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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.
Jamie's Garage [00:00:00]:
Right before Christmas, paid, we did $4,000 worth of work, she was happy, she left. After Christmas break, she comes back, hey, tire light's on. Okay, no problem, we take a look at it. It was cold snap, whatever, we set the pressures, reset the light.
Bryan Pollock [00:00:11]:
Right.
Jamie's Garage [00:00:12]:
Final test drive, technician's out, and a lady pulls out in front of him and totals both vehicles.
Mike Allen [00:00:21]:
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers or 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, here's your host, Mike Allen, with Confessions of a Shop Owner, presented by TechMetric, the best software in the history of ever.
Jamie's Garage [00:00:57]:
Luckily, everybody was okay, right? Nobody got hurt.
Mike Allen [00:01:01]:
Yeah.
Jamie's Garage [00:01:01]:
Both cars totaled. And the lady was understanding, seemed to be anyway. We even said, hey, we'll go with you and we'll go shopping with you and we'll help you find a replacement car. And she was okay with that. I think one of her kids got involved. She was an older lady. I think one of her kids got involved and said, Mom, you should dispute that charge of $4,000. So she disputed the credit card charge of $4,000 of all the work that we did, and we fought back.
Jamie's Garage [00:01:28]:
We won the dispute, and then we just got a letter in the mail that she's— it's in arbitration, or whatever. I don't know if it's arbitration, which
Bryan Pollock [00:01:35]:
is, you know, that's, that's silly because we had it. We had a situation where we did a bunch of work to a truck, and then a, a couple weeks later, I mean, it was, it was back for something else. It was back for like stage 2 of the work, right? We did, you know, they did it in stages. They didn't have all the money, so they're like, we'll just do this so it's safe, and I'll be back in a couple weeks, right? So 4 or 5 weeks, whatever it was, goes by and the truck gets stolen off our lot, right? Go figure, right? This is great. Insurance paid him out extra for the money he had just put in the vehicle. He just turned the receipt into the insurance and they paid out extra for the money. Like, they didn't have to stop the credit card charge, just turn it in the insurance. Say, hey man, I just put all this money into this thing.
Bryan Pollock [00:02:16]:
That's no good, man.
Jamie's Garage [00:02:18]:
We even gave her advice and said, hey, just make sure that that $4,000 bill that you just paid us to fix your car few weeks prior that the insurance will reimburse you for that. She's like, oh, that's good, thank you so much.
Bryan Pollock [00:02:29]:
Yeah, yeah, that's like what the insurance is for.
Jamie's Garage [00:02:33]:
Yeah. Oh well, anyway, but because we had the process in place, the signed documents, the recorded calls, the video surveillance of her picking up the vehicle, all of that, uh, we have a very, very strong case. And the guy who's, you know, supporting us through the dispute is like, yeah, right, right.
Bryan Pollock [00:02:54]:
Mike's, Mike's getting on the ground right now to beat his computer because his fan for his graphics card has been going crazy.
Mike Allen [00:03:04]:
I don't know if y'all could hear it or not, but it sounds like it's like a, a meat grinder running right next. So yeah, I just wedged, I just, I just wedged my Alexa, under the fan.
Jamie's Garage [00:03:17]:
That's close. That works.
Mike Allen [00:03:21]:
This might be our last recording because my house may burn down while we're doing this. Jamie, you probably don't know this, but, um, I like to rage bait the wider audience of auto repair shop owners by, uh, advocating for no-charge diagnostics as a customer acquisition strategy. Yeah, I've heard. Yeah. So, okay.
Bryan Pollock [00:03:46]:
I've heard he says— I like that response.
Mike Allen [00:03:48]:
I had a credit— you were talking about credit card disputes. I had a credit card dispute last month for a $1,500 diagnostic bill, and the customer didn't like that. They need— we pulled everything apart to determine that they did need a motor, and their extended warranty company determined that the motor was not covered due to the nature of the failure. And so they disputed the charges, not wanting to pay for the diagnostic fees. Um, and so it's an opportunity where I had $1,500 of diagnostic fees that I did get approval for, and we did the job, and we also won the dispute. But you heard it here first, Mike occasionally charges for diagnostics.
Jamie's Garage [00:04:27]:
That's what I'm gonna say. It's like, you should have just given it away for free. It's $1,500, right?
Mike Allen [00:04:32]:
I know. Um, they wanted me to, that's for sure.
Bryan Pollock [00:04:35]:
Did you catch— did you catch in the one forum they had some, some extended warranty adjuster talking about how why you have to tear stuff down. And I was like, listen, I've been through this before. You just stalemate the extended warranty company and have the customer call. You don't have to do it, right? Um, and I just did it on a 2018 Volkswagen Atlas. They're like, you're gonna have to tear this thing apart. I'm like, I'm not ripping a motor apart that's had a catastrophic failure because there's nothing to see. You're gonna say, what's the cause of failure? Uh, the The freaking piston's laying in the oil pan. That's the cause of failure.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:07]:
What do you want me to tell you? Nobody that, you know, like, there's nothing to say. Like, the pistons in— well, we're gonna need an oil sample. You don't need an oil sample. There's metal in the oil. The piston's in the oil pan. Why is the coolant low? Because the connecting rod kicked the shit out of the cylinder wall. Like, there's nothing to see here, man.
Jamie's Garage [00:05:25]:
Yeah, maybe this is a good topic for later on. And the thing too is about credit card terms. I have another really good one about a customer who disputed a charge on us Porsche for— well, he approved everything. He said, hey, extended warranty is not covering it, but we're going to keep fighting. He's like, no worries. It was $3,000. He approved it. We got $1,500 approved eventually, which is great.
Jamie's Garage [00:05:47]:
Half of it, right? Right. And when he came time, he was, he was cool with it. And that insurance company, we told him that we have power going to the AC compressor, but the compressor is not coming on. And they said, well, if you have power going to the compressor, then it's good. We're like, you have an actual technician? Don't you love— or something?
Bryan Pollock [00:06:04]:
Yeah, don't you love dealing with them people?
Jamie's Garage [00:06:06]:
Yeah. But, uh, at the end of it, the guy said, I want to pick up my car. We're like, that's fine, we just have to wait till we get everything paid. And he's like, listen, I'll just come and pay with a credit card. I don't want to wait, and just have the insurance mail me the check. We're like, that's fine, we can do that, no big deal. So we called the insurance company. Yep, they're going to mail him the check.
