Milwaukee Pipeline Series: Transitioning From Technician to Shop Owner

What led you up to making the leap to start your own shop?

Lots of frustration.

Yeah.

Lots and lots of frustration.

Beyond the Wrench with Jay Gananan from Wrenchway.

All right.

Back at the Milwaukee Pipeline event here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I actually think where Menominee Falls are somewhere.

They have a lot of facilities here that they're all over the place.

But back at this really, really special event for this very special podcast, I'm joined

by the famous, is it all right to say that?

Yeah, sure.

Chris, how you doing?

Good.

How are you?

Good.

So you got a chance to look around the show and you got a chance to check some things

out.

Anything strike you right off the bat of some cool stuff that's coming out?

Oh, yeah.

They have the new M12 battery-powered ratchet, which I'm extremely excited about.

And anybody who watches my content knows how much I love ratchets.

So they knocked it out of the park.

I'm very, very excited.

Did you get to use it a little bit?

Yes.

Yeah.

What stuck out to you there?

It's smaller, stronger, faster.

They modular triggers, which I've been asking for a button instead of the bar for a couple

of years now.

That was cool.

So when they said that at the beginning announcement thing or whatever, that was

me asking every year.

That's been me asking for that.

So they finally did it and they did it way better than I expected.

So having anything modular is a great idea.

So they did an awesome job.

Yeah, super pumped about that.

So we're going to start this podcast a little differently than we have done with the other

podcasts that we're doing here.

And just learning more about what you're doing at Enright Automotive, what you're

doing with all of your social channels, just everything that you're doing.

You're doing a lot out there.

You're kind of everywhere.

And it's really cool to see the growth that you've had, the success that you've

had.

But before we get to all of that, I do like the origin story.

I do like to hear where you came from and what got you into this industry in the first

place.

So let's start there.

What got you into this?

So actually, funnily enough, my brother bought a 96 Acura Integra and started modifying

it.

And so that's what got me into cars.

And so when I started driving, I started doing the same thing to my vehicles.

And so I just started working on my own stuff and I really enjoyed it.

And then after high school or when you're getting ready to graduate, the famous question,

what are you going to do?

What are you going to do?

So I actually took three years off and just worked and just hanging out with my friends.

And finally I was like, I should probably figure out what I want to do with my life.

And so I went to UTI.

I started out in Rancho Cucamonga, California, went out there, stayed there or went

to school there for like six-ish, five or six months.

And then we moved for some reasons and actually came completely across the country and I finished

in Xston, Pennsylvania at UTI.

Wow.

Yeah.

And then came back home.

It was between Chicago and Pennsylvania because we wanted to be closer to home.

And so I was married.

So my wife and I got married very young.

She was 19, I was 21.

And so we were married and I was like, well, I want to try to be close to home.

So once I graduated from UTI, then I tried finding a job and couldn't find a job,

which tells you how much the industry has changed.

And I've been in it almost 17 years and nobody, anybody that wanted to hire me was it was entry

level, loop tech.

And I'm like, I just paid a lot of money for college.

I cannot afford to make minimum wage as a loop tech.

I need to make some money because I was getting paid at other jobs, a lot more

money that was not in the field.

And so I actually got a job with Napa delivering parts because I was like, well,

this is going to be easy.

All I'll do is I'll get a job for Napa, deliver parts to automotive shops, and that'll be

my end.

And it worked.

That's what happened.

Super smart.

So I was delivering in, there's a shop, about 25 minutes from where I lived.

And he had fired his like long-term, he had been working for him for like 18 years

and hired me to take his place.

So I got like a super crazy crash course beginning in the industry because I was

taking a guy's spot that had been in it for 18 years.

And it worked out well.

I don't know how, have no clue why, but like their second, the second year that I worked

there was their best year ever that they'd ever had at the shop.

So that was really cool to know.

But it was also a very harsh environment.

So the owner was pretty angry person, lots of screaming, lots of yelling.

And I think honestly, that's what helped me though, propel my career because I

never liked to ask questions because I don't want to hear them screaming yell about stuff.

So it forced me to figure it out and learn it.

So it wasn't a great environment, but I did it.

So I don't recommend that, but it worked for me.

So that's kind of what propelled my career.

I want to talk more about that and maybe we'll shift to a cultural aspect of this

once we get through your intro, but the screaming and yelling and how that's

maybe changed over the years or maybe sometimes not.

But I did have a couple of questions to pick out of your story.

What did you do for those three years where you had the gap?

So I actually worked at an ice cream store.

Really?

Yeah. So I actually worked for two.

I was a manager for a Cold Stone Creamery and I worked for another ice cream store.

So I'd go to Cold Stone Creamery from, I think I worked seven to four

and then I would go work at the other ice cream shop from five to 10.

Well, so I would leave and the Cold Stone was like 45 minutes away.

So I would leave really early in the morning and then just drive straight

from Cold Stone because it was quite almost exactly an hour from Cold Stone

to the other ice cream store.

