Charlie Zlatkos & How a Master Tech Became a Millionaire

What's up, players? This is Joe Adams with Adams Automotive, the number one shop in America. Another episode of Master Tech to Millionaire. Today, we're going to be talking about the OG original Master Tech who has transitioned to a millionaire. We got Gideakos, aka Charlie Zlatkos on the airwaves. How you doing, Charlie? Hey, good, Joe. How you doing? Hey, happy birthday, by the way. Oh, yeah. When we're filming this, it's my birthday. I'm turning 23 years old. No, I'm kidding. 29. I was telling my wife, I think 29 is like the most boring year in your 20s. I think 21 is like the best one. And then 29, it's like, man, I'm almost 30. It's getting there. We have people in our company now that are 10 plus years younger than me. That's crazy. I've always been the young guy. So anyway, let's get into it. So today I wanted to talk about Charlie's been traveling all over the country, presenting his story of how he transitioned from master technician to millionaire

and how he learned Todd's hospitality concept. To grow into the position that he's in. And I was like, man, what a great idea for a podcast. Let's just put it on the airwaves. So Charlie, where do we start? What year did you move Where were you born? Where were you born? What country? I was born in Greece. Born in 75. Now you know my age, too. There you go. A little older than you. There you go. So anyway, moved here in 93. I always liked cars. I liked motorcycles. This is how the story actually goes. I used to be BMXing when I was young. Then I got into motorcycles and riding pretty aggressively. So my father wanted me to get out of the motorcycle world. So he put me into cars. I mean, I always liked them. I used to read magazines and study about the engines and all that stuff. So I started working for his mechanic back in Greece, and then I changed schools. So the last year before I graduated high school, I switched over to a technical school.

So I was going to school at night, and I was working during the day, and I moved here in 93, June of 93. So June of 93, you're how old? I can do math. That's like 17 years old or something. Yeah, I was almost 17 at the time. And then you, uh, you got to work. So how did you, uh, how did you make a living, uh, when you moved over here? So I moved over here on a Thursday and I had an uncle at the time. His name was George. He's passed away since. And on Friday, he took me around and I barely spoke English, by the way. I only knew four words. Those words were cat, hat, man, dog. And on Friday, uncle George took me, we hit the streets and he took me to some Greek owned repair shops or gas stations, wherever they were. And he tried to help me find a job. And the first two guys said no. And the third guy, the owner, I'm not sure if he said yes or no, because he had a manager in the shop. His name was Jimmy.

I remember clearly Jimmy saying, I like this kid. I want to try him. And that was on a Friday, Monday morning. I started working and I was there for over seven years. Okay. So 1993, you worked seven years at a gas station or some sort of shop equivalent. And then I know you opened Pleasant Car Care in 2010. So walk me through that 17 years of pretty much just grit. So you're learning English, you're working in the shop. Walk me through that season. Yeah, man. I mean, I started working as a... I wasn't even a mechanic yet, right? I was still too young. So I was a helper, then became a junior tech, then started really fixing cars. And I always thought that that was the deal, learning how to fix cars, which I still love till today, believe it or not. Obviously, I do a lot of other stuff now. But started working into cars. It became really good. And I was really fast. And I loved it. I mean, I just loved it.

But at some point, you think because you started becoming a good technician, you feel like, oh, you know, no business. So, obviously, I didn't have money to buy a shop and open a shop. And I met this guy at the gas station. And he used to have detailing places in all the high-rise buildings in Boston. Not in all of them, but in a bunch of them. And, you know, we became friends. And he's like, well, when you do mobile oil changes in this building is where I'm at. So I kind of tried to ride on his back, let's say, to meet people and meet some of his customers. So I bought a van of an electrician. And I've said this story before. The only reason I bought that van is the only van in his fleet. I had air conditioning. Yeah. It was like I didn't want air conditioning his other vans. He didn't want his guys to go around in the van in the summer, I guess. So I bought his, the owner's van. I put some tools in there.

I put some fluids, some oils, lubricants, floor jack, wiper blades, tie repair kit, that kind of stuff. Any small repairs I could do or oil changes and I just quit my job and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go do this now. Start servicing the cars in downtown Boston. So I did that for about a year. And honestly, you cannot make money doing that. Yeah. That's the story. Then for again, I didn't make any money. And then originally what happened, my first boss from the first gas station, John called me one day. He's like, I got this friend of mine. He has this gas station in Jamaica playing. They had us basically redone the gas pumps and the gas tanks and stuff. But the gas station was closed because Joe's already had another place going. So he couldn't run two at the same time. So he's like, you need somebody to run this place. So I met him. I have no idea. I can't remember how much money George offered me, but whatever it was, it was more that I was making. Yeah.

Because I couldn't make any money. So I said, sure, I'll take this. And I started it up. It was a closed station. I was pumping gas and then started to get some repairs in the door. And I used to work bell to bell. I think we used to open the doors 5 a.m. I think it was 5 to 11. So 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. And I did that for a while. Then eventually we started hiring gas attendants. To take care of that load, as the soft got busier, so I would spend some more time in the Bay, and I did that 10 and a half years. All right. So it took us about six minutes to condense 17 years. But I want to just pause there because I think a lot of people, we work a lot. We work a lot at the Auto Hospitality Group and at AutoShop Answers. But the title of the podcast is literally Master Technician, Master Tech, which Charlie was, to Millionaire, which is a completely different skill set. And unfortunately, it doesn't come without...

It actually comes... I heard a pastor say one time, he goes, sometimes blessings come wrapped in, hard work you know like 16 hours a day for 17 years is a long time man i got i didn't do that for 10 years but, you know in the beginning i did yeah it was open to close uh but then after that you know we work mechanics let's call it hours you know they're so close at six but what happened again i was responsible for the whole place so if it was a Sunday and the gas attendant will call out, guess we'll have to work. Yeah. If, uh, you know, back in the day, I don't even know how it is nowadays, but a lot of times the car would leave the gas pumps. Yeah. Uh without the nozzle disconnected and it would snap the hose and you have to fix that so if it happened after hours guess who had to go back and fix that, uh so i've worked there is no single out of the day i haven't worked how is that yeah yeah exactly four hour day period i've worked them all but it's a

lifestyle you know todd talks about work-life integration and it's kind of like the uh the entrepreneurship journey if you want to be successful at least is, uh most somebody asked me the other day, how many hours do you work? And I was like, man, I was trying to think of a good way to explain it. And I think I've never had kids, but I hope to one day. And I think the most. Apt analogy is it's like having a kid. How many hours a day are you a parent? All of them. You are thinking about it nonstop. And if you're a person who wants to make the transition to get a top 10, top 5, top 1% outcome, you can't do it 9 to 5. It just doesn't work like that. And some people don't want to make that trade, but it just is what it is. It's funny you said that. I'm actually interrupting before your next question here. Yeah. But I had a friend of mine a couple of years ago. He's like, he's a physical therapist and he's like i want to someday open my own office

because i want to work as hard right i just started laughing yeah i'm like if you really think you're going to open your own office and work less you're dreaming because that's not how it works okay at least in the beginning yeah to be honest at least in the beginning the first five years or ten years the first five years you have to work really hard so what i did when you said that uh i actually went online. I went on YouTube and I found this video from Dana White. He has a video that he talks about that. If you're an entrepreneur, basically you just work all the time. Yeah. And I sent that to him and you have to be ready. You have to be willing to do the sacrifice. But the reward is amazing and the feeling is amazing, but you have to be willing to do the work. I think it's literally like being a parent. Granted, I've never been one, but I heard Michael Dell I'll say he said one time, you know, he was asked, how many hours a day do you work?

