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The Gearbox Podcast brings on industry professionals to explore the day-to-day operations of owning and operating a shop. From common frustrations to industry-wide shifts, this podcast covers it with fun and insightful conversations.
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:13]:
Welcome to the Gearbox podcast. I'm your host, Jimmy Purdy. On this podcast, we're not just exploring the latest trends and technologies in the automotive industry. We're also getting real about the journey. Yes, the bumpy road of mistakes and lessons learned hard along the way. This is the Gearbox podcast.
Brian Walker [00:00:34]:
So where, where are you, Jimmy?
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:37]:
I'm in California, Central coast, past, past rollable. So I don't know if you're familiar with the.
Brian Walker [00:00:42]:
No, I'm not.
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:43]:
Just about dead Center, California, about 20 miles off the coast. So it's a nice little, Nice little pocket, right, because we're, we're, we're out of la, like about four hours north, and then we're out of San Francisco about four hours south. So.
Brian Walker [00:01:01]:
So is that. Are you far from like, Carmel by the sea?
Jimmy Purdy [00:01:08]:
It's about two hours north of us. Okay. Yeah, Monterey. Carmel's all. That's pretty nice up there.
Brian Walker [00:01:14]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:01:16]:
And then you get up into Santa Cruz, and not as nice, but if we go up Santa Cruz, like that way, we'll go out into Felton, which is a little inland. Right. That's where all the big, you know, redwoods are. And. Yeah, I love that area too. We're pretty, we're pretty. Not rural, but we were rural when I was younger. The last 10 years, it's like, oh, my God, this place is a nightmare now.
Jimmy Purdy [00:01:39]:
So many people and they're building hotels on top of hotels on top of hotels. It's like, what. Where all these people coming from, man? I just, I don't know. Yeah, we used to have a. The fair. You know, we have a mid state fair. It comes right into our town and we used to do the cattle drive and they would actually take cows and like, with horses on horseback and like, you know, feed them all into the county fair. And about two years ago they stopped that, like, really.
Brian Walker [00:02:04]:
So we, we went out there early. Gosh, Was it this year? I don't know. It's this year or last year. It all runs together at this point. What? But we, we took a road trip out to California and visited some clients and spent some time out there in Monterey and Carmel by the sea. And that was really my first time spending any time in California outside of one of the cities. And you know, you think of California and think of it as this hugely populated place, which I guess ultimately it is, but between those cities, I mean, there's a lot of rural California. It's just not what I've thought of.
Jimmy Purdy [00:02:46]:
You gotta. Yeah, you definitely found a good spot to go To. Yeah, it's a little. I mean, California is expensive, but that's definitely expensive compared to most California. It's like, yeah, I love it up there. It's nice. It's open enough. You still got the coast.
Jimmy Purdy [00:03:02]:
We're just off the coast a little bit, but it takes maybe 15 minutes and we're at the ocean. So I can't complain too much.
Brian Walker [00:03:08]:
No, not at all.
Jimmy Purdy [00:03:09]:
It's all the wine. It's the big wine country. Like, past Paso Robles is the new Napa Valley. So, like, instead of everyone visiting Napa, now, they all come to paso. We got 300 and. Oh, it's like 390 wineries now. Wow. In our small town of 30, 000 people, it's like, if you like drinking, it's the place to be.
Jimmy Purdy [00:03:29]:
But it's like, oh, man, is there anything else to do but just drink all day? Damn.
Brian Walker [00:03:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. Earlier this year, I went out to. To Colorado and went through the hill country of Texas, and there's a lot of wineries there.
Jimmy Purdy [00:03:41]:
Yeah.
Brian Walker [00:03:42]:
And I'm driving down this highway, and I mean, it was just miles and miles where it was nothing but one winery after another. And I mean, these things, they. Half of them were like theme parks, you know, with. With all kind of stuff set up for. For, like, kids, which you wouldn't think about kids and wineries. But, you know, they. They made them into tourist attractions. And it was.
Brian Walker [00:04:06]:
I never knew that there were so many.
Jimmy Purdy [00:04:09]:
Yeah. And it was such a popular. I don't know what you call it. It's almost like a cult.
Brian Walker [00:04:15]:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Jimmy Purdy [00:04:18]:
And it's all matter of preference and taste. Right. So it's like, you can just say it tastes like whatever you want to taste like. Like the tasting notes is. Blows me away. In our town, I used to do chauffeuring. Right. So on the weekends, I'd go and, like, I'll get it on in some of this action.
Jimmy Purdy [00:04:32]:
So I'd go work for a local limo company or I'd fix them during the week. Right. And then, like, drive them during the weekend, drive around with two feet, you know, make sure I get a brake job out of it in the next week. No, but you drive around as a chauffeur, right. And you see, you get into the industry and you start learning, like people that doing the tasting notes, you start kind of get behind the veil a little bit, and you're like, oh, I get it. This is all just. All right. I get why I don't like it very much.
Jimmy Purdy [00:05:01]:
Yeah, but whatever. Take advantage of what you can. You know, people come out here and spend thousand dollars to drive around and wine taste. It's like, all right, if that's what you want to do. Yeah. You had a pretty good road trip, huh? That looked like it was funneled following you on, on Facebook.
Brian Walker [00:05:19]:
And it was, it was, you know, I took off by myself. It was supposed to be a 19 day trip and you know, I, I very much enjoyed it, but I think I was around day 11 and it was like, okay, I'm not made to do this by myself. And it was kind of that Forrest Gump moment where it was like, I think I'll go home now. And that's exactly what I did. But it was a, it was a great trip. You know, spending some time up in the Texas hill country with all those clear rivers and, and then getting into Colorado, going into the San Juan mountains, which is like one of my favorite areas in the world, and went and visited Darren Barney. I don't know if you know Darren or not, but he, he's a shop owner and he's one of my clients. But he also, he owns Elite Worldwide, the coaching company.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:15]:
Oh, okay.
Brian Walker [00:06:16]:
Yeah, yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:16]:
Familiar with that.
Brian Walker [00:06:17]:
So he's big into off road and his, his shop is an off road shop and he's been doing it his entire life. And we went out there and got way back in the mountains. That was, that was just a good time.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:28]:
That's awesome.
Brian Walker [00:06:29]:
Yeah, that's cool.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:31]:
When you can make connections across the country like that.
Brian Walker [00:06:35]:
Yep.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:36]:
Like, hey, I'm in the Neck. You're across the country, but I know somebody here and there and everywhere.
Brian Walker [00:06:42]:
This industry does that though.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:43]:
Yeah.
Brian Walker [00:06:44]:
You know, I see, I see so many of my friends in the industry that when they're traveling, they're stopping in on other shops and visiting other shop owners and everything.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:52]:
It's just, they call it seven. Seven degrees of separation. Is that right? Something like that. Yeah.
Brian Walker [00:06:58]:
Yeah, yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:00]:
So we were just in Alaska and that's what we were doing up there, visiting a shop. And it's like, I mean, they're everywhere, right? You can't. I mean, everybody has a car in every part of the country and they all need to be fixed, so. And hopefully there's a good shop in that area because that's the ones that I want to know. Yeah, another decent ones, you're right. The ones that are actually trying to better the industry and make it better. It's like, so you're always going to find somebody. So that's Cool.
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:24]:
And you start. You started out as a technician, right? Is that.
