From $135K to $600K: J.J. Mont’s Auto Hospitality Breakthrough - Bonus Zoom Episode 3

Good morning, Glenn Piccolo here with Adams Automotive, bringing you another episode of Master Tech to Millionaire. Man, today we've got a bonus episode. We've got a very special guest today. We've got J.J. Montt out of Waldorf, Maryland. What an absolute pleasure getting to sit down with J.J. and just diving into his journey and really how he's implemented Todd Hayes' perfected business model. We're going to break it down, what that's looked like for him, kind of behind the scenes, and the results to follow. Thank you so much for listening. Hope you enjoy.

Good morning good morning let's go good morning let's go man we got a great guest this morning um jj mont what a superstar man for those you guys that don't know kind of the story there We met JJ, uh, September of 2023, uh, met him at ASTA. Uh, he walked into the room and he was like, this is it, man. This is the room I'm supposed to be in. God sent me in this room. I'll never forget it. I met JJ, uh, absolute stud.

You know, I always talk about that, that instant connection, uh, with people and just falling in love with somebody in the first five seconds you know we talked about that on our last podcast and how important that is and man we met jj and we just hit it off what an absolute uh superstar he decided to come to key to key immediately following the asta deal and. I'll let him tell you kind of where it went from there. But super excited to have him on this morning. He's an HPP partner now and absolutely crushing it in Waldorf, Maryland. So, J.J., how are we doing this morning?

Hey, look, I'm going to use your language. Boom. Boom. What's going on, man? Man, it's an honor, man. It's an honor 100%, man. man, it's amazing, man. I can't thank you enough. Joe, brother Todd, everybody, man. I mean, Charlie, Bill, man, I love you guys so much, man. It's incredible how much things have changed. And from that day that we met, you know, it was special, man. You know, like I remember on that day, it was in September of 23, you know, when I first came in there and I'll spare all the details, but when I was in there, I think it was like a three-hour class or so.

So it was like a a shortened version of it. And, um, man, you and Joe were hitting that thing so hard. And I was like, I said, Oh my God, man. I was like, that's it. I done found it. You know, I found this is exactly what I was looking for, man. And you know, it was funny though, man, I looked around cause I was trying to catch eyes with somebody else in the class.

And I would look around and some people have sleep, you know, some people were kind of picking holes in it, You know, they're talking about, hey, hey, you know, but what if you have a, you know, some type of injector misfire and this and all that? How are you going to diagnose that in 10 minutes? You know, and I was like, dog, they don't get it, man. I said, but I'm not even tripping on them, man. I got exactly what I needed to get, man. It changed my life, bro. So, I mean, meeting you guys was amazing, man. Yeah, it was, it was awesome. And you're right.

You know, in those rooms, uh, we, you know, we do it every month and, uh, you know, we can look around the room and we can see like who gets it and who doesn't get it and who, and who gets locked in. You can, you know, we're, we're, we're staring back at the audience the whole time. And, uh, you know, some people get it and some people don't. And, and then, um, typically the people that, you know, just lock in, you know, you feel that energy. Like when you're, when you're speaking to a group and you feel that energy, you just kind of lock in with those people.

And so I was locked in on you. I was like, man, I know I love this guy. You know, I just felt like I knew you my whole life after, you know, just a couple of hours. And so just just really, really. Glenn, Glenn, do you remember after you did the after the session? Right. I said you were walking kind of kind of by me. Right. And I was like, I said, hey, man, I couldn't remember your name. And I was like, hey, man, this this changed my life, man. And you said you said, oh, what for real?

And you were like, hey, Todd, Todd, hey, he said this guy, this guy said it just changed his life. And then that's the whole thing. That's when me and Todd was he started prophesying over me, man, speaking generational wealth on me, man. And I was such a match for my spirit, you know, so they were in there crying and all this and all that, man. And I just endeavored to go on that journey with you guys, man. Yeah. And what an incredible journey it's been. So it's been three years. I was looking back through my photo library to try and get a couple of pictures to send out with it.

And I just found that picture. You know, you and me just, you know, right there taking a picture together. Like we just met, you know, and it's like, and then I got another picture. Fast forward, you know, maybe a year and a half or maybe a year. I don't even know how long ago it was when you just came running through key to key with the guns blazing. And that's one of my favorite. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, when when your name is spoken, everybody gets a round of applause.

