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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 have 100% been walking the lot at night, checking to make sure everything's locked up and, you know, nothing needs to be pulled in or anything like that. I'm like, man, that vehicle's been here for a little while. What's the story with that thing? And I don't know. I don't know. It's been here for days. Okay, so that was dropped off three or four days ago by a tow truck, then. So does it start? Okay, you know, just have to go into investigator mode at that point. And you're wondering, how does somebody have a car towed in and it'd be there for days, then just never call and check on it.
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 host, Mike Allen.
Josh Coomes [00:01:05]:
What's up, Asta 2025?
Mike Allen [00:01:10]:
The expo.
Josh Rainwater [00:01:11]:
The Expo.
Mike Allen [00:01:12]:
How's it been so far?
Josh Coomes [00:01:14]:
It's been good. It's. It's a change to a bigger event, which is good, but change is hard.
Mike Allen [00:01:25]:
Oh, we're just discussing how we kind of up the lunch today on day two. We had in the registration process, you're supposed to like, check. Check boxes for what events you intend to go to. Right. And I guess we had 850 that checked for lunch, and we ended up being like 100 people short of box lunches. And you were giving me some feedback that the Italian sandwich wasn't very damn good either.
Josh Coomes [00:01:51]:
So I don't know what nationality sandwich it was, but it was nothing I've ever eaten before.
Mike Allen [00:01:57]:
Wasn't salami. Maybe it was Somali.
Josh Coomes [00:02:00]:
Somali sandwich.
Mike Allen [00:02:01]:
It's quite close, but there's types of things that we need to hear to get better at. Right? So the conversation that we just had was, hey, we had the perfect amount of food yesterday, and we had the perfect amount of food this morning for breakfast, and we came up short of lunch. That means we need to increase the order for dinner tonight and every meal tomorrow immediately to try to, you know, bridge that gap. So the logistics on the backside of an event like this, I had no idea, man. And the fact that the entire event is being put on by two paid staff members and everything else is volunteer is crazy to me. This is enormous for that Level of staff. And I'm super impressed with them. Ryan Reagan is the executive director.
Mike Allen [00:02:50]:
He does a little bit, you know, Jessie is the chaos coordinator that runs everything. So if you see her, you need to be like, you need to dap her up. She was. And yesterday was her birthday. She was here working on her birthday or Wednesday was her birthday, I think, so setup day and everything was. She was here from like 4am to midnight. But she's a dynamo. Volunteers are pretty cool too, I guess.
Mike Allen [00:03:17]:
So hopefully we get the meal situation straightened out. The other thing that I've seen that we need to improve upon is if you got your registration right in advance, all your classes are on the back of your card along with the classroom where the class is being held. And then in your swag bag, there's a map for all the classrooms. But if you didn't, if registration got messed up in some way, you don't have that. You don't know what classroom your classes are in.
Josh Rainwater [00:03:44]:
Wow.
Mike Allen [00:03:45]:
And so a map does you no good because you don't know where you're trying to get to. So we need in the swag bag just a list of all the classes and what rooms they're in. Yeah. And that would have made life a lot easier. So there's a lot of people that were wandering around where they should go this morning and so learning experience on that front. Anything else that you would like to see differently?
Josh Rainwater [00:04:09]:
So one of the things my advisor brought up this morning was related to not knowing who the audience these classes are made for. And you know, we don't know if this is an entry level course. We don't know if this is a high level class. You know, who is the expected audience for this information. So having some sort of indication that this is a, you know, a 100 level class versus a 300 level class and you know, what defines those, each of those categories I think would be really helpful.
Mike Allen [00:04:41]:
That's really good feedback. So on the website, which is a weak spot. The website is not great, but we're working on it. Right. It does have specifications of who this class is for. Advisor, entry level, tech journeyman, tech master, tech marketer, manager, owner. Right, sure. But it's not right here tiered.
Josh Rainwater [00:05:01]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:05:02]:
And the website's not super user friendly and intuitive yet, you know, whole revamp coming for next year. So I advocate for like a color coding system like green, yellow, red or green, blue, silver or whatever for levels of technician. And, and you know, I don't know that we're going to have entry Level and expert level advisor classes. They're just advisor classes. Right. Because even an expert advisor can stand to learn something from sitting through a class on phone skills or on handling stressful situations or overcoming objections or whatever it might be. It's always good to sharpen those skills. So just kind of making the user experience easier, I think would be good.
Mike Allen [00:05:49]:
And I think there's some more things that we can do with the lanyards and the badges to give some visual cues about. Owners get one color, technicians get one color, sales get one color. Be first time attendee this year. I think first time attendees have a different color than multiple attendees and vendors have a different color.
Josh Rainwater [00:06:10]:
So what you're saying is we need more pieces of flair.
Mike Allen [00:06:12]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you don't have to have more flair, but if you really love.
Josh Rainwater [00:06:16]:
It here, I think it's minimum 25 pieces of flare.
Mike Allen [00:06:19]:
Minimum of 25 pieces of flare would be ideal. So what would you say you do here if we're going to start quoting all this?
Josh Coomes [00:06:29]:
That little sidebar.
Mike Allen [00:06:31]:
I.
Josh Coomes [00:06:32]:
You know, on YouTube, I started watching like 20 unknown facts about movies and that movie popped up. Was it TGI Fridays? Is the flare place?
Mike Allen [00:06:40]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:06:41]:
They got rid of flair because of that movie.
Mike Allen [00:06:43]:
Well, it was Chachi's in the movie.
Josh Rainwater [00:06:44]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:06:44]:
But they were clearly making fun of TGI Friday.
Josh Coomes [00:06:47]:
So a movie that did horrible in box office but has an amazing call following for decades to come, I'm sure changed an entire business model. Yeah, I mean it was pretty awesome.
Mike Allen [00:06:59]:
I believe that completely. What's another like stupid comedy that was not good in the. But Idiocracy.
Josh Coomes [00:07:07]:
Idiocracy.
Mike Allen [00:07:08]:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:07:09]:
It's a. It's now turning into a documentary.
Mike Allen [00:07:14]:
That's the scary part when satire becomes reality. Super Troopers was like that for me. Yeah. I can go back and watch it everything. It's better if you're high. But you know, I've never been high in my life, but I've heard that it's better if you're high. So, you know, some movies just are better that way. Better with friends who have childish senses of humor.
