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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
David Roman 0:00
And now we're we're joined by mainland newton of the educational seminars Institute at the tools conference 2022
Lucas Underwood 0:07
Maylan throw your headphones on so you can hear yourself? Don't want to
Maylan Newton 0:11
hear myself.
David Roman 0:16
I want to know where you got that Tyco. That's one of
Maylan Newton 0:19
the speakers I'm sorry, the hospitality suite 20 to 35. Up the stairs, couple of doors down, it's on the left.
Lucas Underwood 0:33
Very nice. Well, you think,
Maylan Newton 0:36
what do I think you don't really want to either.
David Roman 0:40
So the shop owner opens his shop, he's four months in, and he cannot get customers to show up for their appointments. And he's, he's freaking out. He goes, these people are ghosting me. He goes, I'm doing a great job of getting the appointment. I set the appointment in the books, they never show. What advice would you give?
Maylan Newton 1:01
Well, when you set the appointment, you got to make sure you get their phone number, either text or call them. And just like the dentist, you have to let them know that they have an appointment. So the day before, at a minimum, you need to contact them. And the biggest problem you have is most people depending on how far out you're booking their appointments. And if it's not service work, they're going to find somebody to do it faster, right? And so that would be something I would look at is what are we looking out for? If it's repair work, they're never gonna make the appointment. And if it's service work, it's a matter of constantly reminding them. Do you know just like the dentists? So I find that most shops don't ask for phone numbers. And they don't ask can I text you or call you? They don't get permission to do that, or email them. So they set the appointments and kind of hope the customer keeps it and that's not going to be the case? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood 1:59
Well, you know, we've talked a lot about this, right? Because one of the one of the issues that that we kind of come across in our industry, is that that there's either the yes shops who say yes to everybody will figure it out after we get them in the door. Or there's the shops who are scheduling semi accordingly. Right? Now the thing is, is you got to you've got to over schedule a touch, because if you have a no show, if you if you don't over schedule the touch, you're going to be in a situation where you don't have enough work, right? And so just
David Roman 2:30
just send though, like, if, if you've got a car that's overheating, you're not waiting? Well, absolutely.
Lucas Underwood 2:35
You know,
David Roman 2:36
we're three weeks out, I'll see you in three weeks. It's like,
Lucas Underwood 2:38
well, that's what that's the point I was getting ready to make is that a lot of shops right now are saying they're two or three weeks out. Now, me personally, I'm running two weeks, but there's a reason for that is that we're moving, we should be starting to move in next week. Right? So I'm trying to prepare for the move to where I know, I'm gonna have substantially more capacity than I have right now. I know I'm gonna run out of work. But so I guess my question is, is what do you say to the shop that can, you know, always out three weeks? Right? I mean,
Maylan Newton 3:11
it's, here's our problem in our industry as we feel that every car with wheels we should work on. Right? So the guy who's booked out three weeks, we need to look at what was booked out and the kind of customer they are. And, you know, my driving force right now is to talk to shops about lower car count, higher average repair order to alleviate that. Okay. You know, it used to be back in the old days when I was a technician, it was a bragging point. I'm three weeks out. Yeah, it's still it is. But nobody waits. Nobody waits. You know, it's like when you don't feel good. And you call the doctor says I'll see you in a month.
Lucas Underwood 3:50
Right? I don't feel good now. Right?
Maylan Newton 3:53
It's the same thing with the cars. Right? Right. So it's controlling the car count, you know, of, of limiting the years you work on, or that makes and models. And one of the things I tell people is just because they called you on the phone and they have an emergency doesn't mean you have to take it in. Right? If they're good customers, you know, been coming to you for 10 years, we want to accommodate them. And the other thing is, the idea of booking appointments is I put them in a book, right? Yeah. But if I have a drivability person, then I'm going to control the driver ability to complaints I take in every day. So figuring let's just use round numbers. It's two hours per car, right? I have one guy to do it. How many cars can I book for drivability today, you know, basically four. Yeah. And that's if they're efficient, right? If I have a brake guy who's really efficient, I can book you know, eight brake jobs for him maybe. Right. And instead of just booking cars, book jobs for technicians,
Lucas Underwood 4:53
right. Well, and so that's what we do in my shop, right? We use something we call a parking lot scheduling And so the way it works for us is that I have a certain I use my average hour per repair order, right. And I know that Ryan is running a lower average repair order, as far as hours go, so I put more on him, I've got my guys who are doing, you know, very heavy lawn or high in diagnostic work. And so I know that I need to put less on them. In my shop, typically what we get is Ryan gets five jobs a day, the other texts because Ryan's the GS, the other techs are typically getting between two and three a day. And then so the way it plays out is that day, they'll evaluate those vehicles first, right, and then they move to the repair work. And as they're doing the repair work, we're getting approval on the other work, and we're setting the expectation of when they can expect that car to be repaired, when does the part arrive? Right. And so we're setting expectations through it. And so in some ways that can drive our schedule out. But I mean, that's just because we have very limited capacity.
David Roman 5:59
I wonder what the shops that are saying that they're two to three weeks out or whatever, are they counting cars in strictly cars?
Lucas Underwood 6:06
You know, so So along those same lines, I what I wonder most is, are they truly being productive, right? It's one thing to say that you're out three weeks, but if you're billing four hours a day, and you're out three weeks, that's a whole different ballgame.
David Roman 6:22
That's I mean, it's, it's normally a capacity problem. But they're counting if they're counting cars, like they're doing it all wrong. Because it's different. Like, we will typically run a week out on build work, like build hours. If you calculate out how many hours my guys average, and you see what we have sold. I fortex. Then I've got a week out exactly. What do I tell the customer that's calling me telling me they're overheating that I'm a week out before I'm going to look at their car? No, absolutely not like I will look at it today. If it's in the morning, like first thing in the morning, like you bring it in this morning. I will look at it today. I don't I never thought I'm gonna fix it.
Lucas Underwood 7:07
But see if I do that, right. Like right now. We worked our way back down. We were 42 cars on site last week, right in three days. And so we had $92,000 of sold work sitting at the shop 194 hours, something like that. Okay. And so we were we were missing 94
David Roman 7:25
hours was what two weeks for guys? Yeah, roughly.
Lucas Underwood 7:29
And so you see what I'm saying though, is like, here I am. I've got all this piled up on me. If I say yes to more people, all I'm gonna do is go on Pesum. All right, so because of school, I'm gonna squat off, there's no because either either I'm taking them in and doing work on their car. Note, in some cases, like I can get some cars on Ryan. And I can get Ryan through more work. But if I take more cars on, I'm gonna piss the new client off. Because it's either piston, the NEW CLIENT OFFER piston old client off because somebody has to get bumped down the line,
David Roman 7:56
somebody doesn't need to get bumped. The person got gets bumped first this person in the loaner vehicle. They've got something to drive. It's not there.
Lucas Underwood 8:05
They don't always take it that way.