And that's become a thing of any time we mention your name, whether you're there or you're not, everybody has to clap when we say the name. That is so funny, man. That is so funny, man. Yeah. You guys have no idea how much how much I love you guys. What an example you guys are not only to, you know, to people about cars and automotive hospitality, but just as as fathers, you know, as as believers, as leaders, man, you know, you guys really set the tone and example for what excellence looks like, man. So I'm very, very grateful, bro. Awesome, man.

So for those that don't know you or don't know the story, can you kind of walk us through you and how it kind of all started and what this last year's look like? Yeah, absolutely. So I, um, I got into a speed, everything up, I kind of got into the automotive space in 2018. And in 2018, I started a repair shop, definitely not hospitality. I tried to, I tried to do the hospitality thing at my particular level, but I had no clue about anything. So we were the cheapest shop in town.

I had a little I had a little like a rundown gas station looking deal, three bays in between two of the two of the towns that are that are the major towns out here. And, you know, it was rough, man. So I had that I had that shop for one year and our our biggest month was thirty nine thousand. And that included a couple of used car sales, you know, so it's so we were rocking and rolling. I worked super duper hard, man. And I mean, I'm shuttling customers. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. I'm cleaning up. I'm doing it all.

And at the end of the day, I said, this industry sucks. I never want to do cars ever again. So I sold the business one year after we started for like 25,000. I would have took a thousand dollars literally and just take everything that's in there and just I'm getting out of here. And then so I sold that in the middle of 2019. And then six months later, opportunity because I was going to move to the to the West Coast and do some type of live production for Christian Christian programming and stuff.

And, um, but yeah, so an opportunity opened up for the store that I have now with the same owner or the same property owner landlord of the, of my first store. And he gave me an opportunity. I didn't have any money or anything like all that money was spent. So, um, he said, um, he said, yeah, you got, if you want it, you got first dibs on it. And I really had to pray about it and think about it because I knew that I did not like the industry at all.

But I felt led to do it, you know, because I believe that it was the best opportunity for me at that time in my life. And, oh, my God, I'm so glad I made that decision. You know, so I gave him, you know, rent check and a deposit. And I said, do not try to cash these because the money's not there. I said, but I will make it good. I will let you know when it, when I have it for this. And he believed in me because I took care of his last store and, uh, or his last, uh, his last location and took that up to another level.

And, um, and he gave me a shot, man. So time went on. We started right at January, 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. And we, my first year we did about 350,000. So that was roughly similar to what we did at my, my other story in a sense, 350,000 a year, by the way.

So um then the second year we we we jumped a little bit over a million then the third year we jumped to about 1.4 and then that's when i met you in september of 23 so at that time we were um on average between 150 or excuse me about 130 to 170 and we dipped into like 190 you know right around there so uh but we were just you know slap sticking it man just just complete decision fatigue every day. We just running and gunning. And even at 130,000, like we were slammed. You know, we were absolutely slammed because we didn't, you know, we didn't have the staff.

So we were telling people, yeah, if you drop it off, we can get to you in 48 to 72 hours. What kind of mess is that? But that's what everybody was doing, you know? I mean, that's kind of what you're going to hear out there. So we were just doing what everybody else was doing. And we literally were slammed, but we only had like five or six people, you know? So when we got with you guys and we started saying like yes on the phone, which literally, you know, was like a like a defining moment for me. You know how people have, you know, defining moments.

So saying yes on the phone, man, it just started becoming a floodgate. And that and that kind of led to like the importance of learning how to recruit, you know, and learning how to, you know, you know, implement the various parts of the of the concept, like immediately, because now you have all these cars coming in. You got to get these cars inspected. You got to get these cars fixed, you know, and you got to sell all the work. So I saw immediately I needed all kinds of stuff I needed. So I was I was like, oh, my God, you know, it just started it just started happening, you know.

Yeah, I was thinking about when you you came back from key to key and we were having a webinar and. Your record week at the time was $35,000 a week. And then you jumped on the call and said, you know, I had a $72,000 record week. And I'm like, oh, wow, this is going to be great. I'm going to get to tell everybody and have JJ just tell everybody about Key to Key and how great it was. And I'm like, JJ, all right, tell everybody what you're doing. And I'm thinking you're about to get on there and talk about, you know, about everything in the concept.

And strategies and tag teams and all the stuff that I'm like, all right, go ahead, JJ, just be the voice. And you're like, well, actually, actually, uh, I'm not doing any of that yet. I have to, I have to confess. I, I, I'm, I'm not doing that yet. I'm going to, um, but actually all I started doing was saying yes on the phone and treating my business. Like it was my first week in business and just, uh, checking cars out for free and saying yes on the phone. and all of a sudden you go from a 35K to a 72K week.

