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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:06]:
Do you go by Matt or Matthew?
Matt Koppi [00:00:08]:
Matt's fine.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:09]:
Do you slide up, like, really close to the microphone? You want it, like, touching your face? You can adjust it if you need to.
David Roman [00:00:15]:
If you need to swing it up.
Matt Koppi [00:00:16]:
There you go. Like that?
Lucas Underwood [00:00:17]:
Yeah, that'll work. How you doing?
Matt Koppi [00:00:20]:
Doing all right. And yourself?
Lucas Underwood [00:00:21]:
I'm good. This is the first time you've ever been here?
Matt Koppi [00:00:24]:
Yes. The Asy. Yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:25]:
And you've been a shop owner for a while now, haven't you?
Matt Koppi [00:00:29]:
Well, 2016.
David Roman [00:00:33]:
Try to angle, like, right into the. Yeah, it's really heavy and. Yeah, so let it slide back a little bit. But you just want to lean up. Yeah, just lean into it a little bit.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:46]:
Really cool shop.
Matt Koppi [00:00:48]:
Really?
David Roman [00:00:48]:
Who does? Me. I do. No.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:50]:
Hell, no. Not you.
David Roman [00:00:51]:
It's very cool. Super cool.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:55]:
Very unique concept, very unique way of doing business. I had the pleasure of coming down.
David Roman [00:01:03]:
He doesn't know what you're talking about. What are you even saying?
Matt Koppi [00:01:06]:
It's not unique to me. That's what I do.
David Roman [00:01:08]:
I know, right.
Matt Koppi [00:01:09]:
So I'm not really sure what you're talking about.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:10]:
Yeah, well, you have a really unique way of the shop itself because you work on very specific cars.
Matt Koppi [00:01:18]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:19]:
You have some very specific cars in the shop that are pretty bad. A and you've built this huge clientele. People in my neck of the woods are like, hey, I'm going to take a copy. How did you do that? I guess the better thing is because I know your history. You got to tell us your history first.
David Roman [00:01:39]:
Introduce yourself to.
Matt Koppi [00:01:40]:
How far back do you want me to go? Because I have an add life. It's been all over the.
David Roman [00:01:49]:
I introduce them, at least nobody knows who you're talking.
Matt Koppi [00:01:53]:
Matthew copy or Matt copy. Have a shop in Black Mountain called Copying our Euro service. It was copying our performance. We recently rebranded because apparently we were scaring off the locals they thought only worked on race cars. No, we don't even do that.
David Roman [00:02:08]:
Right.
Matt Koppi [00:02:09]:
There's no money in that.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:10]:
You do have a pretty fast car, though.
Matt Koppi [00:02:12]:
Oh, yeah, I do.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:13]:
It's pretty slick.
Matt Koppi [00:02:14]:
Little ride, and I use it to deter people from spending too much money and false expectations.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:22]:
That's true. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you got just a brief history of yourself.
Matt Koppi [00:02:31]:
All right. The only one in my family that gives a crap about cars is me. Don't know how that happened. The story goes, when I was four or something like that, I drew a four legged chicken. That was the first picture people could tell what I drew. And then I drew a car. And that's all I drew from that point forward.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:48]:
Right.
Matt Koppi [00:02:49]:
No one else in my family understood where that came from. I kind of got hooked up with a top fuel drag racing team when I was 14, and I was the oil pan boy. At the end of the race, I come back, pull the oil pan off the 500 big block Chrysler engine, and I would clean it, find the pinholes, and they would braise it up and put it back in there and started going to races with them. Got to do a few passes with that car, which was the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my entire life, I bet. Not even at full throttle. It was just. I don't know how they do it.
David Roman [00:03:18]:
Yeah.
Matt Koppi [00:03:19]:
Joined the military, worked as a light wheel vehicle mechanic, which is basically anything heavy duty diesel with wheels on it. A lot of techs here are probably the same path because that's the largest job title in the United States military is Light wheel vehicle mechanics. A lot of people have cut their teeth on diesels and automotive in the military, as I did. Got off active duty. Excuse me. Got off of active duty, went into new car sales about six months. Decided I did not like losing money at all. And then I went into Mobile fleet maintenance, and we helped to build a business that did mobile on site fleet maintenance, where we had a couple of vans set up to do really rapid oil services and inspections on site for large companies.
Matt Koppi [00:04:05]:
They had big fleets and their morning meetings. But I had a bit of an accident. A truck fell and crushed my shoulder and went back into sales for a little while while I recovered. Then during the economy tanking in 2008 and nine, I went back to school and got a degree in something completely different because my ex wife thought that'd be a better approach to life. Didn't work out that way, and I decided to open my own business. I've been working on BMW since I was 19, off and on in various ways, and that's my passion, and that's kind of how I've been known for the car I built as well.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:37]:
Right. One of the things I've always noticed about you, even just the way that you walked through the dinner last night, you can tell you were in the service.
Matt Koppi [00:04:47]:
Right? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:48]:
You have a very structured approach to everything you do. And I was really impressed the first time I came to your shop because it shows how much of that structure played into the shop. Right. Because you've got a really unique operation in the way. Like, man, I don't know what it is about that building. I f and love that building. And it's a small shop.
Matt Koppi [00:05:10]:
It is.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:11]:
So it's like sitting off on this little side road, right? And all you see, like, when you walk out is the mountain is like, literally right in front of you. There's this beautiful little spot. Just amazing. And then, like, the front counter. I wish I had pictures. I probably do have pictures somewhere. You'll just have to show him. It's rare to see somebody pick a shop up like yours and start and create success like you created success and have structure.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:43]:
Like you have structure. Right. Until they hire a business coach or they go to some training or something. Where did that come from? Where did you find that structure in that? Because you had a lot of process and you had things fairly nailed down. Without that. How did you do that?
Matt Koppi [00:06:02]:
So I struggled a lot. I got really hungry. That's not my first shop. The first shop I had was a really crappy place out in the middle of nowhere. Had no visibility, had no amenities, no hot water, a toilet that barely worked. And it was just a real dump.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:18]:
Was it done with care auto repair?
Matt Koppi [00:06:20]:
No, this place was a dump. It was not even an actual shop. I was working on the floor. No lifts. It was rough. The mobile fleet, maintenance, we were always working on the ground under trucks. There was never any amenities. So it was just from the hunger.
Matt Koppi [00:06:37]:
I knew what I wanted. I can still see. I know the next few steps that I want to make happen. I'm not really sure how I'm going to make it happen yet, but I know what I want to happen. And that's kind of how I did it with this shop, was when I first went into that building, the main shop space was all I had. We had a little what's now the break room was our office, and the customers interacted with us there. That's where we got parts. It was really tight, right? But I knew that I wanted that space next door, which I turned into our lobby and remodeled all I just.
Matt Koppi [00:07:08]:
I know what I want to do next. Like I said, I just don't always know.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:12]:
And so you've come down here to aste for the first time, and you've been taking some training classes. Now, did you take management or did.
Matt Koppi [00:07:21]:
You take technical management?
Lucas Underwood [00:07:23]:
And so what has been your takeaway?
Matt Koppi [00:07:27]:
So this is my first aste. I have been to another training event prior to this, where I met you last spring. And what I found last spring was I went into the training expecting it to all be over my head because I had never had any formal training. I've never owned a business. I've never really built anything like this. So I expected all that training to go completely over my head, and I realized there, like, I know my KPIs, I know my numbers. I was just shooting for the wrong targets so the margin weren't right, things like that. And I was that guy in the back of the class, like, yeah, I'm the one at the end of the month with a stack of bills with the cool looking shop and the cool cars, and I'm drowning.
