Real Talk with Mike Burke
Join entrepreneur and visionary Mike Burke as he interviews other successful business owners, go-getters and influencers to discover their stories - who they are, where they came from, and where they're going next. Check out full episodes on YouTube @RealTalkwithMikeBurke
Real Talk with Mike Burke
Ep. 92 🎙️Attention To Details | Real Talk with Mike Burke
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We talk with Brian Johnson about grit, pain, and the craft of building a lean, profitable detailing and PPF shop after a life-altering injury. From flipping sport bikes to clean-room standards, we trade tactics for margins, mindset, and customer trust that lasts.
• NASCAR-style install process.
• Sport bike consignment strategy, buying low and flipping bikes in Canada.
• hotshot hauling across the U.S., union job, and the injury
• recovery, depression, and a doctor who opened the door back to cars
• launching Attention To Detail, PPF training from zero
• Standards, redos, and protecting reputation
• shop footprint, clean room, rent, payroll, marketing spend
• tint vs PPF economics, lead costs, upsell path
• leadership lessons, hiring, culture, and celebrating wins
Meet Brian Johnson
SPEAKER_02Today, I am with Brian. Brian, what's your last name? Johnson. I didn't know that. I did. But he is attention to detail. And Brian Johnson is from Indiana, right outside of Chicago. Uh, we became friends at uh X Bell Dealer Conference. Brian, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02You drove 10 hours here?
SPEAKER_01It's actually like 11 and some. What'd you drive? Uh the wife's Audi S5. S5. Yeah. Was it comfortable? It is very comfortable.
SPEAKER_02What'd you guys talk about for 11 hours?
SPEAKER_01Um, a lot of different things. Uh couldn't believe I was driving to see you. Number one, how it all materialized and manifested. And uh so yeah.
SPEAKER_0211 hours later. So if anybody that watches this podcast in China and Asia, I'm very important. Someone drove 11 hours to come hang out with me. It's kind of remarkable. Thank you so much for doing that. Real thanks for having me. Did you have a good day?
Early Car Obsession And First Builds
SPEAKER_01Uh awesome day. Yes. Awesome, man. Appreciate it. Um attention to detail. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Um, yeah, we started uh about six years ago. Uh it'd be six years this April 11th, actually, coming up for 2026. And it's something that I've always wanted to do. Yeah, and it just happened to fall in my lap for it to happen after an injury injury that I had, and I had to figure out what I was gonna do again. And uh so I took my passion for cars and everything and started from the ground and built it up.
SPEAKER_02How old are you?
SPEAKER_01I'm 58.
SPEAKER_02You look fucking good.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Not as good as you though. No, no, no, no. I'm I've got skin problems. I mean, I look like I'm 80 right now. It's crazy. Um they don't have enough Botox in the in the building for me. Um, no, seriously. So you're 58 years old, and talk about your passion. Where did where did this passion for cars come from?
SPEAKER_01Um, since I was a kid, I've always been in the cars. My dad was always in the cars as well. Uh older Corvettes in the 70s and stuff like that. He was a big gear head, you know, 55 Chevies. My first car was a 68 GTO, and that was the first car that I actually went in and I'm gonna, it was red. Uh, and I went in and started polishing it with a rotary and the garage. My dad comes out, what the hell are you doing? I'm like, what? And he's like, you know, I'm burning things through it or whatever. So uh he showed me and um I loved it. It was like art uh at that time I got that car. I didn't have my license, he got me that when I was 15.
SPEAKER_02What was it again?
SPEAKER_01Uh 1968 GTO. Red. Red. Yes. And uh yeah, just what kind of motor? It had the uh 400 with a uh four-speed, Muncie four-speed in it, and and uh it was really clean and nice. My dad, you know, redid the motor and stuff like that, but then I wanted it just to be so shiny, right? And once I learned that, had the hood repainted because I totally screwed it up, and uh I seen what I could do, and I just got lost into it. To me, it's uh it's relax.
SPEAKER_02Right. It's relaxing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's therapy, it's therapy. Washing my cars on the weekend and stuff, it's just like turn the music on and go.
Nova Scotia Years And Flipping Bikes
SPEAKER_02That's awesome, man. So when you got your first car, polished it, take me through the journey, like a quick overview of fast time lapse of like high school to like to your 30. How many cars did you own?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I've been very grateful to have some of the cars I've had. Shouldn't have got some of them because I couldn't afford them, but you know, that is when you're young. So I've had a lot of cars. So the GTO, um, after that, I went uh had a 78 Mustang Cobra 2, then went uh had that for quite a while, and then a couple shit boxes, I call them. Uh, and then I got a uh getting into the real good cars, uh 1985 Ford Mustang GT when they first come out. Got that, traded that in for an 85 and a half Porsche 944 turbo and uh couldn't afford it, so uh had to get rid of that, and then went into trucks for a while. I was big into trucks. My all my kids race motocross.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So got into all the trucks, the diesels, and then um, yeah, I think got back in the cars again in uh 2008. I bought the 2005 uh Mustang GT, done that up a little bit, and then got an 07 uh GT500 Super Snake, but I never drove them. I always wanted them to look perfect in the garage and stuff until I had to get rid of them. And then uh yeah, then I had to get rid of them and start from the bottom again and after my injury and so you had an injury and let's walk through that.
SPEAKER_02You're from Indiana. What's the town called?
SPEAKER_01Chesterton.
SPEAKER_02It's a small town, yeah. Got it, but it's just just outside of Chicago.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, about 45 miles uh east, uh southeast.
SPEAKER_02And your parents split up. Yep. And then you went from Indiana to Canada. Nova Scotia. Nova Nova Scotia. Yeah. Um the only reason I know Nova Scotia is the digging for what was that uh show? What's it called? The one that um Oh, for the gold.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, no, I don't know the name of it, but yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So walk me through that. You went from U.S. to Nova Scotia. Take me through that transition.
SPEAKER_01Um, so lost, basically. My parents divorced. Um, my mother married a Canadian, that's what brought her up there. And um, yeah, so I went to visit and uh a couple times, you know, week here, week there, liked it. And then I went back one time uh for another visit and met my wife today and uh ended up staying there for a while and doing some jobs there and stuff like that. Uh we opened a business there, uh motorcycle, used motorcycle dealer, because my kids were in the motocross racing. Yeah. Used motorcycles. Yeah. I started my first business when I was 16.
