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Confessions of a Shop Owner is hosted by Mike Allen, a third-generation shop owner, perpetual pot-stirrer, and brutally honest opinion sharer.  In this weekly podcast, Mike shares his missteps so you don’t have to repeat them. Along the way, he chats with other industry personalities who’ve messed up, too, pulling back the curtain on the realities of running an independent auto repair shop. But this podcast isn’t just about Mike’s journey. It’s about confronting the divisive and questionable tactics many shop owners and managers use. Mike is here to stir the pot and address the painful truths while offering a way forward. Together, we’ll tackle the frustrations, shake things up, and help create a better future for the auto repair industry.
Mike Allen [00:00:00]:
So what we're going to do is at the beginning of this episode, we're going to edit in a disclaimer. It's like, if you don't want to hear people talking about motorcycles, just skip forward 15 minutes or never talk to.
Erich Schmidt [00:00:10]:
Me because you're going to get talk.
Bryan Pollock [00:00:12]:
About motorcycles or go live your boring life.
Mike Allen [00:00:17]:
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, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along. So without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner with your host, Mike Allen.
Bryan Pollock [00:00:49]:
Do you know the story about Billy's mom? Billy's mom told Billy's dad that Billy's dad should really buy him a four stroke. So Billy's dad went and got Billy a new moment.
Mike Allen [00:01:02]:
It's just the whole. Your camera's out of focus, bro.
Erich Schmidt [00:01:04]:
Your camera.
Mike Allen [00:01:05]:
Your camera's focusing on the. On behind you more than it is on you.
Bryan Pollock [00:01:08]:
Is mine. Terrible.
Erich Schmidt [00:01:10]:
Hold on.
Mike Allen [00:01:10]:
All right. It looks like it to me. I don't know.
Erich Schmidt [00:01:12]:
It can't be worse than mine.
Mike Allen [00:01:15]:
There we go. Is that better asset buddy? There we go. And Eric's just using a camera from 1972.
Erich Schmidt [00:01:24]:
It's. It's believe it or not, on like a two year old Lenovo. I can't. I don't know why the camera is so crappy on this thing. It's.
Mike Allen [00:01:33]:
It's laptop based cameras, man. It's no. It's no big deal.
Erich Schmidt [00:01:36]:
Terrible.
Mike Allen [00:01:36]:
It is good though, that your shirt perfectly blends into the background, so you just look like a disembodied head.
Bryan Pollock [00:01:44]:
Oh, yeah, he's just floating.
Erich Schmidt [00:01:47]:
It is kind of wild. I didn't even think that through. Oh, well, whatever.
Mike Allen [00:01:53]:
Don't worry about it. That is far from the worst thing that we'll discuss tonight.
Erich Schmidt [00:01:57]:
Oh, I'm sure.
Mike Allen [00:02:00]:
So I started recording a minute ago while you were talking about getting thrown off of things that you like to ride. So, yeah, reading into that what you will. Eric Schmidt, Auto Care, welcome to the show.
Erich Schmidt [00:02:17]:
Thank you.
Mike Allen [00:02:17]:
I. I'm. I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I don't know that you even played a part in this. We were just talking with your bride on the Internet and she voluntold you, I think is how that worked.
Erich Schmidt [00:02:29]:
That's what she does. She's very good at that. If. If not you would never hear from me because I don't say anybody crawling.
Mike Allen [00:02:38]:
I mean, it's clear to get you talking. Just start talking about motorcycles and we can have an excellent conversation.
Erich Schmidt [00:02:44]:
So.
Mike Allen [00:02:46]:
All right, give me the rundown real quickly. Your business, where you're located, how long you've been in business, what your background is, all that kind of stuff.
Erich Schmidt [00:02:53]:
Yeah, Schmidt Auto Care is our business. We're all makes, all models. We do everything from Euro to domestic. We're in Springboro, Ohio. It's almost perfectly dead center between Cincinnati and Dayton up the 75 corridor. We've been in business, geez, 16 years now.
Bryan Pollock [00:03:18]:
Oh, wow.
Mike Allen [00:03:19]:
Time flies, doesn't it?
Erich Schmidt [00:03:20]:
It does, man. Now, only if I knew what I was doing those other 16 years, we would be in good shape.
Mike Allen [00:03:27]:
You ever think about how much money you would have made if you had just not been a dumbass for the first 10 years? Whatever. However long it was.
Erich Schmidt [00:03:34]:
Yeah. Double what I am right now. I don't even want to think about it. Yeah, we talk about it all the time.
Mike Allen [00:03:42]:
Well, I'm waiting for that switch over where I start making money and then I can think. Man, if only I'd known For the first 20 years what I know now think about. But I'm still.
Bryan Pollock [00:03:51]:
Mike. There's. There's cash in them tools, Mike.
Mike Allen [00:03:55]:
No, there's customer related refunds in them tools if I'm using them. Oh, no, let's be honest.
Bryan Pollock [00:04:05]:
It's good for a man to know his limitations. I like it.
Mike Allen [00:04:08]:
You know what? I can always go back on the counter if I have to and I'll be halfway decent. There was a time when I was really good at it. But don't ever put me in the bay.
Erich Schmidt [00:04:17]:
I hate it nowadays. I'd rather wrench, but I had. I don't wrench much anymore, which is why I have my bike shop. It just kind of gets it out of me. I work on a couple friends or some locals bikes.
Bryan Pollock [00:04:32]:
He's like a dog. He's gotta run. That dog's gotta run.
Mike Allen [00:04:36]:
Say that again. So before we started recording, tell me all the bikes that you have in the room with you right now.
Erich Schmidt [00:04:42]:
So this one that you can kind of see is my buddy Mongers. That is a 540 KTM. It's a O2 Supermoto trim. It's fully built. There's an 03525 that is now a 540. It's an X AMA Pro bike. Actually. It's.
Erich Schmidt [00:05:01]:
It was a factory bike for a while and then I have an 06 SMR450 KTM. And then I have some random dudes CBR600 in this room. And then the big bikes are on the other side of the garage. I've got a 1290 Super Adventure and I got 1290 Super Duke Ridge. And then I got a 570 Hoosberg over there.
Mike Allen [00:05:24]:
So you're a big KTM guy though, kind of across the board, right?
Erich Schmidt [00:05:27]:
I am. I mean, if it were up to me, I would have all who spurgs. But KTM killed them. So now we're at the ktm.
Mike Allen [00:05:39]:
And so as you were explaining all this, Brian was saying that you're not a real man unless you're out of two strike.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:44]:
I didn't say that.
Mike Allen [00:05:45]:
That was the. I was heavily implied.
Bryan Pollock [00:05:47]:
I just.
Erich Schmidt [00:05:48]:
I got a 300. I forgot that. So I got 300 SCW, which is my woods bike. I mean, I got a two stroke. That 300 is a two stroke, friend. I love it. But there's a time and a place for a two stroke man. And an ain't on.
Bryan Pollock [00:06:03]:
Super. When you want to do wheelies and.
Erich Schmidt [00:06:05]:
Go real fast, you need come down these 540s, buddy.
Bryan Pollock [00:06:10]:
I've ridden. I've ridden one of them tractor bikes there too. They're all. They're fast. They're not like they used to was back in the day. The back in the day.
Mike Allen [00:06:18]:
All I know is those new super dukes are packing as much horsepower as my Miata. And yeah, and I mean the torque numbers on it.