And obviously that was just a launching pad for what was next. And you mentioned something that your previous deal, you were selling cars and fixing cars. And then you ended up converting into, obviously, getting into auto hospitality. And there's a lot of people probably listening to this that have a shop and probably sell cars on the side. And, man, I think that's just a bad recipe. Because, look, if you're fixing cars and then you're selling cars, well, guess what? I mean, typically, you're selling used cars. And so, well, you are selling used cars. And then you're selling used cars. And what happens with used cars?

Well, things go wrong and they break. and I guarantee those people are coming back to you. I just bought this car and what's going on with it. Now you've got a bottleneck in production because you're trying to fix cars that you sold because otherwise you have to replace them or you have kind of a heat case on your hands. Matter of fact, my previous company that I worked with was kind of the opposite. The owner, he actually was a car dealer and he built a shop Just to kind of have a place to like fix the cars and work on friends and families. It wasn't even actually a business concept.

It was just like this shop. And then he ended up hiring. And this is why Todd's concept is just so amazing. One of Todd's original managers that he hired from the restaurant industry many years ago. And he became a super successful guy. Hired him to kind of just manage this one little shop. Next thing you know, auto hospitality is kind of underway.

A diluted version, not Todd's, a full version, but it was, you know, the company that I ended up being a part of and we grew, you know, and I was there for 15 years, but he went from selling cars to, wow, we, this business model of repairing cars, um, and serving the customer is way better. And so he actually shifted out and went straight into, uh, auto, auto, we, it was auto repair. We, we can't call it auto hospitality. It was, but it was a, uh, obviously a diluted version of it. So, uh, to that point, to that point, Glenn, man, like, okay.

So I was doing, I was doing car sales. Okay. Even when I started my, uh, the shop that I have now, okay. Before I understood before I even connected with the, with the concept. So I was selling cars. I had a rental car business. I had a, a vehicle transport business. So I was, uh, I was dispatching, sending, sending, uh, trucks up and down the East coast, you know, uh, transporting cars, man. I had, uh, all other stuff, man. And.

But i didn't understand what business i actually had so like i didn't understand what i actually had okay so when i got the concept everything changed i got rid of everything my rental car company actually became my loaner car company you know what i mean that that served jj the transportation company shut that down i had a towing business shut that down everything everything got shut down because like my my my eye became single and i knew exactly what where where i was trying to go and what I needed to do. And the only way I could do that was put a hundred percent energy into this.

People don't realize, man, like you get super distracted with all types of stuff and people, you know, talk about side hustle and this and all that, man, that's perfectly fine. I heard somebody talk about that, where they said that's, that's fine for exploration to kind of figure out what you're, you know, trying to do. But once you, once you find that thing, that, that, that's the thing, man, you put everything you have into that thing, because that's what's going to super produce, you know, and that's what, that's what happened with me. Yeah.

Um, Mark Cuban talks about that all the time, you know, that core competency, you know, people, a lot of times they just want to venture out and they want to just start having all these different, you know, arms of their business. And it's like, man, just focus, focus on what you do great and just be the best at that. And it will, uh, it will absolutely change your life. So you went all in. Now we, we tell people, man, it's so predictable, right? It's like, it's as predictable as the customer. It's as predictable as our close ratio.

It's as predictable as when I do that phone call in key to key at 10am on Saturday morning when I tell the room exactly what the guy on the other end of the phone, is going to say when I ask this question and exactly how it's so predictable. Well, that room is very predictable too. It's like, okay, who is going to take this? We know, you know, a small percentage of people are going to actually take it and go and change their life because you have to go all in. All right.

You can't just decide, Hey, I'm going to come to this, you know, training and then I'm going to go back and I'm just going to be great. You have to actually go back and do the work, right? We give you the framework, but you got to actually go and do it. So I believe that there is a correlation with the revenue numbers that everybody's doing and how many times they come to the program. I know that for sure, because the people that come back multiple times, they have insane revenues. So how many times have you been back? Do you know how many seats you've had?

We were looking it up the other day. It's a lot of seats. I don't, I really don't remember, man. I just, I know I've been there, you know, a lot. And, and to be quite honest, not enough. You know, I need to, I need to keep, keep coming more and more and more. I've been kind of locked down over the last few months, man. And I'm, I got to come back and get my fix, man. You know, I got to, I got to come back and get my fix. Because what happens is it's like it's not that I'm going to like I'm coming to hear new revelation of the concept.

