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Episode #9 3Ts Mobile Automotive Repair My Story
87 Plays19 days ago
In this episode of the 3T’s Mobile Mechanic Podcast, I’m doing something a little different. Instead of having a guest, I’m sharing my own story.
From being a kid who was always interested in cars and figuring out how things worked, to spending years in the automotive industry, and eventually taking the leap to start 3T’s Mobile Mechanic, this episode covers the journey that got me where I am today.
I talk about the challenges, failures, lessons learned, and the moments that shaped me as both a mechanic and a business owner. We also dive into why we started building our social media platforms, our Skool community, and why helping other mobile mechanics succeed has become such a big part of our mission.
If you've ever thought about starting your own business, making a career change, or chasing a dream that feels bigger than yourself, this episode is for you.
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Spotify Podcast Link
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Apple Podcast Link
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to the Podcast and Ben's Backstory
00:00:20
BEN DELLARIA
What's going on everybody? Welcome back to 3Ts Bold Mechanic Podcast. Today we got something a little bit different for you. This is episode nine and m today we are going to kind of give you a backstory about me and our business and where I came from and what my childhood was like and why I do what I do today.
00:00:43
BEN DELLARIA
um Excuse my throat. It is definitely still sore from a couple of weeks ago when I had gotten sick and I'm still having a hard time not having to clear my throat. So forgive me if you're hearing that off
Ben's Business and Personal Introduction
00:00:56
BEN DELLARIA
to the side.
00:00:57
BEN DELLARIA
But so who am I? If you've never heard our podcast before or never heard of us before, my name is Ben and I run a mobile automotive repair service here in Ocala, Florida. um My wife currently works with me now. She started with me in August of 2025.
00:01:15
BEN DELLARIA
am She worked in the pharmacy in Walgreens and Publix for little over 17 years, but worked for Walgreens longer than that earlier. She was in management, and then she had stepped down when she had her son, which is our youngest. um But um then she had ah Then she had moved into the pharmacy after we had gotten married. um And she had been there ever since. But corporate world started to get to her for quite a few years. And we worked, I worked really hard to get my business to where it was so that she could afford, we could afford for her to come home and and work in the company. And that's where we're at now.
00:01:59
BEN DELLARIA
um Social media side.
Social Media and Business Transparency
00:02:03
BEN DELLARIA
If you're following this, um most of you already know we are on YouTube. YouTube is mainly all about um showing you our life. it's it's ah It's a day in the life of us running the business. Everything that we go through from cars to customers, parts, issues, you name it, that's what we're showing you on that YouTube channel.
00:02:23
BEN DELLARIA
TikTok is a little bit different. We do show some of those things, but mainly what we're showing you there Instagram. how to start and run a mobile mechanic business the right way.
00:02:34
BEN DELLARIA
we We don't fluff anything. We show you our numbers. We give you all of our revenue, all of our expenses, exactly what this company costs us, and just a way for you to trust what we're saying, for you to believe it all instead of just throwing out all that willy-nilly stuff and just making it sound good being content creators.
00:02:55
BEN DELLARIA
I don't see myself as a content creator. I see myself as an advocate for the automotive industry, especially the mobile mechanics.
Educational Community and Business Lessons
00:03:04
BEN DELLARIA
I... Saw a lot of that going on and I decided I wanted to be a voice of change. I wanted to do something different. And so far it's working out well. um TikTok is a little over 31,000 followers there, which is not a lot on most people's account. But to me, that's amazing, especially because it's such a tight, small niche of ah what we're trying to do.
00:03:26
BEN DELLARIA
um And we have a school community. Our school community just passed over 1,400 members. That's pretty cool. I really like that. And I haven't even been doing that a year yet. We started that in October of 2025 and it's just massively growing.
00:03:40
BEN DELLARIA
Um, eat we just did, I called it school games because that's what the school communities call their thing. Um, so i called it school games, um, last week and that was insane. Meaning we got so much more, um,
00:03:57
BEN DELLARIA
participation in the group. And we had a lot of participation before, but like you guys, if you're listening and you're part of the school community, like you guys really stepped it up big time. Um, lots
Childhood and Mechanical Beginnings
00:04:07
BEN DELLARIA
of postings we've got, um, for those that don't know, we have classroom videos in there on how to start your business, um, how to do labor rates, how to understand profit margins and revenues and, uh, everything.
00:04:20
BEN DELLARIA
Um, we've got in four different community boards. We've got a general discussion. We've got a place for you to showcase tools, um, when you need diagnostic help and, uh, a forum that shows, uh,
00:04:36
BEN DELLARIA
um that you can show your diagnosis videos in there. So like, instead, if you don't, if you're not comfortable posting on social media, you can post it in there as well, just to kind of showcase it. So all of us guys can learn some things and help the younger guys do better stuff. So that's kind of what the school community is all about. And it's, it's growing really fast and I'm, I'm pretty proud of it, but I'm not at the same time. Like it's hard for me to accept that and to feel that way. But anyway,
00:05:06
BEN DELLARIA
That's who we are now. That's what we do. And that's what I do on social media is we help people start and run their ball of mechanic business because i don't want to see more of the the free giveaways and I don't want to see more of the people charging way too little. I want to change that stigma and I want to help you chase the customers that are willing to pay for quality service because we always get it. There's so many people out there that think that The automotive industry should be cheap. It's not just the mobile world. It's in the shops, too.
00:05:38
BEN DELLARIA
It's all over the place, and I'm just trying to do my part to help everyone realize that they can charge a fair rate and have a great, successful business. So who am I and where did I come from? Obviously, like I said, my
Educational Struggles and Hands-On Learning
00:05:52
BEN DELLARIA
name is Ben, but I grew up in South Florida in a town called Sunrise. which is over by the Everglades. If you're familiar with the area, it's about 45 minutes north of Miami.
00:06:05
BEN DELLARIA
um And we're about 30 minutes west of the east coast of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Beach. um you So growing up, I was a nutcase. I was always outside.
00:06:19
BEN DELLARIA
I was either on bicycles or on dirt bikes or on go-karts. Just running around the neighborhoods. We were in the canals, fishing, chasing snakes, doing anything, smacking alligators, like really doing some dumb crap.
00:06:34
BEN DELLARIA
ah you know Getting in the boats and going around in the canals and the lakes and things like that, fishing all the time. All summer long, that's what we did. We used to go to Winn-Dixie and get 25-cent sodas. I used to get the strawberry soda on the bottom shelf.
