Tim Paap: From Chicken Wire on a '67 Mustang to Most Certified Shop in Central IL

Tim Paap bought a rusty '67 Mustang at 15, discovered his love for collision repair with chicken wire and body filler, and opened Paap Auto Body as a one-man shop in Mattoon, Illinois in 2001. Nearly 25 years later, he's built one of the most OEM-certified collision repair facilities in central Illinois.

In this episode, Tim shares the full story. From Nashville Auto Diesel College to painting cars after hours to save money, to building his first shop in a 30x50 pole barn with a homemade paint booth. He talks about the person who told him he'd never make it and how that became the fuel behind everything he's built.

Here's what we cover:

How Tim went from a three-car garage to a 10,000 square foot multi-location facility. Why he invested over $600,000 in OEM certifications including Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, Ford, GM, Nissan, Kia, and more. What shop owners need to know about EV repair and why it's not as intimidating as it seems. The Concierge Center concept and how a converted Jiffy Lube transformed his customer experience. How a luxury hotel scent inspired him to rethink every detail of his facility. His stance on insurance steering and why he refuses to participate in most repair networks. Co-founding Estimating Professionals with Mark Probst and their mission to raise the bar on estimating across the industry. Building a family legacy with his son Zack, from taping wheel wells at five years old to becoming an A-tech. Their drag racing hobby and how it strengthens the father-son bond. His sponsorship policy that holds the community accountable. What being a BodyShop Leader means to Tim.

Whether you're running a one-man shop, thinking about OEM certifications, or figuring out how to stand out in your market, this episode is loaded with practical takeaways from someone who's been in the trenches for over two decades.

Connect with Tim Paap at paapautobody.com or find him on Facebook. Check out Estimating Professionals at estimatingprofessionals.com.

The BodyShop Leaders Podcast is powered by BodyShop Marketing, the agency helping collision industry leaders grow smarter and lead stronger.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I have ADHD. So when somebody tells me that I can't do something, I don't you don't learn that much about ADHD people, but when somebody tells those type of people that they can't do it, it is vengeful that they're gonna do it. No questions asked. So I had a couple of people tell me that I wasn't gonna make it. Actually, my former boss of Porter Autobody's son, Derek Forder, told me that I would never make it. That was worse worse to everything's mouth because I was a thorn in his dad's side for 20 years until they sold the caliber.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I'm your host, Daniel Burkholder, and today I'm sitting down with Tim Pap, the owner of Pap Audibody out of Mattoon, Illinois. Tim opened a shop as a one-man operation back in 2001 and has built it into one of the most certified collision repair facilities in central Illinois. We're talking like Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, and a dozen. He's also the co-founder of Estimating Professionals, where he trains shop owners across the country how to write better estimates. Tim, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I'm excited to have you here, Tim. We're gonna jump right in. So, Tim, take us back to the very beginning. I understand you bought a 67 Mustang when you were 15 years old. Is that the moment that you knew you were going to this was going to be your life? Walk us through those early days and what made you decide to open your own shop.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Oh, that wasn't the actual way I decided that I loved body work. Don't ask me why people don't think this is absolutely nuts, is when I was putting chicken wire on the quarter panel to cover up rust, to put body filler in it. But I just loved shaping the quarter panel and getting it back and making it just seeing something transformed in front of your very eyes to back up before that transformation. I saved a bunch of money from mowing yards. This is the only car that I could afford. It was a six-cylinder Mustang. I had like great plans for it. I didn't have my real floor pans in it. So I went to a local body shop, bought a bunch of old hoods, cut the hoods out, made floor pans out of those. I was like the start of this whole conglomeration. If it wasn't for that, I don't know where I would be in life right now. And then to move forward, that was when I was doing the body work on it. That was the exact moment that I knew what I wanted to do. And then fast forward two years after that, I was like, oh, it started to crack out. And I'm like, how did I start learning like how it was cracking out? Why it's cracking only. Only way to fix it is put new quarter panels on. So then it was like a crash course and putting new quarter panels on. I bought a cheap welder and I welded it. And of course, I warped the first one, second one I didn't better, and then I whacked it, cut it off again a little bit higher, and I got better. And to this day, that Mustang is still in Terranhood, Indiana. And the guy that bought it off of me back then restored it completely, took the quarter panels off that I put on it. When I was only 16, I was doing that. He had it professionally done, probably when I was like 20 or 19 back in Terrahood, and they still drive it to this day. He still stays in contact with me once a year. But yeah, it's pretty cool just to see it and to know that I had a hand in like resurrecting it.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

