How to Run a 12 Million Dollar Shop With Glenn Piccolo

What's up superstars? It's Joe Adams from Adams Automotive, the number one automotive repair facility in the country. This is episode two of Master Tech to Millionaire presented by Autoshop Answers. Today, I will be sitting in the room with the man himself, Glenn Piccolo, the number one general manager in the country.

He is the manager of our flagship location, the building I'm standing in today. His record year is $12.25 million in annualized revenue out of four walls. His record month is $1.2 million in revenue in June of 2023. He's a leader.

He is the number one trainer in the country through AutoShop Answers. He's a partner in everything we do, Houston-Boston partner. And more than that, he's a wonderful man, and he's like a brother to me. He's an incredible person.

So, Glenn, it's a pleasure to be here with you today. I have a question for you, and my question is, how does it feel? How does it feel being the number one? You are the best in the world at what you do at managing an auto repair facility.

How does that feel being the number one trainer in the country? Well, to be honest with you, Joe, I don't feel that way, honestly. You know, just being able to do what we do every single day, take care of customers, take care of employees, grow the company, grow the business. I don't look at it that way.

I honestly don't, right? And people say, man, what's it like? A million dollars a month. If you've ever done $200,000 a month, which I know there's a lot of shops out there that do that, it's like doing that multiple times.

It's the same thing. It's more cars, the same process with more people, just executing the same thing on a bigger level. So I don't really look at it like that, Joe. Honestly, I'm just surrounded by superstars.

They make me look good. Together, we make each other look good. And we just run the deal. I don't really look at myself that way.

We just rock and roll, man. We take care of customers. Tomorrow the phone's going to ring and somebody's going to have grinding breaks. We've got to take care of them.

So let's get started. We're figuring out how to do these podcast things. We're having a lot of fun. But I just wanted to, one of my favorite stories of yours is just how you got in the business.

So you told me very early on, you were like, hey, nobody wakes up when they're five years old. And it's like, man, I can't wait to fix cars. I can't wait to be in automotive repair retail sales for a living. Walk me through your story of how did you, you've been doing this, what, 26 years now?

Yep. How did you stumble into the business? How did you get going on this? So it's a funny story.

So obviously you guys talked to Todd in the last podcast and he had a company he grew from, I think, what, from 86 to 1997, he sold the company. So in 1998, I actually got a job as a general service technician in that company. It was actually right down the street from my house. I was a GS tech.

I was a young kid. I was actually, I think I was, I guess I was 16, 16 years old or something at the time, 16, something like that. And, you know, I didn't do very good as, as, as being a general service technician, by the way. So I did that for just a short period of time.

And the next thing you know, I became a mystery shopper. So back then, you know, he had the concept in place. Now, remember, he already sold the company, okay? So Todd sold the company in 97, and I barely just started working there.

And so I was doing this, I was transitioned into this mystery shopping position, okay? So what I would do is I'd go around to all the stores, and I had a checklist pretty much of, you know, were they wearing a tie? Because back then, you know, he wore ties, right? Did they offer you a shuttle ride home?

Did they offer to do a preventive maintenance inspection on your vehicle? What was the waiting room thing? I'm just curious. What did that pay?

Did they pay you for that? They did pay me for that. I honestly don't remember. It was probably minimum wage, which back then was like, I think, five bucks an hour or something like that.

Okay, so your mystery shopping stores, and how did you get from that into, you know, running a store? Okay, so I'm doing the mystery shopping, okay? And as I'm going into these stores, now remember, I'm just like some punk kid, okay? So I'm going to these stores and they're not treating me like some superstar customer.

I'm in my little Honda Civic and I just look like a young kid and I'm going to the store to get my oil change or whatever it was. And so they, you know, they didn't do very good. Let's just say that. Okay.

They didn't treat me maybe the way that the customers were supposed to be treated. Definitely. There was, you know, a lot of people that didn't have ties on and waiting rooms, messy, bathrooms, messy, all those things. Right.

So. And this is after Todd sold the company, correct? After Todd sold the company. This is within the first 12 months, a year after Todd completely exited, correct?

Private equity came in and it kind of just drove the company off a cliff. I was one years old at the time, but this is a year after? Well, it probably wasn't even a year after. It was probably, at that point, it was probably about maybe six months after because I actually started writing service, which I'll get to here in a second, probably about a year after.

So i'm doing all these, you know, these visits to the stores and I remember bringing the reports back to the office to the corporate office And we're going through them And you know, I remember, you know, one of the guys says oh my gosh, these guys suck Right. He's just so angry. He's mad. He's just getting he's just getting red Okay, because so and so didn't have his tie on and and so and so did this and so and so did that And this store was dirty and all those things, right?

And so he's looking at him and he's looking at all these reports and he goes hey. Do you want to be a manager? Okay. Now, now, okay.

At that time I was 17. Okay. Okay. I'm 17 now.

So back then we, we didn't, it wasn't like, like we call now like service advisors. Everybody back then was considered an assistant manager. So service advisors were assistant managers. Okay.

So he's like, do you want to be a manager? And so I'm like, right. Like, okay. I live at home with my parents.

I'm, I'm just, I remember I'm just a little punk kid. Okay. That's what I call myself. And I was like, I don't know.

He's like, we'll pay you $26,000 a year. $500 a week. I go, are you serious? Right. So I'm like, $26,000 a year.

I was like, absolutely. I want to do that. Okay. So $26,000 a year living at home with my parents.

And that was a lot of money, by the way. Okay. For a kid living at home with his parents. I remember getting paid on payday.

They'd be like, hey, we get paid today. I'm like, it's payday? Like, I didn't even know it was payday. I was I was thinking it was $635 every, I think, two weeks, I think is what it was after tax.

And I was like, dude, I'm the guy. Okay, that's what it was. Remember, I'm, what, 17 years old at the time. So they transitioned me into this position.

And so you're getting paid. You're making money. Were you successful right away? I anticipate that you were successful right away.

You're a unique situation. This is what we call a promotion by attrition. Like, hey, do you have a pulse? Can you fog a mirror?

Are you somebody who can answer the phone? That is typically what happens in our industry. The number of times I have been in an interview and they're like, yeah, man, I got promoted to assistant manager in eight months. And I'm like, no, the manager, I don't tell them this, the manager probably took advantage of customers or was horrible or showed up to work late or was drinking after work and he got fired and you can fog a mirror.

And so you got promoted to manager. So not to talk negatively about our industry, but typically that's what happened. And that seems to be what happened in your case, correct? But you're a natural born salesperson and leader.

So how'd that go for you? So yes, I was pretty much successful right away. I became very good at it. And I know talking about scripts and the anytime presentation.

So you got to remember, at that point, I think I was 17, just about to turn 18. And I didn't know anything about cars, right? So I have zero idea about cars, okay? In terms of how to sell auto repair to a customer.

So they say, hey, we're gonna give you these scripts. And if you learn these scripts, well, this will make you successful of how to answer the phone. So I'm like, wow, this is great. Anytime presentation, all I have to do is fill in the blanks.

