U-R-G On the Go
An informative podcast for the United Recyclers Group. Each week we will feature an entertaining guest that will share their knowledge and information with you, providing you with tips and tools to help you become a more profitable business.
U-R-G On the Go
Unlocking Success: Amber Kendrick on Revolutionizing Pete's Auto Parts Through Innovation and Networking
Are you ready to unlock the secrets behind a successful family-run business in the automotive recycling industry? Join us as we sit down with Amber Kendrick from Pete's Auto Parts, who shares an intriguing story of resilience, innovation, and collaboration. Discover how Pete's Auto Parts, founded by Amber’s grandfather in the 1950s, transformed from a towing service to a flourishing auto parts enterprise under her father’s leadership. Learn about their strategic adoption of advanced inventory systems and the pivotal role of the United Recyclers Group (URG) in their business evolution.
Amber's personal journey in the family business is both inspiring and instructive. She takes us through her early days in the warehouse, her detour into the financial sector, and her eventual return to Pete’s with a newfound passion for small business growth. Hear how Amber's continuous learning and commitment to business consulting propelled her through various roles, culminating in her position as general manager. Her emphasis on valuing employees, promoting from within, and fostering loyalty offers invaluable lessons for anyone in a family business or interested in small business management.
Networking is more than just a buzzword for Amber—it’s a cornerstone of her business strategy. In this episode, she shares insightful tips on leveraging industry connections and technologies to enhance operations. Learn from Amber's experiences with major industry players and the benefits of attending conferences, participating in mentor programs, and engaging with professional groups. Amber also highlights the importance of work-life balance and self-care for sustained productivity and well-being. Don’t miss out on Amber’s actionable advice and the strategic growth approach that has made Pete's Auto Parts a hallmark of success in the automotive recycling industry.
welcome one and all. You are there and we are here. This is, of course, you know, the urg on the go podcast, the true voice of the automotive recycling industry. We do our best each and every episode, amanda morrison and I, to bring you new, informative information to help you improve your business. And we have Chuck Camp in the studio, brian doing the recording. Today, I'm DJ Harrington, better known as the cardiologist, and, of course, the one and only Amanda Morrison, who is the director of member and vendor relationships at URG. Amanda, how are you today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great, DJ. How are you?
Speaker 1:I am excellent and I'm excited because we have a dear friend of mine. I've watched this young lady grow up and become a very successful businesswoman. I got married, the whole thing. I've known her family. I've known her since she was in high school. A real gift to our industry. This will be a great one.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. Yes, we have Amber Kendrick from Pete's Auto Parts here and we are so excited to learn a little bit more about her and what she's done for this industry. I met her when I first started, I believe five years ago, and she was a speaker and was just a fantastic presence at all the conferences that I go to. She's always willing to help anyone and really help them with what they're doing and honing on their processes, and I really am happy to have you on here, amber. I'd like to introduce you. Can you tell us about Pete's?
Speaker 3:Thanks so much for having me, dj and Amanda. I'm excited to talk to you guys today and, yeah, I'd love to talk about Pete's it's one of my favorite topics.
Speaker 3:My grandpa Pete, started the business in the fifties. He was a struggling farmer. He was trying to make ends meet and so he put together a tow truck to tow vehicles on the side. You know, he'd farm all day and then he'd tow vehicles at night and he ended up with a motley collection of old cars from his towing business and eventually the township came to him and said, hey, we need you to do something about all these cars that are sitting here. Back in the 50s. A lot of times the vehicles wouldn't even be worth the money to pay the tow and to get them out of the lot. So he decided to get a salvage permit in the early 1950s and Pete's Auto Parts was kind of born 1956.
Speaker 3:And my dad grew up towing vehicles and towing was a bigger part of the business than the auto parts. But my dad really enjoyed the auto parts part and he didn't enjoy so much the, you know, being woken up in the middle of the night having to go tow people out of ditches. He bought half the business from my grandpa in the 70s and the other half in the 80s and then he closed down the towing portion just to focus on salvage. So by the time I came around. You know there was no towing, it was just auto parts. I came into the business when we were on auto info the old, old computer system, and converted to Pinnacle, which was kind of my first experience with URG.
Speaker 3:And then eventually from Pinnacle to Pinnacle Professional. Of course, then URG members. I think I can't. I don't know how long, but I know it's been decades.
Speaker 2:We'll have to look back. Yeah, no, you guys have been a great part of URG and so helpful to you know. Be a part of that network and really helping recyclers as well. I feel like you're so good at educating and helping other recyclers and posting on the forum as well. I feel like that's such a key piece of the industry and making sure that your name is out there as well.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for saying that. Yeah, I definitely learned from my dad that other recyclers are not our competitors. Our competitors are the new and the aftermarket parts and that when recyclers win, we all win. You know he used to say a rising tide raises all ships and that you know, when recyclers work together and help each other and we can get more of the parts on the estimate and more of the parts you know used to fix a vehicle used versus the newer aftermarket, everyone wins and he really built Pete's catering to other salvage yards as well. You know he was one of the founding members of the Midwest Automotive Recyclers Group.
Speaker 3:He was one of the founding members of the Midwest Automotive Recyclers Group and back then it's one of the groups that kind of eventually folded into being Team PRP.
