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Confessions of a Shop Owner is hosted by Mike Allen, a third-generation shop owner, perpetual pot-stirrer, and brutally honest opinion sharer. In this weekly podcast, Mike shares his missteps so you don’t have to repeat them. Along the way, he chats with other industry personalities who’ve messed up, too, pulling back the curtain on the realities of running an independent auto repair shop. But this podcast isn’t just about Mike’s journey. It’s about confronting the divisive and questionable tactics many shop owners and managers use. Mike is here to stir the pot and address the painful truths while offering a way forward. Together, we’ll tackle the frustrations, shake things up, and help create a better future for the auto repair industry.
Mike Allen [00:00:00]:
If you can do a balance on a bubble machine like my grandpa used to do, and that was $20 or whatever the equivalent was at the time. Right. And now you've spent enough money to buy a car to be able to do it at a higher level, shouldn't you charge more for it?
Jim Cokonis [00:00:15]:
That's a great question. I gotta jump in here. Go ahead.
Justin Allen [00:00:18]:
Okay.
Bryan Pollock [00:00:19]:
It is a good question. Here's how I view it.
Mike Allen [00:00:24]:
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do 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 easily, you should probably just move along. So, without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner with your host, Mike Allen.
Mike Allen [00:00:57]:
Guys, the sweet, sweet Lord above has conspired against this recording happening. This is now our 73rd attempt.
Justin Allen [00:01:06]:
Yeah, minimum.
Jim Cokonis [00:01:07]:
Wait. Minimum.
Mike Allen [00:01:07]:
Yeah, yeah. Wait.
Bryan Pollock [00:01:10]:
So power goes out.
Jim Cokonis [00:01:12]:
Never mind, never mind.
Mike Allen [00:01:15]:
I'm in the dark with Mike, hashtag David Roman. So we recorded a fire episode in.
Justin Allen [00:01:26]:
Like February that was so good.
Mike Allen [00:01:31]:
And, and Braxton it up, world record breaking episode.
Jim Cokonis [00:01:36]:
That is not extreme ownership, Mike. That is not extreme.
Bryan Pollock [00:01:40]:
That is not even close to what happened.
Mike Allen [00:01:44]:
And there was, there was a file corruption that ultimately was my fault.
Justin Allen [00:01:51]:
Yeah, you are.
Mike Allen [00:01:53]:
And then we tried again and we had some technologically, technologically, Technology.
Bryan Pollock [00:01:59]:
Technology.
Mike Allen [00:02:02]:
Issues. And like, you know what, Forget it. We're gonna record at ASTA Expo. It's gonna be great. When we got here, and I have all my big pelican cases full of. And I've got, got four tripods, I've got four microphones, I've got all the cables for four setups. There's no fucking camera. I have three cameras.
Mike Allen [00:02:21]:
And so that's awesome. And then I'm like, you know what? This is a three and a half day conference. I'm gonna order Amazon overnight, get delivery.
Justin Allen [00:02:30]:
Piece of cake.
Mike Allen [00:02:32]:
No brand got here yesterday. No power cable in the order I had to reorder one. So I'll have a power cable for the fourth camera delivered by my wife in just a couple of hours. And that would be great, right? But no lens. I, I order, I didn't order the kit camera that has the lens.
Jim Cokonis [00:02:48]:
He did an rtfm.
Mike Allen [00:02:49]:
Yeah, yeah.
Bryan Pollock [00:02:50]:
You looked at a picture. Yeah, stock photo, had a lens.
Jim Cokonis [00:02:56]:
The word said lens not in included. Yeah, probably, but that was an oversight. And so what we have like technical stuff.
Mike Allen [00:03:01]:
What we have done now is. It's. It's 7:15 in the morning on Saturday at ASCA Expo, the trade show. We. We were the first people in the in to the trade show.
Bryan Pollock [00:03:13]:
We hovered uncomfortably over the security guard waiting for the door to open.
Mike Allen [00:03:16]:
We did. We make. We made it pretty awkward for him because he was sitting down and we were all standing around him really closely.
Bryan Pollock [00:03:21]:
And then he was building guy by his name on his name tag. Yeah, we've discussed. That's how to nicely make people feel uncomfortable.
Mike Allen [00:03:29]:
I think that you can somebody. Justin, you have your name on your shirt. Justin, I hope you have a great day. Right. That's normal.
Bryan Pollock [00:03:36]:
Or Justin, if somebody didn't treat you well when you're dealing with them, Justin, I hope you enjoy your next 24 hours.
Mike Allen [00:03:44]:
And suddenly it's. Suddenly it's a threat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So competitive. Committed my first felony of the day. Broke into another podcast studio, stole a camera, all the cabling equipment, microphone, all the cabling equipment. Stole their monitor, which they actually borrowed from me. So it was actually my monitor which Lucas gave me two years ago.
Mike Allen [00:04:08]:
So you know, whatever. It's very incestuous.
Bryan Pollock [00:04:11]:
Like the town bicycle of monitors. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:04:14]:
Or like that one girl in high.
Jim Cokonis [00:04:16]:
School and probably the nicest, least felonious member of this group is on the stolen camera.
Mike Allen [00:04:24]:
I hope that it feels good. And you'll probably notice Justin's living a.
Justin Allen [00:04:30]:
Little bit going wild on Saturday morning.
Mike Allen [00:04:33]:
Oh, and Braxton's gonna have a conniption cause you're not in focus. All right, talk amongst yourselves. I'm gonna adjust the focus live and mid episode.