If I fill in the blanks, then I can get the car over the curb because I don't have to know anything about the car. Can you, for those that are not informed, a lot of people are familiar with the anytime, especially our team members that are listening to this, but what is the, can you explain what the anytime presentation is from a 30,000 foot? Yeah. So you remember when you call the industry, you ask how much does it cost to get brakes done?

Well, they want to diagnose the car over the phone. They want to stay on the phone for five minutes. They want to find out what the VIN number of the car is and does it have four wheel drive and does it have this brake package on it? And you remember the customer doesn't know any of that.

Okay. So we have an anytime presentation that Todd came up with back in, you know, 1986. And they still use that when the, when the, you know, when the, when the new company took over, they did have that anytime presentation. They got rid of a lot of the concepts that he had, which I'll get to here in a minute, but they had the anytime presentation.

So it's, hey, what type of concerns are you experiencing with your vehicle? So a customer calls in and they say, hey, Glenn, how much do you charge for brakes? Well, what type of concerns are you experiencing with your vehicle? And then they're going to give me the answer.

And that answer, it just fits in the blank of the anytime presentation. So anytime your brakes are squeaking, you need to have that inspected by one of my ASC certified trained technicians. is now a good time to bring in the vehicle. So I'm like, wow, I could do this. I don't have to actually have to know anything about the car and I can get cars over the curb.

Can I tell a story real quick? So the first time I answered the phone was probably four years ago and I grew up in a shop and I don't know how to change oil. I, my dad, it was, it's a very, you know, if you're a technician, if you're a master tech listening to this, it is, you know, that it's very difficult on your body, you know, it hurts your fingers and stuff over the years. And so he steered us away from working on cars.

And so I, you know, I didn't, I don't know, have, we run a great business. I don't know much about vehicles. I really don't. It's about the customer, and that's what Todd trained us on.

But the very first call that I took was cam phasers. Cam phasers. I remember. Talk about a 9 out of 10, and I'm more familiar now with how they work, but talk about a 9 out of 10 difficulty in terms of, like, explaining what that does to a customer.

Well, it is, yeah. If you have to explain it, that's the great thing about the anytime. Well, you don't. Because you got the car in, and that ticket left for $6,000 or $7,000.

I'll never forget it. And you said anytime you have an issue with your cam phasers, you need to have that inspected by one of my certified technicians. Uh-huh. And so you were me, right, like 26 years ago.

I don't know anything about cars. And so I need to be able to get customers over the curb. So very similar story. I've heard you talk about it, man.

I practiced in the shower. I practiced on my way home from work. I would role play with myself so that I could nail this script because I knew if I nailed the script, I could get cars in and then I will be able to convert those into into into customers and into dollars. And so that script was great.

So it was a very easy transition to me. Back to your original question, I did become very successful very fast because I said, look, I'm going to just go all in. I'm going to learn these scripts. I'm going to do exactly what they tell me because I really don't know any other way.

I did not have any bad experience. I didn't have any industry experience. And that's why Todd talks about, hey, I need to go get people from outside the industry because they come in without bad habits. So I came in with no bad habits.

It's like, hey, this is the way you do it. That's the only way I knew how to do it. Therefore, I just did it. And so I became very successful.

I was at the top of, you know, the sales chart. And I think then, I think there was like 36 stores or something like that. And I was up there at the top. And, you know, so it really just goes to show you don't have to know anything about the car to be successful in this business.

And that was me. I want to get into your later career before you came to Adams. But first, I have a question for you. And we've talked about this off air.

Do you think salespeople are, are born or do you think that they are trained to become salespeople? Because I know you and I anticipate that you didn't know how good you were at sales when you were 18 years old, but you probably realized pretty quickly that you just have the ability to make customers fall in love with you, whatever it is, whatever the sauce is. And we recruit people with the gift is what we call them. People that just have the gift.

They do not have the yips. They're not afraid to tell a customer a big number, a big price. And they just, man, they can build that connection so fast, something about them. So do you think you're born with that?

I think I was born with it when I was, I was selling my parents when I was five years old. I was ordering, you know, salmon off the menu when I was five, when I was, when I was 10. And they were like, my older siblings are like, we weren't allowed to get that when we were, you know, so do you think that they're born or trained or both? Or just, do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah. So my thoughts actually have, have changed on this over the years. Matter of fact, after having several conversations with you about that, I always thought people were just born with it. And I still, and I actually still do.

I do think that people are born with it. I remember being five years old at a garage sale and this lady was standing over in the, you know, at the garage sale and I walk up to her and I say, Hey, do you know what time it is? And she says, no, I don't. I go, Hey, you need a watch.

Right. And she started laughing. And so it's so funny. Cause like I had that confidence to just walk up to somebody and I was trying to sell a watch basically at this garage sale.

And you know, I knew what I was doing back then. Maybe I wasn't five. Maybe I was probably older than that, but I was very, very young and I knew that I knew I had a gift of talking to people and making people laugh. And for me, you know, there's different, there's different ways that people do it.

For me, it's always laughter. Sometimes people say, man, how do you say that to a customer? I just, I just feel confident saying that to a customer. Now to your question, are people born with it?

I think they are. I think I really do, but it's all about passion. And when you have passion behind something, then I believe you have the confidence that you need to be able to sell. And so you were a good example of that.

So just going back, how many years ago was it when you came over here? About five years ago, yeah. About five years ago. And you weren't really interested in the business.

Correct. You were not interested in the business. And I didn't see, how you would be able to be great at sales. I didn't see that in you.

But as soon as you got the passion for it, it's like, holy cow, you are a natural born salesperson. And I guess you had that built in you from a long, long time ago. And if it's something that you're talking about that you love, you have that passion for it. And you can just, man, you can really just sell if you believe in it.

So I guess I'm still a little bit torn on that, right? I mean, I think there are people that just walk into a room and you just know that like, man, I like this person. I trust ultimately, I think that's the real thing. People buy from people they like and they don't like you if they don't trust you.

They do say, hey, they buy from people they like, they buy from people they trust. But I think it's really they just buy from people they like because they don't like you if they don't trust you, if that makes sense. Yeah. So let me riff on this.

So I think, you know, one of our partners is Rilla. Sebastian and his team over at Rilla in New York, they have just an incredible company. Look them up. It's, you know, they're one of our partners.

It's AI sales training, sales coaching software. It's incredible. But one of their things is sales as a sport. And I literally feel that way.

One of the interview questions we ask is, did you play sports in high school? Or was there something that you practiced when you were a kid? Whether it's a violin or anything. And I think that's how I feel.

Sales is a sport. I think not everybody's born six foot eight and can dunk from the free throw line like LeBron can. But man, our industry is way less competitive than the NBA. Our industry and most sales jobs are just not that competitive.

I think that there's a special talent, a special gift that some people are born with. Some people are born seven feet tall and they've got the genetic gifting to be able to play in the NBA. And the same thing for us. Some people can just talk to customers naturally, but man, it is just not that hard with the playbook to train relentlessly.

