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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:00]:
Hit it. We all hate you, David.
David Roman [00:00:06]:
Yeah, I know.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:07]:
You know, we wouldn't have to clap if you just right clicked and did sync to. Oh, is he still texting you?
David Roman [00:00:14]:
No, this was the maxima that she, she. We ended up finishing the car yesterday and there was like 8 hours on the ticket and Jose finished it in maybe four. We got the car done and it was past when she could come pick it up. We had our loaner was overheating. We fixed the loaner in time for her to be able to come pick up the loaner. She then sends a text message. We're freaking out to get this car down. It's been sitting there for almost a week and a half or whatever.
David Roman [00:00:50]:
We're just scrambling to get this car done because we had told her Friday and Friday was not gonna happen unless we rearranged the day.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:57]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:00:58]:
And she is like, hey, I need my car. Like, I have no car. She's like ubering and bumming rides and stuff like that. Is there something. Anyway, so we rearrange everything to get the loaner fixed. Cause it was gonna be a quicker repair than doing this alternator on this Nissan. And we get the loaner fixed. We text her, say, hey, come pick up the loaner.
David Roman [00:01:21]:
She's like, hey, it turns out I don't have a valid license that's expired. I'm not gonna be able to pick up the loaner. I just completely blew up my entire day. Like, the, all of the cars that we were planning on getting done, everything's been pushed back because we have prioritizing this one car. I've got two texts tied up on non paying work to get this car ready or something for her to drive. And at like 230, she's like, hey, I don't have a license. Okay. We still finish the maxima way before 05:00.
David Roman [00:01:54]:
By 04:00 we have the maxima done. So we then text her, hey, we have this thing done. She's not answering our text messages. We text the message, her, son, can we drop this car off somewhere? You can have the car back, just so you have something to drive. We don't have to worry about it. And that was her texting saying, thank you so much for delivering the car yesterday. I'm really happy to have my car back. Not supposed to be driving it, but whatever.
David Roman [00:02:18]:
That's her problem, not your problem, not mine. And we have the loaner fixed. And then this mini Cooper thinks that guy is upset that we've been holding this car forever.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:29]:
You've been a service advisor for a long time. Does it weigh on you? Like, in other words, like, for us, we go out of town, right? And we go do the podcast all over the place. And it's really, really hard to turn off that upset client. Right. Because we, like, we get the text messages, we get the emails, we get that information and play. For the most part, I work really hard to try and make sure my staff doesn't stay engaged and connected with it.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:02:56]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:56]:
Because I don't think that's healthy. But does it, does, like, that affect you? Do you take that home with you at all?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:03:01]:
Well, I wrote service for a little more than a decade and then eventually moved into management, but. But when I was writing service, for sure, I did have to create that separation. For me, it was like the long drive home.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:18]:
Yeah, yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:03:19]:
You can kind of wind down and try to create that separation and just not bring that stuff home because it will bother you.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:28]:
Yeah, for sure.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:03:28]:
If you care, it will bother you.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:30]:
Exactly. If you actually give a damn. I just interviewed an advisor. I've got to bring an advisor in pretty quickly. And so I interviewed an advisor, and he said, I work in a tire store, and we are also doing road service. And he said, so I am the only advisor, and we service something like 40 or 50 cars a day.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:03:53]:
Wow.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:53]:
He said, I have a manager that helps a little bit, and I have somebody else in the shop that's kind of like just to answer the phone and take the workload off. But he said, you know, I answer the phone at 01:00 a.m. i answer the phone at 02:00 a.m. i work all the weekend. You know, I'm like, not at the shop on the weekend, but I handle road service. And he's like, the problem is I can't really take a vacation because there's nobody to cover me.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:04:17]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:17]:
So if I take a day off, they're all, like, texting and calling me, and I'm managing that. And he said, so, like, if we go to the movies, he was telling, like, on July 5, they decided to go to the movies. And he said the shop was open. And he said, I just asked for an extra day off. And he said, I walked in and saw the look on my wife's face because I had to walk out and answer the phone and answer questions and do all this. He said, I saw the look on her face when I walked back through the door. And he's like, oh, I'm in trouble. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:42]:
And that's something that, as a shop owner. I can see that. But as an employee, I don't know that that's. I don't think that's fair to expect that.
David Roman [00:04:52]:
Why would that person put that kind of weight on. On themselves?
Lucas Underwood [00:04:56]:
I mean, I don't know. And he chose to stay there.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:05:00]:
He doesn't know any better, right?
David Roman [00:05:02]:
I mean, I guess Stockholm syndrome. You think that's it?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:05:05]:
Maybe.
David Roman [00:05:06]:
Cause he had an option and Lucas was offering him. Hey, you don't have to do any of that.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:05:11]:
He younger?
Lucas Underwood [00:05:12]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Roman [00:05:14]:
Not that young, though. Was he in his, like, early twenties?
Lucas Underwood [00:05:17]:
He's probably in his thirties. Okay, early thirties.
David Roman [00:05:21]:
By the time you turn 30, like, you kind of know, like, things aren't the way you think they are when.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:05:26]:
You'Re twenties thinking about balance more.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:29]:
Yeah, for sure.
David Roman [00:05:30]:
It's not. Yes, you think about balance, but you definitely realize that my loyalty is not going to be reciprocated. I will get replaced tomorrow, and this company will not give two shits. And I'm sorry. When you're in your early twenties, you think that if that's how I was. If you put your head down and you give 110%, you bleed for this company, that you will have some type of loyalty returned to you. And that is not true. They could give two shits about you.
David Roman [00:06:01]:
They will dump you because there's a slightly cheaper employee available.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:06]:
And, you know, that makes me think about the difference between, like, me and my oldest brother, right. Because I really do care about my employees, and I would never just, like, dump them. You know what I'm saying? I'd do whatever it took to take care of them. And my oldest brother is absolutely like that. No, they're just people. Whatever, I don't care. Send them down the road.
David Roman [00:06:27]:
Introduce our guest.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:28]:
You introduce yourself.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:06:30]:
I'm Joshua Hemmerling, and I have a small company called Datadyne, and we create a dashboard for dashboards for automotive service departments.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:45]:
Very cool. And so you were just telling me your story. Give me a little bit of your background on the show so folks can get to know you.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:06:52]:
Yeah. So I moved here in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm originally from Grand Avenue, Michigan. I moved here about 20 years ago, and I went to a technical college, UTI. And then once I graduated from the technical college, I started with a small independent shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:11]:
Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:07:11]:
And I've been there 19 years. So I went from lot attendant, service advisor, system manager, and now manager.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:20]:
That's really cool.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:07:21]:
Yeah, that's really cool.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:22]:
And so we're at the sunrise automotive conference. I'm still a little surprised he hadn't heard of it either. He's, like, right here. Why do you think that is? Why do you think people aren't hearing about these shows?
