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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
David Roman [00:00:01]:
Do your click too quick.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:04]:
Too quick. You hit the button too quick.
David Roman [00:00:06]:
You're hitting the button too quick.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:07]:
I'm hitting the button too quick. Greg and James.
David Roman [00:00:13]:
Yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:14]:
How are we fellas doing? Very good. Very good.
David Roman [00:00:18]:
Scooch that thing, like, right up on.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:20]:
Yeah, you'll be right up on it.
David Roman [00:00:21]:
Yeah, just slide the thing out.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:23]:
There you go.
David Roman [00:00:24]:
Nice.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:24]:
Now we're in there. That's it. That's it. What's wrong? You look concerned.
David Roman [00:00:29]:
No, I'm just making sure all the buttons are good.
Greg Rainville [00:00:32]:
A lot of technology going on right now.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:34]:
Yeah, it's not.
David Roman [00:00:36]:
This is. This is overkill. We could probably make, you know, we could probably kill this thing and just run everything out of that.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:42]:
Yeah, we could, couldn't we? We. If we were gonna do that, the only way I see that that would work.
David Roman [00:00:50]:
There's no mic control on that.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:52]:
There is mic controls, but if I was gonna do that, what I would have to do is I would have to run XLR to three and a half and put them on a splitter or something. I wouldn't be able to have individual audio channels. And you would hate that.
David Roman [00:01:07]:
Yeah, that would be a problem. But you would be surprised. So this thing will record individual tracks and a stereo mix. And the stereo mix. If you do the EQ work and all the stuff, it sounds fantastic.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:20]:
But it's like, what I like to do with my EQ, though, is, like, if I have somebody whose voice is a little bit off or if I'm over, like, in other words, if they're clipping, I can adjust back and forth and get that clip out of it.
Greg Rainville [00:01:30]:
So can you guys, like, produce music and stuff? Like.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:33]:
No, you don't want that?
Greg Rainville [00:01:34]:
No, he doesn't even listen to music. He just fucked up a little bit. I got some tracks.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:44]:
Brandon, that works for David can do that for you.
Greg Rainville [00:01:47]:
Oh, nice. Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:48]:
So, you know, if you ever need to.
David Roman [00:01:49]:
I don't know if he writes music. I know he, like. He will. He does all the sound setup for. So somebody will come in, a DJ, a big dj, because they're in this, like, underground, like, music thing. So some big dj that's popular in there, in their group will come out and. And he'll set up their entire sound system, like, all the speakers. He'll run all the wire and stuff like that.
David Roman [00:02:11]:
He does that on the weekends.
Greg Rainville [00:02:12]:
And he edits your guys'stuff.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:14]:
No, David does all that.
David Roman [00:02:15]:
No, he's my technician.
Greg Rainville [00:02:16]:
Oh, he's your technician?
David Roman [00:02:17]:
Yeah.
Greg Rainville [00:02:18]:
All right, cool.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:18]:
Now, I don't know if y'all know this, but Kent Bullard owned and ran a recording studio. Does it make you nervous?
David Roman [00:02:30]:
Oh, is that the cable that doesn't work anymore? Okay. Yeah. Kent Bullard, he writes his own music. Yeah. So some of the ads that we run, the music that is running behind the voiceover is Kent's music. Kent's music that he's written. Yeah. Isn't that great? So.
David Roman [00:02:48]:
And it's good. It's really good. Like, if you listen to, like, royalty free music and you're just looking for something. I listen to hundreds of songs I'm just going through and, like, don't like that. Don't like that. He has sent me some stuff, and it's really good.
Greg Rainville [00:03:00]:
You're like, we were just downstairs listening. Well, yeah. The topic was AI jump cars.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:07]:
When. When I'm stressed out, he gets really nervous about it. I'll never forget. We were in Allentown, Pennsylvania, one time. We weren't in Allentown. We were in. We were in.
David Roman [00:03:16]:
No, we were in Allentown.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:17]:
No, we were in Mount Pocono, and we're listening to ethiopian jazz. I'd had a really bad day, and as the car sailed through the air across, like, one of those humps on a back road, he's like, squealing, man.
David Roman [00:03:28]:
It's like I was hanging off for dear life. Yeah. Scary. Are you in Boston?
Greg Rainville [00:03:35]:
I'm in Boston, yeah.
David Roman [00:03:36]:
I'm sorry. So it's a contact sport driving as a contact sport in Massachusetts. My wife. My wife is from Illinois. She came out and she was visiting me in Boston, and she's looking around and she's like, why is every car dinged up? Every car is dinged up. And I'm like, oh, it's cause, you know, you hit each other here. She's like, what? Yeah, you know, parking lots and streets. Like, somebody cuts you off, you ding them.
David Roman [00:04:08]:
What are you talking about? It's like, yeah, it's a thing here.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:10]:
I was talking to Pete at dinner the other night, and we're talking about, a while back, Tricia from ASta, we were in Chicago for a meeting, and we realized that we're in downtown Chicago, and we're supposed to be at a meeting, and, like, we're downtown, downtown, right? I'm at the science museum, and she's at Wrigley Field, and there is a baseball game. And so I. You know, she calls it. She's like, hey, we're supposed to be at this meeting at this time. It's 04:00 on a Friday afternoon in Chicago, and we're supposed to be at this meeting at, like, 515. Okay. And it's up. You know where? Um.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:48]:
Uh, shoot, I cannot remember the name of it. I car. The I car facility is in Chicago. We're supposed to be there. And I got us there, and we. It was a restaurant right near there. We got there on time, and Trisha kept saying things like, hey, I think you just touched that car. The lanes are narrow.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:06]:
What do you want me to do?
Greg Rainville [00:05:08]:
The people in the automotive industry kind of laugh, so, like, I'm in some of these circles, and we start playing, what kind of car do you drive?
Lucas Underwood [00:05:15]:
Right?
Greg Rainville [00:05:15]:
And because I live in Boston, I get laughed at. I'm like, I own a 2018 Subaru. I was like. And they're like, what time? I'm like, it's a legacy. And, like, all these cool kids, like Tony Mercury, they're like, I have an. They kind of laugh at me. And I'm like, I live in Boston. I was like, I don't care when people ding my car.
Greg Rainville [00:05:33]:
Right? So to your point, people bump into my car all the time in south Boston. I'm just like, eh.
David Roman [00:05:40]:
You probably don't even drive that much, do you?
Greg Rainville [00:05:42]:
No, I don't. Yeah, the car park is 5 miles a day.
David Roman [00:05:45]:
Yeah, it's back.
Greg Rainville [00:05:46]:
That's it.
David Roman [00:05:47]:
Yeah. So you drive to the office?
Greg Rainville [00:05:49]:
I do. And the office is, like, literally two blocks away. And I just. I just like having my car with me. See, I need my wide open spaces.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:58]:
Down in north Carolina. That's what I need. Wide open road, so I can just go.
David Roman [00:06:02]:
It's freaky. I will say, though. So we were just back in Boston to visit, and I'm driving through on the other side of the river where the Boston tea party stuff is, and then everything over there. So when I was growing up, all that was run down, dilapidated, like, burnt factories that had just been shipped out. Everything was just destroyed. Now it's all, like, hipster restaurants and lofts, and it's really nice to walk through.
Greg Rainville [00:06:32]:
$25 cocktails.
David Roman [00:06:33]:
$25 cocktails. Yeah. It's awesome, though. And I'm like, I cannot believe how much it's changed in 20 years. It's nuts. That's wild. It's really nice, though. But you don't want to drive.
David Roman [00:06:44]:
It's still scary to drive there. It's like, hey, the GPS couldn't keep up. The gps is like, hey, you're making the wrong turn. It's like, no, no, I'm. I'm underground. You think I'm above ground. I'm not. And so it kept getting confused.
David Roman [00:06:59]:
I had no idea. I don't know how it had, like, it hasn't been able to figure out tunnels. Everything's underground. So, like, you're driving and it's like, hey, you're taking the wrong road. It's like, no, I'm underground. This roads above me.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:12]:
Have you seen the tunnel beacon thing? There's a whole release about it on Google. They're going to municipalities and state road departments and they're putting beacons in tunnels. And so what it is, is when you go into the tunnel, because it. Within the proximity, it's telling Google Maps where you are.
David Roman [00:07:31]:
Well, that's cool.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:31]:
And so it like, it tells it like, hey, you're on the lower road deck in Boston.
