TALKIN' PAINT PODCAST | SEASON 1 - EPISODE #14 - Bad Hires Are Your Fault | Mike Abens & Jamie Werner
This podcast episode centers on the critical theme of hiring based on character rather than simply on technical skills, emphasizing the importance of building a cohesive team that can contribute to a company's long-term vision. Michael Abens and Jamie Werner share their insights on the auto detailing industry, highlighting their experiences in creating positive workplace cultures where employees feel valued and invested in the business's success. They discuss the challenges of scaling a business and the necessity of having a clear vision and a supportive environment to retain quality talent. The conversation also touches on the vital role of mentorship and ongoing education in fostering professional growth within the industry. Listeners will gain valuable strategies for enhancing their hiring practices and cultivating a thriving workplace that prioritizes both employee well-being and business success.
In this episode of the 'Talking Paint Podcast', host Gabe from Detailing Growth has insightful discussions with Michael Abens, the owner of Urable, a top industry-related scheduling and invoicing CRM, and Jamie Werner, the renowned 'PPF professor' from Equip Academy.
Throughout the conversation, they share valuable insights about building a successful career in the automotive industry, the importance of hiring based on character, creating a safe environment for employees, and the transition from transactional to relationship-based business operations.
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Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Detailing Growth
- Sasspod.com
- Abins Solutions
- Equip Academy
- Ceramic Pro
- Matrix Films
- Premium Shield
- Pentech
- Menards Premium Detailing
- Adobe Road Winery
Takeaways:
- Hiring based on character rather than competency creates a stronger, more cohesive team.
- Investing in employee training and development leads to higher retention and job satisfaction.
- Creating a safe environment for failure encourages employees to take risks and innovate.
- Business owners should focus on building a vision and career path for employees.
- Understanding the value of your time can help mitigate stress and improve efficiency.
- Transitioning from an owner-operator to a business owner requires strategic hiring and delegation.
The latest discussion on the Talkin Paint podcast features an engaging conversation between host Jamie and industry veterans Michael Abens and Jamie Werner, delving into the intricate dynamics of building a successful business in the auto detailing industry. The trio emphasizes the importance of hiring based on character rather than just competence, a philosophy that has proven essential for fostering a strong team culture. Michael shares insights from his extensive background in healthcare, highlighting how hiring with a focus on character cultivates a supportive environment where employees feel valued and empowered to contribute meaningfully. Jamie builds on this theme, discussing how his journey through the detailing industry has shaped his approach to hiring and training, stressing that real growth comes from investing in people and building a cohesive team rather than simply filling positions.
The conversation takes a deeper dive into the challenges faced by business owners, particularly the fear of hiring and the pitfalls of being overburdened by responsibilities. Both Michael and Jamie discuss the significance of creating a safe workplace culture that encourages open communication and allows for mistakes without fear of repercussions. This kind of environment not only enhances employee retention but also fosters innovation and collaboration, which are crucial for any business aiming to scale effectively. They also touch upon the necessity of having a clear vision and mission for the company, enabling leaders to attract candidates who are genuinely invested in the organization's goals.
As the discussion progresses, the importance of mentorship and continuous learning in the industry is highlighted. Both guests share their experiences in seeking guidance and the impact it has had on their professional growth. They advocate for business owners to be introspective about their practices, encouraging them to evaluate what makes their business appealing to potential hires. This leads to a broader conversation about the industry's evolution, the shifting focus from mere transactional relationships with clients to building long-term partnerships. The episode concludes with a focus on the tools and systems available to help detailers enhance their operational efficiency, emphasizing the need to invest in technology that can streamline processes and ultimately contribute to the business's success.
Transcript
Welcome back to the Talkin Paint podcast serving the auto detailing, ceramic coating window film and paint protection film industry sponsored by detailing growth and sasspod.com now shut up.
Speaker B:Time to learn a thing.
Jamie:Hey guys, this is Gabe from Detailing Growth.
Jamie:We're back on the Talking paint podcast.
Jamie:Today we are joined by Michael Abins from Abins what is Abens Solutions.
Jamie:They are the owner operators of your able which is currently one of the top industry related scheduling and invoicing CRMs.
Jamie:And then we also have Jamie Werner aka the PPF professor from Equip Academy.
Jamie:So guys, thanks for joining me here today.
Jamie:I really appreciate.
Jamie:How was your guys holiday?
Speaker B:Thanks for having us.
Speaker A:My pleasure, my pleasure.
Jamie:How was the holiday for you guys?
Speaker A:Lots of family time.
Speaker A:That's where it was all about family and ate way too much.
Speaker B:It was a passing of the torch time for me actually this was the first time that we've actually gone to the kids house for Thanksgiving instead of all of them coming to our house and then us cooking and cleaning all damn day.
Speaker B:So we finally got to go to their house and just bring vegetables.
Speaker B:It was awesome.
Jamie:Isn't that great when you don't have to like cook the burn then like 87 sides.
Speaker B:Oh it was so awesome.
Speaker B:Kyle said house is much nicer than mine anyway.
Speaker B:He's got more space.
Jamie:There you go.
Jamie:Mike, why don't you tell us a little bit about, you know, your background and a little bit about your able and you know, what the mission is for your able and kind of why you're here participating in the industry.
Speaker B:Oh man.
Speaker B:I'll try and give you the cliff notes version of this.
Speaker B:So I had a 30 year career in the healthcare industry that led to lots of different opportunities, lots of odd things that just needed to be figured out.
Speaker B:So the last job I then I was the president of the company and I helped them get into a really unique area of medicine.
Speaker B:And that meant needing to figure out a lot of things with no roadmap, no blueprint because no one had ever tried it.
Speaker B:So that just meant that we had to figure out a lot of stuff.
Speaker B:So that that exposed me to just a lot of different ways of thinking and hiring.
Speaker B:We hired while I was there, the 10 years I was there, we hired about a thousand people.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So the company was pretty small.
Speaker B:I was I think number 33 or 34.
Speaker B:There was a thousand when I left 10, 10 years later.
Speaker B:On the hiring side of things, we had to get good at it because we were growing at a really rapid rate and it was A highly technical area of medicine.
Speaker B:So it meant that we had to invest a lot in training.
Speaker B:So our whole philosophy, and I'll talk about this as we get into this more.
Speaker B:Our whole philosophy on going through that process was to hire based on character, not competency.
Speaker B:Our going in assumption was we need good people and we will train them up.
Speaker B:But we really hired based on character and behavior more so than competency and content.
Speaker B:Going through the interview process, it was less about technical expertise.
Speaker B:If we were hiring nurses or pharmacists or pharmds, it was less about technical expertise and more about behavioral characteristics.
Speaker B:Because we knew for us to be successful, we needed to build a team, not just fill seats with warm bodies to fulfill tasks.
Jamie:Right.
Speaker B:And that's a fundamentally different mindset.
Speaker B:When you're growing, do you just want to fill seats or do you want to build a fricking team and somebody that's going to be with you and be part of the vision and be willing to challenge leadership?
Speaker B:Because we didn't want a bunch of yes men and women.
Speaker B:We wanted people that would put us through the wringer as leaders of the business.
Speaker B:And everybody came in with different perspectives and things.
Speaker B:So we wanted people who were open, willing to share, not afraid to weigh in with their own opinions, even though they're talking to the president or the CEO of the company.
