The Gearbox Podcast

Jimmy Purdy [00:00:13]:
Welcome to the Gearbox podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of automotive repair and ownership. I'm your host, Jimmy Purdy. An experienced technician turned shop owner with a passion for sharing insights, stories, and conversations with industry leaders. This is the Gearbox podcast.

Travis May [00:00:33]:
You know, my after work routine is usually. Go to the gym for a little bit. I skipped that today to join you.

Jimmy Purdy [00:00:42]:
It's a cheat day.

Travis May [00:00:44]:
Cheat day for me.

Jimmy Purdy [00:00:45]:
Any day. To. Any excuse to not have to go to the gym, that excuse is too easy. You know, I've been.

Travis May [00:00:52]:
I've been working really hard this. This year. Uh, working that into my. My life a little bit more. Being a business owner, much like yourself, it's just they. A lot of people say it's. It's a good habit to go to the gym and kind of work out your stress and just have.

Jimmy Purdy [00:01:14]:
We don't have time. We don't have any hobbies, so. No, you gotta have some way to decompress in an hour.

Travis May [00:01:21]:
Exactly. Exactly. So. And so far, I'll be honest with you, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't give it too much. You know, I didn't think it was going to work, but it. I mean, I enjoy it.

Travis May [00:01:34]:
It actually helps, so.

Jimmy Purdy [00:01:36]:
Yeah, you don't realize it until you're doing it, and then when you stop it, that's. When. That's when it comes back, you don't really realize it. Right. It's like. It's one of those things. It's like once you get in. Into the gym and you're moving, you're like, oh, yeah, I remember now.

Travis May [00:01:48]:
Yeah, exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:01:49]:
Keep freaking doing this.

Travis May [00:01:50]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:01:51]:
Any excuse you can make to not go, and then that turns in, that day turns into a week, turns into a month, and you're like.

Travis May [00:01:58]:
And then there. There'll be weeks. Like when I'm short staffed at the. At the office, there. You know, lose a service writer or something like that. That. I. I put that hat on for a while, though.

Travis May [00:02:07]:
I won't. I skip the gym because I'm just putting an extra time at the office.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:11]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:02:11]:
But then I. Then I'm like, gosh dang it, man, I really wish I could.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:16]:
I'm.

Travis May [00:02:16]:
I really wish I'd get back to going to the gym.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:19]:
Yeah, well, tell me a little about that. Tell me about your shop. I know we only talked a couple times through the. You know, setting up Napa BDG group, which I'll get to in a little bit, but I want to hear about your shop a little bit.

Travis May [00:02:31]:
Well, I'll start from the history of it. My grandfather opened up the shop in 1967. He lived in a town called Wrightwood, California, mountain area, kind of like Big Bear, but a little on the smaller side. He owned a self serve gas station there and came down off the hill there. And he opened up a little building in town called Esperia and had a little shop and one tow truck. And, you know, we had dirt roads that hold nine yards. And then my dad took it over in the early nineties and said, dad, we're not making any money at this. I need to step in and start making you some money, because my grandfather was a, you know.

Travis May [00:03:19]:
Yep, bring it on by. I'll fix it for you type of. Type of guy in town. And so my dad built it up to somewhat what it is now in year 2000, expanded. And then I took it over about five years ago, so. And became, just recently, within the past two years, became full time owner. So that's. That's kind of it, yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:03:50]:
What was that transition like? I mean, was it pretty smooth or. I mean, how did that work out? I know a lot of time, especially with family, but just like, the acquisition of a shop like that is. It's already, like, there's already so much involved. You know?

Travis May [00:04:04]:
There is. You know, it. I'd be lying to you if there wasn't blood, sweat, and tears involved. Cause there was. There was actually. There was a time there where I had to step away for almost two years. Cause we were, you know, kind of at each other's throats a little bit. But once he fully retired, when he fully, quote unquote, retired, he moved out of state to Lake Havasu, Arizona.

Travis May [00:04:32]:
And when I ended up running, really, truly running the day to day operations for a couple years is when that really helped out the transition. But I think there was a struggle there when he was still. He was kind of letting go of the reins, but wasn't fully letting go of the reins. So that's where kind of the frustrations were in the tension lied.

Jimmy Purdy [00:04:56]:
Yeah, like, I want to. I want to do this and this, and it's like, that's fine as long as you do it my way, correct?

Travis May [00:05:01]:
Yep, exactly. That's where the biggest struggle was, was the my way, not knocking him. He's done a. He did a fantastic job being, you know, self made. You know, self made. Basically no college education. Just work hard and. And learn by trial and error and hire the right people, so.

Travis May [00:05:23]:
But, you know, I'm a. I'm younger. I got a lot of ambition, too. He was, you know, getting tired. He's in his seventies now. So it was just I, I was wanting to do more and do different things. So, yeah, that was, that was the struggle.

Jimmy Purdy [00:05:41]:
I mean, it's tough, too. I mean, obviously, I don't think either of us are old enough to be in that kind of position to even have that sort of mindset or thought process, but we both can at least relate to the fact of making mistakes. Right. And then, you know, you know, when you make a mistake and so you do it another way that doesn't allow you to make that mistake again. And then that just seeds in your mind that this is the only way now, because every other way is going to end up costing me or it's going to be, you know, so you're like, this is the only way that we. I've done it and we're going to do it. And then some new comes in and starts changing that, and you're like, hold on a second. I already figured that out.

Jimmy Purdy [00:06:16]:
Like, I already got that, you know, lock and keyed. And you're like, I don't want to change nothing because the last time I changed something like that, I got myself into a lot of trouble.

Travis May [00:06:25]:
Exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:06:26]:
It's been ten or 15 years now, and times change. And, I mean, it's got to be difficult to succeed with those transitions. Right. I mean, so, and that makes it tough because no one's right and no one's wrong in that kind of situation. You're just two adults butting heads about how they want to, how the trajectory of the business is going to go.

Travis May [00:06:45]:
Sure. Yep. And, you know, they, they, you know, with the ever changing landscape in this state that we work in, that's a, that's a challenge in itself, you know?

Jimmy Purdy [00:06:55]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:06:55]:
All the rules, all, everything that changes along with it. And that, on top of it, makes it even more frustrating for, especially someone that's started a business in the early nineties. And, you know, there was kind of an old school, old school way of going about it, but now you're gonna. Now you really have to abide by rules and policies that are forced upon you. You know, a lot of people don't deal with that very well. They're like, you know, they just get frustrated.

Jimmy Purdy [00:07:26]:
Mm hmm. So what kind of. What size is your shop?

Travis May [00:07:30]:
It's about 11,000 sqft. We've got three. About ten bay shop.

Jimmy Purdy [00:07:39]:
Okay.

Travis May [00:07:42]:
And then fully staffed? Yeah, we have. So the company originally was two companies together as g and m, automotive and towing. So our towing division was bigger than the automotive repair side. We had about 1818 tow trucks, ranging from standard flatbed rollbacks to your big rotator tow trucks that you see flipping big rigs over on the side of the freeway. So total about a little over 50 employees with the two companies combined. And then two years ago, we separated the two divisions. Towing is one entity, and auto repair is one entity. Um, for two reasons.

Travis May [00:08:24]:
My. The only family involved now is myself, my cousin, and my dad, Donnie. So that's how we figured we would split the, uh, the company up would be to divide it. So my. My cousin actually runs and operates the towing division, and. And I own and operate the automotive repair side, and we work. What kind of separates us a little bit up here from a lot of other independent shops is we work on big rigs like Kenworths and Peterbilts and trucks of that nature, along with, you know, your regular light duty cars and trucks.

Jimmy Purdy [00:08:58]:
Oh, wow. Yeah. That's quite a mix.

Travis May [00:09:00]:
Yeah, a little bit of a mix.

Jimmy Purdy [00:09:03]:
So the separation, the division of those two companies, I mean, obviously, you guys are probably still passing work between each other, but you've totally financially divorced those two.