Greg Rainville [00:07:36]:
I think they have a going out to Logan airport.
David Roman [00:07:38]:
Apple does not have that. Apple was freaking out.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:42]:
Yeah, for sure.
David Roman [00:07:44]:
I should have turned on my Google Maps. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:46]:
Which you don't like it tracking you.
David Roman [00:07:48]:
So I turn everything off. I don't want it to know where I am. You know, the VPN will not let Android auto work.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:55]:
Really?
David Roman [00:07:56]:
Yeah. I had my VPN on and it freaked out. It was throwing me an error message on the. On the MMA and it was throwing me an error message on my thing. Turn off your. Because it knew I had my VPN on. Because of course it does. It's like, you have a VPN on.
David Roman [00:08:10]:
Turn it off. It says you're in the Netherlands. You're not in the Netherlands.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:14]:
I might be. You don't know it off the grays, Dan.
David Roman [00:08:17]:
I'll be good.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:19]:
You know, Mike Allen does the car guessing game. And you gotta be careful going places with Mike, okay. Because Mike will get you into a situation that it's very difficult to get back out of. And the number of people that he has genuinely convinced of crazy stuff. I mean, I had to argue with a lady to convince her that we were not actually there for a shopping cart will balancing and alignment class. Okay. I mean, this lady was arguing back with me about his lie, believing the whole thing.
David Roman [00:08:51]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:52]:
And so Mike, it multiple occasions, will sit down and we'll begin talking to a random person and convince them that he knows everything about them. And. And one of the best ones is 2019 CRV. I don't know how, but he picks these women that that's all they drive, I guess, because he'll. He'll start going down this list of questions. He'll show up, he'll turn his phone, or they'll turn their phone around. Be like, yeah, that is my car.
David Roman [00:09:16]:
And you're like, yeah, well, it's not impressible.
Greg Rainville [00:09:21]:
Like, it's like a magician, sort of like, yeah, maybe.
David Roman [00:09:25]:
I don't know.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:25]:
He is a smooth talker. You gotta give him credit. So, uh. Okay, I guess this is where I get myself in trouble. You know, I used to have mechanic advisor.
David Roman [00:09:35]:
I usually abandon them.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:36]:
I've abandoned them. Greg's been mad ever since I had.
David Roman [00:09:40]:
I had mechanic advisor. You know, they're not mechanic advisor anymore, but I know.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:44]:
Well, so that's what I was getting.
David Roman [00:09:44]:
Ready to ask is what chance says buy.
Greg Rainville [00:09:48]:
And I was just, we're trying to do that transition for a year.
David Roman [00:09:52]:
So that's an old shirt. It needs to be.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:54]:
So this his name to Egg says by Steer and his Texas steer. So that's a bit of a complexity, huh?
David Roman [00:10:02]:
Yeah, no, that's true.
Greg Rainville [00:10:05]:
It's funny because our marketing team is sending out communication to us and they're like, can you please say this now? So, like, first it was steer by mechanic advisor, and they're like, now we have to just say steer or steer CRM. And there's a couple of other things, but, like, we get details from the marketing team of how we need to communicate the brand, which is interesting. But, you know, it's a lot different.
David Roman [00:10:27]:
Than, like, well, why the shift? Why move away from mechanic advisor?
Greg Rainville [00:10:31]:
It's a good question. Mechanic advisor started out kind of like Tripadvisor. So I think maybe when you used our product back in the day, we were like a directory. Yeah. So. So the. The vision of. Of Parker Swift, our CEO, was kind of like Tripadvisor.
Greg Rainville [00:10:47]:
So Tripadvisor is a big Boston company.
David Roman [00:10:50]:
Sure.
Greg Rainville [00:10:50]:
And at that time, Yelp was taken off, and him being the entrepreneur, he was like, I want a place where people can go and read good reviews, bad reviews. And again, this is like 2006 when he created the company. He went and worked at Vistaprint and started becoming an SEO master. So everything he was learning at Vistaprint about Google SEO and search engine results, he started applying to mechanic advisor, and he was doing something, I wouldn't say shady stuff, but they call it black hat SEO. He was doing just some stuff just to get tons of traffic to the website. And again, this is 2007, 2008, and he built up tons of traffic. And then he started really diving in on just making the directory with really good content, good data, stuff like that. And then he just didn't want to play the Google game anymore.
Greg Rainville [00:11:37]:
So that's when we shifted from mechanic advisor to the mechanic advisor CRM, he was really interested in text communication, email. We realized there probably really, in 2015, there wasn't really a good solution out there for mass text and stuff like that. Also, at that time, when I talked to repair shop owners, a lot of them told me they're like, I don't want to be texted. My customers don't want to be texted. So that was like, it was, like, hard to have that text conversation back in, like, 2015, 2016. It started getting a little bit better in 2019. But anyways, we're the mechanic advisor CRM, and Parker's like, this doesn't really make sense. He's like, we're not really advising mechanics with anything.
Greg Rainville [00:12:18]:
And he goes, yeah, it's like Tripadvisor. And he's like, I'd rather have a brand new. That makes sense for what a CRM does.
David Roman [00:12:25]:
Sure.
Greg Rainville [00:12:26]:
So steer. Steer customers back to the repair shop steering wheel. There's a lot you can play on that. Then you talk to people in Texas and get jokes about steer. Like, what a steer is. It hurts sometimes, but that makes sense.
David Roman [00:12:42]:
I guess I never saw it as the trip advisor. That makes sense now that you told the story. But I joined when it was the CRM thing. The platform was very good. And so the entire times, I've always seen it as a CRM company, never saw it. The directory is still up, by the way.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:00]:
It is?
David Roman [00:13:01]:
Yeah. And I still get occasional messages to the directory, like, something will pop up and go, I'm like, oh, well, good. That's nice.
Greg Rainville [00:13:10]:
Yeah. We're going to revitalize the directory. So that is in our roadmap to bring it back.
David Roman [00:13:14]:
We're going to come all full circle.
Greg Rainville [00:13:16]:
We're going to go right back.
David Roman [00:13:18]:
Yeah.
Greg Rainville [00:13:19]:
So there's a lot we're going to do at the end directory. Probably not till, like, next year, but. But Parker still loves the directory and wants to bring it back and have it as a resource for the industry.
David Roman [00:13:27]:
So the directory thing would be. Would be great if you guys did the exact opposite of what repair pal ended up doing, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:13:38]:
Yeah, for sure.
David Roman [00:13:39]:
And I don't know, maybe it's that the directory game. Like, there's no, there's no monetization. It's really difficult to say, hey, we will vet you. We'll put you on our directory. We'll feature you in our directory because, like, yelp will do that, too. But they don't know what they're doing, and yelp's a mess. And then repair pal started out that way, but then in this, this was my biggest gripe. And I would yell at repair pal about this.
David Roman [00:14:06]:
I'm like, you guys need a red line. The area. Like if you, if you find a shop, the 2 miles around it cannot be touched by another shop. Right, but there, but at that point it's like, okay, well, I need the $200 from you and the shop next to you and the five other shops that are right around you. And then at that point I'm like, okay, so who are you steering customers towards? And then they figured out that, oh, if we get into bed with 50 other companies and start steering leads into the shop, that way we can stay relevant. And that's the direction they ended up going. Rather than, hey, we're going to try to really build a good resource for consumers to then steer them into good shops. That was their goal at the beginning of the whole thing, and it did not turn out that way.
Greg Rainville [00:14:53]:
Hopefully when we rebuild it, we'll stick to that plan. I don't think we'll charge, maybe we'll charge per lead or a car that comes in, but we're not going to take ticket. Like, I know shops seem to get really frustrated when they have to look at the data and be like, that customer is my customer. It didn't come. You get into that war and then dictating the price too. We never want to do that. Like, like, that's your price.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:15]:
Well, that really caused a lot of problems.
David Roman [00:15:18]:
That was the Carmax thing. That's the, that's the, because now they're, they're, they should be a mediator between the extended warranty company and the, the shop. They should be the mediator or at least an advocate for the shop because that's who's paying the bill, right? That's where they're getting their money is from the shop. So they should be the advocate for the shop. But they, it, that's not how it's worked out. They used to, you, like a year, two years ago, used to email repair pal, and go, hey, they are screwing the customer. They're pissing me off. Fix it.
David Roman [00:15:51]:
And they would come in and go, hey, we've got it worked out. Sorry for the trouble. You know, we jumped in and we.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:56]:
Now they're doing that for the warranty company.
