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Confessions of a Shop Owner is hosted by Mike Allen, a third-generation shop owner, perpetual pot-stirrer, and brutally honest opinion sharer. In this weekly podcast, Mike shares his missteps so you don’t have to repeat them. Along the way, he chats with other industry personalities who’ve messed up, too, pulling back the curtain on the realities of running an independent auto repair shop.
But this podcast isn’t just about Mike’s journey. It’s about confronting the divisive and questionable tactics many shop owners and managers use. Mike is here to stir the pot and address the painful truths while offering a way forward. Together, we’ll tackle the frustrations, shake things up, and help create a better future for the auto repair industry.
[Mike Allen] (0:00 - 0:26)
If you're not super familiar with European cars, it's a great thing to avoid when it's just you, because it'll suck your time, and your life, and your soul, and your joy. They do print money. BNW stands for Bring My Wallet.
If you know how to work on them. They print money if it's first and second owner euros. Problem is, if you're a startup and you don't know how to work on them, you get the third and fourth owner euros.
That's a problem. Because you don't know how to charge enough and they come to you. To avoid those people.
[Bryan Pollock] (0:28 - 0:59)
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we, or our guests may say, do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings here easily, you should probably just move along.
So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen, with Confessions of a Shop Owner, presented by Techmetric. Simply the best software ever made.
[Mike Allen] (1:01 - 3:24)
Do you guys hear beeping? Uh, I don't hear anything. Yeah.
Whoa. It's just my tinnitus. Did you just will it into non-existence?
Mike just spoke the beeping out of existence. So we just had 20, 15 to 20 minutes of the best shop owner conversation I've ever been a part of. And it would have maybe been the best episode we've ever had, but Braxton fucked up the audio.
So again, again, so no dice. So anyway, welcome to Confessions of a Shop Owner, brought to you by Techmetric, the greatest software in the history of all softwares. It really is.
Coming to you live in our first recording at ASTA Expo 2026. You might not be able to tell in the background, but they're still setting up the trade show floor. It's actually not on fire.
Yeah. That's not a carbon monoxide detector, even though it makes me want to die. It is the Techmetric booth being built across the way from us.
And evidently their booth is going to be 37 feet tall because they need a cherry picker and a bunch of dudes wearing safety harnesses that are eight feet off the ground. I'm going to go with after supervising a lot of blue collar people work over the years. But they're not blue collar.
I don't think he knows what he's doing. I'm going to go with that to 100. Do you think it's union labor down here?
It is a trade show. Yeah. In Raleigh, North Carolina is the convention center union labor.
Yes. The way when I plugged an extension cord in last year, I got looked at by the workers. I took someone's jeep.
They took care of jeeps. You're like an immigrant. Yeah.
I took their jobs. Plug one extension cord in. They're like, what is up with this guy?
What are you laughing at? Hey, why is your microphone attached to the end of it? Because I don't, you know what?
Can you get those that are middle fingers instead of the index finger? I have a blue and a pink one in my room. I'll bring those down.
Maybe I'll swap out. I don't know where the same one's been in my toolbox. Is that what you call it?
Whoa. Some people call it a prison wall. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
No. Hey, what's up, Caleb? He's not okay.
Caleb's not okay.
[Caleb McElmurry] (3:26 - 3:28)
Help me. He's like, why? How did this happen?
[Mike Allen] (3:29 - 4:02)
Why am I here? I thought we were going to talk about auto repair. Caleb's already overwhelmed.
Caleb, is this your first major training event? Yes. So you're already overwhelmed because of all the training, right?
It's already, it's already a lot. And then you got Mike talking about me hiding finger pointer thingies in my toolbox, which apparently means something else in the south. Just like extension cords or drop cords or something.
Well, it's the box where other people put their tools, right? I don't, I don't know. Oh my.
Braxton. Braxton.
[Intro] (4:02 - 4:02)
What are you doing?
[Mike Allen] (4:02 - 4:08)
This guy. You're allowed to laugh louder. There's a freaking seven 47 flying by.
[Intro] (4:09 - 4:14)
I'm afraid you're going to be too close to it. Yeah. Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (4:15 - 4:17)
You would like me to speak into the microphone or no?
[Intro] (4:17 - 4:18)
Right where you are.
[Mike Allen] (4:18 - 4:45)
Just talk normal. Just look deeply into my eyes. Hi, Mike.
Can you say it a little slower? Hi, Mike. Hi, Mike.
You guys ever watch ASMR on YouTube? It's the best. Hey, I turn it on when I want to go to sleep.
Yeah. Tapping on shit. Rubbing on the microphone.
This is out of control. I can't believe America is the greatest country on earth.
[Caleb McElmurry] (4:46 - 4:50)
I've listened to a hundred some episodes, so I knew what I was getting into.
