Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Confessions of a Shop Owner is hosted by Mike Allen, a third-generation shop owner, perpetual pot-stirrer, and brutally honest opinion sharer. In this weekly podcast, Mike shares his missteps so you don’t have to repeat them. Along the way, he chats with other industry personalities who’ve messed up, too, pulling back the curtain on the realities of running an independent auto repair shop. But this podcast isn’t just about Mike’s journey. It’s about confronting the divisive and questionable tactics many shop owners and managers use. Mike is here to stir the pot and address the painful truths while offering a way forward. Together, we’ll tackle the frustrations, shake things up, and help create a better future for the auto repair industry.
Richard Tonetti [00:00:00]:
Reggie, who's our top producer, flat rate technician, wanted $1 more an hour. 27 to 28.
Matt Curry [00:00:05]:
That was Reggie.
Richard Tonetti [00:00:06]:
Yeah. And they would.
Matt Curry [00:00:07]:
Holy shit. To the rock store.
Richard Tonetti [00:00:08]:
They wouldn't give me permission. It got rejected. I was in no control of my people. It was over this guy who turns 110 hours of flat rate a week. $1. They wouldn't give him a dollar.
Mike Allen [00:00:19]:
Where's Reggie today?
Richard Tonetti [00:00:21]:
He works at a Fairfax.
Matt Curry [00:00:23]:
He made $358,000 last year.
Mike Allen [00:00:25]:
He's an automotive technician working in the shop who made $350,000 last year.
Matt Curry [00:00:30]:
358.
Richard Tonetti [00:00:30]:
He's on track for close to 400.
Mike Allen [00:00:35]:
The following program features a bunch of
Matt Curry [00:00:37]:
doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show. So if you get your feelings hurt
Mike Allen [00:00:53]:
easily, you should probably just move along.
Matt Curry [00:00:55]:
So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen with Confessions of a Shop Owner presented by techmetric. Simply the best software ever made. I don't believe that at all. It's a six day a week business.
Mike Allen [00:01:14]:
Well, I mean, ultimately it's a seven day a week business from the consumer's perspective. And I was. I'm gonna try to record with Jordan Mosley tonight when we get back from happy hour, so hopefully it'll be a pretty loose conversation. Right. But he's got 12 stores right. In Dallas, Fort Worth, and they're all seven days a week.
Matt Curry [00:01:32]:
Zero.
Mike Allen [00:01:33]:
Yeah. Who is that back row closest to the door? He was sitting to my left.
Matt Curry [00:01:37]:
What's his name?
Mike Allen [00:01:38]:
Jordan Mosley. So he's got a mix of quick lubes, auto repair, and I think one or two car washes.
Richard Tonetti [00:01:44]:
He was working on his laptop a lot.
Mike Allen [00:01:46]:
Yeah, yeah.
Richard Tonetti [00:01:47]:
A bunch of different business.
Mike Allen [00:01:47]:
He was also taking notes like crazy on his little. What's the E Ink writing tablet that everybody has? Yeah, but our consumers want us to be open 24, 7, 365. Right. So there's going to. In a market like this that's densely populated enough, there's going to be business seven days a week. Maybe. If you're in rural fucking Nebraska, maybe not. Right.
Mike Allen [00:02:12]:
And that's okay too. But there's this whole subset of our industry that are mostly technicians turned small shop owners who have fallen in love with the coaches and the gurus that say you only need to be open four days a week. And they are like, oh, well, I Mean, you can get just as much done in four days as you can in five days. And when I closed my shop down on Friday, our business went up. And our customers love us so much. They're so loyal to us that they're happy for us.
Richard Tonetti [00:02:45]:
I've heard that a lot.
Mike Allen [00:02:46]:
And you know what? Okay, great. I'm sure that some of your customers are happy for you, and they do love you so much that they'll come one day a week if that's all you're open. That's fucking awesome. But some of your customers went somewhere else.
Matt Curry [00:02:58]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:02:59]:
And some of your customers really fucking wish you were open on Saturday because they work Monday through Friday too. Right. And my whole point is that's awesome that you closed on Friday. And yeah, it's easier to recruit technicians if you're gonna pay them five days worth of work for four days of work. I get that. That's fine. But here's the thing. If your revenue went up closing a day, get those systems locked down and go back to being up in five days or go to being up in six days, and then if you go from five to four and your revenue goes up, lock down those systems and be consistent and go back to six and you've grown your business by 50% overnight.
Richard Tonetti [00:03:41]:
True.
Matt Curry [00:03:41]:
Absolutely. 100%. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:03:43]:
So four plus two. Well, yeah. What it comes down to is they are not money motivated.
Richard Tonetti [00:03:50]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:03:50]:
And that's. That's the reality.
Richard Tonetti [00:03:51]:
I think that's what it takes to be the best in this, to be honest with you. Money motivated.
Matt Curry [00:03:57]:
Yeah. You gotta be money motivated. You gotta be quality motivated.
Richard Tonetti [00:04:00]:
I think that's critical part of it.
Matt Curry [00:04:02]:
Yeah. People motivated.
Mike Allen [00:04:04]:
Well, I mean, so there's a lot of lip service that's paid to tiptoe around the real conversation in all trades.
Richard Tonetti [00:04:12]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:04:12]:
But one of them is, you know, if you do the right thing, money will follow, and money does follow when you do the right thing. But you can do the right thing and not know how to run your fucking business and go bankrupt, too.
Matt Curry [00:04:22]:
Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:04:23]:
I am money motivated. That does not make me an evil person. No. I will never put money ahead of doing the right thing. Yeah. Fucking A. Take your socialist shit and go home, you know?
Richard Tonetti [00:04:35]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:04:37]:
You know, I think that's a problem for probably my grandkids is when they're gonna be dragging people who have actually worked for a living into the streets and executing them. I think French Revolution's coming in about 30, 40 years.
Matt Curry [00:04:47]:
Yeah. I'll be. I'll be done by then.
Richard Tonetti [00:04:51]:
Hopefully, I'm not around.
Mike Allen [00:04:53]:
I'll be on my compound in Costa Rica. Anyway. Hey, so should we introduce ourselves?
Matt Curry [00:05:02]:
Let's do it.
Mike Allen [00:05:02]:
Only four minutes in. Usually it takes like 15 minutes. Yeah, I've been recording this whole shit.
Matt Curry [00:05:07]:
Oh, I thought we were just. I should have started. I should have said bad things about some people.
Mike Allen [00:05:13]:
Well, you know, when we were talking shit about that specific person we weren't yet recording.
Matt Curry [00:05:17]:
Okay, cool.
Mike Allen [00:05:18]:
Yeah, don't want to do that. But you know who you were.
Matt Curry [00:05:21]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:05:24]:
So anyway, we are at. We're in Fairfax, Virginia. We're at level up. Which is the third time you've done this?
Matt Curry [00:05:32]:
I think it's the fourth or fifth.
Richard Tonetti [00:05:34]:
Fifth. Okay.
