Using the Shop Tour to Identify Pain & Close the Deal

Team, this is Joe Adams with Adams Automotive, the number one shop in America. This is Master Tech to Millionaire presented by Auto Shop Answers, where we talk about the transition from technician to business owner, CEO. We are here with Champ Warren. Champ is a wealth management advisor and managing director with one of the largest investment management firms in the United States, where he's worked for over three decades. He oversees $7 billion in assets with a B. For all of his clients, all successful business owners, entrepreneurs who have sold their company or are preparing to sell. And he's been recognized by Forbes, Barron's, and the Financial Times as one of America's top wealth management advisors for his achievements in the industry. So man, quite the intro, but Champ, how you doing? I'm doing great, Joe. Thanks for having me. Hey, so I wanted to have you on here because we've been getting very familiar

over the last six months or so. But we had a dinner about a month ago and you kind of... We had a great conversation about sales. And I think there were some similar concepts to what we call our new customer intro. And I guess I'll let you reveal kind of what your sales concepts are. But you told me this story that had a lasting impact on you and how you teach your team how to, have wisdom of and build emotional intelligence and like kind of diagnose your customers, which are going to be people who have a portfolio of assets and you want to earn their business, obviously. So I guess I'll pause there, let you introduce yourself and kind of hear from you what we're going to get into today. Sure. So all of our clients are business owners that have sold their company, or some of them, we're still working with them on preparing for a sale. And, you know, I never imagined that we would have $7 billion in assets,

which ranks us among the top in our industry. And if I had to, you know, say what was the key to our success, it was learning a sales method that I learned from one of our own clients. And I'll tell you this story real quick. So I'm chasing this guy who's going to sell his business for $250 million. And I asked him the best icebreaker question you should ask anybody you run into that's even remotely successful. And I asked him, well, what's the secret to your success? And he said, the Sandler, S-A-N-D-L-E-R, sales method. And I wasn't expecting that. This guy's got a petrochemical business that designs petrochemical plants. And I said, well, what's that? He goes, well, let me tell you the story. He said, I, you know, I have this, this business designing these petrochemical plants and I reached a plateau and I couldn't get past the plateau. And I'm frustrated. I tried everything. And I met with my good friend,

who's also a business owner and I'm complaining about this. And he said, well, your problem is you've got these engineers that helped you design the software to design the plants. And they're not salespeople, they're engineers. And he called them pinheads and he got to send them to a weekend seminar, which this is 20 years ago, it was $25,000. That's a lot of money. And then have them go through this and they'll teach them how to be salesmen. And then they'll bust through the plateau and you'll be home free. And my client's like, well, that seems like a lot of money. And that's a lot of time. I'm not so sure they're going to get transformed in just one weekend. And so his friend said, well, I'll tell you what, you do it and you call me and you tell me it didn't work. I'll personally write you a check for $25,000. dollars. We got called out, had to do it. He did it. It worked. And he sold his business for $250 million.

So I'm like, oh my gosh, what is the sales method I want to learn? And he goes, well, if you really want to find out, call my assistant and she'll send you the CDs because they recorded the whole thing. And I got six CDs and I watched the whole thing. It took a long time, but I can you know, break it down to 15 or so minutes to show you how we adapted it to our process, if you think that would be helpful. Yeah, yeah. I'd love to hear that. I'd also love to hear maybe later in today's episode, like, you know, you obviously had a long career managing people's assets and building wealth for people. I think a lot of our listeners, you know, the name of our podcast is literally, called Master Technician to Millionaire. And I think that's something we talk a lot about internally is how to like. Live below your means and create wealth for you and your family and experience compounding. So I'd love to get into that as well. But I also just want to reiterate or parrot

what you're saying, you know, just because you can fix the car in our industry doesn't mean you're like a master salesperson. And oftentimes the two jobs are entirely different. And the leverage we have in the business is like, they're so different. They're actually quite opposite. They're not even close to adjacent. Like the qualities that you need to, you know, be an engineer or be a technician, are in the exact opposite end of the spectrum as a master salesperson. So yeah, the Stabler sales method. So I want to sell my company for a quarter of a billion dollars. So if you, with that, yeah, please educate me on what the method is. Okay, so the main takeaways, a couple things. One is you got to know the difference between a professional salesman and an amateur salesman. Okay. A professional salesman sells by asking all the right questions. So really, professional salesmen, we're not selling, we're solving,

right? We got to find out what's most important. We got to solve for that and remove the pain, okay? And that leads to the second thing is how do you know the difference between a prospect you can close... And one you cannot, because we're in a very hyper competitive industry. And if we spend all our time chasing down people that we can't possibly close, well, then we get behind. And so the answer is, if you cannot find pain, you cannot close. And so we're always trying to find pain because the need is not enough. And so an amateur is going to look through the brochure and show the features and the benefits. And a professional is going to ask very thoughtful questions, which are the true serum that we really care so we can find what's most important, the real pain points, and we can solve for that. And so we learned that there's three types of pain. So like my client, I'm at this point, I'm trying to get to this other point.

I can't get there. I've tried everything and I can't get there. So that's real pain. And sometimes with us, that's somebody whose wealth is not growing and maybe their asset allocation is not aligned with their risk or something like that. The second one. Is I see trouble coming and I need to avoid that at all costs. And so that could be, you know, uh, I have not saved enough for retirement. What am I going to be able to do? Uh, or it could be the recessions coming now. What, um, and so anyway, trouble's coming. And then the third one is I'm already in trouble. I need to get out. And for us, that's usually lifetime events where somebody's passed away and, the spouse may not be familiar with how all the investments are managed is overwhelmed or it could be something super positive like a business selling and now it's way more money than they thought and they're completely overwhelmed and we left that one um.

So those are the three types of pain and can i interrupt is that agnostic is that agnostic to industry or absolutely everything so can you, what would an analogy be for like our industry so it's i'm not performing to the level i thought i would i see trouble coming how do i avoid that trouble and i'm already in trouble how do i get out of it so you know if we think about the auto repair business, you know they know there's something that needs to be fixed in the car and that trouble could be coming if i don't fix it okay and so we've got to align the solution with what's most important to them, and so you know it could be the safety of their family right having the car being a wreck because they didn't take care of it right that's serious freaking pain, right? Yeah. Or, you know, knowing that you've got a shock on one side that's out, well, I'm only going to fix that one when you're really supposed to fix both

of them, you know, and let's not. So let's not skimp on what's important is that this car performs for you and it's safe and you can drive it without worrying about the safety of your family. I'm just making it up. Right, right, right. We want to align it with what's important to them and we need to identify the pain points and that to me is an easy one. And obviously the one that they've gone way too far on deferred maintenance. And if you don't get this done like soon, it's really going to be a problem. It'll cost far more if we don't take care of this, right? Okay, so that makes sense. So professional versus amateur. Professionals solve. They don't sell. They ask the right questions. And generally, they're trying to find pain. There are three types of pain. And it seems like the main two in car repair are going to be, I see trouble coming if I don't fix this problem. Or I'm in a lot of trouble because my car won't drive right now.

