From Wrenches to Wealth: Rethinking Auto Repair with Charlie Zlatkos

 In this episode, Jimmy sits down with Charlie Zlatkoz of Pleasant Car Care to talk about the journey from technician to shop owner—and why that leap requires a totally different mindset. They dive into the concept of "auto hospitality," fixing process bottlenecks, hiring the right team, and the power of saying yes to customers. Whether you're running a shop or just passionate about business, this episode is packed with real-world insights and game-changing advice

Creators and Guests

JP

Host

Jimmy Purdy

What is Gearbox Podcast?

Welcome to The Gear Box Podcast—the ultimate pit stop for those looking to break into the auto repair business, grow their shop, and navigate the daily grind of the industry.

Thinking about opening a shop? Struggling to increase profitability? Wondering what it really takes to thrive in a competitive market? We tackle the tough questions, break down real-world challenges, and share insider tips from industry experts, seasoned shop owners, and those turning wrenches every day.

From leadership strategies to game-changing innovations, we’re here to help you shift gears and stay ahead of the curve. Buckle up—it’s going to be a ride! 🚗🔧 #AutoRepair #ShopSuccess #TheGearboxPodcast

00:00:00.00
Charlie
and do Yeah.

00:00:02.07
Jimmy Purdy
Well, Mr. Charlie, I'll let you introduce yourself, Mr. from Pleasant Car Care. um Start rolling right into this thing. So yeah, a quick little intro about you and and where you're located in the shops that you operate.

00:00:16.34
Charlie
Okay, so my name is Charlie Zlatkoz. I have two locations in Massachusetts, Pleasant Carcare located in Newton and Watertown Mass. And then I'm also involved with Todd Hayes and we have operations down in Houston.

00:00:33.24
Charlie
We have two now Auto Care locations and also partners in two Adams locations. So between Boston and Houston, that's where I work day to day.

00:00:45.07
Charlie
And we also have AutoSoP Answers, which as you know, it's part of our training platform. It's starting basically being our, when bringing new employees in and training them,

00:00:56.21
Charlie
Service advisors and managers. And then people asked to start to joining us. And now we developed to a full-blown training company, basically. Fantastic.

00:01:06.04
Jimmy Purdy
That's awesome. lot of work.

00:01:09.70
Charlie
Yeah, it definitely is a lot of work, but it's okay. I mean, we love what we do. As you see, the passion comes through. So we're very happy to do it.

00:01:16.93
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, I mean, i I spent a little time with you out in Houston. and We'll get into that in just a second. But ah you you came into into America, right? And this is kind of a new thing for you, right? How did you get into the automotive field to begin with? Was this something you wanted to do or you were just naturally good at?

00:01:34.38
Charlie
So, automotive, I was already the in the automotive before we moved here. I moved here, I was almost 17 years old. And I used to be riding motorcycles in Greece, because I grew up in Greece and motorcycles are everywhere.

00:01:47.09
Charlie
started with little smaller sizes.

00:01:48.06
Jimmy Purdy
Man, that just sounds super cool. i don't know why, but...

00:01:50.69
Charlie
Yeah.

00:01:52.25
Jimmy Purdy
Sounds like a good time.

00:01:52.50
Charlie
Well, I mean... Probably 80% of the transportation is with motorcycles. So, you know, started at a very young age riding bikes and then going to bigger bikes, but riding very ah aggressive, let's say. And my father didn't want me to get too involved in that. So he kind of pulled me out of it.

00:02:11.82
Charlie
i I used to always go to his mechanic when my father used to take his car in for service, like from really, really young age. So I was always in there because I loved the environment. I loved even the smell of the shops. They're like, they have a unique smelling grease. don't know why.

00:02:27.64
Charlie
i mean, back in the day, there was gear oil everywhere. And, you know, so, so I was always involved with the car. So he pulled me out of the motorcycles, you know, world, cause I wanted to work in a bike shop. He's like, no, that's not going to happen. So I started working for his mechanic. He was a fantastic guy, fantastic technician.

00:02:47.47
Charlie
So i got ah that was my first job. That was my first job in the trades, basically. I used to work. I did a little construction with my father growing up because he didn't want me to just run around.

00:02:59.94
Charlie
So every weekend I had, I never had a weekend, basically. Made sure I worked with him. so But a real job that was probably about 15 years old when I started. And then we immigrated to the United States.

00:03:13.53
Charlie
I got a job in a gas station slash service station. It was a mobile station at the time. And that was my first job. I was there about seven and a half years. But my my boss had three sons and he had a job manager there. So I'm like, well, there's no future here for me. So I left that place and I thought I knew how to run a business. wrote As you know, that was a joke at the time.

00:03:38.17
Charlie
And I bought a van. It's a funny story. I'm not sure if you know this story, Jimmy. I bought a van of an electrician and I put some fluids in there. I put a floor jack, a bunch of tools, and I worked in a bunch of parking garage buildings in Boston, downtown Boston.

00:03:55.10
Jimmy Purdy
Wow.

00:03:56.28
Charlie
Yeah, because I had a friend of mine, Eddie, that had detailing shops there. So I used to work in the same locations that Eddie was and I would try to service with his customers or any other customers in those locations.

00:04:08.08
Charlie
But I did that for about a year. I didn't make any money, so I gave that up. Then my first boss from the United States introduced me to another friend of his who had a gas station. He had it shut down because they redid the tanks and the pumps and all that.

00:04:24.44
Charlie
So the place was just sitting closed basically for a while. So I was the one that opened it up. I was doing the gas and the repairs alone in the beginning. And then we started hiring gas attendants to take care of it. But in the shop, we never hired anyone. I was the only guy that I've worked in the shop for 10 and a half years, which is a major part of my story today. I mean, it wasn't easy, you know, trying to do all the jobs by yourself and diagnose the cars, road test them, write the service, order the parts, all of it.

00:04:56.09
Charlie
It wasn't easy, but I'm telling you, it was a great lesson. I mean, I learned a lot. So I

00:05:01.66
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, those are the hardest those are the hardest ah hardest lessons learned, you know?

00:05:04.85
Charlie
know so i learned a lot over there because there was nobody else to lean on. So you have to figure it out.

00:05:11.20
Jimmy Purdy
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you don't get paid unless it gets fit. I mean, that's the story of like a lot of small businesses, right? um I mean, you you're a technician and and because you can do the work, you think you should own a business.

00:05:26.23
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:05:26.97
Charlie
Yeah, it's so far from the truth. I think I read a statistic recently, Rats and Rents posted something, 68 or 70% of our repair shop owners are ex-technicians.

00:05:39.03
Charlie
but it's a high percentage. It kind of it flows naturally, you would think, but it requires a completely different skill set to run a business than what it does to fix a car. It's two completely different things. It's almost like, I don't know, let's say, almost like you're a chef in a restaurant and you're trying to run the business, the restaurant business. The restaurant business is different than being the chef. Yeah.

00:06:02.42
Jimmy Purdy
Oh yeah. Yeah.

00:06:02.98
Charlie
hundred

00:06:02.94
Jimmy Purdy
I mean, and that's an easy thing to think about too. Like you can like, you You understand that most people can't cook food, right? So it's like to think you could be the front of the house and and also be the chef.

00:06:16.05
Jimmy Purdy
See, but the chef could possibly run a restaurant, right? Like if you're cooking the food, you think in your mind, well, if if I can, if I have a bakery, right. And i don't know if you've, if you've read the E-Myth, uh, the, the Michael, the, yeah, the E-Myth.

00:06:27.26
Charlie
Yeah, Michael Gerber. Michael Gerber.

00:06:30.62
Jimmy Purdy
So you have the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur, right. And he talks a lot about owning the bakery, right. Like all about pies. And so if you bake the pies, you feel like, well, I have a product to sell now, but if you don't have a person to sell those pies, how, like,

00:06:43.73
Charlie
Well, I was going to pause, you see.

00:06:46.15
Jimmy Purdy
Now you just have a bunch now you just have a bunch of pies that just sit on the shelf, right? Cause no one's selling them for you.

00:06:50.58
Charlie
Exactly.

00:06:50.94
Jimmy Purdy
ah

00:06:51.14
Charlie
See, there is marketing involved.

00:06:53.22
Jimmy Purdy
Yes.

00:06:53.49
Charlie
There is payroll involved. sales taxes, payroll taxes, um insurances, I mean, scheduling, you name it. There is so many other things that come to play that you don't even think about, you know, customer service and how you deal with situations.

00:07:12.45
Charlie
licensing boards, you name it. You know you know i is it is.

00:07:15.45
Jimmy Purdy
It goes on and on.

00:07:15.86
Charlie
Like I said, it's a completely different skill set, hiring people, training people, all that stuff.

00:07:16.13
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:07:23.08
Charlie
See, the maker can do all that. It's just it's very, very hard. and and It's not possible.

00:07:26.64
Jimmy Purdy
Well, shouldn't.

00:07:28.05
Charlie
I mean, I've done it, you've done it, a lot of people have done it, but at what level, how good can you get?

00:07:33.62
Jimmy Purdy
Well, how good of a baker can you be if you're too busy doing this other stuff? Right.

00:07:36.97
Charlie
Yeah. Yeah.

00:07:38.12
Jimmy Purdy
right? Like how many parts are you going to throw out a car trying to fix it? Cause you don't have the time to properly diagnose it. Cause you have all these other things. Right. And to pivot, what you pivot off of what you're saying, i you're not going to find a lot of service advisors that open a shop, but you'll find a lot of technicians that open the shop. Right. Cause the product that we're delivering is a repaired vehicle.

