Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 14 - Harrison Rusk & Richard Gautier | Deep Thoughts From Texas
248 Plays1 month ago
So...I'm not good at marketing. Some people tell me I am, but to me, it's not a strong suit of mine. Plus, I don't have the time to do it even if I thought I was good. So, I use Turnkey Marketing. They're great. Find out for yourself HERE
Today's episode I recorded at an Elite Worldwide event in Dallas with two people I know through a peer group I'm in at Elite. So, it's safe to say I'm a big proponent of their coaching services. So, yeah, I think the least you should do is look them up. Do that HERE
I talk about them all the time, because without them, I'm not sure where I'd be as a shop owner. Tekmetric has made my shop what it is. You should use them. Would I steer you wrong? Learn more HERE
Richard worked at a dealership for years, now he owns a repair shop. How did that happen? He tells me today. Harrison is a second-generation shop owner like me, and we talk about the things we've learned and mistakes we've made. Hopefully, so you won't follow in our footsteps. We also drink whiskey with ice.
00:00 Elite Ignite 2025 Kickoff Night
06:35 65-Year-Old Outspeeds Indoor Kart Enthusiast
08:01 Energetic Entrepreneur Defies Age
11:56 Building Business Skills Toolbox
14:22 Customer-Focused Service Mindset
17:35 "Great Environments Breed Success"
22:08 Neglected Auditing in Business Management
23:51 "Process Importance in Problem Solving"
28:15 Leadership and Growth Challenges
31:55 Learning from Challenging Experiences
33:56 "Building Business Culture and Team"
38:29 Delegation Fuels Business Growth
41:53 "Managing Expectations to Prevent Resentment"
43:54 Addressing Performance Expectations and Accountability
49:32 Self-Sabotage Limits Success
51:07 Employee Growth and Accountability Steps
53:56 Early Morning Riser
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Topic
00:00:00
Speaker
So this one was a lot of fun. I got to sit down with two good friends of mine, Harrison Rusk and Richard Gauthier. Harrison's got four shops and a body shop along with his brother in Houston, Texas.
00:00:12
Speaker
And Richard, after a full career in the dealership world as a dealer... manager, ah bought a retirement business, an aftermarket auto repair shop in Southern California. So um fun conversation. I've known these guys for years. They're in my 20 group that I have with Elite that has been a big part of my growth. And they challenge me every day and we talk on a regular basis. That's the type of friendships that you build when you're part of a peer group.
00:00:39
Speaker
So I encourage you to check it out, enjoy it. And if you want to find more out about being a part of a peer group, Let me know and I can link you up with some of the key people that I've ah gotten to know and love at Elite.
Humorous Disclaimer
00:00:54
Speaker
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have.
00:01:08
Speaker
There may be some spicy language in this show. So if you get your feelings so easily, you should probably just move along. So without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner with your host, Mike Gallum.
00:01:23
Speaker
What's up, fellas? What's up, Mike? How's it going? Great. Here we are. we are yet again. Yes. We are going to talk about stuff.
00:01:35
Speaker
Another evening at an elite event where we talk about stuff with whiskey. Cheers that. Cheers to that. Cheers to that. you're Here, here.
00:01:45
Speaker
So what are you drinking?
00:01:48
Speaker
That's ah just a double eagle rare, watered down with some ice. It's probably pretty weak of me to put ice in it like that. I'd see that you're a real man and you drink your whiskey neat. Yeah, I've got Balveny 12 scotch, but because we're going to be sitting around and I want to sip it all night, I did get a double with one ice cube.
Elite's Ignite 2025 Event
00:02:06
Speaker
Well, you ruined it and then. It's like true gentleman.
00:02:12
Speaker
So we're here at Elite's Ignite 2025 event in Dallas. It's the first night where it's been mostly pro-service people, which is their 20 group.
00:02:24
Speaker
And we've just had dinner and hung out at the bar up in the lobby. And a lot of the Elite one-on-one coaching clients have started to show up. And a lot of them are on the planes coming in right now. So I'm i'm excited to see what we're going to learn tomorrow and Saturday.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think tomorrow and Saturday it' will be real exciting. Great first day with friends and close-knit group of colleagues. I guess going on what, you and I, Mike, going on 10 years together? Almost a decade? i think we met, the first time we met was in Orlando. Eight to 10 years, and maybe? Something like that. Pretty long time.
00:02:59
Speaker
In Orlando? Yeah, it was, um ah what was his name? Oscar... I don't remember. He's got like three shops in Orlando. Carlos. Good guy. Yeah. Great guy. Well, that's where I met you. That was, that was, I think that was my first meeting or maybe second meeting.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, must have been about eight years ago that we went on each other. it was a great meeting then. Roughly. yeah Yeah, it was a great meeting. Yeah, we spent eight days at Disney World for our anniversary that year. Nice. I did not spend eight days at Disney World. Eight days at Disney World. Holy.
00:03:27
Speaker
Never been to Disney World or Disneyland. But then we went sailing for a couple of weeks. Oh, okay. So that's the that's more what I would expect from Richard. Richard
Richard's Journey to Auto Repair
00:03:35
Speaker
sailed from Disney World to Disneyland. Yeah.
00:03:40
Speaker
And he's just book casing it on the other end. The stereotype of the evil shop owner, he spent the summer on his boat sailing between theme parks. Definitely. So I can't tell you how many 20 group meetings we have logged into where you are coming to us live from the poop deck of your boat somewhere like fucking Catalina or something.
00:04:00
Speaker
Well, now, you know, a wise man told me one time that I invested in a business, not a job. i can go get a good job. Yeah. dropping fact bombs, truth bombs.
00:04:13
Speaker
ah Richard's outperforming all of us. He's, he's logging in. I mean, the fact that he logs in from the boat deserves credit in and of itself, right? it's fair Because I don't think anybody else who's on a boat is logging into anything.
00:04:25
Speaker
All right, Richard, give me like the 92nd version of like your, your history and background that led to where you are now. Um, Well, i I actually was in the insurance business for a while. i did corporate pension plans and things like that. But then on a flute, got into the car business.
00:04:45
Speaker
oh I went into salesman of the month after three months, went into management in five months, was general manager in seven years and did that for 30 years. And I opened the auto repair shop as kind of a retirement business.
