Quick Clips | Mike Wandrey | EP 25

Quick Clips today with an Automotive Services Professional, Mike Wandrey!

Mike is an Automotive Services Professional specializing in coaching, consulting, and business development and growth. He was the former Regional Vice President of Caliber Collision for almost 20 years.

Shop Fix Academy helps independent automotive repair shop owners achieve incredible car-count and take their shops to the next level. To accomplish this goal, they provide 1-on-1 coaching, staff training, and e-learning education.

Check out his socials:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-wandrey-7191b9189/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077481093849

Click the link below to listen for the full episode 25:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1895628/11276307

If you are interested in learning more about ClarityCoat, you can visit us here-

Website: https://claritycoat.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/claritycoatofficial
Instagram: https://instagram.com/claritycoat_official

Transcript

 Hey guys, this is Adam from the podcast and you are listening to Quick Clips. Quick Clips are condensed versions from one of our previous podcast episodes featuring some of the interesting things our guests had to say. If you want to hear the full episode, we'll have it in the show notes below. And with that, let's start the show. 

You're with Caliber, super early days. What was, what, what was it like being on that rocket ship when they, when they took off? Super proud to have worked for Caliber. The, all the years that I did, I, I've got nothing but. Things to say and, and it was a great experience for me, and they took care of me and my family for a very long time. 

Um, but the interesting thing about Caliber, especially at the very beginning was, you know, it was a lot of trying things out. It was a lot of, how do we scale this thing? How do we get big, how do we, you know, build the brand, build SOPs, um, you know, stay competitive in certain markets that were still very saturated with. 

Competitive multi shops and franchise shops and independence and especially in Southern California where, you know, I had most of my career. Part of the reason why the rates are not as good there and the competition for work and for employees is so hard there is cuz there's so many dang shops. And you know, you go in one pocket of Santa Ana or one pocket of West Minister LA and even within. 

Uh, one single quarter mile or or square mile of, of block, you'd have 25 auto repair and body shop. So I think caliber establishing itself and us establishing ourself as the company that was basically gonna be front of mine when you talked to an insurance company, where should I go to get my car repaired? 

We were, you know, obviously connected with, with a lot of DRPs. So it was just, not only are we insurance referred, but we are your best option. We're gonna do a quality. Um, fair priced and lifetime guarantee, all that good stuff. And so it became, you know, becoming very well known to just normal consumers. 

But then the other side of it was how do we build the brand from within with our internal customers? And that was the thing that I felt I was the most a part of, especially when I got outside of just regular store management and got into regional management and director and VP in that, uh, in that regard. 

And I got to help with a lot of the training department. Development department where we developed leadership programs and, you know, op owners manuals to, of how to operate a a shop and being a part of a lot of that stuff was really exciting and really cool. Um, pilot different things and, you know, you really started to see how the company was gonna scale and not just from car count and store count, but from people development, which ultimately is what I was most passionate about and why I, you know, ended up leaving the company was to. 

You know, that part of, uh, this industry and this business, which is to me is just scratching the surface, which is developing and connecting the people of this industry, especially owners to be, you know, the best they can be, not only for their business, but their families and future generations and their communities and so on. 

Do you think that the scale that Caliber is at right now, there, there are some people that really just don't trust. . Big corporations, big companies, no matter what, like, you know, they could, they could be really, um, good companies and earnest and everything like that, and honest in the way that they do things. 

But just because they're a State Farm insurance company or Progressive or something like that, they're just not gonna trust 'em at all. Right. Do you think that Caliber is at, or will eventually get to a point where, you know, people are just naturally not gonna go to them just because of the size that they. 

Um, I don't know about consumer, you know, consumer trust at that point. I think consumers are fairly trusting from the get-go unless you've been burned. Yeah, I think for the most part, everybody's gonna trust their insurance. They're gonna trust social media reviews. They're gonna obviously trust the referral from an agent or from a friend or a family member. 

Um, more so than anything. But for the most part, I think people are trusting of. , you know, at least things that they've already paid into to help give them good advice, , right. Um, so consumers, I'm not as concerned about from that standpoint. I am more concerned than what I've seen, even just in my own challenge of getting into independent shops, again, to be, you know, coaching and co consulting is just the industry, you know, viewpoint of mso. 

