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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.
Arun Coumar [00:00:00]:
You.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:02]:
I don't look as gay as you.
David Roman [00:00:03]:
Do when I miss. That's the problem.
Arun Coumar [00:00:06]:
Because you're like.
David Roman [00:00:08]:
It just doesn't look right that way.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:10]:
You don't high five people?
David Roman [00:00:11]:
I don't. It's a fist bump only.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:13]:
So I'm sorry I smacked you in the face.
David Roman [00:00:17]:
I don't know lots of people. I could high five.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:21]:
So last night on the way back from dinner, like, I had told him about you multiple times. Because we primarily converse on Instagram, right? That's where we talk back and forth. And I'm like, we've talked about him. And David's like, you've told me anything about like, I know for a fact we've talked about him.
David Roman [00:00:40]:
He says that, but he tends to gaslight people. It's the thing.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:44]:
Primarily him.
David Roman [00:00:45]:
Only me. Apparently. I don't believe that to be true. I've seen the way you interact with your employees.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:51]:
They all suck.
David Roman [00:00:52]:
I told you to do this. You did? Yeah. Oh, I guess I forgot. I'm sorry.
Arun Coumar [00:00:58]:
It's like that.
David Roman [00:01:00]:
It is like that. He never told them.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:06]:
Mr. Paul Danner.
David Roman [00:01:08]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:09]:
How are you doing this morning? Are you okay?
David Roman [00:01:11]:
What's that?
Lucas Underwood [00:01:12]:
No, I didn't do the notes. Been waiting on you.
David Roman [00:01:15]:
I gave you my notes.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:16]:
No, bro, you don't send me like a list of things and be like, hey, Secretary, I need you.
David Roman [00:01:21]:
No, I'm just saying that's what I'm going to talk about. I don't know what the hell you're going to talk about.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:25]:
Oh, I wasn't going to show up. I was going to let you do it.
David Roman [00:01:32]:
Introduce yourself.
Arun Coumar [00:01:34]:
Okay. My name is Arun Kumar. I'm the owner and CEO of Driven Auto Co. Which is driven auto care and driven underground. And we are driven three brands.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:48]:
So tell us what those brands are.
Arun Coumar [00:01:51]:
So driven auto care is general auto repair. We have one shop in Fremont, California. Driven Underground is the secret enthusiast focused brand within driven auto care. That really only exists in my office where you build your dream car.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:09]:
Right.
Arun Coumar [00:02:10]:
And then we are driven is basically a motivational brand for car enthusiasts.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:14]:
That's pretty cool. So how did all this start? Right, because we've been talking for a long time and you kind of like, poured some of the ideas out and we talked back and forth. You've been a listener for a long time and I've kind of watched this develop. So tell me, where did the dream, where did the vision come from? Because you had a very specific trajectory with this. You're like, this is what I'm going to do. That's very rare, right? Like most shop owners, like, I'm going to fix cars. The next thing you know, they realize that owning a business that fixes cars has nothing to do with fixing cars. So where did this come from?
Arun Coumar [00:02:49]:
Well, where to start? When I was 18, I wanted to work at Jiffy Lube, and my dad, who is Indian and a doctor, said, there's no way you are going to work at Jiffy Lube with all of those grease monkeys. If you do, you cannot live here. And I already loved cars. I've loved cars since before I can remember. And I wanted to work in the industry, I wanted to do something with cars, but that was not really, at the time, an option for me, right. So I went to college, got a degree in accounting, got a CPA, went to work at a big accounting firm doing a lot of deal structuring and IPO consulting work. So it sounds cool. It was a lot of numbers and paper pushing, stuff like that.
Arun Coumar [00:03:42]:
But I got to work on a couple of automotive clients, Tesla and Uber, and really liked working on those clients, not necessarily because of the work that we were doing, but because it was car related.
David Roman [00:03:56]:
Right.
Arun Coumar [00:03:57]:
And I got kind of elevated on the team because I loved cars and I knew a lot about those businesses.
David Roman [00:04:04]:
Right.
Arun Coumar [00:04:05]:
So in doing that, I realized, okay, well, if my passion is going to elevate my career in that way, I should probably just focus on cars then, right? So I looked around, I tried to find a company that could offer me that opportunity where I could work and apply my consulting skills, finance operations strategy to the automotive industry. And I couldn't find the company, so I went out and made it.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:35]:
That's pretty cool.
Arun Coumar [00:04:36]:
So my first business was driven performance advisors. That was in 2018. I started out doing basically free work for startups because that was all who would listen to me with my very small amount of credentials and experience and did that for a couple of years, basically only working for free on the side, and built it up to a point where I could talk about enough achievements doing that kind of work that I felt confident enough to go out on my own. That came at the same time as I was very upset with that consulting job living in London. There's a long story in here, but met my wife, moved to London with her for her to get an MBA. I decided to get an MBA. There's a lot in know, but no.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:29]:
No, hey, I like the story.
David Roman [00:05:30]:
You know, you guys don't need to move to another country to get an MBA like the local community college.
Arun Coumar [00:05:35]:
It was a lot cheaper to get. Well, it was a lot cheaper. Not than a community college, but then the sort of top tier schools in the US, it's about half the price.
David Roman [00:05:45]:
Really?
Arun Coumar [00:05:46]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:46]:
That's interesting.
Arun Coumar [00:05:47]:
Still have tons of student debt, but that's besides. So we moved to London. I did not like the way that my same company was run over there, and I was very upset working for them. So I quit kind of hastily. I already had some of these free clients, and I had enough confidence in my ability to actually create value for automotive businesses in general that I said, okay, I'm going to at least give this a shot.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:17]:
So I want to dig into that a little bit because I'm always intrigued by why people quit. Right now, obviously, there's things you can't share, and I'm not asking you to share stuff like that, but I'm curious, why did you quit? Was it the way you were treated? Was it the way that their morals and their ethics, what drove that decision? Because for you to just up and be like, hey, I'm giving it all up, I'm done with this, right. There had to be something.
Arun Coumar [00:06:43]:
So you've kind of heard the career trajectory focus that I have in 2019 and into 2020. I wrote a book that was about college students defining and then obtaining their dream job after college because I don't believe enough college students do that. And I felt that I had done that right. But I went through the example and it was okay. I need to be Focused on cars. I need to be doing things independently. I should be some sort of business owner or managerial type position. And I want to be doing deals where I get to work in a fast paced environment.
Arun Coumar [00:07:28]:
I get to kind of make big decisions quickly because I'm good at that. I'm decisive. How can I do that? And I came to the conclusion while writing the book, I should be an independent consultant to the automotive industry. And I was there as an accounting consultant, not focused on automotive at all, except for these little side jobs. And I stared at the page after having written it and thought, well, I'm not really living my own example here, right? And given the fact that I do feel very career focused and I derive a lot of satisfaction from my work, I wanted to just go for it, right? And at that point, so I had come up with enough confidence to go for it from the work that I was doing. And it started with the fact that I was a customer at a shop in London. They installed some coilovers on my clapped out rusted diesel Audi V six six speed. It was a cool car.
Arun Coumar [00:08:35]:
Didn't work very well, but it was a cool car.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:37]:
Right.
Arun Coumar [00:08:38]:
And they had a horrible customer experience. They did the work fine, but it was a terrible customer experience. I didn't sign anything. I had no idea how much I was going to pay. I just handed somebody my keys when they opened and then got a call at 530 that evening telling me, hey, we had to cut out some bolts because your car is super rusty and you're going to be charged an extra 50 British pounds more, and your total bill is 600 pounds. Come get it. Okay, sure.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:12]:
For the update, buddy.
Arun Coumar [00:09:15]:
So that was not great. And I started hanging out there a lot right at the beginning of COVID because I.
David Roman [00:09:23]:
At that one shop.
Arun Coumar [00:09:24]:
At that one shop.