And so that's what I did for several years.

Yeah, it wasn't great choice, but well, I was making money.

So in that, you know, you mentioned that you making that career choice

because it gave you a livable wage at that point, right?

And that's something that I think has been a barrier for us in the industry

for a long time is getting that young technician off the ground and how hard it is.

It is hard and like I had done what a lot of beginner technicians did

and I wasn't even in the industry yet, but I had put myself on a lot of debt

and I was married.

So not quite yet married, but I was going to be married.

And so my wife was going to be introduced to all of this debt.

So I was trying to do what I could to just pay all of those payments.

So it forced me to work.

You know, that was the thing to do.

Everybody said, go out and get credit cards and go out and do this.

And so I did all that and I regretted every single bit of it.

And that's why I don't have debt anymore because I hate it

because I was the poster child for what having a lot of debt looked like

at a very young age.

And so, yeah, I've run my entire business off of cash.

I've grown it. Good for you.

Tire time from the beginning to the end on cash.

It's not easy and it's a lot slower growth than some people are comfortable with.

But it's what I've done and it's worked for me.

So let's talk about that shop a little bit.

What led you up to making the leap to start your own shop?

Lots of frustration.

Yeah, lots and lots of frustration.

I have that question a lot on social media

and I tell people, frustration is what drove me to the shop.

It's not what I recommend.

I recommend don't wait to that point.

Like take the leap sooner.

I wish I would have started my shop a little bit sooner, but it's worked out.

We've been super blessed.

We started February of 2020.

So a month before COVID and all that craziness.

That's top timing.

It was not great.

Let me tell you, it was very interesting for sure.

But we did well.

I mean, we grew and, you know, even with all the uncertainty, we did good.

So, you know, like I said, blessed for sure.

How nervous were you in March of 2020?

Very nervous.

There's just a lot of, you know, just a lot of unknowns about everything.

And I knew that we were going to continue working, but people aren't driving.

So I'm like, who in the world is going to fix their car?

They're not driving right now.

So, but they did.

And a lot of our clients like didn't face them, didn't change anything, nothing.

So, yeah, I, I remember that time with our own business, with the, with

Wrenchway and just the, it wasn't even terrifying.

It was more like, I just don't know what's going to happen.

Nobody knows what's going to happen.

And it was, it was an interesting time.

And similar to you, we were scheduled to launch Wrenchway off of the

other business we had in March of 2020 and then ended up delaying it.

We actually put something together called support repair shops where we just kind

of gave it away to people and, and just to help with them with cash flow,

helped people buy gift cards through these.

It was a long time ago and it was, it was really just trying to put

something together because you were, at least we were worried about

the industry as a whole.

I'm like, what can we do to make sure that shops are able to stick around?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it was just so much uncertainty.

We just didn't know what was going to happen or what was going to be done

and what was changing, like so many things change, which there was some

really good that came out of it.

I think it forced a lot of shops to realize they didn't have to have

wait, like huge waiting rooms and have to have all these waiters for

so long in our industry.

We've been so focused on having the client dictate the way we run

business and we're so like, we think that we have to get the vehicle done.

I still do it to this day and I'm, it's, it's a habit.

I'm breaking every single day.

It's like most people will make it work if you just tell them,

I can't get it done today.

Right.

Like, okay, we'll make it work.

But we feel, we put the pressure on ourselves.

Now there are people out there that want their cars back.

I understand that.

But as a whole, most people can figure something out and make it work.

And so we put that pressure that isn't actually there a lot of times.

So it helped in those areas for sure.

So like, I don't have a waiting room in my shop.

So I, I have two loaner vehicles, which is very abnormal

for an independent shop, let alone a small independent shop.

But for that reason, because we don't do waiters.

Yeah.

I, I like that.

I, we talked a little bit, even that part with communication, right?

And being able to communicate with a customer and set that expectation up

front, you not having a waiting room makes that much easier to have that

conversation, right?

It does.

It helps a lot.

Uh, I still do have people that want to wait.

Uh, and every now and again, I will have someone like randomly.

It's like less than 1% of my clients, but I open technically at 830.

I'm usually in the shop by seven.

I'll have them come in at eight.

So it's like, it's a half hour before I actually open.

Yeah, you can wait.

Like, if it's a customer that I've already like just recently done a ton of work

or it's a newer car and I know it's not going to need much of anything else.

And I have time to do my inspection and everything else.

I will do that, but it's very, very rare.

Interesting.

No, I do want to talk about the screaming and yelling part because that

was how I grew up in industry.

Uh, it was just holding some of these fabulous Milwaukee wrenches.

I remember a lot of those wrenches flying across the shop when I was growing up.

Do you see any change or shift there in, in the industry as a whole?

Hmm.

That's a good question.

I do see a trend for sure.

So it's, I'm in between, like I'm a millennial.

I was born in 86.

And so I am in between like that boomer phase and like the Gen Zers.

And I don't know all the different names.

But a lot of the younger generations need more affirmations.