So whether it's independent owners, technicians, estimators, people that have been in this industry long enough that either worked for MSOs, uh, worked for corporate body shops, or have 'em in their neighborhood and they're taking over the neighborhood, taking all their employees. Um, it's usually born out of some pain  that anybody has these bad feelings about corporations and it's probably founded and it's probably fair. 

I've got multiple clients in different parts of the United States that have different experiences with the MSOs in their area. Yeah. You know, in the west coast where I ran most of my shops in for Caliber, we had a great reputation with lots of in. Uh, owners, operators, and employees that we were constantly able to work with, uh, as good neighbors and help with employees and, you know, a lot of good, um, insurance relations with those folks that were local. 

Leadership is a, uh, is a pretty big thing for myself. I, I, uh, I have seen firsthand myself what good leadership can do for people. Um, and it's not generally, it's not what people think it is. Um, As far as like what good leadership typically looks like. Right. Uh, just curious, is there like a, a, uh, thought process that you guys subscribe to, um, most of the time when it comes to leadership? 

Like, um, who are you recommending people read or listen to or anything like that? When it comes to leadership, I, I would say just first and foremost for us, when we talk about leadership, it, it really comes down to taking owner. . It's not just ownership of, well, I pay the bills, I write the checks. It's taking ownership of how am I showing up every day in my life, and what are people getting from me? 

Is if I walk in a room or I walk in a shop, or I walk into my business, am am I gonna be able to be the one that brings the energy, brings the positivity. , the change brings the hope, you know, brings the new ideas and really energizes everybody in that room or in that business. Or am I gonna allow that room or that business or that shop to dictate my mood, dictate what we're gonna do, right? 

It's that, it's that setting, that tone. And so we believe strongly that when you fix the. You fix the shop. And fixing the owner is not just, you know, uh, helping them to develop a p and l or reading a balance sheet, or you know how to market better. It's, Hey man, how's, how's the home life? Hey, I see your, you're getting a little, you know, heavy. 

Are you? How's the weight? Can we help? Let's, let's get our exercise program. If you're not healthy and your home life's not good. How can you ever be an effective leader at, at the shop? How are people gonna look up to you and admire you because, and hear what you wanna say if you can't even take care of yourself? 

So it's a, it's simple and it's sometimes very direct, but it's honest. Hey guys. Adam from the podcast. I hope you are enjoying today's episode. Just wanted to ask you a quick favor. If the show has brought you value in some way, would you mind giving us a review and sharing the. It really helps the show get out there. 

Also, if you are looking to expand the services that your shop offers and you want to do more than collision work, you should really check out our company Clarity Coat. Clarity Coat is a peelable paint that allows body shops to offer color changes cheaper than a repaint, while still looking like real paint. 

You can also offer clear protection that has no edges and is sprayed instead of laid. Unlike vinyl and PPF clarity, Coke can be sanded and polished so you can give your customer the exact look that they are. If you are looking to expand your shop services, go to clarity coat.com and fill out our Become an installer form. 

Alright, let's get back to the show. I had a really weird motivation when I was wrenching, and I didn't discover this until years later. The thing that actually made me give a rip about my job more was me being the one that was responsible in having to face the customer. Mm-hmm. . And what I mean by that, When I had a traditional shop set up, which was customer comes in, they talk to the manager. 

Manager tells me, here's the vehicle or equipment or whatever. This is the, this is the problem. This is the repair that needs to be done. Fix it, and then I fix it. Customer goes to the manager and they finish it out. Right. Well, if anything bad ever happened, guess who got called? Who's the manager? Yeah. 

Well, This all turned on its head. When I, I worked for a construction company and I was the only guy that fixed the trucks, the semis. That was the, I had 80 I a fleet of 85. That was totally mine. Uh, nobody else wanted to touch 'em. Well, guess who didn't get paid if their truck was broke? The truck driver. 

Yeah. He, like, he didn't get paid. So it was actually pretty important for me to make sure that A, I got there on the, you know, at a good time and b, I fixed it right the first time because if I. , that that was a bad situation between me and that truck driver. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I gave so much more of a shit about my job. 

Mm-hmm. Hmm. . So, I mean, I was pulling way more hours. I, I just was it was, everything got turned up to 11, right? Yeah. And then I went back to that traditional shop model again, and I hat. Hated it because everything, when I made a mistake, I wanted to own it, right? I wanted to be the guy that was like, Hey man, you know what, I'm really sorry about that. 

