Mind Wrench Podcast
Welcome to The Mind-Wrench Podcast, your go-to resource for personal and professional development in the automotive repair industry. Discover effective strategies to elevate your life to the next level, applicable not just for auto professionals, but for anyone seeking personal growth. Join our knowledgeable host, industry veteran Rick Selover, as he imparts practical insights on mindset, self-improvement, and leadership, enabling you to run a thriving shop and lead a more fulfilling life. Tune in every Monday to expand your horizons. For additional information, connect with Rick on Instagram @rick_selover, become part of the vibrant CollisionMasterMind Facebook Group, or visit rickselover.com for additional information and resources.
Mind Wrench Podcast
Episode #206 -Top of the Mountain and Still Climbing! -w/Jesse Parks
**🎙️ Podcast Show Notes:
What happens when a collision repair expert decides to completely rethink how body shops operate?
This week, Jesse Parks, Managing Director of Freeman Collision, shares how his West Coast shop achieved both Toyota and Lexus Certified Collision Center of the Year awards by disrupting traditional business models and creating an extraordinary culture focused on quality repairs and continuous improvement.
The traditional collision repair business model is facing disruption from multiple angles. Jesse explains how OEMs are investing heavily in certification programs to improve both customer retention and parts sales after discovering a startling statistic: 60% of customers who experience a collision switch car brands within a year. By positioning his shop as Northern California's only certified Toyota and Lexus collision center, Jesse captures customers directly through manufacturer channels, bypassing the traditional insurance referral system.
Perhaps most fascinating is Freeman Collision's implementation of AI technology to solve a critical industry challenge: nearly 50% of all accidents happen outside business hours. Their AI systems engage customers instantly, providing estimates and scheduling appointments when traditional shops are closed, dramatically improving capture rates.
Whether you run a collision shop, work in the automotive industry, or simply want to learn how to transform your business, this episode is for YOU… Jesse's insights demonstrate how embracing change, building extraordinary culture, and leveraging cutting-edge technology can transform even the most established businesses.
Even if you've reached the top of the mountain... there's always still room to climb!
Guest Info: Jesse Parks - Freeman Collision
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Earlier this year, while attending the Certified Collision Group Conference and then again at Mike Anderson's Spartan Conference, I had the opportunity to connect and spend some time talking with this week's special guest, Someone I had great respect for, seen at many industry events but never really got a chance to know until recently. His OEM certified shop's incredible performance and record-setting achievements with Lexus and Toyota would be the top of the mountain for most, but not for Jesse. This is just a starting point for his climb.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the MindWrench Podcast with your host, rick Sellover, where minor adjustments produce major improvements in mindset, personal growth and success. This is the place to be every Monday, where we make small improvements and take positive actions in our business and personal lives that will make a major impact in our success, next-level growth and quality of life.
Speaker 1:Hey, what's up everybody. Welcome to the MindWrench Podcast. I'm your host, rick Salo. Thanks so much for stopping in. If you're a returning listener and haven't done so already, please take a minute and click the follow or subscribe button, and then rate and review the show. When you rate and review the show, the algorithms for Apple, spotify, google Podcasts, iheartradio, amazon Music and all the other platforms will see that it's valuable and show it to more people that have never seen it before, and hopefully it can help them too. I would really, really really appreciate your help, sharing this word with your friends and family as well, and if you're a brand new listener, welcome. I hope you find something of value here that helps you in your personal or professional life as well. Please make sure to click the subscribe or follow button so you never miss another episode. If you've been listening to the show for a while or been on the receiving end of my daily Quote of the Day emails, or maybe just catch my posts on Facebook or LinkedIn, you know I'm all about the quotes, right. If you'd like to start receiving my Quote of the Day emails, there's a link in the show notes to sign up. It's free and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Speaker 1:Earlier this year, while attending the Certified Collision Group Conference and then again at Mike Anderson's Spartan Conference, I had the opportunity to connect and spend some time talking with this week's special guest, someone I had great respect for, seen at many industry events but never really got a chance to know until recently. His OEM certified shop's incredible performance and record-setting achievements with Lexus and Toyota would be the top of the mountain for most, but not for Jesse. This is just a starting point for his climb. This week, my special guest's shop has not only been chosen as the Lexus Certified Collision Center for 2024 for the second time and the Toyota Certified Collision Center for 2024 third time, but his shop is the only certified Toyota and Lexus Collision Center in all of Northern California.
Speaker 1:Jesse Parks, a 25-year collision veteran, all of Northern California. Jesse Parks, a 25-year collision veteran, has built an extraordinary culture within his shop. He's maximized the power of proximity with strategic alliances with not only industry lighthouses like SCRS, collision Advice and Certified Collision Group, but the OEM manufacturers groups as well. Here's my in-depth interview with industry leader who has found strength and growth in getting uncomfortable Jesse Parks, the managing director of Freedman Collision, as he joins me on the MindWrench podcast.
Speaker 2:My biggest focus right now has been disrupting FNOL. You know, as the smaller MSO or independents have been working to compete in a heavily dominated large box PE environment. I think that we have to be a lot more innovative than we've had to be in the past. So where I've been focusing mainly is getting upstream of the insurance referral. I call it the, the, the insurance coin sorter. So uh vehicles that are connected, uh certifications and uh vehicles that have either partial or some variations of their certifications that are restricted partial or some variations of their certifications that are restricted. So the OEMs right now are spending a lot of money, a lot of money, and creating a lot of awareness with their customers to use their apps, to start using the locators.
