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Episode 238

Henry Rose

Neighborhood Car Care

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Henry Rose is the CEO of Neighborhood Car Care in Western New York. He entered the automotive industry from outside the traditional technician path, bringing experience from property management, construction, and operations into independent auto repair.

After first connecting with the business as a customer, Henry became involved with what was formerly Scruggs Automotive Repair and later purchased two of its locations. Today, he leads Neighborhood Car Care with a practical view of auto repair labor rates, customer experience, team support, and shop profitability.

In this episode…

Auto repair labor rates are not just numbers on an invoice. They reflect the value a shop proves, the confidence of the team presenting the work, and the cost of keeping trained people supported.

Shop owners are dealing with rising technician costs, tighter margins, customer price sensitivity, and the pressure to build a business that survives slow months. Henry Rose brings the discussion back to capacity, billable hours, customer trust, and the shop experience behind the rate.

A labor rate becomes easier to defend when the operation supports it. Full schedules, clean facilities, clear communication, easy scheduling, team benefits, and confident advisors all change how customers receive the number.

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

[01:10] Introducing Henry Rose of Neighborhood Car Care

[01:20] Henry Rose’s transition into independent auto repair leadership

[03:20] How a garage door invoice reframed labor rate value

[06:22] Why auto repair pricing faces unique customer scrutiny

[13:05] Using hospitality to strengthen diagnostic value and trust

[16:19] Structuring labor rates around business costs and team support

[18:23] Using shop capacity as a signal for rate increases

[20:23] Measuring market response without weakening price confidence

[23:11] Building team alignment behind higher labor rates

[26:19] Protecting long-term stability through responsible profit strategy

[31:19] The work ethic behind sustained shop growth

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“You have to charge what you need to charge, but at the same time, when we’re just nothing but confrontational in our pricing structure, that’s also very scary for the customer.”
“We have to be huge on building the value when we’re talking with people.”
“We need to make the money that we need to make, so that our team can do the job they need to do, the training, the education.”
“If you’re hitting 120 billable hours, and you’re that capacity, and then you’re booking out more than four or five days, you really should consider increasing your labor rate.”
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to our team members. We need to keep the company healthy because if there’s a weird dip, a bad month, you can’t have everyone wondering, are they going to get paid?”

Action Steps:

Audit weekly billable-hour capacity before raising rates. Compare the shop’s actual billed hours against the total hours the operation can realistically sell.
Review the customer experience that supports the price. Clean waiting areas, clear communication, easy scheduling, and visible professionalism help customers understand the value behind auto repair labor rates.
Train advisors to present price with confidence. A labor rate loses strength when the person explaining it sounds unsure, defensive, or apologetic.
Track close rate and booking pressure after a rate change. Use customer response, schedule demand, and advisor confidence to find the market’s breaking point.
Tie pricing to team stability. Build rates around wages, benefits, training, tools, and the cost of keeping the business healthy through slow months.

Transcript

00:00
For the customer’s mindset, the fear of something happening because they continue to drive has been satisfied and they’ll come in when they need to. And the ball keeps rolling. But we also whack the customer over the head with outrageous pricing. You have to charge what you need to charge, but at the same time, when we’re just nothing but confrontational in our pricing structure, that’s also very scary for the customer.

00:25
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives and other thought leaders of our industry. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you’re doing. It starts with a simple conversation. To contact Tread Partners, visit treadpartners.com so let’s get started. Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. My guest today is Henry Rose, CEO of Scruggs Automotive Repair in Western New York.

01:16
Henry, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

01:18
Thanks man. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

01:20
Yeah, glad to have you. I’m excited to talk about the topic we’re talking about, but before we begin, tell the audience a little bit about yourself. 10,000 Foot view, you know, where you’re from, how you got to this industry, first job, that type of thing.