David Roman [00:15:59]:
Now they're doing that for the warranty company going, hey, you guys are charging too much. Whoa, let's back up here. You guys are charging too much. You guys gonna cut your rate for me? Hell no.
Greg Rainville [00:16:09]:
Right.
David Roman [00:16:09]:
But there is a need. There is a need for a vetting process. We had this whole conversation with the very last episode that we just released last Monday with david mccolls. Yeah. And he's pushing this whole certification thing, and we need to have some way to vet technicians. The idea behind repair, pal, the fundamentally, I thought, was a fantastic one, a way to vet the shop, a way to say this shop has been properly vetted and has qualified technicians, has a defined and transparent sales process and backs up their work with a good long warranty.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:54]:
That's kind of what auto tech iq is doing, right? Yeah, real similar to that.
David Roman [00:16:59]:
Yeah, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:00]:
I don't know if we go in.
Greg Rainville [00:17:01]:
That depth, like, with what?
David Roman [00:17:03]:
The directory, frankly, but Frank Steele, it's. It's.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:07]:
It's very interesting, I will say that.
David Roman [00:17:09]:
Frank. I like Frank. And. And what's the guy's name? Ua. You, how do you pronounce? Okay. UV. I have anything against them or anything like that. My issue is the, I'm gonna start this tech thing, build it up, and then some conglomerates gonna come in, buy it, because now it's worth, you know, 50 million, 100 million.
David Roman [00:17:36]:
He's gonna get his bag and. And so what's the end game here?
Greg Rainville [00:17:41]:
We're back to square one.
David Roman [00:17:42]:
We're back to square one. We're back to square one. And so I get freaked out with these, with this new technology. Not you. You like to make friends. Me, I antagonize everybody. Don't care. My.
David Roman [00:17:54]:
I'm looking at the end game. Like, the technology is cool. The idea behind it's cool, the vision's cool. What's the end game? What's the end game? And the end game is going to be, I want another project because I'm bored. He doesn't need the money. He's got his money. He got his bag with. With auto vitals.
David Roman [00:18:10]:
Auto vitals. So now it's. It's a game frame. That's great. But the idea behind it is I want to get engaged and interested all the way till I get my bag, bounce, and then go start something else in a few years, after I go off into my island, go find myself, meditate, bongo drumming naked on the beach. Right? And then when he's done with that and he comes back. So I want to do this all over again, and it'll be another project.
Greg Rainville [00:18:34]:
Unfortunately, you see that with a lot of the software companies in our space, though, where they come in for three, four years, and then they're sometimes even shorter than that.
David Roman [00:18:41]:
Yeah.
Greg Rainville [00:18:42]:
You know. Yeah. We're really trying to focus on steer, get it to be the best product communication product for repair shop owners, for their customers. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:52]:
It's interesting because I don't want to speak poorly of anybody or anything like that, but. But I switched, and the reason that I switched, and I told you this, but the reason that I switched was, like, the multiple texting platforms and. Multiple, like, having to keep up with.
David Roman [00:19:08]:
Yeah, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:09]:
Autoflow shopware and mechanic advisor and. And. And. Right. Like, I've got all these places that messages are coming in, and it was causing a problem because my advisors wouldn't see something. And so then the. The client felt like we weren't responding to them, we weren't taking care of them because we had so many things moving, and they just didn't go to that tab for a few minutes. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:31]:
And so it caused a problem. Um, I will say that the. There is something different about your texting platform and your email platform than everybody.
David Roman [00:19:40]:
Else'S over and over again. What he keep. I'm just saying, he keeps saying this over and over.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:44]:
This isn't the first time I said this.
David Roman [00:19:46]:
I said this, like, you just said this last night. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:49]:
That for some reason, like, my text, like, my. My unsubscribe rates when I switched went way up.
Greg Rainville [00:19:57]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:58]:
And I'm. If I send a text blast right now, stop sending text blast because they just all unsubscribe from it.
Greg Rainville [00:20:03]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:03]:
And it's completely different. I don't know why yours worked differently, but we didn't see that. Like, I got responses from people and they would say things and they would ask questions and I would text back. There's something different about this platform.
David Roman [00:20:15]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:15]:
It's the same messages we sent before, but people don't respond the same to low.
Greg Rainville [00:20:20]:
We use Twilio. And with all the ten DLC stuff that's gone on, I don't. I don't want to go down that whole entire conversation of ten DLC. It's not really that much fun with Twilio.
David Roman [00:20:29]:
Yeah.
Greg Rainville [00:20:30]:
But there's a lot of, like, guidelines and rules now in place. Like, I'll just give you one. For instance, T Mobile doesn't like two promotional techs go out in 30 days. If they see it, they will. They will shut down your number.
David Roman [00:20:41]:
Nice.
Greg Rainville [00:20:41]:
So what we've had to do is we have a ten DLC team now at steer that basically monitors the texts that are going out to make sure you don't do that to protect the shop with texting, because now, too, your number is tied to your federal tax id. Now, if you get that blacklisted, it's.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:01]:
Yeah.
Greg Rainville [00:21:01]:
So you got to be really careful. It's a lot different than it was two or three years ago. But what we found is now we have to put, like, text limits in and we're doing packages based on how many texts are going out because we need to have a little bit more control. It's not the wild, Wild west like it used to be where we had shops that were setting out. We had one shop set out, 10,000 text messages.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:20]:
Holy cow.
Greg Rainville [00:21:21]:
Yeah. We got charged for it by Twilio. We lost money on that account quite a bit. But, like, they were doing it, like, pretty often.
David Roman [00:21:29]:
Yeah.
Greg Rainville [00:21:29]:
Yeah. And I was like, I was like, this isn't, this is not best practices. We try to teach best practices, but we also, we try to monitor and put guardrails in place so shops don't get in trouble.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:39]:
Well, and beyond getting in trouble, the. The issue is, is that all they're going to do is piss the consumer off.
David Roman [00:21:45]:
Correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:46]:
Right. Like, you're not actually gaining any ground. You're just upsetting people.
David Roman [00:21:49]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:50]:
And so, like, that just depends.
David Roman [00:21:52]:
It depends on what people are used to. Like, I get text bombed all day long by whatever the hell I signed up for, but I kind of like it because, you know, there's good deals coming up. You want to jump on it, but, you know, how often do you still get people that come in, they're like, I don't want to give you my email. Why?
Greg Rainville [00:22:09]:
Right.
David Roman [00:22:10]:
Well, I don't want to get spam. So. Dude, do you have any idea if you put your email in absolutely anywhere, at any point? It's been sold off a thousand times. Did you give your email to your bank? They sold it. Your credit card company, they sold it. Your mortgage company sells your information. Your flipping mortgage company sells your information. Everybody.
David Roman [00:22:28]:
Everybody sells your information. It's insane to think that I'm going to keep this little spot space in here and so pissing the people off. It just. It just depends on where we are in the cycle.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:39]:
Well, you know, one of the ways that I get frustrated is, like, classic firearms, if you've ever subscribed to. And, okay, look, I love guns. And they do giveaways. You got to put in your telephone number. Well, they've made this amazing brand. But the deal is, is once you put your telephone number in, you can unsubscribe all you want. Eventually they will get you back. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:02]:
Sooner or later, even if you unsubscribe, they'll give you a period of time that you don't get any text messages and then all of a sudden you start popping back up and if you reach out to them and you say some oops, I'm sorry, we had a little bit of an issue, but we fixed it. And you unsubscribe again and all of.
David Roman [00:23:14]:
A sudden a few weeks ago, just block the number.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:18]:
They changed their telephone number.
David Roman [00:23:20]:
Oh, yeah. What's your competitor to Twilio?
Greg Rainville [00:23:25]:
Something broad. Broad broadband or with Twilio is the dominant player with texting.
David Roman [00:23:35]:
So the idea is to get a competitor going. That is interesting. I don't know about it. Get out of here and over there. I'm going to go, hey, buddy, you need to get out of this like shop CRM stuff. This is it. Trust me. You're going to run into a wall where crazy shop owners, crazy expectations.
David Roman [00:23:55]:
You don't want to mess with that. Go start a competitor that'll let you do a little bit more stuff that isn't who's imposing the rules? Is it the carriers or the carriers? Really?
