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Ep 6 - Lucas Underwood, Before He Was President
338 Plays2 months ago
Today, I remind Lucas that Tekmetric is the superior Shop Management System. Maybe he will make the switch? I know you should. Learn more HERE
Today, Mike and Lucas talk about embezzlement, yelling at customers as a shop owner, and how to learn lessons from mistakes. Lucas talks about a leadership class in San Diego he attended and how it impacted his management approach. Lucas then enters the confessional to talk about a confrontation he had with a customer he should have fired years ago. Does he regret how he handled it?
00:00 Leadership Psychology in Business Deals
05:21 Rewriting Your Inner Dialogue
12:11 "Embrace Struggle, Aspire Higher"
20:40 Cookie Shop Car Service
25:13 Morning Decision-Making Moment
31:00 Regret Over Rushed Manager Changes
31:44 Reflection on Past Decisions
39:04 Close-Knit Workplace Bonding
47:26 Demanding Employer with Communication Struggles
51:40 Establishing Family Business Governance
57:41 Changing Stories Trigger Suspicion
01:02:38 Hiring a Coach Experience
01:06:34 Opposing Frivolous Lawsuits for Healing
01:11:07 City Controller's $52M Theft Uncovered
01:15:00 Unintended Consequences of Reporting Fraud
01:24:28 IRS Tax Liability Confusion
01:30:13 Unmanaged Culture and Leadership Issues
01:31:36 Confidence in Problem-Solving Ability
01:36:25 Confessions of a Shop Owner
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Transcript
Introduction & Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
What's up, Confessions World? On today's episode, I've got Lucas Underwood, the man, the myth, the legend in his own mind. Got to travel up to Blowing Rock, North Carolina and spend a couple of hours at his shop and studio. Had a really good conversation, talked about what he's got going on in his life, some of his struggles and some of the successes. I think it was a really interesting conversation and I hope that you'll think so too. Let's get started.
Content Disclaimer
00:00:28
Speaker
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we, or our guests may say, do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along. So without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner, with your host, Mike Allen.
Humorous Banter & Insecurities
00:01:00
Speaker
your flashlights on because I'm bright my dad always calls me son yeah which son are we gonna go there with this are we seriously gonna go there with this Uh, so we're here to talk today about your insecurities and your older brother therapy sessions with Lucas. Yeah, I know. Right? Like that's what this is. Now I gotta, I gotta start by thanking you for helping me out today. You're welcome. Um, I have driven up the mountain to the frozen tundra of blowing rock North Carolina. It's pretty cold. Yeah. It's miserable. Yeah. I, um, I was invited by Vilo to go to Oklahoma city or, or, uh, no Tulsa Tulsa. And, um,
00:01:48
Speaker
in the summer, right? No, no, this weekend. And and Tony Mercury calls me and he's like, hey, I just want you to know that it could either be really hot or it could be really cold. And it's going to be really cold. Sorry. I get that's where they're headquartered. But I've made a new rule that if you want me to go somewhere and it's cold outside, I need to go somewhere where it's warm. Offsetting. Yes. Yeah. This is miserable. I was in San Diego a week ago. It was 70 degrees.
00:02:17
Speaker
It's now eight. That's how you have a training event. Yes. and You know, that's one of the contributing factors to why I've never been to vision. Really? is one Fuck, what do you want to go there at that time of year? Dude, sometimes it's 80 degrees and nice and the very next day you wake up and there's snow on the ground and you're like, what happened? How did this even happen?
Leadership & Personal Growth
00:02:34
Speaker
um Um, so I went to San Diego for this leadership class, right? Holy cow.
00:02:41
Speaker
This leadership class was based on the psychology. It wasn't based around like the the automotive business. It was based purely in psychology. It was based purely in in um the concept of why human beings do what they do, right? And man, I've got a ah manager that went with me.
00:03:03
Speaker
And watching him have breakthroughs as a human being sitting through this class and watching him say, holy cow, I've missed it as a dad. I've missed it as a husband. And I see where I missed it.
00:03:16
Speaker
And it it's things that, you know those little isms that your parents always share? Like treat people the way you want to be treated. and you know little Little just comments they've made throughout your life that you didn't understand the science behind it. This class puts all the science behind it. So this class is Hertzberg? Michael Smith. Michael Smith is his name, but he works for Hertzberg and Smith. okay and Well, I guess he works with the Institute now, but his company was Hertzberg
Psychology in Business Decisions
00:03:43
Speaker
and Smith. okay And so what they did was they they focused on the psychology of leadership and they focused on the psychology of deals, right? Because they typically do mergers and acquisitions. And he set out to understand why did private equity, why did venture capital,
00:04:01
Speaker
spend more money on this business versus this business. What was the difference? It's really cool to get to hear his perspective on it because he said the difference was is that if a business had a good culture and its destination and its vision was laid out for its staff,
00:04:17
Speaker
that if the owner sells, the staff continues in that direction. But if it's just a job, if it's just a place to show up and get a paycheck, the minute the owner sells, there is no business, right? Because the staff.
00:04:32
Speaker
moves away. So how do you set a vision, destination, whatever catchphrase, hot term you want to use for auto repair? Well, he dug into that, right? And he really talked about as human beings, what is it that we're hoping to accomplish with our lives, right? And so now it's not necessarily about where an auto repair shop can go. It's how does an auto repair shop help its people achieve what they want to achieve?
00:04:59
Speaker
Right. And, and develop that culture into serving them. So therefore they serve the clients. This is a tool. This is a resource. This business is what helps me get my home. This business is what helps me go to the next step in my career. And it's about, you know, he he has this phrase, he keeps using truth tapes. You know, he's like, what's on your truth tape? What's on your truth tape? What are you telling yourself? What are you saying to yourself?
00:05:27
Speaker
And in auto repair, we often say, this is a dead end career. I'm not going to get anywhere with this. I'm going to age out as a technician. I'm not going to be able to, to do ABC or D and that's just not true. And so he's talking about, Hey, let's change what we're telling ourselves. And let's talk about where we can go as opposed to where we're not going to go. Cause there is a lot of negative, not just self-taught, but there's a lot of negative industry talk.
00:05:54
Speaker
yeah and And we are setting course based on the industry self-talk. And I think it's heading in a negative direction in some aspects. Well, so ah
Industry Challenges & Mentorship
00:06:05
Speaker
a lot of the echo chambers that are the groups that we are part of, you know, the old heads are bitter, yeah kind of ground down to a k nub and telling all the young ones that either they're stupid or they should not get in this industry or they should get out.
00:06:22
Speaker
yeah Part of David's schtick is to always say you should never want to own and i never want to start a shot. and never want it yeah and and you know i think there's I think there's experiences because that's one of the things that they talked about in this class is that your life is made up by these sub-memories.
00:06:43
Speaker
Right. And so you have these little memories and these experiences throughout life of these things that have happened to you, like your brother beating the crap out of you and like being far superior and never never won a fight with me. Not once. Okay.
00:06:57
Speaker
I'll remember that. Uh, next time I say when I ask, but, but so, you know, we, we have these sub experiences and we learn from those experiences and they set our path. They set the direction that we're going in. Um, and I think that a lot of that comes from bad experiences they've had, right?
00:07:16
Speaker
And negative experiences leave a ah more permanent, more lasting mark on people. Yeah. I mean, how many people in our trade and in any trade set their policies and procedures of their business based on the bad customer interactions yeah versus the 95% of good customer interactions? The exception, not the rule. yeah Well, and you know, so we, we did talk about a lot of that, especially on the way back, we're talking about some of the things we've done in my business and some of the thought processes that we've had and and how we've, we've done things. And I think back about these folks that have made decisions based on these negative past experiences in a lot of ways, they block the door, they, they barricade the door.
00:08:00
Speaker
to better experiences because of what they're already saying, what they're already telling themselves. Jeff's a really good example of that, right? Jeff was really frustrated before he came to ASTA the first time. And he was like, I'm done. I'm out.
Market Differences in Auto Repair
00:08:15
Speaker
And then he came to ASTA and he saw a different perspective. And I think of all the things that I took from that class and it's something that I tell myself frequently that other people don't have the perspective that you have.
00:08:28
Speaker
but it was a reminder that they don't. I'm really bad not to catch that. I'm really bad, you know, people say I paint with a really broad brush. It's because I see things through my lens and I express myself with my lens.
00:08:41
Speaker
Other people don't have that same experience. So us old owners that have been doing this for a while, we're like, it's not that bad. You don't know what you're talking about. And so we shut the door. Those old tags are like, Oh man, this terrible experience. I'm like, you're not going to convince me of anything either. So what do they do? They shut the door.
00:09:00
Speaker
They don't leave the door open to be able to to have a discussion or understand how somebody else sees things. That's absolutely been my experience as I've been going to more and more training events over the years yeah is I had a very narrow scope of, uh, view of our trade, uh, because I grew up in my father's shop and then I bought my father's shop. I never worked at another shop. right And so,
00:09:27
Speaker
you know, I grew up going to his 20 group meetings and being exposed to other shops that operated in the same fashion. Yeah. And so I was very fortunate. It was, he was already kind of a forward thinking forward operating shop. He treated his people really well. He gave competitive compensation and benefits packages. He never, you know, did the I'll get you back next time thing. And you know, you never did. He never took hours away from guys. Right. And so I'd hear all of these complaints, but it didn't seem to line up. well Just fucking quit. Go somewhere else. What do you, I mean,
00:09:56
Speaker
But that wasn't the nature of the marketplace until the last three or four years. And even now, they it's the minority. Yeah. Right? And Jeff actually kind of beat that into me. and Conversation after conversation with him, he was like, you don't understand. Yeah. Most shops are like this. um And my whole experience had been the 5% of shops that weren't like that. Yeah. Right? um The other thing is, yeah if you see it, all the coaches say that everywhere they go,
00:10:26
Speaker
they talk about the methodologies that they espouse, and they're told that won't work in my market, that won't work in my market. yeah And they are, because i've I've heard it now going to class over and over. um And I bought into that because I grew up in a really good market, and I still operate in a really good market. So compared to a lot of these guys that we know in the industry and a lot of these shops around the country, it is really easy to do what we do compared to if we tried to do it.