Matt Koppi [00:08:05]:
And I walked away from that training. Okay, I got to make these changes. So this training event, I'm pleased to say that every training I've gone to so far, the management stuff, it's reiterating things I know, it's polishing things that I know, and I'm going back with some polished ideas. I'm going to tweak some things and make it even better. So I'm really enjoying this training event because there was no anxiety coming into it. It was more excitement, like, okay, now what do I get now what am I going to change next, and how am I going to make it better? So that's what I'm getting from this one.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:37]:
So, talking about what's changing, what is it that we're going to work towards when we get back? Do you have specific things that you're going to make a shift on or you're going to make a change on?
Matt Koppi [00:08:48]:
Yeah, because, like a lot of us, I've been focused on the gross profit and the gross profit per hour. My coach and I have had a coach for last year, we've been talking about gross profit per hour, and it's not really been a huge focus, but that's going to shift big time, but more along the efficiency, because, as you said, my shop is not the biggest. I have nine parking spots total, and the efficiency is what I've been working towards and working towards and working towards. There's some ideas, just from talking to other attendees that I've come up, I found that I like. There's some things I've heard in the management classes that I like. I'm going to go back and try to tweak even more the efficiency and making it tighter so we can get cars in and out. Just turn them over, get them out, get them out.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:36]:
How many techs are you running right now?
Matt Koppi [00:09:39]:
At this moment, just two. Okay. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:43]:
I thought it was for a while that you were still working in the bays, weren't you?
Matt Koppi [00:09:46]:
Right, yeah. So I hired the second tech. His name is Jose. He's here with us to remove myself from the bay as a full time tech. And that was a huge move. Huge move.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:56]:
I feel like when we talked about that, there were some nerves or some anxiety at moving away from that. That's one of the things that I hear a lot of shop owners that were the primary technician, and they say, yeah, but if I'm not in there, I don't know about the quality that we're putting out, and I don't know about the. And I sensed a little bit of anxiety from you when it came to that. Right. Because you've always been the guy.
Matt Koppi [00:10:20]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:22]:
One of the things we see guys do is they go out and they say, okay, I'm the technician, and I am the service aDvisor, and I am the toilet cleaner, and I am the business owner, right? And they're trying to do everything all by themselves. And so what do they do? They go and they hire a less skilled technician. They hire an apprentice. They hire somebody that's completely green a Gs, and they're like, I'll teach them. God, no, man. I'm telling you. Right?
Matt Koppi [00:10:49]:
I mean, Tomma, adding on to your workload.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:52]:
Yeah, dude.
Matt Koppi [00:10:53]:
Holy crap.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:54]:
Absolutely. Well, and that's what I was getting ready to say, is that the problem is, okay, so we have four technicians in the shop and one apprentice. And those four technicians could spend 4 hours a day trying to teach the apprentice how to do that job.
Matt Koppi [00:11:11]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:12]:
And in four or five years, he's going to be proficient at that.
Matt Koppi [00:11:16]:
In four or five years?
Lucas Underwood [00:11:17]:
In four or five years.
Matt Koppi [00:11:18]:
Which is good, though, because you want to build that. You want to develop that new guy, but at what cost?
Lucas Underwood [00:11:22]:
Well, you cannot do it starting out, though, because if you go and you hire that guy who is not skilled, who is not a professional starting out, who doesn't know more than you do in a lot of ways, and that can be like an ego sting for a shop owner. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm the guy in my shop. I'm the guy who everybody comes to. I'm the guy who knows these things. And so if you're not willing to kind of take a little bit of an ego hit or take that risk and say, I'm going to put somebody in here that knows more than I do, or at least somebody that's extremely competent, the problem is they're like, well, how could I afford to pay them? You're going to have a whole lot harder time paying an apprentice, even though they're earning way less than you would if you tried to hire a master level technician.
Matt Koppi [00:12:06]:
And I think that was the biggest fear, was, how do I pay this guy? How do I provide enough hours to keep him going? And I'll say that in my situation, yeah, there's weeks that are super lean, that it's a struggle, and I worry about that. But this is kind of going back to the changing the industry that you guys talk about a lot. ThE culture in my shop. Come to find out, the culture in my shop is the reason that I have people. They love the paycheck, obviously, but the culture is why they're sticking around. Yeah. And that's what I keep pushing all my fellow shops in the area. I keep talking to people, like, fix your freaking culture.
Matt Koppi [00:12:43]:
Make it a place where people want to come.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:45]:
Yeah, dude.
Matt Koppi [00:12:46]:
They might not like it every day, but it's a place they can come and feel comfortable.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:50]:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't know. We've got a couple of good shops around us.
David Roman [00:12:56]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:12:57]:
Like, we're spread out a couple of hundred miles.
Matt Koppi [00:12:59]:
Right, right.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:59]:
But we've got a couple of good shops around us. But is it just me, or does it not seem like there are some rough ones out there?
Matt Koppi [00:13:05]:
There's some rough.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:07]:
I mean, is it like that in Kansas City? Are there a bunch of. Because, I mean, it feels like. And I don't want to throw shade. Anybody. The people who would be listening to this and the people that we know and are friends with are really good shops.
Matt Koppi [00:13:21]:
Right? It's not those shops.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:23]:
It's not them, exactly. There seems to be an overabundance of, like, I don't even want to call them shade trees. How would you describe it?
Matt Koppi [00:13:36]:
Just shady.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:37]:
Yeah, exactly. You can leave the tree out.
David Roman [00:13:40]:
I've got some really high end operations around me. I'm probably the shady shop, the sketchy shop. They look at my little rundown building.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:48]:
And they're like, it's not even the rundown buildings. It's not even the small shops. It's that, like, paper tickets. No structure whatsoever.
David Roman [00:14:00]:
Drop it off.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:01]:
We'll get to it when we get to it. They don't give estimates, and then they pick it up and they don't even know what was done. Screw it out on a sheet of paper, and they hand you the sheet of paper and they're like, hey, I was over it.
David Roman [00:14:12]:
I wish I was surrounded by shops like that. It'd be awesome. That'd be awesome. I would be so happy.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:21]:
I got one the other day, and I'll see if I can find this picture. I'll show it to both of you. I get this the other day, and this client goes to a friendly shop of mine, and he sends me a text message, and he says, hey, what do you think about this?
Matt Koppi [00:14:38]:
I'm like, what?
Lucas Underwood [00:14:40]:
He said, read that ticket. It's a paper written ticket. And he goes down this list, and it has all the things they did, and it was replace front brake calipers. $800.
David Roman [00:14:51]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:52]:
It's all that was on there. And it goes down into the parts line, and it says, employee food. $100. Swear to God.
David Roman [00:15:05]:
Employee food. That's awesome. I should start charging for that.
Matt Koppi [00:15:08]:
They have some balls.
David Roman [00:15:10]:
Yeah. We were talking about a research fee. They're charging for the employees lunch. That's awesome.
Matt Koppi [00:15:18]:
Hang on.
David Roman [00:15:18]:
Good for them.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:19]:
I want to find it for you. I've got to show it to both of you now. And they put the calipers on upside down.
David Roman [00:15:27]:
Oh, no. Well, that'll screw up. Yeah. Don't charge $100 employee fee.