We're going to go through the same same thing. You know, we're going to just keep drilling the same thing over and over and over. And I know and I love that. But what in addition to that, what's most important to me is to get around you, to get around Joe, you know, to hear Todd, you know, go all in. You know what I'm saying? And like I said, I always like to sit in the front, man. I want to be I want to be where the action is, you know, so I and, you know, Todd, like sometimes you get close, he'd start spitting when he talking.

I want to be so close. I want to be so close that Todd, this spit just dropped right on my forehead, man. I want to be, I want to be that close. Todd will beat me up for that. But we got, I like to be that close, man. I need, I need that energy. You know, I need to feel that, that thing, man. It's very hard for me to kind of sit way in the back, barely, you know, can't really hear, you know, people in the back kind of distracting and all that, man. I need to be a front man.

And I need, I need to feel that because I don't intend to, uh, uh, take what I'm hearing and go play with it. You know, I gotta, I gotta get it all the way down. So when I go back, see, that's the thing, like most people are trying to, uh, like kind of build something and it's not in them yet, you know, so you have to spend the time to get it in you so you can go plant yourself in your store to produce there, you know? So that's the importance of keep coming back is to keep hearing it, keep hearing it.

Because now I believe that it doesn't matter wherever I go in the nation, I can, I can start a store and then I can, we can take that store to 500 because it's in me. It's in me. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, no, no. So I was just going to say, man, like that's that's the thing. So it's important to keep coming back and listening and just listen. See, I can't just listen to it once a month, you know, so that's why I'm on the on your take five. Let's do your take fives every single morning.

You know, I listen to the podcast, you know, and we just go over and over and over. And then we go over that in our take five, you know, so it's just it's just a reproduction of that same spirit, you know.

Yeah i tell people it's uh it's like watching a movie right like when you watch the movie the first time you're like man that was a great movie right but then when you watch that movie the second time you understand the beginning of the movie differently than you understood it the first time you watched it and the more you watch it man you understand and you just see all these little things that you didn't understand see this auto hospitality that that we're teaching it's a language And you have to become fluid in it.

I know that when I looked through the numbers last time, You had something like 58 seats or something, whether it be through key to key. Courtside, accounting, fraud and prevention, like 58 seats. Now, that's after we switched to a new system, right? Like a year and a half in or something. So there was a bunch more that you had for you and your team prior to that. So I know you've been through a ton of times and it's that important because we are talking about the same thing we were talking about last year. And two years ago, and three years ago. It's the same exact thing. Nothing's changed.

Todd's been talking about it since 1986. It's obviously evolved based on new technology. But we're using technology for the right reasons. We're making the concept better. Our industry is actually taking technology, and they're doing what's been done wrong for so long more efficiently, which is crazy. It's like using AI to be more efficient at doing it the wrong way. And I believe they just don't really understand. And so, man, you have to keep coming through. Now, I know you use a lot of, you know, auto shop, the family of businesses, services, recruiting. You and I've done recruiting together.

I mean, we've done three-way calls Where you just listen to me Interview somebody Just to hear and take notes on it I mean, that is like fire I was listening to a, I forget what I was listening to But it was a podcast Or maybe it was the panel that Charlie was on At Tectonic And I was listening to people talk about, um, you know, when they call a client, um, which we don't consider clients, we, we, we look at everybody as like our family basically. And, um, they're talking about, well, yeah, when you get on the call, I mean, you're billing them for that hour. Right.

And I'm just like, what? Like, and Charlie, and Charlie, I was thinking like, what? And then Charlie just chimed in. He's like, no, I don't do that. Like, I don't, I don't charge for that. Like when you come in, you have, you have access to us because we're like one family. We, we, we help each other. And so So I think that's obviously super important. But from recruiting, tell us about recruiting and just what the auto shop and the Anters family does for you and Brian and his team. Man, I can't tell you enough how grateful I am to understand the concept of recruiting.

OK, so first, let me just back up, because I took a I went to the recruiting class. Right. And every time I was taking classes, man, I'd be in there and I'd be the one crying. You know, I mean, I'd be the one. And just just tears of joy because I'm not a technician. OK, so like as you know, everybody says, you really don't want me working on your car. Like, I'm not trying to change your battery. I never bust a bead on a tire. You know, I don't I'm not trying to do all that. Now, I am a state inspector here in the state of Maryland.

I can point out and say, yeah, that is not right right there. You know, that's bad, you know, but I'm not changing control arms or anything like that. I don't think mechanically or anything. So I've always kind of been at the mercy of a technician. Okay. So of course you don't have, you don't have a, you don't have a, a, a business if I don't have techs, you know, so techs would normally get away with all types of stuff. What could I do? I don't, I didn't have a bench ready. I didn't have a replacement ready.

