucking thing. Put it in. What do we do when we finish a engine install? Well, we're going to pressure test the cooling system didn't hold pressure. Where's it coming from? Oh, I don't know. The quarter inch gap between the head and the block. Spent probably $400 worth of labor proving to them it wasn't us.
Right. And so like it's parts and then it's employees. Care about my employees. But man, this, this is a lot to manage and a lot to maintain, a lot to take care Of. And so each one of these things becomes infinitely more heavy as the days go on. And so as business owners who begin to build systems and protections in place that. That isolate us from that, we become disconnected from the technician who's in the bay, the car that's in the bay. We lose sight of why we were doing what we were doing in the first place.
And so there's two classes of shop owners. There's the class of shop owner who figures it out, eventually becomes somewhat transactional, starts making a lot of money, and they forget about all those other things. They become successful, and that becomes the primary shop in our industry. And then on the other side is the shop owner who worked his ass off until it almost killed him. And he said, hey, I can't do this. I would rather it fail than put this emotional burden on myself. Right. We've lost a lot of shop owners, seven in the last year that I know of, to suicide.
Right.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah. And so, like, I think that we need to do a better job of supporting one another, and I think we need to do a better job of understanding that, like, hey, at the end of the day, these are cars. Right. And, like, we put so much emphasis on the cars, we put so much emphasis on the people, and life is messy, doesn't always go according to plan. I think that social media and, and this review society that we found ourselves in is. Is impactful in a negative way on business owners. Right. And really, the only way to be safe from that is to completely disconnect, and then they disconnect and then they're not there for their employees, and then it becomes a toxic, toxic environment and things go downhill.
Yeah. I don't know. I. I think because I've been struggling lately. Right.
Yeah.
You know, and, and I reached out to you and I reached out to a lot of other people, and I keep thinking back to the only thing that keeps me doing this now is to be somewhat relevant to the people that I'm speaking to.
Yeah.
You know, I can no more put my tools down and say, I'm still the jaded mechanic and I'm still going to do a podcast. I'm going to talk about all this. If I didn't go work on a car every day.
Yeah.
Because I wouldn't be in that environment. It would be very hard. But, man, I keep feeling some days, and I'm sure you do, too, where, like, we just hit over. Just over 100 episodes here. So we're going on, you know, almost two years of this for me, longer for you. That sometimes I feel like every time I meet a new owner and they have no clue that there's so much available out there. Yeah, like, like ours and our podcasts and stuff like that. All this information that's blowing up every day and they're not involved in it.
They're not reading the trade publications, they're not going to the events, they're not doing the training, they're not networking on the, on the thing. I just feel like I'm just beating my head against the wall because why are not picking this up? Because the cycle just keeps continuing. Otherwise we do not fix this industry unless we acknowledge that it's already really, really broke. Yeah, really broke. And I don't mean financially broke, I mean really broken. The fact that we can't get people to see this as an opportunity for employment, that's the first thing. And it falls on every person out there that decides to hire somebody and make them an employee. If it's already broken and you're deciding to just go with the way it's always been, you're the problem, you're not the solution, no matter what.
And you know what? At the end of the day, I will, I will be vulnerable as it gets. It's hard, right? It's hard. It's hard to mentor people. It's hard to say the right thing, it's hard to do the right thing. It's hard to put the right people in place. It's hard to manage the cars, it's hard to manage the people, it's hard to manage the money. It's hard, right? And if it was easy, everybody would be doing it and everybody would be successful. The problem is, is you put the majority of people up against the wall, right? And they start making crazy ass decisions.
I watched that with my manager when I hired him, right? Because he came in and he thought that there was some big problem to be solved. Now the shop had grown 30% every year, year over year since I got a coach, right? And the shop was still growing and the shop was doing okay. But he came in, he started making all these crazy ass changes and like, oh, we got to do this. Oh, we gotta do this. Oh, we're changes. Oh, we're gonna change this. And he made this like huge wave in the shop and so he broke things that weren't broken to begin with because he, you know, part of, there's also a part of him that he really needs to be like the person that people he like has to be the one that is in charge. And people have to recognize he's the one who has the control.