00:07:56.62
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And I think that we get too blinded by that. And we think the most important thing is, is to fix the vehicle. And I think, I mean, obviously, obviously, um obviously that's, that's like, it goes without saying, but I think that's,

00:08:02.88
Charlie
where you have to fix like that.

00:08:08.77
Jimmy Purdy
I think that's like where with the blinders come on. That is not the most important thing. Like fixing the car is like when someone comes to a restaurant, like, yeah, you got to give them a plate of food. They're hungry. But can you sell them dessert? Can you sell them a good experience? Can you give them the opportunity to want to come back because you gave that level of of of experience and service that they're going to come back for?

00:08:27.01
Jimmy Purdy
i think that's the missing part that a lot of a lot of owners miss.

00:08:28.85
Charlie
Mm-hmm.

00:08:31.85
Charlie
It's so funny because I made a post yesterday on Instagram and on LinkedIn similar to that. And it basically says about service, like fixing the car is not customer service. That's an expectation, right?

00:08:45.76
Charlie
You're supposed to fix the car. You're supposed to make sure the parts are correct and it works properly. That's just an expectation. Customer service being nice, transparent,

00:08:56.87
Charlie
having a clean facility that you can bring the customer and show them and introduce them to your technicians. And, you know, so go pick up the vehicle, drop it off, ah even dropping it off when it's required to, right? You promise the time.

00:09:14.26
Charlie
Basically taking anything away from the customer that they don't have to think, making it very, very easy for them to do business with you. See, that is customer service, going above and beyond.

00:09:26.74
Charlie
You know, if you do a job and there's fingerprints on the front wall, clean up the car. Make sure, see, you fix the car. Fixing the car is the basic, right? All the other stuff is extra. That's where customer service comes in.

00:09:39.90
Charlie
That's what separates you from the competition. And we call it in our world, I mean, you've been a little bit around us and now, We call it auto-hospitality. We're not in auto-repair. We're in auto-hospitality.

00:09:52.70
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, and I think it's it's difficult for a lot of technicians turn shop owner to kind of think about that because you instantly kind of want to gravitate towards, oh I do a much better job than everybody else because when I fix the car, I use this really good silicone or I make sure all my silicone is cleaned up or I use this high-end gasket or I make sure all every bolt is is facing a certain direction, right?

00:10:13.41
Jimmy Purdy
And that is like the quality that you want to... promote and it and it's so missed. Right. and And I was in that boat with, with rebuilding transmissions, right? It's like my shop was the best because I built the transmissions the way I built them.

00:10:26.22
Jimmy Purdy
I did all the bushings. I did all the washers. Like I didn't miss one piece. I made sure it was clean. I made sure the case was painted. And at the end of the day, it's like, none of that really matters. You know what i mean? Like it's good for me.

00:10:36.46
Charlie
it's

00:10:37.09
Jimmy Purdy
It makes me feel good. Right. And I know I'm providing a good product, but that doesn't separate me from any of the other shops.

00:10:39.03
Charlie
mean

00:10:43.88
Jimmy Purdy
Cause that's what everybody's doing.

00:10:46.49
Charlie
Yeah, and listen, as technicians, I get it 100% because that, what you just described, that was me.

00:10:46.90
Jimmy Purdy
everybody's trying to put their best foot forward when it comes to the repair.

00:10:56.26
Charlie
That was me. I mean, my tools were so meticulous. I used to work, as I said, when you learn what you really learn working by yourself is how to be efficient. I could really not even turn and look at my toolbox.

00:11:06.01
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:11:08.68
Charlie
I could just extend my arm and I would grab the right wrench or the right socket, right? Without even looking, just because I was so organized. And when it comes to quality of work, obviously, we all want to provide good quality work. Excuse me.

00:11:22.56
Charlie
I don't think anybody wants to provide bad work. So...

00:11:25.15
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:11:25.52
Charlie
yeah so that's kind of a given again but and i love it when people take pride on that there's actually a great word of i've recently trained a couple of people in this world it's called meraki and what meraki means is when you do something and you put your heart into it like really care take pride in your work basically a simple way to explain it that's where you Just described, which is awesome. I mean, i love it. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:11:54.84
Charlie
There's really nothing wrong with that. But I did not start but running a business and I did not start making real money up until I changed the mindset and I had to give that up.

00:12:06.81
Charlie
To somebody else, I have to hire. but are There's other people like me and you out there, right? Can we agree on that? There is another Jimmy out there. So we can go and find that Jimmy and hire him so he can do that, what you just described, over here provide him with an excellent work environment, all the benefits, pay him really well, treat him really well, and he doesn't want to go anywhere.

00:12:31.20
Charlie
So we can provide that environment and Jamie is happy doing that nice quality work, but we need to run the business.

00:12:38.45
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. Two totally separate jobs.

00:12:40.34
Charlie
It's two separate jobs and I'm telling you, I didn't start you know improving my life or even even my customer service side, because if you have that mentality, oh, I'm going to do the silicone, I'm going to tape these wires this certain way.

00:12:53.68
Charlie
Well, you can also, you're also illimitory, right? You can only do so much. There is only so many hours in the day. So many days in a week, you can only do so much. But the minute you allow somebody else to do it, and again, you have to go and find them. Not everybody's going to do the nice quality work that you want to deliver, but you have to go find them. And that is the hardest part.

00:13:16.57
Charlie
Recruiting is probably, it's an art by itself.

00:13:16.70
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:13:19.84
Charlie
It's a full-time job by itself. And you have, if you want to run a successful business, you have to set your ground or what the expectations are. And then you have to go out there and recruit the people that are willing to deliver those expectations. And obviously you have to check them.

00:13:35.01
Charlie
I mean, Todd keeps saying all the time, inspect what you expect. So even if it comes down to a technician, randomly, when they finish the cast, just take one and check it out. Just spot check them.

00:13:46.94
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, and then pay him well.

00:13:47.52
Charlie
you But again, it all goes together.

00:13:50.27
Jimmy Purdy
yeah had You got to pay him well.

00:13:52.26
Charlie
yeah You have to have a nice environment. and um You have... To make it just like the customer, you have to be different from the shop down the street. It's the same thing on the technician side.

00:14:04.50
Charlie
Your shop has to be different than the shop down the street because guess where the technicians were? Down the street. They're in another shop. So you have, if it's the same, what would be the benefit for them to come here?

00:14:16.64
Charlie
It's no benefit. They can just stay where they are. But your shop has to look better. It has to pay them better. You have to treat them better. Like when I come in the shop, all the guys hug me. It's like automatic. They love me. You know, I get messages all the time. i appreciate what you do for me. I've never been happier. All those things matter.

00:14:34.77
Charlie
It's not an act and you have to do it. You have to really minute, not act because you can only the act for so long, right? You can't fake it.

00:14:41.40
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:14:42.93
Charlie
You have to really minute. And actually, other day I was talking to Perry over the weekend. I'm like, I have very easy gauge now how long I'm going to keep somebody for. The minute, let's say we work together, right?

00:14:55.62
Charlie
The minute I stop caring for you, it's time to go. I really, truly, deeply care for every single person we work together. See, the minute something happens and that bond breaks, then it's not good for me and it's not good for them because, you know, for me, obviously, I don't feel right or something is wrong.

00:15:16.81
Charlie
And then for them, if I don't care enough to train them, to make them better, to worry about them and their families and their kids, then it just doesn't work. There's billions of people out there. There's many, many people available. Find the right people for you.

00:15:31.69
Charlie
That's it.

00:15:31.82
Jimmy Purdy
That's a good way to put it.

00:15:31.97
Charlie
that the better on lot

00:15:32.88
Jimmy Purdy
No, you're, I mean, you're absolutely right. And that's like, it's all culture, right? Like you have to have that culture and and and it's like walking on eggshells. Right. And I'm sure there's a lot listening right now that have that in their shop where they like come to work and there's that one or two person and like, you got to kind of walk on eggshells little bit.

00:15:48.70
Jimmy Purdy
You don't want to like call them out. You don't want to spot check their vehicle. Cause they're going to be a prima donna about it. Like, what you looking at? Right. Right. And it's it's all about culture. Most people, if they if they want to excel, they should want to be spot checked.

00:15:57.68
Charlie
and

00:16:00.61
Jimmy Purdy
They should want their phone calls checked because it makes them better.

00:16:04.84
Charlie
Exactly. So we inspect the cars, that the technicians fix the cars. A lot of times they're like, I think it's good. you want to go check it? You know, they just tell me. Versus, like you said, in some other shops, they're like, oh, don't touch my work.

00:16:17.84
Charlie
I'm like, what do you mean?

00:16:17.97
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:16:18.84
Charlie
It's our customer.

00:16:19.01
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:16:19.88
Charlie
At the end of the day, everything is a shared responsibility, right? Everything. So we can start on the advertising side. And the way that works is a lot of times people like advertising doesn't work.

00:16:33.24
Charlie
Like really, I'm very good friends with, I don't know if you're familiar with Phil Tringali, he runs an advertising company. So but it doesn't even matter.

00:16:40.51
Jimmy Purdy
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Phil. Yeah, he's over on your side.

00:16:43.39
Charlie
Yeah, Phil is awesome. It doesn't even matter if it's Phil or any other kind of advertising. Advertising does one thing and one thing on it that is to make the phone ring. Advertising is not going to fail in your shop.