That is pretty cool that you can actually remember the exact moment when that kind of just hits you. This is what I want to do. I don't think there's many people that have that kind of moment in time when they can go back to that. So, Tim, you started as a one-man shop many years ago, 25 years ago. What were those first couple of years like? And what was the hardest part about going from tech to business owner?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Do we have three full hours for give us the really short version?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

So the short version is I went to Nashville Hill Diesel College right out of high school. Like I signed up my junior year for Nashville Holocaust College in high school to go there right after my senior year. Two weeks after graduation, I went straight to Nashville Diesel College, thinking I was gonna learn all this great career. I think it was like 11 months or 12 months. I can't remember exactly what it was. Nashville, Tennessee. Best time of my life. Loved it there, everything. I still go back to Nashville on a yearly basis. I just drive through to see how things had changed. Anyway, got back from there, applied at a shop called Porter Autobody. It was like one of the higher-end shops in the area. He wanted nothing to do with me, absolutely nothing to do with me. So he had an uncle called Don Porter, which was in Mattoon, Illinois, which was like 15 minutes from Charleston, Illinois. So I went over there, he interviewed me a little bit, but he went out and looked at my car. 89 Mustang, GT, like completely repainted, Derametchlaw. The interview was really weird. And I actually that interview process, I still use it today. We interviewed me for five minutes. He walked out to my car and he goes, Can I open your door? And I said, Yes. He opened my door and he goes, The car is spotless, you're hired. Yeah, looked at me. He didn't hear everything. The car was spotless, you're hired. There I learned quite a bit. I got my name out there. It's like jobbers were talking about me. Then all of a sudden, Porter Autobody, this guy's nephew that I originally wanted to go work for, he started hearing about me, and he like was begging me to come to work for him. This is the what three years later. Begging me to come work for him. I like one painting, everything. I was like a one-man band there, not a one-man band, but I could do it all like uh what do you call that? And he needed a painter there. So he begged me to come there. I went there, I worked there for probably another four years. In the meantime, I was always trying to save money. So I knew I was gonna start my own shop or buy into a shop. So I worked for Don's Autobody, my previous employer, after hours, I was painting cars after hours. They would get them ready. Their painter would paint during the day, they would get other cars ready, I'd pay them for them at night, and then I would get back, go to work at Porter Autobody and Charles Singer at Dawn's, and I would work at Dawn's three three nights a week. So I was like trying to like make as much money as I possibly could. So the time came, I built a little 30 by 50 pole barn. So I had to back that up. I worked out of our three-car garage for a while in front of my house, and I put a frame rack in there, had to block off the road. We had the sheriff's block on the road while I actually had Craig Sullivan from Soldiers' equipment, deliver a frame rack, put it in the third bay. So I knew I needed frame rack equipment, and I hung tarps, painted in there until I saved up money to build a 30 by 50 coal barn. And that was my one-man band. Like you walked in, there was my office, had a home-built paint booth, wash bay, which we did body work, Jan and Prime, and then the next bay over was where the frame rack was. And then I just had a few workers with me, a few team members that would work with me every now and then. My mom and dad worked with me almost every single day, even though they had no clue what they were doing. They had like scuffed bumpers, anything that they could do to help me, they would. And then we got busy and busy, and I added on. And I got an office manager at that time, and she was with me for 20 years until she retired. And then it's just grew and grew and grew, and now we're at a 10,000 square foot facility and high-end certs and everything else. If you would have told me that in 20 years I'd be where I'm at today, I would have told you you were nuts. I've been working on three cars a week, four cars a week by myself for the rest of my life. That was my plan. I would have never known it would have blown up into this whatsoever. Yeah, it's definitely the ride from the humble beginnings to where we're at. And I often look at the pictures of the very beginning, rock driveway, all that, and it really humbles you to make you look back. Okay, this is where I started, this is where I'm at today. Holy cow, what did I create? Now we have another facility, a mechanical facility that's on the main road in Charleston, Illinois. I would have never ever dreamed of having a mechanical facility or satellite facility on Lincoln Avenue in Charleston, Illinois with big sign, digital billboard, all that stuff. To say we're blessed is definitely the only measure, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

I'm sure it's rewarding to look at that and see how much it's grown and how blessed you are. Let's talk a little bit about your certifications. It's remarkable the list of certifications you have, and I'm not even gonna list them all, but things like Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, Ford, GM. What drove you to go so heavy into OEM certifications and maybe talk to us a little bit how has that investment paid off for your business?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