Matt Koppi [00:15:33]:
How much of that? $100 was PBRs.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:36]:
Yeah, I know, right? Well, look at the master cylinder.
David Roman [00:15:40]:
A couple of adapters in there.
Matt Koppi [00:15:42]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:42]:
They put a brake line on it. They don't have a brake flaring tool, so they threw some adapters in there.
Matt Koppi [00:15:48]:
Oh, nice.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:49]:
So they didn't have to.
David Roman [00:15:50]:
Don't do that.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:52]:
Right.
David Roman [00:15:53]:
Yeah, but is it leaking? Yeah. Oh, it's leaking. Well, okay, then don't do that either.
Matt Koppi [00:16:01]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:16:01]:
If you're going to charge an employee.
Matt Koppi [00:16:03]:
Food fee, at least make sure it's just not leaking.
David Roman [00:16:07]:
Yeah, you can just say. There you go.
Matt Koppi [00:16:09]:
Trying to find a picture of my front office.
David Roman [00:16:14]:
Employees food.
Matt Koppi [00:16:16]:
This was the front office before.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:18]:
I would have never imagined that's what that looked like.
Matt Koppi [00:16:23]:
It was a butcher shop at one point.
David Roman [00:16:25]:
This is needs break buster to complete. Repairs will be separate. Bill, they could at least spell O's gave your employees. What's that say?
Lucas Underwood [00:16:43]:
I don't know. We see tickets like that all the time.
David Roman [00:16:48]:
This is impressive. It's also a 2002 Chevy Astro. So if you own a Chevy Astro, that's the shop you go to.
Matt Koppi [00:16:57]:
Right.
David Roman [00:16:57]:
Don't bring it to my shop, because it'll need head gaskets and I'll end up putting them in for free.
Matt Koppi [00:17:04]:
I like how they even had the handwritten name of the company, the address and everything.
David Roman [00:17:09]:
That's professional.
Matt Koppi [00:17:10]:
They went to Office Depot and bought, like, a stack of the triplicate carbon.
David Roman [00:17:15]:
At least get a stamp, though. At least stamp it. The stamps aren't that expensive. Then you just stamp the corner.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:21]:
No, I mean, that would be better than that.
David Roman [00:17:24]:
See, this is why you just avoid any of that nonsense. You go digital.
Matt Koppi [00:17:28]:
But, hey, they're getting their grease and brake cleaner for free, so that's good.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:32]:
No, they saved a fortune.
David Roman [00:17:33]:
Right. I think that meant, like, $20 for grease fittings cleaner, $20.
Matt Koppi [00:17:39]:
Stacking it all up. Yeah.
David Roman [00:17:44]:
But it's ambiguous enough that we can't tell.
Matt Koppi [00:17:47]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:47]:
I thought this was great. Mechanic recommendations. Had to modify to get to work. Was exploded, was asked to fix problem. That is why. Extra charge.
Matt Koppi [00:18:04]:
Well articulated. I like it.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:07]:
Did you read that line right there?
David Roman [00:18:08]:
Yeah. I didn't, but here's the thing. I would prefer that to be the shops around me. They're not. The shops around me are doing 2 million plus very well run operations. There are a few shops. There's a shop up the street from us is a bit of a cut rate shop. They don't charge enough.
David Roman [00:18:34]:
They don't put any notes in their diagnostic. Like, they just say, diagnostic charge $100.
Matt Koppi [00:18:40]:
Right.
David Roman [00:18:41]:
They're not putting testing notes and stuff like that in there, but they do a ton of used vehicles. So we're surrounded by repair shops and used car lots.
Matt Koppi [00:18:53]:
Got you.
David Roman [00:18:54]:
Within a mile of me, it's just used car lot repair shop. Used car lot repair shop, and the used car lots all use this one guy because he keeps them busy. He keeps his three mechanics busy. He doesn't have a very large shop, but, man, he's just pumping cars through there, doing used car work. Everybody else around me has a really well run operation. And then you have a few. One man, just single bay shop. So everybody else is like, six plus bays.
David Roman [00:19:27]:
There's an eight bay or 16 bay shop up the street from me, about half a block north. To the south of me, there's four eight bays, three bays. All well established, all run well. And then there's me scratching and clawing. I need a big red barn.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:49]:
You're still offended by that?
David Roman [00:19:51]:
I'm not offended by it. You sounded like you were offended by it.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:55]:
I'm not offended by the fact that you think my shop is why I'm successful. I'm okay with that.
David Roman [00:20:01]:
I didn't say that. I just said it helps to be next to an extremely popular roadside attraction. And then all you.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:11]:
I mean, do people go on vacation? Like, hey, I need to go get my car fixed?
David Roman [00:20:15]:
No, but everybody in town knows Mystery Hill. Everybody in town knows Mystery Hill, right?
Matt Koppi [00:20:21]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:20:21]:
Okay, then on the big red barn. Next. Why are you getting me riled up with this again? On the big red bar next to Mystery Hill. Everybody knows the big red bar next to Mystery Hill. It's a Giant red barn next to the popular roadside attraction.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:35]:
How does that mean that I get more clients?
David Roman [00:20:37]:
Goodness. Are you serious?
Lucas Underwood [00:20:42]:
I know where it's at.
David Roman [00:20:43]:
I go to an ATI class. Okay? I go to an ATI class. This is, like, one of the very first classes I've ever been to. I had no idea about anything whatsoever. That ATI class was awesome. The guy's just running through numbers. I love numbers. He's just running through numbers.
David Roman [00:20:57]:
This is how you do the Math. This is how you determine your employees potential and Yad. And I'm looking at my numbers, and I'm like, oh, this is so the. The people sitting next to me work. Would you turn that ofF? The people sitting next to me have a shop, like 2 hours north, and the guy's doing $1.3 million, and he's been in business for, like, two or three years less than me.
Matt Koppi [00:21:26]:
Okay?
David Roman [00:21:26]:
I'm doing maybe $400,000 a year and not paying the bills at all, by the way. Not paying the bills in any way, shape or form. And I go to him and I'm like, dude, how'd you ramp up to $1.3 million? And he's like, oh, well, we just got really busy really quick. I'm like, okay, tell me more. Tell me more. He's like, yeah, well, we have a really big sign. I'm like, okay, and we're next to Walmart.
Matt Koppi [00:21:53]:
That doesn't.
David Roman [00:21:55]:
In this tiny town of, like, 10,000 people, what do you think the biggest thing in town is? It's the Flipping Walmart. He's right next to Walmart with a.
Matt Koppi [00:22:05]:
Giant sign and zero advertising budget, I'm sure.
David Roman [00:22:08]:
Zero advertising. He did no marketing. I'm like, are you sending mailers out? Are you doing Google ads? He's like, no. He's like, I just turned my sign on and they just piled in. Why? Because he's next to the Walmart. That's all I'm saying is you're next to the Walmart. And I'm not saying that you don't have to. You were friendly.
David Roman [00:22:27]:
You had good quality work. You took care of your customers. All that stuff helps. All that stuff helps. But if they don't even know you exist, having all that other stuff doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I don't care how good your quality work is. I hate when I want to punch them.
David Roman [00:22:46]:
When you're like, if you just do good, quality work. Goes to Mr. Chubby just right in their noses.