00:06:49
BEN DELLARIA
um Or we'd get some A&W root beer because we would like pretend it was beer you know because we were cool kids. But um I was the type that... Everybody in the neighborhood, my friends, they always came to me when their bikes broke or when we graduated into go-karts or dirt bikes or go-peds, things like that. I was always the one fixing all those things.
00:07:12
BEN DELLARIA
And it just kind of was me. That's just how I was. um I was the type that. I liked to take apart my toys and see how they worked. And I could visualize it in my head, like exploded out in my head. And I could see the gears and the motors and how everything works. That's just how my mind worked.
00:07:40
BEN DELLARIA
Excuse me. um And I think that's kind of where I realized, like, I just liked working with my hands in that way because it was just, it was simple. It was, it's just how I liked doing things.
Early Jobs and Technical Education
00:07:53
BEN DELLARIA
So I got my, I got my first dirt bike when I was in kindergarten. It was a, uh, so I want to say, what's that like 1985, 1986, somewhere around there.
00:08:05
BEN DELLARIA
um my dad got me my first dirt bike. It was, uh, I guess an 85 or an 86, Suzuki JR 50. It was yellow. That thing was awesome. I,
00:08:17
BEN DELLARIA
I wrecked it like the first like week I had it. um My brother had a ah ah haunt Honda XR80. It was a four stroke. ah Mine was a two stroke, but had oil inject. I actually have a 2000 in the garage now that I'm rebuilding, which I never get a chance to work on. But um man, that thing was awesome. And when I wrecked it, We used to go in this this old soccer field across the street from our house that was kind of abandoned. um And we would be going through, and it was a giant pothole, and I hit it with the front tire hard.
00:08:48
BEN DELLARIA
And I went over the handlebars, and I went flipping and flying like crazy. And... By the time my dad was able to almost get to me and i I had already picked the bike back up, kickstarted it and took off past him like nothing had happened. He was freaking out like, what the hell? And like, I could see it in my head. That's how clear that wreck was for me. It was it was fun, but stupid. I still do that stuff to this day, which we'll get to later. But Um, you know, so as I was growing up and we were riding bikes and, and graduating into bigger dirt bikes and more friends had dirt bikes and go-karts, that's where I started to learn how to fix things. And I learned how engines worked. Um, I technically learned on points and condensers on lawnmower engines.
00:09:37
BEN DELLARIA
My dad had a lawn service his entire life. Um, so for 40 something years, that's what he did. He cut grass. And in the beginning, he was fixing all of his own stuff. Even towards the end, he fixed all of his own stuff too.
00:09:49
BEN DELLARIA
But it was a little more active when we were younger because, you know, he had a lot more equipment, older equipment. So fixing all that stuff was what we did all the time. And I was always out there helping him because I enjoyed doing those things.
00:10:04
BEN DELLARIA
um And then, you know, as I got older, they things got a little bit more complicated and we started getting cars and things like that. Um, o so fast forward into like my teenage years, I was not a very good person in school.
00:10:22
BEN DELLARIA
I couldn't focus. I, so I still can't focus now. It takes, it takes a lot for me to be able to sit down
Career Path in Mechanic Roles
00:10:30
BEN DELLARIA
and do anything. Like when I sit down at this computer and I have to do all the editing for all these videos and everything else, I'll get up eight or 10 times just to edit one YouTube video, going and getting food.
00:10:41
BEN DELLARIA
and just kind of just getting lost in it because I can't sit here and concentrate that long. So that was a problem in high school. and Now, back then, we still had woodshop and automotive classes. So I tried to take those as much as I possibly could, as many electives as I could.
00:11:00
BEN DELLARIA
But high school didn't work out for me. I ended up ah leaving high school in... The first time I left, I think it was like my 10th grade year. um The first time I left, yeah, I left high school twice. um The first time I left was like in my 10th grade year, but i I still only had ninth grade credits. i I didn't want to do it. I refused to want to do anything. I i just slept all the time.
00:11:25
BEN DELLARIA
um And then, ah i so I quit. i left high school. um And then I ended up going back. I don't remember why I went back, but I went back.
00:11:36
BEN DELLARIA
Um, maybe I just had one of those months where I was like, I could do this. And I went and to do it, but didn't you know really work out well because I left again. But I do remember my parents finally had, were able to use the school board and get me tested. And obviously most kids back then, you know, ADD was the thing. It wasn't ADHD. Like they say today, it was ADD.
00:12:00
BEN DELLARIA
o So they had put me on a medicine called Dexedrine. It's an ant. It's a, but ah It's an amphetamine, right, babe? Yeah. So it's an amphetamine.
00:12:11
BEN DELLARIA
And it worked. I was awake and I was concentrating in school and I was getting A's and B's. But like an idiot teenager, I wanted to party more than I wanted to do school. And I quit taking the pill.
00:12:23
BEN DELLARIA
And I flunked right back out of high school again. So it was my 11th grade year at that time. And I still hadn't caught back up and didn't have the credit. So I just said, screw this. And I quit and I went to work. And I worked at McDonald's for a long time.
00:12:35
BEN DELLARIA
um Back and forth. McDonald's, Winn-Dixie, Target, always in the food services. I like food. I like cooking. It's one of my hobbies. I really like to cook and you know use the grill and things like that. um And that was kind of where it was. I enjoyed doing that work.
00:12:50
BEN DELLARIA
um And I had not really thought about like being a mechanic or anything like that. i never It never crossed my mind. Yeah. I did fast forward a couple more years, you know, just been working as a teenager and stuff, but I think I was like 18 years old or 17 years old. I did get a job at the Ford dealer, but I was detailing cars. I was just washing cars and it, you know, maybe it was, I had thought at the time that it would be something that could turn into something else, maybe a lube tech or something. But every time I had always asked for the job, they were always like, oh, did you go to school? Did you go to school? No, I didn't go to school. I'm not, I'm not going to tech school. It was difficult to do.
00:13:30
BEN DELLARIA
So I never applied to go get a job anywhere because I, I never wanted to go to the school. Um, but x amount of years later, i did try to go to a school.
00:13:41
BEN DELLARIA
I had signed up for a school in South Florida. I don't remember what it's called. I want to say it was called McFatter or something like that. There used to be an old, uh, technical college, I think on university or Davy road or something like that.
00:13:55
BEN DELLARIA
And I had gone there and I couldn't do it. I passed all the classes to like get into the college and do it. But the same thing, like I couldn't focus. I couldn't, it was early in the morning. So I kept falling asleep. I couldn't stay awake and it was, it was just horrible. And I just didn't, I didn't want to do it. Um, so that was my first go around with, with a technical school. And I just, at that point I was like, okay, I guess this just really isn't for me. And I just kept doing whatever I was doing.