Speaker B:Stand up, man.
Speaker B:There's no stripes in some of these meetings.
Speaker B:That was another one of our things.
Speaker B:It's no stripes in this meeting.
Speaker B:Everybody's opinion matters.
Speaker B:So that all comes down to just creating a safe environment for people.
Speaker B:So all of those things, they take time to build the culture of the company.
Speaker B:But when we were careful about our hiring, we just hired on character, so we knew that we could build the culture to support them.
Jamie:You know, I'm of the same philosophy here in our shop in.
Jamie:At Ceramic Pro Pottstown, Total detail, we almost exclusively hire on character and flexibility of character in that it's not super rigid and it's flexible based upon the business's needs.
Jamie:That's definitely one of the things that we lead on here.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's true of any small or growing business.
Speaker B:Like, we weren't such a small company was we really started growing, but we were still hiring like crazy and training people up.
Speaker B:But if you're hiring on character, you can always plug in the content.
Speaker B:That was our feeling.
Jamie:You can always strap the skills too.
Jamie:Well, Jamie, you know, tell us a little bit about your journey through the industry and where you're at now.
Jamie:What you got over here?
Jamie:Sure.
Speaker A:I totally agree with Michael as far as hire the person, not necessarily what they know, but who they are.
Speaker A:It's crucial to growing your business for sure.
Speaker A:And I started in the industry for a startup company.
Speaker A:Back then it was Matrix Films.
Speaker A:We were in the midst of launching a brand called Premium Shield.
Speaker A:So to be part of something from the ground up was awesome.
Speaker A:I mean, love the opportunity to be thrown into all aspects of the business from the manufacturing side to patterns and sales training, everything.
Speaker A:So it gave me a window into the whole business structure.
Speaker A:I had a direct line of communication to the owners.
Speaker A:It was very humbling.
Speaker A:Put a lot of hours in and got a chance to figure out the industry.
Speaker A:And I came in at a really good time.
Speaker A:When the products were getting better, technology was getting easier, the products were lasting longer, standards were starting to get better.
Speaker A:And it got to the point where I was able to find my niche within the company and the industry of combining sales and training at the same time.
Speaker A:Because training lacked, there just was lack of education and informative education.
Speaker A:So to become really a true technical salesperson became something I strive for.
Speaker A:That's what I was all about, trying to help people, even across the aisle, people I didn't sell, I still would try and help them.
Speaker A:And then went through an acquisition, which was crazy because I was a lifer.
Speaker A:I was all about bleeding Premium Shield.
Speaker A:The acquisition was dirty, ugly.
Speaker A:It was a certain culture that you live and breathe.
Speaker A:The owners did what they needed to do and corporate, big corporate was just not my thing.
Speaker A:I stayed on as long as I could for about a year and it just wasn't my jam.
Speaker A:So I had an opportunity to see my mission through that.
Speaker A:I felt education was going to be my lead.
Speaker A:And there was such a massive gap in the industry of labor.
Speaker A:And the industry has constantly relied on a top down mentality of we rely on the business to do a really good job at hiring and then expecting them to invest into those people, to then send them and take the risk to get them trained and hope that they last and stay with the company.
Speaker A:And if you look at the history of the industry, that doesn't happen.
Jamie:Absolutely it doesn't.
Speaker A:It's frustrating.
Speaker A:And so I felt that if we take a look at it at a different angle and do from bottom to top, where we start educating these people from the ground up and bring students in like other trade schools and start getting them trained properly with proper standards, hands on education to then be able to offer them to the public, to the industry to be hired and with the experience of coming in and spending a semester or two semesters.
Speaker A:That's a lot of repetition and experience to get and then be able to hire someone knowing that they've got X amount of cars under their belt, they've got a great education set up, they know that what these standards are, they immediately can come into our industry earning 50 to 100 grand a year immediately.
Jamie:And not have to wet your your neck off trying to hold a transmission up at the inside of a pet.
Speaker A:But even just showing our industry can be a profession, that there is a career you can have that is long lasting, fulfilling and it does pay well.
Speaker A:So there's all aspects of the automotive aftermarket industry and to focus on the automotive esthetic side is the goal.
Speaker A:It's a long mission, but we're trying to make way for making connections in with the trade schools that are next to us, trying to develop internship programs so that when we're ready to really release it, we're able to really be the resource for installers to allow for businesses to finally be owner managers and hire the people instead of being owner operators and thrusting that structure into the industry and expecting them to know how to manage the business and also do the installs.
Speaker A:Now a business owner can then hire the people and scale appropriately.
Jamie:I have so many clients that I talk to on a daily basis that are ready and they want to be a business owner and they want to stop being an owner operator where they've got to do install work.
Jamie:And it is like Jamie, like you said, there's no labor pool to pull from.
Jamie:You're either hiring and training from the ground up or you're getting somebody else with bad habits.
Jamie:And they're hard to train and they're hard to mold.
Jamie:And I talk to guys who are just like they want, they want to run their business and they want to scale their business.
Jamie:They're having such a hard time understanding how to hire number one.
Jamie:From my perspective, it's number one even being okay with letting go to, to hire somebody and be flexible enough, not even having anybody to pull from.
Jamie:And I think that the whole reason we called this episode to, to talk about what it means and what it looks like to hire somebody and why hire them based on certain things versus others.
Jamie:And that's the goal here, I think today is to just lay out a roadmap for these people so that they can get their hands on quality people, not quality installers.
Jamie:Because right now you're right, there is an installer shortage.
Jamie:I think there's, there's definitely A lot of good quality people out there.
Speaker A:There are.
Speaker A:But fear is in my opinion the number one feeling that is preventing these businesses from scaling appropriately and hiring the right people.
Speaker A:Because they think that the person they hire and invest in is going to drop them like they're hot after they've invested a little and go someplace else and steal the business or go someplace else and then they have to start all over again.
Speaker A:That's what I see constantly.
Speaker A:And instead of taking their time to hire the right people, they just put a band aid on it.
Speaker A:Yep, they hire someone.
Speaker B:I'd back it up one, one layer from that actually.
Speaker B:I think they need to figure out what makes their business attractive to candidates.
Speaker B:It's do you have a good vision down?
Speaker B:Are you creating a career path at all for these people or are you just filling seats?
Speaker B:If you're just going to act like a meat grinder, who the hell's going to want to be there long term?
Speaker B:You really.
Speaker B:I think people need to check themselves when they're going to scale the business.
Speaker B:It's not enough to just say I want to scale.
Speaker B:You better have a pretty good fricking roadmap in your mind or on paper as to how you're going to grow the company.
Speaker B:Where are you going to take it?
Speaker B:What does a progression path look like for people?
Speaker B:Again, if it's just a meat grinder, people are going to leave.
Speaker B:There are good people out there.
Speaker B:I get the whole fear thing that lots of people worry about that in this industry.
Speaker B:I totally get that.
Speaker B:And there's a lot of horror stories that are out there.
Jamie:I think, I think that's a result of not having the foundational items you're talking about.
Speaker B:I think it is.
Speaker B:I think it is.
Speaker B:I think there needs to be more of an introspective look before you begin to hire.
Speaker B:What are you presenting as the value proposition to these candidates?
Speaker B:Are you just, are you out there just begging for anybody?
