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Episode 8- The one and only Zeb Beard from Strokers Diesel and Automotive
92 Plays4 months ago
Brand new podcast hosted by a Shop owner and a Shop owner/Technician . We got a special guest by the name of Zeb Beard. He owns Strokers Diesel and Automotive and is very well known in the automotive repair world. We had a blast recording with Zeb and get into some hilarious stories. Oh and if you don't own a 16 foot trailer, don't bother giving Zeb any advice! :p
Don't miss this episode!
Sit back and enjoy this one!
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Transcript
Introduction to Zeb and Stroker's Diesel
00:00:01
Aniz Lavji
ah right Welcome everyone to another exciting episode of the Shop and Tread Talk podcast. As usual, we got Frank with us.
00:00:10
Frank Wiebe
Hello.
00:00:10
Aniz Lavji
Today we've got a special guest, Zeb from Stroker's Diesel. Thanks for ah joining us tonight, man. are you doing?
00:00:18
Zeb Beard
I'm doing good. I'm glad to be here. I'm always up to get on a pod, so.
Podcast Experiences and Fun Stories
00:00:22
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, well, I've i've definitely listened to pretty sure all of your podcasts, whether it's on Mike's show, and I believe you've been on Jeff's as well.
00:00:33
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I've been on Jeff's twice, and then I've been on with Josh, limit ah Limitless Leadership.
00:00:37
Aniz Lavji
m Yeah, I've heard them all, man, and they've always been a lot of fun.
00:00:39
Zeb Beard
And I think I've been on another one or two, but I can't remember which ones.
00:00:46
Aniz Lavji
got to say, the one the the last one you were on with Mike, that was a lot of fun. Yeah.
00:00:50
Zeb Beard
Yeah, like that. i'm I'm real comfortable around those guys, which I'm comfortable around Jeff too, but um especially Mike and Brian, we talk – well, me and Brian talk all day every day.
00:01:00
Aniz Lavji
Mike?
00:01:02
Zeb Beard
I mean, we're constantly talking, so.
00:01:03
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. Yeah, i was on the I was on a podcast with him about a month ago on on Mike's, and man, it was a vibe. We had a ton of fun.
00:01:13
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I listen to it.
00:01:14
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, that's the one where we're talking about me trading ah tires for Legos. Yeah.
00:01:20
Zeb Beard
Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:01:21
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, it sounded like it was a really good trade for sure.
00:01:21
Zeb Beard
What?
00:01:24
Aniz Lavji
Hey man, ah you know, $500 Lego set for two used tires. mean, you can't go wrong.
00:01:29
Zeb Beard
Yeah, that's right.
00:01:29
Frank Wiebe
Nope. Hey, you got to do what you got to do. Trade where you can. That's the way the world works.
Business Growth and Diesel Focus
00:01:35
Aniz Lavji
So Zeb, I was doing a little research about you here earlier. So you've been at it for since 2005 and you went from a small shop into something the size of Costco from what I can see.
00:01:49
Zeb Beard
Yeah, that's right. I started in 4,000 feet. actually started smaller than that, but my first real shop of my own was 4,000 feet, and then we added on.
00:01:54
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:01:59
Zeb Beard
We made it 9,000 feet, and then we went to 12,000 feet, and then this time we went to 62,000 square feet. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:06
Aniz Lavji
Only, only since 2000.
00:02:07
Frank Wiebe
Wow.
00:02:07
Aniz Lavji
Yeah,
00:02:09
Frank Wiebe
that's a nice size shop. I seen the shop tour video ah just a few days ago.
00:02:14
Aniz Lavji
that was incredible.
00:02:14
Zeb Beard
ah yeah
00:02:14
Frank Wiebe
And that's that's an incredible shop.
00:02:17
Aniz Lavji
You could have made a little bit bigger, you know, maybe 80, but I mean, that's okay.
00:02:18
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
00:02:20
Zeb Beard
it's It's never big enough. we keep it We keep it full and constantly I'm still having to move something because they got something in the way, you know.
00:02:27
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:02:29
Aniz Lavji
As long as cars are coming in customers are paying and going out, it's all good.
00:02:29
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:02:33
Aniz Lavji
You can always make room outside, right?
00:02:36
Frank Wiebe
Mostly trucks for him, right? you do youre You're mostly a diesel then.
00:02:36
Zeb Beard
That's right.
00:02:39
Zeb Beard
I'm mostly diesel, but I work on a lot of cars and gas burners too.
00:02:42
Frank Wiebe
You do?
00:02:43
Aniz Lavji
Pretty sure saw a Honda or a Toyota or something kicking around in the garage on the video.
00:02:47
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I think we right now we got... We got one Honda in here. it belongs to one of my employees, but we got, think we got a Toyota RAV4 in here maybe. And I've got a Volkswagen Touareg.
00:02:57
Aniz Lavji
right.
00:03:01
Zeb Beard
We had an Audi, some kind of Audi SUV last week. And we work on pretty much anything.
00:03:06
Aniz Lavji
Oh yeah
00:03:08
Zeb Beard
we We don't work on much of the older stuff. We try to stay away from that. But anything anything modern, we we're on it.
00:03:12
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:03:15
Frank Wiebe
I'm the same way. i want I don't want nothing to do with the old stuff. you perform There's a couple of performance guys in my area.
00:03:15
Aniz Lavji
yeah.
00:03:17
Zeb Beard
no.
00:03:20
Frank Wiebe
Anybody want something like that, then I just send it to them. I have no interest in touching that at all.
00:03:25
Zeb Beard
Yeah, we catch them flat for it.
00:03:25
Aniz Lavji
I can't.
00:03:27
Zeb Beard
We've got a couple bad – two of our bad reviews are from people that we just simply told them we don't we don't go back that far, and they got offended, but that's okay.
00:03:35
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, I heard about that.
00:03:35
Zeb Beard
I ain't worried about no bad review.
00:03:35
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, whatever.
00:03:36
Zeb Beard
It ain't going to hurt me.
00:03:38
Frank Wiebe
You can't do everything. that's That's what I've learned in life. You can't do everything and it's okay to say no.
Strategic Decision-Making in Business
00:03:43
Frank Wiebe
And the more you say no, the easier it is to say no. And then you do the work that you can do and you want to do.
00:03:46
Zeb Beard
That's right.
00:03:48
Aniz Lavji
Exactly.
00:03:48
Zeb Beard
I've made a lot of money by saying no. I've made a lot more money by saying no than I have by saying yes.
00:03:51
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
00:03:54
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
00:03:55
Aniz Lavji
<unk>s It's funny because i I hear you, man, because i I used to say yes to everything.
00:03:55
Frank Wiebe
Yep, that's right here.
00:03:59
Aniz Lavji
And, you know, there's some coaches out there, I'm sure you know, we don't have to say any names or anything.
00:04:02
Zeb Beard
Oh, yeah.
00:04:05
Aniz Lavji
But, you know, they basically, when when you call, somebody calls, whatever it is, just say yes, bring it in. Yes, say yes, bring it in. but I don't, I need the work, but I don't need the work to the point where I'm going to be stressed about it and talking about it you know, in the evening after work, you know I don't need that.
00:04:25
Aniz Lavji
I don't need those troubled customers, man. If i if I feel like there's a little bit of trouble within first five seconds of talking to the guy, I'm done.
00:04:32
Zeb Beard
I'm telling you that spidey sense means a lot.
00:04:36
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:04:36
Zeb Beard
those spidey senses start tangling when you're talking to that customer the first time, go on and listen to them. I'm gonna tell you, I've been doing this i've been doing this more than 30 years.
00:04:42
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:04:46
Zeb Beard
I cannot remember a single instance where after I turned the job away that I thought about it and said, man, I wish I had took that job. But there's a million instances where I took a job and then regretted it.
00:05:00
Frank Wiebe
And instant regret. Yep.
00:05:01
Zeb Beard
yep
00:05:01
Frank Wiebe
100%.
00:05:02
Zeb Beard
So that's that's the way I look at it.
00:05:02
Frank Wiebe
Always.
00:05:04
Aniz Lavji
you know, the beauty is if you don't take a job, there's going to be another job.
00:05:04
Frank Wiebe
always
00:05:09
Aniz Lavji
So it's okay. You know, you're going to make that money up.
00:05:13
Zeb Beard
Well, that's kind of that's kind of one of the one of the black ops I use on my competition around here. So the stuff that I don't want to work on or I see that's a problem, I send it straight to the competition because if they're busy working on that, they might be too busy to work on something I do.
00:05:29
Aniz Lavji
There you
00:05:29
Frank Wiebe
Yeah,
Differences Between Truck and Car Services
00:05:30
Aniz Lavji
go.
00:05:30
Frank Wiebe
exactly. keep Keep the bread for yourself and give them the crumbs.
00:05:32
Zeb Beard
Yeah, that's right.
00:05:34
Frank Wiebe
I hear you.
00:05:36
Aniz Lavji
We don't, in my shop, we don't do a whole lot of trucks. I think in a year, we may get three, and that's going to be for, you know, brakes, suspension, and tires.
00:05:49
Aniz Lavji
You know, we'll get the odd F-150 here and there, but my my stuff's mostly regular passenger cars, like the Corollas Hondas and Dodge Caravans, just the regular stuff. But I know Frank dabbles in quite a few trucks. I know you did an engine job on a Tundra there.
00:06:06
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, but we had I think we had three trucks in the shop just today alone. I had a Ram 3500 in for a safety check. What the heck was else was there? There was a F250 for a fuse box.
00:06:21
Frank Wiebe
I forgot there was another one in, but that was just today. So yeah, and when, and cause we're out, we're a little bit out of town, right? So we get a lot of the trucks, a lot of the contractors, a lot of the, not too many farm guys, I guess, surprisingly, but we got a lot of contractors bring their trucks over.
00:06:38
Frank Wiebe
And it it was a huge difference to me when I, when I worked in town, it was like maybe 10% trucks and everything else was SUVs and passenger cars. But once we're out of the out of out of town and out in the country, um it almost flipped. We're like 50%, 60% trucks and the rest is cars and SUVs. It was unreal.
00:06:59
Zeb Beard
Yeah, in this area, I mean, every household has a pickup truck and and a lot of them have several pickup trucks and no cars.
00:07:04
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
00:07:07
Zeb Beard
So.
00:07:09
Aniz Lavji
Well, you got to do that.
00:07:09
Frank Wiebe
I find the trucks are usually easier to work on even. than cars. Some of the cars are just way too stupid compact. So trucks seem a little bit easier that way.
00:07:16
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of it's kind of a give and take, you know, some things are easier, some things are harder.
00:07:21
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, but if you're getting into if you're getting into diesel stuff, I do very little diesel work. ah like I don't tear any engines down at all on diesel, but once you you'll get you look under the hood of these diesels and how compact they are and all these engine oil coolers and everything that's in there. It's like, oh, no thanks. I want to stay away from that. That that looks difficult to me. so and just no I turn that away. i just I send it down the road and I'll just work on the stuff that I can do that I want to do.
00:07:48
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
Shop Workflow and Management
00:07:49
Aniz Lavji
But you do you do all your own Diag and everything, right, Zeb?
00:07:52
Zeb Beard
Yeah. Yeah. how We're kind of set up. i'm I'm like the main dad guy. I don't hardly turn bolts anymore.
00:07:56
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:07:58
Zeb Beard
You know, like I don't, I don't hardly remove and replace components and that kind of thing. And so how our shop, how our shop's kind of set up where it's a huge shop, but we only have six people total working in here.
00:08:04
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. You'd like to get the nitty-gritty.
00:08:12
Aniz Lavji
That's wild.
00:08:13
Zeb Beard
And how we do it, my wife, she runs the whole front, the parts, the service advisor position, bookkeeper, all that, she does that.