00:14:27
BEN DELLARIA
Um, in the meantime of all that, um, my first cars, actually it was still in high school. I didn't mention this before. i forgot and I went off track, but, um, first thing in high school, I had a motorcycle.
00:14:39
BEN DELLARIA
Um, my dad got me a, I don't remember the year. i think it was like a 94,
00:14:48
BEN DELLARIA
It was a Yamaha Seika 2 600. So it was it wasn't really like a full out like crotch rocket. It was it was close. It had all the fairings and it looked like it. But you set up a little bit more upright than you would like, you know, a CBR or something like that that I'm used to or a Ninja from back in the day.
00:15:06
BEN DELLARIA
um But it was a cool bike. had A lot of power. It was fun. But this was South Florida. So like I'm always getting wet, like riding home or riding to school. And I go to school and I'm soaked like this is stupid.
00:15:20
BEN DELLARIA
Didn't really think about that. So I ended up getting a truck. I got my first truck, which was 1980 That it was a pretty cool truck. I loved it.
00:15:31
BEN DELLARIA
Blew it up. And that was when I kind of got my first hand into mechanics a little bit because I had to fix it. I pulled the head off of it. I put a new head gasket in it. I cleaned it all up with kind of my dad and my uncle's guidance.
00:15:44
BEN DELLARIA
And I got it running and it worked for a long while. And then I think I blew it up again. And we ended up putting a motor in it at that point. and then we blew that motor up too.
00:15:57
BEN DELLARIA
And those were a straight six motor. And I kept blowing them up because I was just a rambunctious kid. Um, but my uncle, um, he helped me a lot with some of that stuff. He built race cars and, you know, he had a, uh, mid sixties Chevy Nova two he deuce, um,
00:16:17
BEN DELLARIA
Nice freaking drag car. um He had an old 80s truck that you know we put an LS whatever in it. LS1, LS7. I don't know. I never know the numbers of those. um But it was in the late 90s. So whatever year LS that would be. um But that thing had ton of power. A lot of freaking power. um My dad had built...
00:16:42
BEN DELLARIA
He kind of just restored it. It was 1970 Chevy Malibu. That was a really nice car. And then my uncle had bought it years later and he ah redid the engine on it and did it up real nice. Real freaking fast, powerful car as well. But um kind of missed all that in my childhood grow up that I was just talking about there. But...
00:17:03
BEN DELLARIA
Um, that was kind of where, like I said, my uncle was always building cars and building his own things. And I, that, that got me a little interested in that world as well. So I knew I loved it, but when I had gotten a little older and I was working in the food places and stuff like that, like that's when I kind of like left it alone.
00:17:21
BEN DELLARIA
I just did stuff for friends. Um, the car club that we were part of, I was always helping those guys, um, um, After that truck blew up the last time, I had gotten a 92 Ford Probe, the um the first body style. I think it was a 92.
00:17:41
BEN DELLARIA
The first body style I had gotten, it was the V6. It wasn't the four-cylinder turbo, but it was V6 automatic. Blew that transmission up, being a dumb kid, revving it up, slamming it in drive, you know, those dumb things we used to do.
00:17:53
BEN DELLARIA
blew that transmission up. My dad helped me get it fixed. I had to pay for it. Oh, that's what I wanted to tell you. See, I go off track a lot. um When I had that motorcycle, that thing sat in the garage and I walked to McDonald's
Family and Career Shift to Air Conditioning Work
00:18:07
BEN DELLARIA
to earn a paycheck so I could pay for that thing.
00:18:10
BEN DELLARIA
Yeah, that was ah some character building things right there. And the main reason why it sat is back in the day, you used to be able to get a license that was a motorcycles only license. And m and So I went to the course, you're under 21, you got to take the motorcycle safety course. So I went and took that and the guy couldn't figure out why he couldn't print out the license for me when I went to the DMV.
00:18:33
BEN DELLARIA
Well, it's because at the time you either A, had to have a ah real license or you had to be 21. they didn i didn't know that. We thought it was still just you could get a motorcycles only license. Well, that wasn't the case. So I had to wait six months.
00:18:48
BEN DELLARIA
Um, with a restricted license before I could get my real license so I could drive my motorcycle. So that kind of sucked too. But anyway, going back to where I was, um, that white car, the white probe, after we had gotten the transmission fixed a few months, I was going down a road where this kid, Dennis Myers lived and all of our other friends lived there, Glenn and Brandon and Alan and all of them.
00:19:13
BEN DELLARIA
And right as I was in front of their house, a freaking lady turned right in front of me and I T-boned her. Destroyed the car. Wrecked the whole freaking thing. I was so upset and so pissed off because I really liked that car. It was um it just it was my first wave into starting to learn like some of the ah the audio world. And we'll get into that here in a minute too. But Um, I just, oh man, drove me nuts. So now I need another car. So my dad helped me out.
00:19:43
BEN DELLARIA
And now all these cars that I had gotten, when I say my dad helped me out, I paid for, I had to pay him back every single dime, except for this next one, which was a different truck. I had gotten a 1982 F two 50 lifted big giant Brown truck, um, had like 35 inch tires on it.
00:20:02
BEN DELLARIA
ah I think it was like a four or six inch suspension lift on it. Really cool truck. Love the hell out of that thing. But it had problems, ah constant brake issues, constant problems of an old truck. But i didn't know what the hell was doing back then.
00:20:15
BEN DELLARIA
um But the reason why I didn't have to pay that one back is my great aunt and my great grandmother had passed away and he had gotten a couple of bucks. So he helped me on that one. I think it was like a $2,000 truck.
00:20:27
BEN DELLARIA
He helped buy me that one instead. And he said, no, that's a gift from Aunt Nancy. Okay, great. Cool. So a couple of years go by, I was driving that thing or a couple, um yeah, two years or so go by, I was driving that.
00:20:40
BEN DELLARIA
I ended up getting a different car, which was another Ford Pro, but it was the second body style. It was a red GT V6 automatic.
00:20:51
BEN DELLARIA
That one lasted a long time. I, but that's when I kind of started getting into the realm of, uh, audio. Um, o you know, uh, the speaker boxes with fiberglass and things like that.
00:21:04
BEN DELLARIA
So myself and a buddy of mine, two buddies of mine, one, uh, is I call him Mike Carbonaro, but that's what I'm used to. His last name is now Sanders. Um, don't ask me why.
00:21:16
BEN DELLARIA
Um, and then the other one is John the Jesus. Um, we, got bigger into the car scene at that point. That's when we started going to hot import nights in Daytona. We had a car. We had this old 90-something Acura that we got sponsored by Tsunami to build this car out, and it was really freaking cool.
