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Power does not always come from pushing harder. Sometimes in life and in business, the smartest move is to slow down so you can move forward with control, clarity, and intention. Just like a great driver, growth means looking ahead, preparing for the climb, and knowing when it is time to change gears.
Zeb Beard [00:00:00]:
you can take bad advice, you can turn that into good advice. If it's— if you think it's bad advice, just go do the opposite. So that's what I did with the advice from the coaching company.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:08]:
You did the opposite of everything he said, or just certain things? Like, was there any good— almost everything?
Zeb Beard [00:00:15]:
Yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:16]:
I ain't doing that shit.
Zeb Beard [00:00:17]:
Welcome to Downshift with my sis, Taneka Haynes. We all know as shop owners, sometimes you got to slow down in order to speed up. And that's what this podcast is all about. It's time to downshift.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:37]:
You got your hair together?
Zeb Beard [00:00:38]:
Well, it's not as good as I want it, but it'll work.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:41]:
What products do we use on the hair, Zeb?
Zeb Beard [00:00:44]:
I use, what's it called? It's a 10. I use It's a 10 most of the time.
Tonnika Haynes [00:00:50]:
You think they'll sponsor you?
Zeb Beard [00:00:53]:
They should. They should. Because I do have the best hair.
Tonnika Haynes [00:01:00]:
Me too. I cut it all off.
Zeb Beard [00:01:02]:
You did?
Tonnika Haynes [00:01:03]:
I never know what the hell to do with my hair.
Zeb Beard [00:01:05]:
Yeah, so look, you, you, you, you can do the short look though.
Tonnika Haynes [00:01:08]:
I like the short hair, but it's like you have to do it more.
Zeb Beard [00:01:12]:
Not, not every woman can get away with it, but you, you, you can do it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:01:17]:
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. What are you sipping on?
Zeb Beard [00:01:21]:
Oh, that's my normal, uh My Freak Show that I always drink.
Tonnika Haynes [00:01:25]:
Freak Show, I have to get some of that.
Zeb Beard [00:01:26]:
Freak Show Cabernet, it's not the most expensive, but it's my favorite. I've drank expensive wine and I've drank cheap wine, but that's pretty much my favorite out of all of them.
Tonnika Haynes [00:01:37]:
Well, you know what, I love wine, but I've started to love, um, dag on it, I can't even think of the name of it. It's really bubbly. Oh crap. Brain freeze. It's 8 o'clock, I'm supposed to be asleep. Um, but yeah, it gets me where I want to go too quick. I'm gonna have like one glass of it. Of course I can't think of it right now.
Zeb Beard [00:02:00]:
I can't see, I got my glasses with me.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:03]:
Speaking of glasses, who gave you— who gave you MetaShades?
Zeb Beard [00:02:07]:
Susie. Which I've been wanting them. I seen Chris, uh, Enright wearing them at ASTA, and I said, man, I think I want some of those. How are they? He said, man, I love I saw Birdie wearing them.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:18]:
I want some.
Zeb Beard [00:02:19]:
Oh, I love them. I use them all the time.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:22]:
Yeah, I like how you did the, um, the tour with them on. That was cool of the shop.
Zeb Beard [00:02:27]:
They don't, um, the perspective further out, they don't do well with that. They need a zoom feature where you could zoom just a little bit, right? Because if it's not, if it's not something that's happening within 7 or 8 feet of you it, it washes out. You can't see it real good. That's the only thing.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:47]:
It's only 3 minutes?
Zeb Beard [00:02:49]:
Yeah, I only do 3 minutes at a time. That's a pain in the ass too.
Tonnika Haynes [00:02:52]:
Oh well, which you can piece it all together, right? Because that's what you did with the shop. Yeah. Okay.
Zeb Beard [00:02:57]:
Yeah, I took it, I took and, uh, put it together. Actually, I, I think I edited that one on TikTok, I think. But sometimes I'll do it with iMovie. I'll edit with iMovie.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:07]:
I don't have the patience. I just start putting my kids to work and letting them do this crap.
Zeb Beard [00:03:12]:
It's fun. I enjoy it. I'm not the best.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:15]:
No, they're funny as hell, especially when, uh, Susie had her own Google.
Zeb Beard [00:03:20]:
Oh yeah, well, that's around— poor woman. It's every day she says something like that, so I should have been putting these in recordings for years because she says something funny like that every day.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:32]:
Yeah, Susie said her Google's different. I was like, okay, okay.
Zeb Beard [00:03:37]:
Yeah, she says it's different. We, we've been into over that several times. I'm the oldest one in this shop and I'm the one that has to show everybody how to use Google.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:47]:
What are you, 46, 45?
Zeb Beard [00:03:49]:
You said 47.
Tonnika Haynes [00:03:51]:
47. Are you ready for the big 5-0?
Zeb Beard [00:03:54]:
No, no, I've dreaded— I dreaded 30. Now I was ready for 20. You know how 20 is, you're always ready for 20.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:01]:
Yeah, right. You want to be 20, 20, 21, 25, and that's it.
Zeb Beard [00:04:05]:
Then 30. 30, I really, I dreaded it until it got here and it wasn't a big deal.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:10]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:04:10]:
And then 40, I didn't even get upset. I thought 40 was going to be the big one, but it, it was, it really wasn't that big a deal. But, but 50, yeah, I dread, I dread that one. I don't, I don't want to be 50. I don't ever want to be 50.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:24]:
Don't say that. I got one more year. I've got 320-something days.
Zeb Beard [00:04:31]:
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure. It'll be fine. It'll be great. I just don't want to be 50. I don't want to say I'm 50 years old.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:40]:
I'm actually going to be proud that I'm 50 years old because I look at these chicks around here and they're like, oh, I'm 40. I'm like, shit, you need some water. Like, I'm just, I'm just 40. You need some moisturizer, lady. Like, what the hell?
Zeb Beard [00:04:55]:
You need some work. Yeah. Yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [00:04:57]:
You need some work. So I'm going to be proud.
Zeb Beard [00:05:00]:
I do still look pretty young for my age. I think I got a little bit of gray coming in my beard now, a little bit. So that's, that's the only thing. I got a few little grays coming in here. Yeah, in this area. But I hope it— I hope— I don't, I don't mind it going gray. I want it to go white. I just want it to go white all at once.
Tonnika Haynes [00:05:23]:
So did your parents have all gray?
Zeb Beard [00:05:27]:
Uh, my dad, his hair was black up until he had some salt and pepper in it up till the day he died. Now he died, he was, he was in his 60s, early 60s when he died. Now my mama, my mom's still alive, she's 70. I think she's right about 70. Yeah, she's 70. Um, and she's got gray But she, she gets it dyed, so I can't— I don't really know how much gray she has. But she, she was blonde. She was natural blonde.
Zeb Beard [00:06:00]:
But my grandpa, his went white overnight. It turned white. So I'm hoping mine does the same thing.
Tonnika Haynes [00:06:06]:
There's Ash.
Ashley Kaplan [00:06:07]:
Hi.
Zeb Beard [00:06:08]:
Hi.
Tonnika Haynes [00:06:08]:
We're talking about gray hair, shampoo, and wine.
Ashley Kaplan [00:06:12]:
Okay, well, I can join in on this one.
Tonnika Haynes [00:06:15]:
Yay, we're all together.
Zeb Beard [00:06:16]:
Yeah, what kind of wine you drinking there?
Ashley Kaplan [00:06:19]:
Um, this bottle that I'm obsessed with right now, it's called Prototype. I honestly bought it because I love lead sleds, so it's really good. So I've bought it a few times now.
Zeb Beard [00:06:32]:
Okay, I'm gonna have to give that a try.
Ashley Kaplan [00:06:35]:
Yeah, I've been curious about that bottle that you're always posting about, Freak Show. Is it local to you?
Zeb Beard [00:06:41]:
No, it's from Lodi, California. I get it at Sam's. If you got a Sam's, check there. But I— you can get it at the liquor store.
