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Power does not always come from pushing harder. Sometimes in life and in business, the smartest move is to slow down so you can move forward with control, clarity, and intention. Just like a great driver, growth means looking ahead, preparing for the climb, and knowing when it is time to change gears.
Mike Allen [00:00:00]:
You're doing $100,000 a month. You don't need to be a stay at home business owner. No, it's not. You need to be at the shop working.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:06]:
Get your ass off of social media. Go to work. Like you're complaining about not getting.
Mike Allen [00:00:10]:
Holy crap. There are some people that are on social media all the time. How do they get any work done?
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:14]:
Like, go to work.
Mike Allen [00:00:16]:
Welcome to Downshift with my sis, Tanika Haynes. We all know as shop owners, sometimes you gotta slow down in order to speed up. And that's what this podcast is all about. It's time to downsh. So there's nothing that I like more when I'm trying to have a casual conversation to like, kind of break the ice than making sure that I'm playing with. Playing with balls. So we don't do that here, Mike. You don't.
Mike Allen [00:00:49]:
Maybe.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:49]:
But you're on my podcast. We're gonna behave.
Mike Allen [00:00:53]:
No promises, no problems.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:55]:
It's not gonna happen. So we're at the bursas and you're my second live recording. And I walked outside and you two were going back and forth. What are we talking about today? Attack set. Go.
Mike Allen [00:01:08]:
Well, it was the two of us and Mr. Perkins were just talking about everybody and everything. I mean, so the usual. It was standard. Standard operating procedure, little sops.
Jim Cokonis [00:01:20]:
Let's just say it's just perspective of the difference between people's motivations on different things. And we were having a conversation about that.
Mike Allen [00:01:32]:
Like, he will deny this a million times, so don't even try to track him down on this. But I think you can back me up. He was saying that he understands and thinks that is not out of the realm of reasonableness to do Free Diag as a new customer acquisition tool.
Jim Cokonis [00:01:50]:
Excuse me.
Mike Allen [00:01:55]:
Keith Perkins agrees with Free Diag.
Tonnika Haynes [00:01:57]:
Yeah, go ahead and smolder at the camera a little bit more.
Jim Cokonis [00:02:01]:
No, there's one piece of information he's leaving out at Mike's shop and anybody else that wants to do it because they'll get exactly the results they paid for.
Mike Allen [00:02:11]:
And eventually I'll have to call someone like Keith to come and, you know, unfuck the situation.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:16]:
It's a little bait and switch.
Mike Allen [00:02:17]:
No, it's not bait and switch. It's only a bait and switch. If I don't do what I told the customer I was gonna do,
Jim Cokonis [00:02:25]:
I got nothing.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:26]:
You have nothing.
Mike Allen [00:02:27]:
Look, if Keith. If Keith comes and unfucks a situation that I got myself into and I don't charge the customer for it, it doesn't Change the customer, you know, expectation.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:34]:
But it messes with your numbers. Like, why would you even put yourself in that situation?
Mike Allen [00:02:37]:
Already losing money hand over fist. I'm just.
Jim Cokonis [00:02:40]:
Keith, just give some of it to Keith, you know?
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:43]:
Well, give me some.
Jim Cokonis [00:02:43]:
I find this an interesting conversation at a event that Benji's hosting, though, because what's. What was the event that we're here for?
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:53]:
We're here for leadership.
Jim Cokonis [00:02:55]:
For leadership. And there's different styles of leadership existent and non existent. Right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:05]:
I don't think we covered it. Maybe we'll cover that tomorrow.
Jim Cokonis [00:03:08]:
That's true.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:09]:
Mike is sitting in the back of the room.
Mike Allen [00:03:11]:
I'm a back row Baptist. I sit in the back of every class I go to. I just, I've. I've always been that way, man. It's in the very back row, if at all possible.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:21]:
Why?
Mike Allen [00:03:23]:
I have. I have attention issues and I have. I fidget. I have to. I have to fidget. And this can be a distraction. And I also can't sit still for long, so it allows me to stand up and, and lean up against the wall or walk around in the back of the room without being a distraction to everybody else in front of me.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:39]:
How does that play out in your business? Because you're like a numbers guy. You. I think you're a good shop owner. Maybe you're just doing it for. For lights, but you're probably like really good at what you do.
Mike Allen [00:03:49]:
I think. I think that I would be an. Actually a pretty good teacher. I don't want to say coach because I think. I don't know. I think I understand the numbers really well and I think I understand what you should do. And I think I have the capacity to give really good advice, but I don't take my own advice.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:10]:
Why?
Mike Allen [00:04:12]:
I'm conflict averse. I'm a people pleaser. I don't like having accountability conversations. I care too much about whether or not people like me. I got all sorts of personality flaws that feed into.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:26]:
I really enjoy your coaching calls with, with Matt. He calls you out on that too.
Mike Allen [00:04:30]:
Matt. Matt is an awesome coach.
Jim Cokonis [00:04:35]:
Who's Matt? For those of us. Okay.
Mike Allen [00:04:37]:
Matt Lofton.
Jim Cokonis [00:04:38]:
Just for those of us who aren't in the. In the call, you know.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:41]:
Yeah, you should.
Mike Allen [00:04:42]:
So you're saying you don't watch my podcast?
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:44]:
Yeah. You know what? If you don't watch it, you should definitely watch those episodes when he's being coached by Matt because you'd see a different mic.
Mike Allen [00:04:49]:
Okay.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:50]:
You'd see a different mic. You'll see the real Mic that I know and respect. I mean, it's like all of your real.
Mike Allen [00:04:55]:
There's way less dick jokes and shenanigans, and there's way more talking about the actual business in the coaching calls. Because what.
Jim Cokonis [00:05:02]:
I mean, what did you think of my comment today?
Mike Allen [00:05:04]:
Which one?
Jim Cokonis [00:05:06]:
Yeah, that's me.
Tonnika Haynes [00:05:07]:
Yeah. Yeah, that's me.
Jim Cokonis [00:05:08]:
I'll admit it. In a classroom, in a class setting,
Mike Allen [00:05:11]:
I have been known from time to
Jim Cokonis [00:05:13]:
time I have been known from time to time to ask questions and to. What is it Tanika says? Say the weird thing, Jim, just say the weird thing. Just say the weird thing. Get out.
Mike Allen [00:05:22]:
You engage.
Jim Cokonis [00:05:23]:
I engage because I'm curious. And I. And I want to. I want perspectives. And my brain is constantly linking topics. And Josh is talking about leadership, and his coaching is not about the numbers and the business. He's about people and engagement. Right? So it's all about how you interact with your staff as a leader and how you create other leaders on the team.
Jim Cokonis [00:05:52]:
It's about empowerment. That's the message I'm taking out of Josh's training. And so he doesn't focus on the KPIs, right? That's the big deal. The KPIs, the numbers. And I said. So you're saying don't let the key performance indicators kill personal. How did I put it? Kill personal incentive or something along. Kill culture.
Mike Allen [00:06:24]:
Effectively.
Jim Cokonis [00:06:24]:
Yeah, basically. So you can't let a number get in the way and in the way of developing this person's individuality. Right. Because if you develop the person, right, the message is, the byproduct of that is performance increases. So the performance indicators are a result of the coaching in the culture. And I'm liking the message because, you know, and it's not new. Zig Ziglar. You can get anything you want if you help another enough other people get what they want.
Jim Cokonis [00:06:56]:
Right. And if you want to have to do it all yourself, dictate. If you want to create other leaders, you delegate. Right. And so we've all worked for micromanagers who are the type that you got to do it this way, you got to do it that way. You have to put it in a format that I can look at, that I'm comfortable with, and there's no opportunity to create. Maybe it's better. Right? So.