00:21:39
BEN DELLARIA
And then I met my first wife, and I stopped touching cars altogether. I lost every hobby. I lost everything At that point, because we got pregnant with our first child and I went to work and that was it for my car world.
00:21:55
BEN DELLARIA
I was working for her sister's air conditioning company. That's where that's why I love air conditioning so much, or at least I say my One of my grandfathers was an air conditioning tech and my other grandfather was ah a welder and a tool and die maker for NASA and stuff like that. um But um that's when I started doing air conditioning and got a son on the way. I can't goof off and go do all these things anymore.
00:22:21
BEN DELLARIA
And I lost all capability with cars. I stopped worrying about them. I stopped working on them. I stopped doing custom stereos. I stopped doing everything. We ended up getting to the point where we sold the Ford Probe so we could buy our first house, which was a mobile home in West Palm Beach.
00:22:39
BEN DELLARIA
And... We were living there and we had another car and I was doing air conditioning. I was working 12 and 14 hour days doing commercial and residential construction jobs and install jobs and service work and stuff
Learning on the Job at a Dealership
00:22:52
BEN DELLARIA
like that.
00:22:52
BEN DELLARIA
I really enjoyed air conditioning. I did not enjoy the commercial side. We got, we did a lot of work in West Palm beach, Miami and Fort Lauderdale and a lot of buildings and malls and stuff down there.
00:23:05
BEN DELLARIA
And that part sucked. I hated that, but I hate the fiberglass side of it. That just was stupid. But I enjoyed the service work a lot that I really liked because it was diagnosing things and getting to figure out how the refrigeration systems worked and everything. was really cool. um So now fast forward a couple more years and I'm thinking to myself, like, this sucks. Like, I don't want to continue doing this. Like, what do I want to do? And we had talked and she's like, well, you always said you wanted to be a mechanic. So why don't we do that?
00:23:38
BEN DELLARIA
okay, well, I got to go to school. That's money. That's me being away from the kids. And would now, you know, I got ah of a daughter on the way. We had gotten married when she was pregnant with my daughter.
00:23:48
BEN DELLARIA
I'm like, all right, well, you know, it's three days a week or four days a week. Like that's a lot. Those are evenings away and everything else. But it was the greatest thing. So in West Palm Beach, there, I don't remember the name of the school off the top of my head of what it was originally called. Cause then it got bought out by,
00:24:08
BEN DELLARIA
another school later on and I don't remember the name of that either, but it was in West Palm and it was for automotive service technologies. And I went there. It was, it was different to say the, and to say it in simple way. I,
00:24:24
BEN DELLARIA
I don't know. so So I went, I want to say it was early ah early two thousands when I went and I guess it's not that old. They were teaching us still like throttle body injection and not much like regular, you know, EFI injection or anything like that definitely wasn't direct port. That stuff wasn't around yet, but I just felt like maybe the school was a little bit behind, but to the point,
00:24:51
BEN DELLARIA
When I graduated that school, they hired me to be an instructor. Let's put it that way. um So like I was good enough that I could teach stuff like that, but I still was a hothead that I think I thought I knew everything and I wasn't. I was fucking stupid.
00:25:09
BEN DELLARIA
Like I was very good at school with automotive. I aced it. I only reason why I didn't get a 4.0. I got a 3.9 or 3.8 is because the first semester I took another class. I took um ah psychology.
00:25:25
BEN DELLARIA
because I was interested in it because I knew there was a lot of psychology involved in service writing and customer relations and things like that. And that's kind of what brought my grade down, even though I passed it with a C, which was pretty cool for me passing a regular class that is way out of my realm of my brain.
00:25:43
BEN DELLARIA
But m that was why I didn't graduate with a 4.0. So I was a little pissed about that, but it's what it is. But anyway, um school was great. The second semester is when I got my first job.
00:25:53
BEN DELLARIA
um And that was ah working for a company called Butler Services, who we did fleet for Bell South, which now today you guys know it as AT&T. And t um and I started working there and holy crap, like we're making money.
00:26:11
BEN DELLARIA
I'm working in flat rate. We're doing, i don't remember how much I was making per hour, but we were doing flat rate. I think it had to be like 18 or 20 bucks an hour or something like that. The really cool part about it is I had the first place I worked was a little bit bigger, but i got a promotion to another location, which was in Stewart, Florida, which was good because my wife at the top, my first wife at the time, we were looking to buy a house in Port St. Lucie and Stewart was right down the road.
00:26:40
BEN DELLARIA
So I worked from seven 30 to three 30 Monday through Friday working on these vehicles. I had my own, I had two bays and two lifts. Um, I had all my oil pumps and everything there. i had tire machines. i had a parts room. I had an office.
00:26:56
BEN DELLARIA
And it was great. I screwed that job up at the end because I went through a divorce with my first wife. And that was really hard on me. And it took a toll big time.
00:27:09
BEN DELLARIA
And i screwed that job up. I ended up leaving the job to move to another location up with them and then wanted to come back. And I just, I really messed it up that. But I am where I am today because I left that job.
00:27:23
BEN DELLARIA
Because the thing is, is that even though I was making a bunch of money, I wasn't learning anything. Now, I learned a lot, but I didn't learn enough because we didn't have the information. There was no there was no training.
00:27:37
BEN DELLARIA
There was no service information. We were using books at the time. So imagine trying to go through a book and read a wiring diagram versus in school, we were introduced to like all data and thing and Mitchell and things like that.
00:27:53
BEN DELLARIA
That was, it was, that was hard, but it worked out. I had a couple of things that kind of stressed me out when I worked there, but it worked out. I got it done. It was a Cavalier that I had put a cylinder head on.
00:28:05
BEN DELLARIA
and The cylinder heads used to leach coolant through them at the spark plug holes. And, And so they would get a whole new cylinder head. So oh first time, first or second time ever doing, you know, cylinder heads on these little 95 Cavalier, I get the job done and I've got all these lights on on the dash. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? The car will start and run, but none of these lights are going out. I don't know what these codes are.
00:28:34
BEN DELLARIA
I don't know any of it. And thinking back, it was probably, there were probably you codes, loss, loss of calm codes. because even though those Cavaliers were 1995, they had OBD two ports in them.
00:28:47
BEN DELLARIA
Not like some of my older vehicles were, they were still OBD one that I worked on there. Um, they still had OBD two port. So, but there wasn't a lot to lose communication with. There was engine module,
00:28:59
BEN DELLARIA
And ABS module, that's really about it, right? um But anyway, come to find out that the ground cable hooked up to the battery. As it went down past the battery, I thought it was just a clamp that was hooking it to the battery tray just to hold it in place. It wasn't.