00:10:52
Speaker
and ah town with a median income of thirty thousand dollars yeah for sure um That's not to say that that won't work in my market because there are still world-class operators in very depressed areas who can make it work. It's just easier where I am. Well, and it's relative, right? So like if if you're in a depressed market, that means that rents depressed. That means wages are depressed. It means across the board, typically you see lower numbers, not everything. Well, I mean, a gallon of milk is the same pretty much anywhere, right? Unless you're in Hawaii or something. A new Silverado is the same pretty much everywhere, Yeah,
00:11:27
Speaker
So yes, there are things that rent being a primary one, but. Yeah. and I mean, that's one of your largest expenses though. Yeah. Proportionally. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right? Like, so you you have to take that into account. Um, and you know, I don't know, I, I.
00:11:44
Speaker
It comes back to this victim mentality for me. And ah right before you walked in, Chris and I were sitting downstairs and there's this Jordan Peterson video that made him go like Uber famous. Um, and it was him talking about all of these different people who claim to be oppressed. And he's like, of course you are.
00:12:02
Speaker
And you're oppressed and you're oppressed and you're oppressed and you're oppressed. He's like, we're all oppressed because life is struggle. Like that, that to a degree is the meaning of life. Life is struggle. The difference is, is you're are you going to get up off your ass and do something to make it better? Right? Because like there's nobody on this planet that you can imagine that doesn't have struggle. Even the people who have it made and things are going well, right? Like I think about you often.
00:12:28
Speaker
When I struggle in the shop and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. Um, but no, no, I'm serious and I've talked about this on the show before because I always aspired to like reach your level. And I always said, when I reach Mike's level, when I get to that point, things will be better. And then eventually I saw people doing that to me and I'm like,
00:12:50
Speaker
oh Shit these people have lost it like this is rough, right? Well, I think I think the reality is I mean, we all know this. The reality is very different than the image that is portrayed. Yeah. Whether you mean to or not. Yeah. And I don't i don't want to complain and whine on the internet. Yeah. I don't want to talk about all the times that I slammed my dick in the door yeah due to stupidity. Well, I mean, like the the thing that I thought about was when you when you had to step back onto the counter.
00:13:23
Speaker
Right. And I'm sitting here thinking, how do I get off the counter? I never want to be back on the counter. I hate being on the counter. I mess the business up when I'm on the counter. I make it tough for the technicians when I'm on the counter. I'm good at being on the counter, but, but I'm, I'm ruthless. Right. When it comes to that, I i want a very set of standards for my clients and I want this, that and the other.
00:13:44
Speaker
And it's really hard to, to be able to duplicate that. I think it's really hard. I bet it's really hard to work for you as a service advisor. Oh yeah. Yeah. i um Yeah. They, they don't like that at all. I mean, you just have a very exacting set of standards that you expect. I do and I sell a lot of service and it's really hard to keep up with it because like I'm pushing them, right? And we're driving. And then one day you pop up and i mean I'm back on the counter. I'm like, wo what? Hang on now. Like maybe at this point I'm thinking that I just want to quit. It wasn't long because I don't want to do this, right? but But that's just it is like you walked away from the business and you thought that you had set like this standard and this is what's going to be how it's going to be ran. And this is what it's going to do.
00:14:29
Speaker
And then one day you look back and you're like, uh, well, it didn't run off the rails all at once, right? It was, yeah it was death by a thousand paper cuts was incremental, uh, distraction from the mean. Yeah. know Oh dude, I am so going through that right now. Not with shop. You've got, uh, you got some, Hey, back up. I want to have that conversation if you're willing to have it. I also want to talk about, uh, if you're willing, yeah your latest eviction.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that was a crazy situation. um Tell me about it. We have had a gentleman who came into the shop um and has been coming here for a few years, and every time he comes here, it's a problem, right?
00:15:12
Speaker
um he um I'm not gonna judge anybody, but I'm gonna tell you, I think there's some addiction problems yeah in this person's life, and and for those that have seen the video, you can see his face, and I think it's obvious what kind of addiction we're dealing with here. and This person has money. It's not a money problem. um A while back, he had come in and he brought in a car. We worked on that car. He wanted to buy a car that had been abandoned here. We'd gotten in the title and we were gonna scrap it. And I went to him and I said, hey, he was asking about it. And I said, look, dude, I don't know anything about it. And I said, if you go look on Kelly Blue Book, this is a $15,000 car. I've got it running, but that's really the extent of it. This is sold as is.
00:15:56
Speaker
What kind of hoodie was it? I think it was a Tiguan. And I was like, thousand bucks, man. Jurors. And I mean, it's torn all the pieces, the interior's trashed. It's obvious. He's like, I just need it to run for a little bit. Hey there. I'm going to tell you about something that has completely transformed, however, on my shop. Tech metric. As a 20 year shop owner, outdated systems used to slow us down. Everything was clunky from check-in to estimate building to customer updates. It all felt just super inefficient. Switching to Techmetric has changed everything. With Techmetric, you get a powerful shop management system that includes DVI, quick and easy estimate building, inventory management, real-time reporting, amazing customer communication, and it's really easy for your employees to learn how to use the software. I'm talking like a one-day learning curve.
00:16:45
Speaker
On top of that, TechMetric has tons of other tools to make you an even better operator. Stuff like integrated payments with buy now, pay later options is a huge asset. Ask me how I know. And recently, they've added a CRM ah component with their partnership with ShopGenie, which I'm a happy ShopGenie customer already, so I'm super excited about that.
00:17:07
Speaker
Now, obviously there are a lot of factors at play here, but I want to give you some facts about my business since I made the change to TechMetric. In September of 2020, when I switched to TechMetric, my ARO was $293. In September of 2024,
00:17:22
Speaker
We were $916, that's over 300% growth. Now I'm not saying that TechMetric created all of that change, but I'm 100% saying that I couldn't have come this far without TechMetric. It's a key factor in our growth and success. If you're ready to level up your shop, TechMetric has everything you need, productivity, revenue, customer experience. Measure up by every measure with TechMetric. Tap the link in the show notes to learn more. Okay.
00:17:49
Speaker
A couple of weeks later comes back and it needs a wheel bearing and it was a wheel bearing and something else. I dropped like 1600 bucks. Just paid for it. didn't Didn't charge him. Why did you not charge him? Um, well, I had said it was as is, but I felt bad about it. So I fixed it and No issues, didn't have any problems, was happy when he left, everything's great. And he leaves, and then he brings his other car
Quality Control & Customer Expectations
00:18:14
Speaker
back. And it was things like he took forever to approve a repair, sub-frame it right out on the car, we fixed the car, it took forever to come get the car, and then he gets the car, and every time he comes in, it's like, I want an oil change. We make wrecks, and then he brings the car back, two days later saying, you broke my car, and look what the heck you did. rather
00:18:36
Speaker
And so when, when he does this, he starts mentioning the things that we read and he's like, you did this, bro. I told you about it. We asked you if you want to deal with this. And, but he has umia amnesia all of a sudden, right? It comes back once his face. So a couple of months back, car comes in cars in terrible shape. Once it all changed.
00:19:02
Speaker
This is the Tiguan or a different one? Different car. This is Mercedes. Once the car fixed, we do the oil service, we give him estimates for everything it needs, put a belt on it, ship the car out. Now, it goes through QC, technician drives at 10 miles, QC drives at 10 miles, checks all fluids, checks for leaks, sees nothing. Pause. A car that comes in for an oil service and gets a fan belt and gets 20 miles of test driving with you? Yeah. If it, if it's just an oil service, it'd be six. So it'd be three and three. If it is anything more than oil service, tires, things like that, very basic stuff. It's 20 miles and so much more than we do. Well, much but, but now take this into account. You're in a very different market to drive 10 miles in your market is going to take two hours. Right to drive 10 miles here takes us 12 minutes, right? Go up our route as we go up here and we go up to apps key turn left go up the hill turn left go down to the Parkway turn right onto the Parkway up to Thunder Hill turn around come back and turn back in the parking lots 10 miles, right 15 minutes max and
00:20:10
Speaker
The reason it's that number is because I found that every one of my genuine comebacks where there was a problem happened between 15 and 18 miles if I did not drive the vehicle.
00:20:23
Speaker
And so 90% of all of the things that we have happen, we catch with a 20 mile drive, right? And because the tech only drives at 10 miles, it's not that much time out of his day. He comes back, here he rechecks his work, make sure it's good. and Who does QC? is that George. Oh, okay. And is that all George does at QC? That's all George does at QC. And so he he takes, he does the quick clean on it, rechecks all the fluids, retorts the wheels. And so it's just that second layer of protection. now We serve a very particular client, if you will, right? Like the client that we serve here wants that. They expect their cookies in their car when they pick their car up. We we were talking to one of our fleets the other day and they said, we have this problem. Can you like print little cards out to put in the cars for us so they know who to call?
00:21:11
Speaker
and You bring your cars here all the time, they're like, yeah, but everybody only knows you as the cookie shop. and So they can't remember the name of the shop. They're just like, the plates with cookies, you know? And so that that's why we, you know, our clientele wants that. That's the type of experience they want. We're not looking for the turn and burn consumer. So with that really thorough QC process and having a fully, a full-time dedicated QC person,
00:21:38
Speaker
Uh, cause you haven't had that for, you didn't have that before you moved into this building. Yeah, I did. Okay. What's your comeback rate like? Um, it holds at 3% for the most part, unless I have like a big failure transmission or something like that. Um, right now it's at 5.37%, but it is because we did like three transmissions for one vehicle to get a good one back in it.