Jim Cokonis [00:07:21]:
So I guess the message that I'm starting to take out of this, you want a hot mic moment? I'll give you one. Oh, I'll give you one.
Tonnika Haynes [00:07:27]:
Let me make sure everything's working.
Jim Cokonis [00:07:28]:
We wrote the policies and procedures. And we have an employee manual. You know how to do it. And what you're forgetting is if you've got a good empowered employee, they may actually come up with an improvement. But you're not allowing it to happen because you're so driven by your KPIs.
Tonnika Haynes [00:07:43]:
That is true. I found it, you know, drinking a Kool Aid the last couple months. That leadership, top down leadership, it works. It trickles down. Like I just allow them to make the decisions. You know how I want this Kool Aid to taste at the end of the day, like. But I'm not going to tell you exactly how to make it. I gave you an idea.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:01]:
You got a recipe on the back of the box or whatever. The back of the.
Jim Cokonis [00:08:04]:
Aren't you supposed to cut open the bag of sugar and dump it in? That's how you feel.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:07]:
Exactly. Yeah. And what flavor?
Mike Allen [00:08:08]:
Red, but no, grape is the only way to go. Come on now, you're a black person. It's great.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:14]:
It's red.
Mike Allen [00:08:15]:
Oh, come on now.
Jim Cokonis [00:08:16]:
Oh, boy.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:19]:
Maybe I'm the wrong lady. I just read we red Kool Aid do not bring no great Kool Aid in my dagger house. No. But, no, I think it's working. And John was asking me, how long have you been not micromanaging? For me, it's been like a solid six months. Go in there. This is the game plan. This is what we need to hit.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:37]:
This is the reason why we need to hit this number. Ready, set, go. Find a problem in the processes and say, okay, this is not working. You know, the way we're taking these appointments, that's not working. What do you guys think? Instead of just barking out orders, because, heck, they have ideas that I don't have and if I don't like their idea, I'm not going to knock it. I was like, okay, I can see where you thought this might work, but that's not going to work. Let's try it a different way. So, like that.
Tonnika Haynes [00:09:00]:
Micromanage. My dad did that. I mean, older shop owners do that because that's the way it was said. But I think it's working for me.
Mike Allen [00:09:07]:
I think you got to be careful because there's a lot of benefit to be gained from learning to not micromanage and to back away to a degree. But don't let it go too far.
Tonnika Haynes [00:09:18]:
Keep your finger on the. Your pulse of the shop. Yes.
Mike Allen [00:09:20]:
Because, I mean, you're driving down the road. When you're driving down the road, there's constant adjustments and there's constant Course corrections. Even though you're driving on a straight road.
Jim Cokonis [00:09:28]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:09:29]:
If you just take your hand off the wheel, you're driving a vehicle prior to 2020, probably it's eventually going to hit the guardrail or go in the ditch. Right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:09:37]:
But even if made in 2026, if it's not calibrated right, it's going to hit the God rail.
Mike Allen [00:09:41]:
So, yes, it's good to not micromanage. Yes, it's good to set the goals and the vision and then equip your people to be able to execute effectively and get out of the way and let them do it. And sometimes they might do it in a way that is different than the way that you would have done it, but as long as they are doing it ethically, treating their people and treating the community right, and they hit the goal fucking great. Right? The problem comes all too often, and I'm speaking from experience. When you get things going good enough that you can step away and do that and you step too far away.
Tonnika Haynes [00:10:18]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:10:18]:
And you get too engaged in other things. Maybe, maybe you start a podcast that's a lot of fun. You stop paying attention to your business.
Jim Cokonis [00:10:27]:
Right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:10:27]:
Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:10:28]:
Start traveling to all kinds of conferences
Mike Allen [00:10:30]:
and you start believing all the that people tell you about how awesome you are, you know?
Tonnika Haynes [00:10:34]:
So are you talking to me or
Mike Allen [00:10:35]:
you talking to you? Obviously I would never do something like that. So just a word of caution. The idea is that you build a team that you can step back and give them the goals and equip them for success and then not micromanage. But that doesn't mean not manage.
Tonnika Haynes [00:10:52]:
That doesn't mean not manage.
Jim Cokonis [00:10:53]:
But can you equate this to automotive technology though, Mike, what's automotive?
Tonnika Haynes [00:10:56]:
We'll let you do that. You're the techy dude.
Jim Cokonis [00:10:59]:
So I was listening to you and here's what I heard. If you look at every current driver assist system, right, Toyota has lane keep assist, but you're required to keep your hand on the wheel.
Tonnika Haynes [00:11:11]:
Yeah. To show what.
Mike Allen [00:11:12]:
Actually if you get a half full water bottle and wedge it in the wheel.
Jim Cokonis [00:11:15]:
Yeah, I know all about that. Then you end up with some of the exact dynamics that you're talking about because you're trying to be an absentee driver and I don't want to knock anything about. Yeah. I never intend to call out this whole thing about, you know, you got to work on your business, not in your business. And I come from a training that says, you know, the Gemba walk managed by walking around. Right. And you go see and you Talk to the people that are doing the things. Because you can't set policy from an office somewhere.
Jim Cokonis [00:11:54]:
You've got to have an understanding of what's going on, or you have to have people that you have delegated the responsibility to who can give you the data that you use to coach them in a direction to come up with the updated policy. But if you just try and do it from a distance, you may be completely out of touch of what the reality is. And so there's some businesses and some management styles that say you want a solution, you go to the people who do the process and you ask them, what would you change? And a lot of times, guess what, they've got the perfect answer because they know what the mission is. And so when you look at a, quote, Kaizen event, right, I know I'm talking Toyota way, I'm talking Edwards Deming, I'm talking a lot of this type of stuff. But a Kaizen event would have everybody, from the CEO to people from parts, to people from repair, to people from sales, and they would come in and they do an event focused on coming up with an improvement to a process. And all stakeholders were involved in that. It's not top down because you're empowering a team and you're coaching them. And so when you walk up and you see something that's not being done according to the process, you don't go, you're doing that wrong.
Tonnika Haynes [00:13:19]:
Why are you doing it?
Jim Cokonis [00:13:19]:
You say, help me understand why you are doing something different. Because if you don't do that, you are eliminating the chance that they may have actually come up with an improvement that would make you more money.
Tonnika Haynes [00:13:31]:
Exactly.
Mike Allen [00:13:32]:
Wait a minute. We're not allowed to say that money is good.
Tonnika Haynes [00:13:35]:
Oh, no, don't say that.
Mike Allen [00:13:36]:
We're not allowed to say that. We do this for profit. Profit is evil. If you, if you're driven by profit, then you're clearly the problem in this industry.
Jim Cokonis [00:13:43]:
Oh, there's it. Is this sarcasm again, Mike?
Mike Allen [00:13:46]:
Is this.
Tonnika Haynes [00:13:47]:
Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:13:47]:
Is this. Yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [00:13:48]:
He's got both eyebrows up. So. Yes, yes, that's what that means.
Mike Allen [00:13:53]:
I'm just so. Like I said, there was a point today, we did, we did an exercise today about creating a mission statement for your business or core values or company promise or whatever else it might be. And like, I get it, at a certain level, there is a value to doing things like that, creating that, you know, as Braxton will say, a North Star, to make sure that we're always. Make sure we don't lose direction.
Tonnika Haynes [00:14:23]:
Right?
Mike Allen [00:14:25]:
Something that we filter our choices through to make sure that they pass the sniff test.