Matt Koppi [00:22:53]:
You know, Black Mountain is a really small town, right? So we have an exit, exit 59, the next town over, and you come in through Highway 70, which is as you're coming in Highway 70, you're cresting the hill in a beautiful, scenic black. Yeah, I'm on the left and mountains and the railroad tracks on the right. So like you said, my front door, we have our little employee cookouts, and we just sit there and look at the mountains. Yeah, dude, it's beautiful. But as you're coming in from this exit, which a lot of people that are local, that live on the east side or the west side of town come in through that exit. That's great. If you live anywhere from Downtown east, there's exit 64, which you just hop over railroad tracks and you're right there. None of those people know I exist.
David Roman [00:23:33]:
Yeah.
Matt Koppi [00:23:34]:
And that's frustrating for me because I taught people all the time, I'm chamber of commerce, and they're like, oh, where's your shop at? I'm like, it's right beside that major coffee shop that we have in town that everybody goes to like dynamite roasting good friends. It's right across the street. You can see my shop from the main highway in town. Oh, I never go that way.
David Roman [00:23:56]:
Now, it did help that I was in a cul de sac, so it was a dead end road.
Matt Koppi [00:24:04]:
No one's going to find you.
David Roman [00:24:05]:
Yeah. And I was in a strip mall with at 1.123 other shop. Four other shops. I was the fifth.
Matt Koppi [00:24:14]:
Not good.
David Roman [00:24:15]:
Yeah. And thEy've all been in business for years. And here I am opening my business for the first time. Nobody's there for me. It was a nightmare. I moved to a shop that's right outside this park. They have a farmers market there during the summer. They have a bunch of car shows there at this park.
David Roman [00:24:38]:
And I'm on the south side of the park, but I still have to tell people, hey, I'm on the south side of the Miriam's farmers market. They're like, I'm on the south side. Like, you drive by my building.
Matt Koppi [00:24:52]:
I still got you beat, though. My shop, the first shop I started in was $300 a month, which was the reason I took it.
David Roman [00:24:58]:
Yeah, it was just, don't do that.
Matt Koppi [00:25:00]:
Don't do that. Anybody listening? It's not good money. 30 minutes outside of any major populated areas. So anybody come to my shop had to drive 30 minutes and get a ride to follow them out there for it. Was scenic, it was beautiful, it was a great drive. And it was an old skating rink that had been converted to flex space. And I had a bay door on the backside of the building.
David Roman [00:25:21]:
Was that his?
Lucas Underwood [00:25:22]:
Have any. I don't have the picture of outside. I just got all the pictures of.
Matt Koppi [00:25:26]:
Like, we have a Facebook page and we.
David Roman [00:25:28]:
Didn't you go there for your family trip?
Lucas Underwood [00:25:32]:
No, it was.
David Roman [00:25:33]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:34]:
Summer cookout.
Matt Koppi [00:25:35]:
This shop, though, the only reason I was able to do what I did at that shop was because four or five years earlier, I had started a Asheville area BMW group. Right. So everyone knew me through that, and they were asking me to help them work on their cars as the reason I got that shop space to begin with. So I could actually not do it my driveway anymore, so people would drive that far to come see me. But I had very limited exposure just to that one group that I had. Then moving from that horrible location to the Black Mountain location, I more than quadrupled my revenue in the first three months, which was like, for me, that was mind blowing. And since then, I've grown astronomically since then.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:13]:
Even rough guess of what the revenue is in the shop. And I'll see if we can maybe throw some of these pictures up when we post everything.
Matt Koppi [00:26:21]:
SO RIGHT NOW WE'VE GROWN. It's been more or less 34% to 36% year over year gross revenue. And that's not counting. We've improved our gross profit and our bottom line. So we've been tweaking things. This year, we're on track for 650. And that's up from 475 last year. RIGHT.
Matt Koppi [00:26:46]:
THAT'S GOOD.
David Roman [00:26:47]:
THAT'S WITH YOU IN THE BAY WORKING ON THE CARS.
Matt Koppi [00:26:50]:
RIGHT. And we're talking about hiring a technician who's smarter than you. The guy, Jose, who's, once again, he's here. When I was interviewing him for the job, I kept thinking, I can't hire someone dumber than me, because then I'm just going to be back out there. RIGHT. He and I were talking. HE WAS LOSING ME. He was going in detailed stuff like, I have no clue what you're talking about right now, so.
Matt Koppi [00:27:09]:
RIGHT, YOU'RE HIRED. EXACTLY.
David Roman [00:27:12]:
YEAH. That's awesome.
Matt Koppi [00:27:13]:
You bring something to the table that. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:17]:
When that happened, when you brought him on, did you see a development in the business? BECAUSE WHEN I HIRED ERIC AND TERRY. RIGHT. I had decent text before that, but I'm just saying, when I hired them, I spent a lot of time trying to secure the right people for the shop.
Matt Koppi [00:27:35]:
RIGHT.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:36]:
AND SO WHEN I HIRED THEM, IT WAS LIKE AN OVERNIGHT CHANGE IN THE BUSINESS. I THINK A LOT OF IT WAS. THAT WAS THE CONFIRMATION FOR ME. I NEED TO DIG IN. I NEED TO DO BETTER. I NEED TO WORK HARDER AND MAKE THIS WORK. AND TO A DEGREE, IT FREED ME UP TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. RIGHT.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:56]:
BECAUSE BEFORE, I WASN'T WORKING ON THE BUSINESS, I WAS CONSTANTLY WORKING IN THE BUSINESS. I WAS PUTTING OUT FIRES EVERY TIME I TURNED AROUND. WELL, WHEN I HIRED THEM AS ELITE TECHS, NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN, I'M NOT PUTTING OUT FIRES. Eric and Terry are putting out the fires, and they're saying, hey, I've got this handle.
Matt Koppi [00:28:11]:
DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. SO I'M NOT QUITE THERE YET, AND I'VE HAD TO LOOK UP THE NAME. I'M HORRIBLE WITH NAMES. I'M LOOKING AT PEOPLE'S NAMES AS I'M TALKING. Aaron talked about levers yesterday in the class, like, which lever do I pull to do this? AND THE WRONG LEVER. THE Right lever. Right. So my first big jump into hiring somebody to replace me.
Matt Koppi [00:28:29]:
So this is my first step into the office full time. I've been trying to do it, but it wasn't working because you can't do anything half ass for too long before it falls apart. This is my first step into the office, hiring in Jose to replace me. So I was just struggling trying to figure out, okay, what lever do I pull next? And I also had just started with my business coach at the time, so he and I were working together like, okay, so we need to tweak these things. So the ramp up from hiring him in was not immediate. That was scary, because I hired this new guy on. I've more than doubled my overhead for payroll. I now got to figure out, how do I get more cars in? How do I get him the work? So I can go from where we were billable hours every week to a considerable amount more, right.
Matt Koppi [00:29:13]:
And that's been the challenge since, is just like, okay, how do I maintain a workflow, and how do I keep cars coming in when only have nine parking spots to rotate cars in and out of my shop?
Lucas Underwood [00:29:24]:
And that is the scariest part. It's like, how do I make sure I have enough to pay them? And the problem is that on either side of it, and you've been through this, I've been through this. It's like, well, if I don't have enough work, I can't pay them, but I can't get enough work if I don't have them, right?
David Roman [00:29:44]:
You always just hire and figure it out.
Matt Koppi [00:29:47]:
Right, exactly.
David Roman [00:29:47]:
You always just hire and figure it out. I've been on both sides of that and I'm going to cheap out on the technician and I've been on the side of just hire them and we'll figure it out. I'm sorry, there's no way to ease your mind. You just hire them.
Matt Koppi [00:30:07]:
You just have to do it.