I will get this fixed right now for you. And I just hated the fact that when I messed up, it was someone else's problem, hated it, could not stand it. And um, where I actually figured this out was when I had my team of guys and they would get done with a vehicle. . They, they didn't care. They just handed it off to me. 

And then one of 'em made a comment to me about, oh yeah, it must be nice for you to get all the credit and, you know, for our hard work. And I was like, oh, yeah, I, I remember thinking that. And so then I, I made sure to then work on bringing those guys out. And they were the ones that presented their work to the customer. 

we had a little bit of work to do as far as, you know, customer service, how to talk to customers, how to accept, uh, , you know, bad, um, bad feedback and everything like that, right? Yeah. But man, did that turn everything on its head, just j and it was, it was, it was such a defining moment, um, for me, like, okay, now I know what. 

One of my, many, many clocks tick. Right? Yeah. Uh, because that's not, that's not the end all, be all of anybody and nobody, it is not really usually one motivation for someone for the rest of their lives, but that it just happened to be at that point in time, that was my main driver. Um, have you ever seen that or worked through a situation like that in another shop? 

Yeah, I mean the, I think it's cool that. You were able to figure that out for yourself. You know, it obviously drove you to want to do a good job for people. It, it wasn't necessarily the check at that point. It wasn't, oh man, I'm gonna make, you know, 45% gross profit on this job and I'm gonna pocket two grand. 

And it only took me three days to do. And you weren't a numbers guy. That was, I mean, that was important to that part of the business. It was ultimately, yeah. But it wasn't ultimately like why it propelled you to, you know, to do good. And so I think that's, that's awesome. Um, We found a lot that what pushed a lot of our people beyond just having a sales goal, having a profit goal, being paid on gross profit, or being bonused on performance of the shop. 

A lot of the things that really drew people to excel and get to the next level was just friendly competition. You know, creating games within the shop and within the region to push people to want to be, you know, the best was cycle time. The. Repair quality, meaning they'd have the lowest return rate. Um, I used to do a thing where I called it Saber, s a b e r, and I'm a Star Wars fan, so the prize at the end of the month if you were the best shop was like, gave you a light saber. 

Dang. And so I think Saber stood for sales and, you know, it had some, it was an acronym and I just made up something just so I could use Saber , push my, my Star Wars fandom on, uh, on the shops. I mean, people, they loved it. Like we had categories of, you know, again, all the different things that mattered for us to do well in the, in the company, it would've just the fact that they were competing against other shops and they were being held to their, you know, being held on a piece of paper and ranked amongst their peers. 

Right. And that was just something that. , uh, a lot of great performance and you know, I, even now with within Shop Fix, we do levels, like, we have levels one through five, where based on your revenue, based on how many of our, of our processes you put in place based on, you know, where you're at and the growth of your shop as far as, you know, systems and maybe location count, maybe how much net you're making. 

You're in a level within our Shop Fix Academy community and there's, you know, 800 plus owners part of this community. So everyone comes in, they get a different color lanyard, they got buttons on 'em, and that kind of stuff is like, what's, what's the top shop get for colors? Oh yeah, there's, well the top, I think it's, uh, green, maybe cuz green for money. 

So I think green's level five. But, uh, but they got little pins, you know, everybody looks like walking around like they work at TJ Fridays. Um, but it. Which maybe that maybe I blew over a lot of people's head with my showing my age with TGI Fridays. But, um, and the flair, my peers are seeing what I'm doing day in and day out, that's affecting the business in a positive way that's helping me make more money. 

And I love to flaunt that. I love showing that off. You know, and there's such a motivator through friendly competition and through the pride of, of being better than your friend or being better than your neighbor shop that you're also in the group with or being better than your caliber manager. That is down across the, the, the way, and you've been every month going toe to toe with them to try to do more sales. 

And, and so I think hopefully that answers kind of your question is just how it's, you know, how people are motivated beyond. Yeah, the paycheck. Alright, that does it for today's Quick Clips. If this episode has brought you value, would you mind giving us a review? Also, if you would like to learn more about Clarity Coat and what it can do for your business, please visit us@claritycoat.com. 

See you on the next one.