Travis May [00:09:12]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:09:13]:
Was it. Was it something that was. Felt like one was dragging the other one down, or was it just kind of an internal family thing? You was. You just wanted to make it easier that way?

Travis May [00:09:21]:
Yeah, a little bit of both. We actually. We wanted to try it out for tax purposes for one reason, and two, it was a way to divide up the company, because I really don't have. I really don't enjoy the towing side of the business. I mean, I've been involved doing it growing up as a young man and been involved in it, but it's not my forte. It's not my cup of. Cup of tea. The automotive repair side is something I really gravitated towards and enjoy.

Travis May [00:09:56]:
And coincidentally, my cousin was the other way around. He enjoyed the towing and going out there in the middle of the night and doing that stuff more than he did the automotive repair side. So it really, at the end of the day, it really worked out well.

Jimmy Purdy [00:10:10]:
That's kind of nice. So it was just kind of mutually separated thing.

Travis May [00:10:13]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:10:14]:
How did it work out with the taxes? That. That's kind of interesting to me. I mean, I feel like adding towing or adding a mobile service is something a lot of guys are looking into. Right. Like, they want to add on that external service to their brick and mortar. And it's really. It's kind of curious to me, like, how that works with the taxes.

Travis May [00:10:35]:
To answer your question, I'm definitely not a CPA or a tax attorney, so I don't have too many answers on that, to be honest with you. I'd be lying. But the towing side of the division, they actually do have what they call a mobile mobile service, and it's mobile truck repair, but it's mostly geared towards the big over the road trucks and trailers. And they do a lot of, like, when they go through the scale houses and they get pulled in and they get dinged for a. For a red tag, like, say, on an airline that might be leaking or the CHP officer sees a bad tire and they. They have a really good clientele of trucking companies that they run out there and repair those. So as far as the taxes go, I really don't know because I wasn't involved too much on that side of it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:11:28]:
Yeah. I mean, obviously got a. It's got to make things a little more muddled. Right. And trying to divide all that, and it just seems like a lot more legwork to make sure, like, you've got that kind of stuff separated or if. Even if you need to. Obviously, I don't. I'm not familiar enough either.

Jimmy Purdy [00:11:45]:
No.

Travis May [00:11:45]:
But, you know, on a bookkeeping standpoint, the way when we were all one company, we, in our quickbook side of things, we just. We just have, essentially, we had three. Three different companies in Quickbooks is how we divided it up. Yet, your towing, your towing numbers, your service truck numbers and auto repair numbers. But at the end of the day, when it got sent over to the CPA, it was. It was all combined. But that's how we. How we separated the divisions on our side so that we could kind of track which division, how each division was doing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:12:16]:
Right, right. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. You don't want one funding the other, and you're like, why are you even keeping this thing alive?

Travis May [00:12:24]:
Yeah, exactly. But overall, big picture with. With the taxes and income and that. That side of it, I wasn't too much involved with, so I don't have an answer for.

Jimmy Purdy [00:12:38]:
Yeah. It just seems like it's more streamlined to just focus on one aspect. Like the auto repair.

Travis May [00:12:42]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:12:43]:
Obviously, you're doing well with it. Got a nice big shop and big staff, big crew. So that's enough, I think, in my opinion.

Travis May [00:12:50]:
Yeah, I got. So with the automotive repair side, I've got 1111 total employees. You know, we've got five techs, two riders. I got a shop foreman, obviously have a lot porter. And then I have a gal named Kim, who comes in a couple days a week and she does my, my bookkeeping, you know, inputting invoices and paying sales tax and healthcare and all that. All that backside of this stuff helps me help you do that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:13:25]:
Gotta have something like that. And then the next step will be a social media manager.

Travis May [00:13:29]:
Yes.

Jimmy Purdy [00:13:30]:
That's. That's a new thing, right?

Travis May [00:13:32]:
Yeah, it is. It's funny you bring that up because I was just talking about that. I think you skipped out on the. The BDG meeting with Aubrey this afternoon. But I was inquiring about that because we were talking about. I'm sure you probably followed Dave's auto center out there in Utah. Yeah. Kind of how.

Travis May [00:13:50]:
It's pretty interesting. It's pretty cool. I kind of like it, but it's like, man, are they. Are they doing it themselves or do they have some sort of crew in there? You know, I'm not too sure how that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:14:01]:
How a lot of it, too. You just got to get your camera out and just take a video and. But it's just so much more work than what it sounds like. And I've seen. I've seen more often than not recently, a lot of shops just hiring someone to come in 3 hours a week. Right. And just even. Even to the point where they're doing it 1 hour a day, but at least three times a week for an hour and just taking some content, editing it and then.

Jimmy Purdy [00:14:24]:
And then producing it and producing it.

Travis May [00:14:27]:
Yeah. That's something I really haven't gotten into too much myself, is the, you know, I know the basics of social media, Instagram, Facebook, that sort of thing. But YouTube channel I never really got into, nor taking videos and learning how to edit them myself and post them. I guess that's an area where my 18 year old daughter knows more about that than I do.

Jimmy Purdy [00:14:52]:
She's hired.

Travis May [00:14:53]:
Exactly. It's funny how. But it's funny how the, you know, times passing you up kind of comes full circle with some people. Like, like my dad. He had no clue about social media, any of that stuff. And how we. How we kind of say, you know, dad, your times are passing you up in certain areas, but I would say social media and filming and editing and posting them on YouTube is something that kind of passed me up in a way. It's kind of.

Travis May [00:15:20]:
If that makes sense.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:21]:
No, it does. The relevance of it is so much more than most of us really, you know, imagine. And it's like free.

Travis May [00:15:30]:
True.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:30]:
Right. So it costs nothing to do it. And it puts you in front of so many people. And just like Dave's auto center, like most, I think most of us can relate to that. Right. And, yeah, I'm sure it costs him a little bit of money, but, I mean, realistically, it doesn't cost too much for the amount of eyeballs that get to see him in a shop and know what he's doing. And that. I mean, that turns into employee retention.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:52]:
Right. And it turns into, obviously, customers coming in. Turns into. Yeah, that means everything, right? Get more. Get more applications based on that kind of stuff for people looking for a job than anything else. And it's just because you're out there and they can see you, and it's pretty powerful.

Travis May [00:16:09]:
It is pretty powerful. Powerful. And I'm sure at the end of the day, maybe that's. Maybe that is a write off in a certain way, goes towards your advertising and marketing budget.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:19]:
Oh, absolutely.

Travis May [00:16:20]:
That cost is. Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:21]:
Yeah. I don't see why not.

Travis May [00:16:22]:
I don't see why not either. That's what I would try to do. So.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:26]:
Yeah, the meeting earlier, I had a. I had a Zoom call with Jimmy Lee. You know, kind of like everything. It always gets booked at the same time. I don't know how that happened. So I had to make a decision on that. But. But on that note, we were talking.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:39]:
You were talking about the BDG groups, and I think that's pretty cool, too, because you're kind of just starting out your group, right. In your area for the Napa business development group.

Travis May [00:16:49]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:50]:
Is that so? Is that a brand new thing for you?

Travis May [00:16:52]:
Brand new? We're only. We're barely even a couple months into it. We finally got our group. Our group put together of who's invested in it and finalized. We've come up with our group name, and now we're. We're just trying to get the ball rolling, but things are heading in the right direction. I'm new. I was named president of it, and obviously, I'm one of the.

Travis May [00:17:18]:
I'm probably the youngest business owner in the group, which is kind of nerve wracking for me a little bit because there's a lot of knowledge in the room and a lot of other people that have been in the business for a long time. But I guess the good thing I got going for me is a third generation stepping in in a company in town that a lot of people are familiar with. So I've got a lot of good support, and it really surprised me, Jimmy. It really did. I was nervous. I was like, man, I hope. I hope these guys, you know, jump on my back a little bit and follow me and understand me. And they do.

Travis May [00:18:00]:
They. I've got nothing but compliments. Like, they've tried this BDG group up here a few times and it's been nothing but failures. So I'm excited.