SPEAKER_02No way. Doing what?
SPEAKER_01Uh so I would go in the Kmart, Sears, and all these department stores, you know, uh 15, 16 years old. And, you know, with my buddies, we'd walk around, go to the bicycle section, and you'd pull a bike out and look at it, and tires would be flat, or the brake levers would move, or shit. It was just falling apart. And uh I started thinking, and I'm like looking at all their patio furniture and barbecues and stuff, and I'm like, stuff falling off. So I got this idea and uh spoke to my dad about it. He was very business-minded, and uh he's like, Yeah, do a business plan, go in and tell him what you can do. And so I went and met the guy like two or three days at uh days later at a uh local Kmart, told him what I could do, how much I'd charge per bike, and then he's like, All right, let's do it. And then uh so it was just me by myself and get my tools, and I'd go in there and yeah, start putting together bikes. And then he said, Can you do lawnmowers? I'm like, Yeah, can you do patio furniture? Yeah. And it got for me at that time, it was like, oh my God, what did I get myself into because I can't handle all of it. And they're like, I need this many bikes done, you know, da-da-da-da. And then we have another store in Valparaiso, it's another town. We have another store here. So I started hiring friends from school, and then that's yeah, started that doing it, was making lots of money. It was all going into my car, didn't save nothing. You know, I was rich, 10 cent millionaire, but uh at the time it's six, sixteen, you know, because they paid you cash. You know, you'd walk out of there eight, nine hundred dollars. And at the time that was a lot, right? Sixteen? Sixteen, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Holy Jesus.
SPEAKER_01But I could never, you know, I had enough money in the gas tank, and you know, I'm gonna buy chrome valve covers, I'm buying and go buy this, or I'm saving up for a new set of rims. So that's a crazy story.
SPEAKER_02Love that.
Consignment Hacks And Growing A Dealership
SPEAKER_01Did that, and then um back to your original question, and uh yeah, started because of the kids racing. It was so expensive. And so uh I was always had motorcycles. I've always read my whole life, and then I was good at selling and flipping, selling and flipping, and then uh yeah, went to brick and mortar and did that for a while. Mechanics we did, I did I think that for seven, maybe eight years, did that, and then uh yeah, then we decided to move back to Indiana and um yeah, sold it, sold the business off and then so you don't think of Nova Scotia motocross.
SPEAKER_02Like you don't think of it.
SPEAKER_01No, it's big candidates, really big, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I keep thinking of snowmobiles.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, big snowmobiles. Did you work on those? Uh very little. Was there a market there to flip those? Um, yes, but no. Snowmobiles like a boat.
SPEAKER_02What was the most profitable thing you could flip?
SPEAKER_01Uh sports bikes. Like what? Uh R1s, GSXRs, uh, you know, ninjas. That was huge.
SPEAKER_02Bomb in the offseason, fix them up, sell them?
SPEAKER_01Yep. We'd go to auctions, we'd travel all over. I bought a 53-foot enclosed trailer, and we would leave Nova Scotia and in Toronto every winter. They'd have like this huge convention and uh people from all over, like rare motorcycles, people were just looking to get rid of it. And uh, yeah, we'd go there, buy up some stuff, and then travel around. And Christina would be on the phone as I'm driving, my wife, and um calling people, you know, and local ads. We'd go look at bikes or whatever, right? And then, you know, they wanted 5,000, you know. I almost got punched in the face a lot, but over, I'll give you 2,500 cash right now. So we did that, take them back, make them look good, you know, tune them all up and then flop them and turn them. But we were selling more used motors at the time. I was uh selling more used uh motor sports bikes, stuff like that. It was mostly sports bikes and cruisers uh than any other dealer in our area. They hated me. They hated you because I do ads and uh all the ads, and we have I would say we have more Kawasaki's than the dealer used or whatever, and they would call me up. You can't do that. And I'm like, this is the fact, right?
Back To Indiana And Hotshot Hauling
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. So you know, going back to that, my son raced and we raced motocross, and we were heavy in the motocross. And years later, my son did the very same thing on Facebook Marketplace. He would go buy what we call sp like you know, 65, 85s, 125s, and he would buy mainly like the little pit bikes, is where he started, like the little 110s. Yeah, and parents would buy these bikes for their kids, and they'd leave them in the corner, they drive them for a little while, and then they gum up, they wouldn't crank, and then all of a sudden the carburetors bad, flat tire, same thing. So my son found a niche, he would go in, clean the carburetors, buy them cheap on marketplace, and over COVID, like right before COVID and right after COVID, his secret was putting what we learned in motocross was the graphics. If you had graphics with fresh plastic and fresh graphics, it looked fast and it looked new. Yeah, no matter what. If it cranked, kids would come over to the house, they'd come in the driveway, and they'd see my son's bikes and they would all be tricked out, his motocross bikes, because they were all like it looks like monster energy, and he would make a killing on those things, man.
SPEAKER_01I learned a long time ago with cars especially. You can have a car that looks like shit and runs perfect. And then you can have a car that looks like crazy good but barely runs. They want the one that looks really good.
SPEAKER_02It's kind of like the guys when you're young, you always go after the attractive girls. Yeah. But they're kind of just attractive. Yeah, nothing else. Yeah, yeah. It's air. Um, no, that's really cool, man. So transition, how much capital did you have to have by buying and selling? Like what was your cash flow like? I'm just curious, like you're gonna go buy motorcycles and buy things, and you got all these bikes. What kind of cash did you had laid out in inventory?
SPEAKER_01So heavily in the consignment is how I started it. Okay. All right. So banks don't want to talk to people who lie deals like we have, you know, and I learned that at a very young age going in. So I done a lot of different things that's you know, off the chain of doing different things. Uh, so I how I first got rolling with it is I would go through the auto traders and I would call people up, and I would start making like a spreadsheet of like, hey, this bike's been in here for re episode after episode of the magazine. So I'd call them up, tell them who I was, where I was from, I can sell your bike for you. And I would already have people looking for these, and I said, you know, I'd want X amount of dollars to sell it. So, and that's where it started. So I started taking that money as I'd make it and then buying bikes and then sell it and just kept going and then just kept building it for you. Did you do a mechanic? Yeah, I had uh had two, two to three mechanics uh at all times in the back. What were you charging? Oh Jesus, man, this was 35 years ago. This uh like twenty bucks an hour. I think no, it was uh we were probably in the forty to fifty dollar an hour range. Oh wow, okay back then.
