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Episode #6 Justin Bond with Prestige Mobile Automotive Repair

3T's Mobile Mechanic Podcast

52 Plays5 days ago

In Episode 6 of the 3T’s Mobile Mechanic Podcast, we sit down with Justin Bond from Prestige Mobile Automotive Repair to talk about his journey through the automotive industry and what led him into the mobile mechanic world.

We dive into how Justin got started as a technician, the experiences that shaped his career, and the importance of continued education through automotive training events. From working in the industry to building a mobile business, this episode is packed with real conversations about growth, learning, and staying ahead in today’s automotive world.

If you’re a technician, shop owner, or mobile mechanic looking to grow in the industry, this is an episode you don’t want to miss. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode.

Transcript

Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:00:20

BEN DELLARIA

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back. We are with episode six with Justin Vaughn with Prestige Mobile Auto Repair. What's up, man? What's going on?

00:00:27

Justin Bond

I'll just know the day.

00:00:29

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, it's

Peewee Racing and Family Involvement

00:00:31

BEN DELLARIA

Saturday. You were telling us we were talking.

00:00:32

Justin Bond

It is Saturday.

00:00:34

BEN DELLARIA

We were talking ah before we got on here about um about racing and stuff at that year. So your kid, how old is your kid?

00:00:43

Justin Bond

She's five, almost six.

00:00:44

BEN DELLARIA

Jeez Louise. So she's racing. Is she on Peewee's?

00:00:48

Justin Bond

yep Yep, exactly.

00:00:49

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

00:00:49

Justin Bond

We just picked her up a little gas bike 50 and her little KTM Junior 50.

00:00:50

BEN DELLARIA

that's just

00:00:54

Justin Bond

She's been riding the little KT&E bikes, a little E2 and E5. But one of the next next season, she's trying to get into a little bit faster class.

00:00:59

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, man, that's so cool.

00:01:06

Justin Bond

And basically, you have to be on a gas bike to be like somewhat competitive. So we're trying to get her you know we're trying to get her on that and get her used to it and all that stuff.

00:01:10

BEN DELLARIA

but Okay. Man, that's so cool.

00:01:16

Justin Bond

So just...

00:01:18

BEN DELLARIA

um Is this her first season racing bikes?

00:01:21

Justin Bond

No, this is actually, i think it's her third. She's been racing so at basically as soon as she turned four years old when she was, you know, legally allowed to by like the AMA and all that stuff.

00:01:24

BEN DELLARIA

Wow, that's cool.

00:01:32

Justin Bond

She was out. She was out racing her dirt bike.

00:01:36

BEN DELLARIA

That's crazy. Man,

Nostalgia and Evolution of Bikes

00:01:37

BEN DELLARIA

I love that. i remember My first bike, I was in kindergarten, and my dad got me ah like an 86 Suzuki j r fifty I love that freaking thing.

00:01:48

BEN DELLARIA

And I've been hunting for one for in that year. I have a 2000 in the garage now that I was working on, on the last live call, um, putting a new cylinder in it and new head and everything.

00:01:54

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:02:00

BEN DELLARIA

But I really want a mid eighties, but man, the guys that have them, they either at a million pieces and they're destroyed or they're already done and they want billions of dollars for these things.

00:02:11

BEN DELLARIA

But I don't know.

00:02:12

Justin Bond

yeah

00:02:14

BEN DELLARIA

I just got rid of a, uh, Oh, now, maybe two and a half years now. A 2000 KX250 two-stroke. I love that freaking bike.

00:02:25

BEN DELLARIA

That was beautiful.

00:02:26

Justin Bond

There's so the series that we race, they have a class called pre-modern and basically you race a bike. It has to be 20 years older from the you know, the current year. So they, it's all 20 year plus old bikes and it's all fast guys riding old bikes.

00:02:35

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:02:41

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, yeah, old bikes. Well, yeah my uncle, I had it for a while when I was a teenager. he's got My dad had one too, but it was a 70s, I think. It was one of the first Elsinore Honda CR125 Elsinore.

00:02:57

BEN DELLARIA

There was two motors. it was an R and an M, and I believe he had the R1. Nasty bike, faster. My buddy had like a 90... something YZ 125, all two strokes.

00:03:11

BEN DELLARIA

And he had a lot more quick power and obviously a you know a lot more travel on the rear end and everything else. But I could beat him on a straightaway with that old bike, even missing second gear. By the time I got back up into third gear, I could catch him.

00:03:24

BEN DELLARIA

And I could beat i could blow them away not super fast. Having buddies drive next to us, we were doing 60, 70 miles an hour down the down the back road. We used to call it hiatus in Snake Island down there in Fort Lauderdale.

00:03:39

BEN DELLARIA

But man, that them old bikes, they used to scream compared to some of the new bikes.

00:03:42

Justin Bond

I do.

00:03:44

BEN DELLARIA

It was really fun stuff. But how is um

00:03:49

BEN DELLARIA

what's the age line like when she can go up to like an 80 or something?

00:03:54

Justin Bond

I'm trying to remember because I think the kids the kids are on 65s all the way up until like nine now. It's ah yeah.

00:03:59

BEN DELLARIA

Really? oh yeah. Everything's like four-stroke and everything now, right?

00:04:02

Justin Bond

Um, not until you get into the bigger bikes, like the 125 and the 250 Fs. Um, that's when you they do make a, yeah, Honda does have 150 R.

00:04:07

BEN DELLARIA

Okay, so they're still running...

00:04:12

Justin Bond

Um, but when you compare it to like the new 80, you know, the newer that the kids are on 112 super minis now, uh, some of them are, you know, 115 depending on you know where you're at or whatever, but.

00:04:25

Justin Bond

These two-strokes are fast. They're lighter. they're just the It was a great idea from Honda. just It's not quite as competitive as what they had hoped for.

00:04:36

Justin Bond

um but I'm wanting to say I think they can get on 85s around 7 or 8. It's somewhere around in that nature. It's been a couple...

00:04:48

Justin Bond

I don't know. It's been one of those things where you don't really pay attention to it until you're like kind of getting closer to there anymore.

00:04:53

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:54

Justin Bond

Just because you got...

00:04:54

BEN DELLARIA

You don't really know, but it's still really, that's still really cool.

00:04:55

Justin Bond

Yeah, you know, you just have so much.

00:04:57

BEN DELLARIA

I like that, man.

00:04:58

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:04:59

BEN DELLARIA

That's, that's awesome. Obviously you live close to a track. We lived, um, down there, we lived in Fort Lauderdale. So we were close to Pepsi Air Dania down there in Dania.

00:05:08

Justin Bond

There, Dania.

00:05:10

BEN DELLARIA

Um, that was, that was really cool. Um, but I mean, I miss that world. Like you watch some of the old, like eighties, nineties movies, you know, the The guys are always on dirt bikes in the movies, you know, and that's just it's over with, you know, the old school two stroke sound.

00:05:25

BEN DELLARIA

That's why I bought that KX, you know, just in my 40s.

00:05:26

Justin Bond

Yep.

00:05:28

BEN DELLARIA

And I'm like, I want to live relive my youth, you know, as you can tell my room, you know it's full of retro Nintendo and old school comics and everything else. But I was a dirt bike kid. I was always outside. Man, I i miss that world so much. It's so cool.

00:05:45

BEN DELLARIA

But anyway, um yeah. So tell us ah tell us some of your back history

Justin's Automotive Journey

00:05:51

BEN DELLARIA

and your story. Like, why did you when did you get in the automotive world and, you know, where'd you come up from?

00:05:57

Justin Bond

Um, so realistically, my, so going long story, uh, my grandfather was a mechanic and, you know, Marines got, got out of the Marines and started doing transmission work back in, you know, I don't know, I guess the forties or fifties, whatever it was.

00:06:12

Justin Bond

Um, my dad ended up, they so he and opened up a transmission shop and my dad went to work for him and him and my dad worked in Ohio for,

00:06:24

Justin Bond

Gosh, I don't know. I can't remember how many years, but long story short, you know I guess I come from a somewhat long line of mechanics, I guess.

00:06:31

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:06:31

Justin Bond

So about 15, I had went and got my first job at one of the local landscape um companies, I guess, basically assembling mowers and doing mower repair, small engine repair, we use stuff like that.

00:06:45

BEN DELLARIA

That's cool.

00:06:46

Justin Bond

And um I'd kind of bounced around a little bit. I'd went from there, you know, I'd done, I ran a couple of cruise pressure cleaning. I've done some welding.

00:06:53

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:06:54

Justin Bond

um pipe fitting stuff like that um i've kind of been all over the place and one of the guys had called me one day and brought me back into the field he's like hey man you want to come turn a wrench and i'm like i guess so and i ended up yeah you know i ended up going to work for a kia dealer down um fort pierce and um so that was i was about 16 then

00:07:14

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah.

00:07:20

Justin Bond

Um, and you know, I've bounced around a couple of times, you know, just learning different things throughout the years, throughout the industry. ah recently, been working for Hyundai dealer.

00:07:32

Justin Bond

Um, they've been, they've been exceptionally awesome as far as the dealer principle goes. Uh, the same reason most mechanics move is either management or money.

00:07:44

Justin Bond

So it just, yeah.

00:07:44

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, typically.

00:07:48

Justin Bond

But, uh, It was kind of, I don't know, I learned a lot. It was great. I ended up, when I spent seven years with GM, I did pretty much everything for the most part. I did heavy line engine transmission work, diesel. got I got EV certified.

00:08:04

Justin Bond

Same thing through Hyundai. I ended up getting EV and hybrid certified through them.

00:08:08

BEN DELLARIA

what What years was that when you were at the dealers?

00:08:13

Justin Bond

I think I left gm and late 2020 because the new platform, the new platform of the Chevrolet truck had just come out.

00:08:18

BEN DELLARIA

yeah Okay.

00:08:23

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. Yeah.

00:08:23

Justin Bond

ah The T1 platform, they just on the big body changing.

00:08:27

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

00:08:27

Justin Bond

And it was kind of like right towards the end of COVID, I guess.

00:08:31

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. About right when I started this crap.

00:08:33

Justin Bond

and And then I went to work for an aftermarket shop for a little bit doing lift kit installs, like, you know, like train horns, airbag stuff, that kind of thing.

00:08:44

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:08:45

Justin Bond

And

00:08:45

BEN DELLARIA

Accessory outfit and everything. what um How old are you?

00:08:47

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:08:50

Justin Bond

33.

00:08:50

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. you're You're still a young buck.

00:08:53

Justin Bond

Yeah, still young.

00:08:53

BEN DELLARIA

um if But you what when all that started, when you first when that guy came to you and said, hey, you know you want to go turn a wrench, when was that?

00:09:06

Justin Bond

That was about when I was 18.

00:09:09

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, okay. So you've been in it most of your adult life.

00:09:12

Justin Bond

Yes. Yeah, i've been I've been in it most of my adult life.

00:09:13

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:09:15

Justin Bond

Like I said, there was like... two years that I kind of took a break from it.

00:09:19

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:09:19

Justin Bond

Um, and then it's, i don't know, I call it the black hole of the automotive world. Like you can never leave it. ah it it' just Yeah.

00:09:25

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, that's pretty true. once you're There's some of us that once we're in, we're just sucked in and you're never getting out no matter what you do. And yeah, that's cool. So dealer life and did you enjoy that dealer life or?

00:09:42

Justin Bond

It's, it's got its ups and downs, man. Like I, I spent, uh, I've spent a couple of years at different independents too. um

00:09:50

BEN DELLARIA

Which do you prefer?

00:09:50

Justin Bond

you It's hard um because they have, they both have their goods in their backs. um

00:09:59

Justin Bond

I worked, you know, I worked for the two independents that i worked for. The owners were pretty good people. um Just saying retrospect, they just wouldn't pay the same that the dealers would.

00:09:59

BEN DELLARIA

big time.

00:10:10

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

00:10:10

Justin Bond

um

00:10:12

BEN DELLARIA

And it was all so you were still dealing with flat rate at the time?

00:10:14

Justin Bond

Yes.

00:10:15

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. Okay.

00:10:16

Justin Bond

Um, the, basically once I left there, um I'd gone back to one of the dealers and the last dealer, was basically on a guarantee, you know, a salary or guarantee, whatever you want to call it.

00:10:31

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:10:32

Justin Bond

And for the, and even though, yes, it was a Hyundai dealer. I work on, yeah I would pretty much work on anything. Um, and it was a

00:10:39

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. Like a used car?

