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Episode 112
Todd Hayes, Joe Adams, Glenn Piccolo
Adams Automotive and AutoShop Answers
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Todd Hayes is the Chief Operating Officer of Adams Automotive and Co-founder of Auto Shop Answers. At age 26 Todd founded a company, successfully growing it into a chain of stores that he later sold to a venture capital group. Having been perfecting business models since 1986, Todd’s expertise led him to coalesce with partners including Perry Adams, Joe Adams, and Glenn Piccolo. Together, they transformed a $3 million-a-year store into a thriving flagship store with a $30 million market value, achieving an average revenue of $1 million per month.
Joe Adams is the Regional Operations Supervisor at Adams Automotive and Co-founder of Auto Shop Answers. Despite growing up with a disinterest in the family’s automotive business, Joe’s journey took a transformative turn when mentor Todd Hayes introduced him to the intricacies under the hood. Graduating from college during the challenging times of the pandemic, Joe not only found his passion for the industry but, under Todd’s guidance, went on to launch multiple Adams Automotive locations and co-founded Auto Shop Answers, showcasing his dedication to shaping the future of the automotive world.
Glenn Piccolo, Managing Partner at Adams Automotive and Co-founder of Auto Shop Answers, began his journey in the automotive industry over two decades ago. Starting as a mystery shopper at the age of 18, Glenn quickly impressed industry leaders and transitioned to management, where he gained a wealth of experience. Glenn’s career evolved through various companies, including playing a pivotal role in the expansion of Louetta Automotive, eventually leading him to join forces with Todd Hayes at Adams Automotive, where he continues to contribute to a winning culture and a thriving, dynamic environment.
In this episode…
How do you increase the value of your business? Start by building a great culture that both employees and customers can appreciate.
According to Todd Hayes, Joe Adams, and Glenn Piccolo from Adams Automotive and Auto Shop Answers, building a great workplace culture involves several key elements. First and foremost, they emphasize the importance of having a unique and efficient business model. They advocate for creating a workplace that is not only financially rewarding but also provides a premium service that justifies higher charges. They consider employees to be their most valuable asset. By offering unlimited hours for technicians, maintaining a visually-impressive facility, and fostering a culture of professionalism and customer service, they make their employees “untouchable.”
On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge chats with Todd, Joe and Glenn about building a culture that positively impacts the value of a business. They say investing in recruitment, training, and continuous support for the team ensures loyalty and long-term commitment, and the business’ value depends upon employee success and satisfaction. Their willingness to stay open seven days a week, achieving record sales during weekends, reflects a dedication to serving customers through a thriving workplace culture.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Todd Hayes details the idea behind Auto Shop Answers
- Why Todd doesn’t believe there’s a shortage of automotive technicians
- Glenn Piccolo explains the incredible lack of staff turnover at Adams Automotive
- Joe Adams reveals why employees don’t want to leave the company
- Adams Automotive team members are called “Professional Business Athletes” and Todd shares the origin of the term
- Todd discusses his brand’s best customer demographic and the importance of catering to them
- Joe emphasizes Auto Shop Answers’ focus on training
- How Adams Automotive continuously prioritizes personalized customer service
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Todd Hayes on LinkedIn
- Joe Adams on LinkedIn
- Glenn Piccolo on LinkedIn
- Auto Shop Answers
- Adams Automotive
- Keegan Wentz on LinkedIn
- McMahon’s Best-One Tire
- Mike Edge on LinkedIn
- Tread Partners
Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Mike:
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host. I got to tell you folks that I appreciate you very much, our listening audience. The bottom line for me is that the Gain Traction Podcast is absolutely fun for me to do. I love meeting new people and getting to know them. When I was recently at SEMA this year, it was so much fun to meet complete strangers that would let me know they listen regularly and like Gain Traction. It caught me off guard and I appreciate your nice comments.
Also, I’d like to give a shout-out to Keegan Wentz, president of McMahon’s Best-One Tire Tech Center, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Keegan was recently on the podcast, and man, it was just a great interview, a lot of fun and Keegan’s just a super smart guy. If you haven’t listened to it already, I highly encourage you to do so.
Our sponsorship. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners specializes in PPC marketing. Yeah, I know everyone knows how to do it, and everyone that’s already has somebody doing a great job for them, but are you sure? Do you have a partner that specializes in this industry only and specifically? Do you know you can get an outside assessment on what you are doing right and wrong as it pertains to PPC digital marketing budget? Tread Partners discovered tens of thousands of dollars per month in wasted spending with Google for its clients, as well as those that just wanted an unbiased audit. Many of these shops were very successful already, but Tread showed them that they could spend less and do more. So what are you waiting for? Get your audit done by Tread Partners today. Learn more, visit TreadPartners.com.
Our guest today, they really don’t need an introduction. We have Todd Hayes, Joe Adams, and Joe Piccolo with the highly successful Adams Group.