Or something like that. But in your world, it's kind of like, hey, how much risk am I exposed to? I see trouble coming. I don't make sure I avoid that. Or I'm in a situation where I'm already in trouble. How do I get out of it? Okay. And then what's important is safety, but it could also be this is the means of transportation to my job. And if I can't get to my job, I'm not going to have a job. Right. I mean, you can really dial down into it or picking the kids up from school or whatever it is. You know, the car is incredibly important to them accomplishing what they have to accomplish, right? Just besides safety. Okay. So then we learned that there are three levels of questions to go through like a funnel to get to what's most important to them. And again, I'll tell you how we think about it in our industry. So the first level is we just have to simply identify the pain of, And, you know, what I do sometimes is when I think I've identified and I ask

them, you know, how important is that to you? Because I don't want to talk 10 minutes about something that's not important. So I confirm with that question that I'm on the right track. Right. And so then they're going to say it's very important. And sometimes people hold their cards close to the vest and they don't want to open up. And I, you know, this is a very personal business, you know, managing people's lifetime savings. So if they're holding the cards close, I'll say, listen, it's really important that I understand. And I'll say it genuinely from my heart. Could you, could you please tell me more so that I can get them to open up? And if they don't, then that's a red flag that they may not be serious. The pain not be, might not be real. And all they want to do is figure out what is my solution? What is my price? And go shop me someplace else. Right. So anyway, I get to tell them, get them to tell me why it's important.

And then the next question is, well, how did this start? And I wanted to explain it to me, like almost like you're diagnosing, you know, the car on the fast lift. And then, you know, the next question is, well, what have you done about it? And I want to know what everybody else has done to try to solve, to remove the plane that did not work. And i'm taking notes because i'm going to make sure that we don't do that uh and with your business it could be doing the same work over and over that somebody else has already done and it didn't fix the car right um and so i want to almost get them frustrated, because if i can get them frustrated in front of me then i know the pain is real yeah and then the next question is going to be well um you know, what have you done about it again that the things that did not work and then the next question is what could they have done to make it right. And so this is a super powerful question because I don't want to guess what

I need to do to remove the pain. I want you to tell me exactly what my proposal needs to be. That's what you're looking for that's going to make you happy. And then like a waiter at a restaurant, I'm going to write it down and it's going to be perfect. I'm not going to act like I'm so smart and not write it down and not pay attention because the whole time you're sitting there going, they're not going to get this right. he's not going to remember. And I don't want that to happen. So the, the, the, the food, my solution is going to be perfect. It's going to be exactly what they asked for. And I had a mentor tell me once, you know, if a client wants a grape, don't sell them on the benefits of a strawberry, find out what kind of freaking grapes they like and give them a, give them the right grape. It's not hard, but so many times we get so, you know, enamored with our solution and think we're so great. We're like, open up your mouth and we shove it down your throat.

And this is the only way that you can do it and, that doesn't make them feel good right okay so we we go through all those questions to really diagnose the pain and then get them to tell us what won't work and what will and then we fix it for them and remove the pain okay so that so now we've identified it that's first level. Second level is we got to quantify the pain and so the question could be if we could put a solution together that addresses all this for you, what does that mean in terms of the economics? Like what's at stake? And, you know, uh, if they lost, you know, 57% in the financial crisis, which is what the market went down, you know, $20 million going down 60 goes to eight and that's $12 million worth of pain. They don't want to have that happen again when the next recession is coming. Right. And they know it will. And so if we can have a solution that helps minimize that pain, my fee is less than 1%. 1% is a lot cheaper than 60% or $12 million.

And so if they believe that I can keep them from losing that much money in the future, they're more than willing to pay my fee and the fee will not be negotiated because it's worth what's at stake. And so that could easily happen in your business if you don't, again, fix these shocks and all the other components start to wear out, you know, this could be a whole lot more expensive than just replacing the shocks, right? Okay, so we've quantified the pain and we understand what's at stake. And then the third level is trying to personalize the pain. And that's just one simple question. The question could be, if we could find a solution that addresses all this for you, what does that mean to you personally? Which is an ambiguous question. And it's on purpose because I like to ask questions that nobody else asks. And so like well what do you mean champ and i was like well okay well you told me about your business in the 30 years and you know the long-term plan hopefully

is to sell it one day and all the ups and downs, the near misses with the recessions and the sacrifices away from your family 30 years let's fast forward, and assume we're at the finish line where we're ready to sell this thing um. What is it you want personally what is it you've been working so hard for help let me understand what it is so I can help make sure that that's what happens. And then sometimes they, they do this deal. They put their heads behind their head or hands behind their head and they stare at the ceiling. They're like, Oh my gosh, that's such a great question. And so now when they, when they do that, they're like, they're soul searching in front of you and they're about to open up and let you into their personal world where almost nobody else is. And they're going to tell you something super personal that's motivating to them that's driven them. And I've heard lots of wild different things. I've heard, well,

I just need to have $20 million in a checking account, which is a little bit shallow, but that's all you want. That's fine. I want a jet so I can travel. I want a yacht because I love yachting and want to sail around the world. I want this $15 million place in Dale. And it's going to be the place that brings the whole family together. And I believe that if you answer my question in our business. I believe I've closed you at that moment. Okay. Because I believe there are not too many people that know the answer to that question. And I think the only reason you would tell me sincerely, genuinely, from the heart, is if you've already decided in your mind, I know you better than maybe just about anybody else. I know exactly what I need to do to remove your pain. And you've decided in your heart that I'm the one that you're looking for. And I really do believe that because I don't think many other people,

maybe no one else knows the answer. And let's just use the example of the $15 million place in Vail. Um, you know, I may not have told my wife because if she knew we could sell the business and go get the $15 million place in Vail, she's ready right now, because she's worried I'm going to keel over and die and leave her with this mess and it'll go to hell. And she's afraid of that. And so I may not be ready. And so I don't want to get her all excited about it. I haven't told my wife. I haven't told my best friend because now, you know, I'm a jerk. It's about money and I'm richer than you. So I haven't talked to my friend about it. I haven't talked to my banker about it because when we sell the business, the banker has to get paid off and that puts an expiration date on the relationship. And I need them to keep going to bat for me. So I haven't told the banker. And I haven't told my CPA or my attorney because

it's not time, but you told me. And I think, again, the only reason you would tell me is because you decided, he's my guy. He gets me. He understands it. And I believe that you can give me what I want. So the worst thing we can do, and we call that a sacred moment when we have this special connection, you know, where we can just feel it, you know. The worst thing we could do at that moment in our business is go, well, Joe, let me tell you how we're going to get you that $15 million place in bail and whip out the brochure and start turning it to a salesman. Or not the brochure, but the proposal. And a lot of people think that you got to strike in our business. It may be different in yours. You got to strike when the iron is hot. But in our business, meeting one is about discovery. And the purpose of meeting one is to have a meeting two. And meeting two is when we share our proposal and we sell the benefits of the proposal.