Jim Cokonis [00:14:30]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:14:32]:
But part of me is a little bit jaded and I think that going to classes or conventions or events to learn how to do like Kumbaya around the drum circle event with my team to learn how to do a mission statement was created by corporate consultants to justify their corporate consultancy.
Tonnika Haynes [00:14:59]:
I like that.
Jim Cokonis [00:15:00]:
So you don't, you don't believe that there's any reason to have a.
Mike Allen [00:15:07]:
Why?
Jim Cokonis [00:15:08]:
You heard that here first. Mike doesn't believe it's important for a business to know why it does something well.
Mike Allen [00:15:14]:
So every time we have, every second Tuesday night of the month, we have an open invite meeting for everybody in my company from all the locations to combine at one location. We have a second floor lounge at one of the shops that used to be a second floor machine shop. And I don't do machine work. So we've turned it into like a lounge. Right. And we just talk about process, procedure, what's working, what's not working, what are some new things that we should do, you know, stop, start, change, that kind of stuff. And that's going away.
Jim Cokonis [00:15:44]:
It doesn't matter.
Mike Allen [00:15:45]:
We, we start the meeting with our, our mission statement, our core values. Right, and our core values are be nice, tell the truth, have fun, and be thankful. Right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:15:56]:
Love it.
Mike Allen [00:15:56]:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Be nice, tell the truth. You know, absolute integrity. Have fun. You know, we should laugh every day with each other, not at each other.
Tonnika Haynes [00:16:07]:
Or maybe.
Mike Allen [00:16:08]:
Or both. Yeah, maybe a little bit of both. Be thankful. Understand that you didn't get to where you are today by yourself. Someone helped you, so you should help someone.
Tonnika Haynes [00:16:16]:
Right?
Mike Allen [00:16:16]:
Right. I believe those things.
Tonnika Haynes [00:16:19]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:16:19]:
And so I'm happy.
Jim Cokonis [00:16:20]:
Sounds a little Kumbayaj.
Tonnika Haynes [00:16:22]:
Yeah, that is Kumbaya.
Mike Allen [00:16:23]:
Yeah. But also I can get in touch with my introduction. Be like, bro, you got a job. You should want to be excellent at your job because why wouldn't you want to be really good at what you have chosen to do for a living? So give your best effort every day and expect to be compensated appropriately and well every day because you should take pride in what you do. And I don't need Kumbaya to make me want to do good.
Tonnika Haynes [00:16:51]:
It makes it easier to do good.
Mike Allen [00:16:53]:
Does it?
Tonnika Haynes [00:16:54]:
Yeah. Why are you gonna be at work and just be an the whole thing when you focus and not talking to the guy that's right next to you?
Mike Allen [00:17:00]:
I'm an everyday, no matter what girl. You know that about me.
Tonnika Haynes [00:17:03]:
You're not.
Mike Allen [00:17:04]:
But so I say that. And at the same time I realized the hypocrisy because when you ask your question and I made my silly joke about, okay, Boomer, right. And then, and then I said that we have to understand that what worked in the 80s and 90s and what the workforces communication style and methodology and motivations were then versus today's workforce are different.
Jim Cokonis [00:17:28]:
It didn't work in the 80s and 90s. I disagree with you. Well, I mean, it was more accepted because there was less communication. It never really worked. And the social construct was different because a lot of those jobs from that point in time and the older employees that were there, many of them were working toward pensions and retirements and guaranteed things. And so they stuck with it because they had a long term view. That's all gone now.
Mike Allen [00:17:54]:
I think there was absolutely a cultural difference in the way we thought about our job and working as an identity.
Jim Cokonis [00:18:03]:
Then how did central. How did the Chinese philosophers come up with these concepts thousands of years ago that, you know, find something you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
Mike Allen [00:18:13]:
So do you not think if we're talking about cyclical patterns of behavior and motivation, it's possible that that cycle existed thousands of years ago and it has come back in? Right.
Jim Cokonis [00:18:22]:
Or it never really left?
Mike Allen [00:18:24]:
So you think people haven't changed at all?
Jim Cokonis [00:18:26]:
No, I think there aren't cycles of
Mike Allen [00:18:28]:
motivation and thought processes.
Jim Cokonis [00:18:30]:
I think the advent of the corporate structure where score is strictly kept on money, and then the fact that so many of the people who teach business in this country come from a certain group of schools and they're all taught the same thing and they hopscotch around to different organizations and that becomes normative. And, and some of the other things, like the Deming school of thought from the 40s, which was prior to the 80s, was.
Mike Allen [00:19:01]:
Wait, wait, 40s were before the 80s.
Jim Cokonis [00:19:03]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:19:05]:
Which 40s? Which 80s
Jim Cokonis [00:19:08]:
within, within our.
Mike Allen [00:19:10]:
If we're going to be fucking obtuse, let's go full obtuse.
Jim Cokonis [00:19:12]:
If, if we're, if we're 19 in front of it, we're gonna, if we're gonna talk in our realm of knowledge and current history, right.
Mike Allen [00:19:22]:
We weren't alive in the 40s. I don't know about you, dog.
Jim Cokonis [00:19:24]:
I wasn't alive in the 40s. But were childhood people who went through that. Okay. And when, when, when these concepts were put out about creating a business to produce long term ethical profit, and that was counter to the job of a corporation is to generate profit for the shareholders. And that was number one. And this, we need short term profit versus long term profit. There was a split. And so what happens? That mindset got taken overseas, matched with another culture.
Jim Cokonis [00:20:06]:
And we've seen a track record of some companies that went 50 years and never had a layoff because they treated their employees differently and they coached differently. Okay? And so this, this is just an ongoing dichotomy in philosophy of how you run a business and what works. And if you're looking for short term profit and oh, I'm going to be an absentee owner in X period of time because that's the set expectation. And then you struggle to get there because you don't lay the foundation that's required for you to walk off and do that. Right? And so it takes work to get there. And if your goal is to get there, but you can't put in the work because you don't have the skills and the methodology to get there, then it all comes falling apart. Now whose fault is it?
Tonnika Haynes [00:20:56]:
I like, I like that, Jim, because I see that a lot in the shops, I think, because I think people are tripping. You sit there and you got the coach telling you work on the business, not in the business. And they take it literal cause they don't have enough business sense and they haven't been doing the business long enough. And they sit there and they were like, well, why can't I be like Mike? Because they think that you have like $5 billion in the bank.
Mike Allen [00:21:16]:
I don't fucking know.
Tonnika Haynes [00:21:17]:
Yeah, but think about it. When you're sitting there telling somebody that's had a shop for six months or a year, like, how long have you had your shop?
Mike Allen [00:21:24]:
21 years.
Tonnika Haynes [00:21:24]:
21 years. All right, so you got these people looking at you thinking they can do the same thing that you're doing in year number two. And they're taking their pulse off to the shop and they're working on the business all the time and then they're forgetting about working in the business then. And then they never get to work.
Mike Allen [00:21:39]:
Well, that's one of Brian Pollock's big things right now is like, well, he doesn't curse like me, but bro, you need to go work in your damn business.
Tonnika Haynes [00:21:48]:
Go to work, go to work, do the work.
Mike Allen [00:21:51]:
Yeah, you're doing a hundred thousand dollars a month. You don't need to be a stay at home business owner. No, you need to be at the shop working.
Tonnika Haynes [00:21:58]:
Get your ass off of social media, go to work. Like you're complaining about not, holy crap,
Mike Allen [00:22:03]:
there are Some people that are on social media all the time, how do they get any work done?
Tonnika Haynes [00:22:06]:
Like go to work?
