Leadership, Mental Toughness, and Empowering Teams: Insights from the Auto Collision Repair Industry | Ft. Richard Miller & Andre Ayala

For today's episode, we have the Regional Director of  Classic Collision Inc.,  Richard Miller and Andre Ayala, Tesla's Regional Collision Manager.

This podcast episode features a discussion among three individuals, Adam, Andre, and Richard, who share their experiences working in the auto collision repair industry. They talk about their backgrounds and how they got into the industry, as well as how they have evolved and grown over the years. The conversation covers topics such as leadership, coaching, communication, and mental toughness.

Andre and Richard discuss the importance of establishing relationships with team members before being able to provide honest feedback, and how different people require different approaches to communication and leadership. They also emphasize the importance of empowering employees and trusting them to make decisions, as well as prioritizing and executing in a company's growth mode.

Andre and Richard share their personal stories and experiences, providing practical insights and tips for those working in the industry or looking to improve their leadership skills.


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Transcript

 This is the Autobody podcast presented by Clarity Code. We'll get stories and talk to people from all over the industry, painters, body guys, manufacturers, and anybody in between. Let's do it. Welcome to the Autobody Podcast, auto Body Podcast. Podcast presented by Clarity Code. Now here's your host, Adam Huber.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a trio. It is, is a threesome, , but not like that . It's just three dudes in a bar talking like, I like how this is starting already. , we've got, uh, Richard Miller and, and Andre, sorry, messed it up. Andre Ayala. And now the pilot. That was easy too. . Um, in the podcast today we are gonna be discussing lots of different things, um, but as you guys know, is typical, um, we kind of know, want to know where you guys started off in the industry and where you're at now and what you're doing and um, kind of, kind of get a feel for like what your guys' younger selves were like, why you got interested in cars, everything like that.

So, uh, we didn't draw straws, so I'm gonna go ahead and say, Andre, could you tell us what young Andre was like, how you got into this industry and you know, what you're up to. Well, yeah, it was, uh, back in 2007, I ended up moving from, uh, lake Worth, which is down near West Palm Beach, up to Orlando to, uh, with dreams of going to school and, uh, majoring in psychology and, uh, having a background and, you know, uh, helping people.

Right. I wanted to be a, a counselor, stuff like that. Well, I, uh, ended up finding a job in a body shop, applied for, uh, parts manager's role. And, uh, luckily enough, I, I got the opportunity to come on board, uh, with this company and, um, just, it, it provided me the latitude I needed to go to school at night. So I went, uh, to, uh, College here in, uh, Orlando at, in the evenings got my associate's degree.

But through the course of, uh, working at this body shop, I just fell in love with the business. And, uh, it had a great, uh, uh, leader there and owner that, uh, exposed me to a lot of the, the mechanics behind the business and just kept just fueling me and filling me with information. And the more I got to learn, the more I, I began to love it.

Eventually, I, I, I finished, uh, my associate's degree and just decided to pursue a career in collision and it just, uh, o opened a door for a whole bunch of opportunities and, uh, and it sped my family, it's took care of me. It's been great to me over the years. It's been a challenge like everything else. But, uh, yeah, it, it's been great.

So old and. Was, uh, was definitely not as polished as Andre today. , lemme just start by telling you guys, all three of us could probably say the same thing, so, so remember that part. Sometimes I learn something good, sometimes I learn not what, what not to do. Andre's helped with some of that as well. ? Yeah, I think that's accurate.

So, uh, yeah, brother Old Andre was just, uh, you know, very, very much more, uh, intense and outgoing and, um, lacked the, the, the personal skills. And I was just rough around the edges and didn't have a real soft approach. Um, which, um, uh, when the opportunity came around and I was able to move into a leadership position, uh, I struggled with that, uh, a lot.

You know, some people were natural and charismatic and, and folks flocked to them. I kind of struggled with that a little bit. So, uh, definitely not as polished as I am today, but, uh, still was very ambitious and I found myself in an environment where if I wanted to go to the next level, if I really wanted.

You know, earn this, the, this income and, and have all these things. I had to compensate for what I didn't know by just a lot of hard work and sacrifice. Right. Uh, I believed in doing more than, than I was getting paid and, and working harder than everybody else. That was the competitive advantage that I had over those around me.

So I'd, I'd show up and be the first one there in the morning, the last one to leave. Um, you know, when I wasn't going to school, I put in more hours than I possibly could and help back then, right? It was, it was, it was a little tough. Some folks didn't really wanna, wanna invest in you and give you the time of the day.

So when these estimators would come back for my car classes, they had a CD they'd give you, right? So I staggered their CDs and go home and just study, start looking up Mike Anderson stuff, and just kept feeding myself everything I possibly could to keep sharpening my ax. Um, but it, it wasn't until. A significant amount of time later that I really shifted the mindset to, to the biggest hole in my armor, which was the leadership.

Yeah, I was a manager at this point, but just a manager and I really didn't lead people the way I needed to. And, um, tell you what, uh, to where I'm at now and all the folks that helped, uh, you know, develop me and coached me throughout the years, and I've had a lot of coaches, both, you know, audiobooks, physical books, and then people in life that we talked to, one of those being Patrick Terry, he spent a lot of time invested in me and so, so did, uh, a Carl Deaton, uh, strong operators in the business.

But to where I'm at now, man, I, I, I kind of wish I'd have learned it the other way around and been a better leader, better, better friend, better father, better all this stuff, and then learned the collision side along the way. It would've shortened my, uh, my roadmap there. Interesting. I find it interesting that you were.

So you are wanting to be a psychologist or study psychology, and I'm just trying to imagine, um, a really blunt psychologist,  . Um, so there's this, there's a, there's somebody who makes people not want to come back and see you . Well, I, I, I know one just like that. It's actually my mother , uh, there's this, there's this new Apple tv, um, plus show, uh, I forget what the, I forget what the name of it is right now, but it's, it's the story of a psychologist that loses his wife, like his wife dies.

And so he's trying to treat other people while being an absolute mess himself, you know, and at one point he tries the whole blunt psychology method where, um, one of his patients is, uh, is a woman who is having marital issues and really doesn't like her husband and, you know, blah, blah, blah. She's been coming to him for three years with this exact same issues.

And then all of a sudden he just tells her, well, just fucking leave . Just, just stop being stupid. You've been coming here for three years. Just fucking leave. Like, what? He doesn't like you, like, that's why he's treating you this way, . So what's interesting that you say that right is, um, one of the things that I've been working on, I, I think as a society we've softened our delivery so much of the information that we're trying to give, that it's actually started to, to work to our detriment instead of our favor.

And so what I've been working on is how do I deliver that blunt, honest message without it being a, a punch in the mouth. Um, and it's so far, it's actually, it's working out pretty good. Um, you know, definitely just focused on taking any emotion out of it whatsoever, sticking to the facts and really trying to have a conversation.

with whoever it is in a way that's, Hey, this is just me giving you the feedback and information you need to move forward, uh, if, if we're going to continue with your a successful career. Um, yeah, and I, it's, it's interesting. I, I believe a lot in, in the bluntness, just without the harshness. And it, you know, that's what I'm working on, is how do I deliver a message, uh, exactly the way I want to say it without, without it being a, a punch in the mouth.

But, but you know what, there, there's the old adage, right? You gotta, you gotta. Play to your audience, right? And we, at, at this stage of the, where we're at in life, we just deal with all types of folks, different age groups, different walks of life. And, and we have to, you know, choose one manner of speaking that gets this message across to everybody effectively.

Hell, Tony Robbins even says it right? He'll speak to a group a hundred of thousands, right? And if he, and if he communicates properly and one person gets it, then, then he considers himself successful. And that's, and that really resonated with me. And, um, I believe Rick and, and Adam, that a lot of this has to do with the relationship, right?