Speaker 3:But back then it was a small group but we drove a truck to Chicago every night to meet up with the group and it was kind of the beginnings of the trucking system were happening in Michigan at the same time they were happening in Texas down with another group and he really found that by broadening, you know, by catering to those recyclers, it seemed like back in the day a lot of recyclers would do a good job like cleaning their parts and being quick when they were selling to the end user, to the body shops and garages, but not so much when they were selling to other recyclers. Well, if it's just for another recycler I can send that engine greasy, you know, and Pete's kind of adopted the philosophy that, like our recyclers can be our best customers and we still sell about 50% of our parts to other recyclers and that's of course, you know, hugely helped through Team PRP and the trucking system. But we try to, you know, treat recyclers just like any other customer.
Speaker 2:Definitely. That's amazing and you've been able to kind of connect through the URG Net Control Center, correct. That's kind of what I think you had posted about recently on Facebook.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think a lot of us Pete's definitely did so well during COVID when there were some supply shortages and you know our phones were just ringing off the hook, that it almost got easy there for a while.
Speaker 3:And now I've kind of seen the market start to turn and it's a little tougher out there to get those calls, get those sales, get those parts sold. And so I started looking at all the areas that I could maximize and I realized that one of the things I hadn't done in a long time is go through my control center at that urgsalesupportcom and see who am I tiering, who shouldn't I be tiering, who should I be tiering. And I was really surprised to learn that, unlike a lot of other sites, urg encourages you to tier a lot of partners and doesn't restrict and say oh, you can only tier four people or you can only tier within certain number of days or certain number of miles. I can tier parts from all my team TRP partners if I want to, and that's just going to get more parts on the estimate.
Speaker 3:It's not as powerful for the common parts, right? Like if I look up a door for a Tahoe, I have one in stock. My closest competitors Morris, rose, weller, schramm, they all have them in stock and so when I tier their parts on that door I'm probably not going to sell their parts on that common part. Right, I'm going to sell the one I have, but the uncommon parts, the one-offs and the real late model stuff and parts that we don't necessarily buy, cars that are much older than we usually deal with or cars that are brand new, especially, we're finding that we're getting on more estimates and we're getting more sales by adding a lot more partners on that URG net.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, that's phenomenal. We love to hear that. We love to hear whenever the benefits are really working for you and you're able to actually take advantage of those and see the performance of them and see the real ROI for it.
Speaker 3:So that's great to hear from you so how did you start out at the yard?
Speaker 2:I kind of want to hear about what position you started out as and how you got so educated. Obviously, your father was very educated in the industry and sounds like a very smart man, but how did you kind of decide you wanted to go that route?
Speaker 3:Well, I was stuck doing all the worst jobs as a lot of owners' kids are.
Speaker 3:When I was young, so when I was in high school, I would be, you know, auditing a rack in the warehouse. You know it's August and I'm on the third floor and it's, you know, 100 degrees up there and I'm going through door mirrors. You know auditing a rack, and they'd say, oh, amber, we have a delivery for you, oh, we need you to go do this, oh, we need you to go do that, and they'd kind of pull me off whatever I was doing to take care of what needed to be done. And so it wasn't like a huge surprise that I really wasn't that interested in the business college. I thought I'll never work at Pete's again. I don't want to deal with all that.
Speaker 3:It's hot it's dirty, it's not fun for me and I ran screaming from a family business and I went to college at Alma in Central Michigan. I got a degree in English with a minor in American Studies, which there's not a lot of jobs that that qualifies you for. It's a little bit of a useless degree, but I did learn so much in college and I still do use, you know, the communication skills I gained in my English degree for sure.
Speaker 3:After I graduated from college, I went to work for a company called Giroux Management. That was a condominium management company. I was the financial manager, I paid all the taxes and paid all the bills for the condominium associations. But what I also did was I would do monthly summaries for the condominium associations and the person who did the job before me would just say you know, basically we took in this much money and this much money went out with this very short cover letter. Well, as you can probably tell, I'm not a I'm a long-winded person, I'm not a very concise person. So I would write these long cover letters describing everything that happened, you know, instead of just a financial statement saying that there was, you know, $10,000 spent in maintenance. I'd say which units they power, washed the decks on and which units are scheduled for the next year and a lot of these condo associations it's older people that you people that really enjoyed reading the cover letters and my boss took those letters to other condo associations and we doubled the business in a year. We just grew like crazy, kind of using that model that we're going to give you all the information you want and need. It was wonderful, but I also created all this extra work for myself. When I went to my boss and said I wanted to raise, he was kind of reticent about it, even though we were raising all this money. And I realized then that I really loved growing small business but that I wanted to either work for myself or work for a business that would appreciate my efforts and really drive me forward, and that is a lesson I've never forgotten. With my own employees I try really hard to make sure that I value their time and their efforts and their work, and at Pete's we don't have an annual review where you're only eligible for a raise at this one time a year. We try to give raises and bonuses based on people's performance, and that's definitely something that came from that experience of going to work for someone else that wasn't in the industry, that wasn't related to it, but that experience led me to want to be involved in small business and I went to my dad's manager at the time and said, hey, if there's ever a spot for me at Pete, I'm interested in coming back. And he said well, guess what? There is a spot. We've been talking about replacing the office manager. So I came into Pete's working in the front office for probably six months and really cleaned up a lot.
