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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.
Nathan Ward [00:00:00]:
Like, James came to me and he looks at me, he's like, hey, you know, you were talking about buying a company. Would you invest in starting this company with me? I looked at him and go, no.
James Hornak [00:00:09]:
Oh yeah, he's full on shop.
Mike Allen [00:00:11]:
You had, you have a moment of clarity and then you got drunk again and yeah, that's pretty much.
James Hornak [00:00:16]:
Well, so that's kind of how the name came out too. We were sitting in the shop drinking, like, what do we name this thing? We started quoting random movies and inconceivable stuck.
Mike Allen [00:00:26]:
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket.
James Hornak [00:00:31]:
The stuff we or our guests may.
Mike Allen [00:00:33]:
Say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs.
James Hornak [00:00:36]:
Of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in.
Mike Allen [00:00:43]:
This show, so if you get your.
James Hornak [00:00:44]:
Feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along. So without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner with your host, Mike Allen.
Mike Allen [00:00:58]:
All right, so here we are. Inconceivable Automotive. Wait, no, I'm not allowed to say it that way. Inconceivable. So that's better.
Nathan Ward [00:01:11]:
Something like that.
Mike Allen [00:01:11]:
What's up?
James Hornak [00:01:12]:
I can't do it the right way.
Mike Allen [00:01:14]:
I'm here with Nathan and James at Inconceivable Automotive in Raleigh, North Carolina. Right on the edge of Raleigh and Durham. I guess just out. We're in the glide path of the airport. I think I've heard some planes go.
Nathan Ward [00:01:24]:
Over directly in the flight.
James Hornak [00:01:27]:
Yes, yes.
Mike Allen [00:01:28]:
But you guys are brand new shop owners, just opened up almost a month ago. Right. And we met at an ASTA social event two months ago probably.
Nathan Ward [00:01:40]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:01:41]:
A month and a half. Yeah. And thought it would be fun to come and set up. We're in your lobby, actually. I thought it would be fun to come and set up and do a quick recording and review it from what it's like to start a shop from scratch. Right. Because I don't know what that's like. I'm a coward.
Mike Allen [00:01:59]:
I'm not willing to start from scratch. It terrifies me to think about ground up with no cash flow and no database. So I want to talk to you guys about that. If there's time.
Nathan Ward [00:02:08]:
It's.
James Hornak [00:02:09]:
That's a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:02:12]:
Before we, before we get into that, our listeners should know that it's. It's 8:45 in the morning and I got here and they had a full Bloody Mary bar set up with bacon and blue cheve olives. And there are options for other things over there. I might Take a picture of it and send it and splice it in if Braxton wants to do some editing.
Nathan Ward [00:02:32]:
Mike, you told us you drink on this. We're every single episode. Yeah.
James Hornak [00:02:35]:
So just good hosts, right? Not here for second place.
Nathan Ward [00:02:37]:
Right here.
Mike Allen [00:02:39]:
You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning.
James Hornak [00:02:41]:
He's got it.
Mike Allen [00:02:42]:
So anyway, thank you for that. No breakfast, Got up, headed straight here. Getting the booze on early. After we get done, I'll make Braxton pack everything up and we can get straight to the bar.
Nathan Ward [00:02:53]:
Awesome. Let's go.
Mike Allen [00:02:54]:
Perfect. So what I'd love to do is start and just tell me a little bit about your personal histories, how you know each other, what made you foolish enough to think that going into business together would be a good idea.
Nathan Ward [00:03:07]:
Oh, man. So we've known each other.
James Hornak [00:03:12]:
It's been a couple of years, two, three years, something like that? Not a long time, but it's been a couple of years now.
Nathan Ward [00:03:16]:
So it was. We were at Lone Rider and I was having a drink, and I met his ex, and she's like, oh, you're a car guy. I was like, yeah. She's like, do you work on him? Like, kinda. And she's like, oh, I don't want you to meet my boyfriend. You guys, like, hit it off. And we like. The second I met him was like an hour just talking cars.
James Hornak [00:03:37]:
Yeah, pretty much that's about right. And then we met later. We basically just met through mutual friends. Because I met you at a Halloween party and we talked for like another hour about just random car stuff.
Nathan Ward [00:03:48]:
Yeah. Every single time is, you know, talk about, hey, you know, if you boosted this and did that or, you know, that's all we talked about. In the. The beginning of the year, January, we. We both got hurt. So we both got hospitalized and taken out of work. And we were annoying our significant others, so they told us to get out of the house and find something to do. So we were driving around Virginia.
James Hornak [00:04:15]:
We were. We were. We got this crackpot idea to go try and flip a car and see how that's going to go. Right. So we're bored. So, yeah, we're driving around. Up near the border of North Carolina, Virginia. We saw this Fox body Mustang just sitting in somebody's front yard.
James Hornak [00:04:29]:
And the guy. My favorite part of the story is that the guy is out in his yard watering his minivan. Not washing it. Like, no. Nothing on the end of the hose. Just water coming out. And he's just. Just watering down his minivan in his bathrobe.
Nathan Ward [00:04:42]:
Yeah, the bathroom.
Mike Allen [00:04:44]:
Probably just knocking the pollen down, you know.
James Hornak [00:04:45]:
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. He was fine.
Nathan Ward [00:04:49]:
Yeah, he was.
Mike Allen [00:04:50]:
Did you get out and were you, like, morning Ed? Shedder's full.
Nathan Ward [00:04:54]:
Same bathrobe. I mean, it's the same.
James Hornak [00:04:57]:
Yeah. Right?
Nathan Ward [00:04:58]:
We pull up. I mean, this thing's down in a ditch. Like, could tell it hadn't been driven for, you know, 10 years.
James Hornak [00:05:03]:
It was in the ground.
Nathan Ward [00:05:04]:
Like, we pull up, we look at him like, hey, is that yours? He goes, yeah. Like, do you want to sell it? Yeah. Can we take a look at it?
Mike Allen [00:05:13]:
Yeah.
James Hornak [00:05:14]:
Yep. That's exactly how.
Nathan Ward [00:05:15]:
Like, man, this guy's colorful. Do you have the keys? Yeah, he did not.
James Hornak [00:05:18]:
He did not have the keys.
Nathan Ward [00:05:19]:
I didn't have the keys. Do you have the title?
James Hornak [00:05:21]:
Yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:05:21]:
Nope. But, yeah, we, like.
Mike Allen [00:05:26]:
So what you found out later is he was actually a crackhead, and that wasn't his house. He was just randomly watering a van.
James Hornak [00:05:31]:
You know, he might appear.
Nathan Ward [00:05:33]:
We found out later he's. He's Alzheimer's patient. And I found that out from his wife. Like, she was, you know, sharp as attack in the house. And it's when I kind of figured out, like, okay, he's not all there. I was talking to her. I was like, is this something he can. So it's just like, yeah, we need the money.
Nathan Ward [00:05:48]:
Like, it's. If you guys.
Mike Allen [00:05:49]:
So you took advantage of a disabled man.
Nathan Ward [00:05:51]:
When you put it that way, it sounds worse.
James Hornak [00:05:53]:
If we're going to be evil shop owners, let's all.
Mike Allen [00:05:56]:
Yeah. Let's just start off right.
James Hornak [00:05:57]:
Lean into the show.
Mike Allen [00:05:58]:
Start off right. Yeah.
James Hornak [00:05:59]:
Yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:06:00]:
So we locked him in the bathroom.
Mike Allen [00:06:02]:
Yeah. You threw it. You threw a box of donuts in there and ran away with his car. Right.
Nathan Ward [00:06:07]:
Yeah.
James Hornak [00:06:07]:
That's what.
Nathan Ward [00:06:07]:
The keys. He didn't. Terrible.
James Hornak [00:06:08]:
But, yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:06:10]:
But, yeah, we. That kind of. We looked at it like, man, let's start flipping cars, we're going to be millionaires. Yeah.