00:22:03
Speaker
Right. So how do you measure that percentage? is it So it's billed at full price, okay right? Because when, when Rick taught me that it was, Hey, I want to know what your opportunity loss is. I don't care what the, the warranty number is. I don't care about any of that. I want to know what the opportunity loss was. Now that, that saved my butt. I don't know if you've ever ran into this. That saved my butt, um, sales tax.
00:22:28
Speaker
If they do an audit on your sales tax in North Carolina, and they see that you have a ticket that had X dollars on it, and then you have the same ticket that had the same service on it that was done and it has $0 on it, they will make you pay the tax off the other one. And they'll say, you can't have a $0 ticket for the same service. That's tax evasion. That, swear to God. Even if it was covered by your defect warranty? Mm-hmm.
00:22:55
Speaker
Because that's use tax. We have sales and use tax in North Carolina. You can't zero dollar a ticket. So you got audited and you got busted for that. Almost. And they looked at it and they said, oh, that was, was paid. So then.
00:23:14
Speaker
You bill it at full retail and then you just have like ah ah a a payment type that is warranty. It's a payment type, warranty for each individual technician, warranty for each individual ah vendor. You can either do it manually in QuickBooks or you can have it set up to where it does it and and I don't have to categorize it. and What's the payment type in Shopware reporting?
00:23:34
Speaker
Um, what do you mean? Like, like when you go to, I don't need shop or, so I don't know, but, uh, like in tech metric, when I'm closing a ticket, it's cash check. your Yeah. So it's other, it's other, and then it's other credit card. And then it reports as whatever I name it. So I can name it whatever. i'll to put books where you want And then I map it in back office directly to the expense account I want to go in. And then I can go look at my expense account. And if I see a trend or see something.
00:24:01
Speaker
you know, ETE remands way up there at the very top of that list this year. yeah Right? um Not far into the year yet. Yeah, I know. But so, you know, we we take this dude's car, we drive it, we go through the motions, coolant's checked, everything's good. He comes back and he says that it's leaking. Now, um I will not deny that i was quick to act couple things there's a lot going on in life right now and so it's been a little stressful uh... i had started new medications for the back and everything else going on and i'm i'm really bad for if i take medication it makes me kind of
00:24:40
Speaker
irritable. It makes me grouchy the next day. Um, and I've stopped taking the mess. I'm just still with pain, but, um, so he comes in and I hear him saying to the advisor, the advisor did not explain it correctly. Typically our process is, is if we have a comeback, we say now we're going to take a look at this. If it is something to do with the work we did, there's no charge whatsoever. Right. And he handled it the wrong way. Did not, did not deal with it properly.
00:25:07
Speaker
But I walk out because I hear him ramping up. Yeah. The escalation of tone. Yeah. And so I instantly made a decision as I was sitting in my chair, I a i was grouchy. I'm really grouchy in the mornings in the first place. And then on top of that, I'd been taking the medication. And when I walked out of that door, I said to myself, are you going to deal with this now? Are you going to deal with this later? Because you know what's going to happen if you deal with it later.
00:25:36
Speaker
And so I walked out and I said, let me explain to you how we do this. And I did like that. And he goes like this. Now my worst trigger, the one thing that I have to be very careful and I don't want somebody's teeth out for is don't mock me, right? Like you can say whatever you want to me.
00:25:53
Speaker
mock me and I have a visceral reaction for some reason. I cannot help myself. And I have gotten enthralled from being a little brother, right? Well, I have, I'm gonna tell you, I have had my fair share of almost oopsies over this, right? Like that would have been a felony. ah And I just, when he did that to me, he goes like, yeah, like that. And dude, I just walked up and I pushed his keys back across the counter. So I'm done, get out. And he just like, you saw the video.
00:26:20
Speaker
15 minutes of him just standing there badgering pushing other clients out of the way being a disrespectful jackass, right? umve I've only That I know of I've only kicked four people out ever. I've only told four people I won't work for um Even the girl that I evicted we went on and fixed that car for her. She's in prison Alright, she's got eight years in prison. Holy cow. Mm-hmm almost killed her grandmother and And you know, i think that I think that that is a clear sign that the mental health system in this country is broken, right? And i when I talked to them, when when the thing happened with the girl and and the whole evicted thing came up, I stood there and talked with the sheriff's officers about it. We we had a nice long chat and he said,
00:27:10
Speaker
I know. And he said, the problem is is he said, this is not a situation where this is a human being that is thinking clearly. And this is not a situation where like, I think that prisons, the answer for her, it's only going to make this worse, but we, our hands are tied. Right. And, and did you see the other video that I posted, the dude trying to steal my wife's car in front of the shop?
00:27:34
Speaker
Um, I didn't watch it closely. I read the, I read your description. So it was the guy who had the traumatized child with him. Yeah. And it, dude, it like freaked me out because I saw the fear in this kid's eyes, right? And they came out here and they asked me questions about what happened and and they did stop him, right? They pulled him over.
00:27:53
Speaker
And she said, I can't tell you like the whole story, but I can tell you that he has a verified diagnosis and that this is a mental health thing and that the child is safe and the child is with somebody who can care for the child. And this is a case of the system dropping the ball.
00:28:11
Speaker
he shouldn't have been in a situation. And that, to me, that was a real wake up call because I saw in this dude's face, right? Like when he apologized for trying to take my wife's car, he was genuine. But dude, like whatever was talking up here- Was he confused or? Because it was the same type of vehicle, right, that he had? No, he was not confused. He was hearing voices that were telling him to do things.
00:28:37
Speaker
And he was saying things like, are you familiar with Hamzad? Are you familiar with Hamzad? Do you know Hamzad? Do you know Hamzad? Sandy sent me. Sandy sent me. And like all these other like weird things. And so I think he was schizophrenic. I think that that he had gone and and gotten his child and he was okay. And he stopped taking his medication and episode had an episode and things went downhill and he she literally said he could not figure out how to get back to where he was supposed to, he doesn't even know where he's at.
00:29:08
Speaker
He's just driving around. And, and I think most likely what it was is the other car was almost out of gas. Right. And so it was just some sort of a logical response to try and solve that. And, and so if, if you want to know what I think the real root of the problem is, I think that there there's a mental health crisis in this country.
00:29:30
Speaker
And I don't think that we're doing a good job of handling it. And for a long time, we've just labeled them as criminals. And so instead of dealing with what caused it, dealing with work through it, uh, the girl that got evicted, very, very wealthy family, mogul family, right? I mean, so much money, you could not spend it in interest alone. Wealthy mom's dead. Dad's dead. Siblings are dead.
00:30:00
Speaker
Right? Grandmother's alive. Addiction has consumed the entire family. Right? And so you can't look at that human being and say, yeah, like you were crazy and you were acting nuts in my facility, but you're still a human being and I hate that what's happened to you has happened to you. Right? This other guy, it's an addiction problem.
00:30:22
Speaker
and And like, if you listen to what he said, he kept, he's friends with me on Facebook. So he's like watching me. I was in Vegas and he keeps saying like, how was Vegas Lucas? What does that have to do with anything? Right? Like, what does that, he could have deescalated that situation at any point in time.
00:30:39
Speaker
And so I, what made him leave is I turned around and walked away. All the other clients came in, they apologized. They're like, Hey, I'm so sorry. I had to go through that. And I felt like a moron cause he's in there screaming about how we broke his car. We broke his car. We broke his car. I explained over and over again, we didn't break a car and I'm happy to look at it, but I'm not, you're not going to disrespect me or my team.
Handling Difficult Customers
00:30:58
Speaker
So in retrospect, would you have done anything differently? I probably would have slowed down a little bit. Um, I think that.
00:31:05
Speaker
the stress of everything in life happening. I think the pressure of that situation with other things, you know, I hired this manager, we're trying to fix things in the shop. He came in, he made a lot of like really big changes without seeing, like I should have slowed him down, but I didn't want to like bridal him. I didn't want to like restrict him.
00:31:24
Speaker
And he started making changes and I was thinking to myself, oh man, he's not been here long enough to see like this is a season and then there's another season and like he's going to make a choice in this season that affects the next season and then it's going to backfire on him and then he's going to try and make a choice in that other season and it's going to be a vicious cycle, right? And so I had to step in and kind of bring it back, but all of that was happening at about that time.
00:31:50
Speaker
Do I regret handling it the way I do i did? you know i've I've talked to my wife about that, and she said, I know you well enough to know that if you hadn't done what you did then, you'd be questioning yourself if you handled it the wrong way if you didn't do it, right? And so I think that I think i did the right thing. um And if I've learned to anything, it's that when somebody acts like that, it's only a matter of time before it comes out, right? It's only a matter of time before they act like that with you.
00:32:18
Speaker
they're gonna do it. Well, so I think that in watching the video yeah and after watching the video, I think I advise you not to release it, not to put it out online, right? Because you know the the girl that's in prison now put that online and everybody had a good laugh about it and everything, yeah but you were in pain in that video. Like you could hardly walk and you had a woman trying to tackle you, right? There's a lot going on in that one. But in this one,
00:32:43
Speaker
I think there was a couple of teachable moments from my perspective. and One is teaching to your talking to your staff about not just the process on how you handle a customer perceived comeback. yeah we can all That's easily teachable, right? You just need to remind them. but um that we are all human and that we are all ah creatures dealing with multi-factorial things that are playing into our our interactions. right And if you weren't in pain and on new pain management medication and if you weren't exhausted and you didn't have all these other stresses going on in your life, maybe you would have handled that differently. Yeah, for sure. And if it can happen to us, it certainly happens to our customers. And how often have you had a customer
00:33:26
Speaker
just act a fool and then come back later that day or the next day or the next week. I apologize. I'm so sorry, my wife just left me or I'm so sorry, my dog just died. or Yeah, absolutely. so And and you know I've always told, so when I became really close friends with Jeff and Brian, they both took a very hard line stance to a lot of things.