SPEAKER_02So now compared Nova Scotia to the U.S., like renting a brick and mortar building versus in the U.S., was there a big price difference?
SPEAKER_01And like more or less which one everything is more expensive in Canada. Is it? Oh yeah. So uh you do they got different tax brat, you know, two taxes, HST, PST, they call it so provincial uh sales tax. Um this is so long ago. What about labor?
SPEAKER_02Did you have to pay people under the table? Did you pay them no?
SPEAKER_01We uh started under the table cash, you know, doing stuff like that, and then it was just uh kind of like a 1099 that we call it here. I forget what it was called there.
SPEAKER_02What made you get out of the business?
Union Garbage Job And The Injury
SPEAKER_01Um wanting to move back, uh miserable. Cold. Cold, but miserable at my time in life as well. Gotcha with the business. If you go back to Indiana, what'd you do? Uh then we come back to Indiana and I uh started a company of transporting cars and boats across the United States. How'd that go? Uh that went uh really good. Um kind of transportation, like a big trailer, or what? Yeah, so I would hotshots. So I had a couple Ford F-450s, you know, dually, and then the big tax trailers, three or four car haulers, and Christina would uh book the loads, and then but I was gone all the time. But it was good money in the time. This is before 08, the market crash and all that. So I did that, rented out trailers to a couple people, and then stopped that because they tear the crap out of stuff and just did it myself, but I was never home. To make any money doing that, you've got to constantly make it. What could you make in a week, Holland? Oh, Jesus, seven, eight thousand dollars at the time. Yeah. But you know that's like top, and then you've got gas fuel fuel, If to the state, all that crap. So you'd have really good weeks, but you constantly constantly had to be.
SPEAKER_02How'd you book the work? Where'd you find the work?
SPEAKER_01Uh she would get on these boards that needed uh stuff transporting. I'll pay X. Exactly, and put out, and then you know, I did some sub work from some uh like moving companies that were moving people across, and then we got tied into like corporations where people were, you know, job transferring, they needed their cars moved, and it just kind of went from there. But I loved it because I seen a lot of the United States.
SPEAKER_02What was the longest haul that you made?
SPEAKER_01Oh Jesus. I would be gone my longest, I think, would be like three and a half weeks. No, I'm saying like the longest.
SPEAKER_02Did you ever go to Florida to California?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, yeah. So uh my yeah, so uh and non-stop. So I would fake you would back then you could mess with your logbooks. But I had a boat that I picked up somewhere in Arizona, I forget the town I was at, and it was so big, once we winched it onto my trailer, uh I tuck off and went down the road, and it was throwing my truck all over because I had to keep it at the back for the height laws. So uh I had to turn around, take it back, and then I dropped my trailer off there, and I ran from there uh all the way to Florida with the boat just on the trailer and then nonstop. And then got there. I think I slept for like three or four hours, got in my truck, and had to come all the way back deadhead to get my trailer, and then she would have cars for me to pick up and load to make it worth it. A lot of stupid you were never breakdowns, it was insane, totally not worth it. It kept us our bills paid at the time. Wow. I never seen my wife hardly at all. So you get to get home for two days, and she's like, You gotta go again, right? And it would be, yeah. So it did that and then uh come home. Then I uh started moving lumber for like menards. I don't know if today I have menards. I know menards, yeah. Okay, yeah. They don't have them here, but I know them. Yeah, so we got the contract in our local area for moving all their lumber around to people. If you're building a garage, I'm gonna take it out to you. So I'd buy a truck. They supplied the trailer, did that for a little while, hated it, went from there to waste management, uh Teamster, and uh was doing good until I got hurt. So, waste management, what were you doing? I was a driver, uh doing trash.
SPEAKER_02Uh what kind of money can you make doing that?
SPEAKER_01Well, a teamster, so you're in the union.
SPEAKER_02So I you got how do you become a teamster?
SPEAKER_01Uh so you get into the union, you know.
SPEAKER_02How do you do that? Uh so a gang member initiation, blah blah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So she got to shoot so many people. Bury a couple. Yeah, but uh no, so what's seen the job, went and applied for it, and they said, you know, hey, we're gonna get you in the union, so you gotta fill out the paperwork. It it's just money, pay their fees up front, and then after that you're in the union and off you go, and then you gotta you know hold your card. So the waste management's controlled by the union. Yeah, pretty much, yeah.
SPEAKER_02They own the garbage. Yep. The mob owns the garbage. Oh, yes, 100%. So take me through working there. What was that like?
SPEAKER_01Um, I hated it, but the money was really good. I think when I started out was like 28 bucks an hour and go a lot of hours, 60 plus hours a week. Uh, but I absolutely hated it because I've always wanted to do my own thing. And I would just sit in the truck all day. It was just, it's, it's I mean, no disrespect because I've got met good people. To me, though, it was like I was just selling yourself short. Yeah, I was wasting my time. It was like I was a robot. I'm like a dummy can do that. A monkey can do that.
SPEAKER_02But you're in Nova Scotia flipping bikes, and now you're having a dump truck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So uh did that, got hurt, and then um What kind of license did you have to like? A CDO? CDO, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And what was what was it like to get a CDL? How long does it take to get that?
Pain, Depression, And A Doctor’s Nudge
SPEAKER_01Uh CDL now it's different, but back then, you know, two weeks. Oh, really? Takes a lot longer now. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Now it's Yeah, they needed what six weeks of your time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you had to go to school now, I believe in a lot of states. But back then, yeah, you just go and write the test. They meet you out there, make sure you can go through, take you down the road, just like a driving test when we grew up. It was kind of like that, but commercial.
SPEAKER_02So when you got hurt, what were you doing?
SPEAKER_01Uh I was lifting heavy stuff, throwing it into the front loader of you know, front loader of the trucks, and uh shouldn't have been doing it, but wanted to get down with my day, and yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you threw out your rotator cuff?
SPEAKER_01Rotator cuff, bicep tendon, bicep, and then the laborum into my neck, and it threw through three vertebrates into my neck.
SPEAKER_02Tell me about the day you went to the hospital about that.
