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Confessions of a Shop Owner is hosted by Mike Allen, a third-generation shop owner, perpetual pot-stirrer, and brutally honest opinion sharer. In this weekly podcast, Mike shares his missteps so you don’t have to repeat them. Along the way, he chats with other industry personalities who’ve messed up, too, pulling back the curtain on the realities of running an independent auto repair shop. But this podcast isn’t just about Mike’s journey. It’s about confronting the divisive and questionable tactics many shop owners and managers use. Mike is here to stir the pot and address the painful truths while offering a way forward. Together, we’ll tackle the frustrations, shake things up, and help create a better future for the auto repair industry.
Mike Allen [00:00:00]:
I've been an outspoken proponent of free diag, and I've actually had. I think it was Cecil who called me out for being a moron in class. I wasn't even in the class. He didn't call me by name. He said, now we've got these podcasters, these morons, advocating for free diag. And I was like, yes, I have hit the hot button topic. So where do you stand on that?
Rick White [00:00:24]:
You do you.
Mike Allen [00:00:25]:
You do you, Boo boo.
Rick White [00:00:27]:
I love you. Not a fucking chance in hell.
Mike Allen [00:00:32]:
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along. So, without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner. With your help, Mike Allen.
Mike Allen [00:01:05]:
We're taught that to be a man, you've got to bottle it up and keep the rage on a shelf. And having. Having emotions like sadness or verbalizing your fear about things that makes you effeminate.
Rick White [00:01:19]:
You know, my wife has a. I say this all the time. My wife has a palate of a hundred different colors of words that she can use, like, shit, I have to look up sometimes right. About how she's feeling. I have five feelings. Three are pissed, one's happy, and one's horny. I mean, that's all I got.
Mike Allen [00:01:39]:
It's a happy, horny, hungry. This is three H's.
Rick White [00:01:42]:
Well, the hungry, sleepy. The hungry is one of the three best, right? The hangry.
Mike Allen [00:01:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, hungry could also be horny. It's just what you're hungry for, I guess.
Rick White [00:01:52]:
I guess. I try not to.
Mike Allen [00:01:54]:
Rick, I want you to know that this is the type of quality content that my listeners come for, that they've come to expect. Yeah.
Rick White [00:02:00]:
Okay, good. I don't want to disappoint. Yeah, I'm very adaptable. Malleable. Is that a good word? I'm very malleable.
Mike Allen [00:02:06]:
It's a good word.
Rick White [00:02:07]:
I'm sorry.
Mike Allen [00:02:08]:
You have been working. Working the corral. Today we're in the podcast corral at Apex.
Rick White [00:02:13]:
My fourth one this morning.
Mike Allen [00:02:15]:
Fourth straight podcast. You've been. Are you exhausted yet?
Rick White [00:02:20]:
I got four hours of teaching still to come.
Mike Allen [00:02:24]:
Okay, so without naming names, which one was the best and which one was the worst? You just point. I know where they're sitting.
Rick White [00:02:33]:
I don't know where they're sitting. So we're in trouble. I've enjoyed each and every one of them. Different aspects to each.
Mike Allen [00:02:41]:
Well, I'm here to tell you that this is going to be the most ridiculous one. I'm going to. I'm going to aspire to that.
Rick White [00:02:47]:
Okay, so.
Mike Allen [00:02:48]:
So we can get there. I know that we want to talk about me rubbing you the wrong way in a totally platonic, appropriate way. Yeah.
Rick White [00:02:57]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:02:59]:
Back in January, February, in that time frame.
Rick White [00:03:01]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:03:01]:
You've been chasing after me to hold me accountable since then. And we finally got.
Rick White [00:03:04]:
We had a talk. We had a talk.
Mike Allen [00:03:06]:
Yeah, I know that you want to talk about how free diag is the new $19 oil change and how we should be open all the hours of all the days. Is there anything else that we need to cover while we're talking today?
Rick White [00:03:19]:
I don't want to be open all the hours of all the days.
Mike Allen [00:03:24]:
All right, first, before we get into all that easy, simple, rage bait stuff, how you been, man?
Rick White [00:03:30]:
Good, good, good. Our eighth grandchild is celebrating her one year birthday next month.
Mike Allen [00:03:36]:
Oh, my gosh.
Rick White [00:03:38]:
Brenda and I are literally passing each other on the air. I'm taking red eye tonight. I'm landing at 7 in the morning. She has a 10 o' clock flight going to Connecticut.
Mike Allen [00:03:51]:
So you're just gonna have breakfast at the lounge at the airport.
Rick White [00:03:53]:
She's driving. I'll be going home. Our granddaughter's 13 and she's in a cheer competition, so she's going up. It's a Mohegan Sun. It's a regional cheer.
Mike Allen [00:04:10]:
Huge facility.
Rick White [00:04:11]:
Yeah. So she's going up there for that.
Mike Allen [00:04:16]:
My niece's state cheer championships are Saturday, so.
Rick White [00:04:19]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:04:19]:
It's just that time of year.
Rick White [00:04:20]:
You kind of know what I mean.
Mike Allen [00:04:21]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:04:22]:
So she's doing that, so. But things are going really well.
Mike Allen [00:04:25]:
Well, good, man. And physically you've. Your knees are good, your back's good, Everything's good?
Rick White [00:04:31]:
Yeah, good. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:04:33]:
You know, turn the corner, you know.
Rick White [00:04:35]:
I still feel like an amco commercial every once in a while, shit falling off, you know, but yeah, you just pick it up, look at it go. Do I really need it? Yeah, screw it.
Mike Allen [00:04:45]:
How's. How's the 180 biz doing?
Rick White [00:04:47]:
Good.
Mike Allen [00:04:47]:
180 biz biz is good, Growing.
Rick White [00:04:49]:
Good, growing, growing, growing.
Mike Allen [00:04:51]:
So tell me about your organization. Because for years, from my limited perspective, 180 biz was Rick.
Rick White [00:04:57]:
It was.
Mike Allen [00:04:58]:
And you've, you've started to try to kind of build out the infrastructure with the support systems that you have and.
Rick White [00:05:03]:
Yeah, there's 11 of us now.
Mike Allen [00:05:05]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:05:06]:
We have three coaches plus myself.
Mike Allen [00:05:10]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:05:11]:
I am transitioning to becoming a coach of coaches and stepping back. They're doing a fantastic job. I got the greatest team that there is.
Mike Allen [00:05:21]:
So that's going to be hard for you. The people that you've worked with that have had direct access to you for the last 15 years, how do you pass them off to another coach?
Rick White [00:05:32]:
I'm still involved.
Mike Allen [00:05:33]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:05:34]:
And they can still access me anytime. So I'm not really seeing that as a issue. Plus the guys that I got or the guy I say guys that we have, we have a female coach as well.
Mike Allen [00:05:49]:
Part of the guys.
Rick White [00:05:50]:
Yeah, yeah. For me, guys and the Pennsylvania used.
Mike Allen [00:05:53]:
Guys kind of way.
Rick White [00:05:54]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's not gender specific, but they are amazing. They're long term clients. They eat, drink and sleep what we teach and they're bringing their own stories and stuff to it and they're awesome. We also, we also have a coach for them. So we pay for that and help them with that and I coach them and it's been pretty amazing. So it's great. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:06:22]:
So I wondered this about. And for you probably a decade ago. We probably met probably a decade ago at an IGO event of some sort.
Rick White [00:06:35]:
It was more than a decade ago, but go ahead.
Mike Allen [00:06:37]:
That's fair.
Rick White [00:06:39]:
My first time at IGO was 2010.
Mike Allen [00:06:44]:
Yeah. That was like six years ago, right?
Rick White [00:06:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. My hair was still brown.
Mike Allen [00:06:49]:
I still think of myself as the young guy in the room. And sometimes I'm in a room and I'm like, fuck, I'm the oldest man in the room.
Rick White [00:06:54]:
All I gotta do is open my mouth and prove I'm the youngest guy in the room.
Mike Allen [00:07:01]:
No, but I used to think I was like, man, Rick's got such a following and people love him so much, but his business is him and him alone. How do you build it so that it has value? So that it. I mean, because it's a retirement plan for you? Eventually I would imagine that. Do you sell it or do you just let it keep going? And somebody's got to own it after you don't own it anymore. Right. So how does that work?
Rick White [00:07:24]:
Yeah, we're. So exit strategy is not on the table, but we're building the business up so it can operate without me.
Mike Allen [00:07:32]:
Well, even if it was on the table, you probably couldn't talk about it publicly.
Rick White [00:07:36]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:07:36]:
Right. But I believe I'm an open book.