00:33:51
Speaker
And I've always said to them, you have to seek first to understand. You need to slow down and understand what's going on. The trigger for me in this case was when he threw his hands up like that. Like to me, it was just disrespect. And it was the wrong day to disrespect me, right? He can find somebody else to fix the car. So ah you're right. You're right. and And do I wish I had handled it differently? I wish I had slowed down, right? I,
00:34:18
Speaker
I also had a history with this person to the point that this had happened so many times. Probably needed to fire them anyway, yeah regardless of of that situation. it's not ah It's not a profitable client and and not um' I'm learning that we don't just look at profitable clients as numbers, right? Profitable client can be a number, profitable client can be loyalty, profitable client can be kind and and sharing ah about your business with other people.
00:34:46
Speaker
Right. Like there's a lot of different ways you can look at something profitably and this person had been a net loss. Well, the 80 20 rule goes both ways, right? Yeah. 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers. 80% of your problems come from 20% of your customers. That's it. So you've got to, you've got to minimize and mitigate the 20% of problems and focus on the 20% of um kids. For sure. so For sure. And I would much rather work for good clients. So.
00:35:14
Speaker
Talk about that. ah are you I want to go back to the leadership training that you just got back from San Diego for. Are you or Chris doing anything differently today than what you would have done two weeks ago? Man, ah chris Chris has been through the ringer right because he's it things have happened in his life.
00:35:37
Speaker
He came from a dealership, he saw a lot of things, and and he's pretty open and has shared a lot of this. I'm not going to share his his personal stuff, but um that training was,
00:35:50
Speaker
for lack of a better term, a Godwing for him. It was like the right thing at the right place at the right time. And I look over at one point, and he's got like tears streaming down his face, and he's like, I have not been the person that I want to be.
00:36:05
Speaker
I've not been the husband I want to be. I've not been the father that I want to be. I've not been the the manager I want to be. I've not been the human being that I want to be. And I'm realizing now that so many things that happened in the past have set the tone for where I was going.
00:36:20
Speaker
And I have continued to march through life saying, I'm going to bull my way through it. I'm not going to deal with that. Let me put that back here. I'm going to march through life and put that back here. Right. And so every time it came up, instead of dealing with the elephant in the room, it got put on the back burner and the elephant got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And so I think right now, Chris is really trying to deal with a lot of this and, and trying to bite off what he can chew. Um,
00:36:50
Speaker
I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't think that going to that class one time is enough for me to be able to retain enough of it to fully implement because there's so much information. And I'll, i'll um we're gonna have a class here, but I'm gonna, I'll get the book and I'll take some pictures or some of what's in it and send it to you so you can see what I'm talking about. When when are you having the class here? February 24th through 28th, I think. Damn, four days.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, somewhere in there. But, but I'm just trying to figure out if I can come, right? Oh, I wasn't going to give you an option. Oh, okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Um, so, but, but the things that, the things that it woke me up to is we have some people in our organization who are telling themselves things from past experiences and it's going to take time for them to learn to trust. This is not that.
00:37:48
Speaker
but we also have got to get them to start telling themselves a different narrative, right? Because the narrative they're telling themselves, like there's a lot of ways to look at that, but when you look at another human being and you know for sure they're telling themselves a ah narrative that's not true, I've had, um,
00:38:08
Speaker
i I've gone through a lot of employees over 20
Employee Turnover & Growth
00:38:10
Speaker
years. yeah And with some of the systems that I've been implementing in the last 12 months, even more, right I've had some turnover and I expected it. yeah some I lost some people that I didn't expect to lose and I had some people that I expected to fall apart that have really risen to the right challenge and so that's been pretty exciting.
00:38:33
Speaker
um But I've got people that have left and they think my name is mud, right? Yeah, I've got people that have left that Love to come on the Friday night calls and troll me. Yeah, that's fun too Yeah, you know because I'm I can take it if I'm gonna dish it out. I get right right. Yeah um And I have people that have left and call me for advice. Yeah, and ah people that have Hired fired hired fired and then talked about hiring again, but maybe not yeah yeah so Like I i take ah we have dinners and stuff at the shop and and the majority of them come to eat and We do things together and a while back I took everybody to the beach even the people that don't work here anymore and like we just took off and went to the beach right and so like we have for the most part a really close-knit group and and the people who are
00:39:25
Speaker
there As I've matured as an owner, I've had a a much better ability to look at a situation and go to somebody and say, ah, this isn't really where you want to be, is it? This isn't really what you want, right?
00:39:40
Speaker
ah December is ah is a great example of that because Jade and I had both seen December really getting more and more frustrated. and And she locked up over the span of a couple days and she wouldn't really talk and she acted like she was mad at us. And um she pulled me aside and with tears in her eyes she said, I just want to be good at my job again. And so she had been in collision.
00:40:06
Speaker
And she came on as an estimator here thinking it was the same thing as estimating collision it's completely different right. And I said what why have you been so upset she's like I had to convince myself I hated you guys and so like feel good about quitting because I really love it here right and so like we're still friends and like we jade you know.
00:40:27
Speaker
Jade had long said that she didn't want to be customer facing. Jade had had done a lot of work in the medical field. Jade was the best service advisor I've ever met, but it's not what she wanted to do, right? Like what why would I try and keep somebody, even if they're that good, if it's not what she wants? What's she doing now? She is a lab tech in ah in a doctor's office.
00:40:48
Speaker
And that's what she wanted to do. I think she shouldn't move to Raleigh and be a service advisor. I know, right? Good luck convincing her that. um So I mean, I think that it does suck to lose employees and it does suck to have that turnover. It is part of having a business.
00:41:05
Speaker
I mean, I want to go back to something you said. um You talk about we're doing dinner, you said, you know, we just decided to take everybody to the beach. yeah um I don't have the ability to take everybody to the beach. And one of the things that I decided years ago that I've used to brag about, and I'm starting to realize I wasn't maybe making a mistake, yeah is I made the choice to pay more than the market and to give better benefits than the market. Yeah, me too. And give up profitability so that I had some freedom of life. And now you don't really have a lot of money to do all those other things. Well, now I'm back working 60 hours a week, right? And I don't have the profit margins to be able to do those types of things. So everybody thinks that, oh, not everybody, but a lot of people think that, oh, Mike's this role model and he's got a great business.
00:41:56
Speaker
I don't have the margins that I'm supposed to have. No, I listen, I, I, my margins are okay, but you know what kills me is I do not have the cash flow and I spend money and then I regret spending money and then I spend money on cards or it gets tight and I have to use the line of credit or whatever it is. And then interest eats up all my profit. Not like but I'm, I'm with you, right? Like,
00:42:19
Speaker
ah I say all the time, I'm a shitty shop owner. Like there's no doubt about it. Well, the original title for my podcast was supposed to be confessions of a shitty shop owner. So, uh, I hate to tell you, but i'm um it may it may still be that wow that's what everybody want made me know it as. I don't know. It just pops up randomly. The logo is going to change when you're not looking. Yeah. I made some people uncomfortable though. When I was so i was having quick conversations with folks, there were some people that were like, I mean,
00:42:46
Speaker
and I'm not sure. I'm not going to say what I was going to say. my My mom probably would not approve. You don't think I bet your brother would approve. He has spicier ideas than even that. Yeah. Yeah. He's he's got a lot to say about you. So can we have him on the show? um I'm sure I'll have him on eventually. Just want to make sure. mock me Now it's recorded. yeah It's recorded.
00:43:14
Speaker
You want to talk about it you want to talk about no No, I was talking about the other situation not your brother. I mean, I just I get too much pleasure out of that im I want to milk this over the next year i don't know where you got this So we had a conversation once and and here's what we're talking about we had a conversation once years ago about how I was constantly trying to live up to my brother who's seven years older than me and And so he's like, uh, he's like first chair trumpet in the band and he's the lead in the ah school theater and he's the captain of the wrestling team and he's on the beta club. And so he's seven years ahead of me. And so he was just like this star and everything that he ever tried to do. Um, it's the only thing I've ever been able to say that shakes Mike a little.
00:44:02
Speaker
It's the only thing I've ever been able to accomplish, like this little, that you can just see this little look in your eye when I bring it up and you're like, ah. Well, so i came I came along into high school seven years after him, right? And I was, I mean, a borderline fucking delinquent, right? And everybody goes, why can't you just be more like your brother? And I never had a complex about it until then. And I remember all these teachers like, oh, you're not like Brent. And like, no, I'm fucking not like Brent. Fuck you. yeah I mean, like I said, I can genuinely see it in your face when I say something about it. Like I can see it just eat you just a little bit.
00:44:39
Speaker
Well, I mean, little brother complex, right? But I yeah i have an incredible relationship with him now, yeah right? our Our lives went in very different directions. yeah um yeah He was a very successful pilot and in the Air Force and now in airlines and retirement. yeah And yeah I can say confidently, I think that he's one of my best friends. yeah and You two are a lot alike. In a lot of ways, and we're very different in a lot of ways. Yeah, for sure.