00:08:17
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:08:23
Zeb Beard
So she's usually the first one to talk to the customers. Over the years, i've it's really helped. She's gotten where she takes over the phone calls.
00:08:30
Frank Wiebe
Thank you.
00:08:31
Zeb Beard
So I don't hardly get any phone calls anymore directly to me.
00:08:31
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:08:35
Zeb Beard
So she handles that.
00:08:35
Aniz Lavji
Okay.
00:08:37
Zeb Beard
Then it gets passed off to my DVI guy. i have a guy that just does DVIs. He's not a mechanic.
00:08:42
Aniz Lavji
Yep. Yep. Yep.
00:08:43
Zeb Beard
He doesn't do any technician work at all. He does the DVI. Then I take, I'm going to do the the diagnostics. So then I take a look at the DVI. And before I even go the vehicle, I studied that DVI pretty close.
00:08:57
Zeb Beard
And then I got an idea of which direction I'm going to go. So I've usually got five or six or maybe more. Sometimes there's 10 of them in line for me to to diagnose.
00:09:08
Zeb Beard
So then I can usually roll through them pretty fast because I've already got an idea of what's happening with them and what what to look for from the DVI.
00:09:14
Aniz Lavji
Mm-hmm.
00:09:15
Zeb Beard
Then I go in there and do my diagnostic, write it all up. And then it goes back to Susie. She does the estimate. she guessed she if she if she has to talk to the customer, she usually makes the call to the customer and sells the work.
00:09:32
Zeb Beard
Then, after she sells the work, then it goes to the two technicians. i only got two technicians, and they do all the nuts and bolts, whether needs an engine, a cylinder head.
00:09:45
Zeb Beard
breaks, whatever it needs. They do that when they get through, then I get it back and I do all the verification. I drive it, make sure everything's fixed, do the post scan to make sure no codes come back, any of that kind of stuff.
00:09:57
Aniz Lavji
Now you guys drive the vehicle for a while. a You don't just give it back from what I remember. you his
00:10:02
Zeb Beard
Yeah, that's correct. even Even if we just do an oil change, it gets a 10 mile test drive, minimum 10 miles.
00:10:05
Aniz Lavji
Yes, I remember that.
00:10:09
Aniz Lavji
And if it's something more, again, I'm just going by memory.
00:10:10
Frank Wiebe
Really?
00:10:11
Aniz Lavji
If it's something more, then you actually do drive it maybe 50, 60 right? Yeah.
00:10:17
Zeb Beard
Oh yeah, yeah, easy. Yeah, i'll um something like an engine, I'll usually put 50 miles on it, maybe 100, sometimes more, depending on how feel about it. i'm um I've got a pretty good sense of one when I drive it.
00:10:34
Zeb Beard
you know I'm thinking, you know this one may, I need to drive this one a little bit more. you know it just I'm just not comfortable with it.
00:10:38
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:10:40
Zeb Beard
Or I may drive one and say, This one feels good, I'm gonna let it go. But even at that, even at that, it'll sit on concrete overnight to make sure doesn't have any leaks, and that kind thing.
00:10:46
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:10:51
Aniz Lavji
Leaks in everything. Yep.
00:10:52
Zeb Beard
We go back over it. My DVI you guy usually goes back over too after I've went back over them.
00:10:58
Aniz Lavji
You got a QC and everyone, you got a QC that's going to go through it ah obviously after it's all done.
00:11:03
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, the the worst thing you can the worst thing you can do is send send something back that isn't isn't perfect and then you got a comeback anyway.
00:11:03
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah, we're real heavy on QC that way.
00:11:12
Frank Wiebe
So instead of having a comeback, just go through it again. Absolutely.
00:11:15
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah, we're we're really, really tough on that. We're keeping an extra day if we need to, sometimes two days, sometimes sometimes a week or a month. if i think and if i If I'm not comfortable letting that vehicle go, it does not leave here if I'm not 100% confident in it.
00:11:30
Aniz Lavji
A lot of people don't do that,
00:11:30
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, take a drive it for a weekend or something.
00:11:33
Zeb Beard
Oh, yeah, you see it in the groups all the time. They're like, oh, we gave this we gave this vehicle back and the wheel ran off of it or it ran out oil or something. I'm like,
00:11:42
Frank Wiebe
Yeah,
00:11:43
Zeb Beard
If you would just drive the thing when you got through with it, you could avoid a lot of this stuff.
00:11:47
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, but they win it all.
00:11:48
Frank Wiebe
and it doesn't take that long to drive it.
00:11:49
Zeb Beard
No, and it's not like you're covering up or hiding from the customer. You're just making absolutely sure it's right before they get it back.
00:11:55
Aniz Lavji
They went around the corner to Dunkin' Donuts, got a coffee, got a donut, brought it back.
00:11:56
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, that's ah that's not enough.
00:12:00
Aniz Lavji
It's fixed. I mean... Yep.
00:12:02
Zeb Beard
I'm not doing that. Waiters too, I mean, these these waiters, and there there's there's not we don't even we don't even allow waiters for an oil change. Um, if, if we do an oil change, you drop it off that morning and at the very earliest, going pick it up that evening at closing time.
00:12:19
Frank Wiebe
Really?
00:12:21
Zeb Beard
Yup. We don't do a whole lot of just oil changes, but we do have some very loyal customers that only want us doing their oil change.
00:12:28
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:12:28
Zeb Beard
And that's why they bring it to us. Cause they know when they get it back, they, they don't want to hurry.
00:12:33
Frank Wiebe
It's gone over. it's it's you're going to
00:12:34
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
00:12:35
Frank Wiebe
You're going to look it over to everything, not just not just drop the oil and fill it.
00:12:38
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
00:12:40
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
00:12:40
Aniz Lavji
Well, you must be doing something or the other, right?
Digital Tools in Automotive Shops
00:12:43
Zeb Beard
Yeah. Now, I'm going to tell you, it's gotten tougher. 2025 was my toughest year yet on getting enough vehicles in here. I'm not going say we ran out or anything like that, but normally it's so many that we can't even get through them all. But we had a few times this year where we were looking for something to work on.
00:13:07
Aniz Lavji
I mean, you guys you guys do punch through quite a few vehicles from what I can what i can see. And, you know, that's not easy either, even keeping that all organized.
00:13:16
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of tough and it's getting tougher. I'm getting older and my memory's fading. I used to, man, I'm telling you, I used to remember I could see a truck going down the road and I could say, yeah, 10 years ago we put a left-hand cylinder head on because it cause they had a burnt valve on number three and I could name everything we did to it Yeah, had a little gasket leak, of the oil pan gasket was leaking a little bit.
00:13:21
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:13:37
Zeb Beard
back i could name everything we did to it and why we did it. Now, I walk out the shop and one that I just worked on yesterday or started a dag on I won't remember any of it and I have to start over.
00:13:50
Zeb Beard
So I've got where I have to keep really good notes because I'll lose track of where I am.
00:13:50
Aniz Lavji
I'm
00:13:54
Frank Wiebe
Well, a lot of it is is this digital age too, right? Because you're not physically writing a lot of stuff down. If you're all doing it digital DVIs and stuff like that, I find that that makes a huge difference in how much you retain it to the next day, 100%.
00:14:06
Zeb Beard
Oh yeah, yeah, it does.
00:14:08
Frank Wiebe
hundred percent
00:14:08
Zeb Beard
Mm-hmm.
00:14:09
Aniz Lavji
We just, I just, I probably convinced Frank, hopefully for the most part, to he switched over. So he's got a tech metric now. So he's, he jumped on the bandwagon to, he just gives us little better.
00:14:21
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, yeah we're we're we're doing it. It's still taking some time to get used to, but I think my our biggest issue is we're too stupid busy to get really learned it.
00:14:30
Zeb Beard
Yeah, that's my problem. We switched to Now, we we didn't switch to it until 2021. We were on Mitchell for years.
00:14:38
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:14:39
Aniz Lavji
what What software are you using, Zeb?
00:14:41
Zeb Beard
I got TechMetric, the best.
00:14:43
Aniz Lavji
The best, obviously.
00:14:44
Zeb Beard
Yeah, and I'm not just saying because I got it. I mean, it's it's miles ahead of everything else.
00:14:48
Aniz Lavji
It really is good, though.
00:14:50
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:14:50
Zeb Beard
Yeah, we and we we just switched back to their DVI.
00:14:51
Frank Wiebe
and um
00:14:54
Zeb Beard
We got auto vitals at the beginning of 2025 because I didn't really like Techmetrics DVI. And at that time, I was doing some of the DVIs. We were kind of between DVI yeah guys. And so I got auto vitals DVI.
00:15:08
Zeb Beard
And it worked good, but there were some issues with it. And then – so I had heard – Techmetric had made some changes to theirs, and we tried it again. And that's what we went with now. We're back with Techmetric on their DVIs.
00:15:23
Aniz Lavji
It's been great. Like we've been using, I actually just switched over from old school QuickBooks in June and man, it's changed everything. We we love it. It's basically transformed my whole business.
00:15:34
Zeb Beard
Oh, yeah, I can't even imagine.
00:15:34
Frank Wiebe
Yeah. wait
00:15:35
Zeb Beard
I can't even imagine going back. I don't know what it would even be like. Because the last time I was running the office, we did everything on – I did everything on paper.
00:15:39
Aniz Lavji
Oh yeah.
00:15:42
Zeb Beard
I would sit down at the computer, look up the parts, write the parts down on a sheet of paper, write up, do it with a calculator, make my markups, all that kind of stuff.
00:15:52
Aniz Lavji
And hopefully you don't forget a gasp here and there, you know.
00:15:52
Zeb Beard
And then Suzy started taking over, and that's when we got Mitchell. And now she she runs it with TechMetric. don't even know how to do that stuff.
00:16:01
Aniz Lavji
But imagine how much money you left on the table not using a shop software.
00:16:05
Zeb Beard
Oh, yeah, I wish I could go back. I wish I could go back. i'd be I'd probably be recording this podcast on my yacht right now if I could go back and start over knowing what I know now.
00:16:13
Aniz Lavji
Tens of thousands of dollars, man. Hey, but you know what? At least now you're doing so well, you can buy another 16-foot trailer and lend it to that coach member.
00:16:22
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
00:16:27
Aniz Lavji
I heard that podcast. I'll fill you in a second, Frank. heard that podcast. I'm driving on my way to work. I just picked up a coffee. And then all I hear this podcast get going. I hear Mike talking in the background.
00:16:41
Aniz Lavji
And then I heard Zeb say this famous line. I ain't effing going to trust anyone. They ain't got no goddamn 16-foot trailer to coach me.
Believing in Business Strategy
00:16:52
Zeb Beard
Well, I can tell this can tell the story again if you want me to.
00:16:52
Frank Wiebe
I got a 16 foot trailer. I'm good. Okay.
00:16:57
Aniz Lavji
Please, but that coffee, I spit it all over my windshield. i was telling I was telling Mike, when I got to the shop, my ah my tech, I brought my car to the back. I told my tech, I was like, buddy, you got to help me out with this windshield. I got coffee everywhere. He's like, do you not know how to up and drive? like But yeah, tell Frank, this is something else.
00:17:12
Frank Wiebe
difference
00:17:13
Zeb Beard
Well, and the thing about this, this is 100% true. It's not embellished. It's not – I mean, there's there's not anything untrue about it or even even inflated or anything. But I signed up – I think it was it was probably around 2021. decided – my whole career I've been – always told, man, you need a coach, you need a coach, you need a coach. And I probably did. i know I did. In the first 10 years, I really needed one.
