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Ep 24 - Josh Rainwater | Bryan Sold Feet Pics
197 Plays3 days ago
Tekmetric is the best and it makes shops the best they can be. Is your shop the best it can be? If not, then you need Tekmetric. Get it HERE
Turnkey Marketing may not be what Josh needs for his shop right now, but if you've got room to grow, believe me when I tell you, Turnkey Marketing will help you fill that room. See more HERE
I talk about Elite Worldwide on these podcasts so much for a reason. Because when something works really well for you, you want to tell others about it. So here we are. Me telling you about Elite again. Because it's worth it, and I KNOW their one-on-one coaching will help your shop. Learn more HERE
In this episode, Bryan and I are joined by Josh Rainwater, a shop owner from Louisville, Kentucky. He, like many of us, has spent the night at his shop a time or two. We've all been there at some point. Today, Josh confesses that he realizes something needs to change because that is not healthy for him, his family, or his business to require that much of him. What did we tell him? Find out today.
00:00 Leadership Coaching at NASCAR Technical Institute
03:47 Pandemic Job Loss to Uber
07:45 Booming Business Opportunities
11:37 HVAC Replacement: Charm and Decisions
14:29 "Hotel Lobby Recording Session"
17:06 Feet Pic Earnings Proposal
19:38 Elite Worldwide Custom Coaching
24:19 AI-Driven Appointment Bookings
26:26 Small vs. Large Shop Challenges
31:26 "QC Documentation Issue"
33:23 Handling Tricky Situations Efficiently
37:21 "Discount Demand After Order Error"
40:21 Unsustainable Work Habits
41:50 Balancing Commitments and Workload
46:41 Optimizing Labor and Parts Margins
50:44 "Planning to Hire Soon"
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and the Unsustainable Work Life
00:00:00
Speaker
I was there working until like 1.30 in the morning. The energy just went through the floor. And I said, I am so tired. I cannot even drive home. And I found the cleanest car to get in and slept until 6 a.m.
00:00:12
Speaker
and went home, showered and went right back to work. And I'm like, this is not sustainable. I am doing something wrong. You ever worked so hard and so long that you ended up sleeping at work overnight?
00:00:23
Speaker
I think a lot of us can identify with that. I know that I had a cot in the shop back in the early 2000s, and I would frequently just sleep at the shop and take a shower in the morning and go back
Josh Rainwater's Background and Shop Journey
00:00:32
Speaker
to work. In today's episode, we talk with Josh Rainwater and from Louisville, Kentucky, and ah he shared a little bit about his struggles bringing the shop up from scratch and that very same experience that I know a lot of us identify with.
00:00:47
Speaker
I think you're going to enjoy it.
00:00:51
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.
00:01:05
Speaker
There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along.
Leadership and Business Focus
00:01:12
Speaker
So without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner, with your host, Mike Gallen.
00:01:24
Speaker
All right. So we're recording again at Fuel and Connections 2025. We're actually in one of the offices at NASCAR Technical Institute here Morseville, North Carolina.
00:01:35
Speaker
um Have a good time. Josh is in the big auditorium right now teaching everybody about leadership and his business is limitless leadership. Right. So he's a coach specializing in ah coaching for service managers yeah primarily.
00:01:56
Speaker
And so it's a very niche thing, but he's also talking to us a lot about how we can lead more effectively for our people to allow them to be
Business Transition and Marketing Strategies
00:02:05
Speaker
successful. So I think that's a pretty neat conversation.
00:02:07
Speaker
um And so there's a lot of really valuable content being aired there. And what I decided to do was to pull Josh Rainwater out of that conversation so that you could not get all the benefit and you can just come in here and talk to us.
00:02:19
Speaker
So thanks for being willing to sacrifice on your development. Always. At your service. Much appreciated. So um real quick, just introduce yourself, who you are, where you're from, what your shop's like, that kind of thing.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So Josh Rainwater, from Louisville, Kentucky. And so my background is, mostly self-educated on the early side.
00:02:45
Speaker
So I, I really didn't grow up around cars. Didn't, you know, get into, you know, the automotive background until I started, you know, during college, you know, was going to a university and decided to get a, um, uh, project car. So, um,
00:03:01
Speaker
Learned how to fix cars based on that. and you know What kind of car was it? Oh, 83 GTI. Nice. Yeah. Volkswagen GTI. Yeah, I thought so too. Many lessons were learned.
00:03:13
Speaker
Oh, tons of lessons. Yeah, don't buy an 83 GTI when you're in college. Stay in college, kids. yeah so But yeah yeah, did that. um And, you know,
00:03:25
Speaker
Probably in part based on what I, uh, some of the decisions that were made around that car, you know, I didn't finish college and I had to, you know, figure out
Scaling and Customer Perception
00:03:33
Speaker
something to do afterwards. So, uh, ended up going into the automotive field and yeah, that was, oh my goodness, that was 14 years ago. So here we are.
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah. So how long ago did you go into business for yourself? Yeah. So five years ago, uh, during COVID, uh, we didn't know what was going on, but the world was shutting down.
00:03:54
Speaker
seems so long ago. It seems like it could have been 40 years ago. Uh, yeah. But, um, but yeah, I had ah lost my job just due to, you know, I think, I'm sure it in the market and sure.
00:04:07
Speaker
Um, you know, I had to figure out what was going do. so you know, was I going to go, you know, work for another shop? Was I going to go out of the field? You know, I, you know, actually was talking with my girlfriend at the time about, you know, hey ah it'd be a really good opportunity to get into something with a little more like volunteer opportunity. And, um, and I just really wasn't sure, really didn't know where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do.
00:04:33
Speaker
Um, so I signed up for Uber. So yeah, yeah. That's a nice next logical step. Never even took that first car ride because I was ah working on cars on the side and decided, you know, Hey, this is, there's something here. Let me, sure let me, you know, go all in on this. yeah So that's five years. So were you at an Indy or a dealer or what? Yeah, that's a good question. So most of my background is in Euro independent shops. I did do a small stint in the dealership and also worked on aircraft as well a little bit, you know, during that time for about two years.