Brian Walker [00:07:27]:
I did. I was a. I was a Mercedes tech. Mercedes dealer tech.
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:32]:
Interesting.
Brian Walker [00:07:33]:
Started out in Baton Rouge. When Kim and I got married, we headed up to Raleigh, N.C. literally left our wedding in a U haul and moved to Raleigh, went to work for the dealer there and. And became their diagnostic tech.
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:50]:
What was the. What was. What was the push to move up to North Carolina from Baton Rouge?
Brian Walker [00:07:55]:
We were just looking for a change. You know, we. We're from rural Louisiana, a small town called Hammond, which is where we. We live now again. But, you know, at that time, there was just nothing in Hammond for a young couple, you know, who was looking to, like, build a life. And we. We ended up there. I met.
Brian Walker [00:08:19]:
I met a. Another tech through the Mercedes school in Jacksonville, Florida. And he was like, one of the only people I ever met who talked about how great the dealership he worked for was. And it's like, okay, I need to. I need to come check this out. And they were hiring, so I ended up going home from Mercedes school. Flew out there that weekend, checked it out. They made me a job offer.
Brian Walker [00:08:44]:
I accepted, came back to Louisiana, put in my notice, and they. The dealership in Louisiana ended up making me quite the offer to stay. So I ended up staying. And then a year later, Cam and I were getting married, and we were like, you know what? Let's. It's time for a change. And honestly, it's the best thing that we ever did because, you know, we got to get away from the status quo and see, you know, what else there was to life. You know, moving from rural Louisiana to the Research Triangle Park. Big difference.
Brian Walker [00:09:19]:
Yeah, you know, big a difference in mentality and everything. And it's, you know, I. I can't imagine the difference in our life had we not done that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:09:31]:
Yeah, it's the big moves that make. Make the big changes, I guess. Right?
Brian Walker [00:09:34]:
Yep. Yeah. And just seeing what else is out there. You know, Kim and I travel so much, and we have a lot of friends in the area that we're in now that are involved in local government and different organizations and everything. And we'll see something cool that, you know, another area of the country is doing, and we'll send pictures back to that friend or whatever. And, you know, some of these people just never travel. They never get outside of their own town to see what the possibilities are, you know, so it's. It really opens your mind up to so many things when.
Brian Walker [00:10:11]:
When you have a big change in.
Jimmy Purdy [00:10:13]:
Your life, like that it's hard to extrapolate it. Right. It's hard to put it into words. What it is, what happens when you do, when you just traveling. Right. Just going from state to state or meeting people from different areas. Like, some of it kind of. I think for me, it almost dampens it a little bit where you think it's going to be like this grandeur thing and it's not.
Jimmy Purdy [00:10:37]:
And so it allows you to kind of focus more. Oh, well, it's really on myself to make what I got better. Right. Rather than thinking the grass is greener. I don't know. That was my kind of epiphany. When you start moving around all over the, you know, doing traveling, it's like, oh, everyone's got the same problems everywhere. Like, there is no, like, I'm going to move to freaking Tennessee.
Jimmy Purdy [00:10:54]:
My life's going to magically get better. But for some people, it works that way, I guess.
Brian Walker [00:10:59]:
Well, I mean, you know, most of your problems are created by yourself and things internally, and you just take them with you. Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:11:08]:
Isn't that the truth, man? Like, if more could just understand that. Right?
Brian Walker [00:11:13]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:11:13]:
But then again, if you lose that, that thought, then you think there's nothing you can do to fix it because you're like, some people need that motivation.
Brian Walker [00:11:21]:
Yeah. And, you know, when we, when we travel outside of the country especially, you know, because we will see something here in the United States that's old and it's like 200 years old. You get over to Italy and you see something that's old and it's like 3,000 years old. And it, you know, it's just a completely different perspective shift.
Jimmy Purdy [00:11:43]:
Maybe on the East Coast, 200 year man on the west coast, like just going to, you know, Boston and, you know, stay. Going to the east coast, you start seeing stuff. For me, it's like 200 years old. I'm like, that's rad. Like, that's so cool. There's nothing like that on the west coast anymore. Right. Everything's new and developed and.
Jimmy Purdy [00:11:59]:
And then, yeah, going to like, Ireland and seeing like 1400, you know, castles. You're like, what? Yeah, I'm still around, man. Yeah, it's. It's mind blowing for sure.
Brian Walker [00:12:10]:
Yep. So you stand up. I do want to ask real quick. I'm looking, I see. I see your. Your voice track at the bottom. Mine is just a straight line. It's definitely getting my recording, right?
Jimmy Purdy [00:12:22]:
Oh, yeah, Yeah, I got. I got you on this side.
Brian Walker [00:12:23]:
Okay, cool.
Jimmy Purdy [00:12:24]:
Yeah, we're good. Yeah, that's the worst thing in the world.
Brian Walker [00:12:28]:
Oh, man, that's. That's like one of my greatest fears is to record a podcast episode and, you know, it would be the greatest one I ever recorded, I'm sure. And then get to the end and have none of the audio.
Jimmy Purdy [00:12:40]:
You would be the only one that know about it.
Brian Walker [00:12:42]:
Yep.
Jimmy Purdy [00:12:43]:
Yeah. Oh, it's a very. Yeah. That's funny. It's just one of those things. You're just sitting there. Like, I just been sitting in this room by myself, talking to myself for absolutely no reason for the last hour.
Brian Walker [00:12:58]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:12:59]:
I always push record as soon as someone comes on and they'll just edit the first part if. If there's no sustenance there. Right. Because it's like, yeah, I guess click it, get that out of the way, get it rolling. Make sure the. The feedback that I got my sound right. Because sometimes other people's mics come on here too, and it's like real, real little. Like, you got to get a little closer because that's going to take a lot of editing to bump that up.
Brian Walker [00:13:21]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:13:22]:
So. But no, you're coming in good.
Brian Walker [00:13:24]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:13:24]:
Yeah. So I think you did a. You did a. An episode like that where you were talking about that with somebody. And I do. I do a radio show on Saturday mornings and I do, you know, by myself. So I was thinking, I'm like, you imagine if I just was like in the radio booth and I'm just talking into this microphone that's not on for an hour. It's like just the oddest thing to think about.
Brian Walker [00:13:44]:
Everybody who's listening, just dead silence.
Jimmy Purdy [00:13:46]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it feels like anyway. Right. Because I don't have a feedback. So I'm just like, I don't know if you guys can hear me or not. Could somebody call me? Right. And just make sure that this thing's on. It's funny.
Jimmy Purdy [00:13:58]:
So as a, as a tech, you. So you worked as a tech for a long time. Did you ever go into shop ownership? It was just. Just tech. And then you kind of made the pivot into what you're doing now.
Brian Walker [00:14:06]:
I did. I owned. I owned three shops in the Raleigh area at different times. I owned two of them at once, but I had my first shop, which was a Mercedes only shop. And then we moved from Raleigh to a suburb of Raleigh called Apex. And we were. We moved from an absolute dump to being in the wealthiest zip code in North Carolina. And that was such a.
Brian Walker [00:14:36]:
A big change, you know, when we did that. And then For a while I opened an additional shop back in the Raleigh area in north Raleigh and realized that I'm one of those people that I cannot chase two rabbits. You know these, these people who are like MSOs, you know, are, are even, even more the ones that own multiple types of business of, you know, multiple businesses of different types. I don't know how they do it. And I'm, I'm incredibly add. Like know actually diagnosed, not just entrepreneur add Cool. You know, kind of thing is like.