Speaker B:You want to find the right people.
Speaker B:You want people to join the team, not take a job.
Speaker B:You, you want em to join the team.
Jamie:That's what it's all about.
Speaker A:And they have to have a vision like you said.
Speaker A:And I think again based off of all these conversations I've had with a lot of guys and they start the business based off of a previous, previous experience they had at another shop and they want to go on their own and they don't necessarily know how to manage a business.
Speaker A:They are starting off as a self employed business and then need coaching and need a mentor to help Them create a vision and find that vision so that they can then actually have a business hire people appropriately because they're, they're.
Speaker A:They started that business originally because they were unhappy.
Speaker B:I'd love to know how they interview.
Speaker B:What is the fundamental questions?
Speaker B:What are you asking?
Speaker B:Because I, I can tell you during the interview process, at least the ones that I was involved in, we tended to do a panel type of things.
Speaker B:So we'd really put people through multiple department and then they'd end up meeting with me and the CEO independently because we didn't want to freak them out too bad.
Speaker B:So we tried to just get lots of people's opinions.
Speaker B:Everybody has a different way of interviewing but I know I always found myself selling to them as much as they were trying to sell themselves to me.
Speaker B:And then after I'm presenting why we had such a special place and why we are trying to hire for the whatever position it was, I'd ask them at the end of it, after they've sold themselves to me.
Speaker B:I sold them ourselves to them.
Speaker B:It was like, does this seem like a place you want to come and invest your time in?
Speaker B:Because that's what I'm asking them to do.
Speaker B:I'm asking them to invest their lives in us for Pentech anyway, that was career and retirement type work.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:These were long term employees.
Speaker B:So we're not kidding around when we do it.
Speaker B:We're willing to invest hundreds of thousands in your training.
Speaker B:But I'm asking you, are you ready to invest your life in us?
Speaker B:And I sell the shit out of the company and the value of it because it was the greatest thing going I now we got your ables even more fun than Pentech was.
Speaker A:Did you notice a difference in the age brackets with the younger applicants with their ability to want to stay on versus leaving after a short period of time to go to the next venture and then the next venture.
Speaker B:Yeah, I can't say we had a high attrition rate.
Speaker B: %: Jamie:High attrition rate really wasn't the career.
Speaker B:So I know from our nursing department which was the one that was really growing heavily along with pharmacy.
Speaker B:So it was more professional type people.
Speaker B:We tried and I was purposefully not to get like the directors of nursing from hospitals.
Speaker B:They'd been around a long time.
Speaker B:They tended to have a pretty crusty exterior.
Speaker B:They were excellent kind of task managers.
Speaker B:But they weren't great teammates.
Speaker B:They didn't make great teammates.
Speaker B:If you wanted somebody to get things done, this is the Order that they have, Those are the people that you want.
Speaker B:And there's certain roles in companies where you want the taskmaster.
Speaker B:Right, you do.
Speaker B:But we tended to try and stay away from them and get younger nurses in particular that wanted to try something really different.
Speaker B:Super high risk, mind you.
Speaker B:Super high risk from a professional standpoint.
Speaker B:But that was where they counted on us to train them.
Speaker B:But then once they'd get through that and they'd get over kind of the fear factor, that they were holding a syringe that could kill every one of their patients if they make a mistake.
Speaker B:And I'm not exaggerating that.
Speaker B:That's what they had to get comfortable with once.
Speaker B:Once we got them over that, they called this the best job ever.
Jamie:That can be equated.
Jamie:Ex.
Jamie:Be a little tongue in cheek.
Jamie:That could be.
Jamie:That could exactly be equated to cutting on a car.
Jamie:A lot of people have fear of that.
Jamie:A lot of business owners have fear of that.
Jamie:Will my installer be okay cutting on a cut like Mike, like you said, when you can get a bump, that's when the next chapter starts for an installer.
Jamie:When they finally realize the skill set that they have.
Jamie:And that's realization of that is a result of a foundation of training and a foundation of picking the right people that can eventually reach that point.
Speaker A:There's a strategy that's involved in that.
Speaker A:You can't just send someone to training and then immediately thrust them into paid jobs and expecting perfect work to come out smelling like roses.
Speaker A:It doesn't happen.
Speaker B:It's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker B:It's just too much stress.
Speaker B:Let me talk about stress just a little bit, because I think stress is another real driver as to why people end up leaving.
Speaker B:And that's incumbent upon leadership to really keep a pulse on the workload and the stress that.
Speaker B:That exists in the workplace.
Speaker B:I can tell you I was super sensitive to this because we invested so much money in training the nurses in particular.
Speaker B:It killed me if we lost anybody, if they left because they.
Speaker B:They were just.
Speaker B:They were overworked.
Speaker B:So we had a whole thing in place.
Speaker B:When a nurse reaches 80% capacity, that's when we hire another person in that area so that they're.
Speaker B:So they go up to 80, they drop to 30.
Speaker B:Now the two of them are.
Speaker B:Are working their way up.
Speaker B:When they both hit 80, we hire two more.
Speaker B:And then we keep growing up with the patient census.
Speaker B:It's the same kind of thing in any business.
Speaker B:You just need to really be super sensitive as the owner or the leader.
Speaker B:If you're a shop manager, be mindful of the stress that's on the team and it is up to you as the leader to do something about it.
Speaker B:It's not up to them, it's up to you.
Jamie:You hear me talk about that all the I, I use the term a utilization rate and some of the content I put out that can.
Jamie:Look, you can figure out what your installer utilization rate is based upon strictly the amount of work that you're doing and the number of people that you have.
Jamie:You know, seasoned installers that have been doing it for 10 years can pump out two full fronts a day with their eyes.
Jamie:Like Danic, my guy in the shop is one of those guys that'll.
Jamie:He'll squeegee and seal car like half shot in the ass with whatever ridiculous Russian drink he wants to come and drink.
Jamie:Not that he does that.
Jamie:And just making a ridiculous.
Jamie:When I hear a business has one film installer and one ceramic coating guy and they're topping out at $45,000, $50,000 a month, that's way above normal utilization for any business operating in this sector.
Jamie:Unless they've got the golden goose and they're charging insane top dollar.
Jamie:Most of them aren't.
Jamie:They're doing jobs for normal or below rate.
Jamie:But when I hear those numbers and I look at just as somebody who hears the numbers and look looks at it all day long like they're like, how do I get out of this cycle of like hire somebody?
Jamie:You get another hand, get some that can, that can pull the squeegee and spray slip and handle film.
Jamie:Get another person, even if it's just to help them.
Speaker B:Because a hard decision though for so many of these people because I don't think they have a fundamental grasp on their.
Speaker B:But I'll go back to really understanding your business and knowing, knowing how much can you give up to get that person, which you have to be willing.
Speaker A:To do, you gotta be willing to give up some to bring another person on so your lead installer doesn't get stressed and leave.
Speaker A:And now you're back to square one.
Speaker B:That's what costs you the most.
Speaker B:That's what costs you.
Speaker B:It's not, it's not hiring another person that's losing somebody because you overworked them.
Jamie:Jamie, you and I have had that conversation many times.