David Roman [00:07:34]:
I think that's a marketing problem with the shows and training classes and just the way it is.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:43]:
If. If your employer knew about this, would they be about sending people to it, you think?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:07:49]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:50]:
That's crazy.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:07:51]:
The conference. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:52]:
Just have to. Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:07:54]:
I mean, it was. It's right in our backyard.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:55]:
Yeah. I mean, like, dude, there are some legit trainers here. Cecil Bullards here. Yeah. Jimmy Lee. All of their management training crews here. Who else is here? Hakon, Andrew, Hakan Light. Andrew Fisher's here.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:10]:
Like, all the big names in training are here, and so it's surprising that more people didn't know about it. Right?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:08:16]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:16]:
Cody Gatty's here. Do you know who Cody Getty is? Cody Gatti has, like, this huge YouTube channel.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:08:21]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:21]:
And he was saying he didn't know about it. Bogey Lacner, she didn't know about it. And she's. I think she's in Tucson, isn't she? Or is she in Phoenix? But I don't know. So tell me, how did you get into building this dashboard? Because you showed me the dashboard.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:08:36]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:36]:
Really cool. How did you get, like, where did the idea come from?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:08:42]:
So I've built kind of dashboards from, like, Google sheets in the past, and I really, you know, utilizing those tools with my team, I could really see the value that it brought.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:56]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:08:57]:
So at one point, it decided, hey, I'm going to go, like, more pro version of this and then branch out and make it my own and, you know, use my experience with automotive industry and really try to find the most valuable metrics that you would want to have at advisor, manager, technician's fingertips, and started building. Honestly, chat GPT really opened my eyes.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:27]:
That's awesome.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:09:28]:
Yeah. For me, it was like developing software wasn't so much a mystery after you really dive in. It wasn't just magic. So, yeah, that's kind of how it started, the vision.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:45]:
Right. And so let me ask you this, though. Is a. Is your current employer supportive of this? Are they, you know, helping you with it? Are they involved in any way?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:09:55]:
They are not involved. Again, I'm trying to keep this segregation, so I'm not asking them to assist or help. I'm not running the tool at our shop. I'm just trying to do this on my own.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:12]:
Right.
David Roman [00:10:13]:
Why wouldn't they be involved?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:10:17]:
I guess. I mean, I've been there quite a while. I'm not sure how ownership would take it. I've been there for so long, they might see it as this, an opportunity for me to branch out and leave. And I'm just not in a position to compromise my position right now. Not to say that I want to do that.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:38]:
Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:10:39]:
I would much prefer to stay where I'm at and also do this as well. Yeah, that would be ideal.
David Roman [00:10:44]:
Why wouldn't, like, if one of my tax or my service would rise, I'd.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:49]:
Be all behind it.
David Roman [00:10:50]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:50]:
Like, money behind it. Whatever I needed to do.
David Roman [00:10:52]:
Yeah. Run it here. Like, let me know how I can help. Like, why wouldn't you?
Lucas Underwood [00:10:57]:
The ultimate dashboard. Because that's how the ultimate dashboard works. We've got. So for shopware, there's an ultimate dashboard and it adds, like, modifications. And Steve is the guy who owns the shop, but one of his advisors, or somebody that works for him, created the ultimate dashboard and they did it to make the software work better.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:11:15]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:16]:
And so, like, he just jumped behind it full fledged and was like, hey, I want to support you. I want to help you develop, I want to help you grow, you know?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:11:22]:
Yeah. Not to say it's not going to be like that indefinitely. There's going to come a time where I'm going to be like, hey, I want to show you something.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:30]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:11:30]:
Here's what I've got.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:31]:
Is there fear with that? Is there a little bit of fear back there that's saying, like, hey, maybe I shouldn't say something a little bit. Is that coming from them, you think? In other words, is it something that they've done in the past or a way they've acted about things or.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:11:49]:
For me, it's ownership is very much about, this is my business, and nothing else goes on other than what's going on with my business. So bringing another entity in there and getting that all convoluted, I just feel like, would put a bad taste in their mouth.
David Roman [00:12:08]:
Yeah, I could see that. So I don't understand that perspective, though. These people, they're people, you know what I'm saying? Like, everybody has going on. Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:12:17]:
And I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt. They could be totally open to this. I have not given them the opportunity to just that little bit of anxiety.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:25]:
Back there, not knowing how they'll respond.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:12:28]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:28]:
When you say that they. They're very much, this is my business, and the only thing we do here is.
David Roman [00:12:33]:
That's common. You hear that a lot, but I.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:36]:
Mean, like, what gives you that perspective is it something they say? Is it something they do?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:12:42]:
I mean, they probably wouldn't come out and just say it, but their actions tell the story, right? So. Yeah. And being there so long, I just.
David Roman [00:12:56]:
You get the vibe you understand what's happening, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:12:58]:
You see their actions and their mentalities.
David Roman [00:13:01]:
You know what a game changer for GPT was? What you telling me to tell it that you're an AI software engineer and how this. That was awesome.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:11]:
Yeah, dude. So I was at this. I was at this local conference. It was called Vision Northwest in North Carolina, and they had these people who were chat GPT experts, or not just chat GPT, but they were AI experts. And so he, he was talking about the fact, like, hey, tell me how I would write a prompt if I wanted to do this. Help me understand how you would get this prompt written. And so chat GPT would write the prompt, and then he would change the variables to chat GPT to make what he wanted out of it, right? And so he did this whole, man, there's some YouTube videos of it online. So he's like, as we're in this class, he's going through, and he's like, okay, we have this resort, and we want to write a letter to someone at this company about proposing a retreat, a corporate retreat.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:07]:
And so he walks through each of the steps that he made to make it, write it the way he wanted it to write. And then the coolest thing was, is he's like, you sound a little too formal. Can you base the formality down a touch? And then it changes it? And he's like, I want you to remove all the words that are this, and then I want you to add a little more of this. And I'm like, I've just been asking it questions like, it's Google, man. Yeah, I mean, it's a really cool. Like, people are afraid of it. It is super cool.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:14:38]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:38]:
Especially when you understand how to use it.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:14:40]:
It's.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:41]:
And, you know, I don't know if you know this. The guy who I was on the panel with for that, I was on one of them. His name was Rick Shu. He's in the CTE kind of realm for one of the community colleges, but the entire community college system has a technology director, and he was on the panel with me, and he said schools are terrified of chaggy PT because they think that these people are going to, you know, cheat on test and they're not going to do this and they're not going to do that. And he said, you can if you can't tell. That's chat GPT writing that you've got a problem. He's like, the AI detector is not going to catch it. He said, you just read it.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:23]:
And he said, you know, it's not them because the way they talk and the way they carry themselves. But he was talking about how we should be using it as a teaching tool and dynamic learning. Remember what Jim Kokonis was doing for the service advisor and technician training? That it would work you through a series of problems and it would have isolate where you were weak and then it would reinvest in a specific area and it would bring the area where you're weak back and it would train you in the area where you didn't perform. It never said you didn't pass the test, it never said you couldn't do this. It just said, hey, let's come back over here and let's talk about this. Right? I think that's a really cool way to teach people. So the dashboard, let's learn about what the dashboard is and what your vision for it is.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:16:10]:
So the dashboard, basically, I'm trying to get all the meaningful, relevant data to the key people within the service department and then offer that as more of like a personal view as opposed to a company view.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:28]:
Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:16:31]:
So basically you can. And it's a kind of a set it and forget it type model. So you put in your variables, you could put in current month service advisor, like with or without shop supplies, basic variables, and then it's going to tell you where you're at in terms of gross profit, gross sales, hourly sale rate, all the good fundamental KPI's. And also it's going to give you projections as well. Like what you're looking to do for the month for gross profit based on where you are.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:04]:
Right?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:17:04]:
Yeah, it's. It's developing an average internally right within the eXe.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:10]:
And that is, that is a really cool concept. Now, one of the things that I said to you about it was, is there's a lot of stuff like that on the market now. And who was we talked about? We gave a list of them the other day. Me and you were sitting around talking. Who was it that we were talking about? What were they? I can't remember. Now we've had like three people on the. Miguel's got one, Sam Johnson's got one.