Jimmy Purdy [00:15:16]:
I'm the true, true medical diagnosis.
Brian Walker [00:15:18]:
Got the whole paperwork and everything and I cannot, I can't do it. I can't focus on two businesses at once. I have to do one thing and put all of my focus into that because otherwise everything that I have my hands in is going to, it's going to self destruct. So I did that for a while and I had 20000 square feet in my, my shop in Apex. So I ended up just taking everything from the shop that I had opened up in Raleigh, bringing it back over to the shop in Apex and expanding that shop. And that ended up being a really good thing for us. When we did that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:15:54]:
What do you think other, other than that having the, the ADD thing going on, what do you think was another big hang up or what was the biggest challenges to making that shift into two? Cause that's, that's the big one, right. One to two I've heard is the hardest one. But once you get that figured out, putting that third and fourth one supposedly right from what I've under, I understand it gets easier and easier. So what did you find is like an obstacle there?
Brian Walker [00:16:19]:
You know, I, I don't really know. I have never been like the best business person in the world and it's something that I have to work at incredibly hard. You know, when, when I was a technician, you could just hand me a stack of repair orders and line the cars up and I didn't even have to think about what I was doing. You know, I mean obviously there, there's thought that goes into the diagnostic process and all of that, but it came so naturally to me, whereas the business side of things did not come naturally to me at all. And early on as I made the transition from being a tech to being a business person, I didn't take it near as seriously as I should. And ultimately that was the demise of our business. We blame it on a road construction project and the road construction project. It was seven month long road construction project.
Brian Walker [00:17:11]:
And if you ever want to hear that entire story you can go listen to episode two of our podcast, the Auto Repair Marketing Podcast. But it was a road construction project. But the real truth of the matter is I was not the business person that I needed to be to be able to carry my business through something like that. When everything was good, I was good enough. And I think that that's a problem that a lot of, a lot of people have when they, when they transition from being a technician to being a business owner. Because you have to make that turn, I guess you don't have to. You could hire somebody to run your business, but for most people, they have to make that transition from tech to, to actually being a business person. And you have to take that incredibly seriously.
Brian Walker [00:17:59]:
You can't just be okay with good enough when it comes to being a business person. You have to just like, if you're a technician, you should strive to be the absolute best technician that you can possibly be. When you're a business person, you need to strive to be the absolute best business person that you can be. You need to know how to, you know, read your financial statements. You need to know how to predict cash flow. You need to know how to create cash flow when the prediction shows it's going to be low. You know, there's so much that you have to be able to do that you never learn how to do when business is just good, you know, out of the gate. And 2003, well, 2002, when I opened the business to 2007, man, anybody could run a business at that time.
Brian Walker [00:18:50]:
You know, I mean, that's, that's when they were just giving money away, you know, essentially, which led to the 2008, you know, when, when everything just kind of went to hell. And, and that is where I found the weaknesses of, of who I was as a, as a business person. And, and even now, you know, like I say, I have worked very hard to become the best business person that I can be. And I make it a point to know my business inside and out. And I don't know if it comes down to I don't have the discipline or I don't want to work that hard or what, but when it comes to multiple businesses, I just can't make myself do it. And I don't know what the. I don't really know how to put my finger on, on what it is, you know, whereas you have, you'll have other people that. They got 30 different businesses and most of them are thriving.
Brian Walker [00:19:47]:
And it's like, how do you do that?
Jimmy Purdy [00:19:50]:
I think, I mean, you Definitely nailed a lot of that. Right. And a lot of the stuff speaking straight to me as far as, like, my own personal growth. And I think for anyone listening, too, when you make that transition from tech to shop owner, they just don't take it seriously enough, right?
Brian Walker [00:20:05]:
Yep.
Jimmy Purdy [00:20:06]:
They usually buy it from. From a. From their old boss and they think, you know, they can do it better. And they're like, this will be easy. All I gotta do is fix cars. Right? And then they put that other stuff. Oh, they're dealing with the customers. That's no problem.
Jimmy Purdy [00:20:17]:
I can deal with that. Oh, that's definitely a big problem. One of the, One of the big things for me I've been thinking about lately is, is how all those different aspects are all jobs in their. Of their own marketing. Right. Marketing is like, that's a job all on its own, Right. Managing people, hr, it's another job. And so you have.
Jimmy Purdy [00:20:39]:
And. And they. And they. I think it's thrown around loosely. You have to wear all the hats. Oh, I'll just put another hat on. And it makes it sound easy. Makes it sound like you shouldn't really care about it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:20:48]:
Oh, I just grab a hat off the rack and walk out the. My office door. And now I'm. Now I'm the manager today. And now it's like. But it's so much more than that because you have to. You have to fight this internal thing, right? So we're. We're part of the institute.
Jimmy Purdy [00:21:02]:
We have a coaching, you know, and we have a coach. And we're all about looking about numbers every month and making sure that we're staying where we need to stay, making sure that we have, allow and allocate so much for marketing. We allocate so much for A, B, C and D. Right. And then making sure that we have a proper return on investment. Right?
Brian Walker [00:21:20]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:21:20]:
Like, well, don't spend money on an. On a piece of equipment or a tool or an employee or. Or whatever you're doing for marketing. Make sure you get your ROI on it. But there's a lot of stuff that you need the. You ever read the E Myth?
Brian Walker [00:21:34]:
Yeah. Right. First business book I ever read.
Jimmy Purdy [00:21:37]:
So the whole thing with, like, having the manager and the entrepreneur and the. And the technician, right? And you literally have to fight these two people in your own mind, right? Because, like, the manager needs to manage the cash, but the entrepreneur will be like, you know what? We need to give away a bunch of oil changes this month. And I'm not saying do that, but I'm saying Like. Like as a marketing ploy, like. Right. But you're. The other side of your brain's like, wait, that doesn't make us any money. Right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:22:00]:
And then the coach is screaming at us. You can't give away stuff like that. Like, but it works, right? And you see other shops doing it, and it's like, it brings in. And how much is that worth? Right?
Brian Walker [00:22:10]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:22:10]:
Or talking about doing, like, warranty work or having an upset customer and giving them their money back and say, it's like a 150 or 200 or 300 or something. Right. And you just want to fight it tooth and l. Because your ego won't let it go because it'll screw your books up. Right. So you're like, fight this, and then meanwhile, you don't give them their money back. You just lost 10 customers because of that.
Brian Walker [00:22:33]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:22:34]:
How much. How much does it take for each of those customers to come into your. To get them into your shop? Right. So it wasn't just. It's just that kind of stuff that I've really been thinking about lately. It just. It goes against the grain of, like, trying to be so black and white with running a business. There's so much gray in there, and it's like, oh, man, there's so.
Jimmy Purdy [00:22:52]:
There's so much. I don't know.
Brian Walker [00:22:54]:
When you. And you have to be able to look at all of it. You know, you can't. You can't look at just the one piece of it in the example that you gave. You know, it's like, okay, well, what is that going to do to my profit margin when I give that person, you know, the $300 reimbursement or whatever? And you don't think about the lifetime value of that customer, the raving fan that you. That you can. Because you can create a raving fan out of a comeback. I mean, I've done it many, many times.