00:05:08
Speaker
And so now your shop, is it primarily import or do you work on everything or? Yeah. So when I first opened my shop, I thought my old systems would keep up. The software that I had would continue to evolve. But
Practice vs. Constant Work in Shops
00:05:22
Speaker
as we grew the slow estimates, scattered workflow,
00:05:26
Speaker
increasing downtime, really just, it was becoming a real problem. That's why I switched to TechMetric. It's not just software. It's a complete shop management system that makes my life easier.
00:05:36
Speaker
Smart jobs, instant estimates, integrated payments, integrated financing options. I mean, it allows me to focus on the work that actually makes me money and not get bogged down in the other details.
00:05:47
Speaker
My shop's repair orders have jumped over 300%
AI Tools and Small Shop Challenges
00:05:49
Speaker
since switching to TechMetric. And when I need help, their support team responds in real time. I actually was online with them asking questions just this week, and I got answers in minutes rather than having to wait for callbacks and emails days later.
00:06:02
Speaker
If your system is holding you back, it's time for a change. Tap the link in the show notes and see how TechMetric can help you move your shop forward. Here's the deal. I like to think that I'm pretty good at running an auto repair shop.
00:06:14
Speaker
It's what I've done for 20 plus years, but I'm not good at managing a marketing budget and all the different facets of a truly well-rounded marketing plan. There's mail, there's local advertising, there's website, there's Google AdWords, there's you know all the different things that go into that.
00:06:31
Speaker
And it's just not what I'm good at. So what I've chosen to do is to buy myself the time to focus on what I am good at while having someone else execute on all of those things at a way higher level than anything I could ever do.
00:06:46
Speaker
That's what turnkey auto marketing does for me. So if you feel like you could use some of that same magic, I'm going to recommend that you go to turnkeyautomarketing.com,
Customer Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance
00:06:56
Speaker
get a free consultation. Tell them that I sent you.
00:06:59
Speaker
ah Tell them that Confessions of a Shop Owner sent you. You won't be disappointed. We service a little bit of everything with a focus on shifting the business towards import. You know, I want to be a Japanese-centric repair facility. Sure.
00:07:15
Speaker
And just trying to figure out how to make that transition work. You know, I've heard a lot of people say, you know, well, Japanese cars don't break. Yeah. you know, maybe they don't break at the same rate, but no they need a lot of service done. Yes, they do. Yeah. And so, yeah, they need a ton of services. No problem. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:32
Speaker
They have all the same components that every other car has for sure. For sure. So that's, uh, that's where the business is transitioning towards and trying to figure that out. Okay. Um, so five years into that, how's business?
00:07:45
Speaker
How's business? Ooh, that is a good one. um There is, i'll just say this, there is so much opportunity in this industry. there There is just, I mean, it seems like there is such unlimited growth potential.
00:08:02
Speaker
I just couldn't believe it. I'm still like, even on the ride down, you know, I was talking with, um, Josh Coombs on the phone and just telling him, I'm like, Hey, you know, i don't, I don't have a traditional shop. That's like, you know,
00:08:17
Speaker
you know, ah a store frontage on a main road. I'm in a warehouse currently and there's not even a sign on the front and I'm getting, i mean, I'm getting some 60 calls a day, like with new clients reaching out.
00:08:32
Speaker
How are they finding you? Uh, Google, Google and word of mouth. Yeah. Yeah. So we have to, we have to pump up a, you know, a little bit more of our marketing budget into Google ads, but,
00:08:43
Speaker
I mean, you know, last week I was looking at the numbers. In two days, I got 150 phone calls. I don't think you need to spend any
Pricing Strategy and Labor Management
00:08:50
Speaker
more on good guys. I think we're good. You're probably good. You could probably shift some of those dollars. Yeah, you need to spend on recruiting. and Yeah, that's that's it. I scale it so we can actually serve all those people well. Sure.
00:09:02
Speaker
you know the quality the The customers eyes and serve those c client yeah the one is that pass the test. you that's Qualify Qualify, schmollify. I want them all. Come sir Mike's like, unqualified money the same number as where same value as qualified money, right? Yeah, know if they if they got to use financing, that's fine. They still got to get their car fixed because they got to go to work.
00:09:23
Speaker
So, you know, they use financing, and if they default on that note, that's not My problem. Does that make me an evil shop owner? No. There are other things. i No, i had this conversation one time. Somebody, you know, because these finance companies, that we won't name any because we don't want to throw any under the bus, but they they kind of do a thing where you get a certain period of interest-free, right?
00:09:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And then if you don't get it paid off in that time, they jack it to the legal legal limit, right? Yeah, astronomical. Right? Cool story. So you get somebody's like, oh, well, you know, the car needed $5,000. If they can't afford the $5,000, they finance it and they miss out or whatever. I'm like, dude, that person will take that car, that broke-ass car, down to the dealership, get $1,000 for it, and somebody will sell them a $30,000 car at a 7.9% interest. I go, what's the freaking difference?
00:10:12
Speaker
Yeah. so I go, even if they freak in even if they have to pay the 24.9% on ah whatever the number is, $5,000, it's probably the same as their standard interest rate on a new auto loan. And they're buying it.
00:10:27
Speaker
I say a new auto loan because it's new to them. But they're probably for $30,000. They might be buying something used. Yeah, probably buying something used. Probably are buying something used. So they've got a 7.9% interest rate on something that's just going to break and need all that work in a few years anyways. like Sure.
00:10:43
Speaker
I, you know, people call it predatory. I'm like, the salesman will freaking solve a $5,000 problem for $30,000. I mean, how predatory is That's absolutely one of the things that, um Xander is the manager of my big store.
00:10:57
Speaker
Uh, I've heard him say it a dozen times. Don't solve a $5,000 problem with a $50,000 solution. Yeah. Uh, it's cool to have a new car, but you've got a new car payment.
00:11:08
Speaker
For six, seven, eight years now, you're seeing these notes that are that. Is the average, did I see the average was like 70 months or something like that? People are paying, the average car payment is like, going to screw the numbers up. So if I remember correctly, which is probably not correct, I thought for some reason it was $811 month and the average length 70 months.
00:11:29
Speaker
That's what I'm relatively certain I saw. So over 50 grand? Yes. So, yeah. so Wow. I think, ah you know, it's funny.