I know nothing about cars. And yes, I think I have just a genetic thing from my mom where I feel comfortable talking to people and it's just not a big deal. But man, if you read off a piece of paper and you ask a customer open-ended questions about their life and try to connect with them. It has nothing to do with the car.

And that's something I want to point out again. We're 20 minutes into the podcast and we have not said a single word about the quality of the repairs. It's like everybody can put brakes on a car. There's 2.8 million shops in America and everybody can put brakes on a car the same way.

Everybody can buy the same quality parts. It's Do they like you? Do they trust you? That is why they do business with you.

And that's what feeds our technicians hours. So I think, I think that's my general philosophy is I think some people are naturally gifted with a headstart, but sales is a sport and you can absolutely relentlessly destroy your competition. If you come into training for one weekend and you memorize our scripts, it's literally like you're in the 0.01% of people in the industry. So do you have any more thoughts on that?

Yeah. And, and, and, and great point on that. So I also think that there are really great, I think there's a difference between great salespeople and great closers. And sometimes you can be a combination of both, okay?

There's people that are really, really, really good salespeople, right? They put the prep work in, they learn the customer, they build rapport, they follow the scripts, they know what they're talking about, and they give a great presentation and they deliver and they close a lot of deals just because they're great salespeople. Then I think there's really good closers, okay? Where it's like, if somebody says no, you know, that's really where that sales starts, okay?

The sale starts ultimately when someone says no, because at the end of the day, if it's an order taker, hey, I need brakes done on my vehicle. Okay, it costs this much to do brakes, and the customer says yes, that's really not a sale. It's if like, no, you know what, I'm going to think about it, or I'm going to go trade in the vehicle, or whatever the objection is that we have to overcome, that's when really the sales closer kicks it into high gear and closes deals. I fall more on that spectrum.

There's a lot of guys that are really good on the front end, and guess what? they don't get as many no's because they put the prep work on the front side and they get deals closed without an objection. And that's a whole different deal. And so I think it's a combination of both there. I think there are natural born closers, but I think as far as being a great.

Salesperson and putting the prep work and look in our industry, you know, we, we say we don't have any competition. Well, I think that's really across the service industry in general. I think, I mean, it doesn't matter if it's automotive, it doesn't matter if it's, you know, if you're a roofing company, if it doesn't matter. Like, I'll give you a good example.

So. I guess two nights ago, I was going to get a haircut. Okay. Okay.

I was driving home from work and I'm gonna get a haircut. And so I call the place up and I said, hey, is there any way that I can, can you look up who cut my hair last time? I forgot their name. And the lady goes, we can't do that.

She goes, I can't do that. And I go, what do you mean? She's like, yeah, that's our policy. I can't do that.

And I go, really? I was like, I just want to get my hair cut and I just want to see who did it last time. She goes, sir, we're super busy right now. I'm sorry, we don't do that.

And hangs up the phone on me. Okay. Is there a competition out there? What a crazy concept to walk over to the computer and take care of a customer.

It's like, I want to freaking, I am literally begging you to take my money. Like, Hey, I want you to take my money. I want you to see who, you know, cut my hair last time. Can you do that for me?

No, no, absolutely not. No, no. And I'm having a horrible day and I hate my life. No, have a nice day.

It's like, she's not saying that, but I've heard that so many times for people in our industry specifically, because we train, you know, off of our industry, but you're absolutely right. It's like, just be nice to people and have a great attitude. Yeah. And so, and, and so, and they weren't that busy because I was actually sitting in the parking lot right outside the window.

I was watching, I was looking in, I just didn't want to get up and go out. I was just like, let me just call real quick. Let me just see if they can get me in. They weren't that busy, but see, that is, it's a perfect example of being understaffed and saying no to the cut and they're being understaffed.

And then they're saying no to the customer now back 20 years ago. And I don't know if people remember this, but like hair, when you, when you wanted to go get your haircut, they were closed on Sunday, Monday. That's like the thing, right? That's the thing, right?

Now, this is a retail... This is somebody that said, you know what? We're going to retail... Haircuts.

Okay. And what we're going to do is we're going to open seven days a week and they're open seven days a week. And it's, it's very similar, right? We're going to retail getting your haircut.

And, but as they've grown and they've grown, they've grown, guess what? They lose touch with it. They're not training. They're understaffed.

And here I am trying to give them money and they tell me no. So there's really no, I look at it like there really is no competition in the service industry, regardless of what that, what that is, because people, man, they just don't have a playbook. They don't care. And they tell their customers no.

Okay. So you've got some sort of genetic thing where you can lead people or people follow you. And I think a lot of that has to do with just servant leadership and being humble and taking care of people and really trying your best. But fast forward, you have success because you're really good at selling breaks.

At the end of the day, nothing happens until something is sold. And you've got kind of a combination. So you accelerate in your career, okay? Next stage of your career, you've only worked for a few companies, right?

You worked for a company, we won't say the name, but for what, 10 plus years before you came to Adams? You want to walk me through that part of your story? Yeah. Well, first, let me back up just a little bit before I get there, because I need to tell you about that first experience, right?

I learned the scripts and I become really good at that company. But see, what happened is that company had stripped away all the ingredients that Todd had in his concept. As an example, we had phones, right? Phone skills were great.

We still trained on phones. That was something that they didn't change. But pre-books and callbacks, that changed. opening up on Sunday, that changed. So what happened is they came and they took over and they said, look, we can do this deal.

We could take a few ingredients out and maybe we can trim some bottom line or trim some G&A or whatever they were trying to do. Hey, we can cut our staff down, just not open on the weekends. We really don't need to pre-book customers because we're super busy. And then we can just have great phone skills or whatever.

And so, and here's what happened. I didn't know this until many, many years later. See, when I got brought onto that company. It was, this is Todd Hayes' concept.

We're learning. And so as I learned it and I was learning it, I thought I was learning his actual business model. But what I was learning was a very diluted version of that. And so what happened is it started really, really going down fast.

So we weren't doing pre-books, we weren't doing callbacks, and we weren't taking pictures. I didn't even know what that was until years later, by the way. And this was a year after he left the company, after he sold it, we weren't doing pictures. And so i was like wow you know it was it was it was going off a cliff okay and i didn't really know that in hindsight i could see that but and there's another key key metric here that we can't forget they over expanded extremely fast right i think they went i think he sold it for 20 million dollars in 97 and by the time they went bankrupt in 2002 i think they were at like what 38 stores or something houston dallas austin atlanta like so total nightmare you start diluting talent take away sundaes take away a bunch of key ingredients for the pie you know and and shocker it looks absolutely terrible when it comes out of the oven so keep going yeah so i remember probably i don't know you know i was there for for a little while and it was i mean this is a year later and it's already you know it's descending right and they know that and so how are they going to fix it well hey what if we let's call todd let's see if todd can help us and so they brought todd in and that's when i actually met todd i met todd for the first time i remember pmi pmi a car with todd back when I was 18 years old.

I still remember it like it was yesterday. I remember where we're standing. I remember what he was wearing. I remember it that clearly.

And he made a big impact on me because I was like, wow, this guy, he's the same guy, by the way. Yeah. How could you forget? You can't forget this guy, right?