00:05:02
Speaker
As retirement. Man, this business is going to kill me. Richard chose most stressful thing. I've had a 40-year career and now I'm going to have a retirement business. He was like, what is the most stressful activity I can do in retirement?
00:05:12
Speaker
He was like, I'm going to open a shop. I mean, I ran the numbers and I thought, well, wow, this looks like it's reasonably profitable. And I work Monday through Friday. you know So we're closed on evenings and weekends. But what I didn't know is as much as I knew about cars and dealership management, the independent repair shop kicked my ass.
00:05:30
Speaker
It's a different kind of gig. Yeah. It's tougher to run from a boat. Definitely. It is. Yeah. Yeah. But I did, I've been open coming on 15 years.
00:05:41
Speaker
I worked my ass off for four years, uh, hired a service advisor in fifth year. And, uh, I quit going into the store at that point in time.
00:05:52
Speaker
I mean, I show up and do work and I train and I keep things accountable and how free do marketing. how frequently Do you walk into the shop?
00:06:01
Speaker
ah When I'm in town, most days I go in for a couple hours. Okay. But not all days. How frequently are you not in town?
00:06:13
Speaker
Pretty often. um When will you be back at the shop next? The 10th of February. This is the 23rd of January now. And I just got back from 12 days at the beach in the motorhome.
00:06:28
Speaker
But Richard, you know, this is a retirement job. It's retirement job. He is. He is the out. You are the outlier. Right. We can admit you're the outlier. Right. And the name of your business is G&G Auto Repair. G&G Auto Repair. Yes. And Bakersfield, California. california And you're doing somewhere between two and a half and three million. Yeah.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah. We did just over 2.2 this year. And he's just running it from the boat. Yeah.
Racing Achievements and Youthful Spirit
00:06:58
Speaker
Living the fucking Well, we grew from 450,000 to working there.
00:07:05
Speaker
i wish i could have five hundred percent growth From a boat. Well, sometimes he's in the desert racing Jeeps. Oh, that's actually a good thing.
00:07:18
Speaker
yeah I think we should mention that Richard is like, I mean, you're royalty at King of the Hammers, right? you got No. are Is that you being modest or are you...
00:07:30
Speaker
you're i have you a You're an OG of King of the Hammers, right? I have won an Ultra Force Series National Championship. And how many people have how many people can say that they've won an Ultra Force Series National Championship? Yeah, they they started a National Series, I think, in 2011 or 12.
00:07:49
Speaker
or twelve No, 2013. At the time you won it, how many champions were there? Well, I was the first one. First champion. I feel like that... How old were you when you did that?
00:08:00
Speaker
64. Okay. So my introduction to Richard was at a 20 group meeting in Orlando, and which we've talked about already, but we went to an indoor cart track and I'm a bit of a indoor like rental cart nerd at home. And I thought that I was hot shit.
00:08:17
Speaker
And this 65 year old dude that I've never met before crushed never crushed me and everyone else. I think he won everyone he won the race, crushed everyone. That's my first time driving electric go-karts. Yeah.
00:08:28
Speaker
And they were painfully slow and boring to drive, but still it was a good time. Yeah. It was a good time. Nothing less from a King of the Hammers royalty. yeah i don't yeah no I don't know that I'm qualified to anoint you as royalty of King Hammers, but because since I'm not qualified, I will. Yeah. It's been around a long time and there's some guys that are real royalty, you know, Shannon Campbell and Jason Shearer.
00:08:49
Speaker
But you're an OG. of it But I'm an OG and i' I've top 10 unlimited class and i' I've podiumed twice in stock class and I won a stock class national championship.
Elite's Coaching Benefits
00:09:00
Speaker
Hey, everybody. I want to take a minute to tell you about the coaching organization I've been involved with for, gosh, over 20 years now. Elite. Elite Worldwide, they don't give you a one-size-fits-all solution. They tailor the coaching specifically to you and your shop.
00:09:17
Speaker
They pair you with an experienced coach who is either a current or a former shop owner, and they turn strategies into actual action and accountability and results. Whether it's improving your service advisor's sales, growing your shop, growing to multiple locations, they really have you covered.
00:09:33
Speaker
Clients of Elite really see results. Higher profits, stronger teams, a better work-life balance. If you're ready to take the next step, visit EliteWorldwide.com to schedule your discovery session. That's EliteWorldwide.com to start working on your business rather than in it.
00:09:50
Speaker
Tell them that you heard about them on Confessions of a Shop Owner so that I get a pat on the back or maybe a box of chocolates or something. That would be awesome. Thanks. Good stuff. Straight baller, man. Great stuff. And now he runs his shop from the boat.
00:10:04
Speaker
but the little Or the motorhome. Or the motorhome or the Baja car. for the Yeah, or the Baja car. Why do we do this? Don't we do this so we can do that? Because we're masochists.
00:10:18
Speaker
We don't do this for like having a good quality of life. We do this because we hate ourselves. Well, and Richard is also one of the most youthful, ah you know, like I'm not sure. Mid-70s guys. Mid-70s guys. Yeah. One of the most ah youthful mid-70s guys who's still extremely active, still involved in a business. I mean, how many people are trying to retire at 60 or 65 when in reality he's still operating a business and doing all of the things that he wants to do, which is extremely commendable.
Harrison's Background and Leadership
00:10:49
Speaker
Well, you called me this week to talk about shop operations. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, and you're having fun and enjoying it and trying to solve problems. And I was driving in my car. Yeah. And as was I. So, well, i so I, I, I studied some stuff because I mean, I do study, um but I studied some statistics a good while ago and ah some, something like 80% of all very wealthy people are in the same town.
00:11:21
Speaker
and are still working in the business. Now that doesn't mean that they work in the business, but they still own the business. that's fair Most really, really wealthy people have not sold the business and retired.
00:11:36
Speaker
Makes sense. Makes sense. They have people. so But you spent an entire career in the dealership world. 30 years. after yeah that so what Any family history in automotive at all?
00:11:49
Speaker
No.
00:11:52
Speaker
Harrison, you've got family history in automotive. like you're Second generation owner operator. Yeah. So along with my brother, we're partners. We second generation owner operators.
00:12:03
Speaker
um I did grow up around it. i was ah I was a bad, delinquent, disagreeable C-tech slash GS as a teenager fan.