And so, the way we finished our first meeting is we asked to summarize. I thank them for telling me something so personal. And I tell them it would mean a lot to me to be the person that helps them accomplish all that, And I want to summarize the meeting before we leave. Would it be okay if I summarize the key points to make sure I got everything right? Sure. And it's like the waiter, you know, repeating the order. Right. So we go through the pain points and I put a star next to each one. So I got two pages of notes. I go through the key pain points. And then I'm like, am I on there? I tackle, this is exactly what I'm looking for champ. Okay. Is there something I forgot to ask or is important to you that I didn't think to ask that i need to know no this is it champ, okay well you know joe i'd like to be able to put a solution i don't say proposal, because it sounds salesy a solution together that addresses all these things for you,

um and you know i'd like to meet with you next week if that's okay to present it and you're like fine and i said but you know can i just ask you one more question before we leave sure. Well joe if i can put a solution together that addresses all these things for you you know would you consider doing business with me because i want to kind of a verbal that i'm on the right track and uh, that yeah i'm in the running and and of course you're going to say yes and then we come back in the second meeting and we have it in writing you know the uh, we don't say pain we say challenges. And then we have the key points, just like we summarized with the topic on what it was, and then a one-line description. And then below, we have solutions. And the rule is every one of those solutions has to relate to something that's above that were the challenges and how it's going to remove the pain, how it's going to address that challenge.

And so we have this topic, a description. We go through that. And then the last, you know, challenges they want, we call it an aspirational, you know, deal that, you know. Aspiration in which it's the $15 million place in bill because we want to start the meeting in that personal space, right? That's their soul. Their soul searching. So we wanted to open back up and get back into that mindset and that vibe. And then we summarize that. Are we on the right track? Did you think of anything else no this is it champ this is what i want we do the proposal we go back to that summary page and we summarize it one more time and they're like yeah this is it and i said okay well the last meeting, you told me if i could put a solution together to address all this for you that you consider doing business with me joe i really want you to be my client i've done this many times i've been at this for 33 years, we've gone through this process many many times and I've geared my entire team,

to taking care of business people like you to help you accomplish, your personal life aspirations and to take care of your family and so tell me what more do I need to do to get started because I want to get to work for you I want you to be my client I want to get you that place and fail, and they're like you tell me and then we whip out the docks we put the fancy pin on top and we start signing up and so that that's a simplified compressed way of how we do it but that really is, how we do it and the whole goal is to make meeting one a discovery meeting for us. Because if we whip out the solution in our business right then, and we had this personal moment, then they know that nothing that was in that proposal had anything to do with anything you shared with me. And all we're doing is showing you the cookie cutter BS proposal that everybody gets to see. And now I'm not special anymore. And I'm wondering, why are you not calling me back?

Right. Because we kind of ruined it when it's such a personal thing in our business. But trying to get to the funnel of what's most important, i.e. That my family is safe or i.e. that I can have a reliable car that gets me to work so I don't lose my job or whatever it might be. You know, that's the whole key. And then when we can put our solution in perspective with what's super important to them, about having a reliable car, then it's a little bit more than how much is it going to cost with you because you took the time to understand me and now you're going to have a solution. And now I feel like I'm a little more of a closer, maybe even more of a personal relationship with you than just, you know, somebody that gives me a number. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I got a couple of questions for you. So to break that all down, you got to identify the pain. You got to quantify how important it is to them if you're able to fix that pain.

You've got to personalize it. You know, if we could solve this pain, what would that mean to you personally? You know, those are, those seem to be extremely effective in a wealth management portfolio. You know, it's like you literally are hopes and aspirations, but I have the challenge of condensing that process down to like maybe a five minute interaction at a front counter because we've got, you know, 20 or 30 customers that day. But I really like what you're saying about identifying the pain. So for us, it might be, might be, you know. Because we like to train in key to key that the only way you get a new customer is by a customer basically terminating the relationship with their previous providers. If you've had a technician or a mechanic working on your car for 20 years, you're not going to come to my shop just because I advertise to you. Like, they're going to have to drop the ball somehow or not be open on the weekends

or not provide good service or take advantage of you, pain, in order for you to give me a chance. And so, we talk a lot about in the new customer intro, identifying the pain, which is, you know, well, I used to take it to the dealer, you know, and they... So, we literally asked the customer, like, hey, what took you so long? Like, we've been here 40-something years. Like, how did you hear about us? What took you so long? And I'm like sneakily trying to identify what their pain is. Like, well, I fired the last shop that I've been going to for 10 years because it was the dealer and the prices got too high and the service wasn't good. Or, you know, maybe a different, maybe it's a shade tree mechanic. I had this small guy, but he didn't fix it right and he took advantage of my wife or whatever. Now, what I always like to do is I like to kind of metaphorically slam the brochure or the proposal on the table immediately because they'll tell me their pain

and then I get to say, well, man, that's great news. Like, did they take pictures? Like one of the things we do is we take pictures, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I'll pause here. My question to you is, should I hold that back? And should I basically validate their pain? Be like, man, that's probably a horrible feeling to feel like you're taking advantage of. And then have the sacred moment. And then maybe five minutes later, be like, hey, I know you mentioned this bad part of your previous car repair experience. Here's one of the benefits that we have as we do this, this, and this. So there's kind of... Does that question make sense? Yeah. I mean, you're in a transactional business and so you have to transact, right? And, and we're, we're in a relationship business, you know, that lasts generations. And so it's, it's two different types of businesses, but you know, the pain can be different. I mean, the pain could be, you know,

I'm, I need my car back quickly. Right i need i need somebody to be honest with me and if somebody takes the time like you guys do, to diagnose the car and explain it to me to where i completely understand you also show the pictures in the video and, you're going out of your way to make sure that i understand how this really is an important uh repair that needs to be made, i understand why it's important to my car how it works because you show me the little video deal and you can, take care of me quickly and you guys go the extra mile to if i need a ride back to the office or ride back to my home that you can arrange that for me i mean you're just making it so easy, for me to just say yes and and and because it's transactional and because, I need my car for you to be able to go through it quickly, get the parts, turn it around and be able to do that. Even when it's inconvenient on a weekend and when some people are closed,

that could that could really mean a whole lot to people that if that isn't done well and done consistently, then they're not going to see the value, you know, and then you're going in the fact that you're going to such extents to remove my pain, this inconvenience of my broken car. To make life easier for me. I mean, that means a lot and not everybody does that. And so I think there's different ways to highlight it, but yeah, you can't, you can't diagnose on day one and, you know, repair day two or three. It's like, you got to, I really do think in your transactional type business, you've got to strike when the iron's hot and they're there, but you got to, you got to highlight the idea that you're going to make life so much easier and better for them with your approach and your process. Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally makes sense. Yeah, because one of the main objections we get is just like price,

you know, like, obviously, we don't believe our business is a commodity business. It's like a service business, and you pay the premium for the quality service. And a lot of our customers understand that. But sometimes it's hard to get to communicate with customers the quality of the service, and they can very quickly call another shop and get some made up price on a different part, you know, and now we're the expensive people. So do you ever run into that? Like, you know, I guess you have such a slow burn in terms of building the relationship, um four years sometimes it takes us years yeah yeah to build a relationship so it's a different deal but you know like in your business you know if it's if it's i want it done quickly right, uh i also want it done right so, you've been around a long time you've got these highly trained technicians and i'm not going to have a situation where I drive it home and it's like,