Speaker 2:What we're seeing nationally is that a lot of the dealerships and OEMs are declining in auto sales right now because of interest rates, the economy, whatever it is right now they're selling less cars. So what they've done is everyone that I've talked to and I am on a lot of advisory boards and council groups for a lot of the OEMs and what I see them all focusing on right now is retention and part sales. So I mean, when you look at some of the data that I've seen just just averaged out between all the OEMs. Some are better, some are worse, but they're looking at a 60, 60 plus percent defection rate. So you know, six out of 10 people, six out of 10 people that get in an auto accident within 12 months are going to buy another brand, and it's generally because they've lost faith in the brand after that.
Speaker 2:And the OEMs are seeing that. So, in a market where the sales are declining, it's never been more important for them to retain the customers that they have, customers that they have right um and as well, you know, there's there's there's so many uh competitive parts choices right now that there's a lot of lost revenue. You know, and with uh some of the oems, the the bigger oems we're seeing a better than 40 percent uh penetration in their total part sales. So if you're looking around, 43, 44, 45% of every part that's sold, it has to do with collision. So they know they have room there. And because of those two facts, when you look at retention and when you look at part sales, the OEMs now are working a lot harder and some of these certifications that have been for lack of a better word just a piece of paper to put on the wall that didn't have a lot of teeth, are now working to find ways to support the certifications in ways they haven't in the past.
Speaker 1:So we're focused on OEM repairs, certs and keeping their customers and their customers. And you know, and it's I'm glad you're saying this, jesse, because you know this is something I've heard off and on over the past, let's say 10 years right, like, uh, you know, if you do a crappy repair, it affects the customer's decision on buying that brand again, right? So everybody's kind of knowing that in the collision industry, but nobody's really focused that much on the the top shops yes, most of the other shops not really. But now it sounds like it's becoming even a bigger issue for the OEMs, right?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean you have you take just an average brand, a mass-produced car. I mean, if you have a customer, that that's either they've owned these cars forever and they haven't had a problem, or it's their first time in and now they get in something that, uh, to them doesn't seem like a huge collision. I mean, let's face it, most customers don't really know, uh, what, what, what a big job or medium job is you know they, most of them, think that a lot of this isn't a big deal. They don't understand the calibrations, they don't understand the repair procedures, they don't understand what's involved. So when you have somebody that in their mind didn't have that big of a bobo on their car and now they're looking into, you know, either their vehicles a borderline total loss or they fix their car and it's fifteen thousand dollars. When they shut they thought it should have been fine. Uh, they got to bring it back to the shop multiple times because the shop didn't know how to do it right. And that happens for a lot of different reasons. But the retention component in the certification which is why all of them are rapidly expanding their networks is when these people are trained and they know what they're looking for they know how to calibrate the cars. These people are trained and they know what they're looking for. They know how to calibrate the cars. They have, uh, more guidance now in in their processes and their quality control. There is more data reporting. That's happening, that's going back to the oems. That customer is going to have a better experience if the car is, if the majority of the cars, are fixed right the first time.
Speaker 2:You know, being in a dealer environment, I work, I see a lot of the big box stuff that's around me and you know I don't seek out post-collision repairs and inspections because I try to play good in my sandbox in my neighborhood.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of these guys are my friends, but you know I see so many that the customer will go to the shop and complain about a problem and the shop will argue with them and tell them why they know more and what they're saying and then they finally get the shop to take it in. They don't fix it right again by the third or fourth time the customer's done, they say, hey, I wanna go over here and when we get these cars I haven't had one that I can remember in a very long time that didn't result in a buyback. So when we get into these cars, I mean some of the repairs are so atrocious and you know it's happening because you know this is these shops as they grow or have you know that have the same staffing challenges because it's in that environment. It's pretty pretty much six of one half dozen of another. Most of them are forced to put people in seats that aren't really ready to be there yet.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:They don't have the experience. You have estimators that are too green to be looking at some of this stuff. They don't know how to look at the repair procedures. So when you have an OEM certification, that's that's big on training, that's uh, that takes the time to of time to to monitor that you're using their, their software to look them up. That actually has you know data pumps like cci. You know claims course now is reporting back to all the oems the parts uses and I think it's great. You know you look at you look at some of the certifications like tesla I'm not tesla certified and you know some.
Speaker 2:Some of the things, in my opinion, are a little bit questionable how they manage their certification. But they have big box repairs now that are deathly afraid of putting an aftermarket part on a car because they're going to lose their certification, and I think that's wonderful. I really agree with that component and I want to see more OEMs do it, and I think they will, because they're realizing that they're losing parts, uh sales and now they have companies like cci that can give them the data. So what that does is it creates a level playing field where you know we have 10 shops around me that are literally training the insurance company incorrectly how to fix a car. So then when a car comes in here or a shop like mine, you know they think I'm either overcharging them or I'm not flexible, but you know what it is is. I'm just. I'm just telling them the truth on why the vehicle should be repaired that way, and I'm not bashful about wanting to be reimbursed or compensated for the investment that I put in my people to do it properly.
Speaker 1:Right, as you should be right. This is something I've been in this business a long time and.