00:16:56.53
Charlie
What do you say on the phone to that customer? That's going to make the difference and fill the shop. same

00:17:01.39
Jimmy Purdy
Absolutely.

00:17:02.65
Charlie
Same thing with the back of the house. Now, if they do great work and you check it and it's great work and you deliver the product, now the customer is coming back. See, you're advertising going to be the first time. Now you do good work.

00:17:14.20
Charlie
Hopefully you provide good service. Now they're back. See, everything is interrelated. Everything. There's no one spoke of the will you can take away.

00:17:24.08
Jimmy Purdy
I like that. And and to kind of pivot off that, one of the big i think takeaways I had, i mean, there was a few of them, but one of the big ones was kind of getting out of your getting the ego out of your own head, right? So saying yes on the phone, right?

00:17:37.17
Charlie
Let

00:17:37.47
Jimmy Purdy
having a process for so long where we wanted to, ah what do you call it? You have to take the customer and you're you're trying you're trying to qualify the customer.

00:17:47.11
Charlie
me take a look.

00:17:50.43
Jimmy Purdy
And you've probably heard that from other coaching companies. Like you want to make sure you get the qualified customer, right? Get your customer avatar for marketing. And then when they call, you want to make sure you're qualifying your customer on the phone before you get them into the shop.

00:18:03.21
Jimmy Purdy
And we did that for a long time. Like that was, you know, we want to make we ask some engaging questions. Hey, what's going on with the car? Where have you had it? And and I never realized how many roadblocks we were putting up.

00:18:14.80
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And then they ask you, right, like, well, how much is it going to cost? And immediately well it's it's going to be, you know, a two hundred dollar assessment fee. Right. So immediately we're putting up these and you don't really realize the fences you're putting up.

00:18:26.87
Jimmy Purdy
and you're right on marketing, the conversion rate is is starts with the phone call, right? Like you you just gotta get the car in the shop.

00:18:33.39
Charlie
It starts right there.

00:18:36.45
Charlie
It may not even start. It may start before they even call you. A lot of people, they don't realize how they're hurting their business doing nothing. They have blocked times on their calendar on their website.

00:18:47.78
Charlie
So let's say I'm a busy guy. You're a busy guy, right? Let's say we're customers. Let's pretend we're customers now. We're just working in a different business in the bakery. And I want to get my oil changed at 5 o'clock.

00:19:00.21
Charlie
Well, is the calendar open? If I go on your website and I schedule an appointment, can I come in or are you going to say it's too late, we're going to take hours after 4 p.m.?

00:19:09.26
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:19:09.42
Charlie
Like a lot of a lot of people do that.

00:19:09.70
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:19:11.65
Charlie
but

00:19:11.64
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:19:12.53
Charlie
But also we have to look at it as an industry a little bit different on that customer. and When the customer comes in, you're talking about pre-qualifying the customer. Don't forget...

00:19:23.44
Charlie
That customer, the reason they call you today is because they were burned somewhere else. See, the industry kind of caused the damage by themselves, and it will take a little bit of time to clean up, and hopefully would work with what we're teaching, in order to surpasses, it will help out.

00:19:40.88
Charlie
but the the customer is already kind of burned because they've been lied to, they've been mistreated, you know, some subs, you know, they're not as nice and professional as, you know, my business or your business, right?

00:19:56.45
Charlie
So they've been mistreated, they've been lied to, they told them the car will be ready on Thursday and now it's next Monday and nobody even called them for an update. See, even that is mistreating the customer. So when they call you,

00:20:09.79
Charlie
and they're trying to come in and they're trying to give you an opportunity you know to try you out why are we pre-qualifying the customer see they they might be the right customer but right now they're afraid they don't even know you yet so and then the other thing with that too is if somebody's going to pre-qualify the customer in any shop i believe it has to be either the owner

00:20:23.91
Jimmy Purdy
That's true. Mm-hmm.

00:20:34.96
Charlie
or the manager, and that's it. It has to stop there because it's not something that you can really coach people or or train people to learn that skill. It takes a long time to develop that gut feeling or whatever you want call it. Plus, I feel like we have to give them a chance. Let them come in the door. We'll meet them. I mean, we'll do what we call a new customer introduction when they come in our shop.

00:20:59.77
Charlie
They come in, we shake their hands, we take them around the shop, we show them the technicians, we show them the facilities. You know, we really treat them like family. Just like if your cousin came in and visited you, you'd be like, hey, let me show you.

00:21:11.82
Charlie
You know, this is Paul or whatever. He's been working with me for 10 years. He's awesome. You drive a Jeep, he's a Jeep technician. However, there's going to be something you're going to find to connect with a customer, right?

00:21:24.17
Charlie
So by the time you're done with a shop tour, you see how they change.

00:21:24.06
Jimmy Purdy
Sure.

00:21:29.10
Charlie
They're a different person. So if you pre-qualify them on the phone, you're never going to get to have that opportunity to do that.

00:21:36.35
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Yeah. It's a waste of time really. I mean, and and I'm sure you've had technicians that, um, at one, once upon time, maybe you called around and made sure, Hey, I'm just checking this person work for you.

00:21:47.00
Jimmy Purdy
And then, Hey, can you tell me a little bit about the work history?

00:21:48.13
Charlie
money

00:21:49.70
Jimmy Purdy
And I would never hire him back. Well, you hire them and then they're a totally different person. Right. Cause they're in a different environment.

00:21:54.34
Charlie
Yeah.

00:21:55.64
Jimmy Purdy
Like people change, right? Like and everyone's just like, Oh, you're going to ask a few leading questions. You're going to find out who this person is like, Oh, they're this customer is not a spender. He's on a blacklist. was like, well, maybe you didn't treat him right. I don't know. Like, But the main thing is is like just get them in, though. like you've You've already paid for the marketing, right?

00:22:10.99
Jimmy Purdy
And your cost per acquisition, right?

00:22:11.29
Charlie
yeah

00:22:12.55
Jimmy Purdy
If you're spending X amount, every phone call costs you $60 to $100. And why wouldn't you want them to at least come in so to possibly for something, right?

00:22:23.12
Charlie
So you can actually decide how much you want the marketing to cost you. Isn't that crazy?

00:22:28.39
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:22:28.74
Charlie
The more you say yes, the lower your cost.

00:22:31.54
Jimmy Purdy
That's true.

00:22:31.95
Charlie
The more you say no, the higher the cost. It's that simple. Now, something else I learned years ago when Todd was teaching me how to recruit, we're actually sitting in the desk and we had a bunch of resumes we printed out.

00:22:35.00
Jimmy Purdy
it Yeah.

00:22:45.28
Charlie
And I took a half a pile, he took a half a pile of resumes and we're kind of sitting next to each other. And I take one, I'm like, throwing this one out. He's like, why? Like, look, this guy, one year here, one year here, one year here, one year here. I'm like, okay, what does that tell you, Jimmy? If a guy moves around every year, what does that tell you?

00:23:03.54
Jimmy Purdy
Sounds like jaw popping.

00:23:05.35
Charlie
Right. But Todd is like, no, I want that one. I'm like, you want this one? Why? Why would you want that one? He's like, Charlie, you think and you compare yourself with any other shop out there.

00:23:19.65
Charlie
Unfortunately, the truth is that A bunch of other owners within, you know, five or ten miles from the end that have shops, they're not like you. They don't have a facility like yours. They don't treat their technicians with respect.

00:23:32.38
Charlie
You know, some people talk down to technicians. I've seen that, which is crazy to me. I mean, how can you run your business without a technician, right? But they mis-treat them. So he says, this guy could potentially be just looking for a home.

00:23:41.39
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:23:46.46
Charlie
Nothing more than that, but he tried this place and it didn't work, and he tried that place and didn't work, and tried that place that didn't work. yeah other The other day, oh this is a hot topic right now.

00:23:57.89
Charlie
So Glenn Piccolo shared a post on LinkedIn, which is absolutely taking over the internet right now. So it was a technician that posted a picture, he has his picture, and he says, looking for work.

00:24:14.83
Charlie
And he has a picture of a tire that the outside of the tire is in great shape and the inside the steel belts are sewing. And he says, can we hire a service advisor that wants to move out of the chair and come and look at cars, basically?

00:24:28.97
Charlie
That's what it says. So now if that technician already has a job and he's looking to move, is it the technician's fault or is it a system fault?

00:24:39.98
Charlie
Is it a mistreating fault? but On this case, it sounds like the system, like these guys is just sit around on the chair and they're waiting for everything to come on a platter. In our system, it's mandatory, and I hate the word mandatory, but this is how our system works, is the service advisor is responsible to touch the car, to inspect the car, what we have is general service guys that assist on that.

00:25:04.92
Charlie
And they touch, they take pictures, they take videos themselves, and they send it to the customer. And what that is, that is because we keep them accountable. See, they can never say, oh a technician recommended this or recommended that. No, your name is on the line.

00:25:19.53
Charlie
You know your name. And keeping my name clean is a responsibility. And again, everything is a shared responsibility. So again, I want to take that example. That technician says, I am looking for a job.

00:25:31.47
Charlie
And the only reason he says it is because the people in his shop don't care.

00:25:36.31
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, it's, uh, I think it's polarizing because it's, it's so common and that's, that's, you know, as as for our shop too, we had technicians doing inspections.

00:25:41.74
Charlie
Okay

00:25:48.12
Jimmy Purdy
And I think the biggest takeaway that I got from when we met at Houston a couple of weeks ago was um a month now, whatever it was, um, that, that was one, that was a very one of the very first things I implemented.