Mike Allen [00:22:08]:
I don't understand it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:22:09]:
I don't understand it. But no, because they're listening to what they want to hear. They're listening to what they want to hear. They are.
Mike Allen [00:22:17]:
Well, so we all seek out our own echo chamber that reinforces our pre human tendency, right? Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:24]:
And I will seek out ways to validate it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:22:26]:
Yeah. And that's what I was saying earlier today, like maybe tell me what I
Jim Cokonis [00:22:29]:
want to hear, Mike. Tell me what I want to hear.
Mike Allen [00:22:31]:
Tell me what I want to hear and help me feel self entitled rage towards the people I disagree with. Right? I mean that's, that's MSNBC and Fox News, man.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:41]:
All shop owners and service advisors suck, right?
Mike Allen [00:22:44]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dealerships are stealing from you and the independents are hacks and service advisors are useless.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:51]:
It's one extreme, the stereotypes.
Mike Allen [00:22:53]:
Yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [00:22:53]:
Well then if you don't worry, people don't worry about themselves. What did I tell you? Tell me. What I eat does not make you fat.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:59]:
Why are you worried about what I'm
Tonnika Haynes [00:23:01]:
doing at Brown's Automotive? That does not apply to you. My labor rate doesn't apply to you. My lab, my hours don't apply to you. Why are you only open four days a week? Cuz that's all I need. But I used to be open five days and I used to work seven days a week. But you don't know about that tan. But you're seeing tan now. But you, you ain't worried about your own shop.
Tonnika Haynes [00:23:19]:
Sweep your floor.
Mike Allen [00:23:21]:
Sweep your floor.
Jim Cokonis [00:23:21]:
Sweep your floor.
Mike Allen [00:23:22]:
Hey, put that, print that out and frame that and put it on the wall.
Tonnika Haynes [00:23:26]:
Like Becky Witt says, use some soap, some light and a broom. Like really take care of yourself. Do the coaching, listen to the podcast. Take what you need from that and work on yourself first. Like I said today, if you figure out for like, okay, I'm gonna give it six months, that I am the problem. I am the drama in my shop. And you really look in the mirror, you like, dang, that is jacked up. That's jacked up.
Tonnika Haynes [00:23:50]:
But no, like you said, everybody wants to be right and everybody wants to feel fuzzy inside. Now do the hard stuff and look at yourself and be like, dang, I am the problem. Yeah, I did tell him I was gonna do that. I never did that. And that's why that technician doesn't respect me, because he still hasn't gotten that piece of equipment yet.
Jim Cokonis [00:24:03]:
Technicians questioning shop owners and They've never owned a business. That or never been.
Tonnika Haynes [00:24:08]:
Well, they just don't understand. If they don't, they get mad at their paycheck. They don't understand which side of the
Jim Cokonis [00:24:13]:
paycheck are you being on.
Tonnika Haynes [00:24:14]:
Okay, so yes, your paycheck said $1,000 and the government gave you 750. I didn't take the 250. Do you not know how much more money I had to pay to pay you? You didn't make a thousand dollars.
Mike Allen [00:24:24]:
I paid 1,150 for you to give us something.
Tonnika Haynes [00:24:26]:
Yeah, like shop owner technicians not understanding the business side.
Jim Cokonis [00:24:30]:
And that's unloaded because you haven't even put in any benefits. Vacation time.
Tonnika Haynes [00:24:34]:
We're not thinking about none of that. Unemployment insurance and all of that stuff.
Jim Cokonis [00:24:38]:
And yet here's one. Why has so much profit been moved over to the parts side of the business? Can you explain that to me?
Mike Allen [00:24:49]:
I don't know.
Tonnika Haynes [00:24:50]:
The parts matrix profit.
Mike Allen [00:24:51]:
Parts profit is going away right now because the downward pressure the market forces are pressing parts profit down more than they ever have. I think more and more of the profit strain in the industry is being moved to labor every day.
Jim Cokonis [00:25:03]:
You believe that?
Mike Allen [00:25:04]:
Yeah, totally. I think. I think there is a model coming in the future for. Here's what I paid for the parts. Here's the copy of the invoice where I bought your parts. And all of your GPH comes from. Comes from labor.
Jim Cokonis [00:25:21]:
Is there. I wanted to ask this. So I'm on a podcast with two people I respect.
Tonnika Haynes [00:25:26]:
Thank you.
Mike Allen [00:25:26]:
One more than the other.
Jim Cokonis [00:25:27]:
Did I just say that?
Tonnika Haynes [00:25:29]:
Which one?
Jim Cokonis [00:25:30]:
No, I didn't say one more than the other. He said that. That's rage boy over here. Okay, get straight. Have you ever heard a number talked about as an overall look at your shop? Not currently a shop owner. Right. Have you ever heard a number talked about as an overall view on the dashboard that says number of hours you're open and how many gross profit dollars per hour does the shop generate? Have you ever heard anybody give that overall number as a benchmark target?
Mike Allen [00:26:11]:
Yeah, if they do, they're full of shit. Because it's a factor of your expense structure. What your GPH target should be and what my GPA target should be are totally different.
Jim Cokonis [00:26:21]:
No, gross profit per hour is what the shop generates. So that's gross labor, dollars, gross parts profit, and any fees you have on top of whatever your expenses are. That's gross profit. All of that's gross, not net, not anything else. Not loaded. Whatever. I'm talking about Just pure gross. If a shop is healthy, you're getting some from labor, some from parts and maybe some from a couple other smaller revenue sources that are all going to be used to pay your expenses.
Jim Cokonis [00:27:01]:
And I realize the number a shop needs to be viable may be higher or you may need more hours by having more people, more bays, but what would a healthy target number be? So if I'm, let's say I'm $180 an hour for labor. Okay, let's throw that number out there.
Mike Allen [00:27:26]:
That's fair.
Jim Cokonis [00:27:26]:
And if I am targeting a dollar of part sales for a dollar of labor sales, one to one partial labor ratio per standard, because I've heard this a lot. Okay, then all I have to do is take my dollars per hour for labor and take my whatever my gross profit is on parts and add those two together and that's putting me a long way toward what my gross profit per hour is. Efficiency would be how many of those hour units do you generate versus how many you're open?
Mike Allen [00:28:03]:
I think you got to put together your effective lab and your parts to labor ratio.
Jim Cokonis [00:28:08]:
What, what is an effective labor rate?
Tonnika Haynes [00:28:10]:
Okay, so your labor is 180. But you've got different things. Like you every, you give away DAG cabin air filter. You're not charging 180 an hour to do a cabin air filter. So that's your effective labor rate is how close you can stay to your door labor rate.
Mike Allen [00:28:24]:
So your effective labor rate is labor dollars collected divided by bill or billable hours paid out to your staff. So like my labor rate is $210 right now my effective labor rate is probably like 158.
Tonnika Haynes [00:28:39]:
And was it 10%? Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:28:41]:
You want to be like 90 of your door rate. Yeah, but I'm, I've never been anywhere close to that. And I also, I'm an oil change whore. I do free tire rotation, I do free flat repairs, I do free diag for the first hour. So I got all these things that eat into my effective labor rate. Or let's say we sell a two thousand dollar job and manifold bolt breaks off and my service advisor is a and he doesn't call back and sell additional labor that eats into your effective labor rate because we pay the technician the extra half hour to drill it out, but we don't charge for it. So those are the things that erode your effective labor rate. So your effective labor rate is the dollars of labor labor dollars and parts dollars collected per hour.
Mike Allen [00:29:21]:
Sales per hour. Right. And then your margin is going to give you your gross profit per hour. That's how I would go about that. Because if you just say that it's purely your labor rate, you're not taking into account all of those things that
Jim Cokonis [00:29:33]:
erode labor payroll, erodes labor dollars.
