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Ep 12 John Phelps & Katy Carl - Our Software Is Better Than Yours
256 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, I checked on my shop while recording. How? By using the Tekmetric mobile app. A great tool I use often. You could, too. Sign up for Tekmetric HERE
Having accountability as a shop owner is essential to running a successful operation. I'm seeing the benifits now with my small shop through the coaching organization, Elite Worldwide. They can do the same for you. Learn more HERE
John Phelps from Tekmetric and Katy Carl, a shop owner from Upstate New York, shared with me what they've done wrong this year. We talk processes, customer convenience, four-day work weeks, and how I've found success being open on Saturdays.
00:00 Brain Development in Young Adults
04:21 "Raising Kids in a Digital Age"
06:47 Tekmetric Transforms Shop Management
10:56 Reluctant Family Business Acquisition
15:13 "Expansion and Hiring Updates"
18:56 Revamping Auto Industry Leadership
21:27 Streamlining Growth with Shop Genie Acquisition
24:53 Innovative Development Through Foresight
27:55 Scaling Challenges in Growing Startups
29:38 "Ego and Insularity in Business"
32:52 Lesson Learned, Team Revitalized
37:20 "Success Hinders Dealership Progress"
40:10 Retail Pricing Trends and Auto Industry
43:22 Adams Automotive Program Insights
48:30 "Maintaining Energy for Yearly Goals"
49:21 Accountability Coaching Experience Documented
52:20 "Seeking Successful Break and Growth"
55:29 Tekmetric Team and Growth Overview
59:22 "Confessions of a Shop Owner"
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction at Ignite Elite 2025
00:00:00
Speaker
So on today's episode, which was recorded in Dallas at the Ignite Elite 2025 event, I get to sit down with John Phelps of TechMetric and Katie Carl, who is a shop owner with her daughter.
00:00:16
Speaker
um In retrospect, I wish I'd had Katie and her daughter on because what an interesting story that was. But love sitting down with my folks from TechMetric. You guys already know it's the best software out there.
00:00:26
Speaker
no questions asked. Always updating, always learning new features, and always learning from shop owners on on their adventure and and how things are going for them. So hope you enjoy it.
00:00:41
Speaker
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.
00:00:55
Speaker
There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along.
Program Introduction: Confessions of a Shop Owner
00:01:02
Speaker
So without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner, with your host, Mike Gallen.
00:01:16
Speaker
Okay, so
Coach Mackey on Character Development
00:01:17
Speaker
here we are. It's Saturday at Ignite by Elite 2025. We're in Dallas. We're now, if you got here on Thursday, you're now well into day two. You're a day and a half in if you got here yesterday.
00:01:31
Speaker
um Pretty powerful speaker this morning. I really enjoyed was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Steven Mackey. I think he's Coach Mackey on social media. And he's a motivational ah speaker to character. I think two words.
00:01:44
Speaker
Character development. Character development. Yeah. And obviously, you could tell from him that he's got a lot of experience with athletes of all all levels and um developing young men into sports.
00:01:58
Speaker
I guess, good man is what he's driving for, right? He was amazing. I thought it was super interesting. talked about 25 the new 18.
00:02:08
Speaker
That part was, um yeah, that was intriguing. Talking about how you have more adolescence after high school than you do from sixth grade to high school. right I respected his Aggie math because apparently, I mean, I went to Texas A&M as well and apparently he and I graduated the same year. But asking the question, how many years are there between sixth and twelfth grade?
00:02:26
Speaker
There's seven. Well, there's still eight years after high school that people are developing and you know that is still ah elongated adolescence, I think is how he phrased it, to where it's it's, it's earlier than it used to be, but also lasts longer, uh, than it used to
Adolescence and Dependency Discussion
00:02:44
Speaker
as well. So I, um, I was messaging with my wife about it and I'm just pulling it up right now, uh, while he was going, uh, because she's, my wife is a pediatric dentist. And so, um you know, the developmental phases of, of growth is something that she studied a lot.
00:03:02
Speaker
And, um, She said the psychology that she gets exposed to in some of her developmental ah training definitely confirms that, you know, your brain is still developing, your decision making centers are still developing ah well into the twenty s And part of what he said was, you know, while young kids are being exposed to things in fourth and fifth grade that maybe we didn't get until seventh or eighth, at the same time, the responsibilities that we were developing when we were 18 and 19 are frequently not being developed ah today until you're in your mid-20s.
00:03:39
Speaker
And so, i mean, we all that. see evidence of that every day in our line work. Absolutely. Every day. You you have... I have people in their 30s who come to pick their car up and we call to talk to get the credit card from mom and dad. and
00:03:55
Speaker
That's weird. but It is. I mean, I guess the way about it. I mean, I've got two kids myself, and one is 12, and so he's entering that stage, the 6th to 12. He's in sixth grade right now. um And so there's a lot within that, and it was very timely. um Went out to dinner with a coworker last night, and happenstance, a lot of what we talked about, he's got three young kids, I've got two young kids, and we were just kind of talking about you know, raising kids today.
00:04:25
Speaker
And, you know, part of me is very thankful um for the lack of trackability and internet. And when I was a child, ah however, you know, not to helicopter parent any in any way, but you know, you, you see the impact impact, you see the effects that that has on kids that are, like I said, 12, like my son, nine, like my daughter and the influence that that brings upon them.
00:04:48
Speaker
And then, you know, Go back to what a latchkey kid was back then to where it is now. I don't even know if that's a term anymore. It's probably that you're arrested now. No, exactly. Right. Why is why is there nobody home? But yet a kid is out in the driveway playing basketball. I was just, you know, call my mom when I got home from school and then it's do your homework before you go outside. Sure.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Go outside, play basketball. Just got the homework done before she got home kind of thing. that to To your point, that's a lot of watchful eyes and potentially um some phone calls being made to some some places that you don't want because you're not being a good parent now.
00:05:22
Speaker
Well, and I think we are enabling dependency rather than encouraging independence, right, with a lot of our parenting styles. and And I think that started with my parents' generation as boomers because they had absolute freedom as kids.
00:05:39
Speaker
And so they started reeling it in. and And look, I had a lot of freedom as a kid. I'd hop on the four-wheeler. Saturday morning early and I'd be back by dinner Sunday, you know, you take the, take your, you know, your tent with you and they know who we're running with. Right. And all the neighbors know everybody's phone number. So if we're acting on a fool too bad, you know, it gets back to them and they come out hunting us, you know,
00:06:01
Speaker
I think there was there was definitely more freedom, but I think in a lot of aspects, there was more responsibility as well. ah First job I had was at 15 years old, just because that's you're going to have to pay for something, whether it be a car, the insurance, or the gas, whatever the case is you're going to have to pay for something. so You're going to have to start working. so From a summer job to...
00:06:20
Speaker
i mean part-time, right? While you're in school, but through high school, through college and, you know, to this day, ah think that's one of those things that isn't at the working age used to be 16. Now it's 18.