So I had to kind of, um, uh, yield to, you know, substandard stuff that I don't want to tolerate, you know, so front of the house stuff, I would, I would, you know, I'd be going hard, you know, making sure we taking care of these customers, even before the concept, I know it's all about making sure that people have a good experience. I didn't know how to deliver that systematically. And then that's when, uh, that's when the concept just came full circle for me. So, but recruiting wise, man, these guys have me in handcuffs. Okay.

So if they wanted to, you know, do a hatchet job on something, how do I know that it's, it's any good. And then I can't even really do anything because if I, you know, terminated a particular person. Then I'm down and we're already slammed, you know? So when we got the concept going and then I took the recruiting class, man, it really liberated me. It freed me up because I saw how the, the, the different strategies to recruit top level talent, you know, which would take the business to a whole nother level, which would change everybody's life. Okay. So different things, man, um, was, was just amazing.

So for example, I'm talking about secret shopping. Okay. Secret shopping, all the different things, going into stores and just seeing who's active. You know, going into different stores and looking at the ASC certification things on the wall, you know, and just talking about that. Listen to Joe. Joe talking about calling the stores like, hey, is Mike there? The technician that Mike Mike doesn't work here. Oh, what's what's the guy's name? Who's the who's the master tech that normally is? And I'm doing that, man. It's amazing. I was like, oh, my God, you know.

And then, you know, Brian at the at the class was showing us how to get on there and find technicians, man. And so we called a technician off the jump, you know, and this is kind of just like practice, you know, to wet my whistle. I was the first one to do it. I called a technician and they just showed up. They just showed us how to do it. Right. And I did it. And I was like, oh, my God. And the guy called back in the middle of the recruiting class.

And then I set it up for him to meet me the next day, you know, in Maryland, the next day at one o'clock or something. Now, he he did. I didn't hire him or whatever, but it proved to me this stuff works. OK, this stuff works. So but also to along with recruiting, how important is it, man, that your shop actually looks good? You know, so my my first thing that I did, Glenn, when we came back, I said, all right, I said, we got when I when we came back in 2023, I said, all right, we got to make this shop look good.

So we we we got our floors on. So the week of Christmas, I gave everybody off, paid everybody. And then I we did all the floors over, put some new lifts in, you know, got some of the older lifts in out, put some new lifts in, etc. Man, we put air conditioning there, man. And we just I took it to a whole nother level and painted. It's amazing what paint would do. You don't realize it can take something that looks like it's from the 60s and bring you up to modern day. Just a little bit of paint.

So and when we did that now, I'm I'm actually I don't like to use the word, but like I'm proud. I'm I'm I'm I'm happy about my the way that my shop looks and I'm not I'd love to bring people in so we can do shop tours. We can do all of that. And what an amazing change that it actually has. So, yeah, recruiting Brian and them, man, is fantastic. Shout out to Gilbert. You know, Gilbert, Gilbert is amazing. But one going back real quick, Glenn, about being open. You I could call you. I mean, you send me some things that of some of your interviews. Right.

And you said, listen to this and tell me what you think. So I would listen to it. And I was like, I was like, I was like, yeah, he may sound like he would be good, you know. And on top of that, you could do this, that and other. And he's like, no, no, Jay.

Now he then and these are the reasons why right and so see so that's the thing about understanding the concept is great but you need to get dialed in on it on on the nuances you know on the on the things that you you don't see you know and it takes somebody who's in there every single day somebody who does a million dollars a month to kind of show you hey hey hey not see nope this yep see right there that yep that's great this is bad this and and that little tweak in here and there man just just completely helped man so recruiting i and that's the thing see people don't realize like if you know how to recruit.

That takes your shop up a whole nother level because everybody in the store knows that it's ABR. I'm always recruiting. So can't nobody just be lackadaisical? Can't nobody just play around? You know, can't nobody just, you know, kind of be jiving like like we say, you can't just be jiving, playing around. You know, you got to you got to bring it as a game professional. You know, if not, we're bringing people in, man. It's just that simple. This is a business. And that's what I really got from you in this concept. That this is a business. This is not, we ain't playing around. Yeah.

You know, one of the most important skills you can have is knowing how to recruit because, man, your team, like you said, your team has to know that you know how to recruit. Otherwise, they'll hold you hostage. And a lot of people listening to this right now probably have technician out there that, man, he fixes everything. And this is the greatest technician in terms of skill. But they hold you hostage. And if you don't know how to recruit, your team knows that, by the way.