Jamie's Garage [00:06:20]:
He came in, paid with the card. That Monday, he sent an email saying he found parts on RockAuto for cheaper than what we sold it to him, and he's disputing the entire charge. So he disputed the whole $3,000 and he's supposed to be getting a $1,500 check in
Mike Allen [00:06:35]:
the mail. What? Yeah, some people are just like, in
Jamie's Garage [00:06:38]:
what world does that make sense to somebody? You can get paid $1,500 to get your car fixed.
Bryan Pollock [00:06:44]:
That's— they know it's gonna melt down the aluminum and mold one of these things for cheaper than I can buy it on Rock Auto. But that's got nothing to do with the price of tea in China, right? Yeah, you agreed. You signed that you agree to this price. Yeah, just like, it doesn't matter what you charge. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you have your Euro shop right, and you say this job through me is $6,000, and the shop down the street puts the same exact parts on with the same exact certified technician for $3,000, they signed the document saying they would pay the money. Yep. What is there to talk about?
Jamie's Garage [00:07:17]:
Yeah, we won.
Bryan Pollock [00:07:17]:
It doesn't matter what anybody else is charging.
Jamie's Garage [00:07:20]:
Still, it just— it's annoying.
Mike Allen [00:07:23]:
Jamie, do you have, uh, within your business— your businesses, because I imagine that they're very different, the general repair and the Euro specialty shops— do you have, uh, fixed scripting for how you receive inbound calls and how, like, most common answers to the most common questions, that kind of stuff? Or do you just kind of let your guys go?
Jamie's Garage [00:07:42]:
We have service advisor training. We don't have anything written down. We don't— I don't want them to sound like it's a script, so we let them kind of, you know, put their own personality spin onto it. But there is definitely, you know, a process.
Bryan Pollock [00:07:56]:
Yeah, this is how this should go.
Mike Allen [00:07:59]:
Well, we have, uh, everybody has to memorize 3 scripts when you come on board, and then once you've proven competency with those 3 scripts, you're allowed to go off script and kind of freestyle and that kind of stuff. But you need to know the basic points because it's kind of our pathway from an inbound call to an inbound car, right? Um, and if you follow that process, even if you're freestyling, most calls are, you know, 3 or 4 minutes at max. Um, we had a dude who just went on a fucking safari. His phone call was 17 minutes long. He was just getting dragged, you know, what's your labor rate, how much do you mark up parts, uh, can I bring my own parts, what if I don't want a warranty, you know, all that stuff. It was so bad that we used Slack internally that We were all, as a company across all locations, mocking him in real time while he was still on the call.
Bryan Pollock [00:08:57]:
He was still on the phone.
Mike Allen [00:08:59]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he eventually converted this guy into a customer and he said, hey, I closed the appointment, he's coming in tomorrow. And I was like, there's no way that dude fucking buys, right? After all of that, you wasted your time. You could have helped 3 more customers.
Jamie's Garage [00:09:14]:
You closed it.
Bryan Pollock [00:09:15]:
Do you even want the guy?
Mike Allen [00:09:17]:
Well, so we told him, it's like, look, dude, You're going to have to sell something or we're going to, we're going to change your name within the company to the, because it was a 17-minute call. He was going to be the 17 Pump Chump. Um, and damn it, he sold $2,500 worth of work on the guy. Uh, and the customer's happy. Customer left a 5-star review. It's like, ah, I mean, I'm happy, but yeah, it's like that quarterback who makes a really poor choice and throws into triple coverage, but it's caught for a touchdown.
Jamie's Garage [00:09:45]:
But it still works out.
Mike Allen [00:09:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. Don't ever do that shit again, but congratulations.
Jamie's Garage [00:09:50]:
Right? Yeah. Like, took it as a challenge.
Mike Allen [00:09:52]:
It's like, I'm gonna get this guy anyway. Okay, so, uh, we're 10 minutes into recording. We should probably introduce our guest. Um, Jamie Caldwell, welcome to Confessions of a Shop Owner. I apologize in advance for whatever we talk about. No worries. Could you tell us a little bit
Jamie's Garage [00:10:12]:
about yourself and about your business? Sorry, say that again.
Mike Allen [00:10:15]:
So could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your, and your business?
Jamie's Garage [00:10:18]:
Yeah, so I'm in Sarasota, Florida, Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida. I've been open for business since 2013, started out in my garage, kind of built it up. Uh, got to be pretty stressful. Actually, 4 years ago I thought about selling my business and doing social media full-time. I was overworked, underpaid, stressed, toxic environment, and I was like, you know what, I'm done. I'm thrown in the towel, and I hired a broker who was going to sell my business. And luckily, I've got some really good friends that talked me into not doing that. And, uh, you know, got my mind wrapped around that and decided to give it all I've got.
Jamie's Garage [00:10:55]:
And today, 4 years later, I now have 5 locations with 55 employees, amazing culture, and we are making money. And we've got great staff, great customers,
Mike Allen [00:11:05]:
and we're continuing to grow. Wow. So 4 years ago, was it still
Jamie's Garage [00:11:09]:
1 location at that time?
Mike Allen [00:11:11]:
Yeah. Yep.
Jamie's Garage [00:11:12]:
You went from 1 location. Yeah. 1 location 4 years ago with 6 or 7 employees. I
Mike Allen [00:11:20]:
can't remember. So 1, kudos to those, that friend or friends who talked you off the ledge there. Do you want to shout them out and give them, give them recognition or,
Jamie's Garage [00:11:29]:
uh, do they like, it's part of a Take 10 or, I mean, a Take 10. It was part of a, uh, like a 20 group that I was in. And it was some guys that I've known for a long time. There was quite a few in that group. Some of the biggest ones were Alex Noel, who's in Houston, Texas, and Steve Roberts, who's another friend of mine. He's down here in Ocala. And, uh, and Dan Taylor too, who really stepped up and helped out with that as well.
Mike Allen [00:11:55]:
It's 3 big names, man. Those are good dudes. They've done a lot of good for people over the years.
Jamie's Garage [00:11:59]:
There are some others too, but those are the main ones.
Mike Allen [00:12:02]:
I got that. So, um, what do you think you did differently from that point at the bottom to where you go, you're collecting stores at a pace of more than one a year at this point?
Jamie's Garage [00:12:17]:
Uh, first thing I did was grow spine. Second thing I did was focus on— instead of our customers, we were focusing on our people. So it became clear that I've always wanted to have good customer service, and we were doing a good job, and the people I hired were providing good service, but only because they had to. So once we focused our shift or shifted the mindset to hiring people with good character, and, uh, skill was a second thing, then now we started getting good people working for us who actually care, who want to help the customers, who want to grow, who want to learn. Then that just changed everything.