David Roman 8:07
I understand. They don't take it that way. But that's how
Maylan Newton 8:11
you know, you guys both brought up good points. Productivity is a huge problem in our industry. We have people with four texts, and they're producing two texts worth of work, right. It's not the technicians either. It's the office absolutely hard availability. It's the service writers. It's the parking lot. Sometimes you have as many cars as you were just talking about. Yeah. takes four hours for people to move cars. Yeah. So you know, having those cars are there is security for us as owners, it's a pain in the butt for the technicians, because we have so much to do to get right on the racks and stuff. You in my opinion, you know, you can't look at car count, you have to look at hours. Yeah, what do I have available? What can I bring in? And you got to have really strong communication with everybody in the shop, right? I call it setting short time based goals. So everything that leaves the office and goes to a technician needs to have a goal attached to it when I either need it checked out or is finished. Right. And, you know, one of the things I used to do was I would sit down every morning, that a few minutes before eight when the crew showed up. And I'd say here's what I've got leftover from yesterday. Here's what I promised today. Here's the appointments we have coming in. Here's what I expect to happen today. Right? So I set expectations first thing in the morning, and we had that same conversation at noon. When everybody came back from lunch actually one o'clock. This is what I sold. These parts are here. This car has to leave today. Right?
Lucas Underwood 9:45
I really I love that. Yeah, and I mean that's what we do in our shop.
David Roman 9:49
I don't don't don't do that.
Lucas Underwood 9:51
That's to the tee. You know the sheet I sent sent you in the past where my workflow for the day.
David Roman 9:56
You've never sent that to me? Well, I'll send it to you but we also use that several Sometimes I think it's in some weird secret that you don't want to share it with anybody. No. Oh, you're gonna send me right now?
Lucas Underwood 10:05
I'm gonna send it right. I don't have internet right now, I guess.
David Roman 10:08
I think we get like, the my service advisor gets frustrated with my texts, my texts are just doing you know what they do. They don't know that 17 cars back there that we promised and one of them is one car that promise today because they have to get their kid picked up by 430. And therefore, you know, they've got all this he's he's holding on to that. That's the weight he holds on to on his shoulders. And then his reaction, sometimes the technicians not showing a sense of urgency or whatever, right. Just little annoyances, like they took a little too long in the bathroom, or Yeah, he's taken a little too long to click off the stuff that he's finished on that car, whatever it happens to be. He's all he's thinking about all those, those other factors. They don't know anything about it. And so I think just communicating the this is we've got these four cars in from inspection. These cars don't need diagnostic work. This is what's been promised today so far than back at lunch, same thing. Hey, I these cars have to go today. Just so everybody's on the same page. I like that. Yeah. And you do that exactly that incident? Did you learn from you
Lucas Underwood 11:15
learned it from Malin analytic from
Maylan Newton 11:18
one of the things that I find that most shops is exactly what you're talking about. The service writer has made promises, and he hasn't shared those promises with anybody. And here's something else that happens that nobody thinks about is I've heard service writers go, you know, we're kind of slow. And they're thinking car count. When we have 100 hours to do. Yeah. And when the service writer says we're slow, what are the
David Roman 11:40
technicians think I can take my time, right? Yeah, that sense
Maylan Newton 11:44
of urgency is gone. And so we have to control that sense of urgency throughout the mentality. In the short run morale in the show, you're never slow. You know, you think about it. Are you really ever slow? No. There's always something to do. Yeah. And if you think about it, if you have four guys, four technicians, and you're doing two people's worth at work, we're all there's other hours going?
Lucas Underwood 12:11
Yeah. Well, and so you know, this brings up another topic. I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine over the last couple of days. And he's, it's been a roller coaster ride with him over the past couple of months, because he goes from, they're going to improve their shop, things are going to get better, too. I'm frustrated. Because it's not happening. Nothing's changing, too. My owner has unrealistic expectations. And there's it's it's a constant, up and down, right. And so this is a very, very productive tech. This is a tech this turned in 16 to 18 hours a day, most days, right those tons of hours. And so the owner has come to expect that. And I've shared with him, I said, Look, you can't just do doop, doop, doop, doop and not go to the owner and say, Hey, I'm unable to continue this, right. And I'll use the same example I've used before the plane that crashed in the Hudson, right? What did he say? Right before he crashed the plane into the Hudson. He said, I'm unable, the air traffic controllers all around him. Were saying, like, Hey, you want to go here? You want to go there? You want to go here? And what did he say? He said, I'm unable. And my point in saying that is this is that had he tried to land at any airport, he wouldn't have just killed the people on the plane, he would have killed the people on the ground. It could have been hundreds could have been 1000s of people who died. Right? Because he listened to someone else say, Hey, do this, but he knew he couldn't do it. Right. It's his job as a professional to set the expectation. That's his job.
Maylan Newton 13:41
You're 100%? Correct. And it boils back to the C word. You said he's a professional. We need to be professionals and have good communication. Yeah, that is, in my opinion, is one of the biggest breakdowns in our industry.
Lucas Underwood 13:57
Well, I mean, in this case, right. So and the thing he was upset about the other day, you know, the thing he was upset about the other day, is he he said, Look, he said, here's the deal. He said, I've turned 14 hours today. He said it is five o'clock here. It's 10 minutes to five. And he said the owner comes in says, Hey, I just need you to run out and scan this cord real quick. He's like, man, he's like, I've killed myself. He's like, I'm exhausted. I'm soaking wet. You know, I have worked my tail off, I'm filthy. I want to clean my tools up and I want to go home. I want to go relax a little bit. And he brings me this car. And he's like, no, no, you've got to do this. You have to do this because I want to order parts. I want to have this in here. He's like, we've got four weeks worth of work. He's like, we don't even have anywhere to put cars. And he's taken on cars. And he's putting all these cars in the bay. And he's like, yeah, he's coming to me and said, you know, he brings me for jobs. And this happened yesterday after the whole deal of the five o'clock you know, can you just go scan it real quick for me and what he means is in talking to him, he doesn't just want it scan he wants he wants a die complete. it, right? So his way of saying it is guy, and he's a good tech, so he's able to usually do most of them that fast. But so then yesterday, he comes in, he's like, man, they handed me four tickets, the Hemi, four tickets, it three o'clock. He said, There's 15 hours on those four tickets, and they're like, Here you go. And he's like, what I mean, the where are these supposed to be done? What we promised him today do your best. Right? And he's like, it ain't happening. Well,
Maylan Newton 15:33
that's one of our issues, right? You said the word expectations, unrealistic expectations. The other thing is, if they really track their comebacks, they're gonna see a spike and come back when they do that to that technician. I don't care how good he is. Right. I'm just gonna get overlooked. misdiagnosis, incorrect diagnosis. And it all boils down to the owner doesn't understand his numbers. I agree. So he cannot set realistic expectations. Right. And I bet you dollars to donuts, Lucas, that that guy is strapped for cash. Yeah, yeah. And that's why he's pushing so hard. He needs cash flow. Yep. Well, we've
Lucas Underwood 16:13
talked about that, right? Because we've talked about the fact that that, you know, this, this person has been in the shop from the very beginning. Right, so they basically started the shop together, he was the tech, the owner was the owner, right? And he points out that, hey, you know, I don't know a lot about the numbers, will you help me start working through the numbers? When we start looking, we find out that, hey, your average hours per repair order about 1.3 right now, right? You're running 200 cars a month, in in a fairly small shop. Or maybe it's more than that maybe it was 500 cars a month or something to that, to that 10 What I mean, every tickets only like 175 $200. And so they're, you know, they have the occasional big job, he gets all the big jobs. But nobody else is checking the cars. Nobody else is recommending anything on the cars. The hours for repair order are really low. And the owner is killing himself. Right. And it was neat to hear this because the dude's not left the shop yet. Because he feels like the owners killing him. So he's like, I don't want to abandon him. I see him killing himself. I see him going crazy. I see him freaking out. I see him, like just absolutely given everything he's got. But he's our man. He's like, he's on the phone constantly. And he's writing repair orders constantly. He's coming in at 5am. He's leaving at 7pm. And it's him and one other guy, and they're writing 100 repair orders a week. He's like, it's just crazy. I just don't they can't keep it up. They can't do this forever, you know,
David Roman 17:39
and they will kill somebody who has a heart attack or something. Yeah,
Maylan Newton 17:44
well, you know, and those are the those are the problems that we have is we think it's about fixing cars, you know, car count, yeah, it's about maximizing the cars that we have, and the right cars that we have. And if you think about it, if we took that shop doing 200 cars a week, and we've cut it in half, doubled their average repair order, cut it in half same money, yeah. Stress load drops for everybody, less parts issues, less telephone calls, and what our customers are actually happier, because we can spend more time with them at the service counter. Right, we can deliver the car and give them the value. And and that's a really hard thing to get most of these people to understand. It is not car count. Its average repair order.