00:10:43

Justin Bond

No, it was still, I was kind of trying to fill like a lead tech role without having the shop foreman title, I guess you could call it.

00:10:51

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, wait, that was at the independent.

00:10:51

Justin Bond

i What's that?

00:10:53

BEN DELLARIA

Was that at the dealer or the independent?

00:10:54

Justin Bond

and No, no, no. was That was at the dealer.

00:10:56

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, okay. I got, I got confused.

00:10:57

Justin Bond

um

00:10:58

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

00:10:59

Justin Bond

Yeah, so we, I mean, yes, I would obviously work on, you know, the Hyndais that rolled through the shop, but nobody else wanted to touch anything that was aftermarket.

00:11:08

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:11:08

Justin Bond

So... you know, it, it could have been a Chrysler, like my second week there, I was putting an engine in a, a Chrysler town and country because one of the other guys had thrown a bunch of parts at it and I found that it ended up having a crack lock.

00:11:20

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, yeah.

00:11:21

Justin Bond

Um, yeah, yeah.

00:11:24

BEN DELLARIA

I love that.

00:11:25

Justin Bond

So it was, it was like one of those things. And then they were just like, Oh, cool. You work on pretty much anything. I'm like, yeah. Uh, so, you know, it's, uh, exactly.

00:11:34

BEN DELLARIA

That was the problem. You told them that you could do all that stuff. Yeah, and and now they're going to do it without paying you more.

00:11:38

Justin Bond

So then it it

00:11:42

Justin Bond

so then it kind of just snowballed into pretty much anything. It could have been you know Mercedes. and It could be a diesel whatever. you know Whatever just rolled through the shop. It was like, hey, yeah Justin, I'm trying to fix it.

00:11:54

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:11:55

Justin Bond

So...

00:11:57

BEN DELLARIA

Did they give you, were you a hybrid or was it just straight ah salary at that?

00:12:02

Justin Bond

So it is a hybrid. It was basically a base guarantee. And then once I hit that, that guarantee level, ah it, you know, i got pay bumps.

00:12:10

BEN DELLARIA

Turn in. Okay.

00:12:12

Justin Bond

But the way that it operates, I've hit, I was able to hit that ah guarantee bump once.

00:12:22

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, okay.

00:12:22

Justin Bond

listen just because Just because of the way that the workflow is and, you know, how obviously how dispatching works and all that stuff. it this it so it It was very hard for me to hit that.

00:12:35

Justin Bond

Absolutely.

00:12:35

BEN DELLARIA

Was it worth the guarantee or No.

00:12:38

Justin Bond

Absolutely.

00:12:39

BEN DELLARIA

Okay, that's pretty good then. Because you don't, so you get such a different, um you get so many different stories, like my stories with the dealership. i I look back at them now, like when I did Jeff's podcast ah last, ah well, two years now. I think um it, I hated, i didn't hate the dealer world. I didn't understand it because I was too young. I was too naive. but I didn't, I didn't have my head on straight. I had gone through a divorce and,

00:13:08

BEN DELLARIA

I had ruined the first job I had, which was down there, I guess by you, you said you're in Fort Pierce. I was in Port St. Lucie. Um, and but my, the shop I worked for was in Stewart, um, AT&T, uh, fleet, but the dealership was down on 441 there in, uh, St. Lucie, John Jochum Chevrolet, uh, turned into suburban Chevrolet on ah us one.

00:13:32

BEN DELLARIA

down there, just south of Fort Pierce. But anyway, i just I was just a dumb kid.

00:13:34

Justin Bond

Thank you.

00:13:37

BEN DELLARIA

and i you know Flat rate, I think it was like $25 an hour at the time. It was in the early 2000s, so like 05, 06, 07, 08, somewhere in there. But I didn't know any better. i didn't I didn't know how to diagnose. I thought I was king of the world because of where I came from, and I was a one-man show where I had came from.

00:13:55

BEN DELLARIA

But that's when you get that rude awakening, and you're like, oh, crap, like I'm dumb. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. So I think I learned, obviously I didn't stay there very long, but I learned the most when I went into independent. So the, the la the next, you know, 15, 18 years, it was all independent jobs. I liked that so much better because I just got more, more rounded as a technician, as the years went on and I actually learned everything I needed to learn.

00:14:21

BEN DELLARIA

peace

00:14:22

Justin Bond

Yeah, I would agree with that.

00:14:22

BEN DELLARIA

Not much training, huh?

00:14:25

Justin Bond

I would agree with that.

00:14:26

BEN DELLARIA

It was.

00:14:26

Justin Bond

Um,

00:14:27

BEN DELLARIA

Excuse me, everybody. I freaking got sick last night. My throat's killing me. um But the ah yeah independent world taught me more, and I was able to work under so many different – I wouldn't say older guys. They're probably – at the time, they were my age now, in their early 40s, mid-40s. And they they just – they taught you those little tricks and tricks.

00:14:53

BEN DELLARIA

and everything else with the different manufacturers and what to look for on the scan tool and how to understand, you know, so scan tool data and drivability and things like that. So, and I worked next to them, you know, in the same, you know, one bay over and it just, it changed my outlook on the automotive industry quickly and made me realize like how important like training and all that stuff really

Starting a Mobile Auto Repair Business

00:15:15

BEN DELLARIA

is. But so when, um so you left that Hyundai place and you started, where'd you go after that?

00:15:23

BEN DELLARIA

one of the independents.

00:15:25

Justin Bond

Nope. Hyundai's the last place.

00:15:27

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, Hyundai was the latest place.

00:15:27

Justin Bond

um

00:15:28

BEN DELLARIA

And that was where you're at now though, right? In that, wherever you're living.

00:15:32

Justin Bond

Yes. Yes, sir. They're in Melbourne.

00:15:34

BEN DELLARIA

So, okay.

00:15:35

Justin Bond

it's... um

00:15:38

BEN DELLARIA

I'm getting confused on everything down there. Oh yeah. East coast.

00:15:41

Justin Bond

ah ah it's

00:15:42

BEN DELLARIA

and I haven't been down there in so long, um but I wasn't real familiar. that's funny. You say Melbourne, the boss, when I worked for AT&T, he lived in Melbourne and he used to go from Melbourne all the way through all those AT&T, at the time it was Bell South. um I was actually there during the crossover when Bell South changed to AT&T and we had to watch the guys when they rebranded all the vans and everything.

00:16:10

BEN DELLARIA

um It was, what the hell was the name? ah Butler Fleet Services was the name of the company ah that I worked for. So we worked flat rate fleet for, uh, AT&T or Bell South.

00:16:24

BEN DELLARIA

Um, so I had two bays. I had an office. I had, um, air conditioned office. Um, I had a parts room, um, you know, tire machines, oil, everything was there, you know, bulk oil and everything. And most of all the stuff I worked on was, uh, Chevrolets.

00:16:44

BEN DELLARIA

So we had Cavaliers, trucks, vans, um, and then utility trucks, and then all the way up into some big airbrake Ford trucks and everything, you know, doing oil changes with five-gallon buckets and stuff like that.

00:17:01

BEN DELLARIA

That sucked.

00:17:01

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:17:02

BEN DELLARIA

But we had to go get our Class B license in order to work there and stuff like that. That was my first job. that was That was cool. I really enjoyed that, but I screwed it up with that divorce, and that's how I ended up at the dealership. But regardless, I mean, it it worked out, and i enjoyed the rest of my career to where we are now, but So you left Hyundai, and is that when you went mobile, or is that just when you thought about doing it?

00:17:29

Justin Bond

So I still work. I still worked for Hyundai.

00:17:34

Justin Bond

Basically when we were talking about it and about a year ago, I think it was about June ish was when it really started to come to fruition. I think realistically like March, April, we really started seeing coming across your content on ah YouTube, but you know, somewhat on YouTube, but mostly just TikTok.

00:17:53

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

00:17:53

Justin Bond

And I threw a couple of them to the wife and I'm like, Because, you know, you were going over some of your, it was like some of your numbers videos of what you were actually, you know, you were truthfully throwing out there what you were actually doing.

00:18:04

Justin Bond

And I i was throwing it out there to my wife. I'm like, he looks it looks like, you know, he's being truthful about what he's doing. And I'm like, you know, and he's he's not one of these guys that are blowing a bunch of smoke up your butt, you know.

00:18:15

BEN DELLARIA

Yep.

00:18:16

Justin Bond

Oh, yeah, you know, I'm making 500 grand a year, you know, doing da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And these guys, you know, and these guys actually are,

00:18:20

BEN DELLARIA

I hate those videos.

00:18:25

Justin Bond

not who they say they are, um, or not who they're portraying themselves to be type thing or whatever.

00:18:26

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:18:31

Justin Bond

Um, and, uh, we kind of talked back and forth and we were like, I think this is something, this is a route, you know, we want to try to travel down. And it was like two months later, next thing you know, we're, we're going to buy a sprinter.

00:18:31

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:18:47

Justin Bond

I was like, okay, here we go.

00:18:48

BEN DELLARIA

yeah Yes, that's awesome, man. And so... what What year? what year what when did you When were you done with the Hyundai and you were on your own immediately?

00:19:05

Justin Bond

Realistically, not long ago this year.

00:19:07

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. This year. That's when you... When did you quit Hyundai?

00:19:12

Justin Bond

i still work I still do work for them part-time.

00:19:14

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, you still weren't. Oh, Jesus Christ.

00:19:16

Justin Bond

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:16

BEN DELLARIA

Man, there's so many of y'all.

00:19:17

Justin Bond

I still do work for them.

00:19:18

BEN DELLARIA

I get so confused with everybody in the group. ah Sorry.

00:19:21

Justin Bond

No, that's good.

00:19:21

BEN DELLARIA

Sorry. um

00:19:22

Justin Bond

um For the most part, like I do um on the mobile stuff, I do when I'm not working for Hyundai when I'm out running the mobile stuff. So it's still...

00:19:34

BEN DELLARIA

So you're still working for them Monday through Friday?

00:19:34

Justin Bond

It's yes, sir.

00:19:37

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. When do you get out during the day?

00:19:40

Justin Bond

Five o'clock, depending on depending on how busy the workload is at Hyundai.

00:19:41

BEN DELLARIA

as

00:19:46

Justin Bond

As of recently, it's not been that busy, but it's been you know, you've been able to leave a little earlier.

00:19:49

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:19:53

BEN DELLARIA

Do they give you a problem that you own your own business on the outside?

00:19:57

Justin Bond

Nope. The cool thing was when I started, I told them, I'm like, hey, guys, I have I have my own business. I do stuff. You know, I do stuff on the weekends. I do stuff outside of here. I said, everything that I do is not going to interfere with your customer base or anything that, you know, we do here. And, you know, management was just like, all right, cool.

00:20:17

Justin Bond

You know, we're good with that.

00:20:17

BEN DELLARIA

Dang. That's cool. So when you going to leave? That's the question. Okay.

00:20:23

Justin Bond

Honestly, um, honestly, the plan, I am, I am myself.

00:20:24

BEN DELLARIA

yeah yeah

00:20:29

Justin Bond

I have a goal set, uh, around October.

00:20:32

BEN DELLARIA

All right. And tell why. what's your What's your plan? Because it sounds like a smart plan compared to yeah what some other people do, but...

00:20:40

Justin Bond

Um, essentially I want to be debt free, uh, before I go full time. Um,

00:20:49

BEN DELLARIA

It's awesome.

00:20:49

Justin Bond

And I think, I think that's the best route to go because that would give me the least, you know, the least amount of overhead.

00:20:52

BEN DELLARIA

It is.

00:20:55

BEN DELLARIA

Yep.

00:20:56

Justin Bond

And in the event, you know, cause there's going to be some slow months and you know, it's no matter what, you know, but I am, um, it's, it,

00:20:59

BEN DELLARIA

It's going to be slow.

00:21:03

BEN DELLARIA

And you're building a hell of a client base now. Yeah.

00:21:10

Justin Bond

think you know i i gotta thank the lord about it you know you pray to him a little bit and uh he's definitely giving um as much as as much as i can take on right now it's it's incredible

00:21:13

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:21:19

BEN DELLARIA

That's cool, man.

00:21:23

BEN DELLARIA

That's awesome. That's really freaking cool. I can't wait to hear when you actually go, you know, 100%. Because even now, like, you wouldn't know it.