James Hornak [00:06:15]:
There's money in that shirt. We were wrong.
Nathan Ward [00:06:18]:
We're probably 50 hours into that thing, and it's still in pieces.
James Hornak [00:06:22]:
It's in more pieces than we.
Mike Allen [00:06:24]:
Would you be okay with me taking a picture of it and splicing that in along with. Okay.
Nathan Ward [00:06:28]:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:06:28]:
So you spend too much time making your Bloody Mary bars and not enough time working on the fox body.
Nathan Ward [00:06:33]:
That's exactly.
James Hornak [00:06:33]:
That's 100% right.
Mike Allen [00:06:34]:
Yeah. So you're getting it right so far. Shot the shop owner thing. You got it right so far.
Nathan Ward [00:06:38]:
So we're evil. We drink.
James Hornak [00:06:40]:
Yeah. Focus on what counts.
Mike Allen [00:06:42]:
Yeah. Take Advantage of people.
James Hornak [00:06:43]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:06:44]:
You know.
James Hornak [00:06:45]:
Yeah. So we're set up for success is what I'm hearing. We're good.
Mike Allen [00:06:48]:
You need a boat and an airplane.
James Hornak [00:06:50]:
He has a boat. We don't. It's still not an airplane.
Mike Allen [00:06:55]:
I mean, you're there, man.
Nathan Ward [00:06:56]:
But yeah, we. So we, we pulled this thing out. I was like, oh, we'll make all this money. And I went over to Brandon at Velocity Motorworks. He builds race car. Like the guy. That's all they do, flat out race cars. And he looks at me, he's like, don't do this.
James Hornak [00:07:11]:
Don't do what I do.
Nathan Ward [00:07:12]:
He's like, dude, general repair. Like there's, there's actual money in general repair. He's like building race cars. I do, because I love it. And we start looking at it like, okay, well, what's it going to cost to, you know, get a lift and things like that? And it. For me, my background's business and marketing. So I, I do, you know, or consultations, essentially. People would come to me with either a new idea or a old company and like, hey, where am I going wrong? And it's every time, it's like, let me see your profit loss statements.
Nathan Ward [00:07:39]:
Let me see your business plan. You wouldn't believe how many businesses don't have a business plan.
James Hornak [00:07:45]:
Sure.
Nathan Ward [00:07:46]:
So those are the things. You live by that stuff. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of my background. Then we looked at it and I mean, this place was a bare stainless steel. Like it just.
James Hornak [00:07:57]:
So the, the business that was in here before we got a hold of it was a lawn care company. And the guy who owns the building also owned and ran that business. He retired earlier this year and sold his business out. Still owns the building. He's our landlord, essentially. But I was working out of just the very back portion, kind of a single bay on my own. Because I've been. My background is automotive.
James Hornak [00:08:20]:
I've been. Went to school at, down in Orlando at UTI. Spent the last 10 years or so in and out of the automotive industry. Finally decided, I guess do it on my own terms. Well, our terms. Sure. It's my shop. Get out.
James Hornak [00:08:38]:
Yeah, but no, that's, that's me. That's my background, I guess. And then started playing with this Mustang and.
Nathan Ward [00:08:44]:
Well, and it first turned out to.
James Hornak [00:08:45]:
Be a terrible idea.
Nathan Ward [00:08:46]:
Like, James came to me and he looks at me, he's like, hey, you know, you were talking about buying a company. Would you invest in starting this company with me? I looked at him go, no.
James Hornak [00:08:55]:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:08:56]:
Full On Shop, you had a, you have a moment of clarity and then you got drunk again. And that's pretty much.
James Hornak [00:09:02]:
Well, so that's kind of how the name came out too. We were sitting in the shop drinking, like, what do we name this thing? We started quoting random movies and inconceivable. Stuck.
Nathan Ward [00:09:12]:
I think we said like, oh, you know, we're going to, we're going to do it right and treat people well. It's like, well, that's inconceivables. You guess.
Mike Allen [00:09:18]:
One of, one of the most quotable movies of all time. Another one of the most quotable movies of all time is playing just over your shoulder. It's not a camera shot, but Spaceballs is playing and we're, we've just passed past my favorite scene, which is where they're coming the desert looking for signs and we ain't found. Is that. I think that's the line. So anyway, I digress. We're having, we're. We're having Bloody Marys in the morning in a shop, talking to evil shop owner stuff.
James Hornak [00:09:51]:
So.
Mike Allen [00:09:51]:
So that's your histories and that's how it came to be. You're a month in. Do you realize what a mistake you've made yet?
James Hornak [00:09:58]:
Not yet, no.
Nathan Ward [00:09:59]:
Yeah, it's. The one thing I'll tell you is the, the imposter syndrome is real. Or it's like I walk in here every day, it's like I'm gonna. Like, it doesn't feel real.
James Hornak [00:10:08]:
Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:10:09]:
Like this is ours. Like we, we spent, you know, Thousands of hours, 16 hours so much time.
James Hornak [00:10:15]:
Putting this thing together and it still is.
Nathan Ward [00:10:18]:
Like, that's for somebody. Like, it hasn't hit you as like, this is ours. Like, this is our vehicle to not be employees anymore.
James Hornak [00:10:25]:
Right. It's weird because I keep, you know, throughout the course of doing this, we kept having like, oh, yeah, it'll feel real at this point or like when the lifts go in, it'll feel. Feel like a real thing. Or when the floor is done, or this and this and this. And now we're, we've been open for a month and I'm like, yeah, no, this still doesn't actually, I'll tell you physically hit yet, which is.
Mike Allen [00:10:41]:
The shop is way nicer than a lot of shops have been around for 20 years. I mean, you've got nice epoxy floors, you've got good lighting.
James Hornak [00:10:51]:
You know, that's, that's part of what we were really going for is something that's comfortable and presentable and clean environment. We Were after that from the beginning.
Nathan Ward [00:10:59]:
Well, and that's the. The marketing side for me is, like, you're gonna pay the money to get somebody into your shop. You better make sure they come back for everything. It's. If you sell one thing to one person one time, you'll be broke your entire life. If you continue to sell to that same person and. And they want to come back to your shop, that. That is how you become wealthy.
Nathan Ward [00:11:19]:
That's how you build up that base.
Mike Allen [00:11:21]:
The easiest customer is the customer you already have, right?
James Hornak [00:11:24]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:11:25]:
Just making more repeat customers.
James Hornak [00:11:26]:
This. This whole business is long game. You want to keep them coming back for more things instead of try it once, have a bad experience, and go to somebody else.
Mike Allen [00:11:34]:
All right, so it's Random Wednesday at Inconceivable. You are slammed. You've got 12 hours of work. You got to finish by the end of the day. And Ms. Jones comes in, and she's about to leave for the beach, and her brakes are grinding. Do you have the skill set where you can go put pads and rotors on for her to get her on the road? Or is that like, it's.
Nathan Ward [00:11:54]:
Are you. You're asking me?
Mike Allen [00:11:55]:
Yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:11:56]:
Yeah. So I. I weaponize incompetence when it comes to cars. So I've always done my own brakes, changed my own. I am not a mechanic by any means. Like, it's. I don't look up, you know, on my car. I don't look up schematics.
Nathan Ward [00:12:09]:
It's just. It looks like it goes together that way. When it comes to a customer's vehicle, yes, I can follow the rules, put on, you know, brakes and rotors and things like that, but, man, do I not let people know that?
Mike Allen [00:12:22]:
I'm saying, I feel like. I feel like. I feel like your partner's over here. Like.
James Hornak [00:12:29]:
I was taking that question more of, like, that situation. What do you do? Do you turn her away and tell her, no, we can't do it because we're already busy? And that's one of those things that depends on how many of the rest of those cars absolutely need to be done by the end of that day. And you kind of, to me, call some, start calling your customers and see what their timeline is for the vehicles. Are they flexible? Can they wait till the next morning? If it's something I can backburner for, you know, next morning, next day, whatever, I. I can do that or, you know, stay a little bit later on something that can wait a little longer.