Once we build the relationship with these folks. And it, and it's hard cuz you're at a different stage with everybody, by John Maxwell says there's five levels of leadership, right? I can't be a level five with a new guy I just met. He doesn't know me from a can of paint, right? So we need establish that relationship and then, uh, we can have this brutal honesty, this, this, this, uh, this candor, right?

That some people are just not used to, but, uh, definitely takes time. There's, so one of the things, Andre, uh, and Rick, are you reading, uh, Jocko Will's book as well? I, yeah. So Andre term, uh, he, so we are, we're kind of challenge each other quite a bit. It's, it's always been a, who's better than who type of deal.

Andre's kind of behind right now, so , you know, he'll catch up eventually, but, cause I'm running my own race.  , oh God. He, he pointed it out and it was the second time I heard about it and I was like, all right, I'm gonna jump in. Uh, because I had just gotten, or I was about to finish up a book called Grit by Angela, I can't remember her last name, which I hate to say it, she narrates it.

And that was one I, I was like, ah, I like the context. I don't like the narration. So I was looking forward to getting into something that I, that would suck me in and, and, uh, extreme ownership, man, as soon as it started, I was like, oh yeah, this is gonna be good. It starts off, starts off, um, really, really, really good.

Uh, . The reason why I was asking about that, and for you, for everybody listening right now or watching, um, in the Green Room, because this is a professional podcast,  , we were talking about extreme ownership and, um, the book and everything like that because I will actually want to do a podcast or multiple podcasts about, um, both of his books.

But anyways, um, he actually talks in the book about, um, the indirect approach, which is the exact opposite of just handing out facts and just telling people the way it is. It's, it's figuring out a way to tell someone something, um, in the, not the nicest way, but in the way that, um, doesn't, it doesn't sound like a command, right?

It's, it's, it's, it's figuring out the indirect way. And, but to both of your points, there is. Somebody that is, that I work with. Um, so I have a couple of different businesses and there's somebody that I work with that has a d d or adhd. And I have found that when they get, when they get the blinders on and they get super focused on something, the indirect approach does not work because they're just like, oh, he's, he's saying something.

But I'm, I'm looking here. I can't, uh, whatever this noise is over here. I'm just, I'm just here. So what I've actually found, and I don't like doing this because I've tried for a very long time to not do this, but I've actually found that sometimes you just have to hit him with a sledgehammer,  to ha to do a pattern interrupt.

And then they're like, oh, hold it. Okay, hold on a second. What's going on here? Now my ears are open. And then you can be like, Hey, man, glad to have you back. All right, now let's talk through this. Okay, here's, here's what I'm talking about. Here's what I'm saying. What now? . Um, and uh, in the book he actually talks about doing, I think it's actually Lafe that is talking about this part where they, they do a read back, right?

Um, here's what I would like you to do. Here's the steps to do it. Now can you repeat back to me what you just heard? And what is really interesting is I found the only reason why I ended up doing the whole sledgehammer thing was because what I found was when I knew that they were in tunnel vision mode, they heard something completely different than what I said.

But every time I would just kind of give 'em a little smack upside the head and say In a nice way, guys, I'm not, I'm not, Hey people out , no, listen, we like, we like to style, we like to stop. Um, they would be like, they would be able to repeat it back in a very, basically to what I had said, right? Um, and that's, I don't like doing that, to be honest with you.

I feel like that's a really bad form of leadership when you have to like be blunt with someone. But in the other way, it is a good form of leadership because you are catering yourself.  to what that person needs, not trying to do, cater it to the 90 or what, you know, 70% of people or whatever. Well, what's what's your guys' thoughts?

I, I don't think that that's a bad form of leadership, right? So if you think about leadership, uh, our job is to effectively communicate to the people that we're working with. And I think as a good leader, you have to step back and go, all right, so, uh, like you said this, this guy's a little bit different.

He requires a little bit different type of communication to get him honed in and focused in. And I think being able to do that and realize that, uh, is key to leadership, it's actually, that's probably one of the biggest things that I struggled with in becoming a leader. Um, the direction that I need is a lot less than a lot of people.

Um, you know, Patrick Terry was also a mentor of mine and watching him work, I came up as a service advisor watching the way that he worked. , I instantly trusted him because I watched him come in and give people direction. I knew that if I was working under him, all I had to do was listen to his direction.

He was gonna give me all the answers to the test. All I had to do was go act on it. And so that's exactly what I did. And I was able to move up very rapidly, uh, in my career under him, because when he gave me direction, I, I executed it. And, uh, you know, one of the hardest things for me is as a leader was, was coming to the realization that there is not, it's probably less than 10% of people who operate like that.

And now that I've never needed, needed it, and I've, so I've never seen it done. How do I go and do it? And that was, uh, that was the biggest struggle coming in behind him. A phenomenal leader who has, who has grasped that concept and, and knows exactly how to do it. , uh, and coming in behind him and trying to lead the same people, but in a different way, man, it was, it, it was tough.

And, uh, it's taken me a long time to really hone and I'm still honing those skills, right? To try to figure out, alright, how, how do I give this person the best direction versus this, this person, oh, we lost your Rick. Yeah, we lost your microphone. Can't hear you, brother. Hey, that's okay. He was, he was, he was going long anyways, man.

but I, but I'll jump in. Right? You, Adam, you said, uh, you know, you don't like doing that, right? The, the, the sledgehammer approach, but you know, it, there's a couple schools of thought, right? You see somebody that's struggling and they're just not getting it. Yep. Well, you, you, you know, you ask yourself if you gotta look yourself in the mirror and, and, and answer to yourself.

Uh, and the question is that I do everything I possibly could to, to help this teammate be successful. . And if the answer is no, it, it's, cuz you probably didn't use the sledgehammer approach. Right. And, and they, they, they need to hear it. Right? Like, for instance, uh, many moons ago I was heavily involved in just getting in the weeds on a project and just trying to manage many moving pieces without getting pulled in a hundred directions, right?

Mm-hmm. , because we've all seen that guy, that, or gal that's being pulled in a hundred directions and it's not being effective, right? But somebody had to hit me with a sledgehammer to tell me, Hey, you know, you, you're, you're going through this challenge cause you chose to, I have a different vantage point than you do, right?

And, and, and I can see the whole forest and this is where you need to go, right? And, and so with that being said, yeah, sometimes it is necessary, but yeah. You know how the other party's gonna receive it, right? It just depends on our approach and our relationship and all that. But I, I know that. Everyone wants to know.

I don't know how else to say this, right? But everyone else wants to know if they suck, right? If I'm not doing good, I wanna know. Please tell me. Right? And, and I believe that everybody's gonna share that same sentiment. So yes, we, we absolutely have to let a teammate know when, uh, they're, they're, they're moving out of the, uh, core values and reel 'em back in.

Right? You can't fire your family. You just gotta reel 'em back into the core values, right? Yeah. You know, that's all there is too. So, I, I know I cut out there for a minute. Where, where we, where'd you lose me at? No, nothing important, uh, . But I, but glad that we have you back because before we go any further, I, I guess we had Andre kind of introduce himself and like talk through how he got into the industry.

Rick, how did you, where did you start off? As usual, he steals the show . Wow. He's better looking. So , that's the first time somebody said that. . It really is, honestly. So I, um, I started out a little bit different. Um, I actually got into cars really young. I was probably seven or eight, uh, working on cars with my dad.

And, uh, as I grew up, I got into car audio and, and really dove into that. I got to work on cars. I gotta odu, install car audio. It was like a dream job, right? And I actually went on to own my own car, my own shop. And from there I linked up with another guy who had a body shop. And I, uh, we, we kind of joined forces and, uh, added a custom customization side to his body shop.

And then we get, you know, 2007, 2008, everything starts to take a turn. . Um, my, my business is declining. Uh, the custom stuff is declining, so I, I actually just went to work with him in the body shop and started doing body work, and it was such a small shop that I was actually, you know, I taught myself how to, to write estimates and work on the cars and everything.