oh my God, this isn't right. And I got to go bring it back and do it all over again. Right. Because you've got that high quality people and the high quality of service. And so there's all kinds of little, little things that you can do that make a huge difference that not everybody else is even thinking about. I love what you said about, uh, uh, does that sound right? Like you kind of, uh, you kind of. Repeat, you're almost like pre-firing the objection. You kind of say like, so it sounds like if we do this, this, and this, you know, that will solve your pain and solve your problems. Like, does that sound right? And then if you're not covering it all, they will clarify. They'll be like, oh, I'm also wanting to do this, this, and this. And I think that applies to both of us, you know? So it's like, so what I'm hearing you say is your objection is this, this, and this. Or so what I'm hearing you say is, if we have fast service and total

integrity, you'll be our customer for 20 years or something. Okay. Awesome. So, the main gist, though, is amateurs sell and professionals solve, and you have to identify the pain in order to solve it, where as an amateur they're just going to... And go deeper, right? You go deeper, you understand them better, you understand what... If there are pain points that make this process frustrating how do i make it, where it's not frustrating, and and thoughtful questions to understand what they're going through not just about their car, is like the truth serum that you really care and when you go out of your way to make it easier for me that's also true serum that you really care and then if you know you you do what you say you're going to do and the price is what you said it's going to be, and you're honest with me and you care and it's right every time and you make it easy, okay, I'm coming back, right? Right. Yeah, yeah.

So transitioning here okay so um do you have any anecdotes from your business uh where are you uh i oh you laughed so i'm sure you do where you've implemented the method, uh yeah you want to dive into yes i'll tell you my favorite story so and i'm not i'm going to change the names for the to you know protect the innocent so um this is one of my favorite ones so there's this investment banker that's selling this business and he wants us to meet. Uh this client and it's going to sell in a couple of years and a guy likes to pick stocks and he goes, Champ, why don't you just talk to him about the outlook on the markets and how you're positioned in general and what you might do if, things change or there's a recession or whatever. And so we go through this outlook on the markets and our process on how we think about things and how we're structured. And he loves it because we made it so simple and so easy to understand that,

He's like, Champ, would you mind, you know, having the same conversation with my wife and two daughters? Because they really need to understand this. And you just made it so easy. And we, yes, we will. So we meet in this place, a private restaurant at this private club. And it's very fancy, you know, with all the mahogany and the Persian rugs and the china and the crystal, the silver, the whole thing. And here's dad and two daughters. And sitting on my place setting is a statement from morgan stanley for a 28 and a half million dollar trust and that never happens and so we after the pleasantries he says champ i already. Talked to my wife and two daughters about the outlook on the markets and how you think about things and, i just couldn't help but i went ahead and presented it to him so we had a family meeting and decided that we want to transfer this 28 and a half million dollars to you and your team because it needs to be professionally managed.

I picked all the stocks and I've kind of neglected and I got busy in my logistics business and I don't have time to mess with it. And so it really needs to be professionally managed. So could we just transfer this account to you and then you look at the stocks and tell us which ones you would keep and which ones you would change and come back with a proposal. So this is, this is a layup. This is like, uh, no, it's going to move. Okay. Okay. Okay. This is crazy. So my intent is going up. It's like, there is some pain here. I got to figure out what is making them throw it at us. Right. Why are they firing? Yeah. Yeah. Got you. Okay. Got it. It's not, it's not that it's not that market outlook that did it. Right. And so we find out. That, uh, dad, his pain is he hates the government because they tax him so much and they waste his money. And he's, his whole life is efficiency in the, in the logistics business.

And he can't stand that they waste his money. And so I've heard of the million year times you hate paying taxes. I got it. Mom comes from the money and, you know, this is the money she inherited from her father. And in the last recession it got hit hard in oa uh so the big recession. And she just can't deal with that and so that was i see the pain coming again i want to avoid it at all costs so we figured it out for mom and then we had to figure out the aspirational personal pain and mom comes from all the wealth, and so they love yachting and they have this yacht that they take to the Bahamas with the whole family and they do their thing in the blue water and then they come back and that's, that's their thing. And then I found out that mom's got a challenge, you know, in her knee and going up all the steps is, is hard. And the only way you fix that is to get a longer one. And there's another multimillion dollar yacht. Okay. Yeah. They're so excited

about the new one that's coming. And so anyway, we got it. And then we go back to the office. Let me clarify. So you've got a mom and a dad and their family and two daughters. And the wealth is generational from the mom's father, who is. You know, that's previous generation. And the dad's pain is he's got this other business that he runs and he doesn't have time to manage the portfolio and he hates the government or something. He hates paying taxes. So, and we know that the mom loves yachting. Okay, so that's the picture. And then how do you, so how do you close them? Yeah, and then the pain is I don't want to have to go through this again, right? Okay, so we come back and the problem is that almost none of the stocks match up to how we would have done it. And so it's going to be a big tax liability to make a change and dad's not going to be happy. We're going to call him Jack and we'll call mom Jill.

So anyway, we come in and I start going through the pain points. I start going through the solution. I go through the actual solution after I lined it up and they have agreement that this is what's going to work. And then I present it to them and they love it. and we go through the summary, and i tell him i want to be their client i want to get this going i want to, you know put this solution in place mom and the two daughters are there at the boardroom in his office and they are thrilled and then jack's like hold on not so fast. Uh the champ did you count how many stocks we have in that portfolio yes sir and i'm talking to him exactly the way i'm talking to you okay yes sir how many do we have you had 220, well how many of them match up to your way of doing it in your proposal i said, uh 12 it turns red and he's like so you're telling me we're going to have to sell 208 stocks to match it up to do it your way yes sir,

and now he's very unhappy because he knows what that means and he's like now, his tone changes and he starts to have some uh, You know, he's not happy. There's some venom in his stone and he's starting to raise his voice ever so much. And he goes, well, Tim, did you happen to calculate the gain we would incur if we did it your way? And I said, yes, sir. And he goes, well, how much is that? That's his $6.7 million straight face. And he goes, well, I know he's like a like a, you know, a stroke or something. He's raising his voice. Well, did you calculate the tax we have to pay on that? Yes, sir. well how much is that i said it's 1.6 million dollars and i really didn't think he's gonna die and so he's turning red he's yelling at me now and he says well jack that's like an additional 1.6 million dollar fee on top of your fee to do it your way why the hell would we do that, i'm just as calm as can be and i said well jack let me explain and i stopped

talking to jack because it's not jack's money it's mom's money, and i looked at right right okay jill and then i I reached into my briefcase and I pulled out the original $28.5 million statement that was on my place setting in our first meeting. And I dramatically slid it on to the middle of the boardroom table where everybody could see it. And I even patted it a couple of times and I said, Jill, what we have here is not the $28.5 million. Trust that your father gave me many years ago before he passed away. What we have is a $28.5 million yacht. And we went to the marina where you said it was, and it's not there. We found it out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean between here and the Bahamas. And I don't know what happened. Somebody didn't tie it down, keep an eye on it, whatever. But we finally found it, and we did an inspection, and we found out there's no rudder. The motor's frozen over. It won't start. There's no crew on board.