Speaker 1:I know there was a standard, a very loose, very low standard of repair acceptance through the 80s, 90s, 2000s, how we fixed cars back then and we got so many people, so many shops that were used to that being okay. They're struggling with the complexity of today's cars. They're struggling with the different materials used. You know different ways of treating those. You know seeing what the difference is between a crash part and an actual OEM part and how they perform actual OEM part and how they perform. And I think it's fantastic that the OEMs are really helping drive the importance of this too, like you said, with their customers, with the data through the apps. Because, as an industry that I love and I've been in my whole life, I want to see you get to that level that you're playing at Jesse and then you know I've been to Mike Anderson's events. You're playing at Jesse and then you know I've been to Mike Anderson's events, I've been to CCG's events. You know you guys are shops playing at the top level, where I hate to say this, it's a top level but it should be an even playing field. Everybody should be playing at that level because you're fixing someone's car. That's going to get in there, they're going to put their kids, their grandmother, whatever in there. Now their lives are at risk over a questionable repair or not doing it the right way. So, you know, kudos to the OEMs for pushing that.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, I was interested in talking with you because I've seen you, you know, several times over the years at different conferences and I know you're a top player and I appreciate what you guys do. I appreciate the level of commitment you have to the industry and to building a better machine. You know, consistently you don't just do it once. You're consistently like Kaizen right, continual improvement, which is fantastic. I just want to take a second here. I just want to make sure I here. I just want to make sure I had this right, because now you've been Lexus shop of the year a couple times, right.
Speaker 2:A couple times. Yeah, we got it in 22 and 24. Last year we got Toyota and Lexus. It was the first time it's ever been done before, so we've gotten Toyota a few times too. Toyota and Lexus was the first time it's ever been done before, so you know we've gotten Toyota a few times too. Toyota and Lexus have been wonderful partners. They have an amazing training program. They're very reactive to what we're doing and they're kind of, in my opinion, paving the way for a lot of the OEMs in being the example of you know how to run a certification and how to support your shop. So it's been amazing. Lance bennett runs an amazing program, uh, and he's knowledgeable, I think, in in some of these programs. It's getting better now, but for for a long time you know people that would come out and look at it. They didn't really know what they were looking at and you know now.
Speaker 2:Now the you know there's, there's, uh more than a handful of people that are really knowledgeable, and you know Lance Bennett takes a lot of pride in his program. So it's been wonderful to work with both programs. You know I've had the honor of being on their collision council for both and you know I see what they're working on behind the scenes, I see what they really care about and you know they're thinking about what they really care about and, uh, you know they they're thinking about everything they're thinking about. You know their future. They're thinking about our future. You know we're looking at ways to help the shop in which I I haven't seen from any certification.
Speaker 2:Um, you know some new stuff coming out that you know it'll come out when it comes out, but they're they're doing some really innovative stuff and I think that's how we have to think too. So I mean, we mentioned parts, and so did I and I. Just, you said it. That's great that they're focusing on it, but they're financially motivated to do it now, everybody, because if they don't, they're going to, you know, they're going to continue to follow the trends with the other OEMs and lose car sales, but then they're going to lose their part sales too. So this behooves everybody, and I've always when I need something. You know, a lot of times when I say, hey, this is my problem, will you help me? It doesn't always get me that far. But when I say this is your problem, that I see and can I you? Um, you know it now. Now it's, it's identified in another way and I think they understand that this is their problem. And, uh, there's, there's a lot of them now that are really focusing on it and they're going to put a lot more teeth in the certifications, which I'm so tired of seeing, certifications that are just a participation award. You put a black on the wall, but, right, who even knows how to look up a procedure? So I'm loving where that direction is going.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned Mike Anderson. I mean, he's been a wonderful mentor and you know, I'm very proud to be a Spartan. You're right, we do hold ourselves to a higher standard. But should that be the bar? Or, you know, is there a way to bring you know? You know, okay, maybe we may be up here and they meet down there like, is there a way to help bring them up? And you know, I'm the first one to educate my next door, neighbor, competitor, because the more they know, the less I have to be the only one training the training the industry and or the insurance companies on what is it? What is appropriate when, when we look at a car?
Speaker 1:Right. I've always liked the phrase. You know the tide raises all ships. I know it sounds corny as hell, but I'll tell you what it's a fact you know. So if you're out there helping educate those around you, whether they have a collision shop or they're just part of the industry the more that that happens, the sharper everybody gets and that means the bar gets raised. The tide get raised gets raised on the quality of repairs that we're doing and, quite honestly, it should never slide back the other way. It should continue to improve, because they're not going to slow down on on how they build these cars. To a more specific point, the more technology that gets forced into these things for the OEM's reasons. You know they're trying to, whether it's safety or, you know, better mileage or lighter frames or whatever it is. They're driving towards their goals.
Speaker 1:We need to come along with them on the ride and be supportive right and help them guide them on some of those decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I agree with that. The problem with that, though, is, unfortunately, the tide does go both ways. So, you know, I'd say the worst behavior we tolerate becomes the standard, and right now, what I see you know the data that I've seen is we're not at the top of the roller coaster, we're already down the other side. So, when you look at severity, it's been shooting up for years and years and years, and now we're seeing severity drop. We're seeing labor hours drop, we're seeing all this stuff. Now, that is a negative trend, when we're still getting more complex repairs, where more and more cars have ADAS. We should still be seeing that climb, but uh, I believe that we're. We're starting to witness the beginning of a race to the bottom, and uh, when it when?