Erich Schmidt [00:06:32]:
The torque numbers are wild on his motors, man.
Mike Allen [00:06:36]:
Well, anyway, so do you mostly ride off road or are you doing like fire roads or are you. Do you get to ride much anymore?
Erich Schmidt [00:06:45]:
I ride a decent amount. I am very, very blessed to have a very understanding woman about that. I'm sure. I still ticker off sometimes when I'm like, hey, I'm going riding. Kind of don't give a choice. But I do a little bit of everything, man. So I come from road racing kind of the. If you're unfamiliar with it, kind of the knee dragon crazy dudes and the GP circuits and stuff.
Erich Schmidt [00:07:10]:
So I kind of come from that realm and we kind of transitioned over to off road woods riding. So we do a lot of hard enduro, enduro racing, riding, stuff like that. And then the supermotos are always a cross trainer for road racing for us. And none of us ever gave it up. It's just too fun, man. You can go to a go kart track and for 20 bucks for the entire Day you can go cut lapse and it's like you can't find that nowhere else. I mean it's 40, 60, $80 at a motocross track, which I don't really have much interest at my age in. I'd rather do the woods.
Bryan Pollock [00:07:49]:
40, 60 or 80 bucks before you catch a rut and fall off.
Erich Schmidt [00:07:52]:
Right? Yeah, right. And I mean we've been riding and racing a long time, man. And I mean the thing is nowadays to pick up like to go back to motocross, say it would be a catastrophic event if we caught a rut like that. Right. Because.
Bryan Pollock [00:08:07]:
Oh yeah.
Mike Allen [00:08:08]:
Destroy your.
Erich Schmidt [00:08:11]:
And we're gonna hurt ourselves if we come off of them. We luckily don't do it much anymore, but it happens from time to time.
Mike Allen [00:08:19]:
Well, I know that. So I'm not far from Virginia International Raceway. It's about an hour and a half from me and about two and a half hours from Carolina Motorsports Park. And they both have pretty high level CART tracks. Like FIA CART tracks.
Bryan Pollock [00:08:33]:
Oh yeah.
Mike Allen [00:08:34]:
And the super motor guys get out there on those cart tracks and they just blaze and have an incredible time.
Erich Schmidt [00:08:41]:
It's so fun to slide in and, and slide out and I mean you can, you can do some crazy stuff on those bikes. Well, it's fun.
Mike Allen [00:08:51]:
Maybe one day. So I had almost a half million miles on two wheels by the time I had my first child. And in the 15 years since I had my first child, I've got almost a thousand miles. So I miss it on Nice.
Bryan Pollock [00:09:06]:
You could always get back into it, Mike.
Mike Allen [00:09:08]:
Oh, I will. It's just, it was a, it was a risk tolerance adjustment, you know. So once I'm got three children who are relatively self sufficient and it won't be crippling to leave them fatherless, then I'll get back on the road. Now track riding is different, right?
Bryan Pollock [00:09:30]:
Being on the road is terrible. Yeah, for sure.
Mike Allen [00:09:34]:
I did like Iron Butt rallies and stuff. Like did a lot of long distance rallying and that kind of thing. And that's a, it's a very different kind of riding.
Bryan Pollock [00:09:42]:
I, I rode snowmobile about 25000 miles. Way beyond my skill level. And because there's no cars on the road or on the trail, I've only had like 2 offs and 25000 miles.
Erich Schmidt [00:09:53]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:09:53]:
I'll tell you what though, Trees. Trees also are unforgiving.
Bryan Pollock [00:09:58]:
Yeah. I mean some people get in trouble with them, but if you're smart.
Erich Schmidt [00:10:03]:
Trees and enduros for sure. But I mean track riding, all in all, even when you're in the woods going, our pace, man, you know, it's a lot, it's just, it's safer. It is the road riding. I do a lot of road riding nowadays. I've done more in the last probably two years and I've done since I've come off a track. But you know, I haven't been a big road track on like a super bike or a super stock bike, geez, since 2012, 2013, something like that. There's a lot of fun and we had a lot of buddies do it, man. We had a really big group that we built in Cincinnati.
Erich Schmidt [00:10:40]:
We called them the asphalt Junkies. And it was a S, S, F, A U L, T. And the reason is because all the dudes that had girls, we were always the asses and it's always our fault. So that that kind of stemmed out of that, of one of the girls getting mad at one of our buddies going to the track all the time. So. But yeah, man, we had like, geez, 14,000 people in that board at one point down in Cincinnati, man, we would buy. Gosh, I mean, I don't know about.
Bryan Pollock [00:11:13]:
Mike, but I was thinking you were talking about a group of like 20 dudes or something.
Erich Schmidt [00:11:18]:
Now we built, we built this crazy board, man, and it just took off.
Bryan Pollock [00:11:25]:
And then like before social media was mainstream, right? Yeah, like there was no, there was no Facebook group for the asphalt.
Erich Schmidt [00:11:34]:
Facebook killed our board for sure.
Mike Allen [00:11:36]:
Yeah.
Erich Schmidt [00:11:37]:
But yeah, I mean, there was a lot of street riders and you have to remember Kentucky, Northern Kentucky has great twisty roads in the foothills there, man. So like we go down there, that's a 20 minute drive. We all lived down in the city back in the day and so we would go down there and we called it our Sunday church, man. We'd meet there at 7 or 6 and there would be a bunch of us, we'd split up in small 10 group dudes and that were, you know, equal in pace. And we would go and ride down to Falmouth and then Georgetown and back up and we'd have enough time to catch a Moto GP race when we got back. It was a good day.
Mike Allen [00:12:12]:
Yeah, I always. So I used to ride a lot. I would leave, I would leave work Friday afternoon, working for my dad and I would leave on the bike and I would get back Sunday night really late, right. And so I would, I would ride up towards Ohio essentially from central North Carolina, all over West Virginia and everything else. And I would say it's, it's better on a Sunday Morning. It's better to be on a motorcycle thinking about God than in church thinking about your motorcycles, no doubt.
Erich Schmidt [00:12:40]:
I mean, oh my God. Listen, it's a good day, man. I mean it, it's just, you know, I mean anybody that's ever spent time seriously riding, you know, like there's tons of people ride motorcycles, but you know, people are like, oh, I ride. And I'm like, yeah, you ride. That's great. I can guarantee you you don't ride like we do. We are, we just, we, we've taken the hobby to a completely different level than most people do. And you know, it does, it's, it's like being in the woods.
Erich Schmidt [00:13:08]:
Is, is that one thing like camping where you got to go or guys that fish, man, Like I'm, you know, Brian, I know you're a fisherman. So fishing is like, it just releases that toxic crap in your body that you build up over the stress and, and then the riding and it's just, you know, it's a whole experience and you know, a lot of people that don't ride, they just don't realize that it's, it's really.
Mike Allen [00:13:31]:
Riding hard is a full body experience and it requires all of your attention.
Erich Schmidt [00:13:35]:
Yeah, it requires. So you're not thinking about anything else after a race. I'm physically cooked and back then I was in quite good shape to race like that. Right. But at the same time, like mentally man, you're just like almost euphoric when you leave the track because you, you have literally released every piece of dopamine that you could possibly release in your brain and you're just like, you're almost euphoric going home and you're.