00:12:16
Speaker
Left home, forged my own path. I had a career in the Marines, came out of that without intentions of reentering the family business, ah but saw an opportunity um and and seized upon it.
00:12:30
Speaker
And so, you know, now I love it and I have a lot of fun doing it. 95% of the time, 5% of the time is challenges that, you know, might be uncomfortable, but are still fun.
00:12:41
Speaker
5% of the time you're taking all chairs out of the shop. Well, five. s Yeah. Five percent of the time taking away people's chairs and being forced to spend time with my good friend, Mike Allen.
00:12:53
Speaker
but It's just, you know, it's just it's ah it gets a little painful sometimes being around you. But, you know, we suffered through it back up and back up and tell us the story about taking the chairs out of the lobby.
00:13:06
Speaker
Uh, man, that was, that was probably very early on. That was very early on. Uh, when I was a very bad manager slash owner and i was just really fed up with people like kind of not getting off their butts and helping people out the right way and i took away everyone's chair along with my own right so and you know it was just like hey guys we just got to stay mobile help everybody out and kind of and i think that you and some of our other friends have kind of clung on to that as an elbow ribbing lesson which is well deserved right um
00:13:41
Speaker
You know, and so, you know, I think we all make mistakes and kind of lead poorly sometimes. And that was probably a poor leadership, but it didn't last very long. It was a moment in time where I just like everybody's got to be mobile.
00:13:54
Speaker
And it's kind of something about this industry. It's like, you know, everybody's got to stay on their feet. You got to be on your toes to help people out and help each other out. Right. So the kind of the symbolism of it, the laugh of it is that there is a truth beneath it all.
00:14:07
Speaker
Right. Well, and like. We're all bad shop owners, bad leaders at different points in our career, right? It's an evolution. Well, you can't be good without making the mistakes and being bad. Well, it's like we talk about training for shop owners is, you know, the yeah the techs have tools, you know.
00:14:25
Speaker
So they can have something for all the situations and they invest a lot of money in that. And as a business owner, ah we need to invest a lot of time and some money into developing our own toolbox of skills because we need sales skills. We need training skills. We need.
00:14:42
Speaker
business management skills, management, financial recruiting. We need to have a a repertoire of management skills that you're not going to assimilate by staying but on your own ah reading a book. You're going to have to get out there and elbow grease and And rub elbows with good shop owners and bounce things off each other and learn. Yeah, that's why we're here, right?
00:15:04
Speaker
That's what we're doing. You know, sales, I was going to say, Harrison, in the car business, you know, we had a saying that sales is some of the lowest paying easy work best paying hard work.
00:15:20
Speaker
paying hard work Yeah. Yeah, that's true. can see that. I can see that. Hey, so I've got a question for you, Richard. And, um, I've been thinking about, I'm trying to hire advisors outside of, I don't want experience advisors because they have bad habits that you have to break. And some of them don't want the habits to be broken.
00:15:37
Speaker
So I think that a really high performing car salesman has the capacity to become a really good advisor. Potentially. How do i walk into a dealership and identify who the good car salesman is?
00:15:50
Speaker
Boy, that's a hard one because it depends. Yeah, that's really hard because because you have some dealerships that have a high turnover and um and they just have a lot of young guys and you might get a young, aggressive guy.
00:16:09
Speaker
that's ah That's all he is, is young and aggressive. Um, some dealerships, uh, like dealerships that I worked at were well established, not very much turnover, had salespeople that were there a long time, but those guys are, would be really, really hard to get away.
00:16:27
Speaker
you know? Um, like we all know, uh, Brian Caulfield, right now Cincinnati. And I know that he's had success over the years. He'll go in and he will,
00:16:38
Speaker
go to every luxury dealership in town and test drive and test drive and test drive until you get somebody that has that it factor. you Yeah. Yeah. That would be it. You would, you'd have to do enough of them to get somebody that you can, you can tell that they're focused on the customer. That's what you're really looking for.
00:16:58
Speaker
Cause that, cause that's what we want. You know, in my shop, you know, it'd be great if I could get everybody to do it consistently. But in my shop, I keep saying that, yeah you know, it's a situation, not ah not a car.
00:17:11
Speaker
It's not a wheel bearing R&R. It's a single mother with a noise. and to be aware of the person situation. You know, we paint that we paint the picture that we want all of our service advisors in in their mind to envision themselves not across the counter or the desk, but shoulder to shoulder with the customer looking at the situation and figuring out what we're going to do about it And it's that mentality. So if you're out trying to recruit from a tire sales store or a car dealership, you're looking for that person that has that mentality and that training that they're in the customer space.
00:17:49
Speaker
Awesome. Services service wherever you go. Right. And so i think you have salespeople throughout a number of industries, but really any business it comes down to providing a product and a service and and and quote unquote selling that to the customer when in reality the customer wants to purchase what you have. So wherever you go to find that person, you've got to find people people.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah. Right. And then kind of like back to the previous point we were talking about, Mike, is, you know, business ownership. is personal development masquerading as wealth generation.
Business Ownership and Personal Development
00:18:23
Speaker
Right. Really? That's a good putting It's kind of like this interesting thing where I think a lot of people are going into business to, hey, go out on their own, have that financial freedom, branch out onto their own.
00:18:34
Speaker
But reality is, is that you find out that it's really so much more dependent on you developing yourself. and the people around you over time. And it's important to go find good new people ah to join your team.
00:18:47
Speaker
And, you know, it's interesting, you know, we have we think about, you know, hiring service advisors, building out a team. And certainly there's a lot of relation within other automotive industries, right? Because there is a level of product knowledge that we need people to have.
00:19:04
Speaker
um But great service is great service, no matter what you do or where you go. And I think, well, I mean, you'll hear folks like Aaron Stokes or Todd Hayes or whatever say that yeah the restaurant industry is is ripe for the plucking because you've got these restaurant managers that have been at a high-level service, very busy atmosphere for 10, 12, 13 years, and they're tired of working nights and weekends and holidays, and you can pluck them pretty easily.
00:19:32
Speaker
And they've got a lot of the same soft skills. And today with – you know, chat GPT and all the other tools that we have available to give a basic level of understanding of automotive systems and how to explain it to lay person.