Glenn:
Hey, Mike, it’s Glenn Piccolo.
Mike:
I’m sorry, Glenn Piccolo, goodness.
Todd:
The guy who jumped in here at the end is Glenn Piccolo.
Mike:
Our guest today don’t need an introduction. We have Todd Hayes, Joe Adams, and Glenn Piccolo with the highly successful Adams Automotive and Out-of-Shop answer training. Todd, Joe, Glenn, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.
Todd:
Well, Mike, thanks for having us on. We appreciate it very much. I think our paths crossed. You went to North Carolina or something?
Mike:
Yeah, we’ve done it at the ASTE Show with you guys.
And then we, if you recall, eh Todd, the funny thing is we’re all going to go have a dinner and we all went to the two different-
Todd:
That’s right, yeah, and we ended up at the different restaurants, the same restaurant. Oh, that is still funny.
Mike:
Yeah. The funny thing is people were like “Where are you going?”
Todd:
We’re sitting at the bar waiting on you. You go, “Well, no we’re at the bar waiting on you.” We were like “ruh-row.” [inaudible 00:02:42].
Mike:
I think it was from where we was, it was the two [inaudible 00:02:50] were equal distance. We said-
Todd:
That’s so funny, man.
Mike:
By the time we figured it out, we were too far apart to eat and we just said, “All right, enjoy your meal.”
Todd:
That is so funny. I forgot all about that.
Mike:
That was funny.
Todd:
But that’ll make you laugh right there.
Mike:
That is.
Todd:
“No we’re sitting at the bar.” “No, you’re not because we’re at the bar.” “What?” Yeah, that was great.
Mike:
That was funny.
Todd:
Stop. We’ll get it [inaudible 00:03:14] again.
Mike:
Yeah, we’ll making up somewhere else. But listen, we keep this podcast fun and a little biographical. If you don’t mind, each of you just give a little quick a background, of synopsis of who you are and where you came from. Where do you live? What’s to start? Todd, you want to go first?
Todd:
I’ll jump in since I’m the senior of the group. I started a company back when I was twenty-six years old. I grew a nice chain of stores, sold it to a venture capital group back in ’97, and was wildly successful. That’s when we started putting together the business model back in ’86, which when you talk about perfecting a business model, we have done that.
Mike:
Yes, sir.
Todd:
And so I launched another concept called Repair one, sold it. And then through my consulting company I looked up with a group of partners, one being Perry Adams and Perry, Joe Adams and Glenn. And we have taken the Adams store, the individual store from when I started here, we’re about a $3 million a year store. And today the market is about 30 million. But the store we’re in right now, which is our flagship store, which is ran by the number one general managing partner by far in the country, averages 1 million a month or 12 million annual revenue.
Mike:
Fantastic.
Todd:
Again, Joe Adams is here with Adam representing Adams as the future CEO of the company. Doing a great job as vice president. Go ahead guys.
Mike:
Yeah, Joe, you’re vice guy now.
Joe:
Yeah, so my background grew up kind of in and around the family business, but never had an interest in it. My parents have been in business since 1980. I graduated high school. I went to the University of Texas and that I graduated during Covid, which was a good time to find a job for people that age as everyone knows.
But though I figured I would stick around and work for the family business for six months to a year. No car experience, hated the business, wasn’t interested in it. And then Todd, as he says, took me under the hood and kind of filled me what our world looks like. A couple years ago, I pretty much fell in love with the business and I’ve been trying to stay on Todd’s hip as much as I can.
He’s been a wonderful mentor to me. This business can satisfy everything that you want to do in your career, and he’s taught me that. So we’ve been able to launch a brand and now Autocare in 2021. And then the next thing we did was we launched our Woodlands location. It’s our second Adams Automotive. And then we launched our second or our third Adams in Adams Cypress in 2023. And then this year we’ve launched a training company, kind of relaunched Todd’s, old training company, Auto Shop Answers. It’s really, really a lot of fun.
We’ve started a recruiting company, Professional Business Athletes, just really good automotive sourcing talent. Brian’s the director of that department and he is just an absolute super.
Mike:
That’s awesome.
Joe:
And then we are in the process of developing a BDC company, which is calling our customers, a call center basically to continue doing business with our best customers.
And then our fifth location in the Houston market is coming online in January of 2024.
Mike:
Congratulations.
Joe:
Siding stuff. Todd’s, right? He’s 10 x our business and more. We were doing 3 million a year out of a successful business, put my family through college. But really being able to see what this industry’s capable of has been a lot fun for us.
Mike:
That’s awesome. Glenn how about yourself?
Todd:
You actually, and again, Glenn wants to jump in. Glenn’s been just monumental in embracing the overall concept and growing this store where it’s at. So we want to you [inaudible 00:07:06].