Tonnika Haynes [00:06:51]:
Freak Show.
Zeb Beard [00:06:51]:
Yeah, Freak Show Cabernet.
Tonnika Haynes [00:06:54]:
So here's the thing, the ABC Store in the Carolinas only sells liquor. No beer, no wine. It's only liquor. Only hard liquor. Only hard liquor. No beer, no wine.
Zeb Beard [00:07:08]:
I like it, but it gives me hella hangovers.
Tonnika Haynes [00:07:11]:
Yeah, so give me some vodka.
Zeb Beard [00:07:17]:
I'll hit it a little bit, but if I, if I do too much, I'll be down with a hangover, right?
Tonnika Haynes [00:07:22]:
Right. All right, so we're starting. We— I'm already recording, Ash, because why not?
Ashley Kaplan [00:07:28]:
Welcome to the party.
Tonnika Haynes [00:07:29]:
Welcome to the party, Saints and Aints. Welcome to the party. It's Tanika, got Zeb, Ash, We're here to sit here and lie about a lot of stuff.
Ashley Kaplan [00:07:38]:
Oh, what?
Tonnika Haynes [00:07:39]:
So yeah, so Zeb, I think you know that you remind me so much of my dad. Not saying that you're old because you don't want to be 50. My dad—
Zeb Beard [00:07:49]:
no, no, that's flattering.
Tonnika Haynes [00:07:50]:
But it's like those big dreams. Like, I know I heard you say that you have been dreaming about where you are now since you were 10 years old.
Zeb Beard [00:07:58]:
Yep, that's correct.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:00]:
So my dad says, you know what, he talks about, you know, everybody has dreams but nobody wants to wake up and go to work. And I can hear you probably would say some stuff like that.
Zeb Beard [00:08:09]:
That's right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:10]:
So how— so you've been doing this since you were 10, then you were playing baseball, baseball didn't work out, right? Something like that. And then you start working at the junkyard.
Zeb Beard [00:08:20]:
Yep.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:21]:
Tell us the whole story. Well, give us the Cliff Notes version because I know a lot of people have heard it, but everybody don't know how cool you are.
Zeb Beard [00:08:27]:
Cliff Notes. Let me see if I can— if I can put this in Cliff Notes. But the way I got started, I always knew that I was going to be something big. You know, I just knew it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:38]:
You have to. Your name is Zeb.
Zeb Beard [00:08:40]:
That's right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:08:41]:
Your mom named you an amazing name.
Zeb Beard [00:08:43]:
Oh, yeah, that's right. I think— and actually thinking about it after, after I posted that, when you asked me that, I think my dad actually had a big part in that. Yeah, they worked together. My mom and dad worked together on that name. But yeah, since I was, since I was really small, I knew and wanted to be something big. I wanted to be famous for doing whatever it is that I did. I really didn't know exactly what it was up until when, when I turned 14 and I got that job in that junkyard. That's when I knew it was going to be automotive.
Zeb Beard [00:09:20]:
I knew it was going to be automotive. I didn't know how I was going to become famous at automotive. 'Cause we didn't have, you know, back then, this is in the early '90s, we didn't have YouTube and Facebook and all that stuff. But I said, I wanna be a celebrity and own a shop. That's what I wanna do. So I set out right then to do it. I just worked every chance I got. I didn't really go out and party and do the stuff that normal teenagers do.
Zeb Beard [00:09:50]:
I did a little bit, but mostly I just went to work. I worked Saturdays, Sundays. People would hire me to come by their house and work on their cars. I'd go wash chicken. One of the jobs I would get, I'd wash chicken houses, wash the inside of the chicken houses. Anything I could find somebody to pay me to do, I would hustle, man.
Tonnika Haynes [00:10:10]:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. You sound like people don't have that hustle in them anymore. Everybody wants to be famous on the internet, but they don't want to actually do anything. They just want to make a lot of reels and TikToks, but there's no work behind it. But we see you working every day, like your hands prove that you are still working.
Zeb Beard [00:10:29]:
Yeah, I just, I just got off the road grader. I worked all day today. We had that big ice storm, so the, the state of Arkansas hires me to come blade the snow and the ice off the roads whenever these big snowstorms come around. Yeah, so I've been on that road grader all day. My— that's the reason I can't see very good. My eyes are turned wrong side out from staring at that blade and watching that snow come off and ice come off that blade. So that's probably the reason it looks like I've probably been smoking something, but I haven't.
Ashley Kaplan [00:11:01]:
You don't—
Tonnika Haynes [00:11:05]:
no, you do not look like you've been smoking anything.
Ashley Kaplan [00:11:08]:
Now you stare at snow for long enough and you go a little bit blind.
Tonnika Haynes [00:11:11]:
Blind, yeah. Too bright.
Zeb Beard [00:11:13]:
And my eyes are getting, getting wore out, so— and I need glasses. I'm supposed to have an eye appointment coming up.
Tonnika Haynes [00:11:20]:
Uh, they told me I needed readers, man. I gotta get readers.
Zeb Beard [00:11:23]:
I need readers, but I think I need them all the time.
Ashley Kaplan [00:11:26]:
You know, I was at 19, they told me I had early onset glaucoma, and every time I go to the eye doctor, they say it's getting a little worse.
Tonnika Haynes [00:11:35]:
So do you smoke?
Ashley Kaplan [00:11:38]:
Hey, it's legal here.
Tonnika Haynes [00:11:40]:
Is it?
Ashley Kaplan [00:11:41]:
Yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [00:11:41]:
That's crazy.
Zeb Beard [00:11:44]:
Where are you located?
Ashley Kaplan [00:11:44]:
Arizona.
Zeb Beard [00:11:45]:
That's right. I knew that. I did know that. That's crazy.
Ashley Kaplan [00:11:49]:
Yeah. Well, I'm excited to get to know you more, Zeb. My, uh, we met briefly at ASTA and I watched you get thrown around. Um, that was hilarious. Um, but then I, today, like just naturally for some reason you popped on my feed, you posted something on Facebook about a coach that you had that basically told you to dream a little bit smaller. And your response, I like, I was like, oh, we're a lot more alike than I thought. Is it?
Tonnika Haynes [00:12:20]:
He's a mess. No, but he said, I mean, that's good because when Zeb talks, I laugh because I can hear my father. Like, everyone's like, like, I think I'm flashy. Like, you have no idea. That man is something else. But like a lot of stuff, people think he's being funny. I don't think you're being funny. He's just being blunt and he's being real.
Tonnika Haynes [00:12:39]:
Like, I can't imagine how many people listen to you and how much impact you have on other shop owners. Did you expect that when you said you wanted to be famous? Like, did you want to be that kind of famous?
Zeb Beard [00:12:52]:
I wanted to. I didn't know how I would ever get there. And yeah, it just, it all, it all came together and I was able to do it. But yeah, I love, I know I probably get a reputation from some people as being mean on the internet, but, but I do help a lot of other shop owners. I talk to other shop owners all day. I give them my advice. Now, my advice, it may be like the advice I got from the coach. You can listen to it and then you may want to go do the opposite.
Zeb Beard [00:13:22]:
So you can take bad advice. You can turn that into good advice. If it's— if you think it's bad advice, just go do the opposite. So that's what I did with the advice from the coaching company.
Tonnika Haynes [00:13:32]:
You did the opposite of everything he said, or just certain things? Like, was there any good— almost everything? Yeah, I ain't doing that shit.
Ashley Kaplan [00:13:41]:
That's where I'm like, I talk about, I want— like, I have a passion for teaching people and training people to do things that have worked really well for me. But I'm like, that's where I wouldn't work as a coach because I'm the opposite of that coach you had. I'm like, no, dream bigger. Oh, you wanna make a million? Let's make 10. And people aren't ready for that. Or people don't have as big of dreams for themselves that you could see in somebody else. And that's hard. Like when you see more in somebody than they see in themself, you're just like, come on.