Mike Allen [00:29:38]:
Oh, sweet Jesus. Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:29:40]:
But no, you see where I'm. You see where I'm saying that seems like a term that's made up to become a KPI. Your labor rate's your labor rate if you decide to give away hours or pay tax extra or things like that. That didn't change your gross labor dollars per hour. You just chose to give some money away, and that's an expense. Okay, so now you're not. Now you're. Now you're not gross.
Jim Cokonis [00:30:08]:
I'm trying to understand it because I'm not stupid with numbers. Right, you're not. That's not gross. We're just. You're getting. You're getting. You're getting closer to unloaded net or some other term you want to throw in there.
Tonnika Haynes [00:30:21]:
So making up terms.
Mike Allen [00:30:22]:
Let's back up. All right, let's. So when I'm talking to a team member or a new team member and we're talking, I'm trying to be more transparent than ever with my team about, like, how we build a business plan and how we run the numbers and everything. So everybody knows revenue is revenue. That's what that sales. Right? So revenue minus cost of goods equals gross profit. Cost of goods is how much we pay for parts and how much we pay for technicians unloaded, not counting benefits, holidays, vacations, that kind of stuff. And that gives you gross profit.
Mike Allen [00:30:55]:
Gross profit minus overhead, which is expenses, which is rent, which is utilities, which is how much we pay for the best software in the country.
Jim Cokonis [00:31:04]:
This is really going off the rails, which is fun. You can edit it all out so that.
Mike Allen [00:31:08]:
So gross profit minus overhead is net profit, Right? Net profit minus debt service, how much I pay for the mortgage or the credit card bill or the car loans or whatever else equals cash flow. So we got to have cash flow. So in a month, let's say that my expenses, My average expenses per month are $50,000, and I want to net $20,000. So I need $70,000 a month of gross profit to cover expenses and make $20,000 dollars. That track? Yeah, that's fine. So what?
Jim Cokonis [00:31:44]:
I actually had a point, but it's getting lost. But go ahead.
Mike Allen [00:31:46]:
What's our Target Gross profit?
Tonnika Haynes [00:31:48]:
20%.
Mike Allen [00:31:49]:
No gross profit. What do you want for gross? Call it 60 points. Call it 50 points for ease of math because I don't have a calculator with me. So $70,000 divided by 50 points is 140,000. $140,000 in revenue to hit my nut, Right? Divided by the number of hours of labor I have available, how many hours can my guys turn? 20, 20 days a month. I need $7,000 of sales and I need 3, 500 of gross profit per day to make $20,000 a month. Can my team do that? Well, what's my sales per hour? That's where we get to parts and labor per hour. Effective labor rate plus part sales per hour.
Mike Allen [00:32:32]:
So if I need $7,000, let's say that I'm for ease of math at what's an easy number to divide in $7,350 of parts and labor per hour? I need 20. I need 20 hours a day. So can I do 20 hours a day? That's how you manage by the numbers as an evil shop owner. Okay. And lead by KPIs.
Jim Cokonis [00:32:54]:
So where I was going with this,
Mike Allen [00:32:57]:
that was a tension. I apologize for going out.
Jim Cokonis [00:32:59]:
No, now here's what I was trying to get to. We have a business structure that gets profit from labor and profit from parts. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can run your business any way you want. But like little old me, never a big eso, right? But I'm talking 25 years ago. How did I set my diagnostic labor rate? I'll tell you exactly how I did it. Never had a coach, never had anything. But I was charging X number of dollars an hour.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:31]:
And I will tell you in, you know, 1999, 2000, I was in a shop and I was doing $80 an hour 25 years ago. Okay, there's shops now that aren't doing 80 an hour.
Mike Allen [00:33:42]:
But anyway, 1990 was way more than 25 years ago, dog.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:47]:
I said 1999.
Mike Allen [00:33:48]:
Okay, okay, missed the nine.
Tonnika Haynes [00:33:49]:
Okay.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:50]:
I said 25 years ago, which is right at the turn.
Mike Allen [00:33:53]:
27 years.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:53]:
27 years now. Typical KPI guy, right?
Mike Allen [00:33:56]:
Math is tricky.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:57]:
Math is tr.
Tonnika Haynes [00:33:58]:
Math be math.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:59]:
I see math, you calculate math. So I also knew that average I sell so many dollars worth of parts at for each hour of labor sold, I could give you that number and I could split my business with my shop management system into business units of where the revenue is coming from. I actually had a business unit for mobile Diag 25 years ago. So I knew exactly how much money I was making from programming and diagnostics with the factory scan tools. And I could tell you what my ROI on those tools was just from that business unit. Right. But I would look at those part sales and the gross profit on part sales, and I knew nobody ever taught me that. Those dollars per hour in part sales, I added to my labor rate, and that was my diagnostic rate because I was not going to make less money per hour doing diag work than I was doing normal gravy work.
Mike Allen [00:35:09]:
This is the same time that coaches came along and said you should double your labor rate for diag. Or they said you should charge an hour and stop at 30 minutes for Diag.
Jim Cokonis [00:35:20]:
See, I. I can't do that because that just doesn't seem.
Mike Allen [00:35:23]:
But what they were doing was saying you have to replace the lost gross profit because you're not selling parts. And I get where they're coming from. I mean, that makes sense.
Tonnika Haynes [00:35:32]:
Just.
Mike Allen [00:35:33]:
I mean, you could. What I advocate for, obviously, is just don't charge at all. And
Jim Cokonis [00:35:41]:
so when I hear both of you sighing and looking away at the same time.
Tonnika Haynes [00:35:49]:
And he bought it all the way back around a free day.
Jim Cokonis [00:35:52]:
So we're a shop, and we're a shop. And why don't we charge $300 an hour?
Tonnika Haynes [00:35:57]:
Because the other shops won't let us. And then the customer's gonna have a fit. And nobody respects the industry because you
Jim Cokonis [00:36:03]:
can only charge what the market will be. You can only charge it if you didn't have any parts to sell. Okay, if you only sold your service, could you be profitable? That's my question.
Tonnika Haynes [00:36:18]:
No, I completely understand what you're saying.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:20]:
And so if you can't do that, why not? And it's because. Have we just chosen a business model and we can't see a way to do it differently?
Mike Allen [00:36:30]:
I think we're tilting at 1 mills because it's a free market economy and ultimately the consumer will decide what works.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:36]:
So if I only charge. If I charge $300 an hour in labor, but I choose to go street price on parts, and at the end of the day, our tickets are the same. Who says my way is wrong?
Tonnika Haynes [00:36:48]:
Because they're going to look at the estimate from the shop down the street and they want to know what. They're not going to see the math that you do. They're not going to see your reason.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:55]:
They see the bottom line.
Tonnika Haynes [00:36:56]:
It's the same, say $300 an hour for labor.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:58]:
It's just going to be the bottom line. It's how much is it to put this alternator on?
Tonnika Haynes [00:37:02]:
They wants to know what's your labor rate, what's your Labor.
Jim Cokonis [00:37:04]:
Oh, no, you do.
Mike Allen [00:37:05]:
You.
Jim Cokonis [00:37:06]:
You combine that all on the ticket. Because some people think that that's legal to do in every state. I know it is.
Tonnika Haynes [00:37:10]:
Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:37:11]:
I will learn. I worked in them.
Tonnika Haynes [00:37:12]:
Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:37:13]:
I know it's illegal. So you have to provide a. You have to provide a line number.
Mike Allen [00:37:20]:
So I think that.