00:29:17
BEN DELLARIA
And that's what I learned. I had learned that the only thing that was in... it was common between all that stuff is that's where I learned the important importance of grounds, um, was from that job because the insulation was stripped away where that clamp was and it was clamped to the cable.
00:29:34
BEN DELLARIA
And then it bolted to the battery tray to feed the body with ground. I didn't know that. And that's why I had all those lights on and I had to figure it out on my own and I had to fix it. And this is, know, we're talking,
00:29:49
BEN DELLARIA
you know, what my second year of actually being in the industry and I was still in school learning electrical and stuff. So, you know, so it was, it was, it was great. I loved the job, but you had to learn this stuff on your own. You had no one to call. You had no internet to go jump on and start searching YouTube and things like that.
00:30:08
BEN DELLARIA
None of that stuff was there, but, and We had a lot of different cars. So, and I think the really cool part about that job too, was that every morning when I came in, I had my fax machine was full of all of the vehicles I had to work on that day, whether they were breakdowns or preventative maintenance jobs.
00:30:25
BEN DELLARIA
And all those vehicles were in my lot waiting for me. So we had drivers at night that would go to other satellite lots, pick up the cars and bring them to us. So that way everything was there. Um, So it was perfect. I didn't have to sell anything. i have to do anything. So we were doing, you know, 80 hours every single week without, you know, in the blink of an eye, it was easy because he didn't have to sell anything. There was no waiting period. The only time I ever had to get authorization was like for engines and transmission replacements because we had to order those through Jasper and that took time and the boss always did that.
00:30:57
BEN DELLARIA
So I just thought that this is how it was. And I was always going to make a bunch of money. And now granted, I always made a good amount of money, but it was never that easy.
00:31:08
BEN DELLARIA
So when I screwed that job up, I ended up in the dealership at that point.
Experience in Independent Shops and Management Skills
00:31:14
BEN DELLARIA
Um, or at that time. And that was somewhere around like, Oh, six, oh, five, oh, six.
00:31:23
BEN DELLARIA
Yeah. Somewhere around there. Oh, five, oh, six, oh, seven was when I was in the dealership. I don't remember the exact dates, but it was somewhere around that time. Um, that was when I really got the biggest rude awakening of my career because,
00:31:39
BEN DELLARIA
That's where I realized I'm stupid and I have no freaking idea what I'm doing. And that's where it goes back to when I talk to these guys that are starting out that are in school and they're like, yeah i want to open a mobile service right now. And I'm like, Ooh, you need to take a step back.
00:31:53
BEN DELLARIA
Like you need to chill out because you're not realizing the complexity that it is not just in the car, but owning a business and actually being a real technician. Like,
00:32:05
BEN DELLARIA
I wasn't one of those ones that we just had it. I was very good at fixing cars because I was a really, really good parts changer. I was not a good diagnostic person back then because I had no freaking clue what it was. I remember at the dealer, if you brought me a car that was a couple years old and it was a PO 171, I would put no problem found because I had no idea how to do any bit of drivability at that point at all.
00:32:30
BEN DELLARIA
I was an idiot. So not saying these guys that are starting these mobile services are, but without the right training, and I don't mean just technology training. I mean, learning how to be a service writer and an owner um o and a technician all at the same time. It's not easy.
00:32:49
BEN DELLARIA
Like, so I do recommend you take a step back and you go work for some shops where you can learn some things and a shop where you have the opportunity for advancement or to shadow other people. Cause that's what I did.
00:33:02
BEN DELLARIA
but after the dealer years, that's what I did. And I'll get back. I'll get into that a little bit more in in a minute, but back at the dealer, I worked for Chevrolet and it was pretty good. It was actually, it was called John Joachim Chevrolet in Stewart, Florida.
00:33:18
BEN DELLARIA
And then it got bought out by suburban Chevrolet. That was when things were really starting to kind of go down hill, like right in the beginning of like 2008 when,
00:33:29
BEN DELLARIA
ah A lot of the like Saturn and all them were kind of going out of business and everything. So it was it was getting pretty rough with that transition. A lot of us didn't like that new dealer world. um And at that point is when we started getting tons of employment change.
00:33:48
BEN DELLARIA
Different ah dispatchers, different people. We got dispatchers that have never been mechanics before. So they don't know who to give the tickets to. They don't know who does what. We had front end guy. We had transmission guy. We had shop foreman.
00:34:01
BEN DELLARIA
Everybody else was general repair. And we have one other guy that strictly did water leaks. So like this guy's handing out stuff to the wrong people, you know, so it just, it went downhill really, really fast. And a lot of us left.
00:34:15
BEN DELLARIA
Um, I ended up leaving and going to independent. Um, I ended up working for this guy, Frank, um, in, uh, port St. Lucie. It was called treasure coast auto repair.
00:34:26
BEN DELLARIA
He actually knew a lot of the guys at the dealer and he used to work for that dealer back in the day until he opened up his own place. But, uh, he has passed since passed away now. Um, Quit smoking y'all. Cause that's, what's going to do it. Um, that's what killed him. But I met a lot of really good people there. Um, met a lot of really good people at the dealer too, but the dealer just really opened my eyes to the training and everything else that I just didn't want to do.
00:34:52
BEN DELLARIA
I just thought I knew better and I thought I was king of the world. And you know I had no head on my shoulders. I was just some cocky-ass 20-something-year-old kid that just thought he knew the world because I made so much at Bell South, and I'm going to come into this dealer, going to be freaking awesome because it was they were all Chevrolets as well, so I thought I knew Chevrolets.
00:35:13
BEN DELLARIA
You're right. I ain't no sh yeah ah nothing at all, man. I'm telling you straight up. So, like again, when you got these guys that are asking...
00:35:23
BEN DELLARIA
asking about starting a business right out of tech school, I don't recommend it because there's too much you don't know. And I was in that cocky attitude back then and not saying you guys are cocky attitudes, but I'm just saying in general, like you got to get that training. So anyway, um so going into the independent world,
00:35:44
BEN DELLARIA
That's what I did. I found, excuse me, I found shops that I could progress in shops where I could end up becoming a shop foreman and not because i was the best diagnostic person or the best all around technician in general.
00:35:59
BEN DELLARIA
I was the best at understanding people. I think there's a lot of psychology when it comes to handling um employees and or customers.
00:36:10
BEN DELLARIA
but Excuse me again. Yeah. So I was really good at that. And that's why I got those promotions to shop manager. um And then I would look for, or, you know, lead tech, whatever it was.