David Roman [00:17:34]:
Drive your KPI.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:35]:
Drive your KPI. Who else there was, we named like two more. So I think from my perspective, you've got to come up and you've got to set yourself apart. Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:17:47]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:47]:
And you have to make it to where you're something different. In my mind, the thing that was missing and, like, especially what I liked about your offering was it was about the service advisor primarily and managers, too, but it seemed like you were really gearing this to service advisors.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:18:07]:
Yeah. So I'm going to have three different views. I'm going to have advisor view. That's what I'm launching with. And then we're have technician view and also manager view, which is going to be an overview of advisor and technician, basically, everyone included.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:22]:
So the things that I thought about, like, I was sitting in bed the other night, we got here and I thought what. What would be really cool about something like that? What would. And we were talking about how advisors are often compensated based on a, like a financial gross profit or whatever it may be.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:18:40]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:41]:
And so in my head, I was thinking, well, how do you take that? And then you put it in front of them to where they can look at it without it saying, hey, you just hit your thousand dollar a month bonus. You just hit your. So everybody can.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:18:53]:
Without reporting sensitive data.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:55]:
Right, exactly. And so I'm sitting there thinking, how cool would it be if I had one for my advisors that said, hey, you hit tier one. Hey, you hit tier two. Hey, you hit tier three of your bonus if you have bonuses for advisor. Same with technicians. Hey, you hit tier one. Hey, you hit tier two. And the metric that you used to mark that changed or had gradients or whatever and had a way to customize that for the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:20]:
You know what I'm saying?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:19:21]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:21]:
And I think that's a really cool thing that's not been done. There's a lot of them that have, like, hey, this is your target. And they put gauges up and they've got a little red mark. And it says, you hit your target, it's red until it hits the mark. But what if it had the ability to offer that in a gradient and. Yeah, and, you know, I think that. That you've got to do something to set yourself apart.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:19:42]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:42]:
Because it's a. It's a. I don't want to say it's a saturated market.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:19:46]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:46]:
Right. But it's the same as throwing a shop in the middle of phoenix.
David Roman [00:19:50]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:51]:
And there's people opening shops every day. So, you know.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:19:55]:
Yeah. For me, I guess I would need to really understand in terms of consistency of how people are paying on those types of scales and then build around that.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:09]:
Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:20:09]:
Because so many people are doing so many different things in terms of bonuses.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:14]:
Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:20:16]:
But, yeah, I mean, if I could maybe even. Okay. 40% of people are doing this type of bonus structure, right? So then I can build something around that.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:27]:
Right. The primary structures. Right?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:20:29]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:30]:
The one that I think is most common. And I don't know if you've ever looked at dealership pay plans. Do you ever look at dealership pay plans?
David Roman [00:20:36]:
No.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:37]:
They are terrible.
David Roman [00:20:39]:
So is yours. I hate your paper in this stupidest thing in the world.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:43]:
Which one?
David Roman [00:20:44]:
All of them. I'm just telling you, like you, you're gonna get what you incentivize, and if you're incentivizing x, you're gonna get x. It is what it is.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:57]:
What are you incentivizing?
David Roman [00:20:59]:
I specifically advertise that we don't work on commission. We don't have any type of commission and nonsense at all into our pay plans specifically, because I'm trying to tell the customer that when you come to us, it is what it is, whether you fix it or don't fix it. We don't give two shits. We get paid the same. So you can't come back and be like, they're finding things to do? No. No. And in my snarky Google responses, when somebody loses a bad review, I tell them, no one in my shop works on commission except for me, and that's because I'm the owner. I don't even take a paycheck.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:36]:
You damn sure aren't getting any commission.
David Roman [00:21:39]:
And there's no commission. That's what I'm saying. I don't even take a paycheck.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:43]:
I don't know that. So here's the thing about it. I don't disagree with you. But I also recognize that I have tried the other way, and it's really hard.
David Roman [00:21:56]:
Why don't we incentivize finishing the car or finishing car and Google reviews or something like that? I don't know. You got to come up with something. I mean, I get the incentivization thing, like, you have to, otherwise they get complacent. But even then, if you've got good employees, they're not like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:21]:
I don't disagree with people coming to.
David Roman [00:22:23]:
Work and they just. They want to do a good job and they want to know they're getting a good paycheck and they're going to try hard. If they come in, they don't care. You need to get rid of them. They need to go away.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:35]:
In a world where technicians are hard to find, service advisors are hard to find. You know, we, the last people that were in here are from here, and they work outside, and they're like, toolbox and computer. Location is a shipping container, right. And they have really good numbers. Like, unbelievably good numbers. And David sat here and called them freaks and said that they were unicorns.
David Roman [00:23:06]:
They were. They were freaks and unicorns. The. The. She's a remote service advisor. She clocks out when she's nothing. Working, working. So she's caught up on her.
David Roman [00:23:17]:
On her estimates, and she's not taking any phone calls, and there's nothing for her to do. She clocks out because there's nothing for her to do. She doesn't. Just in case, stay on the clock. Yeah, see, he's making a face. Like, imagine you're at the shop, and you're like, I'm all caught up. Go ahead and clock out and go sit in my car till there's something for me to do. Like, that's the equivalent of what she's doing.
David Roman [00:23:43]:
I mean, she's at home, so technically she's like, I'm gonna go do the dishes. Okay, fine. Even me, company man and everything, would just go do the dishes and have the phone ready to go in case I need to jump on the phone. Like, you're on the clock.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:59]:
Yeah, I don't know.