David Roman [00:30:08]:
What you find out is that you are giving away more work than you think by not having them in the bay. You are pushing off on appointments, you're not pushing to sell the work, you're not efficient at getting the inspections to the customers, you're delaying to get the estimates out. You're not aggressive about setting the appointment and getting them in the door in a quick fashion. Because if you know that those technicians can pump out the work, it is a race to get the cars to fill the hole.
Matt Koppi [00:30:45]:
Right.
David Roman [00:30:45]:
And that mindset will fill your bays up very quickly. The minute that you've got a blockage, the minute that you're like, oh, that tech is a little slow, or that tech is not, we're not going to get all this work out or I'm going to have to explain to the customers the cars aren't getting out that mindset. I'm sorry. There's just no way to fix that or overcome it. It's playing in the back of your mind and then you're like, well, I can't get you in on Tuesday because I've already got this much work in on Tuesday and I've already got seven cars scheduled in 7th. A lot for my text, you see what I'm saying? And then you're pushing out, pushing out. And then some of those appointments don't show up and then it turns into. And you don't care because you're like, well, I don't want to get any busier.
David Roman [00:31:33]:
It's already kind of hectic. It's a terrible idea. Just hire the tech, right? Just hire the tech. Especially if you got a good one in front of you.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:42]:
Just go ahead and jump, right? Because if you don't, you never get that opportunity for that growth. Right. You're just absolutely probably already there.
David Roman [00:31:51]:
Yeah, it's probably already there. You'll at least ramp up to sustainability very quickly. Very quickly, you'll get ramp up to sustainability. And if you're not, if you're like, well, I hired him and, man, I'm struggling to do all that stuff. I'm telling you right now, nine times out of ten, you've somehow decided to cut out marketing, or you're doing a terrible job on the phones, or you.
Matt Koppi [00:32:19]:
Need leadership training because you can holding people accountable to do their job.
David Roman [00:32:25]:
We're talking about specifically just making sure there's enough cars to feed the techs.
Matt Koppi [00:32:29]:
That's what I'm saying, though. If you hired a tech and then you're not able to manage your people and yourself to hold yourself accountable to doing the work, you need leadership training. You need management training from places like this or a coach or something. Because you were asking earlier, how do I do? I've been in military for 24 years. Yeah, I'm in the reserves now. I was active duty for eight years. I've been in positions of leadership since I was 20. So I have an advantage of really advanced leadership training.
Matt Koppi [00:33:01]:
And I see, you know, some other shops in my area, and you're friendly with them. They've great work, great shops, amazing people that are just now learning the leadership stuff. And it's painful. And I'm like, it's hard to watch in a lot of ways, try to help, and I don't want to push too much, and they reach out to me sometimes great people love their shop, want to refer a lot of work to them. But that part right there scares me because you see people who have all this potential and they really struggle. The leadership part, and that's, for me, like leadership, both internal and externally. So you're leading your people, but you're in charge of yourself. You got to be able to say, this is my program.
Matt Koppi [00:33:43]:
This is what I'm going to be doing. I have to do these things. And if you aren't strong enough to do that, then you fail yourself and your employees.
David Roman [00:33:50]:
Sure.
Matt Koppi [00:33:51]:
So it's an internal thing. So leadership.
David Roman [00:33:54]:
So some of us shouldn't be shop owners. I recognize it. Listen, I just got to pay that Eidl off. I pay that Eidl off. I'm done. I'm out. I'm out. I am out.
Matt Koppi [00:34:10]:
I'll be hiring soon.
David Roman [00:34:11]:
Oh, I can't work for anybody, dear. You'll fire me within a few days, probably.
Matt Koppi [00:34:16]:
That's the reason I don't work for anybody else. I don't want to work for anybody because I'll just know I show up.
David Roman [00:34:21]:
Late to everything ever. So I'll show up late and like, I'm sorry, I'm seven minutes late, but it's only seven minutes now.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:27]:
Look what the problem is that when other people do it to him, he gets pissed.
David Roman [00:34:32]:
Yeah, that's because I'm always late to everything. If I bother to show up, and it was because it was Paul Dander, I didn't want him here waiting. I thought you had already been in here. But they're in here, know, doing one of them deals where theY're looking down at their watches. And I'm like, hey, where's Lucas? He hasn't been in here.
Matt Koppi [00:34:51]:
He's shaking hands with somebody at the urnal.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:53]:
That's exactly right.
David Roman [00:34:56]:
And then he's so cute. Then he has the testicles to tell. Just everybody keeps stopping me on the way in here, like, oh, yeah, Mr. Underwood. So popular. You're talking to Paul Danner. What's wrong with you? Did you even realize, you know, what it is? He says it so much, he doesn't even realize who he's saying it. So then, you know, it just rolls out.
David Roman [00:35:28]:
And then he's like, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that to you. Who were able to make it into.
Matt Koppi [00:35:36]:
Still trying to find pictures of the outside of my shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:39]:
That was adorable.
David Roman [00:35:41]:
With the ast shirt.
Matt Koppi [00:35:42]:
Yes.
David Roman [00:35:42]:
We just had a little girl smoosh her face up against the, um.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:51]:
David, you suck. And I do need to make sure I ask everybody listening. If you come to Apex, we're going to be recording.
David Roman [00:36:02]:
We're going to be at tools first.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:03]:
Yeah, we'll be at tools, so make.
David Roman [00:36:05]:
Sure tools be quick. We'll be in and out. Yeah, but tools is not a very long event.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:09]:
No, but they need to make sure they hugs.
David Roman [00:36:13]:
Bret Fadley needs to stop smoking.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:15]:
Yeah, he does need to stop.
David Roman [00:36:18]:
So I asked him.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:22]:
You jumped right over the part where I told all of our listeners they need to give you hugs because they.
Matt Koppi [00:36:27]:
I heard it.
David Roman [00:36:28]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:28]:
You love hugs. You love it when random strangers hug you.
David Roman [00:36:33]:
No, here's the thing. Here's the thing. You know what the problem is? That I am in the bathroom with these people, and we all have different habits. We all do different things. To each their own. But I see who washes their hands and who does it, and I hear the noises and the grunts. He's got pictures of the front of us.
Matt Koppi [00:37:05]:
A little bit left and right. Not too far. But.
David Roman [00:37:10]:
I'm just saying that is one of the reasons I don't like to be touched.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:16]:
I had a wrong way.
Matt Koppi [00:37:16]:
Go the other way.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:17]:
I had a technician. Yeah, don't go that way.
Matt Koppi [00:37:20]:
You're just going to see my motorcycle, that's all.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:22]:
I had a technician.
David Roman [00:37:24]:
That's a pretty shot.
Matt Koppi [00:37:24]:
Yes. The front. Oh, look at you smiling.
David Roman [00:37:26]:
Look at you. Funny meme. Don't hand me phones. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:36]:
I had a technician one time, and he came into the shop, or he came into the office and he's, like, showing me these pictures of this car, and he's going back and forth, and then he flips when he says, oh, there's my penis. Don't look at that.
David Roman [00:37:50]:
Why would he have a picture of his penis on his phone?
Matt Koppi [00:37:54]:
We have it ready to fire out.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:59]:
Oh, my God.
Matt Koppi [00:38:01]:
Keep filters on the shelf just in case you need them.
David Roman [00:38:03]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:03]:
That's exactly right. I mean, what else are you going to do? And I will never, as long as I live.