Jim Cokonis [00:37:23]:
I'm just asking. That's one of the rest.
Mike Allen [00:37:25]:
The glory of the independent aftermarket is that we are small business owners, we are entrepreneurs. We get to do it however the. We want to do it within certain bounds of reality and legality. Right. Sometimes outside of the bounds of legality, because there are a lot of people out there that are doing wrong. Right. But ultimately the consumer will decide. And I think that's one of the reasons not to beat the same drum all the time, because that's not what I'm trying to do here.
Mike Allen [00:37:52]:
But one of the reasons that so many people get all up in their feels about me being a rage baiter and talking about free diag. You do it well, I mean, it's fun. It gets reactions. Right. But what it is, is, it is. It represents a competitive advantage in the marketplace to consumers who don't know anything different. And they're like, I don't want to battle against that. That guy, he needs to go out of business because I don't want to justify that.
Mike Allen [00:38:21]:
I charge $200 just to look at it. We know that's not what you're doing. But the consumer who pays the bill for everything in my life doesn't.
Jim Cokonis [00:38:32]:
Another guy who I know very well and so do you, had a conversation with a client and gave him an estimate higher than another shop. Right. And I'm not going to drop names. It's his story to tell. But it's a great story. And he knew what it would take to do a job. Right. He knew all the extra things that weren't put into that other guy's estimate.
Jim Cokonis [00:38:52]:
And he said, well, are they doing this? Are they doing that? Are they doing that? And they weren't. They weren't. And he's like, why wouldn't I? I'm right here. Why wouldn't I replace this? Why wouldn't I replace that? You'd have to go back in here and spend the same money on labor. And this will fail because we have the experience to know that it sounds like somebody's taking a shower and putting their old underwear back on.
Tonnika Haynes [00:39:12]:
He educated a customer.
Jim Cokonis [00:39:13]:
He educated a customer and he took the time to do that.
Mike Allen [00:39:16]:
It's great.
Jim Cokonis [00:39:17]:
And it's great Super.
Tonnika Haynes [00:39:18]:
And I mean, we're.
Jim Cokonis [00:39:20]:
An educated consumer is his best customer.
Mike Allen [00:39:22]:
And so, and so he, he put forth the effort and he had the ability to articulate, communicate effectively for that.
Jim Cokonis [00:39:29]:
So if you can't communicate, give it away.
Mike Allen [00:39:32]:
If you can do it, great. Can your employees do it? And can your employees do it when you have two shops or 10 shops?
Jim Cokonis [00:39:42]:
If you coach them right and they sing Kubaya in the morning, they will.
Mike Allen [00:39:45]:
So how many, how many organizations with 20, 20 plus locations have a front counter full of people who can have that conversation every day?
Jim Cokonis [00:39:58]:
It depends on if they took the time to grow deliberately.
Mike Allen [00:40:01]:
The answer to that question is zero.
Jim Cokonis [00:40:04]:
I disagree. Because I know a couple name.
Mike Allen [00:40:06]:
Drop them. Because it's a huge compliment. It's a huge compliment to say you've got 20 stores that can articulate that situation effectively every day
Tonnika Haynes [00:40:18]:
or that can stand up to the customer that thinks they know everything and just have the, the mindset to deal with that every day like I like.
Mike Allen [00:40:26]:
Because if they can, they are a true badass mofo. To build an organization to train that many people at that high level to execute that well, because what you just described is a very high level conversation with a customer. It requires an incredible level of knowledge and confidence and communication skills.
Jim Cokonis [00:40:46]:
I had it sitting in the waiting room in your shop. That's another story.
Mike Allen [00:40:51]:
Yeah, sorry, that's a whole other podcast. Oh, yeah, tell me about it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:40:55]:
Tell me about that later.
Mike Allen [00:40:56]:
So, I mean, I guess that's what. So because I'm an evil shop owner,
Jim Cokonis [00:41:00]:
it can be done, Mike. But it takes somebody who understands the role of a leader and actually doesn't just talk about extreme ownership, they actually live it. And extreme ownership isn't being the ultimate authority on everything, it's delegating it and developing people. So when you, when you look at the military, I was never in the military, but the highest orders of, of performance in the military, and I've studied this, it's fascinating because when they come back in and they do a debrief like the Blue Angels and organizations like that, rank and insignia go in the middle of the table. Nobody is over anybody. We're going to do a debrief. And when you have an organization that can look at the leader and say, you didn't do this, and they own it, and they go, you're right. Those are the organizations that are developing people that can perform when the pressure is on.
Jim Cokonis [00:42:05]:
Because you cannot be there to select every target and to make every shot. You have to trust your people to do it. So you have to train them and empower them to feel like they can do that and you will have their back because you own what decisions they make. Within reason.
Mike Allen [00:42:24]:
One of the things that.
Jim Cokonis [00:42:25]:
And that takes time. That is the hard work. But if you build that. I know of a shop owner who has an amazing organization, and I know about it through connections. And I've met the man once, and I know how he works with his team. And he calls them not his employees. They're his teammates. That's what we were hearing about today.
Jim Cokonis [00:42:56]:
Okay, we can talk later. I just. I don't want to throw. I don't want to throw people out, but I'm just trying to tell you that there are these organizations, and I've worked with organizations with one of them had 120 locations around the country, okay. And they. They incorporated the processes and the handbooks and all those things, but the handbook was not a replacement for proper training and for understanding the whys and refusing to pass on a defect. And they had teams with the right leadership in place that could replicate this across the country. And their performance through the times when they were doing this on all 8 cylinders was amazing and amazing growth.
Jim Cokonis [00:43:49]:
Okay. When they back away from those concepts, the performance suffers.
Tonnika Haynes [00:43:54]:
Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:43:54]:
And you can. You can take Toyota, who will admit it, Toyota had amazing growth because what they would do when they're going to go in and open a new location, they would send in 400 people who were steeped in how the Toyota production thing works. Right. They called them black belts. They'd send in 400 people to set the culture and train the people and get the processes all stabilized. So they were empowering the next person. And their job was to work themselves out of a job. Okay.
Jim Cokonis [00:44:27]:
And that's how they were able to replicate their production process. And it worked great for a long time. And then somebody got in charge and they changed their focus. They could smell being the number one auto manufacturer, and so they went for the growth and gave up their process, their coaching and their training, and it came apart on them, and they started to have quality issues.
Mike Allen [00:44:56]:
They're still the number one.
Jim Cokonis [00:44:57]:
But they. They slipped back at one point. I know for a fact they did
Mike Allen [00:45:02]:
slipped back behind vags for a little while. Right. But.
Jim Cokonis [00:45:04]:
No, but. But what I'm saying is that they lost that focus on coaching and process to build the people who could do that and replicate it. And they learned from that. And fortunately, they had a big enough war chest to be able to handle it, and they just took care of it. It's been a fascinating company to watch. It's been a fascinating process to watch. So I love it because as a mechanic you want to perform at a high level. You've got to have a repeatable process.
Jim Cokonis [00:45:34]:
You want to teach somebody else to do diagnostic. You can't be there to do the diag for them. You have to teach them how to replicate this and then you have to step back and let them roll.
Tonnika Haynes [00:45:48]:
So you think you can do that with a service advisor though with all the different kind of personalities coming in the door?
Jim Cokonis [00:45:52]:
With the right service advisor, different kind
Mike Allen [00:45:53]:
of cars and different kind of problems
Tonnika Haynes [00:45:56]:
and personalities.
Mike Allen [00:45:57]:
It's teaching complex skills.