Mike Allen [00:05:35]:
Okay. Awesome.
Matt Curry [00:05:36]:
So we did it for our team and then we did it for Jim Brown at Speed Auto and all that and it just kind of became a thing.
Richard Tonetti [00:05:44]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:05:45]:
And introduce yourself real quick. Sure.
Richard Tonetti [00:05:47]:
I'm Richard Tonetti. I've worked for Matt for about 19 years on and off. I started as a.
Mike Allen [00:05:52]:
Just getting started.
Richard Tonetti [00:05:52]:
I started as a tire changer.
Mike Allen [00:05:54]:
Yeah, yeah.
Richard Tonetti [00:05:55]:
And worked my way up, you know.
Mike Allen [00:05:57]:
So you started busting tires and changing oil and now you're VP of operations.
Richard Tonetti [00:06:02]:
Yes, essentially. Yep. He's always given me a path to grow and I had to prove myself along the way many times. Sure. You know, but that part wasn't given to you. It wasn't paid off. Weird.
Matt Curry [00:06:12]:
That is weird.
Richard Tonetti [00:06:13]:
Strange how that works.
Mike Allen [00:06:14]:
What about equality of outcome, equality of opportunity? And Matt, I think everybody knows who you are at this point. If they don't, they will soon. Right.
Matt Curry [00:06:24]:
But Matt Curry, President and CEO of Craftsman AutoCare. So yeah, I'll be famous now because of you.
Mike Allen [00:06:31]:
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Eight locations here in D.C. kind of Virginia area. But you've grown a small group and sold once before already.
Matt Curry [00:06:43]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:06:44]:
And then got bored and started all over.
Matt Curry [00:06:46]:
So we started Curry's Auto Service back in 1998 on $103,000 on 13 credit cards and a $35,000 known for my father in law on the back of a shitty industrial park. Grew that to 10 stores and about 18 million in sales. That's when labor rates and parts were a lot less money. And sold. Retired. Wasn't very good at retirement. So three and a half years later we've started again and we've opened eight stores in eight years. Excuse me? Eight stores in eight years.
Matt Curry [00:07:16]:
And it looks like we're going to be opening another one. So nine stores in nine years. It'll be.
Mike Allen [00:07:21]:
What's your ideal store? Eight bays, 10 bays.
Matt Curry [00:07:23]:
Yeah. Somewhere in that range, eight to 10. I mean, there's some of our stores now, like our Fairfax store and our McLean store could use 20 bays. But I think a 10 bay store, if you've got that capacity, is a really good sized store.
Mike Allen [00:07:37]:
If you're in a hot location and the real estate has the capacity, would you rather spend a million dollars to add onto that building or go a mile and a half away and open another building?
Matt Curry [00:07:49]:
I would rather spend a million dollars in that building probably, and maximize the capacity rather than start all over again. But I would do both. I mean, if the opportunity's there, I mean, I'm ready to grow. So I mean, we want to get to 100 million and then, I don't know, go to 200 million, whatever.
Mike Allen [00:08:05]:
So do you have like a formula for, okay, here's the traffic count, here's the demographics, and here's the distance from current locations. We're gonna draw a circle on the map and we need to find a corner in this circle for the next location. Or do you just look at the deals as they come along?
Matt Curry [00:08:23]:
So. Yes and no. I mostly look at the deals as they come along. I'm a native Washingtonian, so I know this area really well. I've been here for 60 years.
Mike Allen [00:08:31]:
There's like three of you that actually have lived in D.C. yeah, there's only three. Exactly.
Matt Curry [00:08:36]:
It's a super transient area with the elections and all that stuff. But I was actually born in dc, lived there till I was seven, grew up right down the street from here. So we know the area really, really well. Our big thing here is getting proper use and proper zoning. So if we find a place that we like, and I have brokers that usually do this for two or three brokers, constantly looking. And if we find a place that we think looks good, we'll jump on it. Okay.
Mike Allen [00:09:08]:
Do you like to buy distressed properties or distressed businesses, or do you want to start from the ground up?
Matt Curry [00:09:13]:
I love to buy distressed businesses. That's the best. We are turnaround kings. That's what we do. I mean, our Fairfax store that you saw today, that does $642,000, I think in October they were doing about 20, $30,000 a month. And we took that store over five years, five or six years ago.
Mike Allen [00:09:31]:
Love it, love it. And that's the NTW that we went to or. No, that was the second one.
Matt Curry [00:09:38]:
Yeah, that was the second one. Other one that was the, the one that was right on Lee Highway. Really good, really great location. Yeah. But the, the NTW we took over. We'll do over 300. We just opened up three, four months ago, and they were doing 1.3 million a year.
Mike Allen [00:09:56]:
We.
Matt Curry [00:09:56]:
This will be our fourth or fifth full, I think our fifth full month. And we'll do over 300 this year. This month.
Mike Allen [00:10:04]:
Okay, so I want to talk about what you think the key factors are that are driving this. You know, very high volume. It's a lot higher volume per bay than the average independent shop in America. Two and three and four times more than the average volume per bay. And is it fair to say that it's typically like you're running an $800 to $1,000 ARO across most of the stores?
Matt Curry [00:10:36]:
So we try to hit 800. Some of our stores sometimes get up to about a thousand, the Merrifield location in particular. But our average RO across the company is about $680. So we want it to be more. Some stores are bringing that down and we're working with those stores and Richard's coaching those stores to get them up.
Mike Allen [00:10:58]:
Closing rate across the company.
Matt Curry [00:11:00]:
40%.
Mike Allen [00:11:01]:
Is that your target? 40%.
Matt Curry [00:11:02]:
Yeah. 45 is our target. But we write everything up. So we do a full digital inspection. Every car. We run a full carfax on every car. So if the technician doesn't recommend, say, a transmission flush at 50,000 miles, my service managers are trained to add it to the ticket and prioritize it, put it in the proper order of priority. So we absolutely read everything up.
Matt Curry [00:11:28]:
Our closing ratio was. We've been working on that. Really, because it wasn't that great. It was like 34%. And we were striving to get 45 and realized at first we had to get to 40 though. And we're there now. And we constantly do training and sales training and coaching and all that.
Mike Allen [00:11:44]:
You do most of your sales training internally or do you outsource any of that?
Richard Tonetti [00:11:48]:
Both internally? Mostly. Yeah, it's mostly internally. And it all starts with the goal setting. Right. He's got a goal in mind. It makes sense. It's achievable. We achieve the goal, then we do the next level, you know.
Richard Tonetti [00:11:59]:
Well, let's take this one step further. You know, we don't. He's a winner, I'm a winner. You know, we want to win and we're money motivated. And sales is not a negative thing, you know, but sales is not a dirty word. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:12:11]:
And if you think it is, then you're in the wrong fucking business.