00:19:48
Speaker
it's It's not a super steep learning curve to be a moderately competent advisor moving towards being a very good advisor or salesperson, right? Well, I think, ah again, going back to like great people do great things in great environments. It's right. It's you can take a lot of people from different industries that are especially service oriented industries, right? Hospitality, because at the base of what we do, that that's what this is, is service and hospitality. And so you could take people from those industries.
00:20:19
Speaker
If you put them around other people who are knowledgeable on the product and you train them on the product. And to your point, you know, we live in the time where, Technology can certainly be leveraged to assist in doing that. Right.
00:20:31
Speaker
um But if you put them in the right environment with other people who are highly knowledgeable, you know, their exponential ah factor to grow and become successful rapidly on what you are doing in our case, independent automotive repair is is very high, very, very high.
00:20:49
Speaker
Running a shop for 20 years teaches you a lot, like how outdated systems can make your job a lot harder than it needs to
TechMetric's Impact on Efficiency
00:20:56
Speaker
be. I used to deal with slow check-ins, clunky estimates, wasted time chasing down updates.
00:21:01
Speaker
Then I switched to TechMetric. It's all-in-one cloud-based SMS that lets me run my shop from anywhere at streamlines my estimating process, keeps customers in a loop with real-time updates.
00:21:12
Speaker
I'm not telling you that it was all TechMetric, but I'm telling you that TechMetric was a big part of it. Since I switched to TechMetric, my average repair order 4 years ago was 293. And right now it's 916. That's...
00:21:23
Speaker
Not luck. It's better processes, faster workflow, speed of service that's facilitated by this technology helps me get higher and better authorizations for my customers.
00:21:35
Speaker
If you're ready for a shop management system that actually works for you, tap the link in the show notes and check out TechMetric. You're going to like what you see. right. So one of the things that this whole podcast is predicated on is confessions of a shop owner.
Confession Segment Introduction
00:21:50
Speaker
It's like if you call, I've got a phone number at 704-CONFESS. 704-CONFESS? Yeah, 704. My first confession is being friends with you. You are not forgiven. Yeah. But if you call that number and leave a voicemail, it says, bless me, evil shop owner for I have sinned.
00:22:09
Speaker
um And it' so it's a way for you to call in and tell us about the the stupid shit that you've done or ah the mistakes that you've made and what you're going to do to change them, what you're going to do to get better. Or you can just call and tell me that I'm an idiot or that my guests are idiots or whatever. um But What have you done in the last year or so that was just a maybe not the best choice?
00:22:36
Speaker
That I'm aware of? Not counting pulling chairs out the office. I haven't pulled anybody's chairs. confession. I mean, innumerable number of idiotic things. I think that i think that when you're you know like ah leader and you're running a business, you do a lot of dumb things.
Richard's Parts Management Confession
00:22:54
Speaker
yeah Right. Most of them probably unknown to you.
00:22:57
Speaker
And I think at least at the time, at least at the time. Right. And I think, ah you know, idiocy can sometimes be relative. Right. To you may think it's a great idea. Others may not agree with that.
00:23:09
Speaker
And I'm not I'm not coming to mind on anything. I think. Well, I can tell you one while you're thinking. I just told Mike. For myself or for... you While you're thinking about yourself, I'll tell you one on me while you're thinking. Sure. ah And in i i guess I guess I'm pretty brave to put this out on the airwaves.
00:23:32
Speaker
But maybe it's a good lesson for some other shop owner out there. But I track parts cost in quicksbook QuickBooks and parts cost in our point of sale system.
00:23:43
Speaker
so we're What point of sale are you using? Shop4D. If only there were a superior software like TechMetric that you could use. I'm sorry. I digress. It doesn't compare. um the um But anyway, you know, QuickBooks is what we've paid for. Yeah.
00:24:00
Speaker
our point of sale system is what we've charged onto to repair orders. yeah Those are two different numbers. And I track discrepancies month to month. And we had some discrepancies and I had a new parts guy and we went through some processes and we got it.
00:24:16
Speaker
you know where it's you know it's There's carryover, you know so it's always a little bit different, but it should even out over time and it did. But i got he left and went into IT, t actually for one of our customers,
00:24:28
Speaker
And I got another parts guy and he evidently lacked training. And my manager did most of the training. Okay. And I started getting discrepancies again.
00:24:42
Speaker
Sometimes big discrepancies. Okay. Where QuickBooks was more than our point of sale system. And so we started into an audit. We started looking at things and we We have a report in our point of sale system with all the return parts that had not been paid attention to.
00:25:03
Speaker
And so we went back and audited the entire year, 2024, we found of unreturned parts. And most of that's not insignificant, but not insignificant. Could be worse.
00:25:18
Speaker
Could be worse. Still, it's frustrating, but still it's frustrating. And it's something that we got our eye off the ball. And it's one of those areas, we you know we talk about auditing repair orders periodically that is extremely effective and various things that as an owner, you i kind of talk about as kind of smorgasbord management. you you kind of you know You kind of focus on a thing or two at a time, but over time, you got to hit on all the things.
00:25:47
Speaker
And we got our eye off the ball on that for too long. And what's dumb for me is is I saw it going away, but I kind of waited because it'll come back around. You know what I mean? you'll You know, it'll credit back the other way, but it didn't.
00:26:05
Speaker
And by the time I, you know what I mean? I do have a lifestyle that sometimes costs me a little bit. It's worth it, but it does cost me a little bit. So i I did a demo, don't know, probably six months ago with a company and they put me into their drip funnel for remarketing in to remember the name of the company, but they can, you scan in all of your invoices. Wicked file.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yes. Wicked file. Yeah. And they catalog your invoices and compare it to your QuickBooks and your statement and look for variances. And I think their whole pitch is that they find money leaks in your business. Yeah.
00:26:45
Speaker
And they identify them for you early on. So I think that's something that might address that concern for you. or you know Well, we have a perfectly good report if we just use it. yeah yeah And our process was that a service rider, he can't delete a part if it's ordered.
00:27:01
Speaker
And he can't take a remove a part from a repair order without the part in his hand. because we doing what Nothing would ever go wrong if the process and the action was always taken. right yeah And so I think that most breakdowns become process did we take did we execute on the action for the process that we've developed for this?
00:27:20
Speaker
And I think you know when we look at a problem, 99% of the time, it's probably no. fail Or the answer is we don't have a process. It was an outlier. Let's create one.