They need to be told they're doing a good job.

And then the older generations say, you're getting paid, do your job.

Like that's, there's a huge gap.

But I'm in between them.

I've always like felt I just do the job like no matter what.

But I want to hear that I'm doing a good job every now and again.

I felt like that's how it was at the dealership.

The only time they ever knew I felt like I existed was when I made a mistake.

If I turned 113 hours in a week, they didn't come and say, hey, great job.

It was, oh, hey, you have this comeback and now they're harping on me.

So that cultural change needs to shift more.

I do think it is changing and I do see a lot more owners

like making a conscious effort towards that.

But it's a slow, unfortunately, slow change that I've seen so far,

at least my personal perspective.

I actually had a technician once talk to me about the technician shortage

and one of the things that he mentioned to me that I didn't have a great rebuttal to

is he said, Jay, why would I want the technician shortage to get any better?

He said, I'm getting paid better than I ever have.

I'm being treated with more respect than I ever have.

And, you know, it was a unique perspective when I was talking to him.

And we were, we had a great conversation about it

because he had some valid points.

But at the same time, I felt like, OK, for the betterment of the industry,

we need to get more talented people into this industry.

And I don't know that at one, he had, again, some valid points.

But the screaming and yelling that I think we grew up with in,

especially with young techs, we have a lot of attrition with young techs

coming into the industry.

And I think that's a big piece of that, right?

Is because they're they get paralyzed because they're getting yell that

rather than maybe that positive affirmation.

And I was guilty of that when I was first coming into the industry, too,

right, where it was you make a mistake and it felt like your face was rubbed

in that mistake for months, right?

And you lost that level of trust, which, you know what?

We work on we work on vehicles that if you don't do it right,

could end up in a really bad situation.

So absolutely, I think a lot of it comes down to the communication

and maybe some of the laying the foundation for that person to be successful.

But I think we still also in the out of the the opposite side of my mouth,

we'll take a young person and put him in the shop and be disappointed

that they they're not performing within three months, right?

And I think there's that there's that gap that still remains.

There is for sure.

And we culture is huge.

Like I I will argue and you can find surveys for everything.

And I will argue that culture is just as if not more important than pay.

Yeah, I went from making seventy grand a year to twenty seven thousand dollars a year

from going from a dealership to helping my brother start a new business.

And I was much happier at twenty seven thousand dollars a year

than I ever was at seventy grand at the dealership.

And I wanted more culture.

I wanted something I wanted people to treat me better, at least have some respect.

I always told my managers at the dealership and at the indie shops

that I worked as like no one will ever beat me up more than me when I make a mistake.

100 percent.

I beat myself up.

I I I'm very hard on myself.

I don't need you to come out.

If you want to have a conversation and ask me what happened, like, hey, what happened?

Like, absolutely, that's fine.

Let's have a conversation.

My head was not in it.

I mean, if something's going on at home, life happens like people don't under

like they don't want to they say, oh, keep your life at home.

It's not reality.

That does not happen with anybody.

Especially nowadays in social media and everything.

So that's not a realistic expectation.

We need to be more understanding of people and try to figure out where they're at.

Come to them and have a conversation, a cordial conversation, just screaming, yelling.

It's actually really not that hard.

And I'm not like the most patient person in the world.

But it's not hard to have a calm conversation with someone.

Yeah, we just had an author on the podcast that Dave Anderson, it was just a

phenomenal podcast and he talked through communication style and being able to

effectively get whatever that message is over to an employee.

And as he was talking about it, I couldn't help but think about the

manager technician relationship.

And what he was saying is as soon as somebody starts yelling, the other

person kind of turns off a switch that is you're not going to be engaging

and they're not going to learn anything from it.

That's going to make them a better employee moving forward.

And I couldn't agree more, right?

I think that's an issue in our industry.

And as you mentioned, I do think it's gotten better.

I do think we're getting more leadership training to some of our

young managers that are coming into it.

You talked about ASTAs, some of the other opportunities that are out

there for maybe that shop owner that's looking for opportunities to

become a better leader, the resources are out there now to become a good leader.

Beyond, I mean, there's so many different resources.

I think a big part of it is most people don't know they exist and they

don't see the ROI on training.

And the easiest way to put it is you're not going to physically see,

like you're not going to be able to put it down on paper, the ROI.

It just, you just can't do it.

But I, you have to get there and go to one first.

And that's a hard choice.

I get it.

I was randomly, you know, I told you my story.

Last night when we talked and I randomly just decided that I was going

to go to a training event, had never been to any sort of training event

in my entire life.

I didn't even know they existed at all in the automotive industry.

And it was the pivotal point in my business to start making changes

because I was not profitable.

I was not making any money.

And I always felt I still have my, I'm not far, that far

moved from being a tech.

And I always felt like I want to pay my techs well because I always felt

I needed to be paid well because I did a good job.

So if I have a good tech, I want to pay them well.

Well, when I started looking at my numbers, I realized that was never

going to happen.