00:11:40
Speaker
HVAC unit
AI's Role in Shop Efficiency and Growth
00:11:42
Speaker
at my house shit the bed last week. um And we've had a couple of different companies come in and inspect and do quotes and everything, right? And it's 14-year-old unit. Mm-hmm.
00:11:53
Speaker
And the compressor's dead. And so they're all saying, you know, you really shouldn't fix this thing because something else is going to break. You should just get a new unit, right? Because I was selling a new unit. And um the second quote came yesterday while we were at the board meeting. So I wasn't there to be with the guy. And um the the dude that came out was there talking to my wife.
00:12:14
Speaker
And he very much charmed my wife. And then... He used this analogy with her. He said, it's like you have a 2007 Honda with 300,000 miles on it.
00:12:25
Speaker
And the car is only worth $4,000 and you're gonna you're not going to spend $3,000 on repairs. You just get a new car. And I was like. That's not a great analogy. I was like, that's the worst possible analogy to use me. He didn't know that. You've got a relatively reliable import car when it's not in disrepair yeah that somebody can stick $4,000 into and drive for another 10 years that it costs $400 year. To drive another yeah drive another one year, it makes sense. my goodness. Versus $12, $800 car payments. That's what I tell people all the time. They're like, oh, man, I don't know if I should put a moat i should i don't know if i should put a transmission in
00:12:59
Speaker
So if this because what this unit is $15,000 and the repair is $2,000, well, you know, I might um might roll the dice and do the repair and see if I can get a few years. Yeah. And then replace all of the units because it's a multi-unit setup. Yeah, we do that all the time. People are like, oh, man, I don't know if I should put $5,000 into this truck because ah what if it what if something else happens? It's not even worth that much. Yeah, what if something else happens in a year? I'm like...
00:13:25
Speaker
Okay, so that's $500 a month. Go show me somewhere where you can buy a new pickup truck for $500. A functional four-wheel drive for $500 a month. That's not just going to break over again. Well, even on the used stuff, you know, it's like, okay, this vehicle's, you know, worth five grand. What are you replacing it with? Another five grand truck that's also going to need the same thing?
00:13:45
Speaker
We see it all the time. We see, you know, twenty eight we put a motor in a 2018 couple weeks ago. sure yeah So somebody thinks like, oh, I get rid of this 2012 and I'm going to go get this 2018 and I'm going to...
00:13:59
Speaker
cruise trouble-free into the sunset and then they're a year into their 2018 and it needs a freaking $17,000 long block job like how's that cruising into the sunset working for you it's not going too great um So that was a tangent.
00:14:17
Speaker
I'm sorry. That was mostly my fault. Yeah, well, most most of the things that go wrong here are Braxton's fault, so it's refreshing that something would be doing it. I'm just trying to take the heat off him. Yeah.
00:14:29
Speaker
So um last night we were at the hotel and we just set up in the lobby and recorded. and we had a couple different people sit down. But one of the things we talked about at the very end was ah teased something that we were going to talk about on our next recording. And that's our next recording right now.
00:14:44
Speaker
And I want to go back to Josh and give him a chance to talk a little bit more about his shop. But first, Josh, I want you to hear about side hustle that Brian's got to make a little bit of extra money right now.
00:14:56
Speaker
No, not right now. it was last you tell I was last fall. So it's time to re up your subscription then note I have a subscription. Okay, they pay me. Okay, this works. Okay. Okay. So tell tell us about this side hustle So I was sitting around a campfire with some friends and there was some conversation happening and somebody one of my friends she actually bet me that there's I i said i said well, how did this go? I said people are so dumb.
00:15:23
Speaker
I said even I could sell pictures of my feet and make money and Okay, yeah. Right? So I found out like the number one place to sell pictures of your feet is this thing called Feet Finder.
00:15:34
Speaker
And it's very easy to make an account. Feet Finder. Feet Finder. Okay. So yeah, you just search Bigfoot and then there's some numbers, I have to look up the numbers in my email address. But yeah, I made 150 bucks on there and then $50 on the bet that I couldn't make money. Are you serious? 150 bucks.
00:15:51
Speaker
There was like, it was it took off like crazy the first week. It was like $100 the first week, and then some rolled in afterwards. It's been like $50 in the last six months. Feetfinder.com. Don't keep me waiting.
00:16:03
Speaker
but your What's your username? Let's see what working with. Bigfoot, and then there's numbers. I can't remember the numbers because, you know, as you could imagine, on a thing called Feetfinder, there's more than one person called Bigfoot. View, buy, and sell feet pics.
00:16:15
Speaker
Uh-huh. I'm on the sell portion. Yeah. 10 million plus feet pics sold. 80 million plus money spent. Yeah. So that would tell you that's an average of $8 per foot. You'll get messages on there. And the weirdest one I got is ah somebody offered to pay to me take a video of stepping in cream cheese.
00:16:37
Speaker
Okay. so anytime Are they going to pay for the cream cheese and then pay on top of it? Because, I mean, that's a lot of cream cheese. I didn't investigate. And that was a huge ah that was a huge booster for me because I realized that, like, sometimes i'm I'm pretty critical of myself in my head. And I'm like, you know what? I'm really not that messed up.
00:16:53
Speaker
I'm like, somebody out there is like trying to get someone else to step into cream cheese. so But I am the one that put my feet pictures on the feet finder. But do you have a profile or are you catfishing? and No, I use my actual feet. Oh, okay, okay. Now, I do have a friend.
00:17:08
Speaker
I do have a friend. I threaten to take a picture of her feet and put it on there. Because I'm like, dude, you just need to take picture your feet and put it on there. You'll make buck. You'll make bank. And I'm like, if you don't do it, I'll take a picture feet and I'll put it on there. I'll split it with you.
00:17:21
Speaker
like Nobody's going to know
00:17:26
Speaker
um know. I'm not trying to find pictures of your feet online. I i would on a watch list i would suggest not typing those things into your phone. It's too late. My wife's going to pull up our shared Chrome account because it did. She's like, what is your history? feedback I just have to know what is your handle?