Bryan Pollock [00:12:52]:
Skills can
Mike Allen [00:12:55]:
be
Jamie's Garage [00:12:57]:
taught.
Bryan Pollock [00:12:58]:
Yeah, yeah, a lot of the other stuff cannot be taught. That was— well, it is, it's a learned behavior, but, um, you know, a 25-year learned behavior is not easily reversed when you're trying to build your business, for sure.
Mike Allen [00:13:12]:
So are you, uh, settled down at 5 right now? Are you still looking for additional growth opportunity?
Jamie's Garage [00:13:17]:
No, I've got this pretty, uh, crazy goal of 30 shops by 2030. So, which is only in a few more years. Oh, was it? So in 4 more years, I'll, I don't know if I'll get there. I may not, but if I get to 20, I'll be good. And right now it's not even about the number of shops. It's about the quality of shops. So, um, you know, if I get to 20 or, or 2 more shops by then, I don't really care. I just, as long as they're good shops.
Jamie's Garage [00:13:41]:
So right now we've got 5 really good shops. The newest one is a little bit of a challenge. We've been working through that. Lately, so we're trying to get that one up to speed. And, uh, in the meantime, in the background, I've been working on some other deals.
Mike Allen [00:13:55]:
So how many opportunities do you typically look at before you find a shop that you want to put an offer on?
Jamie's Garage [00:14:03]:
What do you mean by that?
Mike Allen [00:14:05]:
Like, for me, I, I'll look at 20 shops before I find one that I, I think is worth pulling the trigger on.
Jamie's Garage [00:14:13]:
There's definitely things I want to see, right? Location is a big one. Uh, I want to— the location has to be really, you know, not only the location but like the structure of the building. I don't want to be in a complex in a back alley in a dirt gravel parking lot. Like, I'd like to have store frontage. I want to have its own parking lot, its own standalone building. It's got to be a minimum of 6 bays. It's got to have a decent reputation if I'm going to be buying a shop. And we're potentially looking at building ground-ups as
Mike Allen [00:14:45]:
well, so Ground up scares me because no cash flow, right?
Jamie's Garage [00:14:49]:
Well, it— me too. And I've talked to some others that have done it, and they've kind of talked me off the ledge a little bit on that. And it's not as bad as you'd think, but it's still— it is still scary. It just has to be the right location
Mike Allen [00:15:06]:
for sure. Um, are you going to focus primarily, you think, on general repair? Are you going to keep trying to grow locations in the Euro and exotic market.
Jamie's Garage [00:15:15]:
So my background is European. I was a BMW tech, then Mercedes tech for a long time. I worked on some exotics before I started my own shop. And so my biggest reputation is Elite Motor Works, this brand here, and that was what I started with, and we only did German and exotics. And then I purchased my second location, which was my main competitor, Renhaus, um, and they do the same thing. So we now have two European shops here huge shops, do a fantastic job, great reputation. Then I started getting in general repair, and when I started doing general repair, I realized how there's a lot of things that are easier about general repair. Marketing is sure here, the customers are way easier to please, um, there's, uh, the parts estimating is much quicker, there's parts availability is much faster.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:04]:
It's— I mean, there's so— yeah, European parts catalog is terrible compared to You know, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda. I wouldn't— I'm not going to say Nissan. Nissan's parts catalog is pretty terrible. I, you know, like on the OE, if you're looking at— I'm assuming you're, you know, OE parts, um, the OE parts cataloging, it's typically pretty terrible when you're trying to deal with Volkswagens and Audis and stuff like that to try to get stuff looked up and make sure it's the right piece. You know, it's a little, little tricky sometimes.
Jamie's Garage [00:16:32]:
Yeah, I was writing service in a general repair shop, and of course I'm not super familiar with those cars, but I'm getting more and more familiar with them and start putting together these estimates. And I was just blown away that each car, you know, you put this estimate needs a rack and pinion or tie rods or whatever, and you look up the catalog and it's like, oh yeah, it's available, it's local, we can have it in 20 minutes. You're just like, yep, what? That doesn't happen with Euro cars. It's like days or weeks for us.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:56]:
Yeah. And then sometimes when you're in like the catalog, right, you're like, is that the exact little piece I need? So you like copy and paste the part number into Google and you can actually see a picture. And whereas like a lot of the Euro stuff, you copy and paste the part number and it was the wrong freaking part, or you know, there is no picture. It's just the same little gray drawing that you have or whatever, you know what I mean?
Jamie's Garage [00:17:13]:
You can't really— yeah, way more super
Bryan Pollock [00:17:15]:
sessions in the Euro world. Yeah, exactly.
Jamie's Garage [00:17:20]:
Yeah, very finicky. Specific one depending on if it's got red interior, you know. Obviously that's a joke, but like, it's got a— it's just there's so many
Bryan Pollock [00:17:30]:
options with the Euro. Dynamic versus normal for me. Yeah, dynamic versus active steering. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Mike Allen [00:17:39]:
You know?
Mike Allen [00:17:42]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:17:42]:
So, uh, how often are you actually
Jamie's Garage [00:17:43]:
in the shops now? Uh, rarely. Uh, the new one I've been in a lot lately because it's, you know, if there's a shop that's failing or if it's not, say, failing, but if it's not up to our standards, then I'm going to be way more involved. And, uh, so that's the one I'm in right now.
Mike Allen [00:17:59]:
What type of struggles are you having with the new one? It's a general repair shop, right?
Jamie's Garage [00:18:03]:
General repair. Yep. So to answer your previous question, I don't know if I answered or not. Moving forward, all the new shops that I want to get are going to be general repair.
Mike Allen [00:18:13]:
Okay, cool. Um, so I, you know what, I'm— one of the things that I want to have the ability to talk about some more this year on the show, maybe not today or not, I don't know, but is this press of, uh, private equity and, um, outside money coming into the industry and these consolidators that are coming in. And, you know, what I'm hearing is they want general repair and tires, right? They're still a little bit scared of Euro specialty, diesel specialty, that kind of stuff. So not as much of a threat. Well, I mean, you can look at it as a threat or as they
Bryan Pollock [00:18:47]:
should be scared of it because it's easily— it's not easily replicated, right? Well, it's a more replicating Euro specialty shops and replicating diesel specialty shops is tricky. General repair shops.