00:25:49.75
Charlie
excuse

00:25:56.55
Charlie
myma yeah performance

00:25:59.87
Jimmy Purdy
No more technicians doing inspections. It was the biggest bottleneck.

00:26:02.97
Charlie
okay

00:26:04.03
Jimmy Purdy
It was the biggest bottleneck and the most wasted time in the shop. I said, how do we get, how do we push through the ceiling? We were at a ceiling, right? And maybe some shops aren't, maybe some shops are doing 500, 600 K a year and they're, and they're still growing. Right.

00:26:18.48
Jimmy Purdy
We were hit like 1.2, 1.3. We just couldn't get past it. Right. And I'm looking at the productivity and it's like, the guys are being productive, but what are the, well, six hours of the day are spent doing inspections. And I'm like,

00:26:29.06
Charlie
so So when are they going to work? They have a couple hours left to fix cars.

00:26:32.31
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. So i was like, if I get rid of six hours a day of inspections and I get them done myself with my service manager in less than 10 minutes, because that's all we need to do.

00:26:32.95
Charlie
like Think about it.

00:26:40.64
Charlie
That's all it takes.

00:26:40.63
Jimmy Purdy
Right. It's it's ten nine, 10 minutes. Now they just freed up six hours for the text. And it's like, there's the next, there's the next ceiling, you know?

00:26:46.88
Charlie
now

00:26:49.51
Charlie
Now, you said pay them well. With that single move you did, you just gave all of your technicians like a triple raise.

00:26:56.64
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, it did too.

00:26:57.18
Charlie
Yeah.

00:26:57.40
Jimmy Purdy
I gave them all a raise after that. Yep.

00:26:59.36
Charlie
Yeah, but even if you didn't dollar wise, just because you gave them the freedom to be able and produce those eight or ten hours that they're in the shop now they're just producing work versus doing inspections.

00:27:12.03
Charlie
And you still, there is cases, and again a lot of people lot of people take this wrong, there cases you still need the technician to diagnose a problem, you still need his opinion to tell you it's leaking from this seal, right?

00:27:24.55
Jimmy Purdy
Sure.

00:27:24.78
Charlie
There is these cases, but Again, it's 90% of the time. Anyone, you can have a 20-year-old GS, pull the wheels for you, Jimmy, and you can go put the gauge measuring tool on those brake pads and you see if it needs brakes or not.

00:27:40.12
Charlie
It's that simple. And by the way, a little nugget is we actually flip the calipers, we take the bottom bolt off, and we flip it because a lot of times... You can only see half of it, right?

00:27:50.89
Jimmy Purdy
Right, right.

00:27:51.03
Charlie
You you all get full measurement. But again, why am I slowing down the technician to do something so basic, which is almost like if you went to the hospital and you're calling a surgeon to take your blood pressure?

00:28:05.39
Jimmy Purdy
good way to put it.

00:28:06.54
Charlie
It is exactly the same. So when you're going to the hospital, they don't call the surgeon to come out of the room and come and take your viral size. They have the nurses. And then there is a person there that does all the paperwork, administrative person, right? So that's what we are.

00:28:23.34
Charlie
We're the administrative person and we take the vital signs. And most of the cards, pretty much that will give you 90% of the information. In some cases, 100%. But now why are we waiting for a technician or a surgeon to do this?

00:28:38.55
Charlie
It's absolutely mind-boggling. So now what you did with the move you did, so I guess that trip that you came down to Houston, obviously was well worth it for you.

00:28:46.96
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:28:47.82
Charlie
That single move you did, you frees up your technicians, The technicians don't even want to do pictures and videos. They only really want to fix cars. That's what they love. You were a tech, i was a tech.

00:28:58.00
Charlie
I love taxi cars.

00:28:58.11
Jimmy Purdy
bre

00:28:59.69
Charlie
So anything else was in my way. But we keep throwing hurdles at them all day and then we're like, oh, my tech only did 30 hours this week. Yeah, he did 30 hours. It would be impossible for him to do more.

00:29:10.84
Charlie
It really would be impossible. My technicians average 90, 100, depends. They make a lot of hours, but their schedule is wide open because Basically, we bring every car to them on a platter.

00:29:23.51
Charlie
Again, there's going to be those cars you need to diagnose. Then I work you can do, you can still PMI the vehicle up front, yourself, your service advisor, a GS, take all the information, have it ready, and then take it to a technician and be like, just diagnose this problem.

00:29:40.70
Charlie
Everything else is done for you. You're going to have some very happy technicians making a lot of money. And now that's another thing. They're not looking to move because they know they go to another shop that doesn't run like this, there's no way you they can do 90 or 100 hours a week.

00:29:55.23
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, not doing inspection. and And the other side of that too is it gives the advisors more of an opportunity to build a relationship quickly, right? And one of the one of the issues I so found when when I got back was going through some of the work orders we'd have a car sit for two days before we had a technician available to inspect it.

00:30:14.81
Charlie
Yes.

00:30:15.23
Jimmy Purdy
The technician inspects it for a misfire and it just needs an ignition coil.

00:30:19.46
Charlie
Which takes five minutes to diagnose.

00:30:20.01
Jimmy Purdy
that how's that phone how's that phone call go right so now the advisor's got to call hey so your car's been sitting for two days and all it needs is a spark plug and an ignition coil they're like really it's been sitting for two days and that's all it needed and i'm looking at and like but i had thought i had this perfect concept put together like i make sure technicians inspect everything we have an ase technician that's looking at every vehicle and But then it's taking two days for them to get to it because I need them cranking hours out. And so it it just gets put in queue.

00:30:48.83
Jimmy Purdy
And it's like, I could have looked at that the day came in and I could have very quickly myself, right? Like it needs an ignition coil.

00:30:54.83
Charlie
Figure down only five minutes. Five minutes.

00:30:56.46
Jimmy Purdy
Or even if it doesn't, we can make the call. Hey, so we looked at the vehicle. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary. We're going to send it into our advanced assessment. We're going to have an AAC master tech look at it. It's going to be tomorrow before we get to it.

00:31:07.79
Jimmy Purdy
Oh, fine. Thanks for calling me. And it just changes the whole relationship. It's crazy.

00:31:12.04
Charlie
Perfect. Now, a lot of other shops too, and I'm assuming this has happened to your shop before. How about the getting backed up with work? Because again, and now what happens, is they they get backed up with work in the back because they're on this system.

00:31:27.37
Charlie
And now that doesn't allow you to say yes on the phone. see See how everything gets backed up to the phone, right?

00:31:30.84
Jimmy Purdy
Yep. yep

00:31:33.88
Charlie
Because if you know you have 15 cars waiting to still be diagnosed two days later, I understand it's very hard to say, yeah, bring it over right now. See, because we don't do that, we do big numbers. As you know, our numbers, we run massive revenue.

00:31:51.00
Charlie
Our technicians get paid really well. They run big, big hours. And our customers get exceptional customer service because they can call at any time. We could have a full shop and we're going to say, absolutely, it's not a good time to bring your vehicle in.

00:32:06.62
Charlie
They come here and we identify that cold situation within five minutes. We get them home. Either we give them a loaner card or we Uber them home. And now we keep the card and we can get to fix it tomorrow morning.

00:32:17.86
Jimmy Purdy
Yep. And I think that's the concept of saying yes on the phone that that a lot of the industry is like, I would never do that. Right. Like I'm two weeks back and they were like a badge of honor.

00:32:27.98
Jimmy Purdy
Right. We've all heard that.

00:32:28.72
Charlie
and

00:32:28.90
Jimmy Purdy
Right. I'm two weeks out and they and they're proud of it.

00:32:29.51
Charlie
um

00:32:31.09
Jimmy Purdy
Right. If you're two weeks out, you better have you better have 500 cars out in the lot because how like there's no reason why you should ever be that busy.

00:32:32.60
Charlie
Because...

00:32:38.19
Charlie
Okay, let me, for the people listening to this that do say that, and again, I understand you're 100%, guys. I understand you're 100%. The shop is backed up, so you have cars waiting to be looked at.

00:32:52.31
Charlie
So how can you possibly say yes on the phone, right? All right, so I have a little shop.

00:32:55.30
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:32:57.81
Charlie
have a little shop in Watertown. It's two bays, four lifts. Small parking, small shop. That shop just did 412,000.

00:33:07.54
Charlie
last month, 412,000. four hundred and twelve thousand And if you call them right now, I challenge you. They're going to say absolutely is not a good time. So how can a little tiny shop that has massive revenue, high volume, be able to say yes.

00:33:24.32
Charlie
If you are backed up for two weeks, what should your numbers be?

00:33:28.86
Jimmy Purdy
Should be huge, you would think.

00:33:30.09
Charlie
It should be a million.

00:33:30.26
Jimmy Purdy
Yep.

00:33:30.85
Charlie
if that's so If that shop is not backed up and it says yes at 400,000, and you're backed up for two weeks, you should be doing a million dollars. So unless you're doing a million dollars, there's no way you're backed up.

00:33:43.69
Jimmy Purdy
yep

00:33:43.97
Charlie
Again, unless people are willing to challenge it the way we're to give it an opportunity to try this system, it's very hard to understand. But once you try it, see you tried it a month ago, I can see how happy you are. Look at you.

00:33:58.15
Charlie
You feel like a weight came off your shoulders.