Glenn:
Yeah, yeah. So ironically, I actually started in this industry after Todd originally sold his first company. I started about a year after at that company, and I actually started as a mystery shopper, believe it or not, I was hired to be this mystery shopper to go around, “Did they do this? Did they do that? Did they offer you this?” And all these little things.
And I remember going to the corporate office, I had all my little reports and they were like, “Man, these guys suck.” Sorry, that’s just the company.
Todd:
That was after I sold it, by the way.
Glenn:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:07:43] back then, certain tie. “Were they wearing their tie?” And all these little things, right? “Did they all [inaudible 00:07:49]?”
Mike:
Yeah.
Glenn:
And so they were like-
Todd:
But again, I want to preface that was after, it was a year after transaction. I sold a spectacular company.
Glenn:
They sold an amazing, amazing company. And at that time I didn’t know any different. I was just young. They’re like, “Hey,” after they sell [inaudible 00:08:07] your works was like, “Hey, you want to be a manager?” And I’m like, I remember I was like 18. And I’m like, “Oh sure.” And so I ended up going in and getting the business and started right in service basically and there for a while.
And then ended up moving on to a company called The Way to Automotive, which we ended up having when I went over there, we had about four locations and then grew it to about 10 locations. And that company then sold. And when that company was sold is when I finally got hooked back up with Todd, we really never worked together and asked but knew each other.
And all us had this such high respect for him just knowing. And this guy’s, I called him the godfather of automotive and now we call him the Todd father.
Mike:
Awesome.
Glenn:
And a [inaudible 00:08:54] here with Adam. Just learn just a whole different thing. I mean we were talking about, this morning, a meeting every morning with our team. It took a great meeting or Take Five and just talking about, “Man, what I learned in this past three years is 10 times more than I learned the first 22 years I’ve been doing this.”
Mike:
Yeah.
Glenn:
And it’s just an absolutely amazing concept. And now it’s on display for everybody to see and come join in it because man, we have a lot of fun. It’s a winning culture. The winning environment. I mean just [inaudible 00:09:33] our team, man. It’s just really [inaudible 00:09:33] right around.
Mike:
Well, I got to tell you guys, you can hear the enthusiasm in your voices when I met you down in North Carolina. I loved the enthusiasm we met through Patrick. Again, if you remember, and enthusiasm for me is contagious. And I think the enthusiasm has to be authentic. And I can tell that you guys, I mean you believe what you do and it shows. But on top of that, I can give you a personal validation. Our parent company, Tread, we sent a client to you guys that has turned out to be extremely happy. I think you know who I’m talking about. But-
Todd:
We know that client very well and I’m glad they’re happy.
Mike:
And I think they’ve come in a few-
Todd:
I think they’ve had about maybe 25, 30, probably about 45 people came through. That’s [inaudible 00:10:23] private training board.
Mike:
And I think that speaks volumes. That’s a big number of people just for the last two visits or whatever. And I think it’s important we have limited time, but I think let’s dive into Auto Shop Answers because that’s where you guys have taken the model of what you’ve done in the past, Todd and what you guys have done at Adams and how you’ve created the success. But now you’re basically teaching people the blueprint, correct?
Todd:
Yes. I mean it obviously paint by numbers and no, seriously, it really is. And when you talk about our industry in general, it has about a 50% closed ratio and we have perfected a business model which gives us about a 95% closed ratio. That alone changes the dynamic of your business right there.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
And when we start out our training program, we talk about it with a pack full, you’ll have 45 people, 45 owners in town in a couple weeks, again that event is sold out, January, we’re sold out December, January, but get ready for February.
But when we opened it up, talking to them about this massive closed ratio, first they have reservation like, “Yeah, wait a minute, wait a minute,” by the second day and we’re closing it out for our third to half day. I go, “So do we have a 95% closed ratio?” They clap and they go, “Absolutely, you do.”
And see that’s what happened. Better the presentation, the higher the closed ratio. Would everybody agree with that?
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
I mean, they’ll see presentation stations, speed racks. They will see things that you have never even thought about in our business. I mean our record, we’re talking to our team today. What is your record day at this store?
Speaker X:
Eighty-four thousand.
Todd:
Eighty-four thousand sold in a day.
Mike:
That’s Awesome.
Todd:
That’s a record day. Now when you look at our company as a whole, we have seven stores. Our seven stores will averaged over 500,000. And in the Houston market we averaged over 600,000.
We’ll have seven stores generating forty-three million in revenue with a sixty-two percent GEP, with a very substantial net operating income. And meaning… Which it’s about changing lives. A guy comes to this company and it will double your revenue period. And we have so many clients now to talk about that.
Mike:
Let me jump in. There was an article I recently read about you guys, I think it, when was it in Ratchet+Wrench?
Todd:
In Ratchet+Wrench.
