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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.
David Roman [00:00:02]:
Two short clap. That's not gonna help. Do that again. You look extra special doing that clapping. Are we gonna have this? Here's what happened. So we're at vision, and he ends up buying vision. We were at vision. We were at vision.
David Roman [00:00:25]:
He buys an industrial like sized tic tac thing. Okay. And then the entire time, go back and listen to the podcast.
Greg Buckley [00:00:33]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:00:36]:
At one point, at one video, I stopped and I go, what the crap? This is what we're gonna do. He's like, what so happened?
Greg Buckley [00:00:48]:
It must be addicted to them.
David Roman [00:00:50]:
They are addicting. Yeah, tic tacs. Cuz they're there and so you're like, oh, pop another one.
Greg Buckley [00:00:54]:
Right?
David Roman [00:00:54]:
Pop another one.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:55]:
Here's the thing.
David Roman [00:00:56]:
Oh, piece of candy.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:58]:
Yeah, piece of candy. And that. It was that day that David got tapped in the nuts for the first time. And so things have gone downhill.
David Roman [00:01:06]:
I got tapped in the nuts. For what? When? I don't remember.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:11]:
Hey, Ben.
David Roman [00:01:11]:
Tic tacs.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:12]:
Hey, hold your hand up. Put it back here behind your head. Hold it way up over your head.
David Roman [00:01:16]:
No, no, no, I'm not doing that.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:18]:
I'll say it again. Maybe it'll hit it and run down because it's clearly over your.
David Roman [00:01:26]:
I don't know. I didn't get the joke. Somebody will tell me the joke in the comment section.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:31]:
They will. They really will.
Greg Buckley [00:01:34]:
As you guys. I mean, sprite tic tacs, they.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:40]:
I mean, it should be a sin to call them sprite tic tacs when they taste so much. Not like sprite.
David Roman [00:01:46]:
Yeah, they don't taste like strike.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:47]:
Not even love it.
David Roman [00:01:48]:
Okay.
Greg Buckley [00:01:48]:
What they taste like? It's just like hard lemon. Here, I have one. I try one. All right.
David Roman [00:01:56]:
Hard lemon candy.
Greg Buckley [00:01:58]:
That's why they're yellow, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:02:00]:
Just tell me if it tastes like.
David Roman [00:02:01]:
Sprite, though, or lemon hard candy, because.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:04]:
We'Ve already ruined the tic tac sponsorship opportunity at this rate.
Greg Buckley [00:02:13]:
I don't know. Maybe a little. But it's really intense. Definitely more lemon than lime.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:19]:
Yeah, it doesn't have the sprite.
Greg Buckley [00:02:23]:
What's missing? The fizz.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:25]:
That maybe that's it. It's not carbonated.
Greg Buckley [00:02:27]:
It's not carbonated?
David Roman [00:02:28]:
No, no. I don't know.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:30]:
That might be it.
David Roman [00:02:31]:
I don't know. It needs to be a less intense flavor. It needs to be lighter.
Greg Buckley [00:02:37]:
It is intense.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:37]:
People have been saying that about you for a long time. It's not changed.
David Roman [00:02:41]:
Less intense flavor. Yeah, I'm an intense flavor.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:45]:
You're pretty intense. I don't know that flavor has anything.
Greg Buckley [00:02:48]:
To do with it, but that's a fact.
David Roman [00:02:54]:
I don't even know what you're saying. We have a lot of buckleys that hang around us, so we gotta. You do? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:01]:
Really?
David Roman [00:03:01]:
Buckley's? For days. You kidding me? You guys all related?
Greg Buckley [00:03:05]:
Hell. Find. No.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:09]:
Their hair is close to the same color.
David Roman [00:03:12]:
It is. No, he's got more color than. Than Jeff does.
Greg Buckley [00:03:15]:
Oh, don't. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:17]:
Jeff. Jeff.
Greg Buckley [00:03:18]:
JB.
David Roman [00:03:19]:
Yeah.
Greg Buckley [00:03:19]:
Yeah. No. Not related at all.
David Roman [00:03:21]:
No, no. I just assume.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:25]:
Do you know what happens when you.
Greg Buckley [00:03:27]:
I wish you wouldn't.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:29]:
It's okay. Greg Buckley.
Greg Buckley [00:03:32]:
Yes, sir.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:33]:
How you doing?
Greg Buckley [00:03:34]:
Doing fine. Wonderful.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:35]:
You ever been to an event like this where.
Greg Buckley [00:03:36]:
Never. Never.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:37]:
For those who don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you'll put it on there, but we're at ETI tool tech, and this is a very unique event. Very special event, especially for a shop owner. Right?
Greg Buckley [00:03:48]:
Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:49]:
Yeah. What are your thoughts so far?
Greg Buckley [00:03:51]:
Well, first day is pretty great. You know, you get to see people that you normally don't associate with, but, you know, it's more of a. I looked at it like an intelligence conference or something. You know, you're. You have conversation going on. You're getting insight, you're seeing people that you normally don't, and you're bringing your views from an independent side to the tool manufacturers in the OE. So it's a good combination, for sure. It's really neat.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:15]:
I really enjoyed the vice president of GM's cybersecurity division. And the reason I enjoyed that is because a lot of times, intellects have a hard time speaking to a way that's enjoyable. And he was very intelligent. He clearly knew network infrastructure.
David Roman [00:04:34]:
Is that how you explain. I didn't get it. Oh, that guy's just super smart and he can't articulate his ideas for.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:41]:
No, no, no. It's not that.
David Roman [00:04:42]:
Or it's just that you didn't get it.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:44]:
No, it's that some people are super smart. It's like you. It's like. It's hard to listen to it. They're, like, miserable. They're so smart.
David Roman [00:04:52]:
I was like, well, the compliment and an insult at the same time. Congratulations on that.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:00]:
But, you know, for instance, his. I grew up in the IT world, right? In some ways. And I enjoy network. Is that what this is going to be?
Greg Buckley [00:05:11]:
It's our podcast, Tic Tac Tick tock show. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:15]:
But, you know, one of the things that I enjoyed about that was he clearly was able to convey what it was he was talking about, and I really enjoyed seeing what the concept of infrastructure is. And he said, hey, this is not going to be our infrastructure. I'm not saying this is our infrastructure, but him showing the network infrastructure and the fact that we were moving to where there were modules in the doors and modules in the seats and modules everywhere, and he's saying, hey, we're going to make those dumb.
David Roman [00:05:41]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:41]:
And we're going to bring the modules back to a higher level. Now, I thought that was really interesting. Very interesting.
David Roman [00:05:46]:
They're going to attempt. That's probably. He's also said what they have currently right now, he's like, yeah, we're good with it. Yeah, yeah. But it makes what's up?
Greg Buckley [00:05:55]:
It's gonna take time.
David Roman [00:05:56]:
Well, I think somewhere in there, he said that he didn't know. They. They are still fleshing four and five out, so they don't know if they're gonna end up moving. From a logistical standpoint, in the design standpoint, why wouldn't you want a single module and then everything else.
Greg Buckley [00:06:14]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:06:15]:
Is cheaper, dumber? Why wouldn't you do it?
Lucas Underwood [00:06:19]:
It makes a lot of sense. And I think that a lot of the frustrations we've had, and mini is the perfect example of it. That footwell module in the Minis, the battery gets low, you jumpstart the car and you fry this $2,000 module very, very easily.
David Roman [00:06:34]:
Right. BMW has them, too. But, you know, at the same time, you have the issue with the ignition modules on the Fords.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:43]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:06:43]:
Two wire ignition modules. The driver was inside the PCM. The ignition module would cook the driver and the PCM, and you'd have to replace the entire PCM over a bad module.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:53]:
That's a good point.
David Roman [00:06:54]:
Versus Toyota had four wire module or ignition coils. Cause they had the timing component and some of the circuitry in the ignition module, and they were still cheap. Yeah. So I don't know.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:06]:
I can definitely see that part of the discussion beyond a shadow of a doubt. And it's interesting for me from that security standpoint that they talk about, because I think about this from a network standpoint. How do I find a computer on a network? Well, if it's not public. Right. In other words, if the computer is not discoverable on the network, then I have to know its ip address. Okay, well, if you're on a wireless network that's connected to GM, how am I going to know what car I'm looking for to hack? So I've got two options. I'm going to. I'm going to pick up a radio signal close to that car.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:46]:
I mean, you're talking about some pretty advanced technology, and you got to have somebody really smart. You're not going to impact. And their fear is impacting thousands of vehicles. Right? Right. And so you're not going to impact thousands of vehicles like that. You're not going to impact thousands of vehicles by plugging into a vehicle unless a tool company ends up with some type of virus or a bug or malware on the tool that somehow deposits itself on the car.