SPEAKER_01It was uh yeah. It was uh Did you drive yourself there? No, they come and got me, you know, like the manager of the place, then called uh my wife, Christina. Right. And then started, got all that process, and then started doing the MRIs, and then they're oh god, this is way worse than it was. And then everything changed, and then uh yeah, it was like my life was over. How many surgeries? Three, I believe. Well, the first one first one was my neck. They were gonna do the shoulder until they found out the neck. So they went in and done this one and they had to leave all this go. Why'd they do your neck? Because three vertebrates were literally smashed into my spinal cord and it pierced, and I was it's I got a shrinks now, they call it. So the fluid that's in our brain. It's always leaking inside on the outside of my spinal cord. So it's always putting pressure in different places. I can go three weeks, everything's fine. And then, so pretty much every month, month and a half, I go through a cycle. You know, I'll wake up, everything's pens and needles. It feels like someone's holding a lighter on my arm. If I touch my skin on my right arm, you know, I've lost all the nerves in here, stuff like that. So they had to wait for all this to heal up, and then they went into the shoulder and did all that crap.
SPEAKER_02We speak the same language.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Same knife, same burning, same thing.
SPEAKER_01It's it's uh used to it. It gets hard. You get numb to it, but there's some days like she'll know she can see it in my face. I'll come home from work or the shop, and you know, there's some days I don't even want to live. Yeah, and it's just crazy.
SPEAKER_02It gets it gets annoying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's like, how much can I deal with it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm not a pill guy, I'm not none of that. I don't drink alcohol. Yeah, so I just uh deal with it.
SPEAKER_02Why don't you drink alcohol?
Launching Attention To Detail And PPF
SPEAKER_01I never liked alcohol.
SPEAKER_02Um you never had the right drink.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've tried, like, you know, I can do a pina colada and stuff, but beer, I don't know how people drink it. Um been teased my whole life with it. To this day, as a grown man, I'll go out, you know, when we'll go out, whatever. Hey, what are you drinking, right? I don't want nothing. And they'll make like a big deal out of it. What do you mean? What do you mean you don't?
SPEAKER_02I just never did. See, I I've I am very similar to you because I went through hazing in my life for not drinking. I went through probably a good 20 years of my life I didn't drink. And what happened is is I would drink. Like I I was in college, I had a couple beers here and there, and I was just like, I didn't see the need to drink, right? I saw people being immature, making bad decisions, and I didn't know anyone in my life that drank alcohol that I go, that's my role model, and I want to be like him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, oh yeah. Michael Jordan is drunk every day. I want to be him. So at the end of the day, I didn't know anybody. I grew up in the South. A lot of my friends, dads drank beer. They're they're good people, but they they did stupid shit. Yeah. DUI, wrecked their truck, you know, their divorce, whatever, right? And I'm not blaming them on alcohol. I'm just saying they they probably contributed, right? And then I got to college and I saw fraternity brothers wreck cars, you know, get written on, passed out, puke in, make it. I'm just like, this doesn't look fun to me. Not right. And they they we wake up the next morning, man, I drank 17 beer. Good for you, bro. Like, awesome, man. Yeah, you want a trophy? Do 20 tomorrow. And it's like everybody just kept bragging about how much they could drink. And I'm like, that doesn't seem fun to me. Yeah, and so I would always have a beer in my hand, I would always be social, and I was like, I'm drinking, just to be part of the crowd.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and then later, you know, I drank some crown and cokes and a beer and two here and there, but I never really gravitated towards alcohol. Met my girlfriend, and she started doing craft cocktail classes, and I'm artistic background, so I really love art. And she really came home one day and I told her I used to bartend a little bit in college, which means I made rum and coke. I made crown and coke, and I made vodka and sprite and whatever. That was bartending in college, right? And so she's like, Oh yeah, I went to this class and made old-fashioned and a Manhattan and I did this and it had these bitters, and I'm like, what the fuck is a bitter? I didn't know. Yeah, and so she started educating me to come to one of the classes, and then when I saw what really went into this craft cocktail, and it was the artistic ability that gravitated me towards it and said, Oh, this is pretty cool. I can get behind this. So we'd go make a craft cocktail. It took 20 minutes to make one drink, yeah, but it was all these different things that are in it, and I'm tasting it, and I'm just like, it's more of a tasting. Yeah, so drinking now is more of a tasting. So we're going to a tasting. We're gonna go have a craft cocktail, we're gonna taste some of these craft bourbons or these craft tequilas. So we pour it and we put them and compare them and go, hmm, it has walnut, mmm, it has sugar, oh, it tastes like cinnamon and bark. And next thing you know, it's like wine, yeah, and you're tasting it for the creation of the artistic artist who made it. So I'm not gonna go drink like let's just say Jack Daniels, I'm not pouring it in Coke. Like that's crown and coke. You're drinking Coke with alcohol. Yeah, these are straight tasting, and you do them neat, which you can taste it three times, swirl it around. And I'm drinking it to get a buzz. I'm drinking it for the taste. Yep, I get it. So I've learned to adapt, and I've gone through spells where I I've wanted to do it more, and then this past year I think I've lost like 15 pounds, and I think it's because we don't drink anymore. And the sugars, you don't realize the natural sugars, it's bad. It's crazy. So um I do I do I do enjoy it for the right night, but we have one rule we're not allowed to drink alcohol unless we are celebrating something. So it's a celebration. Yes. So we can't if we have a bad day, we don't pull out alcohol. We go to the gym. If we have a great day and we're celebrating a win or we're celebrating something that happened good to us today, then we'll have a toast.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02So so drinking to me is a toast of celebrating something that we're rewarding ourselves to acknowledge that we did something well, well today or did something good. It's an accomplishment. Yeah, it's our and if I take one sip and put it down, you're good.
SPEAKER_01It's good.
SPEAKER_02It's like champagne. Here's a toast. Yeah, right. So that's in my in our brains, we've kind of adapted that in our lifestyle. So we're not allowed to drink it if we're having a bad day.
SPEAKER_01I like that a lot. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_02Plus some values and some codes. So you threw your shit out. Can you even arm wrestle anymore? A little bit. A little bit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01This arm. So I've always born left-handed, made to be right-handed. Um, my one, my uh Dustin, one of my boys, uh, he's a pretty big boy. Yeah. And uh, I used to be able to, yeah, now it's yeah, it's just it's just nothing left anymore. Um, still do my thing, but yeah. That's cool.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. So you got out of doing um the Teamsters. How long did you do that? Six, seven years?