00:27:31
Speaker
i think you can overkill that a little bit because it stifles people's innovative spirits. But, you know, when it comes to parts handling reconciliation, there should always probably be a process there.
00:27:42
Speaker
One of the things that I preach on a regular basis is that we should have processes in place that ah Such that if something turns into a clusterfuck, at least two people on the team have failed to catch something they should have caught.
00:27:55
Speaker
Good rule of thumb. ah Because if it gets to the customer... And the customer informs us that something went wrong, then in and at least two other people failed to alert well to the issue. Well, let me, ah little sidebar on this thing, is when we finished our audit, we wrote checks, refund checks to two customers that we had sizable parts that they paid for that we did not put on the Never installed.
00:28:21
Speaker
Well, honesty is always the best course of action. Right. So, I mean, how many, how many businesses are doing that? How many businesses are saying, hey, we made a mistake. We owe you money. Yeah. ah ah I wish it was a lot more, but I think we can admit in a lot of cases, yeah it's a rarity these days. So good on you there. That's 100 percent happening. um And it's something that we're having to deal with is a technician, you know, get a big job and there's a lot of parts. Maybe it turns out that that intake came with the gaskets and we ordered a gasket set and didn't need it and it should have been returned or whatever.
00:28:55
Speaker
And it comes back up front and the parts guys on lunch or whatever and the service advisor needs to bill it out and he just deletes the gasket off the ticket. Right. Rather than marking it returned. Right.
00:29:06
Speaker
or he just fills the car out right and the customer pays for it and it's not there so you have these instances where you need you owe the customer some money or a part has disappeared and it's not available to be returned yes you have to make a manual return or whatever else it might be and it causes all sorts of issues because of a failure process i think that's a pretty rare occurrence though in the large majority of shops you wish i think that in the peer group specifically that we associate with and the colleagues that we associate with i think that that's a pretty rare occurrence i think it's like a one in 1000 type occurrence would say that we have that happen once a week really you think that often i do
00:29:50
Speaker
So here's the deal. I know how to run the front of house at a shop. I like to think that I'm a decent shop owner, but I also know that I don't know how to actually work on cars. I pay someone else who is an expert and a professional to manage that part of the business for me.
00:30:06
Speaker
You should consider doing the same thing when it comes to managing your marketing. There's a lot of different facets and a lot of different types of marketing and finding skill set and the knowledge to be an expert at all of those things while also being an expert at fixing cars or recommending and selling service or management or financials.
00:30:25
Speaker
There's just too many hats that we wear as owners. And so a lot of times it's an incredible return on investment to invest in an expert. And I recommend you invest in turnkey auto marketing or just turnkey marketing.
00:30:39
Speaker
I've used them for years and they take a lot of the things that I'm not good at off of my plate and handle them really well so that I don't have to worry about it. I know that it's done right the first time.
00:30:50
Speaker
Give them a call, talk to them and see if you think they can be the right service provider for you. It's turnkeyautomarketing.com. You can go to their website and get a free consultation. I don't think you'll be sad you did. I do. I don't feel like... Because this is the second... You know, automating our systems, I don't believe that we're having that happen once a week. See, this is the second time that I've solved this problem.
00:31:13
Speaker
It's the second time I've solved this problem and we have high standards. But that's how you identify a problem too, though. So, right. So you can't, you can't identify a problem that hasn't occurred. Right. So problems sometimes are occurring that you aren't aware of, but once it's identified, it's let's create a solution and let's, let's rectify the situation move forward. Right.
00:31:32
Speaker
Fair enough. Um, so one of the big mistakes that I made last year, uh, And I've done this multiple times in my career.
00:31:44
Speaker
And I bet that multiple people who will end up listening to this will be people that I did this to, former employees. That I had really strong, high performers at their position that I promoted above their skill level.
00:32:03
Speaker
Peter principle. Yeah. And then I did not support them, provide them with the training and the tools to grow into that skill set or that the the additional skill set that they needed for that um and ended up leaving them hanging on a vine and they underperformed and became unhappy and left or they underperformed and I became unhappy and let them go.
00:32:25
Speaker
And so I had that happen again last year. And that happened in June or July. And, you know, it was jarring to have that happen again.
00:32:38
Speaker
i remember you. I remember us talking about that when when you went through that. You know, I think, um you know, that's always tough, right? Because we want to give people the space to grow the way we would want to receive it.
00:32:51
Speaker
And I think that, you know, leadership's not easy. um You know, being in being promoted into a positions also not easy. whether you're given the full support or or maybe given less support than maybe you need or are looking for, I think either end of that is pretty difficult, right?
00:33:10
Speaker
And business is such that, you know, there's only one person who determines or one group of people that determine ah the performance level, and it's really the client, right?
00:33:21
Speaker
You know, owners, managers, leadership, technicians, everyone involved sets their personal standard for what the level of acceptability is.
00:33:31
Speaker
But ultimately, the only people who matter It is the customer's level level of yeah of of performance, expectation of performance. Right. And I think that like leadership can be it is should be reflecting what the customer is communicating their expectation is right. and ah Or along with setting the vision of the future of the business that can be difficult. I think that there's a challenge on both ends.
00:33:57
Speaker
Right. Because. There's people who can grow, want to grow, and we identify that can grow. And then again, back to our point earlier, the personal development point, it's not really so much business being, you know, a wealth generating machine. That's a result of the personal development. And when we elevate people and we promote them to but position, it's almost more a challenge placed upon us.
00:34:24
Speaker
sometimes more so than it is them to your point right like now okay they we believe that they can handle it and it's our job to support them and foster their success because what we're really doing is saying i'm giving you my stamp of approval but in reality it's my job to make sure that you achieve that stamp of approval oh and that's where i screwed it up right is they wanted a promotion for the title, right?
00:34:50
Speaker
and And they thought they wanted the existence that was that job, but they didn't know. But I knew and it was my job to to make that clear for them and to provide the tools they needed to succeed. And I didn't because it was ultimately it was probably lazy ownership on my part is I wanted someone just to go do all the shit I didn't want to do so that I can do the things I didn't want to do.