00:45:10
Speaker
you know, people who haven't ever seen us in the same room together, always comment on it. And after they have, especially if we're like at a bar, talking shit to people, we're very similar in the capacity. So yeah, I could see that. Um, I could see that time, but anyway. Yeah. So I no longer have a complex about my brother. i should My complex now is about trying to make my dad proud of me. oh Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We did shift gears trying to trying to shift gears a little bit trying to live up to my dad's standards and and come man, ah that's gonna be tough. We'll see. That's gonna be tough. I mean, he's he's got some pretty high standards, but I think it's because he loves you and he wants to drive you Yeah, I mean there's no doubt about that um he ah
00:45:53
Speaker
He was ah primarily a single location operator, yeah and he was very involved in the day-to-day, probably until about five years before he sold. right um And so he struggles with the fact that I'm not on the counter there every day. yeah And he can't be when you've gone to multiple locations, right? um I'm in a store every day now, and I wasn't for a long time, and he did not like that. And I think he feels,
00:46:23
Speaker
Well, one, i've I've completed the buyout, right? So he no longer is a shareholder in the company. And I think that kind of helped him decompress a little bit. yeah But he really wanted me to be, you need to be at the shop. Yeah. hi we've We've, we've watched that with my dad a little bit, right? And he's, he has been very, a it's not controlling.
00:46:47
Speaker
but he wants, he wants it done his way, right? And he has this idea in his head of what it looks like and how we've always done it. And I think a lot of the reason that he does that is because he's done it other ways and it didn't work. And he had found this one thing that worked and it worked every time. And so he said, he latched onto him, right? Um, and, and my dad always ran,
00:47:16
Speaker
employees, like it was, he would give to them in other ways, but the wages were lower. Right. And he, he employs young people a lot, right? Yeah. And he, he would employ young people and and he would give them lower wages. But he also had these expectations of what it was that they were going to do. And like, he doesn't like to see somebody sitting around. He doesn't like to see somebody not not active and not doing the things that need to be done when there's something right in front of them that needs to be done. And he really struggles with communicating that clearly in a way that doesn't hurt feelings. And so, you know, he's my dad, so I just know how he is about those things. Um, but he has, you know, over the past couple of years, he's really developed as far as having those conversations and letting things just play out. And that, that was one of the hardest things for me to learn how to do.
00:48:08
Speaker
not have to be in control of everything. You're kind of a force of nature, though. Like you you just tear through the room. It's this, this, this, this. And then you're gone and everybody's like, what the fuck just happened? Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. They hate it. They hate it. And like I get this I get this response that like, hey, dude, you've got to stop talking and walking off because I don't hear what you say. I don't know what you're saying to me. And you come in and you bark these orders and you're walking through. I don't even have time to understand what you said.
00:48:41
Speaker
let alone be able to put it into action, right? So I am guilty of that. Such a terrible boss. I am, i I am, I am next level, terrible boss. I am awful to work for. Can I do a panel of like your current and former employees? Sure. And just get them all a little bit tipsy. so like yeah Yeah, absolutely. I yelled at Eric this morning. He cried.
00:49:03
Speaker
I noticed that his eyes were a little blotchy. Yeah, he cried a little bit. He was upset. I figured it was that Holly EFI that he's been fighting with. Yeah, that's been rough. He did just text me and say Holly finally called him after two weeks, but there's this thing that Eric does and he writes, he's like super complex, super long write-ups, and then he expects you to pull from within those write-ups what he wants done.
00:49:28
Speaker
And I've made a rule that you have to have different recommendation lines for each one of the things that you want to do. And he keeps forgetting about it. And so then they get missed. And then he's mad at everybody else because it got missed. And I was like, dude, just make another rec line at the bottom so it doesn't get missed. Make sure it's there. I want this. What it is this? It's in there. Dude, it's 26 paragraphs. How am I gonna? You said we should read the tickets, bro.
00:49:56
Speaker
ah I don't even read books. right like what do you ah Can you put this on Audible for me? I'll listen to it maybe. Just copy it in a GTP and tell me, write just like a fifth grader in one paragraph. Hey, that's a good idea. that He could take some lessons from Noah on that on that aspect. Fifth grader? Did you say that no one writes like a fifth grader? Yes, that's exactly what I said. Poor Noah. I'll let him know when I go back downstairs. Don't worry, he's going to listen to this later.
00:50:27
Speaker
I'm going to catch some shit when, when mom and dad and my brother listened to this. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they probably had no idea that I had a complex about Brian for awhile. Right. Nah, they knew everybody knew. Everybody still knows your wife even makes fun of it. Um, but you know, talking to my wife when you were there, um, not like that. Uh, so, um,
00:50:53
Speaker
I have shared some things on the podcast on ours. Um, some of it we, we went back and took down because we didn't really, like I, I've got some weird relationships in my family and, um,
00:51:12
Speaker
some really weird things have happened. And, um, ah I, I won't, I won't share any names, right? Like we, we've not really talked a lot about this. up I've, I've, I've talked on our show and we we've, mentioned some of the things that have happened, but I was very vague and, and, and very wide about it, but, um, there's a family business and I guess it was what six months ago or so I called you my mom.
Financial Mismanagement Discovery
00:51:42
Speaker
was on her deathbed. And we had been saying like, Hey, we need to develop a board of directors because mom and dad own the business. There's a family member managing the business. And we felt like there needed to be something if something happened to mom and dad both, because if the business is going to be passed down to the rest of the family,
00:52:07
Speaker
Then we need the ability to manage it as a team. Not one person manages it and tells everybody else what's happening and like no insider. I had been told from a very young age, I'm talking about like multiple family members, people from all over the place saying, Hey, you watch this. Some people don't know how to manage money or they don't make good decisions that There's been some things. We're not going to share all the things, but you just need to know there's a thing, right? And so my mom's on her death bed and my dad says to me, will you go get the mail and bring it down with you? I said, yeah. And so I get the mail and there's this envelope in the mail and it's from the IRS.
00:53:00
Speaker
And inside the envelope, I can see the delinquent. I've got pretty good to know where to look. So when mine come in, you know what I mean? like And so I see it and I take it to my dad and I set it down and I hand it to him. I said, you better deal with that. And he said, they told me it's okay. It's all taken care of. I said, they don't send those if it's all taken care of. And whether it is all taken care of or not, you better call them and find out. And so he called the accountant and the accountant said, well,
00:53:30
Speaker
We've been trying to get in touch. We've been, we've been saying something's wrong, but we were told not to reach out to you because of your wife's health. And the owner of the CPA firm had been going through some health issues himself. So he didn't understand the gravity of the situation. He's close friends with dad. And I think he would have probably reached out to dad if he had seen what was happening.
00:53:53
Speaker
But they said, yeah, there, there's definitely a problem. And dad said, well, tell me how much I owe and and we'll get it fixed. And they said, somewhere to the tune of $550,000. And like, that's when, that's when dad said, uh-oh, this is weird. Now I did something that a lot of shop owners do.
00:54:14
Speaker
Right. He, this is not a repair shop, but he saw somebody take the pressure off. Somebody come in just to deal with it. And he said, here you go. You deal with it. Right. It'd been running it for 50 years. Who's tired.
00:54:30
Speaker
Right. Um, and so he took his hands off of it and he put some people in and they were dealing with it. And he goes to the person who's supposed to be running these things and says like, Hey, what happened? And they said, uh, that's your fault. And he said, what do you mean it's my fault? Well, you didn't want me involved in the finances. You didn't want this. I don't have anything to do with any of that. And he said, well, I know I've brought you.
00:55:00
Speaker
those Manila envelopes that have all the 941s and all that stuff in there. Like, what what's the deal here? like what I know I brought you these, did you not pay them? It's not really my responsibility. So we decide, hey, let's have a conversation about putting us on the board. And they said, I don't really have a problem with you guys being on the board.
00:55:27
Speaker
But I'm getting ready to go take out a loan that's so big. The business will never be able to pay it back. And my mom laying on her death bed. This was in her hospital room alone for what purpose to do all these improvements and make all this stuff happen. And my mom laying on her death beds, like the hell's he talking about? Right. And all of us were that way. Like, why would you, do you, would you ever go get a loan with the intent of not repaying it seriously? Would you?
00:55:56
Speaker
I mean, would you, does that make sense? Would you ever get a loan so big that you, that the mindset's I'll never repay it. And so we, we started, I guess it was three weeks later and, and I had been in Pennsylvania. I flew back. Mom died the day after I got back from Pennsylvania, right? Just barely made it in time. Um,
00:56:23
Speaker
And dad came to me and he said, Hey, I need you to go meet with me in the accountant. And so I went and I met with him and they said, we need your help because there's so many systems and there's so much stuff that like your dad could pay a forensic accountant to start digging into some of this and start to find some of this. But if you could help him just start trying to find some passwords or trying to gain some access to some of this stuff, it's all in his name.
00:56:51
Speaker
So we don't understand, but we've asked and here's the record of how many times we've asked. Here's the record of, of the emails and here's the record of the letters and here's the record of the text messages. And by the way, we type in every time we call and ask for this. It's just the sheet one page right after and another of requesting information that was never provided credit card statements. And, um, so there is a payment that comes out every month.
00:57:21
Speaker
$13,333.09. It's a big payment. And so dad says, what is this? I don't know. Bookkeeper must have done it. Okay, ask again a couple weeks. I don't know, it was a lease. And every time. What are you leasing for $13,000 a month? Well, every time that that dad would ask, or every time that I would ask, or every time my brother would ask, different reason.
00:57:49
Speaker
And um if there's anything I've learned from watching cops, it's that when somebody's super defensive and somebody's changing their story over and over again, it's usually because they did something they didn't want everybody to know about, right? And so dad talked to the attorney, dad talked to his accountant and he came to me and he said, and What I want to do is I want to stop payment on that. And it's such a big number that they'll call us because we've asked for contact information. We've asked for account numbers so we can begin to dig into this and it's not been given to us. And so I said, well, you need to go to the bank. You need to tell them that you want to stop payment on it. Here's how you do that. He goes and does that two days later. They call us.