Rick White [00:07:39]:
I wouldn't. I'd like as everybody wants to buy a coaching company Let me know. But it's not. It's. The reality is every business is always for sale. We just got to make sure there's enough zeros.
Mike Allen [00:07:48]:
Yeah, right, Absolutely.
Rick White [00:07:50]:
Somebody comes in to me with seven zeros, I'm in.
Mike Allen [00:07:54]:
Fucking A, I'm in. I'm in.
Rick White [00:07:56]:
I'm in and I'm out. None of this. You gotta work for two years, you know, write me a check, give me.
Mike Allen [00:08:01]:
A sat phone, I'm going back on safari. Yeah, yeah.
Rick White [00:08:03]:
Call me if you need me. So there's lots of places I want to go to, but the reality is I love what I do. I still do, right? And in the process have learned to become a practical psychologist because most of the time I thought it was gonna have to just teach strategy and teach.
Mike Allen [00:08:26]:
Them their numbers and working them through their self sabotage and doubt and imposter.
Rick White [00:08:29]:
Syndrome and everything else. So you spend most of your time doing that and it's okay. I love it when you get somebody. Like, I had a guy call me up. One of my clients says, can we talk? And I said, yeah. He says, can we talk tonight? I said, yeah, what about? Like, I want to be at least prepared, right? He says, I got a problem with my son. I said, okay. So we got on, we got, we got together.
Rick White [00:08:54]:
His son was 12 at the time. He says he's heading to jail. I mean, he's really getting in trouble and I don't know what to do. I'm not a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, any kind of ist. I don't even play one on tv. But I've got seven kids, I have eight grandkids, so I have some experience. So all I did was I shared some experience. And he called me up two weeks later crying, saying that he had a completely different relationship with his son.
Rick White [00:09:26]:
That's a big deal. So, you know, for me, I watched my dad struggle in this business. I struggled for a while in the business being able to help someone so they aren't sooner, quicker and, and start to treat the business like a business and actually make money not for the sake of the money, but for what it buys, right? The freedom, the, the benefits, the environment that you want for your team, et cetera.
Mike Allen [00:09:56]:
The two boats, the.
Rick White [00:10:00]:
I've never owned a boat. Brenda has with her ex husband. And she told me that the two happiest days you have a boat is the day you buy it, the day you sell it.
Mike Allen [00:10:09]:
It's a hole in the water into which you pour money. Yes.
Rick White [00:10:12]:
Kind of like a shop. No. You know, somebody said, how do you Make a million dollars in auto repair. I said start with 2 million.
Mike Allen [00:10:18]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:10:18]:
So, yep, that's an old joke with oil, but, you know, so it's, it's been a really. I really enjoy it, but now it's a lot of fun getting, replicating, like getting other people to help other people. So working with the coaches is a lot of fun. And I've got so many different content ideas and strategies that I still have to create. I have five books that I want to write. I have one book that's about three quarters done. There's a lot banging inside that wants to come out.
Mike Allen [00:10:58]:
So I've often thought that being a business coach is probably a little bit intoxicating and a little bit dangerous and you've got to have a really well grounded sense of self because most, a lot of your target clients have never had a coach before. And you come in and you can just diagnose their business and change their life like that if they're willing to implement. Right. To make the changes that you suggest. And so 100% you've had people cry to you about how you change their life and you change their trajectory of their family and they become fiercely loyal to you and, you know, strong advocates for you, and that's got to be a little bit intoxicating and it's got to make you feel good. Right? But I have seen, not you, but I have seen other coaches in the industry who have experienced that and become these egomaniacs.
Rick White [00:11:59]:
Oh, no, I'm. First of all, if I poke fun at somebody 99.99% of the time it's me, right? My wife, one night she comes to me and Brenda's a sweetheart. For anybody that's ever met her, she is my. My ride or die. She is just awesome. We've been married 22 years now. So she come up to me one time probably about a couple years ago, and she said to me, rick, how come you're so brilliant at work and so stupid at home? Right. It's hard to get an ego with, like, I stay pretty grounded.
Rick White [00:12:35]:
Is it intoxicating? I don't think that's the right word. I think it's fulfilling.
Mike Allen [00:12:42]:
I think for the. I think it's intoxicating for the one to grow in a negative way from it.
Rick White [00:12:47]:
Well, if they're doing it for an ego trip, like, I'm better than you or I know more than. Yeah, I get that. I don't. I'm not any better than anybody else. I'm just further along, I've Got the scars right? Someone said, you're so wise. Where does it come from? And I. Experience.
Mike Allen [00:13:01]:
Where does experience come from? Yeah.
Rick White [00:13:03]:
So I've done every stupid thing you could possibly think of doing. And being able to learn from it and grow from it, that's, I guess, kind of my superpower. But as far as I find it, very fulfilling because I have a core belief that life's hard and it's going to kick the shit out of us. And it's. I believe one of the reasons we're on this earth is to help each other get through it. So if I can help somebody, I'm going to help somebody. And sometimes that's free coaching from us. Sometimes.
Rick White [00:13:45]:
Back in April, one of our clients had surgery and was shorthanded, and I ran his shop for two weeks. We just do what we do, and I don't know. For me, it's a way of seeing life. So I don't. It's not intoxicating. It's fulfilling.
Mike Allen [00:14:05]:
What is your new coaching client onboarding process. Like, what do you want to find out about the individual and their business?
Rick White [00:14:15]:
Everything.
Mike Allen [00:14:17]:
Easy answer.
Rick White [00:14:18]:
No, but it's the truth. I want to know how many kids they have. I want to know how old they are. I want to know what the kids like to do. How long have they been married? How good is the marriage? Because all of that stuff comes into the business. There's no way you could be just a business coach and not deal with personal situations. Sometimes, yeah, for sure. It happens.
Rick White [00:14:38]:
So I want to know where. I want to know the lay of the land. Right. Like, one time it was funny, I was coaching a truck company tractor trailer class, a tractor trailer shop down in South Carolina. And we're coaching. All of a sudden, we're six months in. We're working it. They're doing the work.
Rick White [00:14:57]:
And all of a sudden she talks about a federal lien, first you've heard of it on the business. And I'm six months in, I'm going, whoa. Like, whoa, wait a minute, back up. Like she just mentioned in passing. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up.
Mike Allen [00:15:12]:
I think that's something I should be aware of.
Rick White [00:15:14]:
That shit I should have known about. You know what I mean? So now one of my questions is, are you caught up on your taxes? Are you. You know what I mean? So, yeah. So I want to know everything. We start with an interview. Everybody that wants to join with us talks to me first. Because I want to make sure it's going to be a good fit, right? I tell Them, there's three questions. I ask two, they ask one.
Rick White [00:15:41]:
First, can I help them? Second, do I think they do the. Will they do the work? Mike, how many shop owners do you know that have written checks to coaching companies, done none of the work, and expected it to be better or.
Mike Allen [00:15:55]:
I mean. So this is one of the things that frustrates me about some of the coaching clients that I see out there, because for better or worse, I've been exposed to a lot of the coaching companies. They keep writing the check, and they keep going to the meeting like they're going to a fraternity meeting because it's their buddies.
Rick White [00:16:12]:
But they don't change.
Mike Allen [00:16:13]:
They never change anything. They have the same. And they take up time in each one of the meetings talking about the same fucking problems. I've got this technician who's got a drug problem or he's toxic, and I've got this service advisor who runs over me or whatever it might be, and they never change. And three years later, you go back to a meeting and it's the same conversation about the same problems. And that coach doesn't hold them accountable or invite them to leave?
Rick White [00:16:43]:
Yeah, we don't invite them. So if we have somebody that. First of all, progress comes in many forms. As long as, like, if I don't see what I think is progress, I'll go to them and say, okay, we don't see growth here. Show me where you're growing. Like, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Show me where you're growing. Show me the difference.
Rick White [00:17:03]:
Because one of the things we get stuck in is what I call the learning loop. It's where we learn something. And, like, I don't want to start yet. I'm not good enough. But I want to learn more.
Mike Allen [00:17:12]:
I'll start once I know everything.
Rick White [00:17:14]:
Yeah. And the problem is what they're looking for is on the other side of doing right.
Mike Allen [00:17:19]:
Well, perfection is the enemy of done right.
Rick White [00:17:21]:
Well, the way I say it is, perfection is an illusion created by the devil to rob men and women of their dreams. So if I can't see progress, we have to come to Jesus. And it's like, you either gotta step up and start making some changes, or we're gonna ask you to leave.
Mike Allen [00:17:39]:
When's the last time you fired a client?
Rick White [00:17:43]:
Three months ago.
Mike Allen [00:17:44]:
How much? So how many chances did that individual have?
Rick White [00:17:46]:
More than he should have. Yeah, but there's another part of me that I want to save. Everybody.