[Mike Allen] (4:51 - 5:00)
No, you didn't. No, you didn't. We saved up for this.
All right. All right. We'll reset.
All of that will cut out. We won't release everything that just happened.
[Bryan Pollock] (5:00 - 5:00)
Promise.
[Mike Allen] (5:00 - 5:13)
That's not true. So let's. But anyway, I just want to thank our sponsor, Turnkey Auto Marketing, for being the best.
Okay. Hey, I'll introduce myself.
[Intro] (5:13 - 5:21)
I'm Caleb Mack. I'm from a little.
[Mike Allen] (5:23 - 5:25)
We cracked him. What's wrong, bro?
[Caleb McElmurry] (5:30 - 5:31)
From a small town in Minnesota.
[Mike Allen] (5:35 - 5:48)
I get a grown-ass man with the giggles. Get the man some water. He looks like he can't breathe.
Okay. All right. We're here.
We got this.
[Caleb McElmurry] (5:50 - 5:51)
Southwest Minnesota.
[Mike Allen] (5:53 - 6:00)
Where is Mack's auto repair? In Edgerton. Edgerton.
It's probably in southwest Minnesota.
[Bryan Pollock] (6:01 - 6:01)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (6:01 - 7:08)
Small town of about 1,200 people. Perfect. You are 18 months in?
One year in? So I quit my job last May. Okay.
Was mobile in Fergus Falls. Did that for roughly 10 months. Looking for a shop.
Couldn't find nothing that was affordable and usable. Everything that was usable was too expensive. Everything that was affordable was not usable.
So I was going to build a shop. And then the opportunity came up where we moved. So we moved about three and a half hours south in a much more quiet community.
So you went mobile, startup mobile after you quit your job. Yeah. And you did that for several months.
And then you didn't go into a brick and mortar in the community where you had built a customer base. You moved. It's like, you know what?
That would be too easy. I'm going to start over again. And you moved three hours and started a brick and mortar.
How is that going so far?
[Caleb McElmurry] (7:08 - 7:08)
Good.
[Mike Allen] (7:09 - 9:22)
I'm about $65,000 more in gross revenue than last year. Awesome. And I opened in February 16th.
Well, if you can spend the whole day working on cars rather than half the day driving between the cars you're working on, that probably makes a difference, right? Yeah. And having a lift.
Did you listen to the episode that we just released with the dude down in Fayetteville, North Carolina, who's the mobile guy? Yep. I actually listened to that on my way to go see Josh.
Nice. So that was an interesting episode. That dude really opened my eyes about what was possible with mobile.
I had no idea. It's a smart cat, man. I guess there's a way to do it right and successfully in all the different sectors of our industry.
There's only actually one way to do anything. Yeah. Anybody who does it differently than the way that I do it is obviously a hack or an idiot or a crook.
Right. And you charge too much and rip them off. Hack.
Hack. True. Professional hack.
Professional hack. So you cut your teeth, got a little work and cash flow, you went into brick and mortar, business is growing. How far do you think you are from hiring your first employee?
I'm hoping hoping possibly the end of next year to hire somebody. Okay. That's a thing that I'm not going to rush.
I'm going to try to get consistent before I take on the stress of feeding another family. Yeah. That's fair.
Would you want to start with like an apprentice or like another, like a B-tech who you can just do the diag and hand them off the repairs or what do you think? Yeah. Somebody like a B-tech that can handle most of the repairs.
That can do the work that you don't have to babysit constantly, man. So I think a lot of people, I think a lot of people, they get in a position where they think they're helping themselves by saving payroll with their first hire. So they want an apprentice or a lube guy or whatever.
And that just means that you have to babysit all their work and do the work you were doing. It doesn't really. And still do all the office work and everything else.
[Bryan Pollock] (9:22 - 9:22)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (9:22 - 10:04)
And pay some payroll. It doesn't really. Your lost production, like whatever they produce between their payroll and your lost production, you just went backwards.
Right. You didn't actually gain any ground. What do you think the monthly revenue number needs to be before you hire somebody?
40 grand, 50 grand? Rick White told me about billing six hours a day. So six hours a day, you figure $300 an hour in revenue, 1,800, that'd be 40 grand, right?
35 to 40 grand. Yeah. I shouldn't think about it in terms of dollars because dollars are different from city to city.
Yeah. Hours is a better way to look at it.
[Caleb McElmurry] (10:04 - 10:04)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (10:05 - 12:58)
You know, with all the administrative crap and calling people and sourcing parts and dealing everything else, six hours a day for a one-man operation is probably pretty humping. I've had months where, let's see, March I did just over 30 grand and then July I did 31,000. So July was a record month for me.
Nice. Exciting. Now, is winter good for business or bad for business for you out there?
I'd say it's maybe somewhere in the middle. I'm not totally sure what to expect yet. Okay.