David Roman [00:38:07]:
People, don't keep pictures of your pecker on your phone. Don't do that.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:13]:
Never mind. Do you keep pictures of other people's on your phone?
David Roman [00:38:20]:
Don't keep pictures. Don't keep pictures of any pecker on any phone. No, leave them be. Leave them be. I'm just curious. At one point, do you go, that's impressive. You know what? I'm going to take a picture to capture this moment. Pop the leg up, click, and then you keep it on the phone.
David Roman [00:38:48]:
Who does that?
Matt Koppi [00:38:52]:
When you get the angle right you want.
David Roman [00:38:57]:
But at that point, is it not catfishing? You're like, hey, I just want to show you something. Lady friend. Bloop. Hoping that she comes back and go, wow, that's impressive. And then she sees it in real life and goes, she says, that's unique.
Matt Koppi [00:39:12]:
That's better than any other one I've ever seen. It's completely different.
David Roman [00:39:15]:
Thank you for sharing.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:16]:
I was really going for the curvature. I'm just telling you the curvature. Hey. Okay, so the plane segue. The plane ride with the urologist the other day. Super smart guy. Very smart guy. And he said, did you know? He said he's a urologist for the VA and worked in private practice for years.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:43]:
And he said they see between 150 to 200 fractured penises per year. And he said they will not fix them anymore. He said that it is literally, how.
David Roman [00:39:58]:
Do you fracture a penis?
Matt Koppi [00:40:00]:
I know a guy, a soldier. Apparently his wife and he had a disagreement on how endowed he was. So when she got a little bit rambunctious and went up and came down, she misjudged his endowment. Came down, didn't quite line up right, crushed it and broke it. He was very proud to show the scars and pictures.
David Roman [00:40:27]:
I still don't know the mechanism, though, because it ruptures the blood vessels.
Matt Koppi [00:40:32]:
It ruptures the blood vessels. It interacts with the urethra in ways and it's not good.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:38]:
And that's what this guy was saying is. He was saying that there is he.
David Roman [00:40:43]:
Tossing her up like wee.
Matt Koppi [00:40:45]:
I don't think he was doing anything. I think she was just getting into it.
David Roman [00:40:48]:
Holy moly.
Matt Koppi [00:40:48]:
He was laying there.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:50]:
Well, she was trying to get into it.
David Roman [00:40:55]:
Just trying to hold on.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:59]:
So he explains that there is a right way and it has X consequences, and there's a way that's less effective, that has X consequences. And he said, medicine teaches you to do it the right way. And I didn't understand everything he's talking about.
Matt Koppi [00:41:17]:
I use big words, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:41:19]:
I'm not a big word kind of person.
Matt Koppi [00:41:20]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:21]:
And so you know this. And so he basically said that we often, to reduce liability, have to start making decisions about the health care of Americans today, especially in the VA, based on. He said, listen, he said, I'm not going to lie to you. He said, in the VA, he said, you really got to f up to get sued. And he said, what happens is, he said, if you work for the VA, you will not get sued working for the VA. He said, as long as you're employed by the VA, you will not get sued as a doctor. He said, but by God, they come in there and tell you they're firing you. He said, you know, you're getting ready to get sued.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:56]:
He's like, that's all there is to it. He said, if you get fired from the VA, as a doctor, as a practicing physician, you are in trouble. He's like, you know, and he said, now we still have to carry the same insurance and the same liability stuff, all that. But he said, here's the thing. He said, in healthcare in America today, because of this litigious nature, we are making decisions about healthcare based on potential liability as opposed to what's right for the patient. He said, that's wrong. He's like, I'm telling you that's wrong. I know that's wrong.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:28]:
I know it's not the right thing to do. What do you think about that? I mean, isn't that crazy?
David Roman [00:42:33]:
You know what you do to avoid these conversations? Just put your headphones on. You put your headphones on, you hook it up to your phone and you mean mug. You do those three things. Hey, to all of our listeners, they don't have conversations. Let me tell you about 150 to 200 fractured penises a year. I'm sorry, do I know you? Why are we talking about.
Matt Koppi [00:42:53]:
I don't know. If you notice, I have this persona where I'm just very much stoic and people don't bother me.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:58]:
No, I go to the gym and.
Matt Koppi [00:43:00]:
Put my headphones in like you're talking about. Even if their battery is dead, I don't care. I'm putting them in. No one's going to talk to me.
David Roman [00:43:05]:
Yeah, I'm good.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:05]:
Yeah, but see, our listeners need to know that if they see David like that, they just need to reach over.
Matt Koppi [00:43:11]:
Just like Pat his head a little bit. Don't you love that? As a follically challenged individual, nobody touches me. They want to touch your head for some reason.
David Roman [00:43:24]:
I don't get that. It's probably been, I don't know, ten years somebody tried to touch my head. Don't touch my head.
Matt Koppi [00:43:31]:
Don't touch my head.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:32]:
Yeah, David just likes being touched, period.
Matt Koppi [00:43:35]:
Especially on the head. And hugs.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:36]:
Exactly.
David Roman [00:43:38]:
It's the bathroom thing, dude. I know what you're doing there. I know where those hands have been. I don't want you touching me. I'm sorry.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:48]:
Cecil's hand.
David Roman [00:43:50]:
Cecil washes his hands. He likes it warm.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:55]:
He's going to kill us.
David Roman [00:43:57]:
He does.
Matt Koppi [00:43:58]:
There's a lot of people here that are not washing their hands.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:00]:
Oh, I know.
Matt Koppi [00:44:01]:
I was very surprised, calling them all out. How many professionals I've watched walk in, use the bathroom, look at me, make eye contact, and you make eye contact.
David Roman [00:44:09]:
Beeline it out, and the nod, too.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:12]:
And they're like, hey, I was in this one right here behind you yesterday, and dude comes out of like, one of the stalls and he's standing there biting. This is very. Don't worry. He washed his hands. When he got done, he was still.
David Roman [00:44:32]:
Chewing on the fingernail. Here's the thing, folks, and I just want all our listeners to understand that at the very least, I get you're not peeing over your hands. I get that. I get that you're probably washing your junk, too. Your junk's nice and clean and you don't get any pee on your hands. The minute you start touching the stall, the toilet handle, the door handle in the bathroom, you are getting all sorts of nasty bacteria all over your hands. Wash your flipping hands. And also it reduces the spread of the cold flu on and on and on.
David Roman [00:45:10]:
It's just a good habit to have.
Matt Koppi [00:45:12]:
Just wash good manners for the people around you. Just wash your hands. Just let them see you wash your hands. Even if you just keep you healthy, that washes the fingertips. I don't care. Just do that something. Just make an effort. Make it look like you're doing something.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:27]:
Yeah. Do you wash your hands, David.
David Roman [00:45:30]:
Oh, man. Religiously. You know, the other thing too is when I'm cooking, I get even a little bit of anything on my hand. I gotta go wash my hands. Every time I touch.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:40]:
I can't stand that.
David Roman [00:45:41]:
That sticky.
Matt Koppi [00:45:42]:
Talk about gloves in the shop, do you guys wear or have your technicians wear?
Lucas Underwood [00:45:46]:
When I remember to order them, yeah.
David Roman [00:45:48]:
Shit.
Matt Koppi [00:45:49]:
What about during COVID They were $30 a box. Dude.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:51]:
That was crazy. You had them, I still bought them.