Brian Walker [00:23:25]:
Because people. People don't expect people to be perfect. What they care about is how you handle it when you are imperfect and you can create a Raven fan out of a bad situation. And we don't, you know, we may not see that part, and then we may not look at it and say, well, how many people did that person refer to us? Or how many, you know, do. Do they know that they potentially might refer to us in the future? And sometimes you have to make the. That difficult decision. And, you know, you. You should always make the right decision, whatever it is, but sometimes you have to make that difficult decision, and that difficult decision is going to make you way more money than you're going to lose just by doing the right thing.
Brian Walker [00:24:07]:
Yeah, but, but you have to be able to look at all of it from that 30,000 foot view to be able to see all of the pieces of what's going on there and how, how that's going to play out in the future.
Jimmy Purdy [00:24:21]:
Absolutely. Yeah. That, that's the nuance stuff that your, your egotistical technician brain won't let you let it go. Right?
Brian Walker [00:24:30]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:24:30]:
Like I didn't make a mistake, that wasn't me. Right. Meanwhile, you got the other voices in your head saying maybe you should give them their money back and you're fighting yourself and uh, it's just, it's, it's all for not. And you look at the whole situation. How long have I spent debating or arguing or whatever you want to call it with this customer? Right. About this situation. Right.
Brian Walker [00:24:49]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:24:49]:
How much time and energy value, how many emails have I. How many text messages? Like when all you had to do is just, you know what, we made a mistake. Here you go, be on your merry way. Right. I don't think it applies to every situation, but it's just one of those nuanced things that we get. We. I forget about it and I feel like maybe a lot of others forget about it. When you're in the trenches, when you're like deep in it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:25:09]:
Right. When you, like you said, when you're not taking that 30,000 foot view and you're just like in it with a microscope and you're just trying to cut all your numbers and making sure you're, you know, 18 to 20% net and you have your GP where it needs to be in your part and you forget that giving away a little bit of that profit will help marketing. Right. And I think, I think that's, I think that's a big part of, I think learning and trying to grow, I don't know, it's, it's obviously something that I'm working on. I'm trying to learn every day too and just stay open minded about it. I think is more important than anything else.
Brian Walker [00:25:45]:
Yep. And you will never get to the point where you're not, you know, learning or you don't ever want to get to the point where you're not learning because no matter how good you get at this, there's always another level to it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:25:57]:
Don't be, don't be the smartest guy in the room for sure. So what, what was the main push to get out of the shop ownership realm and into marketing. Was there something. I mean, because there's so many other things that you've could have fallen into, right, in the automotive industry. It's just a plethora of other paths. What pushed you into the marketing direction?
Brian Walker [00:26:19]:
Well, I mean, you know, I'm a believer. I believe that God just like took us along this path, honestly, when we look at it. But you know, the, from the, the practical side of it, when I first opened my shop, I needed a website. Could not afford to do it because I, I opened my shop with like $600. That's a crazy story of how I was even able to do that. But way underfunded, needed a website. And the only way that I was going to have a website is if I built it myself. And I, you know, this, this would have been, this was 2002.
Brian Walker [00:26:55]:
So you know, building a website back then was very different than it is now. And I had to get in there and learn how to do it and actually built my first website with Microsoft Word of all things. But it, but it worked and I enjoyed doing it. You know, it was before I owned a shop and before I was fixing other people's cars all day. My hobby was working on cars. It was building my Jeep and you know, going and off roading and doing all that stuff. And it got to the point where, you know, after years of doing it professionally, I didn't want to do that stuff at night anymore. And the building websites is just something that I just really enjoyed and it became a hobby.
Brian Walker [00:27:38]:
So I had a friend who introduced me to a content management system called DotNet Nuke back in the day, which is, that's the software that you build a website on. And I took that and built my shop website and then started helping some other friends in business with theirs. And when we, when we lost our business in 2007 and went bankrupt and moved back to Louisiana, you know, at that time it was just what is anything that I can do to help put food on the table? And I started, you know, building websites, you know, for small businesses in the area and you know, was making a little bit of money doing that. And next thing I know I've got people asking me to manage their social media and do their emails for them and all that stuff. And it, eventually it got to a point where I was like, well, why let me, let me just go do this instead of turning wrenches. Because I was, I was working in Baton Rouge, which is about a 45 minute commute from where I lived. Baton Rouge, traffic is miserable. You would, you would never think that.
Brian Walker [00:28:52]:
You know, you don't think of Baton Rouge as, like, the place is, you know, not like la, but Baton Rouge traffic is absolutely miserable. And I was driving a car with a busted evaporator core in Louisiana in miserable traffic and couldn't afford to fix it. Even though I could do the work myself, I couldn't afford the parts. Like, it was a rough time in life and saw the opportunity to be able to work from home and said, okay, I'm going to give this a shot. And I did. And it grew into what it is today. We were a generalist agency up until 2019. I didn't have my first auto repair shop client until 2019.
Brian Walker [00:29:33]:
I had a business partner who didn't want anything to do with specializing because he was the creative type and he was like, I just don't know how. How many auto repair designs I can do. And he was more about the art side of things than the business side of things. And I eventually bought him out and then we specialized. But, you know, that was. That was the real transition was here's this other thing that I can do. I can make a little bit of money doing this. And, you know, it just.
Brian Walker [00:30:04]:
It just made sense at the time and I'm grateful for the path that, that we went down.
Jimmy Purdy [00:30:10]:
Yeah. I mean, it. There was obviously something there because back in 2000, early. The early aughts.
Brian Walker [00:30:18]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:30:18]:
Not a lot of people had websites. I mean, still in 2024, there's a lot of shops that refuse to have a website.
Brian Walker [00:30:25]:
Yeah. Which blows me away.
Jimmy Purdy [00:30:26]:
Right. So you obviously had something. What was it that. Because I. I know that same struggle, Right. Of like, opening a shop and like never having more than $5,000 in the bank account at any time. Right. Like, it's just a cycle of, you make just enough and you're happy.
Jimmy Purdy [00:30:42]:
Like, I was happy when it went to zero. Instead of like, I owe someone, I can't pay them till, you know, halfway through the month.
Brian Walker [00:30:49]:
Yeah, that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:30:49]:
That was like the first three or four years. Right. Like, I think. I think that speaks to a lot when you're. When you're in that bootstrapping phase and you have no idea what the hell you're doing and why you're doing it, but somehow you're making it work. Right. And the last thing on my mind was putting a website up. So that's interesting that that was something that was forefront for you, that you really thought, I need to get a website going.
Jimmy Purdy [00:31:10]:
Right.
Brian Walker [00:31:10]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:31:11]:
Was that just something that came to you naturally or something that you saw that forced you in the end of that path?
Brian Walker [00:31:16]:
Well, you know we, we were in the Raleigh area, Research Triangle park, know, very tech heavy area. And it was something that people in that area kind of expected and we were one of the first shops in the area to have a website. You know, I think it was just something where, where I could kind of see the writing on the wall and it was, it was like, let me, let me get out ahead of this. And it, I mean it, our web presence, you know, built us to you know, 1.8 million dollar shop in you know, 2006, which, you know that, that was a pretty big shop then. I know, I know you got these shops now, you know, hitting million dollar months and everything. But at that time we were a big shop and it was due to our web presence and, and my wife, which you know, that's something that I haven't really talked about at all. But she was very involved in the business and the marketing side of things and doing all of the networking and, and all of that and she did job with it. So you know, the two of us kind of had that, that, that same marketing mind and you know that, that helped out a lot.