Mike:
Yeah. And I thought it was very cool that you guys made the point to say, “Hey, when we get somebody in here and we know that they’re qualified and they fit our team, we don’t lose them.” You retain your employees.
Todd:
Yeah. Also, there’s this deal out in the industry about there’s a shortage of technicians, there’s a shortage of qualified people. Well, we have a recruiting program in January also, which I highly recommend you come through.
It’s called now hiring. There is not a shortage of technicians. There is a shortage of people who know how to recruit technicians. And also there’s a shortage of images out there.
So let’s just say that I’m recruiting against you. Well, let me tell you something. You better have game on your image. You better have a business model that can drive revenue. When I tell a technician “Do our technicians here have unlimited hours?”
Speaker X:
Unlimited hours.
Todd:
Unlimited hours. You understand? When a technician shows up at our shop, what do you ask him every morning?
Speaker X:
If they’re open or closed for business.
Todd:
That means, are you open or closed for business? Do you have so many hours right now you can’t even open? I can’t give you more cars. Because we offer unlimited hours. And they will tell him, “Yeah, I’m open. I can take some more cars or I’m closed for today,” because it just has so many hours.
And see, man, that’s what you’re competing against. Can you build a model that looks great? So when that technician, that master tech walks into this beautiful facility with superstar service advisors that are here to play ball with you, with a presentation station, shooting videos, digital pictures, MotoVisuals, going out to customers, tag teams, turnovers, everything you can imagine to make sure that we, it’s our professional obligation to respect that car and sell that job or tell the, we didn’t call it selling.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
Guys, we tell the customer what their vehicle needs and a professional presentation. And let me tell you, we have proven they will buy. Everybody agree with?
Speaker X:
What kind of turnover do you have Glenn?
Glenn:
[inaudible 00:15:14]. Well, you can imagine we set it up to where, man, our guys are untouchable. When we talk about recruiting, it’s like people get upset if someone comes and takes one of their guys.
And the way I look at it’s like this, you come get one of my new guys. That’s shame on me. You can come sit on a morning meeting, you’re welcome to, man. We have guys that’ve tried to come and recruit our people now they work with us, okay?
Mike:
Yeah.
Glenn:
Because you come in and you take a tour oof our shop, you’re going to go, “Wow, what the heck is going on here? How do I get on board?” Even though you just came over maybe to get somebody, I mean it’s fair game out there, man. It’s like you have to make your people untouchable.
How do to make your people untouchable? Well, let’s see, you pay them better than anybody. They provide a premium service better than anybody. And therefore you can charge as much as anybody because look, “If I can just deliver the best service, I can charge for that”
Mike:
Yeah.
Glenn:
The customer are willing to pay for that. And now I can afford to pay the people for that. So it’s like, “Hey, how do I just make my people untouchable?” And then I can just take the recruiting side of it [inaudible 00:16:13], people getting recruited from my shop.
Mike:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:16:14].
Glenn:
It’s not a job. It’s a career they see, they see where we’re going. It’s really-
Joe:
There are, if I could jump in, there are 120 employees that work for us. And I think we’ve had less than five employee in a-
Glenn:
Yeah.
Joe:
… Turnover in the last two years. And what people say, what we say is “We’re in the business of recruiting, hiring, and training and then ultimately taking care of our people.” That’s the only product that we have is our people. We’re in the business of training good people so that they can take care of our customers.
I heard something that was really good. Our number one asset, our number one return on investment that we have, our highest paying asset is our payroll. It is the people in our company.
Mike:
Yeah.
Joe:
We have a payroll that’s like probably on 30 million in revenue. We probably have 8 to 10 million dollars in payroll, taking care of families, taking care of their mortgages. And when they’re untouchable and they’re [inaudible 00:17:12] culture, like they’re not going anywhere else.
Todd:
And the other thing about our industry is we’re retailers.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
We are business machines. We call our guys “Professional Business Athletes.” So where that title came from, if you were a professional athlete, whether you’re in NASCAR race or a pro golfer, baseball, football, I was in the Texans game on Sunday, guess what? They work on Sunday.
We were open seven days a week to serve our customer. And again, our record day, didn’t it happen on a Sunday?
Speaker X:
Saturday.
Todd:
A Saturday, we are open on Saturday and Sunday. So we track “What’s our record weekend?” Our record weekend, we just dropped a new record weekend for Saturday Sunday at 108 where those two days sold. And the previous record was 103,000 for Saturday and Sunday sold. And here’s the good news, I won a dollar, from Joe Adams, because we bet that on getting a hundred thousand dollar weekend out.
And so when you’re in an industry where people are talking about four-day work weeks, wow, that’s kind of a hobby. You have to serve your customer. Only in car repair do they even talk not being open seven days a week, whether it’s a grocery store, movie, theater, restaurant, any other industry man, they’re here to serve the customer.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
And so we’re retailers and we know how to drive revenue.
Joe:
I just want to add, we did 55 on the Friday before too.