SPEAKER_01I think it was just six, seven years, somewhere in there, a little bit.
SPEAKER_02And then you started to get bored and realize that you needed to do something?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And started washing cars again in your garage, just kind of Yeah, it was actually my uh doctor.
Shop Size, Costs, And Team Building
SPEAKER_01Um, never met him before, and he helped me through this. I went through like I crashed. Like it was, you know, I was it was a year before I could do anything. I went through depression. They I had to take all these steroids and these pills, uh, pain pills, and I've never been that guy. But I'd be at home because the wife had to work. You know, we're in the process. I mean, the world's crashing on us. You know, I'm losing this, this is going, I'm selling cars that I was able to get throughout my journey in life. And yeah, so it was all just coming down around us. And um, so I would feel better if I tucked the pills. And then all of a sudden I noticed, like, man, on my own, she would hide them. I knew where they were at, I would get them. And I just one day stopped cold turkey on that, went through that stuff. But I got to the point of still the pain and depression, leaving all I wouldn't now would not take any of it. So it made it worse. I was turning into an asshole. Never been really that kind of that guy. And I was telling her, listen, you need to get out now. She's what are you talking about? I said, You need to get out now. I don't know what the hell I can do. Because at that time, like, you know, all I can do is drive a truck, or I was always a big guy. You know, that's all I'm good for, and I'm not gonna take you, take you down with me. And she just kept on pushing and pushing. And then my doctor became to this day a very dear friend of mine, huge car collector. And he knew I was in the cars, and he seen it, and they talked. And uh, he just started do this for me on this car, do this for me, do this for me. And it got me kind of out and it started rolling. Set the juices flowing. Yeah, it started rolling and going and going, and then uh, yeah, it went to the point of more and more people were coming, and I'm like, all right, I can get behind this, I like this, and then uh yeah, brick and mortar out of the garage, got into this. I knew about pain protection film. No one in our area was doing it. And I'm like, okay, done some research, expels who I want to go with, and then uh started educating myself on that. Never touched it, never seen it, seen it on cars before, and told her, and she's like, if that's what you want to do, let's let's go. So uh sent two guys to school, my son Dustin being one of them of Texas, and the guy, another guy, Kenny, that works with me, sent they went to school, come back, and man, it was like just trying to put a mirror on or a headlight, like screaming and cussing, and like this is bullshit, what I get myself in. But something just said, Brian, stick with this, stick with this. You know, ordering film over and over again, and just uh so it finally just clicked one day and kept going, going and built it to what it is now and stuck true to it. And do you consider yourself OCD? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What is OCD? What is that?
SPEAKER_01Everything's gotta be to me, everything's gotta be perfect, everything's gotta have its place. Um, but I've gotten better uh because of this business and meeting people and talking to people like you and other people I've been great with. Nothing's perfect. Dude, I I I would I would have hoods and stuff that my installers would have like glass and just something that people Brian, we don't see what you're seeing, rip it off. Rip it off, and then yeah, so now still don't let anything, you know, dirt or hairs or anything, but uh I've calmed down a lot with it.
SPEAKER_02Mine was real bad. I tinted windows mainly, and when I first started tenting windows, I was so hard on myself. Like I was ripping off doors for like just a little bit of dust. I mean, it's muddy ass truck lifted. I mean, the guy's seats are ripped and and mud in the thing. And I'm tenting the windows. And if I could sit in the driver's seat and look over the window and see something in that window, it was coming off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
Profitability Over Size And Process
SPEAKER_02So I started learning going, okay, what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, and window tent. Okay. And I go, okay, well, a TV has a border. Windows have a border, they have a seal and they have a gasket. So I would do like basically a quarter inch to an inch and go, okay, well, if there's any debris in the border, then that's acceptable because it's in the border. But if it's in the visible line of sight, it has to come off. And then we start to have windshields. And I I don't know why it was, but I was always getting a couple debris of dust around the rearview mirror. And when you look at the rearview mirror, I would see a couple little speck of dust, and it would drop me insane. I'd rip it off. Yeah. And then it would be from here when I put it on the first time, and it would be here the second time. And I'm just like, all right, I gotta let it go. Like this is this is getting insane. So I started just adapting. And what I saw, because I'm installing it and the film is wet, once it dries, you're not really gonna see it as much because it's almost like you have a magnifying glass with the moisture. Once the moisture sucks it in, it it's more dissipated. And then I started doing pain protection, and it was horrible. Like the kits were horrible that wouldn't stretch, and then I got out of doing pain protection. I was the first guy in Charlotte to ever do pain protection, ever. Like I was the first guy. And once I got out of it, uh, about four or five years later, I started to catch on a little bit more, and then another four or five years later, there was a shop um that was doing quite a bit of it, and then they started tinting, and I started getting mad because I'm the tent guy. Yeah, what they're tinting, they're taking my customers, like, screw that. And I started getting into PPF just because I was wanting to piss them off because the customers were going there and getting the car tinted because now I'm like, because I wasn't doing PPF. So I'm like, screw it, I gotta do PPF so I can get the customer here to get the tent customer too. So I had to do it. I was forced into PPF again, and I didn't want to get back into PPF. I wanted to stay Express Tent. And if I was to do my company all over again, I know Expel would hate this, but I would just be a tent company because you got to get different plotters, you got to get bigger space. I was a small little shop that did tent. I just liked my little my little boutique. It's like being a barber in a shop where I don't want to go be a stylist shampooing, have a sink, color hair. I want to be a guy with a razor, come in and get out. Get out, yeah. Give me my money, get out. You know what I mean? Yeah, 100%. So it was just you needed more space, you needed a different plotter, you needed more inventory. And I'm glad I did. But it's just one of those things where at the time I fought it and I started seeing it grow around me. And I'm like, well, shit, I guess I gotta start doing it. And then that's when I kind of adapted it. We're still 80% tent, 20% PPF, but um, I enjoy PPF when I'm not in a hurry, when I can calm down. It's therapy to me. So I can go over there and I was telling one of the guys, and I've said this a thousand times, probably said on the podcast window 10 is like having sex, paint protection is like making love. Yeah, so you have to be gentle, you gotta light the candles, you gotta marry it and talk to it. Tent you can just you can knob it out. So anyway, so attention to detail was born. Who came up with the name? You or her?