00:35:12
Speaker
Right. there's nothing wrong with as an owner delegating the tasks that you're not good at or you don't want to do. to a degree. Well, that's the right thing to do. the The wrong thing to do would to be not to delegate because if you're trying to achieve everything yourself, then you're not giving other people the space to achieve something of their own and grow in their own personal development. You know, so I mean, it's not easy. It's never i don't think it's ever easy. Right. And tough decisions have to be made and tough decisions have to be made by team members sometimes, too.
00:35:47
Speaker
Right. Like You know, sometimes we're not growing at the rate that people on our team are growing. I think that we've all had that experience to us before. Right.
00:35:58
Speaker
And and vice versa. So it kind of goes it kind of goes both directions. I think sometimes in our industry, especially if you spend too much time on social media, you'll think, you know, like there's a narrative that it's like, hey, it's this one way street.
00:36:13
Speaker
It's really not. It's a collaborative environment. It's a two way street. You know, there are exceptions to the rule, some very, you know, stifling author authoritarian environments that aren't aren't good and people should leave those. Right. But I think that, you know, it's difficult to make those decisions overall and to acknowledge like, hey, I made that mistake.
00:36:35
Speaker
Are you going to be better off for it? And is that person better off for it for that experience? I like to think, you know, because I do kind of, you know, we've talked about it ah ah privately. Right. And I know about that situation. And so i I like to think, yeah, definitely. I think both parties, yourself and that individual are probably way better off having gone through that experience. Right.
00:36:57
Speaker
For sure. Yeah. The. We have to be able to promote, especially you guys that have, I have a single store, and it's important where I'm at too, but especially with you guys with multiple locations, you have to have a culture recognizable by the employees that you will promote from within that gives employees hope that if they apply themselves, that there there is opportunity.
00:37:24
Speaker
But it's like you said, Mike, when you do that, You know what I mean? You have to have the skill and the commitment to give them all the developmental tools that they
Building a Team and Work Culture
00:37:36
Speaker
need.
00:37:36
Speaker
Well, the reality I think for me is, and and I think you guys would share this too, is we don't really build a business. we We build ourselves and we build people yeah and they build a business. That's right. build a team. And so we build a team, we foster that environment.
00:37:53
Speaker
we we set some We set the vision, we set objectives, we we foster their education, the furtherance of their development, along with our own at the same time.
00:38:04
Speaker
And that's not always easy, right? um you know my My wife is ah was a business owner who recently sold her business as well. So you know I have a unique perspective of running a ah second generation family business with my brother in partnership, right? And ah observing my wife go through The same thing through the through a startup of her business and then a successful sale and exit. and And it's really i think it's really difficult to, you know, um operate the day to day of a business and just, you know, what I would say the operations of a business are and then foster a team of people.
00:38:42
Speaker
And the larger that team gets. The more you're counting on, to your point, right, is subordinate leaders to help foster that culture and that environment.
00:38:53
Speaker
Because it's not really the owner who builds the culture. They set the standard for the culture, but it's the people who develop and uphold the culture. right No, it is. Right. Because it's the story, a lot of what builds a culture is the stories and the dialogue that go back and forth with the employees.
00:39:11
Speaker
It's when that new employee comes in, what do the techs tell them about how this place is? What do the techs tell them about the rundown of the owner and each of the service advisors, et cetera?
00:39:23
Speaker
You hire a new service advisor, what do you know what the what are the stories and the Right. And the replaying of events that they all talk about. And even before that, what's the reputation of the business before the guy even comes into the building for an interview? Because the reality is in almost every market in our industry, people, even in big markets, right?
00:39:47
Speaker
People are like, oh, it's a big market. No, it's a small, small, small world. It's much smaller than people think it is. We train, well, I try. You know, you lay these things out there culturally and and values, but you you really hope your people pick them up.
00:40:02
Speaker
And we have, you know, so we all have some success in that happening. But I talk about our relationship, our interact you know our touch points, our interactions, but it's with everybody. It's with the parts delivery guy because he's going to go back in the industry and talk about you.
00:40:18
Speaker
The tool truck guy, he's going to go around in the industry and talk about you. Every interaction you have, the counterparts counter guy on the phone, every interaction develops your reputation and is part of your perceived culture.
00:40:35
Speaker
So ah anyway, we're back to the we're back to that. It's the people business. Absolutely. So it's not a car business. um One of the things that you mentioned a minute ago, Harrison, was about what our job is as the owner.
00:40:52
Speaker
And one of the exercises that we went through today with Jim in the pro service portion of the Ignite event was, you know, the overarching topic was time management from a leadership perspective.
00:41:06
Speaker
but he talked about an exercise going through with yourself or with your key employees or with anyone, right? ah List off all of the tasks that you do day to day, week to week, month to month, or whatever it may be, and put them all on a piece of paper and then identify what is the number one thing that you do on that task list that brings value to your business.
00:41:30
Speaker
Okay, great. Circle that. What's number two, the second most valuable thing you do. Great. and And then do number three. So top three things that you do out of that entire list of tasks that bring value to your business, 90% of the value you bring to your business is going to be from those three things.
00:41:49
Speaker
And all the rest of it, you can probably delegate or defer to a later date or just not do it all, right? See, I don't have that problem because i don't want to be there, so I don't yeah pick up any of those things. Well, so you guys are very different. like you're like you're you are You are the gold standard. I don't drive i don't drive the shuttle van.
00:42:15
Speaker
You don't go on parts runs in the afternoon? No, i do not go on parts runs. You're there every day. i'm like I'm in my shop. but I'm in my shop five days a week and I like to be in my shop. I like routine. That's the Marine in me is I like my routine.
00:42:31
Speaker
i like to be in my shop too because I like to be around my people. I like to feel the pulse of it. ah That's where I get my work done. you know Different people have different styles. you know Some people want to isolate. I like to be in the shop. I like to be there.
00:42:44
Speaker
You know, i think that we did a great exercise today. It was very interesting. I think it's right. I have no argument of it. I think a lot of us are distracting ourselves from the important tasks that need to be done that build up other people that deliver the great product and service to our clients. That's probably the most important factor and that allow for the development of our business.
00:43:08
Speaker
non contingent upon the owner. Right. So, you know, once you have great people, great processes and a great system and you let them run with it, you've got to give them all the stuff that, you know, isn't of the highest and best use of your time creatively, whatever that be, vision, vision wise or task oriented, and then let them execute on that because that's how they grow.