Mike Allen [00:17:55]:
I would rather you fire them as a show of respect to me coming to Your meeting.
Rick White [00:18:00]:
Exactly.
Mike Allen [00:18:01]:
Because if you allow them to continue to come to the meeting and take up bandwidth and headspace from the other people at the meeting just because their check clears every month and that tells me that you care more about the money than you do about helping the entirety of the group.
Rick White [00:18:14]:
And, and it's funny because we have different levels in our groups. Right. You got to do be able to do certain things before you progress and when they aren't making the differences. Before we used to say no shop left behind. That was kind of my motto. And then I realized when I was doing that I was holding back people that really wanted to take off. So now we've switched it and we'll give you some time but you're not going to get a bunch of attention from us if you're not doing the work. We aren't going to either.
Rick White [00:18:50]:
Right. But if you're doing the work you're making, you're attending, you're making the changes, we're seeing the growth, we actually, they can actually earn a one on one every month by doing that work. So now we're rewarding the people that are actually doing the work, giving them more attention than the ones that aren't. It's a balancing act.
Mike Allen [00:19:15]:
Last night I met with the facilitator, one of the facilitators of my 20 group just for a couple of drinks after the reception we had to go to. Right?
Rick White [00:19:23]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:19:25]:
And he was very intentional about giving me a rash of shit because I missed our last meeting and I've missed. This is now the third meeting this year that I've missed.
Rick White [00:19:33]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:19:35]:
And.
Rick White [00:19:37]:
You miss a meeting with us. We have a client success manager that is on you like white on rice.
Mike Allen [00:19:43]:
I think this was the version of him being on me like white on rice.
Rick White [00:19:46]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:19:48]:
But yeah. Any reason that I give for missing them as excuses. Right. So.
Rick White [00:19:54]:
And it's the truth. It's an excuse so that we record our meetings so they go back and watch them. So they'll miss one and they'll say oh, I just missed it. Great. When do you have the, when are you going to watch it?
Mike Allen [00:20:04]:
How long are your meetings?
Rick White [00:20:05]:
Two hours.
Mike Allen [00:20:06]:
Okay. That's something that we've vacillated between one and three hours over the years. You know I'm with elite.
Rick White [00:20:13]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:20:14]:
And so Pro Service 20 groups and I mean I'm excited about the evolution that Darren's making. You know Bob Cooper did wonderful things growing that business from the ground up.
Rick White [00:20:23]:
I gotta tell you, when I was a shop owner I Took a bunch of Bob Cooper classes. I did the fly with the Eagles and Elephant Chains, I think was one. So, yeah, there was a bunch I went through. But the way I look at this is each like, you got Josh Parnell coming in now, and you got these other people. Lola Schmidt starting out, and she'll be a coach before long. And these are people that are standing on our shoulders. I'm standing on Bob Cooper shoulders and Bob o' Connor shoulders and Tom Cheddar, and. I mean, there's so many.
Rick White [00:20:59]:
Oh, Dave Dus. He was a trainer back in the 90s.
Mike Allen [00:21:07]:
I think the one that dad first got involved with was Kelly Bennett out of Canada way back in the day.
Rick White [00:21:14]:
Kelly was actually a Bob o' Connor guy until that kind of went sideways. Different story for a different time. But, yeah. So, you know, my first management class was Mitch Snyder in 1992. And the only thing. Mitch, I love you. The only thing I remember is if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes. And all I could see was a giant ass in my face.
Rick White [00:21:43]:
And I'm like, nope, nope.
Mike Allen [00:21:47]:
Well, I mean, it depends on the ass, right? I mean.
Rick White [00:21:49]:
No, I don't care. Not all the time. I just.
Mike Allen [00:21:51]:
No, that's fair.
Rick White [00:21:52]:
No. And it's funny, because I was at Vision and once at asta, somebody came up to me and started talking to me about coaching, and they said, what makes you different than your competitors? And I looked at them and smiled and I said, you're not gonna like my answer. They said, okay. How come? I said, cause I have no idea.
Mike Allen [00:22:15]:
Because I don't worry about them. I just do it.
Rick White [00:22:16]:
I don't know what they do. I don't know how they do it. I've never been to one of their class. I have not been to a management class since I started the coaching company.
Mike Allen [00:22:24]:
Why not?
Rick White [00:22:25]:
Because I never want another management company thinking I stole something from them.
Mike Allen [00:22:31]:
There are no new ideas, bro.
Rick White [00:22:33]:
That's not true. There are new ideas or there are new versions of a new spin on an idea, but regardless, I don't know if you remember, there was a time not too long ago where there was a pretty big stink on Facebook about supposedly one company stealing another company's stuff.
Mike Allen [00:22:51]:
You guys are the most territorial bitches I've ever seen.
Rick White [00:22:54]:
You know, the thing about IP is you try to protect it, and it's the. It is the worst.
Mike Allen [00:22:59]:
It's so hard to prove IP theft.
Rick White [00:23:01]:
It can't.
Mike Allen [00:23:01]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:23:02]:
You know, because I'll train a client, and for the first year It's a great idea. And in year three, it was their idea. It doesn't matter.
Mike Allen [00:23:11]:
And if it's a really great idea, they're going to go tell their friends who are not your client, and then their friends tell their friends. And they didn't learn it from you, they learned it from their buddy. So it's not your information. And then they go to your class three years down the road and they say, oh, my buddy taught me this three years ago.
Rick White [00:23:26]:
Yeah, what do you think he learned it from? Right. So it's one of those things where I just. There's a lot of good coaches. Right. There's a lot of good coaches in our industry. There are some that I wonder.
Mike Allen [00:23:38]:
Two shitty ones.
Rick White [00:23:39]:
There are some that I wonder. I'm not gonna say anything. There's some I wonder about. But the reality is there's gonna be different strokes for different folks.
Mike Allen [00:23:50]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:23:50]:
I'm not judging anybody. I don't agree with what they say, but that's okay.
Mike Allen [00:23:54]:
Well, I tell people when they reach out to me and it's becoming a weird situation for me because I have listeners that reach out to me that ask for advice. Right. And I try to be very transparent that my life sometimes is a hot mess. My shop is always a hot mess.
Rick White [00:24:10]:
We're always. We're captains of chaos.
Mike Allen [00:24:14]:
But if you're looking for a coach, do not sign up with the first one you talk to. You need to figure out what kind of business you want to have, and you need to talk to multiple coaches and interview them to find the one that suits your style and your methodology. Because there are some coaches that teach a one size fits all, and you have to do it this way. And if that size suits you, it works. Giddy up, buttercup. You're gonna do great.
Rick White [00:24:40]:
Yeah. I call that the franchise model.
Mike Allen [00:24:41]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:24:42]:
They teach you a franchise model.
Mike Allen [00:24:43]:
Yeah, yeah. And that's. I don't think there's anything wrong with that if that's the kind of business you want to have.
Rick White [00:24:48]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:24:49]:
But you know, my preference, and I believe that your business is similar to this, is that you find an organization or a coaching group that is going to tailor the coaching and the training to you. And because I believe that what market you're in is important, you know, if you're in the richest zip code in America, the way you run your business is going to be different than if you're in middle America, farm country.
Rick White [00:25:10]:
Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:25:11]:
Right. If you're in a 10 million person town or you're in a, you know, thousand Person town. That's a different business. And if you try to run those businesses the same way, you're going to have a lot of headaches. You're going to have a lot of problems.
Rick White [00:25:23]:
You can't. I have. I'll just give you an example. We have a client with us that is in probably one of the poorest sections in Pennsylvania. I think the median income is like 24,000 a year.
Mike Allen [00:25:35]:
Sounds like coal country.
Rick White [00:25:37]:
Okay. You don't go into that shop with the same metrics, expectations, and everything else.
Mike Allen [00:25:44]:
I'm going to go buy $150,000 of OEM scan tools and charge $240 an hour.
Rick White [00:25:50]:
It doesn't work that way. Right. But they have, like, even. I just got a text. They just had their best month ever last month. They've been with us for 12. This is the third or fourth time I've seen this. So you've got to be able to see that stuff.
Rick White [00:26:05]:
Right? But being able to see that and then. And go is really, really important. Right. So what I tell people is I was at Vision, not this year, but last year, and I took a break, and they had a stage. We were about 200 people in the class. So I was sitting on the stage having a cup of tea. I drink just an enormous amount of tea. In fact, I'm starting to get withdrawals.
Rick White [00:26:32]:
And a guy walked up to me. I had mentioned in the class, I have seven kids. So he comes up to me, he says, what's your parenting style? And I laughed. I said, you don't have any for.
Mike Allen [00:26:41]:
Every one of them.