David Roman 18:27
We say that so much. Like in the groups, you would think everybody would just understand it. I just don't understand that. I mean, it's a math game at the end of the day. It's like, what if we triple your Aaro? When we cut your car count by third? Isn't it the same dollar amount? Yeah. Okay, so what's the problem? It's like i The hardest part is getting the car in the door. But tripling the ARR is not that difficult?
Lucas Underwood 18:54
Oh, it's easy. Well,
Maylan Newton 18:56
I want you guys to think about something.
David Roman 18:58
I wouldn't call it easy dinner.
Maylan Newton 19:00
Well, in theory, it is, you know, the problem easier than getting the car on the door. Correct. But here's our problem is most of us. We don't want to do the math. We don't like the numbers. Maybe, and I want you to think about something. If if you raised your average repair order $200 It's really not that much to a customer. It's a bit but it's not too much. But what would it mean to the business? Oh, it wouldn't be huge. It's huge. At the end of the year, it's little little dollars over a long period of time.
David Roman 19:36
Was like, a quarter million dollars. Yes. Me more than that my show. Yeah.
Maylan Newton 19:43
And that's one of the things. That's one of the things that I tried to do when we coach people as to say, look, this is what you're leaving on the table. Because we're too busy doing a car for 1.2 hours. You know, and if we if we raise that to two point eight, here's the results.
David Roman 20:02
Every single shop I've ever seen, run that low Aaro. Or let that low build hour per hour, I was not doing inspections now, right? Where the inspection processes is really, really superficial, they're
Maylan Newton 20:15
or they're doing inspections. And the service writer isn't selling anything.
David Roman 20:20
I don't know, man. I've never been in a shop, I'm sure you've been in more shops or but I've never been in a shop where they have a good inspection process. The technician is doing the inspection properly. In the in the service advisors just ignoring the information, it's a loose ball joint, the bad brakes like not that
Maylan Newton 20:40
they're ignoring the information. But as a service advisor, we've got those $90,000 with the work in there. And so I don't have time to do it anyway, I'm not going to commit to doing it. I don't want to bring it up.
Lucas Underwood 20:52
It's so funny, because that is exactly what is happening in that shot. Because he brought that up. He's like, you know, they're saying, well, we don't have time to get that in right now. But we'll get you in a couple of months. Right? Well, he plays out. Exactly. And so they're, you know, somebody else is doing the work and, and, you know, man, I sympathize with the owner in this case. And I think the tech is picking up on that I sympathize with him. And the reason being is because he's talking about, you know, look, he's coming to me, and he's saying, I need this done. I need you to help me train the new GS techs, I need you to help me do this. I need you to help me do that. And I sympathize for the simple fact that I've been in those shoes. You don't realize how a he's not. He's not seeking the knowledge that fixes it. Right. So that's part of the problem. But be he is so overworked that he can't see the forest for the trees. He can't see that he's burning this takeout. He can't see that he's running his team ragged. He's just going as hard as he can. He's ragged. So he he gets this attitude that he expects others to do as much or more than what he's doing right now. Because he's running himself. So rag.
Maylan Newton 22:02
Let me ask you a question. How old's the owner? Don't have a clue.
Lucas Underwood 22:05
I don't know. 40s? I would think 50s.
Maylan Newton 22:10
So, baby boomer. Probably. Okay. And as tech as a
Lucas Underwood 22:16
guy, yeah, probably my
Maylan Newton 22:19
mid 30s. Okay, so we have a generational problem there too. Right? Baby Boomers live to work. And the other generations work to live, right. He doesn't want to put 80 hours in. Yeah. And see, that's the other part of our problem as our average age of shop owners goes up 54 years old now is the young people don't want to work the same hours as we do with inferior infuriates us. Yeah, I have a 25 year old son who drives me crazy, right because of that. But we have to find a way of working around that. And the owner needs somebody to keep him on track. He needs an accountability partner.
Lucas Underwood 22:59
But I mean, how do you do that when the guy is absolutely committed that he doesn't need that he doesn't want that he doesn't believe that, right? Because we talked about coaching, here's we've shared that with him. It's not
David Roman 23:09
even I mean, I don't know that I would float the idea of a coach because I think for if the guy's making money, he may not be like overly profitable. But if he's, he's pulling in 1.2 $1.5 million a year. You walk up to him, he's like, you need some coaching. It's like, I'm running a 1.5 million. He's like, starting from the ground up. He's guy about coaching.
Lucas Underwood 23:33
He's got three locations, they've got three locations. All of them are like massive locations. Right? These are big shots, too. So I mean, you're right. I mean, he is absolutely unwilling to even hear the concept.
David Roman 23:47
Here's where he's going to run into a problem though. Here's, this is what he's facing. I see this a lot. Shop owners will. How do I word this? They will become complacent about their staff. And for example, what would happen if this employee left tomorrow
Lucas Underwood 24:15
the owner would likely be in some pretty
David Roman 24:18
right. I see this all the time. I remember talking to a shop owner. They had bought the business and the business when they bought it they were expecting it to turn specific numbers. That's how the business was sold and presented to them. And of course, the guy had manipulated the numbers to make it look like this was a moneymaker the struggling because they didn't know anything about automotive repair. The the way the business was structured was there was one technician that was doing the money making work, and then everybody else will support staff, one technician. I see a lot of shops set up that way. Absolutely. I've got a guy my guy, my guy. It's like okay, great. What how happens when that employee leaves?
