Never Stop Evolving With Dwayne Myers, Co-Owner and Managing Partner of Dynamic Automotive

Episode 50

Dwayne Myers

Dynamic Automotive

Dwayne Myers is Co-owner and Managing Partner of Dynamic Automotive, an independent automotive repair business with five locations in Frederick, MD. He has spent his career of over 30 years in the maintenance and repair industry, ranging in size from lawn mowers to U.S. Army tanks. His skill set includes negotiation, market planning, team building, business planning, and operations management. Dwayne’s greatest passion is enriching the lives of others through philanthropic endeavors and community involvement.

In this episode…

Are you resistant to change as the owner or manager of a tire and auto repair shop? Maybe things are going reasonably well — but could they be better with a few adjustments? What’s keeping you from trying something different? If these questions resonate with you, you don’t want to miss this episode of Gain Traction!

Dwayne Myers, Co-owner and Managing Partner at Dynamic Automotive, has been in the industry for 27 years and is still making changes to improve his shop’s operation and culture. “I worked Saturdays for thirty years and didn’t realize what I was missing,” he said. Dwayne was reluctant to change his hours of operation for years but says the pandemic caused a reduction in hours, and the benefits have outweighed the negatives ever since.

In this episode of Gain Traction, you’ll hear from Dwayne, who tells Mike Edge about the positive outcomes of making operational changes such as working hours, community involvement, and employee retention programs. He talks about his long journey in the automotive industry and the ways he never stops learning. You don’t want to miss this interesting and informative episode!

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Dwayne Myers shares how he got started in the automotive repair business
Why Dwayne still considers himself a parent despite not having any children of his own
How local high school students are learning to repair vehicles with Dynamic Automotive
The key to Dynamic Automotive’s success is keeping employees happy and minimizing turnover
How the pandemic made Dynamic Automotive a better company
Why staying closed on Saturdays was a good business decision
The most significant turning points in Dynamic Automotive’s 27-year history

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Transcription

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. Mike Edge here. I am. One of your hosts of Gain Traction, where I talk with top automotive business leaders about their personal journeys and experiences in the tire and auto repair industries. Right now, I’d like to give a shout-out to a former guest, Tim Shaffer, co-founder of searchtires.com. Check out the website searchtires.com. It is a very cool concept for consumers, and it’s brand-new. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners and the ReTread program. Tread Partners has designed a product called ReTread, that is a full-scale customer re-engagement program to win back previous customers. It is a one-time, 90-day program that generates a guaranteed 10-to-1 return on your investment from old customers. That’s correct. A 10-to-1 guaranteed ROI. No tricks or gimmicks. Hey, it’s your customers. Tread just gets them back inside your base again. So, what are you waiting for? Email Tread Partners at [email protected], or you can learn more at treadpartners.com.

So, today’s guest is Dwayne Myers. He is co-owner and CEO of Dynamic Automotive, an independent automotive repair business with five locations in Frederick County, Maryland. He has spent his career of over 30 years in the maintenance and repair industry, ranging in size from lawnmowers to tanks in the U.S. army. As CEO, Dwayne leads and develops the executive and management teams. He focuses on continuing the development of all team members to build a stronger culture in the company. The development is key to the growth of both Dynamic Automotive and its team members. Dwayne, welcome to the podcast.

Dwayne:

Thanks, Mike. I’m happy to be here.

Mike:

Yeah. Glad to have you. So, let’s talk about this. That intro sounds great and interesting when you’ve worked on everything from lawnmowers to tanks. Then how did you get to this industry of automotive repair?

Dwayne:

It’s definitely been a journey. That’s for sure. High school, for my age demographic, I worked on my own car. We had friends. That’s what we did, which is something different than today’s generations have. I’m not able to do that as much. But I dabbled there, and then went in the military, and I wanted to be a mechanic because I enjoyed that stuff. So I went and became a mechanic, got a lot of training. I enjoyed it, but I knew it was time to move on. And when I got out, I gravitated from tanks to heavy-duty trucks. Which still doesn’t sound good. It’s still heavy, [inaudible 00:02:52].