Rick White [00:26:41]:
I said, you don't have any kids, right? And he goes, no. Why? I said, because I don't have one parenting style. I have seven. Because it's different for every person. It's the same with shops. I don't have one coaching style. We have 85 different coaching styles. Because every shop has different situations, different dreams, needs, wants, goals.
Rick White [00:27:02]:
My job is to help them clarify what those are and then help them achieve them. That's what I think a coaching company is. It's there to support, encourage, and kick your ass.
Mike Allen [00:27:13]:
So I think that you do that. I know that Elite does that because I work with them all the time. And I see the disparate types of businesses that come to our meetings. I can think of a few that it feels like they don't do that. And then there's some that I don't really know that well. I feel like one of the things that I've seen in coaching companies that have been Problematic is explosive growth causes a reduction in quality because you can only coach so many people, and so you've got to add coaches. And I mean, shit, I'm talking about Shop Fix, right? So Aaron is an incredible speaker. He's in.
Mike Allen [00:27:59]:
He's. He's very smart. He's runs a good business. To everything that I can tell. He's incredibly charismatic, and he creates passionate followers and his explosive growth. I mean, he's got the biggest coaching company in the country. No doubt about it. It's not close, but you can't tell me that every one of those coaches brings the same level of quality to.
Rick White [00:28:23]:
Their group or level of connection or level of engagement. It's really, really hard. And that's something that Brenda and I both have talked about as we started adding coaches. We actually work them through a process before they could start. Because one of the things I've seen, not just in coaching companies, but any company, I could think of some web companies that have. When they started out, they were really awesome. And then as they grew, they lost it. So I want to make sure we don't lose it.
Rick White [00:28:59]:
That's really. That's more important to me than anything else.
Mike Allen [00:29:02]:
Well, I think that's. You have. You have to stifle the growth a little bit then. And it has to be measured.
Rick White [00:29:08]:
You just have to control it. And for me, I would rather have a waiting list and have a. I want to go deep, not wide.
Mike Allen [00:29:16]:
Hey, it's me, Mike's kid. Want to tell us your wild shop stories? Or maybe you just think my dad's totally wrong. Call us at 704 confess and leave a message. You can tell us we're awesome or you can tell us we're idiots. We're cool either way. That's 704 confess. Just don't make it too weird.
Rick White [00:29:34]:
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Mike Allen [00:29:37]:
Go ahead. Nothing. I'm good.
Rick White [00:29:40]:
No, go ahead. No. That hurt. I could see the pain. I could see the pain.
Mike Allen [00:29:44]:
I am a child, okay? I can't.
Rick White [00:29:46]:
That's okay.
Mike Allen [00:29:47]:
I had. I had Purdy on earlier this morning, and he was talking about having to go into the shop to fix problems when things run off the rails, because he's got a technical background, so he can still do that. And he said, and then I've got to come in the back. And he kept saying, come in the back. Come. Dude, I can't. Come on, man.
Rick White [00:30:05]:
No. So I want to get to know my clients for real. Yeah, right. I don't want 3,000 and 4,000 people in a program I would rather have a I, I. And I'm not dissing anybody.
Mike Allen [00:30:18]:
No, not at all. It's just different.
Rick White [00:30:20]:
I want to have a program that's like Cheers, where everybody knows your name, and that is super, super important to me. So I go through. I spend hours going through what was said. I go through interactions. I watch recordings because I want to make sure that it's where I want it to be. At some point, I'll be able to back off a little bit on that, I think. But for me, it's really, really important that everybody feels it's going to sound stupid, but they feel loved, they feel cared for. They feel like they're hurt heard, and they're seeing that and that they're growing.
Mike Allen [00:31:04]:
Do you, like, watch the game tape of your coaches interactions with their clients, and do you break it down and give them feedback on how they've coached and trained?
Rick White [00:31:13]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:31:14]:
What's that like?
Rick White [00:31:16]:
It's really good because we have a dynamic already set up, so there are times where they'll do a meeting and I'll stay in the background. Sometimes I can't shut up and I just start talking like, hey, can I say something? I got really something strong to say about that. But a lot of times we'll talk for a half hour afterwards and I'll write notes. The other thing I'll do, because we're in Zoom, is we'll have a chat open, and I'll say.
Mike Allen [00:31:41]:
So you can chat privately to the character?
Rick White [00:31:42]:
Yeah. So I'll say, hey, this is really cool. What do you think about this? Right. So I can kind of get it so that. As human beings in our industry, our. Our mind almost immediately goes to fix it, and it's the worst thing you can do as a coach.
Mike Allen [00:32:05]:
Well, you want your client, you want to lead them such that they discover the answer themselves.
Rick White [00:32:12]:
A lot of times sometimes if they don't. If they don't have something to pull from. So I call it direction and directive. There are some times where I can be direction it, you know, ask questions and lead them into that area. There's other times when someone has no idea about it that I have to say, okay, this is what you want. This is what you got to do next. You got to do this. You got to do this.
Rick White [00:32:36]:
You got to do this because they don't have anything to pull from now. A lot of times what I'll do is I'll pull the rest of the group in. I'll say, what did you have? What have you guys done in the Past about this and through that process, get that in. So then at the end of it, it'll be okay. Mike, so now that you've heard everybody talk, what are you committing to? Right. And if I want to tweak that a little bit, I can, but I do it through questions. But it's teaching them because we fall into solve it right away. Solve it right away.
Rick White [00:33:06]:
Solve it. Dude. You don't have enough information. You don't have enough information. Back up. You don't have enough information yet. So it's getting them to be able to see that. But the people I have are truly amazing.
Rick White [00:33:20]:
They really are.
Mike Allen [00:33:21]:
Can you tell me who your coaches are? Do you think that's appropriate?
Rick White [00:33:24]:
Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Eric Bach is one of my coaches. Jeff Ford is another one. He's up in Canada.
Mike Allen [00:33:31]:
Yeah, I don't know. Jeff. Yeah.
Rick White [00:33:33]:
Jeff started coaching with me two weeks after he bought the shop from the widow of the shop owner.
Mike Allen [00:33:37]:
Oh, wow.
Rick White [00:33:37]:
Technician.
Mike Allen [00:33:39]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:33:40]:
Scared shitless.
Mike Allen [00:33:41]:
And he started coaching two weeks after he bought his first shop.
Rick White [00:33:45]:
It was just. Yeah, it was the shop he worked at. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:33:49]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:33:49]:
He didn't want to lose a job, so he bought the shop.
Mike Allen [00:33:53]:
But how is it appropriate for him to start coaching two weeks into his ownership career?
Rick White [00:33:56]:
No, no, he was. I was coaching him. He has. He didn't start.
Mike Allen [00:34:00]:
That makes more sense. I thought you're saying he was a coach for you two weeks. I was like, that sounds like a terrible fucking idea.
Rick White [00:34:06]:
No, no.
Mike Allen [00:34:07]:
He became a client.
Rick White [00:34:08]:
I could say the F word. No. So he's now working about three hours a day and is an amazing coach. And then we have a new coach, Summer.
Mike Allen [00:34:25]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:34:26]:
Guerrero.
Mike Allen [00:34:27]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:34:27]:
Out of Wichita. Another long term client. Her and Mark have been long term clients and.
Mike Allen [00:34:35]:
Cool.
Rick White [00:34:35]:
She's pretty amazing as well.
Mike Allen [00:34:38]:
Awesome. What do you think is the optimal ratio of shop clients to coach.
Rick White [00:34:46]:
From a group perspective? We, we do our best to keep the groups down to about 15 to 20.
Mike Allen [00:34:51]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:34:52]:
Anything beyond that? We find people start feeling like they're not seen or heard.
Mike Allen [00:34:57]:
Is everybody in a group or is there a one on one coaching or is everybody one on one is part of the group process or we're working.
Rick White [00:35:05]:
On getting it so they can earn a one on one in the group. But the group. We do group coaching. I have, I'm down to, I think five one on one coaching clients right now.
Mike Allen [00:35:14]:
Okay.
Rick White [00:35:14]:
As they go. I'm not replacing them.
Mike Allen [00:35:16]:
Gotcha. So you hear that, guys? He wants you to leave.
Rick White [00:35:21]:
No. Well, they. No, no. We've been talking, like, I've been talking to them about joining the group or letting them know that we're going to sunset this at some point.
Mike Allen [00:35:29]:
Yeah, yeah.
Rick White [00:35:30]:
I have one guy that's been with me 14 years, so.
Mike Allen [00:35:35]:
Well, I mean, is his business in a better place now than it was 14 years ago?
Rick White [00:35:39]:
Like by five times?
Mike Allen [00:35:41]:
Okay, good. Yeah, good, good, good.
Rick White [00:35:43]:
He's actually in the process now of transitioning it to his son.