Lucas Underwood 25:00
Or what happens if he dies? What happens if he gets hurt
David Roman 25:04
or anything? Right? But more often than not, it's not catastrophic. It's the person gets burnt out, they don't get paid enough. They're not they get overworked, overstressed. And what do they do they find somebody else that will promise them that it's the sun, the moon or the stars, or they leave the industry. And they go work for an HVAC tech or a company or they go become a lineman somewhere or whatever. They leave the industry. And it was because they got overworked. And they were under compensated underappreciated, and the entire business hinged on that production guy. And that production guy leaves, all of a sudden, the business falls apart. And they're like, oh, I need to find somebody. So what do they do? They just hire anybody. Right? And in their minds, there's always somebody else to go out there. They haven't maybe faced reality of what the industry looks like, as far as help NGOs. And they haven't structured their business around. That this was this is huge for me. I Lose a Guy. We're just slightly busier than we were yesterday. I do not have a single tech that is holding my entire business up. Yeah, exactly. I have structured it that way for a specific reason, because I understand. It just takes one one bad afternoon where you piss somebody off or they piss you off or whatever, or knacks anything, right in that person's gone and all of a sudden the businesses and make any money.
Maylan Newton 26:27
Oh, very good. Points, David. But here's something neither one of us has talked about yet. That guy who's got unrealistic expectations. Everybody in town knows that. So nobody wants to work for that person. Right? So even if that guy leaves, and there's a great tech out there he goes. I'm not working for that guy.
David Roman 26:47
I've seen how they run new.
Maylan Newton 26:48
Yeah. And so reputation is huge. Yeah. And you're absolutely correct, that you can't have your business hinged on one person, just like you can have one customer. You can't live off of one time customers, you need repeat customers. Yeah. And it's the same way in the shop. And we have to find a way have realistic expectations, treating the employees properly, not being driven by cashflow.
Lucas Underwood 27:15
Yeah, I remember the days of you know, I really remember the days of being dependent on a car dealer. Right? Man, that is a, you know, and I see a lot of shops do that. Right? They don't they want to bring their own parts. They don't want you to charge them anything. They you know, a lot of car dealers have the worst. Yeah. And a lot of shops start out. And that's where they start out and need to be starved out.
David Roman 27:37
Well, it's basically a
Lucas Underwood 27:42
headphone plan. And
Maylan Newton 27:44
it's part of we as shops, we need to learn to say no, yeah. All right. So we need
David Roman 27:51
to do when you're first starting out, though, and you don't.
Maylan Newton 27:55
But how many times have you taken a car? And because you're slow, that's eaten your lunch? Oh, yeah, sure. You know, I call them alligators. They bite you on the ass and you drag them around for months, years? Yeah. And we have to be confident enough in our abilities to not take the bottom feeders as I call them, and
David Roman 28:14
even see them as bottom feeders. It was one vehicle, okay, I learned my lesson. Hey, you'd be proud of me. So we had this Subaru come in. And this customer had gotten upset at us. Because we were we were busy. And he had an AC problem. We fix this AC problem. He came back and we didn't even fix it. We had filled it dyed it and said, hey, when it runs out because it will give me a call. We'll get you in. We'll get it checked out. He calls and we say you got to drop it off. And he's like, Well, I don't I don't want to drop it off. Or whatever that I remember. No more like, we're like, no, no, that's not how this works dear. You have to drop off the car because we need time to be able to look at the vehicle. We don't want to get rushed this at any other we gave him 1000 excuses. We said we can get you in a loaner? No, no, I want it today. I want it looked at today. It's hot. And what I understand it's hot. We need to we can get to it today. You have to drop it off though. You can't wait in the lobby. He got upset and he's like you know what, forget it. You didn't eat and he ended up bumping my five star review down to four. Okay, fine. didn't hear from him for like six months, something like that. The other day he sets an appointment shows up because you haven't gone as a shop and I really don't like them. I prefer just come here and I understand I have to wait. I'll just wait. Okay. Well, he had a misfire on a Subaru with 209,000 miles on it. And he had just taken it to shop for plugs and coils right? misfire came back and he goes they fixed it. It ran great for a while but now it's back and I just don't know if they're gonna be well find the problem like Well, we'll find the problem. By the way, it's probably gonna need heads. And he's like, Well, what do you mean? Like super, it's gonna write. Well, it needed heads, but I'm like my tackle will find, like for sure I'll be able to tell you for sure that it's gonna need heads while needs heads. Now, all David, what is that? $4,000 I can take the heads off and so no machine shop, they'll stick the exhaust valve seats and clean everything up and we'll slap that sucker back on. Yep, 290,000 miles, we'll get a tire and it'll be great. Oh, God.
Lucas Underwood 30:31
I've learned that lesson, buddy.
David Roman 30:33
Now, hey, we can do a long walk from from Subaru that's going to be $11,000. Or I can do a low mileage used engine. But when I get it here, the hats come off. It's gonna have 80,000 miles on it. But the heads come off, everything gets cleaned, inspected and rebuilt the entire just a heads we're not rebuilding the engine, but we're taking the heads off because that's the that's the problem child on these cars will take the heads off son on the machine shop more cyber back together mobile in the car. $7,800. Do that. Decide what you want to do? What do you think that's it? Oh, we'll find out on Monday, I guess I don't know. But I'm telling you like, I absolutely want to slap heads on Optune or 9000 miles?
Lucas Underwood 31:15
Not well.
Maylan Newton 31:17
But way back in the beginning, Lucas, you had to pay tuition. You did foolish things? Oh, yeah. And you spent a lot of money fixing those foolish things. And I used to I tell people all the time, I used to write a policy and procedure in my shop and it costs me money or piss me off. Right, right. And so when it costs me money ripping me off, I go write something down. And we're not doing what so
David Roman 31:39
many times I've taught like, how do you start a policy manual? You write down? What pissed you off that day? What do you mean? Like something is set you off? Something has gone wrong in the shop, something has made you angry, something that you're yelling about for the fifth time. But Why does nobody pick up this road or box it's an on the floor or whatever. That's what you write a policy on? Well, and every single day you write a new policy for something that set you off. And eventually, in about a month or two, you're gonna have an entire policy manual.