00:17:46
Speaker
on that it's bigfoot i i it's like an eight or something i can't remember that's like five you know like when you get a generic username because there's like 50 other people with the same using it like google suggests something that's what it was bigfoot something i'd have to go look it up oh come on come on come on i'm looking up your email i bet it's the three numbers you have on the end of your personal gmail it's not that oh okay it's not that It's not that. It's like so it's like a bunch of numbers. I'm flying to Vegas next week ah for Napa Now, their 100-year celebration thing.
00:18:19
Speaker
Probably just going to search feetfinder.com on the plane the whole way to try to find your feet. There go. Because then I'm putting them up on on the content page. I mean, you can have a picture for free. i already made my money.
00:18:31
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. already The cost, the investment cost is... So I didn't, it didn't cost me anything. I just had to take a picture and quit drinking for a few minutes while I was taking the pictures. It wasn't really a big deal.
00:18:42
Speaker
So what's your, uh, revenue per minute of labor on that? Is it better than working in the shop? It's pretty high. Yeah. That's pretty high. Yeah. So I probably had, And i was I was a little intoxicated. No, you don't say. Yeah, so I probably had 15 minutes into that whole project. So I'm 15 minutes in on $150, and I was not going to be doing anything else anyways.
00:19:06
Speaker
And I actually, i think there's grass in the background because i literally took the picture outside by the campfire. I didn't go inside. i just freaking whipped my boots off, took a picture, put them back on, posted.
00:19:17
Speaker
I can, like, smell the the foot stink. It was pretty bad. It was pretty bad, really, yeah. So, have you ever posted pictures of yourself my phone? That bombshell riveting. This is the qua the type of quality content that we bring to you here at Confessions of a Shop Owner.
00:19:33
Speaker
Hopefully that one doesn't go viral. ha 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.
00:19:46
Speaker
Elite. Elite Worldwide, they don't give you a one-size-fits-all solution. They tailor the coaching specifically to you and your shop. 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.
00:20:04
Speaker
Whether it's improving your service advisor's sales, growing your shop, growing to multiple locations, they really have you covered. Clients of Elite really see results. Higher profits, stronger teams, a better work-life balance.
00:20:16
Speaker
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.
00:20:27
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. I don't know how we recover from that. I should not have taken us there. I apologize.
00:20:38
Speaker
um We really jumped the shark. Just so bad. So tell me the name shop again. I'm sorry. It's a name is honest mechanic, honest mechanic, like in Kentucky and, uh,
00:20:56
Speaker
Booked out crazy, phone's ringing off the hook, not doing any marketing. So I would keep not doing marketing, right? Why are you going to spend money on it if you are busy as you could possibly be? how many How many people on the team right now? Yeah, yeah. A technician myself.
00:21:10
Speaker
So there's a lot of opportunity for you know growth and expansion. it's hard It's got to be hard to be productive if the phone's ringing off the hook like that. Yeah, it is. it really is. The hats, you know, everybody talks about the hats. Yeah, so it is. It really is. It's hard.
00:21:26
Speaker
You know, I think, you know, what I've seen is There is a certain base level of investment, whether it's time, whether it's money, that the smaller shops are slightly disadvantaged at over a large shop. You know, like if you're buying service info, you know, you're buying it for your shop. There's one price. So if you divide that out amongst every I've had this conversation with people yes about how it's a lot easier for me to screw something up than it is maybe for somebody else to screw something It's a lot less painful. Sure.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah. And then so I think because of that, it makes it even when we're talking about time, because time is a ah resource. And so, you know, lot of these, you know, it takes a lot of like front loading, I call it like to get.
00:22:13
Speaker
you know, the day started to get, you know, the ball rolling. There's a lot of pre-planning. There is a lot of pre-planning as much as possible. Yeah. So, um, this is definitely an area where the potential for growth is great. And what do they say? The, uh, the, the harvest is plenty and the workers are few. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it.
00:22:33
Speaker
So I'm just trying to put myself in in that position. If there's huge demand for your services and there's limited quantity of your service available, um The more time you spend on the phone, the more distraction it is from fixing the cars and saloon it slows down throughput a little bit.
00:22:49
Speaker
Sure. Thinking about some of the new tools that are available on the market now for automated phone answering, you know, that can answer the most common questions and set appointments and that kind of stuff. for Do you have a website with online booking or anything like that? Yes. Okay.
00:23:05
Speaker
um And there's... mean, all the major players now have options that provide that in online booking. And so that would help with some of that.
00:23:17
Speaker
I'm excited about that direction and development because we're we're getting about 450 calls a week and we're missing about 80 calls. I had just this morning a message from a shop owner that um said he's been busy recently and a lot more calls have been going to voicemail than normal.
00:23:37
Speaker
And he said a fair amount of those calls, like nearing 50%, are not calling back and they're booking online. What does his voicemail message say if you're calling to book an appointment? I don't know. I couldn't got yeah worth're out yeah like We got rid of our voicemail because we said we were going to call you back and that ain't happening.
00:23:56
Speaker
So what's the process on that? you know is it, hey, we missed a call, we are giving you a call back? Or if it's like you know if you need us, you'll call us again? you know What is your guys' process? There's an opportunity for improvement there. I think currently ah the VoIP system converts it the voicemail into an email with the you know transcript and then sends it out to everybody on the service counter. yeah And then whomever gets to it to respond first,
00:24:23
Speaker
ah We have a Slack channel it's just like, Hey, I got this customer handled, you know, whatever it might be. But the voicemail message says, know, if you've reached this call during business hours, we're busy helping other clients.
00:24:35
Speaker
Uh, if you're calling to book an appointment, um, you know, leave a message and we'll call you back or you can book an appointment online. and you know, gives the website, but the AI tools that are being developed.
00:24:48
Speaker
can just say, if you're calling to book an appointment, I can help you with that. yeah know If you have a question about our hours, like you know so how can I help you? right And it can go through the process of collecting the customer's information and the details all that stuff and book the appointment. All that stuff massive corporations as have had access to for years or developed for years is now making its way down to where...
00:25:10
Speaker
Well, think it's cool if the ai which is conversational, almost conversational this point, can say, hey, if you're calling to book an appointment, I can take your information and book the appointment for you. Or I can send you a link and you can do it right now. And it will send a link back to the number that's calling in. That's great.