David Roman [00:09:25]:
Nice.
Arun Coumar [00:09:26]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:09:27]:
Hey, I hated. Here, let me hang out.
Arun Coumar [00:09:29]:
Well, when you're surrounded by.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:32]:
You need somebody to do that at your shop?
Arun Coumar [00:09:36]:
It depends me. If you have a lot of BMW M cars and twin turbo R eight s sitting around, people will tend to just come and hang out there. Really? That's what they had.
David Roman [00:09:48]:
Interesting.
Arun Coumar [00:09:49]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:09:50]:
They may not run. Nobody knows who owns them. They just.
Arun Coumar [00:09:53]:
Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:53]:
David, I've got some of those cars and leaves.
David Roman [00:09:56]:
I've got some busted jeeps out front. Nobody shows up for those.
Arun Coumar [00:10:00]:
Are they cool Jeeps?
David Roman [00:10:01]:
I mean, they could be, but they're just busted. They have potential.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:07]:
I don't know, man.
David Roman [00:10:08]:
Most cars have potential to be nice, reliable.
Arun Coumar [00:10:11]:
Coming around. From the comments you made before the.
David Roman [00:10:14]:
Podcast, I used to be a car enthusiast. I loved cars. I used to go through all those. I memorized magazines because I'd go through them so many times. I knew what horsepower packages, options, like powertrain options.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:30]:
Already had the one. You would have years out.
David Roman [00:10:32]:
Yeah. I'd always have them built in my head, and I'd see them driving and I'm like, oh, that's a. That's a GTP. That has the supercharger, 240 HP. This is the engine size. It's a boring stroke compression ratio. I was obsessed.
Arun Coumar [00:10:48]:
That's kind of nerdy stuff.
David Roman [00:10:49]:
It's super nerdy, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:51]:
And now you see them and you're like, oh, God, yeah, that's not that car.
David Roman [00:10:55]:
I worked on all scars. They're all horror stories. One time that car showed up and. Oh, no. Anyway, keep going.
Arun Coumar [00:11:04]:
Okay, well, so I was hanging out at this shop, trying to not be at home during COVID lockdowns, as you do, and they're an essential business, which meant I could go hang out there, and I watched a lot of customer interactions go very similar to how mine went. And I had this brilliant idea. So I thought at the time, I'm going to give them an intake form, and it's going to have their name and their phone number and their license plate and the description of the work that's going to get done and an estimated price and a signature. And that was unheard of in terms and conditions. That was unheard of for this shop. They did everything verbally, basically. They had a little calendar at the front desk with a phone number and a car, and that was it. And they were doing really complex wide body kits, and it was simple stuff like window tints, but then, yeah, like full performance builds and wide body kits and vinyl wrap, and they had a giant facility, and they were doing everything right.
Arun Coumar [00:12:13]:
And now they have an even bigger facility, and I think they still use that intake form.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:17]:
Really?
Arun Coumar [00:12:18]:
But they don't use a shop management system or anything like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:23]:
I know a lot of really successful shops that don't, but that is, like, scary to me.
Arun Coumar [00:12:30]:
Oh, yeah?
David Roman [00:12:30]:
Who?
Lucas Underwood [00:12:31]:
I've got a couple in my town that don't use any type of management software whatsoever. They're on paper tickets now. Let's be careful. Let's be careful about how we define successful.
David Roman [00:12:42]:
They'rE still around.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:42]:
The owner has money.
Arun Coumar [00:12:45]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:12:47]:
I like how this is going. We just get rid of all tracking.
Arun Coumar [00:12:53]:
Exactly.
David Roman [00:12:53]:
Sorry. Yeah, I made $1,000 last month.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:57]:
I made $1,000 last year. Did you pay your EMPloyees? No, of course not.
David Roman [00:13:04]:
They get here, they come in here for the love of the game. For the love of the game.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:09]:
Well, so that is a really interesting concept, that a shop that would be doing all that had no documentation, had.
David Roman [00:13:20]:
No Paperwork, had no way of tracking.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:23]:
Right.
David Roman [00:13:23]:
That makes time on each car.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:25]:
Right. That makes me super nervous.
David Roman [00:13:27]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:27]:
Like, that makes me super nervous as a shop Owner. And HerE's the thing, is that every time we say something like this in an episode, they come back later, a listener will come back and say, you don't need all that stuff. You don't have to do all that stuff. That's overkill.
David Roman [00:13:44]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:13:44]:
And a lot of those guys, They've been running like that for years. I just could not even remotely imagine trying to run a shop like that.
David Roman [00:13:53]:
I think the one thing, though, the difference if you talk to whoever asks for the Money, they have no problem just asking for more Money. Or the car gets pushed outside and left abandoned because you talk to enough performance guys and they are afraid to ask for more Money. Like, they ran out of Money.
Arun Coumar [00:14:14]:
Oh, yeah.
David Roman [00:14:15]:
And they're like, hey, I'm 10,000 into this. You already put 10,000 down. I need another 10,000. And then they're afraid to ask for it, so they don't. So they'll collect the next deposit to finish this one car, and it turns into this cycle where they're chasing the next car to finish off this first one. And they never make any money. They never get ahead because it never works. The shops that make it, the only reason why that guy's still around, because it sounds like a cluster.
David Roman [00:14:48]:
The only reason why that guy's around is he's like, 10,000 more. I'm pushing it outside. Sorry.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:54]:
So the guy that I talk about that owns the energy company that I'm friends with, right? I watched him go through something. He actually took a vehicle to a friend's shop, and me and the friend aren't friends anymore because of what happened. But he ends up taking this car to his shop upon my recommendation. And what he wanted is the exhaust came out into a body kit underneath a classic Mustang. And what he wanted is he wanted the exhaust to come out and fill the spot in the body kit to fill it all the way into where it looked. Right. They had just put a pipe when they built the car. It was like a bullet.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:32]:
Mustang conversion, whatever you want to call it, it comes back, and the pipe just comes out, so it doesn't look good. Now, this person was extremely talented, one of the most talented Tig welders I've ever met, and was extremely precise and extremely good at everything he did. But he was expensive. And so after a year, this man still hadn't got his car back. And now this person's hard to communicate with, right? He's a very, very successful businessman, and he goes all over the world. And so sometimes he's not in town. Well, this shop calls once, and he doesn't answer. So I don't have time to call him back.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:07]:
I don't have time for this, right? So he never calls the guy back, and then he shows up to get the car, and dude's like, $7,000. And it wasn't even what he wanted. It wasn't even done yet. And he's like, well, you told me you wanted it fixed up, right? So I did this, and I did this, and I did this, and I did this. And he want all these things done. Now, here's the thing, is that to this person, $7,000 is like, I don't care, right?
David Roman [00:16:28]:
Like, whatever.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:29]:
Who cares. Drop in the bucket. But it was the principle of it for me. And I told him, I was like, you should not pay that. I was like, unless he's giving you a signed estimate of what the scope of the work is and what he's going to do and when he's going to do it and when he's going.
David Roman [00:16:42]:
To have it agreed to it.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:43]:
Well, dude, he's left it sitting outside, parked underneath a tree, and it's destroyed the paint on the car. Water got inside the car and he's like, well, it's not my problem. You should have called me back. Now, look, dude's got 40 some cars. He doesn't think about one car.
David Roman [00:16:59]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:17:00]:
As a shop owner, it's your responsibility to be calling and saying, hey, I still have your car. What would you like me to do with it?
David Roman [00:17:05]:
But see, that's the difference, though. Like, you're worried about those cars. You're worried about every single car that comes through the shop. He doesn't. No.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:15]:
Doesn't even think about it.
David Roman [00:17:16]:
Just like, that's what I'm saying. That's that shop. They're like just another car. Either pay me or no. And if no, it goes outside.