Tonnika Haynes [00:45:59]:
Well, I think you born with a lot of those because I like to think that I'm really good at service advising because I can read a customer and let them continue to talk. Let them talk. Let them talk. And then I know how to reach them. But then we've got KPIs to meet. You can't sit there and have a 30, 45 minute conversation with each.
Mike Allen [00:46:14]:
I've got a dude in my organization who I mean keep. He just makes people happy man. And he has a very relaxing way about him and puts everybody at ease. He's got a. In a. I'm in a general repair shop, mostly domestic and Asian. 1100 aro. Right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:46:34]:
Oh, you're not done. They're outliers.
Mike Allen [00:46:37]:
He's writing three cars a day but.
Tonnika Haynes [00:46:40]:
Three cars a day. $3,000 or you can have somebody working 10,000 cars a day.
Mike Allen [00:46:44]:
Three cars a day.
Tonnika Haynes [00:46:45]:
But yeah. But you let them get by with it though.
Mike Allen [00:46:48]:
I do and that's part of the reason why I'm part of the problem in my business. Right. Is because. Not good at accountability. But anyway, so you do need to
Tonnika Haynes [00:46:57]:
be at this leadership conference.
Jim Cokonis [00:46:59]:
How can you let. How can you coach him to provide that level of care without doing the Roy Rogers deal. Slow down partner. And still feel like he's giving them good service. That's a conversation to have with that person. Yeah, but sales is one of those things. You either have it or you don't. I once got hired at a job in a radio controlled hobby shop.
Jim Cokonis [00:47:28]:
This is a funny story. I'll share it with you. Oh, I'm going to be the judge
Mike Allen [00:47:32]:
of whether or not it's actually funny.
Jim Cokonis [00:47:34]:
I got into the hobby in the 80s right after I came out of trade school and I built my first RC airplane and I was starting to upgrade and so I was down in a hobby shop one day and I used to go down there on A regular basis after work because it was a short rundown. It was beautiful hobby shop. And I would be over looking at ready controlled airplanes and engines and all kinds of stuff because it's just like I was a dork, right? You know me, Tanika, right?
Mike Allen [00:48:00]:
Nerd alert.
Jim Cokonis [00:48:02]:
People would come in here into that store and they would say, do you fly these things? And I'd be like, yeah, tell me about them. And I would talk to them and I would talk to them.
Mike Allen [00:48:11]:
You're selling product for them when you.
Jim Cokonis [00:48:13]:
Oh my goodness. I was walking people. So I'm talking, I'm talking late 80s. I was walking people up to the front counter in a radio controlled hobby shop with four to six hundred dollars worth of product and they were smiling and happy. Why? How was I doing it? I wasn't telling them what to buy. I wasn't pushing them to anything. I had no spiff spiffs. I gave them information, judged the person for their personality type.
Jim Cokonis [00:48:37]:
Are you somebody that dives into things? You do want to just take a look that's going to change which radio or which engine but the airplane and some things. Do you like to do your own? You want to build it? You want something more, you know, get in the air quite. Just ask them questions and let them make choices, right? And they would choose four to six hundred dollars worth of stuff and go check out. And I'd say have fun, right? And I'm in this club and come see me. So then I'm in there and I'm buying. In late 80s, as a young technician, I was buying about $600 worth of stuff, right? And I brought it up to the counter and the store manager was there. And this is how we lose technicians. Telling the story for a reason.
Jim Cokonis [00:49:17]:
I walked up to the counter and I put all the stuff there. It was going to be about $600. And I said, he said, I said, phew, I'm going to need to get another job if I keep spending money here like this. And the store manager looked at me and said, when do you want to start? He said, sales and communicating with people is something that can be taught, but some people just have it and you have it. And I said, you serious? He says, you got time to go to dinner? That man took me to dinner and offered me $5,000 more to work there as an assistant store manager that I was making as a technician doing something I enjoyed and I was good at it. And we made $980,000 in sales out of an 1800 square foot store with two full time people and a couple of part timers at a 33% gross profit margin. Because it was just talking with people. Some people have that.
Mike Allen [00:50:19]:
So.
Jim Cokonis [00:50:21]:
And I left the. I left the industry for a while.
Mike Allen [00:50:23]:
Part of that.
Jim Cokonis [00:50:24]:
And I made good money.
Mike Allen [00:50:25]:
Part of that is that you are passionate about it and I'm not passionate about anything. I don't know many people that are passionate about selling ball joints.
Tonnika Haynes [00:50:36]:
It's not about selling ball joints. It's about helping the customer.
Jim Cokonis [00:50:39]:
Exactly. You can get anything you want if you help enough other people get what they want.
Mike Allen [00:50:44]:
I don't disagree with
Tonnika Haynes [00:50:48]:
safety.
Mike Allen [00:50:48]:
My hobby, the thing that I choose to spend my free money and time on is RC airplanes. And so if I go into a store and there's somebody else that I can share that passion with, then I'm going to be able to communicate that effectively and with energy. Right. And. And the sale just happens naturally from that.
Jim Cokonis [00:51:07]:
So then I had an 80 return client base and I had people that would wait two weeks for me to get back from being out on the road teaching because they wanted me to work on their car.
Mike Allen [00:51:16]:
There is a difference between selling RC
Jim Cokonis [00:51:19]:
airplanes and I was selling repair and had people at 80% return client base. Okay. And waiting two weeks for me to get back because I was the one who took care of their car. And when they bought a new car, who was the person who did the first oil change?
Mike Allen [00:51:34]:
And the majority of your listeners are going to be technicians turned shop owners who have the exact same story. Booking out two weeks. People love them. They key tossers and they trust them implicitly. And one of the most difficult things that they will do in their growth as a business person, they don't charge correctly is extricating themselves from being the one that has to talk to all the customers, being the one that has to work on all getting to a place where the customers don't have your cell phone number and call you and you answer the call or the text while you're at dinner. Because there are people that are going to listen to this episode who got a text message from a customer at dinner while they're listening to this episode. And they answered it. Right.
Jim Cokonis [00:52:15]:
You want to know why I didn't scale my shop? Because I didn't want to go through the pain of replicating myself at that time in my life. Well. And so I'm being honest.
Tonnika Haynes [00:52:25]:
Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:52:25]:
Yeah, I'm being honest. Today's gym would have seen that and go, this is going to take some work. But I know how to make it happen.
Mike Allen [00:52:36]:
So therein lies the under. The problem is, like, look at this experience that I had and look at the passion that I had and the results that I had. I didn't take the next step, but I could now. Right? And it is. It's hard, man.
Jim Cokonis [00:52:52]:
You're right. It is.
Mike Allen [00:52:53]:
And so, like, every. Like everything that I talk about and do and view in this industry is through a filter of what my goals are for my business, because that's my. The filter I view life through. Right? And everybody that's listening is listening and responding and telling me that I'm a dumbass through their filter and their view of their business.
Tonnika Haynes [00:53:15]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:53:16]:
In my business, I want scalable because, you know, I'm greedy, evil shop owner, whatever you want to call it. Well, I want a big business that makes a lot of money and creates generational wealth for my family.
Tonnika Haynes [00:53:28]:
And that's okay.
Mike Allen [00:53:28]:
Nothing wrong with that, as long as it's done ethically and I treat my people right and I treat my customers right. Right. And so every time we have these conversations, I think about, can I make that execution at that level work with 250 employees across 10 stores or across 15 stores or whatever it is.
Jim Cokonis [00:53:51]:
So you need to train 10 mics.
Mike Allen [00:53:54]:
I don't know that I've ever been good at it myself.
Tonnika Haynes [00:53:55]:
I don't think you should do that. We don't need to.
Jim Cokonis [00:53:58]:
You. You understand what I'm saying? He needs to replicate himself to be able to build that one.