They know you don't know how to recruit, and they will hold you hostage, and then you're in a situation where, you know, the tail is wagging the dog. And so, yeah, like interviewing, man, it's super important. Recruiting is super important, and being able to share an interview. We did an interview the other night, and I did it on speakerphone with my team, okay? And how important was that? Because we all had the same, like, the same reactions to the answers, okay? And so I'm recruiting this guy. Matter of fact, I'm recruiting. here, here's how we talk about access. Okay.

So one of our auto shop answers, um, shops that comes through, uh, sends me a, uh, a candidate. Hey, I'm thinking about hiring this guy. Uh, would you mind calling him? And I've done this for him several times because he keeps coming back. I know he's committed and he keeps coming back.

This isn't like somebody that just pops in one time and then, and then all of a sudden is going to have me like doing work for them right like i'm busy like we run a big business but this is someone that's committed when someone's committed to the concept i become committed to them and so he's like hey can you interview this guy and so i've done this a bunch of times and uh so i'm like sure no problem so i get him on the phone. And, um, I've got my team there.

We're on speakerphone and we all have the same reactions because these guys understand, like we know, like we train constantly. They know the cues, they know what we're looking for, what we're not looking for, the answers, you know, and I get to a question and it's like how in sync our team is. We get to a question and I'm like, well, what happens if the customer says no and their brakes are, you know, in the red and they don't have time today, whatever. He's like, man, I'm going to find out, uh, I'm going to find out where they work.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to take them to work or I'll tell you what, why don't you take my car i get off at six o'clock tonight what time do you get off work tonight because i'll let you just take my vehicle and i'm gonna get the brakes taken care of for you and then i'll come drop your car off and i'll pick my vehicle up and i'm like and we all look at each other we all look at each other we just start shaking our heads i'm like yeah you know and that's fire right there but those are the keys that you're looking for right and so we have a deal on uh you know a whole deal on recruiting and obviously man you have to be able to uh to find A players.

So you've obviously learned that when you started, you had a few people. And obviously now you have a whole bunch of people. Now, when you started, you said you were doing 135 to 160. Yeah, around 170. Oh my gosh. Growth sales. What are you looking at these days, JJ? So now we are like we just hit our record month. OK, so but I'll go back just just to kind of answer that full circle. So I said when we started September 23, we started saying yes on the phone. So we started developing some momentum towards the end of 2023.

And I said, OK, 2024, we are going to be a 300K store a month. OK, that's the goal. We're going to perfect the 300K model. All right. So we started going January, February, boom, boom, boom. And at the end of the year of 2024, we actually did 3.6. So we did, we did, uh, uh, you know, um, uh, 300 K a month and that's it. All right. So 2020, uh, 2025, we're going to be a 400 K store, a hundred percent. We're not looking back. We ain't playing around. We're going 400, we're going 400 K. So we, we did it, you know, And we ended up actually exceeding that.

I think we did like five point three and twenty five. And then I said, all right, we skip in five hundred. We're not we're not doing because we know we can hit that. Let's let's get let's let's make the target a six hundred K store every single month for for the year twenty twenty six. That's our goal. That's our target. And and I did that because five hundred just seemed it was.

See if you set goals for for people that you don't have to really reach for or press towards then you can you can kind of create a uh like a lazy spirit or like it's like everybody will settle so once you hit 500 then you start settling and that's not what we want to do you know so we said we're going to be a 600 store and so finally man we uh we hit 600 in uh last month which was which was april we did like 614 man and uh it was amazing absolutely amazing man god is so good man we just celebrate that and it's just like what are you kidding me 600 because when we first met again in in september joe said how much you guys do on the month and i kind of like uh i said like 170 and i just kind of threw that out there.

And he was like, he's like, you'll be doing 400 before you know it. And I was like, yeah, Lee, let's go, baby. Let's go. Are you serious? Let's go. You know, let's go. And then we just started on that journey. So we just hit 600, man. And it was absolutely amazing. And when I look at it, it's really not the number that is greatly satisfying. It was the journey, man. It's like like everything that we did every single day, every single thing, every single thing that we had to tweak every I mean, oh, my gosh, there's so much that had to be learned.