Josh Coomes [00:07:38]:
Yes, that is I.
Mike Allen [00:07:39]:
So I'm here with the Josh and Josh Show. You guys are starting a new podcast. Josh and Josh in the Morning. I heard.
Josh Rainwater [00:07:45]:
Yeah, the morning drive.
Mike Allen [00:07:47]:
Yeah.
Josh Rainwater [00:07:47]:
And rock, rock, rock, rock.
Mike Allen [00:07:50]:
It's gonna be a live call in show every morning from 6 to 9. Talk Shop Life and listen to the best from 70s, 80s and 90s hair metal. Is what I've been told. Is that true? Did I Just make that up right on the spot.
Josh Rainwater [00:08:04]:
It's not. Not true.
Mike Allen [00:08:06]:
Yeah, it's not true.
Josh Coomes [00:08:07]:
I don't have enough to do already.
Josh Rainwater [00:08:08]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:08:09]:
You know, Greg Buckley of Buckley's Auto Care in Delaware, he has passed his business effectively off to his family because they're doing a great job and he's always been a radio head and so he's researching all the legalities and FCC rules and everything. He's starting Shop Soup Radio, which is music with rights.
Josh Rainwater [00:08:30]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:08:30]:
And everything. He's going jump through all the right hoops. But mixed in with interviews with shop owners and episodes of podcasts about ownership and leadership stuff and everything else that's cool. So I feel like you could be the morning drive time show.
Josh Rainwater [00:08:42]:
Yeah, yeah, you could reach out to Jimmy Purdy on that. And he's in.
Mike Allen [00:08:47]:
You know he's got a local radio show too, right?
Josh Coomes [00:08:50]:
Yeah, he's like the local click and clack.
Mike Allen [00:08:53]:
I hate those guys.
Josh Coomes [00:08:55]:
I love them.
Mike Allen [00:08:56]:
The advice that they give is really bad sometimes it's.
Josh Coomes [00:09:01]:
It goes, it's entertainment, but the heart is in the right place and nobody was doing that. And it's bad advice. It's like doing estimates over the phone. Yeah, I can't do that.
Mike Allen [00:09:10]:
And it's also just all box cars that they talk about for my. I got an 82 Oldsmobile, you know, first thing you should do is drive it into a ditch and leave it and walk away.
Josh Rainwater [00:09:23]:
Yeah. What if there was some like, you know, radio show that was more up to speed with the way that we run our businesses where they call in and we just say, hey, yeah, we'd love to get you an estimate on that. This is what we recommend doing, finding a shop. Here's the good shop for you. Go there.
Mike Allen [00:09:41]:
You know, we need, is. We need like Pollock and Perkins and some of those just like world class diag guys. And it's just a call in show for technicians. You have to call in and prove that you're an actual technician working in a shop. And you call in and they brainstorm the problem together and record it and publish it. That's cool. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:10:01]:
Or it might be terrible ideas.
Josh Coomes [00:10:03]:
We're not even drunk.
Mike Allen [00:10:06]:
Yet. So I wanted to have you guys on the air because one, you're both cool dudes that I enjoy talking to. And if you're willing to. To share, I'd love to hear about y' all had the opportunity. We met at Fueling Connections in April, I think, and I think we recorded with you and we've known each other.
Josh Rainwater [00:10:26]:
For a year or more now.
Mike Allen [00:10:29]:
Yeah. But Josh Coombs, you had a chance to go spend a couple of weeks at Josh Rainwater Shop and just kind of, I want to talk through what that experience was like and kind of what you both learned and how it's been since then. So if I could, can you start off by kind of laying the foundation of where your business is and what it was like to get you to the point that Josh came to visit?
Josh Rainwater [00:10:59]:
Yeah. So I guess like where we left off was the week of fueling connections. I think the day before I was just like busting out work, just trying to get to a place where things were going to wrap up and you know, things were going to have a nice bow on it before I could leave. And there was just so much pressure and so much, you know, so many promises that were made that needed to be addressed and issues fixed before I could go. And so once, you know, we went through the, you know, the, I guess got back from, you know, Mooresville, you know, it was just walking right back into the same thing because the processes really hadn't changed. We're just fixing the problems, you know, the small stuff that just adds up. And so I was really getting to a breaking point on, you know, what I was able to do, what sort of problems were popping up in the shop that were just getting kicked around the road and that sort of thing. And I was at a really, really low point where I don't know how this is tenable, I don't know how we can continue this.
Josh Rainwater [00:12:18]:
And I didn't know where to start. And I was a part of the ASOG mastermind group and was getting help from those guys but, you know, really thankful for what they were able to do. But they're not in the day to day operations. And so, you know, those kind of groups are awesome. But there is a certain amount of introspection that you need to have where, hey, I'm identifying the problem, I don't know the solution. How do we, you know, how do we approach this? How do we fix this? But where I was having the breakdown, I feel like was I'm not identifying the problem, I'm so deep in it, I can't see.
Mike Allen [00:12:59]:
Lost in the woods.
Josh Rainwater [00:13:00]:
Yeah, I mean the forest for the trees. And so, you know, Josh had reached out, you know, and offered to, you know, come and hang out. Let's see what's going on, man. Let's see what we can identify.
Mike Allen [00:13:16]:
And.
Josh Rainwater [00:13:17]:
And we really didn't have a Like an itinerary or, you know, like a day to day flow. But, you know, in the beginning, you know, he showed up and was like, just observing and seeing where the issues were. And a lot of issues that I had never even known were issues really started to show themselves quickly.
Mike Allen [00:13:40]:
Okay, and so you're. You haven't been in business for long, right?
Josh Coomes [00:13:45]:
Josh, January 24th.
Mike Allen [00:13:48]:
Okay, so give me kind of a little background on your shop and what got you to the point so that you are able to go hang out and spend time with other Josh.
Josh Coomes [00:14:01]:
Coaching setup, profitability immediately. Right. Money isn't everything, but it does solve a lot of problems and it gives you freedom to do things. So we got to a point where we were making money, like, quick, like the first. Well, first month, maybe not second month making money. And then you grow the business. You always want to replace your job with other people. So now I can go do that.