And so, like, there's the two aspects of that. And one of the things that I'll say about that is, is that it creates this whiplash. But when it really got tough and he really got his back pushed up against the wall, and I'm sitting here saying, what the hell are you doing? What did he do? He felt overwhelmed. He felt panicked. Oh, I'm just gonna. I'm getting ready to quit. I'm just gonna bail out. I'm just gonna.
Right. Do all these things. And I pushed him and I said, look, dude, I don't think that's the answer. I think the answer is to learn. I think the answer is to develop. I think the answer is we need to find a solution.
Yeah.
To fix this thing. We can't just bail out here. We're not in a spot to be able to do that. And I remember the exact words I said to him. I said, look, you can bail out if you run this fucker in the ground. I can?
Yeah.
I was just gonna say, I'm here, baby. One way or another, this is. This is still me. And so I'm not, like, I'm not down with that, but. But we've seen so many people get their back pushed against the wall, and then they start making shit decisions because their back's pushed against the wall. Right. And we need to teach people that when your back's up against the wall, to stop, find some help, talk to somebody. Stop making irrational decisions.
Stop making decisions in emotion. Right.
Yes.
There's any valuable thing I've learned in coaching, it's that emotion has no place in decision making because emotion leads you wrong every time. But if we slow down and why do you think I'm so hard on you about some of the job stuff? It's because I'm trying to get you to stop and say, okay, right now you're pissed off because of the thing, because of the reaction, because of what happened. But that's not going to fix the problem. Let's stop and think about what the solution is. Let's stop and think about how could it have been done different? And then we decide, can that be implemented or can it not be implemented because we got to make decisions based in fact? And then when we find ourselves at a crossroads that says, hey, this is not going to happen in this shop, do I move on? Right when we start squeezing? I'll never forget this. Rick came to me one time and we had this really great relationship for the longest time, and we still have really good relationship. I'm not saying we don't now, but we had this relationship where it went beyond coach and client, and it became like, hey, I care about you, and you're part of my family, and I'm worried about you. And he came to me one time and he said, you need to hear me say something.
You are squeezing too hard and you are going to kill yourself and you're going to kill everybody else around you because you're trying to get blood from a turnip and you are trying too hard. You need to let go a little bit. Yeah, right. Makes me emotional. Think about it. I still do that.
And that's your nature. That's what I know of you.
Right? And so that. That's why I come across as a bullhead, right, Is. Is because when I get something in my head, I'm moving and I'm not letting anything stand in my way. It's not that I'm an asshole. It's not that I don't care. It's not that I don't care about how somebody else feels or the fact that I might be wrong. It's that I'm not waiting to make a decision and to move. I'm not going to waste my time on this.
I'm going to go. I'm ready to make something happen. I'm ready to be successful. I'm ready to make and be the change that I desire, not going to sit around and wait on it. And so I've got to be careful that I don't become the man squeezing the blood out of the turnip. You do, too. But you're guilty of that, right? You want it now and you want this shark to do what it's supposed to do. And I can't fucking believe they're not fucking listening to me.
And this is so simple, and there's all these fucking problems, right? But to make change, as stupid as it sounds, back to the Jordan Peterson thing. It's not. It's complex. It's not. Oh, yeah, Just walking in and making change takes a lot to change things.
I'm just trying to get more people on the same page. Even though that book is even open.
I don't know. I don't know. And I. Man, I think that as we begin to get successful, I think in life, your business gets successful, your podcast gets successful, people come out of the woodwork trying to tear you down, trying to destroy you. Taking everything you said out of Context. Spending everything you said in different directions, making it something that it's not. Yeah, right. And.