Arun Coumar [00:17:24]:
This is still how shop owners become bitter, because this guy still can't manage his cash flow properly. He's still got employees who are mad that they're not getting paid on time. He still has customers leaving one star reviews, rightfully so. But it just gets buried in, well, I'm making enough or I'm surviving. Yeah, or it's all under the mattress.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:49]:
Well, and that's the thing with this person, is that they ran a very successful business for many, many years and they made a lot of money, but everybody knew that they had a reputation for being an asshole.
David Roman [00:18:02]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:18:03]:
I mean, that's just what it was like. Don't expect customer service. You're not going to get customer service. Do you get really good quality? Yes. But the second that you piss him off, the second that you do something he doesn't like, he's just going to push your shit outside and leave it outside. And it's about him. Everything about this is about him and what he gets and how he gets it and his perception of what it is that he deserves from you in some ways. We talk to shop owners all the time and we tell them, you should probably be working like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:32]:
You should probably be saying, what about me? Don't be a scumbag about it.
David Roman [00:18:36]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:18:36]:
Do it the right way. And in the group, I don't know if you've seen this. We had some conversations recently in the group where somebody was talking about approvals and things like that, and they said, well, you guys keep saying raise your prices, and you keep saying charge more and charge the hours that you're worth. I'm like, yeah, but there's a strategy to that, right? It's not just like all of a sudden start Charging them 8 hours on a diag, not tell them that they're going to be charged 8 hours to begin with and just throwing it at them.
Arun Coumar [00:19:02]:
Right. Don't do that. Yeah, I had to hypothetically write a customer a check this morning already for something that happened, kind of like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:17]:
Oh, Man.
Arun Coumar [00:19:18]:
Some damage and some bait and switch pricing. I don't know why that happened, but it happened. And I will have some interesting conversations on Monday.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:28]:
How comfortable do you feel sharing the story?
Arun Coumar [00:19:33]:
Oh, sure.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:35]:
While it's still.
Arun Coumar [00:19:37]:
Yeah, I was grateful. I got to vent about it already. So this will be a bit more measured whether you wanted it to be or not. We had a customer drop off a vehicle yesterday for some frame modification work, and it involves basically making clearance in the front wheel wells for bigger tires. It should take probably three and a half to 4 hours. Done right, where you make a measurement, make a cut, smooth it out, weld on reinforcement plates, paint it, smooth it out again. All the normal stuff that Goes into a job like that. 4 hours.
Arun Coumar [00:20:21]:
I was asked earlier yesterday, hey, how much should we charge for something like that? And I told them. And then he came back and said, well, the customer is not very happy about that. He's saying, we screwed him over. He already ubered away before I told him the price, and now he can't come back. Well, why are we doing it that way? Why are we telling the customer the price? It was before we started the work. But it was after he dropped the car off and left.
David Roman [00:20:53]:
Right.
Arun Coumar [00:20:55]:
And I basically told him, I'm not there. I'm not going to micromanage this situation. This is an experienced person, right. Do what you think is right. So apparently what happened next is we price matched the middle quote that this customer received from another shop. But because we could get it in sooner, he opted to go with us. So we do the work. And then last night at the go carting event, I got a text message that said, hey, can you give me a call?
Lucas Underwood [00:21:35]:
I hate those.
Arun Coumar [00:21:37]:
So I say, hey, what's up? Oh, well, apparently we cut his running boards and the wiring harness for his running boards and his fender liner and the clearance job on the frame isn't a deep enough cut. So he actually cut his tires. So this morning.
David Roman [00:22:00]:
What in the hell are you talking about? Somebody just went with that like a sawzall. And they're like, I went through the tire wheel, running boards, floorboards are messed up. I cut the carpet. The hell? Did he go in blind?
Arun Coumar [00:22:16]:
I wish I knew. I'm not there yet. The customer was actually very understanding. So he wrote me. Over the course of the last 18 hours, he's written me three very long emails. The first one was a lot of ranting. The second one started with, now that I've had a chance to calm down, here's what I think. And I'd already emailed back and said, I'm taking care of it.
Arun Coumar [00:22:43]:
Whatever you need, just let me know. Take care of it. So he responds and says, these are my demands. And I said, all right, that's fine. Then he writes a third email and he says, all right, I've done some research on you because I figured you were going to be a shady shop owner. That is not going to pay me. I'm going to be screwed on this deal. You did horrible work.
Arun Coumar [00:23:06]:
The old brand of the shop that I acquired apparently did not have a very good reputation.
David Roman [00:23:11]:
Sure.
Arun Coumar [00:23:12]:
And he was ready to trash me on the Internet, report me to the state and Better Business Bureau and all that. Then he looked me up and he said, oh, you seem like an upstanding guY. You have a podcast, you have a presence online. You seem to be kind of opinionated about the automotive industry, and I'm surprised that your shop did this work right. And I want to give you the opportunity to make it right. And I won't say anything about you. And I made it right. He's already been paid.
David Roman [00:23:47]:
He's blackmailing you. What a dirt bag.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:50]:
So what did he demand?
Arun Coumar [00:23:53]:
So basically, he's already ordered all of the replacement parts that we damaged. So running boards, fender liners, both sides. I don't know how this happened. And he said, I'll forget the wiring harness. Since this is an off road vehicle, I wasn't going to need light up running boards.
David Roman [00:24:12]:
Anyways, the sequence of events here doesn't make any sense. So he comes and drops off the car.
Arun Coumar [00:24:20]:
And we had given him one price when he dropped it off. I learned this this morning. We gave him a price that was way too low.
David Roman [00:24:30]:
And then they called you, and they're like, hey, how much should we charge for this?
Arun Coumar [00:24:34]:
Yes. And I told them a different number. That was two and a half times higher.
David Roman [00:24:41]:
Okay.
Arun Coumar [00:24:42]:
So my advisor calls him or texts him an estimate and says, here's your new quote before we started the work.
David Roman [00:24:51]:
Yeah, but, okay, I don't know why we did that. You guys have set pricing for doing that kind of work. If it's this year making model with this set up, this is how much to do the cutting and the welding and all that jazz.
Arun Coumar [00:25:10]:
Yes. The failing point was that my advisor didn't know that pricing.
David Roman [00:25:17]:
Okay.
Arun Coumar [00:25:18]:
But I would have basically said, look, quotes the quote. I don't really care what we should have charged. I didn't know that he had already told him a price.
David Roman [00:25:25]:
Yeah, you sort of have to stick with it. I don't understand. So the new price, the guy flips out, but then agrees to it?
Arun Coumar [00:25:37]:
No. Then we price match.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:38]:
So they price match. They went up on their price, and then they came.
David Roman [00:25:43]:
Little Timmy gets the Sawzaw out, or the technician cut off wheel.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:48]:
Not Little Timmy. It's technician Timmy.
David Roman [00:25:50]:
This is little Timmy because they gave the eight year old the cutoff wheel, and they're like, good. It soundS. And he's like, I make sense.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:59]:
Just like, just cut the whole fender out.
David Roman [00:26:03]:
Right? They cut the whole fender out.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:05]:
Well, I mean, that's what I'm trying to understand is, how did we cut running boards and how did we cut off?
David Roman [00:26:13]:
They're just like. So you want me to just. Yeah. Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:16]:
Did we not take the fender liner out first?
David Roman [00:26:19]:
Tires weren't off. Nothing. I went to town.
Arun Coumar [00:26:23]:
I will need to ask on Monday. I don't have a follow up on that. I'm happy to provide a follow up.
David Roman [00:26:30]:
Do cameras?
Arun Coumar [00:26:31]:
I have cameras.
David Roman [00:26:32]:
You should look up the camera.
Arun Coumar [00:26:33]:
Yeah. That's got to be hilarious.
David Roman [00:26:35]:
I mean, not for you.