There's so much that had to be received. There's so many people that we had to let go. There's so many people we had to bring on. And when you look back in just that short period of time, I mean, how grateful, how grateful am I to just be like, oh, my God. Like, and there's no way I could do it without a Glenn Piccolo, without a Joe Adams, without a Charlie, without a Bill Broussard, without a Todd. You just can't. It's just very hard. It might be. I don't know if it's impossible, but it's just very hard to do.

I mean, Charlie opened his arms to me and I went up to Boston and spent time in there for the weekend. Man, he just he was amazing. Opened up his whole team. I could talk to GM. Same thing that you do, you know, and I'll just like how grateful am I? I mean, I'm taking notes. I'm capturing voice messages because I want to capture the essence of what's happening to bring it back down, man. But but yeah, man, so we're on target. And this is what a major year this is.

You know, I'm talking to Todd the other day when he was like, this is the this is the most important year of your life. And it really is. This is the most important year of my life, you know, with with what we got going on with the HBP and everything. Man, it's happening. You know, it's. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing. And, you know, Todd, I love Todd. Right. It's like every week is is so it's like so big. Like this is such a big week because he moves so fast and everything he does is like this this week. It's a big week. And I've heard that so many times.

But it's funny what you talk about when, you know, you're just going to jump over, you know, 500, go straight to 600, right? Like, that's how Todd thinks. Todd thinks so big, right? We did 500, and he's like, next stop, 750. And I'm like, I don't say anything, right? And I'm just like, 750. I'm like, what about 550, man? Like, can we do 550, maybe 600, next stop, 750? And then we hit 750 and he's like, next stop, 1 million, one shot, one month, 1 million. And I'm like, man, this guy, man, like this guy, holy cow, man, this is wild, man.

But like you said, man, it's not, you know, it's about the journey. It's about, you know, I was listening to Todd Graves and Raising Canes. I mean, guys like insane. And he said something and I love this. And he said, you know, it's not about what you can make. It's what you can give. And I really, really love that because, you know, he's like, that's how you keep score, you know, and making sure you're doing it for the right reasons because there's a lot of shop owners out there that actually do well. But what do they, what are they able to give?

Like, what are they able to give to their team? Like, is there a path and a growth plan for their team to be able to say, man, I can really grow and I can build upon this? Yeah. If not, then that's just one person that might be just doing well for them and their family. But you have a lot of team members that you have such a responsibility to influence. And when you can start producing big numbers like this, then everybody wins. Just correct. The culture is just this infectious, winning culture. And so it's super important. I know your team loves you.

You obviously are just such an incredible, incredible leader. I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, man. No. Yeah. So I know, what about, I know, you know, obviously you're using just so many of the, you know, auto shop family services and affect your business. What about like callbacks? Can you speak on callbacks? We got a few minutes. Yeah, man. And so callbacks with Gary Walker, shout out to Gary, big G, you know, Gary runs that, man. And it's so important because I've always wanted to like call the customers back. You know, I've always wanted to do that, but it will never happen in the middle of the day.

It's just not happening. You know, so I was going to before before I got with the BDC callbacks, I was, you know, thinking about hiring family members to call and this and all that. I was going to give them one of the corporate phones so they can do this, that and nothing. Just call. Hey, you know, thank you so much. But then. If you do that, then what if they're sick? You know, what if they can't make it? They want to go on vacation. They want to do this, that and the other. They got, you know, you just got problems or whatever. Then those customers are not getting called back.

So I knew it was a no brainer for me to be able to get the BDC callbacks because now I don't even have to think about it now. I know that my customers are getting called every single day, every single one of them, and they're getting touched. That is important. You know, we talk about it in the in the key to key where like out of all the money you've ever spent, you know, over the last year, 10 years, whatever. How many of those places ever called you to thank you for your business? And when I think about it, none. You know what I mean? None.

Not not one has ever called me to ever. Now, there was, you know, bogus spam emails. Thank you so much. You know, you can tell that's just a robot sending all that stuff out. But I never got a particular call. So that was amazing. I said, absolutely. And they're studs. So they do that every single day and they communicate us to us on the floor. So we're able to get ahead of situations that, you know, we have a potential comeback or something or if the customer was dissatisfied about something, man, they give us a heads up.

We're able to reach out and squash that before, you know, before it gets out of hand and we lose a potential customer. And, you know, we lose a customer. They're going to tell 10 people and then it just multiply. So it's such a great tool to have to know that every single day, every single customer is getting called. And last month we had about 840 tickets, 840 cars come through. So the BDC is working. You know, they're working for us. You know, they ain't taking off. They're working. You know, they got the little pod where different people are calling all day long, man. And it's just amazing. It is.