Richard Tonetti [00:12:13]:
I think a sale is honestly, I think a sales is a health Check of the business. You know what I mean? That you do all these other things, right? Sales are just going to happen. Do you know what I mean? And so I guess I want to answer your question early. I know you were asking Matt primarily, if you don't mind me, was. It's a lot of it is people, you know, in the culture. And it starts at the leadership position for Matt down. He's got a vision, right? And he's a positive individual, you know, and he pushes people, you know, and that's my job, is to relay that information and keep that same mindset. You know, he calls me in the morning, you fired up today? You know, and I'm fired up, man.
Richard Tonetti [00:12:45]:
You know, let's go, let's go. Let's win today, you know, one day at a time. So getting the right people is a start.
Mike Allen [00:12:52]:
Positive mindset is something that I struggle with. Not that I'm like a grumbly guy or down in the dumps. It's just. I'm just kind of steady, right. I don't get a lot of high.
Matt Curry [00:13:03]:
Kinda like my son Matt. My son is the same way.
Mike Allen [00:13:07]:
But the best performers that I've seen in the world and in our trade, high energy, like, they bring it. It's like they're like cheerleaders for their team every day. And I think it's impossible that they feel that energy every day, but they bring that energy every day even if they don't feel like it for their team.
Richard Tonetti [00:13:28]:
Correct. You gotta be on.
Mike Allen [00:13:29]:
And so that's a scenario for improvement for me is being able to, you know, overcome my resting bitch face and actually be a positive influence on days where I don't feel like being a positive influence.
Matt Curry [00:13:41]:
So I tell people during my sales class that they're like an actor on stage. It doesn't matter whatever the fuck happened back home. I mean, they got in a fight with their wife or their girlfriend or whatever. When they get to the store, they gotta be on and they gotta be on 100%. And when I ran stores, I ran a lot of, I don't even remember 10 or 11 different stores at least. I mean, I was running 100 miles an hour all day long. And. And I tell my crew, I tell everybody, this needs to be fun.
Matt Curry [00:14:11]:
This should be a fun job. You're not sitting in an office in a cubicle for eight or nine hours a day. You're out, you're doing stuff. Your day's different all the time. I mean. Yeah. Is it hard? Is it stressful? Is it long? Hours. Absolutely.
Matt Curry [00:14:23]:
But it has to be fun too.
Mike Allen [00:14:26]:
I think the fun starts when the customer throws you a curve ball and it takes you off the script. Because the script should govern 80, 90% of the problem.
Matt Curry [00:14:34]:
Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:14:35]:
We know how to overcome objections. We know how to move the conversation along and the time frame that we need and manage the communications and the inbound call. It's when that 10% of the time that it goes off the described tracks and you get that oddball situation. That's when it's fun for me.
Matt Curry [00:14:53]:
That's when you need to learn how to shuck and jive, baby. Groove.
Mike Allen [00:15:01]:
So I like the systems that I saw. Definite conviction on speed of service and saying yes and bring it in right now. Right. Which we hear across more and more of the industry is starting to understand the value of that and the circles that I run in.
Richard Tonetti [00:15:17]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:15:19]:
And one of the things. So like I got enamored in 24 and 25 with Todd Hayes program. And I mean they're building an incredible business.
Matt Curry [00:15:32]:
Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:15:33]:
And I failed miserably to execute on it because of many reasons. Right. But me being the primary one. But I've never gotten over the heartburn of multi stage sales of sell the ISO, send them home, call them back and sell the rest of the dvi. Even though the DVI is done.
Matt Curry [00:15:54]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:15:55]:
And then after that sold, wait until the parts are all there and then call them back and say, hey, all the parts are here. We're about to get started. I want to talk to you about some maintenance stuff that we see that we can take care of while it's here.
Matt Curry [00:16:06]:
So I'm not a big believer in that either. That's not how I was brought up. And we don't really do that. We kind of do a full DVI while it's there. So Todd has a great program going on out there for sure. We went and checked them out. Goodyear had this program back in the 80s, it was called the early morning checkout program. Bringing in, check them out, back him out, bring him in, check him out, back him out.
Matt Curry [00:16:29]:
So I learned that in the 80s we didn't have pagers and cell phones, so you couldn't always get in touch with people right away. And so that's what we always did. And what Todd did is just basically put that program on steroids and the rack and roller, as they call it, rack attack. It works. The thing you got to be careful of is, number one, you need the car count and number two, it's going to add payroll. And payroll is Your biggest expense. So it's something that we look at really. It's a really major KPI.
Matt Curry [00:17:01]:
It's probably our number one KPI is payroll, gross profit percentage.
Mike Allen [00:17:05]:
What's your target on that?
Matt Curry [00:17:06]:
Well, we look at our gross profit differently than most people. I went to the Norm Gaither School of Business, who was the leader of our 20 group. And so we take labor as 100% gross profit. So it's different. I'll show you that in the class tomorrow. But it's 40 to 45%. And ours is typically. When you look at it that way, again, I look at it differently than most people.
Matt Curry [00:17:29]:
Ours is typically 47 or 48. But if you start keeping over that, your P and L, your net. Quickly, quickly.
Richard Tonetti [00:17:40]:
For March, for. For March and April, we did run closer to 45%. Actually 43%.
Matt Curry [00:17:46]:
And we made a half a million dollars, you know, last month. So, I mean, it shows.
Mike Allen [00:17:51]:
Yeah. That doesn't suck.
Matt Curry [00:17:52]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:17:52]:
Right. Well, the thing that I loved, I was talking to your store manager at the second shop that we stopped at today.
Matt Curry [00:17:58]:
Fairfax
Mike Allen [00:18:00]:
Jeans Polo.
Matt Curry [00:18:02]:
Josh.
Mike Allen [00:18:02]:
Oh, some tats, Josh. Yeah.
Matt Curry [00:18:06]:
And
Mike Allen [00:18:09]:
the gist that I got, and if I'm misrepresenting this, please correct me, was, you know, you call the client or you talk to the client at the counter if they're there. And the thing that they came in for, if they're in for a problem or the most pressing found need, if they're just there for maintenance, is sold initially and they approve that dollar amount. And then in the next breath, in the same conversation, you then review all the other things that you found. Is that.
Matt Curry [00:18:40]:
Yeah, that's typically the way we want to do it.
Mike Allen [00:18:42]:
I mean, I think I like that a lot better.
Matt Curry [00:18:44]:
Yeah. I want to look the whole car over, and I want to have one conversation with you. I don't like the two conversation. Deal.
Mike Allen [00:18:51]:
Or three.
Matt Curry [00:18:51]:
Yeah, or three. Certainly three. And we want to always prioritize, obviously, it's safety or what they came in for, and then prioritize it all the way down. We give them one price for everything, do everything on the car. It's $2,900, and I can have it done today. That's how I end every sales call. And they go back and they, well, I can't do this. I can't do that.
Matt Curry [00:19:12]:
And then you always gotta go back for the one more thing. Okay, we'll go ahead and do the front brake pads and rotors and the brake fluid flush. But let's also take care of that transmission Fluid flush while it's here today, that's the next most important thing. So that's one thing, that's one thing we teach in our sales class is always going back for the one more thing. That's how you drive average per car.