Jimmy Purdy [00:18:11]:
That's some added pressure, huh?

Travis May [00:18:13]:
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So I think. I think my, my direction with, with how I explained to you before is really, really branding the BDG group as a whole. I'm trying to create a culture and a vibe where the, the shops aren't feeling like we're competing with each other. You, you know, that we're, at the end of the day, we have, there are competition, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to treat it like that. I want to treat it as we're one whole group and we have each other's backs and we can lean on one another when needed. You know, some guy might be in a little bit more of a niche than I am, and I can, if that makes sense, we can just lean on each other for support.

Travis May [00:18:59]:
I think that's what we really need in this industry. You know, we're all out here doing, or doing what we're trying to do and run and operate a business. With the shortage of technicians and staff, I don't want to try to cut somebody's throat out, you know, why not just, I don't know, partner up and help. Help one another out.

Jimmy Purdy [00:19:19]:
Yeah. Instead of racing to the bottom. Right.

Travis May [00:19:21]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:19:21]:
Just, just trying to get the price, trying to figure out what everyone's labor rate is and then come in $5 an hour less or whatever. Whatever other kind of tactics that most are trying to achieve to be, in their eyes, the best or, like, get the most out of whatever it is they're trying to do. And, and, I mean, it's really powerful when you get shop owners that are on the same page. Right. And bringing, being a Napa auto care center kind of elevates that, I think, to the kind of the next level, too. Right. Where you have the support of Napa itself. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:19:53]:
Then you got all these shop owners that are all on the same page. I mean, if they're all in the group, you know, they're all on the same page. We all have the mind, the mindset, but there's that elephant in the room, and it's exactly what you said, the competition. Right. And so everybody sitting in this. In this room has this, like, it's that, it's that vibe that's going on. Like, oh, well, you know, I'll show up and hopefully I get some work out of it and it's kind of all about me. But you really need someone to kind of take charge and be like, and just drop that veil, right?

Travis May [00:20:21]:
Like, yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:20:21]:
Yo, everyone, listen up. This is not what this is. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna come together and we're gonna help each other out, right? Like, there is no competition and you really need someone in that room to kind of like, I don't know, what's the word for it? Kind of just, just rattle everybody a little bit and like, yo, we're not, we're not competing with each other.

Travis May [00:20:42]:
No.

Jimmy Purdy [00:20:42]:
The goal here is to take care of our community and fix cars. So let's do that together. You know, there's enough to go around.

Travis May [00:20:50]:
There is. There is enough to go around. There really is. And the added thing that I was trying to get them to understand too is that mentioning Napa Auto Care center, our customers having that peace of mind warranty in this valley, really branding that and pushing that. Hey, you know, great news. Not only do you get the twelve month, 12,000 miles warranty through Napa peace of mind warranty, but guess what? I have twelve other shops in this valley that are part of that same program. And if you're not, if you don't come directly back to me, these guys are going to help you out, hands down. You know what I mean?

Jimmy Purdy [00:21:28]:
Yeah. And, you know, and you know, they have the mindset, right? So it's one thing to send them to an Appa auto care center or send them to any other shop that will cover that warranty, but really, how is that client going to be treated? You know, and you don't really think about that. You kind of assume that everyone's got your mindset, right? Everyone's going to run their shop like Travis does, and so you send them to somebody else and then all of a sudden they get a bad experience. And guess who's at fault for that?

Travis May [00:21:51]:
Yeah, you are.

Jimmy Purdy [00:21:52]:
Because it was your referral.

Travis May [00:21:54]:
Exactly. And the other thing is that, you know, I'm sure you've probably seen it too, is, you know, I'm not looking to badmouth anybody, you know, so it kind of takes that out of the equation to that, that shop that's within your BDG group, I would hope would say, you know what? You know. Yeah, I have nothing bad to say about these guys. They did, they did, they did what they needed to do. It was merely a parts failure. Great news. I'm gonna get you fixed and back on the road ASAP, you know, now, you know, it could go the other route, like, oh, yeah, I think they, you know, might not have done something right or, you know what I mean?

Jimmy Purdy [00:22:30]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. There are shops and guys that love, that. They love to find a little fight.

Travis May [00:22:37]:
To be the hero.

Jimmy Purdy [00:22:38]:
The hero. The hero complex. Not only that, but look what else I found. And I just can't believe that they missed.

Travis May [00:22:45]:
Exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:22:46]:
I've never, this is the first time in my whole life I've ever seen something this bad, right? And it's like, what's the point of that? Like, what are you, what are you accomplishing right now other than hero complex and just feeding your own ego, right? We make mistakes. And if you think you're in the shop that doesn't make any mistakes, then you are the mistake. Correct. It's impossible. Right. So just help each other out and, and I think we do forget about that. We get in a small, little bubble and we kind of forget that there's other shops and other guys and girls that are willing to do that and like, and throw somebody under the bus just to make them look a little bit better and, yeah, it's cool. And then you get a group like this together and you have so much more power in it, you know, and, and now you have like, the trust and support of 8910 other shops and it's just such a cool concept to get everyone on board.

Jimmy Purdy [00:23:32]:
And I'm excited as well. I mean, I got my second meeting coming up here in the next week, so I'm like, brand new home, like, within the first month. Right. It's a lot to think about and it's like you get a lot of ideas and you want to take it in a bunch of different directions. You just got to kind of settle down and just get, like you said, get the ball rolling first, right?

Travis May [00:23:51]:
Yeah. That's kind of what we are where we are now, because there's a lot of ideas get thrown out very quickly. So I really worked hard at trying to say, hey, you know, I want to chip away at it. Let's, let's start, let's start here. Let's get our BDG page going first. And then, you know, obviously the shops that don't have a website, they really need to, they need to get one. They have to. If they really want to see the benefits of this, they're gonna have to have one.

Travis May [00:24:19]:
Get that going. I don't know how many shops in your group don't have one. But I've got, like, you know, I.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:24]:
I kind of got the, this, the synopsis of, of the meeting that was earlier today, and it was. I heard that there was a lot of group shops in your group that just didn't have a website at all for their show.

Travis May [00:24:37]:
They don't.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:39]:
And I just.

Travis May [00:24:40]:
It's amazing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:42]:
I don't know. I mean, more power to them, right? Like, I'm just, I'm more blown away than anything. Like, if you can operate and stay busy and be sustainable and, and all that and not have a website, I'm just like. I mean, I'm impressed to say the least. Right? Like, how did you. What? How can you. I don't know. And there, there are a few shops in my area that do.

Jimmy Purdy [00:25:03]:
But 99% of them in the area at least have. At least have a basic website, right? Um, I just don't know how you can rank on Google. I don't know how you're found. I don't know how. With all the in quotes competition, right? And people are clicking on these shops and they see a website and the pictures of the shop, the pictures of the people in the shop, how do they go to another shop listing on Google, click on it, and have no website and still, you know, choose that one, right. I don't, I don't. Everything, everything I've learned about marketing says they shouldn't be survival that way. Right?

Travis May [00:25:38]:
I think the only answer to that is these, these, these shops that, um, at least I know a couple of them, a few of them off the top of my head that don't have one. They've got 30 plus years of history up there in the valley. So maybe that's, maybe that's it. Um, that's the only answer I have. But still, to even continue to stay relevant, I agree with you. It's, it's, uh, you know, uh. It's amazing. It's amazing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:04]:
Yeah. It just changes, I guess. Maybe we're wrong about marketing. What's that?

Travis May [00:26:08]:
But hindsight, though, if I, you and I were still doing, you know, fairly good without a website, but what about, how should I say this? Yeah. You and I still doing good without a website. What about the power of having a website?

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:23]:
True.