00:21:31

Justin Bond

i am

00:21:33

BEN DELLARIA

Like, from everything talking with you and everything else, like, And your setup, your truck, you wouldn't know. Nobody would know that shit that's what you're doing. and that's And to be able to be still doing both, that's i kudos to you, man.

00:21:46

Justin Bond

Yes, sir.

00:21:48

BEN DELLARIA

That's freaking awesome. um pass the

00:21:50

Justin Bond

And...

00:21:53

BEN DELLARIA

I don't know, dude. it's ah yeah and So what made you want to start this, though?

00:22:01

Justin Bond

Believe it or not, you.

00:22:03

BEN DELLARIA

ah i appreciate it I appreciate it.

00:22:03

Justin Bond

Not trying to suck up to you or anything, but honestly, you.

00:22:06

BEN DELLARIA

But but why? Well, you were looking for it, or did you just come across mike did you just come across the content, or were you looking for mobile mechanic content?

00:22:10

Justin Bond

Because of the...

00:22:17

Justin Bond

uh being completely honest i think i was kind of like in one of those modes where i was just like doom scrolling just on tick tock just randomly going through stuff and i'm like oh this looks cool and um

00:22:22

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. Yeah.

00:22:26

BEN DELLARIA

Great. I ruined your life.

00:22:31

Justin Bond

and um you know yeah yeah right and uh it was one of those things i was like well you know i've always i always wanted to own my own shop um

00:22:32

BEN DELLARIA

Thanks, Justin. Appreciate

00:22:43

Justin Bond

I, it's one of those things that, yes, I, I don't think that I have the ability to work for somebody else forever. Um, cause I want to build something on my own.

00:22:54

Justin Bond

And that's always been my mindset. Like I'm always like, man, why am I working for somebody else? You know, I, I should be out building something for myself and I don't, you know, I don't want to have anybody tell me what I can, can't do and tell me, uh,

00:23:02

BEN DELLARIA

yeah

00:23:08

Justin Bond

you know, tell me no, or Hey, you know, you can't go take this day off because, you know, to go spend a day at Disney or, you know, you know, or go take, you know, go do something early.

00:23:19

BEN DELLARIA

Anything. Just the doctor's office. Yeah.

00:23:21

Justin Bond

Right.

00:23:22

Justin Bond

You know,

00:23:23

BEN DELLARIA

that

00:23:24

BEN DELLARIA

I agree, man. cause like I talk with a lot of people it's it's I don't know. i the Same thing. I would love to have a shop. I still, in my mind, I would still, I still love the idea of a shop, but I like my freedom more.

00:23:41

BEN DELLARIA

I think, I just don't think we're supposed to be here to be working five days a week, all day long and committing to all of that. We're going to, I say at all time, we're going be dead for so freaking long and we're alive for so little.

00:23:59

BEN DELLARIA

make the best of it.

00:24:00

Justin Bond

Absolutely.

00:24:00

BEN DELLARIA

Do what you want. i mean, if you want to work five, six, seven days a week and that's what you love, go ahead. But, That's why I do all these extra things because what am I going to do in 10 years? I don't want to be turning wrenches and I don't want to be like, let me go open the door.

00:24:17

BEN DELLARIA

like I get it. I'm losing a ton of money being mobile versus owning a brick and mortar and possibly scaling and doing all these things. Could I scale this? Of course we could scale mobile, but I don't want to. That's not what I'm looking for.

00:24:32

BEN DELLARIA

And it just, I like the freedom. Like, so like last week we took in, she's in the other room.

00:24:36

Justin Bond

Definitely.

00:24:39

BEN DELLARIA

Now we took in this, an elderly dog from a neighbor kid that couldn't take care of her anymore. So last Monday, I just didn't schedule anybody cause we had to take her to the vet. And my wife had a doctor's appointment up in Gainesville. So we're like, okay, it's the same day.

00:24:54

BEN DELLARIA

We're just going to schedule Tuesday through Friday this week instead of Monday through Thursday. Cause we only work four days. Well, I couldn't do that if I had a shop. I couldn't be home at two or three o'clock because I already went out and made a couple thousand dollars for the day.

00:25:10

BEN DELLARIA

um Like I said, you know yes, so a brick and mortar could probably bring us a lot more, get us out of debt faster and all these other things, but there's still so many different ways to do do the mobile that you can make nearly as much.

00:25:24

BEN DELLARIA

I mean, my father-in-law,

00:25:25

Justin Bond

Yep.

00:25:28

BEN DELLARIA

owned a one-man shop down in Sunrise, Fort Lauderdale area. And I don't know what he made per year, but it was him and his wife. um But he had fleets. he had He had a Sears contract and stuff like that. So he he did well.

00:25:42

BEN DELLARIA

But

Business Model: Mobile vs. Brick-and-Mortar

00:25:44

BEN DELLARIA

I don't know. I mean, last year, our biggest year so far, $242,000. And we our shortcomings... and if we fix are shortcomings This year, which is inspections.

00:25:57

BEN DELLARIA

And I mean, granted, we're already in May and I haven't fixed anything yet, but there's no reason why I couldn't get to sixty two 60, two 70 a revenue in the year.

00:26:02

Justin Bond

Thank you.

00:26:06

BEN DELLARIA

And, you know, to be, to, ah to, so at that point, I don't think there'd be a reason even to ever get a brick and mortar at that point. Like why, why spend, I spend a lot on my company because got to take a drink. Yeah.

00:26:25

BEN DELLARIA

My throat is killing me. So like I get the question all the time, like on like on TikTok. I get so much hate on that freaking channel. And the other day I had posted one from I'm going off track here, but I posted a video from last podcast. Oh, my God. So many people got mad at me and were like, oh, they'll give anyone podcast, you know, microphones today. I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ, these people. But anyway, I don't even remember what I was talking about just now. But what was I talking about?

00:26:55

BEN DELLARIA

What was I talking about two seconds ago?

00:26:57

Justin Bond

it was It was about the podcast earlier where it was on as a tick-tock video about somebody was talking trash

00:27:04

BEN DELLARIA

No, but just before that.

00:27:08

Justin Bond

uh i don't know lost her train of thought be honest because you're starting you're starting to go off on the little tension about somebody talking to oh man

00:27:09

BEN DELLARIA

Me too.

00:27:12

BEN DELLARIA

I was. that's what i That's what happens all the time when I'm on this. That's why I take notes because I definitely lose i lose what I wanted to say. like I was going to say something, but started going off on that tangent about, ah but oh oh, so I got it, guys. So that's what it was. So like I get people all the time when I talk about my revenue and what we make for the past couple of years, you know putting it up there.

00:27:41

BEN DELLARIA

And I told – so I put up – we did $242,000 in total revenue last year. And then they're like, oh, yeah, well, what's your overhead? What does it matter what my overhead is?

00:27:52

BEN DELLARIA

What matters is how much I spend. How much do I spend – because I don't care about just looking at overhead, right?

00:27:56

Justin Bond

Right.

00:27:58

BEN DELLARIA

Because overhead is like almost like what they would call your fixed expenses. So – But what are you doing with the rest of the money? you know How much do I take home? How much do I waste on extra spending? So I look at like the total dollar. We spend $12,000 a month to run the company.

00:28:17

BEN DELLARIA

That includes everything. And what most people don't understand too is that even includes my taxes in a way because as an S-corp, When I pay my ah my paycheck, the company ah withholds you know payroll tax and everything else.

00:28:33

BEN DELLARIA

I send that off to the IRS.

00:28:34

Justin Bond

Yep.

00:28:35

BEN DELLARIA

Those are technically my quarterlies in the way that that works because if you pay yourself a reasonable salary – You can pay less in total tax because no matter what, the rest of the money that's in the company is not earned income money. It's my paycheck is.

00:28:51

BEN DELLARIA

There's a lot more involved in that that everyone's probably going to tear me apart in comments. But my point being is that when you have a shop, you have to buy lifts. You have to buy tire machines. You have to buy compressors, um scan tools, all these different things that most people don't have $100,000 sitting around and they could just outfit a whole shop and then make their money back.

00:29:03

Justin Bond

Thank

00:29:11

BEN DELLARIA

Most people take a loan. So like we kind of did the same thing. In the beginning, no debt. For the first couple of years, there was no debt on the company. The first bit of debt I had was my first AC machine.

00:29:22

BEN DELLARIA

I paid it off. And then I bought my truck. I'm paying that off. I've bought more stuff since then. So our debt is higher now. So they're like, oh, well, how much does it like, sorry, I'm really going off track. But my point being is that when people are like oh you make 242, but how much does it cost you?

00:29:39

BEN DELLARIA

Well, it costs to me this much. $12,000. Like that's too high. You're crazy. Yes, I am crazy. That's $8,000 worth of payroll and payroll tax. That's the number. It's like $7,800. Okay.

00:29:52

BEN DELLARIA

But the rest of it, I've got insurance. I've got bills to pay. i Yes, probably about, I think it's about $2,000 to $2,500 a month is goes into paying things off for the company.

00:30:07

BEN DELLARIA

um Storage shed, my truck, um my snap-on bill, and my last AC machine that I bought. I think there's another credit card in there that I had used for like miscellaneous small tool spending here and there. it gets paid off. I use it again, paid off use again.

00:30:22

BEN DELLARIA

So what's so different about that versus a shop that has to buy all the equipment to run the shop. I had to buy all my equipment to run my shop just because a mobile doesn't mean anything compared to the brick and mortar. It's the same thing.

00:30:36

BEN DELLARIA

So like people always like to get online and trash us as mobile because like, Oh, that's too much money. You're crazy. You don't have run a business. Like dude, I think my $240,000 a year proves I know how to run a business and i know how to fix cars and I know how to sell and do all the things I need to do.

00:30:51

BEN DELLARIA

Yes, I absorb it. Lee spend, but that's my choice. I can, if I want to take all of my net proceeds and buy a million tools with it, that's my prerogative. Like it doesn't matter, but my actual expenses that run the company are, are low, you know?

00:31:01

Justin Bond

Right.

00:31:06

BEN DELLARIA

But anyway, I would just went on that whole tangent for no reason. I don't even think I even made any sense about it.

00:31:09

Justin Bond

Hello.

00:31:11

BEN DELLARIA

and So everyone listening is going to be like, what the hell is he talking about? That's all right. But so now your mobile are, you know, what was the, it was the decision good? Are you glad you did it?

00:31:26

Justin Bond

Absolutely.

00:31:29

Justin Bond

Honestly, it's we have we have a lot of mobile guys around here. and

00:31:33

BEN DELLARIA

Oh yeah, I'm sure.

00:31:34

Justin Bond

well Well, actually, when last year, i would I would say that when I initially... This all came to fruition. There was like three guys that were legit... you know That you could see posting on the pages.

00:31:44

Justin Bond

Local Facebook pages and stuff. But over the last, realistically, three months, I've seen a ton of guys pop up. And I don't you know i don't think...

00:31:55

Justin Bond

most of these guys are legit. You know, I think they're just, which, you know, work's getting slow.

00:31:57

BEN DELLARIA

Well, I guarantee they're not.

00:32:00

Justin Bond

I understand. I think that, you know, they're trying to obviously trying to make do with bills and things like that. But, um, hey it's, um,

00:32:05

BEN DELLARIA

Yep.

00:32:12

Justin Bond

the setup that I'm trying to do, which is trying to fall in suit with you, but I, all the different customers and new customers that I've talked to, like I had a guy, um, uh,

00:32:24

Justin Bond

that I showed up to, you know, to a batter in his place. Car had been sitting for a long time and he goes, man, I called five guys and you're the first guy to call me back. And I'm like, what? You know, it like blew my mind. I'm like, how do you, I'm like, how do you run a business if, you know, you're not calling people back?

00:32:42

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:32:42

Justin Bond

you know, that didn't make any sense to me. And then when, you know, I, I show up in a van that's, you know, organized and, you know, it's equipped the way that it is, people are like, oh man, I, I didn't know that, you know, this was coming to me.

00:32:45

BEN DELLARIA

Let's

00:32:57

Justin Bond

You know, I guess they're expecting some guy working out of the back of his little Honda Civic or pickup truck or something, ah you know, like stuff and, the I guess the quality of mobile mechanics around here have been lackluster is what it sounds like.

00:33:05

BEN DELLARIA

see.

00:33:11

Justin Bond

And not many people are running a full, you know, professional looking setup, I guess see we could say.

00:33:11

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:33:17

BEN DELLARIA

No, they're not. And that's, that's again, one of the areas where I get so much hate online, especially, and it usually comes from the ones that are doing that. And, and again, I'm not faulting you if that's what you do. If you want to do that, go do it.