Because winters can be completely different year to year. Like last winter, up until March, there was no snow on the ground. Yeah.
Winter is great for us. It breaks stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. You get real winter. And I bought a tow truck in March, so I'm maybe hoping a little bit for snow.
You're happy that you have a tow truck? Yes. I've seen a division among dudes that I've talked to that love towing as a revenue source and a car count source, and some that just run away screaming.
I'm scared of it. We have a company that tows them for too cheap to even be bothered. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. The local around our shop is like $65.
I can get a car dragged to my shop for 65 bucks. It's getting obnoxious here. Is it getting high?
Yeah. It's like 120 is a basic tow. We've seen some that are pushing over 200 pretty easy if it's more than 10 or 12 miles.
I mean, if it gets into something that's like a cube van or something like that, then it's a lot. Yeah. It's almost like, well, I'd like to have that money.
We just had a F550 guy that does concrete work. So it's not a concrete truck, but it's a truck that holds all the tools and forms and stuff like that with a flat deck on it. I think they got them 1,100 bucks to tow it.
Ready for this? 1,100 bucks to tow it to the shop. It was out of fuel.
Oh, you got the $1,100 bang. And then the 615 a gallon bang right after that. Bang, bang, bang.
That's cheap. 6.9 by me. Well, this was a couple of weeks ago.
It's literally $6.29 for diesel. Diesel's insane. I feel like it's like $5.15 here for diesel. It might be. I don't know. I don't pay attention.
Since Tuesday morning when I flew in, I've driven all over this freaking state. That's awesome. I cannot handle your traffic.
It is a little different. This traffic is terrible. It's not that bad, man.
I set the cruise at the speed limit of five over and people are still riding my tail.
[Bryan Pollock] (12:58 - 12:59)
Oh, yeah. They'll run over you.
[Mike Allen] (12:59 - 20:01)
They'll run over you, yeah. Especially with you going east of here. East of here is just wide open.
You just hammer down in the triangle area. It's like nine or ten over. It's pretty good.
But you went out to Goldsboro way. Now, Goldsboro used to 85, 90 miles an hour. No worries.
Diesel fuel in the Raleigh area currently averages around 6.21 per gallon. Oh, shit. That's what AI said.
I don't drive a diesel. Hey, did you hear that sound? What sound?
It's all the same. It doesn't really matter. They get a little bit better mileage than the gas.
Yeah, it's the same. It costs the same as driving a gas equivalent size vehicle. You know, I got to go buy premium fuel now for the Miata because it's a high performance machine.
But one of the guys. Are you getting it without the corn squeezings? No, because he can't get premium non-ethanol here.
Really? It's 89 is your choice. But he advanced the timing four degrees in the hopes that I have a little bit more ascent in first and second gear.
RIP. RIP ring lands. So I'm going to start running premium just to reduce a little bit of the pinging.
You know, if you want more power, you might as well just put an LS in it like everybody else. I want my daughter to learn how to drive in it. So I wanted to be able to get out, merge into the highway.
But I also don't mean I mean, where the problem? The problem? Yeah, well, I'm a dumbass or a turbo or a supercharger or both.
Turbos aren't cool anymore. Everybody turboed everything. It's not even cool.
Yeah, that's right. I can get I think there's a V6 Honda motor that fits in there that would be a reasonable amount of power. A V6 Honda motor?
Yeah. Be pretty screaming. I'm surprised somebody would do that swap with the extra weight.
That's interesting. I say you go on wherever.com freaking MiataMaster.com or whoever you go to for your Miata parts and just get a couple of hog ass cams for the thing. Hog ass cams.
We can start it up. The neighbor's car alarm starts going off. Hog ass cams on a straight pipe.
So all day. Anyways, back on. I'm concerned about the welfare of the Miata this weekend because I've already had somebody try to steal it once.
That's a pretty robbable car. There's not much for security on that. The problem is.
Yeah, but you got the third pedal. Yeah, but what's going to get stolen is the hardtop. They'll break into them just to steal the hardtop and run off with them.
Really? Hardtop's worth three grand. The car's worth $2,500.
Hardtop's worth three grand. The car with the hardtop's worth three grand. Probably.
The car is worth $500. I paid $500 for the car. I paid $1,800 for the hardtop.
Between the two of them, I've got like five grand in it now with all the shit we had to do to it. Oh my gosh. Back on task.
I apologize. Sorry. So, Cam, back to your business.
What do you specialize? Are you general repair or? General repair.
Try to stick to domestic and Asian. Okay. None of that European garbage.
I mean, European cars are one of them things if you can. You know what? That's also great advice for somebody starting a shop.
If you're not super familiar with European cars, it's a great thing to avoid when it's just you. Because it'll suck your time. Yep.