01:36
Yeah, absolutely. So I came from outside the industry. Most people in our industry on the independent side tend to be a former technician or something along those lines. I went to school for criminal justice. I decided I didn’t want to become a cop. I was a a carpenter at the time. So I went into property management because an associate’s degree and hey, you’ve swung a hammer for a little while means property management. So I got into that. I was at Brown University and then moved to Boston, met my now wife in Boston, was in property management there, decided Boston wasn’t it for us. Just cost of living was really high. So she was from Buffalo. We decided we wanted to be at least near uff family for support and to have our own.

02:21
So we moved to Buffalo and my jeep needed to be serviced and I wasn’t too happy with the corporate structure, no pun intended. But the white collar of the corporate world met my former business partner as we have just rebranded to neighborhood care because he’s Retired officially. So Scruggs Automotive has transformed as a neighborhood car. Careful.

02:45
Nice.

02:46
And I was serviced. Really liked him as a human being. We just really hit it off well, became friends, still friends to this day, and was like, hey, I think I can have a pretty positive impact here. So I came in, we grew. I recently purchased two of those locations, like, I just kind of mentioned. And, you know, I bring a different perspective than the typical operator would just because I came from outside the industry. So we do a couple things, a.

03:18
Little bit unique, one of them, I think. And we talked about this in our preliminary call, but it’s about. And it’s a very interesting topic for me because it has to do with the charging the right rate. You, obviously, I think you charge as much as you can, right. Your hourly rate for your services. But you gave me a really interesting example of a personal experience. I love personal stories because I think there’s a reason behind everything we always encounter. But you. You had a garage door situation. Do you remember that story?

03:53
Yeah. So we had a garage door installed. Many of us have shopped doors, right? These big old garage doors, overhead doors. And Tommy Mello, huge, big guy, several podcasts. A1 Garage Door. Just an advocate for skilled labor. And we had someone come in, and were going back and forth, and we’re really good friends with them. And I’m looking at the ticket, the. The cost associated with this ticket. And in talking with them, just building a relationship with a fellow organization next door to us, he was like, yeah, you know, it’s $250 an hour is what we put down to install a garage door. And I was just like, wow, okay.

04:37
Like, you know, if I ever, in the back of my head or my team was kind of thinking, like, wow, our labor rate’s getting high on this, or we’re charging something we maybe shouldn’t, you know, 250 an hour for a garage door to be installed in our shop. And, you know, I asked several of my team members like, hey, do you think you could install a garage door? And they’re like, yeah, I could definitely install a garage. Do you think you could install a garage door? And they were like, yeah. And I’m like, do you realize they charge X more than we do per hour? And they were like, hey, let me see that. Let me see that invoice. Like, I’m here on Saturday and I’ll put the garage door in for you know? Yeah.

05:18
And it’s almost like, now you’re worried. Hey, see you, boss. I’m Going to go over here because I can get a better rate. Yeah. And what’s interesting about that is, I mean, we know that they don’t have all the certifications, and I don’t see nearly the challenges that you guys face every day.

05:34
Yeah. You know, and it’s. It’s interesting because so many places, there’s. There is a little bit of a disconnect between what a shop charges per hour versus what the employee gets paid per hour.

05:45
Right.

05:45
There is a delta. There is a difference between the two. So, like, I have no idea what the breakdown of their labor is. Right.

05:53
I get that. I get that. But still. But we’re just doing raw revenue numbers.

05:57
Yeah, absolutely.

06:00
It’s just interesting. But then me and you kind of dove into that topic about, like, where it goes into. But it is supply and demand, like. Right. I mean, they’re getting that amount because they can charge that. I mean, the market holds it because there’s nobody else to do it. Get it? You know what I’m saying?

06:22
Well, the line of question two isn’t set up for the line of questioning.

06:26
Of what’s your labor rate. Right.

06:28
Like, when we got the garage door installed or you’re having someone, you know, generally speaking, looking to cut your grass or, you know, install a roof. You don’t ask, how many man hours are you planning on having a team here for? And what’s the rate that you’re going to charge me per man hour? No one asked that question. It’s what’s the warranty on the roof? What’s the warranty on the garage door? And how much is it going to cost me? Like, those are the really the two big primary questions. We just got landscaping done, and it was price per cut. I didn’t ask him how many hours he was charging me per cut. I didn’t ask him what his minimums were. Or that’s not how that. I almost want to use the word negotiation, but that. Follow that flow doesn’t really happen.