00:36:23
BEN DELLARIA
And then if, if there was the opportunity to be able to grow in, in, uh, uh, ah shadow service writers, that's what I wanted.
00:36:35
BEN DELLARIA
um So I had to move to a couple different shops. I worked for a lot of different shops throughout my career. I want to say probably six or seven different independent shops throughout the last, I don't know, 15 years when I was in the industry um or in the actual shops.
00:36:52
BEN DELLARIA
But That's what I did. And I did that because I always knew, even when I was in school, was like, yeah, I'm going to open a shop. I'm going to be this. I'm going to be everything. As soon as I graduate, I'm opening a shop.
00:37:04
BEN DELLARIA
I would have failed immediately. And I'm glad that I didn't. And I'm glad I didn't do any of that because you you just don't know. You don't know that back end of it. so um So I went to learn that. And I knew that in my time, I was either going to A, I knew I was going to open a shop one day.
00:37:21
BEN DELLARIA
So that's what I went to go learn. and Sorry, I'm going in a thousand different directions here, but it's just just me thinking about all this stuff as I'm spewing it out. um But I knew that I wanted to own a shop. So i I'm like, okay, how do I own a shop? how do i How do I sell to a customer? Let me go watch that person. And then I start doing that job and I get real good at that job.
00:37:41
BEN DELLARIA
I was already a good mechanic at this point. I've already had gone to a lot of training and understood how to diagnose, drivability, use a scope, you know do all these things.
00:37:52
BEN DELLARIA
in order to be the best technician I could be at the time. But now I need more. I need to learn how to be an owner. I need to learn how to be a district manager. I need to learn how to be a the shop foreman and the service writer. So that's what I did for 15 years as I trained and learned and shadowed and watched and did everything I possibly could and filled those shoes in those positions until Finally, the last shop I worked for, I was running that place for that guy and things just went downhill at that shop in general because he was just that way.
00:38:24
BEN DELLARIA
um But it burned me out. That was the time where I was like, I'm done
Transition to Mobile Mechanic Business
00:38:30
BEN DELLARIA
with this. I'm working six days a week. I'm working 10 hour shifts and my kids are growing up. And at this point I'm already, i moved up to Ocala. I'm remarried at this point.
00:38:42
BEN DELLARIA
My ex and her a husband had moved up so we could all live together. So our kids could be together and we could all raise our, basically we raise our families together. I'm, I go fishing with my, my ex's husband. Um, he's been around my children forever. My daughter's getting married. We're, we're both walking her down the aisle. there'ss There's no question of those types of things with our family. My wife and my ex, they get along great. They're always talking all the time.
00:39:10
BEN DELLARIA
She has four other kids. They call me uncle. They call her aunt. That's just, we have a very good mixed family together. We all care about each other. and We'll always take care of each other.
00:39:21
BEN DELLARIA
um So we, anyway, I lost what I was saying on that, but, um, in when we moved up here and, you know, kids were growing up, I wanted to be around them more. And I was getting tired of always dealing with an owner that,
00:39:37
BEN DELLARIA
didn't care about those things. And I get it that you have to work certain hours, but I don't like it when you say, hey, I got to get over to the DMV. I have to go renew this or I have to go in and do this.
00:39:50
BEN DELLARIA
And he's like, no, you're not doing that. You got to do it on your own time. Well, I can't because you've got us here from 730 to 530 every day. That doesn't work.
00:40:01
BEN DELLARIA
An hour lunch sometimes doesn't work. We can't do that. Sometimes we get there and the line is forever long. We're supposed to stand there for an hour and then call you and be like, I'm still in line. Like, come on, man.
00:40:13
BEN DELLARIA
So that kind of drove me nuts and just let me into that whole, I got to change something. So when my kids were young, we used to go to Disney World all the time. So I was like, well, how can we still do this? So when I quit, I opened a lawn service.
00:40:30
BEN DELLARIA
um I had a couple of bucks saved and we opened the lawn service. Actually, what it was was that I had $17,000 and I was actually at that time going to open a shop. This was...
00:40:48
BEN DELLARIA
2015, 2016, somewhere around there, I was going to open a shop. That was what I was going to do. And I didn't get any help. No one, I couldn't figure it out.
00:41:00
BEN DELLARIA
I tried asking previous bosses. I tried asking anybody. And I couldn't get the answers I needed in order to make those steps. What do I do? What kind of zoning? What is this? What is that?
00:41:12
BEN DELLARIA
So i was like, you know what? Screw this. I need to take care of my family. I'm going to open a lawn service because that's what I know how to do. I know how to cut grass. It's easy. I can buy the equipment right now and I can do it. So we did.
00:41:22
BEN DELLARIA
And I start, what I actually did is I started cutting for the banks. God, that sucky money. $25 a cut. up to an acre. Yeah, that's stupid, but that's what I did in order to bring some money in so I could build my client list. And that's what I did. I built a client list and I was cutting grass for a couple of years.
00:41:42
BEN DELLARIA
So I wasn't working on cars for at least like three years, four years, something like that. And, Same thing happened. I'm like, I'm getting burned out. This sucks. I'm not. and i And at that point, I was emulating that lawn service after how my dad ran his lawn service in South Florida.
00:42:00
BEN DELLARIA
That didn't work here because here we have seasons compared to down there where it's just hot all the time. Here, we actually have a couple of months a year where lawns don't grow at all.
00:42:10
BEN DELLARIA
So I'm like, shoot, what do I do? like I built this the wrong way. So I sold that lawn service and I went back to the shop, right? ah so I'm sorry. So that was only a year. That wasn't the three-year mark. That was only a year the first time.
00:42:25
BEN DELLARIA
And I went back to the same shop that I was working for and then I quit again. And then maybe eight months later, a year later, I quit again. And I went and opened my second lawn service and I changed how I did things. And it still sucked, but it was a little bit better. I made better money for a couple more years.
00:42:43
BEN DELLARIA
We grew really well. And I was marketing in certain neighborhoods and it was good. But the same thing happened. I was getting a little bit burned out, cutting grass. It's the same monotonous, boring thing over and over and over again. And I really just didn't want to do it. And I'm like, I miss cars. I want to go back to work and on cars and do stuff.
00:43:01
BEN DELLARIA
So we started saving some money and I had a couple of bucks and we were going to open a shop and then COVID hit. And that's when we decided this isn't going to work because technically, even though it was COVID, we were trying to find a warehouse that was close to where we are. Now at the time that our area was even more rural than it is now, there was a lot less people to hear, but yeah,
00:43:27
BEN DELLARIA
The warehouse thing didn't change. So I was looking at all these warehouses and at the time, no, you're not allowed to have a shop here. It might be zoned for it, but we own it and we don't, our insurance doesn't want it. It's dirty. It's this, it's that we're not doing it.