00:17:39
Zeb Beard
But when you need one, you usually can't afford it, right? So, by 21, I was doing pretty good. So, I decided, man, going to see what this coaching is all about, you know. so I hadn't been around the groups and all as much, and I don't think they were as popular back then anyway.
00:17:58
Aniz Lavji
No, no.
00:17:59
Zeb Beard
So, I didn't know much about coaching companies. I was just kind of feeling it out. Well, I had one of my friends, I was talking to him about it. He said, oh man, you got to go with this coaching company. They're the best. They're all this. I didn't ask kind of what it's all about.
00:18:13
Aniz Lavji
Let's not name that company, just...
00:18:15
Zeb Beard
i won't I won't name the the company, but it rhymes with hot clicks. So um wait I signed up with him. And so I start talking to him. And the first coaching call I get, I get this guy.
00:18:30
Zeb Beard
And ah he starts telling me all this. And he tells me about his shop, you know. And it's it sounds okay. So I talk to him. and And we go through the whole deal. and He's just like really criticizing everything I got going.
00:18:48
Zeb Beard
You know, first thing he did, first thing he did that really got me, he sort of made fun of the name of my business.
00:18:48
Frank Wiebe
Oh, yeah. That's a good way to start a coaching.
00:18:55
Zeb Beard
And he's like, we got to do something about that name.
00:18:56
Aniz Lavji
Oh, man.
00:18:57
Zeb Beard
And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute now.
00:19:00
Aniz Lavji
Seriously?
00:19:00
Zeb Beard
Yeah, so I didn't say anything. I'm the type guy, you've seen me online, yeah, I'm pretty abrasive, and I'll come at somebody. But I give you the chance. I let you go, and then I stop. I just listen, and then I do my research, and then I come back.
00:19:17
Zeb Beard
So I don't remember what all we went through on that call, but mainly what I could tell, they were wanting to turn me into a tire and lube shop, okay?
00:19:28
Zeb Beard
Now, shop...
00:19:28
Aniz Lavji
tires. Nothing wrong with tires.
00:19:30
Zeb Beard
I agree. There's nothing wrong with that. bullet But i'm I'm already doing pretty good, right?
00:19:37
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:37
Zeb Beard
And the town that I was in, this is what you got to think about. The town that I was in, I think there's 5,000 people in that town.
00:19:47
Aniz Lavji
I mean,
00:19:47
Zeb Beard
There's already four tire and lube shops.
00:19:48
Aniz Lavji
He's the market, you know. if he had no way to market.
00:19:50
Frank Wiebe
That sounds about the size of my town, yeah.
00:19:50
Zeb Beard
There's already four them. Yeah, and there's already four tire lube shops, and and like i'm I'm related to most of those, and I'm good friends with them.
00:19:52
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:19:59
Zeb Beard
I don't want to all of a sudden just change my business to go in competition against them when I'm already doing good and happy doing what I'm doing. I'm mainly just hiring a coaching company, and that's what I told them off the get-go.
00:20:08
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
Origin of Stroker's Diesel
00:20:11
Zeb Beard
I said, look, i don't I don't want to make major changes. I just want to fine-tune some things, and that's what I'm –
00:20:16
Aniz Lavji
But have the wrong name, You have the wrong ze and name on the sign.
00:20:20
Zeb Beard
Yeah. So I talked to the guy and let him finish his deal. but i didn't get I didn't get too upset or abrasive with him. So
00:20:28
Zeb Beard
we hang up on this coaching call. So I go and stalk his page, his personal page. um Well, I found his business page first and I look at it. And so he he he made fun ah kind of, kind made fun of my name and my branding and all.
00:20:44
Zeb Beard
Well, his, I'm not going to say what the name of it was, but
00:20:50
Zeb Beard
the name of his shop, the name that he chose and his logo and everything looked like he might sell fire extinguishers or seatbelts or airbags to people. It didn't even.
00:21:02
Zeb Beard
So I'm like, well, he's he's he's losing credibility fast with me.
00:21:06
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:21:06
Zeb Beard
Okay. So I'm like, he he has no right to say anything about my brand because I'm very proud of my brand. If you notice, I always have my logo. I put my logo on everything.
00:21:16
Zeb Beard
I'm very proud of my logo and my brand.
00:21:19
Frank Wiebe
Nothing wrong with that. I do the same thing.
00:21:20
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I've been building this brand. I've been coming up working on this brand since I was 10 years old and I'm 47 now. So that tells you how long I've been studying this.
00:21:28
Aniz Lavji
yep
00:21:29
Zeb Beard
So the biggest thing, and this comes to the end, this long story, I need to speed it on up, but but I get on his personal page, on his personal page and I'm scrolling through it. And I get down to a post that says, hey, um,
00:21:44
Zeb Beard
Facebook friends, I'm reaching out. I need to move some equipment for the shop. Has anybody got a 16-foot trailer I can borrow? And I look at this and I go, no, we're not we're we're not we're not doing this. i don't I don't take any sort of financial or business advice from anyone who has to borrow a 16-foot trailer.
00:22:09
Zeb Beard
Because here in in my neck of the woods in South Arkansas, when you When you become a man, or you don't even have to become a man.
00:22:16
Aniz Lavji
Oh my God.
00:22:18
Zeb Beard
When you start to think about becoming a man, your first big boy purchase is a 16-foot trailer. You know, you get that. You get that, like, right after you get right after you get your own vehicle, you get a 16-foot trailer. That's just automatically what you get.
00:22:32
Zeb Beard
You know, you get that before you graduate high school. And this foe's going to try to get legal.
00:22:36
Frank Wiebe
Everyone's got 16 foot trailer in the backyard.
00:22:39
Zeb Beard
Yeah, so he's going try to give me financial and business advice, and he don't even have a 16-foot trailer. and in my In my business, we already got we got low boys and big trucks and and that kind of stuff. We graduated from 16-foot trailers a long time ago.
00:22:53
Aniz Lavji
Note to self, never gives them advice on shit.
00:22:58
Frank Wiebe
i've I've got 16 foot trailer, so I'm good to go. Let's go.
00:23:01
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah. i mean well um I mean, it's just kind of a a measuring tool to see if it's somebody you should listen to or not.
00:23:01
Frank Wiebe
Let's go. yeah
00:23:06
Frank Wiebe
yeah
00:23:08
Zeb Beard
If you're if if if you've got 50-ton low boy, you don't listen to somebody that don't even have a 16-foot trailer, right?
00:23:16
Aniz Lavji
I mean, the biggest...
00:23:17
Zeb Beard
like Like if you've got a 20-foot trailer, you might take advice from somebody that's got a 28-foot trailer. You might listen to them.
00:23:25
Aniz Lavji
the meeting
00:23:25
Zeb Beard
But you don't you don't go backwards. You go forwards.
00:23:28
Aniz Lavji
No, the big thing is like the guy's job is to give you advice on how to expand your business and run it. But if he doesn't understand your business and he's not he's asking for a, for to borrow a 16 foot trailer.
00:23:38
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, but
00:23:44
Aniz Lavji
I mean,
00:23:46
Frank Wiebe
yeah but if it's like Zeb said, your business is far beyond what his, it sounds like what his comprehension of a business should have been, right?
00:23:51
Zeb Beard
Yeah, you can go.
00:23:53
Frank Wiebe
He doesn't understand where you're at in your life, so you're way ahead of the game.
00:23:55
Zeb Beard
At that time, i hadn't bought I hadn't bought one in many years, but probably along about that time, a 16-foot trailer was, a brand new one was $3,500, maybe, something like that.
00:24:08
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:24:08
Zeb Beard
and he had to go borrow one, he didn't have business giving financial advice to to very many people in this world.
00:24:08
Aniz Lavji
Woo.
00:24:14
Zeb Beard
maybe a Maybe somebody flipping hamburgers at a fast food joint, he might could do some coaching there, but he didn't have no business coaching me.
00:24:27
Zeb Beard
You know, so that's that whole story there.
00:24:31
Frank Wiebe
as That's a good one.
00:24:33
Aniz Lavji
I'm telling you, man, i still I still got some coffee near the far end of my windshield.
00:24:42
Aniz Lavji
Oh, man. No, but, you know, really, I'm all for coaches. I think it's a great thing. And I think almost almost everyone should have some sort of a coach.
00:24:48
Zeb Beard
Absolutely.
00:24:55
Aniz Lavji
Now, whether it be... something paid or if it's something like a peer, I really think everyone could benefit from a coach. I didn't need a coach. I could benefit from a coach for sure.
00:25:07
Aniz Lavji
Because every person I talk to, I'm learning something new every day.
00:25:08
Frank Wiebe
See
00:25:12
Frank Wiebe
you.
00:25:12
Zeb Beard
That's right.
00:25:12
Aniz Lavji
And,
00:25:12
Frank Wiebe
I feel the same way. I was last year, I was thinking like, so we've been in business. it'll be six years in March that we've had our own shop. And I was like, last year, I'm like, I gotta do some networking like i i lived under a rock in my shop in in the shop i worked at for 14 years i i didn't know anyone not even the technicians in the other part of the town right so i'm like i gotta get out i gotta meet other shop owners here you know i i met knees i met some other shop owners i finally got a group of people that i can actually talk to and and you know pull advice from them or just pull ideas and stuff like that from them but yeah a coach
00:25:33
Aniz Lavji
Thank
00:25:49
Frank Wiebe
I haven't yet, but i I need to. And that's one of the things. Yeah. shit Like you said, when you need it, you can't really afford it. But eventually you just got to bite the bullet and do it. But yeah, getting networking and getting people in your corner that are like minded, that have the same idea of what you're doing. It helps so much. you just you got something going on. It's like hey, man, this is what I got going on. Oh, yeah, I've run into that. Or hit this is what I would suggest. That kind of thing.
00:26:14
Aniz Lavji
So if
00:26:14
Frank Wiebe
It's a huge benefit.
00:26:15
Zeb Beard
That's right. That's, that's the great thing about the day and time we live in, because I talked to most of my friends that I talked to or Well, going to say all the friends that I talk to on a regular daily basis, are they're they're they're not even within seven or eight hours of drives from me, you know.
00:26:34
Zeb Beard
talk to Brian every day. He's one of my closest friends. Tommy Markham, he's another one of my closest friends. I've got another one, Chris Ganey. He's in Kentucky. Talk to him every day. Jeff Compton, he's in Canada.
00:26:46
Zeb Beard
Talk to those guys every day.
00:26:46
Aniz Lavji
Jeff's
00:26:47
Zeb Beard
And that's kind of my my inner circle. I got one that's pretty close.
00:26:50
Aniz Lavji
jeffs about an hour and a half away from you.
00:26:51
Zeb Beard
His name's Chris Huggins. He's about three hours from here. So he's probably my closest friend in automotive automotive business.
00:27:00
Aniz Lavji
You know what the crazy thing is?
00:27:01
Zeb Beard
But all this information that these coaches teach, it's out there for free. You can find it. now ted The good coaches will tell you that. the Now, the bad ones won't.
00:27:08
Aniz Lavji
yes
00:27:10
Zeb Beard
But the good coaches, the ones that I like and that I would would hire, they'll tell you that, hey, man, you can get most stuff for free. We just come in and we'll – hold you accountable and make sure that you're doing it. That's all really a coach does. They just make sure that you do it.
00:27:26
Aniz Lavji
They're going to give you the blueprint, right?
00:27:26
Frank Wiebe
Amen.
00:27:27
Aniz Lavji
They're going to say, hey, you know what? This is what you really should be doing. This is what I recommend you do. If you do it, that's up to you. But we're going to let you know like this is the right way to do it.
00:27:38
Zeb Beard
Yeah. And I'm not anti-coach. I was for a while. After that experience, I ended up, I didn't finish my story, but I called the company. I said, look, this ain' this ain't for me, man. This ain't going work.