Greg Buckley [00:08:12]:
Correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:12]:
Right. That, that's unrealistic. So where, where is the threat? Well, that means that the threat's got to be at the mothership, right? The threat's got to come from the mothership. And they say, well, now wait a minute. If somebody put all of these issues or these bugs into a software file and that software file was distributed to all the cars in the network.
Greg Buckley [00:08:31]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:08:32]:
Oh, that's a problem. Right.
David Roman [00:08:34]:
But so the security is on there, and they just have to deal with it at the OE.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:39]:
And at least that's my perspective of it. And then on the, the other side of that is they're saying, well, we have to secure the cars. I don't think that the reason they're securing the cars is because they're worried about that. I think the reason they're securing the cars is because they're really worried about that data. I I was intrigued to hear him say, we're moving away from Carplay and Android Auto, right? Because all the other manufacturers remember Roger last year. He's like, they won't do it. They can't do it because the consumer expects that in the car, they want to interact with the platform that they already have their life built around. And so for GM to say, hey, we're thinking about moving a different direction, that is reaffirming to me what they're interested in is that data from that car.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:28]:
And that's the important piece that they're worried about.
David Roman [00:09:31]:
Don't you think that maybe there's, like some cost associated with licensing the Android Auto junk on their own platform? We don't want to pay anymore. We want to be able to collect some of that back or keep that money into house so we develop something.
Greg Buckley [00:09:51]:
Can't they just charge Google and Apple more to be part of that platform?
Lucas Underwood [00:09:56]:
Well, so here's, here's how I keep.
David Roman [00:09:58]:
No, I think it's the other way. I think for them to put Android auto in their vehicles, they have to pay Google to then be able to. And because the consumer demands it the OE is going to pay Google to have that Android Auto feature on the car. And GM's looking at it going, I don't want to keep paying Google. And I have no control over user experience, too.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:22]:
I would like to know if there's a charge.
Greg Buckley [00:10:25]:
But.
David Roman [00:10:26]:
But I almost guarantee up to this point, my understanding, standpoint, I guarantee you Apple's charging.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:32]:
Well, my. My understanding was the last time that I had a conversation with somebody that would know, they were talking about infotainment on a particular brand. And he said that they did not get charged for putting Android Auto in it or CarPlay in it, but that what, what that meant was, is they were giving access to the primary focus of control of that automobile to somebody else. And so all the data collection, all of that information, they've not had that data before.
David Roman [00:11:02]:
Dude said that they were isolating the infotainment system heavily from the rest of the car. So what's a collecting?
Greg Buckley [00:11:08]:
It can't be collected anything.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:10]:
Right. But that's just. It is collecting. But what, it's collecting data. User data.
Greg Buckley [00:11:15]:
Yeah. It's. I mean, if I look at Apple's infrastructure and being iOS centric myself, you know, know, I'm not wearing it now.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:22]:
But we all knew there was something wrong with you.
Greg Buckley [00:11:25]:
Well, I wanted to be, you know, kind of like out of the loop, you know, my phone, but with the watch. The watch is your health meter.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:33]:
Yeah.
Greg Buckley [00:11:33]:
And Apple's already professed that it's going to be a health organization. That's where your data is going to go. So, you know, I have my workouts, I have this, I have that. I'm now in the car. I drive x amount of miles, and all of these metrics will be brought into your personal health situation.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:49]:
And see that that's what I think that they want.
Greg Buckley [00:11:52]:
That's what they want. I mean, that's.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:53]:
That's the data that the manufacturer's looking for.
Greg Buckley [00:11:56]:
Yeah, but what they do with. What would they do with health?
David Roman [00:11:58]:
Well, I mean, all they can sell you all sorts of. They feed that into big pharma and they go, hey, that's true. He needs a new pill. Who, he doesn't need a new pill.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:07]:
You know, there was, there was discussion just the other day about data that somehow an auto insurance company came up with, and everybody was like, where did they get that and how did they get that? And why are they using it the way they're using it? And it was talking about the speed that people were driving and the way that they were driving, how aggressive they were braking and all of these different aspects, and they started changing people's insurance rates. And so legislators went back and said, now, wait a minute, right, like, you're not supposed to have that data. They have to consent to give you that data. But you're saying that the number of people who consented to give you that data is this. But you have a lot more data than that. Where did that data come from? And the insurance companies say, I don't know.
David Roman [00:12:58]:
At the same time, though, they can extrapolate and go, hey, we have 17 Subaru WRX owners that have consented and they show high rates of speed, this, that, and the other. So you can extrapolate that out and say, if you're between this age and this age, male driving a WRX of this kind, we're going to charge you higher because we've seen the driving habits. You're a higher risk than a Toyota Corolla driver.
Greg Buckley [00:13:30]:
But let's say that. Let's. Okay, so I'm going to go back to the example of health. So again, if I am Apple, and if I am an apple client and I'm wearing the devices necessary to measure my physical health and my heart rate is checked every consistently with the device, and I'm driving 75 miles an hour, or I'm driving 30 miles an hour, or I'm in rush hour speed to heart rate, is there elevation? I can really report my findings and measurements to my doctor, my primary. So again, I go back to where Apple, and I say, apple, and I'm sure Google would do the same thing. I think it's all about driver health is where their angle is. And of course, all the other situations go with it, too. Google and marketing and advertising where you're at.
Greg Buckley [00:14:22]:
I just think that the health is a primary reason for Apple's condition because like I said, they've said that they're going to be more valuable as a health company than they would be anything else. So them getting into the car, it's just another activity that the motorist is doing.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:39]:
And, you know, I think that data runs our world. And I think that what everybody wants is data. And at every corner, we're looking at ways to make marketing more efficient. Now, I was just at a conference a couple days ago. It was Michael Smith from the institute. And what he's talking about is he's talking about the future of the industry and what are the potentials for where the industry's going. And he was saying, we're going to see new technology that's going to make it very, very difficult for a lot of independent shops to service. I'm not going to disagree with that.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:17]:
Is it going to push a lot of shops out? Probably not, but it is going to be difficult to service consumers at a high level. You're going to see consolidation of bigger shops, and the consolidation of those bigger shops is going to make it exceedingly difficult to compete with them because they have million dollar marketing budgets. It's a whole different ballgame to market against somebody like that. And they're looking in metro areas. And then he just goes down the list of the control of the car company. Michael's perspective was this. As he said, you've got Google and Apple, you have the car company, and then you have your ubers and your subscription services. I got in this Jaguar.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:59]:
I was telling David this. I got in this Jaguar. I'm in the airport. The car is like super hot. When I get in it, I start the car and it pops up and it asks me if I want to turn on the AC seats. Like, it's got a dial that you adjust the temperature and the fan and everything else, and it's got a picture of a seat and it says something about seat on the dial. So I pushed it and I turned it to the cold section and it says, would you like to subscribe to cold seats? And I'm like, do what? Right? And like, I've tried to get back to the menu to find it, to show it to him, but like it, you know? And so you have the car company, but you also have Uber and you have corporate entities who are really interested in a subscription model because the modern automotive driver or automobile consumer is not what it was ten years ago, 15 years ago. We've got more kids that are 20 years old than we ever have before who have never even thought about getting their license.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:54]:
That creates a dilemma for the car company, according to what Michael says. He says, so you've got Uber and you've got these B, two C organizations, and they're looking at creating a model where they're the ones buying the cars, not the average consumer. Now, in a, in a rural area like mine, that's not going to happen. It's just not. You don't. Dude, you can't even get an Uber in my hometown. You can sign up, but they won't show up. You can ask them, but, you know.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:20]:
So his point was is, is they are most interested in the data for marketing purposes. Really deep dive marketing. And if you think about the way that apple and Android can market to you and find things about you and touch that perfect spot to make you buy something and then you put that in auto repair. Could you compete with that? Could your marketing be as effective as.