Travis May [00:26:24]:
What I mean, like, how much they're missing. They could be missing out on.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:28]:
Yeah. And that, and that always kind of circles back to what your definition of success is, right? So maybe they don't want anymore, but obviously joining a group, there's a reason why you're doing that. Like you, you're obviously trying to elevate your own, your business and you're trying to do something because you're reaching out for. For help, in a sense. Right. And I don't think a lot of people like to say that's what it is, but that's what it is. You know, if you're out, sure, joining b and I's bdgs, I mean, you're looking for help like that. So step one, why don't we just put like a website together.

Travis May [00:26:58]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:59]:
And get a little SEO content in there and just start driving that way. I mean, just on the, on the note of social media, how powerful that is. I mean, it's like all that stuff. Everyone's online, right? Like everybody. And it never ceases to amaze me when I do posts on Facebook or Instagram. And you don't get a lot of likes, you don't get a lot of comments, right. But it's being looked at and that's something that you can't measure. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:27:21]:
The same with this podcast. Like, I don't know how many people listening to this. I have no idea. It's so hard to monitor it, right? Because it's just click. They're clicking on it, they're looking at, they're reading it, they're just scrolling past it. But they see it, they stop for a second, they roll on, and then, so someone will come in and, oh, I saw your post, you know, a couple weeks back, that was really funny. And it's like, oh, you saw that? I'm like, I didn't even know you were on Facebook, let alone you're looking at my posts.

Travis May [00:27:43]:
Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:27:43]:
So it's just the value of the content and having stuff online and it's like, it might not pay off today, tomorrow, but in six months or a year, it's guaranteed it will, right?

Travis May [00:27:52]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:27:53]:
And, yeah, absolutely. I think you're right, too. Like, if you're that busy without one, just imagine how much more you can start chair, even if you don't want the work, you can start cherry picking what you want to do, right. Not having to do every job that comes in. You can start saying norm no more often and start getting more profitable jobs in and stop working so much.

Travis May [00:28:12]:
Sure. I agree with you 100%. 100%.

Jimmy Purdy [00:28:16]:
Yeah. And I think the power of these groups is going to be nice to. I mean, I don't know how you're planning on going about it, but that's going to be the difficult thing is we can have this conversation and talk about it, but trying to get someone that's not in that headspace to understand the context of our conversation is going to be the hard thing to translate. Right. Because, yeah, you and I both want to go to 110% right away. Like do this, this, this and that. Right? And it's like, hold on a second. You got to, like, peel back the layers a little bit of.

Travis May [00:28:44]:
Yeah. So my idea in my head to start this is I met with the radio station here, and there's a time slot where they want. They want, they want to give me the talk 960 from 730 to eight in the morning on Saturdays. And I was gonna go the radio station route and then, but mainly advertise the business development group called High Deserts trusted Auto Group and just do kind of like what you're doing with me and just car talk and educate the valley and say, hey, you know, you know, we want to let you guys know there's, there's twelve reputable, trusted repair shops in this valley. Head over to. If you're looking for a trusted mechanic in the air, you're having problems with the, your current one, head over to the BDG site, pick your poison, they're over there. And then just kind of use it as an education to my market. The valley over here, their options.

Travis May [00:29:48]:
And then, you know, kind of sprinkle in, um, you know, uh, you know, this, uh, today's, you know, this week's episode is brought to you by, uh, Scotty's automotive and the next week is brought to you by G and M Automotive center. You know, that was my idea, but they want to crawl a little bit. They want to, they want to crawl a little bit. And they said, you know, let's, let's, let's, you know, let's not jump right to that. Let's, let's see. Let's see if this is going to, this group is going to stick. And I said, okay, I'm off over to you. That's fine.

Travis May [00:30:21]:
We'll give a little bit. We'll start, you know, get the site going, get the Facebook page going. A lot of the group wants to get involved in a more of a community project, which I'm on board with, too. I'm fine with that, too. You know, with, you know, either giving away a car or doing something with, with a local auto shop class in high school. High school auto shop class.

Jimmy Purdy [00:30:48]:
I think. I think the community outreach is the most, the most exciting kind of part for me. So I'm, I'm actually right in the process of putting together a soapbox derby car race. So we're going to have all the shops build soapbox derby cars, and then we'll go take kids from middle school, you know, before they get in high school, 8th grade. Obviously, there'll be some criteria. That's one thing that we're talking about, or we will be next, next week here at our meeting, is what kind of criteria do they need to meet? Right. Obviously they have good grades, but, like, how do we determine that they're actively going to be involved in auto repair? Right. And it's not going to be 100%, but I think finding some sort of criteria of like, what, you know, put some sort of test in front of them or something just to show, you know, oh, I'm interested in auto repair, and I have a little bit of experience in it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:31:39]:
Right. And. And then being able to build the car. And I think the one thing is teaching, like, steering geometry, I think is going to be a big one because you're going to, you know, there's no motor, rudimentary brakes, and you're going to be steering. So I think it'd be cool just to kind of focus on how a steering works. What's what, steering angles, what's camber, caster toe. And I think that'd be, like, the learning part, that something they can take away and use later on in their life. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:03]:
Because that kind of stuff were for me anyway. And I'm sure for you, too. Like anyone automotive minded. Like, when you see something, then you build something, then you use that something, then it freaking sticks. Like, I remember that, you know, every time you drive a car after that, that's all you can think about is. And it's like, that's such a cool, like, impactful way to, like, get into someone's, you know, young brain and, like, stick there forever, you know?

Travis May [00:32:28]:
Yeah, it is.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:28]:
I just think that would be cool.

Travis May [00:32:30]:
It is cool. That's a good idea. I enjoy that idea a lot. I enjoy the community outreach, too, so I'm really. I'm really positive and looking forward to seeing what we can do and put together. I know, it's. It's just. It's patience.

Travis May [00:32:48]:
The groups, everybody's got to be patient with the group. Right now, we're only set up to meet about once a month, which once a month, from what I understand, is a little more than necessary. But I told them, I said, hey, I think we should meet once a month for a little while here to get this group going, because I said, if we're only going to start meeting every once every couple months or once a quarter. You know, that's. I just don't feel like that's enough attention to detail to get.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:16]:
It doesn't keep the momentum going. Right.

Travis May [00:33:18]:
It didn't keep the momentum going. Yeah, no, I don't want to lose the, lose the momentum, you know what I mean? Because, you know, once a quarter, that's three months. I mean, I just. Yeah, I just don't think that that's a, that's, that's too long in between meeting and, you know, figuring out what the group wants to do, etcetera.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:39]:
Yeah. And getting everyone to kind of trust each other. And I think we kind of started, we started this off with kind of that a little bit where it's like, you know, everyone's kind of competition. So we're all trying to, like, yeah, we're all good and happy and everything. We're in the meeting, but then, like a month goes by and you're like, I wonder what that guy's doing. You know, like, just trying to, like, take all my business or, like. And the thoughts are creeping in of that kind of weird stuff. And so it's good to be front of mind and, I mean, building trust with everybody, that's the hardest thing, right?

Travis May [00:34:06]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:34:07]:
No one realizes, like, how emotional we all are with this, with our businesses. You know, he just think that everybody's out to get you all the time.

Travis May [00:34:16]:
Exactly. And I don't, I don't, I don't necessarily agree with that. Getting, you know, being greedy. I never have been that, and that's one thing that's kind of separated me from, from my dad's thought process a little bit. It's like I just go about things a little bit differently. It's like, hey, you know, you know, I don't see why I can't build rapport. Rapport with other, other shops and, and owners around this, this town and lean on one another. I just, I feel like, especially in today's day, I said it before, I think we need to do it more than ever, even, you know, more than years past, just because of the, the thinness of technicians and, and, you know, the cost of equipment, like Ados coming out.

Travis May [00:35:05]:
You know, there's a guy in my BDG group, he invested in that machine. Great. You know, we can, I can, we can lean on them.

Jimmy Purdy [00:35:12]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:35:12]:
You know, and I could use other examples, too.

Jimmy Purdy [00:35:14]:
Well, kind of goes back in the, in the day and age of, like, probably when your pops had the shop where you had a transmission guy. Right. You had an engine guy.