Todd:
Yep. 55,000 on the Friday before. So those are nice to get through-
Joe:
Three-day weekend.
Todd:
So a hundred, so 55 on Friday and then 108 combined Saturday, Sunday. Not a bad little three-day weekend.
Glenn:
So is the philosophy such that, look, people’s car is so paramount to their existence, but at the same time, those five days a week, they got to work those five days. So you’re making yourself available when they can [inaudible 00:19:11].
Joe:
[inaudible 00:19:12].
Todd:
But think about your best demographic is dual income with kids, dual income with kids are people who have money. So let me tell you something, you have to cater to them. They’re working five-day work weeks. They’re off on the weekend.
Now also, when we talk about our BDC call solution, every single customer that comes to our service facility gets a thank you call the next day. So we thank them for coming in. When we’re billing them out, we do an invoice review and we pre-book all their services. So if they get an oil change, it’s pre-booked for six months, they get an inspection pre-book for 12 months. Fluid exchanges pre-booked for two years. Three year warranty pre-booked to re-inspect the vehicle.
Now through our BDC call center. Think about it. Every one of those oil changes, we will get called six months from now, an appointment set and we just say, “Hey, we’re now open on the weekend. Would you be interested in Saturday, Sunday?” Show me your schedule, I’ll show you success. So we packed our Saturday Sunday business through scheduling to BDC and then we have our massive of revenue Monday through Friday.
But what happens is eventually you’re just slammed seven days a week, we are slammed. Again, the store does, think about this $1 million a month in parts and labor. And so a lot of stores do that in a year.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
We do that every single month. Of course credit is returned, parts order parts fixed, cars fixed. And so man, all that happened, we started out with a car count and we grew that car count to over a thousand cars with a thousand dollars ticket average. And let me tell you, there’s your million dollars right there.
And to professionally inspect a vehicle that is a true ticket average. So when you look at some of these centers with low ticket averages, man, are they letting cars leave their shop that are unsafe?
And we look at it like this. If it was my mother’s car-
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
If that car came into our shop, what would I do? I would do a thorough inspection of that vehicle because her safety is my concern. And that’s how we look at every single customer, as if they are family.
Mike:
And you don’t have to sell, you just show them what you found. Correct?
Todd:
And that’s just it, we hate the word sell, we call it “Tell them,” tell them what they need and they’re going to fix it.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
Think about it. A car comes in for an oil change, isn’t it our professional obligation to inspect that vehicle?
Speaker X:
Right.
Todd:
And so if I do an under hood inspection, mid-rise inspection, shake it down, four wheels off, check my brakes, inspect my brakes, bumper to bumper, if I find a safety concern, isn’t it my professional obligation to make sure that customer knows about it?
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
No man, let me tell you, you will find it if you properly PMI a car.
Mike:
Well, it’s kind of like that and it’s kind of like you could use the analogy of going to your doctor.
Todd:
Exactly.
Mike:
And you go in for single thing but he can tell you based on the way you’re acting that you’ve got other serious issues going on. But yet he doesn’t diagnose it or he’s not going to tell you that, “Hey, I can see you have some other issues. You said you have chest pains, but you came in for your sore throat. We’re not going to, we’ll just address the chest pain or no, the sore throat. We’re going to leave the chest pain alone.”
Todd:
We want to know all that’s going on. Absolutely.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
There was somebody else, just real quick, I like these guys to talk about an industry standard is we charge for that customer to come in our shop.
Could you guys please talk to them about, this is a great example of how we change the industry.
Glenn:
Yeah. I mean first of all, start with saying yes. It’s a great doctor analogy, right? Problem is most patients don’t ever make it to the doctor. If we use that analogy-
Speaker X:
[inaudible 00:22:57] car [inaudible 00:22:57].
Glenn:
Every shop tells the customer no. If anybody’s ever phone shopped for competition or just did anything along those lines to see “If I can get my car in?” The answer, right now especially, is “No.”
I mean it’s always been no, but now even more, everybody backed up. Everybody is busy, understaffed. So the answer is no. We called 20 shops a couple weeks ago and we asked if we get a Range Rover-
Joe:
Brakes.
Glenn:
…Vehicle in to check brakes at 4:30 P.M. about 20 shops.
Speaker X:
We got 20 “No’s” [inaudible 00:23:32].
Mike:
Wow. Be we got a 5,000-
Glenn:
Yes. And it then there’ll being a $5,000 job for us, lifetime customer, just by saying “Yes, absolutely.”
See, everybody is trying to figure out how to say no to the customer, how to book them out two weeks, how to charge them to come in, right? Everybody wants the industry charges, people to come in, we don’t charge them to come in, we charge them to leave, okay?
Todd:
There you go. I want you to hear that.