Um, found a better opportunity or a bigger opportunity than I thought, uh, at another shop and kind of just moved up where the g, the manager of that shop moved to Florida. I was ready to get out of Georgia. I was getting into trouble, young trouble, just out partying all the time, and I was like, man, if I'm ever gonna do anything, I have to get away from this.

My friends, they're great, great friends, but they're still, they're, everybody's having too much fun. So I moved with him down to Florida, worked for another shop, and I was like, uh, it didn't quite work out. And, uh, I actually took a nine year break from the industry. I went, oh, a completely another direction.

Um, got to work for a company that did a lot of d o d contracts and traveling, which was really, I think, instrumental in, in what came later because doing, I just, I grew and learned so much from what I got to do there. It's helped me out quite a bit in my current role. Um, and then the same guy who I went to work for in Georgia and moved to Florida, called me up and go, Hey, hey, are you ready to give it another shot?

And, uh, the fun and excitement of, of traveling six months out of the year was starting to, to wear out. And I said, yeah, you know, what do you got? We got, I've got working for this great company. Lot of growth, lot of opportunity, um, great leadership and you know, I have to start you out on the ground level.

You've never run a shop before. And I'm like, I, I'm in, let's do it. . And so I went to work as a service advisor. Um, worked. That's where I met Patrick, Terry worked there, move, moved up to a general manager, moved up to an operations specialist, and that's where I kind of met Andre. Uh, and he and I hit it off really well.

It's, uh, I, it seems like it's far too often. You find really like-minded people who are self-driven, self-motivated, uh, high performing, just want to go get everything that's out there to get. And, uh, he actually helped me out quite a bit, um, to get promoted up. He, he got promoted before I, before I did to the regional role.

Um, and then he knew what I wanted. So we worked together. I got promoted up to the regional role. Um, and we've since kind of parted ways, going in a little bit different direction. But the way that we worked together was so strong. He and I, he and I, we talk every day. We haven't worked together in, what, two years?

Yep. To over two years. We pretty much talk every day on, you know, what are we doing? What are you working on, what are you, what's kicking your ass? Um, how are you handling this? We're bouncing ideas off of that, and we've got a couple other people that we do the same thing with. Um, and so he and I have just continued to work and grow together and, and I hope, I think I've been just as much of a good influence on him as he's been on me.

We, I've, I've learned it quite a, quite a bit from Andre and, you know, he touched on struggling with, with leading people and being good friends and stuff. And I think that the people that let him in got to see the real Andre, but it was just that rough, hard outer shell that kind of pushed a lot of people away.

Um, and so that was, and that was kind of a similar thing that I had to work on, you know, 280 pounds. I'm a big dude. I walk in all I hear all the time. You're intimidating, you're intimidating. I'm like, man, I don't, I'm the biggest teddy bear you're ever gonna meet. I don't know how to walk in the room and look like a teddy bear.

Like, you gotta walk in like this where your arms are just outstretch. Listen you, so you, you're laughing. But man, I, I have even like joked about wearing clown suits to work, to just get to, to just get that, that monkey off my back. Right. Because it's, that's what I've heard for so long. Uh, and then we, you know, just like you touched on Andre, you, once you, I've, I've been able to build a team where I'm at, so I'm getting to a point where I, I can just have really good conversations with the teams that I'm working with now.

Um, so that's, yeah, that's kind of how I've come up. I mean, I've always loved cars. I've gotta shop at my house where I, I just work on my own stuff, just piddling. Um, , and it's like Andre said, man, it's, it's been the, the, the industry has been very, very, very rewarding for, to me. Um, the company that I work for now has just, it's been truly amazing.

Um, just, just the stuff I've been able to do. I can't, I can't say enough. It's, it's pretty crazy how far that we've come. Just, you know, 2016 is when I started working at the company with Andre. Just how far we've both become since 2016. I mean, it's, it's absolutely insane. Yeah. Going back to the whole teddy pair, teddy bear thing, it's, what's really interesting about that is, um, I used to be, I used to train heavily and I competed once in power lifting.

And every one of those dudes is yoked out of their mind. Right? And, and you are talking about. People that power lifting to me is a very interesting sport. I don't know if I, I don't know if you can qualify it as a sport, but I'm gonna call it a sport, because quickly, if you have the right teachers, what you learn about is that power lifting is way more mental than it is actual physical.

You're, believe me, you do take a phy, it does take a physical toll on your body, um, as in like, um, the, the workouts, uh, making your muscles grow and everything like that. But what I kind of learned early on was that it takes a special p kind of person, it takes a special mindset to be at 90% of what your one RM or one rep max is, right?

And then to do it three reps, when, when the whole, all the previous weeks, you were at 85%, 80%. So your body's already wrecked.  and then, then your, and then your coach or whoever tells you you're gonna do this three times and you're, it's a, there's a high likelihood you're gonna fail, but you need to do it anyways.

But anyways, um, what I learned out of that is that those guys, once you kind of get into their circle, which I think is probably the most important thing, is that you have to get into their sphere of influence. I mean, they will, they are the gentlest, kindest type people ever. And if they know that you've gone through the same shit that they've gone through, they're, it's an, it's almost an immediate brotherhood.

And I, I think this plays the same, this is true in a lot of different industries, and I feel like this is true in a lot of different disciplines where, um, you know, in the body shop world, if you guys came across, you know, like say an HVAC tech, you're not gonna quite feel the same pull to them as you would with another collision industry guy, right?

Like immediately, once you meet that collision industry guy, it's already kind of a brotherhood type of thing. . Um, so anyways, you being a big person, you'd probably be the first person I'd go to and be like, what's up man? How, how's it going ? Even though I'm five nine and 2, 2 40 ish, something like that.

Like, I'm, I'm, you seem like you're a pretty tall guy too. Are, are you like six foot n No. No. Well, right at six foot. Yeah. I don't consider that very tall. No, I wouldn't just average. I wouldn't either.  this angle, angle's given me a lot of hype. , so, um, okay. Now that we're kinda, no. What's funny about that, so sorry.

No, no, no. Go ahead. Now I get, this is your podcast. Uh, what's funny about that is the, you know, you talk about mental strength, um, and that's one of the things too that I, that I've focused on. Like, I focused on the stuff that we struggle with and, and listening to people I can't or how am I gonna do that?

Or it's too much, or it's all these excuses that, that get made. And so one of the, uh, , one of the analogies that I've started using and uh, is, Hey, if you were starving to death and this is what it took to get food, would you then, would you be able to do it? And so obviously it's a, it's a drastic analogy, but it gets people thinking, Hey, so I, yeah, if I was starving to death, I'd figure out a way to do it, but since I'm not starving and I don't really have to, I'm just gonna give up.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. . And so that's another thing that I, I work on is how do I get, how do I get people to understand that they can do it, that it's really more of that they're, they don't want to do it bad enough. Yeah. Yep. Um, uh, RO I'm just gonna comment on that and then Andre, we're gonna go back to you. I have a friend of mine, a local entrepreneur, business owner.

He's very successful, and I know he got this from somewhere else. I, and I feel like I've heard and done, seen the template for this somewhere else. I just don't remember where I've seen it, but. He put out a post the other day basically saying that he's gonna spend the next 30 days doing hard shit.

Because if you want to do hard shit, you need to, you, you just need to do hard shit. That's all there is to it. And so it's stuff like, um, uh, spend 30 days taking a cold shower every single morning. Um, I don't know if you guys have ever done that. I actually played around with it for a couple of weeks.

There's lots of different benefits to it, but the, the core mental benefit to it is the fact that when you get up in the morning, like you do not wanna step into that cold shower at all or do a cold plunge, but you do it because you know that it's better for you in, in the minuscule kind of ways that it, that, um, the health benefits are.

Um, some of it was, uh, like calling an old, uh, friend that you have a grudge against and stuff, stuff like that. Like if you want to be able to do hard stuff, you just have to do hard stuff. That's all there is to it. And. I, I, I know that seems like an oversimplification, but I subscribe to it. I, I think that's absolutely true.