Travis May [00:35:20]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:35:21]:
You had, like, you had, like, these. It wasn't even niche shops. It was just like, this is all I can really afford to do, and I'm busy enough just doing this. And it was like, that's how it works, right? And we've gotten to the point now where it's like, you walk into most shops and they do pretty much damn near everything, right? Like, yeah, you know, in quotes, right? But, I mean, anybody can. But, yeah, well, anybody can swap a transmission, right? Anybody can swap a remand engine. And it's not really the fault of, like, the owners of those shops either, right? Like, you got Jasper, right? And you got these huge companies that are, like, based on remanufacturing components, right? And being able to rebuild an engine, rebuild the transmission was like, well, if I can get that and get a three year warranty, I'll just, I'll just sell them that. And if it needs a transmission, I'll just buy the reman and swap it in. So you don't really need a transmission shop in town, you know, I mean.

Travis May [00:36:13]:
You, you do exchanging. Yeah, parts exchanging is, uh, real popular right now, which is fine and dandy, uh, in most cases. But, you know, I, uh, I do. I do preach a little bit in my shop. You know, if if something can be. If something can be repaired, can we, you know, can we repair it? Can we actually be. Can we repair it? Instead of replacing the entire unit, though.

Jimmy Purdy [00:36:42]:
You know, like alternate member alternators and starters, we will take them apart, place the brushes and.

Travis May [00:36:47]:
Exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:36:48]:
And commentators and all that. It's like. But now it's like, you do that and the amount of time it takes to do that and then trying to warranty it, you're like, well, I can just get a new one for $150 and mark it up, and I can make money on that part and make money on the labor and, and then it's warranted for three years. And you're like, oh, well, why would I ever. So it's that fine line, right? And it's like, I'm sure you go have that problem with, like, head gaskets, right? It's like when you get to the part where it's like, okay, this thing's got 250,000 miles on it and needs head gaskets. Are we doing head gaskets? Are we putting an engine in this? Right. Like, exactly. I know I can fix it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:37:22]:
If it was mine, I would fix it. But, but I have to look at the client and like, do I want this guy back in two years with a, with a knock and bottom end yelling at me and cussing and screaming. Cause I, I wasted two grand of his money or $2,500 or whatever it ends up being. It's like, I don't know, it's like, it's such a fine line. Right, exactly. And we're all trying to look for processes, right? So you're trying to, like, have your staff be empowered and obviously make that decision, but it's like you almost have to look at every single one per basis, right?

Travis May [00:37:49]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:37:50]:
It's so hard to make that decision, to write it down as a process, like, so is it at 200,000 or is it 199,000 or when exactly are we recommending an engine?

Travis May [00:37:59]:
And it's like, it's, it is a fine line. I. We do the same thing. We, you know, good thing I got. I have a shop foreman that I can lean on a little bit. We bounce. We bounce that off each other because, you know, the last thing we want to do as shop owners is be married to something.

Jimmy Purdy [00:38:17]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:38:17]:
You know, or on the other, on.

Jimmy Purdy [00:38:19]:
The other side, rip someone. Rip someone off and, and throw parts at it when it's like you could have fixed it, you know, for less amount of money.

Travis May [00:38:28]:
And then it's, you come down to, you know, having that conversation with the customer, and it's a really deep conversation because, you know, you don't want to, you know, I'm not in the, I'm not in the business of, I want, I want what's best for the customer. So I don't mind having those conversations like, hey, this is, this is where we're at. You know, we're looking at, you got a high mileage engine. We're going to be investing, you know, thousands of dollars into this repair. And in reality, you know, you're running a chance of, like you just said, the lower end could go out next week. It can go out from a year from now. It can go out from two years from now. So it comes down to the old option a, option b, you know, right, option B situation.

Travis May [00:39:10]:
But you really have to take the time to do that. Shops and service writers have to take the time to give them speak, talk about their options and explain that to the consumer for sure.

Jimmy Purdy [00:39:21]:
Absolutely. And it comes back to the ego thing. Right? So it's like, everyone must have the answer. This is the definitive answer. This is exactly what it needs. And it's so hard for most to swallow their pride and be like, this is the steps we have to take. You know, this is. These are the items we're seeing, and this is what we can address right now.

Jimmy Purdy [00:39:40]:
And this is the two options we can take. And, I mean, as. As the professional. Right. We're supposed to have the answer, and that's what we feel like. Yeah. We feel like we're supposed to have that answer, and it's like, what do you mean? And what do you mean? I can do either or? Then they ask you, well, what would you do?

Travis May [00:39:57]:
Yep. Yeah, exactly. What would you do if it was your car?

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:00]:
Right.

Travis May [00:40:00]:
But they don't understand that we're, you know, we're diyers. You know, we really are. Well, if it were mine, I would do this because I. I know how to do it, and I can do it. And if it does, if it goes wrong, I. You know what I mean? They don't understand. Weird.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:16]:
No, that's. That's a great. That's a great point.

Travis May [00:40:18]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:18]:
It's like we're. I'm here because I couldn't afford to go to a shop, so I learned how to fix cars, and now all of a sudden, I own a shop.

Travis May [00:40:25]:
Yeah. So, you know, sometimes I get. It's hard not to be a technician on the other side of the phone. For sure.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:32]:
Yeah. Well, that question is like, it's so. It's so, like, open ended, and it's like. It just puts it such a weird situation. Like, don't ask my opinion. I'm not you. Right. It's your money.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:43]:
I can't spend your money for you. All I can do is give you the facts. And you got to make that decision at the end of the day. And it kind of sucks because you're trying to empower them with, say, 15 or 20 years of automotive repair, you know, education in a three or four minute conversation, you're like.

Travis May [00:41:02]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:41:05]:
Like, if I were you, you'd be me, and we'd be right back to square one.

Travis May [00:41:10]:
Yep. And then, you know, it's tough. And sometimes you get put. We get put in tough decisions on how to. How to. How to go about it with the customer. We do, you know, are. You know, those are.

Travis May [00:41:22]:
Those are tough spots, even for you and I to be in. Like, man, you know, this. These are your two options. This is. This is what we have to offer right now. You know?

Jimmy Purdy [00:41:34]:
And it does that through, like, the assessment process. And I've said this before where it's like, you could. You could say, throw dollar 500 with a parts and probably end up fixing the car. Right. Or you could charge the client $400 in diagnostics, and there's a $100 repair at the end of it. It's dollar 500 either way. And either way, the cardinal leaves fixed. And so it's really hard to have conversations with shops that run that style of process.

Jimmy Purdy [00:42:04]:
Right? Like, oh, we'll just. If I go on identifix and I put in a po 171, and it says o two sensors, mass airflow sensor, map sensor, and spark plugs, guess what? It's getting all those things, right? Meanwhile, we could do a diagnostic on it, and it might cost $100. Might cost $500 to diagnose it correctly. Right? Yeah, but at the end of the day, like, if they. If that repair bill is the same cost, it's like, well, was that the wrong way to do it? Yeah, I don't. I don't want to. I don't want to support dorman, so I don't want to buy a bunch of dormant and standard parts if I don't have to. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:42:40]:
I'd rather buy one and then pay my technicians for their time. Like, so I think that's the right way. But it's really difficult. And it's like. And I wonder the same thing. Like, how are these shops, like, so technologically disadvantaged, right? Like, how do you guys have a lab scope? You. You don't know how to, like, look at fuel trim? Like, what do you. You shouldn't even be fixing this car if you don't know what fuel trims are.

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:04]:
You should not be diagnosing a po one seven one. Right? Like, but they are. And they're just looking on identifix, throwing all those parts on there, and it fixes it. You're like, oh, my God.

Travis May [00:43:13]:
God. After several hundred dollars or more in parts, and then it's finally fixed. And. Yeah, what's the sad part is when they spend that amount of money and then they find a. The, you know, the vacuum leak.

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:28]:
One vacuum hose. Right.