So I couldn't pay them jack squat.

So that made me really like have a mindset shift because, you know,

there's a lot of that out there, especially on social media as, you

know, I do a lot of, and there's, there's this mindset

that mechanics need to be cheap.

And I can't, I don't know if it's because so many people have cars

and a lot of people think they can do everything.

There's a horrible communication gap with owners, advisors

and technicians as a whole to clients.

They're, as a whole as an industry, we're horrible at communication.

So when we communicate those, those things to people, we do a terrible job

like we said, oh, hey, let me pull that car and I'll take a look at it.

We're not looking at it.

Yeah.

We're testing, we're evaluating, we're diagnosing.

We're, there's so many different things.

And then we don't want to take the time to document it and say, hey,

this is why we charged you $150 to diagnose your car.

This is what we did.

This is all the work we put into it.

This is, there's value there.

But if you just put on their diagnosis, $150 doesn't help.

There's nothing there.

So just as an industry as a whole, we've done a terrible job at

communicating to people.

So I get the, the, the gap and, and why that's there.

But I don't get why everybody thinks that we should just be cheap

and give away all of our work.

And people don't understand the overhead and the cost.

There's a ton.

Like people have no clue what it takes to own a shop.

And, you know, even in my small shop, the overhead that I have

is crazy.

People lose their minds when I tell them, well, I'll save

and I don't open my doors.

And I'm like, it's expensive.

It's not cheap.

All of these things cost money.

And, you know, it's a vehicle is the second most expensive

things most people spend on in their lives besides a house.

So you're going to spend the most money on a car, a vehicle of

some sort, and you need to take care of it.

And that costs money.

And my time and knowledge aren't free.

And now there are all these tools and subscriptions and

subscriptions are not cheap anymore.

All that stuff costs money.

And so I got to pay for it.

And then I got to pay for my tax well, and I got to

give my tax benefits and compete with these other

industries who are doing so much more than we are as a whole.

And they don't have to buy tools.

I shared a story on my Instagram the other day of a HVAC

company and had an entire table laid out showing what they

give their new HVAC tax.

It's a table full of tools, boots, clothes, like a whole

bunch of like just random goodies, a van loaded down

with tools, like, and they're not getting paid garbage

money.

They're being paid extremely well with benefits.

And all of these things.

And I'm like, we're competing with that because a

mechanic, a technician, whatever you want to call

them can go from our industry and go be an HVAC tech

tomorrow because we're working on every single system.

And so we have to have the knowledge of all these

other trades, but we're not charging like that.

We're, I would say, 15 to 20 years behind on what

our labor charges are and what we actually bill for stuff.

How much do technicians really make at Wrenchway?

We work with some of the best shops and dealerships

across the country and we've discovered that technicians

often earn more than what some online sources suggest.

For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports

that technicians make an average of $47,000 per year.

But we know that's not reflective of the true

earning potential of technicians.

We've teamed up with ASC to create an online

technician pay tool, a free, easy to use resource

for both aspiring technicians and those already

in the automotive and diesel industries.

This tool lets you explore real pay data with

customizable searches by industry, shop type,

location and experience level.

Check it out at Wrenchway.com

slash pay or follow the link in the show notes.

We also encourage current technicians to

anonymously submit their own pay data to help

make the tool even better for everyone.

Lastly, thank you for your continued support

as we work to promote and improve careers

in automotive and diesel.

We couldn't do it without you.

I want to talk about that communication style

to a customer and you're I'm sure anybody

listening to this has probably seen you

on social media at some point.

Is there an opportunity to use social

media as a platform to help educate the customer?

And maybe in a way that's not just saying,

do you know I just paid 12 grand for the snap

on card out here or whatever it is, right?

Like without just kind of telling them

that this is an expensive venture,

like still being able to properly communicate

that, hey, in order for us to do our jobs

and do it very, very well, we've got to

charge accordingly so that we can continue

to pay our staff, that we can continue

to get the best tools, we can continue

to get the best training.

What's the communication strategy that

you've seen be effective from a shop's

perspective to a customer?

So there's absolutely a great way to do it.

I will say there's very few shop owners

doing these things.

Again, like social media is its whole.

It's it's another full time job.

It's another job for me.

There is absolutely a good way to do it.

Royalty Auto does a really good job with it.

They're the best example I can give for that.

And the issue I found with social media

is controversy drives a lot of videos,

especially in the automotive field.

And typically what you'll see

is an owner talk about these things

and then the comments are all like,

oh, you shouldn't be charging for that.

That's a rip off.

I've seen a lot of that.

But I keep reminding these shop owners

when they do videos like parts margins.

That's the big one.

That's like we shouldn't be charging more for parts.

I tell people this is this is an argument that I stopped.

I just don't do it anymore

because 99.9% of the people commenting on that

will never step foot in a professional shop in their life.

They're either going to do it themselves.

They're going to go to a friend of a friend,

a Shadu mechanic, backyard mechanic.

That's fine. I don't that's OK.