00:58:35
Speaker
And I said, um, we suspect that the lady that was doing the bookkeeping has taken this out. We're really just trying to understand what it is because at this point in time, it was right after Helene, the bank accounts empty. There's no money coming in, right? They had a 90% loss. Like in other words, it dropped just, I mean, it fell straight off. There was no business there's no tourism. And so they, um,
00:59:02
Speaker
She says, well, I can't answer that for you, but let me escalate this and let me get you on the phone with somebody who can. And we just knew that it was going to be the bookkeeper on the other end of the line. This lady explains, we'll play the the verification call for you. Let you listen to it.
00:59:22
Speaker
And she said, let me, let me listen and see if this is a woman or a man that verify this. Cause my dad knows it was not him. My dad is frugal is all get out. And there's no way he's paying 40% interest on anything 40. Oh, at this point they've, we we found out that it's two, $200,000 loans at 40% interest.
00:59:41
Speaker
We've not even paid the interest at this point. And the initial, that there was an initial loan and then it was a re-up of like a line of credit. And, um, as she begins to narrate what's happening in the call, she's a woman answers and now it was transferred to a man. And my heart's kind of sinking at this point. Like what man could this be transferred to?
01:00:04
Speaker
And then we listen and we figure out that it's the person who says they know nothing about this. And so they give my father social security number and they give my father's birthday two times on a recorded line to do this one. And they said, well, I had permission to do that. My dad would never, I mean, like he complains over 5%, right? So it sounds like the individual that your father gave the responsibility to operate the business to was responsible for a half million dollars plus in tax evasion and $400,000. $750,000 in tax evasion, $400,000 in the loans. There was $190,000 in bezelment. There was another $90,000 in bezelment. There were months that $110,000 to $130,000 was spent on credit cards. There were months that, um much less, but I mean 400 Amazon transactions a month on a company credit card.
01:01:04
Speaker
Um, there were egregious purchases, like pieces of equipment and, and like a very complex system built in this business that probably beyond what it needed to be. Um, there were hundreds of bills that didn't go paid this, all this while.
01:01:22
Speaker
while the individuals responsible were getting fairly substantial paychecks. I mean, well over $150,000 a year of compensation, right? Um, like substantially more than double of that. Um, and it's really hard right now to look back and not feel like it was done intentionally.
01:01:49
Speaker
Oh, there's no way to feel like it wasn't intentional. Taking the money, taking the money, like that had to be intentional, but destroy the business. you You look at that and you say, who in their right mind would do that? Who in their right mind would take something like this and intentionally try to destroy it?
01:02:09
Speaker
Well, so through communicating with you all along this process and just like hearing how you're dealing with it and yeah I can tell it's messed you up as it would mess anyone up. I feel terrible for your father because he's dealing with the loss of his wife of 50 plus years. 57 years. And the potential loss of his business of 50 plus years due to an important person in their life.
01:02:35
Speaker
being incompetent or intentionally. Yeah. We we hired a coach and and I think I approached this the wrong way because I wanted to hire a coach because I saw what it did what it had done for me and I thought they would be receptive. And so we hired this coach. Now I went out and did research and I found this coach. You can listen to the episode where I found the coach. It was when we were in Arizona and we were meeting with the people from AutoShop Follow Up.
01:03:02
Speaker
And he used to work in the family businesses space and he knew somebody that was a coach and he's like, ah Hey, well, I had heard this person talk about the coach he was talking about. He had been following them on social media and had always talked about how great they were. And he wanted to do some of the things they had talked about and all this stuff. And so I thought, Oh my gosh, like we bring this guy in and he'll, he'll like really like him and he'll start working with him and start doing all this stuff.
01:03:28
Speaker
This guy is, this coach is, is a military guy. He's, he's no BS. He's straight to the point. He's very, very transparent. He's very kind, but he doesn't, he does not mix his words, right? He's very direct. Tell me about this. He asked the hard questions and he asked hard questions and it shut everything down. It stopped.
01:03:56
Speaker
And what, what this guy came back later and said in a board meeting as he said, um, you would either have to be highly incompetent or this had to be done on purpose to destroy the business.
Family's Decision on Legal Action
01:04:15
Speaker
Why have you and your family made the decision not to have this individual arrested and charged? Um, Lots of reasons because when you love somebody at that level and you care about them at that level, you don't want to see them harmed. Um, it probably wouldn't solve much.
01:04:39
Speaker
Especially considering they also stopped paying the insurance. Um, but I don't, I don't think we would see restitution because of it. It would harm other people. And, um, especially when it comes to our children, when it comes to our teenagers, when it comes to the, the next generation of this family.
01:05:03
Speaker
I made bad mistakes when I was a teenager. I did some really stupid things. And if it had not been for my parents sticking behind me and trying to support me and trying to lift me up, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. And if they had not forgiven me for some of my really shitty stuff,
01:05:19
Speaker
um I would not have had the opportunity to turn things around be who I am um And so without divulging too much information, I think that's the real reason um ah I Remember when I was very little okay my grandmother we used to take her up and down the mountain for cancer treatments and she had um intestinal cancer colon cancer and I'll never forget They talked about when my grandfather was still alive. My grandmother, they had done this new radiation treatment on her intestines. And when she woke up, they came in and said, Ms. Underwood, we're so sorry. We made a mistake. We gave you the wrong dosing. It has killed a large portion of your intestines. And we think you probably have one to two years to live because of what happened.
01:06:11
Speaker
They came in, they took out that part of the intestines, and when they got home, my grandfather, my my dad and my aunt on that side of the family went to my grandfather and said, we need to sue him. And he said, that's not the kind of people we are. And they said, what do you mean that's not the kind of people we are? He he said, is not goingnna it's not going to fix what happened.
01:06:34
Speaker
And I don't believe that creating frivolous lawsuits over things that people can't control and can't do anything about is the way that this country gets better than what it was. I believe that that we're going to take what happened and we're going to deal with it and we're going to go on with our lives. We don't need their money.
01:06:53
Speaker
We don't want their money and we don't want to extend the suffering that's come from this. Now she lived for another 30 years, right? But I remember when I was little them talking about that and them sharing that and talking about what he had said. And so I think that's the other aspect of it is I think that, that do no harm is a bigger factor than anything else. and And you know, my dad took all my mom's life insurance, all of his savings, all the money he had to bail the business out.
01:07:22
Speaker
So it's not like, I mean, it's not in a great place, but it's not like it's unraveling. It can be saved and it can be dealt with. It's going to be uncomfortable for awhile. Um, I think dad took some actions that, um,
01:07:44
Speaker
that are going to be painful later. And I think it sucks, but I don't think that he was given a choice. Um, as far as, as, uh, inheritances and things like that. I, it's been hard for me in the sense that when you're in these situations, you don't want to advise or you don't want to say something to somebody that, that comes off as you're biased.
01:08:15
Speaker
I was attacked in this situation saying that I caused all this. I didn't take the money. I didn't this, I didn't that. There was a lot of belief that the money for the shop had come from that other business and and they may have genuinely been told that. That's not where the money came from. Um, and so I was already the bad guy in the situation.
01:08:39
Speaker
And I already felt terrible about it and I didn't want to be the bad guy. And I didn't want, like I kept digging, thinking I was going to find the saving grace. I kept digging. Think like, you know me, the reason I'm a really good diag tech is because I have to find an answers. I've got to get to the bottom of it. I mean, it's a, it's, it's unhealthy. It's an obsession.
01:08:59
Speaker
and I will dig to no avail. And so there were nights, three and four o'clock in the morning, I'm just like sluicing through all this paperwork, digging through all this information. And every, literally everything I turned over was like, oh shit. Just get worse and worse. Oh shit. Oh shit. And so at the end of the day, I was the bad guy. And and you know, we, my, my brother believed for the longest time that we should try and salvage the situation, right? Neither one of us wanted the business. This person was doing a good job of running the business from the outside looking in, right? Like there were a lot of really good things that happened and we all wanted to, to save that and keep that going, keep it going in that direction. And at 11 o'clock one night, my, my brother rarely calls me, um, at 11 o'clock one night he calls me. It's like, Hey,
01:09:53
Speaker
What are you doing? I'm laying in bed. What are you doing? He's like, Hey, I need you to go watch this movie. It's documentary. I'm like, where, what documentary? He's like, it's on prom. It's called all the Queen's horses. I'm like, what? I don't care about no horses. I don't care about no Queens. It's 11 o'clock nine. He's like, I'm telling you, go watch this. And so we go watch it.
01:10:14
Speaker
And it's this story of this controller who runs this town and she goes in and she starts this job and everything's great. And there's little signs all throughout that something might be slightly off.
01:10:31
Speaker
This woman that works for her, it's like an accountant or a bookkeeper in this city. She, she starts looking and she starts asking to file this report and the woman says, yeah, yeah, go in there and get this. It's in there was really super supportive. Everybody loved her. Everybody thought she was awesome. And so she goes and she, she gets this report and she starts filling it out and she's like,
01:10:54
Speaker
This is weird. There's a bank account on here. I don't know anything about it. And so she looks and she's like, Oh, surely this is a mistake. She said, I sat there for a minute and I looked at it and she said, I'm going to go tell the mayor because that woman wasn't there. She said, I'm just nervous about this and I don't want to be the only one who knows. She goes to the mayor and the mayor says, I'm sure there's just a simple, stupid little explanation, but Let me look into this, don't say anything to anybody. So the mayor takes this piece of paper and goes somewhere else. Goes to the bank, starts doing a little bit of digging. This person stole $52.6 million dollars over her tenure as the controller of this city.