And it's unfortunate that as a society, we do that. And I think we do it in the subconscious. I don't think we even do it in the conscious. All right? And I, like, we pick on Carmen stuff sometimes, and we make little. Throw little jokes back and forth at Carmen. I hope he knows that it's in good fun. It's like this competition fun. And we laugh and we joke and we cut up about it.
And I talk to him and Tracy all the time. And it's. It's. It's about having a good time and laughing, but it. It's never about being at the top of the food chain. Right. My uncle was a truck driver, and I always loved big trucks, right? And I always love fast trucks with lots of lights and lots of chrome. It's like this stupid addiction that I had.
And he always told me, said, you know, hey, listen, there's always gonna be somebody faster with bigger truck with more chrome. There's always gonna be somebody in life better.
Just.
Just do the best you can. And, you know, I said this to Chris that works for me a while back, and this is a little bit of an emotional one. I'm glad it's here at the end, because nobody watches the end of podcast. I'm just putting that out there. So, Braxton, if you want to edit this out, you can. I was doing something one time, and my dad thought it was subpar, and he said to me, he said, just remember who you're doing that for. And I said, what do you mean? He said, you're doing that for somebody. And I just, you know, you need to understand that it needs to be good enough for who it's for, and they deserve the best.
I said, dad, who's it for? He said, you. Oh, shit. Right?
Yeah.
Everything we do is for us, but then it becomes for the people in our circle. It becomes for the people that we care about. It becomes for everything we've worked for, for all these years to make it feasible, to make it something more, to make it better. That's what these podcasts are about. It's not about being at the top of the food chain. It's not about being some, like, industry expert. Somebody asked me one time, said, hey, said, lucas, you know, what makes you think that you're entitled to stand up there and tell us all about this? And I said, well, if you listen to the podcast, you know, that's not what we're doing. We're literally standing up there and telling you we're a bunch of idiots and we don't know how to run a shop.
We're just trying to figure it out and do the best we can every day. If you actually listen to it, that's what you'd hear.
And I, I've, I've heard that. How many people have said to me, you know, we can think of the two big offenders that got on me about who are you to say yeah to a shop owner they're doing wrong and how they should be. And I'm like, listen, dude, I ain't trying to say that you're doing it wrong. I'm just saying that you're doing it exactly the way it's always been done and it ain't work. Right? We can, we're, we can agree it doesn't work because we're all sitting here having the same conversation why it doesn't happen, why it didn't change for you, why is it the same result so we can agree it didn't work. I'm not telling you you're doing it wrong. No, but what is the right way? Well, let's have the conversation about what the right way is. Right.
They get fixated on the word wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Could be so close to right. Could be just off the, off the mark, still wrong.
So much of our society's bullshit gets tied up in what could have been progress. Progress for our industry, progress for humanity, progress for all the different aspects of our lives. Right? And the reality is his life is pretty short. You're like this little blip on the radar. It's finite, right? It ends. And so eventually you come to this place. You know, I was thinking the other day, I was like, I was laying in bed in Kansas City getting ready to get up. It was Sunday morning.
We're going to go have lunch, go pack up the podcast, all that stuff. And I thought, man, if you die when your mom died, you're less than 30 years away. You're. You're over half your life is gone now.
Yeah.
What difference are you going to make, huh? I don't know. And life is messy. Doesn't always go the way you plan, doesn't go the way that you hope it would go. But as a business owner, you don't.
Know when your last day is right.
But as a business owner, there's people who depend on you. You're not just feeding your mouth and your kids mouths and your wife's mouth or your husband's mouth. You're feeding a lot of mouths. There's a lot of people who depend on you. And as a shop owner, you're fixing cars, and the consumer driving the car depends on you, and their family depends on you to make sure it's right. And the people that pass that car depend on you to make sure it's right. Everything you do matters. Yeah, but yet we get in these Facebook groups and talk shit about each other, and all we can do is fuss about how this person did this and this person did that, and I can't believe they said this and all they talked about this.
No, I disagree with the way they said that. For fuck's sake. You don't even know what they said. You don't even understand what they said. You wouldn't take the time to listen to what they said.