Greg Rainville [00:24:06]:
Yep. Yep. And there's all these fees too that are going on the background too to register the number. I used to be able to register shops literally within like an hour. I could get a text blast out an hour after signing up and now it takes seven to ten days while registration process, which seven to ten days.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:23]:
Is a huge improvement from where it was last year when it was all coming into place too. So that's been brought down a lot.
David Roman [00:24:28]:
So the carriers are probably not making that much money on the individual consumer. They're just tacking on these weird fees in the background to hit the individual businesses. So they can then get you to sign up with a free iPhone. Yes. It's a $1500 iPhone they're giving away for free. And you can sign up for three years.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:50]:
But still.
Greg Rainville [00:24:50]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:24:51]:
What's that?
Lucas Underwood [00:24:51]:
You sold your data for it. But yeah, sure.
David Roman [00:24:53]:
You're selling your data for it. Yeah. And then they're hitting all of the businesses that are even trying to use any of their network at all with fee, fee, fee, fee. Yep. So the carriers are evil.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:06]:
I mean, I need a verb.
Greg Rainville [00:25:10]:
They found the low hanging fruit to make some revenue and they did it.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:14]:
So you can't really fault them for that. I mean, they did what they're supposed to do. Why do you think that? What is different about it? That I would see a difference in the effectiveness from your campaigns to what I'm using now? Right. Cause it's the same thing. Why is it different? Why am I seeing something different?
Greg Rainville [00:25:33]:
I think a lot of it was. We did a lot of a b testing for, like, follow up and Google reviews. So, like, different wording. So out of the box when you sign up for steer or when you sign up for a mechanic advisor. We had the campaign set to go. We knew what worked because we were tracking the data in the background, like, what text message brought in the most reviews. So we were testing them out, and then we saw asking really politely for a review after. So what we found was a two step process.
Greg Rainville [00:26:01]:
Check in two days after the visit. Hey, how's everything with your vehicle? Make it, customize it. Like, put in the customer's name, put the vehicle in there, make a model. How's everything with your Honda Accord?
Lucas Underwood [00:26:11]:
Right?
Greg Rainville [00:26:12]:
Question mark, get feedback, make sure everything's good, and then a few days later, politely ask for the review. And we really appreciate you coming to l and n auto performance. If you could leave us a review, that would be great. Here's the link. Something like a lot of those lines, I don't know exactly what it is, but just switching the wording and the layout of the text, it goes a long way. And I try to tell shops a lot of time, I was like, you should always be looking at the texts that are going out. Like, go on that customer journey. Get the text messages.
Greg Rainville [00:26:40]:
Does it feel right? Does it sound like your choice? And, like, look at the data in the background, like. Like, which text is actually bringing in the most revenue? Like, we track a lot of that stuff, which one's getting the highest engagement and play around with it.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:52]:
Well, and so that's so true, because that's one of the things that we did with the shop is I was paying attention. If it didn't sound like it came from me, and it wasn't because, you know, like, you're going to speak differently to somebody in Boston than you would speak to somebody in my neighborhood. Right. And if it didn't come across like it was me, it just didn't sound right to them. And they could tell it was automated, and they're like, man, and they just shelfed it off. Right.
David Roman [00:27:16]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:16]:
But when. When we sat down and really customized them to make them sound like us, or when we sent messages and people understood that was actually us sending a message, it was effective compared to the others were not effective at all.
David Roman [00:27:29]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:29]:
And I think that's one of the keys, is balancing it, making it seem like it is you sending that message.
David Roman [00:27:34]:
Hold on. How did this turn into you even know what the hell you're saying. You asked him the question, and now.
Greg Rainville [00:27:40]:
You'Re, like, explaining to him the light bulb went on.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:43]:
That's my point.
David Roman [00:27:45]:
You didn't do any a b testing. You didn't read what you had set up now.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:49]:
No, of course. And look, here's the thing is, we would watch. We went through it with him. We put one of our vehicles in the system. We ran through that vehicle. We saw the text messages that came back. We saw the review requests that came back. We made small tweaks to it and those small tweets.
David Roman [00:28:09]:
Why didn't you do that now?
Lucas Underwood [00:28:11]:
Well, I have done that now, but it still doesn't do anything.
David Roman [00:28:15]:
That's my point.
Greg Rainville [00:28:16]:
There's something different to it. So the other thing, too, that we do is we get a local number so it feels local. So it's not like one of those numbers you get from, like, Uber eats, where it's, like, a number, a dash, and a couple numbers, which some companies do. There's another company out there that I know does, like, 1800 numbers. You don't have to go through ten DLC with 1800 numbers. So it's kind of like a workaround for some CRM companies to do that. But we do a local number that forwards to the shop, but you do a local number with the local area code. And again, it's just that personalization where they don't think software is actually reaching out to them to see how their Honda Accord is doing.
Greg Rainville [00:28:51]:
So I think that's another strategy that works really, really well.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:54]:
Right.
David Roman [00:28:55]:
How'd you avoid the accent?
Greg Rainville [00:28:56]:
What's that?
David Roman [00:28:57]:
The accent.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:59]:
Right.
David Roman [00:28:59]:
Are you from Boston? Boston.
Greg Rainville [00:29:01]:
I was born in Boston. I lived in California for eight years, and then I moved back to Boston. I grew up in high school in Boston. I went to school in that area. It comes out, we got a couple of drinks, it'll come out. But, like, yeah, I guess when I'm work Greg or steer Greg, it's a little bit more. I guess you can control it? I can control it a little bit.
David Roman [00:29:22]:
When you're just letting loose, like, hey.
Greg Rainville [00:29:24]:
Kitty, we were throwing dots last night.
David Roman [00:29:28]:
We were throwing dots last night. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:34]:
Well, you know, when you changed a steer, a lot of things changed. Right. Like, it wasn't just. You changed the name.
David Roman [00:29:40]:
Yep. What?
Lucas Underwood [00:29:41]:
Because I didn't see it after that. We looked at the platform. We looked at, like, the dashboard and stuff a few times, but what. What changed? Like, what's different?
David Roman [00:29:48]:
So.
Greg Rainville [00:29:49]:
So a lot of what we did and we. I'll admit it, we released it a little bit too early. We upset a lot of some of our existing customers because they were beta testers coming in. I don't think they really realized they were beta testers. And you gotta tell them, no, I'll admit it, like, we thought it was perfect, but with software, it's like, you don't know what's gonna go wrong until it goes wrong. And you put a lot of stress on the system. Yeah. So it took us probably about four or five months to, like, really break the system, to really clean it up.
Greg Rainville [00:30:18]:
And where it is today, where it's great, we could. Now we're adding features and. And take a lot of feedback, but a lot that's different is data. So what we got was a lot of feedback from a lot of the top shops of, hey, if I go on a dashboard, this is exactly what I want to see to know how my shop's performing. So, like, like, what are my average repair order trends? What are my sales trends? Like, where are my slow months? So, like, you can look at steer in seconds and know kind of what your trends look like, where your slow months are, and then you can. I know Cecil was talking about it yesterday about, like, know which vehicle is bringing in the most money. Like, like, when you start building your avatar, like, like, we have that on the dashboard. Like, you can literally filter in seconds.
Greg Rainville [00:30:55]:
That Subaru's bringing in the most money. For me, um, this car is bringing in the highest ticket, and then, and then we can build marketing around that. The other thing that we've done is we've gotten really deep into customer segmentation. So it's not just filtering. Last visit, um, customers that spend over a $100. Like, we. We can. We can filter for truck customers.
Greg Rainville [00:31:15]:
We can. We can filter by brands that they're using.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:18]:
That's pretty cool.
Greg Rainville [00:31:19]:
And, yeah, and that's why we now have the partnership with mobile one now. So we're working with mobile one to do mobile one campaigns because we're picking up that data in the ticket, like that line item, and then we know the interval, and then the communication can be around how great mobile one is because it's a great brand.
David Roman [00:31:35]:
Right.
Greg Rainville [00:31:35]:
That's what we're doing with the partnership there. But, like, we could do it almost with. With anyone because of how deep we can go into those tickets and create that customer journey or that communication to that customer.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:46]:
That's pretty cool. I think I still come back to the multiple platforms, though. Is there ever a way to solve that multiple platform situation.
Greg Rainville [00:31:54]:
So I get. I always get the question, like, why can't we just use one number? Yeah, you don't want to do one number. I think two numbers. Two numbers is a sweet spot. You want one for DVI to, like, communicate with the customer while the vehicles are there, and then you want one for marketing. Cause you're gonna have customers that want the DVI, but don't want the.