David Roman [00:24:00]:
I would tell the employee, like, hey, I want to clock in from ten to seven the whole time. Take an hour lunch, clock out for that. The whole. The rest of the time, be clocked in. Go do whatever you need to do. Be available.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:24:16]:
Yeah. I would want to be able to push the accountability there.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:19]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:24:20]:
You know, because that way you end up with excuses. Oh, I clocked out. That was my.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:25]:
Didn't have to, right?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:24:26]:
Yeah, I didn't, you know, I was doing the dishes or what have you. I much prefer, though.
David Roman [00:24:30]:
That's what's weird. Yeah, that's. She doesn't. She doesn't do that. It's weird to. I detected an accent. Well, she's, like, european or something.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:40]:
I thought it was a northern accent.
David Roman [00:24:42]:
No, no. What I mean, he's got a northern accent. Michigan.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:51]:
Nailed it.
David Roman [00:24:53]:
You just. You just. I don't sound like this. They're not. From your neck of the wooks.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:58]:
You know what your story reminded me of? One time I was in Wilmington, North Carolina, and David sends me, you know, like, how you can send voice messages on Facebook. Now he hates them. He hates them when you send them to him. But now if he.
David Roman [00:25:12]:
If I don't send them, I don't send them. I hate him. I don't send them. I don't.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:16]:
So I just get this, like, slew of messages, and we message back and forth a lot. So I'm like, this is years ago.
David Roman [00:25:22]:
I don't use them anymore. I abused them. He burned me with them. I hate them now.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:27]:
I'll listen to, like, I would skim through them, and I would listen to one every once in a while. And so it starts with him telling the story, and he says, I'm going to. I'm going to go home and do the laundry, and I think I'm going to try and get a workout in or something.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:25:42]:
And.
David Roman [00:25:52]:
Oh, my goodness. I just spilled that mountain dew all over myself.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:25:56]:
Making a miracle.
David Roman [00:25:56]:
About fell over, I'm telling you.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:59]:
What. Anything like that in my entire life.
David Roman [00:26:03]:
I didn't even make it. I spilled mountain dew a little reason. I didn't even get there.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:17]:
Oh, my goodness. Three episodes ago, we had a conversation about how if you finish all the.
David Roman [00:26:26]:
Story, you just went off on a tangent.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:28]:
Well, I know, but we. We talked about how if you drink mountain Dew, you have to be able to internalize it in your silences with him because you will spit it out. Um, and so this dude goes through this Facebook message and spends every bit of ten minutes telling me how he went home to exercise and do his laundry. And then out of nowhere, he sends me another message. Cause I didn't listen to the whole thing, right? I get all the way down to the end, and I was just, like, skimming through. I'm like, what's the point of this? And so he says, you didn't actually listen to my messages? And I'm like, uh oh. So I scroll back up and hit one, and all I hear is, so now I'm walking into the hospital. I'm like, oh, my God.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:14]:
And he had ripped. He went to exercise at home while he was on the clock and ripped his bicep. You were out for what, like two weeks, three weeks over that?
David Roman [00:27:24]:
No, no, it was a partial tear.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:29]:
You didn't just think we were gonna be serious on the podcast, did you?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:27:32]:
No.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:32]:
Okay, good.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:27:32]:
I've seen enough.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:33]:
All right, awesome.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:27:34]:
On. On YouTube just now, you just seen it off.
David Roman [00:27:38]:
This guy was chucking a can, spill diet mountain dew over himself. This one's spitting it up everywhere, knocking the camera over.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:46]:
Dude, that was priceless. I think that's probably the coolest thing that's ever happened.
David Roman [00:27:52]:
I thought I got it all out. No, it went in like this.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:57]:
Okay.
David Roman [00:27:59]:
I spill coffee on my cell phone. Done. I go home. That's what I do. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:03]:
Seriously?
David Roman [00:28:04]:
Yeah. I don't think that's why I can't. I'm stuck working or having a business, because, um, I can't work anywhere. Imagine you clock in, you imagine you go in and you spill coffee on it. So if you're like, hey, I'm. I'm leaving. I'm out. I'm done going home.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:20]:
Okay. So about that.
David Roman [00:28:24]:
I can't. I can't have the coffee smell on me. I just. I can't do it. Mountain Dew, though. It's, you know, whatever. It's like, it's diet, and so it's not even sticky. Sticky, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:35]:
Yeah. Well, what. What would your vision of this be as far as the job thing? Right. Because you create this product, it takes off. Do you think that you would want to continue to be a manager and a service advisor? Because, I mean, like, it gives you that real world experience, and you're seeing.
David Roman [00:28:59]:
That his answer can be like, no, I'm loyal to my company now. I'm going to stay there for the foreseeable future. I don't see anything. Why would he say, yeah, I want it to be $100 million business. So I can. No, I mean, I can. Peace out. That's two birds in the air as I'm driving away in my Maserati.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:17]:
Oh, my God.
David Roman [00:29:18]:
I hate the window. Flipping off the owners as I'm driving away my mase.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:22]:
Have you ever seen Maserati service information? You ever looked up Maserati service information? Ever tried to buy Maserati parts?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:29:30]:
I got a call Maserati tech info.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:32]:
It's awful. It's all.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:29:35]:
That's all we work on is euro stuff, really.
David Roman [00:29:38]:
There's euros, and then there's like, well.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:29:41]:
We do Maserati of trash.
David Roman [00:29:43]:
Euro, yeah. And that's Maserati.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:29:46]:
And primarily, we see mostly mercedes, but we do Porsche, BMW.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:52]:
Right?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:29:52]:
Audi, Volkswagen. And we do bring in Maserati and Bentley and so forth as well.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:57]:
We had one in the other day, and every other one of this model had a, like, a emergency release for the fuel door. This one, the actuator for the fuel door, went bad. There's no way to get it out, right? And so it comes down to you got to pick the car up, you got to get the wheel off the back, you have to try and get the fender liner out of it. And then you, like, reach your hand up into this, like, impossible place to reach, to take this actuator out. Right. To get it loose. Now, you could probably break the door. And I pride on it a little bit, but it's got like a screw actuator on it.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:34]:
So we were all saying, like, if we break this, what else does it break? Because, I mean, service information just said it had an actuator. You couldn't see how to remove it. It didn't have any details about the actuator. It's the stupidest thing ever. They sound cool.
David Roman [00:30:49]:
I find that this may not be the case for your particular shop owner, but I find that when they work on those type of vehicles, they're typically former techs of that particular brand, and they were exceptional at their jobs, and they decided that I'm gonna go out my own, open the job. I find them to be very weird.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:14]:
What, the owners?
David Roman [00:31:15]:
Yeah. No, no, just that type of personality. Like, they were. I was the best Bentley tech or Ben's tech in my area. I went out, opened a shop, I made it wildly successful. And now, you know, I have five techs, and now they just. That's what they do. They're the owner of a Benz tech, Ben shop.