Mike Allen [00:35:46]:
Nice. So I know that every situation is different. If someone comes to you and says, hey, you know, my child is interested in the business. They're working for me now as a service advisor or they're my assistant manager or whatever. It might be. Right. If you had to shoot from the hip. What is the favorite method you've seen of transferring ownership from parent to child?
Rick White [00:36:10]:
So it was something I learned from Bob Ward, which is called. It's a concept called equity equivalence. So you start giving them more and more responsibility in the shop and they get an equivalence of equity, not real equity. And what it does is it helps make the purchase more affordable. So they work the shop for five years, let's say, and you as the owner aren't there, you get to keep all the profit. They get an equity equivalence and at the end of five years, they buy it for say, 50% of what the selling price is, which makes it more affordable for them. And you actually make more money doing it that way than you do just selling it outright.
Mike Allen [00:36:53]:
Okay. That's assuming that they're running it profitably, but obviously.
Rick White [00:36:57]:
Well, then there's nothing to fucking sell, is there?
Mike Allen [00:36:59]:
Correct. I've seen. This is not the way that my father and I did it, but I've seen a solution that I thought was pretty neat was a certain percentage of. Let's say that, you know, the Target net is 20 points and over 15 points. Half of the net counts as credit towards purchase.
Rick White [00:37:25]:
It's kind of the same thing.
Mike Allen [00:37:26]:
Yeah. So let's say we net a quarter million dollars. And so that's, you know, 65,000, whatever that number is, I don't know of. That is over 15 points. So half of that you get32.5 towards share price purchase that year.
Rick White [00:37:44]:
You still don't own it, but you have the. You have that in kind of in. Yeah, it's this. It is a variation of the same thing, I think.
Mike Allen [00:37:51]:
Yeah. But a bad job of explaining that, but I think you knew what I meant.
Rick White [00:37:55]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm. I think I do. Yeah, completely. So, yeah, so we. We help. We've been helping shops do that. I mean, a lot of shop owners are aging out.
Rick White [00:38:09]:
We're helping. I can't believe how many young shop owners are coming in now. It's awesome. I love it.
Mike Allen [00:38:13]:
How do you feel about. Well, so thinking about the shop owners that are aging out, if they don't have a key employee or a family member who they're passing the business along to and it is a profitable business. It's not even close. The way to maximize their revenue when they sell is to sell to private.
Rick White [00:38:33]:
Equity, the multiples, especially if they don't have property.
Mike Allen [00:38:38]:
Well, even if they do have property. Right. And then get the lease in there too. But either way, the multiples coming from venture capital or private equity is way.
Rick White [00:38:47]:
Higher than they're running five to eight, whereas private, it's three to five.
Mike Allen [00:38:51]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:38:52]:
Office, you know, what is it? Sellers, Discretionary cash flow.
Mike Allen [00:38:56]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:38:57]:
So.
Mike Allen [00:38:59]:
To that end, I think that it's, it's good because it's providing for excellent retirement beyond what they had hoped for their business that they put their blood, sweat and tears in. As long as they understand that it's probably not going to be run as well or with the same level of love and care. It's definitely not going to be the same level of love and care. And you're seeing a lot like the sun's coming in and buying up everybody and just running these businesses into the ground.
Rick White [00:39:31]:
So if I were going to do that personally, I would make sure I had a really nice kind of parting gift saying guys, for your love team members. Yeah. And go here they say it's not going to change. I want you to know I love you. But you know, it's. We start a business to sell a business or at least we're supposed to. Unfortunately, most of us in this industry start a business to create a paycheck. Not a business, but yeah.
Rick White [00:40:03]:
So I would, I would bonus the shit out of them out when I'm leaving. And.
Mike Allen [00:40:10]:
Do you think that private equity is good for the industry or bad?
Rick White [00:40:13]:
It's too soon to tell. Anytime you have a major consolidation, it tends not to be good. And that's in everything. Telecom, electric utilities, whatever.
Mike Allen [00:40:25]:
You can make an argument that it's anti competitive. Right?
Rick White [00:40:28]:
Yeah. Eventually, eventually they get to charge. When they get, when they get a, you know that, that, that tipping point, they can start to just go, screw it, we're just going to do this. But it ends up being a situation where it's too soon to tell. You know, it's like even with the, like, the current stuff going on, you know, politically, you know, there are some people that are just really hard on one side, the other, and I'm like, you know, they're like, what do you think? And I'm like, I don't know yet. Like, here's what I do know.
Mike Allen [00:40:58]:
I think none of them have our best interest at heart.
Rick White [00:41:00]:
I would agree. I said this morning we should drag every single one of them out back and just either paddle their behind or.
Mike Allen [00:41:07]:
Just every now and then, some gallows are called for. So I digress. Let's not go there.
Rick White [00:41:13]:
No, no, no, but. But what I'm saying is, here's what I can tell you. As a country, we're tired of the way it was, and we want it different. I think what we should have done as a country is defined what different look like. But. But whether this stuff is good stuff or bad stuff, it's too soon to tell.
Mike Allen [00:41:35]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:41:36]:
You know, and I. And I take a step back and I go, okay, let me see. You know, we. We assign good and bad to things too quick. Good day, bad day, Good thing, bad thing. You know, I won the lottery. Good thing. The studies show, no, like, five years later, you're in a worse financial position than when you were.
Rick White [00:41:57]:
When you won, man.
Mike Allen [00:41:59]:
But I want to try.
Rick White [00:42:00]:
I'd like to give it a whirl. I would like to give it a whirl.
Mike Allen [00:42:04]:
You know, my, you know, Brian Pollock, my co host, he said that if he had won the $1.5 billion, you know what he was going to do with the money? He was going to buy Mitsubishi North America and just close it, send everybody home, say, you can't make these cars here anymore.
Rick White [00:42:17]:
Would have done that with Volvo. But anyway, I went through two divorces. Worst times of my life. But the best things that ever happened.
Mike Allen [00:42:28]:
Thank God you did it right, because you wouldn't be here if you had.
Rick White [00:42:31]:
Exactly. And, you know, there's so many things like, you know, someone come to me after they hear my story, and they say, what would you change? And I said, you know, it's not a path I choose, but there isn't a damn thing I change about it.
Mike Allen [00:42:43]:
Yeah, because you wouldn't be here if you change the path back there.
Rick White [00:42:45]:
And, you know, and I really feel like I kind of slipped into where I was supposed to be. So it's been a lot of fun. And, you know, to get to our. The whole point of this, I was listening to a podcast. You were talking to one of my clients and said that who Was.
Mike Allen [00:43:02]:
I don't remember what it was.
Rick White [00:43:03]:
Josh Coombs.
Mike Allen [00:43:04]:
Okay, copy. Yeah.
Rick White [00:43:05]:
And you said, oh, Rick's a great coach to get you to a million dollars and then you need another coach.
Mike Allen [00:43:10]:
I did.
Rick White [00:43:11]:
And I was like, yeah, Because I gave the link to Brenda and she just about went sideways.
Mike Allen [00:43:21]:
She said that.
Rick White [00:43:24]:
She said, you first. And I said, yeah, I know. I gotta talk to Mike about it because we have a group for multi shop owners. We have. We're starting a manager mastermind. We're starting. You have had advisors through our training, which I thought was, I hope was good. We're transitioning that into a mastermind.
Rick White [00:43:48]:
We're also adding technical training to it so that advisors don't know anything about cars. Can learn about cars.
Mike Allen [00:43:56]:
Technical for the advisers. That makes sense. Yeah.
Rick White [00:43:58]:
So we're adding that to the advisor training. And it was kind of fun because when you were at Vision, I brought you over and I said, dude, a million. And Tom Shearer was there and I said, tom, you know, where are you at? And he's, you know, he's way above that. I mean, multiples of millions.
Mike Allen [00:44:23]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:44:24]:
So I was like, just don't pigeonhole me, man.
Mike Allen [00:44:27]:
Don't be a dick.
Rick White [00:44:28]:
Don't be a dick, Mike. I'm a nice guy. What did I do to you?
Mike Allen [00:44:32]:
Jeez. Well, so I'm a baby coach.
Rick White [00:44:35]:
I'm going to grow up and be a real coach someday.
Mike Allen [00:44:37]:
Guys, if I misspoke, I think the point that I was trying to make is, you know, the people that get you from zero to a million, sometimes they're not the same people that get you from a million to three or from three to 10 or from 10 to 50.
Rick White [00:44:53]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:44:54]:
And maybe I did pigeonhole you unfairly. And if I did, I apologize. No, no, that's a qualified apology. I apologize for. For pigeonholing you.
Rick White [00:45:04]:
So. So here's the thing. You and I got some history. Right. We've known each other for years.