Greg Buckley [00:17:47]:
You know, I tend to think that there are solutions out there that maybe they're not existing yet, but they're probably not far away. With the help of AI or grabbing these metrics say that we have a company that brings all of this information to us so that we really know the client. When they walk in, we profile them. And I'm going way out here, but with everything that we can collect from them, from driving habits, seat position, mirror position, all of those things. So when they walk in, well, you know, misses Smith, we can tell that you're not positioned right. Let's help you out here. By the way, you do have a little bit of anxiety driving in this route. We're different than what we are today, right.
Greg Buckley [00:18:32]:
So let's take that in consideration here. And we become more of a consulting type situation for the motorist, more of an advocate, right. And so we see that we know their habits, we know more about them than they would, than we would ever know before. And so is that the data that we should be concerned with as well, that we have access to that as well, that's a profile and that consumer should have their rights. I mean we should be, if they're giving it to somebody or allowing it to be taken from them or whatever the case might be, should we have access to that as well?
Lucas Underwood [00:19:08]:
So my car, my data, right, the.
Greg Buckley [00:19:13]:
Campaign, but it's your personal data, it's your habits, it's your, my question is.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:22]:
Does anybody know what the data is? Right? Because when, when that was, when that lobbying was happening and they were hoping to pass a bill about my car, my data, it was completely outside of our two r. What were they talking about? They're saying, oh, they're going to give all your data. They're going to give all your data. They're going to give all your data. What's the data? Yeah, what information are they giving? And is it the car company collecting it? Is it the cell phone company?
Greg Buckley [00:19:48]:
It's probably a share of everybody. I mean you're using everybody's platform to get a message or a result captured.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:00]:
So Michael Smith, and like I said, he's with institute, right in this class. What he paints this picture of, as he paints this picture that over the next 15 years, the Ubers of the world want General Motors to be a b, two b. They want to be the ones buying the cars from General Motors. Hey, we'll do ride sharing. We'll sell cars. And, you know, Uber's doing this thing where they finance the cars for the drivers, and so we'll sell the cars. You don't worry about that. We'll handle the service.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:30]:
We'll do all of this. You just sell us the cars. General Motors and all the car companies, they don't like that because there's projections of profit. They've released this in research. Those projections don't look so high. On the flip side, you've got Apple and Android are the two primary ones that have that data access to the car. And Michael points this. This out that, hey, if they have this data, and they are the central positioning of the maps of, um, even h vac in the car, all of these different concepts of how we utilize our car and.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:08]:
And potentially even run subscription services. Like, if I get a subscription, right, I download an app or I need to pay for extra space in a drive or whatever it is, I'm doing that with my Google wallet.
David Roman [00:21:19]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:19]:
I'm just sure. And so all of a sudden, they have a position where they could come in and take over more control over the automobile. Therefore, in his opinion, and from data that he's collected, would also further reduce the profits of the car company. Or the car company could build their own infrastructure, their own infotainment system that ran through them. It was all their data. It was all their information. They weren't sharing it. They weren't giving it away.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:49]:
It was. It was them trying to build the same thing as a Android auto.
Greg Buckley [00:21:55]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:56]:
I think that's unreasonable.
Greg Buckley [00:21:57]:
Did Facebook try this? They tried to build their own phones, and they tried to capture all that and build a walled garden and all that. I think Ford's come out and said that, look, that ship's passed.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:05]:
I agree.
Greg Buckley [00:22:06]:
And, you know, it doesn't make sense for us to go back and try to rebuild a complete lifestyle change for people.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:12]:
They don't have the money to do it.
Greg Buckley [00:22:13]:
No. And they wouldn't have the cachet in the marketplace. You have Apple, you have Google, and who's the chinese one? Highway high. Yay. Or something like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:23]:
How smart do you have to be to foresee that coming with those phones, right? And that platform. Somebody had some serious forethought to build these two platforms like this. I mean, those two platforms basically control our world today.
David Roman [00:22:42]:
Android is open source.
Greg Buckley [00:22:43]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:22:44]:
So anybody can make an Android.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:45]:
I understand. I'm saying the Apple model of this Apple infrastructure that everybody uses.
Greg Buckley [00:22:52]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:53]:
Samsung tried to do it. Samsung did not pull it off.
David Roman [00:22:57]:
But I'm saying the Apple apps and all that, the problem was that they were running a skin of Android. And so you just went back to Android, like, you just want the Android stuff. You don't want to have the Samsung version, because most of the time it didn't work that well and stuff like that. I don't know.
Greg Buckley [00:23:15]:
There was no Kia that tried. I mean, it just didn't. It's an evolution. And I think once these platforms were started, they started seeing momentum in different directions.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:26]:
They just followed analytics.
Greg Buckley [00:23:28]:
Yeah, they got information. Hey, what do we do with this? It was all about collecting information. I still say that Google is your biggest partner when it comes to content. Putting content in it rewards you. The more you put in, the better off you can be with Apple. And with all those, well, you go back to domain two. It still is about collecting data, getting information. So if someone needs to reference something, hey, it's there.
Greg Buckley [00:23:55]:
Give me a spec on how many people drive their cars with Carplay, and you can probably pull it up somewhere. Or Android. In fact, I know you can. Edison research you guys, right? They'll tell you how many people listen for on Android or Apple in their car for how long, and it might be a small sample, but it's still relevant. It's still there. So when it comes down to car companies, you're right. I think that they do want the data, but what type? Where should they focus at? I do believe the GM is probably making a mistake, because I have a 22 Buick enclave, and the. The entertainment and the interface sucks.
Greg Buckley [00:24:34]:
I mean, it really does. It lags. It's not accurate. And I trade on a 22. On a 22. Yeah, it's not good. I mean, it's supposed to have.
David Roman [00:24:45]:
It doesn't have Carplay.
Greg Buckley [00:24:46]:
It does have Carplay. Yeah, it's got. But it lags. You can't for some reason, like, I got an f 150, 2017 f 150. I plug it in. Boom. Pops right up. No problem with the Buick.
Greg Buckley [00:24:59]:
I gotta wait. It's gotta find it. And sometimes it doesn't find it. Sometimes it skits out. And, you know, I'm going, like, okay, it's pretty crazy. The Honda I had traded the. I traded a 2020 pilot in for this enclave. And the Honda was, like, wonderful.
Greg Buckley [00:25:16]:
I mean, it just was all over this type of platform. And I enjoy having those options available to me. So I can see where GM just lags. I really believe that. Chrysler, I'm running this compass right now. And it's okay. It's not too bad. So I get the.
David Roman [00:25:34]:
No. FCA is the biggest pile of crap.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:39]:
Did you not hear what they said? We shouldn't speak poorly about the main church.
David Roman [00:25:42]:
They weren't there. Salantis wasn't there. Yeah, screw Salantis. Uconnect is the.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:48]:
We've got some listeners that are fairly notable within that organization.
Greg Buckley [00:25:55]:
It still works, but it's just. It's a matter of how quickly it sets itself up.
David Roman [00:26:01]:
I gotta give it to Ford. I've rented enough Fords that the Android auto connection is instant.
Greg Buckley [00:26:07]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:26:08]:
You jump in the car and it's perfect.
Greg Buckley [00:26:10]:
It's right there.
David Roman [00:26:11]:
The Mazda I'm driving. I gotta hit a couple buttons. I don't want to hit a flipping button.
Greg Buckley [00:26:15]:
Right?
David Roman [00:26:16]:
I told my daughter I'm gonna get a new. Cause I have a Dodge minivan. I'm gonna get a new aftermarket doodad.
Greg Buckley [00:26:23]:
Right.
David Roman [00:26:23]:
Cause I just wanna get in the car. She's like, well, how long does it take to connect? I'm like, I don't know. 30 seconds? She's like, how much are you gonna spend on this for 30 seconds? I'm like, it's 30 seconds. Every single. I gotta justify this to my daughter. Yeah, it's 30 seconds. Every time I get in the car, I'm listening to something, and then it cuts off and I gotta drive for 30 to 45 seconds with my own thoughts. That's not gonna work good.
Greg Buckley [00:26:48]:
I could be a dangerous man. Seconds.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:51]:
Hey, dude, I'm telling you. What. Like, if you've ever seen this dude ever try to use YouTube connect in his car, it's gonna be what kills him. I mean, he's gonna have a stroke.