Mike Allen [00:13:00]:
That is a much more mature way to address that. Situation. What I was really trying to do figure out is, is Nathan as incompetent with vehicles? Am.
James Hornak [00:13:08]:
I don't know your skill set, but I do know his.
Mike Allen [00:13:11]:
It's a very low bar.
James Hornak [00:13:11]:
This is why. Yeah, this is why he's like, oh, I'll pull it in. No, you will not pull it in the shop.
Nathan Ward [00:13:16]:
You. Oh, I mean.
Mike Allen [00:13:18]:
I'm allowed to pull cars in and rack them. You know, I can pull wheels and put wheels.
James Hornak [00:13:22]:
Our. Our shop is so tight to get into. It's. Yeah, it's tough, honestly.
Nathan Ward [00:13:28]:
Four lit. It's three, two post lifts and a full alignment system from Hunter and it's. Yeah, it's tight. Like we're in. I think We've got a 600 square foot.
Mike Allen [00:13:38]:
Let me tell you how unusual it is that a startup new business shop has a Hunter Hawkeye Elite with 12,000pound scissor lift. Free and clear, no debt.
James Hornak [00:13:49]:
We damn near stole that thing. Yeah, that's my two favorite things about the shop are the floors because they're beautiful and easy to clean and the alignment rack. And we got that from a tip from Brandon at Velocity Motorworks who told us about a company called rtr and they do just repo equipment, not just for auto shops. All kinds of like industrial repo stuff. They just happen to have this 20, 21 hunter alignment system sitting in there. He goes down and looks at it and like, yeah, I'll just pay you a sticker for it. We got it for 30, you might say out the door. 34 grand out the door.
James Hornak [00:14:23]:
Left liner, that's 100,000 plus system.
Nathan Ward [00:14:28]:
Here's where it comes with me. As I walk in this place and I look at it, I call James like, well, yeah, it's a Hunter Hawkeye. He's like, was it all there? It's like it's red.
James Hornak [00:14:37]:
He has no idea what he's looking like. Send me a picture.
Nathan Ward [00:14:39]:
Looking at us like, I don't know. There's like some. Some swing dues on the side. Like I didn't know what alignment.
Mike Allen [00:14:45]:
Right. It's got some silver things on the rack that look like they're wobbly.
Nathan Ward [00:14:48]:
It's got some things, pulpits.
James Hornak [00:14:50]:
Well, it was in pieces too. It was not put together. So he didn't really know what he was looking at. And I was just like, I hope it's there.
Nathan Ward [00:14:56]:
I knew it was big. Like that's kind of. But yeah, the guy, when I watched, really heavy.
James Hornak [00:15:00]:
Oh, that's a whole other story. Yeah, we went. Well, I went and picked it up with our trailer that was not happy about hauling it.
Nathan Ward [00:15:08]:
And a Home Depot.
James Hornak [00:15:10]:
And a Home Depot transit truck. Yeah. And then proceeded to try and unload it here with our tiny little forklift, which was also very unhappy. Well, that was a process.
Mike Allen [00:15:20]:
Yeah. I can't imagine trying to put together one of those things.
James Hornak [00:15:22]:
Oh, we had Hunter come and put it together. We got it. I got it.
Mike Allen [00:15:26]:
That's the right thing to do.
James Hornak [00:15:27]:
Not going to try that.
Mike Allen [00:15:29]:
Do you know who did it for you?
James Hornak [00:15:31]:
Sean Cheadle is the guy's name. He's our. I guess he's our Hunter rep. He's the only one that I know.
Mike Allen [00:15:36]:
He's the service rep now. He's the new service rep in the area. The one. The one that was here forever. Has recently moved on.
James Hornak [00:15:42]:
Okay. Sean did a great job. I was pretty happy with him.
Mike Allen [00:15:44]:
Sean.
Nathan Ward [00:15:45]:
I've talked with a few of the guys out there, though. So that's kind of the cool thing with the shop is he does, you know, the mechanic work. He understands, you know, cars in, cars out. For me, I understand, like, negotiating, talking to people and figuring out, hey, we need.
Mike Allen [00:15:58]:
Yeah, it sounds like you pissed off one of your parts reps this week. You're talking to somebody about a piece, wanting to get a quote on a piece of equipment and getting competing quotes. And the dude that was.
James Hornak [00:16:09]:
That was way back in the beginning when we were first trying to set things up, because we were looking, getting quotes from, like, every vendor we could just to do some price comparing and see what was the realistic way to go.
Nathan Ward [00:16:19]:
But I took a day off of work and just every 30 minutes, I scheduled another one in here. So, yeah, Napa Autozone Advanced Auto O'Reilly just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Mike Allen [00:16:29]:
They're all shaking hands as they pass each other.
Nathan Ward [00:16:30]:
They were, yeah. Every single one of them. Oh, hey, what are you doing here? You know what I'm doing.
Mike Allen [00:16:35]:
So are you willing to say, do you have a primary supplier that you've decided to do business with, or is it just whoever's got what you need?
James Hornak [00:16:42]:
So at this point, my top three have been fmp. Who our rep Rick is.
Mike Allen [00:16:50]:
He's great.
James Hornak [00:16:50]:
Rick's a great dude. Big fan of fmp. I've, you know, worked with them in the past at different places. So FMP is probably my. My first go to. And then Napa and World Pack after that.
Mike Allen [00:17:00]:
Okay.
James Hornak [00:17:01]:
I don't mess around too much with AutoZone Advance. O'Reilly's has some of, like, the weird stuff that you don't expect them to. So they're really good in a pinch.
Mike Allen [00:17:11]:
You also got a lot of good dealerships right nearby.
Nathan Ward [00:17:14]:
The reps are awesome. From O'Reilly. The couple guys that came in liked him a lot.
James Hornak [00:17:18]:
Yeah, the reps are cool. I just haven't, you know, found a. I need to use them for a ton of stuff yet.
Mike Allen [00:17:23]:
Let me switch gears a little bit real quickly. Sure. One of the things that's a common shtick on this show is, you know, it's Confessions of a Shop Owner. And the idea is that we share stories about the mistakes that we've made as experienced shop owners so that new shop owners don't make the same mistakes, and they can make their own interesting new mistakes. Right. So I'm going to give you guys a little bit, and you don't have to share anything if you don't want to. You're only a month in, but I had a plethora. Plethora.
James Hornak [00:17:58]:
Plethora.
Mike Allen [00:17:58]:
Plethora. I'm going to say plethora. I had a plethora of clusterfucks.
James Hornak [00:18:03]:
That sounds a little.
Mike Allen [00:18:04]:
This week at Carfix.
Nathan Ward [00:18:06]:
How many plethora? Like, yeah, one or two.
Mike Allen [00:18:10]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a wide variety of options to choose from. So I have a buddy who's got a shop in a neighboring town, and he is a really good businessman, and he knows his limits, and he knows his lane, and he doesn't go out of his lane. So he had a situation where he had a good client who needed head gaskets on a Honda. And, you know, he's not in a position to do head gaskets on the vehicle. So he called me and said, hey, I got this client. This is a situation. I said, why don't you just sub it to me? I'll give you a good discount and you can mark it up and have it handled.
Mike Allen [00:18:45]:
It's like, great. Sounds good. And so we agreed to a fixed price, and he towed it over, and we get the ball rolling. And the technician's like, hey, I don't really like some of these aftermarket parts. I want to do dealer parts. No problem. Okay. And the communication that was given to the technician was, do, do whatever you think you need to do to do it to do the job.
Mike Allen [00:19:08]:
Right, Right.
James Hornak [00:19:09]:
And he took that as, you know, get the dealer parts, and.