Mike Allen [00:45:08]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:45:09]:
I was completely comfortable coming over and having a conversation. Yeah. And realizing you probably didn't mean it the way it came out.
Mike Allen [00:45:17]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:45:19]:
Which is cool.
Mike Allen [00:45:20]:
I have been known to misspeak from time to time. I also have been known to use hyperbole as a tool for conversation from time to time.
Rick White [00:45:25]:
What's a hyperbole?
Mike Allen [00:45:27]:
It's. It's a 25 cent word when I've got a. A dime vocabulary.
Rick White [00:45:31]:
There you go, there you go.
Mike Allen [00:45:33]:
Hyperbole is a literal personification of Lucas Underwood.
Rick White [00:45:40]:
You're just still mad. Anyway, so. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. People should go and talk to coaches. Right. And Dutch Silverstein has an amazing document on asog.
Mike Allen [00:46:01]:
How to interview.
Rick White [00:46:02]:
How to interview a coach. And you should absolutely get it. And you should also have some ideas about what it is you want to achieve.
Mike Allen [00:46:09]:
If you don't know what ASOG is, it's Auto Shop Owners Group on Facebook. It's a Facebook page just for automotive aftermarket shop owners. It's got like 12, 13,000 members I think around the world at this point. Join ASOG and go to the file section and search for coaching in the file section or search for any files that have been posted by Dutch Silverstein. Stein Silverstein. Yeah, stain, whatever, Dutch. And there's a lot of good stuff there. He's got a document about calculating the real ROI on equipment purchases.
Rick White [00:46:48]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:46:48]:
Don't ever use the ROI tools that the salespeople give you.
Rick White [00:46:51]:
No, they're slanted. It's like coming here to gamble. Yeah, they're slanted in the house's favor.
Mike Allen [00:46:58]:
Yeah. The casino upstairs is just a tax on people who are bad at math.
Rick White [00:47:01]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:47:03]:
I'm sorry, that was a digression.
Rick White [00:47:05]:
No, no, they don't value. People up there asked me, you know, it was funny. I was in casino in June of last year at Noaca, doing a training there for their summer retreat. And I was having lunch and someone said, do you gamble? I went every day, I unlocked that door. It's a gamble.
Mike Allen [00:47:25]:
I have an auto repair shop, of course I did.
Rick White [00:47:27]:
So, you know, the reality is I work too hard for my money to gamble it. But yeah, so you gotta listen, you gotta talk to other, you know, to a bunch of coaches, figure out which one kind of feels good. And I know that sounds funny because it's math, but you gotta have a good.
Mike Allen [00:47:47]:
It's so much more than math, man.
Rick White [00:47:48]:
You gotta have a good connection with your coach. Yeah, it's really important. And what their philosophy is on how they do business and what does it look like? Is there a contract? Is there? Not because it matters.
Mike Allen [00:48:05]:
I think it is because of the front load of time to learn someone in their business and their family and kind of customize a pathway to success for them based on those factors, I think it is reasonable for a three or six month commitment. But these companies that have multi year contracts where you're locked in and they're selling that contract to another company that then owns that contract so you can't.
Rick White [00:48:36]:
Get out of it.
Mike Allen [00:48:37]:
That is sketchy as fuck. Let's call it what it is.
Rick White [00:48:41]:
And I'm willing to bet, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm willing to bet that if you dig back far enough, the two are connected somehow.
Mike Allen [00:48:50]:
Would not be surprised. Yeah. Yeah.
Rick White [00:48:52]:
So we don't have a contract at all. And there's no commitment other than give us, give us a whirl. And we have a 30, a 30 day back money, money back guarantee. So.
Mike Allen [00:49:04]:
And I think, I think elite might be three months. I don't know. I've been with them for 20 years, so I don't know what, what it is now for new clients. I know that Shop Fix has no contract. I don't know about the Institute.
Rick White [00:49:19]:
I don't think they do.
Mike Allen [00:49:20]:
Or Transformers. I don't know.
Rick White [00:49:22]:
I don't think Transformers does either.
Mike Allen [00:49:24]:
Well, I think, I think the market's moved away from it. The, the consumer, your target market doesn't want a contract anymore.
Rick White [00:49:30]:
Yeah. So it's pretty cool. We had a guy sign up a husband and wife team. Tanika brought them over to the booth. Tanika was a friend of ours. She's been a client for years. She's not with us now, but she brought this husband and wife team over from North Carolina and they're struggling. And he was with another company for four years.
Rick White [00:49:59]:
Came to one of my classes and said to me, me, a month later he signed up the end of September, at the end of October, he said, I learned more in your four hour class than I did in four years of coaching.
Mike Allen [00:50:12]:
And I would argue that, I bet. And I don't know who you're talking about, but I bet there was valuable information in that four years that he didn't listen to or implement.
Rick White [00:50:22]:
And I'm sure there was. Yeah, Right.
Mike Allen [00:50:24]:
And hopefully he implemented the shit that he learned in those four hours.
Rick White [00:50:27]:
Well, here's the cool thing. So he showed me, he said, I want to show you something. So he brings up Techmetric and he shows me the first three weeks in September. Before Asta it was like 51,000 in.
Mike Allen [00:50:39]:
Sales in three weeks.
Rick White [00:50:41]:
Three weeks.
Mike Allen [00:50:41]:
That's hurtful. Yeah.
Rick White [00:50:45]:
He shows me the first three weeks in October and they're 94,000.
Mike Allen [00:50:50]:
It's a long way towards Dublin for sure.
Rick White [00:50:54]:
In three weeks. That's pretty significant. It doesn't always happen, but boy, when it does, it's nice. Right? But yeah, so that was really the reason. I just wanted to. Don't want to be pigeonholed, man. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
Mike Allen [00:51:12]:
We got a few more minutes and I do want to make sure that we have time to talk about. I've had. I've been an outspoken proponent of freediag for the last year or so, and I've actually had. I think it was Cecil who called me out for being a moron in class. I wasn't even in the class. He didn't call me by name. He said, now we've got these podcasters, these morons advocating for free diag. And I was like, yes, I have hit the hot button topic.
Mike Allen [00:51:45]:
So where do you stand on that? You do you, you do you. Boo boo.
Rick White [00:51:50]:
I love you. Not a fucking chance in hell.
Mike Allen [00:51:56]:
Okay, so there's no point in me rehashing the reasons, right? Because you know the reasons and you don't think they're valid. Is that accurate?
Rick White [00:52:05]:
Tell me the reasons.
Mike Allen [00:52:08]:
When a new customer calls into my shop. Yeah, More often than not, there are three reasons that they. One of three reasons that they've called. They're new to the area and they don't have a relationship with the shop yet. So their guards up, right? They don't want to be taken advantage of. They had a guy that they thought they liked and trust, and they, for whatever reason, they feel like something has gone poorly, rightfully or wrongfully, and their guards up. Or they have an urgent need and their guys booked out through three weeks and they got to get it addressed sooner. And they're nervous because they're not going to their guy.
Mike Allen [00:52:43]:
So the guards up in all three.
Rick White [00:52:44]:
Of those scenarios, I'm going to argue their guards up every fucking time they call.
Mike Allen [00:52:50]:
Great. Great. And so now let's talk about what the average consumer experience is in the aftermarket. Because your clients are better than average in the space. The elite clients. Anybody who's listening to this podcast is probably way better than average in the space, Right? Because they're seeking out how to be better. But the average experience is Joe's Garage. Hold, please.
Mike Allen [00:53:16]:
Or it's rings to voicemail, or it's, yeah, $100. We'll look at it. Or maybe they get somebody who's got good training and it's absolutely. Ms. Jennifer, let me collect some information for you. What we're going to do is we're going to have you bring the vehicle in. We're going to set you up with an appointment. I'm going to do an initial scan or, you know, whatever your pitch is and see if there are any recalls where you might be able to get it fixed for free.
Mike Allen [00:53:39]:
I get permission to start off at, you know, $195 any simple fixes that we find that we can repair within that, we'll go ahead and take care of anything above and beyond that and stop and call you first. I never spend your money without your permission. I can do that right now or I can do it tomorrow morning. What's better for you? Right?
Rick White [00:53:55]:
Which is generally what we teach.
Mike Allen [00:53:57]:
Yeah. So that's, that's, that's what I did for years. Right. And that is good. And you can convert well over half of those lead opportunities that way, for sure. And occasionally you get the road bump of you're going to charge me $200 to do what AutoZone will do for free and then you're kicked back into education mode and you got to educate them about how there's a difference between what autozone does and what we do. And you can win probably half of those. Right.