00:25:24
Speaker
um And so there are a lot of people that have that in pilot right now. And I think it's a race to see who can get it really high-level functioning. As soon as they get that refined, we're not much for paying for add-on services, but we'll probably have that.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty damn slick. You get me somebody who can make an appointment. If it can make appointments with a 70% success rate, that'll be – we'll go ahead. yeah Well, and yeah it can also – if you have various systemic – um process driven scripts on how you answer customer questions, you can teach it how to answer the common ah customer questions.
00:26:09
Speaker
Hey, how much I need a price for breaks on this. Well, I know how that my, my advisor is supposed to answer that and it's got nothing to do with prices on breaks. Yeah, it's got to, so I can teach you. We'll check it out for free at my state. You can teach the AI how to do that. Right. And a more refined version of that. Yeah. Yeah. Correct.
00:26:26
Speaker
But to your, I guess, getting back to maybe a larger point, you know, we're talking about, you know, small shop owners versus maybe larger shop owners. you know, that takes time to develop those, those, you know, processes. And, yeah you know, a lot of the advice that I do get is coming from large shops where it's like, yeah, this is a great goal to have. And this is like, like, let's put it on the wall as something we can work towards.
00:26:52
Speaker
But for somebody like myself or, you know, smaller shop owner, like, getting out of the shop long enough to even implement to teach an AI learning model, like that seems like a you know unachievable goal right now. You know, something that really struck me in there that Josh, when he was presenting, was talking about was how much time how much time in shops, whether it's a large shop or a smaller shop, I would argue that it's more impacting, like many things are more difficult for a smaller shop, how much how much time you spend playing versus how much time you spend practicing.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah. You have less time for practice. I practice while I'm at work. That's that's why I literally play. oj t Yeah. You can't, you can't practice. And, um, that's been a huge hole up for us. Jim and I have had this conversation on how,
00:27:41
Speaker
You know, we get we get irritated if something doesn't go right, but there's never, we're slammed all the time. There's like, even our guys, there's never any practice opportunity. It's just go, go, go, connect, connect, connect, complete, complete, complete. The lumberjack is chopping the tree. Yeah, yeah. Keep swinging your axe, buddy. Keep swinging it, you know? So it's, yeah, it's it's a thing, man.
00:28:04
Speaker
It's...
00:28:07
Speaker
So I just got a message, and I apologize for being distracted. Evidently Dutch is being Dutch in the room in there.
00:28:17
Speaker
Is he co-opted? Is he taking over the presentation? I guess he, yeah. so Awesome. He's been a hostile takeover. he's he's been a hot He's been a hostile questioner of the speaker.
00:28:30
Speaker
Awkward. Dutch, why do you do this? Dutch has a lot of life experience, so if you're not used to arguing with Dutch, he can back you into a corner very quickly. because I'm going to say it. Arguing for Dutch is a sport. yeah it's It's a sport. It's not personal.
00:28:48
Speaker
yeah It's a sport. It's a pastime. He has fun arguing. And he really is good. like You're not going to do too great at making points against Dutch unless look you're... You've got to come with the ammo. You have to be an expert in what you're talking about if you're going to make a point against him.
00:29:08
Speaker
And even then, he will let you know that you are, in fact, wrong. And he is, in fact, right. Yeah, he just doesn't he doesn't have to prove that he's right. He just has to prove you're wrong. And he's been very successful, so what do you say to him?
00:29:19
Speaker
You know what I mean? What do you say? Just make fun of him. Yeah. Just make make it personal and insulting. Listen here, you cantankerous old man. I've got more hair than you, Dutch. Ha ha! Ha ha!
00:29:31
Speaker
So anyway, so, um, I have a mini confession, um, get a message today. obviously not at the shop.
00:29:42
Speaker
Uh, we had a client who came in for AC service and then replacing a condenser, um, shipped the car last night. It's back this morning. AC is not working.
00:29:53
Speaker
Okay. That was definitely Braxton's fault as usual.
00:30:01
Speaker
I shipped to the car last night. It's back this morning. AC is not working. ah The technician in question is off for the next five days. i saw I saw the text message. And so the technician who gets it is like, well, pressure switch not plugged in. I imagine that might have an effect on that.
00:30:19
Speaker
So that tells me that we shipped a car without ever confirming that the repair was done and functional. Yeah. Yeah. And that is ah point of great frustration.
00:30:31
Speaker
so It would be less frustrating if it wasn't such a binary system to a point where it either works or it doesn't. Right? Yeah. Right? It's not like it would intermittently work without a precious fish. This misfires every once in a while. Sure. It's not like you're chasing that down. it's like the thing came in blowing hot.
00:30:50
Speaker
Does it blow cold now? And the answer is they don't know. So the question becomes, though, kind of what we were hearing from the speaker earlier.
00:31:01
Speaker
you know Do we seek first to understand, or do we assume that it wasn't plugged in? that's true. Is it possible that it was plugged in but I'm not saying it's okay that, you know, would assume that's a breakdown. What the pressure switch damaged and it pushed out? don't know. Yeah, I mean, 100 situations.
00:31:22
Speaker
have have pictures, I guess. don't know. Uh, so, I mean, the conversation then is, Hey man, uh, cause he's not gonna be back until Wednesday next week. Um, Hey, this car came back the next morning. they see wasn't working.
00:31:35
Speaker
um were you able to do a QC check after you finished the repair? you know, did you document that QC? Cause I, I'm already going to know that the answer is, he't no, he didn't document it because I checked. It's not documented or at least it.
00:31:48
Speaker
And look, sometimes they write confirmed repair, uh, because they're pencil weapon like i like readings and numbers that are not generic yeah like if i repaired something repair pressures and confirmed that drop is now 0.02 volts on circuit or whatever right vent temperature was 43 degrees exterior temperature was 81 degrees or whatever whatever the numbers are So is that a write up in your business or is that just a conversation? No, we wing it That's ball busting.
00:32:20
Speaker
You're going to get your balls busted. how many so How many times bar ball busster are that many types of oversight mistakes allowed before it becomes a bigger conversation?
00:32:32
Speaker
Well, there's different, you know, as long as it's not the same thing over and over again. Yeah. Well, that's an attention to detail fault is what it feels like. And maybe it pushed the plug out. Maybe the plug tab was broken in it or something, but...