Speaker 3:One of the things that was going on at that time. That was like 2006,. They were doing most of the accounting out of house. They'd pay their bills but just bring the accountants boxes of paperwork showing the accounting stuff and that accountants were really spending a lot of time and cost to handle the accounting that really could be done in-house. So I moved that all in-house saved us a bunch of money. That was going pretty well. And then our shipping manager at the time worked four days a week and it really needed to be a five dayday-a-week position and so I ended up replacing myself in the office and going to work in shipping and I was the shipping manager for a year and a half and that was a great experience.
Speaker 3:I really learned parts, learned the back end of the business and how important it is, and that's definitely been a focus of mine throughout my career is I'm definitely heavy on the production and distribution side of things. So eventually I just worked my way up to became the production manager and then the general manager and at that time I was going to a lot of the Counts business consulting meetings. My dad had been in a Jim Counts group and then a Robert Counts group, and when I became the general manager he started taking me along to those meetings. I really enjoyed growing the business and learning, just soaking it all up, and at those meetings I would get so much education from the other recyclers and then also suggestions on what I needed to educate myself on go, seek out, you know, and find and do differently. I worked at Pete's until 2012.
Speaker 3:And then I had kind of gone to my dad like told him I wanted to not just work in the business, I wanted to eventually own a piece of the business, and he wasn't sure if I was the right person for the job yet, which I get. Looking back at the time, that was really hurtful to me because I was working so hard in the business. But looking back, you know I was a. I was a hard partier at the time. I worked hard and I played hard and he had a son that he had some hopes for in the business.
Speaker 3:Now my brother's gone on to do other things. He owns his own garage, but at the time my dad just didn't know and so I took a different job. I left. I took a job as the general manager of American Auto Parts in Omaha, nebraska, and I went with my dad's blessing. I said I want to go without your blessing, but it was an opportunity to make a lot more money. I was working really hard for a really low salary as a lot of people do when they're working for their family.
Speaker 3:So I was offered a lot more money to go learn somewhere from someone else, and that was just a priceless experience. I absolutely loved working for Peter Fink.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't. I can imagine that that would be a good experience just being able to kind of get out of the world of where you're at and being able to see how another yard is being run. That's probably key.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and, like I said, pete's really caters to a lot of other recyclers and our sales are half to other recyclers. Our brokered sales at the time were really low, and so American Auto Parts was an opportunity to go learn from a business that sold a ton of brokerage they sold 60% of their sales were brokered. They sold a lot of remanufactured product, and so that was really really fascinating to learn about. And also the business is owned by Peter Fink, who also owns Certified Transmissions.
Speaker 3:They're the third largest transmission remanufacturer in North America. He had hundreds of employees reporting to him and American Auto Parts was just a drop in the bucket, you know. And so I would go to these monthly manager meetings where I would sit with all the managers of the certified stores in the factory warehouse and really all that I needed to do was answer for my P&L. I needed to drive the P&L, show good numbers on the P&L, and I was called out on the carpet if the numbers weren't good and it was silent if the numbers were good.
Speaker 3:Right is sort of the culture. Not that Peter didn't encourage me and support me in many ways he did. But in at the meetings, you know, basically like yeah, that was a sink or swim time and that really taught me a lot about driving the business forward and I learned so much from the other managers and from attending those kind of high level meetings. So that was a huge learning experience. Two years at American Auto Parts and then I went to work for Zane at H&H Auto Parts right after he bought the Loveland Colorado store.
Speaker 3:And so I came in and kind of cleaned up and got things inventoried the Loveland Colorado branch of H&H Auto Parts, which they've continued to grow and expand and that's just a really wonderful business.
Speaker 3:And that was a huge education in multi-site stores. And for a long time I had a dream of owning multiple salvage yards and I gave that dream up because I felt like one salvage yard is enough for me and I can just focus on one location. Zane does a beautiful job of it and there's a lot of people who are really good at the multi-site. But I just have found that there's so many moving pieces and you can't be in two places at once and some people are good at juggling that and I found it stressful. So that was also a really awesome learning experience for me working with the H&H crew. And then I went and worked for Raz for a while. I helped recyclers sell their cores to Rebuilders Automotive Supply, and then my dad called and said hey, I'm ready, I'm ready to sell the business. And so we worked out the deal and I moved back to Michigan and I bought the business January 1st 2016.
Speaker 2:Very cool. That is a phenomenal story. Wow, you have so much experience just in the industry. I didn't realize that you had worked kind of all over and even in cores as well. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:The really neat thing about working in cores is that I got to tour so many facilities. I got to go through over a hundred salvage yards in the United States and Canada and it's so much fun. Anybody who's been to other yards to look around knows that it's so exciting to see how people do things differently than you and how many ideas you get just from seeing their racks or the custom welded forks they made for their forklift to move something or whatever it is. The wheel stands, whatever it is. There's so much to learn from our peers. Yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you say that because I agree, I feel like every yard has something custom that they've created to kind of help them organize and or dismantle, and it's cool to go to each one and see the differences.