Travis May [00:43:29]:
One that. One vacuum hose. You know, that's what's amazing. Or that, you know, the. You know, which one was popular? That, like, Ford explorers at the 4.6 is that intake would be leaking. You'd spray, you know, water plenum would leak and.

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:44]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:43:45]:
Caused a bunch of issues.

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:46]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:43:47]:
Yep. Yeah, right?

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:50]:
And all that stuff gets swept under the rug. Right? Because they do all that. They do all these repairs, and then at the end of it, they find the vacuum hose, and they're like, oh, cool. Well, it's fixed now. And meanwhile, they're, like, doing. They're they're doing their customer justice because they didn't charge them diagnosis. No, but you just charge them twelve hundred dollars to put a bunch of parts on their car that they didn't need because you don't know how to run a lab scope scam, follow a.

Travis May [00:44:14]:
Flow chart from Mitchell or anything like that. What's. What's crazy. Yeah. Is what's really crazy. And I know it's not, not everything, but, you know, following a flowchart with the, with the, with the procedures that are in place on Mitchell, man, you know how many times, you know, my guys don't skip them? A lot. Don't get me wrong. Do they follow it to a t? No, but the information's there.

Travis May [00:44:40]:
The information's out there on how to properly troubleshoot and diagnose something.

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:44]:
Right. Even the Met, even the manufacturer service data. Like, I mean, that's, that's really where you should be heading to. But I mean, at least a flowchart puts you in the right direction of, like, what it is that you're trying to achieve here. Right?

Travis May [00:44:57]:
Mm hmm.

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:58]:
Like, at least getting some. At least some sort of testing.

Travis May [00:45:02]:
Sure. Yeah. That's my, that's my motto. It really is, Jimmy. That's my motto. When I have meetings with my text. We test, we don't guess. That's what I tell them.

Travis May [00:45:13]:
I preach that all the time. We test, we don't guess. And, you know, coincidentally, I'll be honest with you, we got, I got bit in the butt this past week on a 2016 Land Rover. Three liter v six was towed in overheating. Concern, loss of coolant. These folks were from out of town. I think they live in, like, Utah. And we diagnosed it and verified it had a coolant leak and it was coming from behind the water pump on those Land Rovers.

Travis May [00:45:44]:
They got a coolant crossover underneath the intake where the oil cooler is and all that. And, you know, obviously, you can't perform a correct block test with an open cooling system, right. So we sold them to tear down of the intake, and we found the crossover tube broke. And basically it was a couple thousand dollars in repairs that we sold the customer and we got it fixed and it had a blown head gasket. And the product of why the step that was missed is my guy. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't perform a cylinder leak down test.

Jimmy Purdy [00:46:20]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:46:22]:
You know, but I owned it. You know, I called the customer, I said, hey, you know, your engine needed these components. Don't get me wrong. It did. It needed it. That's what the root cause of what happened, uh, you know, why you lost cooling is because these parts. But, um, you know, at the end of the day, this thing was overheated worse than we thought, and it popped the head gasket. And the reason, you know, I basically had to be honest, you know, hey, the reason why we didn't catch this is because we.

Travis May [00:46:51]:
We failed to. We fell. We failed to run a leak down test.

Jimmy Purdy [00:46:56]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:46:56]:
So now you're. Now we're looking at a head. Head gasket repair.

Jimmy Purdy [00:47:00]:
Yeah. It's a tough one to eat. I mean, it stings. It stings on all sides, right? Because it's. Yeah, it hurts the pocketbook, but it. But it also hurts the pride a little bit.

Travis May [00:47:09]:
And.

Jimmy Purdy [00:47:10]:
And then you're wondering how many. How many other times you've got gone over the same damn scenario, and you're like, yeah, this is why we have procedures. This is why we have to do these things that we do. Right, but. But it's gonna happen. You know, and I have kind of similar. See, I have a similar story about a older corvette that came in regular client. I mean, we've seen him for years.

Jimmy Purdy [00:47:34]:
He's been coming in really good return. Client always takes care of everything. Old c three corvette or c four. So, I mean, yeah, it's not the nicest, but, I mean, he likes it, and he pays whatever it takes to keep it fixed. Right. Well, yeah, we sent out kind of a reminder text, and he sent back one. He was pretty upset. You know, hey, the last time I came in, you guys really ripped me off, and I'm not happy.

Jimmy Purdy [00:47:56]:
What the. Right. Like, I don't know. I don't know how many reminder texts that you send out or if you do the referral text, but it seems like every. Yeah, it seems like every time the little button lights up, it's like somebody that's upset. Right? Like, I never get it. I never get a reply text that it's like, well, no, we do, but it's like. It seems like every time I click on it, it's like someone, like, either unsubscribing or, like, something bad happened.

Jimmy Purdy [00:48:18]:
Right, sure. But anyway, click on it. He was upset, so we had to reach out to him and kind of looking through the work order, and we had done a water pump back in 2021 of August, and so he was still technically under warranty. Walt came in, and we were just doing our annual inspection on it, and we found, you know, the ball joints, the boots were torn. So we recommended ball joints. It showed no play. Didn't say that in the notes, though. It just said the boots were torn.

Jimmy Purdy [00:48:46]:
Right. And then we said a coolant leak. And then we sold him an advanced assessment on a coolant leak, which ended up being a hose clamp that needed to be tightened. And away he goes. Well, now he went and got an alignment done, and the alignment tech kind of threw it a son to the bus, talking about throwing people under the bus. They threw us under the bus. And so he was upset because it didn't need ball joints. So we had to make the conversation.

Jimmy Purdy [00:49:08]:
I realized that we charged him for what should have been warranty, right? And it was like, how did, like, how did this happen? You know? But that kind of stuff happens. And it's like when. I don't know. I don't know how many cars you go through in a month, but when you're, like, a hundred cars in a month, it's really difficult to, like, look through every work order and see, like, make sure everybody's taken care of. And so the power of that, like, that follow up and, like, taking that stuff head on, like you said, being transparent and honest about it, it's the only way, you know, right now, you know, the next time the Land Rover comes in, you can, like, nab that out of the pile and be like, hold on a second, guys. Before we do anything, these things are probably going to blow the head gasket when those coolant pipes break. Right? Like, and I don't know, it's stressful and gives me a lot of anxiety to, like, to deal with those things. But you just learn so much about the power of, like, when someone actually gives you feedback and everyone gets upset.

Jimmy Purdy [00:49:58]:
Oh, man. Another pissed off customer is like, man, that's so valuable, though, because you're learning your losses.

Travis May [00:50:05]:
You are. And I chalk it up. I tell myself it's good training. I don't know if I do that to make myself feel better or not, but I really do. Yeah, I think it's the best training. I really do. And, you know, and I get to sit down and I get to, you know, and the crappy part about it for me is that it got past my 30 plus year shop foreman, and he. But he owned up to it.

Travis May [00:50:30]:
He goes, you know what, boss? I didn't. I didn't do that. And I. And he knew he owned it. He goes, I screwed up. I should have. Should have had him do a leak down test on it. So.

Travis May [00:50:44]:
Well, you know what? That's all I can ask for, you know, hey, here's what it is.

Jimmy Purdy [00:50:49]:
Yeah. The human brain is always trying to find an easy way out, right? So, sure. That's the, that's the hardest part about this whole damn industry is every day you have to wake up like it's a brand new day, right? Like, yeah, that's what keep, I think what keeps us, like, motivated because you get something different every day, but eventually you kind of just want a damn routine, right? You kind of just want to clock in, you kind of want to do your thing, and then you just want to go home at the end of the day. And those are the days that bye bites you in the ass, right. Because you're like, I've seen this a hundred times. I'm not going to think twice about it. And sure enough, that's the one that turns around and takes a big old chunk of your ass.

Travis May [00:51:22]:
Yep. Takes out a trunk. I'm telling you what it does, especially.

Jimmy Purdy [00:51:28]:
On a damn Land rover. I don't know what you're doing over there with a freaking Land Rover to begin with, but more kudos. More kudos to you, I guess.