David Roman [00:32:12]:
Don't want the marketing.
Greg Rainville [00:32:13]:
Yeah. So it's good to have two, to your point, I think once you get into three, it gets really confusing for the customer. So I think two's that. That sweet spot. But I would never wanna merge, I think, with the DVI number because I think it just makes things a little.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:26]:
I'm not even necessarily worried about the number of telephone numbers. Right. I've got. My thing is, is, like, with the shop, I've got the regular telephone number has texting associated with it. So occasionally somebody will text that. I handle all of those texts myself because, like, the main shop telephone number all comes back to me. So I get it on an app on my phone, and I'll see it. I miss most of them.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:51]:
Right. It's like weeks before I answer half of them. I've got auto flow, which is, like, another text number, and then I have shopper, which is another text number. I don't mind.
David Roman [00:33:00]:
I don't text from shopper at all, ever.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:03]:
90% of our conversations happen within Shopware.
David Roman [00:33:07]:
Really?
Lucas Underwood [00:33:08]:
Within messenger. 90% of our conversations happen.
Greg Rainville [00:33:10]:
Right.
David Roman [00:33:11]:
That would make sense, because then at that point, you can. You've got history.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:15]:
Yeah, I've got the history. And on top of having the history now, like, as we're talking, they can be looking at the repair order, and they just pop open messenger on the repair order, and they're sending me a message back and forth. We're talking about the issue. They're on the screen. They can see it. They're not on a different platform looking at something, and it's sending a text and a message within the repair order. And so I can talk back and forth.
David Roman [00:33:38]:
I don't.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:39]:
I, like said, I don't have a problem with multiple numbers.
Greg Rainville [00:33:42]:
Too many tech stacks. Yeah, your tech stack is huge.
David Roman [00:33:45]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:45]:
And so I'm, like, over here, and I'm over here, and I'm over here.
David Roman [00:33:48]:
And I do all the texting within auto flow. Yeah. Specifically to avoid that, because they'll send us messages and shopware. Like, nobody's checking that. Yeah, the little red thing. I see it. Juan doesn't pay any attention to it because he's just not used to it.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:03]:
Well, but you see, you ever look at Shopware and do you ever look at what the customer sees? Because there's a button at the top of it says, if you have a question about this repair order or whatever, click this button.
David Roman [00:34:12]:
Yeah. Nobody does.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:14]:
We, like, I can open mine and show you. Like, I've got a ton of messages right now. We've got 28 messages.
David Roman [00:34:19]:
If you train the customer to do it that way, but they end up just using.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:22]:
We don't train our clients to do that.
David Roman [00:34:25]:
We don't.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:25]:
We don't put emphasis on that. Most everything is done through auto text me. They get their DVI through auto text me.
Greg Rainville [00:34:31]:
Are your customers different, though? Like, different demographic? I mean, obviously I'm your.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:38]:
They deal with this guy. Of course they're different.
David Roman [00:34:41]:
If they weren't open right now, I'm not even there.
Greg Rainville [00:34:46]:
Lucas's customers like that button. I'm guessing they must like the button.
David Roman [00:34:51]:
And they ignore the button for.
Greg Rainville [00:34:52]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:34:52]:
My customers button.
Greg Rainville [00:34:54]:
Right.
David Roman [00:34:55]:
I'm familiar with the button. I know what you're saying. 100%. I'm with you. Yeah. But they'll just send a text message saying, I'm confused.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:03]:
Right. I could see that. I mean, and we get some, too.
David Roman [00:35:06]:
But I'm.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:07]:
For me, it's more of how many different websites or tabs do I have to keep open and keep up with and make sure that I'm responding, because that. That's. I will never forget. I got my ass chewed one time for not responding to somebody.
Greg Rainville [00:35:21]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:21]:
And that's, like, after that, I don't know if I've just got PTSD or what, right. But it is super frustrating to me. That's, like, one of my cardinal rules, because I realized how upsetting it was to that person, right? Like, hey, I had a problem. You were completely unattentive to my problem. You weren't trying to help me. It was just that we didn't know. They could have called. They could have done anything else.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:41]:
And I've seen a generational shift, especially college students. I had a 25 or 30 message conversation on Google, my business this morning with this lady who needed her car fixed. And I'm like, hey, you can call a shop and they can make an appointment. She said, I really don't like telephone calls and stuff like that. So that's why I do it by text. And so a lot of people, they don't want to communicate with the telephone call. They're not going to pick up the phone to call you to say, I've got a problem. They feel more comfortable sending a text.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:04]:
They feel like it's less confrontational. And so I, especially in that scenario, it's very difficult if I miss something because I feel like I'm letting them down. And having multiple platforms is a pain in the butt when it comes to that.
Greg Rainville [00:36:19]:
And I'm telling you, I, I go into some of the platforms. Cause we're doing setup. I just wanna make sure everything's good for specific customers, stuff like that.
David Roman [00:36:27]:
So.
Greg Rainville [00:36:27]:
And I also, like, again, looking at some of the data with some of the unique campaigns that we test out with some of the shops. But, like, I go into some shops and I see 70 unread text messages, dude, I see it a lot.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:40]:
Like, I would freak out.
Greg Rainville [00:36:41]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:43]:
I would get some breath.
David Roman [00:36:45]:
How these shops manage this is. I get so angry, like, oh, we ignore our text messages. Okay. We don't do any mailers. Okay. Yeah, shops full. The hell you getting these customers from? Oh, we got a big sign out front. We're right next to the Walmart.
David Roman [00:37:06]:
That's it? Yeah. You gotta be kidding me.
Greg Rainville [00:37:11]:
It's disheartening because me and even, even James, we've gone out. So even for mobile one, I'm visiting shops throughout the week. So at least two days a week, I'm going out visiting shops with the distributors. James has been going out with ATD, and then he's also gone out with advanced auto parts. But we go all over the country. But, like, I walk into, like, probably eight to ten shops a day when I go out and, like, four or five of them, it's just, it's bad. Like, yeah, dirt all over the place. Like, dust on parts in the waiting area.
Greg Rainville [00:37:41]:
Like, there's parts in the waiting area. You know, right away which one of.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:44]:
Those, and I'm like, 70 unread text.
Greg Rainville [00:37:46]:
Messages, you know, right away, and I'm like, I'm looking at the rep, I'm like, why are we here?
Lucas Underwood [00:37:50]:
Like, you bring up a valid point. Do you think that that is, are those owners checking out? Is that, is that really what that is? They just don't care. They just want out there.
David Roman [00:38:00]:
Some of us just get used to having that pile of parts in the corner. Juan, I told you to clean that thing up.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:06]:
I've been to your shop. It's not that bad. The insulation falling out of the ceiling is pretty rough.
David Roman [00:38:11]:
That's in the shop? That's in the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:13]:
There's a window in the shop, isn't there?
David Roman [00:38:15]:
They can't see that the car's blocking it. And also, I'm not ripping that thing down. It's fine, it's fine. It's keeping it warm up there.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:24]:
I don't think, you know, how insulation works. Has to be, like, up against the part where cold air is coming in. But I mean, seriously, is that when you go into those shops, is the owner the difference? Yeah, I think a lot of those times, too. So, like, when you see some of those fall offs, right. It's a lot of times when those owners are really caught and working in the business at that point in time, they're not. They're not at that point in time where they can work on their business and really focus on a lot of the processes, which is where a lot of the other stuff starts breaking. Right. And then they're not at that point.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:55]:
You also see it kind of feed throughout the rest of the shop, right. But it's all depending on where their mindset is on what they want to do with that shop. And sometimes it just gets to that point. It's a comfort zone where they can just put that head down and grind and then figure out they think they're.
Greg Rainville [00:39:08]:
The best shop owners in the world. Then they tell me, they go, I have so many customers. My customers love me. And I'm like, so what's your attention numbers look like? And they're like, I don't know. My neighbors and my family come in here all the time. I'm like, okay, great retention.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:22]:
So you really don't know?
Greg Rainville [00:39:25]:
Correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:25]:
You don't know what? You just feel good.
David Roman [00:39:28]:
They feel, yeah, it feels good. And here's the scary part, is when you dig into those situations like that, you find out that they are half of the price that they should be or whatever I shouldn't say should be because they're not delivering a good product. But if you go take that same repair into my shop, I'm going to be 100% to 150% higher. And I tell them that, and they're like, well, what do you mean? It's like, dude, that part is a $100 part. It is not a $45 part. That's $100 part in that labor operation should be $200, not $75. And yeah, I'm paying the. I have to pay bills with that money that comes in, but that repair should be x amount of dollars.