Greg Buckley [00:26:59]:
I can believe it.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:59]:
You know, he's just gonna.
David Roman [00:27:00]:
It doesn't connect. It takes. It takes a second or two, and then it. It says connection. Oh, look, I'm connected. Go. Not connect.
Greg Buckley [00:27:08]:
Right, right.
David Roman [00:27:09]:
Every time. So you gotta wait. You gotta drive 30 to 45 seconds and wait and then connect, and it's fine.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:17]:
Yeah, that. That technology.
David Roman [00:27:19]:
But then the video lags to the audio, so I can't watch while I'm driving. That's a problem.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:28]:
I wish I knew you were.
David Roman [00:27:34]:
Waiting for the completely autonomous driving thing.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:37]:
No, you're not waiting.
David Roman [00:27:38]:
You're already doing it. Well, it's not autonomous. I was driving a Honda Civic, and it had steering thing. The adaptive cruise control thing is fantastic. Yeah, because I don't have to pay attention to the car in front of me. The car will just stop playing the Honda yes, absolutely.
Greg Buckley [00:27:56]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:27:57]:
And then Ford has lane keep, right, which is. Or lane departure warning. So if you aren't paying attention and the roads turning and I'm watching my video, so I don't have to worry about the car in front of me because the car will stop, but then, like, I'm drifting, the car goes and I'll start to pull you back in the lane. I like that the Honda didn't have that. The Honda head. Turn it on and it will drive.
Greg Buckley [00:28:22]:
Forward, it'll steer you.
David Roman [00:28:23]:
That's freaky for 30 seconds because you're like, well, you have to have your hand on the steering wheel or it'll start to freak out.
Greg Buckley [00:28:29]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:28:29]:
Cause if you took your hand off the steering wheel, it doesn't feel that. That pressure, it starts going. I know. And so I don't like where it's taking me. Cause it's like it's not really staying in the middle. It's hugging the left hand lane. I don't know that there's an adjustment. I don't like that.
David Roman [00:28:48]:
I want to be told if I'm staying, I'm coming out of the lane and I want it to stop if the person in front of me is stopped. And that's it.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:57]:
You know that I'm a fairly aggressive driver and I do not like the fact that if I'm like, nudging lanes and I'm like, bumping and grinding with other people, that it's trying to move me. Yeah, right. I don't like that. I like, I'm very much like Dutch when it comes to that and his airbuses, right. I don't want any fly by wire. Give me wires to the back of the plane. I don't care. You know, and these new cars, man, I don't like the way they feel when they start pushing me like that.
Greg Buckley [00:29:23]:
I hit your turn signal. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:25]:
Well, look at this. No, I'm not. No, use those either. I'm busy paying attention to. If I have enough millimeters between me and the car to go through that.
Greg Buckley [00:29:38]:
Touch, tap it up a little bit. That's all you got to do, you know?
Lucas Underwood [00:29:41]:
Is that true, David? Just give it a little touch.
David Roman [00:29:45]:
I use my turn signal sometimes, you guys. I'm not paying attention to the road, so it doesn't matter. I don't even know what's going on. If I'm turning lanes, it's because I missed a turn. The roads turning, and I missed it entirely. I'm like, oh, I'm in this lane now. I don't know how many times I've looked up and gone, how far did I just go? I'm not kidding.
Greg Buckley [00:30:10]:
Before you. Before you realize you missed a turn?
David Roman [00:30:12]:
No, no. Before I realized that I have not been paying attention to the road at all. I will look up and I'll go, I think it's been a mile or two. I get a little freaked out because then I'm like, I should pay attention to the road. I'll be in traffic. I'll be in traffic. It's so mindless, the drive from my kids school to the shop. I've done it so many times, I'm not even thinking.
David Roman [00:30:36]:
I'm just like. I'm looking down and I'm like.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:40]:
You.
Greg Buckley [00:30:40]:
Look, man, on your phone.
David Roman [00:30:41]:
How the hell did I. Yeah. I'm looking at my phone and I'm flipping through the phone and I looked, how did I get to the shop?
Lucas Underwood [00:30:48]:
This is gonna be a worse crash than the. Than the patriots losing and you slam it in.
David Roman [00:30:56]:
I have hit cars.
Greg Buckley [00:30:57]:
Now all we gotta hear is you are the defensive driver trainer, right in your area.
David Roman [00:31:02]:
No, no, they don't want me to do that. That'd be a terrible idea.
Greg Buckley [00:31:07]:
Now, I get the same feeling you do when I drive from shop to shop. Yeah. You know, I don't know, it's. I'm blind. Like, just going off.
David Roman [00:31:16]:
How often are you going from one shop to the other?
Greg Buckley [00:31:19]:
Twice a week. I mean, I go down on a Monday or Tuesday morning and I'll come back on a Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.
David Roman [00:31:28]:
You're there for three days?
Greg Buckley [00:31:29]:
Yeah. Yeah.
David Roman [00:31:31]:
Not at your house?
Greg Buckley [00:31:32]:
No, not my house.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:33]:
Do you stay in a hotel or you.
David Roman [00:31:36]:
No.
Greg Buckley [00:31:36]:
The shop came with a 2000 square foot, fully furnished apartment above the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:41]:
So you just stay in the apartment?
Greg Buckley [00:31:42]:
Yeah. It's three bedrooms, full kitchen, two lofts, ac.
David Roman [00:31:47]:
I don't think that would work.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:49]:
Yeah. What? Trust me. Moving into your shop.
Greg Buckley [00:31:51]:
My wife loves it. She sits her brain.
David Roman [00:31:55]:
Everybody jokes like that. But I don't think that's true. Like.
Greg Buckley [00:31:57]:
No, no, no, it's true. Yeah, it's true.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:01]:
Yeah. I'm in that boat too, Greg. I'm in that boat.
David Roman [00:32:03]:
What's that?
Lucas Underwood [00:32:04]:
I'm in that boat.
David Roman [00:32:05]:
No, no. I think your wife would prefer that you be home.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:09]:
No, no. You don't know her well enough. Yeah, she would. She would much rather I could bring.
Greg Buckley [00:32:15]:
Her down here right now and she would tell you exactly what I just said. And it's not out of hate. It's just that you probably.
David Roman [00:32:25]:
I can understand him. I don't know you well enough. But him, he's obnoxious, so you can only get him in spurts. And then you're like, too much.
Greg Buckley [00:32:33]:
I gotta go.
David Roman [00:32:35]:
Yeah.
Greg Buckley [00:32:36]:
Last night at the reception, my wife and we made friends with Karen Kane from shop owners magazine. Capcox. Right. We're talking, and all of a sudden it goes into. Well, yeah, my husband goes on these. On these trips, and I can't. I love it when he goes away. And of course, my wife starts chiming in.
Greg Buckley [00:32:53]:
Oh, my gosh. I tell him all the time, don't worry. I'll be okay. You go and do what? Your thing? And it goes. It's a woman thing. They just want to be by themselves. And I'm like, okay, all right. Well, so do guys, but, you know, different reasons.
Greg Buckley [00:33:04]:
But, no, it's. It's really.
David Roman [00:33:06]:
I leave my wife alone. She leaves me alone. Like, I mean, we hang out, but.
Greg Buckley [00:33:11]:
Like, look, I. I enjoy coming back home on a Friday, having my bourbon and some pizza and relaxing and all that. And then during the week, I'm down there and get busy and get things done. And for me, it's a different. I mean, it's a different lifestyle than up Wilmington.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:28]:
What does the typical day for a Buckley look like in the shop, we're.
David Roman [00:33:33]:
Assuming all the Buckleys are the same, by the way, Jeff Buckley. Greg Buckley. What are you saying?
Lucas Underwood [00:33:41]:
You mean the Buckley?
David Roman [00:33:42]:
What we're trying to get to is that you probably don't need to go at all, ever.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:48]:
No, I mean, I'm just asking, like, what. You know, what days like. Yeah, that's kind of what I was.
David Roman [00:33:53]:
Okay, because you're not working on cars.
Greg Buckley [00:33:55]:
No.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:56]:
When I.
David Roman [00:33:56]:
You're not selling work.
Greg Buckley [00:33:58]:
I know. I'm managing now. I mean, it's just where the evolution has taken me, so, you know.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:03]:
Hey, do you see this button right here?