Lucas Underwood 32:05
What's so amusing about this is David has a policy. David has a policy that says no older vehicles then said year and what does David do? David over writes the policy frequently,
David Roman 32:17
frequently, not not frequently, and you would be proud of me. So we took this 97 F 250. And it was an alligator just completely decimated me. decimated me. I think we're in it for about 4000 Anyway,
Lucas Underwood 32:29
he still wants
David Roman 32:31
the guy the guy loves us, by the way, because I you know, gave away $4,000 in repairs anyway. So he, he leaves in like the next week, we get a lady that calls and she's like, Hey, I've got this existing customer. She's like, Hey, I got this 99 Ford f150. And I'm like, You should say 99. She's like, Yeah, I'm like, Okay, you can bring it down. I'll take a look at it. It needs a clutch or something like that. It showed up? It was a 92. It's close. Yeah. Just a few years. Just a few. Well, a 99. We can probably work on I'll probably be okay with that. And I need to we're talking I think I was on the phone with a show different, completely different. Everything. Everything is complete straight six. Just like it's got a distributor. No, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. No. And I called her and I'm like, listen to you. I'm sorry. I'd love to work on this car for you. But it was a 92 My crew doesn't work on distributor. What is
Lucas Underwood 33:37
he you know, in the it was very funny because he said, I can't remember how it came up. But we're talking about the one that got him so good. The $4,000 Alligator. And he says, yeah, he's like, it turns out that there's this gear on the bottom of the distributor and the roll pin had broken. I was like you didn't check it. He's like, No, I was like, so you didn't like pull the cap off and make sure it was turned in when you hit the key. You do that? Yeah,
David Roman 34:03
look to my end really like this was an experience because my ticket he had actually found the problem. Because he's he had sculpted and he had an insole under pressure transducer with a trigger on the ignition. And he's like, why is the timing of the ignition 20 degrees after top dead center. And I go, What is like it's 20 degrees after top dead center. And I go I don't think it can adjust it that far out. There's something wrong. I don't know what it is. But there's something wrong
Maylan Newton 34:42
with you young whippersnappers. That was a big problem with Ford's Sure. Yeah. Yeah, it was and and you know, that's where the generations come in to, you know, if you're not used to working on that vehicle distributors, right. I remember this I will lamb when he came out You know what to fix her HEI was get rid of the right away and put appointing a distributor because nobody could diagnose it. Right. In that just reinforces the idea of, we don't need to work on everything. Yeah, we work on what we're good at and what makes us money. You know, I call it the sweet spot. What are the sweet spot cars that we work on? And why are we trying to fix everything on the highway? And why are we trying to fix cars for people who don't want to invest money in them? Right, right. Yeah. And to me, a diagnostic charge and inspection fee is a qualifier, amen. Amen. If they don't pay you to inspect it, they're not going to pay you to fix it. Right? And, and we don't we need you as an industry. Stop trying to accommodate every person with a car.
Lucas Underwood 35:49
Well, you know, we've talked a lot about improving our industry, right? We've talked a lot about that. And it's something that's come up over and over again, and there's, there's lots of things we can do. But I think that's one of the keys is that we have got to start setting proper expectations with the consumer, right. And so if you want the Ruth's Chris's steakhouse steak, you're not going to get anything Donald's, right, it's not gonna happen. And you're not going to come into my shop and get my skill of technician, you're not going to get the quality and the amenities that we provide, you're not going to get your car washed. For the Jiffy Lube price. That's not going to have charges a lot there. Yeah, well, but I mean, you kind of get my drift that you're
David Roman 36:36
I think the bigger issue though is is at the very least, the base level needs to be set. And I think that's that's where we run into the the analogy doesn't doesn't work. Because the there are some people that buy McDonald's, some people they'll buy Ruth's Chris. Okay, great. You can be the Ruth's. Chris, all you want. But if the person going to McDonald's, and Ruth's Chris thinks that steak a steak, exactly. That's where I was going doesn't matter. That's where it's all the same. They don't understand that no, no deer had the Ruth's Chris steak is so much better. Because they don't they don't see, well a cow. They don't see the cut of meat. You know, it all tastes the same to them at the end of the day. And so you know, you have those those repair shops that are dealing use dealers. There was a couple down in Alabama, nice people. The guy, I mean, he was going broke in he was trying to feed his family from the shop, the the revenue that was making at the shop, and he was like he was going broke. He didn't 500 bucks in the account. And that's in his personal and business account. Like he didn't have any money. And you asked him like what we're currently working on, like, oh, this these three or four US car lots bring me all our cars. And they bring you their parts, don't they? Yeah, they bringing you their parts? Okay. He couldn't he hadn't developed any phone skills, light. And so advertising becomes an issue. And by the way, the reason why you say yes to everything is because you spent a ridiculous amount of money on on advertising. So it becomes a yes to everybody except anything older than 2000. Sort of. It's a sort of Yes. But mostly Yes. Mostly yes.
Lucas Underwood 38:25
But I mean, and I'm not disagreeing with that. But my point is, is like right now, I spend a fortune on advertising because I know I'm getting ready to expand, I know, I'm going to need more volume. But if I say yes to everyone that's calling me, dude, we get 70 calls a day. If I say yes to every person that calls
David Roman 38:42
but you know, I think it is important to put some qualifier in there. Because if it is older than 99, I get calls from like, hey, I need my 74 Monte Carlo rewired, it's like, Dude, I don't require 74 Monte Carlos, that's right restoration work, I don't do that. We get Body Shop calls, and you try to like move around new keywords or whatever. And, and the other thing, too, is, I'm happy to check that check engine light for you, we will scan the car for free. However, after we've scanned it, we're going to come up with a testing protocol testing starts at X amount of dollars goes all the way up to this way in that price range. There's usually where it falls 80% of the time we find the problem in that price range. Would you like to proceed? Yeah, if they say no harm, you can charge me how much just to do what? That surprisingly only happens maybe 20% of the time, the rest of the time. Again, the key is the confidence and how you say this is how this is how it's gonna go. I'm just letting you know now. I don't want you to show up thinking that I'm going to go shop down the street diagnose it for free, do you roll it into the repair? No, no, this is a completely different function. Yeah.
Maylan Newton 39:50
And see that's part of the problem with our industry. And this is the change that we need to campaign for is we got to get all of the shops that are Rolling that into the repair slot and doing these mega diagnosis is with the free check engine light. Because there's no value. Well, and
Lucas Underwood 40:09
I mean, they're taking advantage of the technician to where they're taking advantage of the technician. And so even
David Roman 40:14
if they're not, though, remember what Cody said, they would actually, they would show up, that'd be four different codes for different testing protocols unrelated to each other, right? He would do the diagnosis, they would actually pill, pay him for the four hours of diagnosis. And then they would discount three of it. And then the customer only saw that $120 diag fee. That's it, they didn't realize that that technician just spent half a day diagnosing your car.
Lucas Underwood 40:43
Well, and so that that kills the value. And man, there's so many aspects of this on the other side of it. And I was, I was interviewed by Wired magazine the other day, and she did not publish the part where I said, like, I didn't think that most shops should be working on some of the modern cars, right? Because it was a question about a das right? And I'm like, Hey, some of these, like, she said, Well, is it making it more difficult to work on cars? And I said, Listen, a lot of the shops that are working on these cars should not be working on these cars, let's be real about it. I mean, they really should not. And I think it causes safety issues. And just because we don't see it yet, doesn't mean that they aren't there. So I think across the board, like, I don't think the consumer understands how serious this really is. I don't think they understand.