Speaker 1:For sure, let's take a break, though I agree We'll take a break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 4:The URG Scholarship Foundation was founded in 2014 in honor of individuals who give their talent, time and, very often, their own finances to ensure the growth and success of the automotive recycling industry. We understand college is not for everyone, so each year the foundation offers substantial financial scholarships to auto recycling employees and the children of employees that are attending four-year and technical or trade schools, to assist with their education. Don't leave money on the table. If you have a child or if you're interested in attending Continuing Education, this money is available to you. Go to u-r-gcom and click on the Scholarship Foundation tab. Urg keeping our industry strong through education.
Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. Of course you know you're listening to URG On the Go podcast Each and every week. We do our best to bring you informative episodes like the one with Amber from Peets. By all means. We're available on Spotify, itunes, pandora, stitcher, iheartmedia, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1:And, amanda, I have to tell you, I told Skip Weller when we were going to visit Pete's. It was on one of the Michigan. The state of Michigan has an annual convention and then they go and visit Three Yards Out of all of the places. You go and watch Amber's shipping and receiving department and it will revolutionize Weller's. And it exactly what I said happened. Skip Weller came and was thoroughly impressed with Amber, just like all of our listeners are now. This is one very gifted lady and her English is so well. She writes the articles for the Michigan Association newsletter and it is phenomenal. And we're trying to get her to do more and more for Toolbox Magazine and hopefully down the road she will. She's a very gifted writer and a gifted person. So without further ado, amanda, I'll pass it over to you to interview Amber. Thank you, dj. Yes, I completely agree to you to interview Amber.
Speaker 2:Thank you, dj. Yes, I completely agree. We've got a special guest here, amber. She has just done phenomenally through this industry and been such a great add and educating recyclers. Amber, I was going to ask if you were to give any advice to recyclers new recyclers coming into the industry. What would you tell them?
Speaker 3:Well, I guess I could reference back to the yard tours we were just talking about, as it's so powerful to go see how other people do things. So I would say, don't be afraid to ask other recyclers how they do things and to ask for invitations to their yard. There are so many open people who are willing to share. I know many URG members will open their doors for other recyclers and I know the ARA has a mentor program as well to pair new recyclers with more experienced recyclers. There are just a ton of resources out there and it's amazing how much you just learn from being around other recyclers. And for many years, whenever I would take a vacation, I would look up and see where the nearest recyclers were and I'd drop in and see their place and just stop by and say, hey, I own a yard in Michigan. Will you show me around? And invariably they always do. People are always so excited to show you their hard work, just like you would be to show off yours.
Speaker 2:Definitely Yep, I completely agree. I feel like during conferences too, I feel like if you go to your state conferences a lot of times, they'll have the yard tours as well, and some people skip out on those, and I feel like that's sometimes the best learning experience is being able to see how other yards function and how they process and even get tips and tricks from other owners. So I completely agree with that. What do you think one of the best parts about the conferences? So URG conference in particular what do you think the best part about going to that conference would be?
Speaker 3:Boy, it's hard to pick just one thing, because I love the conferences so much and I do learn so much. I love going to the sessions and then and one thing I try to do is I try to go to the sessions that aren't videotaped, because I know I can watch the videotaped sessions later on my computer and I can always go back and watch old sessions and I do that like I'll pull up and look for the old URG speaker tapes and go through those occasionally and it's such a great resource. But I often learn just as much in the bar as I do in the boardroom and it's amazing the conversations that are had. I would encourage anyone going to the PRP URG conference to not skip the social hours and to set aside some time just to chat with people, because you just never know who you're going to run into and what, what they're going to share or how it's going to change your business when you're open to it and when you're curious and ask questions.
Speaker 2:Definitely Yep, I completely agree. Do you? Do you guys end up bringing any of the employees to these conferences at all for training purposes? We do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, I've brought sales people for many years and I brought salespeople last year as well, and I will continue to bring salespeople because it's just such a great networking opportunity.
Speaker 3:It's interesting how many of our salespeople will talk on the phone every day with customers for years and years and never see their face, and it really does, I think, make a difference for salespeople to network. But more recently, I've started bringing shipping and inventory staff to the conferences Not last year, but the year before, before PRP and URG was combined. I was so thrilled to see more classes that were geared towards inventory and shipping, because it does seem like for many years, a lot of the conferences were just focused on the business aspect and the sales aspect, and the back end is definitely just as important. Right, you can sell a lot, but if you can't push it out the door properly and keep it sold, it doesn't mean that much. So it's been wonderful to see that, and I know that with URG and Team PRP combining forces, it just makes for a monster conference that has so much, so much to offer.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, we were hoping that the recyclers would be excited about us joining forces again. It makes it a little easier for people to get to, you know, to and from the conference, you know if there's just one, and then that way everyone's kind of joining together and able to talk. And you do have to be a URG member to be a PRP member. So we just figured it made sense. Yeah, for sure so, but I did want to kind of touch base. It sounds like you got you ran kind of through the ranks of Pete's. I feel like that would create some loyalty with your employees as well, just kind of the fact that you've had so much experience within each level of the business. How does that work with the culture and how you create the culture there at Pete's?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not just me. Every manager at Pete's started in a lower position and worked their way up in order to manage people. I believe you need to be able to do my job, but we were in charge of me and we're getting paid a lot more than me and I was expected to answer to them, even though they didn't know how to do what I would do, and if I had a problem, could I go to them? No, they didn't know how to fix it.