Jimmy Purdy [00:32:32]:
I mean it's, it's much more important than I think a lot. Take. You can either market by lowering your prices or you spend the money on marketing one way or the other. Right. And, and I feel like the, the discount services is one the one way a lot of shops run to try to keep the marketing going. Right. And they think they're doing everyone a service and they're helping out because they're not charging appropriately. And it makes it really difficult, you know, to I guess compete with that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:33:01]:
Like I hate to call it competition, but it is. I mean at the end of the day that's what we're all doing. Right. We're all just trying to fix the cars and I mean I like to collaborate like I like to.
Brian Walker [00:33:11]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:33:11]:
Come with other shops and we all kind of come together. We're not calling it price fixing. That's not what it is. We're not price fixing but, but getting on the same page and trying to keep our margins the same and know we're allocating so much and, and we're selling, we're selling a service, we're not selling a price. I think that's, that's the big takeaway, right. For me.
Brian Walker [00:33:32]:
Yeah. Well, the, one of the big issues is that you know, only about 20% which is, you know, estimated about 20% of the, the shops are actually involved at an industry level and understand what it is that you were just talking about. And those 80% that are out there, that they're not building a business that will ever truly become anything significant. It's just they've built themselves a job. Well, they are the ones that keep auto repair as a commodity. And, and it's, it's a shame because auto repair is not something that should be commoditized. This is a profession that takes incredibly smart people to, to, to do the type of work that they're doing. But you've got other people that are just, you know, charging insanely low prices.
Brian Walker [00:34:30]:
You know, I talk about this all the time. You got, you had other professions out there like plumbers and H Vac, for example, that are charging way more hourly than most auto repair shops. The only investment that they have, everything fits inside of a van. And you're competing against shops that in some cases have, you know, million dollar, multi million dollar real estate with, you know, $100,000 alignment machines, $10,000, like multiple $10,000 diagnostic tools, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. And the technology is literally changing every day that are charging less than people who are putting pipes together that work the same basic way that it did when the Romans built the aqueducts. And, and it just, it just doesn't make sense. But until that other 80% of the industry decides that they're in a respectable profession and that they're going to charge accordingly for that, the ones who are on the top of the industry are going to, so they're going to have to, they're going to pay the price for that somewhat.
Jimmy Purdy [00:35:48]:
That's very true. And I mean, I agree. And, and I hate bringing that up because there's nothing, there's no negative connotation about plumbers or H Vac, right? Like all blue call. Like we need everybody. Like they also, they have a skilled trade, they, they conduct as well. But I mean when you talk about H Vac, they come in, they just rip out all your old stuff and they install new stuff, right? You talk about someone coming and put a hot water heater in, right? It's important. You don't want it to leak. You want to make sure, you know, you have, you have water and you have electrical, right? For you and I, it's easy to think, well that's, that's, it's simple.
Jimmy Purdy [00:36:25]:
You just shut the breaker off, you're going to be fine. But for, for those not in the know, it's like the biggest and the scariest thing in the world. Right. Like, it's water and electricity, but to get charged 370 an hour to have a hot water heater in, I mean, I'm all about paying for a quality service, but at the same time, like, wait, you're charging 370 an hour to put a hot water heater in?
Brian Walker [00:36:46]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:36:46]:
And if you. I'm sure you've installed one or two in your life.
Brian Walker [00:36:50]:
I have.
Jimmy Purdy [00:36:51]:
It's not, it's not rebuilding a transmission, it's not rebuilding a differential. It's not doing a head job on a. On a. On a Prius. Like, it's. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's different there, but yet we're charging less than $200 an hour to do that work that I was just mentioning. Right. So you're absolutely right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:37:08]:
It's like, why are we doing that? Why? And I honestly think it's because if you're in the auto industry, you have a huge heart. Like, the empathy that we all have as shop owners and most technicians is because we want to help. We're. We were in that low. We were. We were in traffic with no ac. We know how miserable that is. We know how much that sucks.
Jimmy Purdy [00:37:30]:
So when we get the ability to fix that problem, we want to help. And if someone can't afford that, I think we just put ourselves in their shoes and we're like, I can do it. Let me just do it for you. I'd hate for you to be as uncomfortable as I was. Right. And so you just do it and then you undervalue your service. And I just. It's hard to get upset over something like that, but at the same time, it's not the right thing to do, you know?
Brian Walker [00:37:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for the, for the industry to grow, you know, it's. It's got to change, and I think it will by default. You know, we talk about, you know, things like a technician shortage. Now, what in the world is that going to look like in 20 years?
Jimmy Purdy [00:38:10]:
Oh, man.
Brian Walker [00:38:11]:
Especially as the cars get more and more technical, you know, it will absolutely shift the industry to where only people of a certain level are going to be able to remain in business.
Jimmy Purdy [00:38:24]:
Yeah. When you talk about the advent of evs and, I mean, who knows, who knows what's really going to happen to all that? But the main thing is it makes you think about it. Right. And it's. And it's something that can happen. I don't know if it Will, but it can and it just really shines the light on how much we don't know. And what is this going to happen to the industry if that, if it pulls that way and if you're not doing training, you're not staying up on everything. A lot of shops really base their work on what they know, right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:38:54]:
Instead of, instead of saying well we want the new stuff coming in, they're just, I'm going to stay in my, my lane, I'm going to keep staying in my little pocket and that's all I'm going to do. And then I'll just, I don't want to call it a specialized, but if you kind of special specialize in one area, you don't have to think about anything else. I'm just transmissions, right? We'll just do transmissions. We don't fix anything else. Really? That's all you're going to do? How, how's that going to play out in 10 years though, right? When like the shop down the road can just buy a reman from Jasper or LKQ or someone and just swap it for the same cost that you can do it for. What elevates your service better than the shop down the street. And then if you don't know engine diagnostics or anything else, you just kind of pigeonhole yourself. Now what are you gonna do? So I mean that's one thing I revelation I had a few years ago is like, okay, we gotta, we gotta figure out what to do with these 8, 9, 10 speeds coming out.
Jimmy Purdy [00:39:48]:
I, we gotta make a shift. Yeah, we've got to like figure out other things that we can bring into the shop because everybody can just buy a transmission and swap it in. So I, and I think a big part of that is staying open minded, right. And like learning the new processes but also being able to transition your marketing for one and being able to pull in the different types of vehicles. Right. And knowing what can you pull in because you have these ideas as an entrepreneur like oh, maybe I'll start doing hybrid work or maybe I'll start working on motorhomes or I'll start doing this or that, the other thing. But is that even going to be relevant in your area?
Brian Walker [00:40:27]:
Yeah, and you know it's, it's, it's interesting because we have had quite a few people that I've talked to over the years that have come to me that they own transmission shops and they have started doing full service auto repair. And you know, one of the, one of the biggest challenges that they have is they Almost always have transmission in the name of their business and they've been in their town for years and people will tend to think that, well, that's all that they do is transmissions and they have to completely change the brand to incorporate all of the other things that they're doing. I've had the same thing with, you know, people who have performance shops that want to get into general repair. And the name of the business is like, it's one of the most important, you know, aspects to it. When, when I opened my very first shop, that was the biggest problem with it is it was a Mercedes only shop. And I thought that I was a genius when I named it behind the Star, except that nobody in the world knew what that meant unless you were from deep within the Mercedes world. You know, it's a term, the term, you know, riding behind the star, the one out there on your, your hood ornament. But, but yeah, you, I, absolutely.