Bryan Pollock [00:04:41]:
So what Mike did is he flat rated this camera. Camera install.
Justin Allen [00:04:43]:
Yeah. Got really close to right as usual.
Bryan Pollock [00:04:46]:
Flat rate. Much like the way his pickup truck rides with the flat rate tires.
Jim Cokonis [00:04:49]:
He got put on it again. It's attention to detail.
Bryan Pollock [00:04:52]:
Attention to detail.
Mike Allen [00:04:53]:
What I would tell you is that I was very efficient in correcting a problem that was totally unforeseen. Three days ago, two days ago and a day ago and last night, all the opportunities I had to the same.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:10]:
So what you're saying is you've had three comebacks.
Mike Allen [00:05:14]:
Well, you know what? I went to the service advisor and he wouldn't give me any more time. And the owner told me that I needed to do him a favor, have some skin in the game.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:22]:
When we were setting up, we had.
Mike Allen [00:05:23]:
To get me back next time dealing.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:25]:
With the soundboard or whatever they call this thing here. And channel four was broken. Everybody's giving up on channel four.
Mike Allen [00:05:29]:
I was about to order a new roadcaster.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:31]:
He's gonna order a whole new one. And the guy who turns the hours the others can't RTFM'd and learned how to master reset it and directed the them to do that.
Mike Allen [00:05:39]:
Okay, let's be honest, it took me longer. What you did is you said, hey Siri, how do I do a master reset on a road you have with.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:46]:
We're all on the same racetrack. We're on the same racetrack. Right. You weren't disadvantaged other than your thought.
Mike Allen [00:05:51]:
Process Realiz that I was disadvantaged by my brain.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:54]:
Yeah, you're disadvantaged by your brain and your willingness to replace it because them parts ain't no good.
Mike Allen [00:06:02]:
Well, I was willing to just throw money at the problem and hope it goes away. Yeah. Which is evil. Shop owner 101 fixed it.
Bryan Pollock [00:06:09]:
Right. You know, like if, you know, if the car's got a bad ground and it has trouble starting, buying a whole new car will fix the problem.
Jim Cokonis [00:06:16]:
Gas on it.
Mike Allen [00:06:17]:
So clearly ain't got no way. Clearly we're on topic and we're very focused today. Yes, absolutely. Because we.
Jim Cokonis [00:06:26]:
I haven't even had coffee yet, so you better, you better.
Mike Allen [00:06:28]:
Like I was interested. I was introduced to Celsius for the first time in my life at this event and evidently it's like three and a half cups of coffee in one little can.
Jim Cokonis [00:06:38]:
That's just what you need. So the person who is fair in height is drinking Celsius. I love it.
Bryan Pollock [00:06:42]:
Oh, fair enough.
Mike Allen [00:06:47]:
Oh my God. Wait. Wait until you have your coffee. Holy.
Jim Cokonis [00:06:51]:
That's gonna get interesting.
Mike Allen [00:06:52]:
So we've gotta, we're gonna wrap at 7:55. I don't care if we're in the middle of like a tear jerking moment. And then I'm gonna take all that over there and set it in place. I'm not even going to plug the wires up. I'm just going to make it look like they're plugged up.
Justin Allen [00:07:05]:
Recipe for disaster.
Bryan Pollock [00:07:07]:
More flat rates.
Mike Allen [00:07:08]:
More flat rates. So we're going to be shorter today than. Than most of our episodes. So kind of like me, I just had to do that because I saw it in your eyes. I knew it was coming.
Jim Cokonis [00:07:21]:
I only pick on people I like.
Mike Allen [00:07:25]:
So it's going to be like rapid fire. There's some things that we need to discuss and the one that I want to discuss first is one that Justin's not going to want to answer directly. So we're going to watch him dance around the subject, I believe. So how many people have spent $100,000 plus to get the best American made machine and equipment for alignment and ADAS calibration and still don't fucking use it. Right. And are letting vehicles out the door. Not properly calibrated, programmed, aligned.
Justin Allen [00:08:02]:
Yeah, that's a great question. And I would say that the. The first of all feeling intellectually like this is something we have to be doing appropriately. Right. And then secondly being sure that your people know what they're doing and get trained up comfortably and stuff like that. There's a lot of that going on.
Jim Cokonis [00:08:17]:
The.
Justin Allen [00:08:17]:
We're trying to be very intentional as an organization to not only get somebody, there's a lot of places you can order equipment. Let's put it this way, you can order equipment and they push it off a truck and maybe you assemble it and then hopefully you figure out what you're doing with it. We're trying to be very intentional to make sure that these systems are going into places and then we're showing them how to do it and they're getting really comfortable with it. It is. I would say the challenge is that it's still so new to our. Even us sometimes something we're just. And I've talked to all of our groups about this. We are so familiar with the things we've been doing forever that ADAS is new to all of us.
Justin Allen [00:08:53]:
Right. And so it's. There's a curve there for everybody involved. But so the percentage wise not as large as you would like it. Am I dancing around it now, Jim?
Mike Allen [00:09:02]:
I'll say you were three minutes into your answer and you not said anything.
Justin Allen [00:09:05]:
Not. People are scared. People are scared of all the ADAS stuff by major generalizations here.
Jim Cokonis [00:09:13]:
Right. Any. Any attempt to quantify that I think would be just folly. It's a guess because you don't have.
Mike Allen [00:09:21]:
In your anecdotal experience.
Jim Cokonis [00:09:23]:
We have an assumption but we don't have the data to. To really say.
Justin Allen [00:09:28]:
Right.