00:27:50
Zeb Beard
So they gave me another coach, and I really stayed too long. I shouldn't have took that other coach because I ended up paying them for a month of of service. They got like a 30-day deal.
00:28:00
Zeb Beard
You can you can hop out and you don't owe them.
00:28:01
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:04
Zeb Beard
So I really hung on too long. i went with that other coach, and I called i talked with him. i think I talked with him twice, but I called him back. I said, man, this ain't for me. I ain't going
00:28:14
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, but i'm i'm if I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure this unknown company told you to not open a bigger shop.
00:28:24
Zeb Beard
Yeah, they said this the second one, the second coach they put me with, that's what he told me. he said we He said, my goal for you is to get rid of your junkyard.
00:28:37
Zeb Beard
Because I got – when you work on – well, when you work on trucks like I do, farm trucks, logging trucks,
00:28:38
Aniz Lavji
Did he say junkyard?
00:28:45
Aniz Lavji
but Did he say, did he say actually say junkyard?
00:28:47
Zeb Beard
Yeah, but here's why he said that, because I've got a bunch of trucks that I'm parting out that I say, oh, you use parts off of, because, I mean, you need you need used parts, right?
00:28:57
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, these are...
00:28:57
Aniz Lavji
If somebody called my shop junkyard, they're going to be hearing something different from me.
00:29:01
Zeb Beard
He said, we're go we're going get rid of your junkyard and move you into a smaller facility in a better location. Now, I agree. I did need to be in a better location, but i already had that on my mind.
00:29:08
Aniz Lavji
Damn, that got me triggered right there, man.
00:29:11
Zeb Beard
Yeah, so so anyway, I fired them.
00:29:11
Frank Wiebe
um
00:29:14
Zeb Beard
I fired them, I bought more junk, and I built a building five times bigger than the one I was in, which was 12,000 square feet at that time. so
00:29:22
Aniz Lavji
I mean, 62,000 feet, a little too small, Zeb. It's okay, man. You can always can always expand.
00:29:28
Zeb Beard
Well, I had the 12,000 when he said that, so I was still in the feet building when he said that.
00:29:35
Frank Wiebe
ah it's kind of like having a 12 foot trailer.
00:29:38
Zeb Beard
yeah's right
00:29:38
Frank Wiebe
So you're good. You're in the right area.
00:29:40
Aniz Lavji
So now I'm confused because if a 16-foot trailer is what you need to have to be a man in your area, in Canada, I mean, Frank, what do we need to have, man? Like, I don't have no 16-foot trailer.
00:29:56
Frank Wiebe
I don't know what that is in meters, but I got a 16 foot trailer, so I'm good.
00:30:01
Aniz Lavji
I own a property. That's about it. I mean, it's more than 16 feet.
00:30:03
Zeb Beard
Oh, that's, Hey, that's great.
00:30:06
Aniz Lavji
mean, I don't know.
00:30:07
Zeb Beard
That's great. If you, if you own, if you own property, that's, that's a, that's a ah plus right there.
00:30:07
Aniz Lavji
I guess that's all have
00:30:13
Frank Wiebe
i think I think as long as we're all like-minded, we can live off of each other. But if you're if you're getting paid to coach somebody, you've got to be in a position where you can actually coach somebody.
00:30:20
Aniz Lavji
I'm
00:30:23
Frank Wiebe
You've got to be in a financial position.
00:30:24
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah. You should be in a well enough position. You can go get you a 16-foot trailer if you need one without having to beg on Facebook. That's the key.
00:30:32
Aniz Lavji
i'm in a world of darkness.
00:30:33
Zeb Beard
That's the key. I'm not a bo but i'm not above barring something, but if I got a beg on Facebook to people I don't know to borrow that, then that's kind of different.
00:30:34
Aniz Lavji
I'm in a world of darkness.
00:30:41
Frank Wiebe
no you should...
00:30:42
Aniz Lavji
I'm going on Facebook Marketplace on Monday. I'm fucking buying a 16-foot trailer. I'm parking I know what I'm going do with it, but I'm looking on Monday, going to buy one. I'm going to park a car on there, and I'm just going to put a big sign on there.
00:30:58
Aniz Lavji
st Stroker's Diesel said, to be a man, you need a 16-foot trailer.
00:31:02
Frank Wiebe
see here's See, here's the problem though. I'm going to have to come down with my F-150 and tow it there for you because I don't think you can put it behind your Tesla.
00:31:09
Aniz Lavji
Oh, excuse me.
00:31:10
Frank Wiebe
Oh.
00:31:10
Aniz Lavji
i got it a 2011 Silverado 1500 that has a brand new tailgate.
00:31:16
Frank Wiebe
a
00:31:18
Aniz Lavji
No, it's new to the vehicle. But it that's going to tow it.
00:31:24
Zeb Beard
Oh, you're good then.
00:31:24
Aniz Lavji
I'm good. I'm good. man.
00:31:26
Zeb Beard
Yeah, you're good.
00:31:27
Aniz Lavji
It's even got four tires on it.
00:31:29
Zeb Beard
That's right. you'll you'll be more You'll be a lot more respected in your community with that right there.
00:31:30
Frank Wiebe
yeah
00:31:34
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, just set that up like that.
00:31:34
Aniz Lavji
I think I'm going to do that.
00:31:36
Zeb Beard
And you'll use it more than you think. You'll use it you'll find it a use for it every couple of days. You'll use it for something.
00:31:42
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, I might come and hand you tow some of these cars that are stranded over here that they don't want to come pick up. Tow them across street, park them on the road.
00:31:50
Zeb Beard
Yeah, that's right.
00:31:53
Frank Wiebe
you're You're just starting your own junkyard in your yard there.
00:31:55
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
00:31:56
Aniz Lavji
Oh, man, if you would have said junkier to me.
00:32:00
Zeb Beard
that didn't that didn't That didn't cut as deep is the kind of making fun of my name and my logo.
00:32:01
Frank Wiebe
I need to...
00:32:07
Zeb Beard
That kind of, my brand, and that's that's what got me.
00:32:08
Frank Wiebe
No, man. if If...
00:32:10
Zeb Beard
when he
00:32:11
Frank Wiebe
If somebody did that to me...
00:32:11
Aniz Lavji
oh
00:32:11
Zeb Beard
When he started on my brand, that's my pride and joy is my brand.
00:32:16
Aniz Lavji
if If my memory serves me correctly, usually a doesn't.
00:32:16
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, if some...
00:32:20
Aniz Lavji
um I think you had like four names and that was a last choice. Yeah,
00:32:25
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I'll tell that story too. I've told it on some other podcasts, but i'll go ahead and break this one out too because I hadn't been on here before.
00:32:28
Aniz Lavji
yeah, yeah.
Building a Brand and Team Culture
00:32:31
Zeb Beard
but
00:32:31
Aniz Lavji
I made sure I did my research before I had you on there, Zim.
00:32:32
Zeb Beard
oh
00:32:35
Zeb Beard
So my original name, see, I started out doing welding machine work in this shop.
00:32:42
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:32:42
Zeb Beard
when I opened. So the name was, we were in a hurry. Me and my dad kind of started that together and we were in a hurry. He said, let's just call it Zeb's welding. I said, no, I don't want that. I said, we got to have a machine in there. I said, let's just call it Zeb's welding and machine.
00:32:57
Zeb Beard
So we went on for a while. I never did like that name. was like, man, this doesn't sound serious. It just doesn't fit. I wanted a brand so my whole life. And I had some ideas in my head. So said, man, the whole time we had that name, I said, I got to come up with something different.
00:33:12
Zeb Beard
So I made it to probably 2014, which was nine years. And I had, by that time I had got completely out of the welding machine business.
00:33:24
Zeb Beard
And I said, I got to do something about this name now, right now. And cause I want to start making t-shirts and stickers and that kind of stuff.
00:33:28
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:33:32
Aniz Lavji
You have pretty big brand with your t-shirts, man. Hmm.
00:33:34
Zeb Beard
Yeah. So man, I studied on it day and night. I couldn't come up with anything. I tried everything. So I had a bunch of names written down. And I didn't like any of So I happened to watch this documentary on TV and it was about this rock band. And I don't remember. It may not even been TV. it may have been on the radio, but it was something with a rock band. And they were asking, how'd you get that name? You know, how'd you, how'd you come up with that name? And the guy that that they were talking to said, well, it's a funny story about that name. We, we,
00:34:05
Zeb Beard
We could not agree on the name. that we got Man, we got in fistfights over this name, what we were going to come up with. We fought. We did everything. We could not agree on the name. But the only thing we could agree on was the name we hated the most.
00:34:20
Zeb Beard
We could agree on that. So that's what we went with. And when he said that, I said, that's exactly what I'm doing. So in my list, the bottom name was Stroker's Diesel.
00:34:26
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. It's
00:34:29
Zeb Beard
I said, I don't like – that's the one I don't – out of this list of potential names, that's the one I hate the most. So I went with it.
00:34:38
Aniz Lavji
got hell a ring to it though.
00:34:38
Frank Wiebe
Wow. Oh, yeah. I mean, and and here I thought it was because, you know, Piston stroke and all that kind of stuff. And they like, maybe you'll talk through it that way, though.
00:34:47
Zeb Beard
Well, I did it because at that time – At that particular point in time, man, power strokes were my bread and butter, 6.0s and 6.4s. We were building 6.0s and especially 6.4s. At that time, the 6.4s were really, they were all out of warranty, just coming out of warranty.
00:35:04
Zeb Beard
Everybody still owed $25,000, $30,000 on them, and and they were blowing up left and right.
00:35:07
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:35:10
Zeb Beard
And at that time, man, nobody could beat me on a power stroke, a 6.4 power stroke.
00:35:10
Aniz Lavji
thismonion
00:35:15
Zeb Beard
I had a machine shop down in El Dorado. They could bore, you know, everybody had trouble with them. They would bore them and try to put sleeves in them and the sleeves wouldn't stay. They'd pull out the bottom, they'd pull out. And this machine shop was jammed up and they could build, they could sleeve those things for me and they would stay. Matter of fact, I got one in my shop that I did. was one of the first ones I did back in probably 14.
00:35:36
Zeb Beard
And a it's here now for something else, but it thing, that thing's what, 12 years old and still running. So, ran a lot longer with my engine than it did the original international engine.
00:35:48
Zeb Beard
So anyway, power strokes were my thing. So I said, I need something with power stroke in it, you know, with stroke in it. And so that's kind of how that name came about. And then, yeah.
00:35:57
Aniz Lavji
But it's international now, man.
00:36:00
Zeb Beard
So at also in my brand and, When I was a kid in grade school, I sat behind, behind it in one class, I sat behind this kid. He always had Iron Maiden t-shirts, right?
00:36:14
Zeb Beard
And if you know anything about Iron Maiden t-shirt, album covers, that kind of thing, they always had these... You know, these fantastic scenes, you know, with skulls and ghosts and that kind of thing.
00:36:25
Zeb Beard
So I always sit behind him in class looking at those shirts and studying on them and and how much I liked them. But my parents, i knew I didn't even ask them. I knew they wouldn't buy me one day and say it was devil worshipping or something like that.
00:36:37
Zeb Beard
So I always studied on these shirts and I wanted one so bad I never got one. But I need i thought someday I want to build a brand that can incorporate things like that.
00:36:42
Aniz Lavji
I'm just Googling it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:46
Zeb Beard
I don't know how I'm going to do it. I don't know what I'm going to do, but that's going to be my that's goingnna be so a key to my brand. So when I started this, I started coming up with these designs in my head, you know these scenes in my head.
00:37:01
Zeb Beard
And this is book way before AI. This is way back. So I had these scenes written out, like the the text description of these scenes. And I ran across this company that does all my stuff. they Their name's Graphic Disorder. I think they're in Johnsonville, Tennessee.