David Roman 41:30
They need to have, we need to have a baseline level of competency of business acumen something because like used cars, if the if the used car dealer, if you all of a sudden at your shop, say hey, you can't bring your own parts to retail price. Yep, you're going to be scheduling like everybody else. If you don't take my recommended repair, I'm not patching it, it's gonna be a full repair nothing. If you set your foot down, what are they gonna do, they're gonna dip out, they're gonna, they're gonna find the guy that just opened up, and he's gonna run this guy ragged until he tells me to flip
Lucas Underwood 42:05
and that you are their profit margin. That's what I don't think shops understand is that you are the profit margin, they are taking your repair and the cheaper you will do it. You are increasing their profit margin. But yes, who takes the liability? I've learned this lesson. It's not the car dealer.
Maylan Newton 42:22
It's many years ago, we did some work for a used car dealer. I mean, everybody in the business has done it. Right. Yeah. And we check the cars out, they wouldn't and prove everything that sell the cars. And then the customer started showing up at my counter saying, you repair this. And we look it up, go. No, they didn't have us repair that when they said you repaired this. Yep. So I went over and told the guy, your service departments needs to take care of this because I did what you asked me to do maintenance inspection, oil change smog check. told you what needed you wanted me to do one, you know, the rear brakes on it. Not the oil leak. not this not this nice. And they were blaming us for now my reputation has taken a hit.
Lucas Underwood 43:05
Yeah, and I absolutely will given any chance.
Maylan Newton 43:08
But but here's the kicker, this goes back to numbers, right. So I started out just like everybody else, right? I had to learn things. I sat down and put pen to paper to this. We were doing $30,000 A month in sales with them. But it was costing me $29,000 to do it. Right? Because I would take the entire crew six people to deliver cars and pickup cars. Oh, yeah. Christmas Eve. We're delivering cars because they want them for the weekend. You know, the Christmas weekend. So I got six people shuffling cars. Who am I billing for that? Yeah. And I'll be the first one to raise my hand and go What a dumbass. But I saw the volume. And I said I can make plenty of this. Yeah. And it's like you said a minute ago. You know, the guy's doing a million half dollars. That's irrelevant. Yeah, because it's net profit. It's gross profit that matters. Because I know shops that gross profit very well and net profit very well off have very little gross sales.
Lucas Underwood 44:05
We we got an email a while back from a guy. And he basically said I'm doing $1.4 million a year but I am I don't have any money. It's going broke, right? Like I'm using my credit card, my credit cards are full and then I'll pay off a little bit just so I can pay the bills, and it just never stops. And so that's really what it came down to. And he started looking at his numbers. He's like, no, no, no, no, I've got this for an effective labor rate. No, that's what your that's what your system is showing you. What your guys are billing six hours and 12 hours a week. And you're saying well, my effective labor rates 140 nonfood because they're billing six and 12. Yet you're building transmissions and you're doing all this and you're not accounting for your labor. You're doing all of this work. There's not getting billed for. So yeah, they're really working a lot more than that. You're paying them hourly $25 An hour your cost of labor. Labor is much higher per build hour than you ever thought it was. Right it came out to some Unlike $67, a build hour or something like that, it was way more than that. It was crazy. But you know, he's over here going broke, because he doesn't understand how to financially run the business, you can make a ton of money, you can generate a ton of revenue that doesn't go learn exactly doesn't mean you're making any of it doesn't mean you're keeping any. My point,
David Roman 45:21
though, is that for a guy that's doing that kind of volume, it is really difficult for them to face reality and realize that hey, you know, this, there's, you don't know what you're doing, even though you're doing 1.5 million or to do, he did 3 million he did, he did. But it's rare. It's also just as difficult for the guy that's comfortable. He's doing six or $700,000 a year. He's taken home, you know, $50,000 a year and he's comfortable living like that. drives him old pickup truck. Cheap house is not a fancy lifestyle. And you're like,
Lucas Underwood 45:57
so how do we counter that? Because that's that devalues the industry to a degree, right? Absolutely.
Maylan Newton 46:03
If you if you looked at that guy, $50,000 a year? How many hours? Is he working? Yeah. Okay, and divide that into 50. And that gives you an hourly rate.
David Roman 46:14
He's making pin 20 bucks an hour. Yeah.
Maylan Newton 46:17
If that. Yeah, to be honest with you if that right. And, you know, not to toot my own horn, but that's something that I tried to do is break the numbers down into this is what you're making per hour. Is that worth the aggravation? The stress? This is gonna kill you. Yeah. And you're doing that for, you know, $20 an hour, and I have owners, this is hilarious. In an ironic sense, they come to me and go, I'm not paying my employees more than I'm making. Okay, then you need to make more money, because you're not gonna get good employees unless you pay them. Why
Lucas Underwood 46:50
did you give yourself a $500 week paycheck? If that's
sometimes right, I can't say
David Roman 46:56
I don't want to pay myself. Yeah, that's not even the thing. The what? I tried to take the angle of what is the what's going to happen when you're, you're 6065 70. And you can't, you can't come into the business and work every single day. Or, you know, at 50, you know, you have a heart attack or whatever, like, what happens then
Maylan Newton 47:19
the fallacy is they won't make 60 or 65. Yeah, right. They're gonna drop that before that, unfortunately. Yeah. And their families, the legacy of their businesses gone. It's
Lucas Underwood 47:32
the business is a burden now, absolutely. As opposed to a benefit, the business is a burden. And nobody knows how to handle it, manage it, what to do next how to save this,
Maylan Newton 47:42
and, and even if, and I've done this for people, the spouse will call me up and go, Malan, I don't know what to do. And I'll get on a plane and I'll go look at the company, and I'll even run the company. And I tell them, it's going to take five to 10 years to make the sellable. Yeah, well, they want to wait five to 10 years. Yeah. Right. And sometimes they can't afford
David Roman 48:00
to five to 10 years of hard work hard work.
Maylan Newton 48:03
Yeah. And it's like, wholesaler, you know, just auction it off.
Lucas Underwood 48:09
Yeah, I saw that happen. I saw that happened two weeks ago. Right. It got wholesale, I shared it on a on Facebook, and had had I been in a position, you know, if the shop had been done, and we were cashloan. In the new shop, I probably would have tried to go for it. But you know, the right price, there was a good price. Yeah. And so the
David Roman 48:26
Midland and Atlanta, everything landed everything, and for pennies.
Lucas Underwood 48:32
And he had been so cheap. He had been running this shop for, you know, 60 years. And and the shop was not worth anything. And the staff was aged out to the point that they they couldn't go with the business because anybody who wants to run a repair shop, it wasn't going to work. And so, you know, she came to me and we talked and I said, Look, I said you got two options, you you can take what you've got right now and can take it and make it worth something. But it's going to take time because you've got to be able to start showing net profit, you got to show that you're paying rent, you got to show that you're paying yourself, all those things take time. And there again, we talked fallacies will, the number of people we even did a review of a video that we set and watched where the guy says in the video, my accountant told me that I should make sure I make as close to zero as possible. Right. And I
David Roman 49:23
was okay with that. Well, but but he was on a growth phase.
Lucas Underwood 49:27
Right. But you understand what I'm saying though, right? From that aspect. Like if you want to sell the business, if you want to get a loan, right, those two things kind of depend on you show a net profit, or at least cash flow. But
Maylan Newton 49:42
and you also have to factor in the cash that's never reported. Yeah. And people go well, I took 100 grand out of the company.