David Roman [00:34:05]:
What does entail?
Lucas Underwood [00:34:07]:
Hey, what's very important. I need to ask you this. You see this?
David Roman [00:34:10]:
Is that the music?
Lucas Underwood [00:34:11]:
Well, it is right now, but what I was.
David Roman [00:34:14]:
The music? The music is.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:15]:
No, what I was going to do is I was going to put the interrupting cow on this one. So every time you interrupt, I'm gonna do the interrupt you. Well, I know. Yeah.
David Roman [00:34:25]:
Cause I know the. The path you're going down, and it's gonna be boring. So we don't want to go down that path.
Greg Buckley [00:34:31]:
That's a trident.
David Roman [00:34:32]:
You know what?
Lucas Underwood [00:34:32]:
That is a pretty. That's a pretty.
Greg Buckley [00:34:35]:
I don't want to be boring. You know.
David Roman [00:34:37]:
What's that?
Greg Buckley [00:34:37]:
I didn't want it to be boring.
David Roman [00:34:39]:
I know, but you see, you haven't had enough of these conversations. I know.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:43]:
I'm genuinely curious because, like, when I go to work, right, like, I show up at the shop and I just show up and I start. It might be that I need to make an estimate or I need to do something, and then the next thing I know, the day's over.
David Roman [00:34:55]:
Yeah, man.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:55]:
And I don't remember doing anything.
Greg Buckley [00:34:57]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Kind of like you're driving.
David Roman [00:35:01]:
What in the hell are you saying? Are you that useless that you get a little cup? Why are you even going then?
Lucas Underwood [00:35:08]:
I don't know. That's why they're so successful without me there.
Greg Buckley [00:35:11]:
That's the, that's the key.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:13]:
I think everybody, yeah, I think everybody in my life is, like, just trying to pump me down the road.
David Roman [00:35:18]:
Like you're. I think you're anxious about not being there or you feel bad. That's really the only reason why I show up, is because I feel bad. I feel like, bro, I know your staff. Probably show up.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:30]:
Honey, I know your staff. I can promise you one thing. It's not that you need to feel bad about not being there. It's probably you need to feel bad about being there.
David Roman [00:35:39]:
No, no. If I. If I show up, they're like, yay, David's here. We get to goof off. And then it's just a cluster for the rest of the day where if I'm not there, it's like, oh, we're gonna work.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:50]:
I've fielded probably 500 questions about this, and since we're talking about it, maybe we just need to answer this once and for all. That rant that got posted with you and the beanie, what was that rant about? Nobody could hear what you said. What was the rant about?
David Roman [00:36:03]:
What's that?
Lucas Underwood [00:36:04]:
The rant with the beanie where you're screaming at the other side of the shop?
David Roman [00:36:07]:
What?
Lucas Underwood [00:36:07]:
A lot of people want to know what it was that you were screaming about.
David Roman [00:36:11]:
There was a lady who brought me a Nissan Altima, and she declined the air filter because she thought my air filter price was too high. Now we were like 50, I don't know, $54 and change for r and r. Now r and r, the air filter plus the air filter, she thought it was too high. That's what she told me, and that's what I freaked out about. I was middle. I was, like, describing they had to make the plastic. They had to pull the oil out of the ground to make the plastic. They had to cut down trees to make the pleats, to then use it all together.
David Roman [00:36:51]:
Some six year old in China put this together, then shipped it across the flipping ocean. He got me riled up. See, you got me all upset again. They had to ship this thing across the ocean to then put it in a box which also had to be manufactured, then put it on a shelf and somebody delivered it to me. And then I imposed paying a technician tens of thousands of dollars a year to tens of thousands. We don't get hundreds. Tens. I said tens.
Greg Buckley [00:37:17]:
Tens times, yes.
David Roman [00:37:19]:
I don't get a six figure garbage around Kansas City. You get out of here with that stuff anyway to then install it, and all I'm charging is dollar 55. But she thought that was too much. Get out of here. And then I started kicking, screaming. How much do you think it should be? It should be a million dollars. That's absurd. Are you going to be able to make the plastic and the pleats and all that? No.
David Roman [00:37:44]:
Do you know what the hell you're doing? Are you going to be able to even take the old one out? No. You don't know what you're doing. Tell me my price is too high. I hate that I did. I don't know why people are asking. I did a similar rant about the.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:58]:
Oh, nobody can hear what you were saying.
David Roman [00:38:00]:
I know, but Clint White was like, I hate when people say, oh, see how it seems like it's too much? Based on what? What the hell do you know? You don't exactly. I do this all dirt long, telling me it's like you're walking up to the Michelin star chef.
Greg Buckley [00:38:22]:
Oh, yeah.
David Roman [00:38:22]:
And just has the. The temperature of the steak down to, like, perfection. And they know that that little push right there, that's medium rare. And they're like, that's not medium rare. I think that's a little medium. It's a little medium well or it's a little undercooked. I would lose my mind. I would.
David Roman [00:38:41]:
Absolutely. I'm sorry. Did you cook 18,000 steaks today? No. For a year? For 20 years. Have you done that? No. You're going to tell me what temperature is what? Take that steak and slob them across the face. Just.
Greg Buckley [00:38:55]:
And then they'll ask for ketchup.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:58]:
No, dude, if that happens, I'm gonna. We're gonna have problems. We're gonna have problems.
David Roman [00:39:05]:
Who can ketchup? That's a joke, Christian, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:39:08]:
Hey.
David Roman [00:39:09]:
No, he doesn't.
Greg Buckley [00:39:10]:
I admit. I'll do it on a cold steak. Absolutely cold. Cold.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:14]:
I can see that. I can see that.
Greg Buckley [00:39:16]:
I'll tell you. I had Covid, right. And one of the things that I've not recovered from is actually steak.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:24]:
Really?
Greg Buckley [00:39:25]:
Steak and onions and the smell. Everything else is recovered except for those two things. And I smell more of the cooking fat and the oil than I do taste the meat when it's hot. It's got to be the right cut for me to actually taste it. When it's cold, I can taste it better because I don't taste the oils. But with onions or if it's cooked.
David Roman [00:39:46]:
In the tallow in the beef fat.
Greg Buckley [00:39:49]:
I'll still smell the burning fat, I'll smell the oils of the meats, of the fats, whatever. And that's one thing that has been a result of COVID And the same with onions. Like when. When I really had it going through it, I would walk up was one time I had my granddaughter out. We were taken to the zoo, we went for hamburgers, and the hamburgers joint was cooking onions and it was coming up through the, you know, through the offing in the air. I got caramels puked because the smell of the onions and the steak would do the same thing. I mean, any kind of cooked meat.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:24]:
That's crazy.
Greg Buckley [00:40:25]:
It was, it really was. And the funny thing was, you know, I go for a walk.
David Roman [00:40:29]:
What variant did you get?
Greg Buckley [00:40:31]:
D, the first one.
David Roman [00:40:32]:
The, like, Og.
Greg Buckley [00:40:33]:
Yeah, the Og.
David Roman [00:40:34]:
Really?
Greg Buckley [00:40:35]:
Yeah. And, and I would go for a walk when I go for a walk during that time and even a little bit today, if, if that tailpipe is putting out oil, I don't care if you can see white smoke or not. I'm smelling it.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:48]:
Really.
Greg Buckley [00:40:48]:
I could go by and I go, that cars burning oil, it's just the oils. It's weird.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:52]:
It's nuts.
David Roman [00:40:52]:
It really is nuts.
Greg Buckley [00:40:54]:
So, but, so you wonder about my typical day.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:57]:
Yeah.
Greg Buckley [00:40:57]:
Okay, I'm up at 430, right? I grab my laptop, I review the, I review the numbers, review the business, look to see what everything's going on, mess around with some messaging and some marketing ideas. If I. If I got something going on. And then while I'm down in Millsboro, I usually hit a Y class or go walking on the beach, come back, get a little exercise in, come back, monitor the day, sit down in the bay and, you know, work with the guys. And by three, four.
David Roman [00:41:29]:
Hold on, hold on. Back up. What does the work with the guys mean?