David Roman [00:31:38]:
But they used to be a former Benz. Yeah, they're weird. I just find they're like.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:31:44]:
A lot of those shops fit in that category.
David Roman [00:31:46]:
Yes. No, I'm just saying we've met a lot of them.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:49]:
I should just call Tom Scheer.
David Roman [00:31:51]:
Weird is Tom. Was Tom a former. Like.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:57]:
I was just getting a hard time.
David Roman [00:31:59]:
He owns. I'm not saying all euro shop owners. I'm talking like, that very specific niche. I was an exceptional technician for this line. I opened up my own shop. I'm now doing two, three, $4 million. I find them all weird. They don't take a joke.
David Roman [00:32:17]:
For example, I am right now, just from saying that. Going to get angry messages now. It's just a joke, folks. It's fine. Like, calm down, calm down. But also they're, you know, sometimes a little autistic and just a little cookie and just kind of weird. And I don't know.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:41]:
You ever been canceled? Because David gets you cancelled. That's what happens. Okay.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:32:46]:
Our shop's a little different, so we have sales and service.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:49]:
Oh, really?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:32:49]:
And the owner basically started the business off of the sales department.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:53]:
Okay.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:32:53]:
And then we ventured out into service.
David Roman [00:32:55]:
Okay.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:32:56]:
So. Which is good for me, because his passion is in sales.
David Roman [00:33:00]:
Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:33:00]:
I get to kind of do my own thing in service.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:03]:
And you just handle service and roll with it.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:33:04]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:06]:
What was your, you know, you came out of school a. How did he find you?
David Roman [00:33:11]:
What'd you go to UTI? For to be a tech or.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:33:14]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:33:14]:
And you found out. It's awful.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:33:19]:
I could just see long term.
David Roman [00:33:21]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:33:21]:
You know, I wanted to get into.
David Roman [00:33:23]:
Management so I knew people know you gotta be. I don't know, it's a certain type of personality. You've got that tech personality. You're just a yacker. If you'd shut up for just 5 seconds, you'd be a fantastic tech. Because you can fix stuff you like. Oh, look, machine. You like to see it fixed and stuff? No, just the physical like time it takes to rent something.
David Roman [00:33:50]:
You're just sitting there going, I like forever.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:33:53]:
Technical side of it though.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:55]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:33:55]:
And I think it's a good medium for me because whenever the guys in the shop get into a jam, they look to me, you know, so all the really difficult stuff comes my way and I'd like to dive into that stuff. So yeah, I feel like I get enough of out of it, but I'm out there wrenching and replacing brakes and all that.
David Roman [00:34:13]:
They give you the stuff that they don't make any money on.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:34:16]:
Yeah, exactly.
David Roman [00:34:17]:
This is going to take forever and it's super weird.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:21]:
Did that pathway help you? Because like there. When it comes to writing code, when it comes to building a piece of software, there is some deductive reasoning, especially in fixing errors. There's some thought process that aligns with the technical role. Do you think that impacted your ability to jump into this and start making this happen?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:34:43]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Just like troubleshooting, just in general, like having to dive in really deep day in, day out for really difficult cars to diagnose. Taking that type of initiative and diving into this.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:06]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:35:06]:
You know, basically going into an area that you don't understand.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:10]:
Yeah, for sure.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:35:11]:
And then I don't have a choice. I gotta figure this out. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:15]:
So Peter Orlando reminds me of somebody like that because Peter, you know, he was one of the curriculum developers for CTI. And Peter always tells this story about that. There was a situation with Ford vehicles where they had this crazy problem with trouble codes. And none of the trouble codes were right. And so he's like part of this consortium that's trying to solve this problem. And Peter could see the problem like in the same way with electricity. Like I can see how it moves and where it goes and what it does in my head. I don't know why I'm broken like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:48]:
But Peter had the ability to see that pattern of numbers in his head and say, well, somebody's put something in incorrectly at some point because everything is off by this certain number, and you can see it move as it goes down the pattern. He's like, so if we go back three pages and he's like, yeah. As we get back, we realize that they had mistyped a number, and so it threw everything off. But the ability to see that and the ability to use deductive reasoning to find that is a powerful tool. Do you see this expanding into something more than just a dashboard? What do you think it could be?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:36:27]:
I mean, I feel like the dashboard aspect of it is definitely a good starting point for me.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:32]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:36:34]:
I think that if I were to expand, it would probably be into more visual tools. Maybe in the lobby area, I could grab data from the database and put the appointments up there, stuff like that. But that's as far as I see it at this point.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:55]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:36:56]:
I don't want to become too much, and it's just I offer all these different things I would still want to focus on, like, my bread and butter.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:04]:
Your core.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:37:05]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:06]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:37:06]:
I don't want to be this business that just does everything right.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:10]:
You know, that was. You know, that's why we use shopware in our shops.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:37:14]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:14]:
Because it wasn't something. And he's the one who really opened my eyes to that, because it wasn't something that was so complex and so advanced that you had all these buttons and all these things. It was super simplistic, and it just did what it did. It wasn't trying to, like, reinvent the wheel. It wasn't trying to add all these crazy features to make it do this crazy thing. It was. It was. I don't want to say basic, because it's a very advanced software.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:37:41]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:41]:
But the UI is basic. The use of the product is basic. Right. Anybody can learn it in a day. And, I mean, you've trained service advisors. What sms are you using right now in your show?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:37:52]:
Ro writer.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:53]:
Right. That's a. That's a.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:37:54]:
So, as far as basic.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:57]:
Right.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:37:58]:
You know, but I've used it for 20 years.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:00]:
Right. So it feels normal to you.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:38:02]:
Yeah. I mean, it's. It does it. And it does it very well.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:06]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:38:06]:
You know, and you rely on your third party companies to come out and build the fancy stuff, you know, and all the stuff that you do want as an addition, too, the writing software.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:16]:
Right. I looked at protractor when I was getting ready to switch.
David Roman [00:38:21]:
Yeah, me too.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:22]:
And I'm.
David Roman [00:38:23]:
Too many buttons.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:24]:
It is. It is a super, super advanced product.
David Roman [00:38:28]:
I look to ro writer, too. You know, the biggest issue is the training aspect of it. I'm gonna have to learn it. And the learning curve is, you know, will take forever, and then I'm gonna have to teach it somebody, which take forever. It's too much time. And then you're struggling, and it's frustrating. You can't figure out, and you have to call, screw all that. If I can't figure it out in five minutes, I don't want to use it.
David Roman [00:38:53]:
I got five minutes. That's it. You got five minutes. Figure it out.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:01]:
Can you tell that David stands in the way of his own success?
David Roman [00:39:04]:
Sometimes it's five minutes. So if you have to do Photoshop or whatever, right. I use something called picmonkey. The reason why I use picmonkey is it. Is it adobe Photoshop? No, it's not even, like a 10th of that. You know why I use it? Because I. It's easy, like three clicks, and I know exactly where to. And then this.