Speaker 2:Again, this is our business model, which is f and f, any, any, any partnership. That's an fnol disruptor, but the only other alternative is to partner with every insurance company, and when you do that now, the scorecard has never been so important, um or influential. You know, even a year ago, nobody was really even looking at it. But when you're, when you're running, uh, you know a majority, uh, majority, uh, drp dependent um business model. If you're not at the top, you're not getting any cards. I've talked to a lot of CEOs of a lot of these big shops and they've said the difference between first place and second or third place is I get everything to. I only get a few during the month. And the scary part about that is everybody kind of had to adjust to figure out okay, where's that, how do I get to 1,000 points on the scorecard out? Okay, where's that, how do I get to a thousand points on the scorecard? But then everybody else is trying to do the same thing too and has bills to pay and has all their staff. So now they have to figure out you know how they can come down a little bit on their, on their severity or their cycle time or whatever it is. And then now this person gets all the work, okay, but then, and this guy has none. So now he comes up and you're only as good as your last pitch. So it's going to keep driving down the standard of our industry and I'm really concerned about it.
Speaker 2:So you know I I ran in that environment for a lot of years. I was really successful and at the time you know it was, it was, you know, jumping into that now. One, uh, the partnerships are fewer far between. They're really hard, really hard to get now. They're taking people off, not adding people, except in very select markets. And two, you have to be so competitive that it's getting harder and harder to be profitable. So if we can get upstream of that and we can get that first notice of loss coming from somebody somebody else rather than the insurance who's going to refer their DRP program that just happened to pop up first on their list we can get it in. Take care of the customer, educate them, put the right parts on the car and we can maintain a very healthy profit margin.
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Speaker 1:If, deep down, you know it's time to make those improvements in your business, your personal life, that you've kicked down the road year after year. If you're tired of knowing there's a better version of you waiting to shine, but unsure of how to bring that version to light. If you're tired of wanting to enjoy a more successful business but not sure how to start. And if you don't want to go another 12 months without better results but you don't want to go it alone, then take the first step. It's super simple. Sometimes talking to the right person can make all the difference. Go to wwwrixelovercom contact and I'll set you up with a free consultation. Call with me to see if one-on-one coaching is right for you. Well, so you know to your point, the first notice of loss that is getting driven through the OEMs, through their apps, to all their connected cars, and is picking up on that through the apps.
Speaker 2:Is that still getting directed, though, to an insurance company first? Well, I mean, how does the insurance company get it? I mean, there may be some third party sometime down the road that could be, you know, apple or Google or whoever but for right now, how does that even get there? Somebody gets in an accident, doesn't know what to do. They call their insurance and they say, oh, try ABC Body Shop, because we have, you know, we warranty the work for life and you know it's a, is a, you know, enhanced service in efficiency and they can get you in right away. So that's when the customer calls.
Speaker 2:But, yes, it is picking up with the OEMs. It's not there yet, but they are aware now and they're spending a ton of dough. You know, some of some of these have sent out literally millions and millions of marketing emails just to talk and build and spend a lot of money developing their apps so that, uh, they can get ahead of that before the customer calls the insurance company. So that's that's how we get upstream of that. And, uh, they, they know again, they're going to lose a lot of money if it doesn't um get in, if it doesn't get in the certified center, they're not going to sell the oem parts.
Speaker 2:You know that it's the kpis are based on. Uh, a lot of them are apu, alternative parts usage. So you know I can't put 100 percent of the parts on card and expect to continue getting referrals. So, um, it's like which master do you want to serve? Serve Mentor of mine used to tell me, just because your butt's split in the middle doesn't mean it can be in two seats, and I think it's really true, so you've got to pick one. So I think that it's going to have more teeth. It's not there yet, but there's a ton of awareness and I've put just about all my eggs in that basket.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, if anybody's going gonna know how this is going, I'm gonna keep in touch with you on this, because you're gonna see that direction uh, probably a lot sooner. Uh, some others, but, um, now you guys are specifically, and I remembered um, I want to back up here a little bit so I had met your, uh, the owner of freeman uh diane, yeah, I met her on a bus.
Speaker 1:It's funny I sat next to her on a bus for CCG's event, had a great conversation. What a nice lady had a great conversation with her. You guys are specifically just Toyota and Lexus, correct?
Speaker 2:So Freeman Motors owns Freeman Toyota, freeman Lexus and Freeman Collision Center. I'm not a dealer guy. It took me a long time to wrap my head around the warp that I had to understand, like going from independent to to dealership. Um, I, I kind of live on my own island over here. I get along great with diana. I got all the autonomy in the world, you know. Then she's got her lane and I respect that. I got mine. But, yes, we only have those two dealerships. But now we have 19 OEM certifications. I just got a handshake on another one literally an hour ago, so that another one that's gonna be connected and restricted. So yeah, and we got you know, three more that we're in process in. So, and we got three more that we're in process in. So, yes, only two rooftops of dealerships, but we have Rivlin, we just finished Lucid, so a lot of these are, I mean, I would consider that heavily restricted, whereas only certain structural pieces are restricted.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, on some of the cars, no, the only reason I asked Jesse was that I know Toyota and Lexus, especially Lexus. They've been kind of a leader in the technology of cars and they've been heavily involved in collision repair aspect of it from an OEM for quite some time.
Speaker 1:And that's really where I was going with that question. But talking with Diana, she kind of explained how she had this beautiful body shop, you guys like 45,000 square foot collision center, right In a beautiful part of California. But she couldn't, really she couldn't get her hands around. How is this thing supposed to run? You know, she didn't have great quality management at that time. I think they were underutilized for such a big center and you came in, I believe, as a consultant, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:And ended up in the big seat there eventually, anyways, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was really aggressive and yeah, I mean this store opened in 2000. I'm the third person to run it and yeah, it was an interesting story. I mean some I can't even remember who reached out to me and said, hey, this, you know this lady's having an issue with her body shop. We talked to her and right away I liked her and but I could understand that I mean it was a mess. It had, uh, really good people. I mean this has all.