Greg Buckley [00:41:33]:
Just actually just being the shop and managing what goes on, making sure things are good, that kind of thing. I'm not hands on but being a presence in the, in the workflow, I could see that, you know, I want to make sure that the jobs went out right. And I'm, and now remember, I've clearly said that my Millsborough shop is like a farm team, so they need a little handholding. And I'm grooming all these people in here. And so I got to be a president at some point. So during those three days, I sit, talk, go over things and work with the manager and work with the other service advisor and the technicians, and because they're all learning. And so I want that to be right.
David Roman [00:42:19]:
Do you have a manager there, though?
Greg Buckley [00:42:20]:
I just hired, yeah, I just took on a gentleman from, he's a 20 year vet, moved out, moved up from autonation. He was with that organization for a while and he moved up from Florida and he came in and he did not want to work for the dealer. So I interviewed him. I brought him up to Wilmington to interview. He was more than happy. So my son, son in law myself, we interviewed him for like a couple hours. There's a rock star, loves the 61, is not looking for. He goes, I got about five or six years.
Greg Buckley [00:42:50]:
And I go, great, let's see what we can do. So he comes in completely, really, really brings up the shop level workflow, management style, all that. And this is something that I don't have experience. I've never worked for a dealership, so I don't have that high volume type mentality. Now that we see, now that I see what he's doing and how he's processing, he's a machine, and now the guys are gravitating toward his style. And I'm saying that, all right, how can we adapt this company wide? And this is what's going on. So, yeah, he's definitely the manager.
David Roman [00:43:30]:
So you're not going down there anymore?
Greg Buckley [00:43:32]:
No, no, no. I enjoy going down. I mean, I got a really great apartment and I love it.
David Roman [00:43:39]:
But you can't be in the shop, though.
Greg Buckley [00:43:41]:
I can be above the shop, just doing my stuff, just hanging out or being down on the beach or.
David Roman [00:43:47]:
Yeah, I mean, going down there to hang out. But like, if you have a manager in place, that crew is either that manager's crew. Yeah, or they're your crew.
Greg Buckley [00:43:58]:
That's true.
David Roman [00:43:59]:
And you'll walk in there and they're like, oh, Greg's here, and they'll come.
Greg Buckley [00:44:03]:
To you with, you know what? It does happen. It's only, again, because they're new, they're trying to get everything together. And I've let that happen, and I've given a lot of autonomy, but they know that if I'm there, I'm not there to interfere.
David Roman [00:44:19]:
The reason why I'm saying that, though, if you have, like, a technician has a question, that question should not be directed to you at all. You have a manager in place.
Greg Buckley [00:44:25]:
That's correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:26]:
Yep.
David Roman [00:44:27]:
So you're like, yeah.
Greg Buckley [00:44:28]:
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's what I do.
David Roman [00:44:30]:
Yeah.
Greg Buckley [00:44:30]:
I've just now started to be able to let that go and let him handle those duties. I tell my service advisors, you're not technicians. Let the technicians figure out what's going on with the car. You are there to present the situation to the client. Those kind of little things, just little things. And I remember I have 56 years of being involved, so a lot of these things I have to get rid of myself personally. A lot of bad, they're not bad habits, they're just older habits. And I'm figuring out how to relinquish my presence.
Greg Buckley [00:45:04]:
But in terms of liking to be there, I love being down there, you know, and why wouldn't I be? I got a beach. I got, you know, a community full of older retirees, in a sense, you know, I mean, I'm 64. They're the same. There's a lot of good community, active adults down there. Each community has a great volunteer system. I've gotten involved with a couple of organizations that we built playgrounds for kids. I support a music and arts program down there. So it's just cool stuff.
David Roman [00:45:42]:
All that sounds great. The only thing I would challenge you, I'm speaking from a manager standpoint that if the owner's walking in for three days, that I've got the owner looking over my shoulder, I'm going to have a hard time buying in, taking ownership of the place. Does that make sense?
Lucas Underwood [00:46:01]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:46:02]:
Because I've got somebody looking over my shoulder, and I don't mind sitting down and justifying my actions as long as you allow me the autonomy to make the decision and do the direction that I'm going to go. And go, hey, just, you hired me to do a job. Trust me to go in that direction. But the minute, and I'm just. I was manager for a long time. If my boss would walk in, it was my crew. Cause they were like, oh, your boss is here. It'd be annoying to them because they just, they want to come to me and they want to report, and that's it.
David Roman [00:46:37]:
There isn't an additional layer there, but you coming in and you didn't replace the entire crew or let that manager come in and replace the entire crew? Would you let him do that? If he's like, hey, I gotta clean up.
Greg Buckley [00:46:50]:
Yeah, he's grow. He's growing to that. He's been with me for a month now.
David Roman [00:46:54]:
Okay, okay.
Greg Buckley [00:46:54]:
The other two, I had brought in one guy. My one tech was originally with me. So, yes, I'm in a position where I have to, like I said, remove myself, and I do. And plus, I keep. I keep up on the communications between him and I so that they do have autonomy. They have. They have everything available to them, and I don't interfere. In fact, to be honest with you, we just had an exchange.
Greg Buckley [00:47:23]:
Oh. I think it was either right when we got here on Saturday or something. I don't know. Something was a little off at the shop. And like I said, I love tech metric, but I hate tech metric, because I could see everything all the time if I want to. That's like having those tic tacs here and you can't stop eating them. You know what I mean? It's one of the things, so.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:43]:
But, you know, I do need to point out that shopware is much better. I hear you.
Greg Buckley [00:47:47]:
I know that. Sorry about that.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:49]:
You know, shopware is a much better platform, for sure. I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
David Roman [00:47:54]:
I think the. The difficulty. I don't know that I'll ever have that. That difficulty. I can understand your names on the building. You want to keep involved, because if you're like, well, if I stop going down to that shop, you can go to the apartment, but, like, I'm not gonna go into the shop. You've now separated yourself out, and you might be going, well, what am I gonna do all day? Like, I don't know what I'm gonna do all day. Well, like, this one.
David Roman [00:48:22]:
This one's like, I don't know what I would do all day.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:25]:
Here's. Here's my problem, is I think that, that doing what he's talking about is keeping me from being able to develop a manager within the shop. And so when. When I go into the shop, right? Like, what I do is I had always had morning meetings, and we moved into the big shop. Planning the morning takes so much more time than it used to take that I either would have to stay late and plan it the night before, or I'd have to come in 04:00 in the morning and plan the day, get everything set up the way that I used to. That's how much time it would take compared to, like, how? Because I was. We had a very thorough morning meeting, and everything was laid out. We talked about what we're gonna do, the plan all the way through.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:06]:
And so throughout the day, what I do is I'll jump in and make an estimate. I'll handle whatever it is in bookkeeping that I'm behind on or need to get, you know, categorized, whatever it is, and then I'll pay the taxes or do this bill or do that. And, like, all these tiny little menial tasks add up to where, at the end of the day, I'm like, what the hell did I do all day? And so then fires pop up, and so the times that I should be letting them put the fires out, I'm jumping in and saying, okay, just do this. Okay, just do that. And the role that I conventionally took in the shop was that of an expediter, right. And it was that a tech would begin to lag or would get stuck, and I'd be like, nope, move on. Nope, move on. Nope, move on.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:52]:
Something goes wrong, something comes in, something changes. Great, here, do this. Here, do that. Here, do this. I'm paying attention to the workflow, and that was always my thing. And so what I've done is, because that's always been my thing. When I leave, I feel very nervous because I catch things, and it's like, oops, we forgot this car. Oops, this didn't get on the schedule.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:14]:
And one thing I say to the tags, because, like, one of my text is the lead dispatcher, and. And I'm like, here's the problem, is that you're not the person answering to that client if this goes wrong.
Greg Buckley [00:50:25]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:26]:
And the service advisor is the one who has to answer to that. But they're overworked already. They've got too much going on, and so she can't lead the shop, and she can't do that. But if you become super uber focused on everything else, and you're not the one who pays the consequence for that client not getting taken care of. Right, right. Well, Lucas was always the person who dealt with all that, and so when I leave, those things tend to happen more. I trust them. They do a great job.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:54]:
They don't need me there. They've performed way better without me there here lately. Right. There's zero doubt about that 100%. But I know that that is keeping me from developing the manager I need, and it's going to lead to me having to hire a manager from outside, because it's stopping me from developing a manager from inside.