You, you build your tolerance to doing hard things by doing hard things. Yeah. No, I, I hundred percent, uh, believe that. Right. But I'm gonna start off, I'm gonna comment on it, but I'm gonna start off by saying I work really hard to be able to have a warm shower. Okay. . But, but I hear . Hey, but I hear what you're saying.

Um, it, it, it reminds me of a book, uh, uh, eat That Frog, which talks about eating the frog first. Right. You're, you're tackling the hardest thing, right? That that's gonna be the toughest thing you're gonna do today. Everything else is gonna be fantastic, whether it's taking that cold shower, um, or, or not. But it, it's funny you bring up the calling a a an old friend you have a grudge with.

Um, cuz that is actually something, and I mentioned earlier, right? Anthony Robbins, he actually, uh, ha had a, had a speech, uh, around that. And I had a teammate that was struggling with some things and they needed to do just that, but it was super risque. So I promised them that I would do it first and then I'd report back what the outcome was and then I wanted them to do it and I'll support them in whatever manner we can.

And, and I did, I, I reached out to somebody and told 'em how they affected me and, um, the, the things they did and I told them that, uh, I forgive them. I sketched it out just like Tony Robbins said, that just flowed and dang, I did it. And it was very emotional for me. Right. Um, I'm, I'm a big cry baby, right?

So I was all choked up and stuff, but I felt great afterwards. And then, um, I called this, uh, this person I was coaching up and we had a conversation and they did the same thing and, and it just radically improved their, their, their, their quality of life, their mental, uh, state of mind and so on, and we can just move forward.

So, I hear you, man. Putting in work, you just gotta put into work, right? Do the hardest thing. That's how I believe. We're, we're probably all in the same position we're in right now. 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 show?

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Alright, let's get, do this stuff. Well, what's what's crazy is I think that the, um, the, the thing that my managers struggle with most, the, the hardest thing is just having conversations. And, uh, that's, that's kind of what I've been preaching to them. Look, you've got to start, you've got to start having these conversations.

And the more that you have these conversations, the more that they just become conversations. It's not, it's not, nobody's in trouble. Nobody's, you know, getting punished, nobody's getting fussed at, it's, it's just an unemotional, uh, exchange of information. And the, the quicker you can get to that, the, the quicker problems seem to just take care of themselves.

Man, I, I've never been so amazed.  how fast you can talk yourself outta something or how fast you can tell yourself how bad it's going to be, only to find out that you Right. The smartest guy in the room was completely wrong. Mm-hmm.  like it goes, it's way easier, it goes way better. It fixes so many things and, and that  as much as we talk, the hardest thing that we, I think, that we do in this industry is, is not have or have to have conversations with teammates.

Mm-hmm. , you know what man sometimes as well, right? Because, you know, we, we lead these initiatives and, and, and we go all in. Right? And not everybody's got the, the buy-in or, or, or whatnot. And, and, and sometimes folks get jammed up on how big the challenge is. Well, I, I, I've identified. Some similarities, right?

Between Rick and I right? And other folks are the same way. It's if this is the, the bearing, this is the target, right? If it's take a cold shower, dude, then I'm not gonna count, right? I don't, I don't know how much work I need to put into it. Why am I gonna mentally block myself? I have no idea what, what goes into it.

We just need to jump in and start doing it, right? If I think of, you know, it's like climbing Mount Everest, man, that's a challenge. But I think of it climbing Stone Mountain. Ah, I think I can do that, right? It ain't worked out in 10 years, but I'm pretty sure I can get out there and do it. And, and there's the video, if you ever seen it.

The, the remembering the Giants where, uh, uh, comes into the game and he's defeated and he's already telling the, the teammates they already lost the game. So it's not even worth, uh, doing it. So they give him a challenge, um, carry a teammate on his back and do this crawl across the football field, but they blindfold.

So he has no idea, right, that he's already realized this goal. It's cuz that blindfold to me signified just blocking out, you know, what this challenge is, I'm gonna, I'm gonna overcome and just get in there and do it. Dude. Roll up your sleeves and do it. Yep. Yep. Um, a little while ago you guys had talked about, we were kind of talking about what motivates different people and, um, what different people need.

And one of the things that I personally noticed, and I'm curious if you guys are the same way, was that I, I have a really hard time with, with, um, what's the best way to put this? If someone else is in charge, I kind of default to them telling me what needs to be done and all these other things. So Rick, I'm kind of the exact opposite of you where.

If there's someone clearly in the role, then I almost kind of need like, here's the things that I need to get done today and then I'll just go off and do those things. Right? Um, I don't do a great job of act probably putting in the initiative, um, when someone else is in control and where, this was a big turning point for me in the realization of this is when I was a tech, there was a time in my life where I was responsible for 85 different vehicles.

I was the sole person that was responsible for them. There was no one else that I had to that was telling me what to do with them. It was my responsibility to figure these things out. Then all of a sudden I started taking on the initiative of doing this, doing that, and without anybody ever telling me anything and doing those things.

And then I also noticed this after, after owning my own business for three and a half years, and then I went for a short little stint where I worked for someone else. , I kind of went back to that mode of like, I, I didn't quite take the initiative on things, right? So what I have actually realized is that I can't, I do best when I have to rely on myself when everything is on me.

I will do any and all things to get those things done. But then also, um, I do a, I, I, I do, I, it is not that it, when I have a team of people underneath of me, I immediately go into, um, uh, what's Jocko talks about this in his book, um, decentralized command. I'm perfectly fine with handing off tasks, um, and letting other people do run the show on certain things.

I'm not a, I'm not a, um, I don't get into the minutia, I don't get into the small tactical decisions. Mm-hmm. , I, I'm not a, um, God, what's the word that I'm looking for? Um, not a multitasker, but, um, . Um, micromanager. Micromanager. Thank you. I've, I, for some reason, I could not think of it. I'm by no means a micromanager.

I'm perfectly fine with handing off those roles, but again, I have to be the one that it, the responsibility solely falls onto because I'm perfectly comfortable with saying, Hey, you didn't do a great job at that. That's on me. I didn't do a great job of explaining why it needed to be done at this point in time or in this kind of way.

That's my responsibility. Let's go back and let's talk about it. And so that was a really interesting turning point in my life where I realized that I'm probably not built to work for other people because I'm not gonna be an Andre that goes above and beyond, or a rick that goes above and beyond working for someone else.

And that sucks. Like I, I don't know if I, I don't know if I feel good about admitting that, but , it's just that I'm just, Hey, well, you have to be honest with yourself. Hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. What's your guys' thoughts on that? So, , I think, um, I think everybody's like that a little bit. So, and I, the, I would like to say no, I, no, I would never do that, but I, I have done it, right.

So the company that Andre and I worked with before, there was a lot of oversight. So there was a lot of things that I let slip by because I knew, hey, if this, if I need to focus on this, somebody's probably gonna tell me I need to focus on it. Yep. So I'm gonna go do this other stuff. Um, and then if somebody tells me I need to focus on it, then I'll jump on it.

Right? Yep. So, fast forward to the last two years, the company that I worked for, now I have almost zero oversight and it's all on me. And, uh, one of the reasons that I took the direction that I took is cause I wanted that, you know, I, I worked with a fantastic just God phenomenal leader. Uh, I worked with Andre, I had a lot of people watching my back.

You know, I had, I had built really solid relationships. . Um, and I had people watching my back. I, I knew I could be successful there, right? They weren't gonna let me fail. And, uh, I had a couple of options when I decided to leave that company, and I actually came to where I'm at now. Um, because I, I didn't want a safety net.

I wanted to see if I could do it all on my own, um, and, and be able to own the results, right? If then I would know if, if the results were not good, they were my not good results. Yep. But if the results were good, then they were my good results or my team's good results, right? So I wanted, I wanted to test myself just as much as anything else.

Um, but, and then speaking to decentralized command, that was another part of it. You know, one of, uh, one of the things that was always instilled in us is you have to train your team. So whether that's me training my managers, or the managers training their team, they have to train. You have to train the team to do the job.