Mike:

Diesel trucks? Semis?

Dwayne:

Yeah. Yep. Diesel trucks. I was working on diesels, and I was going to college down in Baltimore for automotive. I wanted to be an automotive technician, and I was going down to college in Baltimore, and my electronics teacher was … He was a shop foreman at Capital Cadillac, which my business partner, current business partner, worked at. He connected us, got us together. They were getting ready to open Dynamic a mile down the road from where I was at. And because of that, I was able to … Once I got done with school I went there part-time, and then slowly started part-time, working nights and weekends, to 25 years later being CEO of the company.

Mike:

That’s fabulous. So now, do you have any children of your own that might be coming up in the industry?

Dwayne:

No. My children are four-legged. People say, “Why didn’t you have any kids?” I’m like, “Well, I have 48 of them.” That’s how many team members we have, because I invest in them like they are my kids—guiding them, helping them. And it doesn’t matter age. In the end, we’re doing something to help make them better. So, yeah. That’s my kids. I have none. Lee and Jose, my two partners, had kids that went through the company, and then they went off. They’re either military, lawyers. They went and did other things.

Mike:

I gotcha. Do you guys do an outreach to local universities or community colleges?

Dwayne:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. Our base focus is the local high school and CTC programs. We’ve been doing those for over 20 years. About five, six years ago we created a youth apprenticeship program, which is high school, and a registered apprenticeship program, which is college-based. They both have mentors, they both have laid-out programs, but it’s been really good bringing young talent. But those colleges, I’m on their advisory boards. Same with the high school. I feel, to make the best program that can be out there, I want to give what I can to help.

Mike:

Yeah. No, that’s great. Well, I mean, I think as culturally speaking, I mean, as our founding, as a nation, we did have a lot of apprenticeship. If you think about how a kid grew up, I mean, he just grew up under his dad’s wings, or his granddad’s, or uncle’s, or something, and he learned a trade. Unfortunately, we got away from that, and I think it’s cost us tremendously. And I think we’re feeling it across, not just automotive repair, but your plumbers, your electricians. Obviously, there’s a big, vast hole there. That excites me, that you guys take that approach.

Dwayne:

Like I said, from the beginning of the automotive program, we were there in front of the parents, in front of the students. And slowly, they were losing interest. Especially the parents. So we knew we had to try something different, and when we started creating these apprenticeship programs, that changed a lot. Even though they weren’t even done, we had to refine them multiple times after that, it got the students and the parents interested. There were 72 students in that year’s program. We brought them all out to our one store that has a quick-lube and a repair shop, took them for a tour, taught them what it was like to be a technician. All the other aspects, and jobs, and careers in the automotive industry, because the technician’s only a small piece of it. And we talked about it was like to be in business, why we charge what we do. We had six applications that day, and we hadn’t had six in a year. And since then, we thankfully haven’t struggled for entry-level help. It’s been a game-changer for us.

Mike:

Well, that’s fabulous, because honestly … So I deal with people all over the country, and I would say that’s their number-one problem, at that entry level. So you have found a way to ingrain yourself in the local community, obviously, through the community colleges, et cetera, and other educational institutions. Obviously, with high schools and whatnot. But that’s fabulous. That gives me hope. I mean, I hear some horror stories out there. I mean, there’s some good groups out there that don’t have turnover at their mechanic level, et cetera, and higher. But at that tech level and lower, they just keep churning through people, and it’s been a challenge.

Dwayne:

Yeah. It was a challenge for us, even though we thought we were doing a program. But until you have it on pen and paper and it’s laid out, you don’t have a program. They need to know. And that’s the thing with not just the youngest generation, but all generations now want to know their path. What do you have planned for them? Our apprenticeship programs, they even know the minimums they’ll make every year, when they’ll get the raises, and their minimums. And none of our apprentices are one minimums, because they get ASCs, inspection license. They know the raise they’ll get instantly. Plus, there’s merit raises as well.