Speaker 2:This shop has always had the best reputation in town for quality and you know, I was born and raised in this town. Freedman's always back I thought you know where I work here about five, six, seven brand new cars myself. So I've always really liked Freeman. But yeah, there was some processes that there was a huge culture problem processes there. Yeah, I don't want to say too much about what had happened before but yeah, I walked into something that well, that was severely damaged and it took me about a year, year and a half, of really burning at both ends. But you know, since then I still have all the people on the back end I brought in. I still have the same two people, two estimators I brought into more, switched up the office manager and CSR and yeah, I mean it's been, it's been amazing. You know, ever since you know we've did the girls in the front, they did they got number one in the country for first initial contact. You know we get I said we can't even name them.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're always getting you know word of this stuff and, like you said, it's about Kaizen and continuous improvement and I'm the first one to tell you I got a ton more to improve. So I'm not trying to say that you know anybody, everybody that would see this, I'm sure is doing some operation or something better than me. Um, but I'm always trying to innovate and I'm and you know also the dealer world. When I came in it was it really surprised me? It was very regimented. Um, you know, in in the independents you're kind of looking at every spoke on the wheel. Uh, in the dealership world, I think they don't always understand that this can be a profit center. It's almost like some of these dealers open it up because it's neat to have a body shop, great place to funnel all your expenses into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some of them will bring in people from service or this or that. Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of good dealer shops out there that are better than me or really good, but there's still a lot of them that almost run it like a service department and what we do is so different, and they don't understand that this is our number one profit center. For the back end we have 250 people. So with great power comes great responsibility, and that's where also these others have to step up and that's where the industry or the insurance companies have to understand that we've made a considerable investment to train these people and you know um, it's, it's critical that that we're making sure that these cars are safe when they leave right and you do it right cost money and, uh, until we're the ones that collect the insurance premium every month.
Speaker 2:We're not an insurance company, somebody has to reimburse us to do that and we try to work good. We're not doing rtas, but you know we do have a lot of conversations that you know. We're told that. You know you guys are the only ones doing that and we use the mike anderson approach like do you believe it's required? Do you believe it's included? Is there a time study before? If not, what's it worth? So we try to avoid that whole debate like here look, we're just following the repair procedure says it has to be done. Okay, yeah, our both of our estimating systems say that it's. It's not included. Okay, ccc says that it's 2.3 hours or there's no time for it and we had to do this. It's in this. What do you think's fair hour and a half two hours, you know. So those are conversations that we're having literally every day. But I mean these estimators almost have to be like many paralegals these days to get paid because it's it's the insurance.
Speaker 2:The insurance adjusters have more pressure on them. The insurance companies you know the, the investors that you know everybody is is wanting their cut and it's, you know the the, you know what rolls downhill and it's, it's somebody. Somebody's got to shrink their margin and they don't want it to be them, but we don't get to raise our prices every year. You know our paint goes have gone up three times this year, substantially. Uh, labor I gotta keep. I mean all these people. They're like the bionic six million dollar men. Now that I have working for me because they have so much training, I lose one of those guys. I'm at hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, so we have to pay them right to stay.
Speaker 1:It doesn't get cheaper, it gets more expensive right and and that's going to continue to climb to it, just just the way everything else is. But the technology on cars, like we talked about, is it keeps changing. It's going to be more expensive. Parts are going to be more expensive, but technicians, which are at a premium right now because there's so few of them and there's still not tons of guys getting into this industry or gals getting into this industry, so retention is at an all-time high. So part of retention is culture and I know you're so strong on culture and we're going to talk about that in a second. But I know the other part of it is culture and I know you're so strong on culture and we're going to talk about that in a second. But I know the other part of it is pay. I mean these guys, I was a technician. I loved a couple places I worked and I worked really hard, but I know I wanted to get paid too for that work, you know. You know charity is great, but most technicians aren't big fans of charity. They want to get paid for what they're doing.
Speaker 1:And you know, in this industry for decades, as technicians, we never got paid for all the things we did. We did a lot of shit for free. We did what we had to do to get the car done and fixed correctly and a lot of times the insurance company wasn't paying for. You know, a third of the stuff that we did it's a little bit. You know it's a lot better now, but it's a little bit. It's a lot better now. But you know to the point, technicians want to make money, they want to stay busy. But that culture piece, is that something that you've just been doing like building blocks along the way? Or is this something that was part of you before you even got into Freeman, when you were still doing? You did some work at some other big box places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I've been asked that a lot and it's always been a passion of mine. I mean, positive morale is your best efficiency tool. If you've got 90% of the people 90% happy 90% of the time, you're going to get a lot more done. I have done a lot of continuing education on it. We've gotten a lot of exposure through all the groups that I'm in you know Discover, leadership and a lot of similar programs. But it's kind of been for me like I ran a real big shop for a long time and I was pretty strict and it worked for that era. But you know, I kind of rode that bus all the way to the end.
Speaker 2:And you know then I went into a really luxury environment and I realized that there was some people that I really didn't like working with, that I didn't think had very good attitudes sometimes or, you know, wouldn't take things that were important to me seriously. But I realized, like, when they die, like they'll never come back in again. I mean, these are people that could literally like not have to look up procedures to take a Lamborghini Aventador completely apart and put it back together. I mean, so that really taught me that, hey, it's not about me. And then you know, do I want to be right or do I want to get a result? It's not about me. And then you know, do I want to be right or do I want to get a result? And then you know, really, coming in here and seeing how damaged it was, and say, you know, I just identified what was missing. Uh, people didn't have a voice. Uh, when they did talk, they felt like, um, it was, uh, you know, something that was almost, almost frowned upon. They didn't, uh get a chance to help build the clubhouse that we're all hanging out in.
