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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.
Rich Falco [00:00:00]:
But I see these posts online and Brian Pollock and I love sharing our anger at these. Where A guy has 27 channels of a scope, one watching the phase of the moon while another one's watching 17 different pressure transducers. The guy has figured out there's a misfire on cylinder number one. Cause it needs a coil and it's
Mike Allen [00:00:18]:
like, oh, it would have taken 30 seconds to swap coils.
Rich Falco [00:00:20]:
One 10 millimeter bolt and we got it solved. But hey, you know What? Facebook and TikTok. I can show off all these channels and look impressive.
Mike Allen [00:00:30]:
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, here's your host, Mike Allen with Confessions of a Shop Owner presented by techmetric.
Mike Allen [00:00:59]:
All right, so last time you were in this space, you were beating me in poker.
Rich Falco [00:01:05]:
I didn't take all your money.
Mike Allen [00:01:07]:
Somebody else did. I was, I was generous in distributing my wealth to other. Other people. So no, I haven't been a game since.
Rich Falco [00:01:17]:
That's weird.
Mike Allen [00:01:18]:
Well, we've had a couple of little pop up games after company meetings stuff, you know. The difficulty is I was trying to do it on Thursday nights and Thursday night is only good for people that don't have commitments. Right. And I'm realizing that if you get 15 people that say they're coming, about seven are actually coming. So I need to get about 25 that say they are coming, you know, to get a couple full tables.
Rich Falco [00:01:49]:
But as long as I'm for entertainment
Mike Allen [00:01:53]:
purposes only, no real money exchanges hands. Just moving chips back and forth.
Rich Falco [00:01:57]:
That's right. I took a bunch of plastic from.
Mike Allen [00:02:00]:
Yes, yes, exactly. But we are recording again. We tried to record a tectonic and I screwed it up because I didn't have Braxton there. Braxton's not here today either, so hopefully we actually.
Rich Falco [00:02:12]:
So we can blame him twice if need be.
Mike Allen [00:02:14]:
We had you and David Lytle and we had. I've got all the audio for a great episode, but it feels kind of weird to not release video too.
Rich Falco [00:02:23]:
We can just move our mouths so you can play the.
Mike Allen [00:02:26]:
Or you just get AI to be like, hey, complete the video for this. We got the first 19 minutes of video and then nothing else.
Rich Falco [00:02:32]:
Ask AI to make me skinnier, please.
Mike Allen [00:02:34]:
Yeah, there you go. I've got. We're now up to like six episodes where I have in some way screwed up either the video or the audio. Where we have video and no audio or partial or one of the mics wasn't recording or something to that effect. And actually I was supposed to check to see how our audio is. Can I hear me? I can hear me. Can I hear you? Can you hear me? Super. Yeah, we're good.
Mike Allen [00:02:58]:
Darn, look at that. Professionalism at the highest level. But. So that didn't work out. But thankfully CTI is right around the corner, right up the road from the shop. So you are able to leave the training center and head down here. And we're gonna have a. Having a new conversation.
Rich Falco [00:03:18]:
I didn't ride my motorcycle. Sorry?
Mike Allen [00:03:20]:
You did not ride the bike. So it is supposed to be storming tonight, right?
Rich Falco [00:03:24]:
Yeah, it's supposed to be nasty.
Mike Allen [00:03:26]:
Thank God. In this part of the country, we've had a really bad drought for the last several months. So we've had a spurt of pretty strong thunderstorms in the last week or two. That starting to refill the aquifers a little bit.
Rich Falco [00:03:36]:
You're welcome. I brought the motorcycle up three weeks
Mike Allen [00:03:39]:
ago, so I've got just under half a million miles on two wheels. My life and all of it was before my second child was born. And I would say 98% of it was before my first child was born. So I had 92,000 miles on my bike when my first was born. And two years later, my second was born and I had 94,000 miles.
Rich Falco [00:04:00]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:04:01]:
So I sold it and now all I have is a WR250. And I pulled it out of storage over the weekend because I realized I haven't started it in a year and a half. So I gotta drain the tank, clean the car, put a new battery in it, and I'll probably sell it too, which is a little hurtful, but call me. I've got. I've got the Miata, which relieves some of that pressure. Does it? I mean, it's top down. You have the wind in your hair a little bit, but I always wore a helmet. Yeah, it doesn't have any of the acceleration or handling of a motorcycle, but man, does it look fabulous.
Mike Allen [00:04:44]:
I'll take your word for that. No. My wife and I have talked, I think for sure the motorcycles are gonna come back into our life when our youngest finishes high school.
Rich Falco [00:04:55]:
So that's the plan. I grew up on dirt bikes and I had a dual sport when we moved to Florida. And I thought well, that'd be good for just running around and two weeks in Florida drivers. And I went, nope, we're done with motorcycles because I'd like to be here for my kids. So.
Mike Allen [00:05:11]:
So tell me about you went to Florida and you were there for a while and now you're back.
Rich Falco [00:05:17]:
Halfway back.
Mike Allen [00:05:18]:
Tell me. Yeah, tell me about your business in Florida.
Rich Falco [00:05:21]:
The mobile business now. Yeah, my. My sons are running it.
Mike Allen [00:05:25]:
Okay.
Rich Falco [00:05:25]:
I started it when Covid hit and I couldn't teach, and basically CTI was shut down. Other than online. Yeah. On hold. So, you know, a lot of those shops knew me because I had regular CTI regions. And I thought, well, this kind of makes sense. Let me see if I can do mobile. And actually I rode around with somebody, another mobile guy, and I went, oh, my God, I can't do this.
Rich Falco [00:05:48]:
Because he was so quick and so fast. And I was. I had been teaching for 10 years. I had been out of it. I wasn't sure I could do it, but started the mobile business. And after about a year or two, CTI started getting a little bit busier. My one son who's looking for a job, and I said, why don't you ride around with me? I can teach you to program and do ADAS calibrations. And he thought I was doing, like, brake jobs in people's driveways.
Rich Falco [00:06:14]:
And I was like, no, that's not what I do. So one son helped, and we picked up a couple of body shops, and it's just calibrations and programming and. And now we're busy enough that both of my sons are running the business.
Mike Allen [00:06:29]:
How often did you find that when a body shop called you out for a calibration, that sensor brackets were bent or misinstalled or other problems prevented you from being able to do a proper calibration?
Rich Falco [00:06:43]:
Depending on the body shop, you know, some shops, it's half the time, like, we know we are going there to find what they didn't finish or didn't catch.