But a lot of what apprenticeship taught us, we had the youth, which is about a year, high school. Three years in registered. Well, they had a laid-out plan for four years of their life. Why did we stop at the end of that four years when it worked so well? Because the technician that we got out of our apprenticeship program, I will tell you, to me, they were five years ahead. By efficiency, by the numbers they put out, by the work they do. It’s a very solid technician that we’re getting out of our programs.

But what we learned was, don’t stop there. So we now do career paths and roadmap reviews for the entire company, for everybody. So we all know what their futures are, what they want. One, three, five-year goals career-wise. They can get private if they want. They might want a house or something. But a lot of them, younger technicians, want to have their ASCs, certain knowledge-based stuff they want to learn. Some of them that have been with us for a while want to run a location, want to be a shop foreman. So we help them get there, and it’s really helped with our retention ratio.

Mike:

Well, you make it so clear. I mean, a lot of times I think employers do this from all different industries, is just say, “Hey, we’ve got this plan.” And they lay out the generic, but it really doesn’t allow somebody to vision where they’re going. And you guys have done a good job of … That way, they wake up every day and they know what direction they’re going. And they know, not just fixing this car in front of me, but a year from now, this is what I’m going to be getting-academically speaking or training-wise, or I’m going to get my shot at a foreman position, et cetera. I love it. I mean, I think that’s the biggest challenge in leadership, is just not making things clear for people. So if you make it clear, I think you guys are a great case study in showing that people stick around. And the clearer you make it, the better, maybe.

Dwayne:

Well, and clarity and communication is by far our biggest problem. And I don’t care what we’re talking about. It can be any industry. It could be a marriage. It could be anything. Communication is key, and steps-learning. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. We would have a yearly goal review, roadmap review, and then not touch base with it enough. I lost a guy, that I believe will be back one day, because we didn’t keep the touchpoints to where he was secure in that. Now, we put our one-on-ones in the middle of all of that to make sure that we’re constantly touching and helping them with their plan.

If their intentions is to be a leader in their company, one thing is, they instantly get to talk to a business coach. Everyone that’s in leadership, that wants to be in leadership, talks to my business coach. It’s amazing when you start giving them professional development. It’s one thing when I talk to them. I can help them some, but when a professional … And they know that, “I have a business coach talking to me,” definitely, to me, puts on the rubber on the road. Talking tires. I mean, that’s a serious commitment. It does little bit of money, but it’s amazing how a professional can take little issues and help guide you along so they don’t blow up into bigger ones.

Mike:

Well, that’s awesome. And the fact that you just look at it as, yeah, it’s an extra expense. But you know what? Maybe it’s not, because the cost variable. What do you save by less turnover, happier employees, more clarity, knowing where they’re going? Dwayne, I love it. I really admire you guys for doing that. It kind of leads me to another topic. How did you guys make it through the pandemic? How’d that affect you? How’d you make it through? What was your strategy?

Dwayne:

Actually, our business coach, he threw it out there pretty hard. He told us, “Who do you want to keep, and who do you have to let go?” And we talked in-depth. So, we came up with a plan. Our leadership team, we meet once a week, by Zoom still. Used to be in-person, but now that we’ve gotten bigger, we have … But three owners, and H.R., and then location leaders that run the stores. And we were lucky. We had a couple people that actually were moving out-of-state, which helped us. And then we had quite a few young people that the parents had health issues, so they asked them to stay home. So, we were able to naturally shrink without cutting.But what we did, we guaranteed our pay to our team even before they had any programs out there. We said, “We’re going to take care of you the best we can.” And we worked on ourselves. We wrote all our SOPs, standardized our digital inspection platform, worked on our facilities. Created a toolbox for, when we open another store, we can take that toolbox to the next store instead of restarting.