00:33:31

BEN DELLARIA

I choose to do this and this is what I advocate for. And that's to have a good looking company, a professional company, and to do things that are vastly different way than what the world perceives mobile mechanics.

00:33:43

Justin Bond

Yeah. 100%.

00:33:44

BEN DELLARIA

Because i don't think I don't think we should be classified as mobile mechanics versus someone that works in a shop. Why don't we call them brick and mortar mechanics? We don't. We call them mechanics. So why can't you just call me a mechanic? like Why does it have to be why do we have to be put in that classification of cheap mobile mechanic? like just It's never going to change, but it doesn't matter.

00:34:10

BEN DELLARIA

But yeah, you're not wrong.

00:34:10

Justin Bond

one hundred percent

00:34:10

BEN DELLARIA

There is a million guys out there All the time. They post. They go on the chat GBT. They make this really cool picture. And they post that. And then someone calls them. And then they show up in...

00:34:24

BEN DELLARIA

you know, nothing and they don't have, they, you know, they don't have enough tools and everything else. And that's again, don't guys, don't get me wrong. I'm not shitting on you for that because everyone starts somewhere. I didn't start with my trailer.

00:34:37

Justin Bond

Absolutely. Right.

00:34:37

BEN DELLARIA

I started in the bed of a pickup truck, you know, but I also made it look nice.

00:34:42

BEN DELLARIA

I organized it. I had a nice hard cut top tonneau cover and, you know i had I tried to have everything I need because i feel that when I worked in a shop, I just have a different level of expectation of what a customer wants versus what other people think a customer wants.

00:34:58

BEN DELLARIA

They don't want – some people want it. I don't know. i just – you're never going to change the outcome of that, and we're never going to change the way people perceive us to a point.

00:35:09

Justin Bond

We're going to try, though.

00:35:11

BEN DELLARIA

but Yeah, and I am.

00:35:12

Justin Bond

We're going to try.

00:35:12

BEN DELLARIA

I'm trying my day. And i' am I am going to say that there is some people out there that are bigger names in this industry that did not think it was a good idea for me to be doing what I'm doing.

00:35:24

BEN DELLARIA

And I think I have changed their mind. I'm not mentioning names, but I'm pretty positive that a lot of them have come to respect me for what I put on YouTube but what I put on Tik TOK and realize that I'm trying to do something much different and I'm trying to change the way that most people are looking at us because all those guys that are like not answering the phone or not calling back, they're not going to be around next year.

00:35:50

BEN DELLARIA

They're not going to be around in six months.

00:35:50

Justin Bond

No.

00:35:52

BEN DELLARIA

So, you know, it goes to the same thing. Like I I'm getting a lot of people on, on Tik TOK now that are talking about my warranty. I offer a three year,

00:36:02

BEN DELLARIA

36,000 mile part and labor warranty. And I was talking about how if I use a part that has a lifetime warranty, that I extend that to the customer.

00:36:15

BEN DELLARIA

Great. But my labor stops at three year. why Why is that a problem? Like i had I don't understand why it's an issue because the brick and mortar does it. Like I actually adapted that process because of royalty automotive.

00:36:30

BEN DELLARIA

He had mentioned his warranty is much longer, much bigger. He has a much bigger company and and can handle that more. But why is he allowed to do it? I'm not like, I just, I don't understand why we get so much hate for those stupid, for the dumbest things like that. Like, I don't understand if you were running a company, the way we teach you to run a company,

00:36:52

BEN DELLARIA

It wouldn't matter, right? Most of the comments are like, oh, I can't afford that. What do you mean you can't afford that?

00:36:58

Justin Bond

Right.

00:36:59

BEN DELLARIA

i don't I don't get it. The part doesn't cost you anything if you warranty the part. So you know we're not talking like one guy came on it was like, oh, yeah, but if i mean if you're doing timing chains on a Ford, I'm like, first of all, i'm not doing timing chains on the Ford.

00:37:13

BEN DELLARIA

And no, I'm not going to warranty that past that. I'm going to warranty that up appropriately. So we're talking we're talking your everyday jobs. We're talking your everyday work.

00:37:25

BEN DELLARIA

And when I say I'm not going to warranty that past that, I'm not going to give a lifetime warranty on timing chains. If I buy OEM timing chains and or of what is that? Melon timing chains and kits or whatever I'm buying that is my good quality, I'm buying that and selling that to my customer because I feel that is going to last.

00:37:47

BEN DELLARIA

I would never put a three-year 36 warranty on I love AutoZone, but I would never do it on a Redbox special Duralast throttle position sensor.

00:37:59

BEN DELLARIA

like right I'm not going to do it on a Duralast throttle body.

00:38:00

Justin Bond

Right. Yeah.

00:38:03

BEN DELLARIA

just let's you know Let's use our heads here when we're actually thinking and talking about these things. and That's what you don't get from society. That's what you don't get by putting your information out on online. That is one of the biggest things I i struggle with, is struggling with all of the naysayers. I just had a video on TikTok where um it was doing really well.

00:38:25

BEN DELLARIA

For me, it's doing really well. It was at like 16,000, 17,000 views, but it was all hate. And I'm like, all right, y'all don't like it? Fine. Get out of here. i't Delete. See you later. I don't need the video. I don't need the money by it. I don't need the negative attraction to my channel.

00:38:42

BEN DELLARIA

I want positive attraction to my channel. But again, i went off on a freaking tangent here that I don't even know what I was talking about before. But we started with warranties and stuff like that, but

00:38:53

Justin Bond

But, I mean, in retrospect to that, you should be selling, you should one, you should have you should have enough profit in that repair to hopefully, in in the event, God forbid, you have to warranty something, you should be able to cover that.

00:39:03

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. Well, yeah, because I mean, let's think about it, right?

00:39:05

Justin Bond

Okay.

00:39:07

BEN DELLARIA

Let's say I'm going to use the example, right? And I'll say it straight up. I use more than not. I use Duralast gold starters and alternators brand new. I don't use remanufactured.

00:39:20

BEN DELLARIA

That's if, I'm, you know, if the car is really, really old, um OEM is not available. You know, there's a lot of stipulation in here ah when that's going to be that.

00:39:29

Justin Bond

There's, yeah.

00:39:30

BEN DELLARIA

So, and... I think they really stepped up their game. And guess what? For the past six years, I haven't had failures. Right. And now you get a lot of people like all Dorman sucks.

00:39:42

BEN DELLARIA

No, it doesn't. Dorman is great. I love Dorman because it doesn't fail. Like everyone out here is like, oh, they fail all the time. No, it fails because you probably misdiagnosed or you missed a problem that is creating something to fail.

00:39:55

BEN DELLARIA

And that's where you get all of that stuff.

Customer Service and Warranty Handling

00:39:57

BEN DELLARIA

You get the people that are online that are like, oh, this sucks because they're always failing. yeah It's not really the case. So anyway, and I put, if I put that starter in and,

00:40:10

BEN DELLARIA

In two and a half years, it fails, and it's not covered in oil, and it still looks decent under there because they're not driving through the mud and everything else, and it's just an everyday mom-and-pop driver, right?

00:40:21

BEN DELLARIA

Cool. I'm going to replace it. Why? Because there's no cost in the starter, and if I file a warranty claim, it's anywhere between $50 and $75 worth of my labor rate. So let's just say it's an hour to put the starter in. I'll even call it two hours.

00:40:38

BEN DELLARIA

It's two hours and I'm not going to get $50 worth of it. right Let's say they're going to pay me $75 and my labor rate is $125. I'm going to lose $50 on that one hour labor. If you can't eat $100 on of possibility of not being, of to warranty that and to do that for that customer, you've got an issue.

00:41:00

Justin Bond

Right. Okay.

00:41:02

BEN DELLARIA

I don't think you should eat the $100, but my point being is that if that's going to break the bank for you, then you probably should be looking at the business aspect a little bit differently. Because there's there's too many things at play here that are telling us that, you know, you're not expressing it to the customer saying, listen, this is the warranty we offer. This is what could happen.

00:41:26

BEN DELLARIA

And that needs to be on your paperwork. If you want to charge the customer the additional $50 missing on your labor rate, so do that. The customer is buying that if that's the direction you want to go. I choose not to.

00:41:38

BEN DELLARIA

I'm willing to take the risk. That's why we have profits in the company for breakage, failures of parts, failures on our part of misdiagnosis. That's why profits are are available in that way.

00:41:51

BEN DELLARIA

But it doesn't matter because we can talk about this till we're blue in the face. And most of the people that argue with us are either non-shop owners or they're just technicians that think they know exactly how it is to run a business.

00:41:56

Justin Bond

Absolutely.

00:42:06

BEN DELLARIA

You know, the people that don't come and argue with us are the people that actually run a shop and run it the correct way. Those are the ones who are not tearing us down.

00:42:14

Justin Bond

efficiently

00:42:15

BEN DELLARIA

Those are the ones that are are agreeing with us, but they're not seeing our content. That's fine. I know I'm not a big channel and a big person in this world, but my point is that we need to be doing good like that.

00:42:29

BEN DELLARIA

Again, I don't even know why the hell we were talking about warranty.

00:42:32

Justin Bond

I don't know. I think it was his trip is went back onto the tick tock thing, but you know,

00:42:37

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. Oh, yeah. All the hate that I get on there. I just, I can't stand, I can't stand the keyboard warriors. I'm going to get some shirts made that say keyboard warriors pay my bills, but... I just, I don't understand why everyone thinks that, I mean, that's the internet, it's free speech, but everyone just always wants to get on there and tear you down.

00:42:56

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, we were talking about the crappy, the people that, you know, aren't answering the phone and everything else. But that's go gonna it's not going to change.

00:43:04

Justin Bond

Hmm. and

00:43:04

BEN DELLARIA

Those guys are everywhere no matter what. They're in my area. But I'll be i'll say this too. I think I started this at the right time. When I started this, nobody was posting in the groups about mobile mechanics. And that's why I think that my – I'm not going to say lucky. I'm just going to say I was – I did it at the right time compared to today.

00:43:29

BEN DELLARIA

Six, seven years ago – there was no mo There was mobile mechanics here, but they weren't advertising. They weren't doing what I do. When I bring my trailer around to the auto parts stores, they're like, what?

00:43:39

BEN DELLARIA

You're a what? what are What are you talking about mobile? I was like, yeah, come check it out. I showed them the trailer. Man, immediately, they didn't even have to ask if I knew what the hell i was doing. They're just like, hey, I got a question. I got a problem.

00:43:51

BEN DELLARIA

like So people visualize that. They visualize professionalism just but based on that. And you could be dumb as a box of rocks, and they wouldn't even know it. if But yeah, I don't know, man.

00:44:02

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:44:04

BEN DELLARIA

It's ah you're never going to change the way the world perceives. There's always going to be a customer for everybody as well, too.

00:44:08

Justin Bond

No. Absolutely. And that's just it. the some of the other guys, that there's, you know, all the different mobile mechanics that are posting, ah there's enough work out there for everybody to eat.

00:44:21

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:44:21

Justin Bond

You know, it's it's not like we need to cut each other's throats or any of that stuff or, you know, the race to the bottom. there's There's more than enough work out there for everybody to be able to make a profit, run a business properly, things like that.

00:44:26

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:44:33

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:44:34

Justin Bond

Um...

00:44:34

BEN DELLARIA

You're just not, if you're having that problem and like, and you're posting you're or you're complaining about it, it's just a fear. It's a, it's an irrational fear that you don't need to stress because it's not there.

00:44:46

BEN DELLARIA

It's you create the fear to be there and leave it alone. You'll be fine. Just keep advertising for who you are. The more consistent you'll be, the better.

00:44:52

Justin Bond

Yep.

00:44:54

BEN DELLARIA

I have a video that's coming out ah next week, probably on Tik TOK. Because as you know, you know we we promote using utilizing Facebook um as your marketing, but

Marketing Strategies and Social Media Impact

00:45:10

BEN DELLARIA

non-paid. We we do it as like you know your typical $0 acquisition for a customer. and We base it on direct mailers at that theory, right?

00:45:19

BEN DELLARIA

So for you listening, what we do is we teach you on your personal page personal Facebook page, to join 20 different groups in your area.

00:45:32

BEN DELLARIA

And once a week, we tell you to tag your business page in that group and give a simple little saying about your company,

00:45:43

BEN DELLARIA

that So like for us, it's like, hey, summertime's here.