Mike Allen [00:06:55]:
Did you find that it was more frequently the big national chain shops that were pressed by insurance, or was it the private shops that were cutting the corners?
Rich Falco [00:07:05]:
It was usually the smaller shops because they just don't know any better. At least the big ones. You know, usually the estimate writers are experienced and, you know, yeah, it's usually the little guys that struggle with it.
Mike Allen [00:07:19]:
How much of your work was sublet calibration work versus programming and diagnostic assistance?
Rich Falco [00:07:28]:
Well, we're learning because my boys don't have the diagnostic capabilities that I have that either the shops have to wait for me to get back in town or they just don't take on that type of diag work, you know, so.
Mike Allen [00:07:42]:
Makes sense. Do you have, are there other mobile guys in the area that you have a good relationship with that you can turn them to if need be?
Rich Falco [00:07:49]:
Yeah, yeah. One or two. One or two guys we trust.
Mike Allen [00:07:52]:
So what part of Florida are they in?
Rich Falco [00:07:55]:
Bradenton, Sarasota.
Mike Allen [00:07:56]:
Okay.
Rich Falco [00:07:56]:
West coast.
Mike Allen [00:07:57]:
There's some good shops in that area.
Rich Falco [00:07:59]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yep.
Mike Allen [00:08:00]:
So, yeah. Well, cool. So you, the boys are doing ADOS collaboration primarily and a little bit of programming work. And you're back in Raleigh, North Carolina, at cti. I interviewed a technician last week who had been to CTI for the first time ever, very recently, and he was like, dude, they've got this wall and it's like every scan tool ever. It's amazing. It's like, it's like a Toys R Us display on the wall for technicians.
Rich Falco [00:08:29]:
100% is Kip. News from advance has just loaded us up with everything you could imagine. And every guy that I bring in there just looks at that wall and goes, wait, you, you, you have everything? And I'm like, yeah, grab one.
Mike Allen [00:08:43]:
One of each.
Rich Falco [00:08:44]:
Just, just, you know, go plug it into a car. You want to play with the tool? Go ahead. So it's, it's a great little show and tell.
Mike Allen [00:08:50]:
So if I've got a, if we've got a listener or a viewer who is a general repair shop that is doesn't have the budget for all the OEM tools, are you allowed to even pitch out who you would say you would start with? Would you, would you start with a top down? Would you start with an Autel? Would you start with a. I can
Rich Falco [00:09:11]:
give you my personal preference. That's probably the best way to put it. And I'm writing a class. I've already written the class on it. But the Autel S2 is just amazing. It's without a doubt my first grab and then the Topdon. In my mobile vans down in Florida, we have an Autel and the Topdon. And if those two can't do it, it's an OE tool, you know.
Mike Allen [00:09:38]:
So what is so like a well equipped mobile van that has the tools that you need for 90% of your calls? How much money do you have invested in the back of that van?
Rich Falco [00:09:50]:
I don't even want to think about it. This is probably a better question for somebody like Keith Perkins, who's much more organized than I am, or PJ Walter. I mean, conservatively oh, let me think about that. 20, $25,000?
Mike Allen [00:10:10]:
Oh, yeah. Very conservative.
Rich Falco [00:10:12]:
I mean, easily. It's just off the top of my head. The big things that I keep in the van, that's probably more than that. Yeah, you're probably talking 30, 35. And I don't carry near the amount of diagnostic and OE tools that some of the guys do. I mean, Mercedes on its own is 35,000. So I'm not gonna have that.
Mike Allen [00:10:33]:
Well, I mean, if you're a Mercedes specialty shop and you're working on that kind of work, you probably already have that tool.
Rich Falco [00:10:40]:
You better.
Mike Allen [00:10:40]:
Yeah, so I don't think that there are many general repair shops that are doing high level Mercedes work that. Yeah, I mean, I think most of us know to stay the away if we don't know what we're doing.
Rich Falco [00:10:49]:
You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised at the calls I get. And I'm just looking at the phone. I'm like, you, you took in a 23 Mercedes and did what to it?
Mike Allen [00:11:00]:
Like, you want to hear about taking in cars that you shouldn't take in? This is said to have been seven or eight years ago. We have a customer who is brings all of his vehicles to us other than his supercars. So the wife's, you know, minivan and his Tahoe and the pickup truck and everything else. And he's very successful businessman, and he has a McLaren. And there's not a McLaren dealer in this part of the country. The nearest McLaren dealership, I think, is in Atlanta. And it popped a 420, you know, and it needed a converter. And this McLaren is three years old, has like 18,000 miles on it, right? And he's like, hey, I want you to put a catalytic converter on my car for me.
Mike Allen [00:11:50]:
I'm like, no, it's under warranty, dude. Just get the dealership to put it on for you. For the dealership to do it, they have to ship a car hauler up here and pick it up, and then they haul it back to the dealer, and then it's three to four weeks, and then they haul it back. And I don't trust them. And I don't want to be without my car for, you know, a month or two. I'd rather you just do it. I'm like, dude, I have no idea what that would cost. And it ended up being like $42,000 or something.
Mike Allen [00:12:19]:
And he was like, okay, that's fine, I trust you. And I'm like, I really don't want to fucking do this, because if something goes sideways.
Rich Falco [00:12:29]:
What are you doing?
Mike Allen [00:12:30]:
I'm fucked then. I'm just shipping this car to Atlanta or wherever the dealer is. Right, and now you've taken it apart,
Rich Falco [00:12:38]:
which means the dealer in Atlanta has every excuse in the world to go. This isn't warranty anymore.
Mike Allen [00:12:44]:
We ordered OEM parts and we did it. And it was one of the scariest things that we've ever done.
Rich Falco [00:12:50]:
I couldn't get a walker.
Mike Allen [00:12:51]:
It went okay. Yeah, Yeah. I just took it down to the. To Joe's muffler and had him cut and weld one in. We put a universal O2 in it. No, but, you know, we, like put a rope up in the bay. And only the shop foreman was allowed to drive in and out. Nobody could, you know? And this is one of the stupidest jobs I've ever accepted.
Rich Falco [00:13:13]:
That's nerve wracking.
Mike Allen [00:13:14]:
Yeah, it was stupid.
Rich Falco [00:13:15]:
I've done the same thing when I had a shop because it was the same deal. It was a. You know, we worked on all the customers, Toyotas and then. Hey, can you work on a countach? Yeah, sure. Wait, what?