Bryan Pollock [00:14:00]:
I remember, I remember one time putting, putting about a little over 400 miles on a snowmobile in a day which if you've ever ridden a snowmobile 400 miles. It's not like riding on a road that's you're making pace 400 miles on a sled in a day. You're, you're cooking and those are rookie numbers. Yeah. Right.
Mike Allen [00:14:19]:
I did 1570 miles on a motorcycle in 24 hours.
Bryan Pollock [00:14:25]:
Yeah, that's a reckon on on asphalt. Yeah, you'd probably, you'd probably, you'd probably cry after your first 200 on a snowmobile. We have a saying, everybody's a little sore after the first ride.
Mike Allen [00:14:39]:
I left work, I left work at 5:30 and in Raleigh at. My dad was in Chapel Hill at my dad's shop and I drove to New Orleans and took a break and then I drove to Jacksonville, Florida and had breakfast. No, it was. No, it was breakfast in New Orleans and dinner in Jacksonville, Florida. I was just trying to. There's a thing in the long distance motorcycle community 15, 24 hours and so work today. Rode to New Orleans, road to Jacksonville and then slept. So it was really stupid.
Mike Allen [00:15:13]:
It's not smart. There's no, no redeeming value to it whatsoever.
Bryan Pollock [00:15:17]:
So what was your pace you maintained when I was on the road Pace?
Mike Allen [00:15:23]:
When I was on the road, it was the target's like 80, 82, 83 miles an hour. And so you're gonna have a lot of gas stops. Right.
Bryan Pollock [00:15:31]:
So snowmobiling.
Mike Allen [00:15:33]:
So I was on a BMW 1200 GS. It was a 20061200 GS. And so I had an auxiliary fuel tank that was like three and a half gallons. So I had a little over eight gallons total capacity. So I could get a pretty long distance there. And so I, I would say that I slept probably four hours in that 24 hours. So I, I had some downtime. So that was good.
Erich Schmidt [00:15:55]:
Yeah. What a stupid super adventure's got an eight gallon tank on it from the factory.
Mike Allen [00:16:01]:
You got that wide tank.
Erich Schmidt [00:16:02]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:16:06]:
There ain't no gas.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:07]:
Just keep riding. You just keep riding. You don't got to think about it for a couple hours, right?
Erich Schmidt [00:16:11]:
Well, it's great maybe like four or.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:12]:
Five hours and you start thinking about it. Right.
Erich Schmidt [00:16:14]:
Well, it's great when you got a half a tank and you're late to the Sunday ride and you live an hour north of everybody. You know, it's right. You get there and I can, I can continue on with them until the next gas stop.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:26]:
Right, Right.
Mike Allen [00:16:27]:
So what we're going to do is at the beginning of this episode, we're going to edit in a disclaimer. It's like if you don't want to hear people talking about motorcycles, just skip forward 15 minutes or never talk to.
Erich Schmidt [00:16:38]:
Me because you're going to talk about.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:40]:
Motorcycles or go live your boring life.
Erich Schmidt [00:16:43]:
Yeah, right.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:45]:
Don't talk to me. I like that. Just don't.
Mike Allen [00:16:47]:
Back to your knitting circle.
Bryan Pollock [00:16:51]:
Oh, my gosh.
Mike Allen [00:16:54]:
No offense. Well, intended offense. If you're a listener of my show and you have and you're an active member of a knitting circle, I think I want to have you on the. On the show.
Bryan Pollock [00:17:02]:
So call 704 Confess and tell us how dumb we are for not thinking knitting is cool.
Mike Allen [00:17:08]:
704 confess. So anyway, there's a story that we want to hear from you at some point, but first, we know you, right. And we've talked before. So tell us a little bit about your shop. We've already said where it is, how big is it, how many days, how many techs, you know, that kind of thing.
Erich Schmidt [00:17:29]:
Yeah. So our shop is a little bigger than most People's. It's about 12,000 square foot. We have 10, 2 post, 14 post and then we have, we have enough for 14, but we use those for storage of totes or for fluid recoveries and tire changers. And we try to keep shop equipment.
Bryan Pollock [00:17:52]:
All that good stuff.
Erich Schmidt [00:17:53]:
Yeah, man. I. One thing I never liked was a cramped shop. So like I want things to be open and easy to move around and it's safer too.
Bryan Pollock [00:18:01]:
And it's nice when all that stuff is in one spot. Like our shop, our one shop has a, has a back room where all that type of stuff can be. And man, it's just easier to move around in that shop. The actual shop square footage isn't that much different.
Erich Schmidt [00:18:16]:
Right.
Bryan Pollock [00:18:17]:
Than the other ones, but it's got that back room where all that stuff can be and oh my gosh, that's nice.
Erich Schmidt [00:18:21]:
Yeah, we've got a really big 80 foot wall at the very end of the shop and that's where like all the AC machines and the jacks and all that stuff go. And it' like it's nice because you can walk out in the middle shop and you can take some quick inventory as a tech and go, oh, that's what I need right there. And off you go. You know, one thing at the dealer I worked at, man, is like you never knew where anything was. And that's a Johnny Bozo didn't load it up in his freaking truck and take it home.
Mike Allen [00:18:47]:
So yeah. Is that, is that because there wasn't a space for it? Is it because the other techs weren't putting back when they were done with it?
Erich Schmidt [00:18:54]:
Well, it's a little bit of everything, but, you know, I mean, no, the spit. The, the dealer I worked at was 68 Bay Shop. It was no Jo the order.
Bryan Pollock [00:19:02]:
So yeah, I worked at a big dealer and the, the biggest challenge I ran into was probably like what Eric ran into. When a guy did a job three times, he thought the special tool was his and it was locked in the top drawer of his toolbox. But you were working three day shift and he was off and they're like, oh yeah, so and so had it. So and so had the clutch puller last.
Erich Schmidt [00:19:21]:
Oh, perfect. Yep, great.
Bryan Pollock [00:19:23]:
It's in his toolbox because it Ain't in the, ain't in the slot. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty terrible.
Erich Schmidt [00:19:30]:
We do four days a week air conditioned shop. You can shake your head all you want on that dude.
Bryan Pollock [00:19:37]:
Air conditioned shop. Now I heard, I heard your better half was working in the humidity on the porch today.
Erich Schmidt [00:19:43]:
I know she lives a rough.
Bryan Pollock [00:19:45]:
Packs were in the air conditioner outside.
Erich Schmidt [00:19:47]:
It keeps her, keeps her feisty.
Mike Allen [00:19:50]:
So we need to recount this story. So there was some conversation happening on a group and some, some dude who didn't know tried it.
Bryan Pollock [00:20:02]:
I laughed so hard I was laughing for 20 minutes.
Mike Allen [00:20:05]:
So I wasn't party to this conversation. So share with us, Brian.
Bryan Pollock [00:20:12]:
Hold on, I might have to pull it up to make sure I get it. Anyways, there was a conversation about somebody posted something about technician burnout or something like that and Laura Lee Post talked about something and then I made a comment and said, you know this electric company thing, it was kind of like people going to work for Tesla, you know that. Oh yeah, all the techs are going to work for Tesla. And if you know everybody off, man. Well, in their shops they're talking about going to work in the Tesla service facility. And if you've done any research and about these electric car companies, what you find out is that it's maybe they're taking a bunch of people, but they don't. It's not, it's not this thing.
Mike Allen [00:20:49]:
I interviewed a tech from the Tesla dealer a couple months ago who got laid off by email on the way to work.