00:45:45

Justin Bond

Thank you.

00:45:47

BEN DELLARIA

Don't let your vehicle's air conditioning go unchecked. Give 3T's mobile auto repair a call. Here's our phone number. We're open Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. We bring the entire shop right to your front door. And then we put a picture of the trailer open so you can see a car at it with the tools or, you know, with the trailer open.

00:46:04

BEN DELLARIA

No chat GPT thingies like that. If you want one of those as your logo or something, that's cool. But we do that. Every single week in all of the groups, week in and week out, week in and week out.

00:46:17

BEN DELLARIA

And if you stay consistent with it, that's exactly the same way the shops advertise except to your door with a direct mailer.

00:46:18

Justin Bond

Thank you.

00:46:25

BEN DELLARIA

And they pay a bunch of money for that. So it's the same concept. All that they want you to do with those direct mailers is to see it and throw it out. See it and throw it out. And eventually they're going crap, I need an oil change. My car is broke. I keep getting this in the mail. Let me go try this shop out.

00:46:41

BEN DELLARIA

and then they're hoping to gain you at that point. a Little tiny things go really, really far. So by doing that, if you're consistent, people remember you. And then if you post, whenever someone's asking for a mechanic, I don't care what they're asking. I don't care. if They're like, oh, I got my parts. It doesn't matter.

00:47:02

BEN DELLARIA

Post the same thing. Because if you post the same thing, it's free advertising. You know how many people are scouring the comment section, looking at everything? And if you post it different than all the other mobile guys that aren't showing what they really have,

00:47:18

BEN DELLARIA

you're going to stand out and you're going to get the phone call. You're going to get the messages because I guarantee you it's going to work. So my video that's coming out, that's what I was meant to do. The video that's coming out, I had a guy in my neighborhood call last week or sometime.

00:47:36

BEN DELLARIA

and And he, um he was just right off the bat. You could tell his attitude. It was not going to be a customer for me. And, He was, um he want he's like, oh, it's just a brake job. I'm like, okay, I got to come and inspect it, you know, because what's going on? Oh, it started to make a noise. All right I got to look at it. I got to see, you know, bad caliber, bad pins, bad line, you know, what's up?

00:47:59

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, well, I have my pads. Sorry, sir, that's not a job that I would do. I would have to supply it to you because we want to make sure that everything is warrantable and everything is safe for you.

00:48:11

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, okay. I mean, I guess I could do that. All right. That's fine. He's like, well, someone else had tried to work on it and they rounded out a bolt. Oh, okay.

00:48:20

Justin Bond

Mm-hmm.

00:48:21

BEN DELLARIA

That's new information. So now I'm starting to get on the, like the the step back. Cause I'm starting to realize there's more information that he's holding back. Cause he started off with the, Oh, I already bought parts. And then now it was a broken bolt or rounded off bolt.

00:48:34

BEN DELLARIA

Because then he says, Oh, also I tried to do it and I made the bolt worse. Okay. And at this point, he was already griping with me for about five or 10 minutes about the whole ah me supplying parts thing. let's So we got to remember that.

00:48:49

BEN DELLARIA

So even then, so I'm like, okay, I said, listen, sir, we've been going back and forth here. I don't think this is going to be a great relationship for both of us. I'm going to step away and choose not to come and look at your car.

00:49:01

BEN DELLARIA

I'm going to recommend a couple of shops for you. Holy shit. He got pissed. Okay. He was like, really? That's what you're going to do? Yes, I have the right to refuse any customer I'd like.

00:49:10

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:49:13

BEN DELLARIA

I hear so many great things about you on Facebook. I'm going to give my two cents and blah, blah. Okay, you're more than welcome to do that. You have a wonderful day. And I was this polite on the phone. I wasn't being a jerk. I'm never a jerk to people on the phone because I just i i just can't do it.

00:49:29

BEN DELLARIA

So a couple of days go by and he makes a post in my neighborhood, in Rolling Hills, Ocala here where we live. That was the wrong thing to do. He made this post calling me a jerk.

00:49:42

BEN DELLARIA

A couple other simple words, but just saying, I have been to thank because I found this shop and blah, blah, blah.

00:49:46

Justin Bond

Mm-hmm.

00:49:50

BEN DELLARIA

this This post has 75 comments. because I commented back on every single person that commented. And only, I think, three or four had commented saying that they use the shop he went to. And they even said, I've never used Ben, but we hear he's a really nice guy in the neighborhood, but we do use Right Turn Auto. And I even put in there, I said, that's awesome because I recommend Right Turn to everyone. But everybody else was my customer. So over 30 customers of mine came to my defense saying, I'm great, I'm this.

00:50:21

BEN DELLARIA

Even if Ben can't do this job, he declines it and sends me to the proper place and we still – oh, he got – he was so pissed because he thought he was going to tear me a new one.

00:50:28

Justin Bond

I hate it.

00:50:30

BEN DELLARIA

So anyway, this all goes back to what I've been talking about about Facebook. If you do exactly what I say on how to post in there, that is the relationship you don't realize you will build.

00:50:42

BEN DELLARIA

in the background. So don't quit doing it. Keep doing it the way I'm telling you. And that video is going to come out proving that like, this is why I say to use Facebook because you don't realize the community you're building on the backend. You might not see it every single day, but you have to remember it's there because it's going to help you grow the company in time. It does take time, but...

00:51:05

BEN DELLARIA

It's the best. It's going to be the best. It's it's I i was so happy that he made that post because I'm like, this is the greatest thing in the world. Like even someone put.

00:51:12

Justin Bond

Well, I was going to say.

00:51:14

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. Even someone put in there like, wow, Ben works on my cars. I guess Bruce didn't realize that this was going to be this type of video. And he's like, I didn't mean anything by it. Okay. You jerk off.

00:51:25

Justin Bond

Well, think of it all the free advertisement you just got out of there, too.

00:51:28

BEN DELLARIA

Well, yeah. So that's the same thing that it goes back to is like, you there's if you're in a group that's got 12,000 people. Let's just say 1% of those actually come on there and actually look. That's 1,200 people that are looking. I'm sorry, 120 people that are looking at that comment section and seeing your company, right? And that's just a base number on most communities. But if you do that across 20 different communities, that's a lot of people. That's a lot of faces to see your company. And it just works. It works really freaking well.

00:52:01

BEN DELLARIA

And surprise, surprise. There was something else I wanted to say in there and I forgot.

00:52:06

BEN DELLARIA

I just can't remember. So what, um you're going to have to send me a picture of the van so I can put it up on the screen. But what is, um now that my ranting is over, ah what so what are some of your next steps? Like, we know you want to October go out onto your own. Is there anything you're trying to do in between then and now, or you're just biding your time paying the debt?

00:52:29

Justin Bond

Honestly, i'm just I'm just working as hard as I can trying to get the debt paid down or at least get the debt ceiling paid down. um My overhead is is still relatively low in comparison to most people.

00:52:41

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:52:41

Justin Bond

um'm I'm less than $1,000 a month overhead. those all bills paid you know All bills paid, insurance, everything.

00:52:44

BEN DELLARIA

With the company.

00:52:47

BEN DELLARIA

You're still not taking a paycheck though yet, right?

00:52:47

Justin Bond

so

00:52:50

Justin Bond

No, i'm worried I'm just taking the money, paying bills, trying to put the money back and reinvest back into the company.

00:52:50

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:52:56

Justin Bond

um

00:52:56

BEN DELLARIA

Perfect. That's very good way to go.

00:52:57

Justin Bond

because Because I'm also still trying to, you know, obviously I'm still making changes to the setup, making, you know, there's different tool tools and things like that that I want to put in the van that I have in my toolbox type thing.

00:53:03

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:53:11

Justin Bond

But like, I still and to kind of need them. So it's like, okay, I'm just going to buy a secondary set. you know, type thing. And that way I just don't have to transfer back and forth, but you know, or I get somewhere and I don't have a tool that I need.

00:53:20

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:53:23

Justin Bond

And it's like, Oh, now I look like a f freaking idiot, you know, to this customer.

00:53:26

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:53:27

Justin Bond

It's like, Hey, you know, I, I got either got to go buy this tool or go, you know, find it somewhere or go get it so that I can come back and finish your car.

00:53:32

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:53:35

BEN DELLARIA

That is exactly why I built the trailer.

00:53:36

Justin Bond

And, and, you know, to me that doesn't look very professional. You know, I want to be, i want to roll up, diagnose it, get the right part, come back, repair it, start to finish and, you know, be one and done, you know, type thing.

00:53:49

Justin Bond

If hopefully that's how it works out. But, you know, sometimes it doesn't always work out that way, but that's, that's life, you know, in, but, um, yeah, we're trying to do that.

00:53:55

BEN DELLARIA

It is. Yeah.

00:53:58

BEN DELLARIA

it is Yeah.

00:54:03

Justin Bond

Um, obviously still trying to outfit the van a little better. Um, still trying to build clientele, which that's an ever going thing, ongoing thing. Um, But eventually, i want to just get to the point to where it gets, you know, clientele-wise, it's just like, hey, it's time.

00:54:24

Justin Bond

And when we finally get to that point, I'll know.

00:54:29

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, you will. it

00:54:30

Justin Bond

You know?

00:54:31

BEN DELLARIA

Most people do, or they already passed it. They're like, yeah, I should have done this two months ago type of thing.

00:54:36

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:54:36

BEN DELLARIA

and

00:54:36

Justin Bond

um i

00:54:37

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:54:38

Justin Bond

I've got several customers that they're like, When are, because when I basically tell them I'm like, yeah, I'm not full time with it yet. They're like, you're not.

00:54:46

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:54:47

Justin Bond

And they're like, well, when are, when are you going to go full time? And you don't really have an, you know, I don't really want to throw an answer out there to them yet, but it's, it's becoming a consistent thing of, you know, Hey, what are you going to be full time?

00:54:55

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:54:59

Justin Bond

Hey, when are you going to be full time? Because obviously they're seeing that I want to be that full professional setup.

00:55:06

BEN DELLARIA

yeah

00:55:07

Justin Bond

And it's, it's starting to get recognized, which is, that's pretty cool.

00:55:07

BEN DELLARIA

and

00:55:11

BEN DELLARIA

It is. it's It's a big community just for yourself. like You build such... you know You'll become so friendly and so family-oriented with these people over the time. and you know Yeah, you'll have some that you don't get along with, but you're going to have others that just know you like i have some that, you know, my wife will disappear and she's just talking over there like their best friends. And it's like, hello woman, we try to work, you know, and you forget about that, but it's still nice because it keeps that, it keeps that, excuse me.

00:55:46

BEN DELLARIA

It keeps that relationship better. It makes you, yeah sorry, my throat.

00:55:49

Justin Bond

Yep. Make some more... Okay. me

00:55:53

BEN DELLARIA

No, you're right.

00:55:53

Justin Bond

but It makes it more personable.

00:55:54

BEN DELLARIA

It's a, It's more family oriented. It's more impersonable. It's more loving.

00:55:58

Justin Bond

Yeah.

00:55:58

BEN DELLARIA

It's not such a cut and dry. Take here's my money. Thanks for my keys. Have a great day. They don't look at you like, oh, great. Now I got this guy coming to fix my car again. People, when they call, you know, it's the answer. The lady Erica called the other day. She called the first time she's called in a while. Normally she texts and I'm like, what did you do?

00:56:19

BEN DELLARIA

Like, what did you break? And she's like, nothing. i It was this. And then there's coolant on the ground. And I'm like, all right, I'll be there Monday. Thanks. I'll see you. you You know, OK, I got to go to work and I'm going to be here.

00:56:30

BEN DELLARIA

OK, just leave the keys. You know, I got you. Don't worry about, you know, there's so many of them that way, or at least a couple hundred that are that way.

00:56:37

Justin Bond

Yes.

00:56:39

BEN DELLARIA

And it's it's nice to know because ah means that the company is not going anywhere. It means that we're always going to grow. it means that we're going to continue to have great things with this.

00:56:52

BEN DELLARIA

God, I can't talk.

00:56:56

BEN DELLARIA

But it's just, it's such a cool thing. um What, I lost what I was going to ask you again, because I keep freaking coughing.

00:57:08

BEN DELLARIA

um So you're planning on doing that. How many cars you're planning on going ah in October? How many cars are you doing a week now?