Richard Tonetti [00:19:32]:
And a lot of that sales class that we do internally that Matt hosts, you know, that I'm their part of. It's also just building confidence, you know, and that's. Confidence is key. Right. So but you got to start off with the right people, you know, what
Mike Allen [00:19:45]:
are some of the markers that you look for in a potential front counter person who's going to have the check the right boxes for the right energy.
Matt Curry [00:19:53]:
I'll let Richard take care of that because I don't actually do anything. I'm not sure what I do. So Richard actually hires everybody, so.
Richard Tonetti [00:20:01]:
Sure. Right. I do 100% of our hiring.
Matt Curry [00:20:04]:
Right.
Richard Tonetti [00:20:05]:
So it's. It's always positivity first. You know, can they fit our culture? Right. Our culture is this. Right. Like these are our morals, these are our standards. Right. No lying, cheating, stealing.
Richard Tonetti [00:20:17]:
Right. Like just good people. You know, do they have. Are they part of the team? I always ask about, are they a coach in some way? Have they ever been a leader on a team or a club, like a chess club or something? You know, I always give them role playing scenarios. Just feel out. Yeah. Because not everybody was part of a sports team.
Mike Allen [00:20:36]:
You're thinking two steps down the road.
Matt Curry [00:20:38]:
Yeah.
Richard Tonetti [00:20:39]:
I'm saying like, you know, because not everybody has been, you know, an athletic person or played sports. So I always let them know, like, hey, any type of team, any type of team you're been on, you know, and what was your role on that team? And then I give them role playing scenarios to gauge them as a person, you know, and then the last thing that I care about truly is, you know, obviously the yes people and they want to continue to grow and develop. But then I also found my final step of that is are they reliable? You know, can they show up every day? I don't even the automotive side of things, you know, I don't. That's not a. That's not a checkbox for me. That's not a. Do they have experience in automotive? Like Matt can teach anyone automotive. I can teach anyone on motive.
Richard Tonetti [00:21:22]:
We have people in place that can
Mike Allen [00:21:23]:
teach automotive tools that can teach them automotive. You're not asking them to fix.
Richard Tonetti [00:21:27]:
I'm not. That doesn't matter so much. You know, if you're looking for a front counter person to answer your Question that doesn't matter so much. Can you be personable? Can you shake hands? Like, can you hold. If you see an elder lady walking up, do you know it's in your brain already, I need to go get
Mike Allen [00:21:40]:
off your ass and go open the door.
Richard Tonetti [00:21:41]:
I need to go open that door. Do you know what I mean? And those are the questions that you gotta get, you gotta ask in order to get those people.
Matt Curry [00:21:49]:
Now, the one thing, the caveat, one caveat is if you're hiring at a high level position, and high level position for us is really anything from assistant service manager to service manager to store manager. Because our store managers need to sell. Everybody in our store needs to be able to sell. So I mean, I'm not going to hire somebody as a store manager or a service manager that doesn't have three to five years experience in the automotive business selling. So we can teach them how to do it better. But a front counter guy, he can hire anybody to do that. And then you can teach them as they go and then hire. I mean, I started mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms and everybody's gonna storage somewhere, right.
Mike Allen [00:22:28]:
Do you feel like you can get a guy from a Firestone or a Goodyear and get them to slide into the culture and the Sims you've got, or do they have too many bathrooms?
Richard Tonetti [00:22:39]:
I do, I do. It depends on their age, you know, and I hate to bring it up, but it's true. You know, the old dogs. Yes. The older ones are much harder to retrain, you know, and to break the mold and get them to understand the why. Because that's what we're trying to do. Right. As leaders.
Richard Tonetti [00:22:54]:
We're just trying to get them to understand the why so they believe in it, you know, And I have a hard time with, you know, the older generation and doing that, but I leave it open, you know, if they're awesome and they're a rock star. They're awesome and they're a rock star.
Mike Allen [00:23:06]:
Yeah.
Matt Curry [00:23:06]:
You know, generally the awesome rock stars aren't working at those places.
Mike Allen [00:23:12]:
Yeah, that's true.
Matt Curry [00:23:13]:
I mean, to be honest.
Richard Tonetti [00:23:14]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:23:14]:
So where do you go when it's time to go head hunt somebody?
Richard Tonetti [00:23:17]:
Oh, we don't actually know. We don't have that issue anymore where we have to go headhunt people. I mean, they come to us. They come to us and it's great. It's the brand, it's what Matt and Judy have built that have gotten us there. Sure. I'm part of that success. But all credit goes to them.
Richard Tonetti [00:23:34]:
So it's the reputation and the brand.
Mike Allen [00:23:36]:
Let's talk about reputation.
Matt Curry [00:23:37]:
Well, I was going to say we're also a well known entity in Northern Virginia auto repair. We've been doing this for 30 years in business. People know that we pay really well. We have some of the nicest stores, the best equipment with the best training and we treat people well with dignity, respect and kindness.
Mike Allen [00:23:56]:
And you know, I think one of the things that you meant. So this morning, I guess it was afternoon, we toured shops all morning.
Richard Tonetti [00:24:05]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:24:05]:
Had lunch, came back and we had three speakers. Today you were first. You were kind of running through the class that you had done the presentation that you had done at Tectonic.
Matt Curry [00:24:16]:
Tectonic.
Mike Allen [00:24:17]:
And it was on driving Google reviews and why they're so powerful and important and the things that you've done to help build that. And you're pushing up on 10,000 five star reviews across your stores right now, which is awesome. That's awesome.
Matt Curry [00:24:30]:
Thanks.
Mike Allen [00:24:32]:
And when I think about it, like two of my stores are 4.8, one of them is 4.7. Frankly, they all went down after I tried and failed to execute on Autoshop on the auto shop answers. Because I just didn't pull it off. Right. I didn't staff appropriately and yeah. So if you do anything wrong, it's not gonna have the right effect.
Matt Curry [00:24:56]:
Right, right.
Mike Allen [00:24:58]:
And so we've been pulling them back up. We were at 46 and 4 7s and so we've got them to 4, 7 and 4, 8.
Matt Curry [00:25:03]:
And now it's 47 and 4 8s. And auto repair is good too. You know what I mean? It's always better to be better, but one day it'll be like me maybe, you know.
Mike Allen [00:25:15]:
Well, but if you think about it, so like one of my stores is at like 935 reviews and I'm like, that's really good. We're gonna push that up over a thousand this year. No problem. Right. But if you Google mechanic near me and wherever your market is, listener and you've got Joe's garage that's got 4.9 and 27 reviews and you've got Bill's Garage, that's got 4.8 and 72 reviews. And you've got Mike's Garage that's got 4.8 and 1135 reviews, you're going there.
Matt Curry [00:25:51]:
You're probably going there.
Mike Allen [00:25:53]:
It is free marketing. It's not free because it's hard work to get the review. But I'm not paying for AdWords for that. Right. That's organic. Search on maps, on your phone, resulting in phone calls.