And he said, what do you mean? All of them. I work all the hours. Like, what do you mean? He didn't understand. And it's it's literally like having a farm 100 years ago or 200 years ago. And you have this bright idea of I'm going to have 12 kids to help me toil the land. And like, I'm going to get workers. I'm going to get free labor and it's going to be great. I won't have to work as much. And it's like, well, in your example, Charlie, five years, it takes at least five years for a kid to even be able to do anything on his own, let alone be productive and be, you're in the position now, you're in your 50s and you have a successful flourishing business, but people don't usually understand that it takes 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 hours of toil to basically raise the kids, to basically raise them to a point where they can stand on their own. They develop themselves. They develop the people around them. And so Michael Dell, he's like, I worked them all. I literally work them all.

In the beginning, I mean, you've said it before me and you had these conversations that you are the business. You are the business. You are the business and you make every single decision and you call every customer and you try to answer every email that comes in and you deal with every vendor and you deal with the insurance and you deal with payroll and like all of it, you are the business. So then eventually, hopefully you learn the system, which is what we teach, right? We teach a very systematic approach to the business and eventually, hopefully you learn that. Now, once you learn it, now you need to start training your team how to do it. That is the next step of the business. And that takes a long time. It's very difficult. Don't forget, you want to do it as the owner, right? You come in and you come to class and you're learning. You're like, I'm going to do this. And now you have guys that work with you or girls and they may not want to do

it. So because you think it's a good idea, it doesn't mean they want to do it. They may not think it's a good, they might think, I don't want to work anymore. I don't want to try something new. I'm comfortable doing this. So then what happens not only you have to learn it and teach them you now have to find the right people you might have to turn over teams it's a lot of work to get there up until it gets to the point that you can really, almost step away. You can never really step away. By the way, that doesn't exist, right? You have to be connected and touch it and feel it. But there's a great book, From Good to Great. I think that guy's name is Jim Collins, if I'm not mistaken. It's been a long time since already. But he talks about the flywheel effect. And in the beginning, think about a big, heavy flywheel. It's almost impossible to move, like a train that stopped, right? It's impossible to get it moving.

But then once you get it moving now it just kind of rolls all you have to do just keep the throttle so you never take your hand off the poles but you want to build a team eventually that the team can just replicate exactly what you want, so let's go back to when you were the business so 2010 i want to hear how you opened pleasant car care and then you know, the famous story in our business at least for those that are listeners to this podcast. I think you called Bill in like 2011 or 2012, but walk me through that season of opening the business in the first year or two on your own. So it's a funny story because I'm about to say this now and it's laughable what you guys are about to hear, but it wasn't laughable then. It's just the truth. So I had his vendor come in and he's like, how's it going? Like you said, Joe, I'm kind of still new in the business and nothing of the many guys. He's like, well, it looks good in here, but it looks like you need

more cars. I said, yeah, I can definitely use more cars. He's like, well, call Bill. That's Bill Broussard, who we're now partners with. And he's like, call Bill. He can help you advertise. And I say, sure. And I took his name and number. I called Bill. And I'm this naive young kid. And I say, I got your number from this gentleman. And he said to call you. Actually, his name was Mike. So I got your number from Mike. He said to call you. And he said, you can help me advertise. Bill's like, sure, I can do that. And he's like, do you know what to say on the phone? And I say, hello? He's like, yeah, you're not ready. You're not ready. He's like, don't advertise. You don't need advertising. You need to learn about business. You need to meet Todd Hayes. That's what he said. So then Bill drove down. He met me in person, saw the shop, introduced himself. I mean, Bill is such a gentleman. He's a superb man. From day one, Bill has been amazing.

And then he introduced me to Todd, and then we can get into Todd's story further on. But again, when you're starting out, you don't know what you don't know. That's it. So, okay. What kind of revenue, even before you called Bill, you're still... Because one thing you guys got to know about Charlie, if you are a new listener to our YouTube channel, subscribe to us on YouTube, Shameless Plug, or Spotify or whatever. One thing you got to know about Charlie is it's not a work ethic issue. If there were times in his career where he wasn't as successful, it wasn't because of passive ownership or lack of effort. So do you want to walk me through? So 2010, what kind of revenue were you doing and what was like your life like? Like, I mean, you were, I know some crazy test driving stories, you know, I've heard the stories, but tell them for the people. We'll talk about that. So by the way, just for a little substance.

When I started the business, it was because my wife was pregnant with our second child and just a dream of mine. I put myself in a position. I'm like, I had a good job. I have to say the guy worked for George. He treated me well and he paid me very well. So I have to say that. However, I had a different dream and I thought I wanted to do my own thing. So I'm like, if I do this, I have to do it now. Or I'm going to be too comfortable with the two kids. Right. So the day my daughter was born, I told him that, um, a, I mean, we had conversations prior to that cause it might sound too harsh. If I say, oh, my daughter was born and I quit, he knew it was coming. You know, we had these conversations, but the actual day she was born, I called him. I'm like, that's it. I'm not coming back. I'm starting my own business. And how business was, yeah, it was bad. I mean, uh, uh, what's the point? What are you asking? It was bad. It was bad, Joe. Okay. Okay,

so you're starting out, you're a master technician, but there's actually a million different skill sets for running a business. Sorry to interrupt, but it was tough. It was tough going at the beginning. It was very tough. I mean, the first year, unless you are Todd Hayes and you really know what you're doing and you have a game plan and you have it all drawn out on paper and you know exactly what's going to happen the first 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, six months. I didn't know any of that stuff. I just opened the doors, right? And I was now waiting for people to come in the door with broken cars, hopefully, and you can fix them. Yeah. So I didn't have any of that. So I'm waiting there. And again, it's a struggle. The first year, you're not making any money. And it was all the money that I had saved. Don't forget, I put in, I had to pay, you know, the rent first month, last month, security, insurances for the building.