Josh Coomes [00:14:35]:
So it's like, all right, I hired an advisor first, which typically isn't normal, but I'm okay with it. I had a good person.
Josh Rainwater [00:14:43]:
She.
Josh Coomes [00:14:43]:
She turned out to be one of the. I probably have. It'll be the best employee I've ever had. She just left last Friday, but.
Mike Allen [00:14:54]:
So.
Josh Coomes [00:14:55]:
Hired the tech, got a tech, train them up. Good work culture, good work relationship. Business is going, is growing. Another technician comes in. Now we have two technicians. Revenue doubles, opens up more opportunity, better customer experience, better other, you know, more subscriptions, right? Yeah, like other cool things. Yeah, more loaner cars. And then it's like, okay, that goes well.
Josh Coomes [00:15:21]:
Then, you know, six months into that, it's like, all right, we're gonna, you know, do well. We have structured goals in place. You have to stay focused on those things. And then it's like, all right, it was a test for me at that point to be able to leave the shop and see what happens. Like, I want to be not really an absentee owner, but by 27, I want to come and go in my shop as I please. So having the setup to where the shop is profitable, having good processes in place, and then being able to test them by leaving a few days at a time and not getting any phone calls and not putting on any fires, that was a way that we could both help each other. Right? The. So it was funny.
Josh Coomes [00:16:18]:
I fired a technician. I was supposed to leave to head to Kentucky on a Saturday after a Friday night or Saturday morning, and Friday I decided to fire a technician. Or earlier that week I decided to fire a technician, but he was on vacation. So instead of calling him or texting him. I waited until Monday morning, 8 o', clock, until he came in. I met him at his car and told him I was letting him go. And it was for integrity. And I was like, we were still in a good spot to where I just lost half my revenue generation.
Josh Coomes [00:16:54]:
It didn't bother me because I'm going to help a friend. And we were okay. So, like, money does solve a lot of things.
Mike Allen [00:17:03]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:17:03]:
Well, I mean, and I'm not loaded by any means.
Mike Allen [00:17:06]:
Like, but having. But having that emergency fund and having that buffer makes a world of difference and how comfortable you sleep, for sure. Yeah. So before we get to that, the transition to when. When you went out to Kentucky. Kentucky, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:17:22]:
You mentioned coaching. You started off with one company and didn't click. And then I think last year at the Expo, right after Hurricane Helene, we had a charity auction, and I think you bought a year of coaching at charity at the auction from Rick. Is that right?
Josh Coomes [00:17:40]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:17:41]:
So you've been utilizing that for the last year. That's been pretty good for you.
Josh Coomes [00:17:46]:
Yeah, it, you know, I'm an open book. I'll be honest. I. I actually told Rick we had a record month, Right. And I mean, we were. We crushed it. We had a record month. And I'm looking at what has happened, and I don't.
Josh Coomes [00:18:05]:
I actually told Rick we had a record month, but I don't see anything that 180 Biz did for me to make that happen. And I was just being honest.
Mike Allen [00:18:12]:
Right.
Josh Coomes [00:18:12]:
And he's like, you may not see it, but it's in the background. And I was like, I don't know, you know, and then I. As time went on and I went out to go to that. To his place for two weeks while I was at. In Kentucky, I texted Rick back and I said, I'm sorry, because, like, it 100% did. I just didn't see it.
Mike Allen [00:18:36]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:18:37]:
So he's like the man behind the curtain. Right.
Mike Allen [00:18:39]:
It's like, well, incremental growth happens so slowly that you don't recognize it happening.
Josh Coomes [00:18:45]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:18:45]:
Like, when you were a teenager, you didn't realize that you were growing rapidly, but every time you see your relative that you only see once every couple months, like, oh, my God, you're so much taller. Right. It's happening quickly before your eyes. You don't even realize that it's happening.
Josh Coomes [00:19:00]:
So, yeah, so I had to. I. I needed to, you know, he needed to know that I was truly sorry. He wasn't offended by any means.
Mike Allen [00:19:08]:
But, yeah, he's got thick skin.
Josh Coomes [00:19:09]:
The, the program is amazing. Right. It's not for everyone, you know, but what he has created with his wife and the team that he put together, it is, it's huge. You know, it's like you have, you're looking for coaching. You absolutely 100% have got to schedule a consultation with Rick. Like there's no option in my opinion. You don't have to choose him, but you need to see what, what's available.
Mike Allen [00:19:39]:
Yeah. I think if you're going to get a coach, you owe it to yourself not to sign up with the first person that you talk to. You need to interview at least three because not every coach coaches the same methodology and not every coach is right for every shop owner. So you need to know, spend a little time with introspective and know what your desired outcome is, what the goal is, what you're moving towards. If you want 30 shops and to be rolled up by private equity, that's a different model than if you want to be the best shop in town and be open three days a week. You know, there's a difference between what Becky is, is training and what Todd Hayes is training. Right. They're different models and I don't believe that one is necessarily better than the other in a lot of ways because it depends on what your goals are.
Mike Allen [00:20:31]:
Right. Both of them have shortcomings and maybe the reality for shop owner C is somewhere in the middle. So anyway, speaking to good ideas, other than your morning radio show that we discussed and the technician call in show that we discussed, we've talked on and off and this is by no means official. So this is first public conjecture about having an ASTA mastermind and it'd be for new startup shops as kind of a bridge to get them from startup to where they can go out and get their own coach and be able to afford to pay for it. So the thought process is if you are a member in good standing of asta, that you reach out and let us know that you're interested in a mastermind program and that you get paired along with others with a mentor shop owner that can help you get from where you are to that kind of handoff point where you can go be a client for Elite or for Rick or for any one of the other ones that are out there. And I'm excited about that and I think you've got a spirit for it and a heart for it. And there are some other people that are heavily involved in the association I think would be really good with it. And you know, I think it might be fun to try to do something like that, be involved with something like that myself next year after I'm, after I'm off the board, so.
Mike Allen [00:22:07]:
But that'll be fun. So just floating that out there for, for everybody. Tanika Haynes, you're going to be involved with that as well. I'm not sure if you have heard and it might be a train wreck, I don't know. Or might never get traction, but very similar to what ASOC does, I guess.