00:06:34
Speaker
So talk about that elongated adolescence. Well, if you're a, yeah it It varies from state to state, right? sure Sure. For children of the owners of a small business, it's 11 in North Carolina. Well, there's also some tax benefits to things like that, right? You can... Hey there.
00:06:48
Speaker
I'm going to tell you about something that has completely transformed how our own my shop, TechMetric. As a 20-year shop owner, outdated systems used to slow us down. Everything was clunky from check-in to estimate building to customer updates. It all felt just...
00:07:02
Speaker
Super inefficient. Switching to TechMetric has changed everything. With TechMetric, you get a powerful shop management system that includes DVI, quick and easy estimate building, inventory management, real-time reporting, amazing customer communication, and it's really easy for your employees to learn how to use the software.
00:07:20
Speaker
I'm talking like a one-day learning curve. On top of that, TechMetric has tons of other tools to make you an even better operator. Stuff like integrated payments with buy now, pay later options is a huge asset. Ask me how I know.
00:07:34
Speaker
And recently, they've added a CRM component with their partnership with Shopgenie, which I'm a happy Shopgenie customer already. So I'm super excited about that. Obviously, there are a lot of factors at play here, but I want to give you some facts about my business since I made the change to TechMetric.
00:07:48
Speaker
In September of 2020, when I switched to TechMetric, my ARO was $293. In September of 2024, were $916. over 300% growth. and september of twenty twenty four we were nine hundred and sixteen dollars that's over three hundred percent growth Now, I'm not saying that TechMetric created all of that change, but I'm 100% saying that I couldn't have come this far without TechMetric. It's a key factor in our growth and success.
00:08:09
Speaker
If you're ready to level up your shop, TechMetric has everything you need. Productivity, revenue, customer experience. Measure up by every measure with TechMetric. Tap the link in the show
Katie Carl's Automotive Journey Begins
00:08:19
Speaker
notes to learn more. You can pay your children out of the businesses depending on the laws. and Oh, my my children absolutely appear in my marketing work and they get compensated for that.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, just put a video of them on Facebook, you know, at the shop, right? Yeah, something like that. um So I i just jumped right off there. I didn't do any introductions. um Katie Carl, what's the name of your business?
00:08:39
Speaker
ah Carl's Advanced Automotive and Truck Repair Center. Okay, and where are you located? We are in Voorheesville, New York, which is about 15 minutes outside of Albany, New York. Okay. And so, you know, not being a New Yorker, there's the city and everything else. We are part of the city everything else. Yeah. Okay.
00:08:59
Speaker
We are about three and a half hours north of New York City. Everything other than the city is upstate. Is that right? and That is correct. Okay. We have a lot more green. They call it the capital region? Yes.
00:09:09
Speaker
that's There you go. yeah So they they call it the capital region out in Albany. All right. So um do you look down upon the city an upstater? Not at all. It just scares the heck out of me. I haven't heard that.
00:09:21
Speaker
I have no desire to be anywhere near all that traffic and all those people. It's just not my thing. My wife grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and they used to every Christmas they would take the train into the city and do tea and go to FAO Schwartz and go ice skating and do all the touristy things. So she has very fond memories.
00:09:39
Speaker
And I go, i mean, cities that large, man, they're just oppressive. They make me super nervous. So she wants to, take she wants to take my daughter with her to go to the city at Christmas and do I'm like, go for it, baby girl. Take care.
00:09:54
Speaker
I'll be down here in North Carolina. That's some bravery right there. house city girl I did that once with my daughter when she was five and that was good. I don't ever have to do it again. Um, so tell me a little bit about your business.
00:10:05
Speaker
um My business is actually our business. My daughter and I are in our fifth year. We bought a very well-established shop from two gentlemen who were partners for almost 40 years. Wow. um Started out kind of as a joke.
00:10:21
Speaker
ah This is not where I thought I was going to be at this point in my life. Full disclaimer. um My daughter, pretty ambitious young lady, she went to Capital Region BOCES for diesel mechanics against my better judgment because...
00:10:35
Speaker
I was like, excuse me, no, you're a young lady. You're not going into that program. um She corrected me and she did very, very well and enjoyed it so much that she actually went to college, Northwestern University of Ohio for diesel mechanics as well.
00:10:50
Speaker
Graduated there with two degrees, came back. ah home went into the workforce here or there in Albany for a little while. And these two gentlemen had approached us kind of as a joke and said, hey, we're getting ready to retire.
00:11:02
Speaker
You guys interested? And we were like, absolutely not. We're not going down that path. My son, Evan, who was working for them at the time, he was 15, too young to be a mechanic, so to speak, but was sweeping the floor, working in the shop, just trying to get some experience.
00:11:16
Speaker
And they were kind of relentless. They were like, no, we really think you and your sister should buy this place. You should take it over. um So a couple years later... They made her a great opportunity, a greater great deal, offered her a great deal. And she looked at my husband and I and was like, what do you think? And we're like, well, you you choose. If you want to do this, you have my support 110%.
00:11:36
Speaker
um I had a normal day job. My husband has a normal day job. And part of the deal was the previous owners, one of them wanted to stay on. He wasn't quite ready to retire. So he gave her two years of his undivided attention.
00:11:48
Speaker
which was fantastic, not only for the customers, but for the business and for her. So we did, I did all of the book work and the accounting and the marketing and everything behind the scenes. She was customer facing, learning how to run a shop at the age of 21. Wow, that's awesome.
00:12:03
Speaker
It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. My son decided he didn't want to work for his sister. So he, um and I don't blame him, right? yeah So he went away to college for auto mechanics. He's a very skilled mechanic, but didn't want to work for her, wanted to go down ah his own path.
00:12:18
Speaker
started college, did very well, but then COVID hit and COVID, he's, he's a great mechanic. He's not a great student. Um, so he decided COVID wasn't for him going through that whole college thing, trying to fix a car on the computer screen in your door room just wasn't going to work for him. So he came home started his own business, uh, that we also help him with.
00:12:38
Speaker
So now we have actually two businesses right across the street from each other. Um, one that does automotive repair, Evan shop does detailing, ceramic coating and crown rust protection. So, Right across the street, about 500 feet away from each other. And both of them are full steam ahead.
00:12:52
Speaker
It's kind of cool. That's awesome. It's very cool. to If I had known that story, I would have drug her down here with us too. and And had you both down here. That's such a cool story. That's very cool. I don't know that I've ever met a mother-daughter that bought a pre-existing auto repair shop.
00:13:07
Speaker
that's I think that's a pretty unique story. We hear that a lot. It's pretty cool. and it's Again, it's not where I thought I was going to be at this point in my life, but i now that I'm here, I can't imagine being anyplace else helping them get themselves started, which is pretty And you guys are elite clients, is that right? We are.
00:13:25
Speaker
We are elite clients and we love them. We've been with them just under a year. okay switched from a previous so coaching company, just wasn't working for us. This switch has been amazing.
00:13:39
Speaker
Robert is our coach. He has been, and it's really cool because again, it's not for me, it's kind of for Victoria. So ah if I were to decide tomorrow that I was going to step away,
00:13:50
Speaker
Robert's got her. and mean hill He'll continue to walk her through this journey. And it's it's pretty interesting. And um it's been life altering, really, to be a part of a coaching group. um And to be here at events like this, where all of these people in the same room doing the same kind of chaos.