Jamie's Garage [00:19:00]:
It's a little different because you have to have technicians that are specialized in those brands. You have to have service advisors that are specialized in those brands and in those customers. Those customers are, for the most part, car people. They're enthusiasts, and they want to come in and they want to talk about their car and their special edition and whatever. And, uh, you got to have those relationships, and it's a lot harder to do. It's harder to find those people. It's harder to build those processes. It's not impossible, No, it's, it's not
Bryan Pollock [00:19:30]:
impossible, but I want that. Yeah, certainly isn't as easy.
Mike Allen [00:19:33]:
So if you get to, uh, 27 stores by 2030, um, you're just gonna like sit back and kick the feet up and, uh, and, and watch it roll in? Are you gonna become private equity and start absorbing other guys? Is that part of the process, or,
Jamie's Garage [00:19:52]:
uh, what's the plan there?
Mike Allen [00:19:53]:
You know, I don't know.
Jamie's Garage [00:19:53]:
I don't have a plan beyond that, actually. I know some guys look at 5, 10, 20-year goals, and, and I've done that in the past, but it never works out. You always end up going down a different path.
Bryan Pollock [00:20:05]:
Yeah, you're focused on the next step.
Jamie's Garage [00:20:07]:
Yeah, who knows, maybe I'll have a really good team, which I do right now, or continuing to grow that team. But maybe I'll have such a good team that I don't really need to be involved in the day-to-day, and I can just collect a check and travel the world and hang out with my family and be happy? And what do I need to sell for if that's the case, right? Or maybe there's an opportunity to sell. I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. Maybe it's like you said, I become the own, you know, I become my own PE group and I'm buying up shops. And I don't know, at the end of the day, if that does happen, you know, that's where I get excited because I want to be able to change the industry in a positive way. We do, I feel, everything the right way. At least as far as presenting the estimates, you know, the way that we take care of our customers, the way we're transparent about everything, the way we take care of our staff.
Jamie's Garage [00:20:56]:
I feel we do things in a way that is the most transparent and the best for the industry. And if I can have multiple locations that do that and it starts to maybe spread to others and become more of the standard, then I think that's what's needed in our, in
Mike Allen [00:21:12]:
our industry. What do you think's the biggest thing that we're doing wrong as an industry?
Jamie's Garage [00:21:18]:
Uh, lack of communication. Yeah, that's true. I think, um, you know, we get a bad rep for being— for ripping people off, or, you know, people are scared to go to the mechanic because they're afraid to get ripped off. They're going to be sold something they don't need. And, and does it happen? Sure. Of course it does. And every industry is going to have some bad places, right? Is it the norm? I don't think so. What I have seen when I worked at other shops, and even in the beginning when I first started my shop, because I was a terrible shop owner in the very beginning, uh, sometimes you get into a situation where you weren't upfront with the customer, up, you know, upfront.
Jamie's Garage [00:21:56]:
And because it's all good intentions, you want to take care of the customer, but then something goes sideways and now you're kind of stuck to either admit that you were wrong or try to cover it up, and then it gets exposed, and now you're, you know, a thief or whatever.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:09]:
And so that's— I think it's easier to write the check. Yeah, if you were just— when it
Jamie's Garage [00:22:14]:
goes sideways up front, yeah, then you can prevent all of that.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:17]:
Yeah, when you, when you screw up, it's just easier to write the check, you know, which is— which is easy to say.
Jamie's Garage [00:22:24]:
Let's not screw up, right?
Bryan Pollock [00:22:25]:
Let's just— yeah, yeah, right, right.
Jamie's Garage [00:22:27]:
So let's just be open and honest with a customer and say, hey, This isn't the right part for the car. Or maybe, hey, I actually ordered the wrong part, so we're going to get the right one coming. I'm sorry, it's going to take an extra day, longer than I told you. Not trying to blame it on something else. Or, or, hey, we diagnosed this car, we put the part in, it didn't fix it, so that's on us. We're going to guarantee, we're gonna— we're not gonna charge you for this, and we're actually gonna get the right part coming. We know what the problem is now, and we're going to get that. We're going to return this part, and here's the price difference, whether it's more or less.
Jamie's Garage [00:22:56]:
That's, that's the conversation you'd have with the customer. And these are the hard conversations that people are afraid to have. And because of that, I think they paint themselves into a corner and then they get exposed.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:05]:
Yeah, I think— I don't think much has changed since Congress did the investigation in the '70s and found out that people aren't actively attempting— shops weren't actively attempting to rip people off. It was, um, you know, their incompetence, and then they tried to cover up the incompetence, right? They weren't like out there like, oh, I'm gonna charge this person $500 to not fix their car because I can. No, they thought it was going to fix the car and it didn't.
Jamie's Garage [00:23:32]:
And, um, yeah, I find, you know, those that are going— they're waking up in the morning and thinking they're going to rip people off, I mean, in reality, they're not going to be in business very long.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:40]:
Yeah. And I don't think that's— I don't think that's the majority. I, I really don't. I think, no, you know, of, of shops like that, I don't think it is. I think it's a lack of training and fear of being transparent with the consumer. Because I think it's been my experience, when you're like, hey man, uh, we screwed your car up, like, and this is our plan to fix it, 90% of the time people ain't too upset. Yes, I mean, 90% of the time, you know. Now those 10%, that can be— they're really tough to deal with sometimes.
Bryan Pollock [00:24:16]:
But, and I think it stands out maybe bigger than it really is because that's so difficult to deal with when the consumer gets like that. But man, I bet I, in my experience, in my little end of the world here, 90% of the time when you're like, hey man, we really screwed your car up, and, um, I'm running into the body shop right now to get the door fixed, they're like, well, you know, yeah, okay. I'm like, you need a loan or anything? You know, it's, it's not the end of the world most of the time.
Mike Allen [00:24:45]:
Well, if you have a business that is relational versus transactional, which I think most of our listeners are under that umbrella, then they already— most of them already know, like, and trust you because they've built a relationship with you and they understand that no one's perfect and they're willing to give you a little leeway as long as you are obviously doing what it takes to make it right. You know, but that same conversation at, you know, Firestone or AAA Auto Care Center or something else where it's just get them in, get them out, get them in, get them out. Not really relationship-based a lot of times. And there, I'm sure there are some out there that are good, but it's much more likely to go south and turn into a shouting match or— Yeah. And that's threats of attorneys or, you know, whatever else.
Jamie's Garage [00:25:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, training and communication like you had mentioned, I also think The way we are paying our people needs to change. We're paying our sales team or our service advisor and our technicians on a basically a commission, right? A flat rate, or they get a percentage of the sale or whatever. And I don't know if that's a huge deal, but it can very quickly turn into a money grab. And that's when maybe they have the opportunity to sell somebody something that they shouldn't, or try to push it. And I'm saying if you're hiring the right people, you shouldn't have that problem. But that probably has an effect on some of the things that we're seeing or hearing about in the industry when people are getting ripped off, and it's because that person is paid a commission.