Mike Allen [00:19:11]:
And, well, and he did. And he switched over to your parts. But he also, the original estimate didn't include chains, guides, and tensioners.
James Hornak [00:19:17]:
Oh, no.
Mike Allen [00:19:19]:
And he was like, it's got 130,000 miles on it. I'm going to put change, gods and tensions on it.
James Hornak [00:19:23]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:19:23]:
I was told to get what I need to do it. Right. So he just got it on and got it all from OEM. Right. And so the estimate went up by, like, $2,000.
James Hornak [00:19:31]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:19:32]:
And. And so he texts my manager. He's like, hey, all the parts are here. Am I good to go? Or do we need to call the customer? Because he knew that the estimate had gone up $2,000, but he didn't say, hey, the estimate's gone up $2,000.
James Hornak [00:19:47]:
Yeah. Didn't communicate back.
Mike Allen [00:19:48]:
He assumed that the manager had looked at the ticket, too. Right, sure. And manager's like, no, Mike's already talked to him. Knock it out. Right. And so he knocks it out. And so all of them thought that the other knew what was up, and there was a breakdown in communication. And then yesterday morning, it's like, hey, Honda's ready to go.
Mike Allen [00:20:11]:
And I. I called my buddy on speakerphone. I was like, hey, man, what's up, bro? You know, are you off today? Because he. I think he closed at noon on Friday, but he had taken the day off altogether. Like, hey, the Honda's ready to go. It's like, super. You know, logistically, I'm just gonna send a tow truck to come pick it up. Send me a bill.
Mike Allen [00:20:27]:
And I opened up, I was like, oh, this is the first time I looked at it. Right, sure. And I was like, hey, I literally said, this doesn't look right to me. How much did I tell you this was going to be? Because I didn't remember. He was like, you told me it was going to be X. I was like, well, I'm going to send you the payment link. You pay that amount, and I'll make the rest of it. Right.
Mike Allen [00:20:49]:
But something ain't right. Right. And so then we figured out the breakdown in communication, and then there was a whole he said, she said. People got mad at each other within the company. We had to have a, you know, sit down with all parties involved, heart.
Nathan Ward [00:21:05]:
I was gonna ask how you got to the. The bottom of that. Like, what the. You know. Yeah, the firing order to get down to.
Mike Allen [00:21:12]:
Well, so, like, I'm sitting there with my manager, and we're like, how is this thing $2,000 more than what we quoted? And we pulled up the original estimate. Like, oh, well, it's all Honda stuff. Oh, it's got chains and guys. Oh, okay. Well, that's how I got to be $2,000 more. And. And then he called the advisor and he was like, hey man, how did this thing go to $2,000 more? He's like, I don't know. I was told that just to fucking do it.
Mike Allen [00:21:35]:
It's Mike's buddy, fix it.
James Hornak [00:21:37]:
Oh.
Mike Allen [00:21:38]:
And then we get off the phone and he walks back in the shop. He's like, hey man, I just got my ass chewed because, you know, because this ticket was too much. And the, the technician was like, I was told to get whatever it needed to be done, right? So why are they chewing our asses? We didn't do anything wrong, right? It's like, oh my God. Everybody was mad so we had to have a little sit down. Like, look, guys, there was no malicious intent. Nobody here was like, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna screw somebody over and it won't be me. Right?
James Hornak [00:22:08]:
No, it was just a miscommunication.
Mike Allen [00:22:11]:
But it was a great example of everybody thought they were communicating clearly, but it wasn't clearly enough. And I end up getting take a nice big juicy bite of a two thousand dollar sandwich for doing a favor. Right?
Nathan Ward [00:22:24]:
But playing the telephone game, it's like as a kid where one person says.
Mike Allen [00:22:28]:
One and well, so what we agreed to was one, when there's, we went outside of our normal operating procedures and how we deal with estimates and customers, right? Because I, I got involved and when I get involved, things get up. And so it was a great example of. This is why we don't go outside of our normal process and procedure. Everything should follow our normal process and procedure and moving forward, whenever there is something that takes us out of the normal process, the expectation is, and I have that communication with you, I'm not trying to be a dick when I say this, but I'm going to say, okay, what did you hear? Repeat back to me what you understood from that.
Nathan Ward [00:23:09]:
That actually, that makes sense and that's powerful.
Mike Allen [00:23:11]:
If you don't and, and if you, with egos at play, that can sound like I'm, I'm talking down to you like you're a child. Right? You say, I'm not trying to talk down to you. I just don't want to write another $2,000 check because I failed to communicate clearly. Right, so what did you understand? All right, perfect. Let's go.
James Hornak [00:23:28]:
Right, so make sure everybody's on the same page from the beginning. Yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:23:32]:
Like for me with the, the marketing business stuff, I was also sales for the company. And that's one of the biggest things I taught people is like, hey, all the time, do you understand what I'M saying, do you like, do you get.
Mike Allen [00:23:43]:
Well, it's a classic mirroring and, and that's a classic leadership and negotiation methodology. Right.
Nathan Ward [00:23:51]:
But yeah, that's really good. What did you hear me say?
Mike Allen [00:23:54]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just one of many clusterfox at CARFIX this week. So what are you going to do? So one thing that I'm super impressed with you guys about that I think you deserve kudos for is y' all were at an ASTA social event, networking with other shop owners three weeks before you ever opened your business.
James Hornak [00:24:19]:
Before we were even open. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:24:21]:
You had a website and an SEO company. They connected you with asta. You came to events, you immediately started making relationships. You've signed up with a coaching company already. And might I say the best coaching company of all the choices, Elite Worldwide. No. Well, so like two, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, how many was. We had an episode with Matt Lofton, their director of coaching, talking exactly.
Mike Allen [00:24:45]:
About the program that you guys signed up for. It's their 180 program. It is kind of a self guided process through the different modules that they have created. And there's group meetings available and one on one meetings available if you ask for it. Right. And the pacing is kind of dependent upon your ability to complete the assignments.
James Hornak [00:25:09]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:25:10]:
And, and kind of the check offs. Right. To make sure that you have the competencies. And the first, we were laughing yesterday. The first step of that is you have to have good financials and you need to report good financials to them. And they're like, we need three years or your P Ls and you're like, I got three weeks of P Ls.
James Hornak [00:25:22]:
Yeah. Give you that.
Nathan Ward [00:25:27]:
The calculator's like, man, your effective labor rate needs to be 288.
Mike Allen [00:25:32]:
A little front, heavy on the expenses right now, you know, so well, it's.
Nathan Ward [00:25:36]:
I think actually the Elite we did get from the podcast. So I mean we hear the, you know, the commercials.
Mike Allen [00:25:43]:
Matt, did you hear that they're a client of yours because of the podcast, maintain sponsorship.
Nathan Ward [00:25:49]:
So. And then I think it was, I want to say it was Tanika that said it, but it was, I want to say she said Michael Jordan had a coach in 97. Who are you to think you can do it better? Like he has a coach. Who are you to think you're better at doing something and you don't need coaching?
James Hornak [00:26:04]:
That makes sense.
Nathan Ward [00:26:06]:
That's incredible.
Mike Allen [00:26:07]:
She's a badass.
Nathan Ward [00:26:08]:
She really is. I think everybody that I've met after The Asta I was talking about, just meeting her, she knows her numbers cold. Like, this is a person I would love to hang out with and just learn how to do things better because.
Mike Allen [00:26:21]:
She'S fun to hang out with. If you don't know dick about what she does for a living or her history or anything else, she's just fun to hang out with, you know, so.
Nathan Ward [00:26:29]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:26:31]:
Anyway, she actually is also the reason that we're going to have a really ridiculous event at the Expo this year at the pre party on Thursday night. If you come early. There's a party on Thursday night that's open for all attendees. You ever seen the big, like, strap on sumo suits that they do?