00:43:42
BEN DELLARIA
Shit. What am I supposed to do now? Like, you know, where how am i going to open a shop? And that's when we figured, okay, let's try mobile because that's when COVID hit And all of a sudden, all the restaurants start turning to DoorDash. And that's when DoorDash and Grubhub blew up, right? That's when all the home delivery was like perfect.
00:44:00
BEN DELLARIA
You know, Publix was doing curbside drop off and everything. I'm like, no shit. Like we could do this with a shop. Like let's do it. No, that wasn't a new thing. Obviously people have been mobile for years before that.
00:44:12
BEN DELLARIA
But what I did do is I did my research and that's when we found out that There was no one doing it on a caliber that I wanted because I tried it for the first year or two or first year or two. I was doing it out of the bed of my truck.
00:44:27
BEN DELLARIA
I had a nice tonneau cover. I built it out really, really nice, but I didn't have certain tools. I didn't have battery tools at the time. I never owned battery tools when I worked in the shops. You always had good air compressors. So I always had impact tools.
00:44:40
BEN DELLARIA
So now I'm like trying to figure all this stuff out. So after the first year or so of doing it out of the bed of my truck, I'm like, this doesn't work. So I'm like, all right, let me put some of my tools in my lawn trailer while I'm cutting grass too. That'll give me some more space. I get a little bit more tools.
00:44:56
BEN DELLARIA
No, that's still not working because by the time I cut 12 or 15 lawns that day, it's two or three o'clock. I'm dead. my brain is not working to be able to shift and now go fix cars and diagnose cars at this point. And I noticed it because I'm like, I'm not making the right calls.
00:45:13
BEN DELLARIA
And I'm a little bit rusty of not working on cars for the past three years. So, I don't know what to do. So this is where we came up with the trailer. So I started researching. What am I going to do? Do I want a trailer? Do want a box truck? What do I want to put in? And that's when we built the trailer.
00:45:31
BEN DELLARIA
And I built the trailer. I took my time building the trailer. Like I really, I wanted it the first time to be, i wanted to have everything I needed. I wanted my AC machine. I wanted power. I wanted everything in there. And the trailer has obviously evolved since then, but it has always been powered since day one on its own, the same way it's powered now with the inverter and the batteries.
00:45:52
BEN DELLARIA
And I've had AC machines since day one as well. But I knew that if I wanted to stand out above everybody else, that was what I was going to have to do.
Strategic Business Decisions and Success
00:46:04
BEN DELLARIA
And that's what we did.
00:46:06
BEN DELLARIA
So what I did was as I was building that trailer, This was in 2020. Yeah, I think it was in 2020. It was in November of 2020 when I was almost done building the trailer because it was Thanksgiving and it was out back and my sister was here and she hasn't been here in that many years.
00:46:29
BEN DELLARIA
So we I was building the trailer and then I was like, all right, we're done with the lawn service. Let's put it up for sale. Four months go by. and the lawn service is getting sold at this point.
00:46:43
BEN DELLARIA
May of 2021 is when I put the trailer into service 100%. I was using it a little bit here and there, but I was still cutting grass. So technically, like I've told you guys, we've been in business a little over six years doing this, but I was running two businesses at the time.
00:47:00
BEN DELLARIA
So from 2021, when I went 100% full-time, not just two businesses full-time, only one business full-time, because it it wasn't part-time, I was really doing full-time.
00:47:12
BEN DELLARIA
I sold the lawn service and I was like, I'm going to just live off that money. We're going to keep that money. We're going to build a client list and we're going to go from there. Well, that guy screwed me. He was a friend of mine and I thought, okay, I don't need to fill out any paperwork or do anything. He's going to pay me cash.
00:47:27
BEN DELLARIA
No big deal. I sold it for 25 grand. I think I ended up seeing like 18 of that. in over like a year worth of time. Like that's how long it took him to pay me. And he was supposed to pay me within three months and it never happened.
00:47:40
BEN DELLARIA
um So even though that didn't happen the way I needed it to, I got lucky. I built the trailer and it took off from there. And I never, never looked back. It's been insane since,
00:47:54
BEN DELLARIA
that May of 2021 where the trailer went into service full time and we've been nonstop ever since. We've obviously changed a lot of things since then, but that's how we got into where we are today.
00:48:10
BEN DELLARIA
By doing it all that way, being in the business, being in the industry, learning the ropes on what we needed to do. And that's what we kind of contribute my success to is because In order to get where you need to be, you have to learn it. You can't just go and do it. It's not going to just fall into your lap. You have to work hard to get to it.
00:48:30
BEN DELLARIA
And that's what I did. That's my journey from childhood to where we are sitting today. So now what's the future hold? I really don't know. um I can say that I'm a little annoyed because there is a place that is real close to me that I had tried to open a shop in back in the beginning when I was telling you back in like 2019 or 2020.
00:48:57
BEN DELLARIA
They um they had two shops in there now. And one shop is actually a shop where I've recommended people to. It's called Sierra Bravo. And they allowed that shop in there.
00:49:09
BEN DELLARIA
And I'm like, you got to be freaking kidding me. Like I could have gotten that like after the first year of being mobile and I could have been in there, but we're making really, really good money as mobile. So that's the question.
00:49:21
BEN DELLARIA
How much longer do I want to continue to fix cars? How much longer do I want to continue to be mobile? Um, Do I ever want to be in a shop?
00:49:32
BEN DELLARIA
I sure do. I really would love a shop. I would love to have a building that I get to go to and be like, this is me. This is what I built. But I also get to do that every single day. i get to go outside and get in my truck and I get to go to work and say, this is what I built.
00:49:47
BEN DELLARIA
Because I think I do it on a much higher level than most in the mobile world do it. And that's not saying anything bad about them, but I think I am extremely competitive on the dollar we make and the value we bring to people versus the shops.
00:50:05
BEN DELLARIA
But I'm not going to be naive enough to say that we can do everything the shop can do. There are a lot of jobs I cannot do and I refuse to do mobile.
00:50:16
BEN DELLARIA
And I want to do those jobs. I want to be able to grow more. Right now, like you guys have seen it. we Last year was our biggest year, 242,000. And that's with me cutting it back down to four days a week.