And that's a whole other story. We can, you might not even know this. The first insurance agent I hired actually stole my money. Sure they did. Yeah, I think the first six months or nine months I was in the business, I had paid in full for the insurance and I didn't have any coverage. Thankfully, nothing happened. But isn't that crazy so everybody wants to steal from you that's a whole that's why we train in. Accounting and fraud prevention now right but all this stuff is real it's happened to me so the first year was so bad i made no money and the stories that you were referring to is i didn't even have money to put gas in my car so what i would do i would call customers and say hey joe charlie pleasant car yeah yeah finish 30 repairs on your car everything is great, however because it was like kind of an extensive repair, I like to drive it a little more. So would it be okay with you if I took it home tonight? I'll put some more miles

on it. I'll check everything in the morning and then give you the car back. Now, the reason I did that is because I know Joe's car had gas in it and I wanted to use that gas to go home back and forth. And every customer said yes, by the way. Yeah, it's like, of course, yeah, you can put more miles on my car. But so just to paint a picture, I mean, imagine that you're 17 years in, you're a Greek immigrant, you just had your second child. It's now or never. And you're killing yourself working 16 plus hours a day. You're thinking about it 24 hours a day and you can't even afford to put gas in your damn car. Excuse my language, but like, dude, that's tough sledding. And people think it's grass is greener. They want to open their own business. I just, I encourage everyone to open their own business if they want to, but. But it's a lot of work, man. And it's at least unless you know exactly what you're doing, you're totally prepared. Like, good luck, because I heard Jensen

Huang said this. He said, if I would have known how hard this was, I never would have done it. There's the beauty of the entrepreneur is, well, how hard could it be? I just got to open the shop doors and see, you know, I got to fix cars. How hard could it be? And I think that, you know, the classic soundbite is C students end up like A players, excuse me, A students end up working for C students. And I think it's because all the C students like my dad, you know, they just get into business and they just think, how hard could it be? They don't think about all the ways that it could go wrong. And Jensen Huang, you know, he's like, well, I would have never done this in a million years if I would have known how much work it is. So I encourage people to take the leap. You know, I think it's amazing, but you've got to know exactly what you're getting into because Charlie's 17, 18 years into it at this point. He's making no money.

He's got two kids and a wife at home. And you call Bill and defining moment number one, you say, hey, I want to advertise to get more customers. And he says, well, do you know what to say to the customers when they call in? And you said, hello? Hello? Hello? How are you doing? You know? And so he goes, okay, defining moment number one, you need to meet Todd Hayes. Okay, who's Todd? Defining moment number two. You go down to, I believe, repair one in Florida, and you learned a valuable lesson from Todd at his training, right? Walk me through what that was like, meeting him for the first time. Yeah. So that's actually before I went to Florida. Todd was coming out to Boston. Okay. South Shore. I don't remember the name of the business. We made it in this gentleman's shop. It was a used dealership slash repair shop. Nice, nice place. And the guy was very welcoming. I got there after work one day. Again, I'm this kid still, right? I mean, I'm a kid in business.

And then Todd walks in the room, and there's probably 10, maybe 12 guys just sitting around. And Todd stands up. I mean, that's Todd, what, 15 years ago. He's big and tall, and, you know, his personality. He's pretty shy, yeah. Yeah, he kind of like goes under the radar. So, I mean, Todd's personality is bigger than life. I mean, that guy lives and, breathes for this, right? Yeah. He believes what he does and he means well and he wants the best for everyone. He just started speaking with passion. I never met anybody so passionate. And, you know, I'm like, oh, my God, who's this guy? I want to learn this stuff. But the first lesson is Todd said customer pays for everything. And that was my defining moment in my life. That day changed my life because I said, explain what you mean. And he says, you drove here. Who paid for your gas? I'm like, I paid for my gas. He's like, no, you didn't. Do you have like a machine that you make money? You're not the government. Yeah.

So he's like, then he learned about my family. I have a baby at home. He's like, well, you're going to buy milk for the kid or diapers. Who pays for that? I'm like, I pay for that. He's like, no, you don't. That money comes from a customer. That money comes from a customer. So the minute you realize that, my God, the customer is the most important person I deal with because he. Allows me and everybody to have anything we want in our lives. All they want is be taken care of. So what Todd's like, what are you willing to do for the customer? I'm like, I'll do whatever they want. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. And guess what, the return is they will also give you whatever you want. Yeah, my dad says they're the boss, you know, like they're the boss, they sign your checks, customer pays for everything. So yeah, I mean, I think a lot of technicians just become negative over the years, because customers are difficult to deal with.

And the skill set that is required to take a clutch out of a vehicle is actually very negatively correlated with the skill set of how to diffuse a tough situation at the front counter. And everybody's listening to this knows that sometimes customers are unreasonable. They say, ever since you touched my car, it's doing X, Y, Z. And so it becomes like this jaded kind of system where customers are upset at technicians. They think they're trying to take advantage of them. Technicians in the industry are like, oh, another customer who's going to try and come into my shop at 445 on a Friday. Don't they know how busy I am and that I want to go home for the weekend? And it's like another negative experience. But what you're saying is Todd was the first person that revealed to you that like, actually, anything that you want to do in your life requires money. Obviously, you can spend time with your family with no money,

but what does that look like? It looks like your shop closes down. You have to go work for somebody else. You're in debt. You're in bankruptcy. You can't put your kids in a private school. You can't go on vacation with your family. We believe in work-life integration and being able to do both. And guess what? The customer pays for everything. You want to do charitable work? Customer pays for it. You want to open another shop, employ more people, employ more technicians? Customer pays for it. So walk me through just a little more detail of like the realization of like, so you're probably 35 at this point. Like, what's that like? Because you spent 20 years perfecting your craft, master tech. And now it's like, it's kind of like a Eureka. So just like, give me more, give me more detail on what it was like. I think you touched on it briefly, as you were saying that, hey, it's 4.45 and we're about to close.

That used to be my life. Well, not my life, but what I learned working in these other places, right? It's like, oh, we're closing in an hour or we're not open Sundays. And again, that's a whole other conversation. You can still have a successful business not being open Sundays. However, I was actually reading a post today from Adam Coffey. And one of the business he made a lot of money on was a hitting business. And he says the hitting system might break down today, tomorrow, whatever day that is. Well, guess when they're calling to get it fixed? That day. So same thing with the car. The car will decide to break down today, right now. And the customer, it's not like they wanted their car to break down now, right? It just happened. So all they're doing is they're waving the white flag and they're like, somebody please help me. So you have to get in that side, in their shoes and understand it. So they're not an inconvenience.

The other day I'm going through, like you said, I'm traveling all over and I'm doing a presentation. And one of the slides in there, it says there's 170,000 shops in the States. And I actually think that number could be higher. Yeah. We take very conservative numbers, right? So call it 170 on the lower end. That means that customer had 170,000 options and they chose to come to your shop. Mm-hmm. If you even... Put a little thought into that, man, that will change the way you answer the phone. That will change the intensity. That will change the intention. That will change the way you view. Again, they did not want to be there. Don't forget that. Nobody wants the heating system to break down, like Adam was saying. Nobody wants their car to break down. They're here because they need you. Nobody wants to go to the ER department with a broken arm. It's the same thing. Imagine if they told you, oh, we're closing in an hour.