So, we utilized that. It was about a month-and-a-half to two months that was pretty slow. Our quick-lube, it went from 700 cars a month to 150. It was decimated. But what we did was, we worked on the quick-lube. There were some major projects that took us a lot of time. If it wasn’t for that time, we’d have never been able to get done. So it was rough, but we came out a better company, and then all those people that left slowly came back. One key thing we did for bandwidth is, we used to be open on Saturdays. We stopped that. About two months in, we challenged the team that, “Hey, we have a quick-lube.” And at that time, we also had a car wash. But we said, “If you all can do in five what we did in six, we’ll stay closed.”

Well, we beat that by far, and we’ll never reopen on the weekends. Even with a quick-lube. People looked at me like I was crazy. “You’re closing a quick-lube on the weekend?” And I said, “Yes.” Because I didn’t want them to think they were second class citizens to the shops. They had to be treated just the same, and they made it work.

Mike:

Man, I love that. I mean, I think you probably seen the same articles that I have out there, and then talking to owners that actually have made that decision, when they go from that six to five. But the productivity, the happiness, the stability with employees. I mean, it does make a huge difference, doesn’t it?

Dwayne:

I worked Saturdays for 30 years, and I didn’t realize what I was missing. It made a difference. If there was ever a reason that some of our senior people would leave … And they all go through transitions of life. They start off. Usually when they come to us, they’re single. And then they get married, and then they have kids. Now, you’re talking baseball games. So it’s just a whole different life as they transition, and the Saturdays made a big deal, and they did it. They buckled down and made it work. I give them the credit. And we were one of the last ones in our transformers group, the Transformers Institute that I’m a part of. We were one of the last holdouts not to close on Saturdays, and COVID … I don’t know if it gave us the courage, the time, the whatever. But our friends in the group, they all told us, “You’d never regret it.” And they were right. Never regretted it one time.

Mike:

That’s fabulous, and I like that. I mean, I’ll tell you right now, I like looking at industries. I like looking at businesses. I like being very objective about why somebody succeeds or not, but it’s very fascinating to me how well Chick-fil-A does having that one day off. And I got to think, I mean, the blessings in it for the reasons they may do it. But also, you take that day off. Now, everybody knows what day they’re getting off. Right?

Dwayne:

Mm-hmm.

Mike:

And then maybe they get another one throughout the week, but it’s a lot less headache to negotiate that schedule when everybody’s got that day off. And I got to think it’s got to be really easy for you guys. “Hey, you got the weekend, period. And you work five days a week, and that’s it.” You don’t have people arguing about who has to come in on Saturday, I’m sure. I mean, that makes a big difference.

Dwayne:

Yeah. No. Nope, not at all. I mean, what it did was, it shrunk our company some, because you didn’t need as many people when you’re closed one extra day. But slowly, organically, we’ve added and we’ve now exceeded where we were pre-pandemic.

Mike:

Man, that’s [inaudible 00:16:09].

Dwayne:

I mean, we’re doing pretty well. We could probably use about two more technicians. We’re sitting around 48 right now.

Mike:

Okay.

Dwayne:

We could use a couple more, mostly for organic growth, but I think we do pretty well. I mean, we get applications and stuff like that, because of all the things and programs we do. But it’s a struggle, but I think we’re doing a little better than a lot of them, thankfully.

Mike:

That’s fantastic. Well, on the business side, what was one of the biggest turning points you saw in your company over the years that you’ve been involved that really took you in a different trajectory?

Dwayne:

I’ll give you a couple. We’ve been in business a total of 27 years, and when you first start out, new shop. Usually it’s the owners and you add a couple people. The leadership style is more autocratic, where it’s more command. You just tell them what to do. And we focused the first 10 years on the business. We looked in, is how I explained it. Always kept looking in. I mean, we would do some stuff with the community, but not a lot. We would write checks and all, but we didn’t volunteer our time and all like we could’ve.