Speaker 2:So buy-in from my team is super important and the flexibility.
Speaker 2:So I think that's where and I've said this before on some other stuff, but I think you know the independents and you know even smaller MSOs that really have their finger on the pulse.
Speaker 2:I think we have a much greater opportunity to pivot because, you know, I see so many of these, these big ones that are kind of this Midwest cookie cutter deal, where it's a one-size-fits-all and and I and it takes so long for a problem to resonate up to the top and there's so many blockers along the way that actually prevent it from getting there and they don't know until they look at a market and go how come everybody's quitting over here?
Speaker 2:So I think that being flexibility on dumb stuff like hey, you know, can I take one Friday off a month because of my church wants to do something, or my kids got this game, or you know it's like hey, I know nobody else does, but can I come in at six and leave it too because my wife got a new job, or whatever it is like I work really hard to say yes and it's, it's something that really costs no money. Uh, it takes brain damage sometimes to figure out how to do it, but at the end of the day we're not less efficient and most of the times we're more uh, because they're engaged and they and you know, I'll tell them hey, as long as we're getting it done and we don't see an effect of this, we can make it happen, and then they have some skin in the game and in the process and and making sure that it's effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that, jesse, because lack of ego or lack of having an ego at work, whatever position you're in can allow that free flowing of you know being able to work together. And position you're in can allow that free-flowing of you know being able to work together and you know creating the right kind of atmosphere and the right kind of culture in a shop. I've been in a lot of shops where the owner or the manager was hey, this is about me, this is what I say, this is how we're doing it and that's it. You know, I don't want to hear any shit, just you know.
Speaker 1:And those type of cultures end up getting more and more toxic and they drive away good quality help and all it takes is hey, dude, I'm here to work with you what works best for you. And I know a lot of old school guys are like, no, that shouldn't be how it is. But, quite honestly, they've got the power, to a certain point, of being a good quality tech. You've got to cater to them a little bit. But it's not so much catering, it's making them comfortable and happy where they're working, because you're going to spend what? 60% of your time at work, right, so might as well be happy there, might as well be comfortable, might as well enjoy it. And then you know when the big wins come. You know you're part of something exciting and that only comes from a shop that's got good culture to me, from what I see.
Speaker 2:so yeah, I mean you. You said, hey, it's my way, or the highway, get it done. You know, whatever I, I ran that for a while and it worked. It worked every everybody's making a ton of money. But really what I learned is I was just the lesser of two evils at that time and you know there was still more that they were getting that they wouldn't get on the other side of the fence, but it didn't make them feel good.
Speaker 2:Emotions are expensive at work. That's why I always got to ask myself do I want to be right or do I want to get a result? I want to get a result. Back in the day, somebody would have said something like are you effing kidding me? Are we really talking about this right now? Or they'd get mad and say something and I'd fire back because of ego. And now I say things like okay, well, uh, I hear the words and we can get into that, uh.
Speaker 2:But I'm more concerned about the feeling, because there's an emotion behind that. What's bothering you where before I'd say where's your big boy? P-a-n-t-i-e-s. You know what I mean. It's like so and it's one of the things. I'm not a very patient person, but it's one of the things where I use the most energy units because, you know, a lot of these people are conflict averse, they don't like someone in their face. You know, the technician skill set is not a socially out there skill set, so it's even more damaging to that type of skill set. So, you know, I, just for me, I have to slow down and be really patient and I have to. You know, whether I want to or not. It's not like white knuckle, fake it till you make it Like I really have to find a way to care about what they care about.
Speaker 1:You know the younger generations. They're a little bit different emotionally and how they process stuff and how they want to be treated. In my day it didn't matter. You just showed up, you did your work and that was it. You didn't get your feelings hurt too easy. But it's a lot different so you have to be able to adapt to that as an employer. There's not a bunch of boomers that are going to come back now and want to work in the shops. They're done, they're retiring, their knees are shot, their backs are shot. You know they're not coming back. So kudos to you for utilizing, you know, the knowledge and the education that you've got and made those changes in culture. And I know you went through Discover Leadership and learned a little bit more about pushing past comfort zones, and it takes getting out of comfort zone to be successful in whatever business you're running.
Speaker 2:And that's part of it. That's part of it. But you know, anybody that's going well, I don't know if I can do that, or it's intimidating, or they think someone's like oh, this, you know, this is too rosy and perfect. Like, just so we're clear. Like, oh, this is too rosy and perfect, just so we're clear. I screw up. Every day I go out of my way to own it. When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:Yes, discomfort is about getting out of your comfort zone, but it's also about understanding how to take your own score. When we go to, when we go to bed at night, it's, you know, it's something that I learned to do after after doing, after getting my pilot's license, like running through the flight and then redoing it. But at the end of every day I kind of run through all the important conversations I had or anything that happened. And if I'm really honest with myself, most days I don't get a 10. Some days I really what to bet? So um, but but understanding that if I take my score and I'm honest with myself, and if I got a two today, if I really blew it, you know I only gotta carry that for that day.
Speaker 2:If I, I, I, it's my choice to wake up the next day and have a zero. Okay, I, I I haven't done anything right, I haven't done anything wrong, but I got a chance to earn a 10. And same thing too. If I have a great day and I did everything right, I can't just walk in here tomorrow still living off that I'm only as good as my last pitch. Right, I got to go tomorrow and earn another one, or if I don't, then I got to look at it and go, man, I should handle, handled it that way. Honestly, I've got to do that all the time.