Speaker 3:So that's definitely shaped how I approach things at Pete's and Jessie, my general manager. She started as shipping manager and worked her way up. Jimmy.
Speaker 3:He's been with Pete's for 11 years now I think it'll be 12 soon and I hired him in as a $9 an hour grunt worker, basically way back in the day he was working at an oil change place and I stole him away and put him to work as the low man on the totem pole doing the terrible jobs that nobody else wanted to do. And he's worked his way up and now he's our distribution manager. He has more direct reports than anyone else in the company and just does a phenomenal job. You know definitely someone who he can. If somebody's out sick, you know he can pull parts, he can.
Speaker 3:Yesterday he was filling in for our drive train processing person who pans all the transmissions, power, washes all the the engines and transitions and axles and things and he filled in for them. Yesterday. Now he could have filled in for, you know, one of the dispatchers and had the dispatcher fill in for the person who does, who processes driveline. That would have been an easier job, but he believes, and I believe it is really important to get your hands dirty, get in, do some hard work alongside people and not just shove that off onto other people. You know it is really, really important. Craig, our dismantling manager and buyer he started out pulling parts in the yard and he can dismantle as fast or faster than any of our dismantlers and he and Jimmy can both pull parts as fast or faster than our parts pullers, and I do think that it's really important both for morale and when you're shorthanded and the managers can actually step in and get things done and still have a really productive day. That makes a big difference.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I feel like small businesses. You have to be a well-rounded employee and be able to hop in wherever you're needed at that point, just because there isn't just someone to call in necessarily. So that's awesome, that they're so well-rounded and are able to do that.
Speaker 3:I'm really lucky to have a lot of the people that have been at Pete. We have like 60% of our staff has been with us for over five years and it's just that it makes a big difference, you know when you've been with a company for a while. It makes a big difference.
Speaker 2:I bet being able to say I could pull that faster than you helps get them motivated. That's awesome. So what are some of the partnerships or collaborations that you've done for your business that have been the most beneficial? Obviously, we've touched on URG, but anything else that you have really feel like has grown your business in the past few years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, urg and Team PRP are both big for our business. We are getting into more of the remanufactured sales and one thing that's been good for us with that is AP Fusion. They don't just have one reman company, they have many, and you can search by interchange number and that has been pretty awesome to be able to. You know, just plug in the interchange number and see all the remanufactured options. Sometimes a customer is going to go used or they're going to go remanufactured, and if they're going to go use, of course we want them to buy from Pete's Auto Parts.
Speaker 3:but if they're going to go remanufactured. Instead of losing that sale, we can pitch our remanufactured option.
Speaker 2:Right Just gives you another yes factor. Well and then. So I just kind of wanted to see what. I love the way your mind works and I feel like I could talk to you for hours about the industry. But I wanted to see what your view of the automotive recycling industry will be potentially evolving into the next five to 10 years. I feel like you have a great way of forecasting kind of what is coming up. Do you have any insight on what you feel like the industry will look like?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 3:I definitely don't have a crystal ball but, I do believe that we are going to see a lot more online part sales, which comes with a lot of challenges, as everyone knows, with part fitment and everything else. I'm sure most listeners have experienced customers ordering parts and then discovering that they ordered the wrong part, and I do see a lot of awesome ways to prevent that. Speaking of partnerships, vinmatch Pro has been really powerful for our business, um, utilizing their VIN decoder can often prevent the wrong, the wrong part problem, but it is difficult to to get that. You know, functioning online on the website, like our website, is through URG, and we think it's the best option out there, you know, over any other way to display your parts, but it still depends on the customer clicking the right buttons and like choosing the correct options, and it is amazing how many customers do not know their vehicle or choose the wrong options or aren't paying attention, and then we are the ones who pay for those mistakes.
Speaker 3:I guess what I see for the next five or 10 years is many more automated solutions and then the struggles that come with those solutions and, like everything else, it seems like some yards are really fast to jump on board and others are like way behind the times and I try hard to stay in the middle because I found that when I like leap forward in a pioneer and something, I get some of the benefits, but I also like learn the hard way on every aspect of it, and so I kind of try to like let the big boys take the lead. I watch what the MSOs are doing. I watch what Phoenix and ASAP and RTP are doing. I watch what the MSOs are doing. I watch what Phoenix and ASAP and RTP are doing. I watch what LKQ is doing and I try to learn from the ways that it seems to be working for them and the ways that it seems to not be working for them. You know.
Speaker 2:It's a great idea, yeah, being able to learn just from the other people experiencing the difficulties of the new technologies. Yes, because I feel like all the new technology is fabulous, but there's always some kind of caveat of working through the different bugs and different things and I agree it's nice to be able to kind of refer to other people in the industry and see how they're doing with it.