Like I have no problem with people doing that.

They should not have a problem

with me running a professional business

that has a profit

because I tell owners all the time,

if you're not making a profit,

you think you're helping all of these people.

But when you go out of business,

who are you helping?

Yeah, you're no longer helping anybody.

You can't support your family.

Your technicians can't support themselves and their families.

So on and so forth.

The idea should be for most is to you want to grow.

Most of us start a shop to grow

and build into this thing and help more people.

We help them with good customer service,

good just service, good work, good warranties,

whatever that may be for them,

whatever that value is for them,

we charge for that and they're happy to pay it.

And so that's you have to ignore that online craziness.

Yeah, it's hard.

It is hard.

It's kind of constant.

And even you make such good points there

because a lot of times,

I'm sure you've heard it as well at shops

where a customer comes in and says,

well, I looked up that part online and it was this.

And you're like, OK, like you still like

maybe you don't understand the business.

And in a lot of cases, maybe it's not the customer

you want in the first place.

I think it does.

But I this has worked for me.

This may not be this may not work for everybody

because you have to be confident.

You have to know why you're saying this.

But I just tell people flat out

and it's worked great for me.

I have nothing to hide from people.

I tell them there's three reasons.

That's why I don't allow you to supply your own parts.

Number one is we make money off the part.

I get that right out of the way.

I say we make money on the parts.

Either I make money on the parts and labor

or my labor is super high

and don't make money on the parts.

I don't really care which way you want it.

I have to make money to run a business and stay profitable.

If you're not OK with that, that's OK.

I'm not the business for you.

And I just tell them that's exactly how I lay it out.

Just like I said it right there.

Two, it's a liability issue.

If I use your part, something happens and it breaks.

It's a cheap part, whatever the case is

and you get into an accident.

I'm now held liable because me as the professional,

I used your cheap crappy part

and I knew it was a cheap crappy part

and I installed it.

And so now I'm held liable for that.

Number three is efficiency.

Like if I use your part and it's wrong

or whatever it happens

and we have to get a different part or retrofit it

or whatever it is, now I'm losing money

because I'm waiting on the correct part

or we have to order it.

And I tell shop owners from the shop owner side of it

is you're losing twice.

You're losing because you're losing on the parts margin

but you're also losing because you're base filled

with someone who's not willing

to pay your profit margin.

So the person that normally would be in there is not in there.

So now you've lost on the customer that should be in there

and you've lost on the parts.

So now you've lost twice.

So the perspective, it's a wrong perspective

in my opinion.

I agree and I think that customer

that you're talking about too

is also gonna be the one that even beats you up

after the fact as well, right?

And it's not worth it.

I think the longer you go in business

the more comfortable you become with the fact

that not everybody's maybe the right client for you.

And they're not.

It's okay to fire some time.

It's okay to say no.

I just did a video on that recently.

Like it's absolutely okay to say no.

It's one of the best skill sets you can create

as a business owner no matter what industry you're in.

Because like you said,

not every client's gonna be your client and that's okay.

And I, again, those people that I tell

like if you're not okay with me making money

it's not personal.

It's business.

I have a shop for you.

I have a whole list of shops that I recommend out on

for this because I don't do euros.

I don't do diesels.

I'm not cheap.

I have a really big warranty.

I use high end parts like or high quality parts.

Like we were talking about it yesterday

like a timing chain job.

I do it one way and one way only.

If they don't want it done that way

and they don't want everything replaced

I'm not the shop for now.

It's okay.

Here's a shop that will put whatever you want.

Like if you want to just replace a chain

and nothing else or just a chain and tensioners

here's your shop.

I do chains, guides, tensioners, seals, you know

the whole gambit while I'm in there

because I know what's gonna happen.

If I don't six months later, something fails

we're back in there, they're ticked at me

because hey, we were just in there.

You just spent all this money.

See we're gonna be done right or not at all.

At least at my shop.

But that's again, that's the joys of being the shop owner.

You get to make those decisions

and somebody else wants to make that decision.

They can do their own thing.

That's why I have a list of shops that I send people to

because there's a client for everybody.

There really is.

Well Mike, I think the transparency part

that you talked about is so key with a customer too.

Right?

Not shying away from the fact that you need to make

a profit to be in business.

And I think a lot of industry gets uncomfortable

in that conversation about making a profit.

And I think sometimes we've gotta remember

how skilled we are as a group, right?

When you see a good technician do good work,

it's a thing of beauty.

It's a work of art, right?

Like they do some incredibly great stuff.

And so you gotta keep that in mind

when you're having that customer conversation

to have the confidence.

And I love your approach

because it does feel like you're coming in

with confidence right off the bat.

That makes that kind of difficult conversation

pretty clear and concise.

And there are a lot of us

that want to make people happy all the time.

They're not going to be happy regardless

if you take in that job that's not a fit for you.

Yeah, like you said, a lot of those jobs

aren't worth it.

And like back on the value thing,

I feel like we're one of the worst industries

to undervalue ourselves.