Jamie's Garage [00:26:20]:
Sure. So that's why we don't pay commissions on it for anybody in our company. Like, our technicians are not flat rate, our service advisors are salary.
Mike Allen [00:26:29]:
So, so there's no performance-based, like, hey, you hit this special goal so you get an extra $100 or anything like that?
Jamie's Garage [00:26:35]:
Nope. We have, um, we do sort of a— I guess you could call it an amortized flat rate. So what we do is we pay our technicians. We either have hourly technicians or, or salary technicians, and salary technicians are paid based on the out— on the labor dollars that they produce over the course of a year. And then we give them 25% of our— of the labor rate that they produced in that year., as their annual salary. So basically 25% of
Mike Allen [00:27:05]:
the door rate. And that's worked pretty well for you, it would appear. Um, do you have— when you're interviewing technicians and bringing them on board, that's a pretty atypical pay plan. Uh, do you have, uh, pushback or concern? Because, you know, people hate things they don't understand or change.
Jamie's Garage [00:27:22]:
Uh, do you have difficulty with that? Uh, yes and no. I think it depends on who we're hiring. If it's an entry-level person, not at all. I think they love it. If it's somebody who's been in the industry for 20 years and they've been paid flat rate and they can turn 60, 80 hours, whatever it is, then, um, you know, it's just a conversation of like, hey, this is, you know, you have bad weeks, you have good weeks. If you're a 10-hour-a-week or 10-hour-a-day guy and you can produce that, you're going to do really well with our company. And if that's the case, then this is what you can expect for your salary. But in the first 90 days, here's what we're going to pay you.
Jamie's Garage [00:27:53]:
Tell me you can do 10, I'm going to hold you to 8. If you can do 8 hours a day within these 90 days, or if you can do 10 hours a day in these 90 days, and we'll bump you to that, you know, what we'd pay you for a
Mike Allen [00:28:07]:
10-hour person.
Bryan Pollock [00:28:07]:
So nice.
Mike Allen [00:28:07]:
Um, and how does that work on the front of house side? Is it— are they just straight hourly, and, uh, if they perform well then they get a raise, and if they don't then they stay where they are, they move out?
Jamie's Garage [00:28:16]:
The service advisors are paid, um, a salary based on their experience, and then Uh, we do annual reviews for the company, the whole company in, uh, in June. So we'll just review the shop and the performance and did we hit our budget? And if we did, then what's the percentage look like? And we have a, uh, a percentage of our sales that goes to payroll. And so we can go up to that amount. So we know for a dollar amount what we can afford to pay as a raise or not. So it's essentially, it could be looked at as a bonus if they perform well, but if we don't perform well, then we either have to reduce their pay, keep it the same, or maybe
Mike Allen [00:28:51]:
look at getting somebody different. 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's 704-CONFESS. Just don't make it too weird.
Bryan Pollock [00:29:12]:
I think what's interesting about that is, uh, on the technician side, you know, that's always been one of my One of my huge gripes with flat rate is the temptation, and I don't think a lot of guys— I don't think there's maybe so much a money grab temptation as there is a shortcut temptation to kind of get more hours turned. And I think when you take away the short-term benefit and you make that a long game, I've, I've never heard it presented like that, but that kind of changes that dynamic where you take away the, that short-term temptation, right? There's nothing they can do this week that's going to change their pay next week.
Jamie's Garage [00:29:53]:
Flat rate rewards speed.
Bryan Pollock [00:29:56]:
We reward excellence.
Mike Allen [00:29:57]:
Yeah, I like that. So, um, one of our big podcast partners is TechMetric, and it's a software that I use and love, but they have a show coming up in April 9th through 11th, is in Houston where their headquarters are, is called Tectonic. And they're doing a, uh, a coaches panel, but I think there's 7 different coaches and they're going to have them up on stage like a presidential debate, with each with a lectern and a microphone. And I think they're going to have like a countdown timer and their mic turns off when the time's up for their answer, that kind of stuff. But I'm, I'm hosting that panel, uh, and I don't want to give away any of my questions on here, but one of the big topics is, um, the evolution of, uh, compensation, uh, in our industry and, and what needs to happen. And because a lot of coaches press for very heavily commission-based compensation, and that's a big factor into why a lot of technicians are leaving the industry, um, and, you know, obviously in every gathering of this nature, one of the conversations is about the technician shortage, right? Um, and then they tell us why they're leaving the industry and we don't want to hear it. So we've— something's got to change if we expect different results. You know, same input and expecting different results is insanity.
Bryan Pollock [00:31:22]:
I can see it from both sides and I understand everybody's point. Um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of techs out there who want time sold that's just not presentable to the customer. Like, recent things that Mike and I have talked about, like, you can't— it's very difficult to charge the customer 4 hours to read about a system because you don't know about it. Um, and on the flip side, there's, you know, there's a lot of people that make certain, you know, discounting certain things the technician's problem.
Jamie's Garage [00:31:52]:
So it's a multi— I was a flat rate technician, so And I was what— I was very efficient and I did really well. Times were great when stuff was selling and we had plenty of cars. But when we were slow and I'm sitting there on my toolbox until lunch waiting for the next car to come in, not getting paid, I'm thinking, why am I suffering because they're not doing their job?
Bryan Pollock [00:32:11]:
They didn't do the marketing. Yeah. Or my argument's always been, why does the technician suffer because the writer can't sell the job? And I understand, I understand, I get it. It's two different things. We're working on something static, but the writer's working on something dynamic. But it's— at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. I don't care. I, you know, from the technician side, I don't care that the writer's job is different than mine.
Bryan Pollock [00:32:36]:
I have to fix the car right, and if I don't, I have to deal with it. Well, why can they not sell the shit the car needs? But like, how does this even— like, yeah, it does.
Mike Allen [00:32:45]:
It doesn't make sense. Ultimately, flat rate is a great pay plan when everything else is working well. Yeah, socialism's a great thing. The owner's doing a great job of making the phone ring. If the advisors can convert to cars and can sell shit, if the equipment is maintained appropriately, if everything else is running fine, then flat rate's great. But if any one of those things breaks down, then it fucks the technician.