Jim Cokonis [00:09:31]:
Do you mind if I chime in on an observation? As someone who has done training, I'd love to. 25 or 30 years.
Justin Allen [00:09:37]:
I trust you, Jim.
Jim Cokonis [00:09:38]:
I used to go in and it doesn't mistake or ADOs. What was that little guy?
Mike Allen [00:09:48]:
He said I trust you, Jim. And I went. There was his first mistake.
Jim Cokonis [00:09:51]:
There we go. Okay, I need to make sure that came through first one for today. I would go into a place the company was paying these guys to go to training and you would teach them even an alignment theory class and there might have been and you would show them why and how to do things and guys would get stoked. And they're ready to go back and use the knowledge. Then they would get back and the ESO or the manager or the little fiefdom runner shit all over would tell them, we ain't got time for all that, set the toe and get it out of here. And so it's not for an unwillingness to do the work or a lack of wanting to do it right and wanting to learn to be better. It was the financial pressure to crank a number based on somebody being spiffed on the number of alignments they sell and how many this did they do and how many of that they do. I've watched it happen with steering and suspension I've had, but watch it happen, watched it happen with electrical training, with diagnosis, with anything.
Jim Cokonis [00:11:10]:
The guys come back to the next class and I said, I went back, my manager wouldn't let me do that kind of work because they gave it to the other guy or, you know, whatever, because it was all about cranking time. And so there was never the opportunity to actually learn and excel, just improve just in time.
Justin Allen [00:11:26]:
And I. And I tell them, I tell the students that in class a lot of the time, like, listen, you're going to go back and your coworker is going to immediately make fun of you because they're going to say, well, why are you.
Jim Cokonis [00:11:36]:
Not so fast.
Justin Allen [00:11:36]:
You went to class. Why aren't you the expert, Mr. Expert? And the truth is, I tell them, go back and tell everybody, go to your management and say, listen, I'm going to be slower. I'm going to be slower because I'm trying to do a quality job right now. You're going to need to give me some time to process all this new information. I've got you invested in my training. You want me to do better? I've got to build up to that a little bit.
Jim Cokonis [00:11:53]:
Right.
Justin Allen [00:11:53]:
Two or three days of like cramming in training doesn't mean you spit out the other side like a perfectly toasted bagel. Right. Like, it's going to take a little bit of smear on there to make it just right, you know, take some time. So I tell them to be prepared for that.
Mike Allen [00:12:06]:
Yeah.
Justin Allen [00:12:07]:
And so then yet that it's just new. People are freaked out. So people aren't using. I mean, what are they using properly? Do they buy a new scan tool and like, well, within the first month, they're amazing.
Mike Allen [00:12:17]:
We were just talking about how. We were just talking about how Brian and I both had this same device, right? Yeah, we have one of us figured out how to reset this and fix it. One of us did.
Bryan Pollock [00:12:26]:
One of us used it cruising social media and. And one of us.
Mike Allen [00:12:29]:
Yeah, I was not on social media. It was Reddit.
Jim Cokonis [00:12:32]:
Reddit.
Mike Allen [00:12:33]:
So similar question next. Step up, pick him up at the airport. And a company truck that I drive all the time and is perfectly fine to me and I never think that there's an issue. And he's like, holy balls, dude, you need a road force balance on this thing. And I'm like, well, I've got multiple road force balancers. I'm like, you need to use them. How many people are using their roadforce balancer the way it's supposed to be used?
Justin Allen [00:12:58]:
Yeah, very few. Let's say 17.
Mike Allen [00:13:01]:
17. Very specific number.
Justin Allen [00:13:04]:
And those are the best ones, right? Those are the really good people. But no, our guys, we love it.
Mike Allen [00:13:09]:
Yeah, you told me, you told me about how you had to do just putting the cone on there and not using the subplay.
Bryan Pollock [00:13:14]:
We had one guy hang up with where they had come through. The guy does as and Justin's right. They don't just drop a piece of equipment off, set it up and say, good luck. The guy was at our shop for hours showing people how to properly use it. Okay. Which I appreciate because I don't know how to properly use it because I didn't own one. So very happy. Lots of good information there.
Bryan Pollock [00:13:38]:
But yeah, a couple days in, I look over and guys got a cone on the outside of a wheel. I'm like, I had a freaking 2800 pin plate set and this guy's got a plastic cone. What's going on here? You know what I mean?
Justin Allen [00:13:51]:
Yeah, yeah.
Bryan Pollock [00:13:52]:
So, yeah, there's challenges. They're staying on it and what?
Jim Cokonis [00:13:55]:
I cannot balance the wheels on my Tacoma unless you use the pin plates.
Justin Allen [00:14:00]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:14:00]:
Those are really.
Jim Cokonis [00:14:01]:
It is. It is a lug centric wheel.
Bryan Pollock [00:14:04]:
Yes. And it's got that hexagonal shape on the inside.
Mike Allen [00:14:08]:
Hexagonal. God bless. Get it right, man.
Bryan Pollock [00:14:11]:
Whatever.
Justin Allen [00:14:12]:
So to another, a quick way to answer the question though, like, how many are they using it properly or whatever? The truth is 17%. Because most of them are using it to fix a problem later.
Bryan Pollock [00:14:21]:
Yeah.
Justin Allen [00:14:22]:
They're using it to resolve a comeback instead of a preemptive strike.
Jim Cokonis [00:14:25]:
Can I ask you a question?
Justin Allen [00:14:26]:
Getting it fixed on the front side. You can ask me anything you want.