It is. You know, you know, when you get that flow. See, the biggest thing I always try to tell people is like, you got it. You got to find flow. You got to find that rhythm. And so the BDC is such a rhythm generator, you know, that I would never turn that off. That that stays on. And some people say, well, you know, it's a couple thousand dollars or five thousand. Man, exactly. Now, once you want it, they're underpaid. In my opinion, don't don't tell them I want my prices. But y'all know, don't do it. Don't do it. But anyway.

Man, I take full advantage of that because they create that rhythm and that energy, whereas we would we would never be able to do that in-house. So they're able to keep that spigot running, that water flowing, man, 100%. Yeah. You know, everybody has heard about callbacks. And, you know, if it's a low car count day, it's like, okay, I need to do callbacks. And, you know, Todd's had all these defining moments over the course of his career. And I'll never forget mine. It was when we were going to call all the customers that had a state inspection last year and just remind them their inspection was due.

Like, everybody does that, right? I mean, or should. It's a low car count day, and we're sitting there. and it's like, all right, here's a stack of papers. Let's go ahead and call these customers. So we call one, two, three, four customer answers the phone. Three voicemails, four customer answers the phone. Hey, just want to remind you, your state inspections do. Is there any way we can get that done for you? Well, nobody's jumping out of their chair to come and get their car home. Honey, grab the kids. You know, the oil changes. It's not happening, right? But it's like, oh, thanks for the reminder. Yeah, I'll come in tomorrow.

We offer to pick it up. And he's like, no, don't worry about it. I'll just bring it in tomorrow. And so after that, we hung up that call.

The phone rings and then somebody walks through the door and then technician needs a part and then all of a sudden that stack i'll never forget that stack of paper just slides underneath the computer monitor and we didn't make another call well the next day that customer comes in and he's like um he's like uh you know i'm here for my inspection thanks for reminding me perfect so we get the car in we rack attack the car we pmi it and of course we find you know work that needs to be done 2500 worth of work that needed to be done on this customer's car and i'm like that's it that was my aha moment i'm like we called four customers one answered he came in 2,500 three voicemails and then the other several hundred we didn't even get a chance to call and that was my aha moment like we need to be doing callbacks on days where we're slammed not where we're slow because you're not going to get cars to come in one in you know every so often will come in but man like for the most part they're just not coming in so it's like we need to do callbacks and were slammed.

So we hired exactly like you said, man. We hired a young college kid and you put him in the closet, right? Like that's where the callback person goes. Or it's a brother-in-law or it's a sister-in-law or whatever. And then you're at the mercy of them, right? If they miss work, you don't get calls. If they want to stretch their legs and walk around the parking lot because they've been sitting all day and somebody grabs them to go pick up lunch or pick up a part or, you know, like they can easily be just distracted. And so. We, you know, knew that that was not a winning formula.

And so obviously Gary Walker comes into our lives through prayer, through Todd. And the BDC man, by the way, is his email, which tells you like he's had that for 20 years. He's like, I love, I love this. I want to do this in service, not dealership world. And so it actually costs us less. We pay on our P&L, you pay on your P&L. It costs me less on my P&L than it costs me to have the college kid, right? There's no insurance. There's no, you know, there's no loaded cost. I don't have to buy them lunch.

I mean, it's like I just pay for this and it just gets done in the most pro way possible. Todd said it was one of his hardest concepts to actually perfect. It took probably a year and a half or so, maybe more to get it like really, really dialed in. And now it is so dialed in. So anybody that's listening, I can tell you, you said a comment there. You said if somebody has bad service, they're going to tell 10 people. And that is true. And if they have, you know, just average service, what they expect, you're going to, they might tell one person. But I can tell you this.

If they get amazing, over the top, just blown away service, they will tell more people. And we play a call in our podcast.

We play we play a call in the in the um in the training yeah and it's a lady that's like wow you guys call every customer like this is crazy she's like i was in there last week and somebody called me she's like wow wow wow i will definitely be back because every time i every time i come in you guys check on me and it's like we play that call because it just it's just a reminder that But like, okay, if you call your customers, you will absolutely blow them away. And they deserve it because they spent their hard-earned money with you.

And just a lot of people don't get that. So anyway, we are up on our time. We're about to go and have an amazing, amazing day. I want to thank you, JJ, for being on. Thank you, man. This was awesome. I always love talking with you. Let's go. To be your friend and partner and just in the family, my friend. And so likewise, man, like a hundred percent. Love you, man. Appreciate you. Love you, brother. Hey, everybody, let's go rock and roll. Have a great day.