James Hornak [00:26:53]:
Yeah, the inflatable ones?
Mike Allen [00:26:55]:
Yeah, we've got those. But evidently, according to Nika, Lucas and I are having a sumo wrestling match. We're going to be dancing monkeys for the amusement of everyone else, but there will be a champions belt handed out. So I. I don't know the rules of sumo or how it works if they're around, if they're multiple outs or if you have to pin me or what. But Lucas is a big dude, right? He's what I would say six, two, maybe 275 or something. All right, maybe 300, maybe 575. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:27:25]:
He's Braxton. Just called you fat, bro. But. And I'm overweight, but I'm not by any stretch big or strong. So what I'm doing is I'm just going to run in circles until I tire out big fella. And then I'm going to kick him in the knee. So that's my plan.
Nathan Ward [00:27:47]:
Good buddy.
Mike Allen [00:27:48]:
Different. Yeah.
James Hornak [00:27:48]:
So gotta pay to watch that.
Mike Allen [00:27:50]:
Yeah. So if you're coming to ASCA Expo this, there's so much to gain from an event like that and just one of the many things is going to be Lucas beating the out of me in a sumo suit. So.
Nathan Ward [00:28:03]:
Well, like we were saying yesterday, if you want to get the longest shop in business and the youngest shopping business.
Mike Allen [00:28:09]:
Well, I was thinking about Head to Head. I was thinking about Mike Byers Automotive in Asheville. I don't know, they've been around since the early 80s, just with him as a single owner. Right. So now there are generational businesses that are pushing up on 100 years now. Right.
Nathan Ward [00:28:26]:
Perfect.
Mike Allen [00:28:27]:
Around the country. So my family's been in it for three generations. My grandfather opened his up in 37, I think, but it's been three different. Each generation has had its own business, so it hasn't been the same Business running continuously. But no, it's pretty neat. So are you guys coming to the expo?
James Hornak [00:28:49]:
We're planning to, yeah. Absolutely.
Nathan Ward [00:28:51]:
Yeah. Without a question. Is that.
James Hornak [00:28:53]:
That's something we essentially would have. We have to go to that.
Mike Allen [00:28:56]:
Yeah, it's 10 miles away. There's no reason not to.
Nathan Ward [00:28:58]:
And it's. It really is. The more people you know, the better you can do this thing.
James Hornak [00:29:01]:
For us, making connections from the beginning has been huge. Even. Even just meeting the people we've already met. Oh, like. Like you.
Mike Allen [00:29:08]:
Well, what. What can help them?
James Hornak [00:29:09]:
It's been great.
Mike Allen [00:29:10]:
What can I do? Or what can we do as an industry to help out a startup shop business? Like, what you guys have anything?
Nathan Ward [00:29:19]:
That's a good question. Really. I mean, you guys have kind of done it. Like, that's. I mean, I've. I've called you. I've called or I've texted you, or I think I've texted and called. Something we found out was the shop owners, like, going into this, I thought everybody was, you know, tooth and nail that tried to screw each other, you know, just.
Nathan Ward [00:29:37]:
And I found out the owners are some of the best people I've ever met. It's ask for help and they will. I mean, they'll come over and give you the shirt off their back if.
Mike Allen [00:29:44]:
They'Re ASTA people 100.
James Hornak [00:29:47]:
We haven't met bad people yet.
Mike Allen [00:29:52]:
Well, you haven't realized that I'm a bad person yet.
Nathan Ward [00:29:54]:
Oh, no, no. We've listened to the podcast.
Mike Allen [00:29:56]:
Okay, fair enough.
James Hornak [00:29:58]:
You're like a role model.
Mike Allen [00:30:02]:
So I'm gonna ask invasive questions and if you don't want to answer it, answer them. Or if you want me to cut them out, we can cut them out. What's the nature of your partnership? Are all 50 50?
James Hornak [00:30:14]:
Not right now, actually.
Nathan Ward [00:30:16]:
No. The way we. So at first we. We did say, like, all right, we're 50 50. And then it was. So I ended up funding every dollar.
James Hornak [00:30:23]:
Right. That's probably the biggest reason that we're not 5050 is because the financing has to come mostly from you at this point.
Nathan Ward [00:30:30]:
So what we did instead is we went 1981, and as soon as the shop gets net profit, all of his net profit is going to go back to pay loans down to any payback X percentage. He'll get that percentage back and be able to put that back on. That's just what you do for a friend. So a lot of our mentors, like, oh, do an S corp. So it's harder for him to buy it back. It's like, nah, man, we did this together. It's. I have to have that controlling because, like, if this thing goes bust or you just walk out and want to take part of the company with you.
James Hornak [00:30:58]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:31:00]:
So do you have a partnership agreement in place?
Nathan Ward [00:31:03]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:31:03]:
Okay, good. I would encourage you. I had a partner in store number two and store number three. And I had. I'm super thankful to the advice that I got from my business coach thoroughly. And we had a really clear understanding and a mutually agreed upon ironclad partnership agreement. And when it became obvious that we didn't need to work together anymore, it made it really easy to extricate ourselves from the business together. We had an agreed upon valuation formula and I knew how much I had to pay him and he knew how much he was going to get paid and the terms in which he was going to get paid.
Mike Allen [00:31:46]:
Okay. And so we're still friends. Like I. He went. He took that money and went and opened a shop in his hometown. I went by and visited him last week or the week before. I don't remember when it was. And hung out at a shop for an hour with him.
Mike Allen [00:32:00]:
He was at car fix at the social that y' all came to. He brought his whole crew with him.
James Hornak [00:32:06]:
The guy brought that. That crew of people. Yeah, yeah. I can't remember his name, but yeah, we talked to him.
Nathan Ward [00:32:10]:
I remember asking his. His guys is like, hey, how do I not this up? Like from the employee? And the employee's like, air conditioning.
James Hornak [00:32:17]:
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:32:20]:
We've established this. Air conditioning's for pussies. Except up front. The a front has to be air conditioning because I'm very delicate.
James Hornak [00:32:26]:
The service writers sweating delicate sensibilities.
Mike Allen [00:32:30]:
All right, so you've got a partnership agreement in place. I think that's a great idea. At the risk of giving advice, you didn't ask for 50. 50 partnership is really challenging because you will disagree on things at some point and somebody's got to be. Got to have the N word. Yeah. End word is what I said. And so our agreement was 5149.
Mike Allen [00:32:59]:
And so that was where it was. And that was where it was from the very beginning. So you didn't ask for that advice. But that's more for people that are listening and thinking about opening up a shop in partnership with a friend or a colleague.
James Hornak [00:33:12]:
That is good advice because we. I don't think either one of us really knows how to work a partnership. Really. We've never done this before. We're in uncharted territory for us.
Mike Allen [00:33:21]:
You've got a resource with elite right now and they've. There are tons of individual owners and partnership owners and majority minority relationships. We were talking about HUSKA and Fort Collins. Right. A world class organization. They do enormous numbers and they've got majority and minority stakeholders. Right. So you know, they can review your existing partnership agreement or they can give you templates of other ones that have been known to work.
Mike Allen [00:33:49]:
And okay, you know, agreement might be not.
Nathan Ward [00:33:51]:
It's definitely something to do.
James Hornak [00:33:52]:
Yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:33:53]:
Because when we went into this thing, it was a handshake. Like we kind of talked like this is what we're. We're going to be about. Like we're not going to, we're not going to screw people. We're not here to lie. We'll show them like, hey, why it's.
Mike Allen [00:34:04]:
Cars breaking off on their own. You don't have to make up. Exactly.
Nathan Ward [00:34:07]:
So. And really the thing that's working is he, he runs the shop. Like he knows the inside of that in and out.
James Hornak [00:34:14]:
That's because I've spent the last 10 years bouncing through auto shops in various positions. I've been a service writer, I worked in parts. I've been a tech. Yeah, I played that.