00:34:00.14
Jimmy Purdy
Oh yeah. And it's, well, there's not just pieces to it.

00:34:01.66
Charlie
Wow.

00:34:02.69
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And I don't need to I don't need to take the entire system and completely get rid of what we have. Right. It's just finding the pitfalls, right? Like using your common sense, like, okay, so where are our bottlenecks?

00:34:16.04
Jimmy Purdy
Where's the pitfalls in my business?

00:34:16.50
Charlie
Um,

00:34:17.71
Jimmy Purdy
And how can i fill those holes with this new procedure? Right. But you need enough of it to make it make sense where, I can't just say yes on the phone and keep sitting back in my office and just, and running the shop based on a spreadsheet. Right.

00:34:31.07
Jimmy Purdy
I have to go out there on the lift. And I think that's hard for a lot of owners because they want to be sitting in the office and having the, having the the, all their employees do everything.

00:34:39.20
Charlie
hey.

00:34:40.20
Jimmy Purdy
And it just, it doesn't work. And, and I get it. And like, my goal is to, yeah, divorce myself a little bit away from the business and have the business run on its own. But I've also looked at as like, okay, so all I'm having to do is a nine minute inspection, right?

00:34:55.32
Jimmy Purdy
On 15 cars a day.

00:34:55.71
Charlie
look

00:34:56.98
Jimmy Purdy
It's not that big a deal. And like you said, I can eventually hire a GS or someone to take that spot. It's such an easy position to be filled, right?

00:35:05.57
Charlie
Very easy.

00:35:05.54
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Versus being like an AC master diagnostic technician, like that's a harder spot to fill.

00:35:06.82
Charlie
It is very easy.

00:35:10.43
Jimmy Purdy
But if I all I got to do is just PMI couple cars a day with my service manager and get everyone on that same page, I feel like that's an easy position that I can hire in. I can get an advisor to take that job, you know?

00:35:22.65
Charlie
Exactly. It's very, very easy. It's liberating. You'll be able to provide better service to your customers. So if you have a customer that brought their car in today, what you described with a coil, let's say they brought it in today, and now you don't get to it for a couple of days, right?

00:35:41.21
Charlie
Running it the old school way.

00:35:42.60
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:35:42.98
Charlie
And now you finally diagnose the car and it needs a coil. And now it's five o'clock in the afternoon. And you're like, well, can't get the parts today. So it will be tomorrow. And you take care of the car and they come and pick it up.

00:35:53.96
Charlie
Now, next time they have something going on with their car, you're not their first call. This is what's going through the head. Man, I need my car. I really like Jimmy. He did good work, but I can't be out of my car for a week.

00:36:07.29
Charlie
See, you're not their first call. They don't even think about the cost of that. And they're like, oh, like you said earlier, I do go great work. Yes, nobody's arguing that you did great work.

00:36:20.02
Charlie
It took you three days to do something that that would take minutes. See, that's a problem for the customer. It's not a problem for you because we're in the shop every day. we just go and spend our day there, right?

00:36:30.52
Jimmy Purdy
That's true.

00:36:30.67
Charlie
But it is a problem for the customer. You know, taking their car away for two, three, four days, it's a big problem.

00:36:38.65
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:36:39.13
Charlie
can anybody know all won you

00:36:39.08
Jimmy Purdy
And even if you put, Oh, we, Oh, but I got the OE coil and I got the OE plug and I torqued it and I put anti-seize and I did dielectric grease and, and no other shop I know does a, does a coil installation as good as I do.

00:36:51.15
Jimmy Purdy
It doesn't matter.

00:36:51.42
Charlie
Yeah.

00:36:51.67
Jimmy Purdy
The customer doesn't care. They don't, they couldn't care.

00:36:53.53
Charlie
The only care.

00:36:54.89
Jimmy Purdy
you know what they care more about?

00:36:55.15
Charlie
The only care.

00:36:56.26
Jimmy Purdy
They care more about that. The car was washed than that. You used OE parts. That's, that's the hard truth that we have to swallow as a technician, you know?

00:37:04.68
Charlie
Man, I think we did a car recently. It's a major, major work. A lot of stuff. And it was like just a silly thing. I think they had a little scuff mark. And I took, honestly, some brake cleaner and I cleaned the paint off.

00:37:16.66
Charlie
And then we're on the car where the car was. And they picked They're like, oh, my God, you did that? I'm like, out of all this work that we did, rebuild the whole car.

00:37:24.46
Jimmy Purdy
Thank you.

00:37:26.05
Charlie
This is the only thing they noticed. Isn't it crazy?

00:37:29.05
Jimmy Purdy
It is.

00:37:29.45
Charlie
It is.

00:37:30.57
Jimmy Purdy
That's the truth though. And we miss it. We miss it every day, right? Like, and and and we've been missing it. I've been missing it for years. Like you just don't realize how important those things are because we're not, we're technicians. We're looking under the hood. We're under the, we're under the skirt, right? We're not looking at the dress.

00:37:48.18
Jimmy Purdy
We're looking underneath it, right?

00:37:48.64
Charlie
yeah

00:37:49.26
Jimmy Purdy
We're seeing how it all works and like making sure it's all clean.

00:37:49.92
Charlie
get that

00:37:51.66
Jimmy Purdy
And it's like, Hey, I took some, ah there was some grease. i I wiped it off the bag. And they're like that. I've never seen the underneath of my car. I don't care what it looks like under there.

00:37:59.40
Charlie
man earlier on in the early days i used to almost detail every underhood you know clean the leaves touch up you know i used to spray some wd-40 on the hoses and sign them up if there was any dust whatever and i'm I remember I'm showing my wife some pictures of cars under the hood. I'm like, oh, look how nice they look. She's like, do your customers know how to see that?

00:38:22.45
Charlie
I'm like, what? Because she doesn't know about cars. She's like, do your customers know how to see that? like, I don't know. She's like, it's almost like you need to do it. It's like, you know, I understand what you did.

00:38:35.51
Charlie
But if you didn't do it, if you did it or didn't do it makes no difference. The customer will never, ever know.

00:38:40.67
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Right. They don't even pop the hood.

00:38:44.45
Charlie
They don't know how.

00:38:44.59
Jimmy Purdy
they're not they're not checking They're not checking their oil. That's your job as a you know as the shop. like That's our job is to check the oil. It's not their job. They're not looking.

00:38:51.36
Charlie
No, you nailed it. Another big lesson I learned over the years is the customer responsible for one thing, and that's one thing only, that is to pay the bill. Other than that, anything else with their car, it's our responsibility.

00:39:06.50
Charlie
Anything. Anything that has to do, you know, diagnosing the car or... you know, getting it ready on time, whatever it is, picking it up, doing a state inspection. Like we don't do state inspections in my locations in Massachusetts.

00:39:21.52
Charlie
The ones in Houston we do, but we absolutely take care of state inspections. So the car is here. I'm servicing the car. So what am I going to do now? Have you pick up the car from here until you all go down the street and get your inspection done?

00:39:33.99
Charlie
that's That to me is crazy. I will take care of the work I'm supposed to do, your oil change, your brakes, whatever it is, I'm going take you down the street, I'll get the inspection done for you, I'm going bring it back here and you pick it up from here.

00:39:47.44
Charlie
Have you ever heard of a restaurant that doesn't have a specific name of wine or whiskey that some customer wants? Well, they're going to send somebody to the liquor store or to another restaurant across the street, they're going to pick it up and make sure that customer satisfied. That's what we do Same exact service.

00:40:06.47
Jimmy Purdy
You know, it's funny you bring that up. You bring that up. And ah so my service manager is really into this process that we've put together. Right. And he he comes up to me the other day and he's like, you know what? It kind of ruined me a little bit.

00:40:17.05
Jimmy Purdy
like, what do you mean? He's like, well, now when I go to a restaurant, if if someone doesn't immediately ask me how my day is going or doesn't immediately give me customer service, I get a little annoyed.

00:40:20.22
Charlie
Yep.

00:40:26.69
Jimmy Purdy
He's like, because every day on the phone now, he's like, hey, absolutely. Can you get it in now? Right. Can we go pick up the car? I got a tow truck on standby. I'll come pick it up for you. It's now a good time. Right. And then he's using the script and it and it and it and ah goes into your brain so deep that now when you go somewhere else, your level of expectations of service of wherever you're going has now been raised.

00:40:36.36
Charlie
Yep.

00:40:46.46
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Because you're like, good I provide such a good customer service all day. and then you go to a restaurant or you go you know to a grocery store or whatever. And it's like, what's your problem, man? Like, I'm here to spend money. Don't you want to give me good customer service?

00:40:57.29
Jimmy Purdy
So it kind of ruins you a little bit.

00:40:58.33
Charlie
Jimmy, you you nailed it. It's the only thing I see. I can walk in a place right now and within a second, I know if it's good or bad. It's absolutely good.

00:41:06.92
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. Yep.

00:41:08.11
Charlie
Like just the vibe you get, just the looking around the place. It could be a restaurant. It could be a retail store. It doesn't matter. You automatically know. Well, guess what? Your customers, they also know.

00:41:20.28
Jimmy Purdy
yep

00:41:21.10
Charlie
They also know. So I'm so glad your service advisor said that. That means he can now see it. from the other side and that is the right side to see it. We can we have to look at everything we do from the customer's point of view.

00:41:36.20
Charlie
See, we have to look at if the customer calls at two o'clock on a Saturday, i don't even know, are you open Saturdays?