Mike Allen [00:13:26]:
No, no. You know what that is? That was ego. That was ego on my part and falling in love with the big number. Because it's. What happens is we all have had these cars where we're like, just give them a number to make them go away. Because if you give them a number to make them go away, they're gonna fucking say yes. Yeah, don't give them a number to make them go away. If you want them to go away, tell them to go away.
Rich Falco [00:13:48]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:13:48]:
Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:13:50]:
It's taken me and the boys a long time to learn. Like, literally in the past two months, I've looked at the boys and went, you guys need to tell me to shut up. Cause Body shop calls and says, well, we've got a car half ripped apart. We need you to fix the wiring. And I'm like, well, I know I can do that, but I might not be there the whole time. And they might have to finish it up. You know, we're. They're finally learning.
Rich Falco [00:14:14]:
Just. Just know. Dad, shut up.
Mike Allen [00:14:18]:
All right, so you're back in Raleigh and you're writing curriculum for cti. What's the hotness and the newness at CTI right now? Wait, everybody knows what cti. Carquest Technical Institute.
Rich Falco [00:14:33]:
Carquest Technical Institute.
Mike Allen [00:14:34]:
Yep. Big training facility here in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Rich Falco [00:14:37]:
That's where our home office is.
Mike Allen [00:14:38]:
They do on site training. Actually, September 25th, there's going to be an all day training event on that Saturday at CTI in the training classroom.
Rich Falco [00:14:47]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:14:48]:
For ASTA. So go to ASTA.org and check it out. If you're in the central North Carolina area and come get your learn on. I'll probably. It's the day after I get back from a cruise so if I'm not, if I'm, if I don't have a severe headache, I'll be there all day.
Rich Falco [00:15:05]:
Okay, I'll be there, I'll be there. So if anybody wants to check out the, the technical stuff in the back, I interrupt. That's okay. We are working on CTI skills which is our. Here's where I wish David was here because he does a much better job of pitching it. It's a technician evaluation and training platform that will give a shop owner or manager or foreman a very quick and easy way of looking at where his techs are skill wise, where their training path is sending them to the right sections for training. It will have a way of evaluating the technicians. If they were honest with themselves and answer the questions honestly, it'll put them at specific levels.
Rich Falco [00:15:55]:
We broke it out into more than just like ase. So there's valve train and emissions and air fuel management and engine mechanical. So it's not just engines or drivability. So the technicians can really narrow in on what the training they want, what they need and where they've got to go.
Mike Allen [00:16:17]:
How do we combat as an industry the gap between the training they want and the training they need?
Rich Falco [00:16:25]:
That's why I said the techs need to be honest with their. Because there's in the questions. There is an option of saying I don't know. And I wrote most of the questions. So if you guys hate the questions, it's 100% my fault. So like when they take ASE tests and they get tech A, tech B and they're like, have I ever got ahold of that guy? I'm that guy. But if they're honest with how they answer the questions, they'll get the right training. They'll in, in the people who have beta tested it.
Rich Falco [00:17:00]:
We've had a lot of guys go, wow, I'm amazed at how bad I did. Which is good because then it puts them in the right spot. You, you might be able to fake your way through answering some of those questions, but then, then you don't get the training you truly need.
Mike Allen [00:17:16]:
So I think I've seen some tools that I've been really impressed with that have the question and you select the answer and then you say how confident you are in the answer. Yes. Yeah. Because you can be confidently incorrect.
Rich Falco [00:17:33]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:17:34]:
And that happens a lot.
Rich Falco [00:17:35]:
I love that adaptive portion of it and I would love to apply that. We're just not there yet. But that gives you just so. Because if somebody is confidently incorrect, they're grossly under educated in that, you know, and then you can answer, I'm, I'm not so confident. And you get it right and you realize, okay, he just needs a little guidance there. So that's. Those are good systems.
Mike Allen [00:17:59]:
Or at least they can say I guessed. Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:18:03]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:18:05]:
So you're in beta now. When do you have like a timeline for when it will be available to the general public?
Rich Falco [00:18:11]:
Fall? I don't know. I don't know if that's September 1st or October 1st, but I know, I know we're close.
Mike Allen [00:18:17]:
To have access to that, do you have to be a Technet shop or.
Rich Falco [00:18:22]:
Okay, no, I'm sure Technet shops get a discount, but anybody can be a part of it. There's going to be a monthly fee which includes all of the training. I don't know the prices. I'm the worst salesman in the world.
Mike Allen [00:18:36]:
Well, if you're interested to learn more about it, just call the number on the screen. I'm just going to put Rich's cell phone on the screen. Yes, please. How would they reach out to find out?
Rich Falco [00:18:46]:
Talk to their advance rep.
Mike Allen [00:18:47]:
Okay.
Rich Falco [00:18:47]:
If you have one talk, talk to your advanced rep. If you're TechNet, I'm sure there's a discount. There's. Talk to your Tech Net rep. They'll get it.
Mike Allen [00:18:56]:
And what do you think are the most interesting or engaging training tools that you're seeing in the industry right now?
Rich Falco [00:19:04]:
Oh, training. What do you mean by training tools?
Mike Allen [00:19:08]:
I mean you're building the skills program. Napa has just launched their accelerator.
Rich Falco [00:19:15]:
Yeah, with the headset thing, there's.
Mike Allen [00:19:19]:
Today's class has been pretty slick and it's been around for a couple years.
Rich Falco [00:19:22]:
Today's class is good. I'm not a fan of the VR. Just it feels gimmicky to me. I don't know how real world it is. And that's just not. That's not just me badmouthing Napa, but. What we're trying to do with skills is a combination of short online learning to get techs up to a certain level where they're ready for an in person class. And then what we want to do is have live either in person or virtual classes.
Rich Falco [00:20:01]:
Not so much on demand, but
Mike Allen [00:20:04]:
available
Rich Falco [00:20:05]:
to the techs during work hours. So they get to a certain point in breaks and then they have a one hour class on breaks with a live instructor. Instructor who can answer their questions and go over, you know, the subject a little more in depth.
Mike Allen [00:20:21]:
World Pack does a lunch and learn every week.
Rich Falco [00:20:23]:
Right. We're gonna have that too.
Mike Allen [00:20:25]:
Yeah. I was gonna say that y' all were very closely tied together for a long time.
Rich Falco [00:20:28]:
For a little while. And there was a divorce.
Mike Allen [00:20:30]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:20:30]:
So we were one big. I won't say happy family. Dysfunctional family.
Mike Allen [00:20:35]:
Cheated on who there?