Yeah, all right. Yeah. That's just it. Everybody that has me figured out has me right in that little pigeonhole box that they know exactly what I'm about. You don't even know you. Don't you. You spent no time with me or you haven't seen the thing that I've done on the backside where nobody was watching, where I talked to somebody, something, and. And.
And they went, wow.
You didn't see terrible as a. Terrible of a reminder as it is that we've been friends for over 20 years, and that means Facebook's been here for over 20 years. Yeah, right. I've seen your hairline recede more and more, and I'm starting to catch up.
It's like a six head now. Right?
I know, right? And so, like, we look at this and we go through life and we put all this emphasis on all these things that seem important to us. But, you know, I think the question that I asked myself, there's a reel for the shop where somebody says, like, Braxton's asking a question. Says like, hey, what. What do you. What's your goal for 20, 25? And I said to be happy.
Yeah.
Right. That's the goal.
Yeah.
Because if I can't be happy, then what. What's the purpose of the rest of this?
None.
It don't matter if I. Yeah. Like it. And if we can't help other shop owners and other technicians be happy. Is there a point to this? Is it to make money? To buy a house? To buy another boat? And if so, what does that achieve for you? Warren Buffett talked about that a little bit. There's a great interview, and it's him at the Nebraska Furniture Mall that he bought from that lady who came here, she was an immigrant. She came here with nothing and started the Nebraska Furniture Mall. Like, went through this whole thing.
It's a really crazy story. And he tells that story. There's a lot of people who didn't believe in Warren Buffett political beliefs and whatnot. And I don't, you know me, I'm not a political person. I don't really give a shit what you believe, as long as what you do doesn't affect me. I don't give a. But, like, Warren Buffett's talking about his wealth. And they said, you know, Warren, you live in the same house that you lived in 1956, and you're driving like a 2001 Cadillac and you eat breakfast at McDonald's every day.
And he said, it's because money has no utility to me. Like, once I get to a certain point, like, money doesn't do anything. I can live a good life without that. I'm. I'm not in debt. Things are paid off. I don't need those things to be happy. And I'm telling you, I have friends with two homes and a yacht and all this stuff, and they're no happier than I am, right? And so we.
We tend to look at like, I'm trying to get this wealth. I'm trying to get this thing. I'm trying to go this place for wealth. But wealth does not equate to happiness. Wealth does not equate. I wasn't. Okay.
I always wonder when I see people new and I talked about this just the other day. When I see people chasing that multi store, multi. What are they trying to fill up?
I don't know. Everybody's like, I think generational wealth. I think generational wealth is what they're trying to build. They're trying to make sure their children don't ever have to work. But I'm going to tell you something. What you do when you make sure your children don't have to work and you leave them, wealth like that, that's not managed properly, you ruin. I know a particular family. I'm not gonna say who it is.
And like, because people will be able to put all the pieces together. It was a oil tycoon family, right? And the daughter is crazy. The daughter of the daughter committed suicide. The granddaughter lives with the grandmother and is just as broken as everybody else is, right? Money. Money does not fix these problems. I don't know what fixes these problems.
Well, think about what Jordan says, right? Life is. Life is struggle. So you remove the struggle and you have no life.
Exactly. Exactly.
The five that family had. No life, no struggle.
Exactly. The struggle and the pathway through it is what builds character and what leads you to influence other human beings and make their life better and builds appreciation. Exactly. Exactly. And that's how you begin to see value in what you get up and do every single morning. And so when you ask me, you know, we're sitting here talking about, like, what is it that. What is it that's important? And how do you build these boundaries with your staff because you don't want them to become so dependent on you, and you don't want to have these unhealthy relationships. Well, but if I'm not creating meaning in what we do every single day, if it's not bigger than fixing a fucking car, then what is life? Right? If there's no pathway on the other side of this, what is life? I don't want that for my people.
I don't think you want that for yourself.
No. The customer won't remember in five years, five months, five weeks.
They won't remember in 10 minutes.