00:41:41.57
Jimmy Purdy
no

00:41:42.54
Charlie
No, okay, eventually you will be. But let's say a customer calls you at two o'clock on a Saturday because they're on the way to the K per se and the car is having problems. Are you saying, oh, I'm closing in a half an hour,

00:41:56.09
Charlie
I can't get you in? Or are you like, let me take a look at it right now, see what I can do for you? Again, I can't do what's convenient for me. I have to do what's convenient for the customer. Even our business hours, ah day we had to back off our hours. We opened earlier now. We opened at 7, which I actually think right now looking at it, I may even have to push it to 6.30.

00:42:18.54
Charlie
Because last week, I'll never forget, Todd was in town and we're doing a take five and we're training some people here. And it was seven o'clock and I think we got four or five people in right at seven. i Either other people picking up the cash to start their day or people dropping off for the day.

00:42:35.13
Charlie
And the reason we end up with this seven o'clock time is in the new location, it's two buildings right now. And when we took over the back building, we're sitting in the back having coffee every morning.

00:42:48.19
Charlie
And then we noticed that every morning would be at least a car coming through the parking lot in and out. We could see. And I'm like, oh, people probably making U-turns. In the beginning, I didn't pay much attention to And then one of my guys, Ed, is like, man, we need to go and sit in the front and have coffee, see what's happening.

00:43:05.67
Charlie
And then we did, and guess what? Those were actually customers trying to come and drop off their cars before we were open, because by then we were open at 7.30.

00:43:12.22
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:43:14.17
Charlie
So since then, we open at 7. Again, listen to the customer, and follow the trends, listen to your calls. If you close at 5, I want you to think about it. How can the customer get out work at 5 and be at your place at 5 to pick up the car?

00:43:30.24
Charlie
It's not feasible. It's not realistic.

00:43:33.06
Jimmy Purdy
right

00:43:33.26
Charlie
so So anybody that closes at five, it's just not realistic. You have to make it convenient for them. you know You want to offer, if you still want close at five, then make sure you offer delivery service and get their cars to their house or at their work, whatever they're going to need before that, right?

00:43:48.22
Jimmy Purdy
yeah

00:43:50.39
Charlie
But I think it's just easier. Just extend another hour. Close at six. I'm telling you, you're going to get much better results. It's all those things that sometimes we get blinded and carried away. we don't see it anymore. We're like, oh, I'm here 825.

00:44:04.34
Charlie
Okay. But that doesn't help the customer.

00:44:07.75
Jimmy Purdy
it's a, and, and it's a little bit of fear too.

00:44:08.13
Charlie
just little

00:44:09.94
Jimmy Purdy
Like there's, and and maybe it's the technician brain. So I have a story from, from yesterday. um ah I had a guy got a call and there was someone coming from the Valley. So here and we're on the on the coast of California and the Valley is Bakersfield, Fresno, right?

00:44:25.03
Jimmy Purdy
Hey, my daughter's coming from Bakersfield and her AC stopped working. She's pregnant. She's by herself and she's got no AC. It's like 95 degrees. Like it's hot.

00:44:34.19
Charlie
It's hard, yeah.

00:44:34.77
Jimmy Purdy
It's hot here. Right. And Bakersfield is like 110. It's hot. She's got to drive the car back tomorrow. She's staying, and you know, in Paso in our area last night. And it was like 4, 410 or something like that.

00:44:47.50
Charlie
Okay.

00:44:47.59
Jimmy Purdy
And then like instantly in the back of my mind, I'm thinking of all the possibilities of why her AC doesn't work. Right. And I'm thinking, man, I haven't.

00:44:54.59
Charlie
You haven't even looked at the guy yet.

00:44:56.50
Jimmy Purdy
But my brain, my prehistoric brain goes right. Like, man, I don't I probably shouldn't bring her in here because then she's going sitting here. I'm not going to be able to fix it. And you know what I did? I just went. Absolutely. is Now a good time. Right.

00:45:07.33
Jimmy Purdy
Bring it in.

00:45:07.86
Charlie
Okay, so what happened when he came in, tell me.

00:45:08.18
Jimmy Purdy
Let's just let's just see what happens. Right. bring it It was a little low on refrigerant. I was able to recharge it, get her air blown cold. And now...

00:45:17.01
Charlie
Like an hour.

00:45:16.91
Jimmy Purdy
And it wasn't like... Of course, it was about the money, right? Like, if we make money. But the more more important thing to me at that time last night... And I had to stay till 5.30 to finish it, right? It's not a big deal.

00:45:26.62
Charlie
Yeah.

00:45:26.60
Jimmy Purdy
But the most important thing is is this is a young woman. She's pregnant. She's on her own. She's here on a work trip. And now she's going to have cold AC to drive home today, right?

00:45:34.28
Charlie
Yes, yes, now you nailed it.

00:45:36.70
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:45:36.95
Charlie
see that's how got still You took care of the young woman versus driving a 95 degree pregnant with no air conditioning.

00:45:36.94
Jimmy Purdy
And it's like... this

00:45:46.01
Charlie
And then the money just followed that.

00:45:46.22
Jimmy Purdy
a

00:45:49.20
Jimmy Purdy
Yes.

00:45:49.68
Charlie
i See, the money...

00:45:50.09
Jimmy Purdy
You know what she told me too? She said she called four other places and everyone told her no.

00:45:54.39
Charlie
Of course, it's after 4 o'clock. They all say no. I can bet my life savings on that. They all say no. Maybe 1 out of 100 may say yes.

00:46:00.91
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:46:04.64
Jimmy Purdy
Well, I thought about saying no.

00:46:04.83
Charlie
And if...

00:46:05.64
Jimmy Purdy
That was my first instinct. That's what I wanted to say too.

00:46:08.74
Charlie
Yeah, it's because you go back to your old habits. but But see, the fact that you're talking about her today, it's not about the money. You just feel good helping her out.

00:46:17.85
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. Yeah. i know I know right now she's on her way back home and she's got cold AC. I don't know how long it'll last. Sure. I wasn't able to do the pressure test that I normally would want to do. I didn't get to do my technique, my technician stuff. Right. Like I didn't, I didn't get to do that, but you know what?

00:46:32.52
Jimmy Purdy
I was able to recharge the AC cost her $150. I know it's going to work good enough to get her home and that's all she wanted.

00:46:39.16
Charlie
That's it.

00:46:39.11
Jimmy Purdy
And I told her that I said, Hey, look, there's normally a protocol of things that we like to do to make sure that, you know, the pressure test the system and and this, that, and other thing. And she said, if I can just have cold air on the way home, that's all I need. I'm pregnant. I'm eight months pregnant.

00:46:52.47
Jimmy Purdy
I can't sit in this hot car on the way home tomorrow. i was like, Oh, it's not about me, is it?

00:46:58.24
Charlie
No, it's not about you. But you see, like I say, it took you an hour you made it happy, and you make a few dollars in the process.

00:47:05.71
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. um that's That's the most important thing, isn't it?

00:47:06.60
Charlie
That's it.

00:47:08.00
Jimmy Purdy
I mean, we lose sight on that, right?

00:47:10.65
Charlie
It's so simple, though, if you think about it, right? I feel like a lot of times we overcomplicate things, like we don't have to.

00:47:16.46
Jimmy Purdy
And the one thing I wanted to bring up too was was that sales the sales process as well, which is something that really really clicked and was something that I've never heard before with the bases, right? and and And presenting the first sale. And I think this is another thing I've talked to a lot of other shop owners and a lot other people about, and and most advisor coaching tells you, you want to make one phone call, right?

00:47:40.81
Jimmy Purdy
The 300% rule, one phone call, the the the kitchen sink, right? Like that's that's that sales presentation that everyone's is beating in all these advisors.

00:47:46.06
Charlie
yeah

00:47:49.79
Jimmy Purdy
like You don't want to bother the customer. You want to get everything down. You want to price everything out. You want to make one phone call and sell everything at once. And the process of of making multiple phone calls throughout the day, i think a lot of advisors are having a hard time with that because they're like, well, i don't want to call my customer more than the ones because that's an inconvenience to them.

00:48:08.58
Charlie
Why?

00:48:08.59
Jimmy Purdy
But once you see it in play, yeah, like why? like what and and that's

00:48:11.88
Charlie
Well, you're gonna ask yourself why, why do you think it's bad?

00:48:13.66
Jimmy Purdy
Yes, exactly. that's that's the And that's once I started questioning my own beliefs, it was like, well, wait a second. What if it was me? What if I brought my vehicle in, right? Or my daughter's car or or whatever.

00:48:26.51
Jimmy Purdy
They go into a shop. I want them to fix what it's there for. And I want a price on what it costs to fix what it's there for.

00:48:31.24
Charlie
Yep.

00:48:34.93
Jimmy Purdy
If you call me later and say, Hey, I also found these other things. I don't think I'd have a problem with that. Right.

00:48:40.61
Charlie
Mm-hmm.

00:48:40.52
Jimmy Purdy
I don't want a $7,000 estimate when all I needed was my rear brakes done because they found control arm bushings bad and a water pump leaking and this, the other.

00:48:45.79
Charlie
Right. 100%.

00:48:49.12
Jimmy Purdy
Like, dude, can you just fix what I came in there for? Like, that's my initial thought as well. And so if you tell me, Hey, Hey, hey your brakes are going to be $800 to replace.