00:14:05
Speaker
It's pretty I think just the foresight that early on too, right? You're in your fifth year. Yeah. You're with the lead at another coaching company prior, but the foresight of looking up and understanding that you need help and a coach came from a different industry, right? And youre like you said, your daughter helped start a business at age 21.
00:14:25
Speaker
that That takes something. That takes some some self-reflection, but also just awareness, quite honestly. um I know people that have been doing it for years, and that's just that they know all, right? That's just all they've ever done. They've never thought about outside help. They've never thought about what can you know what's so-and-so doing down the street. It's all about, well, I go in, go to work, head down, go home for the weekend, come back Monday morning, do it again.
00:14:49
Speaker
um So that's commendable. Thank you. it's It's pretty cool. And it's nice to be able to um have the foresight to help them plan and look forward to their future because they're so young. Like they have their whole their whole careers ahead of them.
00:15:04
Speaker
It's pretty cool. and they're And they're getting a really strong foundation to be able to build on that and to keep it going. Awesome story.
Growth and Staffing at Carl's Advanced Automotive
00:15:11
Speaker
um How big is your shop? We have eight bays.
00:15:14
Speaker
um We currently have three full-time techs looking to add a fourth to our, as soon as our March, April, spring gets a little bit busier for us. um Very happy to report we just hired our first real service advisor last week, actually. um Because again, we're just growing so much.
00:15:30
Speaker
And there's so much as owners that you need to do and step away from. um And you can't do that when you're working the counter all day, working with customers, and which is great. I love it. But... Well, what's the cliche? You need to work on your business and not in your business. Exactly. Yep. Exactly. And we're getting Nine, 10, 11 o'clock at night after a 14 hour day. It's just not the same. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
00:15:53
Speaker
Well, cool. Um, Sir. Yes.
John Phelps on TechMetric's Innovations
00:15:57
Speaker
Mr. Techmetric.
00:16:00
Speaker
Tell me a little bit. ah John Phelps of from Techmetric. Your title is Vice President. Oh, no, no. I wouldn't give myself that title. No, I'm the Director of Channel Partnerships. Okay. um Been with Techmetric for just under four years now. Okay. ah Started out without a title.
00:16:16
Speaker
I worked in business development and um but we'll we'll figure it out when we get there kind of thing. So, that That developed into working with our corporate partnerships, our strategic partnerships that we have across the industry from parts companies, fluid companies, coaching companies, associations, and so on. And so, yeah, it's been very cool to be able to go around and, number one, see the company grow.
00:16:38
Speaker
Hey, everybody. I want to take a minute to tell you about the coaching organization I've been involved with for, gosh, over 20 years now. Elite. Elite worldwide, they don't give you a one size fits all solution. They tailor the coaching specifically to you and your shop.
00:16:56
Speaker
They pair you with an experienced coach who is either a current or a former shop owner, and they turn strategies into actual action and accountability and results. Whether it's improving your service advisor's sales, growing your shop, growing to multiple locations, they really have you covered.
00:17:12
Speaker
Clients of Elite really see results. Higher profits, stronger teams, a better work-life balance. If you're ready to take the next step, visit EliteWorldwide.com to schedule your discovery session. That's EliteWorldwide.com to start working on your business rather than in it.
00:17:28
Speaker
Tell them that you heard about them on Confessions of a Shop Owner so that I get a pat on the back or maybe a box of chocolates or something. That would be awesome. Thanks. from where we were twenty twenty one and in prior to that, I actually had known of TechMetric a few years prior due to some connections that I had. And then ah just seeing what we've been able to grow to and we're nowhere near done. We have some pretty ambitious goals for this year and beyond. But um yes, it's ah it's been very, very awesome to see just the internal growth with personnel count, but also just shop count, customers of ours and features, whatever whatever the case is
00:18:06
Speaker
You guys just had your big kind of tech metric kickoff for the year last week, right? Last week. Yeah, absolutely. We're based in Houston. So I was born and raised there. So don't live there now, but it was kind of a nice little going home, but had, we did one last year and that was the first one we had done. And I think we had 130 ish people of 140 that we employees that were down there. And then this year,
00:18:30
Speaker
um We had an acquisition late in 2024. So now we have well over 200 people. I want to say there was roughly 210 there last week. So I will commend those who put on such an event to things to go off without a hitch and from hotels and flights to meals and and water breaks for that matter. yeah Pretty awesome.
00:18:51
Speaker
Awesome. so And I think I saw online that y'all just introduced a new CEO. Is that right? and Not CEO, but COO. So our our founder and CEO, Sunil Patel, he ah was a shop owner himself that quite honestly wanted a better way for the industry to run, not just to flood the market with another software, but truly introduce a technology shift, right? Bring the automotive industry into...
00:19:13
Speaker
into the 21st century when a lot of it, quite frankly, operates in the 1980s, it seems like. um That being said, you know we we have seen some growth. And you know last week, in fact, her her first couple days were at this kickoff. We introduced a president and COO.
00:19:29
Speaker
So very much growing and in that way as well. it was When I started, it it was very much like one degree of separation between everybody in the company. Somebody knew somebody, and that's how we heard of this company in the first place. And now it's Looking around that room and we lined the room. That was one of the coolest things is we have this massive hotel conference room and all the employees lined the room in order of hire date.
00:19:50
Speaker
So you had to find out, okay, I know I started around that person and this person and okay, I'm here. No, I'm just before you, just after you. And it took up this entire conference room, the entire almost almost every inch of the walls.
00:20:02
Speaker
And seeing where everybody started from the earlier days now all the way to all the way to people that had literally started last week and it was their first to their second or third day with the company.
00:20:13
Speaker
It's a pretty cool sight to see. That's awesome. So um the acquisition that you talked about in 24, is that ShopGene? It is, yeah. So you know part of the... mission that we've had within TechMetric is consolidation and quite honestly that's what a lot of shop owners choose to switch over TechMetric in the first place one of the reasons that they say yes is to reduce the amount of systems that they that they use on a daily basis and goes all the way back to our backstory with Sunil in the shop he had eight different pieces of technology you know again I'll throw that in air quotes pieces of technology and 2010 is very different than what it is in 2025
00:20:49
Speaker
from digital cameras to ah something to text with, whether it be a BlackBerry, um fax machine, ah you know just something for email. And so we want to be able to bring as much as we can into to a shop owner.
00:21:03
Speaker
And a big example that i always use have used a lot lately, at least, is DVI, digital vehicle inspection. We have integrations with DVI companies, but we also have our own.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah. Right. We know that shop owners want the power to choose what works best for their business. And so having our own proprietary system doesn't mean that that's all that they're ever going to want to use. So we have integrations with things like that.