00:43:33
Speaker
That's how they're going to develop their skill set that makes them more ah valuable to the clients, their teammates and the business as a whole and allows you to grow into the next step of your journey.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah, I've really had a renewed commitment this last year of ah of holding my people accountable. And I for a number of years there, I really slacked on that and ah And it's really important. I mean, if if if the only thing the owner did is religiously held the people accountable,
00:44:13
Speaker
You probably couldn't do any single thing to be more effective in the business. Well, that's probably the single greatest struggle of a of any business owner, right? But especially in our industry, I think a lot of people struggle with ownership-wise. I see managers struggle with that as well as a flow down from ownership, right?
00:44:32
Speaker
yeah um and And that trickles down throughout the organization is the accountability portion. Right. By no measure am I perfect. We still struggle with it too, of course, right? yeah But I think that it – like to your point, Richard, when we focus in on something and we say like, hey, we're going to maintain personal accountability because that's where it starts from, right? And then that personal accountability, I'm going to share that with other people and hold them accountable.
00:44:56
Speaker
People want to be held accountable, they do with they especially very good people. But they have to know what to do first. Yeah, I think that's – you're right there is – One of the reasons that we're so bad at holding people accountable is we're also really bad at defining for them the terms of success or failure in your business. Well, expectations, ah non-communicated expectations are predetermined resentment.
00:45:21
Speaker
Right. So like, you know, we see a lot of people go, you know, I'm having this issue, whether it's in my personal life or in my business life, I'm having this issue with this person.
00:45:32
Speaker
and it's like, well, have we communicated what the expectation for this relationship is? yeah Right. And Non-communicated expectation is predetermined resentment. That was a great saying. Non-communicated expectation is predetermined read Reddit last night in a fatherhood subreddit. didn't read that on Reddit, and I don't know where I heard it from, but it's not original. It's not original to me. was laying in bed, and read it to a man, and was like, that's some deep shit.
00:45:58
Speaker
Well, so say it one more time all the way through. Yeah. So pre ah onunic non-communicated expectation is predetermined resentment. right so And it's not original to me, but it's true whether it's in our personal life, our business life, in any type of human relationship, right? Where we have an interaction with a person that we, you know, I mean, frankly, you could say that about...
00:46:21
Speaker
whether you care about them or not, but specifically people that we're going to be interacting with on on a regular basis. Right. And so when we talk about team development, our business development, our people development, if we're not setting and a clear expectation for them,
00:46:36
Speaker
um And we are expecting an outcome and they don't deliver on that outcome. We can become frustrated. Continued frustration can lead to resentment.
00:46:49
Speaker
But we have to go back to the beginning. Who owns the responsibility for communicating the expectations of the organization? Right. We start starts with ownership and it flows its way down.
00:47:02
Speaker
Right.
Setting Expectations in Management
00:47:03
Speaker
And too often i've found myself guilty of this in the past as well. You know, we have a resentment towards someone's behaviors, lack of taking action, lack of taking responsibility.
00:47:19
Speaker
or just non-performance, whatever it may be, can fill in the blank there and it becomes kind of a, hey, I'm really frustrated, I'm becoming resentful about how this is going. And if we just look back and we step back and we go, go 10,000 feet, let's see this started.
00:47:37
Speaker
Did we communicate what the expectation was here? And chances are probably didn't. And a lot of problems can be avoided by going, hey, this is the baseline.
00:47:47
Speaker
These are the expectations. They will change. They will develop over time. And they will evolve for both you and I and everyone around us.
00:47:58
Speaker
But we're going to clearly communicate, articulate that. And even more so, we'll collaborate on what those expectations are um over time. Do you communicate in writing or verbally at all?
00:48:11
Speaker
Uh, MLAP minimum level of acceptable performance with new hires. i think we could do a better job of of minimum level of acceptable performance. um I think we're really fortunate that there's a lot of sideways pressure in our organization as to what the minimum level of acceptable performance is.
00:48:29
Speaker
um And I actually have kind of an interesting story that occurred to me recently. You know, um we've got multiple locations and we did have a ah really, really from a technical standpoint, a really rock star technician,
00:48:44
Speaker
who, you know, much to my dismay had been like really tardy for a a very regular period of time. And there was a breakdown of accountability.
00:48:55
Speaker
Right. And when he had hired on that, that particular store is an 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. store. Right. And when he had hired on, he had us, he had a set of circumstances said, you know, like, hey, I need to work 830 to 530. That was good with us. Great. We're all about that. Let's do that. Right.
00:49:14
Speaker
Well, you know, it was unbeknownst to me, but there were levels of people between me and that individual technician in that store. And, you know, he wasn't living up to that commitment.
00:49:26
Speaker
Right. And so 45 to 515. Oh, we were way outside the bounce. We were nine, nine 30 ish ish. And with not great communication about it either, because, you know, we understand people have lives and They've got unique sets of circumstances that might come up over time. Right.
00:49:47
Speaker
But there's a minimum level of acceptance acceptable performance, professionally speaking, of timeliness. Right. Our customers expect us to be timely that flows throughout our organization. I realized you know after ah you know i kind of missed it and I realized, hey, this guy's not like really on board and it's hurting our team. right We've got to have the whole team here for the whole team to perform because this is a team sport.
00:50:12
Speaker
When the rest of the team sees that he's not being – Yeah, that generates other issues. So way way outside of our expectations right and and way outside of the mutually agreed upon – expectation for performance. Right. So we had to have a conversation. We said, you know, like, hey, you're you've got a ah some tardiness here.
00:50:32
Speaker
This was the original agreement. You know, where are we at now? Can you meet your original agreement? The short answer was like, no, I need to be here from 9 a.m. to this time, right? 9 a.m. to I can even work a little bit later, 5.30, 6 p.m.
00:50:52
Speaker
Great. If you can commit to that, we can we can structure of the business as such. And we have a collaborative environment where we can create coverage for our clientele and success for our business.
00:51:03
Speaker
That's good for you there. Right. And then we gave a performance standard time frame. Right. Hey, we mutually agreed upon this. We're looking to see this change and to meet this this expectation metric over time. Right now. What how do we avoid resentment is by clearly communicating that.
00:51:23
Speaker
documenting it for both parties is what we did in this case, which I think is good for everybody. I think a lot of people, especially um employees are like, Hey, documentation, like feels awkward, feels weird, you know, but I think it's good because it just, it kind of very clearly lays out like, Hey, we agreed upon everything. This is what we're doing. and It gives you a paper trail too, which is important.