Bryan Pollock [00:20:58]:
Laid off from his $23 an hour job by email on the way to work. Because they don't. It's not this big cash cow where you show up and you wrench on brand new Teslas and they pay you six figures.
Mike Allen [00:21:10]:
No, the ironic thing was he was in his Tesla reading his email because it was driving him to work.
Bryan Pollock [00:21:19]:
Conversation ensued about that and then somebody pipes in and says, says something to her in regards of, oh well, you've never worked in a shop, have you? And she goes, no, no, actually I own one.
Erich Schmidt [00:21:30]:
Yeah, I, I know.
Bryan Pollock [00:21:32]:
And they go, oh well, you sit in the air conditioned office all day. She's no, no, I'm actually on the back patio or porch or whatever in the humidity, but all my technicians are working in air conditioning right now and hooked them. I was crying, I was laughing.
Mike Allen [00:21:46]:
And then everybody piled on top of him for that. And then he did a dirty delete.
Bryan Pollock [00:21:49]:
Yeah, then he did a dir delete. Oh man, I hate dirty deletes. At least when I say something Stupid. I leave it forever.
Erich Schmidt [00:21:56]:
I usually try to figure out who the person is before I say something stupid too.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:02]:
Not me. Polar opposite.
Erich Schmidt [00:22:05]:
Go for it.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:06]:
My finger. My finger is on the trigger at all times. I would fail the gun safety course I am. My figure is always in the trigger guard.
Mike Allen [00:22:15]:
Those are pictures like this with your gun.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:17]:
Yeah, yeah. Right in the trigger. Yeah. Ready to go all the time. I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's the Pope. If I'm gonna say something stupid, it's gonna get said.
Erich Schmidt [00:22:28]:
I mean, stupid, factual are two different things too.
Bryan Pollock [00:22:32]:
Yeah, I know.
Mike Allen [00:22:36]:
All right, so that was fun. So I don't know any details. Something about. You discovered a fraudulent dealership and there was like there was a language barrier and.
Erich Schmidt [00:22:51]:
Well, there wasn't much of a language barrier per se. Okay. So my old. I had a 13 Sierra and it is just. Is just rusting the pieces, man. And we found some. Some rust in places I don't want to find rust.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:07]:
And just so you know, Mike, rust is this thing that happens up here in the north.
Mike Allen [00:23:13]:
To be clear, I bought a 2012 Honda Accord with 300,000 miles on it last week. It's spotless.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:19]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:23:19]:
Wheels.
Erich Schmidt [00:23:20]:
Yeah, we don't get those where we live at here. So. Have you ever seen a quarter inch? We can't. You'll separate in half like this. Yeah.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:28]:
We can't have nice things.
Erich Schmidt [00:23:32]:
We can for about five years and that's all you're going to get.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:35]:
What you have to know about Chevy's and rust is we have a Miller welder and plasma cutter and it'll pay for itself on one frame job. Okay.
Erich Schmidt [00:23:41]:
Right. That's Fords though, man. They just keep popping, piling up in people's driveways because they don't rust. Right. Get out of here with that crap. I think Fords are worse than the GMs, man.
Bryan Pollock [00:23:53]:
I think the older Fords are worse.
Mike Allen [00:23:56]:
Yeah, well, the worst is the Toyota trucks.
Erich Schmidt [00:24:00]:
Right.
Bryan Pollock [00:24:03]:
The old ones were. The newer ones haven't been. Honestly, 2014 and newer GMs are pretty terrible. Terrible. I haven't condemned any 2017 Fords. I've condemned multiple 2017 GMs.
Erich Schmidt [00:24:17]:
So the half ton GM frames are really bad for rotten out up hurts. Yes. So just to be clear, mine was a 3500 HD dually. Those frames are not known for rotting out there.
Bryan Pollock [00:24:30]:
Typically does not.
Erich Schmidt [00:24:32]:
And it's behind the duff tank on them. If people don't get the duff tanks off of them and cleaned off, that's where mine rotted at. I cut it out with my plasma. I bought 11 gauge steel, welded it back in. I'm not going to sell something like that. I'm gonna fix it before I sell it. But I already know where we're going with it in a couple years. So, you know, and I, that my trucks are around to pull.
Erich Schmidt [00:24:53]:
I have my trucks to use and I use them. So I'm not going to do that. But anyways, long story.
Mike Allen [00:25:01]:
You do have a 16 foot trailer.
Erich Schmidt [00:25:04]:
I have a 7 by 14 and then I have a 20 deck over heavy duty equipment trailer that moves like our track and stuff.
Mike Allen [00:25:14]:
In confessions we just judge people based on their, their trailer collection. So we just want to get that out of there. I'm sorry, continue.
Erich Schmidt [00:25:21]:
I have two. That's it. So judge away.
Bryan Pollock [00:25:27]:
No, you've met the minimum requirement.
Erich Schmidt [00:25:30]:
What's that good? 16.
Bryan Pollock [00:25:31]:
You met the minimum requirement. Yeah, 16 is the minimum. And you have a 20 foot or a 22. So you're, you're all square.
Erich Schmidt [00:25:38]:
Well, I had 34 foot enclosed prior to that and a 41 foot. So.
Bryan Pollock [00:25:44]:
Now we're talking.
Erich Schmidt [00:25:46]:
Yeah, they're just too hard to get in and out of places. But yeah, so I sold that and then we started looking for another truck. And a truck sold pretty quickly. I mean not like as fast as I thought it would. Took a couple weeks, but so I keep for weeks. When we're selling this, I'm looking like everybody else does. So I'm just, I'm just pouring through. Auto trader car, you know, cars, all this, these different things.
Erich Schmidt [00:26:14]:
And this one keeps. And I go to Facebook Marketplace. I'm like, I might find a local truck here that you know, a private owner has or something. But you get these little advertisements in between the marketplace, right? And there's this one that was Tipton Auto sales that kept coming up and they had this 22 pricing wise, probably. I knew it was too good to be true, but we had to try, right? So it was a 20, 23 at 4, which is what I was after. And it was black, had every option on it that I wanted. And when I had the technology package, all that crap, right? So I'm like. And it had 51,000 miles on it.
Erich Schmidt [00:27:00]:
And I'm like, man, that's a good deal. That's a really good deal. Right? So I called dealership doesn't answer, right. It was pretty early, so I'm like, whatever. Well, they called me back. I'm like, okay. So this person answers the phone, he's Kind of a foreign guy. Couldn't.
Erich Schmidt [00:27:18]:
Maybe Spanish. I'm not quite sure what. Where he was from, but definitely had kind of a thick accent. And so I talked to him. He's like, yeah, I'll get you in touch with this salesperson. They're the ones that has it listed. I'm like, cool, okay. So they call me back with that.
Erich Schmidt [00:27:34]:
And I was like, hey, I'm looking at this truck here. And she's like, oh, oh, that one's on hold. There are people coming up to get it. We have a white at Denali here. And I was like, nah. I was like, I'm gonna try for an at 4 before I go down to the Denali. And she's like, all right. And so I didn't hear anything.
Erich Schmidt [00:27:53]:
I went on about my way typically annoyed that trucks are $55,000 that I'm looking for. And, you know, so I just kept looking. Well, she called me back on this Monday. She called me, and she says, hey, those people never showed up for that truck. And I'm like, great, okay, let's make a deal. So made. Started making the deal. They're like, hey, we got this.