00:21:27
Speaker
um And when it comes to the acquisition of Shop Genie, it was another one of those that just a little bit further, another step towards that consolidation piece. What other boxes can we check for our customers, for our shop owners, um,
00:21:39
Speaker
Does that mean we eliminated the other ones? No, of course not. Shop owners still have the other options to choose from when it comes to CRM, but it allowed us ah the ability to just bring one more thing in-house and streamline that process, that workflow, and marry two systems together that are both on a pretty steep growth trajectory.
00:22:00
Speaker
um ShopGenie had been around for little over a year and a half ah with customers, and TechMetric really, I guess our first paying customers, it was 2018, 2019. um So still fairly young in the grand scheme of things, but with the path that we've both been on, it was it was good timing to ah to bring them together.
00:22:20
Speaker
So I'll tell you that you know I've been a TechMetric user recently, six years at this point. um But the continued development of integrations has been really, really helpful for me. yeah I was just chicken scratching down here the number of vendor consolidations that I've taken care of recently.
00:22:41
Speaker
When ShopGene emerged, I was like, okay, it's time. Because I had another CRM that was good. And I had an online booking platform that was good. And I had a call tracking system that was good.
00:22:52
Speaker
i had a DVI that was good. i didn't have any problems with any of these, but they were all a separate bill and a separate login and a separate browser that had to be up. And now it's one. Right. And that is pretty hard to beat.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and it's one of those things to where, to your point, I've talked about it for, honestly, almost four years now. Anytime I do a presentation is, you know, where's your DVI, your texting, your payment processing?
00:23:21
Speaker
And all of that is is in one. And to your point of, you know, new updates and releases, on average, we're north of three a month. And, not you know, not they're not intended to be just, oh, we fixed this bug and we changed the color of this. And no, actual...
00:23:35
Speaker
new solutions introduced, right? New ways to care for your business. And one of the things that always struck me, because my my background is automotive. I came from the automotive industry. So I looked at this with that lens, right? I'm not a software developer by any stretch. I would break it faster than I could fix anything. But just like as a technician, I don't fix them, but worked in and around cars my entire career.
00:23:56
Speaker
And, you know, Having a solution, a new way to take care of something. It's not about the feature. It's about the benefit that it provides. that That's where... That rubber meets the road, right? That's where it makes impact. Otherwise, all right, cool feature, but what does it do for me, right? What does it actually help solve in my shop?
00:24:15
Speaker
Or if the other side of that is is shop owners like Katie and her family in that, well, we don't know all, right? we I like to say a lot of times that we're not a software company that just thought cars were cool, and that's the space that we want to be in.
00:24:30
Speaker
started off from the car side and and knew that there was a gap of something that needed to be fixed. And the same token, I don't develop. We have a lot of people that don't develop and we have developers and engineers that, well, they didn't come from the automotive industry.
00:24:43
Speaker
So where do we get our ideas? It's from our community. It's from our shop owners, from our users. Now, everybody's got ideas. Some ideas are a little more impactful than others. I guess that's how I'll phrase it. But leveraging that community and understanding what is going to be the most impactful across our user base, as well as future users, that's that's what's allowed us to really hone in on these features.
00:25:07
Speaker
And at the same time, have a little innovative foresight to say, nobody's thought of this yet either. So maybe we can develop something like our smart jobs that nobody's asking for.
00:25:18
Speaker
In fact, if you go back to a quote from Henry Ford, it says, if I'd given everybody what they wanted, I'd have given them a faster horse. So sometimes it takes that foresight to say nobody's asking for it, but we see a need here.
00:25:30
Speaker
Let's work on this need. And that'll allow us to not just get ahead, but but stay ahead. And that's been a driving factor for a lot of the development we have.
Community Feedback's Role in TechMetric
00:25:40
Speaker
Well, i I love the feature request board and it's kind of a merit based request board, right? You can vote for it or or not, right?
00:25:48
Speaker
um And it's not always guaranteed that that's the next feature that gets worked on, obviously, because there's other considerations at play. but And the TechMetric user group too. um If I have a question with TechMetric, I can just go search that question in that user group. Somebody has asked that question and the answer is there.
00:26:05
Speaker
So that's pretty helpful too. It's a good chance somebody's asked that question three or four times because not everybody searches it like that. But yeah we appreciate when you do because you're right. There's there's a question and we all heard it in school, right? If somebody has the question, somebody else probably has that question.
00:26:18
Speaker
I agree. I think that is one of the most helpful tools. I mean, even if you're just reading through and scrolling for the day, you you come across that group and somebody's asked the question. You're like, oh, thank God he asked that because I was wondering the same thing. And then there's got all these answers and all these feedback. I think that's amazing.
00:26:32
Speaker
I love that. For sure. Um, so one of the things that we do in this, uh, podcast is typically I'm talking to shop owners, um, and say, you know, what is something that you screwed up in the last year and how did you fix it And what are you doing differently to keep that mistake
Mismanagement Issues in Auto Shops
00:26:49
Speaker
from happening?
00:26:49
Speaker
And I'm going to ask you that in a second. So be thinking, okay, ill um that's a long list, but you get exposed to shops all over the country and businesses all over the country, and independents like ourselves and chain stores. Sure.
00:27:01
Speaker
Um, And I'm curious what you see that you feel like is the ah some of the most common mismanagements or or mistakes that you see happening.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yeah, well, I do have a thought that came to mind first, so I'll go with the gut instinct. Now, I've got the ability or the privilege of doing a breakout session later today, so maybe this is why it's front of mind for me um because it's something I might have ah might be touching on. But to me, what I see is – and this is regardless of industry, quite frankly, but see it a lot in in smaller shops – is – Process is developed to make it easier on the shop, not necessarily easier on their customer.
00:27:43
Speaker
And if that's the case, what's that experience actually going to be like? And that's, you know, we can be guilty of it too, but that's why we have something like the feature request.
00:27:55
Speaker
Right. If we we were a startup, you know, a typical software startup when I started, I think I was the 30th person in the company. And as we grew in the last four years to over 200 people,
00:28:06
Speaker
The process that that we had in place in 2020, 2021 don't work. And you know scalability is a nice business term that we can throw at it. But those don't scale ah to the size that we are today. So we have to rethink and reorganize our processes. And saying, well, that's the way we've always done it, that may be the first sign of your demise if if that's the case, so that's the attitude that you take. So to me – I try to think all the way through to the end user.
00:28:31
Speaker
And to me, our end user is the customer, right? Our customers are the shops, the beneficiary of our software. Yes, it's the day to day user from an advisor to a technician to an owner, whoever interacts with it. But it's also the customer, the driver, the motorist, whichever term we want to throw at them, because it's the interaction that they get with that shop via text.
00:28:52
Speaker
Buy now, pay later. Digital vehicle inspections. I didn't know you could send me pictures of my car. That's that point of separation that they didn't know it was out there for automotive, right? We've heard examples throughout this week about, you know, being able to book something online via open table, book a reservation for dinner without even thinking about it. It takes that long to do.
00:29:14
Speaker
Um, but yet there's a technology gaps in in a lot of the auto shops that we have because that's way we've always done it. and And it's easier on my techs. It's easier on my advisors. And to me, you're not seeing the forest through the trees.