07:17
The big question or the biggest. A lot of people compare us to, like, you don’t bring your own steak to a steakhouse. Right. And, like, further on that, you also don’t ask the steakhouse, how long does it take to cook the steak? And how much are you charging me per hour on that steak or per minute? Right. So there’s like.

07:36
Or even. We don’t even ask them, what did you pay for this steak?

07:40
No.

07:40
Right.

07:41
I mean, well, I can go down to the local butcher and buy the steak for 50 cents or whatever. It’s cheaper than what you can. Oh, yeah. What you bought it for. Right. Like, the line of questioning is different. And, you know, I teach sales, and one of the things, like, I’ve heard one salesperson, their strategy was just to be absolutely bewildered when someone asked a question like, oh, what’s your labor rate? Oh, my God, I haven’t had someone ask me that. You know, it ranges anywhere between 3 and $500, depending on the job and the situation. Because, like, it is almost like, you know, when’s, like the last time you walked into a doctor’s office for, you know, hey, how much are you going to charge per hour to put this knee in me? Like, yeah, no one asked that question at all.

08:33
We don’t, we don’t say, give me the breakdown.

08:36
Yeah, what’s a flight attendant earn per hour or charge the airline per hour or gate attention? Like, these aren’t necessarily questions that we really think of when you’re looking for a service or a product to be done. And I do think that’s something that when we’re talking with our clients that have to be in the back, the mindset, you know, if the cost per hour that we charge the customer is a fundamental variable that we use to gau what we need to charge to make a profit on that job.

09:14
Yes.

09:15
And somewhere along the line, that has been the deciding factor on the value that we provide. When you’re comparing a rate or a price from one business to another. If I was booking a hotel and I wanted to go on a trip, I would be looking at things like, well, does this have a pool? Does this not have a pool? Does this have a room service? This one doesn’t have room service. What’s the distance that this is in correlation to where I’m actually trying to stay?

09:44
Near? Right.

09:45
I’m trying to stay at Disneyland. Staying on Disneyland, probably more expensive than being slightly off of Disneyland. But there’s a different value that gets associated with it. We don’t necessarily start, well, that one’s cheaper than this one, so this one must be ripping me off.

10:00
Right.

10:00
Or vice versa. So we have to be huge on building the value when we’re talking with people. Right. Like, oh, hey, you’re coming to my store. Absolutely. Hey, do you know these tire rods? We offer a lifetime warranty on this. Yeah, we offer a lifetime warranty. You know, we have full size pop Tarts, like full size pop Tarts in the waiting room and a snack thing pringles to go all the different juices and snacks you absolutely could want.

10:30
So you’re proven that you’re visually proving that value. Yeah, and that’s another thing that we talked about, like, because you could think about shops when we’ve all grown up around shops or taken vehicles to shops that, I mean, let’s just say they’re rough. I mean, it was very uncomfortable in the sense of for to even look, think about sitting down. You just, you know, can I move something to sit down? You know what I mean? It was that if that’s the value you’re selling. Yeah. Your rate’s going to have to be lower in the sense of the perception to the marketplace, especially if you know what your competition has and they have coffee, they have a lounge, they have what you’re offering, clean bathrooms. That’s all that value. So.

11:12
And, and, you know, I think another thing from the experience side, not, look, I get my oil change a couple of different spots. I run a little fleet of five vehicles, or I did at one time, and we’re down to four now. But I mean, you know, got. I got two sons still living here and, you know, dad’s always been in charge of the cars or whatever, and they’re doing more of that now. But I’m just saying, when I was in charge of all the vehicles, it was like I had a spot for different ones. Why? Because one was newer, it was still going to the dealership. Another one was going to, you know, a buddy shop or whatever. But to be quite honest, I knew that.