David Roman [00:40:18]:
That's what it's worth. That's what it's worth. And you go to my shop, and then you go to shops that are operating in a certain manner, they're all gonna be within 1015 percent of each other. That price of that repair, especially if you stay in that same area. Now, you go to California, it's like, it's a different. It's a different beast. But. But even between him and I, he's completely different part of the country.
David Roman [00:40:44]:
Okay? But when you start looking at some of my repairs and some of his repairs, you start to see like that labor that a water pump on a 2.0 CCTA Volkswagen is 1370 $2.58. And you go to my shop and it's 1451. We're 10% of each other. How could that be? Well, it's because that part costs this much and the labor costs this much and we have the parts list and stuff like that. It's. That's what it should be. But you go into some of these shops and that's $650. It's like, dude, that's a $1,400 repair, right? It's a $1400 repair.
David Roman [00:41:20]:
You're charging $650 and you wonder why they keep coming back to you. It's like, dude, it's not. Cuz you're great. You're not your shit shop doing a shit repair and you're just charging way less than everybody else.
Greg Rainville [00:41:32]:
They take pride in that too. I'm the cheapest shop in town. Everyone loves me.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:37]:
And I'm just like, dude, I asked somebody the other day, I was. They said that exact thing.
Greg Rainville [00:41:41]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:42]:
And I'm like, dude, it sounds like you're bragging, right? I even, I even went back and kind of apologized. Was like, that was probably wrong.
Greg Rainville [00:41:48]:
Wrong.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:48]:
Like, are you, are you okay? Are you happy? Are you comfortable? And look, I will tell you this. There's a lot of shops in my community that are exceptionally cheap. The lowest one is $45 an hour. And they don't mark their parts up. Now, how does that happen? Right? Let's think about how it happens. Well, they didn't have insurance. They didn't have any amenities. They pay their employees 1099 and a.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:13]:
That's illegal. They're not supposed to do that. One particular shop, I looked at hiring somebody from one particular shop and super nice guy, super nice operation, but he's paying his guys 1099. And so we start talking about it. I'm like, okay, well, who covers Workman's comp and who covers the liability insurance? Because that, like, I've talked to my insurance company about this and I don't know if you know this. If you have 1099 contractors, it creates a lapse in coverage. So you have to be careful about how you're insured. You have to talk to your insurance.
David Roman [00:42:44]:
Because of their 1099, they shouldn't be in your building.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:48]:
Right. Well, what I'm saying is, is that. That they. They had these employees and dudes 1099. Turns out he doesn't have workman's comp. He's like, well, I'm making $50 an hour.
David Roman [00:43:00]:
I'm.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:00]:
Right. Well, yeah, but if you paid for the insurance, because now his general liability doesn't cover the work that you did in the shop. So you have to have general liability on top of what he has because you're not covered. You don't have workman's comp. Like, by the time you take all those numbers out, you didn't make $50 an hour. You're just undercover. It's a rest, right? You don't have the amenities you need. And so, like, man, this one shop in town pays everybody cash.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:27]:
Everybody that works for him is an illegal alien. And he's like, but, dude, I don't care. Like, I'm. I'm just. He's like, I want to offer really cheap service. I want to be really, you know, like, there for the community. I want to take care of people. And it's an old shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:41]:
It's worn out. It's like, beat all to pieces. The parking lot is always full. They're always dealing with, like, trouble customers. And people take a car to them, and they're like, well, gosh, that's half of what you said you were going to charge. Dude, look who's working on the car. They don't have service information. They bought the cheapest parts from the brunch store.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:01]:
It's not.
David Roman [00:44:01]:
They went to the junkyard and pulled out.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:03]:
You can't compare the two.
Greg Rainville [00:44:04]:
We have a shop in south Boston that's like that, where all the kids who move into the city, they just bring their cars there. And he's got great reviews on, like, Facebook and even on Google. And it's all cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap. We love him. He's cheap. He's affordable.
David Roman [00:44:18]:
Yeah, it's.
Greg Rainville [00:44:19]:
He runs a business, but he's got to be stressed out. Like. Yeah, like that. Like, I don't know. Like, how do you sleep at night with some of that stuff hanging over?
David Roman [00:44:27]:
I don't think he's thinking about it.
Greg Rainville [00:44:28]:
No.
David Roman [00:44:28]:
Just. No, I have no problem with the backyard mechanic. I have no problem with the backyard mechanics. So when I lived in Boston, I was broke, and I had any money? There was this guy, I think he's guatemalan, and he worked out of his backyard and he was the town mechanic. He was like the neighborhood mechanic. And so you would go there and he'd look at it and be like, I don't know, $50. I'm like, bet, do it. And I think he did a clutch on my Mazda 626 for like $150, plus the price of the part.
David Roman [00:44:55]:
It's super cheap. But he's a guy in a backyard, like, right? There's no, hey, ever since. Ever since you guys worked on this, my airbag lights on. Like, that's not a thing, right? It's like, dude, no. Call me if you need some. Like, all of that is out the window. Also warranty or you don't catch them like it. There's a whole bunch of stuff you're giving up.
David Roman [00:45:18]:
I have no problem with that guy. Cuz he's just. Just a backyard mechanic. You know what you're getting with the backyard mechanic? He has no CRM. He's no less Ms.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:27]:
He's got no receipts.
Greg Rainville [00:45:28]:
Yep.
David Roman [00:45:28]:
You pay him cash, he takes the cash, we're good. Goodbye. That's it. I have no problem with the backyard mechanic. The backyard mechanic that goes into a building and then hangs the sign says, I'm a business. That's what I have a problem with. It's like, dude, you are no longer a backyard mechanic. Quit operating like a backyard mechanic.
David Roman [00:45:45]:
You need to shift and think. I am now a business. I need to have certain things in place.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:51]:
Well, you know, I've been talking to a lot of the mobile guys, right? A lot of the mobile techs, and there's a few of them. There's one in the group that I.
David Roman [00:46:00]:
Just want to point out that we are. We are failing the industry, you and I. Mostly you. But we are failing the industry because I. Every day in the stupid Facebook group, you know the name of the Facebook group is the changing the industry. Podcast Facebook group. I have no idea how often you guys have a podcast. Facebook group.
David Roman [00:46:24]:
It's the logo. The logo says podcast. Where do you think this came from? You think we just get together just to talk about car stuff? What is wrong with you? And then they ask. They're like, oh, you have a podcast. And it's every day I want to go mobile. And I can't. I'm not. I'm doing a bad job of dissuading these people from even considering it.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:48]:
You know, here's the thing is, mobile diag works. Okay, that makes sense. It's complex. Mobile diag. Mobile programming, things like that work. Mobile repair is hard. Okay. I've got a.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:00]:
I've got a guy. Local repairs.
David Roman [00:47:01]:
A nightmare. Repair is a nightmare. Can you imagine doing it in somebody's driveway?
Lucas Underwood [00:47:06]:
Well, and so this dude, what he does is oil changes, tires, stuff like that. He does light stuff. He goes around and does it, and he's made it very successful. Right? He's done a very good job of it, has a wonderful client base. He's probably not using a CRM. He's using a shop management software. But he doesn't have to have the CRM. He's.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:22]:
He's using convenience, and he's charging a premium for the convenience. Right. And it can work like that. If you build a good system, and that system's doing what it's supposed to do, it can work. But I'm talking to a lot of these guys, and they came out of a shop. They were frustrated at the boss. They wanted to start their own thing. But property is expensive.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:41]:
Buildings are expensive. So what do they do? They go mobile. And I was just talking to this guy the other day, and I was telling David about it, because he's talking about, hey, I just priced a head gasket on this jeep vehicle, and it's a three six, and I've changed my price since then. And it was a massive swing. He went to. From 65 to 100 an hour. Right? And the massive swing, though, is that, as we're talking about it, I'm like, hey, what about cams? What about the rocker arms? Because those things eat rocker arms like nobody's business. It always damages the cam.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:13]:
You're talking about. You've now you got to do an oil cooler, because if you're going to have the heads off, there's no reason you wouldn't do an oil cooler on this vehicle. And he's like, dude, my original estimate was, like, $800. And now you're telling me I'm gonna be, like, $3,200 to do this?