Mike Allen [00:54:24]:
And some of them will say, great, well, I'm calling around, you know, I'll call you back, or whatever. And so there's a degree of friction there and you can, a good advisor with a good training can still win most of those battles. Right.
Rick White [00:54:34]:
I think the transparency and caring does a lot to lower the guard when it, when you're telling somebody, listen, we're here to help you.
Mike Allen [00:54:48]:
Well, that Last example is 10 times better than all the other ones. It's still the best experience they're gonna get. Right. But so what I'm advocating for is absolutely, Ms. Jones, I can help you with that. Anytime you're experiencing a check engine light or a brake noise or whatever it is. Right. It's important to have one of our ASC certified technicians inspect that for you.
Mike Allen [00:55:09]:
I'm gonna give you a complete written estimate at no charge. Is right now a good time to bring it in? And so what we're doing is we're removing that. I can get you in in two weeks. We're removing that conversation of I got to do what you're going to charge me to do what AutoZone does for free, I don't even have to have that conversation. And also if it comes in and it's one of those things where it's a pattern failure and we have it diagnosed in 30 seconds. I don't have to wait an hour to justify the $200 before I can talk to her and sell that service. Right. Or maybe we have it diagnosed in 10 minutes or 15, whatever it might be.
Mike Allen [00:55:42]:
Right. I'm paying the technician for their time. I'm not taking the time away from the technician. I'm just, that's a Cost of customer acquisition. For me, it's a marketing expense. It's just like doing a loss leader oil change, which you probably also aren't.
Rick White [00:55:58]:
So you are paying for diagnostics 100%. I mean, you're charging for diagnostics. You're just choosing to absorb it. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:56:06]:
Just like the customer is paying for the free loaner car. Even though there's not a line item. It's like the customer's paying for the coffee in the lobby. Even though there's not a line item. It's so expensive.
Rick White [00:56:16]:
I understand what you're saying, but I would want to see. So for me, it's always prove it. Right. So like you're going to tell me something. Right. Okay, that's fine. What's the issue? Right. What does it mean? And then, you know, prove, prove it to me.
Mike Allen [00:56:36]:
And.
Rick White [00:56:36]:
And then, you know, does it matter? And for me, I like to use the testing as a qualifier.
Mike Allen [00:56:46]:
Yeah, for sure.
Rick White [00:56:47]:
Right. Because what, what's going to happen with me is I'm gonna get it, I'm gonna get the. Oh, hell no. Off.
Mike Allen [00:56:55]:
And then you don't have to have that headache in the shop.
Rick White [00:56:57]:
And I haven't paid the tech and I haven't gone through it and I haven't missed the opportunity. And to an extent, it qualifies. It also helps me to see what kind of person I'm going to be dealing with as we're having the conversation. I get to feel them out a little bit. Right. Because for me, I want to create high wind probabilities. And a high wind probability has three components. Number one, it's somebody that values and appreciates what I do.
Rick White [00:57:25]:
The second is it's something I'm good at. Right. We can make money doing it. And the third is I'm profitable.
Mike Allen [00:57:33]:
I would. I hear what you're saying, and here's where. One of the reasons I think that we have such a disparate industry is that there are multiple ways to be successful and give good service to the customer. And what you just described is a great way to go to market. And I think that what I just described is also a great way to go to market. And it depends on where you are in your business's evolution, what your goals are for your business. I think if you're a general repair shop and looking to grow car count in a large town, I think it is a surefire, 100% winter way to do it. And I think it's better than cheap oil changes.
Mike Allen [00:58:10]:
Because cheap oil change, like with Diag, at least we know that something's broken on the car and it needs something with a cheap oil change. There's the occasion that you do a cheap oil change and it doesn't need anything.
Rick White [00:58:18]:
What you're doing is you're changing the friction port point.
Mike Allen [00:58:21]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:58:22]:
Right. So their guard's going to be up when you get them the estimate.
Mike Allen [00:58:25]:
Yeah.
Rick White [00:58:26]:
So.
Mike Allen [00:58:27]:
So we're playing money. We're playing the movie moneyball, right?
Rick White [00:58:30]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:58:31]:
So I'm not trying to hit home runs. I'm trying to get to first base. And first base is. The car is in my bay.
Rick White [00:58:35]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:58:36]:
And if I, if I get on first base more often, I'm going to score more runs on the hole.
Rick White [00:58:43]:
Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Would have to see numbers. Yeah, right.
Mike Allen [00:58:47]:
For sure.
Rick White [00:58:48]:
Like how many people have come in.
Mike Allen [00:58:50]:
With zero testing and leave with $0.
Rick White [00:58:53]:
And leave with $0 or what percentage close at. I just get this fixed or they do all of this. Right? Yeah. There's another coaching company out there that talks about bring the car in, do the inspection, tell them what's wrong with it, sell them one thing to see if they'll buy, and then, well, the.
Mike Allen [00:59:11]:
Other auto shop answers and shop fix both do a different version version of that. Right. It's the same thing. Just. It's not the same thing. It's different in some ways. But they both say sell one thing and change their mindset and get them on the road. And I see what they're doing, and I could be talked into saying that that's okay because I've tried it.
Mike Allen [00:59:30]:
I've just failed at it. But I think as long as the customer knows everything the car needs before you ever do anything, because if you've done any repairs on the car, knowing that it needs more things that the customer doesn't know about yet, then you're fucking crooked.
Rick White [00:59:44]:
I. It would go against my values. Right. I, you know, it's funny.
Mike Allen [00:59:54]:
Well, so the argument they make is it's about changing the mindset from, okay, I got to get the oil change done, and then I got to get into the grocery store and then I got to pick up Sally and take her to cheer practice to, oh, okay, well, I don't have the car. I can get a ride home and get the other car and I can go to the grocery store then, and they've changed their mindset on the car for the remainder of the day or the week or whatever it might be, and then they're more likely to approve the other things that it needs as opposed to, I'll bring it back next week. So I understand the theory and the why and I see how it. There's no doubt it works. The question is how you feel about that. Is that manipulative? Well, ultimately it's word choice because all sales is manipulation.
Rick White [01:00:43]:
No, no, it's persuasion. But anyway, manipulate. So the difference is tomato. Tomato, what's that?
Mike Allen [01:00:48]:
Tomato, tomato, it's.
Rick White [01:00:50]:
There is a difference. Persuasion is when it's to your benefit. Manipulation is when it's to mine. Okay.
Mike Allen [01:00:59]:
Intent. I would say intent is the same way.
Rick White [01:01:02]:
Okay. Same word, different thing. Same thing, different word. Here's what I'm gonna tell you. Would I do it that way? No. But do I think it works for you? I think that's great. Like I'm not gonna judge it.
Mike Allen [01:01:19]:
I mean, you kind of judge it a little bit.
Rick White [01:01:21]:
Okay. Until I see numbers, I go, hell no. Yeah, right. But I would have to see the numbers because I would want to see how well you're doing on the other side of the frick. Because your friction point is actually going to be higher.
Mike Allen [01:01:39]:
Yeah. Well, you're going to have. And it's a bad term to use. Right. But it's the quickest way to distill it and get to the point is you're going to have more bottom feeder customers that you have to, you have to sort your way through and separate the wheat from the chef where you've.
Rick White [01:01:53]:
Made an investment in them. But it requires, requires a good quality, trained front office staff that knows in your situation how to deal with it on that end and how to deal with it on this end.
Mike Allen [01:02:07]:
If you don't have a strong front office staff and you don't need, or you don't need more car count, there's no point doing it.
Rick White [01:02:14]:
No.
Mike Allen [01:02:14]:
If you're a specialty shop, if you're running it at max operation, if you don't have good sales, you should never give anything away because you need good sales before you give anything away.
Rick White [01:02:23]:
But you're not giving it away. You could literally line item the diagnostic charge and expense it to marketing. That's what you're.
Mike Allen [01:02:32]:
I mean it's just, you're just moving things around. But the bottom line is the same.
Rick White [01:02:36]:
But it starts. No, no, but it starts to show you what that it doesn't change the bottom, but it starts to show you how much you're giving away to see if it's worth doing.
Mike Allen [01:02:46]:
So the other thing that happened when we made that transition was in the previous year, this was 23 because I went to Freediag in 24 in 23. We did just over $200,000 of diagnostic work, and we divided that into the total number of hours produced by the shop, and that number came out to, like, 16 bucks. And I added 16 bucks to the labor rate. So I offset the loss in effective labor rate by doing that. Well, no, my effective labor rate went down when I went to free oil changes. Or.
Rick White [01:03:22]:
So what you did was raise the rate to keep the effective labor about the same.
Mike Allen [01:03:26]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rick White [01:03:27]:
So.