In your life, in your soul, in your joy. And your wallet dry. They do print money.
I mean, BMW stands for bring my wallet. I mean, they print money. If you know how to work on them.
They print money if it's first and second owner euros. The problem is if you're a startup and you don't know how to work on them, you get the third and fourth owner euros. That's a problem.
Because you don't know how to charge enough to avoid those people. So, yeah. And my luck is when I give somebody the I don't really want to do it price, they want to do it.
Anytime. That's a great lesson. If you think I'm going to give them the fuck off price.
Don't give them the fuck off price. Just tell them to fuck off. You can do it nicely.
But you don't really want to do it. I guess what I should have done with Brian Kerwin's truck. But instead he was like, just do it.
If only somebody would have told you to not get involved. Is that for that McLaren? No, no.
It was a 450 motor job. It was a Ford F450 with a 6.4. What do you think about getting involved in one of these? I'm like, how about you don't?
I'm like, that's not a good idea at all. And then a month later, he's like, holy F, this thing's still killing me. I'm like, no, duh.
It was a conversation with Brian and Zeb. And Zeb was like, motherfucker. Yeah.
Are you looking for somebody to bring a 16 foot trailer? You know what? That that truck will pull the shit out of a 16 foot trailer.
So until it breaks again, which should be next week, which is probably still in the warranty period. I'm super thankful that he doesn't drive that truck much at all. And only when he goes to farm auction does he drive that truck to haul new equipment.
Although he bought that excavator too big for that thing. Oh, I don't know how he's going to get home. Oh, everybody knows somebody with a little boy.
It's no problem. You do heavy duty stuff too? Mostly pickups, but.
Okay. Now are you, I don't, I don't know that part of the country. Is that like oil field country or?
No, it's corn. It's corn. Corn, cattle.
It's like Iowa junior. Hogs. I mean, farm trucks are good money.
Pigs are meat. Pigs are mean animals. I just had this discussion with somebody.
Cows will like press you up against something just to like hold you because they don't want to be messed with. Pigs will physically, they'll try to hurt you. Cows hurt you unintentionally.
Pigs hurt you intentionally. Um, but we hurt pigs and cows intentionally because they're delicious. That's their problem.
They're delicious. Yeah. Yeah.
Lots of corn out there, right? Like ton of yellow dent corn. Well, did you grow up farming or are you from that area?
Nope. My wife is. Where are you from?
Wisconsin. Okay. All I know about Wisconsin is lots of little lakes and cheese.
Yep. And it's also cold. Yes.
And you guys drink a lot in Wisconsin. Yes. Total luscious.
Do they? Yeah, man.
[Bryan Pollock] (20:02 - 20:03)
Have you seen their Bloody Marys?
[Mike Allen] (20:04 - 20:28)
Really? Yes. I had no idea.
Every gas station has a liquor store. And their Bloody Marys are like a full breakfast bar. We have those by me.
They have the one place in town's got like two slider cheeseburgers on the Bloody Mary, some wings and a hot dog. We feed four people with this freaking Bloody Mary, bro. It's freaking 5,000 calorie Bloody Mary.
[Caleb McElmurry] (20:28 - 20:29)
I'm like, I'm good.
[Mike Allen] (20:29 - 36:42)
It's your diet for the day, man. So, well, what are you hoping to gain from your first ever major training event? Just a little bit from, take a little bit from everybody and try to integrate certain things as I can, as they fit.
Well, that's one of the things that we talked about before we hit record was when you come to one of these events for the first time, and it's really, honestly, it's for the first several times, it's overwhelming. Like you said, it's like you're drinking from a firehose. I remember coming and it was before you took a note.
I just had a notepad. I took pages and pages of notes, and I was so fired up, and I got jack shit done when I went back to the shop. That's courtesy of Michael Gunther.
Oh, that's you trying to absorb what's going on here? Yeah, we can get that. We can get that changed.
That part of the picture changed in just, I don't know, just thinking out loud. But don't go back and try to do all the shit that you wrote down. You saw a ton of amazing ideas and feedback and input, all of which might be good and might help you.
You need to pick the two or three that are the most important or the most easily done or the ones that you can do that don't cost you more money, right? It's really easy to come to one of these things and go back home with a bunch of ideas that are going to be great but going to cost you $50,000 to implement. Don't do that shit.
Do the easy stuff first. You don't want to have a black Monday. Yeah, no.
Don't roll in there on Monday and flip the whole thing. It's not Yahtzee. You don't throw all the dice in the cup, shake it up, and pour it all back out.
I don't want to get home until Monday afternoon. Yeah, just two or three things. Do you find yourself taking technical, management, combination?
What do you find yourself taking for your class mix? Management, service advisor. It's all business-related classes.
It's no technical classes. That's smart. Because at this point, as much as I want to take them, they don't benefit me really.