Jamie:I think we've tried to really iron in and set the standard across the industry whenever we get a chance to talk to people is that if you're going to take on pain protection film in Your business and you're going to hire somebody to do film, you better be ready to do every job twice for the first year and set 30 grand worth of material on if you're not willing to accept that and be willing to deal with that and be willing to bear the level of stress and anxiety and channel that appropriately, film isn't for you.
Speaker A:They see the upside, right?
Speaker A:They see the profitability, the amount of money that you can bring in offering ppf.
Speaker A:But on the flip side, they see, they all know it's expensive, but they see the dollar amount and they know that the product expensive.
Speaker A:But then you have to then level them off and explain to them it's not just the product, it's your time.
Speaker A:Your time is what's expensive.
Speaker A:And if you don't have the time to invest and practice, then you're wasting your money right off the bat.
Jamie:And when I hear that, I use this mental equation to explain what that's.
Jamie:A lot of people are like, oh my time doesn't cost anything.
Jamie:Wrong, immediately, immediately wrong.
Jamie:So much wrong times 10.
Jamie:Your time as a business owner, when you're scaling, even if you don't have a dollar number assigned, which Mike, that you taught me, opportunity cost is what that's valued at.
Jamie:But for them at that time, it's time plus stress equals mental load.
Jamie:The less mental load that you can handle, the effectiveness in your business drops dramatically.
Jamie:And then what happens is exactly what Jamie said.
Jamie:These guys leave and they go work somewhere else.
Jamie:They're like, bye, later, see ya, Bye.
Speaker A:And the worst part is when they book all that work, having the extra person, the person leaves and then they're the ones stuck having to do all.
Jamie:Stop attacking me right now.
Jamie:Stop attacking me.
Jamie:I'm so guilty I did that.
Jamie:I learned the hard way.
Jamie:I attritioned a few guys in my film department through the years here.
Jamie:And yeah, I'm ashamed of it because I really, I loved Cody and I loved him a lot.
Jamie:But I overburdened him and I put way too much responsibility on his plate and I thrust him into a situation where he wasn't happy because he wasn't ready to be operating at the level that he was.
Jamie:And I learned the hard way.
Jamie:I learned the very hard way.
Speaker A:And you also scaling the business, you were growing it exponentially.
Speaker A:And so I think that everyone was just unprepared on how much business was going to be coming in and how busy he was going to be.
Jamie:I couldn't believe it.
Jamie:I was thinking back to that.
Jamie:Mike, you remember when we were growing at such a massive rate, we were doing film left and right.
Jamie:It was crazy.
Jamie:I couldn't believe how much we were doing.
Jamie:And ultimately we had a small implosion, but Justin came on board and I pitched in.
Jamie:And then we got Danic and it all worked out and came together.
Jamie:And Danik's a unicorn that, like, does film with his eyes closed while he's drunk.
Jamie:Again, I'm kidding.
Jamie:He's not drunk.
Jamie:But there's so many of these guys I know that have similar situations to me.
Jamie:I get calls from clients, they say, hey, my main installer just quit.
Jamie:He went to go work for my competitor.
Jamie:And when I hear that, I take back in a minute and I examine all of the interactions that I've had with that client and the things that we've talked about.
Jamie:And sometimes I keep my mouth shut when I know that I shouldn't.
Jamie:I should say that makes a lot of sense.
Jamie:It makes a ton of sense.
Jamie:But at the end of the day, you can only be so blunt with people.
Jamie:And here we are now talking about this to help other people.
Speaker B:I think everybody just needs to look at things a little bit differently and understand that the most expensive employee is the one that leaves you.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:And it's the most important asset is your staff.
Speaker B:It costs you at the business level because now you don't have the capacity to handle the volume.
Speaker B:So now you got customers that are.
Jamie:Upset and it costs you growth percentage.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And now you need to hire somebody to fill that role, and then you have to invest in the training of them.
Speaker B:So it's almost like a triple whammy when you lose somebody.
Speaker B:That's how we looked at it.
Speaker B:That's why we invested a ton to make sure that we did not lose people.
Jamie:If you had to come in and give somebody a crash course and you had to give them five things.
Jamie:Five things to be able to take and examine an individual on or person that they're considering bringing into their business to help and grow.
Jamie:What.
Jamie:What would those five pieces of advice be?
Speaker B:Number one on it.
Speaker B:And I've never done this, so I'm going to try and piece this together.
Speaker B:But the.
Speaker B:I'd say, number one, how do the.
Speaker B:How does that person deal with an unstructured environment?
Speaker B:Because I've noticed a lot of these detail shops, they are a bit unstructured.
Speaker B:It's not like a manufacturing type of job.
Speaker B:You're doing a little of this, a little of that.
Speaker B:You're filling in here.
Speaker B:There's number two, how do you deal with adversity amongst a team.
Speaker B:Are you the person that tends to just shut up and just be quiet so that those are the worst?
Speaker B:Because then they're just adding that up in their own little calculator until it hits a number, and then they're out, and you don't even know it's coming.
Speaker B:Those are the worst that aren't that.
Speaker B:Don't verbalize things.
Speaker B:Probably number three is, are they bought in to the vision of the business or are they just looking to make a buck?
Speaker B:People who are like the hired guns and just like, looking to make a buck, they've always been the ones that I've regretted hiring.
Speaker B:I can give you a very specific example in sales.
Speaker B:I hired this guy, and I should have listened to my little inner voice because it was telling me, don't do it, don't do it.
Speaker B:When it sounds too good to be true.
Speaker B:It always is.
Speaker B:And I ended up doing it, and I regretted it immediately.
Speaker B:And I fired him about three months later because he was a fricking cancer.
Speaker B:So terrible.
Speaker B:But he was a super aggressive sales guy that just wanted to.
Speaker B:He wanted to make a million dollars in his first six months.
Speaker B:That's ambitious.
Speaker B:Oh, he was all about it, but he was so ultra aggressive.
Speaker B:And just from a, you know who I am.
Speaker B:But just from a.
Speaker B:A personality standpoint, I'm not about that kind of hardcore sales aggression.
Speaker B:I'm more about a collegial type of selling environment, and I want to know that it's a win.
Speaker B:I don't want to just push something on someone.
Speaker B:I want to know that this is going to benefit you, and I believe it's going to benefit you.
Speaker B:But if you don't believe that, then okay, see ya.
Speaker B:So those would be the core things that I look at.
Speaker B:I know I'm falling one short.
Speaker B:I'll need to think about that.
Speaker B:You gave me five.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Jamie:You got four.
Jamie:Let's.
Jamie:Why don't we let.
Jamie:We'll ask Jamie the same thing.
Jamie:Jamie, if you were gonna give any business owner operating in our sector advice on hiring and you had five minutes to give them, what five things would you offer to them?
Jamie:When it comes to hiring people and bringing people onto their team, I think.
Speaker A:That the first thing they need to do is look at themselves.
Speaker A:They need to figure out what they're best at and what they're not.
Jamie:Now you're saying the business owner themselves.
Speaker A:The business owner themselves.
Speaker A:So that way they can focus on the things that they are good at and that are great.
Speaker A:At and then hire accordingly for the things that they aren't.
Speaker A:And therefore that gives you a nice Runway of the positions and your needs for the business so that you can delegate appropriately, that's great.
Speaker A:The business owners tend to try and take on everything and don't want to give up the power because they can micromanage.
Speaker A:And it's delegation.