Matt Curry [00:26:09]:
You know what we pay for our marketing. About 1.5% of our revenue is marketing. Now our revenue is pretty high, but it's because of our reviews and because of the other things that our marketing team does. We have three people on our marketing team. We don't do mail outs. We don't, I mean of a new store we will, we'll do maybe 30 or $40,000 and do three or four mail outs. But we don't typically do a lot of external advertising. A lot of us community based and all that.
Mike Allen [00:26:40]:
Think about how expensive direct mail is.
Matt Curry [00:26:42]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:26:43]:
Compared to all the online marketing opportunities that are there. Right. But if you've only got 120 reviews, that's not gonna make you stand out above the other guys in town that all have 125 reviews also. So you need to do something to drive the, make the phones ring and drive cars. Right. But if you have five times more reviews than everyone in your market.
Richard Tonetti [00:27:08]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:27:09]:
And they're fucking good. And if I go read through them and they're not bots and they're not all names from, you know, eastern Russia, you know, they're not all in Cyrillic. You know, they're not bought reviews. Right. And then I sort by negative and all the negative reviews are obviously unhinged or responded to in a reasonable manner. You don't have to send all that direct mail.
Matt Curry [00:27:38]:
You don't. And you know, you can reduce your marketing costs, you know, obviously increase your profits. And like I presented today during the training is it allows you to, I think you get better customers out of it. Your customers come in there with a huge trust signal already. They're like, they already trust you even if they don't know you yet. And it allows you to hire better employees. I mean we have people coming to us now wanting jobs because they, your employees or your potential employees are looking at your reviews before they interview with you. And that's something that I didn't even think of doing this because we started making the reviews part of their bonus.
Mike Allen [00:28:20]:
When I first opened my shop, I thought my old systems would keep up, the software that I had would continue to evolve. But as we grew the slow estimates, scattered workflow, increasing downtime, it really just, it was becoming a real problem. That's why I switched to techmetric. It's not just software. It's a complete shop management system that makes my life easier. Smart jobs, instant estimates, integrated payments, integrated financing options. I mean it allows me to focus on the Work that actually makes me money and not get bogged down in the other details. My shop's repair orders have jumped over 300% since switching a tech metric.
Mike Allen [00:28:56]:
And when I need help, their support team responds in real time. I actually was online with them asking questions just this week and I got answers in minutes rather than having to wait for callbacks and emails days later. If your system is holding you back, it's time for a change. Tap the link in the show notes and see how techmetric can help you move your shop forward.
Matt Curry [00:29:15]:
We incentivize them to get to be awesome and to get reviews. We don't incentivize our customers to give us reviews, but we do incentivize our guys to ask for reviews and to make sure they're getting five star reviews.
Mike Allen [00:29:27]:
So I've started doing the same thing. I started in November of last year because that's when I was like, holy shit. Our online reputation has taken a hit because of reasons. And I checked while you were talking today, year to date we've got like 321 reviews. 305 of them are 5 star and most of the non 5 stars are 4 star. So it's like I did the math, it comes out like 4.92 or something.
Richard Tonetti [00:29:55]:
Something.
Matt Curry [00:29:55]:
Yeah, that's good.
Mike Allen [00:29:55]:
I'm good with that.
Matt Curry [00:29:56]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:29:57]:
I just need to increase the frequency and what we're doing is I do a cash spiff that I pay out on the first week of every month for last month's reviews and it's $20 goes in the pot for every five star review and $60 comes out of the pot for every review. That's not five stars.
Matt Curry [00:30:14]:
There you go.
Richard Tonetti [00:30:15]:
Kind of the same thing we do.
Matt Curry [00:30:16]:
Yeah, it's kind of the same thing. Same, same, but different as they say in Thailand.
Mike Allen [00:30:21]:
But they like, you know, and they like that. I walk around and hand out $100 bills.
Matt Curry [00:30:28]:
I do that too.
Mike Allen [00:30:31]:
But I heard somebody remember who it was and they might have heard this from you guys and I apologize if I missed it. But the thing that they were doing was it's up to $15 per review paid to the specific advisor because mine goes into a pool. And then it's divided evenly amongst the advisors across the company, pretty much ours. And it's $5 if they leave a five star review. It's five more dollars if the five star review names the advisor or a technician by name. And it's five more dollars if the customer takes a picture with the employee and post it on the Google. So if it's. This is my guy, Matt.
Mike Allen [00:31:08]:
He's my car guy. They're awesome. That's $15, right?
Matt Curry [00:31:13]:
We don't do that. I like that idea.
Mike Allen [00:31:14]:
I might steal it. That's pretty slick. But what I immediately thought was, how
Matt Curry [00:31:18]:
about stealing people's great ideas?
Mike Allen [00:31:19]:
Well, it's not stealing it. It's called R and D. Rip off and duplicate. Rip off and duplicate. Oh, I didn't submit an idea for tomorrow, so I'm just gonna give it to you now.
Matt Curry [00:31:27]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:31:28]:
And this is not my idea. This is. This is R and D. That's fine. We. You get a stuffed animal that is wearing a shirt that has your logo on it. And if the customer's car has a car seat in the back with a five point harness.
Matt Curry [00:31:45]:
Oh, I've heard that.
Mike Allen [00:31:45]:
You buckle it up in the seat. I love that. And they're a little card. That's like a little limerick for mom and dad thanking them. It's like a little poem thanking them for trusting you and that you trust them for trusting you with the vehicle that protects the thing they love the most or whatever, right? And you don't even tell them about it. You let the kid discover it and
Matt Curry [00:32:06]:
put a little camera in it.
Mike Allen [00:32:10]:
Don't get creepy, man. But every six months it's a different stuffed animals. So you keep track in your software. So you have a bear and then a dog and then a giraffe or whatever else. And the kids become militant if mom and dad go anywhere other because they
Matt Curry [00:32:24]:
want the next one. I love that idea.
Mike Allen [00:32:25]:
So I've got pictures. I've got pictures that parents have sent of their kid with four different car fix dolls, right? From four different generations. And they only get one. Cause we documented the car. They've gotten a bear, they've gotten the dog, they got the giraffes.
Matt Curry [00:32:39]:
Can't get one every time they come in.
Mike Allen [00:32:41]:
These things are fucking expensive. I'm not rolling around with Matt Curry money up in here, right? But I learned that from Matt Lakowitzer, who was in my 20 group, in my elite 20 group seven or eight years ago. And he left that and then he became a coach. And I think he was with Transformers. I don't know where he is now. He's bounced around a little bit.
Matt Curry [00:33:07]:
I might ask you to open up tomorrow with that. Yeah, that's okay. So remind me, you'll be there tomorrow for some of. So I might ask you to open up with your best idea, because that could be the best idea.
Mike Allen [00:33:17]:
Because, I mean, it's It's.
Richard Tonetti [00:33:18]:
I don't know if anyone wants to follow at. That's pretty good, man.
Matt Curry [00:33:22]:
They better bring it after that.