You're trying to fill the gaps in your skill set. Right now, your high competencies are on repair, the repair side, diagnostic and repair, right? So you need to fill up the gaps and that's going to be becoming a businessman.
Is there anybody that you're specifically looking forward to meeting? Other than us, obviously. Dan Tekin.
He's coming. He'll be here tonight. I'm taking his class.
He was not far away last time I heard from him. Do you have tire equipment? Yes.
Okay. And I do tires. Okay.
And I do tractor food. 12-17, he was a few hours away. Is he driving now?
Must be. I guess so. Lots of people drove.
Maybe as an industry, we're scared of flying. I don't know. I hate driving.
I don't know. Have you seen some of the repairs on the cars that come into your shop? Safer on an airplane.
They have better standards. They have government intervention and management. I'm a huge proponent for government intervention in automotive repair.
Brian is as well. Oh yeah. I think it'll really help.
Bits and pieces of it fit. Maybe having a safety inspection. If your frame is rotted out, you should be able to take that car off the road.
I should be able to report it to the state that this truck is no longer safe for the roads without having to have somebody else sign a title for a truck that I bought from scrap that's got a rotted out frame to make sure that it doesn't ever go back on the road. I don't know the answer. It's such a complex issue.
The government rarely makes anything better, but we do need some form of standardization and minimum standard of quality assurance or performance or whatever that might be. This is when we need Dutch in here preaching at us. I don't know what the answer is because there's too many people out there winging it to roll anything out that wouldn't honestly bring transportation to a screeching halt.
Everybody makes fun of the joke. The joke is that all the ASE testing doesn't mean anything. It's too easy and it doesn't mean anything.
I'm going to paint a picture for you. I know what the numbers are. Technicians in the industry versus ASE certified technicians.
A1 through A8 holders in automotive is something under 10%. It's like 9.2-ish percent. The last time I ran the numbers, 9.2% of technicians have passed A1 through A8 in this entire industry. If the federal government said you have until the end of the year to get 50% of them passed and the end of next year to get the other 50% passed, it would break the industry. It would break the industry. It would.
It would break the industry. As much as we make fun of those tests, just think, something that we think the standard is too low on would break the transportation repair industry. That's the reality of the situation.
I don't know how anybody rolls anything out that does anything. The shop that I left, I wouldn't say they're against ASE, but they definitely didn't push it. Which is fine.
Which is fine. I'm not saying this isn't system, but I'm just saying a lot of people are like, those tests don't mean anything because whatever. They're too easy or whatever.
It shows you're a good test taker. Meanwhile, the numbers show that 90% of the people can't. How many are good test takers?
I don't know. What do the numbers say versus people's opinions? You know what I mean?
I think 1 through 8 makes you a master tech. I think the terminology is terrible. I agree, but it shows that you have a base level understanding of systems of operation.
A1 through A8 is exactly the base level of competency. I think A1 through A8 should be the journeyman certification. You are an average standard level technician.
Agree. One thing that I haven't understood is why electricians and plumbers, they got to hold a license in order to operate. If you're going to be a hairdresser, you got to have a license.
I have a friend that's running a huge job right now. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, all these guys. He's got 2,300 blue collar tradesmen.
I'm asking them questions because everybody always compares our industry to industry X because that's the only thing we know how to do. Because we can't be like, hey, maybe we do suck and we got to fix it. We can't do that.
We got to compare how much easier it is everywhere else or whatever. We got to compare apples to oranges. To go from apprentice carpenter to journeyman carpenter, 95% of the testing is paper and they don't get paid to go do the classes and do the testing.
The guy's got a whole fleet of them down there. Electricians, you don't think to go from apprentice to journeyman, do you know what it is? It's hours.
It's hours working that year. Plus you guess what you have to pass? Paper tests.
But we want a dog on paper testing and years of experience. I don't know what to tell you. There's nothing else that's going.
We can talk. Are there better ways? Absolutely.
Will we ever use any of those better ways due to the volume that we have and what we need to get done? Absolutely not. Right.
Every shop in the country isn't going to send people to one of five training facilities across the United States to get EV certified to work on EVs. It's not going to happen. No.
So there are hacks in the electrical world. There are hack plumbers. Sure, yeah.
There are hack HVAC guys, but all of those guys are licensed. Do you think that the frequency and occurrence of hack work or amateurish level work is more in the automotive space than it is in those other trades? That's a good question.
I don't know the answer. I think it probably is. Maybe it's a little more prevalent because we see a lot more of it.
I don't know about you. I'm not into the walls of other people's houses very often, so I don't know. Right.
I don't know. I don't know. How often do you...
But as far as everything you hear about all these other industries, what people say, and then like I told you, my friend's running this big job and I talked to him, 2300 blue collar tradesmen. I talked to this dude an hour a week minimum. I have a pretty good idea of what's going on right now as far as apprentice versus journeyman versus master, the mix, and what it takes to do each level.