And I don't know where that comes from.

I've thought a lot about it.

We are extremely valuable.

And it's something you really have

to shift your mindset about.

You have to really sit down and like

convince yourself and tell yourself, I'm worth it.

Like we're, and maybe that's because of the toxic culture.

Maybe that's whatever it is.

Or maybe that's cause society looks down on us.

You know, even Hollywood.

And when they do movies and TV shows,

like it always makes us look like

the dirty grease ball grease monkey.

Like that's not,

Shane Gillis isn't helping us out right now.

None of that stuff helps our image as a whole,

but we're way better than that.

We just have to believe it too.

And you have to be confident

when you're talking to people about it as well.

When you look back over the frustrations

that you had coming in as a technician

to that business owner role,

is there anything that you would tell

your younger self about what to prepare for

in making that venture?

As far as like switching from technician to shop owner?

Yeah.

Learn your numbers.

Like being a good technician

does not make you a good shop owner.

They're nothing of the same.

There's very few similarities, if any at all.

You have to learn your numbers about the business.

It's one of the things I think we shy away from

because we don't know anything about it.

And

I don't wanna say don't start off cheap

because I did.

I started off cheap

and I don't know if it helped me or hurt me.

I don't know because obviously we're here now,

but don't start off too cheap.

That would be like, you don't need to be cheap.

We think just because we're a smaller shop,

we're not offering what the dealership's offering.

We're not doing all of these things

that we have to be cheap.

You do not have to be cheap.

In many cases, we're doing a lot more than dealerships

and I'm not saying anything bad about dealerships.

I came from the dealership.

I've over seven years experience in the dealership

but as the independent world,

we feel like we need to be cheaper than them

and we're working on way more than them.

So we have to know a lot more.

We have to have a lot more equipment

because we're working on everything.

So there's just a lot of differences there.

And so just keep that in mind.

Those would be the couple things for sure.

I mean, there's a lot of more advice for sure

but those two things for sure would be like,

you don't need to be cheap

and you definitely need to learn your numbers

and do some sort of communication,

like learn how to be a better communicator

if you're now the technician

because there's this weird thing

where technicians hate advisors

and they hate how much they make

and all they should make as much.

And I say all the time, you have no clue

because that's why you see so many shops fail

is because it's the technician turned shop owner

who's now communicating with people

who's never communicated with people

and they assume that you just say, yep, you need breaks.

Well, no, it's because there's five other shops

on the street where they'll do cheaper than you.

There's all, this is my mantra.

There's always somebody willing to do it cheap.

100%.

Always, yeah.

There's, you know, there's five shops down the road

that'll do it cheaper than you.

It's not about just saying you need breaks.

It's about communicating the importance

and your value of why it's best to do business with you.

I tell new call, like new call customers

that call in that's never done business with me.

I tell them I'm not the cheapest.

I'm not always the most expensive sometimes I am.

I'm the best value.

So I'm like, if you're looking for the best value,

I'm your shop.

If you're looking for the cheapest, I'm not.

I got a guy for you.

If you're looking for the most expensive,

I got another place for you.

Like what are you looking for?

And I'll help you find that.

I'll tailor it to that.

And it works.

I convert a decent, I wouldn't say like,

definitely not all of them,

but I would say quite a bit more than a lot of people

because I just, you know, explain it that way to them.

When you think back to your time as a technician

and you thought about,

I'm sure it went through your head a million times on,

I'm going to start a shop.

I'm going to pay my people better.

I'm going to do all of this stuff.

And I hear that from a lot of technicians,

turned owners of shops that,

or even current technicians that,

I'm going to start a business someday

and I'm going to pay my people better

than what they're paying me.

Do you think there'd be,

and I've had a lot of conversations with technicians

where I kind of shine a light on the numbers to them

and have those open transparent,

we talked about transparency earlier,

being able to explain the overhead to them

and being able to get them

to understand the business as a whole

and that it's not a cheap business to run.

Do you think there's any positive impact there

by having those conversations?

100%, absolutely.

I think that's a big part of it.

Now I will say, like I do a lot of videos

and social media stuff on the technician side

and the owner side

because I'm still technically the technician.

And I personally feel shop owners need

to take the first step.

I get that there's horrible technicians out there

and not great ones, they're just not,

they think they're God's gift to earth

and they're not really that good.

I get that, but shop owners definitely need

to take the first step and start making some changes

and show that they're going in the right direction

because there's so many technicians

that have such a skewed experience.

Before I started my shop,

I did not have a good experience

in two dealerships that I worked at

and two independent shops.

So they were all toxic.

That's tough.

So if that tells you anything,

that's enough for me to know,

okay, the top, whoever, the owner, the dealership,

whatever it is, there needs to be a culture shift,

some sort of culture shift

to make it more conducive for technicians

and help them with things like career paths

and help them get better with training

and just maybe walk by

and ask them how they're doing,

how's their life, how's their wife,

how's their kids?

Your concept, right?