Rich Falco [00:20:36]:
I. I don't know. I'm just one of the kids. I just. I just got sent off with mom instead of dad, so.
Mike Allen [00:20:45]:
So one of the things that I've been entertaining is just through how fortunate I've been with the podcast being successful. We flew Seth Thorsen down and did that full day AI class.
Rich Falco [00:21:02]:
I'm so mad I wasn't here.
Mike Allen [00:21:03]:
We did it right up here, actually. We cleared out all the furniture and put in rows of tables and everything and it was great. And what I realized was everybody, all of the feedback that I got was good. There might have been people that didn't like it, but they didn't leave the feedback. They didn't fill out the feedback form right. So. And I can fit 35 or 40 people in here comfortably. And if there's something specific that I need training on in my company, I can fly the best trainer in the world or in the country here to do a class on what I need.
Mike Allen [00:21:41]:
And then my five or six guys that need it can be here. And 30 other folks from around the country or around the area can also get that same class. Yeah. And I can. I can have access to some of the best training in the country.
Rich Falco [00:21:55]:
There's a lot of shops that are. A lot of shops that are doing
Mike Allen [00:21:57]:
that because they look at the show. Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:21:59]:
I mean, if you look at what it costs to close down your shop and take everybody to Vision or aste, that gets really expensive.
Mike Allen [00:22:07]:
Sir. It's the asta.
Rich Falco [00:22:08]:
ASTA Expo. Sorry, I will screw that up forever. I don't know why, but I have a mental block about that. So even Chrissy corrects me.
Mike Allen [00:22:17]:
Benji Burris has been great about doing that. He's done a few classes like that down in Frog Pond, North Carolina, booming metropolis of. And if. So if Benji can do like high level training events, very rural North Carolina, then I think we need to be looking to do that all over the country. Yeah. If I want to do something like that. Does CTI have the wherewithal to do things like that. So I could reach out to you or whomever is the appropriate person and say, I want a class on.
Mike Allen [00:22:54]:
Well, I was talking to Keith about it. Like, I want to get. I've been subbing out to. To mobile guys for programming forever. Yeah. And I feel like at least domestic programming, I need to get involved in domestic programming by the OEM tools and get the right training. He's like, it's a 10 hour. It's a 10 hour class if you want.
Mike Allen [00:23:14]:
Yeah. He's like, you want Tesla too? Because that's domestic. I said, no, I don't fucking want Tesla.
Rich Falco [00:23:19]:
But yeah, CTI does that. And we can do it here, we can do it at our research center, however you want.
Mike Allen [00:23:26]:
The research center? Yeah, the research center is pretty cool.
Rich Falco [00:23:28]:
It's amazing.
Mike Allen [00:23:30]:
It's got a classroom that's got a full shop and then it's got a boardroom.
Rich Falco [00:23:34]:
It's got a boardroom, it's got a huge classroom and it's got a shop that we fit 13 cars in. I think realistically it's like a six or eight bay shop with an alignment rack, but it's air conditioned, it's clean, it's got every toy known to Mankind in 2016. I've been a CTI instructor for about a year and a half, two years, and just on the road all over in the Southeast. I had never been to the research center and we had a summit and I walked into that place and looked around. I called my wife and said, we're gonna end up in Raleigh because if I don't get a job at that place, I said, I have to end up there.
Mike Allen [00:24:14]:
It's like a playground for automotive.
Rich Falco [00:24:15]:
It is. It literally is the Toys R Us for technicians. It's amazing.
Mike Allen [00:24:21]:
Automotive nerds.
Rich Falco [00:24:21]:
Automotive nerds. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right now I have the new Autel Scope. Four channel scope and the picoscope hooked up to the same car on two different laptops. So I can.
Mike Allen [00:24:34]:
To measure variance and readings.
Rich Falco [00:24:35]:
Look the difference. Yeah. How good is. How good is the new AUTEL Scope? How does it compare to the pico?
Mike Allen [00:24:40]:
Does it keep up?
Rich Falco [00:24:40]:
It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Listen, nothing's a pico, but what autel's done is pretty phenomenal.
Mike Allen [00:24:48]:
It seems like they've made their niche. And being 90% of what you need.
Rich Falco [00:24:52]:
Yeah. And realistically, about 20% of what that pico does, which is amazing, is just rarely, if ever needed in a typical diagnosis. It's the one Thing now I'm the last person in the world that should ever be giving any sort of advanced pico class. It's just not what I do. But I see these posts online and Brian Pollack and I love sharing our anger at these. Where A guy has 27 channels of a scope. One watching the phase of the moon while another one's watching 17 different pressure transducers. And the guy has figured out there's a, you know, there's a misfire on cylinder number one because it needs a coil.
Mike Allen [00:25:37]:
It would have taken 30 seconds to swap coils.
Rich Falco [00:25:39]:
One 10 millimeter bolt and we got it solved. But hey, you know what? Facebook, Facebook and TikTok. I can show off all these channels and look impressive.
Mike Allen [00:25:48]:
If you have spent $10,000 on a tool, you have to use it no matter what.
Rich Falco [00:25:51]:
That's true. Yeah, that's true.
Mike Allen [00:25:53]:
That is. This Must have been 2010 or 11. I bought the OEM tools for domestics. And I also had a deal at the time where I would buy scan tools tool for the technicians. And so they had all bought snap on scan tools through the deal that I was doing. And then none of them would use the OEM tools because they wanted to use their snap on. Yep. It was infuriating.
Mike Allen [00:26:24]:
This is the last time that I invested in OEM tooling.
Rich Falco [00:26:27]:
You're not alone. My guys are the same way my guys are, you know, they'll, they'll call me and like, I got that one done. Yeah, with, with what tool? I just top downed it, got it done. I'm like, we have Wytech. I pay a lot of money for Wytech Car's fix. Does it matter, dad? Okay,
Mike Allen [00:26:44]:
but the minute you don't renew your subscription or you don't get the newest tool, there's going to be one that requires it. You're not going to have it. I think if you want to be the shop that everybody goes to that can fix anything, that can fix the thing the dealer can't fix, you've got to have all that stuff, right? Yeah. I call it, I call it hero work, you know, but you know, I'm shameless. I don't have an ego in that way. I just want to do the easy stuff.