00:32:46
Speaker
Would you ever consider having that tech call the customer and explain what happened? Kind of as a never. That's not in the car. It's not their job. Yeah, sure. Yeah, they're there to fix cars, and I'm not going to put them in a position that they didn't sign up for. Sure.
00:33:01
Speaker
um It's just like I would never ask a technician, we're backed up, we've got much more, go put brakes on that car. I would never ask a service advisor to go put brakes on that car. That's probably not a good idea. Yeah, yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
I'm actually going to try to do breaks on the Miata with my son sometime soon. So, you know, like lefty-loosey, righty-tighty. I just watch some YouTube stuff and get certified.
00:33:24
Speaker
You'd be all set. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a tricky situation with that switch because there's so many things that are unknown right now. Yeah. You get into it when... So that's why, like, at our shop, I feel like we have a little bit of an advantage. All the comebacks, like, I personally handle.
00:33:42
Speaker
So it's not he said, she said. I see what the deal is. You deal with every single comeback for three high-volume shops. So all you do is put out fires.
00:33:55
Speaker
I do a lot of fires. 50% of my work's internal. And they're not all comebacks. there' They're not all... they A lot of them haven't been delivered to customers. A lot of them have been, hey, we did this and now the car does that.
00:34:10
Speaker
And I'm just like, okay, you guys get on to the next one that's got billable hours. I'll deal with that. you know and But that way, you know, because sometimes... You know, sometimes, believe it or not, Mike, in a business with multiple technicians, there can be people with personal conflicts with each other.
00:34:27
Speaker
And information can get skewed based on somebody's personal bias towards another person. Yeah, for sure. And the waters are a lot less muddy when I put my eyes on it versus somebody saying, oh, this dumbass, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't know because it's too late. The guy pulled it in.
00:34:43
Speaker
you don't even know. the For all you know, the guy monkeyed with it to make look like And I'm not saying that's what happened. going to if you think you've got dudes who are sabotaging cars to make other technicians look bad. don't know.
00:34:54
Speaker
You don't know. How do you know? How do you know? if you've ever worked at the dealer. If you think that's possible, then you just saw they fly probably. If you've ever worked at the dealer, you know that there's.
00:35:06
Speaker
Really? Oh, yeah. There's freaking stuff that goes on. That's so dirty. I mean, I don't think it would happen. In our shop, but I don't even have to worry about it. He doesn't have any performance-based pay in his shop. It was all hourly guys. so Okay. Yeah.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, to answer, yeah. well My question is, is this a systemic problem where this technician has had very similar issues, or is this a one and done, learn let's learn from it and move forward, and he's fine?
00:35:34
Speaker
he's on probation right now because he's one of the ones that left a stiff knee under a car and lowered it down and... Okay.
00:35:46
Speaker
Okay, so. The sigh of doom. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, though. So it's it's just two. One was obviously a severe mistake, and he that's what what got him on probation.
00:35:57
Speaker
And then this maybe was a neglectful, you know, attention to detail mistake, or maybe it was there was another situation. Part of the job was confirming the repair.
00:36:08
Speaker
i You didn't do the job. Yeah. so assuming Assuming it was actually left unplugged. Sure. Well, are are you holding into the standard of, hey, now you're on probation? Now, if you break the law at all, you're going to jail? Or is this like, hey, you can't make another similar categorical mistake?
00:36:28
Speaker
Well, so this is not a mistake that put others in danger, right? Sure. That's why he was put on probation with them because it was a mistake in oversight that put others in danger. I agree 100%. At this point, it's an inconvenient mistake.
00:36:41
Speaker
it's It's not even a financial burden. Yeah, and it hunt proing and it you know makes us look like an idiot to the customer or potentially makes a customer upset, right? But that's our job up front to deal with those situations when they happen. Yeah.
00:36:53
Speaker
Do you find that when stuff goes sideways, a lot of times customers aren't really that upset? I don't know. A lot of times they just want to be heard, right? Yeah.
00:37:04
Speaker
And like Tanika was talking about yesterday, had a customer that was just raising in hell over something that some perceived slight that they had. Oh, uh. They had ordered a part, waited four days to get there, and the dealership delivered the wrong part. The wrong part. The guy at the dealership ordered the wrong They ordered the right part, but they sent the wrong part.
00:37:24
Speaker
And so they had to order it again. and the customer was losing their mind said, they deserve a discount. And after all the cursing and yelling in histrionics, he said, well, how much of a discount do you want for this inconvenience? Because you've had your car the whole time. The car's not stuck in the parking lot, right? Yeah.
00:37:42
Speaker
And the dude wanted $10 off. Okay. And so a lot of times people, they want to be heard. yeah And then when you're like, well, i want to make a right. think is fair?
00:37:52
Speaker
What they think is fair is so much less than what you were willing to do. Yeah. I would have given you 50 bucks 10 minutes ago to shut up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. like Well, and I think what she said in that situation, and i don't know if this was while we were recording or before we were recording, but she said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to give you all of your money back and you go away and never come back. Run. Run away.
00:38:14
Speaker
I'm paying you to not be in the same room as me anymore. Yeah, yeah. Run. When you see me, run the other direction. That's classic. um He sent us a video of him actually saying that to the customer, right? at Yeah, that was Zeb. That was Zeb. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know. I know. i did this This money is not for you to just not be around me. When you see me in public, you run the other direction.
00:38:37
Speaker
I haven't seen the video, but I'm assuming it's in his like service room, which is dimly lit. It's like a dungeon. need to do an offshoot.
00:38:46
Speaker
We need to send Zeb actual camera because they're all ring camera videos, so it's not that great. He's got a ring camera in there. I think we're going to have to get him convinced that there's think there's a potential. I think he should live feed. He should just live feed always his lobby.
00:39:00
Speaker
He was actually – actually, he's going to have Susie get a phone recording system because he fired one over the phone. He fired a customer over the phone. He doesn't have it recorded. He's like, oh, I really wanted that. That was good. So they're going look into inbound or something like that when he gets back to to record phone calls. All right. So um what's gone just totally sideways off the rails for you recently?