Speaker X:
It was $5,000-
Todd:
It’s absolutely, there’s absolutely no charge if one of our ASC certified technicians inspect your vehicle. In the fine print there is an exit fee of $1,000 dollars.
Joe:
On average.
Todd:
Now see in our industry we’ll just, we’ll pass on those exams, “A minimum diagnostic, be $150 and we’re booked for two weeks or my diagnostician’s not at work today, it’d probably be two weeks or a week or whatever.” And see, we just go, “Absolutely. It’s now a good time to bring your vehicle in? I have one of my certified technicians’ inspect vehicle give you a estimate, no obligation.”
I mean, it’s absolutely no charge to do that. Now with a ninety-five percent closed ratio, it’s very easy to do that.
Mike:
Yeah.
Todd:
50% closed ratio. You can’t do it. That’s what we teach. And man, all of a sudden you say yes to your customer. Wow, it is serious.
Joe:
And can I circle back on the original question, which was tell us more about your trading company.
Mike:
Yeah.
Joe:
You could hear the passion in our voice when we do this. Like what I liked about our training company, we’re in the fight with everybody that we train every day as well. Our training, it’s not really a side gig, but it’s not our main focus. Our main focus is driving revenue and running our company, running our units and empowering our voice. And I think when we train clients, they can feel that this is what we do every day.
It’s not just like an idea. We actually run stores with them. We’re pretty confident that we’re-
Todd:
When we do a visit, our store visits are in the shop, in the bay. We call it, “In the trenches with our wrenches.” If you’ve read that through on Ratchet+Wrench, it’s in the trenches with our wrenches. When we go in and do a store visit, we PMI with our team, every single car, every day. Glenn was actually never sick. This is crazy. He is never sick. But he had something, what day was that? Saturday? On Saturday. And I said, “Well, heck man, I’ll just rock and roll. You [inaudible 00:25:39] it down.” So I came in with a team. We have a superstar team, oh man.
And let me tell you, we teed it up, and this old man is 64. We did not wait at 37? I think, yeah, because you sold that job the next hour on Monday. And I said, “I think we ought to count that on Saturday.” That was the Volkswagen deal.
So I get through my 40, because really and truly, we have perfected the 40,000 dollar day. Think about it, we can expect four cars, four cars an hour, 15 minutes, four an hour, thousand dollar ticket, average 10 hour day, 40,000, done.
Or do we do that just about every day? Look at our ticket. We’re running about a 42 plus thousand dollar average day. So we have perfected that. We have perfected it.
Or one less for yesterday, 30,000. These are just normal days, man. And see, once you really get it, you go, “Wow, the industry’s gotten so wrong.” And we can go, “Yeah, totally wrong.”
Joe:
We say “Surround yourself with people that are better than you so they can take you places that you can’t go on your own.” And it’s like, man, if there was a 1.5, if there was a $2 million shop out there somewhere. You bet I’d be on their doorstep next month.
Todd:
2 billion a month, two 2 billion a month. Man, we’re going to go look at that.
Glenn:
Well, listen guys, I mean, I can just speak from experience, whether it’s this industry or any industry, I’ll pay more to get better service, better quality, better whatever, knowing that it’s done right and I can walk away. It’s like what you said about your mom. That drives me, that motivates me because if I had to take my mom’s car somewhere, I want to feel 100% sure, or my wife’s car, and I know she’s going on the highway, I want to feel a hundred percent secure that they’re going to be safe. That’s it. I don’t need-
Todd:
All the way down to a battery service.
Speaker X:
Yes.
Todd:
Man, did that car leave with them, corrosion on the battery, which is going to leave my mother stranded at Walmart or Sam.
Wow. Is that just as important as a bad transmission? Hey, the price is different but they both leave it free and leave my mother an unsafe position.
Glenn:
Listen, The worst thing as men, I think the worst thing for us is our wives, our daughters, our moms, our sisters worrying about them on the highway and getting a call from them and then have to figure out how to assist them when they’re two hours away.
Todd:
And remember, every single customer is someone’s mother, sister, brother, family member.
Glenn:
Yeah.
Todd:
And that’s how we look at it. Back here, back in 1986, I have a Polaroid camera sitting here. That is what started this concept. I know [inaudible 00:28:18], but we have a Polaroid camera. In 1986, I took a Polaroid camera, a Polaroid picture of an intake leaking on a commercial van that needed the intake done. The customer said, “No.” I ran down, bought a Polaroid picture, took a Polaroid picture of it, put the engine cow back on it, the CB radio, 1986, got everything ready.
He shows up. We were opening until nine o’clock, even back then. He shows up at six o’clock. We did what’s called a “mean read,” Again, I reopen the mist cell at the front counter with picture, showing him the pictures. He said, “Wow, it is really that bad. Yes, just keep it overnight and work on and get it fixed for me.” “Absolutely.”
So from that moment, we have not sold a job without taking pictures since 1986. So can you imagine what it looks like with digital technology, editing, MotoVisual, closing the deal, it’s a lay down. A total lay down.