So I met a man by the name of Mike Anderson. Me and him are like best friends. We talk at least three times a week, if not four times a week. We text almost every single day. I met him off of the whim, off of another friend of mine that races or drag races. I drag race for a hobby. Hey, you need to come to Nashville to see this guy. He's the military, you're like military. He's like, you you would learn so much from him. I'm like, okay, Carly from Mayfield and Hodges in Owensboro, Kentucky, and bidding into this Mike Anderson thing. At that time, I didn't know Mike Anderson. I'll never forget it. It was at my old alma mater, MADC, in one of their classrooms. And I will never forget that's where I learned about EMP, electromagnetic pulse from a welver, and what it does, why you have to disconnect batteries, why you have to disconnect stuff within 12 to 18 inches of any electrical component that you're welling near. And from that point on, I followed Mike Anderson and he preached OEM certifications, OEM, OEM, OEM. And then I just got on that and I made friends with Dan Dent, Mark Zuba, John Eck from GM. Sorry, those two people before were from Nissan, John Eck from GM, Gusto from Toyota. I met Kelly Logan from Rivian. We were just talking, and then they asked me to be part of the program, Jake Rodenroth, well that started out at Aztec, and then he ended up at Lucid. And he got me in with Lucid and then Tesla. I just applied online and told them what I had and what I was going on, and they had nobody in the area. Um they asked me if I was up for a big investment, and that's just I probably sunk in five, six hundred thousand dollars for all these certifications. Lucid was the biggest one, Riving was another big one, Tesla was fitting. Some of them overlap, but the biggest thing is the training. Lucid training. I don't care if you're lucid certified or not, lucid training is the best hands-on training you will ever get in your life. I don't know who developed their training program, but it is unbelievable. Like all of our team members love to go to lucid training in Melbourne, California, or in New Jersey. Absolutely love it. They look forward to it because they learn so much. And they're texting all us team members back here what they're learning every single day. And they go to Rivian, they learn some at Rivian, but I don't know what it is about lucid learning curriculum, but it is out of this world. Absolutely out of this world. Andy, McDonald, and Jake Rodnorth, when he was there, that's when all these learning modules and teachings came about, that they just completely knock it out of the park with all that stuff. But yeah, OEM, that's the proper way to fix the car. I didn't realize all the liability in it until I started learning about the liability because you only know what you only know. Yeah, the OEM serves the way to go. Sometimes we're not a fit for everybody. Sometimes people just want their car halfway put back together. Sometimes they don't care if it has aftermarket parts on it or anything of that nature, but we do. So we qualify our customers when they come in. Do you want your car repaired? Right. So we're known for having picky customers, which I'm perfectly okay with that. Because those are the customers that I call it, they don't drive a cavalier and think it's a Cadillac, put it that way. But yeah, they know what they're gonna get with us, they know exactly parts, it's gonna be done right. Everything is gonna be done. It may take a little bit longer, but it's gonna be 100% correct, and they're not gonna bring it back, but it's done.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

So yeah, that's what got us into the whole certification and the E world and all that. I like challenges. I have ADHD. So when somebody tells me that I can't do something, I don't know that much about ADHD people, but when somebody tells those type of people that they can't do it, it is vengeful that they're gonna do it. No questions asked. So I had a couple of people tell me that I wasn't gonna make it. Actually, my former boss of Porter Autobody's son, Derek Forder, told me that I would never make it. That was much worse to Eric Roman's mouth because I was a thorny his dad's side for 20 years until he sold the caliber.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

That's very interesting. Tim, let's just lean a little bit more into this the EV stuff. You've built a dedicated electric vehicle collision center, and a lot of shop owners they're still trying to figure out what EV repair even looks like. What should they know and what should they be considering or for the shift or as they maybe start shifting in that direction? Do you have some words of wisdom for them on that?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

First, you need to do like a map of your area. What Exalta Exalta calls it G maps. But anyway, long story short, figure out how many area. See what's going to be and don't just go to like 30 miles outside your area. Go for four hours outside your area. Because believe it or not, not about a rollback, because I want to give this ultimate contier service. And there's times that we will go out and actually grab the car or code the car or whatever and bring it in. And sometimes we do that for a free of charge. Just to help facilitate it, especially with Lucid owners, we will facilitate it here just to make sure the customer is taken care of, and then Lucid will help us take care of the towing and things of that nature, but just to take care of the customer. But yeah, I learned it started with Tesla. There's no like rhyme or reason for it, but I'm telling you, I answer the phone on after hour on the weekends. I'll live until 10 p.m. at night, then I answer it back in at 5 a.m. in the morning until our team gets here at 7 or 8 in the morning, and they start answering the phone again. But there's calls that I'll get on Saturday and Sunday afternoon for like lucid Tesla up by Chicago, and that's three and four hours. I'll be like, hey, I would love to repair your car. Um come check us out. And then I send them a video through Body Shot Booster about what we're all about. And they're like, oh yeah. So I get them to sign the repair authorization. I'll drive on Sunday afternoon, take the rollback, and go grab a Tesla or Lucid or Rivian up by Chicago, Champagne, whatever, go grab it right here. They have tons of choices up there, but their tons of choices are not there to meet the needs on a Saturday or Sunday. They're closed. And we're the only ones that are answering the phone after hours. But the whole EV thing, back to that, sorry. But the whole EV thing, you just have to make sure you're training properly, they're really not that scary to work on as long as you understand the electricity and the dangers and how to disconnect all the high voltage. Once you disconnect the high voltage, you're safe. They're just aluminum cars. Yeah, you have to be precautious with them. You have to have them in an enclosed area, not to be mixed with steel and all that stuff for galvanic corrosion. After that, just buying the tooling and stuff is the most expensive part in the training. But that's really about it. Once you start working on them, they're pretty much close to the same as working on other cars, but you just have to use a lot more precaution with them. And you have to pay attention to what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Let's talk about your concierge center. I understand you converted a Jiffy lube into a customer drop-off estimate hub. Where did that idea come from and how has that changed your customer experience?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