Speaker 3:We recently started using EasyQC for our quality control and you know kind of the back-end procedures and that went incredibly well for us. The transition, like the training and prep, preparing before we went live and then it was a really smooth transition for us. And I believe it was probably a smooth transition for us because we put in a ton of work on the back end and because so many other yards have already gone through it and figured it out and were there to help us. And EZ has gotten better and better as they've added yards, you know. And so again, like I love the idea of pioneering new technology, but in practice a lot of times it's very painful and so I'm happy to do things like EZQC now that I can see it working so well for many other yards.
Speaker 2:Well and being able to kind of follow on the forum too. I feel like that professional forum that we're a part of if you're not a part of that forum on Facebook, it's such a good reference for information on new programs and new technology and any kind of issues people are having. I feel like it's such a good place for people to throw out ideas as well. You've been really good about adding stuff on there. I think recently you had added the data tiering information and we had such an influx of members coming to me. I think I had 30 or 40 yards come to me and wanting to adjust their tier setting, so it was amazing to be able to. I feel like just having the reference of the yard and seeing that growth from you?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, thank you. I rarely have an original idea. I usually am just gleaning things from other people and I'm sure that this is no different and, just like you know, I post something and it explodes for 30 or 40 yards. That's where I get a lot of things from too, as I see what other people are doing. We recently started using SAV Freight because of a post I saw on the forum. There were many comments with people recommending it, so we thought, well, we'll give it a try, and so many great things have come from that professional salvage yard information forum on Facebook, including that that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like that's just such a good tool for recyclers to use and utilize as a reference and just being able to see what the new technology is and what the caveats are and being able to reference other yards and really be able to connect on there as well. I did want to ask you as well what would you have wished that you had known? Kind of a different question what would you have wished that you'd known back when you started, versus now? What would be the advice you would give yourself back then?
Speaker 3:Well, I definitely. When I first started, I was a bit of a workaholic and I think I would have told myself that you are not actually getting that much more work done working 12 hours a day, and you can do a lot more in less hours when you are well rested and well fed and when you are working less than you're sharper and you have a better handle on things than when you are running yourself ragged and I tend to throw myself into things. So I get why I had those tendencies and I really always tried to do the best for the business. But it seems to me like after I met my husband and my husband was like hey, there's more to life than work and you should take some breaks what I found was that I'm more productive, I do a better job, I'm a more thoughtful and considerate person when I'm working an eight hour day or an eight and a half hour day and not a 12 hour day, when I do take time for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see that and I feel like that's probably a pretty common struggle for entrepreneurs in general. You know you're wanting to drive your business as much as you can and if you're not putting the hours in, you feel like you're not doing as much as you could. But I feel like that's great advice. You know you're not your best self when you're working 12 hours a day and not sleeping well and not taking care of yourself, so that's great advice for people starting out in business. So how do you stay up with the industry trends? Obviously, you write a lot and then you are on the forum. I feel like you are just so well-educated and well-rounded and obviously referencing other recyclers. What other key things do you utilize to keep up with all the industry news? Well, one thing.
Speaker 3:I really like is I'm part of a RAB Rainwater sales management group and we have a Skype chat and then we have a monthly Zoom call and that has been so huge for me. It's only two hours a month plus some chatting on Skype, but it's so great to hear what other people are struggling with across the country, what other people are succeeding with. That's been a huge resource for me, and there's so many brilliant minds in those groups that I can. I can ask a question and get three different answers and they're all so smart and coming from a different perspective. There's almost never one right answer, in my opinion. A lot of times there's, you know, 12 different ways we could go about it. What's the best way for us? I definitely feel like being in that group is really helpful.
Speaker 3:Going to conferences is really helpful. There are so many resources in the industry between the state associations and URG and ARA and everything else. Even just making those connections. I'm on a couple of committees with ARA and now I've gotten to know people who are leaders in the industry that I can pick up the phone and call them and talk to them and see what's going on with them, and that's helpful. There's also a monthly Zoom call that Anthony Wall from Wall to Wall Auto Parts hosts, and I don't make it every month those calls. I think that they're at 6 pm and that's like I'm eating dinner and I'm winding down. I'm not working at 6 pm normally, as we just discussed right, but I do make those, probably like one every three months or so. And that's another group of smart business people who are being open and honest about what's really going on in their business and it just sparks so many ideas hearing from other people.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. Yeah, all those groups are phenomenal and the consulting industry, I feel like, is really honed in on this industry specifically. You know we've got lots of different minds that are willing to kind of help and be there for you on the back end and that's cool, that you're able to just Skype and ask a question and get those responses. That's phenomenal, dj, I think it might be time for another break.
Speaker 1:Yes, let's take a break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 4:Urg can help you streamline your business for maximum efficiency and increased profits. Access powerful software and unique tools. Receive top level training with industry experts. Network with hundreds of recyclers. Employ e-commerce solutions to boost business. Receive support, resources and discounts Starting at just $150 a month. It's the smartest investment you will make for your business this year. Go to u-r-gcom and click on Become a Member. Your path to a profitable future is just a click away. That's u-r-gcom.
Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. No-transcript. Amber from Pizza has done a phenomenal job. She referred to ARA, so I want to remind all of our listeners the ARA 81st annual convention is October 24th through the 26th in Reno, nevada. You should be there. A lot of great sponsors, ebay, solera, hollander, my friends from Carpart, urg is there, copart is there, overbuilt is there. Vinmatch, pro JC and his wife will be there. They're great people and you know she commented about state associations and I want all our listeners to know Amber is very, very active in her state association and Amanda, that would be something like I would ask her how does your state association help you grow your?
Speaker 2:business? Yes, definitely, that's a great question, amber.
Speaker 3:I think that the annual conference the Automotive Recyclers of Michigan has is really big for me. I never miss one, and often those conferences are held at a yard, and so once again we're talking about yard tours. The last couple of years they have been at like golf course type places but they still, you know, have local yard tours available. But again it's the connecting with other recyclers. It's going to the seminars and learning from professionals, but also just chatting with people over dinner.
Speaker 3:One thing that I try to do is sit with people who I'm not necessarily familiar with. It's really easy to go sit with the same person that I've known my whole life and chit chat. Daniel Gray is a great example. He owns Doug's auto parts in Coldwater and he also grew up in the business. I've known him since I was a kid and so it's super easy to go sit next to Daniel when I'm at a Michigan conference. But I try hard to go sit with somebody I don't know and again get curious, ask questions about them and their business, find out what's going on with them. That helps me so much.
Speaker 3:There's also the environmental side of things and the safety side of things, and the Automotive Recyclers of Michigan has the my Car program, which when you do my Car you're also automatically a car member of ARA's Certified Automotive Recyclers program, and that has been really good for my business. And I think when we do things like we take safety seriously, when we take our environmental responsibility seriously, like that has ripple effects with our employees and with our customers. It might not sound like having a safety meeting once a month does anything, but I really think it shows your employees that you care about their safety and you know you are going to take steps to make the workplace more safe. We're recyclers, we're the greenest industry, right?
Speaker 3:Automotive vehicles are the number one most recycled products in the world and in America, and the image of a salvage yard has been negative in the past and the only way we can change that is through programs like that, and the Automotive Recyclers of Michigan has helped me a lot in implementing easy safety programs, easy environmental programs. They don't take a million dollars, they don't take a ton of time. It's simple, small steps to improve my business over the years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I completely agree with you there.
Speaker 2:I feel like the thought behind the general, the idea of what the industry looks like it's not a very good, clean thought and really we're helping the environment, we're helping recycle, we're doing something good by recycling these parts, and I feel like that's something that I'm really trying to change the mentality of the customer of this is something that we really want to be doing for the environment, really for our future, and so I think it's a really cool industry to be in and being able to be a part of that and trying to make sure that the customers are aware of what they're doing by buying a recycled part.
Speaker 2:You know, telling them, you know you're doing something good for the environment today, almost just kind of making it so that it's more of the idea of helping everyone out by doing that and doing our part by recycling those parts. So I did want to touch base a little bit on just kind of what you do for your sales team and what you do to kind of prep them on day-to-day. Is there anything that you kind of do to help motivate your employees?
Speaker 3:You know I should probably do a lot more with my salespeople. I'm technically the sales manager in my business and I'm not one to have like daily meetings or even necessarily weekly meetings. I have been trying to meet weekly with my salesperson, dan, because he lives in North Carolina, he sells from his house in another state, and my newer salespeople, dan, because he lives in North Carolina, he sells from his house in another state, and my newer salespeople I spend a lot of time with. Right now, jose is my newest salesperson. He's only been with us for a couple months and so I will take my laptop and go sit next to him and I'll work quietly and then whenever he has questions or if I hear something that I think should be different, then I can help him that way.
Speaker 3:But one of the things I really rely on for sales management is our recorded phone calls. We have RingCentral for our phones and then RingSense, which is like their AI evaluation and whatnot, and that's really helpful, because every phone call that we get is not only recorded, but then there's a transcript of the call, a summary of the call, and then the AI actually gives the salesperson recommendations. Like you were patient, but you could have been more patient, or you?
Speaker 3:could have a more friendly tone or whatever. It is so nice for me to be able to go through calls and use those call summaries and only listen to the calls that are really useful, instead of slogging through so many recorded phone calls and hearing a lot of the core pickup calls or the non-sales calls. So the technology available now is really helpful. I've been really lucky. I have four salespeople who've been with us for years and years and then Jose is just brand new but, like Brian, he's worked for the company for 27 years and so he needs very little help these days. Right, and I'm really lucky to have a staff that's experienced. I think I could do a lot better job in sales management. Like I said in the beginning of the interview, like I've always been very like production minded and it is a different ballgame, and I know that sales is a very emotional job and that a lot of it is attitude and I've seen that.