11:47
I knew I had a certain comfort level of paying more at a certain place because I knew I could schedule it. I knew it was going to get in, out, and I was on the road, you know what I mean? It wasn’t like, hey, can I get it in today? And when do you think I can get it back? And then we’re just talking an oil change, but it might not be. I can drop it off, but I might not go pick it up for another four or five hours. That, that gets complicated, you know what I’m saying? It’s. It becomes one of those value things of what I’m willing to pay for. It’s kind of like the, you know, I mean, if we’re talking oil changes, for instance, vlc, you know, Valvoline, why do people pay more?

12:24
Because, dude, you just pull up, you go in, you stay in your car, they’re going to upsell you on multiple things or try to. But at the same time you can, if you keep saying no, you can get in and out of there just for the oil change.

12:37
Yeah. And to quote a titan of the industry who I’ve gleamed a lot of stuff off of, and I’m not afraid to admit that, like, hey, if someone’s done something and has paved the way and they’re getting success, let me get a little bit of that. Let me implement some of those things they’re doing. And if you see something that isn’t working, I’m going to stay away from that a little bit because someone else has done the hard work. I want to maximize that.

13:01
Yeah.

13:02
So Todd Hayes. Oh, yeah, Auto shop answers. You know, he’s been on here before and you know, auto hospitality, you know, and I think that’s. I came from outside the industry in my mind when I first heard that we charged diag or testing time or to analyze. I come from the construction world. If I wanted to have a kitchen installed in my house, I am not paying a GC to give me an estimate. Like, that just doesn’t happen. I’ve. So when were sitting there and like, I’m like, wait a minute, I get paid for you to tell me how much it is to fix your air conditioning. Like, it starts at two grand to fix an air conditioning unit.

13:48
Yeah.

13:49
Wow. What an sense of, for me, entitlement. It felt like from the outside looking in. And I no wonder why on the phone were hearing customers say like, well, how much do you charge for this? How much do you charge for this? Because that’s what they’re conditioned to. And honestly, they’re not used to hearing just, let’s bring it in, let’s take a look. What do you mean, how much is it going to cost me? I just want to see the vehicle one so I can actually even give you an actual price. You know how many times we brought a vehicle in and the customer says, hey, we’ll stick with the air conditioning. My air conditioning isn’t working.

14:22
And a customer just got a new car and they didn’t know there was an error AC button to press or they’ve had it on auto for so long it accidentally kicked off. So who the hell am I to be charging $200, $100, whatever it is, to go in, look at it and go, man, this is an education moment. This isn’t. I’m not going to charge for that. And I know most shops would say, well, we wouldn’t charge either. But you put that roadblock that Wall up the. Hey, thank you so much for calling Neighborhood Care. My name is Henry. How can I be a service today? And then all of a sudden they’re like, hey, I have an AC issue. And you’re like, absolutely, we can take a look at that. Next week, for $150, they’re going to call four other places.

15:07
100%.

15:09
Right. So I think also looping this into the labor conversation is I make it incredibly simple, just like Todd does, to do business with us. We have online scheduling, like you mentioned, without, like, you can just show up. Right. And if it’s something that’s pressing and amazing, we will be accommodating to you on that. But if there’s also too, if you come in, we’re booked out and I. Everything is safe. Everything is totally okay. If you want to leave it with us, you can. We’ll work it into the mix. But if you need to keep driving your vehicle, that’s totally fine. It’s safe. You’re okay. The for the customer’s mindset, the fear of something happening because they continue to drive has been satisfied.

15:55
Yeah.

15:55
And they’ll come in when they need to. And the ball keeps rolling. But we also whack the customer over the head with outrageous pricing. You know, that’s, you have to charge what you need to charge. But at the same time, when we’re just nothing but confrontational in our pricing structure, that’s also very scary for the customer.

16:19
Oh, yeah. It’s a very interesting discussion. So how did you arrive at your. And you don’t have to tell what your labor rate is, but how did you arrive at your labor rate that you do?