Mike Allen [00:14:30]:
Doesn't promise to answer.
Jim Cokonis [00:14:31]:
I understand that. 12%.
Mike Allen [00:14:35]:
So.
Jim Cokonis [00:14:38]:
Doing an entire road force operation of re indexing the tire wheel assembly and everything.
Justin Allen [00:14:45]:
Yes, sir.
Jim Cokonis [00:14:46]:
Takes more time. Sure. So it's A more expensive, less time than a comeback.
Justin Allen [00:14:50]:
But it does take more time.
Mike Allen [00:14:52]:
Yes.
Jim Cokonis [00:14:54]:
Sorry, but are you road forcing every tire or is it a case of, you know, without doing any adjustments or anything? This thing came out. It's a truck tire, and it came out with three quarters of an ounce and an ounce and a half, and so that ain't bad. And this one over here, that took four ounces and three and a half ounces. We road force that one and get it down.
Bryan Pollock [00:15:18]:
That's what we do. So every new tire which we sell.
Justin Allen [00:15:23]:
There'S so many interesting ideas.
Bryan Pollock [00:15:25]:
So here's the deal. The machine has limits set in it for passenger car. It's got, you know, they've. Engineering has picked a number. The max road force you can have for a passenger car, an SUV and a truck, there's three settings.
Jim Cokonis [00:15:37]:
Okay.
Bryan Pollock [00:15:38]:
Right. So if we're working on a F250, we set it to the truck setting. I can't remember the number. My guys know the number. If it exceeds that number, you road force it, it gets re indexed.
Mike Allen [00:15:50]:
Okay. Does the customer pay more for the road force service?
Bryan Pollock [00:15:53]:
No, we, we. It's not an option. Yeah, it's not enough. That's the right approach when we're selling new tires.
Jim Cokonis [00:16:00]:
Yep.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:01]:
Right. We got a guy with.
Mike Allen [00:16:02]:
So did your tire. Did your tire install package price go up after you invested $50,000?
Bryan Pollock [00:16:08]:
I don't. I just don't want them to shake anymore.
Mike Allen [00:16:10]:
Right.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:11]:
Why the customer's fault? We gave them tires that don't ride right on their vehicle.
Justin Allen [00:16:16]:
Yeah. Why would we give the customer the opportunity?
Bryan Pollock [00:16:18]:
I already charged them to balance, so their vehicle doesn't shake. So if I balance and the vehicle shakes, that's my problem. They were already charged.
Justin Allen [00:16:26]:
Yeah. Perception is the issue.
Jim Cokonis [00:16:28]:
Right.
Justin Allen [00:16:28]:
Go ahead.
Mike Allen [00:16:28]:
Well, so I get and understand everything that you're saying. The question is if you can do a balance on a bubble machine.
Jim Cokonis [00:16:36]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:16:37]:
Like my grandpa used to do, and that was $20 or whatever the equivalent was at the time. Right. And now you've spent enough money to buy a car to be able to do it at a higher level, shouldn't you charge more for it?
Jim Cokonis [00:16:53]:
That's a great question. I got to jump in here. Go ahead.
Justin Allen [00:16:56]:
Okay.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:56]:
It is a good question. Here's how I view it. I need the proper tooling skills and equipment to give the customer the product that I said I would give them.
Mike Allen [00:17:07]:
So were you doing the customers a disservice before you owned that machine?
Bryan Pollock [00:17:11]:
Yeah, if it shakes. If I sell a customer, if I Have a customer. The seventy thousand dollar truck. And I put eighteen hundred worth of tires on the truck. Shakes now.
Mike Allen [00:17:19]:
Yes, no, but, but before you own the machine last year you were just willfully doing it a service because you knew that those machines existed.
Bryan Pollock [00:17:28]:
I didn't know they existed.
Justin Allen [00:17:29]:
That wasn't, that is ignorance is bliss. Right? Like you knew they existed but you didn't necessarily know what a major difference.
Mike Allen [00:17:36]:
I could have made. Jim, Jim, you feel passionately about this.
Jim Cokonis [00:17:39]:
I feel passionately about this.
Bryan Pollock [00:17:40]:
I'm ready for this.
Justin Allen [00:17:40]:
I want to hear your thoughts.
Jim Cokonis [00:17:41]:
So yesterday afternoon Brian and I taught a class called Control, alt, delete, reboot your problem solving process. And it was a very thinking, culture oriented class. Sounds like it went pretty well from the feedback we've been getting. But think about this. The concept of continual improvement and making incremental changes in the business for long term, ethical profit and competitive advantage means that you don't always have to be the highest price in town. So what Brian has done is he has watched operations and he knows that when those tires come back and a customer's complaint there is a cost to that. And that costs real money market time because of the money. And so he made an improvement and an investment to build more quality into the process in a limited amount of time instead of the FAFO method of trying to get those tires right.
Bryan Pollock [00:18:55]:
Okay, move it around this, that and the other.
Jim Cokonis [00:18:58]:
And so he can now first time through, develop a superior product and sell it at a market appropriate price. And over the long haul that improvement in process will recoup the money he was formerly losing.
Mike Allen [00:19:18]:
So you're not increasing your profits, you're decreasing your warranty expense your waste.
Bryan Pollock [00:19:24]:
When somebody has a bad experience with 1800 tires. If, if you were to be spending a month a bunch of marketing dollars and they're like they're at the bar and for that man, I got them tires over at Wilco and this thing shakes like a dog in peach pits and freaking tires ain't no good.