See, that would be unacceptable. That would be completely unacceptable. So how is it acceptable in this industry? It's crazy how common it is in the industry for master technicians to just open a shop and they think, okay, the more I get good at fixing cars, the more I improve at fixing cars, the better my shop will be and the better my business will be. When the reality is like, and this is what my dad had to learn school of hard knocks over years is it's actually recruiting, marketing, sales, training, accounting, technology, legal, real estate, banking. Like, do you know how many things there are that have nothing? It takes 20 years to learn how to take an engine apart and put it back together and be able to do it every time and to be able to do it quickly. But that's a whole profession. And what Todd says is, I can't put a patch on my arm and buy $100,000 worth of tools and expect all of a sudden to go be able to fix a car really well.

So why do people expect to be able to just go open a business? And he's like, that is my profession. My profession is I am a professional CEO and business person, and I don't know anything about cars. And so it's like the first moment in your life, you're like, oh, there's more to this. Like it is like I have to answer the phone a certain way. A customer pays for everything. Okay, I want to start paying attention to this guy. So I want to transition to your defining moment number three. I believe Todd actually came and visited your shop and worked a day with you. Walk me through what that was like. Oh, man, I'll never forget that day. That really was a stopper, and you'll see why. So I'm working in the shop, and again, not doing much revenue, but I had some cars in the shop that day, and I'm running around my head cut off. Again, I'm diagnosing the cars, trying to sell the jobs, order the parts, test drive them, pay the bills, like all of it, everything you mentioned, right? Everything.

So you're really running around with your head cut off. And I guess what attracted me to Todd or Todd to me, I should say, is he saw this work ethic and the passion. Which went a long way because like, man, this guy really is trying, but he doesn't know what he's doing. So Todd is just watching me. He's standing at the door and he just yelled, stop. He really just yelled, stop. Very loud. I mean, I just froze. Yeah. It was like, what happened? And he's like, this is the most important day of your life. And I had no idea what he meant that day. Today I do. I'm very thankful. But he says, just listen to me. He says, you cannot do this. It's unsustainable. You don't know what you're doing. You might be a good technician, but you have no idea what you're doing. And, you know, then he started mentoring me and obviously we are where we are today. But I think if I want to wrap it up, maybe in a little nice package.

Again, we said earlier that you are the business and then you have to learn these things and then you have to train your people. And then as you train your people, you now have to get rid of stuff that you do. There's certain things that you don't need to do anymore. And there's a principle that people maybe should study. It's called the Pareto Principle, and it's the 80-20 rule or 20-80 rule. So you have to decide what you're good at and what you like to do and stick with that and then allow other people to do the rest 80%. So pick the top 20% that you're really good at. If you're good at shaking hands with people, then do that. If you're good at whatever that is right and now that doesn't mean that i stop looking at the other things, because i know everything again i've been doing everything myself even though it wasn't great i still know how things work right i can still put my finger on it touch it feel it is everything okay great good

job or you need to make an adjustment here you know stay connected with people but you don't have to do everything and what happens is, i actually just had a conversation before we came in here joe with one of the guys was about to go through key to key again. I'm not going to mention his name uh he's like attacking with glenn right now and what happened is he got to that point i described him his life yeah because i was there and he's like how do you know, so it becomes to a point that you almost don't want to go in yeah and you feel so defeated and you try to avoid it because you don't really know what you're doing see that's the truth yeah we don't know what we're doing and we're so frustrated with ourselves and our staff and the customers and everything becomes an annoyance, but in reality, it's just us. See, I have to learn the system. I have to now train a certain person how to do a task that I don't like to do, and I have to treat my customers right.

Now, if I'm very frustrated and I don't want to be there, how do you think my customer service is going to be? Right. It cannot be good. It's impossible I have good customer service if I'm frustrated and stressed and I don't want to be there. They can feel it. So that's what happens. So you have, it's not even an option. And the minute you decided to do this, you have to master it. So Todd yells at you. He says, stop, which I, I, that gives me chills even thinking about that. I can't even imagine Todd in his fifties or whatever, like just yelling at you. So he says, stop. And what he communicates to everybody and what he likely communicated to you on that day was if you do not have a business model, you do not actually have a business. You have a job. You have to come into work every day. And if you leave the business explodes. And when you opened your second shop, you said you couldn't even make it to

your other shop that was five minutes down the street without getting a phone call from your first shop of how, you know, there's a fire and Charlie's the firefighter. He's the only person who can fix it. Charlie had a job. And at the end of the day, nobody is going to be Charlie because he's the best. Nobody can be Charlie. You cannot teach people to be Charlie because Charlie. Because, like, how do I explain that? I don't even know I want to say, Joe, that I'm the best. But when you are the owner and when you saved every dollar you had. Correct. That's what I mean. Start the business. When your family relies on you, like, you have to be the best. There is no other option. I'm not saying I'm the best from everybody out there. But I had to be the best I could be, right? And the passion that you have for that, like, your father started and he built a family and built a business. See, he had to show up.

It wasn't an option for him. So now when you work somewhere, so the people working for you, they don't have that feeling because worst case scenario, guess what? Even if. And it's very hard and you can find people, but it's very hard. But even if that person working with you, even if they got fired, and guess what? They can go down the street and get another job. So it doesn't hurt that much. For the owner, it's like over. You have to shut down the doors and you have to go start your whole life over. For these people, really, it's a one day event, right? For us, it's a whole life. So that is the difference, I feel like. Yeah, you nailed it on the head because I'm actually trying to communicate that you can teach people to be you. But I don't think that you... It's very rare to find somebody with the level of ownership mentality that Charlie has, that the Adams family has, that Todd had when he started,

so on and so forth. So many people I can't mention. It's very rare to find somebody who has the ownership mentality because simply you cannot replace the pain of starting it yourself and the fear of going out of business. It's like having a child. It's like having something always on your mind. You're always just slightly insecure or stressed out that something could go wrong. Somebody told me one time, I don't care how big your business gets, everybody's one lawsuit away from bankruptcy. You're driving along on the freeway and that ditch is five feet to the right. You got to keep both hands on the wheel. So level one, this is how we open in Key2Key. If you haven't been to Key2Key, please come. A lot of people listen to this podcast. We'd love to see you in person. We have training events every month in Houston. And then we've also got advanced training. Courtside, that's going to be with Charlie himself and Mike Quinn.