00:37:17
Zeb Beard
Anyway, they're the absolute finest graphic company you can find.
00:37:17
Aniz Lavji
It's all right.
00:37:21
Zeb Beard
So I got ahold of them, and they designed this S logo and all this. And if you'll notice, my font is sort of like Iron Maiden's font. If you look at it, it's a little different.
00:37:29
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, yeah. I just Googled Iron Maiden just to be sure. I know we were talking about. But, yeah, I see it there right now.
00:37:37
Zeb Beard
Yeah, so... So I got a whole time they did this and did a few things for me. I said, look, I got a strange request. And they said, yeah, what is it? We can do anything. I said, OK, I don't know if you can do this, but we're going try. said, if I give you a text description of a scene, can you put it to paper? Because I can't draw. I tried it so many times and I just couldn't do it. And I had a couple of my friends that were good artists.
00:37:59
Zeb Beard
They couldn't do it. My mom is an exceptional artist, but she's not into that kind of thing. So she I didn't even ask her. So I sent them the the text description of it and they have a ah girl artist.
00:38:13
Zeb Beard
I can't remember a name, but she like nailed the first scene on the first try. Like we didn't have to check. I said, no, that's, that's exactly what I had in my brain. Let's print shirts, print them right now. Let's get them.
00:38:27
Zeb Beard
And that's the stroke of genius scene that I have.
00:38:27
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, that's good.
00:38:30
Zeb Beard
If you, if you've seen me wear those shirts and up I got them on my Facebook page and all that, that's my favorite scene. And then later I had them do a tow scene and it's time to to do some more. I was going to do one a year and then I got busy building this shop and that all kind of got put to the wayside, but i need to get back on
00:38:48
Aniz Lavji
That's cool, man. you know you Honestly, Zeb, I just met you today, but you should be extremely proud of what you've built and Really, man, this is a huge feat that you've got right now, man. like You went from 4,000 square feet to over 60,000. You're doing something right.
00:39:10
Aniz Lavji
and There's a reason people keep bringing the cars back, man. Or I should say trucks.
00:39:12
Zeb Beard
Well, it's it's my life and i will not I will not compromise.
00:39:13
Aniz Lavji
Sorry.
00:39:16
Zeb Beard
I will not settle. It it has to be perfect in and it has to be what I envisioned all these years ago.
00:39:19
Frank Wiebe
Thank you.
00:39:24
Zeb Beard
So i I can't, like when I go on vacation i go on vacations a lot, well I hadn't in the last five years I've been building this, but there when I was really doing good and and we were in the old shop but i didn't have many bills, man, we went vacation a lot and I could be in the middle of the ocean fishing, doing the most fun things in the world, but inside my brain, I was still still working, still building, still building that brand, and i don't get enough of it.
00:39:48
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:39:51
Zeb Beard
It's my favorite thing to do, and that's that's what it takes.
00:39:55
Aniz Lavji
Right. But again, have the wrong name.
00:40:00
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I did it wrong, but what i what i tell what I tell everybody, I said, you know, hiring hirenet coaching company was probably one of the best things I ever did because I took everything
00:40:09
Aniz Lavji
It puts things in perspective, you know what I mean?
00:40:10
Frank Wiebe
Just because it set you set you in the potential of that's not what I want.
00:40:11
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:40:12
Zeb Beard
I took everything.
00:40:14
Frank Wiebe
I know what I want.
00:40:14
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I studied everything they told me and went and did the opposite.
00:40:18
Aniz Lavji
Exactly. they said do something small and you went ahead and built the biggest fricking building you can put on the property. Just enough room so you could have room for parking another 40 trucks outside.
00:40:31
Zeb Beard
That's right. But I found that a lot in my life. I found that if I don't like something, some advice or or whatever it is, or if it doesn't work, if you try something and it doesn't work, go do the opposite.
00:40:44
Zeb Beard
Go do the exact opposite. Or if somebody tells you to do something and you don't like it, go do the exact opposite.
00:40:50
Aniz Lavji
Use a Spidey sense, man.
00:40:52
Zeb Beard
And and you'll either you either win big or you'll lose big.
00:40:53
Aniz Lavji
if
00:40:56
Zeb Beard
And so far, so far that theory, hadn't I hadn't lost big. So I've lost a few times, a few small losses, but I've never had a big loss. So we'll keep it we'll keep doing it that way.
00:41:04
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, I can't complain about that then.
00:41:08
Aniz Lavji
I can't believe you only have six people working, man.
00:41:11
Zeb Beard
Well, how we do it, and that's what I'm getting back to in my process, is my two technicians, I only got two, but the way we're set up, those technicians, are they maximize their efficiency. you don't You won't ever hear me crying about my techs only turning 30 hours a week and I don't know what to do.
00:41:31
Zeb Beard
My techs, man, they don't really have to work hard at all to to do 100% efficiency because,
00:41:38
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:41:40
Zeb Beard
I take away everything that slows them down. I take it away. They don't bring vehicles in.
00:41:44
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:41:45
Zeb Beard
They don't do dag. Now they they do a little bit sometimes, you know, if, if, if, if I'm getting behind, I'll break one of them out and let them start doing some day.
00:41:49
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:41:55
Zeb Beard
They don't, they don't bring the vehicles in. Most of time I have them racked up. I have the two post lifts. I have them you know, that's a time waster. getting the rack set up, getting it picked up.
00:42:04
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, definitely.
00:42:04
Aniz Lavji
yeah. yeah.
00:42:05
Frank Wiebe
and
00:42:06
Zeb Beard
They don't have to worry about that. It's already sitting there ready to go. They don't have to go hunt their parts. Their parts are usually sitting there by the vehicle before they get to it.
00:42:14
Aniz Lavji
yep
00:42:16
Zeb Beard
And then with the space, that's another reason we have so much space is pretty much each technician has 10 bays of his own. So he's always got, it doesn't matter what kind of problem he runs into, he just moves to the next job.
00:42:33
Zeb Beard
And if he runs into a problem on that, he moves to the next job. And then when this problem sorted, then he can go back. And they're never, they never idle. The only time they idle is if they're taking a break or on lunch or something like that. They're they're almost never waiting on anything.
00:42:49
Aniz Lavji
How many
00:42:49
Frank Wiebe
Oh, man, you can't go wrong with that.
00:42:49
Zeb Beard
And that's how,
00:42:50
Frank Wiebe
that
00:42:51
Zeb Beard
That's how they turn so many hours.
00:42:51
Frank Wiebe
That sounds like a fantastic process.
00:42:53
Zeb Beard
They turn, it's not uncommon for my techs to turn over 100 hours in a week time.
00:42:53
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:42:59
Zeb Beard
So, and that's how they do it because they don't have to wait on anything.
00:43:02
Aniz Lavji
How many cars can you park inside there?
00:43:03
Zeb Beard
Now they are exceptional. I don't want to take away from these two guys because these two guys I have are animals. They are absolutely the best I've ever been around.
00:43:14
Aniz Lavji
But, you know, you you treat these guys well. I mean, I was seeing, like, every Tuesday you guys make them dinner and the whole the whole family gets together and has dinner together.
00:43:22
Zeb Beard
Yeah, and I came about that.
00:43:23
Aniz Lavji
mean, that's huge.
00:43:24
Zeb Beard
It's kind of ah a funny story how I came about that. I had a guy working for me. i hired him. Do you know um you know Keith Perkins, I'm sure, with L1?
00:43:32
Aniz Lavji
Yep. Yeah, he does a lot of hate outs, right?
00:43:33
Frank Wiebe
I've heard the name.
00:43:35
Zeb Beard
Yeah. So, I mean, he's one of the the sharpest breath and brains in our whole business.
00:43:36
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:43:40
Aniz Lavji
him and as I think him and his wife are way up in the...
00:43:40
Zeb Beard
I mean, there's nobody that can beat him.
00:43:43
Aniz Lavji
His his wife as well, right?
00:43:45
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah, him and his wife, they're in Oklahoma.
00:43:46
Aniz Lavji
Yep. Yep.
00:43:48
Zeb Beard
Well, what happened? I put out the word. I said, I need a diagnostician. and because i was getting behind i couldn't keep up i was building this building i was needing one bad and so i put out the word i even advertised it in the groups and you're not supposed to do that but i did it anyway um i said look i'm looking for a diagnostician money is no object you just tell me what you got to have if you're good enough i'll i'll do it no questions asked yeah and i said i'll pay yeah you'll have a housing allowance there
00:44:12
Aniz Lavji
I think they made an exception for you, man. Yep.
00:44:19
Zeb Beard
I'll buy all the tooling. You just name your price and we'll do it. So one of Keith's guys got a hold of me. And I'm like, hey, man, I don't want to you know i'm a little step on Keith's toes. He's like, no, don't worry about it.
00:44:33
Zeb Beard
But I want to try it. I said, okay. So we made a deal. He came to work for me. He was very good. His name's Zach Crowder. I'm still friends with him today. He came to work for me and he lived here at the shop. because I have housing here. I can, we have nine bedrooms here.
00:44:48
Zeb Beard
So that's why i built it that way.
00:44:48
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
00:44:50
Zeb Beard
So I could hire somebody from out of town to come work for me and try it out they could live here while they decided if they were going to stay or if I decided I was going to So he was living here and he, you could tell me what he wasn't, he wasn't performing well, but I knew it wasn't because of him.
00:45:05
Zeb Beard
And I could tell he wasn't happy. So I called him in the office one day. said, Hey man, I don't, I hate this, but this ain't, this ain't working. And I said, what's going on? What can we do?
00:45:18
Zeb Beard
And he said, um he said, man, I'm just, he said, I'm homesick. He said, I hear, he said, I hear you down there with your, your, your family and your friends at nights and stuff, eating and stuff. He said, I'm, I'm just lonely.
00:45:30
Zeb Beard
I said, man, I'll tell you what I do.
00:45:30
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:45:31
Zeb Beard
I said, I can fix this. I said, every, two every Tuesday night, which at that time I said, Wednesday, I said, every Wednesday night, We're going have a party right here in the shop. All the employees will be invited. I'll cook for y'all the finest meal that you can have. Cause we got a huge kitchen. You've seen it.
00:45:50
Zeb Beard
And I love to cook people. I love to serve people. I said, I'll cook a big fancy meal every Wednesday night.
00:45:55
Frank Wiebe
because big fan of that.
00:45:58
Zeb Beard
We, and we'll have a good time and we'll bond like that. I said, will that help you? He said, yes, it will. And right then it turned, it turned around. Everything started gelling. Everything started working.
00:46:10
Zeb Beard
And we started making a profit. And think three months later, we set a record for this shop that's never been broken since. We did $420,000 in one month with six people at that time.
00:46:25
Frank Wiebe
Wow.
00:46:25
Zeb Beard
and
00:46:26
Aniz Lavji
That's wild.
00:46:26
Zeb Beard
And it was it was working great. Now, he had some other issues. He had to go back to Oklahoma. And we had some more problems since then. We we haven't been able to top that. We we will eventually one day.
00:46:39
Zeb Beard
But that's how that got started. So after he left, the rest of my team came to me and they said, well, since Zach left, we're not going to stop the –
00:46:51
Aniz Lavji
yeah
00:46:51
Zeb Beard
I said, no, if if y'all want to. They said, no, we love it. We want to do it. So anytime something comes up and we have to cancel it for the week, it's just, oh, they just put their head down. They they look forward to that every every week when we have that.
00:47:04
Zeb Beard
We moved it to Tuesday night because we had some guys that worked here and they go to church on Wednesday night. So we ended up moving it to Tuesday night.
00:47:10
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. That's fair, yeah.