There's no navigation. There's no communications. There's no nothing. And in 08, when the financial crisis happened and that hurricane came through, it did extensive damage to your yacht. And when we started to look at it, and we showed them the top five positions they had, they were in a chart from peak to trough. They were down more than the market. And your 28.5 million dollars went down to 12, and you had 16.5 million dollars, of damage to your yacht and to your portfolio. And we know the hurricane's coming again. And so, yes, we're going to put the best crew in the business on board 24-7. We're going to put a brand new rudder on there because this yacht cannot possibly get to wherever you want it to go. We've got a portfolio manager that's like a master mechanic that's going to get that engine up and running as good as new. We're going to put state-of-the-art communication, state-of-the-art navigation. And then this time, we have radar.

So when we see the hurricane coming. We're going to find the closest port. We're going to park your yacht in a safe harbor, and it's going to have some damage, but it's not going to have $16.5 million worth of damage. And then we're going to get it right back up and running and repair it very quickly. Dial that waypoint, and we will get you where you want your yacht to go safely with you and your family every single time. And, Jill, to do anything else would be unreasonable. Unreasonable yes it's going to cost 1.6 million dollars but again to do anything else would be not unreasonable i said irresponsible yeah okay yeah, irresponsible and so here's what jill did she raised her hands she slammed them on the table and she said jack, i couldn't put this any better myself this is my daddy's money and i cannot go through this again jack we talked about this We had a family meeting, and all of us decided that we're going to transfer this money to Champ and his

team so it could be professionally managed. And she looked at her daughters and goes, girls, isn't that what we decided? It's their inheritance. Well, of course, they wanted to be taken care of and not neglected. And so they're like, I cannot go through this again. I felt so much shame. Champ, what do I need to do to get this done? And I took out the documents, and I put my fancy pen on top, and I slid it over to Jack. And I said, well, Jack's the trustee. He needs to sign. Jack, sign it. So Jack took my pen and his hand was literally shaking, trembling, because he knew that was going to cost $1.6 million. And he signed it. And I had no doubt whatsoever that we were going to get that deal because, Mom, when you get good at this business, asking the questions. With them to me is when you can hear what's not being said. Okay. And what's not being said is that my husband's too busy to manage my inheritance.

And I felt shame and pain and embarrassment when it went down and no one did anything, didn't even look at it. And if my father was still alive, he probably would have gone out of his mind. And what she was asking me to do was please help me fire Jack because he's been negligent and she couldn't do it herself. She needed me to tee it up. And by me, you know, understanding the pain and quantifying the pain and then aligning it with their personal aspiration, which is if y'all want to continue enjoying yachts, this needs to be managed really well. And you don't need to be going through this again and feeling that shame and so i just needed to tee up for her and i knew she would send it home, and that's exactly what happened because even though she didn't say it to me i could hear it i could feel it right and again we just took the solution aligned it with what is most important to them. And it was easy and really it's just us understanding them a little better and removing the pain.

And then every time you, we close business and I don't know how you might adjust or make, ask this question, but we always ask this question. Whenever we close business, I always say to them, look, I have one more question I would like to ask. It's very important that I understand. And I said, you could have done business with anybody. Why did you choose to do business with me? And 99% of the time they're going to say, because you're the only one that really listened. You gave me exactly what I needed, what I was looking for. And it was perfect. And then sometimes they'll tell you things that you hadn't thought of. And then, then your antenna goes up and it's like, Oh, I didn't know that that was important. Uh, now I'm going to make sure that I add that to my list of pain points that I'm looking for every meeting going forward. And so it just makes you better and better and better, right? As you find places to look to remove the challenges or the pain points when

nobody else is looking. And some of those things can be super important and nobody asked, but I did. And, and it, I think it just gives me a competitive advantage over everybody else because it helps me to ask more thoughtful questions and to remove more pain. And it's certainly in places where nobody else is looking. Man, that's so good. That was one of my favorite, favorite deals. Because everybody in the office is like, oh, you're never going to get that deal. I'm like, oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put me in, coach. Oh, man, we've had some of those deals around here. And it's like, you're just not getting that deal. And then they get the deal, you know? And so I love what you said. So you basically had to just personalize the pain, and you had to understand her aspirations. And then you just use the aspiration as like a way to paint a picture. Like, hey, because yeah, you can just totally see it in your head.

Like, man, I know. Yeah, I know. You're not thinking about a portfolio. You're thinking about like, man, my yacht, you know, is going to... So you had to ask her in the pre, you know, the new customer intro, basically, like, what would it mean for you if we were able to like make this happen? Like, what are your dreams? And you learn about the yacht. Being irresponsible about this to being responsible and to get to sleep at night so I can keep enjoying being rich. Yeah. So I'll tell a story in our business, a similar theme, you know, we had a guy and he comes in at four o'clock on a Sunday for a state inspection, which is $18.50. And he drives a yellow, that's key, yellow, FGA Cruiser. And we identify, it was like a power steering rack and brakes and stuff. And it's something like $4,000 worth of repairs that we're presenting to him. And obviously, like he didn't know he had the pain, you know, he didn't know like he's got a broken car.

And so we're, it's very difficult to convert zero to 4,000. It's different if they come in and they're like, hey, I know I have this big problem with my car. Can you fix it? And, you know, we present the price and David, he was the one selling it and he's one of our top all-time salespeople, all-time ticket average and he objects. You know, he's like, well, the price is too high, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, this is like, he approved the initial like brakes or something, but the big ticket was the power steering. And, David just gets off the price. He just stops like, as he's talking to the guy over the day or two, the vehicle's in the shop. He comes to find out that the gentleman is a beekeeper in his personal time. He like harvests, I don't even know the word, honey. And he's like even got a yellow car. Like he loves beekeeping. Like it's his hobby. He sells it on the side. And David, he's like, he's like, like, man, like, let me, it's like his aspiration,

you know, it's like, Hey, what do you, so tell me more about like, you're like, what do you do? And he like opens up, you know, when you ask somebody about their passion, they just open up to you. And he's like, yeah, you know, I've been doing it this many years. And like, I sell it on the side. It's this organic stuff. And like, you know, the bees, man, when you buy the stuff at the store, it's like this process. See, we're not, we're not talking about the car at all. Anyway, at the end of the guy's feel, David's like, so you, you said You sell it, right? Like, who do you sell it to? And he's like, man, I'll sell it to you. Like, do you guys want to buy some honey? And David's like, yeah, I'd love to buy some honey. Like, how much do you charge? Is what he asked the customer. And he says the price and he's like, can I ask you, Mr. Customer, are you... You're not in your head because you get where I'm going with that.

He's like, so you mentioned all the organic and you're locally owned. Does it cost you more? Do you have to charge more than the guys at Trader Joe's or HEB? And it's like, that was when he closed them. He was like... The customer was... It clicked in his mind. He's like, oh yeah like i have the good stuff i have had good stuff and i'm proud of it, but i have to it costs me you know this much money to like produce the good stuff and david was like that's how we feel you know like we're family owned we're going to be here for another you know, 50 years we've been here 50 years you know we've got master technicians we're not putting cheap crap on your car yeah you know we're loving you're gonna love our honey and and and it's it, and he's been coming for years now. And every time we're like asking to buy the honey, you know, like, hey man, did you bring any for us? Because that's the thing, you know, it's like if I can identify your aspiration

or what you're into, and then when I'm trying to fix your pain, like what, tee it up the way that you did. So anyway. Just personalize it. Yeah, perfect. Perfect. That's a great example. I love that example. It's funny because his car is yellow, you know, like his car is like, he literally has a yellow FJ Cruiser, you know, it's like, anyway, I could go on and on. We've got all the stories in the world, but that's really good. So to recap, it's the Stadler sales method. A professional solves, he doesn't sell. You have to funnel them into identifying what their pain is, personalize it to them, quantify it, kind of identify what their aspirations are. If I can fix this pain, what does that mean to you? and they basically tell you how to close them. You're basically trying to listen because most people just talk 80% of the time. You're basically trying to listen to the customer with wisdom, like you said, tell you how to close them.