Mike Allen [00:33:25]:
So. But I shared that idea years ago and Matt shared it with us and a bunch of us went and did it. And then during the pandemic, there was a little group on Facebook. There was just like 50 or 60 shop owners from around the country and I shared it there and like half of them did it and it's like it flares up and then it dies down and then it breathes, you know.
Matt Curry [00:33:46]:
So a lot of programs are like that. Like there are leave behind program where we have a thank you card. It would be lucky if it gets done half the time sometimes. But that's one of the things we're not as good at. But we're really good at a lot of things.
Mike Allen [00:34:01]:
But what's weird, when they get directly compensated for it.
Matt Curry [00:34:05]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:34:06]:
More effectively.
Matt Curry [00:34:06]:
Imagine that.
Mike Allen [00:34:08]:
Wait, wait. Money motivated makes you evil.
Richard Tonetti [00:34:10]:
But to be fair, the review thing ended up not. I don't know if it was so intentional, maybe Matt can correct me, but it also, you know, one of the outcomes was it became our culture too. Do you know what I mean? And I don't know if that was his original tent other than just, hey, we need to get reviews. Because it drives me business. Right. When Matt had this idea and I was all for it, you know, obviously side story there, I'm not going to get into it, but. But it became like a conversation. Now everybody talks about it all the time.
Richard Tonetti [00:34:41]:
I mean, yeah, we still, you know, commission off of that. Right. Provide bonuses to it. But it did become our culture, you know, it really did.
Matt Curry [00:34:50]:
I mean, as I said today in the training, it started off during COVID as a way to people could make their bonuses because they weren't making bonuses and. But it went from a paid incentive to just part of our culture. And now, I mean, like the stores, they'll have inner intercompany battles. So yeah, it's great.
Richard Tonetti [00:35:13]:
And then I can rile up or he can rile up one of the guys who's really good at getting them. Like, come on, man, you're number two this month.
Matt Curry [00:35:20]:
Come on, man. You know, we play our guys off each other all the time.
Mike Allen [00:35:25]:
Friendly competition is healthy. It drives performance. Right. I love that kind of stuff. And so like in the past, I've been the guy who wants to put a whiteboard in the shop and puts everybody's numbers up and everybody can see who's winning and depends on your culture. But that Causes some people to shut. My wife is a pediatric dentist and she works. One of her jobs is with a dental group that has like 120 offices.
Richard Tonetti [00:35:58]:
Right?
Matt Curry [00:35:59]:
So you are holding the money.
Mike Allen [00:36:01]:
You're full of shit, dude. I wish, but they have an internal newsletter that's just for the dentist that shared and it has a ranking of every dentist in the organization, top to bottom, on average production per day. Average production per patient.
Richard Tonetti [00:36:23]:
Tell me you wouldn't want to be at the top.
Matt Curry [00:36:25]:
So I've got a story. I got a couple stories I can tell you on that. Number one is I used to do it starting Wednesdays and print them out that way because you don't want. We're a flat rate, right? So text paid, flat rate. You don't want one guy on Wednesday doing 70 hours, one guy doing 20. Like the guy doing 20 hours, you might have to give him some gravy, you know? Especially if he's one of your better Texas.
Mike Allen [00:36:44]:
Drag him along.
Matt Curry [00:36:45]:
Yeah, yeah. So when I sold, I had Curry's Auto Service. We had 10 stores. We sold and retired. And we were all about culture and community and all that stuff and making money. And we're capitalists. And the company that bought me, Monroe, they're privately or publicly traded company, had like 1200 locations. And you know what they cared about? Stock price.
Matt Curry [00:37:09]:
They would fax the stock price to the store every day. Like their guys gave a shit about snacks.
Mike Allen [00:37:15]:
How the fuck do you think the kid changing oil and bay too, cares about the store?
Matt Curry [00:37:18]:
Because of their 401k share programmers, whatever they are, their profit share.
Mike Allen [00:37:25]:
There's one dude at that store who
Matt Curry [00:37:26]:
cares about the share price, profit sharing deal. Store manager, right?
Richard Tonetti [00:37:30]:
And not all of them did.
Matt Curry [00:37:31]:
And of the 1200 stores, probably only seven or eight of them had Internet. And this was back in 2013. So anyway. But that was a true story that I heard from some of my former employees.
Mike Allen [00:37:41]:
So what happened to your stores?
Matt Curry [00:37:43]:
Oh, they got.
Mike Allen [00:37:44]:
Are any of them still open?
Matt Curry [00:37:46]:
Yeah, there's some that are open. I can't wait to get a couple of them back. They're all pretty much open, but they've been run down to the ground. I mean, they're.
Mike Allen [00:37:53]:
Are they still Monroe's? Does Monroe still exist?
Matt Curry [00:37:56]:
I mean, yeah, Mr. Tyre, they could. Mavis. They might be done by Mavis now. You know, it's constantly turning over.
Richard Tonetti [00:38:02]:
I stayed along when Matt had retired, right? I stayed along and became their district manager. But, yeah, they all just slowly fell apart. And it's because you lost the people it's a corporation they don't care about. You could have a really good C tech who this is. This was actually my breaking point. Like real story. Reggie, who's our top producer as our company, in our company, flat rate technician wanted $1 more an hour and flat rate from 27 to 28. And they wouldn't give it.
Matt Curry [00:38:32]:
Reggie.
Richard Tonetti [00:38:32]:
Yeah, and they wouldn't, rock star. They wouldn't give it. They wouldn't, they wouldn't give me permission. It got rejected. I was in no control of my people over this. This guy who turns 110 hours of flat rate a week, you know, $1, they wouldn't give him a dollar.
Mike Allen [00:38:49]:
Where's Reggie today?
Richard Tonetti [00:38:50]:
He works at a Fairfax.
Matt Curry [00:38:52]:
He made $358,000 last night. Year. Yeah, I mean he works.
Mike Allen [00:38:57]:
He's an automotive technician working in the shop who made $350,000 last year.
Richard Tonetti [00:39:02]:
He's on track for close to 400 this month. This year.
Matt Curry [00:39:05]:
Now he works his ass off. He comes in six days a week. We have to tell him to go home. He's got five kids.
Mike Allen [00:39:10]:
Yeah, he's obviously a maniac, right?
Matt Curry [00:39:11]:
Yeah, he's.
Mike Allen [00:39:12]:
I mean, he gets there, doesn't want to go home because it's too, too loud.
Richard Tonetti [00:39:16]:
But that's, that's what happens in the stores. You lose those people, you know, and then eventually I lost hope, you know, and at that point they're gone. And yes, some of those stores have already. They stopped renting because they're just rental units, a lot of them. But I know that we would love to get back in with a couple of those locations because they are sweet
Matt Curry [00:39:34]:
spots, you know, and three of the stores that we've opened now used to be NTBs and merchants. And so I don't know who. I don't know if Mavis owns all that mess now or what.
Mike Allen [00:39:42]:
But I can't wait for Mavis to fall apart because they've got some good locations.
Matt Curry [00:39:47]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:39:47]:
Good looking.