Tonnika Haynes [00:14:07]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:14:08]:
Well, their, their ideas would work and they, they're good ideas, but they, they wouldn't work for me. I mean, if you, I think if you, if you were a shop that you were struggling, to pay your bills, if you were having trouble and you didn't know what to do or where to go, yeah, they could help you. But for somebody like me that was all— I had already been through all that. I had already been at my last dollar many times. I mean, I wrote hot checks. I never got caught with any of them, but I'd write a check that wasn't no good and then I have to go make the money to get in the bank to beat the, to beat the money.
Tonnika Haynes [00:14:50]:
That's when checks too. Remember checks used to take 3 to 5 days to clear. Now they're just clearing 24 hours. So you can't do that no more.
Zeb Beard [00:14:58]:
I did all that stuff, so I know what it's like. But I didn't hire them until I had came through all that and I was already, I was already going good. I said, hey, you know, this coaching thing, everybody keeps telling me about this coaching thing. Now that I can afford it, I'm going to try it. And they, they couldn't help me. They wanted to change. They wanted to change everything about me into something else.
Tonnika Haynes [00:15:22]:
And cookie cutter stuff.
Zeb Beard [00:15:25]:
Yeah. I didn't want to be a tire and lube shop. That's never what I— that's never what I dreamed about being. So.
Tonnika Haynes [00:15:32]:
So you would— you still track like your KPIs? There's still numbers and stuff that you track, or is that—
Zeb Beard [00:15:36]:
Oh yeah, I'm a numbers guy. I used to work before we got TechMetric. I would wear Susie out because I'd go in the office. I'd say, hey, figure this number for me. Tell me how many of these we did, what we profited on. Every day I'd come up with some shit like that, you know, and she got tired. She got tired of it. Then we got TechMetric.
Zeb Beard [00:15:56]:
I got all my reports at my fingertips. So I come in here, I don't know, every other day I'll come up with some number I want to look at and I can find it on TechMetric and look at it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:16:07]:
So we talked about with, um, Jeff, yesterday we were laughing about spouses and husbands working together, and he thinks it's an absolutely terrible idea for the wife or the daughter to be at the front counter. But apparently that's working with you and Susie. Has she always worked at the shop with you?
Zeb Beard [00:16:27]:
Well, it came about slowly. When I first opened, she would come in about once a week and work on the books and make, you know, get the deposit ready and all that. Because I don't know any of that stuff. I don't know how to pay bills. I don't know. I don't know how— I've never paid a light bill. I've never paid a gas bill. I've never made— I say that I made a few truck payments before Susie came along, and that's when I would drive to the bank and hand them the money.
Zeb Beard [00:16:58]:
I didn't know how to send it or anything like that. I made all my payments by hand. So she does all that for me. So she would come in about once a week and do that. And then it slowly got to be more and more and more and more. And then I guess when my kids got pretty well grown, I won't say when they graduated school, but when they were in their late teens where they didn't have to have her go pick them up from school and stuff like that, that's when she started working at the shop full-time.
Tonnika Haynes [00:17:33]:
And in those days, coaching, like, did she have to be coached for the front desk stuff?
Zeb Beard [00:17:39]:
Yeah, I had to show her how to do it. She's—
Tonnika Haynes [00:17:41]:
you were the coach?
Zeb Beard [00:17:42]:
Yeah, she's watched me work my magic enough times that she knows. She learned from me.
Tonnika Haynes [00:17:48]:
Okay, that's what's up.
Zeb Beard [00:17:50]:
But she, she learned— now I'm gonna say TechMetric, she learned that by herself. She never had anybody show her TechMetric. She learned how to do that. I taught her how to do estimates, but she's gotten so good at it now that I don't have to show her anything. She can— like, if we, if we say, hey, this truck needs head gaskets, whatever, if it's one we haven't done before, she can go in and she can look up all the parts. She'll say, okay, this needs head gaskets. Well, it's going to need head bolts, it's going to need intake gaskets, it's going to need all these little gaskets. She can put all that together.
Zeb Beard [00:18:24]:
She got really good at it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:18:25]:
It does work.
Zeb Beard [00:18:27]:
Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't have anybody else do it if— even if we got divorced. If we got divorced, she would still have to come run that front office every day.
Tonnika Haynes [00:18:36]:
I would love to be a fly on that wall, because I don't think that's happening. She kick your ass, she have to deal with you this long. Uh-uh, you stuck with her for life. Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:18:46]:
Oh yeah, we were— there ain't no divorce here. But if it did happen, we would still have to work together.
Tonnika Haynes [00:18:52]:
'Cause she's the right-hand woman.
Zeb Beard [00:18:55]:
Oh yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [00:18:55]:
So it can work.
Ashley Kaplan [00:18:57]:
That's what I said to Jeff yesterday about most husband wives in a shop. The difference I see with you and Susie, and again, this is what little I do know of you guys, is how much respect you have for her and vice versa. It's like when you have that, you guys seem like, I don't know, you guys seem like best friends.
Zeb Beard [00:19:15]:
Well, we all—
Tonnika Haynes [00:19:16]:
Y'all seem to be together forever.
Zeb Beard [00:19:18]:
We don't have friends outside of— I mean, we do have friends, but we don't really go do things separately very much. I might— now, she hates hunting, and when I'm in a hunting spell, I hadn't been in the past 4 or 5 years, but if I'm going hunting very much, she will not go hunting with me. But I cannot go fishing without her. She loves fishing. Any of our hobbies, we do those together. We go on trips together, all that stuff. We do it together.
Tonnika Haynes [00:19:48]:
So how do you keep the bad stuff from the shop while you're at home? Because you're in the shop, you live in the shop. But like, do you cut it off? Do you know when to clock out? Because I can't imagine that you're the guy that knows how to clock out.
Zeb Beard [00:20:00]:
We never clock out. We can be, we can be on a cruise ship, me and her, the most romantic time. And, and we're going to bring up this, we're going to start talking shop. It's really hard for us to to let it go, 'cause we both talk about it and we don't set limitations 'cause we both enjoy it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:20:24]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:20:26]:
We're both set on world domination, so it's never off limits. The shop, talking about the shop is never off limits.
Ashley Kaplan [00:20:33]:
I was gonna say, when you both have the same goal and you're working towards the same goal, that must be easy.
Tonnika Haynes [00:20:38]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:20:38]:
Yeah, it does. It's really easy for us to get along because we both have the same goals.
Tonnika Haynes [00:20:47]:
But when you do— I know you do. You can't tell me that you don't. I know you're Superman. But when you do get burnt out, is that what the lake is for?
Zeb Beard [00:20:55]:
Yeah. Yeah, we'll go fishing, get on the boats, ride around. We used to go to the Keys. You didn't know me back then, but— and that's kind of how Going to the Keys is kind of what put me where I am. I use that to inspire myself and how that worked. My dad went to work for a guy. He owned, he owns a bank and owns half of the town I'm in now. He's a big time guy.
Zeb Beard [00:21:26]:
Well, he owns a lot of property, right? And he's got a, he's got like a hunting camp at this property.. And it's like thousands of acres. So at the time my dad didn't have much going and this guy needed somebody to come run that place for him. They, they hire somebody to live there and see after this place. So my mom and dad happened up on this job. It paid really well, great job. And I think it was the Lord looking out for them because they needed that because they got that job in 2013 and my dad died of cancer in 2016. So in those 3 years, they were able to— they paid off all their debts, built up some cash, which they had never had their whole life and all this.
Zeb Beard [00:22:15]:
But let me get back to— I'm bad about getting off on these tangents, but we like the tangents. But my dad was working for this guy and, and they got to be really good, really close. And he told my dad, he said, you need to— he said, I've got a house in the Florida Keys. You need to go down there and take your vacation. And so my dad was telling me about it. I said, you tell him you won't go unless you can take your son with you. Bad. So he said, okay.