00:48:53.84
Charlie
one hundred percent

00:48:57.11
Jimmy Purdy
We'll get it started. i'm going to give you a call once I inspect the vehicle. Like, you know what, from a consumer standpoint, you're i don't I think that's the probably the way I'd want to be handled as well.

00:49:07.74
Charlie
100% it's easy now let's start with this i'm going to explain the process in just a minute for the people that don't know the process but i'm going to start with this any other business on this in this country and probably on the planet runs it the same way other than what business or a river or a river want to keep just saying i throw you everything and Any other business doesn't do it. so you can go to Apple, which is obviously a very well-known company, right?

00:49:36.61
Charlie
You go in because they advertise they have this iPad for $399. But now you go in, oh, but this one has a bigger screen. This has more memory. This one also has Wi-Fi option. Now you end up with a $1,200 iPad that you want for $399 for.

00:49:52.53
Charlie
You're not obligated to buy the $1,200. You know, you could just buy the $399 leave.

00:49:54.93
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:49:58.38
Charlie
That is a sales process that did that. And they convinced you that you wanted to buy that. I mean, and it's an option. Nobody puts a knife.

00:50:06.77
Jimmy Purdy
That's a good one. Yeah.

00:50:08.16
Charlie
It's an absolute 100% your call.

00:50:08.15
Jimmy Purdy
That's it.

00:50:10.76
Charlie
Do you want to get a case for it and pay another $100? Then you get a case. You don't want to get a case. Don't get a case. That's up to you. So it is exactly the same.

00:50:18.52
Jimmy Purdy
but you feel but you But then you feel good about your $1,200 purchase, even though you only went in to spend $399.

00:50:19.76
Charlie
Right.

00:50:23.92
Jimmy Purdy
You're like, you know what? It made more sense to get all the nice stuff. I wanted to take care of myself, you know?

00:50:27.52
Charlie
Right. So let me explain the process now for the people that don't know it. So we break down the selling to three stages and we call it Moneyball, the game of Moneyball because one day, i mean, obviously Todd created the system back in 1986, but one day he's watching the movie Moneyball and as he's watching the movie, for those familiar with the movie, they were trying to win games by playing basically to go around the bases instead of looking for home run players.

00:50:55.19
Charlie
That's the round out of it. So let's say the car comes in for brakes. What we're going to do, just like you said, Jimmy, we're going to talk to you about the rear brakes. We're going to do your rear brakes and probably a brake fluid exchange if needed. And now you're at eight or nine hundred dollars, whatever that number is.

00:51:11.52
Charlie
Now, we didn't inspect the car already, like you said, in 10 or 15 minutes. We have already inspected the car. But this is the case, guys. A lot of times you inspect the car and you tell the customer all these other problems.

00:51:24.20
Charlie
They didn't even give you permission to inspect the car yet. So why are you doing it? See, we do it for time savings because the car is already on the under lift, already have the wheels off, so I'm going to check everything else, right?

00:51:30.41
Jimmy Purdy
Bye.

00:51:36.26
Charlie
So I had to open the hood to check the brake fluid condition in order to check the brakes. So while I'm under the hood, I check my filters, I check the belts, get a quick battery test. Now we're going up on the lift, I take the wheels off to inspect the brakes. Well, while I'm in there, I can inspect the struts,

00:51:51.78
Charlie
I can inspect the titles, the ball joints, right? um I'm right there. So I already have all that information built up while doing the brake inspection. So it doesn't really take any more time to do it.

00:52:03.61
Charlie
But the customer only asked me to inspect the brakes so far. So once I called Jimmy and I'm like, hey, Jimmy, your brakes completely worn out. We do need to replace your pads auroras and orders and brake fluid exchange.

00:52:16.08
Charlie
What I'm also going to do while the vehicle is in here, I'm going to provide you a full inspection to make sure it's in tip top shape. Now that gives me the permission to inspect the rest of the car and Jim is now expecting my second call.

00:52:31.14
Charlie
And then what we do before we hang up the phone with him, I'm going to call you with an update once your brake parts arrive. and let you know if there's any other concerns with the vehicle. See, that's actually good customer service.

00:52:42.57
Charlie
Calling them in kitchen singing them is not a good customer service. When people are like, well, I'm only going to call them one time. So what we do, we sell the brakes first. That's our first base. Any other safety-related items we may find, if it's worn-out tires or worn-out tie rods or ball joints, that goes to second base. Any safety-related items is second base.

00:53:04.59
Charlie
because we need to make sure your car is safe, right? I can't sell you transmission fluid exchange knowing your voltage is not falling off. you you just That's just not logical.

00:53:16.41
Charlie
so So our second base is any safety related items.

00:53:16.36
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:53:20.14
Charlie
And then from there on, we'll go to the third base, which is all the maintenance items. And we have great technology right now. Pretty much any software you use nowadays, we'll have Carfax building it, right?

00:53:31.86
Charlie
So youre kind of you can get your manufacturer recommended services. You can look at your Carfax report. We're actually using DetectOro right now that blends all that information together, and then it tells us really fast.

00:53:43.21
Jimmy Purdy
such ah Such a powerful tool. that's it I mean, it's great.

00:53:45.18
Charlie
It's instant. It's instant. If you're not using it, I'm not getting paid by DetectOro, so you know, but if you're not using it you're leaving so much money on the table.

00:53:47.33
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:53:53.36
Jimmy Purdy
I mean, and it's, yeah, it's a, what is it? 100, it's like 200 bucks a month.

00:53:57.18
Charlie
Thank you.

00:53:57.10
Jimmy Purdy
Just, I mean, it's pennies.

00:53:57.98
Charlie
I think the first car, when we plugged it in, the first car, we sold like $1,800 worth of maintenance. So the first car paid for like six months.

00:54:04.96
Jimmy Purdy
See, paid for the whole year.

00:54:07.00
Charlie
yeah so

00:54:06.92
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, paid for the whole year.

00:54:10.01
Charlie
So how can you not do it, right? So now this is the other thing. A lot of people will say, well, that's unethical because you have the information and you don't tell the customer. on and No, no, no.

00:54:20.50
Charlie
I am going to tell everything to the customer. I'm just going to tell them in bite sizes so that way they don't get overwhelmed and they can get too big again. Do they want the $399 iPad or the $1,200 iPad, right?

00:54:33.22
Charlie
It's the same thing.

00:54:33.10
Jimmy Purdy
idea.

00:54:34.21
Charlie
So there's nothing wrong by doing it. Most don't overwhelm them with too much information. so See, we speak the language within this industry every day. we are Everybody on this podcast that's going to listen to this, they know what brake pads, rodents, tyros, ball joints are.

00:54:48.60
Charlie
The customer has no idea what we just said. They have no idea. You were talking about pressure testing, the refrigerant, the air conditioning system. They have no idea. you might as well

00:54:57.51
Jimmy Purdy
no idea

00:54:58.51
Charlie
You might as well talk Chinese to them. It's the same language. so So we have to break it down, not overwhelm them, give them the option. And there's one more caveat to this that a lot of people miss.

00:55:11.38
Charlie
We actually don't start working on the cap up until we've completely gone through the sales process and all the parts have arrived. So... Let's take that air conditioning lady from yesterday. Let's say she dropped her off this morning.

00:55:25.66
Charlie
And you called her and you sold her the air conditioning service because that's what they asked for, right? Now you inspected the kind of you found breaks. And now you call them. That's your second base.

00:55:36.79
Charlie
And now the lady is like, listen, I'm pregnant. I just bought a bunch of stuff, furniture for the baby's room, clothes, you name it. So I don't have the money to do my breaks and my air conditioning.

00:55:49.46
Charlie
and you're like listen you really have zero brakes you could probably still drive with without air conditioning but you can't drive without brakes now we give the customer the option do they want to do the brakes and the air conditioner do they just want to do one or the other you know what i mean if we don't force them to do anything we give them options now the reason our close ratio is so high

00:56:05.73
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:56:13.60
Charlie
Because again, we're super nice, we said yes on the phone, we walked them around the shop, we introduced them to the technician that's gonna work on their car, and we're extremely nice and transparent. That's why our close ratio is high.

00:56:25.85
Charlie
It's not because we get the same time.

00:56:29.85
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, and and I had, and and you said the unethical thing, and that was the exact same response I had when I heard about that that process, right?

00:56:38.30
Charlie
yeah

00:56:38.23
Jimmy Purdy
and the fact that and and the And the fact that, okay, you're holding information. That's ah exactly my my initial thought when I was like, wait a second, you're you're doing the inspection, you're calling the the customer, and then you're not relaying that information right away.

00:56:50.89
Jimmy Purdy
Just immediately felt like that just wasn't right.

00:56:54.46
Charlie
Down and I did.

00:56:54.41
Jimmy Purdy
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was wrong. Right. Because of, and you, you said it ah your to your point, customers don't know what I'm talking about. Right. So I go and I kitchen sink them.

00:57:04.09
Charlie
have a night

00:57:05.23
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And I say, okay, well, your AC needs to be recharged. I need to do a pressure test on it. Your rear brakes are also low. going replace those. We're going to do with the rotors, with the brake flu. And I'm just going to roll through all this stuff. I also saw your engine mounts broken. So I'm going to replace your engine mount and you're due for an oil change. So All in all, we're going to do everything. It's going to be $3,500 if you want to take care of all that. Right.

00:57:22.47
Jimmy Purdy
And I am so used to saying that over and over and over. It's how did you not just overwhelm the customer to the point where they just, they're either going to say yes, because they just want their car back and to be fixed.