David Roman [00:45:54]:
Yeah, I did too. I didn't stop. All my guys use gloves and they should just to keep chemicals off of your. Absolutely off of your skin so it doesn't soak in.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:03]:
So many of these guys use brake cleaner to wash their hands. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? That shit on your hands? And I really regret. I had a fairly wild younger years. And so now looking back and seeing all of the people that I was running around with who have cancer and things like that, I'm like, oh God, that sucks.
Matt Koppi [00:46:23]:
During my fleet maintenance days, there was a gentleman, an older mechanic who had really severe cancer. And he told me, he's like, oh yeah, it's because all those years of working with burnt motor oil and diesel motor oil soaked through his hands. I was on his arms and that's what his doctors tell him. He got it from. Apparently from that moment forward, I was wearing gloves and everybody's back then like 15 years ago, people were making fun of me for wearing gloves. I don't care.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:45]:
Yeah, exactly. I don't want to die miserable death. I remember smoking a cigarette one time that was soaked in diesel motorol and not even realizing it was happening. I had it on my hand. I stuck cigarette my mouth and the oil had dripped down it. I mean, I remember that to this day. Like, God, that was stupid. You know what I mean?
Matt Koppi [00:47:02]:
Like smoking is stupid. Yeah, I quit.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:04]:
Yeah, I never smoked.
David Roman [00:47:08]:
We have a good friend who had an issue with the heart and he's still that.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:15]:
Yeah, Brett, you need to stop.
David Roman [00:47:18]:
We're going to shame him.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:19]:
That urologist said that. He said it's the craziest thing ever. He said, number one cause of bladder cancer is smoking. He said, absolutely. Number one cause of bladder cancer is smoking bladder. And he said, I will sit these people down and he will say, okay, you're smoking. And he said, I respect your right to do that. But he said, I do need to tell you as your doctor because he said a lot of the guys who are in the armed services are smokers.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:49]:
And he said a lot of them, lot of them. And he said, they'll tell me, well, if you knew what I'd been through, if you knew what I.
Matt Koppi [00:47:58]:
That's just an excuse.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:59]:
And so he said, here's the thing. He said, I'll sit them down and he'll say, all right, I completely understand, but here's what I'm going to tell you about bladder cancer. And so he goes through all of the consequences of bladder cancer and what the surgery is and what the treatment is and how it progresses and what happens and how all that goes, and he said, it terrifies them. I'm going to lose the use of that, and I'm going to all this stuff. And he said, oh, my God, I don't want that. And he said, now, that scares you, but you're not afraid of heart disease. You're not afraid of lung cancer. You're not afraid of anything else.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:37]:
And I've told about the dude that he was a helicopter mechanic, and he went to the VA because he was having carpal tunnel. And so when they do the carpal tunnel surgery, the dude at the VA is like, hey, we should probably go ahead and do an MRI or whatever it is. Because the helicopter mechanics were known for these one very specific problems. He's like, turned a certain way doing a certain thing, and it caused a problem in the shoulder. And so the doctor comes in when he gets knocked, and he's like, hey, anybody talk to you about anything else? He's like, what are you talking about? He said, you need to quit smoking right now.
Matt Koppi [00:49:18]:
He said, I don't want to quit smoking.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:19]:
He said, brother, you got lung cancer. And he said, we just saw it. He said, just saw the corner of it. He said, I didn't know if anybody had told you. No, I didn't know. And I watched this dude, like, you know what? And luckily they caught it the way they did. But still, I mean, well, there's chemicals.
Matt Koppi [00:49:39]:
That the helicopter mechanics use. Actually, Sam, one of my techs, he was a Kyowa crew chief, and there's chemicals they use to clean. I can't remember what the shaft name is, but there's a certain shaft that has to be perfectly, absolutely spotless. And the chemical they use to clean it, you can't get it anywhere other than in the aviation world. And it's one of those that if it touches you, if you're not wearing the PPE for it, you're done. You're getting sick, you're going to have some kind of cancer. You're going to grow a third leg or something's bad is going to happen.
David Roman [00:50:09]:
Holy moly.
Matt Koppi [00:50:10]:
There's crap that we use in the armed forces, that it's nasty stuff. Even just a normal motor. Yes, it's some nasty stuff.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:17]:
Well, the biocide for diesel fuel came from the motor pool. It was made by Raycor. And if you open that sucker up and you read the instructions on that bottle, holy crap. I mean, it tells you it will kill you. Every way you can be is as.
Matt Koppi [00:50:33]:
A young mechanic in the army, they're like, okay, the MSDS book is on that wall beside the hook and the electric gloves, like all those things, all the safety board, right? And you walk over this MSDS book for all the crap that's in a motor pool, that sucker is like, it's thick. YoU're never going to read it, none of it. And if you did, you'd be terrified. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:51]:
You wouldn't even work on it.
Matt Koppi [00:50:52]:
You're touching are going to kill you. The dust that you're breathing is going to kill you. Oh, by the way, the exhaust fumes that we.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:58]:
Yeah, something's going to kill you no matter what.
David Roman [00:51:01]:
My father in law gets small cell carcinoma. And they told my wife, they go, this is probably going to kill him in a couple of years. And they go, it's treatable. We're going to get it. He's going to go through chemo and then radiation. We'll get it. The problem is most people don't stop smoking and it comes right back and it gets more aggressive and they can't survive the second or third round of chemo. Their second go around where they have to cut it out and zap you and pump a bunch of chemicals in you to kill this cancer kills them all off.
David Roman [00:51:40]:
They just don't stop.
Matt Koppi [00:51:41]:
The moral of this conversation is that mechanics and technicians and owners need to be taking very good care to protect themselves. Because the stuff we deal with, not just cigarette smoke, is this dangerous stuff.
David Roman [00:51:53]:
I was talking to Bret and I asked him, I said, at what point? Because he's 51. He's not that old. 51 years old. He still should have another 25, 30 years of life left in him. And I said, at what point do you just get stubborn enough that you think yourself invincible? You can keep smoking, you've had a heart attack, you had to have a stint put in. That should stop you and go, you know what? I need to make wholesale changes in the way I.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:21]:
It's hard that I think when you're addicted to something, you put it on this scale and you say, risk, reward, risk, reward, risk.
David Roman [00:52:34]:
There are mitigating medicines.
Matt Koppi [00:52:40]:
Funny story about that. When Chantix, when it first came out.
David Roman [00:52:42]:
Oh, boy. Okay, not Chantix. Okay.
Matt Koppi [00:52:45]:
In 1999, I was stationed in Italy, and they came to us as smokers. Young soldier like, hey, who wants to quit smoking? I was like, why not? I want to quit. I want to save some money. I don't like the way I smell. We got this class. It's a smoking cessation clasS. You do it for two weeks, and at the end of the two weeks, I'm going to prescribe you a pill that's going to make you not want a cigarette. I was like, sounds good to me.
Matt Koppi [00:53:05]:
Sign me up. I get out of work for two weeks, and I get a magic pill. Hell, yeah, I did it. Class was great. It gave us a lot of good tips. And don't let a three inch piece of paper control your life. And things like that. Little mantras you'd say, but that pill, no shit.
Matt Koppi [00:53:19]:
I take the pill. I don't want a cigarette at all. Nothing like no desire for cigarette. But, man, I had some crazy dreams.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:25]:
Boys, I'm going to tell you what.
Matt Koppi [00:53:27]:
And then I started having these issues. So in the Humvee world, on the geared hub, there's the star washer that if you don't bend in the little locking tabs, the Hub will come apart.
David Roman [00:53:38]:
Yeah.