01:11:34
Speaker
And it's crazy because like all of the things that were said, all of the things that were done, all of the like, there were so many similarities that my brother went that night from being on the side of this other person to saying,
01:11:48
Speaker
there's no way you can look at this and say this was not like, that what is not systemic and intentional. Exactly. Exactly. And so in this case, this woman, like, dude, she had horses and she had all this stuff and she had bought all kinds of things and had, you know, everybody just thought she was super wealthy. But the interesting thing was, is that there was a town next door that sent a message and they sent this letter to the city and they said, Hey,
01:12:16
Speaker
just bringing this to your attention. We were looking at your numbers and we were comparing ourselves to your numbers because we're trying to make sure like we're, we're compatible or or we're, we're hitting benchmarks. And he said, it's just really odd that we're the same size town. You had more tax revenue, but you have this huge $30 million dollars deficit and we're, we're banking money. I just thought you might ought to look into this, right?
01:12:44
Speaker
And so that, I think what triggered my brother in that was the fact that we borrowed money to be embezzled, right? We borrowed money to, um, this person was taken out loans to take the money to pay themselves and to do all this other stuff. Right. And the, the, one of the more interesting factors in all this was,
01:13:11
Speaker
directly after those two $200,000 loans, a series of checks start being written to another individual. And it's clearly not my dad's
Embezzlement & Bookkeeper's Betrayal
01:13:22
Speaker
signature on the check. It's clearly not the bookkeeper. It's it's one right after another. And some days there were 15 to $25,000 checks written in the same day to this person. The person running the business says, well, I had no idea that was happening.
01:13:37
Speaker
ah You you'd have a really hard time not to know about that, right? Well, I didn't get the bank statements. I didn't have access to the bank account So you're telling me you run a business with no access to the bank account. You don't know how much money you have No, I just asked the bookkeeper No I'm not Not so do you think the bookkeeper was in cahoots? I think the bookkeeper the bookkeeper was known to have stole money Bookkeeper had already admitted to stealing money. And so- Why was this person still your bookkeeper? Well, my parents were very loving and caring people and they, they would, what, what's so wild about all this? My parents would have given them the money. My parents would have just given them the money if they had asked for it. My parents would have given the bookkeeper the money she took if she'd asked for it.
01:14:31
Speaker
Right? There's no doubt about it. There's not a question in my mind. And so, but here's the thing. and And here's what I didn't know about any of this until later on. One day after all this comes out, my dad comes up and we're we're in a board meeting and he lays out this handwritten note from the bookkeeper and he slides it across the table for everybody to read.
01:14:51
Speaker
The bookkeeper said, hey, I owe you money. Here's a check for part of what I owe you. I think I owe you X. I just want you to know that I didn't have anything to do with what's happening. And that's when she never showed up for work again. And so how long ago was that? That was about six months before all this came out. I felt guilty about it.
01:15:18
Speaker
All right. up I have, I have woke up in the middle of the night saying, did I do the right thing? You know, the, the crazy thing was is like, there's this thing called the red flag act and the red flag act States that if you report fraudulent wire fraud, embezzlement, anything like that, anything weird that a financial institution has a legal obligation to report it. And so we didn't expect.
01:15:50
Speaker
the person who approved those loans or who said they were my dad to be on the other end of the phone. And so when I called or when they called us and we were talking about it, it was like a gasp, right? Like they heard me and my dad on the other end of the phone go, right? Like we just didn't expect it. But we also didn't think that by following that pathway,
01:16:13
Speaker
They would have to report it to the feds. That we were going to get a call from the FBI ah about it because it's a big chunk of money, right? Yeah. And so when the FBI called, I really felt guilty because I'm like, dude, I just blew somebody's life up, right? Now we, I think we've talked him out of it. Now I'm going to tell you something, until you talk to an expert interrogator from that organization, I can promise you, you don't know like,
01:16:39
Speaker
I wasn't lying to the guy, but I was like, we've got this handled our ourselves. You know, a little squeak in my voice and like, I could tell he was seeing right through me. You know what I'm saying? But I could tell the dude knew he knew more than what he was sharing. He knew more than what we had said. And so he had already done a little bit of digging before we even got there. Right. But I have struggled with guilt with this because You look at it and you don't know what the right call is. You don't know what the right decision in a situation like that is. And you know my wife's come to me a couple of times and she said, i hey, listen, she she'll get up in the middle of the night and she'll come sit down beside me and she'll say, I know you're struggling with this, but if you had not done what you did, it wouldn't be here, right? Like it would have it would have plummeted and disappeared, yeah right? The last meeting we had with this person,
01:17:34
Speaker
The one thing I can't get over, I've shared this with my dad and my brother and my wife and everybody in my circle. The last meeting we had with this person, they said something I can't get out of my head and it just runs and I can hear it in their voice and it just goes and it plays on repeat. Anytime I think about the situation, it plays on repeat. They said, you know, if we hadn't slowed down, y'all never would have known. It wasn't if we hadn't slowed down we would have been able to pay the bills. It wasn't if we had hadn't slowed down, this wouldn't have been a problem. We would have, we would have been able to keep things happening. It wasn't any of that. If we hadn't slowed down, y'all would have never known to me says I was doing this. And if I hadn't, if, if we hadn't ran out of money this quickly, you would have never caught me and I would have done what I needed to do the, the,
01:18:31
Speaker
My brother and all the other parties, the attorney, everybody else, his heart set on this was intentional. And the hope was to reduce the value of the business to such a degree that, that they could come and buy it for pennies on the dollar. Oops. Sorry, it's not worth anything. You've bankrupted the business itself. Let me buy the property bill. Yeah. Right. hi I tend to agree with your brother on that. I think this was,
01:19:01
Speaker
malicious Malicious nefarious it's hard to look at it and not think it is right. um And and you know that that sucks to think about that sucks to that sucks to process that.
Legacy Over Monetary Gain
01:19:15
Speaker
Because this is somebody that we all trusted this is somebody that we thought was doing like a really good job. And.
01:19:22
Speaker
You know, it's so weird because I've gone back and and as we dig into all the systems and we look at things, like there's recordings saved of me talking to my parents in 21. And it was so funny because I'm watching this video, my mom, my mom's not here anymore and I'm hearing her voice. And that was really the first, I've got her voicemail saved on my phone. That was the first time I'd heard her voice since she passed, right? And so I'm listening to it and we're talking about the things that are happening and the things that are going on. And I realized that in that video,
01:19:51
Speaker
That this clip and it was it was only videos of me and my other brother saved There were recorded telephone calls But it was very odd the people that their telephone calls were recorded there were some weird pay discrepancies with employees. It seemed like some employees were paid substantially more than other employees and some employees were given opportunities other employees weren't given. And that's a, that's a concern for me, right? Like now I come in and I'm trying to clean this mess up and find why were all the pretty girls paid like that? Yeah. Uh-oh.
01:20:31
Speaker
hold up, I don't want to be holding this ball back out of this. Um, but, but you know, there were so, so many things. Um, but in that one recording, I talked about the fact that if this person wanted to buy the business that we needed to do a business valuation,
01:20:55
Speaker
And that it was not just going to be like when my father purchased the business from his father, he was going to be, here's the structure for how it needs to be done. So it's by the book. It's on paper. It's done the right way. I'm not even necessarily saying like, Oh, I want to make sure I get my part of it. No, I'm not remotely worried about the money. My parents have treated me phenomenally well.
01:21:17
Speaker
what my parents are leaving me as a legacy, not, not money. Okay. I want to make that exponentially clear. I don't care about the money. The money's neither here nor there. It's the legacy they've left. And I've shared that many times. i I don't need the business. I don't need any of that other stuff. I want the security of being able to access my business, get in and out and do those things.
Intentional Business Devaluation?
01:21:37
Speaker
But it's not for me about having the money from that business. And so, um,
01:21:47
Speaker
It would seem that from the point that that video was recorded or was captured on their security cameras is when all of this started and that it was almost like, Oh fine. If you want to do a business valuation, I'll show you what this sucker's worth. It really feels intentional in that regard. Well, I think that you and your father are remarkably forgiving people.
01:22:17
Speaker
Uh, I think that most people who listen to this story, uh, myself included would be more of a throw them under the jail and throw away the key. Um, and so I think it speaks to your humanity. I mean, know I think it's admirable. Um, yeah so I hope it stands as a lesson so to people listening.
01:22:41
Speaker
Does your dad have a solid estate attorney building an estate plan at this point? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, um, I think if there's any one takeaway from this, it's that if you don't have systems, processes, policies, procedures, financial plans, this was a, this was a deal where my father,
01:23:09
Speaker
said, I love you. I trust you. I know you would never intentionally cause harm. So you go do what you think is best. And what that, what that did.
01:23:26
Speaker
was that created a scenario where my father accidentally tanked someone he loved by giving them authority they couldn't control, right? If you were a if you were a parent and you're gonna give a business away, or you're gonna sell a business, or you're gonna turn it over to a family member, that does not mean you don't give them structure going into it.
Lack of Oversight & Financial Missteps
01:23:52
Speaker
You must have structure.
01:23:55
Speaker
And it's here's what this looks like. If you want to buy the business, here's the pathway for doing that. Here's the guardrails that we have in place. If I'm going to own the business and be financially and fiscally responsible for it, then here's the numbers that I want to see. Here's, here's your guardrails, right? Now, if you want to buy the business, you can go ahead and buy the business right now. We're not doing this deal where I'm going to own the business. You're going to work for me. And then you're just going to one day take it over.
01:24:25
Speaker
This has to be on paper, yeah right? Because if you don't, you end up in situations like this. Now this person had put all over the internet. I'm the owner, third generation owner, uh, caretaker, CEO, all this stuff. And so if, if let's, let's be completely truthful. If they wanted to litigate over these taxes, it's most likely that person that's going to get hemmed up on that. It won't be my dad, even though my dad's ultimately fiscally responsible.
01:24:55
Speaker
They, the IRS, when we start talking to them and the accountants going through all this, the IRS said, see these screenshots of this person who says they're the owner. Why were they no longer the owner directly after you reported all this? Telling us that you owe us all this money.