Who leads our Houston market, along with Glenn Piccolo. Please come see us in person. But when we open Key2Key, which is like 101, Autoshop Answers Business 101, we open with the predictability of customers. And we identify... That customers all say the same thing. They all say, hey, how much do you charge for breaks? Every time I come in here, you guys try to sell me something. Your prices are way too high. Every single thing that happens in the business, about 80%, 90% of them are predictable. And Todd realized that he was able to put that down into a business model that, okay, I'm the owner. I am the business. I understand that the customers call in and I had to advertise. In order to get those customers. And I understand that I need to get them in over the curb. However, the people that work for me back in 1986 do not understand that because they didn't take a loan out and they didn't get a loan from their

father-in-law. They don't have their life on the line here. So I have to train them to think about the business in the way that I do. So step number one, you are the business. The entire business is bottlenecked by Charlie and Charlie is the firefighter. Every decision comes back to him because he can solve any problems. He's the one who does payroll. He's the one who pays the bills. He's the one who fixes the cars, who checks in the customers, who diagnoses them. And everything flows through him. Step two is you have to build the business. Todd understood very quickly that all the customers say the same thing. The cars break in similar fashions. We're going to inspect cars every single day. So we might as well build a system to where we inspect the cars the exact same way. We got to take Polaroid pictures the exact same way every time. So he spent a lifetime, a career, building the business. And now we get to just

ride on his coattails and stand on his shoulders at key-to-key-to-callbacks and in Autoshop Answers. But when you are building the business, what you are trying to do is transfer your judgment. Those problems that used to come back to you, Charlie, guess what? You're here on a podcast and your business is operating currently with people who you have built. You have distilled your judgment into their heads so that they know how to answer the phone the way Charlie does because you've had to train them over and over and over again. And eventually, Pleasant Car Care, Adams Automotive, these businesses, they get to the point where they're building themselves. Glenn has done such an amazing job with the team at Adams. Glenn knows how to answer the phone. All the decisions come through him. He has daily take fives and trains people exactly how he answers the phone, how he talks to customers, how he overcomes objections.

And then eventually, when Glenn's on his two days off, if we have a new employee, guess who's training that new employee? It doesn't have to be Glenn anymore. Jay can train the employee. The entire team can train the employee. This is how we do things here. And now you have a downhill, the business is building itself, your judgment, Charlie's brain or parts of it, Todd's brain is living in the team members of the people who work in our company. And when new people come into the business, we are able to train them on the way that we do it. So level one, level two, level three, you are the business, you build the business, the business builds itself. I've been talking for a while. Charlie, do you have any thoughts on that transition in your experience? I wanted to say two things as you were talking. I mean, you nailed everything, but two things. Your job as a leader. It's to train and equip your people. Yeah. So you have to train them.

Now, you cannot, again, if we go back, you cannot train them on something you don't know. So you have to learn it first. That is number one. But your job is to train them. And you train them how often? Every single day. Train and equip them. Equipment, what does that mean? If that has to do with technology, if that has to do with pumping them up, if that has to do with really anything. It may not even be work-related. Maybe they have something in their own personal life and you can help them with. Whatever that is. But basically, I heard Jack Walsh once, speaking of podcasts, I mean, he's obviously passed long ago. But he says, as a leader, you have a broom, and you're the broom sweeper. You're cleaning the path for them. That's what you do. So what can I do to guarantee success for my team? So that is your role as a leader. Now, secondly, what I wanted to touch on, you brought up Glenn's name. And, man, talk about people, talk about a guy that thinks like an owner,

acts like an owner, treats him like an owner, that guy. I mean, we have Glenn Piccolo. We have so many people in our teams. We have Mike Quinn. We have a lot of people. I have people in Boston. I mean, Matt Dogg has been with me 15 years. I mean, he treats it like he's up. So you can find people like that, but it's not easy. That's what I was saying earlier. There is people out there. they can do it and they want to treat it as such and you have to treat them as well because why would they treat your business that good if you don't treat them well right, so your job is train equip them and treat them like gold and they will do it because if you don't do that it is impossible for me to be sitting in this chair and I will have to be at the shop and a little story to touch on, For people starting out, I had another conversation this week for somebody that grew too many stores and actually want to go backwards now. They're actually

asking for help to go backwards. This is what happened to me. So I started the first shop and this is way before I knew the stuff I know today. And the shop started, eventually the shop started getting busy and I found another location and I opened that location. And then I put a guy there and I thought, okay, that shop is going to run. I'm going to stay here. It's going to be okay. Well, it couldn't be further than the truth. So what happened, that person couldn't run the shop, so now I had to leave the original shop behind to go run that. Well, this is what happened, again, when I was still not a good leader. I wouldn't say, yeah, a bad leader. How about that? That is the truth. I was a bad leader. Okay. Because I didn't train my team and they didn't have clear direction or a clear system of what to do, I would be in one shop and then my phone would ring, oh, Charlie, you need to come here dealing with this customer.

I get in the car, and my shops, by the way, for those that don't know, they're five minutes apart. Literally, it's like one mile, yeah. It's a mile and a half. It's five minutes apart. So, by the time I left one shop to drive to the other shop, my phone would ring again from the shop. I left because there was a problem. You need to come here and deal with this vendor, or you need to come here and diagnose this car, or whatever that is. And it was an insane time period in my life. I really was going between the two shops 20 times a day. Nothing was happening. There was no clear direction. The team didn't know what they were doing. They were just kind of winging it. But guess what? At the end of the day, I had to look in the mirror and say, it's not them. It's me. It's very easy to say my people suck. It's very easy to say, I'm sorry for using that word, but that's what we say as owners. And maybe there is some people that are not good, but did I do my part to train

them, to tell them what the expectation is? You know, when the phone rings, let's start with this basic. You're supposed to say this. Did you say that? See, now at least they know what they're facing. When you inspect the car, you're supposed to present the job. Did you attach this video? Did you say is now a good time to spend five minutes with you on the phone? Like, did you do these things? You need to train them. If not, I cannot blame them on something I never taught them. And what you're describing is the process of building the business. You were driving in between two shops and you're like, dang, I'm the whole business. Literally, if Charlie goes on a vacation, bankruptcy. That's what happens. But you had to build the business. You had to distill judgment until eventually, guess who the customers ask for when they go to Pleasant Car Care now? They ask for Matt Doak. Or they ask for Ed. Or they ask for Kobe at Adams. They ask for Glenn.