Josh Coomes [00:22:22]:
Yeah. I think, you know, when we were talking about this and kind of brainstorming it, the. I was trying to see, like, why do we need another one? Do you need Pepsi if you have Coke? Right. Like, do you really need another. It's like, okay, well, the answer is yes.
Mike Allen [00:22:37]:
Duopolies are good for business.
Josh Coomes [00:22:38]:
The. Yeah, for free of charge.
Mike Allen [00:22:41]:
Yeah. Free duopolies.
Josh Rainwater [00:22:42]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:22:44]:
So the one thing that I, that I think the ASOC mastermind or the ASTA Mastermind group would be different than what ASOCS provided or even some other, you know, free 20 groups or whatever the case is, is that because it's primarily in North Carolina, seeing how much of a shop visit has changed so much. It's that, what is it from Boone to Wilmington or Jacksonville, it's like six hours maybe.
Mike Allen [00:23:12]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:23:12]:
So like that is, you know, to be able to schedule those in person, you know, that's. I think that's going to be like the, the biggest benefit of offering like that. Right. And not only that, but ast. ASTA membership is open for nationwide.
Mike Allen [00:23:29]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:23:29]:
International.
Mike Allen [00:23:30]:
Yeah, right. Yeah, we have, we have some international members.
Josh Coomes [00:23:33]:
It's not just for North Carolina, you know, but I think there's potential to.
Mike Allen [00:23:38]:
Do a lot of good in that. And you know, my desire, and I am not in any way able to rubber stamp anything, but my desire is that it not be any cost. So it's purely volunteer from the mentor standpoint. So if there's somebody who wants to be a mentor to, you know, fresh startups, then they're doing that on their own time and their own dime and the association doesn't bill anything beyond normal membership for it. That's great. But to that end, I think there has to be some accountability that if you come with a problem and your mentor gives you a solution and you don't take action over a certain period of time, then you can get the hell out because, I mean, you're taking a seat that somebody else could use and benefit from. So, so I apologize for the multiple tangents that's what I do. So we get to the point where you're a year and a half in.
Mike Allen [00:24:33]:
Things have been going relatively well. You're growing, you're taking the steps that you need to step and then you need to take. You've obviously got a heart for helping folks out. You've just come to fueling connections, and y' all have, I think, gotten to know each other even better at fueling connections. And you're at that kind of point similar to where Lucas was the first time he came to the Expo, where you're like, fuck, what is going on? Yeah. And so Josh just drops everything and drive it to Kentucky. So pick it up from there. Tell me what.
Mike Allen [00:25:02]:
What you found, what you heard what happened.
Josh Coomes [00:25:07]:
So, you know, Josh's probably somewhat private, so if I overshare, I'm sorry.
Mike Allen [00:25:15]:
Okay.
Josh Rainwater [00:25:15]:
That's where Braxton can edit it out.
Mike Allen [00:25:17]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:25:17]:
But we are here to learn, you know, like I am. Anyway, that's why we're here at the Expo.
Mike Allen [00:25:23]:
Yeah, for sure.
Josh Coomes [00:25:24]:
I mean, drinking's fun too, but we're here to learn. The first thing we did, we went out there was just take note of everything and just kind of observe, just like what Josh said. Right. And there were. Josh had one technician and Josh two people. It's a decent sized shop. Two lifts, I guess, technically, maybe like three other dead bays, let's say.
Mike Allen [00:25:51]:
So flat sp. Flat spots.
Josh Coomes [00:25:52]:
Yeah, yeah. And there was 29 cars there. Right. Marketing was. The marketing budget was way too high.
Mike Allen [00:26:03]:
You don't need a marketing budget if you got two dudes and 30 cars on the lot, you know, so that.
Josh Coomes [00:26:07]:
Just affects, bottom line, by. We're spending money we aren't making, you know, and it's like causing all kinds of stress. And it's like, okay, so we have too many cars. We can't do anything until we get these cars done. So stop answering the phones for the most part. Don't bring any more appointments in if you want to schedule them. We have to put a buffer in there to make sure we're looking at putting things down on paper, on the whiteboard and say, okay, we have this many cars. What do we have to order parts for? What can we get done? And you just try to get some structure in there.
Josh Coomes [00:26:37]:
And then so we started knocking some cars out.
Josh Rainwater [00:26:40]:
Volume.
Josh Coomes [00:26:41]:
Not the hard jobs. Get the ones like Dave Ramsey talking like the debt snowball.
Mike Allen [00:26:46]:
Right?
Josh Coomes [00:26:47]:
Get production, even if, you know, just get the volume done. So we started knocking out some cars. We couldn't do anything until we got some of the workload taken care of. So my one week trip turned into two weeks. Probably four days into the trip. It's like this isn't, we have to, we haven't made any progress yet. So we started going through those things and we find as time goes on we're starting to build processes to be able to like control communication within the shop. And we found like my goal in my shop is to not talk to each other.
Josh Coomes [00:27:23]:
Right. It sounds crazy, but the process should be so well defined that when you transfer jobs back and forth or where the keys are hung or where they're placed when they're done. We know the QC has been completed. We know the car has not been checked in yet. We know that it is checked in. We know that it's approved. Not approved.
Josh Rainwater [00:27:41]:
Right.
Josh Coomes [00:27:42]:
These kind of things that, that make things run more fluid, prevents stopping, going out to the shop, you know, all these other things. So we found a lot of those. You know, there was like something as simple as we weren't even tagging keys right. On a one man shop, you probably get away with that if things are like ran okay. But when you have 29 keys there and no tags and Josh is transitioning to primarily Japanese vehicles and we have to pull everything out of the shop every day because the landlord wants cars in the shop as much as possible or parking on an area. I suppose you parking in cars are four block deep and I got to take every single Honda key with me to go figure out which cars go where. Yeah, I mean that's like, holy cow. It doesn't make any sense.
Josh Coomes [00:28:30]:
But from being in the fishbowl, know how big like what the problems are. So it's like just a simple thing like that. It's like, dude, it's 20 bucks to go get a key tag like 2,000 yellow key tags from Amazon and then that problem is solved and it's like, okay, check one. Hey, we made some progress.