Jim Cokonis [00:19:39]:
Right?
Bryan Pollock [00:19:40]:
How much money in marketing is that costing you?
Justin Allen [00:19:43]:
Yeah. To counteract all that.
Mike Allen [00:19:45]:
You didn't do shakes like a dog shit in peach.
Justin Allen [00:19:48]:
That was a good one.
Mike Allen [00:19:50]:
We can't let that just slide by.
Jim Cokonis [00:19:51]:
Mean the answer to everything isn't raise your rates 20, 24.
Bryan Pollock [00:19:54]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:19:54]:
Well okay, so evil shop owner, right?
Bryan Pollock [00:19:57]:
You got to raise what your quality.
Mike Allen [00:19:59]:
And equipment salesman, non hunter specifically just equipment salesman. They'd say oh let me talk about, talk to you about the roi. Let me try. I got this calculator to show you The ROI and build and those calculators are always a bad idea.
Bryan Pollock [00:20:11]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:20:12]:
But so let's say in this model and I believe that what you described is the most accurate description of why you invest in better high quality equipment. Right. $25,000 piece of equipment, be that 100 piece of equipment or whatever. And if you're not going to increase your gross profit, you're going to reduce your expense warranty expense. Let's say that you are an average automotive repair shop above average. You're doing 10 points net. So divided by 0.1 you need $250,000 of is that revenue or gross profit or net?
Bryan Pollock [00:20:54]:
Well, you're not looking at C. I.
Justin Allen [00:20:57]:
Do not trust your early morning math.
Bryan Pollock [00:20:58]:
So I understand what you're saying, but you're not looking at the big.
Mike Allen [00:21:02]:
You're not looking at the big 11 18.
Jim Cokonis [00:21:04]:
Right.
Bryan Pollock [00:21:05]:
So here's, here's the big picture. The big picture is let's go with what they say is the defect rate which is 2% which I know we've all argued about. It's whatever, we'll say it's 2% because they say it's 2%.
Mike Allen [00:21:17]:
Yeah.
Bryan Pollock [00:21:17]:
So 2% out of. So two out of every hundred tires is going to be which honestly it's actually 24% has to be road for.
Justin Allen [00:21:25]:
It'S at least 21 quarter of them.
Mike Allen [00:21:26]:
Has a 25% of your tires needed to be road force and they weren't before so that you had a comeback on that. But the comeback was not parts, it was labor and time and opportunity cost.
Bryan Pollock [00:21:36]:
At how much an hour per bay because you're working for free now. So what's your.
Mike Allen [00:21:40]:
Yeah.
Bryan Pollock [00:21:40]:
What's your parts margin and your labor margin per hour?
Mike Allen [00:21:43]:
Well, what I'm getting at is revenue. If you're the next quarter million dollars in sales is being given to buying that piece of equipment so that you can not increase your gross profit.
Justin Allen [00:21:55]:
Yeah, I don't think you're math right.
Mike Allen [00:21:56]:
I don't think at 10 points net.
Jim Cokonis [00:21:59]:
$25,000 of expense you should have been banking the money for equipment replacement and upgrade. It should be built into your budget.
Mike Allen [00:22:09]:
Good point.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:10]:
Off of the crap you were using before to help you fund the next one. That's the thought process that should be.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:16]:
There because the reasonable thing I honestly think as, as a shop that's done very good with word of mouth marketing. I see other shops that have to spend money on marketing, which is cool. It doesn't mean, doesn't necessarily mean they're bad. They're In a different market, there's a guy on every corner. Whatever. Right.
Mike Allen [00:22:30]:
I'm pretty sure that that is you being holier than them.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:33]:
Okay, whatever.
Mike Allen [00:22:34]:
You're like, I'm better than them.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:36]:
Wait a minute. Let me adjust my torque wrench.
Mike Allen [00:22:37]:
Yeah, continue.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:40]:
So anyways, like, you're not building that into it, right.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:43]:
Because the.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:43]:
The negative effect on your marketing. Right.
Jim Cokonis [00:22:46]:
If you.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:47]:
Right. If. How much? What's the percentage of your. That you would spend on marketing?
Mike Allen [00:22:51]:
Typically seven, seven and a half percent.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:55]:
Okay, almost 10%.
Mike Allen [00:22:58]:
No, if it gets to 10, I got a problem.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:59]:
Okay, seven and a half percent. So how much revenue, like, how much revenue do you have to do to outrun your marketing damage because you didn't do the job right the first time. Right.
Mike Allen [00:23:11]:
The marketing. The. The marketing spend is built into the model and the price point. Right.
Jim Cokonis [00:23:15]:
Okay.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:15]:
So our road for balancer is built in the model.
Mike Allen [00:23:17]:
I'm using the reason that he just gave me to defend my marketing.
Jim Cokonis [00:23:22]:
You don't do it for tools and equipment.
Mike Allen [00:23:24]:
Because I don't know shit about working on cars. And I just think about the balance sheet and the business.
Jim Cokonis [00:23:30]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:23:30]:
So.
Justin Allen [00:23:31]:
So before we go too far with it. What?
Jim Cokonis [00:23:32]:
I'll say your joke. Yeah.
Justin Allen [00:23:33]:
I love that you correlated these two things together. Ultimate adas stuff is new and powerful and amazing, and people don't know what they're. They're not using it right because they haven't been doing ADAs right all along. So that's what's going on there. Road Force Balancer. They're not using it right because they're not using it to preemptively resolve problems. If we're at least getting the data or at least using that roller, then we can make an educated decision whether or not we index the wheel or not. At least we knew that.