Erich Schmidt [00:28:20]:
Where are you at? And I was like, you know, I'm in. They were in Texas. I can't remember. Brownsville. Brownsville, Texas. So this is on the east side at the most southern point of the state you can get. Like, you're in. You're in the Gulf, right? So I was like, all right.
Erich Schmidt [00:28:40]:
I was like, I really don't want to drive down there. I'm pretty busy guy. Like, I don't want to waste the time now. I love a road trip for stuff like that, and I'm all for it, but, like, the time and the stuff we got going on just ain't. It's not jiving, so I can't do it. And I was like, do you guys deliver? And she's like, actually, we have a deal right now. If you fill out this little form, you get this little waiver. It was an email form.
Erich Schmidt [00:29:02]:
I'm like, whatever. So I put my little fake advertising email in there and. And let it rip. And so she's like, all right. And calculates it. She's like, you know, with all of that, it'd be about $250 for shipping, and that was gonna be about $900. So that would seem about right to me for. To ship that truck up there.
Erich Schmidt [00:29:20]:
I. I just got a truck from Iowa for right at a thousand dollars, I think it was. So the shipping seemed right. With the amount of money they took off, I was like, okay. And I was like, hey, I want to put this down. I'm trying to get, like, half of the truck payment down, and then I'm gonna just finance the back end of it. It. And they're like, okay.
Erich Schmidt [00:29:42]:
And they're like, we'll fill out this financial form. So they send it over to me. I'll look it over. It looks like any dealership form you would ever see in your life. That's, you know, I mean, those apps are pretty generic, and so they're communicating. They're calling back and forth. We're texting. We're doing all the dealership things, man.
Erich Schmidt [00:30:01]:
And everything seemed legit. And she's like, you know, if. If we ship, we'll never get to meet you. So we need a wire. We cannot take a cashier's check because you're not going to be here. And I'm like, yeah, wire. Okay, maybe that makes sense. Kinda.
Erich Schmidt [00:30:20]:
Okay. I'm not gonna be there. I can't send a cashier's check. Right. So the only way they can do the money is to wire it or go through a financial institution. Well, I'm going through their financial institution, so I just got to figure out a way to get half of my down payment down to them. So the wire would have been the most obvious way to do this remotely for me, and I don't know a different way, so enlighten me if so. And so I had a cashier's check from when the dude bought my truck, and I'm like, well, I'm take all that, and I'm gonna take a little bit of money over to the bank account here.
Erich Schmidt [00:30:54]:
And I was like, I'll combine what I need for it. And so I'm down at Huntington, which is where he pulled the cashier's check at, and I waited, like, 30 minutes to get that kind of money, right? She's like, you know, just go over there and wait. So I'm like, looking at this truck, and I'm like, yeah, man, this is a really nice truck. Looking at all the pictures, and I was like, you know what? I never did put in the address for the dealership. What? Why would you never do that? Right? I don't know. I was excited to find a good deal on a truck, right? So. And this is how they get you. And so anyways, I start googling it, and it brings up an implement store in a steel barn.
Erich Schmidt [00:31:36]:
And I'm like, oh, that's not good. Oh, but in, in the Google photo, you look to the left and there's a dealership right there. And it says Tipton on it. And I'm like, well, okay. So I walk down the street on Google a little bit and take a look. And I'm like, well, damn, that's a professional Ford dealership. That doesn't make sense to me. And so I was like, dang.
Erich Schmidt [00:31:59]:
So then that's when I pulled up the map and I zoomed out and I looked at everything around it. So in that little area there is a. Basically a dealership circle, right? So there's like three or four dealerships. There's the typical dealership grouping where you got the little body shop and like maybe the lineup place, you know what I mean? Like, it's pretty much like that everywhere in the country. And so I'm like, at the bank she gave me the money and now I'm like, I'm not going to wire this money until I have proof of this building in front of me, man. I can't do that. And it just didn't feel right. And I start looking back on stuff and like they told me my interest rate and I'm like, the interest rate's too good to be true too.
Erich Schmidt [00:32:42]:
I was like, that's like a whole point lower than what it should be right now. And so I get on my phone and look up the national average on auto loans and it's like it's about a point off. And I'm like, that's just enough not to make somebody look at it, but a good enough deal to make somebody jump quick, right? And like these at four trucks, if you guys don't know anything about. I know you do, Brian. Those things are hotcakes right now, man. Yeah, every.
Bryan Pollock [00:33:07]:
Oh yeah, everybody wants one old sold.
Erich Schmidt [00:33:10]:
So anyway, so I'm just jumping on these trucks at this point and I'm like, I'll just deal with the freaking looking at it when I get there, you know, kind of deal. And so I went, I went straight to my shop from the bank. I didn't know what else to do because my house is pretty far away out in the country, away from my, my shop, about 25 minute drive. So I was like, man, the shop's right up the street. I'm gonna go up here. So I go to my service riders and I'm like, hey. I says this look like some BS to you? And they're looking at it and they start googling and this and that. And both those dudes are pretty smart dudes man.
Erich Schmidt [00:33:46]:
He's like, I don't know, man. And I was like, I think it's fake. I was like, I think I'm trying. I think I'm about to get scammed out at over 20 grand. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:33:55]:
A lot of money.
Erich Schmidt [00:33:56]:
Yeah, there's a lot of money. And I mean, like, this was felony crap, right? Big time felony crap they're doing. And so anyways, I'm like, I can't send the money. And I. We couldn't come up. The thing is, is they made their website and everything just good enough that you couldn't really get any answers. Right. There was nothing that made me feel like, yeah, they're totally scamming me.
Erich Schmidt [00:34:20]:
But there was nothing to make me feel like, yeah, probably nothing was real.
Bryan Pollock [00:34:24]:
Flagrant.
Erich Schmidt [00:34:25]:
Right? Man, it just didn't irk me enough either way. It kind of kept pulling me into.
Bryan Pollock [00:34:30]:
The center, you know, this Brownsville, Texas. You can throw a football from downtown Brownsville to Mexico.
Erich Schmidt [00:34:37]:
Yes. Yeah, it's right there, man, for them. So can you document.
Mike Allen [00:34:44]:
Can you say who the dealership is so that we can. We can all hunt them on the Internet?
Erich Schmidt [00:34:49]:
Yeah. So Tipton Auto sale. And that is also what I noticed later on. It's just sale. So tipton autosale.com and so everything looked pretty legit. The only thing that was weird that. So my neighbor is a. He owns dealership and he.
Erich Schmidt [00:35:13]:
Or he does private car sales. Right. And he's done it for a long time, though. And I showed him the listing, he goes, it's weird. That truck doesn't have a VIN listed. He's like, I've never seen a dealer not list a vin. And I was like, yeah, and like.
Bryan Pollock [00:35:25]:
A hot link to a CarFax on something like that. You're not going to some fifth owner used car freaking corner shithole.
Erich Schmidt [00:35:32]:
Right, Right.
Bryan Pollock [00:35:33]:
This is a premium used. They're gonna have the carfax. They're gonna have the whole shooting match hot linked.
Erich Schmidt [00:35:37]:
Right, Exactly. So that's when, like, I. At this point in time, I had a call out to, like, three or four of my friends that are in the industry. I'm like, look at this thing and figure it. Everybody was on the fence with me. They were all pulled central. They're like, it looks scammy, man, but it kind of looks real, too. And so anyways, I'll tell you, I got home, I decided I'm not sending the money.