After about 10 years, we started looking out. We started looking out into the community. How can we help the community be better? We spent a lot of time, a lot of our personal time, helping out. Won all kinds of awards in the community, different events. Sometimes we sponsor, sometimes we’re just there. And it’s just not us. Sometimes it’s our team. And by doing that without expecting anything back has really solidified us in the community, because all our shops are in small communities. They’re not on a real busy highway. They’re actually in a small town. We enjoy that, because of that interaction you get with them. It’s so personal. And when we started investing in our community more, it really, our business took off.

Mike:

Man, that’s awesome.

Dwayne:

And then I want to say, when we started about five, six years ago, when we started the apprenticeship programs and other stuff we’ve been doing, we still looked out, but then we looked back. But not at the business, but at our team, and in developing and growing our team. And that just kept us going up. Thankfully, me, Lee, and Jose were not in day-to-day operations. We work on the business and we develop our team. That is my job. My job isn’t to write service, fix a car. I’m happy to talk to a customer, but my job is to take care of our team and grow our business. And I’m able to do that because we have a solid team that’s empowered to make decisions.

Mike:

That’s fabulous. That’s a great answer. I mean, like you said, it is multiple turns, but it came at different ways. And like you said, the community outreach was a big one, it seemed like, and then getting to the point where you could manage versus being involved in the day-to-day.

Dwayne:

Mm-hmm.

Mike:

Well, believe it or not, we’re wrapping up our time here. I like to keep it at a minimum, but I’m going to throw you a softball question here. I like to ask people this question because it kind of gives insight of the humor level, or maybe who the person is, or whatever. But what’s your favorite movie of all time?

Dwayne:

There’s so many, Mike.

Mike:

I know. All right. You can give me three then, because I couldn’t answer one. I could not do one. I know that.

Dwayne:

I love action movies. I always have. Of course, being from the military, I love good military. But I also like comedy, so we’ll start there. Probably one of my favorite comedy movies is Uncle Buck. I love John Candy and Uncle Buck. That movie, I can watch it and I just die laughing. That was a awesome movie. He left us way too soon. He had a lot more to give us.

Mike:

Oh, man. Yes, and I’m going to agree with you there. We’re probably about the same age, and I’m a huge John Candy fan.

Dwayne:

Yeah, definitely. Military-wise-

Mike:

Okay. Put military and comedy together. I’m going to jump in on you here. I like John Candy in Stripes.

Dwayne:

Okay. Well, that’s military and comedy. I’m going to give you We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

Dwayne:

That one …

Mike:

That’s a very serious one, but it’s-

Dwayne:

It’s a very serious, but it leaks leadership, caring. You have a job to do, but he did what he could to make it the best for everybody there, even though you got to make the hard decision. So, I like that movie for that. It is very serious, but I think it makes a strong statement.

Mike:

Great movie.

Dwayne:

Then, just because we’re people that fixed things … I just watched this yesterday. Apollo 13 was the one, with Tom Hanks. Their ship broke in the middle of going to the moon, and they had to get it back. And then to watch a team work together. I love watching that movie. I can watch it a hundred times. I love a lot of movies, but they’re three of my favorites.

Mike:

Those are all good selections. I like them all. Yeah. That last one you mentioned, yeah. That’s definitely a situation where you had to adapt, improvise, and overcome, as I think that [inaudible 00:21:09]

Dwayne:

Well, and think of the faith they had to have in the people back on Earth.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

Dwayne:

Because you could have just wigged out and lost it. I mean, and just the breathing. If you didn’t breathe right, you used up all your oxygen. But that team working the problem. Yes, that was a spaceship, but you can put that across many, many different avenues and use that example.

Mike:

Well, there’s no doubt. If you’re exploring out there, there’s very little help in getting back home if things mess up. I mean, that’s a great one. Well, I got to tell you, it’s been a pleasure having you. So, thanks for being on the Gain Traction podcast, and hope we’ll have you back sometime.

Dwayne:

All right. I’d love to. It was my pleasure.

Mike:

Well, and to all our listeners, thank you for being part of our podcast. If you’d like to recommend a guest to us, please email me directly at [email protected]. Until next time, have a great day and be safe.

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