Balancing Work and Family Life

00:57:19

Justin Bond

Honestly, depends it depends because i I throttle myself back sometimes because I'm still trying obviously still trying to have that work-life balance with family, you know not blow myself out and all that kind of stuff.

00:57:24

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

00:57:33

Justin Bond

it's anywhere from like I try to keep it to one car a night. I think that's pretty safe. and Then like on a weekend, um I'll have anywhere from one to six, sometimes seven. Yeah.

00:57:44

BEN DELLARIA

that's really cool in the whole weekend yeah so i mean yeah that's that's nice i mean so that's seven what's 13 ish you know 13 to 15 a week that's freaking great like even part-time that's amazing because like that's nearly two-thirds of what i do in general because i throttle myself back if i'm being good otherwise i'm screwing up and i'm doing 30 a week again you know out of nowhere but

00:57:55

Justin Bond

Yeah. So

00:58:12

BEN DELLARIA

You're going to realize how quick those days will fill up once you do finally break the chain between you and the Hyundai dealer because it's going to take over.

00:58:15

Justin Bond

yeah.

00:58:24

BEN DELLARIA

Golly. It's going to take over quicker than you imagine.

00:58:27

Justin Bond

Yeah, because, I mean, you you always you always have that little fear inside of you to make that little jump.

00:58:28

BEN DELLARIA

So...

00:58:34

Justin Bond

And it's like, oh, you know what? You know, you have all the what ifs. and And sometimes at some point you just got to say, hey, let's make the jump. Let's take the leap. And what's the worst that can happen?

00:58:45

Justin Bond

You know, let's exactly.

00:58:45

BEN DELLARIA

You land in the water. yeah so do you Do you listen to Dave Ramsey?

00:58:53

Justin Bond

A little bit, not.

00:58:54

BEN DELLARIA

Or follow his path with like paying off debt? um He says that, well, he's like, you know just get that boat really close to the dock before you jump. Otherwise, you're going to land in the water and then you're going to have to climb back into the boat.

00:59:04

Justin Bond

Correct.

00:59:07

BEN DELLARIA

So you don't want to jump out and go do something when you have too much debt. And then you have to climb back into the dealership to finish paying the debt so you can do your own thing. You're going to gonna get your feet wet and your face wet, and you're going feel dumb, and you're going to feel horrible, and one of them you're going to – or you're going quit, and we don't want that. We want you to succeed in mobile, and so if you're listening, don't do it because you think right off the bat you're going to make what I make. like It's not going to happen. It took me six years to make what I make.

00:59:43

BEN DELLARIA

but I also accumulated a lot of unnecessary expense at the same time. So you got to remember that as well, that it's not cheap to run you know a high revenue company. you have to You have to spend money to make money. That's one of the hardest things I get people to understand, especially with TechMetric. Like, oh man, I'd love TechMetric, but it's really expensive.

01:00:04

BEN DELLARIA

Really? You're paying $60 a month for this. TechMetric's $200. At the minimum. So $140, you can't make extra in a month to pay a bill.

01:00:17

BEN DELLARIA

If you want to make more money, get a program like that and you're going to be fine. It's it's a break job. I think I have helped so many people by making them realize, oh you're right. Like one break job. That's all it takes for me to pay for that.

01:00:30

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, that's it.

01:00:30

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:00:31

BEN DELLARIA

It's just a break job. You can't sell a break job in 31 days. Come on, man. I'll even give you February. It's 28 days. Let's go.

01:00:40

BEN DELLARIA

But I mean, it's just, I don't know, man.

01:00:44

Justin Bond

And.

01:00:44

BEN DELLARIA

Hang on one second for me

01:00:48

BEN DELLARIA

y'all. Sorry about that. I had to go get a cough drop because my throat is, it was stopping me from being able to talk. All right. So we were just talking about TechMetric and, or just like, you know, understanding the value in in tooling. We, I like to say it's tooling because Most people look at it as just an expense, but if you look at it as a tool, you're going to change your view on that. but um So how have you how have you been having have you been having any issues with customers or anything like that since you started doing this, or how was that that transition?

01:01:25

BEN DELLARIA

Because if you were working in the shops and the dealers, you probably weren't a service writer or anything like that. Yeah.

01:01:32

Justin Bond

No, one of the independents I was at, I actually did do, I would create some of my quotes and I would talk to some of the customers quite often. um And just kind of, because one of the writers we had was kind of pretty dumb.

01:01:41

BEN DELLARIA

Okay, that's cool.

01:01:45

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. ah

01:01:48

Justin Bond

Which is, I mean, it's everywhere, but...

01:01:50

BEN DELLARIA

Jeez, yeah.

01:01:50

Justin Bond

um it's It's been a little bit of a transition, but I truly enjoy it because I'm able to, i it's a learning curve too. um You know, trying to be able to explain things to a customer without over explaining things and making things confusing for

01:02:06

BEN DELLARIA

yeah

01:02:07

Justin Bond

I think that's a big um learning curve for a technician going into that service writer position role.

01:02:15

BEN DELLARIA

It's not easy.

01:02:15

Justin Bond

It's like, It isn't. Um, cause I'm a technical guy. So I, you know, I go way down to the deep end of things and I'm way over explaining things to most people.

01:02:27

BEN DELLARIA

You're mansplaining.

01:02:29

Justin Bond

Well, I got, I got to a lot of times.

01:02:29

BEN DELLARIA

one It's mechanicsplaining.

01:02:32

Justin Bond

Right. A lot of times I got to stop myself and I'm just like, no, okay, this is broke.

01:02:32

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:02:36

Justin Bond

You need this. And you know, let's let's move on.

01:02:38

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:02:39

Justin Bond

Um, but, uh, what were we talking about? Um, it's, uh,

01:02:45

BEN DELLARIA

Customers.

01:02:47

Justin Bond

The customer base has been a little different. um

01:02:51

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

01:02:53

Justin Bond

I guess in retrospect to that, because the... trying to I'm trying to put the words out. um The...

01:03:09

Justin Bond

I'm drawing a blank here. I'm sorry.

01:03:10

BEN DELLARIA

All right. If you haven't noticed, I've been doing that like 17 times during this whole session here.

01:03:16

Justin Bond

um

01:03:16

BEN DELLARIA

and Customers ain't easy. that It's a learning curve.

01:03:19

Justin Bond

No.

01:03:21

BEN DELLARIA

You get a different breed of a customer that wants a mobile guy. And those are typically the ones that we don't keep. Because in reality, most people don't realize that that same customer...

01:03:37

BEN DELLARIA

goes to the shops because before there was mobile guys, there's only shops. So that same customer that wants to try to dictate the outcome, like the, you know, the guy that wanted to deal that with me, it's just, you're going to run into them no matter what you're going to run into them a little more frequently as this, because they're going to assume that you're cheap.

01:03:58

BEN DELLARIA

They're going to assume that you're going to work with them on the, you know, how many times you see a post that says, Hey, I got a starter. I need someone to put in. I got $60 cash. Like, go pound sand.

01:04:09

BEN DELLARIA

I'm good. Like, that im might like I'm not going to comment on that one, you know, because there ain't no one looking in the comment section for, our you know, Billy Bob at six, you know, six pack of Natty Ice.

01:04:15

Justin Bond

Right.

01:04:21

BEN DELLARIA

But and it's, but yeah, there's definitely, you're going to meet some really unique people and you're going to learn that,

01:04:24

Justin Bond

Yeah. ah

01:04:32

BEN DELLARIA

you're going to learn to be able to judge people pretty quick. And I don't mean judge them in that type of way. I mean, like you're going to learn right off the bat, certain things that some customers are going to say to you that you're, it's all going to mean the same thing.

01:04:46

BEN DELLARIA

And that's okay. That's that type of person. Like it's all psychology. It hap, it just is. And if you've never been a service writer before, you're not going to understand, you're never going to understand that until you do this.

01:04:58

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:04:59

BEN DELLARIA

And then you'll start to learn it and you're like, Oh shit. Like, This ain't easy, you know?

01:05:03

Justin Bond

Yeah. And i guess I guess one thing that i'm I'm starting to learn is all people care about is be honest with them.

01:05:10

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:05:11

Justin Bond

You know, ah people are so used to getting screwed over and not knowing it.

01:05:16

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:05:17

Justin Bond

um that I think they're just, it just comes second nature now. So a lot of times when people find somebody that's truthful, honest about them, say, Hey, look, you need this and this and this, and you know, this can wait a little bit.

01:05:29

Justin Bond

People really appreciate that.

01:05:31

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:05:31

Justin Bond

Not, you know, where they're just trying to, you're trying to sell them a complete wallet flush and every God given thing on this earth, you know, and next thing you know, they're spending 10, 15 grand that, you know, dealer or shop when they really

01:05:45

BEN DELLARIA

didn't have to yeah and that's not to say that some of that stuff in reality is not good for a vehicle as far as the preventative or longevity but it's just a recommendation from the manufacturer it's not a you must do this from the manufacturer you know talking about like a like a brake flush or something like that had someone text me the other day i've got a 2024 and they want to sell me a brake flush what like why Like, I mean, I get that it's a ah recommended service and they want to keep the fluid nice and clean and fresh.

01:05:46

Justin Bond

Didn't necessarily need to. They really appreciate that.

01:06:16

BEN DELLARIA

So the system stays fresh and clean for longevity ah longevity of the car. But don't come to me with that. I'm not doing that. i'm not I'm not going to be able to do it as fresh and clean as the dealership can.

01:06:28

BEN DELLARIA

But I just don't believe in doing that at a year and a half to two years old, a year and a half old vehicle.

01:06:33

Justin Bond

none Yeah. Not at that kind of mileage. No.

01:06:36

BEN DELLARIA

No, the I mean, I think he had less than 20,000 miles on the car. and I'm like, dude, you don't even need your first brake job yet. Like, calm down. Like, you've only had, like, what, two or three oil changes. Like, you you'll be fine.

01:06:48

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:06:48

BEN DELLARIA

You know, change your transmission and your differential fluid. When the time comes, that's the biggest things I think you should be changing on a truck because it's just going to – those are the big-ticket items to fix.

01:06:56

Justin Bond

100%. Yeah. Yeah.

01:07:00

BEN DELLARIA

Cooling system, you're going to have a hole in a radiator. You're going to have a water pump that fails. you're going to get most of all your coolant replaced at that point. you know Brake fluid, okay. you know You're not going to replace all of it, but by the time a caliper or a master cylinder fails. But I mean, yeah the day and age of you know a 1984 truck that still has the same brake fluid in it for the past 45 years, that world is gone.

01:07:28

BEN DELLARIA

just looked

01:07:28

Justin Bond

Yes.

01:07:30

BEN DELLARIA

um i just looked at a 2022 Hyundai ah Accent yesterday needs a catalytic converter. 2022, and he's got over 100,000 miles on it already, and the thing's already trashed.

01:07:43

BEN DELLARIA

Such a a waste of a car at that point for how bad he needs stuff. you know no preventative maintenance over the years and no repairs done. um So that goes back to like we're saying, it's only two and a half years old. Well, he's only four years old and he's got a hundred thousand. So, I mean, it really depends on how hard you're driving it. If you should actually do those flushes or not.

01:08:07

BEN DELLARIA

So, but that's the thing that I think that we bring to our customers attention more than most shops and most dealers. i'm not going to say all because there's also really, really good places out there.

01:08:20

BEN DELLARIA

I just wish, I just wish some of them more were near me versus the ones that are not.

01:08:20

Justin Bond

ah percent

01:08:25

BEN DELLARIA

But yeah, There is a handful of shops that I will recommend customers to that do the right thing. I just wish that there was some better ones.

01:08:35

Justin Bond

I would agree. We've got, I've got a handful of shops that I say, Hey, you know, if this is out of my wheelhouse. This is where you need to go for that particular vehicle.

01:08:43

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. oh

01:08:44

Justin Bond

Or, or if it's something that, yep, 100%.

01:08:45

BEN DELLARIA

Because not all the time you can do it.

01:08:47

Justin Bond

No.

01:08:48

BEN DELLARIA

I love

Challenges and Future Prospects

01:08:49

BEN DELLARIA

so hearing. I love seeing the Facebook post. oh I need an alignment. Is there a mobile guy that can do it? no there's not. And then I got one guy, I commented on a guy's thing one time. I was like, dude, you need an alignment. You need to go to a shop.

01:09:03

BEN DELLARIA

I've been doing this 25 years. I know better than you do. Okay. You tell me how you're going to do an alignment mobily with some string and a tape measure and it's going to be perfect.