00:50:32
BEN DELLARIA
um But what can we do this year? There's still so many things that I don't do on a daily basis that I should be doing that I probably would do much better
Future Plans and Business Growth
00:50:45
BEN DELLARIA
in a shop. And that's typical inspections. The 300 rule. We all know what the 300 rule is. And that's, oh I'll probably say this wrong, but 100% of the vehicles get 100% of the inspection, get 100% explained and expressed to the customer or presented to the customer. That's the 300 rule. i I believe I'm saying it right. If I'm wrong, you can comp you can correct me below. but
00:51:10
BEN DELLARIA
And you need to do that in a way that is not shitty to the customer. Like we're not here trying to get you to do an oil change for $2,000 because now you need all this stuff. No, we want to, I want to present it to you because I want you to be able to maintain that investment you have.
00:51:27
BEN DELLARIA
And I want you to understand it and I want you to be able to learn it. So that's one of the things that if I ever own a shop, I'll probably do it the same way my father-in-law did it, which was just him and his wife in a simple one warehouse place with two lifts.
00:51:44
BEN DELLARIA
That's all I want. If I still want it. I don't know if I do because the the freedom we have today between my wife and i being able to just up and leave and go and do whatever we want is pretty enticing. Now I know I've spoken with some people. I've spoken a lot with like Chris Enright.
00:52:02
BEN DELLARIA
Um, and he says, Sam, he's like, yeah, i took off. I left at five the other day and i went golfing or something. He had told me once, which is really cool, but his shop's at his house.
00:52:15
BEN DELLARIA
So how would that look if I was in a location that people are relying on and then they just come there and I'm closed? out of nowhere quite frequently because I like to be able to do things frequently.
00:52:30
BEN DELLARIA
So like being mobile yesterday, I had an interview yesterday that I had to film at home on the computer at one o'clock. So that's all I did was I just booked my day until then. And then I came home and we stayed home.
00:52:43
BEN DELLARIA
I didn't, I don't have to tell anybody that we're closed after one o'clock because I was doing something else. I don't have to do any of those things when it comes to that, when you have a brick and mortar location,
00:52:55
BEN DELLARIA
and you have these set hours, you need to be there opening the door and closing the door at those times. If you're going to be consistently taking time off or leaving earlier, doing this or doing that, you're eventually going to build a reputation for yourself, but mobile you won't because nobody knows it because you don't have a physical location that they show up to. And then all of a sudden you're not there.
00:53:20
BEN DELLARIA
I hope that makes sense because, like I really like the four-day-a-week schedule that we do because it keeps me grounded and it allows me to have my free time on Saturday and Sunday, and especially for doing all this social media work that I do. But I hope that makes a little bit of sense. a bit I don't know. It just depends on how I'll feel. Right now, my focus is continue to pay for... We're we're putting money away for the wedding for my our daughter, and we've got debt to pay.
00:53:51
BEN DELLARIA
When the debt's gone... Then I'll reevaluate. And this is debt that I've had from years past from when we used to take our kids to Disney all the time and we weren't making a lot of money at the time.
00:54:02
BEN DELLARIA
We got into, we got into debt on those things. We've paid it off once. We're going to pay it off again. That's I'm, I'm focused enough that we can do that. And we make a lot more now. to be able to financially do that.
00:54:16
BEN DELLARIA
So when that's gone, who knows? Maybe we won't have to worry about that and say, yeah, we want to do 300,000 this year because you know we're in a shop.
00:54:26
BEN DELLARIA
I think I can hit that 300,000 mark being mobile if I fix everything I'm doing with my inspections, 300 rule and everything else. Because with all of that that I just told you on the amount we did last year, that was...
00:54:41
BEN DELLARIA
I'm going to say 90% of that was us going out to the customer and relieving them of the problem that they called us for. There was no inspections happening. I have not done inspections for years because I just still have not done it.
00:54:56
BEN DELLARIA
I'm lazy as crap with it because most of the time when I'm out there, I'm just ready to be done and go home. i'm not um I don't have to be there till five o'clock and that's the difference. If I have to be in a building till five because I own it,
00:55:10
BEN DELLARIA
I'm going to take everybody that runs through the door and I'm going to just keep on working. And there's probably going to be days where I'm working until eight, nine o'clock because I'm going to love it and I'm going to want to do it. And I'm a little bit afraid of that. So I have a lot of mixed emotions on what's going to happen, but my goals are 10 more years.
Financial Goals and Social Media Strategy
00:55:29
BEN DELLARIA
I'm 44 right now. My goal by the time I am 55, want to be, i want to be I know I'll be out of debt in about a year and a half.
00:55:41
BEN DELLARIA
That's about how much longer it's going to take me to pay off my debt. And I'm hoping I can do it in a year, but the wedding comes first. That's where all my money is going right now. um But so by the time I hit 55, I need my investments to continue to grow.
00:55:55
BEN DELLARIA
So everything that I'm doing on this social media stuff and everything else, all that money will go to that. that's where it does go. Like none of that is included in, um, that two 42 I mentioned. And I don't make a lot on social media only recently have we started to kind of kick things up and start moving, um, and making a couple of bucks on there, you know, decently well. So, um, maybe one day we'll talk about that in a future video. But as of right now, I don't really remember what I was saying to you, but that's, uh, that's the future plan. Oh, by the time I'm 55,
00:56:29
BEN DELLARIA
If I'm 55 years old and I want to say I'm done, I want to say I'm done. If I want to move into a different place and maybe have my own shop on the property where we're strictly doing social media, maybe.
00:56:41
BEN DELLARIA
But I always want to own a business because social media is not around forever. You cannot be like some of these other guys where they strictly rely on collaborations and views because any of those channels can get shut down in a moment's notice and you are stuck.
00:56:59
BEN DELLARIA
Don't do that. Do not look at me or any of these other guys. And I'm not a big person on these social media things compared to some of these other people. Don't think that that's who you're going to be.
00:57:11
BEN DELLARIA
Those guys get lucky enough to make a ton of money on these views and everything else. But again, you need to have a business in the background because if you lose that channel, which happens a lot, some of these big channels get shut down and they lose all their followers. They have to rebuild. They lose the monetization. They lose. They say the wrong thing online and then now they lose all of their brand deals and everything else.
00:57:34
BEN DELLARIA
You can't rely on that. You need to build a business and do that. And that's my goal for the next 10 years is keep building this business and keep taking whatever I can take in. And hopefully by the time I'm 55, I can slow it down and maybe we'll cross that bridge at that point. But I'm done for now. That was a long talk of me just ranting and raving about my life and everything else. I hope you guys kind of enjoyed this one, but that is my story. That is what I did as a child. And that's where I am today and what the future holds for us. So,
00:58:04
BEN DELLARIA
In the meantime, go check out all all all of our other social medias. We do appreciate you listening, and we will see you next week with another episode of the 3D's Mold Mechanic Podcast. Thanks for listening.