Bryan Pollock [00:33:08]:
Yeah, yeah, you're making the socialism argument for flat rate, right? Socialism's perfect, it's just never been done right. Yeah, I, I guess it's not the same because I, I do have to say I know a lot of people in this industry and there's some flat rate shops that run very well. You know, it's— you can't always paint with a ride brush, but there's— yeah,
Jamie's Garage [00:33:29]:
I'm not saying it doesn't work. I mean, it obviously does work. We've used it for a long time.
Bryan Pollock [00:33:33]:
It's just honestly like your system that you're talking about.
Jamie's Garage [00:33:36]:
Yeah, when I, when I look at what it is I want overall, it was the culture.
Bryan Pollock [00:33:41]:
I want the good culture.
Jamie's Garage [00:33:44]:
You want proficiency. Yeah, you want more efficiency, of course,
Bryan Pollock [00:33:46]:
but you don't want proficiency, not efficiency. What'd you say?
Jamie's Garage [00:33:51]:
Proficiency.
Bryan Pollock [00:33:51]:
Oh, that's what you're looking for, proficiency. Yes, not necessarily efficiency.
Jamie's Garage [00:33:57]:
But to Jamie's point, yeah, if you're a flat rate technician, which I was, and you guys have known, like, you get a car that comes in, you do the inspection, it needs the brakes, it needs the tires, it needs the control arms, all the gravy work, and then the customer declines it. Like, okay. And then a week later it comes in the shop and you see the guy down, you know, two bays down, you're like, why is he— I quoted that job, why is he doing it? And now it creates this animosity. Oh, you're speaking— hey, I need you to do this job for me. Well, I need a half hour to I'm not even gonna open the hood unless you give me a half hour or an hour labor. You know, you got all these things that happen and it creates such a negative toxic culture. Well, when you get rid of flat rate, all of that goes away. Now everybody's working as a team.
Jamie's Garage [00:34:36]:
Yeah. And that's what we preach. We preach teamwork. Yeah. Hey, I need you to take a quick peek at this for me. Hey, no, I, the customer, I'm trying to get the customer in the door. You know, they just wanna, uh, they, they had an oil leak, the dealership, they told 'em it needs a valve cover. Can you just pop the hood real quick and verify it so I can sell this job? And it's not like, well, I need to get a diag for a degrease
Bryan Pollock [00:34:55]:
and where's the work order with a labor line. Yeah, right. You're speaking my language, dude. We— Mike and I are in a chat group. We just had this conversation a couple weeks ago. And what did I say? I said if I had to talk to a technician about how much they were going to get paid to go shovel a vehicle out and get a parking brake unstuck to even get the thing in the shop, I'd go jump off a bridge.
Mike Allen [00:35:16]:
That's why everybody's— I had to live in your environment where you had to do shit like that on a regular basis.
Bryan Pollock [00:35:21]:
I'd go jump off a fucking bridge. Yeah, like, I'm like, I can't have the conversation, uh, I can't like have the conversation of how much they're gonna get paid when like when Grandma Sandy brings me her car for every little thing and I just need something looked at real quick on it to make sure she's okay to drive it so we can get the part. Like, I can't have the conversation.
Mike Allen [00:35:39]:
I don't know, you can do that because you pay all your guys hourly.
Jamie's Garage [00:35:43]:
Yep, right. So it takes a while to get that shift because I used to pay flat rate and then I came, you know, we're like, hey, we're gonna do this now.. And, um, it took the guys like, I don't know about this. I don't know if I like it. And I said, listen, give me 90 days. And after 30 days they were like, I love this. And you know, it's really cool when you get a guy that, let's say he does run outta work at 3 o'clock, but you got another guy who's got, he's slammed busy and we're trying to get this.
Mike Allen [00:36:03]:
Yeah.
Jamie's Garage [00:36:04]:
All of a sudden it's team work.
Mike Allen [00:36:05]:
He's like, I'm gonna go help. Yeah. You know, I've got, it's become interesting across my locations. I've, my take when I'm talking to a technician that I think I want to hire is How do you want to get paid? I'll pay you however you want to be paid. If you want to be flat rate, great. If you want to be flat rate with a guarantee, if you want to be hourly with a bonus, if you want to be salary. And so as a result, I have technicians being paid in each of those ways, right? Um, which makes payroll a disaster, but that's my own, that's my own creation. Um, but you know, we have, uh, team meetings once a month after hours.
Mike Allen [00:36:41]:
We order in takeout and hang out for a couple hours and just kind of go through process and procedure development, that kind of stuff. And interestingly, the dude who is not the loudest but one of the loudest complainers about time. And I think the big discussion last meeting was that we need to add time to rear brake jobs for hooking up the computer and turning off the electronic parking brake. Um, and how much time should that be, right? So there's back and forth over 2/10, 3/10, half an hour, whatever it should be, right? Um, and the guy who was the loudest about it is pure salary. Makes no difference to him. I'm very confused.
Jamie's Garage [00:37:37]:
Made my brain hurt. Yeah, I mean, we definitely have our guys too that are like, hey, we should be charging this, we should do this. But what's really cool is we do involve the whole team in our business. So like my P&L, for example, I share it with the entire team. You know, I actually— we had a class the other day, maybe a month ago, with the service advisors in particular. We went through and I showed them how a P&L works. This is our expenses and here's what we got to do and here's how we pay and here's Here's the percentage of payroll that we need to be at if everybody wants to get a raise now. And it's really cool to see them, like, they start to see it click, like, oh, okay, this is why we're doing this, and oh, this is why we do this.
Jamie's Garage [00:38:15]:
And, um, you know, when I started my business and started hiring people, that was the last thing I wanted to do was show them a P&L and bank accounts and credit cards. And yeah, I was too proud or embarrassed or whatever it was. I just like, no, that's private information, I'm not sharing that. But I found the more transparent I am with my team, the more freedom that I get because they start to see what I see. And when we have a problem with whatever the problem is, and we have problems that we figure out all the time, we say, hey, this is the problem. What do you guys think? How are we going to fix this? And, and a lot of times I just let them come up with a solution, and the solution is the same thing I was going to come up with, or sometimes better. And now it's their solution, their buy-in, and then they do it. If I come in and just say, hey, we're going to start doing this because we've got this problem, so I need you guys to start doing this They're gonna be like, I'm not doing it because Jamie told me I need to do it.
Jamie's Garage [00:39:06]:
But if they tell me that it
Mike Allen [00:39:08]:
needs to be done, they'll do it. Do they refer to the day after you get back from a conference as
Jamie's Garage [00:39:14]:
Black Monday in your company? Uh, no, because I'm pretty conscious about, about that. And I know what you're talking about. You go to a conference, you get fired up, you get all these ideas, and you just want to come back and implement everything in the first hour of the day.