00:29:28
Speaker
If you're not thinking through to your end customer, you're developing processes on what is easier for the the three people that work there, not the 120 people that come in every month. That's the shortfall, I guess. yeah Well, that's ego, right? that's There's so many... And my world is is very insular. like i I operate with small independents and that's my social circle and that's my trade group. you know There's a couple of dudes that are 10 plus locations, but for the most part, we're three and four locations down to one.
00:29:57
Speaker
Right. And we all know in our heart of hearts that we're the best at what we do and we're the best in town. And if a customer doesn't ah respond positively to maybe my mediocre level of service, then they're not my target customer and they can get the hell out because they don't deserve me.
00:30:18
Speaker
There's some of that ego that yeah that you see floating around out there. um I did an episode and and there are some dudes who pull it off very effectively. yeah Usually they're a very high level specialist in a market that doesn't have a lot of competition.
00:30:33
Speaker
So we we easily the most entertaining episode that we've recorded so far was with a dude in South Arkansas who has a medium duty diesel truck shop in He's a spectacular business, very profitable, very busy.
00:30:51
Speaker
His revenue per employee is um unlike anything I've ever seen in the automotive space. And he is a savage to people that want to come into a shop. I mean, it's almost like eating at Dick's Last Resort at Myrtle Beach. Like you pay extra to go get abused by the waiter. Get a roll thrown at you. Yeah.
00:31:10
Speaker
But his clients eat it up and they pay his price and and it works for him. But I don't think that we should listen to that and think that my general repair shop specializing in Asian and domestic vehicles and medium metro area is going to respond well to that because they're not.
00:31:29
Speaker
you know That's going to get me running out of town on a rail. So, yeah, not when there's two others down the street or, you know, within close enough proximity that they've always got a choice.
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah. Right. This dude's got people coming from States away to work. I mean, don't get me wrong. yeah different There are people out there that can get away with saying the same words as other people that that person can't. Right. Yeah. Somebody says something, it goes over poorly.
00:31:52
Speaker
That next person says it. And for whatever reason, ah, that's just his personality. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what are you to Hmm. It's your turn. Step into the confessional. Tell me.
00:32:04
Speaker
Things that we may did wrong? Something that one side would have. See, had it easy. I got to be tertiary. I i got to project, right, for me. we We did. i mean, we... um I guess the the easiest answer to that is we have made the mistake of being comfortable in the past, um assuming that everything that you see is what you get.
00:32:26
Speaker
um In May of last year, we had um a technician who I thought was going to be with us until he retired. change his mind. And I put a lot of faith and I put a lot of, um, here, help us grow this. Like we gave him a lot of opportunities to be a part of our team and thought he was going to be there for a while.
00:32:45
Speaker
And I guess I was too naive. I was the mistake. Um, And it's ah it's a mistake that we've learned a lot from. i mean, it was almost catastrophic to the point where when we went to the Eagles in May of last year, we were like, um what are we going back to?
00:33:03
Speaker
Because things started to fall apart. But we learned a tremendous amount from that um incident. And our team that we have built and put in place since then is amazing. And it's been amazing.
00:33:16
Speaker
It's given us a little second wind, I guess, so to speak.
Staffing Changes and Employee Happiness
00:33:19
Speaker
And we re truly ah focus a lot more on building our employees, making sure that they're happy, making sure that they're using their words.
00:33:28
Speaker
And we check in with them all of the time. And I guess we've also learned that in different roles requires a different type of a person. um Never once did we want to hire a service advisor to come in and help us, but we have to. We have to let go of what we think is the best thing.
00:33:45
Speaker
think out not ah That's not outside the box to hire a service advisor, but for us in our situation it was. And and she we we hired the right one, I believe. She's only been with us for a couple of days, and in those couple of days that we've had the right person and the right job,
00:34:01
Speaker
I'm here. I was about to say, I like that day three, four, five, whatever. Y'all are half a country away. and And we're here. And like not even concerned and can't wait to go back on Monday to pick up where we left off because we hired the right person for the right job. The shop is open and running while you're gone.
00:34:17
Speaker
Well, we actually have a four-day work week. So we were actually closed Friday and we are one of those. um Makes no sense to me, but man, it's nice. Yeah, it's super nice. but Something the previous owners did. I'm going challenge you here. yeah okay Okay. Is a four-day work schedule nice for you or is it nice for your customers?
00:34:36
Speaker
It is nice for everybody, believe it or not. are The employees, it's an incredible employee benefit. um It is nice for us. Don't get me wrong. I'm still working seven days a week.
00:34:47
Speaker
um But we're not customer facing on that Friday. But we're in the office. We're answering phones, doing paperwork, doing everything that we need to do. Yeah. And the customers, believe it or not, they really roll with it very well.
00:35:00
Speaker
um Once in a while, we'll have a new customer who will be like, I called you on Friday and you weren't here. well we well But then when you tell them, well, we just worked for 12-hour days, they're like, oh, I'm sorry.
00:35:11
Speaker
I won't do that again. um So, no, I think there's a little bit of a learning curve. It's educating our customers, telling them what that expectation is, and everybody's fine with it. And it's it's well worth and those one or two people who...
00:35:24
Speaker
Neither tires stopped off on Friday who stopped by and we're not there for the benefits for the employees
Shop Work Schedules: Benefits and Challenges
00:35:29
Speaker
and for us. It's great. So I'm, I am a, uh, online, I'm a big time pot stirrer.
00:35:35
Speaker
I like to, uh, just kind of throw the conversational grenade into the room and step back and watch the havoc happen. um and so I recently opened for Saturdays. Uh, so we went from a five day shop to six day week, uh, week starting this month.
00:35:49
Speaker
Um, um, The other transition that we did is our staff works a four day work week. Our shop is open six days a week for customers. It's four day work week for staff. So I'm trying to capture the best of both worlds with that methodology. We'll see how it works. Right. I'm only a month in.
00:36:04
Speaker
But a lot of my friends are four day week shop owners and they all brag about how their business didn't go down when they closed on Fridays.
00:36:16
Speaker
They just got more efficient. And they got the same amount of work done in four days. And my response to that was, great. Now that you've found your inefficiencies and fixed them, open back up on Friday and your business goes up 25%.
00:36:31
Speaker
But they you know what? I'm i'm a money motivated guy. like i want to build something big. I want to create generational wealth. And I want to have a lot of locations. Those are kind of parts of my goal set.
00:36:45
Speaker
um Most of my friends who have four-day shops, they ah have a very profitable business and they don't have the desire to have five, six, seven stores. They want one really good store where they take really good care of their customers and really good care of their people.
00:37:01
Speaker
And they're happy with their business. with their level of lifestyle. Um, that's the difference. Yeah. So that's the difference. If they're happy and it works for them, that's great. If, if you want more, that's awesome.
00:37:14
Speaker
I'm just, kidding I'm just a greedy, evil shop owner. I'll go back to what you started with, right? Was comfortable. Yeah. Comfortability got comfortable in, um, previous life. And I was on the dealership side of the world, and but I was working for a consulting company and I would travel across the country and from Southern arkasol Arkansas to upstate New York. And um was working with a very large dealership.