Travis May [00:51:35]:
No, I'm more of a domestic and domestic shop, to be honest with you. We don't work on a whole lot of Europeans. We get them from time to time. But it, like I said, they were travelers and it ended up on AAAA portal deal. So I took it in and we, I just got done fixing one a few weeks prior to that for a, for a guy I know in town that owns a local trucking company. And, you know, instead of going down to the Land Rover dealer, he asked me if I, you know, want to fix it or give it a shot for him. And I said, yeah, of course. And his went, his went smoothly because he actually had an oil cooler that was leaking and his went smoothly.

Travis May [00:52:15]:
So I, I felt proud. I was like, yeah, no problem.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:18]:
I'm a Land Rover tech now.

Travis May [00:52:20]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm a Land Rover now.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:22]:
I want Land Rovers.

Travis May [00:52:23]:
Yeah, exactly. So, no, I learned, learned my lesson on that one. But, hey, it is what it is. Part of the job.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:32]:
It is. And you can't, it's really hard to, like, stay focused on one. And I know there's, there's other guys out there that are pretty blessed in that where they can just really like the diesel guys and, you know, they really find that niche and they can really dive in. This is all we do. And I just, it's so difficult for me to try to do that because if a job comes in, and it's like, we need work. We're doing that job, you know, and. And saying no is. Is probably the better thing to do.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:56]:
And I do say it more often than not, but it's like a mini Cooper comes in and it's like, we don't really work on mini Coopers. Right. But it's like, yeah, well, it's just. It's just an oil change. Like, we can definitely do an oil change on a mini Cooper, but it's like. It's like when you draw that line. And the one hardest thing for me is, like, no bmws, no euros, no nothing, right? But you got some of these earlier three series bmws, and they got a GM five, all 40 in it, right? So I did a lot of rebuilds on those. It's like, well, I know five.

Jimmy Purdy [00:53:24]:
Oh, I know that transmission. It's just a GM, you know, but then you get, like, a Dodge challenger, and with the Mercedes, the nag one ran it, right, the 7226, and it's like, yeah, well, I don't technically do Mercedes transmissions. Right. Well, it's a dodge. It's like. I know, but. Right, it's like.

Travis May [00:53:40]:
But how to piggyback on that? Your service riders aren't going to know that. I mean, most my service writers don't know exactly what trans is in every vehicle.

Jimmy Purdy [00:53:49]:
Exactly.

Travis May [00:53:50]:
Yeah. That makes it tough, you know, like when you tell them, hey, we don't work on any euros. We don't work on any euros. But, yeah, you know, prior, like, what you're saying. Yeah, it's. It's. It's tough. It's tough.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:00]:
Like, not all the time. We do do that one. They're like, what? No, but, yes, but, exactly, exactly.

Travis May [00:54:09]:
And then myself sitting back. I do find myself sitting back at the end of the day, because I'm like, man, I'm an automotive repair shop. I've got a pretty good. Pretty big facility here. I feel like I've got a really good crew. Technician crew, which I really do. You know, why am I not trying to. Why.

Travis May [00:54:29]:
Why am I not trying to take this on? Why don't I give it a whack, you know? But you're right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:35]:
Famous last words right there.

Travis May [00:54:37]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:38]:
Those are the famous last words.

Travis May [00:54:39]:
Yeah. Give it a try. And then you get a hard reminder of why.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:43]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:54:44]:
Why you didn't.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:45]:
It'll smack you upside the back of the head pretty hard. And you're like, oh, yeah, just stay. Stay in my zone. Staying. They say stay in my lane is. I guess what they say stay in my lane.

Travis May [00:54:53]:
Exactly. Stick to what I know best, but here I go. Trying to get. Trying to get cocky and bites me in the ass.

Jimmy Purdy [00:55:02]:
Seems to work that way.

Travis May [00:55:04]:
Yeah, it does. So. But other than that, you know, we. I'm excited that you invited me on the show. I'm having a good time, actually. Really am.

Jimmy Purdy [00:55:16]:
Yeah, this is, I mean, at the end of the day, it's all about trying to learn from each other and obviously like minded. We're both trying to start these BDG groups and we're both trying to, like, learn from other shop owners and pick these, what they call golden nuggets up, right. And trying to just, and just always trying to elevate our own shops and make sure that we're staying on top of the game. And like you said, it passes you by and all of a sudden you're like, what the hell's a YouTube video, right? And you're like, so you got to stay, you got to stay involved in this stuff and, like, constantly try to keep moving forward. And even if that means, you know, one step forward and two steps back, that seems to be the going trend, too.

Travis May [00:55:54]:
I agree. I agree 100%. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm actually, I'm hitting this, you know, social media podcast, BDG group. I'm hitting it head on because I, I really, I really want to challenge myself, too. You know, there does come a time, especially with me, I don't like to be stagnant, you know, when business is going good and it seems like it's flowing good at the office, you got a good crew going. I'm like, sometimes I sit around, I'm like, alright, I need to, I need to challenge myself with something. But on my business, I'm working on my business, but I want to challenge myself in different areas of my business.

Jimmy Purdy [00:56:30]:
Yeah.

Travis May [00:56:30]:
That's the reason why I'm really getting involved in the BDG group. What kind of, what can I do, you know, what can I do to make a difference or what can I do to not only better, better myself in my business, but other, maybe possibly other people? So that's what, that's what the challenge is for me.

Jimmy Purdy [00:56:47]:
Yeah, that's cool. I mean, yeah, until, until it all goes sideways all at the same time, because that's usually how it works. You're pulled in like a hundred different directions all the time.

Travis May [00:56:57]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:56:58]:
What was doing nothing last week?

Travis May [00:57:00]:
We have nothing last week. Exactly. You know, one of the, one of the big things my, my grandfather always told me was knowledge is power, you know? So all I'm doing is trying to pick up those little nuggets that you just said and pick them up and move forward.

Jimmy Purdy [00:57:18]:
Yeah. And share them. I mean, that's.

Travis May [00:57:20]:
That's. Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:57:21]:
Key point, too. Right. You get these other shops in the area, and it doesn't matter if they're, you know, 40 year veterans or, you know, a couple years in, like, there's. There's always something to learn. And again, I don't, I don't know what it's like to be around for 40 years running a shop. Right. But I hope I stay open minded enough by them when I get to that point where, yeah, I can keep retaining information because I think by then we'll probably have flying cars or something. Who knows?

Travis May [00:57:46]:
Yeah. Right, exactly. Via electric flying cars. Yeah. I hope I'm not around for that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:57:55]:
Honestly, the way, the way is looking, I think a lot of people are keeping their older rides on the, on the road, so I think that that looks. Seems to be the direction what I see a lot more, a lot more maintenance on the 20 year old vehicles, and these newer ones are just junking them. The one thing to do with them anymore.

Travis May [00:58:13]:
Yeah. Do you have a cap on, like, your range of vehicles that you don't work on? Not really. Okay.

Jimmy Purdy [00:58:19]:
We kind of, we kind of dabbled with that a little bit, but honestly, we look through our financials, and, I mean, a big part of our, of our cash flows really, from, really from, like, the seventies and older, but even into the eighties and nineties. And, yeah, they're kind of a pain, but our labor rates a lot higher for them, too, so it all works out. And that, I mean, that's the thing. You got to run the numbers. You got to see where your losses are. Right. And, you know, I was looking at the effect of labor rate on some of those older ones, and it's really hard to estimate them. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:58:49]:
And we were, we were losing our ass on some of them. So it's like, well, we bump up our labor rate, which increased our effective labor rate, and, and away we go. And then we'll check it again in two or three months and see where it needs to be. And, you know, when these cars come in and we're telling them it's going to be $220 an hour and they don't bat an eye, and we're getting 1015 hours on them. Well, I mean, work is work. Right?

Travis May [00:59:13]:
Work is work. Now, you, obviously, you have a, you got guys there that know those older.