I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, help me out here. You mean these guys don't get paid when they're in class? He goes, no.
These are union guys. They don't get paid when they're in class. To go from apprentice to journeyman, the actual class time you have to have in the paper testing, they don't get paid.
What percentage of the techs that are here at this event, getting training right now, do you think are being paid for their training? I don't know. All my guys are, right?
I bet you at this training event, the percentage of people being paid for their time being here is higher than at whatever apprentice electrician class is going on in Western New York this weekend. Because none of those guys are getting paid because that's how the union has it set and they're all IB, UW. That's how it is.
So you think unionization would help? What is it? It's not doing anything different, right?
Something's got to change. Sure. No, it doesn't have to.
I mean, it's doing fine. It's doing fine. I'm doing fine.
It's not just about me. It's mostly just about me. But as an industry, we've got lots of problems, but as an industry, we're also doing fine.
Or like you said, going back to taking a few things from this weekend to implement, we pick two hot button topics, fix those topics first, and then just keep working our way down. That's going to be 10 times more effective than any mass interventions ever going to be. Getting people to show up here, getting people to learn to go to two events a year, learn one thing and implement it each time they go, we'll be light years ahead of any mass implementation of anything run by the government or some union or anything else.
I mean, what does Karm say on his show is listen to learn just one thing. Don't try to take it all on at once. Just incremental improvement.
Yeah. Like Jeff says, be 1% better each day. Yeah.
What do you think is your biggest area for improvement right now? Service advisor. Okay.
How are you going about communicating estimates and needs to your customers? So typically my process looks like once I get, once I drop the car off, I go out, take pictures of all four corners, picture with the door open to show the condition of the seat, floor, stuff like that. And then with the car running, take a picture of the dash for any lights on.
And then I do a pre-scan with my top down scanner. And so you can do the report. I attach that report to the, to the RO or to the inspection.
And then I pull it in and try to address their concern first, see if I can get that figured out. Then I do an inspection and then I go to the computer, write everything up, send them the, send them the inspection and then give them a few seconds and then call them and say, Hey, I just sent you an inspection. Here's a couple of things.
This is what I found. This is what the concern, what your concern is. And this is what it'd be to fix it.
Yeah. Go through that. Explain to them that process before I send them the estimate.
So I don't create that sticker shock. So I talk, talk the process through. Yeah.
They're not just getting a text message that says, give me $6,237.22 with no context. Right. Or if it's a bigger job.
Cause they don't know what they're looking at. Like you can send them the picture. Right.
And like how many words can you really type out? That's palatable for the average customer. Right.
It's, it's not like if it's a bigger job, say like an engine or a transmission replacement, I build in a 10% buffer to that repair. So, but, and I explained to him that if there's something that not out here right now that I catch while I'm in the middle of it, I can just take care of it. I don't have to call you five times to say, I need more money each time.
And if I don't use it, I don't use it. And I take that off the bill, which then gives you more satisfaction when you come to pick your car up because now the bill's $1,200 less than it was. Sure.
Sure. So when you say that you're trying to, um, learn, learn to be better at this service advisor portion of the job, what do you think you need to improve at? Uh, getting a, like a history of the vehicle.
Like what questions to ask it right up. That's what Rick's class was about today. You know, detect auto has a great tool to help you at the write-up process as a service about it.
Lots of my service advisors use this tool and it gives you, uh, the questions that you need to ask your customer. Sorry. It is a great software.
We do use it. Um, you know, knowing the right questions to ask are really important, especially as you grow, when you have, when you have team members and maybe, uh, the person talking to the customer is not the same person that's working on the car. It becomes crucial.
You've experienced that in your career as a technician, when you get check noise or whatever, right? It's where you want to murder your service advisor. Yeah.
And it's tough. It's tough too. I'm the biggest critic of people that write stuff up with incomplete information, but then sometimes when they go and they do extracting, you asking the right questions to get the correct information because you can ask questions and not get the correct information and just, it doesn't help.
You just get a bunch of the incorrect information written down on a piece of paper instead of just check noise. Right. So it's like Rick's class was about building a relationship with your customer before you get to talk in numbers about what's wrong with your car.
Right. Like, Oh, we need to do a transmission flush. Don't call it a flush because they've heard the term wallet flush.
Yeah. So one of the things, learning the right words to use, using the right words matter. Yeah.
And there are words that we try to avoid like flush, right? Or inspection. I put in, when I send the automated text from Techmetric, I wish there was a way I could update that every time it just says your vehicle health report is ready and not have to go in and change it.
So if Techmetric is listening. They're always listening. They are big data.
You've got the app on your phone. They're listening. Probably.