They ask for whoever. They're not asking for Perry Adams. They're not asking for me. The business is building itself. And what I want to point out, I've got your slide deck here to my left and I'm looking at your store when you opened it in 2010. And you were doing $20,000 a month in revenue, which if you're a service advisor or technician listening to this, $20,000 a month in revenue equates to probably negative $1,000 in profit. You know, it equates to nothing. It's literally nothing. You had one employee in the front, one in the back. And then it's the same picture of your store 16 years later, all-time record 460,000 this June out of two bays, four lifts. You've got another location a mile down the road that's got 17 lifts. You did... 14, by the way. Oh, 14. And the alignment, you've got a combined net sales of $11 million in the last 12 months. You're a partner in four of our five stores in Houston. You've probably got

$20-plus million of revenue associated with you. And what changed? It's not the facility. It's not the location. You mentioned it. You said most people want to just blame their people, or they want to blame the customers. Oh, it's the time of year. It's tax season. It's Christmas, and it's January. They just spent all their money on Christmas. What changed? Most people... And I don't want to be combative here, but I mostly want to just highlight that you had high agency. You looked yourself in the mirror and you were like, the problem is me. Okay, I have to fix myself. I have to learn this business model. I have to learn how to train people and how to run a system. I have to learn the system myself. And the only thing that changed between now and 16 years ago is approximately like 80 people in Houston and in Boston that are working as technicians, service advisors, and managers that know how to operate the business in the way that you do.

Like, think about that. That's really it. Like, it's just a couple dozen. It's a handful of people. You know, how many people do you have on staff at Pleasant Car Care? Can we back up for a second? Yeah, let's back up. You know what? Maybe I paraphrase, then I say, you know, well, I guess I was the ultimate one that had to make that decision. But guess what? Todd had to come and tap me on the shoulder and be like, wake up. It's you. Right. See, you have to have somebody that's willing to have that conversation. See, and you have to be willing to take that conversation because a lot of people sat down on that, right? You don't want to hear it. But Todd had to be, no, it's you. Yeah. Did you do this? Did you tell them what the expectation is? And even when I started, let's say, doing the take fives. So part of my 20% thing that I do today, 20 and 80 at all, is doing the take fives. So when I started doing take fives, I used to record them, and then I'd go home

and I'd show it to my wife. And then I'm frustrated the next day because I was like, oh, you see, I told them to do this, and they didn't do it. He's like, no, you didn't. I'm like, what do you mean? What's the video? I told them how to save it. I told them what to do. She's like, you were too generic. It wasn't specific enough. Yeah. You have to say, absolutely is now a good time. Yeah. Like, you're not, oh, tell him to bring the cutting. See, that's too generic. No, you have to tell him step by step what the expectation is. But he had to come Todd and be like, it's you. You need to do this. You need to train him. You need to hold him accountable. But ultimately, you're going to look in the mirror and be like, man, I got to do this. And by the way, I feel like the people working there today, the culture is so much more fun. See, you would think like they work in a prison, right? But they're not. They're happy because they come in and they know what to do.

They also don't have to wing it. They're trained for this. And it becomes a fun game. And now we're changing their lives. Like last week, I was in Corey's wedding. Corey got married last Sunday. And, man, oh, I'm going to try to hold this together. Don't start crying on me now. Yeah, people's lives are getting changed. But tell me about it. So I'll go to Corey's wedding, and I promised him I would be there. And I was at the training that we had in Austin last week. Saturday night, I flew out because Sunday I had to be at his wedding. And the first thing he says, he saw me, he ran up to me, he hugged me. And he's like, I can't believe you made it. I'll say, freak, I made it. I said, I wouldn't miss this for anything. Corey's one of my technicians, been with me for like seven years. Amazing guy, amazing personality, such a good kid. So, you know, he said, and this kid, by the way, gives the best hugs, dude.

And he's hugging me and he says thank you for making this possible and. Man that got me because i now provide the opportunity for him to start his own life, it was crazy the feeling was unbelievable yeah it's in texting talk during the wedding i'm texting talk i'm like you won't believe this and people think it's about the money it's like now the money is actually just a byproduct of being a servant, and pouring into people and training them. It's like being a parent and I'm not a parent yet but it's literally like raising a kid is the closest thing I can imagine. It's like you have to pour into them and you have to serve them and you have to die for them until one day they can take care of themselves and then you get to go to their wedding. And you get to watch them buy a house and you get to watch them raise kids. We have people in Houston that are like literally they were making no money working for some corporate company that sucked.

Didn't treat them right. Treat them like a number. And now they have, you know, an amazing career. And I'm not doing this to pat myself on the back. That's not what I'm trying to say, but they have an amazing career. They have kids and those kids are getting to watch their parents make a lot of money and win and buy a big house. Not even a big house. Like it doesn't. That's not the point. It's more about just like Corey goes to work every day and he wins. He's a winner. And so how did you get him there? You had to train him and your wife was right on the money. You have to train every single day and it would be unreasonable to tell a one-year-old to, hey, in this house, we go to the bathroom on the toilet and then expect them to just know how to do it. That's not how it works. It's literally a language. The business model is a language and And you can't just give somebody the dictionary and be like, okay, go learn it.

You have to talk to them every single day for two, three, four years, a lifetime. And then eventually they start to understand it themselves and they can raise their little brother or they can raise the other people that are in their community and tell them how to do it the way that they've been trained how to do it. And it gets passed on that way. So I'll pause there. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah. I mean, really what it comes down to is what Todd said. If you don't have a business model, you don't have a business. Because it's almost like hiding somebody and saying, okay, what's my job? Oh, just do a good job. Yeah. What does that mean? Yeah. Like what a person considers a good job and what you consider a good job could be two completely different things, right? Let's say even somebody as simple as a porter, maybe cleans the shop or cleans the cars, whatever, right? Okay, go sweep the floor.

What does that actually look like? What do you want it to look like? I mean, Perry, your father is insane how clean he keeps these places, right? So Perry's level of clean and somebody that just walked in the door level of clean could be completely two different things. So you literally have to show them. So in the business, Todd has designed this playbook for 40 years, and he's made all the adjustments. He's always taught me. He says, look at the system. There is no fat on it basically there is no extra steps that you need to do unnecessary but it's also as lean as it can be that means. That's it like the system is designed to be perfect the way it is now i can take this, i can learn it i can train my people and set the clear expectation, so up until you have a system you really don't have anything look warren buffett's number two guy, Charlie Munger, he said something along the lines of find something

simple and take it extremely seriously. And that is the secret to success. And we literally treat it like the NFL. Can you imagine if Tom Brady went out in the Super Bowl first in 10 and he's like, all right, guys, let's go have fun out there. Maybe you guys run out and try to get open and I'll throw you the ball. It's like, no, dude, he's been 10,000 hours in this deal. And he's saying like all these code words to get you to run a certain route you know like. It's the most practiced and rehearsed thing in the world. Shout out Todd Graves, the CEO of Cane's Chicken. He's like just freakishly serious about a very simple thing. He said for every one second, we can shave off of drive-thru time or two seconds. Excuse me. For every two seconds, we can shave off of drive-thru time. Sales goes up 1%. My God. And he's doing like 800 stores. I think he's doing 10 billion a year in revenue. I don't know the number. What's 1% of that? $100 million?