Rich Falco [00:27:17]:
See, I, I, I can look back when I had a shop and realize, oh, I did nothing but hero. I wanted to be that guy that, oh, I can fix anything. And I wasn't half the tech when I had the shop that I am now because I long before I was teaching it. But yeah, I'd spend three weeks fixing a car. I charged two hours labor. Just so I say, yeah. Feel great about it. Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:27:39]:
Now I'm like, how many brake jobs did I turn down because I was buried on that Volkswagen or whatever it was? Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:27:48]:
Do you know anyone who is doing hero work, diagnostic work, and charging appropriately for their time?
Rich Falco [00:27:57]:
From what I hear, Keith Perkins, I
Mike Allen [00:28:00]:
wouldn't believe that from.
Rich Falco [00:28:01]:
From what I hear from his guys, he charges appropriately.
Mike Allen [00:28:05]:
I wonder how many people he runs off with that. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
Rich Falco [00:28:08]:
I'm saying, no, he's getting rid of the. The dead weight that we'd all take on. Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:28:14]:
He's the exact opposite of free diag.
Rich Falco [00:28:16]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:28:18]:
Okay. What are you gonna do? So if I wanted to get serious about developing, like, a career path for technicians and a skills development path for technicians, I could use this tool that you're talking about to get a baseline of where their skill actually is versus where they think it is.
Rich Falco [00:28:40]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:28:41]:
And does CTI or this tool that you're developing lay out that pathway for us or do I need to get help? Because, fuck, I don't know what classes I need to take.
Rich Falco [00:28:53]:
No, it lays it out for you. And that's what we're working on now, is getting all of the prerequisites and stuff in the right path to make sure that we're giving them a logical path towards where they want to go. And, you know, not everybody's going to be the hero guy. Not everybody's going to be the superstar diagnostic guy. And they don't need to be. So if they want to take that path towards, like, my guys, they can do ADAs, they can do 10 ADAs calibrations a day, no problem. I wouldn't trust them to change spark plugs. So, you know, specialized.
Rich Falco [00:29:30]:
Yeah. You know, you can take that path and be that technology specialist and, you know, maybe another guy wants to do the nuts and bolts. And there's lots of guys making really good living doing brakes and steering and suspension all day long.
Mike Allen [00:29:47]:
You're writing curriculum now. How frequently are you in a classroom full of technicians or students?
Rich Falco [00:29:53]:
Not as often as I'd like to be. I try to get to all the big events, but back when I started with CTI, I had 24 regions and I was there six times a year, every other month. So I was. It was four nights a week. 180, 190 nights a year in shops or in. In classrooms with techs. So.
Mike Allen [00:30:21]:
So this question So I had a. I just recorded an episode with Matt Lofton and the entire episode was a conversation based on an email that I got from a technician who was asking about what technicians can do to make themselves the best possible candidate for the best possible job in the best shop and what shops need to do to be able to attract and retain the best possible guys. So the root of my question about how often are you in a classroom full of technicians is the conversations that happen during the breaks.
Rich Falco [00:31:05]:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:31:05]:
And before and after. Because I can get on my high horse and say what technicians want or I can preach about what technicians are. How, you know, ego or whatever else it might be. I don't fucking know.
Rich Falco [00:31:16]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:31:18]:
Because I don't have the. The real lived life experience of what it's like to be a technician in today's marketplace.
Rich Falco [00:31:24]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:31:26]:
I'd love to hear from you, without naming names, obviously, kind of what the temperature check is on the technicians, because the technicians that are attending training classes are already probably better than average or they're working at shops that are willing to invest in them or they're investing in themselves. So I would say that you're on the leading edge of the bell curve. The people that are in the classrooms that you're in, what are you hearing?
Rich Falco [00:31:56]:
You're right. With being in those classrooms. I don't know if I'm hearing real world. Like we are talking to the leading edge. And one of the frustrations with these big events is it's the same group of people over and over and over. I don't know if we're seeing what really needs to be taught out there. And that's why I said, unfortunately, I'm not in those classrooms as much, because being in the regular regions out there, away from the events, I think I heard a little bit more real world and I'm not there as much as I'd like to be.
Mike Allen [00:32:36]:
Way to not answer the question.
Rich Falco [00:32:37]:
Do you like that? It's a good way of avoiding it. I don't have an answer for you on that one.
Mike Allen [00:32:42]:
Well, I mean, the flip side of that is, you know, when we talk to technicians in the interview and hiring process, one of the questions that we ask and that a lot of shop owners ask is, you know, how much training have you been to in the last year? What are you doing outside of work to, you know, develop your skills and learn more? And if you go into some of these forums, like they're militant responses about, I shouldn't have to do that shit, I work hard enough, all Day, I mean, and you know, I don't need to be doing case studies out at night or whatever. And look, you don't have to, but you're not ever going to be a great technician. You're not ever going to be great at what you do, regardless of what it is that you do if you only put 40 hours a week into it.
Rich Falco [00:33:30]:
Yeah. And I think that applies to anything you do is. And I, there's a part of me that gets that like I get that you paid me for 40 hours. I'm working for 40 hours.
Mike Allen [00:33:41]:
The work I'm talking about has nothing to do with today's job. It has to do with my next job. Right. If I'm putting an extra 20 hours a week in studying, doing scanner Dan or premium or case studies or doing CTI courses online or whatever else it might be, that's to make me better so that I'm worth more so that I can demand more from my current job or the next job.
Rich Falco [00:34:05]:
Yeah, yeah. And I also think like, you know, when I was younger and working in a shop, I didn't have YouTube or any of that. The only way I got better was by accidentally breaking something and have to figuring it out or having a broken car coming in or. Yeah, yeah. IATN or whatever. So I mean with, with the amount of information that's out there, there's no excuse for a tech to have an unbelievable grasp of what's out there, even on a basic level. And the speed at which the technology is coming at us. If you're not doing that, you're gonna get left behind.
Rich Falco [00:34:44]:
There's a, there's a pretty big survey. I don't know where it came from. It's in, it's. But it's in one of my classes where 90% of the tech say training is not keeping up with the technology. 90%.
Mike Allen [00:34:58]:
I think there is training out there that is relevant to the technology that's a year or two old. Because we're not dealing with brand new release technology very often. Right. We're typically dealing with three or four year old technology.
Rich Falco [00:35:10]:
Yeah. Got to get out of wine.
Mike Allen [00:35:12]:
True. The problem is not that the training doesn't exist. The problem is that a negligible portion of ownership is willing to invest in that training.
Rich Falco [00:35:21]:
Oh yeah.
Mike Allen [00:35:23]:
And so you know, the best techs in the world are out there spending their own money for training because their company won't do it at all. Or enough.