Uh, or else to place crumbles when you're not there. So you, you take a week off to place crumbles. You, you, you get sick. The place crumbles. You want to take a, uh, uh, do something for the day. You can't leave because the place will crumble because you haven't taught the people how to do it. You've only taught them to go to you to do everything.

Yep, yep. And it, and it will wear, it will wear a person out faster than anything else. Um, and that's, you know, with, with the crew that I manage now, that's one of the, that's a, a big thing that they work, they do a, they do a phenomenal job. Um, and it's just a matter of just pushing them to continue to coach their teams so that they can take some of that stress off of their shoulders.

Yeah. What's, what's really interesting about our conversation right now is, um, so Jocko actually has two different podcasts. He has his regular podcast and then he has what's called the underground podcast, where you have to pay. $8 a month to have access to it. Okay, well, I pay those $8 a month . Cause I want, I want, I'm on the Jocko train, right?

And, um, probably the most, the most beneficial podcasts that come out from those from the underground podcast. And I, I'm not sure if they're exclusive to the underground and if he puts out some of them on the regular podcast, but it's a segment that he and Lafe do, which is called the Debrief. And I don't know if you guys know what debriefing is, but basically you go on a mission, it's post mission now you debrief and you go over what went wrong, what went well, and what you need to fix on the next, on the next op.

Right. Well, they were, Lafe was giving this example of actually a, a repair shop. I don't know if it was an a collision shop or if it was just a mechanic shop, but this was like a really big operation.  and this manager approached him or got, they got hired on to go into this facility to do training there, leadership training.

And there was a micromanager in place that every single morning the micromanager would get up there and he'd have all these, um, tasks that needed to be done. And he'd point his finger and say, you need to go do this, and you need to go do that, and you need to go do this, blah, blah, blah. And then everyone would disperse.

And this guy was run ragged. Like he was just totally at his wit's end about like, um, and they wanted, the company wanted to scale. Well, you can only scale as high as the highest piece of friction, right? And so, um, what Lafe did was, um, he, before one of these meetings, he told the manager, he's like, you're gonna sit right next to me and you're not gonna say an absolute word about anything.

And then he goes to Lafe, goes to all the different departments and says, Here's what I need. I need you to have this done by tomorrow morning because you're the one that's given the presentation and goes to all the different departments and then all the different departments give the presentation. And then he looks over at the manager and he goes, so what'd you think of that?

And the manager goes, oh my God, that was so fucking easy. , right? And what I think is interesting about that is if you allow yourself to have the people around you that are are, that are the experts in their field, if you have the parts managers, I don't know, crazy idea, worry about the parts. And if you have the collision techs, I don't know, crazy idea.

Worry about the collision side of things. And if there's a problem that pops up and you just go to the collision tech, the lead collision tech, or you know who shop foreman, whatever level you want to go to here and say, Hey man. , we're running a little bit behind schedule. What is it that you need help with to have the tools or what's, what's going on?

Like how, where are we falling behind at? Or do you think that this timeline is realistic and that person goes, uh, yeah, you know what? Like, you know, we've got Timmy back there, Timmy's a little slow and I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I'm trying to work with him, but I'm, I'm struggling with it. Like, you know, what would you do?

Uh, you know what, Hey man, if you need a little bit of extra leadership help here or whatever, I'll, I'll happily take Tim on and try and help him through that. You know, like if you, if you need support, I got you. But, um, if his answer is, Hey, you know, our parts are not coming in. Like, I don't know what they're doing back there other than playing solitaire when we're asking for parts, like, we need these things to start clicking, well, then you can go to the parts manager and say, Hey man, like, what's going on?

Well, you know, you're going to the expert in each field instead of trying to be the expert yourself in multiple different fields.  and that just doesn't work. It just, it just doesn't, you're gonna be a stressed little Susan . So where I've seen that actually comes from, and, and I, I, I'm speaking from personal experience cuz there was a point in my life where I was just like that example that, uh, you gave out, right?

It, it had a lot to do with trust and empowering. Mm-hmm. . I didn't yet know how to trust my team. I didn't understand yet that they're going to get what we need accomplished. Right. They're gonna get it done. They just might not get it done the way I would personally do it and therefore I can't manage them.

And that's so hard the way I want to be managed. So the, the components there were trust and empowerment. And then don't overcorrect. The worst thing you can do right is, is alright, I, I got the guts to trust them now and they feel empowered. And I got the funniest example in the world to give you around it, right?

gonna do $1,600 in, in, in a rental vehicle, right? So, um, I'm in an office, in, in, uh, I, I got the shop to repair cause that was the position I was in at the time. Hey, go, go to the shop, go repair the shop. So we, uh, just listened to the submarine commander, uh, video right about empowering the team where everybody, David Marquez, right?

Where everybody makes the, the, the decision, right? What they intend to do. And, and that's the model that I was, uh, bringing in place there. That would be the, the most effective and, uh, been office with a teammate and we're going over something closed doors and teammate comes in and knocks on a door and I'm like, yeah, yeah, come in.

So I always wanna make sure. , uh, it, it's not an emergency, a safety incident or something. So I always respect that. If somebody's coming through the door, let me make sure it's not something that's super critical. So he comes in, he goes, oh, you know, I got this, this, this phone call here and I wanted to talk to you about it.

Make a decision. I'm like, just make the call brother. Yeah. But you know, I, I just wanna go over with you really quick and Nah man, just go ahead, make the call. Are you sure? Cause I really feel comfortable. I was like, Hey man, I trust you. Do what's right for the customer, do what's right for the teammates, and then do what's right for the company.

And if it doesn't work out, then we'll talk about it later, man. Right. Not gonna change the game of tonight then, and just make the call. So I wrap up the, the meeting I'm in, I come out there and, uh, he is dying laughing, hysterically laughing. Uh, I was like, so what was the call? And he was like, this guy was upset and it was whether or not we should pay his.

And I'm like, oh, what'd you say? I was like, I made the call. I approved it, . I'm like, oh man, how much did it cost me? He's like, $1,600. We had a great laugh, right? And, uh, called my manager to tell him that we're gonna have a $1,600 in leakage. And, uh, he had a not so comedic approach to it the way I did . Yep.

But he, he supported right that I had the right intent and, uh, it, it was just something I'll never forget. But that's the day it started. And, and when I started, uh, focusing on that trust, so I didn't micromanage. And, and to your point, Adam, you know, you want to jump in and you want to have your hands on everything because you, you know your outcome, you know what you're gonna put in and you're gonna get exactly what you put in.

Nothing more, nothing less. And that's exactly how I used to be. And then I just, just hit a brick wall and that wasn't gonna work anymore. I'm, I'm super interested in. . So what were the, what were the couple of weeks like after that? What was the debrief from that decision? Like, what did you and that person talk about afterwards where you're like, Hey man, okay, so I know I said that make the right call.

Um, here's, here's what, here's what you don't understand about what the right call is, because he probably doesn't understand the overall picture of things, right? So what was, what was the last coup or conversations afterwards like, so yeah, I'll definitely touch on that. So that , that was actually worth me having a shop meeting.

I pulled the whole dang shop together and I delivered the message in the most comical manner I could and just had everybody holding their guts, right? And, and, and including that teammate, right? So we talked about it, I told everybody and I was like, you know, maybe in the future let's set a dollar amount at to which you're empowered to spend, right?

But, but. We celebrated the fact that they're making the calls. And kind of like what Rick talked about earlier, dude, if I'm not here and all this stuff is jacked up when I'm gone, or there's one of two things that are wrong. Either we have the wrong process or we got the wrong leader, and I know I'm the right guy, right?

And I know we have the right process, but we need to empower these people. So we delivered that message and there was a lot of joking around, like the teammates would just gimme a hard time and just, just be cutting up about, you know, the decisions they made. And they were just like, Amelia Bedulia, right?