But here's what happened. It was too late. And so they couldn't come to terms. He said, look, I'll help you fix this company or it's probably going to go bankrupt.

Well, matter of fact, it is going to go bankrupt. I can fix it, but Here's the terms. And they didn't agree to the terms. And so then he left.

And so sure enough, it was on its way. And so all those things that were his concept, they started to try to implement, but to us, they were punishments. So as example, hey, we're going to open up Sundays. Okay.

But it wasn't presented to us the way that he presented it to us years later when I understood it. Wow. That makes total sense. Hey, we're going to do pre-books and callbacks, but here's how we're going to do them.

If your store's under goal, you have to get X amount of appointments or you can't go home. Well, who wants to do that? See, that's now punishment. So nobody wants to do that.

And so sure enough, slowly but surely, and it wasn't really slowly, it was pretty quick. It was on its way out. It was descending and that was it. So I ended up going over to another company and that's where I spent the bulk of my career.

Well, like 15 years or something, right? Yeah, 15 years. Matter of fact, it was one of Todd's original guys from his original company that was integrated into that company and same deal. We had great phone skills.

We were still running a diluted version of this concept. You had crazy car count, right? You told me 75 cars on a Saturday was regular? Yes.

That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy car count, but here's the difference. We had great phone skills.

See, phone skills, I've been training phone skills and understanding the scripts since 1998 when I first started doing this. And so when I moved over to this other company, I taught phone skills. I had phone training weekly and we were teaching phone skills and we had massive car count. The difference was we didn't understand a rack attack.

We didn't understand exactly how to move customers around the bases. We didn't understand pre-books and callbacks. We didn't understand pictures and videos, right? So all of those things that were a main part of his concept, I had learned a completely different version, a completely diluted version down.

So we had this amazing company and we had an amazing company culture, but you know what? And this is one of the main things I learned from Todd. Five years ago was, it's people. And we had great people, but here's the difference.

We had a lot of great people, but we also had a lot of average people. And when you have a lot of average people, they will drain your company. And that's the biggest thing I learned from Todd. I would go through time periods where I would find people that were superstars and I would say, I can't afford to hire this guy.

He makes too much. And fast forward, I learned you can't afford not to have these people. You literally cannot afford not to have these people. And I'll riff on this for a little bit.

I keep saying that, but look, people, and it's not personal. If you're a master technician turned business owner and you're listening to this, you cannot be emotionally attached to your people in a way that allows them to take advantage of you because I watched that happen to my parents. I watched people for 40 years take advantage of my parents' generosity and pretty much walk all over them. We love our people so dearly, but man, we just don't have any time anymore to tolerate people that are average.

There are three types of people that we talk about in training. There are the AAA players. A players. If they came and quit, you would freak out and you would, you know, if they came and put their keys on your desk, it's the worst day of your life.

How am I going to replace this person? They make you a ton of money. Obviously, they move the needle for your company. And it's not about making money, but they take great care of the customers.

And, you know, money is a byproduct of executing your business and operating. Then there's your C players. They show up hung over to work. They show up late and call in sick, whatever.

That's easy. It's super easy to fire. This is a core concept of our business model that Glenn's talking about. The B players will literally put you out of business.

They will literally put plywood on your door and it's tough. It is the toughest thing about being an operator and being an entrepreneur and being a business owner is developing a relationship with somebody that you deeply care about maybe and you have a friendship with and you go bowling and you've met their wife or husband or whatever and they're just not that good. And if they came and put their keys on your desk, you wouldn't freak out. It's like there are so many of those people that fall into that category that are great, great people.

And you know their kids' names, but man, they are holding you back. And I'm not encouraging people to go into your company and just start blasting and fire a bunch of people. But really, an exercise we do in training, and I want to hear what Glenn has to say about this, is checkmark or question mark. Go through your team, put a checkmark or a question mark next to each of their names, and really think about it.

Which ones would you not be able to live without? Because at our company, every single person has to be a total 100% check mark, if that makes sense. So, Glenn, what were you gonna say? I think the important thing is you have to figure it out very fast because here's what happens.

You are going to build relationships with these people, right? So Todd has the rules, which is, hey, find the right people, make it a great place to work, give them a financial stake in the outcome of the business and train them. How do you know you have the right people? Immediate impact on sales.

Immediate. Customers love doing business with you. Team loves working with them and they make you money. See, box two and three are very easy to check.

Okay, customers love doing business with you. And team loves working with you. Average people check those boxes. They're nice people.

They're great people. You love them. You like them, whatever. You know their family, all those things that you just said.

And what happens is the further along you go, the deeper relationships you build with these people and it becomes very hard to cut that relationship off. The problem is if they don't make an immediate impact on sales, you have to figure something out and make that move very, very fast because if they don't make an immediate impact on sales, they're probably not going to make an impact on sales. And then that conversation gets even tougher. It's really hard to have somebody come into your business and see what we do and see this culture and see this concept and be a part of a take five every single day and watch what we do.

And then one day have to walk them in the office and shake their hand and say, hey, man, I'm sorry, but you can't come back here tomorrow. That's got to be heartbreaking because it is really, really good. But if you figure that out fast, you can make that move very fast and you don't get that emotional connection. And so they have to make an immediate impact on sales.

Todd says, hey, there's only so many seats on the bus. And that's so true. We're all going to the same destination, but I only have so many seats on this bus. And unfortunately, I can't have B players on the team.

Immediate, immediate impact on sales. Well, you know, something we talk about in training all the time is we run our business like a professional sports franchise. It's the NFL of car repair. And you might think that sounds crazy, but it's the way we do it.

If I put, let's call it the NBA. If I put LeBron James, LeBron James, one of the best players of all time, four-time NBA champion, he leaves the Cavs and, you know, they get a number one draft pick the next year and then he comes back and they're right back in the finals. If I put him on any high school basketball team in America, would they win the finals year one? Yes.

Or whatever, the state championship. They would absolutely destroy everybody because he's the GOAT. He's, okay, I'm going to get in trouble. He's not the GOAT.

Whatever. Michael Jordan, whoever, whatever you guys want to say about it. Fight me in the comments. Anyway, he's one of the best players of all time.

He is going to immediately impact any team that he's on at any level. So if, you know, we think about our business the same way. If you put me and Glenn, not to pat ourselves on the back, but if you put me and Glenn in any store in America, I'm going to be selling jobs. I'm going to be freaking making customers fall in love with me.

And I've got Todd's executed business model in my brain and sales are going to go up immediately. So, you know, when you're onboarding a new guy or girl, immediate, immediate, immediate impact on sales. And you just, man, when you're operating your business, you cannot think about, you know, their feelings. I'm sorry.

You have to think about the feelings in the family and the mouths that are being fed from the other 19 people in the building. Let's say there's 20 people working in your facility. It's like. You know, one of the number one pillars of most successful CEOs is a tinge of disagreeableness.

And this goes back to what you were saying earlier, Glenn, closers. They, they, there's just a little bit of, they don't, you know, if you're a good salesperson at the very end, when you need to ask for the sale, you know, $5,500, I'm going to go ahead and get started on it. You have to have a little bit of disagreeableness in you to execute on that. And the same thing goes for.