Arun Coumar [00:26:39]:
It's been an expensive morning.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:41]:
Well, so, like an hour shop, right? The rule is that if we have something somebody wants us to do. Hey, I have the specific thing I want done. Great. Tell you what we'll do. Go ahead and get in. We'll create an appointment, and we'll do an evaluation first. Now, if we can end this evaluation, say, our peace of mind process, pinpoint what it's going to take to do this, there'll be no charge for it. But if we really need to again and disassemble some things and take a look and see what kind of condition the vehicle is in, it could be up to $250.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:10]:
And once we do that, we'll be able to come back to you and give you an accurate estimate on where we're going. Well, such and such gave me a price four. And then I'm going to say I completely understand. But in our area, there's vehicles that are in lots of different conditions, and so you've got this vehicle that you're modifying. And until I look at it, I just don't know. I completely understand. And honestly, if you're really looking for the cheapest price, I'm probably going to need to refer you to somebody else anyway, because that's not what we provide. We provide a really high quality service here.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:40]:
Now, I would have been terrified if I said that to a client and then had your experience.
David Roman [00:27:46]:
No offense. Yeah.
Arun Coumar [00:27:50]:
I'll take some steps back in the story here. So, in 2020, when did the original podcast start? End of 2019.
David Roman [00:28:01]:
2020. September 2020.
Arun Coumar [00:28:03]:
So I had just started having all of these experiences with helping a shop try to come up from what was traditional shop to what I believed, even as a customer with some business background thinks it should be. And in the process, I got the chance to help them. So I actually ran that shop for three months. It was a very insane three months, but it was a great first education into, okay, how should I do this? Right? And I made plenty of mistakes. I was blackmailed in that role, too. Somebody told me that I would enjoy Brixton prison in. So plenty of interesting stories along the way, but I realized that I could do it and that I actually could help shops, because in that process, although it wasn't perfect by any means, we did make improvements, and the owner was happy with the work that I had done in three months. And so I accidentally became a shop coach.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:10]:
Accidentally? Yeah, because same thing happened to David. It was all by accident.
Arun Coumar [00:29:15]:
I think it was highly calculated.
David Roman [00:29:18]:
I don't know about calculated. I also make big decisions very quickly. They're just always the wrong ones.
Arun Coumar [00:29:26]:
No. Yeah, like, you have a good track record.
David Roman [00:29:29]:
No, it's terrible. He has not listened to any of the podcasts.
Arun Coumar [00:29:33]:
I've listened to a lot of them. I'm just trying to give you the benefit of it.
David Roman [00:29:37]:
Now that you're in front of me, I'm just going to be nice to you.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:40]:
We won't talk about the Instagram messages you sent me about even. It's okay.
David Roman [00:29:44]:
The what? Whoa.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:52]:
Hey. Your coach is quite the prophylactic there.
Arun Coumar [00:30:01]:
But yeah. So I moved back from London to the US, knowing that that was all in the cards for my family anyways. And I realized that the only businesses that I could adequately sell to were shops, because I know where I can find you. And I would walk in and just start talking to shop owners and basically say, here's my skill set in consulting and strategy, operations and finance. I can help you with figuring out what direction you should take your shop. You're offering all these different services. I believe in focus and specialization. Here's where you should go with that.
Arun Coumar [00:30:38]:
I'm a former accoUntant. I can do your bookkeeping in my sleep, even though it's something you've never done. So let's get you caught up. Let's pay your last three years of taxes. Those were the shops I was finding, unfortunately.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:49]:
But now David's going to never going to let this episode go out. You know that, right? Because you just said pay taxes. David doesn't pay taxes.
David Roman [00:30:57]:
I do eventually.
Arun Coumar [00:30:58]:
Well, so eventually we were talking about this last night and I'm in California. So at a minimum, you're paying $800 a year for your LLC.
David Roman [00:31:08]:
$800.
Arun Coumar [00:31:09]:
You didn't know that? It's great. Yeah.
David Roman [00:31:11]:
I'm supposed to pay $50 to the Secretary of State just to file, just to say, hey, I still exist. I didn't because I object to it just on principle. Well, that $50 is now like $250 and it requires me. I still haven't done it. It still requires me to fax in this form the original application. It's a reapplication for resubmission to get my LLC back on good standing and then like an explanation letter why I didn't pay the $50 and stuff and I haven't done it yet. But you should. Principle.
David Roman [00:31:52]:
I'm going to end up paying $5. Done.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:54]:
With care auto repairs. Not actually a business anymore.
David Roman [00:31:57]:
Yeah, look it up, look it up. It shows.
Arun Coumar [00:31:59]:
Suspended.
David Roman [00:32:00]:
Yeah. It's not even delinquent. It's forfeited. But it was delinquent. Isn't that when it rolls over, like.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:06]:
Three months, don't they stop insuring you when that happens? Aren't you uninsurable?
David Roman [00:32:11]:
No. Sure. I paid my entire year's premium up.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:16]:
Well, it doesn't matter. I'm just saying, don't they come back and say, we can't insure you because you're not a business?
Arun Coumar [00:32:22]:
It's the fact that all of your contracts bearing that business name are voided.
David Roman [00:32:27]:
I don't have any contracts.
Arun Coumar [00:32:29]:
You don't have any reseller permit?
David Roman [00:32:32]:
Sure.
Arun Coumar [00:32:33]:
Documentation with.
David Roman [00:32:34]:
They don't talk to each other. These agencies don't talk to each other. They don't talk to each other. Well, before I release this episode, I'm going to make sure I get the stupid application in. But I'm saying on principle. The fact that I have to pay $50 just to tell the flipping state that I exist is loathsome to Me.
Arun Coumar [00:32:53]:
How expired are your vehicle registration tags?
David Roman [00:32:58]:
Not yet.
Arun Coumar [00:32:59]:
Really? But that's impressive.
David Roman [00:33:01]:
They're going to roll over on Monday.
Arun Coumar [00:33:03]:
Okay.
David Roman [00:33:03]:
So I handle the loaners first because customers are driving those and I can't get, but they don't get the sticker until I put them on there when I damn well please. And most customers don't notice that they're occasionally get a phone call. No, because it pulls up that they're registered because my loaners are old and cheap and it's going to cost me $100 to register. My personal vehicle, however, is newer and more expensive.
Arun Coumar [00:33:35]:
But hold on, did you just say it's okay to pay that $100 to the government even though the 50 not okay.
David Roman [00:33:43]:
Is it okay? Yeah, kind of, a little bit. The fact that.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:53]:
You get something for the 50.
David Roman [00:33:55]:
Yeah, I get the ability to drive the vehicle, not get pulled over and have to pay additional fines. That freedom is worthwhile to me. The $50, I don't get anything from the state. I get nothing from the state.
Arun Coumar [00:34:14]:
Nothing.
David Roman [00:34:16]:
From the flipping state. I just need to send them $50 just to let them know that I haven't closed the business.
Arun Coumar [00:34:25]:
Right.
David Roman [00:34:26]:
That's it.
Arun Coumar [00:34:27]:
I agree with you.
David Roman [00:34:29]:
I know it's okay to push back.
Arun Coumar [00:34:31]:
Well, no, but I think it can be true that I both used to take money from people in order for me to pay the government on their behalf.
David Roman [00:34:41]:
No, well, you're just providing a service. I have no problem paying the, I pay a bookkeeper and at the end of the year I'll pay the accountant to file my taxes for me. I'm proud of myself. I'm going to stop doing it myself because I'm a little behind.
Arun Coumar [00:34:57]:
Little behind saves you time.
David Roman [00:35:02]:
Hopefully it'll save me time. The other thing I'm going to say is I've gotten to dollar amounts that now I need help because I don't know the tax code well enough I can find deductions because there's always something. Right. And you can do a little research and time and effort. But yeah, now it's a time versus am I really going to be able to be effective at this? And it's gotten to the point where I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I can't dig deep enough into the tax code and go, well, if you do this and then this and then.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:42]:
This, yeah, I hand that off to.