00:39:23
Speaker
Oh, ah yeah. Recently. Recently. Oh man. Um, I think it is, it's always a scheduling.
00:39:34
Speaker
It's consistent. Well, let me put it this way. It's consistently scheduling issues. So like learning to schedule dynamically and learning like, okay, what, what are my limits?
00:39:45
Speaker
You know, my, you know, my inclination is, Like, Hey, if I'm promising you something, I'm going to move mountains to make it work.
00:39:56
Speaker
And really I don't recognize where I have limitations when I shouldn't be making that promise to begin with. find out mountains are really heavy. Yeah. Yeah. So two nights ago, and this is true story. Two nights ago, i was working on a client's car cause I knew, okay, it's Tuesday.
00:40:11
Speaker
I've got to leave, you know, halfway through the day on Thursday to come to this event. So, you know, I need to be getting these cars out because we're going to be closed until Monday. Sure. So I'm like, I got I got to, you know, handle all this. And so Wednesday afternoon. just Yeah.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I, uh, I was there working until like one 30 in the morning and you know, that the, the, the energy just, you know, went through the floor. And I said, I kims i am so tired, I cannot even drive home.
00:40:44
Speaker
And I found the cleanest car to get in. And I got in the back and slept until 6 And went home, showered, and went right back to work. And I'm like, this is not sustainable. Like, this is absolutely – I'm doing something wrong.
00:41:01
Speaker
And I'm not saying that it starts with scheduling, but it's not less than scheduling. And so that is a – yeah, that is – you know There's not a lot of redundancy in the business either right now with you know having one technician.
00:41:15
Speaker
So that definitely adds to the stress of like when he goes home, you know he does what he can, and then I'm left for the rest. That's not his. You can't expect him work night. It's his responsibility. No, he doesn't have that buy-in. He doesn't have the...
00:41:29
Speaker
It doesn't make him a bad person. It's human nature and it's not what you're paying him for either. No, it's not. And I don't want him to. If anything, let this be a cautionary tale to him of like, hey, if you ever decide to own your own business, don't do what I'm doing in these aspects. yeah So what are you going to do differently to prevent that from being a recurring theme? Yeah, I think...
00:41:51
Speaker
having honest conversations with myself about what I can truly get done in a certain amount of time. Um, a lot of that comes from, you know,
00:42:04
Speaker
you know, i feel the pressure to help everybody. e And I'm not trying to help every single customer that calls or every caller that that calls the shop.
00:42:15
Speaker
But if i go through the process to bring you in, then i have now committed myself to you. So now I need to honor that commitment.
00:42:26
Speaker
Um, and this week was, was very strange as well. was just, was, it was off the rails in a lot of ways. One of them was giving away, a lot of work and I, I, I track that pretty, pretty religiously and I gave away a lot of work cause I'm trying to make things right. And so sometimes it's like, I don't know how to fix this. I'm just going to give it to you.
00:42:49
Speaker
Um, one of the things that happened was a client reached out or excuse me, but you know, first time customer had reached out and set up an appointment and i through our automated system and i was so busy i could not get to them that day and they had set the appointment for the next day so it comes through as a request i you know i could not get to them well i was i get to work and the car was dropped off and i'm like okay well
00:43:23
Speaker
we're already have a full schedule, but I'll fit this in. You know, it was like some breaks and sure. And you know, so i'm like, okay, yeah, this is, this is going to be easy. Well, it turned out to not be so easy. And then, so, you know, that customer, i felt terrible about it. You know, I'm like, gosh, I should never brought this in. I should have reached out.
00:43:42
Speaker
I, you know, I'm not doing my job. but And yeah, I you know basically gave them the cost of the inspection for free. I didn't charge them for it. And you know I had every right to, but also they're not receiving from me what the type of service that they should be receiving.
00:44:01
Speaker
So yeah, it has been really off the rails this week. so When I hear folks that are, I mean, staying in shop until 1.30 and then sleeping in the back of a car because you can't drive home.
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah. Like you said, not sustainable. Not sustainable. When I hear people that are that busy and that backed up, it makes me think. you're too cheap, you need to hire more people.
00:44:27
Speaker
Um, you know, super easy to go out and hire quality people, right? they're just to pick one up off the street, but you can raise your rates to throttle back. Um, you know how busy you are, but then you've got to have the emotional fortitude to deal with some of your customers giving you pushback about your rates going up.
00:44:48
Speaker
Right. Um, do you think that you can do that? Oh, there's definitely room for growth. Um, the, ah think it's, you know, the concern for me is I'm not able to demonstrate the value in what they're paying for. So, you know, if hopefully, you know, maybe with the exception of regular maintenance, you know, oil change is, you know, 115 this month and in three months, it's going to be 132.
00:45:18
Speaker
ah hundred yeah thirty two They don't, they don't understand the difference between your very quality break job and the next guy's maybe not taking so much care. But if they don't have a problem with either, they don't understand that they just got lucky they didn't have a problem. and Right. or Or whatever concern. And whatever you're doing, they don't. Yeah, it's hard to convey.
00:45:39
Speaker
If you're going and you're taking the extra steps to just go the extra mile and just do the job a little bit nicer than that. Yeah. It's very hard to convey to a customer how your job is nicer.
00:45:49
Speaker
i would I would challenge you on that statement that you don't know how or you can't convey the value to justify the increased cost. I can. I don't feel confident right now. That's good that's a mindset thing. Because if you are busy.
00:46:03
Speaker
to that level, then you are conveying the value to justify being that busy already. So don't know what your rates are. It doesn't matter. But i think if I think if you didn't tell anybody and you just raised your rates 10% Monday morning, and you're the one building the estimates, I assume, yes no one will say anything.
00:46:26
Speaker
No one will even know. Do you have to give parts and labor breakdown on estimates in Kentucky? No. Are you job-based pricing? Yes. So they don't see what the parts you have to do parts and labor breakdown, you can go up $10. Nobody knows.
00:46:39
Speaker
Yeah. Nobody knows. Easy squeezy. Been there, done that. Nobody Yeah, i mean, i track, like, you know, my my labor GP and parts GP. and And, you know, the the labor GP looks good. So it's like, I don't know if it's a labor rate issue.