It's a very simple thing.

And you know, all of the places that I worked

except for the first one, I didn't get that.

So the first one he did, I had a relationship,

there's just a lot of screaming and yelling, of course.

Yeah, and I think we heard that come through

in our 2024 Voice of Technician survey.

We're about to launch that again here in a month or two.

And the communication thing was so big

and just feeling like you're not beneath somebody, right?

Like where you, hey, we're on the same playing field.

Like we're battling as a team.

It's not, you know, I once had a boss

that was basically came out and told everybody

that they're replaceable, right?

And you're like, okay, maybe not that leadership style.

Like I don't know that that's gonna be as effective anymore,

but I think there's an opportunity for shops out there

that are listening to this

to be heads and shoulders above

what the standard shop is, right?

Because there are still plenty of maybe subpar shops

that aren't going to ever understand this concept.

So at a local level,

what can you do to be the change for that?

What can you do to be the leader

in bringing good leadership

and having really, really happy texts

that are well taken care of

and having those conversations around the business model

with a technician so you can say, hey,

you know, if we want to treat you really, really well,

here's some of the data that is going to influence

how we can pay you moving forward.

I just think there's so much of an opportunity

for so many shops up there to be a leader.

I agree and I think communicating it

from the shop owner's perspective to the technician

is like, you know, here's what we want to do.

We want to pay you more.

We want to give you more benefits.

We want to do this.

Here's some expectations from you that we want to see.

We want to see you on time or, you know,

obviously every owner is going to have some different things

but like me on times, one of those things,

I want them to be on time,

but some of the owners are okay

with their not being exactly on time.

You know, we want, you know, to see this many hours

and it doesn't have to be a flat rate thing,

but there is some sort of,

like you need to see some sort of output in hours

whether they're getting paid flat rate, hourly,

hourly, hybrid pay doesn't matter.

There needs to be some sort of efficiency in there.

Not perfection, but something to meet the expectations

of, hey, we're paying you this.

We need to make this as a business.

The only way we do that is if everybody turns

this many hours or whatever, however it's done.

And so that's a big part of it,

communicating all of that, having an open conversation

and just being a little bit vulnerable as the owner

to understand and know that you don't know everything.

You have to be willing to take a look in the mirror

and realize like that's what I had to do.

I was like, man, I suck.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I need to make some changes

because if not, this business isn't gonna last.

So, you know, I had to realize

that I didn't know what I was doing.

So it's not easy, it sucks.

You have to have a really big ego check,

but it's part of it.

It is, it is, and this industry will give you

plenty of ego checks over the years, right?

There's always cars that will give ego checks for sure.

They're always there, there's no doubt.

Something else that can give you ego checks

are comments and social media.

I want to talk about, it's kind of my rough segue

to your social media following

and how you got involved with social media.

You've done a heck of a job growing an audience.

Thank you.

What drove you to start that?

So I started off doing tool reviews

that was kind of like my, I loved watching tool reviews.

And then I thought, well, you know,

if other people can do it, why can't I?

So I started doing my own tool reviews.

And then at that time, the marketer that I was using,

she was a friend of mine, or she still is a friend,

but she was my marketer at that time.

She was doing a 30 days real challenge.

And so that's what got me consistent.

And so I did a reel for 30 days.

Interesting.

And so that forced me to just,

okay, I'm gonna do one every single day.

And then I really enjoyed it.

And so I just kept doing that.

Well, naturally people asked me, you know,

are you the shop owner or whatever?

Well, then people started asking me more

as they started following me.

And then that's where the videos that I do,

like talking about the industry.

And I started going to training events.

And then I've worked a lot with my marketing company now

and taught classes at training events

and two shop owners about social media.

And so now I have like a really big passion

about sharing like, hey,

this is what I've done to grow my shop.

This is what worked for me.

You know, here's what rough numbers

you should be looking at and aiming for.

And so that's kind of turned into its own thing.

So everything's just progressively grown.

But yeah, it's a lot of work for sure.

And yes, there's a lot of negative comments for sure.

This can be fun.

So I love my haters.

I appreciate you all.

I appreciate all the ones that follow me,

but don't follow me.

I appreciate that.

It is funny how many people follow somebody

and then just do nothing but hate that person.

And you're like, okay,

that like you could easily unsubscribe

and not watch the stuff.

But how do you balance that moving forward

with a growing social media following

as well as a growing shop?

There's some things that overlap,

I'm sure in your day-to-day life,

but there are some things where it's like,

I got to sit down and do this social media stuff,

whatever it might be.

How do you balance your schedule as you move forward?

You don't.

You don't?

Yeah.

So eventually like I am a big proponent of hiring

like a full-time editor,

somebody that comes in the shop every day,

like even if it's only for a couple hours

and that's all they're doing is just filming content,

doing interview style, whatever that may be

looks for that shop.

If there's a shop that wants to do that,

like it's one of the best things you can do.

Somebody who knows what they're doing obviously,

but if you look at some of these larger shop content

creators or businesses, that's what they've done.