Richard Tonetti [00:39:47]:
Well, I can tell you from experience, you know, over the last three years, four years, we've gotten three of their stores. So they are. Yeah, you know, they are falling apart. Or they'll probably turn around and sell to someone.
Matt Curry [00:39:59]:
They can't keep up with the good quality independents. I mean, the independent operators have such an advantage over the big corporate bohemians.
Mike Allen [00:40:09]:
So the question becomes, with the evolution of technology. That's kind of sweeping through all trades right now, in all industries right now, and the wave of private cash that's coming through that's absorbing so many of the Independents. Can a small independent maintain relevance moving forward, or is this an opportunity to be even more relevant?
Matt Curry [00:40:36]:
I think it's an opportunity to be even more relevant. I mean, they're talking about multiples of 12 of EBITDA.
Mike Allen [00:40:42]:
12, 13, 14.
Matt Curry [00:40:44]:
Yeah, I mean, I've heard 16 even. But that's crazy.
Mike Allen [00:40:48]:
Somebody who's trying to reproduce that right now.
Matt Curry [00:40:51]:
I mean, I get offered. I was offered $50 million, which is a starting point for my business last week. And I'm like, no, quit calling me. I have people call me every week. I'm never selling again. And that's why somebody in the room today said they're thinking about selling. And I'm like, talk to me first. I mean, I've got some input on that if you want to listen.
Matt Curry [00:41:10]:
But I mean, number one, I can't retire. I mean, I don't have to do anything. I could leave my business for a year or two. It'd be perfectly fine. I've got Richard and Vernon and Matt, my son. So, I mean, there's no reason for me to sell. I'm happy. I like to go visit my stores and thank my people and talk to my customers and thank my customers and.
Matt Curry [00:41:32]:
But, yeah, I think the independent, they can be more nimble. They can embrace technology quicker, faster. They can make shifts and changes in their business that have. That can make huge differences. Like, if they're not inspecting every car, they can just say, okay, we're going to start inspecting every car properly.
Mike Allen [00:41:50]:
Right.
Matt Curry [00:41:51]:
Well, when you have 500 or 1,000 stores, you can't make that happen very quickly. And you're not going to be doing this shit right anyway. It's just not going to happen.
Richard Tonetti [00:42:01]:
Yeah.
Matt Curry [00:42:01]:
Now, I could probably make it happen with 100 stores. I mean, Richard could with the right team, but you got to be, you know, militant on it.
Mike Allen [00:42:09]:
I think it feels like the level of quality in our industry is pretty shitty in general. Right. Across automotive repair, aftermarket automotive repair, to include all the Midas and everybody else.
Matt Curry [00:42:23]:
Yeah, if you include all the.
Mike Allen [00:42:25]:
And so if we are right here and our quality goes down, we're still way above average. Right. And I feel like as you grow, it's really hard not to let quality drift. Because if you have 500 employees, it's really hard to know everyone's name.
Richard Tonetti [00:42:43]:
And everyone's like, that's asking Matt or myself, can we oversee 500 so stores? Like, the answer is like, we personally could not. But that's where you got to have the right building blocks. Right. The foundation was Built right by him, you know, and I give him a lot of credit for that, you know, but take it slow and do it right, you know, there's no need to rush it. We will be successful, you know, let's build the right infrastructure. And I think he does a good job in setting that tone, you know, and just giving everyone the right. The right growth path, you know, and the opportunity, you know, so if you do it right, you won't lose track and lose sight of who you are, you know, and what made you successful. Just don't forget that, you know, the little things separated us in the beginning, and we want to continue passing that forward.
Matt Curry [00:43:27]:
Yeah, I think that's well said. And there's no reason to grow. Just to grow. I mean, you know, I don't need to be the biggest, you know, I really want to concentrate more on being the best and keeping my 4.9 star review star status. And even at one or two stories, you know, five stars and getting 10,000 five star reviews and 20,000 five star reviews, that's more important to me than, you know, than making a little more money, so. Or opening another store even.
Mike Allen [00:43:59]:
This is a conversation I. I reported earlier today with Adam Wrath, who. This is his first time coming to one of these events, and he's blown away. He's not ever been exposed to the speed of service concept and what do you call it?
Richard Tonetti [00:44:17]:
We call it rack and roll.
Mike Allen [00:44:18]:
Rack and roll.
Richard Tonetti [00:44:19]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:44:22]:
And I got exposed to it in Houston. I'm like, I think, I know, I understand that there's multiple things at play down there, but, you know, they're building a revenue stream of this, you know, selling this concept, and they're selling you all the ancillary services to support it. And I think they're recruiting acquisition aspects for them to build that package deal to get rolled up a second time. And. And I understand all that. And they're not hiding that from people.
Matt Curry [00:44:52]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:44:52]:
You know, he has a desire to do a billion dollar deal. Good on him. I hope he does. He's gonna make a lot of people wealthy if he does that. Right? So. And I know what shopfix is trying to do, or I feel like I understand what they're doing, but the Level up event is not something you're trying to line your pockets with. You're doing okay. So what is the driving factor for opening this up to the industry?
Matt Curry [00:45:17]:
So 100% of proceeds from Level up go to charity. Plus we match it. We match it. $10,000. This started as an internal thing that we did with our guys, and we kept improving it. I went down to Jim Brown's, visit his stores in Atlanta and gave it to him and Richard Weiss and another guy, and they really enjoyed it. So I said, well, let's invite some other people in. And this is, I think, our fifth time doing it.
Matt Curry [00:45:44]:
And so we just started inviting other repair shops in and see if we can help the industry and bring level people up, help them help themselves. And I don't know, it's fun. I like helping people. It's a give back. This industry has been really, really good to my wife and myself, and it's one way of us giving back. It also allows us to give to our charities that we like, give even more to our charities. So it's cool. Yeah, we're not doing it for the money.
Matt Curry [00:46:15]:
We plan on doing it four times a year. We usually have 35 to 40 people, which is about what we have now. I want to make it a little bigger. Judy and Asha don't want to get too big because we want it to be intimate enough.
Mike Allen [00:46:29]:
If you have 75, 80 people.
Matt Curry [00:46:31]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:46:31]:
It's super.
Richard Tonetti [00:46:32]:
I want to be able to shake everyone's hand and say, hey, welcome back, Lou. You know, hey, nice to see you again, Mike. That's the vision he has.
Matt Curry [00:46:40]:
We just premiered one of our guys to. It's kind of a lateral promotion to a training manager. He's gonna do more technical stuff. He'll do our. Take this probably over from me, like, not the level up thing, but for internally. But he was a master technician. He's worked up front. So we're doing a whole training thing.
Matt Curry [00:47:04]:
This is all internal for our company to train our C techs or apprentices technicians, to train them up and get them to B techs and A techs eventually and all that, because I think we have to grow our own tomatoes. You know, we don't have technicians just dropping out of the sky. Right. So. But we've got technicians that make mad money, like I said Reggie made.