David Roman [00:35:44]:
Somebody yeah, but the dollar amounts weren't before, weren't enough that you had enough expenses and you could find enough fluff in there that you're like, okay, calls it even. You get my $100 refund check, and I'm good. $100 refund check. That's all.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:03]:
And now they've got these new IRS agents looking to look through the S Corps and LLCs a little bit.
David Roman [00:36:11]:
They're creating a new agency. You see this? They're creating a new agency specifically to target pass through corporations. Did you know this?
Arun Coumar [00:36:18]:
I didn't know this, actually.
David Roman [00:36:19]:
They just announced it. It's one of their new initiatives to find all of the people that have. This is why we don't open the shades. This is why we don't open the shades. So they're going to specifically target pass through entities. So I'm going to refile as a C Corp. That's funny. I'm going to show massive corporate losses every single year.
David Roman [00:36:51]:
Call it good. We'll see what happens.
Arun Coumar [00:36:54]:
Also. Anyway.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:57]:
He'S still a professional, so he's sitting over here saying, oh, what about accountant?
David Roman [00:37:02]:
He knows how to structure everything. And it's like, I got to set this aside to pay my taxes.
Arun Coumar [00:37:07]:
I was in a group called Structuring in my past life.
David Roman [00:37:12]:
Okay.
Arun Coumar [00:37:13]:
So we would structure deals for optimal outcomes, whatever they were. And a lot of what we did was alternative investments for life insurance companies in renewable energy so that they could write off a lot of money.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:31]:
Really?
Arun Coumar [00:37:33]:
Basically, it's because the companies that create this is way more education.
David Roman [00:37:38]:
No, this is fascinating.
Arun Coumar [00:37:39]:
The companies that build solar fields and wind farms, they're not profitable. No, they have. No.
David Roman [00:37:46]:
None of them are. Solara. Where did that 4 billion go? I don't know. Green energy? Sorry, go ahead.
Arun Coumar [00:37:54]:
So they have no need for tax credits that the government gives them, and they have no need for the large amounts of depreciation that they're able to recognize for all of the equipment that they're investing in. So what do they do? They create these investment structures where, let's say, a large bank puts up 10% of the money to buy or to build the wind farm or the solar field. That bank is going to take all of the tax benefits, and they have these extremely complicated legal documents that I used to read and then model out in Excel.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:36]:
That sounds terrible.
Arun Coumar [00:38:37]:
I had so much fun. I was the only one that knew how to do it. That's what I loved about it. But it was a lot of going to Ohio and the great middle America states where these things are built in very large volumes. Oklahoma. And talking with these people and saying, all right, well, you own 10% of this wind farm, you're going to get an extra $50 million in deductions, plus tax credits that are a dollar for dollar reduction of your tax liability in exchange for 10% of this. And in five years, when it may or may not become profitable, we'll flip that. So you're only taking 10% of the profits.
Arun Coumar [00:39:24]:
So that's how the complicated legal documents worked. They're called a flip structure.
David Roman [00:39:33]:
So they were dumping whatever dollar amounts to take on this 10% of this solar farm or the wind farm or whatever. They were saving more in taxes than what they were spending on the investment, right? Yeah, like significantly more.
Arun Coumar [00:39:53]:
Hard to say in the long run, because even if they are in the short run, going to save a lot on taxes, in the long run, it may come out as a break even, but everybody's looking at the short term for it.
David Roman [00:40:07]:
Yeah, that makes sense. That's not a bad thing.
Arun Coumar [00:40:13]:
My models would go out 20 years, and you could see the number would be super negative, and then it would get closer and closer to zero. Yeah, but that is based on projection.
David Roman [00:40:22]:
All to avoid sending the money to Washington. Yes, which is great. I applaud you. You did God's work, right? What are they going to do with the money? Send it to Ukraine. What they are. That's what they're going to do.
Arun Coumar [00:40:43]:
Is this how you predicted this podcast would go?
Lucas Underwood [00:40:46]:
Yeah, something like this.
Arun Coumar [00:40:47]:
All right.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:49]:
This is pretty much how they all go at this. You know, here's the thing, though, is that David, they have billions to invest to accomplish that. I would say he's not cheap. And so they have billions to invest to avoid paying taxes. How many dollars do you.
David Roman [00:41:06]:
I don't have any dollars. $760 when I looked this morning.
Arun Coumar [00:41:10]:
And to be clear, I don't do this anymore. Right?
David Roman [00:41:12]:
I don't do any of this anymore.
Arun Coumar [00:41:14]:
I don't even do the shop coaching, because although I had all of these sort of principled ideas of general business management and a love of cars that I could combine together to at least persist long enough to build a client base doing the coaching work, I had a terrible time retaining clients because I would suggest and suggest and suggest, and I wasn't an expert coach or anything like that who could apply past experiences to be able to build credibility and have answers to every question and be able to solve all the little problems along the way that builds trust in my clients. And so I didn't have a very good retention. And so I would go through clients all the while not really making very much money because I at the time was trying to be a lower cost.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:04]:
More of like an assistance for them to be able to help them. Kind of. You're kind of like me. It's about the game of solving the problem. It's not so much about the money, it's about solving the problem.
Arun Coumar [00:42:17]:
Well. And I felt that I was more impactful in a more involved role than a twice a month phone call or something like that. But I could not charge is one of those words that we don't talk about anymore. But I couldn't charge that much in my area, the whole West coast that I drove up and down several times trying to find clients.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:44]:
Oh, man.
Arun Coumar [00:42:45]:
So that was in 2000 and 22,021. At the end of 2021, I had the opportunity to buy one of my clients.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:52]:
Okay.
Arun Coumar [00:42:53]:
So I bought in a minority stake, bought out another partner in one of my clients. There was a vinyl wrap, paint protection film, ceramic coating shop and ran that for a year. We tripled sales, hired three more employees, moved from a 2000 square foot shop into a 5000 square foot shop, started really building up the brand. And it was only Like a three year old company when I bought in. And we did pretty substantially increase the value of the company. But my business partner, who was the founder of the company, decided that we were getting too corporate and that he wanted a more family atmosphere and that he also didn't want to work opening hours and that he wanted to show up at eleven when he felt like it and bring his puppy in, have his girlfriend come in and do free work for us. And none of that really worked for me.
David Roman [00:43:45]:
Yeah, that would have been me. By the way, I don't want to show up. If you want to bring my dog.
Arun Coumar [00:43:51]:
I can imagine you with a business.
David Roman [00:43:53]:
Partner would be that.
Arun Coumar [00:43:55]:
It would be like a sitcom.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:56]:
It really would.
Arun Coumar [00:43:57]:
Really entertaining, actually.
David Roman [00:43:59]:
That would be bad.
Arun Coumar [00:43:59]:
That's the next phase of your entertainment career.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:04]:
The David and Juan sitcom.
David Roman [00:44:07]:
Poor Juan.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:08]:
I know. I feel so bad for that guy. I know he doesn't listen to the show, but please just let him know I feel bad for him having to work with you.
David Roman [00:44:15]:
Yeah, he's okay. He handles it fine.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:18]:
Yeah, because he ignores you.
David Roman [00:44:19]:
He doesn't ignore me. Why would he ignore me?
Arun Coumar [00:44:23]:
I think you're gone. Probably just enough.
David Roman [00:44:26]:
I am not there, but I help on the phones and building estimates and stuff like that. But I'm not at the shop. At the shop very much. I.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:40]:
I don't think I can handle that, man.
David Roman [00:44:42]:
I know you can't. You're just like too ingrained, too involved.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:47]:
No, I'm saying I don't think I can handle working with you.
David Roman [00:44:50]:
You do work with.
Arun Coumar [00:44:51]:
I was going to say no, I.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:52]:
Can work with you like this.
David Roman [00:44:54]:
This is no different. How? I am with this. I'm with the shop as well.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:59]:
That's why I feel bad.