And that makes the most sense.

Like you need somebody that knows trends

and things that are going on.

Cause I love doing the trends and they're fun

and lighthearted and I like that type of content.

Like just more, like just enjoy.

Like it's already a rough industry as it is.

Let's have some more fun with it.

So yeah, I think that's for me for sure.

And I think a lot of shops could do that,

but there's usually somebody in the shop

that's interested in it already.

So you could use someone,

even if you have to incentivize them,

I think it's something more shops should do more of.

Totally agree.

And talk about these things that we've talked about

because educating the general public is important

and they don't know.

And so if they're also, they're getting their information

from is all these toxic people and the people saying stuff

like, oh, you got ripped off.

No, they didn't actually get ripped off.

You just don't know what it takes to run a business

and you've done everything from cheap parts on Amazon

for all your life and you don't ever tell us

about everything that's broken

and you've had to do it six times.

That's, they don't know.

They don't know what they don't know.

Do you ever get in a rut

where maybe you're not feeling like that day

you want to shoot content?

Oh, 100%.

Yeah, that happens quite often.

It is hard to do both.

Like I said, social media is like its own full-time job.

So obviously I have the shop full-time job.

I'm married, I have two kids,

have a life outside of the shop.

So it is hard.

It does become a lot and there's content block

and not all stuff is real.

But I've learned over time

to get out of those ruts as quickly as possible.

So if it's like take time off, go do something crazy

just to kind of reset my mind,

go hang out with friends, whatever.

Like I've learned that a lot more

and that's huge credit to my wife.

She handled, like she reminds me,

hey, I'm in a rough time here recently.

Like what's going on?

Do you need some time off?

Like she's my like-

Can read you?

Yeah, she does an amazing job.

So without her, the shop would have closed six times

by now, maybe more.

So she's my anchor for sure.

She's awesome.

You're fired yourself.

There is absolutely no doubt about that for sure.

I have the same thing.

I'm very fortunate.

I think my wife can read me enough to say,

okay, something's not right here

and drive me to have a conversation

when maybe I don't want to have a conversation, right?

And that's, I think as we close up shop here,

that's one of the important factors too

that I look at for that young technician,

really anybody, but who you marry

has a big impact on your life.

Who you surround yourself has a big impact on your life.

And you go out and if you're that technician

and you're going out on social media

and just reading negative comments all the time,

it's really easy to get in that rut

in their daily lives, right?

So just the importance of who you surround yourself with.

And I think it just has such an impact

on the decisions you make and the stuff you do.

Yeah, you are the sum of the five people

you spend the most time with.

So true too.

And you are going to,

the body can only take so much poison.

However that comes, whether it's negativity,

garbage on the internet, stuff like that.

So it is extremely important.

So even if you're not married,

don't have a girlfriend, don't have a boyfriend,

whatever it is, stop surrounding yourself

with negative, garbage people.

You don't need that in your life.

I tell people all the time music,

what you're listening to, what you're reading,

what you're watching, all of those things,

what you fill your body with

makes a night and day difference.

Not just those things, but food, energy drinks,

like all of this stuff,

you all get your own lives to make your own choice

to do what you want.

But I'm telling you from a like health perspective

of my life, like I had a huge,

crazy health scare last year

and I started making some major changes

and it's changed a lot of other things in my life as well.

And so that's a big important part

that we don't talk about enough

is the health side of things.

So you gotta take care of yourself.

If you're not here to take care of your wife,

your kids, your friends, your family,

whatever the business,

then you're not helping anybody anymore.

So you gotta focus on you first

and then that goes out.

Oh my goodness.

We could have a whole other conversation on that.

I am a huge proponent of technician health

taking care of their bodies

if they wanna do this for 30 years.

We've seen those technicians

that didn't take care of their bodies

and I think a lot of times

it's easy to point at the industry and say,

well, this just beats up your body.

Well, you avoided the fact to talk about

like they just very much abused their body over that time

and I, you know, I had old technician friends

that were guilty of like, yeah, that 350 small block.

I'm just gonna lift it up out of that.

Yeah, so it just, I think the further our industry evolves,

the more our culture as an industry is open to,

hey, you are doing an exercise routine and that's cool.

Like I wanna see you continue to get better

and really propel each other

rather than try to drag each other down.

Yeah, there's a lot of that.

And again, you just have to try to ignore.

I know not everybody's as good at it.

Thankfully, I've had really thick skin

and I don't mind, you know,

butt and heads with people and arguing with them.

I don't, it's all good.

I don't take very much personal.

So you really have to learn to not focus on that stuff

and focus on you and what matters in your life

and that's what's important.

Chris, it's been an absolute pleasure

to have you on the show.

Thank you.

I love your insights and love your,

what you've built.

And you've done an incredible job

and I can't wait to see you in the future,

kind of continue to build that.

Appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me on.

Thank you.

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Milwaukee Pipeline Series: Transitioning From Technician to Shop Owner

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