Justin Allen [00:23:56]:
Wow, that one kind of sucked. So we could put at the right rear of the vehicle or something and at least reduce it so that it's.
Mike Allen [00:24:01]:
Good for 5,000 miles. And then it's highlighted.
Justin Allen [00:24:03]:
Well, no, no, no.
Mike Allen [00:24:04]:
When it rotates forward, they could still know immediately.
Justin Allen [00:24:07]:
They could still know. But then when they come back.
Mike Allen [00:24:09]:
Yeah, you put it on the right. You put it on the right rear, and then at the first rotation, it comes to the left front.
Justin Allen [00:24:14]:
No, no, no, it's not that. But if they come back with a concern, then at least you know where to start.
Bryan Pollock [00:24:18]:
Okay.
Justin Allen [00:24:19]:
Like it was. I put the worst one there.
Mike Allen [00:24:20]:
Anyway, so you're right on the inside of the tire. On with. With tire shocks.
Bryan Pollock [00:24:25]:
And the other thing about Your equation, It's got to be tire dollars only. It can't be total business dollars. It's got to be tire dollars only. And for a high volume tire shop, it's going to be chaos.
Jim Cokonis [00:24:32]:
Chaos. And I just need to make sure I understood what the message here was.
Justin Allen [00:24:36]:
When I started at 108, my manager told me tell them to add $1 per tire. Right. And that would absorb the expense of buying that piece of equipment. $1 per mountain.
Mike Allen [00:24:45]:
I got to sell a ton of tires.
Justin Allen [00:24:46]:
Well, yeah, we're talking about.08 dollars anyway.
Mike Allen [00:24:49]:
Right.
Justin Allen [00:24:49]:
But so to me, when you say you don't increase it at all. That's cool. That's fine. I love your approach to that. Could a person rationalize like a $5 per tire mountain balance up?
Mike Allen [00:24:58]:
Sure.
Justin Allen [00:24:58]:
They could.
Bryan Pollock [00:24:58]:
Sure.
Justin Allen [00:24:59]:
Absolutely. And absorb the cost. You're talking about this 10% of the $225,000. Whatever.
Mike Allen [00:25:03]:
Hey, it's me, Mike's kid. Want to tell us your wild shop stories? Or maybe you just think my dad's totally wrong. Call us at 704 confess and leave a message. You can tell us we're awesome or you can tell us we're idiots. We're cool either way. That 704 confess. Just don't make it too weird.
Justin Allen [00:25:22]:
No, you can do it per tire.
Mike Allen [00:25:23]:
And be done with quarter million.
Justin Allen [00:25:25]:
There you go. Almost. I was rounding down, but yeah. So it makes sense to do that as well. The biggest problem is that people turn it off. I want every manager, every shop owner to hear me. If you walk by that balancer and the roller's got a big red X on it.
Bryan Pollock [00:25:39]:
Yeah.
Justin Allen [00:25:39]:
Your people aren't doing it right. They're doing you a major disservice. They're not getting the information. They're not making an educated decision. They may or may not choose to index it. But quit ignoring that data. It's telling us whether or not it's going to vibrate mechanically. I love you talking about how much weight to put on the tire.
Justin Allen [00:25:53]:
The weight doesn't matter. Either it's balanced or it's not. Ultimately. Right. Like you can balance a block of wood and either it's balanced or it's not. But that doesn't mean it's going to roll well. It doesn't mean it'll roll down the road nicely.
Jim Cokonis [00:26:05]:
Right, that's. That's true. That's the additional thing that it, that it brings to the table.
Justin Allen [00:26:11]:
Absolutely. The mechanical vibration that is induced by the run out in that tire and. Or the rim not Matching up very well really can create cast or the.
Jim Cokonis [00:26:19]:
Way the belt slapped over. All kinds of stuff. Correct.
Justin Allen [00:26:21]:
Correct stiffness in the sidewall. So then we can balance it and make it beautiful. But if you don't resolve that mechanical vibration.
Bryan Pollock [00:26:27]:
We call it a balancer, but it's really two tools. You just made a great point.
Jim Cokonis [00:26:30]:
Even I didn't really put that together. There is. There is this. The. What essentially is the static balance.
Mike Allen [00:26:38]:
Okay.
Jim Cokonis [00:26:39]:
I can. I can have a triangle on that machine and get it perfect, perfectly balanced. Put it on that. Put it on. And it'll ride like Mike's truck until.
Mike Allen [00:26:47]:
You get to it. Until you get to a high enough speed, and then it smooths out.
Jim Cokonis [00:26:50]:
Well, yeah, it's kind of like 78 miles. Choppy water. If you get up to a high enough speed, you just trim it out over top of it. It trims right out.
Bryan Pollock [00:26:58]:
It never trimmed out, man. Oh, 78 miles an hour. And I'm like.
Jim Cokonis [00:27:03]:
And he's.
Bryan Pollock [00:27:04]:
Nothing wrong with this thing. I'm like, are you giving a stroke?
Jim Cokonis [00:27:07]:
Was the Miata a smoother ride?
Bryan Pollock [00:27:08]:
The Miata rode much better.
Jim Cokonis [00:27:10]:
Nice.
Mike Allen [00:27:10]:
Yeah, I was smooth like butter.
Justin Allen [00:27:12]:
You and me being friends, I would love to come to your shop. Hey, did you know that I'm the regional trainer for North Carolina for a Hunter engineering company? Do you know that I'd love to come to your shop and fix your truck with your technicians?