David Roman [00:45:00]:
For one, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. You don't make any sense.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:05]:
No, look, I am completely capable of 100% ignoring you. You can sit over there and ramble on about nothing for 2 hours and I'm immune to it, right? I don't even hear it anymore. And so Juan is very much the same way. But then Juan has to call and be like, hey David, the sheriff's department is here with the tax warrant. What do you want me to say?
David Roman [00:45:27]:
No, he doesn't call me on those. I have to ask. Hey, did the sheriff show up? Yeah, but I figured you already paid. I did, but you still need to tell me when they show up.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:42]:
It's kind of bad that it's so common at this point. That's just life.
David Roman [00:45:47]:
Apparently my tech was joking about it with the sheriff and he's like, oh, you guys come down pretty often, you'll get to know the shop. And the sheriff's like, ha. She thought he was joking. Anyways.
Arun Coumar [00:46:02]:
You lead an interesting life.
David Roman [00:46:05]:
Me?
Arun Coumar [00:46:05]:
Yeah, at least on paper. From the government's.
David Roman [00:46:13]:
Know.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:14]:
You weren't at the last ASOC dinner, were you?
Arun Coumar [00:46:17]:
Here?
Lucas Underwood [00:46:19]:
So they gave awards away and they gave all this stuff away. And Dutch reaches into this box and he's like, David, David. Where's David? Roman? And David walks up and he says, I have something for you. And so here comes David. And Dutch is pulling out an orange jumpsuit with numbers on the back. Hands it to David. There was supposed to be costumes or costumes at the race last night. And I thought you were going to bring your jumpsuit.
David Roman [00:46:49]:
No, I don't want to go to jail. I'm too soft for jail.
Arun Coumar [00:46:58]:
On what facility you go into. You may actually be getting something from the state at that point.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:03]:
Oh, you'll be getting all that money back.
Arun Coumar [00:47:05]:
David Reed Square meals or whatever it is. And a bed and a bathroom over your head.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:13]:
That bathroom, man. You can ask George. He'll probably tell you more. But I would be careful about holding on to the soap.
David Roman [00:47:19]:
Okay.
Arun Coumar [00:47:23]:
Like I said, depending on what facility you go into.
David Roman [00:47:26]:
Yeah, we'll see some of the others.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:28]:
They might get something from you.
David Roman [00:47:35]:
Anyway, I'll say this. At some point, I'm just warning you, at some point, some car is going to come along and break your heart and that car is going to ruin all other cars for you for forever. Because I'm just telling you this because I'm old and grizzled and jaded and I've had those cars break my heart. And no longer do you see the car driving down the road going, that's a cool car? No. You see the oil leaks, you see the recalls, you see the unperformed maintenance work, you see the ahole driving it goiNg, man, I wouldn't want to deal with that ahole. I can just see the car guys, like, in on my face calling me every 15 minutes, like all of that in every car that drives by. And it's really rare for you to see a car that go, ooh, that's a cool car. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:41]:
Now I've lost all of my passion for the cars, every bit of it.
David Roman [00:48:45]:
I see a third gen RX seven. And that's a cool car.
Arun Coumar [00:48:52]:
Because you've never worked on one?
David Roman [00:48:53]:
Because I've never worked.
Arun Coumar [00:48:54]:
There we go.
David Roman [00:48:55]:
I did have a second gen, though, and I could never get it to run right.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:01]:
Look, I've got a couple diesel pickups that I see. I really like the creature comforts of the modern automobile, but the concept of being passionate and being an enthusiast about the car for me is gone. Long gone.
Arun Coumar [00:49:21]:
So I was never a tech, I was never a full time service advisor. I'm really just a guy who knows some about business and loves cars.
David Roman [00:49:33]:
Oh, me too, dear. I've never been a technician. I've never been a service advisor until I opened a shop. And all of a sudden I'm working on cars and advising. And it's not that, it's just owning the shop, because that phone call that you took from the guy they cut at that, that turns into the next one and then the next one, and then the next one. It's not even that. It's not that. Oh, by the way, the lady with the hose clamp left me a five star review.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:58]:
Oh, that was.
David Roman [00:49:58]:
I love her. She's awesome. You know why? You know why? She's a business owner.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:03]:
Can I just point out to you that if you had fired the tech that you said you were going to fire, I don't know, three months ago, that wouldn't have even happened.
David Roman [00:50:12]:
You don't know. It wasn't his fault. He didn't do anything wrong. Well, no, I guess he didn't do the proper recheck procedure. So he did do something wrong. I'm just saying it's not even like the big mistakes sometimes it's the little things. And maybe you're not like this, but I take every car home. Mentally, this is a bad habit.
David Roman [00:50:43]:
I mean, you shouldn't do that. But I worry about every car that leaves the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:49]:
I see the text messages come in, I see the voicemails come in. I see somebody recommend us on a Facebook group, and I'm like, oh, no, please don't do that.
David Roman [00:50:58]:
It's like that because it's constant anxiety about what could go wrong. And I have great people, and Juan does a great job, and everybody's trying really hard. And I've got a great diagnostician, I've got fantastic mechanic who does the best mechanical work. And I trust them implicitly and explicitly with everything I give them.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:24]:
That's just it. You will never reach perfection, right? No matter what. And each one of those, like, when you're putting that much pressure on yourself, because that's me, right? When you're putting that much pressure on yourself, knowing that you will never hit perfection and that there is a large subsection of clients who is completely unforgiving, completely unwilling to work with you or understand, right? Those clients, the 100 good clients, make it worthwhile. But that one bad client will eat you alive for months at a time, right?
David Roman [00:52:00]:
It's not the bad client or the upset client. It's just the car that just was not fixable. Or it's not that we even did anything wrong that the car leaves. Oh, I'll give you a perfect example. We did cylinder heads on a Subaru forester. The guy is the sweetest guy in the whole wide world. And he's like, well, it's going to cost $5,000 to do the cylinder heads on the Subaru, or I can go find another forester for $25,000. I'm just going to spend the five.
David Roman [00:52:33]:
Okay, that makes sense. So he spends the $5,000 with us. It ended up being like six or something like this. We have to do something else to the car. Steering rack, radiator, something else. Two weeks later, the check ins light comes on, and it's every light on the dash. Now he doesn't call anything, he just drops off. Say, hey, let me know when you figure this out.
David Roman [00:52:53]:
Ended up being an oil switch. Now, I should have given it again. At this point, I'm anxious because he already spent the money. I want this car to be good. He hadn't even driven it maybe 250 miles. He wasn't even in for his first oil change since the rebuild. And I just want to get a part thrown at it and let's get it out the door and turn this around quickly. I didn't read the code properly.
David Roman [00:53:21]:
I bought the part, didn't even go through the DIAG process. I just want this car gone. Anyway, he ends up coming back like three more times. Finally, on the third time, we end up giving it to diagnostician and he ends up being an oil pressure switch. And he's like, hey, this whole time it's been this thing here. I don't know why you guys didn't give it to me to diagnose. Anyway, he was never upset, he never got mad. He loves us to death.
David Roman [00:53:50]:
He's left us great reviews. He still loves us, he still makes comments on the callbacks. And he's like, I love these guys. I trust them. They always take care of me. But it's a flipping car.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:03]:
Yeah, I can see that.
Arun Coumar [00:54:04]:
Why is the car.
David Roman [00:54:07]:
We didn't do anything other than we took the cylinder heads off, we got them cleaned up, we put new gaskets in there, they peened the exhaust seat, the exhaust valve seat, put it all back together. This oil pressure switch. Just decided to give up the ghost. Not related to anything we did right. It was just decided to give up the why. It could have waited a year and then it wouldn't have looked and I would have made money on the repair because the check engines light would have come on, we would have gone through our whole proper process and it would have cost the customer maybe $250 to get that repair done. I would have made money on that $250 repair and I wouldn't have lost any sleep. I'm not anxious freaking out about what's going on with this car.