00:37:36
Speaker
And I mean, 30 plus technicians in it. Actually, I'm sorry. They had 50 plus technicians because they had 20 something service advisors. um That being said, it was... painful to see how much money was left on the table at that place because of the inefficiencies and their processes. And the the phrase that came to mind while working with this dealership was success gets in the way of progress.
00:38:00
Speaker
And they got to that point where we're profitable. Right. The service director is making money, the service manager, all the service advisors, technicians are making money. And I'm thinking if you've got this much business for 50 plus technicians and 20 something service advisors, yet the inefficiencies here scream that you're only 75 percent of the way there. Let's just say success is getting in the way of progress. And it and it boiled down to that comfortability.
00:38:25
Speaker
and not getting their head up and looking out because but again, they go back to, well, we're, we're good enough and go back a previous lifetime before that, when I was actually in the dealership and the phrase was good enough, never is.
00:38:37
Speaker
good enough is the enemy. I'm great. Exactly. yeah Right. Um, there's been books written about that. And to me it was the good enough never is. If you're doing good enough, you're probably not doing enough. Um, because you're not fulfilling your potential. You're not helping lead those around you, whether it be those that work with you, for you, customers, whatever the case is.
00:38:55
Speaker
And, I don't think any of us are fulfilling our full potential, quite honestly. I mean, there's always something that we could possibly, that we could do. And I'm not saying it's just opening up a fifth day, sixth day, seventh day, because you'll you'll hear that out there too.
00:39:07
Speaker
Well, if you're open five or six, why not seven? Because now you can grow another 18% top of that. And there's shops out there that do that. There's shops that are five days a week. And I was almost going to ask, but you answered it without me asking, was, well, which four days?
00:39:20
Speaker
Because it could be Friday to Monday. Yeah. Right? Sure. In that case. It's whole other market. It's a whole other market. Yep. In which case, now you have two different shops that are working Four different day sets or whatever the case is, it seems like. But um I don't know of a shop that's running those four days. I'd be curious if they were and what that was. That's a whole different work schedule. That's a whole different workflow. That's a whole different...
00:39:46
Speaker
Customers, I mean, that's, yeah. It's possibly a whole different type of customer that's coming in in terms of just the oil changes, the quick ones, right? They're not thinking of the full repair on a Saturday, which is why a lot of shops that I've known of, I mean, Saturdays are oil changes, tire rotations, and state inspections, and that doesn't make us any money. Saturdays are bad for business if your sales team sucks.
00:40:05
Speaker
If you've got a good sales team, it's a whole other segment of your community that needs that seeks service on Saturdays. Well, think about it. I mean, what stores go up in their average ticket price on the weekends? Every other retail store, right? It doesn't matter if it's grocery stores, your hardware stores.
00:40:21
Speaker
all That's still a service industry. It's retail service, but still it's a service industry to where their sales tend to go up on those weekends. Yet in the auto industry, we tend to think that that we think that it's going to go down.
00:40:33
Speaker
And if, to your point, if your sales staff isn't proficient, I, again, personally back in the dealership side of things is, ah well, we only do oil changes. No, we don't.
00:40:45
Speaker
Well, they got to check in July. We can't do that on a Saturday. We absolutely can. We just said we weren't going to. Choose not to. We just choose not to. we were already open. So why limit ourselves to just doing oil changes? Let's go ahead and do the diagnostic work. And if it's going to take over the weekend, great.
00:40:58
Speaker
If not, well, we can get it done and get that customer taken care of. Exceptional customer service and more profitability because the oil change lot of times is still seen as a loss leader.
00:41:10
Speaker
So we're recording this on a Saturday. We are. I just pulled up TechMetric on my phone because I can do that. TechMetric. This is our fourth Saturday. We didn't do any major advertising pushes. We did Facebook push with an oil change special.
00:41:28
Speaker
um that, you know, put a hundred dollars behind it on boosting. And so that was the extent of our Saturday marketing for this. We got 17 appointments today. Holy. What does that compare to on a Monday to or Friday or whatever? well So our target is 18 to 20 cars a day.
00:41:44
Speaker
um And we got 17 appointments and that doesn't count the walk-ins. I was going to say, what's your ratio? Because it can be one-to-one. So that this will be a 22 or 23 car Okay. At that rate. Because we're not on a drive-by, major drive-by traffic. We're on dead-end road and that kind of thing. So ah you don't happen into our shop by accident.
00:42:02
Speaker
You come looking for us or you're lost. So did you hire additional employees to pick up these Saturdays or did your current employees agree to... So ah take one for we opened up on Saturdays at the same time that we went to a four-day work week.
00:42:14
Speaker
um and so none of And the compensation plan is team-based compensation over the over the total store's production. So they're getting paid for the production of six days while they're only working four days.
00:42:26
Speaker
So they're all... For the most part, unless they're lying to me, which I guess is possible. But they all got a raise and they're working one day less. So they're pretty happy. would think they would be. And if you keep the same percentage, right? Their percentage didn't change. There's just now more potential on an extra day. So for you.
00:42:45
Speaker
And we have a group chat with all the sales team. And every time somebody hits a good ticket, right? They put it on there. And so the fun part is these guys that are out at the lake fishing or they're at the beach, every time that chat goes ding, ding, ding, they just got paid. They're at lunch and they order that extra beer because, yeah, we just got paid again. And so that's, I, I feel like that's helping to develop a culture of teamwork and this is awesome and we're helping our customers and I'm still getting taken care of appropriately. We'll see.
00:43:13
Speaker
I'm a month in. So, uh, have you always had that team pay plan in place? I switched to a team-based pay plan at the beginning of 24 with the intent to work into the direction that we're going.
00:43:26
Speaker
um yeah I've been going to Houston and sitting in on the Adams Automotive program and learning about their concept. And... Like love them or hate them. That concept works.
00:43:37
Speaker
Um, and I'm not willing to do all of the things that they propose. I'm not, I'm not willing to work seven days a week. So therefore I'm not going to be open seven days a week. I'm willing to work six days a week just to set by example.
00:43:50
Speaker
Um, you know, and even if it's days where I'm not working the full day, I'm at the seven 15 meeting every morning, six days a week, because I expect them to be there. They're four days. Right. Um, so you know, 363 days a ah year being open for the public. That is really good service for the public.
00:44:09
Speaker
I can't, I can't get myself there yet, but I can be open 300 days a year. So that's right. Well, good for you. Good luck. I hope that works. so That's, that's, it's a lot. Well, let's just look at it. We have, uh, we have matched last January today.
00:44:25
Speaker
So, You have a week to go. Yeah. I think the timing of a four-day work week with open six days a week, did you have to hire more personnel? Yes. Okay. So you did?
00:44:37
Speaker
The way it's formatted is there are three teams, and on any given day, two teams are working and one team is off. And each team is equivalent to 50% of our staff. So we're fully staffed every day.
00:44:49
Speaker
That means I had to hire 50% more people. So my payroll and October, and November, December, as we were staffing up for this changeover, was astronomical. So definitely was given up.