If you're the CEO of your business, if you are the entrepreneur and you're the operator, you have to just not care what people think about you. And you have to object objectively be the arbiter of your business, arbitrator of your business. And, and, and think about the other 19 people in the room and think about their families. And it's like, okay, if I get rid of this one negative employee and everybody who's listening to this podcast, I can guarantee you, you're thinking of one guy or girl, you're thinking of one employee.

I know you are. Think of that guy. What would your culture look like if that person left? And it's like, man, if everybody else takes a deep sigh of relief, then you owe it to those people.

Sure. You owe it to those people to give them an opportunity to replace that cancer with an absolute superstar, a Glenn Piccolo, a Jose Garcia, Charlie Zlatko, anybody you owe it to them. And so that is, excuse my passion, but I get so intense because it's like, they are not, you are not hurting their feelings. They are actually ripping you off.

They are taking you to the cleaners. They are screwing you. That's how I feel. They are amazing people and I love people and I have so much compassion, but we are very upfront in the interview that if you are a B player, if you are a B player, I just, I don't have as many seats on the bus and it's not personal and I deeply care about you, but I have to do what's best for the business.

I have to do what's best for the customer. And we think about it like the NFL, man, Cade, or what was the guy's name for the Buccaneers? He missed two 50 yard field goals and they cut him week one. Yep.

And put it on TV and tweeted about it yep yep and so it's like that you know but they know that they know that going in and so that's that's a big part of our interview process right like trying to interview people out yeah like we tell them hey look this is like the nfl and there are great players there are great players that actually don't make the world class that don't get to play in the nfl there are there are guys that will grow up they will be the best that their town has ever seen everybody knows them they're the high school you know the the best of the best of the best and they go to the NFL and they don't make it. And we tell people that. We train like the NFL. We watch our game film like the NFL.

We have our team meetings like the NFL. Everything we do is like a pro sport. And so, hey, look, if this isn't for you. Like we totally understand, right?

And that is a very, very important part of that process because they know coming in that they have an expectation on them. It's not to scare people. It's just this is the reality of it. And most shop owners out there, they have these B players, C players on their team and they know it and they will good guide themselves out of business, as we talk about a lot of times.

In training, I do a kind of a show of hands moment, and I say, hey, show of hands, does anybody have anybody in here that when you go back to your shop on Monday, that if they walked in and they put their keys on your counter, and they said, hey, I found another opportunity, that you would be relieved. Yep. And how many hands go up? Every one of them.

Every single one of them. Because everybody, see, that's the thing. If somebody would walk into your office and they would put their keys on your counter and they say, have found another opportunity and you wouldn't grab them and do anything you could to make them stay, they need to be replaced. And I know that's hard to hear, but that's the reality of it because there are only so many seats on the bus.

So people will hold on to the wrong person for years and years and years, all the way until the plywood is on their doors and go out of business because they can't have that tough conversation. And here's the crazy thing about that. See, that employee that you held on to, guess what happens when the flyboy goes on your door? Tell me.

They go and they get a job tomorrow. Of course they do. They're not digging you out of the hole. They will go find an opportunity tomorrow.

And so it's a very, very important part of it. You have to stack your team with A players if you want to go to that level. So that's probably one of the number one things you learned from Todd, but let's back up. Let's go to the final, you know, right before the company sold, one of the worst days of your business life.

And then you stayed with the company actually for a little bit. And then walk me through how that, I know it was horrible, but walk me through that, how that process worked, how you came over to Adams. And then we'll get into just your first six months at Adams. Walk me through that process.

Yeah. So it started with a dinner, which was going to be the announcement of the company being sold, which was what I thought was the worst day of my business life. Turned out to be the best day of my business life. And we sat down to eat and we get the news and it's like, wow, man, 15 years.

That's a long time. Yeah. We built an amazing company, an amazing culture, and it's about to all come to an end. And so, you know, it gave me a pretty, pretty gut-wrenching feeling.

Right. And so... We got a deal in place and, you know, hey, I'm going to be staying on with the company and this is actually going to be a good thing is what we thought. And, you know, the owner of our company truly 100 percent believed and felt that this was the right decision for the company and for me and for all the key players in our company and the whole company for that matter.

He felt he was putting us in good hands. And I know that he's a dear friend of mine and he would never steer us the wrong way. I know that. And so we believed it.

Right. And I thought it was actually going to be what it was going to be. And so they took over the company and it was actually ironically so it was the it was the week of covid okay yeah so the deal the deal closed on what a tough time to lose your job or not lose your job but to just go through a wild transition okay yeah so it's february 28th 2020 okay is when the deal went down matter of fact it was crazy so it was the first week that this company takes over i'm sick and i'm never sick i don't miss work you know this yeah okay And I am sick. Like I am like really, really sick.

Like you probably got COVID. I had COVID. It didn't have a name yet. Right, right, right.

I had COVID. So I'm like, wow, this is crazy. So they take over the company and I'm sick the first couple of days and I come back into it and I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to give it my all because you know what?

I've helped build this amazing place and they're going to take us to the next level. And man, I'm on board. I'm all in. I'm a loyal guy.

I'm committed. I'm going to do it. And Todd had already reached out to me day one, the day the company gets sold. He reached out to me.

He's a pretty good recruiter out here. He's a great recruiter, but I do always ask him, hey, man, for such a great recruiter, man, what took you so long to get me? It took years, yeah. Right?

But he tracked me down for years. But I was loyal, right? I was loyal, and I had built my future with this company. And obviously, the owner, like I said, dear friends and just loved him and would do anything for him.

And so they take over the company. And it didn't take me but one day, Joe, to realize that this thing was going off the cliff. It's horrible, yeah. Very, very, very fast.

Now, during that time, we were transitioning. I think it was COVID and, I'm watching just the whole entire thing shift and the culture change literally immediately. Like what, what really stuck out to you? Like, I mean, day one, I know, but for our listeners, like what, what is, what is an indicator that it's a terrible company?

I'm sorry. We're not going to mention any names, but that the management team that came in just was going to drive it off a cliff. What, what stuck out to you? Okay.

So at that time I was a, they called me an area director. So I had multiple, you know, multiple locations. Y'all had 10 stores or something? We had 10 stores and I was over half of the stores.

And they started furloughing some people, right? When COVID hit, they're starting to like get rid of staff, which was crazy because we were actually turning cars away left and right because we had so many cars. People were still needing to move around. People still need their cars fixed, but they're trying to manage from the bottom line instead of managing from a staff for success mindset.

Absolutely. And can I just riff on it? Look, if you are managing your store or your business from the bottom line up, you are doing it the wrong way. This is the number one thing that happens in our business.

You got a store and it's doing $150,000 a month and you're netting like $18,000 and you just think I can't afford to hire a guy and pay him $15,000 a month. I can't do that. That's impossible in terms of loaded cost and everything that comes with hiring and training a new guy or team member. But.