01:25:15
Speaker
We want to know. ah ah
01:25:21
Speaker
ah right Like, what do you say? Well, you got to tell them the truth. There is a IRS form. Did you know there's an IRS form that you have to use to report embezzlements?
Reporting Embezzlement to IRS
01:25:31
Speaker
So you can pay taxes on the money you get from the embezzlement. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And so that that form has to be filed, right? they They have a form where they want an explanation of what happened, why it happened. And we had no choice but to tell them.
01:25:45
Speaker
Right? The $190,000 that got taken by that one person had to be reported. And so the accountant, he comes to us and he says, look, here's the deal. I'm a professional. I am not your attorney. We do not have attorney client privilege. And so I know what happened and I am legally bound to tell them the truth because I ain't getting ready to lie for you. Yeah.
01:26:11
Speaker
And so y'all might be trying to save him and y'all might be trying to, you know, and, and he said over and over again, he said, I guess I'm just going to have to get mad about this cause y'all aren't mad enough. and And so he's, he's like, dude, not I'm going to tell him, like I'm going to tell him what happened and what they do with that is their business. Sorry. and So at that point, it may be out of our hands. We don't know what happens then.
01:26:35
Speaker
Well, I wish you nothing but the best man. What do you think? I think you, uh, throw him under the jail and you help him throw away the key personally. Right. But again, I'm not as forgiving a person as you. So, uh, yeah, I guess we'll see what happens. Maybe an update in a couple of years. See if anything comes up. So guess what this means now. This means that I am the only other viable person That's capable of running this business in its current configuration.
Reluctant Leadership Role
01:27:10
Speaker
Not what I wanted to do. Let me be exceptional. This person thinks that I did this so I could take over. I want to be exceptionally clear. That is absolutely 100%. No, this person thinks that they stole over a million dollars so that you could take care of the business. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's what they, that's what they think. So I'm learning to, I'm learning to, uh, I'm learning to do new things now.
01:27:34
Speaker
Well, you don't have anything else going on. No, no. Um, right now you've got, uh, the, the family's historical business. You've got LNN, you've got changing the industry. Yeah. You've got a family of podcasts kind of under that umbrella. Um, you've got, uh, some issues going on with your back that you're dealing with. Um, what are you doing with your free time? Um, I'm trying to sleep.
01:28:03
Speaker
You know, two or three hours when I came. no staance ah Yeah, exactly. I, you know, I, I still have, um I've done a good job of, for the most part, managing my time right now. It's, it's a little hectic and a little crazy cause I've got a bunch of time out of town. I'm going to Tulsa who just came back from San Diego, going to Jacksonville, right? Like those those things add on.
01:28:24
Speaker
The, the thing that I did not think about in all this is now I'm working weekends too. And so like that's tough because I really want to spend time with my family. I really little dudes at that age that he wants to play video games. He wants to hang out with dad. He wants to, you know, Brian Pollock and I were just talking about this today that, uh,
01:28:41
Speaker
true evil shop owner methodology as kids work for free. yeah So just if you want to spend time with them, bring them to work. That's a good idea. You can put them to work at the hill. Yeah, let them roll. Absolutely. Let them roll. You do tours. the the You know, there is another lesson in all this. um Completely kind of changing the subject here. As shop owners, we build these systems. We develop, we put these software packages in place and we ah put a DVI product in place and we put a accounting software in place. It's tech metric.
01:29:13
Speaker
This is a shopware show. Not not not your show. This is a shopware show. What do you think? I'm going to get a call from PJ and Monique.
Broken Promises & Leadership Issues
01:29:23
Speaker
It's going to be, um, but, but long story short, we tend to put the systems in place and, and walking into this system from outside. There's three takeaways that I would say. This person developed a culture of leadership in this business.
01:29:42
Speaker
that got away from them. And here's what I mean by that. They kept telling all the employees they were going to get raises. They kept telling all the employees they were going to move up. They kept telling all the employees they were going to move to salary. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. Well, they they never did what they said they were going to do. Now they still took their paycheck and still requested unemployment while they were taking their paycheck. But now you've come into the business and all these people want raises and position and And I'll question that a little bit like, hey, is it possible that maybe they're doing this? Right? How ah how many employees over there? I think 10. Okay. And so here's what's interesting though, is that looking at the culture from the outside looking in, it looked okay. But then when we stepped in and started talking to them about what's happened and how things have gone and why they did the things that they did and why this was that.
01:30:30
Speaker
Holy cow. The perspective that these people have of what happened, what they were told, what didn't happen. It is very difficult because the culture wasn't managed. There was no leadership. This person would go down for a meeting in the morning and then they would go back to their office and they stay in their office all day. Well, there was no management of the culture. There was no management of expectations. There was no management of tasks.
Complex Systems & Business Waste
01:30:56
Speaker
Hey guys, trust you. Go do what you want to do.
01:30:59
Speaker
All right. the The second thing is all of these systems. So we have automated music and it's on one platform and we have automated signs and it's on one platform and we have one point of sale system that's over here and one point of sale system that's over here. And we're going to do this like this. We're going to do this like this. And then stepping from the outside and walking in, I'm looking at it saying, you know, ah I thought I had a lot of software packages and I thought I had a lot going on down here. And then I'll walk into that and I'm like,
01:31:27
Speaker
It, it looks like a bundle of wires over complex to make the organization dependent upon this person. um' I'm going to be a little arrogant here. Uh, this person knows that I'm smart enough to unravel that. Right. I worked with this person for awhile. Um, and that was in the it t days. This person knows that they would have to,
01:31:54
Speaker
Like um I don't mean it from a place of arrogance. I mean it from a place of, I know what I can do. You'd have to work really hard to find something that I couldn't unravel and couldn't straighten out. I think it was, and there's been a lot of talk of that. Dad's brought it up. My other brother's brought it up. A lot of other people have said something about it. I think it was, ooh, I want to do this new thing. Oh, I'm going to do this. And then let's click some buttons and get it to where it works.
01:32:23
Speaker
And it works to just don't touch it or it'll fall apart. And then, Ooh, I want to do this new thing over here and I want to do this new thing over here. And, and so it's like your canned jobs and your shop management software. And you click on it and you're like, Oh my God. And then you like, look at all these parts, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. Where'd all these parts come from? Where are these random cars in here? Right? Like same thing. I don't have that problem with my software.
01:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, I don't believe you. Um, I don't even remember.
01:32:54
Speaker
oh I'll never forget the conversation. i I think about it from time to time. Um, Hey guys, what do I do? I've got an advisor who is deleting recommendations. off the ticket to prove it tra yeah Remember that? It was at something that i yeah i don't remember I believe it, but i yeah remember no I remember that we were in, uh, we were having these, uh, weekend meetings and I think Greg Buckley was there. ah You know who, you know what it was? It was one of the meetings Bruce was having. Okay. I believe that.
01:33:25
Speaker
Yeah. And you, you were saying like, Hey, I've got this advisor who he's, he's ah not marking things declined and he's deleting anything off the ticket. So he improves his close ratio. Yeah. He wanted his close ratio to be highest in the company because his ego was so strong. Yeah. Yeah. So he would remove the shit that he couldn't sell. Right. So it looked better. Um, but that that's the second lesson is like, Hey, don't make it too complex.
01:33:50
Speaker
Don't make sure it's operationally sound and make sure that that systems are clean. Make sure that you're not building up just piles and piles of stuff for somebody else to deal with. Right. I think that's a problem I've got is I've got.
01:34:04
Speaker
I get a little shiny object syndrome yeah and then fail to follow through. I was realizing that I have ah multiple tools ah for managing my business that are very good tools if utilized. I don't have the bandwidth to use them, and I haven't taught anyone else to use them, so I'm just paying these subscriptions yeah for these tools that I'm not using. Yeah, I've got Wickedfile, and I've paid for like three months, and I'm not done anything with it. It's supposed to be awesome, right? Yeah, it's one of the ones that I had the restraint not to do wicked file, but it was You have a clenchments newest venture auto tech IQ. Yeah, and that is a really neat tool if you use it if you use it Yeah, and I was four months in I was like I haven't logged in a single time. Yeah, so there's no point and I email i was like, hey man, the tools awesome. It's just I
01:34:52
Speaker
My life's not getting any slower right now. If I'm not going to use it, there's no point in having that tool. You're exactly right. um So. Yeah. And, and I think that that, that really summarizes at the end of the day, where that other business is at is there was so much and there was so much waste and there was so much just, dude, we found probably 25 cases of ink cartridges for printers that we don't even have. And they still show up on subscription, like 150 cartridges per box.
01:35:22
Speaker
Why? Like it's just utter waste. Corporate waste. Yeah. And so I think that if you were going to put somebody in a situation like that, you cannot just walk away. you You have to have a system in place. You have to have guardrails in place. You have to figure out how you're going to manage it.
Owner's Reflection on Responsibilities
01:35:43
Speaker
And so if you're getting ready to sell a shop, if you're getting ready to put a family member in charge of a shop, you have a responsibility to set them up for success.
01:35:53
Speaker
Nobody else can do it for you. They're not going to do it on their own. So your job is the owner to make it happen. Almost everything that goes wrong there at any shop or any business is the fault of the owner. Absolutely. Through their actions or inactions, right? Yeah. So. 100%. Dude, that was, thank you for opening up and sharing. Of course. I appreciate that. You know, I'm a little too much of a share. I'm pretty open about things.
01:36:16
Speaker
next time we Next time we get together, you know we can have Mike's therapy session. Bet. Let's do it. say but See you. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out. The good, and the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes, so why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink. You got a confession of your own, or a topic you'd like me to cover, or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike at confessionsofashopowner dot.com, or call and leave a message. The number is 704-Confess. That's 704-266.
01:36:53
Speaker
three three seven seven If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.