Josh Rainwater [00:28:51]:
Yeah, but what, what coach are you going to hear that says like, you know, that's, you know, you just don't, you don't hear. It's. I guess it's like an assumed thing. Like oh, you're, you know, you have a, you know, key tagging system that's you know, part of what you do because you run a shop. Well, I, I didn't have anything so a lot of these foundational were just, were not in place.
Mike Allen [00:29:14]:
Yeah, well, I think that's where it comes down to there are levels of coaching, right? There's a level of coaching where all they want to talk to you about is investment strategy and real estate plays. And then there's a level of coaching where they want to talk about hiring and staffing and process creation. There's a level where they talk about why you should use a parts matrix and how to determine what your labor rat should be. And there's a level that's talking about what equipment do I need to buy, right? What, what software should I have? You know, so it's just. And, and it's not that one's better than the other. They're just step different steps along the path and you can't get here until you've knocked out these steps, right? So. And you don't know what you don't know.
Mike Allen [00:29:58]:
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.
Josh Coomes [00:30:16]:
That's the biggest move. That's, that's what it was. Like, Josh's a better technician than I am, right. And he's, I mean, I say we're both probably equal with compassion in taking care of the client, right? We, we will do whatever is necessary to make things right. So like, that was never an issue. So like morally, I mean, I want to help him and we're lined up together, so it's just a no brainer. But. So we found problems with too many cars.
Josh Coomes [00:30:47]:
The, the write up process was not being done properly, right? So when a customer calls, it gets written down in a notebook and in a notebook for just that. But then the car comes, the keys get dropped onto the desk and they leave. There was a point where two cars were being worked on with like three cars had no work orders created. One car was actively being worked on. No signatures nowhere. Nothing, like not even a dollar amount was approved. Okay? So it's like this is. You cannot do this.
Josh Coomes [00:31:21]:
This is a hard stop. So it's like when the customer calls, you explain your process, you do your sales process for what you offer, and at that point in time, you make the appointment, you immediately go into, unfortunately, TechMetric.
Mike Allen [00:31:40]:
And you, Braxton, edit that out.
Josh Coomes [00:31:43]:
I'm just kidding, man. It works. They're both great systems, right? But the, when we go through that, we now we have all of the data that we need, so the process is There and then we send the work order to the client at time of appointment. So that way when they drop off, there's a signature already captured from the same day the appointment was made. It creates buy in from the client. So you have. Should have less of a no show rate and the dollar amount for the evaluation cost of what we're doing. And your terms and conditions are already there.
Josh Coomes [00:32:20]:
Right. So that is, that was huge to be able to get the cars in and out properly and not, you know, there was a car that we couldn't figure out who owned it.
Mike Allen [00:32:31]:
Right.
Josh Coomes [00:32:31]:
And the car's been there for like a week or two, you know, and that's like, that's what happens when you're.
Mike Allen [00:32:37]:
Swamped and you don't have systems.
Josh Coomes [00:32:38]:
Yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's.
Mike Allen [00:32:42]:
We.
Josh Coomes [00:32:42]:
So we just chiseled away at it. It's like, hey, we're going to do this. And you know, we found, we found a lot of different things. And then we have. We. One thing we did fail on is we never actually had time to sit down, the three of us, and say, this is working, not working, like it wasn't in place yet. It's going to take a little bit to be able to see what was sticking and what wasn't. And they're two different shops.
Josh Coomes [00:33:05]:
So what works for me may not work for him, you know, but it works for me. So, you know, this process does work. It's just a matter of maybe you have to tweak it for yourself.
Mike Allen [00:33:15]:
Yeah. So what was that like for you, having him come over and, and be there and kind of assess the situation and start breaking things down like that?
Josh Coomes [00:33:27]:
Yeah.
Josh Rainwater [00:33:28]:
Excuse me. So it was first off just incredibly humbling and, you know, relinquishing control, you know, to somebody who I already trust and I've already, you know, built a relationship with. And I know that he's not going to purposely mislead or take the business down a direction that we can't recorrect out of. And so I was just constantly just thankful because I'm realizing, hey, he just had to let a guy go and hasn't even had time to pick up the pieces yet. And so he's choosing not only to be here through that, but also his. He's got family at home and, you know, he's working through, you know, some other stuff with his own business. And just so like the fact that he took the time to come here and he didn't have to, and he definitely didn't have to give me the amount of time that he did, I mean, that was like every day, like I woke up and I would talk with my wife, you know, before we would head out and we just talked about like, how thankful we are for this moment, you know, how, how like what a blessing this is.
Mike Allen [00:34:52]:
So did have things changed significantly at your shop since then?
Josh Rainwater [00:34:58]:
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.
Mike Allen [00:35:00]:
So stuff stuck. It's not like you just went back.
Josh Rainwater [00:35:02]:
To the old ways. Yeah. And that was one of the things that he said. I mean, do you remember what exactly you're like, hey, it was like, I'm not going to tell you, we can't be friends after this if you go back to your old ways. But it's gonna severely impact our friendship. So, like, take this seriously. And it is, it was like, no, this is really, really important. This is like a key, you know, turning point within the business is like, we have to make this work, you know.
Mike Allen [00:35:31]:
So how are things today at the shop?
Josh Rainwater [00:35:33]:
Yeah, yeah, at the shop today.
Mike Allen [00:35:35]:
Well, I mean, how was business today?
Josh Rainwater [00:35:37]:
Oh, sure, sure. Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:35:38]:
So I assume the shop's closed today.
Josh Rainwater [00:35:40]:
It is, it is, it is. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's good. So there, there was like some back and forth on like, should I hire, should I not hire who? And we ended up hiring an advisor. And so that has, it has really taken a lot of the front end interaction off my plate now. It has turned me into more of a coach now which, you know, you take off one hat and you put on two more, you know, the therapist, coach, like all that stuff. So, so it's, it's really good to be seeing, you know, more of the bird's eye view of what's going on in the business and helping direct and, you know, lead my team into, you know, places that are going to get them to their next level as well.
Mike Allen [00:36:34]:
So right now it's you, one tech, one advisor.
Josh Rainwater [00:36:37]:
Yes.
Mike Allen [00:36:37]:
Okay. At what point do you think you'll be able to add a tech to replace your technical production?