And then you close them. You bring out the big pen. Yeah, fancy pen. I mean, because the discovery is about them. They should be doing most of the talk and we should just be asking the questions for sure. Okay, sweet. So that's really great. I hope some of our team members can apply that to their own personal book of business and see how it works. So let's transition. I want to talk one more thing about, you know, you've been obviously helping people protect and preserve and create wealth for your entire career. And a lot of the people, part of the reason I'm so passionate about this business is I came from resources and a lot of people in our business didn't. And that's just the nature of, it's a blue collar industry. A lot of our employees and team members maybe worked for a giant chain that didn't really care much about them and they've never, thought about what their retirement looks like or what a 401k is or an IRA or

a saving for their kid's college. Now we've also got people that listen to this and might be a single unit operator, that they're like my dad. They were a master technician and they didn't go to business school, but now they run a successful small business and, you know, they're trying to create wealth for the first time in their family. And then we've also got people who listen to this who might be more sophisticated, they might have multiple units or a chain in a region. And so I wanted to spend some time with you just talking about, we can start at the beginning. Just any advice or feedback you have to our team members, maybe people that are just, I don't want to say just, but starting off in their career, you're trying to create wealth for the first time, where do you start? It can be pretty confusing, similar to how cars confusing. They might know a lot about cars, but it's really not that complicated when you break it down.

So if you were a person on our team with W2 income, trying to create wealth for their family, like what is, how does it all work? Yeah, so it's so important. And I, they don't teach this in element or in a middle school. And so I go around schools teaching financial literacy all the time, but it's more wealth creation, not budgeting. And so I'll just go through some very, very basics, and then we can go in whatever direction you want. But if you think of wealth creation, it takes money to make money, which is unfair if you don't have a lot of money. And my family did not have money. And so, you know, that can seem unfair, but the reality is it doesn't take a lot of money to make a lot of money. It just takes a lot of time. And that means you've got to start early. And so if you do have, you know, certainly young people that are technicians and they're fortunate because you're giving them a living wage where,

you know, they can live within their means and have money left over. The trick and the key is you got to buy assets. And this is not the accounting, definition of an asset, but in an investment world, an asset is anything that puts money in your pocket. And so many young people suddenly get the job. They're a technician. They're certified. I'm making good money. And they have a hole in their heart and soul. And they want to fill it with all the things that they went without. And so they end up buying liabilities and not assets. So liability is the thing that takes money out of your pocket. And a lot of times that could be a car that's just to show off or an apartment or a home that's too expensive. And now I have no cash flow left over and I don't have anything to buy any assets that will appreciate in value and put money in my pocket and create wealth. And I'm in a rat race. We're just living the paycheck to paycheck.

And so, you know, what we really should do is find things that are going to appreciate in value and rich people only buy assets. They don't buy liabilities. And because those assets put money in their pocket and gives them extra cash flow then they have money left over to buy more assets which gives them more cash flow they buy even more assets and that's how the rich keep getting richer, is because they only buy assets and so you know if i were starting out and i've done this with my own children just buy the s&p 500 index, if you went on to google and asked what's the 10-year average return of the s&p 500 it's over 13%. If you ask for the 50 year long, long-term average, it's right around nine. And if you took just a quick example, if you took a hundred dollars a month and put it in the S and P 500, uh, and that's 12,000 a year and you did it for 50 years. So a hundred, a hundred dollars, 1200, sorry, 1200. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

1200 a year times 50, 60,000 over 50 years. You saved, All you do is save $60,000. Yeah. That would literally compound because it's growing off itself. Right. And it's making money, adding to the base and growing and making money and adding to the base every year and growing. That's called compounding. The 60,000 turns into a million. But it takes 50 years, right? $100 a month, $1,200 a year times 50, 60,000 turns into a million. Now, the key is if you wait 10 years and only invested the same way for 40 years, it's only 400,000 plus. Because the compounding working off the big base has the greatest effect at the end, not in the beginning. And so if I wait too long to save money, I might not ever get to my goal. And certainly, working as a tech for you, I have the ability to save way more than $100 a month, right? And so we did an example of where if you're 16, you do $100 a month, now you're 26, you have a job, maybe there's a 401k or retirement plan where you can start

to save money for retirement, and you save $1,500 a month, which sounds like a lot. That's $18,000 a year. But out of. $80,000 or whatever the pay may be, uh, 50, 80, it starts to be manageable if you're single and you haven't bought the house and you haven't done all that stuff yet. Um, and so that ends up being $700,000 over 50 years and turns into $7.6 million, right? So you can be a multi, multi, multimillionaire if you just start soon enough. And the key is to pay yourself first. So we always pay our bills first and then whatever's left over i splurge on some and then after that maybe i have something, to go buy some more s&p 500 chairs, and oftentimes we don't and so if you just automatically get direct deposit into your checking account, yeah you set up a brokerage account and it's whether it's at schwab or wherever it is doesn't matter you can tell it every month two days after payday, put $100 or $200 or whatever it is into my brokerage account and automatically

buy the S&P 500 index as soon as there's enough money in there, and then it comes out first, you don't have it to spend, and now you're managing what's left, and you're just prioritizing long-term savings. And... It's amazing how many people don't do that. And I've had conversations with incredibly smart people with master's degrees from the Ivy League schools that would tell me when they're in their 50s, they're freaking out because they didn't save enough for retirement because they spent all their money or had excuses. Well, I need a house. I need to put money for kids, college, and blah, blah, blah. And they never prioritized. And now they realize when they do the math, they'll never get there. And so their lifestyle is going to be completely different. But again, as a technician certified, you can make good money. If you start early, you can have a million dollars, almost no excuse not to have a million dollars, you know, 50 years later.

And it should be multiples of that if you get good at saving money and budgeting your money and just prioritizing retirement first. I liked what you said about an asset puts money in my pocket and a liability takes money out. And the reason I know people can do it is because I see new cars show up in our parking lot when people work for us long enough. And I always ask them, like, do you know any super wealthy people that drive new cars? Like, they just don't. You know, on average, they don't. And the analogy I like to make is, like, let's say it's a new F-150. And it's an $800 a month note. I'm like, if you make that payment for the next 45 years, what are you going to have? You're going to have 10... You're going to trade in your car every five years, and you're going to have $800 a month payment for 45 years. And at the end of 45 years, you'll have a five-year-old F-150 that's worth 15 grand or something.