David Roman [00:39:24]:
It's super intuitive. Why don't you. Well, there's a dumbed down version of Photoshop called Canva. Why don't you try canva? No, I tried canva. The button was not where I would think the button should be, and I had to click 55 different things to find this one thing. No, no, no, no. So people in my shop make fun of me, like, are you using picmonkey? Yeah, because it's easy to use. It's cheap, too, but it's super easy to use.
David Roman [00:39:50]:
Super easy to use. I use Filmora. You know why I use Filmora? It's super easy to use. I have Adobe premiere premier. Yeah, I have premiere pro. I paid for it. I use it for one thing. I use it for one thing.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:05]:
What's that?
David Roman [00:40:06]:
I sink into the multi cam editing because it's a couple buttons, but I don't know. I tried to do some of the editing, and I go to sync the audio, and I tried to do it in there. It's so clunky. It's so clunky. Who fights through this mess to learn it just because everybody else uses it? Who does that?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:40:29]:
Me.
David Roman [00:40:30]:
Why? Why, though? I don't know. Like, there's got to be something better is. What would I always say? There's got to be something better. Something better, easier to use. Something that's more intuitive.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:40:40]:
I guess it depends on your personality.
David Roman [00:40:42]:
You want. You enjoy frustration. Is it rewarding at the end?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:40:48]:
Yeah, I.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:50]:
Look, I'll tell you what's rewarding. I have an almost empty moment.
David Roman [00:40:55]:
I shouldn't say it's frustrating. I like to play video games, and there's a video game out called Elden Ring. Okay. It's huge. Sold a ton of copies. While they decide they're gonna put out extra content for the game. You familiar? No. No.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:11]:
Okay.
David Roman [00:41:12]:
So they decide they're gonna put out extra content for the game. And the game, when it first came out was, and this is the studio makes incredibly difficult games. That's what they do. Games today are not like they were 30 years ago, 30 years ago. They, in order to extend the, the amount of time you played the game, they would make it artificially difficult, and they did that so you would, the games didn't have a lot of memory. And so for you to not finish the game in 45 minutes and go, hey, I just dropped $60, which would be a $100 in today's money. I just dropped $60 on this game that I finished in 45 minutes, they would make it artificially hard. And so you would, you didn't have anything else to play as a kid, so you got this one game, and you would sit there and just fight and fight and fight to get really good at this game, to get past this point.
David Roman [00:42:03]:
You just did it. Well, games, I'm not saying the population got stupider, but games got way easier. And they got to the point where now the games are beautiful, they're complex, but they handhold. They're like, hey, they've got buttons and, like, prompts and, hey, this little arrow tells you where to go. Go where? The arrow's telling you. I'm going to go where? The arrow's telling me. Well, this studio does not make games like that. And so they put out this gorgeous game, and you, you start the game and they kind of tell you a little bit of the story, and then you get into the game, you have no idea where the hell you're supposed to go.
David Roman [00:42:43]:
You don't know what you're supposed to do. It kind of tells you, hey, hit this button to do this, and then it makes you figure out the rest. You have to figure it out. And so the game comes out, and it's incredibly difficult because people are like, the very first thing when you walk out, there's this giant thing walking back and forth, and you're like, I'm supposed to go there and kill that thing? No, you're not supposed to. You find this out later. The thing kills you immediately. One shots, you just, you're dead. And you're like, oh, I'm going to try this again.
David Roman [00:43:11]:
And 50 deaths later, you're like, okay, I'm going to go somewhere else, because this is not working out. This is not. You were just frustrating. Eventually you kill it and you feel reward. You're like, this is great, cuz you. You made it through the difficult part. Anyway, they put out this new content out and they ramped up because everybody got really good at this game. It's been out for two years.
David Roman [00:43:34]:
I really got really good. They were the DLC. They ramped it up to some, like ten times harder than the original game where everybody's like, I'm leveled up. I got this ridiculous weapon. And you're like, just whomp and everything. And you come out and the first enemy that you encounter should be easy. And you die immediately. And you're like, what the crap? And then you're like, okay, I got this.
David Roman [00:43:59]:
Now you get to the second section and something pops out and just whomp. You're like, dang it. And that's how it's been, by the way. I'm like 10 hours into this, and it's just death, death, death, death. The whole time.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:14]:
The shop's failing. I. The podcast is delayed, and I'm.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:44:18]:
400 hours.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:18]:
There's no videos.
David Roman [00:44:20]:
400 hours into this game. Why put out the video games? I don't. I don't play video games or work hours anyway, so. So I'm just saying I can understand trying to overcome difficult things. That's not what I'm against. I am against poor design. For example, I wouldn't want to work on a Maserati and blow my brains out of, like, the minute you see something, like, why would they put this bar here? Does it make any sense? Just move it. Or just why I like.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:51]:
I mean, I don't know. Those are the challenges I enjoy. I like.
David Roman [00:44:56]:
What? Why. Why would you want it?
Lucas Underwood [00:44:59]:
You enjoy the video game challenge? I mean, I don't know. I've heard you curse. I don't know that you enjoy it, but I. I like the challenge. I really do.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:45:15]:
But you got to have success, though.
David Roman [00:45:17]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:18]:
You have to eventually find that success.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:45:21]:
Yeah, for sure. That's what gets you into the next challenge.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:24]:
Yeah, it is.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:45:25]:
If you keep failing, then it's.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:26]:
You eventually just give up.
David Roman [00:45:27]:
Yeah, it's the. It's the. The price of failure. So this is a video game. So you die. You go back, you learn what you did wrong, and then you adapt and you overcome, and there's. You get that rewarding feeling, and then you're like, okay, you move on. Same thing.
David Roman [00:45:47]:
When I tore my bicep, I know what I did wrong. So now if I do that same exercise, which I did this morning, the same exercise. I take a different angle, I use different weights. I have better technique now. And I also know to go, hey, if this thing all of a sudden shoots weird pain here, I should probably stop and not go, it'll be fine. And go for one more rep and then pop another tendon. You learn, you adapt, you overcome.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:16]:
If you watch the three body problem.
David Roman [00:46:19]:
But working on something like a Cadillac and you're doing an oil pan and you realize that they shoved this engine onto the subframe with no intention of that subframe or that oil pan ever needing to be serviced again. They didn't care. They designed it to just get slapped together in the factory and then out the door it went. And so when you're looking at it going, okay, I'm going to have to drop this entire subframe and hold up this enormous engine and transmission assembly to be able to then drop this oil pan and replace it. Now that's difficult. It's challenging. There's a lot of steps you have to figure out, this doesn't fit and I can't drop this, and you move this and you have to be very meticulous to make sure everything gets done properly. But you make a mistake.
David Roman [00:47:09]:
It's not, oh, I made a mistake, now I have to adapt and overcome. No, no. If you make a mistake, that is a ten hour, twelve hour job and you have to now redo it, because guess what?