00:47:12
Zeb Beard
But we still got the tradition the tradition going.
00:47:15
Aniz Lavji
But you got the – it's a culture, right?
00:47:16
Frank Wiebe
That's awesome.
00:47:17
Aniz Lavji
You've created this culture that all your employees, they know Tuesday night, that's dinner night with the family. That's amazing because a lot of shops just do pizza, man.
00:47:27
Zeb Beard
That's right.
00:47:27
Frank Wiebe
Well, to be able to build a family like that is a nice...
00:47:27
Zeb Beard
They love it. i And I totally missed it. i thought I thought these guys don't want hang out with their boss. They hang out with me all day. You know, they don't want to see me after work, but it turns out they actually do.
00:47:38
Frank Wiebe
It's completely different when you're after hours.
00:47:38
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
00:47:41
Frank Wiebe
If if you're not one of those overbearing guys that just pushes them around all the time, if you're actually you know part of the team, it's a completely different story after hours than it is during work.
00:47:53
Aniz Lavji
If that culture transponds till after work and you guys are still that tight knit, I mean, that just shows your commitment to building such a strong team.
00:47:53
Zeb Beard
yeah
00:48:05
Aniz Lavji
Okay, that's you, Zeb, as a leader saying, you know what? You're my guy. You're my team. And we're going to eat together. going break bread together. we're going to be together. You're my people.
00:48:16
Aniz Lavji
we're goingnna break bread together and we're goingnna be together you are making
00:48:20
Frank Wiebe
Baked bread.
00:48:21
Aniz Lavji
You know, that's that's amazing, man, because half the people that are probably listening to this, the most that they're going to do is pizza and burgers.
00:48:29
Zeb Beard
Yeah, sure.
00:48:29
Aniz Lavji
You're having a whole like Michelin star restaurant theme for these guys.
00:48:29
Frank Wiebe
Exactly. Yep.
00:48:34
Aniz Lavji
I've seen the videos. Like, it's amazing, man. You do a lot for your people. That's amazing.
00:48:37
Zeb Beard
Yeah, and it it ain't just I do it for them. I'm telling you, I enjoy it too. I look forward to Tuesday night because I'm excited.
00:48:41
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:48:43
Zeb Beard
what Me and Susie talk about what going to cook, what we're going to fix, what we're going do here. Well, they'll probably like this, and and we'll go ask them, hey, do you want this? Do you want that? And then we we throw in some special things too.
00:48:54
Zeb Beard
If we hit like a certain milestone, because steaks are my specialty, and I really go all out on steaks.
00:48:59
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:49:01
Zeb Beard
I get two-and-a-half-inch thick steaks and all that. So if we hit a certain – I don't do it for them lot because I don't want to – um You know, I don't want to diminish it. I don't want to do it too much.
00:49:11
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:49:12
Zeb Beard
But when we really hit ah a big month or something, I'll cook a mistake. and And we'll do it that way.
00:49:19
Aniz Lavji
So, Frank, if we ever visit Zeb, we make sure it's on a Tuesday. Yeah.
00:49:23
Frank Wiebe
Oh, it will be. And that two and a half inch steak better be medium, medium rare.
00:49:27
Zeb Beard
That's another If you want to come visit, if you want to come visit, I go all out for that, too. We just had, you know, Ryan Straightman.
00:49:34
Aniz Lavji
Ryan?
00:49:35
Zeb Beard
Straightman Automotive, he's huge on Facebook. I think he's 200,000 followers.
00:49:38
Aniz Lavji
I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah.
00:49:40
Zeb Beard
He came through here and stopped and visited with me. I cooked him a steak. I did that on du it on Monday night. Him and his wife came by and stayed.
00:49:48
Aniz Lavji
All right.
00:49:49
Zeb Beard
Chris Ganey, he's come by, and i've cooked him some I cooked him a steak. and So I love for other shop owners to come by and visit. And when they do, I go all out.
00:49:58
Aniz Lavji
All right.
00:49:59
Zeb Beard
We throw a party. and we cook them something.
00:50:00
Frank Wiebe
um I'm up for a road trip.
00:50:02
Zeb Beard
We make them stay the night because, like i said, we got nine bedrooms. so And I built it for that. i want people I want people to come stay with me, see my operation, see how it works.
00:50:11
Aniz Lavji
Oh
00:50:13
Zeb Beard
I enjoy that. Because it wasn't that long ago I had one that was nothing to be proud of.
00:50:15
Aniz Lavji
yeah.
00:50:16
Frank Wiebe
that's That's amazing.
00:50:18
Zeb Beard
I didn't want anybody see it. So now that I've got one to be proud of, I'd like for people to come see it. That's
00:50:25
Frank Wiebe
and if And if you can't share it with the world, what's the point in having it, right?
00:50:28
Zeb Beard
right. You know, a lot of people take it wrong.
00:50:29
Frank Wiebe
is
00:50:29
Aniz Lavji
exactly
00:50:30
Zeb Beard
and They say, oh, that guy, he likes to brag. He likes, you know, he likes. That ain't why I do it. I mean, yeah, I like to brag, but it's not it's not like that.
00:50:41
Zeb Beard
i like I like to do it to, I don't know, to inspire people to, yeah, well I want to be proud of it.
00:50:47
Frank Wiebe
and And you're proud of what you have accomplished and and you want it and you want to share that with other people and and show them how they can accomplish it as well.
00:50:51
Zeb Beard
united s Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:50:55
Frank Wiebe
Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's that's something to brag about.
00:50:57
Zeb Beard
you I'd be the same way if I went to their shop. It wouldn't matter what kind of shop they had. I would brag and say, man, this is nice. I like the way you did this. you know I like the way you did that. I learned from from other people too. you know The whole 16-foot trailer deal, that that don't mean that I don't respect anybody that doesn't have the stuff that I have. That's not what that means because I do. I enjoy talking. That's my my favorite thing to do is talk to other shop owners and talk about business and how we do things and all that. And I learned from, I learned from everybody.
00:51:28
Aniz Lavji
the beauty is if I ever need to borrow a 16 foot trailer, I know this guy over here. I mean, I could just, you know,
00:51:33
Zeb Beard
That's right. Well, got one that sits here. It doesn't do it. I don't hardly ever use because it's too small. You can borrow it whenever you want to. it'd be a long way to come from Canada, but you could borrow
00:51:42
Aniz Lavji
Zev, are you going to any other conferences the rest of this year, man?
00:51:43
Frank Wiebe
Thank
00:51:47
Zeb Beard
Oh yeah. The conferences are, that's another one of my
Networking and Industry Conferences
00:51:50
Zeb Beard
favorite things. I'm telling you, I went to vision, I don't remember year, my first year Vision.
00:51:53
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:51:54
Zeb Beard
It wasn't that long ago.
00:51:55
Aniz Lavji
Are you going this year?
00:51:57
Zeb Beard
It wasn't that long ago it was my first year at Vision. And one of my friends, Chris Huggins, he kept telling, oh, man, you got to go to Vision. I'm like, man, I i don't think so, man.
00:52:05
Aniz Lavji
All right.
00:52:05
Zeb Beard
And he kept he kept on at me. I said, okay, I'm coming to Vision. And I went, I fell in love. I said, man, this is great. I'll be back every year. So then I went i went to Vision. Then I started going to ASTA. And that's by far, that's that's the cream of the crop right there.
00:52:23
Zeb Beard
And oh,
00:52:23
Aniz Lavji
Frank legally has to go to ASTA legally.
00:52:26
Frank Wiebe
Oh, yeah, I will.
00:52:26
Aniz Lavji
All
00:52:26
Zeb Beard
oh yeah, you got to go. You got to go.
00:52:29
Frank Wiebe
We're starting our first ever. We've never done the conference before, but we're going to Tools in April.
00:52:34
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I'm going to tools.
00:52:34
Frank Wiebe
and
00:52:35
Zeb Beard
I'll be there.
00:52:36
Frank Wiebe
Excellent.
00:52:36
Aniz Lavji
right.
00:52:37
Frank Wiebe
yeah I think Anis just said he talked his wife into it. I didn't even have to talk my wife into it.
00:52:40
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:52:42
Frank Wiebe
just told her it was at the Hershey factory, and she's like, let's go.
00:52:45
Zeb Beard
Oh, yeah, I'm excited about that. That's going to be a blast.
00:52:46
Frank Wiebe
yeah That's going to be fun.
00:52:46
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. I got tools. I got vision.
00:52:48
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
00:52:50
Aniz Lavji
I'm already a booked for Tectonic as well. i would never miss I would never miss a TechMetric event in no way. So I guess you got to go.
00:52:57
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I would like to do that tectonic, but it didn't just didn't fall in a place. It didn't fall in a place where I could go.
00:53:02
Aniz Lavji
You got to go to business.
00:53:03
Zeb Beard
And I got two more that I was supposed to go to. One of them i had to cancel. and I was actually teaching a class. There's a a small one. It's real small. and it's It's diesel related. um If you've ever heard Thoroughbred Diesel, they're big... um They're a big online seller. They sell all kinds of diesel parts and stuff like that.
00:53:24
Zeb Beard
Well, one of their guys that works for him, his name is Chris Shearer.
00:53:24
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:53:28
Zeb Beard
You'll see him in the groups a lot, man. That dude, he has a heart is bigger than this shop right here. Um, and he really wants to boost the, the diesel repair side is 30 years behind the automotive side.
00:53:34
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. Yeah.
00:53:44
Zeb Beard
Like we argue these guys every day about they're, they're still like barely over a hundred dollars an hour.
00:53:44
Aniz Lavji
yep
00:53:50
Zeb Beard
They charge less than book time. They charge map price on all their parts. I mean, it's horrible. So Chris is taking it on himself to try to bring the diesel repair industry up.
00:54:04
Zeb Beard
So he started this event. It's called Survivor Thrive. And they started it in Kentucky because that's where Thoroughbred is based out of.
00:54:07
Aniz Lavji
All right.
00:54:12
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:54:12
Zeb Beard
And So I went the first year and I didn't speak there. And then went the second year. I had to skip the third year, which was last year because they put it too close to vision.
00:54:24
Zeb Beard
I said, I can't go.
00:54:24
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:54:25
Zeb Beard
So he got a hotel of me about a month ago. He said, Hey, we're going to do one in Texas. Cause they opened up a new warehouse in Texas.
00:54:32
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:54:32
Zeb Beard
There's a lot of diesel shops there. He said, want you to come to Texas and do a diagnostic class. I said, Oh yeah, I'm there. No problem. We started deciding what I was going to do.
00:54:44
Zeb Beard
Well, last week, he put out the press release about the the the event in Texas and who all was speaking there.
00:54:53
Frank Wiebe
Thank you.
00:54:54
Zeb Beard
of course, I was on the list. And when my wife saw it, she texted me. She goes, you can't go. i said, why? She said, we've already – you don't remember that concert that we – It's a Dwight Yoakam and ZZ Top concert. I forget what they call it.
00:55:08
Zeb Beard
Dos Tres Amigos, something like that. And we went all out. We got the VIP backstage. I mean, we got everything. And she said, we bought that months ago. We're not missing. We can't miss that. I said, well, I got to cancel. So I'm not going to one in Texas, but I am going to the one in Kentucky.
00:55:26
Zeb Beard
And it'll be in October, I think. But it won't be here in AST.
00:55:28
Frank Wiebe
here
00:55:28
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:29
Zeb Beard
think it's like the week after ASTA, something like that. So that's that's another one that I'm going to.
00:55:32
Frank Wiebe
yeah you You're going to enjoy that concert. We saw ZZ Top, I don't know, sometime in the summer. yeah They were in Windsor, and we went to see them. That was a blast.
00:55:43
Frank Wiebe
That was a great concert.