David Roman [00:54:48]:
Why doesn't it act right?
Arun Coumar [00:54:49]:
So why did you lose sleep and not make money off?
David Roman [00:54:55]:
Because he had just spent the money. And this is the overarching. I've mentioned this before. You've heard me say this before. I need to feel like I have over delivered on what they paid me. They paid me $6,000. I need to feel as though I have given them more in value. And if that exchange tips either even or in the other direction, it's over for me.
David Roman [00:55:21]:
And all of a sudden I'm throwing parts at this flipping car. I have done free brake jobs on engine jobs. We will put an engine in the car, get it all going, drive it. And it's like, why is the front end shaking? Well, the car came in with a locked up engine. At no point could we have driven this car. It had plenty of brake pad.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:44]:
The rotors were warped or rusty where they've been sitting or whatever.
David Roman [00:55:49]:
Yeah. And so what happens? You take it on a test drive and you're like, guess I'm doing a free job. Why? I'm not calling this customer asking for break money. You're giving me $6,000 at this point.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:00]:
No, dude. I will go back to the client. I will explain to them. It's funny because I'm sitting here listening to you talk about this, and I'm thinking I can go back and listen to our early shows and I can listen to myself develop as a shop owner, right? I can hear myself change and change my belief structure a little bit here and there, and somebody will say something that makes sense, right. And so I have developed a little bit in that area because I used to be that exact same way.
David Roman [00:56:26]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:26]:
Now, I will call the client back. I will put on the ticket, hey, I'm unable to drive this vehicle before I.
David Roman [00:56:31]:
It depends if I missed it. If we did something where like, hey, we missed this. I'm eating it 100% of the time. 100% of the time.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:41]:
I eat a lot of stuff. I really do.
Arun Coumar [00:56:43]:
I think there's sort of the expertise premium that you can afford to eat those kind of things because that's how you are.
David Roman [00:56:51]:
I can't afford it.
Arun Coumar [00:56:52]:
Branding. Yes, you can.
David Roman [00:56:54]:
Trust me. I can't.
Arun Coumar [00:56:55]:
Why? You have such a low tax bill.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:58]:
Exactly. There you go.
David Roman [00:56:59]:
I can't afford it.
Arun Coumar [00:57:00]:
So you should be kind of okay with the fact that you can't afford it. We're going down that tangent again. We don't need to do that. I think the way that I rationalize in my head that eating that kind of a situation is okay is because, yeah, we're the experts. We shouldn't have missed that.
David Roman [00:57:21]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:57:22]:
Well, and I charged you enough that I can be profitable even if I run into these things.
David Roman [00:57:27]:
The problem, though, is that you build out the estimate and you'rE at like, whatever, 58% to 62% GP on the whole ticket. That includes even the oil change and all that. So tires, the end of the day, you had tires, oil change, and then a whole bunch of work. You have 58, boom. Great. In the repair, something got missed. You didn't leave enough wiggle room necessarily. Necessarily.
David Roman [00:57:56]:
And then now you're like, okay, well, we're going to have to start adding $50 or $200. In my mind, it's like I'm not going to pad the ticket, just to pad the ticket, because we're sloppy. I would prefer that we refine our process to be.
Arun Coumar [00:58:13]:
I've had to have this conversation and build the process already for it. And I aspire to have the sort of script writing ability of you, Lucas, for this.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:24]:
I don't have any scripts.
Arun Coumar [00:58:26]:
Well, okay. You plan your words very well, and I have taken a lot of them.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:34]:
Well, that is.
Arun Coumar [00:58:36]:
So this one is now. Okay.
David Roman [00:58:38]:
He's beaming.
Arun Coumar [00:58:40]:
Mr. Customer. I've always wanted to do this.
David Roman [00:58:45]:
Mr.
Arun Coumar [00:58:46]:
Customer. I don't have your accent, though.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:48]:
Oh, man, come on. At least try.
Arun Coumar [00:58:50]:
Well, no, he likes it when you.
David Roman [00:58:52]:
Try and you get it wrong. You sound like somebody else.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:55]:
He gets a very. It's his imitation of me that's offensive. But if you can at least say vehicle, that's going to make my day better.
Arun Coumar [00:59:09]:
Mr. Customer. So as we go through this, this is a very involved repair. And although we have performed many repairs very similar to this, I've never done this on this specific vehicle before. So you can have all the confidence in the world that we'll be able to get your vehicle fixed properly. But I may not be able to foresee and build into this estimate every single part that we may need to replace over the course of this head gasket job, whatever it is. I'd like you to anticipate an additional 5%, 10% on the ticket that we may or may not need to use. You'll be able to track back every part that is on our estimate to a part on the car that would need to be replaced in this job.
Arun Coumar [00:59:56]:
But I don't have a crystal ball. I'm not going to be able to see all of them up front. Please be aware of that. If that's not acceptable to you, then, yeah, it's back to the script of, you probably need to be referred elsewhere.
David Roman [01:00:10]:
So I don't call my customers. So none of that would happen. I would just have to tax the $600 or whatever.
Arun Coumar [01:00:14]:
Well, you can put that in writing, and it's even better than a recorded phone call, I would think.
David Roman [01:00:20]:
Good point.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:21]:
I go to them and I explain, right? And I document this on the repair order, but I go to them and I explain.
David Roman [01:00:26]:
I'm just going to make a line says, bullshit. $600.
Arun Coumar [01:00:30]:
I like it even on an oil change.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:35]:
Listen, I'm going to need you to approve the bullshit line because your car is full of bullshit and there's some things coming up.
David Roman [01:00:42]:
You say oil change, but I got a call from Lucas and he's like, hey, so that tech started an oil change, drained the oil, got it all ready to go, and he's like, hey, I can't get the oil filter out. I need this special oil. What in the hell? Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me at the beginning you didn't have one?
Arun Coumar [01:01:08]:
I've got a better one. This is a tech. I did fire. Why does this oil look so clean? Why are we doing this oil change? It's kind of red, actually. Well, is that transmission fluid? No, it's not. This is definitely the oil drain plug.
David Roman [01:01:28]:
Okay.
Arun Coumar [01:01:29]:
None of us looked at the car. We just overheard him say this out loud an hour later, hey, can you buy some transmission fluid?
David Roman [01:01:42]:
Why?
Arun Coumar [01:01:43]:
Because I drained the transmission on this car. This was Friday at 430 before Labor Day. Guess who got a free oil change?
Lucas Underwood [01:01:58]:
I have seen it happen so many times that I've seen so many little stupid mistakes.
Arun Coumar [01:02:03]:
Audi.
David Roman [01:02:05]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:05]:
You can do that, too. That's one of the reasons that in our shop we have a hard, fast rule that it comes in early in the day. Right? All of the new work comes in first thing in the morning. And then if you make boo boo, you got time to clean up the mess. We don't ever pull something in.
David Roman [01:02:23]:
Like, if I had a guy that set an appointment, he was supposed to drop off in the morning. He shows up at noon.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:29]:
I'm not getting in.
David Roman [01:02:30]:
I'm sorry. Well, he's like, hey, it was right before a holiday. And he's like, he's still getting me in. We're going to do our best. We were one court short on CVT fluid.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:42]:
I remember that.
David Roman [01:02:43]:
And we're like, hey, man, I'm really sorry. We are one quart short and we're not going to be able to get it tonight because we had rushed to get all our other BS done. We got him pulled in, we got him inspected, we quoted it out, because again, he come in and said, I want A, B and C done. So, okay, but we're not going to do that whole throw the keys at and I'll tell you the bill when we're. No, no. We sent him the estimate. You got to approve. So we waited for all that process.