Rich Falco [00:35:34]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:35:37]:
Every time I'm at Vision, every time I'm at ASTA Expo, every Time. I've been to tools. There are technicians there that are there on their own dime that just want to learn.
Rich Falco [00:35:47]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:35:47]:
And they're networking and they're getting recruited because they're there and they tell somebody, no, my boss won't, won't pay for it. I took time off to come do this job.
Rich Falco [00:35:56]:
I mean, you talk to a technician who says, I'm here on my own dime. I had to take unpaid time off.
Mike Allen [00:36:03]:
I'm gonna try to hire that guy.
Rich Falco [00:36:04]:
Where are you located? Do you want to live in Raleigh?
Mike Allen [00:36:07]:
That's a great place to live, dog. Two hours of the beach, two hours of the mountains. Great education. Yep. Yeah, decent education.
Rich Falco [00:36:17]:
It's better than Florida.
Mike Allen [00:36:18]:
Trust me that I believe that I believe so. You know, I'm hesitant to talk about recruiting at those events because the other shop owners at those events are my friends. Because just like it's the same 5000 techs, it's the same 1000 shop owners that go to all these events. But if there's a tech there who's there on their own, you're damn right I'm going after that.
Rich Falco [00:36:40]:
Every. All thousand other shop owners should be, should be shooting for that guy. Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:36:45]:
So the, the really rare scenario is I've actually met one service advisor at ASTA Expo who was there taking personal time off to go wow. And do their own training. But I think, I think that he was shooting at owning a shop one day and that's that, that was there for management business. But you know what? He was thinking about his future and his goals and seeking out learning, doing the right thing.
Rich Falco [00:37:10]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:37:11]:
Imagine that. Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:37:12]:
It took me five years of ownership to realize I needed some training.
Mike Allen [00:37:17]:
One of my early episodes was with a couple of guys who opened a shop in Durham called Inconceivable Automotive. And they're now one year into their business. And I was trying to record, actually last weekend I was trying to record a one year follow up with them, but one of the dudes is getting married next week. And he was like, dude, we gotta wait until after my weddings over. I was like, that's bullshit, man. Get your priorities straight.
Rich Falco [00:37:44]:
Exactly.
Mike Allen [00:37:46]:
But they joined ASTA and they came to the expo before they opened their shop.
Rich Falco [00:37:53]:
Wow.
Mike Allen [00:37:54]:
And they interviewed different coaches and found a coach that they wanted and I mean, was super impressed with how forward thinking they were and then. And so their financials were concrete. Yeah. Inconceivable. There we go. I think it was an homage to the Princess Bride.
Rich Falco [00:38:13]:
Nice.
Mike Allen [00:38:14]:
The name of their, their shop. So I support that, Me too, Me too. And they also always bring cocktails with them wherever they go. They bring like a little martini mixer bag.
Rich Falco [00:38:23]:
All right, we have to find these guys.
Mike Allen [00:38:25]:
Yeah, they're good dudes. But I think if you think long term and you think about, you know, what are my 1, 3, 5, 10 year goals and what do I need to do today to move toward those go those goals. It can't just be punch clock nine to five?
Rich Falco [00:38:45]:
No, not at all.
Mike Allen [00:38:46]:
You know, seven to five as it is in our industry typically. And you have to be willing to put in above average effort if you want above average results.
Rich Falco [00:38:56]:
Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:38:57]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:38:59]:
So there it is.
Rich Falco [00:39:00]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:39:01]:
Do you guys have a catalog of pre recorded online training courses? Yes, I'm sure you do.
Rich Falco [00:39:08]:
We do. We have virtual classes. We have our online learning. We have a lot of stuff that Dave's going to yell at me that I don't remember right now. But yeah, we have that. And if you are, you go to ctionline.com if you attend one of our classes, the book is yours to keep. You can download it. The class recording is yours to keep.
Rich Falco [00:39:38]:
So six months from now you're saying to yourself, what the heck was Rich talking about? You can go back and watch a recording of the class. So you have access to that.
Mike Allen [00:39:46]:
So is that database once, like, you know, I don't know shit about fuel trim. I want to learn about fuel trim. Can I. Is there a database I can search and find the classes that cover that topic? Okay, yeah. So if you are a technician sitting at home and you've. Why are you listening to this podcast first?
Rich Falco [00:40:06]:
He's doing research for owning a shop.
Mike Allen [00:40:07]:
Yeah. Maybe you want to know everything not to do. Well, if you're a technician sitting at home and you want to own a shop one day, you need to get shop coach training. But you know, there are resources available and you need to be putting in the effort.
Rich Falco [00:40:21]:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:40:22]:
Outside the normal form.
Rich Falco [00:40:23]:
Yeah, absolutely. Our goal is to break it down into, if somebody wants fuel trim, there's a five or ten minute quick description that they can, while they're on break at work, take that. And then it can expand on that with other modules to add to it. And once they get to a certain point where they're like, yeah, I really understand fuel trim, take a live class where we go deeper and share some live examples.
Mike Allen [00:40:47]:
And I, I love the concept of short, easily consumable because we've been trained in 90 second intervals now. Right. Our brain is trained.
Rich Falco [00:40:58]:
You ask anybody to sit in a four Hour class. They're going to lose their minds, especially if it's virtual tomorrow.
Mike Allen [00:41:06]:
So we've been working for.
Rich Falco [00:41:07]:
I can't. I go to events. I cannot sit. I list my favorite instructors. I still can't sit in their class for four hours. I gotta get out.
Mike Allen [00:41:20]:
I'm not really teaching a class. I'm hosting a class for the first time ever at the Expo this year. Lucas and Tanika and I are doing an owners only. No coaches, no techs, no vendors, just owners. I think it should be pretty fun.
Rich Falco [00:41:41]:
That'll be interesting.
Mike Allen [00:41:42]:
But it will not be four hours of sage on a stage talking at you, that's for damn sure. I'm trying to figure out, is it. It's a morning class, so the cooler's probably got to be full like Gatorade and water and orange juice.
Rich Falco [00:41:58]:
Some monsters or something at least.
Mike Allen [00:42:00]:
Yeah, I wanted an afternoon class
Rich Falco [00:42:05]:
of input on scheduling.
Mike Allen [00:42:07]:
I am so. Right now. Right? Because I mean it's. The current administration is doing a far superior job than I ever did. But I was gonna tell you tomorrow. We've been struggling for five years to get our company policies and procedures online into a web portal accessible for everybody. They can just go in and search, you know, who does our garage door repairs because we had a spring break or whatever and so they can find it without having to track me down.