Jimmy Purdy [00:59:18]:
Vehicles between myself and one other, one of the other tech area. And I kind of, and that's the other thing with dispatching, too, is like, I kind of put myself in the forefront of dispatching and, and like, hey, if we, if we're going to be doing a disc brake conversion and then an engine harness and carburetor rebuild, and I can kind of like, okay, so the disc brake conversion, here's the instructions. It comes in the box. You're mechanically inclined. You can do this. And I give it to, you know, one of my b or a techs. Like, they can figure that out, right? Like, yeah, that's not hard. Like, you take everything off and you bolt all this stuff on.

Jimmy Purdy [00:59:52]:
That gives you instructions. It's like, it's easy, right? And then with shocks, like, we're gonna do all four shocks. Sure. So it's like, I just delegate, right? If we got 15 hours on this car, just chunk it apart, you get this, hey, and then when he's done, you're gonna do this. And it just kind of cycles through everybody and it works out pretty good. And that way I can kind of, you know, lean on the strengths of the certain text in the shop. You know, like, you're stuff, you're good at electrical stuff, and so it works out. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [01:00:18]:
I mean, ideally, I'd love to be like 2000, say 2005, 2006 and newer. But I mean, yeah, what's. Why? Like, why? Like, and I know it works for other shops out there, but for me, I just, I look at that, I'm like, why would I do that? Why would I pigeonhole myself when I have all this classic work coming in? Yeah, people are appreciative. They're super patient. They don't need the car back that day. We usually can keep it for a week. It's like, it kind of sounds like an ideal client, to be perfectly honest.

Travis May [01:00:46]:
Really? Does I have more power to you there? I grew. I don't. Our cap. Our cap is obd to and current, basically where we are, where we're at, so. And then, like I said, there's a, there's a guy in town, though, not too far from my shop. He's been there for a million years. His name is Dale. And he, he gets, he is really actually known in town for the older I.

Travis May [01:01:12]:
Older cars pre obd to even on the smog basis, because we're a smog shop, too. And I don't. I stick to. I can do the older ones on the dyno and this and that, but I stick to the the dad, we call them dad smog, where you just plug in and small them smog them. I refer the older ones down to, down to them just because, just because that's their, that's their niche down there. And they got a couple older guys down there. They've been, been working there for a long time, so. And then me, I'm not, I'm truly not very knowledgeable in the older carburetor type cars.

Travis May [01:01:52]:
I'm more fuel injected and current, to be honest with you. So I would, yeah, I'm one of those that, I mean, I know what I'm looking at, but I don't, I don't know how to revive.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:03]:
Yeah, I, I grew up with them. I did a lot of restorations when I was really young, so. And then I went through this mog program, so I learned about fuel injection. So I guess I had, in my mind, it's just, there's just such a vast array and it's all money to me. Right. Like, I just see money in all those different areas. And as long as you charge what you need to. And I can, and I can do my quality control, and I know it enough to know when someone else is doing it if they're not doing it.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:26]:
Right. So if I have a technician that's like, sure. He's tuning a carb and there isn't a vacuum gauge on the manifold, it's like, hey, back up. You're not doing that anymore, right? Like, correct. You know how to run a timing light? Like, so do you know how to set dwell? It's like, so it's like some of those things I can, like, I can see very quickly that they're going down the wrong path. You're not touching this car anymore. Move on. Some.

Travis May [01:02:44]:
Sure. That's where I'm at. I feel like I know enough. I know enough with what I'm doing right now. That keeps me out of trouble. And I know when a technicians could be bs and me.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:56]:
Right.

Travis May [01:02:57]:
But the pre obd to. Yeah, I wouldn't be as comfortable. That's, that's why I don't really dabble into it.

Jimmy Purdy [01:03:04]:
I don't blame. And I feel like I'm becoming that shop that's down the street that does the older ones because it's like, yeah, so many other shops sending me. I'm like, why? This is like, so simple, man. Like, I don't want to deal with that. Like, all right, that's cool. That's your deal, you know? Like, there's no reason if you don't want to. You don't want to? If you're busy enough with. Like I said, if I was busy enough with the newer stuff, I wouldn't either, right? But I sure, as soon as I say that, I'm.

Jimmy Purdy [01:03:26]:
My calendar is out. So, like, August right now for the classic. So I get people calling me and they'll wait two or three months to get bring it in, and I'm just like. Because I only do two or three a month. Like, that's it. I'm not like, we have enough work at the other stuff. But it's like, if it's a. If it's like classic or something.

Jimmy Purdy [01:03:42]:
Well, I'm gonna have to call you. Cause I have three in the shop right now. I don't know when they're gonna leave. Cause as soon as it comes in, guess what people do? They jump online and they find all the fancy shit that they wanna put on. They're like, can we do this? And then, oh, my God. That meant for just break. Hey, can we do air shocks now? Oh, hey, I found the steering wheel. Could you put that on? And I wanna put these new gauges in.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:01]:
And it's like, what are you doing? When you go home? Stay off the damn Internet. We're gonna finish this. You're gonna come pick this damn car up and then you can come back with another list of stuff. Right? Then there's the part of me that's like, oh. And then I get involved and I'm wrapped up into it, too. They're like, what color gauges should I do, right? And I'm like. And I'm all wrapped up into it, too. So it's.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:20]:
It's fun. I get it.

Travis May [01:04:24]:
Good deal.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:25]:
Yeah.

Travis May [01:04:25]:
My daughter just opened up the garage. Sorry about that.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:30]:
Like, what are you doing?

Travis May [01:04:32]:
Yeah, what are you doing, dad?

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:36]:
Well, anyway, it's exciting, man. Yeah. I'm looking forward. We'll have to meet up again after we get this group rolling for a few months and kind of see what your updates are. Yeah, it'll be fun to have these groups kind of grow together. We'll have to.

Travis May [01:04:48]:
Absolutely.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:49]:
To keep these things going, you know?

Travis May [01:04:51]:
No, yeah, I'm looking forward to, you know. Yeah. Keep me in mind. Other podcasts. Like I said, I'm. I think I'm really. Even if the BDG group doesn't want to do the radio station, I think I might just venture out and do it and even sprinkle in the BDG group in the radio show. But I thought it might be kind of cool to do a radio show.

Travis May [01:05:14]:
Kind of see where it goes.

Jimmy Purdy [01:05:15]:
I could. I can tell you from personal experience how freaking powerful it is. Yeah, it is crazy. And it's another one of those things that you have no idea who's listening. So for the first, like, almost year, it's like, why am I doing this? But after four years now, it's like I have people coming in hand over fist, and it's like the last thing they say before they leave. Hey, by the way, I really like your radio show. I'm like, oh, right. Like, out of nowhere, like, okay, well, no one already been so pleasant.

Jimmy Purdy [01:05:42]:
Cause they come in and it's like, instant. Like, they, like, they know me, right? They I listen to every Saturday, right? And it's like, it's like, it's just so powerful because you, you build that camaraderie without even meeting anybody. It's kind of one sided because I'm like, I don't know you. Right? Yeah, I don't know you. But they're like, oh, I heard all about you. And they're. Because I'll start going on about my life and what we did over the weekend and the last vacation we had. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:07]:
So they know all about my life and I don't know anything about them. I'm like, so. But it's just great. I love it.

Travis May [01:06:14]:
I might try. I think I'm gonna step up and do it. So we'll, we'll see how it goes. And I'm looking forward to it too. I mean, I look at it like, why not? Why not? If I don't, I don't give it a shot, then I'll never know.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:26]:
That's true.

Travis May [01:06:27]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:27]:
Get in there and get it done.

Travis May [01:06:28]:
Get in there and get it done. But, no, I I really appreciate it, and hopefully I can come back on your show another time and we can continue.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:37]:
This sounds like a plan. Okay. Hang out for just a minute here, and I'll give yourself a quick shout out in your name. I didn't. I don't think it an introduction.

Travis May [01:06:47]:
Sure. Travis May, owner, G m automotive center out of Asperia, California.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:54]:
There it is. Thanks, man.

Travis May [01:06:55]:
That's it. You're welcome. Thank you.