Just making a bad decision. But then there was just busting my chops, but man, it, it got contagious and, and there was a, a huge swing. And then my quality of life got significantly better and I was able to, to scale that and, and repeat it at different centers. So it was my, the only tool in my box was no longer a hammer.

Right? That's all you got. Everybody's a nail. So what's what's, what's funny is Andre could do that because he knew how to do everything in the shop. I was completely different. So I was a service advisor who had never run a shop before. I had, I had managed a few people, and so my, my ticket got pulled and, uh, it was the quickest promotion I've ever seen in my life.

It, it was basically, Hey, do you, you wanna run a shop? And I said, yeah, I wanna run a shop. He goes, all right, show up here at eight o'clock on Monday. I said, okay. So in my mind, I would run the shop that I was working at, right? Uh, all the people that I built relationships with, you know, continue working with everybody that I knew, everybody I was comfortable around.

No, we are gonna, uh, put you in a brand new acquisi. Day one, it'll be converted from an independent collision center to now at M mso, you're going to be leading people you have never met for the first time, an entire team. Uh, and here you go. I got a pat on a on a butt and, uh, show 'em where my office was.

And so there was a lot of stuff that I didn't know how to do. I had to de depend on the people that were there. And so I was almost forced to, to allow them to make decisions and, and then manage where it went wrong. Right? How did it go wrong? How do we correct it? And the thing that actually helped me out quite a bit, because I never got to the point where I was trying to do everything cuz I, I just couldn't.

Um, and we, we did a, a tremendous job at that shop. The, uh, you know, we grew it very rapidly. It, it went, uh, probably we grew revenue over a hundred thousand dollars per month. In the first six months, six, seven months. Um, and then, uh, the company that we worked for had a ranking system, and I think within eight or nine months I had it ranked number ninth in the entire country.

Wow. So we, I mean, we were just, we were killing it. Having a blast. Man, it's so much more fun when you're killing it than it is when you're struggling. Hey, but, but when you think about it, Rick, you know, we're all saying the same stuff, right? So you were put in that position and, and you were forced to count on other people, right?

Or rely on other people. But, but think about the layer above that, right? Somebody trusted you right? And empowered you and did all these things. Basically all they did was give you the opportunity to impress everyone, and you did. And sometimes what I see is that we don't, we don't offer that same arena for our teams to perform, right?

To impress the shit out of us. , right? For fear of what that, that it's gonna mess up. All right, well, you can lock up the doors for three days a week, whatever, and come back and, and resume business. Ain't nothing gonna happen. Well, and that, that brings me back around. It's something I meant to touch on, uh, Adam, when you were talking about, um, not necessarily being, I don't wanna say it the wrong way, but when you work for someone, uh, you didn't go out and get it like you did when you worked for yourself, right?

So what I think about is I have to imagine you're a high performer, right? You know, you're not doing the things that you're doing because you're, you're not a high performer. So I think about if you work for me, what would my feedback, what would I see? Right? Would I see Adam, the high performer, or Adam that just does the bare minimum, right?

And so then how do I, how many people does, do I have right now that I see the same thing, right? That I'm, I'm scared to promote or to give more responsibility because. They're not doing it just because, for whatever reason in your case, I don't, I don't think it was a bad, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.

It was just kind of what we do, a position that we get in and now how many people am I holding back? And more importantly, how much easier, how much harder am I making my life because I'm holding those people back because I just don't see it yet. Um, I actually was having a conversa the same conversation the other day with my boss.

Um, the way I was always taught is to run a shop, you have to be able to do everything in this shop. You've gotta be able to write the estimates, you gotta be able to operate the front, you've gotta be able to do parts. And I always believe that. And, and when I look for people to promote, that was the deal.

Hey, you've gotta be able to do everything right because you might have to be able to do everything. Uh, and I'm slowly figuring out that that's not always the case. Um, I've seen people get promoted that I would not have promoted that do really well. And it's crazy that you can put more responsibility on somebody and give them more freedom, and they perform better than they do if you have a very specific range of tasks that they need to do and just tell them, this is what I need you to do.

Um, I would, my personal opinion on this is that, um, you do not need to know everything in the shop, as in you do not need to have deep, extensive knowledge about it. And my personal opinion on this is that you should, you should know enough to help and be able to make informed decisions with your key leaders in those different parts.

if you're an expert in that field, think of how long it takes to become an expert in parts management, um, collision repair and all these other kind of things. I mean, we're talking at minimum, you have to be deeply involved in that for at least a year, right? Mm-hmm. , I would say is probably fair to say, and it's, it's, it's really interesting to me.

So the couple of times that, or the couple of companies that I run and, um, the time that I ran a company, I don't need to know the minutiae of taxes, I don't need to know what my appropriate write-offs are and all these other kinds of things. I do need to know the overall, um, tax liability that we have and everything like that.

But I don't need to know the minu of it because I have a tax person for that bookkeeping. My, my. I, I recently discovered that I'm not great at bookkeeping . I had to, I had to pick up the, the, um, I had to pick up the flame for a little while and run with it and do everything and realize that I, I did a whole bunch of not great reconciliation of our books and blah, blah, blah.

And, but I don't need to be good at that. My bookkeeper needs to be good at that. What I need to be good at is the financial direction of the company and making big financial decisions. But I need the sup. I need to know enough about what our weekly cash flow, cash flow is, our monthly cash flow is, and making sure that those, those things are done well and right.

And personally, uh, how I've kind of done this, and this is easier, I would say when you're doing contractors versus employees, is every once in a while I'll have an audit done of that process where, . Um, if my taxes are done by someone and they're being done by someone for three years, I'll send the taxes off to someone else and say, Hey, take a look at this and tell me what you think of this.

And just wanna see if like, you know, we're, we're missing something or whatever. Well, how do you do that in like a parts department, right? Like the only way I can think of is you have a parts manager who's doing their job and you fully trust and rely on them. But what if you were to ask a junior parts person, uh, you know, the person underneath them and say, Hey, what do you think we could improve on?

Like, what do you think is something that we could do better? And what I think is interesting about that is they're gonna come at it from a totally different perspective with, um, eyes wide open or more open and say, Hey, you know, like I think things are running great. However, I think if we were to make these couple of changes, you know, I think we could probably improve on it.

And where this gets really fun is if you tell them, Hey, not a problem. Let's, I think, how about you run with that and you tell me how go do it because.  then. Mm-hmm. , if they fail at it, it wasn't, their idea passed off to someone else and then it was, that person just didn't execute on it well enough. It was, they tried it, they saw what the things are that do and don't work in those scenarios, and they're like, Hey, you know what?

I just, I just wasn't right. I didn't see the whole picture. I didn't see, um, I didn't see the whole forest. I just saw the couple of trees in front of me, right? Mm-hmm. . Now I know that that doesn't work. And they actually will be a lot more accepting of that truth than, than, uh, than if they were told no. Oh, you can't do that.

Yeah. A hundred. Totally agree. Yeah. And now they, now they see the big picture too, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. I didn't, just like you said, I, I didn't see these other trees that were about to jump out. I didn't see we had costs. Yeah. . Yeah. Like, uh, Andre, your example of the rental car is, is a great one. It's, um, Okay.

You know, we do a hundred thousand dollars every month. What's $1,600? Ah, see there's this little thing called net profit. Yeah. . Yeah, 10%. We started, started out here, but, but when you get down here, yeah, we're trying, we're trying to get the 10% EBITDA here, so I need to run an extra 16, you know what, $168,000 minus this, that, yeah.

It's, they don't get it. But, um, yep. It, it's, it's, it's a start, man. It's a, it's a foundation. So, so here's, here's the question I have, right? So, like I said, we've always kind of been, uh, infused with the idea that, hey, the manager's gotta know how to do everything. And, and like I said, I agree with you, right?

I'm slowly coming around to, all right, I'm, I think I'm bypassing some really good people mm-hmm.  by waiting on that. But my, now the dilemma is, all right, so I put them in place. , what happens when they're, when they lose a parts person and there's no parts person with experience, how do I get them to train something that they don't know how to do?