Mike Allen [00:47:24]:
You've got dudes making $350,000 a year.
Matt Curry [00:47:27]:
I've got.
Mike Allen [00:47:27]:
People will track you down.
Matt Curry [00:47:29]:
Yeah. I got eight or more guys are making over a quarter million.
Richard Tonetti [00:47:31]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:47:32]:
So you think those guys. There's any risk of anybody trying to pluck those guys out of your hand? There's no fucking way.
Matt Curry [00:47:39]:
Nope.
Richard Tonetti [00:47:39]:
Nope. As long as Matt and me are around, no shot.
Matt Curry [00:47:43]:
Yeah, there's no shot. I mean, they're not gonna. Plus they get a month vacation a year, plus they pay 80% of their health Insurance. I mean, I exited once. I mean, the other thing is I don't need 20% net. I'm pretty good with 15, especially if we're doing $40 million a year. Yeah, yeah, that's enough.
Richard Tonetti [00:48:04]:
Yeah, I, I, that's a great question, but I don't. We get too strong of a culture now and our core is really good, you know.
Mike Allen [00:48:10]:
Well, I've heard it over and I don't build a company that when I, when a headhunter calls, they laugh at them.
Matt Curry [00:48:17]:
Right?
Richard Tonetti [00:48:18]:
Yeah, yeah. Go yourself.
Matt Curry [00:48:19]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:48:19]:
I'm not going.
Richard Tonetti [00:48:20]:
Yeah, correct.
Mike Allen [00:48:21]:
I failed to do that. But I'm working on it.
Richard Tonetti [00:48:24]:
At least you're able to self reflect on it too, Mike.
Matt Curry [00:48:27]:
Or four, three.
Richard Tonetti [00:48:28]:
At least you're honest with yourself and you can reflect on that. You know, you've been doing it forever.
Matt Curry [00:48:31]:
Your dad started the business or.
Mike Allen [00:48:33]:
So my grandfather opened store in 37. Dad grew up in.
Matt Curry [00:48:37]:
That's right.
Mike Allen [00:48:37]:
And then dad got his bought a store from a guy that he worked for in like 82, 83. And I grew up in that one. And Car Fix, dad bought CarFix in 2000, 2005. And I started buying dad out in 2016.
Matt Curry [00:48:57]:
Now CorFix, is that everything to do with Richard Weiss?
Mike Allen [00:49:00]:
No, Richard after. Richard and I met at shop fix in 2019, the month after I quit Shop Fix, he was posting online his new branding. I was like, motherfucker, no way.
Matt Curry [00:49:11]:
Oh, shit. I mean, I shouldn't have brought that up.
Mike Allen [00:49:14]:
I don't care. I mean, look, Richard, I mean, and I've gone from 1 to 3 in that time frame and he's gone from 1 to 12.
Matt Curry [00:49:24]:
So he's a good dude.
Mike Allen [00:49:26]:
And I think Zayn said, Didn't Zayn change his company name to Carfax?
Richard Tonetti [00:49:32]:
There's another one.
Mike Allen [00:49:33]:
There's a dude in New York. There's a dude in Florida now.
Richard Tonetti [00:49:37]:
Can I ask you a question?
Matt Curry [00:49:38]:
Sure.
Richard Tonetti [00:49:38]:
You've asked a lot of questions. They're great. So how do you, do you want to go from 3 to 12?
Mike Allen [00:49:47]:
That's a question my wife asks. She doesn't ask 3 to 12. She asks how much.
Richard Tonetti [00:49:51]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:49:51]:
Like, why do you need more? Right.
Richard Tonetti [00:49:53]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:49:53]:
Because we do fine. And I want to grow. As long as it's fun.
Matt Curry [00:50:01]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:50:01]:
And like the last 18 months, I've done a lot of beating myself up for screwing up, for, for growing too fast and not maintaining quality.
Matt Curry [00:50:12]:
I think you were just trying new things.
Mike Allen [00:50:14]:
Yeah.
Matt Curry [00:50:14]:
You know what I mean?
Mike Allen [00:50:15]:
Well, I've, I have shiny objects under, I'm like Oh, that's fucking awesome. I want to do that. ADD and then there's a lack of completion and follow through. So my latest shiny object that I'm starting to get zeroed down on is I think I need to adopt EOS and get a high level implementer integrator in my business because I'm a vision guy.
Richard Tonetti [00:50:38]:
I think you're missing number two, man.
Matt Curry [00:50:40]:
Yeah, sounds like it.
Mike Allen [00:50:41]:
I think I failed at number two. If you. Couple of times now. I've pooped a couple of times, but I haven't gotten a good number two yet.
Richard Tonetti [00:50:49]:
That's something that him and I are really good at is he's the innovator, he's a thinker. And then he'll say, this is, this is what I want to do. What do you think? And most of the time it's a, yeah, okay, we can do that, you know, and then it's my job to make it happen, you know. But I think that.
Mike Allen [00:51:03]:
Do you have the freedom to say, dude, that's a bad idea?
Richard Tonetti [00:51:05]:
Yeah. I think he respects my input. He asks a lot for my input and I've had to earn that over time too, you know what I mean? But I believe so because of his history and me meeting him and my history and my growth, you know, I think that I've earned that, you know. But he does.
Matt Curry [00:51:21]:
My job is to go in there and create chaos and then walk away
Richard Tonetti [00:51:24]:
and then call me.
Mike Allen [00:51:25]:
I'm pretty good.
Richard Tonetti [00:51:27]:
And you got this going on. You got to get there and I got to figure it out and I do it. Yeah. But anyway, a number two might be the difference for you between, you know, if it is a fourth store or for you to feel like you can get over those wounds that you might have had over the last year, year and a half, you know.
Mike Allen [00:51:45]:
Well, I've got a director of operations now that might be that guy.
Richard Tonetti [00:51:51]:
Good.
Mike Allen [00:51:52]:
He's just very soft spoken. He's very level and calm.
Richard Tonetti [00:51:58]:
You know, what wins is positivity and energy. Does he bring that? Is he a rock?
Mike Allen [00:52:03]:
I try to be very calm and level also just because I have, I have big emotions. We all have big emotions. Right. But I learned a long time ago that letting the big emotions out maybe isn't always super helpful. Sometimes it's necessary. But I think I do need that high drive, high motor guy. And I've had that. But I found out there were some characteristics there that.
Richard Tonetti [00:52:30]:
Sure.
Mike Allen [00:52:31]:
That didn't check the right boxes.
Matt Curry [00:52:33]:
I like the high drive, high motor guys.
Mike Allen [00:52:35]:
Yeah.
Matt Curry [00:52:36]:
Give me all the horsepower and not.
Mike Allen [00:52:39]:
You'll figure out how to small brakes or no brakes?
Matt Curry [00:52:43]:
We'll figure out the rest.
Mike Allen [00:52:45]:
Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out. The good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink? You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover? Or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mikeonfessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number 704-confess. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to, like, subscribe or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership.
Mike Allen [00:53:22]:
I'll see you on the next episode.