So it's funny you bring that up because I'm actually looking at doing that in other towns right now. I just got to find the right numbers to put in those other towns. So the Jiffy Lube on Lincoln Avenue in Charleston, it's set vacant for a while. And I'm like, man, I kept looking at that. I'm like, damn, what are you thinking about? Drop off, pickup, customer drives in. We have the rental car in this bay, and the customer drives in this bay, and they transfer all their stuff and it's cold outside or raining outside. I'm like, I'm thinking of white glove tree. And how I actually got to think about that was a book called Customers for Life by Carl Stuhl. You ever read it yet, Dan? No, Customers for Life. Customers for Life by Carl Toole. Check it out. So what he took a failing Cadillac dealership in Texas and completely turned it around. He had, what do you call those meetings where you bring in customers and like roundtable meetings on how to make yourself better? I can't remember what they call those meetings. We actually did one with Cheryl Dreggers and Mike Anderson in our facility here. But anyway, I was like, I just gotta try it. And I'm like, worst case scenario, it's a piece of property on the main drag in Charleston. How can I go wrong here? So I've audit and tuck a bunch of money into it. We completely paint the outside, completely redid the inside. We made it super inviting, retinned all the walls, put race deck flooring down so it's gray in the middle where you drive, and like red on the outside skirt, so you know where you walk, has a drive-through. Works out absolutely phenomenal. We'd probably capture, I don't know, ten to twenty thousand dollars a week worth of revenue out of that facility just because of where it is on main drag, plus the fact we have our digital billboard there that's constantly in people's spaces and all that. The interesting thing about that is about a year ago, Tyler Johnson came to me and said, Hey, what do you think about using that as a mechanical facility too? I already had a mechanical company that I was already operating out of the warehouse down the road from us here. I had one mechanic working there. We're teaching them how to scan, do calibrations, things of that nature. We sent them all the calibration, um, vertifications and trainings and all that through for GM, Nissan, and Toyota. And uh anyway, he's like, What do you think about that? And I'm like, I don't know. Mechanics are dirty and greasy. I'm like, here's my expectations of the mechanic shop. When you walk in, granite countertop, just like it is here, nice front to a desk, like super clean. I want it to smell good, like in our facility here, long story short, we were able to live and buy Lowe's. Have you ever been to a live by Lowe's resort or hotel? No, Daniel. We got out of the Uber and I smelled something. And I'm like, oh, it's some girl walked or some woman walking by. So as soon as Lucy and I were walking up closely, this is for Mike Anderson Business Council meeting. Man, that smells good. Actually, I lied to you. It's not. It was a fender vendor conference, that's what it was. I walk in and go, man, that smells good. I'm like, and then I opened the doors to the resort and it like just hit me. It's like hull. And I was like, man, what is that? And I'm like, the more I walked in, I'm like, it's everywhere. And I don't drink, so a bunch of our friends like go to the bar, like, and me, I go to the contier and I ask. I'm like, hey, what's happening here? Like, how they're oh man, come here. He took me to the back, and they have these big 55-gallon barrels. It's called Bright Sunshine Aroma. Live by Lowe spent three million dollars inventing this perfume or whatever you want to call it, the flexible that it lifts people's spirits. 100% it does because when I got it at Uber and I smelled that, I smiled. That's awesome. I knew what it was. So our whole office is pumped full of that in the HVAC system. I bought a little miniature version, and little four-ounce bottles last, I don't know, two months, and it's it's just like an oil diffuser or whatever. Lucy figured it out. We pumped it into our HVAC system, so it pumps it in through our whole office. We pumped it into the office in Charleston too at the satellite mechanical facility, too. People walk in, it is beautiful, it is well lit, it's clean. How many mechanic shops do you go in that's not clean? Oh you go out into our floor in the shop. You'll see pictures on our Facebook here on our Facebook page right now because you comment and stuff, but like our mechanical floor is clean. They take the flooring up, it's race deck flooring, they take it up like once a month, clean it, wash it out, put it all back in. And I wanted to have a mechanical facility, like there was no other mechanical facility in an hour radius. Like I wanted to be clean, super professional, and all that. And so our satellite facility is also now a satellite facility, pickup, drop-off, and a mechanical facility for your oil changes. We do everything there from suspension, wheels, tires, you name it, we do it there. Amazing. Yeah. So now we're wanting to start about 30 miles from here.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I love that. Let's talk a little bit about your stance on insurance steering. I know you have a pretty strong opinion and a stance on that, and you don't want to participate in most repair networks, and you educate customers on their right to choose. Tell us about that philosophy and how you navigate insurance and customer pay and all that as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