00:55:44
Zeb Beard
Man, they ain't lost – they haven't lost a thing. We saw them in – yeah, yeah.
00:55:48
Frank Wiebe
and They're like 150 years old or something, but they're still rocking it.
00:55:50
Zeb Beard
So we went we went in 2020, I think it was. They were in Shreveport, Louisiana. So my friend, my Snap-on guy, I'm good friends with him, he said, hey, we got to go this concert. It's ZZ Top. I said, well, okay, yeah, I'll go.
00:56:02
Zeb Beard
I said, it's ZZ Top, man. They're 100 years old, but it's – at least I get to say that I've seen them. You know, they'll probably have to roll them out there in wheelchairs and all.
00:56:09
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
00:56:12
Zeb Beard
man, I'm going to tell you, they put on a hell of a show. it was They hadn't lost a thing.
00:56:15
Frank Wiebe
yep
00:56:17
Zeb Beard
You know, the one guy died, but the guy that feels in for him, he's fantastic, too. I mean, we we had a great time. So, um that's why i'm not canceling. now I'm really excited about him.
00:56:28
Zeb Beard
And then we saw Dwight Yoakam a couple years ago, and he's same way. He hadn't lost a thing either.
00:56:33
Aniz Lavji
I heard the the next ZZ Top's going to be at Stoker's Diesel on a 16-foot trailer. I heard a rumor.
00:56:40
Zeb Beard
I'd love to have them here. And I was going to do that, man. I said, you know, when I build this new building, and when I get it done, I'm going have a big concert and all. I hadn't done it, but I do need to do that.
00:56:50
Aniz Lavji
if you have that If you have that concert, Zev, I'll be the first one there, man.
00:56:50
Zeb Beard
All
00:56:54
Zeb Beard
right.
00:56:54
Frank Wiebe
Yeah. Yeah. Invite us over. We'll be there.
00:56:58
Zeb Beard
Yeah. I had a, see, yeah I sponsored a band for a while.
00:56:58
Frank Wiebe
Eatin' steaks. Eatin' steaks.
00:57:00
Zeb Beard
i I, for there for about a year, I sponsored a band. We went, we used to go to Key West all the time. We went in there. ah The, The biggest party bar down there is called Sloppy Joe's.
00:57:13
Zeb Beard
We went in there one time, and this band was playing.
00:57:13
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:57:16
Zeb Beard
And, man, I said, I've got to meet these guys. They're good. So we we met them, got become friends with them. Hell, I started sponsoring them. And they wore my shirts and all that. I didn't really get anything out of it, but it just it was cool to do, you know.
00:57:28
Zeb Beard
So I was going to have them come up and and play here whenever I opened this place, and I hadn't done it.
00:57:35
Aniz Lavji
Well, know you started sponsoring the fisherman, right? that That was pretty cool. I i was actually watching some of his videos.
00:57:40
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
00:57:42
Aniz Lavji
He is a pretty talented guy, man.
00:57:44
Zeb Beard
Oh, man, he he is awesome. if he had If he had all his arms and legs, nobody could stop him.
00:57:48
Frank Wiebe
Thank you.
00:57:50
Zeb Beard
But even even even with the the problems he has, he's still a fantastic fisherman. And that's not why I sponsored him.
00:57:55
Aniz Lavji
Incredible.
00:57:57
Zeb Beard
It's because of, you know, his handicaps. That has nothing to do with it. I sponsored him because he that guy fishes – think I think 2024, I think he went something like 260-something tournaments.
00:58:12
Zeb Beard
So he like he goes to tournaments all day, every day.
00:58:12
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:58:14
Zeb Beard
So what better exposure could you have?
00:58:15
Aniz Lavji
He ain't messing around.
00:58:18
Zeb Beard
Because um with bass fishermen, They'll put your logo on their truck and on their boat.
00:58:22
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:58:23
Zeb Beard
And then these tournaments that they fish, like the the pro tournament, the biggest tournament series he fishes is three days long. And they have cameras in the boats. So if your logo is on, and they put logos on the carpet of the boat, right?
00:58:33
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:58:38
Zeb Beard
So the camera is on your logo for eight hours a day for three days.
00:58:38
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
00:58:44
Zeb Beard
If if they're in the top you know the top several, they they put cameras in the top guy's boat. So if you get your logo on the front deck of that boat, there ain't no better coverage in the world.
00:58:49
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:58:52
Aniz Lavji
Good luck.
00:58:55
Aniz Lavji
No, I saw the video of you sponsoring. That was pretty cool, man.
Unique Opportunities and Social Media
00:58:59
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I'm excited about that. I'm excited to see where it goes. And there's all kinds of stuff we can do, man. Cause you know, if he runs his trailer, if he runs a wheel off his trailer, I want to be the first call. Cause man, what kind of photo op or, or, or, um,
00:59:09
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
00:59:11
Zeb Beard
you know opportunity would that be with social media? I could pull up there with my Landau, load his boat and his truck at the same time on it and wheel him into the tournament on my big truck.
00:59:23
Zeb Beard
you know What kind of exposure would that be? That would be awesome.
00:59:27
Aniz Lavji
we load em up to sixty
00:59:27
Zeb Beard
you know i don't want him i don't want I don't want to wish bad on him that a wheel runs off his boat trailer, but if it did, imagine the kind of exposure you could get out of that.
00:59:29
Aniz Lavji
and
00:59:37
Frank Wiebe
yeah definitely
00:59:37
Aniz Lavji
You must have a trailer that can fit that boat, no?
00:59:41
Zeb Beard
What's that?
00:59:41
Aniz Lavji
and said You must have a trailer that can fit that boat for sure.
00:59:45
Zeb Beard
Yeah, yeah, I got a trailer that would, I could pull his truck and his boat on the trailer onto my trailer and still have room left over.
00:59:54
Aniz Lavji
There you go.
00:59:58
Aniz Lavji
Oh, man.
00:59:58
Zeb Beard
I got plenty of videos of that thing. I got a, I got it. think I bought that thing, the truck first. I got it in 2019. Bought it out of a guy's yard.
01:00:07
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:00:08
Zeb Beard
It was my dream truck. I wanted a W900 Kenworth with 3406E Cat since I was a kid. Since they came out, this was a 96 model. So in 1996, that was my dream truck.
01:00:21
Zeb Beard
Had the wraparound dash. Fat boy kit, which means they take the sleeper off, then on a Kenworth, the back, when you take the sleeper off, the back half of the cab is open, right?
01:00:28
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
01:00:33
Zeb Beard
So then they put, when they take the sleepers off of those trucks, they put a, you know, it's a shell they put on the back. Well, they make one for a Kenworth called a fat boy, and it's about it sticks out about this far behind the back of the cab, so you have more root.
01:00:47
Zeb Beard
And so I found that truck on Facebook Marketplace. And my brother caught, I was sitting in in the airport to get my, um
01:00:58
Zeb Beard
it's the FastPad. What is it? What do they call it? TSA.
01:01:03
Aniz Lavji
Oh, Nexus.
01:01:06
Zeb Beard
It's whatever you have to do.
01:01:06
Frank Wiebe
No, it's nexus is was here.
01:01:07
Zeb Beard
you don't have to You don't have to take your shoes off and all that stuff. You just walk right through.
01:01:10
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, Nexus. Yeah, basically.
01:01:11
Zeb Beard
Anyway, I was in the airport getting that.
01:01:11
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:01:14
Zeb Beard
So, because we were about to go to Key West and I was on Marketplace looking and this truck pops up. And my brother lives in Louisiana. As soon as I saw that truck, he started calling me. So i answered the phone. He said, man, I found a truck you need to go get.
01:01:28
Zeb Beard
And I said, yeah, I'm looking at it right now. i already knew what you were calling about. And it was down in South Louisiana. So I called the guy. said, hey, I'm going to come get that truck, but it's going to be tomorrow morning.
01:01:36
Frank Wiebe
Thank
01:01:37
Zeb Beard
He said, well i got three people coming to look at it. it didn't It had some problems. it' been sitting up. The brakes didn't work on it. He and the starter don't work on it. He said, well, we can push it and get it running.
01:01:48
Zeb Beard
He said, i got three people ahead of you. If the truck runs, they're going back. I said, well, you called me. um but as I said, I'd be down there tonight, but I got to do this. I said, I'll be sitting in your place.
01:01:59
Zeb Beard
I'll be sitting in your driveway at daylight in the morning. I said, but you sell that damn truck, you better call me because I'm going to be driving like five hours.
01:02:02
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:02:06
Zeb Beard
If I drive all way down there and you sold it the night before, going to be pissed. So he did. I loaded up. I took my dually, and I had a big, long gooseneck trailer.
01:02:19
Zeb Beard
I stopped and got my brother, and we get got down there and bought that truck.
Truck Modifications and Business Utility
01:02:23
Zeb Beard
Anyway, I brought back the shop, worked on it for two years, got it all put together, and I got this Landau trailer.
01:02:30
Zeb Beard
So I can haul these 450s and 550s, you know. That's mainly what I got it for.
01:02:33
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:02:35
Zeb Beard
Because they got so heavy, you can't haul them on ah on a regular rollback record, you know. I got one of those too, but about up to about a one ton is about all you want to do. You know, you don't want to haul.
01:02:45
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:02:46
Zeb Beard
You can haul a 450 if it doesn't have a whole lot of stuff on it. But if you get these 450s 550s, these cranes and service beds on them you need a big truck to haul it. And that's what I got it for.
01:02:55
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:02:57
Frank Wiebe
Nice.
01:02:58
Aniz Lavji
No, man. That sounds good.
01:02:59
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, you got you got to you gotta to get what you need for your business if you can't service the vehicles that you have then.
01:03:02
Zeb Beard
Yeah, but that thing, what I'm getting back to, that thing's been a big advertising tool. that thing that Both of those records, man, it's great advertising tools because everybody sees them. Everybody talks about them, you know, and it gets anything you can do to get people to talk about your business or
Desire for Recognition in Automotive Repair
01:03:22
Zeb Beard
think about it. I won't i want everybody in South Arkansas, when their truck breaks down, I want them to think about me.
01:03:28
Zeb Beard
And even if they take it somewhere else, I want them to be thinking, man, I should have took it to that guy. So I want to be at the top of mind for everybody around here.
01:03:37
Aniz Lavji
i mean I think you've done a great job with your brand and everything. So in your area, I think you've got that pretty much covered.
01:03:45
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
01:03:45
Frank Wiebe
yeah
01:03:46
Zeb Beard
but I still want to go worldwide.
01:03:46
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:03:47
Zeb Beard
You know, my, my, um what do they call it? Mission statement. You know, my mission statement is a world domination and automotive repair. So I'm still, I'm still working on the world part.
01:03:58
Zeb Beard
I got the, think I got the region covered, but I will, I'm, trying to branch out and make it the world, you know?
01:04:04
Frank Wiebe
Well, we need a good diesel shop in our area, so if you want to start one out here, you know let me know.
01:04:09
Zeb Beard
Well, I don't think, I don't think I'll ever be a multi-location guy. I just never has, never has been my thing.
01:04:17
Aniz Lavji
you go You can open another Costco in Canada, man.
01:04:17
Zeb Beard
oh
01:04:20
Aniz Lavji
There's a lot of room here.
01:04:20
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
01:04:21
Frank Wiebe
There's actually a Costco that's for for lease here in London, so that's that's probably $100.
01:04:25
Aniz Lavji
There you go. There you go, man.
01:04:26
Zeb Beard
it's that's not It's way too damn cold up there for me. I don't know if y'all know me well enough, but a big joke with with my friends from New York and Canada is about the cold. i can't My species cannot survive in cold weather.
01:04:39
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, but you don't want to be here. You hire at least, like you said, six people.