Speaker 3:You know I was just talking about Deanne, who works for North Carolina. He had been in a little bit of a slump and his sales had not been. Let's see, he had hit over $200,000 a month during COVID, post-covid, you know, multiple times, but then since then his sales had gone down and he had gotten a little bit complacent. And when he came to the PRP-URG meeting we flew him in, met up with him there and he and I had a meeting where he was like you know. I've just realized that I've got to get back to those numbers that I was at before and I've been blaming everybody else but I haven't been working on it myself and he really changed his attitude completely and his sales have just shot up like crazy since that last URG PRP conference. I'm sure that he heard some good things there, but he says 99% of it was attitude. He needed an attitude change and I do really believe that a lot of our life and a lot of our business and a lot of our success is based on our attitude, especially with sales. You can have a good attitude or a bad attitude when you're power washing an engine, but if you're trying to sell the engine it's really
Speaker 2:really helpful to have that have that positive attitude you know, definitely Yep and then um, I, I completely agree. I feel like it's all emotion whenever it comes to sales and if you don't have the good attitude behind it, people can tell and so you don't necessarily want to buy from you quite as easily. So how do you maintain balancing the quality, um, with scaling your operations, so as you kind of grow, how do you maintain the quality behind your parts production?
Speaker 3:We try to grow really intentionally. And that kind of goes back to again a lot of times, when you have a bad experience with something, that it changes the way you do things in the future, and so then that bad experience actually becomes a blessing. And my bad experience would be when my dad would decide that he was going to grow the business and he would just buy a bunch of more extra cars, and then it would be up to me to figure out how to get those cars inventory, dismantled, how to get the parts out the door Right. And so what I found I found very frustrating when I wasn't in control of the buying was that, you know, I was just at his mercy and I just had to figure it out and I hated that. So after I bought the business, we decided to grow. We grew really intentionally. We said, okay, how many dollars are we going to add to the budget each month? And then follow that downstream. How much inventory work does that add? How much dismantling work does that add? What do we need to do in our shipping department? How do we need to scale? So we've tried to be really intentional about our growth and we were turning vehicles over so quickly. We bought and processed over 2,000 vehicles One year on our eight acres was a lot for us, and the vehicles were turning over so quickly.
Speaker 3:We felt like we were crushing a lot of really good parts and we were managing a lot more people. We had six dismantlers. At one point we were working so hard in 2018, were working so hard in 2018, so much harder than we had been before in order to put this throughput out that we found we weren't actually making that much more money and we said like, okay, what are we doing here? Why do we have all these people and all these cars that were like turning over so fast, but we're not making any more money than when we were processing half of those cars? So we decided to be really intentional about backing down the number of cars we were doing while increasing the average cost per vehicle and maintaining and growing our sales. So buying a more expensive car with more expensive parts to sell, but buying less of those cars. We currently have two dismantlers who each average like 2.25 cars a day. We'll buy a thousand cars this year instead of 2000,.
Speaker 3:But we're doing it with a really high performance staff that can really turn out the product and do it in the most profitable way. I would rather have less employees who are higher paid and less vehicles that are a higher average sales per vehicle than like sort of the churn and burn system that we had back then. But it did take doing it one way to figure out that that wasn't what we wanted, you know, to start doing it another way. So eight months ago we started growing again, but at this time we're not growing the number of vehicles we are processing as much as we're growing in warranty brokered and profitability and the cost per vehicle. We are growing the number of vehicles a little bit.
Speaker 3:Our average number of vehicles per month is creeping up and we will probably have to add a third dismantler soon. It's so much more controlled this way. We'll set a buying budget of $225,000 this month. If we don't hit it, then that budget is the same for next month until we hit it. Then we'll creep it up, maybe $8,000, $10,000 for next month. If we don't hit it, it's the same until the next month and we just go. We just try to grow a little slower and a little more intentionally and really keep in mind what issues is this growth going to cause down the line and how can we combat that?
Speaker 2:Definitely. I feel like you guys are really good at analyzing all the processes and really honing in on what's working for you and that's how you're going to stay successful in the future, for sure. You mentioned that you have two dismantlers. About how many employees does Pete's have right now? We have 30. Okay, and how many acres is the lot?
Speaker 3:We have eight acres. We can't use all of it. Not all of it's zoned for salvage, but I think probably like six and a half acres or so. Six acres maybe is what we can actually utilize.
Speaker 2:Awesome, and about how many vehicles do you have that are on the lot at one time?
Speaker 3:727 is how many vehicles I have on the lot now.
Speaker 2:Okay. So yeah, it's a decent size yard. That's awesome. You have so much knowledge and you're such a good speaker. Do you speak? I know you speak at the Michigan show. Are you going to be speaking at the ARA convention here in Reno?
Speaker 3:I am actually. They've asked me to do the recyclers keynote at the ARA conference this year in Reno.
Speaker 2:Exciting. That's so exciting. I'm really excited about Reno. I think it'll be a really fun experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I haven't been, and so I'm excited to see the city as well.
Speaker 2:Definitely Awesome. Well, it's been so awesome talking with you and we're so excited to obviously have you be a part of URG and be a part of such a good network of people and helping educate everyone in this industry, and we really thank you so much for being on today. Dj, did you have any other questions that you wanted to ask, Amber?
Speaker 1:No, Amber's just a gift. You know, she's gold seal. She's a true A-R-A-U-R-G person. And I'm proud to know her. I'm proud to know her dad, Ron. I'm proud to know her grandpa. Thanks, dj, that's so kind, amber, you did a great job, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, dj, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:You made me proud. All right, folks. Until the next time, we'll see you on the URG On the Go podcast. You.