It drives revenue. It's like, look, you cannot not have A players on the field hitting home runs for you and expect the seats to be full and concessions. We talk about running a pro franchise. I'm going to put eight players on the field against the New York Giants who have 11 players.

And I'm just going to wait until you start winning some games and making some profit before I can afford to pay new people. It's like, no, you don't have to pay this guy. Let's say you're, let's say you're paying a hundred K guy loaded costs. It's 1.2.

Okay. So that's a, what's the math on that? That's like about $10,000 a month. So it's not, your net income is not going to go from 18,000 to 10 or to eight.

It's going to go way up. Yes. You have to make an investment in your payroll, but there is a return on your investment. You have to have amazing, incredible people to drive top line revenue.

And you can go into any store in America and they got one guy or girl, two people, one of them's in the bathroom, the phone's ringing, and there's customers everywhere and they're saying no on the phone. And it's like, wow, if you just added two amazing people, the revenue would go straight through the roof. So they're managing from the bottom up. They are just running the company off a cliff.

They're trying to cut costs and do everything that classic private equity, the bad people, not strategic buyers and partners, but classic bad private equity. They're bolting on stores, growing EBITDA, but managing from the bottom up. So just what else did you notice from your first, I mean, it didn't take long, 30 days, one day? One day.

Yeah, I knew one day, but I'm gonna give it a go. I'm going to try and have influence on making some changes. Like I know stuff. I know this company.

I know these customers. I can influence this. I know the people. I can actually help change their mindset.

That's what's going through my mind. And so I'm going to try and do that. So some people started getting furloughed. Now we're short staffed.

And so now I'm running a single unit, but I'm still running the area. So I'm basically over an area, but I'm also running a single unit at the same time. So you're a general manager, but you're responsible for five locations. That's crazy.

Right, right. So I'm doing that. and, You know, I'll never forget the day. I'll tell you the day. It was, I was working by myself.

Put it out there, man. I know what you're about to say. Put it out there. Put it out there.

So I'm working by myself. Now, here's another thing. Every, you know, two hours, you have to report all these different metrics, okay? There was a spreadsheet and it had, I think it was like 250 pages, for real, a spreadsheet with all these metrics for the whole entire company.

I'm shaking my head for those of you that are listening. Oh my God. Look, if you have to report the bank deposit to your boss every two hours, the company has cashflow problems. the company has no money. We don't have cashflow problems.

We just report our sales once a month at the end of the month. We have daily sales that we track, but I just do not care what's in the bank on a day-to-day basis because I know that we are executing at a super high level. If you are reporting to your boss every two hours on the bank deposits, your boss has no money. So continue.

So, you know, we run a board, right? Those of you that have come to our program know that we have a board. That's what we keep track of our cars, our speed of service, all that. So I kept my board.

I always run a board. since 1998. I have to have my board. And they didn't get it, right? They're like, oh, I like your route sheet.

That's what they call it, your route sheet. And I'm like, whatever you want to call it, this is my board. I live by this board. And so on the top of the board, I was keeping track of all these little stats that they wanted, right?

They want to know how many alignments and how many balances and how many this and how many that and all these different things you had to report, right? So I'm like tallying them. I'm trying to just give them what they want. But I put another column on there, which was how many cars I was turning away because it was me and it was a tech and it was a GS and you could only, you always, here's how crazy this is.

You could never not have a GS, but you can't run overtime. And here's your two guys to do it with. Yeah. Okay.

Good luck. That's like a riddle. Try and figure that one out. Okay.

I can't do it. So there's going to be times where I have no people. And so I come in one morning and I get this email. The email, the famous email.

I call them nasty grams because they would come every morning and at 6am I get this email and it says... Now, this is after two days of working really hard and grinding. Like sweating, like talking to customers, taking wheels off a car. Okay, continue.

And the email starts out by saying, I hope everybody enjoyed their last two days off because obviously nobody was here with the numbers that you guys just put out. And I was like, now I stared at that. That's embarrassing. Oh, my.

Okay. I stared at the computer screen for probably, I don't even know how long. It felt like 45 minutes. I was just staring at it. and I responded a couple emails and then I just delete them.

You know, it was like that venting. I was like literally like about to just send an email like, this is crazy. And then I just, you know, I held my tongue. I was like, man, because I mean, I've been grinding.

Yeah. You know, and then to hear, I hope you enjoyed your two days off. It's like, wow, this is crazy. And I called Todd.

There you go. Right after the email. We talk about in the trenches with our wrenches. It's like servant leadership.

Like, look, frontline serving your people getting on your hands and knees and racking a car as the owner of the company, as the general manager of the store, as the COO, Todd is literally PMIing cars and sweating in the summers. We talked about the opposite as the ivory tower, driving around a car. And Glenn, I know you got some thoughts on this, driving around a car, playing golf, taking your managers out and just writing cold emails, just blasting your people. I don't think that's super typical in the industry. you probably, you know, we're a faith-based business too.

There was probably some influence there and, and like, that's a just horrible situation, but man, so many owners out there, they just crawl into this ivory tower where they want to do owner stuff. They want to move logos around on an advertising screen. They want to make a pat, they want to put a spreadsheet together about alignment spiffs and see how they can move the needle with, you know, having more pictures on their DVI than they used to. And that moves the needle 2%.

It's like, you know, what moves the needle, sweating with your team. Yep. And that's it. And that's exactly what I learned from Todd.

So, you know, the industry is definitely taught that to advance your career, you need to move up into that ivory tower type position, right? Regional manager, because you're an advisor, next level is going to be a GM, and then you're going to go into a regional position and you think you've arrived. And that's pretty much what happened, you know, with me at Loeta. I was really good at the car.

I ran a shop and for seven years at that company, I, you know, I was very successful at an individual store and then we started growing. And so for me, I need to be able to grow because the only way I'm going to make more money is I need to go and grow my career and I need to be a regional manager. So I became that. And then what comes with that?

Well, I've got a nice company vehicle and a company car and I've got a flexible schedule and I can do what I want. And I'm autonomous in that sense. And all I need to do is just, man, just hire great people and just hold this whole thing together. And what happens is you actually become a fireman.

That's what it is. And for anybody that's out there that has multi-unit, you typically have a couple stores that are doing really good and killing it, a couple that are really bad, and they kind of just pay for, you know, the good stores pay for the bad stores, and so I'm in this ivory tower, but you know what I learned from Todd was, look. Get back in the bay where you're really good. And I'm going to show you a way that you can master this concept and you can be very successful.

And the difference in this is, man, we're changing people's lives. We are changing people's lives at every level. And when I was with that company, I changed lives, but it wasn't as many as we were able to change here because you know what? It was a leadership.

And that company is like, if you grew up and you worked your way into the leadership position, you had a great financial stake in the deal, but man, what about everybody else? How can I change lives at every level? And that's what I really learned here. And so being able to do what I'm really good at, which is being at the car.

He taught me a way to be able to get the best of both worlds. And that's right there in Bay 1 at the car, which is where my office is. And so what I thought was the worst day of my life in a business sense turned out to be the best day in my business sense. I love the saying, hey, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Yeah, there you go right there. That's a perfect example of that because, man, it's truly changed my lives and I'm getting to see it change everybody else's. And that's fun. We talk about this a lot.