Glenn:
That’s awesome. Hey Todd, I can’t imagine all the storage you needed just for the photographs you took. Those are hard copies, man.
Todd:
Yeah. “Hey man, we’d save this [inaudible 00:29:25].” Yeah, I own stock in Polaroid, Polaroid film. We used to make a joke and flap them. But think about it, pictures speak volumes, and how you do it speaks volumes. And our process is speed.
And when you get your technicians on board and they get it, wow. It’s just a game changer.
Mike:
Yeah. Well, how can people reach you guys if they’re interested to find out more about Auto Shop Answers?
Todd:
Sure. Well, just go over to Autoshopanswers.com and you’ll get a lot of information on our company. You can contact me, Todd Hayes, Joe Adams. Patrick Egan obviously works with us. And so… What’s that?
Mike:
And then Todd Westerlin.
Todd:
Yeah, Todd Westerlin. Oh my gosh. Obviously Todd Westerlin has been known to Kukui as the ex-CEO of Kukui and just an industry standard guy. He now heads up Auto Shop Answers, so feel free to reach out to Todd Westerlin also. But again, autoshopanswers.com, if you want to hear about Adams, just go over to Adams, get our Facebook group. What’s the name of the Facebook group?
Mike:
Auto Shop Answers. Yeah.
Todd:
Yeah. Auto Shop Answers Facebook group. We do a lot of fun stuff with that.
Mike:
So this may sound like a dumb question, but I’m sure some of these guys are going to thinking about this if they’re driving in their car and listen to the podcast and can’t jump online real quick, but can somebody go with, you have a program online or do they have to fly to Houston like you’ve had these classes or do you come to them anytime?
Todd:
We have online training. All of our modules are available online. We do like you to come into the training first and we give you access to our online training platform. And so we have the entire key to key online. We’re working on the recruiting. We have the rack attack online, so there is a great followup force for that.
And so we do have online presence, but we really need you to come through just to watch the presentation without participating, it is just not as effective.
Joe:
We’re constantly adding to the online library, our Take Five library and our content. It keeps growing, but we’re building that [inaudible 00:31:52].
Todd:
Yeah, we very committed to online and think about every morning we start with a Take Five staff meeting, which will go from 6:45 until seven, but honestly, sometimes they run late until the first customer comes in. What do you think about that enormous amount of training? 365 days a year for the past four years? Do you think we have a team trained on our business model?
Yes, we recommend Take Five’s for everybody, but we do have access to our Take Fives on our online presence also.
Mike:
All right, so Todd, I think I told you guys, I’ve got this segment in the show called Make Us Laugh.
Todd:
Let’s do it.
Mike:
Somebody has the responsibility of making my audience laugh today. Does anybody have a good story?
Todd:
Well, as you guys know, I started out 1986. I am not a technician, and so I’m all business, but man, I know my way around a car now. But in 1986 or 1987, and I wake up, I go into my office, I’m ready to rock and roll, and I get my first call-in note, “Hey Todd, man, man, I’m super sick. I’m not going to be able to make it in.” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, man. Woo.” I’m new in business. I hang up the phone. And man, boy, it wasn’t five minutes later and my next guy calls in and he says, “Man, I don’t know man, must have gotten something in the shop. I am sick.” And I’m like, “Oh dang”
Mike:
Did you [inaudible 00:33:20].
Todd:
[inaudible 00:33:20] by myself, almost.
Glenn:
You’re down to two [inaudible 00:33:23].
Todd:
So the next guy calls up and I go “You better not be telling me that you’re calling in sick,” and I’m going “Guys, man, I don’t care if you’re on your deathbed. I need you to come in here.”
And these guys will tell you, I never know what day it is, what month it is. And all of a sudden, all three of them are at a phone and they go, “April Fools.” I was [inaudible 00:33:43] kill them.
So yeah, there’s so many crazy stories. One time I had a car in the bay and they took a garbage can, lit it on fire, and they’re yelling, “Fire! Fire!”
Speaker X:
Shh.
Todd:
With a fire extinguisher I go running out of the front of the house, back to the shop, and there’s this Ford Mustang, and the whole back end of it has just been on fire, but it came in like that. I didn’t know it. They’re going, “Oh my God, what are we going to do?” I’m like, “Oh my God.”
So these are the jokes that are played on them, the practical jokes on a newbie in the industry who does not know how to work on cars. But I figured that out real quick.
Mike:
Well. It sounds like they’d like to have fun with you, but you might’ve been a pretty good sport about it. But that one-
Todd:
Oh yeah.
Mike:
Hey, that one, that the guy’s not showing up. I could almost feel your heartburn happening in each call.
Todd:
Yeah. Then you hear April Fools, and you’re like, “Oh yeah, it is. Oh, great.” You know, because man, as you know, my hobby is business. So these guys will tell you, I never know what day it is. I don’t know what month it is.