And I was like, you could drive a Corolla. And maybe people don't wanna drive a Corolla and I get it, but it's like, $800 a month is a lot of money that you could be putting away. And it's like, I don't know what the math is, but it's probably several million dollars in retirement. If you start in your 20s. It is. I mean. The cost of not having that invested and appreciating over 40 or 50 years is millions of dollars, literally millions of dollars. And I only bought one new car in my life. It was right out of college. I bought a Mazda Miata. Because I was just lusting after that car. And that's the last new car I ever bought because I like buying cars with 20,000 miles on them for 50% off. And they're just going through adolescence, you know? Yeah, let somebody else take that depreciation. Absolutely. So let's, okay, so S&P 500 compound interest, the most effective compound interest for ingredient is time.

Most people just start too late and they put their wants in front of their needs, which is safety for their family. But, you know, let's transition here. My dad was a cowboy, still is, you know, and he's never been big on the S&P 500. He said one time, he's like, Joe, I was in the S&Me 500. That's what he said. So funny. Because he's like, because, you know, when you're growing your business, you can either buy shares of the S&P or you can buy a Lyft. You know, you can put that money in painting your floors or in, you know, investing in a business. And so I think there is a line from paying yourself first and setting up for retirement. And then, you know, how do I minimize my taxable income and invest that money back into the business? So do you have anything to say to like kind of the middle level, you know, before we get... Because when you're a multi-unit operator and you've got over one or $2 million

a year in EBITDA, the whole game changes, you know. But when you're a single unit operator and you're trying to grow your business, how would you think about... Would you focus all on your business and trying to scale it to multi-unit or would you save for retirement? How would you do that? Well, let's define what does it mean to be rich, okay? Okay. And I think the way we look at it is when your assets put enough money in your pocket that it pays all your bills, then you're rich because you're not working for money anymore. Your money's working for you, right? Okay. And, and so if, and I have another client, you know, and I think this is relevant to certainly small business, certainly a one unit operator, he would say, and a huge business, by the way, he would say, champ, we're all one lawsuit away from bankruptcy. Yeah, that's for sure. And so I love that. He was a big believer in diversifying away from the business.

Now, you're not going to get a better return if they're following your process and doing it your way than to put money back into the business. And then I'm a one-unit operator, and if I perfected the way you guys teach them to make money and manage the process, then it makes perfect sense that you start thinking about your next unit and possibly the next one. But most wealthy people don't have all their eggs in one basket. They're still going to take some of that cash flow, especially after they get established and get a little comfortable. Like, I figured this thing out, I've got good management, I'm not having to kill myself anymore, now I can afford to start to diversify a little bit. And so, yeah, it won't necessarily just be the S&P 500. We'll start to diversify that and add some bonds for stability, not just be in large cap. And it's getting to be the S&P 500 is highly weighted now to those huge tech hyperscalers.

Right. When OpenAI and Anthropic go public, the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 are going to be 50% of the value of the whole stock market. So, you know, we don't want to put everything in the S&P. So we diversify for our clients and, you know, have some liquidity and some wealth growing outside the business so they have balance. And then, you know, again, the wives are all nervous. If something happens to you, what are they going to do with this business? So knowing that there's some money set aside that can help maintain the family's lifestyle if something happens, you know, to you as the operator, you know, that gives a lot of peace of mind. And then the other thing is we do, and I don't mean to get off track, but, you know, when you have insurance on your cars in your home, you can get an umbrella policy super cheap. Years ago, I got one for $5 million and it's $7,500 a year. Uh, and it was meant to replace income if I died early.

And that's, that's, and it's after I did it for 20 years, after 20 years it's gone. Right. Uh, but that's also sleep at night in addition to diversifying and keeping the family and your wife and everybody happy. Uh, and so, yeah, we, we will start to help clients think about that. And then as you get to be, you know, multiple locations and you get to be further down the life cycle of the business, and you're starting to think about the exit, that brings a lot of other complexity. And so we're talking to clients about, you know, setting up estate plans and estate planning is just taking the assets that are going to grow the most and get them outside your estate where they're growing outside of your estate out of your own tax ID number, so that you're not having to pay the 40%, estate tax on all that future growth. Because if something grows at 10%, it's going to double every seven years. So whatever assets we have today, if they're growing, and again,

the S&P has been growing at 13 for the last 10 years. I'm not thinking about how big that could be in the future. So if I have a $20 million net worth and it's growing at seven, in 10 years, it's going to be 40. In another 10 years, it's going to be 80. And that's more than if you're married, the combined $30 million lifetime exemption, they take off the top when they calculate your estate that you get to pay 40% on the extra. So in advance, and certainly if you're opening up a new location, you have kids, you know, start the new location by gifting them some shares. So all that growth and the new locations, and they can be separate LLCs, your family's going to get that growth. Your children will get that growth and it's not inside your estate and it's not subject to a 40% gift tax or a 40% estate tax. And so yeah we want to potentially give shares in our business to our kids and that can be discounted too for lack of control and a minority interest and no

voting rights and all that so that it, takes as little amount as possible away from my lifetime exemption that's 15 million for me and my wife but anyway there's lots of things we do to start transferring stock, you know in the business ownership in the business There's. Kids pop kids in their trust, then hit my no gift tax. And the E way, you know, when it's doubling, you know, that could be a whole lot of tax. We're not paying 40% on, right. And then the last thing I would say that to think about is people are always worried as they start to accumulate wealth. I mean, when you have multiple locations and all these people working for you, You can't hide from your family that you're wealthy. And, you know, every family's worried if we talk about wealth to our kids, then they'll think I'm privileged and it'll ruin their ambition and they won't want to work and they'll just wait to get their money. And that happens, but it's not money that ruins kids in our experience.

It's parents that ruin kids and they ruin them by not talking about it. So it's the opposite. The more you talk about it, the better, as long as you also include your values, how you created that, and your expectations on what you expect from them for them to participate in it. And when you do that, and they've been spending their whole life trying to not disappoint you they're going to work extra hard to not disappoint you so they have an inheritance. But if you don't talk to them what happens is they fill in the number the blank with whatever they think the number is which is not correct, and then if you don't talk to them about expectations then they'll assume there are none and that's how they become you know messed up um and so yeah having and, we start with talking about uh here's buckets of money just so you know and oh by the way, we've got your college covered and you don't have to worry about that.

But it could be a long time before we die. So you might have to wait a long time before you get any money. So I highly encourage you to go and do the best you possibly can so you're not waiting 50 years when you're an old man for what I worked for my whole life. And then as they get older and more mature, you can fill in the numbers of the different buckets and then start to talk to them about what they will get and at what time and what's expected and the limitations that are put on that and the trust. And, you know, what you hope that they do, which is just be a good human, work hard, be productive and pay it forward. You know, but there's a lot of kids that get all jacked up with, money because they think they have to outdo their parents and that's not true and then they think they got to do it on their own without asking for help so they don't have to feel guilty then they earned it on their own like mom and

dad did and that's that's not true either you just want you to be a good human, and we want you to work hard and be productive and be happy pay it forward and when you have those conversations and you talk about what you value, um then it changes the dynamic and uh it empowers them and makes them feel proud and, uh you know somebody asked them about their money then you just simply say hey my mom and dad worked incredibly hard they value x y and z, and they you know give back to the community and i could not be more proud of them and yes we're very blessed and fortunate and that's all you have to say, and guilty is when you did something wrong we're not doing anything wrong we're just going out and live in life to the fullest and you know the meaning of life is to figure out what your god given gift is and the purpose of life to do the most you possibly can with it and that's all we do, there's no there's no guilt involved,

you know we didn't throw our opportunity right. Yeah 100 so yeah i love what you're saying so uh to reiterate so single unit operator uh you're probably not going to get the best return by diversifying but you'll be able to sleep at night And I know Glenn, he's a partner of ours. He's very big on the insurance policy, you know, to have income replacement for your family. And then the final part, the multi-unit preparing your family, maybe for an exit. Maybe a lot of our listeners might not think that that's attainable, but there are a lot that maybe do. There's a lot of people in our business that are service advisors that want to grow in their career and open up a business one day. And we've just got a lot of case studies of, business owners that have come through our training that are in their late 30s, late 40s, and they all of a sudden go from $300,000 or $400,000 a year of EBITDA to a year later doing one and a half to $3 million of EBITDA.