It's the most gratifying thing on planet earth to teach people how to say yes on the phone and teach them how to take a picture. And they go home and their technicians start making more hours and they're happy and their wife sees them winning or their husband seems to winning. It's like, it's the most amazing thing on, on planet earth to be able to, to have that influence on people. So we're all so proud of you, Glenn.

You're an absolute stud, but everybody sees one thing I want to transition to here is everybody sees, you know, we're doing 80 million this year and, and, you know, we're the crown jewel of automotive repair. Everybody wants to buy us, yada, yada, yada. Who cares about that? But we started five years ago and it wasn't that long, you know, like five years goes by one way or the other, you know, five years from now is going to happen one way or the other.

And you can either have the same business that you've had for the last 40 years, or you can make a decision and execute. Everybody comes in and they see the speed rack and they see the AI tools and the moto visuals, and they want to see how we did all that. But you, you got, you came on like pretty much three months after Todd started. So I You know, you talk about we had one phone.

You want to just walk through like just kind of the roadmap. How do people implement? There's so much information and hopefully this podcast will help in disseminating that information like out into the market. There's so much information in Todd's head and the concept, the full playbook, but it wasn't always like that way at this business.

You want to just walk me through some of the old guard, you know, like this wasn't the biggest company in the world, the biggest shop in the world back then. We didn't have all the tools and the technology. We weren't open seven days a week. Just walk me through that kind of like first couple of years.

Yeah. So, I mean, the concept was always the concept. See, that never changed. The only thing that changed was the technology got better.

He was using a Polaroid camera back in 86, and now we're using an iPhone in 2020 or whatever it is. So, all of the original concept that he had, auto hospitality, serving the customer, being there seven days a week. He was open seven days a week, but we didn't know it yet. Yeah, we were Monday through Friday.

Matter of fact, he told me, hey, Glenn, look, here's what we're going to do. You guys hit 500, which we did. I mean, it was a couple months after I came on board. Four or five months during COVID, yeah.

So, you know, you guys hit 500 and I'm going to build a team to work on the weekends. You don't have to do it. So I'm like, perfect. Because remember, ivory tower world, that's what you work towards.

And you were not the manager for the first year. You were not the general manager. You were like just coming to self-service, right? Yeah.

So yeah, exactly. I was coming to self-service. See, what happened was I was talking to Todd. Remember the day the company sold, he called me and I said, look, I appreciate it, man.

I'm going to ride this out. Yeah. I'm going to give it a shot, man. I built this company.

I've helped build this company. and man, I want to give this a shot and see if I can, man, continue this deal. So he respected that, but he offered me a general manager position at that time and I declined it. And so a couple months goes by and I say, Hey, that email, that email came out and I go, Hey man, I'm down. I'm down.

Let's go. And he was like, look, I just want to do business with you. Whatever it is, if you want to do a store, whatever you want to do, man, I just want to be in your world, man, let's go together, man. I can teach you my concept.

And I was like, man, I really trusted him because I know, look what he did. Look what he built right in 86 to 97. I knew he was the guy, I called him the godfather of the automotive world for many, many, many years and it kind of turned into the Todd father. But he made that phone call to me or I made that phone call to him and I'm like, hey, I'm ready to go.

So, he's like, well, look, I can't make you to the gym. And I go, what's up? What happened? And he's like, well, I've got this other guy I just brought over, Jose Garcia.

Stud. He's a freaking stud. And, man, it just wouldn't be fair. I said, no problem.

I'll just come over. I just want to come. Let me come. Let's get it.

Let's go together, right? I'm not worried about that. I'm not a title. I'm not looking for title.

I'm just looking for, man, how can I help do this next mission, okay? And so, and here's a funny story, and I have to say this, because Jose Garcia was a guy I chased for many years, okay? I was trying to get him. Trying to recruit him.

Yep. Trying to recruit him. But he made more money than my top GM. And we had a cap.

And a lot of you guys out there might have that. Hey, this is the most somebody can make in our company. This is the cap. And he was above that cap.

And so for many, many years, I was trying to get him and I couldn't get him because he made too much what I thought. Well, transition into when I come over here. Guess who's here? He's there.

Day one, I walked to the door. Wow. Look who's here. That's crazy.

Now he's a freaking stud. He's so good. He is an absolute stud. How can you afford not to have this guy?

That's the mentality. He's like, he's like having three people. He is like having three people. Right.

And so now, I mean, that guy does, I mean, he is, he's part of the Houston Boston partnership. He's president of now auto care. He's an absolute stud. He is a millionaire in the making.

He is so incredible. We love him so much. Yeah. And so to think, man, I couldn't afford that guy.

It's like, ask anybody in our company, go around right now and say, Hey, could you not afford to have Jose Garcia? It's LeBron, right? It's like LeBron walks in your office. What do you do?

You hire him. Nobody says, Hey LeBron, sorry. We don't have any openings right now. Okay.

And so that was him. So I come over here. I'm writing service. That's it, right?

Selling jobs. We're just selling jobs. That's it. That's what I still do today.

That's what we do. We work out of May 1. And so we're just selling jobs. But, you know, we didn't have everything in terms of the technology we have today.

But we did have the concept, which was take amazing care of people, be available for them. And Todd says, look, you guys get to 500. I'm not gonna i'm not gonna let you guys don't have to work on the weekends we'll build a team for the weekends and i'm like perfect well that's easy because we're gonna be open weekends he told me he eased it in he did everything yeah we're gonna do saturdays and he's like todd is a salesman we're gonna do something he will close you on anything so he was gonna close you okay but he said hey you guys can work Monday through Friday we'll build a team so i'm like perfect no problem let's do it so we do it and then we launch it obviously me Todd Jose we launch saturdays and we kill it and we're crushing it and it's great and then we just never look back and then we're going to do Sundays and we launch Sundays and we're going to do great. And so it's funny because I really never understood when Todd said, I don't know what day of the week it is because now I get it.

I totally get it. I'm getting there. Every day is just a, matter of fact, I work every weekend. You know this.

I take days off during the week. It's great. I get to go do whatever with my family because there's not a lot of traffic out there. It's a lot of fun.

And so I love the weekends. I get to serve the customer and I have no competition on the weekends because everybody's closed, right? Matter of fact, when we shot, you know, it's funny, we shot that commercial and it was a Sunday and we weren't open yet. And we had the gates open because we were doing video and some vehicles rolling through.

This has got to be like August of 2021 or something. Yeah. We weren't open Sundays yet, but we're going to open Sunday eventually. And so we're shooting that commercial and guess what?

Cars just start rolling. A couple of alternators. I remember it. Yeah.

It was crazy. It's like, wow, man, this works. And so now we're here to serve our customer. And so the concept, like I said, Todd had in place never really changed.

It's just been getting elevated because of all the technology. We can do it a lot faster now. Speed racks, we can do it with obviously AI and motor visuals and all the chat GPT. Everything that we do there just enhances that experience, but it's still auto hospitality.