Josh Rainwater [00:36:43]:
Yeah, I'd like to stabilize. So what we have not done is had much time for collaboration among the three of us. So I'd really like to get on the same page about, you know, maybe some of the processes. Like, hey, this is, you know, what, you know, Austin, the advisor wants to see, you know, this is what his, his desire is when he receives, you know, an inspection. This is what he wants to see in the write up. And then you know, what our technician, you know, what he wants to get from, you know, the advisor in terms of Communication in terms of, you know, dispatching, like, that sort of thing. So it is definitely in the works, but it's just going to take a little bit before I think it would be a good business decision to bring another person in. So, yeah, grow.
Josh Rainwater [00:37:40]:
I like to think of it as, like, you know, up the mountain, Hit the plateau. Up the mountain again.
Mike Allen [00:37:45]:
How many cars are at the shop right now?
Josh Rainwater [00:37:46]:
Oh, currently we left when there's like, three there. That's it.
Mike Allen [00:37:50]:
How long did it take you to figure out who owned the car? The mystery car on the lot?
Josh Rainwater [00:37:55]:
Oh, how. How did that one work out? Maybe I don't want to say that they called.
Mike Allen [00:37:59]:
Did you just tow it away?
Josh Rainwater [00:38:02]:
Abandoned. I don't remember how that one played out. Maybe. I don't know. If we found the registration, Call the local police department.
Mike Allen [00:38:10]:
Be like, hey, man, I need a favor. Yeah. These tags, I think it.
Josh Coomes [00:38:15]:
I think it took, like, a day and a half.
Mike Allen [00:38:17]:
I think I have 100% been walking the lot at night, you know, checking to make sure everything's locked up and. And, you know, nothing needs to be pulled in or anything like that. I've been like, man, that vehicle's been here for a little while. What's the story with that thing? And, like, back in the day at dad's shop, we had Nextel. So you walk in, you know, tag, whatever, you know, what's the story with this one? And lock it up, leave it unlocked, whatever. And, hey, what's the story with this one? I don't know. I don't know. It's been here for days.
Mike Allen [00:38:47]:
I just figured a customer dropped it off to pick up their car. Well, it's unlocked. Well, I guess we'll go diving and looking for registrations. Hey, the keys in the cup holder. Okay, so that was dropped off three or four days ago by a tow truck, then, Right? So does it start? Okay. And just have to go into investigator mode at that point. And you're wondering, how does somebody have a car towed in and it'd be there for days and then just never call and check on it?
Josh Rainwater [00:39:17]:
Maybe that was what it was. They had just towed it over.
Mike Allen [00:39:20]:
Well, it's, like, dropped off after hours, and the tow truck driver didn't do the night drop box and nobody ever called.
Josh Rainwater [00:39:25]:
No.
Mike Allen [00:39:26]:
It is embarrassing, though, that you could have a car in the lot for multiple days and not realize it.
Josh Coomes [00:39:30]:
I don't think so. That would be a pretty good win. Yeah. Well, yeah. Different 29 cars. That CarFix Garner might be a problem.
Mike Allen [00:39:39]:
Yeah. But not Enough cars.
Josh Coomes [00:39:41]:
Yeah, but the 29 cars with, you know, one tech and two. Two lifts. Yeah, that's a problem.
Josh Rainwater [00:39:47]:
Yeah. How many. How many uncomplete hours were we. We're sitting on, I think 70 some or 80 some like outstanding hours that were already sold just needing to be completed.
Mike Allen [00:40:00]:
Yeah. Because of how compact, because of how compassionate you are, and because of how it's obvious how much you love your people and your work and what you do, I think people will wait for you for a while. But eventually, if every time I come in, it takes three weeks, you start losing people. So I think it's good. Get some systems and processes in place and you got some help so that you didn't spend all of your time building estimates and chasing parts and cleaning up messes so you can. So we turned some hours. Right. So has this evolution now, if I recall correctly, when we recorded back in April, you got like a really good aro, right.
Mike Allen [00:40:44]:
Like a really high. So has that maintained its health level and. And stayed where it was or.
Josh Rainwater [00:40:50]:
So initially it went down and I had fully planned on that just during training of a new advisor who came from the dealership. You know, he. You know, his numbers were really good. He showed me some of what he was doing at the dealer. But, you know, I told him, like, hey, we're gonna be doing things a little differently, but just know, you know, up front, this is, you know, we're gonna be training first and then so slow is it. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Mike Allen [00:41:20]:
Yeah.
Josh Rainwater [00:41:20]:
So we are more focused on getting the processes down first and then we'll worry about growing the volume after that. But in the same way that I thought I was training him, he is just as much training me. And so because of his work at the dealership, some of the pricing structures in my business, I found out, were maybe a little undervalued. And so even though we took a decent hit on like our hours per roll, we were actually able to make more with less. So we. We had a. About an average car count. But the aro when I was, I guess before the advisor started, you know, was just over.
Josh Rainwater [00:42:11]:
I think it was like 990 bucks or something like that. And you know, we left last week with it being at, you know, 1180.
Mike Allen [00:42:24]:
Love that.
Josh Rainwater [00:42:24]:
So.
Mike Allen [00:42:25]:
Yeah. Do you have a target or is it just for me? Yeah, or A.O.
Josh Coomes [00:42:30]:
All of it.
Mike Allen [00:42:30]:
You. All the monies, evil shop mentality.
Josh Coomes [00:42:34]:
The target is just do slightly better. Right. But that's not. Rick would probably kill me for that. Right. It's like Just not. You need a ruler. My ARO is 950 and I have.
Josh Coomes [00:42:49]:
I still have a lot of areas of improvement. Right.
Mike Allen [00:42:52]:
So in your general repair, primarily domestic and Asian and in a challenging market. You know, Fayetteville, North Carolina is not an affluent area and so you have a lot of price conscious customers. So I think a primarily domestic and Asian general repair shop in a challenging market to have an almost thousand dollars. Pretty fucking awesome.
Josh Coomes [00:43:12]:
Something I'm really proud of right now.
Mike Allen [00:43:14]:
We.
Josh Coomes [00:43:15]:
To be fair, we do. I do have my. My only technician I have right now has he worked at a euro shop, primary euro shop, and he works on everything.
Mike Allen [00:43:24]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:43:24]:
So we do have a sprinkling of a few five thousand dollar coolant leaks on jags, you know, but it's.