So insurance steering. That's a it's uh it's a very weird word because steering is actually illegal. Right. But their tactics, what they're doing and saying, is not actually steering, it's evil being illegal. It's the way they're presenting it and the way they're speaking about it. They still throw the word in there, you can take it to wherever you want, but you might have to pay out of pocket if you take it to this place in this place. Right. We're a big advocate about steering. Like we really let customers know steering is, how they're gonna be approached, how to ask freaking questions about it. Oh. And when they say we go to the lifetime warranty when the insurance company says, Oh, yeah, we'll warrant you a lot of time, that's a lie. In terms of warranty, that repairful sale, that job for the lifetime. The shops that do the shop that's doing the work is there. We have plenty of pictures, like with uh insurance company showers that said, Oh, hey, you have to go to Caliber or wherever you need to go. We have pictures from all facilities that we've done post reprint inspections. Caliber, I freaking love you guys. You guys make us look fabulous. Because there's been so many buybacks because of such the shoddy repairs. And like I just we just have like a whole photo album of the repairs. Like, do you want your frame rail buckled like this? Do you want the occupants of your car to be in this vehicle after you get it back from this facility? That's their preferred facility. Then when they go back and they tell the insurance company and the insurance company is like, Yeah, we'll stand behind it though, and the customer goes, if I pick it up there and my frame rail looks like this, or if something is not right, who do I take it to? And I call you. No, you call the shop, and bam. We already set the insurance company up for failure because the insurance company told them that they were warrantying. Now they're back tracking on the tracks and saying, no, this shop has to warranty. So we can let them dig themselves a hole. We learned to let themselves dig a hole pretty fast with our guests. Yeah, it's just a thing of it. And sometimes people do have to pay the difference out of pocket. We have one customer right now that Caliber running us for $932. Stay front approved. And we're $2,625. And we just told the customer, hey, this is what it's going to be. It might be a little more else to get into it, but we will let you know before we do anything. We will get your blessing before we move forward. And he goes, You were packed my last vehicle, he goes, I went in there and he goes, I didn't get a good feeling. He goes, You guys are super friendly, super clean, you're super transparent. You talk to me every single day, and he goes, I'm gonna pay the difference out of pocket. And he goes, Then I'm gonna drop the insurance. Yeah, and then we give him a list about insurance companies. So we're I guess you'd say we're killing them softly, would be the wording.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

That's awesome. I I don't think I've ever heard that before, Tim, of actually having a photo album where you can show them post-repair photos. That's a pretty cool idea though, because it really visually helps a person understand this is how your car potentially could be repaired. Great idea.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, it might look good, but who knows what's on the inside? It's like a doctor, like your heart could be ten kinds of screwed up, but your skin looks good. You look healthy.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Gotcha. Let's shift a little bit here, Tim, and talk about the estimating professionals that you co-founded with Mark Probst. What inspired you to start teaching other shop owners and also right along with that, what's some of the biggest estimating mistakes that you see shops making across the country?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