Brian Walker [00:41:56]:
So I'm a, I'm a huge advocate of specialization. But I also think that there are some areas where if you niche yourself too tight, it can become a problem. And I'm guessing that y'all do see that way more than I've ever seen it, you know, in the, in the transmission world.
Jimmy Purdy [00:42:14]:
Yeah, it, well, diesel, like there's tons of specialized diesel shops that are just killing it. Great, great little market, hybrid EV shops, another, another one. So it's just one of those things that can be black or white in my opinion. There's so much gray there because you don't know where the industry is going to go. You don't know what the next big kind of thing is going to be. Right. Like with performance in California it's like you're not, you're not having a performance shopping California. I mean you can, but you're doing other stuff, right? Because you just can't get away with the emissions and all the other garbage that California's, you know, making it so hard to do anything performance wise.
Jimmy Purdy [00:42:51]:
Right. So, and who would have thought that, you know, 15 years ago. I mean, I guess the writing was kind of on the wall, but at the same, on, on the same token it's like, well, you just don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what legislation is going to roll through, what's going to make it hard. So they're doing like the heavy, heavy line emissions now for anything over 4, 500, it's got to be smog twice a year and now they want to do it four times a year. On these bigger trucks in California. I mean, that's a great little market to get into. Right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:43:20]:
But are people with these fleet trucks, are they just going to hire someone on staff and get them certified and just do all their smogs in their own. You know, they're a concrete business and they're going to have a shop that they dedicate, you know, one guy to do these smogs. So maybe that's not a great thing to try to get into. Right. So you just, you don't know. But you got to make that step forward and see what's going to happen, you know, I think the diesel's a great one. The transmission's a tough one, though, only because the fact of these remanufacturing companies have gotten so big and they can get you a transmission in a day or two and you just swap it in and it's not a tough diagnosis. Right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:43:57]:
It comes in, you put it in gear, it doesn't move. You need a transmission. I guess it's, it's a pretty straightforward diagnosis. And then, hey, we get you a new one with a three year warranty and we'll swap it in and it's a done deal. You don't need to go to a specialized transmission shop for that. So.
Brian Walker [00:44:11]:
Yeah. And those shops that I would imagine used to refer a lot of work to you.
Jimmy Purdy [00:44:14]:
Yeah.
Brian Walker [00:44:15]:
Look at it now and say we can make a lot more money if we just put a unit in it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:44:19]:
Yeah. I think the smart ones don't, but the ones that just see the $7,000 ticket do. Right. Because, yeah. I mean, the GP on a, on a $7,000 transmission ticket is not very good. It's like, you know, you don't have a 60% parts profit on, on a transmission. You just can't.
Brian Walker [00:44:37]:
Yep.
Jimmy Purdy [00:44:38]:
I mean, I guess, I guess I could, but you know, like, you can't add 20% is about what all you're going to get on, on, on a markup on something like that. So. But yeah, regardless of all that, it.
Brian Walker [00:44:50]:
It is interesting what you were saying about California and how, you know, who would have thought that, that California would, would keep you from, you know, doing the performance, you know, modifications, because, gosh, when, when I was a teenager growing up and you know, reading all of the hot rod magazines and all of that, California was the hotbed for, I mean, they, they were where everything started.
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:13]:
That's right.
Brian Walker [00:45:13]:
You know, the lifted trucks, the lowered trucks, the, the hot rods, all of that stuff. And now they are doing absolutely everything they can to Keep you from enjoying that type of hobby.
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:25]:
It's wild. And. Yeah, I mean, back in the 60s and 70s, right. Like, that probably wasn't even a thought.
Brian Walker [00:45:31]:
Yeah, right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:32]:
Especially Volkswagen came in with Porsche and like, that was like the, the down in Temecula, right. It was like that was like where Porsche started. Like, it all started down there. And now it's all completely 180 degrees. We've. We've shifted away from that. It doesn't make any sense to me. Um, but I'm not the one making the rules, so I don't know.
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:52]:
Yeah, I mean, they've made it felt, you know, felony counts and you can't change the calibration ID and pcms. It's just. It's not even worth it. Right. And then they're looking at pulling people over with modified systems, right. And then finding that shop. Right? So they're taking guys off the road and saying, you know, hey, where'd you get this work done? You know, and then they're incentivizing them. Hey, let.
Jimmy Purdy [00:46:16]:
Let you know what shop did this work for you? And then they go to the shop and then put the. Put them in jail. Like you put these people in jail. That's wild. That's a little extreme, I think, but.
Brian Walker [00:46:28]:
Again, yeah, yeah, it's wild.
Jimmy Purdy [00:46:32]:
But. But talking about rebranding and like, having to rename, that's probably one of the scariest things to think about. And one thing that I have thought about, but, you know, we'll make it work. You know, we get more creative. You know, with shifting gears. It's like, it is very transmission orientated, but also we've started playing on that a little bit, and we're going to be shifting gears in the future. We're going to shift your expectations and just like, let's just use what we got and try to play on words a little bit. But that's a scary concept to think about rebranding, right? Because, like, in your hierarchy of needs is one thing that when you do that video, that really resonated with me because you.
Jimmy Purdy [00:47:09]:
It's. It's like near the top, right? And so if you need to rebrand yourself, you really have to start back at the bottom, which is like, I don't want to do that.
Brian Walker [00:47:19]:
Nobody wants. Well, you know, it. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to be as daunting of a task as a lot of people make it out to be. Now, in your case, with, with shifting gears, that's. That's an automotive term. You know, in, in general. And I don't think that, like, in that case, I would, I would not recommend a rebrand from, you know, the, the standpoint of like a name.
Brian Walker [00:47:41]:
But, you know, there's, there's so many shops out there that you know, are like Jones Transmission and.
Jimmy Purdy [00:47:50]:
Yeah, that's true.
Brian Walker [00:47:51]:
And then they add automotive, so they make a Jones Transmission and automotive. And it can be as simple later on when they're, when they're doing the rebrand because the, the business is changing. You know, I mean, they get to the point where they're doing much more automotive than they're doing transmission work or they, they want to be doing more just general repair than transmission work. And it can be as simple as changing the name from Jones Transmission and Automotive to Jones Automotive and Transmission. And it completely shifts the way that people will, will look at what that business is, but it doesn't get rid of the years of goodwill that you've built up with that name because people will still view it as the same people, same shop, same great service. But over time, they don't think of it as Jones Transmission. They think of it as Jones Automotive and it just works.
Jimmy Purdy [00:48:49]:
That's interesting. That's an interesting thing you bring up too, because one of the issues we run across a lot is they'll come in and for a certain service and then they don't realize the other services you do. And I'll kind of get off the podium of like transmissions alone. But it's probably something a lot of other shops maybe run across where maybe they market a lot of oil changes, right? And then they'll come back and say, oh, you do breaks or oh, you do tune ups. Do you have any advice on that to help people like, with that kinds of situation?