Hmm. Andre, do you have, so, and, and you know, there's, go ahead Dre. I'll let you, there's some answers to it, right? But that's, that's still the dilemma. Well, it, it, it just depends on where, where you're at, you know? Uh, so if, if we're talking about, let's say we're at a, we're at a 4 billion a year mso, right?

That's got 5,000 locations or whatever, right? They probably have the resources, they have the infrastructure to offer support and stuff like that. But if we flip the script and, and, and Rick right? It, let's say it's you and me, right? We open up a body shop tomorrow, right? We're probably starting off with, with, with, with no staff and we're wearing multiple hats and doing this stuff.

So we have this sort of experience, right? So we can. You know, bring somebody on board. We have a direct hand and, and grooming them and, and teaching 'em how to get it done. And, and I, I see both sides of it, right? Like I did pride myself on, on knowing how to fix everything. Cause I screwed everything up at some point.

I've worn so many hats over the year. I knew absolutely what you should not do, right? And how to get the outcome we needed. Mm-hmm. . Um, but you, you fast forward and, and to your position, there's somebody that comes to mind like that, that we've promoted. Man, it, it, it, they, they can navigate it. They just have to have that, that understanding that, hey, I, I, I'm not the subject matter expert, but I know where to go to get that information and I can bring it back to my.

Right. I've been in that position many times, and it's my job to go get this information and have an answer for the team. Right. And, and I don't know, I'm not the subject matter expert, right? I, I was maybe five, 10 years ago. But technology's changing. Everything's changing. We're focused on doing different things.

So I can see both sides of it. There's, there's definitely some pros and some cons there, but if we're, if we're scaling, I think the challenges are gonna be gonna be different. Yeah. You lose your parts person, you know, it's, it's devastating. But, but the good thing is that a lot of the, the duties and, and roles p cross pollinate with one another.

Your service advisors know how to order parts. Right. Pretty much. Right. They, they might just need to know where to click. Yeah. Like I said, there's some, there's some answers. It's just, that's, that's kind of one of the, um, one of the dilemmas I'm running. I've got some great, I've got a phenomenal team.

Mm-hmm. . Um, my team came from a different mso. We acquired them all together for the most part, and they weren't, They, they weren't having to lead like they're leading now. And so one of the, we've gone through a lot of steps and, and we're kind of to the point where now, um, I need them to do more training within their shops.

Cause I just, I think that's, I think that's where we lack. Right. And I don't mind doing the training. I've, I've pulled service advisors out for two, two days straight and, and work with the service advisors. I don't mind working with parts people. Um, but I have to balance my time too. Right. And where is it best spent?

Is it best spent training a parts person? Mm-hmm.  or is it best spent training a new manager that I, that I've added. And so you, I've got, I kind of get pulled in some different directions, so I just threw that out there just to see if, you know, if anything, anything good came out of it versus what I, what I'm doing.

But yeah, that's right now we're just powering through it. The couple of, uh, couple of cents that I'll throw in about that Rick is.  for the last couple of years, I have had to ask a question to myself multiple different times, and that is that, what's the worst that could happen out of this? Mm-hmm. . And will this actually make the company crumble and go away?

Now, think of how many, I bet you can count on one hand the amount of things that could actually make a company go away overnight if it, if it wasn't done. Well, losing a parts manager now, in the long run to five, 10 plus years, if you don't ever have a parts person in those 2, 5, 10 years, you're gonna, you're gonna have a lot of disordered parts.

You're gonna have a ton of parts that are sitting on the shelf that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? A lot of delays in projects, but would that actually make the company fold overnight? No. Mm. And no, you're ab Yeah, absolutely. Right. And, um, You know, when you're, when you're in your guys' sit situations where it seems like you are overlooking a bunch of different people in a, on a lot of leadership roles, um, and your, your attention gets pulled away in a lot of different directions.

Um, Jocko actually talks about this in the book, which is prioritize and execute. And the only way that you can prioritize or you can figure out what to prioritize is you have to figure out, okay, what's the overall, um, mission and that direction that the, that we as a company want to go? Is it, are we purely in growth mode right now?

Okay. What are those, what do we need to do in order for us to be able to grow and grow faster and grow, sustain sustainably? Right. And what I always find inter interesting about companies that are in growth mode, including ours, where we're at right now is growth is not up until the right. People think it's that way, but it's not.

you're looking at it zoomed out over a long period of time. You're looking at Apple, where Apple went up into the right. You're not zoomed in where it was actually just plateaus. It was mountains and plateaus, mountains and plateaus. You grow and then all of a sudden you hit a friction point and you're like, shit, okay, now we gotta figure this out.

And then you kind of just level out for a little bit. You fix that problem and then you grow again. Right? Um, so if you guys don't know where the direction and overall mission of your guys', um, uh, where you want to go, go that, go up the chain of command, say, Hey man, like I'm currently trying to figure out why I need to be focusing my efforts.

Can you kind of help me figure out where we need to go? Because if, if you're always in growth mode and you're never in like efficiency repair mode, well then pretty soon your, your net profit of 10 to 15% goes down to like five. Mm-hmm.  because. , inevitably, you're gonna have inefficient processes going on in the background, and you never clean up those messes.

And then all of a sudden, at some point, your leadership or you or whatever is gonna look back and say, holy shit, we're handing out $1,600 rentals. Like they're going out fucking . Okay, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta fix this, right? We gotta get efficient in this. And then all of a sudden, boom, you get back up to your 10 to 15% net profit.

And then what's funny is how often you actually see that mm-hmm.  is exactly, I mean, you nailed it. That happens so often. Yep. It's crazy. And that doesn't mean that, um, and prioritizing can be as micro or as macro as you want it to be. It can be, you can change that prioriti, um, prioritization on the daily, or you can change it weekly, monthly, yearly, whatever it might be.

So anyways, um, I would f that's where I would first figure out is, okay, what do we actually need to work on if, if. Do we need to work on social media posting ? No. Like that's, that's number 10 down the list, right? We're still busy trying to keep everybody in line that we can't worry about social media posting.

You can hand that off to someone else and it shouldn't even be a thought that enters into your mind. But then when it comes to the top three things that you need to prioritize, first thing that I go to is, okay, um, not who can I hand this off to, but who is equally or just a little bit less equipped than I am to do this.

You give them the overall mission. You tell them, Hey, here's where the company is at. Here's what we want to go do, and here's what's in it for you. If you do this well, if you guys had no idea or weren't told, um, that the things that you were going to do, were going to progress you in the. , why would you have any incentivization to do it?

Right? You guys did those things because of the hope or the idea that you would progress through the company and it, it succeeded, right? So if you, so far, yeah, it's paid off. If you tell them, Hey, I'm a regional guy. This is, I'm the regional manager of this area. This is how I got to this point. If you do this really well, I'm not saying you're gonna get an overnight promotion by any means, but if you execute on this really well, there's no reason why you can't take control of the whole parts ordering for not only the shop, but then maybe we take what you learned and spread it over two or three shops.

There's nothing think of, think of, think of the guy who came up with an efficient parts ordering process for his shop and bumped up their percentages by a couple of percent in net profit. You know, whatever was directly correlated to that. Think of the ego boost. Mm-hmm. , when you get together three shops in the area and they're like, Hey, uh, Juan over here.

Juan came up with this killer process. I'm gonna let him hand it off. I'm gonna let him show you guys how to do it. He's gonna, he's gonna make, for the next two weeks, he's gonna go around to all the different chops. Show you how to do it. Juan is walking in there with a big, old chest. Mm-hmm. . He's like, listen up bitches.

I like, I've got the solution. Like he has got ownership over that. That whole process. It ignites a fire. I do that. Everybody wants a piece of the action, but man, you know, talking about things you were talking about, right? It, it's, man, I, I think the, the key component to all that stuff, right? Yes. We want to go in a northeast lead direction and, and you know, it, it's gonna take a whole tribe, a village of us to do it, right?