Bryan Pollock [00:27:26]:
I guess if there was going to be a road force here and if.
Justin Allen [00:27:27]:
We truck pulled in.
Mike Allen [00:27:28]:
There is one.
Justin Allen [00:27:29]:
There is one.
Jim Cokonis [00:27:30]:
We got car.
Mike Allen [00:27:30]:
Just put it up on jack stands. Put it up on jack stands and the parking deck.
Justin Allen [00:27:35]:
Yeah. And we. And the beauty is we will either fix that. We'll either fix it or at least identify it. Because as a diagnostic tool, like, that's the thing. It's no more guessing about. I don't know if that's causing it or not, but it sucks to be like, yep, that's your tire and that's a problem.
Jim Cokonis [00:27:48]:
Or we could find out Mike's been using the wheels for curb feelers and.
Justin Allen [00:27:51]:
Or we could have like part of a corpse underneath the vehicle on the drive shaft.
Mike Allen [00:27:55]:
That's what it sounds like when I go through the McDonald's.
Bryan Pollock [00:27:57]:
Honest to innocent. Felt like we get cars in. In the winter freezes up. That's what it felt like.
Jim Cokonis [00:28:02]:
Or I've been mud, bro.
Mike Allen [00:28:04]:
It's not that bad, man.
Jim Cokonis [00:28:06]:
It is.
Bryan Pollock [00:28:07]:
It's terrible. If I gave somebody a truck back like that, I'd be sick. I'd be like, so if you're physically.
Justin Allen [00:28:14]:
Unwell, if you're in North Carolina, South Carolina or Georgia and your people are not utilizing that road force balancer, I want to talk to you about it. You know, that's what I want people to hear.
Mike Allen [00:28:22]:
Okay, so next, and Jim, you had something that you really want to talk about and I, I want to get to that. And we've got 11 minutes. So I was at a 20 group meeting last week in Michigan. It was a room full of shop owners from around the country, some very high performing businesses. And a conversation about adas came up and it was, you know, do you want to invest in the ultimate ADOS setup and all that's involved with that, or do you want to go with the Altel setup and save bucks and go with that, or do you want to consider some of the other options that are on the ground? And I kind of was like, hey everybody, let's pause real quick. Who here believes in this room that they have invested appropriately and trained appropriately to be able to do ados calibrations on 80% of the vehicles in their shop? And 30 people in the room, like six raise their hand. Right, okay, great. Now of you six, how many of you are able to have a positive cash flow event from this with customer pay calibrations, not body shops? All hands went down.
Mike Allen [00:29:34]:
Well, there's one guy who's up and he's in Cincinnati and he has a mobile ADAS calibration, has four mobile ADAS calibration trucks that mostly do body shops, but he also has a bunch of shops and he does them for all of his shops and the customers pay for that. But it's spread out across a large footprint. Right. And then I asked the facilitator of the group, I said, how many across the country? And when you do this, all around the country are having positive cash flow from customer pay calibrations. And he was like less than a handful. Right, Right.
Bryan Pollock [00:30:11]:
So it's, it's because of RTFM.
Mike Allen [00:30:14]:
So was because nobody RT FM's right. And including the dealership techs and dealership personnel. And so we have to educate the customer as to why they need these sensors calibrated and these cameras calibrated when we just installed tires or when we just did, you know, whatever we just did, and they hear it's going to be 700 to do my alignment or whatever that number might be. And they call the dealership and the service advisory dealership says they are raking you over the coals, brother. $129 bringing in I'll handle it for you to be good to go.
Justin Allen [00:30:47]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:30:48]:
And so as an aftermarket supplier and with a general public that believes the dealership knows best. Right. How do we combat that and justify $100,000 expense when it makes us look like an asshole to our customers?
Jim Cokonis [00:31:06]:
Why did I get that question?
Justin Allen [00:31:08]:
You're ready for it. First of all, just to be sure everybody's very, very clear, it is also the top of the line, state of the art alignment machine. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:31:16]:
It is the number one premier piece of equipment.
Justin Allen [00:31:19]:
So if I'm going to buy an amazing alignment machine and I'm going to buy an amazing ADAS system to do all this stuff, it's going to be a big investment. There's no question about that. Right, that's fine. So it's already got that. So I just, I get nervous about like $100,000 ADAS system. No, no, no. It's a whole lot more than that. Right, right.
Mike Allen [00:31:33]:
Okay.
Jim Cokonis [00:31:34]:
But yeah, the education and other systems have. And I'm not.
Justin Allen [00:31:38]:
You're fine, you're fine.
Jim Cokonis [00:31:39]:
Other systems have similar capabilities. You can buy a different product that can do alignments and ADOs.
Mike Allen [00:31:51]:
I've heard great things about John Beam.
Justin Allen [00:31:55]:
You can't make the mouth movements and not have the sound mic.
Mike Allen [00:31:58]:
I've also heard there's a Huff, like Huff and Paintman. Dude, I saw a brand new one for sale on Facebook marketplace for like 20 grand.
Jim Cokonis [00:32:08]:
We're now down to.
Mike Allen [00:32:09]:
Okay, continue. Sorry.
Jim Cokonis [00:32:10]:
Okay, sorry.
Mike Allen [00:32:11]:
Buy once, cry once, get Hunter.
Bryan Pollock [00:32:12]:
I have ptsd.
Jim Cokonis [00:32:14]:
So you asked, how would you address that? With a.
Mike Allen [00:32:17]:
With the consumer.