Nathan Ward [00:34:23]:
For me it's, you know, the bank and the insurance and you know, talking to CEOs and stuff like that. That's, that's where I find that's my comfort zone.
Mike Allen [00:34:31]:
So when I learned about you guys and the business that you're starting. When we talked at the SDA event last month, you were still working full time and you would come here in the evenings or weekends or whatever and help out and, and you know, work from home and that kind of stuff. And you were kind of.
James Hornak [00:34:51]:
I was pretty much doing everything here.
Mike Allen [00:34:53]:
Yeah.
James Hornak [00:34:53]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:34:53]:
And now you have quit your. You're no longer bi vocational. You are now here also.
Nathan Ward [00:34:59]:
Yep, I'm here.
Mike Allen [00:35:01]:
So my fear is a startup company one month in, does it have enough revenue for the two of you to be able to pay the bills?
James Hornak [00:35:10]:
We.
Nathan Ward [00:35:11]:
No, we.
Mike Allen [00:35:14]:
Not enough. Enough to pay the company bills. Yes. But then to take enough money out for you to pay your personal bills.
James Hornak [00:35:20]:
Right.
Nathan Ward [00:35:20]:
Because this is actually, this was something I was hoping you were bringing up and I wanted to touch on. So even though I did marketing business, you know, consulting for about 12 years, first thing I did when we brought up this shop was go buy small business for dummies and go learn it. It's a bible. Like it is as good as it get, but it goes through. Make sure your finances are good. I mean it walks you step by step to make sure you're ready to do this kind of thing of thing. With me being here full time now, it's. I'm still taking nothing from the company, but I do have quite a bit of savings.
Nathan Ward [00:35:53]:
I do have, you know, all these things where it's like, hey, I need a nest egg. My wife is still working, things like that to be able to do it. But it's. You absolutely have to have working capital.
Mike Allen [00:36:03]:
Do you have a, do you have a, like, I'm good. Not taking a check for six months. Is it three months, six months, a year?
Nathan Ward [00:36:11]:
It's essentially I'm, I'm good. So I'm a disabled veteran. So I, all my bills are paid for through that disability and it's, it's the reason I don't have a race car anymore. It's my. I've got an old 05 RAV4 that's paid off.
Mike Allen [00:36:23]:
Yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:36:24]:
So. And that's, you know, without food and gas, that sort of thing. But it pays my mortgage. It pays to make sure that I'm, I'm good.
Mike Allen [00:36:31]:
Okay.
Nathan Ward [00:36:32]:
And right now we're building. I don't care. I'm not trying to make money right now. I'm trying to make this thing sing. I can take money later on.
Mike Allen [00:36:38]:
Okay, that's cool, man.
Nathan Ward [00:36:40]:
Yeah, that's cool. It's not a bad gig.
Mike Allen [00:36:42]:
Well, you got to get paid, brother.
James Hornak [00:36:44]:
Yeah. So my story is a bit different during. So during the, the time we were basically setting this up and building this, I had decided to unemploy myself.
Mike Allen [00:36:56]:
You had released yourself to the industry to seek further opportunities, correct?
James Hornak [00:36:59]:
Yeah, because I knew that my attention and my focus needed to be here full time while we were, like I said, building and setting up everything here. So I spent the first two months working off of my own savings, essentially which I was prepared for. That's fine. I don't, I don't think I have quite as much of a built up savings as he does, but I'm in kind of the same boat where I, I'm okay with taking less pay if the business isn't, you know, doing enough to pay me.
Nathan Ward [00:37:34]:
You know what you're worth.
James Hornak [00:37:36]:
What I'm worth. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that can come later. I, I know what I need to, you know, survive and get by. Anything extra, like I said, that can come down the road. So there, there are sacrifices to be made doing this and as long as you're willing to do it, we hope it works.
Nathan Ward [00:37:53]:
That was the thing too, is we went through like our budget, like how much, what is the absolute minimum we can live off of and that's, you know, gas, toothpaste and sleep for dinner. Like that's just in case everything goes.
James Hornak [00:38:05]:
And the occasional Bloody Mary bar.
Nathan Ward [00:38:06]:
Yeah, couldn't do it without a Bloody Mary.
James Hornak [00:38:09]:
No, of course not.
Mike Allen [00:38:10]:
I mean we already. Everybody wants to drink their bacon in the morning, right?
James Hornak [00:38:13]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:38:15]:
So you've been more business minded than most startup shops from the word go. That's good. I asked you off air earlier what your labor rate was and you told me the answer to that question. And I guess my question is how did you pick that number?
James Hornak [00:38:34]:
We actually started with our idea of being lower than that. Do you care if we say no?
Nathan Ward [00:38:39]:
No.
James Hornak [00:38:40]:
So we started out bouncing the idea around at 130 and then just the more people we talked to and networked with, everybody said you have to start higher because being at the bottom will bring in, bring you to the bottom of shit work. You're going to get shit work. You're not really going to make anything that way.
Nathan Ward [00:38:57]:
So like people, cheap people bring expensive problems.
James Hornak [00:39:01]:
Yeah, that's true. So, and we didn't know anything about the phrase hero shops until we started listening to the podcast, but I feel like that would kind of fall into that. Oh yeah, we're the cheapest around. We'll fix anything and you know, undercut everybody else and you be the heroes. It's not, not always the right way to go.
Nathan Ward [00:39:19]:
Well, even at 150, we're not, I mean we're not the most expensive by a long shot.
Mike Allen [00:39:24]:
No, not close.
James Hornak [00:39:25]:
But we're not bottom either.
Nathan Ward [00:39:27]:
The thing is too, we didn't buy a business. We don't have a book of business. We do have to get people in here on cheap oil changes on all these people in the industrial park came out to every owner, CEO, all the people there is like, hey, here's my card. Everybody that works for you gets 10% off. So a 10 off parts discount. And it's just to get people through the door. Obviously our labor rate will go up, but for now it has to be low. It's.
Nathan Ward [00:39:52]:
I mean when you're trying to bring in business brand new.
Mike Allen [00:39:55]:
Right.
James Hornak [00:39:56]:
There has to be something to bring the people in other than just the awesome name of our shop.
Nathan Ward [00:40:00]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:40:00]:
So besides that, your location is, is in a heavily industrialized area, part of Raleigh, near the airport. There are a lot of fleet buildings that I just driven by. You know, there's a big plumber across the street there's a turf company right next door. And so as I was pulling in, I was thinking that all these guys have trucks that need service and there's somebody that's servicing in them. But. And there's a reason and they have a relationship, but they aren't as convenient as you are. You're. You literally can walk over there and drive the truck over and then put it back in their parking lot.
James Hornak [00:40:35]:
For me, we've had people do that. Like, we've gotten some business from this little industrial park that we're in. And a lot of times the people will come, drop their vehicle off and just walk down the street to work. Like, yeah, just at the end of.
Mike Allen [00:40:45]:
The day when it's done, you know, if you can get their personal vehicles, they'll start bringing the fleet vehicles. If you can get their fleet vehicles, they'll start bringing their personal vehicles. So, you know, now I am not a good fleet service resource, but there are lots of people who are that listen to this or that are in ASOG or CTI and we're talking last night. You guys are not social media guys. I get that. Kudos to you. You still need to have a Facebook account that you ignore and just be in those two groups.
James Hornak [00:41:13]:
We do. We have a Facebook account and an Instagram account.
Nathan Ward [00:41:16]:
For the business.
James Hornak [00:41:17]:
For the business. Well, yes, for the business, but.
Mike Allen [00:41:20]:
Well, so it's ASOG Auto Shops Owners Group and then changing the industry Podcast group. And then there's another one, Auto Shop Owners Hangout, which is. I would only do that one for amusement sake. Because, I mean, the type of questions that are in there are just ridiculous. There's really. There's a lot of incompetency that happens in that group, but it's good for amusement's sake. So. And there's a fair amount of troll posts that happen in that group too, that are fun.