I don't know. Have you read the end user lessons agreement? Yeah.
Did you see the part about agreeing to be part of the human centipede project? No, I didn't. Don't worry.
Just sign it away.
[Caleb McElmurry] (36:42 - 36:42)
Just sign it.
[Mike Allen] (36:42 - 41:11)
Just check the box and click accept. I did that already anyway. Yeah.
I don't know if I've talked about this on the air yet or not, but I've got a, and I'm going to say his name because I don't know if he wants me to share it, but I got a buddy who's a technician turned shop owner. And he doesn't talk to customers about price at all. He does the inspection, gets the report, builds the repair order, calls the customer, goes over, sends them the DBI and waits until they've opened it to look at it.
And then he calls them and goes over what they found and what the needs are, what the repairs are going to be. And then when they say, well, how much is that going to cost? I'm still working on the estimate.
I'll send it to you in a few minutes. He doesn't ever talk money with them. The only money that he talks to them about is approval for inspection fees and diagnostic fees.
He has not drank the Kool-Aid for a free diet. And he's got a very high approval rate. He's got a thousand dollar ARO and a general repair domestication shop.
And he doesn't talk prices with his customers. I think my ARO is right around a thousand dollars. My average written repair order is like $1,700 the last I looked.
That's great, man. Checking all the right ones. A thousand dollar ARO is awesome if you're by yourself because then you're not freaking working on too many cars.
My car count per week is usually it's four, maybe. So it's great that you're not pulling in, pulling out, pulling in, pulling out, right? You're not doing a bunch of waiting while changes.
That's my song. It also is scary though because it doesn't take but a few missed appointments to have an empty bay. You got one left or two right now?
Two left. Plan is put a third in maybe next year. I have gotten to the point where it's like put a third in, hire a guy, give him two, you have one.
Kind of my goal with hiring a technician is I do all the check-in process, the DVI, so that I can just have a pile of approved work. He can just pull the vehicle in, put all the parts in, be done. Perfect.
I think that's a reasonable course. I can promise you that's a recipe for success. You'll do just fine with that.
You can wash, rinse, and repeat that up to like 18 techs. FYI. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Always repeat. Always repeat. Always repeat.
Turn it into a little machine that you put $10 in and take $12 out over and over and over and over and over again. It works. It'll get tricky the more you get and you're going to have to figure out people's strengths and weaknesses.
It'll be a whole thing, but it'll work. And I think eventually, I think eventually too when I get to the point that I need another tech or whatever, then it's going to be, I'm going to find a shop in Tullam. You're going to find one?
Either move the shop in Tullam or be right on the outskirts of Tullam so I've got city property taxes in just the county, but did not have the shop in my backyard. But currently, I love my commute to work. Yeah, yeah.
Have a cup of coffee and walk across the yard. 75 feet to the front. You know, I have some friends that used to be 30 seconds from their shop.
It wasn't in their backyard. It was like around the block in the city, right? And they drive out the driveway, hang a couple rights at the shop, right?
They've recently moved out into the sticks. And one of the things that they have talked about it, yes, they are driving a half hour, but the unwind time. Yeah.
Unwind time is nice. I don't think I ever come home irritated about something. I'll leave the shop irritated.
I won't walk through the door of my house irritated. They got like 27 minutes to chill the F out. There's a couple weeks.
I think that's a mature business thing though. Like early on, you're always on anyway, right? Yeah.
So I don't think. It's hard for me to shut that switch off.
[Bryan Pollock] (41:11 - 41:11)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (41:12 - 41:53)
Like even when we go camping, it's, I do have a hard time looking into or going into Techmetric seeing, hey, do I got a text message or something like that? Yeah. I'm trying to disconnect.
Can you set up an auto responder and Techmetric messaging? I think you can. I don't remember.
I should know that. Steven knows that I could call him and ask him and he'd be like, I think you can. There's things I need to look into.
A couple of weeks ago, I was a little, I was irritating. I had eight bad brake calipers, six on one truck and two of them were boxed wrong. You were telling me about that on shenanigans.
[Bryan Pollock] (41:53 - 41:53)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (41:53 - 43:10)
And then two bad brake calipers on my own truck. I unfortunately had to put an AC Delco part to fix my Ford. Now the transmission's going to be bad.
Ever since you put that Delco caliper. Ever since you put that Chevy caliper on, the transmission's all neutrals. It is a 5.4 with a 4R11. That'd be fine. Yeah. It'll keep running.
You know, best engine that Ford ever made. It's one of the engines that Ford ever made. Yeah.
One of the engines Ford ever made. I had one of those. I apologize.
The truck was a thousand dollars with a pretty clean body and pretty clean interior, except for all the dust. You sound like you're justifying it the way that I justify Miata. It's about the same, you know, a 5.4 and a, is it a three quarter ton?