Zeb Beard [00:22:45]:
So we got the deal done in 2014. We all took a family vacation. My dad, my mom, and me and Susie and my two kids. We all went to the Florida Keys to this house.. And it was in Islamorada, which if you know anything about the Florida Keys, it's, it's just past Key Largo. It's, it's probably 80 miles from Key West. You know, Key West is the last one. So it's 80 miles up the key, the chain of keys.
Zeb Beard [00:23:14]:
So we go to this house and stay and I fell in love with the place. I said, this is the greatest thing. I don't know how I'm ever going to get back down here, but I'm coming back. Next year I'm coming back. So we, we spent our vacation there and had a good time. I came back home and I went to work, but it still didn't just, it didn't really gel like I wanted it to. I was still struggling at that time. I was really struggling.
Zeb Beard [00:23:40]:
So we went in August, which is about where my birthday is. So I told Susie, I said, we're gonna go back next August. So I worked around there and it got to be probably middle of July, I'm gonna say somewhere in there. No, we probably had, we probably had more time than that. It was probably mid-June. Mm-hmm. I walked in the office. I said, hey, what about going to the Keys, uh, down there like we talked about? She said, there ain't no way.
Zeb Beard [00:24:05]:
She said, we don't have the money. There ain't no way we can do it. I said, well, how much we gotta have? She said, no need even thinking about it, cuz you can't, there ain't no way. It's not possible. I said, you figure me a number. You give me a number and I'm fixing to do it or die trying. I'm fixing to do it. I got to go back.
Zeb Beard [00:24:27]:
I'm going back this, this, this time I'm going back. So I walked out of the office, spent about 2 hours. I came back and she, she had the number. I don't even remember what it was. It was, now it seems laughable, it's so small, but I think it was $15,000 that we had to have in the account plus pay all our bills. And at that time it seemed like it was just a billion. Yeah. Oh yeah, it might as well be.
Zeb Beard [00:25:00]:
I said, all right, let's go do it. So I went back out in the shop and I started working and I worked 7 days a week. I worked 16 hours a day, just however hard I could work. And it came time. It was about 2 weeks before time to leave. And I had doubled, I had doubled that amount in my account and I never had that much money in my account ever. So we went and we had, I'm telling you, that was probably as many times we've been, that was probably the best trip we ever had. We had so much fun.
Zeb Beard [00:25:31]:
We did everything. We didn't have to worry about money. We didn't have to worry about the shop because all the bills were paid and we had plenty of money when we got home. So we didn't have to worry about it. And we had the best time. So when I got home from that trip, it was the same deal. It was like, okay, I got to do it again. So that's, that's kind of how I would set my ruler.
Zeb Beard [00:25:52]:
If I had enough to go and then enough to go the next time, then that meant I could go. So I always had enough for 2 trips saved up all the time. So after we started doing it that way, it just started compounding. And things got really good, really good, really good, better. So we added on the shop in 2016. We looked at that like it was going to be another, you know, another expense. But it turned out I added on to the shop. My shop was 4,000 feet when I started.
Zeb Beard [00:26:29]:
And so I added 5,000 feet to it and my production, more than double just adding on to the shop. So after that, man, it got easy. I just, I had more money than I knew what to do with. I could pay my bills and still I could buy guns and trucks, whatever I wanted. So this rocked on until 2018. I think we went to Key West 6 times in 2018. So that's what I would do. I would, I would have enough money when I had enough money saved up to go twice, then I would go.
Zeb Beard [00:27:06]:
So every time I'd done that, I would go. So it turned out I went 6 times in 2018. I said, so we gotta find something different to do. So I added on to the shop again. It went from 9,000 feet, then we went to 12,000 feet and we bought a house on the lake and it was still just, It was just easy. We couldn't do anything wrong. So I came to a crossroads. It's the first time in my life I thought about just staying the same, not growing or anything.
Zeb Beard [00:27:41]:
And I only thought about that for about a week. And there was— yeah, there— what there was, there was a big chicken processing plant there in the city we were in, and When I opened my original business in 2005, I would go in there and do work. I would go in there, they would hire me to come in there and build things for this chicken plant. 'Cause at that time I did welding machine work too on top of my automotive stuff. So when I was in there, I'm a daydreamer, right? So I would look around at this huge building and I would look around at it and I would daydream about, hey, if I had this for my shop, I would do this and I would have, some lifts over there. My toolbox would be over here. This break room over here, this would be where we'd eat our lunch. And I just thought about these things.
Zeb Beard [00:28:33]:
So long about in '20, it was, it was early '21. This chicken plant had become empty again. It's a scam. It just, it's constantly a business will move in, run up a bill, and then they'll go out. It's, it's a, they get money out of the government. So at this time that building was empty and I just happened to drive by it one day. I hadn't thought about it in a while and I drove by it and it hit me. I said, I'm gonna buy that building right there.
Zeb Beard [00:29:01]:
I'm gonna buy it. So I text my banker. I said, hey, I wanna buy that chicken plant. He said, all right, let's do it. So we set in to try and me and him both, and we tried for probably a year. I tried everything. I went to the state, Arkansas State Capitol. And met with the people in charge of it.
Zeb Beard [00:29:20]:
They put me out of the meeting.
Tonnika Haynes [00:29:22]:
They wouldn't talk to me.
Zeb Beard [00:29:23]:
They put you out. They put me out the meeting because I went in there. My state representative, I know it, you know, pretty good. So I called him finally. I said, hey, I want this building. He said, I can get that building for you. I said, okay. He said, I'll call you back.
Zeb Beard [00:29:39]:
So 2 days later he called me, said, we got a meeting at the state capitol. He said, the state is in control of that building. He said, but I'm a state representative. I tell them what to do. We fixin' to get you that building, man. I'm telling you, I was so excited I couldn't even sleep. I said, I'm fixin' to get the building finally.
Tonnika Haynes [00:29:56]:
So we did that. Did you wear a suit?
Zeb Beard [00:29:57]:
Did you wear a suit? I didn't wear a suit, but I did dress up nice. I wore a button-down shirt, cowboy boots. Okay. I was dressed up. So anyway, we, we go to the meeting. We go in there and these old big fat guys come in there. You know, if you watch wrestling. Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:30:17]:
You know Paul Bearer? You know what Paul Bearer looks like? These people did not look like that. The Undertaker's daddy? There's a bunch of them. They look like that. Big old fat guys. They all sitting around this big long table, man. This long table. And that state representative, he told me, he said, he said, you just let me do the talking. I said, "All right." So we sit down there and he tells them guys, he said, "This boy right here has been in business in Warren and Bradley County, been around there his whole life, been in business," at that time I guess it was 18 years.
Zeb Beard [00:30:48]:
Said, "He's here to stay. These chicken plants have done beat us out of all this money and he wants to buy that building and put his business in there." Said, "He's got the bank backing him, everything. We just need it." Done. Some old guys, one of them reared back his chair. He said, it'd take $2 million to buy that building. I couldn't hold back no longer. I said, I have you a check here as quick as I can go to Warren and bring it back. I got the money.
Zeb Beard [00:31:19]:
So he wasn't expecting that. He said, well, he said, the only problem with that, he said, is that guy that's in charge of it, He'll file bankruptcy if he finds out we're trying to sell it. He said, that'll take 18 months. I said, I got, I can do that. That's fine. I said, but I got a better, I got a better idea than that. I said, let's, let's just call him right now and make a deal. I said, I'm a deal maker.
Zeb Beard [00:31:47]:
I make deals every day. I said, every time, every job that I do, I have to make a deal. I said, let's dial him up and I'll make a deal with him. We'll get that. We'll get this handled right now. 'No, you don't understand. That's a— he's an unreasonable man.' I said, 'I deal with unreasonable people every day. That's my job.