Erich Schmidt [00:36:03]:
I was like, man, I was like, I'd rather buy a truck with 150,000 miles on it than do that and. Yeah, right. Well, I just didn't feel right, man. And one thing I do have is a good gut, and it's always guided me well, man. So I. I listened to it. So I got home, told Worldly. I was like, I think it's a scam.
Erich Schmidt [00:36:25]:
But the thing is, is my past military experience, man, I like investigating things and I can't leave stuff lie when I don't really have much of an answer. So, Mike, are you on their website right now?
Bryan Pollock [00:36:38]:
Oh, I'm on. Oh, yeah.
Erich Schmidt [00:36:40]:
Go to their home page. Go to their home page and you can see that the words on their homepage in the big photos are photoshopped if you look close enough. But go to the picture where there's a Dodge Ram, black, in a maroon Jeep. And look over the maroon Jeep through the window.
Mike Allen [00:36:59]:
Yeah, the lettering is. Doesn't line up just right.
Erich Schmidt [00:37:01]:
It doesn't. It is the world of cars. So if you go to the world of cars on Google, it takes you to a dealership with all of those pictures in Florida and that.
Bryan Pollock [00:37:12]:
Oh, it's got a palm tree right there. It's got a palm tree right there.
Erich Schmidt [00:37:15]:
Well, now there's palm trees down in. In Brownsville too, because I did a good. Yeah, you're on a tropical coast there. So they're gonna have palm trees. But. So.
Bryan Pollock [00:37:28]:
100 approval. What's it say says we finance 100 approval?
Erich Schmidt [00:37:35]:
Yeah. No, no, no. The window, the glass into the showroom. See where it says world of Cars over the top of that Jeep. He forgot. If you're at a. Photoshop that out. When he was Photoshopping all that.
Mike Allen [00:37:48]:
If you're in Texas, border town dealership, if you go to the about us page, our team is all like super white people. Well, none of them have.
Erich Schmidt [00:38:00]:
I also did a Google lens on them, and they're all either famous people or AI faces.
Mike Allen [00:38:06]:
Yeah.
Erich Schmidt [00:38:08]:
So, yeah, obviously there's our smoking gun. But I called the dealership over in Florida and they're, you know, there's some Spanish guys running that. And he, you know, so I had a guy translating on the phone and I was like. I said, you guys are getting ripped off, man. I was like, they may not be causing you financial harm, I said, but they are taking and stealing your pictures and posing and Photoshopping them as their own. So if you go to their dealership website there, it's the same building that. That blue building belongs. Not in Texas.
Erich Schmidt [00:38:39]:
It belongs in Florida. So.
Mike Allen [00:38:42]:
Those sons of bitches.
Erich Schmidt [00:38:44]:
Yeah. So I called a Police officer. I know. And he said, man, you should report that to the FBI. Here is their division for auto sales. Like scams and stuff like that. Right. So.
Erich Schmidt [00:38:59]:
So I turned them into that. And then those guys over in Florida, I talked to them for about 30 minutes on the phone and kind of guided them through how to do it as well. And so they also reported them.
Bryan Pollock [00:39:10]:
You ever use one of those prank call tools? You ever use one of those, like, prank call website? Well, get ready.
Mike Allen [00:39:19]:
I feel like there's a way to. There's gotta be with the evolution of technology, a way to automate that so that you want to shit on somebody and they just get a prank call, like from a different number every 10 minutes forever.
Erich Schmidt [00:39:33]:
Websites that do that. Yeah, I don't.
Bryan Pollock [00:39:36]:
I mean, I would imagine they have an app. Prank call auto dialer. I got to put this phone down. I'll get in trouble. The FBI will be here.
Mike Allen [00:39:48]:
Whatever you do. Whatever you do, do not set up an auto dialer. Prank caller to 704. Confess.
Bryan Pollock [00:39:54]:
I will not.
Erich Schmidt [00:39:55]:
Not.
Mike Allen [00:39:56]:
Or.
Bryan Pollock [00:39:57]:
Or maybe I will.
Erich Schmidt [00:40:03]:
But we should.
Bryan Pollock [00:40:05]:
Have Braxton edit that out before somebody else does it.
Mike Allen [00:40:09]:
I know. So how do. So here's the question. How do we. With Tipton Auto sale? And I'm sure that that money ends up in Abu Dhabi somewhere. Right.
Erich Schmidt [00:40:20]:
So the Russian. Yep. They're always rush off is if you go to the bottom of their site where their location is. The map is in Russian.
Bryan Pollock [00:40:30]:
Uhhuh. And mother Russia car drive you.
Mike Allen [00:40:33]:
Ah, yeah.
Erich Schmidt [00:40:35]:
So I see that. I'm. I guess these guys are pretty good scammers, man. And I'm. I guess that nobody's gonna catch them.
Mike Allen [00:40:41]:
Yeah, well, they get caught, they just delete the website and start up another one. Right. Because.
Erich Schmidt [00:40:46]:
Well, they're right on the Mexican border too. They just leave. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:40:50]:
I'm pretty sure that Comrade Putin is not gonna extradite them for their petty theft of dumb Americans.
Erich Schmidt [00:40:58]:
Right? Yeah. I mean, as far as we know, they're in Russia doing the deals or trying to make them.
Mike Allen [00:41:03]:
Well, hey, maybe they're in the Ukraine raising money to buy more drones to kill Russia.
Erich Schmidt [00:41:08]:
I don't care anymore. I don't.
Mike Allen [00:41:12]:
I don't know how I feel about the Ukraine and Russia thing. As long as Russia keeps getting bled down and made weaker, that's good. By my. In my mind, I don't know.
Bryan Pollock [00:41:21]:
In mother Russia car drive you.
Erich Schmidt [00:41:23]:
None of it's good, man.
Mike Allen [00:41:25]:
None of it's.
Erich Schmidt [00:41:26]:
None of it's good.
Bryan Pollock [00:41:28]:
Probably Tipton Motorsports now.
Erich Schmidt [00:41:31]:
Tipton Motorsports. That's the thing, though. They were. They got the name Tipton from that dealer group. All of those dealers that deal with that Ford dealers right there, that's all the same family. So I started calling them before I found that website. That night, I called the dealerships because I found a pin drop with their location that they were posing, right? And it was in just a steel barn. But the thing is, I could never get a street view of it, so there was no way I could verify it was an actual dealership.
Bryan Pollock [00:42:02]:
How about our sales location? Sales apostrophe. Oh, that's not gonna work, right?
Mike Allen [00:42:10]:
Our sale location.
Bryan Pollock [00:42:11]:
Our sales location. O U R S A L E apostrophe S location.
Erich Schmidt [00:42:18]:
Yeah, I've never seen happy customers.
Bryan Pollock [00:42:23]:
Contacts.
Erich Schmidt [00:42:24]:
What's this?
Bryan Pollock [00:42:24]:
What's this one? Contact with the oddball area code.
Mike Allen [00:42:27]:
It is pretty cool though, if you think about it. How good of a website they can use and how many different trademarks they can steal and use fraudulently to make it look legitimate. If you don't care about legality at all, I mean, you could turn that.
Erich Schmidt [00:42:41]:
Over every hour, man.
Bryan Pollock [00:42:43]:
So, yeah, under contacts, the dealership says Monday through Sunday, 8 to 5, which are Mike's hours. And down at the bottom, under contacts, again, it says Monday through Friday, 9 to 6, Saturday, Sunday closed.