Lucas Underwood [00:47:22]:
That would get to me.
David Roman [00:47:23]:
You screwed something up. You pinched the gasket. Because it's a rubber gasket that gets pushed into the little channel. You didn't clean the surface properly. It was just a little bit of gunk in it. Now you got a drink. Now you screwed something up. Now you got to go back and do it.
David Roman [00:47:38]:
Another 10 hours of frustration.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:42]:
I think you're in the wrong industry. I think you should probably go back to the Mac and cheese truck.
David Roman [00:47:51]:
Now you're building software. I want to do a Mac and cheese truck. I'm trying to find the frustration.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:47:58]:
Cheese truck?
David Roman [00:47:59]:
Yeah. Where would I, like, where would the frustration be? It's something people want. So they're gonna be happy paying me for ooey gooey goodness and I'm gonna give it to them how I make it. Here's your. Can I get. No, no, that's it. You get regular or fancy, two bowls. It is what it is.
David Roman [00:48:22]:
And then what?
Lucas Underwood [00:48:23]:
I mean, I see. I see the utility in ithemenous, you know? Have you watched the three body problem?
David Roman [00:48:29]:
No, I don't know.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:30]:
Have you watched the three body problem? There's a. There's a video game in the three body problem, and I'm thinking that maybe if some.
David Roman [00:48:36]:
What is the three body problem?
Lucas Underwood [00:48:37]:
It's a tv show. It was a super, super famous chinese novel, and they made a Netflix series about it.
David Roman [00:48:45]:
He's making fun of me playing video games. He watches an immense amount of television.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:51]:
Whatever.
David Roman [00:48:51]:
And Crane. YouTube.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:53]:
Yeah. I do watch Crane. I love mechanical stuff. I watch stuff about ships and airplanes, cranes and trains.
David Roman [00:49:00]:
Chemical disasters.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:01]:
Yeah, I love chemical disasters. Those are pretty cool. I'm broken. I know.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:49:05]:
I like watching, like, welding and.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:09]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:49:09]:
Machining and stuff like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:10]:
Yeah, me too, dude.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:49:11]:
That's kind of cool.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:12]:
Yeah. So there's the jamzy videos. Have you watched any of those where they're rebuilding Paul Danner's engine for one of his pickups and, like, they're talking about all the machining that they do. They've got really cool machine shop. His dad's been in a machine shop for years and years and years and years. And so his dad's now teaching him. You can tell he didn't necessarily grow up in the shop, like, trying to learn from dad. And so now dad's kind of teaching him and walking him through the problem solving and the things that go with it.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:40]:
It's a really cool channel. If you ever get a chance, check it out. It's, like, definitely worth watching. What?
David Roman [00:49:49]:
Machining. So I went through tech school, realized I hated working on cars. I needed to stop doing that. But I did the whole machining thing, and I loved it. Decking cylinder heads and doing valve jobs, setting the three angles on the seat and then cutting the valves to it to make sure it matches. That's good. That was. I loved it.
David Roman [00:50:15]:
But again, make one mistake. One mistake.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:19]:
Oh, it's overdone with.
David Roman [00:50:20]:
Yeah. Now you're buying, and so there's no room for error there that, hey, I made a mistake. Now I can adapt and learn. And even in business, you bring up, well, owning a shop, you can make. I make mistakes every single day, and they just cost me money and time. That's what I. That's what it does. I screwed that up.
David Roman [00:50:43]:
I shouldn't have, for example, bought a five year lease on a shop to do Ados. That was a bad idea. I. Buying the machine was a bad idea, too.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:52]:
You've got a pretty nice studio in Kansas City, though.
David Roman [00:50:55]:
It's not nice, but I have a studio in Kansas City. It's an eight hour shop. Too. Anyway, I I was a mistake. It has cost me. It's gonna end up costing me $150,000 total.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:51:09]:
Do you have a shop that just does AdAs?
David Roman [00:51:11]:
Yes. Now, we have to actually do ados calibrations to be able to call it a shop that does Adas. We don't. It's there, but we don't actually do any calibrations there because we don't have anybody that needs them. So it just, in turn, cost me money so I can make a mistake in business and learn, adapt and overcome. Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:51:38]:
There's a. There's a YouTube video of a machinist, and he's one of the big machinists on YouTube, right? And he's an older man, and he's been doing it his entire life. Like, he was a journeyman at, like, 16 years old, right? And he's talking about the fact that as you get older, right? Like, as you. As you gain skill, right, you're going up this. This bell curve, and. And he said, then you start going back down the other side of it. And he said, you get to a spot where you feel like you're really good at what you do, right, and you feel like you're the best of the best. And he said, I just want to show you a mistake I made.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:11]:
And he said, as I got older, my eyes got worse and worse. And he said, we were in a push for something. And he said, I measured something. He said, I looked at the number, I set my machine. I thought it was good, but he said, I didn't realize that I had the wrong end on my indicator. And he said, so the measurement was wrong. He said, so I ruined a $9,000 piece that we were doing, and it was supposed to be done today. And he said, now it's going to be weeks to get it, like, remachined and back done.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:37]:
And he was just saying, like, this is going to happen. You're going to experience this. But, man, like, the concept that you got good just to suck again, I can't handle that.
David Roman [00:52:47]:
That's what I'm saying. Like, I cannot handle that.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:50]:
So, I mean, what?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:52:51]:
Isn't that kill your pride right there?
Lucas Underwood [00:52:53]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:52:54]:
It's not the pride thing. It's just the. The. I've disappointed the customer.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:00]:
I hate that dude that drives me.
David Roman [00:53:01]:
That's what bothers me. The. That just, like, I promised this. I can't deliver, and I've disappointed you, and I'm sorry. And that feeling is the worst thing in the whole wide world.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:53:15]:
So I just avoid commitment in the first place, I try to find a way out.
David Roman [00:53:20]:
What do you mean?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:53:21]:
Like, you promise? When you say promise, that stings a little bit. Like, I don't like to promise. I set the expectation, but I also have an out.
David Roman [00:53:33]:
You know what's right. What do you mean? So, hey, hey, I need my car done by Friday. What would you tell?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:53:38]:
Well, I mean, first of all, the customers, they're not the ones that are going to be determining when the car is going to be done.
David Roman [00:53:46]:
Okay, well, I'll say it like, hey, is it possible that I'll get my car back on Friday? What would you tell me?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:53:52]:
So at this point, we'd be shooting to get it done back for you on Friday, but I would make plans for early next week as well.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:02]:
That's what I do.
David Roman [00:54:05]:
Shut up. You don't do anything. That's what I do. This guy, like, he has it figured out. You don't know what you're doing.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:13]:
I'm just saying that's what I tell clients in a roundabout way with my southern accent, my redneck voice that you and dutch that's couldn't care less.