SPEAKER_01Um, threw it around, both of us threw it around a lot, got the name, and then uh ATD. ATD, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Does it mean something in Indiana? People know the name.
SPEAKER_01They do, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh you branded it well?
SPEAKER_01I did, but then we have uh yeah, so we have a it's about 25 miles away from us. They opened up another shop, a 2D. Yeah. So that's always kind of been of a issue, whatever going back and forth. That bugged the hell out of me for the longest time.
SPEAKER_02How big is your place?
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm about 40, I'm gonna say 4,000 to 4200 square feet. Five cars inside? Four? Uh, I can do one, two, three, four, five, six cars at all times being PPF if they're there. Uh, and then in the other side, one, two, three, about the same the other side, you know, being, you know, washed or coated or do you have a drain in the ground or anything? Yep, all drain in the ground. In the wash bay and all that stuff. PPF room is just a street. Did you have to put that in? No, that was there on the part of the building uh when I rented it. And then last year before last year, uh, don't own the building, just lease. Uh, wanted to add on to the building. So we they let us add on. So we added on, and that's just the PPF clean room.
SPEAKER_02So you have a a PPF clean room. Yeah. That's awesome, man. How much is rent? Six thousand. Six grand. Yeah. Insurance?
SPEAKER_01Insurance is about uh about five, six hundred bucks a month. Ortman's comp. Yeah, my wife handles that. I'm gonna say yeah, that's in our insurance, I believe, though. That's like our insurance with our you know, percentage payroll. Yeah, it's all of that. Yeah, taxes. Film cost. Oh, film cost is correct. Advertising. Yeah, so I spend uh probably 55 to 6,000 a month in Google. Uh yeah. Film cost, you know, the bigger we get, we've increased. I think it was I was just talking to Christine about this the other day. Aaron, our rep, I think up last year, I think we're up 18% from what I'm saying.
Lessons, Mindset, And Celebrating Wins
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You're gonna hit cap out maybe at 730, 740? I hope a little bit more, but yeah. Yeah, somewhere in that range. And you have seven employees? Yes. Payroll? Yeah. Seven employees, seven children. Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, what's the positives of owning your own business?
SPEAKER_01Um, I love it. I get to do what I want to do. Uh, changing other people's lives, as corny as it may sound. Like you said, children. Um, I've watched them grow. I've got a couple employees that just bought their first houses, getting their dream cars. But it's also too, that's my mortgage. That's my car payment. Um turning men, because I got a woman working with me too, young lady, turning him into good people. I listen to them. That's big, big to me. I like money. I want to make money to do my stuff, but I'm not motivated by money. I want to be able to build something that when I look back and say and you got a son working with you now. Yep.
SPEAKER_02Michael.
SPEAKER_01Uh Dustin. Dustin. Dustin. Dustin, I'm sorry. Yeah. He told me 50 names. Yeah, Mike is uh one of our people lead PPF and sellers. Yep.
SPEAKER_02So what's the most difficult thing about owning a business?
SPEAKER_01Getting everybody, I guess, to listen or follow, see what I see in them and in where I'm taking my business.
SPEAKER_02So, how many years did it take for you to become successful in this business? Like when you first started, I'm sure you lost your ass.
SPEAKER_01Oh, God, yeah. She thought I was crazy, but she believed in me, Christina. Um, you know, hey, I need a CAD machine. You know, how much is that? Seven grand. All right. You know, hey, I need this. How much is the film when you're getting a PPF? I'm telling her, and we're literally, well, Brian, didn't we just get a roll of 60 by 50? And I'm like, yeah. She goes, literally two days ago, we burnt through it. I need more. Well, we can't get more. I said, Well, we need more because John's gonna pick his truck up tomorrow and I don't got nothing for his hood, you know. So uh burnt through a lot of money. You gotta have deep pockets.
SPEAKER_02I finally figured out how much did it cost to get started? Like we first rented the building, buying a plotter. Like, what do you think initial investment was?
SPEAKER_01So when I first started, um, my rent was only$2,500. Okay. All right. So uh I don't know,$50,000,$60,000.
SPEAKER_02That seems about right.$60K is about the right startup. How before before you made money, how long did it take? Did you have capital and reserves or did you have to borrow money?
SPEAKER_01We um so I uh my wife worked a job. Um once I got rid of stuff after getting hurt, so didn't have a lot, just our mortgage, and then um a little bit of money from my settlement um with workers comp, which wasn't great, but it it helps. And uh we just shoveled that in to it, and then it just kept growing.
SPEAKER_02When you first started, did you start knowing that you were not gonna be the labor? Did you know that like I can't do this because I'm hurt? I'm gonna say, hey, I need to hire from the start. Yeah. Most people usually are the owner, already have the skill set, and then they go open up their first brick and mortar store. The reason this is important for this conversation is you did it in reverse. Yeah. You had no help, you liked the business, were new to the business, and you did it all from scratch with no trained installers. No. Your two installers started raw from scratch. Yeah. How many cars do you screw up?
SPEAKER_01So that's as not a lot of redo.
SPEAKER_02And how did you get them to trust you? You just started. You're you're, nah, man, we're good at this shit.
Gratitude, Mentorship, And Closing
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just uh yeah, I look back at some of that because I I've actually something I did this year, uh, one of the very first C8 corretts we did. When did they come out in 2020? The C eights?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right at COVID.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the very first one we did, Jared, good guy. Uh, we did a full wrap for him.
SPEAKER_02Whole car?
SPEAKER_01Whole car.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_01And it came back. Um, no, no. Everything was good. We had a couple issues in the beginning, but it come so and he still has his car to this day. And we've done, he's bought multiple Teslas, we've wrapped them. So anyway, I seen his he come over to the shop to book another car or something. And I'm outside talking to him. This was like, I don't know, maybe May of this year, June, and I'm looking at his car and I'm like, oh my fuck. Like, this is like You want to redo it? I did. I've already started the process. He came in, something he had a finger on the rear bumper. And I said, All right, so he brought it in. And I said, How long do I have the car for? And he goes, No worries about it. I'm working, blah, blah, blah. So I started once it was in, and they got the car washed, and and I'm looking at it like, man, and I told Christine, I said, You're gonna get pissed at me. She's like, what? I said, I'm redoing this whole fucking car. I'm I I can't let this go out there. Because this guy was a big cheerleader for us. Oh, yeah, go see Brian. He's great. Whatever. I'm looking at this, you know, this far from the edges, and horrible. So we did the whole ass end of the car this year, like price uh from the doors back, pretty much. And I've got to change a few pieces in the front. And he says we can do that in the spring. So but he was very grave. He's like, No, you don't have to do it, man. It's great. I'm like, no, come and look at this C8 we just did, right?