Lucas Underwood 49:50
Where's that? Prove it to me? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Maylan Newton 49:54
You know, because that's the value of the business anybody wants to buy the ability for it to pay its bills and make money right
David Roman 50:00
Silas? Well, that's if you're putting yourself in that particular position. I guess what I'd be if the if the guy was building multiple streams of revenue, through the business in the business around the business, whatever. He was socking money away into a retirement account, he was diversifying where where that money would come from in the in the when when he can't work any longer. I'd be okay with him not showing money on the bottom line. Sure. But that's a 10th of 1% of people, you know,
Maylan Newton 50:37
and that's provable. If you say, look, I put this much money in retirement, I did this, I invested in this. You know, here's, here's the core money. And this is what I did with it. Yeah, it's provable income. Yeah, yeah. Right, in some manner. But when it just vaporizes, yeah,
David Roman 50:52
the Oh, yeah, that's what I had to, I knew of a business, they will say where it was, or how I knew him. But he kept two books, he kept a cash book and a non cash book, in the non cash book, there were about the same dollar amount wise. But if somebody wanted to come in, and they wanted to skip out on some of the fees and costs of the transaction, sure, they would show up with cash, you know, all the lot of the paperwork would vaporize, and all of a sudden, you know, and the guy was making a good living. On paper, he was probably taking home 30,000 miles a year, but he was making way more than to put on the deal.
Maylan Newton 51:35
And here's here's something to think about. I am not the sharpest crayon in the box. But when I look at people's p&l, I know they're doing that. And so I tell them, you know, you're not telling me the whole truth, we got to be honest with each other, if you want my evaluation, right. And I sit down once you think about some, the government's been $15 million on software that does nothing but look for people hiding cash. They're much smarter than I am. If I can tell it off your books. Yeah, can't they? You know, it may not be for a while. But that may come back and bite you down the road? I'm not. I don't care what you do in your business. I'm just saying, You got to be very smart about this. Yeah. And, you know, we really need to change the entry level person in our industry, to where they don't come in and try to be the lowest price person. Yeah, that they come in, and they pay their people well, and there's benefits, yeah. And that their business survives, and they could put money in a retirement account.
Lucas Underwood 52:31
But so much of that comes back to be most of the guys who come in and start a shop or a technician. And then all of them almost right, they thought that they could do it better. They thought that they could fix it, they thought that the way that you get more clients is charge less than everybody else. They thought, oh, look, he's just taken advantage of such and such. And that's why you know, and I deal with this, so, so I started building a new shop, right? And I got word from some of my vendors. And some of my friends like, hey, the other shops in town don't really care for you. And I'm like, Well, why is that? And I was talking to a close friend of mine, whose apartment and he said, Look, he said when I started expanding the parts business. He said a lot of people to other parts stores really hated my guts. And he said they tried to come up with every reason of why I've been so successful. Right? And he said, they were looking for everything. It's he's screwing people, it's he's taken advantage of people, he shouldn't have to advertise. If he was doing a good job, he wouldn't need to advertise what's the sense and this and that? Right,
Maylan Newton 53:32
Flintstones.
Lucas Underwood 53:34
And so and like, I started hearing that from some of the other people that worked for shops, so you must be paying people to leave you reviews, you must be this, you must be that right? And, and so we're talking about it. And I said, you know, he said, a lot of them think because you recommend things on vehicles that you're ripping people off. And I said, Dude, I said, if I didn't recommend these things, I said they need to come listen to the process of us making these recommendations. Because we're not saying you have to do these things. We're saying that, hey, we want you to be prepared for life for this vehicle for six months to a year. We're not saying that this has to be done right now. We're not saying that you're going to die. If you pull out in the parking lot with this car. We're trying to educate you. We're trying to act as advocates for you. And that's, that's the big thing. And I know everybody's tired of hearing me harp about this. But I believe we've got to get to the point that we're advocates for the consumer, as opposed to mechanics and technicians.
Maylan Newton 54:30
100% agree with you. But here's the thing, everybody. It's ever been in the repair shop business at a customer say ever since you worked on my car, right? Yeah, 99% of the time. It's because we didn't tell them what to expect. These things are going to give you problems. Yeah. So I look at it is I'm protecting my reputation, and I'm just gonna tell you what's wrong with your car. Right? You decide what to do with it. Exactly. And if you don't want me to fix it, I won't fix it. But when you break down don't come Back and blame me for Absolutely. So it's a matter of kind of protecting our reputation to some degree. But here's the most important thing because I had this happen to me. My daughter went to college, right? 1700 miles away from home, and dad couldn't take care of her. And she's a smart, intelligent woman. But I'm still dad, right, right. I went to a repair shop in Colorado, and I said, Here's my credit card, put this on file. My daughter's gonna bring her car to you. Whatever it needs, you call me and tell me about it. I just want a heads up on it. And so through three and a half years, I fixed everything they asked for. I never question them. I said, fix it, fix it, fix it, fix it. The last year she was in college, I'm going out to pick her up and bring her home. She's done with college. She goes, Dad, do you want me to get the oil changed in the truck? I said, Absolutely. You know, have to look it over. And let's make sure everything's good. We got this 1700 Mile Drive. So they check the car out. Just do an oil change to it. I fly in, we unload the dorm room in the sorority house and all the stuffs that accumulated loaded it up. We're driving down 20 interstate 20 there in Colorado. At my normal speed was about 85 miles an hour guy pulls over in front of me hit the brakes kind of hard to steer all shakes out of my hand. So every time I stepped on the brakes, all the way home to California. I was pissed, right? Yeah. I take it to one of my clients shops and I go, here's what happens. They check that out. And I happen to be there for the day and he comes in goes well, we need to do front brakes. The rotors are warped. I said, Okay, replace the order rotors put new brake pads on it. I don't want anything. You know, half assed. Yeah, he goes, but that's not the biggest problem. What do you mean? It needs four tires, all four tires? The where bars are very predominant. Right? We just drove all the way home. And what was the one thing is that you have to do? Make sure to say take care of my daughter right now. And they failed me in the biggest way. And I feel that if we don't inspect cars, and we don't tell the customer, we failed them. Amen. That's our job.
Lucas Underwood 57:10
I agree. Right? It's not
Maylan Newton 57:12
about selling anything. Yeah, most of your people, you don't have to hard sell. I don't teach hard sales, right. But I do tell them this, what's wrong with it? If you want to take care of it? We can, right. And my job is to make sure their car last. And you know, I actually tell people, my job is to make sure your cars car last longer in the car payments, right? And they'll do that by inspecting and telling you you decide what you want to fix. And that shop failed me in the most basic way because they didn't listen to me, which was take care of my daughter. Right? And don't you agree that somebody gives you their credit card and it says fix everything is a pretty good customer? Absolutely. So we didn't go back into that shop. When she went out and finished the year, she had a little bit left. And so when we left, I went to the shop. And I introduce myself because we don't really talk over the telephone, right? Because now we haven't seen Sonny's car in quite a while. And I said let me tell you why. And then he gave me all the excuses of why it wasn't their fault that they didn't find the tires and the record and brakes. All of this said, look, it's an excuse. Somebody didn't do their job. I don't know who it is. I'm just here to tell you that. Right? So they failed me
David Roman 58:25
for filling a lot of people.