So let's start with how all that transformed. Mark Probst and myself became really good friends because of a local country companies adjuster. I will never forget it. He comes in, Country Companies Adjuster, Bob Huss Hong. Love him. He retired. Wish we had him back as a country companies adjuster. He always did the right thing. He knew what it took to repair a car properly. And he did some side work at home, but nothing to affect us or anything. But he knew what it took to do the work. And he said one day he goes, You guys write a lot like Prop Stotomati in Dietrich, Illinois. Interesting. So I'm just a blunt guy. I'm like outdilling on blunt. So I call him up. I'm like, hey, I'm gonna speak to you. And they're like, who's this? I'm like, Tim Pap, Papada Bye. And I said, Martha? Yeah. So that first phone call, me and Mark talked for two hours on the bone. After that, we became best friends. There's times that we will talk and text, oh geez, probably 40, 50 times a week at least. And we always have a weekly follow-up call or a weekly call of probably an hour of what's going on, how things are happening, what they're learning that week, what we're learning that week, what didn't work, what worked, all that stuff. If I were to have a partner in business, he would be on the very top of the list to have a partner in business. He is fantastic. I cannot say enough about Mark Propse, that's for sure. And so we were always talking about how these other shops didn't really know what they were doing. Like he would get cars in from other shops. They'd be like clearing over PPF, like little clear rock guards on quarter panels, and not taking door handles off and just making us look bad, and making us like, how's gonna the other shop can repair a car without taking the door handle out or without taking the PPF off and maybe just clear over and clear out or clear over a format 4D channel on the bedside or whatever? And so it all started off as us doing something for free. We bought a projector, we bought a whole bunch of stuff. I am not a good curriculum person. I'm not a good admin person. Like I've gotten better. Mark is a fantastic admin person. He can write curriculum, I can spew it out of my mouth, and I can throw up a whole bunch of information. He takes all that information into a curriculum. Like I will speak into a microphone or my plod, and I will just send him the plod, and he does it all. And then we just I'm the one that gets off on scroll moments during our presentations. Just be careful that's there's so many things to learn and so many things to dig. You know, then he'll drag us back in. But uh, and we've been doing that for we started it right before COVID and then totally hit, and then we did a couple online things, but yeah, it all started as a free thing, and then we're like, wait a second here, we can't be spending the night and all doing all this stuff for free. So basically, we charge for what it cost us to do it. So we're not making like a if somebody says, Oh, yeah, you're making tons of money off of it. We're doing it to help the industry because when rising tides rise all ships, that's what we're trying to do. There's so many shops out there, including myself when I was young. I didn't know business. I had no clue. I was like a technician, oh yeah, I'm gonna make money. And I'll be honest with you, the first two years I didn't make a whole lot of money at all. I had a job that's just shh, man, we were we'd be eating Roman noodles if it wasn't for her. But uh long story short, we go all over the country now. We used a lot of stuff like Kristen Felders taught me a lot of stuff, Larry Montinez. People think that he's rough and tough. He may be rough and tough, but if you can't accept the truth, then don't talk to him. But in real life, he's just a big teddy bear. But he wants you to do better. Mike Anderson, big influence in my life, also. Learned a lot of stuff from him. And what Mark and I were seeing was these shops, they weren't going to any of these things. And so, like, I talked over with Mike Anderson and I said some stuff to Kristen. I'm like, like, you guys are up here. Mike Anderson's up here, but we have all these shops that are way down here. And we gotta get these shops to at least like somewhere, we gotta get them to at least somewhere to get some training and get some information, and then hopefully we can sneak them up to Mike and sneak them up to Larry and Kristen. So we're like the mediocre people just to try and get these people on the ship so we can get out to sea. So that's what we do. We're not a Larry Kristen, we're not a Mike. We really do a lot with like the people that just don't know what to do. Like they're just lost out there. We're trying to give them guided discovery on what to do. And when we see people, there's a lot of people that like when we're in class, we give the C20 groups and Mike Anderson group, like, hey, if you guys want to continue on, these are the groups you need to join through Cole Mab, Mike Anderson group, you gotta join this stuff. And that sometimes people just need a little jump start, a little help. So that's what we do. That's amazing. But yeah, it's a your feeling to help people and really get feedback and just see, and you learn something from anybody, like people that don't know much, but yet they are saying something, and it just hits a trigger, and you're like, oh my gosh, why didn't I think of that? So you can learn something from anybody. Like I learned something from our worst team member ever. And I'm thankful for that. That's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

That's amazing. I love your vision behind that of just helping the industry and especially maybe those people that they might have heard of Mike Anderson, but they feel like he's way up here. I can never attain to that just to help bring them part way. I love that you guys are doing that. Let's talk a little bit about some family dynamics. I understand your son Zach works right alongside with you at the shops and you two drag race together. What's it been like building a family business? What do you think about having the future of Pap Audibody with the next generation?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