Brian Walker [00:49:20]:
That is going to be something that happens at the service counter more than anything. But also in your social media, in your videos. I mean, anybody that knows me knows that my soapbox is about doing video. But you know, at the service counter, your service advisors should be making people aware of all of the things that you do. You know, a good example is a lot of times a shop may say, may sell tires, but the customer base really doesn't think of them as a place that would have tires. They just think of them as like general auto repair and they think of the discount tire down the street as the place to go get tires. And the service advisor should be making people aware of those other things that you do. You know, hey, just wanted to let you know, at the point that you need tires, we do that.
Brian Walker [00:50:06]:
So please think of us or, you know, that we do alignments. You know, in, in the case of the, the shop that, you know is a transmission shop that does automotive, man, anytime that somebody comes in when you need general, you know, just, just various repairs on your car, please think of us. We do that as well. Just having those conversations and then, you know, sharing the various types of repairs that you're doing on social in, you know, in, in all of your marketing. But that service counter is really the place where it happens and is the most effective.
Jimmy Purdy [00:50:44]:
Yeah, it's almost the hardest too though, for a lot that are busy. Right. It's hard to keep that conversation under three minutes and get out everything you want to get out and then get on to the next client in line and.
Brian Walker [00:50:57]:
Well, the biggest problem there is a lot of shop owners. They, they don't, they don't give as much value to the service advisor role as there should be. And they have not enough service advisors in their business. You know, you got, you got a shop with three or four technicians, you should have two service advisors. I had Rena, Rena Rennebohm on my podcast a while back, and that's what she does, is she trains service advisors and she talked about shops that have a one to one ratio of service advisors to technicians. And when she first said it, I was like, oh my gosh, how in the world is that even going to be possible? How, how can you maintain a profit margin like that? But as we talked, it became so clear to me that if I had a shop right now, I would be working towards getting to that place where you have that one to one advisor to technician ratio. Because the, the, the money is made in the shop when the service advisor can spend the time that they need to with the client and create those great customer experiences, you know, writing up every single thing that ever, you know, is found on the inspection. Just, just creating that relationship where the client looks at you as their advice.
Brian Walker [00:52:27]:
Like their, their advisor, not service advisor, but just your advisor. All things automotive. Yeah, and, and when I, when I left that recording that podcast with her, my mindset had been shifted so much. But there's shops out there that are running one advisor to five technicians and wild. It's like, how in the world do you ever upsell anything like that? You know, so everybody's running around with their hair on fire. You got a $250 average repair order and wonder why you can't make any money.
Jimmy Purdy [00:53:03]:
Yeah, and I think that that plays back to kind of what I was saying about, excuse me, using your numbers and trying to keep that profit margin where you are told it needs to be right. The one to three, right. So for every three techs you'd have one advisor and that's the magic ratio. And, and they're writing $100,000 in sales and each technician is doing 30 to 35,000amonth and, and work. And it's just a perfect little recipe. And it's like that. But that just doesn't work in the real world, right. For like the majority of us, like there's shops out there.
Jimmy Purdy [00:53:38]:
What Becky, right. Like she's got it down working three days a week, right. Just killing it like that. There is the anomalies out there that are making it work. But for most of us the techs are doing like 18 to 20,000. The advisors are writing like 80. Right. And so, and then you have like one rock star that might do 30 or 40.
Jimmy Purdy [00:53:56]:
So it just depends on what your situation is. But you're absolutely right because having that extra, what do you call it, a secretary or even just an estimator or whatever, what you want to call it, but having just someone else just answer the phone and take in walk ins while the other one's trying to write up, you know, estimates. I mean it's when you look at the profit margins like you know, you need to get rid of one of your advisors. You don't have enough text. It's like, but there's more to it than just looking at my business on paper with these numbers, right? Like there's, there's, there's something else that I need them to do and that's why I need them there even if they're standing around for two or three hours a day. And that's when you know, all the coaching companies, their minds explode. What you're going to have someone sit there not being productive? That's going to cost you money. It's like it is, but it's going to also cost me money to have them not there.
Jimmy Purdy [00:54:47]:
So just one metric can be tracked and the other one cannot.
Brian Walker [00:54:53]:
We get way too hung up in what is the ideal and what these metrics are and all of that because somebody out there says that this is how many advisors you should have to how many technicians. And it's going to be different from shop to shop. They're going to run different. And like you said, I mean no one is going to run a shop that has those perfect metrics that are, that are happening all the time. There's so many outside influences on that. And look, I'm. I am probably one of the biggest advocates of coaching in the industry, and I believe that every shop owner should have a coach. But I also believe that not everything that every coach says is going to be 100% true for your business.
Jimmy Purdy [00:55:41]:
Yep. And it's probably one of the big things that you come across with, with, with your marketing company. Right. Is trying to reinvent the wheel over and over. And then obviously, if it, if it works for a certain amount of time, eventually it's going to not work anymore. And then you got us. You can't rely on that tactic or what you're doing anymore to, to bring it new, because now everybody's doing it. And I think the one thing with marketing is you have to be different than everybody to get someone's attention.
Jimmy Purdy [00:56:09]:
Right. The only way it works.
Brian Walker [00:56:11]:
But, but fortunately, in the automotive world, you're basically marketing to the people that are, you know, 7 to 10 miles around your business. And most of your competitors are not doing a good job with marketing, if they're doing marketing at all. So there's so much opportunity there. And look, if you happen to be that person that's in the area where you have three or four strong competitors that are all doing great marketing, then you do have a little bit of a disadvantage. But how much more of a disadvantage do you have if you're the one who doesn't have marketing at all or doesn't have great marketing to compete with theirs? So, but for, for most shops, it's. It's a blue ocean because your competitors just aren't doing this stuff.
Jimmy Purdy [00:56:57]:
Yeah. Especially videos. I mean, that's. And that might just be something that some can never bring this themselves to, to, you know, to do, to get on that platform and make that happen. So it is kind of easy to say that's all you got to do. But then it is kind of hard to put yourself in that awkward situation and do it.
Brian Walker [00:57:18]:
It is. But at the same time, you know, it. I don't know, it's. It's. It feels to me like kind of a sad thing when, you know, if you're not willing to put yourself out of your comfort zone and do things that you know are going to have a positive impact on your life. Like, we get. We get so hung up in living comfortably that there's so many good things out there for us if we'll get outside of that comfort.
Jimmy Purdy [00:57:50]:
Embrace the suck.
Brian Walker [00:57:51]:
Yep.
Jimmy Purdy [00:57:52]:
As Jocko Willing says, embrace the suck, man. Get uncomfortable comfort yeah, being comfortable is a dangerous place to be. It's nice, but. But yeah, that's how I fill out your vacation. That's why I hate going on vacations. I don't want to go back to this. I was having such a nice time. Well, getting down to the end of this, and we'll probably be looking about Christmas time by this comes out.
Jimmy Purdy [00:58:16]:
Do you have any tips or, or, or marketing ploys that work really well for Christmas time for shops?
Brian Walker [00:58:23]:
Not really. You know, and I know that that's the, a kind of a quick answer there. But when it comes to marketing around, like holidays and all of that stuff, there's little things that you do but they don't. Like if, you know, if you got a shopping, you're going to send out Christmas cards to your clients. Sure. That's going to make, you know, an impact. You know, if you're going to do something around tax time and you know, like do some kind of, you know, the little fake tax rebate thing to get people to bring their tax return and spend it, you know, on, on their car, you know, those are all good. And they're going to get that person here and there.