Mike Allen [00:54:03]:
We talked about other leaders, and one of the things that Josh said was if I'm training, equipping, and supporting my staff appropriately, then I think I am. What do you say? I'm. Hang on. I'm just gonna look at it because I took a note, and I don't take a lot of notes. I'm not in charge of anything, but I'm responsible for everything because I've delegated appropriately. And I have my three to five, you know, next level down, managers or leaders within my organization. And they have their three to five each. And they have their three to five each.
Mike Allen [00:54:44]:
Right.
Jim Cokonis [00:54:44]:
Principle.
Mike Allen [00:54:45]:
Yeah, yeah. And. And we talked about, like, the military. You know, you have the rifleman and then a squad, and then there's a squad leader, and then there's the platoon and then there's the platoon leader. And I don't know what the next level up was. Battalion after that. I don't know. I don't know.
Jim Cokonis [00:54:58]:
Wasn't in the military.
Tonnika Haynes [00:54:59]:
No military people at the table. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:55:01]:
Josh can tell us, but. So I Feel like that's one of the areas where you and I have. I'm not going to call it friction, but where you get on your soapbox and I hear you talking and I'm like, yeah, but. And then I get on my soapbox and you hear me talking, like, yeah, but. And it's that I'm viewing everything through a filter of how do I make that scalable? Is that sustainable at a. At a level where I can have a boat, you know, or whatever the joke is. Second boat, second boat, two boat money. Right.
Mike Allen [00:55:40]:
And do you think you can do
Jim Cokonis [00:55:43]:
it without building those key players?
Mike Allen [00:55:47]:
No, because I've tried and failed multiple times in the last five years. So you do need to build the organization up, and it has fallen out from under me, and I've built the organization up and it's fallen out from under me because of a failure of leadership.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:01]:
But leadership can be learned. Well.
Mike Allen [00:56:03]:
Yeah. Well, that's what we're here for this week.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:05]:
Right? Right.
Mike Allen [00:56:06]:
I have built.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:07]:
I believe in you.
Mike Allen [00:56:07]:
Well, I've promoted people out of their skill set. That's common, which happens all the time.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:12]:
First level of incompetence.
Mike Allen [00:56:13]:
But then I did not support them and train them into the new position that they've been promoted into, and then they burned out and fell apart. Right.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:22]:
Watched it happen in lots of organizations I've been in. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:56:25]:
You can. You climb the ladder until you're one rung higher than your competence level. Right. And then you. And then you stagnate or you get fired or you quit or whatever it might be.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:33]:
And whose fault was it that they were in that position?
Mike Allen [00:56:36]:
Me.
Tonnika Haynes [00:56:36]:
Mike's fucking me.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:37]:
Yeah. No, I get it. I get it. I mean, you know, we're going to solve the world's problems. No. Is some of this philosophical.
Mike Allen [00:56:44]:
Sure.
Jim Cokonis [00:56:46]:
Are these the fierce conversations that I think everybody should not be afraid of having?
Mike Allen [00:56:52]:
Am I out of beer?
Jim Cokonis [00:56:53]:
Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:56:54]:
Absolutely. I'm on a beer England flight.
Tonnika Haynes [00:56:57]:
There you go.
Mike Allen [00:57:01]:
No longer out of beer. We can continue for another 20 minutes.
Tonnika Haynes [00:57:04]:
No, we can't, because we got food over there.
Mike Allen [00:57:05]:
Copy that. Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:57:06]:
It's time to eat.
Tonnika Haynes [00:57:07]:
There's food. There's barbecue, there's beers, and there's.
Jim Cokonis [00:57:09]:
And there's lots of people to talk to.
Tonnika Haynes [00:57:11]:
There's a lot of people to talk to. So you guys. Look at you guys. You didn't even fight. You're so sweet.
Jim Cokonis [00:57:19]:
I think we got a little bit. I'll tell you why.
Mike Allen [00:57:20]:
A little bit of an odd couple bromance.
Jim Cokonis [00:57:22]:
No, I'll tell you I'll tell you why I appreciated this conversation is because I've known both of you and worked with you somewhat closely for the past couple of years. And so it's easy to talk with you all. And then I'm sitting here in the back of my head having fears about, you know, there's a lot of people that don't know me like you guys do, and they're going to hear certain things I say, and they're going to be like, do you hear coconut? And I'm just going to be like, okay.
Mike Allen [00:57:48]:
Cocoonis is just a revolutionary socialist who wants to eat the rich.
Jim Cokonis [00:57:53]:
Yeah, you heard that wrong.
Tonnika Haynes [00:57:56]:
What? You know, give me that beer.
Jim Cokonis [00:58:00]:
I'll tell you another funny thing that Zig Ziglar used to say. He used to say. People used to say, zig, how do you justify your Christian faith with all that talk about money? Do you ever hear this one? You ever hear him say it? He says, that's because. He says they'll straighten their halo and they'll ask me that question. And he says, that's because I believe that God made the diamonds for his group, not Satan's crowd. And I'm like, well, damn, that was kind of deep.
Tonnika Haynes [00:58:26]:
I like that.
Jim Cokonis [00:58:27]:
But it can't be your God, right? Because if you're only chasing the prophet, then it can blow up on you.
Tonnika Haynes [00:58:36]:
You chase the prophet to do the good things or to build generational wealth.
Jim Cokonis [00:58:42]:
But if you do the good things
Mike Allen [00:58:43]:
wanting to get the best, you got
Tonnika Haynes [00:58:44]:
to decide on what. I mean, nobody gets to decide on what your good thing is. And if you want to do your good thing and you do it in the closet and you do it, I mean, it's between you and the Lord.
Mike Allen [00:58:53]:
It's not going to do it in the closet. Girl, I'm happily married.
Tonnika Haynes [00:58:56]:
Take my beer back.
Jim Cokonis [00:58:57]:
Let's let your giving be in secret.
Tonnika Haynes [00:58:59]:
Exactly.
Jim Cokonis [00:58:59]:
Don't go blowing your horn. You got to blow hookers and blow. I know people.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:04]:
You got to go there. You can't help yourself.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:07]:
He's just. Yeah, he just can't.
Mike Allen [00:59:08]:
I'm two beers in. I can't be counting two beers in here.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:11]:
I thought we were having a moment.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:12]:
We were having a good moment. And then.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:14]:
And then.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:14]:
And then here comes.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:15]:
And then he threw an allen wrench in it.
Mike Allen [00:59:17]:
I am emotionally stunted. And, you know, my brother's first call sign as a fighter pilot was wrench because of Allen wrench.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:22]:
See, there it is.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:24]:
And we'll end on that.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:25]:
And he put your hex.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:26]:
Because that was just.
Mike Allen [00:59:27]:
I don't know.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:28]:
Where did it come from? That was bizarre.
Mike Allen [00:59:29]:
He said Allen wrench. He threw an Allen wrench in it. Yep.
Jim Cokonis [00:59:33]:
Negative Ghost Rider.
Mike Allen [00:59:34]:
Negative Ghost Cody's here. It's time for shots. Sign it off.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:37]:
Time for shots. Signing off. Shot time. Downshift with Tanika is where we slow down long enough to have real conversations. Hosted by myself, second generation shop owner Tanika Haynes. This goes beyond your car count your KPIs. We want to talk about leadership, legacy, mindset, and the messy, beautiful journey of building something that lasts. You will hear stories from shop owners, tell technicians and other industry leaders who are figuring it all out by themselves in real time.
Tonnika Haynes [01:00:08]:
This is a space for growth, tough love, laughter, and leveling up.