Joe:
Well, hey, I’ll tell y’all, I’m not going to tell you the story ’cause it’s over the top, but we got a buddy of ours one time on this huge, huge prank. And then finally he was going beside himself about the prank. And when I finally told him the truth, I thought I might get popped in the mouth. I thought, this guy’s going to go ballistic instead. He goes, “Are you serious? Oh, thank God.” He was so glad that what we had done to him wasn’t real, that he was thanking me and I thought the guy was going to, I was ready to take the shot. I thought, man, this guy’s going to give it. But anyway.
Todd:
We do love our team.
Joe:
It’s great.
Todd:
That’s something about when you come into Houston, see our operation. It is just an amazing company culture. All of our team members at all of our stores love working with us.
Find the right people, make it a great place to work, give them a financial stake in the outcome of the business and train them. How do you know you have the right people? A immediate impact on sales, their customers love doing business with them. Their team members love working for them. And last but not least, they make money for us.
Mike:
That’s awesome.
Speaker X:
Pretty serious about that.
Mike:
Well, on a [inaudible 00:35:55] the biographical side, Glenn, Joe, what’s your favorite hobbies? Just to give everybody a little background on you.
Glenn:
Well, let’s see, both of us. Let’s see. First of all, both of us are big golfers. I think that’s our main way we spend time out of the shop.
Joe:
But we don’t spend much time out of the shop.
Glenn:
Yeah, I’ll tell you, I’ll give you the hobby and I’ll tie it in with a funny story so you can get a twofer here. Back in my pre Todd days, learning this concept and just loving being back in the trenches, I played a lot of golf.
Mike:
Yeah.
Glenn:
The industry teaches you kind of work your way up to that ivory tower. The better you do, the further you get away from the customer is what I really learned after coming back over here. And I was always great at running shops, but the next thing you know, now I’m running a company, but it’s at a different level. You’re not in the trenches any more like you once were.
Mike:
Yeah.
Glenn:
That’s what the industry teaches. And so I played a lot of golf, let’s just say that. And I started to become pretty good at golf.
Todd:
We call it “The ivory tower.”
Glenn:
We call it the ivory tower, okay? We have no ivory tower here.
Mike:
No ivory tower here.
Glenn:
And so I played a lot of golf and I got pretty good at golf. And then we did a little company outing at [inaudible 00:37:13] and we were playing, and me and Joe were going head-to-head. And Joe is a better than scratch golfers for those you golfers out there, plus handicap. Okay.
Todd:
I’m trying to change that.
Glenn:
So we’re playing golf and we’re doing a little target game. And man, I’m just striping these balls, man, just-
Todd:
Oh, yeah.
Glenn:
…Joe hits a great shot and I stick it right inside of his ball. What?
Todd:
Todd Hayes’s doing?
Glenn:
Todd looks over me and he goes, “Man, what’s going on right here, dude? I didn’t know you could play golf like that.” And I looked at him and said, “That’s from my ivory tower days.” Isn’t that great?.
Todd:
Yeah.
Glenn:
We don’t golf much anymore, but you know what? We’re changing people’s lives. We’re growing an amazing company and we could go golf anywhere we want to golf anytime we want to golf. But see, we love being here.
Mike:
That’s awesome. Well, hey, listen, once you find what you love, then why do anything else, right? I mean-
Glenn:
That’s it.
Todd:
You know people say “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” But there’s an add-on to that with Cook, the CEO of Apple says “No, if you love what you do, you will work harder than anybody else, but the load is very simple to carry because you love it so much.”
That’s kind of what we are. I mean, man, I can’t wait for tomorrow when it’s seven o’clock in the morning.
Mike:
That’s awesome.
Todd:
It’s just so exciting what we get to do. Open stores, train people, recruit people. We’re talking about advertising, man, in the hunt of growing a spectacular company.
Again, our goal, we’re at forty-three million now. We open one store per year and we’ll do 6 million on average per store. So think about over the next 10 years, we’ll do another 60 million on top of our 43 million that gives us a hundred million dollars company. And you’re looking at guys who are very focused on return on investment to our investors, so you know why any of that is very important to us. So we’ve built one heck of an asset in a very short period of time.
Mike:
That that’s a great note end on. And I first of all say thank you for being part of the podcast-
Todd:
Oh, Anytime.
Speaker X:
I think.
Mike:
… Joe and Glenn.
And to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast. If you’d like to recommend a guest to us, please email me at [email protected].
We take all recommendations seriously and I really take recommendations serious for our audience. So I look forward to hearing from you. Until next time, have a great day and be safe.
Todd:
Thank you, Mike. Thank you guys.
Speaker X:
Than you.
Todd:
We appreciate you.
Announcer:
Thanks for listening to the Gain Traction Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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