We, we start by defining what does this look like? What is success the hell, what, what we're working towards, right? Is it to be the most profitable? Is it to be this or to be that? You know, I found that, I had great success when I interviewed people and told them what I was hiring them to do, and it went just like this.

I'm not hiring you to come here and fix cars, I'm hiring you and I'm gonna just make up this mission statement, right? But it's to be, to provide the best, uh, customer experience, uh, you know, in a collision center, right, ever. Right? That's my mission statement. I make sure that they understand very clearly that the reason you're gonna get out of bed to come here is to help me do this.

Okay? How are we gonna do this? We're gonna fix these, these, these cars, and we're gonna do the most proper repair. The safest repair, right? We're gonna be proud of the product that we've put out. It's gonna be second to none, and as a. , you're gonna advance your career, man. You're gonna make a lot of money.

The opportunity's gonna be there for you, doors are gonna open. We're gonna present you with all the opportunity you could ever ask for. And, and it's for you to take what's yours, right? And not to be given anything. Yeah. And I found that when we, when we stated it like that, and we gave these people the mission, right?

And they under understood what the mission was and what the critical items were, they delivered on it. Now, we were doing this for a purpose. We had a purpose-driven organization, right? And we would always echo back our mission. We, Rick and I would start off, uh, meetings and, and it would be the same format every time.

It's, let's talk about our mission and the components of this, right? And, and everybody would chime in and, and they'd break stuff down and communicate and give examples of share the wins. , and I knew that that was being cascaded down to the team. So it was always on the forefront of their head that we understood that, Hey, this is what we need to do.

And then you see people going above and beyond and, you know, feeling empowered to pay $1,600 rentals, I guess. Right? I guess that's, that's the best they could come up with. But it's, it's, it's different. Right? Then we'll teach 'em the business and when it looks like, you know, ERO eroding your bottom line, but man, that's where it starts, right?

So when you're, when you were talking about scaling a second ago, my, my brain goes to, all right, what is success? What's the milestone? How are we gonna know we're there? And, and then the northeasterly thing. Yeah. We need to be able to look at the 15 minute chart, the one day chart, the week chart, right.

Make sure we're tracking, uh, on, on the grand scheme of things. Yeah. Um, I'll add to that then. I should probably let you guys go back to your very busy lives. , , um, one of the, oh man, it's over already. Yeah, right.  , one of the, one of the businesses that I ran or owned. There wasn't really much room for vertical growth.

Okay. And I knew it, the people that I was hiring knew it, like it was a, at that current stage of business, everyone kind of understood like this was, there just wasn't much room for growth, uh, as far as, uh, vertically for them. Right. And the very first thing that I would do when they got through the interviews and everything like that, was I would sit down with them.

I'd say, this is a short-term job career. You're probably gonna be in this for about three years maximum. And if you're in it for longer than three years, you're, you're probably not doing the things that you should. What is it that you want to do after this that I can help you get to that point so that when you leave here, you are a better person and you're more equipped for that thing.

And that took people absolutely by surprise. They're, they would go, what? What do you mean? I said, listen man, I'm not gonna BS u you're not gonna BS me. This is something that you're gonna do for three years maximum, which is about the average time that someone sticks in this career field. So I want if, if it's leadership that you wanna learn more about, if it's sales that you wanna learn more about, if it's learning how to run this business so that you can run your own business, just tell me, I'll give you the keys to the kingdom and everything that I know possible so that when you leave here, you are a better and more equipped human being so that you can have better success at somewhere else where there is more vertical growth and more, um, there's more slots for you to fill.

And man, I tell you what it was, the attitude that those people would come in to work with was night and day different. It was one of 'em wanted to know every single aspect of the business, the costs and everything. So guess what we would do? Sometimes when we were slow, I would have him come in for an hour into the office and I'd show him, okay, here's the reason why I'm doing these things.

Here's the reason why we're doing this and that and everything else. And he very quickly saw a whole picture of why the business was running the way that it was running. And, um, not only was he extraordinarily enthusiastic about doing what our company's mission at that time was because he understood the whole picture.

He went off and did his own business and was successful at that business. And I can't think of a better compliment than having someone coming into your organization and not only executing your vision at an extraordinarily high level that you can expect from a, an employee, right. But being able to take everything that you learned and provide for themselves afterward, that, that to me was.

Dude, it, it's huge, right? Just like Simon Sinek talks a huge right? People don't buy why you do, they buy why you do it, right? And you were, you, you were taking care of your, your flock along the way. And, uh, you know, at the end of the day, right? Cause Rick and I have beat this to death, you know, at the end there's a fulfillment that I need out my job for me to get outta bed every morning and come do this thing, and I've identified it, it, it's to improve people's qualities of life.

And you delivered on that, right? You get in that person to where they're doing it. It is the biggest compliment. And somebody did that for me. And, and I have to absolutely return the favor, right? You, you, you just, you're obligated to those things, man. And, and Rick's the same way. , but you're, you're a hundred percent Rick.

Final thoughts? So, hey Rick, if, Hey Rick, if you wanna keep, what's that? Keep him on this podcast longer. You're probably gonna have to tell him about your journey in C Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's the best story I've ever heard. It's like Castaway, if you ever want hear it, Adam. It, it's actually great, great story.

Well, maybe we'll have to have you guys on. It's a long time . Uh, so Rick, did you have any final thoughts or anything else that you wanted to let the peoples of the interwebs know? No, I mean, um, I, I think everything we talked about is great, great leadership stuff, right? And, and we lost you again, brother

Right, right, right. When he was gonna deliver his Yeah, he's all outta minutes. He's gotta.

No, just the trial trials and tribulations that, that we go through, um, and really the struggle to, to be a good leader and to improve the quality of people's lives. And man, it's, it's such a crazy, um, it's been such a crazy journey and I, I wouldn't change it for the world, man. The, just the people that I've come in contact with and, and the, the things that I have been able to do and grow and just watch myself improve and then watch others.

I mean, I've, I've brought people into this industry with zero experience and, and watched them grow. And man, it's just, it's been incredible. Uh, and I, I, I wouldn't change it for the world. Yeah. Um, man, I'll tell you what, my takeaway from this, from this industry, right, is your production determines. The schedule you work determines the car you drive, right?

Determines the quality of life you have, so on and so forth. Right. Those out there listening, it, it's, it's really a great industry to be in with so much opportunity, right? Uh, yeah. To Rich's point, I wouldn't change it for the world. Matt's super, super blessed to, had just applied somewhere to, happened to be a body shop and had enough experience right?

From working at Stein Mart as a temp and chipping and receiving to where I was the best candidate, which is scary. And, uh, you know, stumbling into this thing. And, and you know what, when, when, when you have a good opportunity in your hand and you don't have to listen twice, right? Here it is, just, just take advantage of it and, uh, you'll get what you want out of it.

So I'm super excited to see what the next 10 years look like, right? Because this is, this is where I'm at, this is where I'm staying, not going, psychology. And that, that's key, right? Yeah. It's there if you want it. Whatever you want, it's there. You just gotta go out and get it. This is the, this is the perfect industry to do it in.

Awesome. Well thanks so much guys for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedules to do this. Really do appreciate it. Um, can people hit you up on LinkedIn? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. Yeah, we're always available for coaching. I mean, that's all. We don't sleep brother. We are on the phone twenty four seven.

Just, just filling other people's batteries up, , that's what we do. Awesome. Especially, especially when we get to do some of that blunt coaching . That's, that's the fun stuff. That's true. Awesome. Well, you guys have a great rest of the day. Thank you so much for coming on. You too, buddy. Thanks, Adam. You've been listening to the Autobody podcast presented by Clarity Code.

Our passion is to talk to and about anyone in the industry, from painters, body guys, manufacturers, and anyone in between. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like rate and review and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, visit us@claritycoat.com and find us on Facebook and YouTube at Clarity Coat.

See you next time on the Autobody Podcast.