01:04:40
Frank Wiebe
Yeah.
01:04:44
Aniz Lavji
They take care of the cold, cold continent, the cold, cold,
01:04:48
Zeb Beard
hello think I think I'm a one mega location guy over a multi location.
Automotive Events and Conferences
01:04:56
Aniz Lavji
This year, Zeb, what do you got planned? You got, you're going to Vision?
01:05:01
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I'll be at Vision. I'll be at Vision, and then the next one will be Tools.
01:05:08
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:09
Zeb Beard
And then we got ASTA. Then we have that Thoroughbred thing in Kentucky.
01:05:16
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:05:18
Zeb Beard
Those are the events i I will be at that I know of right now. If if one pops up, I might might slip another one in there because there's a big gap in the summer um that I don't really have any anything planned, so might do something there.
01:05:28
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:05:32
Aniz Lavji
Yeah. um' I'm planning on going to vision tools and ASTA this year. and That's my goal.
01:05:37
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I'm excited about that tools. I hadn't ever been to tools, but I'm excited to see that that Hershey.
01:05:41
Aniz Lavji
I never been.
01:05:43
Zeb Beard
of
01:05:44
Aniz Lavji
Hershey park.
01:05:46
Zeb Beard
Yeah, is is it like the factory? Were they making it?
01:05:48
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, it's right up it's right at the factory.
01:05:49
Aniz Lavji
Apparently, like, they got riots and all kinds of stuff there.
01:05:50
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
01:05:52
Zeb Beard
Yeah, I'm excited for that one. Brett Fadley has put a ton of work into that thing. He has really done well with it.
01:05:58
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:05:59
Zeb Beard
I want i want to brag on Brett. He he promotes that and has done fantastic with it. I think it was pretty run down when he took it over, and he's built that thing back up really trying to make something out of it.
01:06:11
Frank Wiebe
That's what I heard, that ah it's come a long way.
01:06:11
Aniz Lavji
If you can
01:06:13
Zeb Beard
He'd be a good guest to have on your show if you could get him.
01:06:16
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, i I'll definitely reach out. If you can make it a tectonic, that's supposed to be a lot of fun, man. This should be a really good...
01:06:22
Zeb Beard
What is that
01:06:23
Aniz Lavji
It's April... Oh, man, I should know this. April 8th. I'm booked for it. I'm going 100%.
01:06:29
Zeb Beard
Okay, that's not too far away, and it's in Texas too, right?
01:06:32
Aniz Lavji
It's in Houston. you know i don't know if I ever mentioned, i used to live in Texas.
01:06:36
Zeb Beard
Did you really?
01:06:37
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, man. I used to live in San Antonio for the longest time. I used i lived there for about 10 years.
01:06:42
Zeb Beard
Okay.
01:06:45
Aniz Lavji
So Tectonic is Houston, Texas, April 9th to the 11th. And i'm I'm booked to go. already got my hotel booked. I got the whole i got the conference booked.
01:06:58
Aniz Lavji
I don't have a flight booked yet, but I'm not worried about that. But honestly, i think that's going to huge conference, man. If you're not going and if you are able to go, I think it's definitely worth it going be lot of people going.
01:07:09
Zeb Beard
I might try. That's going to be tight in there with that. um That's going to be right after vision or pretty close after vision. me see how things going.
01:07:16
Aniz Lavji
So
01:07:17
Zeb Beard
Be hard to commit to it right now, but I would love to go. I've been kind of looking at it. I hadn't researched enough to know what exactly what day. well I didn't want to research it too much because then that'll make me, um um but I want to go so bad that I'll end up finding a way to So.
01:07:31
Aniz Lavji
Zeb, if you come to Tectonic, I'm going to take you out for steak. You name the place. We're gonna go out for steak dinner. How's that?
01:07:39
Zeb Beard
going to phone around and get me to go is what you're going to do.
01:07:41
Aniz Lavji
I got you. Frank, Frank, I'm still trying to get you to come out, man. Tectonic, you have a good time.
01:07:46
Frank Wiebe
Tectonics in Texas, right? I hear the Texas steak, they got like a 72 ounce steak challenge at some of those places.
01:07:51
Aniz Lavji
everything Everything's bigger in Texas, brother.
01:07:55
Zeb Beard
Yeah.
01:07:55
Frank Wiebe
Yep.
01:07:56
Zeb Beard
Yeah, that's 72 ounces in Amarillo. I went there one time.
01:07:59
Frank Wiebe
Is it?
01:08:00
Zeb Beard
You ever been there in these?
01:08:03
Aniz Lavji
never. No, I've been a Dallas, been to Houston, San Antonio.
01:08:04
Zeb Beard
Yeah, we went to that we went to that steakhouse that they're talking about there. we All my wife's people are from California. So few times we drove out there and we we stopped by that steakhouse there in Amarillo.
01:08:11
Aniz Lavji
Yeah.
01:08:16
Zeb Beard
It's something see. It's actually pretty good, too. I didn't think it was going to be that good. I thought, you know it's a novelty act type deal. It's probably going to be – what's that?
01:08:22
Aniz Lavji
72 ounce? 72 ounce, I mean.
01:08:26
Zeb Beard
Oh, I didn't do that. No, I didn't do that. There was couple of people that tried it while we were there, and they didn't make it.
01:08:28
Frank Wiebe
ah
01:08:31
Aniz Lavji
i mean, I, oh, you know what? I read the sign.
Cultural Insights into Cutting Horses
01:08:35
Aniz Lavji
i read the sign. It said, in order to order the 72 ounce steak, you must have a 16 foot trailer. Remember that?
01:08:43
Zeb Beard
Yeah, well, I think they'll let anybody have it, any anybody order it. But if you you have to eat the steak, it's a steak, a shrimp cocktail, and a salad and a glass of tea.
01:08:54
Aniz Lavji
Yep, yep, yep. I remember that, yep.
01:08:56
Zeb Beard
if You have to finish all four of them. I want to thank Andre the Giant one in there, and I think he ate three of them, I think.
01:09:03
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, in one city.
01:09:03
Frank Wiebe
Oh my gosh.
01:09:04
Aniz Lavji
In one city.
01:09:04
Zeb Beard
Yeah, he ate three of them, i think. Two or three of them, something like that.
01:09:06
Aniz Lavji
Yep.
01:09:08
Zeb Beard
And drank a case of beer while he was doing it.
01:09:12
Frank Wiebe
Man, that's incredible.
01:09:14
Aniz Lavji
Oh, man.
01:09:14
Zeb Beard
It's something to see if you're out there. It was pretty it's pretty good place to eat.
01:09:18
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, we'll have to check it out one day for sure.
01:09:18
Zeb Beard
to see.
01:09:21
Aniz Lavji
I love my town time in Texas. I mean, that's my second home. I mean, that San Antonio was there for years and years and years. And every time I go back, it's basically just getting back to home, man.
01:09:33
Zeb Beard
Yeah. I've lived in Texas myself twice. When I was a kid, my, see my folks, my mom and dad, they were horse trainers.
01:09:37
Aniz Lavji
Oh, yeah.
01:09:41
Zeb Beard
They trained cutting horse. You know, you know, anybody cutting horse, you know what cutting horses are?
01:09:46
Aniz Lavji
No.
01:09:47
Zeb Beard
You ever watch Yellowstone?
01:09:50
Aniz Lavji
I've heard the show.
01:09:51
Zeb Beard
Okay. Well, you're not going know what about, but anyway, on Yellowstone, when the, when, you know, they have the horses that are sliding and doing all that stuff.
01:09:59
Aniz Lavji
Yeah, yeah.
01:09:59
Zeb Beard
Well, We didn't do that, but if you watch the show close enough, you'll see horses out there with a cow, and they're working the cow back and forth. That's cutting horses.
01:10:08
Frank Wiebe
Thank you.
01:10:09
Zeb Beard
Anyway, it's big money, especially in Texas, and so my dad trained those horses basically his whole life. So, yeah, go watch it.
01:10:18
Aniz Lavji
I'm going to start watching Yellowstone tomorrow, man.
01:10:21
Zeb Beard
Now, the the Taylor Sheridan, he he plays the horse trainer in the show. And a lot of the show is embellished and added to and exaggerated.
01:10:33
Zeb Beard
But the part about the where where Taylor is – enacting the horse trainer part, that's 100% true. That's exactly the way horse trainers are in real life.
01:10:44
Zeb Beard
So if you watch the show, you can throw it all out the window except the part where he portrays the horse trainer. And that's that's true to life right there, especially in texas especially a Texas horse trainer.
01:10:53
Frank Wiebe
Nice.
01:10:53
Aniz Lavji
Oh man. no
01:10:56
Aniz Lavji
um man Oh, man, Zeb. We're pushing about of hour and 11 minutes, so i'm gonna I think we're going to call it here. um i really appreciate you, man, taking the time out of your busy schedule to come out and talk to us.
Conclusion and Humorous Advice
01:11:12
Aniz Lavji
and And now we know...
01:11:12
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, absolutely. This was great.
01:11:14
Zeb Beard
Man, like I said, I'm always always up for a pod. um ah love I love talking about myself. So um I'm up for it anytime. That's my favorite subject.
01:11:24
Zeb Beard
I can go on it for hours. So if you ever need to fill a spot, just holler at me, and I'll get on here and talk about myself as long as you want me to.
01:11:31
Aniz Lavji
Look, like I said, on Monday, I'm going on Facebook Marketplace. I'm looking for a 16-foot trailer. When they ask me what I need for, I'm going to Zeb Beard said, I need a 16-foot trailer to be a man.
01:11:46
Zeb Beard
That's right.
01:11:47
Aniz Lavji
So I'm going to buy one. I'm going to park it. I'll just drive something on the trailer, let it sit there for the next few years and figure out something
01:11:54
Zeb Beard
Well, I tell you, it'll change your life. That one thing will change your life. I can go on and tell you.
01:12:00
Aniz Lavji
And here I thought, coach is going to change my life. Now I just have my 16-foot foot.
01:12:02
Frank Wiebe
You just got all the coaching you needed right here, and it was free.
01:12:05
Zeb Beard
I'm telling you. I'm telling you, get that 16-foot trailer. up the next the Within an hour, you're going to feel so much better about yourself. or There ain't going to be nothing that you can't do. You can accomplish anything.
01:12:15
Aniz Lavji
um visit a height zeb I'm to hire you as my coach because I think I've got enough advice I need on this whole podcast right now.
01:12:22
Zeb Beard
I do it for free. I won't even charge you.
01:12:25
Aniz Lavji
All right, man. I appreciate you coming on with us. And honestly, I got to say personally, congratulations on what you've done and getting to where you are being in the massive building you are.
01:12:39
Aniz Lavji
i can definitely say that that was not easy. That was a lot of hard work that you put in.
01:12:45
Zeb Beard
It sure was.
01:12:46
Aniz Lavji
and and you know, congratulations to you. And thank you so much for chatting with myself and Frank. And we really appreciate it, man.
01:12:54
Zeb Beard
Man, thank thank you. Thank you for the praise and the recognition. And ah thank you for having me on like it's an It's an honor to be on these podcasts. I love so it. So it's special to me to get invited on to one.
01:13:09
Zeb Beard
All
01:13:09
Aniz Lavji
Of course, man. You're a little bit of a diesel royalty, man, in the in the whole scene, man. We appreciate you coming on, brother.
01:13:17
Zeb Beard
right.
01:13:18
Frank Wiebe
Yeah, absolutely.
01:13:18
Zeb Beard
Anytime.
01:13:20
Aniz Lavji
All right, man. Thank you so much, buddy.
01:13:22
Zeb Beard
All right, I'm going to bed.
01:13:24
Aniz Lavji
right.