And then I was. This is my legacy. These kind of conversations right now, these kind of perspectives, these kind of, like, where I. When I've challenged people in the past to. To be better, to do better, to call them flat out. Call them out. That's not because I. I'm trying to put my.
I'm not trying to step on your shoulders.
Yeah.
I'm trying to lift you up to see.
Be a better human. Be a better human. Right. Exactly.
I love you, buddy. I really do.
I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of what the show's become and the influence that it's made on people. I'm proud of the difference it's made. Like, I see the difference and I hear the difference.
We talk sometimes. It's heavy, eh? Like, it really is. You talk about it, too. Like, it's the people. You know, I. I know what it's like to be you now. To. To feel like the people are always coming at you going, hey, what do you think about this? Or what about that? Or, yeah, you know, and it's the good with the bad, right? It's.
It's for sure. I feel that pressure. And, you know, I. I've been. I've asked. I've gone in circles and asked myself, what am I doing and why am I doing it? And, you know, like, I. I'll always do this, what I'm doing right here. I will always do it in some facet yeah.
And it ain't for the money, but. No, because it's the only thing. Like it's my. That'll be my legacy. You know, in five years time, if somebody starts at a shop and they wheel a toolbox in and it has a Jada Mechanic decal on it.
Yeah.
Cool.
I handed a lot of those out. So there better be a lot of toolboxes with mechanic stickers.
On the next rung is T shirts.
Yeah, Bet. Bet I will do that. And. And you know what? I think that, I think so many of your listeners would tell you the same thing, Jeff, is that we're all proud of you and we all appreciate you and the difference that you're making is a big one. And, and that, that realization for those technicians who are listening and listen to you, that they, they do have meaning, they do have purpose, they are special to us. And, and I would tell anybody, you know, I've got probably 1500 messages in my Facebook over the last week. I don't always get to answer all of them. I try my very best to answer every single one.
Every person that messages me, I do my very best to answer them, give them the most honest opinion I possibly can. And non biased, non like, whatever. But like if you're struggling and you're listening to this shoot. Jeff. A message, right? Because I don't mean to say misery loves company, but. Sorry, Jeff, but I, I think the thing is, is like that that's an important part of our industry and I think the reason those people are messaging is because they don't have anywhere else to turn and that's not a good spot to be. Right. And we don't want anybody to be out there feeling like they're alone and we don't have all the answers.
And we're not going to sit here and tell you that we got it all, right? Like, I know I don't. My shop is a disaster right now. I ain't even going to tell you what a mess that thing is. Right? Like, it's a mess. And there's plenty of shops that perform way better. But I do care about our industry. I do care about you, and I do care about the technicians in our industry. And I want to see them have the best life they possibly can.
Because fixing cars is all. Yeah, right.
Oh, it's the easy part. And you know, I'm not, I'm not here to be, to always be. It's me against a guy like Lucas. Like in terms of a shop owner. It's not. I'm not trying to wage a war attack against the other. I'm just trying to always be like, if I can showcase somebody like Lucas to a mechanic out there, to say, there are owners like that, right? And they're not perfect. They're human like us, but they.
They genuinely wake up every day trying to do better for their people and to try to do better for the industry. There are people out there, and you. Sometimes it sucks. You got to move to find them. You gotta go, you gotta. But don't ever give up. Just keep going. Like, take it for me.
I. Nobody's wheeled their box more than me, and I ain't stopping yet, you know?
And it. Listen, it's okay to be tired. It's okay to feel like you're at the end of the rope and you just can't, right? What's not okay is to stop, right? We don't get that luxury in life. And so you can't stop. You have to keep going. And the way that life gets better is by continuing to march forward and try and figure out what's next, right? You can't stop. It's okay to be tired, though. You know, it's part of it.
Well, buddy, thank you, man.
I love you, brother.
I love you, too. We'll talk to you soon, everybody. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and, like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the Changing the Industry podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter, and we'll see you all again next time.
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