Mike Allen [00:43:31]:
Are they even worth fixing anymore? Oh my God.
Josh Coomes [00:43:33]:
Yeah. That's a whole nother confession. Just so everyone knows, I am not doing great this month. Like we are not in good shape. But the. Yeah. So we do have a couple euros. So to Target, I mean I'm at four, just a tick over four hours a ticket.
Josh Coomes [00:43:55]:
Right. Which is. Rick wants you to look at hours per ro because it's. It can be translated front or back of the house. Right. So whereas the, the dollars is just.
Mike Allen [00:44:06]:
Front of the house only.
Josh Coomes [00:44:07]:
Yeah. So and that's more valid especially when we're talking about difference of labor rates.
Mike Allen [00:44:12]:
Right.
Josh Coomes [00:44:13]:
Like, you know, so that, that changes the substantial. But yeah.
Mike Allen [00:44:18]:
And at eleven hundred dollars, are you guys. You were a specialty shop, is that right? Were you Euro primarily?
Josh Rainwater [00:44:23]:
We're not Euro, no. No, I get maybe €2amonth.
Mike Allen [00:44:28]:
Oh, wow. Okay. And what part of Kentucky are you in?
Josh Rainwater [00:44:31]:
Louisville.
Mike Allen [00:44:32]:
And what is Louisville like? Is that affluent area? Is it kind of standard middle of the road?
Josh Rainwater [00:44:38]:
So I like to gauge that by how many, you know, European car dealers we have like, you know, do we have any exotics, you know, anything like that? And we've got a Porsche dealership there and Maserati dealership couldn't make it. So they're out. So you know, I would say we are. We. We're definitely not a Nashville or a Cincinnati. Probably closer to like an Indy or a Raleigh.
Josh Coomes [00:45:09]:
Or a Raleigh.
Josh Rainwater [00:45:10]:
Yeah, maybe. Maybe a Raleigh. So yeah, not super affluent, but there is a deficit of good shops.
Mike Allen [00:45:19]:
Well, I'd tell you that you're both doing something right there because for general repair those are great numbers. Our target is depending on the store is a little bit variable, is between 800 and 1,000. And that's one of the areas that I'm struggling right now is my closing rate. My technicians are doing great DVIs or my Rack Attack crew is doing great DVIs and we're building big fucking estimates. And we're trying to figure out a way to throttle that and give the customer all the information they need but without falsely killing cars. And they see this huge number and we've got to educate and articulate appropriately that you don't have to have all of this right now, but you have to know about all of it before you make a choice on what you do want to do right now. Right, right. Because they have the right to know everything before they do anything.
Mike Allen [00:46:07]:
And that can be delivered in a way that does not kill cars. But sometimes we are not delivering it in that way the way that we should.
Josh Rainwater [00:46:15]:
Sure.
Mike Allen [00:46:16]:
And you mentioned dealership advisors. I'm finding that unless it's a luxury brand dealership advisor, a lot of times they're used to very high volume and a lower aro with a lot of warranty work.
Josh Rainwater [00:46:29]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:46:29]:
So I mean, you said dealer guys coming in for interview and they're like writing 2530 cars a day.
Josh Rainwater [00:46:34]:
Absolutely.
Mike Allen [00:46:35]:
And they're looking for a $250 ro.
Josh Rainwater [00:46:37]:
Exactly.
Mike Allen [00:46:37]:
And all they care about is a CSI score. Right.
Josh Rainwater [00:46:40]:
100%.
Mike Allen [00:46:41]:
And so how do you transfer a guy who is used to no relationship, pure volume, because he's got to do 2530 cars a day to a guy. I want you to do eight cars a day at $1,000 a piece of. You know, it's a really different work experience and they both make money. You know, there's an argument to be made that the, the volume transactional base makes more money in the long run for the owner. I don't know if it makes more money for the advisor. It definitely doesn't make more money for the advisor. Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:47:12]:
So it's even more stress for the advisor too.
Mike Allen [00:47:14]:
Yeah, for sure. I think a 30 ticket a day service advisor is a really hard job because you're going to drop some balls and you're going to piss some people off and you're going to have to deal with fires at a higher rate when you're dealing with 30 a day. And you're not going to build as many relationships. So I don't know, it's striking the balance. So I would say that where do you go to get service advisors? But I know you go to the bedroom.
Josh Rainwater [00:47:43]:
Yep.
Josh Coomes [00:47:46]:
Well, I don't know how the shirt.
Mike Allen [00:47:49]:
You'Re wearing right now on the back of it says, I'm sleeping with my Service advisor.
Josh Coomes [00:47:52]:
Yeah. If you don't know me, I have a pretty childish sense of humor for those listeners. So I tried to convince. So I. Okay, so I told you that my advisor left. Right? She. She. When she told me she was quitting, she was crying.
Josh Coomes [00:48:06]:
We have an awesome work culture. Right. And she left because she founded a job that offered a pension. I mean, like, we have retirement in the works that I want to complete this coming year, but I can never offer a pension, so that's not going to happen. So the wife was a. My wife's name is Mitch, but I call her wife. Just so you all know. She is a physical therapy assistant.
Josh Coomes [00:48:34]:
And she just. She left a GS job, federal job, because just wasn't. She just was getting too stressed. Right. She didn't like it. And so I offered. Eventually we were going to get to two service advisors. So, like, I planted the seed last year when she was starting to get, you know, upset.
Josh Coomes [00:48:53]:
And then as my second advisor, well, the opportunity arose that I need advisor, and she made the jump. And she is in her fifth day of employment as of Friday at the age.
Mike Allen [00:49:05]:
So half of the time she's been just socializing at training events.
Josh Coomes [00:49:09]:
Yeah. And. Yep. So, yeah, that's a very good point. And I'll tell you what. So my wife is. Was out of the business altogether. Not a partial owner or nothing like that.
Josh Coomes [00:49:19]:
I mean, she reaps the benefits of the net profit, I guess.
Mike Allen [00:49:22]:
Right.