Mike Allen [00:43:00]:
Well, that's sales and service.
Bryan Pollock [00:43:02]:
No, it's a sale sale.
Erich Schmidt [00:43:03]:
Both of them Sale. Not sales sale. We sell. You know, the.
Bryan Pollock [00:43:09]:
We sell.
Mike Allen [00:43:10]:
The technological evolution that we need to make as a podcast is the ability to prank call these sons of on the air and have the. The audio come in as a stream. And as one of the feeds into the.
Bryan Pollock [00:43:24]:
I would love. I would ask him if the truck is nice and shiny like a fishing lure.
Mike Allen [00:43:29]:
We've got to get set up so that we can do live.
Bryan Pollock [00:43:32]:
Yeah, where is. Where's Brad Braxton?
Mike Allen [00:43:35]:
Yeah, we need. We need a live call in line so that we can have callers.
Bryan Pollock [00:43:39]:
Live call in line. And a live call outline so we can cook. Tipton Auto Sales.
Mike Allen [00:43:47]:
You know what? Bianca looks very much like an AI person.
Erich Schmidt [00:43:51]:
He's an AI girl 100. If you. If you do the. The Google wins on there, it definitely tells you it's a.
Bryan Pollock [00:43:58]:
Where do I find the people?
Mike Allen [00:44:01]:
Bianca Rossi, 100 looks like a Russian chick. Oh, yeah.
Erich Schmidt [00:44:06]:
And she had a Russian accent. So I'm like, oh, it seems legit. I mean, you know.
Mike Allen [00:44:13]:
Bianca, tell me about. Tell me about Marvin, right? Because that's your co worker and she's gonna be like, who the is Marvin?
Erich Schmidt [00:44:21]:
Who is Marvin?
Mike Allen [00:44:23]:
Marvin's her co worker, sales fellow, sales consultant.
Bryan Pollock [00:44:25]:
You gotta ask her about Marvin. Salesman, salesman, gum. In and out like the wind blows. But Chris, the sales manager, he's got.
Erich Schmidt [00:44:33]:
They don't put their pictures up because they never stick around.
Mike Allen [00:44:36]:
Yeah, yeah.
Erich Schmidt [00:44:39]:
What this website.
Mike Allen [00:44:41]:
I digress. How's. How's business?
Erich Schmidt [00:44:45]:
Good, good. Best it's ever been. We had record month last month. Continue to grow. Well, our staff cultures just unlike anything I've ever worked with. Actually, it's, it's how many, how many texts you gotten? We have five right now.
Mike Allen [00:45:04]:
And I'm gonna be nosy and if you don't want to share this, just say so and I'll edit it out. But what does the best month ever look like with five text?
Erich Schmidt [00:45:14]:
250 ish. 220 ish. 220 ish. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:45:18]:
Okay. That's great, man. So I had. Earlier today I recorded the episode that will be released in two weeks. You guys will be released next week with Matt Lofton, who is the director of coaching at Elite. And we were talking about. He thinks that I always think in terms of revenue per technician and what is a good number of revenue. And he says you should be thinking about revenue per employee, regardless of their role in the company because they all have a cost.
Mike Allen [00:45:52]:
Right. And you should expect as you start to grow that each employee added is going to add value and therefore add revenue. If you hire a new porter, well, the porter is going to make life easier on the people in the front of the house and he's going to make life easier on the people in the back of house. And so there's going to be a net gain in efficiency and everyone will be a little bit more effective and you will have the capacity for more revenue. Because he's taking bullshit work off the hands of everybody, right?
Erich Schmidt [00:46:22]:
In theory.
Mike Allen [00:46:23]:
And so he's saying I should set my target at $35,000 per employee as a very high level goal. And he says that kind of a standard number is $30,000 per employee per month. Not, not counting me because I'm nothing but a drain on the business. Right. I'm just a giant sucking sound on parasite. Yeah, I'm a parasite.
Erich Schmidt [00:46:47]:
Sorry.
Mike Allen [00:46:47]:
I've built an organization just so that I could be a parasite upon said organization.
Bryan Pollock [00:46:51]:
You've built an entire organism.
Erich Schmidt [00:46:53]:
I don't believe that. I think you had good intentions, sir.
Mike Allen [00:46:58]:
Oh, there was a time. There was a time when I thought.
Erich Schmidt [00:47:01]:
We all had that time. There's a time now where I stand in my shop and I go I don't know what to do with my hands because my p. I'm like, go here and it's already done. Go here. Already done. I'm like, like, that's what you want, right? But, like, what they don't talk about is the. That you have to mentally go through to find a new job. It's weird, man.
Erich Schmidt [00:47:23]:
It's just. It's a weird. It's a weird thing.
Mike Allen [00:47:25]:
I'm really good at finding new jobs, man. Like, hey, you know what? I'm gonna go work for a trade association. Oh, I'm gonna go start a podcast. Oh, I'm gonna go.
Erich Schmidt [00:47:33]:
You're my wife.
Mike Allen [00:47:34]:
I'm gonna. I'm gonna go race. I'm gonna race, go karts with my daughter, you know, three days a week.
Erich Schmidt [00:47:40]:
Why I'm not stressed out right now is because I don't have five presentations to put together and a bunch of teachings. And I saw the writing on the wall the third time I did that and I said, I ain't gonna survive this. Like, I would rather. I would rather. I would rather build startups and turn over shitty run shops than put together curriculum. I love to teach. I love getting up and talking in front of everybody and showing people cool things. I hate, hate, hate, hate building the curriculum.
Erich Schmidt [00:48:11]:
That's why I don't do it.
Mike Allen [00:48:13]:
I know that your bride is coming in September. Are you coming to Raleigh also?
Erich Schmidt [00:48:16]:
Oh, yeah. And now I always will come to the STA stuff.
Mike Allen [00:48:20]:
I mean, it's. The expo is pretty awesome. I mean, it's as. As the. The events and shows go, obviously I'm biased, right? But couldn't tell.
Erich Schmidt [00:48:33]:
I like seeing all my friends when I come down and. And the thing is, man, what's amazing about that is even though I'm coming down and, you know, we're all pretty seasoned owners and at this point, you know, like, they're the. And I'm always learning something, but every time, I always learn something from one of my friends that I'm BSing with there, man. Like, the classes, they invigorate you. They bring you up. They do teach you new ways to do some things, for sure. You know, when you're 16 years in and you've got a company that's running well, like, we don't know everything, but it's not. Not new news that.
Erich Schmidt [00:49:09]:
You know what I mean?
Mike Allen [00:49:11]:
What's a parts matrix, right?
Erich Schmidt [00:49:13]:
You know, so. But then you get to talking about that because that, that invigorates people in a business sense, and they start talking and Then you get kind of run off in a different direction and you end up learning all kinds of cool crap from people.
Bryan Pollock [00:49:26]:
The.
Mike Allen [00:49:27]:
I was, I was talking to somebody. It was, it was Nathan from Inconceivable Automotive, the, the dude that we released this week, their episode. They're one month into their shop. Right. So it's, it's a tech and advisor and a GS and so they certain. They've already got three people. Right. As a startup, that's pretty impressive.
Mike Allen [00:49:48]:
And I really like. They got no debt and they've got a building and they got all the equipment they need. And they've got a Hunter Hawkeye Elite that they bought from a consolidation auction for pennies on the dollar. You know, they're starting off right. You know, but I was telling him the quality of the learning and the networking and the relationship building that happens at the bar and in the hospitality.