00:45:01
Speaker
some money in order to be able to be staffed right so that we could hit the switch on January 2. So I think though, that's, you know, talking about her foresight with it, with coaching companies to me, that's, that's the same thing.
00:45:14
Speaker
And you know, the two words come to mind is investment versus expense. Coming from the shop management side, people see us as an expense and, you know, not to be sales pitchy, but I asked him, I said, the one tool that touches every car in your shop is a shop management system.
00:45:28
Speaker
It's not the 10 millimeter wrench. It's not the balancer. It's not the alignment machine. It's not even that same technician. The one tool is a shop management system, but people view it as an expense instead. Something like staffing up and payroll, that's an investment, right? Because there's going to be a return on said investment. Those two things inherently have different definitions.
00:45:46
Speaker
Expense goes away. You never see it again. An investment, you expect a return on it or else you wouldn't invest. It's just an expenditure. So having that foresight, and unfortunately, a lot of times you just don't see that, right? You don't see people willing to make an investment, um short-term loss for long-term term gain, ah stepping over dollars, pick up dimes, whatever, whatever.
00:46:06
Speaker
Old cliche saying you want to say? Patience. A lot of us lack patience. Yeah. I am absolutely. ahs Were you here Thursday? I was not, no. Okay. So ah we did a half day on Thursday. It was just pro service members. so um But we had an hour and a half Thursday.
00:46:25
Speaker
procrastination and, um, time management and, uh, decision fatigue. and man, it's like I was in church and I was feeling convicted by the Lord, right?
00:46:37
Speaker
We did a quiz on, um, It was like one of those quizzes you get out of a magazine, right? You know, grade yourself one to five on these 10 things and add up your score. And that's, I won the procrastination quiz. There you Yeah. 45 out of possible 50. Did you get a trophy are they going to give it to you next week? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go pick it up next week. So, um, so, um,
00:47:02
Speaker
I have some shiny object syndrome. I have some failure to follow through sometimes. ah I'll get all fired up. My co-host who joins me one on my online classes or when he's able to travel as is Brian Pollack.
00:47:16
Speaker
And he says that at the shop he used to be at before he got to where he is now, um they used to call it Black Monday. It was when the boss got back from a conference because he'd always come in fired up about all these things he was going to change do differently.
00:47:29
Speaker
And then within two weeks, they were back to normal. Right. But it was always a disaster for those first two weeks because he would always be fired up and and come in and change everything and then have no follow through. And it would it would revert back to the old ways.
00:47:42
Speaker
So I've certainly done that. Go back to New Year's resolutions, right? Yeah. You know, it's it's always New Year, New Me. And then what is it by the second Friday of the new year? It's quitting Friday. there there That's what it was. I couldn't think of it. But that's kind of the same thing. I used to ask that question all the time. Here we are, January 25th. Whose New Year's resolution is still intact?
00:48:01
Speaker
Right now, 100% believe in having a goal for the year. I have a few of mine. Darren talked this morning about goal a couple of years ago was to read 52 books in a year, one book a week, and he got to 54. I'm not that ambitious with the book side of things. Do comic books count?
00:48:17
Speaker
Anything with pictures, right? yeah the the online article. um i you know Having the goals for the year and in setting a plan of action, you know i want to lose weight this year. Well, what does that actually mean if we don't if we don't define it?
00:48:30
Speaker
Yeah. Right. If we don't have a plan to get there. So absolutely believe in having those goals for the beginning of the year. But that's it's kind of funny because I see that as well. And there's a lot of energy even from my side. If I'm, you know, just sitting in on some of these sessions, there's a lot that we can take back.
00:48:46
Speaker
We had our kickoff last week, as you already mentioned. There's a there's a lot of energy leaving those and and maintaining that is is critical. So I think accountability is also critical, right? You get those goals laid out and you need to communicate those goals to someone and you need to give them the power to hold you accountable to those goals.
Setting and Achieving Business Goals
00:49:05
Speaker
And so that's something that I'm, I'm doing now. I've been in the 20 group my whole career because my dad was in the 20 group when I came back to the family business in 2001. So as a, you know, 21 year old kid, I was going to pro service meetings.
00:49:19
Speaker
Um, I've always had that. So I've always had that peer group. um But we became friends and we became casual and became used to each other's excuses for the weak spots in our business.
00:49:32
Speaker
And we forgave them and didn't hold each other accountable at that point. It was the experience that I had ah to a degree. I've just started with Matt Lofton, director of coaching for Elite, in a one-on-one coaching um experience that we're recording and publishing.
00:49:47
Speaker
So one of my shops were just doing total open books, numbers, everything. And so people can see what it's like to have one one on one coach. And we recorded yesterday and he was like, no, no, no. got to do these four things. And when next we talk, you're going to tell me how you've done those four things or we're not going to talk.
00:50:08
Speaker
Cause you, we don't get to go to the next step until you do those things. Like, damn it. Damn it. You know, having that accountability partner, I used to have people, I would just tell them what I plan to do the next day and then say, Hey, ask me on Monday if I did it.
00:50:22
Speaker
Just knowing that somebody was going to ask. And I've got a habit when we, uh, when I do go to our headquarters in Houston, right? Staying in a hotel. And a lot of times there's multiple people there and I've got a habit of calling people out if they don't go to the gym.
00:50:34
Speaker
Jim's not for everybody. If they don't want to, that's great. But I do that because I know I'm like, well, I'm not going to be the one that didn't go after I was given them all sorts of – it's it's an accountability piece for myself.
00:50:46
Speaker
And, of course, I get to have fun with them too. yeah nice Absolutely. Robert, our coaches, um we always have had goals. We've always had objectives. But he has forced us this year to write them down. And same thing, holds us accountable for it. Last year, at the beginning of this year, he was like, okay, so let's pull out last year's goals.
00:51:03
Speaker
Let's see what we did. Let's see if we made it. And why, if not, why? And how are you going to fix it? And that's huge. It's huge to have something to focus on and and to work towards. It makes a big difference.
00:51:15
Speaker
So, We got here Thursday night and my buddy Harrison and I, we were walking around kind of checking out the property. And he said, hey, let's go in here and check out the gym, see what it's like. It's the only time I'm going to walk into the gym, so sure. Okay. I'm to go in. So you can catch him at the gym at 6 a.m. at every hotel that we ever go to. And you can catch me at the bar at 6 p.m. at every hotel that we ever go to. Consistency. Consistency. You know what? Can I volunteer to be at both?
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah, very good. i'm I'm good at both. That's fine. I'll show up to either side of that. Well, you know if you do the gym without the bar, things go really well. If you do the bar without the gym, things tend to go poorly, as I can attest. I'm there for balance. Let's do both.
00:51:52
Speaker
Awesome. um All right. So the last thing I want to touch on, and thanks for your time, guys, is i want to talk to everyone about how they're investing in themselves and their team for continued improvement. Obviously, we're here, and that's a big part of continued improvement.
00:52:07
Speaker
Um, but, uh, is there anything else that you're planning on doing or that you and your daughter are planning on doing for your personal development or for training for your team this year? ah We're going to try really hard to work on both.