16:30
Yeah, I, I have no shame in our labor rate. I, I, I’m. 198 Is where we start. It’s a variable labor rate, though. I don’t charge 198 for a mounting and balancing tires or doing oil or doing brakes.

16:42
Right.

16:42
That’s more of an entry level, earlier skill set that you would need to do those types of services. So we have a, it’s adjusted appropriately. And then we have some things that are a little bit higher than 198 because you have to charge a little bit more appropriately to make the profit that we need to. So our team has benefits, 401k health plan. We pay up to $800 of their pay plan of their benefits, 50% up to $800. We have boot allowance uniforms. We just got back from the tools conference, the Midwestern MACA Tool conference in Pennsylvania. That has a cost associated with it.

17:23
Right.

17:23
So we need to make the money that we need to make so that our team can do the job they need to do the training, the education.

17:33
Well, one of the things that I thought were interesting that you said about, you know, you get the labor rate you want when you prove that you’re that value and you, it takes a little time. Right. I mean, because you do have to take an assessment of the marketplace. You have to take an assessment of your, you know, amenities in the building, etc. And. Absolutely. And, and your skill rate. Right. I mean, the skill labor that you have is mine, you know, at the highest level. Is it, am I capable of justifying paying or not only paying down, but, you know, charging the fee that I want to charge. But then like you said, if you’re not having a lot of cars come in right now, you’re probably not a good time to raise your rate.

18:17
I mean, you’re trying to, you know, I’m saying, so there’s just the basic economics of supply and.

18:23
Yeah. So the analogy were talking about was actually like how airlines or hotels book out. If the airline is, it’s a very popular flight. All right, so say it’s Boston to New York, probably a very popular flight for business professionals if you’re trying to book it two weeks before the flight and they’re like, hey, we can maximize our money on this. That’s probably the most expensive time to buy that ticket. But if there’s 20 seats still open on that plane and the plane takes off in an hour, that’s probably when the cheapest it is because they’re just like, hey, let’s just get every last dollar we possibly the plane’s flying no matter what. Sporting arenas. Right.

19:01
I know people who go to a stadium, no ticket in hand and are waiting to StubHub or whatever it is for the prices for the person who has a ticket who’s not going to go to be like, hell, I’ll sell it for 50 at this point. And that’s when they snag their ticket. Right. Supply and demand. So in my mind, if your shop say, you know, Your capacity is 120 billable hours a week, if you’re not selling 120 billable hours a week, that’s the first thing that I would look at doing is what can we do to get the billable hours sold that we need to get sold in that time?

19:36
Yep.

19:37
And I’m not saying just pad things for the sake of padding Things actual billable hours. And if you’re hitting 120 billable hours and you’re that capacity and then you’re booking out more than four or five days, you really should consider increasing your labor rate. I think Tommy, I think that’s a.

20:03
Perfect way of digesting that for the listeners out there and the shop owners. Anybody that’s contemplated how to do that’s it. You got to see what your capacity is. Are you exceeding your capacity by how much are you exceeding it? Now you can think about raising your rate, but before that maybe not.

20:23
Yeah, and to be clear on that one, I think that’s for the specific size shop at a certain size.

20:29
Right.

20:30
Maybe it’s the owner is at the point where they’re trying to be on the business, not in the business style. But if you’re a very beginning early start out, you’re going to have to use some form of okay, what are the, what is the other going rates in the area? And use that more of a basis to at least get your start so you can afford employees like that’s. You just can’t afford to charge a client $50 an hour and pay someone $25 an hour. Math doesn’t math there in the fundamentals. So there’s definitely, hey, when is that applicable? Applicable at a certain point and then I’m sure at some point when you have a multi, multi, you know, million dollar operation going, it’s not so straightforward.

21:22
But Tommy Mello says that when his, and this is for garage Door, when his ratio hits about 60% of sales, like he’s losing opportunity on that’s when he increases his rate. Like he stays at that 60. If it goes down, hey, maybe the rate needs to come back down. But like that’s when it’s time. So you can definitely test the market to increase your rate, see how it reacts. We found our breaking point. We, we noticed in our area when were quoting things out at 220, $230 an hour, we saw a lot more nos. Yeah, we dropped it back down and all of a sudden the nose started picking up again. And there could be two things. One, the market really couldn’t support it or B, the psychologic effect on the team members presenting it.