Speaker A:You got to learn how to delegate and know what you're great at and what you're not and to delegate those things that you're not great at so you can focus your attention on the things that you are great at.
Speaker A:I think the second piece is being able to show value to those employees that you hire.
Speaker A:How do you value them?
Speaker A:Do you actually invest back into them or do you just expect them to be a worker bee?
Speaker A:Because it's all about the environment.
Speaker A:It's all about how you treat them.
Speaker A:And if you expect them to just come based off the pay structure that you're giving them more and more people, they just, they're not here for the paycheck.
Speaker A:They want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:That's how you find a long term employee.
Speaker A:Cause that's what you want.
Speaker A:You want a long term employee.
Speaker A:I think another aspect is figuring out what your goals are for the next two to five years.
Speaker A:Being able to set missions for yourself and for the business and how that next staff member is going to help you get there.
Jamie:Where's the goal post and how are you going to help me get there?
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker A:Because in the end, if you have no vision, no mission, you're basically a.
Speaker A:You're on a ship without a captain, a rudder.
Jamie:A rudderless ship.
Jamie:Is that what you said before, Mike?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:A rudderless ship or the hamster wheel.
Speaker B:This industry's full of people on the hamster wheel and they don't recognize they're on it.
Speaker B:They are spinning that wheel.
Speaker A:I think the fourth thing is you need to be willing to ask questions and ask for help.
Speaker A:No one can do it all by themselves.
Speaker A:No one has ever done it by themselves.
Speaker A:They all have some type of support system.
Speaker A:So you better be asking questions, have a mentor, have people that have been in your shoes so that you can get some support.
Speaker A:Because it's dirty out there.
Speaker A:It's very dirty and it can get very messy real quick.
Speaker A:And if you don't have a few people to ask questions and what did you find work best for this situation or that situation, that's going to help you with some of your decision making.
Speaker A:Because those People are going to hopefully give you solid advice that that's crucial.
Speaker A:Have a good circle of people that you can bounce ideas off of and also be willing to learn from them, because other people have been in your shoes and have gone through a whole mess of different situations that they don't want someone else to have to go through.
Speaker A:So you gotta be open and willing to take constructive criticism and learn, because no one knows everything all at once.
Speaker A:And then as far as the fifth, you have to be always willing to adapt.
Speaker A:And I think that I learned that very early on that you have to separate.
Speaker A:Even though you are emotionally invested into the business, there are just some things you cannot control.
Jamie:You and I have had that conversation about various things that I deal with, and I have a really hard time with that.
Speaker A:It's tough.
Speaker A:And I did too, in the beginning.
Speaker A:And I'm learning more and more to what I call pivot gracefully.
Speaker A:It's tough to do, especially when you're trying to get into a process and things are going smooth and then something happens.
Speaker A:But you and I were talking about it yesterday.
Speaker A:You could tell I was a little stressed because my slitting machine was, you know, not working properly.
Speaker A:But when you're in the thick of it, it can get emotional and you get stressed, and there's all these other things you got.
Speaker B:Always fall back to control what you can control.
Jamie:So that.
Jamie:That's a really great point to sidestep into.
Jamie:When shit's hitting the fan and everything's going wrong.
Jamie:What we like to call when it's just fuck city in the shop, it's just there are f words flying everywhere.
Speaker A:When you're in the weeds.
Jamie:In the weeds.
Jamie:What do you do as a business owner?
Jamie:What is the one thing that you know that you can count on and do to be able to regain composure?
Jamie:Because that's something else I see guys struggle with, is that the.
Jamie:Just shit's hitting the fan.
Jamie:Everything's happening all at once.
Jamie:How do you come out the other side of that without absolutely bleeding all over the floor?
Jamie:Mike, I'd like to ask you that because I'm sure that you've.
Jamie:I'm sure that one situation or another, you've seen, you shit's just hitting the proverbial fan.
Jamie:And when you come in those crisis situations, what do you do?
Speaker B:You turn the temperature down, because it's very easy on the shop floor.
Speaker B:It's very easy for that to get emotional pretty quickly.
Speaker B:You gotta come in as the cool head.
Speaker B:You take that temperature down.
Speaker B:If there are legitimate concerns like Jamie, like the plotter is not cutting properly or whatever it's gonna be.
Speaker B:You just say, okay, let's just see if we can fix it.
Speaker B:Who do we need to contact?
Speaker B:But you just de.
Speaker B:Escalate things.
Speaker B:You get very good at deescalating situations.
Speaker B:And don't let it blow up.
Speaker B:You gotta step right in and immediately turn the temperature down and let people know this isn't all that bad.
Speaker B:Yeah, we can sort this out.
Speaker B:Let's just calm down and work the power.
Jamie:It's been every situation that I've been in, every time where I've had those moments where shit's hitting the fan and I go.
Jamie:And I'm just like, how did it get so bad when I'm on the other side of it and I think back, none of it was that bad.
Speaker B:It's never that bad.
Jamie:No, none of it is.
Speaker A:There's always a solution.
Jamie:Always.
Speaker A:There's always a solution.
Speaker B:Always.
Speaker B:And you know what?
Speaker B:If it's the machine and you can't get the part, then you know what?
Speaker B:The customers just get pushed a day or two, whatever it's going to be.
Speaker B:You just have good, calm conversations.
Speaker B:Because everybody knows that stuff happens and.
Speaker A:Some things are just out of your control.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:But that's where you can control what you can control.
Speaker B:And that includes your.
Speaker B:Principally your behavior with the situation.
Speaker B:That's the biggest thing that people don't.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They don't exercise enough personal control in these situations.
Speaker B:Situations.
Jamie:Very guilty of that.
Jamie:Very guilty.
Speaker B:No, everybody's guilty.
Speaker B:Hell, I'm sure I did it earlier in my career too.
Speaker B:But once things get big and the scale is big, you get good at turning down the temperature pretty quick.
Speaker A:I also think that can lead to escalating into blaming others and blaming your staff.
Speaker A:And I looked at, when I read Jocko Willinek's Extreme Ownership, it's.
Speaker A:You have to own it.
Speaker A:It all comes back down to you.
Speaker A:So you can't take it out on the employee.
Speaker A:It might be a little bit their fault, but at the end of the day, it's still your responsibility.
Jamie:It's my problem.
Speaker A:It's your problem.
Speaker A:And you need to be able to handle it and make sure that they understand that they're human.
Speaker A:They make mistakes, too.
Speaker B:That's such a good point.
Speaker B:And it leads to a really key characteristic that I think is necessary in all businesses.
Speaker B:And that's creating a safe environment for failure.
Speaker B:If you got people, if your team is just so stressed out and they're walking around on eggshells.
Speaker B:Cause they're Worried about making a mistake.
Speaker B:That's horrible.
Speaker B:They're out of there, right?
Speaker B:Because now it's just a fricking paycheck.
Speaker B:And nobody stays for money.
Speaker B:I don't care what they say, nobody stays for money.
Speaker B:So you have to create that safe environment for people to fail and feel like, oh, shit, these guys have my back.
Speaker B:I'm okay.
Speaker B:Yep, I screwed up.
Speaker B:I'll do better next time.
Jamie:That is a great point.
Jamie:So I don't know if you've.
Jamie:I'm going to hashtag shameless self promo real quick.