Nathan Ward [00:41:47]:
So as. As a young, impressionable shop, I try to stay away from that. That's a great idea.
Mike Allen [00:41:57]:
So one of the recent pieces of my shtick that I use to rage bait people on the podcast and on the groups is talking about free diag. And one of the things that I have said, if people choose to listen, is free diag is not right for every business. And, you know, if you're a specialty shop or whatever else might be, there's no reason to give anything away. I don't know if free diag makes sense for you guys. I don't think it does.
James Hornak [00:42:24]:
I would agree with that. I kind of bounced that idea around initially.
Nathan Ward [00:42:30]:
We do have inexpensive oil changes? We do. So $75 full synthetic, up to five quarts to get people in. And then the one thing I've been doing anytime I go to these, you know, like that's what I do most of the days. Walk out, talk to other business owners. And I always take free alignment coupons with me.
James Hornak [00:42:49]:
The more time you're not here, the more I can run the shop.
Nathan Ward [00:42:53]:
But that's what I do is like give him an incentive. And also if I can get that owner in here in the shop and have him see like holy cow. It's, it's comfortable, it's nice. Like it's not, you know, it's not like a dark hole with a, you know, guy nasty in here. It's comfortable place to be at.
Mike Allen [00:43:07]:
Well, I've not thought about free alignment as a loss leader to get people in but in your instance I can see how that makes sense because it's not a payroll hit because the owner is doing the alignment correct and there's no parts involved. So like a free oil change. You got oil and filter that you're, that you're eating right.
James Hornak [00:43:25]:
We can't do the free oil change but I've, I've set them up basically all line priced and it's I think reasonable. 75 bucks for a full synthetic up to five quarts.
Mike Allen [00:43:35]:
I think that's the marketplace right now. I don't think that's, I don't think that's beating the doors down price but that is, that is a price that is not going to lose you customers.
Nathan Ward [00:43:46]:
Or customer opportunities with the alignments. We actually, we have an employee as well. So he's 19 year old young man, spectacular.
James Hornak [00:43:54]:
He's a great kid. I'm not gonna lie. He's good.
Nathan Ward [00:43:56]:
Oh, we love having him around here.
Mike Allen [00:43:58]:
But it's, we can see partake in the Bloody Mary bar also he is 19, so.
James Hornak [00:44:03]:
No, we don't know.
Nathan Ward [00:44:04]:
I'm not gonna ask him.
Mike Allen [00:44:05]:
Yeah, that's some weak evil shop. That's some mediocre shop ownership right there. If you're going to be evil, you got to contribute to the delinquency of minors.
Nathan Ward [00:44:13]:
Okay. So you got to see his car before you even think like before you start giving this kid boo. He showed us the picture of his 350Z and it was gorgeous when he first got it. Like now it's ragged out. Oh, it's put together with six different like colored body panels.
Mike Allen [00:44:27]:
Yeah. Because he keeps trying to drift it and hitting curbs.
Nathan Ward [00:44:30]:
So there's no trunk on it. When he pulled this thing in, I remember both of us looked at it. Oh, yeah. That guy works on cars. For sure.
James Hornak [00:44:39]:
It's a piece of shit, but.
Nathan Ward [00:44:41]:
Oh, it's a piece of shit.
James Hornak [00:44:43]:
But realistically, like, he is a good kid. He's. He's got a good work ethic. He's got a good attitude, and he asks questions. God, that's the biggest thing, hiring somebody in, especially somebody who's new and having. I would rather have you ask me a million questions so that you can do it the right way rather than think, you know, what, you're doing it up and then I have to pay for it. So I like that he asks me questions. It's good for sure.
James Hornak [00:45:08]:
Yeah, he's a good kid.
Nathan Ward [00:45:09]:
Yeah. Thanks, Matthew. When you do.
James Hornak [00:45:11]:
Shut up.
Nathan Ward [00:45:12]:
When you do eventually find out this. This exists.
James Hornak [00:45:14]:
Yeah. We didn't tell him we were doing this, did we?
Nathan Ward [00:45:17]:
I think he said he was going to come in here.
James Hornak [00:45:19]:
No, I think he's gone this weekend.
Nathan Ward [00:45:21]:
Oh, shoot. I don't know. He might come in here.
Mike Allen [00:45:25]:
Yeah. So you guys are Monday through Friday, though, right?
Nathan Ward [00:45:27]:
For business Monday through Saturday.
James Hornak [00:45:29]:
We're Saturday. 10 to 2, technically, but.
Mike Allen [00:45:31]:
Okay, but.
James Hornak [00:45:31]:
Well, it's usually just.
Nathan Ward [00:45:32]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:45:33]:
You might have a customer walking in. We're getting. Sitting here chugging, so.
Nathan Ward [00:45:37]:
Sir, could you go?
James Hornak [00:45:38]:
Saturday is a pretty much just. We haven't really gotten any real business on Saturdays. It's kind of an admin day. We are technically here and I'll check a customer in or maybe do an oil change, but I'm not doing any, like, heavy work on a Saturday.
Nathan Ward [00:45:51]:
So usually what we do is we grab that 85 Mustang we pulled out of that guy's, you know, yard, that. Or that he was watering, and try to remember how we took it apart.
James Hornak [00:46:00]:
Yeah, there's that.
Mike Allen [00:46:03]:
The genesis of your business was stealing a fox body from a dementia patient, correct?
Nathan Ward [00:46:09]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:46:09]:
Okay. Just making sure he got it. I think that's. That should play into the title of our episode.
James Hornak [00:46:15]:
Yeah, we also. So there's another car we stole, too, which we talk. Should we talk about that? Sure. The other car, it's a 68 Mustang.
Nathan Ward [00:46:24]:
It's a. Yeah, we bought a 68 Mustang. Running and driving 351 Cleveland on a pallet next to it for 750 bucks. That's what's sitting out back. That's my next project.
James Hornak [00:46:34]:
It's no it needs.
Nathan Ward [00:46:36]:
And that guy also had Alzheimer's.
Mike Allen [00:46:41]:
New evil shop owner hack seek out Alzheimer's patients. Yeah, that's for their cars.
James Hornak [00:46:46]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:46:48]:
I will tell you this, having visited hundreds of shops around the country over 20 plus years of being in the industry. And it goes back more than 20 years because I was visiting shops with elite in their 20 group process with my dad when I was just a service advisor.
James Hornak [00:47:05]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:47:05]:
At his shop. Don't ever let your project car take up base space in the shop. The base space in the shop is there, generate revenue.
James Hornak [00:47:15]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:47:15]:
And project cars in the bay is the first thing you see at shops that are struggling. If I walk into a shop and the owner is like, oh, I'm, you know, I've been having problems with this and problems with that and you know, thanks for coming by. And the owner want. Goes to take a phone call or talk. I look over at whomever he just told me as his right hand man, I said, where does he keep his race car? And it's always in the back bay on the lift and it hadn't moved in six months. Or his drag car or his boat is backed into a bay. Or don't let toys. This business exists for you to put a dollar in and get a dollar 20 out.
James Hornak [00:47:54]:
Gotcha.
Mike Allen [00:47:55]:
Over and over.
James Hornak [00:47:56]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:47:56]:
It's some. It's a money printing machine to support you and your family and your employees. And you want to give a good service to your customers while you're doing it. Your toy projects have to be on toy project time. So if you can push it in and use your base space for that on Saturday evenings or at night, as long as you can push it back out the next morning and that bay is available for your customers the next day, that's fine.
Nathan Ward [00:48:20]:
That's why it's the closest one to the door.
James Hornak [00:48:22]:
Yeah. We push it out easily.
Mike Allen [00:48:24]:
Okay. Sorry to get preachy on you, but I've seen it over and over and over.