Rich Falco [00:42:37]:
Okay.
Mike Allen [00:42:39]:
But one of them, it's all the way down to the company employee handbook and like training videos. And my office manager has been after me for months to sit down and go over some of these training videos that she's just generated for the bookkeeping and office processes. And I was like, yes, great. We've got a company wide meeting tomorrow night up here actually, and we're gonna be talking about. She said, I'll just come in early and we can spend the day Tuesday going over this stuff. And so she's coming at one o' clock and the meeting here doesn't start until six. So we've got like a five and a half hour window. Right? She was like, well, we can get through two of the videos because they're two hours apiece,
Mike Allen [00:43:23]:
So.
Mike Allen [00:43:24]:
Are you kidding me? You're expecting me to sit and watch two hour videos about bookkeeping and office processes?
Rich Falco [00:43:34]:
Triple speed. Triple speed.
Mike Allen [00:43:36]:
She's gonna sound like that. She's gonna sound like a fucking chipmunk. You know,
Rich Falco [00:43:43]:
just. Hey, AI, listen to this video. Give me a summary.
Mike Allen [00:43:46]:
Yeah, give me, give me a 90 second version of this. So we'll see how that goes. I might be Looking for a new office manager after tomorrow night.
Rich Falco [00:43:57]:
You need to find one of those adhd.
Mike Allen [00:43:59]:
She is so angry at me that she just quits. I don't know, we'll see. But I need to delegate shit like that out because I just can't do it, man. My attention span is like, bad.
Rich Falco [00:44:10]:
Me too.
Mike Allen [00:44:12]:
How do you write curriculum if you got an attention span?
Rich Falco [00:44:14]:
I write three classes at once. Just bounce back and forth, literally. I get three screens and one has the prerequisites that I'm supposed to be doing. One has the Autel Ultra class and the other one has a service information class. And when it's just sometimes I'll go look up something and get sidetracked to service information and go, oh, that's a good thing to put in this class.
Mike Allen [00:44:36]:
You don't need service information. Don't worry about reading the service information. Nothing good ever comes from that.
Rich Falco [00:44:42]:
No, just my whole business down in Florida is based on people not reading service information. That was one of the classes at Tectonic that I did. One of the 45 minute one was just RTFM.
Mike Allen [00:44:52]:
Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:44:53]:
Literally. Here's six examples of shops that either bricked a module, ruined a car, didn't fix it correctly, or sent a car out incompletely repaired because they didn't. Rtfm.
Mike Allen [00:45:09]:
How do we as an industry combat the very high frequency of cars not being repaired properly? Like, and I think, like, it's the worst around adas, because there's not a warning light.
Rich Falco [00:45:23]:
No.
Mike Allen [00:45:24]:
So you ship it with the sensors aimed incorrectly or whatever else. Nobody knows until the accident. And only if the accident can be forensically analyzed to determine that that's what caused it.
Rich Falco [00:45:35]:
Right. You won't. I mean, you know, it would be tough, difficult to know if it truly was a result of that. And that's.
Mike Allen [00:45:44]:
I've been in cars that weren't calibrated properly and the emergency braking activates.
Rich Falco [00:45:49]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:45:49]:
Inappropriately.
Rich Falco [00:45:50]:
Oh, absolutely. I've had cars rip the steering wheel out of my hand because the camera was not calibrated correctly and, you know, tries to do a lane adjust and it's not even close to right. So
Mike Allen [00:46:03]:
that's got to lead to, like, landmark lawsuits at some point. I would think. Yes.
Rich Falco [00:46:09]:
I have been saying it for 10 years. Somebody either really famous or connected to a politician has to die. This is horrible to say, but has to die in an accident where somebody finally goes, well, wait a minute. This whole system can take complete control of the car and just anybody can you wait, you can just. Anyone can go anywhere and they can work on this car and it goes out onto the road with other people. Yeah, yeah. If you can fog a mirror, you got a job in this business. And I don't, I don't know if certification is the answer, but there has to be every state right now it's a problem in Canada is working on.
Rich Falco [00:46:50]:
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:46:51]:
I mean, so the right certification might be an answer, but who's to say what the right certification application is? Yeah, I don't know. And then who's going to enforce it? Yeah. And what's going to be the punishment if you don't have it? Right. So you heard it here first. Rich Falco supports government intervention and automotive repair.
Rich Falco [00:47:09]:
Oh no. Yeah, let's move on now. Get myself in trouble there.
Mike Allen [00:47:15]:
I gotta be careful when I have guests on who are employed by big corporations. Yeah.
Rich Falco [00:47:20]:
Who's. Who's who. The shadow of their main office is literally right there.
Mike Allen [00:47:24]:
Right, I know, but I mean it's a concern for me because I have not invested heavily in ADAS calibration equipment. But there are larger and larger portion of vehicles, if you read the surface information, require calibration when you're doing alignment or after you've replaced suspension components or whatever it might be.
Rich Falco [00:47:47]:
Even something as simple as a brake job might, might require. So like what type of vehicles are. God, I'm blanking out on it. I mean definitely alignment and it's different vehicle to vehicle with brakes. No, I guess I misspoke there. Can we take that out?
Mike Allen [00:48:18]:
Rich is a dirty liar, fear monger. I had.
Rich Falco [00:48:22]:
Yeah, yeah, you're gonna kill somebody. No, no, I'm thinking in my service information class I had a case study on, you know, a tech that says brakes are brakes and it needed an ABS module because he didn't disconnect the battery like he's supposed to. But not abs.
Mike Allen [00:48:39]:
We have issues. We have dispatched a brake job to lower skill technicians before and ended up buying an ABS module because. Just fucked it up. Didn't follow procedure, you know.
Rich Falco [00:48:51]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:48:52]:
So.
Rich Falco [00:48:53]:
And unfortunately, you know, there's guys my age still in shops that learned how to work on cars in 1985 and they're applying that. Well, brakes are brakes, what's the big deal?
Mike Allen [00:49:04]:
And I have a technician who is two years from retirement and when I sat down and did my review process with him, I was like, hey, what kind of training can I seek out? He's like, yeah, two years ago, man, I'm just coasting the finish line. I know enough. I don't need to know anything. Else. And like if you give him hard metal parts to change, he's gonna crank 60, 70 hours a week and be happy doing it.
Rich Falco [00:49:32]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:49:33]:
But the list of hard metal parts that he can change is getting shorter and shorter.