00:51:44
Speaker
Well, depending on what state, yeah it's true I think it's important for everybody. It's good and for a lot of reasons. Yeah. It's, it's very important for everybody involved. You know, this guy's technically very, very, very, very proficient, you know, and he wasn't meeting that expectation for timeliness. And did it work?
00:52:03
Speaker
Did it work? I mean, has it been successful? So, um I mean, ultimately it hadn't been successful. So we went on a couple of weeks, which, you know, is probably longer than I personally would like to.
00:52:14
Speaker
But i can recognize that ah humans and people, we all deserve a little bit of grace. Right. And so it's like, look, nothing's changing. We had an additional conversation.
00:52:27
Speaker
Two conversations about tardiness. You know, these are grown man rules at this point, right? Like if I'm not showing up, if other people aren't showing up, you can't be allowed to not show up on time. And we had to exit and part ways.
00:52:41
Speaker
You know, that showed you can say fire himm It's allowed to say you fired him. Yeah, Harrison, that showed two things that that work into your culture. you You gave somebody a really fair chance.
00:52:56
Speaker
You worked with somebody in their personal situation, which other employees saw, and you held him accountable to what you all agreed on. And those are both positives, even though it didn't work out with that employee.
00:53:11
Speaker
The way that you did it is a positive thing in your culture for other people. Well, I think it will be. He probably understood when he fired him. Right. Well, I think he I mean, I think that, you know, that's an uncomfortable thing because, you know, being fired is like a form of rejection, effectively. Right. And so, you know, I i don't think but I think he's a mature guy. And he ultimately was like, yeah, this probably makes sense.
00:53:35
Speaker
Well, when you have the standards like that, it's not your decision. It's their decision. Your decision was this is what needs to happen. And we've clearly identified it.
00:53:46
Speaker
Their decision was to not do that. and So they fired themselves in essence. When we communicate it correctly. Well, and that's the biggest, that's a great point, Richard, because I think one thing that I, you know, when we kind of look around and and do some self reflection, right. Any of us, no matter what position you're at is like the number one thing that leads to,
00:54:11
Speaker
ah not good outcomes or less than ideal outcomes is usually self-sabotage, right? It's usually self-sabotage because all of the owners that I know, all of the guys that I interact with, you know, they're gracious guys. They want people to be successful. Nobody wants to see bad things for people.
00:54:29
Speaker
And the number one thing is like, is a lot of self-sabotaging behavior. And it's it's unfortunate, but I think that people learn from that too because I think that, you know, in this gentleman's case, he's going to go on and be somebody else's in a different opportunities rock star best employee.
00:54:47
Speaker
Well, yeah, he learned something positive about it even though it cost you guys. But this whole, this, I don't know how much more time we have here, but the this discussion about accountability and whatever reminds me of One Minute Manager.
00:55:02
Speaker
And um that's a really great book if anybody hasn't done it, but you need to read the series and all three of them.
Applying One Minute Manager Principles
00:55:08
Speaker
But, um, The very first thing that you do in the one minute manager's formula is goal setting. An employee has to be told what to do.
00:55:19
Speaker
you know What is the job and what is it? And you don't scold them for not doing something that you haven't clearly laid out as a goal for them to do. ah The second, and there's four stages. The second one is coaching. You have to work alongside them to a degree to actually show them and teach them the skills and work with them on the skills.
00:55:38
Speaker
The fourth, step of growth of that employee is ah is it ah is an accountability. You're going to check in on them periodically to make sure that they understand and then they're able and doing it and they don't need any more training or whatever.
00:55:52
Speaker
And then the fourth stage is once they're competent and you only reprimand them when they've reached the point of competence and then failed. Because then it's a conscious choice to fail. it's short and sweet.
00:56:04
Speaker
You know, that's why they call the one-minute manager. It's one-minute praisings, catching people doing something right, and one-minute reprimand, short and sweet. But you only reprimand somebody who's at level four. Hmm.
00:56:17
Speaker
Because at that point it's effectively self-sabotage. Yeah, because they already know what to do and they've already been doing it. I come out of sales and ah sale I've trained hundreds of salespeople in the car business.
00:56:29
Speaker
And so I have little, you know, in sales you have paraphrases and in management I have management paraphrases. But one of my management paraphrases with my people when I'm holding them accountable about something is I say, ah nobody likes accountability.
00:56:45
Speaker
Unfortunately, it works. Yeah, that's very true. And they know when I say that they know the context and they know what, you know, and I kind of i say that after we've already had our little quick interaction about what the expectations are that haven't been met.
00:57:03
Speaker
Well, and all accountability is basically just a flow through from what the customer is seeking. Right. It is. It's all the customer who's saying, these are the things that I want. Yeah.
00:57:14
Speaker
You're you have to create an environment for your business to succeed and the people in your business to succeed based off of the delivery delivery of my desired goods and services.
00:57:26
Speaker
Yeah. Guys, that was an awesome conversation. Nobody likes accountability, but unfortunately it works. I think that's a great way to wrap it That puts you in their space.
00:57:37
Speaker
you know what I mean? yeah As you're having the conversation, it's like we said about the customer getting on the same side and looking you know shoulder to shoulder with a customer looking at it. That helps you as a manager get on the same side with the employee.
00:57:51
Speaker
None of us like accountability. Unfortunately, it works. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Great having us, Mike. So, we want to make it to bar? Where else would we be?
00:58:04
Speaker
I don't know. i Not quite yet. I got this thinking we're going to be out for a while and I'm just going to sip on it. Well, I think we should... increase the rate of sip and return to bar. Of course, it's pretty dark outside, and like I caught a 5 o'clock flight this morning.
00:58:19
Speaker
i don't want to hear it. I got up at 4 o'clock. 4.30. I got up at 4.00. Yeah, okay, you got up way early. I got up a little after 3.00. That was West Coast, though, right? West Coast. Yeah, it was West Coast. You've added time on your trip here. You gained time. Oh, come on now. It sounded better. You're also at like 104, so whatever.
00:58:34
Speaker
All right. Log it off. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out. The good, and the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink.
00:58:50
Speaker
You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover? Or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike at confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow.
00:59:10
Speaker
Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.