Zeb Beard [00:32:03]:
That's what I do. That's how I got to where I am.' 'That's what I do.' Yeah. So they all looked at their watches. They said, 'Oh, we got to be at a, uh, we got to be at a meeting over here in this building.' Yeah. And that other one said, 'Yeah, I got to be over here.' And they said, 'We'll, we'll meet again in 30 days.' So they looked at the state representative. They said, You stay back, we gotta talk to you about something else, unrelated matters. So what they did, they put me out the meeting, right? So I go out in the hall, I know about what's gonna happen. So keep in mind, this building had been in default.
Zeb Beard [00:32:41]:
They hadn't made, they hadn't even made the first payment on it. It was a government-backed loan. A bank loaned the money on it, but the state backs the loan, right? So if the guy don't make the payments, The taxpayers make the payments. So he, at that time, I think it was 200-something days. No payments. She was just sitting there emptying. No payments had been made. Nope, nothing had been made on it.
Zeb Beard [00:33:06]:
So, the state representative, he comes bouncing out of the meeting. He comes over, man, I got some bad news. I said, well, let's hear it. I already know. He said, but it's some good news too. I said, okay, what's the news? He said, man, they got another chicken plant going to buy that building. Gonna come in and write him a check for $5 million next week for that building. I said, okay.
Zeb Beard [00:33:26]:
I said, what's the good news? He said, well, the good news is they wanna make you the same deal. You can go build you a new building and they'll give you a loan just like what he's got. I said, oh really? Just like what he's got? Yeah, just like what he's got. I said, just like what he's got? And he said, yeah. I said, well, so that means I can go 200-something days without making no damn payments on it? They don't say nothing? No, no, no, it ain't like that. I said, well, you said this, like you said it. Yeah. So anyway, that deal failed.
Zeb Beard [00:33:57]:
He said, I'll tell you what, we got some, we got some land back there, back there in the industrial park. The city will give it to you if you build a new building back here. And it was behind that building I'd been looking at. I said, okay, I don't see where I got no option. So it went on typical. Typical politician. I called him. He said, you can move your dozer in there tomorrow.
Zeb Beard [00:34:23]:
That's what he told me. You can move your dozer in there tomorrow. So next day I called him. I said, all right, I want that land. I said, I'm fixing to load my dozer up and carry it over. No, no, no. That was just a figure of speech. You know, I'll have it for you in about a week.
Zeb Beard [00:34:37]:
So it went on a week, 30 days, 60 days. I said, look, I got, I I'm fixing to build something. My banker done told me, he said, you build you a new building. Forget that, forget that damn chicken plant. We'll build you a new building. Whatever you got to have, we'll do it. So the politician never came through with the land, none of that. So I ended up over here at Monticello and the city I'm in now, and I met with them, and in 30 minutes I had my 10 acres that I got now.
Zeb Beard [00:35:08]:
They sold me the land and we start breaking ground right then.
Tonnika Haynes [00:35:12]:
But that's how you got a better situation.
Zeb Beard [00:35:15]:
Oh yeah, it was, it was the Lord looking out for me again. Yeah, I would have been sick if I'd have built that building over there at that other town, because I got my old building over there I can't sell. It's still just sitting there.
Ashley Kaplan [00:35:25]:
I still got it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:35:28]:
Oh wow, you don't want to make it quick loop, a little quick loop spot out of it?
Zeb Beard [00:35:32]:
No, it ain't— I don't know what's gonna happen to it, but It's too big for a quick lube. It's 12,000— it's 12,000 feet, my old building.
Tonnika Haynes [00:35:40]:
I mean, that's a lot of oil changes. It's a lot of oil changes and a lot of free diagnostics.
Ashley Kaplan [00:35:46]:
60,000 square feet. What size is your space now?
Zeb Beard [00:35:48]:
I saw your, your video, your tour. It's 62,000 square feet.
Tonnika Haynes [00:35:53]:
Wow.
Zeb Beard [00:35:53]:
And that's how— I guess I told that whole big long story. Um, that's how I— that's how this— the concept of this building came about, because I'd studied chicken plant I had studied so long on that chicken plant that I already knew what I wanted it to look like. And this building is better because I was able to make all the changes that the chicken plant needed. I can make them here the way I want it to.
Tonnika Haynes [00:36:19]:
So when you have your vision, do you put it in front of you? Like, is it on a wall or is it just all up here?
Zeb Beard [00:36:25]:
Most of it's in here. There's a lot of it's on my phone. I don't know how many— I don't know how many pictures of that chicken plant is in my phone with my logo pasted on the side of it because that's, that's something I'm big in. I'm big into visualization. Visualization. Yeah. Visualize it. You study on it.
Zeb Beard [00:36:45]:
You, you meditate on it. You imagine yourself in that position that you want to be. You think about what it would be like all the time. That's what I did. I imagined myself walking around in there and working in there. I visualized it for so many years.
Tonnika Haynes [00:37:01]:
And I know I talk about my dad a lot and I will. It's my daddy. But the house that my father is in now, he spent his birthday in it this year. He's— it's done. He's had the plans for that house on the wall since the early '90s. And I call it a McMansion. I'm not sure about the square footage. It's 14 acres.
Tonnika Haynes [00:37:23]:
I think I might be wrong. It might be too small, but it's at least 10,000 square feet. 3 feet elevator, all the things that he wants. And he always visualize it. And that's when I tell you, you remind me so much of my father, how you just a go-getter. Now, I've always been on the fence about my truck. Everybody knows I have the truck now. I've kept that under wraps for a while because I get tired of people talking about it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:37:47]:
So Zamp said something. He said, if you on the podcast, if you want to be a baller You have to do baller shit first, even if you don't have the money. That's right. If you do the baller shit, then you have to go do the work to be the baller. And I don't know exactly how smoothly you put it, but when you said that, I was like, let me go get my damn checkbook.
Ashley Kaplan [00:38:06]:
Yeah, but you just said it earlier too about writing checks that you knew you couldn't cash that day, but you was going to make it. You were going to make sure that they were going to make it happen.
Tonnika Haynes [00:38:14]:
Like when you went and told Susan how much we need, let's go get double. And then you doubled it. But I think a lot of people, you doubled it. People just don't have that vision. You know, they want to live day to day, no big dreams. Dream big. Like, dream big. I don't care how crazy it sounds to anybody else, just flip and do it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:38:34]:
And if you mess it up, just don't do it that way again. Just like, don't do it that way, but still keep doing it.
Ashley Kaplan [00:38:40]:
Yeah, I think part of it is, like I've mentioned, like how other people don't dream big enough for themselves, so then they project that onto other people. It's like That's been my person, you know, that Tanika, my personal experiences. I am a big dreamer and I have a lot of people, or I had a lot of people in my life that would tell me to dream smaller and I don't roll that way. I was going to say, I feel like there's people, I feel this is true for myself that like you, you mentioned you were 10 years old and you knew you were going to be successful. You knew you were going to be famous. And I feel like you either have that or you don't. And I've, I've talked to people about that and I'm like so shocked when I meet people that don't have that. Because I'm like, no, I know that I am destined to be successful.
Ashley Kaplan [00:39:23]:
I don't know when it's going to happen, but I know that everything that I'm doing every day is putting me on that, like keeping me on that path towards that. And you either have that or you don't.
Tonnika Haynes [00:39:36]:
Yeah, but then when you get in the dumps, okay, so for example, you were talking about you couldn't— you didn't— Susie said you didn't have the money to go. You get in the dumps and whatever. Most people would quit. What do you tell the people that want to quit? And I think Josh calls it in the dip, when things get hard, they're ready to throw it in when it gets hard and it's starting to hurt, when they want to quit. Because what I hear a lot of is people are complaining but they're not doing any work. Oh, the shop's slow and we're not making any money, but you're open from 8 to 5, but you only flipping work from 8 to 5. Like, no, you should have been there from 6 to 9 or whatever. Like people are not putting the work in, but then they're ready to quit instead of just putting the vision in front of themselves, making themselves big crazy goals and just doing it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:40:23]:
So what do you tell those people? I want a Zeb version of what you tell the guy that's ready to quit before it's time.