And we're just light years ahead of the competition. But four years ago, it was just one iPhone. Literally texting customers. It was me, Jose, a couple other team members, and we were texting directly to the customer through an iPhone, a video of their vehicle, and then a link for Emoto Visuals.

And it's just evolved into this. But it was always about having superstar people that could sell, that could communicate with customers, and... Man, it's like the rest is history. It's like the last five years is kind of like a blur.

Yeah. What does the next five years look like? It's honestly hard to imagine. That's crazy.

So a couple more questions as we wrap up here. You manage a lot of people you have managed and interviewed and hired and recruited a million different people. Okay. A question I get all the time that I'm sure you get all the time is like, how do you know, what are you looking for in the first like seven days?

You know, like, cause, cause we say people talk about a 90 day review. You do not need a 90 day review. You need about a 90 minute review, you know, on the first day. If LeBron comes onto the team and he doesn't drop 60 points in the first game, like what's wrong?

You know, like if LeBron comes onto the team, he will immediately impact the revenue and impact the performance of the whole team. And so we're looking for fast feedback from our team members. So what are you looking for as, I mean, you're the number one GM. You've got, you know, probably, what do we got? 14 people in the front of the house at Adams Blaylock.

What are you looking for in the first two weeks? So I'm definitely looking for someone who has confidence to be able to just run in and just run to the customer and, you know, just wants to get involved immediately. Now, a lot of times I'll figure that out through a, like a working interview process. I like to say, Hey, why don't you come in, come to a take five and come work a half a shift with us.

I want to see just what you think about this team. What you think about our process? Is this something that you can see yourself doing? Is this your speed?

And so a lot of times, you know, people will come in and they'll just, they just put gloves on and get after it. I'm like, wow, I like to see that. They run to the fire. They run to the fire.

Sometimes people will just kind of sit back and, you know just watch i'm like and then after about 45 minutes like yeah this looks like something i could do and then they leave i'm like it's probably not my guy right i'm looking for the one that's there all day like he doesn't leave picks everybody's brain but coming in when they get hired on and they come in i'm looking for someone to make an immediate impact you know what that looks like they come in they run to the car they're like hey let me get involved i want to sell a job right now like what do you got for me and they just start hitting bombs day one like you just know, right? And how do they handle themselves around an elite group of people? Because you got to remember, these are eight players that are in here. The caliber of people, these guys that are on my team front of the house could go run a store.

They could go run a region. We've got guys that have been area director, district manager, shop owner, business owner, whatever you want to call it. Now, I always tell people this, if you took the five best people or 10 best people that you ever worked with and you put them in a room together or put them in a shop together, how's that shop going to do? Great.

Oh, we'd kill it. We'd crush it. See, that's the difference. People don't do that, but they say, man, if we did that, we would be great.

Well, how do you do that? Well, you just got to go find those people. Well, how do you find them? You got to pay them.

Got to pay them more than what the industry's paying. And then what? Then you get to provide more because you have studs on your team. So I'm just looking for immediate impact players.

You just know what that is. I don't know if I explain that, right? It's like, but there's, the point is there's no KPI. There's no like, we, we, we, we track some KPIs, but there's really only five that we care about.

Total revenue, gross profit, net operating income, car count and ticket average. That's it. I don't care about anything else. I don't care about bay efficiency.

I don't care about effective labor rate. I don't care about the time required for a technician to DVI a car. I don't care about any of that. What I care about is, did they have an immediate impact on the revenue of the company?

Did they? Yeah. KPIs, they have to be... Okay.

So KPIs are great for someone who's not there. In the trenches. In the trenches. I don't need a KPI to tell me that this guy's a freaking stud.

I know this guy can flag 20 hours today. This guy can do eight. This guy can handle 15 cars. This guy can handle seven cars.

If I give him too many, he's going to get overwhelmed. This guy wants more. But I can only do that in the trenches. If you're spreadsheet managing, which is what most high level, you know, area directors, regionals, whatever you want to call it, are doing, the only way you can move the needle is you have to look at a metric because you're not there.

You don't have the eye test, the field test. And so we're right there. I mean, I'm right there in the trenches with the guys. I know exactly who's a hammer and who's not.

All right. My final question as we wrap up is there was a lot of information in this podcast. and honestly, in a lot of the training we do, what is one piece of, what is the lowest hanging fruit? One thing you wish you could get across to every general manager or owner in the country that's trying to move the needle in their business? Like, where would you start?

Find the right people. Find the right people, okay. 100%. You know, I tell my guys, we joke about it. I'm like, look, if we took our team right now and we went next door to Sonic, it would be the best Sonic in the country.

We would kill it, yeah. Yeah, because I'd be saying, yes, you want some, I mean, we'd be selling. You want some mozzarella sticks? What do you mean you don't want to, hey, tag team, come on, right?

Here's a sample, whatever. I mean, we joke about that, but it's about people. People are, you know, the number one thing. And here's the reason why.

Okay. I like to talk a lot about, there's a lot of superstars out there. You know, you could take like a Charles Barkley, like a Patrick Ewing, right? So think of some of those names, right?

That never won a championship. See, they were just never on the right team, but they're still superstars. See, everybody that we have here, they were all superstars, but they were on the wrong teams. Okay.

And so they're out there. And so if you can go get those people and you put them all in the same building, man, you can do amazing things, but you have to find superstars and then build that championship team. And so I would say it's people. You can take really good people with no concept and they will be successful.

Matter of fact, most of these guys that we have here, they were really, really good in the industry with no concept, no training. They just figure it out because they're really good. Okay. And so when you can take people like that and then couple that with a concept, well, they can become unstoppable.

So it's always about people. People, it's the number one thing. Last story on this, we were interviewing a guy, Cliffhanger, if you're listening to this podcast, he's a stud, Cliff. Anyway, we're interviewing him and he basically said he doubled the store.

He took a store from 100 to 190,000 a month in 90 days. And we asked him, we were like, how'd you do it? And he had the best answer ever. You remember the answer?

Oh, I do. He goes, I don't really know. He said, I don't really know. And I was like, perfect.

Because some people, they go, oh, yeah, I started selling maintenance or I started taking pictures. It's like, no, he literally just started taking the garbage out before anybody else would and mops the floors and hustles and can talk to customers. And he just is a good person and figured it out on his own. And that moved the needle.

Now you couple that guy with basically rocket fuel. Like I'm going to give you AI and and moto visuals and pictures and videos and an amazing team full of people are you going to be an immediate impact player yes absolutely you will be so Glenn you got anything else I think that's the pod I think we're coming up on an hour this has been you know master tech to millionaire presented by auto shop answers I'm Joe Adams Glenn you got anything final to say yeah man just thank you this is a lot of fun hope hope y'all got something out of it and where can they find you Glenn they can find me at bay one by bay one I thought you're gonna say LinkedIn or something like that. No, you can find me at 1010 Blalock, PMI and cars, talking to customers. Where's your happy place, Glenn?

Bay one. Bay one, baby. All right. Thank you guys.

We'll see you in Houston. We'll see you guys next time. Master Tech to Millionaire. Boom.