00:52:19
Speaker
Okay. um It's been five years, right? Neither one of us have successfully taken a vacation in five years. I mean, yeah, you might get ah my daughter. She's funny. She's like, my goal is to go to the dentist for just two hours without having to worry about some sort of chaos that happened. So, I mean, for as far as a personal goal this year, that would be great ah to be able to plan a vacation and to get away and know that,
00:52:44
Speaker
It's okay. um It sounds really silly, but that's a huge thing for us. For our team on the same side, I mean, we continue to invest in programs like Techmetric. Techmetric has been a game changer for our shop.
00:52:56
Speaker
um Super excited to have the Shop Genie option now. And actually, while i we just set up our online booking tool on Wednesday of this week. So I'm like getting my texts and my dings like, hey, somebody made it. And I'm like, yes.
00:53:09
Speaker
um So super excited to be able to do all of those things, which is going to let us lead our team. and Things that I don't have to worry about anymore, we can focus on other things. And focusing on those things are um continuing to make sure our technicians have all the tools and equipment they need to make their jobs better.
00:53:27
Speaker
um We ask a lot of them. and we're responsible for giving them what they need in order to get that done. So we're going to try really hard to continue to focus on that. Victoria would love to start working on a second location.
00:53:41
Speaker
That's part of her, her dream, her goal, which is why one of the, one of the things when we were talking about four day work week is she needs to have time to think about those things and plan those things and focus. So hopefully she's going to work on that a little bit more.
00:53:53
Speaker
Um,
00:53:56
Speaker
I mean, the list is long. We have, you know, we want to work on our ARO. We want to work on our car count. We want to do better marketing. i have i have two or three pages worth of goals and objectives just for the first quarter.
00:54:07
Speaker
i have to learn how to manage my time better in order to do any of those things. Um, because again, it's, we start at 6 30 AM m and we're at the shop till 6 30 PM most days. And it is you from the minute you walk in, you're going just with the customers working with your daily operation stuff.
00:54:24
Speaker
So finding time to work on those other pages, and read the books and take the courses and invest in time and energy like these. It's kind of crazy how hard it is to get away for a couple days, but, um, it's paramount. We have to do it. We have to make the time to do that so that we can continue to get better.
00:54:42
Speaker
Awesome. It's crazy. ah Shameless plug. If you want to come to another training event just down the coast in Raleigh, North Carolina last weekend in September, Automotive Service and Tire Alliance Expo. Okay.
00:54:54
Speaker
It's a ton of fun. I happen to be the president of the organization that hosts that event. um But great networking, great vendor networking with the people at the trade show. And we have over 60 classes stretching from management to sales to marketing to low-level, mid-level, and high-level technical stuff.
00:55:14
Speaker
so of Awesome. Google it. ASTA Expo. All right. um And so, i you know, training is a kind of a different conversation for you. I am curious, though, ah you said you got some big goals. Are you able to share some of those big goals? I've i've divided them up um from personal to professional,
TechMetric's Growth and Market Strategy
00:55:32
Speaker
right? Try to keep some of those things in now on a you know professional side. There's certain things. You know, I've got so got a team of of seven people within TechMetric that roll up to me. I'm responsible for And it actually covers two different roles, two different job descriptions amongst those that team. So,
00:55:49
Speaker
there's There's some metrics and things that we want to hit and some growth opportunity that we have, obviously, within TechMetric. We've been very fortunate with with the path, as I mentioned earlier, and in the growth that we've seen more than At this point, quintupled in my four-year tenure ah in terms of rooftop count. Can you say how many rooftops you have? Or is that hidden?
00:56:09
Speaker
No, it's actually ah a couple of years ago. We we we were a little more guarded with it. But as we sit now, I mean, it's going to be in a slide deck that I have here this afternoon. It's over 9,500 shops. That's amazing. Which, again, four years ago was in that 1,500 to 1,700 range.
00:56:24
Speaker
um Now it's a flex, so you're happy to tell everybody. I guess so, yeah. Yeah. ah It was just one of those business decisions that now we've, ah you know what, it's let's go ahead and we'll share it a little bit, right? It's something to be proud of. It is. And that convinces the next thousand to come on board, really. And that quite honestly, that doesn't include the enterprise clients that we have. Those are the small to medium-sized businesses, the independents, the one to three to five shoppers. What does that represent as far as market share, Dina?
00:56:51
Speaker
It depends on what number of market share you're looking at. You can look at ah a metric that's going to show a quarter of a million. You can look at a metric that shows 150,000. So somewhere in between there, that 200,000 rooftops. So call it 5%.
00:57:02
Speaker
That's awesome. Roughly 5% of the market share. and one I bet half of those are handwritten repair orders. That's the scary part. Honestly, ah here's here's a fun metric in 2025. If you look over the last 365 days, our leading place that shops come from is pen and paper.
00:57:16
Speaker
um It's not technically a shop management system. It's the antithesis of it. Exactly. Right. They have a computer for certain things, but shop management wasn't one of them.
00:57:27
Speaker
So we've got those goals. And, you know, in terms of it, it's harder to maintain the same growth percentage year over year when you have that type of growth in the first place, right? 50% of 10,000 is different than 50% of 2000.
00:57:39
Speaker
So ah there's, there's some, we're trying to have a pretty hefty percentage of of growth on that side. um And then i even my own personal and professional. right I've got my own personal call it personal professional goals and personal personal goals. And a lot of it does boil down to like the book reading side of things.
00:57:56
Speaker
um never always I've never really been a big reader necessarily. um I do partake in some audio books. So do you feel like Audible counts? Well, I hope so. So, ah you know, shameless plug, I actually do narrate some as well.
00:58:09
Speaker
So you've got a great voice. for like yes i agree I have a little stake on the audio, not stake necessarily, but I'll listen to the audio books. In fact, we had a keynote speaker this morning. and I immediately downloaded his book on audible. Uh, I travel a little bit, so it's easier for me to have it in headphones.
00:58:24
Speaker
Um, and then of course I, you know, for just funds after our stuff, I do, I do narrate some and there's some of those on audible as well, but Um, so I want to read a certain number of books. I want to maintain a certain fitness level. I i set myself up to, I want, I want to have 200 days with a workout in, um, call that four days a week on average. And, uh, that's just something I keep a manual log on as, as I go through, uh, with, with guys at work. I want to be Uh, you know, I don't like to micromanage and I don't want to micromanage and I don't want people that need to be micromanaged. With that being said, keeping a certain pulse, keeping a certain cadence of checking in and, and asking the questions of what by when, right? What are we going to do by when, how are we going get there?
00:59:06
Speaker
Um, and just go back to the accountability piece. Well, that's smart goals, right? and Exactly. Specific, measurable, actionable. Yeah. Yeah. Well, great. Thanks so much, guys. It's been fun.
00:59:18
Speaker
I can't wait to talk to you at the bar at 6 p.m. I'll be there. There go. All right. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out, the good, and 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.
00:59:37
Speaker
You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover? Or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike at confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow.
00:59:57
Speaker
Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.
01:00:31
Speaker
Just.