Bryan Pollock [00:39:29]:
Just take the whole bucket of shop
Mike Allen [00:39:31]:
and dump it out on the ground,
Jamie's Garage [00:39:34]:
destroy the workflow completely.
Bryan Pollock [00:39:36]:
That was about 4 or 5 years ago. Nobody, nobody even knows what day it is by the end of Black Monday. They're like, what happened? Why does this keep happening to me?
Mike Allen [00:39:45]:
Okay, let's call it what it is. If you're going to step away from the shop, it better be worth it, period. Tectonic 2026 is designed for that reality. Role-based sessions, hands-on workshops, and conversations with people who actually understand what it takes to keep a shop profitable and a team sane. And I like that it doesn't pretend we all need the same thing. Owners, advisors, and technicians don't have the same headaches, so you're not wasting time sitting through sessions that don't apply to your day-to-day life. You should leave with a clearer idea of what to fix first, what to tighten up, and importantly, what you should stop wasting time on. Presented by TechMetric, Tectonic is happening April 9th through 11th in Houston, Texas.
Mike Allen [00:40:22]:
Tickets are on sale now and my listeners get $500 off standard pricing with code Confessions500. Go to techmetric.com/tektonic. That's T-E-K-T-O-N-I-C or tap the link in
Jamie's Garage [00:40:35]:
the show notes for more. You know, obviously we've made a lot of changes in the last few years and there's a lot of things that get implemented. I try to be fairly strategic about it. I've also empowered our team, especially our leadership team, to push back because I'm like, hey, these are the ideas I want to do. And they're like, listen, that's too much. Like, let's get this dialed in first. And then let's talk about that. And then I'm like, all right, you're right.
Jamie's Garage [00:40:57]:
Let's go ahead and get this, make sure we got this done, and then we're gonna bring this up. And then, so it's kind of neat to have that open line of communication
Bryan Pollock [00:41:04]:
and just a, it's a, it's a collaborative type. That's the privilege you have when you started hiring for character instead of straight up skillset.
Jamie's Garage [00:41:13]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:41:13]:
That's, that's how you get there. So what, uh, what training events are you going to this year, if any,
Jamie's Garage [00:41:20]:
if you have time? Oh, good question. I'll definitely be at STX, probably ASTA again. I don't think I'm going to make Vision. That's coming up next month. I haven't bought tickets. Maybe I'll go.
Mike Allen [00:41:34]:
I don't know. Gotcha. Cool. Well, thanks for saying ASTA. That's my favorite. It's also in my backyard. If you make it up, maybe we hang out and share a beverage. I do want to take a couple of minutes just to— I think it would be silly not to talk about your social media presence and kind of what that was born of and how it kind of took on a life of its own.
Jamie's Garage [00:41:55]:
I'd love to hear your version of that. Sure. So, uh, COVID era, I think it was shortly after that, uh, TikTok was pretty new and I kept hearing— and I watch— I wasn't on TikTok, I was on YouTube, and I kept watching Gary Vee talk about TikTok's the next big thing and da da da, and I had a I have a daughter who at the time was 10 or 11— 11 and, uh, 10, sorry. And they're like, if you have kids, you need to be on TikTok because it's, you know, it could be dangerous and all this stuff. Like, okay, well, let me, let me check this out. So I ended up downloading TikTok and watching it, and I was like, oh, this is kind of neat. And I think I found like 2 or 3 different people that were in the automotive industry that were doing, you know, some mechanic MechanicLink, I think might have been the first one I saw. I don't remember.
Jamie's Garage [00:42:45]:
And I saw a couple videos and I'm just like, oh, this is cool. I'm like, I could definitely do a video like this, maybe even better. So, and I was just like, oh, let me just play around with it. So I started playing around with it and create an account and just posted a couple videos, really just joking. And I've always been in photography and videography from high school, and I've got old video edits that I did from when I was a kid. So I've always been into that kind of thing. Um, and I've even posted videos on Facebook, you know, years ago before TikTok So, uh, I was like, oh, this is kind of neat, it's kind of fun. So I was putting it on there, and after, I don't know, 5 or 6 videos, I had one blow up.
Jamie's Garage [00:43:19]:
When I say blow up, back then it was blowing up for me. It was like 8,000 views. I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. And, uh, so I just started doing a little bit more and more, and then, um, I got, uh, somebody reached out to me. It was, uh, Paul Barrett from Deutsche Auto Parts. I don't know if you know him, but, uh He's, he's like the Volkswagen guy on YouTube. Him and Charles Humble Mechanic are best friends. So he was like, hey, we want to do a collab video with you, Charles and I.
Jamie's Garage [00:43:45]:
We want to come down and do a Scirocco VR6 swap in, in your shop. And I'm like, yeah, that'd be cool. And he's like, do you have a YouTube account? I was like, no. I was like, it's probably too late for YouTube, it's too saturated. And he's like, no, no, you need to create a YouTube account, put some videos out there, and then when we're out there, you can do a video along with us. And I was like, sure, why not? So created this YouTube account, which I thought was going to go nowhere. Turns out it was actually my biggest. I have more followers on YouTube than anything else.
Jamie's Garage [00:44:16]:
So we did the video. It was a lot of fun. And then I was reached out to by ChrisFix and he was like, hey, the stuff you're doing on TikTok is hilarious. Keep going. You're doing a great job. And I was like, oh, thanks. You know, he's like, if you ever wanted to collab, let me know. I'm like, yeah, I want to collab.
Jamie's Garage [00:44:33]:
This guy's huge. And, uh, I ended up finding out that he blew up the engine in his BMW race car. So I reached out and I said, hey, how would you like it if I built you a backup engine for your race car? And he was like, yeah, that'd be— if you want to do that, that'd be sweet. It's like, cool. So I did that. That blew up. And then him and I have— he since has moved to Florida and we've become really good friends. Um, and, you know, it's just opened up a ton of opportunities and I've been able to travel and do a lot cool things, and it's been, it's been a lot of fun.
Jamie's Garage [00:45:03]:
It's, it's me— for me, it's fun. It's not work. I've gotten business out of it, but actually what I've gotten, what surprised me, is it's not the customers. Yes, we get customers out of it, but the most I've gotten out of it are some really good employees. I've had really several people, after we hired them, told me— Mark, for instance, we hired him 3 or 4 years ago, and he said, you know, I commented on one of your YouTube videos and said I would love to work there one day. And he's a great tech now. He's been there. He started out washing cars.