I'm actually extremely excited for it because there's a 78% failure rate of second generation business owners. So I promise you that will not be us. 100%. When Zach was growing up, I was not the easiest father. I was not the easiest person to be around because I have my expectation level was extremely high. Me and my wife were like, sometimes it was like this you're too hard on him, you're too hard on him. I'm like, the world's a cruel place. The quicker you learn, the world's a cruel place, the better off you're gonna be. And I was extremely hard on him. I had several friends tell me that I was an A1 butthole to my son, and he was gonna run away, he's gonna do stuff. I'm like, either you learn it or you don't learn it. Either sink just went with me. Very black and white. I hardly have any gray in the middle. And a lot of people will tell you that. And he started when he was out of here five, six years old. He was like, he was taping a little wells. I mean, like he just back tape that's wheel. I'm gonna take it. And he would back tape it. And like he would cut the plastic around it, make go around and tape it. And then about every time he's in high school, his junior year, he took workers, what do you call it? Workers, whatever we get where you're out in the end, or chill clock, whatever it is. We had hail, I'll never forget it. We had hail that year, bad hail. And I taught him how to take down headliners. And he would come up from school and drop about six or seven headliners every single day, or he would drop three, put three up from the previous day, whatever. And he was just taking cars apart, putting them back together. And like I just started seeing stuff click with him. And by the time he was 18, I gave him the option. I'm like, what do you want to do? You really want to work on windmills. And I said, Well, whatever, I'm not gonna hold you back, whatever you want to do. And I'm like, You try it here for a little bit, you don't like it, it'll be windmills, whatever. And he stuck with it, and he makes really good money. I do not like I don't cater to him whatsoever. He is on commission based, and if he doesn't make any money, he doesn't make any money. I I do not cater, like you could ask any team member at our facility, and I do not cater to him. He is treated like a normal team member. When he walks in the back door, it is Tim and then it is Zach. It is not dad and son because I did not want that dynamic because I saw that in other shops I worked at. When they're working there, but like when we're outside work, it's dad and son. Sometimes we call each other like Zach, or he calls me Tim just because of natural habit of being around each other all day. But I couldn't be prouder of him, that is for sure. He went from, I would say probably at the age of 22 to 23, he was probably already an A tech. He can do anything, the collision, he can pull frames, he can measure, he can, he can wait PP up, he can. One thing he's not efficient at is painting, but he can prep one, get ready for paint. I can paint it if need be. Or if we're slow on the muddy side, the paint department's backed up. He will go over there and prep a few and get the painter back on course and then come back over. I honestly couldn't be prouder of him, that is for sure. He's very outgoing outside of the facility. Tons of friends, things of that nature. He doesn't like to be like up front in the office. He likes to have his hands dirty and stuff. So if I pass away, I already have my will set up and our trust set up, he gets the majority portion of the facility. And then our repair planner, Kyle Babbs, he gets a portion of the facility, and then Mike Anderson, and then Mark Propes gets a portion of the facility because they will have to help him carry on the legacy, and then we have it set up in the trust that when Mark probes to Mike feels that Zach can take it on, and then they get part of the dividends while they're helping, and then they actually have to relinquish their shares back to Zach. They don't sell their shares back to him, they give them back to him, but he has to prove to them that he is capable of doing that, and we have a set of expectations that he has to meet before that actually happens. But yeah, it's Stuart Stork can help me settle that up for future legacy and all that stuff. But yeah, we're I'm like, he will probably take this facility from what it's doing now to I don't know where him and Kyle would take it, but it'll be it would be impressive. Like I can leave right now a week and a half, two weeks, and not have to I'll give a couple phone calls and things of that nature, but it's very minor. But I love to be in a I love to order parts and all that stuff and still be in it. And I love to work out in the shop still. Um the this week we have Exalta in here recertifying us for 201 or whatever that number of that class is. I'm back there painting still. Um there's people that come in here. Oh my gosh, can you still paint? So yeah, yeah. I can do it all from office work, listening to painting to pulling, everything. So you can call it great mystery and call the curse. But yeah, family dynamic, love it, wouldn't have it any other way. We go drag racing together. That is like the best part. Like just driving in the coach, going down the road, just talking, and sometimes there's three hours of pure silence. And we're both okay with that. And we talk about business, and we talk about the future and awards leading to and all that stuff. And we get ready to add on to our facility once again for a warehouse behind us there. We're having our warehouse down the street that we're renting. We have a warehouse behind it, the Hunter facility now. It's exciting in times to see where he's gonna go and how he's gonna handle it. And I'm gonna become basically the loft boy before we know it. I'll be the loft boy personal, which I'll be perfectly fine with. So I love to see who succeed.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

That is amazing. I love that the connection and that story of how you and your son are working together. Um, it's a beautiful thing when family can do that successfully, and I love how you are also setting him up for success. Like you're planning succession-wise already at your age. That's outstanding to see that well done. Let's uh talk a little bit about the community. I know you're active in the Mattoon community, like rotary club, charities. How important is community involvement to your shop, to your brand? And what advice would you give it to any to any shop owners that are listening of how they can do this in their own communities?