00:57:34.00
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Or they're just going to say no because they don't know any different.

00:57:34.79
Charlie
yeah yeah

00:57:36.85
Jimmy Purdy
And so being able to chunk it up, say, hey, this is all we're going to do right now. Right. And they can absorb it. Oh, man, the AC is going to be twenty two hundred dollars. And it gives them a minute to think about it. Then you call them back and say, hey, also, I found some safety items.

00:57:49.39
Jimmy Purdy
And they're like, you know what? I'd rather take care of the safety items than than do the AC job. Right.

00:57:54.29
Charlie
I can't even tell you how many times we've done that. was Let's say the car comes in because the right rear window doesn't work. Okay, right window regulator and you need a regulator anymore and now it's whatever six seven hundred dollars to replace that.

00:58:09.61
Charlie
Now you need a safety item. Let's call it breaks. Just keep it simple. And now I call them and I need seven hundred dollars worth of breaks. I can't even tell you how many times they're like, you know what?

00:58:20.61
Charlie
I can leave the window closed for now. Take care of my breaks because it just makes sense. It just makes sense. But if I call them off the bat and I tell them it's $1,500 to do both, maybe they don't have it. Now they run away.

00:58:34.54
Charlie
Now I never see them again. And I end up with a big zero on my cash register. So you see, that doesn't help the customer because now they need to go find another shop down the street to take care of it and start the process all over.

00:58:47.05
Charlie
And made zero money. So that doesn't help anyone.

00:58:51.23
Jimmy Purdy
Or worse than that, I think what's worse than that is they spend the $1,400 or $1,500 with you and then they never come back.

00:58:57.78
Charlie
Yeah they're not happy. Yeah that's called buyer's remorse.

00:58:58.87
Jimmy Purdy
so so now you So now you think you have this customer base that you're growing, but in reality, they spent money one time and then they'll never come back. So now you think you're growing a business and you don't you're not growing anything.

00:59:10.60
Charlie
You're not growing a business. Again we're talking about it earlier you're not growing a business I mean keep an eye on your car count your ticket average all the basic stuff you don't need to overthink it.

00:59:21.94
Charlie
lot of times see you hit it on the nail area too hit the nail on the head lot of times the owners are trying to sit in an office and run the business. How about go out there, shake some hands, get your customer feedback. I had to deal with the customer on either location today.

00:59:37.42
Charlie
And I had to do a little extra because they were loyal customers and I just wanted to take care of them. You know, it's just so nice and rewarding. It's just so nice and rewarding. You keep them happy. They're not going anywhere.

00:59:49.29
Charlie
You know they'll be back. What's the lifetime value of that customer? Just shaking their hand, bring them in the shop and be like, oh, let me show you your car. It's so simple. But again, we want to stay in a computer, ah hiding in an office somewhere, looking at spreadsheets, and then you're trying to move numbers around, trying to make a dollar.

01:00:07.66
Charlie
That lifetime customer will pay for all of that and then some.

01:00:11.65
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, Joe Adams definitely – He definitely changed my mindset when it came to that stuff, right?

01:00:16.28
Charlie
And let me

01:00:17.43
Jimmy Purdy
Because the amount of energy he brings and the amount of money he makes and still to be able to be that passionate and want to be the face of the company. i think we've I think a lot of us have lost that, right? And we we're so focused on being an absentee owner that we try to hide ourselves in the back.

01:00:33.09
Jimmy Purdy
Maybe it's just me, right?

01:00:34.26
Charlie
and and let me ask you.

01:00:34.63
Jimmy Purdy
But but you but you you just you just want to be in the background, right? And you don't want people come up to you and talk to you because you're busy. You're busy, right? And you forget like the most important place you can be is talking to the people that are spending money at your business.

01:00:45.37
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

01:00:46.28
Charlie
and And let me ask you guys, I'll tell you, because this problem is way bigger than you realize. Until I had it happen to me, I thought Todd was wrong. Why do a lot of them want to be absentee owners? I was never an absentee owner, but I had a location I didn't want to go into.

01:01:02.34
Charlie
And that's because I had the wrong people working there. See, if you have people that, like we said earlier, you love them and you care for them, and they're like family to you, you don't want to go see your family?

01:01:14.85
Charlie
Like it's fun coming to work versus when you have people, like you said I said, bring bad attitudes and they don't take care of your customers. They don't take care of your equipment.

01:01:26.49
Charlie
don't run your process. Now you don't want to go there. And now you feel defeated being in your own business. It's absolutely horrible. And that's a big problem. And again, Don used to tell me Charlie, that is the problem.

01:01:40.09
Charlie
You have an employee that you don't want to go see, you don't want to deal with, and that's why you don't go in that shop. And up until that employee left, after the employee left, that's when I realized he was actually right.

01:01:51.78
Charlie
See, up until that point, I thought he was wrong. I'm like, no, no, I'm just busy at the other location. And you know, Don doesn't hold anything back, man. He'll tell you how it is. yeah And again, you have you have to look at it. If you have any person in your facility that you're not happy with, you they have a conversation with them, see if you can fix it or you have to replace it.

01:02:15.08
Jimmy Purdy
Yep.

01:02:15.36
Charlie
Yeah.

01:02:16.39
Jimmy Purdy
the The mind knows, right?

01:02:16.89
Charlie
Yeah.

01:02:18.33
Jimmy Purdy
Just like you said earlier with like being able to have that gut feeling, right?

01:02:19.97
Charlie
and

01:02:23.48
Jimmy Purdy
It's like a, it's a vibe.

01:02:23.77
Charlie
yeah that

01:02:24.56
Jimmy Purdy
It's a, it's a culture. Like you can, there's something not right. And as much as you try to say it is, and you positive talk yourself is your subconsciously. You're like, I don't, I don't like those people. I don't want to be there. Yeah.

01:02:35.51
Charlie
You really don't. Okay, have you ever been invited to like a wedding from your wife's cousin's family or something? You're like, man, I don't want to go there. You're right. We've all had that feeling.

01:02:46.55
Jimmy Purdy
Yes.

01:02:47.68
Charlie
A lot of people go through that every day at work, at the work environment. I feel like that's horrible. It should never happen. Build the environment with the people you want to work with, the way you want it to be, and then you'll be happy to go to work. So you're never going to not want to go to work. how okay We don't even say I have to go to work.

01:03:07.60
Charlie
This is what we say around here. I get to go to work.

01:03:11.91
Jimmy Purdy
You get to kick some ass and make some money and take care of people.

01:03:14.20
Charlie
Man, it's fun.

01:03:15.28
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

01:03:15.45
Charlie
It's fun. We're making money in the process because, again, the process is so good and we're having fun. It's amazing. Anyway, I'm not sure how much time we have here. i don't know. We've been on for a while, but I got to tell you guys, anybody listening, please go to autosopanswers.com.

01:03:32.23
Charlie
Take a look on our website. You owe it to yourself to at least come and see what it's all about. It will change your life. I promise you.

01:03:38.76
Jimmy Purdy
Yep. And follow Charlie on Instagram. You got some great posts that you put on.

01:03:44.24
Charlie
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I used to like not post so much.

01:03:45.11
Jimmy Purdy
Yes.

01:03:47.62
Charlie
And the last couple of months, I've been posting more because I feel like, you know, there's a lot of things that need to be heard. and if you want to follow me, actually, it's under my Greek name in LinkedIn.

01:04:01.13
Charlie
It's

01:04:08.61
Charlie
On Instagram, it's under Charlie. ah Yeah, Charlie is my nickname, but my real, yeah you know, Greek name is Kyriakos, so you know.

01:04:16.10
Jimmy Purdy
Oh, okay, cool.

01:04:17.53
Charlie
no

01:04:18.00
Jimmy Purdy
I'm not going to try to pronounce that, but I'll keep following you.

01:04:19.40
Charlie
No, don't try. and it's It's been Charlie for over 30 years now, so I'm going to do this.

01:04:26.99
Jimmy Purdy
Well, Charlie, appreciate your time. um You just unloaded so many. I mean, just listen to this one podcast, I think could change your business enough to afford to go see the see it in real life.

01:04:37.98
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And down in Houston. So I look forward to seeing you in September.

01:04:39.95
Charlie
You're

01:04:41.42
Jimmy Purdy
I think going try to make that trip for the next AI um event going on down there. Because, I mean, AI is is the new advent. And if you're not in it, then you're going to be way behind. Yeah.

01:04:51.68
Charlie
going to be way behind and talk for AI for two seconds before we hang out there.

01:04:55.15
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

01:04:56.42
Charlie
A lot of people use AI trying to have less customer contact. You can use AI to help simplify your systems, make it faster, make it more accurate. Like we talked about DetectOro, that's AI based, right? Boom. One second, it will tell you the history.

01:05:13.42
Charlie
But we use high technology for higher customer contact. The customer pays for everything. The minute you realize that, you want to talk to them all the time. You don't talk to them all the time. So going back to first base, second base, third base.

01:05:27.06
Charlie
If I talk to you two, or three times a day, by the time we're done, then I call you to come and pick up your car. We're now friends. It's not even a transaction anymore. Now it's just my friend. So that's how we use technology to create better relationships.

01:05:41.66
Charlie
Anyway, Jimmy, thank you so much for your time. This was great, man. I appreciate your time.

01:05:44.65
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, absolutely, man.

01:05:45.71
Charlie
Thank you so much.

01:05:46.76
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, hang out hang out for just a minute while this thing loads.