David Roman [01:03:10]:
He ends up approving. We can still get it out today. We were one court flipping short on the CVT fluid to call him like, I'm really sorry. We really wanted to get this done for you. We end up getting it done for him. The next morning, he shows up at noon. He ends up leaving me at three star reviews and says I felt like I wasn't a priority.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:27]:
But, I mean, here's the thing is, if you didn't take that job in.
David Roman [01:03:30]:
I would have saved myself the review.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:33]:
Right. Look, if there's any question, that's why we always check parts before we start on the repair. Right. Because then we know we thought we had enough. You count it. They need to have it right here in front of them.
David Roman [01:03:46]:
I understand, but it was like the service information said, x. We drained it, we checked it. I don't know if it was low to begin with. See what I'm saying? Yeah. And then when we recheck it, and it's like, hey, it still needs, like, half a quart more. And we're like, we don't have a half court more. What are we going to do? Well, let's try to order some. It's too late to get.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:11]:
That's why.
Arun Coumar [01:04:11]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:12]:
And so the key is you just don't take it in after.
David Roman [01:04:15]:
Yeah. That would have saved it. Because if we would have had enough time that it would have been 02:00 instead of 545, and he would have.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:22]:
Let you a three star review because you didn't make him a priority because he didn't get in. And some people are just like that.
David Roman [01:04:27]:
Right.
Arun Coumar [01:04:28]:
Sometimes it's unavoidable.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:30]:
Yeah, it is. It sucks, though.
David Roman [01:04:32]:
We caught that. I had a guy with a Subaru. He drained the wrong. I think he was supposed to do the CVT, but he did, like, the front differential instead and then poured too much. He had, like, the wrong fluids mixed up because I think he poured it into the wrong. Into the wrong hole. And the service information was really vague where he's like, I'm following the service information. He's like, I'm following service information.
David Roman [01:04:56]:
And we ended up having to buy 20 bottles of CVT fluid. And we're just like, draining and draining and draining.
Arun Coumar [01:05:03]:
Anyway, you know, I had to do that. Yeah, well, I had to buy $300 of CVT fluid.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:10]:
Well, so here's the thing is, you're.
David Roman [01:05:11]:
To drain, to drain some, flush out.
Arun Coumar [01:05:13]:
The ATF that we put in.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:17]:
So here's the thing is, like, where you're at right now, those feel like that was a one years later, like David, and you're like, it's not stopped yet.
Arun Coumar [01:05:30]:
So where I was going to go with the whole logic path is that so much of the pain is self inflicted for all of us. And, yes, there will always be these unavoidable instances. And I am of the mindset, through this whole message of changing the industry, that one of the things that we need to change in the industry is the perception that cars are hard, and there's no way service data will ever get it. All right? There's no way that a tech can be perfect at every single repair. And if you are the customer that does get the unfortunate end of the stake, that we can take care of you, because we are expensive, relatively speaking. My shop is in a plaza. I'm the biggest shop in the plaza. Just done a bunch of renovations, so it looks the part to be the most expensive shop in the plaza.
David Roman [01:06:25]:
Right?
Arun Coumar [01:06:25]:
And we are by more than double.
David Roman [01:06:29]:
Wow.
Arun Coumar [01:06:29]:
Cheapest shop in the Plaza. We're $200 an hour. There's a shop in my plaza that's 85.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:35]:
Holy cow.
Arun Coumar [01:06:35]:
There's nine shops.
David Roman [01:06:36]:
And that guy in California.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:39]:
Here's the thing.
David Roman [01:06:41]:
Should not be expensive on California.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:44]:
That other shop, I guarantee it has posted somewhere on Facebook or in a forum somewhere that all the other shops in my town are only charging $80 an hour. I guarantee it. There's no way around it. I'm the highest out of everybody. I guarantee it.
David Roman [01:06:59]:
He's in California. That $85 an hour job is, hey, here's a handwritten ticket.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:06]:
No, that's money laundering. They're not even working on cars. Do you go to a hotel and you walk in there, and they're like, $30 a night? Are you staying there? I remember that there was this Mexican restaurant in my hometown.
David Roman [01:07:23]:
Have you heard the story before? He's laughing like he's heard the story before.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:26]:
Well, so there's this Mexican restaurant. We go into this Mexican restaurant, and there's never anybody there, right? And so we go in, and we go in, and we sit down, and here comes this dude. And here come these other three or four dudes with that dude, and they're all wearing suits. Hispanic gentleman. And comes in and sits down, and it becomes apparent that they are armed to the gills, right? And he sits over in this booth in the very back corner, and he just sits there and looks at us. And there's only my team of four people and him and his four bodyguards and this entire restaurant. And so this lady walks out of the back, and she looks. She comes out and she says, what are you doing here? We were going to eat.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:12]:
She said, oh, okay. And she goes in the back, and you hear her scrambling around, and she comes back with some menus, like, can we get some chips. She's like, we don't have any chips. Okay. And so for the next, like 30 minutes, they prepared us food, right? And we ate. But it was the weirdest situation ever. Okay.
David Roman [01:08:38]:
What are you doing here? I need an oil change. What? Shop, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Give me your keys, I guess.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:49]:
Exactly. That is that $80 an hour shop. I swear to God, the guy does.
Arun Coumar [01:08:53]:
Drive a really nice car.
David Roman [01:08:55]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:56]:
I'm going to tell you right now, I stopped and got four bangs one time in California, and I think it was more than $80. I filled up the rental car and got four bang energy drinks and it was like $150.
Arun Coumar [01:09:09]:
You guys may never have experienced this, and hopefully you never do, but I had to pre authorize a gas pump for $300 to fill my truck.
Lucas Underwood [01:09:20]:
What, with diesel?
Arun Coumar [01:09:22]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:09:23]:
Little California dude.
Arun Coumar [01:09:25]:
Yeah. And I used it, and I do have an extended range tank on the truck, but it's 50 gallons. But still. That was great.
David Roman [01:09:35]:
Is that even legal? Can you have a diesel in California? Is that even a thing?
Arun Coumar [01:09:39]:
Well, it still has that whole blue system thing on it and it's registered in another state.
David Roman [01:09:49]:
There you go. That's awesome. So where's your corporate entity registered? Delaware.
Arun Coumar [01:09:57]:
Washington. I'm only getting away with no emissions testing. I'm not getting away with sales tax avoidance. I mean, sales tax reduction.
David Roman [01:10:07]:
Yeah.
Arun Coumar [01:10:09]:
But, yeah, I'll take the lack of emissions testing every year because you have to set the monitors. You got all that stuff. And I've dealt with enough 55 miles an hour on cruise control for 20 miles trying to get a cap monitor set. And I don't want to do that again. So pretty much every car is out of state.
David Roman [01:10:33]:
Hey, we didn't, before we go, mention your podcast.
Arun Coumar [01:10:38]:
Well, yeah, the we are Driven podcast to go with the we are driven brand. Yeah.
David Roman [01:10:43]:
Nice. Very cool.
Arun Coumar [01:10:44]:
And you liked it?
David Roman [01:10:46]:
I did like it. I did like it. I was yelling at the phone, disagreeing, and I did my very best. I'm just telling you I'm proud of myself because I did listen to one episode, disagreed with 99% of it. The guy's wrong. The audi TT is a. The first gen Audi TT is a very pretty car. I think that was a cool car back in the day.
David Roman [01:11:11]:
Don't look at me like that.
Lucas Underwood [01:11:12]:
I've got one in the shop that got hit by lightning.
David Roman [01:11:16]:
I think they got uglier as they got older. Anyway, I disagreed with everything he said. I was just yelling at the phone. I'm just kidding. Okay. We are driven podcast this is not the we are Driven podcast, but listen to the we are Driven podcast. It's very good. Bet it is.
David Roman [01:11:35]:
It's good.
Lucas Underwood [01:11:37]:
Good.
Arun Coumar [01:11:38]:
Thank you.
David Roman [01:11:39]:
This. All right.