And at that point, you're kind of, even on a reasonable multiple, if you have $2 million of EBITDA, you've got a super high net worth compared to maybe not very long ago. And if you can take some chips off the table and compound that at 8% By the time you're in your 80s, you've got a tremendous network, like crazy, unimaginable for a lot of people. And I know there are certain people that are listening to this that do believe that they're capable of that, even if they're just a service advisor right now in their 20s or 30s. So I hope whoever's listening to this, I hope you know who you are. But the answer, I love that you touched on it. How do I not ruin my kids? Like if you have that kind of net worth when you're at that age, I think what most people do and what you're saying is they kind of just don't talk about it and the kids figure it out for themselves. And then they make assumptions on what they're going to receive or not receive.

And something we say in the business is if you don't tell your team members how much money the business is netting or making, they automatically assume it's on average six times more than it actually is. And so I can imagine kids are probably the same way. It's like, well, I see this big house we're living in. I must be getting all this money. You know, when you guys pass it on. But I think transparency is probably super effective. So we always get this question, you know, how much is enough to leave for your kids? And the answer is however much you prepare them for. You know, it's kind of like the same as what you were saying. And, you know, when I think back of when I started, you know, in my career, I wasn't a technician, but I was just a salesman with a desk and a phone. And they said, have at it. And I did it all wrong. And just like somebody that's maybe a technician that's starting to own their own operation, they didn't go to business school.

I didn't, nobody told me how to be a salesman. And I was, I was the guy with the brochure. I was, I was maybe too aggressive. I was, let's just call it super enthusiastic. And, you know, I think the only reason I survived is I did have enough passion and enthusiasm. Maybe my clients felt sorry for me and they threw me a little bone and that was enough to keep me afloat. And then when I learned the Sandler sales technique, of how to be a professional, I mean, it's completely changed my life. I mean, I never in a million years would have dreamed that we would have $7 billion to oversee. And I think what you're doing is the same thing. When you teach somebody how to be a professional at this business, you know, that is so fragmented and is executed so poorly on average around, you know, everywhere. When you learn how to do it at this high professional level. You know it just changes everything and and then you know,

hopefully you're starting to see growth and margins and bottom line and even die the whole thing, and ours is the same way we i luckily learned this process changed my world and i think as people learn your process it changes their world and i'm incredibly grateful, that you asked me to speak about our way of thinking about sales, and you know creating wealth and talking about future because you know with with your playbook i think there's there's no limit, and certainly in our world as we got better and better at it there there was no limit and again never in a million years thought i would, you know have seven billion dollars that we're responsible for when i'm a c student from the university of texas with a degree in finance where my gpa just kept getting worse and worse the further i got along. I didn't know you went to ut that's yeah yeah but on paper i don't have i don't qualify for the job i have but here we are and we made the most of it and i

think you give everybody the same exact opportunity, Yeah, and there's case studies. People at Todd's old company that were restaurant managers in the 90s that he recruited. I know multiple that went on and started their own chain and sold multi... I mean, I think there's a couple of them at least that are over eight, maybe nine figures of net worth. But obviously, they had to work for it for 30 years. It doesn't come easy. So anyway, I'll leave you with this final question. You may or may not even be able to talk about it, but any market outlooks for us regular people? You think it's just super overheated and overvalued right now? There's definitely parts of the market that are overdone. The difference in the tech bubble in 08 is the companies didn't make any money. Yeah. Now these big tech companies make massive amounts of money. I just read in the Wall Street Journal today that first quarter earnings are

supposedly up 28% year over year. Now a lot of that is coming from those huge tech companies. But you know are they are they overdone yes have we, run them up too quick too fast yes um are they going to keep spending money on ai like crazy. This year it's supposed to be over 700 billion spent on data centers in one year and it's going to be multiple trillions at the rate they're going, and is there a trickle on effect to lots of different businesses that are tied into that yes, Um, and is everybody making money? Yes. Uh, and the reason we haven't had an inflation is because the labor market is strong. It's as good as it's ever been. It's 4.3% unemployment is literally, as good as it gets going back 70 years. So everybody's got a job. We're making enough money to keep spending money and companies are making money with record profit margins. Um, and so can this continue yes uh does it go in a straight line,

no it doesn't right we'll know when it's coming to an end when i mean we're probably already euphoric in certain areas i mean the whole thing for sure spacex you know they lost five billion dollars and we valued it at two trillion i mean yeah. It's adjusted evita they depreciated the rockets just crazy so i saw a No, we, that was, uh, Elon Musk is a trillionaire on $8 billion of EBITDA. It's so crazy. That's crazy. So, so there are areas that are going to, you know, come down a little and adjust. It's not going to necessarily take down the whole market. And I'll just leave you with this. As long as the consumer has a job and is making money, uh, and continues to consume, I mean, GDP is 68 and a half percent of consumption is what GDP is in America. As long as we can keep that going then we'll keep advancing and then when we start to see the labor market weaken and consumption go down then the recession

will probably come but the recession is not on the radar today, well that's exciting to hear I'm going to take that to the bank no I'm kidding. I'm certainly not a financial professional at all but I'm optimistic I'm just a bull I just think AI is so transformational some of the things I've seen And I just, I hear what you're saying. It sounds like the companies that are super profitable, like are the ones paying for all this stuff. So it's not like, I guess Oracle could go under or like Anthropic or OpenAI if it really hit the fan. But like Google's making a hundred billion a year or something in earnings, you know? So the line continues to go up and to the right. I think it's definitely super profitable. Euphoric feeling sometimes. So it's like, oh, we got to be getting close. But all right. Well, that's been, I think that's the pod. I learned a lot today. So Champ, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate you.

And yeah, I think that's the pod. All right, Joe. Thank you, sir. It's been an honor. Appreciate it. All right. Take care. For more information, reach out to Todd Westerlin at 925-980-8012 or visit AutoshopAnswers.com. You can get more information about key-to-key-to-callbacks, courtside. We have a VIP Rack Attack Day where you spend an entire day in the trenches with our team, learning this perfected business model. We offer leadership classes. We have an AI academy. And also get more information about auto shop callbacks. We have auto tech training. We are literally your one-stop shop. Once again, that number for Todd Westerland is 925-980-8012.