00:46:53
Speaker
Uh, maybe I should just be cranking up the, the, you know, margins on the, on the parts. And, you know, cause I'm, I'm kind of on the bottom, it like lower end of where I want to be for parts margin. So I'm like, I don't know which dial to turn to get the, you know, result that I'm looking for. right I know like where we need to be. I'm just not sure which knob that I need to be twisting on.
00:47:17
Speaker
Yeah. Um, how did you choose to set your labor rate? Um, initially i chose to set it based on, you know, what everybody else does going into business, you know, Oh, I'm, you know, I'm not this shop over here, but I'm not quite this one. So let me do that.
00:47:34
Speaker
Um, now I have set it on a percentage of my, uh, gross profit per hour that I'm seeking after. Okay. Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
Um, I think that's a good conversation to have on, thinking about your, you know, your expense structure, um your labor inventory per month and what your desired and net profit is, and you can back into what your rates need to be both on your parts margins and your, and your labor margins go from there. But do you accurately consider your labor costs for you as the owner?
00:48:12
Speaker
Um, I recently started doing that and it not in a way where i am necessarily sh track, well, let put it this way. I do account for my monthly budget to include a certain fixed them amount for me every single month.
00:48:29
Speaker
Um, I've recently started tracking, you know, Hey, I'm in the shop, you know, maybe 10 hours a week. So like if I have to replace me, what does that cost? Yeah. And so I started implementing that. important Yeah, absolutely. That at that stage. Absolutely. 100%. Like,
00:48:48
Speaker
Because what are you going to do like if you're not structured for it and then you put somebody in then all of a sudden, instead of having like small increases over time, you've got all of a sudden, oh, crap.
00:49:00
Speaker
I've got to make a big bump in my labor. You know what i mean? and If you're already a little concerned about it. like well i mean Do you have 40 hours of sold labor carrying over every Friday into the next Monday?
00:49:12
Speaker
not quite 40. Um, and we're not scheduling out in ex, you know, extremely long period. I mean, right now, if I pulled up, um, you know, my, my schedule in tech metric, which is a sponsor of this podcast, superior software for superior jobs.
00:49:30
Speaker
Love it. So i I would say we are scheduling out maybe four to five days. So, okay yeah. So, not I mean, it's it's not... I would love to just have, like, two days out so I don't have, like, you know, the stress of, like, oh, my gosh, you know, I've got to plan so much further out. But, you know, it's not a month. That sounds like it sounds like maybe a technician would alleviate two problems, right? Your scheduling, right? Because you're like, well, I'd rather be two days out. I agree.
00:50:01
Speaker
Because, you know, we do what you kind of do is, like... We're scheduled out kind of far when somebody just needs maintenance work. yeah But if somebody calls me, like, my brakes are grinding, i'm like, bring it Right now. Yeah. Get here now.
00:50:14
Speaker
So I think if if you've got 20 or 30 hours a week carrying over and you're missing some phone calls and you're booking out 30 or 45 days. He's in the shop two hours a week. So 20 or 30 hours a week is actually 30 or 40 hours a week. Yeah, it's 100% time for another tech, right? Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
and i know how easy it is to go get a good tech that's going to put out good quality work that you can trust and it's going to QC and make sure that the pressure is working. It's tricky, man. um Yeah. But I think it sounds like that's the next step in growth, right?
00:50:44
Speaker
It is. um It's definitely, it's not my immediate step. We'll call it like, we'll call it the baby step before then. is I would love to hire somebody and I'm going to, I'm not gonna say it's ah just some dream I'll never achieve. I'm just gonna hire somebody on the front end.
00:50:59
Speaker
I know exactly what I can pay them. And then I know exactly how many hours in the bay that I need to turn, you know, to be able to cover their salary. set there Yeah, yeah. And it's not much, you know, at my, at my, um you know, at my GP, I mean, it's only like six and a half or seven hours And I can pay for their entire salary for the week. So I'm like, okay. So how much for you how much do you think that person should will be paid?
00:51:27
Speaker
You said, you know how much they can be paid? Yes. I can start them out at 25. Okay. Yeah. At 25 an hour for like entry level, no experience, just somebody who basically answers phones and books appointments.
00:51:41
Speaker
Would you still be making the outbound sales calls?
00:51:45
Speaker
Because a $25 an hour service advisor is going to fuck up your average repair order and your customer satisfaction levels, in my opinion. Yes. So I would still be building out the repair or the the um estimates. And this person is going to be more of just. um You need somebody to run blocker.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. I'm blocker. Yeah. Just to keep you off the phone when you're not making somebody between the general public and Josh. Yeah. There's no barrier there now. Yeah. If you get one barrier there and that barrier stops 50% of the crap mission freaking accomplished. Yeah. And the goal is, you know, get out of being in the hub and the wheel. Like that's anything that I can do even incrementally to not be,
00:52:27
Speaker
you know, the center of the business where every decision, every call, every car has to come through me. Like that is, that is gold. That is like what I'm like running towards.
00:52:37
Speaker
That's one of the things I get excited about. Uh, some of these AI tools that are coming right now, because what you're talking about for an issue level person is, you know, a thousand dollars a week roughly. And there are some AIs out there that are going to be 190 bucks a month. Yeah. Well, they're going to be like $1,500, $2,000 a month, but still, um,
00:52:55
Speaker
It does that without the human capitals, maybe not the right word, but and ah the benefit load and the tax load and the uniforms and all the other kind of expenses that you have to throw on top of that. sure um So I think that's going to be a tool that smaller shops that are growing in their maturity level and size are able to adopt and become a more dynamic business faster because you can afford $1,500 month a lot faster than you can afford $1,000 a thousand dollars a week
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Right, there are going be these tools that are going to make it easier to grow faster. Definitely. So I think it's exciting. Well, cool, man. It's lunchtime. We've kept you in here for a little while. i don't know if your tummy's grumbling or not, but I'm going to go browbeat Dutch for being Dutch and see how that goes. I probably would. I would advise against that. Yeah, well, we'll see how it works out. Thanks, man. Glad to be here.
00:53:52
Speaker
Cool. Let's do it again. 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?
00:54:07
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
00:54:22
Speaker
three three seven seven If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.
00:55:01
Speaker
I said just.