Zeb Beard [00:40:30]:
Well, what you got to do, you got to do what you can do. It don't matter how small it is. You go— and my good friend Brian Pollack says it best— you find a way to win. It don't matter what it is. If you go out in the shop and you need $20,000 by the end of the day and you ain't got but $500 job sitting there, you go do that $500 job. You go do it the best you can. And before you get through, there's going to be another— there might be a $10 job walking. You do that $10 job.
Zeb Beard [00:41:01]:
You do all that you can possibly do, as hard as you can do it, as long as you can do it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:41:07]:
I think people quit too easy.
Zeb Beard [00:41:09]:
They quit too easy. I ain't gonna lie, I want to quit all the time. I used to walk into my shop there, it was probably about from about 2011, probably even before that, up until about 2013 is when I started breaking out. I would walk in my shop every morning before anybody got there. It'd still be dark outside. I'd walk in my shop and I'd lay flat on the floor, on my face, on the dirty floor, and beg the Lord to get to figure out a way to get me out of it. Because I didn't want to admit to the world that I made a mistake taking that shot, because everybody told me, you'll never, you'll never, you'll never do what you're wanting to do in Warren, Arkansas. There ain't no way it'll work.
Zeb Beard [00:41:52]:
It's too much money, all this stuff. So I didn't want to admit it to the world, but I admit it to the Lord. Hey, I messed up. I need outta here. And he act like he didn't hear me. Nothing. Crickets. So I'd get up off my face every morning.
Zeb Beard [00:42:06]:
I'd get up off my face and I'd say, all right, I'm gonna do what I can do. And I'd pick me up, I'd pick me a truck out that I need to fix and I'd go fix it. Then I'd get me another one and then I'd get me another one. I'd get me another one.
Tonnika Haynes [00:42:17]:
And it always worked out.
Zeb Beard [00:42:19]:
It does always work out. And that's when it started. That's when it started building. When I quit being sorry for myself and trying to find a way out, that's when it started coming around.
Tonnika Haynes [00:42:32]:
Do you have a village that you call when you feel like you need to lay on the floor fat on your face still?
Zeb Beard [00:42:39]:
Like, I do now. I didn't then. I didn't have anybody then. You know, we don't— now I got the internet. Now we got internet and Facebook. I got some really close friends. If I get in a bind I can talk to Chris Huggins. You see him around, you commented, him and you, you and him was coming back and forth.
Zeb Beard [00:42:57]:
He's one of my closest friends. I can count on Chris with my deepest, darkest secrets and problems. I can lay them on him. Chris Gainey is another one. In those days, probably in about 2013, I met another guy. He died last year. But he owned a shop not too far from here. And he, he was, he was my confidant back then.
Zeb Beard [00:43:23]:
In those days, he died of cancer about a year ago. But I could— me and him talked about some heavy stuff. We knew each other's secrets, but most of it I just had to deal with it myself because I didn't tell Susie because I didn't want her. I didn't want to worry her, you know, because she's— bless her heart, she's, she's very good, but she's not a big thinker like me. She kind of— she gets nervous. All these big ideas and dreams that I come up with, she gets nervous. She's, she's probably the most sensible of the two. And so I didn't want to go to her with any of my problems because I didn't want her— I didn't want her worrying.
Zeb Beard [00:44:03]:
And it was, it was a pride thing. I didn't want to admit to her that I thought I had made a mistake. So, right, I would just go to the Lord with it. He's the only one. He's the only one I would go to it with, you know.
Ashley Kaplan [00:44:16]:
Yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [00:44:16]:
So if someone like hits you up on the inbox and you don't know them and they are asking you for advice, you're open to that?
Zeb Beard [00:44:24]:
Oh yeah, I do it every day.
Tonnika Haynes [00:44:26]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:44:26]:
My inbox is full of people that, that I talk to, um, that I've maybe met once or twice, or some of them have just seen me on a podcast or something, or, or they follow me and they see how I am and they— I'm an open book on that. I, I, Yeah. Like I was saying earlier, I'm mean. I'm, I'm, I'm a smartass. We love it. If somebody comes at me the right way with that kind of thing, I love it. That's one of my favorite things to do. Right.
Zeb Beard [00:44:55]:
I'll give them numbers. I'll tell them, hey, let's, let's look at these numbers. Let's do this, do this, do this. And we'll get you. We'll get you where you need to be. I love it. I like that kind of stuff.
Ashley Kaplan [00:45:08]:
I enjoy it. Have you had people like try to influence you to niche down? Because I know you, you do a lot of projects and kind of anything you're able to do, right?
Tonnika Haynes [00:45:23]:
What's that now? Like, have you ever thought about, I'm only going to work on this? Like, people say, no, you should narrow what you're working on because you're just gonna— if it got wheels and an engine, you're working on it, right?
Zeb Beard [00:45:33]:
No, because I get bored really easy. I get bored fast. And that was the thing before I had my own business. I would job hop. I've had— I don't have any jobs because I'll do something for a couple of months and I'm, I've mastered it or I'm bored with it. I'm ready to do something else. So when I started this, this is the only job I can't quit. I can't, I can't quit and go do something else.
Zeb Beard [00:46:00]:
So that's why I do so many things here, is to keep myself from getting bored. That's why I got on that road grader today. That's why I have it, is to— so I have something different, you know.
Tonnika Haynes [00:46:12]:
Did you go to any kind of technical school or anything, Zeb?
Zeb Beard [00:46:18]:
No. I've been to— I've been to some training, like when I worked at a dealership for a little bit and I went to some Chrysler training, but it really didn't do much. The biggest training that helped me though is probably in 2007, I would say. I got on the Snap-on truck and there was a flyer up there and me and my Snap-on man are real close. He's, he's, that's another guy that's helped me tremendously. I probably wouldn't even be in business without him. He would, whatever I needed, he would just let me have it. We'll figure out how to pay for it later.
Zeb Beard [00:46:53]:
Just get it. So anyway, I get on the Snap-on truck and there's a flyer for a class that's coming around. I said, hey, what about this class here? And he said, yeah, it's a guy we used to bring him in a lot. He hadn't been here in a few years, but, uh, you should go. And it was about lab scope training. At that time, I didn't know— I didn't even know what a lab scope was. And I said, all right, yeah, I'll be there. So I go to this class and his name's Kevin Markle, Pro Auto Tech., and he's probably the best mentor that I ever had.
Zeb Beard [00:47:23]:
So I went to this class and instantly I was enamored with it. He was the smartest person I'd ever met. And so I told him in that class, I stood up, I said, I don't really know any of this stuff that you're teaching. I said, but my goal is to learn everything that you know. I want you to teach it to me. So the next class, he came around every 6 months, so we didn't have iPhones and stuff like that at that time. So I went to Walmart and I bought one of those voice recorders. It was a little thing about that long, about like a Snickers candy bar.
Zeb Beard [00:47:56]:
You could push a button on it, it would record, right? So I would just get that thing and I would lay it on the table during the class, and then I would go home and I'd listen to that class over and over again till I learned LabScope and all the electrical testing that he taught and everything. And that's kind of— that's probably the biggest mentor I had. But Kevin's a good coach or teacher as far as like business stuff too. So I would listen to him on business advice, any of that kind of stuff. And we're still— we're best friends now. I mean, we, we talk all the time. I went to his wedding in Belize when he got married. I went all the way to Belize to his wedding.
Zeb Beard [00:48:40]:
And, uh, that's probably one of the best mentors I've had over my lifetime.
Tonnika Haynes [00:48:44]:
Well, do you think the, the, the teaching, the technical, um, training that you went through, do you think that's the technician's responsibility or they just have to wait for the shop to take them? Like, I kind of, I really believe in training whatever's available, you know, trying to work that out.