01:09:15

BEN DELLARIA

No, i don't I don't care who you are.

01:09:15

Justin Bond

Yep.

01:09:17

BEN DELLARIA

like You're going get it close. But that's the problem. like If a car is in the air and you jack it up, You would have to put it under the suspension because you have to try to mimic turning plates on a lift. Right. So you'd have to put it up on that.

01:09:34

BEN DELLARIA

And then your little tape measure doesn't mean it's the same on the distances you're measuring off of the frame rail. Anything could be bent, could be moved. That's why they put the damn lasers on the wheels, but you're never not Jesus Christ.

01:09:48

BEN DELLARIA

Like I'm going into,

01:09:48

Justin Bond

Yeah, we could go down a whole rabbit hole there.

01:09:50

BEN DELLARIA

I'm going into a real a realm where we don't need to. So it doesn't matter. and We're not going to talk about that, but we're getting close to the end here anyway. But so you're going to go, you're going to go full time in October.

01:10:02

BEN DELLARIA

Are you excited for it? Or like, are you itching?

01:10:05

Justin Bond

I am.

01:10:05

BEN DELLARIA

the How much more? um I wouldn't say, don't tell us how much more debt you got to pay off, but you think it's only going to be October. You think going be able to get it done sooner.

01:10:14

Justin Bond

As long as I keep my head down and keep working, 100%, I think I can do it.

01:10:16

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. Don't buy any more dirt bikes.

01:10:21

Justin Bond

Well, that's a given, but that's a thing that gets get older and

01:10:26

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. Kids get older and they need bigger ones.

01:10:28

Justin Bond

that's a fact.

01:10:30

BEN DELLARIA

My daughter's getting married this year. That's expensive.

01:10:32

Justin Bond

oo Yeah, that's expensive.

01:10:34

BEN DELLARIA

Yep. we're We're nearly there. i was supposed to that was supposed to go to ASTA last year outside of the fact of the money because she came to us and said she was getting married.

01:10:47

BEN DELLARIA

it's also the stress level of, of going to do that. I was supposed to go to Texas in April and I couldn't do that. Not out of the stress level. And it was, I wouldn't have even had to put a lot of money out to do it because of the talks that I was having with the people. But, um, I don't, I mentally, I couldn't, I know that as the time would have gotten closer, I would have, I would have started to freak out.

01:11:10

BEN DELLARIA

I have a lot of anxiety and panic attack stuff. Um, Um, so like, I'll be like gung ho about something. And the closer it gets, I'm like, eh, I don't think I want to do that now.

01:11:24

BEN DELLARIA

So like, you know, as October gets here, I'm hoping you're not going to feel like I would typically feel.

01:11:30

Justin Bond

Right. Well, I can say that last year we went to ASTA and obviously I was hoping, you know, you were going to be there because I, you know, would have liked to meet you and all that stuff.

01:11:41

BEN DELLARIA

We were, I think we were talking about that on Tik TOK.

01:11:41

Justin Bond

But we were, but I can tell you that the amount of contacts and training and networking that I was able to do there and all the different people that we met was unbelievable.

01:11:43

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. Yeah.

01:11:56

BEN DELLARIA

That's awesome.

01:11:56

Justin Bond

I mean, if if it's if it's feasible for anybody, Go out, go out to these events, get training. The, you know, just some of the training classes that we took were phenomenal.

01:12:07

BEN DELLARIA

So let's stay on for a little bit here then. So tell us about your experience at ASTA then.

01:12:14

Justin Bond

It was great. um I took more of technical classes and my wife took more of like marketing and ah service advisor classes and management classes, I guess you could say. So yes, I brought my wife i brought my wife along too, which we both had a good time.

01:12:24

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

01:12:26

BEN DELLARIA

That's awesome.

01:12:28

Justin Bond

um You know, we met some really great people. um I did a couple of classes that I took. It was like, it some of the stuff was like, oh yeah, I kind of forgot. ah You know, I kind of forgot about that kind of stuff. Like,

01:12:42

Justin Bond

It was it is like, okay, let's so you know simplify some of this drivability stuff. ah Brandon Stuckler had a freaking phenomenal class, man.

01:12:50

BEN DELLARIA

Man, I love Brandon Seckler stuff. I was just watching Jeb Beard this morning and he was praising him again too.

01:12:52

Justin Bond

He...

01:12:55

BEN DELLARIA

So sorry, go ahead.

01:12:56

Justin Bond

Yeah, I mean, dude, it was a phenomenal class. And then, you know, all these guys, they they they'll sit there and stay after and talk to you for... hours just you know talking about different things or you know these guys are giving their personal numbers out and stuff to say hey look if you run into an issue you know email email me call me whatever of what's going on you know i'm gonna do my best to help you out but

01:13:05

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:13:19

BEN DELLARIA

I, that man, I, I, God, I have to give this all to check engine Chuck for that because the only reason why I got on Tik TOK.

01:13:23

Justin Bond

like

01:13:26

BEN DELLARIA

So like Lucas Underwood did that with me. He's like, yeah, man, just call me anytime. I've never called him, but because I feel odd if I were to do that, but it's still like the only person I talked to on a personal basis outside of like the group is Jeff from Jada mechanic and check engine Chuck, Richard. There's the only real two people that I speak to on a personal basis and a little bit with um ah Chris Enright.

01:13:52

BEN DELLARIA

Not much, just a little bit. I haven't gotten super friendly with him yet, but yeah, that networking at those places, man, like I can't wait to be able to, to do that. And I'm really hoping we get to ASTA this year.

01:14:03

BEN DELLARIA

So if you're going to go again this year, um you know, we'll get together, but um I just have, i have like another,

01:14:08

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:14:12

BEN DELLARIA

I don't know, 18,000 to get an order for the wedding.

01:14:12

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:14:16

BEN DELLARIA

I have nine sitting off to the side right now. So I'm halfway there, plus all the others that we've already done in the meantime. So we should be well done within the next month or two so that we can order the tickets and everything else. And you know it should be just fine.

01:14:34

BEN DELLARIA

And if I order everything, then I can't go back on it. Well, kind of, because I ordered it all last year and I still was able to get a refund, but I didn't expect her to come to me and say, we're getting married.

01:14:38

Justin Bond

I

01:14:45

BEN DELLARIA

So anyway, continue. Tell me, tell me more about it. What other classes did you take? Who did you meet?

01:14:56

Justin Bond

um i think I took a class with Jim Morton. um I briefly met the

01:15:05

Justin Bond

I can't put their names out there because i brain fart, but a couple of the different classes was a Pico scope and scope classes. Um, that's something that I need more training on.

01:15:14

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:15:18

Justin Bond

Um, you know, what you can never stop training, but I need to, I need to buy scope flat out.

01:15:18

BEN DELLARIA

Oh,

01:15:27

Justin Bond

And, um, that was something, yes, I've known about them, but there's a lot of different things that it would make diagnostics a lot easier. and yeah yeah this the one class that i took um gosh i can't remember his name but they were just showing us all the different little tricks you know the in-cylinder pressure transducers and obviously um you know doing injector patterns and that kind of stuff uh you know compress you know the compression stuff it was just like

01:15:37

BEN DELLARIA

Knowing all the little tricks. Yeah. That's cool.

01:16:05

Justin Bond

these guys have pretty much verified 90% of this car's ability to be able to run within 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And it's like, what?

01:16:16

BEN DELLARIA

It's so funny that that's what talking about.

01:16:17

Justin Bond

And, you know, and these guys really aren't going super in depth on the car.

01:16:18

BEN DELLARIA

I just watched a video this morning.

01:16:24

Justin Bond

Like, you know, they're not really taking a whole lot of stuff apart versus, you know, the old school days where you're pulling out a compression gauge, checking compression and doing leak down tests and,

01:16:25

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, it's simple. Yeah.

01:16:34

Justin Bond

you know Then you're going in and, okay, you know do I have a timing problem? Okay, so now I'm going to manually pull the cover off and take all that time and verify that it's in spec and blah, blah, blah.

01:16:40

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:16:43

Justin Bond

But, you know, i mean, scan tools have come a long way. And on the newer cars, you know, data has gotten a lot better. So you can see on a lot of cars, you know, where your timing is at and that kind of thing. But sometimes it doesn't quite pick it up either.

01:16:52

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:16:55

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:16:55

Justin Bond

um And sometimes you need a scope to say, hey, you know, this... you know, this exhaust cams off, you know, by a couple of degrees and you know, the VVT actuator slipped on the cam chaff.

01:17:08

BEN DELLARIA

and Yeah, because you could even do – I just watched Scanner Daner doing it. you know the crank The crank pulley sheared and moved.

01:17:18

BEN DELLARIA

So yes, your timing marks are still perfect, but ah the engine still out of time because the timing marks only go to the to the gear on the front of the camshaft or the crank.

01:17:31

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:17:32

BEN DELLARIA

It doesn't matter. You could be turned on the that. And I even watched ah Pine High Low had the same thing. This was the greatest feedback on his because he was doing it for a shop that had done a DOD delete.

01:17:44

BEN DELLARIA

And somehow they put the cam gear completely 180 out on the cam. And we are talking to the damn degree that he found, like 100%, 180 degrees, because the vehicle would run What?

01:18:05

BEN DELLARIA

It would run if you unplug the cam signal because if you left the cam sensor plugged in, it wouldn't it would stop firing the high-pressure pump.

01:18:17

BEN DELLARIA

So if you unplugged it, the computer was smart enough to learn which cycle the crank was on to match the cam, and it freaking worked. He's like mind-blown. Even I was too. I'm like, that is a once-in-a-lifetime, and it's not just saying it's once-in-a-lifetime. It was a once-in-a-lifetime issue that he ran into there. That guy...

01:18:40

BEN DELLARIA

is lucky that he put that cam gear on exact. And I mean, exactly when he shows the picture of the marker, like, Holy crap. Like that would never happen again. Because if he had just done 45 degrees, he would have bent valves.

01:18:52

BEN DELLARIA

And of pure fact that he was able to do that and nothing bent in, it ran like go buy lottery tickets today, bro.

01:18:52

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:18:57

Justin Bond

Amazing.

01:18:59

BEN DELLARIA

Like, come on. So like all that world, like That's what a lot of guys miss is like, oh, yeah, diagnosis of this. No. because so like going I was talking about that that video I was watching this morning with Zeb Beard. He had it posted.

01:19:14

BEN DELLARIA

He's ah doing a relative compression check and along with an intake pressure transducer um and a trigger on cylinder. Just an old, I think it was an 8.1 liter Chevy. I think it was on.

01:19:28

BEN DELLARIA

And he ah he's like, yeah, the other shop, they're just they're sold a knock sensor and, ah you know, a plug. He's like, why are we doing that? Like, I didn't have to take anything apart.

01:19:39

BEN DELLARIA

And he goes through the process and Zeb is very he's very down to earth. He's very upfront. and And I really like him a lot. Zeb Beard with ah Diesel something rather in Arizona or wherever he's at.

01:19:49

Justin Bond

stroke st Stroker's diesel, I think.

01:19:50

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, Stroker Diesel.

01:19:52

Justin Bond

Yep.

01:19:52

BEN DELLARIA

and um But same thing, at the event, like I would love to meet those guys you know and and you know pick their brains a little bit more about you know certain – not him about like diagnosis, just him and like who he is because he's kind of neat of a character.

01:20:05

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:20:07

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:20:08

Justin Bond

And that's one of the things that I thought was really cool about ASCA was I think it was Saturday night, Friday night or Saturday night, whichever night it was. They had like a kind of like an after party type thing where, and everybody just kind of went in You've got to, they had a lot of stuff going on there.

01:20:17

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:20:23

Justin Bond

is pretty neat. They had games and stuff. Obviously they had drinks and whatnot, but they had some speakers up there talking, but you can pretty much go around and bingle, talk to everybody.

01:20:27

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:20:32

Justin Bond

Um, you know, we talked to, you know, that you some of the tech talk names, you know, topless mechanic Chuck, um,

01:20:32

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:20:39

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:20:40

Justin Bond

We talked to Zeb Beard for a little bit. It was, you know, just talking to getting around and talking to all the different, you know, TikTok stars and things like that. That was cool. That was cool in itself.

01:20:50

BEN DELLARIA

yeah

01:20:51

Justin Bond

um But there's, I think that at ASCA, I think that there's a little bit for everybody there. The,

01:21:00

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:21:01

Justin Bond

they And we, I mean, we took a class, both me and my wife took the one class of a, it was just about media. um He was, he he had went through because he had started a digital media company and brought it up and sold it. And I can't think of the name of it right now. it was, it was some funky name.