Greg Buckley [00:51:14]:
That's the route that I was. I wasn't, you know, I think I was forced to really come to terms with that, that I was going to have to find somebody outside. And especially I was lucky enough to grab somebody who had more experience, worked in a totally different environment, but yet I liked what they had to bring to the table. And I said, I really have to have that. And the interview was so quick, I mean, 2 hours, but so in depth. And we really got to know one another. When he came on, that was another door open for me to leave because I knew what this guy's skill set and he's proving himself right now. And with number one, my son and son in law gave me the opportunity because they would come to, dad, leave, just go.
Greg Buckley [00:52:02]:
And I had to say, okay, you're right. I need to back off. And it's for the betterment of myself and to do other things. Because if I can't leave, then there's no way that we can expand the business. Either expand the opportunities for the business or expand opportunities for myself or whatever personal habits or whatever I want to do. You know, I'm kind of locked in. So I think it gets to the point where your age comes into play and you say, okay, I'm good here, I'm good there, and why am I stopping? What is stopping me? And then you got to address it.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:42]:
And then I'm so jelly of Mike Allen's position. Yeah, because Mike's just like, hire him, pay him, whatever. Well, yeah, like, just throw them in. Let's see. And, you know, hiring this, like, super elite staff. Now, I have a super elite staff, there is no doubt about it. But I've not found that manager position and like, to hire somebody that is the type of elite manager that Mike hires is a lot of money. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:08]:
And, you know, he's built some infrastructure around it because he's got multiple shops, so he has that residual income and it's enough that it oversees that. And, you know, my wife and I have had some hard conversations about, do we want to look at multiple shops? And is that in our cards? And she really is opposed to that. But in the same respect, I see that that might be the only opportunity I have. Because the thing about the ten bays is, right, when it performs well, it performs well, but if it slows down, I don't have any diversification of income, and so it still has to pay the bills. And so I either have to save up a bunch of money in the good months when it's doing really well and start trying to build up a cash cow that I can support it in the bad months or I have to diversify our income and determine where additional income is going to come from. And if I go and pay a manager $250,000 a year, who the hell.
David Roman [00:54:02]:
Is paying a manager $250,000 a year? There's Mike Allen's paying a manager $250,000.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:09]:
A year looking for a job.
David Roman [00:54:10]:
Is he running a $3 million store? No, he doesn't have a one location doing 3 million.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:19]:
No, he's doing pretty well, though.
David Roman [00:54:20]:
Yeah, that's not $250,000 though.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:24]:
He's right.
David Roman [00:54:24]:
The.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:24]:
This manager handles multiple stores.
David Roman [00:54:26]:
Yeah, well, that's different. That's different.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:30]:
I'm just saying, you still. His position.
David Roman [00:54:33]:
This still doesn't make any sense, though, cuz what he. You need to have a manager in a store, okay? That one manager needs to have a crew, okay? That's one person. Now, if you want to add another layer of redundancy on there, because I don't really want to meddle, fine. But then that, that one, that extra layer needs to manage. Then three to five managers. You're not going to do it with two. You're going to have one manager, one store manager on two stores with two different crews. That's madness.
David Roman [00:55:07]:
You're going to have an ineffectual manager out.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:09]:
But I think he figured that out, and I think he changed his configuration.
David Roman [00:55:15]:
Okay, well, then I'm not paying a guy $250,000 unless they're running five stores for me.
Greg Buckley [00:55:19]:
Well, if you're running $250, 25 a.
David Roman [00:55:22]:
Store for being like he just said, you're not. You cannot be effective running two stores as the stole man store, the sole manager of each individual store. You have to have somebody working underneath you to run that one store.
Greg Buckley [00:55:39]:
You pick a senior advisor or create one, or create somebody that you trust as the advisor. You might spiff them a little bit more. I mean, Mike's theory is, and I kind of agree with it because I kind of do the same thing, is he buys his freedom. And there's nothing wrong with that.
David Roman [00:55:55]:
You're not choosing freedom, though. You are not choosing freedom. You're choosing to be in it in the muck.
Greg Buckley [00:56:01]:
Oh, no, I'm not. No, let me understand. I'm not in the muck. I'm there as someone, as a body. And yeah, I'm overseeing, but I'm not getting my hands dirty, and I'm not.
David Roman [00:56:11]:
No, no, you're meddling. You're the same thing. As this one right here.
Greg Buckley [00:56:16]:
There's meddling.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:17]:
We're seagulls.
Greg Buckley [00:56:18]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:19]:
We're coming in. We're eating people's lunches, shitting all over the place.
David Roman [00:56:23]:
No, no, no. If you. If what you bring to the table is not increase in productivity, you don't need to be there.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:30]:
Correct.
Greg Buckley [00:56:32]:
So.
David Roman [00:56:32]:
So don't be there.
Greg Buckley [00:56:33]:
I'm trying. Well, it's. It's pretty damn hard after all this time of being there. Right.
David Roman [00:56:39]:
I understand. I understand the position that you're in, but my point. Point is this one over here does not increase productivity. He doesn't. He thinks he does.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:48]:
No, I don't.
David Roman [00:56:49]:
If he doesn't, there's no reason to have you. You have no position in the company. You have to have an established position. These are my responsibilities. For example, I pay the bills.
Greg Buckley [00:57:00]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:57:01]:
That's what my role is sometimes. That's. I at my own pace.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:08]:
I get. I'm gonna use that.
Greg Buckley [00:57:11]:
My own page.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:11]:
I get telephone. You don't know how bad it is, is everybody knows we're friends, right? So auto shop follow up and shop marketing pros, they call me and they're like, hey, could you reach out to David and ask him to pay his bills?
David Roman [00:57:25]:
Has auto shop follow up said something? Because I forget to pay that bill sometimes. Sometimes I look up as the 10th and I'm like, I forgot to pay that. Oh, crap. And then I gotta jump in and pay. Not just. Not marketing pros. They think that they auto draft that junk.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:41]:
Yeah, I'm just talking about your Google Ads.
David Roman [00:57:45]:
Oh, yeah, I didn't pay my Google Ads. Well, now they have that auto draft. By the way, Google will pull that money out of your account at random times during the day. Random times.
Greg Buckley [00:57:53]:
Random times.
David Roman [00:57:53]:
You know what? I don't work off. I don't work off random times. I work off in the morning.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:57]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:57:58]:
And that's it. And so if in the morning I put money into the. The Google Ad account and there's money in there, I don't worry about it.
Greg Buckley [00:58:07]:
It's. It's when.
David Roman [00:58:08]:
When I don't put any money in there, because in the morning, I don't see it as a pending transaction. I didn't know that at 04:00 they're like, hey, we're gonna hit you now.
Greg Buckley [00:58:16]:
Boop.
David Roman [00:58:18]:
You know what? They didn't pay the tax people. The tax people didn't get their payment, but Google did. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna have to fix that mess when I get home.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:32]:
How do you feel about being a shop owner, it's the real deal.
David Roman [00:58:34]:
I hate it. Do you hate it so much?
Lucas Underwood [00:58:36]:
I mean, people ask that sometimes, and they're like, we had. We had people at our event on Friday, and I had three people ask me, does David really hate owning a shop? Like, dead serious. Not. Not just like, do you seriously hate owning a shop?
David Roman [00:58:52]:
Yeah, I hate it. If I wasn't in debt, I'd get out. I'd pull up Brandon Dills. I'd just turn the lights off and send a message out saying, hey, I'm closed.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:03]:
Seriously?
David Roman [00:59:03]:
Yeah, I would. Tomorrow.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:05]:
What would you do?
David Roman [00:59:06]:
What's that?
Lucas Underwood [00:59:07]:
What would you do?
David Roman [00:59:07]:
I'd podcast.
Greg Buckley [00:59:08]:
There you go.
David Roman [00:59:09]:
You know, I'm sort of stuck now because the podcast is about automotive. This is why I try to, like, veer the direction off into, like, Mac and cheese trucks or whatever. I. Let's. Let's go off in direction. I don't want to keep doing this. Yeah, I.
Greg Buckley [00:59:24]:
Let's expand.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:25]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:59:27]:
Hey, he. You don't listen to the show. I can tell because we had, like, four episodes in a row play.
Greg Buckley [00:59:34]:
I try to be a dedicated listener, man.