SPEAKER_00 35:42

So, community, we're involved. We like doing parades, the Christmas parades, Fourth of July parades, things of that nature. I do present uh rubbery club, things of that nature. I used to be heavily involved in the community. I just got so busy with the shop and dealing with everything. I took a step back, and now we have Dana here as our office manager, and she's like getting more involved with the heart of Charleston, the heart of Mattoon. So she handles a lot of that stuff for us, and she does a lot of that stuff for us as we sit back and take care of her position so she can handle that. But what we try and do as much as possible with the community. Like recently, we make a bunch of cookies at home. Lucine and Maggie and myself make cookies, and Tyler and Anna go around and see everybody in the community probably once every six months, once every four months, take some cookies, just talk to them, things of that nature. And it goes to like community breakfasts, things of that nature. While we Zach and I stay back and go to shop down otherwise, like I've been to the community breakfasts and all that stuff. Just it's very important, just for the simple fact that caliber does nothing. Uh you'll notice that I mentioned Caliber a lot because Caliber bought out my old boss, Porter Automati and Charleston and Matt 10. They don't do anything, they're not part of the Chamber of Commerce, they don't do anything like we do with that. And well, we really had to redo our donation and sponsorship policy here once I came into town for the simple fact that we had people coming in always asking for sponsorships and donations and stuff. And I I don't mind that. I'm perfectly okay with that. The problem that I have with it is when you come in and you ask for a sponsorship or donation, and then all of a sudden I see your car sitting at caliber collision. You get a insurance company steered you them. But yet you have enough audacity to come ask me for a sponsorship or donation. So we changed our policy on sponsorship and donations since they came to town. Our sponsorship and donation thing now is we will give up to 1% of what your final bill was for your sponsorship or donation as long as you had your car repaired here in the last 365 days. We normally give out about $10,000 to $15,000 worth of donations a year. And we revamped that for the simple fact that we found a lot of some of our friends went to caliber quite because then she was totally on to. Just did the DR fee relationship contractful. And we were sponsoring their softballs, things of that nature. Softball, that's not cheap. So I actually made a phone call to one of them and said, Hey, the side caliber, we just made a $200 donation to your Matthew and Chill or whatever it was. Softball. Yeah, my church can tell me how to do that. I said, Don't come back asking for a sponsorship or a donation. Like, you are the reason that our policy has changed on sponsorships and donations. We're more than happy to help support the community, but the community has to help support us. So that kind of resonated with our community quite a bit, especially when I told Amers what I was doing and the statement that I put out. I had a lot of private messages saying thank you for putting that out, and a lot of them were for from other business owners. Because we've had a lot of corporate come in to our Mattoon area, and they're like, I love your policy, and I think that is awesome how you're doing that. And so, yeah, so when they come in, we have to look up their name. And if it's like a group of kids, I'm more than happy to that, but I need to look up some names before we actually donate some sponsorship or donation money to that.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Excellent. That's some very practical advice for owners to think about when they're thinking about sponsorships. We support you, you support us. This is a mutual benefit to the local community. Awesome, Tim. I have one last question that we ask every guest here on the Body Shop Bleaders podcast. What does being a body shop leader mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

I would say leading your team in the right direction. Not doing it for them, but leading them in the right direction and to watch them blossom into beautiful leaders. I don't believe in titles. We're all for one and one for all here. I have weaknesses and strengths. Kyle's weaknesses and strengths offset my weaknesses and strengths. Anna's the office manager, her weaknesses and strengths offset Kyle and my weaknesses and strengths. And the same back there in the shop. I believe everybody should clean the bathroom with somebody comes in and clean the restroom. But a leader can't be beneath themselves or beneath anybody else. I just think a leader needs to be guiding them in the right decision. Mike Jones says, guided discovery is the best thing for leaders. And don't give them the answer, but guide them to the answer. Because they might have a better answer than what you got. But if you guide them in the right direction, then they might have something better. And you're like, oh wow, why didn't I figure that? Or I like that idea a lot better than what I was gonna do. So we do a lot of guided discovery here, and Kyle does too. Kyle, he has really stepped up to the plate in the past two, three years. So yeah, I would say a leader is one that just sits back and kind of if they need help in some certain area, you jump in and help. But you just guide them, guided discovery to helping them take lead themselves. So that way you don't have to be the leader at all times.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Tim, thank you so much. This has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing like this. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

So just to wrap this thing up, I would say, Tim, your story of restoring a Mustang as a teenager to building one of the most certified shots in the Midwest, your story is exactly why we do this podcast. Folks, if you want to connect with Tim, I would say check him out on Facebook. He's very open and transparent, and I'm sure he's happy to help anybody. If you want to level up your estimating game, look into estimating professionals. Uh it sounds to me like they've got a heart to serve. So check them out. Thanks for tuning into Body Shot Bleeders podcast. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen, and we'll catch you on the next one. Thank you.