Josh Coomes [00:49:23]:
So, but when I hired her, I'm like, hey, this is like my business, you know, but realistically, as you, my wife, I mean, it's mine as much as I say it is, you know, but it's not really true. She's made it very evident that I am an employee. Like, she is an employee. I mean, when I asked her to go to the bank to drop off stuff, she's like, I'm not doing that during my lunch break. You know, like, I'll punch out for lunch when I get back. It's like, all right, okay. You know, so, you know, I made the joke. That's all right.
Josh Coomes [00:49:54]:
I'll keep that to myself. Because my wife, she's pretty. She's pretty shy. Right. But the. Oh, shoot.
Mike Allen [00:50:07]:
Just talking about how you're driving down wages by hiring family slave labor.
Josh Rainwater [00:50:14]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:50:14]:
Because you are allowed to hire family and, like, not pay them. You know, it's like a farm, right?
Josh Rainwater [00:50:19]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:50:20]:
But no, like, my. My shirt says, you know, I'm sleeping with my service advisor. And, you know, we made. I'm here to have a good Time.
Mike Allen [00:50:26]:
Do you have one per that says, I'm sleeping with my boss?
Josh Coomes [00:50:28]:
I tried to, but she was just too much.
Mike Allen [00:50:30]:
She wouldn't wear it now.
Josh Coomes [00:50:31]:
She's just a little too shy for that. The joke was, I'm going to. She's going to put a question mark on the back of it instead. Just how does that mean? And then the other one was like, the world's okayest service writer. So she has no service writing skills whatsoever. Training, not skills. No service writer training whatsoever. And I am 100% set her up for failure to the point where the second day in, she left in tears.
Josh Coomes [00:50:57]:
And I thought, you know, to get personal, I thought that I was going to be the one to make her cry. And it wasn't right because, you know, I have a certain way to do things. And I was concerned that we're going to really hurt our relationship and we had to talk about it.
Mike Allen [00:51:13]:
If.
Josh Coomes [00:51:13]:
If it starts affecting us, you know, as a married couple.
Josh Rainwater [00:51:18]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:51:18]:
Then I'm going, we're going to have to not do this.
Mike Allen [00:51:22]:
Right.
Josh Coomes [00:51:23]:
And when she cried the second day of work, going home, it made me feel really bad. And then I felt really bad because I thought it was something that I was doing. And it turns out that indirectly it's because I didn't train her, but not because I'm being too hard on her. She had two days of training with the old advisor. Unfortunately, my old advisor, she already had vacation scheduled during that last two weeks. And then she got sick. When she came back, like in the hospital, probably almost dead, but there was like a couple days. There was like, they did some training and that helped some, but nowhere you can't do two days of training.
Josh Coomes [00:52:03]:
Be like, all right, the job's yours, you know, so.
Mike Allen [00:52:05]:
Probably would have been easier on Tech Metric.
Josh Coomes [00:52:07]:
Maybe. It's possible. So. So I'm. I'm grateful that this event happened when it did. So where we at least have some guidance to where to go. And then we have to get, seriously get into the weeds and start writing these things down. Back to, like, what Josh did for me.
Josh Coomes [00:52:27]:
Right. So we came out. I came out there for two weeks. He knew he was coming to asta and he volunteered to come out early to sit in the shop and. And do the same thing.
Mike Allen [00:52:37]:
Yeah.
Josh Coomes [00:52:38]:
And it went weird because I have a new advisor, so I'm like, can you help trying to train her? You know, and he sat down and started writing some flow sheets, like, you know the Honda. Yes. No diag trees. And just to figure out, like, how to Steer the conversation correctly. And you know, that's going to be beneficial when we get down to that. And kind of customize that with the words that she's familiar with using so it rolls off the tongue better and it sounds more like genuine and not all clunky. So there's a lot of things like that that we're going to be working on in the next few weeks.
Mike Allen [00:53:20]:
So one of the things that I've. And you know, I'm much more regimented, we have like, scripts that you need to learn. And I'm not saying that you need to do that, but one of the things I've seen our guys, my leadership team doing with our advisors that has been really cool is in your example, you could have. Well, here are the talking points that we want to make sure we touch on and here's how we get people in the door and here's what we charge for diag or whatever it might be. Right? You can teach GTP your process and you can role play verbally with GTP on your phone and you can trade places. Okay, now I'm going to be the customer, you be the service advisor. And it can be the service advisor following your process and showing you how to overcome objections and how to push back and how to ask leading questions. It's a really valuable tool.
Mike Allen [00:54:13]:
If she's comfortable doing that just in the car while you're driving, instead of listening to the radio or listening to a podcast other than this podcast, you could just be practicing your phone skills and your customer relations skills and overcoming price objections and turning them into appointments and whatever it might be. So it's a useful tool for advisors who don't have any formal training or experience to get reps, because it's all about reps and getting experience. And the more reps you can get in practice, the better you are on game day. That's great. I think it's awesome that the two of you have. You're both relatively young in your business and you've both invested heavily in each other in development and growth, and I thought it was an awesome story and I wanted to share it. Any parting words of wisdom?
Josh Coomes [00:55:03]:
I got one more thing. I talk too much. But this is important. Josh Rainwater and I met the first time I came to Asta in 23 and we became like, I consider my best friend. Right. So if you have never attended any training convention, ASTA is a great one. It's freaking awesome. And the cost of this convention is a lot less expensive than other ones out there.
Josh Coomes [00:55:31]:
And it is 100 life changing. Right. Like, you have got to experience something like this as a, as a shop owner. Oh. And if you do come to these events, you want to do all the social events, you want to hang out in the lobby, you want to hang out at the bar, even if you don't drink. Like, you've got to build these relationships. I have great friends in this industry all because of this organization. Right.
Mike Allen [00:56:00]:
I was in the hospitality suite until one o' clock this morning. I didn't have a drop of alcohol and I had a blast. Yeah. And there were some people who had enough drops for both of us and they had a blast too. So.
Josh Coomes [00:56:13]:
You'Ve got to experience this.
Mike Allen [00:56:14]:
Yeah. So cool. Thanks, man.
Josh Rainwater [00:56:17]:
Yeah, that's good.
Mike Allen [00:56:18]:
Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
Josh Rainwater [00:56:19]:
Glad to be here. Thank you.
Mike Allen [00:56:20]:
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 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.
Mike Allen [00:56:56]:
I'll see you on the next episode.
Josh Rainwater [00:57:27]:
You know, I said.