Zeb Beard [00:49:02]:
It's actually both. You have to have You have to have the desire within yourself to do it. Like if you're a technician, you, you have to have the hunger to learn yourself, whether the shop sends you or not. You have to have that hunger yourself because I've sent guys and take them to training and all that, and it doesn't really— until you get one that's hungry for that knowledge, it's not going to do any good. You can send them to all the training you want, but if they're not hungry for it, it's not— it's, it's a waste of money, right? They might pick up a few things, but if they're hungry enough for it, they'll do it even by themselves if they don't have to, you know, if they have to pay for it themselves. Yeah, because it's a tool you can take with them. I'll go up there and, uh, and, and I put on YouTube and study there while I'm eating supper. I still do it.
Zeb Beard [00:49:57]:
Or when I'm getting After I get my shower at night, I'll lay down in the bed, I'll put on YouTube and study something. As long as I've been in it, I'm still hungry for that knowledge. Right. That's how it has to be. If you're not, if you're not like that, you'll, you'll be good, but you won't ever be the best.
Tonnika Haynes [00:50:16]:
It's up to you because, because if you don't do your own training or invest in yourself, like, why would you want somebody else would be responsible for your own mental toolbox. Right.
Zeb Beard [00:50:29]:
Right.
Tonnika Haynes [00:50:29]:
So that's why I'm always listening to YouTube for coaching calls and whatever, just anything that's out there. But it amazes me, not necessarily like business coaches you really despise, you hated that situation, but training opportunities as far as a business owner. You know, you can listen to a podcast and pick up a little thing here or there, but it just amazes me how many people just do not do that.
Zeb Beard [00:50:51]:
Right. I'm, I'm amazed by that too, because that's all I do. All day I have my earbuds in and I've got a podcast on. I'm learning something, right? It's either about, you know, it's an automotive podcast or I like fishing. I'm listening to fishing podcasts. I just, I'm always in a state of learning. And I think to be the best at what you do, that's what you, that's where you have to be. Absolutely.
Zeb Beard [00:51:15]:
I'm trying to train my son at that. He's, he's not very good at it because when 5 o'clock When he walks out of the shop, it's over. Ain't no more strokers. He's not worried about it. He goes and does his own thing. And I've tried to teach him, hey son, you got to find that hunger. That's how you're going to— that's how you're going to fill these shoes. You're going to have to get hungry for it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:51:38]:
And I haven't got—
Zeb Beard [00:51:38]:
going to be able to fill your shoes. I don't know.
Tonnika Haynes [00:51:41]:
We're going to see.
Zeb Beard [00:51:42]:
Does he want to? He wants to. Okay. But he still, he still got, he still got a ways to go. How old is he? He's 22. 22. He still don't have that spark yet, and I think it's going to hit him. He's a newlywed too. He's got it.
Zeb Beard [00:52:03]:
He's got a new wife, so he's, he's dealing with that. He's trying to find his own way, but I'm hoping to light that spark in him somehow.
Tonnika Haynes [00:52:13]:
How much longer do you think you can keep doing this?
Zeb Beard [00:52:18]:
I'll do it. I'll fall over dead right here in this shop.
Tonnika Haynes [00:52:22]:
I won't ever quit. So you're not retiring to the Key West big mansion? No, it ain't gonna happen.
Zeb Beard [00:52:30]:
That's not you? It seems like a good idea. You think you want it. And it would probably be okay for about a week. And then about a weekend, I'd be like, I gotta go back to work. I gotta go get a wrench in my hand. I gotta go have a problem that needs solving. I gotta go get on a road grader. I gotta get on a bulldozer.
Zeb Beard [00:52:56]:
I gotta do something. And I've tried it. I've tried it so many times. I've been like, I've been wondering, I say, all right, this weekend I'm not doing anything. I'm gonna sit on the couch and rest all weekend. And that lasts for about an hour. I did it this morning. I got up this morning, it's snow on the ground.
Zeb Beard [00:53:14]:
I came out in the shop, I walked around, I had some stuff to do, but nothing really, nothing really seemed like something I want to do. I said, you know what, I'm gonna go back in there, I'm tired, I'm gonna go in there and rest. I went back in there, got on the couch, turned YouTube on, start watching some fishing shows on YouTube. I made it 15 minutes, I turned it off. Susan said, where are you going? I said, I'm going back to work, I can't do it.
Tonnika Haynes [00:53:42]:
Went back to work.
Ashley Kaplan [00:53:43]:
So I get a lot of good work done when I'm like, my husband and I will watch a lot of like just normal stuff on YouTube, but like a lot of the diesel guys on YouTube, Diesel Brothers and Diesel, whoever, Whistling Diesel and stuff. But I can't sit there and just like watch it for a long period of time. But if it's in the background, I'm all like, I could get my best work done then.
Tonnika Haynes [00:54:10]:
Yeah.
Ashley Kaplan [00:54:10]:
My husband and I, when we first met, he used to kind of make fun of me and tease me. Like we were early into dating and it's like a Friday night, we ordered pizza, we're about to stay in and hang out and I've got like fuel trim diagnostic videos on YouTube. He's like, what are you doing? I'm like learning. I'm just like obsessed with hard problems that people are trying to solve. So I love when technicians are filming hard diagnostics and throwing them online.
Zeb Beard [00:54:35]:
Like, please let me watch. I ain't watching this.
Tonnika Haynes [00:54:37]:
I'mma watch this murder mystery. Nope. Give me 24/7 Dateline. I want to know who killed them and why they killed them and where's the body. I'm a good listener at all. I like that too. I mean, that's what I listen to when I'm not listening to anything automotive as far as learning the business and all of that good stuff. But I know how to cut it off now because I've been doing it quite a while.
Tonnika Haynes [00:55:01]:
So 30 years and I'm, I'm a little over it, but I don't think I will ever be an absentee shop owner. I don't work as much as I used to anymore, but I don't think I can do that.
Zeb Beard [00:55:10]:
I don't have no, no desire to do it. And that's why, you know, a lot of people ask me, say, what about multiple locations? That's just not me. Cause I have to have my hands in it all the time.
Ashley Kaplan [00:55:22]:
So I just, I'm going to be one mega location is all I'm going to be.
Zeb Beard [00:55:27]:
I'm curious, how many employees do you have? 6. There's 6 of us total, including myself. Okay. And the way, the way that I run it, that's the way we're able to have this big a building with those few employees is because Susie runs the whole front of it. She runs the parts, the bookkeeping, the— she now, she's the service advisor. She does all the customer-facing stuff. She talks to the customers. That took a while to do, but now the customers ask for her.
Zeb Beard [00:56:00]:
They don't even ask for me anymore. Every once in a while I have to come in and do my thing, but it's rare.
Tonnika Haynes [00:56:07]:
Nobody wants to see Zeb do his thing at the front office. Right.
Zeb Beard [00:56:12]:
So then after she handles that, then it comes to me. And, well, actually it goes to the DBI guy. We got a guy that does nothing but DBIs. That's all he does. So it goes to the DVI guy and he does his thing. Then I'm the diagnostic guy. So I look at the DVI and then I do the diagnostics on it and figure out what it needs, you know, how it needs it, and kind of get the logistics of the repair line. I figure all that out.
Zeb Beard [00:56:45]:
Then Susie estimates it, sells the job, Then it goes to— I got 2 technicians. I really only have 2 technicians, and one of them's my son, and then another one, his name's Kyle Seibert. He's been with me since 2019. And it goes to them, and they do all the nuts and bolts. Say I figured out that it needs an engine, or it needs a cylinder head, or it needs a timing belt, whatever it needs. They— it's, it's parked in a bay waiting on them. Most of the time I'll have it racked up where if they need to pick it up with their lift or whatever, it's already, it's already there waiting. All they gotta do is hit the button and pick it up.
Zeb Beard [00:57:20]:
So all they do is nuts and bolts. They do that. Now they're both coming along, they're doing a little bit of diagnostics now, but their main job now is just, for the most part, is just the nuts and bolts. When they get through the nuts and bolts, then it comes back to me and I go drive it. And that's my specialty. I make sure I go drive it and I make sure everything's right. No lights, no vibrations, no misfires, none of that. That's my favorite thing because I'm— The control.