David Roman [00:48:27]:
That's a $7,000 repair. We're doing that right now in my shop. Yeah. Head gaskets on the three six. It's a $7,000 repair.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:33]:
And so I'm.
David Roman [00:48:33]:
What's that guy's name?
Lucas Underwood [00:48:35]:
I'm not calling that on the podcast.
David Roman [00:48:37]:
Let's call him Bob. Bob. Bob. That is a $7,000 repair. That is what you charge. I don't care if you're doing it on the side of the road or you're doing it in a shop, $7,000 repair.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:49]:
And here's the thing is, all it takes is a little bit of knowledge, it takes a little bit of information about how to do this in the right way to do this. But. But I don't think they hear us saying that they're exposed to massive amounts of liability by doing this. Now, I know you don't care about the liability, and David's made a good point about that before. What liability? If I don't have anything to take, they're not going to take anything. If I give you a paper receipt and there's no name or anything on that, right? Just a Facebook account. Account. What are they going to do? I mean, I get that.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:21]:
I really do, but. But it. I don't know. I don't think it's what's best for our industry long term.
David Roman [00:49:28]:
Going to a bunch of guys going.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:30]:
Mobile, it's not even about the guys going mobile. It's about the reputation of auto repair.
David Roman [00:49:35]:
And here's the thing, I'm going to just lay this out. If you are considering going mobile, you are doing a shit job of marketing your services to good shops. That's it. Because there is some shop somewhere out there and I can't move. I'm in Connecticut. I can't move. I got that nonsense from somebody. And, you know, I'm happy for you to live in Boston, but I could not imagine living in Boston.
David Roman [00:50:00]:
I would blow my brains out. Those people are insane. Not you. Everybody is insane there. They are nuts. And so I can't. I couldn't be there, so I'd get the hell out. So all I'm saying is somewhere, there is somebody somewhere.
David Roman [00:50:13]:
And it could be in Connecticut. I don't know. But there are some nice shops in Connecticut. I know at least one. Collinsville. Nice people.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:20]:
Yes, very much.
David Roman [00:50:21]:
Everybody else can screw off, but they are doing a terrible job of marketing their services. Because if you are a technician and good, your services come at a premium and are in extremely high demand. And the fact that you cannot find a shop that will take care of you, take care of you salary wise and benefits wise, and put you in a good environment for you to your skills to flourish, you are doing a terrible job and it's.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:47]:
You're going to upset some people. And I don't necessarily think that you're right, though.
David Roman [00:50:52]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:53]:
There are people who just can't work for other people.
David Roman [00:50:56]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:56]:
I couldn't imagine you working for somebody else. Could you imagine him working for somebody else?
David Roman [00:51:00]:
At no point do I go I'm insulting both of you, but you know that. Yeah, but recognize that. Don't say it's the employer. It's me. I know it's me. It is me. I can't go work for somebody. I'm entirely unemployable.
David Roman [00:51:18]:
So what am I going to do? I'm going to go do 1099 stuff where I'm going to go open my own business because I don't have any other option. But these people are employees that the business or starting the business is the solution. They don't realize, dude, you're an employee. You have that employee mindset. You have that. You're like, you are an employee. I don't think that it's a completely different mindset to go open a business. It's just wired differently.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:46]:
So many people get upset when you say that, but I don't think they understand that you're coming from a place of like, hey, this is hard. This sucks. This isn't.
David Roman [00:51:54]:
This sucks so much. They think I'm lying to them. It sucks so much. Do you want to go start your own CRM company?
Greg Rainville [00:52:02]:
Well, it's kind of funny you're saying that, because I sometimes with some of my friends in the industry, I'm like, we should open up a repair shop.
David Roman [00:52:10]:
Oh, my.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:13]:
We do say if you're going to.
Greg Rainville [00:52:14]:
Do that, we're like, we know the technology. We know what you need to do. And then, you know, then I listen to you and I'm just like, oh.
David Roman [00:52:21]:
My goodness, it is the worst thing ever.
Greg Rainville [00:52:24]:
But I don't know if it's like the reverse sometimes for shop owners to be like, I want to go the software side of things, you know, the grass is always greener.
David Roman [00:52:30]:
I don't know.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:31]:
I think that's it is. I think that they see this grass as greener mentality, right? And they don't really see it for what it is. And they, they say, hey, you know, they get really upset because we talk about, you should have a lot of money before you start a shop. You should not go into this undercapitalized. You need insurance. You need these things. And, man, it really frustrates me.
Greg Rainville [00:52:49]:
A business savvy, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:52:50]:
Like, well, and this whole nasty thing that upset everybody, it was like, what do you have to have to have a nastiff credential? You, there are certain legal requirements about your background that you can't have certain types of charges. You've got to have insurance, you've got to have a background check, and you have to have a business license and a business card. Okay, if guys, look, I get that it upsets people. If you can't do those things, we gotta really, like, take a step back and say, all right, you have to.
David Roman [00:53:23]:
Have certain levels of insurance and you have to put them on the insurance as well. That's kind of annoying, but whatever.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:30]:
But I guess my point is, is that. That, you know what upset so many people is me saying, if you can't do those things, we have to take a step back and really evaluate this because it might mean that you're overexposed right now and you don't realize it. Instead, it turns into an argument. And that's the same thing with us telling shops like, hey, have some money put back before you do this. And they get really mad about it. They're like, but I just want to do this. Right. You remember when you were a kid, right? And mom and dad were like, hey, I wouldn't do that.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:59]:
I think that's a bad idea. And you're like, but I want to do it. And it makes you mad that they told you no, so you go do it anyway. And then you find out, damn, that was a bad idea.
Greg Rainville [00:54:08]:
That was me coming to mechanic advisor. My parents were like, what are you doing going to work for your buddy Parker?
Lucas Underwood [00:54:14]:
That's just because I knew Parker.
Greg Rainville [00:54:16]:
Okay, it was pretty funny, but it put a chip on my shoulder a little bit. But. But, yeah, it's just like, I don't know, kind of defiant a little bit, right? Looking for a Fortune 500 company before.
David Roman [00:54:27]:
Well, fucking the soul out of you.
Greg Rainville [00:54:29]:
And you're like, I gotta get out of this.
David Roman [00:54:31]:
Yeah, yeah, well.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:32]:
And so I just. I don't think that they recognize that we're sitting here saying, like, hey, plan for this. Get something behind you before you move into this, to do this, because we've seen a lot of people trash their financial success for the rest of their lives because they wanted to own a shopper, they wanted to own a mobile business. And you don't hear about those because it's embarrassing to step out and say, I fucked up, right? Like, oops, I just trashed my financial future. Great. You know what I mean?
David Roman [00:54:59]:
We're the only ones apparently. Well, not you, but me. I mean, I tell people all the time, like, yeah, it's an easy way to go broke. Yeah, easy way to go broke and get yourself into a ton of debt and a bunch of liability and a bunch of financial burden and all the stress in the world in that text message that, hey, my car just broke down that you just worked on and just stupid stuff like that all day long. It doesn't stop. It's just a constant grind. And you're just. You're fighting for every customer that walks in the door.
David Roman [00:55:27]:
It is the worst thing ever. That's a terrible idea. Don't go.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:31]:
I've got a. I've got a bunch that tows for me. Hamptons body shops in our town. And I was talking to the owner of the shop one time, and they've got a massive towing operation. He said, you know what I've learned about the towing business? I said, what? He said, do you know how to become a millionaire in the towing business? And I said, no, how? He said, you should probably start with five or 6 million, right? It's going to evaporate right up from underneath you.
David Roman [00:55:54]:
And you just need a tow truck. That's good. That's all you need. And it's fine. You'll make lots of money.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:02]:
As long as you don't pay for all the insurance and all the other things.
David Roman [00:56:07]:
Mac and cheese, food truck podcast guys try to dissuade me. Went against the Mac and cheese truck.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:15]:
You're gonna get mad at them. You're gonna send them dirty messages and post in their face.
David Roman [00:56:19]:
You don't know what I'm talking about. I started my business with thousand dollars and a good reputation, and all you gotta do is make really good Mac and cheese. Everybody will just show up. I just. I wanna know the holes. I'm. I wanna see the holes I'm missing.
Greg Rainville [00:56:35]:
What I think it's just being a business owner is tough. It is like, no matter what business it is, it's tough.