22:13
They lost faith in the price and they locked, they started their confidence in the sale started to winter too. Right? It could be either one.

22:21
No, but that’s a great point. You know, there is a, there is the internal belief, right. We have to believe and know that we’re value that we can confidently sell something at a certain value before you really can do it as well. And it’s not like you’re trying to screw over the customer. You’re just trying to make sure you’ve got enough in there, meat on the bone. Take care of your employees at the level that you want to take care of them. And it does require being at a certain rate in order to do that. But what you hope in that whole gel and that process is, you know, the employee knows he’s being compensated well, the tech, etc.

22:59
And they do a better job because they come to work with a little more pride or enthusiasm, knowing that they’re getting a, you know, they have a real good opportunity where they’re working.

23:11
Yeah. And I’ll say this like, and I’m sure some people is going to brush them the wrong way. And I mean no offense by this, but if your team members are wondering how they’re going to pay a certain bill somehow in their life. And every team member has their own pros and cons, Right? Like some people are in financial issues, some people are not. Not the biggest rule of thumb. But if, generally speaking, they’re financially unstable and you could say that it’s the pay plan they’re on, that’s the root to that problem. If you show up in a brand new truck or you show up in a brand new car, that rubs people wrong. So then they start having difficulty with swallowing the rate that we’re charging because, hey, I’m not getting paid a lot. This guy is getting paid a lot.

24:00
And it has to be a we mentality.

24:04
No, that’s a very, that’s such a valid point. I mean, look, we’re all humans and it’s not an envy thing as much as it is. And I’m over here sweating my butt off, right? Cracking. I feel like the whip’s being cracked on me. I got these orders all backed up. And he just droves up in a brand new vehicle and acts like there’s no problems right now.

24:23
Yeah. Did you see the bosses golfing right now? Did you see? He just posted on Facebook, he’s got like those types of things, team members. See, I have a very, I believe it’s called servant based leadership. I’m not afraid to get down there and push a car into the shop. I don’t want me changing oil. I’m not from this industry. I do not change oil.

24:44
You don’t want. But I get what you’re saying. Yeah.

24:47
You know, about where you work,.

24:50
Where it needs to be, where you need, where you can assist. You. You, you know, it’s kind of like, it’s that mindset of like, hey, if I see something that’s trash on the floor, I pick it up. I don’t ask somebody else.

25:01
Yeah, I scrub bathroom toilets. I don’t believe in having a major. I’m sorry, I just, that’s one of my things. Like, hey, for our size, we’re two locations doing about 4 million a year. I don’t see the benefit and have like a merry maid come in or a cleaning service come in. So I’ll just scrub the toilets on Saturday. Different team members will do like, we do a profit share program. So like, they’re like, hey, I don’t want to see someone come in.

25:29
No.

25:30
And do a mediocre job cleaning. And it’s pulled away from the success of the company.

25:36
Bingo. And that’s. And, but you’ve got, again, it’s another dynamic here of that whole rate thing. But you’ve got buy in because there is a profit share. There is, there is a we mentality built in.

25:48
You definitely have to have that. And you know, I’ve heard, you know, we have these ups and downs in the economy. We’re about to face what might be an up or down, depending on who you talk to.

26:01
Right.

26:01
People who are in a position where they’ve positioned themselves appropriately are like waiting for this avalanche to happen and to maximize opportunity that’s going to cause. And then people who haven’t been able to position themselves in a good spot are incredibly fearful. Yeah. Right. And that’s this gas price situation that we’re experiencing. Whether you think it’s right, wrong. Whatever’s happening, it’s happening. And I’m a big believer in controlling your controllables. But if you haven’t been in a position where you’ve been doing the things you needed to succeed and thrive and to be a good shepherd of your team, then you will unfortunately get crushed by the tsunami. I don’t believe right now we’re in a position where I’m gonna be able to maximize from whatever’s happening. But I do believe that this, the strong will surveil through this and the others will continue.