Zeb Beard [00:57:50]:
Yep. I'm very in tune with the vehicle. If I drive one, I can tell you if it's right or not. That's my, that's my thing. So I'll never let that job go to anybody else. That'll always be my job. So then I go drive it, make sure it's good, and then it goes back to the customer. But those two technicians, that's the reason.
Zeb Beard [00:58:12]:
That's how they turn when we got everything lined up, they can turn, they've turned almost 200 hours. Their records are like 100, I think one of them's 178 and one of them's 160-something hours in a week. Wow. Because, but they don't have to do anything but just the repair. They don't have to test drive. They don't have to do anything. They just straight work. If they run into a problem, say they break a bolt off, something like that, they mess with it for a minute and then they, they move to the next one.
Zeb Beard [00:58:47]:
So each technician has about 10 bays. I'm the one that gets the broke bolts out. So they, or whatever problem they have, then it's handed back to me. So all they're doing is straight turning hours. That's all they do. Hard as they can go. And that's how we do it with so few people. That's how we run this big a place with so few people.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:06]:
You got it dialed in, good processes.
Zeb Beard [00:59:09]:
Yeah, I don't let them struggle. They don't struggle with anything. If they— they— I can look at them and tell if they're— if they beat their head against the wall for an hour or so, I say, hey, go get you another one.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:22]:
I got this.
Zeb Beard [00:59:22]:
Yeah, let's not slow down production. Yeah, you don't worry about this. You go do something else.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:29]:
That's what's up. Incredible. That is— that's crazy. Like, the size of the shop, the organization.
Ashley Kaplan [00:59:35]:
That's 10,000 square feet a person.
Tonnika Haynes [00:59:37]:
That is a lot of room. But I don't know what it is and stuff.
Zeb Beard [00:59:41]:
The electric slide— we're not all of them. The two, the two rows that Kyle and Zachary work in, they just regular cars go in there. I let them work on some of the bigger stuff now, but it— that used to be all mine. I would do all the big stuff and they did all the cars and the pickups. I'm letting them now. They're getting where they can work on the big trucks and stuff like that.
Tonnika Haynes [01:00:02]:
So, so you're giving up a little bit of control.
Zeb Beard [01:00:04]:
I'm giving up a little bit. I still ain't giving up the QC though. I can't, I can't trust nobody with the QC.
Tonnika Haynes [01:00:13]:
All right. I want to end on this one question. All right. You've got a lot going on. You've got a lot to choose from. Your journey. What, what is the most proud you've been like, what part of your journey are you most proud of?
Zeb Beard [01:00:32]:
I'm going to say the most proud. Yeah, I'm proud of my building and what I've accomplished here. But the most proud thing that I have is my son and Susie, how they have came up and are able to do what they do. Because I never saw this. I never thought that they would be able to do it. I said, it's always going to be me. You know, it's going to be me the whole time. But over the past 2 years, I've seen that those 2, they've picked it up.
Zeb Beard [01:01:05]:
If I fall over before I walk out that door right there and go back up to the kitchen, they'll be all right. They can run it without me. I don't want them to have to, but they can. They'll make it without me. And Kyle. Kyle, I got it. He's, he's not any relation to me, but he's like a son to me. He can— those three together, they can do it without me.
Zeb Beard [01:01:31]:
It'd be tough. It ain't gonna be easy, but they'll be fine. And that's probably what I'm most proud of. I was able to build something that they could run with without me here.
Tonnika Haynes [01:01:45]:
I love that answer. Oh. Well, we've been talking for an hour. This was good. I'm excited.
Zeb Beard [01:01:51]:
Yeah, it's been an hour. I hope it was good.
Tonnika Haynes [01:01:53]:
I hope I didn't take up too much. I mean, I hope it was good too, because this is the first time that I'm doing it.
Zeb Beard [01:01:58]:
I don't know what I'm going to be talking about. What's the name of the show going to be?
Tonnika Haynes [01:02:04]:
The Downshift. The Downshift. The Downshift with Tanika, because I really believe that right now in the industry, people don't understand that even though you guys are on this big platform, everybody's on Facebook and the tickety-tock and everything, and they get to see the highlights of your life, and they don't understand that you had to bust your ass for so long. They see just the easy parts that you're doing. They see you through the, you know, your Meta glasses. They don't see that you laid on the floor and prayed to God to please bless me, you know. So those are the things that I want to kind of highlight with my podcast, just the warm and gentle side of the industry and how we sometimes need to slow down, check ourselves before we speed back up and not to quit. I mean, I think a lot of people just need to slow down and not quit and ask for help.
Tonnika Haynes [01:02:58]:
So, and then we get to have fun and talk to the people that I know and love in the industry. I get to talk to my people. When will I see you again?
Zeb Beard [01:03:05]:
Oh my goodness. Well, I'll be at Tools. I think I might go to Vision.
Tonnika Haynes [01:03:10]:
I'll be at Vision. I won't— I don't think I'll be able to go to Vision because Jordan's moving to Florida. I wanna— it's on the calendar, but he's moving to Florida, and so I'm trying to figure that out because he starts class on May 9th. Yeah, so yeah, I'm trying to go to Vision because I've never been before, so I'm excited about that.
Zeb Beard [01:03:27]:
But it's pretty good. It's bigger than ASTA, but man, I'm gonna tell you, ASTA special.
Tonnika Haynes [01:03:33]:
There's something about ASTA that ain't nobody else got. I think, yeah, because we're Southern, we're sweet. Ain't nobody else got it.
Zeb Beard [01:03:41]:
All the networking. Yeah.
Tonnika Haynes [01:03:41]:
Ain't nobody else got it.
Zeb Beard [01:03:42]:
It's like being in somebody's living room or a big cookout and you're learning stuff. Yeah, it's got something special ain't nobody else got.
Tonnika Haynes [01:03:51]:
Ain't nobody else doing it. It's gonna be most special, most special this year. This year is gonna be even better.
Zeb Beard [01:03:56]:
And, um, well, I was told that for a long time. I heard that for a long time. And then I went, I guess, 2020, 4 was my first year. And after that I said, that's going to be the one. I'll forsake all of them to go to that one. If I can only choose one, that's the one I'm— that's what I'm choosing right there. That sounds like advertising. I got to walk or ride a bicycle.
Zeb Beard [01:04:18]:
I'm coming to ASTA somehow, some kind of way.
Tonnika Haynes [01:04:20]:
We're definitely going to make that a clip.
Zeb Beard [01:04:22]:
Kind of like that trip to the Keys. I'm going to be there.
Tonnika Haynes [01:04:25]:
Whatever I got to do, I'm going to do it. You think you're going to fight Brian again?
Zeb Beard [01:04:31]:
I would. They're supposed to. I can't spill the beans, but the whatever competition we have this year is going to be— last year it was more suited towards him. This year, this year it's going to be beneficial to somebody of my stature. Oh, okay, for the regular-sized people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So instead of, uh Sasquatches and grizzly bears.
Tonnika Haynes [01:04:58]:
Don't be talking about Frank like that. On that note, we're gonna sign off.
Zeb Beard [01:05:04]:
This was great, Zay, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. Anytime, man. I'm gonna tell you, and that's the problem, if you ever, if you ever have me on a pod and I won't shut up, just tell me, hey, shut up, we're tired here. No, because that's my— myself is my favorite subject.
Tonnika Haynes [01:05:19]:
I can, I can talk.
Zeb Beard [01:05:21]:
As it should be.
Ashley Kaplan [01:05:22]:
Hour and talk about myself.
Zeb Beard [01:05:24]:
It should be your favorite subject. Talk about myself as long as you want. As long as you want to sit there and listen, I will.
Tonnika Haynes [01:05:31]:
Me too. It's quite fascinating.
Zeb Beard [01:05:33]:
You're fascinating. I am my favorite subject.