David Roman [00:59:36]:
I really do, because we had, like, four episodes in row talking about my Mac and cheese truck. Well, I. Well, I'll take that back. We have one that has not come out yet.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:45]:
Okay.
David Roman [00:59:45]:
But the one that just stopped. We had a whole conversation with Mac and cheese Chuck, and I'm like, I'm listening to this thing going. I think I talked about this already. No, it's because I edited another episode that happened, like, a month later.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:01]:
You know, everybody always says that I contribute to you being off topic and all over the place, and I'm like, how am I contributing to him being like a space cadet?
David Roman [01:00:13]:
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:15]:
I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying, how do I get blamed for you being a space cadet?
Greg Buckley [01:00:22]:
I can't answer that one.
David Roman [01:00:25]:
I don't know. What's a space cadet?
Greg Buckley [01:00:27]:
I don't even get that space cadet. It's like, what the heck was that? Was that cartoon character on the Jetsons?
Lucas Underwood [01:00:34]:
Yes.
Greg Buckley [01:00:34]:
That's like a space cadet.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:35]:
Yeah. And, you know, just all your own little world just. Just, you know, it's. It's kind of like you felt about those lefties last night at dinner, as you described them, the people who are just like, looney tunes.
David Roman [01:00:53]:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't say anything about any lefties. All I said was that Californians have a look.
Greg Buckley [01:01:04]:
Beautiful. I will agree with you. I will agree with you on that one.
David Roman [01:01:09]:
Oh, see, there you go. Boop. I'm right. You can just tell.
Greg Buckley [01:01:13]:
You could just.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:13]:
You.
Greg Buckley [01:01:14]:
I mean, we're in a restaurant. Patty and I were across the street. We're in a restaurant. We're eating there. And I'm like, man, they're. They are different. There's just something different.
David Roman [01:01:21]:
There's a thing to them. Yeah, they look different. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:23]:
Buckley number one.
David Roman [01:01:25]:
They carry themselves.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:26]:
Yeah. Buckley one agrees with you. You're right.
David Roman [01:01:29]:
Why are we calling him Buckley one? What about the other Buckley? He's not Buckley, too.
Greg Buckley [01:01:34]:
Yeah, he's. No doubt. No disrespect, Jeff, but I was around first.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:38]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:01:38]:
Are you older? No, he's older. I think he's pushing. Yeah, he's. I think he's 70, isn't he?
Lucas Underwood [01:01:45]:
68. 69, yeah.
Greg Buckley [01:01:48]:
For a while, people thought we were really related.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:51]:
Well, that was probably my fault. I was telling everybody that you two were.
Greg Buckley [01:01:55]:
Yeah. Brothers.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:58]:
I mean, I. Well, truthfully, I thought they were brothers. You know, I just.
David Roman [01:02:02]:
They look like completely different part of the country. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:06]:
Same accent.
Greg Buckley [01:02:07]:
Same. Come on, now. I got no texan draw.
David Roman [01:02:11]:
Is that a texan draw?
Greg Buckley [01:02:13]:
He's got that Texas twang. Draw whatever you want.
David Roman [01:02:15]:
It comes and goes. Sometimes he pulls it back when he gets all excited.
Greg Buckley [01:02:20]:
He can't. He can't help himself.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:22]:
Yeah, I'm guilty of that.
Greg Buckley [01:02:23]:
Buckaroo.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:25]:
Buckaroo.
David Roman [01:02:25]:
Bob. John.
Greg Buckley [01:02:27]:
John Firm.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:29]:
Wonder what John firm's doing today. They did that Texas two step train. They had great success with that.
David Roman [01:02:34]:
Good, doesn't it?
Lucas Underwood [01:02:35]:
Yeah, he's gonna. He's gonna start doing some cool stuff, he says.
Greg Buckley [01:02:38]:
So that's him and Rick, right?
Lucas Underwood [01:02:40]:
Mm hmm. That was him and Rick and Mike Cleary. And who else was there? Maybe Brandon Stickler.
David Roman [01:02:46]:
Okay, well, see, that's somebody that has completely got on, gotten out of the shop and. Yes.
Greg Buckley [01:02:54]:
Who?
Lucas Underwood [01:02:54]:
Yes. John firm bucking Buck.
David Roman [01:02:57]:
He's not meddling, Craig. I'm just saying, you hired a manager. You hired a manager. Don't meddle. You're gonna.
Greg Buckley [01:03:06]:
You're gonna try.
David Roman [01:03:07]:
Are you going to ruin. Now, he's only been a month. He's only been really. Give him. Yeah, you're. You're. You give it six months. So all of the bad laundry comes out, you know, because all of those.
David Roman [01:03:18]:
You're in the honeymoon. After 90 days, the honeymoon's over. And then six months in, you'll know all the bad habits. You'll know your bad habits. And if that works out, and you, six months later, it's still going well. You gotta leave them alone. So I'm just telling you right now.
Greg Buckley [01:03:36]:
I'm one of the most hands off guys you'll ever meet.
David Roman [01:03:39]:
They will do one of two things. He'll either quit or check out mentally, which is definitely not something you want, or he will back off, actually doing his job to let you step in and handle things because you want to.
Greg Buckley [01:03:59]:
That will not happen.
David Roman [01:04:00]:
No, no.
Greg Buckley [01:04:01]:
I mean, I'm pretty much. By the end of this year, I'll be done.
David Roman [01:04:05]:
Yeah. What are you going to do then?
Greg Buckley [01:04:08]:
Be a third co host or.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:10]:
Oh, there we go.
Greg Buckley [01:04:12]:
That'll work.
David Roman [01:04:13]:
You know, Buckley's looking for a co host.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:16]:
Buckley and Buckley.
David Roman [01:04:17]:
Buckley and Buckley. The B and B.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:19]:
They could have a morning show.
David Roman [01:04:21]:
Hey, we tried to give them the morning show idea.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:24]:
How about.
Greg Buckley [01:04:27]:
I literally had just been playing around with some ideas about a morning show, you know, through Buckley's drive safe, drive smart, and just, you know, throw some tidbits out, like, you got an auto, news car stuff, local stuff. Look, just tips. Now, don't get me. It's just local stuff going on, you know, that kind of thing. And, you know, I just been. I've just been playing around with it. So if it happens, it happens.
David Roman [01:04:51]:
But you gotta consider audience, though, because you feel like, hey, it's only happening. Stuff happening in Wilmington. Like, not enough people are gonna listen to it.
Greg Buckley [01:05:01]:
It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be for a national broadcast. It would be for a local and for marketing purposes, is what it would be. So the shot it takes. It takes a lot to do content. So you guys know that.
David Roman [01:05:11]:
So does it. You know, doesn't take a lot. Lucas, do you just show up?
Lucas Underwood [01:05:15]:
It can be.
David Roman [01:05:15]:
I thought you just show up and, you know, say some southern isms and then bounce out, bro.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:23]:
That's just. That's just because you're the intelligent one and you're the one who has to.
David Roman [01:05:27]:
Now you're just being condescending. When you did it earlier, it was.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:30]:
No, I'm just saying you have. You kind of, like, low key, carry the show with your intelligence. I say the bumbly stuff and keep the conversation going because you hate talking. And so, like, that's why we make such a good team.
David Roman [01:05:43]:
Why would I be in a podcast if I hate talking? That doesn't make any sense.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:48]:
I can name 25 episodes where you.
David Roman [01:05:51]:
Said three words, boring. It's not. It's not even that they're boring. It's not that they're boring. It's not.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:56]:
They're not.
David Roman [01:05:57]:
Is that. Is that the topic is boring? It's not the person. It's always the topic.
Greg Buckley [01:06:01]:
Well, like, what do I care about?
David Roman [01:06:04]:
I don't know. Cars? Cars are dumb. Cars are dumb. The industry's dumb. I hate it.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:12]:
Thank you for being here. Buckley?
Greg Buckley [01:06:13]:
Yeah, man.
David Roman [01:06:14]:
Greg. Greg Buckley?
Lucas Underwood [01:06:15]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:06:15]:
Of Buckley's auto care.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:17]:
I've been calling him Buckley since way before.
David Roman [01:06:22]:
I'm just telling you, we're blaming you for everything that has ever come out of Delaware. Sorry.
Greg Buckley [01:06:27]:
Okay, I'll take it.