26:54
The herd will always continue to get weaned out. And I don’t, I think now is definitely a good time with the cost that everyone’s feeling the rule of thumb that I’ve heard was also three times a labor. What you’re looking to pay someone three times their cost. To you, a loaded cost is a good rule of thumb. That’s not the ultimate answer there, but it puts you on the putting green, if you will. At least I feel like, yeah.

27:23
And it’s a good figure to go by to cover everything else and run the business and know that you’re safe. Right. And you gotta have that. It’s kind of like, look, I’ve known a lot of restaurateurs in my life, and I’ve gone out to eat with a restaurant owner before that. We went to a little diner and a great little diner, but this guy looked at me and he goes, boy, they don’t charge enough. He goes, I’m not going to tell them because I like eating here at this price, but I can tell you they don’t charge enough based on what I know food costs are. And, you know, a knowledgeable buyer like him, he knew that. Now this restaurant’s making it, and they continue to make it, but they play on that real tight margin. And I said, well, what would you charge?

28:06
And he jokingly goes, oh, I mean, for each one of these sandwiches, at least $2 more, you know, and it was just interesting. We’re going back quite a few years. It’s probably 10 years ago, but it was just interesting to hear his take on it. He goes, you want your food, all your food costs should be somewhere between 20 and 25%. I mean, he said, so, you know, if I’m buying it, if I know I’m buying it at $25, I need to be charging 100, or if I’m buying it at a dollar, I need to be charging $4, you know. And that’s basically what you’re saying in regards to the labor rate.

28:36
Yeah. And I think it’s our responsibility that if you are in the position where you can control the profit of an organization, whether it’s a CEO, cfo, owner, wherever you’re at in that stack, we have a fiduciary responsibility or team members. We need to keep the company healthy. Because if there’s a weird dip, a bad month, you can’t have everyone wondering, are they going to get paid, our vendors going to get paid. We have to earn the money that we need to, when we can and should, so that if there’s a dip, we’re not like, all right, let’s. Let’s sell the house. And that’s definitely an entrepreneur mindset. Like there’s growth mode and then babe, we’re selling the minivan. Right. Like those tend to be the two things you hear in the entrepreneurship world.

29:22
Because like we tend to be all in or all out. Like it.

29:27
And yes, you know, that’s the nature of that personality. And it’s hard for them, it’s hard for any entrepreneur to know when you’re in the management mode versus the all in mode.

29:42
Yeah. You know, and I remember seeing, or I’ve had people tell me this, like, you know, we had a really bad winter in Buffalo. Most of the automotive industry. This winter was a little bit of a down winter. It was heavy winter with snow and some different stuff. And I had plenty of friends reaching out to me, just saying, like, hey, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it. I need to get a loan or something to bridge me until then. So you hear that little deli or that sandwich shop scenario, and they’re probably happy. They don’t probably know. They don’t, you don’t know until you know they’re happy, they’re making their money and they’re great. And then something happens. Maybe the owner is also the line cook and he gets hurt and he’s down for two weeks and then that’s it, Company’s over.

30:22
Right.

30:23
Because that’s all it took was one sweeping miss. Swept.

30:29
You know, that’s a, that’s a great point. We’re coming up on our time. But I, I like the audience, know a little bit more about you and they all know that I like to ask a little fun question. What’s your favorite movie? Oof.

30:46
Favorite movie. I think you told me you were going to ask me this question and I completely spaced on it. I’m gonna have to go with two. I’m gonna cheat a little bit. Inception and Interstellar, both kind of hit sci fi. They’re really deep movies. You gotta get one.

31:05
All right. My 21 year old son loves both those movies.

31:08
Yeah, they’re deep. You can go into them. The director’s phenomenal, the casting is phenomenal. The soundtrack, you can just listen to the soundtrack by itself. They’re great on both of them. Two phenomen of the movies.