Rich Falco [00:49:37]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:49:38]:
Because of what we're describing, Right? Yep. So I don't know, man. I think it's an, It's. I'm a late adopter. I'm not a late adopter. I'm probably the early adapters understand what's up and they're doing it. But the large majority of our trade is not yet.
Rich Falco [00:49:56]:
No. It's only been in the past six months that we have noticed a uptick in mechanical shops calling us and going, you guys do those ADAs things? Yeah, why? We just did an alignment and now every light on the dash is on. It's like, yeah, we can take care of that.
Mike Allen [00:50:14]:
So I don't think that we'll ever be able to get to level 5 ADAS unless we have some type of like monitoring system built in to alert and disable the vehicle if it's not calibrated appropriately. Right. You can't take the steering wheel out of the car and have a car that's not calibrated. Right.
Rich Falco [00:50:34]:
Yeah. No. There has to be something.
Mike Allen [00:50:38]:
So then, because I think what's. My belief is that what's going to happen is eventually there will be a large enough data set to show that the preponderance of highway fatalities is a result of human error.
Rich Falco [00:50:52]:
Oh, a hundred percent.
Mike Allen [00:50:53]:
And once that becomes too big of a problem to ignore, you know, at least on interstate highways it will be. You're only allowed on there if the car is driving itself.
Rich Falco [00:51:05]:
I think it's going to get there eventually.
Mike Allen [00:51:07]:
When, I don't know, secondary and tertiary roads, maybe that will be a holdout. But major highways, you're going to have to hit the button and it's going to merge and you don't get to drive again until you get off the highway.
Rich Falco [00:51:18]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:51:18]:
Or whatever it might be. So if that's going to be the case, they've all got to be interconnected.
Rich Falco [00:51:24]:
I think the data is. I think the way these sensors on today's cars share data and confirm each other's information is already at a level that is maybe we're not at level five, but I think that the technology isn't too far away from being able to, to self check itself.
Mike Allen [00:51:45]:
How far are we from vehicles being able to reach out and handshake and say, okay, I'm here and I'm here and I'm here and I'm here. And they all know where each other, so they can tighten up and we can be going down I40 during rush hour like it's Daytona and we're stacked three wide, six inches apart. I don't.
Rich Falco [00:52:03]:
Timeline. I don't know. I mean, the. The.
Mike Allen [00:52:06]:
That's gonna make the highway system more efficient if we can stack them in that much tighter and no human error. Right?
Rich Falco [00:52:11]:
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:52:12]:
So.
Rich Falco [00:52:13]:
And it prevents that, you know, rubber necker where it backs Everybody up for 10 months. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It'll. It'll get there eventually. You know, some of the technology shows and podcasts that I've watched, you know, you have guys that say, oh, we're 50 years from that, and then they come back in two years and go, we're five years from that.
Mike Allen [00:52:33]:
Exponential growth in technology. Right?
Rich Falco [00:52:35]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:52:36]:
So. Well, I don't think that we're actually ever going to get there because the robots are going to kill us first.
Rich Falco [00:52:40]:
Let's hope so.
Mike Allen [00:52:41]:
So if one can dare to dream.
Rich Falco [00:52:43]:
Exactly.
Mike Allen [00:52:43]:
Dare to dream.
Rich Falco [00:52:45]:
I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.
Mike Allen [00:52:48]:
How may I be of assistance?
Rich Falco [00:52:50]:
Every time I talk to the AI on the Autel Tool Max, I'm very nice to him because I want him to remember.
Mike Allen [00:52:56]:
Do you say please and thank you when you're talking to your AIs?
Rich Falco [00:53:00]:
No.
Mike Allen [00:53:02]:
No, I do. It's just habit because I'm talking, if I'm typing, I don't say please and thank you. But if I'm talking, it does change
Rich Falco [00:53:10]:
because, like, my wife uses AI way more than I do, and she will yell at it. She will say, no, that is wrong. I want you to find something better. And I'm like, easy there, hon. You're talking to the machine like you talk to me.
Mike Allen [00:53:23]:
I found that if you require it to show its source sources, and that's been effective in eliminating.
Rich Falco [00:53:30]:
You almost have to gaslight it into. You're not doing a good enough job. Find me better at work.
Mike Allen [00:53:35]:
You're stupid. Try harder. Yeah, work for my dad. That's great parenting advice from Confessions of a Shop Owner. To be fair, my dad never called me stupid. He called me lazy. And I'm not sure that he was wrong.
Rich Falco [00:53:59]:
Yeah, I was gonna say probably. Mine would. Probably. Would have been accurate on both accounts.
Mike Allen [00:54:05]:
Well, dude, thanks for coming out and thanks for having me again. And we gotta get another for entertainment purposes only card game going. Of course.
Rich Falco [00:54:13]:
A fun money game.
Mike Allen [00:54:14]:
We'll definitely have one at the expo in the hospitality suite again. Oh, okay. So the Podcast is sponsoring the hospitality suite again. We're actually over. If you were there last year, we're not gonna be in the same room that we were last year. We've got a bigger space. Oh, nice. If you remember, if you go to the bar and bear to the left, that whole back wing behind the bar is gonna be us.
Rich Falco [00:54:37]:
Oh, nice.
Mike Allen [00:54:38]:
So should be a good time.
Rich Falco [00:54:40]:
We're gonna have a. CTI is gonna have an open house Wednesday night. So if anybody gets into Raleigh early, come on over there.
Mike Allen [00:54:48]:
What time is that going to be?
Rich Falco [00:54:49]:
Like 4 to 8.
Mike Allen [00:54:51]:
I think we should go 4 to 8 at CTI. And then after 8, we'll go to the go kart track.
Rich Falco [00:54:56]:
Okay. Is that when they're doing that or.
Mike Allen [00:54:59]:
I don't know what we're doing. Whatever their opening party is going to be, it's probably going to be at the convention center like it was last year.
Rich Falco [00:55:05]:
Okay. I want to have something that doesn't interfere with their schedule.
Mike Allen [00:55:09]:
But, like, Wednesday night last year, a bunch of of listeners got together and went to rush hour and raced and had a good time. And so that was when I unveiled the Miata. Top down, baby.
Rich Falco [00:55:20]:
Oh, I remember that. Yeah, yeah. So I'd rather ride the go kart.
Mike Allen [00:55:26]:
It is a go kart. It's just slower. So what better way to end the episode than perfect? Thanks. Perfect. I appreciate it. No problem.
Rich Falco [00:55:34]:
Thank you.
Mike Allen [00:55:35]:
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 mikeonfessionsofashopowner.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.