Jamie:The ebook that I put together, Reconciling the Gap, I don't know if either of you had a chance to look at it, that.
Jamie:Reconciling the Gap was a concept that I used AI output to articulate on, and it was originally brought to me by Chelsea.
Jamie:She said one day she said to me, you need to reconcile the gap.
Jamie:And I was like, what are you talking about?
Jamie:It's centered around the concept of having as an adult.
Jamie:And it's.
Jamie:This is how long you think it's gonna take, and this is how long it actually takes.
Jamie:And that could be applied to anything.
Jamie:Right.
Jamie:But specifically in our business, I was immediately referring to, this is how long I think an install should take.
Jamie:This is how long it actually takes.
Jamie:And the gap in between that I was reconciling was the human element, and that was something that I didn't account for.
Jamie:And accounting for it now makes it 10 times easier to allow my staff and my team to make mistakes and fail, because I'm nowhere near on high of an edge.
Jamie:Sure, it's never a great opportunity.
Jamie:It's never a fantastic feeling when you have a catastrophic damage issue or you're paying out of pocket for something.
Jamie:But it was the understanding and reconciling that gap of time that allowed me to build that safe space into the business.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it goes to pricing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If you understand that now, you can.
Speaker B:You can get pricing in place that lets you absorb that.
Speaker B:Knowing that, okay, it takes longer to do it.
Speaker B:That just means that there's less throughput.
Speaker B:All right?
Speaker B:Because I've got a capacity threshold here, and because these are taking longer, my capacity just went down.
Speaker B:So my throughput went down.
Speaker B:So that means to maintain margins, the price has to go up.
Jamie:I have all this work, this, that, and I'm like, okay, so maybe let's take a step back and raise prices and do a better job at describing the value as to why you're raising those prices and give yourself a little breathing Room.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And do less work.
Jamie:Listen, you and I talk about Grant all the time.
Jamie:And for those of you who are listening, Menards Premium Detailing in Warminster, Pennsylvania.
Jamie:If I wasn't going to say that we were the best, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't chasing Grant's coattails in terms of having a successful business in the industry.
Jamie:Grant is one of those guys that conceptualizes that and has built a career opportunity for his team.
Jamie:If we want to do more, that's great.
Jamie:But let's make sure that we have the business structured appropriately to do it.
Jamie:So for those of you guys who are listening that don't know who that is.
Jamie:Grant Menard at Menards Premium Detailing, Warminster, Pennsylvania.
Jamie:If you get a chance to go out there, talk to Grant, look at his shop and see what it looks like to operate a business at scale.
Speaker B:They have that down to a fricking science.
Speaker B:They know they bring in X amount of dollars of work.
Speaker B:They know, okay, that means we hire one more person.
Speaker B:But again, that goes back to understanding the fundamentals of your business and managing it from a position that you're taking ownership of the mental health and well being of your team.
Speaker B:That was one of the big things as we really started scaling Pentech.
Speaker B:That's when you're thinking, Jesus Christ, these people are counting on us to make good decisions.
Speaker B:You need to go into things respecting that they are counting on you.
Speaker B:So you got to really have their backs much more than you pay attention to your own well being.
Jamie:I wear that heavy.
Jamie:I wear that very heavy.
Jamie:I'm, I'm naturally an individual that cares a lot about a lot of people and a lot of things.
Jamie:Sometimes things and people that I shouldn't.
Jamie:But it's, that's my character flaw, right?
Speaker B:No, but if you're going to air somewhere, that's a good spot to air.
Speaker B:Otherwise you're just filling seats and people are going to be just.
Speaker B:It's a revolving door, man.
Speaker B:They're in, they're out.
Speaker B:They're in there, out.
Speaker A:Grant did a great job with that.
Speaker A:I, I got, I was honored to be able to train one of his guys a few months back.
Speaker A:And he told me his whole story how he actually got the position and he actually had car trouble with his car and had to stay.
Speaker A:Grant took care of the hotel, was going to try and take care of him and he wound up buying a new car on his way back.
Speaker A:But it was just very humbling to hear his story, hear how appreciative he was just a great character and I was willing to do whatever I could to help him out because he was just a good person.
Speaker A:And you could tell that's why Grant hired him.
Jamie:Grant knows a few guys that might know a thing or two.
Jamie:Just saying.
Jamie:He knows a guy that owns this software company that makes schedulers for detailers, something.
Jamie:He's got some great mentors in his back pocket and don't think for a second that that's.
Jamie:That's not something that factored in.
Jamie:Grant had a lot of great people to learn from.
Jamie:And I think that also goes back down on having mentorship.
Jamie:Listen, both of you guys are mentors for me and I try not to be in your DMs all day, but I know that if I've got something that I'm having a particular issue with and I have a question, I know that if it's burning me enough that I can truly ask you, and I know that I'm going to get honest and accurate feedback that's probably going to point me in the right direction.
Jamie:Most of these guys that run in this industry, they don't have it.
Jamie:Nobody has a support system to lean on.
Jamie:Jamie, you're at the heart of that culture right now with Equip Academy.
Jamie:Mike, have you seen pictures of Jamie's facility and what he has?
Jamie:Have you seen it?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's a minefield, though.
Speaker A:You take a look at some of these groups and people are.
Speaker A:But you're in the SEO and marketing agency, you got guys that are pretending to be in that and they aren't.
Speaker A:So they're trying to fake it to make it so you don't know who to trust in that aspect.
Speaker A:And then on top of that, these shops are being pitched this and that.
Speaker A:They don't know who to trust.
Speaker A:So I get it.
Speaker A:And you have to have real talk and you have to go into it not trying to sell.
Speaker A:You have to go into it trying to be honest.
Speaker A:I have tons of conversations with people.
Speaker A:At the end of the day, we might be too expensive and that's usually at the crux of it, but they don't see the value like the others do.
Speaker A:When they do come to the course.
Speaker A:The experience is just unheard of and it's basically one on one.
Speaker A:And the amount of film that we burn through and the amount of knowledge that's there and the mentorship that you get going forward and after you're gone, it's invaluable.
Speaker B:I have.
Speaker B:And honestly, the cost is irrelevant.
Speaker B:Should be irrelevant.
Speaker A:It should be but the thing is, you have these guys that are being pitched this product and this brand and this training course of, where should I go?
Speaker A:And they look at dollars and cents.
Speaker A:If you look at the detailing industry in general as a broad stroke, most of it is low barrier to entry, low cost to entry to get into it.
Speaker A:Then all of a sudden, you know, they want to get into paint, protection, film.
Speaker A: that this training course is: Speaker A:Whoa.
Speaker A:And then you have to fly there or drive there, whatever, it's four days again.
Speaker A:We might not be for everyone.
Speaker A:And sometimes they understand, oh, maybe I'm getting into this a little too early.
Speaker A:Maybe I should pump the brakes a little bit.
Speaker B:And that could be because it's such an attractive thing.
Speaker B:At least from the outsider looking in, it looks like an attractive thing.
Speaker B:But you need to really.
Speaker B:You need to go into it like you mean it.
Speaker B:You can't just wade into it and just go for it.
Speaker B:You really need to invest.
Speaker B:And because the more you invest upfront, the less you're going to lose in the short term once you get out into the real world.