Yes. A 5.4 and a three quarter ton Ford and a Mazda Miata. The Miata's got a much better power to weight ratio.
The Miata has way more performance. This truck also has 410 gears in there. It don't matter.
Your foot's probably sore. Yes. Push harder.
Push harder. Oh yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (43:11 - 43:13)
Terrible, terrible deal.
[Mike Allen] (43:13 - 43:50)
It's almost worse on acceleration than my 7.3. Yeah. They're pretty bad. They're pretty bad.
So we're going to see you at the hospitality suite tonight. For a little bit, probably. For a little bit.
It'll be past my bedtime. It's past everybody's bedtime. You get to stay up late on special occasions like this.
I have to go to bed early tonight. I stayed up too late last night. What time did you go in last night?
Yeah. One. Yeah.
It's a little later than that. I got back to the house at like 11. I didn't fall asleep until like 1245.
So I had to pack. I hadn't packed yet. I was up early this morning exercising.
I will not be joining you for that. Come on. Let's go.
[Caleb McElmurry] (43:50 - 43:54)
4.30 a.m. You don't want to sit in the corner of a bucket of popcorn?
[Mike Allen] (43:54 - 45:50)
I'll do 5.30. I don't want to talk about sitting in there. 5.30 is too late. You can get a half hour in.
All the weirdos show up. 4.30 in the morning. 4.30 in the morning. They got some free rates. We're going to spread it out. I'll run some AsaBase.
You bring your Bluetooth speaker. Hospitality suite runs until midnight, which means I got to clean it up. I'll be back to the room by 12.30. Okay. So you sleep for four hours and get at it. What's the trouble? We didn't tell he's not a technician.
I realized he'd be able to function on four hours. I don't know what are these people that won't. How old are you?
40. How old are you? 24.
Thank you. That's where it's coming from. I'm an old man.
I need my beauty rest. You do not. 47 years old.
I can tell by the gray hair. That's all the free dyeing. That's okay.
All the hairs that matter are still colored. What? I'm not okay.
I'm not okay. That's what I tell myself. I just get it all waxed.
There you go. What do they call it? A Manzillion?
Or call you Quicksilver. What? I'm sorry.
I'm trying to be respectful of the fact that you have a recording in two minutes with our good friend, John Firm. I apologize for it being such a hot, hot mess for your first time coming on the show. John's podcast shirt has a whole QR code on the back.
John's a natural born marketer, man. He is, isn't he? Firm is a walking marketing machine.
Yes, he is. He's not even trying. He's just naturally doing it.
He's got the energy, man. Meanwhile, I need a nap and some more Dayquil. Eric White called me out on being an introvert.
You know what? He's not wrong. He'll drag it out of you.
[Intro] (45:52 - 45:52)
What's your next class?
[Mike Allen] (45:53 - 46:03)
What are you doing in the morning? You don't have one this afternoon because you're recording, obviously. No.
After I'm done recording, I'm actually leaving the convention center for a couple hours. Going back to see family?
[Bryan Pollock] (46:04 - 46:04)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (46:04 - 46:11)
I'm going to go hang out with family. My aunt drove up from Georgia. Okay.
Very cool. So that was like an eight-hour trip for her.
[Intro] (46:11 - 46:11)
All right.
[Mike Allen] (46:12 - 47:32)
Well, if I don't see you tonight, I'll see you in the morning then. But I'm coming back at six. Okay.
And then I'll probably hang out at the hospitality suite for a little bit. Well, we got the opening party tonight, too, which is up in the ballroom all the way upstairs, which I think is going to be awesome. They got like an obstacle course.
The theme this year is Survivor. So there's like obstacle courses. I might be in some obstacle course.
Should I go put my gym clothes on? As long as there aren't any fucking sumo suits. Good lord.
Oh, my gosh. Compton tried to murder me last year. The friction and sweat in those was insane.
Like, he knocked me down, and then he stood over me and jumped. I'm a little upset there's no sumo wrestling this year. I literally joined a wrestling gym.
I'm literally wrestling. He's 40 years old going to wrestling practice twice a week. My back hurts just sitting here.
I have bruises under my hair on the back of my head, and I have a real bad bruise on my tricep. I don't even know how that happened. The lengths that this man will go to just to wrestle with a bunch of sweaty dudes in unitards.
We don't wear unitards. You don't wear anything? Is it like Greco-Roman?
No. It's folk style. You heard it here first.
It's not like the Jiu-Jitsu boys, the struggle snugglers. Struggle snuggle. We call them the struggle snugglers.
All right. I think we can cut it at that.
[Caleb McElmurry] (47:32 - 47:34)
That might be a good place to end off.
[Mike Allen] (47:35 - 48:13)
Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out. The good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes.
So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, maybe have another drink? You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover, or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mikeatconfessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow.
Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.