SPEAKER_02So that's your name. It is. That's your reputation. Yeah. And he's a spokesperson. 100%. Best marketing you can do. Yeah. Is fix it and make it right. Yeah. That's good.
SPEAKER_01That's everything we do.
SPEAKER_02Well, it talks about your character. Who are you? What do you stand for? If you're only about money, you're gonna be like, ah, it's okay. It's when we first started. Yeah. No, you did it, you did the right thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I want you for a lifetime, not a one-time.
SPEAKER_02I agree. So I'm getting married. I have rings in the back, man. As soon as customers come in, we're getting married. Yeah. We have a we have a priest in the back and he marries us.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And that's the way it should be. You know, I never like that snaky salesman stuff. Transparency, honesty. I tell my clients, you know, I've got videos out there. Even if you choose not to use me, let me know if you're working with another shop. I'm gonna help you walk what to look for, what to ask. So six years this year? Yeah. This April 11th this year would be six.
SPEAKER_02And um, what's the future looking like for you?
SPEAKER_01Um after speaking with you, uh, I'm happy at my size. You should be. I I wanted to like, you know, hey, I wanted like, you know, 10 installers, you know, I wanted, you know, like six ceramic coders going in, you know, you open my eyes a lot, and I'm happy right where I'm at, and I can make my team can make great money where we're at. It's more controllable. I don't find these big, big shops that I looked in the beginning looking at and going, it's not, you can't sustain it. You really can't.
SPEAKER_02A lot of it's fake book. Yeah. You know, bigger houses, you know, when you have like a 2,200 square foot house, or say your starter home was 1,200 square feet, you could clean that thing on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon in an hour. Yeah. You go to a 5,000 square foot house, you have to heat more, you have to insure it for more. You got the three-car garage, so now you got more shit and more crap to fill the house up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So when you have smaller spaces, you tend to only have what you need. So a lot of shops that I visit across the country, I would see six, five, six, seven, eight, thousand square foot shops, ten thousand square foot shops. Twenty five hundred square feet is what they used as the working space. Yeah. The other 2,500, you know what was in there? Storage. Cars that were being stored for a buddy, the owner's, you know, whatever, his boat. Yeah. And next thing you know, all that space. And then I had a really good um friend of mine named Chris Hardy. We rode around to some shops together up north. And he walks in and he looks and goes, open all the doors, pull a car in. And pulls a car in, opens the door, and says, That's a work bay. That's$150 an hour. If you have space and you can pull a car in, open all four doors and walk around it, that's$150 an hour. Go to a mechanic shop. And he turned around and we left and we went to like a Chevrolet dealership and pulled in and we counted the bays. It was like bay, bay, bay, bay. It was like 24 bays. Okay. And 4,000 square feet. 24 bays.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_0224 cars were being worked on and 4,000 square feet. They had a lift, a toolbox, and a mechanic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And they were turning 150 because I went in and the labor rate in the service department was$150 an hour. This is like seven years ago.$150 an hour is what the labor rate was for a mechanic to work on the car.$24 cars,$150 an hour. Not a single bit of wasted space. So that seven years ago stuck in my head. And I said, Why would you ever want to shop bigger than what you need? You can put four cars here. You can put two cars here. Well I said, Well, what if I put two installers on one car? Then we can do them twice as fast. So I need less space. So two cars, two installers, boom, boom, they jump back and forth. The sales guy pulls the car out, next car's ready. And next thing you know, you just become really, really efficient. And then you look at Jiffy Loop. And I would go to Jiffy Loop. I'd go get my truck, you know, oil changed. And I'll do it when the driver's seat. I wasn't even like literally going to the dealership, I'd drop my truck off, they'd change the oil, it'd be three hours to go get oil changed at the Chevrolet dealership. So I go to Jiffy Loop or whatever the oil change places were, and I'd sit in my car and they charge me 110 bucks and I'd be in and out there in 15 minutes. It was like a little NASCAR pit crew. And I'm like, you know what? I need to be NASCAR pit crew. I gotta think everybody's driving at 100 miles an hour. They come down pit lane. I got four guys, gas, windshield, brake, back on the track. Yep. So everything I do in business, I'm thinking NASCAR pit crew. And you've opened my eyes to that. And that's what I just found was the most profitable. Sexy is not always glamorous and beautiful. But peace of mind, knowing that you're profitable. So when people go, oh, I did five million dollars. My dad used to preach to me when I was young. My dad's an accountant, and all I cared about was numbers at the time. And he would tell me, and he was a smart guy, and he he instilled a lot of good principles. But when I had my first company Lightning Mics, I did rims, I did tires, I did stereos, I did intakes, I did exhaust, I did stickers, I bought a plotter, and I was doing tent. And I was returning half the shit because I thought it was cool. Yeah. Oh, I'm going nerf bars. Well, they ordered the wrong ones, bolt, wrong bolt pattern for these wheels. I had to send those back. Well, I had to pay for this shit up front. And then all this inventory was sitting over here on the side. And my dad called me a busy fool. And he goes, Yeah, you did a million dollars in sales, but you spent 999999. You made one dollar this year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02He goes, You're an idiot. So that just stuck in my head over and over and over. Every good idea I have that I want to expand on in my business, I have to think as a whole new business, whole new business model, whole new everything, and simplify my business down to we're an express window tinting shop that does paint protection, that does ceramic coating. So everything, my profitability and my business model for Sunstoppers is high volume, efficient window tint because that's the most profitable part of my business. PPF takes longer, it takes more massaging, it takes more customer interaction. You have to talk to the customer longer on the phone. The acquisition cost is too high. I'm putting my lead cost is$80 for a lead. Window tent leads$16. Yeah. So I can get seven tent customers for one PPF customer. So why don't I just spend my money on marketing for 10? I don't even market that much for PPF. And then half the people that come in the shop, I can just pitch, oh, you just bought a new car, you're interested in some PPF? Send them over there. So that's got that's what I do. I lure in, I go fish for the one to two pound fish and occasionally we'll catch the four-pounder. Yeah. If that makes any sense. Sell up, sell. Yeah. So you have a remarkable story. If you were to do this business all over again with what you know now, what would you change?