01:21:21

Justin Bond

um But he was basically going through showing us all the different things of what equipment that he had just for doing social media stuff. um or doing actual videos of, you know, don't walk through videos, you know, going through interviewing, interviewing your employees, your techs, and just kind of talking about yourself and trying to bring that inviting feeling to make people want to come to you.

01:21:40

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:21:48

Justin Bond

I was like, I didn't realize how much of an effect that made and trying to get like a professional scale video to do that.

01:21:48

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:21:58

Justin Bond

And that part of it kind of blew my mind there. It was just like, like i say, i mean, there's, there's so many classes there and there's so much going on that my little brain sometimes ah halfway through the class, you know, it's like, okay, I, I would zone out a little bit.

01:22:12

BEN DELLARIA

yeah

01:22:13

Justin Bond

And, and, and you could see a lot of guys, like you could see like Chris Enright and, uh, you know, check engine chunk and some of those guys, they were, they would just start bouncing around from class to class to class. Cause,

01:22:24

Justin Bond

I think we're all the same, you know, I think we're all the same way, you know, we get, we sit there for so long and like, okay, this is about all I can take of this.

01:22:24

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:22:30

Justin Bond

And then we're going to go, you know, sit in another class and, you know, that kind of stuff.

01:22:35

BEN DELLARIA

That was my biggest fear going there is like, I didn't, I don't, I don't like the unknown. And you're helping with that a lot, which is good because I'm more nervous about like signing up to go. I'm like, oh man, I signed up for this class.

01:22:50

BEN DELLARIA

I got to be in this thing from 8 a.m.

01:22:50

Justin Bond

All right.

01:22:51

BEN DELLARIA

till 12 or like all or yeah, like what was it like? It was morning classes and afternoon classes, right?

01:22:56

Justin Bond

Yeah, they had morning and afternoon classes. And for the most part, I sat through all of them just because I wanted to go there and take in as much as I could.

01:23:03

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:23:03

Justin Bond

And.

01:23:03

BEN DELLARIA

But I'd be the same.

01:23:03

Justin Bond

Yep.

01:23:04

BEN DELLARIA

I'm like, okay, like this was the wrong class for Ben to take because Ben can't concentrate.

01:23:08

Justin Bond

Yep.

01:23:09

BEN DELLARIA

I need to do something else. So I don't want to be disrespectful and be listen, bud, I'm sorry. I just can't sit and listen to you because I just, I can't get into it. You know, even though I like the person or something, I just, or the subject might, I can't do it.

01:23:22

BEN DELLARIA

So I'd be too, ah but if if you're saying that they're like going to different classes, I'm like all right, yeah, let's go. Like,

01:23:27

Justin Bond

Dude, sometimes it would be like you would go out for you would go out for break. They break it like the halfway point of the morning class or afternoon class or whatever.

01:23:35

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:23:35

Justin Bond

You'd come back and you'd come back and half the class would be gone. And you're like, did I miss the memo?

01:23:38

BEN DELLARIA

Oh, yeah.

01:23:41

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, exactly.

01:23:42

Justin Bond

okay

01:23:43

BEN DELLARIA

Like, oh, I screwed up.

01:23:44

Justin Bond

yeah

01:23:44

BEN DELLARIA

Everyone's at recess and I'm in here, you know, doing this.

01:23:45

Justin Bond

Or you're right. Or people, are you know, or people are down there walking around like the trade show floor down there talking to other people or, you know, they're just everywhere.

01:23:54

BEN DELLARIA

Okay. yeah

01:23:55

Justin Bond

It's it's.

01:23:55

BEN DELLARIA

So that's, I have to go this year that I have to, I have to buckle down a little bit more. And stop buying crap. And I got to get this. I got to get everything in order because I really, really want to go. I've been I've been talking with Jeff for so many years. I can't wait to meet him face to face. And, you know, same with Chuck and everything else. And you and everybody that I've grown to network with on TikTok through my channel.

01:24:19

BEN DELLARIA

And, you know, it's I can't I got to do it. I can't. ah Yeah. Anyway. So anyone listening, get your butts moving, get to a freaking training event because there's no reason not to.

01:24:25

Justin Bond

And yeah,

01:24:32

Justin Bond

a hundred percent.

01:24:34

BEN DELLARIA

um So I, obviously I, you guys planning to go again this year or what?

01:24:39

Justin Bond

I am. Yeah, a hundred percent.

01:24:40

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

01:24:40

Justin Bond

I definitely want to go. I think because we drove up there last time. I don't and i don't know if I want to fly this year or not.

01:24:45

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. i plan to do the same.

01:24:49

Justin Bond

But man, it was like I think it took us like eight and a half or nine hours to get there when we drove last time.

01:24:53

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. Yeah, and you're like ah two ah and a half hours south of me, I think.

01:24:55

Justin Bond

But

01:25:01

Justin Bond

yeah, about three hours.

01:25:02

BEN DELLARIA

About, well, yeah, it's about three hours south. Because my parents are in ah parents are in Fort Lauderdale, and that'll take me a good four to five hours depending on the day, especially if Turnpike is packed down by West Palm Beach.

01:25:15

BEN DELLARIA

It's usually a pretty good shot until I hit Orlando, and then Orlando's a little packed. if there's no issue there, then it's usually smooth sailing until I hit Fort Pierce. And then once I get through Fort Pierce area, it's usually pretty

Lifestyle Aspirations and Future Moves

01:25:30

BEN DELLARIA

good. And then West Palm Beach, it's usually just stuck from West Palm Beach to Sawgrass Expressway in Coral Springs.

01:25:39

BEN DELLARIA

It's madhouse. And then i can take I can get off there or take the Sawgrass Expressway over towards the ah the mall. Sawgrass Mills Mall because that's where they still live.

01:25:51

BEN DELLARIA

And it's usually that's what takes us hours to do that part of it versus the drive down there.

01:25:58

Justin Bond

Oh man, traffic down there is terrible now. It's getting worse up here because they're migrating north, but it's, yeah.

01:26:04

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:26:06

BEN DELLARIA

They are ah here outside. I mean, you know, when I moved here, there was no one around me already this year. There's, I can't even count them anymore. It's got to be 20, 30 houses that I can see just by going out my front door now.

01:26:20

BEN DELLARIA

So we're ready to go. We're ready. soon as this wedding's done and I get a few more things paid off next year, ah what we're going to sell and we're going to be getting ready to leave. At least in my mind, I am.

01:26:32

BEN DELLARIA

I want to go find a place where I can...

01:26:34

Justin Bond

Hmm.

01:26:35

BEN DELLARIA

If I go up, do you follow his name? i can't remember his first name right now, but and he changed his name. Now it's called the Plank Project or something like that. He lives just north ah west northwest of me in Levy County, which is right on the border of Marion County. He's got a shop at his house.

01:26:56

BEN DELLARIA

not really supposed to, um but he doesn't have any problems. Even the city uses him and stuff like that. So there's kind of like a, there's kind of like a, a don't give a crap in that area.

01:27:07

BEN DELLARIA

Cause I'm looking to, with all the content that I make, I would rather make the content in a controlled area versus like,

01:27:07

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:27:16

BEN DELLARIA

In the field all the time. Like I like the, in the field, my YouTube videos are really cool. Cause I like doing, it's all I do is I just film my entire day. It's just easier now. Just film the entire day, put it out, like it or don't like it instead of like, you know, Oh, I got a diagnostic video. Oh, I got this repair video. I don't do that anymore.

01:27:33

BEN DELLARIA

But tick tock on the subjects and everything else. I want like more of a shop atmosphere for that. And I want to have a shop on my property. Cause I got so many projects I want to start and things I want to do for myself.

01:27:45

BEN DELLARIA

that I want to put a ah shop on my property and where I live now, we only have a quarter acre. I want to get some land. Five acres is like a hundred grand out there right now. um Not bad because it it'd be 70,000 to buy one acre in my neighborhood.

01:27:57

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:28:01

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:28:02

BEN DELLARIA

It's nuts.

01:28:02

Justin Bond

We're the wife. Honestly, the wife wants to move to South Carolina because we have some family up there.

01:28:07

BEN DELLARIA

Okay.

01:28:07

Justin Bond

And she keeps talking about She's like, oh, you know, in a couple of years, we're going to, you know, just sell sell everything down here and move north because I want but i want land, you know.

01:28:16

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:28:17

Justin Bond

but land ride you know Go back, go hunt, you know let's ride whatever.

01:28:22

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah.

01:28:22

Justin Bond

but

01:28:23

BEN DELLARIA

It's exactly why I bought this neighborhood. So I can have my four wheeler and my dirt bikes and stuff like that. Like I said, great. I don't have that dirt bike anymore because I hurt myself on it. And I was like yeah, it's probably too big of a bike. I should get rid of that. So now I just stick with my four wheelers, but I, I went out front to do a, we live on dirt roads. That's why I bought in this area. So there's no HOA where dirt roads, we could rip around on dirt bikes and do anything we want. right out front of my house in the road. It's not really a road, but it's the road.

01:28:52

BEN DELLARIA

It's not soft. It's pretty rocky, like lime rock. I was like, ah, I'm going to do a donut.

01:28:59

BEN DELLARIA

That didn't work out. My left foot got caught on a rock. The bike bounced, and I did a split in the road and tore my hamstring.

01:29:02

Justin Bond

Oh,

01:29:05

Justin Bond

yeah Jesus.

01:29:06

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah, but it was bad. It was on my 42nd birthday in October. Yeah. Two years ago? No, 43rd birthday, I think. it was like a year and a half ago or something like that.

01:29:20

BEN DELLARIA

And so my son and his wife were coming over. So I'm in the middle of the road. Dirt bike's on its side. My wife's like, what the hell? I'm laying on the ground.

01:29:31

BEN DELLARIA

My youngest son is standing there. My son and his wife come pulling around the corner and that's what they see. They see me laying in the road, the dirt bike on its side.

01:29:39

Justin Bond

As his dad laid out.

01:29:40

BEN DELLARIA

Yeah. They're like, what the hell are you doing? i'm like, ah, I got hurt. So all the way out on my front rocky area, I had to army crawl backwards, like with one leg in the air. And i was horrible because I stood up and I was like, I put my left leg down and I'm like, why is my right leg not touching the ground? Like it's swinging in the air because my left was so long because I ripped that hamstring.

01:30:07

BEN DELLARIA

Man, from my butt cheek to my ankle three days later was black. And I'm like, oh, that's that's bad. That's some damage.

01:30:14

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:30:15

BEN DELLARIA

So I got rid of it because I knew that i was I'm not 20 and 16 anymore. i can't I can't take chance to do it anymore.

01:30:21

Justin Bond

Oh, no. I know that

01:30:24

BEN DELLARIA

I can't.

01:30:26

Justin Bond

I'm definitely learning that I don't heal like I used to the older I get.

01:30:30

BEN DELLARIA

And I don't even care about like the heel part. it's the My mind doesn't tell me to not do it. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do this. Like the bike was down for a couple of weeks because I was waiting on a new petcock for it. It was leaking.

01:30:44

BEN DELLARIA

And got it got put back together. I just started it up, let it run. I was like, oh I'm going to jump on it real quick. So I didn't put my helmet on, my gloves, nothing. So I go out on the road and I'm wheeling it on a two-stroke down a road and going as hard as I can.

01:31:00

BEN DELLARIA

I'm like, I should probably slow down because like I'm in you know fourth gear as pegged as I could be. And this bike can do at max probably 70 miles an hour at least.

01:31:11

BEN DELLARIA

So I'm like, I should stop because I'm going to die.

01:31:11

Justin Bond

Yeah.

01:31:14

BEN DELLARIA

And sure enough, I'm like, oh, now let's do a donut, you idiot. And that's when I tore my hamstring. And I'm like, babe, I'm hurt. ah Can we go take some pictures of the bike? Because I'm going to die if I don't do this now.

01:31:26

BEN DELLARIA

So anyway, that's where we leave you today with Ben and his psychoticness. So Justin, man, I really appreciate it. Everyone that's listening, i appreciate you guys. And take the information in this like to heart. Don't take it to heart, but definitely take to heart the training because you guys can get to one of these events. It's really going to drastically change the way you think about your business and everything you're doing. So either way, I appreciate you all. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.