Yeah. And so I don't know the exact number. I know his company is worth $10 billion and he owns over 90% of it. But the point is, it's like, it's chicken tenders. It's chicken tenders. It's not like people go, oh, well, if I was in the NFL, of course, I would take it that serious. It's like, no, you wouldn't. You probably wouldn't because you're not in the NFL. There's a reason you're not in the NFL, you know, and we believe we're in the NFL of car repair. So it's like, man, how seriously do you take the chicken fingers? And that's how we feel about the phones. We take it so seriously, but you can't train people if you haven't been taught yourself. So, you know, Charlie, you are probably still number one in the company in terms of like being in the trenches, you know, and like leading from the front and being a servant leader. Not that I mean, we have so many people in the business that are that are like

that, but you are still a technician at heart. Do you want to talk about just like, what does it mean to be in the trenches? What does it mean to like lead from the front and train your team in Bay 1? And I have to say this. First of all, I love it. And that's my passion. And if you learn our system, the PMI Bay, the Rakata Bay, is where everything happens. And if you spend time there, first of all, you get to meet almost every customer. You get to see every single car. You never need to touch that car again because you can see a technician in the back bay working on it and you already know what he's doing on that car. So, you know, everything there is to know about operations right in that bay. Now, the other thing that happens, and it might be the best thing that happens, when the team sees you getting down and dirty with them, now you're in respect. Yeah. Now they know you can do it. They know you're willing to go to war with them.

Okay. Versus sitting in an office and just point figures. Oh, you go do this or you go do that. No, you say, let's go. You don't say you go. You say, let's go. And that's why people like McDoug or Corey that I just spoke about, they actually told me that's why they're still here today. And these are some of the best in the industry. See, if you're not willing to get down and dirty and do it, I mean, let's talk about Todd. Todd cannot fix a car. So obviously that's something that's impossible for him. But anything. If you don't know Todd, it's impossible. Right. But talk about anything else. Let's talk about accounting, recruiting, PMI, talking to customers, selling jobs. Is he willing to do all of it? Absolutely. Like if everybody's busy, he's going to answer the phone. Now he's not going to be happy because he's going to be like, I'm not paying 100 people for me to answer the phones, but he's going to do,

it. At the end of the day, the customer is the most important thing. And you've seen him doing, you've seen him bring a customer under the car and sell the job right there. And he's got to do everything. But guess what? That gets you respect. That's how people believe in you. And for me, at least I'm a visual kind of person. And I feel like the best example I can give other people is me doing it. And a lot of people, I feel like they'll learn that way. It's literally like a pro sport, dude. You know the feeling of watching Baker Mayfield try to run for the first down and just not slide and try to go head first and get hit? That just fires you up even as a fan. Imagine how the linemen feel. They're going to war for that guy and he's willing to go to war for them versus the guy who just trots out of bounds and he doesn't go get the first down. It's going to be a different thing. And it's literally the exact same way in our business.

I realized this when I was probably 23, 24. I was like, oh, because I was always really insecure. I look like a preppy country club kid, and I'm not a technician. I've got my hands are not callous to the same way that my dad's does. My dad used to... This is a quick story. My dad, he used to hire people. One time he hired a guy, and he just shook his hand, and he goes, oh, boy, your hand's seen some work. And the guy goes, yes, sir. And then you like that was it. Like it's like my dad just was able to shake his hand and he was like, oh, this guy has done a lot of car repair. Like he's really good. So funny you say that because last night looking at my hands, Vule is looking at my hands is like, you still have calluses. Yeah, you don't work the same. I don't, but I guess I do. It's part of your DNA now. But anyway, I used to be really insecure. I was like, okay, silver spoon kid, nepotism. They're going to think you didn't work for it.

How's this going to work? How do I get the respect of the team? Because I think I understood these concepts a little bit. But one day I was like, oh, I just have to work a lot. And if I just show up to work on time and I just am willing to get on my knees and put rubber blocks under a car and I'm willing to do training and speak on stage at Key2Key and demonstrate that I know the phone scripts. I know how the business model works. I know how to get on a podcast and talk about car repair and talk about the business model. Like, oh, you just have to outwork everybody and then they'll die for you because it's like a double-edged sword. If you don't have to work for it and you choose to, that is like the key leadership skills versus if you don't have to work and you don't then it's like the opposite effect it's like okay yeah classic i knew like the owner's son was just going to come in here and hang out

and he gets the paycheck and then he says see you later but man when you take it seriously and i actually have reframed it in my mind it's like what an honor and a privilege to carry my parents legacy forward um. As it has made it easier for me to step into a leadership role but it's like man if you just like dot it's really just servant leadership it's just like man if you die for your people if you freaking you We're a faith-based company and it's like a Christian concept. It's like just get up on your cross daily and suffer and lead and die for your people and work for them. It's like bottom-up leadership. You ever heard of this, Charlie? It's like they don't work for you. You work for them. That's right. And it's like if you work for them, guess what? They love coming to work and they love the air conditioning that the prophet provides for their facility and they love the equipment and they love the clean bays.

So I don't know. Say two things as you were talking. No, no. I want to hear I was just going to ask like. Being in the trenches and pouring back into your team, so much of it is recruiting, and building a great energy and a great atmosphere for your people. So I just was going to get your thoughts on that, but what were you going to say? What I was going to say, first of all, the system that we teach is very simple. It's not complicated. It's like that by design. Like I said, Todd's like, there's no fat on it and everybody can do this. Okay. And it's super important, but you just have to do it. Like you really just have to do hard work is unavoidable yeah you're going to work hard regardless so the point here is the system is simple but we never say that it doesn't include hard work you have to do your part now secondly, as you were saying about being a leader being in the trenches and showing this has happened to me before and actually had this conversation with QPine recently too.

You ever walk in a shop, and I don't know if it's happened to you, if you experienced it, but you walk in a shop and it just starts performing really high level. And then people are like, oh my God, you killed it today. And I'm like, I didn't do anything. Yeah. I really just sold out. Yeah. But the energy is different. The way people move, the way they respond, it's different. So when people are like, I'm an absentee owner, I don't even want any part of that business because I know it's not going to work. It's just impossible to work. And when you have a lot of places, obviously, you cannot be there every day. But I'll tell you what, I listened to the podcast about Sam Walton. Is that the... Yeah, Sam Walton, the CEO of Walmart, founder. He had, at some point, he had 700 locations and he made sure he visited every single one of them at least once a year. That means more than two a day or three a day, whatever he was doing.