Brian Walker [00:59:11]:
But when it comes to marketing, what really makes a difference is what you do 365 days a year. It's, it's not about saying Christmas is coming up. What can I do to market around Christmas? What you really should be looking at this time of year is 2025 is coming up. And what am I going to do in 2025 throughout the entire year? Like what, what, what is the marketing that I'm going to do? What are the, what are those slow times that I have? When do I need to be a little bit heavier on marketing, a little bit lighter on marketing? Because you don't, you know, your marketing is not like this straight line. You know, it's, it's the, it looks like the oscilloscope where it's kind of going up and down throughout the year. You know, you got slow times coming up. You know, if there's a particular month that's always slow for you, if there's an event that is happening in your area, like the state fair, for example, used to always cause our business to be slow for a couple of weeks. Well, you ramp up the marketing before that.
Brian Walker [01:00:13]:
And then when you have those times that are just naturally busy, you can kind of ramp it down a little bit during that time. You never stop marketing. It's just that you, you plan for what your year looks like and you Mark it according to, you know, when, when you know that you're going to need a little more work, when you know you're going to be scheduling three or four weeks out and then, you know, you can shift. Are we going to have a, you know, heavier Google Ad budget a certain one, certain time of the year? Are we going to invest more in SEO, you know, one time of the year? And you should be planning that at the beginning of the year, you know, sitting down. We actually, it's not going to get out in time for any of the listeners to hear about it, but like, we do a Tuesday teaching in our Facebook group, and the Tuesday teaching that will happen today is about doing your marketing planning for 2025. And that's the, that's the biggest thing that you can do is instead of, yeah, you look at all of the times where you're going to be busy and you're going to be slow, but look at it as a whole of what is my entire 2025 marketing plan going to look like? And when you execute that, Christmas of 2025 is going to look very different than Christmas of 2024. You know, so it's so.
Jimmy Purdy [01:01:36]:
So I guess. So what you're saying is if you're looking for a podcast at the end of November to try to ramp up your holiday season marketing, you've already made a mistake.
Brian Walker [01:01:47]:
It's too late.
Jimmy Purdy [01:01:48]:
It's already too late. It's very well said. Yes.
Brian Walker [01:01:52]:
You've got to be looking at this stuff, you know, three months ahead of time so that you can start doing it two months ahead of time.
Jimmy Purdy [01:01:58]:
Yeah, I think that's, that's the hardest thing to wrap your head around when it comes to marketing, especially when you're new, because you do not have your own history. Right. Like, you don't know when you're, you're going to be slow, when you're going to be busy. Right. And so I think you get stuck in that rut too, where you're just kind of like, you do these little things and then they work in that first year and you're like, oh, I'm a marketing genius. And then you just do it the next year and the next year, and then you're like, it's not working anymore. Right. And you're trying to play it on the back end.
Jimmy Purdy [01:02:29]:
Right. Instead of playing it in the front end. And this is the first year for us. We, we have set up a 2025 marketing plan. And I just did it a month ago. I'm like, awesome. And yeah. And I have enough.
Jimmy Purdy [01:02:38]:
I have enough data where I can. I know. Well, I mean, who knows what's really going to happen? But, like, you kind of get an idea of the highs and the lows and then you. And then you're like, my Christmas card should already be done by January for January 20th or for 2025. Right. So they're already going out and I don't have to think twice about it. And it makes it a lot easier. Right.
Jimmy Purdy [01:02:59]:
It's a daunting task. It's very, very daunting. You're like, how the hell am I supposed to know what's going to happen in the next year? Right. Well, just make a guess. I think it's a lot better making a guess the beginning of the year than trying to do it in November of the same year.
Brian Walker [01:03:13]:
100%.
Jimmy Purdy [01:03:15]:
You want to stress yourself out. Try to figure out a holiday promotion plan one month before you're sending it out.
Brian Walker [01:03:20]:
Well, marketing is just like anything else. The more that you do it, the more that you plan for it, the better you get at it. Your first year's marketing plan, you're going to miss the mark, but it's still going to make a positive impact on your business. If you're doing things now that you weren't going to do before, like, there is no perfect, there's no perfection in marketing. It is make the best judgment calls that you can and then just go execute. You know, that is the biggest place where people make a mistake is by not executing on it. And I think that's with everything in life.
Jimmy Purdy [01:03:59]:
Or just hire a company and have shop marketing pros do it for you.
Brian Walker [01:04:03]:
Yeah. And, you know, I mean, that's, that's always a great option to do that. But there's also, and I always like to stress this because we love working with shops that are, that are like the best of the best. We love working with the shops that they're not just satisfied with the marketing that we're doing, but they go do the things in addition that we can't do. You know, they're going to the BNI Group, they're going to the Chamber of Commerce. They're. They're doing, you know, they're hosting events in their shop. Like they're, they're doing the stuff that we can't do for them because when they do that, it makes what we do more effective and what we do makes what they're doing more effective.
Brian Walker [01:04:42]:
So, you know, there absolutely, you know, hi. You should be hiring professionals to do the kinds of stuff that we do. Yes. I built my own website when I had my shop. Most people are not going to be able to do that. They're. They're not. Even if they could do it, it's not the best place for them to be spending their time.
Brian Walker [01:05:02]:
Most people are not going to run their own Google Ads. If they do, they're going to pay a mediocrity penalty to Google for not knowing what they're doing. That's probably going to exceed what they would just pay us to manage it. And same thing with SEO. You're going to pay in lost opportunity cost for trying to do that stuff yourself than if you just paid a professional to do it. Now, that being said, there's always those anomalies. There's the people out there who just have a mind for this, and I know multiple of them because we talk about this stuff a lot that do an amazing job with their marketing. And if you are that person, and especially when it comes to things like your social media marketing, if you.
Brian Walker [01:05:49]:
If you have the marketing mind and if you have the discipline to do it, nobody can do a better job at it than you can, because you know everything that's happening inside of your business. But if you also know that you don't have that marketing mind and there are like, you're the mathematical person, you know, you're that financial genius. Spend your time on your finances in your business and pay somebody else to do your marketing. And that's the same thing with anything. You surround yourself with the people who are really great at what they do and let them do the things that you're maybe not so great at.
Jimmy Purdy [01:06:24]:
Well said. That's like the customers that come in that can do their own work, you know?
Brian Walker [01:06:29]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [01:06:29]:
They're like, they're the worst customers. Like, well, sorry, sir, but not everyone's as smart as you. So sorry we dropped the ball here. But hey, we're hiring if you're looking for work. Right? Well, Brian, I really appreciate your time. This is.
Brian Walker [01:06:46]:
Yeah, I enjoyed it.
Jimmy Purdy [01:06:47]:
Yeah, this went by pretty quick. When it comes to. When it comes to marketing, it's like the hot Topic, you know, Everybody wants to. Everybody wants the magic, the silver bullet, the golden nugget, Right? How do I get more cars into my shop? It's like, I don't know. How do we do that? You. You battle it every single day. It feels like.
Brian Walker [01:07:08]:
Yeah, but the worst thing to do is nothing.
Jimmy Purdy [01:07:12]:
That's right. Well, again, thanks for your time.
Brian Walker [01:07:15]:
Yep. Thanks for having me.