SPEAKER_01That's a there's a lot of things I think.
SPEAKER_02No, one thing just pick one thing. One thing. If you could go, you know what, if I had a crystal ball and I was the first year or the second year, and you go, you know what, if I just would have changed this, maybe it's in you, maybe it's not the business, maybe it's not the personnel, maybe not anything. What do you know now as a manager, as a business owner, that you could be a better version? Like that you're talking to your younger self and you go, you know, I should have been tougher on the guys, or I should have been this, or I should have been that. You're coaching yourself right now.
SPEAKER_01You're talking to you. I would have been tougher on myself and learned to enjoy the journey and relax a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02Relax a little bit more. Yeah. Take some time off. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I believe you got to work hard to get what you want. I'm not talking it that way, but uh I'm hired on myself. Let me ask you a question. You like sports at all?
SPEAKER_02A little, yeah. When a guy slam dunks a basketball in the NBA, does the crowd go excited? Does the guy kind of cheer and high-five his players on the way back? Yeah. When a guy scores a touchdown in the NFL, do they spend a few minutes celebrating? Yep. Why do you play the game if you can't celebrate?
SPEAKER_01True. I have asked. My wife's actually said that to me. You need to, you've done some incredible things. So what's a celebration to you?
SPEAKER_02It ain't drinking alcohol. No. Um tell me a celebration. Like if you were to celebrate right now and you won and you hit a million dollars tomorrow, and you and your wife want to go celebrate, what's a celebration look like?
SPEAKER_01Just to uh actually to just sit with my wife somewhere and be quiet. Because you talk all day. Yeah, and then the crap with all the stuff. Just be quiet and not have a phone around me and to look at her, enjoy me being happy. This is the first way we not to get off track here, but the first time that we went away in so long coming here to see you. And it was, you know, you know how quick this was. Mike, I need you. When can I come see you? I said now, yeah. And I thought I was thinking after the holidays, and I'm like, but wow, this is happening so quick.
SPEAKER_02I'm a right now kind of guy.
SPEAKER_01My wife just told because I got here Friday and did the whole dad thing at the with my with the grave and all that, and uh she goes, You're smiling every day. And I'm not like this mean asshole guy, but basically it's just I always was just like, gotta get shit done, gotta get shut, you know, gotta get all this done. And after she said that to me, this whole trip, I'm sitting here and I'm like, I gotta keep going like this because it's like, man, I'm smiling all the time. So I don't know what happened, but I I plan on going back home and keeping this up.
SPEAKER_02Well, I need good fuel. Everyone needs good fuel. And people like ourselves, we are the fuel for others, but we don't get it in return. I feel that a lot with me. Yeah. Same.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for being my fuel.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Appreciate it. No, I appreciate you. You've changed my life. Seriously, just in this talking with you and meeting you. You're gonna make me cry here now. Um, just all of it. Like uh driving here. I told Christina multiple times, can you believe this? And she says, What are you talking about? I said, you know, I used to wait in line for you at these expel things. Literally, wait in line for you. And then I would go to make my move because whoever you were talking to would leave, and then somebody else would come in. And I never wanted to become in and go, hey, Mike, Mike. Uh, sometimes I weren't able to talk to you. What was I gonna say to you? This guy's gonna think I'm an idiot, you know, all of these things. But I just watched you, I listened to you. I went to, you know, when you'd give the little seminars inside, you know, the classes and stuff. And yeah. So this to me, to be able to, and then out of the blue, you I get this email. My wife calls me. Shey, we got an email from Kim. Is there Kim? Kim, yeah, Kim Assistant. Yep. And um, I'm like, okay, what's this about? And then she I'm she's reading it, she goes, Mike Burke. I'm like, you're kidding me. You're kidding me. What what what is this? And we're reading it. I'm like, no, this is something with Expel, maybe. So uh I called you that day. And man, you know, uh, no, I texted you, yeah. Yeah, and within 20 minutes, you called me back, and it started this journey that led me to here now. But grateful. I I want to be a guy like you. I want to give back. I'm doing that with my employees, but there's someday I'll want to be the guy that's talking at Expel or doing this stuff with the next guy that's behind me. To me, that's what I want to do. So when I find people like you with your sick dude, you can be in Arizona, wherever the hell you want to go, live in life or whatever, but you know, all day today, all day yesterday, like you're teaching me. You're teaching me how to take me to the next level. And uh that's priceless. People pay a lot of money for this, and you just like here, Brian. So I'm indebted to you. Like I've I now well, when I say indebted to you, I mean like to me, it's fuel. Like you just said, I need, you know, we gotta give each other fuel.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, this fuels me, right? Yeah, you know like giving back to you 100%.
SPEAKER_01And but now I gotta fuel, give you fuel, but I can't let you down. I can take everything you said to me this whole time and go back and saying it's too hard. You know what the difference between me and everybody else is? I can whip your ass.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you'll thank me for doing it. Yeah. You ever seen like two brothers? Yeah, like I kicked your ass and then you're hugging. Yep. Two seconds later.
SPEAKER_01A good smack in the face. One of my dear friends, we beat the hell out of each other many, many years ago. I'm gonna kick your ass.
SPEAKER_02All right. All right, man. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_02All right, real talk, emotional at the end. This dude's a badass. I mean, literally went to Nova Scotia and started a little fucking dirt bike recycling business. I mean, it's crazy. The story this guy has is incredible. Thank you so much for driving 11 hours. Thanks for pumping my ego up. Thank you, Christina. That's Christina, right? She's a beautiful Canadian.
SPEAKER_01Canadian.
SPEAKER_02He had to go all the way to Canada to get to the good one. A real blonde blonde. A real blonde. I know it's crazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but no, she's uh she's she's my remote.
SPEAKER_02I love her. Hey, thanks for tuning in. Real talk, Mike Burke. Thank X Bel. Thank Celsius. Thanks for the case of beer. I'm sorry, case of Celsius. Love you. All right, tune out later.