James Hornak [00:48:30]:
This is the, the information that we want from people with experience because again, we're new, we, we don't know what the hell we're doing. So having the connections and people that tell us that wouldn't know that otherwise. Right.
Nathan Ward [00:48:42]:
It's something you've brought up in other podcasts. I've heard you say that it's like that bay is there. Make money. Yeah, like that. And that's why, you know, Friday night, throw it in there, we can work on it Saturday, check people in, you know, if we're open, tended to check people in, get appointments for the next week. But yeah, it is helpful and it's, I mean, I think we agreed a while back it's like, look, we don't. Like, we listen to everybody. Like we weigh everything for sure.
Nathan Ward [00:49:07]:
But it's. We haven't been.
James Hornak [00:49:09]:
Take as much advice as we can get at this point.
Nathan Ward [00:49:11]:
Right. Well, we haven't been doing this since 1937 like your family has. It's. I mean, to think that I know better than somebody who's been doing this forever or for a long time, that's. It's lunacy.
James Hornak [00:49:22]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:49:22]:
Unrealistic.
Nathan Ward [00:49:23]:
It's inconceivable.
Mike Allen [00:49:25]:
Inconceivable.
James Hornak [00:49:26]:
There's our shameless plug.
Mike Allen [00:49:27]:
Yeah. Inconceivableauto.com 8825 Midway West Road, Raleigh, North Carolina, 6640131.
Nathan Ward [00:49:37]:
Thank you, sir.
James Hornak [00:49:38]:
That's awesome.
Mike Allen [00:49:38]:
Boom. They've got it on the wall right behind the couch. That's the only way I know.
Nathan Ward [00:49:43]:
I saw him look up and start reading off the shirt. It's like.
Mike Allen [00:49:46]:
All right, guys, this has been a lot of fun. Yeah, I really appreciate it.
James Hornak [00:49:50]:
Thanks.
Mike Allen [00:49:51]:
Thanks for. Thanks for letting us set up the casting couch.
James Hornak [00:49:54]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's what we're here for.
Nathan Ward [00:49:55]:
It was.
Mike Allen [00:49:56]:
It was.
Nathan Ward [00:49:56]:
Wasn't what I expected.
James Hornak [00:49:59]:
Do we keep clothes on or do we.
Nathan Ward [00:50:01]:
Do we still do the confessions or we run it out?
Mike Allen [00:50:03]:
Do you have a confession?
Nathan Ward [00:50:04]:
Oh, my God.
Mike Allen [00:50:05]:
I didn't want to. I didn't want to put you on the spot.
James Hornak [00:50:07]:
Let's.
Nathan Ward [00:50:07]:
You first, so I'll give you one. I call electricity magic because it doesn't make any sense to me and I call electricians magicians. If you don't know what the fuck you're doing with electricity, don't. So we had a Craftsman air compressor. Air compressor. That's what it was. And it's like, man, you know, it doesn't sound like it's turning over all the way. Well, let's just put a bigger amp fuse in it.
Nathan Ward [00:50:31]:
So how much bigger? 10. And we put it in. It turned into a fireball immediately and it was right in my face. I'm standing right next to the pump hit.
Mike Allen [00:50:41]:
You understand the purpose of a fuse, right?
Nathan Ward [00:50:43]:
No, it's magic does not understand. I did not go to Hogwarts.
Mike Allen [00:50:47]:
Where were. Where were you to stop him from doing this?
James Hornak [00:50:51]:
I was standing further away.
Nathan Ward [00:50:53]:
He's looking at me. He's like, yeah, send it. Let's see what happens.
James Hornak [00:50:57]:
You'll learn. It's like touching the hot burner as a kid. You'll learn.
Nathan Ward [00:51:03]:
You did well, right? Yeah. Yeah, that was my. That was my twelve hundred dollar mistake, actually. $200 we did get.
James Hornak [00:51:12]:
Yeah. It was not twelve hundred dollars. Yep, it was two hundred, but.
Mike Allen [00:51:17]:
Well, you got off easy then. So.
James Hornak [00:51:19]:
Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't terrible, but it was. It was a learning moment for sure.
Nathan Ward [00:51:22]:
Just got my eyebrows back.
James Hornak [00:51:23]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:51:25]:
Get them tattooed on.
Nathan Ward [00:51:27]:
Yeah. Yeah.
James Hornak [00:51:28]:
I think mine's gonna be that stupid wheel balancer we have out there. We bought it.
Nathan Ward [00:51:31]:
Yeah.
James Hornak [00:51:32]:
We thought. We're like, Yeah, I know. It's. It's pretty cheap. We got it off of Facebook. Turns out it was set up to run three phase power. We don't have that. We have spent forever trying to run a converter and do all this stuff.
Mike Allen [00:51:42]:
We're like, you know what, sell it and get another one.
James Hornak [00:51:44]:
We need to just. Just buy one.
Mike Allen [00:51:46]:
There was a really. There was a really good quality corgi mount and balance combo that was on a shop liquidation here in Raleigh last week and address. Josh Coombs drove up from Fayetteville and scooped it up.
James Hornak [00:52:01]:
So I'm pretty sure we missed that at this point.
Mike Allen [00:52:02]:
It was a good price. I think it was like two grand for both of them together, so.
Nathan Ward [00:52:07]:
That hurts.
James Hornak [00:52:08]:
Yeah, that would have been great.
Mike Allen [00:52:09]:
Yeah. You just gotta just keep an eye out for those things, man. So.
Nathan Ward [00:52:12]:
And that's everything in the shop. I mean, there's not a new thing in here. It's. That's how we kept the price alone.
Mike Allen [00:52:19]:
Go to asog. Asog and go to the file section. And Dutch Silverstein, Stein. Steiner Stein. Both, both, both Dutch. Grumpy Jewish guy, has a calculator on there to calculate real ROI on equipment expense.
Nathan Ward [00:52:38]:
Great.
Mike Allen [00:52:40]:
Don't ever use the calculator that the equipment salesman give you.
Nathan Ward [00:52:44]:
Oh, no, we know.
James Hornak [00:52:45]:
Yeah, of course not.
Mike Allen [00:52:46]:
And so. And that's a great way to see why you should be buying used equipment.
James Hornak [00:52:52]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:52:52]:
At this point in your. In your.
James Hornak [00:52:54]:
Oh, the used equipment has saved us a ton of money. And as long as it's functional and.
Mike Allen [00:52:59]:
You guys are debt free right now from the company perspective, is that right?
James Hornak [00:53:01]:
Yeah, we're. Yeah, we're not sinking.
Mike Allen [00:53:04]:
Well, don't get me wrong, you're so far ahead of most startups right now because you've got all your equipment debt free by buying used and being frugal. And you've started with a coach right away and you've started networking with other shop owners and realized that you don't have to live on an island by yourself.
James Hornak [00:53:19]:
Yeah.
Nathan Ward [00:53:20]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:53:20]:
And most startup shop owners, it takes them five, six, seven years to figure that out. So I'm excited to see your growth over the next few years. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And I'm sure that I'll. I'll see you next month at the expo.
James Hornak [00:53:34]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Nathan Ward [00:53:36]:
Just for anybody who's here in Raleigh, please, if you own a shop, come by. Like, say hi to us, give us advice. We will eat it up. Like, I'll pay for it.
Mike Allen [00:53:44]:
They'll set up a margarita. Yeah, a margarita bar and a casting couch. Just come by.
Nathan Ward [00:53:50]:
You tell me liquor of your choice, and I'll set it up.
Mike Allen [00:53:53]:
That's the casting couch part. All right, I think that's enough.
Nathan Ward [00:53:57]:
All right. Cheers.
Mike Allen [00:53:59]:
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, and 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 mikeonfessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number 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.
Mike Allen [00:54:53]:
Right.
Nathan Ward [00:54:55]:
You know I said, Jess. You know I said Jesse.