31:19
That’s, that’s good. What’s, what’s a quote you like? Do you have a quote? Any, any mantra that stands out to you that you kind of.

31:28
Yeah, yeah. So I have one quote. It’s tattooed on my arm. It’s do more, work harder. That’s just so Casey Neistat, who is a inspiration. When I was younger, he had a tattoo, he said, do more. And I just remember thinking that’s, I resonate with that really hard and do more and then work harder. Because the end of the day I have so much more in the tank that I typically think I do have. And it comes back from my lifting days where when you’re done and you’re tired, you can keep going. Was that movie Rudy where the guy was on the football field?

32:05
Yeah.

32:05
And he was crawling on the ground and the kid was on his back and he was like, just give me 10 more. 10 More.

32:09
And then all of a sudden I know which one. It wasn’t Rudy, but it was. Yes. They had him blindfolded.

32:16
Yeah.

32:17
He didn’t know the distance. And he goes, you’re not that. You’re getting closer, you’re getting closer. And man, he went way farther than he thought he could see the whole football field.

32:24
It’s supposed to be like a 20 yard stretch, the whole entire football field. And I think that’s, you know, such a great reflection on ourselves is that we have so much more that we’re capable of.

32:35
Yeah.

32:36
And an organization will only grow to the capacity of what the ownership is and their pain tolerance, and then it’s over.

32:43
That’s a good point. A capacity is a great word. I’ve been really marinating on that word for the last, I don’t know, four or five years of my life, but it’s an interesting one because the one thing I’ve learned about people is people genuinely have different capacity levels. And they can be super talented, but their capacity with that talent, it can be limited too. And sometimes that’s all you’re going to get. And you got to understand that. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s being able to size up your talent and know what each person’s capacity is with the talent they’ve been given. Even though they may be extraordinary at the talent and you think they should have more capacity, they don’t. You know what I mean? It’s, it’s really.

33:26
That’s a huge EQ thing.

33:28
Right.

33:28
Understanding someone’s, you know, emotional intelligence that they have and there’s different sides to it. Some people have a very high threshold for just, you know, task driven, mundane type activities. But then you give them something where they have to deal with a difficult customer and one spirals them, derails them for the day.

33:47
Right.

33:47
And Then I have some employees who can just get. We get a lot of these, but, like, really beaten down by a customer. And I’m like, hey, are you okay?

33:55
Yeah.

33:55
Why? Exactly. They’re just like, hey, like, I get it. Customers frustrated, you know, in this situation, we’re going to solve it, but it’s okay. And I’m like, wow. All right. Like, I would. Me personally, that would put me at my capacity in that situation. Right? So, like, we have different size of capacity, too.

34:12
That’s a. That’s a. That’s a great example. Well, I. I gotta tell you, Henry, I could probably talk to you all day. This has been a fun conversation. So.

34:19
So they get paid for a living for talking, huh?

34:21
Yes, I. I do. I do really appreciate you being on the Gain Traction podcast, and it’s been a pleasure.

34:27
Thank you. Thanks for having me here.

34:29
All right. Hey, folks, Mike Edge here with the Gain Traction podcast. Real quick, we get a lot of people ask us, they know Gain Traction, but who. Who’s Tread Partners? Well, Tread Partners is our parent company, and they’re a marketing agency dedicated strictly to tire and automotive repair shops. Anywhere from five locations all the way up to hundreds of locations in primarily one field that is always a pain for most people is paid search or PPC or Google Ads. We see enormous amount of waste in it and we see inefficient spend in it. If you want to know if you’re doing well or not, give us a call. We’ll help you. We’ll audit your account. We’ll look under the hood and tell you if you’re doing things the right way or the wrong way and help you optimize that spend.

35:09
You can reach me and I’ll direct you in the right [email protected] or feel free to go to treadpartners.com the website. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, please visit Gain Traction. If you’d like to make a guest recommendation, please email me at mike at treadpartners. Com. This episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multilocation tire and auto repair shops. To learn more about Tread Partners, visit treadpartners. Com.

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