Bryan Pollock [00:50:15]:
Suite should be mandatory attendance.
Mike Allen [00:50:19]:
I mean, if you're coming to asca.
Erich Schmidt [00:50:22]:
Sometimes those old guys are tired and we want to go to bed.
Bryan Pollock [00:50:25]:
I'm not, I'm not being a wise ass. I just had this conversation with Dan Hensel the other day. Dan and Rachel, you learn when you've, when you've taken, when you've done the, the, the training, the destination training tour and you've taken all the business classes 16 times and everything else, that's where you learn like a lot of stuff. Yeah. Pick up a couple things. You know, you can, you know how it is. You can take the same class three times and learn three new things.
Erich Schmidt [00:50:49]:
Oh yeah, for sure.
Bryan Pollock [00:50:50]:
But man, you can sit with a group of people that you don't really know that well. You learn a lot of stuff. You have three beers and get a freaking education.
Erich Schmidt [00:50:58]:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:51:02]:
If you go to Tools or if you go to ASTA Expo or if you go to, you know, Ratchet and Wrench and you don't hang out in the lobby, you don't, you gotta drink if that's not your game.
Erich Schmidt [00:51:12]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:51:13]:
But hang out in the lobby because.
Bryan Pollock [00:51:14]:
The edges, they sell water at the bar. It's fine.
Mike Allen [00:51:17]:
And just hear conversations like, take a, take a. A, take a clue from Lucas. Have a soda water with a lime. And everybody thinks you're drinking vodka. You'll never see Lucas drink brown water anymore. He just drinks soda water and it looks like vodka. It's his secret.
Erich Schmidt [00:51:34]:
Yeah, I mean, it's, it. Listen, it's not, it's. I mean, to talk to these guys like the, you know, these guys. It doesn't matter, man, if you've been in business for a year or, or 50, man. Like everybody a little bit something different in our industry. There's a lot of inconsistencies we know in our industry. So there's so much you can learn from everybody. And it's just like most of these people are there to help each other.
Erich Schmidt [00:52:01]:
They want to grow and better the industry. It's quite literally why I quit the dealership. You know, I made, I made six figures at the dealership, I made good money at shops I worked at. I'm, I'm not a half ass tech, I know my worth. But, but you know, at the same time it's like there's so much more and better out here. And now that we have a functional staff and all these people are involved in our lives over these last few years it's just been like, it's just, it's a whole nother side that most people don't even understand that exists in automotive, man. And there's this positive, cultured, educational side to this industry that is professional. And this is what I've always wanted all my career is I love the cars, I love working on them, I love doing all that stuff.
Erich Schmidt [00:52:45]:
But I absolutely hated the toxicity and the unprofessionalism and the backstabbing and just all the crap that goes with those crappy shops, right? And in turn it turned me into toxic dude. And I had to, I had to correct myself when I started my company. So you know, it's all positive. So anybody that says they can't afford to go, that's more reason to go too, man. Because you, if you can't afford running an automotive shop in today's society, you're doing something wrong.
Mike Allen [00:53:18]:
And that's not to be insulting to that individual. It's just they don't know what they don't know.
Erich Schmidt [00:53:22]:
Well, and that is, I did an article.
Mike Allen [00:53:25]:
You're not going to find out by sticking to the grind of just barely making ends meet. The way that you change and find out what you don't know is going to talk to people who do too. Right?
Erich Schmidt [00:53:35]:
So I did a whole article in Ratchet and Wrench on that of, of you don't know what you don't know and, and you know, I'm not going to sit here and say something like that and then tell you my first five years in business I didn't know what the hell I was doing, man. I just knew how to work on cars real efficiently and I knew I had to make a little bit more money than I spent when I did it, and that's it. But I'm gonna tell you what, there's way more to it, man. And life gets so good when you figure that.
Bryan Pollock [00:54:02]:
Tell me the first, the first couple years is like, like, hold on a second. I'm making more money than I'm spending and I'm buying like a thousand bucks worth of a week off the snap on truck. Life is good. Yeah, that's like the first.
Erich Schmidt [00:54:16]:
I mean, it is good. I mean, but that it goes back to what, you know, Mike said is like, I was profitable from the get. But then I look back at what I'm doing right now and having a relatively good understanding of business, and I look back and I'm going, and I look right at Laura Lee and I'm like, you realize how much money we could have made? Like, I just, like there were five years that was absolutely useless. It was like, oh, we're just practicing and off over here. That's all we're doing. So. But, you know, it gets good, man, and, and the people around it and guys like you guys, and just, you got to make it fun too, you know.
Mike Allen [00:54:58]:
Well, thanks for coming on, man. Hey, do you know what classes Laura Lee's teaching this year?
Erich Schmidt [00:55:05]:
What the titles are that to me, right On a public forum, man.
Bryan Pollock [00:55:09]:
I know, I'm like, that was that.
Erich Schmidt [00:55:12]:
So I think she's doing that org.
Bryan Pollock [00:55:16]:
The Power of Process.
Erich Schmidt [00:55:17]:
Yeah, she's doing. I think she's still doing some branding stuff. And I honestly, I couldn't. That was my best, man. She. She's been asked to speak at a lot of places this year, and I stopped trying to keep up with who's asking for what.
Mike Allen [00:55:30]:
She's kind of a big deal.
Erich Schmidt [00:55:31]:
I mean, she's done very good in our industry for the short time she's been here, man. She. Here's the thing about it, though. When. When you're honest, whether it's brutal or not, and when you follow through with what you're going to do, you say you're going to do and you do it in a timely manner and, you know, you make things happen, you're gonna blow up quick, man. I mean, that's what people are looking for. I'm tired personally of working with people that don't do what they say they're going to do, which we do a lot.
Mike Allen [00:56:00]:
So I'm just realizing. So the. One of the keynotes that we have this year is the dude who is like, over all the hard rock hotels and casinos, right? And so I'm excited about that.
Erich Schmidt [00:56:18]:
Nice.
Mike Allen [00:56:19]:
But historically, we've had a whiskey or scotch tasting event, and this year we have a, like, a cigar rolling event. There's a dude who's bringing like, oh.
Erich Schmidt [00:56:30]:
I'm down for that.
Mike Allen [00:56:31]:
Yeah.
Erich Schmidt [00:56:32]:
So I like cigars.
Mike Allen [00:56:34]:
Yeah. And facility is going to be cool. And I'm excited. Anyway, I digress. I'll see you in six weeks.
Erich Schmidt [00:56:45]:
Yeah, man, I'm excited.
Mike Allen [00:56:47]:
Thanks for coming on, dude. I appreciate it.
Erich Schmidt [00:56:49]:
Yeah. Did you guys enjoy my floating head with the black shirt?
Mike Allen [00:56:52]:
It was. It was pretty good. We can't see your neck like that. It's totally a floating head. You got to come forward so that your arms aren't in the picture and that you're. Boom. Floating head, floating logo.
Erich Schmidt [00:57:06]:
I'm sure there'll be some great edits out of this, too. I'm very sure of that. So.
Mike Allen [00:57:12]:
Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out. The good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink? You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover? Or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mikeonfessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number 704-Confession Fest. 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 [00:57:49]:
I'll see you on the next episode.
Erich Schmidt [00:58:09]:
You know I said, Jess. You know I said, Jesse.