Matt Koppi [00:53:39]:
And you'll see the wheel went on the road, and the Humvee will have a bad day. And the driver. And you got an initial if you bent that tab, and you've got initial off on everything you do in the army. So that way, if something does happen, they come back to you and put you in jail.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:50]:
Yeah.
Matt Koppi [00:53:51]:
So I'm doing a job, and I'm like, I don't remember if I did that or not. Normally me, I would say, well, screw it, I'm opening it back up. I got to make sure because I don't know. I can't confirm. It'll be all right. That Chantix had me so loopy and like, eh, say, lovey, it's fine. I'm good. I was like, I stopped.
Matt Koppi [00:54:09]:
You know what? I'd rather be a smoker than to be in jail or kill somebody. So I got rid of it. We'll come to find out. Like, a year and a half later, they put out the public. It's Chantix. And then, as we all know, that didn't turn out very well for a lot of people. I was like, oh, shit.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:21]:
Yeah, I was taking it.
Matt Koppi [00:54:22]:
That's some wicked shit.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:24]:
Yeah, dude, that is rowdy stuff to.
David Roman [00:54:27]:
Get off of cigarettes.
Matt Koppi [00:54:28]:
Yeah. So it's like an antidepressant. And the way they told us was, we're not sure how it affects.
David Roman [00:54:32]:
It causes suicide, suicidality.
Matt Koppi [00:54:35]:
Because we asked, how does this work? We're not sure. It's an antidepressant that affects the part of the brain that craves Nicotine, that nicotine receptors are in. We're like, okay, that sounds. That's fine, whatever. We didn't know any better. We were taking it. We were the guinea pigs for that shit.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:49]:
Yeah, that's just how the armed forces works. I've got a nephew, and so, okay, I've got two nephews. One went into the Air Force and the other was in the army. And the younger one, when he enlisted, he enlisted because his older brother was stationed in Hawai, and the younger one got stationed in, like, Alaska. And he's like, yeah, I don't want to do this. I think I want out. But the older one, he went through some similar things where they were like, hey, try this. But I'll never forget, when he got back, he said, he said, I always thought really highly of the armed forces in the US.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:33]:
He said, my mom was in the Air Force. I always thought it was like they did things the right way, and things were very precise and things were good. And he said, I realized that that wasn't the case. And I said, well, what made you realize the case? He said, I still remember the exact second it happened. He said, I was sitting in the back of a chinook, and he said, I'm like, up against the wall. And he said, the pilot's over here. And he said, there's something hot on my back. And he said, I turn around, look, and he's like, there's this hot oil dripping down the back wall, and it's dripping on my back.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:06]:
And he said, I said to the pilot, hey, man. Hey, dude, like, whoa, we're leaking something. Like, there's oil leaking. And the pilot says, yeah, it's not a problem unless it stops. Let me know if it stops leaking. It's like, wait a minute. Shit.
David Roman [00:56:23]:
Well, I was talking about the gum. Like, the gum you can still take.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:26]:
The gum doesn't work for me. I think that made it worse. I think that made it worse. And I'll tell you, when I quit, Alex had made an ultimatum that I.
Matt Koppi [00:56:36]:
Was going to stop smoking.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:37]:
She said, if you want to hold your child without taking a shower, you're going to stop smoking, okay? And so I was surrounded by people who had cigarettes. So I'd just go out and borrow one from somebody, and I had, like, cut back. And I was to the point that I wouldn't smoke one. I'd go out and I would smoke the nastiest cigarettes because that's what was available.
Matt Koppi [00:56:59]:
Some Winston's or something.
David Roman [00:57:00]:
Exactly.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:00]:
God, those things are nasty. And so, like, I'm borrowing them from people. Old Tim, he used to run a record business, and he'd be out front and he'd have that pack of Winston's. Exactly what it was. I'd go smoke one nasty migraine headaches.
Matt Koppi [00:57:13]:
For the rest of the day.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:14]:
Yeah, dude. And so when Jimmy was to. I left the house. She was born the night before I left the house. We did some running and all this stuff and running around with my dad. I'm going back to the hospital and I'm like, because I quit that day. I quit the day she was born. And I walk into Walgreens, and there's this guy in Walgreens, and he was always a little weird, always a little funny.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:46]:
And I'm like, I'm clearly a grown man. And I go to get a pack of the nicotine gum, and he says, I can't say that without an ID. And I'm like, I want to quit smoking. I'm not trying to smoke. I am trying to.
Matt Koppi [00:58:04]:
It's not cool to chew gum. That has not what I'm going for.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:08]:
He said, no. Can't sell it to you unless you have your ID. And, like, I've not had a cigarette in 24 hours. That's the first time that's happened in years. And he's like, sorry, buddy, I guess you're going to learn the hard way. Without your ID, there's nothing I can do. And, dude, I have never been so close to committing a felony at all. I've committed plenty of things that would have resulted in that, but I have never been so close to jumping across a counter in a Walgreens and dragging somebody out the front door is that exact minute.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:41]:
I still remember the rage that I felt. I've never even been that mad at you.
David Roman [00:58:48]:
You're so many issues. It's so messed up. You killed the Walgreens guy for following the law.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:54]:
I sent my dad in to get the gum, and then, like, 15 minutes in, it pulls a filling out of one of my teeth.
Matt Koppi [00:59:01]:
Oh, there you go. So it wasn't the fact that he wouldn't sell it to you and made you feel like shit because it's because it pulled out a filling.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:06]:
Yeah, that's probably what it was. It was just a combination of that experience. It was the combination.
David Roman [00:59:11]:
Well, now you can get vape pens with.
Matt Koppi [00:59:14]:
I will say that helped me because it's the same thing we talk about here. If you want to be a millionaire, surround yourself by millionaires. If you want to be broke, surround yourself by broke people. Same with smoking. Like, if you want to be a smoker, walk outside with all the smokers. If you don't want to smoke, don't hang out with smokers. And for me, it was like, I don't want to smoke, and I don't hang out with smokers anymore. But when I got on to, when I was doing the drill sergeant thing, still in the reserves, I'd go down to Fort Jackson for Wildport Benning, be around a bunch of other soldiers that were smoking like, fuck, give me one.
Matt Koppi [00:59:43]:
And then come back and I'm smoking again. And being able to step down to zero, which is vaping, is just a horrible thing. Anyways, it makes me look like such a.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:51]:
Want you drive a Subaru?
Matt Koppi [00:59:53]:
No, I drive a beamer, though, a BMW and whatever. But no, I didn't want to be the douche with a vape pen, but it also helped me step down. But surrounding yourself with non smokers is the best thing. So tell your friend to stop hanging out with smokers.
David Roman [01:00:07]:
She's the only one out there.
Matt Koppi [01:00:10]:
There's a whole bunch.
David Roman [01:00:10]:
Oh, is there?
Matt Koppi [01:00:11]:
It's, like, so bad that, as you're saying in the hallway here, it's like someone smoking.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:16]:
I don't want to go to tax jail. I should probably hang out with. Stop hanging out with you.
David Roman [01:00:23]:
I am probably holding you back. I'm sorry.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:26]:
It's okay.
Matt Koppi [01:00:28]:
It's worth it.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:29]:
Yeah, I don't know about that.
David Roman [01:00:31]:
It's worth it. I feel like getting insulted today. I'm going to call Dave.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:36]:
Holy crap. Oh, wow.
Matt Koppi [01:00:42]:
Jesus.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:44]:
That was awesome.
David Roman [01:00:45]:
That's the best way to.