Lucas Underwood 58:29
But but they're Tality. Right? And but here's the problem is that those shops that are doing that, right, I'm surrounded by it. I am absolutely surrounded by those shops. Not only do they face tremendous liability, but those are the shops who are telling clients that everybody else is ripping them off. Absolutely. And I hate to hurt feelings, but I'm going to those are the shops who are ripping them off. Absolutely. Those are the shops that are doing this. Those are the shops who are causing the problem.
Maylan Newton 58:58
And those are the shops that aren't attending training. Those are the shops are attending not only technical training, but the management side of it. Yeah. To where they can become better at what they do. You know, I've done this a very long time. And I learned something new every day. Yeah, somebody teaches me something that makes me better at what I do. Right? And work in the service kind of Demeter has a lot of fun, right? And I asked for everything. Yeah, it doesn't hurt my feelings if they go No. Right. But I know that I've done my job in the shops done their job. And that's the misinformation by given by these people that aren't doing the correct things, the value things right. damage our industry. But here's our problem is our industry as independent repair shops, all these great associations and everything. We're not pushing the knowledge of independent repair shops. Yeah, you know, now once you think about this If every independent repair shop in the United States, everyone gave $100 What kind of marketing campaign could we give? For the independent repair shops and the value they provide to the shaman? Right? Yep. Yep. But, you know, I liken this to back when eggs got the bad rap. And the board started this egg campaign. Right. Yeah. And the beef board and the milk board. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, my little soapbox recently as I went to Atlanta, Georgia with SkillsUSA a group. And there's about 35,000 skilled workers there. Yes, lots of industries. But automotive was part of this auto refinishing auto repair that contest, right. Do you know who was represented there? The dealerships? The only thing that dealerships did the manufacturers did was they donated 25 cars for some of the testing and contests and stuff, right. In California, they use the BMW Training Center. They did all the contests there. But there were no independent associations represented at this event. None. It's crazy. In California, we local state. Organization. CCA. Well, this is the skills Oh, okay. Group. So they have regionals, or states. And then the winners of state go to national, right? Correct. So at the state level, I sit on the board of directors certain skills, California. And it was the first year since a pandemic, we were able to do this. So I went to this event. We have 5000 skilled workers. And I was the only automotive person in the building
Lucas Underwood 1:01:49
is crazy.
Maylan Newton 1:01:52
Right? The police were there, the army was there, the Navy was there, the Coast Guard was there. The carpenters union was there, the electrical unit was there. So where are these these kids getting pushed to? This is our missing group of people that come into our force, they start deciding on a career path in junior high school, and we're not there. We are too independent. Do
Lucas Underwood 1:02:15
you know? You know who Dave garrison is?
Maylan Newton 1:02:21
The name is familiar, but I don't know. Dave
Lucas Underwood 1:02:23
garrison is a C suite coach on a metamodel flight a while back. And so really interesting, because some of the things that Dave talks about, he doesn't work with, with repair shops, right? He works with I think he's got probably 50 to 60, fortune 500 C suites that he coaches. And he said, you know, he said, what I teach, what, what I'm here to do, is to keep them grounded in the cultures of the company. Because he said, anybody can go up there and make decisions that make lots of money, but it can erode the culture of the company, it can change what the culture of the company is. It's not just about improving, and I've got a white paper brochure he sent me it's just amazing. But it's hand drawn, right? And he explains that that you can go up and you can go up and eventually, you can go back down the other side, right. And so one of the things that he brought up in this flight, because he explains this on a napkin, I've still got it's an American Airlines napkin, he's writing this out. And he says, you know, the deciding factor is that compelling purpose. And I'm like, What do you mean? He said, Every organization has to have a compelling purpose. And he said, you said it, and he's whether you know it or not, you've set the compelling purpose. And it makes me think about these automotive organizations. What is our compelling purpose? Right? Because if we don't have an aligned, compelling purpose, what is it we're trying to accomplish? And that's my thing, when I look at all these organizations I'm a part of and I work with, what is our compelling purpose? Is it to get members? Is it to is it to hold shows? Or is it to improve our industry?
Maylan Newton 1:04:07
That's my big soapbox, is if everybody from the shop owner to the president of Napa had one thought and one thought only. And that was to improve the aftermarket repair industry. We'd be much better off. I agree. We're too many little fiefdoms, too many little personal interest things, you know, and for as long as I can remember, my goal has always been to help the industry. That's why I do what I do. I want to help the industry, right. And it's sometimes one shop at a time, right? I want to help the industry. That's my driving factor. I stopped worrying about making money. I stopped chasing the dollar because that's what put me in the hospital and caused me to have a stroke. Right, right. And I decided in the hospital I'm just going to do what's right for the industry. I'm going to go where I'm needed. And everything's been taken care of, for me. I've made money. I'm happier. I think the industry has gotten a little bit better because of what little bit I can contribute. I agree. But we need to hold industry thinking that way. It's summed up like this, where there was an event in Southern California and a shop owner invited me to it, it was a group of kids showing up for a car show or something. And he goes, I'm gonna go participate in that, because I'm going to look for employees. And I said, wrong reason to go. You need to go with the idea of bringing these people into the industry. And organically, you'll find employees. Right, but your purpose to go is to hire somebody. You're failing the industry. My personal opinion. Yeah. You know, and we need our industry to be bringing youth into us. Yeah. You know, because the same people that you're looking for and David, you're looking for to work in your shop, are the same people that NASA is looking for. And Boeing? No, and they have benefits and they pay well, and they don't get dirty, and they don't require $100,000 worth of tools. Did you know that NASA has a high school mentorship program? No, I did not. How many mentorship programs that we have, how many but NASA you in high school, you can go to work for NASA. That's crazy. Because they see the advantage. And don't you think that they're looking for people with good with their hands and think critical thinking?
Lucas Underwood 1:06:36
Yeah, you know, look at what sat exactly what we're looking for.
Maylan Newton 1:06:40
And look at the power of the STEM programs. And we're not represented in the STEM programs typically. Right? Blimey, you blame me? Well, if we're gonna play somebody, let's just blame Lukens. Right. Sounds like a plan.
Lucas Underwood 1:06:54
mela Newton, thank you for sitting down chatting with us.
Maylan Newton 1:06:58
Sorry, this is probably going to be way too long. But I appreciate you guys being here. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and as always, if there's anything I could do to help, I'm here.
Lucas Underwood 1:07:08
Yes, sir. How can I get in touch with you?
Maylan Newton 1:07:10
The easiest way is to email me because I'm never in my office. It's Malan Ma, y l a n at ESI seminars.com.
Lucas Underwood 1:07:20
Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much.
Maylan Newton 1:07:22
Thank you guys. Appreciate all you do.
Lucas Underwood 1:07:24
Yes, sir. Thank you.