David Roman [00:56:41]:
Like, I'm looking for that magic business. That's LIKE, aren't we all? I'm looking for that MAGIC. And it's. You know what? It's software as a service. No, I couldn't do what you guys do, like, because the minute something goes wrong.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:58]:
And the ones from California for you, this. This product, you cannot do.
David Roman [00:57:02]:
That's my point. They can't. You. They can't do that.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:05]:
They can't do that service line. You have a complaint and you want the expedited service line, you call in 800 number you put in your credit.
David Roman [00:57:13]:
Only shop in town. That would work if you were the only shop in town. That's my point is LIKe, I need to find that in whatever. Some. Whatever's interesting to me. Need to find that. I've thought about like, you know, making trinkets or whatever. Like, who complains the atem, when the atem doesn't work.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:33]:
You ever seen their Reddit or their subreddit?
David Roman [00:57:36]:
I knoW. That's what I'm saying. Like the product Thing, it's LIKE, dude, you're using the product wrong. I don't know what to tell you. Using it wrong. Like, don't dip it underwater. It doesn't work underwater. You want to do the Scuba podcast, you don't dip it underwater.
David Roman [00:57:48]:
Doesn't work for underwater, but it's, it online. It's like, I don't tell you what, read the manual.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:53]:
Here's the thing, though, is y'all know David pretty well. I know David pretty well. David is not a very consistent human being, and he's going to find something else that he's enamored by within ten minutes of starting a new business, it's going to be the next auto repair shop. It's not going to make a difference in his life.
David Roman [00:58:11]:
It's not shiny. It's not like, it's not, it's not like that. It's. There are some things that are interesting to me, me that have maintained their interest level over years, but you have to, like, you have to dial down and it's like, okay, why is that appealing to me? There's something behind that. So you just have to dig in.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:30]:
A little more than one example. I've never like you. You're never consistently enamored by any one thing.
David Roman [00:58:38]:
Podcasting. This is fun. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:40]:
Okay.
David Roman [00:58:41]:
Oh, there you go. I just completely destroyed your stupid argument, didn't I?
Lucas Underwood [00:58:45]:
You're right. You're right.
David Roman [00:58:46]:
We've been how long? Four years now? Almost four years. Doing this every week. I missed one week because I had COVID every week putting up. I haven't stopped. I don't get bored with it. I don't like, oh, like, I don't know. And you know what? Like, even like the YouTube videos and stuff like that, I would, like, like, dive way deeper into that and stuff like that if I had the time, if I had nothing else to do. And that was my job.
David Roman [00:59:14]:
You kidding me? I would put the stupidest gags in our, in our videos, but I would do all of the stupid shit. I would do all of it.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:23]:
I've been doing all this stupid shit for a long time now. And you just.
David Roman [00:59:27]:
I don't. Because it's. Dude, it is time consuming.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:29]:
Well, I know, but it's not like you do anything at the shop.
David Roman [00:59:32]:
That's true. I try to. I make more of a mess than any I know. Juan's like, I was talking to Juan and he's like, yeah, so we're gonna do like we should get another five or $6,000 out tomorrow. And I'm like, oh, that's great, we're having a good week. Like this is a great week. And he's like, yeah. And it's like, I don't know what it is.
David Roman [00:59:50]:
Like whenever you're gone, the guy's just work now. He was just saying, he wasn't trying to like insult me or anything like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:55]:
I'm like, you know, he sends me messages asking if I can distract you.
David Roman [01:00:00]:
And I go, is that what it is? And he's like, I guess, I don't know.
Greg Rainville [01:00:07]:
That sounds like business though.
David Roman [01:00:09]:
I feel like I walk in and I distract everybody cuz it's like, you know, I go in to hang out. I tried to work the problem. It's like, look, I have no problem coming in and doing some things for a little bit of time. So like I'm, I want to come in, I want to check in cars. So I'll check in two or three cars, but there's seven cars. I don't want to check in all seven cars. I just want to check in two or three and then I'm bored with it and I don't want to do it anymore. And so like I'll just walk away from it and then like I'll estimate a job or two, but I don't want to do all of them.
David Roman [01:00:45]:
And then sometimes like, I don't want to do this at all and then I just leave it and then I just walk away because it's boring. It's boring. It's like, this is exhausting and, and so it like, yeah, I'll do an oil change. I'll do an oil change but don't expect me to do all these oil changes. Like, I'm not doing all of them. That's just nuts, you know, I'll put the headphones in and I'm like, I'll knock out this inspection, this oil change, but I'm very clear. I'm like, hey, I'm just going to do this one and then the rest of you guys are on your own. I don't want to do anything past that.
Greg Rainville [01:01:19]:
We got to get a live video of you at the shop. I know that would be, I'm sure there's a camera. It's like put a GoPro on him for a day, see where he ends up at.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:28]:
Very much the seagull manager, you know, comes in, takes somebody's lunch, shits all over the. The place and leaves place and walks.
Greg Rainville [01:01:36]:
Away with that smirk.
David Roman [01:01:37]:
If I feel. No, I don't feel good about that. If I feel bad about how the day is going, I buy them lunch. I'm like, oh, this is a nightmare. I buy them lunch at least once a week, but if it's a like, it's like, ooh, this is rough. I'm gonna buy everybody lunch. I'll buy them lunch. And then I leave.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:58]:
My shop definitely performs better without me. They do a much better job if I'm not there.
David Roman [01:02:03]:
He's trying to speak that into existence.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:05]:
No, they do.
David Roman [01:02:06]:
They.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:06]:
They do much better if I'm not there.
David Roman [01:02:08]:
Why the hell do you even bother?
Lucas Underwood [01:02:10]:
I don't know. I guess I feel like I need to. I feel bad if I'm not there.
David Roman [01:02:14]:
Yeah, I feel bad if I'm not there either. Not when I'm doing, like, other things, if I'm busy. But if I'm not, like, because otherwise, like, I'll just go home and play video games.
Greg Rainville [01:02:24]:
But you guys then work from home, then. Correct.
David Roman [01:02:26]:
I could.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:27]:
Do you work from home or home is at work. So I'm like, oh, okay. Like, I can.
Greg Rainville [01:02:31]:
That's right. You just walk right, it's right down there.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:34]:
Might as well just go to work, right? We're building a. So there's a new podcast studio while we're here, being built in the upstairs of the office of the shop. So, like, it's super insulated and everything else to be quiet, so I'll be able to, like, record and work up there. And so, like, maybe if I just go in there and hang out, I won't be distracting them as bad. And, like, what? And Eric brought this up to me last week. As he said, I feel like when you're here, I put so much pressure on myself to make the decision I think you would make that I stopped making decisions. And so, like, I'm really, really bad to. And I'm snappy about decisions, and I'm not necessarily as forgiving as I should be about them making a decision I wouldn't make.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:21]:
Right, right. And so I've. I've talked to them multiple times about, I think I need to give you guys the autonomy to make decisions. And I noticed that, especially with Jade over the past couple weeks, we had some situations where we lost jobs because I had put so much emphasis on Jade about, like, hey, here's the rules. And here's the. The rules of which we do business and we don't get outside. These. These are the guardrails.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:47]:
One of them is, is we always tell clients, if we don't think we're going to be able to get something done, we want to go ahead and let them know ahead of time. Right. We want to get in front of that. And she's become so observant of that, that everybody that comes in the door, she's like, now, we could get you done today, but I I am going to tell you that there is a chance we do not. And she stands there and nods at him, and. And it's like, dude, you're basically telling them you're not going to, right? Well, yeah, but you gave me these rules. This is what you told me to do. And so it's like, when things go wrong, I make new rules.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:24]:
So things don't go wrong, but eventually end up with so many fucking rules that nobody can do anything. So I just gotta walk away.
David Roman [01:04:31]:
You're most here. Nobody don't drop enough bombs. You can say shit ass damn. Just don't know.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:41]:
That is like the. Listen, you know my vocabulary by now.
David Roman [01:04:46]:
There's a Taylor Swift song that she just casually drops f bombs in the song, and she's like, hey, I'm not teeny bopper anymore. I'm cool and edgy and like an adult because. F this. F that. The whole song. F this, f that. F this. And unnecessary.
David Roman [01:05:03]:
It was unnecessary. It's like, it doesn't enhance the song. Like, f the police. That makes sense. That makes sense. But she's just throwing f bombs just to. Are you okay?
Lucas Underwood [01:05:27]:
I'm fantastic.
David Roman [01:05:28]:
All right, we're good.