So guess what? That's what he did. He just showed up, wandered around, shook some hands, gave some directions. They saw that this guy, even though he has 700 locations and thousands of employees, he still wakes up, puts his boots on and gets to work. Sam Walton was a savage. He would go to stores and he would lay on the ground. He would be on a family vacation. He would lay on the ground in between the aisles of competitors to determine exactly how their business was set up. He was crazy and he was in the trenches. And so what we tell people is. Having no money is hard. Working really hard is hard. Pick your heart. What are you going to do about it? You know, Charlie, this is the question that you ask people as you close your presentation, as we're closing. You know, if you disappeared for seven days, what breaks in your company? Where are you the bottleneck? So I'll ask you, recently, have you identified

any areas where you're the bottleneck? Or do you have any thoughts on where generally the owners typically tend to be the bottleneck? Funny you say that, because actually in my last presentation, I asked the people in the crowd, I'm like, who knows the easiest way to find what's wrong with your business? Leave. Yes. That's it. Go on vacation. Yeah. Go away for a few days. Go away for a week. Yeah. And you're going to know if your phone rings, whatever the problems the phone rings for, that's what you have to fix. See, it's not complicated, right? The reasons that your phone rings for is what you need to fix. It becomes that simple. Now, thankfully, I'm at a point right now, Joe, that no, I haven't had my phone ring. Like I haven't had to deal with that. But other than recruiting, hey, talking to this guy, I feel like you submitted him, like that kind of stuff. Really, nothing has been broken. The guys handled it. And actually,

we had some great stories. I don't know if you saw, I posted something the other day. There was something way over the top that my guys did for a customer. It wasn't even a customer. It just came and needed help. And we call that employee-initiated customer service. See, now my team knows what we stand for, what we believe for, what Pleasant Car Care means to the community. And this girl came in and she had a need. And they basically went out of the way. They drove her to a hotel. They kept her car inside the shop because she was in danger. And they called the authorities. They gave them all the information. The suspect was caught. The girl is safe. We received the car in the mail. And this was something we didn't have to do. But this is what we stand for. It goes way beyond fixing cars. We're really changing people's lives and helping people stay safe. But that's the kind of team that I have built now, that I trust them 100%,

that they're going to do the right thing. Yeah. So when you're thinking about running the business, I like to implement the Elon Musk strategy. One, he's extremely in the trenches. When you think about Napoleon and the French Revolution, where did he lead from? He led from the front line. And that's what Elon says. Elon actually said one time, he said, I was not bred for domestic tranquility. I was bred for war. I think that's hilarious. But how does he run the business is how I try to think about it. I don't have the intensity that Elon does, but then again, he's the richest guy on earth. How does he run the business? He just has a deep understanding about every aspect of the business. And for me, that looks like accounting, training, recruiting, marketing, technology, back office, controller, the whole thing. You have to be extremely knowledgeable about every area of the business. That takes 10, 15, 20,000 hours. You can't skip that.

But then all I do all day long as I think about the business and I'm like, okay, where's the bottleneck? Where is the bottleneck right now in the funnel from advertising at the top all the way down to profit at the bottom line? Where is the bottleneck? And I'll give you an example. At the beginning of the year, it was the call center. We heard from the home service business that we need to be tracking every single lead and identify what our booking rate is. And we identified that only 47% of the customers were coming into the business after they called in. And so it's like, okay, shoot, how do we build a system? That's the next keyword to fix the bottleneck. And you can't build a system from a spreadsheet. You have to be in the trenches. You have to be in the call center. You have to be in the system that you're building. But then you have to hand the ball off. You have to build the system that unblocks

the bottleneck and then hand the ball off to a stud who owns the outcome of that system. Elon Musk oversees, I don't know, $3 trillion worth of market cap and however many tens of thousands of employees. I guarantee you, I mean, his phone's probably blowing up. He's Elon Musk, but I guarantee you when something goes wrong at the Tesla factory, they're not calling the big boss. They're not calling Elon Musk. He has people that he has trained on the way he thinks about the business. His algorithm is very famous. It's like, when in doubt, delete. Oh, no, no. He says the best part, because he's a manufacturer, he's a product engineer. He says, the best part is no part. The best process is no process. When in doubt, delete. And you'll know you've deleted enough when you have to add back 10% because you went too far. And he calls that the algorithm. And Elon Musk has the same skill that Todd Hayes has and that he is willing

to repeat himself over and over and over and over again. And I remember when I worked at the business at the very beginning with Todd, and I was like, man, he just says the same thing over and over and over again. And he realizes that. He has to train people for the first time every single day. Just because he's been saying it for 40 years doesn't mean that they've been listening to him for 40 years. They're a new employee. It's day one. He has to be just as intense as the day he started training on it. I'm a little bit on my soapbox, but I think that's the pod. You got anything else for us, Charlie? No, you're talking about Elon Musk. I mean, this guy is right now. I mean, he's absolutely untouchable at this moment. He's just, on planet Earth, he is untouchable. But the one thing I heard him say before, he's like, like you say, if my phone rings, I only deal with big problems. That means nobody else could fix it and it got to me. See, everything else,

the smaller problems, they're fixed before they got there. So he doesn't even know they exist. So if his phone is ringing, like, okay. So if you had a little situation right now in the shop, right? Whatever that is. A small situation. You're not calling Todd. You're just taking care. Oh, yeah. Office plate, yeah. If you're calling Todd, it's like a big problem. It's like a train wreck, yeah. So same thing. It's the same thing. When you are the guy, you only deal with big problems. But guess what? If you can fix the bigger problems, you can fix the better he pays. That's why Elon Musk is worth a trillion dollars. Yeah, it's literally worth a trillion. So anyway, there you have it. That is our namesake of the podcast, the transition from master tech to millionaire. Charlie Zlatkos was a master technician. He knew everything about fixing cars, but nothing about business. He had to learn the business model. He had to train his people on the judgment

that was stuck in his head when he learned the business model. And then eventually his team was able to build the business. And they were able to train the new people. And they were able to build new relationships with new customers. And problems are less and less on Charlie's plate. So there you have it. That's our namesake, master tech to millionaire Charlie. As we leave, we're going big places, I think. We're really excited about the future. What are you the most excited about, I mean, we're seven years into this, but the next three, six, 10 years could be a wild ride. What are you excited about? I'm really, I'm actually so excited for that. We have some big plans. Obviously, some of it we can't announce yet, but the next three to five years are going to be so exciting. And again, you know, started by fixing cars and then started learning how to manage people and started learning how to recruit people and started learning

how to do accounting. And now I'm learning a whole other level of business. So you also, what happens by you learning more stuff and trying to move up, it gives the opportunity to somebody else to level up. So it goes without saying, you have to basically become replaceable. You have to train somebody to replace you. And if you have an ego and you think you're the best at this task and nobody can do it better, guess what? Then that's your car. You're never going to get anywhere higher than that. That means you're right, right? So I now have to train somebody else to do this stuff so I can go somewhere else yeah my dad calls it working yourself out of a job you gotta work yourself out of a job hand the ball off well anyway that's the episode that's the pod thank you guys for listening you know if this has been helpful for you or you appreciate our content please share it with a friend or a shop owner or a technician that might.

Benefit from this content we're just trying to help people and do us a favor if you could you know subscribe to us on Spotify or check us out on YouTube. We'd really appreciate it. We hope to see you guys in Houston and we will see you guys next time. Boom. Nice. Thank you. For more information, reach out to Todd Westerland 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.