David Roman [00:54:25]:
Is that what it is? You say it so you say it with confidence and, like, this nonchalant tone. You're like, where are we gonna shoot for it? But I would also make plans for, I don't. If I try to dad voice it.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:46]:
You dad voice.
David Roman [00:54:46]:
No, that wasn't a dad voice.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:48]:
No, I'm saying, you, dad voice. I wouldn't do that.
David Roman [00:54:53]:
I would dad voice. I only dad voice. When I get backed into a corner, like, I don't wear, this person is not giving me a choice because I don't wanna come at them like that. Like you're an adult. So I'm gonna talk to you like an adult. But the minute you start acting like fool and like a child, I'm gonna start treating you like you're a five year old. And I have to tell you what's up. Don't, don't put me in that situation.
David Roman [00:55:16]:
That's what I, you know, that's, that's what I'm saying. Anyway. If I tried to tell the customer that, knowing in my heart of hearts, I want to get it done, but also, my shop's a shit show and, like, nothing ever goes right. It's not. It's some employees, they try. They're working. They're good. I have fantastic employees.
David Roman [00:55:38]:
I really do. They all give a shit and they all try. Not the new guy. We'll see about the new guy, but everybody else, awesome. But, you know, that bolt breaks part was wrong. I had, I have a, my newest tech, newish tech. He's been awesome. I love him.
David Roman [00:55:57]:
Death. He is. He is so laid back and cool and just, he handles everything like, oh, just another problem and just, you know, let me figure this out. Nothing bothers him, and he just, he goes with the flow. I love people like that because, you know, I'm. And he is not like that. So it's a good yin and yang kind of thing. Anyway, we, we gave him a job, and, and, hey, if you can get this done today, that would be awesome because it'll.
David Roman [00:56:24]:
It'll help us get ready for tomorrow and put us ahead. And I. Juan's like, I think you get it done now. Me, in my mind, I'm going, there's no chance he's going to get that sucker done. There's no chance. And I told that to Juan. I'm like, dude, there's no shot he gets that done. It's just everything would have to just go perfect, and he would have to, like, be super confident what he's doing.
David Roman [00:56:47]:
And he still kind of knew, right? He had that 99% of the way done, and it was. It was alignment, air filters and oil change and brakes and this. And he, he has the brakes disassembled, and he goes to put the brake pads on. Guess what? They set the wrong brake pads. He. He would have had that done. And he sent the goddamn. That's, that.
David Roman [00:57:13]:
That is in that little, like, anecdote is my shop every single day. He didn't do it. He was doing everything perfect. He was hitting every mark. He was flying through the job. He was gonna nail this thing. This sucker was leaving the night. I was gonna get paid.
David Roman [00:57:32]:
We were gonna get head for the next day. Everything was going. The tits and they sent the wrong guy. I ordered, and I'm like, the first thing I said is that I ordered the wrong brick because I, you know, it's usually my screw up. Did I order the wrong brake pets? No, you order the right ones. I just sent the wrong ones.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:51]:
As a shop manager, do you, do you still deal with those issues?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:57:55]:
You still see that just, like, productivity.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:59]:
And not, in other words, issues like that and the wrong parts come in.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:58:04]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:05]:
Like, does it weigh out?
Joshua Hemmerling [00:58:08]:
I don't know. I'm very big on, I guess, setting expectations. So you're not, like, down to the wire all the time and those issues don't blow up in your face. Right. For instance, like, when I'm talking to the advisors and basically, hey, you guys are in different time zones so the customer is in one time zone and you and the technician are in a different time zone. So you and the tech have this plan to get it done at noon. You and the customer are going to be like hey, we're going to plan on getting this done at three or whatever.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:43]:
I like that. I like the timezone comment.
David Roman [00:58:45]:
That's good.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:46]:
Yeah, that's a really, really powerful.
Joshua Hemmerling [00:58:53]:
That'S.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:53]:
A powerful tool to use because it creates that realization. I'm always telling my people like, hey, tell them that the parts are going to be here a day after they're supposed to be here. Right. Because what if they show up at 05:00 p.m. we can't do anything with that. Once we verify the parts are the right ones, we'll get the car back in the queue and then as soon as we know what the ETA looks like we'll let you know. Right. I think we've built a world, especially with the super fast shops, the chain stores.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:21]:
We build a world where everybody expects their car back in the same day. And I don't think that that's realistic. Right. And so I think we've set the wrong expectation for a long time.
David Roman [00:59:30]:
It is for them because they only do those three things that they do and that's it. And they just want, they want the fast turning 350 arrow and we just want to pump as many cars through here as possible and that's it. Well we don't do it that way. But that's what they're used to if that's all they ever go to. And they show my shop and we're like, I mean we try two to three days out but that's after the inspection, that's after approval and that's after the parts show up. So that could be a week and a half.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:00]:
Never know.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:00:01]:
Most of our clients will drop their cars off for an oil change and then we tell them it's 7 hours. So within 7 hours you'll be hearing from us. We do not have waiters.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:13]:
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And especially in your market, you have to.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:00:16]:
Yeah, an oil change, you know, if we can't get an oil change done in the same day then that's, I feel like is a problem.
David Roman [01:00:22]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:00:23]:
Anything else is like, but how often.
David Roman [01:00:26]:
Oil change though, that's really. Yeah, yeah. Comes in with a thousand other problems like, hey, what are we doing about this?
Joshua Hemmerling [01:00:32]:
It's okay, we're gonna, we're gonna be at least you're setting the expectation with the customer. I'm gonna be contacting you by early afternoon. The goal is. And again, kind of different time zones.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:43]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:00:44]:
Right. I need to have a report back from the tech. Bye. Noon or earlier?
Lucas Underwood [01:00:48]:
Yeah.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:00:49]:
And then we need to get it through estimating and then I'm going to call the customer before they're expecting.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:54]:
Yeah, for sure.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:00:55]:
Because the. The more time you go in the day, the less likely you're going to make any sales if they're wanting it back the same day.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:01]:
Right. Um, before we close, uh, what was the name of your product again?
Joshua Hemmerling [01:01:06]:
Datadyne.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:07]:
Datadyne?
Joshua Hemmerling [01:01:08]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:01:09]:
Dyne.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:01:11]:
D y n e. Yeah. Yeah.
David Roman [01:01:13]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:14]:
Is it on the market right now if somebody wanted to sign up for it or look at it? Is there a way they can do that?
Joshua Hemmerling [01:01:20]:
I'm rolling it out as. As we speak.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:23]:
Okay. Yeah, very cool. Does it integrate with any SMS software?
Joshua Hemmerling [01:01:26]:
Currently? Aurora.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:28]:
Okay.
Joshua Hemmerling [01:01:29]:
Future techmetric and Shopware and some others? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:33]:
Very cool. We'll see if we can make a connection for you to have some folks to talk to on that. All right.
David Roman [01:01:38]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:39]:
Thank you for being here. Yeah.