Speaker 2:I'm not perfect. I don't think that anybody is. I probably screw up more than most people, but what I try to be really good about is seeing it when I do, and I don't always see it. If I can't see it, then hearing it when they bring it to my attention. If somebody says I don't like the way they went yesterday I got to be open to hear that.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's where you can't have an ego. That's where you got to go. It's not. You know, some people go like you can't talk to your boss like that. I don't look at it like that. Like I look at it like I don't, I don't want to be the boss. I think if you have to, when you go into an environment and sometimes you can't tell who the boss is, I think that's the best culture and I think that they have to be receptive when I'm asking for something and that sort of has to swing exactly the same amount the other way, and I don't like to think of myself as their boss. I like to look at myself as their career partner.
Speaker 1:That's a better choice. I like that career partner, and you're not there all the time either. You travel a lot. You've got a lot of things that you have to attend, a lot of meetings.
Speaker 2:I'm out of my box twice a month and I'm really involved in the industry and you know that's how I learn. You know from, like I told you before, there's so many people that do do things better than me, and that's you know. I get it out and you know it doesn't matter whether it's a $100,000 a month box or a $2 million a month box. Everybody has a process that any of us can go in and look and go wow, that's cool, who thought of that? Even in the shops where you wouldn't fix your car there, where you walk in and you're like I don't know, you could look at something and be like, well, that's actually pretty neat. We can learn from everybody and, like Mike Jones, we talked about Discover Again, you know, if we're listening with the intent to be influenced rather than the intent to defend, we will see something if we choose to be open-minded.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah you can learn from just about anybody and I know.
Speaker 1:Part of that too is one of the things I was going to talk about briefly is proximity right. So you're attending meetings and things like Mike Anderson's Collision Advice, his Spartan group, those meetings. You attend CCG, which is another powerful group and you know, being part of what Lexis has got going on or Trio has got going on with their training and development stuff. To me that's proximity right. So you're around other, you know higher level thinking people that are trying to obviously improve their part of the game and that stuff. Just, man, it's so powerful to be around that you can't help but learn and then try to be better at what you're doing. So I applaud those shops. Like yourself, I'm part of that.
Speaker 2:I had a mentor that used to say mud hands fly with mud hands and mallards fly with mallards. So, like you said, it is really. It is really powerful. I mean you get around like I. I don't want to be the most confident person in the room, like most of the time. I'm not like you walk in, sometimes it's intimidating because you see their shop or you know you watch their success along the way too. So I mean that that's where we want to be. We want to be around people that are always challenging us and bringing and being a mallard not a mudhead and bringing us down.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, that's right, love, that I want to switch gears here real quick. We're going to get short on time really fast. It flies by man. But I was at a conference not that long ago. Ryan Taylor was doing a presentation Our buddy, ryan Taylor. Love that guy? He was getting into AI and Body Shop Boost. I'm sorry, what did you say?
Speaker 2:I said our brother from another for sure. Yeah, he was a dude.
Speaker 1:He was getting into the Body Shop booster and and, uh, some of his ai stuff and and he used your shop as an example live. So I know he told you about that, but I'll tell you what man I was. I was so impressed with what is capable. Now, um, so I you know. I just for the people that haven't seen that and don't know what I'm talking about how are you guys leveraging AI in your business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Ryan's been a godsend. I mean he picks on me a lot. We'll do some speaking events together or one more, something he knows I can handle it. He knows I can reduce admin workload and, even more than that, meet a need of our today customer. That isn't really reasonable, the expectation that our customer has today. It's very, very hard to meet that with human beings. They want everything right now. Their attention span is something I don't know. Ryan knows the math, but it's something like eight seconds. If you're on one of those chat widgets and you're literally not just waiting at your screen for somebody to start texting you, you'll miss it and in eight seconds their attention span is gone and they're moving on to the next.
Speaker 2:So getting AI that's really clever to help communicate with them and after our support, I mean we're almost up to like 50% of our little less than 50. It's like 46 or 47 now, but almost half the accidents are happening outside of business hours and there's a reason for that. So one out of every two cars is happening when our shops close. So you know there's there's some people that are, uh, doing this different ways, but we've got to find ways to get the customer. So I've used my, after I was ai phone support. That's what you heard, um, that's that, as you, as you, as you saw, it's super intuitive, uh, and it's mind-blowing. It can set up toes, it can, uh, you know, it'll send somebody a link for the estimate now that where another ai is going to give an estimate 90 seconds, it'll help them book appointments, it'll do everything and it gives them, um, control over their experience, which has been something that, uh, you know that their experience, which has been something that you know that I've seen in some data, is that they think people want more of a personalized experience.
Speaker 2:My can't really good at getting a lot of this data, and that's that's where a lot of that is that has come from, and it, then, you know, that's that's the benefit of getting out and getting in these groups and seeing this stuff is understanding was driving it rather than I think or I feel. So I always say liars, figure, figures don't lie. You know, data, data is is a critical tool when you're, when you're looking at what a I use, or what process do you need, or or where, where are my holes, uh, within my market, and uh, and measuring them. I mean, you know the big one that I talked about somewhere else was capture rate. So shops are now measuring their capture rate Not all of them, but more than a lot more than in 2023, when nobody needed one more job and everybody's drinking through the fire hose.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But they're still doing it wrong. One, when they're measuring capture rate, they're not measuring everything. So if people walk in a lot of times, they don't record that. Or if somebody would be a quote-unquote waste of time or a tire kicker, whatever, that's still something you need to monitor because it may or may not be a waste of time. It could be that somebody didn't have enough training to understand it. You know what information, uh, they needed to know. But also measuring was what's that wasn't with something.