Mike Allen [01:03:28]:
So Lucas says that's, you know, socialism auto repair. Because everybody pays for diag whether or not they got it. And then my point is. Well, everybody pays for the loaner car whether or not they got it. Everybody pays for the coffee in the shop whether or not they got it. Everybody pays for my direct mail whether.
Rick White [01:03:40]:
Or not they got it. I like. I understand. So here's the thing. If you said free diag and they said no, and then you tried to charge them, that would suck.
Mike Allen [01:03:49]:
Yeah.
Rick White [01:03:49]:
Right.
Mike Allen [01:03:49]:
Yeah. That would also be bait and swish.
Rick White [01:03:51]:
Yeah. Hence the suck.
Mike Allen [01:03:53]:
Yeah.
Rick White [01:03:54]:
Right. If you pad the bill to cover the diag afterwards.
Mike Allen [01:04:03]:
Yeah.
Rick White [01:04:03]:
After that.
Mike Allen [01:04:04]:
Kind of those guys who say, if you buy the repair, I won't charge you for the diag.
Rick White [01:04:10]:
And the diag's in the repair. Not as much as you should charge, but there is diag time in there.
Mike Allen [01:04:14]:
There's $50 in there.
Rick White [01:04:15]:
Yeah. Something. Right. That sucks. Yeah. Right. I believe in transparency and openness. Okay.
Rick White [01:04:24]:
Should I wave?
Mike Allen [01:04:26]:
So, Craig Van Battenberg.
Rick White [01:04:29]:
Who is it?
Mike Allen [01:04:29]:
Craig Van Battenberg.
Rick White [01:04:30]:
Oh, Jesus. Okay. Yeah, I know Craig. I know you do very well. So it's one of those things where you would have to prove to me that it's viable. Everything I've been trained over the years, it's the exact opposite.
Mike Allen [01:04:50]:
Well. And I think that's one of the reasons that the reaction has been so visceral against it, which is awesome.
Rick White [01:04:55]:
I love visceral reactions because it means you're hitting a nerve.
Mike Allen [01:04:58]:
Well. And you're. Well, you're upsetting the apple cart. And I think it is competitive behavior to go in the different direction from what everyone else is doing.
Rick White [01:05:06]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [01:05:06]:
It's a differentiator. And so.
Rick White [01:05:08]:
Oh, no, that's one of the things, dude. If I was in your market, I already got the comment. I'm like, I got it.
Mike Allen [01:05:14]:
I'm sure you have some snarky. Oh, yeah.
Rick White [01:05:16]:
It's like. Yeah. It's like, oh, they'll do it for nothing. They're worth every penny.
Mike Allen [01:05:20]:
Yeah. You know, that's like my Passive aggressive. I wish you all the happiness and success that you deserve.
Rick White [01:05:25]:
Yeah, you know. Oh, they'll do it for free. They're worth every penny of that.
Mike Allen [01:05:32]:
Oh, man, I know that there's some people in my town who are going to start using that just for giggles. Now. Thank you for that.
Rick White [01:05:36]:
I'll tell you. Listen, I. I was. I was managing a Shell station, right? The guy, the owner of the shell, had a fibrillator, not a. What the hell do you get?
Mike Allen [01:05:49]:
Pacemaker.
Rick White [01:05:49]:
Pacemaker. Thank you. It is in his heart. For his heart. And he couldn't go near the cars because. Yeah, it really starts. Yeah, screw him up. So I was running the shop, and there was a Midas across the street, and the Midas put up $99 brake job.
Rick White [01:06:05]:
You and I both know ain't no way anybody walks on a Midas road today for 99 bucks. So he was going out, he was going apeshit. And I said, hey, you still got that old sign out back? He goes, yeah. I said, okay, I'll take care of it. What are you gonna do? I said, don't worry about it. So I dragged the sign out, and.
Mike Allen [01:06:23]:
Of the pumps, we fix 99 brake jobs in 1994. Yeah.
Rick White [01:06:32]:
The Midas guy came over pissed. She says, you take that sign off. I said, as soon as you take yours down. Because we both know it's. You just got to be able to adapt to stuff, right? Just like you could tell people I'm charging for testing and you don't. It's just going to be certain people. It resonates. There'll be some people looking at it this way and other people looking at it this way.
Rick White [01:06:57]:
You'll get them. I'll get them.
Mike Allen [01:06:59]:
What do you think's worse for the industry? Free diag as a marketing tool or charging $200 for Diag and having shitty diag processes and missing. Missing the diagnosis.
Rick White [01:07:13]:
It's always going to be the quality of the work.
Mike Allen [01:07:15]:
What do you think is more common? Free diag or missed dyag? Because I'm here to tell you, you sons of bitches that are on your high horse charging $190 for Dyag and your guys get it wrong half the time you're worse than me doing diag for free. Look in the fucking mirror.
Rick White [01:07:35]:
That's only if your guys hit it.
Mike Allen [01:07:37]:
More than, oh, we fuck up our fair share, but it's worth every penny they pay.
Rick White [01:07:44]:
It's just the part, ma'. Am. So I guess I'm a lot more. I don't know if open is the right word. Interested? I just want to see some numbers because you're not really doing free diag. You're paying the tech. You're giving the tech credit for the time. Yeah.
Rick White [01:08:10]:
And I would have it on a line item that says diag with a charge, and then I would show it as free. And so I could track how much I'm giving away. Right. Just like any other discount, you can.
Mike Allen [01:08:21]:
Pretty much do that just by labor rate. Times diag time paid out. Right.
Rick White [01:08:25]:
As long as you got the category set up.
Mike Allen [01:08:27]:
Yeah, it's diag is its own category.
Rick White [01:08:29]:
Yeah. If you do it that way, you could do it through the category.
Mike Allen [01:08:33]:
And you got to think a. A percentage. And it's impossible to know how many of the tickets related to a free diag job would never have come in the door if it weren't for the free diag.
Rick White [01:08:47]:
It's a possibility. You. I mean, I've had some people.
Mike Allen [01:08:50]:
It's an absolute certainty. I just don't know what. How big it might be 1%. It might be 20, it might be 50%. It's probably between 1 and 20%. Right.
Rick White [01:08:58]:
If you had good out of that, how many were zero. How many did just a repair and never came back again?
Mike Allen [01:09:04]:
Zeros. 100% happen. Absolutely.
Rick White [01:09:07]:
They do.
Mike Allen [01:09:09]:
And I would tell you that they probably happen with the same frequency of paid for the diag and didn't get anything else and never came back.
Rick White [01:09:17]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [01:09:17]:
But that's anecdotal and that's gut feeling. So I don't have the numbers.
Rick White [01:09:21]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [01:09:21]:
So the numbers.
Rick White [01:09:21]:
Right. Prove it.
Mike Allen [01:09:22]:
Yeah.
Rick White [01:09:22]:
And if I see the numbers, it's math. Business is just math. You're playing with the math. It doesn't matter. Right. It just. Does it work? If it works and if I like you do it and you have a 90% close rate on it. You and I are going to sit down, talk some more about it.
Rick White [01:09:41]:
But if you're doing it and you have a 10% close rate on it.
Mike Allen [01:09:44]:
We need to talk some more about it.
Rick White [01:09:45]:
Then we need to talk some more about it. Right. And you're going to do more listening than I'm going. Right. So it really depends on the numbers.
Mike Allen [01:09:52]:
Yeah.
Rick White [01:09:52]:
Right. But it still has to do with the skill set on the staff of the staff on the front counter.
Mike Allen [01:09:57]:
Yeah, for sure.
Rick White [01:09:57]:
Because really I have the friction point here when I'm talking about what the testing is and what's involved and everything like that. We go through that process with them, but it's complete transparency and everything versus 100% coming in. I'm weeding out 50%. You're going to eat that 50%? Is it worth it? Don't know.
Mike Allen [01:10:18]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Rick White [01:10:20]:
So that's my answer.
Mike Allen [01:10:21]:
I think that's reasonable. Dude, I feel like I could talk to you for another hour, but I want to be respectful of your time and thank you. It's 1240 and you got to go teach a class.
Rick White [01:10:29]:
I got a class in 20 minutes.
Mike Allen [01:10:30]:
You better fucking run.
Rick White [01:10:32]:
Thanks anyway.
Mike Allen [01:10:32]:
Appreciate you, Mike.
Rick White [01:10:33]:
I appreciate the time. Thank you, man. It was great.
Mike Allen [01:10:35]:
Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out, the good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink? You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover? Or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email Mike Confessions of a shop owner.com or call and leave a message. The number 704-confess. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to, like, subscribe or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.
Rick White [01:11:13]:
Up.
Mike Allen [01:11:40]:
Right.
Rick White [01:11:42]:
You know I said jeff, jeff, jeff, jeff, jeff, jeff, jeff, jeff.