Speaker B:So that's how people need to look at it.
Speaker B:Do you want to spend the five grand getting trained, or do you want to go for it and spend ten grand on film that you just wasted?
Speaker B:Take your.
Jamie:You're spending that money one way or the other.
Jamie:And listen, I don't care what anybody says, and I stand firm on this.
Jamie:I love the companies that I represent.
Jamie:You guys know I'm a ceramic pro shop.
Jamie:I bleed pink and black here.
Jamie:We do a great job with it.
Jamie:Our clients love it, my installers love it, and it's a great culture for us.
Jamie:What I will say is that out of all of the companies that I have seen, nobody has a better training regiment or facility than Equip Academy does.
Jamie:Nobody's got.
Jamie:Nobody has half a car on.
Jamie:On Dolly rig.
Jamie:Nobody's got.
Jamie:Nobody has the level of expertise that Jamie brings to the table.
Jamie:Nobody has as strict of a training regimen as Jamie does.
Jamie:I've seen.
Jamie:I've looked at all of them.
Jamie:Nobody has anything that comes close to what Equip Academy brings to the table.
Jamie:And, Jamie, I'm propping you up and I'm putting you up on the pedestal.
Jamie:I appreciate it, man.
Jamie:I'm putting you up on the pedestal right now because you've taken what everybody has done for such a long time, and you've completely obliterated the ceiling and it's at a completely different level now.
Jamie:And if more people adopted the mindset that you have surrounding training and put that type of facility in place, if the big manufacturers took training as seriously as you did, the level of quality installers and people that would be available in our sector would be 10x.
Jamie:I just want to applaud you for that because I haven't seen anybody come to the table with anything else like that with skin in the game besides you.
Jamie:And I just want to applaud you for that because it deserves noticing.
Jamie:And I'm sure that if Mike chimes in here, he's probably of a very similar opinion.
Speaker B:I'm all about invest early.
Speaker B:Bear in mind I'm selling against sticky notes.
Speaker B:So that's why.
Speaker B:And these groups drive me crazy.
Speaker B:So I try, it's.
Speaker B:I try to limit my exposure.
Jamie:I don't even, I don't even bother tagging you anymore.
Speaker B:I limit my exposure because it's like, yeah, who's got something for free to run my company?
Speaker B:It's, hey, you can run it off a fricking three leaf notebook if you want.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:But what kind of company are you trying to run?
Speaker B:Do you want to run a professional business or do you want to like look like a hobbyist?
Jamie:That's an important segue, Mike.
Jamie:We talked about Jamie and Equip Academy and what he's about.
Jamie:We talked about your past with Pentech.
Jamie:We haven't really talked about your able and what it currently brings to the table for these, these shops out here and businesses that are growing.
Jamie:What's the core value and in terms of how you're able stands on the market and what's the driving force behind your Able?
Speaker B:I'd like to say it's a pleasant disposition.
Speaker B:Everybody likes to be hanging around with the you're able crowd.
Speaker B:But no, honestly, it's the system's ability to help any company of large or small size to really look professional.
Speaker B:Because so many things transcend off of that professional imagery that you're projecting to your customers that is licensed to increase pricing, number one.
Speaker B:Number two, it changes a business from being a transactional focused entity to a relationship focused entity.
Speaker B:Because that was one of the first things I noticed in this industry and why we ended up choosing it.
Speaker B:Did anything about client retention?
Speaker B:Everybody was focused on new customer acquisition almost to a fault.
Speaker B:It was like once you spent money with somebody, that was it.
Speaker B:You never saw em again.
Speaker B:You never pursued them.
Speaker B:So I think that's really changed over the years.
Speaker B:We're five years into it.
Speaker B:But it's fricking crazy, dude.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:It's crazy.
Speaker B:When we first got into it, it was all about new customer acquisition.
Speaker B:Now I think things have really come around.
Speaker B:We're offering subscriptions through your Able price businesses.
Jamie:Sirius called me today talking about you.
Jamie:I was like, wait, didn't I see something about.
Jamie:And then I got in the group and I was like, son of a gun.
Jamie:I was going to call you and I was like a serious scamming me right now.
Speaker B:They're not.
Speaker B:But it's stuff like that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like I offered that up to everybody because I thought that is a very unexpected thing for a customer to go to the Mercedes dealer and buy a new car and they get the three months free for serious.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:Okay, that's become like an expectation.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They certainly don't expect to get that same offer by from their detailer.
Speaker B:Right.
Jamie:So the detailers can offer that to clients.
Speaker B:Yes, this is true.
Speaker B:You're able.
Speaker B:I set this up for you.
Jamie:Wait, I thought I got the call today.
Jamie:I thought they were offering us as a shop the three month trial.
Jamie:I was like, okay, that's a neat perk.
Jamie:So you're saying we're a trial end point to offer value to clients?
Speaker B:Yes.
Jamie:That's absolutely amazing.
Jamie:And I didn't realize that.
Jamie:My mind is blown.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's totally unexpected.
Speaker B:But that's the kind of stuff I focus on.
Speaker B:I focus on what helps these businesses that are willing to run their company off of your able.
Speaker B:What is going to help them separate themselves in their market.
Speaker B:So Carfax was an easy one.
Speaker A:Add value.
Speaker B:Yeah, add value.
Speaker B:Sirius xm.
Speaker B:Nobody saw that coming so I did that.
Speaker B:Now we've got the marketplace with places like Adobe Road Winery in there.
Speaker B:Nobody expects that.
Speaker B:Now you get the opportunity to use Giftology again.
Jamie:That's one of my favorites.
Speaker B:From transaction based to relationship based.
Speaker B:So if somebody's going to drop five, ten grand on getting a full fronter, why aren't you giving them a good premium experience?
Speaker B:And part of that is, okay, here's this beautiful gift.
Speaker B:It's got a great motorsports heritage behind it.
Speaker B:It's totally unexpected.
Speaker B:And they're going to look at that bottle and they're going to think of you every freaking time.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:So those are the kind of things that I try and bring into the community.
Speaker B:It's so different than just technical this and that and features this.
Jamie:I'm a big technical feature guy and that's just because I'm a nerd.
Jamie:And Mike, that's why I try and do things so much with you and you're able.
Jamie:Is that it's the philosophy and philanthropy that comes to the table with the culture that you've built is.
Jamie:That's what's always been the most attractive for me.
Speaker B:And yeah, I'm not getting anything out of these things.
Speaker B:I'm doing this for you guys because I was like, these guys can't go out and set these deals up like freaking Mercedes and Audi.
Speaker B:I'm gonna go do it.
Jamie:That's.
Jamie:That's awesome.
Jamie:I'm calling him tomorrow.
Jamie:I have a sticky note from my.
Jamie:From Dom when she answered.
Jamie:The phone is sitting on my monitor in the other room.
Jamie:I'm calling.
Speaker B:No, I don't give any of your guys information out.
Speaker B:And we started hearing this in the private group too.
Speaker B:It's geez, Sirius is calling all our people.
Speaker B:So I had it out.
Speaker B:I said, hey, where are you guys getting all this info?
Speaker B:They said, you guys have that awesome.
Speaker B:Your story.
Speaker A:And it's also about managing your business.
Speaker A:I mean that's what you're able.
Speaker A:Allows you to do is operate it as a business instead of just as a side hustle.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And carry a heavy load.