Speaker 2:What everybody's not doing right is measuring initial first contact.
Speaker 2:So when you have about half of the people that call your shop will never come in for an estimate and that's data that I've seen, that I trust.
Speaker 2:So when you look at all the marketing we're doing now, we're looking at maybe DRPs that you bring on you got to give discounts or we look at certifications we got to buy tools and buy training and then we finally get somebody that calls or texts it or however they try to communicate, and if one out of two is going to call our shop and not like the personalities, not feel confident, not understand our certification, not get back to them soon enough, then I mean you can put as much water as you want in a colander, but it's still all going to come out.
Speaker 2:And I think that's where shops really have an opportunity is getting that data, and we use AI for that as well. So we can go back and say what is our real capture rate. Getting that data and we use AI for that as well. So we can go back and say what is our real capture rate. So, if you're at 80% and you think you're getting eight out of 10 jobs, you may be at the counter, but you're probably getting more like four out of 10 of what you should be getting, because you lost half of them to get there.
Speaker 1:No, I would agree with that, jesse. I don't think people capture really all their points of contact that are missed or blown or whatever, where AI is going to do a much better job of tracking that stuff. So have you had comments from any of your customers going hey, I, you know, I know that was AI, but man, it was so nice, it was so quick, it was so easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's uh. We started kind of serving the customers when they came and asked him about that process. Good, and a lot of more people have been here before and they're like, wow, that's new, that was really cool. And yeah, there's times too where, you know, in the beginning there was a few things that needed to be trained, but that's going to happen with anything. So that's what I really like about Ryan is I can literally call him and go hey, I wanted to say this now, or I wanted to, I wanted to train it to do this or this or this. So it's, uh, really flexible and it's not a cookie cutter business model, because each shop is different. We have different certifications, we have different uh hours, we have different ways we process stuff and you know that that software, specifically uh is is very customizable and there may be others that are out there.
Speaker 2:I haven't spent a ton of time looking at other stuff. I have seen a lot of the big ones and they are not as flexible with what I want to need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think Ryan's part alien. Yeah, so that's.
Speaker 2:I think that's got some. He's Canadian so I think it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Hey, Jesse, I appreciate the conversation. I could talk for another hour and probably next time I see you we'll talk for another hour, but, as I wrap up, anything else that you wanted to cover that I haven't asked about yet I know I had a lot of stuff I wanted to ask and I think we're focusing on everything really critical right now, which is figure out where your work's coming from.
Speaker 2:If you're a DRP model I really work hard on scorecard. I mean that's your choice, your business model if you're not drp, you're not certified. There's some of those shops out there understand that you're going to have, you're going to have oems pulling out here having a ladle in your bucket and you're going to have drps having a ladle in your bucket too. So you know it. For whatever, whatever we decide, we got to pick something and uh, in my mind there's only two. And then, yeah, look and be open to look at other processes. Uh, be flexible with your staff and, and don't be afraid of ai. Um, you know you still have a chance to be, uh, somewhat of a early adopter and still be able to have a voice in what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Join the club. It's not a bad thing, it's nothing to be afraid of. It is out of my comfort zone too. I mean, it's not what I do. I much prefer the old way, but you know there's so many benefits and you know the people that we hire want it and the customers that are coming in now like the boomers there's fewer of those and a lot more.
Speaker 2:uh, gen x and gen z's I mean we, we, um, are millennials and and gen z's. So you know, as they come in, they're more techie, they want to talk less, they're more socially reserved, um, and we just we got to adapt or we don't. We don't, and you know, we just will be one of those people that's like I look at it, like the guy Joe Dirt that only sells snakes. Right, okay, I know you like snakes and you want to sell them. That's great, but people don't like snakes anymore. So we got to start selling other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:I would agree.
Speaker 1:I so, for everybody tuned in, I've been talking with jesse parks, the managing director of freeman collision, out in santa rosa, california, from my view, one of the shops on the top, but still growing, still climbing, which is what I love to see. So we're never done, we never really hit the top. We're always finding another plateau, another new part of the mountain to hit. So, jesse, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. I'll leave some show notes. It's got some contact information for Jesse If you want to reach out to him. He's a wealth of information and he's never afraid or never too shy to share it with anybody that asks. Yeah, just great guy, and I'm glad I got a chance to talk with you and get you on the show today. Thank you so much 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've been trying to put this together for a while now and, yeah, it's been great to talk to you and I appreciate you thinking of me and it's an honor to be here, Thanks.
Speaker 1:Rick, you got it. You're welcome and I look forward to seeing you again, probably at one of the next conferences. Yeah, and it's SEMA for sure. Nothing else. Sema for sure. Absolutely, you got it. Well, hopefully you enjoyed my in-depth conversation with Jesse Parks at Freeman Collision, maybe learned a little bit about what it takes to build a winning culture, how growth can come from getting uncomfortable and leveraging AI to get a leg up in your business. You can always reach out to Jesse if you want to ask him a question. He's always willing to help others. I'll leave all of his contact information in the show notes. Well, that's all I had for you today. Thanks again for tuning in. I really appreciate your support and I hope you have a great week. I can always be reached at wwwrickselovercom, where you can find all my social media links podcast episodes, blog posts and much more.