Jim Cokonis [00:32:18]:
With the consumer. If the shop is truly trained and understands ADAs and they have all the position statements and the service information and.
Bryan Pollock [00:32:31]:
Everything and the common sense.
Jim Cokonis [00:32:33]:
Right, Jim, I'm just talking about dealing with the. Okay, okay. If the, if they tell me, if I find out that the dealer says, oh, they're raking you over the coals, bring it in, then I would say, thank you very much. Here's what I would like you to do. I would like you to hand all this paperwork to, to that service advisor at the dealer and ask them if they're doing all of this for $129 and will they document that it was done. And if they're doing that, then you're just getting your butt kicked by somebody who's subsidizing the work. But I'm going to guarantee you it's not. And this problem is not new.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:13]:
It's been around for a long time. I grew up in the state of Virginia. And we had yearly inspections. The inspections weren't the Helen Keller inspections we have down here in North Carolina. That was out.
Mike Allen [00:33:24]:
Ableist. Ableist.
Jim Cokonis [00:33:28]:
And so we were shaking down front ends. And everybody remembers the GM idler arms from back in the day. Yeah, right. And they would develop vertical play, and if it got bad enough, it would affect the toe of the vehicle and it would wander. So when GM was still using that type of suspension, they had a fix for it. They doubled the specification from 60,000 to 120,000 or whatever it was. I'm going off of memory. And so a good friend of mine, a shop guys who went to the school I went to before, I used to work with them, and I worked for them a little bit afterwards, they failed a truck, an almost new Chevrolet pickup truck.
Jim Cokonis [00:34:15]:
And the lady was like, whoa. And she took it to the dealer and they said, no, it's fine. So she complained to the state police, and the state police came in and they checked the truck and they gave a caution to the shop that said, you didn't look at specs because he did an RTFM to know that the spec had changed. Now, these guys were smart, though. They said, I'll tell you what, sorry, we didn't know the spec had changed. The dealer is absolutely right to buy the book. Here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to go back to the dealership and tell them that the truck feels vague when it's driving down the road and the steering is wandering.
Jim Cokonis [00:34:54]:
And it came back with new idle arms under warranty, but for a different reason. Okay. Right. So this is not a new thing that we've had to deal with with clients. It's just the topics change. That's my opinion.
Justin Allen [00:35:10]:
It's going to be a sharp learning curve for everybody. Safelight Auto Glass is the best educator of the idea that, hey, you're going to need to recalibrate that. They're doing better than anybody else. Nobody else is saying it right.
Mike Allen [00:35:22]:
As an industry, are they using good glass? Is it the right thickness? Is it the right capacity?
Jim Cokonis [00:35:26]:
But almost every commercial studies that you can buy an oep, so. So they actually set up a scientific test. They put the glass on the table and they shine a laser through the glass, and they mark measure deflection and the deflection. And they went through aftermarket and OE windshield supply chains and did multiple tests. Some of the replacement OE glass had more deflection than some of the aftermarket glass. Okay. And that's just a true study. Was six, eight years.
Jim Cokonis [00:35:59]:
No, I don't think there's truth in everything.
Bryan Pollock [00:36:01]:
There's truth in.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:02]:
There's truth in everything. But these absolute positions are what. Honestly, what. Drive me crazy.
Bryan Pollock [00:36:09]:
Yeah. Because it's very dynamic.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:11]:
One of the things we talked about is everybody's like ADOs and liability. And this has got to be right. And that's got to be right. And. And you know what? If you put the wrong brake fluid in and you put Grappy brake pads on and the tires are not designed for the car. Right. Or they have a different coefficient of friction, will the ADOs perform the way it was designed when it left the factory? No, it won't. No.
Bryan Pollock [00:36:40]:
Not even getting.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:41]:
It won't. But we're not talking about the whole picture, Right?
Mike Allen [00:36:45]:
Yeah.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:45]:
And that's the problem.
Bryan Pollock [00:36:46]:
Yeah. And it's. And it's a huge problem because. And the parts stores probably won't like this. But how many brake pads, if you go to a parts store and they have four lines of brake pads now, I don't know how it used to be, but I can tell you how it is now because I've talked to some people.
Jim Cokonis [00:36:59]:
There are four levels of brake pads in three different product lines. Yeah.
Bryan Pollock [00:37:03]:
And let me ask you this. How many of them will pass the FMVSS standards for performance that are sitting on the shelf at the parts store? And I think that if you started to do some research and saw which ones. Now I'm saying this wrong. How many have actually been tested and are one minute that they'll pass the standard? And I think you'd be alarmed at how many lines of safety related products such as brake pads, because it's a safety product, haven't been tested for that standard.
Mike Allen [00:37:40]:
Guys, this is that we only had 40 minutes to talk. We have to do this repeatedly now. This is chapter one.
Justin Allen [00:37:48]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:37:48]:
Of an anthology. Okay. I really like talking to you guys. It makes my life so much easier than just talking to him.
Bryan Pollock [00:37:56]:
So if I was you, I would feel that way too.
Mike Allen [00:38:03]:
Perfect and sane. 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 Mike. Confessions of a shop owner.com or call and leave a message. The number 704-confess. That's 704-266-confession 3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to, like, subscribe or follow.
Mike Allen [00:38:39]:
Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.
Justin Allen [00:39:00]:
Right?
Bryan Pollock [00:39:01]:
You know I said Jeff.
Jim Cokonis [00:39:07]:
New.
Mike Allen [00:39:12]:
You.
Bryan Pollock [00:39:12]:
Know I said Jeff.