Jamie's Garage [00:45:37]:
We've promoted him, and he's doing a fantastic job. Another guy we hired moved from Virginia to this area. I guess his aunt or grandmother, I think, lives down here. And he's like— he told his brother, he's like, I'm gonna go down there. I'm gonna get a job working for Jamie. Me. His brother's like, you're crazy. And so we end up— and I didn't know this, but we end up hiring Jack as a tech, and now he's a service advisor, and he's doing a fantastic job.
Jamie's Garage [00:46:02]:
And, uh, he, he's just a great dude. And he was like, hey, my brother Jason would like to move down. I'm like— he's like, he'll need a job. I'm like, if he's like you, he's hired. Like, he's, you know, bring him down. So we brought him, interviewed him, awesome guy, hired him. Um, and I found out like a year afterwards, Jason was telling me, he's like, you know, we came down here because of your social media. I was like, no, I had no idea.
Jamie's Garage [00:46:26]:
And that's awesome. There's been a few other guys like that too.
Mike Allen [00:46:31]:
I think, um, once you build a following and a positive reputation in the eyes of industry personnel, then they will seek you out like that. Um, I know that, uh, our friend Lucas has had people from all over the country reach out to him wanting to to move to his, his town to, to, to work at his shop. Um, probably not so much for me. I think they just want to like fly into ASTA and punch me in the nose and, and, and then go back home. But, uh, I think it's super cool, man. You're like 600,000 or 700,000 followers on,
Jamie's Garage [00:47:04]:
on YouTube now, right? Yeah, somewhere in there. I don't even know, 600 and something, I think.
Mike Allen [00:47:09]:
At what— I mean, like, do you have like staff for your social media? Uh, do you have like a secretary or any— or a manager for your
Jamie's Garage [00:47:18]:
social media or anything? Uh, my dad does the, um, video editing for all the long-form content. So my long-form content, he's been in some of my videos, but he's sometimes the guy behind the camera. He'll, he'll do all the editing for that. All the short-form stuff, I just film it on my phone and edit it on my phone myself. That's awesome. And as far as work you know, work life. I do have an assistant that works for me now, and that's been awesome because she handles a lot of things for me that frees up my time to focus on more important stuff.
Mike Allen [00:47:49]:
Very cool. What's your release cadence? Are you trying to do like a couple of videos a month, or is
Jamie's Garage [00:47:52]:
it more short form now versus long form? Or— so I— this is funny because I, I've talked to so many different creators, and I'm friends with a lot of them, and they all have a very strict schedule. And they're like, okay, I'm going to post every Monday at 3 PM. We're going to do this. I'm going to do a short form here. I'm going to do. And I'm just like, eh, you're out there winging it. I got time. That car looks kind of neat.
Jamie's Garage [00:48:14]:
Let me shoot a video real quick and then I'll either just post it right then and there or maybe it'll just hang out in my drafts for like a month. And I'm like, oh, I forgot to post this. I should just post this. I am the most inconsistent person ever. And I keep getting on my TikTok feed. You need to post every day. You need to be consistent. You need to do this.
Jamie's Garage [00:48:33]:
And then it's like, I haven't posted. I think I posted one, maybe two, maybe two videos just recently. We're in February now for those that are watching, and the last video I posted was in December. So it was like well over a month I
Mike Allen [00:48:48]:
haven't posted a single video. So what you're saying is, even though you're a famous mechanic of TikTok and YouTube, that your social media income is not what is making you money?
Jamie's Garage [00:48:59]:
You actually have a functional, successful business? I had a, I had a technician one time, I was walking through the shop and we were And they all joke with me, you know, they're like, oh, look at that, it's Jamie from Jamie's Garage, you know. And they all joke around and they think it's funny. So, um, I was talking to one of the guys and he was like, yeah, I was talking to my wife and she said, I bet he makes more money on social media than he does the business. And I was— I just laughed. I'm like, dude, I think I made like $90 last month on social media.
Bryan Pollock [00:49:26]:
It doesn't— yeah, right, especially if you're
Jamie's Garage [00:49:29]:
inconsistent with posting stuff. Yeah, I mean, obviously there's been months where I've done pretty well. I've done a few brand deals. I'm very, very picky about the brand deals that I do. The ones that I do, they pay pretty well. And so those, you know, that works out pretty nice. But it's just kind of extra cash. It's not like I'm not actively looking to do this as a business.
Jamie's Garage [00:49:47]:
If I was, I'm sure I'd be making way more money because that's where my attention would be focused. But it's not. Um, my dad, you know, I told you, it helps me out. When I first started the YouTube channel, and we actually created an LLC for the social media because I figured one day if I end up selling my shop, I didn't want my, my IP or my, you know, social media going along with it. So it's a separate business. Um, when I set that up, I just made him a 50% partner. I'm like, I don't, I don't really care about the money of that. I just do it for fun.
Jamie's Garage [00:50:21]:
Obviously it's nice when you get a brand that reaches out to you, somebody that you already use and like and trust, and they're like, we want to work with you. It's like, okay, that's cool. And then they're like, we're going to pay you this, and you're like, Oh, okay, I can— that's a few hours of work that I can make a few thousand dollars. That's great. Yeah, let's go for it. And then, um, you know, it's just
Mike Allen [00:50:40]:
some extra cash, so it's pretty nice. Very cool. Well, man, thanks for taking the time out of your day. I know you're busy, uh, growing that empire, uh, down in Florida. Are you gonna— are you gonna branch out of Florida? Are you gonna be bleeding into Georgia or Alabama?
Jamie's Garage [00:50:56]:
What's the plan? I've had a couple opportunities to purchase shops outside of Florida. Um, I went and looked at them, but it just logistically doesn't make sense. Uh, it wouldn't really come by the people in that shop that they wouldn't get my full attention. So, uh, that's not what I— I decided not to do that. So right now I'm just trying to grow where I am now and just kind of keep building out, and then where it morphs into We shall see.
Mike Allen [00:51:24]:
But right now I'm just focused on Florida. Cool. Well, if I don't see you sooner, then I'll see you at ASTA Expo in Raleigh last weekend of September. You ought to think about coming out
Jamie's Garage [00:51:36]:
to Tectonic in April. If you do, I'll buy you a drink. Sounds good. Yeah, I think I was invited, so I'll have to reach back out. I think they actually asked me to speak, so we'll see if— we'll see
Mike Allen [00:51:44]:
if I can make it. 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@confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership.
Mike Allen [00:52:21]:
I'll see
Mike Allen [00:52:46]:
you
Jamie's Garage [00:52:50]:
on the next episode.
Mike Allen [00:52:51]:
Look, you know I said just