Speaker B:So like.
Speaker B:Because I'm constantly mentoring people that are struggling with this whole concept of growth and maybe they're going from two people to three people.
Speaker B:And how do I do that?
Speaker B:I don't have enough money to be able to do that.
Speaker B:I said that is when you lean on the system.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You lean on the system to create that headspace for you.
Speaker B:But you let it carry a heavy load.
Speaker B:So they end up going from like a pro subscription to enterprise for a period of time.
Speaker B:Because the enterprise plan with these automated workflows carries a crazy load.
Speaker B:So it's like okay with those two people that you've got push the fricking system to the max until you've got enough additional revenue that you can take that step back and hire that person.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because it is about you're going up and then you're coming down because you're laying out more money and then you start climbing again and you reach new heights.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:That's always going to be a steady thing in business.
Speaker B:It's always going to be this S shaped curve that kind of never ends.
Speaker B:But you know, hopefully you're not up and slamming back down.
Speaker B:Hopefully it's smoothed out.
Speaker B:You smooth out that transition to hire that next person and make that investment by leaning on the systems to create more head space.
Jamie:It's the user able and when we use the Zapier integration and we combine that with our CRM Grit suite, level of customization and the level of absolute cash printing power that comes from this is mind blowing.
Jamie:These guys just.
Jamie:It comes all the way down to when jobs are marked complete, they're dispatched a specific text message and email to serve aftercare products or the Care Care instructions.
Jamie:And when they click on that link, it starts a timer to send them purchase those products from wherever that may be.
Jamie:And sometimes it's right back to the virtual store and you're able and like it's infinitely customizable down by the second and action that these ants interact with these communications.
Jamie:And it makes this a powerhouse tool in ways that I never really thought possible.
Speaker B:See, but that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker B:It creates headspace that you can operate really at a much larger scale than you could have without a system.
Speaker B:So that gives you the opportunity to go ahead and hire somebody.
Speaker B:And then if you want, then you can just drop back down from the enterprise plan to the pro plan.
Speaker B:But almost nobody does.
Speaker B:That enterprise plan is fricking awesome value.
Jamie:Built into that enterprise plan more than I see with some of the other softwares out there.
Speaker B:Oh my God.
Speaker B:The ROI is crazy.
Jamie:The enterprise that ask us to create these iterations have gone from.
Jamie:I had one particular client who came on board and he was using something else.
Jamie:He was kind of piecing it together with his scheduling and invoicing.
Jamie:Right.
Jamie:Typical.
Jamie:Right.
Jamie:So he's doing like 40 to 50 grand a month and then, you know, signing up for your Able.
Jamie:And he was also using Grit Suite and he ended up jumping up to like 70 when we tied you're Able and Grit Suite together.
Jamie:And he made a small adjustment to how he sells the shop is now gone in.
Jamie:In four months, he's gone from having his gross projection in a year be like $2,000 to now he's pushing up on like.
Jamie:I think he's pushing up on like $50,000 in four months.
Jamie:That was going to be his yearly projected growth rate.
Jamie:Like that blows my mind.
Speaker B:Yeah, this is the stuff that's possible because I couldn't operate these companies I was operating before we did this thing with your Able without having systems.
Speaker B:I'm not an IT guy, a business guy.
Speaker B:You learn to develop systems to solve business challenges.
Speaker B:And you just have to have that foundation, man.
Speaker B:It has to be something that can take a fricking punch when you need it, you know, so when you're trying to scale heavy, it should carry a heavy Load.
Speaker B:I don't know that there's anybody in the community that's using your able that hasn't had the opportunity to significantly raise prices simply because of the more professional just communication that happens as a result of it.
Speaker A:It's amazing what technology does and how much it adds value to your life into the business.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But yet there's.
Speaker B:We're fighting people that just hey, it's not free.
Speaker B:I'm not paying for it.
Speaker B:I can run this off a three leaf notebook and I'm like then fricking do it.
Speaker B:You're not going to run at scale.
Jamie:No.
Speaker B:You know or, or you know they're the types that they got their badge of honor.
Speaker B:We're working 15 hours.
Jamie:There's no honor in grinding 15 hours a day.
Jamie:Zero badge.
Speaker B:The grind mentality is freaking out of control in this industry.
Speaker B:And I get it.
Speaker B:And I mean it's one of the things that I really love about this industry is nobody's afraid to hard work.
Speaker A:Hard work.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I really want to see people work smarter, be able to make more money doing less, not making more money only as a result of doing more.
Speaker B:You can make more money by doing things differently.
Speaker B:Get smart about what are the services you offer that are making you money.
Speaker B:How about do more of those?
Jamie:Maybe.
Jamie:Just maybe.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:This is rocket science.
Speaker B:You can make tiny little shifts like Grant.
Speaker B:We talked about Grant earlier.
Speaker B:I think Grant moved away from doing any of his detail work to give.
Jamie:That up because it was such a great entry barrier and he really doubled and tripled down on the big three and now he's then I've ever seen classic money to be made in detailing and there's tons of people that, that are always looking for it and it's always a fantastic opportunity to cross sell.
Jamie:But after amount of time that shift to being a big three focus only type of business.
Jamie:But you got to put the time in and you got to invest in the right systems to get there.
Jamie:It does not happen immediately and you.
Speaker B:Better be willing to invest.
Speaker B:If you're trying to do it on the cheap, you're not going to make it.
Speaker B:You're going to be a statistic is.
Jamie:In your vocabulary as a big three operator.
Jamie:It's not happening.
Speaker B:Nope.
Speaker A:Well, you said it and we've said it.
Speaker A:We've all said it.
Speaker A:It's invest.
Speaker A:It's not spending, it's investing.
Speaker A:And that's how you have to look at it.
Speaker A:If you're looking at it as well, it costs me this.
Speaker A:You're investing in this because this is what my output's going to wind up being and the opportunity that it creates.
Speaker A:It's amazing when you invest and if you invest properly on things that can help you scale is huge.
Speaker A:Huge.
Jamie:Well, listen guys, I want to wrap up tonight.
Jamie:We're pushing up on time.
Jamie:Mike, I appreciate you hanging out with us tonight.
Jamie:It was fantastic to hear about your stories from your experience with Pentech and then booting up your able and creating an asset for the industry to lean on where there wasn't one previously.
Jamie:Thank you for joining us.
Jamie:Jamie, thank you for hanging out with us.
Jamie:Your story coming up from Premium Shield and then coming into Equip Academy, creating a system of value and foundation where there was not one previously.
Jamie:You two guys are quite literally pillars of our industry and what I would consider true leaders in terms of creating opportunity where there there was not creating opportunity for real vertical growth and real vertical vertical gains for businesses.
Jamie:So I just want to say thank you to both of you for everything that you're doing.
Jamie:Thank you for joining us tonight.
Jamie:Talking Paint for those of you who are listening, you can, you can jump over to our website@talkinpaint.com that's T A L K I N.
Jamie:You can find us on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple podcasts and Google podcasts as well.
Jamie:You can find us on YouTube.
Jamie:You can join our Facebook group.
Jamie:You can also check out the agency website@detailinggrowth.com don't forget to look at Equip Academy and you're able online.
Jamie:Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.
Jamie:I hope you have a good night.
